#since digital is so fucking weird and it has so many options like brushes/colors to choose from

[amelia-yap]

I wanna draw like you! Any tutorial or steps you got for a complete beginner to start somewhere?

um,,not really? just draw whatever that comes to your mind or take inspiration from someone/something and use refs when you're not sure how a thing works!! \o/

#use dem refs #they be there #i don't have any particular tutorials saved im sorry fhfhdhgghhf #would recommend starting traditional first before digital #since digital is so fucking weird and it has so many options like brushes/colors to choose from #up to you tho #if you're taking up digital do search for color palattes to use #it be very save a lives #the best way to start sth is to actually do sth haha #i be a lazy ass sometimes #but its ok to take breaks when you dont feel like doing shit #you could go follow some art tutorial blogs too #some of the blogs put advice and stuff and thats pretty cool #also download sketch a day if you'd like inspiration? #there's a new prompt each day #i never use it tho ahahahahha #but the people there are really nice from what ive seen #i dont really have much to offer because im still a dumb potato and i probably have more to say but i dont know what to say 😂 #just remember to have fun!! art be fun :D #if something doesnt turn out the way you want to just put it down and try again another day uwu #also sorry for the delayed reply 👉👈

[steppedoffaflight]

You couldn’t stand here in shock anymore. You step forward, reaching out for whatever brand of pregnancy tests looked the fanciest. You grab one with digital results and one with the traditional developing lines and toss them into the basket. Then you grab another random box, just in case. Groceries went on Van’s debit card this week, so you might as fucking well.

You cheeks flush as you propel yourself to the cash register, deciding at the last second to do self service. The last thing you felt like doing was handing a stranger three boxes of pregnancy tests while your hands were shaking so bad you could barely get the barcodes to read on your items.

This wasn’t happening. You were overreacting. There was no way.

Word count: ~3.1k

A/N: content warning for (implied) references to abortion

You jolt awake from your dream, your eyes opening to the brick wall of your bedroom.

It was just a dream. Thank God.

You melt into the mattress with a sigh of relief. It was Saturday, you reassure yourself, and slowly the impending panic attack from your work nightmare starts to dissolve. But it doesn’t go away completely, the vivid imagery from the dream still stuck in your head. Another night of dreams so weird and realistic that you wake up feeling exhausted. 

You force yourself to stop thinking about it, slumping out of bed. You’re grateful Van had turned the thermostat up before he’d left for the studio, but you still grab the hoodie he’d worn yesterday out of the hamper, throwing it on as you head for the kitchen. 

The light on the coffee machine is glowing, half a pot of coffee still being kept hot on the burner. You smile to yourself as you grab a mug and fix yourself a piping hot cup before backtracking to your bedroom to grab your phone so you can check your notifications as you settle down on the living room couch. 

Van had clearly overslept, evident by the text you’d gotten from Bondy timestamped two hours earlier: Can you make sure Van is awake? He must’ve dashed out within the last hour.

You try to enjoy your day off as you drink your coffee and watch some morning TV, but no work just means that your to-do list for around the house is at the forefront of your mind. You’ve got to go out and grab some groceries, for sure; there’s only so many nights you can stomach the curry Van keeps bringing home on his way home from work. Two nights ago it had flipped your stomach inside out, causing you to be violently nauseous the next morning, so yesterday you’d had to opt for a bland peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Even now that wasn’t mixing well with the coffee, but that probably had more to do with the dread you were feeling about all that needed to be done. 

The hampers have been overflowing, too. It was way overdue for you to schedule laundry services, but then that meant you needed to sort by color and bag everything up… It all felt so exhausting, but laundry was an urgent matter because Van needed clean clothes for the week he was about to spend in the UK soon. He’d offered to handle the laundry himself, but you know he doesn’t bother sorting colors properly, and you don’t want another load of your work wardrobe ruined. 

You sink into the couch, allowing yourself to become a puddle of existential dread for a while longer before you finally heave yourself up, fighting a stomachache as you deposit your mug into the sink and head for the bathroom to start getting ready for the day. 

It takes all your energy to brush your teeth, wash and moisturize your face, and manage to make your hair look presentable. You leave Van’s hoodie on and wriggle into a pair of jeans and your shoes before you’re gathering your things, praying the afternoon rush at the grocery store hasn’t started yet. 

Just as you’re checking your phone on the way out the door do you notice the reminder for your birth control that had gone off hours ago, while you were still sleeping in. You set your purse down on the kitchen island, rerouting to the bathroom to make sure you take it. 

You’re on your last day, mentally making a note to yourself to stop by the pharmacy as you pop the last tablet out of the foil backing. Once you’ve swallowed it you flip the package over again, squinting at it. You’re done with your week of placeholder pills, and your period usually hits you full swing on the second day of them. That explains the stomachache, and the exhaustion. Your body must be winding up for a real bloodbath. 

New York in October is crisp and breezy, perfect hoodie weather. By the time you’ve walked the blocks to the grocery store the cool gusts of wind are a relief on your warm cheeks, and you feel a little more awake as a result of getting your body moving. You dig the shopping list you’d made with Van last night out of your bag as you’re welcomed through the automatic doors of your local supermarket, trying to decipher Van’s handwriting as you grab a cart.

The crowds aren’t too bad, and you manage to breeze through the produce and frozen food section easily. They’re out of stock of you and Van’s favorite ground coffee, but your agreed-upon second choice is available. You get Van a new box of tea, because you can’t remember off the top of your head if he’s running low, and a giant frozen pizza you decide to make for dinner tonight after you pass it for the third time and can’t resist.

Just as you’re getting ready to wheel your cart into line, taking a quick peek at the houseplants, do you remember your impending period and the fact you’re out of tampons.

You’re relieved that you remembered, quickly steering your cart away from the display of cacti and towards the pharmacy. The crowds thin out, this corner of the store almost deserted as you roll into the feminine hygiene aisle, leaving your cart safely to the side as you step forward to consider the options in front of you.

You grab your regular brand of tampons before stepping over to the pantiliners. The brand you’d just finished a box of had an unpleasant perfume scent to them, so you poke around looking for something unscented, preferably hypoallergenic.

Feminine hygiene blends seamlessly into family planning, and as you grab a box of unscented pantiliners your hand brushes the box of condoms next to it. You remember the early days of dating Van, when one of you needed to buy a box almost every single time you went out, when Van’s wallet and duffle bags were practically oozing with them. Now it’s been over two years since you two have had to bother with them, and you don’t miss it at all.

You dump your items into your cart and start to head back for the register, passing the family planning section as you go. You’re still reminiscing about condoms; times Van had forgotten one, a mishap once where it had slipped off inside of you. That had been terrifying. You were panicked, Van was apologetic over something that wasn’t his fault, and tension had radiated off of you two for an entire week before… 

Oh fuck.

Condoms have turned to pregnancy tests, and something about that past memory has your brain whirring. For the first time since that mishap years ago you feel that cold, special type of panic seep into your bones. And while last time your period had come, this time you couldn’t say the same.

But it couldn’t be! You were on birth control, and took it very seriously. Surely your period will arrive within the next day or so, and you’ll feel silly for standing here in the grocery store, frozen in front of the pregnancy tests.

But as hard as you try to shake the feeling, the longer you stand rooted in place the more your head starts spinning: The exhaustion. The vivid dreams. Throwing up the curry. The uneasiness in your stomach this morning.

It didn’t make any sense. You try to snap yourself back to reality so that nobody turns the corner to see you pale as a ghost, about to throw up your morning coffee right there on the shiny white tile floor. You shake your head to yourself, gather up the strength to keep moving, and manage to push your cart approximately one inch forward before you see a home testing kit for UTIs, and you’re on the brink of fainting again.

Because holy fuck. You’d taken antibiotics this month. For a UTI. 

You couldn’t stand here in shock anymore. You step forward, reaching out for whatever brand of pregnancy tests looked the fanciest. You grab one with digital results and one with the traditional developing lines and toss them into the basket. Then you grab another random box, just in case. Groceries went on Van’s debit card this week, so you might as fucking well. 

You cheeks flush as you propel yourself to the cash register, deciding at the last second to do self service. The last thing you felt like doing was handing a stranger three boxes of pregnancy tests while your hands were shaking so bad you could barely get the barcodes to read on your items. 

This wasn’t happening. You were overreacting. There was no way.

That’s your mantra as you sit in the back of an Uber, unable to haul all of the groceries all the way back to your building on foot. You’re ready to get home and rip open these pink cardboard boxes and put your mind at ease. Because this wasn’t happening. You were overreacting. Because there was no way. 

You’ve practically bitten your fingernails down to nubs by the time the driver jerks to a stop across the street from your doors. You give him a quick thank you as you climb out, already having left a gracious tip on the app. You’re not a spiritual person but the whole elevator ride up you’re praying to something, anything, that Van wasn’t home early from the studio. Even if he’s the person you need most in the world at this moment, you needed to know the facts before you freaked him out, too. 

“Van?” You call out cautiously as you unlock the front door, leaning down to grab all of the handles of your bags before lugging everything into the apartment. “Babe? Are you home?”

No answer. You kick the door shut behind you, rushing to set the groceries down on the kitchen island. A yellow apple is disturbed in the process, gaining momentum as it rolls across the marble before landing on the kitchen floor with a soft thud. You leave it there, rounding the island to grab a steak knife from the knife block, overzealously stabbing into the plastic wrapping on the first box of pregnancy tests.

You’ll take two, you decide; One digital, one traditional. It might be too early to detect it, after all, so you’ll save the others in case your period still doesn’t come. Two should be enough for now.

You scour the instructions, hardly comprehending anything you read. In the end Google gives a simpler procedure, and you pee into one of the kitchen glasses (yuck) before dipping both pregnancy tests in the sample and leaving them to process.

As you wait for the results to process you leave the tests on the bathroom counter, pacing madly in the kitchen. You’re on high alert for any sign of Van’s arrival, checking your phone over and over as you pace. 

After an eternity, the timer you’d set on your phone beeps, and you trip over yourself through the doorway into the bathroom.

Pregnant

You see the digital results first, your breath knocked clean out of you. The second test is just as clear. There’s no fussing or debating over whether there’s a second line or not; there’s clearly two crisp, red slashes across the display panel, a definite positive. 

Holy shit. You were pregnant. 

\\

It takes Van three more hours to get home from the studio.

That’s three hours of pacing, of staring at the pregnancy tests. Of falling down the rabbit hole on Google, reading Reddit forums of mothers who were overjoyed with their accidental pregnancy, mothers who regretted it and cautioned others to get an abortion, watching youtube videos of happy couples beaming while they cheerfully took care of perfectly-behaved toddlers, and videos of panicked women lying in hospital beds ready to finally bring their baby into the world. You scroll through the Instagrams of friends who have already had children, and try to imagine your feed looking like theirs. After looking at a photo of your friend, her partner, and their child at the pumpkin patch you squeeze your eyes shut, try to morph the picture in your brain to be you and Van and this other, unknown human being that’s been making you nauseous. Then you return to Reddit to read more forums of women who have had their birth control fail due to antibiotics, and mentally kick yourself for forgetting that risk. 

By the time the doorknob rattles with Van’s key, opening to reveal a cheery Van already starting to talk about the song the band recorded today, your mind is swimming with everything the internet has showed you. And as much as Van is the one person in the world you need right now, in order for him to be there for you you’ve got to tell him first, and when you see how happy and oblivious he is it feels like the entire world is crushing down on your shoulders. 

“Van,” You start, but your voice catches so you have to clear your throat immediately afterwards. He’s turned away from you, hanging his coat in the closet.

“I can’t wait to play it for you,” He’s still gushing, “You know Sardy doesn’t let me have the demos after I record them, or I’d play it for you off my phone right now. You should’ve heard the solo Bondy came up with. Just straight walked in the studio and went at it-”

“Van,” You try again, a little louder. “That’s great about the song, but I really need to talk to you.”

Van freezes, clearly hearing the urgency in your voice before slowly shutting the closet door and turning towards you. Worry is etched into his features.

Now’s your moment, but it feels like in dreams when you want to scream and nothing comes out. You’re sitting on the couch, pale as a ghost, fingers twisted together on your lap. And you’re trying so hard to say the words, but they keep getting stuck in your throat, and you can hear your heartbeat in your ears like you’re going to faint.

“What?” Van prods, still waiting for an explanation. 

“I have to tell you something,” You manage, trying to ease yourself into the news. You twist your fingers together tighter, your heart racing.

“What’s going on? Are you pregnant?”

As soon as he says it your jaw drops. “How did you know?”

Van looks stunned for a moment before barking out a quick, surprised laugh. “I didn’t! It’s just the only guess I had for how nervous you look!”

Relief floods over you at Van finally being in the loop, but your jaw is still hanging open. “How the fuck did you get it right on the first try?”

Van shakes his head in disbelief. As you get up from the couch his expression looks like it’s equal parts bewildered, amazed, and shocked.

“How- I can’t-” He struggles to find the right words as he opens his arms for you to tuck yourself against his chest, pulling you in close. “I thought you were on the pill!”

“I was on antibiotics for two weeks from that awful UTI,” You explain into his shirt. “It interferes with birth control.”

“Christ. Are you kidding? I never knew that,” He muses, rocking your bodies back and forth. “This is mental. Like, are you sure? You’re absolutely positive?”

You pull away from his hug so that you can start to tell him about your realizations today, and naturally both of you hold the other’s arms, keeping each other close. Van’s eyebrows are furrowed, his brain still trying to catch up like yours has done the last three hours. His eyes search your face for any sign you’re joking, but there’s no mistaking the pure joy underneath it all, his aspirations about having a family of his own desperately close to being realized.

“I’m sure,” You tell him, tears starting to prickle at the back of your eyes. You couldn’t be more grateful for his positive reaction to the news, but the thought that you might not be ready for a child- that you might steal Van’s excitement right out from under him- hurts. “I took a test and everything.”

“No fucking way. Where is it?”

Van follows you to the bathroom, where you pass over the two tests on the sink. He stares at them for a long time, as if suspicious that he’s reading them wrong. He passes them back slowly, carefully, still blinking at you in disbelief.

“This is mental,” He says again, clearly lost for words.

Your worries get the best of you then, your tears bubbling over.

“I don’t know what to do,” You confess, hoping he gets the message. That he hears your uncertainty, the question you’ve been wrestling with since two pieces of plastic have served you your fate. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do.” You thought that moving cross-country away from your entire family was the biggest and hardest decision you’ve ever made in your life, and now you were faced with something even greater.

You can tell Van understands because he starts to look more serious, sliding into the problem-solving mode that makes him the incredible songwriter and frontman he is. He tugs you into another hug in the cramped space of the bathroom.

“We just found out,” He points out. “This feels like a fucking dream if I’m honest.”

“I read so much shit on Google today,” You sniffle against him. “My brain feels like soup.”

“Aw, love,” Van rubs his palm up and down over your upper back before he pulls away to look at your face. “Let’s make some coffee and you can tell me what you’re thinking, yeah?”

You nod, your mouth wobbling from your cry. Then, for a quick moment the storm clears, and you let out a watery laugh. 

“I can’t believe you just guessed it,” You shake your head in amazement.

“I can’t believe I did either!” Van exclaims. “Just lookin’ at you, I could tell it was something big. I dunno!”

Your laughter bubbles up again, and this time it doesn’t stop. You feel hysterical from the emotional roller coaster of today, and Van laughs along, the two of you clinging to each other for dear life as you find the hilarity in today’s circumstances. When you get a good look at his face you can see tears brimming in his eyes, too, both of you experiencing the biggest surprise of your lives. 

\\

#new york babyverse #van mccann #van mccann fic #van mccann fanfiction #catb #catb fic #catfish and the bottlemen