having Thoughts abt Ariel and Ricardo again. idk if i can actually sit down and write today (feeling a bit under the weather) but i do wanna ramble so i decided to make a lil headcanon list instead, things that may or may not make it into future fics
Ariel responds Badly if someone flirts w him directly and he's not interested in the person. my headcanon is that Ortega flirted first, got stonewalled HARD, gave up on it. then a few months and life threatening situations later Ari realizes "ah shit fuck noo is this attraction??? WHY DO I WANNA KISS HIM????" and he was the one who had to awkwardly start the flirting again bc he cannot handle the pining. and i dont think Ortega has ever let him forget abt it-
the Psychopator fight was indeed their actual first kiss, a little while after the flirting got reinstated as their new normal. however Ari is Weird abt physical contact, and even after they started kissing he kept Ortega at arm's lenght as much as he could. it's only after the Catfiend fight, when he sees Ricardo almost fucking die in front of him, that he becomes much more open to physical affection in their relationship
Ari mostly learned how to care for his hair from Themmy. it started w tips and tricks, routines, products, and somehow ended w Themmy cutting Ariel's hair on a regular basis bc he HATES hair salons, and doesn't rlly think barber shops are much better. Ortega watched this happen sometimes, curious despite himself bc pre-Catfiend fight Ariel did Not let him touch his hair as much as he let Themmy do it and Ricardo was lowkey jealous of it
one time, still pre-Catfiend fight, Themmy was unable to cut Ari's hair for wtv reason for a while, and it ended up growing long enough to start bothering him. Ricardo offered to cut it himself on a whim, mostly so he could have an excuse to touch it and fully expecting Ari to refuse, but jokes on him bc Ariel was just desperate enough to accept. he did a somewhat decent, if mediocre, job despite panicking the whole time, and Themmy fixed what was wrong later. over time that incident ended up morphing into Ortega also being the one to cut Ariel's hair on a semi-regular basis; he got fairly good at it (helps that Ari found One haircut that he liked and sticked w it for... his entire life basically. he still keeps that same haircut to this day, which is just "short enough to not be a sensory nightmare while still letting his curls form and go wild")
Ariel treated Ortega's book collection like his own personal library since day 1. books just started going missing for a few days or weeks before returning to their place, w a new one going missing in its place. Ortega kept quiet for a while even after connecting the dots, until they were close enough that he could call Ariel out on it without sending him running for the hills. there are definitely a few books that had been borrowed around the time of Heartbreak that Ortega never got back
during the Nanosurge recovery, Ortega's apartment became a bit of a safe haven for Ari, despite it being right in downtown LD. there were periods when he wanted to be alone to heal in peace, then he'd stay in his own apartment near the edge of town, but mostly he liked holing up in Ricardo's apartment. there were books there, and good food, and he didn't have to worry abt reading his thoughts when he was home. it became a bit of a routine for Ricardo, getting home to Ariel curled up on some corner of the living room, reading or journaling while listening to some emo music on his ipod
