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ggomos-maribat · 2 months

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Double Lives

Damian was certain that his wife was keeping a secret from him.

He trusted her with his life, of course—Marinette had kept a number of things from him in the earlier stages of their relationship, like her experience and trauma in Paris. He knew not to pry, and eventually she opened up. He was glad that some burden was taken off her shoulders.

But this was different. She was deliberately trying not to get caught; she took care to hide her phone from his view, and there were days she'd come home very late. When asked, she'd get irritable but also nervous around him. Damian didn't want to assume things right off the bat, but he did hope she would finally grow comfortable to talk it out with him. And so he resisted using his ‘resources’ to peek into her life—what kind of distrusting partner would he be if he did that?

He knew, too, that he was being awfully hypocritical. He was still yet to sit her down and reveal his vigilante alter ego to her as well as his family's. Damian would swear he planned to rip the bandaid off when they got engaged. But he couldn't bring himself to do it, out of the fear that she'd leave him. As far as he knew, Marinette wanted a normal quiet life after living through the Evil Butterfly Man's reign of terror. Telling her his identity would just put a target on her back, if there wasn't any already after she became a Wayne.

He couldn't imagine his sweet innocent wife exposed to the horrors of vigilantism.

Still, even though he had his own secrets, it felt quite frustrating not to know hers. That was what Damian was thinking one dark night when the door finally opened, signalling her arrival from work.

“Damian?” Her eyes widened. “Why are you still up? You shouldn't have waited for me.”

“It's alright. I couldn't sleep anyways.” And I will be sneaking out for patrol later. He stood up to kiss her cheek—

But froze upon seeing a red mark right at the base of her neck.

Marinette hummed tiredly. “Next time, don't wait for me if you're tired, okay?”

“. . . What's that on your neck?” He dared to ask.

Her hand immediately flew to the spot on her skin. For a split second, her expression changed into a hint of annoyance. “It's—it's . . .” she stammered, “I accidentally hit myself.”

“You hit yourself?”

She nodded meekly.

Damian stared at her for a moment. There was one thing he knew about his wife: she was a bad liar. But she was expert at omitting things, partly because she probably knew he wouldn't interrogate her further. He knew that she was aware it was the vaguest of explanations but she never tried to elaborate.

He mustered out a smile. “Be careful next time.”

She let out a nervous laugh and squeaked out a ‘yes’.

“By the way.” He took a deep breath, “I visited your office this morning.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, and your secretary told me you hadn't punched in for the day yet.”

The silence between them was thick.

“Ah . . .” Damian could practically see the gears turning in her head. “That was . . . erm, I had to run an errand before work! Yeah . . .”

“I see. I was hoping to have lunch with you earlier but it seems that you're busy nowadays.”

She cursed in French under her breath.

“I'm really sorry, Damian.” She fidgeted with her fingers. “I'll make time this week. I promise.”

She hurried off to their bedroom, leaving Damian with his thoughts.

He really really didn't want to assume the worst. But his heart was racing and when he looked at the signs, they were clear as day. His mind started to spiral a little, wondering where he could've gone wrong, wondering if he didn't spend enough time on her or if she felt that he wasn't giving enough effort.

But he pushed all those thoughts away and followed her to bed.

***

One Saturday afternoon saw Robin and Superboy in the Watchtower's breakroom, talking about Damian's predicament. He hoped his friend could at least contribute an objective outsider's perspective in his dilemma and encourage him to broach the topic with Marinette.

“She's cheating,” Superboy deadpanned.

“She's—she's not,” he argued back, “Perhaps I am just reading too much into it . . .”

“Um but the hickey? The late night escapades?” Superboy frowned. “I don't know about you, but I don't think there's any other explanation for it.”

Robin bit his tongue. No, it's not possible. He loved Marinette terribly, and he knew—he could feel the same love from her if not more.

His friend sighed, “Look, I know it's hard to believe. Even I don't think M can be . . . unfaithful but you should confront her about it.”

“I can't. I can't face her like that when I am still keeping a secret of my own.”

“Then tell her you're Robin. A secret for a secret, hm?”

Robin didn't even want to think about how messy that conversation would be.

“It's all just about communication,” Superboy continued. “If you're worried she won't accept you, take my mom and dad as an example—”

He stopped talking, indicating that he sensed another presence nearby. Just on cue, a fuming Ladybug stomped into the breakroom, heading straight to one of the refrigerators.

The two men watched as she muttered angrily while looking around for food—Robin could see the clear exhaustion on her tensed figure. The Parisian heroine had joined the Justice League after the Hawkmoth fiasco became public; the heroes were quick to recruit her but not before she voiced out her complaints about the League neglecting her city. Though she hadn't revealed her identity to anyone, she had formed bonds with the other heroes her age, not excluding Robin and Superboy.

Superboy winced when she kicked the fridge door.

Ladybug did a hundred eighty, showing both the fires of hell and sleepless nights in her blue eyes. “You don't happen to have an extra stock of Kryptonite, do you?”

Superboy looked at her warily. “What happened this time?”

“Your dad assigned me to another magic-involved mission!” She tugged at her hair, sitting beside them. “I thought I made it clear I didn't want to be involved in too many missions especially if it's non-miraculous related ones!”

“You could . . . tell him that?”

She shot a sharp glare at them. “You don't think I did? They're insisting it's miraculous related when Constantine hasn't even confirmed anything! Just because Paris was terrorized, it doesn't mean miraculi are going to pop out from everywhere! These missions are affecting my normal life!”

It was a common complaint for heroes who had alternate civilian lives, but Robin was a bit surprised that she was that open about her feelings.

“And—and Batman too!” She pointed a finger at Robin. “I know Monsieur Furry's guilty about the Paris thing and all and me not having a mentor but he keeps checking on my progress after missions liked a damned helicopter parent! “

Before either of them could reply, she continued ranting, “I was going to meet an important client yesterday but they just had to call me in to help with the mission! And then it goes on until freaking midnight! What about my precious sleep?! Then Zatanna accidentally used a spell on me—it hit my neck and now it looks like a hickey!”

Her head dropped onto the table. “How the fuck do I fucking explain that to my husband?!”

Robin and Superboy looked at each other, wide-eyed.

“You—you haven't told your husband that you're a hero?” Superboy asked carefully.

Not lifting up her head, she replied with a muffled voice, “Of course not! I can't do that to him! He's already exposed to enough danger because of his last name! I just can't tell him ‘ hey mon amour so I'm actually that heroine from Paris on top of my emotional PTSD!’”

Robin swallowed. That was Marinette's name for him.

It ticked too many boxes.

He started to subconsciously connect the dots: catching his wife absent at work at the time the magic-wielding team of the JL was away on a mission; Ladybug sharing that she finally linked up messages from her yoyo to her personal phone; his wife coming home late, tired and fatigued from head to toe when all she was supposed to be doing was designing.

“I'm sure he'll come to understand your circumstances,” Superboy consoled.

“He won't.” The heroine sat up, revealing that her eyes were now welling up with tears. “He probably hates me right now because I'm sending the wrong signals. What if he thinks I'm just taking advantage of him for his money? His family already hates me! What if he's filing for a divorce right now?”

Robin felt the nudge from his friend, as if to tell him to do damage control. Superboy abruptly stood up, spouted out an excuse about being called by someone, and left the room to the two of them.

Ladybug sniffed, “Sorry, you probably didn't want to hear all of that.”

“It helps to get your problems off your chest.” Robin awkwardly patted her head. In truth, she was really Marinette, he wanted to pull her into a hug already.

He coughed. “Why—why do you think your husband's family hates you?”

“Oh . . . I don't know, but his father’s always distant. Whenever I'm at a family dinner, they're just very quiet,” she replied sadly. “I know they're good people but I felt like I didn't belong somehow. My husband keeps saying they adore me though.”

Robin wanted to sigh out loud. His father still had his guard up because he believed she was a civilian, hence there was a side of her family they could never show her. It was always quiet due to Alfred's stern lecture about behaving in front of Marinette lest they accidentally spill something they shouldn't.

“It sounds like your husband cares a lot about you,” he told her, “Don't you think he would trust you if you told him the truth?”

“But I can't! I don't know where to begin!” She pursed her lips. “He's always been good to me and he never steps the line even if I'm obviously lying. I just . . . I thought I could tell him before we got married but I was too scared and I didn't want to ruin what we had.”

“But he won't think any differently of you, would he?”

“No . . .”

“Then you have nothing to be afraid of.” He smiled a little. “It may come off as a shock at first but he will accept it in time. You will be stressing yourself out even more if you keep thinking about the worst scenarios.”

She stared at him. “When did you get so wise?”

“Ever since I started thinking about what my wife was doing.”

She tilted her head. “Huh?”

It was unmistakable. Those gleaming blue eyes were Marinette's.

He was such an idiot.

“She keeps coming home late, hides her phone every time I'm near,” he listed, gauging her reaction. “Last night, I found out she hadn't come to her office even when she said she was working, and I caught her with a strange mark on her neck.”

Her eyes slowly widened as she seemed to come to the same realization. The heroine's gloved hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Damian?” she whispered.

He checked if the coast was clear and slowly peeled off his domino mask to show his full face. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you habib –”

He was cut off by her warm lips, her arms winding around his neck. Damian immediately melted into her touch, relieved that they finally divulged their secrets. He wouldn't have to be worried about introducing her to the hero world after all.

He was extremely relieved, in fact, that he hadn't noticed his father and eldest brother stroll into the room.

“ROBIN! Are you cheating on your wife?!”

Robin pulled away from Ladybug, withholding a sigh of exasperation. He put his mask back on and turned around to see Batman looking constipated and Nightwing utterly shocked.

"How could you do that to—to . . ." Nightwing cried out.

"Leave us." He glared.

"Robin—" His father's voice was tinged with disapproval.

"Leave. Us."

Fortunately, the two scurried off. Damian faced his wife, who seemed as flabbergasted. He was worried since it was her identity that was at risk, unless he embraced the unexpected cheating allegations.

"Oh my kwamis," Ladybug said softly, "I called my father-in-law a furry ."

"It's deserved." He rubbed up and down her shoulders. "What do you want to do?"

"Oh um . . ." She ducked her head. "Maybe go home and I'll—I'll explain everything from the beginning."

***

Damian had to recount his life story after his wife shared hers whilst they cuddled in bed. After they talked, he was surprised to learn so many new things about her—he thought he had her memorized already, even before they exchanged vows. At the same time, he was mentally kicking himself for thinking that Marinette was never closely involved in the war against Hawkmoth.

Of course she was Ladybug.

Of course she was a hero.

So while she was spiraling at the number of times she'd unknowingly mocked her in-laws in the suit, he was regretting not telling her the truth sooner. If they'd opened up years ago, he would've stayed by her side during missions, helping her deal with the troubles of having a masked alter egos, and sharing his own experiences with her. A stronger bond would've formed between them, because they both understood the hero's life after all this time.

Not long after, she finally decided she was ready to tell the Waynes who she was. ‘It would do more harm than good if I kept hiding it anyway,’ she reasoned. He did agree, since she was part of the family, both as Ladybug and Marinette. The others would surely be overjoyed (and less overprotective) if they found out that she was a hero. What Damian found strange, however, was Marinette seemed to worry that Bruce's opinion on her would change and he'd become ‘distant’ as Batman as well.

“Remember, Batman is afraid of you,” he had reminded her over and over again.

(And Batman would be ecstatic to discover that Ladybug was his daughter-in-law, but Damian would never tell her that. The caped vigilante had grown fussy over the Parisian heroes as his way of ‘making up’ for the Paris incidents . . . But at the same time, he cowered ever so slightly when Ladybug raised her voice on him. Damian's siblings blamed Ladybug's black hair and blue eyes for triggering the adopt-itis.)

And so Damian and Marinette decided to arrange a family lunch to break the news to everyone. It was then Damian remembered that there was one issue he hadn't resolved yet.

“If you don't tell Marinette today, I'm telling her.” Dick glared at him from across the table.

Damian glanced at his watch. His wife wasn't present yet, and had sent him a message about picking up pastries from Paris first.

“Tt. That would mean revealing our identities, Richard.” He crossed his arms.

“Just because you have the mask on it doesn't mean you can do that to her!” Dick argued. “Does Ladybug even know you're married?! ”

“What did he do to Pixie-pop?” asked Jason.

“He---he—” Dick was once again trembling in anger and disbelief.

“We saw him kissing Ladybug.” It was Bruce who replied. “Damian, I never expected this from you. You will have to talk and apologize to Marinette.”

“You did what?!” Jason stood up so abruptly that the utensils clattered.

“What the fuck?” Tim exclaimed.

Stephanie gasped. “What the hell Damian?”

“Holy shit,” Duke whispered.

Damian could only stare at the entryway of the dining hall, hoping that Marinette would arrive soon. If he was left with his family any longer, they'd be beating him up and disowning him.

“I have . . . a reason,” he said through gritted teeth. He couldn't exactly tell them right off the bat, since Marinette wasn't there yet.

“Open . . . open relationship?” Cass frowned.

Suddenly, a bright light appeared at the ceiling—a portal— and from it, a figure dropped down, much to everyone's shock. Ladybug, unified with the Horse miraculous, grinned at them with an armful of boxes filled with croissants and macarons.

“Ladybug?” Bruce gaped.

“Your daughter-in-law actually.” She lowered the sunglasses, showing her narrowed eyes. “And your worst fucking nightmare.”

“W---What?”

Damian could barely control his laughter, seeing his father frozen.

She detransformed completely and scowled at Bruce. “This is technically your fault, furry old man! If you didn't keep agreeing to send me on those magical missions, I wouldn't be so tired and caused a misunderstanding in the first place.”

Damian didn't have time to shield himself from the eruption of noise on the table. With his wife's theatrical reveal, everyone was in different states of shock. Tim stood up quietly to face a wall with a blank stare, entertaining another existential crisis. Duke choked on the water he was drinking. Jason was crouched on the floor miserably with his hands over his face, perhaps because of the times he complained to Marinette about Ladybug's uptight methods. Dick's jaw was completely unhinged, and he was slapping himself every minute or so. Stephanie passed a hundred dollar bill to Cass.

And Bruce. Poor Bruce was paler than their porcelain plates, speechless and unmoving.

Damian exchanged a wide smile with his wife. He loved her so much.

#maribat fic #maribat fanfic #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #maribat #daminette #maribat marinette dupain cheng #ggomoz #maribat damian wayne

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princesssmars · 7 months

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hazel falling in love with her childhood family friend is rotting my brain actually.

wc : 1383

sfw and slight nsfw? fem reader. thanking emma and rachel for making hazel rich because i love writing rich people stuff. i’d say maybe a good mix of cocky!hazel and loser!hazel because i love both so bad.

so for the first six years of her life she spends her winter holidays at a beautiful chalet in aspen with her parents, spending the days having snowball fights with her dad and falling asleep by the fireplace with her mom.

just like. she's rich, and her mom seems like one of thos wealthy women who loves to go on vacation to show off her perfect life and her perfect friends, so she or her husband definitely had a vacation house they'd visit every year.

when she turns seven they finally let her start skiing on the bunny slope, figuring it’s better than the little evil genius thing she does with the pots and the tiny snowmen. for a little kid she's pretty good at the sport already, if not taking the pizza and french fry tip a little too seriously.

about an hour in though, she's taking her umpteenth trip down the hill when a four foot mass slams into her right side, going at way above whatever speed limit was allowed in this area. she's lying flat on the ground, her right arm aching and her hound pounding and she's about ten seconds from crying when she looks over to see you, face planted in the snow and your shoulders shaking as you laugh like you're insane.

both sets of your parents rush over to make sure that the both of you are ok, and after you manage to calm down a bit and give hazel a very formal sounding apology that your mom whispered in your ear, you ask hazel if she can help you learn to control your speed on the slopes.

so after an hour of driving her crazy as she tries to teach you how to control your speed, your moms sit at a table watching over the both of you while sipping on their drinks and becoming fast friends.

ever since then, each winter was spent together. whether it was spending time in the snow, (hazel continued to excel at skiing, eventually giving up on trying to teach you), sharing stories of your normal lives over cups of cocoa at the cafe in the ski lodge, and helping each other decorate your christmas trees that you both had to beg your parents to buy.

whenever she went back home the days following new years, she’d count the days until she could see you again. to compensate for the time apart your parents let you send a horde of letters and e-mails to each other, letting the two of you share long phone calls on their phones when you were still to young to have your own.

hazels secret favorite hobby became photography. you couldn’t go twenty minutes without her shoving her polaroid camera in your face. she’ll tell you it’s because she’s using the vacation time to explore and try new things, and not that she constantly looks back over the photos of you with a big smile and a flush to her face.

(she also won’t mention that she’s addicted to the feeling she gets when pj and josie come over to her house and pj goes ona ten minute rant about how impossible it is that a girl that pretty could spend time with hazel without being insane. she ignores the insult because she’s hung up on the fact oh called you pretty.)

now i think hazel was pretty much always aware of the fact that she liked girls, if not because she realized that being obsessed with a certain scene from cruel intentions and always volunteering to play the husband when one of her friends wanted to play house on the playground was, in fact, not straight.

but at this point she’s maybe fifteen, she’s starting to grow into her looks and she’s definitely not ready to admit she might has a crush on you. at this point you both have had your own phones for a while, and she couldn’t even count the amount of times she had fallen asleep with you over facetime.

over the course of that year she often found herself wondering what your sexuality was. dumb ass stereotypes had her believing there was no way you, pretty and popular and preppy you could possibly be gay. and if you were a lesbian there was no chance that you'd like her back.

it was just made all the more confusing when once she had complained about how she hadn't had a girlfriend, let alone a first kiss yet and she was nearly halfway through high school with no experience for the hundredth time that you told her you had a solution for her on your next shared trip.

so you can imagine her shock when three days after landing in aspen you pull her into your room in your lodge and sit her on your bed before telling her you knew the perfect way to get more experience was to experiment with you.

"your first few times kissing and stuff can be pretty awkward, so why not just do it with me? i can show you the ropes and stuff.”

now on the outside she seemed normal, agreeing with an easy smile on her face, but on the inside her brain was playing the loudest tornado siren known to man.

it starts tame, the first few days consisting of you just telling her about your past experiences with girls and how to take it slow and everything. she knows its important but it honestly feels like torture. every time you talk to her she's wondering about what you'll do to start the physical lesson, if you'll set her down on her plush bed and softly touch her, or if you'll finally get fed up with the waiting like she is and press her and take her against a wall.

if you had known you would have prepared, but hazel was a freak in disguise and had decided that she was ready to take things into her own hands. you had invited her to sleep over at yours and drink hot cocoa while watching christmas movies and she had accepted in a heartbeat. what she didn't expect was for you to be wearing really cute pajamas, your legs covered in little hello kitty's and christmas trees with a plain red top and geez she could see you weren't wearing a bra.

hazel was a ticking time bomb, and when the two of you were sitting on the couch and she watched the reds and whites and golds dance across your face and you looked ovver at her with a 'what's wrong, hazie?' she exploded, smushing her lips onto yours in a mess of limbs and teeth.

she can feel your giggles in her mouth as she presses you down into the plush of the couch, her excited hands gripping your cheeks before brushing over your chest and gripping your waist, grinding her hips into yours and groaning when your giggle turned into high pitched moans.

it feels like she kisses you for hours before you reluctantly stop, your hands going to press into her shoulders when her head follows yours to resume making out. "hazel, as much as i'm enjoying this we were supposed to be taking this slowly. since when did you know how to...do that?"

"i dont know i just," she sighs as she tries to catch her breath, starting to get embarrassed about what a virginal mess she must look and be acting like. but you seem to like it, so she starts to not care all that much. "i just really want you. i wanna do everything with you."

you smile and hold her cheek in your hand, her eyes fluttering shut at your touch. you look at the gentle expression on her face, the slowing of her breath, and how her hips still occasionally stutter downward looking for yours, and you cant find it in your heart to deny her. you never really could.

"ok, hazie. we can do whatever you want-"

you're cut off before you can finish, the girl quickly rejoining your lips together and groping at your body once again.

when she gets back from vacation, hazel is less single, less unexperienced, and more than ready to throw this in pj's face.

i kinda lost inspo for this can you tell :,(((( but i thought the idea was cute so take this thing. bye.

#bottoms movie #bottoms x reader #hazel #hazel callahan #hazel x reader #hazel callahan x reader #hazel callahan fluff

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chiocchi · 10 months

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What are your favorite Tomarry fics??

Such a hard question, there are a lot of wonderful ones that I really like. But here are a few:

His Darkest Devotion by Lomonaaeren: Soulmate AU but Harry is hiding his mark and trying not to catch Tom's attention because he thinks that Minister Riddle is an evil dark lord. The first chapters are filled with so much tension and the reveal is a great pay-off.

Too old to be this young by Nadia_Castillo: An older Harry travels to an alternative dimension where there's no Voldemort, just Minister Riddle. The dialogue and the descriptions are very funny lkdajsdja

Anytime At All by duplicity: Muggle!Harry and Wizard!Tom have a relationship. The story is beautiful and warms my heart, it made me laugh too kek.

Dripping Fingers by May_May_0_0: Harry draws on Tom's diary and Tom loves his art. The story is really sweet and Harry is just so kind.

Retreat by Lomonaaeren: Arranged marriage AU where Harry is definitely not having a good time. That is until he and Voldemort manage to understand each other and then the story is sweet and kinda cute.

It's A Masquerade, Darling by ChubbyPanda15: Harry does his best to avoid notice and be average at Hogwarts. But Tom sees him and notice his potential and talent and wants Harry to be recognized. The romance is really cute.

Between Thought and Reality by Maeglin_Yedi: Harry travels back in time but he is now in the body of a girl. He changes Tom, gives him another path and and I just find the story really interesting.

Those are the wholesome-ish ones. But if we're talking about fucked up smut jskdljfalsd then I find these interesting:

Secrets by Skywalker

For He is the Sun and I am His Shadow by AGlassRoseNeverFades

Everything Green Is Gold by eleven_eaves

Promises, Promises by mosiva

the babytrap series by crowthing, eleven_eaves, pwplicity (duplicity)

As the French Do by exarite

I'll Eat Your Heart Out, Sir by Katsitting (Nekositting)

#And I wont elaborate #tomarrymort #tomarry #harrymort #fic rec #asks

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hunnylagoon · 3 months

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The Killing Moon

PT1: Camp Spirit

Ellie Williams x Reader

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

Premise: You are a camp counsellor who comes back year after year to be at peace in the one place you love the most. Though there is something different in the air, could it be love or maybe an ancient evil you’ve mistakenly awakened?

Warnings: slight mentions of violence / mentions of monsters and cryptids / raunchy humour / spooky?

The Killing Moon Playlist

PART TWO: The Colour Wars

Week One of Summer Camp

Camp Honey Hills is what you could call 'off the radar'. It sat way up past the hills and forests of Oregon, relatively untouched by the urban nightmare of the city. It stayed peaceful and undisturbed as leaves shed from trees and snow covered every inch of ground, but the camp was alive for one season of the year. Even in the quietness of preparing for the campers to arrive you could still hear counsellors laughing with one another and that's how you could tell the camp was waking up from its ten-month slumber.

"Anyone in the White Tail Deer Cabin, over here!" I held my hand up and waved to the kids piling out of the buses, carrying duffle bags bigger than themselves. The first day of camp was always the most stressful, the only thing to get you through was the idea that it would be over soon and we could get to the fun part of summer.

I already had a handful of girls crowding around me, all of them were either ten or eleven; depending on how you look at it, I either got blessed or cursed that I was assigned to a cabin of older girls. While the younger ones were wild and untamable, the older ones tended to be snarky and standoffish, these girls we’re leaning toward wild.

"Hi," I look up from my clipboard to see a scrawny girl, she has long black hair in two French braids, a summer camp staple. "My thing says that Ellie is my counsellor and I don't know who that is."

"All good," I bend down to her height, "It's that pretty girl over there," I point at Ellie, she's talking to one of the girls in her cabin, and her dark eyebrows are furrowed at what I can only assume to be an absurd question. "You're in the Grizzly Cabin, looks like I'll be seeing a lot of you."

The girl doesn't answer me with words, from the way she's looking at me you'd think I just told her that I sat on her hamster. She gives me one last side glance before she struts off and lugs her duffle bag behind her. "That weird girl said I was in your cabin," I hear ever so faintly in the distance, Ellie bites back a laugh.

I shake off the not-so-subtle cruelty of a pre-teen and go back to yelling for all of the girls in my cabin. So far I had seven of the eight campers I was supposed to have, I was in the lead and if I collected all of the girls in my cabin first, that would be more points towards the camp cup. You should know that I take the camp cup very seriously, it really isn't anything more than a trophy that Tommy and Joel give to a cabin but I haven't lost it in the past five years that I've worked here.

"Is your name Tamar?" I point at a stubby ginger girl, "You look like your name is Tamar," I was on the hunt for the eighth girl in my cabin so I could win the arrival day points.

"Uh, no," She said, looking as muddled as scrambled eggs "My name is Marcy."

"Then get out of here, Marcy," I look past her and nod at a girl with skin the colour of ebony wood "Are you Tamar?" This girl looks around to double-check that I'm talking to her before she shakes her head no.

"Who's my counsellor then?" Marcy who stands at a maximum of what looks to be a mighty 4'3 is peering into my soul with her icy blue eyes and I almost shudder, all I could think is that someone needed to get this four-foot-nothing girl some contact lenses.

"Your counsellor and cabin should be on the slip of paper that administration gave you."

"I lost my paper."

"Um," I glance around at the other counsellors, collecting their campers. My eyes settle on Abby, she's wearing a Camp Honey Hills T-shirt. She looks like she's got everything more put together and organized than any other counsellor so I decided to dump this kid on her. "It's that blonde girl with the big muscles, you better hurry because she'll crush you if you aren't there in time."

Marcy looks at Abby and then back to me with wide eyes at my words before she scurries away. As I watch her roll up to Abby's group, I quickly realize that there is no way she is in that cabin. Abby got the oldest group, consisting of fourteen and fifteen-year-olds and I was sure that Marcy, with all of her missing teeth, was no older than nine. I avert my eyes to avoid any wrath.

I spot Jesse who is trying to wrangle up his boys who are already rough housing and throwing each other in the dirt. Somehow he always ends up with the returning campers or the savage ones who would surely put my head on a stick before taking a shower.

"Is this the White Tail Deer Cabin?" A girl with pale skin and brown hair stares me down, she's tall for her age and lanky.

"Are you Tamar?"

"Yeah," She says it like she's annoyed.

"Perfect," I smile, turning to my group "Alright girls, that's everyone," I turn to look in Tommy's direction "I said that's everyone," I enunciate louder to be sure he can hear me, each of my campers gives one another a snide glance.

Tommy presses his lips together in a thin line and answers me with a thumbs-up. He already knew I would be the first to get my group together, I always was. He and Joel are the camp directors, they were talking about something before I called their attention.

Marcy points at me and Abby looks in my direction, her eyebrows knit together. Great, now I was being snitched on my nine-year-old. Abby calls out my name but I'm already ushering my girls towards the cabins "Who wants to see the cabin?"

In just moments, I'm long gone and walking the trail to the girl's cabins. Breathing one last moment of peace, the earthy bitterness in the air, droplets of last night's rain slipping off leaves. It made me want to savour every moment in the forest I had before summer ended and I had to go back to stuffy dorms and lectures along with people as boring as the city itself. I've never been able to fathom why anyone would dream of the city, of the drug users and creepy men roaming the streets. Concrete everything and headaches from blue light, every day that I was away at college I dreamed of coming back here, I counted down the days I could turn my phone off and disappear from the world for a while.

The boys may have had a shorter walk to their bunkhouse but the girls definitely got the better view. It also didn't hurt that the circle of cabins was right beside the pasture so we woke up to watch horse grazing, unless you don't like horses, then you can just ignore them I guess.

"Okay, ladies," I open the door to our cabin, a little carving of a doe above the doorframe. "This is our cabin, go ahead and claim your bunks, I don't care who goes where, just don't fight about it and no one set up on my bed."

"How do we know which one is yours?" One of the girls, Leslie, asks.

"Because it's the only one that's set up," I say, bluntly and I see the realization hit her like it was a math equation that finally clicked in her head "You guys can unpack and I'll go over the cabin constitution in a minute."

As my campers piled into the cabin, ravenously fighting over who got which bed, I saw Ellie walking up with her girls. Our cabins were right next to each other, we shared a little porch that Maria decorates with plants while Ellie and I neglect them until they're wilted and we try to save them so we don't get yelled at. Alternatively, dump the responsibility of nurturing plants on one of your campers, kids love to water stuff and feel important.

Ellie's campers begin to walk up the porch and into the cabin, one of her girls runs up to me "I wanna be in your cabin again," Lana pouts, I had her last year and I can't say that I have a least favourite camper but if I could, it would definitely be Lana. "Ellen is so mean."

"Well, maybe she would be nicer if you said her name right." I look up to see Ellie who mouths a 'Thank you' "Call her Ellie and maybe you two can be nice to each other."

Lana looks between the two of us before wordlessly walking into the cabin in trail of the other girls. "It's shaping up to be an interesting summer."

"We've survived worse," I cross my arms "Do you remember Tucker? That kid Jesse had who managed to tie a piece of dental floss around a wasp and carry it around with him all day like a balloon."

"He was a little weird but he was chill," Ellie jokes, like every other counsellor, she's wearing the Honey Hills T-Shirt and Demin shorts, her auburn hair pulled back into a half up half down style "How about that girl in Dina's cabin who wrote Reid letters pretending to be Priya?"

I laugh "I can't believe it went on so long."

"I can, Reid's a fucking idiot." She says "He pronounces chutney like chut-uh-ney."

"Oh my god, I hate that so much," I was obviously dragging on this conversation, hunting for reasons to talk to her "And the way he says Ibiza and Cuba and like everything."

"Do you remember when he joined the women supporting women club in high school?"

"Please don't remind me, that was awful," I chuckle "The worst part is that he ran that shit like the navy."

"Are you coming inside?" Chloe pokes her head out the door.

"I guess so," I answer "Uh, I'll see you at the campfire," I tell Ellie before stepping into my cabin and seeing pure chaos. The four bunkbeds that were pristinely set up just hours ago were now clad in each girl's personal bedding, ranging from Chloe's neat colour scheme of light blue and white to Kim's mismatched quilts, fuzzy pillows, and bright orange sleeping bag. They were still working on getting everything set up, specifically getting the fitted sheets onto the twin-sized waterproof mattress. Some of the girls were even beginning to tape up photos of their friends and family from back home. "Wow, looks great girls."

"Can we go to dinner yet?" Leslie asked, her twin braids hanging over her pink hoodie.

"No, it is three o'clock but we will go over the cabin constitution." A couple of the girls let out groans of disapproval "First you always listen to me, do as I say not as I do. Respect others and their belongings, please don't hurt anyone or yourself. Maintain personal hygiene and do not go anywhere without telling someone where. Also, we have shower schedules, showers are absolutely mandatory, and no one will talk their way out of it. On Friday's we have tuck shop, and everyone gets a twenty dollar allowance for that, no you do not actually touch the money it's part of the camp package, I take your orders and come back with candy. We have campfires every night, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are mandatory to attend even if you don't eat which I strongly encourage you do."

"Do we have to go if we're sick?" Tamar asked me.

"No."

"But you just said it was mandatory."

"It's mandatory if you aren't sick."

"But you said-

"Stop," I clasp my hands together "I know I'm older than you guys but I promise you can tell me and ask me anything." I smile, looking around "Any other questions?"

"Can we swear?" Valentina asks, she's kicking her feet off her bed on the top bunk. Her skin is the colour of copper and she has a little dusting of freckles over her button nose.

"I don't really care just don't do it around other adults and don't tell them that I told you that."

"What's the wifi?" Morgan was typing something on her phone which was by far more expensive than the model I owned. Dina had Morgan in previous years and I wasn't too thrilled to be in charge of the (as she claimed) disrespectful blonde monster sent from hell to ruin her life.

"We don't have wifi, we hardly have service," I tell her "And you aren't even supposed to have your phone here but you can't do anything on it anyways so it doesn't matter."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Leah chimes in, she's sitting on the ground with Oliver and slowly but surely braiding her friend's hair.

"Not at the moment, no."

"So are you a lesbian?" Olive follows up for her friend.

"Um," I press my lips together, my mind failing me, "I think we're good on questions, who wants a camp tour?" No one says or does anything, they just kind of look around awkwardly "That's too bad, you're getting one."

Everyone gathered around the crackling fire pit on splintered wooden benches. The warm glow of the campfire flickered in the midst of a cool summer night, casting dancing shadows on the faces of worn-out campers who were ready for bed.

Tommy had given his speech to sike up the kids for the rest of the summer, he made sleeping in the woods sound like a lot of fun. "We're giving you tonight to settle in but I promise that starting tomorrow we are hitting the ground running, activities from morning until dark, this will be a summer to remember," He smiles brightly "I don't wanna babble too long so I'm gonna give the attention to Miles who is going to kick off our campfire by playing the guitar for us."

Miles sat directly across from me in the first row of benches so I could only see him through the orange flames of the fire. "This is an original song I wrote, so far it's untitled but I'm open to ideas," He made himself comfortable with the guitar, readjusting it to sit in his lap properly.

"What do you wanna bet it's about?" Ellie whispers into my ear from beside me. Since the day cooled into the night, she's thrown on a gray hoodie to keep herself warm. You would be an idiot to ignore how pretty she looks illuminated by nothing more than stray stars in the sky and a campfire.

"I'll put five bucks on sex,"

"Sex?" She raises her eyebrows "I don't think he's stupid enough to sing a song about sex in front of kids, I'm gonna say it's about being a tortured artist."

"It could easily be both," I look down and see Ellie's muddied converse "We break even if he does both." The fire roared before us like our own miniature hell.

Miles clears his throat and lets his curly blonde locks fall over his forehead. Beginning to strum, he made that weird face he makes every time he plays guitar, where he scrunched his eyebrows together "Baby, maybe, I just wanna do you, do you, do you wanna do me? do me underneath the moonlight," He's too lost in his song to see the horror on every counsellor's face "Baby, baby, maybe I will steal you, steal you, just so I can feel you, feel you, maybe that would heal you."

I cover my mouth with my hand to stop me from cackling. The older kids were on the verge of laughing themselves while the younger kids seemed utterly confused. "Holy shit," I mutter so quietly that my words got blown away with the wind.

Ellie didn't try to stop her laughter, just hide it, she buried her head into the crook of my neck so no one could see how red her face was. She was far better off than Dina who was laughing so hard that she was clutching her stomach and nearly falling over, Miles seemed to be oblivious to all of this. In Dina’s defence, it was difficult not to laugh at a song so wildly inappropriate and bad in general.

Miles had far from the best voice, he just sounded like every other white guy who sang Wonderwall at a girl, not to her but at her "Sticky thighs are you wild now or just a memory? I heard your broken cries and looked into your eyes under the moonlight, so do you wanna do me, do me, so I can heal you, heal you, from the inside-

He stops abruptly when Joel takes the guitar away from him "How about Sawyer tells us the camp legend instead."

Those who knew who Sawyer was looked towards him, Miles was trying helplessly to get his guitar back from Joel who was holding it just slightly out of reach. "It's been a while since I've told this so forgive me if-

"No one cares, just tell it," Ashlynn said. She was one of the counsellors who clearly didn't want to be there, which meant all of the campers thought her to be the coolest; in all fairness, she was cool. Ashlynn had bleach blonde shaggy hair, so light that it almost looked white. Her eyeliner was always a little smudged and she was only there to keep the kids alive, she tended to be the first to opt out of group activities and go to bed early.

"Okay well, it starts way back in the sixteen-hundreds, on these very grounds there was a small village," Sawyer put on his best storytelling voice which was just him lowering his voice an octave. "They lived in peace for decades, and throughout all of those decades there was a woman named Abigail who never seemed to age, while all of her friends and family developed wrinkles, their hair turned gray, and their bodies sagged, Abigail still looked nineteen even at her alleged age of sixty-seven."

The new campers seemed enraptured but returning kids and counsellors seemed bored out of their minds, I even spotted one boy who's been attending this camp longer than I have, mouthing the words of Sawyers tale.

"They accused her of witchcraft and she was shortly exiled far up the hill into what we now call the Honey House. They left her with nothing more than a hunting knife, a canteen of water, the clothes on her back, and a small portion of seeds. The villages burned down her home in town along with everything inside it. If you think that is the end-

"Think again!" Dina cut in, getting up from her spot and squeezing herself beside Sawyer. "With Abigail gone the villagers thought they would be safe but just days after Abigail was exiled, anomalies began to appear-

Sawyer chimed back in "At first they were harmless, pixies, gnomes, jackalopes, nyiads by the rivers and dryads in the trees. The creatures appearing slowly began to appear more and more dangerous and at last, the snatchers arrived-

"Like a muscular and tall emaciated human. The most terrifying creatures to ever be seen, they roamed just outside of the village and lured children in, they slurped the flesh right off of the children's bodies like prey and wore the clothes of their last victim. They have no lips just a bloody gash and when they don't eat, the gash begins to reseal, leaving nothing on their gray faces but large and pale sunken eyes the size of my fist!" Dina clenched her hand into a fist and held it up for everyone to see.

"Their fingers are long and rotted, long curls of claws on each of their ten spindly fingers. The males are devoid of all hair and the females hardly have hair at all, just small plugs of greasy and matted strands. Their teeth are sharper than fangs and are rotten black and yellow, a foul odour escaping each time they open their disgusting gashes of a mouth. Though the snatchers were the most feared among villagers, they were also being terrorized by other creatures, such as pine devils who slithered from the forests at night and attacked families. There was ghouls who would take on the form of the last corpse they devoured and of course, the wampus which was half-man and half-cat, would stalk villagers.”

"Like a furry?" One of the boys from Jesse's cabin peeped.

"No," Sawyer exasperated "Like a scary and intimidating cat-man."

"So does it look more like the Cat in the Hat or like Cats the Musical?"

"It doesn't look like either, it's a terrifying man that is covered in fur and looks like a cat but is also a man."

"So Cats the Musical?"

Dina ignored the comment and continued with the story "After a year the village population had been cut in half and everyone thought it to be the witch, they figured that Abigail had cursed them for exiling her so they lit up their torches at sunset and marched up the hill to the Honey House. Abigail pleaded with them and explained that she hadn't cursed them but during her residency in the village she had warded off each evil spirit and creature with her witchcraft but she no longer could protect the village after they burned her home down and all her supplies inside of it."

After muttering to Jesse to get his cabin in order, Sawyer picked up when Dina left off "The villagers begged for her forgiveness and apologised for their cruel acts in the hope that Abigail would rid them of the monsters, Abigail said she would but in return they grant her return to the village, so the townfolk agree-

"With all her supplies to ward off the creatures gone, Abigail resorts to a blood ritual. She tells the townfolk that they must complete the ritual before sundown. She creates five pentagrams made of sticks and twine. Abigail races around the village to place the pentagrams and avoid the creatures while she does so, the villagers ward the monsters away from her with their torches. At each pentagram, Abigail slices her palm open and squeezes her fist to drip blood onto each one, then she ignites the pentagram with a torch and utters an incantation. She slashes her thighs and calves to get enough blood and in a last-ditch effort, she cuts her wrists open to finalize the ritual," Only the younger kids had been paying any attention to the story, they seemed downright terrified, clinging to one another but trying to play it cool.

"I fail to see how this is any less inappropriate than Miles's song," Cat mutters with one girl huddled into her, her arm slung over the little girl and rubbing her back to soothe her.

"Once she had completed the ritual, Abigail said that no creatures should return to the village. She is bleeding out in the middle of the town square but the town doctor only watches her, and refuses to help so she begs the appointed mayor to bury her beside her mother, he answers by saying 'The graveyard is sacred and we will not let it be tainted by filthy witch blood' in her final breath she plunged for the mayor and drags her bloody palms down his face, cursing him. Once she is no longer breathing her body begins to rapidly age into the appearance of the sixty-eight-year-old woman she was supposed to be. The townsfolk cut Abigail's body into five parts, two legs, two arms, and the torso with the head still attached and buried her on the border of the village."

Everyone sat in silence "Is that the end?" someone asked, though they were in the back row of benches and I couldn't see who it was.

"Yup," I answer "Abigail gets renamed as 'the girl that time forgot' in folklore and she never gets revenge on the townsfolk for betraying her after she laid down her life for them." I had never liked the legend. Young boys thought it was cool and gory and fifteen-year-old girls thought it was poetic and tragic but I hated it to death. Other camps have fun light-hearted legends about playful forest spirits or secret villages of fairies deep in the woods but we got an edgy story about a woman who just wanted to be loved.

"I wish she let the snatchers eat them all," Ellie said the same thing that she says every year, she wasn't wrong, that's how I wished it ended too.

"Just wait until one eats you," I joke.

"Nah, I'd kick it's ass."

"I'm sure you would but right now you owe be five bucks.”

"No, we didn't pick this legend, it's true," I heard Jesse's voice cutting through the conversations of the crowd.

"Bullshit," Mordecai said, he was one of those kids who thought it was cool and edgy to be an asshole and act older than he was. He despised summer camp but every summer his parents forced him back much to our dismay.

"It's not," Bowie jumped in "The snatchers come back to visit us sometimes."

"Yeah? I thought Abigail banished them with blood magic."

"The spell is growing weaker with time, it's slowly wearing out and there hasn't been a witch to revive it," Jesse was a good storyteller, he should've been the one to deliver the camp legend. He found a way to enrapture people with his words.

That's when I decided to call it a night for my girls, the longer you stayed at the campfire, the more outlandish stories the guys would tell and I learned my lesson last year that it is very easy to give ten-year-olds nightmares. "Whitetail deer, we're heading out," I stand up.

A few of the girls had groans and complaints while others seemed happy to leave. Ellie looked up at me from where I stood and did the same "Grizzlies, we're leaving too,"

"You're just saying that because you wanna hit it, Williams," Dean said between obviously fake coughs into his fist, causing Ashlynn to bite back a smile and Miles to playfully punch him on the arm.

"Dean," Tommy gave him a stern look and said nothing else, Dean took the hint and ceased his laughter.

"Headcount," I say looking at the girls in front of me "Chloe, Leslie, Kim, Leah, Tamar, Morgan, Valentina, and Olive." Each of them stands in a close-huddled bundle "Alright, don't go off trail."

The walk back from the campfire was gorgeous during the day and borderline mortifying at night. Since the foliage was so thick you could hardly see the sky if you looked up and at night the little piece of clearing that was the trail was pitch black, we were guided by nothing more than mine and Ellie's flashlights.

The two of us had been trailing behind the girls in silence to keep an eye on everyone until Ellie felt the urge to speak up "Uh, by the way, that thing that Dean said about-

"I don't care."

"You don't?"

"Yeah he's a dick and his cabin looks like a wooden prison cell."

"It does," She furrows her eyebrows in thought "It’s like he's conditioning his campers for war."

I didn't notice when I did this, it must've been a subconscious thing but I mindlessly reached for Ellie's hand to hold. I used my free hand to keep the flashlight focused on the trail and campers ahead of us. "Sawyer has to walk back to the bunkhouses across the camp with those little monsters."

"Payback for all of the pranks he's pulled with Bowie," Ellie mutters. Sawyer took pride in initiating the prank wars every single summer the same way I strove to win the camp cup. His pranks weren't also lighthearted and fun, he and Bowie organized this prank where Sawyer put a bag over Tyson's head and dragged him to the administration office in the middle of the night and then pretended to shoot Bowie dead in front of him. Tyson quit the next morning and Sawyer got a hefty write-up.

"So are you still talking to Cat?" I ask.

"Nah, that was never gonna work out."

"Because she's too hot for you?” I joke.

"What? No," She whipped her head to look at me "Why? You wanna get with her or something, you have my blessing."

"I'm good, I'm a little preoccupied at the moment."

"Who with?" Her voice dripped with accusation. Ellie's hand clenching just the slightest bit tighter on mine.

"Work? You should know that I don't date at camp, to think that I thought you knew me," I tease her.

"What about that summer with Chandler?"

"That doesn't count," My smile drops and I fight the urge to shiver at the memories. Before I was a counsellor at Honey Hills, I was a camper and I happened to have my first kiss at age thirteen with a boy named Chandler, our braces got stuck together.

"Everyone saw, so it counts," I can't quite make out Ellie's face in the dark but I can hear the smile in her voice "Remember how Joel had to pull out the pliers."

"You need to stop before I sacrifice you to the Honey Hills Snatchers," I look ahead on the trail and I could've sworn my heart stopped "Stop!" I yell and all of the girls look back at me, I drop Ellie's hand "Where is Olive?"

All of the campers look at each other for answers, and then Leah opens her mouth "She saw a rock that was shaped like a heart and when off trail to get it."

"Well I'm not seeing a heart-shaped rock or Olive but it's super safe in these woods so no need to panic."

"No one's panicking," One of the girls in Ellie's cabin says, she was the same one who called me weird during arrival.

I run one hand down my face in exasperation, using the other to keep the flashlight trained on the girls "Everyone, stay here with Ellie, I'm going to be right back," I look at Leah "How far back did she go off trail?"

She shrugs "How am I supposed to know? I don't have a tape measure."

"Sweet," I answer before marching straight into the pitch-black woods. It was almost scarier to be in the dark with a flashlight instead of no light source, it felt like I had been in a video game or horror movie and I was about to get my throat slashed by a maniac in a mask.

Every rustle of leaves or snap of twigs made me feel uneasy. I knew the woods were safe like I had told the girls but that didn't stop irrational fear from bringing up stories of cryptids and cuts from murder podcasts. If you ever played that shitty Slenderman game, you'd know exactly what I'm looking at; not Slenderman himself, just an eery forest.

I called out for Olive, my imagination running wild with thoughts of unseen dangers lurking in the shadows. The forest seemed to come alive around me, its inhabitants whispering secrets that only the night could hear.

"Olive?" My voice echoes into the night, I did what I could to ignore whatever fear I was feeling. I had walked through these woods a million times, I knew every pathway better than I knew the city. This forest was like home to me, it didn't feel right to be so on edge.

I couldn't help but jump when something loud snapped beneath my sneaker, instinctively I brought my flashlight down to look at it, moving my foot out of the way. It had been a pentagram made out of sticks, wow really funny, it might've scared me if Ashlynn and Bowie hadn't made dozens of them and laid them around camp last summer to scare the shit out of kids. It had broken in half beneath my weight.

There was a possibility that I was going crazy in the five minutes I was alone in the woods because I thought I heard a rustle but the beam of my flashlight revealed nothing but the dense thicket of trees and the inky blackness beyond.

Something charged behind me, wrapping its skinny arms around my torse and I couldn't help but flinch. "Olive," I turned my head and brought the flashlight to shine down on her "Don't run off in the dark ever again, you scared the shit out of me."

"I'm really sorry, I won't do it again," She said. I tried to pry her off me but she was hanging on like a Koala, eventually, I got her to settle for just holding my hand. "It was stupid."

"Don't beat yourself up too much, you're ginger and that's punishment enough," I was hastily yanking her along so we could get back on the trail and shortly back into the comfort of the cabin "Did you get your rock at least?"

"Yeah," She held her palm out, the rock was an oval with the littlest indent in the middle, but I let her act like it was shaped like a heart.

"How'd you get so far out?"

"I grabbed the rock and then I saw a cat and I followed it."

Cat? "You must've seen Buckley, he's friendly," I tell her. Buckley was the resident dog at camp, he was probably older than me and wandered around before settling at Tommy and Maria's cabin for the night.

A moment after I dragged the little girl along we broke past the tree line and into the clearing of the trail. I looked around and spotted Ellie and the girls a good 40 yards or so behind. Clutching Olive's tiny hand in mine I walked towards them, flicking my flashlight on and off to catch their attention.

"Finally wrangled her," I let out an almost nervous laugh.

"You said not to go off trail," Tamar wrinkled her nose.

"Yes, Tamar, I know."

I don't know how late into the night it was when I was awoken by every girl in my cabin squabbling with one another. I got up and turned on the flashlight that I kept on my dingy bedside table "What's going on girls?"

"The snatcher is coming to get us!" Leslie cried, and I mean cried. Her face was red and puffy, her eyes were so glassy that they reflected any and all light, hot tears streaming down her round face.

That's when my annoyance turned to concern. Oh god, I was going to kick Sawyer and Dina's asses tomorrow morning and Joel for even suggesting the camp legend even though it made my campers too afraid to sleep year after year. "No, snatchers aren't real, they were made up in the sixteen hundreds to keep kids away from the forest."

"We heard it!" Morgan chimed in.

"Guys it's just the placebo effect, you've convinced yourself that it's real-

I froze when I heard a long scratch down the door and a wet guttural growl. It was low and deep, shaking me to my very core. Whoever was on the other side began to scratch harshly on the door, jiggling the locked door handle. When the handle didn't budge it began to slam itself on the door, each thump louder than the last. It was still groaning and grumbling in a harsh, awful voice.

The girls screamed, Olive and Leah, were hugging each other tightly, clenching their eyes shut. Valentina had a bottom bunk and slipped beneath the bed, covering her eyes with her hands. Leslie (like I had mentioned) was a blubbering mess, crying and hyperventilating too hard to get any words out. It looked like Morgan was trying to call someone on her phone and Tamar had her knees tucked to her chest, hugging herself. Both Kim and Chloe threw their blankets over top of them, pretending to disappear.

The voice sounded again except this time I realized it wasn't just a growl, it was a word "Girrrrllllls." Then it began to scratch the door all over again. When I tell you this voice was the most unsettling thing I've ever heard, I mean it. It was wet and phlegmy whilst being course and grumbly. From the very beginning, I had known it was a prank.

I marched towards the door flicking on the light in the cabin on and dropping my flashlight, before hammering my fists on the door "Fuck off!" I kicked the door, the sound stopped for just a moment before it slammed itself against the door.

Each thud against the sturdy wooden door reverberated through the night like a thunderclap. Whoever was sent to scare us was sure doing a good job. Their breathing was low and heavy almost as loud as the banging of the door itself. "Don't open the door," Leslie heaved out between sobs.

The girls huddled together in terror, their breaths hitching in fear as they strained to discern the source of the horrifying sounds "Girrllllllssss," It grumbled again "GIRRRLLSSSSCOMMOUT," I could see the door moving with the force of whoever was deeply committed to this role. The growling slowly morphed into a screech or maybe it was something more like a hiss.

I was almost at my breaking point, the first day of camp and I already had to deal with these bullshit pranks. I decided to slam my body against the door, matching whoever was on the other side "Go back to your cabin, you piece of shit!" I kept banging my fist and slamming my palms against the door until I heard them scuttle away.

Reaching for a baseball out of Valentina's open duffle bag, I swung the door open and saw the slender figure of what I assumed to be a teenage boy running to the pasture "Tell Sawyer to eat shit!" I yelled before throwing the ball at the figure, it hit them but it didn't do much, they just stumbled for a split second before disappearing into darkness.

"What the fuck is that noise?" Dina shouted from her cabin, I could tell I had woken her up from a nice sleep from the way her puffy eyes were squinting in my direction. A few girls poked their heads outside from the doorframe behind Dina.

"What happened?" Now Priya was walking towards my porch. Her long black hair was braided perfectly and she had her silk sleepmask pulled onto her forehead. She still looked put together in a hoodie and bunny pyjama pants.

"Can you guys shut the fuck up?" Ellie opened her door and looked me up and down.

"Be quiet!" Abby shouted from an open window in her cabin. By this point, I was sure everyone in the girl's bunk houses was wide awake and I would be getting a stern talking to by either, Tommy, Joel, or Maria, honestly, I didn't know which was worse.

Confusion quickly grew on Ellie's face, she lowered her voice "What's going on?"

All eyes were on me for answers but I didn't have any. Despite convincing myself it was a prank, that didn't stop my hands from shaking. "It was one of the boys playing a prank, don't worry about it, he's long gone by now."

"Fucking Sawyer," Dina murmured walking back into her cabin and slamming the door behind her.

"Are you girls okay in there?" Priya asked, looking at the mortified girls in my cabin, concern etched across her bronze face. "It was a dumb joke, you're all okay now."

Priya had invited herself into my cabin to offer her solace to the probably traumatized little girls, while she was doing so, I pressed myself flat against the front of the cabin, between mine and Ellie's doors, trying to process how I was going to find a way to make these girls unafraid.

"They do that prank every year and it's almost crazy how it's literally never been funny," I tell Ellie while I stare straight ahead at the pasture they faded away into.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Ellie stands next to me, leaning against the wall "We'll get them back tenfold."

"Those girls are all gonna wanna call their parents and I'm so fucked," I drag my hands down my face. I didn't want to see the look on Joel's face when I tell him about this. There's gonna be sixteen parents who will spam call the camp and verbally harass me over the phone, this wasn't my first rodeo. Sure the prank was shitty but I guarantee no one is leaving this summer with newfound trauma to tell their therapist in a decade.

"Relax, he's just gonna chew out the boys for pulling this shit again."

I looked at her for a moment, the silence hung between us like birds on a wire before I lunged in for a hug. She was a little taken aback but didn't seem to mind "I just need a hug, don't make it weird."

"Okay, wasn't planning on it," She teased. I took a deep breath in and caught the scent of firewood, petrichor, and axe body spray, an Ellie classic.

“I'm really glad I have you as a friend," I mutter into her shoulder, so quietly that I wasn't even sure she heard me. I let us stay like that for longer than I probably should've before breaking away "Okay, I gotta be a grown-up and deal with this instead of letting Priya do recon."

She nodded pressing her lips together in the same awkward way the socially inept guys from high school did "See you for breakfast?"

"For sure," I smile and walk back into my cabin to see Priya sitting next to Chloe with one soothing hand rubbing her back. "Thanks, Priya, I'll take it from here, you outta get back to your girls."

Priya had this maternal way about her, I wasn't sure what it was but she sure had the ability to nurture. She started at camp last year and I was happy to see her return. She gave her farewells to all of the girls who had only met her minutes ago and were already attached.

"Can I be in her cabin?" Kim asked, she had finally calmed down.

"No, you're in my cabin where we have fun like this every night!" I forced a smile on my face trying to get the girls back into a good mood.

"This isn't fun at all," Tamar, said, bluntly may I add.

"Yeah, this sucks," Morgan added on.

"Guys, listen," I began "I'm super sorry this happened, I need all of you to know that it's just a really bad prank, it happens every year to different cabins. Boy being boys- sorry I shouldn't say that because you guys are young and I know their gender shouldn't excuse their bad behaviour but what I'm trying to say is guys are assholes."

"Yeah, they're assholes!" Olive repeated.

"Maybe don't shout that," I pointed at her "But they are and if you want I will storm down to their cabins right now and yell at them until they cry."

The cabin began to erupt in shouts of no, little girls with wide eyes, frantically shaking their heads. "Please don't leave us alone," Leah pleaded.

"Okay, I won't, I'll yell at them in the morning. Do you guys want me to leave the lights on?" Everyone answered with a 'yes' to my question.

"Where are you going?" Valentina asked me, peeking out from beneath her thick layers of blankets.

"To my bed?”

"That's too far away from us."

I let out a deep breath "Alright, I'll just bring my sleeping bag onto the floor and I will sleep in the middle, okay?" Nothing better than sleeping on the hardwood floor in the middle of four bunkbeds and eight ten-year-old girls.

Surrounded by the shallow breathing of girls far too startled to sleep, I decided that tomorrow I would wake up dressed in adventure, straddling a star. Every day that follows I will guide these girls to the moon and back.

A/N: Hi y’all, I’ve been gone a hot minute because of medical issues and whenever I have time to write, I’m too tired to. Anyways, we’re back and better. I know I should probably finish my other series but I’ve had this one drafted for a while and since I’m super sick and basically confined to my house for the next week I’m hoping to get this series done. Thanks for reading!

@readbydayana

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twistedmionn · 5 months

Note

i havent played twisted wonderland describe all the main characters but badly

Ace: the perfect embodiment of your local chaotic 16-year-old

Deuce: mommy's silly little problem boy who desperately tries to multiply his singular braincell

Riddle: rule-obsessed tomato with anger issues who has never seen a bar of chocolate irl

Trey: teeth-brushing accidental parental figure who probably spikes half of his pastries with marijuana

Cater: the type of guy to sing Two Trucks during a mental breakdown

Leona: it's not me acting like an ass, it's my depression

Ruggie: so adorable that you wouldn't be mad at him even if he successfully robbed a whole ass bank

Jack: i-it's not like I like you, b-baka

Azul: ultimate bottom octobussy (according to approximately every Azul stan I've ever encountered)

Jade: default manipulative evil butler character

Floyd: fan-favorite psychopath

Kalim: what's wrong with manslaughter, why aren't men allowed to laugh? :'(

Jamil: in desperate need of "I'm with stupid" shirts

Vil: "Bad Romance"-era Lady Gaga fan who can & will give you a 5-hour lecture about why gender roles are a spawn from hell (he's right)

Epel: idolizes Gigachad & also radiates big transmasc energy

Rook: hon hon la baguette (French Duolingo owl)

Idia: Levi from Obey Me! except sassier, even more depressed, and with flaming hair

Ortho: that one young child who just casually hangs out with the adults & no one questions a thing (also likes genocide)

Malleus: stealing gargoyles from ancient buildings = a declaration of my unrequited love for you

Lilia: punk grandpa who looks like a teenaged Discord e-girl

Silver: classic love interest from one of those otome games where the MC is a super feminine brunette damsel in distress with bangs, an actual face, and literally no personality

Sebek: sasaeng fanboy

Grim: token glutton mascot character with a squeaky voice

Crowley: Diavolo from Obey Me! except he's an irresponsible middle-aged wannabe Michael Jackson in an aloha shirt

Crewel: TILF (teacher I'd like to fuck)

Trein: don't talk to me or my cat or my cat portraits or my cat mug ever again

Vargas: JoJo character

Sam: dealer who has some sort of obsession with the devil

MC: how tf did all of this happen

...and now, I'm asking you to guess my favorite characters based on these descriptions.

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rfswitchart · 4 months

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Hunter's Comfort Food

I think, at this point, you all know my personal favorite Owl House headcanon. I shouldn't have to say what it is, you already know what I'm about to discuss. However, I am going to describe why Hunter loves what he does and maybe you'll adopt it as your headcanon too...

It all started when Hunter ran away from the Emperor's Coven Post-Hollow Mind. He'd been living in the paranormatorim in Hexside since, building a nest and living on snacks. Gus, having seen the former Golden Guard living so dreadfully, offers him his lunch, which, among other things, included a sandwich.

Hunter then helps Gus escape Adrian and the scouts, citing his reason for doing so being because Gus offered him food. When the illusionist questions him on it, Hunter says "It was a really good sandwich." As many have pointed out, Hunter's diet in the castle was probably miserable. On top of it, he was clearly malnourished, as several characters (Luz, Eda, Amity, Edric, Emira, Matt) have said. So it is assumed he didn't have a great time food wise, which is why he looked so happy eating that loaf of bread in King's Tide...

Yeah, look at him go. Happily chewing on some bread and being pleased as punch over it. And this is where my HC came to be, Hunter and Gus bonding over a simple offering of food. A kindness Hunter had probably never known until then, combined with something that probably saved his life or at the very least made him feel much better. I feel like that sole interaction weighed on Hunter's heart, and it made him fall in love with sandwiches. After all, without Gus' sandwich, he would have never been able to sit down and actually talk about how he was feeling about Belos. He wouldn't have bonded with Gus and helped the younger witch when he needed it most. Hunter developed an intensely strong bond with Gus, a friendship and brotherhood forged in love, trust, and sandwiches.

That said, I assume when they were trapped in the human realm, Hunter started looking into various types of sandwiches (with the help of Camila and Luz, of course.) Figuring out what the best meats and cheeses were. What kinds of vegetables go well with them (information he totally shared with Willow, obviously.) The best kinds of bread and condiments to compliment the other ingredients. I assume he learned about what foods he liked and disliked (boy loves himself some olives, btw.) Of course, this eventually lead to the ultimate creation. His pride and joy: The True Hero Sub. The culmination of his knowledge and understanding of foods that allowed him to create divinity between two slices of bread (well, shoved into a loaf of french bread, but hey, who's counting?)

Of course, this is a BIG sandwich. I know, that's the one I made myself. It is about 2' long (60.69cm for you non-Americans.) It is not something you can eat by yourself, and Hunter would never want to eat it alone. Because of this sandwich, Hunter came up with his philosophy on food; "Food tastes best when shared with others." So I assume the first time he made one, he shared it with the others. Definitely Gus, his sandwich brethren, and possibly Willow, someone Hunter would be thrilled to share his accomplishments with.

And this probably continued as he became an adult. I bet anything that Hunter has a series of sandwiches he brings with him to work. He maybe even wrote down his own cookbook of sorts for them. You KNOW anytime he had a new idea, Gus was the first person he told about it. He probably even made a book to make sandwiches to represent Cosmic Frontier characters (you know Gus AND Camila happily assisted him.) And that's my headcanon. A boy, his best friend, and a type of food that brought them closer and possibly even saved a life in more than one sense. In this house, we respect the Sandwich Bros. (Tagging @childlikegoblinqueen, @unniebeans, and @probablyhuntersmom, who I assume have also had this headcanon infect their brain for some time. *evil laugh*)

#the owl house #toh hunter #hunter noceda #toh headcanon #hunter deamonne #toh gus #gus porter #sandwich bros #hunter loves sandwiches

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cranberrymoons · 6 months

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have a cup(cake) of cheer

prompt: cooking together (@steddieholidaydrabbles) rated: t word count: 668 tags: future fic, rockstar eddie/teacher steve, evil pta moms notes: this one is part of the future fic series! it stands alone, but just for context, corroded coffin exists and is very successful! steve is a teacher and they have four kids 🥰

welcome to Day 6 of the fic advent calendar – bite-sized fics posting every day during the month of december. enjoy!

“Give me the –” Steve says, gesturing at the pastry bag on the counter. “The that.”

He pushes his glasses up the end of his nose with the back of his wrist and shakes his hair out of his eyes, frustrated and sticky and – Eddie glances up from where he’s diligently adding glitter sprinkle snow to the top of the iced cupcakes. He makes a face.

“You realize we could’ve just bought these,” he says under his breath as he hands it over. “No one would have even known.”

Steve lets out a hollow laugh. “You clearly haven’t met Jackie from the PTA.” He squeezes out a dollop of chocolate icing. “Sorry, Jaqueliiiine , even though everyone knows she’s not actually French. She’s from Texas.” He ices another cupcake. “Jackie from Texas who’s out to get me.”

“Baby, come on,” Eddie says. “I doubt she’s harboring some secret vendetta against you. You just don’t like her because she put you on ticket-taking duty at the start of year picnic.”

“She told me to buy the cupcakes,” Steve says. He widens his eyes. “Because she was – how did she put it – ‘just so concerned about how difficult it must be to manage a family and a career with a partner who’s always leaving on tour’.”

Eddie snorts. “I take it back,” he says. “She sucks.”

Steve looks up from his cupcakes. “Right? Thank you. Robin said I was overreacting.”

He squeezes the pastry bag again with more force than necessary, and the icing comes out faster than he means for it to, drooping down over the sides of the cupcake.

“Does she realize who she’s dealing with?” Eddie asks, shooting Steve a sideways glance. “I mean, you’re not being nice to her, are you?”

“No, but I’m biding my time,” Steve says. He finishes with the tray he’s working on and sits back in his chair, watching Eddie work. “I just need to figure out how to hit her where it hurts.”

Eddie lets out a laugh as he pulls Steve’s tray of cupcakes toward himself to start adding sprinkles.

“Run against her in the next board election,” he says. “That’d show her.”

And he sort of sounds like he’s joking, but Steve frowns as he turns it over in his mind, staring out the darkened window at the shadowy shape of the lemon tree in the backyard. He doesn’t know why he didn’t think of it first.

“That might actually work,” he says after a moment.

“I know,” Eddie says. He glances up, flashing a smile. “That’s why I said it.”

Steve gives his ankle a little kick under the table. “Don’t be a dick.” He squints. “Do you think I’d win?”

“You’re the only hot dad on the PTA, and you have a very famous rockstar for a husband,” Eddie says. “Just tell them you’ll get Coldplay to do the winter carnival next year or something. They’ll vote you in for sure.”

“Isn’t that kind of cheating?” And then, maybe more importantly because he doesn’t actually really care about being fair, “Can you actually get them to play?”

“Please,” Eddie scoffs. “They owe me a favor after that thing at the VMAs last year. This is worth cashing in for.”

“I love you,” Steve says. He hooks his foot around the back of Eddie’s ankle. “So fucking much.”

Eddie grins at him. “As if I’d let King Steve go down to Jackie from Texas without a fight.”

Steve laughs and reaches over to snag the over-iced cupcake. He peels off the paper and breaks it in two, taking a bite as he passes the other half to Eddie.

“Jackie can suck it,” he says. “She doesn’t even know how to make her own cupcakes. Did you know she brought store bought ones to the Thanksgiving bake sale?”

Eddie looks genuinely scandalized as he takes a bite of his own cupcake half. “She didn’t.”

“She did,” Steve says. “And they weren’t even good ones.”

[also on ao3]

#steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steddieholidaydrabbles #my fic

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tofics · 5 months

Text

Out Of This World

Chapter 1

Masterlist

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x fem!Reader x Dean Winchester

Summary: You and the Mikaelsons are fighting a powerful witch that's trying to take over New Orleans. The only solution: banishment to another universe. However, the spell goes... wrong, and it's not the witch that ends up in another universe, but you. - At the same time, over a thousand miles away in a bunker in Lebanon, Kansas, an alarm goes off: a rift has opened up. The Winchesters and their angel partners in crime decide to investigate. What will they find when they get to New Orleans?

Word count: 4949 words

Warnings: cursing, violence, murder, mention of blood, allusions of panic attacks.

You skidded around the corner, barely missing a stack of cardboard boxes by an inch. You jumped around it, almost flying past the pile. Your blood was rushing in your ears, your heart almost jumping out of your chest, pumping the adrenaline through your body. Behind you, you heard the evil snicker of your persecutor, hard on your heels. Before you knew it, you reached a wall that cut off your path abruptly. A dead end. You were cornered.

Slowly, you turned around. There she was, a sneer cutting across her face. Despite the few feet between you, you could see the glint in her dark eyes. Again, the witch laughed triumphantly.

"Really? An evil laugh for an evil witch? How terribly cliché," you pressed out between two wheezes. There was a sharp stitch on your right side. Running had never been your thing anyway. You leaned down and rested your hands on your knees while trying to catch your breath. Once this is over, you really have to get into better shape, you told yourself.

The witch was still sneering at you, taking her sweet time to make a move on you. You could imagine that she was enjoying this thoroughly. What started as a challenge for power, trying to dethrone Niklaus and his siblings as rulers of the French Quarter, had resulted in a bloody, messy, magical war. For months, she had been threatening the Mikaelsons and everyone that stood by them. Where threats didn't work, death followed. Quite a few of the Mikaelson's closest followers and allies had lost their lives to the woman in front of you, and yet, you were sure to rank high on her win list: as Elijah's girlfriend, she'd probably enjoy your death a lot more than any of her previous kills. This particular death would strike them hard. Shake them to the core. Possibly - hopefully - destabilize them to a point where they'd fall apart from within and she could easily pluck them apart, one by one, until all of the siblings where gone.

"Not even a true Mikaelson, and yet you're just as snarky as the rest of them. What an obnoxious trait. So full of yourself, all of you. It's a disease. But, not to worry. I'll have that cured in no time," the witch quipped back at you, with so much sweetness in her voice that it made you gag.

"Who's full of herself now?" you muttered to yourself. The sorceress in front of you tsk-ed at you and got into casting stance. She reached into her cloak and brought a fistful of something to her mouth before blowing into her closed fist. Black dust spewed out from between her fingers and hung in the air in front of her like black glitter. You straightened at the sight of her palms turning towards you, the first few words of a spell that was sure to bring you death (and a painful one at that) slowly meandering out from between her lips like a snake, inching itself towards its victim relentlessly.

Okay, feel free to intervene any second now, you thought, trying not to glance around for the rescue that you knew was coming. This plan had been weeks in the making and you weren't about to foil it by giving anything away by accident. Soft dark clouds, looking like droplets of black ink in water were forming around you, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Your eyes began to water as the dark vapor drifted closer and started to engulf you. It stung in your nose, giving off a terrible sulfur stench. You tried your best not to inhale it, but soon you were completely enveloped in the black mist. The first breath burned a straight trail down into your lungs and set them on fire. You began to cough, grasping at your throat, slowly choking on the dark magic the witch was blanketing you with.

Your lungs felt like they were on fire, both from the growing lack of oxygen and the vapor that was eating itself into you. Your legs started to give out underneath you and you fell to your knees as you gasped for air.

Any... second... now... you thought, every word feeling heavy in your brain, as if every word weighed a ton. Just as your vision started to flicker and blur, you registered movement out of the corner of your eye. Something whisked past you from behind you at top speed. You heard an "oomph", followed by the sound of a body being smacked to the ground. Almost instantaneously, the black vapor that surrounded you fizzled away and fresh air finally streamed into your lungs.

You wheezed and sputtered, now on your hands and knees as snot dripped out of your mouth and mixed with your tears and spit on the ground. You were relieved to finally be breathing oxygen again, your lungs however still felt like they were on fire and your throat was about as dry as sand paper.

While you were catching your breath, a lot of action was happening in front of you. Klaus had tackled the witch to the ground and Elijah had shackled her, rendering her immobilized. He grabbed her by her collar and dragged her up against the left wall of the alley. Meanwhile, Freya came out from behind the boxes you had almost run into, hands up and feverishly mumbling, casting the incantation that was supposed to free you all of the witch's evil.

You felt a hand on your back first, and then you were lifted to your feet. Hayley was on your left and Jackson was to your right; both of them had an arm slipped through yours to hold you steady. They shot you concerned looks as you were still struggling for breath. You weakly smiled back as a gesture of I'm okay, don't worry about me.

Freya continued casting in front of you. Her voice grew louder and stronger with each word. Despite clearly being outnumbered, the evil sorceress laughed, seemingly amused by Freya's casting.

"Silence." Elijah's eyes were dark with fury as he ordered the witch to quiet, but her laugh just turned shrill before Klaus struck her across the face. Her laugh briefly sputtered as she sunk down, forced to her knees by the force of the blow. Blood dripped from her split lip and smeared across her teeth. It turned her sneer into a bloody grimace.

"You're making a grave mistake, Niklaus Mikaelson."

Now it was Niklaus' turn to laugh.

"I doubt it, Athea." He bend down on one knee in front of her. "On the contrary, actually. You know, I've got my fair share of enemies in this town. But even they have agreed that we must rid this beautiful city of this plague." Niklaus grabbed Athea by the jaw and locked it in place so she was eye to eye with him. "Now, since we cannot seem to kill you - a very annoying obstacle, I must say - we had to find a different way to get rid of you, didn't we."

Freya started to stumble, the weight of the casting taking its toll on her. Immediately, Elijah was by her side and put a hand on her shoulder. It steadied her in more than just one way. She was reaching the pinnacle of the incantation and needed her brothers' power to cast the final piece of it.

"Klaus? Less talking, more killing?!" Hayley called out from next to you. Klaus smiled in return and got back on his feet to join his brother at Freya's side.

"Right you are, little wolf. I so wish we could drag this out, but alas, time is of the essence. Farewell, Athea. You will not plague this world ever again." Klaus put his hand on Freya's open shoulder with a content smile on his face.

Freya started on the last few sentences of the spell. The air in the alley started to flicker like heat over pavement on a hot day. The hair on the back of your neck started to stand up as you felt a buzzing sensation all around you, as if someone had charged the air with electricity.

Then, Freya spoke the final words. For a moment, everything in your vision seemed to sharpen. It was eerily quiet.

Then, a massive beam of light erupted from all around you, turning the world into nothing but a bright white.

Over a thousand miles away from New Orleans, in a bunker in Lebanon, Kansas, an alarm went off. The buzzing sound vibrated through the entire place, accompanied by the red flashes of warning lights.

"Oh, what now," Dean Winchester growled. He had just begun to sort through his equipment that he'd need for the next few hours: a whole day of working on the cars in the garage of the bunker. Throw in some beers and some rock music, and you had Dean's favorite kind of day off. They'd just come back from a hunt the day before and he had been looking forward to fixing what needed fixing and mending what needed mending. He went into auto-mode when working on a car; it took his mind off things and allowed him to relax.

Dean put the wrench down that he was holding and wiped his hands on the cloth stuck in his waistline. He sighed. "Can't get one damn day of peace around here," he mumbled to himself and left the garage to head to the war room.

When he arrived, he found his brother Sam and both the angels Castiel and Jack already gathered around the map table. As he approached it, he could make out a blinking light at the south of the United States.

"What is it?" Dean peered at the speckle of light blinking feverishly on the map. Sam answered him. "It's... a rift." He looked around at the men gathered the table before he scratched his neck. "I guess the update does work. This is the first one to pop up since we tweaked the settings. At least the first one to be registered."

"Where is it?" Jack, the younger of the angels chimed in. He leaned forward to get a better look at the map. "From what I can tell... New Orleans." Sam replied after checking a few parameters. There were a few seconds of silence between the men before Dean cleared his throat. "Alright." He rubbed a hand over his face as if trying to wipe the exhaustion away that was written all over it, but to no avail. He looked exhausted and worn down. "Guess we have no choice but to check it out. Cas, get your things, we're leaving in thirty. Sam, you stay here with Jack and keep an eye on the table, 'case few more of these turn up. We'll call you if we need back up." Sam nodded and sat down to check through the table's settings while Jack slowly sunk into the chair next to him. There was a hint of disappointment in the young angel's eyes, but he didn't disagree with Dean. He knew that the older Winchester didn't fully trust him and that he had to keep his head down to earn that trust back.

Castiel and Dean left the war room in direction of their respective rooms to gather their belongings for the trip. Once they were out of earshot, Castiel leaned over to Dean. "What do you think this means?" Dean shook his head in response. "I've got no idea, but it can't be good."

The explosion of light faded just as quickly as it had started. Your eyes took a moment to adjust. Black spots danced in your field of vision and there was a penetrating ringing sound in your ears. You moaned and held your head as you stumbled around while your body tried to recover. Slowly, the ringing faded away to a barely noticeable hum and your vision cleared up too.

Once you could clearly see, you stood up straight. Your brain took a moment to register what your subconscious had picked up on within nano-seconds: something was wrong. Where just a moment ago Elijah, Freya and Klaus had stood, there was no one. Hayley and Jackson were gone from your side as well. Even the witch wasn't there. Athea's disappearance was somewhat comforting - after all, that had been the goal all along - but your stomach churned at the sight of the empty spots where your family and friends should have been.

Did the spell transport all of them? you wondered while temporarily frozen in place. It was like your body had to catch up to what your brain was processing. A slow sensation of panic crept up your spine and filled your limbs with an unpleasant tingling sensation. This hadn't been part of the plan. They weren't all supposed to disappear. Just Athea. "Okay, breathe," you told yourself and forced yourself to follow your own order. You took a few deep breaths and unclenched the fists that your hands had formed into, stretching out your fingers a couple of times before you quickly shook your shoulders loose. You can figure this out.

For a lack of a better option, you head towards the entrance of the alley. Perhaps they got thrown back by the power of the spell, you mused. After all, you'd been further away from Athea and the siblings. That didn't explain Hayley and Jackson's disappearance, but you figured you had to start somewhere.

Your legs were still a bit wobbly, presumably from both the near-death experience of choking on magical vapor as well as being light-bombed. You took it slow, taking your time with each step until you were sure that you wouldn't keel over. The extra time it cost you to reach the entry of the alleyway gave you plenty opportunity to inspect your surroundings for any clues about where your people might have disappeared to. You looked around for any signs of foul play while the never-ending feeling that something, something just wasn't right nagged at you. Something was off.

That's when it hit you.

Your stomach lurched as you reached the entrance of the alley where you'd carried out your big plan and you realized what exactly was wrong. There had been spray paint on the wall behind where Klaus had tackled Athea to the floor. Nothing groundbreaking, just a tag someone had quickly sprayed on the bricks. Now, however, the wall was bare. It was still the same old brick wall, covered in specks of dirt here and there, but there was no spray paint on it. The stack of boxes that you'd almost knocked over was also missing. It should have been to your left, but it wasn't. In fact, there wasn't a single card-box in sight. The alleyway wasn't exactly 'clean', but it wasn't nearly as packed with litter and trash as it had been just a few moments ago.

"No... no, no, no, no." Your whisper grew more panicked with each syllable. The faint humming sound in your ears picked back up as your blood began to rush through your body again. Panic rose in your chest and tightened its grip until you felt like you couldn't breathe, oxygen be damned.

The spell had worked. They had successfully sent someone to an alternate universe, just like they had planned. It just wasn't Athea who'd been transported from one universe to another.

It was you.

Elijah experienced the finale of their plan take place on various levels. He heard Freya cast the last piece of the incantation. He felt it, too, the energy that flowed through his and his brothers arm into Freya, their conduct for the spell. Once his sister spoke the final words he felt a massive tug on his lifeforce, taking a piece so big that if he wasn't immortal, he was sure he wouldn't have survived it. They had known that the spell they had found was ancient, dark magic. The scripture had made vague points about how costly it was, but they had been sure that with his and Klaus' energy combined, they'd be able to supply Freya with all the mana that was required for the incantation to work. Still, the final piece of the cut into him with a kind of force that he'd never experienced before. It forced him to his knees and weakened his senses all at once.

Elijah didn't know if his vision blurred or if it was the air around him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Klaus go down as well. Almost the same second the energy was sucked out of him, he felt it in the air around him, charged and ready to explode at the slightest spark. He moaned, unable to move. His hand was stuck to his sister's shoulder through her magic. It felt like it had fused to Freya and they were now linked together for eternity, hand to shoulder and shoulder to hand. The energy around him grew denser and pressed on him, it trickled over his skin and left sizzling trails.

Elijah's muscles spasmed under the electric force and he groaned. A buzzing sound had built in the back of his head and was now stretching toward his frontal lobe, where it pressed against the bone of his skull from the inside. He thought his head might explode until suddenly, everything became very still, like the quiet before a storm. It lasted for about a nano-second until the energy that had condensed around him blew up and drenched the world in light until all he could see was white.

When he came to, Elijah was on the ground. Pieces of pebble were piercing through his skin where it had become exposed from his suit shifting. The buzzing sound had given away to a ringing in his ears and the growing pressure on his skull was gone. Instead it was replaced by a booming hammering sensation that sent rhythmic thrills of pain through his head. He groaned and shifted his weight so he could sit up. His eyes were still sensitive to the light and he had to partially shield them so that he could see anything, despite the light in the alley having returned to normal.

He first saw Freya. She was down on her hands and knees, shaking and panting. Next to her was Niklaus, who seemed to be recovering from the same ordeal as Elijah; the spell had knocked him out flat as well.

Elijah's gaze drifted forward. He felt the area under his eyes trickle as anger shot through him. There, hunched against the wall, lay Athea. She seemed to have been knocked back into the bricks by the force of the spell as blood was running down from the back of her head. Elijah smelled it, but it wasn't the reason for his vamp face to come to the surface. It was his anger, mixed with frustration. Clearly, the spell had worked. They'd paid the price for sure. He couldn't be killed, but he felt like he was just about as close to dying as he could be as an immortal.

So why was she still here? What had gone wrong?

He rose to his feet, fueled by anger, frustration and worry. Athea may temporarily be blacked out, but she would soon come to and he knew what she'd do then. He staggered over to the witch and grabbed her by the hair to pull her close. He was tempted to rip into her throat right then and there, to watch her lifeforce spill out of her and form a puddle beneath her useless body. But he knew it was no use. The Mikaelsons had learned soon enough that Athea had set herself up good and made sure that she couldn't be killed. Not for long, anyway. She always came back.

Elijah snarled and pushed her head back, appalled by the woman in front of him. She'd caused him and his family so much pain over the last few months and he wanted to see her pay for it. This spell had been their last hope. He had no idea what he was going to do now. How he was going to protect his family, or Hayley. How he was going to protect you.

"What... what happened?" Freya coughed behind him and crawled over to them.

"It didn't work! That's what happened!" Klaus shouted, his voice full of fury. His brother had always had a temper, but this time, Elijah felt it was justified.

"It did work, Klaus. You felt it. The spell worked. I don't understand why she's still here." Freya crawled closer to inspect Athea's unconscious body.

"Clearly, it bloody didn't! This was all for nothing!" Klaus' rage was boiling and he took it out on the wall in front of him. His fist left a cracked imprint on the bricks.

"Niklaus," Elijah warned. Niklaus' anger may have been justified, but there was no time for antics. They had to come up with a plan and they had to do it now.

"Elijah?" Hayley's voice was tinged with fear. He began to turn around to console her. "It's alright, Hayley, we'll find a w-" He abruptly stopped when he spotted the gap between Hayley and Jackson. Both of them were still standing as if they'd just been holding you up a second ago, each of them with a raised arm that had been looped through yours. Elijah got up and walked over to them as if in trance.

"Where's Y/N?" he asked. Neither Hayley nor Jackson answered him. They had no answer. Elijah rolled his sleeves up as if getting ready for battle. It was a subconscious move, a displacement activity. He felt the gnawing feeling of panic set in in his stomach.

"Hayley. Where's Y/N?" he repeated in a calm, quiet demeanor. His auto-pilot was taking over. Hayley looked at him and he saw the shock and fear in her eyes. "She... Elijah, she disappeared..." she whispered as tears welled in her eyes.

Elijah stumbled back as if her words had struck him in the face.

"No... no..." Freya was coming up behind him and stared at the spot between the two wolfs where you had been standing just a few moments ago. "But... that's impossible! It's not possible! The spell was customized to Athea, not Y/N!"

"Freya." Although Elijah said her name like a statement, the unspoken question hung in the air. His sister turned to look at him. Fear and confusion were battling for dominance on her face. "Elijah, I don't know what happened. It's not possible. None of the words I said even remotely referred to Y/N. I have no idea how..." She trailed off. Then laughter came from behind them.

"You fools! I told you you were making a grave mistake! Ha ha ha!" Athea cackled as they turned around to her. Blood was still running from her mouth and her face appeared sunken in, with dark circles forming under her eyes. She continued to laugh while she occasionally sputtered and coughed up more blood.

Klaus was the first to react. He whooshed over to her side and grabbed her by the scalp. "What did you do, you useless bitch?" he snarled at her, but Athea just kept on laughing.

"Did you really think I was going to walk into your trap like that?" Athea sneered at Klaus as a red line trickled from her mouth. Again she coughed and spat out more blood.

"No... how...?" Freya's eyes widened in shock as she registered the meaning behind Athea's words. She'd known all along what they had been up to and had somehow... what? Manipulated the spell? "A spell of this character can't be manipulated! She doesn't have the power! I needed you two to even try to pull it off and even then we weren't sure it was gonna work. There's no way she could have altered it on her own." Freya was thinking out loud while she paced around.

"Then how did she do it? Did she have help?" Jackson's rusty voice cut in. He looked around as if he anticipated a line of enemies to come out of hiding at any second and attack them.

"I don't think so. A circle to back her up would have needed to be massive and they'd have needed to be physically attached to her, like Klaus and Elijah touched me. No, she..." Again, Freya trailed off and hesitated for a moment, then she quickly walked over to Athea.

Their enemy witch looked worse by the second. Her skin had taken on a greyish tone and the circles under her eyes had turned a dark purple. Her face, however, still had a stoic, defiant expression all over it. Freya knelt in front of her and grabbed the sorceress by the shoulder. "How did you do it? How did you hijack the spell? That's the only way you could've done it!" she shouted and shook the woman in front of her. The commotion caused Athea to cough again and blood splattered across her chest. She gave Freya a crimson red smile. "Wouldn't you like to know, Freya Mikaelson."

Klaus wrapped a hand around Athea's throat and squeezed slightly. "Tell us what you did, or I'll rip your head off right here and now." His fingers pressed into her throat with more force now, visibly obstructing the witch's airflow. She gasped for air but still... smiled. "Don't waste your strength on me, Niklaus. My time has come anyway." She gasped and coughed again before she continued. "I knew what you had planned and I knew I didn't have enough power to stop the spell. I knew my time in this world was coming to an end, but I wasn't going to go without a fight." She wheezed and the air in her lungs rattled and blubbered. "What did you do!" Klaus shook her by the throat as his voice echoed through the alleyway.

"I hijacked the spell," Athea replied hoarsely and gave another of her bloody smiles. There was a sense of triumph in voice. "But how?" Freya implored. She had no idea how a spell of this character could be manipulated, let alone hijacked. Unless... Athea cackled. "A good witch never reveal's all her secrets. Isn't that what the mortals say?" Klaus tightened his grip on Athea's throat and pushed her up the wall. Her entire weight was now on Klaus' grip around her neck; her feet dangled a few inches above the ground. "There's nothing good about you, you old crone," he growled. "Enough chitchat. Tell us what you did, or I'll rip you apart limb by limb, no matter how many times it takes until you sing." The witch didn't reply. She gasped for air, but her hands didn't claw at Klaus' hand like any other person might've done. Below them, Freya knelt down and inspected the ground. She soon found what she was looking for and rubbed a pinch of the black powder between her fingers.

"Klaus." The hybrid didn't relent his grip on Athea's throat, so Freya started again. "Klaus, it's no use. She's dying anyway." "Whatever do you mean?" Elijah approached the three of them from behind. Hayley and Jackson followed on his heel. "Just what I said. She's dying." His sister held out her hand to him and showed him the black stains. "When I was still with Daliah, she once told me about the myth about the fruit of the tree of life. Supposedly you could use its dried remnants to redirect any spell or curse thrown at you with ease, but no one had found a fruit in centuries. It was presumed to have gone extinct." Freya gestured over to Athea as she continued. "I have no idea how she got one... but this is what she must have used to redirect the spell to Y/N."

"Okay, great, that's one question answered. But why is she dying? I thought she couldn't die?" Hayley defensively crossed her arms in front of her chest. "She can't, not in a traditional way. But this spell is so old and so powerful, it overwrites any other spell. It becomes the default setting. Any power that she invested into enchantments to secure her life must have been redirected into our incantation, to uphold her end of the bargain, so to say. She traded Y/N for herself. Even if she only hijacked the spell and didn't try to counter it, it must have cost massive amounts of mana." The Mikaelson witch paused and briefly looked down. "So much, in fact, that all of her previous enchantments weren't enough. So she's paying with her life."

"Aren't you a clever little witch. It's a pity Dahlia lost control over you. We could have benefited from a clever one like y-" Athea was abruptly cut off when Elijah zoomed over to her and ripped off her head. It fell to the ground with a soft thump and rolled a couple of times before coming to a halt a few feet away from its previous body.

"Freya," Elijah said as he got his handkerchief out and cleaned a few bloody stains from his hand. "Tell me you know how to bring Y/N back, now that you've discovered the reason for this... mishap." The threat in his voice wasn't meant for his sister. He'd stared at the bodiless head on the ground as he had spoken.

"That's just it, brother. I have no idea."

A/N: It's here! I'm so excited! 🥳 This was so much fun to write and I can't wait to get started on the next chapter. This one got kind of long, but I felt that that was necessary to set the whole story up properly. The next chapter(s) might not be as long 😅 Depending on how much time I can find in the next days it should be up by next week.

Continue reading here: Chapter 2

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