#glass casket au

[sentient-stove]

“Wait, wait, wait, short baby Robin, back it up. You followed a radioactive green dog into the sewers? With no weapons?”

“Don’t be an idiot Grayson, I always have a weapon on me. It’d be counterproductive if I didn’t. Anyway- the dog disappeared and I was already down there so I followed the voices to this room—”

“You followed voices?!?”

“Do try to keep up.” Damian snipped. “Yes, and there was a room down there, like some sort of tomb and then I pulled this guy out of the coffin there.” And subsequently gave himself mild frostbite he was guessing by the way he still couldn’t feel his hands. Dick looked mid aneurysm at Damian’s minimal explanation but that had the benefit of him not asking anymore questions as he let them into the apartment, offering to take the teenager from Damian wordlessly.

“Did he tell you anything?” Dick pressed fingers to the teen’s wrist, brow furrowed. “Low pulse, okay. Okay. To the living room then. Was he awake when you got him out?”

“For a few moments.”

“And did you ask him for a name?”

“No.”

“Damian.”

“I was preoccupied with finding a living person in a glass coffin Grayson. He did say one thing though.” Besides thanking Damian but he was keeping that to himself for as long as he could.

“What was it?”

“The Packers suck.”

“Like the football team?” Dick questioned and Damian shrugged.

#dc x dp #damian wayne #dick grayson #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc comics #fanfic #wip hell #is it just me or would a Danny Phantom fic set in the 80s would slap #cause like satanic panic factoring into the ghost fear #but that’s not this wip lol #anyway I’m out #he’s! a! phantom! #glass casket au

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Forget-Me-Not 2

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Loki

Summary: You return to your childhood home to put the past to rest.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You spend the night on the couch. You don't go further than the bathroom. You can't bring yourself to check her bedroom or the one you left behind.

You go out to get your bag and change in the yellow haze glowing behind the faded curtains. You check the time. Jan is expecting you in an hour.

You emerge into the dewy morning and tramp down to ground level. You get in the car, reversing out without looking back at the dingy house. The final farewell can't come soon enough for the slanted walls.

Jan is out in the yard, hammering a pineboard as you drive down his lot. His white hair curls with the sweat beading on his skin. He stills the hammer and wipes his forehead as you pull up. 

You get out as he greets you in the way all the villagers do. A manufactured friendliness that cannot erase their true judgement. They smile in face just as easily as the mutter your name under their breath. You mother harboured little good will in Hammer Ford and blood is sacred here.

“Sorry to hear,” he says.

“Matter of time,” you shrug dismissively.

“Isn't no way to come home,” he shakes his head and coughs into his fist, “walnut,” he points the hammer over his shoulder, “like ya said.”

Walnut, like the dining table. Where she sat and drank herself into that box. You nod and follow him over to the casket. The hinges are brass and the finish is rough. What does it matter? It's just going into the dirt.

“Got cash,” you say. Jan doesn't deal with the bank, everyone knows that. Funny the little things that stick with you.

“Thanks,” he accepts the bills as you count them out. So much for a rainy day. The sun shine bright as if mocking the grin affair beneath its watch. “I'll have it taken down to Norn's.”

“Yep,” you agree, “she's there.”

You head out without further niceties. Neither of you uphold those. Better to say what you mean and nothing else.

You get to the property line and idle. You turn away from the woods. You're not ready to go back yet. 

You stop by the church first. Father Oswald sits with you to discuss the ceremony. You'll say a few words at the grave site. You don't think anyone would come to a wake. You don't want them to.

You set off again, still reluctant to retrace your steps. You drive to the spare core of the village and park outside the library. You cross the street and peer in through the window of the bakery. It wasn't there when you left.

You venture inside and peruse the sweets behind the glass. You order a black coffee and a cinnamon bun. You pay the woman behind the counter, vaguely familiar. You're certain she was a few years behind you at school.

You sit and pick at the glazed dough. You don't have much of an appetite. You don't feel much of anything. You're just wading through, try not to get lost in the tide.

You sip the coffee. Bold but rich. Not bad. Better than the instant powder gone stale in your mother's cupboard.

The door opens and shuts, several times over as you stare at the table. The city taught you apathy. You don't let the noise bother you.

The chair across from you slides out and a figure plants themselves on the seat. You raise your head, your vision narrowing to make sense of their features. You turn your head to gaze out the window as Loki blows over the top of a mug. 

You slide out your phone, a defence mechanism. Still no reception. You put it down and keep your attention diverted. He clears his throat and taps his toe next to yours.

“You know, I do have an important matter to discuss with you,” he says.

You don't react. You know that's what he wants. That's why he showed up the night before. He undoubtedly insisted on being his clan’s representative.

“You've sent your condolences.”

“Mm, yes, but that isn't what I mean,” he traces his finger up the handle of his mug. “The house.”

You lower your brows and keep your eyes beyond the window. The village moves slow as ever. Not like the endless flow of the city streets. There's no where to hide here.

“My father has an offer. The property has value.”

You check your cup, almost empty. You swig the last of it. You stand and gather the cup and unfinished dessert. You put the porcelain on the counter and toss the cinnamon bun on your way out.

The door doesn't close behind you. He's following you. Your heartbeat piques. In an instant, you're hurled into the past. You're running through broken twigs as he snickers behind you. You ball your hands as your breath hitches.

You cross the street without looking, only just dodging a bumper. You go to your car, fumbling with your keys. Before you can stick them in the slot, there's a snare around your arm.

You spin and shove Loki off of you, biting down on a shriek. You glare at him and point the key at his chin.

“Not interested.”

“My father will give you more than the bank,” he counters. 

“Don't care.”

He sniffs and quorks his head, “is this because I never called?”

You choke on a scoff. You turn and ram the keys in the slot and twist. You open the door as you step around it. The edge hits him as you swing into the driver’s seat.

“The house is worthless. The bank will give you pennies for the land.”

“Go tell your daddy you failed,” you sneer and yank the door shut, hitting the lock with your fist.

You start the engine without a glance in his direction. You pull put as he barely avoids getting his toes run over. Just as ever, this village belongs to the Odinsons. They won't have to pay the bank much to get what they want but you will never sign your name next to theirs.

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #drabble #au #backwoods au #series #thor #avengers #mcu #marvel #forget-me-not

[dwaekkilinos]

wind and water (pt. 1) | lee felix

summary: People always had a way of looking at you as if your skin were composed of paper mâché and your heart was made of glass. They just assumed you were kind of like a weak bird . . . but Felix Lee looked at you like you still had some flight left.

pairing: lee felix x fem!reader rating/genre: 18+ Minors DNI | surfing au, childhood friends to lovers, slice of life, angst, fluff, eventual smut word count: 15.7K chapter summary: you're in the wind, and felix lee is in the water. both of you are sons and daughters of no one anymore. warnings/notes: ok so! i originally posted this on my main blog but then i decided that'd be too confusing so it's getting uploaded here hehe (i also decided to split the chapter up to make it short but i can't promise that for future chapters), this fic is literally just hurt comfort with smut like i have no excuse, moving on: explicit language ahead, probably many typos, character death (reader's mom and felix's parents) fictional names for chris's family, hyunjin and jisung being the absolute best besties, forced proximity aka reader and felix have to share a room, mentions of death and everything surrounding it, grief, extreme coping mechanisms (reader goes a little insane and that's ok), insomnia, and i think that's it for this part but if i missed anything let me know, ok ok hope you enjoy <3

chapter one: this house is haunted ( next → )

Look for me in the wind.

There’s something people like to say at funerals. It’s stupid really, maybe even a little self-involved, but when the forsaken bell tolls and some poor soul in a casket rolls around, some sorry sucker will without a doubt preach that when people die, they’re never truly gone. It’s supposed to be comforting. It’s supposed to lighten the mood. It’s supposed to make things better; make you better; make you feel better that this person you once knew . . . that this person who had been in your life day in and day out was now gone, sure, but their memory was still there.

That’s supposed to make it better . . . right? It’s OK that they’re dead and gone—an empty cavity with nothing but bones and stitches keeping their flesh from sliding off—because at least they have someone to remember them.

It’s supposed to be OK.

It’s supposed to be.

But it never is.

Nothing is ever OK again. Because the truth is, when people die . . . they’re gone. Dead is dead, and dead is gone. They’re gone.

They become nothing once again. But that's the tricky part, isn’t it?—the fact that they were something once.

And it’s never easy letting go of something that still exists in some nature; because an abandoned house is still a house even with no heart, and a body is still a body even with no soul. Both have the bones to keep them standing for a little longer. Both can withstand a great deal more. And both will.

But they’re still . . . less. The house will never be a home again, and the body will never be a person. They’re just there, not fully present and not fully gone. They exist in this limbo, and it is this in-betweenness that makes letting it all go so . . . hard . . .

How do you put something like that to rest?

But . . . dead is gone, right? Dead is dead and dead is gone, so, fuck! Why was it so hard? She was gone. She was gone, gone, gone . . . but . . . but . . .

Look for me in the wind, was what your mother had told you the day she died. It was something you knew others in the hospital would kill to hear instead of a forced goodbye before a surgery everyone knew would fail. You supposed that should have brought you comfort: that your mother had left you with something irreplaceable.

But it didn’t, because you knew what it meant.

It meant that the rumors were true. When people die, yes, they’re gone, but a part of them is left behind. Only for you, it was the part of her you didn’t want to remember. You didn’t want to walk the streets of New York, always cold and windy, and think of your mother’s dying words.

Look for me in the wind, she had said and hours later she was gone.

When people die, they might not be truly gone, but that didn’t mean you weren’t left with memories you’d rather have died with her. And now . . . now all that you were left with were her final months.

It only reminded you that she was still dead. Even if her memory was there . . . she wasn’t.

You supposed it left you feeling a little . . . lost.

OK . . . maybe lost was a bit of an understatement.

It just . . . it didn’t take long after your mother’s death to figure out she had been the thread holding your family together. And when she died, everything fell apart . . .

It started with your father. At first, you, neither your sister, Erin, saw it, until three shoes by the front door turned to two, and he stopped coming home for dinner, insisting the two of you were grown adults and could fend for yourselves. But you knew what that meant. You’d always known it would happen, too, but your mother would never have allowed it. But you knew. God, you’d known since you were seventeen and you saw the messages on his phone.

Your father had found someone else, and quickly, it seemed. No . . . not quickly. She had always been there. Ever since he went away on a business trip one year after his mother’s death and came back with a secret and a request for a divorce. Your mother never allowed it of course, and they stayed together.

(You supposed you should’ve known he’d stay with her, too, and . . . wait.

Which he did, right? Congrats, dad, you were patient enough to fuck someone else two minutes after mom was shoved in the grave!

Class act, your father.

Whatever.)

So, your mother was dead. Your father was already planning a new family. And you and your sister were stuck in your childhood home, sitting opposite each other at the dining table while the empty seat with an equally empty plate resting on one of your mother’s special placemats, haunted the two of you. Because well, that wasn’t your father’s seat. No, the two of you stopped setting a plate for him the first day he didn’t show.

This seat used to be your mother’s, and that plate was for her . . . or her ghost, you guessed. (It was Erin’s idea. Obviously . . . )

Neither of you had mentioned it.

Neither of you planned to.

Neither of you would.

. . . This went on for a few more weeks.

Then . . . it was August once again. Fall semester was starting. It was going to be the start of your senior year at university. You were almost there. Almost.

Your sister left two days later. Back to Texas. Back to her husband and his kid. Back to her life. Back to normal.

She was twenty-nine and had a life, you got it. You were only twenty-one, just shy of turning twenty-two, and had no clue how to navigate . . . anything.

So . . . you . . . you stayed stagnant in that house.

Now, it was you who sat at the dinner table, not a soul in sight, just you and the empty seat where your mother used to eat when you were growing up. The plate was still empty, maybe even a little dusty now, because no one dared to touch it. Yours was always half-finished. You could never stomach more the second your eyes locked on the empty seat where your mother should have been.

And every night, you’d toss your half-eaten dinner in the trash, glance toward the still-set plate waiting for your mother, wait a few minutes . . . just to see if her ghost truly would take the seat, and when no ghost showed, you’d turn off the lights and head up to your childhood bedroom for the night.

Until . . . it was the night before the first day of the semester, and you realized it would be back to your apartment, and the house . . . her house . . . would be left empty for who knew how long. No more childhood, no more falling asleep on the couch and waking up to your mother carrying you to your bed, no ice cream as dinner, no nothing . . . not even a whisper from . . . her . . .

And like her body that you knew was rotting away day by day in her grave, her house would no longer be a home the second you stepped out the door and returned to the life you had made for yourself. It would stand, bones and all, days passing it by while it slowly rotted away without a single hand to dust its edges and sweep its floors. And so, it, too, would be taken to the weeds, leaving behind memories no one wished to remember. (Perhaps those memories would rot with it, too.)

It all just made you think, and the longer the gears in your brain turned, the more this sliver of rage grew inside of you.

A house with no bones, it would slowly become.

A house with no bones. A house with no heart. A body with no soul. A child with no mother . . .

Your mind just kept spinning and spinning and . . .

You supposed that was when you went a little . . . off course? Downhill? . . . Crazy, maybe? Well, perhaps a little more than that. Maybe like . . . utterly insane. (You were being generous, of course.)

Unbelievable, you say?

Well . . . sit down, buckle up, let’s just see what you have on the checklist.

Trash your childhood home, destroying all evidence that your mother even existed, but obviously leave the plate on the dining table just in case she comes back? Check.

Block everyone you know on . . . everything? Check.

Only show up to class in your mother’s clothes, wearing her makeup the way she used to, asking to be called by her name, basically becoming . . . her . . . ? Check, check, check, and . . . check.

Flunk all your first and second exams? Check, of course.

Midterms come around and your average for all of your classes is about hmm a good forty-six percent? Check.

Eventually withdraw from all your classes, dropping out of university entirely? Yeah . . . check.

The news somehow gets back to your father via bank statements, because how else would he get in contact with you? Oh, and then when he does finally find out about it, he decides that maybe you’re not OK after your mother just literally, oh you don't know, died. And does this mean letting you stay with him and his girlfriend for a little, maybe some therapy and a hug? Maybe? Well, no, of course not!

This means calling up your mother’s childhood friend, practically begging her to take in his delinquent child (AKA you) because well, obviously, you just need to feel connected with your mom again, so duh, that means shipping you off to your homeland or her homeland whatever same thing . . . which is P.S. another continent (Australia of all places . . . yeah) for like their summer or whatever and then you’ll be cured.

. . . Um . . . anyway . . . check!

Yeah . . . you supposed you really fucked yourself with that one.

. . . Whatever.

That was what you kept repeating, at least. Whatever this and whatever that. What else could you do? It wasn’t like anything mattered anymore.

Whatever, you muttered to yourself as you boarded the plane, with not even a second glance. No one was in the airport to bid farewell to anyway. So, whatever.

Whatever, you groaned as you finally landed in, you guessed it, Hell’s hotspot: Sydney, Australia. Whatever, you huffed as you caught sight of the Bahng family—Irene and Monty Bahng and their two kids Chris (one of your childhood friends . . . apparently) and Grace—waving to you. (Supposedly another member of the family was missing—Felix, one of Chris’s friends who you were, once again, supposedly supposed to supposedly know from childhood. He was apparently living with them since last year for unforeseen reasons that no one bothered to mention. But. He didn’t show due to more unforeseen reasons.)

You forgot to groan out another inner whatever the second you stepped into the backseat of their minivan, too wrapped up in your own head to care. Grace kept mentioning this and that, saying how excited she was to have another girl in the house because it was so horrible living with two adult boys. (She was fourteen, interested in being older than she was, and curious about the world. You got it. You used to be that young.)

And Chris, well, he was three years older than you and, as you would like to reiterate, apparently one of your best friends from childhood before your family packed up and moved just before junior high. You remembered little about him, but it wasn’t like it mattered. (You were just glad he kept Grace at bay, telling her to leave you be.)

Irene and Monty were fine, too. They kept asking you how your flight was, if you had eaten, and blah blah blah which you hated and responded with quiet hums as an answer, but . . . whatever. It didn’t matter if they were nice. You were stuck there and you hated it. You hated being back home, too. You hated everything and nothing mattered, so . . . whatever!

You remained silent the entire rest of the way to their house in their shitty, hot, no-WiFi-bearing town from Hell. Your silence carried on even as they ushered you out of the car, taking it upon themselves to carry your bags in without even a single hand from you, claiming that you should walk around the property while they got your room ready so you could get used to . . . everything. And you simply nodded without another word because . . . well . . . just because . . .

The Bahng’s lived atop a hill in a small bungalow with yards and yards of land which overlooked the ocean. You didn’t exactly know which ocean because you’d never cared to learn anything about anything. You’d been a biology major, and you hated it, so it wasn’t like you particularly liked learning. You had just put up with your degree to make your mother proud, and now that she was gone, well . . .

You swallowed hard. Never mind.

It was pretty. You’d give Southhaven that. But that was it.

This wasn’t your home. It never would be. You weren’t sure if you even had a home anymore.

. . .

With a soft sigh, you slightly tilted your head back, eyes closed as you faced the sun. Its heat beat down on you, and for once, you let it touch you. You let it caress your face, desperately trying to warm you, but you had never felt so cold.

And when it seemed your blood had almost frozen in your veins, you felt it . . .

. . . the wind.

In response, your jaw twisted so tight you wondered if it’d be enough to crack a molar. But the slight breeze in a world full of heat nudged you forward, causing your hair to slap your face.

Begrudgingly, you flicked your hair out of your face, forcibly tucking it behind your ears. But the wind persisted, seemingly tugging you toward the edge of the property.

You didn’t want to listen. You wanted to shove off the wind and stalk toward the house, but like the call of your name from your mother’s lips, you couldn’t turn the other way. No, instead, you followed the wind, you followed her voice, and approached the edge of the property where the ocean resided in the distance.

And only then, when you were overlooking the water below, did the wind seem to subside. Like a current, the tide had come in. No more whispers in your ear, but you could still feel it, just . . . in the distance.

You wondered what it meant. You always had. But how could you question the wind? How could you call out to it and beg for its presence?

Swallowing hard, you nearly attempted to question this intangible thing, until something caught your eye.

As you stood atop the hill, quietly questioning its existence, the suddenly wind returned, whipping through your hair, as the image of a man below on the shore stalked toward the ocean, surfboard tucked under his arm. His hair was blonde and wet as if he had been at this all day. His skin was marked with redness and small scratches, showing evidence of his advances. And he had this way of holding himself that just told you he not only held this . . . resentment but also . . . fear toward the ocean.

The wind whispered in your ear once more. You blinked. It was almost as if the wind were telling you to keep watching, to listen and hear the pounding of his heartbeat from up there.

Could you hear how loudly it was beating as he stared down the ocean? Or was it your own heart that you heard?

Was this man even real? Were you?

But that didn’t matter. Real or not, you couldn’t tear your eyes from him. You watched in silence, you and the wind atop the hill, as he paddled out into the water, positioning himself perfectly to catch a wave.

You watched as he waited and waited. You watched as wave after wave became big then small then nothing, and he was left still waiting. And when a good, strong wave did come, he tried and tried, but . . . failed.

And time and time again, the waves kept coming but . . . they seemed to elude him. He missed every single one.

Frustration seemed to consume him as he smacked the water before tugging his hands through his hair to push back the wet, blonde strands. And as he continued to battle with the waves, you could see his anger mounting. The more he missed, the more his frustration grew. You watched him take deep breaths, trying to calm himself, but it seemed even that couldn't bring him the solace he sought.

Finally, you watched as he breathed in sharply through his nose, tilting his head toward the sky as the sun beat down on his face. Just like you had done moments ago, he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to soak in the warmth. It seemed . . . it seemed; however, even that couldn’t help him, his brows furrowed and his mouth in a permanent frown as the wind twisted through his wet hair, causing him to shiver even in the sun.

And you began to wonder . . .

. . . Did the wind haunt him, too?

“He’s good, isn’t he?” you suddenly heard from beside you, but you didn’t jump, you didn’t even turn to greet the person. You already knew who it was anyway. Chris, of course. (You supposed his parents had made him become the spokesperson for the family given the fact that the two of you had been friends a million years ago. Or maybe he was just that . . . out there.)

Whatever.

“Hmm?” you hummed out, remaining as silent as you could.

Chris gestured to the vast ocean below, toward the boy (No, man? . . . ) who still sat on his board, eyes now scanning the waters before him once again. “Felix,” he restated.

Oh. You bit the inside of your cheek.

That was Felix.

“You remember him, don’t you? Taught you how to keep your head above water. You had quite the trouble getting a hang of your sea legs.” Chris chuckled, shaking his head. “I remember you’d cry any time you’d get salt water in your mouth.”

“No,” you murmured. “Don’t remember. Doesn’t seem like he was a very good teacher either. Hasn’t caught a wave once.”

You could feel his eyes on you, but you didn’t turn to meet his gaze. Still, it seemed Chris was hard to turn away. He, like you in the wind, stayed stagnant, solid as stone as he stood beside you. Not even the brisk air could turn him away, even when it seemed to get colder the closer he stood to you. You’d thought maybe he’d catch on; to the fact that in all of Southhaven, the coldest spot was right next to you. But he didn’t. He stayed put, and then . . . then he spoke.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it to the funeral,” he spoke softly as if he were talking to a child.

Your heart plummeted, and the sliver of rage grew inside of you once again. A wildfire now, it had become.

Sure, he was a few years older than you, but he didn’t have to treat you like . . . that. You could handle things. You handed your mother’s death for god's sake, so why couldn’t he talk to you like you were an actual person and not some fragile—

“I won’t try to understand, because I don’t,” he continued, knowing you wouldn’t respond. “And I won’t try to make you feel better. I know it doesn’t work that way, but Felix . . . “ He sighed, before breathing in sharply. “He lost his parents a year ago. I won’t try to understand, but he . . . he already does.”

Your eyes snapped in his direction then. But your lips remained sealed.

Chris took this as his sign to continue. “Just—“ he wet his lips, brows raising— “don’t be too harsh on him. If there’s anyone who understands how you feel . . . it’s him.”

Remaining silent, you could only swallow your thoughts, your feelings, your words. You shoved it all down and continued to stare, eyes surely unwelcoming and dull.

But he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Maybe . . . maybe he was used to it.

“Anyway—“ he huffed out with a growing smile— “come on, your room is ready.” He reached forward to grab the bag you still held in your hands without another word. “You’ll have to room with Felix, but I promise we’re trying to set up the shed for one of you. It’s just a little fucked between Dad’s workshop and Grace’s many, many, many abandoned projects . . . but we’ll get there . . . promise. But, hey, you get your own bathroom and—“

Of course, his blabbering didn’t stop there as he began to lead you toward the house, but you couldn’t spend more energy trying to listen to him. It was all useless anyway. You had a room. There were bathrooms in the house. Food. Everything else you’d need to survive.

But . . . your thoughts were elsewhere. Your gaze landed on the boy . . . Felix . . . once again, watching as he remained still, almost as motionless as the sea that surrounded him. It was almost as if he were waiting for something. Even if he caught a wave, it seemed he’d remain there until that something came around.

Quickly, you began to wonder, would it ever? Or would he remain in that water forevermore?

. . . Would . . . you remain stagnant, too?

And amid it all, the wind returned, whistling in your ears . . . and then . . . then you began to hear a faint voice calling your name. You knew it was Chris, but you didn’t care. You were so deeply immersed in your own thoughts, so consumed by despair, that the sound seemed distant and muffled. It was as if a thick fog had settled over your mind, clouding your senses and preventing you from clearly hearing anything other than that cruel wind.

The calls continued, but you remained trapped within the confines of your own mind. You were rendered deaf to the outside world, and you yearned for a moment of clarity, a moment where you could hear . . .

. . . a moment where you could hear . . . her voice again . . .

Chris called your name again, and you squeezed your eyes shut. It wasn’t her. He wasn’t her. It was his voice that called out to you, not hers.

She was gone, the wind serving as a cruel reminder of this.

And finally, you forced yourself out of this haze, shoving out the thoughts of your mother as you tore your eyes from Felix, who still resided in the ocean, and faced reality; faced Chris.

“You good?” he questioned once your eyes were on him again, and you could finally hear him.

But you didn’t respond.

No, instead you hurriedly approached him, snatched your bag from his hands, and stalked off toward the house, leaving everything behind.

But the wind followed, consuming your senses, and you realized it always would.

When you were a kid, you had a hard time making any friends. You were awkward and kept your mouth shut at all times. The messages in your yearbooks would always be directed toward how nice you were, but they didn’t know you. You didn’t have a kind soul. It took a while to realize that. It took even longer to accept it—that you were a miserable child who grew into an even more miserable adult.

Boys didn’t like you. Girls didn’t either. Some days you wondered if your parents even liked you. Sure, your mother loved you (albeit, she’d loved your sister more, but that was a given), but some days you wondered if she even liked the person you were.

And your father . . .

You were sure your father was trying to cut ties with the life he had made with your mother the moment they met. (And as time would see it, as soon as she was gone, the love he claimed he had for you and your sister went too.)

So if someone were to ask you if you had been a lonely child . . . You wouldn’t have known what to say because the truth was: if you’re alone all your life; if being alone is all you’ve ever known, then how do you know if you’re lonely?

Was there a checklist for that, too?

Now, yeah, sure, you knew people growing up. Sure, you talked to people throughout junior and high school. But nothing ever carried on outside of the school grounds. Everything had always just been surface-level with you. (At least, from what you remembered, which . . . wasn’t much.)

Being alone wasn’t so bad either. It was just normal. Your normal. So it hadn’t really bothered you when your birthday “parties” consisted of just you, your sister, your mother, and—sometimes, perhaps, maybe if he had the time—your father.

But it wasn’t until university that you realized what it would feel like to lose something.

It wasn’t until the one random art credit you signed up for managed to fall under the same time you had decided to move the rest of your shit into your dorm, leading to you racing to the Creative Arts Center (which was, by the way, located across campus) just for you to end up being the very last person to storm into the classroom, meaning yes, there was only one seat left, and yes, you had to awkwardly claim it with everyone’s eyes on you. But! But! Well . . . the open seat just so happened to be next to Hwang Hyunjin, who would very quickly become the only friend you had ever really had.

Now . . . Hwang Hyunjin wasn’t a tough nut to crack. While you were slightly off-putting and quiet, he was kind and always had something to say, with this odd warmth radiating off him wherever he went. He just seemed to make people . . . better.

His art was that way, too, but that was a story for another day.

Anyway . . . you didn’t exactly remember how the two of you became friends. You supposed it kind of just . . . happened, but one second you were alone, then the next it was where he went you did too, and vice versa.

And halfway through that October, when he introduced you to his dormmate, Han Jisung, the two of you quickly became three, and the rest was three years of history.

It was only then, in those three strenuous years, that you realized that now, for once in your life, you had something to lose. (You’d be a liar if it didn’t keep you up some nights. You’d be a liar if those nights you didn’t cry yourself to sleep, mourning something that had yet to happen. You’d be a liar.)

That was the thing: you always thought it would end. You never thought that this thing you now had would ever last for longer than a few years.

So . . . when you lost your mother, you supposed something in you decided that this was it. It was time to give them up, too, because now that you had lost something, it was time to lose everything, you supposed.

But what you hadn’t accounted for was that Hwang Hyunjin, the poet he was, did not believe in endings. He believed things happened for a reason. He did not believe the two of you met for nothing, and he would be damned if he just let you slip through his fingers like . . . that.

You really did try, too. You tried to avoid him. You tried to lock yourself in your apartment and let the world just . . . fall away. But Hyunjin never gave up; whether it was dropping food off at your front step so you wouldn’t starve, to forcing you to let him and Jisung inside the house just for the three of you to watch a movie in silence, because at least then you wouldn’t be alone. (You were also positive the reason why you even had like a thirty-seven percent in Ecology was because Jisung did your homework and his.)

Somewhere down the line, you realized sometimes you meet people and the rest is history. No matter how hard you tried to push them away like you had done to everyone else in your life, they refused. There was no without with them.

Some things were meant to stay even when you’d already lost everything else. And nights when it felt like you truly had nothing and no one, there would always be a text on your phone from their group chat.

(Some days you wondered if you would even still be here if they hadn’t pushed their way into your life . . . and those days you cried yourself to sleep.)

You supposed there was no more time for that as you glanced behind you, eyes locked on the twin bed situated across the room from yours. There, this Felix, would sleep, the two of you forced to share a room with a bathroom connected to it, sure, but . . . you’d only shared a room your first year at university in the dorms, and that was enough for you. And now . . . this . . .

(You would’ve rather taken the casket next to your mother’s.)

A whiny call of your name tore you from your mind, forcing you to leave behind the past as you turned back to your phone. The faces of Hyunjin and Jisung met you immediately as Hyunjin squinted his eyes at you, taking in your odd demeanor while Jisung tapped away on his phone in confusion (a constant state for him).

Oh, you thought, blinking slowly. You had forgotten they were on the call.

“Hmm?” you hummed, but didn’t speak a word further.

A twitch of confusion tugged at Hyunjin’s brows. “The guy,” he reiterated, trailing off as if waiting for you to chime in and cut him off. But you never did, and for a brief second, you saw him bite the inside of his cheek (something he did when he was worried) before he quickly covered it up by shaking his head and opening his mouth to speak once more. “What’s he look like?”

Before you could get a word in, Jisung clicked his tongue as he lowered his phone. “Do you have to be so cryptic all the time? I get it’s part of the whole tortured artist bit, but—“ he cut himself off with a wave of his hand.

Hyunjin was glaring at him in a heartbeat. “Tortured—“ he scoffed— “Tortured artist? You’re crazy.” He drilled a finger into Jisung’s shoulder. “You sound crazy, know that?”

“Crazy?!” Jisung retorted, fully putting his phone down on the coffee table now. (This was for an ulterior motive, of course, as the next second he was eyeing something out of your sight, which resided on that same coffee table.) “Give me that sketchbook.” Quickly, he bent over and snatched the sketchbook, wasting no time flipping through it. “What have you been drawing, huh? Porn?”

Hyunjin nearly pounced on him. “What the—What is wrong with you? Who even says that?” he grumbled out, trying to pry the sketchbook out of his friend’s hands, all the while, Jisung fought him off long enough to flash you a few of the pages. “It’s called—“ he finally ripped his sketchbook out of Jisung’s grasp and secured it under his arm with an exhale— “figurative arts. Something you’d know if you ever cared to come with me.”

Jisung leaned back, sinking into the couch as he spread his legs for a more comfortable position. “Why the fuck would I wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to go draw naked people with my roommate?” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Roommates go on coffee runs together, not draw dicks, which, might I add, you have to pay for?”

“Because it’s art.”

“It’s porn.”

And with that, Hyunjin tapped out. With an exasperated scoff, he sent one more glare Jisung’s way before he was flipping through his sketchbook, trying to access the damage done, all the while, muttering under his breath in his native tongue. (Something about Jisung being an idiot, of course.) Jisung caught onto this, too, and sent you a sideways look before he began to taunt and mock the older boy.

Only then when you felt yourself laugh under your breath, did you realize you had been fondly smiling at them the entire time. But that was just how things went. They were always like this, being roommates for all of university, and it never ceased to fill you with a sense of belonging. (It also never ceased to fill you with a sense of dread . . . because if your suspicions were correct and you did end up alone . . . then this . . . this would be something you’d miss about them the most.)

But until then . . . you’d mourn quietly. You had to . . .

Clearing your throat and head, your smile slowly fell into a straight line as you glanced between the two boys. “Are you two done?” you heard yourself ask before you even felt your lips moving.

“Yeah, when he’s six feet under,” Jisung retorted, crossing his arms over his chest as he eyed his friend up and down.

Hyunjin nearly rolled his eyes. “Like you won’t be buried right beside me just out of spite.”

“Well . . . I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it . . . “

This time; however, Hyunjin did roll his eyes. “Shut up, would you?”

And at those words, Jisung’s mouth hung open with the click of his tongue. He eyed you as if to ask if you had heard the same thing, but you only shook your head at the two of them, trying desperately to bite back the stiff smile spreading onto your face.

As your smile flattened out into the same thin line, you shifted atop your bed, laying on your side with your knees pulled up to your chest as you held your phone in your hand. “I haven’t met him yet,” you muttered out the next second, before either of them could continue this little ruse they had going on (you knew what they were trying to do anyway . . . (Whether they admitted it or not, you could see the change in the way they acted around you after everything . . . happened (now everything was done to get even a smidge of a smile out of you.)))

Jisung quirked a brow, glancing at Hyunjin with his lips pursed as he asked, “Who?”

“The guy,” Hyunjin vaguely explained as he pointed at you through the screen, or rather the bed behind you that could slightly be seen in the camera.

“Oh,” Jisung hummed with a snap of his fingers, “the one you’re going to fuck?”

Hyunjin pinched the bridge of his nose. “What is wrong with you?”

“Listen, I’m always right,” Jisung exclaimed, glancing between you and his roommate. “The two of you can fuck off. It just makes sense. You’ve known him since you were a kid, right? So, a little reunion blah blah blah, you have to sleep in the same room, you’re drunk, you’re horny, you fuck. It’s the circle of life.”

Silence.

Then . . .

A snort from Hyunjin. (You were sure he’d called him an idiot under his breath, but the connection cut out toward the end.)

And you sighed. “OK, Ji . . . I haven’t seen the guy since I was, like, ten,” you explained, trying to explain to your friend all the one-hundred and one reasons why you were not going to sleep with this . . . this stranger. And then, your mouth opened before you could stop it, and words, words that didn’t even sound like your own fumbled from your tongue . . . “Plus . . . he seems like a nutcase. He didn’t show up at the airport because he was apparently busy . . . but when I got here, he was just surfing . . . not even actually. And that! That was five hours ago. He didn’t even come up to eat. I mean that’s crazy, right?”

Shuffling further up the bed, you grabbed the pillow to hug, while awaiting your friends’ responses, but . . .

“Crazy, huh?” you heard a deep voice question from behind you. And this wasn’t a voice you had heard before, which led you to one solution . . . Felix . . .

Fuck.

Hastily, with your eyes wide, you slapped your phone face down as you shot up in your bed, gaze immediately snapping toward the door.

And there he was.

Felix stood in the doorway, towel in hand as he dried his wet, blonde hair (no doubt dyed a month ago guessing by the appearance of his dark roots peeking through). “Didn't realize I was being analyzed today,” he muttered in a soft chuckle.

But you remained silent. It seemed you’d become more afraid of your voice in recent months anyway, so speaking really was rare, but this . . . this had you speechless for an entirely different reason.

In your silence, you let your eyes wander, and noticed Felix only had one foot in the room, the rest of his body lingering in the hallway as he glanced from your face to your phone to his dresser. It was almost as if he was . . . afraid . . . ? No, hesitant. Yes, hesitant to walk in this space that the two of you were now expected to share as if you hadn’t seen each other in a decade or so.

Because the thing was, yes, you remembered him, but not in the same way you’d remember something that happened a long time ago, but rather in the same way you’d remember a childhood pet. There was warmth there; a certain fondness that you could only place when you truly saw him face to face like this. But it was lacking—like you couldn’t remember why or how you felt this way, you just knew you did.

What you could remember felt like a dream. It didn’t feel like it had actually happened. And sure, nothing ever did lately, but this . . . this was different. You knew him. God, you knew him but you just couldn’t . . . place it. You couldn’t remember anything about him. Just those freckles that adorned his sunkissed cheeks, a wide, toothy smile with dimples, his laughter kept floating through your head as you stared at him.

You could remember a boy around the age of eight, and he was laughing. A soft giggle with eyes that smiled too. Then . . . colors. Sunsets. The feeling of floating. The bitter taste of seawater and . . . oh what was it (?) . . . taffy! Yes, the taste of Cherry Cherry saltwater taffy. And . . . (you swallowed hard) . . . the warmth of a hand in yours . . .

Had the two of you really been friends or was that just something your parents said? . . . How close had you been?

Slightly, you shifted on your bed, body inching toward him as if you were dying to say something . . . anything. But no words left your lips and you remained staring at him, and him at you . . . only he wasn’t looking at you in the same way. No . . . he . . . he was just staring at you, his eyes empty; it was like he wasn’t even there, his thoughts carrying him elsewhere while you remained grounded, wondering who he was and why he had meant something to you if you couldn’t even remember him.

Did he not remember you either? Or—

“It’s silent. Is he gone?” Jisung whispered (well, if you knew him, you’d know that his whispering just meant yelling in a hushed tone . . . so really . . . ).

You remained silent once again, unable to tell your friend to keep quiet. Your eyes just stayed on Felix, taking in the way his drenched shirt clung to his body, evidence of his day’s endeavors. And then you began to wonder . . . did he finally catch that wave?

Swallowing hard, you eyed the small scratch on his cheek. The waves, it seemed, had fought back against the punches he’d thrown them earlier in the day. Had they thrown him to the sand? Or had it always been there?

“Well . . . he’s got a voice on him, yeah?” Jisung piped up again after a minute of no words from you or Hyunjin or . . . him.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you felt your face grow hot. And it seemed Hyunjin knew this would happen, too, as you heard the sound of him slapping Jisung on the arm.

Jisung cried out in retaliation, “What? What?! Tell me he doesn’t sound hot? No, no, Hyunjin, look me in the eyes. Look me in the—“

But this time you were one step ahead. Instead of letting your face grow warmer, you haphazardly snatched your phone and hung up on the two boys before Jisung could say any more.

And then . . . it truly was silent, only the sound of the wind whistling outside mixed with the crashing of waves in the distance could be heard. (That and probably your heart hammering in your chest. (You forgot to mention that you didn’t take well to . . . embarrassing . . . moments.))

You glanced at the scratch under his eye once again as you shifted on the bed, pulling your legs to your chest.

Now . . . you’d like to defend yourself . . . the thing about you was the very fact that you did not do well with people. You never had and you didn’t think you ever would.

For a long time, you tried to claim it was because you simply just didn’t like them, but you knew better than that. What you wouldn’t admit was the fact that you just didn’t know how to talk to people.

You’d always known why people didn’t like you. Even as a kid, it had been obvious. You just . . . didn’t know how to be like them. You didn’t know how to view things in moderation. You didn’t know how to enjoy things. You didn’t know how to talk to them or laugh with them. You supposed you just didn’t really know how to be a person.

And everyone saw this, too. That was why you graduated high school with no one to celebrate it with. That was why you went home every day after school and just sat in your room. That was why you had always tried too hard to fit in, only resulting in looks being sent your way. That was why you had always been alone, waiting for everyone to eventually leave. That was why you still wondered why Hyunjin and Jisung hadn’t given up on you yet.

That was why you now sat in front of someone you once knew; someone that you should recognize; someone that meant something to you but you just couldn’t remember why . . . and now . . . now you couldn’t even utter a word. Because . . . you didn’t know how to speak to people; to him . . .

That was why you had always been alone. And that was why you were alone now.

You were sure he could sense it, too. You were sure he wouldn’t want anything to do with you even if he could remember what you couldn’t. You were sure he’d ask the Bahngs to let him sleep somewhere else as long as it wasn’t next to the odd girl who—

“You must be the American,” Felix suddenly sighed out, stealing you from your own mind. “Can’t say I remember you being this . . . charming.” He sent a glance your way as he finally entered the room, heading straight toward the dresser on his side.

With careful almost fearful eyes, you watched as he rummaged through his dresser for some clothes. “You weren’t meant to hear that,” you found yourself mumbling out, barely audible and hoarse. Quickly, you cleared your throat, and repeated the words once more, this time clearer and a little louder.

(This kind of thing used to happen to you all the time as a kid. You wouldn’t talk for so long that when you finally did, it was like your voice wasn’t even your own. It was like the longer you’d go without speaking, the closer you were to losing your voice altogether.)

Felix laughed under his breath. “Mmm, but I did,” he commented as he glanced over his shoulder at you with clothes now in his hands.

However, when you only stared back at him like a deer caught in the headlights, he sighed. Felix ran his free hand through his wet hair, pushing it out of his face as he fully turned around to face you, leaning on the dresser for support. “Look . . . it’s OK,” he hummed with a small smile . . . one that showed his dimple but only for a second. (Only long enough for you to remember that same dimple from your younger years.) “I don’t mind. Don’t sweat it. Swear I’m used to it.”

Your brows twitched in response, waiting for the ball to drop. When would the flip switch? When would he exile you like the rest?

But nothing ever came.

Felix simply just sent one more tight-lipped smile your way before he headed for the bathroom door attached to the room. And you watched in shock, still waiting for him to say something . . . anything that would send you wallowing under your covers for the rest of the night.

Still . . . even as he stopped in the doorway, nothing came; instead, he mumbled out, “Let me know if you need anything, yeah? I’m gonna hop in the shower. It’s all yours after that.”

And then he was gone. The sound of the shower came a few seconds later, while you stayed stuck on your bed, staring in shock at the place where he once stood.

When you were a kid, you had a hard time making any friends, and it seemed some old habits never died, yes, but . . .

This was different.

This was a boy from your childhood. This was someone you once knew. This was someone who meant something to you once. You knew that. You knew he had to have meant something.

When you were a kid, you had a hard time making friends . . . except, it seemed . . . for him. Only . . . you couldn’t remember why or how or . . . or . . or anything.

With a defeated sigh, you fell back onto your bed, memories of sunsets and a warm hand in yours playing on repeat in your mind.

The next few days went like this:

Day one: wake up to the sun shining through the curtains, nearly blinding you; realize the view out your window isn’t the busy city streets of New York, but rather a just about deserted beach; rot in bed until three in the afternoon when the thoughts of your mother’s face finally become too much; quietly greet Irene in the kitchen before heading outside with a piece of toast in hand; find Felix surfing just below on that very same deserted beach; watch him miss wave after wave until the sun goes down; dinner, blah, blah, blah and suddenly you’re in bed again, trying not to look across the room where Felix lays; eventually let yourself sneak a peek at him out of the corner of your eye, and when you do, you realize he’d fallen asleep with his lamp on, his face the picture of innocence and yet . . . a pinch in his brows catches your eye; quickly and quietly turn his lamp off before slipping back into your bed and falling asleep with questions of what was playing on his mind.

Day two: wake up, groan at the sun, hate the heat, and stay in your bed until two this time; sit in the living room with Grace (she’s preoccupied watching whatever’s captured her attention on the TV, while you get to work in your sketchbook (something you’ve picked up since that first art class)); dinner, wash, bed; Felix climbs into bed an hour after you have and you realize you’ve subconsciously stayed up, waiting for him; stay silent as he mutters a quiet goodnight to you before the lights are out; stay up an hour more, wondering if he caught a wave.

Day three: Grace wakes you up before it even hits twelve (and you let her because . . . whatever); let her, along with Chris, show you around town as she drags you from store to store, telling you how Abigail Newton would so totally buy that hat but would hate that belt when she passes every mannequin; eventually buy her that very hat so she can tell this Abigail to shove it because . . . whatever . . . ; head back and let her convince you into watching her show with her for the rest of the day; smile once . . . or maybe twice because, of course, you have to indulge her (and that was it); try not to make it obvious you’re staring when Felix comes waltzing into the living room, seemingly coming from his room (your room?) (and not from outside; not from the ocean), plopping down on the couch opposite of you, claiming he just loves this show (but you know he says it to make Grace happy); wonder and wonder and wonder why he’s given up surfing for the day.

Day four: ah, day four, yes . . . manage to wake up at ten (only because Grace told you to the night before); get dressed, touch the locket your mother gave you for your sixteenth birthday for good luck . . . but wait . . . where’s the locket . . . fuck, fuck, fuck; proceed to freak out for the next half-hour, tearing up the entirety of your belongings in hopes of finding it, only to find absolutely nothing; freak out some more, maybe cry a little, and just when you’re about to literally pull all your hair out, there’s a knock at your door and in comes Felix . . . with your locket in his hand; nearly trip over everything just to grab the locket from him, desperately trying to put it back on, but your hands are shaking far too much, only for . . . Felix to gently put a hand on your shoulder before taking the locket back from you; let him brush your hair aside and clasp the locket around your neck; remain frozen in shock as he mutters something about how it must have fallen off your neck last night while you were watching TV on the couch . . . and then . . . he’s gone, and you’re still there.

Day five: Felix is gone; he’s been gone all day and by night, there are people over . . . it’s a cookout apparently . . . spontaneous one, too; awkwardly stand in the corner of the yard, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone because this is too much (everything has always been too much); try not to lose it . . . repeat: try not to lose it; swallow your tears and stay stagnant even as this person who you only know as one of the Bahngs’ family friends comes up to you and starts . . . talking; and then:

“We were so sorry to hear about your mother. She was a good woman. . . . How are you holding up, honey?”

Those words were spoken and you felt your blood run cold. The world caved in a second later. You felt small. Small and worthless. You wanted to disappear. You wanted to run, but you couldn't. Your mind had been the only thing to stay alert. Just run, you thought. Run. Get to your room. There won't be anyone there. Run. Fucking run.

But you couldn’t. You wanted to but the memories of the night your mother died kept rushing in, paralyzing you. You could hear the monitor beeping. You could feel her hand in yours, oddly cold. You could see the nurses and doctors and whoever else scrounging around you, desperately trying to bring her back while someone pulled you back. You could hear your own voice, screaming out for her, screaming for them to put you down, screaming for them, it, whoever to take you instead of her. You could hear her whisper, look for me in the wind, and then you couldn't breathe.

I can't breathe. You tried gasping for air, but it never stuck in your lungs. I can't breathe. You could have sworn this was what drowning felt like as your breaths came out quicker and quicker. Oh, my God, I can't fucking breathe.

You needed air. You needed space. You needed to get inside; to get to your room.

Your eyes darted to the sliding back door, and knew what you had to do. You forced her legs to move as you tried to make it to the door. But you never made it; a hand grasped your arm and you whipped around to face the same woman once again.

“Honey, what’s going on? Are you OK?” she questioned, concern clear in her eyes but you didn’t care.

She couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see that when a child loses their mother, they lose everything. Your mother. Your mother. Your fucking mother. It didn’t matter if you had fought or if some days you didn’t like each other. It didn’t fucking matter. She had been your mother, and she was fucking gone.

Fuck! She couldn’t see it. Unless she did. Was she doing this on purpose? Who even was she? Had she hated your mother and that’s why she was doing this to you? No, you were thinking too much into it. Fuck, fuck, you had to throw up. No, you had to get to your room. You couldn’t be here. You had to get away from this, from them, from everything. You had to be alone as you always had been.

And then you were gone, running inside before taking off through the house, weaving past all these people until you finally caught sight of your bedroom door. You were going to throw up. Fuck, you were going to throw up. Your pace sped up and then you were there, hand on the doorknob, swinging it open and slamming it shut behind you before you lunged for the bathroom.

Another swinging of a door occurred as you whipped the bathroom door open, hand already on your mouth to stop yourself from vomiting all over your clothes. You didn’t register anything else as you slapped your hands down against the sink, instantly peeling over and spilling your guts.

And only when you were done, did you realize where you were, what you had done, and who was staring at you in the mirror.

In silence, you wiped your mouth on your hand, realizing you’d have to take a shower after this anyway, all the while, your eyes remained locked on the person staring back at you in the mirror. Regret and horror filled you, because none other than Felix was standing behind you, chest bare, but with pajama pants on and hair that was still slightly damp from the shower that he had most likely just taken moments before you barged into the bathroom unannounced, and vomited all over his night routine.

Felix still stood in confusion, and perhaps concern, with a floss-pick hanging out of his mouth while he took in your appearance. And while he stared, you lowered your gaze, finding it too hard to maintain eye contact.

“What—” he began, but you quickly cut him off.

“Food got to me,” you muttered out, throwing your hands up with a quick laugh. “Hamburgers’re too rare for me, I guess.”

Felix remained silent, tonguing the inside of his cheek. “I’ll leave you to it then,” he murmured, eyeing you one last time before tossing the floss-pick in the bin and exiting the bathroom with his white tee clasped in his hand. And as he turned you watched him quickly tug the tee over his head, but not before something caught your eye.

“How did you—“ you found yourself saying before quickly holding your tongue. But it was too late, your words had already got to Felix.

He glanced over his shoulder, slowly turning to face you again. “Hmm?” he hummed, searching your eyes with that same consuming gaze.

You only shook your head. “Nothing.”

A beat of silence.

Felix didn’t move, as if still waiting for your question.

No question ever came.

You were sure a minute had passed before you cleared your throat and pointed to the shower. “I’m gonna . . . “

Felix blinked, his eyes widening. “Right,” he mumbled, clearing his throat now. “Sorry.” And then he was gone, closing the bathroom door behind him, and leaving you to your reflection in the mirror.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to face . . . well . . . yourself. Your steered clear of your reflection, your mind too dizzy to comprehend anything other than what you had seen . . . because as Felix had turned his back to you, you had caught sight of a large, deep scar starting from the tip of his shoulder and ending just above his waistline.

Perhaps you couldn’t remember much about him, but you were sure you’d remember something as drastic as that. It seemed dark too, not quite new but not old in the slightest.

And then you began to wonder . . . what had happened to him to cause a scar with such brutality . . . ?

On a dreary day of a random Tuesday, you were born to a room of only your mother and aunt. Your father had never made it, due to his new office job, and Erin was forced to wait outside of the room with your grandmother because she was only four at the time. And amid shock from her labor, your mother named her baby girl.

Rosebud was to be your name.

Your mother recalled her little girl coming out of her womb with a small port wine stain on the side of her neck. You were red like a rosebud, she used to tell you as a bedtime story when you were little. Rosebud was to be your name, and it had been.

The little girl was named Rosebud and everything was blissful behind the cages of your household. And all was actually well and right until Erin started jumping up and down at her little sister's bassinet, calling you by the name she’d chosen, not Rosebud. She'd cheer your name over and over again, refusing to call you anything else even when your parents scolded her.

But nothing ever stopped Erin. Back then, she could never be confined by her parents, even in the simplest of terms. To her, her little sister was not this Rosebud.

And eventually, after a few days of Erin refusing to call you anything else, your parents gave in. Their newborn was to be named by her older sister. Not Rosebud or anything else your mother had written down.

Luckily, the papers hadn't been signed or anything of that sort, so their little girl was to be named by none other than your very stubborn, now very stern, older sister.

(Your mother, as stubborn as she was, did get her way by gifting you with the middle name of her name. (You sometimes thought this was your mother's way of branding you, like naming you after her was her way of inserting herself into your soul. (If only she had known she’d forever be etched across your entire being just decades later.)))

Anyway . . .

There was the kicker: you didn't just come to be. Your sister had named you, and thus, a very long and very strenuous name for a very angry and odd girl was born (Sometimes nicknamed Rosebud).

In the past week you had been with the Bahngs, you wondered how little Rosebud ended up alone on the other side of the world. It had been on your mind ever since you arrived and saw how this family acted. It was as if you were witnessing a real family for the first time in your life.

When you were a kid, you’d sometimes see other families while sitting in the stands for your sister’s soccer, basketball, lacrosse (etc . . . ) games (as well as her student council lectures and her flute recitals . . . including that one time she joined the school play for Romeo and Juliet (she got Juliet . . . obviously)) . . . Whatever . . . you’d see how other families acted towards each other at these . . . electives. Some were like yours, but other . . . other had this genuine warmth that you just . . . you just couldn’t wrap your head around.

Those were the times you wondered if your family was normal. If mom and dad fighting every day was the same for everyone else. If sisters battling against each other to be the best . . . the most loved was . . . normal.

You’d learned later that it hadn’t been, but truly seeing it every day in and out like this . . . it was . . . well . . . you were sure there were pieces of your heart beginning to wither away further and further and . . .

The Bahngs (plus Felix, if you were being honest) were a family. A real one.

And there you were, always watching them like something out of place.

It made you wonder . . . had Rosebud been the beginning of an end for your family. Was the day you were born, the day the love in your house died?

Had you screamed too loud? Had you been too fussy of a baby?

Had you drained the love from them, sucking it all up because you were just so desperately greedy for it? Were you still?

. . . If overstayed your welcome; if by the end . . . would you end up draining the Bahngs, too . . . ?

“It’ll pass . . . “ the words suddenly echoed throughout your ears, and you almost thought it was your own mind tricking you into hearing things, but then you realized . . .

You realized where you were. You realized you werent seven or thirteen or even eighteen, still being your family’s shadow. No, now you were twenty-one, left in a strange country with no overbearing mother, no absent father, and no perfect sister. You were alone, yes, tucked into your bed in the Bahng household, but you weren’t entirely alone, because on the other side of the room laid someone you used to know; someone you couldn’t quite remember; someone who was now staring at the ceiling with you.

The lights were off save for your lamp which you had your hand resting on for probably a while now as your mind drifted somewhere . . . else. While . . . Felix endured the light, kind enough not to bother you until . . . now.

It’ll pass, he had said, and you knew what he meant.

When you first arrived to Southhaven, Chris had told you Felix was living with them because of what happened to his parents; because he had lost them a year ago. You never asked what had happened. You never planned to, but given that . . . and him being witness to you literally puking your guts right in front of him, you could guess he knew your mother was gone, too, and you weren’t exactly . . . handling it well.

It’ll pass, he’d said, but what did he mean? What would pass?

You could never get over this if that was what he meant. You weren’t strong like that. Your sister was. She could handle this . . . but you . . . nothing was every temporary with you. Once you’d experienced something, once you’d had something; once you felt it . . . it all stayed with you. Even your first heartbreak . . . you didn’t have to still be in love with him to remember what it had done to you; what it had made you become. The thing was: there was no without with you; everything stayed and you were always changed, never the same again.

“Let me guess . . . “ Felix began again once he realized you weren’t going to respond, or rather . . . couldn’t respond.

You swallowed hard, awaiting.

“They asked if you were OK?” he asked, his voice a little softer now.

Your brows twitched. “Yes.”

And you could have sworn you heard him sigh across the room as if . . . as if the question bothered him, too. And then: “Fuckin’ hate when they do that . . . Threw up the first time, too,” he murmured. “You’re not alone.”

Oh . . .

You hadn’t expected that. You knew he must have felt what you were feeling once, too. Maybe he still did, but . . . It’ll pass, he’d said, but no! No! Losing your parents . . . It was like losing everything you had ever known, including yourself.

You’d been so rude to him, too when you knew how this felt. You knew how immobilizing it was. You knew what it did to a person, and you had still said those things.

And yet . . . there he was . . . comforting you . . .

Only then did you turn to face him, finding that he was still staring at the ceiling. “Felix?”

He turned, eyes meeting yours. “Mmm?”

Wetting your lips, your eyes searched his. “Thank you.”

Felix smiled. It was small . . . lacking, but . . . there. “Room full of orphans,” he nearly whispered, the smile still there. “Gotta’ stick together, right?”

And then . . . you began to smile, too. It was small . . . lacking, but . . . there, just like his. It was enough. It was all you had. Perhaps it was all he had, too.

The lights were out a second later, leaving the two of you in the dark silence. You knew you wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon, and you wondered if he was the same.

There was a period after your mother’s death when you couldn’t sleep.

It started with just a few less hours of sleep where you’d just stare at the ceiling, listening to your old clock tick seconds, minutes, hours by while you just laid in silence. You’d never known it could be so loud—the silence—until she was gone.

That should’ve been comforting, right? How even in the silence no one is ever truly alone, but it always managed to make you feel . . . worse . . . small. It made the world seem so much greater than you or your family or anything you had ever cared about. It made her death seem like just another number to add to the end of year tally.

It made everything seem meaningless.

So you laid awake . . . and listened . . .

Eventually, you’d let yourself blink just for a second of nothingness, and then you’d roll over, letting sleep take you. Until it was two weeks after your mother’s burial, and you began to realize it had been two days since you’d slept.

Two days of continued nothingness; of being in that house without your mother; of breathing when she no longer could.

You supposed that was when it started—when you began to hear her voice in the wind; when you convinced yourself that you were seeing her out of the corner of your eye; when you started wondering if maybe just maybe there was a chance you’d see her again in some form or another.

When you finally did sleep that following night by some miracle, you dreamt of her. You dreamt of her at the kitchen table with a plate stacked full of all the foods she loved. You dreamt of her warm smile. You dreamt of her gentle hand brushing the tangles out of your hair. You dreamt of her . . . and when you awoke, your eyes were sore and your cheeks were damp.

You supposed you should’ve talked to someone. Your sister, perhaps, but . . . your family was never one for . . . talking. (She wouldn’t know what to say anyway. Erin was perfect, yes, but she had no bedside manner.)

So the sleepless nights went on.

And when the semester started up again, two nights of no sleep turned into three, then four, until you stopped taking note of what nights you slept and what nights you didn’t.

You tried to ignore the depersonalization. You tried to ignore how you clung to your mother’s clothes, wearing them to class and even when you slept. You tried to ignore the need to be called by your middle name . . . her name. You tried to make it seem normal . . . but . . .

Then the hallucinations started.

At first it was in your bathroom mirror . . . then more whispers in the wind which turned to straight up conversations you thought you were having with her. And then . . . then you started to see glimpses of her on campus. In the beginning, it was people you didn’t know—people you’d just pass by while walking to class . . . but as the days and the nights became longer, you’d see her in your roommates, your friends . . . Jisung . . . even Hyunjin.

And you weren’t proud, you weren’t even sure if it even happened, but you’d been in the library one day, and you’d seen . . . her, and you just couldn’t take it anymore.

. . . Apparently, you’d attacked someone in the library, screaming at them to tell you what they wanted from you. (You didn’t find this out until you woke up in Hyunjin’s bed the next morning and he’d explained the entire thing . . . not leaving out the fact that you’d passed out immediately after, but maybe that had just been in your imagination, too? Right? Because you really couldn’t have done that to someone? Right . . . ? . . . )

Between the attack and your failing grades, the news reached your father in no time. You’d take fault for the grades. You’d own that . . . but the attack; the sleepless nights . . . you didn’t want to know you were capable of that. (But the sleeping pills that were forced down your throat every night after the attack were proof enough that something wasn’t . . . right.)

You knew what this meant. You knew what that made you, and you didn’t know how to accept that. (You supposed you didn’t know how to accept most things.)

Sleeping was easier now, albeit, the dreams you had were just as excruciating as those days you’d hallucinate seeing her on the street . . . but at least you knew what was reality and what was not. (There had to be an upside in that. There had to be.)

It had been a month since then. The end of December now. In Southhaven where your winter was their summer and the weather was gentle, not the harsh rain and snow you were used to.

Now you could sleep, and dream of her, yes, but you’d wake up every morning and she wouldn’t be in your mirror. Now you woke, turned to the side, and glanced at a boy who seemed to be holding onto just as much as you were, and you’d be a liar if you said that didn’t interest you.

Because you wanted to know; you wanted to know if losing yourself this much after losing someone was . . . normal. Because truly, either everyone felt this way even just a little bit, or you were completely and utterly alone . . . and you were sure that would be the thing to kill you.

But there was no way you could admit this; there was no way you could ask him what he meant by his little ‘It’ll pass’; there was no way you could ask him when it would pass. So, for the time being, you watched him in silence as you had watched everyone growing up.

This was normal for you anyway. When you were a kid, drifting through middle school and high school alone, you used to watch the people around you. You used to watch how they acted around each other; how their social media posts matched . . . how their smiles matched in them, too. You used to yearn for that—to be liked like that; to have people like that; people that wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with you.

It didn’t help that your sister always had someone over, whether it was friends to boyfriends. You used to watch her, too. You’d sit in the armchair while she chatted with her friend on the phone, lying horizontally on the couch. You’d hang around in the kitchen when she’d have her friends over for pool parties, sleepovers . . . whatever . . . and she’d always shoo you off, but you wouldn’t go far. No, you’d wait on the staircase, tucked behind the railing as you listened to them laugh.

And when you’d finally asked Erin if you could join them next time . . . she declined. We are sisters, not friends. Get your own friends, and stop scaring mine away, she’d said, and you understood.

You never did end up finding any friends, of course (well, at least not until university but . . . you know . . . ); instead, you figured out how to make yourself invisible. And so . . . a shadow you became, learning how to communicate with other people through conversations that weren’t your own.

You learned how to read people; how to tell them what they wanted; how to know what to do when no one else did. (You supposed it all went to shit when your mother died and you realized you could watch people and watch people but you’d never be able to figure yourself out; you’d never be able to help yourself.)

Whatever . . .

The point was: learning about people from afar had always been familiar to you, and when it came to Felix, you decided it was better to watch him in silence than speak with him. He was just that type of person, you had gathered.

Now, you knew how it sounded, but people watching wasn’t like flat-out stalking (Ok . . . you could admit it wasn’t exactly the sanest thing to do but . . . whatever.). Listen, listen, you just so happened to end up waking up when Grace would call you, letting her drag you wherever she wanted because maybe she had grown on you a little over the past few weeks. And most of the time, Grace would take you down to the beach where her brother and his friends apparently liked to surf (well, where everyone in this town preferred to surf) and sometimes Felix would join.

So, were you keeping a close eye on him, curious about everything that he was and who he had been to you in the past? . . . Yes.

And the days he wouldn’t show, you wondered where he’d go. No one ever mentioned it. He never said a word about it, and you were left wondering.

Maybe he was off to that sandy beach just below the Bahng residence. You just didn’t know . . . and that bothered you more than you wanted it to.

And those days that he didn’t show, you’d taken to drawing in your sketchbook. God, fine, you’d taken to drawing him. But, but, listen, the only reason you were was because of what you had seen your first week in this godforsaken place—his scar.

Perhaps that was what had entranced you. Or maybe it was the past you knew which included him but couldn’t quite figure out the rest of the pieces. Or maybe . . . maybe it was him who intrigued you.

Fine . . . like Hyunjin had said on the phone last night . . . maybe you had a small crush on him. Like . . . maybe . . .

You couldn’t help it. He was just so . . . so . . .

. . . you didn’t even know.

Whatever . . .

Anyway . . . today was different. Grace woke you up early, yes, but when you finally stepped outside twenty minutes later, you found the entire Bahng family dressed and ready to go. Irene was busy trying to shove all the beach bags and surfboard and towels and sunblock into the trunk of her minivan, while Monty was already dabbing Grace’s face with sunblock and Chris . . . well . . . he was in the front seat, waiting for everyone to hop in so he could drive.

And you, you stood stuck in the doorway, watching this family be . . . a family while you . . . you had . . . no one. You could have sworn you heard your heart break a third time in your life, but before the floodgates could open, a hand had clasped your shoulder. You turned, in shock, and there he was—Felix.

With a squeeze of your shoulder and a small smile, he nodded toward the minivan, gesturing for you to follow him. And with that, you, and Felix, who was seated behind you in the very last row, climbed into the car. He sat there alone, too, and you couldn’t help but watch him out of the rearview mirror the entire trip, wondering why he had taken the back seat and not you.

That . . . that was about an hour ago. Now . . . now you were the one sitting alone on your beach towel, sketchbook in hand and a pencil in the other as you drew the scene in front of you. While you drew, you desperately tried not to throw your pencil down and flip to the page where you had drawn Felix’s scar.

A call of your name tore you from your sketchbook as you glanced up finding Grace just a few feet from you, holding up a rather large seashell and waving it around to show you. You couldn’t help but smile at her. A real smile, too. Wide and toothy and just like your mother used to get out of you.

Because you couldn’t help it; not when you looked at Grace a little too long and found that she was only a fourteen-year-old kid and reminded you a little too much of who you used to be at that age.

So you smiled, and she grinned back wider before going back to shell searching. And you . . . you watched with that small smile on your face before your eyes slowly flicked back down to your sketchbook and you began to draw the scene before your eyes once again.

Only this time, as you were about to shade, another voice drew you from your mind. Only this time, the voice was much deeper and coming toward you. Only this time, it was Felix calling your name. Only this time, you quickly slammed your sketchbook shut before he could catch sight of what you had been drawing. Only this time, you looked up in horror, trying to act normal but completely failing as you made eye contact with . . . him.

It seemed Felix had caught onto this, too, but instead of mentioning it, he only bit back a grin. And you swallowed hard, shifting slightly as you realized he was going to sit beside you on the towel.

His hair, blonde with dark roots, was wet, and he was wearing a rash guard this time, unlike the first time you saw him. But he still looked . . . good. You could admit that, because well, he just had this . . . way . . . about him . . . but . . . whatever . . .

As he sat down beside you and released a gruff sigh, a few water droplets flicked onto your own bare arms, catching your attention immediately. You blinked at it, unmoving.

A beat of silence.

Then:

“Gracie seems smitten with you,” he mumbled your way.

Your eyes finally snapped from the water droplets sliding down your arm to your lap where your sketchbook lay. “I guess,” you muttered back, fingers playing with the edges of the sketchbook.

“Chris won’t say it. He’s too fixed on you being, like . . . different or whatever . . . but . . . just . . . thank you for being kind to her. I know she comes on strong, but that’s—“ he waved his hand in the air, exhaling sharply— “The kids around here are . . . “ he swallowed audibly that time, and sighed once more before continuing, “awful, so . . . keep up the good . . . work?”

And that time, as his words left his lips, you could have sworn you saw him grimace at what he’d said. And that . . . that got a small, barely audible, barely even noticeable, laugh out of you.

But when he glanced up to meet your gaze, unsure of if he’d heard you correctly, you quickly covered up your amusement, wiping the grin off your face. Instead, when his eyes met yours, you only nodded in response, giving him a small, tight smile.

Felix, however, had caught your little laugh. You knew he did, and he knew you knew. So it was a no-brainer when one side of his mouth tipped into a half-grin as he shook his head. “You don’t say much, do you?” he mused, scooting a little closer, but not close enough for it to seem deliberate.

Wetting your lips, you mumbled, “Not much to say.”

Felix nodded, leaning away from you once again, and you thought you’d lost his attention, but then: “Do you like the ocean?”

You blinked. Why was he so interested? Had he found out about your drawings? Was he taunting you? No, no, that . . . that was stupid. But—No.

You quickly shook your head, then released a sigh. “Um . . . I guess,” you said, nearly under your breath as you shrugged. “I haven’t been this much since I was a kid.”

“Is it weird being back then?”

“I don’t know.”

Felix narrowed his eyes, not in a menacing way or anything like that but almost as if he were considering your response. But he didn’t dwell long as he switched the conversation. “What’s it that you’re drawing anyway?” he abruptly asked, gently tapping your sketchbook.

You blinked . . . again. Shocked . . . again. “Nothing,” you quickly tried to cough out, “just . . . nothing important. It’s shit.”

His brows twitched, his head tilting to the side as he took you in. “Nah, you’re just—“ he cut himself off, shaking his head, but his eyes never left you. He continued on searching your face as he spoke. “We’re our own worst critics, you know?”

You glanced at his nose, then his cheeks, and finally at a freckle that oddly seemed to resemble a heart before you decided that yes, you would like to draw this next—him like . . . this. “Just a realist,” you hummed out, still completely in your own mind as your eyes danced over his features.

“OK, maybe you are,” Felix said with a shrug. And then he was leaning in again, chin in the palm of his hand. “Draw me then. It’s my face. I know it well. If it looks like me, you pass. If not, you gotta hand over the pencil.”

Oh . . .

You swallowed your words.

If only he knew . . .

But instead the words that spilled from your lips were: “And if I don’t want to draw you?”

Felix shrugged, unbothered. “Then . . . draw yourself for me.”

Your brows raised. “And if I don’t want to do that either?”

Another beat of silence.

Then, Felix laughed through his nose. He was staring at you again, kind eyes and a small smile on his lips. “Alright then . . . What do you love, sad eyes? Hmm?” he asked, his voice low.

What do you love?

You didn’t know anymore.

But you had loved something once. You knew you had.

Sunsets. The smell of sunscreen. Sand under your fingertips. Sea water on the tip of your tongue. Cherry Cherry saltwater taffy. And a hand in yours.

“Got it?” Felix asked again, tearing you from a past you couldn’t even remember. “OK . . . now draw that.”

Sunsets. A hand in yours.

You sighed, your next words shocking even you, “What if it’s something . . . intangible?”

“Then how can you draw it wrong?”

How can you draw it wrong? he’d asked you, but you couldn’t respond, because you didn’t know. You didn’t even know what the memories meant. How could you even begin to draw them?

And just as you were about to write him off again, the sound of Grace’s soft laughter echoed throughout your ears. Without any forethought, your head snapped in the other direction, eyes quickly finding her . . . and . . . Chris and . . . Monty . . . even Irene.

It seemed that Monty and Chris had snuck up on Grace, grabbing her before she could realize it, then taking off into the ocean, their laughter in the air. All the while . . . Irene stood where the water met the land, a wide smile on her face as she softly chuckled at their antics.

And you realized something else then. That is what you would’ve drawn. That is what you loved.

Your family had never been a good one, but it was yours. Even your father hadn’t been so bad when you were younger and unaware. You still felt loved by him when you didn’t know the world. And back then, when you thought their fighting was normal, you still came together at the end of the night and watched movies as a family.

That was the last time you remembered being truly . . . happy, and you couldn’t quite place when that all stopped . . .

You thought you’d miss it forever. And you knew that . . . that was what you loved most in the world—a family that didn’t exist anymore . . . perhaps a family that never did.

And yet here were the Bahngs, and they had what you wanted most in the world. They had it effortlessly, too.

Fuck. You swallowed the quickly forming lump in your throat, realizing a little too late that your body and your mind were too many steps apart. Your hands had begun to shake, and before you knew it, that queasy feeling in your stomach was back. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You needed to get out of there.

That was your motive. You quickly stood to your feet, sketchbook still in hand as you tried everything not to look Felix in the eyes. “Sorry, um . . . “ you stammered out. “I have to go. I have to—bathroom.”

And then you were gone, stalking off toward the minivan in hopes it was, by some chance, unlocked. You just needed a minute alone. You just needed to be alone like you always had been.

Alone, you repeated in your head as you finally made it to the minivan, your breathing uneven and shaky. Alone, you begged as you grabbed onto the door handle, pulling repeatedly. Alone, you all but cried as you realized there was no way the door was going to magically unlock just for you. Alone, you knew as you fell against the car, silently crying into the crook of your arm.

It could have been hours that you were standing there, silently mourning a family you could’ve had and a mother you never would. It could have also been seconds, but you did know that you wished you were back home with Hyunjin and Jisung and New York with its cold weather and noisy traffic. At least then you wouldn’t be reminded of the family you didn’t have.

And once you had finally calmed your breathing, you glanced up at the sun, your eyes swollen from crying, and sighed. Is this what your life was now? Is—

The clearing of a throat tore you from your mind, but you didn’t jump. You already knew who it was. You could tell by just the sound of his voice.

“You don’t have to stay, Felix,” you sighed as you remained facing the sun, not wanting him to see you like . . . this. You just wanted to be alone like you had always been. You just wanted him to leave, but then . . . you refused to tell him this. You refuse to tell him to leave, and perhaps . . . perhaps you wanted him to stay or perhaps you were truly going crazy again.

“There’s no bathroom here,” Felix mumbled after a minute, his voice lacking as he ignored your previous words.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you nodded. “Yeah . . . “

With that, Felix stayed silent, just watching you as you wished for the ground to swallow you whole. But it didn’t and you stayed put, realizing this someone you used to know was seeing you at your very worst—tears, snot, and all.

And with a heavy sigh, you let it happen. You let everything fall away just for a second as you sunk to the ground, eyes closed as you leaned with your back up against the minivan.

But what did surprise you was the fact that a few seconds later, you heard Felix step toward you, and then . . . then he was sitting down right beside you.

You didn’t dare look at him. You weren’t even sure if you could. Instead, your eyes fluttered open, small tears rolling down your cheeks as you quickly brushed them away, keeping your gaze trained on the sandy parking lot.

Felix didn’t speak either, and you quickly realized he was waiting for you to say something first. He was waiting for you to do it yourself when you were ready.

And when you finally were ready, you clutched your sketchbook closer to your chest, before you spoke. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry by the way,” you found yourself saying before you could come up with a different response. “For that day; the first day we met. It’s not right . . . but sometimes I just say things. I don’t know why. I never mean it.”

You knew it was almost a month too late. You knew he probably didn’t give a shit now, but you had a habit of clinging onto things, and well, it had never left your mind.

So the words you said, you meant, and you hoped he knew that. You hoped he could feel it in your voice.

And when he didn’t respond, you glanced up, brows pinched upward, only to find he was already looking at you. But only when your eyes met his, did he smile, and you realized he had still been waiting for you.

That was when he spoke—when he had your eyes on him. “And I told you, it’s alright,” he hummed, his voice deep yet . . . soft. “There’s the American way, then there’s the better way . . . Australian. So this . . . this is my way of showing you a little bit of Australian hospitality. Water under the bridge, yeah?”

But you didn’t respond. You didn’t even nod. You couldn’t. How could he be so . . . so . . . kind?

No one had ever been so . . .

No one had ever . . .

No one . . .

Felix seemed to catch onto this with just another glance at your face. “Look . . . “ he began, his features contorting into questioning, “if you need it to be forgiven, it’s already done. It’s—”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” you couldn’t help but ask, cutting him off for the first time. “It doesn’t make any sense. You don’t even know me.”

A deafening beat of silence.

Beat.

Beat.

Was that your heart or his?

Beat.

Then, a sigh from Felix. His brows twitched, his eyes squeezing shut and he tongued his inner cheek. “There are certain things no one should have to go through alone,” he slowly began, his words slow yet still so . . . so soft. His eyes fluttered open a second later, and you saw his words before he spoke them. “Losing your mother is one of them.”

Your body became limp at his words, your sketchbook falling to your lap, but your hands stayed locked firmly around it. Felix noticed this, his eyes flicking down to where the black sketchbook lay. He pursed his lips, then nodded, and you waited, knowing he knew.

“You draw dead things . . . “ Felix mumbled a second later, his eyes still trained on the sketchbook in your lap.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you knew there was no running from him now, because he knew. He knew.

Grief made people do tricky, sick things, and you knew this well. It had turned you into another person, and in your downfall, you’d taken to a new . . . hobby—drawing dead things.

You didn’t quite know why, you just knew that when you’d stumble across those poor pigeons hit by cars or those squirrels and moles and mice that cats liked to leave on your doorstep, you always took pictures of them, later drawing them in your sketchbook.

It was the only thing that managed to make you feel better, because there it was—death.

Death had taken your mother, and it would surely take you, too, but if you drew it maybe you could have something over it. Maybe . . . maybe if you made death into art then . . . then you wouldn’t cry every time you heard your mother’s voice in the whispers of the wind.

And at the beach, you’d heard your mother’s voice, you’d felt the wind, and then you’d seen the poor fallen seagull as the current carried its lifeless body to and fro. You couldn’t stop yourself from sketching it while everyone else was busy in the water. But Felix had caught a glimpse of it when he approached you on the beach. Now, you knew he had.

Your sick little secret was no more. Felix . . . had been the only one to uncover it.

That you couldn’t run from.

So, instead, with a heavy sigh, you released your tight grip on the sketchbook, and whispered, “Yes.”

With the release of your words, you couldn’t help it, you grimaced in preparation, wondering when he’d leave you, too. Because he would. That was just how things went.

But . . . it wasn’t disgust which he met you with. No, instead . . . instead, he shifted in his spot and then you saw it—his hand was now resting on his knee, palm up with his fingers spread, and you finally realized what he was offering you.

You glanced at his hand, fully now, and swallowed hard. He was holding out his hand for you to grasp.

But you stayed frozen, unmoving, unsure.

Until . . .

“You don’t have to . . . but . . . “ Felix began, his deep voice a little hoarse now. “When I was a kid, I had problems falling asleep. Nightmares, you know . . . kept me up half the night. And my mom . . . she’d stay up with me trying everything. Glass of warm milk, counting sheep, whatever. Most of the time we’d just stay up watching TV until I eventually knocked out. But there were times when nothing would work . . . so eventually she’d put me to bed and say that she’d be there the entire night, holding my hand, so even if I had a nightmare, it’d be OK . . . and . . . every time . . . I’d wake up and my hand would still be in hers.”

Finally, his eyes met yours.

Your brows twitched, eyes searching.

“I was able to sleep after that,” he mumbled once more, offering up a small smile. It was lacking but it was there, and it meant something. It meant something. “No more nightmares. I guess I felt . . . safe.”

A beat of silence.

Or maybe it had been your heart pounding in your chest.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

Then . . . you shakily placed your hand in his. Warmth at your fingertips. Sunsets. Cherry Cherry saltwater taffy. A hand in yours.

With a complacent sigh, you let the incomplete memory in as you slowly threaded your fingers through his, securing your hand tightly in his.

Sunsets. A hand in yours. His hand in yours. His hand.

#lee felix #lee felix smut #lee felix scenario #lee felix x reader #lee felix x y/n #lee felix fic #lee felix fanfic #lee felix fanfiction #lee felix stray kids #lee felix skz #felix x reader #stray kids #skz #kpop #skz au #stray kids au #lee felix au #lee felix series #lee yongbok smut #lee yongbok x reader #lee yongbok x y/n

[gentrychild]

AU where Izuku finds out Yoichi is still alive and vaulted, when he gets thrown into the very same vault?

@aimportantdragoncollector did that one but since I am a nice and benevolent writer, I am going to be nicer than that impossible to kill insect.

1 - Izuku is warped into a vault in what must be a very lucky accident because, obviously, AFO wanted to kill him (since he is an OFA holder, duh) and instead just threw him in a creepy vault. With a corpse in a glass casket in it. Whoops, that's not a corpse.

2 - Izuku wakes up the sleeping beauty by touching the big red "Do not touch" button and screams his head off because the comatose man immediately tries to kill him. Well, to bite him. Muscle atrophy is no joke. The scary comatose man who is snarling and crawling his way towards him accuses me of being his brother's minion. He is so dramatic that Izuku suspects him of being a Todoroki.

3 - In any case, it's time to go! Izuku burst through the reinforced steel door with his quirk and almost has a heart attack when he sees a dozen of high end noumus (not that he knows what they are) right outside the vault. Fortunately, those are very obedient noumus who listened to Izuku, of all people, when he asks them to stay where they are or to carry the scary bitey man who tried to kill Izuku once again because if his brother's monsters are listening to him, he must be a high ranked minion!

4 - The murder attempts stop after Izuku feed Yoichi a snicker. Yoichi finally realizes that the boy is probably not here to trick him into some of Hisashi's stupid attempt at brother bonding and he does apologize for trying to bite him. But since he doesn't trust Izuku just yet, he says that his name is Yuuto and fails to mention that he is AFO's brother. Silly him. He then proceeds to freak out because he is in the future and quirks are the norms and people are happy and he is crying like he is a long-lost-Midoriya-family-member. Izuku puts an All Might hoodie on hom and brings him home.

5 - Now, I need you to know that AFO is still doing whatever he is doing (probably fighting All Might or messing up Tomura's mental health) and didn't realize that he sent his son to the wrong vault.

#5 headcanons game #closed ask game

[trinkerichi]

An idea for the old vintage toy T.A.D.C au you have.

Perhaps when they die/abstract. they could be put into collectors cases for everyone to see. Like how the snow white casket was glass, y know?

Ooh that's an idea!! So morbid... Almost like a stuffed trophy animal in a way. It's kinda horrifying in a different way than the locked toychest too like, when a toy abstracts, and if they're still technically conscious but immobilized, is it more horrifying to be locked away in darkness alone? Or to be put on display for everyone to see?

#death mention tw #toybox circus

[muzzleroars]

Okay so.. I didn't quite get it yet. What happened to the story of Ultrakill in the 'fallen Gabriel series'? Why's he like that? What's going on??

i really should have a summary for this!! but in general this is a canon-divergent storyline - gabriel dies in a last battle with v1 just before his light burning out is able to take him, but he is reborn as a fallen angel of treachery for his defiance of the council. his tomb is found in judecca, the deepest pit of hell reserved for traitors to their lords and benefactors, which v1 enters in its curiosity and simply due to the fact that little architecture is to be found in this layer. it feels...something, seeing all the stained glass, sculptures, and works dedicated to gabriel's life, and at the end of the long, cold nave, a casket is laid before the altar dressed in funeral rites. as it processes what it sees (in whatever way it can), the resurrected gabriel brutally attacks it - too grieved and too disoriented to think properly, gabriel fully embraces all of his newfound demonic strength to tear v1 apart. his technique is nothing like what is was before, unable to fly, teleport, or call weapons of light, so he just presses v1 with raw power while targeting its weaknesses almost exclusively (namely its wings and blood ports) v1 is ever adaptive though, and of course manages to kick the shit out of him (though it also gets the same treatment, especially as gabriel limits its healing capacities) it makes him come to his senses and, with nowhere else to go, gabriel decides to stay at v1's side and contemplate what he's now to do with all the extra time he's been given.

the au then goes on its own storyline, concerning gabriel's transformation into a complete "demon" and how he handles his prior relationships (namely the ferryman, but also minos and sisyphus), as well as how he and v1 contend with the coming of the three other archangels to reinstate hell's former purpose under the direction of a deeply troubled michael. angelic v1 comes much, much later, when v1's hardware and computer begin to deteriorate to the point that it approaches death - gabriel does all he can to maintain it, but every day v1 fails more and soon....it doesn't wake up. terrified that hell will take it as a puppet, gabriel instead determines to return with its body to heaven and reclaim his lost light as its new life source by tearing his way through the spheres of heaven. overall the au doesn't have the most solid plot, but this covers the major points of it!

#there's also just a lot of additional fun stuff and random things added through asks #i DESPERATELY need to compile all of it in a way that's easier to access.... #i just never thought it would get much interest but im so happy ppl enjoy it!! #cake answers #rise and fall au

[wandamaximoffbaewrites]

Lilacs

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: After Wanda passed away, you can still smell her perfume, lilacs

Warnings: hurt, angst, flashbacks will be italicized, au where Wanda is dead

A/n: good ol' Wanda angst inspired by the lilac bush outside my home. Also Wanda dies of an specified terminal illness and flashbacks will be italicized

Four months. That's how long that light purple perfume bottle has sat in the bathroom, unmoved. It's also how long it's been since Wanda died. Four agony-filled Wanda-less months. You could have sworn that it was just four days since you had sat by her hospital bed.

"Please, Wanda" You held her hand to your lips, your tears slowly trickling and wetting her thin, pale hand. She had been here for a week, with no signs of getting better. The doctors had classified her case as 'terminal.'

As soon as the hospital called (You were her emergency contact) you rushed over. The process at the front desk seemed to take far too long. Relationship to patient? Wife. Are you comfortable with making debt collection calls? Yes, that's fine, can I please just see my wife? Yes, ma'am, go ahead. You walk to room 6B, as stated by the nurse. Knocking softly, you push the door open slowly, peering in at your dozing wife, filled with tubes and surrounded by machines. Just the sight fills your eyes with tears as you walk over to sit next to her. You knew she had been sick, but this seemed to have happened in a flash.

One day she was complaining of a headache and chills, the next she was sleeping in a sterile white room with you crying next to her bed. You kept holding her hand, but jumped back when monitors started beeping loud, alerting that doctors. Subconsciously, you knew. You were rushed out of the room, sobbing and panicking. Fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Two. Three. How can time fly by so fast, yet drag on so slowly? At exactly three fourteen and 57 seconds, you were let into the room, and the tears burst forth from your chest like water from a dam the moment the doctor said the words 'I'm sorry Mrs. Y/L/N...' You choked on your sobs, heaving guttural breaths as you collapsed to the ground.

Two weeks later was the funeral. You didn't remember anything, just remember that you watched as they lowered the shiny, deep brown casket into the damp earth. They piled the dirt back up, and you tenderly brushed excess dirt off of your now late-wife's headstone. You couldn't bring yourself to leave. You sat down next to it, as if it were she beside you. You opened your phone, sobbing as you looked through pictures of you and a happy, healthy, fully alive Wanda. You turned off the screen as the first drops of rain began to splatter. 'Rain.' you thought. 'how cliche.' You heaved yourself up, barely being able to leave. As you passed the large iron gates, tears leaking from your eyes, you passed a lilac bush.

Bringing yourself back to the present, you sank to the floor, cradling the bottle in your hands. You tentatively removed the glass top and spritzed a bit onto your clothes. Just the small waft of scent brought tears to your eyes. You stood up and began to walk around the house, spraying a small bit of perfume on Wanda's favorite places in the house. Her pillow on the couch. The book she never got to finish. Her apron. Her side of the bed. You carefully placed the bottle back on the shelf, inhaling deeply the scent of her throughout the house.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x y/n

[cataztrophi]

TAZ November Celebration 14: Vampire AU

This @taznovembercelebration story was brought to you by my firm belief that Angus McDonald should be able to roast every adult in the TAZ universe at least once. My card for this one was "vampire AU," so I had some fun playing around in a deeply unserious vampire space.

Kravitz first noticed the boy watching his apartment in late autumn. He always showed up a little before sundown, so Kravitz wasn’t sure if he had just started this behavior or if he was just noticing it now that the sun set before he left for his shift at the bar. He was a strange little guy, always clean and well-dressed, with big round glasses that he was constantly pushing up his nose. He kept a journal with him that he was always scribbling in, though Kravitz couldn’t guess what he was writing.

His first clue to the boy’s intentions came in early December. He had just closed and locked the door to his apartment, giving the boy an awkward little nod as usual, when he saw an older woman striding purposefully towards him. 

“Angus McDonald!” she exclaimed, strained worry in her voice. “What on Earth do you think you’re doing?” 

Kravitz took this as his cue to be on his way. As he turned the corner he heard Angus hush the woman frantically.

“I’m investigating the vampires!” he hissed, probably a little louder than he intended. Kravitz laughed to himself on his way down the stairs. It was nice to know his gothic flair was being appreciated. It had been a while since someone had accused him of vampirism, though. Clearly the kid had a big imagination.

The next time he saw Angus, he decided to introduce himself, and maybe lay some of his fears to rest.

“Hey,” he began, “you’re Angus, right? I’m Kravitz.”

Angus eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then stuck out his hand. Kravitz took it, a little surprised by his grave professionalism as Angus shook his hand with a carefully-calculated amount of eye contact. 

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Listen, Angus, I just wanted to let you know, while I might enjoy borrowing some vampire aesthetics, I’m not actually-”

“I’m ten years old, sir,” Angus said, with barely-concealed irritation. “I know what goths are.”

“I- oh.” Kravitz did not spend enough time with kids to know how to handle this.

“And you’re not the one I was talking about, sir. It’s them.” Angus inclined his head towards the apartment next to Kravitz’s with a wary expression on his face. 

Kravitz frowned. “Them? Well, I haven’t seen them around much since they moved in, but it seems a little extreme to jump to conclusions like that.”

Angus shook his head. “But I’m not jumping to conclusions, sir. This is the result of months of careful reconnaissance. Let me review the evidence.” He flipped open his notebook. “First, they never come out during the day. I’ve tracked this very carefully since August and they have never left their apartment before sundown. They even moved in at night.”

Kravitz thought about it. That was unusual, and certainly explained why he didn’t hear them moving in. But still, vampires?

“Lots of people have jobs they go to overnight,” Kravitz offered. “Like me, for instance. Maybe they have jobs like that.”

Angus gave him a pitying look as though Kravitz had just tried to explain that two plus two equals six. “That may be true, but even people who work a night shift come out during the day sometimes. It’s unavoidable since our society is set up with the assumption that people are diurnal. People who mostly come out at night may be common enough, but people who only come out at night have a reason to avoid the day.”

“Okay, you may be right there, but vampires? It still seems like a bit of a leap.”

“I have more evidence, sir!”

“Of course you do.”

Angus flipped to another page in his notebook and scanned it for a moment. “When they moved in, they had two large boxes with them that were just over six feet long. By my estimation, these boxes were exactly the right dimensions for a pair of coffins or caskets. I also examined the floor outside their apartment that night and found traces of dark, sandy soil, which doesn’t match the soil in the complex. It’s my belief that this was grave dirt that fell from their coffins during the move. Furthermore, if you look up at their windows from the courtyard, it appears that they’ve covered them in black plastic or a similar light-blocking material.”

In the midst of this head-spinning rundown, Kravitz found the time to wonder how often Angus looked through apartment windows from the courtyard, and reminded himself to close the curtains during his next impromptu lip-syncing session.

“I have other tests I’d like to run,” Angus continued, “but they would require more direct contact with the subjects, and I’m understandably a bit wary.”

Kravitz stared down at him. “That’s certainly…something…. But what would you do even if you did find out they were vampires? Try to stake them?” He might have to warn his neighbors to be on the lookout for a kid running around with a wooden stake and a crucifix, although he figured Angus wasn’t likely to follow through on such a plan.

Angus shook his head emphatically. “No, sir! As far as I can tell, they don’t seem to be a danger to the community, and I think vampires, if they do exist, have just as much of a right to live as anybody.”

“So why bother investigating at all?”

“To get to the truth!” He said this like it was entirely obvious. “Besides, if vampires exist, think about the implications! We might be surrounded by all sorts of fantastical beings and phenomena that we just don’t know how to look for yet! Wouldn’t you like to know if that was the case?”

Kravitz had to hand it to him, the kid was convincing. “You know, Angus, I suppose I would. Tell you what. I’ll keep an eye out, and let you know if I see anything strange. Just try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

Angus extended a hand again and Kravitz shook it, bemused. “It’ll be a pleasure working with you, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some cross-referencing to do.” He turned and started back towards his own apartment, leaving Kravitz feeling like he was somehow Angus’s sidekick now.

~~~~~

Saturdays were some of the worst nights at the bar, and this one was no different. It was nearly four a.m. before Kravitz dragged himself back to his apartment building, and he couldn’t face the stairs to the fourth floor. Instead he waited for the elevator and slumped against the railing when it arrived. The doors were just sliding shut when he heard someone shout to hold the elevator. He lunged for them, just managing to get his hand between them before they closed completely.

The doors slid open, revealing one of the most beautiful people Kravitz had ever seen. He had long blond hair tied back in a thick braid and eyes sparkling with mischief and ringed with glittery silver eyeliner. He was wearing an incredibly fluffy-looking knitted sweater and holographic platform boots, plus at least three separate statement necklaces. His earrings were made of bubblegum pink plastic and shaped like deer skulls.

“Thanks, my man,” he said as he stepped into the elevator. “Cha’boy was not going to do those stairs tonight.” He grinned, revealing a gap between his front teeth, and Kravitz felt his face heat up instantly.

“No problem,” Kravitz managed to get out, having already turned off the part of his brain responsible for socializing when he left the bar. “What floor?”

“Fourth. Oh! You too, huh?”

Kravitz nodded. He didn’t think he’d seen the man before, but that was hardly surprising considering the hours he kept with work. He’d certainly like to see more of him, if at all possible. 

“Fellow night owl?” he asked, hoping he could somehow turn the conversation in the direction of their respective activities, and then activities they could do together, and then a date and time they could plan for those activities.

The man smiled again, softer this time. “You could say that. I’m Taako.” He extended a hand heavily adorned with costume rings.

Kravitz took it with an answering smile. He was surprised to find that Taako’s hand was even colder than his own.

“You’re freezing,” he noted. “Are you alright?”

Taako wrinkled his nose. “Poor circulation. Maybe you could help with that, handsome.” He winked, and Kravitz felt his knees turn to jello. 

“They say exercise can help,” he said, still feeling out the space a little.

“Ooh, I’d love to get your heart racing.” He looked Kravitz over, clearly taking his time, and it suddenly felt incredibly warm in the elevator.

“I think you already did,” Kravitz said, truthfully. Nothing wrong with his circulation, that was sure.

Taako laughed, sounding genuinely delighted, and Kravitz’s heart leapt. “I’m sure we could think of some other things that would work, too.”

The elevator dinged before Kravitz could reply, and they both stepped out onto the fourth floor.

“This one's mine,” Kravitz said ruefully, gesturing towards his door.

“What a coincidence. Looks like you’re right next door.” Taako took out a key ring that was more novelty keychains than actual keys and unlocked the door to Angus’s suspected vampire nest.

Kravitz couldn’t help but laugh. He couldn't imagine anyone who looked less like a vampire than this sunny, freckled blond, even if he was almost supernaturally pretty.

“Well, now that we've met I can report your vampire status back to my superiors,” he quipped, realizing the moment he said it that Taako didn't have any of the context needed to make that not sound insane. A moment after that, he realized that, in the absence of proper context, Taako had apparently assumed that he was saying something awful. Taako’s inviting smile disappeared so quickly it seemed like he'd flipped a switch, and his eyes grew dark and flat. Before Kravitz could explain, or apologize, or really think, Taako’s hand closed around his shirt collar and he was being pulled into Taako’s darkened apartment. 

Unable to clearly reconstruct the sequence of events that led to this moment, Kravitz found himself pinned against the back of the door, with Taako pressing one hand over his mouth and the other on the center of his chest. It didn’t hurt, per se, but there was enough pressure behind it to indicate that it could hurt, if Taako felt like it. Kravitz was having a lot of mixed and quite frankly contradictory feelings about this turn of events. 

“Listen.” Taako's voice was quiet and carefully measured. “I'm not going to hurt you.” Kravitz found this hard to believe. It would be just his luck if his hot new neighbor turned out to be a serial killer or something. “I know you're not just going to stake us, cause then you wouldn't have said anything. So tell me who you're working for, and what you know, and then we can talk about a deal.”

Taako’s eyes looked strangely reflective in the dim candlelight of his apartment, almost like a cat's eyes. And was Kravitz seeing things, or did his teeth look longer and sharper than before?

No fucking way. If Angus had been right Kravitz was going to throw himself into the sea.

“I'm going to uncover your mouth, okay?” Kravitz nodded, as much as he could with Taako’s hand pressed against his face. In other circumstances he would have been enjoying this. Honestly, part of him was enjoying this, which probably said something about his self-preservation instincts, or how long he'd been single, or both.

Taako pulled his hand back, leaving the one on his chest. “Who do you work for, and what do you know?”

Kravitz swallowed. His mouth was uncomfortably dry now. “I work for The Astral, it's a cocktail bar downtown. And I know… well, apparently a lot less than I thought I did. Speaking of which, I'd actually like to go back to something real quick?”

 He began to put his hands up, but as soon as his muscles shifted Taako pushed against his chest a little harder in warning. “Are you telling me you are actually a vampire? And you think I'm… what? Some sort of vampire hunter?”

Taako’s eyes went wide. Then his shoulders slumped and he let go of Kravitz. “Son of a bitch. You didn't know shit, did you?”

Kravitz shrugged apologetically. “If it helps, I see how you would have gotten that impression.”

“Fuck!”

“Taako?” Another voice came from around the corner and a woman in a long red bathrobe who looked startlingly like Taako appeared. “Is everything-” She broke off when she saw Kravitz. “Who's this?”

“Kravitz,” he introduced himself, at the same time Taako said “Nobody.”

The woman crossed her arms. “Getting some contradictory messages here, gang.”

“I live next door,” Kravitz offered. Now that it didn’t seem like he was in immediate danger, he was taking comfort from the fact that everyone else seemed just as clueless about how to deal with this situation as he was. “I think we had kind of a misunderstanding, and well….”

The woman turned to Taako. “Does he know?”

Taako winced. “You know, Lup, funny story about that….”

Lup rolled her eyes. “You told him, didn't you?”

“I thought he already knew!”

“Taako, I swear, if we have to move again-”

“I'm not going to tell anyone, if it helps,” Kravitz said.

She rounded on him. “You’re not going to tell anyone that you’ve just discovered bloodthirsty monsters living in your apartment complex?”

Kravitz raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re making some unfair assumptions about me. I haven’t seen any evidence that you’ve been hurting people, and if you were just mindless killers I have a feeling I wouldn’t be talking right now.” Gods, he hoped he was right.

Taako and Lup exchanged a thoughtful glance. Finally Lup shrugged. “You deal with this, Koko. I’m gonna go take a bath.” She headed back towards the hallway before freezing suddenly. “In water, and maybe a bath bomb. Whoever invented the whole “bathing in blood” thing did not know how coagulation works.”

She walked off, leaving Taako and Kravitz staring at each other.

“Can I… ask you a question?” Kravitz asked hesitantly.

Taako shrugged and sat down on the arm of the faded, floral-patterned sofa behind him. “Ask away, my man.”

“Where do you get the blood?”

He laughed. “Volunteer system, baby!”

Kravitz stared at him. “Really.”

“Scout’s honor!”

“And that fits the demand? I mean, there’s enough people who’d let a vam-” He stopped himself. “Okay, yeah, saying it out loud it makes sense.”

“Welcome to 2023, my dude. Everybody’s horny for vampires.”

Kravitz was in no position to dispute this.

Taako perched, birdlike, on the arm of the sofa, that mischievous light back in his eyes. “Okay, Taako’s turn to ask a question.”

“Go ahead.”

Taako squinted at him, contemplating. “What do you get out of it? Not telling anyone, I mean.”

Kravitz’s heart skipped a beat. “Dinner?” he said, before he could talk himself out of it. There were some things you just had to do for the sake of your depressed teenage baby goth self. 

Taako smirked at him and climbed down from the couch, walking towards him with a sort of feline grace that had him mesmerized. “Oh, I’d love to have you for dinner, handsome.”

He blinked. Was that a threat or a come-on? Should he be more concerned about this?

To be clear,” he added hurriedly, “this isn’t some sort of blackmail thing, where I go find Dr. Van Helsing if you won’t go out with me.” Taako laughed, and Kravitz couldn’t help but smile as well. He already loved the sound. “I’d just… I’d like to get to know you a little better. It doesn’t have to be dinner, either, if that’s an issue….”

“I don’t know, I was really looking forward to sucking you dry.” His smile was knife-sharp, and probably just as deadly, as he continued towards him.

Okay, that one had to be a come-on, right? Surely. Right? Whichever it was, Kravitz was beginning to wish he was still pinned against the wall, just to give his legs some much-needed support. 

“I-” 

Before he could ask for clarification Taako grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him, rough and eager, pressing him against the back of the door. 

“When’s your next night off?” Taako asked when he pulled back, a little breathless. Wait, did vampires breathe? Shit. Focus up, Kravitz. He would have to ask about it later, though.

“Wednesday.” His voice was low and unsteady. 

“Pick me up here at 7? You can take me dancing.”

Kravitz nodded, and a moment later he was back in the hallway. Still a little dazed, it took him longer than usual to unlock his door. One question kept circling back around in his mind, in the space between the drastic reshaping of his worldview and the agitated excitement for his upcoming date. What was he going to tell Angus?

#taz november celebration #taz balance #taako #lup #taz kravitz #taakitz #angus mcdonald #troph writes

[mayullla]

Title: The Wisp

Character(s): Venti (Genshin Impact)

Summary: Haunted Doll au; Instead of sleeping in your grandfather's arms you continued to stare at the closed room.

Note: Okay this is the last one for the week- probably-

Warnings/tags: Grandfather pov, child!reader, fem!reader, horror, platonic yandere

Haunted doll au masterlist

Your grandfather cradled you in his arms, both your mom and dad had appointments at work to attend to that day and had asked your grandfather if they could leave you with him. Your grandfather was kind enough to say yes as he did enjoy his time with his little granddaughter.

Right after your mother left you at his place, your grandfather planned on letting you take your afternoon nap slowly rocking you so that you would fall asleep.

Yet you did not.

Your grandfather frowned, he thought that having the doll Zhongli in your arms you would be able to peacefully sleep yet you continued to stare at something. Holding Zhongli tightly in your arms you continued to stare at a certain door.

When he asked you if you wanted to go there, there was a shine in your eyes that told him your answer. 

Your grandfather thought your interest was innocent seeing the last time you went there was when you got Zhongli, he took you to that room. Slowly opening the door he showed what was inside.

The space was almost like a long corridor with glass shelves on each side and each shelf had dolls in them some cracked, broken and some complete yet piled with dust and lifeless.

The curiosity on your face as you looked at each one of them and then your grandfather, your curious eyes that stared at him as if asking what they were and why they were here. It made your grandfather wonder why he understood your thoughts when he didn't even understand his son when he was your age.

Your grandfather was quick to chalk it up to experience, something that he gained after so long. Smiling at you he walked towards one of the glass panels so that it could be easier for you to see the dolls that were inside. "These dolls here are dolls that I could not sell. Dolls that broke down due to time and age because of poor materials back when I was young and dolls that did want to be sold."

You glanced at the dolls again inside the panel where dolls of all kinds but there was one in particular that caught your eyes. Your grandfather looked at the doll you had your eyes trained on too and smiled "That doll is called Venti. He was supposed to be a pair with another doll. They were supposed to be together... a small boy and his little wisp."

Your grandfather adjusted his hold on you, yet your eyes continue to look at the doll. "It was unfortunate really but while I was in the progress of finishing the boy with an arrow and bow the… hmmm how to say light? The light suddenly disappeared."

Your grandfather looked at the doll with regret, the cheerful smile the doll had yet it looked so dead. He remembered giving this particular doll to his teacher when he was young and his teacher told him that there was something odd about this doll, that even tho everything was meticulously made there was something in that doll that somehow died that your grandfather's teacher told him that he would never be able to sell this doll.

"Back then I thought that it was a shame to throw a doll like this that I placed wisp light into it." The shrieks after that time were terrifying as if it didn't want this at all and that it wanted to be free but your father was young back then, he didn't understand and was too stubborn as he forced the light into a casket it could not accept.

The crying that came after it kept the old man awake for days but at some point, the sounds of tears and pain died down to what sounded akin to sniffles even tho it sounded more like ringing to his ears.

Maybe that was why he was desperate enough to try and sell it, he wanted nothing to do with the sounds that were irrupting to that doll nor the crawling feeling it gave late at night as if something invisible was trying to choke him...

It got better, slowly but he could not look at the doll anymore placing the doll in the center stage of the shop so that there was a possibility that it would be gone in the next few days.

Yet no one gave interest in it even tho everyone could see that he worked hours and hours on it. As if something was making them avoid looking the doll eye to eye, even when he placed the doll right in front of them they would see the doll and even with its light and cheerful smile on the face, there was not even a hint of interest.

"Ah… ah…" Your grandfather was brought back to reality when he head the small sound you made as you reached out for the doll only to be blocked by glass. "Wah… Ah…"

"Do you want it?" Your grandfather asked in surprise. "Uhn!" You continued to slam your chubby hand to the glass as if you could break it so that you finally hold the doll that was behind it.

Your grandfather was hesitant but something compelled him to open the glass as if something grabbed his wrist forcing him to move yet not so and take out the doll from its stand. Moving the doll near you, with one hand still holding Zhongli you reached out with your other hand.

There was guilt in your grandfather's heart yet his curiosity was unending as he gave the doll to you.

When the doll was placed on your arm, you soon fell asleep leaving your grandfather alone in the room.

#genshin haunted dolls au #platonic yandere #yandere #genshin impact #genshin venti #genshin imagines #genshin scenarios #yandere genshin imagines #genshin au #genshin haunted doll au #genshin x reader #fem!reader #child!reader #yandere x reader #yandere imagine #yandere x you #genshin impact x reader #tw horror #genshin yandere #yandere venti

[whumpacabra]

28. Watchers

Fear for loved ones safety, angst, briefly mentioned fictional politics, referenced stalking

AU Masterpost / Previous / Next

Jennings was a hard person to find out of necessity - they might not have had a price on their head in the states, but they weren’t well liked in many circles. It came with the territory; one could only expose so much corruption and bigotry before they had more enemies than friends.

The Gomez’ were certainly some of their few friends, but that didn’t bring a smile to their face at the name on the caller ID. They had last seen Katie at her brother’s funeral months ago, but hadn’t talked to her since.

A random phone call at this ungodly hour was bad news.

“Jen?”

“Kat. What’s wrong?” They could hear how tight her voice was, fear and grief thick as her breathing shook.

“Oh God. I don’t know where to start…”

“Are you in danger?” Jennings pulled their glasses on and turned on the light by their hotel bed. They were a solid two hours away, but if Katie needed them, they’d break every speed limit to get there.

“I - maybe? Okay, okay.” She took a deep nasally breath, exhale forced between tight lips. “Harrison is alive.”

Jennings took pause with that. It made their stomach turn, reality reorienting itself. They had stood by while Katie and her family buried an empty casket for their childhood friend. It was always a possibility that he survived, just not one they had entertained.

“How?”

“I - I don’t know but, but…fuck he called, okay? He called a - a few hours ago. Phone line went dead just as we were wrapping up and - “

“His end or yours?”

“Mine. Car crash on 63 took out the telephone pole.” Katie swallowed hard. “I don’t think they’re monitoring our phone line, yet.”

“Who?”

“Harrison - Harrison said there were people looking for him. That they’d probably start watching us here.” There was a muffled clatter, window blinds creaking distantly. “I don’t think we’re being watched, yet. I needed to call as soon as I could to give you his number.”

“Which is?” They had a pen and paper at the ready, copying down the number as Katie recited it. A familiar area code. “Hm, that’s an Idaho number. I’d have to check for the county - ”

“Where?”

“Katie.”

“I’m not - not going to just, jump in a plane tonight and leave my kid I just…”

“I’ll find him Katie. And I’ll do my damn best to bring him home in one piece.” Their words were confident, and her sigh was relieved. “Did he tell you anything else? Any idea if he’s alone or with others?”

“Hm I don’t…I’m not sure. He - it sounded like he was talking to someone else for a second, when checking if I could give you this number. Um,” Katie’s breathing shuddered, “he said he crawled out of hell. I - I don’t know what kinda shape he’s in.”

“Don’t worry Kat. Can’t be worse than anything I’ve seen before.” It very much could be worse. “How’s Awesome? Does Mel know?”

“Mel knows she - she answered the phone when he called. Poor kiddo’s holding it together pretty well. Awesome is on a 16 hour shift. I - I didn’t want to call him while he’s at work and you know how he’d get if he knew there might be folks stalking us.”

“Speaking of, keep an eye out. Remember the tips I told you?”

“Of course. You’re always keeping us updated on your bad FBI tails.”

“I have a specific set of skills.” Jennings laughed humorlessly, tapering to a sigh. “Watch your back Katie. Do you have a burner?”

“Yeah.”

“Use that if you need to call me next. I’ll keep this number until then - after that I’ll switch to my own burner.” They stood, moonlight streaming pale and blue between the blinds. “I’ll head out ASAP. You get some sleep and keep your head on a swivel.”

AU Masterpost / Previous / Next

(An AU of my Freelancers series)

Taglist: @i-eat-worlds @whumpy-daydreams

#whump #angst #fear for others safety #fictional politics #referenced stalking #freelancers au #ope more plot sorry. Harrison will be having a bad time tomorrow don’t you worry none.

[snowangeldotmp3]

time for more ouat au Lore! this time: steddie edition

this is how steve dresses in the real world. in the real world he’s a teacher at the school (honestly debated on teacher or keeping him at the family video but i think teacher worked better) keeping in with actual ouat lore, he’d be the one to give max the story book.

in the enchanted forest/fairytale land. steve was a prince. a prince who was originally supposed to marry nancy (and uh. that didn’t go as planned) but he’s like, the prince. (he resents being called prince charming but, it’s the truth!) but these are his outfits/outfit references for prince steve

in the real world, eddie is a mechanic. he can fix any car (or really, anything you bring to him) but he’s also a DM for his dnd group and he plays guitar/sings for his band, corroded coffin. but when he’s not working in the auto shop, wearing cuffed/rolled up coveralls, he’s wearing this

in the enchanted forest/fairytale land, eddie is a blacksmith! he and wayne work on weapons and such. until one day he decides he’s had enough of royal tyranny and their oppressive reign. so he decides to rob the princes carriage (steve’s carriage) turns out, he meets steve and though he’s incredibly reluctant to admit it, it’s true love. they go from enemies to lovers, fighting off curses—the biggest one being the sleeping curse. eddie is put under a sleeping curse, and wayne, thinking he’s dead, gives him a glass casket. but steve knows better, and he knows he’s the one who has to bring eddie back. and he does! so these outfits range from eddie’s ‘bandit’ outfit to ‘holy shit i’m with prince steve harrington’ outfits

(tagging @gothbat99 and @perceivedregret bc i thought y’all might like to see!!)

#ouat au #steddie #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #they are snow white and prince charming coded TO ME #i have a jargyle version too!! working on that :) #i wanted it to be very important tho that in this version (unlike actual ouat) that eddie does not come from a place of royalty #he is a commoner who does indeed fall for the prince #and steve is the prince who falls for the commoner #eddie has his long hair in both universes btw. and he wears it in a ponytail when working! #steve wears glasses when he teaches! they’re just reading glasses tho #there’s more lore here abt like. them in the real world vs fairytale world but that’s for later

[landslided]

Hear me out>:) lawrusso AU: Johnny is Snow White, Miguel Robin etc are the seven dwarfs, Kreese is the evil queen and Daniel is the prince

aaaah sorry i didn’t see this yesterday! yes!! it would be so cute! okay let me get into this:

aesthetically daniel has more snow white vibes and johnny would absolutely rock either a cinderella fit or a sleeping beauty one but in terms of story it would fit so well! also i feel totally normal about evil king kreese who would ask the hunter (bobby?) to take out johnny because he’s threatening his power, he’s the actual heir, etc etc. (he’s the prettiest princess in the karate kingdom!) bobby would of course let johnny leave because that’s his buddy and johnny would go and find a little house in the woods. im thinking maybe all that happens when they’re young (and prince daniel might have had a crush/rivalry with prince johnny when they were kids) and then we flash forward to johnny, now a very resourceful guy who lives at the edges of the kingdom and has this pack of kids who lives with him. he’s friends with people in the village at the outskirts of the forest and even if he’s a bit of a mess, they all act like they don’t know that the guy who comes around and sometimes help to fix their rooftops and stuff is the lost prince of the kingdom.

daniel is sent on a quest to find the lost prince because his own kingdom is under attack from king kreese and another mysterious monarch (you know it’s silver) and he needs to strengthen his kingdom’s claim to certain titles and lands. bobby kinda leads him to where he thinks johnny might be but he warns him that johnny will probably refuse to come back so daniel has to work his charm and get him to agree to fight with them so maybe daniel plays the role of a vagabond traveler who just happens to find johnny’s home and the kids are like “johnny!! you can’t kick him out!! he has nowhere to go!!" and then of course, falling in love montage before the big reveal that daniel has hidden his identity ("you LIED to me!" "i had to! im sorry, i just wanted you to give me a chance to explain myself but everything else is real, this thing between you and me is real, i swear!") and for a while daniel has to leave because johnny is so hurt but then he’s called back to the house by miguel because, surprise, johnny got poisoned (now you get to imagine either silver or kreese dressed like old ladies with poisoned apples) and they’ve put him in this glass casket and he’s so eerily beautiful but daniel doesn’t like how still he looks, how pale and he just, presses a small kiss to johnny’s lips, just to say goodbye and then you know, true love and all that jazz. (they kick kreese and silver’s asses and get married and daniel introduces his children to johnny’s rag tag team of kids and johnny introduces his friend carmen to platonic consort amanda)

#thank you for this ask it was so cute! (this is very self indulgent in the best way) #*asks #ask AUs

[breadedsinner]

Mark of the Red Death

A sebhawke Necromancer AU for @persephoneggsy. Happy birthday!

-

“Do you know what the most powerful force in the universe is?” Hawke’s mentor once asked her. She shook her head in uncertainty. “Love,” he said. She still did not understand, at the time.

*

By the time Hawke entered the castle, blood had become part of the walls, oozing from the cracks. Red handprints smeared across the castle walls, crisscrossing over one another until they became a single beast, clawing for release that never came. Banners and carpets torn, tossed in every direction. A few abandoned weapons were strewn about. Anyone could see this was a struggle, brutal and very recent, but to someone like Hawke, a mage so in touch with death, standing in the middle of it was like being in the belly of an animal, and feeling it die all around her. The clangs of steel still echoed in the halls, shadows of victims running to an escape they would never reach danced in the shadows. Their final heartbeats still hung in the air.

As foul as it was, the gore was not especially notable for Hawke. Every known nation in Thedas worshipped death in some way or another, and mages such as her were its disciples. Of course, some feared what she could do, some outright reviled, and yet she found herself highly sought after. Everything from mixing potions to communing with the dead; if it involved magic, Hawke could do it. It was the only way a simple Ferelden farmgirl could ever mingle with Tevinter Magisters and Orlesian Chevaliers. It was the only reason she was here, in this gutted Starkhaven palace.

It was not the blood that disturbed her this day, but whose blood it belonged to.

She proceeded down another hall, torn carpet under his feet, sunlight refracted through broken glass. As the chamber door appeared, she hurried, an anxious lump in her throat. She knew what she would find, but still hoped it was not so.

She threw the chamber door open and found her student, Dorian, standing over caskets. He loomed over her, she being a petite woman, but he looked upon her with reverence. He was of high Tevinter lineage, but even with all his expensive education, his own dabbles in Necromancy never came to more than raising a few long-dead corpses to stumble for a few moments. There was a reason his former mentor sent him to her.

As she walked, she looked at all the caskets, lined up in a row. Some of them were very small. All of them were closed, though Dorian was peeking inside the one at the far end.

“Is that him?” she said, her usually blunt voice cracked.

“Yes,” he said with remorse. "He is the only one in decent condition."

Dorian open the casket and they both studied the person inside. A young man--could not have been much older than either of them--lay still, with eyes closed. They could see the bronze sheen of his skin still leaving his body, the luster of his slicked brown hair coming undone. Plush lips formed a faint, serene smile, but the color was fading by the moment, cracks forming.

Hawke ran a finger along the slope of the prince’s slender cheekbone. "This is him, the youngest of the three Starkhaven princes. Did you examine the body? What did you find?”

“I did,” said Dorian, his voice solemn but with a tinge of eagerness, wanting to perform well for his renowned mentor. “He was lucky, in a way. Got an arrow in the chest while trying to lead others to a secret exit. He was so close, too. Another second and he might have made it."

Her finger ghost down the outline of his face, lingered on his chin, then she made a fist. A purple light, wafting and warbling the air, illuminated her fingernails and surged through her skin.

"You're going to bring him back?" said Dorian, trying to suppress to excitement in his voice.

"For a moment," said Hawke, her icy blue eyes turning like frosted amethyst. "long enough to ask him what happened here."

Hawke opened her palm and pressed it against the prince's chest. Purple light washed over her body and passed through him, as though she were transfusing her own energy into him. Dorian tensed, looking for color to return to the corpse, betraying his logical mind, knowing that's not how Necromancy worked. At least not any form that he or any journeyman mage was aware of, though there were tales of spells that could keep resurrected corpses near perfectly alive again, at a great cost to both caster and corpse. But not even an esteemed sorceress like Hawke could perform such a feat.

Hawke pushed harder, a bead of sweat against her pale brow. Her fingers clenched against the prince's blood-stained tunic when his eyes popped open. Dorian and the prince gasped at the same time, both shocked at the spell's success.

“Ah…” the prince’s cloudy blue eyes looked about; his body twitched as if waking from a long slumber. When his eyes cleared and found focus, they immediately locked onto Hawke, a wide, elated smile followed. “Marian!” he cried; his arms opened for her.

“You know the Prince of Starkhaven?” asked Dorian.

“He courted me briefly,” Hawke said, voice casual and flat.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, Marian,” the prince’s voice was deep and sorrowful, his eyes pouring over Hawke. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I’m sorry, Sebastian, but there’s no time,” said Hawke, still steady. “Do you know what happened?”

His smile immediately faded. “I … I do.”

“If we’re going to get any justice for you and your family, you need to tell me everything you know. And hurry, I can’t keep up the spell forever.”

“Those … people who stormed the castle. They had no flag, but I heard their whispers, as I tried to escape. Lady Johane Harimann hired them. If you search them, I’m sure you will find further proof.”

“That’s a good start. Walk me through your last hours.”

The prince only seemed to move his upper body, his hands clearly aching to reach for Hawke. His eyes still foggy with death, yet they almost glimmered at the sight of her, like stars glittering through clouds of night.

As he finished, Hawke placed her hand over his. The purple light around her slowly dimmed, she sighed, and the prince began to fall back.

"Dorian," said Hawke, the last of her magic faded. "Start examining the mercenary bodies. Take account of all that are in decent shape."

"Are you going to 'interview' them, too?"

"I might, though I'll need to restrain them first. But let's see what we can find on them, first."

"Very well," he took a few steps out the chamber. "And... for what's it's worth, I'm sorry about..."

"Please go, Dorian," she said, her words blunt as stone. "I need to think."

"Of course," and he hurried out.

Hawke sighed as she heard the door clack, and the footsteps faded. She tried to collect herself with deep, slow breaths. She had walked battlefields and massacres, bloody accidents and cruel forces of nature. The sight of blood stirred no emotion after a time, yet the smell of death, the force that hung like heavy fog, still became overwhelming if she lingered too long. All the worse, that it was someone she knew. Someone she loved.

One more steadying breath. She has already made her decision when she first heard the news, and she was never one to go back on a decision once she made it.

She brought her hand to the prince's chest again, this time with a crackling red light. When she touched his skin, he shuddered and buzzed, like streaks of lightning consuming his heart. Blood rose in his face, spreading color throughout. Crackles of red light crisscrossed against the arrow wound; it did not heal to become normal skin again, but the blood and the gash were gone, replaced with a jagged crimson patch. A memory of death.

He groaned, and the corners of his eyes crinkled.

Marian sighed in relief but was immediately stricken by a sharp pain in her chest; the magic taking its due, boiling a patch of her skin, parallel to the prince’s.

"Marian," he said softly, less a jolting rise, and more a gentle awakening, as if stirred slowly late in the morning by a lover's touch.

"Oh, my sweet Sebastian," she said, her voice cracking. "I never should have left your side. If only I had..."

"Shh, it's all right, my love," he leaned into her palm and kissed the inside. "I know you'll make this right."

"I will," she said, and she leaned into the casket to kiss him. She felt the magic as it worked, re-threading muscles, erasing the cracks. A healthy dark olive hue poured over his face, spilling into his neck, then his chest. If anything, his kiss was even more tender than she remembered. “Listen, dearest one. I can’t bring anyone else back. I have given half my life to fuel yours. You feel pain, I feel pain. You die, I die.”

“I always wanted for us to share in everything,” he said, his voice as slow and sweet as honey, as if nothing in the world was wrong.

"I'll make sure everyone even remotely responsible pays dearly for what happened here. We shall wreak this vengeance together, and I will never leave your side again."

The prince looked upon her with clear, piercing blue eyes. "Never."

*

Hawke did not understand her mentor’s words about love in her youth. Even now, she was not certain if it was meant to be encouragement or warning. But on this day, she chose her own meaning for it.

#Dragon Age #Hawke #Sebastian Vael #sebhawke #Marian Hawke #Soulmark AU #Kind of? #Fanfiction #Writing Tag #alternate universe #The more I think about this AU the more I like it so hopefully this won't be the last of it

[renaerys]

Open Casket, Open Bar (SasoSaku Month 2022)

Summary: It's the day of the Third Tsuchikage's funeral, but a blond, idiot-shaped successor has misplaced his corpse, oh no! Luckily, Sasori knows his way around a dead body, and Sakura can't help but sort of be super into it.

Rating: T

World: Another Kazekage!Sasori AU featuring please-don’t-drag-me-into-your-bullshit Sakura, who is promptly dragged into all of the bullshit.

Read it below or on AO3 

xxx

Sasori didn’t do funerals. Not for lack of dead people to bury (by that metric, he was top of the leaderboard because the leaderboard was the War and war was his business, or used to be). Not for lack of trying, either (Chiyo had an aggressive case of that musty, greasy-sweet old people smell and her teeth popped out when she cackled, which were all very good reasons to remind her to please hurry up and croak any day now). 

But Chiyo was back in Suna probably rearranging all his furniture because she knew how much he hated it when she did that. He was going to come home to find an entire sofa in his kitchen again because she liked to sit comfortably while waiting for her tea to steep and these old bones can’t be running around your house all day. Sasori debated poisoning her when he got back, but she’d surely take that as an invitation for retaliation or worse, a sign of affection.

And anyway, Sasori was here at some old dead guy’s wake in Iwa—

(“How did you know Grandpa Shin?”)

(“Who?”)

—availing himself of the open bar—

(“I’m sorry for your loss.”)

(“Sorry enough to hand over the whole bottle?”)

—with Kakashi’s extremely uncooperative head medic.

“You are not getting wasted at a funeral,” she hissed, snatching the bottle of whiskey out of his hands, “sir.” To spite him, she took a swig from the bottle directly.

As if this would deter him. 

“This isn’t our funeral,” Sasori reminded her. 

“That is even worse. What if they kick us out? Gods, what if someone recognizes us?” She took another sip from the bottle. 

With her bright pink hair and the infamous Yin Seal tramp-stamped onto her generously wide forehead, Haruno Sakura was perhaps more recognizable on sight than even Sasori himself, at least when he was not in his office’s full regalia, like right now. Meaning, if they were found out and then forcibly ejected from Iwa for the rest of eternity, it would one hundred percent be her fault. 

Ergo, the drinking.

“If you continue to look suspiciously around like you’re waiting for the opportune time to snatch the corpse from its casket and escape before anyone notices, you will absolutely be recognized.”

“Except we are waiting for that opportune time and we are here to steal a corpse, actually.”

Sasori laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and leaned into her personal space. She shivered when he pressed his mouth close enough to her ear to feel the warmth of his words, as softly delivered as a stiletto between the ribs. “Perhaps don’t announce our nefarious plan before we can actually pull it off, Sakura.”

“Sir, I…” Distracted by the warmth behind his words and the threatening shape they took, Sakura didn’t notice when he took the whiskey bottle back and slid it out of her reach. Only when he pulled back and took a self-satisfied drink directly from the bottle did her flushed, dreamy expression warp with indignation. “That was very dirty.”

“You are easily distracted.”

“And you are the Kazekage—” Sakura lowered her voice to a scene-appropriate quietly choke on glass, please level. “I cannot believe I was roped into this. I don’t even work for you.”

Sasori could believe it. Every business dinner or summit he had attended with Kakashi over the years, Sakura had been there as part of his Hokage entourage. She’d always been well-spoken and erudite, and she made up for Kakashi’s indolence and casual lack of propriety with no-bullshit professionalism and efficiency whenever work was involved. The Suna-Konoha alliance didn’t maintain itself; that was the job of the respective guards, assistants, and advisors of the Kazekage’s and Hokage’s offices. Between her, Nara Shikamaru, Temari, and Kankuro, the alliance had survived a decade strong. 

Of course she was getting roped into this latest nonsense. Kakashi certainly wasn’t going to do it himself.

Sasori refilled the glass he’d been using and nudged it toward her across the bar. “No, but I am not about to kidnap and transport the Tsuchikage’s misplaced corpse across town without cashing in on a long overdue favor.”

Sakura grimaced. She accepted the whiskey glass without protest and brought it to her lips. Easily won-over too, Sasori mused, hiding a smirk behind another drag from the bottle.

“I am going to burn every dirty magazine in Kakashi’s collection when we get back to Konoha.”

“If you’re set on felony retribution, I would suggest you focus your energies on the hapless idiot who got us into this mess.”

In and out and no one’ll even notice you’re gone, Deidara had said. I can’t leave the wake or I’d do it myself, he’d said. Deidara had unfortunately not agreed to Sasori’s very reasonable suggestion to abdicate his position as Tsuchikage-elect immediately so that he could leave Oonoki’s wake and go collect the body-swapped corpse himself. 

(“Deidara, you cannot possibly be serious.”)

(“Serious as a prostate exam, yeah.”)

(“But how could you have lost track of Oonoki’s body? You are not even formally in power yet. Overseeing your predecessor’s funeral rights is literally your only job right now.”)

(“Listen, there were a lot of old dead fuckers at the morgue and they all looked the same, and the paperwork was taking forever, and it was colder than a snowman’s ballsack down there, and— Okay, okay, I know I fucked up.”)

(“You have colossally fucked up.”)

(“Day zero and I already shit the bed—”)

(“A bed of lies and ineptitude of the highest order.”)

(“I get it, okay? My man, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. No one will miss you for a couple hours except me, yeah.”)

(“So not only do you want me to clean up your mess and commit a treaty-breaking felony for you, but you’re also suggesting I am so unsociable and disliked that no one will care that I’m gone.”)

(“I mean, I was trying to compliment our beautiful bond of friendship, but tell me more about your popularity complex, yeah.”)

(“Deidara.”)

(“Yuh-huh?”)

(“Stop fucking talking.”)

“No no, as far as I’m concerned Deidara is your dead body to bury. I don’t care how many favors Kakashi owes you; I draw the line at being loaned out for body snatching contract work. Sir.” Sakura added the honorific as an afterthought, a respectfully, fuck you that made Sasori grin. Unfortunately, she was preoccupied with her drink and her self-pity and didn’t notice him watching her. 

Not that Sasori had expected the Hokage to accompany him personally (in his experience, Kakashi was supernaturally good at getting out of his responsibilities or else being so monumentally unhelpful in them that everyone else decided it was best he not bother). But he also had not expected Kakashi to offer up his head medic in his place. 

(“So just to make sure I understand you correctly, you want to help Deidara—”)

(“I supremely fucking don’t, actually—”)

(“—crash someone else’s funeral to steal back the Tsuchikage’s cadaver—”)

(“It’s not a party, Kakashi. No one will be crashing anything—”)

(“—and bring it back here before anyone notices the dead guy in the casket is actually just some random farmer?”)

(“Yes. You owe me.”)

(Kakashi had smiled warmly behind that childish mask he insisted on wearing to this day. “Well, lucky for you, I know someone who’s very good with a dead body.”)

“He said what?” Sakura gripped her glass so hard it broke in her hand. 

Sasori sighed. There was no point in belaboring the point. They were here, and they were not leaving without all four-and-a-half feet of their decomposing prize. He flagged down one of the bartenders to clean up the shards and spilled whiskey. The man looked from Sakura’s distraught face and the mess she’d made to Sasori with his fist white-knuckling around the neck of the bottle and made a noise of sympathy.

“My deepest condolences for your loss—”

“Please go away,” Sakura interrupted at the same time as Sasori said, “You can fuck off now.”

The bartender snatched the towel full of broken glass and backed away slowly. 

“You are very rude, you know,” Sakura said. 

“That’s my right as Kazekage.”

She rolled her eyes and reached for a new glass behind the bar. Sasori poured her a couple fingers and watched her throw them back in one shot, make a face at the burn, and decisively push the glass away. “Okay, so we are actually doing this. Gods forgive me.”

“It’s Deidara who should be asking for forgiveness at the end of this.”

“That is one funeral I will happily attend.”

“Cheers.”

xxx

Predictably, Sasori did not like her suggestion that they mingle and at least try to look like they belonged at this wake. If left to his own devices, Sakura was sure he would remain sitting at the bar, get completely sloshed, and leave her to do all the heavy lifting, literally. Well, not today. Sakura had taken her best friend Ino’s advice and chosen a form-flattering black dress in the western style for the Tsuchikage’s funeral, elegant for the occasion but hot enough to wear to the bars she planned to visit afterwards with Shī and Kiri and the other medics she’d become friendly with over the years at these international gatherings. If she had to be here plotting to commit a crime, then she was going to make the most of how good she looked. 

The event was lively, at least, as lively as a funeral could be. There was bar music playing, and the dive bar that the family had rented out for the occasion was set up with standing tables for people to gather and chat. Some of the guests laughed as they traded stories about the deceased’s happier memories. The open casket at the back of the room was surrounded with offerings of food, dried flowers, and framed pictures. It was actually quite a nice event that someone had clearly put some effort into planning. Too bad they were celebrating the wrong dead body. 

Sakura set her shoulders and wandered to the viewing casket, where a young woman stood weeping quietly. “Are you all right?” she asked, handing her a tissue. 

“Hm? Oh, yes, I’m sorry,” the young woman said. She accepted the tissue and blew her nose. “It’s just so sad!”

Sakura had no choice but to take back the used tissue when the woman handed it back. “Super sad.”

“Even in death, he looks so young and vibrant, don’t you think so?”

Sakura peered at the weathered face of Oonoki, former Third Tsuchikage of Iwa, frowning so hard he looked like he’d died constipated. “Um…”

“How did you know Grandpa Shin?”

Shit, don’t panic.

Just be cool. 

What would Ino do?

“We dated,” Sakura said smoothly (nailed it).

The young woman stopped crying. “I’m sorry, did you just say you dated Grandpa Shin?”

“What?”

I said what now?

The young woman looked quite lucid as she regarded Sakura. “Oh my stars, are you that nurse Aunt Rinko fired? Michiko something or other?” She gasped. “I knew it! You did seduce him, and they tried to cover it up.”

Sakura sensed that this was spiraling way out of control. “Whoa, okay, well first of all, I’m actually a doctor, not a nurse—”

“Like I wouldn’t figure it out.” She was in her own head now, not even seeing Sakura. “Shotaro is gonna shit his pants when I tell him we were right this whole time.”

“Who? Hey, wait a minute, you don’t have to tell anyone—aaaand she’s gone.”

The young woman darted off to spread her hot gossip, leaving Sakura alone with Oonoki’s open casket feeling oddly sheepish. “This is your fault,” she berated the dead body.

“Paying your respects, I see.” Sasori appeared out of nowhere looking irritable, like a recurring rash. At least he didn’t sound like he’d been drinking. “How did mingling go?”

“I think I just landed myself in a sex scandal with a 90-year-old man.”

“You were gone for five minutes.”

“It was an accident.”

Sasori peered at Oonoki resting peacefully in the wrong coffin. Then he looked Sakura up and down. “He could have done a lot worse for himself, I guess.”

Sakura gaped. “He could have…”

“Come on, before you panic again and start confessing to illicit affairs with all the other Kages too.”

What Sakura would have given to punch the Kazekage without repercussions just then. Instead, she used her words: “Not all of them, just the hot ones.”

Sasori’s gaze lingered on her, not curious but also not not curious. 

Joke’s on you, sir. They’re all hot.

She skipped away to mingle some more.

xxx

Surprisingly, stealing Oonoki’s cadaver wasn’t the hard part; schlepping it across Iwa in broad daylight was. 

For starters, it had begun to rain. 

“Well, this can’t possibly get any worse,” Sakura said cheerfully as she shouldered the dead Tsuchikage she and Sasori had burrito-wrapped in a table cloth.

At which point, some tidy citizen dumped the contents of a latrine out a second story window directly in their path. Sasori luckily noticed it in time and stopped before he could pass under the cascade. Sakura, walking behind him with their ill-gotten burden, did not. 

In a very unfortunate collision between the physics of inertia and fast shinobi footwork, Sasori managed to twist them around before they could splash through the piss puddle, but Oonoki’s corpse slipped from Sakura’s grasp and kept going. It landed in a dirty puddle of rainwater and splashed Sasori’s pristine, white tabi socks. 

For a moment, he could only stare in disbelief at this utterly disgraceful outcome. Sakura recovered first. Tucked snugly within Sasori’s arm that had caught her, she covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know how that happened.”

“You dropped him,” Sasori pointed out.

“I dropped—wait, how is this my fault?”

“I pulled you to safety. You’re the one who let him go.”

Sakura looked ready to pop. “You’re the one who said we should take the back alleys to avoid suspicion, and look what happened!” She pointed menacingly at the second story apartment where the instigating piss pour had come from. 

“Just pick him up before he gets soaked.”

“Why should I? You pick him up!”

“I’m not the one who dropped him.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

A crack of thunder heralded an onslaught of more rain, heavy and sheet-like, and in seconds, Sasori’s clothes were soaked through. Sakura shrieked, swiped the swaddled corpse off the damp ground with one effortless, super-powered fist, and took off sprinting after Sasori down the alley.

It was by the grace of the gods (in Sakura’s opinion) or by sheer, dumb luck (by Sasori’s estimation) that they managed to arrive back at the pavilion where Oonoki’s wake was being held without running into anyone they knew. Even so, as Sasori held the door for Sakura to muscle her way through with Oonoki’s body slung over her shoulder, he couldn’t shake his paranoia. 

“What the—hey!”

Sasori ignored her protests and placed a heavy hand over her head, now covered by his damp, formal haori. “Be quiet and keep moving.”

Sakura grumbled something about not taking orders from him, but Sasori tightened his grip on her hair through the haori and marched them through the grey corridors. 

“Lord Kazekage?” asked a puzzled voice behind them that Sasori vaguely recognized but couldn’t place. 

“Fuck.” He manhandled Sakura around a sharp corner, opened the first door he found, and shoved her inside.

It was dark and a little cramped, and Sakura had once more dropped Oonoki’s body on the floor.

“Sasori—”

Sasori shoved her hard against the wall, trapped her very dangerous arms with his chakra threads, and clamped a hand over her mouth before she could give them away. She squirmed, but a harsh shh shut her up long enough for Sasori to listen for the footsteps jogging by outside. She must have heard them too because she stopped struggling and fell totally silent. 

They waited a beat. 

When Sasori was satisfied that they’d lost whoever it was that had recognized him, he relaxed a little. Sakura didn’t move to push him away (not that she could have with his strings around her). His eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to make out the shape of her features. The light filtering in from the crack under the doorway glinted in her eyes just enough to read her confused indignation. 

Sasori removed his hand from her mouth. “Since when are you so informal with me, Sakura?”

He couldn’t see in the gloom, but he could hear the blush behind her words when she retorted, “Since you shoved me in a closet and tied me up with chakra strings, sir.”

Sasori chuckled softly. “Ah, so stealing a dead body is par for the course, but this is where you draw the line.”

“Hey, don’t drag him into this. He did nothing wrong.”

She was bolder than he remembered. Perhaps years of a close working relationship, even with a taciturn cynic like himself, could have that familiarizing effect on people. Then again, she had never had his undivided attention for an entire afternoon as they committed a funeral heist in a foreign country. Maybe Kakashi was right about her proficiency with a corpse. 

This specific thought endeared Sasori to her more than he expected. 

That, and the fact that he could feel the elevated rise and fall of her chest pressed flush against him through their wet clothing. 

“Fine,” Sasori said, “just you and me, then.” 

Sakura must have clocked something warm and ruthless in his voice, because now she stiffened with prey instinct. “Well, I mean, that’s—” She cleared her throat. “Do you think the coast is clear?”

Sasori slowly retracted his strings and parted from her body. “Well, we can’t spend the rest of the afternoon in here.”

“No, of course not…”

The darkness hid his smirk as he cracked the door open and peered outside. No one was around, so he beckoned for Sakura to follow. She hauled Oonoki’s body onto her shoulder effortlessly, Sasori covered her hair with his haori again, and they were off once more. 

xxx

“So, not only is my dress ruined and my hair a mess,” Sakura ground out, “but he smells like a dead body.”

“He is a dead body,” Sasori said.

Sakura didn’t care for his patronizing tone as she paced around the luxury bathroom Sasori had locked them inside. “This is an open casket wake. He cannot smell like that! And why is his face that color?”

Oonoki’s cheek was a splotchy, jaundiced bruise that had definitely not been there at the first wake. 

“The rain must have run his makeup,” Sasori said, looking pointedly at her. “You know, when you dropped him in that puddle.”

Sakura picked up the nearest item (a roll of toilet paper) and chucked it at Sasori’s head. He snatched it with his strings and hovered it back to the sink like the prodigious jerk he was. “I don’t deserve this,” she whined.

“You can lay your grievances at Kakashi’s feet later. For now, help me undress him.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He needs to be rinsed clean, obviously.” 

Sakura looked between Sasori supporting Oonoki’s body with his chakra strings and the handicap shower stall he was angling for. She hung her head in her hands. “We are surely going to hell for this.”

“Sakura, his pants, if you don’t mind.”

If she wasn’t damned for de-pantsing the Tsuchikage’s corpse, surely her imminent murder of Kakashi would do the trick. Grumbling profanities, Sakura nonetheless got down to business helping Sasori undress Oonoki, turning on the shower, and holding the curtain open for Sasori to maneuver him under the spray. 

She didn’t want to watch, obviously, except the way Sasori made the body move was so natural she nearly forgot it was dead. When Oonoki effortlessly reached for the shampoo to wash his own hair, Sakura couldn’t help but marvel at the performance. 

“He must be as stiff as a board with rigor mortis by now,” she said. “How are you making him move so fluidly?”

“Because I’m very good.”

Sakura didn’t have it in her to knock him for that one. He was right, after all. “It’s remarkable.”

Sasori regarded her. “He’s no different from any other human puppet under my thrall.”

Right, like she could forget about Sasori’s collection. She had fought alongside his Third Kazekage puppet herself years ago when Gaara had been kidnapped by terrorists intent on extracting his tailed beast. Sasori had taken his old mentor’s body when the man died suddenly before his time and preserved his power to protect Suna for the next generation. But there were also rumors that Sasori had murdered the Third himself. Sakura had never given much stock to the rumors, of course. He was the Kazekage!

“It’s almost a shame we have to return him,” Sasori said. “I wouldn’t mind adding another Kage to my collection.”

Well, pardon the fuck outta me.

He must have read the surprise in her expression, because he smirked in such a way that did nothing to settle her. “Relax. I’m only joking.”

Sakura averted her gaze and crossed her arms. “Maybe don’t quit your day job, sir.”

She felt the weight of his gaze on her, something thoughtful but unreadable. “Hm.”

Sakura looked around for something to change the subject before she did something insane like ask him how he made human puppets in the first place (that would require significantly more to drink than she’d had, so maybe later tonight). 

“Hey, wait a minute. What are we going to dress him in once he’s clean?”

“The clothes he was wearing before, obviously.”

“No way, his funeral clothes are as wet and ruined as ours. People will absolutely notice the smell if we do that.”

“Unless you have a men’s suit hiding under that skirt, then I don’t see much other choice.”

Sakura rolled her eyes and moved around the spacious bathroom. “There must be something… Oh!” She pulled out a navy yukata folded on the shelf next to the sink counter. It was a one-size-fits-all men’s robe, but it was dry and clean and it would certainly look better than the bilge water-soaked suit Oonoki had been wearing before. “This should work just fine!”

She unfolded the garment to show Sasori, and he frowned. “Why does it say ‘Mr.’ on the back?”

“Huh? Whatever, no one will see the back, anyway. Come on, let’s dry him off and get him dressed!”

Sasori and Sakura surveyed their work once Oonoki was laid flat on the fold-out diaper changing counter with critical eyes. 

“Well, he looks,” Sakura trailed off. 

“Dead.”

“I mean, yeah.”

“He looks like he was dropped on his head in the street.”

Sakura stiffened. “I wouldn’t go that far—”

“You must have dropped him on his face back in the alley.”

“Can we please stop talking about that? How are we going to explain this?”

“We can just reapply his makeup. What do you have on you?”

“Oh, that’s not a bad idea, actually.” Sakura checked her purse. It was damp like the rest of her, but the tube of lipstick and the stick of foundation she usually carried were in fine condition. “This is all I have.”

Sasori examined the products with a critical eye. “This is a cheap brand.”

Sakura gaped at him. “For your information, they don’t test on animals and they’re hypoallergenic—”

A knock at the door startled them both. Sakura said, “It’s occupied!” at the same time as Sasori said, “Go away.”

The person on the other side muttered a hasty apology, and they heard fast footsteps receding. It hit Sakura then that whoever had knocked probably thought she and Sasori were in here getting busy, and that was just the icing on the fuck-this-day cake she did not need. 

“Anyway, you can’t wear this shit,” Sasori said, even as he opened up the foundation and hovered over Oonoki’s face. “It isn’t even your shade. I’ll get you something better later.”

Sakura was too affronted to consider what he meant by later. “Since when do you know so much about makeup?”

“Since I have good taste and a discerning eye. Now, go clean yourself up while I fix him.”

Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong about needing to get cleaned up. She couldn’t show her face at the wake in sodden clothes smelling like the streets and dead old man. However, showering with two Kages in the room, one of whom was extremely dead, was not exactly an inviting atmosphere. Sakura resolved to hurry up and get it over with as she hastily undressed behind the shower curtain and scrubbed herself clean. 

“Hey, can you hand me one of the women’s yukata, please?” Sakura stuck her hand out from behind the curtain. 

After a moment of shuffling, Sasori handed her the clean garment and she unfolded it. “Oh, no.”

“What’s the problem now?” Sasori asked, irritated. 

Sakura bit her lip. She was tempted to think nothing else could go wrong on a day full of wrongs, but recent history told her otherwise. She opted for denial. “Nothing! All good, super good.”

She emerged from the shower dry and clean and changed into the yukata, and Sasori didn’t spare her a glance as he finished with Oonoki. And, to be fair, he must not have been kidding when he said he had a discerning eye, because the work looked very professional. 

“Wow, he almost looks alive,” Sakura said, admiring the artificial flush in his cheeks Sasori had somehow achieved with her lipstick. 

“I’m good with dead bodies,” Sasori said. 

“Yeah, you really are.”

Sasori glanced at her askance, but Sakura was too busy admiring the miracle he had worked on Oonoki’s complexion. 

“Hey, if we get caught and have to resign in disgrace, we could always open up a mortuary or something. I’ll haul, you paint,” Sakura joked. 

“Tempting. Though, I doubt Kakashi would let you go so easily.”

Sakura grinned imagining how that conversation would play out. The paperwork she’d be leaving him with alone would be reason enough for Kakashi to protest. “Hm, leaving him for the Kazekage, I bet he’d be less than thrilled.”

Sasori was silent a beat, and Sakura found him watching her intently. He had always had an air of intensity about him, but to have it focused solely on her and so close was—well, not unsettling, but spine-tingling. The way having any very attractive, very powerful person’s full attention was spine-tingling. 

Aaaaand we’re not going to find the Kazekage hot in a bathroom with a dead body, thank you, next.

Sakura wondered if this whole ordeal wasn’t making her a little bit crazy. Or a little bit horny. She coughed. “Um, so, did you want to clean up? Sir?” 

“Ah. I’ll be quick.”

He disappeared behind the shower curtain, and Sakura was left to twiddle her thumbs alongside the dead body until he was done.

xxx

“Holy fucking shit, I owe you,” Deidara gushed when he had a moment away from schmoozing the high profile guests. 

“You will be repaying me for the rest of your very short life,” Sasori confirmed as he sipped his drink. 

“Kurotsuchi almost figured it out, yeah.” Deidara leaned in close. “She was all, let’s open up the casket early, and I was like, but why, and she was like, but why not, and I had to make up some shit about a generational curse triggering if we don’t wait, like, exactly until five to show—”

“Deidara.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Deidara grinned and actually had the audacity to hug Sasori right there where anybody could see. “I love you, man.”

“I am this close to committing a violent tort,” Sasori said as he allowed the contact (so as not to make a scene, obviously). 

“Well, you two seem in high spirits.” Kakashi appeared in formal black with a smile in his eye. “I gather everything went smoothly?”

Sasori considered how a wandering Darui had nearly happened upon him tucking Oonoki into the casket in the viewing room while Sakura hauled the dead farmer’s body out to stash in a closet. It was only by the grace of an insistent Terumi Mei pulling him back to the festivities before he could flake off for a nap that they were not discovered by either Kage in flagrante. 

“Of course,” Sasori lied easily. 

“No issues?” 

“Not a single one.”

“That’s good!” 

Sasori was too busy catching sight of Sakura across the room chatting with a few of her fellow medics. She laughed at something Darui’s head medic, Shī something or other, had said. Sasori watched as her friendly hand lingered on the Kumo nin’s arm.

“I just have a question,” Kakashi kept talking. 

Sasori wondered if Shī would have been able to steal Oonoki’s corpse with Sakura, and decided against it. The guy looked like he drank celery juice and trained for marathons and made sure everyone knew it. “What,” Sasori said just as Sakura looked up and caught him watching her. 

“Why are you and my favorite former student wearing matching His and Hers yukata?”

Deidara fully spit out his drink on a passing server and began to choke.

Sasori took a sip from his drink, unfazed. “We got a little…wet.”

“P-Please—” Deidara sputtered, about to die laughing around his sake. The server he’d sprayed on patted his back in alarm. 

Sakura had noticed the three Kages all looking at her and began to make her way across the room toward them. 

“I see,” Kakashi said, still smiling. “I’m relieved it all worked out.”

Before Sakura approached them, Sasori said, “By the way, you might want to keep a careful eye on your porn after today.”

Kakashi stiffened at the loaded warning.

“This looks like a very suspicious meeting of the minds,” Sakura said as she joined them. 

Deidara took one look at the monogramed Mrs. on her yukata and had to be escorted away for water. Sakura looked puzzled at the “Congratulations!” he choked out as he went. 

“Look at the time,” Kakashi said. “I just remembered I have to go check on something.” He teleported out of there before Sakura could get a word in edge-wise. 

And then, it was just the two of them. 

“Why do I get the feeling he knows I’m plotting my revenge?” Sakura grumbled.

Sasori eyed her drink. “Enjoying yourself?”

“About as much as anyone can at a funeral.”

Sasori slipped a hand along the small of Sakura’s back just below her obi. “Next time will be better.”

Sakura cocked a brow. She didn’t push his hand away. “Are you suggesting we hang out with a dead body again sometime?”

“Well, my grandmother isn’t long for this world, hopefully.”

“What a terrible thing to say! Chiyo-baa-sama is a legend.”

“Legends are necessarily dead.”

“She can’t be so bad.”

Sasori fixed her with a condescending look. “She once dumped out all my good sake and replaced it with arsenic acid just to see if I would notice in time.”

“That is an egregious waste of fine sake.”

Sasori grinned. “I will save you a front-row seat at her funeral.”

“It’s a date, sir.”

A staffer announced that the viewing room was being opened up for everyone to pay their respects to Oonoki directly. His granddaughter, Kurotsuchi, would be giving a eulogy. 

Sakura made to follow the flow of traffic, but Sasori caught her with his strings and pulled her close enough to murmur in her ear, “In that case, don’t be so formal with me, Sakura.”

The surprising heat in her eyes at his suggestion, the same as earlier this afternoon when he spoke to her so intimately, would be the inspiration he needed to sit through today’s rites. He parted from her to join the Suna delegation inside, feeling quite pleased with himself. 

Perhaps Chiyo would kindly consider choking on her favorite bean casserole in the service of her only grandson securing a date with the world’s greatest medical ninja. 

xxx

True love is grave-robbing a corpse together and then aggressively flirting over the dead body. I literally do not know how either of them could end up with anyone but each other. 

#sasosaku #sasosaku month 2022 #sasori #akasuna no sasori #haruno sakura #sakura haruno #naruto fanfiction #sasosakumonth2022

[winter-dayz]

Freedom or the Kindness of Death

Pairing: Lee Hoseok x Reader Hybrid AU; Shapeshifter AU Genre: Horror Words: 1142 Warnings: gore; murder; strong language; torture; violence

Masterlist | Fictober Masterpost

Taglist:  @soobin-chois

“Let me go!” She thrashed around in the tube-like compartment, arms and legs suspended by thick, sterile ropes, and her entire body surrounded by thick glass. She stared down the abnormally muscular lab-coat in front of her cage with abhor.

🎃

The lab-coats on the other side continued to ignore her, writing down whatever shit they thought they figured out about her species. Occasionally they’d press a button or flip a switch, trying to elicit a reaction out of her in some fashion.

If they failed, they would grimace or glare before hastily scratching something off their stupid laundry list of torture. If they succeeded, the greasy lab-coat that was manning the switches would smirk arrogantly as the bug-eyed lab-coat would write paragraphs of evidence, data, hypotheses. Blah blah blah.

She never thought torture would be so boring. But perhaps she should be grateful. Thankful that she wasn't being torn apart and pieced back together. Sliced and diced only to be sewn up, “good as new”, like she’d watched some of her fellow hostages be.

She’d watched several be mutilated, starved, dehydrated, drained, and plain murdered. All in the name of “science” as those white coat freaks claimed. As if hybrids were some kind of laboratory toy for them to use and play with as they pleased until they’re ready to throw the old one out and bring a new one in. 

She knew there was no chance she’d ever see the sun again. Bound to her tube-casket, only to stare at the burning fluorescents day after day. And despite her current, more favorable, form of experimentation—torture—she knew that it’d be her turn soon. 

The lab-coats were growing bored of her reactions. As was she, hardly having energy to react even when the doo-dads they messed with should have actually elicited one. So, it was coming, and she could only wonder what fate she’d be privy to.

Would she be sawed in half and inspected like a bug or cut up and dissected like a cadaver? Would she be subjected to extreme conditions like the ones she saw shriveled up from hunger and wilt away from lack of water? Or would they dispose of her, a simple murder, like the trash they believed her to be?

Oddly enough, those thoughts were the only thing getting her through her days. Long gone was the optimism for release. Long gone was the hope for freedom. Now, she only prayed for the kindness of death.

🎃

As she continued to squirm as best she could, the lab-coat on the other side only stared at her blankly. Behind him, anarchy ensued. Somehow, the hybrids had managed to overtake the facility. She heard as glass and windows were shattered and screams echoed through the halls from both predator and prey alike.

Her room had already been ransacked by both sides. The lab workers had rounded together any important information they could before hightailing it out. Then, several incoherent hybrids rampaged through the room.

She had watched on with confusion at first, but things started making sense after the door was left open for her to witness the sounds and sights of an uprising.

The man on the outside stared, unblinkingly, at her. His head tilted to the side for a moment as he observed her features—both human and hybrid. Something was different about him. He wasn’t like the usual lab-coats, but with her senses still obstructed by her prison, she couldn’t tell what exactly was different.

He walked over to the control panel and the woman tensed on instinct. Maybe he was the executioner of the facility, and he had been ordered to kill her before she could escape. It’d make sense based on his physique.

He stared down at the knobs, switches, and buttons until eventually his hand reached out, morphed into a claw, and slashed across the entire panel before shifting back to a human hand.

Her limbs were released, but at the same time, the inside of her tube was jolted with an all too familiar barrage of electricity. The zaps continuously bit at her skin and the man looked on with wide eyes before quickly slicing at another section of the panel.

The door swung open and she quickly hopped out, albeit with weak legs, and made a break for the other side of the room. He only watched in curiosity at her frightened demeanor. His large frame blocked the exit, and he slowly moved closer. He towered over her the closer he got, both because of his height and also because she cowered down lower the less the space between them became.

At this proximity, she could read the badge on his coat. Lee Hoseok. The picture showed a brightly smiling man, and the job position read “reception”. No wonder she’d never seen him down here; he wasn’t a technician, nor was he the executioner she originally assumed. But the face looking down at her did not match the one on the plastic card, and she quickly remembered the distinct difference she could sense in him.

This time, however, it wasn’t the interference of her senses that stopped her from investigating. This time, it was fear. He had moved impossibly closer, planted his hands on either side of her head and loomed above her. On instinct, she grabbed whatever she could nearby–a screwdriver–and jabbed it into his stomach.

He stumbled back, hand gripping at the handle sticking out of his abdomen. Some of his skin flickered between snake scales, animal fur, and then back to his current human form. A shapeshifter.

Some dangerous, some not, but she didn’t stick around to find out. She fled down corridors, using her hybrid senses as best she could to locate other hybrids that were escaping. Her limbs were jelly from being held in suspension for months, and her senses were quickly being overwhelmed from both underuse and the amount of scents in the air.

Blood covered some corridors, occasionally a mangled body in the midst of it. She did her best to escape, knowing if she didn’t she’d either be captured by the lab-coats or the shifter she’d stabbed. Neither were favorable.

Pain bloomed through her ankle as she tripped over something. She suspected it was probably more like someone based on the texture and sound, but she didn’t look back to find out. Large double doors appeared like a dream up ahead and she chanced a moment to catch her breath. Not too long, in fear that the loss of adrenaline would increase her pain, just a moment to allow her to conceptualize the outside world. Her freedom.

Footsteps echoed nearer, and she took off again down the hall. Her hand landed on the bar, pushing her way outside, at the same time as an unknown hand landed on her shoulder, pulling her back.

#wonho #lee hoseok #reader #lee hoseok x reader #wonho x reader #horror #hybrid au #shapeshifter au #oneshot #fictober

[cristellove4321]

Thought to share this little au I have.uwu, i have alot more au's, especially of star palace and welcome to dreamworld, but this one, well-

okie so this au is called the morning star palace au, or MSPC for short, I made this au cuz-, well-, one, I REALLY don't like how modern bad churchs (like the ones in stories and such) are always have to be positive activity and perfect, thus no sins and hense no flaws some how, two, this fandom, me and fry especially, N E E D S I T cuz ACK- :>, and three, churchs just looks hot.:>, so here's what i did-

I was raised to be Christian, so while I'm not completely Christian I still have knowledge from what I learned when growing up, graduated in a church from after my first year of first grade to the last year of high school, from a lil tradition during Halloween and easter my family and other familys do in Alabama.(yes I am from Alabama.:>), and from video games that involves churches somehow.:>

So, for mirage and ery actually references a roleplay i had with a friend, where ery is kept in a glass casket by mirage so that anyone meeting her won't break her.(in this au shes a porsaline puppet.), for them, mirage is the bible reader.(aka the person/robot that reminds others of what the bible says like as if it was a story.), their also still a story teller, but they read church story's you'll normally find in the library sometimes.(needless to say they like that more and the most is they'll do is give "or yeet" a bible at zavy to get to it.uwu)

for zavy, hes the priest hes-, pratically himself.(frazzybear im looking at you-), and well, we heard basically it all by now, the priest performs the Sacraments Eucharist, Reconciliation, Baptism, Funerals, Marriages, Sacrament of the Sick and spreads/proclaim the word of god, I believe the most he would like to do was to help or physically be near someone as much as possible due to his original coding, so for the "Sacrament of the Sick" may be his favorite, cuz it takes the priest to put a lil oil on the sick/ill, in order to fight off whatever sickness they may have (idk me either-) and take care of them, hense he'll be there for a person 24/7 until their better.

for fairy floss is a nun of the church, besides cricket and doc, she's the only nun there, like them she does the same thing, spend an hour and a half daily in mental prayer, do spiritual reading for at least a half hour a day, observe silence except during Recreation which is after dinner and supper and engage in a variety of work maintenance of the monastery, gardening, correspondence, art work, computer projects, kitchen and sacristy work, needlework, and crafts.(im literally looking the rest of the details up at this damn point.:>), She does all that, but except the part where it means "lights out" aka sleep, she charges like zavy and mirage, but the three of them gets up when zavy gets up due to the one being the fastest to charge, they begin being themselves when its night time, due to it being the only time they can be themselves without being yelled at (mainly by doc like in the og star palace story/audio book), these three and every other character has at least one sin from the 7 deadly and more well known ones.(hence why it's called "Morning star" palace church au, cuz that star is indeed part of the sign of jesus's birth and hense the birth of Christmas, Hanukkah and so forth.(the robots, like their language translations, their programed to learn every religion in the world but mainly the USA so it won't overload them), but the morning star is also by a sword that was made in heaven but was sent down to hell with a certaint someone took.(if you called Lucifer than your right as hell.>:3), and before anyone else asks, yes their sexualities are the same as their original counterparts.:3

this is an ask blog so you can ask the characters questions and I'll try to answer in character as best as my dumbass can, either on bid post here or on the ask questions button everyone has on here.uwu

Hope everyone has a good day and a summer!!! ^^

#MSPC #star palace #zavy #mirage #fairy floss