#I value my blood pressure too much the urge to just turn off my phone overcomes any desire to look through the drama

[clan-sayeed-fic]

Business (Kamilah Sayeed & MC)

Previous chapters: 1, 2, 3

Book: Bloodbound (property of Pixelberry Studios)

Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed & MC: Amy (I do not own those characters, they’re the property of Pixelberry Studios as well)

Warnings: angst, strong language, illustrative descriptions of situations full of violence and brutality, might cause distress

Rating: Mature

Author’s note:  I’m not a native English speaker, I’m sorry for any mistakes (feel free to correct me).

It's been a month or so since I've posted the previous chapter. From what I remember, we've ended the last part on Kamilah and Amy having an intimate moment. At one point, the girl got second thoughts and left Kamilah's penthouse.

So, here we are, in chapter 4th, right after the situation. I hope you'll enjoy the continuation of the story 💕  

Also, I'd like to thank Anons that have been asking me about the fic, and @saratustra4 for asking me about the next chapter 💕 For some reason, it helped me come back to the writing. Also, if I fail my study because of that, I know who to blame hahah *kidding* 😂😂

~2300 words

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Chapter 4

"Fuck..."

Harsh tone flew all the way to smooth surface of the car window, hitting it hard, only to bounce off the reflection of green eyes trapped inside.

Amy brushed stubborn hair away from her blushing face. Blonde strands left marks behind as if they had burned her skin permanently. Her lips were red and hot after the kiss she had shared only a few moments before.

The kiss to which she agreed so foolishly.

What were you thinking, she cursed herself in thoughts, letting anger rage inside her veins. She was slowly losing control over her body as a small spark dared to shine inside her irises.

The girl closed her eyes, leaning against something that felt like a block of ice, rather than her car. Coldness reached nerves under her skin, easing the tension, helping collect thoughts on what she should do next.

Because it didn't seem like fate was on her side that day. Amy forgot to grab her purse from the dresser at Kamilah's penthouse, so she didn't have keys to her car and phone to call for a lift.

But most of all,

she had no courage to come back and face the woman.

What if she suspected anything? Question screamed inside her mind, forcing her to move away from the car. Fear pulled her closer into the embrace of a much greater danger, fooling her judgement.

It tricked her mind enough to make her forget about the threat waiting in the darkness.

***

New York City was resting after a full day of events. It was then that Amy found herself alone in the street, left in the company of her loud thoughts.

The girl considered asking someone for help, but the idea seemed almost equally risky as walking on her own at this hour. It would only call unnecessary attention, not mentioning what could happen if she came across people who wished harm to her family.

Being one of the Paines had its consequences.

Amy moved toward the dark alley. She finally got out of the sight of warm light peeking outside from apartments. It seemed to watch her every move, trying to hunt her down at all costs.

One of the girl's hands moved to her mouth. Fingers subtly traced over her lower lip as to remind themselves of the previous desire. The desire that made Amy feel things she never expected to experience.

Not when it went to vampires.

Her body should have reacted differently. It shouldn't have let her fall for tricks of these beasts. She was supposed to be better than that. Too smart to get fooled by their attractiveness. Too powerful to get fed with their poisonous words.

So what happened this time? What made her give in to Kamilah's touch? What was responsible for this feeling inside, this...

Suddenly Amy heard a noise coming from behind. The urge to turn around and follow the sound was tempting, but she managed to fight it. She had been through the training before, so she knew the most important rule.

Never rely on your sight.

The girl closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling overwhelming her body. Listening to her accelerated heartbeat, accompanied by the growing tension in her muscles as her body sensed attackers.

They were passing through the alley like a shadow desperately seeking for the opportunity to escape the moonlight. To finally creep up on both sides, cutting off only ways of escape. It was too late, and at once, too soon to react, so Amy stood in place patiently, preparing herself for what was to come.

"Who do we have here?" shudders travelled down her spine.

As soon as the voice pierced through her ears, all of the colours vanished from the world around. Values of the surroundings became muted as if they were just a useless distraction for her eyes. Instead, everything took the tones of grey, leaving the earth on its own in the fight between light and darkness.

"She looks familiar, huh?" her eyes moved, following the second voice.

Only to catch a spark of crimson in the man's stare. No one else but vampires could make her body react this way. Their presence heightened her senses, changing them into something inhuman.

The girl raised her hands, showing an act of surrender. She needed to buy herself more time because they still didn't come close enough.

The adrenaline was not high enough.

"Look, guys, I am not looking for trouble," calm tone of her voice hid fear growing inside her chest.

But both men ignored her words, continuing getting closer. It was clear that they didn't realize how big of a mistake it was. Because with each of their step, she was getting better access to thoughts inside their heads.

"Oh, I got this," the one behind her spoke again. "Blonde hair, sweet voice, and even sweeter smell of blood. It must be Paine's daughter."

"I guess we found her without company," the one in front of her tilted his head slightly. "Our master will be so pleased to meet you."

Amy turned her body to the side enough to have a clear view of both of them.

"One more step," the girl growled, feeling every muscle in her body tense.

But it only made them more amused.

"Uuu, I feel threatened," a sarcastic tone challenged her nerves.

It came from the one on her right, a total blabbermouth. Amy squinted her eyes and gazed into his, spotting this characteristic glow inside them, a remnant of humanity. That was a clue to recognize a newly turned vampire.

"You should be," a tiny smile danced in the corner of her mouth.

She turned away from him, focusing all her attention on his friend instead.

And the game began.

Sounds of vampires' talk faded away into the darkness, blending with shadows. As the world around her calmed down significantly, moving in slow motion from then on. The wind on her shoulder became barely noticeable as coldness lost all its intensity in the air. Amy's heartbeat was steady and loud, drumming inside her head, not giving peace. Her blood seemed to stop running inside her veins, replaced by the adrenaline instead.

The same adrenaline that made her green eyes shine with gold, creating a bridge of connection between her and the man. Giving her a sense of his principal thoughts. How badly he wanted to..., kidnap her.

Her mind raced on the wires of his thoughts as she slowly lost herself in the labyrinth of memories. But she stayed there, travelling through his life until she reached the part with his weaknesses. Amy grabbed them with her mind, ready to manipulate his fears. There was only a hint of hesitation before she twisted the most painful memory inside his head, playing with it like a toy.

Until he had no other choice left, but to surrender.

His stare lacked previous confidence, showing unsureness that she planted all over his chest. The roots of anxiety grew deep inside him, almost reaching his dead heart.

That's how the hunter became her prey.

"I am not," Amy whispered, putting the idea inside his head.

"She's not," words left his mouth emotionless.

"I am not your target," her breathing got sharp and unstable, her body was getting weaker one second after another.

"We've made a mistake," he spoke aloud, staring emptily at the darkness.

"What?" the other man's high pitched tone reached them from behind. "What the hell are you talking about, man?"

Amy almost had him wrapped around her little finger, locking the idea inside his mind. Making him realize that she was not the person they had been looking for, that they should let her go free.

But then something interrupted her.

Wires of his mind twisted unexpectedly, pulling her out of this part of the brain. Instead, she witnessed a different memory, finding herself in front of a stranger hidden under a black cloak. A deep shadow covered the person's face, keeping all the features unrecognizable.

But something about the scene seemed so wrong.

"It's not a memory," she spoke, forgetting about attackers. "It's a vision."

She had no control over things appearing before her eyes. Amy wanted to leave the scene, but it was holding her tight in its claws, draining too much energy from her body. The pressure inside her head was growing as the bridge between her, and the vampire was falling apart.

But then the vision deformed, drawing her attention to the figure's movements. Black fabric flew in the air, dancing and twisting in front of her, increasing dizziness. Presence of the mysterious person brought back coldness on Amy's body, stabbing her deep under the skin.

She looked at the stranger one last time to spot a smirk dancing on their pale lips, a smile of victory and pride. But then the vision went blurry, filling her head with unbearable pain.

And at the same time, breaking her connection with the vampire.

"You...you are..." the man stuttered, waking up from the trance. And as soon as he fully realized the threat, his eyes flashed red. "Get her!"

His partner jumped toward Amy immediately, using his vampire speed, leaving her no time to react. So before she even thought about avoiding the attack, he was already there, pushing her away. The force of the hit sent her body high in the air until it met a hard surface of the wall before finally landing on the ground.

Blonde strands of hair changed into light red, dyed by the liquid running down from the wound on her temple. It leaked on her cheek, leaving a mark before her shaky hand wiped it away from the skin. A hiss of pain accompanied by fear escaped her mouth when she realized what happened.

As those green eyes stared emptily at her fingers covered in blood.

"That explains why you're so valuable," the vampire spoke aloud, freed from her influence.

In a flash, both men were standing next to her, tempted by the smell. The flavour of iron tortured their throats, begging to satisfy the thirst.

The leading vampire grabbed her throat, lifting her body against the wall with no mercy. Amy's feet were hanging above the ground, desperately searching for balance. The growing pressure around her trachea caused her to choke in a last-ditch attempt to catch a breath.

"I need to taste it," the younger one licked his lips hungrily, hypnotized by the path of blood on her neck.

Go ahead, Amy's thoughts screamed, challenging, drink, and it's going to be the last thing you ever taste.

"We will deliver her to our master first," the older one interrupted harshly. "That was the plan."

Against these words, his temptation was not any weaker. The desire to dip fangs into the girl's neck was messing with years of training. But at that moment, nothing mattered more than the idea of blood running down his throat as he drinks every single drop from her mortal body.

If only both vampires weren't so distracted, they would have noticed a stranger emerging from shadows.

"I'll take it from here," an icy tone sounded behind their back, drawing attention.

But it was too late.

In one moment, both of them were pushed far away from the girl who fell on the ground heavily, unable to keep balance.

As soon as the grip around Amy's throat loosened up, her lungs began screaming for help. She was desperately searching for air, but it seemed to avoid her chest, leaving her breathless and weak instead. All she saw were blurred figures moving with impossible speed before her eyes. There was no way to guess which ones were her attackers and which one the saviour, no way to figure out who was on the winning side.

But there was no point of knowing that, no hope left for her.

Amy's eyes filled with tears because of the lack of air until she shut them down completely. That's when noises of cracking bones flew through the alley before leaving it alone with silence.

The fight was over.

Hers was over too.

"Amy, I need you to calm down," a familiar voice echoed inside her head followed by a soft hand on her arm. "I need you to focus on my breathing. With me, in..." the woman took a breath, and let it out with the other words," and out."

Amy opened her eyes, but there was nothing else than darkness in front of her. The soothing touch on her shoulder eased her anxiety, helping to follow the advice. Her first attempt failed but soon after the air filled her lungs, giving long-awaited peace.

"Take it easy," Kamilah said when the girl tried to move too rapidly.

"How did you..." her voice was shaky, lacking its previous sweetness.

She looked through the alley nervously, but bodies of vampires were nowhere to find. There was no sign left after the situation that had put her life at risk.

"You forgot your purse," Kamilah interrupted with an explanation as her eyes travelled through Amy's body, searching for injuries. At least other than the obvious one. "I saw your car in the garage, so I knew I have to track you down" she swallowed hard. "Your bleeding made it much easier."

It made Amy realize that she still had her temple and hair covered in blood. Her eyes stared at Kamilah with mistrust, watching her moves.

"Let me take care of it," Kamilah pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket and carefully placed it on the injury.

Amy's hand moved there hurriedly, taking the cloth from her. But as soon as their hands touched, some spark of electricity ran through both women's bodies. Their eyes connected again, gazing deeply into one another with a sudden understanding.

"Apply pressure right here," Kamilah whispered, moving away.

"Let's take you home, shall we?"

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Next chapter: 5

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tag list: @evexofxtime  @kamilah-is-queen @scarletheart @helpconfusedpersonhere @ayushixo @nydeiri @vonda-b-real

#choices fanfiction #bloodbound fic #kamilah sayeed #kamilah sayeed fic #bloodbound kamilah #bb mc #bb kamilah #vampires #business fic #angst #choices stories you play #bloodbound choices #bloodkeeper

[bestwishes1986]

Part 5 : Deception (WIP)

Reckless, impulsive, loyal, those were words that Kingston “King” McTavish would assign to Valiant Teague. Standing on the front step of a suburban hamlet in the middle of the afternoon had surprised even him. At 350 years of age it was hard to surprise him, but as he waited for someone to answer the door he was surprised. His opal blue curls and straight lines of hair were caught in a breeze that made them sway. He had had the underside of his head shaved all around with a thick beard not the same blue surrounding his face like a mane. His darker than vanilla skin tone from the mixed heritage of his father and mother and facial features made him appear handsome with more than a hint of African descent. His blue eyes watched the door, trying to be patient.

Any call to the castle was recorded and before heading out on his motorcycle he had the call played back over and over. Listening for any signs of immediate emergency, danger, or signs of a struggle. All he had heard was emotional rawness and that had been enough for him to cancel any plans he had made for the day and leave. His prisoner Tobin had just been brought back his second escape attempt and he needed distance from that man anyway.

The door opened and instead of his weapons specialist for the Kingsguard he commanded, there was a little girl looking disappointed to see him. Before he could speak she ran back into the house crying. King’s blue eyebrows drew together in concern. A stranger came to the door, beautiful with gray eyes and wild dark hair that could use a brush.

“Sorry about Abigail, we tried to stop her but she got ahead of us…you are?” Donovan asked holding out a hand.

“King, Sovereign of the United Kingdom. I was summoned here by Val, why isn’t he receiving me?” King asked, his light voice suspicious of this stranger. His Lycan, a blue wolf that lived inside his soul stirred from sleep. The bright golden eyes looking at the creature before King through their metaphysical bond. King took the man’s hand in a fierce grip and was surprised when Donavan gripped his hand just as strong.

“Donavan Roe, an acquaintance of Val’s. He’s in right state presently, come on in.” Donovan said keeping his face as passive as possible even though the death grip King had on his wrist made him wonder if bones would break if he applied any more pressure. King released his hand and walked past him, never taking his eyes off Donavan until he had to turn his head forward. Even then he didn’t like Donavan behind him. Using his Lycan senses he smelled the house. Three strong scents, one faint almost gone entirely.

He glanced at the furniture, most of it years old seemed in good condition. No signs of any fighting occurred.

“What exactly is happening here?” King asked looking back at Donavan.

“Short version. I witnessed the murder of Val’s wife and we just saw her in the crowd at the Mercy Hospital Bombing. So Val is trying to not have a breakdown right now. He’s in the guest room down that way.” Donavan surmised as he pointed down the hallway.

“You’re leaving something out.” King said he had listened to this man’s pulse the entire time, noting it’s rhythm changes as he spoke.

“Go see him first.” Donavan said ducking his head.

“You do know what Sovereign means, you don’t give me orders.” King said a bit of a growl coming into his words as if to show Donavan who was in control of things.

“He needs you now, this whose cock is bigger bullshite can wait. I will be trying to get his daughter to stop crying. If that’s alright, my Lord,” Donavan said with a tone beyond annoyed and King almost said something rude but his ears picked up the sounds of things being torn apart from the second story.

“Go, she’s tearing something apart right now and in that state I imagine it’s something important to her.” King said before he walked down the hallway without waiting for a response. Donavan turned and moved to the stairs, he felt out of his depth. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. He asked himself why he was still even here, he had done what he had come to do. He had told Val everything he knew about the man. But as he moved up the stairs he knew the reason, hated himself for the reason but as he came to door with pony stickers. He knew it was all beyond his control, he cared what happened to these people.

Donavan stood in the doorway, watching as the five year old tore a painting to ribbons. His eyes were wide with surprise but he didn’t stop her. Her tears were gone, her face red with anger as she pulled more of the once large painting apart. A part of him knew he should tell her to stop, but he didn’t. If he had learned one thing in his life, it was to trust his instincts. Finally when the painting was just small pieces of paper strewn about the room, and Abigail breathing hard with the exertion he knocked on the doorframe.

He kept his face calm and neutral of any emotion and just waited. Children were unpredictable, as an incubus he could feel emotions the way people felt a breeze before rain. Hers were a mess of anger, sadness and above all confusion. It made his heart hurt, that surprised him. He had only known of her existence for only one morning and already he felt he would hurt anyone who harmed her. But he didn’t have time to be perplexed as she launched herself at him and he had just enough time to crouch before she was hugging him tight and sobbing.

Donavan’s eyes were wide, this was the second Teague to do this and he just wasn’t sure what about him screamed “Port in a storm”. But he hugged her back all the same. Abigail was young but she wasn’t stupid. The concept of telling her everything would be alright seemed ludicrous, he wasn’t sure anything would be alright ever again. So he simply let her cry it out on his shoulder.

Downstairs was a different matter entirely. King had leaned against the closed door and listened to his subordinate’s retelling of recent events. He had resisted the urge to interrupt. Making mental notes as he did. He wasn’t angry at being kept in the dark about Val’s investigation, he knew if he had learned before now who the victims were he would have pulled him from investigation.

“We tried to keep Abigail back but she threw a fit and I retreated back here and let Donavan handle it. I just wanted to compose myself before you fired me from your employ,” Val concluded somberly and King’s eyes went wide but he said nothing for a moment.

“You’ve been using that word a lot today. “We” I mean. Have you noticed that,” King asked as he folded his arms over his long green wool sweater and waited for a reply. As predicted it took Val a moment to retrace the conversation and with a deep frown King knew it had finally registered with the man.

“I have no reason to sack you Valiant, but I will say you’re too goddamn smart to go it alone. Let alone too smart to take things at face value. So disappointed would be how I’m currently feeling. But above that, I’m sorry Mate. Losing a wife is hard, ye but getting on top of another bloke right after. That’s a bit of a stretch even for you yah?” King spoke with a bit of incredulous shock to his voice.

“I haven’t done anything with Donavan, besides he’s been a friend this day. As well as a witness to her death, I just want time to find out what he knows.” Val said and King nodded his brow creased in thought. King had heard Donavan approaching but said nothing. He had also heard the lie in Val’s voice but said nothing just watched him. This was going to be interesting.

The door burst open and King barely had time to move before Donavan came bursting in, his face red with anger.

“Is that it?! That’s all you want from me right! Information. Alright here,” Donavan shouted King watched him, listening to any underlying emotion or held back secret.

“The man is a Vampire. He has fangs instead of teeth and talks with a French accent. He’s tall like me, but muscular like a Football player. His skin is brown like an African but pale like a corpse. He wears fine clothes like a royal snob would. I never remember where we go because he has mental magic or some such shit. I used to think it was drugs but I didn’t eat or drink before the later takings so it can’t be. The rooms he takes me to are hotel rooms, like the one Tegan was in. Cheap places you pay by the day. He always paid with cash. There was a black briefcase that had an ornate set of operating tools in it. He would bleed me first, then rape me, feed me just enough to replinish blood then do it again.” Val rose to stop him but Donavan kept going.

“He forced me to watch. Used compulsion on me so my eyes wouldn’t close. I tried to move, to free myself but could only cry while he took his time. Savoring the meal he said. Is that enough, you get what you needed,” Donavan looked at King then. King’s blue eyes were shrewd, he nodded. Donavan nodded back, before looking at Val.

“See, that’s honesty. Not your dirty tacs, using your body and whatever I felt was happening to lure me in to a false sense of security. That’s on par with him and his money. Never, see me again.” With that Donavan ran. Val was too shell shocked to move. King slipped his phone out and made a call. Val felt his life breaking in ways he couldn’t imagine. The information from Donavan had felt like nails being driven into his skin, piercing muscle and shattering bone.

“I want eyes on him all day and night. This is the only lead we have to get to him.” King concluded as he hung up the phone. He was seized by Val who slammed him against a wall.

“What are you playing at King!? Eh, you set me up?” Val shouts. King looked back at him, cold blue eyes.

“I knew Donavan was listening. But I had no idea you would throw yourself on top of an emotional land mine. That was all you. Lying to me, what’s more you’re lying to yourself. I will give you two hours to be ready to roll out with the guard. Bring your daughter to the castle, she’ll be safe there.” King said. The words causing Val to release him as his arms dropped to his sides.

“Donavan didn’t tell you because he knew you weren’t ready to hear it. That’s how Incubuses work, they sense the person’s emotions and act accordingly. He would have told you when he felt you were ready. Now I have to go, my men are tailing Donavan but if I’m right. Someone else has been waiting for you to make the sort of blundering mistakes you have.” King concluded turning to leave.

“You don’t mean…?” Val whispered unable to believe the implication.

“Whatever entity stood in front of television cameras allowing you to see it. Yes, that creature. It most likely wanted to separate you and Donavan for the real threat to collect him without my intervention or yours. And you with your lies have made it that much fucking easier. I would suggest you try the honest approach going forward Mate,” King said and continued on. The door to the house opened and closed. A guttural sound of the motocycle engine came next. Val dropped to his knees, the full weight of all his situations and mistakes bringing him low.

Somewhere out there, a creature with his wife’s face knew about him. Somewhere out there Donavan was being lured to a trap. What was he going to do?

#books #fantasy #fiction #my writing #novel #short story #wattpad #gay mystery fiction #gay art #gay fiction #gay romance #lgbt romance #lgbt fiction #Wolf CreekUK

[downwiththeficness]

In the Blood-3

Pairing: Brasa/Female OC

Words: ~2,000

Warnings: None

Part One

Part Two

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight  Part Nine  Part Ten  Part Eleven Part Twelve

The bed was glorious.  Soft sheets, soft mattress, soft pillows.  Lilah stretched long, arms above her head and toes pointed. It burned in her muscles, pleasing and warm.  When she relaxed, she noted the very low light.  Had she slept with the lights on again?  She wouldn’t put it past her. Turning over, she closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow. It smelled so, so good.  Like coffee and liquid caramel. She pressed her nose into it and groaned, burying deep.

When she was young and working her first job, she was accidentally gifted a man’s cologne at a dirty Santa party.  She’d liked it so much that she’d sprayed it over her bed sheets so that she could roll around in it. At that time, it was the closest human connection she could get.  A short time later, she’d taken more controversial work.  This smelled so much better.  She wanted to add it to her bath so that she could smell it on her skin for the rest of the day.  She wanted to pull the pillowcase in her mouth and taste it.

Body lax and pliable, it took far too long for her realize there were fingers running down the length of her spine, from neck to hips and back. The touch was soft, almost hesitant, continuously moving. Eyebrows coming together, she peeked outward to a form blocking what little light was in the room.  

“Who are you?” She grumbled, feeling cranky. Lilah was too comfortable to muster up much more than that, certainly to comfy to feel fear.

His breath fanned across her shoulder, “Someone who has waited a long time to meet you.”

“That,” she replied, as she buried her face further into the pillow, “Doesn’t answer my question.”

He leaned over and pressed his mouth to the place where her scapula met her spine, “No, it doesn’t.  But, it is true.”

Lilah frowned, though he couldn’t possibly see her face well enough to appreciate it, “Why are you following me?”

He tilted his head to the side and fixed her with a look that told her that her question was absurd, “It can’t be helped.”

It wasn’t until she started to flip over to face him fully that she realized she was naked under the silky slick of the sheets.  Embarrassed, she bunched it against her chest as she tried to slide away.  His expression turned disgruntled and he reached over to hold her by the forearm.  The grip was firm, stopping her with little more than the pressure of his fingertips.

“Where are you?”

“What?”

He repeated the question, this time slower, lower.  The timbre of his voice was laced with an undercurrent of something that vibrated over her skin.   She just barely managed to suppress a full body shiver.

She swallowed and looked around, “No idea.”

The room was unfamiliar to her, and too dark to give her any clues.  She couldn’t see beyond the obscenely comfortable bed and the man who lay within it.

With noticeable frustration, he rolled his eyes and lifted to rest his weight on the palm of his hand, looming over her.  Lilah had to force herself to keep her eyes on his face and not the flex of muscle over his chest and arms. His body completed blocked the light and most of his face was in shadow, but she could see the faint outline of his mouth, pressed thin in displeasure.  Lilah didn’t know what to do with the urge to catch the pouting lower lip with her teeth.

“Outside of here.  Where are you?”

She blinked, “A hotel.”

“Where?”

Things started to go fuzzy and she felt her body sink and fall.  She jerked away, the sheets tangled in her legs and the comforter kicked to the floor.  She was sweating. Taking deep breaths, she tried to steady her galloping heart.  

With a grunt, she pushed from the bed and made her way to the bathroom.  This hotel was lower rent than the last few she’d stayed at.  The bathroom barely had running water, let alone a working water heater.  She turned on the lights and twisted her body around to look at the damage.

The job had gone a little sideways and she’d gotten scraped up a bit.  Carefully, she pulled the bandage away from her skin.  It was healing really nicely.  She removed it and tossed it in the garbage can sitting below the sink.  

After showering, she dressed and checked out.  The car was already unbearably hot when she slid into the driver’s seat.  To combat the arid air, she rolled all four windows down about two inches and pulled out of the lot.  She had about four hours to make it to the next location and get set up. There would be no on-site work today, for which she was grateful. Just her, a computer, and the voices of the team filtering into her headphones.

The drive was short and she made it with plenty of time.  She entered the empty building and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.  Hauling her equipment up that many flights taxed her, despite the cardio she made sure to do several times a week.  It didn’t matter how many miles she ran, stairs were a fucking nuisance.

She set up and logged on.

“McNamara online.”

A round of call signs sounded in her ears.

“Cool.  Are we in place?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.  This is a smash and grab, guys.  Get the artifact, get the fuck out.  Don’t go off-script and we’ll be through this in less than an hour.”

“Copy.”

From her vantage point, she coordinated security feeds and worked to cut alarms and then reset them as the team moved through the museum across the street.  The objective was simple: A staff of some importance to a tribe in Mexico was on display.  Steal the staff, deliver to the buyer.

True to her word, the team had exited the museum in less than an hour, no alarms set off, no police on site.  She closed her computer and pulled the ear buds from her ears, wrapping the wire around her hot spot and shoving them in her bag.  

With as little ceremony as possible, she exited the building and got in her car.  The team would be waiting for her at a designated location where she would take the staff, pay them, and haul ass to her handler.

Everything went as planned, and Lilah had the staff in hand as she headed for the rental.  She looked at it, a long length of wood topped with a crudely carved snake. Turning it her hands, she wondered what its significance was and why someone would pay a total of half a million to get it out of the collection of the museum.

After folding it into roll of fabric for protection, Lilah slid it into the back seat of the car and closed the door.  She turned and ran her gaze over the parking lot, seeing no one, and opened the driver’s side door.  The engine turned over and she pulled out with little incident.  

Her body drove on automatic, her mind taking the time to parse the details of yet another dream.  What kept coming back to her was the heat from his hand as it held her still.  She could still feel it, if she focused on the skin of her arm.  It was unnatural, feverish.  

Her fingers twisted around the steering wheel.  She was stressed.  She was tired.  She would finish this job and take some time off.  Go up north and stay in a cabin until her brain worked out whatever this shit was. Jaw set, she nodded to herself, having made her decision.

Her handler’s name was Javier and she saw him a couple times a year.  Most of their communication was either over the phone or through a secure email server.  She liked him.  He was extremely professional and always paid up.  Any deal they made was written in stone, and he seemed to value what she brought to the team.  Well, team was, perhaps, too generous a word. Lilah rarely worked with the same people twice—her deal with Chewie notwithstanding. It kept people from getting too comfortable, and kept the inevitable vendettas from getting too out of hand.

One of his favorite places to meet her was at the base of a mountain in the desert.  With the sun setting, it had turned a bit cold and she threw on a hoodie before grabbing the staff out of the back and heading for a large, flat rock formation.  The air was dry, and her shoes crunched on the ground as she walked across it.

Reflexively, she checked her watch.  She was early.  Leaning the staff against the rock, she hopped up and let her legs dangle over the side.  Far outside the city, the light pollution was low enough that she could clearly see thousands of stars.  The moon was just rising over the horizon, a sliver of a crescent that cast a blue glow over the landscape.  

From far away, she could see the headlights heading towards her.  As she watched them grow bigger and brighter, she slipped her hand to the pistol in her waistband and waited until the car pulled up next to hers and Javier stepped out. He left his headlights on, but turned off the engine.  She let go of the gun and relaxed, resting her forearms on her knees.

Javier was short, clearing about five foot—barely.  He was also well dressed.  Crisp, three piece suits were his sartorial bread and butter.  Tonight’s color was a deep burgundy, pink shirt, and black tie.  Lilah thought he looked very smart.  

“Looking good, Javier,” she called out, giving a little wave.

He stopped and gave a curt bow, “Thank you.  You look as if you haven’t slept.”

“Gee, thank you,” she snorted, crossing one leg over the other, “And, here, I brought you what you asked for.”

Javier’s eyes glance at the staff and he approached it with something resembling reverence.  With careful hands, he unrolled it from the fabric and held it aloft for inspection.  Lilah didn’t think he was even breathing.

“What is it?” she asked lowly, afraid to break whatever spell seemed to hold him captive.

Javier’s dark eyes looked up at her, “A relic, used in blood rituals for hundreds of years.”

“Ew,” Lilah murmured, picking lint from her pants..

He chuckled a little, “I don’t expect you to understand.  But, a long time ago, when my people were young, they sacrificed one of their own to the gods to guarantee their favor.”

She shrugged, having heard the legends off hand here and there, “What does the staff have to do with it?”

Javier held up the bottom end, “If someone was discovered to have betrayed the group, they were executed.  The sharp end was shoved into their chest. True death.”

A shudder went through her, “Isn’t that a bit…” She trailed off.

“Barbaric?” He prompted with a smile as he rolled the staff into the fabric once more.

“Uh, yeah.”

Javier shrugged, “Only the greatest betrayal could warrant it. Its still done, even in modern society.”

She thought about it, “Good point.”

Tucking the staff beneath one arm, Javier changed the subject, “I have another job for you.”

Lilah was already shaking her head, “I can’t.  I need a break.”

“Its easy.  Just a visit to some old friends to pick up a package.”

She sighed and dropped her chin into her palm, “I need a break.”

Javier’s expression was soft, assuring, “After this, you take as much time as you need.  And when you come back, I want to bring you up a level.”

Blinking, Lilah leaned back and studied her handler.  She’d been working at this level for at least two years, and she had no ambition to move up in the hierarchy. She’d never once voiced the want to do more than what she was doing.  And yet, here the opportunity was.  Run the job.  Get the promotion.

Javier waited patiently while she decided, though she doubted he had any thought that she’d turn it down.  She’d never been the least bit shy about him knowing that she could be motivated by money.  A steady pay check was security, a home she could buy when she wanted to retire, protection from the enemies she’d made when she was a younger, brasher, woman.

“Where is this job?”

#brasa #fdtd #from dusk til dawn: the series #from dusk til dawn #maurice compte #In the Blood

[thatfanficstuff]

Bound -17 - The End

Pairing: Nik and Cassie

Warning: um...language. mentions of blood. Esther. Sneaky Cassie.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy the end. There is 1 more book featuring these two but it has a completely original plot. I will be taking a break before that one though. Lots of other things to write. 

***

Finn’s smile as he looked me over was in no way reassuring. “Mother wishes to speak with you.”

I was sure she did. I chose to ignore his statement for the moment. “I’m surprised to see you here. The witches don’t seem to like intruders.”

He frowned. “You are here, are you not?”

I hummed in agreement then pointed at myself with my thumb. “Witch.”

“I have a witch with me as well. Perhaps mother was more prepared than your spirits.”

I didn’t respond to that because the fact was, it would appear that he was correct. At the moment, I couldn’t even hear a whisper of the witches. Their power was still there buzzing under the surface, but their presence had been severely dampened. I was beyond done with Esther Mikaelson.

My father’s warning that I needed to kill her here on the property flowed through me and I was tempted to reach for his magic. But I couldn’t beat her. Not now and not on my own. I needed my family and my own magic back.

Finn gripped my upper arm and steered me through the house. As we moved from room to room, tendrils of the old magic that saturated the air around me brushed against my skin, begging me to use it. I still wasn’t going to do anything without my hybrid. There could be no mistakes. She needed to die permanently this time.

The Original witch bitch was waiting for us when we left the house. “Cassidy, how delightful to see you.”

“Yeah. Fuck you, too.” My head snapped sideways when she smacked me. The increased pressure on my arm told me Finn didn’t care for my comment either. I turned back to face her and worked my jaw. Ow. “At this point I think we can drop the pretense, don’t you?”

“Very well.” She snapped her fingers and I was out.

***

When I woke, the sun had already risen. I figured by that point Nik would be half mad with worry. As far as I knew, my phone was still in the witch house along with everything else I’d taken with me. I wondered how long he went without hearing from me before he broke down and started looking for me.  

“It didn’t work, you know.” Esther’s voice startled me.

I turned to see her sitting on a chair across from the couch I’d been placed on. I glanced around the room as I sat up. Nothing looked familiar. “What didn’t work?”

“Your treachery. I knew you were stupid, but I had no idea you were so deceitful. You and Niklaus are a good much.”

This woman had some nerve. “I’m deceitful?”

“Pretending you didn’t remember our meeting on the other side. And that you were innocent in Niklaus’s manipulations. Did you think I wouldn’t discover your lies?” she snapped.

I pursed my lips. “And when exactly did you discover them? About the time your spell failed I assume?”

She smirked. “You aren’t nearly as clever as you think you are. I would have been a fool to take your cooperation at face value. I had other measures in place so trust me when I tell you that my children are bound together despite your efforts to stop it.”

Pure fear spiked through me. She was lying. She had to be. “That’s impossible.”

“It would have been foolish for me to place the blood in the champagne. There were too many factors I couldn’t control. Mainly, making sure my uncooperative children actually drank it. But the blood bags they’ve all been using since I came back…well, that’s another matter entirely.” She crossed her legs and laced her fingers together in her lap.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I didn’t even know what to say at that point. My brain scrambled as I struggled to come up with a plan. I had to stop her before she did something I couldn’t fix. “If the spell worked then why don’t you just kill Finn now and get it over with?” Nausea rolled in my belly as I said the words.

“If I wish their deaths to remain permanent, I must see that the sacrifice is done correctly. Tonight, by the full moon. And when I am finished and no longer need your power, you can join them in death.”

“Gee, thanks.”

***

As luck would have it, I didn’t have to steer Esther to the estate. It held the most concentrated power of anywhere in the area so she chose it all on her own. Finn continued to grip my arm and jerk me around as his mother prepped the area for the ritual. I was so ready to kick his ass. Or watch Nik do it, as the case may be.

He kept me beside him as Esther used purified chalk mixed with bone to lay the circle and pentagram. Torches were placed at each point and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. There were other ways to feed the spell that took far less energy than flame but if the bitch wanted to tire herself out, I wasn’t about to stop her.

Once she finished, Finn stood in the middle of the circle. He kept my arm firmly in his clutches. It was full dark when he announced that his siblings had arrived. I struggled against his hold and Esther cast a spell to restrict my movement. As the magic she stole from me wrapped around my legs, I instantly felt the connection form between her and I. She would have to maintain it to keep me in check. If she tried to let the spell work on its own, the power would simply come back to me where it belonged. Perfect.

My brain worked through scenarios as Nik and his siblings walked up to the circle. Several things needed to happen at almost the same time. The first Esther had already done by creating the magical connection between us. Only seven more to go. Let’s just hope I could pull it off.

Nik’s gaze immediately locked with mine. He pulled his eyes away to look me over for injuries before shifting his focus to his mother. “Let her go, mother. She has nothing to do with this.”

“She has everything to do with this Niklaus. In fact, she is the one making all of this possible. The world should thank her,” Esther answered.

I rolled my eyes and Kol smirked. Elijah and Nik were too pissed off to do much of anything but glare at their wayward sibling and the bitch that bore them all. And Rebekah…well, she just looked devastated. But at least she didn’t appear to be joining her mother’s side.

“Stop this, mother,” Elijah commanded. He was so used to being obeyed I think he was genuinely shocked when she said no.

“For a thousand years I have watched you kill. I have felt the pain and fear of every one of your victims. You are abominations that I should have let die a thousand years ago.” Not one trace of emotion colored her voice.

It was time to end this. I huffed a laugh and shook my head. Esther turned narrowed eyes on me as if daring me to say something. “Did you never wonder why you were forced to suffer?” I asked.

“I had no reason to wonder. It was because I cursed the world by allowing them to survive.”

“You still don’t get it, do you? If they weren’t meant to be, the magic wouldn’t have answered. The price you were forced to pay for the spell would have destroyed you in an instant.” I clenched my fists at my side as I spoke. My words got harsher and louder as I went on. “You were punished because you cursed your children. You didn’t ask them if they wanted this. You forced it on them without consideration for the consequences and then left them to fumble along on their own. You suffer those deaths so they don’t have to. You are serving their penance because there is no forgiveness for you. That was your hell.”

“Enough!” the woman barked out as she slapped me across the face.

Nik and his siblings pushed toward the circle and the flames flared up in response. I shook my head and lifted a hand to wipe away the trickle of blood at the side of my mouth. I couldn’t help my smile. One. “Look, I’m bleeding.” I glanced at my hybrid. “Just imagine how dramatic it would be if we were all bleeding.” He frowned though I knew he understood the message. I gave him a wink and hoped that conveyed that I had a plan.

However the Mikaelsons managed to communicate between themselves, it was only a matter of moments before I could feel the power coming from the blood of the four siblings outside the circle. Two.

I turned my engagement ring around with my thumb so the stone was on the palm side in preparation for the next step.

“What are you doing?” Esther hissed, obviously able to feel the power as well.

I tilted my head and gave her a half-smile before swiping my hand along the back of Finn’s hand, drawing a thin line of blood as the diamond cut him. Three.

It was only then that I tapped into my father’s magic and let it rise. Esther shook her head and took a step back. “That’s not possible.”

“What is it, mother?” Finn asked but he received no answer.

Using my father’s magic, I connected to my own stolen power and started to pull it from her. The more I tugged, the faster it poured into me. When Esther started to fight against me, the spirits of the witches came to aid me.

Esther released a wordless, strangled cry and fell to her knees in the dirt. Four.

Letting the witches continue their work, I held out a hand and recited a spell to call the blood of the five siblings. I didn’t need much, only a drop from each and myself. I had that and more.

As I recited the spell to unbind the siblings, the wind picked up and the flames flared even higher. Nik was yelling at me to let him in the circle. Finn was struggling against the magic I held him with. Elijah was yelling at Kol to figure out how to break the circle. And Rebekah was crying.

Of course, so was Esther.

The moment the spell binding the siblings broke, a pulse of power radiated out from the circle. Five.

The taste of copper filled my mouth. Oh good, I was bleeding in front of the vampires again. While I continued to pull the dregs of power from Esther, I turned my attention to her eldest child. Now he could hurt. With a twist of my hand, he let out a howl and fell to his knees. Six.

A moment later, I realized that I could no longer see anything but white light. If that was true for everyone else, I had no idea, but it was damned inconvenient. “Nik,” I called.

“What is it?”

“When the circle falls, you are going to have about five seconds when she’s fully human. Do you understand?”

“Oh, absolutely.” He sounded positively gleeful.

Apparently, Finn understood as well because his struggles renewed. I hit him with another wave of magic. I had so much to spare at the moment, after all. Finally, pain overrode the adrenaline pumping through me. I clenched my teeth as my knees buckled. One of the brothers called my name though I couldn’t be certain which one. Pain flared through me, fire and ice rolled into one as the magic burned. So much power. So much agony. And when I thought I couldn’t take one more second of misery, my vision returned as the circle fell. Seven.

The world slowed. Before my next breath, Esther’s heart was in Nik’s hand. Another breath and Finn was being restrained by Kol and Elijah. Another and the witches’ power flowed back out of me and into the ground. The next caught in my chest as I dropped to my knees. Muscles cramped, locking into contorted positions. Fuck that hurt. Rebekah yelled for Nik and everything went dark.

***

I recognized my bed beneath me before I even opened my eyes. The way they itched at the moment, I wasn’t in a big hurry to do that either. I licked my lips and swallowed. “Esther?”

“Dead,” was Nik’s immediately reply. He moved from wherever he’d been in the room to sit on the edge of the bed and take my hand in his. He rubbed his thumb over my skin but I kept my eyes closed.

“Finn?”

“Daggered and sealed.”

“You should get him some therapy. He needs it.”

Nik chuckled. “I’ll be right back, love.”

I frowned but didn’t try to stop him. It wasn’t long before he returned and then a warm, wet cloth wiped my face. “Oh. Yes, please,” I said and took the rag from him. I scrubbed my face until the skin no longer felt stretched and dirty.

When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find the fabric colored with big swaths of blood. My gaze shot over to Nik’s. “What the hell?”

He arched a brow. “The amount of power you channeled that night left you bleeding from your ears, nose and mouth. I’ve done my best to keep you clean and fed you my blood regularly. Kol and Elijah have been rotating shifts with me so I could get some sleep.”

I sighed. “That sounds pleasant. How long?”

“Five days.”

“Shit.”

He held my hand in his and ran a finger along my palm. “I would lecture you about putting yourself in danger but once again you have saved us. And you don’t listen to me anyway, so what’s the point?”

“I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks,” I teased.

Nik scowled at me. “Damn it, Cassie. This is serious. I almost lost you. Again.”

I tugged on his hand to pull him toward me so I could kiss his lips. It was soft and sweet but much needed. He pressed his forehead to mine and took a deep breath. “I can’t keep doing this. I don’t think I can survive it. I need to know you’re not going anywhere.”

I laid a hand along the side of his face. “I’m not going anywhere, Nik. Not if I can help it.”

“Oddly enough that’s not very comforting, love. I don’t want you to lose your magic, but I want you to consider letting me turn you.”

“We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

I kissed him again. And as he repositioned himself in the bed so he could lay his head on my chest while he held me in his arms, I thought of a spell. Buried amongst handwritten pages full of information on the Sun and the Moon curse was another page copied directly from Esther’s grimoire. I had divided it up and scattered it amongst the other information, but it was easily pieced together.

After all, why settle for being a vampire when I could be an Original, too?    

#scheduled post #nik x cassie #Klaus Mikaelson x oc #Klaus Mikaelson fanfiction #the originals fanfiction #vampire diaries fanfiction #series #the hybrid's witch #bound #i'm not home when this posts #I'll tag people when I get home

[bluehhj]

listen to me — chapter 42

LISTEN TO ME — 0042

listen to me masterlist;

WORDS: 1.6K

Seungmin barely waited for Chaerin to park the car on the side of the road, and sped off. The Canadian also wasted no time and tried to call the ambulance as she descended the slippery ravine. The wet soil made her sneakers sink and made the task of getting to the scene of the accident even more complicated, but the adrenaline that ran through her veins made her able to get through all the obstacles and set the location for rescuers at the same time.

The lack of lighting also made a lot of things difficult. One of Jisung's car headlights was still on, but the pale yellow light was pointing in the wrong direction. Seungmin turned on the flashlight on his phone and didn't have to think about deciding who should try to help first, and even though he had attended several surgeries at the hospital and witnessed things considered traumatic for many people, he swallowed as he looked at Jinah.

The front window was shattered, and the driver's side door was so damaged that just one pull was enough to make it pop out. Seungmin was puzzled that only the passenger-side airbag was deployed, after all, it was a current car model and was supposed to work properly. His attention, however, wasn't on that detail for more than a few seconds, and then his fingers touched Jinah's bloody neck for some pulse. Seungmin closed his eyes.

On the other side, Chaerin had a little more trouble touching Jisung, since the other door was firmly in place and she had no choice but to finish breaking the already cracked glass. Kwon tried to raise the lock, but it didn't move. She eventually gave up on it when she heard Jisung moan in pain and struggled to punch the airbag away and allow Han to breathe better. His forehead was bruised and there was an ugly cut on his left shoulder which was bleeding considerably, but nothing too serious seemed to have happened to him.

Chaerin took off her sweatshirt, wearing only a white shirt, and folded the fabric vertically to stop the bleeding on Jisung's shoulder. The boy, who was, obviously, stunned, tried to dodge the painful pressure, but Kwon didn't pull away.

"Calm down, it's going to be worse if you move," Chaerin said, squandering a calm she didn't even feel inside. It was the first time she had been helping anyone under those conditions, she wasn't used to so much blood. "There's already an ambulance coming, it'll be fine."

"Don't let him sleep, Chae," warned Seungmin, focused on doing what he could for Jinah, even though his resources were scarce. "It appears to have been a concussion, his blood pressure must remain high so that there is no coagulation or lack of chemicals in the plasma."

"I didn't understand anything you said last, but okay."

It was as if Jisung's head could explode. Even though the pain bothered him, the feeling of helplessness and lack of processing in his mind was a thousand times worse. He had no idea how and why Chaerin and Seungmin were there, nor was he aware of the way the oak slanted after the crash. The only thing Jisung really cared about was Jinah and her snow-white blouse was getting more and more dirty with red.

"J-JinJin..." his right hand touched his girlfriend's arm, but she didn't move. The tears were already running free and salty down Han's face. "No, please, no. You c-can't leave me alone."

"She'll be fine, don't worry" Seungmin lied and forced a weak smile. His hands were soaked with blood that wasn't his own, which made the scene somewhat ironic in the eyes of anyone who could see. Anyone but Jisung, who was so bewildered, that he wanted to hold on to any hope, so he believed Kim's words very strongly.

Han's eyes weighed and he closed them for a moment. Half of his conscience wanted to stay active, but the other half was slowly getting lost. Realizing this, Chaerin fussed with his hair, warning him.

"You can't sleep now, Jisung. C'mon, talk to me about anything, just don't sleep."

"My shoulder hurts."

"I know."

"Then stop squeezing it, damn it."

"I can't," lamented Chaerin. "Blood is still coming out."

"Where the hell is this ambulance?" muttered Seungmin, almost sounding pained. Kwon watched Jisung's sleepy state and, before messing with him again, muttered to Kim:

"On a scale from zero to ten... How much?"

Seungmin met her gaze and knew she was referring to Jinah. Sighing softly, he answered using the same minute intonation: "Two. Maybe three."

"Two what?" Jisung wanted to know.

"Two ambulances" Chaerin brightened when she heard the sirens. The red and blue lights began to glow in the distance. There was little left. "Hold on."

Please.

                                          ♡˖°

Jade never thought she could cry watching Toy Story 4.

The purpose of going to the movies was to cheer her up and make her think of nice things that didn't involve her ex-boyfriend — it was so hard to talk like this about Changbin! —, but, when they settled into the soft chairs of the dark room, the american ended up comparing the company of friends to Seo's company and came to the conclusion that eating popcorn without having someone hugging her or stroking her hair was horrible! Not even Chan's affection, Felix's jokes, and the many candies Hyunjin put in her mouth filled Changbin's lack in her life. In short, Jade had red eyes when the credits started to rise. Maybe the snacks they ate at the diner, right after the movie, were the only really good part of the night, but, otherwise, she just wanted her bed and her therapeutic pillow.

"At least you smiled about six times," said Felix, trying to be optimistic. The quartet was standing on the sidewalk of the building where Kang lived. Hyunjin was the driver of the time and still had to take Felix home, but got out of the car anyway to wait for Yoorim, who should have stayed around after Changbin had left. "It's a significant value compared to the rest of the week, right?"

"Right," the corners of Jade's lips merely lifted. After all, she was happy for her friends' attempts. "Thanks for putting up with me."

"You put up with all my existential crises, nothing fairer," said Chan. "And thanks for the ride, Hyunjin."

"I'll charge you next time, just letting you know," Hwang joked, drawing a chuckle from the two boys and one more minimal smile from Jade. His attention was directed to Woojin as he approached the group, alone. Hyunjin, therefore, said, "I thought Yoorim was with you."

"She went home shortly after Jinah left" the elder one shrugged. "Said she had a headache."

"That's weird, she didn't even text me."

"I thought it was kind of weird too, but it's Yoorim. We get it."

The ringing of Jade's phone was the next thing to hear. She fumbled in her pants pockets and picked up the vibrating device. A frown appeared on her forehead as she read the contact's name.

"Why is Chaerin calling me?" she asked rhetorically and answered. "Hello?"

Woojin observed her reactions. From confused, Jade turned unreadable as Chaerin told her something on the other end of the line, then, turned pale as a sheet of paper. Jieun parted her lips and they trembled, her restless eyes starting to water.

"W-where?" she stammered in a small voice and, after a few seconds, muttered a 'thank you' and ended the call.

"What happened?" Chan asked, startled by her mood swings.

"Hospital," Jade gasped, not knowing what to do with her hands, or the words they wanted to run over each other. "Jinah. Jisung. Accident"

"What?!" Hyunjin practically screamed and was driven by the urge to run back to the silver pickup truck. Woojin forced himself not to be robbed by the trance state that came with the news shock and was the first to accompany him, followed by Felix. Chan had to pull Jade into the remaining seats, and then the tires sang down the street, marking only the most turbulent night of their lives.

                                                  ♡˖°

It was as if Chan was anesthetized.

Most people's biggest mistake is thinking that similar tragedies happen only to others, never to themselves or anyone close to them. When proven otherwise, ecstasy comes in much greater and devastating proportions. It's as if the floor is opening and an infinite void is ready to swallow the rubble, and as much as you blink your eyes and want to wake up, it's not a nightmare. It is real, solid as a stone.

Chan began to shiver when he saw Chaerin and Seungmin at the hospital reception. They paced, restlessly, and if until then he was having trouble believing what had happened, he had only to look through the couple's bloody clothes to have his last proof. Without even asking anything, Chan cried. It was stronger than him, much stronger.

"How are they?" Hyunjin asked, his voice screaming urgency. Jinah had become someone very special in his life, but, above her, came Jisung, his childhood friend, his confidant, his mate, his little brother. Hyunjin didn't want to lose him. He didn't want to lose them both.

"We haven't had any news yet," Chaerin replied.

"But you two were with them before help came! You're a doctor, Seungmin! Of course you know!"

"Jisung will be fine," the younger Kim said slowly, contrasting with Hwang's obvious agony. It was no cold matter, Seungmin was simply being trained to remain calm at times when the collective will consisted of throwing everything into the air.

"And Jinah?" Jade asked.

"As Chaerin said, we haven't had any news yet. She's having surgery now, but..."

"But?" in the face of others hesitation, Woojin encouraged.

"... But I'm so sorry."

a/n: you guys can interpret this last sentence as you wish hehe i'm laughing but i'll just leave it to you guys to create your own theories

i’ll be back soon, byebye <3

#stray kids #skz #stray kids au #skz au #stray kids angst #stray kids fics #skz fics #stray kids fluff #skz fluff #stray kids imagines #skz imagines #stray kids reactions #skz reactions #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #skz smut #listen to me #multifandom #bang chan #woojin #minho #changbin #hyunjin #han #jisung #seungmin #felix #jeongin #kpop #kpop au

[technoplaguearchive]

Cruel To Be Kind (1/4)

Midoriya just wants to help his long-time love interest get home, but gets a little more than he bargained for. Bakugou must come to terms with the fact that his way of dealing with stress isn’t working out and comes with some side-effects he hadn’t planned for. Both boys figure out that the only way through anything is honesty, with each other and themselves

Pairing: MidoriyaxBakugou / BakuDeku  Rating: Teen & Up Category: M/M Fandom: My Hero Academia | Boku No Hero Academia Originally Published: 2019/03/30 on AO3 Chapter: 1 of 4

Next

Pulsing lights. Pulsing beats. Pulsing bodies.

Bodies everywhere.

Turn to the left; people. Turn to the right; more people.

Blood pumping in time with every beat.

This wasn’t something he was usually into, but desperate times had called for desperate measures. The house had been silent, empty. He couldn’t stand it anymore and had fled, ran right to his friends when they’d called. Their shock would make this night worth it, he rarely came out with them.

The last time they’d all gone out together had been over six months ago and they’d all drank so much that each had determined it was an awful idea. He, however, hadn’t minded it quite so much. With as stressed as heroing made him it wasn’t a bad respite, and it hadn’t messed with his work the next day.

After that, it had become a weekly thing, but he kept it confined to his own house; he drank on the nights he didn’t have to work the next day and he used the day off to recover from any after effects. Even his worst hangover hadn’t been too awful, at least based on what the others had told him of their numerous hangovers. The vomiting was minimal, and the headache was tolerable: years of dealing with the never-ending stress stupid Deku caused him had apparently given him some sort of tolerance, or at least raised his pain tolerance threshold (one could argue that as both a good and bad thing).

Tonight though- tonight he needed to be out. He needed the crush of people that he usually hated and the smell of sweat that wasn’t laced with nitroglycerin. His apartment had started getting claustrophobic and Kirishima had started calling him a hermit and threatening to bring people over; an effective threat since Bakugou hated the idea of those loud idiots in his place.

The club is packed as he makes his way through the entrance, people elbowing him and rubbing on him as he pushes his way further in. The text he received from Kirishima indicated they were in the small balcony near the back. Leave it to that crew to be extra when they went out. He can see the balcony tucked away in a corner and sure enough, there’s a crop of bright red hair he can spot a mile away. There’s a familiar pink puffball beside it that can only be Ashido Mina, which isn’t surprising. Kirishima hardly went anywhere in public without her, she was like his damn security blanket. He would have speculated long ago they were dating if he didn’t know them as well as he did. As it stood Kirishima preferred being single and Ashido didn’t seem like she was ready to settle either… in fact, Bakugou couldn’t recall ever actually seeing her with someone and he was sure she would have blown up their annoying group chat with pictures if she was with someone.

He takes the stairs two at a time up to the balcony, deliberately being loud to draw the attention of the crew of idiots he sometimes called his friends (not that he’d ever be caught dead saying that out loud- especially not within earshot of them). When he reaches the top he’s greeted with not a single damn one of them even looking in his direction. So much for the shock value of him actually showing up, they’d gone and blown that fucking plan out of the water. Assholes.

“Tch.”

Kaminari is the closest to the stairs and the first to hear Bakugou’s angry scoff, meaning Bakugou gets the pleasure of seeing the blonde’s face pale at the noise and his yellow eyes widen in a mix of half terror-half shock. Bakugou merely raises an eyebrow and cocks a hip against the stair railing as he watches Kaminari start flailing wildly and hitting his companions to get their attention; Kirishima gets a smack to the head, Sero gets a shoe to the ass, and Mina gets slapped on the back during the freakout.

Kirishima, blessed ray of sunshine that is almost always too bright for Bakugou to handle, is the first to turn around to see what the hell the electric blonde is panicking about. His eyes settle on the grumpy blonde at the stairs and that smile shoots upwards to its megawatt intensity. Bakugou chooses to ignore how Kirishima’s eyes rake over his body from toe to head as he smiles. Kirishima’s little crush was known throughout the group and Bakugou was always glad that the red headed idiot never tried to pressure him. Kirishima wasn’t a bad guy, but there was no room for romance in making it to the top hero spot.

“Bakubro! You showed up! Wow!” His huge smile is blindly bright up close, causing Bakugou to squint as Kirishima wraps his huge arms around him. Five seconds of it is all Bakugou can take before he’s working his hands between them to push the other man away with a grunt. Kirishima, however, takes it in stride and spins around to beam that smile at the rest of the group. “Look, Ashido! Bakugou showed up! You were totally right.”

Ashido’s knowing look causes Bakugou to growl in her direction, a noise that’s drowned out in the already thumping bass pulsing through the club. “Of course, he came, sweetie. We asked nicely after all. Even Bakugou can’t stay away from us forever- “she shoots him another sly look that has his eyebrow twitching “-no matter how much he pretends he can.”

The effect is near instantaneous and predictable; Bakugou leaps across the small space with a finger in her face, steam all but pouring from his ears. “Listen, you little pink shit. I’ll show up whenever and wherever I damn well please. Keep your conspiracy theories out of my life.” For effect he jabs his finger against her nose then backs off, taking up his spot against the railing by the stairs once more. Ashido scrunches her nose at the feeling then shoots him a smile full of teeth, leaning back into a small table behind her. She’s not wrong but damned if he was going to admit it.

They’d all managed to stay in touch since UA and no matter how much he tried to ignore the group he always ended up back around them. The ‘BakuSquad’, as they called themselves, stuck together through it all. And while openly he admonished their stupidity, secretly he was at least a little glad they hadn’t abandoned him because of his personality. Kirishima, bless his big ass heart, to this day still was his self-proclaimed best friend and the one who always asked him to do things with the group. They all knew Kirishima was the only one who could laugh off Bakugou’s bad attitude.

Kirishima latches an arm behind Bakugou’s neck and pulls him in for a side-hug. Bakugou does his best not to blow the other male up, barely managing to hold in an explosion only because he knew the club would probably boot him for it. Kirishima flashes him another huge grin and then throws an arm into the air with a shout, causing the blonde to wince and glare. “The gang’s all here! Let’s get this party started!” He releases Bakugou in order to round up the rest of their squad, pulling everyone into a side-hug as he ushers them towards the stairs. Suddenly he stops and turns to address everyone with an air of unusual seriousness. “No one’s on deck tomorrow, right,” he asks with a somber face. Bakugou resists the urge to chuckle at the look, opting instead to smirk as everyone shakes their heads in an affirmation that no, they all indeed had off tomorrow. Kirishima’s resulting triumphant grin is infectious. “Perfect,” he yells, almost too loud, “then let’s go drink!”

He watches his four friends file down the stairs and start pushing towards the bar, opting to stay behind and take his rightful place in the corner seat of the balcony. It had the best view of the club and he could watch the door too. Kirishima had given him hell last time about taking the spot but once Bakugou gave him ‘the look’ he’d quieted right down. Ashido’s obnoxious pink hair and horns make her the easiest to track in the crowd, easier to see than even Kirishima’s tall circus he called hair. Most of the crowd seems to part easily to let the heroes through, some knowing who they are and others just moving due to the confident air the group exuded. Separately they were all nutcases, but together even Bakugou had to admit they looked like a formidable bunch.

Seeing them safely at the bar, he decides to focus his attention elsewhere. Red eyes scan the crowd with focused scrutiny, looking for any potential troublemakers, but seeing everything relatively calm he settles back into his seat and pulls his phone out, slouching down and bringing the device up to glare directly into his retinas. Recovery Girl had yelled at him in school about holding his phone so close, but he didn’t care; it kept most everyone out of his face.

His phone shows six e-mails, four unread text messages, one missed call (probably his old hag of a mother), and fifteen group chat messages.

“Haaa?!”

That log had been empty when he got in here, he had made sure of it. That meant those idiots were chatting through it AT THE FUCKING BAR. He cuts a glare around the phone screen to get a glimpse of the bar, confirming all four idiots had their faces also buried in their phones. Had they even picked up drinks?

Growling low he taps to open the messenger app to see what all the fuss is about. The messages are steadily rolling in, punctuated by pictures that are taking forever to load. He scrolls to the top of the newest messages and starts reading through, curious to see what they found so intriguing that it interrupted their night.

Six messages and one screenshot later he wishes he hadn’t looked; Stupid. Fucking. Deku. That idiot was on his way to the club as well, if the screenshot from Ashido was true. She had invited him earlier in the night and he had just confirmed an hour ago that he would ‘try to make it out’. Bakugou was wishing he wouldn’t try and would just not show up. He didn’t need the stress of dealing with the green haired freckled idiot’s mumbling and staring. He wasn’t dressed right to be seen by- Whoa, no, stop that right fucking there. He just didn’t need to deal with Deku, period. End of story.

Growling to himself he taps out a response in the chat;

‘Get the fuck back here with my drink and stop mooning over broccoli-head.’

The response from Kirishima is an immediate wink-emoji followed by ‘You know I only have eyes for you, Bakubro.’

Bakugou rolls his eyes and stuffs his phone into his pocket without responding. No need to encourage Kirishima’s flirting, he got enough as it was.

He can see Kirishima now pushing his way back through the crowd and is met with the red head’s shining eyes minutes later. Kirishima squats down in front of Bakugou as a servant would and offers him the drink; some colorful concoction that looked tasty (not that Bakugou would say that out loud, no need to ruin his contrarian image). A softly spoken ‘tch’ is all Kirishima gets as Bakugou scoops the drink away and takes a sip.

Shit tasted as colorful as it looked.

Bakugou shoots Kirishima a look over the rim of the glass, eyes hard. “You did good, hair for brains. Nice job.”

Kirishima’s answering smile is all teeth and he jumps from his spot on the ground to cheer. He does some weird shimmy-dance that Bakugou won’t admit he follows with his eyes. Look, Kirishima wasn’t totally awful looking and Bakugou did have eyes…. he just also didn’t have time for dating but that didn’t mean he didn’t LOOK sometimes.

As if catching it despite Bakugou trying to be subtle, Kirishima’s eyes glint and he reaches a hand towards his friend. “Wanna come dance with me? I know you’re gonna get moody when Midoriya shows up and- “

There was the downside to Kirishima; he couldn’t keep his mouth closed.

Bakugou growls at him and bares his teeth. “Don’t you dare fucking talk like Deku has any control over my life.”

Kirishima’s hands shoot up in surrender and he backs off. Honestly, he should’ve known better but the idiot never THOUGHT. Now he would sit here angry all night.

Everyone always swooned over Deku. It hadn’t changed in all their years together and Bakugou could not understand the overwhelming appeal. Sure, his dumb round face was kind of adorable and his muttering was occasionally endearing… but that was it. And how was it that everyone was drawn to him? There wasn’t a single person Bakugou knew that didn’t immediately run to Deku like he was the world’s greatest thing.

Kirishima is still staring at Bakugou with those big dumb sad eyes, so Bakugou relents and shrugs. “‘S whatever. Just shut up about fucking Deku.”

The redhead bobs his head quickly in affirmation and grins, knowing he’s forgiven. “So, do you want to come dance with me?”

There’s a hopeful glint in his eyes that Bakugou wants to ignore but can’t. When they were still in school, he would have been able to but the years had seen his attitude diminish to being able to be around people without biting their heads off- and as always Kirishima had always been an exception. His thick skin apparently also protected his feelings; he had never seemed to get too hurt at what the angry blonde said and had never taken his threats seriously.

“Tch. Yeah fine, whatever” he relents, tossing back the rest of the shitty colorful concoction in one large swig. Ugh, gross. But at least it was gone and now he could move on to something different. He sets the glass down and rises to his feet to peg Kirishima with a stare. “Get me something stronger and I’ll meet you down there with the idiots.”

Kirishima is visibly eager to please as he rushes down the stairs and pushes through the crowd, causing Bakugou to smirk. He could probably get the other male to bark like a dog if he asked with enough conviction. Eh, maybe another time. For now, he’d settle with the redhead being his drink-gofer and dancing partner….and maybe when Deku showed up he’d bounce before he had the chance to see everyone go gaga over the freckled jackass.

~~~~~~

The night sees him actually enjoying time with the group despite his outward protestations. Kirishima has jumped to get him drinks the three other times he’s asked, Deku has yet to show up, Ashido has all but draped herself over Sero (no surprise there,) and Kaminari is hitting on everything that is even mildly attractive (also not a surprise).

What is surprising is Ashido sauntering back into their balcony retreat an hour later with shots balanced in her hands and one, somehow, grasped between her teeth.

“I’m not drinking that one, I don’t know what your lips have been all over tonight.”

After Mina dislodges the glass, she gives him a wink and a sultry smile. “Aw sweetie, you’re just jealous they haven’t been all over you.”

Tiny explosions start popping in his hands at her words as he all but yells, “What did you just say to me, you bubblegum haired alien?!”

Kirishima jumps to grab his hands and keep him away from their friend. “She was joking, Bakugou! You know she was joking!”

With a huff, the angry blonde turns away and crosses his arms across his chest effectively tucking his hands away from causing a disaster. This seems to pacify Kirishima whose smile looks close to fracturing from the stress of having to manage the human equivalent of dynamite, both in personality and quirk. Bakugou isn't stupid though; he knows blowing shit up would get them kicked out and he's not going down that road again. There's already a string of boring-ass coffee shops that won't let him, or any of his group, back in due to him exploding several coffee cups after a stressful day and the baristas fucking his order up cause they were too busy staring or giggling.

Ashido’s snicker only infuriates the angry blonde more, causing him to step towards her with the intent to give her a blast to the face. He’s halted in his tracks by Kirishima’s hands against his chest, the large male physically blocking his advance towards their friend. When Bakugou looks up to question him all he can see is Kirishima’s smile, sharp teeth on full display. “Chill out, man. Lemme go get you another drink and you just- just relax, yeah?”

Kirishima is already backing away to the stairs by the time he’s done speaking. Bakugou wants to question the movement because the redhead didn’t even give him a chance to answer and just decided for him, something Bakugou isn’t overly fond of. Did he want another drink? Fuck yes. But he wanted a choice in the matter and not Kirishima running to grab one to pacify the situation. Bakugou rolls his eyes instead of snapping at his friend. “Sure, whatever. Not that colorful shit again though. Get me something strong.”

Kirishima nods enthusiastically as he bounds down the stairs and darts through the crowd slow with more agility than Bakugou knew he possessed outside of stopping villains and saving people. Color him mildly impressed. He’d be more impressed though when he saw what Kirishima brought back.

With his number one fan now out of the way, Bakugou takes up his seat again and snatches two shot glasses from the table Ashido had deposited them on. The first one down his throat burns. The second shot to go down doesn’t burn any less but it’s more pleasant now that he’s expecting it, however, that doesn’t stop the grimace that spreads across his lips as he swallows. No one could ever accuse him of liking the taste, not when his face gave away how he felt. No, Bakugou Katsuki drank to unwind. To forget. To stop being himself. To get out of his head for a few hours. And it always worked, right until the next morning when the alcohol was gone, and he had to sit there and contemplate swallowing more liquid fire or just drinking water and pretending like he didn’t hate himself.

Ashido’s voice floats by in a buzz, yapping away about a recent rescue she’d done and how she got to save a cute guy. Bakugou wasn’t paying too much attention anymore, instead letting his gaze wander aimlessly across the dance floor as he contemplated how much he could drink before the group left.

By his calculation, he’d have to stop sending Kirishima for drinks after this one or the redhead would get nosey and start up on his spiel of him maybe having a problem. He’d only had…. What, five so far tonight? Okay, maybe six if he counted the two shots as separate. And none of them had been particularly strong, props to Kirishima not knowing good shit from mediocre. The guy wasn’t a drinker and usually went with whatever the bartender suggested…. which was usually less hard liquor but cost more for being ’pretty’.

Kaminari flops unceremoniously down beside him and nudges his shoulder, jolting Bakugou from his reverie and earning a glare. Kaminari takes the glare in stride, more than used to it by now, and grins. He wiggles an eyebrow in Bakugou’s direction and jerks his head off in the direction Kirishima ran off to. “So, you gonna keep dragging Kiri around or are you actually considering dating him?” At Bakugou’s scoff and eye roll, Kaminari turns the jovial expression to one akin the look of a parent dealing with a naughty child. “Stop fucking with him, Bakugou. The guy likes you and will fall over himself to please you. You’re leading him on.”

This wasn’t a new conversation between them. Since high school, this had been a reoccurring issue that never ended up resolved. Bakugou wasn’t intentionally leading Kirishima on. Plain and simple; Kirishima knew Bakugou didn’t feel that way towards him yet he kept acting the same way, Bakugou knew Kirishima liked him and didn’t treat him any differently than he did before he knew. Their arrangement worked out.

“Shut up, Dunceface.”

“What are we talking about?”

Kirishima’s cheery voice cuts through and Bakugou is left wondering how long he’d been standing that close and how much had he heard. Hopefully, he hadn’t heard much, Bakugou didn’t think he could stand Kirishima’s pouty face if he had.

“Not shit. Mind your business you shark-toothed fuck.” The glare Kaminari shoots Bakugou is nothing short of withering but the angry blonde ignores it in favor of squinting at the drink Kirishima holds in his hand. “What’d ya get me?”

Kirishima blushes a little and shyly holds up the cup full of brown unassuming liquid. “I asked the bartender and they said it was Jack & Coke? It smells awful” he explains, wrinkling his nose in memory of the smell.

The entire group startles as Bakugou leaps for the glass and all but rips it from Kirishima’s hands. His lips close around the glass greedily and he starts swallowing in big gulps, eager to get the liquor into his system. So eager, in fact, that he doesn't hear Kirishima mentioning who he found at the bar or the newcomer watching him with wide worried eyes.

It's not until he sets the glass down half-empty that he realizes everyone is staring at him warily. It's a look similar to what one would give a wild animal they weren't sure would bite or flee. Lips tugging into a snarl he rounds on the group, “The fuck you looking at me for, assholes?”

A small, too familiar hand raises meekly from behind Kirishima in a half wave and Bakugou has all of two seconds to process who the green haired shortstack is stepping out from behind his overly large red headed friend.

Fuck. That was what the staring was for.

Bakugou drops back into his seat, a little too hard, and raises unsteady hands to rub his face. Okay maybe he’d drank that last one too fast. Because shitty Deku was standing there and when did he fucking get there and why was stuff  blurring at the edges and was Kirishima whispering? He swats a hand in Kirishima’s direction, grateful the other man understands when he hauls him to his suddenly unsteady feet. He had to get the fuck out of here, he didn’t want to deal with stupid Deku. That had been the plan; get out before Midoriya showed up and ruined everything.

Halfway down the stairs- when had he made the conscious decision to leave?- he realizes blearily he has a green haired follower. He picks up his pace as much as he can without stumbling and tries to lose the other man in the crowd. A girl dancing catches his eye and closes in on him, drink in her hand the only thing Bakugou has eyes for. He lets her in close then snatches it away, downing it in one large gulp and then spinning himself away to get lost in the crowd once more. The bright side is he can’t see Midoriya’s green hair anywhere now and that’s enough to ease the anxiety that had been slowly building in his chest since he noticed the freckled little freak upstairs.

So he lets his guard down and makes a wiggly beeline for the bar to grab another drink before he extricates himself from the situation.

One more shot. One more drink.

So what if he was realizing his vision was a little hazy at the edges now? So what if he may or may not be using the bar to keep himself from swaying a little right now? He’d be done after this next drink anyways and all would be okay. He wasn’t even as drunk as he usually got on nights off so this really wasn’t even a huge deal- or so he thought.

The bartender hands him his drink in exchange for cash and then motions behind him. Thinking he needed to move out of the way, and seriously fuck the bartender for telling him to move like that, he turns around on unsteady feet only to look down into a pair of vibrant green eyes set in grim determination.

“Fuck.”

#bakudeku #bakugo x midoriya #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

[msvhousing]

MSV's 2nd Year Anniversary and we have much to be proud of

Time flies, as they say, and this month it is 2 years since we merged to become MSV.   I’ve been reflecting on what we have achieved in those two years and we have much to be proud of.   To mark our anniversary I thought a blog might be helpful (hopefully) to remind us all how far we’ve come and how, in the words of the late great Tony Wilson ‘we do things differently round here’. 

  The MSV Way and our values, are very much alive within the organisation and our pledges are shaping our work, commitment to customers and approach to business.  I regularly take a look at My MSV intranet to see who has taken time to thank us for making a difference.  Here’s just a couple of recent comments to give you a flavour, but please have a look under the Staff Reward and Recognition Tab, it’s well worth it; “Margaret has worked tirelessly with a homeless person who had giving up hope of ever getting a place of his own. The number of meetings, phone calls letter writing has culminated in an offer at one of MSVs sheltered schemes and he is over the moon”.  “Sam Lewis was complimented by a staff member returning from long term absence for the amazing support she had received” A customer at 10 Fossage was very complimentary about the way Michelle Jackson dealt with her. Real consideration shown. Took time to listen, informed the customer.   Good job!   This happens every day and we have wonderful people doing a great job.  I know it isn’t always easy – there are services under threat and many difficulties faced - we are constantly looking at ways in which we can support you to be your best in challenging times. 

  But it isn’t just about what we can do for our customers, it’s also about what our customers do for their communities, and earlier this year we celebrated those people who reach out to their neighbours, helping get the most from every day life, with the Community Spirit Awards – what an amazing and brilliantly diverse event.   We celebrated great neighbours, fantastic fund raisers, superb young people and incredible community anchors – well done all!  Brilliant to get out to Carr Brook this week too, to see the amazing work volunteers do in their community (and also in Bramhall, Bredbury, the UCAN and others) – where would we be without volunteers in our communities.

  A couple of weeks ago we held an event at the CiH conference to recognise the work we do to tackle poverty and homelessness. We were joined by two amazing Foyer residents, Godwill and Geraldine. Both bravely told a packed room of housing professionals the experiences that led them to the foyer and how the foyer team had helped them turn their lives around.  Geraldine had escaped a forced marriage where she was expected to give up her education, hopes and ambitions - she is now set to go to university and one of our brilliant law firm partners has offered to help her on her journey after hearing her story.  Godwill left care at the age of 18 with nothing and no one, but since moving into the foyer has been supported to shape his life and future.    Our colleague conference on 15 October will focus on this pledge and our work in this area ... so more to come on this soon! 

  At the CiH event we were also joined by Danny from Off The Cobbles (thanks to Ann-Marie for introducing us) who conducts tours of Manchester whilst reciting his very real poems - Danny was once homeless himself.  I know some of you have already done the incredible Off the Cobbles tour and Sarah is currently arranging another tour to take place soon, so watch the intranet for more details on how to join in.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.

  MSV is not one of those organisations who chase after awards for the glory - that’s just not us! But from time to time we will enter an awards because we really believe we are doing something different worth shouting about.  In the last two years we have been shortlisted for a number of awards; including our amazing tenant, Dorothy, our Comms Team, Nicky Brandon, our Property Services Team, Scheme Managers and our fab Customer Support team - all have shone a light on MSV and made us feel very proud.

  The impact of our work really hits home when I get out to see new schemes and meet the customers moving into their new homes.  Recently I met  the Rashid family who had just moved into their new Rent to Buy home at M8 North in Cheetham Hill.  They told me that they had been renting privately in Longsight but with no prospects at all of ever being able to afford their own home. To say they are delighted and very happy with the move is an understatement! And it was lovely to meet their gorgeous little girl who now has a lovely new home.

  Our campaigning work with Placeshaper is going strong and, following our WeWork, WeBuild and WeCare campaigns, last week we launched WeShare. Part of this campaign is the launch of a portal on the Placeshapers website where we can access and share our own best practice, experiences - anything really.  I urge you to sign up, it’s really very easy - there’s information on the intranet how to do this. 

  We have supported many of our own campaigns recently to tackle issues such as mental health stigma.  The Health and Wellbeing Group have launched a walking group, are promoting healthy eating, enabling people to keep a check of their weight and blood pressure, promoting sound advice on how to help those with dementia, and raising money for Cancer Research through the 3,000,000 steps challenge – there’s so much going on and it all helps us create an environment to flourish!

  Our Equality and Inclusion group is also doing some fine work.  Their new in-house training programme Daring to Do Diversity has received tremendous feedback from colleagues, I’ve been on it myself and I can tell you it is superb!  They are also actively campaigning against homophobia and other totally unacceptable forms of discrimination and inequality and are actively promoting issues such as International Womens’ Day.

  Creating an environment to flourish is also about creating opportunities and we have done that through our apprenticeship programme.   Our two new apprentices in the Property Services Department, Chloe Fleming and Sarah Finley, have their paint brushes firmly in hand now and are making great progress.  We are recruiting another 3 apprentices in September. 

  We can all flourish in many ways and on 18 July we will all be out and about on the Just Do It Day.  Volunteering is at the heart of MSV and whilst we talk about getting back to basics, which is crucially important, the Just Do It day really is a reflection of who we are and what we stand for - so enjoy the day everyone, and I’m looking forward to seeing lots of photos from the day.

  Finally, I’d like to say a huge thank you to anyone who has left us recently – it has been an honour to be part of your journey, and  to extend a warm welcome to all our new colleagues at MSV, I’ll no doubt be seeing you soon at our coffee morning.  MSV is a special place, we are here to help people live well, and do well!  Times can sometimes be tough, we all know that, but we are a team that works together and sticks together for our customers and each other. A huge thank you to one and all.

#chatwithcharlie

[gary36]

2 Soups for a Tray

Right then. Properly caffeinated and sufficiently indulged in cat therapy, it's time I got started and if I mispell anything I know a lovely audience member will tell me.

Here's a tale from the land of orange jumpsuits and tiny toothbrushes.

I'm not proud. Let's get that out of the way. Late one night I was on my way home from a job out of town. At around 9:30 I see blue light very dimly in my mirror. It should be known I was pulling a large trailer. What's more the running lights didn't work. I should've never agreed to drive the thing but jobs run late and I finish what I start. Now there's blue lights behind me, and my face is covered in my own blood. Now I promise to explain that but it's a story for another day. I pull into the next gas station and wait. I'm the subcontractor, I get the points off my liscence but nothing to pay. I'm cool. The cop's nothing special. He sticks to the facts. I've got no lights, he just needs to run my liscence. He's gone for a minute and I have time to get bored and wonder how much longer until I'm free. There was a long ways to go yet and the felines would be waiting on food. He gets back "Can you step out of the truck." Instruction, not question. "Yes sir." And I'm out. "Turn around." I do.

Handcuffs are on me before I can think about why I turned around in the first place. I'm confused. I go and sit in the back of a cruiser while the officer asks me questions. There's nothing but cold metal back there and with my hands compromised I wasn't comfy. Do I know there's a warrant for my arrest? No sir. Do I know why? No. Is there anything I want to tell now before I get stripped down? No. So we wait for someone to radio. If they want me I'm screwed. If they don't I'm free to go. We wait so long two more cops drive up to chat with my keeper. They all get a good laugh in at me hunched forward back there. I let it slide because if I'm lucky it'll be over soon. It wasn't.

Finally the radio condemns me. Then a long ride to county jail. First thing's first I empty my pockets. Write down all the contacts in your phone as fast as you can. Got it. Turn over your wallet. Now we're going to put your card on file so you can use it inside. Won't be an issue, no money. Then into the holding tank. There's three benches and two are broken. There's a sink and a toilet. I haven't slept in a long time and it's getting late. I lay on the bench. I jump awake and sit up to see a large man inside the tank as well. He's bald and surprisingly cheery. Neither of us says anything but he takes a seat. It's awkward silence for a long time. The cops ask him out. I'm alone. I lay down. The door opens and I jolt up. It's a stocky man with a beard. He loves to talk. "Why are you here?" Until he asked me I didn't know. I sigh with exasperation. Now I remember. "When I was twenty I got caught shoplifting. I never went to the court date."

About two hours later after pretending to be interested in the fight my fellow got into with his girlfriend and her ex, just as I'm beginning to wonder what'll happen if he actually expects me to be involved in the conversation, I'm asked out of the holding tank. I put finger prints on paper. A lady behind a desk tells me what I already know. I talk to a nurse. She wants me to come in to her office for the blood on my face. May not be until the next day. Fine. None of it felt the least bit real until I had to change. Out of my filthy work clothes into an orange jumpsuit that is entirely too loose and incredibly itchy. Having a cop watch me change took the rest of my dignity. Now I get a stylish green napsack, a pair of slippers that constantly fall off, a smelly hard pillow, to top it off a blue bedroll that is approximately 30 pounds. All the lawmen are surprisingly nice, maybe they had fun watching me carry everything. It's 3 AM and I walk into block B.

I don't know what I expected but I didn't get it. Everyone is asleep. I'm in a large room of white and green tile. It smells offensive. My bunk is 34. There's at least 50 men packed in the room. A third of them are up some stairs. It took a while to find my bunk because the numbering is present but without logic. I roll out my bedroll. It's bad. It's really bad. The pillow is a rock wrapped in plastic. The bed is running out of stuffing. I don't know who's in the bunk above me. I try to be quiet. For some reason I want to make a good impression. What a laugh. I peek in my stylish napsack and find a very worn blanket, a very short toothbrush in a wrapper, toothpaste in a ketchup packet, soap in a ketchup packet, 2 rolls of toilet paper, six blank strips of blue cardstock. Then my favorite. A pamphlet of rules. The pamphlet is hilarious. It urges me to tell a guard if I ever feel threatened. The room has three doors. Two upstairs lead to separate blocks. Five locks a piece. No guards. Downstairs has a big window into the halls, one pressure locked door and no guards. The pamphlet also reminds me that there's no weapons or drugs allowed in the county jail, and well... we'll get to that.

The next morning I'm jolted awake by the lights and a horn. No music just a very forceful "MEHHHH" and everyone is paying attention. A guard opens the pressurized door and bellows with a drill sergeant's enthusiasm "EXERCISE!" Almost everyone lopes along to the door. My bunkmate hopped down. A very lean man with dreadlocks. I watch them file out but when I realize that exercise isn't mandatory I decide to get my bearings. Only 3 people remained in block B besides myself and they were all keen on sleeping. I find 3 showers and five toilets. One shower and one toilet upstairs. It's suddenly obvious where the awful smell comes from. Jailbirds can't be bothered to hit their mark. I had to be careful to avoid puddles in my worthless slippers. The shower upstairs is the only vaguely warm one as I'd soon find out. The shower is not very helpful. There's not enough soap to get very clean, I'm still dirty from work. The walls of the shower are disturbing and I dare not touch anything. I use all my soap and half my toothpaste right away. I feel better but not much. My hair is a gnarled mess and the blood on my face is dry. I look fairly crazy, just guessing since all the mirrors were scratched to the point of not functioning. Everyone filed back in from exercise. At this point I realize my bunkmate is the only black guy in block B. Based on what I learned from TV he'd be in danger but he was cool as a cucumber. Before anyone can settle in it's breakfast time. A cart shows up. We all take trays and a single styrofoam cup. I get a sudden feeling of the first day at a new school and not knowing where to sit. I hear over my shoulder "Bunky!" That's how I met Shakespeare Jones. My bunkmate was incredibly well liked. Guys were always asking Shakespeare to come play cards or join in on some project or other. Shakespeare asked me a series of questions I would get used to, eating heartily as he did so. What did I do? How long was I in for? What happened to your face? Shoplifting and failure to appear in court. I don't know. Nothing violent. When Shakespeare was satisfied he became quiet and I decided not to bother him with similar questions. I turned my attention to the food. Breakfast looked and even smelled quite normal. With plastic spoon and grits in sight I dug in. And immediatly gagged. A sharp and distinct taste of bile slithered in my mouth. I tried the firm and sticky scrambled egg. The SAME sharp bile taste. I could barely overcome my instincts, it was work to swallow anything. Everything, even sliced carrots tasted like bile. It would've been impressive if I wasn't so hungry. I knew I couldn't be picky so I ate it all. I needed water to force down each bite. The water from the fountains is horrifying. It's warm. It tastes like metal. The fountain is grimy. After breakfast I settle into my bunk and just watch. Just to see how block B's ecosystem functioned. The basis of the economy is food and drugs we were not supposed to have. The highest tier of food is soup, followed by anything else from commissary (small bags of chips, coffee packets, mayonnaise, small slim jims), followed by cake.

A lot of people had cake. The cake came about once a day with lunch or dinner. Everyone was stockpiling cake by making containers for it out of two cleverly bent styrofoam cups. Most people saved it for later, others traded large amounts of cake for soup. Soup is just instant ramen. It's value was initially hard for me to understand. Lunch arrived before I could find out. Lunch looked normal. It tasted like bile. All of it, even the rice. My stomach was sore from trying to vomit even as I forced myself to swallow. I was starting to see what would be the greatest challenges in jail. I wasn't worried about my cats. I had a good roommate, he would feed them. I used my one phone call to let my roommate know the situation. Half way through explaining that I still didn't know how long I'd be locked up the phone cut out. I went back to observing. A commotion passed through almost every man in block B. I heard many whispers of "Billy White." A freckled man with a beer gut and a bandana who only ever wore one sleeve of his jumpsuit bellowed "Billy White's coming!" Several others echoed joyfully. The pressurized door opened. In walked the bald cheery man from the holding tank. With a smile on his face Billy White threw up his arms to a round of tired applause and set about high fiving and bear hugging the line of men to greet him. Thirty minutes after Billy White set up his bed he was pulled into a group of mischievous men. They whispered for a while. Billy White broke away from the huddle and walked upstairs to one of the doors with five locks. He knocked rapidly and loud. Then silence. Then he placed his ear to the crack in the door. Then he whispered to the door. A few minutes later something slid beneath the door and into Billy White's hands. It was shiny and smooth. The huddle formed again around Billy White, this time close to my bunk. A man crowding Billy White looked sickly, he saw me watching and told me to go somewhere else. I opened my mouth to speak but Billy White was first. "Layoff he's cool. Anybody who fights the cops is cool." The crowd automatically obeyed him. Shakespeare hung his head over from the bunk above and he was positively beaming. We both knew I'd never fought a cop. Billy White was making assumptions because of the blood on my face. I was allowed to watch the rest of the crime. Billy White produced a small cylinder from somewhere. It was a third the size and diameter of a #2 pencil and had a candy cane pattern. He twisted the thing and a razor blade grew out of the end. If he went through the same strip down as me then the only way Billy White had gotten that inside was up his ass. They search every where else. Billy White cut the shiny smooth stuff into rectangles. I don't know why. The crowd stumbled to the toilets downstairs where they could all just barely escape the view of the camera by going around a corner. A minute later the stench of criminal urine mingled with a strange chemical smell. News traveled throughout block B that the guys downstairs were smoking spice. The night of day 1 was lively. Most people stayed up talking. Shakespeare and I talked for hours. Shakespeare had been incarcerated a lot. He was the same age as me but had spent 7 years in prison and over two months in jail this time. He used to fight a lot. It used to help pass the time. It got to where he'd been broken and stabbed so much he just gave up fighting. Now he would do anything not to be bored. He had a daughter and a girlfriend waiting for him. Outside he was a custodian. Shakespeare couldn't believe I'd never been to jail. He said most guys talk more on their first day because they're scared. I told him I was terrified. I told him I'd never steal again. He laughed at that. He said that's what they all say. Shakespeare was always laughing mostly at his own jokes, he was too funny to be where he was.

On Day 2 I felt myself getting cabin fever. The room was explored. We never left. There was nothing to do. No matter what I did the eyes of at least twenty men were watching. After forcing down breakfast and lunch my stomach was turning. Shakespeare did a little dance and then made like he would backflip off of the upper floor. He made it look so authentic my eyes went wide. Shakespeare Jones was the only performer in block B. He made everyone laugh. Once he bellowed a joke I'll never forget because it makes no sense without context. "2 soups for a tray!" He called out to no one in particular. And everybody laughed. The trays are so rotten and the instant ramen so mysteriously valuable that the idea of auctioning off soup for a tray is a joke all its own. I finally understood the soup after Shakespeare drew a crowd together. Each man brought every food item he had. Fritos, bits of hotdog, bits of slim jim, a tin of onion dip, some mayonnaise, everything. Shakespeare provided the instant ramen. All the ingredients go into one trash bag. The trash bag is filled with water from the upstairs shower because it is the hottest. The bag is shaken. That's it. That's soup. Everyone argued over how to divide the soup until finally each investor had a cup full. They ate with much passion. It smelled alright, like instant ramen. Shakespeare offered me half his soup, I declined because the hotdog worried me and my stomach was already in knots. The investors chastised Shakespeare for trying to waste soup on me. Shakespeare pointed at me "Look at him man. He ain't got nothing." I layed down, I couldn't believe I was the poorest guy in block B. That night the guy in the bunk next to me packed up and went home. I was the only one awake so he offered me his stylish bag. I got a real bar of soap and travel size toothpaste. Score.

On the third morning the guards had us all step away from our bunks and hold still. They knew about the guys who smoked spice. They were doing a search. They threw shit everywhere. My bag remained intact though, other guys weren't so lucky. Some guys got taken outside. Some came back. After I ate breakfast I felt suddenly ill. I had a fever and I began vomiting. Not sure why. Thought it must've been the food. I stayed in bed all day. Shakespeare came by to let me know the rumors about me. In block B they thought I was a meth addict who knew Billy White on the outside. They thought I was going through withdrawals. I didn't eat dinner. Mistake. Hungry by midnight but still sick. Shakespeare asked how I was. I said my head was pounding and the food or water was killing my stomach. He said that wasn't normal. I figured if it was bad enough they'd take me to a nurse. I was supposed to have been already but it just never happened. Shakespeare told me I wouldn't go to the nurse until one of the guards confirmed I was dying. I didn't think I was dying.

Day 4 I wasn't any better. I was led to a room with 15 others to talk to a judge on an old boxy television screen. He asked us if we had lawyers. He asked if we were mentally competent. He set my trial date for next month. I asked the television how much longer I'd be in. He told me I'd be transferred within ten days to the prison in my county. Then after booking I would likely be transferred back to where I already was because the prison was overpopulated. All at my expense. On the way back to block B we passed a line of female inmates. The guys from block B went nuts. The women went nuts too. In a few seconds twenty or more people let loose all the most vulgar things they wanted to do to each other and then we rounded the corner. Back at bunk 34 I wiped out. The fever was worse. My insides were all wrong. My neck was stiff because of the worthless pillow. I missed my cats.

On day 5 I began to wonder if the food might kill me. Billy White gave me some coffee. For the first time I tried to sit by the TV. Usually the seats were all taken by the oldest men in block B. One of the gray inmates had his hand grafted to the remote and all requests had to go through him. One guy managed to get him on to a news channel. It was raining. I didn't know. I hadn't been anywhere near outside and I was starting to regret not taking my chance on day 1 to excercise. The coffee tasted like the metal in the fountain but I hadn't had caffeine in a while so it worked. Along with the morning news it nearly made me forget the headache. I was being pressured into relinquishing my TV seat, cake was brought up. I was about to explain to the man hovering over me that food wasn't an acceptable offer because I was vomiting all the time and the cake tasted like bile anyway. Before I could speak the guard opened the pressurized door and called my name. I didn't register what was going on. Finally Shakespeare put it in terms I understood. "You're going home man!" I got that. Confused and groggy I gathered my lumpy bed, my stiff pillow, and my fabulous bag. I gave Shakespeare the stuff he wanted out of the bag. I told him I'd find him on Facebook. He just smiled and shook his head.

I got naked for a cop one more time. I got back my dirty work clothes, my wallet, and my phone. I was led to the entrance where my sister was waiting for me. She had called. She had gotten worried. She went to my house. My roommate told her where I was. She payed my bail. It was a thousand bucks. It took me 6 months to pay her back. All because I tried to steal a shoelace, a soda, and a packet of Thai seasoning from Walmart. That's how my sister saved me from the second most painful experience in my life. Starla ex machina.

I looked for Shakespeare on Facebook but never found him. I check every now and again. I hope he got out and stayed out. I hope he got to see his daughter. I never stole anything again.

#writing

[classywastelandbread-blog]

Moving Color - Vers. 2

Version 2 I have saved of another story I found in an old collection of short stories from college. 

Maybe the assignment was to write two versions of the same story or maybe I had two drafts after critique from the first writing/reading of it. Eh.

Getting the tattoo had seemed like a good idea at the time. Everything about it seemed all right. Maybe when the artist gave her very deep discounts (50% off for the Grand Opening sale, and an additional 50% off if she wanted him to use the GhostInk) she should have been skeptical. Or maybe when the artist, a kind if not terrifying man with scars across his face and an elaborate sleeve tattoo of a demonic skull with sunken eyes, offered her the GhostInk and its attached discount and took her word on understanding the risks of it. She had felt pressured, the artist had said that it was the newest, “hippest” thing and everyone had one, and she had told him that of course she knew what it was, brushed it off as if she had heard about it before and knew about it before walking into the shop.

Perhaps, most of all, she should have been at least a little suspicious when the tattoo parlor had seemed to appear in the space of a day. She had found it on the way home from school. The sign - and the enormous hummingbird attached to it - drew her in. Maybe she should have been more cautious, questioned her decision to walk inside, especially since she swore that she saw the hummingbird on the sign wink at her.

Ignoring all of this, three hours later, with a red, swollen ankle and a new tattoo, Gladys limped home. She hid herself in her room and with excitement peeled the saran-wrap the artist had wrapped it in. The little hummingbird seemed almost real, as if it was about to fly off her skin at any moment. Gently running her fingers over the seemingly iridescent feathers, she thought she felt it shiver beneath her hand as a real bird would. “I think I’ll call you Loki,” she murmured to it as she limped to the sink to wash her new tattoo. “It seems like a good name.”

That night she hid Loki from her parents and diligently cleaned and lotioned her new friend as the artist had instructed. As night fell and it got darker, Loki seemed to glow brighter. When it came time for Gladys to go to sleep, she realized that Loki had moved. She could have sworn that his wings had been extended upwards as if reaching for the sky but now they were angled downwards as if he had beat his wings.

“Just my imagination,” she muttered to herself as she slipped under the covers. “Too much math can do that.”

Throughout the night she thought she felt a tickling sensation in her leg and when she woke up because of it, she brushed it off as phantom pain. “It’s all in my head,” she mumbled to herself as she rolled over. “I’m just thinking of the needle again.”

In the morning as she was cleaning and lotioning the tattoo once more, she saw that Loki’s wings were once more facing upwards as they had been when she got the tattoo. But she was sure that he had been an inch or to lower on her leg the night before.

“Apparently I can’t even remember where I got my fucking tattoo,” she grumbled to herself as she got ready. By the time she was pulling on her socks, Loki seemed to have moved again. “Whatever,” she grumbled to herself as she covered the tattoo.

At school she resisted the urge to show it off. It wasn’t healed just yet so the skin was still red and raw around the tattoo and that wasn’t pretty. She had to be patient, wait until it was healed and she could show off Loki in his full glory. Until then he had to be a secret. A beautiful secret that she held close to her heart.

In the middle of the day she excused herself to go clean and lotion the tattoo. Once more, she noticed that Loki’s wings were more down than she recalled. “I’m just driving myself crazy with this,” she muttered and snapped a picture of the tattoo with her phone. Tucking the phone back in her pocket and rolling her sock up, she left the bathroom and returned to class.

Throughout the day, whenever she thought that Loki moved, she snapped a picture. “At this rate I can have my own photo album of the same fucking tattoo,” she muttered to herself. “But at least it’s something nice to look at.” By the end of the day she had to restrain herself from looking at Loki or taking a picture of him. Her fingers itched to roll down her sock and show the tattoo off, but her skin was still red and swollen and she wanted the shock value and the raw jealousy at seeing something so breathtakingly beautiful in full effect. Swelling would ruin it.

When she got home from school, she sat on her bed and pulled her phone out. “Let’s see how crazy I’ve been today.” she said, bringing up the pictures of her tattoo she took. Gladys pulled up the first one and waited impatiently for it to load. Bit by bit the picture appeared and she screamed, flinging her phone across the room.

Loki’s wings were folded to his sides and his body had turned until it was facing the camera. Iridescent feathers were ruffled and his eyes glowed red with supernatural light.

“Just my imagination,” she said, laughing nervously. “It’s just a tattoo.” Picking up her phone, she scrolled through the pictures with shaky hands. In all of them Loki was staring at the camera, feathers ruffled. His eyes glowed brighter in each picture. Shaking, she put her phone down on the table and screamed. Loki had moved, all right. He had moved all the way up to her hand and his long beak rested on her thumb. “Oh hey there,” she said shakily.

Loki turned his head to her, eyes morphing into something monstrous. Gladys closed her eyes and draped her other hand over Loki, ignoring the terrified shaking in both hands. “I’m just seeing things,” she said, voice wavering. “This is all in my mind. This isn’t real.” she looked down at her hands on the desk, one draped over the other and whimpered. “This isn’t real,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut again. “This isn’t real,” she insisted to herself and before she lost her courage, she laid both hands out on the desk and looked down and cried out in relief. Loki wasn’t there. He hadn’t been, of course. That would just be crazy. Tattoos don’t move.

But the whole situation had shaken her. She opened her laptop and typed “GhostInk” into Google. The only results she found were for magic books and a Blue GhostInk airbrush tattoo parlor. When she typed in “GhostInk tattoo”, she found only articles about the book from the first search as well as a blog written by a tattoo artist. There wasn’t nothing about tattoo ink and of course nothing about a moving tattoo. On a whim, when she searched “Haunted Tattoo”, she only found a shop in London and stories about a haunted tattoo shop, not a haunted tattoo itself.

With a sigh, she pushed herself away from the desk. “This is ridiculous,” she said, rubbing her face as she stood. “Loki isn’t haunted. I just proved that. It was all in my head.”

Oh, I assure you, I’m very real. A voice whispered and she clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. Whirling, she found no one in the room with her.

“Great. Now I’m hearing things.”

You only wish you were. The voice whispered back and staring at the mirror, she found Loki on her neck, but it was a twisted, distorted creature instead of the beautiful hummingbird she had asked the artist for. Its freakishly long talons were extended and its warped and twisted head more resembled a plague mask with rows of fangs than the needle-thin beak it had been. Its flaming eyes dripped dark blood.

Gladys whined in terror as Loki’s grotesque mouth grinned.

“What happened to you?” Carrie hissed to her as she walked into school. “You’re a mess.”

Gladys shook her head, gripping her arms tightly across her chest. Her hair was messy and unkept and her eye makeup was smudged and running as if she had been crying. “Make it stop, Carrie,” she whispered and worried, her friend came closer, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders. “Please just make it stop.”

This had gone on for too long. Gladys had been looking worse and worse over the past week or so and Carrie was getting very worried about her. Drawing her out of the hall, Carrie forced Gladys to sit and held her hand. “Make what stop, Gladys?”

“Make him stop,” Gladys pleaded. “Make him stop.”

Squeezing her hands, Carrie knelt in front of her friend. “Who? Make who stop what?”

“He tells me such horrible things. He whispers in my ear all the things he’s done,” Gladys sobbed. “He won’t let me sleep, he won’t stop talking. And when I sleep he shows me what he’s saying and what he’d do to everyone I know, everyone I ever saw in my life.”

Carrie rocked back on her heels and studied Gladys. “Who, Gladys? Who? Give me a name, give me something I can use.” Gladys’ lips remained tightly sealed and she shook her head so hard that Carrie was worried that she’d give herself whiplash. “We need to tell the police, get a restraining order. This isn’t healthy.”

“You don’t understand!” Gladys wailed, covering her ears with her hands. “I can’t get a restraining order! It won’t do anything!”

“But it’s a start,” Carrie insisted. “Who is it?”

Gladys grabbed her hands and squeezed so hard that Carrie gasped. She gulped when she saw how red and crazed Gladys’s eyes were, like one who was demon-possessed. “Not who. What.” She licked her lips and her eyes darted around as if worried someone would overhear. “My tattoo. It’s alive. He’s alive. And he tells me things. He moves and he whispers things in my ears and he says these terrible things to me.” She was gathering momentum now and Carrie was growing increasingly worried about her friend who was squeezing her hands even tighter now. “He shows me too. He shows me the things he’s done and the things he’ll do to you and mom and everyone I know and love and I know he’ll do it if he can but he can’t. He wants me to do it but I can’t, I can’t do that, those things he showed me, I can’t Carrie, and he says he’ll torture me but I just can’t do it. I can feel him now, Carrie, I can fucking feel him moving around on and in me and I can feel him in my mind and in my eyes and moving around my body.” She stopped suddenly but her eyes remained wide and crazed and her eyes squeezed Carrie’s hands so tightly that her friend felt bruises begin to form. “He’s moving.”

“What tattoo?” Carrie asked, forcing herself to sound calm and rational. She didn’t want Gladys to panic and bolt, she needed help.

Gladys took a shaky breath and told her the whole story. How she had seen the tattoo parlor, gone in, met the really nice artist who was also a little scary and gotten a huge discount on the tattoo. “I tried to go back,” she told Carrie. “I tried, it wasn’t there!” she shook their joined hands in her panicked frustration. “It was just an empty building.” Gladys sobbed.

Pulling her up, Carrie looped an arm around Gladys’s waist and ignoring her half-hearted struggling, she led her best friend to the nurse’s office. They left Glady’s alone in the examination room while they spoke in the nurse’s office where they could see if Gladys tried to leave.

Gladys, the voice called and Gladys whimpered, curling up in her cot and slapping her hands over her ears. Gladys, the voice called again and she shivered, feeling Loki moving around on her skin. It felt like rolling a marble over her skin and it traveled along her spine to her neck. She felt him burning there. Now Gladys, remember what we talked about.

She shook her head, whimpering as tears dripped down her face. “I didn’t do anything!”

Oh, Gladys, Loki purred to her. But you did, didn’t you? You talked about me.

“No!” Gladys insisted. “No!”

No good of himself does a listener hear…

Gladys looked around the office in panic, hoping to find something to distract herself from him. Some way to escape. “I swear, Loki, I swear!”

...speak of the devil…

She felt him moving again, rolling along her neck, along her cheek like a disgusting caress, and then on to her hand. Removing her hand from her ear, she looked at Loki and moaned at the sight of the demonic hummingbird grinning at her.

...and he shall appear.

Carrie and Nurse Margaret came running when they heard her screams and screamed themselves when they saw the pencil she had stabbed her hand with. As they watched in numb shock, she wrenched it out of her skin and with another blood-curdling scream stabbed herself once more in the hand. Carrie slumped to the floor, suddenly dizzy while Nurse Margaret and her assistant, who had come running at the screams, held Gladys down by her arms, treated her wounds, and called her parents to pick her up.

Gladys held her bandaged hand to her chest and closed her eyes. She hadn’t heard from Loki in a while, not since she had stabbed her hand. On the way home with her parents, Loki had taunted her uselessness and fear until she had grabbed a knife in the kitchen and tried to slice the skin off her forearm - where he was when they got home. She had succeeded too, in slicing off a good portion of her skin and him and now only his grinning beak and the tip of a tattered feather remained.

Of course, no one believed her when she had told them what really happened. Her parents were furious that she had gotten a tattoo and that she had been so stupid about the shop. But this bout of apparent insanity could not be overlooked and they took her to the local mental hospital. No one believed her when she insisted that she wasn’t crazy, but then again, everyone says that.

She leaned back on her cot with a sigh, kicking her feet up. “It’s not so bad here, I guess.”

I quite like it here, Loki said from the door. He smiled when she screamed and blood dripped from his grinning mouth, full of overlapping teeth. It stained the floor as he walked toward Gladys, who was frozen in horror on her cot. No longer was he a hummingbird tattoo, now he was a tangible thing, a demon with a gore-filled mouth and flaming eyes. Except that with no one else to play with...I guess I’ll just have to make do with you.

Carrie missed Gladys, but being in the loony bin would be good for her. Something was obviously not right with her and she knew they’d sort her out. But as much as she missed Gladys, she completely forgot about her friend when she saw the little tattoo parlor. She was sure that earlier that morning it had been an empty street corner, but then again, she was preoccupied with missing Gladys that she probably didn’t even notice.

Something about it - and its seemingly spontaneous appearance - drew her in, made her more curious about it. The sign above the door read BLAK KAT TATS and next to it was a very sassy-looking black cat with big golden eyes. As she watched, it seemed to wink at her.

“Just my imagination,” she murmured distractedly and before she could think of a good reason why, she opened the door to the shop. The startling lack of a bell shocked her but the artist seemed to know that she was there regardless. Maybe he had seen the motion of the door as it opened and looked up to see what it was.

The man smiled, highlighting the tight scars on his face and as he offered a hand for her to shake, Carrie noticed the intricate tattoo sleeve he had of a demonic skull with sunken eyes. “Welcome to Blak Kat,” he said as he took her hand. “Can I interest you in a tattoo?” when she opened her mouth, he held up his other hand. “We have two great deals right now. 50% off on all tattoos for the Grand Opening and all that and you can get an additional 50% off if you want me to use the GhostInk.”

Carrie smiled, somehow feeling drawn to getting a tattoo. Maybe a black cat, like the one on the sign? It seemed sassy, and just her style. She noticed the second tattoo on the artist’s neck as he bent to pick up his sketch pad from the chair he had been working in. It was a hummingbird, so vibrant and colorful she was momentarily surprised, its wings arching upward as if reaching for the sky.

It was ridiculous, crazy even, but she swore that she saw the hummingbird briefly turn its head to her and wink.

#college creative writing class #Of himself no good does a listener hear... #some profanity #DC writes