#The horrible scary strange humans who come over sometimes on the other hand - maybe

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “A bucket.”

I wrote this little fluff piece this morning because I didn’t have the energy to write anything else. Still fighting with my motivation right now, but I hope you all like it :)

The air smelled like fall, wet dirt, a chill, and the unmistakable tang of mouldering leaves raked into large yellowing piles. The sky overhead was blue, and it was just beginning to warm as the sun peaked higher into the sky.  Standing on the sidewalk, he stared down the street of his childhood watching orange and yellow leaves fall to the pavement. In the distance he could hear the shouting of children, and watched decorative skeletons clatter and blow in a light wind.

A soft crunching noise jogged him from his musings, and he turned to see Sunny contemplatively staring at a yellowed leaf, only to watch her pop it into her mouth and crunch on it like it was a potato chip.

He frowned at her and she turned to look at him, “What?”

“Seriously?”

“What do you mean, Seriously?”

“Gonna go ahead and eat the fall ambiance?”

She frowned at him,” The trees aren’t using them anymore, and I don’t see you eating them.” He just shook his head at her, and turned to walk up the front steps and onto the porch. She paused to stare at the cluster of pumpkins on the front steps, and the grizzly faces that were carved into them. His father was a master at pumpkin carving, evidenced by the fact that Sunny made, “What the hell.” she turned to look at Adam and he shrugged.

“What are those?”

“Pumpkins/”

“That does not answer my question.”

“THey are a type of squash or gourd or…. Or something. People grow and eat them most of the time, but it is traditional, in october to carve scary faces on them for fun. Maybe mom has another one lying around and will let you try it out.”

“But why?”

“Back in the day people thought that doing this would help to fend off evil spirits, but now it is more of a contest to flex who is the most artistic. Dad wins every year.”

They stepped onto the porch where fallen leaves were still clinging wetly to the front steps and knocked.

“It’s open!” Came the voice from inside 

The two of them slipped in, Adam taking off his shoes and Sunny wiping her damp feet on the entrance rug.

They walked into the living room to find his mother, Martha sitting on the floor at the center of an explosion of pictures, and a couple of open binders.

Adam and Sunny walked in very carefully stepping over the pictures.

“Sorting the photo album again?” “Again, the last time I did this was almost ten years ago.” 

Adam wantered closer to his mother and Sunny curiously examined some of the photos, until one caught her eye.

A very tiny, chubby human barely able to stand on his own, and with bright green eyes.

She picked up the picture gingerly in one hand, “Awww is this you? You and your fat little cheeks.”

Adam turned, and Sunny held up the picture. Adam blushed and Martha laughed, Sunny looked at the next picture in the line, which seemed to be paired to the first, but now the small boy had a large bucket on his head, his feet sticking out from underneath. The bucket had holes in the side.

“What are you doing.”

Martha laughed again, “We were playing hide and seek.” Adam was still blushing madly as she continued, “He grew into his intelligence late in life.”

***

Martha walked slowly from the back room into the living room, “Ready or not here I come.”

The house was mostly quiet. The rest of her brood was out with their father on a hike for the day, but their littlest had woken up with a slight cough so she had decided to keep him home. He had spent the first half of the day lethargic, but around lunch time after some strawberries he had perked up and become  his usual exhausting self.

“Come out come out. I’m gonna get you.”

It was the giggling that gave him away, but when she turned to look she paused, sagged a bit and rolled her eyes covering her smile and laugh with a hand. The living room was completely clean, aside from a round laundry basket sitting dead in the middle, and two chubby little legs sticking out from under it. Not to mention that since it was a laundry basket it had holes in the side, and she could see him looking at her from inside.

She discreetly took a picture and quietly to herself Lord child i hope you grow into your brains soon

But instead of calling him out on his hiding spot she wandered around the room hands on hips, “Now where could he have gone…. Could he be under here?”

Giggling 

She kept up the pretence for the longest time until he seemed to have gotten tired of her charade. She heard the bucket tip over and he ran over on his stubby little legs grabbing her by the leg.

She acted surprised, “OH there you are!. I have been looking ALL over.”

He grinned and hugged her leg again.

She reached down and picked him up and he rested his head against her shoulder.

That was another thing about her youngest. He was VERY VERY cuddly, and she idly wondered what that would translate to when he got older. She patted his back and tried to fix his unruly blond hair which stuck up from all sides of his head, but it was no use, she sighed and gave up.

Oh well, she tried her best.

***

“You know honestly sometimes he is STILL as dumb as a pile of bricks.” Sunny mused setting the picture back down.

Adam rubbed the back of his neck, “I got my masters in aviation and orbital physics.””

“And yet who is the one who insists on putting strange alien plants in his mouth without knowing i they are safe or not.”

Martha frowned at her youngest.

He frowned back, “That is hardly fair, you eat them.”

“I also eat leaves, doesn’t mean you can too.”

She sifted through the pictures and barked a laugh at one that caught her eye, she picked it up, what are you doing. She turned the picture around, and Adam blushed madly. Martha laughed, “Oh yeah, we had to call the fire department for that one.”

“No, no no we are not going to be telling that story.”

A firefighter and a cop framed either side of the picture both giving exaggerated thumbs up with a young boy\ mabe seven or eight in the background stuck, backside first in a bucket of some sort, looking very embarrassed.

Martha grinned, “I think you were seven or eight maybe.”

“IT was Jeromy’s fault.”

****

“I dare you.”

The four boys and one girl stood  at the top of the hill staring down.

Maya, who was fifteen years old, older by five years than Jeremy who was eleven, frowned down the hill, “What if he runs into one of those trees.”

“He's got a thick skull, he’ll be ok.” Thomas said ruffling Adam’s hair viciously so the younger boy squirmed protested and ducked away. Adam was a very small boy, shorter than average and very thin. His clothes always seemed too big, his shirts baggy, and the shorts he was wearing were forced to stay on only by the belt his father had had to poke three more holes into to make it fit.

Even his sneakers seemed too big flopping around on his feet with floppy untied laces. 

“Who is even going to fit in that?” David asked.

Arguably the smartest of the three brothers, it hadn’t occurred to the others that none of them would fit.

That’s when all their heads turned to look at Adam.

Adam frowned, “But I don’t want to.”

“Chiken.” Thomas said 

“Come on your the only one small enough.” Jeremy urged.

“I see your chances of dying as very low, “ David interjected helpfully.

Maya tossed her braid back over one shoulder, “We should at least put some padding down at the bottom. Because if he gets hurt mom will kill me.”

Maya was technically supposed to be babysitting them, and keeping them out of trouble. But as was common with their family, she was not immune to the pull of a hair brained idea especially not when she was just to curious to see how it turned out.

Adam stomped his foot, “But you guys ALWAYS make me do it.”

“Because the buckets are ALWAYS too small for us, “Come on don’t be a chicken.”

Adam sighed and walked over to the barrel. He tired crawling inside it backwards, and when that didn’t work he attempted to go in face first, but every time he was just to tall.

He shook his head, “Too small.”

David looked at him very thoughtfully, and then an idea seemed to jump into his head.

“Not if we fold you in half.”

Adam frowned at him.

“Come on, hold the barrel upright.” The other boys did as told, while David instructed Adam to sit inside butt first.

Adam frowned, “But that doesn’t sound very comfortable, and how am I going to get out.”

“We will tip you out, don’t worry.”

Adam frowned but then allowed himself to slide down into the barrel. It was immediately very uncomfortable.

He wanted to tell them to pull him out but by that time he had been tipped over onto his side, “Ready?”

“No.”

They ignored him.

Adam was near panicking now, it wasn’t exactly easy to breathe.

“Three, two, one.”

And then the world was spinning around him. He rocked and bounced and spun so fast his eyes rolled inside his head. He screamed but the scream was cut off as he slammed painfully into something.

Dazed and sure he was going to vomit, he heard voices.

“Oh no, Adam!”

“Adam are you ok!”

Footsteps raced down the hill.

“Oh no we killed him!”

“Shut up He’s still alive, look.” Something kicked his foot, and he groaned.

He’s still breathing.

“Let him out.”

Something tugged on his feet. But it only managed to pull him and the barrel with it.

“Here you guys hold the bucket and we will pull him out.

Wat ensued was a horrible tug of war on his legs and on the bucket neither of which seemed to want to let go.

“STOP!”

They dropped his legs.

“Um, what if we tipped the bucket upside down?”

“Ok.”

The four of them tried really hard, and at one point almost succeeded until someone’s hand slipped and Adam crashed into the ground very painfully. He was near panic now, “Guys! Get me out of here.”

David patted his foot, “Its ok, ill get you out, ‘we just need science.”

Science turned out to be a  shoddy pulley system that went over the swing set and was designed to let them lift the bucket by way of rope and shake Adam out onto the ground.

The problem was the rope kept slipping off the bucket.

“Oh… no.”

A car rolled over gravel.

“Oh no, dad’s home.”

They heard a car door slammed shut, and Adam felt as the others hurriedly rolled him behind the swingset.

A door opened and the jangle of keys followed their father around the side of the house.

“There you all are, glad to see everyone is still in one piece, you didn’t burn the house down.”

“Nope.”

“Nope.”

There was sudden silence, “Where is Adam.”

“Uh, he…. He is us, around here somewhere.” Jeremy had always been bad at lying 

Their father turned his gaze on Maya, “Maya what is going on.”

“Uh…. nothing dad, we….”

“Don’t even try it….”

She sagged a bit, “We got Adam stuck in a barrel.”

There was a moment of silence, he heard the shifting of footsteps, “You got Adam stuck in a-” The light filtering into the barrel was cut off and he saw the silhouette of his father’s head, “Huh, you weren’t kidding. You are okay in their kiddo.”

His muffled reply came.

“Yeah…. I guess.”

Their dad grabbed the barrel by one end, tipped it over and shook Adam a few times. WHen nothing happened he gently set him back down, “Huh.”

“I hold and you pull his feet, “” They tried again but it didn’t work the second time either.

“Well, I have some tools in the garage.”

Adam began to panic as he thought of his dad's circular table saw.

“NO!”

“Ok ok.”

He heard his dad quiet for a minute and then, “Hey Joe, yeah this is Jim Vir….. doing good, and you, how about the family….. Glad to hear it….. Yeah anyway, my kids got my youngest boy stuck in a barrel like the geniuses they are, and I can’t seem to get him out. You want to send me a firefighter or two with something that can help….. Yeah thanks joe.”

Adam was relieved.

Of course as it turned out it was a slow day at both the police department AND the fire station, so what came rolling up was a motorcade of emergency vehicles. Adam was so embarrassed he wished he could melt through the barrel and into the ground as a group of cops and firefighters walked over to peer down at him from above.

“That looks comfortable.”

“How are you doing there son?”

There barrel was tipped back over, and he even saw his father sna a few pictures as the firefighters and police went to work surrounding the barrel. Of course since the entire towns emergency crew were here that drew curious neighbors who couldn’t help but laugh along with Jim at the antics of his children.

The wors part is when Martha showed up, and ran from the car scared out of her mind assuming something horrible had happened, only to find her husband laughing and taking pictures with the local emergency response team, and her youngest stuck in an oversized bucket.

At the end of the day they were forced to cut him out, but the sweet relief when he tipped onto the ground free at least was almost worth the embarrassment. He might not have thought that if he had known there was still a picture in both the police department and the fire station of him as a kid stuck in a barrel.

***

Sunny was laughing at him by the time Martha was done with her story.

He grimaced, “Why do you only keep finding the embarrassing pictures.

“Oh what is this,”

“What are you wearing?”

Adam covered his eyes.

“Oh yeah, I couldn’t get my other boys to wear it, but he would model anything for me when I needed it. This was when I was doing a commission for a Seventies themed party. Isn’t he adorable.”

“Is that a jumpsuit, and what is with those glasses.”

Adam looked up at the sky.

“And of course when Maya moved out, and I didn’t have the money for a mannequin….”

Sunny picked up another picture, “That is one big ass dress.”

“Ah yes the bell skirts, doesn’t he look nice.”

Adam grunted and cleared his throat, “I think you'll find corsets are surprisingly comfortable. Second of all, I rock the regency and victorian periods, and no one can tell me otherwise.”

He might as well own it.

This was the 41st century, dresses weren’t just for women anymore, and some of them had been quite comfortable.

They would never really be his style, but he could see  why someone else would find them appealing.

By this point both Sunny and martha had migrated to the couch where they looked through embarrassing pictures of him as a baby and shared embarrassing stories. Sometimes gross stories as he sat on the other side of the room and suffered silently. Sunny seemed to be enjoying herself though, so he let it slide.

Seeing her happy was nice, since it hadn’t been very common over the past few months.

He blamed himself for that, and wondered idly how long it would take for her to fully forgive him.

He hoped not long.

[cybernaght]

Guardian rewatch: Episode 3

First of all, wow. When I decided to post those online, I was expecting that they would be read by two people, both of whom I personally know. It was in equal part surprising and terrifying that so many of you ventured here. Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it. 

Episode 3 is probably my favourite case. It’s not perfectly strung together, there is little actual investigative work in it, but it’s a beautiful story of boundless love and devotion, which echoes through the relationship between our protagonists

Professor Shen is looking at some materials that are looking suspiciously like research into something supernatural, when Zhang Ruonan makes an appearance at his office, claiming that she is absolutely fine, while clearly being very far away from fine. This is something Shen Wei can certainly relate to, because he is the king of hiding his ailments from others. 

Zhu Hong’s one-sided affection for Zhao Yunlan starts to show already in this episode:  while he has the cold, she nags him to take care of himself, shoves tissues into his hands, and presses him to drink his meds. It’s easy to imagine even this early on that she will be the woman drunk dialling him one day. 

I know this could be seen as straightbaiting, but I honestly thing that the actual purpose it serves in the show is the opposite; I’ll talk more about it when we get there.

Zhao Yunlan spends a lot of this episode in Shen Wei’s office, starting with this scene, in which is obviously flexing. Not only does he sneeze all over the office, he goes to eat Shen Wei’s cake after specifically being told not to eat it.  He also takes his opportunity to mix questioning with flirting, as is his usual way. He keeps eye contact while spooning cake into his mouth, as he explains, jovially, that another mysterious death on his campus cannot possibly be a coincidence. And, to be fair, he is not really wrong. We are meant to believe that this is all set in motion by Zhu Jiu, aka the least scary villain in the history of villainy, and an owner of your staple baby goth wig. I will not mention him again until the plot makes it impossible for me not to do so. 

Zhang Ruonan comes in, and Zhao Yunlan introduces himself as Shen Wei’s good friend. Which is half-way between a flex and an act of kindness. On one hand, he could have said he was from the police - which would be absolutely true - and risk tarnishing the professor’s good name. On the other hand, he could probably look less pleased with himself. Shen Wei, at the very least, looks neither grateful, nor amused. 

Zhao Yunlan asks her if she new the victim and she looks incredibly shifty as she flees. He is right to think that something is up, and he correctly assumes trauma, rather than guilt. We can now start to see that he is very very good at reading people. It must be equal parts thrilling and disconcerting for him to have met something who he decisively cannot read. Shen Wei vouches for the woman, partly, surely, because his Hei Pao Shi sense is tingling, letting him know that someone is eavesdropping. 

Despite feeling uneasy, Shen Wei still offers Guo Changcheng, who is left to collect various paperwork from his desk, a little smile. He has a reason to like Xiao Guo, of course: he was the one to see the young man’s kindness and understanding, and he is already growing protective of him, way before he will start seeing members of the special unit as his people. This reminds me of how many months later, he will subtly, but decisively stop a barrage of verbal abuse against Xiao Guo by dropping a pair of chopsticks. 

Zhao Yunlan is taking Xiao Guo with him on the case rather than anyone else, partly, supposedly, because of Guo Changcheng’s familial connections. The young man looks more sure of himself, asking correct questions, dutifully records answers. He also tries to look after his Chief by asking him to go home and rest. He does phrase it badly, but Zhao Yunlan has a thing against his own health and well-being, so he reacts extra poorly.

Soon after, Zhao Yunlan’s at Shen Wei’s office yet again, as Shen Wei tries his best to ignore him, in the hope that he… well, maybe not goes away, but does not ask him anything that will require him lying. Instead, Zhao Yunlan is asking Shen Wei why he is bad at reading people, which is a very strange thing to ask. Shen Wei answers his question with a question, “Will seeing through people really lessen the hurt and disappointment?” Adding, “Many tragedies were destined from the beginning”. He looks well.. like this as he says it. 

This is loaded. On first glance, it’s a pretty good set-up to the way this story will unfold, as a tragedy of two individuals who let their devotion to each other nearly ruin each other’s life. A fragile human and a dangerous powered Undergroundian: what else is that, but a tragedy, waiting to happen? But this story - this one right in front of us - will not end tragically, at least not for the two people it enters around. It could do so, but it will not. Maybe, this truly is the first hint that this entire narrative, so carefully set up from the very first time Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei meet, is destined to be a tragedy. Moreover, that it must be one, for some cosmic reason. 

(… I apologise while I go have a little cry in the corner. Damn you, Guardian, why do you make me hurt so much?)

Da Qing inexplicably morphs from black cat to a human in white t-shirt while doing night shadowing, and promptly falls asleep on patrol. Why is he being sent to stake anyone out? He is least suitable for it.  He is literally a cat. He sleeps 16 hours a day. 

Surprisingly, when pressed, Zhang Ruonan comes clean very easily, revealing that she was a victim of the three students she failed (two of which are already dead and one one standing right next to them), who lured her out at night, which left her vulnerable to be attacked. Zhao Yunlan listens to this story, and instead of… oh I don’t know, perhaps asking her the identity of the third student, leaves to go find that out for himself. It is heavily implied that he does it on purpose, which is definitely not okay.  

Moreover, he goes and... asks Shen Wei. This makes me suspect that he’s not really thinking with his head at this point. As he does so, he is brandishing a letter opener. 

Shen Wei is looking even less impressed with him than he did during their last few conversations. 

Zhao Yunlan is a little bit flippant when it comes to students’ lives this episode. And yes, they have done something really quite horrible to another human being, but that's not a very good excuse to let the last of them just die. As it happens, the situation Yunlan created - perhaps on purpose - did lure out Zhao Ruonan’s murder girlfriend, but it also cost a student his life. Which is far from ideal, but is somehow never even mentioned. Instead of being aghast, he sits on the table as he goes into full interrogation mode. (As he will continue to do a lot. Sometimes he crouches on tables instead. There is no further point here, apart from: I like this character quirk. It’s a nice character quirk.)

He brings some of his team in at this point, and asks Zhu Hong to continue interrogation. It would be a nice gesture is he did not interject two questions in. 

“How do you regard your relationship with Wang Yike?”

“We are family.”

They are definitely, decisively not going for sisterly bond here. Which is kind of incredible. This is one of the moments the amorphous being that show is looks at the censors, wiggles its battered low budget eyebrows at them, and then proceeds to flip them off. Well done, Guardian. 

Wang Yike calls Zhang Ruonan, saying there is one more victim she needs to take care of, and Lin Jing traces the call back to campus. Zhao Yunlan, who did not even bat an eyelid at a dead student earlier, now looks decisively worried  

“Oh no. Professor Shen.” 

The only reason Shen Wei is attacked is jealousy. Wang Yike does not know this of course, but trying to kill him is a bad move, because a) he has long ago given his heart away, and is definitely not interested; b) this is probably the only thing she could do to make the man on the case very very upset; c) Shen Wei’s immune to her powers. 

“Someone like you will never understand what she means to me!” Wang Yike shouts eventually. “As long as I can protect her, my life has worth!” And, even as Wang Yike has no way of knowing it, these are the words that ultimately save both her and her loved one. Because Shen Wei does in fact understand what Zhang Ruonan means to her. His own endless and ultimately self-destructive devotion is his main driving force.

Shen Wei pretends to be hurt, again, which earns him a half-hug from the object of his devotion. If Zhao Yunlan does notice that Shen Wei should really come out of this attack grey haired and dead, and not just mildly inconvenienced, he chooses not to say anything. 

Worried about her murder girlfriend, Zhang Ruonan rushes in and accidentally touches her. Zhao Yunlan Freaks The Hell Out. Shen Wei does, too, but in his own, reserved, way. They are both emotionally invested in those two people, although for very different reasons: Shen Wei is acutely feeling resonance of his own past in their story, and Zhao Yunlan, I think, wants to fix it, he wants to be able to make it better. Instead, Shen Wei fixes it for him, turning the tide on this tragedy, and giving it a happy ending. He heals Zhang Ruonan right in front of the officers of SID, albeit with much subtlety. (“Have someone saved her right under our noses?” Zhu Hong will snort the very same evening, and she will be 100% correct.)

Shen Wei also lets Wang Yike go despite the undeniable fact that she did kill three people. Here, he is looking at the picture of this human/Undergroundian couple, surviving despite all odds, and touches his only reminder that Kunlun really was in his life. 

He then burns the picture as the only evidence that Wang Yike was not punished by him for her crimes. 

In the end, Guo Chengcheng is making first of his many diary notes about the events, recounting a conversation between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan we had not witnessed, in which Shen Wei mentioned a relationship based on devotion that can last a thousand years, and Zhao Yunlan called such a relationship “guarding”. Finally, Guo Changcheng hopes that he can become a guardian of all. 

And this is making me think that this absolutely should be a set-up for him becoming a wick of the guardian lantern, as per every single other decision that was made prior to the last two episodes. Right? This is a perfect foreshadowing, and mentioning it here, so early in the show would not make any sense if it were a deliberate subversion. So, was Guo Changcheng meant to become the wick after all before... what, some rewrites happened? What made the final episode be what it was in the end?

(This is a genuine question by that way, if anyone has any insight on the matter.)

The episode would end here, if this was a western show, with a familiar monster of the week structure, but it does not. At least, the way it ends is reminiscent of a cliffhanger, with Zhao Yunlan catching Shen Wei in a middle of a crime scene, and looking betrayed. 

Next episode: Lynchian Nightmare, aka people without faces. 

PS.

I did not have a seamless way to stick this in anywhere but... Shen Wei’s technological ineptness at the max: he does not know how to use a Polaroid camera. Help him, he is so lost.

——

Second point of housekeeping to say a few things: 

I don’t think I will be consistent with certain things being transliterated versus translated. I am more likely to use Hei Pao Shi rather than Black Cloak Envoy (because the later reminds me of Tuxedo Mask, which makes me inwardly giggle every time) but at the same time I am also more likely to use Underground/Undergroundian rather than Dixing/Dixingren. I am more likely to use Xiao rather than Little, but have called Chu Old rather than Lao before. I hope that’s not grating, but do tell me if it is

My recaps are Shen Wei-heavy. I have no real explanation for this, apart from.. I like Shen Wei. 

I realise that there will definitely be things here that are head canon and speculation rather than flat observations; this show is a work of fiction and a work of art, which cannot be interpreted objectively. If you have alternate takes on anything I write in the future, let me know! 

#guardian #shen wei #zhan yunlan #recap #rewatch #I still don't know how to tag

[lov3nerdstuff]

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 5.8}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 5.3k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

They came to stand in the middle of the bridge where the wind was whipping around them in icy streams relentlessly, clawing at Robin's skin and making her eyes water as she leaned on her forearms on the railing to look down into the black ravine beneath. It was scary out here indeed, even more so when the wooden construction swayed under the wind's rapid beating.

Robin looked up from the dark for a moment, and instead let her eyes lock with his as she motioned for him to come over to the edge as well. For a second he stayed frozen to the spot right in the middle of the path, safe between the railings, but then he moved to stand next to Robin as her gaze had undoubtedly commanded him to. A mere step away, he mirrored her stance and they looked down into the blackness together.

"Have you ever considered jumping?" Robin eventually asked without a hint of reluctance. He knew how weird her mind could be, at least to a point where the question shouldn't surprise him anymore. "I mean… do you ever hear that calling? From the bottom of the abyss?"

"All the time."

"The allure of the fall, and the promise that comes with it… It's quite tempting, is it not?"

"It shouldn't be. Not to you." His words touched Robin in a way she couldn't explain, and instinctively her eyes returned to the man next to her with the soaring of her heart.

"It shouldn't be to you either. But obviously we don't have that choice." She said, and for a moment observed with a strange fascination how the wind blew his hair around his face like raging black rivers on a bed of white.

"Most people couldn't handle a choice like that."

"To me, the temptation is so much more frightening than the height or the darkness." Robin sighed. "It's ironic… the scariest things are always just a product of one's own mind."

"I agree. Sometimes what we aren't afraid of what is, but of what could be. What we could do, and sometimes even what we want to do. The human mind is the most dangerous place of all."

"Exactly." Robin said with both a smile and a huff, but the grim look on his face dwindled her excitement in an instant. Maybe it was time for a subtle change of topic. "I haven't actually answered your question from before."

"I am aware."

"Would you still like to know?"

"Obviously."

"Alright…" Robin sighed under her breath, and focused on one single star in the nightsky as she considered her words. "I can truthfully tell you that I am happy with the work we do, and I'm happiest right where I am."

"Good."

"What about you?" She turned her head to look at Snape once more, directing the inquiry at him and not the night, but she would have been met by black eyes that seemed to look straight into her soul either way. "Are you happy?"

For a long moment he didn't reply at all. He merely held her gaze in a way that made him seem impossibly close to everything Robin tried to hide, while however he was still standing at the perfectly imperfect distance of one large step away. But like a piece of music, his silence created the distance that the unspoken words behind his eyes pulled her through in a chase of an everfleeting melody. Robin's heart was racing; a sharp contrast to her easy facade that became harder to keep up by the second.

"I am closer to happiness than I have been in a long time. Longer than I care to remember." He finally replied, and the statement was both positive and heartbreaking at once. Robin wanted him to be happy, truly. Not just close to it. But she realized that there likely was nothing she could do about that.

"Well, I'm sure you're gonna be even closer to it later, when you can finally get rid of that insufferable person who keeps dragging you out into the cold every new year's eve." She tried to joke instead, actually having to smile at her own sense of humor, thus also smiling at him.

"I doubt that." He replied though, and averted his eyes to peer back out into the distance. "It will rather be a momentary setback."

Robin's small smile widened inevitably, radiantly taking over her entire face, but she just couldn't help it. Hearing that her presence at least was preferable to him than being alone was enough to make her skin tingle, and her heart boast in her own happiness. Maybe if he thought like that, they really could be friends somehow. Maybe they already were.

"Quit smiling like a fool, you make me regret saying something nice." He grumbled a short moment later, still staring out into the dark, and Robin finally cracked. With her laughter, the entire tension fled into the open night as well, and it left her feeling finally at peace.

"Well, I'm not going to stop. And you better don't regret it either, because it actually made me happy." She grinned up at him in the utmost certainty that he wasn't even annoyed with her for real. "So just get over yourself, will you?"

As an answer he merely turned his head just enough to glare down at Robin, and she had to grin even more as she turned to look ahead now instead. The view really was spectacular, he hadn't promised too much last year. Even if the swaying of the bridge was fairly distracting, and the cold bit horribly into the exposed skin of her face and hands. But it was beautiful just like that, loud from the wind and silent from the night, cold from winter and warm from Snape's presence next to her.

It couldn't be long now. Minutes, or just seconds until the year would end. And once again they would greet the new year with comfortable, companionable silence. But this time there were no arches, no columns or masses of stone between them that would give either the illusion of solitude. This time, when a year ended and a new one started, when the sound of fireworks could barely be heard over the wind, they stood on the bridge together.

"Happy new year…" Robin finally spoke up, once the silence had surrendered to her will. "Or at least one that is a bit closer to happy, if that isn't entirely impossible."

"I stopped using the word impossible when I met you."

"Then I will be sure to challenge you another step closer to happiness." Robin smirked, and turned around to lean her back against the railing.

"Please don't." He sighed and rolled his eyes in the typical exaggerated manner as he stepped back from the railing as well, coming to stand in the middle of the path in front of Robin instead.

"I most definitely will." She smiled innocently but brightly, and while she had no idea how she could do that, she was absolutely determined that she would indeed.

"If you insist." He sighed and motioned for her to come along back to the castle. As they walked next to each other through the dark, he added, "You could always start by making me coffee when we are back in the dungeons."

Robin let out a snort, then chuckled to herself, and at last nodded with a sigh and a smile. "If that's what it takes, I'll gladly make you coffee for the rest of the year as well."

"Tonight should be quite enough."

"How gracious of you."

"Why, pray tell, do you have to sass me at any given opportunity?"

"Someone's got to do it." Robin shrugged with a smirk, as they crossed the courtyard where it was actually quite a bit warmer than it had been out on the bridge. Maybe they would better stay in here again next year… but perhaps without all the columns between them.

"You still are truly insufferable!" He grumbled, but his hand returned to the small of her back at almost the same time nonetheless.

"It's a new year, not a new reality. What did you expect?" She raised her eyebrows with a laugh, and gladly let herself be led towards the dungeons once more.

"Of you? Absolutely nothing less."

_______________

For Snape's birthday, Robin had actually come up with three little things that she'd hoped wouldn't make him as uncomfortable in a combination as just giving him one obvious gift straight up. For one, she had throughout the day done her utmost to keep people from bothering him. That had basically entailed sitting around in the hallway in front of his office all day and keeping everyone from entering unless they had a really good reason to. An issue that Robin couldn't take care of herself. Thus she did a good amount of his work, but without his knowledge of course. Only in the evening, when she had 'randomly' brought chocolate cake to have with the usual coffee, she had admitted that she'd seen to it that he had a quiet day. However she only had told him because he had actually been concerned about the absence of the usual idiots throughout the day, and she'd felt bad to be the reason for his concern.

The third and last thing she wanted to give to him now was an actual gift, and she had been looking forward to this part of the present the entire day. With a mischievous smile, she placed a small jar on the table in front of him, which held nothing but a single golden pearl inside. He stared at the object for a few seconds with that intensely burning gaze, then directed the very same at Robin.

"What is this?" His tone was unusually shallow, and at the same time his eyes spoke volumes to her, in an entirely different language.

"What does it look like?" Robin asked in return, calm to the core, for she had come somewhat prepared for a reaction like this. It was rather understandable, actually, if not even very much reasonable. "It's my gift to you."

"You cannot seriously expect me to accept this."

"Whyever not?"

"Do you have any idea how rare these pearls are?"

"Of course I do." She shrugged with a smile. "That's why I'm giving it to you in the first place. There would be fairly little use in me giving you something you already possess, and as far as I'm aware, you didn't have any Alteria pearls. Until now."

"If you could come by this, it cannot be authentic." He reasoned to himself with a frown, and at last picked up the small jar with a careful touch to inspect the object inside. "These cost more than I could ever afford, and I actually get paid fairly well. Occasionally."

"It is as real as they get, I can promise you that. But if you don't believe me, you can always check for yourself."

"How can you promise something like that?"

"Because I know where I got it." Robin sighed, but her smile stayed. Maybe he would stop doubting her if she told him how she had acquired it indeed, but that would also kind of take away her own fun in his incredulous expression.

"You cannot give this to me, Robin, no matter where you bought it. It isn't a gift, but a fortune."

"Value is such a stupid concept." She rolled her eyes at him and leaned back in her chair. "This pearl in itself means nothing to me, I could toss it out of the astronomy tower without a second thought and very likely get me another within a day. But it means a lot to you, obviously, and to me that is where it gets its only value. It's only valuable if you keep it, and if it means something to you."

"You have a strange concept of value yourself." He said, but he couldn't beat Robin's arguments. "If you truly want me to consider keeping it, tell me who sold it to you, and how you could convince them to do so."

"I will tell you anything you want to know, but after that you will keep it, as my gift to you, without remorse, yes?"

"We will have to see about the remorse, but if it means so much to you then yes, I will keep it." A pause. "...Just so you stop bugging me."

"Thank you!" Robin rolled her eyes in exaggeration at his late comply, before she sat up straight once more to start explaining with a sigh. "Alright… First of all, you should know that I agree with you of course. Alteria pearls are extremely expensive if you try to buy them, and I am not crazy or rich enough to do that. Or stupid enough, for that matter. It would truly be a waste of money."

"Consider me confused, then."

"It's not at all confusing, actually, it just seems that something very basic escaped your notice for once. Now, before you get all scolding with me, it isn't a mistake, but more of a… negligence of alternatives."

"And your point is?"

"My point is that everyone tries to find a place to buy the ingredients they need, whether that be plants or animals or something like Alteria pearls. People are always looking for the place to buy it cheapest, or to buy it at all. What everyone, including you, seems to forget however is that finding the ingredients by yourself isn't actually all that difficult if you know where to look. I mean sure, there is the school gardens and the greenhouse, or even Hagrid's creatures, but do you ever go out beyond that to find the ingredients you usually would buy?"

"No… As a matter of fact, I do not." He replied with a mild frown that made him seem almost surprised at the realization. Probably he really hadn't considered doing something like that before. Robin smiled at him in silence while he seemed to think it through.

"Obviously not all ingredients can be tracked down without a trip around the world, but you can come by a surprising amount if you put a little time and effort into it." She went on to explain. "What I mean to say is that I didn't buy the pearl. I merely tracked it down for you. Sometimes knowledge is more valuable than money."

"No matter what I believe to know about you, you always manage to surprise me." He finally mused, with the faintest of smiles, as he twisted the small jar with the pearl in his hand. "Thank you for this gift."

"You are most welcome."

"Will you tell me how you found an actual Alteria pearl without leaving the school grounds? I am curious to know." He inquired with a real smile for once, a small one, but it was most definitely there. Robin's heart melted into mushy tingles once again.

"It takes away the entire mystery, but oh well…" She sighed with a mirroring smile and leaned forward as she started to explain. "I bargained with the Merpeople. Legilimency is actually a pretty good form of communication, and while I'm by no means actually good at it, it sufficed to tell them what I wanted and what I could offer in return."

"How did you even get to that point?"

"Plain old research. I'm actually surprisingly good at that." She laughed and brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear, only for it to immediately untug itself again. "I read that Alteria pearls grow in some weird kind of oyster. It's black and has blue hair on the shell… looks beyond creepy, if you ask me. I still have it somewhere if you would like to see it, but it's rather useless. The condition under which they grow are very similar to the conditions in the deep parts of the black lake, so I thought my chances were good. I figured that the fastest way to find one was to ask the folks who live there. I've had my share of experience in trading though and thus I looked up something that the Merpeople might actually be interested in in return for their assistance."

"And what did you offer them?"

"Music." Robin shrugged with a smile. "I shared a few memories of music I love, and what that music felt like to me. They love music, sirens and selkies and their whole kin."

"I never would have thought of that."

"Well, I never would've thought of cutting something up instead of squeezing it out, or of heating something up before adding it to a potion to keep the temperature steady; all those little things to make the recipe better." She replied with a smile. "Would be pretty dull if everyone was good at the same thing, wouldn't it?"

"It certainly would be less productive for our work." He mused, and then looked at his empty cup in front of him with a risen eyebrow. "More importantly, it would be a shame if my ability to make coffee was as mediocre as yours."

"Sneaky…" Robin chuckled, but already picked up their cups from the table. "But I'll play along and do you the favor to make you coffee to prove how 'mediocre' my skills really are."

"Do feel free to prove me wrong."

"Oh, I will for sure."

_______________

One of the most dreaded things in the fifth year at Hogwarts –besides the inevitable OWLs– was 'the talk', as generations of students had called the career advice meeting that took place around the end of April. It was obviously supposed to show the students possibilities for what they could strive for after school, and which N.E.W.T. classes they would need to take to have a chance at getting into their chosen career path. Mostly, the students dreaded this conversation, for it entailed talk about grades and the future. Two topics most people at 15 or 16 weren't all too fond of.

As Robin discovered, the professors weren't all too fond of the talk either. At least one certain potions professor seemed to be dreading it quite as much as his students, and he made no secret of that fact either. Not in front of Robin at least, and she appreciated his honesty as always, even if she could do fairly little but listen to his complaints about her classmates over coffee on the night before the endless row of conversations would take place. What she could do and did do, however, was to offer that he could skip out on her own career advice session that was planned for late noon and use the time for a break instead. They could always talk about it after dinner over coffee, after all.

To Robin's surprise he actually deemed the suggestion a good idea and took her up on the offer, which unfortunately meant that Robin had to attend classes for the entire day, while most of the other students could skip out on at least fifteen minutes of classtime themselves. It was a terribly slow day, and Robin was only glad once it was time for dinner. During the meal, the career advice talks were the number one topic of conversation in every house, even among the lower years who listened curiously, and the higher years who shared their own experiences from the years prior. Robin shrugged most of it off and tried to tell herself that it wasn't a big deal, but she honestly dreaded talking about her future like it was some predictable certainty, something she could actually look forward to.

As it turned out, Robin's 'talk' started just like any other conversation she and Snape had every single night anyway. She made them coffee, mainly because he was looking so annoyed with the entire world already that she took pity on him, and they sat in his office at the small table just like they always did these days.

"So tell me, do you have an idea for what you would like to do after school?" He inquired with a risen eyebrow, and took a sip of his too hot coffee, only to scowl at it a second later.

"Not really. I don't see the point in deciding on something now only to change my mind later. I'll find something when the time comes."

"I'm certain you will."

"Is that how this conversation is supposed to go?" Robin asked with a humored frown, and crossed her arms on the edge of the table as she leaned forward.

"No. But I see no point in telling you what to do, for you will ignore it anyway and do what you yourself deem best."

"Well, what if I don't know that's best?" Her frown lost a bit of the humor in it. "What if I end up homeless under some bridge because I'm not good enough for anything?"

"Are you asking me or yourself?"

"Nevermind." She grumbled and leaned back in her chair with a start. One brain cell less, and she would've started pouting. He had a point.

"Going by your grades, you indeed are more than good enough at everything you do."

"That doesn't count."

"No?" He quipped, eyebrows raised in feigned surprise, as he went to recite by memory. "Exceeds Expectations in Astronomy, History of Magic and Divination; Outstanding in Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures and quite obviously Potions… That does not count for you?"

"You forgot the Acceptable in Defense Against the Dark Arts." Robin mumbled to herself and stared down at her hands in her lap. Yeah, after the incident with the petrification, Morgan had actually dropped her an entire grade without any good reason. That arse…

"That is hardly your fault and you know it as well as I do." Snape said in an almost scolding manner that obviously did nothing to cheer Robin up. "Is it really so hard for you to be proud of your other grades merely because one isn't perfect?"

"Obviously. But I don't expect you to understand that."

"I believe I do though. Professor Morgan's unfair treatment of you doesn't pass by me without an equal seeping rage."

"But that's not even the point!" Robin groaned under breath, then sighed. "Sorry. Of course I'm angry about Morgan's idiocracy."

"But?"

"But I'm also angry because I don't have perfect grades in every subject. It probably sounds pathetic to you, especially because it doesn't actually matter for anything. I know that the OWLs will make up most of the final grade."

"Then why does it matter so much to you?"

"Because…" She stopped, thought, but still didn't know how to convey what she was thinking. Feeling. "It doesn't matter why it matters."

"To me it does, if it upsets you." He said, and the statement had Robin's heart skip a beat once more. Great… he was getting too good at making her tell him things without actually demanding it of her. It was unfair, when he used kindness to disarm her, and left Robin entirely defenseless.

"If I'm not perfect, I'm not good enough." She sighed, but couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye. "I define myself over my grades and it's stupid and pathetic and still I do it. When I'm not perfect, I'm nothing."

"Do you actually believe that?"

"I don't believe it, I'm not stupid enough to want to think something like that. I just… feel it." She shrugged, and picked at the corner of the table with her fingernail. "I always have."

For a moment, it was quiet. Snape didn't say a single word, until Robin finally gave in and looked up to meet his eye. "I am surprised."

"By what?" She asked right back, surprised herself that he didn't straight out tell her how stupid that was indeed.

"You give yourself so confident, and yet you tell me that you think so little of yourself." A pause, a shared glance, a million things unspoken but one. "I had no idea that you were so ridden by self-doubt."

"Sorry to disappoint." Her voice was but a whisper, her tone cold as ice as her gaze dropped back down to the black liquid in her cup. After a moment, it blurred together with the rest of the table, and then the entire thing was washed away by tears at last.

"You are disappointing no one but yourself." Snape finally said. "And you are prone to keep doing so if you measure yourself by impossible standards."

"You were the one who told me to be better! What did you think would happen?!"

"I expected you to push yourself, yes!" He snapped back with an irritated expression. "But you cannot blame this on me. I never wanted you to be perfect."

"Good for you, because I only would have disappointed you in that as well."

"As well as in what?"

"I don't know! Everything?!" She huffed and rolled her eyes to herself. "I may be quite good at school, alright, but what else is there to be proud of?! I'm terrible at dealing with people, nobody in my grade even talks to me anymore, and I'm probably the worst Slytherin there ever was! I'm nothing like the other people in this house! The stupid hat probably made a mistake by putting me here in the first place."

"You are right. You are nothing of what the general public expects of people in Slytherin. They are supposed to be lazy and irresponsible, arrogant, ignorant and most of all, so very proud of their heritage that they dismiss every thought of being just as flawed as everyone else."

"Thank you for summarizing it so very eloquently." Robin huffed again, but the general unease she felt just wouldn't make way for brighter thoughts.

"That however does not mean that you do not belong in this house." He simply ignored her comment and went on with a pointed look at her instead. "You are intelligent, resourceful, ridiculously loyal to those you deem worthy of it, and determined to reach any and every goal you set for yourself. And if that loyalty, ambition and passion of yours aren't some of the core principles of Slytherin, I would be ashamed to be the head of a house that values those qualities less than egotism and pride."

"Maybe. It doesn't matter." Robin said, even though she didn't believe her own words. Everything he said mattered to her, and especially if it was something that made her heart soar like that. But her brain was stuck in a downward spiral that it would take more to escape from than this.

"Then what does matter? Can you tell me that?" He sighed and leaned back in his chair in what looked a whole lot like defeat. Was he truly giving up on her already?

"No." Robin whispered, and her eyes filled with tears again, simply because of how pathetically annoying she was being. "I'm sorry… maybe I should just go."

"Don't even think that I would let you leave like that." He was quick to reply, and Robin slumped back down in her chair before she'd even gotten the chance to get up.

"Because we haven't finished the talk yet?" She asked with a sigh, and went back to picking at the edge of the table.

"Because you clearly are upset, and I have every intention to change that before I let you leave." He said, and Robin actually had to smile a little at his words. However when he got up from his chair, her eyes followed him to the door with a frown. "I will be back in a moment. You should use the time to think about what it really is that troubles you so much. Then perhaps we can solve the issue when I return."

"Where are you going?"

"You will see." With that, he closed the door behind himself and left Robin alone in the office.

A few minutes later, or more like a good while later, he returned and Robin immediately had to smile. He had brought chocolate cake.

"Have you thought about what the real problem is?" Snape finally asked, as they were both chipping off pieces of the cake that he'd placed in the middle of the table between them.

"I'm probably just having a bad day. Somehow, everything makes me nervous and then I say something wrong and then I get angry with myself… And then there's the whole career advice thing on top."

"I believe the cake might be a start on the generally bad day, but you will have to elaborate on what concerns you about the career advice if I shall be of any help to you."

"Alright…" Robin sighed, then finally looked up from the intricately decorated cake fork in her hand. "The whole 'talking about the future' thing is giving me anxiety. I mean, I do have good grades now, but I'm just so scared of failing when it actually comes to something important. And talking about OWLs and N.E.W.T. classes and careers is important enough to panic over. I just try to spare myself the disappointment of making plans and then finding out that I'm not good enough for any of them."

"That is reasonable and yet ridiculous. You haven't ever failed any classes before, not even a single essay in my class, which is remarkable enough on its own… What makes you believe that you might fail now?"

"Nothing in particular. It might be general anxiety, or just my own pessimism. Everyone is scared to fail though, so maybe I'm just being dramatic. Maybe I care too much about being better than everyone else."

"It might surprise you, but not nearly everyone cares about their work and their future as much as you do. Not nearly everyone has the capacity to care so deeply about anything at all, actually."

"Are you saying that it's a good thing that I panic over possibly screwing up my future?"

"Not necessarily a good thing, but it certainly makes you who you are. People are shallow, and you are the very opposite. I for my part have always had quite a distaste for shallow people. So you might actually consider your ways a good thing, yes." He stated, and waited for her to look at him before he continued. "You have absolutely no reason to be concerned, Robin. Your grades would make anyone go green with envy and I have no doubt that your OWLs will look even better than your current record. If you do not believe your own success up to this point, then perhaps you can at least believe me. And I am absolutely certain that you will achieve anything you set your mind to."

Robin's lips curled into a smile, and she found that she had to believe him no matter what. She wanted to believe him. Maybe worrying too much was a disadvantage she would have to live with if it meant she was granted to have passion in return. And oh, she had so much to be passionate about. So much to care about. Maybe she should pick out some N.E.W.T. classes indeed.

"Perhaps we should start over." He said after a moment, and sat up straighter in his chair. "Do you have an idea what you would like to do after school?"

"I'm always open for suggestions." Robin smiled in return, and her heart did that silly thing again where it probably could be heard in the entire room. "All I know is that I want to do something with potions. And study ingredients."

"Why am I not even remotely surprised?"

______________________________

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[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

This is a bit random but if characters from your fics lived in the Atla universe what element would they bend? Personally I think Lily would still have all her powers which would result in people thinking she's the avatar even though she's not, Obito would be a firebender, Minato an airbender and Lenin dearest would be a waterbender/bloodbender/maybe the avatar?. This is just the vibe I get tho-

Who needs bullet points when we can do a far too thought out AU that spans multiple fandoms/recursive works that will never happen? 

More to the point, elements in AtLA is a mix of personality (we see earth benders as often brash and stubborn, water benders as adaptive, etc.) but also simply genetics. So, while I get that’s kind of the point of this post, it’s a bit weird to me to assign an element solely on personality. 

So with that, let’s get started.

The Setting

Just to make things fun let’s make our AU take place sometime between Sozin’s first comet and Roku’s death and Aang awakening from that iceberg. The air benders have been wiped out, seemingly with no survivors, the South Pole has been invaded and the water benders from there captured and brought back to the Fire Nation, many of the colonies in the Earth Kingdom have been established, but the North Pole and great cities in the Earth Kingdom still stand.

The Avatar hasn’t been missing for one-hundred years yet, but he’s been missing for decades and people are coming around to the idea that maybe he’s really not going to show up. 

Wizard Lenin/Tom Riddle

In this AU we’ll give Tom Riddle a slightly more traditional shitty background. Since we can’t really have a Tom in the AtLA universe he’s going to have the AtLA generic equivalent name that canon even jokes about: Lee. Lee is the mixed heritage son of a Fire Nation lord and a water bender from the south pole who grows up in a Fire Nation orphanage. And yes, this does happen in the absolute worst way you can possibly imagine, one of the imprisoned water benders from the south pole is raped.

As for Tom (Lee, you get the idea) arriving at an orphanage instead of being imprisoned/taken in as a son, well I’ll leave that to imagination but we can imagine a relatively compassionate guard, a dash of luck, or perhaps someone being an idiot and thinking “oh just dump it in an orphanage, there’s no way it will turn into a water bender too”

So, Tom grows up in an orphanage and looks just a bit... different from everyone else and is clearly not purely from the fire nation. I’m imagining much darker skin (and POC Tom Riddle is the weirdest thing in the world to contemplate, but here we are) and the pale blue eyes.

Tom grows up, dreaming probably of entering the military and winning himself glory, prestige, honor, and clawing out of this impoverished life he was born into. He undoubtedly desperately hopes he’s a fire bender, as not only is it cool but they have the best chance of making it in the world, and probably stays up late for many nights fruitlessly attempting to shoot fire out of his hands.

Unfortunately for Tom, sometime when he’s probably around eight or so, turns out he’s actually a water bender. Naturally, Tom has a huge meltdown and existential crisis as this means something’s terribly terribly wrong. More, all his hopes are ruined, as while a non-bender can make it a bender who is not a fire bender is a foreigner and traitor to the state.

Tom runs away and being a precocious child is able to make it on his own and about the country probably pulling off Toph-like scams. Eventually he runs into a much younger Hama who has just escaped prison and not yet started on her scary old lady adventures of imprisoning random villagers in caves. Hama goes, “of course, yes my child, I knew your mother” and gives Tom the whole horrible rape tale along with “I will teach you everything I know including my scary blood bending”. So Tom learns scary blood bending, probably stays with Hama a few years, and then realizes Hama isn’t going anywhere.

Hama’s content kidnapping random people into caves. At this point, angry and suddenly very pro-water bender Tom wants to murder the Fire Lord and his entire goddamn family and put himself in charge. Go big or go home, am I right?

So Tom leaves, Hama probably saying, “Come back any time, my beautiful murder child” and probably goes exploring the world in search of how the hell he’s going to bring down the Fire Lord. He also probably murders his entire father’s family and steals all his money, but that’s a different story. I imagine he goes to the North Pole where he learns that, as much of a water bender as he is, that he’s the son of someone from the Fire Nation closes pretty much every door to him. He’ll always be an outsider and the North Pole is very frosty towards him.

According to Hama, the South Pole is in shambles, so Tom probably doesn’t even bother going. 

So Tom probably goes and bums around the Earth Kingdom, loitering in Ba Sing Se and Omashu, looking for that damned Spirit Library in the desert, etc. for a good number of years as he works to perfect his water bending and make himself an instrument of death.

And then he meets an alien and everything changes.

Lily

Tom probably manages to wander around the spirit world at one point in his late teens and probably almost gets eaten by something terrifying. While he learns much it’s not really anything useful and is more in the “too cosmic horror for Tom” variety. More than that though, something follows him back out.

When he comes to back in the real world there’s this thing sitting next to him that looks enough like a person but also like someone told a gifted artist what humans look like and they got it mostly right but also went a little nuts. It’s a girl, a few years younger than him, who has flaming red hair, absurdly green eyes, pale skin, and facial features he can’t recognize for the life of him (Lily still looking western in this to up the ante of ‘she’s an alien folks’).

Tom sacrifices his dinner to it and hopes it doesn’t eat him.

It explains that it’s a tourist from another dimension, beyond even the Spirit World, and that it’s come to see what the mortal world is all about. Tom is naturally very weirded out but at this point decides to roll with it.

Except it doesn’t leave and clearly expects Tom to play tour guide.

He does, reluctantly, because he doesn’t want to be eaten but he also sort of gets used to the thing. Then, one day, it starts bending multiple elements with utter ease and Tom is at first flabbergasted and horrified (only to remember that spirits can do what they want and aren’t like lowly mortals who can only bend one element) and then he gets the idea.

The Avatar, lazy bastard that he is (and Tom might be a little more than slightly bitter that he himself is not the Avatar), appears to be MIA and not coming back any time soon. The entire world it seems is waiting for the Avatar to come and save them. But, Tom says to himself, who needs the Avatar when you can just have an Avatar. An Avatar and, of course, her water bending master.

Thus, the scheme is set, Tom will teach this weird alien thing how to a) act like a goddamn human in public and b) water bending and together they will pretend she’s the Avatar and got lost in the spirit world a few decades ago (which accounts for the youthful age and the weird appearance) and use this to gain allies, topple the Fire Nation, and eventually give the throne to Tom.

Lily, who doesn’t know the difference between being a tourist and taking over a nation, goes along but is basically this story’s answer to Uncle Iroh always getting distracted by Pai Sho.

Haru/Dead Last

Given that they’re in the Earth Kingdom, and that Lee picks up water bending insultingly quickly which makes Tom fume in rage, they go to pick up an earth bending master/spread the word that the Avatar has returned from her multiple decades long vacation. 

Along the way they probably run into Haru, who is the world’s most useless excuse for an Earth Bender. As always, he’s so average looking you can barely remember what he looks like beyond “generic earth bender”. 

They probably watch him for two seconds, Lily asks if this is it, and Tom Riddle says, “what a joke”. 

Minato Namikaze

Given that all the air benders are dead we’re going to make Minato a very talented earth bender (it is also very weird to imagine a dark haired/dark eyed Minato, but I suppose we’re going to roll with it). This also, to me, does fit his personality a little better as while he is a leaf on the wind kind of guy he also does dig his heels in and get very stubborn now and then.

Minato’s young, younger than Tom (Lee), but he’s incredibly talented and clever. To keep his shinobi background mostly in tact I imagine that Minato is a swiftly rising member of the Dai Li, stationed in Ba Sing Se, but who occasionally goes on intelligence missions to the other feudal powers in the Earth Kingdom.

So I imagine Lily and Tom run into him unnervingly frequently, probably first meeting him off duty in Omashu where he does his “extremely polite and friendly local guide” routine to show the pair the city (never mind that Tom insists he’s been to Omashu plenty of times goddammit). Despite this, Lily and Minato become friends, Lily easily confessing she’s the Avatar (which Minato at first thinks is a joke, even if she looks strange, then goes ‘oh my god, it’s not a joke). 

Eventually Minato is stationed to spy on them under the guise of teaching Lily earth bending. So he joins the gang. Tom, who knows exactly what’s going on, is not amused while Lily is just happy to collect another friend who will actually play Pai Sho with her. 

Kushina Uzumaki

Kushina is a earth bender, hands down. I debated making her a water bender (because whirlpool) but that personality is just pure earth bender material. Besides, I can just picture her so easily coming from Kyoshi. 

So Kushina’s an earth bending Kyoshi warrior, who while ten times as powerful as Minato, also lacks any of his control or cleverness. Kushina has undoubtedly left Kyoshi, abandoning their neutrality, to join the war and kick some fire bender ass.

She does this but along the way frequently runs into the gang where she annoys the ever loving shit out of Minato (her new rival) and claims that Avatar Lily is her new idol.

Rabbit

Rabbit is a mysterious spirit from Lily’s past that she refuses to talk about except in the darkest of terms promising doom and destruction the likes of which the world has never seen.

No one knows how to react to this. Or what a plain old ‘rabbit’ even is.

Tobirama Senju

Because no story’s not complete without Tobirama, I imagine he’s a stuffy waterbender and scholar from the North Pole who Tom is miffed at as the man refused to teach him even more water bending. Tobirama naturally feels that the day he teaches a blatant spy is the day he goes and drowns himself. 

Later, when Tom has picked up the Avatar and Tom rubs it in his face, Tobirama probably reluctantly spends a day or so teaching them something/fighting off the hordes of Fire Nation soldiers on their tale (it’s not Avatar if the gang isn’t constantly chased by fire benders).

Obito Uchiha

Obito is the answer to a fire bending instructor. Obito’s a firebender and the youngest son of a wealthy Fire Nation lord. However, Obito’s the black sheep of the family that everyone hates, a late bloomer when it comes to his bending, and is seen as bringing dishonor on the family.

Itching to prove himself, Obito becomes a soldier and goes to the Earth Kingdom, and eventually decides the best way to earn recognition and restore his honor is to capture the newly resurrected Avatar. Congratulations, Obito, you’re this story’s Zuko. 

Obito, while not the most talented fire bender at first (though as he gets older he gets dangerously good at it) is extremely clever and becomes the largest threat to the gang. 

That said, Obito actually does grow to like Lily quite a bit and begins to realize honor doesn’t actually mean that much to him and he doesn’t even really like his family. He doesn’t even dislike the concept of the Avatar and thinks the world probably does need one right about now.

So after a whole bunch of chasing them around the globe, thinking about his family, and being forced to almost kill the Avatar now and then he eventually defects and volunteers himself as fire bending instructor.

This is met with suspicion on all sides but he and Lily are bros so he wins.

Avatar Roku

Needing to pick up air bending, Lily probably fakes it until she makes it for a while, but eventually runs into Avatar Roku’s wandering spirit taking vacation from an ice cube.

He’s alarmed, but Aang’s trapped in ice, so if someone’s going to substitute then great.

To everyone else it just looks like Lily’s constantly talking to herself, playing Pai Sho with herself, and miraculously picks up air bending out of absolutely nowhere.

Also anyone close to Lee probably figures out she’s not really human/the avatar at this point, but they’ll take what they can get.

And This All Results In

Lily learns all the elements, there’s probably some big battle, then Lily gives some ridiculous speech about world peace that has nothing to do with anything and while the Fire Nation is defeated, Tom is not in fact made Fire Lord and remains merely the Avatar’s humble water bending instructor.

Instead, if he’s alive at this point, the crown goes to Iroh and he’s given a council of angry Earth Kingdom people who tell him to behave or else. We can give Iroh niceish things sometimes. That, or, hilariously, Obito becomes hokage/Fire Lord being distantly in line for the throne and doesn’t even know how that happened or what his life even is right now.

The colonies are the same mess in canon so something like Republic City probably eventually comes about.

Still, there’s peace, and probably statues to the gang all over the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes (while the Fire Nation grumbles and remembers the good old days when they controlled the world). 

And then Aang eventually wakes up extremely confused and confronts Avatar Lily noting, “Hey, I’m the actual Avatar” and Lily after a suspiciously blank pause explains, “I said an Avatar, never said I was the Avatar”

So, that’s that. If anyone wants other specific characters added into this mess feel free to comment. 

#ask #anon #avatar the last airbender #lily and the art of being sisyphus #minato namikaze and the destroyer of worlds #crossover #fusion

[bitters-enthusiast]

Boozin’

A fic for @timmys-and-scribbles , I love u boo 

The bar was more than likely annoyed with the ginger at this point.

Julian had spent more than a few hours at the Rowdy Raven, his second home, and was drunk off his ass -- even that may have been an understatement. It’d started with a few drinks, just him trying to kill time while Julianne was working at the shop, keeping himself busy and away. Then it turned into him getting sad, a little down, because he didn’t have enough work to keep him steady and busy during a time like this. Wasn’t a doctor rather crucial to a city? Shouldn’t his knowledge and efforts be more needed?

If Julianne were there, she’d be telling him to just be thankful that he had the day off, and that he’d have patients tomorrow eager to hear his advice. 

But Julianne wasn’t there, she was busy. And so, having let the silly, intrusive thoughts take hold of him, he slammed back some more drinks.

More drinks turned into stories, stories turned into singing, and singing turned into slight arguments with other patrons who were getting quite annoyed with the man. Perhaps he’d better find another hobby that isn’t getting drunk and flirting with death.

A couple of hours in at that point, Julian had heard talk of a local musician holding an event in the marketplace in the afternoon in order to make pay for his home. His ears had perked up, and he grinned, even as he took another shot of liquor. Music? A lively night? That sounded exactly his style to the tee, and he’d started to get excited for when Julianne would finally be done with her work for the day. Oh, how he wished to spin her into the night with an exciting tango, or a cozy waltz. If she were there. Waiting for her would be the most excruciating part of his day. But how hopefully rewarding that waiting would be!

A few more hours passed, and at that point, the sun was starting to go down over Vesuvia. Not that Julian could really count the hours --- he was inside, and only whined aloud about missing his wife every other moment or two. 

At the current moment, though, he’d started rambling off a story to his most familiar bartender and friend (at least, Julian would consider him a friend), Reiner. Words slurred and wistful about the time that he’d gone to a city with the Nazali Satrinava -- no, really, it was them, on my life -- to practice his medical studies. While there, they’d caught wind of a puppeteer who used magic to make it seem as if their puppets could move and talk on their own. It was really quite scary, and just added onto the fact that he didn’t like magic at the time. 

“No, really, Reiner,” the doctor laughed, a little too loudly for others’ liking, and he clutched the glass beside him with a firm hand. “One of ‘em, I think it’s name was.. was.. Perhaps Tootie, or something of the sort, and it.. it just moved!”

“It moved, Ilya? Like a puppet is supposed to do?”

“Well, right, duh, but! It moved like a human. And that’s my point. It was absolutely horrible!”

“Right.” the man behind the counter laughed, cleaning out a glass with a soft rag. 

“I’m serious, you can’t take that stuff too lightly, Reiner. It can be rather powerful at times, you know.”

“You were dealing with a puppeteer, Julian.”

“What if she was using real people that she, I don’t know, shrunk! How disastrous would that be? No one would know! She was under the guise of children entertainment!!”

Reiner once again laughed, and set the now-cleaned cup upon his counter to use for someone else who walked in. “You’re quite the theorist.”

“Well, you can never be too careful. Magicians--”

Just then, the door opened quietly, and for the millionth time that night, as soon as Julian heard it, he turned quickly to see if it was Julianne coming to look for him. And this time, he was lucky enough to have his wish come true. 

The woman patted down her blouse, having looked like she just walked a mile to get there. She may as well have -- Julian would’ve waited either way. With a smile, though, she glanced across the room at the semi-familiar faces, before her eyes landed upon her desperate doctor. Placing a hand upon her hip, she smiled, and looked at him knowingly. “Did someone say ‘magician’?”

Julian practically lept from his seat, leaving Reiner behind to continue his work. How absolutely wonderful it was to finally be able to see Julianne’s beautiful face after waiting all day. He stumbled on his way over, and he attempted to laugh it off, hurrying forward to grab Juli in a bear hug. “Oh, Juli, love, I’ve been waiting for you all day. I thought you were never going to put up shop. I’ve been longing for you arms for hours, I--”

As he was speaking, Julianne gently wrapped her arms around him in turn, but shot a glance to the side at the man behind the counter. With a grin, Reiner could already tell what she was thinking. 

“Hey, Annie. Just the usual. He couldn’t be patient long enough to go home himself.”

“Ah,” Julianne nodded, smiling in return. By this point, she knew the staff of the tavern quite well, and had even befriended some of them. It was hard not to -- her doctor was here almost every other day. Her and Reiner were the best of friends out of them all, though, and she trusted him to keep Julian safe and in place when he got hammered -- such as tonight. Pulling away from the hug, Julianne looked up at Julian, and tsked quietly. “Too impatient indeed. Have you been wailing their ears off this time? I’m sure this bar has heard one too many of your renditions of Hound Cries at Midnight.”

When Julianne had pulled away from the hug, Julian had to force himself not to pout. He had craved her affection all day, and just when he’d gotten it...

“No, not today. Though, I do think I should modify that middle section to sound a little more operatic, don’t you think? I--” As he spoke, his eyes continued to search over Julianne’s face, and he began to melt from the inside out. He brought his hands upward, cupping either side of her face, and he crooned, his face adorned with a flirtatious smile. “Ohhh, Julianne, you’re so beautiful. Even after such a long day at work, you’re here, making sure I’m okay and giving me hugs and-- I just don’t deserve such a precious woman.” The redhead pressed a sloppy kiss to her forehead, before pulling her into another hug. 

Julianne was quite used to his drunken behavior at this point, but nonetheless, she still found it hilarious and sometimes flattering. Again, she hugged him back, a light blush on her face from embarrassment. Julian definitely never had volume control when he was drunk. “You’re such a ham, Julian. Don’t you know you’re in a bar?”

Chuckling, Julian pulled away. “What better place to announce your undying love to a beautiful maiden? At least then everyone will know she’s spoken for!” With dramatic flair, the man turned on his heel to face the bar, is arm landing snugly along Juli’s shoulders. With his voice slightly louder than before, he addressed the establishment. “Fellow ... er, uh... hearty drinkers! As some, but not all of you may know, this is my gorgeous, smart, funny, talented, practically perfect wife, Julianne! Julianne, this is Heinrich, Nattak, Erin, and ... was it Izaak? It was Izaak, right, friend? Oh, you absolutely killed  me with your strange noises and your story about the parrot inside the--”

“Julian,” his wife began to speak under her breath. She was flattered by his pride, sure, but this was just more than a little embarrassing. Her cheeks dusted with bright pink, she reached to touch a hand to his chest to try and get his attention as he rambled. 

“Oh! Right, right. Anyways, fellows, this is Julianne! A powerful magician who has stolen my heart--”

“Didn’t you just make a scene earlier about how much you dislike magic?” Some random, gruff man made a comment.

“Yes, well, she’s quite different than any other magician I’ve ever met before. She brings a sort of... fire out within me. Oh, especially when we kiss.” He sighs with an affectionate undertone, and you can practically see stars in his eyes. “Anyway! She’s stolen my heart so graciously, and also given me the best life I could have asked for. She’s really quite great, she treats me ever so well, and makes me--”

Julianne cleared her throat loudly this time, and shook her head in amusement. “Julian, how many times are you going to make this same speech? I’m sure poor Reiner has heard you say these same things three times already this month.”

Turning a little red, Julian chuckled, and faced his wife. He shrugged, as if he were a child getting caught and was trying to justify it. “What can I say? I suppose I just have, ack-!” As he was turning to face Juli, he tripped on a wooden floor board just barely raised above the rest, and he did his best not to stumble to the floor. Laughing it off, as he does, he glanced around the room and gestured to Julianne once more. “I guess I’m just head over heels in love, eh?”

“Sounds like she’s actually a little annoyed wit’ya, bud,” the same gruff man from the corner spoke. It was obvious he’d become a little annoyed with Julian’s drunken antics spoiling his quiet night at the bar. “I’d shut up if ya actually wanted to keep ‘er around. Maybe do less at the bar and more in the bedroom.”

Julian gasped, clutching at the material over his chest. “How dare you, Mr. Corner-Beard! I think I do quite well in that area, thank you! Why, you son’t even have to just take my word! Julianne, would you--?”

Reiner looked between the three of them -- the drunk doctor, his poor wife, and Mr. Corner-Beard -- and paused in his work to be sure that, for the millionth time, Julian didn’t start another bar fight that he couldn’t finish. And as if she read his mind, Julianne, grabbed Julian by his arm, and pulled him toward the exit. 

“That’s quite enough, Dr. Devorak. I think your friends heard enough of your home life today. How about we go home?”

Julian paused, right before the reached the door. He looked at the burly corner man right in the eyes, before he turned to take Julianne into his arms, press a long, dramatic kiss to her lips, and pulled away once more. He looked at the stranger one last time before pulling the door open, and exiting with his... certain dramatic flair.

Julianne stood there in shock for a moment, her face having now turned a bright red. She felt every eye in the place on her, and she could only find solace in one pair -- Reiner’s. The bartender forced himself to hold back his laughter, placing his hand over his mouth. All the woman could do was blink at him, and at this point, Julian was either storming his way home or was wandering around in circles waiting for her to leave alongside him. Reiner finally dropped his hand, only to say a few words before the magician left. 

“Don’t kill him. He has a dance he wants to take you to tonight. Wanted to dip you in the moonlight, or something along those lines.”

Julianne shook her head, turning to walk out the door, and muttered, “Don’t worry, I won’t kill him. I’ll just dip his head into the fountain to sober him up a bit.”

#bitters writes #drabble #this is for u bazz #and also timmy ig #Julian The Arcana #the arcana #julian devorak #arcana fic #the arcana julian

[btsslowburnfic]

Sonata Second Movement

The dear @omgalyssag17​ asked: hi i saw you have your requests open and was wondering if you’d be interested in writing a story where yoongi moves into a haunted apartment/house (human!yoongi x ghost!reader pairing). i like giving authors lots of room for creativity so let your imagination flow. 

Here is part one Series Summary: Yoongi travels to a lake house to get some work done in peace. While he is there he has several strange encounters that make him question his own sanity. Chapter Notes: Ghosty girl is catching feelings WK:6kish

---------------------

Previously... “Wow you look even better when you are soaking wet,” you mused from your spot by the fireplace mantle.

Yoongi shook his hair out of his face and looked over at you, “Thanks, but who are you and why are you here….” His eyes widened as he was finally able to see clearly.

Your eyes also grew wider and you looked behind you to make sure he wasn’t speaking to anyone else. You looked back at him, “You can see me?”

Yoongi slowly nodded his head. The woman definitely looked like she could be twins with [y/n] from the photograph. “Of course I can, you’re ogling me from the fireplace.”

If you were alive you would have blushed. “Yeah well...I didn’t think you would see me. Let a girl have a little fun.” You wrung your hands. “Go put on a towel or something.”

Yoongi laughed, his shoulders gently shaking up and down. “Sorry. I’m Min Yoongi. It’s nice to meet you. Are you [y/n’]’s sister? Didn’t you know the cabin is booked for the week?

“………..yes. I’m her sister.” You decided, what the hell? You’re dead. He’s not going to believe that you’re a ghost anyways. Let’s go with it. “ It’s nice to meet you. My name is Elise. I’m so sorry for staring at you. I didn’t know anyone was staying here. My parents are awful about letting me know the schedule.”

Yoongi felt his heartbeat slowing down. “S’okay. Uh...when did you get here? I didn’t see a car?”

“Late this morning. I had a friend drop me off. I saw your car out front but I thought maybe one of our family friends had stopped by to go fishing or something. When I came inside I headed straight for the guest bedroom to relax.” The lies easily fell from your lips and you felt a little bad. But an easy lie was better than a hard truth for today.

Yoongi was so shocked from the ghost incident and the surprise of having another person there he didn’t analyze the story too much. “OK. Well, like you said. I’m going to go put on a towel or something. Probably dry clothes, unless you’d prefer the towel?” He teased.

“Hey, don’t flatter yourself too much. Like I said, I didn’t think you’d be able to hear me,” you looked away embarrassed.

Yoongi smirked, not quite sure where his confidence just now had come from. He shouldn’t flirt with some random girl in an isolated cabin. He was here to work. He walked back to the bedroom to change.

You gathered a few logs and paper to start a fire in the fireplace. He would probably be cold and you felt bad for scaring him out into the cool rain. How on earth could he see you? You wondered. You tossed a match into the pile and waited for the flames to catch.

Yoongi came out with his hair still damp and dressed in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. “I’m booked here through the week just so you know. Oh,” he looked at the fireplace, “thanks for starting a fire.”

You sat down in front of it and held your hands out, imitating getting warm.. “No problem. And OK. Are you trying to kick me out of my dead sister’s house?”

Yoongi froze. “Well I guess when you put it like that, I was going to. But now I feel bad.”

“I’ll try and get a hold of my friend tomorrow to see if they can come back early. But you know how the reception is out here.” You said from your spot in front of the fire.

“Yeah. No worries. I just came up here to get some work done. So as long as that still happens, it’s all good.” He squatted next to the fire and began to blow on it to add oxygen. You had tried to blow on it as well, but of course your efforts amounted to nothing. 

“Oh? What kind of work?” You pretended like you had no idea even though you figured it out the first night.

“I’m a music producer. I also write songs and rap. Sometimes I'm even forced to sing,” he joked as he stood up and walked over to the desk. “Was your sister a musician?” 

“Yes. She was a concert pianist and also dabbled in composing. She had written a few things before she died."

"Anything I'd recognize?" he asked, putting his notebook into his bag. 

"No, nothing you would have heard of. How did you know?”

Yoongi rubbed the back of his neck and walked over carrying the letter. “Ah, here. I found this in the piano. Umm...it might be difficult to read. I think she wrote it when she was really sick.” He gently handed it to you. You took the time to read your words and reflect on them.

You gave the letter back to Yoongi and let out a deep breath. “Cancer. She was so young, they didn’t suspect anything. By the time they caught it, it had spread to her bones. She turned down treatment and moved up here full time. All she wanted to do was enjoy the lake views and play music.” You sighed, remembering the worst year of your life.

“I’m sorry. That must have been really horrible for both of you.” He nods in understanding and you don’t say anything, just staring into the fire.

Yoongi sucked in some air, making a whooshing sound and began, “Well, along with the letter she also left the music she was working on, would you like to hear it?” He sat down at the piano bench.

“Please,” you responded and turned to face the piano. You were absolutely relishing every minute that he was actually interacting with you. 

Yoongi began to play the song as you had written it, along with the few notes he (and you) had added. Before you knew it, you felt something on your face. Tears? Ghosts couldn’t cry?? What was going on with you today?

Yoongi stopped playing and turned around to hear your appraisal. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t even know I could cry.” You responded, wiping the tears away. He didn’t notice your strange phrasing, just assuming you weren’t a very emotional person.

“Your sister wrote most of it, I added just a few notes. It’s really  good. Hold on.” He got up and went hunting for tissues. He returned a moment later and gently handed you the box. “Here.”

“Thank you,” you said while wiping the tears from your face. “It sounds so gentle the way you play it.”

He mumbled a response you couldn’t quite make out while rubbing the back of his neck and sat down next to you on the floor.

“Would you like some coffee?” You asked, suddenly remembering the task he was trying to complete when you scared him earlier.

He shook the bangs out of his face, “Sure, if you want to make some I’d drink it. By the way, did you sit all the stuff out earlier?”

I mean. It wasn’t a lie this time, “Yes. I was going to make some this morning but then I got distracted.”

“Oh good. For a while I thought this lake house was haunted.”

“Ahahaha” you laughed way too much. Creepily, if you were being honest. You stood up, “that’s so weird. A haunted Lake house. Are you easily frightened?”

He leaned back on his elbows, enjoying the heat from the fireplace. “No. I mean, I don’t like horror movies, but I don’t think I get scared easily. Imagine if you thought you were alone and suddenly the groceries were in other places and doors were unlocking and locking.” He pouted.

You added water and coffee grounds to the machine. “Yeah yeah that’s fair. Sorry for teasing you, that would be pretty scary.”

“Plus I found that note, and the piano seems like it has a mind of its own. And it’s a secluded cabin.” He lists reasons, defending himself. You feel bad since he wasn’t wrong; the house was haunted.

“Hey stop, you’re starting to freak ME out.” You teased as you leaned against the counter. “So, are you on vacation or working or….?” You gestured hoping for him to finish the sentence.

He turned to face you entirely, his tiny legs folded underneath him. “Both. But I can’t stand not working. A lot of my teammates are traveling and spending time with their friends and family, but I’d rather work. I had dinner with my brother the first night and then headed here the next day.”

“I understand.” You truly did. You weren’t lying earlier when you had said you spent your last year up at the Lake house mostly by yourself. Your family and friends didn’t understand your decision. But for you it was easier to not see them sad. To not hear them ask “how are you doing?” every time they saw you. You were dying. How the hell did they think you were doing? 

You poured some coffee into two mugs. “Milk? Sugar?” you asked.

“Sorry, I like it iced. Here, I’ll get it.” He stood up and walked over to the kitchen, taking the mug from your hand. In doing so he ever so slightly brushed up against your hand. You hadn’t touched anyone in ten years. Holy shit that felt weird. And Amazing. You quickly put the cup up to your mouth to hide all of your feelings.

“Well, I’m going to give you some space to work. I’ll try to stay in my room.” You mumbled into the cup and turned to leave.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Like I said, as long as it’s quiet I don’t mind. So you know, no karaoke parties or anything.” He teased as he put ice cubes into a glass and dumped the mug contents into it.

You smiled, “Ok ok. It was on my list of things to do while I was up here, but I guess I’ll hold back.” 

“Oh well, if it’s on your to-do list, we can always try it later today,” He took a sip of the coffee. “Ahhh much better.” 

He was nice. You thought as you walked over to the sofa and nestled in, watching the rain fall. Could you drink coffee? you wondered. You very hesitantly stuck out your tongue and tried to place it on the liquid. Success. Maybe you were actually in heaven now. A cute boy was talking to you and you could drink coffee again. And cry. And he actually was able to touch your hand. You tried not to freak out as you remembered. It was not a big deal. This was all totally normal. As normal as a day could be for a ghost. You heard beats quietly playing and saw that Yoongi had placed his headphones on and was working on his laptop. 

You looked around for a book that you hadn’t read twenty times. The last family that stayed here had left in such a rush they left behind several paperbacks of various genres. They thought they would have a relaxing time in your house, reading on your deck. Oh no. Not once their children smashed on your piano and jumped on your bed. They had to go. Banging a few pots and pans, opening up their car doors, and opening up the windows had done the trick. And voila, you had new books. You picked your new Jojo Moyes’ book and laid back on the couch. 

 The rest of the afternoon passed relatively peacefully. Yoongi was really dedicated to his work. He occasionally would get up to refill his coffee, but that was it. Was he going to eat? Humans needed to eat right? Yes. You remembered. Humans ate 2-3 times a day. Sometimes more.You got up and started the rice maker. 

You heard Yoongi sit his headphones down and walk over to the kitchen. “Did you bring any food? What were you planning on eating?” He asked as he opened the refrigerator door.

Shit. Shit.  He started pulling out some vegetables and meat.

“Umm...I don’t know. I was just in such a hurry to get up here, I guess I forgot.”

Yoongi scoffed. “Forgot to bring food? For the weekend? Are you a careless person?”

Damn, he was very blunt for such a nice person “There’s a chalet on the other side of the lake that has a market. I was planning on going there in the boat.” 

“Oh? I didn’t know about that.” He shrugged.

Well maybe it was still open. You had no clue actually. Shit. Fortunately for you he didn’t ask any follow up questions, suddenly immersed in his new task of chopping vegetables and meat. Apparently he could cook? So domestic, you thought as you stood there feeling useless.

You wandered over to the piano and took a seat, the wood creaking beneath you. You looked at your unfinished piece, still sitting there with the picture of yourself staring back. You placed your fingers on the keys and began to play. When you arrived at the end you tried a few other runs to see if they fit, but, much like when you were alive, none of them felt right. You sighed and turned around to see Yoongi staring at you with his lips slightly parted. “Wow, You play as well?” 

You don’t know why but suddenly you felt very shy. “Yeah. My parents made me start taking lessons when I was three. Piano, eat, sleep. Then, Piano, school, eat, sleep. It’s ok though. I actually enjoyed playing so I didn’t mind. Especially when I got old enough to where I could pick my own music.” 

“That’s nice. My parents hated that I loved music. They’re supportive now, but when I was in high school I got caught writing lyrics in class and they tore up all of them. Notebooks full of music all gone in a matter of minutes.” He said it with a smile on his face, but you could still sense the bitterness in his voice.

“That’s so awful. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He shrugged, “They were doing what they thought was best for me at the time. Our parents are just humans too.”  A timer went off in the kitchen. “I need to check on the soup.”

Apparently he had made soup. You turned back to the piano and played through a few more times, still getting stuck at the same place. Frustrated, you started playing some other songs so you could feel like you had accomplished something.

“Food’s ready.” You heard him call from the kitchen. You stood up and walked over to the countertop bar.

“Thank you. Wow. This looks amazing,” you commented  as you stared at the delicious food sitting in the bowl.

“Ah it’s nothing.” He said, blowing onto his spoon, his cheeks puffing out with each breath.

“Well I haven’t had homemade soup in forever, so I am very excited.” You took a spoonful as well and began to try to cool it down.

The two of you eat mostly in silence. The soup is of course, very good. “I’ll clean up, you can get back to work.” You offered, taking the empty dishes over to the sink. Being dead was weird, you missed even the small things like feeling water against your hands; smelling soap. So many small everyday moments that you had taken for granted. 

He mumbled his gratitude and headed back over to the desk, putting his headphones back on. You washed and dried the dishes. Looking outside, you saw that the rain had finally cleared up. You grabbed your book and headed out to the deck. To your amazement, you were able to feel the sun’s warmth. God. It had been forever. You had come out here almost every day for ten years but hadn’t been able to feel sensations like hot, cold, or wind. You gazed out over the lake, admiring the way the sun shimmered over the water. 

You weren’t sure if hours or minutes passed by, but eventually you came to a good stopping point in your book and headed inside. To your surprise, Yoongi was asleep on the couch, a pillow tucked between his knees. He looked so tiny and cute. You walked over to the corner of the room and grabbed a blanket. You headed back towards the couch and covered him up, wishing for a moment you were still invisible so you could watch him sleep without being a total creep. You looked at him for a few more seconds, trying to memorize his features so when he left you would still be able to remember him. You decided it was best if you didn’t stare creepily at him and headed to the guest bedroom.

Yoongi woke up in total darkness and yawned loudly. How long had he slept for? He meant to take a power nap on the couch but had apparently rested for much longer. Constant traveling and insomnia meant he had a messed up sleep schedule anyway which is what made him lay down in the first place. He pulled the blanket up to his chin and stretched, the tips of his toes hitting the other end of the couch. He hadn’t remembered putting a blanket on. Honestly, that’s probably what made him sleep for as long as he did. Ah, he remembered his new housemate. He smiled. Something about someone putting a blanket on you when you were sleeping was so cute. 

He sat up and neatly folded the blanket. Running his hands through his hair he took out his phone to use as a flashlight and made his way over to the light switch. He stretched once more and headed over to the piano to see if any progress could be made with [y/n]’s composition. This time he was able to string together a few more chords that sounded like they fit. The melody was difficult to categorize, but if he had to he would call it “nostalgic.” It was both happy and sad, and befitting of a dying woman, he thought sadly. 

“That sounds great.” He heard a voice say behind him. He jumped slightly, he hadn’t heard you enter the room. “Ack. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, you’re fine. I just didn’t hear you come in.” He scooted over on the black bench, making room for you. “Would you like to try?”

You sat down, trying to not notice that your legs were touching on the very small bench. You played through the piece, adding in the newest notes he had written. 

“Hmmm...I think your playing style is better suited for this song,” he said. He leaned over and grabbed a pen and sheet music from the desktop and made some notes. 

“I like listening to you play it, but I suppose since it was [y/n]s song, maybe I’m a bit more familiar with the style. We did have the same teacher after all.” You said as you began to play through it once again. “I like the progress you’ve made on it though. In just this afternoon?”

Yoongi smiled at that and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well at first it was easy for me to see what direction the song wanted to go in, but now I’m not sure. I can see why she struggled with it.”

“Well between that and the pain and headaches and nausea,” you added without thinking.

“Yes. Once again, I’m just so sorry that happened. When did [y/n] die?”

“Ten years ago.” You looked sadly out the large back windows. It was night now and the moon was casting it’s tiny crescent reflection on the water. 

“Did she pass away here?” He asked, gesturing to the room.

“Right over on there.” You pointed to the sofa. “Don’t worry. They bought a new couch.” You quickly amended your statement when you saw his eyes bug out ever so slightly. “She sent our parents a message saying it wouldn’t be long. She sat out a bunch of food and water for Barley and then laid down for a nap. But she never woke back up.”

“Jesus that’s sad.”

“Yeah….Cancer sucks.” 

“What happened to Barley?” Yoongi asked, reaching out to hold the picture of [y/n] and the dog that rested on the piano.

“He passed away shortly after. My parents said he died of a broken heart. Soooooooo, that sucks too.” you said and you felt tears starting to run down your face. Your poor dog. He didn’t understand. All he knew was that you weren’t waking up. No matter how much he barked or pulled on you or whined; you wouldn’t get up to let him out or play with him. Your parents arrived the next morning to Barley lying on top of you on the couch, trying to keep you warm. Of course, you weren’t ever going to be warm again at that point. It really sucked.

You felt a gentle squeeze on your hand that was still resting on the keys. You looked over at Yoongi, his face a few inches away from yours. “That does suck.” 

You sniffled loudly and reached for the Kleenex box. “Yeah. Thanks. Sorry. Coming up here and hearing the song has made me an emotional wreck. I usually don’t cry.”

“It’s fine. I mean, I’m sorry it’s happening to you, but don’t feel bad on my account. Feel your feelings. It’s all good.” He said and gave you an understanding :] 

“Thanks. I’m going to go lay down for a bit. Good luck with the song.” You stood up abruptly.

“Ok.” He was slightly surprised. “Do you need anything? Dinner? Water?” 

“No, thank you. I’m not very hungry. I just. I need to go lay down.” You turned to go to the guest bedroom. Then you awkwardly turned around, “Thanks again. Really.” You felt your cheeks growing red and felt a sound in your ears that would have felt like a heartbeat if you were alive. Today had been so very confusing. You forgot what it was like to feel all of these things at once. You didn’t need to be trapped in a lake house, as a ghost, with a crush on a guy who you would never see again. Even you knew this was a bad idea. You just wanted to creepily stare at him. Not talk to him. Not like him. Not have a crush on him. Stupid ghost, you chided yourself as you laid down. You resolved to try to avoid him for the next 2 days. It would be easier to accept oblivion without missing somebody. 

Yoongi sat on the piano bench, staring at the couch. Wow. What a sad story. He knew that people died all the time. He comprehended that young people died and that life was unfair. But it was still just so shitty. The more he thought about it the more angry and sad he got. He moved over to the desk and started to write some lyrics. The next thing he knew it was the middle of the night and his notebook was full of words and sentences; concepts and ideas. If there was one thing Yoongi was good at, it was turning pain and anger into music.

He stood up and raised his arms over his head, then moved side to side. You had never come back out so he assumed you went to sleep. All things considered, he thought, you were actually doing pretty well. He couldn’t imagine if his brother passed away, going to his house and having to think about poor Holly being left alone. Well he could actually, since he just got into that headspace to write lyrics, but it was still a shitty thing to think about, and even shittier that it actually happened to [y/n]. He grabbed himself a glass of water, skipping food, and went to bed. 

Day 4

You woke up to the sunlight streaming in your room. Gross. You had planned on just trying to sleep a solid 2 days in order to avoid Yoongi but the bright ass sun was making it difficult. You grumbled and decided to take advantage of being able to drink coffee again today.  You weren’t sure how long this being able to interact with food and beverages was going to last but you were going to take advantage. You listened for Yoongi, hearing nothing, you walked quietly out to the kitchen and prepared the coffee. 

A few minutes later you heard Yoongi’s heavy footsteps in the hallway and saw him yawning with his hair sticking up. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

He stood there, blinking slowly. “Coffee.”

You laughed. “It’s dripping right now. Late night?”

“Mmmm…” was all he responded as he walked into the bathroom. 

So much for avoiding him. You looked around and noticed everything was in the same place as last night. Had Yoongi not eaten dinner? You wondered. Humans need to eat. You poured the coffee over ice and sat it on the countertop.

Yoongi walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later, straight over to the glass. He took a few sips. “Thank you.” He sat down at the counter and rested his head on his arms. 

“Did you eat dinner last night?” You asked, checking the rice cooker.

“uh-uh... “ he mumbled, still not quite coherent.

You frowned, “That’s no good. I’ll make something in a few minutes after coffee, ok?”

“Mmmm….” was the response you got. Wow, he was really out of it this morning. It wasn’t often that a ghost had more energy than an alive person. You took your cup of coffee out onto the deck, determined to distance yourself. Even though you didn’t want to. You felt very conflicted. 

Yoongi slowly came back to the realm of the living with each sip of coffee. He wanted to sleep longer, but the sunshine, magnified by the lake, wasn’t going to let him do that this morning. He guessed another afternoon nap was in his future. He stood up and wandered into the kitchen. Realizing you hadn’t eaten dinner either, he decided he should go ahead and prepare lunch.

You walked back in to refill your cup and found Yoongi cooking. “Hey, I said I was going to make something.” You chided.

He shrugged, “I like to cook. It’s nothing fancy. Kimchi fried rice. You need to eat. You can’t just feel sad sitting around your sister’s house.”

“Well I could if I really felt like it. It is sad.” You responded. “But, I guess you’re right. It’s not the best thing to do. Did you eat dinner?” You asked. He didn’t answer. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” You teased. “Get any work done last night?” 

“A lot actually,” he responded while moving the food around the pan.  “Do you want to go out on the lake today?”

This sudden question caught you off guard. You weren’t sure if you could go out on the lake. “Don’t you need to work?”

He shook his bangs out of his eyes. “I wrote a lot last night. And experiencing things is a type of work for me. It influences my writing. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” 

“No,” you quickly answered. “I want to go. I’m just nervous and I didn’t want to interrupt your work.”

“I suggested it, it’s no trouble. Why are you nervous?” He asked, taking plates down from a cabinet.

Uh because I’m afraid I’ll suddenly disappear if I get too far away from the Lakehouse, is what you wanted to say. Of course you couldn’t. When this had first happened, when you first died, you tried walking out of here. You made it to the end of the gravel path before you felt yourself being pulled back towards the house. A force physically repelled you away from going too far. It hurt. You didn’t know ghosts could experience pain until that happened. But how could you resist going on a boat ride with Yoongi on a nice sunny day? Wait. weren’t you trying to avoid him? You couldn't avoid him if you were in a boat with him.

“Why are you nervous?” he asked again, bringing you out of your thoughts.

“Oh. I can’t swim.” You lied. When had you become such a good liar? You asked yourself. Oh well. What’s the worst thing that could happen? You wondered. 

“I’m not a very good swimmer either.” He put the rice onto the plates. “I almost drowned in the ocean when I was a child. I assume there’s life jackets in the boat house though.”

“Yeah. There are.” You decided, what the hell? You’re a ghost. How often did you get to do anything fun. “Sure. Let’s do that.”

The two of you ate lunch and headed down to the boat dock, Yoongi putting a hat on to shield his eyes and skin from the sun. “I don’t have a license for the motorboat, so I guess we’ll take the rowboat.” He said as the two of you approached the garage.

“Yeah, my license is expired,” You said truthfully. Expired by about ten years. 

He unlocked the garage and fished out two lifejackets for the two of you. To your shock he held one out for you to put one one. You walked over and slipped your arms through. “There,” he commented. “Nice and safe.” 

You zipped it up and really hoped that this didn’t turn into a total shitshow. The two of you climbed into the rowboat, ensuring the weight was evenly distributed. Yoongi grabbed the paddles while you untied the rope and pushed away from the dock gently.

“It’s nice out today,” you commented as you felt the breeze blowing through your hair. The sun felt warm on your face and for a minute, you felt like the happiest woman in the world. You forgot about death and pain and loneliness. 

“It is. I was worried there would be another afternoon rain storm. Without cell service it’s hard to tell what the weather will be like.” He said as he gently rowed.

“Can we stay closer to the dock? That would make me feel better.” 

“Sure.” He let the oars drag against the water, bringing the boat to a gentle stop. The vessel gently bobbed up and down. “Do you ever go fishing?” He asked suddenly.

You shook your head, “No. The hook going through worms and the fishes mouth grosses me out. And I feel bad for the fish. Why? Do you?”

“Yeah, sometimes me and my friend go fishing. We don’t usually catch anything though.” He mused, looking into the water and trying to see if he could spot anything.

“Well I have heard it’s a good lake for fishing. You should bring your friend up here sometime,” you smiled and dipped your fingers into the water.

“Your parents tried to sell the Lakehouse?” He asked.

“Yeah, it was on the market for a while. But with no serious interest they started renting it out so they weren’t losing money on it.”

“I wonder why it didn’t sell. It’s a cute house, and the lake is quiet.” He pouted his lips in thought.

“Well there is that whole “ghost” thing.”

“You said there was no ghost,” you heard him whine. 

You laughed, “I haven’t had any problems with a ghost. Other people on the other hand...maybeeee they have.” 

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.” He pouted.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” you asked.

“I believe that there is no way human beings could possibly know everything about the universe. People once thought the Earth was flat. People one hundred years ago would have no concept of what the internet was. So I don’t know. Maybe. Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.”

“What a diplomatic answer. Do you give interviews often?” You shook your hair behind your back.

He smiled shyly, “I mean actually yes. I do. But that’s not why I said it. I just think there are a lot of unexplainable things in the world. Maybe the house isn’t haunted to you because it’s your family's house.”

You shrugged. What an interesting guy. “Maybe. Why? You want to buy a haunted lakehouse? I’m sure my parents would sell it to you. At a discount even; boats included.”

He laughed and leaned back a little bit. “Maybe. Do you think they’d throw in the piano?”

If you had a heart it would have stopped beating at that exact moment. This was the opposite of avoiding him. This was falling for him even more. Ugh. Stupid stupid ghost. You suddenly felt very sad. 

“Hey? Did I say something wrong?” He asked.

“No, no. Sorry. Just thinking.” You put on a fake smile.

“You could still come visit the house if I bought it. You don’t need to be sad about that.” He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. How was this guy so nice?!?!

“That’s very kind of you.” You said quietly. “I’m sure you can get a hold of them through the agency.”

“You can’t ask them?”

“Ehhhh ever since [y/n] died we don’t really talk much. Things got weird. I’m sure it’s hard for them.” It hurt you at how true your words were. You missed your parents so much. They had come by the house a few times after you died, but it was too hard for them to be there after you were gone. No parent should have to bury their child.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure your sister dying is hard on all of you. I think I’ll do that once I’m back in Seoul. Get a hold of them about the house.”

You smiled. “That’s great. If you like it here, I’m happy for you.” 

As the two of you talked, the boat had gently moved itself further out into the middle of the lake. You hadn’t even noticed since the two of you had been talking so much. Suddenly though, you felt it. The pulling sensation.

“Yoongi,” you said, the pitch of our voice higher with fear. 

“Eh?” He responded lazily, unaware that anything was wrong.

“Can we please go back towards the dock?”

“Just a second, I’m taking some pictures for Jin.” He answered. He had his phone out and was capturing a panoramic of the lake.

Ouch. Ouch.Ouch. “Please. I’m very uncomfortable,” you said, but even as you spoke you could feel your words becoming less and less audible.It felt as though someone had taken a weighted blanket and placed it on top of you.

“Ok. All done.” He turned back to face you. You could tell immediately that something was wrong with the way he suddenly dropped his phone down onto the floorboards of the boat. His mouth came up to his hands. “[Y/N]?” You barely heard. 

#bts fanfic #bts fanfction #bts scenarios #bts suga x you #suga x reader #suga x you #bts yoongi x reader #yoongi scenarios #yoongi x reader

[whattodowithace]

Save Our Souls (Byeongkwan)

Title: Save our Souls

Paring: Byeongkwan (Ace) x Reader

Genre: Spice/superpower AU

Word count: 2618

Writer: Kpopmadness (Ju)

My soul is sold to a demon: no, no, not a literal demon. Rather, a villain. There’s no such thing though, right? Superheroes and villains. That’s what you believed in when you were a kid. That used to be me too. But that’s not how I feel anymore. I don’t know if I believe in a hero, but I believe in villains. Because I grew up with one.

Have you ever watched those movies where the girl has a cute next door neighbor and they fall in love and live happily ever after? Yeah, well, that’s not how me and my neighbor turned out.

Kim Byeongkwan was a quiet boy. Him and his parents moved next door to us when I was in sixth grade. He was shy, and sweet. I had a bit of a crush on him in eighth grade, I will admit. But that soon passed when my parents started inviting him over for dinner sometimes.

His parents were workaholics and he was always stuck at him alone. So my parents would invite him over for dinner, my mom would ask him a million questions. All to which, he would give one word answers or none at all.

After dinner, me and him would sit on the couch together and watch a movie or play a video game. Needless to say, my crush on Byeongkwan faded when I realized we didn’t have much in common.

Then, we grew up. We remained neighbors. He went to the same school as me, but that was all. My life continued on like normal. Then we graduated High School. Byeongkwan’s parents left for overseas work, leaving their son in the old house rent free for who knows how long. While I moved and got my own apartment a few miles away closer to the city of Chicago.

I changed jobs a few times but I was settled in my new job as a teller at a bank. A modest job, I know. I could have gone to collage but didn’t much feel like being weighed down with debt. And I liked my job. I had good friends. My life was good.

Until one night I was awakened to the sound of fists banging on my front door frantically. I sat upright in bed and went to look out the peephole of my door.

I saw a man with battered clothing, his body scratched and bruised and covered in blood. He was barley standing, a pained look on his face. Byeongkwan.

I open my door and Byeongkwan’s eyes lock mine before he crawls inside and lays down on my living room floor, his body shaking and convulsing horribly.

“Byeongkwan, let me call an ambulance” I say, wiping away his sweat drenched hair from his forehead.

Byeongkwan grabs my wrist, stopping me. “Please.” He chokes out, “Don’t. I came to you because you’re the only person I felt I could trust.”

He lays his head back against the carpet as another severe shaking fit takes over his body. His blood soaking my carpet. The veins in his neck popping from his neck as he gritted his teeth against the pain.

I stare down at him, worry filling my chest. Unsure what to do. “What happened to you?” I mumble as I rest my hand on his chest. His skin burning hot.

Then, he stops moving. His entire body relaxes as he eyes close. I freeze, thinking he’s dead. I’m about to call an ambulance anyway when a green light glows through his veins. His entire body lit with the green light. Slowly the light fades, leaving the room dark as my heart thuds against my ribs.  I stare at him, eyes wide. His eyes open suddenly and i back away from him. Suddenly nervous.

Byeongkwan’s eyes are a light, glowing shade of green. His irises look like cat eyes as they lock onto me. Byeongkwan sits up quickly, running a hand through his black sweaty hair.

“Byeongkwan,” I whisper, his eyes darting all over my apartment. “Are you okay?”

Byeongkwan’s eyes meet mine, and a feeling of true fear washes over me. I knew then, before he even spoke to me, he had changed.

“I’m just fine, baby.” He says coolly. A smirk on his lips.

~~~~

That was six months ago. Come to find out, Byeongkwan had been walking home from work one night and a nearby power plant thats on our neighborhood road exploded. Byeongkwan happened to be walking past at that time and the electricity hit his body dead on.

He should have died. Actually, he did die. Until a powerful force entered his body, taking in his weak state and giving him powers. This is what Byeongkwan told me when I asked how he got these sudden powers.

The powers I’m referring to? Teleportation and shapeshifting. But he was also given superhuman strength and an increased  IQ.

But this force giving him these powers, is evil. Slowly the Byeongkwan I grew up with changed. He became more devious, harder to handle. And now, he’s blackmailing me to keep his secret. All the while he steals and commits crime without ever getting caught. The police never even know who did it. Because he can shed his skin like a snake and slither into the night.

Here’s the thing; I’m not a killer. I can’t just turn him in. People with superpowers down live in Chicago or anywhere else in the world. They aren’t real! (This is what I try to reassure myself)

But if I turn him in, he’ll be a lab rat. A subject to thousands of tests for the rest of his life or until they decide he’s more useful dead than alive.

Even if I turn him in, he’s too fast. They will never find him or catch him. And if tell, he can have my family killed in an instant. And I can’t kill myself. I tried that. He found me and caught me before I could jump.

Understand this isn’t sweet Byeongkwan that I grew up with. This is so much different. This Byeongkwan will threaten to kill and you will believe him. Because he flashes you his Cheshire Cat grin that sends chills down your spine and you become afraid. And you believe him.

And this Byeongkwan has entrusted me with known his new found power. So my soul, in a way, is sold to this man. Because for the safety of the human race and my family I cannot tell another living soul who he is or what he is capable of. My devil who I’ve sold my soul to.

But he’s also a guarding angel. Because of his power he can teleport extremely fast. He can be in Jamaica one minute and be by my side the next. This serves him well because I never truly leave his sight. He proved his point when I was leaving work one late night, the streets empty and dark. A few teenagers grabbed me and pulled me into an alleyway, thinking they could have some fun.

Then, there was Byeongkwan. His jaw set and his hands in fists. He beat the teens so badly they could only lay on the pavement and moan. The next minute, Byeongkwan had me in his arms and we were inside my apartment. Safe and sound.

The scary thing; when Byeongkwan was beating those teens, I saw a glint in his eyes. A strange look as if he enjoyed what he was doing. And I don’t think he would have stopped had I not told him to.

He’s my demon on one shoulder. But an angel on the other.

~~~~~

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a gut feeling something is wrong? It’s like when you wake up and stare at your desk chair a little too long because your brain is convinced there’s someone sitting in it.

This is the feeling I wake up to. My back is drenched in sweat causing my shirt to stick to my skin. My eyes search my room for the cause of my anxiety.

My balcony window is open, cold Chicago air blowing in, making my currents flap in the breeze. I feel a chill go down my spine when my eyes lock on a pair of bright green eyes in the corner of my room.

“Hi, baby.” Byeongkwan gloats, his voice deep.

I lay back against the pillow. Knowing what he was going to ask next. Every month, Byeongkwan would stop in like this. And he would ask one question, and it was always the same question.

“You haven’t told anyone, right?” He asks as he stand up to full height.

I sigh and press my palms against my eyes. “No. For the millionth time, no.”

Byeongkwan smirks against the moon light, watching me laid out in bed. I let out a gasp when his body weight is suddenly on me, his legs straddling my waist.

“What are you-“ I begin to protest, but Byeongkwan puts a finger to my lips, his face inches from mine.

I watch as his glowing green cat eyes lose their glow, his old eye color returning.

“You’re so good at keeping secrets.” He whispers. His finger trailing down my neck and even further down my chest. The sensation sent a chill up my spine, but at the same time I couldn’t seem to will myself to make him stop.

Byeongkwan smirks at me widely, leaning his head down to my neck before whispering, “Keep up this good behavior and I’ll reward you.”

And then he’s gone. His body vanishes and the only thing I have to prove he was there was the lingering feeling of his smooth skin against mine. My face flushes at his words; my mind spinning with what they could possibly mean.

~~~~~~~

I lay on the couch after a long day at work, my eyes closing from drowsiness. I hadn’t seen Byeongkwan for two months now. I was beginning to think maybe he had left. Maybe I actually had my life back.

I sigh at the thought, hoping that was indeed the case. I lean my head against the plush pillows and feel myself drift off to sleep to peaceful dreams with the TV still on.

At some point, I turn over, my arm going beneath my head. It registers with me that my couch feels surprisingly cold and hard.

I feel a gust of wind run along my neck, blowing my hair onto my face. My eyes come open and I sit up quickly. I’m not home anymore. And I know instantly who moved me without me ever knowing. I’m lying on a concrete floor of a renovated building. With the way the wind is blowing I know I’m on the top floor.

The walls of the building are only boards, a shadow of walls that aren’t yet complete. Plastic wrap hands from the ceiling and flaps in the breeze, casting ghost like shadows across the dark building.

I stand up and wipe my sweaty palms on my pants, my heart in my throat. Then, from the wall in front of me, a portal like hole opens up, it’s smoke like appearance twists and turns like a raging thunder storm.

Byeongkwan steps out from the portal, a smirk on his lips, his green eyes boring through mine. He wears a long black trench coat with a white button down shirt underneath it. His hair is slicked back and several rings encase his fingers. I can tell instantly all of them are expensive, but stolen.

“Hello, darling.” Byeongkwan greets, his voice sweet but his smile sinister.

I let out a shaky breath, “Byeongkwan, what do you want?” I ask, trying to keep the shake out of my voice.

Byeongkwan walks slowly over to me, his boots clicking on the concrete floor as he walks.

“I have a confession to make.” He says, his voice deep and his eyes roaming over me.

“Are you actually going to come clean?” I ask, sarcasm lacing my words.

Byeongkwan stops inches in front of me, his green cat eyes searching my face, making me swallow nervously.

“No... but I realized something that I think is important to get out.” He says, stepping a bit closer to me, making my breath hitch.

Byeongkwan leans his head down, his warm breath fanning across my cold cheeks. “I’m of the belief that you’ve bewitched me.” He whispers in my ear.

My eyes widen and I feel my body freeze. Words refusing to leave my throat.

Byeongkwan sees me struggling and chuckles. “Didn’t you know, baby?” Byeongkwan asks, his smirk widening. “I’ve actually had a crush on you since we were young. But the shy me that came to your house was never going to admit that. But now, things are different.”

Byeongkwan wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me close to him, my body flush against his.

A black portal opens up behind him and he pulls us inside. When I open my eyes again we’re back at my place. I lay on my couch like I’ve never left, but Byeongkwan hovers over me, his body weight on mine.

Byeongkwan runs his tongue over his teeth as he stares down at me. A chill going down my spine, but a feeling of desire washing over me as I stare into his powerful green eyes.

“God, you’re so beautiful.” Byeongkwan whispers deeply. His hands finding mine as they take my wrists and pin them above my head, making me squeak involuntary.

His nose runs along mine, causing me to lose my breath, his hips pressing against me and pushing me harder into the couch. Byeongkwan runs his nose down my neck, causing goosebumps to rise.

Byeongkwan lets out a breath against my neck, hot air brushing against my skin. His lips meet mine and I feel my eyes close, a feeling of surrender going through me. Not because Byeongkwan is a villain in this world and I’m powerless against  him.  But because I want to surrender to him to see how far this goes.

Byeongkwan lets out a moan against my mouth, his tongue sliding into my mouth before his teeth gently take my tongue and bite it.

Byeongkwan pulls away and bites my jawline, making my back arch involuntarily.

“If I have it my way baby,” Byeongkwan whispers between kisses and breaths, “I will have you moaning my name.”

“Do you always get what you want?” I ask, my breath coming in too fast. My head spinning.

Byeongkwan meets my eyes, his hands leaving my waist to wrap around my waist, my hands going to his toned chest.

“Not always.” Byeongkwan answers as his tongue flicks at my ear. “But this is the only thing that really matters to me.”

I take his face in my hands, my thumbs running across his cheeks, his eyes staring into mine. For the first time in months I feel like I’m not scared of this devil that possessed my life. Rather, I felt drawn to him. Like a forbidden love that was irresistible.

I lean in to kiss his lips but I feel his body slip away from me. He stands in the kitchen doorway, the moonlight from my window highlighting his dark skin.

He must see the let down in my eyes because he smirks at the look in my eyes, “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be coming back for you to finish this later.”

He says, before he vanished. Disappearing through the smoke like portal.

My devil with green eyes possessed me. And now I feel like my life is really going to change.

MASTERLIST

#a.c.e #ace #a.c.e x reader #ace byeongkwan x reader #ace bk #a.c.e byeongkwan x reader #a.c.e byeongkwan #a.c.e bk #a.c.e imagine #ace fanfiction #kpop #kpop fanfiction #kpop x reader #spice #fanfiction #kpop imagines #superhero #kpopmadness writings

[featherquillpen]

Dæmorphing Drabble: “Remainder”

In which Nora has so many more pieces of the puzzle, but she still can’t make it all add up. A Dæmorphing drabble I wrote last year, totally forgot about, and just rediscovered on my computer today.

Nora had never liked camping.

She was always a neat person. She hated having to get up in the middle of the night when it was raining, and the wind was howling, to walk through the mud to the composting toilet. She hated how Euclid’s paws would get stained brown with mud.

One of her first nights in the valley, she got up to use the toilet. It wasn’t raining, but in the middle of the night she heard animalistic screams and struggles. Nothing human, nothing animal, nothing from this earth. She went running into the yurt and found Peter. She shook him awake and gasped and trembled. Euclid whined and hid under the bed. “What is that?” she whispered.

“What’s what?” Peter started to mumble. As he came awake, he heard the sound too, and clutched at her. “Ah – um – let’s ask Marco.”

Nora had always liked Marco from afar, the way you like the class clown in your school who would never look twice at you, or a funny celebrity. She admired his resilience and humor, but knew that she would never really get close. He wouldn’t allow her to. Now she had some inkling of why. She hated to wake him up; he never seemed to get enough sleep, always some shade of gray beneath the brown of his skin.

“Marco? Do you hear that? What’s going on?” Peter said quietly. Mirazai was red and yellow with alarm inside her tank.

Marco came awake so suddenly, it was like an incandescent light coming on, blindingly bright. Diamanta came loose from around his neck and reared up, ready to strike. “What? What’s going on?” Marco said, instantly alert, looking around.

“What’s that noise?”

“Oh. Oh, that. Don’t worry about that. That’s one of Toby’s raids.”

“What? One of – Toby – that’s the leader alien, right?”

“Hah. Yeah. That’s the boss alien in charge. Her people, the Hork-Bajir, they’re slaves of the Yeerks. She leads the warriors out on raids to free them. When they come back, and they scream and struggle like that, that’s the Yeerks in their heads trying to get out. They won’t. Trust me. The screaming will be over soon.”

“What, they torture them? What are they doing?”

Marco gave his father a flat look. “Starving them out. Or, well, I don’t know exactly what she does, but I assume she’s starving them out. That’s what we did when Jake was taken prisoner.”

“Jake was –”

“Yeah. Not a nice story. But it’s what we have to do when someone’s taken. It’s the only way to be sure. Unless you can convince the Yeerk to leave on their own, but that’s not exactly easy.”

“So that’s how all of them got free? Screaming like that?”

“Well, most of them. Jara and Ket managed to escape without their Yeerks – it’s complicated. And then there’s ones who were born free, like Toby. But most of them, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “So, uh. Can I go back to sleep now? Didn’t really get my beauty sleep last night.”

“How can you sleep with noise like that?” Nora said, holding Euclid in her arms.

Marco shrugged. “I’ve slept through worse. You’ll get used to it.”

Nora didn’t really want to get used to it, but maybe she didn’t have a choice.

Living in the valley was horrible and scary sometimes, but what really got to Nora after a while was the boredom. She did everything she could to help. She cooked sometimes for the humans in the valley. She helped organize the pantry, but she felt like the others were humoring her when they let her do that. She’d help keep the fire burning in the fire pit, find kindling and stoke it. She wasn’t really the best at that.

When she mentioned being bored to Robin – one of the people who’d been in the valley longer, one of those strange people who seemed to be sympathetic to the Yeerks, terrible brain slugs who’d taken Eva away and ruined Peter’s life and so many others’ – he said, “Try talking to the Hork-Bajir. They’re interesting. They’ve always got something to do.”

“Aren’t they, um – I mean, they don’t seem to speak English so well.”

“Eh, they can get along,” Robin said. “Give it a try. You’re a teacher, right? You might like Kam Jedet, one of the teachers here in the valley. See what he has to say.”

It could be hard to find the Hork-Bajir sometimes. They were always up in the trees. Nora had never been bad at climbing trees as a kid, but when Euclid settled as a poodle, that made it a little harder – she got slowed down by having to carry him in one arm. So really, what she could manage were low branches, leaving Euclid on the ground straining at the edges of their limit. 

Eventually, she did find a Hork-Bajir teaching a group of their children. The children were weirdly cute compared to the terrifying adults. Their blades were stubby still, and didn’t look like they could cut anything. They were clumsy and uncoordinated in that charming way of all young things, human or animal, stumbling over their own tails. They were already better in the trees than Nora could ever be, even if Euclid had been one of the most nimble of animals. Nora couldn’t understand most of the lesson, but she caught the words “good touch” and “wrong touch.” What was that about? she wondered silently to Euclid.

When the lesson was over, she went up to the teacher. She said, “Are you Kam Jedet?”

He – Robin had said he, right? – said, “Yes,” in that deep gravelly voice all Hork-Bajir seemed to have.

“You’re a teacher,” Nora said.

“Yes.”

“I’m a teacher, too,” said Nora.

“Ah,” said Kam.

“What were you teaching the children just then?”

“Freedom lessons,” Kam said.

“What are freedom lessons? That’s not a subject I’ve ever taught.”

Kam looked surprised. “No freedom lessons?” He blinked. “Ah. Humans are free. Not like Hork-Bajir. No freedom lessons.”

“Lessons on... how to be free?” Nora said.

Kam swung down from the tree, which spared Nora from having to crane her neck up to look at him. “Yes,” Kam said. “Yeerk teach Hork-Bajir how to be slave. Say yes to Yeerk in head. Be slave. Do not try for free. Hork-Bajir learn how to be free. Good touch, no wrong touch. Listen to head. Listen to hearts. Know what Hork-Bajir want.”

“I think I get it,” Nora said. “Maybe. It seems important. I don’t really know how to teach freedom lessons, but I taught math, before I came here. For human children.”

“Math?” said Kam.

Oh boy, Nora thought, giving Euclid a look.

He gave an encouraging yip. Go on.

“You know, how to work with numbers. How to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide.”

“Ah,” said Kam. “Yes. Numbers. Important. Kam not know much of numbers. Nora want teaching?”

This is insane, Nora thought to Euclid. She almost imagined that in Marco’s voice. Am I really offering to teach math to alien kids right now?

Euclid said, The kids are getting freedom lessons. They need math, too. That’s how you build a free society, how you manage your resources. How you know what you have and what you don’t.

“How much English do the kids speak? I don’t know your language.”

“Bek Mashar teach English. Watch Bek teach. Learn how Hork-Bajir learn English,” said Kam.

“Okay,” Nora said. It only made sense that she’d have to do shadowing again, to learn again how to be a teacher. “Okay. I’ll follow him and see what he does.”

After her math lessons, students liked to stick around and ask her questions. Some of them just asked about humans and what they were like. Some of them asked questions about other subjects. Some of them became interested in some version of engineering or science – she often didn’t know the answer to those questions. She wished she had access to a library, a computer, anything to satisfy their endless curiosity. Sometimes they asked personal questions and often she would say, “That’s private,” and they respected that, because they learned to in their freedom lessons. Nora came to appreciate those more and more every day.

Today, little Franaj, Toby Hamee’s little sister, stuck around to ask questions. She asked, “Nora has baby? Like Jara and Ket have Franaj?”

Nora’s heart ached. Euclid whined and licked at her hand. “Sort of,” she managed to say. “My husband Peter has a son, Marco. He’s one of the Animorphs. He’s not really my baby, but my husband loves him, so I feel a sort of – connection.”

“Hearts family important like egg family,” said Franaj. “Kam say in freedom lessons.”

“Yes, of course. That’s right,” said Nora.

“Nora has baby Marco,” said Franaj.

Nora shook her head. “Not really. Your sister Toby – she has parents, your parents Jara and Ket, but she’s not their baby.”

“Yes,” said Franaj. “Toby is grown up.”

The way she heard Marco and the others talk, Toby was born in this valley only a couple of years ago. She was far too young to be grown up. But then again, Marco was far too young to be grown up, and he was nearly sixteen.

“Sixteen in a few days, right?” Euclid said quietly. He was right. What were they going to do to mark his birthday in a place like this? She’d have to talk to Peter about it. 

“Right,” Nora said. “Toby is a grown up. So is Marco, but their parents can still worry about them too.”

Nora did worry about Marco, but he would have hated to hear that, if she had ever said it out loud.

It wasn’t much of a birthday party. Nora might have forgotten about it completely if it weren’t for Melissa, who kept track of the dates in a notebook of hers. The rest of them didn’t exactly have calendars or computers or contact with the outside world, so how would they know? Certainly Marco himself didn’t seem to know it was his birthday.

Nora tried to bring it up with Peter. He’d been busy, spending hours away from the valley. At first he didn’t want to talk about what he was doing. Finally, he admitted, “I’ve been working on a Yeerk Pool.”

“You’ve been working on a what?” Nora said.

“Estrid has to test the virus before we use it. We’re going to have to – keep Yeerks. For her to test on,” he bit out.

Nora thought about that for a second. It wasn’t a nice thing to think about. “They’re our enemies,” Euclid said, as much to convince me as anyone else.

“Yeah,” said Peter, looking down at his hands. “Sure.”

“It’s Marco’s sixteenth birthday tomorrow,” Nora said. “Should we do something? I feel like we should.”

Peter laughed hollowly. “What could we possibly do? It’s not like he can take the day off.”

“We could give him something nice?”

“Bake a cake? We barely have enough supplies as it is, with all the morphers doing supply runs.”

“I can ask the children if they know about any berries we can pick.”

“All right,” said Peter. “I guess that’s the best we can do.”

“We’ll go berry-picking in the evening, then. When you’re done with... work.” Of course, Nora had work too, teaching children, but she figured she found it a lot more comforting than Peter found his.

Marco ended up having to leave early on his birthday to go to Sacramento – something to do with the governor. “Well, at least they're finally telling the authorities about all of it,” Nora said.

“Yeah. If Governor Hernandez is still, you know, free,” said Peter.

When Marco got back to the valley, late that same night, he was shaking with exhaustion. Nora and Peter decided they’d only be tormenting him more to make him go through with some kind of birthday ceremony, so they saved the berries for breakfast when he woke up. “Hey,” said Peter, putting the bowl in his hands as soon as he was awake enough to take it. “Happy sweet sixteen, Marco.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Sweet sixteen is for girls, Dad,” he complained. But he ate the berries anyway.

Neither of them ever told him it was Nora who’d picked them.

#animorphs #daemorphing #my fic

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary - Chapter 29

Warnings: some violence

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud, @alievans007, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @thorsbathroomchicken, @valkyrie-of-the-light

If you can, please leave even the smallest comment so I know someone is reading lol  <3

“I thought you said you knew how to do this?”  Esme whispers, as she nervously bounces up and down on her heels, arms crossed over her chest, hands vigorously rubbing her shoulders in a vain attempt to warm herself up.  Enormous poplars tower over either end of the McMann's front porch, effectively blocking out the sun and bringing a chill to the air.

“I do,” Yaz responds, as he uses a picking tool to manipulate the lock on the front door. He'd already used a high tech blocker to jam the security system; once inside no alarm would sound and no police or security would be alerted to their activity.  “It just takes time.”

“It's been fifteen minutes. If there's anyone watching, they're going to see us.”

“If there is anyone watching, they would have seen us by now.  I can't believe you even talked me into this.”

“I was getting tired of waiting around for Nik to make up her mind about whether she wanted us to check the place out or not.  What's with her dragging her heels? We are running out of time. Those kids are running out of time. We need information, Yaz. It's not going to fall into our laps.” “I thought you were going to get information tomorrow. On your date.”

“It is not a date. It's a ruse. To get what I what.  This clock is ticking. We don't have time to fuck around. Those kids have been missing for two weeks. And you know as well as I do, that they're on borrowed time. So it's time to pull out all the stops.  Go big or go home.”

'Tyler's going to flip his shit, you know that, right?”

“Tyler is a big boy that realizes that we need to get the show on the road. And that sometimes means  making....uncomfortable...decisions.”

“You really think he's going to be okay with his wife going out on a date with some random guy?”

“Again, it's not a date. I'm using this person to get information. Information we all desperately need, I might add.  This is the only way I'm going to get it, Yaz. And it's messed up and it's weird and it's going to get incredibly awkward.  But this has to be done.  He's got names. People who have way more clout and info than he does. We are so close to finding out just who has those kids and where they are.”

“You're crazy if you think Tyler is going to go along with this.  I wouldn't if I was in his shoes. I wouldn't want my wife putting herself out there like that. Pretending she's single, flirting with other men, having dinner and drinks with them.”

“It's for the job. He's not going to feel threatened over some two bit hood that I have to con to get info out of. He's forty years old, Yaz. He's far beyond being the jealous and irrational type.”

He smirks. “You keep telling yourself that.”  There's an audible 'click' as the lock finally gives way, and he shoots her a victorious grin as he turns the handle and pushes the door open, holding it for her and gesturing for to step inside first.  

“Oh so it can be me the attack dogs come after first,” she teases, slapping him playfully across the chest before stepping into the foyer. “Not too shabby,” she gives a nod of approval as she surveys the polished marble tiles, cove ceilings, and rich cherry wood accents. “I didn't picture McMann as the type to have wainscotting and antiques. He seems more like the leather and chrome type. Look...” she picks up a small knick-knack from the hallway table; a small porcelain figurine of a young boy with his dog. “...he even has Hummels! Talk about someone being a total mind fuck! Total study in contradiction, don't you think?”

“How do you even know what Hummels are? You don't seem like the type to collect frilly and pretty shit.”

“My grandmother used to collect them. She had a whole china cabinet full of them.  She used to threaten to beat our asses if even dared step a single toe in the living room where they were kept.   She was the type that had plastic on the couches and fancy hand towels in the bathroom that no one was allowed to touch. Oooo...look...mail,” she picks up a stack of envelopes from the table.  “Let's snoop.”

“What are we exactly looking for?” Yaz asks, as they fall in step alongside of each other, curiously watching as she thumbs through the stack of mail, then selects a handwritten letter bearing a New Zealand postal stamp.

“Anything and everything,” she tears into the envelope, plucking the stiff writing paper out from its confines, carefully opening it.  “Fancy,” she releases a low, impressed whistle. “Someone doesn't realize the art of good penmanship and snail mail died a long time ago.  This has to be from an older relative. Someone still hanging onto the past. Maybe Heather's grandmother?”

“Maybe. What's it say?”

“It's about the business. Maybe the grandmother's shop? The one where she was helping Heather hide out from her father? Where McMann found her? There's no name of the place or an address. The letter is personal. Nothing business like about it.  All about how sad it is that the end of the era has come and how the writer wishes things could have been different. But they accept the decision and won't contact them again. It's signed Nan.”

“Definitely the grandmother.” Yaz concludes.

“We'll take it with us,” Esme says, and then pauses before she slips it into her purse. Then drops all of the envelopes inside. “We'll talk all of them, actually.”

“You don't think he's going to realize his mail is missing?”

“Who cares. Let him think he's gone crazy and tear the place apart looking for it.  Let's start upstairs and work our way down.”

“You seem to enjoying this a little too much,” Yaz comments, as he follows her up the spiral staircase, loose floorboards sagging and creaking under their feet. “Were you a cat burglar at some point in your old life?”

“No,” she laughs. “I just get a perverse satisfaction out of snooping through peoples' shit and finding out the skeletons in their closet. Especially people like this. The ones who have the fancy house and the fancy cars and the designer clothes. The ones that look so perfect on the outside yet have the most twisted shit going on behind closed doors.”

“So about this date...”

She sighs.

“Sorry...about this 'non date'.  You honestly think Tyler is going to be okay with it? That you're going to let some IRA dude wine and dine you?”

“First all, I think you need to stop worrying about what goes on between Tyler and I.  Our marriage is good, Yaz. It's beyond good. It's amazing. We love each other and want to spend the rest of our lives together and totally intend on doing just that. We have four amazing kids.  If we've managed to get through the past five and a half years, this bullshit with Michael McMann isn't going to break us.”

“But you're pretending like your single. You're flirting with this bartender. You agreed to go out with him.”

“It's for the job,,” she reminds him. “There's nothing scandalous going on. It is strictly business. I'm not running off to cheat on my husband. This isn't committing adultery. This is lying and conning someone into giving us what we want. What we need. And Tyler is going to understand that. Any rational human being would.”

“You realize that he isn't exactly understanding and rational when it comes to you, right? You realize it drives him batshit insane if another guy so as much looks as you when you're with him? He doesn't even like me checking you out.”

“You've been checking me out?”

“It's kind of hard not to. At the risk of sounding like a pervert, you're kind of hard not to notice. I so would have scooped you up if you weren't into tall, buff, Australian dudes.  I'm just saying that this is a horrible idea. You hooking up with this bartender. It can be done another way. Getting information. Why risk pissing Tyler off and causing issues between you guys?”

“He isn't going to be pissed off. He's a professional.”

“He's also your husband.  Maybe he'd be okay with it if it was just some girl off the street Nik brought in. But you guys have history. You're his wife. And no husband is going to like the idea of his wife being with another man. Whether it's for business or not.  Doesn't he at least get a say in this?”

“What he is going to say?”

“That you're insane and there's no way he's letting you do it.”

“I admit, when I tell him, he may get a little upset...”

Yaz stares at her pointedly.

“Okay so he may get very upset. But when he calms down, he'll realize that it's for the best. That things like this have to be done from time to time. I'm going to have a dinner and a couple drinks and I'm going to get the info we need. I'm not running off with some strange man to cheat on my husband. Give me some credit, would you? Sheesh. You don't really think that about me do you? That I'd do that to Tyler?”

“I don't think you would. I know you're crazy about the guy. But this is some serious shit you're wadding into. This guy is IRA. Not just a bartender. A bartender that's in a terrorist organization. And you're walking right into his bullshit. This is crazy. You know it is. And I agree that we need information, but...”

“You check the master bedroom,” she suggests. “I'll hit up the kids' rooms”

He captures her by the wrist before she can walk away. “Esme, I'm just worried about you, okay? This is some scary shit we're all getting into it. You're my friend. Tyler's my friend. I don't want to see this screwing things up for you guys. You two have a great thing.  He has a normal life. A wife and kids.  A house. All the things he'd never thought he'd have, you gave him.  And I don't want to see all that fucked up because of this Michael McMann bullshit. Just promise me you'll hear him out. When you tell him about tomorrow night. Don't just ignore what he has to say. Because I don't think you realize just how much he loves you. How much it would kill him to lose you. To lose what he has.”

“I'm not going anywhere, Yaz.  I plan to stick around. For a very long time.  Or least until you end up killing me for making jokes at your expense.”

He grins at that.

“Tyler knows I love him. He knows that I would do anything for him.  I'm not going to let anyone screw my life up.  I've worked too hard at this and put too much work into my marriage...into my family...to let the job mess that up. I promise.”

“Good,” he says, and then playfully tousles her hair. “Now lets get to work.”

****

McMann is already waiting for the them at the scheduled, a long abandoned school on the outskirts of town. A one story sprawling building; faded and chipped red bricks, broken and missing windows, weeds and grass to the knees, industrial sized dumpsters filled the brim.  The area itself is a disaster; most of the houses empty and boarded up, junk of various shapes and sizes filling the yards of the tenants who still remain.  A foul stench hangs in the air; rotting trash, pollution from the factories only blocks away, the smell of mould and mildew that comes with years of neglect and decay.

“That's him?” Mark mutters as they approach,  McMann watching them with narrow, darkened eyes, taking one last, long drag of his cigarette before tossing it aside.

Tyler nods. “Just remember what I told you. Just go with it.”

“Who the hell is this? McMann barks. “You're supposed to be alone. What the hell kind of shit are you trying to pull, Rake?”

“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” he retorts, and before McMann  can get out another word, Tyler is grabbing a hold of the front of his t-shirt and slamming his forearm into his throat; using his height and weight advantage to shove the startled man into the side of one of the dumpsters. The back of his head slamming off the metal with an echoing thud.

“What the fuck?!” McMann roars. “What the fuck do you think you're doing? Are you fucking crazy? What is wrong with you? We had a deal!”

“Everything you told me was a goddamn lie,” Tyler snarls. “Right from the very beginning. Right from the fucking start you've been bullshitting me. Playing me. You didn't think I'd find out? You didn't think I had ways of looking into you and figuring out what you're up to?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I don't...”

He increases the pressure of his forearm; leaning into the other man. Until McMann is coughing and sputtering and his face turning a vivid shade of red.  “Don't lie to me,” Tyler hisses.  “If there was ever the time to tell the truth, this would be it.”

“You're crazy,” McMann manages through the gagging; spit rolling down the sides of his mouth, sweat beading across his forehead. His eyes wide with a mixture of fury and terror. “You're fucking crazy. I was warned about you. How unhinged you are.”

“I haven't even got to the point of being unhinged. I know about your little plan. All the bullshit you spewed to get me here. Away from my family. You wanted me alone. You thought it would make me vulnerable. You thought you'd be able to get the drop on me.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about you. You!” he barks the last word at Mark, who stands idly by with his hands shoved in his pockets, enjoying the exchange. “Do something would ya? Get him off of me!”

“No,” Mark says, and casually leans against one of the brick walls. “I don't think I will.”

“Your little friend showed up at my hotel,” Tyler continues. “What is she? Your little girlfriend? Your side piece?”

“What girl? Who...”

“She gave me the pictures. The pictures of your wife and your kids. The proof of life. And she gave me the pictures of my family. Of my wife, my kids. Didn't I warn you not to fuck with my family? Didn't I tell you it was the worst possible thing that you could do? Go after my wife and my kids? That I would kill you if you even thought about it?”

“I swear...” McMann claws at Tyler's forearm, struggles in vain to get away from the strong, solid body keeping him in place.  “...I don't know what you're talking about...”

“Tell me the truth,” Tyler orders.  “All of it. Or I will snap your neck right here and now and I'll leave you here to rot.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about!” he insists, his skin turning a hideous shade of purple, blood vessels popping in his eyes. And with his free hand he reaches up to grab a hold of Tyler's hair; yanking and twisting it.

“You stupid fucker!”  Tyler roars; the act dissipating, the rage suddenly all too real.

That simple and desperate act of violence and retaliation against him sends him over the edge.  Five and a half years of pent up anger and frustration.  The confusion he'd felt during those months in the hospital and all through those long and tedious days of rehab and wondering if he'd ever been even half the man he once was.  The guilt that he carried around over what he had put Esme through; her fight to keep him alive on the bridge,  the nights she'd spent sleeping beside his hospital bed, the animosity she'd felt towards him for having pushing her into a life she didn't  want. The lingering fear that he'll lose her. That she'll disappear from his life just as quick as she entered it. Leaving him broken and alone and raising four kids by himself. He wouldn't survive. He knows it.  He'd turn to the booze and the meds again and his life would fall apart and then he'd no longer even have his children.

His forearm slips from McMann's throat and his hand wraps around his throat. Knuckles cracking and turning white from the pure, brute force that he uses.  Nostrils flaring. Chest heaving from a mixture of rage and exertion. Eyes dark and crazed.  The eyes of a predator that has managed to catch his prey and will show no mercy.

“All right...” Mark is stepping alongside of him now.  “....take it easy....take it down a notch...this isn't what we came for...”

“You fucking lied to me,” Tyler's voice is low, menacing. Fingers pressing further into McMann's throat.  “I told you to leave my family out of it. I told you to stay away from my wife and my kids. And now they're caught up in this bullshit. Your bullshit.  And if anything happens to my wife because of you...”

“Hey...hey...” Mark lays a hand on Tyler's arm. “...look at me, kid....look at me...”

Tyler inhales sharply, breath slowly leaving his lungs and his lips, turning those furious blue eyes on Mark's concerned hazel ones.

“Nothing is going to happen to her, okay? She's going to be fine. She's safe. With you. Now just take it down a notch. This isn't what we came here for. Step back, take a breath, and get your shit together. Understand me?”

Tyler just stares at him. Just heaving. Fingers finally beginning to relax around McMann's throat.

“You kill him and then what?” Mark asks. “You kill him, you don't get what you want. You need whatever information he has. He dies, those kids die. And you know that.  That's not what you want, Tyler. You don't want the blood of those kids on your hands. So take a step back and calm down, you hear me?

He finally relents.  Hand relaxing and falling off of McMann's throat, stepping back as the man's body collapses to the ground in front of him.  

“Just take it easy...” Mark encourages, and rubs his shoulders in the same way a manager would do a boxer in between rounds.  “....just take a few deep breaths and take it easy...”

Tyler rakes his hands through his hair;  then bends at the waist, hands resting on his thighs. Eyes closed as he struggles to regain his composure. Sucking in long, shaky breaths. Releasing them slowly. Until he feels all of his muscles begin to relax; the rage and the tension disappearing first from his shoulders, then spreading down his arms and his arms.  

“You stupid sonofabitch,” McMann gasps for air as he struggles into a sit, back against the dumpster.  “Do you know who you're messing with? Do you know the people I know? The people I'm involved with? What they could do to you? To your family?”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Mark snarls. “I've calmed him down once. I won't be able to again.  Keep his family out of this. If you know what's good for you. You good?” he pats Tyler on the back.  “You think you can hold it together long enough to get some information out of this prick?”

He nods, heaving a sigh as he stands up. “I'm good.”

“What kind of information?” McMann asks, eyes narrowed as Tyler approaches him. “I've already told you everything I know.”

“You lied to me, mate.  Right off the hop. You told me that your wife was a shop keeper in New Zealand. That she was feeding you information while you were there for a job. I know that's all shit. I know who she is. I know who her family is. Who her father was.  You were working for him. He hired you to extract her.  She was a kid.  She was a fucking kid and you took advantage of her. She was weak and vulnerable and you were responsible for her and you preyed on her, you sick fuck.”

“We fell in love,” he tries to reason. “I never forced her into anything. It was mutual.”

“She was a teenager! She was seventeen and you took advantage of her. What the hell is wrong with you? You were thirty three. You were supposed to protect her. Bring her home to her father.  She was vulnerable and she trusted you and you took advantage of that. For that alone I should break your fucking neck. We both have daughters. Would you want that for your daughter? I sure as hell don't. And if someone like you ever even so as much looks at my daughter the wrong way. I'll do shit to them  that they couldn't even begin to imagine in their worst dreams.”

“She was almost an adult,” McMann continues. “She wasn't a child. She was...”

“I know about everything,” Tyler says. “I know that you started taking jobs for friends of her old man. That you'd take the money and not get the work done. I also know that you killed him.”  He's taking a shot in the dark with the last part; there's no proof that McMann is the one that did the hit himself. Or had one put on his father in law.

“He knew too much.  About me being part of the IRA. I told him I left and he found out I didn't and he was going to try and convince Heather to take the kids and leave.”

“You're still part of them?” Mark inquires. “The IRA?”

“No. I did leave. Two years ago. I have nothing to do with them now.”

“Why'd you lie about who has your wife and your kids?” Tyler asks. “We know it's not the IRA.  They deny having anything to do with it. They won't claim responsibility.  Why'd you tell me it was them? Do you realize what could have happened? If I'd just come in here believing what you said and caused all kinds of shit with them? How bad things would have gotten? You wanted me to take the fall for you, didn't you. You wanted me to come here and blow shit up and take a bullet for you. To cover up who's actually behind all of this. You were willing to have me killed to cover your shit up.”

McMann nods.

“Who has them?” Mark asks. “Who has your wife and your kids?”

“Her family,” he replies. “The Buckmans.”

“Whose in charge?” Tyler inquires.  “Of the family? Is it your wife?”

“I can't...I can't tell you that.  You have to understand.  If I tell you everything...”

“Is your wife in charge?” Tyler presses, and takes a step closer. “Don't fuck me around here, mate. You've lied to me enough. So unless you want me snapping your neck for good this time...”

“I'm not sure.  I'm not sure she's involved. At first I thought she was innocent in all of this. That she was just as innocent as the kids. And then things started not adding up. The more and more I thought about it, things didn't make sense.”

“Why? Why would she do it? Why would she do that to her own kids?”

“Revenge?” McMann suggests with a shrug. “For what I did to her father.”

“And because you've been sticking your dick where it doesn't belong?” Mark smirks. “Yeah, we know about that too. You're just one big shit show, aren't you.”

“Where are they?” Tyler asks. “Where are your wife and kids?”

“That I don't know.  I honestly do not know. I've got both of them after me . The IRA. The Buckmans.”

“Well you're well and truly fucked aren't you, mate.  And I'd give a shit if you didn't go after my family. Was it you? That sent that girl? Erin? Was it you that had someone take pictures of my wife and my kids?”

“No. I had nothing to do with that. I'd have no reason to do that. I needed you here. To help.”

“No. You needed me here to start a whole bunch of shit. And die in the process.  Then shit really hit the fan with your wife and your kids and you realized you did need me alive. That you needed me to do your dirty work. Because you're a coward. A fucking coward that preys on young girls. You were never going to try and get your wife and your kids back, were you. You were going to leave that all to me.”

“I'm not like you,” McMann says.  “I can't do the things you do.  I can't turn it off.  The emotions.”

“And you think I can? You think I like doing this? You think I like having to kill people? I do it because I have to. Because  I have no other choice. Because it's me or them.  Because I have a family that needs me  and going home in a body bag isn't an option.”

“Where are they?” Mark asks. “The kids.”

“I told you. I don't know. I'm not in on this. I have nothing to do with this. I would never do something like that. To my own kids.  I do need your help,” he turns pleading eyes up at Tyler.  “I do need you to find them.  To get them out.  You're the only one that can do it.”

“And if I was to leave right now?” Tyler asks “If I was to just say 'fuck it' and leave? What then?”

“You wouldn't be able to live with yourself,” McMann replies. “You have kids of your own. And every time you would look at them, you'd think about the kids you left behind. To die.”

Tyler gives a derisive snort. “Let's go,” he says to Mark, and then turns on his heel to head for the car.  “We're done here.”

“Don't you fucking walk away!” McMann roars, as he struggles to his feet. “Don't you bail on me, Rake! Don't you bail on my kids!”

“I'll find your kids,”  Tyler assures him.  “Just as long as you stay the fuck out of my way.”

*****

The McMann house is eerily quiet; nothing but the soft hum of the central air conditioning  filling the air. Outside is just as still; no breeze tousling the tree tops, no sounds of children playing in nearby yards or cars on the street. The sky gray and dreary; an imminent threat of rain.

Esme scours the little girl's room; the boy's had turned up nothing out of the ordinary and it had left her frustrated and feeling helpless. One moment it felt as if they were getting closer to finding out their whereabouts, the next it seemed as if they were taking a hundred steps backwards.

The room is the quintessential girls room. A white wood canopy bed with a billowing sheer panels; white with delicately embroidered pink and purple flowers around the edges. An obviously handmade quilt boasting panels displaying rainbows, unicorns and other mythical creatures. The hardwood floor covered in places by impossibly soft bubble gum pink shag throw rugs, a wall to wall bookcase filled with the little one's favourites and a wide selection of stuffed animals. A desk in one corner; covered with drawers and loose markers and crayons. A towering dollhouse in the other; filled with every possible kind of decor and furniture and several different Barbies.

She searches the closet; flipping through hangers of clothing.  Mostly dresses;  all flowing and made from expensive fabrics and boasting rich, vibrant colours.  A handful of more casual items; jeans, a few t-shirts,  a couple of zip up sweaters.  And she sticks her arm in as far as it will go; blindly feeling along the walls for any shelving or even tucked away spaces and corners that could be used as hiding spots.

Nothing.

Sighing, she closes the closet door and journeys to the dresser.  Fingertips tracing along the various toys and small figurines that sit on top of it.  Unicorns the current favourite; ceramic ones that have been hand painted, others made from glass, a couple constructed of heavy crystal, two with multi-coloured flowing manes and tails. There's a hair brush and a handheld mirror; antique by the looks of it, likely passed on through generations.  A small jewellery box that when opened, held a spinning ballerina and played a soft lullaby.

And suddenly the emotions hit.  Raw and powerful.  Thoughts of her own little girl. Of Millie and her brilliant blue eyes and her light brown hair done up in braids.  Of that bedroom back in Colorado that boasts all the little touches that make Millie the spirited and beautiful five year old that she is;  the paintings she'd done on her own and insisted be framed and hung,  the fleece Winnie the Pooh blanket that she'd been given as a baby by a neighbour in the old apartment; it was tattered and faded yet she still insisted that it be kept at the foot of her bed.  Family pictures on her dresser; even ones of her brothers who she was adamant she hated, yet always told them she loved them before bed.  And that stuffed koala; the one that her daddy had given her when she was only an hour old and had been tagging along with them everywhere they went.  He was missing one eye now; his fur wasn't as soft and it had lost most of its colour. But he is treasured and well loved.

The tears come now. Hot. Bitter. The realization of just how desperately she misses her family.  Just how far away they actually are. How messed up things are and how there's a very real chance that she may never see them again. Or, at the very least, be returning as a single parent.

She flees the room; nearly knocking Yaz clear off his feet as he exits the master across the hall.  And she's barely aware of him calling her name and asking what's wrong; tears blurring her vision and burning her cheeks, chest heaving with sobs as she rushes down the stairs.  She feels as if she can't breathe. She's nauseous. Dizzy. Desperate for escape.

She's sitting on the front steps when the door opens behind her. Clearing the tears off her cheeks with one hand, the other rubbing at her bare arms. She's tired. Emotionally and physically. The stress and the worry and the overwhelming loneliness just too much to bear.  And Yaz doesn't say a word. Just silently slips out of his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders before taking a seat on the top step beside her.

“Anything?” she asks after several minutes, thankful that he hadn't asked questions or pressured her to tell her what was wrong.  Just sitting there in silence; a comforting, friendly presence.

“There's no women's clothes,” he replies. “In the closet. Or any of the dressers.  No things belonging to a woman in any of the bathrooms.”

“This just gets weirder and weirder,” Esme sighs. “McMann said that his kids and his wife were both taken. On the same day. But if there's no sign she was even here...”

“Maybe she came back and got her things.”

“Which would mean she's not being held.  That she's free to come and go as she pleases. And no captor or captors are going to allow that.”

“Which points towards the idea that she's involved.”

Esme nods.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “You've been a little weird the last couple of days.”

“You call me weird three hundred and sixty five days a year. What makes the last couple any different?”

“You're even weirder than usual,”  he teases, and playfully leans into her. “I'm serious. You've been acting all out of sorts. Are you okay?”

“No,” she admits with a shake of her head. “I'm not.”

“You wanna talk about it or...”

“I miss home. I miss the kids.  I miss my life. The one I had before all of this. Before Michael McMann showed up.”

“You'll get that back,” Yaz assures her. “We're getting closer.”

“How can you say that? We have nothing. If seems like with every two steps we take forward, we take ten backwards.”

“I can just feel it,” he says. “I can just feel that we're close. To something. We should get going. We should really be back at the hotel before Tyler gets there. He's going to wonder where the hell we went if we're not there. And I don't know if we should be telling him about this.”

Esme rests the side of her head against his shoulder. “Our little secret?”

“Our little secret,” he confirms.

“Think they'd mind if I used their bathroom? Those two extra large teas on the way here practically have my eyeballs swimming.”

He laughs at that. “You want me to wait here or go start the car or....”

“Just wait here. In case someone does see us here and decides to pop in for a visit.”

She steps back into the house, hurrying for the small three piece bathroom that she'd seen when they'd first started their search of the house.  While in there, she finds a bottle of anti nausea meds in the medicine and takes three; swallowing them down with a palm full of water and then hurrying out to meet Yaz.

She is three feet from the door when she sees it. Out of the corner of her eye.  The corner of an ornate cherry wood dining table behind a set of French doors.   And when she slips into the room for a closer look, she frowns at the odd sight of only five chairs instead of the usual six.

The chair, she thinks.

The one that Heather Buckman was bound to.  The one with the unusual carvings on the legs and the back and the very distinct cushion; burgundy with silver and gold flecks.

The one that matches the five still remaining in the room.

Her hands are shaking as she pulls her SAT from the pocket of her jeans. A sudden rush of adrenaline and the resurgence of hope causing the tremors.  And she snaps a picture of one of the chairs before composing a text to Tyler and sending it to his phone.

WE FOUND SOMETHING.

#Tyler Rake #tyler rake fan fic #tyler rake fan fiction #extraction #chris hemsworth character #sanctuary

[jess-the-vampire]

The Demon Next Door, Chapter 2

Previous / Next

Things got a little easier with Tom over the course of the next few days, not to say they had become the best of friends like he and star had almost instantly, but marco felt they were making better progress then before. Though Tom didn't really try to hang out with him after school and didn't even really call him at all, he quickly made it apart of his daily school routine to sit with marco and star at lunch and even got the hang of his schedule, making it to all his classes on time. Marco had the feeling maybe Tom still was a little uneasy about hanging out with friends he didn't know fully well, or maybe he just was that unsocial he wasn't yet comfortable with it. Though he had to admit his company was quite refreshing, Tom wasn't as zany as Star, he was a little more grounded and overall it was just nice to talk to someone who at least had a little more sense to him then the bubblly blonde who got into trouble every other week. Well, that wasn't all true, Tom's appearance and occasional bad mood seemed to make people anxious around him, but still, way easier to deal with then Star. Speaking of Which.... "Marcooooo pay attention! This test is tomorrow! Usually it's me who daydreams instead of studies..."

Star was of course hanging off his bed, upside down. But marco was more then used to it by now, snapping out of his current daydreaming to get back to their study session, star continuing her whining in the background. "You thinking about jackie again? Marco you just gotta go ask her out, otherwise some other guy or girl will ask her out before you and that plan of yours is never gonna work. Plus she like, really distracts you sometimes and i need you in top shape to pass some of these classes...". "Star, i can't help you with your homework anymore or you might get in trouble again...", he said, flipping through his book, "And besides, this time it wasn't jackie, i swear...i already got my plan for her all figured out..I think, anyways don't worry about it!". Star started to sit herself on the bed properly shoving the book into her face and grumbling, "Yeah but maybe we can do a better job this time? Maybe your handwriting a little less recognizable?". Marco didn't seem to find it funny though, shooting her a look as she sighed, "Fine fine, fine fine fine....no more cheating...." She groaned even more as she flipped open the book and peered over it, if only for a little bit to look over at the smiling human, humming as he read his textbook in content. "So...what were you thinking about then? I swear i'm not trying to stall i'm just....you normally don't think about anything but jackie anymore...like i know the dance is coming up later on but still....when was the last time you and me talked about all the stains on your ceiling looking like really cute animals again?". Marco snorted, "I do think about other things then jackie! Karate, music, my classes, and for the record...I was thinking about tom.". She groaned, the thought of that boy instantly kicking her into an further annoyed state, "Really? He hasn't left you alone at school since he showed up, he's not that cool....". The way she spoke, however, made marco think she didn't entirely believe what she was saying as he closed the book he was reading and put it down, so much for studying tonight. "Well i mean, he's the new kid, so he's just a little uncomfortable these days...new surroundings and people and all that! I'm sure he's just really thankful to have someone he can kinda rely on here!". She raised an eyebrow, "You didn't do that for me...?". "Star....when you arrived you chewed on the water fountain and skipped along the halls screaming at people, you were a little different when you moved....besides, tom seems...perfectly fine...I don't mind him hanging out with me....i'm honestly not used to anyone wanting to hang out with me besides you.". But Star still didn't seem pleased, her mood around tom was the polar opposites to marco's, while Marco found him kinda pleasant, star seemed to think he was horrible, while marco was always tempted to greet, him, star always stuck up her nose and ignored him. It was quiet strange for star especially, as a rather friendly student. She had been the one to want to have tom as their friend, and marco was iffy on adding anyone into their friend group, and as soon as both met him it seemed to go entirely in reverse. Marco had asked of course, but she never answered why she didn't seem to like him. Though he had his suspicions. Star's dating life was something marco was more then used to at this point, and how she approached dating and how he approached dating were very different things. Star was more out there then marco, and planned a lot less, and was known to do the weirdest things to get boys to be interested in her. He remembered Oskar last year, before he had dropped out of school, Star had tried desperately to get his attention by any means possible, even resorting to pretending he wasn't there. Though considering how that turned out, maybe she was pushing her luck trying it again on the new kid, cause tom didn't seem to be taking the bait. Star glanced over to look at him so much, marco couldn't really help but think she probably didn't actually hate him. This was star he was talking about after all, anyone who knew her well enough knew she tended to be stubborn and do crazy things when she wanted something, this girl skipped detention one time by jumping out the window and hiding in the dumpster. Though honestly if she liked tom, marco didn't mind, tom seemed fine and maybe he would actually be a decent influence on her. Cause even as much as Marco had to drag her out of situations and try and teach her, she was still the same ole Star. "Weren't you the one saying you didn't need any other friends besides me, what happened to that?", she puffed up her cheeks and frowned, "What's so good about him anyway? He's always tagging around and he dresses weird and he doesn't seem to know what he's doing most of the time...". This made marco laugh though, "So, basically just like you huh? C'mon Star, lighten up, there's WAY worse people to be mad about, Brittney practically treats everyone like garbage.". She made a raspberry noise as marco shoved the book into her face, "C'mon, focus on studying, we can talk about this stuff later, you keep getting distracted..". Star groaned as she got up and paced around the room, heading to the window and pressing her face against it to show her annoyance.  Marco tugging at her arm to move her away as he spotted tom's house across the street, it was still rather creepy looking on the outside in comparison to the nice houses surrounding it though it looked cozy enough, even if it seemed like janna was the designer. Tom had been around for at least a few days but his house almost always seemed empty, he never saw his family really outside either. Tom entered and exited and that was it, like he was entering a whole other dimension when he close the door behind him. Marco would sometimes be outside with his little sister, or trying to wrangle star, but he never saw tom's family head out to work or anything. Then again, they could always work from home, his own dad did after all. I guess it just made the home more eerie then it already was, like a horror movie house. It'd be too weird to judge though, maybe tom's family were just horror buffs and didn't go out much? He could see it. He went back to focusing on their work, and by that he meant making star focus on their work when he heard a knock on the door, his mother entering and holding his baby sister in her arms, a package struggling to stay on her person under her arms. "Marco! Hey, i just got the mail and it seems the mailman put this in our mailbox instead of the new neighbor's, do you mind taking it over to them real quick? we're starting dinner soon and i don't want to wait much after...". Well, guess marco would be seeing tom sooner then he thought. "Alright alright, i'll be right back, but star, i swear you better be reading that book the next time i see you!", he removed the package from his mother's armpit and gave star a look before heading out of the room. Star wouldn't study, he already knew the answer, but he at least wanted to give her a fair shot. Though his bets were more on that the next time he'd see her she'd be playing with his baby sister then anything. He really hadn't even crossed the streets to tom's house before, not even to visit. He supposed he figured tom would call him to hang out or text him but he hadn't done that as of yet, so i guess this was technically his next best option. His house was more eerie the closer he got and he wondered if he should just leave the package at the door and just ring the doorbell instead.  Though he decided against it as he made it to the front porch, the package was small and light and he wondered if were a collectible or t-shirt, it seemed addressed to tom specifically though, he must have ordered it to be sent to his new address sometime back. He tapped his foot, waiting for the teen to respond to instead hear snarling behind it instead. Loud snarling, something marco would hear from a scary movie in fact, followed by a large screech. Marco backed up, and before he knew it he had lost his footing and was falling off the porch, landing on the ground with a thud. He could her shouting on the othe rend of the door and suddenly tom came through, looking shocked as he quickly helped marco up and looked him over. "Marco....you ok?". "Ah...no...sorry....i heard noises and...". Tom looked him over and was quick to respond, "Oh don't worry, that was my uh.....great grandpa....he's a little bit of a pain, not very nice to guests, so he likes to scare them off if he doesn't know them...uh...don't take it too personally!". Then he looked to the package in marco's hand before the human could ask him any more on the matter. "Oh hey, thank you! I was wondering when that would uh....be arriving, i guess it ended up in the wrong mailbox huh?". "Yeah.", marco laughed, before rubbing the back of his head and making tom worry further as he took hold of marco and made him sit down on the porch steps. "Stay here, i'll be right back with an ice pack...", marco obeyed and tom was quick to return with something nice and cold to put on his slight bruises, "Thanks tom...". Tom felt embarrassed and a little angry as well, "I'm sorry, i should've answered the door first, I didn't want you to get hurt...". "Don't worry, i'll be fine...just a little bruise...". "I guess....". Marco noticed his shift in tone and as he used the pack on his head bump, he tousled his hair, "Hey uh...star and i are having a study session at my place...we'll be having dinner soon, you could stop by if you want to....you don't have to eat with us if your family already has plans but..". Tom looked surprised by the invite, glancing over to his own house and sighing, "I....I'm not sure....but thanks....". Marco was fine though a little saddened as well, "Oh well, maybe another time if that's ok?". "You like to invite me to hang out a whole lot don't you?". "Well, it's what i kinda usually do with friends, i mean...i guess we aren't super close friends but I thought it might be nice to maybe...get to know your neighbors a bit better? Hang out and get to know echo creek? I-I'm not trying to be pushy i guess i just wanted to help and I thought maybe you wanted to-?". Tom looked surprised, turning his head, "It's ok....I guess i'm just not used to being invited to do anything, I uh...I don't wanna be a bother if you're busy though...". "No it's not THAT bad, star is way more stressful then these times then you...". "You really think so?", he sounded touched at that sentiment and marco nodded, making tom feel a bit better, "Usually people don't like me so i guess it's weird having someone care this badly about me...i'm just a new kid, like i'm sure you have other friends you could invite or hang out with...".  Wow, tom really was a downer wasn't he? Had the guy really been friendless back home? Marco knew what that was like, he practically was friendless until star popped in, the closest thing he had being his karate students and a couple of guys in his DND group. "No, truth be told i don't know a lot of people either, i'm not all that popular....actually i usually don't actually persist this hard trying to talk to the neighbor kids, i usually just ignore them....", he felt bad about it but it was true, "I guess i just thought you seemed kinda cool...no offense it's just from the outside you look a little scary....but then you were kinda really nice to me and well...i'd kinda be an ass if i let someone like brittney get her mitts on you...". "You didn't have to do that for a guy you didn't know...". "Well i'm usually the go-to guy to help new students, so I guess I felt I had to....but honestly i don't think you're that bad to have around at all in my opinion, i mean, i don't know what it's like back wherever you came from, but i don't see what the problem is...". The other boy stood up, rather quickly in fact, "Well yeah...you should head back to star....uh...thanks for delivering my package, maybe if it's a better time we can hang out or something...if you really want to...you don't have to do it because you feel bad for me...". "I do want to...if you want to be friends? You...don't have to be alone here too...". "I'll see you sometime soon marco...", he said before quickly heading inside and closing the door behind him. Marco sighed but still smiled, Tom said he wanted to still hang out sometime, that's better then nothing at the very least, it's not like he said no. He put his hands on his pockets as he headed down the stairs, looking behind him at the creepy house and biting his lips, he'd been out long enough anyways, he better get back to star and help her finish if he wanted any time to himself for tonight. What would tom even like to do? Maybe a movie night sometimes, or a game night, honestly he could probably invite him to just join at one of star's usual fun nights. Well, star might act a little weird over that but it might put tom more at ease with more company. He headed inside and sighed, though he was instantly removed from his thoughts as he saw star playing with mariposa in the living room. Yep, of course she wasn't studying and playing with his sister, just as he expected. "Star!", star was practically jumping and bouncing around the room with the small girl on her back, the little child smaling and giggling as much as star was. In the kitchen marco could smell his mother making dinner and he gave in as star just waved to him and kept running around the room, no point in trying to do much now. He feet carried him into the kitchen and his mother continued to mix the spaghetti sauce, "Thanks marco, dinner will be ready soon, call star..". "Oh don't worry, she's not that busy right now...", he leaned over and shot star a look in the living room. "They were home right? I haven't seen them leave their house almost at all so i wasn't sure". "Oh yeah, their son was there...tom, it was his package so i dropped it off.....I offered for him to come over but he said maybe another time...", angie smiled, "I'm glad to see you made a new friend, i thought you weren't interested in the new neighbors, what changed your mind?". Marco took a seat at the table, the tablewear already set up as his mom finished up dinner, "I dunno, I guess something about him made me kinda think I should just well...talk to him...". She brought the pasta over and started putting some on marco's plate, before handing him the meatballs and sauce, "Tom just seems...different I guess, he has my number so, we'll see if maybe we get to hang out sometime soon". Angie looked excited, calling out to star about dinner being ready before cleaning herself off, "Well, I was thinking about inviting his family over, a little get-together! We usually drop by their homes to meet our neighbors but they never seem to answer when we showed up to greet them....so perhaps you can invite tom and his family over.". "Well...", the boy hesitated, not because he didn't like the idea, but because he knew his parents, and how they were. If they invited the Lucitors over, good chance they would scare them with kindness alone, and boy any friendship marco may of considered with tom was done-for if his family started bringing out the baby pictures. It's not like they were bad people but the last time they invited star's parents over, his dad and River, Star's father somehow got themselves into a fight simply because River straight up thought the Diazes were trying to poison them with the 5 crate boxes worth of cookies they made for the visit. "Oooo wait, even better! I'll send them an invitation through their mailbox! We can have mariposa decorate the card and everything!", she seemed so giddy as she went to retrieve her daughter before marco could protest. There was no stopping his mom when she was excited about something like this, god, what would it be like when he started dating jackie? Would she start planning them date nights? Invite her parents over? God that thought process was not fun. Star hopped over pretty quickly, pouring the food practically on her plate and shoveling it into her mouth as marco motioned for her to eat like a normal being only for her to keep shoveling food into her cheeks. She swallowed and watched marco wrap some noodles around his fork before eating, "Heeeeyyy, marco? When are you planning to finally ask jackie out anyway? You've been staring at her every day but I don't think you've spoken to her once, like c'mon isn't your plan complete anyway?.". "W-what? Hey! Look, I told you I have an entire plan, i'm working on it, I promise i'll have asked her out way before the dance! Besides, having a plan is much better then embarrassing yourself right in front of them and them rejecting you cause you're too weird! And I don't want jackie to think i'm weird!", he was blushing in embarrassment and star was smirking hard at him, "Oooo boy you gotta snatch her up before someone else does, you know someone will.". "I can do it! I promise....I just...need, to fully figure out my plan, and no, i'm not taking your advice star....I know what you're like in relationships and asking people out, and i'm not doing it. Besides, I still got time, i'm sure she's still single....right?", star was giving him that look and he wiped his mind of those thoughts, "Anyways you watch Star, soon enough i'll have finally asked her out and you'll be eating those words!". However, right now star seemed more occupied eating dinner then anything else as marco sighed. It was going to be a long week. - The next day seemed to go by smoothly for the most part, marco checking up to make sure all his homework was as good as it could get before turning it all in. So far as a student tom seemed mostly ok, not as bad as star but not as good as marco tended to be, so it was at least reassuring to marco he didn't have to almost cheat for another one of his neighbors. He found his eyes lingering to jackie as they usually did and he could practically feel star's eyes rolling. She was supportive of his crush but no denying over time she'd grown a little sick of marco not just talking to her, she was probably never going to let it go, she mentioned it almost every single day in fact since she found out. She could go up and speak to jackie with ease but Marco? Marco could barley stand straight and look her directly in the eyes. He felt like he would melt if he ever told her how he really felt about her, he just didn't have the confidence star had. He wouldn't let that stop him though, he'd been looking forward to asking jackie out for that dance for years it seemed. Thinking about the two of them dancing usually was the reason he sometimes had a hard time paying attention in class. He probably would've dreamt off again if star didn't tap him awake and forced him to focus, later....later he could think about it some more. Sigh, sometimes he wished he had the confidence star had, or even the likability she seemed to, but that was something he'd have to work on later. Star failed her test with flying colors, as expected, and marco passed, also expected. Sigh, why does he even bother sometimes with helping her study? Star didn't seem to care that much though, her attention moreso towards the girl skating down the hall, a smirk upon her face as she nudged marco. Marco gave her a look and waved to jackie as she skated past, waving to him in return before heading out a sight, "No star, it's not a good time....i'm not set to do my first part till next week!". Star groaning in an exaggerated manner as a result of his excuses, she shoved her test into her bag and resisted the urge to shove marco up to jackie herself and make him ask her out. "What's not a good time?". Marco and Star practically jumped as Tom showed up behind them, looking timid despite his leather jacket and eyeliner. Marco quickly calming down and greeting the boy as star have tom a look and started walking off without even so much as a goodbye to marco. Ugh Star, couldn't you try to be nicer to the guy at the very least? Marco quickly drew tom's attention away from star outright ditching to sheepishly explain, "Oh it's nothing, it's just about me asking out a girl I like...you don't have to-". "You're trying to ask out a girl?". "Well, yeah, that's what I just said didn't i?". Tom shrugged sheepishly, "Sorry, uh...um...i'm not very familiar with all the students here that much..which girl are you interested in?". Marco felt incredibly embarrassed all of a sudden, was it really a good idea to tell tom something that personal? This was something he didn't even tell anyone other then star for the most part, and he knew tom only for a short amount of time. Tom sensed marco's embarrassment and sighed, before speaking in a low but noticeably frustrated voice. "Is it star?'. Marco's eyes widened and he was very quick to react to tom's guess before tom could make too many assumptions, "What? NO no no no no no, me and star are friends, nothing more. I'm....I.......". Tom looked him over and bit his lips as marco went back into silence, "Uh...you don't have to tell me I guess...sorry....I know last night I kinda dismissed you as a friend sorta and....you don't have to tell me....". He leaned against the nearest set of lockers, his mind wandering off as marco leaned against them with him. "I mean, i'd kinda give you advice...but....dating is hard for me...", marco examined his strained face, "The anger issues?". "Yeah..". "You didn't end up-?". "No, i didn't hurt anyone other then myself I guess...it um....It made me kinda rethink some things, sorta kinda wanted to stop being so angry all the time...", seems whatever happened in his previous relationships, he didn't want to talk about it. "Well, you seem to be doing better, if that's worth anything?", tom turned to look at him and nodded, trying to manage a smile, "Yeah...it is....I uh..Look, about last night....I kinda expected when I came here to be like it was back home....no one wanting to hang out with me...I really didn't think someone would-". "Give you a chance?". Tom nodded. "You were just trying to be nice and maybe I was a little pushy about it cause I wasn't used to it...I-I...", tom sighed, "Anyways, I....I...If you still wanted to be friends...I'm still open...you'll just...have to be patient with me....". Marco blinked at the boy, "What changed your mind so much?", making tom look off and pretend he was looking at something else, "My mom was really afraid when she came here that i'd just be alone and miserable in my room all day...and I guess...new place, new start....maybe a new chance for me to have an actual friend.....I can't push away any chance of well....making this move less rough on me". "I mean, a move is a good way to start a new life, you don't have to worry about whatever happened in the past, things are different here...and you might like it here more....", marco offered, "Forget about the anger issues and exs, this is your chance to be a whole new person right? I kinda think you're already off to a great start if that's ok?". Tom smiled the most her had all day, relieved he hadn't scared the only boy who thought he was actually cool and nice away with his attitude. "I'm not great at...making friends or keeping them, people usually don't wanna be around me...but...you seem...different. Sorry if that sounds weird, I'm still trying to get used to this...", he tried to let out a laugh and that seemed to make marco feel loads better, "You know, i think you're different too, usually the kids they made me show around or help or meet really never connected with me before, and never talked to me again after our first meeting...i'm kinda happy you like spending time with me....". They smiled at each other as they heard the bell ring, "Oh shoot, we gotta move!!!", marco screamed as he grabbed tom's hand as the two ran down the halls. Tom laughing behind him as he was dragged through the school. - That night marco found himself watching tv in the living room, his mom was already talking with his father about what to do for the lucitors when they came over though honestly marco wasn't sure they would come at all just because a note told them to come. He just knew that the most likely outcome was this weekend they'll have set up a whole meal and it'll end up being just for them at this rate. One of these days he'd have to tell his parents that maybe not all their neighbors were interested in being greeted with big dinners at their house. Though as he sat back and enjoyed his tv, he heard the bell ring. Knowing full he had to get up for being the closest, he convinced himself to stand up and shuffle his way over. Ugh, was it star again? No, she usually liked to sneak through the window in marco's room when it was past her curfew. So was janna, he couldn't recall the last time he'd even seen her use a door in fact. And sure enough, when marco opened the door, it wasn't star or janna, it was a tall boy with reddish hair, a leather jacket, and beautiful green eyes. Tom looked sheepish, shuffling his feet on the front steps as he failed to make eye contact with marco who had a questioning look on him, "So you uh...said I could come over sometime and I thought...if this is a bad time it's ok. I just was thinking maybe....since you offered? I just wanted some company tonight", marco smiled and allowed him entrance," Sure, just remember to call ahead next time ok? We have each other's numbers for a reason, then maybe we can plan something to do together ok?". Tom blinked at that as he walked in but didn't have much time to say anything else as his body was crushed from the hugs of the diaz couple, this was the first time they had properly met him hadn't they? And marco gave tom a weak thumbs up as tom tried to process on whether they were trying to kill him or not. "MARCO,  I DIDN'T KNOW THE NEIGHBOR BOY WAS COMING OVER!", Marco's dad quickly dropped tom and ran to the kitchen, "Ooo, wait just a second, i'll get you something, you're not allergic to anything right?". "Uh...no?". "Good!". He left as angie looked him over, complimenting how cute he was and how nice it was for marco to have a new friend. Tom looked over to marco who shrugged, but smiled at him, and tom smiled back. "Heh, your house looks cool on the inside, oh uh.....what are you watching?" Marco looked over to his tv and looked back, "It's a karate show, you wanna watch it with me? You don't have to of course but you might like it". Tom quickly joined him on the couch as angie headed back into the kitchen to help as tom was soon presented with a plate of chicken and cheese fajitas. He tried it and his mind looked as if it was blown as marco laughed, the two soon erupting into a fit of giggles as they ate and watched the show together in comfort. This was going to be the start of a nice friendship.

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svstfoe #tomco #tom the demon #marco #marco diaz #my art #star butterfly #fanfiction #fanfic

[trashboatprince]

Here’s a little drabble for the Beast Bendy son au, something cute cause it’s been a while!

Inspired by a recent story by @fullmetaldevil-blog where Sammy is a babysitter, but for this au, gonna have to make Wally a babysitter instead haha (since Sammy’s gone). I hope you don’t mind that I was influenced by your cute fic, but it gave me the kick in the pants to write something with Wally and Bendy hanging out! 

On with the fic!

--

Wally parked himself in front of the now-familiar Stein family home, adjusting the old paperboy cap on his head as he turned off the engine. He could see that Henry’s truck was still here, guess he got here just in time. Phew! He was worried he was gonna arrive late and miss them!

He had gotten a call two days ago from Henry who had asked if Wally could come down and babysit for the weekend. Apparently Tom and Allison were unable to and their neighbors were out of town, so that left the former janitor.

He happily agreed, his wife didn’t mind, got him out of the house for something other than work, anyway. He grabbed a small pack from the back seat and headed for the door, knocking on it. There was a loud slap against the door and he could hear a happy snarl from the other side.

If he had to guess, Bendy turned into one of his taller forms to look out the peephole. Wally grinned happily as the door opened and a normal-Bendy suddenly clung to his legs. “Heya, short stack!” Wally chuckled, patting the demon on the head, careful of his horns.

“Hiya, Wally!” Bendy replied, removing himself before grabbing the man’s hand, pulling him inside. Linda was there waiting for them and told Bendy to go head up to his room and clean it up for their guest, no need for the house to be a mess. Bendy nodded and scurried up the stairs.

“He’s in a good mood.” Wally said as Linda walked him to the kitchen.

“Yeah, but it’s gonna turn sour soon.” Henry replied from where he was putting away the last of the breakfast dishes. “He doesn’t really know that we’re heading out.”

Wally raised an eyebrow at this. “Whatcha mean by that? Ya guys didn’t tell him?”

“We tried.” Linda sighed softly. “But whenever we leave and can’t take him with us, he freaks out and fights. I fear he worries that we’re gonna just leave him behind or something. He’s gotten better about it when he’s left with the Conners or the neighbors, but he’s never been babysat by you, so you might be in for a time.”

“Ah, ain’t nothin’ to worry about, Lin!” The short man huffed, shaking his head. “I’ve got a batch of kids that did the same thing when they were just sprouts, mah grandkids can be the same! I’m sure I’ll survive a few days with him.”

“You’ve never seen a demon have a tantrum.” Henry replied.

“Don’t forget, Stein, I was in dat studio a lot longer then you! I’ve seen him freak out more than a dozen times!” Wally laughed and Henry rolled his eyes.

The trio talked for a few more moments, mostly about the trip the Steins were going on. It was for a family event on Linda’s side and since they weren’t really familiar with Bendy outside of being a cartoon character and not alive, they figured it would be wise to leave him home.

“Well, guess it’s time we should head out.” Henry spoke as he glanced at his watch. “I already packed up the truck when Bendy was still asleep, so he’s still unaware.”

Linda frowned softly, looking towards the living room where Bendy was now, too busy watching something on the TV. “Let’s tell him. Wally, just wait here for a moment.”

Wally raised an eyebrow before shrugging, taking a seat in a kitchen chair, hearing the quiet talk from the living room. He couldn’t quite make it out until there was a loud shout of ‘NO! WHY CAN’T I GO!?’ from Bendy. He looked towards the doorway, seeing Bendy clinging to Henry like a koala, screaming as the artist tried to pull him off.

“It’s not fair! Why can’t I go! I wanna go wit’cha!” Bendy shouted as he was finally pried off. “Is it cause I’m scary?” He asked, his eyes wide like a kicked puppy’s, they even had inky tears in them.

Henry sighed through his teeth before looking at Linda for help. “Well, Bendy, it’s not that, but this is something that is happening for my family. And while you are my family, I don’t think my relatives are going to be keen on seeing a living cartoon character.”

“Then dress me up like a human kid! I’ve pulled it off before!”

“Sorry, bud,” Henry sat him down on the couch, “but it’s mostly for your own safety. And besides, you can hang out with Wally, you like the guy, and he’s gonna be a lot of fun, probably more so than Tom and Allison usually are.”

Bendy loudly sniffed and wiped at the area of his face where he should have a nose, probably for effect. He whimpered and held out his arms for a hug. Henry was happy to give him one before pulling away, with a little effort since Bendy tried to cling to him again.

Good byes were said, though Bendy’s were extra sad since he was a cartoon and a bit dramatic, and he and Wally watched Henry and Linda pull out of the driveway, heading down the street and out of sight. Wally glanced at Bendy, seeing the demon with his face pressed flat against the window.

“So, uhh... is there anythin’ ya want to d- Gah!” The former janitor suddenly jumped away as Bendy started to melt into a thick, goopy pile next to him. “B-Bendy?! Are you okay?!”

There was a horrible whine in response as the large blob of Bendy suddenly vanished through the floor, slipping through it like a Searcher did when attacked. Henry didn’t say anything about Bendy doing this kinda thing! He knew the toon could now transform between his three forms, but this was new! He didn’t even recall ever seeing this inky blob form before!

Oh no, oh no! He couldn’t call the Steins, and he wasn’t about to just drive after them! He had to find where Bendy went and get him back to normal! With a bit of effort, Wally found the door to the basement and looked all over in the room, finding no trace of Bendy.

Where could he have gotten to???

Then he thought back on what happened, the way Bendy vanished... it was like when the Ink Demon went through portals in the walls and floors. Did... he teleport to another room? Glancing up, Wally noticed something at the stairwell, something he hadn’t seen in quite sometime. It made him want to cover his eyes and cower in fear on instinct.

Inky trails were slowly making their way down the walls and stairs of the stairwell. Swallowing the thick lump he suddenly had in his throat, the engineer quietly went up the steps.

“Bendy..?” He quietly asked, seeing that the walls and doors were covered in the moving lines. He could hear loud, yet muffled, noises from a door at the end of the hall, the one almost completely black.

Bendy’s room.

Feeling his heart beating hard in his chest, Wally approached the door and opened it, finding it unlocked. Inside, the room was dripping with ink from the lines, strange waves of it were floating in the area above the bed, where the Ink Demon laid.

For so long, Wally had feared this creature, knowing that being Boris kept him safe, but that still had him worried. Bendy was unpredictable at times, even in the loops, he could have attacked the wolf at any time.

But right now, Wally was watching Bendy screaming into his pillow, kicking his mismatched feet in annoyance and anger at being unable to go with his parental figures. Bendy was nearly thirty years old, a full-on demon with two terrifying forms, yet here he was, acting like a three-year-old child who didn’t get the toy he wanted.

If Wally wasn’t nervous of Bendy in this form, even acting like this, he would have burst out laughing at the sight. Stepping into the room, he walked to the bed, hearing a very loud, angry growl from Bendy.

Oh no, he wasn’t going to act like this! Wally’s dealt with this sorta thing from his kids and grandkids and he didn’t take it from them, so he’s not taking it from a demon!

“Alright, mister!” Wally gave Bendy a shove, rolling him onto his back. The toon seemed surprised before he snarled, as if to ask ‘what’s the big idea’. “Don’t you give me dat tone! I don’t care if you have the power to kill me or whatever, but there ain’t no need to act like a brat!”

Bendy looked at him, making a confused sound. He huffed and suddenly changed form, becoming his beast self, growling right in Wally’s face. The man shuddered, his eyes wide... no! No, he was not going to back down to Bendy, not even in this form! He’s survived teenagers, he can survive an upset devil darling.

“Well, if you’re gonna act like this, then I’m outta here!” Wally announced, pushing at the large face, stepping back towards the door. Bendy tilted his head, where was he going?

“I’m gonna head out and grab somethin’ to eat, you can come along with me, but only if you calm down and stop actin’ like a rude kid.” The engineer stated, giving a shrug.

Bendy stood there, tilting his head slowly, a confused growl coming from that large mouth before Wally watched with wide eyes as Bendy changed form. He was pouting, his arms crossed. “Where ya goin’...?”

“To McDonald’s, we’ll get ya a nice burger or somethin’, and maybe we’ll go to the park. But only if you calm down.”

The toon looked bothered before he sighed, nodding. Wally waited at the doorway to the room as Bendy threw on a disguise of sorts. It was kinda funny to see him dressed like a child for chilly, fall weather, even putting on a hat to cover his horns, a turtleneck keeping his floating head from being noticed too much.

Once Bendy was ready, Wally took him out to the truck and got Bendy in, then himself. The drive through town was quiet, outside of the little devil playing with the radio. When they arrived at McDonald’s, Wally picked up Bendy, carrying him inside, like he was a child. He remembered Henry having done this once during a visit, and it helped hide Bendy’s face from most people.

After orders were placed and the food grabbed, the former janitor sat down at a table in a corner, away from others, giving Bendy his food. He watched the demon look at his burger, pouting still.

He sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “Ben, what’s up? Are ya really this upset ya couldn’t go?”

“No.” Bendy replied, taking a bite of his food after moment.

“Then why are ya poutin’ and bein’ a bit of a pain in the neck?”

He got a huff and a small glare. “I’m not, I’m just... mmm...”

“That doesn’t tell me spit, kid. Come on, talk to me. You use to chat with me back in the studio, yeah?” Wally smiled a little, trying to come off as more relaxed.

Bendy looked up at him and picked up a fry, putting it into his mouth. “I just... I don’t like Henry leavin’ for a long time. I get worried he ain’t gonna come back, dat somethin’ will happen an’ I can’t help him.”

Wally blinked, but smiled. “I see, but that’s no reason to act like that.”

“But I gotta! I want ‘em to know dat I don’t want ‘em to go! Or at da very least, I’d like Henry an’ Linda to take me wit’ ‘em so I can stay close.”

“So, you’re just worried? That’s sweet, Bendy, but ya gotta understand that you don’t have to be around them all the time.” He got a fry flicked at his forehead for that.

“I know that!” Bendy huffed, turning his head away, “But I still wanna go anyway!”

Wally watched him before looking around, then back to him. “Are you also worried about what people think of you?”

This got Bendy looking at him again, his white face flushed gray as he looked down at the table instead. “I... yeah. I mean... I can’t really may mahself look like a human, an’ a lot of people freak out at da sight of me, so I... can kinda understand why Linda didn’t take me to see her family. After some of Henry’s family’s reactions to me, it’s probably best to wait or somethin’. Still...”

“Well, if they’ve got a problem with you, that’s their loss. I know that lots of kids like ya, and some adults are warmin’ up, yeah? Heck, Linda told me all about the day you got to go to school! Oh, and you know how my family likes you, remember? And when I took ya to Coney Island? A lot of them sure liked ya.”

Bendy smiled a little. “Those people from the sideshow sure were swell about me... I can see why Linda an’ Henry left me wit’ ya, but, uh, do you think next time I can go? When they think it’s okay?”

“Absolutely! Heck, wanna know a secret?” Wally leaned in, Bendy doing the same with wide eyes. “I know Henry gets upset when he can’t take ya places. But don’t tell him I know! Allison told me this cause she learned it from Linda!” He winked and Bendy snickered at this.

Bendy was still a bit bummed out throughout the rest of the day, but Wally did his best to keep Bendy in good spirits. They finished lunch, after a small fry-flicking fight, and went to the park where Bendy played with some kids he knew.

Then after that, Wally took him to the library, where Bendy proudly showed off the library card he had. Henry had warned him that the little demon was always looking for a chance to show off the card he had gotten with his name on it.

From there, they returned to the Stein home and spent the rest of the afternoon playing some of Bendy’s board games and watching cartoons on TV. By the time Bendy had gone to bed, Wally was exhausted, but happy that he got Bendy to be in a better mood. Heh, it took Tom the whole weekend to get Bendy to appear as a toon again the first time he did this, took Wally about twenty minutes!

He nearly jumped at the sound of the phone, getting up the answer it. “Hello?” He asked.

“Hey Wally, it’s Henry.” Came the reply. “How are things there? We just arrived, long drive, but it went well.”

Wally grinned. ��Good to hear! Ah, things here are swell!”

“Are you telling the truth? Or are you trying to keep me from worrying?”

“No, no! Things are good! I got Bendy to talk to me, we spent the day together, had some fun, he got mac ‘n cheese for dinner, an’ now he’s in bed. I think he’s sleepin’ in your guys’ bed, but he was dozin’ off on the couch.”

There was relieved sigh from the other line. “Good to hear, I was really worried about him, poor guy is still dealing with all the stuff from the studio.”

“I know, but he’s tryin’, and he just needs somethin’ to take his mind off of worryin’ about you guys.”

“Yeah. But we’ll be back in three days. Hopefully he’ll keep bein’ good with you.”

Wally chuckled. “Don’t worry! I’ve got things planned for him, gonna take him into the city, to the museum! Got into a conversation about dinosaurs today and now he wants to see them!”

Henry chuckled softly. “Good to hear on that. Well, I’ll let you go, gotta go mingle with Linda’s family for a bit before bed. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yep, talk to you tomorrow, Henry!” Wally hung up and smiled, shaking his head as he went to make himself comfortable on the couch for the night. Heh, Henry had nothing to worry about, Bendy was pretty much exactly like his own kids, this weekend will be a piece of cake.

And Tom’s gonna owe him fifty bucks for this.

--

This has been in my drafts for weeks cause I got stuck, but this is the best I can come up with, haha.

Might do the museum trip as a later drabble, could be fun! 

Thanks for reading! 

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batim bendy #wally franks #henry stein #linda stein #henry x linda #john's drabbles

[taezhu]

hamadryade!lucas

hamadryade ( n.) - a wood-nymph who was physically a part of her tree; they would die if their tree were felled. 

you’re trying to find shelter from the rain when you find the grove in the middle of the forest 

your friends really wanted to go camping and you agreed because it sounded fun

except you had all left to look for firewood and you ended up on your own since you were..

the most sensible maybe

but it started raining like hell and you decided to try and hide from the rain since you could see blue skies coming 

and this little clearing revealed a cave which led to a woodland inside 

a new little part of the forest that was absolutely beautiful

it was all housed inside this cave formation which had small holes in it revealing the pristine white flowers

as well as the weeping cherry blossoms which were all shades of pink and white 

being adventurous, you decide to explore a little a look around

there’s no foot prints other than yours

the grass is greener than anything you've seen before and you wonder why you’re the only one to find this place

in what seems like years

so you find yourself near the back, observing the carvings into the cave wall when you hear a twig snap behind you

and suddenly it goes from calm to fearful when you see an animal approaching 

it looks like a bear but it’s fur is as white as the samoyed, and it doesn’t look scary either 

it has the pink of the cherry blossom petals scattered all over it and you’re frozen before you realise

shit,.. it's gonna eat me if I don't run

except there is no where to run and you’re stuck to face whatever demise this is for you

and you think at least it was a pretty bear, and you get to die in such a beautiful place like this

though no one will ever find your body and that scares you a little

and you decide that the time is right to say a prayer as the beast approaches you and closes to about 2 metres from you

your prayers appear to pay off

your eyes are shut, expecting to feel the claws rip into you 

but instead you have a hand on your shoulder which catches you by more surprise

you open your eyes and turn to meet who’s on your right and.. it's a guy

a really tall guy with light brown eyes, a soft smile and inviting features that make you feel safe

he offers you a wider smile when he realises how scared you were and turns back to the bear

who approaches again with caution but stops by your feet and before your eyes turns into the smallest, pure white fox with pink eyes

it curls up on the boys feet which seems to please him a lot

and you’re still confused because you must have knocked yourself out,

this isn’t real

“did zhiruo scare you? she’s harmless I promise!”

yeah,. that doesn't make you feel a lot better

he whistles to who you now know as zhiruo, who stands and returns back to the trees where she must have come from

“she’s protecting this place, that’s all she’s here to do”

“though she sometimes takes that form to scare people away”

“I know you’re not a threat though because you haven’t touched anything since you got here.. do you want a flower?”

before you can protest you’re handed a white lily by the boy

and it’s really beautiful like everything around here,

like him

though you’re still unsure what to make of everything and he realises that 

so he does the talking

“are you lost? not many people find themselves all the way out here”

you tell him yes, and after a moment explain the whole story 

which doesn't surprise him all too much

“the rain is horrible outside but we’re sheltered In here. would you like anything?”

“I mean.. I don’t have human things but I have honey. and some rose water.”

human things? you’re not sure what to say

the boy must be at least in his 20s, he looks like he is 

yet his personality is much more naive and innocent than someone at that age

so you’re even more confused

you follow him on a path through bushes and flowers and he takes you to what seems like the centre piece of this entire grove

a larger than most tree, sporting the most beautiful flowers and the greenest of leaves, sparkling in the light which somehow manages to shine in here

“most people who get lost here leave pretty quickly. do you like it here?”

you tell him that you think it’s really pretty and get the most beautiful smile in return 

he must be the owner, or something, because he’s really proud

and he sits you down in front of the tree on the bank of a small stream, not more than a few inches deep

“this is my tree. do you like it too?”

“not that I own it. it’s my tree. it’s.. me. I am that tree and it’s me. that’s cool right?”

he must realise you’re still so confused at what he’s talking about because you’re just staring between him and the tree 

wide eyes, afraid to touch anything 

“do you know hamadryads?”

you tell him no and continue to admire what’s around you, much to his enjoyment 

“I'll help you get back to your friends, but you promise me you’ll search up what they are?”

of course you agree, curious as to what he means

and he lets you go with an open invite back to his tree whenever you’re free

because he takes a liking to you strangely enough 

and gives you a map of how to find him in the future 

if you want to of course

he leaves you by a clearing which isn’t too far from his cave or your camp site 

and you’re not entirely sure you want to leave him but he reminds you of your invite 

“and my name is yukhei, if you ever do stop by. I'll really enjoy having some company again”

when you get some signal you search on your phone about hamadryads and realise just what he meant by that

and you make a plan to go back to yukhei and his tree that he protected so much 

because you would have enjoyed his company again`

#lucas reactions #Lucas smut #lucas scenarios #Lucas reaction #Lucas scenario #yukhei scenarios #yukhei smut #yukhei reactions #nct smut #nct drabbles #nct scenarios #nct reaction #nct #lucas

[consultingsister-aa]

✩ ceebastian, pls!!

SEND ‘✩’ FOR SHIP THINGS // @asteriananthologies

under read more for some nsfw, tw things but mostly bc it’s really fucking long. 

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒. Who is more likely to raise their voice? Cecelia, easy. Sebastian pretty must never shouts and if he does, Cee instantly starts crying. It’s like yelling at a puppy, you know something you should because that’s how they learn but it is horrible. Cee shouts all the time though. Who threatens to leave but never actually does? Kind of Cecelia, she doesn’t really ever threaten to leave but she’ll say she met this really nice man and she’s going to go off and live with him now if Seb doesn’t give her enough attention for two minutes. Who actually keeps their word and leaves? Probably Sebastian, never for long, but Cee is sometimes very hard to live with and I think, after a massive fight, he’s way more likely to leave the house for a night or two. She won’t leave because she’ll want to talk it through ( in reality she just wants to keep shouting until he agrees she is right ) but Seb can always tell when it’s not going to go anywhere constructive for either of them and leaves before she has a chance to say something really horrid that she can’t really take back, because she will. Who trashes the house? Neither, although Cee is known to throw things.Do either of them get physical? Cee does, Sebastian never does. Not specifically angry with Seb but Cee lets her anger about lots of things build up until she physically cannot hold it back anymore and, like a child who doesn’t know any better, can become violent. While this is never okay, she’s really not that strong, so can’t do much damage but it does remain something she really needs to work on, it’s just lucky that big strong Seb can take her. How often do they argue/disagree? They get into joke/silly argument a lot but real actual argument happens much less frequently. They can argue about the kids a lot, especially when they’re young because Cee is perfectly happy for the girls to go to private schools and have nannies and basically have the same upbringing she and Seb did but… Seb is not. Who is the first to apologise? Does anyone? Seb will if it’s something he started but most of the time it’s not and Cee just pretends nothing happened because avoidance is a personality trait at this point. Cee will though if Sebastian continues to huff about something but it won’t be a good apology. It’s like, ‘sorry you took that horrible thing I said a bad way?’ 

𝐒𝐄𝐗.Who is on top? Cecelia. Sebastian can be, and Cee likes him to take control but naturally, she likes to control the situation and he likes her to take control. Who has the strangest desires? [ cee voice ] as a non-judgmental couple, none of our desires are strange, sexual desires are a perfectly healthy thing. Seb does though, fo’ sure. Any kinks? They’re both pretty into rough sex or passionate sex. Post-argument sex is a major thing in the Holmes-Moran household. Things get full-on broken as they roll around. Also, Sebastian likes being told what to do and Cee is very bossy so that works out well. Who’s dominant in bed? Cecelia, she falls into it and Sebastian likes it, it’s perfect.Is head ever in the equation? Head is always in the equation, it’s not even a question, it’s the answer. Cee likes it to be known that she enjoys giving head, okay, it’s empowering. If so, who is better at performing it? Cee has zero complaints but she would probably say herself, and I think Sebastian would have a hard time arguing that one. She gives great head! Ever had sex in public? Yes. If Seb is being chatted up at the bar, Cee will just get jealous and drag him into the bathroom, which is probably why Seb started talking to someone at the bar. They’re probably the sort of couple who leave a restaurant table, with friends, to go have sex. They’re horny teenagers who never left the honeymoon stage, it’s not their fault! Who moans the most? Cecelia, you know, unless she’s telling Seb to be louder. Who leaves the most marks? Sebastian, although Cee is known to leave a hickey or two. Who screams the loudest? Cee, she is so loud. Like, Sebastian putting his hand over her mouth loud and if he tells her to be quiet, she’ll be louder because that’s hilarious to her. Who is the more experienced of the two? They’re both slutty equals and proud of it. Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’? Probably fuck more, but can be known to have very loving sex. However, both of those terms made Cee super uncomfortable so they have sex. Rough or soft? A little rough. A lot rough? There is a time and place for everything. How long do they usually last? They both know what they’re doing, they can go for a while however with two children and full-time jobs? A quickie is almost always called for. Is protection used? Cee is the worst at remembering to take the pill, that’s how they ended up with Lia (sorry darling), plus it makes her very depressed. Eventually, she gets an implant or something because they’d go through even her fortune buying condoms every time. Does it ever get boring? No, they’re way too into each other. They also probably like to spice things up sometimes because they’re an old married couple now. Meeting in hotel rooms, pretending they don’t know each other, maybe inviting someone else to join? They know what they’re doing at this point, they’re not the sort to have sex for the sake of it. Where is the strangest place they’d have sex? So one time they had sex in an old office block, which was sort of around the corners from the Vogue offices. Although it’s not really his job much anymore, very occasionally it will fall to Sebastian to deal with some of his employees which leaves him very amped up. Basically, Seb beats a guy up, realises how close he is to his wife, calls her to come over (once everyone else has left) to come have sex because what would be better than hitting someone over and over and then having sex with your wife, thirty floors up, with panoramic views of London? Nothing, nothing it better. 

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘.Do your muses plan on having children/or have children? Yes, their first daughter was very unplanned however, but their second daughter was planned, badly perhaps. If so, how many children do your muses want/have? They have two girls and since Celia kinda didn’t want… any, that’s quite enough, but she loves her kids very much.  Who is the favorite parent? Ophelia, who the oldest likes her dad best and Viola is a massive mummy’s girl so luckily they each have a child who likes them, most of the time. Who is the authoritative parent? Cecelia is always like, “wait till your dad gets home!” like? he? is in the one who gives out the punishments but it’s almost always Cee, she’s the scary shouty one while the girls have Sebastian wrapped around their little fingers. Who is more likely to allow the children to have a day off school? Cecelia, she takes them out of school a lot even though she thinks a good education is so important, she’s also like, let’s go to New York for the week! And honestly, since money is no object, she knows it’s more important for her children to be informed than… educated since lol what’s a real job. Who lets the children indulge in sweets and junk food when the other isn’t around? Probably Sebastian, Cee does sometimes give up but most of the time she’s a all-orgianic-vegan-bullshit sort of mother. She eats McDonald’s all the time but the children do not. Who turns up to extra curricular activities to support their children? They do both try but they’re pretty busy working parents; probably Sebastian more? But Cee is convinced he only does it because the other mum’s fawn over him whenever he picks Vi up from ballet. Who goes to parent teacher interviews? That’s a joint effort. Mostly because Cee knows they’re going to get in trouble for Lia swearing and starting fights a lot and she wants Sebastian there so she can blame him, because like, for fuck sake she never swears, ever. Who changes the diapers? Cee does because she takes time off with both Viola and Ophelia but if it’s a case of both Cee and Seb at home, she gave birth to them, he can do that. Cee is super dramatic about it as well, she’ll make retching noises till Seb takes over. Who gets up in the middle of the night to feed the baby? Usually Cee, she doesn’t really need as much sleep as a normal human but they try and take turns. It’s different depending on who is working or maybe they swap nights or week “shifts” so it’s fair on them both. Who spends the most time with the children? Cee spends more time with them on a daily basis, because she’s cut down her hours but she also goes away more, so she’ll go away for weeks at a time and then Sebastian is with them, but she picks them up from school mostly. Who packs their lunch boxes? Sebastian gets then ready int he mornings, so he does their lunches. The first time Seb was away for a while Cee was so confused because she thought they just got their lunch at school and has pretty much zero idea Seb packed their lunch. Who gives their children ‘the talk’? Cee does, although sex was never really a taboo subject. Celia always thought it would be more awkward if it was all kept a secret or lies about for years and she really never wanted sex and sexuality to be something that was hidden or something to be ashamed about. She knew from her own experience that without a healthy view on sex, she did things way too young and before she understood what it meant or the physical + mental consequences and didn’t want the same for the girls. Who cleans up after the kids? Celia mostly, but they do have a cleaner. Who worries the most? Cee and Seb are the more chill parents ever and they worried ALL THE TIME. It’s sort of impossible to correlate the two but they’re both massive worriers. To be fair, Seb has a very risky job and with since Cee’s first daughter dies, it understandable. Who are the children more likely to learn their first swear word from? Really it’s hard to know, they both swear as much as each other, but Cee would probably blame Sebastian. 

𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.Who likes to cuddle? It’s a mix of both, you would never describe them as cuddly people but they do like to be in each other arms and they can be very affectionate with each other. Who is the little spoon? Cecelia, but it’s more like how much ‘accidental’ bum wiggling can she do before he gets hard. Soz not soz that she’s still a sex-crazed teenager. Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places? Cecelia probably initiates more but Seb is never adverse. Again, she gets pure joy out of giving him public boners. Who struggles to keep their hands to themself? Sebastian, although not always sexually. He likes being able to touch Cee, hand on her back, holding into her knee etc. How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable? Cee likes being held but she is also very big on personal space. She’ll say, “okay, done now” and he has to let go. Who gives the most kisses? Cee, she wants a kiss every minute of every day. What is their favourite non-sexual activity? Horseriding! Or more specifically, teaching their kids how to ride a horse. It was one of the draws to get a house and land in the country.Where is their favourite place to cuddle? Living room couch in the country house. Who is more likely to playfully grope the other? Probably Cee. How often do they get time to themselves? Almost never, they have two kids, one dog, are always hanging out with friends of Cee’s, or work commitments get in the way. Honestly, they’re lucky if they get one date night a month. It sometimes makes Cee sad because they never really got time to be a newly married couple in their own home because Lia was already born but she also loves a chaotic messy busy house so wouldn’t change it. 

𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆.Who snores? Cee does a little bit, like tiny, it’s cute but if you say that? Ultimate denial. Do they share a bed or sleep separately? It depends. They have their bed, in their bedroom, which they share but it Seb is having a bad night, he sleeps in the spare room to avoid waking Cee up or, at worst, hiring her during one of his night terrors. If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart? Cozy up at first, then move apart to sleep, Cee really cannot bare being held when she’s trying to sleep. Who talks in their sleep? During nightmares, Seb yells. If it’s a peaceful night, no one. What do they wear to bed? Seb used to wear nothing until the girls were old enough to just barge into their bedroom unannounced, now he at least wears boxers or pyjama bottoms. Cee loves wearing Seb’s shirts to bed but also silky pyjama sets, mood dependent. Are either of your muses insomniacs? To some degree, they both are. If Cee is going through a more manic episode, she can be. Seb though really does suffer at night due to PTSD and often goes out for a run very early in the morning because he can’t sleep. Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside? In the bathroom cabinet, but yes. Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side? At night and in the mornings they come back together but while sleeping they lay side by side. Who wakes up with bed hair? Neither, Cee would but she puts her hair in plats. Who wakes up first? Usually, Sebastian but they’re both morning people to some degree. Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other? Sebastian does most weekends. What is their favourite sleeping position? Celia has perfected sleeping on her back to avoid getting wrinkles, so dumb and Seb lies on his front with one arm stretched out to Cee. Who hogs the sheets? Probably Cecelia. No, actually, definitely Cecelia. Do they set an alarm each night? Yes, although Seb is often awake before it. Also with young kids, who needs an alarm clock? It’s usually set for half six and then another at seven.Can a television be found in their bedroom? Yes, but Cee got one of those ones which double as a picture that hangs above the unused fireplace across from their bed. Who has nightmares? They both do and they’re both bad but Seb’s are way more frequent and way worse. Nightmares are a big part of Seb’s PTSD and a real strain in their marriage.Who has ridiculous dreams? Cee, her dreams are insane. Also if she ever dreams that Sebastian is cheating on her, she’ll hold him against him all day, no matter what he says. Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed? Cecelia, for a woman who doesn’t like to be touching, she certainly makes her way over to Seb’s side of the bed a lot. Who makes the bed? Cee does, it’ll ruin the aesthetic of the room otherwise. What time is bed time? Ten or eleven for Sebastian, sometimes the same for Cee but she quite often uses the time the kids are in bed to catch up on some work. Seb tries his best to pull her away from her emails before twelve though, often physically lifting her to bed. Any routines/rituals before bed? Cee has a Vogue youtube channel worthy skincare routine, Seb brushes his teeth. They do often chat in the bathroom before bed though, it’s like their peaceful catch-up time. Also, Seb checks on the girls once more before bed. Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up? Maybe Cee but she’s quite good at getting up without a fuss. But if she is being very fussy, Seb can bring her round with morning sex. 

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊.Who is the busiest? They are both very busy people but Cecelia can always seem more stressed so might come across as the busiest. She has said she’s cut down her hours since the girls arrived but in reality, she’s trying to shove the same amount of work into less time.Who rakes in the highest income? Sebastian, Cee is well paid and is probably worth more (also probably earns more from investments) but Sebastian is raking it in as king of crime. Are any of your muses unemployed? These workaholics? No. Who takes the most sick days? [ cee voice ] what the fuck is a sick day? Neither. Who is more likely to turn up late to work? Again, neither. Who sucks up to their boss? Ugh, Cee can but she’s very opinionated at work and that’s one of the reasons her boss likes her. Sebastian doesn’t really have a boss. What are their jobs? Cecelia is fashion editor at British Vogue, eventually becoming Creative Director. Sebastian is… CEO of Moriarty Co. I guess? King of Crime also works though. Who stresses the most? Cee. Shoes are much more stressful than crime. Do your muses enjoy or despise their careers/occupations? Celia really really loves her job, like, would die for her job, is killing herself for her job. Sebastian does to a point, his work is hard and he’s not overly interested in being the boss. He also just doesn’t want to have someone dictating what he can and can’t do. He’s happier when he can take a step back from it, his job isn’t his life or his passion, while Cee does not understand that at all. Are your muses financially stable? Very. Their finances also are not that dependent on their jobs; Celia has various trusts and Sebastian was a good saver when working for Jim. 

𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄.Who does the washing? Sebastian. Who takes out the trash? Sebastian. Who does the ironing? Sebastian. Who does the cooking? I’ll give you three guesses. Sebastian. Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying? Cecelia. It’s not even an inability to cook, it’s just a complete lack of interest and a tendency to get distracted while cooking. Who is messier? Cee kicks off her shoes at the door when she gets home and Seb trips over them every time. Although Cee really does hate a messy house, she just… doesn’t really keep it tidy. She leaves her books and mugs of tea and paperwork and clothes everywhere.Who leaves the toilet roll empty? Actually, this might be Seb. Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor? Cecelia. Who forgets to flush the toilet? Neither, usually one of the girls. Who is the prankster around the house? Kind of neither, although Seb is more likely to help the girls with something to get Cee. Celia do dumb shit occasionally but not often. Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere? Cecelia, “fuck, they’re in my other handbag!” Or Vi took them to add to her collection of shiny things. Who mows the lawn? Sebastian, with his top off, because his wife is watching. Who answers the telephone? Whoever is closets, usually Cee. Who the hell would be calling for Sebastian, he has no friends. Also, his work people never call the house. Who does the vacuuming? Sebastian. But honestly, I think they have a cleaner. Who does the groceries? Celia usually does an online shop, if they actually go to a supermarket they usually go together. Sunday family outing at Waitrose, super fun. Who takes the longest to shower? Cecelia. She can shower quickly but she loves a long hot shower. Even if they have a shower together, which they often do, Cee will be the first to get in and the last to get out. Seb turns on the hot tap to hurry her up sometimes. Who spends the most time in the bathroom? Cecelia, without a doubt. 

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂.Is money a problem? No but only because Cee is so bloody wealthy, she still spends way too much. I feel like Seb does get on at her for spending money, but not because they’re short of it or because it’s his and she’s spending it but just because she buys the dumbest things or another pair of shoes; no one should be able to spend eight grande in a day but… How many cars do they own? A few. They have a family car, which is probably a Range Rover or something of that ilk and Cee has a couple cars in storage, she’s a bit of a speed demon and then Sebastian probably has more than one. Basically a lot for a woman who pretty much always gets a town car to work and for a couple who live in London. Do they own their home or do they rent? They own both their homes. Do they live near the coast or deep in the countryside? Deep in the countryside. Do they live in the city or in the country? Both! They have a home in London which is sort of their main house because that’s where they work and where the girls go to school but they have the country house; their favourite house and that feels more like home these days. Do they enjoy their surroundings? Seb is happier in the country, Cee is marginally happier in the city but loves being in the country; that feels more like home to her. What’s their song? So cheesy but, Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. From the good old days of Cee trying to convince he would be better off with her, rather than Jim. She will still dramatically sing along to this song, prancing around Seb, making up new lyrics so they fit in better with her and Jim, “ALL THIS TIME HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW BAAABBYYY!” What do they do when they’re away from each other? Seb and Cee are pretty independent people, they’re happiest when they’re together but Celia enjoys her time away from husband and kids as much as any normal person. She likes going out with friends and she loves going to Paris and New York for fashion week. Seb gets more into going out for drinks and guy chat with Aidan, John and Mike. They text a lot though, little life updates, teasing each other, mostly flirting with each other like teenagers who just fell in love though. Where did they first meet? A bookshop called Topping’s Books in London. How did they first meet? Sebastian offers her out Romeo and Juliet and asked if this is what she was looking for, Cee said she was looking for Hamlet. That conversation became one about which Shakespeare play was the best, which became a coffee date, which became a dinner date. This would have all been very cute if it wasn’t a clever plan that Seb and Jim had come up with to get to Sherlock’s sister and use her against the detective. Who spends the most money when out shopping? Easily Cecelia, easily. Seb knows she’s had a down day if he trips over Dior shopping bags left in the hall. Her card has no limit. Who’s more likely to flash their assets? Cecelia, she would flash Seb across a room. Who finds it amusing when the other trips over? Both, although Cee looks like a baby giraffe learning to walk when she’s drunk and you can’t not laugh at that shit. Any mental issues? How long you got? Both Celia and Seb suffer from PTSD, although Cee has better control, or at least sees a therapy more often. Cee also suffers from bouts of manic depression and has a lot of anger issues, so does Seb but they tend to come out in different ways. Cee and Seb, and their children, are both shelter and storm for each other. Who’s terrified of bugs? Neither, but Cee does get creeped out when they’re in the house. Who kills the spiders around the house? Cee takes real joy in crushing spiders, mostly when she imagines they’re Moriarty in the middle of his web. However, she also puts cups over them sometimes and waits for Seb to get home and deal with it. Their favourite place? The country house, with the house full, probably in the garden. Who pays the bills? Mycroft managed Cee’s bills for most of her like, or at least managed the accountant who managed her bills, and this went on for about a year until Seb found out. He was asking about a discrepancy with a bill and Cee just shrugged and told him to ask Myc. Obviously, he wasn’t having Mycroft running his household so now Sebastian does.Do they have any fears for their future? All the fears. All the normal fears for parents plus a whole host of others because of Seb’s work and Cee’s family. Sebastian and Cecelia aren’t exactly your dream parents mental health-wise and they worry about how that is going to affect the girls when they grow up. It’s also hard to see Vi and Lia growing up and not think of Charlotte and how it’s possible they might suffer the same fate because of Seb’s work. Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner? Cecelia! Kids in bed or staying with Mary and John, she’s maybe cooked, or maybe… got someone to cook? A night in just to themselves, you can’t beat it. Well, actually, a night in Paris would beat it but…. Who uses up all of the hot water? I would say Cecelia but I feel like she made sure they had a heating system where that wasn’t possible, it’s 2020 people, that can’t still be a thing?Who’s the tallest? Sebastian, he’s over six foot and Cee is just under. Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other? Cecelia, maybe, but they quote often shower together. It saves time, plus they’re wet and naked? Score. Who wanders around in their underwear? Neither, not with kids running around. Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio? Cecelia, although sometimes they duet and it’s truly awful. They don’t even sing, they butcher classic songs. What do they tease each other about? Other people fancying them, constantly. Seb is always winding up Cee, telling her about all the mum’s at school staring at him. Cee sends him selfies with young hot models with things like, “thinking about trading you in for this.” Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times? Cee likes the way Seb dresses, so oddly, for all her fashion awards, maybe Seb? Not often, if ever, but maybe she’ll wear something a little out there and he’ll question it. Cringing is a bit strong though. Do they have mutual friends? Seb has adopted Cee’s friends because he didn’t have any, sorry Seb! Although they did both know Mikey, who is Cee’s assistant’s husband but also owns the private London gym that Sebastian goes to. Mikey and Seb weren’t really friends beforehand though, that came from hanging out through Cee and Syd and the children. Now they quite often hang out with Mary and John. John and Sebastian get on really well. Who crushed first? [ cee voice ] ‘Bas did, obviously, look at me? (but also, Cee did). Any alcohol or substance-related problems? Sebastian has had his problems in the past and occasionally, they creep into his present. Celia’s drinking and drugs problem are still pretty prevalent, although she’s high functioning. Although she is aware she needs help, she doesn’t actively seek it because she knows to come off drugs and drink will be very hard. Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am? Cecelia. Although Seb is more likely to be called out to come to pick her up, drunk, at 3am, demanding they stop at Mcdonalds. Who swears the most? Sebastian but not by much, their both bad for it. 

#asteriananthologies #( i. message )

[impulseislost]

Feel Special

 He was glad Felix had helped him that day. How he’d made him feel special

or Felix found Minho when he needed him the most

🌹

Warnings: swearing, mentions of homophobia. mentions of blood Characters: Lee Felix, Lee Minho Relationships: Whatever ths ship is with Minho and Felix, keeping in mind this is just for the story and i do not actually believe anyone in this fic is as i have portrayed them Notes: My birthday fic for Minho this year (had to take a big ol screenshot of the mv weeee)

It was raining. And, well, Minho was wet. Obviously. It was pouring down with rain and the entrance didn’t offer much shelter. There was enough that he wasn’t sitting on the wet ground, that his few possesions were dry but other than that, most of him was positively soaked.

He sighed, leaning back to watch the people passing him by without so much as a glance. It was like… He wasn’t even human anymore. Like because his family didn’t want him anymore meant that no one else would.

He hated it.

He was cold, wet and had nowhere to go. God, he hated it so so much. What had he done to god, if there even was one at this point, to be so forsaken?

The rain only poured harder at his question.

Damn.

More people flew past him, on their way out of the rain. They paid him no mind, some sparing him a glance. Dark umbrellas that just ghosted past him.

Minutes passed, and the rain showed no signs of ceasing. Until a man with a brightly coloured umbrella (though man would be an overestimation honestly) came drifting along the path.

His eyes sparkled brightly as he peered around the area with a slight smile on his face. Like he was proud of what he was seeing. The boy’s eyes landed on Minho after a moment and he stopped, his smile falling away as he took in the drowned rat that was Minho.

“... Are you alright hyung? You seem rather soaked?” Minho had no clue why this boy was referring to him as hyung, he’d never met the boy and they were in America for god’s sake. Let alone the fact he probably had no clue Minho spoke Korean in the first place. 

“Um, yea. I’m fine.” He mumbled, glancing up at the boy. He seemed to shine, with some sort of inner light as he tilted his head.

“You’re sad, in pain?” Minho had no idea how he knew that, or why the boy seemed to know him. He sure as fuck didn’t.

“What? Are you in--” He started only to get cut off

“There’s a cut along your cheek that’s bleeding. It’s a pretty solid guess.”  The boy cut in, tapping his own cheek. Minho flinched, raising his hand to cover his cheek. The boy smiled sadly, coming to sit next to Minho on the wet ground.

“My name’s Felix. Are you alright.” A moment passed before Minho burst into tears. Felix looked stricken and he reached out to tentatively pat Minho on the back. After a moment, Minho shook his head, leaning into the touch.

“My parents told me that God hates the people who don’t fit into the perfect world he created.” Minho started, missing Felix’s offended face, “That God doesn’t want people who don’t fit to exist. They’re wrong. I hope.” He leant back, looking at Felix in distraught.

The boy sighed, looking into the sky.

“I’m sure God doesn’t hate anyone. Christianity probably just took his words too far.” Minho tilted his head for a moment, watching the boy with a frown.

“...My name’s Minho. Sorry.” Felix smiled gently, reassuringly. And like that, they fell into a silence, as the rain fell down around them. 

Felix’s umbrella was folded and on the ground beside him, his hands on his lap. Eventually, Felix stood up.

“Do you have any dry clothes to change into Minho hyung?” He shook his head. He’d been forced to leave all of those at home and there was no way his mother was ever letting him step foot inside the house ever again. Felix frowned, offering Minho a hand.

“Let's get you some then.”

(“Felix.” Minho murmured days later as he curled up on the couch next to the boy. The blonde looked down him as if surprised to see him awake before humming. “Does God hate me?” 

Felix frowned. And once again Minho found himself remembering that he hadn’t told Felix why he’d found him in the rain that night.

A moment passed, then.

“No. He doesn’t.” Minho sighed, leaning back to look into Felix’s eyes. He had these strange eyes, that sparkled like the universe and glowed in a pale gold. Sometimes when he wasn’t paying attention, Minho was even sure they flashed.

“... My mother told me, the night I left,” Left, such a polite way of putting it, “That he did. That unless I changed my ways, I was going to hell.”  Felix froze.

“I promise you, God doesn’t hate you. That he’s positively in love with you.” The boy said after another moment. Minho frowned but said nothing more.)

When Felix was young, much younger he first made a boy. He had given this boy his own will, the ability to choose what he wanted. He gave this boy to a young woman by the name Mary and told her to raise him as if he were her own.

She did.

Back then the world hadn’t taken kindly to the boy, hanging him on a cross to die and holding him into a cave for his body to decay in. Or so the story goes.

In the story, the boy came back after three days to offer some last wisdom to someone.

The truth was far grimmer and Felix hated it.

They’d hung his boy off a cross alright, leaving him with injuries that slowly killed him as they festered. Twice daily they gave him water, refusing him the quicker death that dehydration would offer him.

And when his wounds killed him, they’d locked his body in a cave. Here was where the story diverged from the truth. Three days passed before Felix had found his boy. And on the third, Felix left the cave himself.

He’d been distraught.

It wasn’t until years later that he’d try again.

It wasn’t until he’d known that humans were far less cruel, that they cared more and acts such as ones that had happened to Jesus.

So when he started again, he started more carefully. The boy was given the gift to be himself, to be more cautious. The gift to share his passions in any way he chose. A creative mind. 

And carefully, Felix picked out a family to leave his boy with. From afar he watched as Minho grew into an amazing human until he decided it was safe to leave the boy alone.

He hadn’t been careful enough, he realised the night he found Minho crying in front of that diner. His heart had ached for the boy as he sat down to talk to Minho for the first time in his 22 years. 

So he did his best to comfort the boy.

Minho asked him, almost two weeks after if God hated him. Felix had to pause. No, no he didn’t hate Minho.  He had never hated him. Hell, he couldn’t bring himself to physically think of it either.

So he answered as honestly as he could.

Days later as he watched Minho dance around the kitchen he realised just how true that was. He loved Minho, more than he ever should’ve.

He felt disturbed. What?

Another day passed, and Minho was leaning on him on the couch. Telling him stories of his childhood. And… Maybe for the first time, Felix opened up.

“Minho I… I’ve been living for a very long time. Long enough that it’s become difficult for me to be surprised.” The human tilted his head, looking at Felix in confusion. He sighed, looking behind him at the wall, “Still, you manage to surprise me every day.”

The boy’s head tilted to the right, questioning. Felix smiled sadly. 

“After you’ve seen Rome’s fall, seen thousands killed in your name, you’ve seen everything.” He said with a shrug. Minho looked very, very confused for a moment before raising an eyebrow. As if, he was expecting Felix to go on. He sighed. “You always do so much for others, give up so much of yourself Minho. But even when things turn out horrible you just… Keep going.”

Minho stared at him for another few moments before he cleared his throat.

“Well… I don’t have much else going for me do I?”

A month or two had passed since Felix had… Unceremoniously adopted Minho. Honestly, he had no fucking clue how that one had happened, other than he’d entered the house with a bag and now he had like…. Slightly more than a bag.

He’d tried to pay Felix back, oh trust him he head, but every time he attempted the god had denied him.

‘It’s in my nature’ he’d say. Well, fuck that.

Fuck Felix for being so nice. So kind. So-- Nope. Minho wasn’t going down that path in a hurry. Nope, nopitty nope.

That was a scary thought and one Minho wasn’t quite ready to bring himself to deal with.

It wasn’t to say that Felix wasn’t good looking - quite the opposite really, he was quite literally star kissed in every sense of the words - but Minho was scared.

He didn’t want to be cast out again. He knew Felix wasn’t like that, but the tiny voice in the back of his head was always there. What if?

Even now, sitting on the couch next to Felix scared him. What if he was radiating gay energy or some bullshit his mother used to sprout. Still…

He found himself staring at Felix. He was beautiful, in every sense of the word, just watching the drama on the laptop screen in front of him in rapture. He loved watching him, loved him in general. But… He knew he'd never ever admit that aloud.

“You’re staring.” Minho pulled himself out of his stupor, cheeks reddening. Felix smiled at him gently, watching the boy fondly.

“Sorry.” He murmured after a moment. Felix smiled again, leaning over to pat his shoulder.

“No worries.” The blonde giggled, before retreating back into his original position. A moment passed for Minho, his cheeks still bright red, before he slowly let out the breath he had accidentally held.

Fuck.

So… Maybe, just maybe he liked Felix. Liked the way Felix acted. How he was so kind and caring. Minho was scared. Liking Felix like that scared him.

Gods weren’t supposed to fall for their creations. One of the first rules he’d been taught before he was sent to create his own life. Higher beings weren’t supposed to lest they show favouritism towards the creation.

Felix loved all his creations. Even the ones in Australia, though what had come over him when he had created the platypus he had no idea. Still.

Minho held a special place in his heart, one he wasn’t quite sure what to make of. What did it mean? The way his heart raced and his cheeks reddened whenever Minho said or did anything even remotely unplatonic (Which the human was trying to avoid keep in mind, after all, he was going through currently the biggest gay panic in his life over Felix), It was really confusing.

He didn't understand.

The way when Minho curled up into him he felt like his heartbeat so loud that the boy could hear. The way that his breath hitched whenever he caught the boy dance.

He googled his symptoms once.

What does it mean when your heart races because of a boy. The first result was WebMD so he quickly left that page. He was decently sure he wasn’t having a heart attack after all.

why are my cheeks going red whenever he's around was just as useless. Why couldn’t google tell him what was happening? He found himself avoiding Minho after a while.

He wanted to escape the way his heart hurt, the way his breath quickened.  It wouldn’t last him long. Minho wasn’t stupid, he knew that.  He’d figure it out and confront him and… Felix wanted to figure out what was wrong with him before then.

Okay Google, why does he make me smile so much? How do I know if I love him? How do I stop loving him? A week and a half passed before Minho cornered him. Just… In the kitchen.

“You’re avoiding me Lix.” Felix turned around, glancing at Minho innocently.

“What do you mean?” Minho squinted at him.

“You don’t hug me, barely talk to me sometimes and I’ve seen you actively leave the room when it services you.” Felix froze. Shit.

A moment passed before Felix sighed.

“Something’s wrong with me. I don’t understand.” It was Minho’s turn to freeze.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know! My heart keeps racing and my cheeks keep burning and I don’t know what’s causing it.” He muttered out in a rush. Another moment passed before Minho reached out to pull him into a hug. 

Felix’s cheeks flamed up.

“Lucky person, whoever it is.” He hadn’t realised he was so easy to figure out. Apparently, he was if Minho had figured out his predicament.

He paused, before shrugging and deciding to go for it. Damn it, if it made things awkward he’d suffer through it.

“Yea, you are.” Minho stiffened, before glancing at Felix, his own cheeks ruby and warm.

Minho wasn’t sure he’d heard that right? Felix liked him? 

He pulled away from the blonde to stare at him. Before he swallowed.

“I uh…” He said, very intelligently.

“You don’t have to say anything but. I thought…” Felix whispered. Fuck it.

Minho flushed, before leaning to kiss Felix. A second passed before he pulled away, to see Felix’s flushed and red face.

“... Hey... Do you maybe… Wanna go out sometime?” Felix’s eyes widened before he frantically nodded. Minho giggled. Cute.

He was glad, that Felix had helped him that day. How the boy had made him feel special. Maybe one day he’d be able to return the favour.

#stray kids #happy birthday minho #lee minho #lee know #lee felix #felix #stray kiddos #stray kids fics #star kissed #the boy with cat eyes #stray kids scenarios #birthday fic #im editing/queing this at midnight so i have no briancells left so this probably doesnt make sense but fuck ti #im at school all day tomrrow so i wont be able to post it at 10 bc wifi #and i added a disclaimer y'all cant @ me for being gay #also happy birthday nonce again minho hope you have the most amazing 22nd #wishing you the best love <3

[woildismyerster]

Can you write anything with davey? I love how you characterize him!

Y/N:  i need a favor

Davey:  Sure, what’s up?

Y/N:  you just agreed.  no backing out now

Davey:  Y/N.

Y/N:  meet me behind the school

Y/N:  bring a box

“Davey is my best friend,” you cooed into your arms.  “If you like me, you’ll like him by proxy.  Probably.  Hopefully.”

To say that liking you was the same as liking Davey was a stretch, but Davey was winsome.  He would be fine as long as he didn’t do anything stupid.

“And there he is,” you said, grinning at him while he approached.  His eyes were already on what you were holding.  “The life of the party.  The VIP.  The man of the—”

“That’s a cat,” Davey said, voice going up at the end as though it was a question.

“Well spotted.”

“It looks dead,” he said, nothing questioning about it.

“It isn’t.”

It did look it, though.  The kitten was small, patchy, and buzzing with flies.  If it hadn’t been walking when you found it, you probably would have assumed the same thing.  It had settled into your arms without too much of a fuss, which was probably a universal sign that this was supposed to be the Salem to your Sabrina Spellman.

Davey looked at you, then at the box.  “You can’t seriously want to keep that thing.”

You balked.  “Somebody has to take care of it.  Why not me?”

“Because your parents don’t want ‘anymore living things’ in their house,” he pointed out.  “Because you have nowhere to hide a cat, especially if it needs special care.”

“You already agreed to help,” you said with a grin.  “No take-backs.”

“You’re the devil.”

“Irrelevant.”

He groaned.  “My parents will kill me.”

“Suitable.  A life for a life.”  You held the cat out to him, hoping that maybe there was a scrap of empathy in him somewhere.  “C’mon, Davey.  The cat needs help.  I’ll do all the work; I just need a place for him to stay.”

“You can’t do all the work,” Davey said, “when it’s at my house.”

“I’ll come over all the time,” you said eagerly.  “So much you’ll get tired of me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, a strange look on his face.  Maybe it was suspicion.  Maybe he was just thinking it through, imagining how he’d have to change his schedule to fit this in.  “I could never get tired of you.”

“Please?”

“I don’t even like cats,” he said, defeated.  He held out the box so you could settle the kitten in.

“You don’t have to like cats—just the one,” you said, scooping up the box and setting off toward Davey’s apartment.

Davey:  If I touch him, I’ll probably get a horrible disease and die.

Y/N:  dont touch him then

Davey:  This is all on you.

“I feel like a mom,” you crooned.

“The mom of a gremlin, maybe,” Davey said.  He’d locked the cat in a cage, both for his own sake and the cat’s.  He’d read online that the cat needed a chance to get used to it’s surroundings, so he’d been trying to help it chill out in private.  “Or like the queen that gave birth to the Minotaur.”

“Don’t talk about your son that way.”

He snorted.  “Believe me, I’d remember fathering this beast.”

You winked at him, and he went a little pink.

“Not like that, you cretin.”  He sat on the floor with you in front of the cage, crossing his legs.  “We could always give him to a shelter, you know.  To people who know what they’re doing.”

“We’ll take him to the vet tomorrow, and we’ll know what we’re doing after that.”

He sighed.  “You want to keep him.”

“Of course I do.  He’s perfect.”

“He has fleas.”

“He has feelings too, Dave, so watch your mouth.”  You bumped your shoulder against his to soften the words, and he bumped back.  “I want him.  There’s no good reason; I just do.  Please help.”

“Sure, sure.  You know I will,” he sighed.

You grinned, laying your head against his shoulder.  “Isn’t our son beautiful?”

“If you say so, dear,” he said.  After a second, he laid his cheek against your head.  Even through your hair, you could feel how warm his skin was.  Maybe it was just warm in the room.

You weren’t sure there had ever been so many people in Davey’s room before, but cats were a siren call that no rational human could ignore.  None of your friends were rational—aside from Davey, perhaps, but even he had succumbed.

“We took him to the vet,” he told anybody within earshot.  “They gave us a food plan, and he has roundworm—”

“You’re killing the magic, Dave,” Jack said.  “Don’t.”

It had taken a few days for the kitten to get comfortable in his new home, and even longer to reach a point where he didn’t lose his mind around new people.  Your squad had been hankering to see him for ages, but Davey had been adamant about keeping the stressors to a minimum.

“I dunno, guys,” Elmer said.  “I just watched The Haunting of Hill House, and you saw what happened to the kittens they took in—”

“We aren’t kids,” you said.  “Between Davey and I, we can keep one cat alive.  The vet mapped it all out.”

“There are probably other scary movies with bad cats,” Race said.  He grinned, running his fingers along the length of the cat’s head.  “Look out, Davey, the end of days is near.”

“The Black Cat, by Edgar Allan Poe,” Romeo said.

“Lucifer,” Albert said.  “‘Cinderella’ didn’t play around.”

“Mrs. Norris,” Crutchie said.  He hadn’t stopped smiling since he first saw the cat, and the cat seemed to like Crutchie just as much.  No surprise there.

“Or,” you cut in, shooting a sidelong glance at an exhausted Davey, “this cat is gonna be like Crookshanks.  That’d be pretty cool.”

“Not gonna lie, Y/N,” Davey whispered later.  “This is harder than I expected.”

You grimaced.  You’d trust Davey with a cat before anybody else, but you’d never intended to inconvenience him.  “I can ask somebody else to hang onto him, if you want.”

“No,” Davey said hurriedly.  “No, it’s fine, I’ve got it.  I just hadn’t realized how much that would take, before.”

“I could come over more,” you offered.  “Bribe you with snacks.”

He smiled, shooting a look at the shoelace the kitten was chewing.  “That would be nice.”

You grinned back, warming up to the idea.  It was always nice coming to Davey’s house.  There was always good food, and anyplace with Davey obviously had good company.  “You really will get tired of me, now.”

“Impossible,” he said.

Cat NAME POLL RESULTS:

Muffin Man - 2 votes

Name him Davey so we can replace Davey Jacobs with a better model - 8 votes

Jean Ralphio - 4 votes

Dat Ho - 7 votes

Wilson (Jesus, guys, a normal name) - 1 votes

Tom Hanks - 2 votes

“We aren’t naming the cat ‘Davey,’” Davey the Human said.

“That attitude is exactly why we wanted to get rid of you in the first place,” Race said.

“Use the second place name.”

You grinned.  “You know, I thought that ‘Dat Ho’ had a nice ring to it.”

Davey’s glare was withering.  “I should stop hanging out with you guys.  How hard could it possibly be to pick a nice name?  I’m even willing to use a pun at this point.”

Davey the Cat walked across Race’s backpack, claws scritching against the fabric.  He slipped, hit the floor, and proceeded to act as though nothing had happened.

“He even looks a little like you,” you said.  “Fitting to share a name, isn’t it?”

Race threw an arm over Davey’s shoulders.  “It’s a compliment.  Bask in it.”

Les sometimes sent you pictures of Davey with the cat.  They would read together, or Davey would stay up two hours later than usual because he didn’t dare wake the cat up by standing.

You took a screenshot every single time.  After a while, you started setting them as lockscreens on your phone.  You had no good explanation when people asked about it.

“Y/N?”  Davey rubbed his thumb over his lip while he looked at the chess board.  “Are you going to the fridge?”

“Yeah.”

“If you get some cheese, you can give a little to the cat.”

You grinned.  “You give him cheese?”

“Davey the Cat loves cheese,” he said, shrugging.  “Might as well let him treat himself.”

“You’ve gone soft,” you said.  The cat was sitting on the table, looking at that game board with as much interest as Davey was.  Seeing it made you feel a little soft, too.

“I still don’t like cats,” he said.

“Just the one, huh?”

Davey said nothing.  He rubbed the cat’s head, and the cat leaned into the touch.

You showed Jack and Race a picture of Davey with the cat, waiting for their faces to light up.  They smiled, but didn’t seem as taken with it as you were.

“I was surprised when Davey took the cat,” Jack commented on the way to class.  “He’s so whipped.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whipped,” Race said, dragging out the word.  “You know, when somebody does absolutely anything their lover says.  Davey’d jump off a cliff if you smiled at him while you asked him to.  Actually, letting the cat in his house is probably crazier than that.”

“Davey isn’t whipped,” you said.  “He’s just nice.”

“So’s Crutchie, and he would have at least asked his parents before saying yes.”

“Jack, Davey is your best friend.  You know that he doesn’t do anything if he doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” you said.

“Of course it seemed like a good idea.  You told him you’d hang out with him more if he did what you asked.”

You cringed.  “I didn’t say it like that.  He wanted the cat.”

“Davey didn’t want the cat,” Jack snorted.

“He literally told you that he doesn’t like cats,” Race said.  “You need to listen better.”

You scowled at them.  “Davey wouldn’t have taken Davey the Cat in if he didn’t sort of want him, a little bit.”

“He didn’t want the cat,” Jack said, as though you would only understand him if he spoke slowly.  “He just wanted to make you happy.”

“I call BS.”

Jack put his hands on your shoulders.  “Listen to me.  Davey thinks you’re great, and wants to make all of your dreams come true, yada yada yada.  You needed help with the cat.  He could help with the cat.  That’s all there is to it.”

“Please,” you said.  “This is Davey we’re talking about.”

“Exactly.  Why would Davey do something if he didn’t want to?  Because what you wanted mattered more than what he wanted.  It isn’t rocket science.”

It sure felt like rocket science.  Actually, rocket science would probably have made more sense.

So, maybe had taken in a cat because you asked him to.  That wasn’t so crazy, right?

It was a little crazy.

The real problem, the big thing that plagued your mind for days, was the guilt.  You should never have asked him in the first place.  When he hadn’t seemed interested, you should have backed off.  Here he was, stuck with a cat, because he maybe sort of probably would have done anything to make you happy.

You called Jack one night, hoping that talking about it without seeing him might make it easier to ask questions.

“Has he ever told you that he liked me?”

“No,” Jack said immediately.  “Davey’s not really like that, you know.  He’s not really chatty, and he really doesn’t tell people things if he doesn’t want everybody knowing them.”

You knew that, of course.  “What makes you think that he did this because he’s whipped, then?”

“Y/N, don’t be an idiot.  You have eyes.  You know how he is.  If he didn’t want the cat, it was for you.  If he had you come over to help, it was because he wanted you over.  He can take care of a cat on his own.  He likes you.”

You hugged your pillow.  “Okay.”

Jack yawned.  “Is that it?  Can I go to bed?”

“One more question.  Why did I ask Davey to take the cat in the first place?  I knew that Davey didn’t really like cats.”

“Don’t get mad at me for saying so,” Jack said, “but we all assumed that it was because you like Davey back.”

“Oh.”

“Looks, it’s just—it’s always the two of you.  It always has been.  I’m not saying that you guys can’t be regular friends, but I’m not sure that either of you would be good at that.  Not with each other.”

“Davey,” you said.

“Y/N.”  He carefully peeled his string cheese to each strip was around the same size.  

“You don’t have to keep Davey the Cat anymore,” you said.  “Crutchie offered to take him on.”

Davey blinked at you, surprised.  His hands dropped a little, his snack forgotten.  “Oh.”

“You didn’t want him,” you said.

“I know.”

“Now things can go back to normal.”  You didn’t want Davey to be unhappy because he thought it was better for you.  You weren’t sure what to think of Davey liking you—or the possibility (certainty) that you liked him back—but you could try to make life easier for him, at the very least.  “You can have evenings to yourself again, now that I won’t be coming around.”

“Oh,” Davey repeated.  There was no emotion on his face at all.

You grinned, a little too large to be real.  “You were probably getting tired of me, after all.”

“I wasn’t,” he croaked.  The emotion was there now, and you wished you’d talked to him before talking to Crutchie.  “I really wasn’t.”

“You’ll be happier once everything is back the way it was,” you tried.

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

You winced.  “Look, I know that this was all for me.  You don’t have to do this anymore.”

He went a little pink.  “That’s ridiculous.”

“I talked to Jack—”

“Never listen to Jack.  He’s had too much paint water to drink to be sane”

You half smiled.  “Maybe, but he knows you pretty well.”

“No,” Davey said.

“Yes.”

“Maybe.”

“So,” you continued, “I’m going to make this right.”

“I want the cat,” Davey said forcefully.

“What?”

“I want the cat.  I like the way my life is, now.  I like Davey the Cat.  I like having you over.  I like that I’m your lockscreen, and I like coparenting, and I like—”

You kissed him, and everything else was far away.  Sure, you were conscious of everything happening around you.  You heard his food hit the floor.  You heard cars honking outside, and the light tapping of rain against the window.  You were aware of many things, but none of them mattered as much as Davey’s hands going to your waist, or the sharp inhale right before he started kissing you back.

“I, ah, really like coparenting with you,” you said after pulling back.

Davey smiled, baffled.  “Okay.”

“I’ll tell Crutchie that you’ve changed your mind about the cat.”

“Okay,” he said again.  His hands were still on your sides.  “What—why’d you—”

“I’m just not tired of you yet,” you said.

Davey was grinning, still confused but incredibly happy.  “I’m so confused right now.”

You kissed him again.  That would illuminate some things.

TAG LIST:

@bencookisagod, @albertdasillva, @broadwayandbookblog, @races-erster, @simplyvictoria-93, @theapexpredatorr, @paigedapotato

#Newsies #newsies fanfiction #newsies x reader #davey jacobs #davey x reader #davey jacobs x reader #Ally writes

[wonderlandmind4]

Delicate Stages Chp 34

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x OFC Ana Rios

Warnings: Language, Anxiety/Panic attacks, mentions of anxiety/panic attacks, mild PTSD, an over use of coffee consumption. Slow burn. Eventual smut. Explicit. NSFW. Past violence. Mild violence. Past mention of suicide. Trigger words. Nightmares/terrors. Flashbacks.

Summary: Bucky Barnes agrees to participate in Deprogramming Sessions. What he gets is not anything like he expected.

Words: 2037. @justreadingfics @nerdyandproud9 @buffy-morgendorffer-01

Is it cool that I said all that Is it too soon to do this yet 'Cause I know that it's Delicate

The night is darker than usual, given that the power is out throughout the entire property. Every single light, every electronic, every power line surrounding the compound and the training facility attached has been snuffed out. According to FRIDAY, a transformer blew up outside of the Lab. The AI had informed Steve the outage was not caused by an attack or electric malfunction; darkness has lasted for hours. 

Ana wrings her hands together, twists her fingers around until they begin to ache. She did it, she’s the cause of the lack of power. She couldn't control her energy anymore. Over the past several days, it has been building up and building up, no matter what she tried doing to prevent it. It’s not just the aftermath of Simon and the trick he attempted to pull, no. It’s that Ana has been having those horrible dreams about Bucky every night. It's gotten to the point where Ana begs him to stay with her until she falls asleep.

All the nightmares feel like a weird omen. Ana hasn't been able to shake the feeling that something is going to happen. She can feel it in the air, hovering around her like an invisible force, waiting to strike. Her body has been on edge, and it’s been driving her crazy because she can’t figure out the source. She relays this to Steve, Tony, Sharon and Fury. Even Wanda can’t feel what she is feeling. Ana doesn’t believe it’s a big, terrifying premonition, like a giant attack about to come in. No, this feel more subtle; like it's focused on one thing.

She thinks it's strange, given that Simon is gone and her and Jared still have little talks here and there. At least all the energy with Jared had finally begun to fade away, especially after Ana shared a box that belonged to her brother with him. If Simon is gone, and things with Sharp are beginning to mend, then she has no clue where all those off feelings and odd energies are coming from.

Whatever or whoever it is either knows about Ana's abilities and is hiding it as best they can. Or, Ana is just being paranoid. Clearly its the latter, since Ana got so anxious and angry about it, that when she walked past the transformer while on the phone with Pepper, it blew up. Ana was standing several yards away, but she had expressed how livid she had been to Pepper, and that's when it happened. The entire property went dark.

It's where Ana finds herself now, in the black night on the rooftop, alone. At least she can see the stars clearly tonight. She stares at her hands, wondering if maybe she can see at least see something come from them. A glow, sparks, currents? Nothing. Her skin doesn't even turn color. She doesn't fully understand what's happening.

How she was able to pull the energy out of the air and drain that man's own during the mission. How she was able to hold that much power inside her, transferring it to Tony’s suit and Bucky's arm. That has never happened before, and now this. She has half the mind to go downstairs, grab a bottle of wine and the Nutella jar and go to town. Take her mind off the fact that her power, this ability which she believed had been lying dormant- what she thought she had control over- no longer is.

Instead, Ana inhales deeply, counting in her head, then exhales. She looks up at the inky sky, glad that the clouds are holding off enough she so can gaze at the stars. It's pretty, calming, soothing. The door opens behind her, and she has to fight the smile off her face.

"Knew I'd find you up here." Bucky teases. Ana looks over her shoulder, following him as he sits on the chair next to her.

"Is everyone mad?" Ana inquires. "Things backed up on the computers?"

"No one is mad, Ana." He nudges her bare foot with his. "It's a nice night, anyway. People should just enjoy the stars. Who care if no one can watch their games."

Bucky is smiling sweetly at her. His eyes are soft, his dark hair falling around his face. Just the sight of him in the moonlight makes her heart skip a beat. He reaches his hand out to stop Ana's nervous twisting fingers.

"I don't mind the dark some times." Bucky speaks up, still giving her that insanely soft smile.

Ana nods. "You know, I once heard someone say you can be whoever you want to be in the dark." She says quietly. "The dark can be scary, but it can also bring out the best and the worst of people. During the daylight, people tend to put on a mask, hide their emotions, their feelings. Sometimes in the dark, is when the real person comes out, when they're the most vulnerable."

"Is that why you were crying in the dark that one time? Because of that reason?" Bucky questions, frowning as he remembers that day.

Ana smiles, a sad little tilt to her mouth. "Are you saying I put on a mask, Bucky?"

"In a way. I think you do it so others don't catch on that things actually affect you."

"You're very perceptive."

"You aren't as hard to read as you think you are, Annie." He teases with a winks.

Ana leans over to gently tug his hair. "They do affect me, you're right. When the lights are on, during the day, I walk around trying to be a positive as I can be. There's so much energy around this place, radiating off of people all the time, and it gets hard for them. I can change it around, give off a better vibe and in return it transmutes their own and helps them."

"What about all that negative energy?"

"I store it away."

Bucky frowns. "Ana-"

"I don't keep it for long. It comes out," She waves her hand gesturing around them. "You're right though, Bucky. I wear that mask because if anyone else falls apart around me, it's my job to be as strong and as positive as I can be. In the dark, I want to cry, or be angry. I need it. I hide it away because if I don't, if I'm the one who falls apart in front of everyone else, how is that helping?"

"It makes you human."

She smirks a little. She has brought this up before. "Are you saying that feeling sad, letting things affect you makes you human?"

"I-yes." He smiles knowingly. "I get it," he chuckles. "Is that who you want to be? Healer of the Heroes?"

Ana huffs a laugh. Her smile slowly fades away as she looks at him. "I want to be the person who helps you. I want to be the one who is there for you when you need it."

She leans forward and places her hand on the middle of his chest. His heart beating just a little faster than his normal standard.

"I want to help you, Bucky. I want to help you feel what's real in here. So yes. I hide away the negative affects to be strong for those around me. Hopefully in return, it makes them feel strong as well."

Bucky lifts his right hand to cover hers, keeping her touch there before she can pull away. She feels bare under his intense blue eyed gaze, feels her own heart beat kick up a notch. She gives him a tentative smile, then slowly starts to take her hand away. Bucky grasps her fingers, following her hand down to her lap.

"Since we're being open about what we want..." Ana says lightly, "It's your turn. Got any little secrets there, pal?"

Bucky chuckles under his breath. His eyes reflect in the moonlight, gleaming a cool silver and pinning Ana to the chair. He blinks and something washes over him, his expression calm, though his eyes remain intense. His hand still has a firm hold on her fingers.

“I’ll tell you,” He begins quietly, scooting to the edge of his seat. “But you have to close your eyes, and don’t open them until I say so.”

Ana quirks her eyebrow up. “What?”

“Please. You trust me, right?”

She stares at him briefly, before she he inhales and exhales, letting her eyes fall shut. It’s silent for a moment, then she feels the cushion of her seat shift and Bucky’s lips are grazing her ear.

“I want to kiss you again.” Bucky confesses softly, his voice a low timbre that vibrates straight through her bones.

Ana inhales sharply, her stomach fluttering as her heartbeat slowly starts to pick up. His soft lips barely touch her ear, sends a warm shiver through her body. The night air suddenly feels warm around them.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since that night, Ana. I want to feel your lips on mine. I want to feel your body pressed against me. I want to hold you in my arms, feel the way you tremble beneath me.”

Her breath catches in her throat, keeping her eyes closed tightly.

Bucky continues. "I’ve never tasted anything as sweet as you, and I want to taste you on my lips again. I want to always feel the way I do when you're around me. I want all of that so fucking much. I don't think you understand how much, darling. My hands shakes from holding back from you. That's how badly I want to kiss you again. How much I want you.

"You drive me crazy in the best way, and every day that passes where I don’t kiss you, drives the insanity deeper. I can’t stop thinking about you. Your stunning face, beautiful eyes, your damn amazing lips. Your fucking curves, Annie, I swear to God. You have no idea what you do to me, and every day it gets harder and harder to resist. To not just grab you, pin you to the wall and kiss you breathless. You’ve been this refreshing light in my life. You’re so kind to me, you’re fierce, sassy, positive, and all I want to do is ravish you.”

Slowly, Bucky releases her hand, his touch slipping away from hers. Ana nearly opens her eyes to look over her shoulder at him, her heart pounding against her chest. But there's something in his voice, low and vulnerable that makes her keep them close. She feels glued to her spot, her body trembling just slightly, and her skin burning just from the softest graze of his lips still at her ear.

"I want to," Bucky goes on, a hint of sorrow in his tone, "but I don't. I can’t. Because I see you in the light, and I see you in the dark, and I don't deserve someone as beautifully openhearted as you. I don't deserve to have you in any way other than your help for the original offer. You are too good for someone like me, Ana. I don't deserve you."

He sighs softly, wistfully. “That's why I haven't given in. I just want to have you in my life one way or the other. So. I want you in every way. I want to kiss you, but I won’t. Not again. Not unless you truly want me to. It’s been hard to figure out what’s been real in my life this entire time. But you, Ana. You are the realest thing I have ever touched.”

He carefully takes her hand again, his fingers trembling slightly, lifting her hand up. The gentle press of his lips against the back of her hand, has her breath sticking to her throat. Slowly, he brings her hand back down then breaks all contact.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart."

She takes a moment to gather herself, to prepare to somehow respond to that heartfelt confession. When Ana finally opens her eyes, she looks over her shoulder. Bucky is gone.

She searches around the roof. He's not there anymore. She releases a long, shuddering breath, not realizing she'd been holding it since the start of his confession. Her heart is rabbiting against her chest, and her stomach feels fuzzy, and her ear is still burning with the phantom touch of his lips. She feels something on her cheek and she lifts her hand to swipe at it. Her fingers come away wet.

Ana doesn't know if that single tear is because she's feeling so much all at once. Or, if it's because Bucky truly thinks he doesn't deserve something beautiful in his life, despite him saying he doesn't deserve her. He honestly believes he doesn't deserve to have anything good in his life and that...that needs to be disproved.

The power suddenly kicks back on, buzzing to life again. Ana's entire body hasn't stopped trembling and Bucky left her alone on the roof. As if he is scared of her response. That won't do. Ana gets up on shaky legs, heading towards the hidden staircase. Once she steps off the last step in the hallway, she turns towards Bucky's room.

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A/N: This chp was inspired by the mini-series Kings . “You can be whoever you want to be in the dark.”

#bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky barnes fanfiction #Bucky Barnes #delicate stages #my fic #marvel #mcu fanfiction