#I WISH I WAS COW I WISH I COULD KICK AND BITE LIKE AN ANIMAL I WISH I LIVED IN THE BEFORE TIMES AND JUST BECAME A MURFER INSTEAD

[thedogsleg]

I need to be CAKE's top listener. I need it. But i only listen to music like 5 hours a day. Even if its all CAKE im still fucked.

#can u belive my comute is such a way that its only like an hour of travel each way #but i have to factor in just WAITING for over an hour each way on top of it. insane. #me op #i dunno if i can handle tomorow. i could handle going in #but going in and being there ALL DAY AND THEN waiting and waiting to come home and then and then #i really am a bitch. people in this world have full time jobs. and i cant travel to go draw pictures bc train 2 dirty 🥺 #KILL YOURSELF. #also i was so fucking cold all day. like. the kind where ive been in the house for 4 hours and Im still cold. #like into my ribs into my organs cold. how. #whatever. we continue. #i dont wanna do it. i wanna stay at home amd play video game. bc im a wuss #dude its so dirty. its even like. i could go in on wednesday. id AANT to even. i know that. so i should go tomorow so i can #like apreciate it. but train dirty and hands dirty and people dirty and dirty dirty dirty #im so sick of it. im so sick of it. ash is on new meds. i cant take meds bc the OCD says theyre evil #but then the evil is UGHH. AND I CANT EVEN SYA THAT BC THE OCD IS RIGHT #IM NOT ALLOWED TO FUCKING DISSAGREE GRRR BARK BARK #I WISH I WAS COW I WISH I COULD KICK AND BITE LIKE AN ANIMAL I WISH I LIVED IN THE BEFORE TIMES AND JUST BECAME A MURFER INSTEAD #FUCKKKK #kinda got away from ther original post there. oops.

[brothermouse]

I'm just thinking about the first Christmas.

Mary feels a new blister forming and curses under her breath, so quiet Joseph can't hear. She fought too hard to come along on this trip to let him see an ounce of regret. She didn't have to come. Any sane person would tell her to just stay home, especially with how far along the pregnancy was. But she would walk hot, dusty roads and be covered head to toe with blisters for the rest of her life it it meant she didn't have to put up with the other women in the village.

They always seemed ready with some sharp catty comment, some new way to say the obvious without saying the obvious. She had been pregnant longer than she had been married, and everyone knew it. They would excitedly mention how big she was getting, almost as if they knew that she felt like an overstuffed cow. They would causally ask when she was expecting and then ask to be reminded when her wedding was, smugly implying that they had already done the math. It might have been better if they just came out and called her a slut. At least then she could yell at them. Then she could fight back. Then she could run crying into the strong, protective arms of her husband and he'd hold her and tell her that both she and he know the truth, and that's all that matters.

But even Joseph was different. Before all of this, he had been kind, loving, maybe a little clueless and awkward, but she found that part of him cute. But now? Now he seemed cold and distant. He didn't touch her anymore. No hugs and kisses like other newlyweds. He barely held her hand as her ever bulging self waddled about the house. He seemed almost afraid of her, like she was made of fragile glass or was some wild animal, ready to bite his hand off if he got too close. To be fair, some days she did feel like a strange beast, but her wild wrath was always meant for the town gossips. Towards Joseph she only felt sadness and grief for the kind man who seemed to vanish overnight.

Joseph, for his part, wasn't afraid of Mary. He was afraid of that thing growing inside of her. That Messiah. 'What even is a Messiah?' he would ask himself, 'What would it even look like?' Question after question after question filled his head and choked his tongue. Would the Messiah pop out, fully formed and armed for battle, before riding to Rome to behead Caesar, slaughtering heathens and gentiles along the way? Would it be like a rabbi, and call him and his wife to repentance for some yet unknown slight against God? Why does a Messiah need a father?  Does a Messiah need a father? Doubts filled him and crippled him.

He would steal glances at Mary. She was sweaty and dirty and a little angry-looking. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wanted to grab her, lift the small delightfully plumped woman over his head and tell her all the ways she made him feel. But what if that broke the rules? What if his own uncleanliness some how befouled her? She was a holy vessel, like the Ark of the Covenant, and he was just...Joseph, the guy who cut wood.

Even without the angels and prophesies, Joseph would have felt unsure. Technically he was a grown man. He had lived the appropriate number of years, gone through the right ceremonies, done everything that everyone says make you a man. But still, whenever he saw those broad-chested, thick bearded men who seemed to have all the answers he saw he gap between himself and them. Real men had the answers. Real men knew what to do when their children were born. Real men could manage to say more than three words to their own wives.

Late in the day they arrive in town. Joseph curses himself. He should have known the trip would take longer with Mary. He should have planned ahead. Mary quietly curses again. Seems the baby didn't like all that walking and is kicking her kidneys in rebellion. She looks at Joseph, hoping he can see her pain, hoping he'll at least acknowledge it.

“I'll find an inn. ” He mumbles to her, knowing that a real man would have scooped her up in thick, strong arms and said “Not to worry, my radiant jewel! I'll have a roof over your head before the stars can grow jealous of your beauty!”

The sun dips below the hills and still no inn. Joseph wants to tell his wife that he's sorry. That she deserves better. That she deserves a real man by her side. One who would wrap her up in the finest silks and build a grand palace around her, wherever she wishes. But the most he can manage is rushing to the next inn, and hoping there's room for two.

Mary is growing concerned. What started as the baby rebellion has turned into all out war. Why didn't she just stay home? Why did she want so badly to spend time with a husband who seemed more concerned with chatting with unhelpful innkeepers than his own suffering wife? If she wanted to have a baby and be ignored by Joseph, she could have done that at home! At least at home she had her cousin Elizabeth to talk to. The contractions were getting closer now. Elizabeth had warned her about this. It was only a matter of time before the baby arrived.

As soon as Joseph wandered in arm's reach Mary snatched his robe.

“It's coming.” she says through gritted teeth.

“What is?”

“The baby!” Mary grunts.

Joseph turns pale. A thousand new questions and doubts fill his mind. “Where-”

“Anywhere!” Mary hisses through the pain. “An ally, a hut, a stable! Anywhere that isn't here!”

They enter a stable, a stubborn cow is woken up and moved to make room. Joseph feels remarkably out of his depth. He always though that when this day came, Elizabeth would be there to handle things and he would help by looking after little baby John. Only a few months old, John was a funny kid with an unparalleled knack for getting bugs in his mouth. Joseph liked John. Would a Messiah eat bugs? Joseph shakes his head back to the present. In a panic he asks Mary what he should do.

Mary meets Joseph's eyes. They are big and brown and filled with concern. They are the eyes of the man she loves. She wants to bask in the warm, manly kindness of those eyes forever, but another contraction cruelly pulls her away.

“Water!” she grunts, remembering what she can from Elizabeth's occasional words of advice, “and cloth!”

Joseph scrambles for the needed materials, but the pained screams of his wife tear at his soul. A real man wouldn't need to scramble for scraps with his wife in pain. In his heart he cries to God. He begs for an answer, just one answer to any one of his endless questions.

Mary lies on a pile of hay, eyes filled with tears, body filled with pain, and heart filled with loneliness. So few people could understand the pain of her soul, and the one person who she wanted most to understand, the one person who was physically closest to her was worlds away. She prays between agonized gasps for relief.

Mary screams to high heaven and Joseph's heart shatters. He can't do anything for her. She deserves so much more than he can give, and he can't even bring himself to give her a competent hand.

“I'm sorry” he gasps. And he runs out of the stable into the street. He shouts and screams and cries for help. A city of strangers huddles in their beds and ignores him. He spies a group of men. Desperate, he rushes upon them, grabs their woolly, sheepskin robes and begs them to help. Through childish tears and snot and sobs he explains his predicament.

One of the younger men huffs. He says they have something important to do tonight. One of the oldest men waves a hand and his young companion and claps an arm around Joseph. “We're used to delivering lambs,” he says, patting Joseph on the back, “But I think we can manage a child, just for tonight.”

In the stable, Mary clutches her belly. She's been abandoned. Her only companion now is an irate cow glaring at her from the the corner. Another contraction comes and she clenches her eyes. Suddenly something grabs her hand. She slaps it away, thinking it's the cow, getting impatient. It gabs her hand again. She opens her eyes and sees Joseph. His big, kind, brown eyes filled with tears. She squeezes his hand back. Suddenly she is surrounded by a small army of strangers.

“They're here to help.” Joseph says.

And they do help. With practiced precision each one fills a task. Water is fetched, clean cloth is produced. Shortly a tiny, pink, screaming baby is introduced into the stable. The cow wanders out, giving up getting sleep in this stable on this night.

The strangers hand the baby to Mary. She is tired. She feels like she's been stretched out a mile. She looks at the baby, wondering if she had been screaming this loud a moment ago. She's about to fall asleep. She shakes off the exhaustion and remembers something Elizabeth told her. Wrap the baby up tightly as soon as you can, so he can grow up nice and tall. She tries to calm the baby while fishing for spare cloth.

Meanwhile the strangers are beginning to leave, but Joseph delays them. He wants them to teach him. He wants to know how to be a man, a father, a husband. He stumbles over his words, trying to get the question right. The strangers are insistent, though. They have something important to do tonight.

Mary has finally got the baby wrapped up, and that seems to have calmed him. Exhaustion is pulling at her eyelids like iron weights. The baby needs a place to sleep. A nearby manger has relatively clean hay. She puts her baby there and lies back for her own long sleep.

Joseph is stumbling over his words as the strangers grow more insistent that they have to leave. Suddenly one of the younger men begins to tremble. He tugs at his elder's robes and points to a corner of the stable. The older man looks at the manger and the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and begins to weep. The rest of the strangers follow suit, some weeping, some praying, some just standing and staring in awe. Joseph manages to eek out one more question, “What's wrong?”

The oldest man wipes the tears from his eyes and answers, “Absolutely nothing is wrong. It's just...well...” he scratches his bald head, looking for the words. “Earlier... when we were watching the sheep...there was this...angel.”

Instantly Mary snaps awake, all fatigue dispersing at that one word. “Angel?”

“Yes ma'am.” the old shepherd says sheepishly, “an angel, and-”

“I've seen one, too.” Mary says. “They're incredible!”

“And terrifying.” adds Joseph.

“And beautiful!” the Shepherd

The strange group spends the next few hours trading stories of their visions and the strange coincidences that brought them together.

While the shepherds and Mary are eagerly trying to explain the strange musical quality of an angel's voice the old Shepherd pulls Joseph aside. Joseph tries to ask twelve questions at once, but the shepherd stops him.

“She doesn't need you to have all the answers.” He tells Joseph, “She just needs you to be there.”

“But, how am I supposed to raise-”

“A day at a time. Children, sheep, men. Everything grows a day at a time.”

He gives Joseph a few more specific points of advice. And the begins to gather up his companions. He explains that the mother needs her rest, and they have sheep to feed. Slowly and reluctantly the shepherds are herded out.

Mary now feels more tired than ever. The baby begins to fuss. Joseph steps in and rocks his son.

He lies down next to Mary.

Haltingly, unsure, she moves towards him. His arm wraps around her and draws her in close. She rests her head on his chest and stares at her little baby boy. Her thoughts turn to the catty gossips of Nazareth. Without thinking she voices her fears, “What will they say when we come back home with a baby?”

Joseph squeezes her tighter, “Whatever they want. We know the truth. Besides, if it gets too bad, I'll bet we can get those shepherds to beat them up for us.”

Mary looks at Joseph, her tired mind trying to grasp what he just said. The joke dawns on her and she beings to laugh. Then as the emotional dam begins to burst the laughter turns to tears, and tears eventually fade into sleep. All the while Her husband holds her in his strong, protective arms.

And that's what I think the First Christmas was like; messy, loud, and full of people who had no idea what they were doing. So don’t feel bad if your Christmas is messy, loud and full of doubt. It puts you in good company.

#christmas #jesus #Nativity #tumblrstake #queerstake

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

The Perfect Bad Boy (Pt. 13 of 18)

Pairing: Billy Hargrove X Reader

Word count: 3 K

Summary: Working as a lifeguard in the Hawkins Community Pool, you try to fit in after moving from New York. Things were going pretty well when you notice you've been under someone's stare. Billy Hargrove, Hawkins' bad boy, has been staring at you since day one. You never intended to have anything to do with him, judging by the reputation he has. But Billy won't leave you alone, determined to show you his feelings are different this time...

As if your heart flooding you with confusing feelings wasn't enough, there are weird, strange animals lurking in the woods... But those have to be just part of the wild live of the woods surrounding Hawkins... Right?

<- Previous part (12)

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{Stranger Things Masterlist}

×

Demodogs

The funfair is everything you thought it would be, and even more. The colorful lights, the music, the games, the kids running around. It's inebriating, beautiful, mesmerizing... You only wish you could forget what you saw on the road... What you saw a while ago and what James told you he saw. Four beasts so far, if you assume those were all different animals. It probably means there are more, right? Nobody was attacked yet, or else you'd know. News travel fast through Hawkins. But even so, the cops need to know, and whatever it is, it has to be controlled. But what you really need is to know what that is. You think you'll feel better once you know the species, so you can do some research and have some peace of mind.

“(Y/N)? Are you there?” Monica shakes your shoulder lightly, dragging you out of your thoughts. “You look a little pale. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yup. I was just thinking.” You all give a few steps forward when the line for the ferris wheel move.

“I know who you were thinking about,” Christopher says, his arm around Monica's shoulders. “He's coming, by the way.” He tilts his head towards something behind you, and you immediately turn on your heels, and the familiar burning on your stomach hits.

You can't help but smile to see him, walking among the sea of people, eyes fixed on you. It's ok to look now, right? You're dating, you're living together. And Billy looks so... Gorgeous. Hot. Awesome. He's wearing his black leather jacket and a dark blue shirt underneath, which is unbuttoned.

“Hey, princess.” His smile makes your legs weak as he pulls you into a kiss.

“Hey, handsome,” you mutter when you pull away, a hand on the exposed part of his chest. “Haven't you ever heard of buttons, Hargrove?”

“Yeah, but I don't think they're necessary.” He winks and you bite your lip.

“I think I agree,” you whisper before finally turning back to your friends. And, of course, they're all staring with wide eyes. Monica is the only one who knows you're dating. “So, guys... Billy and I.” You mutter, blushing lightly and moving again. You're next in line.

“I knew it!” Jason exclaims, high-fiving Monica. “I knew it, from the beginning.”

“I didn't. I mean... Billy is... Or was...” Christopher struggles with the words, gesturing at Billy and you. “Well it doesn't matter, does it? Congratulations.”

“Careful, Chris. Remember what happened to David last time.” Monica warns him, a smirk on her face.

“Next.” The old man calls and you move.

“Couples first,” Monica says, pulling you and Billy ahead of the others. The car only fits two, so you and Billy go alone.

As you move up, you look down, taking in the amazing view the ferris wheel provides. Billy has an arm around your shoulders, and you lay your head on his shoulder.

“You're quiet. What happened? You sounded very excited about the fair.” Billy asks, placing a kiss on your hair.

You don't want to tell him why you're restless, not today. “I was. I am.” You stutter a little, clearing your throat.

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“No.” You breathe out, cursing yourself for worrying him. “I'm happy, I truly am and this is... This is beautiful and being here with you just makes everything better.” Looking up, you pull him into a kiss, taking in his amazing scent, from the cologne you love so much. “I'm alright, trust me,” you reassure him when we break the kiss.

“(Y/N), you were very, very loud earlier. You literally threw water on me. You can't possibly think I wouldn't notice you acting weird.” Billy keeps his index finger on your chin, forcing you to look into his eyes.

You really wish he could let it go because you don't want to ruin the night, but don't want to lie either. “I just saw something in the woods, but I'm sure it's nothing.” You try hard to keep the fear away from your voice, to keep it casual.

“Was it the same thing you saw the other time?” He asks, the expression on his face changing. It seems that you don't need to ask Billy to believe on what you saw. He does. You have no idea why or how, but it looks like he does. “The same thing James said he saw?”

“Yeah... Two of them. Running, keeping up with the car.” Your voice cracks by the end, as the image comes back to your mind. It's almost surreal that you're so scared of what's probably just some kind of animal. “It's stupid. I'm a big city girl, I'm not used to living this close to the woods.”

“It's not stupid.” He assures you, pecking your lips. “We'll check it out tomorrow, ok?”

“We should tell the police. What if it starts attacking people in the daylight?”

“It won't,” Billy states, not a single hint of doubt in his voice.

“What do you mean it won't? Do you know what it is? Is it nocturnal?” The words come out fast. If he knows what it is, why didn't he tell you on the first time? Billy looks away, taking a deep breath. “Billy?”

“I'll need you to trust me in this, (Y/N).” His voice is different, urgent, deep. Of course you trust him, how could you not?

“I do,” you say in a low voice. “You know I do. Is something going on that I don't know about?” As you speak, your time is over and you're back on the ground. Billy takes your hand and start walking away from the ferris wheel.

“I promise I'll tell you everything. But not here, and not today.” You both stop, and Billy cups your face. “For now, let's us just... Enjoy the moment. How does that sound?”

Taking a deep breath, you nod. It was the plan from the beginning, so you might as well stick to it. “Alright.”

“Come, I'll introduce you to my friends.”

Billy guides you through the fair, holding your hand. His friends are on the Northside, where parking is exclusive for the employees. But you don't think they care. You only know Tommy and Carol, the other two guys and the girl you only know from afar. When they recognize Billy, Tommy raises his hand and waves.

“You'll hate them.” Billy warns.

“Let me be the judge of that,” you whisper as you approach the guys.

“What's up, Billy,” Tommy says, smiling. “...And who's that?”

Of cours they're staring at you. Why would you even hope otherwise? You're not only the new girl, but now you're also the one who actually got Billy Hargrove. People won't just look. They'll stare. “This is (Y/N), my girlfriend,” Billy says and you wave at them. “(Y/N), these are Tommy, Carol, Ryan, Buck, and Emily.”

“Hi. It's nice to meet you, guys.” You simply say, involuntary moving closer to Billy when you notice Ryan's eyes lingering on you.

“Girlfriend? Are you kidding me?” Carol asks, giggling. “I knew you two were hanging out but dating? I must admit I didn't see that coming.”

“Why didn't you introduce her to us earlier, Billy?” Ryan mutters, taking a sip from his can. “Is she too... Pure to hang out with us?”

“Actually, yes,”

“And have you started corrupting her already?" Ryan flashes a smile, and it makes you feel uncomfortable. You can see when his eyes move through your body, up and down, his smile only widening. “Why don't you give me your number, sweetie? I can call when Billy boy here is done with you.”

“Don't you–”

“Do you happen to have Billy's number?” You ask, raising your voice and placing a hand on Billy's chest to stop him from moving. Ryan raises an eyebrow and nods, a big interrogation on his face. “Good. Then you already have my number.”

He bursts into a laugh, furrowing his eyebrows. “Nice one. You could just say no, though.”

“It's not a joke.” Smiling, you feel Billy's arms encircling your waist.

“Wait. Are you two living together or something?” Emily gestures at you and then at Billy, and you feel when he nods. “Shit, it's true then. You're pregnant.” She stands up straight, wide eyes.

“I knew it.” Tommy states.

“That again.” Rolling your eyes, you shake your head lightly. “I'm not pregnant. We're just–”

“Living together,” Billy states, his voice making it clear there will be no further explanation.

Everyone, basically at the same time, gasps, giggles, and Ryan spits out his drink. “Holy shit, Billy. Can't believe you're keeping this one. But this whole innocent act she has going on is very alluring, I must admit.”

“Want me to beat him up a little?” Billy whispers in your ear, and you can hear the anger building up. And you didn't like what Ryan said anyway.

“I did say I wouldn't stop you on the next time so be my guest,” you whisper back, shrugging your shoulders. Who are you to intervene if Billy wants to use his friend as a punching bag?

You give a step back when Billy moves, straight towards Ryan who has the decency of raising both his hands in defeat. “C'mon, Billy. You wouldn't hurt me because of one of your cows, would you? She's just–” Ryan is cut short by a hard punch on his stomach, which makes him bend over and forces the air out of his lungs.

“I would just–” Billy pulls him up again by the collar of his shirt, his fist then connecting to his jaw. “–warn you but–” A kick this time, on the ribs. “–you just can't keep your damn mouth shut, can you?” Billy pushes him violently, and Ryan stumbles down, blood all over his nose and mouth. “I believe my point is made.” He turns to look at the others and you do the same, just now noticing your eyes were fixed on the fight. If you can even call this a fight.

“No screwing with your girl,” Tommy states, exchanging a wide-eyed glance with Carol. “Got it.”

“Let's go, (Y/N).” Billy fixes his jacket and takes your hand. “Want some cotton candy?”

He is acting as if he didn't just leave a bleeding Ryan lying on the ground. “Yeah,” you mumble, raising an eyebrow at his smirk. Billy starts walking, not bothering to wave goodbye at his friends. “Just because I didn't like them it doesn't mean you can't hang out with them. I want to make this very clear.” You have to say it. In a relationship, a person shouldn't try to control who the other hangs out with.

“You're an angel, you know that? The other girls had me for one night and already wanted to control what I–” He stops talking suddenly, shaking his head slightly.

“What? You can say it, I made peace with whatever you did before.” As you speak, you start pulling him on a different direction. This parking lot is outside of the fair, so you're near the back of the attractions. A place gets your attention. It's a bit dark, but there's this blue and purple light, enough to illuminate it just a little bit.

“I know, but I shouldn't compare you to–. Where are you going?”

Not bothering to answer, you just start pulling him harder. “There.”

“I might like where this is going.”

“Jerk,” you mumble, smiling to find that whatever attraction this is, the back is shaped like an L, which gives you a perfect corner to hide. So you move to the very back of it. “Thank you again,” you say, turning around and walking backwards until your back hits the metal wall.

“For what?”

“For defending my honor. It's the second time and now I can thank you better than I did on the first time.” Of course, he already has that smirk on his face. The one you used to hate, that you used to be scared of because it made you feel... Weird. “I–”

The words get caught in your throat when Billy picks you up suddenly, both his hands grabbing your legs and placing them around his waist. You immediately wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself, giggling. “For the height issue.”

“The height is not an issue,” you tell him, the blue and purple lights illuminating his face enough for you to take in his features. They're already memorized, burned in your brain, but you still like to look. “It's good to be on the same level though.”

“Mhm.” He mumbles and you close your eyes when you feel his lips brushing on yours.

You're used to the burning sensation, the sweet butterflies on your stomach as the anticipation kicks in.

On the moment his lips connect with yours, the amazing, breathtaking sensation is clouded by a groan. A... Growl. Billy pulls away immediately, letting you down. “What was that?” you ask, suddenly aware of the woods across the parking lot.

“Stay here, I–” Another snarl, low and guttural, and then you see it.

The thing comes from behind a large truck, some feet away. You're frozen at the sight. Now you can see it, clearly. And it's not an animal.

It has no fur, just blue, wet skin... And no face. You were right. James was right...

“(Y/N),” Billy calls, but you don't move. “(Y/N), c'mon.”

The thing moves slowly, and you have no idea how, but it knows you're here. It's looking straight at you and Billy, despite having no eyes. You're trying to make your body move, to send any signals to your legs, but it's useless.

Its face starts moving, all of it. You feel Billy grabbing your hand, a distant, numb feeling. Then, the animal's head opens up, and an unnatural growl emerges from its throat at the same moment you're pulled. You don't know how but your legs start working, and you're suddenly running, as fast as you can, back inside the fair. But you feel hunted, pursued. You're among the people again, but Billy keeps running, you don't know where. You can't think. Maybe you're going crazy, but you're pretty sure Billy saw it too. He wouldn't be running if he didn't, right?

“(Y/N),” Billy cups your face, and only then you notice you stopped. The sea of people move around you, but you can't really see it. “Listen. I need you to help me find Maxine. Or any of her friends. Ok?”

You simply nod, taking a deep breath and trying to get yourself back together. “Maxine,” you repeat, clenching your fists. “Or the boys. Alright. But n-no separating to look.” You burst out the last part, holding the collar of his jacket.

“No, we'll stay together. I just need you to–”

“Billy!” A low yell almost lost among the noises reaches you. You both turn your heads at the same time to find Max running, pushing people out of her way. She's with the boys, and someone older. “We gotta go. Now.” She says once she's close.

“We–”

“The Demodogs are back.” Dustin cuts Billy off, his voice getting all funny again. But you don't laugh this time. You're too scared to laugh.

“(Y/N)? Are you ok?” Max asks, and you don't know what to say.

You're feeling sick. There are too many people here, and that thing is out there... What if it starts attacking? There are kids here, toddlers... You feel your body failing, and a strong arm encircles your waist.

“My place. Everyone. Now.” Billy commands as you struggle to stand up, hiding your face on his chest.

Is there any possibility you're having a nightmare?

Because these... These things don't just happen. It doesn't exist, not in real life. It belongs only to sci-fi or horror movies.

Billy has a hand on your knee as you ride shotgun in his car, not listening to whatever Max, Lucas, and Dustin are talking about on the backseat. You're waiting to wake up, you think. Trying to shake the image of that thing's head opening up like it's been sliced apart. You feel how your hands are shaking when you touch your face, trying hard no cry out of desperation.

“Hey,” Billy says in a low voice. “Remember when I told you to trust me?”

Nodding, you dry off the stubborn tears before looking at him. “We'll fix this. I promise you.”

“How? How do we–”

“We'll tell you everything,” Lucas says, cutting in. “I mean, she saw it. She has to know, right?”

“Right. But your brain may explode, so be prepared.” Max touches your shoulder, but you can't understand why they seem so... Calm about this. They're worried, but not deadly, ultimately scared. How in the hell is that possible that you're the only one here on the verge of losing your damn mind?

“Let's get inside,” Billy says when we stop by his place. “And wait for the others.”

You can barely feel your body as you walk to the house. Billy remains by your side on the couch as the boys stay in the kitchen. The low chattering is unlistenable.

“How are you feeling, princess?”

“I don't know how to answer that. I just say a very weird dog cracking its head open.” Running a hand through your hair, you close your eyes shut. “It's about that lab, isn't it? This whole thing smells like some screwed up experiment that went wrong.”

“The truth is actually a lot worse than that.” As he speaks, the door opens and you jump back to your feet, breathing out relieved when you see it's just the rest of the guys. And three more people, about your age.

Everyone gathers around in the living room and you go back to your place beside Billy. It's creepy the way they all keep staring at you, exchanging glances.

“(Y/N), these are Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan. They're part of our party when it comes to... This.” Max starts, and the three of them nod and give you a little wave. “There are also Robin, Hopper, the chief of police and Joy, Will's mom, but they won't get here in time so... Let's just do this.”

Maxine takes the deepest breath, but when you think she'll start speaking, she doesn't.

“I swear to God I'll lose my freaking mind if one of you don't start explaining to me what the hell is going on here because I just saw some–some sick, zombie, dead dog with no face and the head just opened up like one of those carnivorous plants and I'm sure something is very, very wrong and–”

“Alright, I'll do it.” Eleven speaks up, stepping forward and gesturing for Billy to stand up. She takes his place, looking down at her hands before looking at you. “Ready for the strangest story you'll ever hear?”

×

@chloe-skywalker @dpaccione @dreamin-of-dacre @funeral-7 @uncookspaget @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @halloweenbitch2764 @redlovett @multific @shinydixon @nikkixostan @clockworkballerina

#imagine billy hargrove #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x y/n #billy stranger things #stranger things imagine #imagine stranger things #stranger things fanfiction

[abizarreyodelingincident]

LU: The Sacred Beast (for a farmer)

The Sacred Beast (for a farmer)

His skin was burning.

Black particles floated up from the ground, toward a sky an unnatural shade of dusk. Spots danced before his eyes. He couldn’t… 

Illia. The kids. He… he had to stand. 

His bones shifted. 

Link blinked away tears. 

His groans of pain echoed through the air and in his head. Where was the monster? He… he had to get away from the monster before he passed out. 

The back of his hand flared, and set the rest of him on fire. Pain took over his mind, blinding him to everything but itself. He knew that something had changed in him, but as his suffering receded, so did his strength. 

Darkness claimed him, leaving him only with the knowledge of his body changed by the magic of the monsters. The last sensation he registered was that of his nails -- hard, split -- hitting a mount of dirt in the path. 

***

“Get that beast out of here!”

It took six guards pushing with all their mights, but they managed to throw Link off his hooves. The poor adventurer headbutted the stone rails leading to the South gates. He shook his head, more annoyed than hurt by the impact. On the other hand, the stone rail had crumbled. When he narrowed his eyes back at the guards, they clearly gulped.

Now, if only they'd just let him through already.

Not for the first time, Link really wished he would have been cursed into a more intimidating form. Maybe a big dog or a wolf would have been better. He certainly wouldn't have been dragged out of town by the horns, at least. Link entertained the image of those damned guards cowering before a mighty wolf before shaking his head. Daydreams wouldn’t get him anywhere. 

***

Link tilted his head as he pushed an ear against the singing stone. Some animal instinct of his couldn't help notice the otherworldly cold around it, nor the faint voices whispering through its ritualistic structure. Notes, howled to a moonless day. And fainter still, an invitation. Suddenly, he knew what he was meant to do. That didn’t help much. 

How in Farore's name was he meant to play those melodies in this form?!

Oh boy...

Link glanced around for a bit, partly out of heroism, partly out of embarrassment. He couldn't let anyone lose their hearing from what would happen next. Maybe that skull kid would, and he guessed that'd be punishment enough for the puppetry attacks. Seemed a fair trade in retrospect.

“Well?” Midna asked, scratching her vibrant flame-red hair. “Any clues, farm boy?”

He shot her a grim look, then cleared his throat. It came out shaky, and off-key.

Her shadowed form went still. “Oh no, farm boy. You are not braying that. I can't block my ears in this form. I'm not even corporal!”

Link resolutely ignored the ghostly jab in his ribs. Alright. Alright, the notes. He had to hit the right notes, correct?

Seconds later, the skull kid fled the Lost Woods, dozens of horrified critters running past him with their ears covered in whatever way they could manage.

***

The realm of the dead shifted to accommodate two beasts, sacred, a chasm away and yet less than a stride apart. Below, Hyrule Castle was witness to the impossible meeting between ancestor and descendant, proud chosen of the Goddesses and legends of grand tales.

The last notes faded away, a sense of serenity cloaking the world as both lowered their heads.

The Golden Wolf did a double take.

“... Why are you... Shouldn't you be a wolf?”

Link pawed at the ground and aimed his horns.

The Golden Wolf cringed. “Huh, right, right, sorry. I suppose I expected my descendant to be a wolf too… not that it's wrong to be something else! At all! It's just that the goddesses spoke of the Sacred Beast, and then my spirit took this form and… you know what? Let's just get to sword training, son.”

***

“A Sacred Beast to counter a Dark Beast. Giddy up, Link. We're in need of your horns again,” Midna said from his shadow.

Link didn't groan.

He had long since learned to channel his rage into rearing hindlegs and a skullbash strong enough to decapitate a bulblin. He let the shadows engulf him, took in the comforting weight of Midna on his back, then pawed in challenge before the glowing glyphs.

Beast Ganon was very surprised, a moment later, when his mad rampaging got cut short when he slammed himself face first into a snarling goat that didn't move an inch.

His tusk broke though. 

***

Link jumped at the sound of skittering pebbles. Ever since the old king had told him he was destined to save Hyrule from the Calamity, he'd been fearing failing a second time. It felt like the second he would relax, the whole world would collapse on top of him. Anything and everything that could threaten his mission would.

He'd startled himself awake every night since the revelation. Berated himself for resting, for letting himself be vulnerable in the open where any random monster, or even ill-intentioned traveler could kill him without a fight.

He couldn't fail.

He stumbled as his foot hit a root on the path, his body suddenly heavy and his sight blurry. He straightened up against the rocky side of the cliff. No. He had to stay alert. He couldn't let down his guard. Even if his eyelids weighed more than a talus.

The noise came from above him.

Link scrambled out of the way.

The creature that trotted down the slopes of the cliffside stood about as tall as a horse, and the pair of long, linked horns only added to the height. It also had hooves, but... broken or something. Link wasn't intimidated – he'd dealt with scarier – but he kept his arrow notched just in case it turned out territorial. The last horned animal he'd gone too close to had chased him up a tree. Stupid horned thing!

This one though... it brayed softly, almost comfortingly. Link blinked. Did wild beasts do that? Without thinking, he put his bow away and reached very slowly.

It did not snap teeth at him.

Did not startle away, fleeing like they could see all his failures.

His hand met warm coarse fur, and his breath hitched.

The animal nipped his sleeves, not hard enough to even dent the fabric, and knelt. Then tilted its head.

“You… want… climb?” he pushed out, struggling to find the proper words. “Me... on you?”

It nodded. Could it understand the hylian language? Maybe his hand gestures? Every other animal so far had fled from him the second they heard him coming. The only ones that didn't were the little four legged ones that barked when he got close to a stable. Tame. Right, that was the word.

He stared some more at the animal. It reminded him of... Gasping, he pulled out his Sheikah slate and swiped through the compendium. Goat! That was it. This animal looked a bit like a goat. Bulkier, and its horns weren't right, but the fur and the body was way too similar for it not to be a goat too.

Link grinned at the animal. “Goatie. You're a Goatie.”

It did the face some Hylians made when he was proud of remembering something they said was obvious. Wild almost cringed, but a burst of noise stole his attention, and he whirled around, rusty sword in hand.

“Haha, die, Hero!” some Yiga assassin crooned as it appeared in a blast of red magic and paper talismans. “Ganon's takeover will not be sto-GAH!”

The goat had rammed straight into the assassin's chest and sent them flying. As circumstances or Hylia had willed it, it just so happened that the Yiga had laid their ambush between a cliff and a hill. Whilst the goat hadn't hit them past the cliff's edge, it had indeed thrown the assassin down the hill, where they started to roll. Cursing. Hitting trees, bushes and unfortunate foxes all the way down to a small stream. Where a handful of lizalfos nested. Yikes. That looked painful.

The goat snorted, then turned up its nose at the poor Yiga.

With vivid blue eyes the same shade as his, the goat gestured for Link to get on its back. This time, he did not hesitate.

Horses were fun, Wild decided right there and then, but Goatie was so much better.

***

“Whoa! What's that thing?” Sky jumped to his feet, nervously eying the horned beast that had calmly trotted out of the bushes.

Amongst those that had drawn their swords, only Wind and Hyrule didn't sheath them back immediately upon recognition.

“Sky,” Legend deadpanned, “that's a goat. A farm animal. Not a bloodthirsty predator.”

Blushing faintly, Sky apologized, putting his sword away. “Right. I... I never saw one of these before.”

Time quickly pat him on the back, never letting the goat out of his sight. “Better be more cautious than not. Especially since farm animals can be quite dangerous in their own right. A well-placed kick from a cow or a horse will send you to the healer just as quickly as a bite from a wolfos. That goat's horns are... larger than I'm used to.”

“Yeah, I admit, I've never met that breed before. Anyone?” Legend swept the camp with his gaze.

Most shook their heads, but Warriors put a hand to his chin. “I swear I've seen one like this before.”

Even the goat looked nonplussed at that.

“Really?” Wind asked, glancing between the animal and his big brother. “You know how to tame one.”

The goat pawed the ground.

“No, no, it was during the War of Eras, and I had to jump through timelines a lot during that time period. It's not native to my Hyrule, but it's from one of yours.”

Hyrule piped up. “Maybe it's from Twilight's world? Too bad he's gone scouting.”

Wild finally blinked himself out of his daze. “That's… that's my friend. Helped me save Hyrule and everything.”

Four stared. “A goat helped you defeat Ganon?”

Wild scratched his cheek, willing himself not to remember the loneliness, the void opening up inside him as he realized his friend couldn't accompany him to the very end. The solemn look, that last nuzzle before he had to face his destiny inside the ruins of Hyrule's old heart. The tearing sound of black particles as they shot toward the sky, and nothing was left behind him...

Wild gulped. “Okay, not specifically Ganon, but I'm not sure I would have survived on my own without his help.” With a shaking smile, he knelt by Goatie and ran a hand behind his ears. His old friend gently nipped his fringe. “I can't tell you how many Yiga imposters this big fella headbutted straight off a cliff.”

Hyrule's hands stopped just inches away from the goat's fur. His legs tensed up, as if he was getting ready to dodge when he was a threat. The goat only turned placid blue eyes at him, as if to tell him 'you see a cliff somewhere?'

Hyrule's own gaze replied with 'I see your horns' which was fair enough, really.

***

Four froze on top of the stump. Wow. He thought he was observant, but that one had blindsided him. No wonder Wild and Twilight were so close. That explained a whole lot, including many things he now realized were quite humorous.

“... Alright, Twi, this'll be our little secret, but... can I just say that your eyes still freak me out? Especially from this far below?”

“Why do you think I stare at the Pretty Boy so often?”

“... Think you can teach me this power?”

***

“I swear, if this animal tries to munch on my clothes, I won't be held responsible for what happens next.”

The passive, square pupils would haunt Warriors' next nightmare.

They also involved cliffs.

***

“No wonder he doesn’t want to tell the others. Can you imagine the Captain’s reaction?”

“It’s not just that.”

“It’s a factor though,” Wild said. 

Time gave them both flat looks. “More importantly, he’s worried about their reaction to the magic he’s using.”

Four raised an eyebrow. “Why? What magic is he using?”

Time’s reply was suspiciously fast. “No clue, but that’s his secret to tell. Remember that.”

He was quick to leave, a bit too quick. Four might need to get to the bottom of this. In the meantime though, he showed Wild a smirk. 

“... I still think he’s a bit shy about his beast form.”

Wild snorted. 

***

“So, you've noticed how the old man is always calling Twilight 'kid', right?”

Wild raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Yeah, and? Time's an old man. We're all green boys to him, that's all.”

“-except,” Legend jumped in, sharp, “he only calls Twilight 'kid'. Not you, or the little pirate or our resident smithy or, heaven forbids, me. Only our farmhand, who is coincidentally the second oldest with Warriors here.”

Wild discreetly looked for an exit, and to his despair, found none.

Warriors placed a hand over Wild's shoulder. “Look, it's obvious those two have a close bond. He's taking Twilight under his wing, showing him the ropes, having secret meetings. Not to mention the way Malon always had a soft look for him at the ranch.”

Okay, he didn't know what was going on there, but he also had a feeling he was going to hate everything that would come out of Legend's and Warriors' mouths. Tension was locking his muscles into places even as he tried to figure out an escape plan before he was subjected to an interrogation that would end up with Twilight's secret being revealed. He really didn't want to see Twilight's reaction to being betrayed so.

“Here's what we figured out. Time is Twilight's father. They just don't want to admit it so that our teamwork is not affected.”

Wild screamed on the inside.

“And you might be thinking that Twilight's too old to be his son, but consider this: time travel. Twilight is Time's kid from his future and they're both aware of it, so it's why Twilight looks up to him so much, even if they were a bit hesitant at first.”

Mental-Wild screamed louder.

“You... ”

“Don't even try. Twilight grew up on a ranch. He told us his dad taught him swordplay, and you can't ignore how similar their technique with a blade is.”

… Alright, that last one was a pretty good question. If Twilight was separated from Time by a good few generations, how in the world did they have this kind of technique? “He told me he's adopted.”

Warriors rolled his eyes and became instantly more punchable. “A weak deflection, Wild. The evidence doesn't lie.”

Legend stared a few seconds longer, then smirked. “No, no, Warriors, it's okay. I get it. Twilight and him are pretty close too. I'm sure they share a few secrets too. It's only natural. Wild can't deny or confirm anything, right?”

“No, I'm telling you he's not-”

Legend patted him on the shoulder, and was lucky Wild didn't smack him. “We understand.” Legend smugly ruffled his hair.

Seriously, Twilight better appreciate how much effort it was to keep this secret from the others!

***

Warriors threw his hands in the air. “Okay, there's no way Goatie following us is a coincidence. We're in the middle of the desert! There's no food to graze here!”

“I'm telling you,” Wild groaned. “He's the Sacred Beast, sent by the goddesses in Hyrule's time of need.”

Hyrule looked away from the ruins' carving he was trying to decipher. “Huh?”

“The Kingdom!”

“Wild, your pet goat is great and all... ” Legend carefully slid behind Time and away from the large farm animal, eyes wary. “But you don't have to pretend it's a goddesses-given gift just to keep him around. Nayru knows I've had my share of non-divine, regular animal companions too. And they talked.”

Hyrule and Wind perked up. “Oh, really?” the little pirate asked.

Legend launched himself into a succinct if entertaining description of the time he snuggled inside a kangaroo's pouch in order to jump over ravines and hidden caves. Goatie watched from the other side of the campfire, poking Warriors whenever the soldier seemed to doze off.

***

“Twilight!” Wild shouted, scrambling through his slate to summon up a bow and arrow.

Stupid world hopping. Stupid sunny day. They'd landed in one of Akkala's grassy fields, and it had seemed safe. He'd catalogued the location of the worst of Ganon's minions all over the slate, and there really shouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary here of all places. He'd told the others as much. They hadn't completely relaxed, but they hadn't been prepared either for a lynel straight up rampaging into their camp.

Nor for the small horde of lesser creatures flanking it.

At some point, the lynel had managed to corner his big brother alone by the edge of a cliff, the remaining creatures forming a wall between them. Then a club swing had ripped the Ordon Sword out of Twilight's grip, and Wild's heart had sunken lower than his stomach.

He had to save him!

Wild weaved between a pair of lizalfos that Sky and Warriors ran through the next second, ducked under a moblin's foot that was burned to a crisp right after and slid with his bow at the ready. The lynel had picked up Twilight in one of its enormous paws and lifted him off the ground as if he didn't weigh thrice as much as Four.

Heat and light flared at the back of the lynel's throat.

He wouldn't make it.

“No!”

Twilight grabbed the sides of the lynel's head with both hands.

Even the monster paused, too surprised to react.

Wild winced preemptively.

Twilight slammed his forehead against the lynel's skull.

The impact rang like a bell. 

The lynel collapsed.

Twilight landed with a dull thud on top of the beast's massive arms, and they could only rush forward in an attempt to help him away before it stood back up. Other monsters scampered, horrified at their leader being downed in one blow. Yet, as the Links were but a few body lengths away, the lynel's eyes flickered open, fangs glimmering with the flames licking the back of its throat.

With a barely human howl, Twilight grabbed the sides of the lynel's head again. It whimpered. 

The Links all stopped right in their tracks to cringe preemptively. Someone, likely Wind, muttered “Oh shit.”

The resounding crack of bones sent a shiver down their spines.

The lynel's chin dug three inches into solid ground. Its eyes rolled back into its skull, and its tongue lolled out onto its beard. It wasn't getting up again.

Twilight staggered away, glaring a storm at the retreating monsters. “And fracking stay the goshesses away from my herd!” he slurred at them with a shaky fist.

“So,” Legend began, as shell shocked as a pale Warriors, “remember when you described Twi as having a head as hard as a goron's teeth?”

Warriors mutely nodded.

“Turns out that was an understatement.”

***

Legend subtly put his magic mirror to the side, pretending he hadn't seen a pretty interesting reflection moments earlier. With faux nonchalance, he picked up Twilight's hawk mask. The effect on his sight was worth experimenting, but it was the appearance it gave that Legend sought.

“You know, this kind of reminds me,” he started, watching his fellow hero for his reactions. “In a faraway kingdom, it is traditional to don masks in the likeness of beasts to honor the survival of those that became one in the dark world.”

Twilight, to his credit, appeared entirely guileless. “Huh, and here I heard you became a phantom, unable to interact with anyone else, never to realize you've become lost.”

Well, he had the 'helpless' part right. But Legend wouldn't let that little game distract him. So, Twilight didn't want to come out and say it outright?

“What kind of beast would you want to be?”

Twilight didn't even hesitate. “A wolf, obviously.”

Four choked on his saliva.

Awkward silence fell on top of the clearing as three out of the four heroes exchanged baffled looks, before two of that same number decided that Twilight, apparently, couldn't lie to save his life.

“OBVIOUSLY!” Wild screeched.

Beads of nervous sweat rolled on the sides of Four's face as he nodded. “Y-yeah, I mean, it's kind of the logical choice for Twilight. I can't believe you don't see it.”

Wild frantically rushed to Twilight's side and gestured to his pelt and hood. “He's so wolf-like! With his... goat pelt... and goat head hood.”

“Preys!” Four jumped to his feet, struck by frankly divine inspiration. “Preys he took down like a wolf!”

Cool as a cucumber, Twilight grabbed his little brother by the shoulder and pulled him closer. There was something in his expression, something sharper, and perhaps even a bit feral. It glinted in the flash of teeth he showed, before the grin softened. “See? They agree with me.”

Legend stared, his neutral expression hiding the surge of disgust that had flowed through him at the idea that they considered this a convincing argument. The sheer insult that they thought he bought that. At least, their reactions pretty much gave away that they knew about Twilight's caprine form.

His smile intact, Twilight extricated himself from the other two's grip, ruffling their hair as he went. “Well, that was a fun thought, but I think I ought to scout for a bit, lest we get ambushed by monsters in our downtime.”

And with that, he left, shameless. Legend felt a vein pulse on his forehead as he noticed the goat emblem painted on Twilight's shield. His mind became torn between a massive groan of exasperation and crippling shame that he hadn't made the connection before. Had anyone else ever met a goat just like Goatie?

Four and Wild eyed him nervously. But the second Legend tried to hold their gaze, they decided that they really, really needed to get back to brainstorming the forging of a weapon for Wild. Good luck with that, he thought, idiots.

Mere moments later, Legend found Twilight leaning against a tree, shaking all over from silent laughter. He was clutching his ribs, whimpering as he bit down on his knuckles not to explode.

Oh.

Teary eyed, with a massive grin on his face, Twilight breathed out a long sigh of relief. “Did you see their faces?”

Legend blinked. Apparently, Twilight couldn't lie to save his life, but he could play others around him like cheap grass whistles.

Despite himself, Legend said: “I'm impressed.”

“I really shouldn't... ” Twilight admitted with a sly grin. “But you don't know joy until you've forced Wild to try and cover up for you. Even though he constantly needs someone to do it for him, he's just so bad at it.”

Legend smirked. “And here I thought you were a stick in the mud. Turns out under that exterior of a solemn, serious young man hides a troublemaker with a good poker face. What would our dear leader say?”

For a second, Twilight eyed him as if he had sprouted a second head and started dancing. Then, he snorted and patted his shoulder. “Veteran, you should see what the Old Man's capable of.”

Mildly disturbed, Legend found himself grateful when one of Wind's bokoblin jumped out of the foliage and attempted to assassinate them. It was a welcome distraction from a much scarier prospect. The short-lived attack also led him to discover the source of Twilight's shapeshifting.

The cursed stone lit up with orange lines, inches away from Twilight's eyes. “Yep, that's how I do it. During my adventures, I needed a bit of help, but now I can control it myself. Still pretty dangerous for someone else though.”

“So, you use dark magic... to turn into a goat.”

“Pretty much. What about it?”

“Nothing. I just needed to say it out loud.”

Twilight pondered, then shrugged. “I suppose that's fair. Now, I really do need to scout our surroundings if there are bokoblins lying in wait like this. You're coming?”

With a nod, Legend followed in his footsteps. He hadn't thought he shared too many points in common with Twilight, but apparently, his companion was full of surprises. It made him wonder what else there might be under that plain, good country boy façade... Eh, he supposed he would find out eventually.

“By the way, dark magic turns me into a pink bunny.”

“No way.”

BONUS

Ordon saw the serenity of its pre-harvest morning suddenly destroyed by high-pitched screaming.

“I told you he's not Time's time-traveling son from the future! See? This looks nothing like Lon Lon Ranch! It's not even in the right spot on the map!”

Legend shrugged, leaning against the goats' enclosure. One of said animals trotted a bit closer, and Legend briefly pondered if Twilight would use cursed artefacts for the sole purpose of getting the jump on one of them. In the end, it was seeing said farmer, in all his inglorious bumpkin garments that actually convinced him that the goat sniffing at his sleeves was just a goat.

“There were a lot of correlating details. Twilight being Time's son would have explained a lot.”

Twilight's subsequent pause and shrug were entirely too innocent. “Well, I am adopted and no one knows who my blood parents are, so I guess it's possible...”

“OH COME ON!”

#Linked Universe #Linkeduniverse #LU Twilight #LU Wild #LU Time #LU Legend

[softlass27]

Flufftober Day 29 – thunderstorm dedicated to @robertssvgden​, because she loves the idea of robron + seb and eve as a family unit, and she deserves nice things x

AO3 link here

As they stood shivering in the schoolyard, Robert glanced above them.

“The heavens are gonna open any second now.”

Aaron tilted his head up to see dark clouds rapidly filling the sky, the wind picking up with every passing minute. They’d been getting weather warnings all day, broadcasters promising that tonight was guaranteed to bring a seriously wild storm their way.

Paddy was stuck on an overnight callout with some heavily-pregnant cows, and Aaron’s mum had called him about an hour ago to say that she didn't feel safe driving on the motorway in this weather, so she was stuck in… some hotel, she was pretty vague on the details. She’d told him she was away to meet with potential new suppliers, but between her terrible lying and the sound of an unexpected male voice in the background, Aaron suspected wherever his mother had gone had nothing to do with work.

Either way, Eve had no one to pick her up or look after her, so his mum had begged him to take her for the night – possibly the weekend. Like she needed to ask.

So now they were stood in their usual spot with the other parents at Hotten Primary, waiting to collect two kids instead of one.

Just as the first few droplets of rain began to hit their cheeks, Eve came out of the doors, her eyes quickly scanning the yard until she spotted them and ran over, schoolbag swinging in the air. When she was just a few feet away from them, a violent gust of wind blew behind her, pushing her tiny body along the last few steps until she crashed into Aaron’s legs with a small oof.

“Windy,” she said, blinking up at them.

“Yeah, squirt.” Aaron took the bag from her before it blew right out of her hand.

“Is Mummy not coming?”

“Her and your Dad are both stuck because of the storm. They can’t come back just yet so you’re gonna stay with us tonight, okay?”

“'Kay,” she nodded, pushing her increasingly wild hair out of her eyes.

“Just need to wait for Seb, then we can get home and out of this crazy weather.”

As the three of them stood waiting for the Year 3's to come out, another, even stronger, gust of wind nearly sent Eve flying to one side; Robert snagging her by the hood of her coat was the only thing that stopped her from tumbling to the ground.

“Right.” He grabbed her securely by the waist and picked her up. “Think I’d better hold onto you before you actually blow away, missy.”

“Wish Seb’d hurry up,” she mumbled, pulling her hood up and tucking her face into Robert’s neck, out of the stinging rain.

“Don’t we all?”

As much as Aaron adored his son, he was a notorious dawdler, always chatting to his teacher or messing around with his mates on his way outside. He’d take the rest of the afternoon to reach the school gates if he could.

Eventually, Seb made his way to the yard, surrounded by his usual gaggle of classmates. Any inclination he’d had to keep chatting to them was swiftly curbed by Aaron’s firm get over here now gesture. He jogged over sheepishly, cramming a beanie on top of his head.

“You get lost or summat?” Aaron rolled his eyes fondly, taking his PE kit from him.

“I went to check if my art project was dry and – ”

“Yep, lovely, you can tell us all about it on the way home,” Robert grumbled, wrapping his free hand around Seb’s shoulder and ushering him towards the car. “We need to get inside before this storm kicks off properly.”

They all clambered in and set off, Robert navigating the usual school run traffic with practiced ease.

“Dad?” Seb asked after a few minutes of driving.

“Hm?”

“Miss Brooks told us this is gonna be the biggest storm Yorkshire’s had in more than 20 years,” he said, wide-eyed. “The biggest since 2003. Was that one really massive?”

“It was, I remember it,” Robert nodded, flicking the windscreen wipers to faster setting. “New Year’s Eve. It put a massive hole in the pub roof n’all.”

“My pub?” Eve chimed in, eyes turning even bigger than Seb’s.

“Yep, it caved right in. I didn’t see it happen though; I was living on the farm, and I had to help my dad get all the animals inside so they’d be safe.”

“Woah.” Seb sounded so impressed, Robert didn’t have the heart to mention that someone had unfortunately died as a result of said hole in the roof.

“2003. That's so long ago,” Eve mused, fingertips following the paths of rainwater sliding down the window. “Years and years and – ”

“Yes, okay,” Robert said loudly. “I feel ancient now, thanks for that.”

Eve and Seb just laughed, like the demon spawn they both were.

“Do you remember the storm too, Dad?” Seb asked, a hand over his mouth failing to suppress the grin on his face.

“Nah, I wasn’t living in the village then,” Aaron smirked. “Was a bit before my time, I’m a lot younger than Old Man Sugden over here.”

“How old are you, Rob?”

“50,” Seb said with a snort.

“100!”

“150!"

“Kids, come on, he’s not a day over 72,” Aaron drawled, only to yelp when Robert briefly took a hand off the steering wheel to swipe at him, which only made the backseat passengers cackle even harder.

The laughter was suddenly cut short, however, when a wayward tree branch hit the bonnet with a loud bang, before bouncing off onto the road.

“Jesus!” Robert jerked the car in surprise, before quickly regaining control and continuing down the road in silence, hands gripping the wheel tightly.

Aaron glanced back to see both Seb and Eve’s smiles had been replaced with slightly nervous looks, Eve biting her bottom lip anxiously.

“It’s okay.” He quickly reached a hand back to pat her knee reassuringly. “It was just a tiny branch, practically a twig, nothing to worry about. We’ll be home soon.”

By the time they arrived in the village, the rain was lashing down, pelting the roof of the car so loudly they struggled to hear themselves talk. There was hardly anyone outside, and the few that were looked like they were quickly retreating indoors. They passed Leyla leaving her office with her head down, tottering unsteadily on her stiletto heels, and David and Jacob quickly pulling potted plants and buckets of umbrellas back into the safety of the shop.

As they pulled onto the drive, the ominous first sounds of thunder could be heard rumbling overhead.

“Okay, inside, go go go!”

The four of them scrambled out of the car and dashed towards the house, Robert fumbling with the keys to unlock the door.

“In your own time,” Aaron grouched, hunching over to shield the kids from the worst of it as best he could.

“Hang on, I can’t feel my bloody fingers.”

Eventually, he managed to get the key in the lock and they burst into the warmth of the house, already drenched in the brief minute it had taken to get inside.

“C-cold,” Seb shivered, peeling off his sodden hat and jacket and dropping them on the rug.

“So cold you forgot how to use a coat peg?” Robert said exasperatedly, picking it up. “Why don’t you two go upstairs and have a couple of nice, hot showers while I get tea started? Eve, you can use our mine and Aaron's bathroom, if you want? Aaron’ll help you turn the taps on.”

“Can I use your fancy shower gel?”

Robert sighed and ruffled her damp hair. “If you must.”

Eve grinned and began to follow Seb up the stairs, only to freeze at a flash of lightning.

“The storm won’t put a hole in this roof, will it?”

“You think Robert would let that happen?” Aaron smiled at her. “Nah, we built our place to be extra strong,” 

“Storm-proof, even,” Robert added from the kitchen.

“See? We’re safe as houses in here, I promise. Go on upstairs, I’ll be there in a minute, yeah?”

Seemingly satisfied, Eve nodded and carried on up the stairs. They heard the sound of her feet running along the landing, presumably to what was unofficially dubbed as “her room”, since she spent so much time in it, before the door gently clicked shut.

“What’s for tea?” Aaron sighed, padding over to the kitchen and hooking his chin over Robert’s shoulder.

Robert hummed and leaned back against his chest while he chopped some veg. “Shepherd’s pie, should warm the kids up.”

“So domestic, you,” Aaron grinned, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. “I just hope the power doesn’t go out tonight.”

“Me too, otherwise we’ll have to keep them entertained the old-fashioned way.”

“What’s the old-fashioned way?”

“Er… how good are you at shadow puppets?”

A minute later, Seb came downstairs to find his dad frantically plugging every laptop and tablet into its charger.

#robron #my writing #flufftober2020

[bigowlenergy]

heat + horror

next chapter of How to Raise the Dead!

x

Maddie stands at the door to the basement, hazmat tied down around her waist, staring into the green dark. To her left, the cicada scream en mass. The refrigerator hums at her back. The portal buzzes below. The cold air that swirls up the steps is incredible against the summer heatwave. Maddie. Wants to go down. Hesitates, still.

Danny is down there.

Maddie loves her son, but she loves her daughter, too, and knows better than to bother Jazz when she’s trying to finish a paper and watch the finale to her latest K-drama at the same time (again) and expect anything but getting snapped at and increasing her stress. The experience is just new, with Danny. He was always the relaxed one, but once it hit 80 degrees in the house, the basement became his domain, with the same low tolerance for interruption. With an extra edge of physical discomfort and medical concern. Maddie just doesn’t want to upset him further. It feels like she does that all too often, but Danny just won’t say anything when she does. It’s hard to understand him. She wants to, but he’s pulled so far away from them already...

“Hey, mom.” Jazz stands in the entryway, kicking her flip flops off, two bags of gas station ice slung over her shoulders. “He moved yet?” She asks.

“No, I don’t think so. I was just about to check,” Maddie offers, stepping in to take the second bag from Jazz. She’d stepped out to get some water. Hadn’t gone back. Condensation from the ice leaks down her shoulders, sticks her hair to her neck. Instant relief.

“Alright.” She says. “You coming down? It’s cold.”

And Maddie hesitates at the mouth of the threshold, for just a moment.

“Sounds nice,” She tells the stairs, hidden under the clanging of Jazz’s steps.

At the bottom, all she can see is the ring of lawnchairs and the little blow up kiddie pool that Jazz is dumping her bag of ice in. The clear vinyl tubing of the cheap outdoor furniture catches every refraction of green light from the open portal. An oversized alien dollhouse in Maddie’s lab. The smell of squeaky fresh plastic overwhelms the ectoplasm. The basement has always been climate controlled, and underground besides, so the downright frosty air that the open portal adds to the mix creates the strange atmosphere of a sauna in winter. Inverted.

But the chilliest thing by far is Danny.

Maddie finally gets a good look at him when Jazz collapses back into her own chair, sticking her feet into the pool with a great heaving sigh. Maddie appreciates her running to the store for them. It’s nearly 110 out. She goes to dump her part of the ice in and nearly fumbles to keep from pouring it straight over Danny’s head. He’s buried up to his chest, now. What she thought were odd shadows from the portal are actually his folded knees, the only other part not under ice. His eyes are glazed and dull, staring sightlessly into the green vortex, his head pillowed on the wet plastic rim of the pool. Soaked hair drawn back by one of Jazz’s headbands drips slowly onto the concrete floor. Maddie frowns at that. They specifically asked the kids to make sure nothing in the lab was exposed to water. Should have put a towel down.

She probably can’t blame Danny for lack of foresight. He doesn’t look good.

“Hi, sweetie,” Maddie whispers, tucking the ice in around his legs instead.

His blank expression doesn’t change as he belatedly mouths ‘hi’ back to her.

“Drink your slush,” Scolds Jazz, kicking at the ice idly. Danny’s buried hands slowly tip the half melted slushie toward his face. The straw rests in his mouth for a while, but Maddie’s fairly sure he doesn’t drink any. Her poor baby. Jazz had picked it up for him the first time she went to the store, nearly three hours ago.

Maddie pulls her hands from the ice and wipes them on her shirt. Goes to the monitoring station set up on the side of the portal. The nodes taped to Danny’s neck are probably the only things keeping him from fully submerging himself. His oxygen levels are lower than his usual terrifying baseline of 87%, hovering in the 84-86% range, and his heartrate is just short of clinical death. Most worryingly, his temperate is reading at nearly 80 - a deadly fever, considering his normal 71.3.

Maddie wishes they knew how to really help him. This feels strangely like a - not like a test, not really, but like something is being withheld from them. Like Danny knows what to do, but is still too scared to tell them. Like it’s something he doesn’t want them to know, another little secret on the pile. A tiny declaration of loss of trust.

Or he’s afraid of them knowing.

Not that he could tell them, right now. He’s been basically unresponsive to even the most drastic of stimuli since his internal temp hit 75 an hour ago. Jack had driven out for the lawn furniture around that time, helped wrangle Danny out of the bathtub and into the lab for better monitoring, then disappeared again a few minutes ago. Maddie has an inkling of what he’s up to, so she’ll just hold down the fort and see what happens.

But Danny. Looking at this array, she has the clinging idea that this would be easier for him if he was a ghost. But even now, he’s so hesitant about letting them see him. Has never, in word or deed, trusted them with that. It’s an open secret. What he is.

Who he is.

Jazz knows; Maddie knows she known for some time now. Maddie knows. Does Jack? Maddie knows. She tries to imagine that alien presence in this little family tableau. More green in the air. An extra buzz of static under the portal. White hair, dripping. Maddie knows, but it feels like she knows less than she did three weeks ago.

She’s seen Phantom with her own eyes. Seen him fly and fight and snarl like an animal. Seen him bounce and smile and joke. How does he do it? Maybe Maddie just isn’t ready for the perfect intersection of those things yet. Does - does Danny’s ghost leave his body?

Is Maddie really ready to face her sons’ corpse and his ghost at the same time?

Jazz splashes suddenly, feet shifting, head tipped back dramatically off the edge of her seat, hair in a huge bun, wearing her only pair of shorts. Little embroidered ghosts on the hem. Would he electrify the pool, if he changed?

Maddie sucks in a breath and drags her eyes back to the monitor. Maybe it would be better if he did. Actually. The shock might be what he needs to stabilize his heart. He’s obviously reliant on cold temperatures to facilitate stronger conductivity of his electrical impulse based neurology. Like any other ghost. He’s losing stability of consciousness. Unable to rely on the physical, chemical reaction based impulses of the li - of humans. Maddie’s trying not to think about it. She doesn’t want to think about it. The monitor won’t tell her anything else.

Danny, the ghost, Danny, her son, is suffering from mild destabilization and his human body is too close to brain dead to keep him from -

God, Maddie is glad she doesn’t know.

Jack, bless that man, saves her from her thoughts by clambering down the stairs.

“Icecream!” He calls, voice pitched less exuberantly loud than usual. In deference of the small lab space, empty of the usual noise of running machines, or in deference to Danny. Or her own nerves. Jack hands Jazz a pint of strawberry pistachio and a spoon, sets a bag near the pool and then appears at Maddie’s side. Kisses her cheek. Glances at the monitor.

“How’s he doing?” He asks, handing her her own pint and a fork. Pecan Caramel soymilk.

“Not much worse. But we don’t know beyond his baselines, so it could mean anything. Temperature’s been stable for the last twenty minutes.” Maddie digs out the first pecan she sees and keeps it in her mouth to cool her sensitive teeth. Offers nothing else. Jack can read the screen. If he arrives to the same conclusion, then they’ll talk about it upstairs. Away from the kids. Hopefully, Danny’s too busy barely existing to overhear, if it comes down to it.

Jack nods, bullshooter blue eyes sweeping over the monitor. One huge, extremely hot hand rests on her back, goes to rub soothingly, but Maddie shoos him with her fork.

“You’re cold!” He says delightedly, sticking his hands on the folds of her turned down hazmat. He spares her a smile, then snaps his attention back to the screen. Lingers on Danny’s oxygen levels. “Well,” Jack says, straightening up, “Let’s try to get his internal temperature down a bit, then. Come on, Danno!”

He unties the cloth bag and pulls out a full gallon of icecream. There is no room in the freezer for that.

“Okay, buddy, I got us a real treat, straight from the farmer’s market creamery, you know, the people with the ecto-infected cows we helped out last spring? Got us a discount! Anyway, it’s custom. Chocolate icecream, fudge pieces, cacao nibs, coconut shavings, sprinkles, cookie bits, and those little soft dough chunks -” He cuts off, leans in closer to the pool, watches Danny intensely for a few seconds. “Yep! Extra cookie pieces. Wanna try some?”

Jack sticks two spoons in the open gallon and sets it aside. Gently eases the mostly ignored red slushie out of Danny’s hands and passes it off to Jazz. She doesn’t hesitate to pour some of it over her icecream. Maddie shudders. Bites her pecan. Takes a seat.

Jack pulls a shop towel out of his shorts pocket and soaks it in the pool, then wipes his face with it before slinging it around his neck. Takes a tiny spoonful of the icecream and starts to set it in Danny’s direction.

“Just try a bit, Danno. I’ll let you drink dry ice again,” He cajoles. Maddie whips her head up to glare at him. Jazz shrieks with her mouth closed, prevented from yelling properly by a well timed frozen strawberry. Jack ignores them both. He’d better have a damn good reason and some damn good results.

He gets Danny to eat a little, at least. He’d refused dinner last night, and it’s almost 7 PM, now. After a while, Jack leans in again. All Maddie can hear from a bare few feet away is a quiet, wet little rasp.

Jack beams his most reassuring grin at their son. “Of course it’s got ectoplasm in it; it’s for you, Danny-boy!” He says. And. That might be the first time any of them have put it to words. Admitted it out loud. It should feel like a taboo broken, but somehow, it eases a little relief into the atmosphere. A confession they all share.

Then Jack frowns a bit. Eyebrows drawn down in concern when he says “Is it not enough?”

Danny shakes his head, a light tremble of motion. The wet plastic squeaks under his neck. Lies still. Jack sits back, looks up to Maddie. Jazz is leaned back in her seat, staring down at Danny with a sharp frown of disapproval on her face. A fierce set to her eyes that tells Maddie everything she needs to know.

“We’ll get you more, sweetie,” Maddie tests the waters carefully, kneeling down across from Jack, sets a hand on Danny’s drying hair, keeps Jazz in her sights. Danny closes his eyes and shakes his head again, turning further into her palm and sighing quietly. A low, tired sound of dismissal. Not for Maddie. Jazz looks away, guilt and worry plain on her face. Bites her lip. Lids her icecream and mumbles an excuse of a goodbye, looking a bit mutinous as she leaves.

Maddie has to wonder if she should step back from this. Let Jazz do whatever needs to be done that Danny is hiding from them. But she can’t. These are her children; they shouldn’t need to be providing something for themselves. It’s her duty to care for them.

But. She is also an ectobiologist. Knows damn well what ghosts need. Has done in-field observations on this sort of thing for at least a decade.

It’s not the amount of ectoplasm that matters. It’s the source.

They can’t provide what Danny needs from the lab.

Sure, they’ve never seen Phantom feeding, but he’s so rarely seen at all. Elusive. Non-normative behavior. Maybe -

An incomplete hypothesis has never sat well with her. Her son being miserably sick while she has the power to help him is not sitting any better.

“Danny,” She says firmly, gently taking his cold face in her hands and wincing at the mincing slowness of his pulse under his jaw. “Please, just tell us what’s wrong, honey.”

Something thumps upstairs. What is Jazz doing? Maddie had assumed she left the house. To get. Something. Bring something back? Get a ghost they know to help?

Maddie’s seen ghosts negotiate and willingly feed from each other. The statistically significant ratio of mutual encounter to violent attack was one of the things that tipped the scales for Maddie and Jack on whether ghosts have the capacity for civilized society or not.

If Danny has some sort of pact or agreement with a local ghost, then Maddie is intensely interested in learning every detail of it. As both his mother, and as an ectobiologist. Jazz probably has extensive notes.

Upstairs, something drags across the floor. Maddie jumps at the noise.

“I’ll go check,” Jack offers, glancing guiltily back to Danny before heading up the stairs.

Maddie turns her attention back to Danny and actually feels her heart skip a beat when she finds him staring up at her with dull, glazed eyes. His face too-still and eerie in the green light of the buzzing portal. It dyes him colors he shouldn’t be. She takes in a breath, and calms herself, confused by her own reaction. She’s been exposed to high levels of ectoplasm for nearly two decades. Maddie lost her innate terror-reaction to ectoentities years ago. This is completely unfamiliar to her.

But the way Danny’s too blank face flashes into guilt as he flinches and tries to pull away is not. It’s the same reaction as Jazz earlier.

Guilt. Something withheld. Upstairs, something drags against the wood floors again. Slow, deliberate.

“Danny -” She starts, concerned. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and turns away from her. Mouths something that she reads as sorry. A creak on the stairs. The lights flicker. Maddie jolts back in a crouch immediately, hand falling to where her weapons should be. One hand on Danny. Assuring his location. Her other hand closes on nothing. Of course not. Maddie doesn’t wear her weapons around Danny. Not any more. There’s nothing there. She forces herself into a more relaxed stance with some difficulty.

What could they have upstairs for this? Surely there’s not another ghost living in their house? Maddie would like to think that a second instance would be ridiculous. Maybe a hidden freezer of ectoplasmic samples? She looks down at the human ghost in her lab. Maybe he needs a rare type of ectoplasm, due to his unusual biology? His half human biology.

Half human. Needing ectoplasm and emotion, but also needing food. Maddie’s heart picks up uncomfortably, sits high in her throat. At the other end of the room is the wall safe with the Nightingale journals. The myths and accounts and legends of violent ghosts. Hunted for their danger to humanity. Their hunger. Maddie and Jack have long discounted or disproved those old folk tales.

But then again, they’d also disproved the existence of something like Danny.

“Danny -” She tries again, watching the way he’s turned away from her intently. Mouth pressed in a thin, unhappy line. Every ounce of him tense, entombed in ice.

Jack bounds down the stairs. Maddie jolts to her feet. He’s got the bulky old TV from the sitting room in his arms. Maddie’s heart is pounding, her mind blank.

“We’ve got the cure, Mads!” He cries. Jazz follows, carrying the DVD player and a stack of DVDs.

In the pool, Danny shudders strongly enough to stir the ice. Moans out “No,” loudly enough to be heard.

“Shut up, Danny.” Jazz says firmly. “You need this.”

Jack finishes plugging the makeshift entertainment center together. Jazz sets the DVDs down and sticks one in the player. Maddie’s seen every title on the pile, but doesn’t recognize them from anywhere in the house. All horror films, many classic. Monster movies. Slasher flicks. It’s so disingenuous from where her mind had been that she’s left frozen.

“They’re from Sam,” Jazz explains. “For when somebody runs out of juice.” She spares Danny an annoyed glare and hits play.

Oh. Oh. Maddie looks down at the miserable little ghost in the pool, her shadow cast long over his morose, guilty expression. He’s so pale. The colors from the TV flicker against the vinyl and ice and ectoplasm in surreal flashes. Some loud sound blares from the old speakers with more static than usual and Maddie jolts again. All her senses on high alert, an undercurrent of unnatural fear flooding her cerebellum. An artificially induced state of terror. The buzzing she’s been ignoring with all the ease of overexposure is Danny’s aura, set to 18 hz.

There hasn’t been a ghost attack in nearly a week. All the local specters retreating to the other side of the portal as the heat wave rages on theirs. Danny hasn’t been able to emphathically power himself in a week. Maybe longer.

Ghosts feed on fear.

He’s been overwhelmed with the heatwave, unable to patrol his territory, probably not physically fed in a while, and emotionally weakened. Of course he’s destabilizing.

Maddie lets out a breath of relief. This is something easily remedied, at least. She leans in and kisses Danny’s forehead. In apology. In absolution. Feels guilty for her distrust of him with such an irrational idea. Feels the rekindled instinctual hyperawareness of a ghost near to her vulnerable human throat. Ignores it. Helps Jack finish moving the chairs closer to the pool. Sets her icecream back on her lap. Settles in and lets herself overthink the timing of the next jumpscare. Watches her little ghost relax slowly as he draws strength from their shared, controlled fear. Wonders if he has a vomeronasal organ, with the way his mouth is a little open. If it helps with emphathic filtering, or if it’s psychosomatic. Wonders if he feels better. Fishes his hand out of the ice and holds it tight until he squeezes her back.

It’s been a while since they’ve had a family movie night.

#dannymay2020 #danny phantom #heat #fenton family fun times #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #danny fenton #heat and horror #fanfiction

[ms-rampage]

Eden's Gate: Left Behind Chapter 8 - The Truth

Warnings: Swearing, slight violence

Word count: 1,400

Summary: Kate learns the truth about John.

THANK YOU FOR 300 FOLLOWERS!!!!!!!❤❤❤

*****************************

“Shit!” Kate exclaims.

“Yep, looks like we have a demon on our hands” Morgan says.

“Fuck!. Fuck. Fuck, fuck” Kate yells, hitting the arm on the couch, “I just want to live a normal life. That's all I want”.

“Well this life isn’t exactly “normal”.” Morgan says

“Yeah, I know but I wanted to get away from it. Then this happens!!’ she says, annoyed. “Where is this at?!”.  

“In the Henbane, near that rail bridge near the O’Hara Haunted House. It looks like it was dumped there” Morgan says.

“Who the fuck dumps 5 dead cow carcusses?!” Kate asks, disgusted. 

“Demons? Psychopaths? Anti-animal lovers?” Morgan says.

“Should we get going?!” Kate asks.

Morgan looks at the time on her phone, “It's getting late. We can go in the morning”.

She shrugs, “That’s fine with me”.

“So?!?” she asks.

“So what?!?” Kate asks, confused.

“You said John was taking you out again?!?”.

Kate chuckles “Yeah, umm if you consider going to church a date!?”.

Morgan looks at her in confusion, “Church? As a date?!?”.  

“Yeah I know right. But what was weird is that. It was almost cult like. Ya know?”. 

“How do you mean?!” she asks.

“The people, or the members of that church. They had guns, they were all crazy eyed, bushy beards, and there was this symbol on one of the walls. It almost looked like the fucking cross for Scientology but with a few added crosses.

Morgan looks at her, for what felt like hours, “Did it look like this?!”. 

She shows her a photo of the cults logo.

“Yes!!!” she exclaims. The realization hits the both of them like a train.

“Dude!!” she exclaims, “John is in a fucking cult!!!”.

Kate’s eyes widened in realization.

“Holy shit!!!” she yells.

“That explains all the missing people, stolen properties!!!”

Kate aggressively scratches her head, anxiety kicking in. 

“Dude. you gotta call things off with him!!!”.

Kate stands up, starts to pace back and forth.

“I’m pretty sure I saw some people trying to drown, or baptize some innocent people” she says. Kate stops, and looks at her in complete horror, “What did you do?!?”.

“I killed the people. They were fucking drowning an innoecent man for crying out loud!!!”.

There’s a moment of silence between them. Kate tried to drink in everything that Morgan had said to her. 

“Are you gonna break up with him?!?” she asks. 

“I-I-I don’t know. I’m gonna have to, but I don’t know how!!” she says. 

Morgan tries to calm down her friend, “Okay, how about this. We just sleep on it, and we’ll come back to it in the morning. Maybe we can get some dirt on that after we solve this case” she says pointing the photo on the table.

“Okay, okay. Yeah we can. Go over it in the morning” Kate says, sounding like she’s gonna pass out.

They both go to their rooms, and go to sleep. Neither of them are going into work the next day because they’re both calling out, or just not gonna show up. Fuck that job, and fuck Holly. 

**************************************************

At the Seed ranch, John is preparing to leave to cleanse some sinners. 

One of his men tell him about the murder of one their followers at that same river.

“Do you know who it was?!” he asks.

“No sir. We assume it was one of the Resistance members” he answers. 

“Of course. Those nasty, dirty sinners. They will all be cleansed, and will atone for their sins”.

He finished preparing himself, “But. We cleanse tonight's sinners then move on the next then the next. Until everyone is free of their sins”.

They leave to the lake for the cleansing.

5 sinners having their souls cleansed. John with the book of Joseph, preaching to the sinners.

Making sure they are clean of their sins.

***************************************************

12:29 am. Kate who can’t sleep, gets up, rubbing her face.

All of her anxiety is keeping her from sleeping. She gets up, and looks out her bedroom window.

She looks back at Haley who is awake because of her owner. 

“I need answers Hale. I’m gonna go out for a walk” she says.

Haley tilts her head to her saying “walk”. 

Kate puts on some pants, a sweater and her shoes.

Quietly leaves the house without waking up Morgan, she usually never goes for night walks.

And what happened a while back with that man attacking her. She grabs her pistol, and her knife just in case for trouble.

She takes Haley as back up. 

They walk down the dirt road, the quiet streets of Hope County.

She walks near a body of water, hoping it’ll clear her mind, and maybe help her with breaking up with John without pissing him off. 

Sitting on a rock, letting the night, and the moon clear her mind. Hoping to bring her a peace of mind. 

Haley playing in water, bringing her some joy.

After a few minutes they walk down the river, and off in the distance, Kate can hear a familiar voice.

In fact it was too familiar.

As they get closer, the voice becomes more clearer, and her body goes numb when she realizes it's John’s voice. 

She hides behind some bushes, and sees her boyfriend watching some men hold some people’s head underwater.

“What the fuck?!?” she whispers. Haley whimpers, and makes her high pitched whining. 

One of John’s men hears this, and approaches. 

Kate ducks behind the bush, holding her dog by her collar.

“Who’s there?!” he calls out. 

Kate starts to internally panic. The footsteps get closer. Stopping on the opposite side of the bush.

“Please don’t come closer. Please don’t come closer” she whispers to herself.

He turns around to leave, and just as he turns around. Haley sneezes. Making Kate’s eyes go wide. 

The peggie hears this, and walks closer. He peers around the bush and sees Kate, and the dog.

Haley attacks him, biting his arm. Locking her jaw.

He screams in agony getting the attention of John, and the others. 

She stabs him in the throat killing him, prys Haley off of him, and takes off home.

Running, not stopping once. 

She hopes John didn’t see her, or recognizes Haley. Hopefully it was too dark for him to see her. 

***************************************************

John’s POV

Cleansing these sinners souls, freeing them from sin. Saving them.

“In the words of Father Joseph let the water cleans your souls. Let the water purify you. Free you from sin. You will be cleansed of your sins. God will forgive you for your past sins. No matter how big or little. You will be cleansed”. 

He closes the book, and hands it to one of his men.

“No matter how petty your sin is. You will confess. You will atone. You will know the power of Yes!!” he continues. 

One of his men hears something in the bushes nearby.

“It’s probably just an animal” John says. 

The peggie approaches “Who’s there!?” he calls out.

Everything silent. No response. He turns around to go back to the others.

Then -dog sneeze- he turns around. He definitely heard that, he wasn’t hearing things.

He walks closer to the bushes, and he sees a girl that happens to be John’s girlfriend Kate.

Before he could say, or do anything. A dog that he didn’t see, jumps at him. 

Biting his arm, won’t let go. He screams.

John looks over and sees that one of his men has an animal latched onto his arm.

He sees a dark figure, jump out of the bushes and stab him in the throat.

“Stop them!!!!” he yells.

The animal and the figure take off, disappearing in the darkness.

“We will find them, and they will atone for their Wrath!!!!” John yells to his men.

Before going back to the water.

*****************************************

Kate makes it home, slowly and quietly closing the door.

She goes to her room, her hands covered in blood. 

She goes to the restroom, washing the blood off her hands

Can’t believe the man she loves is in a fucking doomsday cult. She’s breaking up with him for sure.

She just hopes she doesn’t see him within the next few days, or at all for all she cares.

Rinsing off all the blood on her hands, she goes back to her bedroom, laying down in bed.

Probably not gonna get much sleep but enough for a hunter.

Yep, she’s back in the hunter life. 

For all she knows there is a demon among them, and she has to protect her friends from being attacked by them.

She just wishes Paige was there, or maybe her mom.

But she’ll do great with Morgan, after all she is one of the best monster hunters she knows aside from her family.

Hopefully tomorrow, or the next several hours will be okay, and she can figure all this shit out. 

#far cry 5 #john seed #kate winchester #fc5 #fc5 john seed #far cry 5 john seed #john seed x kate winchester #my oc kate winchester #eden's gate: left behind #my writings #my oc shit #my crossover shit #my ocs are my children #hope county #power of yes #eden's gate series #eden's gate #my far cry 5 ocs #far cry 5 oc #my series #the seed family #my ocs #my oc morgan costello

[blake-belladonna-defence-force]

Soooo, bee haw related asks huh, cool, the white fang are cattle rustlers so Blake is insanely good with a lasso, while yang can put a hole in a quarter after someone flips it in the dark, they decided its a good idea to traid skills after they are partnered up at Beacon Ranch

There a whole lotta creative liscence taken with shooting and lassoing here 😅

I hope y’all like competitive bees!

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“Listen pardner…” Yang drawled, lifting her hat up slighting and leaning back on the fence, toothpick hanging loosely from her lips. “There ain’t no way no rope throwin’ gon’ impress me. Any body can throw a rope. Takes real skill to shoot a quarter in the dark, y’hear, Blake?”

“Sweetheart…” the cat faunus woman in front of her practically crooned, slivers of gold glinting from underneath her own hat. “If Just anybody could throw a rope, Ozpin wouldn’t have hired me. You need me.”

“Oh please, Blake. I could do your job easi-“

Yang stopped and quirked a brow when amber eyes glinted below Blake’s black hat dangerously, seeming to shift to a molten gold. Blake’s hands shifted to the two lassos that she kept at each hip and unhooked them from her belt and started spinning them at her sides, her movements slow and lazy at first but quickly picking up speed.

“Miss Xiao Long…” Blake said dryly, her golden eyes narrowing as Yang stood up and stepped forward her head tilted curiously. “I don’t appreciate your tone. Maybe we need to do something about it?”

“Like wh-“

Yang was cut off by Blake expertly sending her lassos out towards her and she lifted her arms high to block the incoming trap… only to realise too late that both ropes were headed to her gun holsters that were slung low on her hips. Blake’s lassos looped around each gun and yanked them out and into her hands, disarming her. Blake’s golden eyes gleamed with a challenge as she freed the guns and twirled them around in her hands before she quickly unloaded them, sending Yang’s magazines to the ground, before she hooked them into the front of her jeans with a smirk, her shirt lifting up to reveal the toned skin beneath.

“Holy-“

“Anybody can shoot in a sharp line. But it’s takes real skill to disarm our finest sharp shooter on the ranch.” Blake said, mocking Yang’s earlier words. “Now, these guns are real pretty so I think I might hold onto them for a bit. Come find me when you’re ready to admit defeat, cowgirl.”

Yang stared after her in shock as Blake sauntered away, her thumbs hooked through her belt loops and disappeared around one of the buildings.

“Goddamn.” Yang whispered to herself, taking her hat off her head and ruffling her long, blonde hair ruefully as she stared after Blake with a slightly dopey grin. “Now that’s a woman.”

She paused for a moment and blinked as she realised, later than she should have, something very important.

“A woman that stole my guns!”

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Blake smirked lazily as Yang strolled into the saloon, her spurs clinking as she walked, an air of false nonchalance about her. But when lilac met amber, Blake watched the way Yang’s jaw tightened at the sight of Blake spinning her guns around her fingers lazily. The ranch hands surrounding Blake all glanced up and winced, patting Blake on the back and wishing her good luck as they moved a safe distance away.

Still within viewing distance of the show, though.

“You wanna give me my guns back now, Sugar?”

“Hmm… maybe.”

Blake bit back a laugh when Yang growled, her gaze narrowing as she turned a chair around and sat on it, leaning forward and crossing her arms over the back rest.

“What d’ya want, woman?” Yang asked, tilting her head slightly as her sharp gaze carefully examined Blake’s face.

“I want you to admit that you were wrong about me.” Blake said simply, placing the guns on the table out of Yang’s reach. “I disarmed you. Something that no one has been able to do, cowgirl. That’s gotta say something.”

“It says that yer a smartass.” Yang drawled, a competitive gleam entering her eyes. “I admit, you got the jump on me this time. But I still doubt that ropin’s as hard as you claim.”

“Funny. I could say the same thing about shooting.” Blake leaned forward, biting back a smile. She would never admit it… but she was having fun.

“Yeah? Well… how ‘bout we make this more interestin’, then, pardner.” Yang said with a sly grin. “I set up some trick shots that you’ll have to shoot and you set up some kinda challenge for me with a rope.”

“Make it two and you got a deal.” Blake smirked, her feline ears flicking forward with intrigue. “I’m ambidextrous. If I’m shooting with two guns, then you’re going to rope with two hands.”

“Pfft.” Yang scoffed. “Easy. What are the wagers?”

“Loser buys drinks for the winner for a month?”

“I like the way you think, Belladonna.” Yang chuckled, leaning her chin on her forearms and grinning up at Blake. “I almost feel bad that I’m gonna kick yer ass.”

“That’s funny.” Blake laughed, delighted with the challenge. “I don’t feel bad about kicking yours at all.”

“Feisty.”

“As you’ll find out, Yang.”

“I certainly hope so, Blake.”

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Blake, admittedly, may have bitten off more than she could chew. She watched as the two kids stroll 20 paces away and got ready to throw their coins.

Blake could shoot. She could shoot a bandit and a rustler. She could take aim at a rattler that was about to bite her herd or her horse and protect her animals. Hell, when she was with the White Fang and rustled cattle, she had taken out her fair share of deputies and sheriffs.

But that was basic shots. This was sharp shooting. She had heard the rumours about Yang. Had heard tale that she could shoot a hole in a quarter at 50 paces… in the dark, using only the glint of steel to direct her shot.

Ugh. This is what she got for trying to show off.

“Alrighty, Blake. Usually I shoot at 50 paces and at night but I’m gon’ be nice and getcha to shoot at 20 paces durin’ the day. When yer ready, Doll… let the kids know.” Yang called lazily from the crowd, a smug expression in her face.

Blake growled under her breath. Cocky little shit, wasn’t she? Regardless, she inhaled deeply and nodded to the kids and took aim…

And took out two windows instead of the quarters.

“Well, shoot.” Yang grinned cheekily, no doubt knowing exactly what she was saying. “That’s not meant to happen. I hope you’ve got enough lien for the upcoming month, Blake.”

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, Yang.” Blake stomped over to her and calmly (well… as calmly as she was capable of at that moment as the crowd chuckled) placed Yang’s gun’s into their holsters, purposefully giving them a tug and leaned forward. “I can’t wait to wipe that smug smile off of your face.”

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“I’ll show you a small series of tricks and I want you to copy them as best as you can, cowgirl.” Blake said calmly as Yang watched carefully. She couldn’t get this wrong. How hard could it be?

“Got it, Sugar.” Yang smirked.

That smirk quickly fell away as Blake effortlessly danced through her lassos, bouncing and hopping between the loops. She made it look so easy… but not even Yang’s sharp eyes could keep up. Yang gulped, her confidence starting to crack.

This was what she got for trying to show off, wasn’t it?

“Here you are, Sweetheart.” Blake smirked with a brow raised challengingly as she passed Yang the lassos and stepped back.

“Pfft.” But she wasn’t going to let Blake see the crack in her confidence. “This’ll be easy. That’s nothin’, Doll.”

Now… Yang could throw a lasso over a rogue cow if she needed to. She could tie knots. She could even make a rope. But she was starting to realise that this was a very different beast.

She inhaled deeply and began to twirl to loops to the sides and made the first jump into them… and quickly lost track of what she was doing as the noose tightened around her ankles, sending her off balance. She hopped, desperately trying to regain her balance, until the back of her legs hit something.

There was a loud splash as Yang fell tumbling into a water trough. Loud snickers ran through the crowd and if she didn’t know better, she’d say that the horse’s were snickering at her too.

“It’ll be easy, huh?” Blake teased as Yang pulled herself out and crouched, loosening the lasso and pulling it off her ankles and throwing both ropes at Blake, who caught it easily.

“Yeah, yeah.” Yang grumbled, despite the smile fighting its way into her lips as she, dripping water, glanced at Blake. “I guess ropin’s harder than I thought.”

“And I guess I can’t shoot as straight as I thought.”

The two stared at each other for a long moment before they both began to laugh softly.

“Well…” Yang snorted, amused. “I guess that’s a draw. How’s that work out?”

“Let’s make it simple and say that we just have to buy each other drinks for a week?” Blake smiled genuinely as her left ear flicked. She had a really pretty smile, Yang realised.

“Sounds good to me.” She said before letting out a sigh. “I would suggest that I buy you one now… but I need to go change.”

“We can catch up later, then.”

“Sure thing, Blake.” Yang started to walk away but paused and glanced over her shoulder with a small side smile. “Jus’ so y’know, Blake… I’m looking forward to workin’ with you.”

“You too, Yang.”

Yang grinned, winked and waved as she walked back to her home. Life just got a lot more interesting around here.

#blake belladonna #yang xiao long #bumbleby #rwby #fanfic

[nonbinary-renfri]

Blood and Blue Skies The Witcher Last of Us AU

TW: blood and gore, death, implied/referenced animal death

Europe didn't fair much better than the Americas, when the outbreak hit. It came in the crops and they weren't recalled in time, and just like everywhere else, after people started getting sick all that was left was chaos splattered in gore. Geralt had been trying to build himself a life in a world that wasn't supposed to end. Until it did, suddenly and violently, and he and everyone else had to do their best to survive it.

not necessary to know the Last of Us to read but it does help

Chapter One: The End of the World

Geralt was twenty-four when the world came to an end.

He was on his way back to the stables, having taken his horse out on a long ride into the forest to stretch her legs and get some peace and quiet for himself. Cell service had disappeared along with the sounds of society, but once the ride back brought them close enough for it to return, Geralt’s phone began vibrating insistently. He pulled out the device from the back pocket of his jeans as it buzzed one final time, a bit confounded; he rarely got this many texts. There were multiple from Calanthe, one from Eskel of all people- he hadn’t heard from the other man in almost a year- and one from an unsaved number. Reading the latter, Geralt instantly knew who it was from.

           “It is time to take to the Path.”

           Vesemir. Had to be.

What the hell was that supposed to mean, anyways? The Path didn’t exist. Geralt had already decided that the old man and the rest of his cult friends were insane, believing that the world was set to come to an end like they did. Believing that it was their duty to prepare monster hunters to protect the rest of humanity. But it was always something they were waiting for; they didn’t have a day or a year or even a decade in mind. The end was coming, they said, and we must prepare, despite not knowing when but refusing to be anything but certain all the same.

Geralt had believed it, for a little while. Drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak. He’d grown up being taught that he was one of the chosen to save the world, that everything the elders put them through was for the greater good of humanity. He’d lived it and breathed it, because what else was he to do, a ward of the state since he was three years old, given into Vesemir’s care at the age of five. He’d gone to four different families and raised hell every time, taking his anger at the world out on everything around him. Some of them tried to gently discipline him for his behavior; others were quick to jump at the opportunity to use harsher methods. Eventually, they all got tired of trying and gave up, and the system stopped placing him with new families. He went through two different boys’ homes before his disruptive behavior and aggression had him declared violent and unstable, a problem case who required something different.

Different ended up being a rugged estate in the Swiss Alps, its boundaries lined with a tall stone wall. Geralt gazed out the window as the car drove up the dirt road to the gray stone castle-like building that seemed to meld into the mountain’s face. There were pastures and fields on the other side of the dusty glass, neat rows of green crops in dark dirt and soft-looking grass being grazed on by sheep and cows. There were other buildings scattered across the grounds, some wooden, some stone, and as they got closer to the main house he saw an older boy riding a horse around a circular fenced-in paddock. The boy’s head swiveled in the direction of the car, almost like he knew he was being watched. Suddenly a bit fearful, Geralt looked away from the window and curled back into his seat.

That was the beginning of his first day at Vesemir’s estate, Kaer Morhen, a sanctuary for troubled boys. He’d been determined to get himself thrown out of there as well, but unlike anyone before him, the old man refused to give up. He didn’t try and ignore Geralt’s anger out of existence or attempt to cruelly discipline it out of him, like so many others had done; instead, he provided Geralt with an outlet to channel it into. The day Vesemir took him out into the mountains and along a rocky trail and showed him the cave-like stone hollow full of punching bags and training dummies and a rustic sparring ring was a day that changed his life. The old man showed the eight year-old how to wrap his hands to protect his knuckles and began teaching him how to properly punch and kick and otherwise attack the hanging canvas sandbag, holding it steady for him while providing critique. Geralt took to it like a duck to water, that day and every combat and weapons lesson going forward. He was the best of the boys at sparring, and he threw himself into learning swordplay with a fervor when they got around to that.

There are a lot of things he has Vesemir to thank for. His life, his skills, even his name. He doesn’t know what his mother originally called him; it’s not like she left his birth certificate with him when she abandoned him in a park. Refusing to speak to anyone led to the first family to adopt him changing his name. He was too young to remember what he used to be called once he stopped hearing it regularly, but he knew that the name they gave him didn’t sound right. Geralt had hated it, refused to answer to it. Vesemir had picked up on that a mere few days after he’d arrived at the homestead and instead of trying to force him to explain why he hadn’t responded to the multiple yells of the name that wasn’t his, had simply said to him, “You don’t like that name, boy, let’s choose you a different one.”

And the old man had begun trying out names as a stony-eyed five year-old stared at him in shock. Vesemir hadn’t seemed to care that Geralt offered no input as to which name he preferred for himself, going through the alphabet and listing off all the names he could think of that started with each letter. He’d gotten into the G’s; “George, Geoffrey, Gweld, Gilbert, Geralt. Hmm, Geralt.” It was the first time he’d repeated a name. The old man waved a hand and said, “Go do your chores, Geralt; I know you heard Hemminks calling you to come help with mucking out the stables.”

He had gone as instructed, speechless enough to not try arguing, and mouthed his new name to himself as he walked down to the stables, trying to keep a bounce out of his step. Hemminks had only yelled at him a bit for being late, arms flailing enthusiastic gestures of indignation into the air. Master Vesemir taking the boy aside himself after witnessing his disobedience had quelled most of the man’s blustering offense.

At dinner that night the old man had called Geralt to the front of the dining hall, introducing him to all the other boys by his new name. He’d returned to his seat and across the table from him the boy a couple years older than him named Eskel who seemed to want to be his friend smiled nervously. “Should I call you Geralt instead of Wolfgang then?”

He’d earned the moniker after biting a trainer and one of the nurses, being likened to the wolf the estate’s school was named after. People always gave him nicknames once they realized that he wouldn’t answer to his legally assigned one; not all of them had been as nice as Wolfgang.

Geralt found he didn’t really care what the other boy called him, and answered his question with a vague shrug. Eskel had sighed quietly, but it looked like he might have been trying not to smile.

It had been strange for a while, everyone calling him a new name, but as time went on it began to feel natural. There wasn’t a bitter tang in his mouth whenever he heard it, like with his previous name. This time, someone had put in the thought and effort to pick a name that they thought seemed to suit him. By the time he was a teenager, he’d managed to forget what his second name had been as well. Over time Eskel had gone from sometimes calling him Wolfgang to the shorter Wolf, but other people didn’t feel the need to give him nicknames anymore.

They had grown up as the years passed, of course, and against Geralt’s wishes he did truly come to consider Eskel a friend. A good friend, in fact; maybe even his best friend. They’d been through blood and shit and pain together and somehow both of them managed to survive long enough to get to the other side.

Because Vesemir’s idyllic estate was too good to be true. A home for troubled boys no one else cared about, that seemed to actually care about their well-being and treat them decently- what else could it be? It was a sticky-sweet honey trap and every one of them that fell into it was caught and would only come to realize it much too late. They’d grown strong on diets of hard labour, good food, combat training, and strange chemicals administered by doctors in the deepest of the keep’s mountainside chambers. None of them really know what they are anymore, especially Geralt, with the experimental trials he’d received that made him even faster and stronger than the others and bleached the color from his hair. Vesemir and his people believed the world would end in fire and blood, and that there would be need of warriors in the aftermath. They had taken it upon themselves to create those warriors, like the generations that had come before them, even if it meant doing terrible things to innocent children. Sometimes it chilled Geralt to look at his father-figure and see a pair of yellow eyes much like his own looking back.

He would always owe Vesemir everything, but it burned inside when he realized that even though the old man was the first to actually give a damn about him, he didn’t love Geralt enough to protect him from the horrors he knew were to come.

Once the boys were old enough and had passed the trials to prove their skills and earn their graduation medallions, they departed from the keep as young men to go and live in the world, to learn to care for what they would supposedly one day protect. It would have been a mistake, the cult letting them loose from its halls of indoctrination, if once they were done cooking it mattered for them to still believe in any of that shit. All that mattered was that they existed somewhere out there, so when the apocalypse finally came they could realize their purpose and give their lives to preserve what was left of humanity.

Geralt was eighteen when he climbed down from the mountains, legally his own man. By the time he was twenty, he’d seen enough of the world to conclude that the elders and the rest of them were chock full of shit. That was the last year he’d returned to the estate for the winter; he decided to stay away after Lambert had refused to close his mouth during Christmas Eve dinner and Geralt let himself get roped into the argument that had started about the morality of turning children into weapons via experimentation. And, having a bit too much alcohol in his blood from what was supposed to be a cheerful evening, he had actually spoken his mind for once.

           The rest of the humanity derides prophecies. Tell anyone out there you’re a warrior chosen to save mankind and they’ll laugh you out of the room and probably suggest you see a therapist. This whole thing is a doomsday cult and it’s ridiculous that anyone would still believe in this bullshit, especially once they’ve actually spent time in modern society. Monsters from fairy tales don’t exist in the real world; they’re just a story humans tell, a distraction so people can pretend they’re not the real evil. It’s too complicated out there, too vast, for any one group of people to say they’ll be able to save everyone. And it’s arrogant to think it could be us.

The stunned looks from the others almost made up for the awkward silences and angry glares he was on the receiving end of for the rest of the winter. But after that he’d decided to walk like he had talked that night; he was leaving all this bullshit behind and going to try and be a normal person and find his place in this world. He would not follow the purpose that had been decreed to and then beaten into him, but figure out what the path he could make for himself was. And that meant spending his winters elsewhere.

He floated around for a while after that, taking various jobs. Did some minimum wage stuff- retail was not his strong suit, he was bad at making nice with customers, but he made a surprisingly good waiter and found dishwashing duties to be a sometimes-soothing task. When he tired of that he tried his hand at construction work and demolition, which was therapeutic, and then logging for a bit, which was very good exercise, and eventually drifted towards using his skills for bounty hunting. After not even a month of that he decided he would rather keep far away from the police. He moved on to be a nightclub bouncer for a little while, then a bodyguard briefly. Again, the company that job brought didn’t suit him and the next place that ended up hiring him was a stable in a mid-sized town near Hamburg that, like every other place that had given him a job, was impressed by how he worded his childhood experience on his resume. They leased space to clients to board their horses, their fees covering feed and care for the animals as well. Geralt found it to be his favorite job out of all those he had tried so far; he had always loved working with the horses on the estate and hadn’t realized how much he had missed spending time with the animals.

In a stroke of luck he’d heard through the stable’s grapevine that one of their regular customers was moving overseas and selling their horse on short notice, for a fraction of what it would’ve been worth otherwise. He got the phone number for the seller and only hesitated a little bit before calling and offering to buy the horse. Years of squirreling away his paychecks finally felt like they were worth it as he ran a hand over the satin-sleek flank of a gorgeous paint mare, her coat a splattered pattern of sepia and white. For once in his life, he started to put down some of his own roots. He had a horse and an admittedly kind of shitty apartment and not much else, but it was something. It was a beginning.

He met Calanthe Riannon because she was a customer at the stables. She had a beautiful purebred stallion that she would occasionally bring to train using their equipment, another service they offered. Sometimes she would request to have her horse brushed down for her after she was done riding and the stable employees would always play rock, paper, scissors for the chance to spend time up close with such a magnificent animal.

The first round Geralt won, he worked the stallion over with efficiency but also kind hands and gentle words and the occasional apple slice snuck to him out of his apron pocket. He was giving the horse’s glossy chestnut coat a second brushing down, murmuring softly to him, when he heard someone enter the room. Glancing over, he saw Calanthe lean against the wall by the doorframe. She’d watched him all the while as he finished caring for her horse, not saying a word. As Geralt turned to leave, she’d finally spoken, but only to ask for his name. Her expression didn’t reveal whether that was a good or a bad sign.

After that, every time Calanthe came to ride she requested for Geralt to tend to her horse afterwards. More often than not she’d show up to watch part of the process, never saying much, but always seeming to be appraising him.

Geralt still managed to learn a bit about her over the next few months, though. She told him that she was a businesswoman, that her company worked in shipping and trade, and he quickly discovered that she often spoke with a scathing wit that often rode the knife’s edge of hurtful. Her attitude as she shared that she was a widow of over a decade was impartial, but love revealed cracks in her shell when she spoke of her daughter, the pride and joy of her heart, who was growing into a fine young woman.

He didn’t share much about himself in return besides that he doesn’t have any family and he enjoys getting to work with horses, but something he’d done must have made Calanthe consider him trustworthy because one day as he was guiding her horse into the trailer to travel back to his own stable, she looked at him over the stallion’s back and asked him if he would like to start giving her daughter riding lessons.

Pavetta was a lovely girl, if a bit timid, and Geralt found himself surprisingly enjoying instructing her on horseback riding. He was still giving her lessons after nearly a year, somehow, so he supposed he might actually be a decent instructor, too. Teaching people to ride horses. He wouldn’t mind making that the calling of this new rooted life. A life where his coworkers compliment his dedication to the consistency of his dye job and customers ask where he gets his crazy colored contacts. Sometimes he tells people that his hair or eyes are natural and they either laugh it off as a joke or actually believe him, saying something along the lines of dude, that’s bonkers, the world is a wild place, but either way he would usually come out the other side of the interaction feeling like a person that belonged, who could maybe have good things.

          And then it happened. The end of the world.

Eskel’s text said to contact him and included coordinates, presumably his location. Calanthe’s messages asked if Geralt was alright, offered him a safe place to stay at her estate as well as provided the address, and warned him to stay far away from her and her family if he was bitten. He wasn’t sure what that meant, yet.

Riding back towards town, he could smell the smoke and the blood on the wind before he could see it. As they grew closer and the screams and howls Geralt had already been able to hear became more audible, the horse beneath him began to grow skittish, nickering shrilly and twisting against her reins, nostrils flaring.

“Shhh, Rosie,” Geralt soothed, running his palm over the side of the mare’s neck.

They turned around a bend in the road and he could finally see the buildings at the bottom of the hill. Dark gray pillars billowed every so often into the sky, the cloudiness they created muting the late afternoon sun. The sounds and scents that drifted to Geralt’s senses were horrifying; blood, viscera, spilled gasoline, gunpowder, burning flesh, fear fear FEAR, and something he couldn’t identify that smelled earthy like mushrooms but also inexplicably wrong.

He spurred Rosie on faster and arrived with clattering hoofs into chaos. Flames licked up the side of a building from the crumpled shell of a wrecked car. People, some of them bleeding, all of them terrified, desperately ran past him. Geralt tried to weave through them but it was difficult, and after the third time his horse snorted because of someone bouncing off her side, he gave up on following the main street and turned into a side alley. Making it to another wider road that had fewer screaming, fleeing people, Geralt guided his mare onto it. For lack of a better plan, he decided to head to his apartment. He had supplies there he’d never wanted to or really thought he’d actually need, but they’d be helpful now.

The street was quickly almost eerily deserted, and Geralt found himself feeling anxious and on edge. A feeling that was soon justified, as his ears picked up the squealing of tires far in advance of the arrival of the out-of-control bus. That didn’t stop him from feeling hunted as it roared down the road after him, slowly but surely catching up; Rosie was galloping her hardest, flanks heaving beneath his legs, but whoever was driving the thing behind them had slammed the pedal to the metal. It was right on their heels, barely an arm’s length away from killing them, when the tires howled on the asphalt and the bus swerved off the road, going through a parking lot and colliding with a large truck before careening away, unbalanced. Eventually it skidded to a stop, landing on its side in front of an office building. His mare spooked badly at the commotion, stuttering to a stop and rearing up in fear so suddenly she nearly bucked him off. Geralt was struggling to stay in the saddle and get his horse back under control, trying to get her to stop dancing in circles, when they began to clamber out of the bus.

Screeching, groaning, and howling, they were shaped like human people. Yet there was no intelligence in their bloodshot eyes and to Geralt’s sensitive nose they stank of rot and fungus; not dead but sick, infested, no longer really alive.

They still had some awareness, it seemed, as one spotted him and fell into a crouch, screaming his way. It sprinted down the side of the bus, leaping into the air as it reached the edge. Maybe it would’ve actually landed on Rosie if she hadn’t skittered away, kicking out wildly at the creature. Geralt, his concentration slipping in his shock at whatever the fuck that just was, was finally thrown from the saddle. He landed back-first onto concrete, breath knocked clean from his lungs, and the thing that looked like it used to be person lunged towards him. It was on top of him in an instant, hands clawing and teeth gnashing, but even breathless Geralt was more than a match for one mindless attacker. He wrestled the thing’s jaws away from his flesh and managed to flip them so he was the one on top of it. Pinning it facedown with his knees, his legs held its arms and torso in place as he took its skull between his palms, breaking its neck with a vicious twist. The creature went limp beneath him, the last remnants of its human life draining away.

Rosie’s screaming yanked Geralt’s attention back to her. More of the things had jumped down at them from the bus; one had managed to climb onto her already and as her panicked stepping took her closer to the wrecked vehicle, another leapt onto her back. Others continued to claw their way out of the bus through open or broken windows. Several more were advancing into the street towards Geralt, crouched low and snarling. A third flung itself at the mare and Geralt hated the noises she was making as they bit and scratched at her. He could see the whites of her eyes and smell her blood as it spilled onto the street, but the only weapons he had were his hands and some of the only information he had as to what was the fuck was happening was Calanthe’s warning about bites. So he dug his fingernails into his palms hard enough to make himself bleed, and then he turned and ran. He hadn’t known if he could still cry, after they’d dripped chemicals into his eyes to change them. As heat flooded them and blurred his vision and sobs caught in his throat alongside ragged gasps of air, he learned that yes, he could.

Eventually Geralt made it back to his apartment building, covered in blood and bruises and carrying a fire axe with its blade coated in a layer of gore on top of the manufactured-red metal. The landlady lunged at him out of her office by the stairwell in the entranceway and he buried the axeblade in her trachea, watching the light fade from misted eyes as her breathing gurgled to a stop. He got up to his dingy one-bedroom without any further trouble, not even getting attacked as he fumbled the keys outside the door. Once inside he locked it behind him, and then shoved the heavy oaken bookshelf that had come with the place in front of the door as well. Feeling as secure as he was likely to, Geralt started to go about his business.

Taking the axe into the kitchen, he rinsed the blood from the blade, rubbing it over with a washcloth. Once it was clean he inspected the edge- slightly dull, which was an easy fix, with only one small nick in the blade, likely from catching on bone. Carrying it into the bedroom with him, Geralt placed the weapon on the duvet. He then pulled a heavy locked trunk out of the closet and hauled it onto the bed, leaving it there while he moved back to retrieve a pair of brown leather bags from one of the closet’s upper shelves. Unbuckling the flaps, he started packing. One of the bags was soon filled with his sturdiest clothes and a pair of comfortable hiking boots tucked in the very bottom, as well as plenty of socks. Retrieving his first aid kit from the nightstand, he added it to the bag and then grabbed both pieces of luggage, carrying them into the kitchen. The second satchel was soon full of non-perishable foods that traveled well, like trail mix and protein bars and beef jerky, with a few canned goods in there as well. Geralt also put a couple of potatoes and onions into a paper bag that he tucked away into a corner. He also slid his store-bought set of salt and pepper grinders into the bag, happy that he’d kept the caps to them so the slim cylinders were still resealable.

Satisfied with his packing so far, he went into the bathroom to take a quick shower and change out of his bloodstained clothes, having left a clean outfit aside with just that in mind. Geralt went back into the kitchen, carry his travel toiletry kit out with him to pack, along with his razor, toothbrush and toothpaste, and stick of deodorant. After he had found a pocket on the inside of the clothes bag to tuck them into, he moved around the kitchen making himself a hearty sandwich from the leftover perishable ingredients in his fridge. A towel was twisted around his hair, keeping the wet strands off his fresh clothes while simultaneously helping to squeeze it dry.

After he finished making and then eating his sandwich, Geralt unwound his hair from the towel and ran through it a couple of times with a hairbrush, yanking through the tangles with a lack of gentleness that would’ve made any observer wince at the sound it made. He finished and the white strands hung limply, still damp enough to clump together and appear stringy. The brush then went into the bag with the rest of his essential hygienic belongings. Going to one of the kitchen cabinets, Geralt pulled out a package of brownie brittle and opened it, crunching into a piece sullenly. Three meticulously nibbled out-of-existence pieces later, he admitted to himself that he was stalling. He thought about leaving the brownie brittle in the kitchen but decided to bring it with him, setting it down on the nightstand in the bedroom instead. Finally, he turned to the chest on top of the comforter.

Taking ahold of the lock, he keyed in the combination. It clicked open and he unhooked it, undoing the other two metal clasps and swinging the top of the trunk open. Inside was a collection of interesting objects, the most prominent being a long sword in a sheathe, its flat circular pommel etched with a wolf, and a black, thick-padded motorcycle jacket with numerous metal studs spaced evenly across the arms. There was a jumble of other weaponry, survival gear, and even a good number of dog-eared books. Geralt pulled out the leather jacket and unzipped an inside pocket, retrieving a chain with a disk-shaped pendant hanging from it that looked like a silver coin. It was embossed with the silhouette of a wolf. Absentmindedly dropping the leather jacket back into the trunk, Geralt cradled the necklace in his palm for a second, running his thumb over the raised metal of the design, before moving to fasten it around his neck. The pendant settled against his chest, a cool circle that slowly warmed against his skin as it sat nestled, visible in the space created by his unbuttoned black Henley.

Next he pulled the sword out and dug out a whetstone and cleaning kit from the trunk as well. Snagging the axe off the bed as an afterthought, Geralt then headed into the living room to spread things out on the coffee table. Taking a seat on the couch, he began meticulously making sure his sword was properly cleaned and sharpened, carefully testing the edge with his thumb. Once he was satisfied and had slid it back into its hard leather sheath, Geralt wiped his hands on a rag and relaxed a bit into the cushions, glancing towards the window. The sky outside was sunset orange and the sight of it caused Geralt to pause. He looked around his apartment, the furniture bathed softly in dimming amber light, and a thought came to his mind. Should he spend the night here? Get up in the morning and cook himself breakfast in the kitchen one last time, make some fried eggs and then hard boil the rest of the carton for the road? Sleep one more night in the bed that he had actually been able to consider his own for a while?

Geralt had spent his adult life trying to come back from a childhood of being told he couldn’t want things. It was the little luxuries that were the easiest to allow himself in the time he’d spent away; food cooked how he liked it, packets of brownie brittle, a memory foam mattress. In a world where very little actually wanted him dead, indulgence was low-risk. Now, it might be stupid enough to get him killed.

           Just like his childhood memories said it should be.

He didn’t think he was being stupid wanting to spend the night here, though. The building was relatively quiet around him and he had the one entrance into his apartment sufficiently blocked off; if anything did try to get in, he’d hear it long before it managed to get the door open. A good night’s sleep was probably about to become a rarity, so he might as well do his best to get something close to one in while he could. And eating healthily was likely to get a lot harder, too; he should use what he had while he had it, since the perishable foods would just rot in the kitchen anyways if no one used them soon.

Decision made, he concentrated on properly cleaning and sharpening the axe blade. The nick was deep enough that he could only make it a bit shallower in one evening; it would take another few rounds with the whetstone to wear it away completely.

Blinking, Geralt suddenly realized how dark it was becoming in the apartment. His night vision was good enough that he hadn’t accidentally cut a finger off, but there were no streetlights shining in his window, no lights from other houses. The electronic clock on the tv stand wasn’t emitting its soft glow. Of course the power was out.

Going to the closet, Geralt dug out a package of battery-powered candles he had seen on clearance and picked up on a whim. He went around the apartment, turning them on and placing one in every room. It would be enough light for him to see what he was doing, but hopefully not bright enough to attract anything or anyone’s attention. Just to be safe, Geralt went to the window to close the shades. He took a moment to look at the world outside.

With the town’s electricity dead, the only light pollution left came from the fires burning here and there. The smoke blocked some of the sky out, but where it was clear the stars glimmered through brightly. Geralt could see the constellation Orion, the three stars making up his belt rising above the buildings. The star for his sword shone brightly at his side. Geralt looked away and closed the drapes.

The rest of the evening was spent sorting through the other weapons in the trunk, determining which ones were coming with him and which out of those would need maintenance. When he got hungry enough, he started a pot of rice on the stove, feeling grateful for the apartment’s gas stove as the burner flared to life despite the power outage. Going to the fridge, Geralt pulled out a bag of fresh green beans, opening and closing the door as quickly as he could to keep the cold in. He set up a steamer on another burner, turning it on when the rice was about halfway done. Once the water was boiling and fogging up the glass lid, Geralt dumped in a Ziploc bag full of frozen dumplings he’d gotten from the freezer and left them to steam. He tossed the green beans in a pan with olive oil and salt.

His timing was a little off and not everything was done at the same time. Geralt snacked on the beans while he waited for the rest of his food to finish cooking. Once it had, he plated himself up a mound of rice and a pile of dumplings alongside the remaining vegetables. The final touch was a small bowl filled with soy sauce and a splash of it onto the rice for flavor. Geralt relished the hot food right in front of him that wafted the scents of ginger and pork and salt and tucked in to eat. For just a moment, he was able to see the illusion of an evening like any other, hunger roaring in his stomach from a long day at work and a skipped lunch rather than a tiring slog through and over corpses as his commute home. But the palms of his hands stung and his shoulders ached like they’d used to after a shift at the logging mill and that job was long in the past for him now.

Eventually Geralt finished his dinner and moved on autopilot to the kitchen sink, handwashing his plate and the pots and pans he’d cooked in. He stared at the dishes in the drainer, clean and slowly drip-drying like they were expecting to be put away in the morning, like the world wasn’t in pieces outside his window and Geralt didn’t have blood freshly staining his hands. Retreating back to the bedroom, he sat on the edge of the mattress and ate more brownie brittle, eyes gazing unfocused at the wall and jaw working a bit too hard as he chewed the dry dessert to dust.

Dammit, this wasn’t making him feel any better. All he was doing was thinking about everything he was about to lose.

Struck with the need for something productive to do, Geralt pulled out his phone. The battery was low but not dead yet, though it didn’t seem like the cell towers in the area were doing anything anymore so it was practically useless anyways, but he could still see the texts he’d already received. He pulled up the message from Eskel, squinting at the string of coordinates. The internet wouldn’t be able to help him now, so he’d have to figure this out the old-fashioned way. Standing up, he began rummaging through the trunk again and pulled out a bundle of paper maps, folded tight and bound into a stack with rubber bands. Geralt removed the bindings and shuffled through the papers, looking for and eventually finding the map of Europe that came with latitude and longitude lines printed onto it. Spreading the map out on the bed where he’d previously sat, Geralt found himself in want of more light. He pulled a metal LED flashlight out from where it had rolled to the back of the nightstand’s drawer, making a mental note to pack it to take with him as well. With a beam of light and a focused gaze, he began to find his way to Eskel’s location.

When he figured it out, Geralt huffed in frustration. Switzerland. Of course. Not directly in the mountains at least, but still too close to their childhood home for comfort. And definitely too far away to be his next destination.

His local maps weren’t buried in the old chest from his past so Geralt returned to the living room to retrieve them off the bookshelf blocking the front door. After some searching he found the street name that matched Calanthe’s address and traced out a couple of alternative routes there from his apartment with different colored highlighters. He couldn’t help but hope for a smooth ride there but he wouldn’t be surprised to encounter obstacles that would lead to a change in his plans, considering how much of a mess getting to his apartment had been.

Over the next hour or two, Geralt puttered between going about his home and looking through his belongings to make sure he had everything he wanted to take with him packed, peering over the routes drawn on the map and mumbling street names to himself, and putting sharp edges on the variety of knives he had decided to bring. Eventually, though, he had run out of reasonable things to pack and sharpened all the blades that needed it. Giving the map one last critical look, Geralt decided it was time for him to go to bed. He got his toothbrush and toothpaste out of his bag, brushed his teeth in the bathroom, moved the trunk to his bedroom floor, and stripped off his shirt before crawling between the covers. Lying in bed with his eyes closed, he kept his breathing slow and deep until he finally managed to drift off into a light sleep, haunted by uneasy dreams.

#i posted this before with the ao3 link but i thot i'd repost the full chapter #esp bc chapter two is. getting there #like 2/3 of the way done #and i love reading ppl's tags when they leave them #so here it is #i hope the focus on details isn't too much lol #the witcher #geralt of rivia #calanthe fiona riannon #pavetta #vesemir #eskel #lambert #kaer morhen #the last of us #the witcher fic #witcher fanfiction #witcher x tlou #tlou #witcher fic #last of us au #blood and blue skies #writing #my writing #mine

[cattywh0mpus]

This is the most personal thing I have ever fucking posted anywhere and I hope this gets buried quick but also iduno maybe other people will relate and it’ll help them maybe or make them worse i am going to regret this the second I hit post 

Ps- nobody freak out I am like, safe and not in danger lmao just fyi 

TW: so many. Uh angst, mention of self harm, implied suicide/death, lots of very bad profanity, depression, anxiety, bad poetry, abuse of rhyming scheme, rhyming best with best, way too long, dude don’t read this

I have things to do, a whole list of things I wanna do inside my head and none of them are this stupid poem, and it fills me with such dread Because it’s well into the evening and I’ve yet to leave my bed And I know that I’ll still be fucking tweaking this at 3am instead Of fucking sleeping or drinking water or taking any of my meds And I’ll keep doing it for 15 years until I’m fucking dead because

My brain is a bastard. My brain is a creep. It haunts me in the daytime, but sometimes it doesn’t when I sleep And I would sleep maybe forever if it wasn’t for this fucking spark That forces me to think of pretty things and lanterns in the dark And things I could be fucking making, frogs and gardens and dumb art Please God, it’s not what I begged for, I didn’t want to build this ark But I know without it, I would fucking drown in piss and fall apart

My brain is an asshole. My brain is a cunt. But please don’t let the language scare you, i’m just putting up a front Because I’m a lot more sad than angry and a lot more “used to it” than sad And my only outlet is the things I make although they’re fucking bad And I try to offer it some better things, with better outcomes to be had it slaps them out of my fucking shaking hands, it’s obsessions ironclad I just wanted to be healthy, helpful, and do things with my fucking dad but

My brain is a monster. My brain is a freak. It’s supposed to be a tool I use, but instead it’s using me Piloting me like a god damn gundam made out of bones and fucking meat And I’m powerless to stop it, though I kick and bite and scream Or I used to, I fucking swear I did, but now I mostly lay around and dream Of a day when I can do the things I like without injesting fucking speed

My brain is a liar, but fucking so am I. I craft such stupid fucking stories for me to crawl under and hide (somehow more believable than the truths I tell, how and fucking why?) I’m so embarrassed by it’s actions, I need to believe they aren’t mine It’s my brain, that son of a bitch, making me out to be a bad, bad guy Making my chest and heart and lungs get tied up in it’s vicious lies Forcing my mouth to spout such bullshit and waterboard my fucking eyes Sometimes I honestly believe it’s honest, and not a coward in disguise It’s last name is Puzzle, it’s all a game to it, shame and panic is the prize

My brain is a shit. My brain is a turd. It convinces me I’m dumb and mute whenever I’m desperate to be heard Sometimes I feel like a prisoner, a fat cow separated from the herd I’d do anything (that i’m able) to be the cage around the bird I need to fucking rebel, so I promise I won’t write another fucking word

...BUT MY BRAIN’S A FUCKING SHITEATING COCKSUCKING PRICK because my brain’s a fucking cannibal and it makes me fucking sick I want to tear it out by it’s ugly fucking stem and smash it with a brick No more executive dysfunction, no more confusion, no more fucking tricks Just the thought of being fucking rid of it gets me so fucking slick But my mommy would be sad, so you win this round, you fucking dick

But one day you’ll be a goner, a rotting, ruined mass So one day when no one’s looking, you had better watch your wrinkled ass And less and less people are watching, so you better think fucking fast Before I put your hippocampus in a headlock, and your neocortex in a cast There’s one thing I’m fucking certain of, your reign won’t fucking last Because thank god nothing is permanent, even this will come to pass And then we’ll be like all the other graveyard corpses, fucking normative at last

...Okay, listen brain I’m sorry. Maybe that was too intense? But you’re making me so fucking stupid, you make me make no fucking sense I’ve tried so hard to fucking work with you, to compromise, hence The doctors appointments and the pills and everything at great expense But you make me miss all my appointments and forget to take my meds And what’s the point of the watch that reminds me if you are too fucking dense To remember to put it on in the mornings, you make everything so tense Just like you strain my boyfriend’s wallet with every wasted fucking cent And sometimes it feels like none of it has even made a fucking dent Because my wisdom tooth is still rotting and my funny bone is spent My brain is the worst fucking tenant, and it doesn’t even pay the rent

My brain is a failure, but my brain tries it’s best. To distract me from the everything, to give me fucking rest But all it really does is hinder me, I’m never at my best. It thinks it’s doing something good for me, but i’m not fucking impressed The days go by so fucking quickly and I’m just as quick to fucking forget Every memory like busted christmas lights, a tangled useless mess Something that once brought such happiness but now it’s just a pest I need an exterminator in my synapses, because they’re a fucking rat’s nest I haven’t seen my friends in so so long, It puts our friendship to the test But I never wanted to fucking test them, I just want this shit to end I need a coping mechanism on which I can actually depend I’ve lost my appetite for grief eating, my emotional support animals were hens But bandits slaughtered them for funsies, so now it’s just an empty pen And I was never one for self harm, though I tried it way back when But now every time I see the burn, I have to think of it again? Which seems counter fucking productive.. hey, do you think you maybe can Stop me from doing all this fucking rambling? Though it’s been tried by better men...

I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, but I can’t speak for it I’m not sure if it is sorry, cuz it’s such a fucking tit But I am trying to be better, and I won’t hate you if you split Because I wish I could bail everyday, and I don’t wanna be a hypocrite I’ll still love you, i’ll still love you, (if i remember you that is) And I’ll keep wishing every day that I can find the strength to fucking quit. Every day, every minute, holy shit.

[pancake-man]

PRUMANO SECRET VALENTINES

Hey @anamelodemelo! I’m a little(almost two months) late, but I was your prumano secret valentine! Big thanks to @prumano-week for organising this whole thing and @snowywolff for kicking my butt into gear to finish this. 

Your prompts were  Kiss, Funny, Fancy, Date, Nyotalia and I tried to cover all of them! I used fannames because I couldn’t find any good names for the Nyo!s, so Nyo!Prussia is Zoe and Nyo!Romano is Elena!  I hope you enjoy it!

Kissing + Mishaps = Kisshaps

They’ve been doing the same thing for years, curled up in blankets and surrounded by junk food, a cheesy movie neither of them has ever heard of blaring on the screen across the room. The same thing, except it’s changed. Both of them have grown, but not much, perpetually stuck below 5’4. Elena’s room has gone from pink hues and stuffed animals to reds and greens and potted succulents on the windowsill. Zoe cut off most of her long hair and Elena wears makeup now. But they’re still the same kids who met years ago on a playground. 

So now it’s Elena with her back against the mattress, sitting on the floor because she’s too lazy to get her glasses and she wants to see, dammit, and Zoe up on the bed, laying on her back with an entire bowl of chips balanced on her stomach.

The actor in the film has lost his shirt, again, and Zoe is laughing her ass off making fun of the script and costume department and everything else, really. Elena isn’t sure what about the plot requires the hero to be shirtless, but she’s not paying attention anyways. The flashing lights of cheap CGI reflect on Zoe’s face, making her stand out in the dark room. 

Zoe bites her lip and sucks in a breath as the scene shifts. It’s the hero’s younger sister, and the villain(Elena thinks, she’s still not sure what the plot is) They’re fighting, knives out and teeth bared until the sister has the other woman pinned to the ground. The actresses are panting, and Elena feels her own heart beat badump, badump, badump. 

The women on screen press their lips together, cheesy and dramatic. “What does that feel like?” She asks, blurts out, because Zoe has experience and she doesn’t. Elena asks because she’s curious, because she’s never kissed a boy, let alone a girl, and what’s on screen is never like in real life.

Zoe hums, sticks her tongue between her teeth like she’s always done. “Just like kissing a boy, I guess.” 

Elena’s nails dig into her palm. “Never done that.”

Zoe doesn’t respond for a moment. Then Elena hears the rustle of blankets as her friend rolls over. “Oh. It’s- um. It’s like there’s this space in your chest that you never knew was there, and then it’s just-” She pops her lips. “Filled.”

Elena hums. Her face feels on fire. “I get it,” she says, even though she doesn’t. The movie has moved onto another fight scene, this time with more men and explosions. Neither of them are interested anymore.

Again the sound of blankets, then Elena feels breath on the back of her neck. She turns around and Zoe is right there, so close. “I didn’t explain very well, did I?” Zoe’s lips move around the words, and Elena can’t decide whether to look at them or Zoe’s eyes.

“No, it’s- fine. It’s fine.” 

“I could just show you.” 

“Don’t be a fucking weirdo,” Elena laughs, but it sounds fake and hollow. She leans forward.

It’s nothing like how Zoe described. It’s actually kinda terrible. Elena goes in with her lips puckered like a blowfish and Zoe goes straight for a French. Zoe groans and Elena can feel the vibrations go straight through her. Zoe pulls away, taking all of her warmth and too-much-ness with her.

“What the fuck was that shitty excuse for a first kiss, asshole?” Elena begins, but then Zoe smushes her cheeks between her hands and guides her up onto the bed. She’s sitting between Zoe’s legs now, and Zoe uses her hands to move Elena’s head around like a doll, tilting it just so that when they meet again, it’s a thousand times better than the first. 

Gasps are quickly swallowed up by hungry lips as eyes close and hands move around each other. Zoe is still tangled in pillows and fluff, leaving a barrier between them that feels like miles of distance. Fingers are running through Elena’s hair, pulling at the tangled curls until she whines and retaliates by digging her nails into Zoe’s shoulders.

Elena feels- wait, is that teeth? Something sharp hits her lip and she yelps, jumping back and hitting Zoe square in the face with her head. Elena looks up to see an awful fountain of blood burst forth from Zoe’s nose- all over her clean bedsheets. Goddammit.

“Shit I’m sorry-” She starts to say, but Zoe cuts her off with a wheeze. 

“No! No it’s fine, I’m just gonna-” Zoe starts to stand up, but their cocoon of blankets is still wrapped around her legs and she falls backwards. Elena reaches out for her and insead falls right on top of her, wedged between the wall and the bed. 

“Oh, MOTHER-”

---

“Seriously I’m so sorry that probably hurt like a son of a b-”

“Dude you’ve already apologised like, a billion times. It’s no sweat.”

“Zoe. Your arm is literally broken.”

“Yeah but it’s fine, see?” Zoe lifts up her arm, twisted at a horrible angle, and waves. “Can’t feel a thing.”

“I’m pretty sure not being able to feel your arm is really fucking bad! As in very not good! Kaput, nicht so gut.”

“Dude your accent is terrible,” Zoe laughs, with a loud snort at the end that nearly makes Elena swerve off the road. Driving with Zoe was usually distracting, let alone in the middle of the night when she had a broken arm. The arm that broke after they made out. That arm.

“Why are you still calling me dude? I feel like we’ve passed that point,” Elena rolls her eyes. But really… Maybe that kiss hadn’t meant anything to Zoe. Maybe Elena was just another girl. Maybe they really were just on ‘dude’ terms. 

Zoe shuts up for once, which normally would be great but now it just makes Elena more nervous, and she blows through a red light. “Jesus fucked a cow on a whole wheat bun, Elena! Keep your eyes on the road!”

“I’m sorry!” Elena blurts again, for the billion-and-first time. “You’re really distracting!”

“What?” 

“Don’t be an asshole, you know what I mean!”

“No seriously, what? I’m just me.”

Elena groans. She wishes she could pull over and have a proper conversation, but no, she needs to get Zoe to the hospital before she bleeds out or something. “You know, like, everytime you do stuff I just can’t focus.”

“Oh?” Elena is keeping her eyes on the road like a good driver, but she can hear the stupid smirk in Zoe’s voice. “Like what?”

“Like! I don’t know! Fuck!” 

Zoe snorts.

“Not like that!” Elena bites her lip and tries to find the words. “Like that right there! When you snort! It’s really fucking cute! And I liked your long hair but now that it’s short I mean- shit, have you ever looked in a mirror? You’re hot! Really hot! And I’ve known you my whole life so you’re kinda like my sister but not because that would be weird, you’re so much better and… fuck!” She didn’t mean to ramble that long. She glances over at Zoe, quickly, just to see her reaction.

Zoe is quiet. She’s holding her arm close to her chest, so it must actually hurt, and she’s just being a bitch about it. 

“Sorry, I know I’m not your type-”

“Dude, I thought you were straight.” Zoe moves her good hand over Elena’s. It’s awkward reaching over her seatbelt and broken arm, and Elena’s hands are still on the wheel so it probably isn’t safe, but Elena’s heart does flip-flops anyways.

“I mean… I don’t know what I am. I’ve never… liked anyone else.” Elena takes a deep breath. “Just you.”

Silence from Zoe again. Then- another snort. She starts laughing. “Dude! I thought you were straight!”

Angry tears prick Elena’s eyes. “Fuck off, bastard! I’m driving you to the hospital, don’t be a dick about my feelings!”

“No! No no no.” Zoe pulls her hand away and holds it up in surrender. Elena’s hand feels cold. “I meant, If I knew you were into- well, into me, I would’ve asked you out a long time ago.”

Now Elena does slam on the breaks and pull over. There’s nobody behind them, thank god, but Zoe is still thrown forward and it jars her arm. She cries out and curls into herself. 

“Fuck! Sorry, I just- what?” Elena unbuckles her seatbelt and tries to help Zoe back up. She’s crying- no, wait, she’s just laughing again. Zoe unfurls and launches herself at Elena’s face, slamming their lips together in a way that’s definitely painful. Just another bruise to add to the growing list. 

Zoe pulls away with that cute smirk of hers. “I like you too, dumbass.” 

Elena gasps in offense and punches her. In the arm. Which is broken. Zoe crumples again. “Right! Fuck! Hospital! Sorry!” She rebuckles and starts the car again.

Emergency room staff are the best. They’ve seen so much weird shit that they don’t blink at two teenage girls stumbling in at three in the morning, covered in blood and attached at the mouth. They barely notice at all, actually, and Elena has to fight to get any kind of immediate attention. She stays in the room through the whole ordeal(almost puking at the sight of Zoe’s arm being set into place) and peppers many more apologies throughout the night(Apparently Zoe’s nose is broken too. Elena peppers in kisses for good measure). 

The adrenaline of driving your friend(?) to the hospital in the middle of the night is finally leaving her body when the nurse finally leaves the room, and from the looks of it Zoe is just as tired. She’s all wrapped up in bandages, just like the blankets they’d left at home. The hospital chair Elena was given feels about as comfy as Zoe’s bed looks.

“Mmf mhm hh meh?” Zoe says eloquently.

“What?” Elena replies in kind.

“Bunch of fuckin’ messes aren’t we?”

“Ha. Yeah. You look worse than me.”

Zoe snorts, smirks. “You’re just as covered in blood.”

Elena’s eyes widen. “No way,” she retorts as she fumbles for her phone. Sure enough, when she opens her camera she can see her face is smeared with blood, especially around her lips. From Zoe’s bloody nose. “Oh, GROSS!” She gags and grabs some of Zoe’s bandages to wipe the rapidly-drying mess off. Zoe only laughs harder, wheezing an ‘ow’ between each snort.

“Did you mean it?” Elena asks, cutting off Zoe’s laughing fit. 

“All of it.”

“So, uh, wanna go to prom?”

“Sure, fuck it.”

“Fuck you.”

“On the first date? Elena, you foxy little-” 

“Fuck you!”

Prom is two weeks later. Zoe’s cast is covered in black lace to match her dress. They look baller. There’s a lot of making out after. And this time, nobody ends up in the ER.

#prumano #hetalia #aph prussia #aph romano #hws prussia #hws romano #mine #my writing #lark writes #prumano valentines #seriously im so sorry this is so late! #i really hope it was worth the wait #happy valentines!

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Erin!

You have been accepted for the role of ISLA SELWYN-MACMILLAN! Your application was beautiful! We especially loved your decision behind Isla’s familial background, which then led to her decisions and motivations within both her personal life and her life in the Order. The details you put in your application really brought her to life in a lovely way! We are so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: erin

AGE: 26

TIMEZONE: est

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I work a regular 9 to 5, so will be quite scare weekday afternoons, but am pretty consistent around evenings (into the woo hours of the am, as I’m an incurable insomniac) and weekends.

ANYTHING ELSE: n/a

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME:  Isla Arcine Selwyn- Macmillan

AGE: 25

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cisfemale. She / Her. Bisexual, in that way of scratching an itch rather than deliberately seeking out a romantic partner. Sex is sex is needs met, and a base appreciation, besides. When it comes to things more long-term, things which people out there in the world at large still call a relationship, it’s more touch and go. It’s been a long time since she’s had a romantic other who could be in any way tagged significant; not since Hogwarts and long before Archie’s confession of his orientation caused her to consider whether her own desires incorporated same-sex. They did and they do, but romance is another animal altogether and she has never down well with it no matter where on the spectrum you place her.

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

ANY CHANGES: N / A

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

At first blush, it’s challenging to get a proper bead on Isla beyond liberal application of the word ‘dry’. She moves and speaks with the considered stillness of a woman well aware of her age, her place in life. That things have perhaps not gone as planned, but there’s no turning back now, so she may as well just commit to the person she’s found herself to be. Isla, then, is the woman who dresses practically, who hangs along the seams of situations with arms folded across her chest, and holds for that single breath of silence to fall before chiming in with observation.

That is in no way to suggest that she is the paragon of forbearance. She is, in fact, hugely impatient. Queen of the drummed nails, the tapped foot, the not-so-surreptitious watch check. Isla has had to do very little waiting in her life, which is fortunate as she isn’t very good at it. But give her something to attend, something to measure, and Isla can spend all the time in the world passing judgement and weighing and hmm-ing thoughtfully. The measured consideration of herself, her peers, the very world around her. Isla studies, assesses, and only then moves to act. She’s the one who watches the Order’s fracas of people come together like the tide crashing, waiting for it to roll back out before she picks her way through to deposit her thoughts. It takes a hell of a lot to make Isla do before Isla thinks.

She is, after all, above all else, a connoisseur. Selective, thorough, intractable, endlessly demanding and ferociously precise. Her perfectionism is legendary; her attention to detail rivaled only by her appetite. Her enthusiasm for what she loves—food, flying, finery—is heady and infectious. Unfortunately, what-ifs and maybe-justs have eaten away at the electric smile which used to light her up during days gone by, because she’s been wrestling with the sensation of a stifled life on a precipice for some time now. And if it isn’t fear which rules her life (it isn’t; she is afraid to be afraid, and subsequently knocks it to one side lest she start choking on what unfamiliar fear tastes like), then anger is the name of Isla’s coolly played game. The years she burned away living unrestrained and satiate are like a mental scrapbook, something for her to page through with mixed feelings of nostalgia and frustration.

Isla has always been indomitable and stubborn, but current climate has put a bit more of a bite to what was once a more good-humored brand of overbearing confidence. The remnants of playful, irreverent, imperious woman she was-is-might-be-again is best seen in dealings with nearest and dearest. She still does things like hiding all of Archie’s left hand loafers when she feels he’s not paying enough attention to her. Still signs off letters to favorite cousins with the words ’don’t be a cow, Love Isla’. Still bitches bitterly to best friends about what a sell-out twat Josef Wronski is. But where once the sensation of being untouchable and inviolable meant her charm and candor were universal, present reality has seen it condescend, contracted, confined to trust spheres and safe space. She is shade of former self and Isla is honestly terrified that she might never have the whole back.

Swallowed pride sits badly in her belly and it’s a daily debate on whether she can life with the sensation for the rest of her life. Her family taught her to compromise, but she never, ever learned to capitulate or tolerate. Even less to bow. Though she does well enough in tandem to authority she acknowledges, it's only authority she acknowledge and beneath any other hand she bucks and bristles and bites. At present, Voldemort’s throat is the one she longs most to sink her teeth into, but time and tide are proving how unlikely that may be and so she, eminently loyal and deeply sentimental, must start focusing on what she wishes most to protect and preserve. What the best course of action is to safe guard the present and future of family and friends, the people she sees as the ones she must protect. Because at the end of the day, though she’ll fight for herself she’d die for nothing less than those she loves the most.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

The House of Selwyn is known for two things: pearls and politics. Polish is the name of the game in either. A refined family, whose members dot the upper echelons of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and whose wealth was built ages ago on the back of their many oyster farms off the sun drenched shores of the Mediterranean. Her mother’s prized possession is a pearl the size of an ostrich egg, Isaac’s gift to her when they first got engaged. It sits, even now, on a marble pedestal in Arsinoe Selwyn’s sitting room and Isla has memories of mother running white hands affectionately across the milky sphere till it was almost impossible to tell where pearl ended and skin began.

Isla grew up in their house on the coast of the Isle of Angsley, a neoclassical mansion whose gardens fell down to the sea. She was her family’s first and final princess, the daughter her mother prayed for since honeymoon’s initial afterglow had worn away and revealed the stark reality of a husband whose cultured charm was as infinite as his penchant for philandering. Isla was, if only for a time, the cure-all which the Selwyn couple so desperately needed: Father was fond of her, Mother was attentive, but most important was opinion of House Matriarch, for Grandmother is gentle with her the way she is to no other, wrinkled hands fearfully referred to as talons by the three sons and the half a dozen grandchild descended from Innana Selwyn turning soft as silk when they cupped Isla’s fair cheeks or braided grandthing’s dark hair. In those hands too was the decision of who would inherit the lionshare of the family’s estate and it was clear from the moment Innana folded Isla affectionately to her side that the son she was sure to pick would be the one who sired her favorite grandchild.

Though no idyllic portrait of white dresses and tea parties – she and her young relatives played at being tigers and at princesses and of course at the wonder of wizardry, but tucked comfortably amidst their baby-games was ongoing theme of competition and envy and scrutiny  – her youth still managed to smack quite soundly of comfortable entitlement, familial solidarity, and reasonable compromise. As a child she struggles most with the latter. Her mother says she looks too much like her father, more hard and sharp than soft. Arsinoe Selwyn does her best to blunts her daughter’s edges and wraps her in velvet, but Isla never becomes particularly pliable. Instead she identifies early where the line is and toes it unrepentantly; stretches against the limits of her girl skin and twists and turns within it’s proverbial limits. She is a child with a riptide inside her; restless as the current threshing against the cliffs she once scaled for the sake of beating her cousin in a race back from beach to front door.

Her parents are perennial negotiators. A flying instructor is hired to keep her off the cliffs. A fencing master in exchange for cooperation in deportment. Free reign so long as it’s neat skirts and straight hair when the rest of the clan comes to visit. One was never to show shortcomings in front of the extended branches, after all. But even with all the mistrust and rivalry, family was family was family and her first show of magic is sparked when she bisects a Kelpie attempting to drag her cousin down through the shallows. The following Autumn, when she is seated in The Great Hall as the Sorting Hat weights her heart for what means more, ambition or valor, she remembers Electra Selwyn’s shivering hands as she kicked the creature’s corpse into the surf.

Armed with parents’ indulgence and grandmother’s doting she can do no wrong. Nicknamed The Grand Duchess by her cousins for her domineering ways, Isla was infallible force of nature for so many years. She is given partial reprieve from the spotlight of mother’s sole focus after baby brother is born. Caius Selwyn, small savior who comes into the world when she is thirteen years old, consequently holds paramount place in Isla’s affections. To younger sibling she is larger than life; dark eyes lighting up with admiration the first time he sees big sister in her Montrose Magpies uniform. A woman Icarus. Then comes the fall.

The shifts in their family begin with grandmother’s death. Innana Selwyn, so old and august and unyielding, it had never occurred to Isla even that she could die. But the coffin is black and her mourning clothes black and the cloud over the family is bleak, pitch dark as ink. If grandmother’s will was anything to go by, it should be Isaac who became family head and yet her eldest uncle Elijah steps in to fill the vacancy. Her father does not protest and Isla frowns like the gathering rain clouds, wonders why.

It’s off-season half a year later when she is called again to grandmother’s residence, now Uncle’s. The day is in it’s dregs when she arrives. The decayed sunset still hung a cloud-caught drift of humid, mauvish red and sent down its ominous indigo shade, which ran from hummock to hummock of the manicured lawns like spilled water. The architecture of the Selwyns’ ancestral estate was itself fairytale like – silver gates like spider webs on a wet May morning, cobblestone streets, wet-black wood entrances – but the something that evening caused everything to look overripe; an otherwise perfect fruit with a rotted spot just starting to spread. Inside the house many lights were burning bright: her parents had arrived ahead of her, for there was important business to discuss. Isla’s marriage prospects.

It was a shell shock, being confronted face to face with the savage delicacy of a wedding dress. She felt like marriage would eat her alive–rip her limb from careless limb. But there was no twisting and turning to avoid this. Father is stern, Mother is reproving. Something tense and heavy braids itself through their insistence, something like a predator stalking through the dense gardens outside their walls. There is no room for negations here. And think, Arsinoe tells her after, how much better off she is than some girls; at least they are giving her the freedom to choose whom she’d prefer from among the matches her uncle has put forth.

So Archie, who is companion and confidant and closest friend since she was small wild child with loose hair and imperious ways. Who should be perfect match except they are not in love and marriage ought be more than two people making the best of a last ditch effort to preserve what they can’t stomach losing. So they marry. They move into a home together. Clean and white on the outside, its window shutters decorative rather than functional and all its internal fripperies stripped away upon her arrival because no man would ever put Isla Selwyn up in a wallpapered home and live to tell the tale.

She learns later the name and nature of the beast-thing driving her family to tighten up tradition. Some power bloated dark wizard who thinks himself a lord with the right to reign over their way of life. Her uncle Elijah, her eldest cousins, they have already sworn fealty. And sure, things for her could certainly be far worse, but life till now had promised Isla Selwyn a world without limits then failed to deliver and so now entitled, intractable, implacable Isla, Isla who has never accepted the word ’no’ in her life and isn’t about to start now, is woman on a war path. If the world Voldemort means to build is one where she has to bow to his notion of what a woman ought be then he had best look to his kingdom, because she’s coming for it.

OCCUPATION:

Housewife. And she chokes a little on the reality of it ever time. What was once a glowing quidditch career was quashed under family applied pressure in the wake of a rising regime. She was going to fly forever, that had been her plan. Instead she’d been made to resign from her position as Chaser for the Montrose Magpies and supposedly idles her days away in domestic leisure and social functions. But idle hands are the tools of the devil. Or in this case, the Order.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER

The same surname which gives her access to the insular world of pureblood social circles is a source of suspicion and skepticism for her comrades-in-arms. Many of the members are uncertain about her, be it of her motives, her commitment, or her loyalty; though even her staunchest detractor can’t deny her effectiveness nor her conviction. Luckily for all, Isla has a lifetime of experience in banding together for the greater good despite nebulous trust and constant scrutiny (see: the Selwyns). She does not need them to like her, but she does need them to make good use of the advantages she has to offer.

Informant, infiltrator, instigator. She has access to places other Order members do not, clout in certain circles that overlap with the enemy. Isla’s connections are many and they run the gamut from marked death eaters, whose names and movements she funnels to the order, to fence sitters who just need a bit of a nudge to sway the right way (or at least lend a helping hand so long as their safety is guaranteed). She has, on occasion, served as a soldier though always from behind a white and gold volto mask to preserve the secrecy of her affiliation.

That said, failure and fracturing among their numbers have roused Isla’s frustrations. It seems absurd to her that they have become at once so woefully disorganized and yet increasing concerned with rank and file. The faith she had in the beginning has begun to dwindle and she’s starting to doubt if this motley crew can overcome all the in-fighting enough to focus on the real enemy. Moreover, she’s starting to wonder if their own prejudices will turn them into something just as deplorable as the Death Eaters. If they cannot even tolerate each other, what might they do to those on the fringes? Her reservations were only exacerbated by the incident with Leina Nott.

SURVIVAL:

For the moment, her identity as a member of The Order remains still unknown to those outside it’s number. She lives then, almost as she always had. A house, honey hued when the light slid down the hills and made it so,  wreathed with ivy about the windows and draping the door. With husband who is loved-but-not-lover and with secrets kept closely guarded and all actions planned and plotted and maneuvered with careful calculation of risks and reasons and weight. She survives by walking a tight rope and living a lie and praying victory comes before the truth.

RELATIONSHIPS:

She has always been a woman who collects acquaintances but is few in close friends and the war has only caused her to make even sharper delineations. Archie Macmillan has always been her perfect constant, consistent and timely as the tides their friendship. Her parents may have indulged her, but Archie is the only person who has ever supported and encouraged her. They may not be in love with each other, but he is the most important person in her life, the only individual she is wholly honest with, her partner in all things. It was she who convinced him to join the Order and for that reason, Isla has resolved to put his wishes and well-being first and foremost so that he doesn’t come to regret that decision. Even if her own life comes crumbling down as a result of her choices, she’ll make damn sure that Archie’s doesn’t.

From the start, members of the Order’s inner circle have been treated to a polite but firm personal distance, business only please. Polite distance has since evolved to more than a little frost. She has never done well with authority figures she hasn’t specifically acknowledged and between a string of failures and the way their hierarchy is coming more and more to resemble that of the opposition’s, Isla’s regard for them and their leadership has dwindled significantly. It doesn’t help that James Potter is among their number and all her negative biases against him have subsequently colored the rest of the Order’s proverbial generals with the same standoffish brush.

She fares much better in interactions with the mid and low-level members and, in all honest, best with half and pureblood women. Because she can relate. Because she feels protective. Because being surrounded by women fighting for their right to autonomy and self-determination reminds her why she’s here in the first place and, truly, she needs those reminds now, here, when her morale as it’s most dismal. They encourage her to dirty her hands with much-missed paint, and to muddy up the colors. If she tells herself that it isn’t all well among Order ranks, then she openly admits that it’s not all bad.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: Isla x Chemistry

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Isla has lived her entire life in a world of extreme privileged. Because of blood status, because of wealth, because of weight of family name. Given ever access to education and resources and connection. Because the Selwyns were lax in regards to traditional values, even running up against the wall of gender biases was minimal up until more recently. Suddenly confronted with the the strictures and restrictions of antiquated sexism, Isla, in the way of a person born with every advantage, is predictably outraged and righteously anger at suddenly being put at a disadvantage.

A staunch anti-traditionalist, Isla imagines herself enormously liberal, but the reality of her upbringing informs all things. The Selwyn family’s pearl farms employ mainly muggles as menial labor, harvesters, and low level managers of their precious crop. And so, Isla has always thought of muggles as existences only a few step above house elves; backwards, easily excitable, but hard working creatures, obliviously happy with their own lesser way of life because they haven’t the capacity to imagine something broader. Her attitude towards muggleborns, therefore, smacks of condescension and distinctive othering. As though they are the lucky, mutated winners of some biological lottery. “Corrected” muggles, fixed of the flaw of lacking magic. And though Isla imagines that because she supports the right of muggleborns to everything the Wizarding World has to offer, it means she has no prejudices, in reality her internalized biases are many and she views them as inherently flawed by virtue of their birth and disadvantaged by virtue of their upbringing.

The reverse could be said of her prejudices about half-breeds and squibs. Their non-wizard heritance is a tragic blot to me sympathized with. For squibs she regards their lack of magic like a grave congenital disability. The kind of thing pregnant mother pray for protection against as they go into labor. The notion that this way of thinking might be problematic has not only never occurred to her, but would in fact be wholly anathema to how she navigates socially.  

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? There is so much plot jam-packed into this RP and I am living for it. I love the idea of an all Order focus; love even more that the Order is not depicted as some happy pack of underdogs who all love and get along with each other. I love that they’re losing and everything is getting desperate and painful and pushing people to their emotional / mental / moral limits. The ugliness mixed in with all the good-intentions and differing drives is so meaty, scoop me a huge helping pls & ty.

PLOT DROP IDEAS: N/A

ANYTHING ELSE? As though her family section isn’t already too long™, have some mini drabbles from her childhood

#homenumaccepted

[admiralty-xfd]

Culmination

This is Chapter 5. To start at the beginning please click here.

ANTICIPATION

SCULLY

(The Rain King)

A bee had ruined their moment, and now a cow was bringing them a bit of honesty.

They are in Kroner, Kansas. The unfortunate animal had been caught in a tornado caused by the pent-up emotional frustrations of one Holman Hardt, and Mulder’s motel room had been the main casualty. With no more rooms available, he and Scully have been forced to share her room.

This has happened before a few times and it’s never been an issue. A broken shower here, a booked up motel there, Mulder on the pull-out couch, letting Scully take the bed. He’s always been respectful, and it’s never felt awkward.

This time, however, she feels a little strange about the whole thing. They still haven’t acknowledged that he’d tried to kiss her in his hallway. There was a line, a hard line that had always been present and he’d tried to cross it.

She’d wanted him to, badly, but he hasn’t attempted it again and now she’s starting to feel like he won’t. Like maybe the entire thing was a mistake, and they both know it.

She’s confused, and the longer they take to talk about it the more confused she gets.

You made me a whole person.

God, had he really said that? It was the single most romantic thing any man had ever said to her, and they aren’t even in a romantic relationship. She’ll never forget he said that to her. What is she supposed to do with that now?

They’re off the X Files, but that hasn’t stopped Mulder from pursuing every lead he has the good fortune to come across. And it hasn’t stopped her from getting in the car and following him wherever he goes. She knows she will always go with him. In spite of everything, she loves this work. It energizes her, excites her, especially in the face of all the scut work they’ve been reassigned to after getting kicked off the X Files. Background checks and surveillance are not her idea of an enlightening day at the office, not after all she’s seen.

Mostly though, she just misses Mulder. It’s weird not being his partner anymore. She misses his crazy theories and his sunflower seeds and his sexy gray T shirts.

This isn’t getting any easier, that’s for sure.

That near-kiss has changed something. She suspects why they haven’t mentioned it. Acknowledging it will force them to make a decision: go this way, or go that way. She’s not sure if that’s a better route than the one they seem to have chosen, which is to do nothing at all. But she also isn’t sure she’s ready to make that decision.

Her brain is telling her it’s stupid, they have too much riding on their partnership, they have to get the X Files back, and this could ruin everything.

But her heart is telling her without a doubt that she loves him, and not in the way she’d always thought she loved him. No… she loves him. Isn’t that worth something? Isn’t that more important than anything else?

She’s trying her hardest to convince herself otherwise.

If he hasn’t made a move since the bee fiasco, he probably doesn’t feel the same way. She has to believe this, because she has no other choice. There are a million reasons she can think of to explain why he tried to kiss her in that moment. Maybe he did it to make her stay. Maybe he was attempting to satisfy a curiosity. Maybe he got caught up in the moment. Maybe he’s just… a guy. Every one of these reasons is a more likely scenario than the one where he is in love with her too and everything suddenly becomes perfect.

They are not that lucky. She should be used to this disappointment by now.

But she has to admit something is definitely different. His honesty in the hallway that night was something she'd been waiting for, and she didn't even know it. And she’s having trouble denying there was something there. Something physical between them that she knows has always been there. What she felt with him in that moment was something even she wouldn’t need scientific evidence to prove.

He felt it, too, she’s certain of that much. If she isn’t quite sure of the emotional impact of what Mulder started that night, she definitely knows the physical. He’s always trying to touch her now, even more than before, and she’s noticed.

They’ve been dancing around this for years. And continuing in this limbo after experiencing what she felt in his hallway is making things awkward.

Making things like sharing a motel room awkward.

Right now, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed surrounded by local Kroner newspaper articles, poring over them with that ferocity she admires. It’s amazing how involved and animated he can get over every single one of these cases. Sometimes she can’t quite get there, but he always can, and it’s pretty remarkable. He’s trying to explain to her his theory of what’s causing the strange weather in Kroner.

“Maybe the way someone feels can affect the weather, maybe the weather is somehow an expression of Holman Hardt’s feelings? Or better still, the feelings that he’s not expressing?”

She’s skeptical, but what he’s saying does make a lot of sense. He’s probably right. Why does he always get to be right?

She doesn’t really know why, but she suddenly feels a tiny spark of courage. She has to know, she has to put it out there.

“Mulder, can I ask you something? Something unrelated to the case?”

He distractedly looks at the article he’s holding. “Yeah. Hmm?”

“A while back. Outside your apartment. In the hallway.”

He puts the article down and looks up at her. He rests his elbows on his knees, propping his chin up, and puts his index fingers together against his lips, his eyes daring her to continue.

“Mm-hmm?”

Suddenly she doesn’t know what to say. But now the cat’s out of the bag. “What was that about?”

He inhales, then exhales. “We’re doing this, I guess?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He thinks a minute. “I don’t know, Scully.”

What was she thinking? Of course he’d say that. Why would she expect anything else? “You don’t know?”

“I’m not gonna lie, I wanted to do it.” His eyes search hers, and she wants to tell him she wanted him to, too, but her mouth has gone completely dry. “Something came over me… I did want to kiss you. I’m attracted to you, Scully. I am. I said it.”

Her heart is in her throat and she can’t reply. She stares at him, her face frozen.

He continues. “But… I was careless, I think… it would have been a mistake?”

He’s saying it as a question, like he’s feeling her out. She should have said something and she blew it. What the hell is she supposed to say to him now? She has to agree it would have been a mistake. He’s practically forcing her to.

He’s probably even right.

She has the distinct impression he’s waiting for her to give him permission to go for it. She really wants him to go for it but her mouth cannot form the words. God, why is she such a wimp? Why is he such a wimp? Why can’t they get their shit together? She wants to shake him. Hell, she wants to shake herself.

“You’re attracted to me?” is what she blurts out.

Oh, my God, where did that come from? How is this a thing that is happening? This is beyond embarrassing.

Mulder cocks his head and gives her a slight smile. “Is that a crime?”

He’s being so calm, so charming about all this, all she can do is smile back and raise a brow. “No. Not a prosecutable one, anyway.”

This is nothing too revelatory, if she's being honest. They both know the other is attractive. Saying it out loud is merely a baby step towards something else, something neither of them will step up to. She wishes she could tell him everything she’s feeling, but she can’t. This is not easy. Nothing is ever easy when it comes to the two of them.

But the way he’s looking at her has taken her so off guard she’s worried she’s losing the upper hand. For some reason that feels very important right now. Before she realizes what’s happening, she’s made the decision to retreat.

“But... you’re probably right. About it being a mistake.” She can’t be entirely certain but she thinks she sees a flash of disappointment in his eyes. “I mean,” she continues, “we probably shouldn’t let that kind of thing interfere with our partnership.”

He nods, smiling. His eyes don’t leave her own. “Probably shouldn’t,” he agrees slowly, tapping his fingertips against his bottom lip.

He’s doing that on purpose, she thinks. There’s definitely something here. We both feel it.  She doesn’t know exactly what “it” entails, but it’s the sliver of hope she’s been waiting for. Maybe he’s been waiting for it, too. Their timing has never been the greatest.

He grins at her, and she grins back.

“It would be the wrong time to… pursue something like that, I think,” she says carefully. She’s toying with him right back. She knows it’s probably stupid but she does it anyway.

“Couldn’t agree with you more.”

“Right.”

His eyebrows go up. “I mean… it wouldn’t be the end of the world or anything, but… it would complicate things.”

“Uh huh.”

They are still grinning like idiots. They both know what’s going on. They wanted to kiss each other, and it’s brazenly obvious. Part of her wants to leap across the room and push him back down onto the bed, but another part of her thinks what they’re doing right now is actually kind of fun, too.

She can’t deny the irony of sitting in this shared motel room with the man she’s in love with, who may or may not be in love with her too, having just been discussing Holman Hardt’s inability to express his true feelings. She wonders if he’s thinking the same thing.

Like so many conversations between them, this one will end in a stalemate. But they’ve come to an understanding, a tiny one, that someday this could be in the cards for them.

Apparently there was a third option open to them: go this way, or that way... or this other way.

Huh.

“So.” He can’t stop smiling and it’s chipping away at her resolve. She has a sneaking suspicion they’re both fishing for something, but neither of them are biting. Neither of them will make the first move. They’re convincing themselves not to do something they both really want to do and she doesn’t want to forget the reasons they aren’t going to do it. Whatever the hell those reasons are. So she needs to put a stop to this, now.

“Well.” Scully stands up. “I’m going to take a shower. Can you move all this stuff off the bed before I get out?”

His eyes don’t leave hers as she stands. “Absolutely. You enjoy yourself,” he winks.

Okay, she thinks. I see what we’re doing here. This could be fun.

She smirks at him and turns around to head toward the bathroom, grateful he can’t see her face flush. Her stomach is full of butterflies.

They’ve backed themselves into a corner now. Something is going to happen at some point, there’s no avoiding it. They’ll both be anticipating it. And now that they know this, the tension is going to be agonizing. It’s going to be unbearable.

It’s going to be fucking hot.

As she undresses and gets into the shower, she can’t stop smiling. She thinks of Mulder smiling back, his eyes bright, looking into hers. Her partner. Her best friend. And now, just maybe, she can look forward to the possibility of something else too.

MULDER

(One Son/ Arcadia)

Ever since they’d had their little chat, Mulder has felt oddly at ease around Scully. It’s as if they’d both communicated something to each other that they already knew, but putting it out there has lifted a huge weight off their shoulders.

Although, it’s strange… it’s as if he’s been given permission to feel a certain way but not necessarily permission to act on those feelings. At least, not yet. He isn’t sure what to do about them, either. Just because they both sort of decided not to act on them doesn’t mean the feelings would disappear.

He wasn’t avoiding the topic either when he told her it wouldn’t be a good idea right now. He genuinely believes that. He and Diana were a couple before they’d become partners, and when they did, she became more of a distraction than anything else. It makes him uncomfortable to imagine the same thing happening with Scully.

He wasn’t able to get all the information he wanted from her that night, however. He wonders if it’s possible she just wants something physical, some release, a way to ease the tension of their work. And while he certainly isn’t opposed to that in theory, he wants more. He is opposed to sending her mixed messages about how he feels about her.

These feelings are different than the way he felt about Diana; he’s older now, and wiser. This could be something, really something, he can’t deny that. But he also can’t deny the possibility that pushing this relationship into nonprofessional territory could affect their work, or worse, their partnership in general. If they change, everything could change. He’s not sure he wants that, at least not right now.

And Diana… where the hell is she, anyway? He’s a bit ashamed of how easily the cancer man got to him, convinced him to just give up. And then he and Diana both just disappeared.

Is it a coincidence? He hopes so. It’s not that he doesn’t want Scully to be right about Diana. He just doesn’t want to be wrong about her. Diana had almost completely left his mind until the moment she decided to enter his life again. That’s how it always was with her, she’d decide. Her decision. It had never been about them, just her.

She even called him Fox, because she liked it. Fox, she still says. Like none of the times he asked her not to ever even mattered. He hadn’t told Scully the whole truth… that the real reason he doesn’t want her calling him Fox is because it’s what Diana called him.

You knew her. You don’t anymore.

Scully’s words had gone right to his core. He really doesn’t know Diana anymore. The Diana he knew wouldn’t abandon the X Files like that. She’d abandon him, of course, but not the work. Never the work.

He’s disappointed in himself for shrugging off Scully’s concerns so quickly. He’d interpreted her digging up information on Diana behind his back as a betrayal of his judgment, when he should have suspected she was simply being territorial; the two of them tended to do that with each other from time to time.

But still, he’d closed himself off to her very valid concerns. He’d allowed old feelings to come rushing back and he’d become guilty of the very thing he had tried to avoid for so long: blind trust.

Without the FBI, personal interest is all I have. And if you take that away, then there is no reason for me to continue.

Scully was right, and he should have listened. He should have known better. He feels guilty now for making her feel that way. Six years into their partnership and he trusts Scully more than anyone he’s ever known… certainly more than Diana. How had he let Diana get to him this time? Even before, this was how she’d always operated. She was a manipulator. And he’d fallen for it again.

Well, Diana is out of their hair now. It’s not like he’s surprised at her sudden retreat. She’s done it before.

Right now he only wants to think of Scully. One day he will have to tell her how he feels about her. But for the moment, he hesitates. They are in the midst of starting back on the X Files and throwing in a new wrinkle wouldn’t be wise at this juncture.

There’s definitely something dark and mysterious afoot in this suburban neighborhood. He’s not sure if they are in actual danger yet, but his hunches about these cases have always been fairly accurate and he’s definitely feeling one now.

He does know this perfectly manicured house might just give him hives if they have to stay here much longer.

Mulder hasn’t been on many undercover assignments and he isn’t a great actor, so instead he’s just decided to be himself and annoy Scully endlessly with over-the-top affection. He likes hearing her say the “exasperated” version of his name, at least when they are alone. But it seems like she’s having a bit of fun at his expense, too.

He’s in the bedroom next door to Scully’s, and he’s having trouble falling asleep. There’s only a thin wall between them. He can visualize the master bedroom and knows her head is on the other side of it, mere inches from his. It’s oddly exciting.

He knocks on the wall behind him. “Scully? I can’t sleep.”

Her voice is muffled, probably face down on her pillow. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mulder.”

“Will you sing to me?”

“No.”

“Come on, you did before.”

“Only because you were dying, or something.”

“Can I come in there?”

“Muuuuulderrrrr. I’m trying to sleep.”

“So am I! You’re not going to help out your fake husband?”

“Oh my god. Fine.” Ah, Exasperated Scully.

He chuckles and grabs his pillow. Rounding the door jamb and entering her room, he flops down on the king sized bed next to her.

“Mulder! What are you doing?”

“Ooh, your bed is comfy. The mattress is better than mine.”

She sighs, loudly. He can tell, even in the dark, that she’s rolling her eyes. “Stay on your side.”

“Are we in a fight, Laura?”

He hears her laugh and is reassured he hasn’t made her uncomfortable.

She sighs. “Why can’t I ever say no to you?”

“Because it’s your wifely duty?”

She playfully swats at him. “I’m serious, Mulder.”

“Okay, okay.” He gets under the covers and settles his head on his pillow, looking at the ceiling, shamelessly giddy to be sleeping next to her tonight. He has no idea how that happened, but here they are.

He hears her take a deep breath. “What’s wrong, Mulder? Why can’t you sleep?”

He doesn’t know. “I don’t know.”

They lay there quietly together for a minute.

“Scully, is this really what you want to be doing?”

“What, trying to sleep with you hogging the covers?”

He releases some of his covers for her and flips onto his side. “I mean working on the X Files.” It’s something he’s been wondering since the day she almost walked out on him at his apartment.

“Of course it is,” she says. “I think… regardless of how it may appear sometimes, this is where I’m meant to be. On this journey, with you.”

“I do think about the alternative sometimes,” he admits.

“What alternative?”

“You, being somewhere else. Doing something else. This... place has got me thinking. About what you said about wanting a normal life.” He thinks of a car ride in Groom Lake, Scully looking out the window wistfully, him not really taking her too seriously. Maybe he should have.

“Really? You think about that?”

“Not because I want you to be somewhere else. It’s just… well, being stuck down in the basement isn’t exactly a career objective. You should be my boss by now, Scully.”

She laughs. “I wonder what I’d let you get away with if that were the case.”

“I wonder.”

He hears her shift in the bed and now they are facing each other. “I don’t know, Mulder. Maybe you were right when you said this is normal. Maybe it is, at least it is for you and me.”

You and me. He likes the sound of that when she says it.

“I’d hate to think you were changing your definition of normal because of me,” he says.

“I meant what I said after they reopened the X Files. My work is here now, with you.” Her hand is reaching out, looking for his. She finds his forearm and slides her hand up to find his in the dark, and as she closes her fingers around his, he squeezes back. He feels a jolt of electricity, like he usually does when they do this, and is keenly aware that they are in bed together, inches apart, holding hands. It feels so intimate, but so comfortable.

“This is where I want to be, Mulder. I promise.”

He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to hear her say that until the words came out of her mouth. It’s a relief, they are finally back where they need to be, and she wants to be here with him.

“I’m glad to hear that, Scully.”

It’s taking every ounce of his willpower not to pull her into him. For a million reasons he can think of, primarily that what they’re currently doing is already an extremely inappropriate flouting of Bureau regulations, he doesn’t.

He knows even that’s a lie because since when does he give a shit about the rules?

The real reason is that he’s afraid. Afraid of what it will mean, of where it will lead, of possible rejection, of consequences, all of the above.

While he’s pondering this she makes the decision for him, turning her back to him and scooting her body into his until he’s spooning her from behind. His stomach flutters and he prays to the God he doesn’t believe in that his body doesn’t react the way it wants to. In any case, she doesn’t seem to mind. She exhales deeply, contented.

“Goodnight, Rob.”

He grins. “Good night, Laura.”

They fall asleep like little baby cats.

Thanks for reading! See you back tomorrow with Chapter Six.

#txf #msr #the x files #fanfic #fanfiction #msr fanfic #mulder and scully #the rain king #arcadia #culmination

[yoosungiib]

If I Would Ever Leave You - Chapter 6 || Ending

If I Would Ever Leave You FAQ

This story contains violence, sexual content, sexual abuse, and strong language. If you are at all uncomfortable with any of these topics, DO NOT READ.

Contains spoilers to the Secret Endings 01 and 02

This chapter contains violence and sexual assault - If you are not comfortable with these topics, PLEASE DO NOT READ. This is your final warning. Thank you. 

The alarm on my phone blares a classical melody, but instead of soothing me, like that music's purpose, I'm jolting up in my bed frantic to shut it off. I sigh, looking at the time at the top of the phone reading 10:30. I'm suppose to be meeting Jaehee for lunch soon, and god, do I look like a mess. My head snaps down to the empty spot spare a sticky note beside me. I pick up the small slip of paper and read the writing in bright red ink.

‘(f/n): We are out of milk and ice cream so I've headed to the store to get some. I should be back before you go out to meet Jaehee. Don't worry about me. - Saeran <3′ I grin at the small heart he adds as accompany to his small message. I yawn, stretch my arms and legs before rolling off the bed.

"He should be back in twenty minutes or so," I say to myself. While the kettle boils the water, I rummage through my closet looking for something to wear. Normally, an outfit is not something I put much thought into, but Jaehee has voiced before how strange she feels wearing such sophisticated clothes when everyone else seems so laid back. She says she feels like a dolls thats been dressed up and awkwardly put on display.

Once I've picked something to my liking, I take my nightie off, the tight fabric pulling my breast up a little and making them bounce as they flop back down. I hear the creaking sound of the door opening behind me, and I grin. "Saeran, you're back~" I mutter, bending down to pull out a bra and panties from my dresser. I'm a little surprised he hasn't said anything back; all I can hear is heaving breathing. I chuckle slightly, dangling the panties and bra on my pinkie. I start to turn around, ready to give Saeran a quick show. "I was so sad to see you not in bed with me this mor-"

I scream at the top of my lungs, flinging myself backwards against the closet, my hands flying over my exposed breasts when I see not Saeran in the doorway... but Yoosung.

He's smiling, grimly, and his usual pale face is red and his violet eyes are black. I pant looking for my nightie to cover myself but I see it's gone. He must have taken it. His eyes hold no such innocence, but the lust of a greedy man, an animal whose found its prey. I shake my head frantically as he takes slow strides towards me. There is nowhere for me to turn, I have to make a run for the door.

"(f/n)," he finally whispers. His voice is so strangled. I finally see that he is crying. Tears are falling down his face like waterfalls, and his hiccuping is only partially under control. "I love you."

A rush of anger spirals inside of me as I shout, "Get the fuck out of here. I'll call the police and get you arrested."

"No you won't."

"Excuse me?" I squint at him dangerously but it doesn't affect him one bit. "Well hear me now, Yoosung. I don't love you, and I never will! You are not my friend any more. I thought you were a man and could take it, but you are just a coward. A pathetic cow-"

My breath hitches as his palm makes contact with my cheek, the sound of flesh against flesh echoing through the room. I didn't even see him get this close to me. He stands above me, his hand raise slightly and his brow crossed. He has a deep frown, and it's terrifying. I screech as he wraps his hands around my throat, pushing me against the closet.

How do you explain the feeling of being unable to breathe, or the sudden pain in your heart telling you that this is it, you are about to die? That's how I feel; someone who was my best friend is going to kill me, and I never saw this coming, not in a million years. His small fingers, yet fingers capable to wrap around my throat, squeeze tightly, pushing down on my windpipe, cutting off all air. The world around me is becoming fuzzy, Yoosung in front of me keeps shifting from clear to not clear. The world's colour has turned red.

He lets go suddenly, but before I can collapse onto the ground, he grabs my forearms and steadies me against the closet again. It's almost a gentle gesture, but he quickly asserts his aggression again by squeezing them tightly.

"I thought long and hard," he says after awhile, the smile returning onto his face. "I can't let you go. Not like Rika. I have to protect you and keep you safe. I have to make you mine, something I couldn't do with her. It's too late now to save her, but I can save you." He lets out a deep throaty laugh, his breath hitting my face, and I can smell liquor on his breath. I would have never thought him to be a heavy drinker, but then again, he's not the same person he used to be. No, he's something different, he's the devil for christ sake, a monster that lurks behind you, a greedy man ready to do what it takes to get what they want.

I become all more aware that my breasts are still uncovered when his violet eyes gaze down, almost in a haze, at the plump buds. I move to cover them but jump when he suddenly lunges forward, grabbing both my wrist and pinning them above my head. Yoosung breathes heavily as he pushes himself against me, his chest squishing mine, and with him only being slightly taller, his neck bending down so he can look at me. His look is one of craze, and mine is one of fear.

"In conclusion," the blonde boy starts, he hand reaching behind him for his back pocket, but his eyes staying glued to mine. He takes a hold of my chin to stop me from looking down. "I don't want to hurt you, (f/n). My dearest girl. I do not want to hurt you, but now I see that you have to take such measures with the people you love to get them to understand," his voice lingers as he finally reveals what was in his pocket. A pocket-knife, and silver blade is enough to make me squirm and have tears brimming at the rims of my eyes, "and what's right."

God knows I am not going down without a fight.

I stomp my foot on his foot, and he shouts as he lunges downwards, giving me a chance to flee. I run for the door, but the small boy is quicker and stronger than he seems. He grabs my forearm and slings me back, causing me to fall on the ground. I kick at his stomach to try and push him back as he makes a move to jump on top of me, but he is quick to recover. He's vivid as he straddles me, sitting right on my knees but bending down so he can keep his face close to mine.

When he grabs my wrists, keeping them over my head, I watch as his eyes become hooded again and his body becomes less tense. I cringe as his thumb caresses my wrists almost lovingly. "Your skin..." he mumbles. His other hand moves up my stomach to grope my breasts and I shout at him to let me go. "You're so soft. I waited so long to touch you." His hand finally lets go of my breast, but only to move up the rest of my body, massaging bare skin he can find. When his thumb passes my lips, I quickly bite on it and he shouts.

To my dismay, it does nothing to help me: I start to cry as he pulls out the knife and brings it down to my breast. The sharp end of the knife rests just above my nipple. "This is your punishment for being such a naughty girl."

The pain is excruciating as he cuts off my left nipple. Everything goes white for a moment, but my vision clears all to quick more me to see Yoosung holding the now bloody knife in front of me. All the fight that was in me seems to just disappear as I break down into sobs.

I feel something wrapping around my wrist and I look up to see rope. Yoosung harshly ties my wrist together, and to add to my humiliation, he pats my cheek, grinning and muttering, "Now things will be easier." He touches the bloody breasts, his thumb digging into where he cut, and I shout at the stinging pain, my head lolling back and forth as I try to do anything to make him stop. My eyes widen in fear as he leans down to lap at the blood, and my face distorts into disgust before I let out another shout. Yoosung laughs as he leans back up, picking up his knife which he placed next to me. His face is now coated in blood, and his eyes are now a void of insanity which I am finding myself slowly being pulled into. "I didn't want to hear you cry, but... your tears are now just another thing I am in love with. I like the mewling sounds you make. It's cute. I like that you are making them because of me. I want you to make them again."

I start to shake my head and beg for him to stop. "Yoosung. Please don't do this. You're... you're my best friend. I-I do love you. You know I do. Please stop hurting me." Yoosung just frown, sitting back a bit on my knees.

"You don't love me the way I love you. If you loved me the way I loved you, you wouldn't have chosen that mint eyed bastard." Yoosung takes a harsh grip on my chin again, pushing my head back against the floor. "You might think I'm cruel, but only I can love you properly. This is real love. Don't you agree?"

I'm speechless. I wish I wasn't but I am. I squeak as he suddenly pulls my eyelids apart, the sudden air brushing against my eye makes it water and hurt. As if I were hit by a car, and the car being the terrifying discovery of what Yoosung is going to do to me, I realize what his plan is as he raises the knife and holds it above my eyes. My begging and sobbing still falls on deaf ears as Yoosung keeps my eye open, his elbow pushing down to keep me still.

His voice is soft again, but so utterly gruesome. "I want you to look at me, and only me."

I'm going to die.

I let out a final 'no' as he starts to bring the knife slowly down, and I accept that there is nothing that can be done, and that this is the fate that has been given to me. Until Yoosung is flung backwards, the knife only making contact with my cheek, and granted, only a small cut. And above me is now Saeran, anger seething through him. Saeran's menacing form and deathly stares is enough to make a grown man cry, but not Yoosung, the meekest and the baby of the group. No, Yoosung is not that person anymore. Now he is a cruel beast with a goal in mind that includes hurting the people he loves to get it.

Saeran's grits his teeth, his brow crossed in anger as he stares down at Yoosung who chuckles from his spot on the ground. "Oh, (F/n)~ Your prince charming has arrived!" Yoosung taunts. I use this chance as the two showdown to try and get my grip out from the rope.

"You little fuck," Saeran spats. Saeran shields me from Yoosung, standing in front of me. I hate myself for curling into a small ball on the ground, clutching my knees to my chest even though it hurts when my knee cap touches the large cut. Saeran seems conflicted on crouching down to comfort me or fight Yoosung. He knows if he lets his guard down for a split second, Yoosung could try to attack him. Any other time, fighting Yoosung wouldn't be a challenge, but by the way he's changed, there is no saying.

"Saeran. Accept it," Yoosung snaps. "You don't know what love is. Only I can love her, and I've known that from the beginning."

Saeran lets out a deep growl, saying with a raspy voice, "You think hurting someone is love? That's sick."

"And that's rich coming from you. Don't you remember, Unknown, all those things you did, all the people you hurt? How you killed V?" Yoosung lets out a deep laugh, slinging his head back and clutching his stomach. Saeran looks almost freaked out by it. "I couldn't stand V, but even I admit that killing him was a bit intense. How do I not know that you are going to kill my precious (f/n)?"

"You're the only one who is a threat to her. You've hurt her."

"I did that to protect her-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Saeran booms. I jump a little, covering my ears to block out the shouting. Everything Saeran has worked for and everything he has come from, and Yoosung is pulling all that anger he's hidden away out.

Yoosung doesn't seem faltered by any of what Saeran is saying. "She needed to be punished. Maybe you do to. But that isn’t my job."

I hear Saeran mumble 'this is fucked up' under his breath before turning to tell me, "Call my brother and tell him what's happened, than call emergency services. Be brave me for, baby." His words enough give me strength, and I bolt for the door. In the corner of my eye, I see Yoosung make a run for me but Saeran grabs him.

And the fight begins.

I crouch down, grabbing my phone, dialing down Saeyoung number. My crying becomes harder as I watch from the other room, holding onto myself while I watch the two fight. Blood drips from the mouths of both boys, the sound of bones cracking is ever so evident in the apartment. Saeyoung answers with his chirpy voice that quickly turns into worry. He tells me to calm down and that he will be there soon, but my heart stops when I see Saeran let out a pained gasp.

I let out a loud howl as I see Saeran slowing down, slumped over Yoosungs arm before he falls to the ground. 

Yoosung stabbed him. 

I start screaming just wanting anyone to hear. Why hasn't anyone heard? I want more than anything to run to Saeran as he lays a heap on the ground, his body moving up and down due to his breathing. Thank god he is breathing.

Yoosung is suddenly only a few feet away from me, grabbing my ankle and pulling me against the rugged ground. I push on his chest as his lips find their way on mine, harshly pulling and tugging. He puts my hands back above my head, holding them tightly.

"(f/n)," he says softly. "Will you stop struggling?" The blonde boy leans down again; I grimace as he licks up my face, collecting the tears which have made their way down. He kisses me again and I bite his lip, but it doesn't stop him. When he comes back up, he smiles, grimsly.

There is nothing I can do now, I see, as his hand moves down to the clothing that still hasn't been shed. He tugs on my waistband of my pants, pulling them down slowly to reveal what was hidden. "I've waited so long for this." It's all over now.

BANG!

I scream at the red blood that splashes onto me and the cream walls behind me. Yoosung's violet eyes widen as he looks down before rolling off of me. In the doorway is Saeran holding his hand gun, something he hasn't touch in over two years. I didn’t even know he still had it. Saeran hobbles over to me, grabbing me from the ground and pulling me away from Yoosung who pants on the ground, clutching at his chest. He coughs a couple blood, his eyes dully following and gazing at us across the room.

A meak smile crosses Yoosung's face as he reaches for me, a single tear falling down his face. "Yoosung," I whimper.

Yoosung lets out a small sob as the life drains away from him, not before he can muster, "If I would ever leave you," one last time. And then stops breathing, his head falling against the ground, his arm collapsing, and his eyes forever wide open.

Yoosung dies.

Saeran and I fall to the ground, clutching on to each other as we sob. For some reason, I can't take my eyes off of Yoosungs lifeless body. "This should never have happened," I wail into Saeran's chest. He rubs my back and strokes my hair while he sobs into the top of my head.

"No. It shouldn't have."

We stayed like this on the ground, the room stenching of blood until Saeyoung finally comes to the gruesome scene; a dead body on the ground, and a couple that will never be the same.

~ The End ~

~~~

A coffee please? ;) ~ Support Me Here Reblogs and comments appreciated!! ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡ Headcanon requests still closed~

#Saeran Choi #Ray Choi #Yoosung Kim #Mystic Messenger #Mysme #Mystic Messenger Fanfic #Mysme Fanfic

[vahilor]

Jamie’s Story

First chapter of the story I am working on. 

Beyond

Chapter I

"Sometimes everything seems hopeless, empty, meaningless. You feel alone, always afraid that everyone hates you and despises you just because you are not what they expect you to be.

But there will be a moment when you can prove that against all odds you are the one who survives, your chance to show who you really are.

Never give up hope because if you give up hope, you also lose yourself."

- Jamie

Everything was dark, only the soft sound of waves tickled Jamie’s ear. He felt warm sand beneath him, as well as water lapping his bare feet. It surprised him. He vaguely remembered that he had never lived by the sea, even if the memories were strangely blurry and tattered. Almost like a large puzzle where only the ragged edges are left. He tried to open his eyes, but a blinding brightness dazed him.

He felt a throbbing pain in his head and the light made it worse. Jamie closed his eyes again. He could make out soft voices he barely recognized in the distance, something felt strange about them. He opened his eyes slowly this time, to protect them from the bright light. His head pounded, but he could make out distant silhouettes of what looked like rocks. In the distance, a darkness, perhaps the edge of a forest. The young man took a deep breath and tried to sit up slowly, a stabbing pain shot through his head. He moaned softly and touched his temples before looking down, horrified to find out he was naked.

Jamie desperately tried to cover up his bareness, ashamed of his weight. Much to his chagrin, while still trying to cover himself, he heard a man’s laughter. It was a familiar laugh, one that he had heard a lot in his life. "Oh look, Fatty finally woke up." Someone else joined in the laughter, this time a female voice he knew as well. "We are in the middle of nowhere, why is that jerk with us, too? He’ll only eat all the shit they left us. This isn’t going to be any fun." The women was bitching around like she often did when things did not work out the way she wanted. Jamie looked in their direction, feeling totally daunted, wishing the ground would swallow him up. "I don’t even think there are enough clothes to cover his fat body.” bitched the female voice, Peggy, Jamie suddenly remembered … she had made it a passion to pick on Jamie, because he did not fit into their picture of an ‘ideal’ world. "Leave him, guys, it’s not his fault, he’s stranded here just like the rest of us.", sighed a rather calm woman's voice that Jamie could not place. It belonged to a young, rather inconspicuous, dark-haired woman who had a red trekking backpack beside her. She searched through it, only taking a moment to come up with a pair of pants and shirt that she thought suited the young, chubby man.

The woman stood up with the small bundle of clothes in her arms. She walked over to Jamie, whose face turned the color of a ripe tomato the reason not being the prevailing heat, which he was suddenly aware of. She handed the bundle to him, he thanked her in a pitiful way and took the clothes awkwardly with one hand, covering his body with the other. Upon closer inspection, he found she’d handed him a pair of cargo pants and a simple T-shirt, which at least seemed to fit. Jamie clumsily slipped the clothes on, which looked strange, as he tried to hide his nakedness, the group roared with laughter. Only the kind, unknown woman did not laugh. When Jamie finally got into his clothes he observed the group, who’d lost interest in mocking him, sitting a few yards away. There were a total of 6 people, two women, one being Peggy. He also recognized Peggy’s, boyfriend Clint, who plays in the University's Rugby team. His two cronies Brian and Kevin were also there, sitting nearby. All were popular and good looking, not a geek like him, he thought. It was strange that he remembered all of these details, while the rest of his memories just were a blurry mess in his head. The fourth man was unfamiliar to Jamie, this man was also handsome but seemed rather arrogant. Jamie suddenly felt like a fat little duck, surrounded by swans.

Jamie felt his upper arm start to itch while still sitting in the sand, drawing his attention away from the group. He peered under the sleeve of his shirt, a tattoo appeared. He’d never had any tattoos. Where did the damn thing come from? Why did he not notice that right away? Why did it itch so miserably? He fought off the need to scratch, not wanting to draw attention, he’d already done that enough. He pulled down his sleeve and fought the urge to scratch. While he was still pondering, he suddenly felt a painful kick in his side.He immediately flinched and held his side. "Ow," he wailed softly. "Move your fat ass and get some wood ... or are you afraid to get stuck between the trees, Fatty?" Kevin grinned. "I .. without shoes?" Jamie asked cautiously, which only made the man roll his eyes. "Without shoes ...." mocked Kevin Jamie and laughed again. "Yes, without shoes you geek." Kevin growled and kicked him again to make his annoyance clear.

Jamie scrambled to his feet and looked at the woods, then back to the others, none of them tried to help him. The young man carefully walked to the edge of the forest. He was scared. Jamie knew nothing about this place, maybe it wasn’t safe. He spotted some driftwood on the beach, which he decided to collect, allowing him to avoid the forest. He felt hostile looks dart from the group as he did. A trilobite caught his attention as it scrambled away from him. Strange, Jamie thought, he knew that this creature had gone extinct a long time ago. He frowned in confusion, tapping one with a stick, causing them to flee quickly into the water.

Jamie watched the creature disappear in the shallow waves. He collected a few branches of driftwood, and brought it back to the group. "That's not enough ... go get more, Fat cheeks." Kevin laughed again as he tried to start a fire. "This time, run.” He laughed, “Oh, and I want to have a stack that goes up to my shoulders." He pointed to his shoulder and made a scolding gesture. Jamie trotted off, aware that they were just sending him away to be rid of him. He did not fit in, he was not slim and fit, he did not play rugby team or have rich parents. A vague memory reminded him that he was adopted, and did not even know his biological parents. He continued to collect wood and noticed strange lights in the sky, which flashed now in then in the blue sky. It was hard to tell if they were airplanes or something else.

Towards evening, the young man's back and arms ached and the tattoo had started to itch again. It felt like a swarm of ants were constantly biting into it his shoulder. The left side of his back felt the same and Jamie could not explain why. Meanwhile, the group had managed to start a fire and warmed up one of the cans they had found in their backpack. To Jamie's grief, they had not even left a spoonful for him. Clint ate the last drop slowly in front of him.

"You are fat enough." Clint said smugly, sprawling out beside the fire. They made sure they left no room for Jamie, so he curled up in the sand, in front of an old tree trunk a few yards away. He looked sadly at the water, feeling rejected. He wanted to leave, yet he knew that without the group he’d never survive, or find his way back home, wherever they were. He could hear the group’s soft murmurings. They obviously didn’t want Jamie to understand. Sometimes he could hear laughter, he suspected, at his expense.

Jamie tried to ignore them, but it wasn’t easy. He felt hurt and had trouble holding back the tears that luckily the others could not see. He just wanted to go home. Being stranded with a group of people who only saw him as a pile of dirt was a horrible feeling. Why were they here? Why was HE here? The ground was hard and uncomfortable, and after tossing and turning a while he finally passed out from pure exhaustion.

Jamie felt a rough kick, waking him abruptly. His headache had returned, but seemed a little weaker than the day before, he felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. Everything ached from carrying the wood the day before, his back and shoulder itched terribly. He felt sticky and would have liked a shower or at least to rinse off. He blinked into the bright sunlight and could see Kevin standing above him. "Gonna sleep all day?" he asked directly. Kevin seemed to be in a bad mood and apparently had not slept much. "If you want to eat something, take care for wood you little asshole. None of us needs a fat sea cow sun bathing on the beach." The fact that the others did not do anything did not seem to bother Kevin. Brian, Peggy and Clint had apparently decided to go swimming in the ocean. Kevin himself seemed to enjoy commanding Jamie around while the guy Jamie did not know was eating some of the canned food. Only the young woman, Kira, Jamie had overheard, was trying to carve a spear.Jamie sat up before slowly standing, which made Kevin kick him again. "Faster .. I want some hot food today." he snapped, causing Jamie to stumble back. Jamie decided to walk down the beach, hoping to find something to eat there. There were a lot of unknown sounds to him here: birds cried overhead, strange, smaller animals squeaked and ran into the forest before he could get a good look at them. The loudest noise, though was a weird gurgle, which came from some very ugly birds, that he discovered about a mile down the beach. Dodos, he recognized quickly. Funny that he had kept that knowledge, where he could barely remember simple things like his parents. He took a deep breath and tried to remember what he knew about the birds, at least they were a harmless, extinct species. Seeing them here was as inexplicable as the trilobites.

Just one of the large birds would be enough to feed the whole bunch, but Jamie would never have the heart to kill one. He watched the Dodos for a while, until he noticed they were picking at a blueberry bush. He carefully approached one, and plucked one of the remaining berries looking it over before putting it in his mouth. The berries were slightly sweet, Jamie waited a bit until he ate another, they seemed edible so he gobbled down a few more. They did not really sathe him, but were better than nothing.

Jamie sighed, the hot sun beating down on him. He looked out across the sea, where the morning sun mirrored at the surface of the water. Maybe he could sneak in a swim, to refresh himself and above all to wash away the sweat. He just had to walk little further, then he would be out of sight. He hurried a little along the beach, away from the group. Big boulders stuck out of the sand, casting a little shade which some of the dodos had made themselves comfortable in.

Since Jamie was not wearing shoes, he strolled closer to the water to let the shallow waves wash over his feet. The water was cool and refreshing and felt good, though it took him a while to regain the courage to remove his clothes. He waded deeper into the water, where he could see smaller fish darting away in all directions. If everything hadn’t have been so confusing, he would have described it as beautiful. The water was crystal clear, revealing coral reefs deeper in the water. Jamie sat down and began to wash himself, while a few smaller fish bravely approached. They swam around the young man to survey the strange creature in their habitat. Jamie leaned back, so that some water touched his back, which immediately started to burn on his left side. He jumped and tried to catch a glimpse of his back. Did he hurt himself or did he have a rash? At least that would explain the itching, which still occurred from time to time.With a couple maneuvers, he managed to catch a small glimpse, and what he saw made him flinch. Someone had tattooed the entire left half, and only recently, it was still red and healing. How could he not have noticed? Jamie swallowed hard and started shaking. Something was really wrong.

Jamie stood up, and carefully put his clothes on. He would have liked to ask someone about the tattoos. He could hardly see the one on his back, but on his arm he clearly recognized a Utharaptor. It was an extremely delicate tattoo, he couldn’t help admire the artistry. He didn’t understand why someone had tattooed him, what did it mean? He shook his head and went on, lost in his thoughts. His stomach pushing him to find something more to eat. There was nothing apart from the dodos, some gull-like birds and fish. The berries were useless, as long as he had nothing to collect them in and catching fish without a rod was impossible.

Jamie made his way back. Only now did he realize how far he had gone, it took him almost two hours to get back. Kevin was waiting for him, his eyes growing darker when he saw that Jamie had brought nothing. "How dare you come back empty handed!?" Kevin snapped. "You little fat jerk, you didn’t bring anything?"Jamie looked to the ground, stammering for words. "I .. I .. there are berries .. and fish .. but .. but I had nothing to transport them or to catch the fish .. with the knife .. you could make spears." Jamie glanced at Kevin, who became significantly angrier, and without warning punched Jamie into the stomach. The young man writhed, whimpered and collapsed on the sand. "You're as useless as a sack of shit." Kevin growled, leaving Jaime on the ground. "Weakling .." Jamie could still hear softly as Kevin walked away, back to the others. He rolled on his side. The blow hurt badly and Jamie felt like throwing up. He crawled back to the tree trunk where he had slept yesterday, curling up into a ball. He could not understand what he did wrong, he blinked several times while listening to the others argue. "Just be glad he found something, you could stop being so hard on him and do shit for yourself." Kira yelled angrily. "Make your own damn spear to catch fish!" she growled at one of the others. “I'm not your monkey .. Fatty needs to make himself useful, otherwise we could just leave him. He’ll only eat all our stuff, leaving nothing for us! " "Idiot." was the last thing Jamie heard from Kira before she stomped off.

Jamie fell asleep from pure exhaustion and stress, he slept until late morning, waking only from the beating sun shining on him. Kevin had let him sleep in today. Maybe he decided to look for something to eat himself. Jamie took the chance and layed a moment before he sat up. It was already hot again and only the shadow of the tree trunk had saved Jamie from an even worse sunburn. He looked around and wondered why he could not hear the others. He leaned against the trunk of the tree and only then realized that one of the combat knives was stuck in it. There was also a blanket next to him, as well as a backpack. He carefully opened it, but it was light and he knew there wasn’t much to be found inside. Some flint, steel, a second shirt, as well as a belt and a can were all that was left. The strangest part however, was a pencil and a small book that contained mostly blank pages. The first page had "I'm sorry." written on it in beautifully curved letters.

Jamie was confused, the note made no sense to him. Why should someone apologize? He shook his head and got up slowly. He looked again at the place where the group usually sat, no one was there. The fireplace was deserted, empty cans were strewn about. He stared at the extinguished fire for a while before it dawned on him: he was alone. Dazed, he took the backpack and the knife, following some tracks that led to the edge of the woods. He stopped, realizing that he would never find them again, even if he did, he was sure they would just chase him off. He wiped his eyes that stung with angry tears. He turned back towards the beach, walking aimlessly. The small canteen from the backpack was nearly empty, so he turned his attention from his loneliness and onto surviving, his first task was to find water.

#jamie #man #male #human #story #ark survival

[recentanimenews]

Anime vs. Real Life: Laid-Back Camping in Yamanashi

  There simply hasn’t been any other anime up to date, which managed to convey and capture the appeal of camping and the natural charm of the great outdoors, as perfectly as Laid Back Camp has.

  An inviting setting, fun characters, and a highly relaxing soundtrack were all part of the reason why the cozy slice-of-life show was undoubtedly one of the best anime of the past year. But it was the simply stunning-to-look-at backgrounds, all of which were meticulously modeled after real-life locations, which really managed to sell the anime’s eminently comfy atmosphere and tone—inevitably making viewers want to go see and experience these sights for themselves.

  And with the great outdoors being only a mere two and a half hours away from Tokyo via train, it shouldn’t come as a much of a surprise, that the anime’s main setting, which is Yamanashi Prefecture, has registered a literal boom in visitors since the show’s airing last year. Especially the featured campsites have all at least tripled their visitor numbers thanks to the popularity of the anime, even during the colder winter months. With the recent announcement of a second season, a full movie, as well as a mini-series airing in January next year, it doesn’t seem that the hike in popularity is going to slow down anytime soon.

  While I had already thoroughly reported on Laid-Back Camp’s real-world locations while it was still airing, I had never actually been to any of the shown campsites. So thanks to the kind help of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) I had the opportunity to finally pay them a visit, as well as have a little chat with the anime’s breakout director, Yoshiaki Kyogoku, back at studio C-Station. So get yourself as comfy as possible, and scroll through all the Laid-Back Camp comparison images I took on my trip to Yamanashi!

    Lake Shibire 

    We’re going to kick things off with one of the most beautiful anime locations I’ve ever been to in general, which is the small Lake Shibire. The caldera lake is sitting in the mountains of the Shibireko Prefectural Natural Park in Yamanashi at an altitude of 850m.

    Out of all the locations on my Yamanashi trip, this one is probably the hardest to reach, as it is deep in the mountains, roughly one hour away from Kofu City, the prefecture’s capital, which makes for a good hub should you ever want to visit some of these places yourself.

    Shibire Lake’s camping ground is called Suimeiso, and was featured in Laid-Back Camp’s episodes six and seven. The outing was actually Rin’s and Nadeshiko’s first ever intentional camping trip together, so it definitely marks an important point in their friendship.

    The actual campsite is located on the exact opposite side of the lake, but if sleeping in a tent under the stars is not your thing, the reception building here also functions as a minshuku, which are basically family operated, Japanese-style bed and breakfasts.

        I was completely flashed when I met the owner of the campsite, Kitajima Shinsuke, as he was just the spitting image of the owner in the anime. And as he later on confirmed, the anime’s character was indeed based off of him! He was a great guy to talk with, and I’m sure we did for a good hour or so. Laid-Back Camp really caused a significant hike in campers for the place, especially notable during the winter months. Barely any visitors found their way to the campsite during the off-season before, but that all changed since the airing of the anime, and the camping ground now sees around 70-80 visitors even in winter. There has even been an influx in solo-campers.

        I’m sure you’re able to spot the large Rin cutout in the picture above, and inside of the building they also sold a good number Laid-Back Camp merchandise.

      Getting a hot chai, which was the same drink that Nadeshiko’s older sister got while she was there, was perfect to wind down a bit and take in the scenery. After that I was off to explore the campsite.

      Nadeshiko prays to be spared by the giant bull demon, who resides in the lake. According to the anime, the bull was slain by a samurai, and since then has been emerging from the lake everyday just short after midnight. Surprisingly, the anime’s legend is actually based off a real one. Long story short, about 300 to 400 years ago, a samurai defeated the lake’s bull demon at the cost of his own life. Because of this sacrifice, rain started to pour in the drought-ridden area, and to this day, as a kind of a rainmaking ritual, people offer a cow’s head to the gods around here.

    The inscription says Ozaki Dragon King, and is tied to another legend of the lake. Apparently, a four-tailed dragon deity used to inhabit the lake, which was also eponymous for Lake Shibire’s name (‘shi' meaning four and ‘bi’ meaning tail).

        The lake has a perimeter of 1.2km, and takes around 20 minutes to walk around, but it’s quite easy to get sidetracked here like Nadeshiko.

      You’ve surely noticed by now, but the attention to detail in the anime backgrounds is absolutely astounding. Location scouting for the show was done during the winter months, and had the team at Tokyo-based C-Station often make three or four trips out to Yamanashi in a month. Director Yoshiaki Kyogoku has visited every campsite himself, and has done dozens of camping trips with his teams, but also quite a few solo camping trips, just to fully grasp Rin’s character. On top of that, they also made every food shown in the anime onsite, using the same exact same tools as well, which goes to show just how much thought and detail went into the production.

      Definitely seems like a good spot to set up camp.

    It’s probably also a good place to nap, but knowing Nadeshiko, she’s soon up and running again and exploring the campsite.

      There’s obviously a bunch of other activities you can do at Lake Shibire, such as hiking, fishing, swimming, and boating, and let’s not forget about taking comparison pictures for Laid-Back Camp.

                ‘Sup.

    Planning ahead with Google Street View only gets you so far, so there’s often still some location hunting I have to do onsite. I was just wandering around in the woods a bit, when I randomly stumbled across this path from the anime.  

    At one point, Rin mentions that she actually likes lakeside campground the best, and after getting to visit Lake Shibire myself, I definitely get where she’s coming from. 

    Yamanashi Fuefukigawa Fruits Park & Hottarakashi Hotspring

    Next up is a location that’s just as picturesque, while also being much easier to reach: The Hottarakashi Hotspring. To get the full experience, it’s best to start at Yamanashi-shi Station, just like the girls did. Unfortunately, the station building itself is currently under renovation, so the information board outside of it was the only comparison image I could take here.

      From Yamanashi-shi Station it’s only a few minutes to the Nezubashi Bridge, where the girl’s resolve to walk the whole distance is already starting to dwindle. It’s around 4km from the station to the hillside onsen, and it takes a good hour to get there. The view, hot spring, and food will all definitely be worth the hike, though. And if you just want all of that without the hike, there’s also buses going directly from the station.

        On their way, the girls decide to catch a break at the Fuefukigawa Fruits Park, which usually offers a good view of Mt. Fuji’s peak. Japan’s sacred mountain is actually situated in Yamanashi Prefecture, and is without a doubt the prefecture’s pride and joy. Mt. Fuji also plays a central role in Laid-Back Camp, as it makes an appearance in just about every episode.

    Located in the middle of the park are three glass domes, containing a fruit museum, as well as the Orchard Café, which they also stop by at in the episode.

        Yup, the fruits parfait tastes as good as it looks!

    And even the ice cream cup was faithfully recreated.

    Just like any other major Laid-Back Camp location, this one, too, was quite proud to be part of the anime tourism phenomenon. There were all kinds of anime related goods lying around, as well as pictures of the star-studded cast of voice actresses, all of whom have paid the café a visit. While Rin’s and Ena’s voice actresses, Nao Toyama and Rie Takahashi respectively, were both extremely famous to begin with, the show really boosted Yumiri Hanamori's profile, who voiced Nadeshiko.

    It’s a real shame that the café is closing down this month and relocating to the new station building, but there’s a new café going to take its place, and the beautiful view will stay the same regardless.

    Hottarakashi Hotspring

    After the pit stop at the Fuefukigawa Fruits Park, it’s still a bit of a hike to the Hottarakashi Hotspring (called Hottokeya in the anime), but the prospect of some much deserved onsen-time should be more than enough to keep you going. Unfortunately, the original entrance sign was blown off during a recent storm.  

        The open-air bath is just down here. What you see in Laid-Back Camp is really what you get. Relaxing outside in the soothing hot spring water, overlooking the Kofu Basin, while catching glimpses of Mt. Fuji here and there was simply breathtaking, and I wish I could’ve shown you just how stunning it all looked in real life, but taking photos inside the bath was obviously strictly prohibited.

        After the hot spring it’s time to reward oneself (again).

      In the show, the girl’s get an “Onsentamago-age”, which translates to deep-fried hot spring boiled egg. Think of tempura breading, but with a soft-boiled egg inside, and trust me – it’s good. I almost forgot to take the comparison photo after my first bite.

          After that, the girls of the outdoors activity club go rest a bit more at the cabin. It’s a laid-back show, alright.

    They later visit the Pinewood Campground to set up camp, which is only a short walk away from the hot spring. Unfortunately, if you want to enter the camping grounds, you’ll have to register in advance.

      Sticking around for night time is also definitely worth it, as the episode’s grand finale ends with Nadeshiko sending Rin a picture of the famed Fuefukigawa Fruit Park, which has been selected as one of the best three new night views of Japan. At the same time, Rin sends Nadeshiko a picture of the night view from the Takabotchi Highlands in Nagano Prefecture. The little interaction between the two is one of the director’s favorite moments of the show.

    Motosu High School

    Located in Minobu-cho is Motosu High School, which is the model for the anime’s high school. The school was chosen by the manga’s Yamanashi-based author, Afro, because of its scenic mountain-top setting. Unfortunately, the school has already closed down a few years ago, but it’s nice to see it somewhat live on through the manga and anime.

      Surprisingly, I was allowed to wander around the school a bit, which was being prepped for a special fan event, and I actually did manage to find a suspiciously familiar looking room. Might this have been the inspiration for the outdoor club’s narrow club room?

    However, the main building of the school looks quite different in real life.

    Several fan events take place in and around the school nowadays, so a desk that looks just like Rin’s from the show was set up inside of the former library, which was filled with Laid-Back Camp memorabilia as well. The locals generally seemed thrilled about the attention the small town has been getting since the anime, and have played an active role in making these fan events happen.   

    There are even a few anime locations to be found on the short walk from Kai-Tokiwa Station to Motosu High School, like the funny Google Street View scene.

        Starting from Kai-Tokiwa Station, it’s best to explore the next few locations via train, as all of them can be found along the Minobu Line.

      Minobu

The next stop is Minobu Station in Minobu, a quaint little town along the Fuji River, which was featured in the anime’s eight episode. 

        The town’s main road is lined by traditional Japanese shops left and right, one of them being Eishodo, a traditional confectionary store. The store right next to the station sells Minobu Manju (basically sweet steamed buns), which Nadeshiko and her friends just couldn’t get enough of in the episode.

      If you’re lucky, you can even stumble across the dog shown in the episode here in real life. Unfortunately, the owner was apparently out on a stroll with him when I was there.

      It was great to bump into other people doing the Laid-Back Camp pilgrimage here, even one year after the airing of the anime.

            Utsubuna

Utsubuna Station is the last relevant stop along the Minobu Line. The station gets quite a bit of screen time in the show, since it’s where Nadeshiko has to get on to commute to school.

              Selva Store

Selva Food Garden, called Zebra Super Market, is the grocery store where Aoi works part-time. Taking photos inside is not allowed, but it’s still worth it to head inside, simply due to the special Laid-Back Camp goods corner, which has some exclusive merchandise of the show.

      The liquor store right next to the supermarket is where Chiaki works to earn a few extra bucks. However, the actual store closed down some time ago.

    Lake Motosu

And last but not least, this article would not be complete without Laid-Back Camp’s most iconic location: Lake Motosu from the first episode! It’s the third largest and clearest of the Fuji Five Lakes, and while they’re all popular destinations for outdoor activities and getting a good view of Mt. Fuji, Lake Motosu’s view of Mt. Fuji is especially noteworthy for a particular reason.

    I didn’t actually walk through the whole 558m-long Nakanokura Tunnel, I just went in and out to get the photo.

        The temperature was five degrees Celsius just like in the anime. And while I’m all for recreating anime shots as accurately as possible, I wouldn’t have minded for it to be at least 10 degrees warmer during my visit.

          Only anime can make lying down in front of a public restroom a tourist attraction. I saw several people recreate the scene from the anime there.

      Motosu Central Lodge is where you check in if you want to camp at the Koan Camping Ground.

    As you can imagine, the interior looks just like it does in the anime, and they also serve some great Hoto noodle soup, which is a local specialty, and also the dish Chiaki prepared for Nadeshiko when she was sick in episode nine.

        The main entrance of the Koan Camping Ground is just behind the lodge.

      Aside from camping, the area is also great for hiking. Right behind the lodge was a mountain trail which led to a very scenic observation deck, with a great view of the lake, Mt. Fuji, and the surrounding area, which only took me around 30 minutes to get to.

        It was already spectacular in the anime, but seeing the crystal-clear lake, with Japan’s sacred mountain lingering in the background, was just absolutely stunning in real life. This really isn’t just any ordinary view of Mt. Fuji, and if you’ve ever been to Japan yourself, you’ve likely already seen it.

    That’s because this specific view of Mt. Fuji as seen from Lake Motosu graces the reverse side of the current 1000 yen bank note (around $9) since 2004. The bill’s image of Mt. Fuji is modeled after the famed photograph “Lakeside in Spring,” taken by Koyo Okada, a man who devoted his entire life to photographing Japan’s highest mountain. The same image was also part of the design of the older 5000 yen bill.

    It’s definitely a million dollar view, or more accurately, a thousand yen view!

    And there you have it, just about every Laid-Back Camp location located in Yamanashi Prefecture. Laid-Back Camp’s impact on the prefecture is clearly evident, and can not only seen by the increasing number of anime tourists, but also simply through the love of the local people for the anime. So if you’re a fan of the anime, and you’re already eagerly anticipating the continuation of the series, why not try to experience some of the show’s best locations for yourself?  And if you already want to get a taste of the second season, it might be worth a shot to head up Mt. Minobu, and visit the legendary Kuonji Temple. All the Laid-Back Camp merchandise and many cross-over events might be there for a reason.

      Which one of the locations do you think looks best? Does Yamanashi seem like a place you want to visit? Sound off in the comments below!

---

Wilhelm is an anime tourist, who loves to search for and uncover the real-world spots he sees in anime. You can talk with him on Twitter @Surwill.

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