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profound-imagination · 6 months

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Come Back, Be Here - Ruhn Danaan

A/N: Longest Ruhn fic I’ve ever written! Did I break my own heart while writing this? Yes. Did I make myself cry while writing this? Also yes. Please enjoy! Angst to Fluff I think? Not properly proof read!❤️

T/W: Talks of injury and torture. Memory loss. I think that’s it! Let me know if I’ve missed any!

W/C: 5.5k

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Beep…beep…beep…

“Sorry, what was that?” You asked Declan, pulling yourself back from listening to the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor and the buzzing of the hospital lighting. Six months. He’d been held captive and tortured for six months until Bryce had returned with help and they’d rescued him. Flynn was sporting some nasty wounds and Ithan had a broken leg but both of them looked a damn sight better than Ruhn apparently. Dec himself was covered in dust and blood and sporting cuts and bruises. People always seemed to underestimate Declan but he was a warrior, just like his brothers.

“I said you need to be prepared for what you’re going to see, he looks bad Y/N and it is bad but the witches say he’s fighting to come back to us.” Unconscious, that was how they’d found him, breathing, but unconscious and he was yet to wake up. You had been told it was his body’s way of working to heal itself. “I’m scared.” You admitted to them for the first time since he’d been taken, pulling your hair out of the button on your coat it had tangled itself round in your haste to get here after Dec had called you to say they had him. “I’m prepared, I need to see him Dec.” He nodded and Flynn grabbed your hand and limped into the room beside you as Dec opened the door.

It was like your mind couldn’t comprehend what you were seeing. It was the little orange bottles of various medications that you spotted first, lined up neatly on the table next to Ruhn’s bed. Your grip on Flynn’s hand tightened as you took him in. Broken. Bruised. “His hair.” Was the first thing you said. Gone was the long midnight blue hair you’d spent so many hours braiding and styling, it had obviously been shaved at some point and was at the beginning stages of growing back. Then your eyes roamed over his face, black eyes, a tube up his nose, that was clearly broken, cuts and bruises littered his beautiful face.

It was his arms you saw next, again, littered with cuts and bruises but something else, something else was different, wrong, about his arms. It took a few moments for your brain to catch up and Dec and Flynn waited for you to catch up with what they already knew. “Where’s his tattoos?” You asked quietly, your lunch trying to make its way back up your throat. “They, uh, I mean we think, we think they cut them out or that his arms were completely skinned.” Flynn told you as gently as he could, squeezing your hand tighter. You swallowed the vomit that had crawled up your throat and closed your eyes, letting the tears fall. It only got worse when you opened your eyes again to look at Ruhn once more and you saw his chest.

What appeared to be letters had been branded into his skin. T.R.A.I.T.O.R. Other words had been carved into his skin using what you assumed was a very sharp, very thin blade. You threw up then, falling to your knees and spilling the contents of your stomach on the hospital room floor. Ruhn’s brothers were by your side in an instant. Flynn holding your hair out of your face, Declan rubbing your back in soothing circles. “What else?” You croaked when you finally stopped retching. “We assume plenty of mental trauma and just a lot more cuts and bruises, he’s been whipped, his back was in ribbons but Paxia managed to heal a lot of it, it’s all scabbed over now. We aren’t sure how much he went through though, how many times they took him apart and put him back together again.”

Days, weeks you spent sitting at his bedside waiting for him to wake up. “You should go to the house, have a shower, get changed, have something to eat and a nap, we’ll let you know if he wakes up.” Tharion said gently, you’d had this same argument with Ithan, Dec and Flynn all separately over the last few weeks. “I don’t want him to wake up alone.” You muttered weakly from your seat on the chair next to his bed, knees to your chest and head resting on your knees. “He won’t, I promise I’ll stay right here until you get back.” He told you. “Why hasn’t Bryce been to visit?” You asked him instead, trying to change the subject. “She’s with Hunt, trying to break through to him, he’s her mate.” You huffed “Ruhn’s her brother.” You’d also had this argument with the others as well. “He wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself, Y/N.” You sighed, he was right. “They sent you as a last resort to get me out of here didn’t they?” He nodded, “They know you can’t say no to me.” He smirked.

“I never told him.” Tharion crouched in front of you, “Told him what?” He asked, tucking a greasy strand of hair behind your ear. “How I feel about him.” Tharion smiled gently, “I think he knows kid, I think he’s known since you were a kid and you told him he could come live in your treehouse because his dad was always mad and you thought it was because his house was haunted.” You flushed with embarrassment. “He must’ve thought I was a stupid kid.” Tharion laughed, “I can picture little you, having the biggest crush on him.” You nodded, “You and Bryce were always the most important things in his life, still are, he just doesn’t see one of you as a little sister anymore.” Dec’s voice pulled your attention towards the door. “Go home, come back in a few hours, we’ll be here.” Tharion held out a hand to you and you took it and let him pull you to your feet. You placed a gentle kiss on Ruhn’s forehead. “I won’t be long.” You told him and then followed Tharion out the door.

“Wake up, Y/N, wake up!” You startled awake at Tharion shaking you, “He woke up!” You shot off the sofa and beelined towards the door, “Wait!” Tharion called after you, “You need to put trousers on!” You stopped and turned as a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie hit you in the face and you pulled them on as quickly as you could.

You hated running, detested it in fact, but as you ran down the hallways of the hospital to Ruhn’s room it seemed like you couldn’t move fast enough and that the halls stretched on forever. As you rounded the corner to his room you saw Ithan, he took a step towards you as you approached, “Y/N-“ you breezed past him and into the room. “Where is she? Dec? Where is she?” You heard Ruhn ask as you rounded the curtain that surrounded his bed. “She’s coming.” Dec told his brother “Ruhn?” You choked out as you approached his bed and threw your arms around him and sobbed. “Dec, who is this? Where’s Lidia?” His words hit you like a physical blow and you reeled back from him. “Ruhn it’s me, it’s Y/N.” You told him as he studied you. “I’ve never met you before.” He said, “Did you help Bryce?” You looked at Dec and Flynn who both looked equally confused. “Bro, do you really not know who she is?” Flynn asked, gesturing to you. Ruhn shook his head, “No, I told you, we’ve never met.” He said, your throat felt thick and tears stung your eyes. “You’ve known me since I was 5-“ your voice cracked and you backed towards the curtain.“You’re my biggest hero.” The tears fell and you turned and fled.

They found you at the house, staring blankly at the floor. Tharion approached you first and crouched in front of you, much like he’d done earlier that day. “We spoke to Pax. She thinks his mind has blocked things out, that he blocked them out while he was down there as a way to protect those he cares about.” You didn’t move, “But he knows all of you, why was it just me?” You sniffled, he sighed gently,

“She doesn’t know, maybe because you’re half fae and you haven’t made the drop yet, he wanted to protect you but she seemed confident the memories would come back, that you should visit and talk to him, tell him stories and help him remember.” You shook your head, “I’m a stranger to him now, he won’t want me there.” Flynn sat next to you, “That’s rubbish and you know it.”

You didn’t go back. It had been two weeks and he was coming home today. You’d cleaned the entire place top to bottom and changed the sheets on his bed from where you’d stayed there while he was being held, erasing any sign of yourself from his bedroom. Ithan had text you that they were on their way back as you flicked through the scrap book you’d made. Hypaxia had insisted his memories would return with a little help so you caved. You’d filled the pages with everything you could think of from his friendship with his brothers, to Bryce, to his favourite places.

The door swung open and there he was, arms wrapped around Dec and Flynn as they helped him into the house. “Hey kid!” Tharion beamed at you and you gave him a small smile in return as Ithan wrapped you in a hug. Dec and Flynn sat Ruhn on the sofa and took their place next to him. “Can I get you anything?” You asked him, shier than you’d ever been around Ruhn. He shook his head, “Y/N, right?” He asked, you nodded, “That’s me.” You said quietly, “They tell me you’re important to me, I’m trying to remember why but I can’t” You shrugged, “It doesn’t matter, you’re alive and home, that’s what’s important, besides, I think you were always more important to me than I was to you.” You didn’t miss the pitying looks from everyone else in the room.

“What’s that?” Ruhn asked after the others had dispersed. The assholes leaving you alone with him. You handed him the scrapbook you’d made with a bashful smile on your face. “They said to make something for you to look at to maybe help jog your memory, so, uh that’s what I did.” You couldn’t meet his eyes, you felt pathetic, desperate. You watched his hands instead as he took great care in opening the book. You watched him smile at the pages with his brothers and his friends, he beamed at the Bryce pages. “You went to Embers?” He asked, a shocked look on his face. “You told me once you wished she’d been your mom, even though she’s younger than you. She was like a mother to you, plus she had adorable pictures of you and Bryce.” He studied your face. “That’s like 8 hours each way.” You shrugged, “It was for you.”

You watched mortified as he got to your pages. He ran a deft finger down the first picture. “Is this us?” He asked showing you the picture. Ruhn was beaming down at you, sat in his lap, hands on his face smiling back up at him. You smiled bashfully. “Uh yeah, that was the day we first met, I was 5, I think you were around 55. Ember and my mom were friends and I was a super timid kid, super shy and awkward so they organised a play date with Bryce who’s always been my polar opposite. Then you turned up and Bryce was so excited to see you, and quite literally dragged me over to you. She made me tell you my name and then she made you play with us. Except I didn’t play, I just stood there as she started setting up the tea party we were having that I had no interest in. I just wanted to go back to my colouring. You coaxed me over to you telling me that you wanted to show me a magic trick. Well of course I couldn’t resist so I stepped closer and you showed me your starlight. I remember being amazed, like absolutely captivated. You told Bryce to bring my colouring pens over with her, which she complained about because we weren’t colouring, we were having a tea party but she brought them over anyways. You showed me your tattoos, they didn’t all have colour then and you weren’t covered yet and you asked me to colour them in and fill the gaps. I spent the afternoon sat on your lap colouring your arms while you had a tea party with Bryce.” He smiled warmly and turned the page as you told him “I think you’re why I’m a tattoo artist now. I did some of your ink in fact.”

He was silent for a while as he took in the various pictures of the two of you at parties, at the beach, at the White Raven. He hesitated on a particular photo, a look on his face you couldn’t decipher. It had been taken from the back door. Ruhn was lying flat on his back and you were straddling his hips. He was looking at you like you were special, you were completely unaware, laughing at Flynn who had caught you both and was taking the photo. “What were we to each other?” He asked quietly. Your stomach twisted. “Um, I never knew if I’m honest. You’ve been in my life since I was 5 and I was like a little sister to you and you had been my favourite person in the world since that first day, but at some point around my 23rd birthday, when Bryce came back into your life that seemed to change, like you saw me as something more like I’d always dreamed of, but we never talked about it, if we were friends or more, if we had feelings for each other. You pulled away from me about 6 weeks before you were taken, I didn’t know why until Flynn told me about Agent Daybright.” You turned the page to find a certain picture. He studied it, a selfie this time, taken where you were currently sitting with him.

“This was my 24th birthday, last year. It had been really shit for everyone. Do you remember the demon attack? Bryce making the drop?” He nodded. “My parents died in that attack, I had nowhere to go so you let me move in here, in fact you wouldn’t hear of me living anywhere else. My first night living here was my birthday. I was miserable all day, I refused to come out of my room, when you’d finally coaxed me out of my bedroom with the promise of desserts and whatever take out I wanted for dinner you’d sent everyone else out. You knew I wouldn’t be able to handle the love they’d smother me with. So we sat and smoked, ate take out and watched my favourite movies. You kissed me for the first time that night and I smiled for the first time in weeks. You told me that you’d kiss me a million times over if it meant I’d smile at you like that.”

He continued to flick through the book, taking in the pages. “Can I ask you something?” You asked softly, he met your eyes and nodded. “Who’s Lidia?” He froze for a half a second, “Lidia is Agent Daybright, Lidia Cervos.” You gasped, “The Hind?” He nodded. There was so much you wanted to ask, did he really think she was his mate? Was she actually his mate, did he love her? But he didn’t need that right now so instead you asked, “Is she safe? Is there anything I can do for her?” He studied you for a while, choosing his words. “You made this whole book to help me remember you and anything else I may have forgotten, you’ve just sat and been really honest with me about how you feel about me and then you offer to help her? You’d do that?” You fought the tears, “For you? Yeah I would. Happiness is all I want for you Ruhn.”

“She’s safe.” He finally said, “She went back with Bryce’s friends, there was no life for her here anymore, we both knew whatever we could’ve had couldn’t be fixed now.” You nodded, “I’m sorry you lost her.” He gave you a sad smile, “I’m sorry I can’t remember you, what I felt for you, I do know that I want you around though, as soon as you left my hospital room I wanted you to come back.” A tear escaped your eye and he brushed it away, “I want to remember you, little one.” He said, his face morphing into horror when you started crying harder. “I’m sorry, don’t cry because of me!” He said, grabbing your hands. “No, it’s just, you always called me that, little one, well that or-“ he cut you off “Princess.”

Your laugh was watery as you looked up at him, “Yeah, Bryce hated it when you called her that, she kicked off about it when we were 7 and you just laughed at her and called her trouble instead as she crossed her arms and huffed but you just picked me up and said ‘Y/N can be my Little Princess instead.’ and it stuck. I’m nearly 25 and you still call me that, even when Flynn teases me for it.” He smiled slightly, and asked “So you’re human then? If you grew up around Bryce and Ember?” “Not quite, there’s a little bit of Fae in me but I didn’t get the ears or the glow that you all have, that Bryce has, just the long lifespan but I haven’t made the drop yet.” He placed the book down carefully on the coffee table and turned to face you, “Why not?” You gave him a small smile, “You were going to be my anchor, it was what we were going to do on my 25th birthday.” He seemed to be registering just how intertwined your lives were, “I’ll do it eventually, I’ll get Tharion to be my anchor or use the one they provide.”

“When is your birthday?” He asked and you flushed, “Um, it’s today actually.” You both flinched at the crash from the kitchen and Flynn who appeared in the doorway, Dec just behind him. “We missed your birthday?! Why didn’t you tell us?” You shrugged, “Wasn’t important.” Flynn huffed, “Yes it is! We’re terrible! No presents, no party! We just did nothing!” He pointed at Ruhn, “I blame you, you normally remind us of all the Y/N related events!” Ruhn held his hands up in mock surrender, “My bad man, lemme go back in time to yesterday so I can remind you that it’s the girl I don’t remember birthday tomorrow!” You laughed at them, “Stop it, it really doesn’t matter!” Dec shoved Flynn out of his way, “Yes it does, you need to stop playing things off like you aren’t important, you are! Can we have a do over? What day is it now? Thursday? Give us Saturday as a do over, please?” You sighed, “Guys it’s not a big deal! Helping Ruhn heal and get better that’s what’s important, not re doing my birthday.”

Another crash, this time, “It’s your birthday?!” Ithan shouted as he skidded at the bottom of the stairs. The front door opened and Tharion strolled in, a gift bag and a balloon in hand and waltzed straight over to you, “Happy birthday, kid!” He smiled as he dropped a kiss on the top of your head and handed you the bag and balloon. He took in the others, the looks on their faces, “Was I the only one that remembered?” Dec nodded, Tharion pointed at Ruhn, “I blame you, you normally remind them of all Y/N related events.” Flynn threw his hands in the air “That’s what I said!!” Ruhn rolled his eyes, “Thank you, Tharion.” You smiled up at him as you took in the freshwater pearl earrings he’d gifted you. “You’re welcome kid, I know you loved those ones you pawned to get to Embers the other day so I-“ he seemed to realise what he’d said, “I wasn’t meant to say that.” Dec, Flynn and Ithan all looked confused, Ruhn’s expression was unreadable as you muttered, “No, you weren’t.”

Ruhn took that scrap book with him everywhere, studied it for hours as if it’d force his brain to remember what it had blocked out. You’d agreed to let them give you a birthday redo in the end. Flynn wouldn’t stop whining about it. Ruhn had been quiet for the most part. He asked questions as and when they came to him. You’d just gotten out of the bath, your hair wrapped in a towel, one of Ruhn’s old T-shirts thrown onto wear while you got ready for the party they were throwing you. You’d just finished your skincare when you heard a crash from down the hall, Ruhn’s room.

You didn’t knock on his bedroom door. You strolled in to find Ruhn sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands wearing only his boxers. You saw the full extent then, the bruises and healing cuts, the lacerations that were now scabbed over on his back from where he’d been whipped. “Ruhn?” You said his name quietly so you didn’t startle him, “Are you okay?” He didn’t move as he mumbled, “My hair.” His long locks gone, it had been shaved at some point, it was now more like Flynn’s boy band hair as Ruhn like to joke. An adjustment you were sure. “What about it?” You asked him, approaching carefully. “It’s gone, I don’t know what to do with this!” He exclaimed tugging at the strands. “Can I?” You asked, gesturing towards him, he nodded and you knelt behind him on his bed.

“I loved your long hair, but y'know I think I love the short hair too.” You told him as you ran your fingers through it. “Really?” He asked and you hummed, “I used to spend hours braiding and styling your hair.” He raised an eyebrow at you through the mirror on the wall opposite the bed, “I gave you some right questionable hair styles over the years, you wore them all with pride.” You ran your fingers through his hair again, “I can do something with this for sure, if you’re okay with that?” He met your eyes in the mirror, “Please?” You nodded and got up and walked into his bathroom to get the products you wanted, he watched you go.

“Nice shirt.” He said as you returned to his room, “Oh this old thing? Some guy I hooked up with once gave it to me so I’d stay and sleep in his room rather than going back to my own.” He looked like he couldn’t believe what you’d just said, “That’s my shirt though.” He said, so he remembered the shirt then, you smirked, “Yeah, I was talking about you.” His mouth dropped open and formed an O. “We? When?” He stuttered out, “You didn’t mention that the other day!” You laughed, “The walls had ears the other day! I mean they probably all already know.” He looked at you still waiting for an answer. “Christmas eve, after too many mulled wines.” He contemplated, “What?” You asked him with a laugh, “Was that the first time?” You nodded, “That was the only time.” He hummed, “Drunk after too many mulled wines?” You laughed again, “Yup.” He hummed again, “What?” You repeated, “It just seems like if you’re as important as the guys say you are to me I’d have made it special, not a drunk hookup on Christmas Eve.” You smiled at him as you walked past him and crawled behind him, “It was kinda perfect actually. I know it sounds like it was just a quick drunk hookup but it wasn’t, it was slow and sweet, we giggled a lot, it was special, because it was us.”

He didn’t say anything else as you styled his hair. When you were finished he was staring at his arms, “I’ll fix them for you, if you want, when you’re fully healed.” He smiled slightly, “I’d like that.” You nodded, “No problem, but for the time being a might have a solution!” You sprang from his bed and ran down the hallway to your room. One you had found what you were looking for you walked back to Ruhn, grinning ear to ear. “Glittery stick on tattoos?” He laughed when he read the packet. “I volunteer as a big sister for a little girl who lost her parents in the attack, I got these for her but I can replace them and I think they’ll look amazing on you.”

By the time you were done you were both grinning and laughing, Ruhn had arms full of glittery tattoos and he’d stuck one on your cheek. It took you both a moment to realise you’d ended up straddling his hips as you stuck the last two on his neck. Ruhn cleared his throat, a blush rising on both of your cheeks. You lightly traced the letters burned into his skin, “If this heals well I can cover it,” you told him, “How do you feel about an awesome chest piece?” He gently removed you from his lap and smiled, “I feel pretty good about that, princess.” You weren’t sure he even realised he’d called you that and you weren’t about to question it. You awkwardly scratched the back of your neck and said, “I should probably go and get ready.” And hightailed it out of his room, he watched you go for the second time.

You had to hand it to the guys, they threw together an amazing party and they had spoiled you rotten with gifts. You were currently handing Flynn’s ass to him in beer pong when Ruhn approached you and offered you a hand, you met his eyes for a couple of seconds and then took it without question. He led you out of the living room and front door and out onto the street. “Where are we going? The party is back there!” You asked him, “Do you trust me?” He asked, “Always.” He smiled down at you, “Good, I have something to show you.” You followed him through the streets until he stopped outside a building. You gave him a questioning look, “Why are we outside an abandoned building?” You asked him, he rolled his eyes, “Look up, Princess.” It was then that you spotted the sign, brand new and freshly done, it read, ‘Starborn Tattoos’ you gasped, “Dec said the studio you worked in got destroyed during the attack and that you’d been living on your savings since then, he also said it had always been your dream to own your own shop, so, Happy Birthday, Princess.” He said as he handed you the keys from his pocket. “I-I don’t know what to say, Ruhn, this is too much! You aren’t just doing this because you feel bad that you can’t remember me are you?” He shook his head, “I’m doing this because it feels like the right thing to do.” Tears escaped your eyes, “Thank you! Can I hug you? Is that okay?” He laughed and pulled you into his chest.

He gave you a tour inside the shop, “It’s perfect!” You sequeled as you told him your vision for it. “You’ll be the first person I tattoo in here!” You circled the space once more, “Starborn Tattoos, how did you know? Did Dec tell you the name?” He shrugged, “Lucky guess after you told me you thought I was the reason you’re an artist.” You nodded, you couldn’t believe the heart this man had, after all he’d been through. “We’re not done yet, we’ve got once more place to go.” He told you and you span to face him, “Ruhn this is more than enough, like seriously, you don’t have to get me another present for the rest of my life.” He rolled his eyes and took your hand again, “Come on!”

You stopped dead when you realised where he was taking you. “We don’t have to do this, Ruhn.” You told him as you looked up at the Drop centre. “Yes, we do, we made a deal.” You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, “But you don’t even know me anymore.” You felt his hands on your face and opened your eyes, “Trust me, Princess.” You nodded and followed him in.

You were falling, and falling, and falling. It seemed to go on for an eternity before you hit the bottom. All you could see was white and a runway. You could hear the clock ticking down, you needed to run, to make the leap to go back but then there he was. Long hair, covered in tattoos, smoking a rolled cigarette as he walked towards you. “There’s my princess!” He cheered as he flicked his cigarette off to the side and pulled you into him. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. The clock was still counting down but Ruhn was here, the one that knew you. The one that maybe loved you. “You need to go back, you know that right?” He asked as you wrapped your arms around him tighter. “I want to stay here with you, you know me.” He kissed the top of your head, “I’ll always know you, Princess. You’ve been so strong for me, so kind.” You cried into his chest. “It hurts that you don’t know me!” You wailed, “It hurts that you asked for her when you woke up and everyone was convinced you were asking for me!” He ran a soothing hand down your back, “I know little one, I know.” You let out a shuddering breath, “I can’t say any of this to you though, because it isn’t your fault and you’re trying, I know you’re trying, but I’m so sad without you and I can’t voice that because it isn’t fair! None of this is fair! You never should’ve gone and got caught up in Bryce’s drama and obsession with Danika, she hasn’t even been to visit!” He pulled you away from his chest, “She’s my little sister, baby, I’m always going to get involved.” You nodded, “I know.”

He wiped the tears from your face, “You left me Ruhn.” He kissed your forehead, “That’s not true, I’m waiting for you right now.” You heard him then, the Ruhn that was waiting for you, the one that had bought you a building. “Come back, Princess.” You looked into his eyes, “Go.” Was all he said, “Will you come with me?” You asked, “Of course, I’ll always come with you.” He said as he took your hand. “Come back, you can do it!” You both took off at a sprint and when you reached the end of the runway you jumped, Ruhn with you. A quarter of the way Ruhn fell behind and pushed you, still grasping your hand, half way he started to fade, three quarters of the way, “I love you, little one.” He said, his voice quiet, he was gone as you reached the top and your eyes shot open.

Ruhn was hovering over you, “I know you.” He said, he voice a whisper, “What?” You asked, your voice just as quiet as he helped you sit up. He cupped your cheek and stood between your legs. “I know you, Princess.” Your eyes welled at what you thought he was telling you. “As you ascended, my memories of you came flooding back.” You let the tears fall, “You were there, you before, you jumped with me.” He smiled down at you, “You bought them back, baby, gods you’re amazing.” A sob escaped your throat, “Do you really remember me?” He leant down and kissed your forehead. “I remember.” More sobs followed his confession, “I’m going to kiss you now, something I didn’t do enough of before.” You let out a tearful laugh as his lips met yours and a golden thread tied the two of you together. “Marry me?” He asked when he pulled away and you gasped, “What?!” “I asked you to marry me, I’ve wasted enough time.” You cupped his cheeks and kissed him again, “We haven’t even been on a date, Ruhn!” You laughed, “Let’s start there, let’s get you healed and finish dealing with the mess Bryce made, then, when you ask me again, I’ll say yes, hel I’ll marry you then and there. But I want to be your girlfriend first.” He smiled, “Anything you want princess.”

#crown prince of the valbaran fae #ruhn x reader #ruhn danaan x reader #ruhn danaan #crescent city #house of sky and breath #house of earth and blood

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zzoguri · 10 months

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no matter what you may bring, jacob will choose to stay. (angst, fluff, hurt/comfort)

lee hyunjae ➵ here’s much to do with hate, but more with love ✧

when you land the lead role for your university’s upcoming play, you expect your scene partner to be your best friend, lee hyunjae. but when your eyes discover a different lee beside romeo montague’s, you’re certain that the universe is not on your side. (friends to sort-of lovers, suggestive, university/theater au)

ji changmin ➵ of linked arms and bruised hearts (you are the reason i keep on going) [series masterlist] ✰

you and changmin have been best friends since high school, having seen each other at their best and worst. now in your second year of university, you are given the opportunity to work with the unattainable 5th-year you have had a crush on since—jacob bae. with your best friend on the receiving end of your rambles, you could only hope for something to come out of your time working with jacob. that is until changmin decides he wants something more out of his relationship with you. (f2l, slow burn, explores the importance of platonic love)

➵ on the drive home

the three times changmin thought you two would be okay, and the one drive home that made him realize he was wrong. (angst no happy ending, requested, inspired by “on the drive home” by niki)

➵ somebody

you needed somebody to give you what you crave. will you allow changmin to be that for you? (smut, requested, inspired by “somebody” by keshi)

kim sunwoo ➵ familiarity (it's all sticky) ✰

you’re not sure why you decide to show up at your ex’s place all wounded up from tonight’s battle. (exes to sort-of lovers, ghost-spider au, hurt/comfort)

➵ of boundaries and secret glances (i'm lucky to be loved by you) [teaser] [one] [two]

as a well-respected independent producer in the industry, you get requests from different companies for collaborations. when you accept to work on chanhee and sunwoo's unit track for their upcoming album, you are left to your own devices as you work closely with sunwoo. who is to say what can happen over the days? (strangers to lovers, idol au, explores the mistreatment in the kpop industry)

➵ the perfect pair [series masterlist]

being a woman in the esports league is hard, but dealing with cocky kim sunwoo is unmatched. with the valorant champions tour about to commence, you two are forced to team up to retrieve the trophy. what will be tested—team morale or your patience around sunwoo? (enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, smut, esports au, explores misogyny im video games and esports league)

➵ surrender to me ✧

you despise everything about him—detached, shy, a blind follower. if anything, being in the same room as him infuriates you. so how did a leader like you end up in this mess with him? (smut, fuck buddies au)

eric sohn ➵ first to know you, first to love you ✧

all you should care about is graduating with flying colors, so why are you starting to care about your seatmate? (strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, requested, inspired by “valentine” by laufey)

➵ serene (it’s what i hope for me) ✰

you should’ve known that eric wouldn’t be the one. (angst no happy ending, exes au, inspired by “california and me” by laufey)

more coming soon...

wips

lee sangyeon ➵ burning at the center of the universe [coming soon]

you will never be the special companion. no matter how much you long to stay with the doctor, he will always leave as quickly as he came. all you can hope is that you left your mark as much as he did with yours—and you'll never know how much you truly meant to him. (doctor who au [won't be heavy on it!], angst no happy ending)

ji changmin ➵ finger trapped (ripped to its seams) [coming soon]

with an unexpected reunion, you and changmin relive the memories of cheongju—and confront what could’ve been between you two. (almost lovers, angst, based on seasons by wave to earth)

kim sunwoo

➵ untitled [coming soon]

summer to you is meant for everything casual—hookups to short-lived romances. when a new boy shows up at the beach, you are determined to have fun with him. unbeknownst to you, he is set on changing your mind. (s2l, summer love au, ton of suggestive content)

eric sohn

➵ crossing boundaries (i’m already yours) [coming soon]

the five times where the boundaries were blurred with eric and the one time where it became crystal clear. (situationship, fluff, angst)

#works of moni #the boyz

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my-soupy-brain · 10 months

Note

Going shopping for clothes with ted... trying on some lingerie and pulling him into the changing room. He can’t help but admire your figure. Puts his warm hands on your waist like, “darlin’, you look amazin’”

OOOOOF! This is a sexy situation. He wouldn't know what to do with himself, and that makes it even better. Let's gooooo!

WARNING: Light smut and teasing ahead...

Relationship: Ted Lasso x reader (f)

---

You tugged Ted's arm into the department store to go shopping. Really, you didn't have to tug at all. Ted loved going shopping with you. He had an eye for your style, and always found something that you ended up bringing home.

But as you wandered into the intimates department, his cheeks blushed and he smiled brightly at you.

"So, ah, darlin', what are we doin' here?" he asked playfully, holding your hand as you wound your way through the racks.

"Shopping for something special," you tease, darting off to the more intricate and sexy lingerie.

Ted admires the soft fabrics and romantic lace around him, his brain flitting to images of what you might look like in one of these things. But equally attracted to you when you're in your sleep shorts and one of his Richmond t-shirts.

Your eyes brighten at a red satin number - a corset bodice covered in black lace, with garter belts and a push-up top. You wink at Ted as you pop into a fitting room.

"Where'd ya go, sugar?" Ted asks, his cheeks breaking into a big smile, knowing full well you're trying on that saucy little number.

"I'm in here, but I didn't realize this thing had a ribbon in the back, I may need your help, Teddy..." you tease. Ted blushes, looking around to see if anyone may see him in the fitting room. He knocks twice gently on the door before you open it. And my God, what a sight you are to him. "Barbecue sauce," he murmurs, mouth agape as he takes you in.

Your hair is down, a little fluffed out from taking off your clothes, and your body is the picture of sexiness and elegance... "Can you tie me up in back?" you ask, turning around, your butt rounded out under the hem.

Ted nods, his mouth agape, as he steps in and closes the door. His fingers fumble with the ribbon a bit before tying it into a bow, his big, warm hands settling on your hips as he leans into your ear.

"My God, darlin', you look amazing," he whispers, his lips kissing the soft skin below your ear. "Absolutely delicious."

You tilt your head to the side, giving him more room to worship your neck as his hands trail up and down the lace. You can feel how excited he is behind you. He works his way up your chest, feeling your breasts as they spill over the top. "So, Coach...is this a winner? What do you think?" you tease, stifling a moan by biting your bottom lip.

He spins you around and pushes you up against the wall of the fitting room lightly, his hands traveling in a frenzy to touch every detail of the lingerie, of your curves...

"Oh, I think it's a winner alright," he jokes, kissing your lips, sliding his tongue against yours. His greedy hands can't stop touching and grabbing, his length hard behind his khakis.

"God, Ted, this is so sexy," you murmur, his lips again trailing down your jaw, to your neck and collarbone. He groans in pleasure in response, "Mmm-hmmm...."

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

You both jump apart, eyes wide and laugh bubbling up in your chest.

"Hi there, I'm Judy! Do you need any help with anything? Additional styles or sizes you'd like to try?" the perky voice outside the door asks.

"N-no, I think I'm all set. Thank you, Judy!" you answer, your hand over Ted's mouth before he bursts out laughing.

"Alrighty, well holler if you need anything."

As you hear Judy's heels retreat you kiss Ted's lips again. "Let's wrap this puppy up and get it home," he says lowly against your ear. "I'm not done with you."

---

TA-DA! Hope you enjoyed it. I've thought about this scenario a lot. Because Ted would absolutely be flustered to be in there, and then turned on like a Christmas tree the moment you closed the door.

#ted lasso x reader #ted lasso fanfic #ted shopping for lingerie with you #and making out in fitting rooms?#YES PLEASE #i like to think ted says “barbecue sauce” when he's just in shock too #and this situation warrants it

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dcwildwestfest · 1 month

Text

Dead West

By IncandescentUmbrage Art by BasketcaseBetty

Coming to Ao3 on April 25th, 2024

Rated M | 20,000 words | Graphic Depictions of Violence

Inspired by the Dread Nation duology by Justina Ireland, it's the tail end of the 1800s and the dead have just risen. Farmer Dean must make his way from Kansas to California to find law school student Sam and look after him in this terrifying new world. On the way, he meets a preacher--one Castiel Novak--stranded in the desert, and the two team up to watch each other's backs on the journey. It seems the preacher has many secrets, though, and each one shared draws Dean in more. It soon becomes clear that it's not just the undead he'll have to contend with, but his own heart as well.

[Keep reading for a sneak preview!]

The dead rose on a Thursday.

Dean will always remember the day, because he’d just returned to the Winchester family farm, now his after his father… well, the farm had come into his care, anyway. The fields were his to tend, and he’d finished plowing a day earlier than planned, which Cain had remarked upon when Dean had returned to him his kindly lended plow and oxen. Thursday, instead of Friday.

Dean had just gotten Baby settled back in her pasture when he noticed the desiccated corpse of an old farmhand, in defiance of all rationality, shambling across the field toward him. His rotted clothing hung in tatters from limbs long since shriveled to bone and brittle sinew, and his uneven, dragging footsteps left a jagged wake in the neat, even rows Dean had plowed into the soil just that morning. A bloodcurdling cry rattled up from his throat, raising the fine hairs on Dean’s arms and nape.

“Roy, whoa, slow down there,” Dean called, attempting to reason with the man.

It was about as effective as whistling into the wind.

Dean tried a rock next. His aim flew true even without the slingshot he’d carried around as a youth--and, later, bequeathed to his baby brother Sammy--but it did little more than split the paperlike skin still clinging to the rounded front of Roy’s skull before bouncing off uselessly to the ground.

Fresh out of other ideas, Dean ran for the house, and his rifle. He grabbed it from its spot by the door, and ran back out to the porch he’d helped Pa build. Snugged the butt of it against his shoulder, squinted down the sight. Roy was making his way, slow and unsteady, out of the near edge of the field to the track leading up to the house.

Dean aimed for a knee, first. Down Roy smacked into the dirt, sending dust pluming up around his prone body. His responding cry sounded almost indignant, if such a thing were possible, and his clawed fingers reached out, digging into the ground to drag himself forward. From this angle, the gaping wound blasted through the back of his ribcage was just barely visible, peeking out through grisly, mud-stained ribbons of shirt fabric. His empty eye sockets never left Dean, standing there at the top of the porch steps.

Dean clenched his jaw against the wrenching hurt of the decision he was left with, not for the first time in his life. He raised the rifle back to his shoulder, nestled his cheek against the smooth polished wood of the butt. Rested a reluctant finger on the trigger, pulled on an exhale already heavy with sorrow.

Crack.

And Roy rested again, with a new hole between his absent eyes.

What in the hell.

#dwwf #deancas wild west fest #supernatural #spn #destiel #deancas #fic promo #dwwf 2024

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billyharringson · 1 year

Text

Bound Tight with your Love

A Harringrove for Turkey fill for the amazing @ihni who wanted me to tie Billy up, and as always I am more than willing to do that to our boy.

Rating: Mature

Words: 1k

Also on AO3

When Billy had asked Steve if he would ever be willing to tie him up, his face hidden in the crook of his boyfriend’s neck in an attempt to hide his blush, he had figured that maybe Steve would handcuff him at the most. He hadn’t expected this.

As he looked down at the myriad of rope, ribbon and more handcuff types than he’d thought existed he realised that he really shouldn’t have been surprised. Ever since they had started fucking, before they’d realised that they were actually in love with each other and not just fooling around, Steve had been intense in bed. Billy had never seen the other boy more focused on one thing than when he was coaxing orgasm after orgasm out of him. It was like Steve had made it his mission to learn every inch of Billy’s body, every touch that would make him gasp, every murmured word that would get Billy to go weak and pliant beneath him.

“I want you to pick which one we start with baby. I think you’ll look gorgeous in all of them, but I have a different idea for each.” Steve whispered against his skin, dropping a kiss to his shoulder as he wound his arms around Billy’s waist from behind.

Billy swallowed loudly, his eyes fixated on the length of red rope piled in the centre of the bed. He wondered if Steve had somehow managed to get his hands on some of those magazines that Eddie had once showed him. Billy hadn’t been interested in the girls splayed out over the glossy pages, but something about the way the dark rope had looked as it crisscrossed over pale skin had stuck with him. “This one.”

“Great choice sweetheart.” Another kiss to his shoulder before Steve grasped the coil of rope. “Okay, I want you naked and kneeling in the middle of the room. Face the mirror baby, so that you can see yourself when I’m done.”

Billy complied instantly, something about the calm authority of Steve’s tone causing any previous apprehension to fade away. He knelt on the plush carpet of Steve’s bedroom, trying to focus on his breathing as he rested his hands on his knees. He glanced up as Steve petted a gentle hand through his hair, the other boy’s smile so loving that he nearly sobbed.

“So good for me.” Steve said lowly. “We should do stuff like this more often.” With that he looped the rope over Billy’s shoulders so that it hung limply from him like a scarf, before producing a hair tie and securing Billy’s curls into a bun. “There, don’t want it to get caught, do we?” He asked rhetorically, returning to the rope and making sure that he had an even amount on both sides of the blond.

The soft touches and gentle caresses as Steve deftly looped the rope around his body lulled Billy into a sort of daze, the only thing keeping him grounded was the rough drag of the rope against his skin. He lifted his arms when Steve gave him a small tap, letting the brunette run the rope under his armpits and back down through the pattern that was emerging.

“Lift onto your knees baby, there’s a good boy.” Steve ordered before threading the two lengths of rope through his thighs, one on either side of his cock. He moved round so that he was behind the blond and Billy got the first glimpse of how he looked. He let out a gasp, the perfect pattern of diamonds that now ran down his chest highlighting every muscle that he’d worked so hard to maintain. “See baby? See how beautiful you are?” Steve asked, taking hold of Billy’s arms and moving them so that they were held behind him, securing the rope around his wrists.

Billy let out a desperate whine before he could stop himself, closing his eyes as Steve stood. He hadn’t expected to feel this way, he’d thought it would be exciting, and it was, just not in the hot and heavy way that their bedroom acts usually were. It was almost like he was floating, Steve had treated him with such softness, touching him in a way that was pure love, and as his boyfriend cupped the back of his head, scratching at his scalp he couldn’t stop the little sob that escaped him.

“Baby? Are you okay?” Steve asked, stepping in front of him, effectively blocking his view of the mirror. “What’s wrong?”

Billy gazed up at the man that he loved more than anything in the world. Realising, for maybe the first time, despite how often Steve said it, that Steve felt the same way about him. “Nothing.” He whispered, despite the tears slowly tracking down his cheeks. “Nothing’s wrong.” He tilted his head into Steve’s caress as the other boy cupped his cheek and wiped away his tears. “I just…I just feel safe. You make me feel safe.”

Steve knelt down in front of him so that they were at the same level, holding his face with both hands now as he smiled. “My beautiful boy, do you know how happy that makes me?” He asked, leaning forward and kissing the blond when Billy didn’t answer. “That you trust me enough to do this, that you would let me have control like this. I love you so much Billy.”

“I love you too Steve.” Billy murmured against his lips, unwilling to move away yet. They kissed for longer than Billy could count. Soft, loving touches in the safety of Steve’s room. Steve running his hands over the mix of hard rope and soft skin that knelt before him, and Billy letting him. For possibly the first time ever not worried that he had no control, no ability to get out of this by himself. Because he knew that the moment he wanted it to stop, Steve would stop. That he’d unwind his bonds with the same care and attention that he’d shown putting them on him.

#harringrove for turkey #harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #ficlet

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thefandomcassandra · 7 months

Text

Schrödinger's Cat Ch. 1: Tides of Time (ft. ANRI AI) — Orange_Oyster

Content Warnings for This Chapter: drowning, vomiting, explicit gore

Junpei woke up coughing and sputtering, trying to clear his lungs of the liquid that was choking them. He hit the ground on all fours, shaking like a small animal, and wheezed and whined. His breathing was ragged and stuttering but surprisingly dry. The only liquid he'd managed to eject were thin splatters of spit, the remnants dripping down his chin. His nose ran and he scrubbed at it with the back of his arm.

His heart rate slowed to something close to normal and he closed his eyes to try and get his bearings. Okay, Junpei. Where the hell are you?

The last thing that he could remember was the feeling of something sharp entering and exiting his body. He had keeled over, his legs suddenly not listening to him any longer, and plunged into the moon pool. Water had flooded his lungs as blood left him just as quickly, saturating the water around him in pink and brown ribbons of his life. Everything had gone black around the edges as blood loss and oxygen deprivation squeezed the last bit of his consciousness away and he had passed out. Or, more likely, died.

But he was on dry land with no water in his lungs and no stab wound in his back so maybe...

Maybe that was some horrid bad dream! Yeah, that seemed real likely. Whatever nonsense death prophecy that he had just woken up from was a dream and nothing more.

So where was here?

Satisfied with his not-death, Junpei stood up, wiped his palms on his jeans, and looked around to try and orient himself.

He was in what appeared to be some kind of sleeping quarters. There were two three-tiered metal beds with incredibly thin mattresses and starched sheets tucked military style around the corners. There was something that looked like a utilitarian stove with a teapot on top. By that was some kind of accordion door.

On the other side of the room, near a round window, was a folding table and two folding chairs with threadbare cushions. By the table was a sink and small corkboard. Directly opposite from the window was something that was standing against the far wall covered in a sheet and, between the standing object and the sink was a metal door with a large red 5 painted on it in thick, dripping strokes.

The whole place looked eerily familiar and also incredibly ominous. Both of those things were not good in the slightest and Junpei was still trying to orient himself so he didn't have time to figure out if he'd been kidnapped for murder purposes or miscellaneous purposes.

Just as he was about to consider laying down on one of the uncomfortable-looking beds and sleeping off what was obviously a waking nightmare, there was a horrid creaking and cracking noise. It was coming from the window! The glass was fracturing, spiderweb cracks ejecting polygonal chunks of yellowing glass into the room as water began to leak and then pour in.

"Oh shit!" Junpei looked around the room, trying to find a way to escape. No way in hell he was dying here. Drowning in what was obviously the economy bunks of what was apparently a ship on the ocean seemed like a genuinely embarrassing way to die.

His first thought was to try the door. There was this weird electronic device next to it with a card reader and lever but when Junpei poked at it, nothing would move or respond to his prodding.

Oh great. It's a death trap puzzle room. He'd been kidnapped for murder reasons.

His second thought was to start tearing the room apart. If this was some kind of puzzle trap, there had to be a sporting chance of escaping before he drowned. Where was the fun in killing your victims before they got good at convoluted point and click adventure game logic nonsense? Ergo: there had to be some kind of keycard or whatever lying around to open the door.

On the bed near the stove was a blue briefcase with a keyhole and number lock. That was irritating but not unexpected. Why would anything be simple? The next course of action had to be finding the blue key for the blue briefcase.

From there he threw open the stove door and found a screwdriver with a red handle resting on coal-crusted metal. He gingerly picked it up and shoved it in his pocket because who doesn't need a screwdriver? After he closed the door, he looked in the teapot.

"Jackpot!" Inside the metal cookware was a blue key. Now he needed the number code unless he wanted to brute force the damn thing open; not that he had time to do that. The rushing water was already getting a little too high for his liking, lapping the more absorbent parts of his shoes.

If he survived but had wet socks he was going to be pissed. Death was better than soggy socks any day.

Throwing the closet open revealed a red briefcase. That meant he needed a red key and, yeah, another code. At least things were consistent.

There was a weird memo with shapes and an arrow in blue and red under a pillow. That probably had to do with the briefcases, obviously, but it was hard to tell what. It probably wasn't a complete clue. Junpei waded against the current to the sink by the broken porthole—because this was a ship and ship windows were portholes, right?

On the corkboard was another shape and color memo, which Junpei pocketed with the other one for scrutiny later. Below the corkboard but above the sink, sitting on a damp-looking wooden shelf, was a picture of some old ship in a frame. It looked modern. Not like super modern, but like last century definitely-probably-a-cruise-ship modern. Big and metal with smokestacks and sharp contrasting values.

The picture wasn't in color so he could only judge the design by shape and monochromatic value at best. It wasn't bad looking but it also wasn't something Junpei wanted to die on.

If he was going to die, it'd be doing something halfway interesting, not a sinking abandoned cruise ship from decades ago.

"I wonder..." Junpei flipped the picture frame over and felt rewarded for being nosey. On the backside of the frame were crosstip screws and he had a crosstip screwdriver! Perfect tool for a murder puzzle room! Fair and square, just like he figured.

It was more than a little weird how Junpei had yet to freak the hell out about how he had been kidnapped. Thus far, he had tries to puke ocean water, realized he wasn't drowning, tried to get his bearings, realized he was going to drown if he didn't escape, and somehow found two keys, a hint paper, a picture frame, and a screwdriver—oh, wait, scratch those last two. The picture frame lost its value the second he extracted its innards and the screwdriver, as useful as it might have been in literally any situation, broke. Tip snapped right off.

"That's just planned obsolescence. Cheap way to make extra money selling tools." As fun as it was to snipe and talk to himself as if anyone else could hear him, he was wasting time being cute. Besides, it looked like the back of the photo had the key for the color and shape puzzle. That's a win for Junpei.

He tossed the now-ruined remains of the screwdriver to the side and walked past the door to the standing thing covered in a sheet on the other side. He tugged the sheet off and saw a standing mirror with a red key taped to the frame. He yanked it off and stared at his reflection with scrutiny.

He was starting to develop a bit of a headache between his temples. It was a digging, ever-present pain that spread fire across his nose and the back of his eyes. Maybe it was the whole 'wake up and cough until he realized he wasn't drowning' thing but he felt like hot garbage.

"Oh I look terrible." It was fine if he said it aloud because it was true. He was pale and sweaty, his hair matted down in places against his skin, and he had massive dark circles under his eyes. He felt like shit too but that wasn't the point. The point was that, staring in the mirror, tracing the scruff on his chin with his eyes, and thinking really hard made him realize that he remembered how he wound up here.

Someone in a gas mask broke into his apartment and gassed him into unconsciousness and that was...damn. Kidnapped for murder reasons and he knew the face of the bastard who did it and their motive. Kinda? If a gas mask counted as a 'face'.

Still, whatever was going on was infuriatingly vague. What the fuck was a Nonary Game? Aside from the obvious 'game where he put his life on the line' as ol' Gas Mask had been kind enough to tell him. And why him? What had he done to deserve this?

He didn't have time to worry about the why and self-pity and so on. He needed to get the hell out of this room before it flooded. His socks were getting wet and he hated it. Time to use that irritation as motivation!

Comparing the two color and shape papers to the key on the back of the picture of the ship, Junpei unlocked the blue briefcase and was rewarded with a really nice file folder, a calculator, a pen, a notebook, and a handful of blue key cards. Not willing to miss out on any kind of hint or information about how to use the key cards, he cracked the file open and started reading, sitting on the bunk next to the briefcase with his feet pulled on the mattress to keep them dry.

The one file in the folder was on something called 'digital roots'. It was some kind of math thing that just involved adding together numbers and reducing them down to the ones digit by continuing to add them. Wasn't a complicated process, all things considered, and Junpei was pretty sure he could do digital roots in his sleep, but the calculator, notebook, and pen went into one vest pocket and the file folder went under his arm for the moment.

"I should invest in something with larger pockets," Junpei mused as he unlocked the red briefcase and got the other key cards, leaving the picture and two code papers in the briefcase as he walked to the door. "Imagine if I could keep my notebooks in my pockets? No more backpack! Rain wouldn't be so bad anymore." It was wistful thinking. Nobody made pockets that big.

There was nowhere the cards could be used except the card reader by the large door out of here. Looking at the intimidating 5 on it, Junpei's headache flared and he winced. No time for pain though; he had to use the keycards to escape.

Swiping one of the red cards caused the machine to beep but it didn't react to any of the other red cards so he swiped a blue one and the display flickered to life. Junpei stared at it and tried to puzzle out what they wanted from him but...it was obvious wasn't it? The file on digital roots wasn't just there for kicks. 1, 6, and 7 had a digital root of 5. He swiped each card and pulled the lever, which opened the door and let him finally leave.

Panic and relief filled his lungs like the white gas in his apartment but with an opposite effect. It energized him, gave him the energy to tear out of the flooding room and down the now-flooding hallway on his own two feet. He scrambled towards the stairs as fast as he could go, trying to not slow down too much. If he escaped that room only to die by drowning anyway he was going to be so, so angry. All that effort for nothing.

He skidded a little as he tore the door open into what looked like a grand staircase. Panicked by the wave of water rushing towards him, he dashed up the stairs like a frightened animal, using his hands to give him an extra boost to continue up to the next floor, only stopping mid-step when he found himself staring at a group of seven oddly familiar people.

There was a large mountain of a man wearing a teal beanie, an older gentleman with hair like a lion, a reedy dandelion looking guy who was sweaty as hell, some punk guy with white hair and a scowl, a tall, handsome dude in a regal looking coat, a pink girl in Harajuku fashion, and a woman in so little clothing Junpei was worried she might freeze. Junpei was certain that this group saw him tear up the stairs like a man possessed and hoped they didn't think less of him for it. Would be pretty embarrassing to have to introduce yourself as 'that guy who ran up the stairs like a thing from a horror movie' but considering his pants legs were soaked and he looked harrowed, he was probably fine. They would understand.

"No time for introductions. Sorry kid." The woman pushed past him, the rest following her as she tried to go down the stairs. Junpei would have considered it rude but, really, it seemed like that's just how she was.

The punk pushed past Junpei as well, but stopped to glare at him. His skin crawled like he was being dissected by the punk's gaze. Then the punk continued downward.

"There's nowhere to go upstairs," the older gentleman said. Junpei looked up the stairs and frowned. "The two doors on the A-deck are locked."

"Uh—!" As if he remembered he could talk, Junpei called out to the older gentleman and the other two who had descended the grand staircase. "I think D-deck is underwater by now! Be careful!"

The older gentleman looked back at him and nodded.

On the stairs, the girl in pink had the handsome man's wrist in her grip, dragging her with him. He was smiling faintly as she did so, almost as if this was a normal way for them to interact. He tilted his head as if he was listening for something but he spoke up, his voice refined and careful. "That's the ninth one? All of the cards are in play now." The pink girl holding his wrist nodded and made a noise of affirmation. The two of them walked past him with no worries.

The mountain in the beanie and the sweaty guy got to the landing and passed Junpei on the stairs. The dandelion guy startled at every movement, his glasses fogged where they touched his skin. When Junpei looked at him, he made a quiet noise of fear. Junpei's nose wrinkled in confusion but he didn't try and stop him as he went down.

The mountain, on the other hand, stopped to call back to Junpei. "Th' hell are you doing? C'mon down to B-deck with everyone else!" Loud seemed to he his default volume but his tone wasn't unkind. Rather, he seemed almost worried and protective, like he was trying to make sure everyone made it.

"L-like I told the others: the D-deck is underwater."

The mountain didn't seem to care. "Good thing we're not going all the way to D-deck then." With one hand, as easy as moving a glass of beer on a bartop, the mountain pushed Junpei down the stairs.

He stumbled and caught himself on the railing, his extra momentum causing his legs to skid slightly. He frowned at the mountain but the man had caught up to everyone else sitting on the B-deck landing, grouped up in a clump looking at something. There was an air of tension choking the crowd and Junpei was worried that, if he didn't hurry up, he'd miss something important.

Just past them were two large metal doors and, while he could only make out one of them, what he saw made his blood run cold. A large, red, painted 5. Just like in the room he woke up in. Junpei could barely breathe.

"Oh..." It wasn't a word so much as air escaping his lungs in horror.

"They're exactly the same," the punk hissed.

"Agreed." The older gentleman nodded, rubbing his chin in thought. "It's similar to the one I exited out of to reach the main hall."

Everyone clamored to admit they also had similar doors, though the older woman was having none of it. "Sure, we all had doors like this. We don't have time to talk about it!"

"You think I'm just chatting?" The punk snarled and gestured at the 5 door. "If I could will the damn thing open I would." They seemed to already have beef, or it might be a clash of personality. The punk and the older woman both seemed rather abrasive.

Thankfully, as strange as that might sound, the mountain moved the punk with as much care as he had Junpei. The punk grunted as he was displaced but the mountain reared back and bodied the door. The wall rattled, a metal sound that made Junpei's teeth hurt. The mountain pulled back and tackled the door again. And again. And again. He was gonna bruise his shoulder if he kept that up.

"You're big but that's a metal door, man," Junpei called out. "I don't think that's the way to open the actual door." He had walked down the stairs to B-deck to the landing and looked at the other door. It had a big red 4 on it, like the 5 door. He tugged on the handles but it didn't budge. The only clue they had to how it worked was the familiar scanner next to it with a lever on the side and a digital display above it, like a clock but blank.

If their only way out were these unopenable doors, then what did that mean for their survival? Even if this was a fucked up murder puzzle, calling it the Nonary Game implied some level of fairness. There shouldn't be unsolvable puzzles and there shouldn't be unopenable doors. Then he remembered that there was one floor down that wasn't under water. The C-deck.

Junpei turned to head down the stairs to the C-deck but someone caught his eye: an eighth person standing by the clock near the grand staircase. He hadn't noticed her there before and she hadn't spoken up or run to B-deck like the other seven had. Instead, she had calmly walked down the stairs, long after everyone else had.

She couldn't have been any older than Junpei himself and she was achingly familiar. Before he realized it, Junpei was running towards her, his voice caught deep in his throat. His chest ached, he was desperate to reach her and make sure she was real. He needed to see if she was alive. It meant more to him than anything else, even escaping.

She, too, looked as if she had seen a ghost. Frozen on the stairs, it was only when he was close enough to reach that she moved to meet him on the landing. Her foot slipped and she failed to catch herself on the railing but Junpei was faster than gravity. She only fell against his chest as he tried to not move too quickly.

For all he wanted to touch her, to hold her in his arms, he didn't want to upset her. Every move Jupei made was careful and stiff. He only held her shoulder to set her back upright, eyes drinking in every detail of her face. The flush in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, the breath escaping her lips all signs she was alive.

Then his brain caught up with the rest of him and Junpei had the sense to look embarrassed. He cast his gaze to the stairs behind her and chuckled slightly as he let go of her shoulders. "Uh, sorry about that, I—"

"You're crying." That caused him to look back at her. She gave him a soft smile and laughed a bit. Her laughter was wind-chimes on a summer day and it loosened something in his chest.

"O-oh. Am I?" He reached up to rub at his face and his hand came back wet. "Huh." Why had he run to her? Why was he so concerned if she was alive? Who was this person to him? Did it have to do with his weird dream about drowning? "Again, uh, sorry."

"No need to apologize." She smiled again. "I guess part of you recognized me after all these years! You care about me."

"Who—?" Even as he started to ask her who she was, he figured it out. He hadn't seen her in years and yet...maybe he truly did just know her, without effort. After all, Akane Kurashiki was his best and only friend growing up. "Akane! What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know," Akane tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and beamed, "probably the same thing as you, Jumpy."

He hadn't heard that nickname in years. It knocked a peal of laughter free from his chest and he felt so light. Then the reality of their situation hit him and a stone dropped into his stomach. The Nonary Game. Getting kidnapped. Before Junpei could say anything else, their kidnapper and captor, their game master, decided to give them a hearty welcome.

The voice that came out of the antique PA system was warped and distorted, same as it had been when they spoke in Junpei's apartment. "Welcome aboard." Everyone, even the punk, the mountain, and the older woman froze, their eyes turned upward to the brass trumpet mounted in the corner of the B-deck stairwell. "From the bottom of my heart I welcome you to this, my vessel."

The silence and tension were thick enough to cut with a butter knife. As their kidnapper spoke, Akane's hand snaked into Junpei's and he could feel her trembling slightly. He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

"I am Zero, the captain of this ship." Now they had a name for their captor: Zero. "I am also the person who invited you here." Invited?

Junpei snorted derisively. "Invited my ass."

The punk, however, leaned toward the trumpet and yelled loud enough that Zero probably could have heard him at the prow of the ship. "Fuck that! Get your ass out here so I can beat it! None of that cowardly gas shit either!"

"Why are we here?" The older gentleman was much more measured than the punk and Junpei. His voice was low and calm, though projected, and his posture was defensive instead of aggressive.

"I mean to have you participate in a game," Zero answered. It was unclear if they could hear everyone or if this was just a well-timed recording, but either way, their response caused everyone to freeze in place. Nobody seemed capable of breaking through the spell Zero's words had cast over them. "Some of you, I know, are familiar with this game. The Nonary Game. It is a game where you will put your life on the line."

It was a murder kidnapping. A murder puzzle kidnapping. Junpei should have been horrified or shocked, but it was almost like he knew this already. Zero's information, while upsetting, wasn't new to him. He knew about the Nonary Games and the stakes of it.

His head hurt, a burning pressure against his eyes. Akane looked at him, worried, and squeezed his hand. That was an anchor, her cool skin against his striking. He squeezed back and offered her a soft reassuring smile.

"The rules of the Nonary Game can be found upon your persons. They are simple rules. Read them." Zero was very no-nonsense. Couldn't even say please.

"What are they talking about? Rules?" The older woman looked at everyone else as if they might have a satisfactory answer for her.

Thankfully, the punk had stuck his hands in his pockets, searching for whatever rules Zero had left everyone, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "Holy shit."

Junpei, realizing he probably had one as well, patted his pockets down and found an identical paper in his back left pants pocket. "Oh hey." Zero put that in his pants? That felt like an invasion of privacy or something. Touching his ass was a step too far, even past drugging and kidnapping him.

"Well it appears as though our host is at least gracious enough to not leave us in the dark." The older gentleman pointed to Junpei. "Do you mind reading that for us? So we can all have the same information."

It was a weird ask, all things considered. If everyone had the same sheet with the same instructions, why would he need to read it out loud? Then Junpei remembered the handsome man was blind and how little clothing the older woman was wearing. Between the two of them, they probably didn't have or were unable to read their rule list so...it was only kind to let everyone know what was expected of them.

Junpei unfolded the paper and tried to make sense of the printed instructions as he read them aloud to everyone, enunciating as clearly as he could. "On this ship you will find a handful of doors emblazoned with numbers. We will call them the numbered doors. The doors in front of you are a pair of the same." The 4 and 5 doors loomed at them, their red numbers not so much emblazoned as slapdash, but it would be rude to correct their host. Not that Junpei thought Zero was actually listening to them in the first place. It was probably something automated on a timer.

He continued reading, "The key to opening these numbered doors are the numbered bracelets that each of you possess. Should you total the numbers on your numbered bracelets and find that the digital root of that number is equal to the number of that door, the door will open." Junpei had been trying to keep his voice neutral as he read so he didn't color the objective rules in any way but it was hard to not become excited at the prospect of getting off this ship. "Only those who have opened the door may pass through. There are, however, limits. Only three to five people can pass through one numbered door. All those who enter must leave, and all who enter must contribute."

Junpei realized he hadn't even bothered to look at the watch on his left arm. Even during his initial escape, in the room he woke up in, he hadn't noticed it. It was almost as if he was already used to its weight and presence on his wrist. As he looked at the number, thinking about the rules Zero had given them, he realized how simple and ironclad they were. Two people could not go into a numbered door alone, which meant that no direct murders or collusion could happen without a third person witnessing. Everyone who entered had to put some effort into whatever came beyond the numbered door itself—likely something similar to the room he'd woken up in—which meant that there could be no dead weight. Everyone worked, everyone made their way to the final exit, and if Junpei's math was right, it was highly unlikely that any one person would constantly pair with one other person the whole time. The necessity of the numbered doors requiring a digital root meant that eventually pairs would be split and everyone would have to get along.

Judging by the variety of personalities in this group, Junpei figured it would be hard.

He continued on, mind racing as he tried to make sense of the absurd position he'd found himself in. "The purpose of the game is simple: leave this ship alive. It is hidden, but an exit can be found. Seek a way out. Seek a door that carries a 9." His words rang out in the B-deck. Even though he was keeping his eyes down on the paper, he could see Akane's hands shaking in his peripheral vision and the way the handsome man's face was drawn and ashen.

"There is one last thing I must tell you." Zero broke their lull, everyone staring at the trumpet in the corner with bated breath. "As you have no doubt surmised: this ship has begun to sink. On April fourteenth, nineteen twelve, the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed into an iceberg. After remaining afloat for two hours and forty minutes, it sank beneath the waters of the North Atlantic." What the hell was Zero on about? What did the Titanic have to do with the Nonary Games? "I will give you more time. Nine hours. That is the time you will be given to make your escape."

Just as Zero said that, the clock by the staircase rang out nine times. Everyone's attention was there, every bell a rising death knell. They had nine hours. It was nine o'clock right now. That meant that, in order to not drown as the ship capsized, they would have to be gone by six in the morning.

"Nine?" The mountain's head was cocked as he listened to the clock tell the hour.

"Nine PM," Junpei said. When the mountain looked at him weird, he added, "There was a porthole or window or whatever in the room I was in. I couldn't see outside so it has to be nighttime." Or it could be that the porthole was under the water line, but even ocean water refracted light. If it was daytime, the light would have shone in regardless.

"A deadline of six AM tomorrow, hm?" The older gentleman said what everyone was thinking.

That, apparently, was Zero's clue to finish their spiel. "Now, it is time. Let our game begin. I wish you all the best of luck." Then the white noise cut out and the trumpet fell silent. The only sounds were the gentle lapping of the water in the D-deck and the creaking and groaning of the ship itself. It sounded like the screams of the damned, drowned souls clawing at the hull. It was an eerie sound, a mausoleum of metal on the water.

The silence was broken by the punk yelling at the trumpet. "Hey! The hell is that supposed to mean? Get out here you insincere piece of shit!" Junpei's head throbbed, the pain behind his eyes flaring up with every loud noise.

While the others weren't yelling like the punk was, they were upset. The mountain was standing rigid, his shoulders hard angles, eyes darting this way and that as if looking for something. The older gentleman was staring at the floor, his brow furrowed in deep thought. The older woman had her hands on her hips, one hip cocked, and was frowning so hard Junpei thought she might hurt herself. Akane had her arms wrapped around herself and was staring at Junpei as if she was waiting for him to act first. But what could he do?

Barring his first instinct of 'sit down and do nothing and die about it', his second instinct wasn't much better. Should they really play along with Zero's plans and engage with the Nonary Game? If this was some kind of murder kidnapping, aside from the slowly sinking ship, there had to be some kind of murder trap in one—if not more—of these numbered doors.

That's not even accounting for the weird specificity of their nine hour time limit. Could Zero control the speed at which the ship sinks? If so: why? Why nine people? Why nine hours? Why nine doors? Why nine at all?

What was Zero playing at? What was the point of all this?

And, the little voice in the back of his head asked, why is Akane here? It can't just be happenstance. You can't just meet your childhood friend again out of nowhere on a murder boat. That's statistically improbable.

It was the older gentleman who broke the heavy silence. "Well, standing around sulking won't do us any good. We should get going, before another hour is up."

Junpei stared at him, confused. He understood what he was suggesting but...

"You want to open the numbered doors?" Akane voiced Junpei's thought for him.

"You can't be serious?!" The older woman moved forward towards the older gentleman, her posture aggressive. "You're going to just do what our kidnapper told you to?"

"You misunderstand me." The older gentleman pulled back from her and shook his head. He seemed a little irritated she was misunderstanding him but Junpei couldn't tell what the older gentleman thought he was saying. "I'm suggesting we look about for an alternate route. We've only just gotten here. None of us have actually tried to find any other exit."

The older lady seemed confused but Junpei was moreso. He had been the odd one out, the only one of the nine of them still on D-deck. What had they done that he hadn't been privy to? "Huh? You guys searched A-deck already?"

The mountain scratched the back of his head. "We did search around but we were in a hurry coz of the loud noise. We might've missed something."

"I think C-deck should still be okay, despite the water. D-deck, like I said earlier, is submerged. That's where I woke up." Junpei ducked his chin at the stairs. "We could search there?"

"Sure. Why not." The punk, calmer now that he'd given Zero a verbal lashing, seemed amicable. The older gentleman seemed to like Junpei's idea as well.

C-deck was, blessedly, not under water. The stairs leading down from C-deck to D-deck were covered, the surface calm, but that didn't assuage Junpei's fear about the ship sinking.

Even if the water isn't rising, the anxious part of his brain screamed, even if the surface is mirror still, that doesn't mean the ship isn't sinking. It very much is. Zero said so and, thus far, Zero hasn't lied.

Zero kidnapped everyone and is forcing us to play in this...this Nonary Game, the angrier part of his brain snapped back. Why the hell should we trust them to be honest? That's gonna get everyone killed.

He assumed he wasn't the only one having this line of thinking because, despite most everyone standing a fair distance from the water-filled stairwell, the handsome man was knelt down with his hand in the water. Next to him, the girl in pink looked anxiously between the handsome man and the water.

"Good news," the handsome man said as he stood up and wiped his hand on his pants leg, "the water is still so that means that it is likely that Zero sealed the breach."

"So we aren't sinking?" The mountain wasn't ready to relax just yet.

"We were given nine hours to complete the Nonary Game so we can assume the water will remain this still for nine hours. The moment it is six AM, the seal will open and the ship will capsize with whoever remains still inside." He was very, very calm for someone saying shit that ominous.

"That's...good?" The mountain still refused to relax. "Or, it's good if true."

The handsome man smiled at that. "I might be presenting this a little optimistically but I am fairly certain that I am right." The girl in pink nodded in agreement.

The punk, however, didn't consider this good news. "Man, that blows."

"Unless there is a way to access the floors below D-deck, assuming they're not submerged as well, we only have A-deck and C-deck as alternatives to the numbered doors." While he was telling the truth, nobody liked what the older gentleman was saying.

"Well let's look at C-deck since we're here instead of just assuming the worst?" The punk jerked his thumb behind him, at the whole of C-deck. Junpei looked at what little this deck had to offer.

"Yeah," he agreed. "The metal doors there, the ones on the far side of C-deck? Those might be promising."

The older woman crossed the C-deck and stared at the door. "Well they're not numbered, despite mirroring the ones a floor higher, and there's no authentication device." She leaned forward, grabbed the knob of one of the doors in her hand, and tried to twist it. It didn't move so she rattled it a bit, then let go and turned back towards everyone with defeat written all over her face.

The mountain tried the other door and found it immovable, even for him. "Damn, both of them, huh?"

The punk, however, had found something interesting. "Hey, check this out." Everyone—including the mountain and the older lady—trailed after him and found a door that looked like the other two.

The older gentleman rattled the door. "Locked as well."

"We'll see about that," the mountain grimaced at the door. "Hey, old man, help me out." The older gentleman seemed to realize the mountain was planning on using brute force and, despite his age, tried to help. While the mountain yelled in exertion and both men yanked on the door, it didn't budge, leaving them panting.

The older woman had withdrawn from near the door when they tried to force it. She sniffed and demanded, "Let a girl know when you're going to start shouting. Scared the shit out of me." Her hand was trembling where it rested against her chest.

"Sorry." At least the mountain apologized.

"It's very well made to not have moved an inch," the older gentleman noted with a degree of awe.

"Well why not use your brain first, idiots." The older woman tapped something below the doorknob of the door. It was a circle with a dot in the middle, but she wasn't indicating that. Just the keyhole beneath it. "We need to find the key before this—" she rapped a knuckle against the door, "—will open."

"A key." The punk didn't seem convinced or all too enthused.

"Yeah. Unless you wanna try picking it?"

He rolled his eyes at the older woman. "I just don't think it'll be that easy to find the key to this specific door. It's not gonna be in a chair cushion or anything." She didn't like that.

Regardless of their conversation, Junpei was more interested in the symbol above the keyhole. There had to be a reason it was there and, above all else, it had to have a meaning.

"What does this even mean?" Junpei asked aloud. It wasn't to any one person in particular, which is why he was startled when the girl in pink answered him.

"Here's another one!" Junpei walked to where she was standing by the double doors and tried to see what she meant.

"Man," Junpei sighed. "More doors."

"Elevators, I think." The girl in pink indicated the glowing buttons to the right of both sets of doors and the round cages that covered the actual door mechanism. "Don't those look like elevator call buttons?"

They did. Junpei pressed one and nothing happened. He frowned.

"You think they're not powered?" Akane asked. Junpei jumped a little but pretended like she didn't unintentionally sneak up on him.

"Maybe this card reader is the key." Junpei pointed out a card reader that had a lever like the verification devices by the numbered doors and a strange symbol carved into the face of it. It looked like a weird letter.

"It looks like someone took the letter 'h' and stabbed it." Junpei gestured, trying to show the two girls what he meant.

"Oh, no." Akane giggled. "It's the celestial symbol for Saturn."

Celestial symbol... "Then the other door? The one with the keyhole?"

"The Sun, I think." Akane tilted her head in thought and nodded.

"Oh! I think there were some like that on A-deck!" The girl in pink seemed to realize.

"I don't remember seeing anything like that." The older woman frowned.

"I haven't been up there so I couldn't tell you." Junpei didn't think any of them cared but he felt the almost compulsive need to speak out anyway.

"Well since we're talking about it, we might as well give A-deck another look." The older gentleman began walking up the grand staircase and everyone else followed. The girl in pink stopped to make sure she was holding on to the handsome man's wrist again, which struck Junpei as both odd and normal in equally conflicting amounts.

When everyone reached A-deck, the girl in pink pointed out two doors where the stairs let out. "Those. The left one is where I saw a symbol like the one on C-deck."

It was a circle with a cross in it, dead center. Junpei couldn't deny that it was remarkably similar to the Sun symbol downstairs. "Yeah, it does kinda match."

Akane, who was actively peering over Junpei's shoulder, smiled. "This is the Earth symbol. The lines here are the equator and the prime meridian." She knew a lot about celestial symbols.

Junpei tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. It was a large metal dome held shut with rivets. "Oh."

"It looks as though we're barred from going that way." The older gentleman sighed.

"Man," the girl in pink groaned, "but climbing out the top of this ship would've been so cool."

"Yeah but imagine the amount of explosives we'd need to crack it open." The punk pointed out. The girl in pink stared upward and grinned as if she was thinking about what he was suggesting.

Junpei looked around as well. Arched windows were sealed with metal plates and rivets. Nothing quite like the porthole down in D-deck here, it seemed, only sealed windows and covered domes.

"Sealed windows and locked doors," Junpei murmured aloud as he continued to look around for some kind of non-numbered exit. Still, he knew deep down that they had to play by Zero's rules or not at all and it made him angry and bitter.

"I'm sure we'll find the keys for the locked doors somewhere." The girl in pink looked surprisingly upbeat for their situation.

"And what if they lead in circles or to nowhere? What then? That's not an exit." The mountain grimaced at the thought but, really, someone had to say it.

"I doubt it." The handsome man shook his head. "If there was no point to them, they wouldn't exist. And we know there is an exit, the door marked with a 9. So why not try the two doors we know we can open?" He was referring to the 4 and 5 doors.

A heavy feeling of dread and grim acceptance seemed to smother everyone. Everyone, that is, save the older woman.

"I've already said that I think we shouldn't mess with the numbered doors." She placed herself between everyone else and the stairs leading down to B-deck, arms out as if she was blocking their path. "I don't want to play along with Zero. I don't think it's a smart decision."

That sparked a loud and spirited back and forth.

"Might as well try the doors," the mountain pointed out.

"I am in agreement there." The older gentleman nodded.

"Are you listening to me?!" The older woman countered.

"We should at least try," the girl in pink pleaded.

"It could be a trap! We should stay put." The older woman rebuffed.

"You wanna drown?!" The punk snapped at her.

The only people not participating in this row were the handsome man, Akane, Junpei, and the dandelion, who had been quiet this whole time. Junpei's headache intensified. He wanted everything to be quiet and cold and cool. He'd have to settle for quiet.

"Shut up!" Junpei hadn't been very loud but he was shouting. That seemed to get everyone's attention. Even the argument ceased as the participants stared at him. Their eyes felt like hot coals against his skin. He swallowed and exhaled out his mouth. "Before we argue more over if we're going to go in the numbered doors or not, we gotta do one thing first."

"Oh?" The girl in pink cocked her head. With her pigtails, she looked like an inquisitive cocker spaniel.

"Swap information. Names, mostly. Whatever else you're willing to divulge. Just so I can stop mentally calling everyone by epithets. It's giving me a headache." Another sigh escaped him, hissing steam through his teeth.

Nobody answered. That was fine, he hadn't expected any of them to willingly show their hand or anything, but it still pulled his guts into a tangle. He hated standing there, being looked at with disdain and distrust.

Then Akane voiced her opinion. "I agree with Jumpy."

That caused the mountain, barely suppressing a smile, to ask for clarification. "Jumpy?"

Akane blinked. A flush of pink crept across her cheeks. Junpei was certain he was blushing too. "Oh, uh, right. Sorry, I'm talking about him." She pointed directly at Junpei. "His name's Junpei, but I call him Jumpy. We've been friends since we were kids."

"Hey," the mountain kept her from saying anything else, concern and worry weirdly evident to at least Junpei. "Part of the reason nobody's saying anything about themselves is coz Zero's probably listening. If they are, then they might use any personal information they hear against us."

Akane blinked in surprise. "Huh?"

"We don't know if Zero grabbed a bunch of random people off the street or if this was planned out. Any information they know is information they can use to hurt us, y'know? Leverage our families against us, ransom us to get whatever they can. Any information is dangerous."

"We still need to know each other's names," Akane protested. "Having conversations will be really hard if we don't have names."

"So we use code names." The mountain looked proud of himself for suggesting that. "Each of us pick our own. I'll be Seven."

Junpei's first instinct was to nod at him because his code name made sense. His second instinct, the stronger one, was to run his mouth. "Why Seven?"

The newly christened Seven grinned. "Coz of my bracelet number." He held up his left hand, revealing the number on the display as 7.

"Damn, that's a smart idea." The punk seemed impressed with Seven's plan. "Then just call me Santa." As if he expected people to ask him follow-up questions, he continued with a smirk. "Three in Japanese is 'san', right? And that way I can be San-ta. Santa. Like Santa Claus. Works, right?" He seemed so proud of himself.

The older man looked as if he was understanding something about Santa. "So your bracelet number is—"

Santa held out his left wrist displaying the digital number 3. "Good job, grandpa. It's a three."

"Okay, I'll go next. My bracelet is number one. Ergo, I think Ace is a fair code name for me." The older man—Ace—held out his left wrist to reveal the bright 1 on its face.

The older woman chose to go next. "Call me Lotus. I'm sure everyone knows that the lotus flower has eight petals. Of course that means my bracelet number is eight." She held out her left wrist, the 8 visible from even where Junpei was standing.

The handsome man was quick on the draw, following Lotus before anyone else could speak. "I would appreciate it if you would call me Snake." He held out his left wrist to show his 2. "My bracelet number is two. I figure the card motif for Ace leaves dice for myself. Snake-eyes seems especially relevant considering I am blind." Everyone but the girl in pink seemed surprised by this information. Well, her and Junpei.

"You can't see?" Ace's brow furrowed even deeper as he stared at Snake.

"I knew it," Lotus hissed, even though she seemed just as taken aback as everyone else.

Junpei, however, was mulling over why he wasn't thrown off by the revelation that Snake was blind. He hadn't known that, had he? But it wasn't a surprise and, really, it made sense because the girl in pink kept holding him by the wrist and—

His headache flared and he had to take slow, deep breaths to get the pain to lessen.

Thankfully, the girl in pink volunteered to think up a code name. "My turn! I want to be Clover. Like a four-leaf clover? A good luck charm!" She idly showed everyone the 4 bracelet on her left wrist. "I've got bracelet number four."

Junpei figured that he was numerically next. "Okay so I've got bracelet number five and—"

"Why bother?" Lotus cut him off. When Junpei didn't seem to get why she did that, she waved her hand at him and Akane. "We already know your name is Junpei. It's pointless."

Junpei couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. He wanted a cool code name and all but, well, not having to think up something relevant to the number five was a bit of a gift from Lotus, whether she intended it to be or not.

Akane frowned. "Then you should call me by my name too, since I gave Jumpy's away." She fidgeted with her sleeves, nervous. She didn't really want to do this but she felt obligated.

That wouldn't do. "What's your bracelet number?" Junpei asked her. She held out her left wrist, showing off the 6 bracelet. Junpei gave it a moment's thought, then found something. "June."

Akane stared at him with wide, startled eyes. She looked like a baby rabbit being gently scooped up by their human caretaker.

"June?" Ace seemed confused.

"Sixth month of the year?" It wasn't a question, more of a clarification, but being put on the spot made Junpei nervous. He turned back to Akane, meeting her eyes. "So you're June." He wasn't asking and she seemed confused.

"Jumpy, you—"

"Is that okay?" He tried to give her his most charming smile but it must have looked silly because she snorted.

"...Yeah. I'll be June." It was a slow, almost reluctant agreement but she did it anyway. Now Junpei was the only one who didn't have a code name. That was fine. Learning to answer to another name would've been hard anyway.

He tried to keep telling himself that so he didn't get jealous of Seven or Santa of all people.

"So to recap: one is Ace, two is Snake, three is Santa, four is Clover, five is me, six is June, seven is Seven, and eight is Lotus." Everyone nodded as Junpei repeated their numbers and names, pointing to each of them in turn. "All that leaves is—"

"The guy with the glasses and the wild hair," Seven finished for Junpei. Everyone looked over at him.

He was sweating still, dark stains forming in his armpits, and his glasses were patchy with fog. His hair, still a wild puff like a dandelion, was sticking to his forehead and neck in places. He looked pale and twitchy, his eyes flicking across the room every couple of seconds. He seemed almost moments away from passing out.

Santa closed the distance with him and bent forward, sneering a little. "You haven't said a thing this whole damn time."

He gaped a little and made a strangled noise.

Clover slowly walked towards him, pushing Santa back a bit. She placed her hands on her hips, cocked them, and eyed the man suspiciously. "What's your number?"

"Uh..." It was the closest to words they'd gotten from him yet but it still wasn't actually words.

"Are you listening? I asked you a question." Clover snapped at him, still not entirely in his space.

He licked his lips nervously, panting a bit, and finally spoke. "W-w-why are you e-even asking? There are nine people a-a-and you know - you know who one through e-eight are. I'm the - the only one left." His voice was shrill and dry in equal parts, like a styrofoam on styrofoam and pine wood on a campfire. He sounded like he was seconds away from throwing up or passing out.

Clover sighed like she was coaxing an answer out of a small child. "So you're nine?"

The man fixed her with a dull gaze and answered, "Yeah." Then he held out his left wrist to show everyone his bracelet. The digital display showed a 9.

Clover stared at his bracelet like it personally offended her. "And your code name?"

"C-code name?" He repeated.

"What do you want us to call you? We got ours so you should too, unless you wanna be like Jumpy over there." It was a personal dig but June was the one who seemed hurt.

"I don't - I don't need one."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm n-not going to - to stay here. ...With y-y-you." He took a shaky breath in, then exhaled slowly, like he was trying to calm down.

Clover just glared at him like he was something vile. "You've got a plan?" She asked sweetly, her tone not matching the simmering look in her eyes or the set of her shoulders.

"Y-yeah."

"What's that?"

"Y-you sure you want - want to know?"

"Yeah?"

"O-okay. Let me sh-show you. Here's my - my plan!" He stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and Clover and snagged her with his left arm around her waist. For all that he talked like he was terrified, he moved with a blinding purpose and seemed to express no regret.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Santa snarled at the man, lunging for him. He only stopped when the man pulled a small knife from his pocket and pressed the point against Clover's throat.

"Stay back!"

Clover stifled a squeak of fear as the knife pressed hard enough to hurt, but not enough to break skin.

"I-If you get any closer, I'll - I'll cut her open!" The wild look in his eyes let everyone know he wasn't joking. Clover was in legitimate danger.

Santa backed up a little bit but the man's grip didn't loosen. He didn't relax. He just smiled.

Even though he had a hostage, he still looked anxious. His glasses were now nearly obscured with fog save a couple streaks where the lenses touched his cheek and nose. Sweat was soaking the collar of his shirt. He looked like he was barely hanging on.

Junpei still pitied the man. He didn't deserve what was going to happen to him.

"Clover! Are you alright?" Snake's question was soaked in fear, his concern seemingly out of place.

"Yeah," Clover's response was hoarse, "I'm fine."

"What the hell's your problem? What do you want?" Junpei's voice shook. Not with fear, but with anger.

"Like I s-said! This i-i-is my plan!" The man's knife arm shook.

"What the hell are you gonna do to her, you sick sonofabitch?" Seven, back behind even Santa, took a step forward. His face was drawn in furious concern, his eyes trained steadily on the knife the ninth man had in his hand.

"N-nothing, if she d-does what I - what I tell her to." The knife point shook where it touched Clover's skin, the ninth man's sweaty hand unsteady despite his bold words. "Then I'll - I'll let her go." Then he backed up, dragging Clover with him. She let out a soft squeak of fear and backed up with him, unwilling to let his knife draw blood. "Th-that's right. Follow me." For all his bravado, he looked terrified. His sneer pulled at his mouth, pulling out the tension that would indicate how deeply afraid he was. This was an act of desperation, planned or otherwise.

What about the Nonary Games was so awful that this man would take a hostage to avoid it? Should they be worried too? Junpei didn't have time to think as the ninth man dragged Clover back to the wall, everyone following at a distance so he didn't stab her. When he reached the wall near the numbered doors, he startled and glanced around at everyone, eyes wide behind his fogged glasses.

"V-verify," he demanded. Clover looked confused.

"Huh?"

"L-look to your left. The device on the wall." The ninth man waited for Clover to look where he was telling her, then continued. "Place your hand on - on the scanner panel. Th-the round part."

"And if I don't?" Junpei's heart leapt into his throat. Now was not the time to be obstinate, Clover.

Thankfully—or not, it was a strange situation in the first place—the ninth man also seemed to find her sass stupid given the position she was in. "W-what the hell do you th-think will happen?" He dug the point of the knife into her neck, drawing blood, and she grimaced in pain. "I would - would slit your throat! I could kill y-you any time I wanted but I just - I just want you to v-v-verify!" Clover glared at him, refusing to budge. Her eyes flicked out at the crowd, to Snake, and then back to the ninth man. "Just do it!"

"Fine." Clover stretched her left out out towards the scanner for the 5 door and placed her palm flat against it. It took a couple seconds because her back was to it but when she managed, there was a beep and an asterisk appeared on the display.

The scanner and the device seemed to function in the same way the keycard reader had in the room Junpei had woken up in. More than likely, it needed a digital root to open the door and, seeing as it was the 5 door...Ace was next on the list. But why did the ninth man know how the doors worked? Junpei was only guessing himself.

"G-g-good. You're done." The ninth man let out a heavy breath, shoulders sinking as some kind of tension left him. His grip on the knife and where it pressed into Clover's neck didn't move, however, and his eyes flicked from person to person until he stopped on Ace. "You. You have the number one bracelet, r-right?"

Ace leveled his gaze at the ninth man, his face betraying nothing. "Yes," he said calmly, "I am." Ace must have come to the same conclusion Junpei had because he didn't ask any follow-up questions of the ninth man.

"C-come over here and verify your number, like this - this little brat did." When Ace didn't move, the ninth man's composure slipped and he shouted, "Don't y-you care about what happens to her?"

Ace frowned and held his hands up as if he was soothing a wild beast. "Okay, okay. Calm down. Here I come." The ninth man jerked his chin towards the scanner but didn't move otherwise. He kept his grip on Clover tight, the knife as steady as his nervous clutch could hold it. Without prompting, Ace placed his left hand on the scanner and the device beeped again. Another asterisk appeared on the digital display. If Junpei's math was right, the only number the ninth man needed to open the door now was his own.

"B-b-back up!" He shifted his grip on Clover and commanded Ace, who did as he was told. One step, then two, then three. All the way back to the group, hands up as if he was at knifepoint himself. He didn't need any prompting from the ninth man, well aware of what was being demanded of him. Then the ninth man's terrified expression morphed into something gleeful. He laughed and laughed, then leveled his gaze on everyone. "Th-thank you for being so cooperative. I hope you enjoy this hell without me."

Without looking at it, he placed his left hand against the scanner panel. A third asteriks appeared on the display and he pulled the lever. The 5 door opened with a metallic groan, like something dying. The ninth man's smile widened. "I d-don't need you anymore!" He shoved Clover towards the group, causing her to stumble. She fell to the ground as the ninth man stepped through the 5 door into the hallway beyond. He sneered at everyone and waved, a mocking farewell. "Keep her. Have a good one. I'll see you l-later. Goodbye..." The door swung closed with the same noise as before, cutting the ninth man off from everyone else.

Snake ran out to Clover, kneeling down to help her back to her feet. "Are you alright?!"

Clover reached up and wiped away a bead of blood on her neck where the knife had pressed too hard. She was staring at the ground, a mix of frustration and disgust on her face. "I'm fine." She didn't sound fine but she leaned against Snake, seemingly relieved by his presence. He rested his head on hers, also relieved.

Junpei ran towards the door and swore, angry that none of them could have prevented Clover from being taken hostage. "Bastard!" Santa, Seven, and Ace came up behind him and the four of them tried to force the 5 door open to no avail. When they realized it wasn't moving, they all let go, panting heavily. "Dammit!" Junpei kicked the door, wincing as pain shot up his leg.

"Do you hear something?" Lotus asked.

Junpei looked back at her. She looked uncomfortable, her head cocked slightly as if she was trying to focus in on whatever noise it was. "What?"

"There's a...beeping?" She frowned and pressed her ear against the door. Junpei and everyone else there followed suit.

Behind the cold metal of the door was a steady electronic beeping.

"You're right..." June's voice was soft and concerned.

"What is it?" Santa seemed horrified by the noise, like it was an omen of some kind. Junpei was feeling the same way about it.

And then, muffled by the metal and probably by distance, the voice of the ninth man could be heard. "Shit! Why isn't this stopping? Goddammit!" The beeping remained constant, the fear in his voice rising. "You - you lied to me!"

Junpei stared at the door. "Lied? Who lied to you?" He wasn't sure if the ninth man could even hear him between the beeping, the metal of the door, and the rushing of the ninth man's own heart in the face of fear and betrayal.

On the other side of the door, presumably having run all the way from wherever he had been before, the ninth man banged on the door. The noise was desperate and Junpei winced, sympathetic pain rushing through his own fists. "Th-this wasn't supposed to happen! This is wrong!" The ninth man sounded like he was crying.

Whether out of shock or a sense of self-preservation, everyone stepped away from the door and looked at one another. Ace was the first to speak, his voice loud enough that the ninth man could hear him. "What is happening in there?"

The ninth man beat his fists against the door again, in spite of the futility, his voice cracking as he screamed out to the people on the other side. "Open the - open the door! Please! I'm begging you! Help me!" Junpei could imagine the ninth man sliding against the smooth, cold, unfeeling metal of the 5 door, clawing at a surface that would not yield as he desperately tried to escape. "Let me out! Let me out!"

Against his better judgment, Junpei felt another pang of pity for the ninth man. Sure, he had taken Clover hostage and used her for his own selfish needs, but he didn't deserve to die for it. None of them deserved to die. "Dammit." Shaking his head, he stepped to the device and stopped. The digital display, which before this mess had read 'VACANT', now said 'ENGAGED'. The room behind door 5 was occupied, not unlike a toilet, and nobody would be able to verify, even if their digital root was five. Junpei looked back at the door and the other people, panicked and horrified understanding obvious to everyone.

The ninth man banged on the door again, faster, harder. "There's no time left!" Again, he sounded like he was sobbing. Something was happening and he couldn't do anything about it. None of them could. "Listen—" his voice, still shaking, was deathly serious, "I was - I was lied to! He lied to me, put me in here!"

Being manipulated didn't excuse the ninth man from taking Clover at knifepoint, though.

"He killed me!" The seriousness had left the ninth man's voice, replaced again by panic and terror. "It was him!" Then he started screaming, wordless and terrified.

There was an explosion on the other side of the door that rattled everyone, physically and emotionally. Everyone had dropped to the ground, covering their heads, and when they stood up, what had happened seemed to finally sink in. Junpei felt ill and it seemed as though the others did too. Lotus had a hand pressed against her mouth, eyes wide as she stared at door 5. Even Ace, who had been so calm to this point, was pale.

The device at the door beeped. Junpei looked at it and saw it read 'VACANT' again. With the ninth man dead, the door was considered empty again. They could go in.

"Why don't we try and open it?" Seven suggested. Junpei swallowed bile and nodded at him. They needed to make sure they understood the rules, even if they had to see a corpse to do so.

Junpei placed his left hand on the scanner, verifying his number. He motioned for Seven to do so as well, then called to Snake. "Hey Snake? We need your number."

Seven placed his large hand on the scanner and verified his number, then made way for Snake, who peeled away from Clover and walked to the 5 door. After Snake verified, Junpei checked his math and, satisfied that the digital root was five, grabbed the lever. "Ready?" He didn't know what was going to be on the other side of the door—probably whatever remained of the ninth man—but he wanted to make sure he wasn't dragging Seven and Snake into a situation without their permission. They both nodded at him, concerned but willing to brave this unknown. Junpei pulled the lever and the door opened wide again, the hinges screaming like the ninth man's ghost still was clawing away at it.

A wave of rancid air tore out, the metallic smell of blood and cooked meat, acrid sourness burning his eyes. Junpei slapped a hand over his mouth and fought his body's attempt at retching. He couldn't make it worse. He tried to not turn away, staring down the open doorway at the remains of the ninth man.

Lotus and Ace both uttered oaths under their breaths. Lotus eventually turned away, shaking, while Ace just stared, his face ashen.

Seven tried to remain as even-keeled as he could. "That's...awful."

"He...exploded." Santa could barely speak, his voice a harsh whisper as he took in the carnage.

The inside of the door, along with the hallway behind it, were painted in dark red blood. Chunks of flesh and organs were scattered along the way, pulpy remains of the ninth man the only testament to his existence aside from their memories of him.

June let out a shriek of horror and collapsed to the floor. Junpei turned and tried to catch her before she hit the ground and behind him he could hear the door groan shut. The smell cleared but everyone was still unsettled by what they had witnessed to really talk about it. Plus, Junpei was too worried about June to bother with being nauseated. He knelt next to her and tried to support her and as he wrapped his arm around her, he recoiled. She was hot enough that he could feel it against his skin.

"You're burning up!" Junpei wasn't sure why. She had been fine earlier. Why is this happening now?

June seemed as though she couldn't answer, her body wracked with shaking. Her breath came in short gasps and she leaned into Junpei's arms.

"Okay," Junpei took a deep breath, exhaled, and smiled softly at June. "Why don't we take a break. You can rest, we can talk about this, alright? Can you stand?" June nodded and Junpei supported her as he stood up and walked her to a chair. She sat down and placed her head in her hands. Junpei didn't know what to say to her to make it better.

"Are you okay?" His voice was low, caring, quiet. He didn't want to frighten her any more than she already was.

June nodded, a tear dripping off her chin and onto her lap, darkening her clothes. "Why did this happen?" Her shaking, no longer feverish, was simply just her sobbing. Her voice was choked and wracked with grief and horror. Junpei didn't have a good answer for her that didn't boil down to 'Zero wanted this'. All he could do was just try and support her, make sure she was okay.

Junpei turned to look at everyone else, "Do any of you know what the fuck is going on?" He didn't feel the need to elaborate what he was asking, certain everyone knew what he meant. "What the hell is even happening?"

Nobody answered. Everyone was busy looking at the floor, faces twisted in expressions of horror and deep thought. Lotus, Seven, Snake, Clover, Ace, and Santa kept their thoughts to themselves. It made Junpei frustrated but he understood. Everyone was terrified. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody trusted anyone enough to give away their hand. Junpei turned back to June, irritated.

It's not like he wasn't keeping secrets himself. Akane...June was...well he couldn't fault them too much. But still...

He let June continue to cry. She needed to let it out. After a while, the clock ticking away in the background, she slowly stopped. The clock rang out ten times. They were running out of time. They only had eight hours now.

"Ten o' clock." Ace's words were grim. Like everyone else, he didn't want to think about the deadline they had.

"Fuck! I'm done with this!" Santa jumped off the stairs where he had been sitting, his fists clenched. "Are we just gonna sit here and just let Zero win? We've only got eight hours left! Let's fucking go!" Nobody answered him, their faces just as blank and empty as Junpei felt. Santa's frustration turned to fury as he looked for someone, anyone to look at him and agree with him.

Lotus was the first person to speak. "I'm not going to end up like...that."

"The ninth man?" Santa bristled.

"Of course." She stared at the 5 door, eyes nearly lifeless, seeming to replay the grim scene behind the metal.

It's not as if Junpei himself wasn't haunted by it. The way his lower torso was just...chunks, his upper body folded over the mess that his stomach used to be, what remained of his face painted in his own gore. He had been framed by what remained of his intestines, the pinkish yellow spires of his ribs like the fingers of death grasping out of hell for him. His glasses were shattered and splattered with blood, a couple feet from his prone corpse. It was going to haunt Junpei every time he closed his eyes.

Santa's eyes were dark. His mouth was a thin, pale line, the color leeching from his lips as he thought about it. Still, he didn't seem like he pitied the ninth man. "I think he fucked up." When everyone looked at him in confusion, he elaborated. "He did something wrong, set off some kinda trap, that's why he died. I'm not gonna be that stupid. I'm gettin' out of here."

Something about that made Snake break out into laughter. He leaned against Clover, pressing a hand against his face.

"What the hell is so funny?!" Santa closed the distance between the two and grabbed a fistful of his jacket. Even though Snake was blind, Santa was obviously trying to intimidate him.

"Oh, nothing," Snake eked out between laughs, "you were just so...confident. I just couldn't resist."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you've misunderstood what happened to the ninth man." Snake shook off Santa's grip, smiling at him, though there was something mirthless about the situation. "His death was not because of a trap. Or, rather, not in the way you would imagine."

"Huh?"

"He broke one of Zero's rules. That is why he died. If you think about it, it is very simple." At Santa's silence, Snake continued. "Or maybe I am asking too much of you. Think back to what Zero wrote on that card you had. Namely: what they said about the number of people."

"They said 'only three to five people can pass through one numbered door', right?"

"And after that?" Snake prompted.

Santa frowned, deep in thought. Junpei could almost smell the smoke coming off of him. Junpei, however, got what Snake was trying to say.

"'All that enter must leave and all who enter must contribute', right?" Junpei hadn't meant to say that out loud but it didn't matter. It was the answer Snake was looking for.

"Very good, Junpei. A gold star for you." It almost felt patronizing as Snake tilted his head at Junpei as if to indicate him. "The ninth man, however, broke that rule. He entered a numbered door by himself. Therefore he was executed." Executed was a kind way of putting it, but yes, Snake was probably right.

Seven didn't seem to like what that was implying, however. "If Zero knew he broke a rule, then they're probably watching us right now."

"I highly doubt that," Snake refuted.

Seven blinked in confusion. "Well why not?"

"The execution system is likely entirely automatic. You weren't aware? Zero doesn't need to monitor us." Snake seemed so sure of himself and yet...

"What?"

With something that almost seemed like pity—or resignation—Snake shook his head and waved his left hand about in the general direction of the two numbered doors. "I suppose I will tell you. I waited long enough, hoping Zero would spare me the trouble. It is beginning to seem increasingly unlikely." Even though he was blind, it was likely that Snake could feel everyone's confused—or in Santa and Seven's case, irritated—stares.

"Do you know something?" Ace asked.

"I know a great many things, actually."

"What is it you know about the rules of the Nonary Games?" Ace pressed, being more specific. Snake's response was to pull a card from his jacket pocket and hand it to Ace with an almost delighted smile. Ace took the card and frowned. "What's the point of giving me this?"

Santa cut in, stepping close to Ace and snatched the card from his grasp. Then all his frustration turned into confusion. "What the hell?"

Seven took the card next, plucking it from Santa's grasp as if he was pulling it from a rolodex. It didn't take him long to understand what Santa and Ace hadn't. He passed it to Lotus who passed it to June who handed it to Junpei. That's when Junpei remembered what was so weird about this card. It was in braille. The only person who could have read it was Snake.

Junpei passed it back to Snake who graciously took it with the same smile he had given Ace. Or, no, not a smile, a smirk. He had been playing with them.

"So aside from making fun of us, what's the point of that card?" Lotus put her hand on her hip and gave Snake the most scathing look she could muster. If he could see her, he would have been sweating. As it was, he was immune. Lucky.

"I found it in my pocket when I woke up here. I can only assume it is a message from Zero."

June squeaked out, "W-what does it say?"

As if he hadn't just made fools of them, everyone but Junpei and Clover surrounded Snake, desperate to learn whatever information Zero had given him. Clover was still sitting on the stairs, rolling her eyes as if she was just disappointed with the whole exchange and Junpei hung back because he didn't want to crowd him.

"Hold on. If you will give me a moment, I will read it. No need to force me." Everyone backed up a bit to give him space, even though Santa looked like he was seconds away from grabbing Snake's tie and strangling him with it. When he seemed to feel everyone had calmed down enough, he began to read, fingers gliding across the raised bumps on the card. "Bracelet number two, since you are not blessed with sight I shall bless you—and only you—with information. I shall tell you of the function of the RED, of the DEAD, and of the bracelet. The RED is the Recognition Device. It will verify your number. Beside every numbered door, you will find a RED. The DEAD is the Deactivation Device. It does exactly what it says. Once you have passed through the numbered door you must use the DEAD to stop the detonator in your bracelet."

Before anyone could cry out in horror or ask him any questions, Snake continued on, trying to power through the information Zero gave him so everyone would know what he knows. "But perhaps you are wondering 'What does this detonator detonate?' I am afraid this might be something of a surprise. I have placed a small bomb inside of you, and the people whom you are about to meet. You swallowed it while you were unconscious. I have no doubt that by the time you read this note, the bomb will have passed your stomach and found its way into your small intestine. In other words, you will be unable to regurgitate it. I suggest you do not try."

Nausea curled through Junpei but he could recognize the truth in what Zero was saying. If they swallowed bombs when they were knocked unconscious at midnight yesterday, then they weren't going to be able to vomit them back up. They just had to deal with them as they were...a threat to their life if they didn't play by Zero's rule.

"As I mentioned before," Snake continued, his voice level and nigh unshakable in the face of such horrid information, "the bracelet on your left hand contains a detonator. Think of it as a remote fuse, or timer, for the bomb in your body. There is only one condition which will cause it to detonate. That condition is that you enter a numbered door. Once you have done so, the timer will activate, no matter who you may be. You will have eighty one seconds. If, after that time, the detonator has not yet been deactivated, it will send a signal to the bomb in your body, instructing it to explode. In order to deactivate the detonator, every person who verified their number at the RED must also verify their numbers at the DEAD. Once all numbers have been verified by the DEAD, you need only pull the lever at its side and the countdown will cease."

A cold chill ran up Junpei's spine. Because the ninth man had verified Clover and Ace but hadn't brought them in with him, he was short two numbers for the DEAD. Thus...

"Anyone who does not verify their number at the RED will find themselves unable to verify their number at the DEAD. That is to say, if you should pass through a numbered door without first verifying your number at the RED, in eighty one seconds you will be dead. You must also keep in mind that the numbered doors will close automatically after nine seconds have passed. So long as the door is open, the DEAD will not function. You would do well to remember this. Lastly, let us discuss how to remove the bracelets. There are only two ways to do so. One: you escape from this ship. Two: your heart rate reaches zero. In other words, once the bracelet is taken outside the confines of the ship, or detects that its wearer's heartbeat has fallen to zero, it will shut down automatically. There is no other way to remove your bracelet. If you attempt to force it off, or disable the detonator, the bomb within you will immediately explode." Snake frowned at the card in his hands and took a breath, giving everyone a second to process this information.

"This is all the information which I can impart to you. How you choose to use it is for you to decide. If used wisely you can eliminate those who might be a danger to you. For a time you would be able to control your fate. I wish you the best of luck." Snake finished, unable to see the way almost everyone else was eyeing him with suspicion, and pocketed the card. He smoothed his pocket and waved a hand. "That is all."

It was extremely useful information and the fact that Snake had willingly shared it with everyone when given the chance made him look really good. Not that Junpei needed any assurance that Snake was on their side. While he seemed aloof and sharp around the edges, he actually cared about making it out of here. If he didn't, he wouldn't have said anything.

Junpei might've been the only one who felt this way, however. Seven and Santa were both shoving their fingers in their mouths, trying furiously to force themselves to regurgitate the bomb that absolutely wouldn't be possible to throw up. Lotus, June, and Ace were all frowning, uncomfortable looking, touching either their bracelets or their stomachs. Only Clover, Junpei, and Snake were seemingly unaffected by this news, though not happy. Clover looked a little ill, Snake looked like he was in a cold sweat, and Junpei did actually feel like he was going to hurl. Seven and Santa making horrid gagging noises and half-accomplished retching sounds didn't help settle his stomach.

Junpei took a deep breath and exhaled, swallowing the spit that had collected in his mouth, then looked out at everyone. "Alright, one more time: does anyone know anything about Zero? Anything?" Nobody said a damn thing, all of them looking at one another, waiting to see who would talk first.

Surprisingly, Santa said something. "I...actually saw them. Zero, I mean. When I got grabbed. I didn't see their face, though. Son of a bitch was wearing a gas mask." Everyone else startled a bit, seeming to recognize that description of their kidnapper. Everyone.

Everyone had seen Zero in a gas mask.

Santa looked confused. "C'mon everyone, gimme some kind of reaction. Surprise, maybe?"

But Lotus surprised him by admitting, "I saw that too."

"I did as well," Ace added.

"Me too. I couldn't see inside the mask." Clover said, tugging on her sleeve nervously.

"That mask was really scary," June confessed.

Santa frowned as he did the math. Thankfully for him, Junpei had already realized. "All of our abductions were the same then." Everyone was silently enrapt as he spoke. "We were taken from home, at midnight. The person claiming to be Zero had a mask on. There was white smoke, then each of us passed out. We woke up on D-deck in a room with a three level bunk bed." When nobody contradicted him, Junpei turned to the odd man out. "What about you, Seven? Is that right?"

"Me?" Seven was a little slow to answer, his face contorted as he thought really hard about something. "Uh, yeah..."

Junpei let it go. It wasn't Seven's fault, after all.

"Hey, I gotta question," Santa spoke up. When everyone looked at him, he tilted his head at Snake and Clover. "Why the hell were you taken from the same place?" The way he was smirking at the two of them seemed to indicate he was insinuating something. Junpei fought a grimace. It wasn't like that.

"You ass!" Clover snarled at him. She took very poorly to his assumption, apparently, and Junpei couldn't blame her. "That's my brother!"

Santa was taken aback. "Brother?"

"Yeah!" Clover gestured at Snake with her hand as she sneered at Santa. "What kind of freak are you, assuming something like that?"

"Now, now," Snake seemed like he was trying to calm Clover down, speaking carefully to her, "I'm sure he did not mean anything by it. We were keeping quiet about it, after all."

Santa struggled for a response, opting to just shake his head and sigh.

"Are there any more questions regarding me and my sister?" Snake seemed, if not annoyed, at least a little defensive. Though it seemed more for Clover's sake than his own.

"Uh, yeah?" Seven was confused, admittedly, but still had questions.

"Why? There are other people who have connections. Those two, specifically." Snake pointed between Junpei and June.

"Oh, you mean Jumpy and me?" June perked up.

Ace, at least, understood what Snake was getting to. "You did say that you were childhood friends, didn't you?"

"You went to school together?" Lotus seemed to not buy that. Junpei didn't blame her, but he also couldn't help but feel a little irritated at her pressing. Now he knew how Snake and Clover felt.

"Yeah..." June looked at Junpei as if she was waiting for him to take the lead.

He felt a little put upon and uncomfortable but he nodded in agreement. "Yeah." There was no reason to lie to them, after all. Snake and Clover had explained their relationship. Honesty allowed everyone to work together better.

"You think we can figure Zero out this way?" Santa seemed disinterested in their relationship as a concept and more as some kind of tool to suss out what was going on.

"Huh, you're...not wrong." Seven seemed like he figured out what Santa was trying to say. "If we draw lines of connection between the victims, we can sniff out the perp. Easy."

"Does any of this ring a bell?" Lotus asked both Junpei and June.

June blinked at her, confused. "Huh?" Junpei, however, remembered what she was asking them.

"Oh, uh, I don't think so. We were friends in elementary school, really. I don't think either of us knew anyone with the means to buy a ship this big." Or someone who could or would set up a murder puzzle game on said ship.

Lotus looked put-off by how quickly he answered. Even June, who until that moment hadn't understood what she wanted, seemed surprised and a little amused. "Oh, no, Jumpy is right. I don't think there were any particularly rich people who attended our school."

"Well we can't assume that Zero is a rich individual." Ace's matter-of-fact theory caught everyone off guard. "I would say it's more likely that the people running the Nonary Game are a large organization and Zero is simply the representative."

"What kind of organization would do this?" Seven seemed unconvinced by Ace's theory. "That's just an investigation waiting to happen. One person can hide their tracks better than four or more."

Ace shrugged. "It could be the military or maybe a research group. Perhaps this is even some kind of psychological experiment. A stress test for human ingenuity and problem solving."

"If it is an experiment, it's fucked up." Santa waved a hand towards door 5 and the mess behind it. "A man is dead! What kind of data will a dead subject get you? Jack and shit." The thought of the ninth man's demise hung heavy over everyone, immediately bringing down the energy in the room. Santa continued through gritted teeth, "Whoever Zero is, they're fucked in the head. This is hell. We're in hell."

Despite the time limit they had, the need to consolidate information and try and figure out the who and why of their kidnappings ate through a fair amount of ten o'clock. Conversational topics ranged from alternate routes out of here to even just waiting it out and calling Zero's bluff. Junpei was aware of time passing but he couldn't shake the feeling that it didn't matter in the end. They would finish their discussion and then move out. It would be fine.

Thankfully, Santa had enough of everyone wasting time chatting. "Oh my god, okay. Shut up. All we've done for the past half hour has been talk. We need to go." He threw his hands up in frustration. "We need to get the hell out of here. You wanna drown? I don't! We've wasted an hour and a half talking and fucking about. I, for one, don't plan on wasting another goddamn minute." The energy in the room went from tense to electric and, unlike the last time someone suggested they go through the numbered doors, nobody argued with him. Not even Lotus.

In fact, she agreed with Santa, even if it seemed to almost pain her to do so. "You're right."

"Very well then. I suppose we only have one avenue of action," Ace said.

"Man, I hate havin' to jump when Zero says 'jump'." Seven grimaced at the numbered doors.

"Better than sitting around with our thumbs up our asses," Clover rolled her eyes, even though she seemed uncomfortable with the thought of going through the numbered doors as well. Her bravado was just that: a front.

"At least Snake's card gave us extra information about the rules of the Nonary Game," Lotus said.

"Agreed. So long as we follow those rules, we should...most likely be alright." Snake changed his wording mid-statement. The uncertainty of what he was saying wasn't lost on anyone but it wouldn't do them any good to dwell on the possibilities.

"So...who's going to go in which door?" June asked.

They could only have a maximum of five people in one door, a minimum of three, and the digital roots they had to reach were four and five. Between the eight remaining people, they could feasibly go in both doors with those limitations but it would be an uneven split and that couldn't guarantee that whoever was in whichever room would move on first. And there was the issue of who would be going in door 5, past the remains of the ninth man. That in and of itself would be a trial.

Lotus was quick on the draw. "I am not going in door five." Junpei didn't blame her, really. He'd only opened the door and the sight and smell nearly put him out of commission.

"Now is not the time to be selfish—" Ace started but Lotus cut him off.

"Call me whatever the hell you want, I will not be going in that goddamn door!" She was firm enough that Ace backed up a little. Smart man.

Before Ace could say something that might get him smacked, Junpei agreed with Lotus. "I don't think I can go in there."

"Me neither." Santa sneered at Ace, daring him to challenge his decision. "I just bought these shoes. If I get blood and guts on them, I'm gonna be pissed. They weren't cheap."

Ace, obviously outnumbered, shook his head in defeat. "Alright. I suppose that means we have our groups?"

"Yeah." Junpei did some quick math in his head. With him, Lotus, and Santa going through door 4, that meant that the person they needed to make a digital root of four was June. That left Ace, Seven, Snake, and Clover to go through door 5. While he didn't like that Clover was going to have to be subjected to the ninth man's remains, he also didn't know what lay behind that door. Door 4 was something he knew well enough to...

His head hurt.

"June," Santa snapped, getting her attention, "you're with us. Everyone else should be a digital root of five."

Everyone did the math in their head or on their hands. Like Santa said, that was how they had to divide the group if they wanted to all go through the doors. And, as selfish as it might seem, it did mean Junpei could spend time with June—with Akane. He hadn't seen her in so long and he was so worried she might get hurt.

If Lotus was going to be selfish—and Santa—then Junpei could as well. He just wouldn't make it as obvious.

The group going into door 5 decided that they would go first, just to test if the RED and DEAD systems worked like how Zero said they did. Junpei was certain this was more of a way to assuage their fears but he couldn't fault anyone for worrying. It's not as if they had concrete evidence Zero wouldn't fuck them over or anything. All Junpei had was a gut feeling and that wasn't going to keep everyone else from thinking they were going to just straight explode because the Nonary Game was unfair.

One-by-one, Snake, Clover, Seven, and Ace verified their bracelets at the RED. Then, face set with grim determination, Ace grabbed the lever and looked back at the group going through door 4. "Now then. Goodbye."

Lotus met his eyes and, in a soft and concerned tone that Junpei hadn't heard her use before, only said, "Good luck."

Ace didn't respond, only pulled the lever. The door swung open like the mouth of some starving beast, already having devoured one of them. The rancid smell of the ninth man's remains wafted out and everyone held back vomit as best they could, all of them wrinkling their noses and covering their mouths. Despite their hesitation over navigating through his remains, all four of them couldn't afford to waffle for too long.

It was Snake who finally pushed them to move. Being blind, he didn't need to worry about seeing the carnage—though the smell was likely just as bad, if not worse—so he stepped in the hallway, past the door, and began to make his way down the hallway. As he walked through the blood and gore, his shoes making wet noises and kicking up the viscera, he turned back and tilted his head at his companions. "Are we going? We need to hurry."

"Your shoes—"

"It's fine." Snake cut off Clover, his voice sharp. "Do you plan on dying like he did? We cannot afford to waste time."

"Right, sorry."

As if they remembered they only had nine seconds before the door closed—and eighty-one seconds before they suffered the ninth man's fate—they all entered the door before it swung closed. Everyone left behind scrambled to press themselves against door 5 so they could make sure that group was okay.

"How's it going?" Santa shouted. "Did you find the DEAD?"

Junpei could hear the ominous beeping of their watches. His stomach sunk into his feet. "The detonator."

"Like the ninth man." Lotus sounded like she was going to be ill.

"Do you think they're okay?" June asked. She was tugging on her hair, a nervous habit she apparently hadn't gotten rid of since Junpei had last seen her.

Though it hadn't been in response to any of their questions, Seven did say something. "There it is!" Thank god for his extremely loud voice. Even if he wasn't intentionally shouting, being able to hear Seven through thick metal and across a hallway was actually a relief. "That's the DEAD, isn't it? Get over here so we can authenticate!"

The beeping of the detonators stopped. It seemed like Zero hadn't been lying to Snake. The DEAD did deactivate them, preventing them from blowing up. Everyone let out a breath, even Junpei, who was surprised he was so tense.

On the other side of the door, the group there also were sighing in relief. "Well, looks like we're in the green." Seven chuckled, trying to make light of what had, until that moment, been a life-or-death situation.

Now that they weren't deafened by their own heartbeat, Junpei got close to the door again and yelled out, "You guys okay?!"

Clover was the one who answered. "Yup! The DEAD works!" She had some lungs on her. Even with the metal and all, she wasn't too muffled. "Speaking of: lemme tell you what you're looking for. The DEAD looks like the RED but blue! Like the RED, you verify your numbers and pull the lever."

"Thanks! That helps a lot!" Junpei shouted back. It already had, judging by how June, Lotus, and Santa seemed to have released some of the tension in their body.

"We should move on now. Be careful!" Ace's voice was just as clear as Seven's. Maybe they'd put all the screamers in one group.

Junpei stifled a snort of amusement, instead choosing to just reply to his warning. "You too!"

Content that the RED and DEAD system worked like they were told, the four of them walked to door 4 and gathered their nerves. Junpei was the first one to authenticate, somewhat relieved when the asterisk appeared on the display. Santa, Lotus, and June followed suit. Before he pulled the lever, he looked at everyone there, trying to gauge their emotions. "Ready?" They nodded at him and he pulled the RED's lever. Like door 5, the metal doors swung open, screaming like they were starving. "Let's go!" The four of them walked in the door and made their way down the hall as they swung shut behind them, trapping them in the numbered room.

Junpei looked down at his left wrist, to the bracelet. The beeping that had preceded the ninth man's death had started up and beneath the blue number 5 on the display was a red skull that flashed in time with the noise. The detonator was active. They needed to find the DEAD as soon as possible. Junpei didn't want to waste any time standing around. Eighty-one seconds wasn't anything to sniff at, but it was still a minute and some. That wasn't a lot of time.

"Where the hell's the DEAD?" Santa was panicking. So were Lotus and June. Junpei wasn't calm, but he wasn't as upset as the others.

"How the hell would I know?" Lotus snapped back.

"We need to find it!"

While they were arguing, Junpei was running as fast as he could. The DEAD wasn't by the entrance, so it had to be further in. Behind him, June, Santa, and Lotus seemed to understand what he was doing and followed quickly. They ran like their lives depended on it. To be fair, their lives did depend on them running quickly, but it was astonishing to watch Lotus tear down the hall in heels like that. She wasn't falling behind in the slightest. In fact, she was very close to overtaking Junpei, even with his head start.

The hallway they were in had about nine or eight wooden doors on either side. While the others looked at the doors, unsure if the DEAD was in any of them, Junpei wasn't even straying from his path. The DEAD was at the end of this hallway. Santa rattled one of the doors, swearing loudly. June tugged on a doorknob in a panic. Lotus was kicking one of the doors, also swearing.

Junpei finally saw the DEAD and called out to the rest, "Down here! I found it!"

They rushed over and each verified their bracelet. Then, panicked, Santa yanked the lever and the DEAD beeped. The beeping stopped, the red skull went away, and the four of them stood there, panting heavily. All of them were so exhausted, the panic having turned their bones to jelly. Junpei scrubbed sweat off his forehead and wiped his hands on his pants, trying desperately to dry them off. Lotus leaned against the wall by the DEAD, trying to take weight off her feet. June was doubled over, breathing heavily and Santa was next to her, glaring down the hallway at the door they entered through.

When he finally caught his breath again, Junpei took in the area they were in, looking for the way out. Near the DEAD was a set of ornate double doors. On either side of the double doors were two smaller doors, identical to the ones that didn't open in the hallway. Junpei tried the double doors and they didn't budge. Then he noticed the keyhole and the symbol above it. It looked like the male symbol.

"Oh," June leaned over his shoulder and peered at the symbol, "that's Mars!"

"Looks like the male symbol..." Santa peered at it as well. "But it's another one of those annoying doors, huh?"

"I think there's a bunch of other doors and keys and cards, all marked with celestial symbols. We've seen Saturn, the sun, Earth, and now Mars." June brushed her fingers against the burnished brass of the plate that had the symbol on it. She looked thoughtful, her lips pursed as if she was connecting dots only she could see.

Junpei turned to the other two doors, the ones on either side of the Mars door. "Do you think these doors will open?"

"What do you mean?" Lotus had gotten her breath back. She fixed Junpei with a confused look, eyes flicking to Santa and June as well. "The other doors didn't open."

"Well, yeah, but those weren't close to the DEAD." Junpei made a gesture, drawing a line from the door they entered in to all the way down to the DEAD. "I don't think we'd be put in a dead end. It's not fair."

"You think this shit is fair?" Santa's question was barbed, an arrow of frustrated disbelief. "You think Zero cares about being fair?"

"Zero gave Snake actual information." Junpei wasn't sure why he was defending Zero—that was their kidnapper after all—but he knew he was right. "If they wanted us dead, they wouldn't have told us about the RED and DEAD. They wouldn't have told us about the time limit. They wouldn't have made it so both doors could be opened if we had eight of the nine of us—especially considering that nine wouldn't change the digital root of whatever group it was in. If the Nonary Game wasn't fair, we wouldn't be alive."

"So?! Who's to say that this fucker isn't just toying with us?'

Junpei placed his hand on the Mars door. "This. The keyhole is like the ones on A-deck. We're probably supposed to find the Mars key somewhere in here, so the most logical place is in one of these rooms. The ones further away were barred, right?" Lotus and June nodded. Santa didn't respond, too frustrated to speak. "These two are the most likely to be open. There's no harm in trying and, if I'm wrong, we can back up the hallway and try the rest of the doors."

"Who died and made you the leader?" Santa sniped. In spite of his complaining, he grabbed the doorknob for the door on the right. Junpei went for the door on the left. Lotus rolled her eyes but drifted to the right. June moved closer to Junpe. "Let's see if you're right. One...two...three!" At the same time, both Santa and Junpei turned their respective doorknobs and pushed their doors.

Junpei stumbled into the room beyond the door, startled by the lack of resistance. He turned back to see Santa standing in the open door frame. He resisted the urge to smirk at him—and probably failed.

Santa grimaced then rolled his eyes. "You're right this time." All the bite was gone from his voice. "Alright, let's see what we can find." Lotus pushed past him and went into the room, disappearing behind the wall. Santa just sighed and followed her, the door swinging closed behind him.

Neither of them shouted so it was probably safe and the door probably didn't lock behind them. That relied on a lot of uncertainty, mind you, but it was all Junpei could think about as he turned to face June in front of their room.

"You ready?" She nodded and he walked in the room with her behind him.

The room—B92, judging by the plaque on the outside of the door—was a single bed, single bath living quarters. There was a bathroom behind another door down the short foyer to the left. To the right was the rest of the quarters, including a couch and coffee table, a display case, and another door that led to a bedroom.

In the sitting room, Junpei could only stare at the antique furniture in the cabin. It looked so...extravagant. And the whole place was sinking. "What a waste," he sighed.

"Hm?" June looked over at him, then at the display case by the bedroom door. "What's a waste?"

"All this." Junpei waved a hand about the room. "It's so nice and it's going to be under tons of water when we're gone."

June looked about at the furniture and then asked, "Do you think we could sell any of this for some good cash?"

That caught Junpei off-guard and he snorted. "Do you want to carry any of this for however long this Nonary Game lasts?"

June stifled laughter and shook her head. "Not really."

"Me neither." Junpei stared at her, unsure why it was that being in her presence was comforting. He hadn't seen her in years, so why was she so important to him? What about Akane Kuroshiki was compelling enough that being in the same room as her made him feel at ease?

He didn't have time to be a mushy idiot about his childhood friend. He had to find a way off this damn boat in one, unexploded piece.

Something on the coffee table caught his eye and he picked it up. It was a box of matches. Or, rather, a box of match, as in singular. If he was going to use this for something, he had to make it count.

Speaking of fire and the like. "Are you okay, June?"

"What do you mean?" She blinked at him, obviously confused.

Junpei stepped forward and pressed the back of his hand against her forehead. She was cool again, or cool enough to not be in danger. Not like before. "Your fever. I'm glad it's gone away."

"Oh," she blushed and pulled from his hand, playing with her hair. "Uh, thank you. I'm feeling much better."

"I was worried." Junpei slid the box of match in his pocket and started rummaging in the display case, looking for any kind of key or clue or maybe some dynamite.

Behind him, June made a soft noise, then asked, "Why do you think Zero chose you and I?"

That was a really good question. Snake and Clover were siblings so that's their excuse. They lived in the same place and everything. Junpei and June hadn't seen each other in years. Nearly a decade, even. What were the odds? Slim to none.

"No clue." He stood back from the display cabinet and closed it, looking for anything else that looked suspicious. "How about you?"

"Do you think Lotus was right? That maybe someone we went to class with is Zero?"

"Uh," it was a good question. When Lotus brought it up the first time, Junpei had dismissed it purely on the basis of them not knowing anyone quite as rich as to buy a whole goddamn boat. If Ace's theory was correct and Zero was just the face of an organization running the Nonary Game, then all bets were off.

As much as Junpei would have liked to say something reassuring, he couldn't. All he could think about was how, if it was someone they both knew, someone from school, Junpei wouldn't know. He barely remembered elementary school, his school memories full of college woes and high school embarrassment.

"I dunno."

June seemed to pick up on his concern because she walked alongside him as he went down the foyer towards the bathroom. "As awful as this is, I'm glad you're here Jumpy. It's nice to see a friendly face."

"You too." Junpei finally noticed the weird abstract painting by the bathroom door. It gave him pause as he stared at it, trying to make sense of the monochromatic blobs. "Hey, June? What do you think this is supposed to be?"

She squinted at it as well, leaning forward so she could get close. Then she backed up and tilted her head. "It looks like some kind of elephant demon sucking a person's brain out."

That was not what he was expecting but it seemed very much like something she would say. She always had a strange sense of humor and a wild imagination. He tilted his head and squinted, trying to see what she was talking about. He couldn't.

"Your mind is a truly fascinating thing." That got a laugh out of her. Something in his chest loosened.

There wasn't anything in the bathroom of any worth. The shower was normal, the shower curtain was normal, the water didn't work, the toilet bowl and tank were completely normal. A boring, normal bathroom.

Junpei wheeled out of the bathroom and back to the sitting room of the quarters. The sitting room didn't have anything else for him but maybe the bedroom? He opened the door and, like before, June followed behind him. The bedroom was a small thing, L-shaped with a made bed, wooden vanity, and nightstand in it. There was nothing in the nightstand, unfortunately, and when he had finished rummaging around by it, he turned around to see June staring at whatever was in the picture frame above the bed.

"What's up?" He walked behind her and peered at the picture frame. Instead of a picture or painting or something, there was a map of a large ship. The same ship they were likely on, though it looked like it specifically was a map of B-deck. "Oh."

"It's the ship's interior!" She pulled it from the frame and passed it to Junpei, who gave it a quick look.

"Nice find. That will come in handy. Especially because look!" He pointed at where they were behind door 4 and traced where the double doors at the end of the hallway led into a hallway near a stairwell. Then he backtraced towards the area that door 5 dumps out. "Both doors lead to the same place."

"Oh! You're right!" June pointed as well. "They all end up in this one hallway by the stairs." Then a strange look crossed her face. She leaned back and hummed softly.

Junpei folded the map up and slipped it into the file folder he had been carrying the whole time. "Hm?"

"It's a big ship."

That seemed like an obvious statement. "Well, yeah. Has to be to be full of puzzles. Can't do that on a sloop." That earned him a quick snort and a wry glare that didn't carry any bite to it.

"Looks like a cruise ship to me." June waved a hand at the furnishings of the bedroom. "Look at how nice these quarters are."

"If it is a cruise ship, it's purposefully retro. All these things look like they belong in a museum."

June seemed to lose herself in thought for a second before she reminded Junpei, "Didn't Zero say something about the Titanic?"

Junpei did but...no, wait. "They wouldn't have said that without having a reason to." Zero was too purposeful, too measured to just...say something for no good reason.

"I think this ship and the Titanic might be related, or at least similar." That made sense.

"You think it's a replica? The Titanic also had sister ships. It could be one of those."

"That's true. Still...why else would the furniture be like this?" She patted a hand on the bed, the firm mattress bouncing under the pressure. "One thing about that first theory is bugging me."

"What?"

"Well, with how terrible the Titanic was as a maritime incident and with the curse and all, why would anyone want to replicate it?" Wait, back up.

"Curse?" He hadn't meant to sound incredulous but...that was a step too far for him.

"Didn't you know? There was a mummy onboard the Titanic when it went down." June looked deathly serious as she said this. "The Priestess Amon-Ra was aboard. Stolen from a pyramid in Egypt, her mummy was supposedly responsible for the misfortune and death of any who handled her. Did you not know about this?"

Against all odds, he actually did. "Yeah?" The word was barely audible, almost a deflating exhale. He did actually know what she was talking about. "She was frozen solid, right?"

"Yeah!" June seemed almost as surprised as he was, though hers was less pained and confused and more genuinely delighted. "She hadn't saponified. She was still as lively as if she had laid down in the coffin moments before. And her body didn't thaw at the proper temperature either. Even at room temperature, she was frozen. A woman who wouldn't melt."

Wait. "Wasn't she from Egypt? That place is hot as hell. How didn't she melt?"

"Who knows? Maybe it's just a property of ice in the desert." That seemed more like a crackpot theory than the whole priestess mummy situation. "Who can say?"

"You're an interesting one, June." He meant it fondly and it seemed like she took it that way. She was beaming, almost seconds away from laughter. "C'mon now, let's get back to searching. If I can't find anything, I'll go see if Lotus has killed Santa across the hall."

"I hope she hasn't. Santa isn't that bad." Junpei raised a single eyebrow. She amended, "I think Santa isn't all that bad. Just...rough around the edges."

Junpei rolled his eyes at her but decided to not say another thing. Instead, he poked around in the dresser beside the bed. Empty. He moved on to the vanity. "Bingo." A key. There was probably nothing left in this room for him to find. Junpei looked at June. "I'm gonna...go across the hall, okay?"

"Be safe!"

What was Zero going to do? Kill him on his way through the hallway? But Junpei kept that thought to himself and just waved back. "I'll do my best."

Across the hall was a nearly identical room that Santa and Lotus were searching through. Or, rather, Santa was searching through. Lotus was leaning against the foyer wall by the bathroom, staring at the picture on the wall. It was missing several parts of it like it was some kind of slide puzzle.

"Any luck?" She asked Junpei as he came in.

"Found a couple things. Plus a map. Both numbered doors dump into the same hallway." When Junpei mentioned the map, Lotus perked up. He pulled it out of the file folder and handed it to her, tracing the path he showed June earlier.

"Zero." The way she said their name made it sound like some sort of oath. If there was any woman cursing anyone, it wouldn't be an eternally frozen mummy. It'd be Lotus. Junpei shivered.

Lotus handed back the map and Junpei tucked it back in the folder under his arm. He was actually really surprised that he hadn't dropped the damn thing yet with all the running he'd done. "Anyway, what's going on here?"

"Jack and shit!" Santa said as he rounded the corner. "Everything is either locked or missing pieces."

"Well it is a puzzle room. We just have to find the keys and pieces." Santa glared at Junpei when he pointed that out.

"Well then what's the lovebird suite look like?"

Junpei tried to not blush. "Looks like it's identical to this one save a few details." He waved a hand at the picture.

"I hope it's not some kind of 'spot the difference' nonsense." Santa shook his head. "I don't have the patience."

"Lucky for you, I'm your gofer. You can stay here and sit on the couch while I do all the heavy lifting." Junpei was joking, mostly.

"Ok." Santa didn't seem to realize that. Junpei didn't have the energy to correct him.

The bathroom was identical except that the shower curtain was missing. Toilet—bowl and tank—were empty, no soap, no water. In the sitting room of B93, Santa was reclining on the sofa. Lotus was still leaned against the wall by the bathroom, seemingly unwilling to sit in the same room as him. Did something happen?

Junpei wondered, for just a moment, if his comment about Lotus killing Santa hadn't been just speculative exaggeration.

This display case wasn't empty. Inside were a few nice looking pieces of pottery and glasswork and a single tile with a blobby looking black and white pattern on it. That was probably part of the picture in the hallway. Junpei moved to open it but Santa called out, "It's locked."

"I've got a key," Junpei tried the key from the vanity. It didn't fit. Behind him, Santa laughed mockingly. "Ha ha. At least I'm doing something."

"Well, between the empty bathroom, locked display case, and dark-ass bedroom, what else could I do?" Junpei looked at the bedroom when Santa said that. Like he said, it was dark enough that looking for something inside of it would be a hassle.

"Did you try the light switch?"

"'Did you try the—' do I look like an idiot?" Junpei held his tongue. "They don't work, genius. There's this candle here but without matches it's pretty useless."

Lucky then that Junpei had a box with one match in it. He struck the match and lit the candle, coughing as the sulfurous smell of an igniting match wafted into his face. Then he turned and gave Santa a smug smirk.

"Puzzle solving must be so easy when the solution is light candle with match."

"The matches were in the other room. There was also a key. The rooms are paired for a reason, they're halves of a whole." Junpei picked up the candle by the stick and entered the bedroom. It didn't give off much light, but it was better than nothing. He set the candlestick down on the vanity and then, to spite Santa, tried the switch.

No dice.

Well he had gotten the map and a key from the bedroom in B92, so the bed and the picture frame would be good places to check in B93. The candle didn't help much with determining details so whatever was in the picture frame above the bed was swathed in shadows. It didn't look useful or like some kind of puzzle. On the bed, however, was a folded cloth. Junpei picked it up and it rapidly unfolded to reveal it was a shower curtain with a hole in it. He struggled to fold it back up so he could carry it to the bathroom but as he was doing so, the candle burned out. The room got darker.

"That lasted." Lotus was standing in the doorframe. She seemed thoughtful. "Did you find anything?"

"Shower curtain with a hole."

She grimaced. "Pervert."

He hadn't been the one to cut the hole in it! She was just being rude. Junpei bit back on his reply and just headed back to where the light from the sitting room poured in. The candle hadn't lasted terribly long despite how large it had been. Junpei looked at it and realized that, not only had the wax melted very quickly, but the candlestick's spike was shaped weird. It had teeth and was a little too long to be just to hold a candle.

Oh, duh. It was a key.

Speaking of—Junpei pulled the vanity key from his pocket and put it in the lock for the vanity in this room. It turned and inside the vanity drawer was a tile like the one in the display case. Jackpot.

The vanity key had served its purpose, as had the match and box, so Junpei left them in this room and grabbed the candlestick key and tile. The tile was just small enough to fit in his pocket so, between the file folder under his arm, the shower curtain gripped tight in one hand, and the candlestick key in the other, he still had enough hands to continue solving puzzles.

"You look like a little kid bringing in groceries." Junpei shot Lotus a dry look. "Don't give me that look. You're carrying too much. I'll take the shower curtain to the bathroom and hang it up. That way you don't drop anything important."

He handed her the shower curtain and watched as she turned round the corner and into the bathroom. Then he walked over to the display case and inserted the candlestick key and turned. There was a click and Junpei could pull the sliding door back to get at the tile.

Man, this puzzle shit was easy.

Sliding the second tile into his pocket with the first, very careful that they didn't hit together too hard, Junpei closed the display case and set the candlestick key on the coffee table, where it had stood when it was just an unlit candle. As he stood up, he saw Santa glaring at something small in his hand. It looked like a bookmark. Then Santa shoved it at Junpei.

"Here." It wasn't an unkind gesture, just an abrupt one. Gift giving didn't seem to be Santa's forte, in spite of his code name. Still, the suddenness of the action and how genuinely sullen he looked threw Junpei off-kilter for a moment. He gaped at the bookmark in his face.

It had an accurate watercolor drawing of a four-leaf clover on it and a red ribbon tied in a loop through a hole in the top of it. Overall it was a nice bookmark.

"Huh?"

"I want you to have this," Santa reiterated.

"No, I get that. It's more...where did you get this and why?"

Santa rolled his eyes. "It was in the couch cushions, against all odds. Won't be much use but, hey, any ship in a port." A poor choice of metaphors.

"Why don't you hold onto it then? My pockets are full of puzzle solutions and keys and shit." Junpei pulled the corner of a tile out of his pocket to show Santa, who just rolled his eyes.

"You know what I hate the most?" Oh boy, another out-of-nowhere conversation about something weird. After June's tangent about the Titanic and the Priestess Amon-Ra, he was pretty worn out from conspiracy theories about curses and so on. He didn't interrupt Santa though. Some small, headache-induced part of him wanted to hear him out. "Four things: hope, faith, love, and luck."

For a second, Junpei didn't understand what the hell Santa was on about. Then he realized it probably had to do with the clover. He tilted his chin at the bookmark and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? What's the bookmark got to do with it?"

Santa seemed to reconsider how he was phrasing what he was about to say for a moment. Then he sighed. "It's what the leaves stand for on a four-leaf clover. Hope, faith, love, and luck."

"Pretty pessimistic of you."

"Take the damn thing. I don't wanna be anywhere near it." Santa shoved it at Junpei again.

Junpei refrained from mentioning how, if he had it, it was still going to be near Santa. Instead, he took the bookmark and put it in the file folder so it wouldn't get crumpled. "Thank you."

His thanks seemed to throw Santa off-guard a little. "Uh, yeah. Yeah." There was a long, awkward pause. In the background, they could hear Lotus struggling with the shower curtain. She was swearing softly. Maybe he should help her...

"Hey, Santa?"

"Huh?"

"Is that the only reason you hate the clover?"

Something flashed across his eyes, something dark and heavy. "Nah. I mean, it's not the only reason I hate it. There's also the number four."

"What, like the Four Horsemen?" Junpei snorted.

That seemed to lighten the mood a little. "C'mon, that's some Dark Ages shit. I'm a modern man with modern values!"

"And modern superstitions too, it sounds like."

"You're putting words in my mouth, Jumpy." Hearing Santa say that nickname, even in jest, set Junpei's skin crawling. He did his best to not let his discomfort show on his face. "I don't like four coz it's half-assed. Middle of the road number. Nine is way better anyway."

Well that wasn't suspicious at all. "Yeah?"

"You know anything about gambling?" Change of subject it was then.

"Like in casinos?" Junpei was willing to play along.

"Yeah. In baccarat, nine is the king. Top hand. It's called Le Grande. Four's a piss poor number, only coming out above three, two, one, and zero. But a nine is a guaranteed win, more or less." Santa rubbed the back of his head as if he was ashamed of knowing shit like that. Junpei, on the other hand, found the fact that he could pull card game rules out of thin air fascinating. All he had rattling around in his head were test questions and trivia that only got used as a party trick while drinking with classmates. And math, which was helpful at the moment, but when would he need to know digital roots outside the Nonary Game?

"Actually, the Nonary Game is a lot like baccarat." Lotus, apparently having finished fighting the shower curtain, was standing between Junpei and the door to the hallway, looking contemplative.

"Huh?"

"Of course, baccarat doesn't use any of the stupid digital root junk, but the importance of nine is shared. In the end, a hand is only as powerful as the one's digit."

Santa seemed surprised about the conclusion she was drawing. "Huh...you're right."

"Having nine in the Nonary Game is a winning hand. The door we need to leave though is a nine isn't it?" Oh, she was right.

"Oh." Santa got it too. "Oh it is!"

"That's probably why it's called the Nonary Game too. Nine and all." When both Santa and Junpei only gave her a blank stare, she sighed. "Nona. It means 'derived from nine'. Like Nonary. In the same way, every other number has words like that as well. Una, as in unicorn, is one. Bi, like bicycle, is two. Tri, like triangle, is three. Quad, as in quadruped, is four. Quinti, sext, septim, octo, and nona."

"Neat linguistics lesson, but what does that have to do with this?" Santa gestured at the room, probably the whole ship.

Lotus just sighed and shook her head. "How many people were originally captured?"

"Nine?" Santa still looked confused.

"How many hours do we have to escape?"

"Nine." In spite of Santa's continued confusion, Junpei understood it. He gaped at Lotus.

"And what's the door that will give us our freedom?"

"The ninth!" Santa finally understood.

"The Nonary Game is a game of nines, hence nona." Lotus folded her arms.

While Junpei and Santa digested this information, the boat settled. The sound was almost alive, like some kind of gigantic organism filled with smaller, less-important organisms bustling around, trying to save themselves. It made Junpei think about bowerbirds and remoras. It made him think about anteaters and ants. Zero was laughing at them. He could hear it in the sound of creaking metal. He swallowed heavily.

"I'm gonna go see what the shower curtain was for." Junpei excused himself.

"Good luck," Lotus waved at him, a lazy flap of her hand. "It's just a random hole."

Nothing was ever truly random in the Nonary Game.

The hole in the shower curtain aligned with a tile on the back of the shower. Third across, fifth down from the far right. That didn't seem like nothing.

Junpei left the bathroom and opened the door to the hallway outside. "I'm gonna go see something in the other room."

"Don't die!" Santa said. He was being cheeky but, really, it was the same kind of response June had given when he came over to B93.

"No promises." Junpei figured that was, as before, the best answer he could give in response to something like that. If Zero wanted to whack him in the hallway, there was nothing anyone could do about it.

In B92, June was sitting on the couch. When Junpei came in, she leapt to her feet and ran to see him. "Did you find anything?"

"The rooms are nearly identical save this," Junpei pointed to the picture. "I'm looking for one more tile to finish the picture on that side and I think it's in the bathroom."

"Do you need any help?" She bounced in place on the balls of her feet.

"I don't think so?" That seemed to disappoint her. "But I'd welcome the company!" She brightened up again.

In the bathroom, Junpei counted the tiles. "One, two, three. One, two, three, four, five." The green one with the stripes. Junpei worked his nails under the edges of the tile and wiggled it free. On the back of it was the final piece of the abstract painting.

June looked as excited as Junpei felt. "Is that the last one?"

"I think so. You want to come over to B93?"

She shook her head. "Thanks, but no. I think four people in a room this size is a little cramped. Just call for me when you find the Mars key." When, not if. June had a lot of faith in Junpei. It made him feel...nervous and excited. He didn't want to disappoint her.

"Will do." He hurried across the hall and started placing the tiles in their proper place. As strange as it seemed, June's weird comment about it being an elephant demon sucking someone's brain out helped Junpei figure where they should go and how they were oriented. When he finally finished the painting, he stood back and admired his hard work. The painting, frame and all, slid down to reveal a small niche and...

"The Mars key!" Junpei snagged it from where it was sitting on the hidden alcove and turned to show Lotus and Santa. Both of them looked relieved, though Santa's gaze kept flicking down to the painting, his face crumpled in thought.

"What is this supposed to be?" He was speaking to himself but Lotus and Junpei both heard him.

Lotus stared at the picture for a moment, her expression a mirror of Santa's. Then her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Oh. I think I've seen this before."

"You have?"

"In a book." Huh... "There's a British biochemist named Sheldrake. This picture was in a book talking about a theory he had."

"A theory?" Junpei asked. Something about this conversation, about the name Sheldrake, was familiar. It was familiar in the same way that the puzzles in this room had been easy to solve, almost as if he had done them before. His headache, ever-present and painful, flared up again but he fought back a wince. They didn't need to worry about him.

"Yes. Morphogenetic field, which relies on the theory of morphic resonance." Lotus waited for him to ask her more questions.

Junpei was suffering from a case of deja-vu. And an excruciating headache.

"Haven't...haven't you already said that?"

That surprised her. "What are you talking about?"

"Morphogenetic fields. Morphic resonance theory. Haven't you already explained that?" His head hurt so badly. He wanted to cry.

"No?"

"What are you on about, Junpei?" This time, Santa was the one pressing him.

"The morphic resonance theory is about storing information in the morphic field." Junpei gestured at the picture. "There was an experiment about using the morphic field to transmit information across space and time. It had to do with how many people understood that this was a heavily filtered picture of a dog. Before the solution was aired on British television, the percentage of people who knew the solution was sub-ten percent. Afterwards, using a sample of people who wouldn't have access to British television programs, the percentage of correct guesses doubled."

Lotus stared at him like he had grown a second head. Junpei could barely see, his head hurt so badly.

"Junpei," Santa's voice was low, quiet, measured, "Lotus hasn't said any of that before. Are you sure you're okay?"

Junpei pushed past them, into the bathroom, and emptied his stomach in the toilet. The pain was almost blinding. He laid his head against the cold porcelain and thought, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

What did they mean, she hadn't said that before? He had heard her. She had talked about Sheldrake, about information stored somewhere in the aether, about the experiment. She had mentioned how, supposedly, the morphic field was like a database of behavioral patterns and unspoken information that people could subconsciously access. She also said it was likely the TV experiment had falsified data for more impressive results or that their control group wasn't really all that controlled.

But both of them seemed like this was the first time they had had that conversation. Both of them looked like he was saying something insane.

What was going on?

The more he thought about it, the more parts of this day weren't making sense. The ever-present sense of deja-vu during every puzzle and conversation. The dread and relief he felt when he saw June for the first time and how he had cried. How he had known the doors in the hallway weren't anything. Why he was so sure Zero wasn't fucking with them regarding rules and the fairness of the Nonary Game.

Why did he know all this? Why did it feel like he'd done this once before?

Eventually, panic slowly leaving his body, mouth sticky, nausea passing, he tried to flush the toilet. Nothing happened. "Right. The tank is empty." He just lowered the lid and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Turning to Lotus and Santa—who had stopped talking as he exited the bathroom, exchanging worried glances—he gave them a weak, ill smile. "Sorry about that."

"Are you okay?" Lotus didn't move to check up on him, but her shoulders tensed up as if she might have wanted to.

"Yeah, uh, I think so." Junpei tried to sound casual. He failed, his voice scratchy from hurling. "I've had a headache for the last hour or so and it finally caught up to me."

"What about what you said? About the whole morphogenetic field, or whatever?" Santa pushed.

"Deja-vu?" Junpei shrugged. "I thought we'd talked about this but I guess it was something June had said earlier about the picture that made me think that." They exchanged a look but didn't press him. "We've got the Mars key now. We should grab June and go through the door. I wanna get out of here."

Without another word, the two of them followed Junpei into the hallway. Junpei stepped into B92 and gestured for June to follow him. "We got the key."

"Are you okay? You look sick." June laid the back of her hand across Junpei's forehead. It felt good. "You're a little warm."

"I threw up a bit," Junpei admitted. "It's fine. I just have a bad headache."

"Do we need to rest?"

"No." He didn't mean to be so harsh but... "We have the key, we should move on."

June nodded and followed him into the hallway. With everyone there—probably exchanging glances and unspoken questions about his health—Junpei opened the Mars door and walked through.

There was a large hallway, like the map said. What the map didn't show was the large metal grate that barred them from crossing to the other side, by where door 5 let out. Junpei let Santa struggle with the grate for a bit while he looked at the elevators to the right of the doors they just went through. There wasn't any kind of keycard reader, like there had been out on B-deck by the grand staircase, but also the buttons weren't lit. They wouldn't be able to use them. That just left the door across the hall.

The...kitchen, right? That's the kitchen. He knows that's the kitchen.

Why does he know that's the kitchen?

"Dammit!" Junpei heard Santa kick the grate and hiss in pain.

"Did you try asking nicely?" Lotus asked him.

"Shut up." They were getting along well, just like before.

"The elevators aren't powered." June had pressed one of the buttons. "Do you think there's a keycard reader for these on some other floor?"

"The only other floor they'd go to is C-deck and I don't know where these would even let out." Junpei mused. He hadn't moved from the door he was standing in front of.

"Well if the elevators don't work, we came from back there, and the hallway is closed off, this door is our only choice." June walked over to Junpei and the kitchen door. Lotus and Santa followed suit.

"Not much of a choice, is it?" Santa griped.

Junpei didn't even bother waiting. He just threw the door open and entered the room beyond.

It was a kitchen. Galley, really, because that's the ship word for it and all, but it was what he assumed it would be. What he remembered it was.

There were counters covered in things, stacks of various plates on a service counter across from an empty sink, a grill that still had a coal fire going in it, an abandoned stove with pots on it. Set into the counter, by an area that had cutting boards and rolling pins on it, was a keypad on what might have been an oven. There were two doors that looked like extensions of the kitchen and one door with a keycard reader next to it on the other side of the partition that divided the service side of the galley from the cooking side. That was probably the way out.

Junpei's head hurt but he kept himself together. He couldn't fall apart just yet. He was only experiencing severe deja-vu. It didn't mean anything. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose.

"Damn. I was hoping this would be easy." Santa looked at the clutter. "It's another puzzle room." His gaze wandered back to Junpei, as if he was indicating that he should get to solving. It was...relieving to be treated like that, as strange as it might sound. Santa choosing to, once again, leave the heavy lifting to Junpei meant that he wasn't holding his strange outburst against him.

"Well the exit's over there," Lotus pointed at the door with the reader next to it.

"Where's the keycard?" June asked.

Junpei knelt down and pointed to the oven. "My money's on in here. We just need to find the combination."

Lotus sighed heavily. "All right, I guess we should split up. Just don't hurt yourself. I'm not bandaging you up if you cut yourself on a rusty knife or something."

"Thanks mom." Santa laughed as Lotus swatted him with the back of her hand. Junpei was too lost in thought to really make any sort of comment about it.

June gripped his arm and gave him a worried look.

"I'm fine. I'll...be fine. Thanks." Junpei patted her on the hand and smiled, hoping she bought it. She didn't seem convinced but let go and nodded. "Let's get to looking."

Santa was looking at half of the galley, peering at one of the two doors like it personally offended him. Lotus was on the same side as the entrance door with Junpei, looking at a paper on the service counter. June tried the door nearest Lotus and Junpei and seemed surprised when it opened, so she went in.

Junpei tried to collect himself as he walked over to Lotus. "What're you looking at?"

"This," she pointed at a voucher on the service counter and read it aloud. "Appetizer nine, meat dish ten, soup A, seafood dish F."

"That's..." Junpei didn't know what he wanted to say, but looked at the plates stacked on the service counter and tallied them up in his head. "Is that supposed to be this?" He gestured at the plates.

"Well these here," Lotus pointed to the square plates, "are the appetizer plates. That's nine. These," she pointed to the deep plates next to the appetizer plates, "are soup plates. That's ten. These," she pointed to the shallower, bigger plates next to the soup plates, "are seafood plates. There's fifteen of them. And these," she pointed to the stack of plates that had a higher lip than the seafood plates, "are meat plates. There's sixteen of them."

"Wait, but..." Junpei looked at the note again. Appetizer plates made sense. Nine. But soup, seafood, and meat were using numbers, and wrong ones too. Unless... "Do you think these three are using hexadecimal?"

Lotus looked at the note, then the stacks of plates, and back again. "You're probably right. A in hexadecimal is ten in base-10. Base-10 is the numerical system we normally use." Junpei nodded at her, letting her know that, yes, he knew what base-10 was. "Hexadecimal is base-16, so it goes one through nine, then A, B, all the way through F, then ten is sixteen in base-10, and so on and so forth. So if you compare this voucher to base-16, it's correct."

"Huh." Junpei looked at the lock on the oven, then back at the plates. "Zero really likes math."

"Who wouldn't? Numbers, even if they're in good old base-2, are reliable and simple. One plus one always equals the same thing every time." Lotus smiled fondly. "They're consistent and I, for one, like consistency, don't you?"

Base-2...isn't that binary? That's what's used for programming. No wonder Lotus liked math.

"I'm more of a fun facts guy than a numbers guy, but yeah, I can understand it."

Lotus rolled her eyes at him and waved him off. "Go figure something useful out."

"Yes ma'am." Junpei gave her a sarcastic salute and walked from the service counter to the door June had gone in. Inside the room was a pantry filled with very large cheese wheels and other metal shelving units covered in cloth. June was looking at the cheese like she was debating cracking a wheel open and eating it. "I don't think any of this is any good."

June jumped and let out a started squeak. "Oh! Don't do that!"

"Who's the jumpy one now?" Junpei teased.

June pouted at him. "Not funny."

"It was, a little bit." Junpei turned his attention back to the cheese wheels. "But you have to admit that I'm right. About the cheese, I mean."

"Well, not really."

Junpei shot her an exaggerated scandalous look. "Oh?"

"There are some cheeses that, until the rind is broken, can actually keep for decades." June smirked at him.

Junpei just chuckled. "Yeah, but not centuries. If this is actually the Titanic or whatever, this cheese is from, what, nineteen twelve? Later than that, even, because cheese is made through like...fermentation or whatever. This is ancient cheese. I don't think it could survive the ravages of time."

June leveled her gaze at him, mock sternness broken quickly by her laughing. "Fair. Still, I wonder what the insides of these wheels look like?"

"Dust, probably. Mold. The faintest hint of powdered milk."

June laughed again. "Maybe. Who knows? I certainly don't want to open them, even if I could." "I guess that makes them Schrödinger's Cheese then. They're both cheese and dust until observed by someone." Now he was just showing off.

Something strange—not quite sad but not quite angry—flashed across June's face. As quick as it appeared, it was gone, and she pointed to a wheel on the second-highest shelf. "Oh, look. There's something back there."

Junpei craned his neck to look and, yes, there was. The two of them moved the wheel and found that it was a bottle of oil. "Well this will come in handy." Especially if any hinges needed lubrication.

"It can't hurt." June held her hands out. "You want me to carry it? You did so much in the cabins that I'd like to help." He handed it to her and she held it in both hands. "Thanks."

"No problem. I've only got so many pockets and if that leaks, I'll never get it out of my jacket. Or my pants." He tried to make light of it but he genuinely did appreciate her offering. He'd been feeling like he'd been carrying the weight of the ship on his shoulders this whole time. Knowing that someone else was willing to bear some of the burden meant a lot.

Junpei looked at the other shelves. Most of them were filled with canned goods and other preserved items. Pasta, powdered milk, spices. All in bulk. He flipped up a sheet and found one of the shelves had a small, wooden box on it next to several unlabeled, rusty cans of something.

Oh.

Junpei opened the box and revealed a rusty knife. Didn't he see a whetstone by the sink? He grabbed the box and put it in his jacket pocket, aware of how bulky and awkward it looked. As he turned back to June, ready to leave the pantry, he noticed she seemed lost in thought.

"What's up?"

"Oh, nothing," she said. It was very obviously something. "Just thinking about Futility."

Junpei had an inkling of what she was talking about. Same as he knew what Lotus was going to say about the morphogenetic field test. She wasn't talking about rusty knives or cheese that wasn't cheese or puzzles that lead to puzzles. "The book?"

June looked confused but delighted. "You know about it?"

"A little bit, yeah." That was an understatement. He remembered her talking about Futility. He just..didn't want to upset her like he had Santa and Lotus. Keeping his headache and precognition to himself seemed the best way to do just that. "I know that it's very similar to the way the Titanic sank, fourteen years before it happened. People think that Morgan Robertson predicted the whole deal."

"That's a lotta bit!" She didn't seem too offended that he knew things. That was good. "While the similarities between the events in Futility and the sinking of the Titanic were eerily similar, there are two other novels that bear striking resemblance to various events. Both of these, however, were written by Wlliam Thomas Stead."

"Oh yeah." Junpei remembered Stead. "But weren't his stories only superficially similar? Robertson's Futility, while probably coincidental, was closer to the actual sinking of the Titanic in terms of overall details, although he could have changed the details to up sales."

June frowned at him. "Sure, he could have changed details, but Stead's works were more interesting. You see: Stead was a passenger on the Titanic. It's said that he was possessing his past self to write down what happened as best he could, and that's why his works bear resemblance to the Titanic."

"Automatic writing, right?"

"Yeah! Of course, there's no proof, but isn't that interesting as a thought? That the future could be so traumatic that you send an aspect of yourself to the past, if only to warn you."

"He still got on the ship," Junpei pointed out.

"Yeah." June deflated a little. "Some things just can't be changed. They're fixed events."

Unsure of what to do after that, Junpei nervously looked at the door, then back at June. "I'm gonna go sharpen this knife. Are you good in here? I don't think there's anything else to find."

"Oh, I'll be out in a moment." June smiled, less sincerely than before. That strange look, the one that reminded Junpei of how he felt when he woke up on the D-deck, crossed her face again. "Just remember what Lotus said. Don't cut yourself."

"I won't." Junpei smiled, mostly for her benefit, and left the pantry.

Sharpening the knife took more time and effort than Junpei would have assumed. To be fair, he wasn't sure exactly how to perform upkeep on cooking utensils and the knife was very rusty. Still, the fact that he had managed to get an edge on it anyway, in spite of how genuinely ruined the blade was, was a feat in and of itself.

As he was sharpening the knife, Santa came up alongside him and watched him for a moment. Then he asked him, "You feeling better?"

"Hm?" Junpei stopped for a second so he didn't hurt himself—and to rest his poor arms—and looked at Santa. "Oh, yeah. I think puking helped."

There was a period of silence, then Santa said, "The door over there, the freezer I think? The bolt is jammed. It's rusted shut."

"Well lucky for you, June and I found some oil." Junpei wiped the blade of the knife off and checked the edge. It wasn't going to gut anyone, but it probably could cut through cooked meat with some effort. Good enough. He didn't want a dangerous knife out and about. Not with Zero around. "June has it."

"June has what?" June came up behind him as well. Junpei put the knife back in the box and latched it, shoving it back in his pocket.

"The oil. Santa says the bolt on the other door is jammed. You wanna check it out?" June nodded and the three of them walked over to the other door. Lotus followed behind, even though she wasn't doing anything.

Like sharpening the knife, oiling the bolt took effort. Cooking oil was not industrial oil, nor was it any kind of mechanical lubricant. It was just slimy and slick and, when Junpei was done wiggling the bolt free of the plate, he wiped his hands on his pants, leaving dark streaks.

So much for keeping them clean.

Grabbing the door handle, Junpei pushed it open. Past the door was a freezer filled with shelves of meat and other frozen goods. None of them were edible, probably, and the whole place was bitingly cold. On the wall opposite the door was a cabinet and there was some kind of hatch on the floor. Junpei shivered, his breath coming out in puffs of white.

"F-fuck it's cold." Santa looked around, bare arms wrapped around himself. Goosebumps raised on his skin and he was hunching over to try and keep from shaking too much. Why he had decided to come into the freezer was beyond Junpei, especially since he and June were better dressed for not freezing to death. That's why Lotus had stayed outside when...

Wait.

Just as Junpei remembered why all them being in the freezer was a bad idea, the door swung shut behind them and there was a snapping sound. The pipe by the door had burst and the water—warm in the pipe—had frozen over the knob, making it impossible to open from either side.

Santa lunged for the knob and drew back, hissing in pain. The palm of his hand was a bright pink, the freezing cold metal having burned him on contact. "Lotus?!"

On the other side of the door, Lotus tried to push it open. Then she slammed into it with her full weight. Junpei heard her suck in air. She probably hurt herself too. "It's not opening from this side!"

The door swings open, Junpei remembered. If the ice freezing it in place is keeping it from moving, then even Lotus tackling the damn thing wouldn't make it budge. Hell, even if Seven tried it wouldn't go anywhere. They had to make their own way out.

How though...

While Santa yelled at Lotus through the door—her saying something about how she genuinely couldn't help them and him shouting about how they were gonna freeze to death—Junpei opened the cabinet and started searching for something, anything to help.

Slabs of meat weren't useful, save the extremely hard chunk of frozen chicken, which could be used as a bludgeoning weapon, but something else in the cabinet caught his eye. A large bag of something extremely square shaped that radiated cold.

"Dry ice." Junpei pulled the bag's knotted handle and carefully dropped it to the floor. The freezer was already cold as shit. He didn't need to suffer dry ice burns on top of that.

"H-hey," Santa startled Junpei. "Isn't dry ice just frozen carbon dioxide?"

"Yeah?" Junpei tried to wrack his brain for any information he had about dry ice. All he was getting were a recipe for a dry ice bomb and the fact that dry ice is a sublimate. The former was useful, if he could find the things he needed. "It's got specific needs to become a l-liquid." Even with his vest and long sleeves, the cold was starting to take its toll on Junpei. He knelt down and used the frozen chicken to start smashing the dry ice block into smaller, more manageable chunks.

"The sublimation point of carbon di-dioxide is negative one hundred and n-nine degrees fahrenheit. In order to m-make it a liquid, it needs to be under pressure, like diamonds a-and graphite." June, in spite of the cold, seemed proud of herself.

It would've been a more impressive fact if they weren't freezing to death, trapped in a freezer. "Queen of Knowledge st-strikes again, huh?"

June's amused smile turned into another thoughtful frown. "Oh, h-hey Junpei?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember w-what I said ab-about the mummy?"

Santa looked as confused as Junpei felt. Junpei, however, was connecting dots. "About how sh-she wouldn't melt?"

"Mmhmm." June wrapped her arms tighter around herself and jammed her hands in her armpits. "I just remembered s-something interesting about that." When nobody—not even Santa—stopped her, she began to explain. "So there's this type of i-ice. It was sup-supposed to be something in a science-fiction book, but it was ice that had a melting point of ninety-six degrees fahrenheit. It's a p-polymorph of standard ice. They called it ice-9."

While the conversation was familiar, it was the repetition of nine that really caused Junpei's stomach to leap into his throat. There was just no escaping nine in the Nonary Game, was there?

"S-so what? Do they know wh-what caused it?" Santa asked through chattering teeth.

"No. It just h-happened. Something about the structure of the ice was different and that's wh-why its melting point is higher. Kinda like glycerine."

Junpei did remember this one better, even though ice-9 should have been the one to stick out to him more. "Nineteen twenty, right? Wh-when glycerine started crystalizing all over the world when c-cooled to sixty-four degrees fahrenheit or lower?"

"Y-yeah." June nodded at Junpei.

He stood up and looked around for anything else to help with his dry ice bomb. There was a piece of pork on the metal shelving that had what looked like a tag in it. That had to be something useful. "What's th-that got to do with ice-9 and th-the Priestess of Amon-Ra again?" Junpei shoved the pork in his pocket—he was giving up on keeping his clothes clean at this point—and continued searching the shelves.

"P-probably the same phenomena," Santa offered. "L-like ice-9 deciding to freeze with the structure that allows it to h-have a higher melting p-point, the glycerine crystallization happened the s-same way."

"Morphogenic fields." June made a noise of confusion so Junpei explained. "Lotus was...there was this b-biochemist. It's about in-invisible fields that carry information. If it ex-exists, then who's to say humans are th-the only ones who can store or r-retrieve information using it."

"B-but if ice-9 is the same, why haven't the oceans f-frozen over?" Santa asked.

"Salt." June's answer didn't seem satisfactory, but Santa didn't press her.

Instead, he chose to focus his confusion on Junpei. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"Dry ice bomb." Junpei lifted the hatch and let out a hissing, "Yes." There was an empty bottle and some rope—cold to the touch but not frozen stiff—in the hatch. He started shoving chunks of dry ice in the bottle using his shirt sleeve as a glove.

Santa looked at the dry ice, then the door. "Do you plan on b-blowing us up too?!"

Junpei wrapped the rope around the bottle so he could hook it on the door handle then removed the cap. "Hop in th-the hatch. We can use the d-door to shield us. It's big enough."

"You're f-fucking crazy." Santa still got in the hatch, helping June step down as well. Junpei added the warm water to the bottle and, as the ice began to turn to gas, capped it off and tied it to the doorknob.

It was a really good thing he had been so gentle. Just one tap and the bomb would have probably taken his hands off, at the very least. Junpei picked up a chunk of dry ice left over from making the bomb, hunkered down by the hatch, and threw it against the bottle. The second that the ice left his hand, he ducked into the cellar and pulled the door down. A deafening sound rocked through the freezer. Junpei threw the hatch up and rushed to the door, sliding a little on the ice-covered floor. The door handle—now free of ice—moved in his grip and he shoved the door open, ecstatic to be free of the freezer.

"Oh thank fuck!" Junpei leaned against the wall, shaking his hands to try and get feeling back in his fingers. Behind him, June and Santa rushed out as well, their faces bright pink.

Santa slammed his hand down on the grill and started screaming. It seemed like an extreme reaction to nearly freezing to death but also...Junpei couldn't blame anyone for acting odd. He was probably the worst offender today. Santa swore and kicked the grill, pulling his hand off. Now his skin was pink for a different reason.

Lotus, who had been leaning against the service counter, looked at them with surprise. "What the hell was that noise? Is Santa okay?"

"Bomb and probably?" Junpei's first instinct on escaping was to assume that Lotus had purposefully closed them in the freezer, but the smarter, louder part of him—the part that knew things that hadn't happened yet—knew that if she wanted them dead, she could have just bolted the latch shut. She didn't, she just also didn't do anything else to help.

"Fuck!" Santa swore one last time.

"Feel better?" Lotus asked. He shot her a scathing look and she just held her hands up defensively. "Just asking."

"Shut up. I'm gonna go stick my hands in the sink."

"Yuck." June grimaced.

"Well, better that than let my hands hurt forever." Santa walked off and June followed him, probably to try and warm her hands up too—or make sure he was okay.

Junpei turned to the grill and threw the pork on it. Lotus, confused by his actions, came over and looked at the slowly cooking meat. "Hungry?" Her tone was teasing and light.

"Not for this." Junpei poked it with a barbecue fork, testing to see how soft it was. "There's paper in this. I figure I can cut it out if it's not frozen. Plus, I don't know how old this meat is. I'm not taking chances." One side was pretty cooked so Junpei flipped it over. It did smell good, kinda. Junpei poked the meat again. Still a little cold in the center.

When he figured it was done enough he skewered the meat on the barbecue fork and walked it to the area with the cutting boards. Then he began to work on removing the piece of paper with the kitchen knife he sharpened.

He'd done an okay job getting the edge back on the knife but it cut like a pair of safety scissors through cardboard. It took Junpei several moments to finally work the paper free and by then his hands were covered in meat grease. Maybe he should also submerge his hands in the sink water. Yuck.

The paper read: C + 10 + F

Of course hexadecimal was going to be important. That's why the voucher with the plate numbers was there. C was twelve, ten was sixteen, and F was fifteen. Twelve plus sixteen plus fifteen was forty-three. Junpei punched it into the number pad lock on the oven and was rewarded for remembering something Lotus told him. The oven opened.

"Hell yeah." Junpei pulled a blue and black keycard out from in the oven. It had a familiar symbol on it. "Hey June? Isn't this the symbol for Saturn?" He stood up and handed it to her as she walked over.

June looked at the card with wonder in her eyes. "Yes! Do you think this is the keycard to leave?"

"I don't see anything else we could do, so probably." Junpei wiped his grease-covered hands on his pants again and grimaced. These jeans were never getting clean after this. Ever. "Why don't you give it a try?"

June and everyone else walked over to the reader near the door and she swiped it. The light flashed green, it beeped, and she grabbed the door and threw it open. Finally, they'd managed to escape the kitchen.

#the sheepy writes fic #Schrödinger's Cat Fic #999 #zero escape #ze #999 spoilers #long post #every chapter will have links to the song for the chapter but also I'm not posting a chapter total until I'm fucking done #also im only using vocal synth songs for chapter titles because i wanna spread the love for them #dont say shit if you notice the small sample size in producers i couldnt find appropriate ones lmao #part one of chapter one #coz i hit the 15K line and went ''maybe i should split this up''#chapters after this one will be shorter...maybe #i cannot say coz i do not know lmao

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therandosfandos · 4 months

Text

We're getting a bit into the drama but we're not fully there yet ✨✨

As Bender finally landed the ship, he struggled a bit to get down the stairs without the package falling. It said it was fragile, so he had to be careful. He also had to control his urge just to break the fucking thing because he liked to see pissed off looks on people's faces. The professor told him directly not to get into any trouble and for once, the robot decided he'd listen.

His footcups finally felt the ground. Hard and rocky. There was at least a forest like environment around him. No living quarters in his sight range.

So, he trudged forwards to find where to deliver the box to. There was a dark path through the woods. However before he started to go through it, he noticed a sign next to the path.

"Danger! Creatures Lie Beyond This Point"

The robot only scoffed and bent the sign with a devious laugh. He continued onwards. Within about fifteen minutes, the area had an eery feel. There was owl noises and crickets chirping. Bender felt afraid, but he refused to show it. What if someone was around and saw him vulnerable and defenseless?

Then suddenly, there was a rustling sound in between the trees. Loud stomping. There was a deep growl. A black nose poked out from a bush and the growl followed. Bender took a step back, darting his eyes back and forth, ready to cheese it out of there. Well, that's what he tried to do until the creature leaped onto him, a black wolf. It bit through his arm tube, sparks and wires everywhere as Bender screamed in pain. He flung his arm around, trying to throw the animal off like usual but with his arm tube being torn open, so was his strength ability in that same general area.

"GET OFF OF ME YOU STUPID MUTT!!", the robot yelled at the top of his non-existent lungs. Suddenly the wolf seemed to be yanked off as a gunshot was heard. Blood pouring out from the animals wound as it scurried away.

He looked for whoever just saved his damn life. A woman in a scout outfit. She was blond, her hair up in a ponytail with a blue ribbon. The ponytail was secured through her rounded camper hat that had a black stripe through it. She wore light attire, caci shorts with deep pockets and a caci shirt that also had many pockets. She had a full bag on her back and had boots up to her knees. Her eyes were hazel, her skin a darkish tan color and she had freckles.

Bender was downright grateful as his one life could of been snatched away right there. He looked at her and did an awkward cough. So she spoke first, "hello, there, I'm Anna", She chuckles, extending her hand to which the robot shakes in a firm grip with his only non broken arm. The robot speaks, "Bender", he also does a nod.

"It gets quite wild around these parts, huh?", the woman speaks with a small cackle and Bender follows that with a small nervous giggle. He was afraid but masking it. Then he asks, "hey, wait a minute, you're a human?".

The woman nods and Bender seems confused, "if you're a human, why the hell are you on this planet instead of Earth or the damn Moon?". Ana tilts her head at him, "oh, my family moved here years ago when they found this planet safe enough to explore", she starts, "we're basically zoologists, we're studying this habitat and also finding new creatures". Oh, that explains it then.

Bender rolled his eyes in response. Ana seemed way too cheerful for his liking. It contrasted with his own mood and personality, if he even said something snarky, she probably wouldn't even mind it. That meant he wouldn't get a reaction he hoped out of her. He only crosses his arms with a bored look.

Her eyes widen when she sees the robots broken arm tube, "oh dear! You're broken!". Bender's optics went wide before they narrow and he hides his injury under his fixed metal hand, "it's nothing, meatbag!".

Ana frowns, "it doesn't look like nothing". Wow, she really wasn't going to back off. Luckily, she didn't touch him, only beckoned him to follow as she started to walk in a certain direction, her shotgun in hand in case of an attack. This leaves Bender the debate whether to follow her or travel on his own. He chose the first option, "wait! What's your last name, meatbag?".

"Lopo", she smiles as she answers him. Bender looks at his package, it wasn't for any 'Lopo' family. "Nope, but this damn thing says it's for some idiot named James Zack Hutz", Bender states, rolling his eyes again. Then he sees Ana halt in her tracks, she turns to the bending unit with a stern expression and marches up right into his faceplate, her nose barely touching above his mouthplate and under his visor, "don't ever go near that guy or his fucking fiends", she speaks, her voice laced with hatred, "if you know what's good for you, you'll leave as soon as we fix you up".

She turns back around and marches onward. Bender looked confused and slightly intrigued. He snapped himself out of it. Eh, it's probably best to just ignore that, must be some family drama mumbo jumbo.

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

"Are we sure he's okay?, he's been gone for a while...", Benders boyfriend asks as he fiddles with his hands and munched on the sleeve of his red jacket. Leela stops him from doing that, "look, I'm sure he's fine, he's probably just caught up in stealing every valuable on that planet", she reassures but it didn't so much good.

Amy then mutters, "I'm gonna be surprised if he even made it past the Mahera quadrant...", but her voice also showed worry. Hermes and the professor walked in and Zoidberg followed, clapping his claws.

The professor takes a seat in his chair and taps his hands together, "I've got good news, everyone! We're going to go to an arcade!", He speaks with joy in his old man voice.

"But what about Bender?" Fry asks, almost yelling it out. Farnsworth just shrugs and looks at Hermes, "who the hell is that?".

Leela rolled her eye and facepalms, "oh lord...".

#futurama #bender #fry #frender #on a bent planet far away from you

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middleearthpixie · 2 years

Text

The River

Happy summer, @lathalea!! Here is the your story that I wrote as part of the @gatesofsummerexchange Tolkien Summer Exchange! I hope you enjoy it! 💜 💜 💜

Summary: Pre-Quest for Erebor

Pairing: Thorin Oakenshield x Fem!Dwarf Reader

Characters: Thorin Oakenshield

Warnings: Some fluff, some angst

Rating: T

Words: 2,983

***

“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”

~ The River, Bruce Springsteen, The River, Columbia Records, 1980

The river held a special place in your heart and always would, even if sometimes, when you looked back upon it, the memory of it could and did hurt like a thousand small blades cutting into your skin at once. You sat there, just listening to the rush of the water, so harsh when it slapped against the rocks, when it washed over the downed tree limbs, and whisked along all of the other debris that found its way into the waves, but then it calmed once more and carried everything its swift currents as it wound around the bend and out of sight.

“There you are.”

You looked up as the shadow fell over you and you smiled as Thorin sank onto the ground alongside you. He looked more disheveled than usual, with bits of leaves and twigs in his hair, his dark gray henley spattered with dirt, with more dirt smudged across his face as well. “Did you meet up with a pack of orcs between here and the village?”

He responded with a low laugh, shaking his head. “No. I was thrown from my pony, actually.”

“What? How did that happen?”

“Something spooked him and before you ask, I’ve no idea. He threw me, then bolted and I can only hope the fool finds his way home before much longer.”

“Are you all right?”

“I had the wind knocked from me and my shoulder took the brunt of my fall, but I’ll be fine. Just a bit sore.”

“Do I dare hope that means you’ve changed your mind?”

“About heading to the Iron Hills?” He shook his head. “No. I’ve not changed my mind about that at all. I thought you understood that.”

“I don’t understand any of it,” you told him, looking back out at the water. The late afternoon sunlight sparkled across the surface, made it look as if the waters themselves were precious diamonds rolling off into the distance. A hint of summer hung in the air, carrying on it the soft sweetness of the honeysuckle and jasmine that grew throughout the forest.

He’d told you of his plans to leave Ered Luin and travel to sit down with his cousin in the east and from there, to head toward the Shire, where he was to meet up with a wizard and a hobbit, of all creatures. He had a plan, he’d said, to reclaim his ancestral home of Erebor from the northern firedrake who’d stolen it so many years ago. You tried not to think about it, but as the time for his departure loomed imminently now, it was the only thing you could think about.

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“No,” you said without thinking, “but you expect me to wait for you.”

He offered up a long look, but said nothing. Instead, he rose abruptly, striding away from you, away from the village, following the river as it wound like a diamond-studded black ribbon across the earth.

“Thorin, wait!” You scrambled to your feet to give chase, and caught up with him just where the river rounded the bend. Grabbing his arm, you tried to stop him, digging your boot heels into the ground for traction.

He stopped. “What?”

“Can you fault me for being upset?” You reached up to finger the small sapphire he’d woven into your hair only three nights earlier. No one knew it was there, and that was how it would stay for now. No one knew you and Thorin had moved beyond friendship, that he passed the last seven nights in your bed, loving you beyond reason, beyond sanity, beyond anything you ever thought possible.

“I thought you understood.”

“I do,” you nodded, meeting his pale blue eyes to hold his gaze, “but I don’t at the same time. I told you, whether you are king or blacksmith, I don’t care. I want you, regardless of what title you hold. And I thought you wanted me the same way.”

“I do.” He caught your hands in his and your heart leapt at the first touch. His hands were huge, with thick fingers. Hands trained to kill, but hands that knew how to be gentle, how to touch you in ways that made you feel as if you were the most delicate thing he’d ever stroked. “But, there is little future here for us, and if I can give us something better, something brighter, I have to try.”

“Thorin…” Your heart beat so hard against your ribs, you’d swear he could hear it as well, “our future here would be fine. It’s you who won’t be content, not me.”

He eased one hand free to curve it against your cheek, his thumb moving lightly along your chin, causing the beads in your beard to clack softly. “I have to do this. You know I’d not leave you otherwise.”

Your eyelids grew so heavy with each pass of his thumb against your skin. Until the previous week, you could only imagine what it would be like to be loved by him. And now you knew, and now you had to let go of him. He’d be gone at least a year, possibly longer. And it was entirely possible he would not return—a thought to horrid to contemplate and yet to real to ignore.

Your eyes stung, and the last thing you wanted was to let him see you cry, so you gave into the urge to close your eyes. As you did, he caught your face in both hands and tilted your head to meet his kiss.

His lips were sinfully soft and moved with exquisite slowness against yours. At the gentle probe of his tongue, you parted your lips, welcomed the sensual invasion, your toes curling in your boots as his tongue glided along yours. He kissed the way he did everything else, wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm, and you let your hands curved about his wrists as he drew your tongue into his mouth now to taste, to savor, to stroke.

You slid your hands along his forearms, up over the bulges of his biceps. Your fingers slid through the tangle of his dark hair, and when your fingertips brushed his nape, he shivered softly against you.

He drew back and smiled down at you. “Come with me.”

“Come with you where?”

He didn't answer, but led you down a narrow trail, back to the river, south of where it bent and vanished beyond Ered Luin’s borders. His blue eyes danced with the devil as he murmured, “No one will trouble us here.”

Another sweep of his lips against yours and he stepped back to strip his henley over his head. The late afternoon sunlight brought a golden aura to his skin, highlighted the swells of muscle along his shoulders and wrapped down his arms, across his broad chest. It glinted off the dark hair that curled away from his firm skin from just below his collarbones to his navel, and from there, it narrowed into a trail that vanished beneath the waist of his trousers. He held your gaze as he kicked off his boots, loosened his belt, shed his trousers and your mouth went dry at the sight of your powerful dwarf naked and aroused before you.

He was beautiful. Just so very beautiful, indeed.

But he gave you no time to admire him. Instead, he laughed, brushed your lips with his, and whispered, “Join me,” before turning to the water. Three long strides and he dove in, cutting into the water like a scythe, causing barely a ripple along the river’s surface.

He was a third of the way across the river when he surfaced, droplets clinging like molten silver to his skin, his hair, his beard, beaded across his barrel chest. His laugh rang out as he called, “Are you shy, amrâlimê? It’s nothing I’ve not already seen, remember.”

“You are an ass, you know.”

Another booming laugh echoed, loud enough to startle birds from where they nested in the trees. You kicked off your own boots, shed trousers and tunic, and walked with a purposeful stride toward the water, a sense of headiness surging through you at his growled, “Mahal, you are stunning. And all mine.”

The water was cold, especially against your already-heated skin, but you bit down on your bottom lip and threw yourself into it, letting the icy chill devour you all at once. When you surfaced and swept your streaming hair from your eyes, he was there with you, and snaked one arm out to catch you about the waist.

His lips found yours, beaded with water, hot and cold at the same time. You wound your arms about his neck, your legs about his waist, and caught his soft moan in your mouth. His arms tightened about you, pulled you hard against him, and as his body met yours, you shivered against him this time.

You drew back as he swept a kiss down over your chin and along your neck, your head lolling back as he flicked the tip of his tongue into the hollow of your throat. He lifted you easily, to kiss his way down your breastbone, along the inner curve of your right breast. Down along the supple swelling, and up to capture your nipple with his lips.

The tip of his tongue flicked across it, fluttered back and forth until it tightened into an aching pebble. You twisted your fingers in his hair, rocked gently against him, unable to hold back your sigh as the friction of coarse hair against your sensitive flesh created a delicious sensation rippling through you.

You slid one hand free, let it graze down through that damp hair, along his belly, into the swirling depths of the river. You found him, hard and proud and when you curled your fingers about him, he let out a sigh against your breast, tightened his arms about your waist.

He shivered and you knew the river water had nothing to do with it. It was your touch, your caress, that had him moaned softly into your wet skin and trembling against you. With gentle teeth, he nipped your breast, whispering, “Amrâlimê, have you any idea what you do to me?”

“I’m fairly certain the answer is yes,” you murmured back, smiling as he pulled back, his eyes smoky with desire and heavy-lidded with need. You loved when he looked at you as he did right then. He made your knees weak even when you weren’t standing, and made your bones feel as if they’d gone to jelly.

You bent to meet his kiss and with the hand wrapped around him, guided him into you and with a low moan, he thrust to fill you. You joined him in that soft moan, linking your fingers at his nape as you moved with him. Water sloshed around you with each slow, teasing thrust he offered, and when you met his gaze, you melted from the inside out.

“I love you,” he whispered. “And I will be back for you. I promise you this.”

“You had better,” you whispered back, a slow tremble taking root deep inside you. The end bore down upon you, you felt it in the tension winding through Thorin’s body, in the knots that twisted so sweetly within your core. You were nearly at the summit and once you reached that… there was no going back.

He thrust harder now and you couldn't hold back your smile as you said, “And I do love you back, Thorin. Nalish.”

You tightened your legs about him, rocked hard to meet him, and when his lips found yours again, you shivered in his arms, arched hard against his body, and sighed deep into his mouth as your release came upon you. The muscles in his arms bulged as he moved harder against you, as he lifted and lowered you against him, and then…

“Amrâlimê… oh, yes…” He moaned, shuddering and arching hard against you as he surrendered to his own release.

You sank against him, nuzzling him as you whispered, “Promise me you will be careful, Thorin. It’s such a dangerous thing you will be doing.”

He trembled in your arms, pressing a tender kiss into your shoulder before murmuring, “I will be fine, mesmel. And when I return, you will be my queen.”

You lifted your head, which still spun from his attentions, and stared. “What?”

A slight smile played at his lips. “If you will have me, that is.”

“Thorin…?”

“Say you will marry me, and let me carry that with me on my journey.”

Your heart beat faster against your ribs, your eyes searching his even as you managed to reply, “Do you mean that?”

“I do, yes. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Even when you were nothing more than a wee pest following me about with my sister, always underfoot and wanting my attention.”

“It worked, though,” you replied with a smile, “for I now have your undivided attention.”

He tightened his arms about you. “You’ve not answered me, you know.”

“Do you think I will say anything other than yes?” You caught a long black curl to tuck behind his left ear. “Of course I’ll have you.”

His smile stretched into his pale eyes, brightening them as he drew you in for another soft, lingering kiss.

You lay entwined on the river bank, in the soft grass, your head on his chest, his heart beating softly beneath your ear. His fingers coursed lightly along your hair, and the only sounds were those of the forest getting ready to settle down for the night. As the sunlight died, twilight crept in, stars spangling the purple-streaked sky, and a soft breeze danced over your bare skin. Without thinking, you trailed your fingers through the soft hair curling away from his broad chest, and as you lay there, you thought you could spend the rest of your days just like this, lying in his arms, in tranquil peace.

“I wish this night would never end,” you whispered.

“As do I,” he said. Grass rustled softly as he shifted onto his side to gaze down on you with sleepy eyes. “But unfortunately, time halts for no one, not even lovers.”

“I don’t want you to go, Thorin. I know you feel you must, but I wish you wouldn’t. I have such a terrible feeling about this, that something terrible will befall you.”

“You need not worry.” He came over you, forearms braced in the grass on either side of your head, his broad body blotting out the remnants of sunlight that still streaked through the sky, tinging the indigo with pale coral and soft pink. His eyes glittered softly as they held yours and his lips were gentle when they caressed yours. Your eyes closed at the soft scruff of his beard against yours, and they stung when he murmured, “I will be back for you, amrâlimê. Trust me.”

“I do trust you, so you had better come back or else.”

“Good.” He reluctantly pulled away and stood, gilded by the dying sunlight and more beautiful than you’d ever seen him look. “Now, as much as I hate to see this wonderful day end, we both need return to the village before gossips run wild.”

You both dressed slowly, neither one of you in any hurry to return to reality. But it was unavoidable, as he was right. Time would not halt for either of you no matter how much you wanted it to.

As you made your way back toward the village, at the edge of the woods, Thorin turned to you, his massive hands coming up to cradle your face as he murmured, “I will miss you.”

Tears stung your eyes, but you managed to hold them back. Come the morning, when he departed for the Iron Hills, you would be allowed to do no more than wish him well and offer up a smile that only he would understand. You’d see his emotion in his eyes, but wouldn’t be able to bring any attention to it.

But now? Now you were able to anything you wished, and so you slid your arms about his waist, and closed the space between you to let your head come to rest against is chest. “I will miss you as well, you know. And I will worry endlessly.”

His arms came tight about you, he pressed a kiss into your head, and then his cheek came to rest upon it. “Do not worry for me. I am taking my best men and will be fine when all is said and done. You need only worry about planning the celebration to end all celebrations when Erebor is ours and we announce our betrothal.”

You looked up at him. “Hurry back.”

“I will.”

He bent to you then, his kiss long and lingering and unlike any other kiss he’d ever offered. Passion. Desire. Love. Lust. All were rolled into his kiss, and when you parted, an icy finger seemed to trail down along your spine. You couldn't put into words the fear that swirled thorough you, and it was just as well, for you knew he’d just reassure you that all would be well if you were able to voice that fear.

You parted then and as he disappeared over the crest of a hill toward his house, you stopped and turned to look at the river once more. It would always hold a special place in your heart, even if sometimes the memory of it could and did hurt like a thousand small blades cutting into your skin at once.

***

Tag List: @tschrist1 @i-did-not-mean-to @lathalea @bitter-sweet-farmgirl @linasofia @fizzyxcustard @legolasbadass @kibleedibleedoo @xxbyimm @arrthurpendragon @exhausted-humxn-being @rachel1959 @laurfilijames @sketch-and-write-lover @sherala007 @enchantzz @knitastically @notlostgnome @myselfandfantasy @ggfamert @medusas-hairband @guardianofrivendell @jotink78

#thorin oakenshield #richard armitage #Thorin x reader #the hobbit #the hobbit fanfic #thorin x oc #thorin fic #romance #the hobbit fan fiction #Thorin x You #gos2022 #gatesofsummer2022

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kaijuparfait · 2 months

Text

Hazbin sona

design subject to change, very self indulgent, i've spent way too much of my time thinking about her and how she works:

everything can be explained by "i do what i want" and "because it sounded cool"- also i'm just using my art style for this, i'll mess around with the Hellaverse style at a later date

Sinner - Died from food poisoning (Gluttony)

Overlord - Owns and controls the largest portion of agriculture in hell

-- Makes plants grow faster, healthier, and in higher quantities

All bodily fluids are acid :D (a play on "citric acid")

-- Can consume and digest any and all foods and items, no matter if they are rotting and/or normally inedible, with no repercussions (this includes things like Val's smoke/love potions)

-- Acid can also be used as a weapon, being very dangerous if consumed or comes into contact with people/items

---- Can be used as a healing agent for small wounds and/or muscle/joint aches when in very small amounts

-- Acid can be secreted from glands around the base of each claw

The large, orange parts on her head, arms and legs are not her actual limbs, but are instead orange-like "armor"

-- They have the texture of normal oranges and are stronger than a regular orange- not by much, they can handle normal hits, but anything sharp or above your typical punch/kick will cause damage

---- This can be used as an advantage, as attacks on these parts of the body can lead to a larger amount of acid leaking out, even without hurting the body

-- The claws themselves are similar in texture to orange seeds, but are much stronger and can be sharpened and rounded at will

-- The parts around her head retract quickly, usually to protect the head and face from wind, dust, smoke, and simple, weak attacks

Clothes are based on a Native American ribbon skirt (default form).

The outer skirt splits open on either side in the Full Demon form to reveal another skirt underneath, similar in style to certain Native American women's fancy shawl regalia

-- The chest piece/cape is also based on that from Fancy Shawl regalia

Belt is a leather concho belt, with plain, circular conchos all around and a plain, heart-shaped concho on the front

The color palette aligns with oranges and limes

-- Hair is soft and curly, resembles that of rotting oranges in color

Leaves are decoration, they are not weapons and act similar to animal ears, corelating to her expressions

In combat, Citrus is best suited for things up close.

-- She is fast and her attacks hit hard, but she has no long range attacks and is very defensively weak

---- The best she can get with long range is by putting acid into breakable containers and throwing them, but that is very limited and depended on her aim, throwing abilities, and the limited time it can be stored before burning through the container

Despite having fairly good eyesight, having 4 eyes messes with her depth perception

-- Upper/Main eyes are more for day-to-day use

-- Lower eyes are for a wider peripheral and better "night vision" (not 100% night vision, but can see better in low light)

---- In her Full Demon form, the main eyes compound for an even wider peripheral and better movement detection

Eyes are red, like that of a fruit fly

In comparison/relation the canon cast of HH:

-- One of the nicer Overlords, but matches their lack of hesitation to cause violence and a general want for power

-- Takes the title of "Youngest Overlord", she's still an adult but has both been in hell for a lesser time and died at a younger age than any of the other Overlords

Its a conscious decision to not interact with most Overlords- and even just most people (she doodles on napkins during meetings)

-- Idolizes Missi Zilla and sees her as a big sister

-- Looks up to Alastor and Carmilla in some ways

---- Alastor for his power and abilities

---- Carmilla for her business power and place she holds in hell as a well known weapons dealer

-- She enjoys chatting with Nifty and Angel about various topics, from how their day was to any gossip they've gained

-- Had one conversation with Husk and went "father figure"

-- Taller than Nifty, but shorter than Vaggie

#kaijuparfait art #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel art #hazbin hotel oc #hazbin hotel sona #hellaverse oc #hellaverse sona

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thelibrarylesstrektraveled · 1 year

Text

Nightingale Chapter Fourteen - The Reckoning

Summary: Jensen Ackles seemed to have it all. A hit television series fifteen years running, a budding music career and a stunning wife. To the casual observer, his life was perfect. But it was a façade. No more real than the supernatural world created on a soundstage.

That day on the lake had started with uncertainty, but when he pulled you from the water everything became clear. The truth was, he’d been the one drowning.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Jensen x Reader, Jensen x You

Characters: Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Genevieve Padalecki, Misha Collins, Reader

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Drowning, Fluff, Angst, Smut, unprotected sex

Chapter Fourteen: The Reckoning

Word Count: 6072

Author’s Notes: This is a complete work of fiction about a real life person. The circumstances are totally made up and are in no way a commentary on the fantastic Jensen Ackles or his family.

This is also a unique reader insert story as I have given the reader a physical description including hair color, eye color and body type. Hopefully you can still lose yourself in the utter fantasy where Jensen is the hero and you are ripe for rescuing!

Masterlist

Nightingale Masterlist

Jensen followed the smell of freshly brewed coffee to the kitchen. When he woke alone, he had that brief moment of panic that last night was just a dream. But there you were. Bare footed, wearing his button down from last night, humming as you iced hot cinnamon rolls. You licked white frosting from your thumb while spreading your knife with the other hand. Delightfully unaware that you were being admired from the kitchen doorway. It was a charmingly domestic scene that Jensen didn’t think he’d ever witness again.

You were lost in your own thoughts when two thick arms came around your waist. A very warm, solid, familiar form molded to you from behind. Jensen’s breath tickled your ear as he rested his chin on your shoulder.

The hot kiss he pressed to the junction of your neck and shoulder had you humming happily. “Well, good morning.”

“Very good morning.” He grinned as you turned in his grasp to face him. Your arms wound around his neck and your lips found his.

You nipped playfully at his bottom lip, “Are you hungry?”

“You offering breakfast or round two?” You swatted his backside and slid out of his grasp. “I mean, I’m down for either! Or both… hopefully both…”

You handed him a large mug of black coffee and instructed him to sit while you plated up the cinnamon rolls. You had to smile at the surprised look that crossed his face when he tasted them.

“Wow, these are actually edible.”

You narrowed your eyes over the rim of your cup, “I’m not completely inept in the kitchen.”

“I have three scorched saucepans that would disagree,” Jensen leaned over and grabbed another roll. “Seriously, these are like blue ribbon at the county fair.”

“Alright, fine… they’re Maddy’s recipe. I was living on ramen and Captain Crunch when I first moved back here so she made a bunch of stuff and filled my freezer. All I had to do was follow the instructions”

His smile faded a bit at the mention of the days right after your breakup. “I’ll have to thank her the next time I see her. Although, I think she’d rather spit in my face.”

“She wouldn’t do that. Not if the kids are with her,” You reached over to toy with his fingers, “Besides, Chrissy still likes you.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s just using me for my Nintendo.”

“Not anymore, he got one for Christmas.”

“Now I really am screwed!”

The two of you laughed softly before falling into an awkward silence. You kept the contact of his fingers in yours, hoping that he knew you weren’t angry with him. The guilt was coming off him in waves. There was so much unresolved between you. It was ignored easily enough in the night, but it loomed large in the unforgiving light of day.

“Hey.” You squeezed his fingers, prompting him to look at you, “I love you.”

He let out the breath he’d been holding, “I love you too.”

“Good.” You nodded; it was a start. “Now what?”

Jensen chuckled, “I have no idea. Go home?”

When your expression fell, he panicked. “Sweetheart, it’s your call. Whatever you want, I’ll do anything…”

You put your hand to his lips, stopping his rambling with a sad smile. He was worried. Afraid, and God did you understand that.

“I love you.” You said it again, just to make sure he never doubted it. “But Jay, we can’t go back to the way things were.”

“Because you don’t want to?”

“Because it didn’t last. You know when Clif showed you those files…”

Jensen cut you off, “I meant it when I said I don’t care about the files. Or the articles or any of it.”

“I know, and I believe you. I do, but you also kept it from me.” You hated yourself for pointing it out, but knew you had to. “You sat on those files for a week and said nothing.”

“I didn’t want to scare you. God knows, it scared me! All those names… baby, you must have been running from something. Something bad. And if you can’t remember it, how in the hell am I supposed to protect you from it?”

“You can’t.”

It was the truth, but that didn’t make it wany easier to say. “There are a million things that could happen. To me or to you. The only way we’re going to get through any of it is together.”

“You’ve been protecting me since you pulled me out of that lake. You’re a hero. You’re my hero. But I am okay now, Jensen… I’m better. I’m healed.”

He trailed a finger down your cheek, tracing where that bruise had been, “You don’t have your memories back.”

“I don’t think I ever will,” you said with a small shrug. “It’s been seven months, I’m back in my old job and apartment. If they haven’t come back by now, they likely won’t. And you’re right, I was probably running. I wish I knew why. But my face was all over the media with that TMZ story, if something was coming… wouldn’t it have showed up by now?”

“You make good points.”

“I’ve had a long time to think about it. I don’t want to pretend none of this happened. I don’t want to build a life on a faulty foundation. I want to work through it, so we can come out stronger on the other side.”

He took both of your hands in his. Your strong, skilled doctor’s hands. The hands that had soothed his brow when he was sick and held him when he was grieving. They fit with his, just as they always had.

“You want to build a life with me? Even still?”

Your eyes softened, “When I told you to stay, I didn’t mean just for the night.”

“So, you don’t want to move back in with me now. But… someday?” he asked hopefully.

“Someday. But for now, let’s date.”

“Date?”

“Yeah, you know… like normal people!” You tilted your head to the side playfully, “Unless you’re already taken.”

Jensen gave you a thoughtful look, then tugged you over to sit on his lap, “Well, there is this girl I’ve got my eye on.”

“Oh?”

“Yup. She’s this hot shot doctor with legs for days.”

You slung your arms around his neck, “Huh.”

“She’s super smart too… and funny. Eyes like Bluebonnets, maybe you’re seen her?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Oh? Well, she does this swirly thing with her tongue on my….”

“Shut up,” you grinned, swallowing the rest of his words with a kiss.

Three months later an unusually warm spring came to Vancouver. Snow disappeared, trees burst with fresh leaves and the grass greened up almost overnight. The night at the Green Room was a distant memory to you now as you and Jensen resumed your relationship. There was lots of work to be done, but you were both committed to the task. In the end, you only stayed at your apartment during long stints at the hospital. But it worked to help the two of you keep a balance as you rebuilt the trust that had been damaged.

Jensen still didn’t agree with you about leaving your murky past in the past, but he did agree to let it present itself in its own time. The mystery of how your private information got leaked to the press, was another matter. It took surprisingly little digging to discover the source.

“Wait… who?”

“You remember that little red head that worked the desk down in the health club?”

You furrowed your brow in concentration, “No.”

“Do you remember the time you lost your phone in the changing room? Someone turned it in at the desk a few hours later?”

“Oh,” your eyes widened, “Oh yeah! She said it was found in the elevator.”

“Her little brother interns at TMZ, I guess he got quite the promotion for that story.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“I wish. Anyway, it was a clear privacy violation, not to mention staff policy so they let her go this morning.”

“All this from losing my phone for an afternoon,” you shook your head, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I should have believed you that night, regardless of what that article said. I knew better. It happens a lot in this industry, I should have thought of that.”

You shook your head again, this time brushing a kiss over his lips. “No more ‘I’m sorry’s’ huh? We both know where we stand now. All’s forgiven, we’re good. Right?”

“Right.”

There was power in forgiveness. Perhaps even more than love. So often love is unconscious. It exists as an outside force that we are subject to, like the wind, or gravity. It crops up out of nowhere and leaves us reeling. Forgiveness may stem from love, but it’s not a whim. It’s a choice. You and Jensen chose each other and that was a foundation you could build on.

“Doctor Baines, report to the E.R. stat. Doctor Baines, to the E.R. stat.”

You had just finished changing into your regular clothes when you heard the page over the intercom. You threw your lab coat back on over your t-shirt and ran back to the emergency room. It was a two car collision between a family of four and a drunk driver. The staff immediately shifted into triage mode as you barked orders. Emotions shut off and training took over.

It was a God awful, bloody mess.

An hour later, it was over. Ending just as you knew it would the minute you saw them. Only one survivor, the girl. Everyone else succumbed to their injuries, including the fucking drunk driver. Your staff performed like the heroes they were, you couldn’t have been more proud. You took on the task of telling the families. It was your job and if you could spare your co-workers any additional trauma, you were damn well going to.

God! The look on the grandfather’s face would haunt you forever! And he still thanked you. He fucking thanked you for saving the girl, even though his family was utterly shattered!

You managed to hold yourself with professional poise and condolences until you were down the hall. Then your stomach constricted, and you bolted into the ladies’ room just in time to lose your lunch in the first stall. You didn’t know how long you sat there, your heart thundering in your ears and your head throbbing with every beat. After a time, you heard the bathroom door open.

“You okay, kid?”

McMillan. “Aces.”

Tony leaned his hip on the counter as he looked down at you still on the tiled floor. “You did everything right.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“That girl is going to make it because of you.”

“Yeah, and when she finds out the rest of her family didn’t, I’m sure she’ll send me a fucking fruit basket.”

Tony watched you angrily launch yourself up and over to the sink to splash water on your face. “We can’t save everyone Gabs, you know that. It comes with the territory.”

“Well, the territory sucks.”

“Some days, yeah. Other days, we save lives, and those days outweigh the bad ones. Even when we fail a million times, it’s worth it for the one time we don’t.”

You scoffed, drying your face with a paper towel, “Where’d you come up with that? Pre-Med or the inside of a Snapple cap?”

He tilted his head, “From you. The day I interviewed you, hired you on the spot.”

“I wish I remembered,” you said, tossing the paper in the bin.

“I do too. I’m giving you three days leave.”

“Tony…”

“This isn’t a disciplinary action, nor a request.” He gave your shoulder a fatherly squeeze. “This is preventative mental care. I’m not going to let you spiral down again. Take a few days and take care of yourself so you can come back and kick ass.”

“Are you sure they don’t mind us dropping in on them? Maybe they want to spend some family time together.” You said, quietly looking out the window at the passing landscape.

“Gen practically begged me, Jared too. Three kids are a lot even for the two of them, and at least with you and me there we’ll outnumber the little rug rats.” Jensen reached over the adjusted the air-conditioned controls. “Besides, you and I didn’t get a chance to swim the last time we were up here.”

“That’s because it was snowing.”

“Still,” he took your hand in his and squeezed. “Still.”

You both fell silent for the rest of the car ride. You knew he was worried about you. Again. He came home to find you still up after that horrible shift. Sitting in the dark, your knees drawn up to your chest. You told him everything. How you felt like a failure for not being able to pull yourself together. You were supposed to be a professional. You’d lost patients before, but this hit you hard. And you couldn’t keep your mind from thinking about the dreams you used to have of those girls. You hadn’t had one in a very long time. Maybe you’d failed them too. Maybe that was why they were back, haunting you.

Jensen was quick to suggest a trip to the cabin. He might not be able to give you answers, but he could help with the stress. The Padaleckis were in town to spend a few days at their cabin, take advantage of the warm weather and down time before the final filming push. He wasn’t kidding about Gen; she loved the idea of having another woman around. And he loved those kids as if they were his own niece and nephews. Plus, kids are great at pulling you into the present, they certainly did when he was going through his divorce.

Gen greeted you both as you pulled up, “Hey! It’s the cavalry!”

You climbed out of the car and into a tight hug. Gen was surprisingly strong for a woman of her stature. “I don’t know about that, but we did bring graham crackers.”

“Thank God! Smores at the cabin is a Padalecki family tradition, if we don’t have all the ingredients, things get ugly.”

“The little one gets vicious,” Jensen said as he pulled your suitcases out of the trunk. “Last time I saw her, she held my gummy bears hostage until I put Harry Potter on.”

Gen wrapped an arm around you, leading you into the house, “Dot’s a master negotiator, we’re thinking future lawyer, or defense against the dark arts teacher.”

You felt off. You couldn’t really explain it, but ever since your last shift at the hospital things felt disjointed. Your perception was off, and it made you unusually clumsy. You bumped into tables, stubbed your toe, smacked your elbow on the dresser. And your head was killing you. It made you wonder if this was what you’d been experiencing the day you had your panic attack. The day that prompted McMillan to put you on leave the first time. You did your best to put it out of your mind. So, you changed into your swimsuit, took a couple of aspirin, and headed out to meet everyone by the pool.

Jensen was already in the water, playing Marco Polo with the kids while Jared was climbing out of the deep end to towel off. Gen was walking towards the grill with a plater of burgers and kabobs. It was a classic summer scene. Bright sunlight, blue skies reflected in the shimmering pool water. Peals of children’s laughter mixed with splashes of water and music coming from the sound system. It was fun, joyful, and familiar.

You didn’t realize Jared had come up beside you until his hand was on your shoulder, “Y/N? You, okay?”

You blinked dumbly up at him. His long hair slicked back with pool water; brows raised with concern.

“You wore those trunks that day on the lake.”

His eyes widened. He’d never seen you when one of your memories surfaced. You went a bit pale, and he panicked, ushering you to a lounge chair. “Here, sit… sit. Jensen!”

“I’m alright,” you insisted, shutting your eyes as you sat down. With a bit of focus, you got the full image to click in your mind.

When you opened your eyes, you found both men kneeling in front of you. Gen was wrangling the kids by the poolside. Your head felt light for a moment and then cleared.

Jensen was rubbing his thumb gently at your temple, “Hey, there she is.”

“That boat was too big for you.” You voice sounded far away and detached to your ears.

“Boat?” asked Jared.

“The sailboat,” you clarified, your voice getting stronger. “The one you had that day on the lake. A rig that size is too big for two people to handle.”

“You remember the day at the lake?” Jensen smiled; it was always so exciting when you got a piece of the forgotten back.

“A little.” You looked up at Jared with a shrug, “You wore those same swim trunks on the boat.”

Jensen smirked, “Yeah, he thinks they’re lucky. What else do you remember?”

“You. Blue trunks and sunglasses.” You brough a hand to your forehead. “It was a really nice day.”

“Headache?” He guessed. When you nodded, he patted your knee. “Maybe no swimming today, huh?”

You resigned yourself to Jensen’s sound judgement. Gen joined for you for a while with a stack of fashion magazines and a pitcher of lemonade. You soaked up the sun while the boys occupied the kids and took turns pretending to be sea monsters and mermaids respectively. It was a lovely afternoon, and you did your best to relax. Despite your best efforts, tension coiled in the pit of your stomach. Nothing you did seemed to shake it.

“Is it usually like this when she gets a memory back?” Jared asked as pulled a beer out of the fridge.

“Yeah, for the most part,” Jensen glanced out the window at you stretching in the lounger. “The headaches are a bitch, though. Sleep usually helps.”

“Its gotta be frustrating, trying so hard to remember something and getting nothing, then it hits you when you aren’t expecting it.”

“And then she only gets a picture of you in your ugly ass lucky shorts.”

“These shorts are lucky; I was wearing them that time I found your missing car keys?” Jared handed Jensen a beer, “And your girlfriend.”

Jensen clinked his bottle against Jared’s, “Those shorts aren’t just lucky, they’re divine.”

Gen had asked you to watch the kids while she went inside to change and grab some fresh towels. They had abandoned the water for a snack break in the cabana. Shep and Odette chattered and bickered away while Tom flipped on the television. They really were adorable kids. Each of them perfect little versions of their parents.

Odette called you over, her little voice insistent, “Y/N! Come look at the pretty lady!”

You tied your sarong around your hips and crossed the patio to the swatch of grass where the striped awning was set up. “Pretty lady?”

Tom pointed excitedly at the t.v. “Dottie’s right! She looks just like you!”

Your eyes locked onto the screen, and you felt the air leave your lungs. Your own face stared back at you, and something unlocked deep within your mind. Everything flooded back to you in an instant, but you had no time to ponder it. The force of it left you reeling, your vison swam, and you had the vague sensation of falling just before everything went dark.

Jared frowned when he heard yelling from outside. His eyes went wide as he glanced out the kitchen window, “Oh shit!”

Jensen was right behind him, sprinting across the deck towards the screaming children. You were collapsed in the grass, and he had a sick feeling just like the day he pulled you from the water. He dropped to his knees beside you, gingerly turning you over.

“No, no, no, no… Y/N?! Baby?!”

You were deathly pale and your features scrunched up with a groan. You didn’t open your eyes, but it was still the sweetest sound Jensen had ever heard. “Sweetheart?”

Jared had a wailing Odette in his arms while his boys were both talking at once, trying to explain what had happened.

Jensen tapped your cheeks gently with the back of his fingers, “Come on Y/N, open those baby blues for me.”

“No,” you managed to moan, the world felt like it was spinning on an unsteady axis. Your stomach lurched and your head pounded like you’d been on a three-day bender.

“Sure, you can, come on.”

Gen was there just over Jensen’s shoulder, “What happened? Do we need to call an ambulance?”

“Dizzy,” you groaned, turning your head away. “Dizzy.”

Jensen frowned as he ran a hand over your forehead and found it clammy. “Okay, okay. Let’s go inside. Get out of the sun, huh?”

He scooped up your limp body, shushing you when you whimpered softly, “Shh, I’ve got you, I’m right here.”

Your head lolled aimlessly against his shoulder as he hurried into the house with you, while Gen rushed ahead to help with the door.

Jared knelt down to talk to his sons. Odette still clung to him; her little arms and legs wrapped tight around him. The boys had mostly calmed down, at least enough to get some answers.

“Okay guys, what happened? Were you rough housing, huh? Throwing the ball around?”

“No Dad! We were just watching t.v.” Shep said, his face still red from crying.

“Its okay if you were, no one’s in trouble. We just need to know so we can help Y/N.” He looked to his oldest, “Tom?”

Tom lifted his head to shake his shaggy hair out of his eyes, “I don’t know what happened. We were watching t.v., like Shep said. But then this lady came on and looked like Y/N. And when we showed her, she got real quiet and just fell. I don’t know why! Is she going to be okay?”

“Look, Daddy!” Odette pointed at the television. “Look! It’s the pretty lady!”

Jared turned to the t.v. and his mouth hung open. “What the hell?”

Jensen quietly closed the door to the guest room. He stayed with you until you settled into an uneasy sleep. You never opened your eyes again, but you mumbled plenty. Mostly nonsense, but he did catch one key phrase.

“Remember… I remember…”

He shoved down his own instinct to press for answers and instructed you to rest, knowing it was for the best. He was still lost in his own thoughts when he found Jared in the kitchen. He was in front of his laptop while Gen was ushering the kids down the hall to wash the chlorine out of their hair.

Jared’s head popped up, “Hey, how she doing?”

“She’s okay, sleeping it off.” Jensen blew out a breath as he plopped down on a barstool at the counter. “I should have brough her in earlier. Being dizzy before with the heat made a bad combination.”

“I don’t think it was just the heat.” Jared turned the laptop around, so the screen was visible. “Take a look at this.”

Y/N West came from humble beginnings. In the small farming community of Monroe, Iowa, she was a straight-A student. Captain of the swim team, and even tutored SAT prep courses during the summer. So, how did this All-American girl get drawn into the murky world of drug trafficking?

“This is unreal…” Jensen murmured, shaking his head in disbelief.

Jared gave him a sympathetic look, “I know, but it does explain the aliases and job changes. And then there’s this…”

He clicked on another link and opened a video clip. A young woman who could be your double was being interviewed. The clip was recent, maybe a month old. Her name appeared in the description, Francesca West-Robinson.

“Mrs. Robinson, what is your response to the recent photos of the woman dating the actor Jensen Ackles?”

“I think she’s my sister.”

“Your sister who was killed in a car crash seven years ago?” The reporter pressed.

Francesca raised her chin a notch, a movement that mimicked you. “It was her car in that crash, but the remains were difficult to identify.”

“Are you saying she faked her own death? To escape being persecuted for her crimes?”

“I’m saying my sister is alive. I’ve never doubted it, and now these pictures prove it. As for her alleged crimes, she would never, never deal drugs. Nor would she ever be a willing party to that sort of activity. Not ever.”

The blue eyes that mirrored yours went glassy with emotion. “My sister has a family who loves her and misses her. If you know her, if you’ve seen her… if you know anything, please. Just send her home.”

You didn’t sleep long and when you woke, you were whole again. Clear headed. Every missing piece was now back in place. You had your memory back in vivid detail. Now, would come the reckoning.

You changed into fresh clothes and paused to check your reflection in the mirror over the dresser. You could see yourself fully now. The hints of your childhood in the tiny, almost translucent scar in your hairline, in the remarkable eyes that came to you from your mother’s side. The shape of your cheekbones resembled your paternal grandmother, the one you were named for. You recalled the day you chopped off your long hair and headed to college in the big city, desperate to live up to the scholarship you worked so hard for.

All of it melded with the woman you’d become in recent months. In many ways, you weren’t so very different from who you’d always been. Certainly, the same protective instincts that motivated you then guided you still.

With a sigh, you opened the bedroom door and walked down the hallway, you paused just short of the kitchen. Your sister’s voice echoed from the small speakers, and you put a hand to your stomach to still the nerves fluttering there. It had been so long since you’d heard it and you were immediately aching for home.

Jensen and Jared were at the breakfast bar, huddled together, watching the laptop.

Your friends.

These were your friends. They were such good men! They took care of you and stood by you through so much. They opened their homes and their lives to you; they deserved an explanation at the very least.

“You must have questions.”

Their heads whipped up at your soft statement and Jensen came to your side. Ever the hero, his chief concern was for you.

“Hey, Sweetheart… are you alright?”

There was a subtle shift in your gaze, the underlying uncertainty had lifted. You looked confident in a way you never had before. It felt as if he were meeting you for the first time. A part of him felt oddly intimidated.

“I’m better.”

“You’ve got your memory back?”

“The good, the bad, and the ugly.” The corner of your mouth quirked. “Ask me anything.”

When Jensen hesitated, Jared jumped in. “Are you actually a doctor?”

“According to Harvard Medical, I am.”

“So, your name, your real name, is Doctor Y/N West?” Jared asked.

“Yeah.” Your smile was bittersweet, “God, that’s nice to hear. I haven’t been her in a very long time.”

“Because you faked your own death?” Jensen choked out. He ran a hand through his hair as he turned away, “Christ, I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Try living it.” You paused and titled your head thoughtfully, “Is that the right terminology, given the subject?”

Jensen spun around, warning flashing in his eyes.

“Sorry. Gallows humor.” You snapped your fingers, “Ha! Now see, that’s the right terminology!”

“You think this is funny?”

“I think its utterly absurd, but here we are. And I am sorry. I’m so sorry, this whole mess is my fault and now its spilled over into your life.”

“A mess,” Jensen echoed. “That’s one way to describe dealing drugs.”

You were incredulous but only for a moment before righteous indignation took over. “Doctor Y/N West, the drug dealer. Un-fucking-believable. You know, this is what happens when you don’t properly tend to your reputation. I thought that when I died, I would just die. Rest in peace, but no! I live on in misinformed episodes of Dateline.”

When you realized that both men were staring at you in confusion, you took a deep breath and started again.

“I am not a drug dealer, I’m an informant. I’m in witness protection.” The article was still pulled up on the laptop and a picture of your sister stared back at you. A ghost of your past come to hold you to the mark. You reached over and gently closed the screen.

“His name was Colin Garrett. He was the doctor in charge of the residency program at New York Presbyterian Hospital. It’s a super competitive program, when I got in it was like winning the lottery! I couldn’t believe it… and Colin was fantastic. I adored him.”

“You had a relationship with him?” Jensen asked.

“For nearly a year,” It still turned your stomach to think of what your poor judgement had cost you. “I thought he was everything I ever wanted. He was such a talent. Charming and funny, and he just seemed to know everything. He was so worldly. Older than me by quite a bit, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everything went so smoothly when he was around. First time I didn’t have to worry about everything. Hell, even Frankie liked him.”

“Frankie?” Jared repeated.

“Frankie is my sister, Francesca. Our parents were killed in a car accident when we were kids. We were in the back seat… she almost didn’t make it. It’s why I became a doctor. I wanted to do something to pay it forward. Make a difference like they did.”

“I think you succeeded there,” Jensen said, the soft light of admiration in his eyes.

“On good days, I get close. Anyway, I was with Colin for little over a year and everything was great. We didn’t really see each other much, but that was nothing new. I was up to my eyeballs finishing up my final year of med school and Colin traveled a lot for work.”

Jensen was confused, “Why would a doctor travel for work?”

“He was promoted to the board of directors.” You rolled your eyes at how naïve you’d been. “Don’t ask me how he managed it. It was classic Colin, he always seemed to magically have the right connections, it was just effortless. When he was promoted, he ended up doing mostly fundraising work. So, the hospital would send him everywhere to charm money out of millionaires. I didn’t figure it out until much later, but that was how he was able to run things for so long.”

“The drug ring was his,” Jared said quietly, “And you were testifying against him.”

“He was a middleman,” you explained. “Cog in a machine. Opioids is big business and Colin was the guy who tip off the mob on when and where shipments were being delivered. Since he was in contact with so many other hospitals with his new position, it was next to impossible to track him. Their operation was nationwide.”

“The mob,” Jensen repeated. “Where the hell is the FBI in all of this? If you are in witness protection, why haven’t they been looking for you? Where the hell have they been for the past nine months?”

“Its not like it is in the movies. The FBI is interested in mob activities only up to a point.” You shook your head as the image of the last time you saw Colin came to mind.

“Colin was out of town when the FBI raided our apartment. They arrested me on the spot, said they had enough to charge me as an accomplice. It was all part of their intimidation tactics which they didn’t need because once they told me what he’d been up to, I was happy to cooperate. I was working with them on setting up a sting when Colin turned up dead in the Hudson. Twenty-four hours later I was in Canada with a new identity.”

You hadn’t thought of that day in a long time. The day you died. It was as surreal now as it was then. You knew your little sister would never accept your death. The two of you had been close, you only had each other after your parents died. It killed you to think of her mourning you, but you still held out hope that one day you’d make it back to her. Make it up to her.

“Without Colin, the drug ring seemed to dry up. Everything just got quiet. They moved me around less and less, then just stopped all together. Its like every other type of job, I guess. The FBI agents want to do work that gets them noticed and gives them a leg up.”

“So, this case isn’t flashy enough for them?” Jared shook his head.

“If everything is back to normal, why not go back to your old life?” asked Jensen.

“I couldn’t risk it. That car crash Frankie was talking about… That was her. Not me. We look a lot alike; her car was in the shop, so she borrowed mine. Someone cut the brake line. She got pretty banged up but survived. The FBI saw it as an opportunity, said they couldn’t have planned it better.”

Your phone suddenly buzzed in your pocket. Pulling it out, you read the brief message. “My contact. They’ll be here in an hour.”

“You’re leaving.” Jensen breathed.

You couldn’t stop the tears from filling your eyes. You felt like you were leaving your little sister all over again. The second family you’d built around yourself was about to be blown apart and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

“Where will they send you?” asked Jared.

“Who knows… Timbuktu? Given the spectacular job I did blowing my own cover, I doubt it will even have running water let alone internet.”

“No.”

“Jensen…”

“No,” he repeated, his voice gruff. “I’m not losing you. Not again.”

“You say that as if you have a choice. I’m sorry,” you said as tears spilled over your lashes. “But you don’t. And neither do I.”

“There is always a choice! You’re not alone in this, Y/N…. stay.” Jensen didn’t care that he was begging. He would get down on his damn knees if he had to, be it in front of the FBI or God himself. He wasn’t going to let you go without a fight.

“Sweetheart, stay. I can protect you; I’ll hire the best damned security money can buy! I’ll keep you safe.”

You tilted you head sadly, if only it were that easy. God, how you wanted it to be!

“What about your family?” You asked softly. “Your sister’s pregnant again, right? How about your parents? Jared and Gen? Their kids? Your co-workers. Maddy and the twins. Its everyone, Jensen. Everyone who knows me or is connected to me in any way is a target!”

Hearing you list off the names of people he loved was meant to sway him, instead it steeled his resolve. He grasped your shoulders, “The only way you’re walking out that door, is with me by your side.”

You let out a broken sigh as he swiped the tears away and crooked a finger under your chin. “Jay, these people are killers.”

“I know. But living the rest of my life without you would kill me all the same, just slower. So you and I are going to mee the FBI together to see what the options are. Because a decision this big should at least be an informed one.”

You finally nodded in agreement, and he pulled you into his arms, holding you tight. Jared’s worried gaze met his for a moment before he turned and went down the hall to his wife and children. Jensen wasn’t the only one with people to protect.

#dean x reader #dean winchester fanfiction #dean x y/n #dean x you #dean winchester #jensen ackles #jensen x reader #jensen x y/n #spn fic #supernatural #Nightingale

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