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word-wytch · 1 year

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Don't Stand So Close To Me

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 1/? 3.5k Series Masterlist

✏︎ Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him.

Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, perv!eddie, smut (18+ mdni), true love, internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

A/N: I've poured my heart and soul into this one.

Fourth period English was the only class that Eddie Munson could seem to pay attention in, though not exactly to the lessons.

He propped his cheek against his knuckles as he watched you from the back of the classroom.

“See, everything is filtered through Holden’s limited first person narration, so we get really pure insight into how he sees the world, but we also have to take it with a grain of salt,” you said, delicate heels clicking against the tile floor as you paced back and forth. “We see what he pays attention to, and therefore what we ought to pay attention to as readers.”

Eddie’s eyes traced the curve of your waist, over the back of your tweed pencil skirt as you turned to place the chalk back on the ledge at the bottom of the board. It was hugging you in all the right places, as it did every time you wore it. His favorite.

“Alright let’s break out the quotes and notes assignment from chapter ten. Who would like to share their thoughts on a quote with the class?”

Your eyes scanned the room. Students shifted in their chairs in an awkward silence before a hand shot up in the front row.

“Nancy,” you smiled and gestured to her, “Take the floor.”

“Ok so one of the quotes I picked out was where he says ‘I damn near gave my kid sister Phoebe a buzz, though. I certainly felt like talking to her on the phone. Someone with sense and all.’ I think it’s really interesting that he says that she has sense,” said Nancy.

Eddie barely registered a word of what Nancy said. He was too transfixed on your shirt, the way the fabric parted at the buttons when you leaned in just the right way. Sometimes if he was lucky he could catch a flash of skin, a glimpse of delicate lace from your bra. It almost made him wish he would have picked a seat closer to the front of the class.

Nancy continued. “Right now he’s surrounded by very mature things at the hotel that he’s trying to make sense of and has really negative opinions about. He keeps thinking of his little sister though, and that’s always positive, so that’s in contrast to the rest of what’s going on.”

“Thank you, Nancy, that’s exactly right. A juxtaposition, very perceptive of you.”

Eddie shifted in his seat, feeling his pants start to tighten.

“Does anyone else have a quote they’d like to share their thoughts on with the class?”

Chairs creaked, a few legs scooted loudly against the floor in the restless silence. A sniffle.

“Come on, Nancy can’t carry this entire class.” You tapped your fingers on the desk behind you. “Well, I know she could but I’m not going to let her,” you said, giving her a little wink.

Still silence.

“Alright, fine.” You glanced around at the rows of averted eyes until yours settled on the young man in the leather jacket seated at the very back far right corner of the classroom. “Eddie,” you said with a gentle smile.

His dark eyes shot up, face flushing.

“Do you have any thoughts on what you read in chapter ten last night?”

Eddie licked his lips, casting his eyes downward in thought. “I uh,” his mouth was like cotton, “No I don’t really think I… understood the chapter,” he said, giving a sheepish grin. The soft pout of disappointment on your pretty lips made his stomach drop.

“I don’t think he can even read the chapter,” muttered the blonde athlete in the seat next to him.

“Jason,” you began, but Eddie didn’t miss a beat.

“I don’t think you can even read your girlfriend,” he said, to which the class awakened audibly.

Jason shot daggers at Eddie. “Why don’t you quit talking to her and find a girlfriend closer to your age, huh? There’s plenty at the senior home across the street.”

The class erupted in laughter.

“Stop it, both of you!” you shouted over the din. “The next person to make another sound has detention,” you said sternly. The class grew quiet again, allowing space for your voice to soften. “Eddie, please see me after class.”

“Oooh,” mocked Jason as he sat back and laughed.

“Jason, detention.”

“What? No!”

“I told you, the next person to speak has detention. I don’t make idle threats.”

Eddie’s lips curled into a satisfied grin as he watched you command the room.

“Please,” Jason begged, “It’s the last practice before the game tomorrow.”

“No. You can use your time in detention to work on practicing some self control.”

Jason huffed and shot Eddie another glare but Eddie’s eyes were fixed on his desk, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as his face contorted. It took all of his strength to bite back a laugh.

You sighed and leaned back on your desk at the front of the classroom. “Now then,” you started, composing yourself, “I’ll be very curious to read all of your assigned journal entries from this chapter, since clearly so many of you have something to say.”

Chairs shifted. A cough.

“Alright, pass them forward,” you said, gesturing to the class.

The room was filled with the sound of sheets being torn from notebooks, binders opening, paper shuffling. The students passed the pages forward up the four rows and you walked by to collect them.

“Why don’t we spend the last fifteen minutes of class silently reading the book, hm? Then maybe tomorrow we might have something to talk about.”

You returned to sit at your desk with the papers as the students opened up their books.

Eddie dug his beat up copy of The Catcher in the Rye out of the mess of his backpack. The red, soft cover spine was beginning to peel away from abuse.

He opened it up to a random page and began to gloss over the words but none of them registered. His mind was too full of other images — the arch of your back, the way you toyed at your lips with your finger in thought, of what you would look like bent over that desk of yours with him on top of you.

Fifteen minutes passed like this. The bell rang.

Eddie waited in his seat as the other students filed out of the classroom, turning to bury the book in his backpack in an effort to avoid Jason, but it didn’t matter.

“Watch it, freak. I mean it, I’ve got my eyes on you,” said Jason, to which Eddie simply raised his eyebrows in mock fear.

After the last student left, Eddie slowly approached you, dragging his feet a little as he walked.

You swiped the last of the chalk from the board with the eraser, leaving a small cloud of dust as you turned to face him.

“Sorry for the outburst today.” The chain on his wrist rattled as he brought a hand to his chest, “I meant no disrespect,” he said earnestly. “Well, I did to Jason, but never to you.”

You returned a soft smile, “Thanks, I appreciate the apology even though I can see that you weren’t exactly the instigator.”

“Yeah, well, Jason, like any basic primate, seems to think that any male who comes within three feet of his mate is a threat.”

A snort escaped you. Basic primate.

Eddie’s eyes crinkled, his smile contagious. “Besides, Chrissy’s the one who came over to talk to me anyway.”

You sighed and shook your head, not really knowing what to say.

“Sorry, I know, I’ll stop.”

You gave him a gracious look and took a deep breath to compose yourself, “Eddie,” you started.

His mouth curved ever so slightly as he relished in the way his name rolled off your tongue.

“We’ve been in class for about a month now,” you began, “You haven’t turned in an assignment in the last two weeks.”

Eddie scratched the back of his head, “Yeah, uh, sorry about that.”

“Now I might be new to teaching here, but I know this isn’t your first time in this class, nor your second. Clearly there must be some part of you that wants to graduate, or else you would have just dropped out two years ago, right?” you asked, searching his eyes. “You don’t strike me as the sort of person who does anything they don’t want to do.”

Eddie smirked, “It’s only been a month and you already know me so well, miss.”

There was something about the way that he said it that brought a heat to your cheeks. You tucked your hair behind your ear in an attempt to hide it. “Well, what do you think we can do about this little conundrum then? I don’t want to see you fail.”

“I dunno, maybe I just… need a little help?” he said sheepishly.

You hummed, bringing a curved finger to your lips in thought. “I want to help you, but you have to be willing to put in some effort.”

“I know, I’ve been totally slacking. That’s on me. I can change that,” he said assuredly, “I promise.”

You smiled softly at his earnestness. “If you’re willing to put in the effort, I would be open to tutoring you. I have some time after school today if you want to stop by my classroom, we can come up with a game plan then.”

Eddie’s dark eyes widened at the suggestion, “I’d appreciate that very much, miss.”

You gave a nod, “Sure thing. I’ll see you after school then. I’ll be here.”

“See ya later,” he said, grabbing his well worn backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. “Oh, and,” he turned back toward you, closing the distance between you even further. His eyes lingered over your lips for a moment before meeting your gaze again, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” you half whispered.

You turned toward your desk to gather the papers in as neat a pile as you could manage with the frayed edges left by spiral notebooks and placed them in your fourth period grading folder. The bell rang out again through the halls signaling lunch period. You grabbed your purse from under your desk and closed the classroom door behind you.

Walking through the halls of Hawkins High was like a strange recurring dream. Same drop ceiling, same tile floor. Same weird smell when you walked past the science room. The same cliques too — the jocks, the burnouts, the party animals. This time with less bell bottoms and fringe, more leg warmers and hairspray. Surprisingly little had changed.

You opened the door to the teacher’s lounge adjacent to the cafeteria. The wood paneled walls and old carpet were much less familiar to you than the hallways and classrooms you had spent countless hours in. It was strange to be on this side of things now.

“How’s your day going so far, sweetie?” chimed Ms. Click, putting the glass coffee pot back on the warmer.

“Oh, you know, just another day of pulling teeth from my class. I swear Nancy Wheeler was the only one who read the chapter last night.”

A swoon swept across the room. “Oh Nancy, she really is such a bright star isn’t she?” Ms. Click remarked, her voice sweet like table sugar. “You know she kind of reminds me of you when you were her age, doesn’t she, Doris?”

Doris O’Donnell hummed and pursed her lips with a little nod.

“Well, smarts-wise anyway. Boy I try not to pick favorites but you certainly were a pleasure to have in class. If I’m remembering right you were valedictorian, weren’t you?”

You offered a weak smile, “Yep, class of ’74.”

“’74? Goodness it hasn’t been that long has it? Gosh we sure are getting old aren’t we?” she called over to Ms. O’Donnell, the beads on her glasses chain rattling as she laughed, “Oh goodness I don’t mean you sweetie,” she said, putting her hand on yours reassuringly, “Heck if I didn’t know you I would have mistaken you for a student!”

“Thank you Ms. — I mean Peggy.” You grabbed a mug from the stack and turned it over in your hands. #1 Teacher. The matte apple and text printed on the front of it was fading with age. You filled it with coffee and and grabbed a small open milk carton sitting nearby, watching the cream swirl in the mug before taking a seat at one of the three round tables with plastic veneer to look like wood.

“Gosh, you know I don’t mean to pry, but with such a pretty face to match the good head on your shoulders I would have thought you’d have a different last name by now.”

You stared into your coffee, feeling the ghost of the ring on your finger. “Ah, yeah. Almost, but… it didn’t work out.”

“Oh — I’m sorry sweetie, I didn’t realize.”

“It’s um — it’s fine.”

“You know there’s plenty of lovely young bachelors at St. Michael’s, we’re having a potluck tonight if you want to come.”

It took all of your strength to hide a visible grimace. Sounds delightful. “No thanks, I can’t. I’ve offered to tutor a student after school today.”

“Who might that be?” asked Ms. Click.

“Eddie Munson.”

The whole room groaned.

Ms. O’Donnell cackled from her corner, her toad-like face contorting. “Good luck. I’ve been stuck with him for the last three years. Honestly I don’t know why he’s still in school. He’s too old to be here anymore if you ask me.”

Your eyes shot up from your coffee. “Well, he must have some desire to be here or otherwise he wouldn’t be. Isn’t it our duty as teachers to help students achieve milestones?”

Ms. O’Donnell huffed, “Oh yeah, he needs help alright. None that I can give him though.”

“I can imagine that help would be a difficult thing to offer while putting him down.”

She snorted, “Sure sweetie. Say some magic words of encouragement, that’ll do the trick. Hey, pick me up a little fairy dust too while you’re at it.”

Laughter rang out across the teachers lounge.

Your lips formed a hard line as you popped open the tupperware container which held your salad.

“Keep us posted, will you? We’re all dying to know how it goes.”

______

You could hear the lockers slamming shut as the din in the hallway began to die down, students filtering out with the last bell of the day. You flipped through the pile of notebook papers on your desk, making small notes on each one with a green pen before setting them onto the neat pile in front of you. You never liked to use red, too harsh.

There was a strange feeling in your stomach that you couldn’t seem to shake. You wondered if perhaps the chicken on your salad had sat in the fridge for a few days too many.

Your eyes shot up from your papers as you heard footsteps at the door. “Hey, Eddie.”

Eddie flashed you a smile and a little wave as he dragged a chair from the far corner of the room to the empty spot across from you and plunked himself down in it.

“How are you?” you asked.

“Oh, you know, just another day in suburban paradise.”

You chuckled dryly, “Yeah, you could say that again.”

Eddie fiddled with his rings, twisting them as he looked at you with those big dark eyes.

“So first off, let’s talk about the book we’re reading in class. Have you read any of it?”

“I did read the first few chapters, kind of lost interest though, sorry,” he admitted.

You nodded curtly. “The Catcher in the Rye seems to be a fairly polarizing book from my experience. Some students love it, others hate it. I myself am in the former camp, of course. I tend to find that most of the people who don’t like it just don’t quite understand it.”

Eddie gave a short puff of air through his nose. “I could say the same thing about most of the shit I’m interested in.”

You smiled sympathetically. “Is reading not really your thing?”

“Actually, contrary to the opinion of a certain primate, I do like to read.”

You raised your eyebrows, “Really? Like what?”

“Fantasy mostly, The Lord of the Rings, really anything Tolkien writes. I’ve read those books a few times through actually,” he said, “Probably kind of stupid to read the same thing over and over when you could be reading other things, but — ”

“No, that’s not stupid at all! I’ve read them more than once too, actually.” Your eyes were sparkling. “They’re some of my favorites.”

Eddie sat back in his chair, a smile playing on his lips. “You? A geek? Never would have guessed.”

You smirked at him. You couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or serious. “Actually incorporating world building with storytelling the way that Tolkien does is something I’ve always tried to emulate in my own writing.”

“Your own writing?” Eddie shifted in his chair, leaning in.

“Oh, yeah,” you said, glancing downward, wishing you could suck the words back into your mouth.

“You write books?”

“I… don’t know if you could quite call them books if they aren’t published, or totally finished but — I do like to write stories.”

Eddie’s eyes were enormous. “Can I read them? Oh please let me read them.”

The heat was back in your cheeks again. “Oh jeez, I don’t know, it’s been ages since I’ve even looked at them myself.”

Eddie leaned in even more, his elbows on the desk. “Come on,” his smile was so disarming, “What, you think I’m gonna like, judge you or something?”

You looked down at the papers you were grading and clicked the pen in your hand. “I don’t know, writing is such an oddly… personal thing.”

“Please? You know I’m like the last person to be passing judgement on something like that, right?”

You sighed. His eyes were big, and wet, and pleading and you cursed yourself for being stirred by them. “Ok, how about this, if you can get your grades up, get at least a B in one of your classes, I’ll let you read one of my stories.”

Eddie sat back in his chair, grinning from ear to ear. “Challenge accepted.”

You tucked your hair behind your ear as you met his smile, “Whatever motivates you,” you said trying not to think too hard about the implications of the deal you just made. “You know, what I really want to talk about is the creative writing assignment you turned in the first week of class.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That bad, huh?”

“No! Actually not bad at all. Actually quite good. You’re very creative, Eddie.”

“Oh is that what they’re calling it these days?” he deflected.

“No, I’m serious. You’ve written stories before, haven’t you?”

“Well, I am the dungeon master for my DnD club.”

You squinted your eyes curiously at him.

“Oh! So basically, I come up with the plot of the story that they players are going to play. I create the world essentially, lead them through the story. Well, to some extent. The monsters are all from a guidebook but the plot is all me.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Creativity and leadership.”

Eddie chuckled and scratched the back of his head to distract from the heat creeping across his cheeks. “Yeah, well, doesn’t change the fact that I’m 20 years old and still in high school.”

“About that,” you started, “Why do you want to graduate? Maybe if you can identify the reason for reaching your goal, then you can find the motivation to work toward it. Besides wanting to read my stories anyway, like a personal reason.”

Eddie sat back in his chair for a moment, biting his lip in thought. “Uhh, maybe to prove all the assholes in this god forsaken purgatory wrong?”

You laughed, probably a bit too hard. “I think that’s an excellent reason.”

Eddie beamed. “See, I knew I liked you.”

You coyly returned his smile and fidgeted with the pen in your hand again. “Let’s figure out a day or two when we can meet weekly. Got any after school conflicts?”

“My band plays at the Hideout Tuesday nights, Fridays I’ve got Hellfire Club.”

“How about Mondays and Wednesdays then? Does that work for you?”

“Sure does.”

“Great, and I can help you with other classes too, to the best of my ability anyway. Show you how best to study, how to approach papers and essays — that sort of stuff.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said softly.

The feeling in your stomach was back again. “Me too.”

______

Thank you so much for reading, tons more to come! Comments and reblogs keep me going! 🙏

Tag list: @ooo-protean-ooo @toxicjayhoo @mermaidsandcats29 @jadequeen88 @msgexymunson @wroteclassicaly @inknopewetrust @storiesbyrhi @kissmyacdc @cherry-vamps @willgrahamspsycheval

There are some of you are on this list who I talked to about this months ago! Sorry it took me a while to get this up but I’ve spent the last month outlining this monstrosity. That’s mostly out of the way now so updates should be pretty regular, like once a week. 💕

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #eddie x reader #my writing #Eddie munson older reader

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patcaps · 4 months

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you can read my other thoughts on the finale here so i’m not gonna just say all the same things again but

the ending was always gonna be divisive with people loving it or hating it, liking it but wishing some things were a bit different. it’s the ending of a beloved show and nobody is ever gonna agree on what the right ending would be. it sucks to have folks outright rejecting it but it also sucks to see people like “you are wrong for having any criticisms whatsoever” like, i’m all for being able to discuss aspects of media and what we liked and didn’t like. it’s not always a bad faith interpretation, or cynicism, or being poor at understanding the writing and intention. and i love meta and analysis that doesn’t completely pick apart something and refuse it any grace or leniency. i think sometimes we’re way too hard on stuff that is ultimately heartfelt and from a place of love and joy, and unraveling them dampens the magic.

anyway. that aside. i love this show so much. there are things i’d have done differently, pacing choices that made it fall flat in places, but it’s not my show and these guys know their characters and love them as much as we do. and the ghosts and mike and alison never stopped being family - which is, ultimately, the biggest thing that matters. not the house, not where they are, but how they’ve helped each other for the better. alison and mike spent their entire lives making sure the ghosts were never forgotten, always went back to catch up. they got to enjoy all the fun and love of visiting family without the stress of living under each other’s feet 24/7 - and relationships with family often improve tenfold with that breathing space.

the show ended where it started with the plans to turn it into a hotel, but this time instead of the ghosts panicking and being like “drive her out, kill her” they loved alison enough to take all of that change on, safe in the knowledge that alison would never ever just abandon them. that’s such a neat way of showing how they’ve all helped each other. like, robin’s seen that house and the houses and land before it change so much but he felt so good about this change, literally said he felt christmassy finally, because they could do this. for her. for their friend, their family member, their alison.

they existed before alison and they’ll exist after her, but in the meantime they get to enjoy being her family and also know they’ve given them a more stable, secure, less stressful living arrangement that works for them all. they aren’t fully dependent on alison anymore and alison was no longer fearful of leaving and losing them because she knew they’d still be her family no matter what. i’ve seen some people interpret this as “they’re saying having a baby meant her found family weren’t important anymore, they have to go be a traditional family alone” and that was my kneejerk response too, but then i sat with it. and actually, alison goes from being a (presumed) orphan with no family besides mike and his side, to having all of that plus the ghosts, people who love her and always welcome her back to visit whenever she wants. how lovely for her to have her very own family she can go and see, who did such a kind thing for her, however bittersweet a decision it was initially.

and yeah, it’s true that the ghosts have less of alison there to take care of things like personalised entertainment, but that’s the whole point of them leaving - alison wasn’t in a position where she could worry about entertaining them all the time whilst also being with her husband and raising a newborn. it wasn’t fair to keep asking her to run around after a houseful of ghosts when looking after yourself and a small child is hard enough. she could have stayed and ended up resenting them, getting frustrated and angry the way they did with mike’s mum, potentially souring that relationship with the ghosts. instead she moved out and gets to go back and see them and love and enjoy them fully without that responsibility 24/7. i’m sure she took them new things, gifts, let them watch tv and read books, i bet they had requests for whenever she visited which she was more than happy to supply. and i bet they always had new anecdotes and things to catch her up on.

the more time i have, the more i warm to it all. it’s easy to say “they should have stayed together at the house” but this show is about being human, about life and death, how existence is both cruel and kind and beautiful and unexpected and it changes you and you change it. they did stay together, just not under the same roof. home is more than just button house, more than just a dream because dreams change as we go, and belonging is about more than just a destination. alison found home and belonging in the ghosts, and they found it in her too. the rest is just bricks and mortar.

#bbc ghosts spoilers #bbc ghosts #quill to paper #ghosts meta

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babystrcandy · 11 months

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interlude | jjk

summary: Growing up you only had one goal: beat Jeon Jungkook. Sometimes you'd win, other times you'd lose. Sometimes he'd lose, other times he'd win. But you'd both walk away from the match thinking the other was the lucky one.

pairing: tlo!jungkook x fem!reader rating/genre: 18+ Minors DNI | sports au, fwb, fluff word count: 2.9K chapter summary: When Jungkook was little, he used to wish on shooting stars that he'd hear a bell when he met his soulmate. warnings/notes: this is part of my the lucky one jk series; it does not need to be read in order to understand the fic, it's just an extra pov from jk, no smut but i'm leaving this as 18+ because of the topics discussed, typos probably, explicit language, abuse of alcohol mentioned, your name references/inspo, descriptions of anxiety, depression, mental illness, trichotillomania (pulling out of hair: in this case eyelashes), just a lil look into jk's brain, i think that’s it but if i missed anything please let me know, i hope you enjoy, my loves <3

chapter four 1/2: interlude ( ← previous | next → )

BECOMING SOMEONE HAD NEVER truly been on Jeon Jungkook’s radar. He was born to two loving parents who adored each other as much as they loved him. They weren’t exactly poor or rich, they were just owners of another small restaurant on the streets of Busan, selling mostly chicken that young Jungkook would normally take to school for lunch when it wouldn’t sell.

That was supposed to be his legacy, and he was fine with that. He quite liked helping his mother in the kitchen and packaging the orders.

It wasn’t like they’d sat him down and told him he’d be forced to sell chicken all his life once he got older. No, actually, his mother had always told him to shoot for the stars. He could be anything he wanted as long as he was a good person at the end of the day.

And Jungkook had lived by that.

So becoming someone to him never meant becoming someone great . . . it just meant becoming someone kind.

Until he discovered badminton. You, his mother’s best friend’s daughter, and consequently his best friend since birth, also discovered badminton at the same time. And the both of you . . . the both of you discovered that badminton could be your chance at becoming someone . . . great.

You had taken quite a liking to this fact. You’d been the first to buy all the equipment and when Jungkook said he wasn’t that interested . . . you used all your saved-up birthday money to buy him equipment of his own. (You knew he was just lying anyway. You knew the Jeons didn’t have enough to buy Jungkook his very own racket . . . so you took matters into your own hands. He knew now that was the day he’d developed a crush on you. (A small, childhood crush of course, but still a crush he always remembered.)

He’d never wanted it as much as you, though, and he knew that. He used to think that he did. He used to think that making it to the Olympics would be a dream come true, but even now, after everything, he wasn’t sure if that had ever been true.

Jungkook had loved badminton . . . but he’d been gradually falling out of love with it for years now. But one small fact made it hard for him to admit this: he was good; no . . . he might have been one of the best.

He supposed that was why the little feud with you had started in the first place. He had never really cared about the sport, whereas you had always cared too much, and so his careless actions, yet ever so gracious, results managed to always get under your skin.

And of course, he’d find it funny, mostly because you scrunched your nose in this cute way when you were angry.

(He didn’t like to admit it, but he’d always used to challenge you just to show off to you. Now . . . not in a cruel way . . . but rather, he did it to try to impress you. Yeah . . . it had never really worked out in his favor.)

But he never really minded your attitude toward him. He knew the two of you were some weird kind of friends, and he liked that. He liked having you near him, just like he had liked having Taehyung and Jimin close.

He’d never really liked anyone else . . . (He didn’t realize why until later in life.)

So, yeah, there you had it . . . Jeon Jungkook had the chance to become someone great, but he’d never wanted to be that. He’d just wanted to be kind like his mother had wished him to be. But things didn’t work out that way; Life . . . didn’t work out that way, and in becoming someone great . . . he’d become something he wasn’t proud of.

And that was true . . .

. . . becoming someone had never been on Jeon Jungkook’s radar until he’d turned into someone he barely recognized; until he’d become a ghost of his old self. He hadn’t realized he’d been becoming this . . . person all his life; that it hadn’t started after the incident; that it’d started even when he was a kid.

Because you see, Jungkook had been pulling and plucking at his eyelashes since the sixth grade when he started developing his . . . issues. Like when he’d wake in the morning with his heart racing and his stomach churning, creating a nervous sickness deep inside of him all because he had to attend school. (He’d go all day with that feeling taking over his body. Eventually, he just kind of got used to always having this tight feeling constricting his lungs unless he pretended to fall ill and call his mother to come to pick him up from school.) Or when he’d be left with no choice other than to talk to his peers because that's what you're supposed to do when you're growing up: make friends.

And he’d hide this by putting on a personality. He’d make himself big, loud, and unmissable so no one could ever make him feel small. He’d make fun of himself, make himself seem more approachable, more well-rounded, and less easy to offend. Because if he made himself seem stupid; if he made himself seem laid back . . . no one would think to judge him.

Of course, that didn’t always work. Sometimes people became too comfortable with him. Sometimes so comfortable they’d say things about him to his face, thinking he wouldn’t mind. And while he did make it seem like he didn’t care . . . he did, and hearing those things from people he called friends made him wonder if anyone actually liked him.

That only made him feel more alone.

So he had friends, yes, but none of them ever really knew him because . . . well . . . that had always made him . . . freak out.

And the thing they don't tell you about anxiety: there is no give and take; it just takes and takes and takes.

. . .

He used to think once he got older, these nerves would die down, but he just became scared of new things. He knew how to hide his nerves more now, but storming off toward a bar or disappearing for days on end only worked so much. No matter what he’d always find himself right back at square one . . . He’d sit down by himself, pulling at the ends of his eyelashes because it'd be the only thing he knew that would calm him down.

The funny thing about that was the fact that he used to get compliments about how long his eyelashes were when he was younger (mostly from his mother, followed by her pinching his cheeks but you know . . . ). He didn't even notice just how quickly these compliments stopped once his strange little addiction kicked in. Now in their place were broken lashes and small gaps at the tails of his eyes.

Until the small anxiety tic grew into something so much more . . .

Even as he grew, he never truly learned how to deal with the tight feeling in his chest that would consume him when he got even slightly overwhelmed, and that seemingly small habit never left his side. Like some sick vice, the urge to pluck and pull and pick at his body, at his chapped lips, at his eyelashes, and even the tails of his eyebrows, never went away. They only got worse.

It wasn't until the incident that his strange habit developed into something more gruesome. And this new habit he had developed couldn't be hidden with a silly little white lie. No, this he couldn't hide, because of the simple fact that there was no way he could make things right with his friends, with his teammates, with Tae or even himself. There was no way he could hide just how badly he wished he could take Tae’s place. There was no way anyone could look at him the same again, especially as his tiny habits turned into day-long benders filled with booze and drunk walks back to the dorm. He couldn’t hide the smell of alcohol on his breath no matter how many times he scrubbed at his teeth.

The feeling of numbing everything; of just being able to forget . . . would still stick, and the urge to do it again and again and again would remain because that was the thing about anxiety: it only knew how to take and take and take.

He’d tried to stop a few times before it got worse. He’d tried to quiet the urge and just let it be . . . but he never could, not when he was reminded of what he had done every day.

And the thing was: Jungkook knew he never truly believed he would stop. He had wanted to. Trust him, he wanted to believe that he had actually been getting better, that he wouldn't need the booze and the euphoria which came from numbing the pain inside him. But he always knew he’d give in. He knew his memories would seep back in. They always had.

The past had a way of sneaking up on Jeon Jungkook, and his anxiety only fed on it.

He’d thought he’d left everything behind him. He thought he could live in this sick limbo, forever dotting the line between madness and numbness. Truly, he really thought he could, and he almost did.

Until he saw you again.

He remembered he had walked into that bar all those months again, expecting nothing but another drink in his hand, but there you were, a scowl on your face and a furrowed brow. And suddenly, it was as if he had been transported three years back.

The past was looking him right in the face, and he couldn’t cross it out. He couldn’t put an X on your face and pretend not to know you. He couldn’t pretend to not remember. He couldn’t erase those years. He couldn't erase you.

So he sat down right in front of you, and then he saw it. He’d seen how nervous you had been, trying to make yourself blend in with the group. He’d seen just how different you had become in just three years. And then he saw you bite your fingernails, taking note of the dried blood.

You had an anxious tic, too.

And he wondered if you understood how all this felt.

He wished he could say what his plan was after that, but truth be told: he had no idea. He just remembered touching your hand once and he couldn’t stay away. He supposed a part of him . . . perhaps the part of him stuck in the past couldn’t let a part of you go. And, sure, he wasn’t sure what that all meant but it did mean something . . . and he trusted it.

He still trusted that gut feeling as he brought a hand up to his eyes, rubbing them to clear the sleep from the corners. Dropping his hand, he finally took the time to focus his eyesight, squinting in the dark as he turned his head to the side, finding none other than you sound asleep with your mouth slightly agape as you snored softly.

Then . . . you let one loud snore out, and he couldn’t help it: his grin grew so wide, his eyes crinkling as he silently laughed.

You were a snorer. A loud one at that.

This was something he’d keep to himself.

You’d never admit it if he told you. So he’d keep this to himself. It was something he knew about you that would stay a secret, and that in itself had him attempting to reach for you, but he found that your hand was already clutched tightly around his thumb, stopping him from moving entirely.

With a small smile on his face, he gently pulled the hand wrapped around his thumb, slowly moving you into his arms. Luckily, you were a heavy sleeper, so when he’d finally tucked you into his chest, his chin resting on the crown of your head, you were still snoring into his skin without even stirring in the slightest.

And finally, he could breathe a sigh of relief.

But for what? he still pondered.

And then it hit him.

He’d recognized that look on your face, the nail-biting, your demeanor . . . He recognized it because he knew it well. That look, those feelings, the habits . . . he’d borne those, too. He still did.

Perhaps he had issues with letting the past go. Or perhaps he felt a sense of familiarity with you.

Or maybe he believed in you more than he believed in himself.

And then it clicked.

Jungkook wasn’t exactly a fan of parties. In college, he’d attend them for the sake of his team, perhaps even help throw them, but he’d always find himself standing near Taehyung or Jimin, trying to pass the time before he could crawl into his bed. So . . . when his social battery would drain out . . . Jungkook liked to watch movies.

All kinds of movies . . . sometimes shows. He liked anime and dramas. Hated Pulp Fiction and most sitcoms (mostly because he thought they were trying too hard to be funny half the time). But he didn’t mind romance movies. In fact, he preferred to watch them. He didn’t really find the point in watching something if there wasn’t at least one well-written romance.

He loved love, although it had never really worked out for him, but he still believed in it. His parents had shown him that.

Call him a hopeless romantic, he didn’t care. That was what he was.

He liked thinking that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. It made his anxiety subside enough to let him breathe, although most days he lost sight of that. Most days he lost sight of everything.

But . . . he never truly lost sight of you . . .

Anyway . . .

One of his favorite go-to movies when things would get . . . too much . . . as a kid was Your Name. He loved the art, he loved the plot, the characters . . . everything. He loved the fact that despite it all, a soul connection would always be a soul connection.

When he was little he’d even wished upon shooting stars that he’d hear bells when he found his soulmate. But no bells ever rang, and Jungkook grew up. He realized no bells would ever ring, and that was OK. (He still had just an ounce of hope . . . not that he’d admit that.)

Now . . . OK . . . maybe he was going a little overboard. He’d realized now that perhaps soulmates didn’t exactly exist. Maybe two people just happen to find each other and fit into each other, but where was the fun in that? (Fine, he was getting off track. Fine.))

Soulmates didn’t have to exist. Jungkook could admit that.

But every once in a while, two people find each other and maybe no bells ring and there’s no red string tying them together . . . but . . . they meet and everything else doesn’t seem that scary as long as that person is standing beside them. Maybe that was Jungkook’s fucked up version of love, but he believed in that. Maybe it wasn’t exactly what you’d call fate . . . but it was . . . something . . .

And for a second, as he toyed with your hair, he wondered if you believed in soulmates. That only made him grin, because of course not! You didn’t believe in soulmates, he knew that.

You believed in people.

You believed in . . . him . . .

Jungkook slowly blinked. He knew that now.

He wasn’t exactly sure what that all meant . . . but . . . but you’d sat there and you’d listened to everything that had happened to him . . . and you’d understood. You’d understood him and you’d looked him right in the eyes and told him he wasn’t alone. And fuck . . . he’d believed you.

Maybe it would take a lot longer for him to accept everything you had said, but he did know one thing: you would be there.

And he . . . he wanted to be there for you.

He felt . . . that.

He felt it all.

At the time, he had wondered what he should call this feeling. He’d almost forced himself to stay up half the night with you snoring in his arms while he tried to find the right word, desperately mauling over countless explanations after explanations . . . until . . . well . . .

As Jungkook closed his eyes, squeezing you a little tighter, and breathing in your scent, he realized what he had been trying to ignore ever since he saw you again at the bar all those months ago. He realized why it had always been your opinion that mattered to him the most; why he didn't mind putting on matching froggy headbands with you and doing face masks while just letting the world . . . be; why he could never forget you; why he’d always searched for you in everything . . . even in how he’d dress. He realized why it had always been you; why he would always choose you no matter what over and over again.

And then he realized why that all occurred.

Jungkook loved you.

Wait—

Fuck!

He loved you. He loved you. Holy fuck, he fucking loved you! And fucking hell, he was sure he always had.

He realized this wasn’t just a feeling. There were no bells, and no bells were needed. He couldn’t find a red string tying the two of you together, and he didn’t care to search. He knew this wasn’t just a feeling. No, it was . . . love.

And for a second time that night, he wondered what you believed in . . . and if it included him at all . . .

taglist:

@hrts4kook , @taehyungs-chopsticks , @loomipee , @st3ft0n3s , @callmenada , @neg-l3ct , @dawn33 , @illegurlbangtan , @jeonsdetails , @rihabaxl , @yoongipost , @jjk1iscoming , @miumiugurl , @sadgirlroo , @lucwithbangtan , @iamsisuu , @shanelleeex , @beonim , @sherlynxx , @fairy1919 , @purplewhales , @bloopkook , @ggukcanim , @bloodline1632 , @jungkooksseuphoria , @tea4sykes , @mugiwaraelly , @darkuni63 , @jalexad , @lpgirl2324 , @fairy-jaykay , @h0tvillainap0logist , @stuffy16 , @keniicastillo , @yoongukie-ff , @seesawe , @chocolatesublimesoul , @yopjm , @jeonlovescoffee , @xmirvamx , @jk-190811 , @percyjacksonlovesannabethchase , @vminkookgf , @werxyz , @tornparts , @aprilspring , @kswr1d , @jimilter , @02010802 , @sunsetnamjin , @lonekittycat , @moonchild1 , @hanamgi , @yoongslast , @heronstairsxd @pointofviewyugyeom

#jungkook fanfic #jungkook x reader #jungkook #jungkook au #jeon jungkook #bts #bts au #jungkook series #jungkook scenario #bts fic #bts x reader #kpop #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook x y/n #jeon jungkook x y/n #jungkook fluff #jeon jungkook fluff #bts jungkook

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glimmerglanger · 2 years

Text

Misinterpretation

Listen, sometimes you just want to write a very silly spicy fic about the most random things, like, I don't know, the fall-out from the Rako Hardeen mission.

And thus, this teeny fic was born. Featuring Anakin walking in on something he shouldn't, spice, silliness, second-hand embarrassment, etc.

~~~~~

The entire Hardeen debacle crawled around under Anakin’s skin, leaving him feeling furious. He tried to focus on other things, but each time he had to even look at Obi-Wan, it all came back, all the betrayal and the lies.

It ate at him, even after they got back to the Temple and Obi-Wan left to find his quarters.

Anakin ended up pacing around, unsettled, until he commed the Chancellor and realized he needed to go speak with Obi-Wan again, needed to make him understand the true cost of his actions, the repercussions his foolish little plan had on Anakin.

He strode through the halls of the Temple, heading for Obi-Wan’s quarters. He commed on the way, but Obi-Wan refused to answer. No doubt ignoring Anakin’s messages as another way to avoid the consequences of what he’d done.

Well, he wouldn’t be able to avoid it. Not this time. Anakin had talked to the Chancellor. He knew he was in the right, he had the moral high ground in the situation. Obi-Wan had frightened everyone, toyed with their emotions, thinking only of the mission--

Obi-Wan refused to answer the door to his quarters when Anakin rang the chime. Anakin could - vaguely - sense him inside, though his emotions were distant, cloaked. Obi-Wan was hiding from him in more ways than one, then.

Anakin ground his teeth together for a moment and then keyed an override into the door locks. He’d figured out the process long ago. It was impossible to tell when he’d need to get into Obi-Wan’s rooms, after all.

He stepped through the door and frowned.

He’d expected to find Obi-Wan in the main living space. Perhaps trying to meditate away his guilt or slumped into the couch in silence and darkness.

Instead, the windows in the main living area were open, allowing light to flood into the space. Obi-Wan was not visible. And it was not quiet.

“--can’t - ah - fucking believe - you did that,” Cody growled out, voice floating out of the door to Obi-Wan’s bedroom, ajar.

His voice sounded low - rough - and Anakin felt a swell of justified satisfaction inside his chest. Rex had seemed confused when Anakin told him why he was angry, but obviously Cody was furious, too. Cody understood.

Obi-Wan made a sound - probably in protest - but Cody cut him off as Anakin crossed the room, “Only you - ah - would have thought - fuck - you could pull - fucking hells - that off--”

Anakin felt his chest swell, preparing to push through the door and add his agreement to everything Cody said, before he noticed the…other sounds. It took him a beat - as he strode across the floor - to recognize the sound of flesh on flesh.

His pleasure immediately shifted. It was perfectly understandable that Cody would be angry, furious, even. Anakin felt that same rage. He wanted to hurt Obi-Wan, knew that Obi-Wan deserved - after that bantha kark - a punch or two across the jaw.

But Anakin had restrained himself, hadn’t taken a shot, and Cody had no right to put hands on Anakin’s old Master--

Anakin snapped, as he reached the door, hand going to his saber, “Take your hands off--”

He choked on his tongue, words strangling off, as he came around the corner and saw--

Obi-Wan was on his bed. So was Cody. They were - for a moment, Anakin couldn’t even make sense of what they were doing. Obi-Wan was--holding onto the slats of his headboard, on his knees, leaning forward. Naked.

He had his head--tilted back, neck straining, because--Cody had one hand buried in Obi-Wan’s replaced hair - Anakin had not managed to get a clear answer on how they’d gotten it back on his head - pulling hard, and he was--also naked, his other hand on Obi-Wan’s bare hip, squeezing hard as he--

Anakin heard a squawking, choking sound and realized after a horrified beat it had come from his throat.

Cody jerked to look at him; Obi-Wan tried, but his hair caught in Cody’s fingers, and he made a throaty, gasping sound that had Cody - terribly, horribly, why was Anakin still looking - slamming his hips forward, like some kind of automatic response, which lead to another sound from Obi-Wan’s lips--

“Get the fuck out,” Cody barked, all sweaty, sweet Force, why was Anakin still looking? “Now!” he snapped, taking his hand off Obi-Wan’s hip and reaching down to the blankets and kriffing hells coming up with a blaster--

Anakin scrambled backwards, tripping over his feet in the process.

“Cody,” he heard, as he stumbled across the floor towards the door. “I should--”

“I’m not done with you yet,” Cody growled, and Anakin wondered what happened if you poured bleach in your ears. “Do you know,” Cody went on, the noises of skin on skin resuming as Anakin threw himself at the door, “how fucking hot it is that you kicked--”

Anakin lurched out into the hallway, feeling like he’d just escaped orbital bombardment, heart racing, vaguely nauseous.

He needed to speak with Obi-Wan more than ever, but, he acknowledged, lurching down the hall, it could probably wait…at least a few hours.

#codywan #hardeen fallout #SPICY #very SPICY #folks i ALMOST called this OPSEX and i feel like that should tell you what you need to know about this #i needed something silly after haunt me then #team obi-wan did nothing wrong

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im-not-here-im-dead · 1 year

Note

perhaps.... flowey and/or undyne?

(very tempted to ask about asgore but)

hi! this is several months late! i apologize!

ask game

anyways, i’ll start with flowey

first impression

not too different from most of the fandom’s impression of him. little more than a weird two-dimensional villain character. i didn’t even realize that he is not a separate person from asriel for a good while. like, come on. there was a whole dramatic twist and everything. it should not have taken me as long as it did. (the fandom didn’t exactly help though -_-)

impression now

he is my favoritest boy in the whole entire world and, in my opinion, the best character in the game (though chara is still my personal favorite). it’s sad to see him get watered down to just “evil flower” and “poor little goat kid”, cause there’s so much more to him. he’s a fantastic character and he means so much to me.

favorite moment

i can’t chose between these:

“…why are you being……so nice to me? I just can’t understand…”

“I’m not ready for this to end. I’m not ready for you to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye to someone like you again…”

in the true route you don’t have to forgive him, but you can still comfort him

when he talks to “chara” when you try to reset after the true ending, showing that he truly cares about frisk and the others and that he’s grown as a person and that he’s ready to say goodbye to his lost sibling

when he takes care of toriel in the ruins

matching red scarves

idea for a story

sometimes i wonder what would happen if he ended up being the sole surviving dreemurr and the king of the underground… hmm.

on a more lighthearted note, i would really like to see him form a sibling bond with undyne as well as frisk. it would absolutely melt my metaphorical heart. big sister undyne my beloved <3

unpopular opinion

flowey is NOT emotionless! where the heck did people get that idea???

hello???? he is THE MOST emotional character in the game!!

him staying a flower isn’t a bad ending for him. and not being able to feel love doesn’t make him any worse or less of a person. he doesn’t need to be ‘fixed’. he needs support and guidance. the only thing i think could happen if he suddenly returned to his original form is cause him to panic because he’s not ready to let anyone else (especially his parents) know who he is. i don’t think either ending is worse exactly. they both have a lot of potential that often sadly falls by the wayside because of common perceptions of ‘flowey’ and ‘asriel’ that wouldn’t be so pervasive if people had a better understanding of his character. so anyways, yes. it is okay that flowey doesn’t feel love. —signed, a real life loveless person

i think the loss of his soul and him being reincarnated as a golden flower is a metaphor for how his grief/trauma/actions/etc. have changed him as a person rather than him. literally being a different person. others have said it better than me, but, like, the only time he kinda separates himself from his past identity is in the true route, and i think he does it mostly out of shame. he wanted ‘asriel’ to be remembered fondly and put to rest because he can never again be that same sweet, innocent, loving, little boy everyone knew him as. if his parents found out who he was and what he had done, surely they’d be devastated and disgusted with him. if chara was alive to see what a disappointment of a friend and brother he was, surely they would be too. why would they not? he can never redeem himself. he can never be worthy of mercy. (he just can’t understand). so he plays the villain, the sinner, the good-for-nothing, the miserable creature, the one who came back wrong, because he just can’t reconcile himself with the fact that he’s still that same person, just changed and evolved over timelines. frisk has seen who he is. the good, the bad, and the ugly. and yet they still see him as a person, worthy of mercy and a second chance at life, despite everything (it’s still you)

favorite relationship

i’d say the ‘relationship’ between him and the player (aka: me specifically because flowey is already supposed to mirror the protagonist, but he and i have so much in common it’s scary so that makes things really interesting) but i dunno if that counts, so i’ll say his friendship with papyrus.

favorite headcanon

one of my favorite flowey headcanons is that the first soul rebellion in the omega flowey battle was staged. it just adds a whole nother layer to fight.

also the headcanon that he needs glasses. the world needs more pictures of flowey wearing glasses.

now undyneeeeeeee

first impression

i always thought she was cool, though i wasn’t as invested in her character because i was more focused on other characters (papyrus and chara to be exact)

impression now

she is totally awesome and definitely one of the coolest characters in the game, but i’m starting to realize and appreciate more and more that she is not larger than life. she has her own flaws and insecurities that make her complex and real. it took me while for me to get a feel for her character, but this fic series certainly helped a lot. it’s one of my all time favorites and i highly recommend it (heed the warnings though. it gets pretty rough)

favorite moment

ah. this is. another really hard choice.

that moment of cognitive dissonance when frisk gives her water after she collapses from the heat

the scene where frisk visits her house and she slowly begins to realize that she might be wrong about them and lets her guard down and opens up to them

at the end of the undying battle when she’s on the verge of death but still smiling triumphantly

those are just the ones off the top of my head. there’s probably more that i’m forgetting. she’s got a lot of great moments

“Don’t ask me what a grooty is!”

idea for a story

i really want to know her origin story. where did she come from? who were her parents? what was her childhood like? i am putting my hands on her shoulders and i am shaking her like a rag doll. i want to know. everything.

unpopular opinion

she absolutely should have been the fan favorite instead of sans. i don’t know what happened but i am very confused as to how she isn’t way more popular than him. no hate to sans by the way. he’s a great character and he deserves to be popular. undyne is still outrageously underrated and i will never not be mad about her getting overshadowed and watered down by the fandom at large.

favorite relationship

man i dunno. i’m stuck between papyrus, alphys, and asgore (i also think her and toriel’s dynamic has so much underutilized potential).

favorite headcanon

my favorite headcanon about her is that she’s autistic. because she is. so autistic. and you cannot convince me otherwise.

yes thank you i am grateful for any excuse to talk about asgore

first impression

i didn’t really think about him all that much, but it always made me sad when i saw people hating on him or treating him like a joke. i knew he wasn’t the greatest person, but he wasn’t a bad person either. i always liked his design too. very nice and fluffy.

impression now

………this man has been plaguing my adhd-ridden mind for the past year and BY GOLLY has it been a miserable experience for all parties involved. if i’m being completely honest here, out of all of the characters from undertale and deltarune, asgore has had the most emotional impact on me. haha. you’d THINK it’d be chara, or flowey, or… hell, even berdly! BUT NOOOO, KING FLUFFYBOY HAD TO CAUSE ME MORE EMOTIONAL DAMAGE THAN ANY OTHER FICTIONAL CHARACTER BARRING GOD HIMSELF. and, yes, most of that emotional damage was because of that one scene from that one neutral route (which i’m still not sure if i’m ready to talk about directly), but also because of literally everything else. literally everything about this guy makes me want to burst into tears. and part of what makes his story so painful for me is that i relate so many of his struggles. i’ll spare you the details, but i just see SO MUCH of myself in him, and it means so much to me to know that he gets better. pain and suffering aside, i just think he’s a really fascinating character and i care about him a lot.

favorite moment

okay, at first i thought of the moment where he destroys the mercy button (which is still a phenomenal moment) but, then i took a good look at another scene.

in his regular battle, he bows his head, hiding his face in shadow, resolved to kill or be killed, but giving frisk every chance he can think of to ensure that they are not the one who is killed.

but in his lost soul battle, frisk looks him in the eyes and promises him that they won’t hurt him. no matter what. that moment shakes me to my very core.

idea for a story

i really want to explore what would happen if frisk were to absorb his soul and cross the barrier to find a way free monsterkind peacefully.

unpopular opinion

asgore is not a Hawaiian-pattern shirt guy. he is a floral-pattern shirt guy.

favorite relationship

him and chara!! (him and frisk is a very close second) i LIVE for the parallels.

favorite headcanon

i like to think that he became king at a really young age basically right after the war happened and his parents left huge shoes to fill. i mean, his tendency to laud his children as the hope for everyone’s future when they weren’t ready for the responsibility had to have come from somewhere, right?

(i don’t think he was a child king, but i can’t see him having been more than a young adult when he was coronated. old enough that it would have been legal, but young enough that he was still grossly underprepared and largely depended on others for guidance in executive decisions. writing laws and giving orders had never been his forte. his strengths lied more in giving speeches, helping with manual tasks, providing moral support/comfort/encouragement, connecting with his people personally. he was always very good at being part of a community, but he was never an excellent ruler)

okay i’m tired byeeeeee

i really want to explore what would happen if frisk was to absorb his soul and go to the surface in search for a way to unite humans and monsters and break the barrier. i have a whole bunch of ideas for this, but unfortunately i have so many other works in progress that starting on this now will just add to the ever-growing pile

Unpopular opinion

asgore is not a hawaiian pattern shirt guy. he is a floral pattern shirt guy. i said what i said. feel free to unfollow me for this /joking

Favorite relationship

him and chara (him and frisk is a very close second). i live for the parallels

Favorite headcanon

i like to think that he was became king at a young age pretty much right after monsters had been imprisoned underground and his parents left huge shoes to fill. i don’t think he was a child king, but i can’t see him being more than 18 or 19 when it happened. i mean, his habit of lauding his children as the hope for everyone’s future when they weren’t ready for the responsibility couldn’t have come from nowhere, could it?

#utdr #undertale #flowey asriel #flowey #flowey undertale #asriel #asriel dreemurr #asriel undertale #undyne #undyne undertale #asgore #asgore dreemurr #asgore undertale #safeutdr #utdr thoughts #undertale no mercy #long post #angst warning #asks

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depressedhatakekakashi · 6 months

Text

A Sacrifice Worth Being Made

Words: 1,888

Royalty AU: Sacrifice

Also for @kakagaievents Kakagai Halloween event with the prompt 'Beast'

The entire room had fallen silent. Even the most vocal of Gai’s advisors couldn’t think of a single thing to say, opting instead to bow their heads and keep their mouths shut. On any other day, Gai would appreciate the quiet.

Today, he wished someone would say something.

Anything.

“What?” Anger boiled inside of his chest, consuming him in a way he’d never experienced before. He wanted to lash out. To scream and argue and cry until he was too warn out to continue.

“I’ll go,” Kakashi repeated himself as if everything was just fine. “If no one else can deal with the issue, then I will.”

“Your majesty,” A sharp glare would usually silence any words his advisors had, but it did nothing to detour Genma. His advisor simply met his gaze with the same calm that he always tried to exude in their meetings. “Sir Kakashi is one of our best knights and we have lost quite a few trying to destroy this beast already.”

“No.” his voice was sharper than usual, with such fiery anger burning in that one simple word that half of the advisors who surrounded the table took a step back. As if they were protecting themselves from the fall they could see happening directly in front of them.

Not one to be intimidated, though, Kakashi simply straightened his back and turned to face Gai. “Name one person better equipped to face the challenge than I.”

“I-that’s not the point,” he bit back. “You are a royal guard. Your duty is to stay at my side and protect me!”

“To protect you sometimes I must step away,” Kakashi spoke with an eerie calmness. A trait Gai had seen over the years, though it was always directed at someone else. Someone who needed to be reminded of the rules. “I did this when I led the army in the battle of Hacho, and again when I left to take care of the assassine that King Onoki had sent to kill you.”

Gai shook his head. It was true of course and he knew Kakashi’s duties better than anyone. He’d made sure to read all about the duties his lover would be carrying out when he first got word about his father’s intentions to make Kakashi his royal guard.

He’d never thought he would reach the day when that information backfired on him.

Still, he didn’t give up. He couldn’t.

Allowing Kakashi to go on this mission was a guaranteed loss. Even if he was successful in slaying the beast it was unlikely that he would make it home. The intel they’d received from past attempts and the select few who’d miraculously managed to get away before they were ripped to shreds confirmed that there was no escape.

“Poisoned fangs,” He whispered, images of all those people he’d seen just a few days ago in the village hospital. People who’d lived in a village a few hours away and who’d come to his kingdom seeking asylum after the beast had attacked their homes. “Claws that can impale a grown man, faster than any animal seen before.”

“I know what its qualities are,” Kakashi assured him, never faltering for even a second. “I’ve studied everything we know about it and thought carefully about the risks before coming to this decision.”

The aching fear that had engulfed Gai’s heart when he first heard Kakashi offer himself up for the job began to loosen. It felt silly now that he thought about it, but he’d forgotten just how cautious Kakashi could be.

No matter what the task, Kakashi was known for facing it head-on with plans that would make even the wisest generals bow their heads in respect. There wasn’t a single person in the kingdom who could think as Kakashi did, and no one who could carry out those plans as well as he did.

“So,” Genma spoke up, his voice giving away the excitement that everyone else in the room must have been feeling. “What’s the plan?”

After three weeks of panic, there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Kakashi was stepping forward, and he spoke in such a way that it seemed clear that he had a plan. An idea that would allow him to defeat the beast that plagued their lands while still keeping his life.

Yet, while everyone else seemed to already be celebrating their freedom from the beast’s rampage, Gai could still feel that terrible weight in his chest. A fear that weighed down on his heart even when he tried to remind himself that it was Kakashi.

Hatake Kakashi is the youngest person to ever be knighted and one of the absolute best knights in the entire kingdom.

“The plan?” Kakashi’s eyes flickered over to Genma. “To kill the beast, of course.”

Gai’s heart sank.

There was no plan.

No grand design that Kakashi had thought up to defeat the beast while ensuring his own survival.

“You…you’re kidding, right?” for the first time in his life, Gai heard a growl in Genma’s voice. The usually cool-headed advisor had finally met a challenge that he couldn’t face without allowing his anger to seep through into full view for everyone around him. “You just told us you’d thought through everything. That means you have a plan, right?”

“No,” Gai answered for his lover, his heart shattering when Kakashi looked his way. “There is no plan that will work.”

“That is…sort of correct,” Kakashi confirmed. “It is possible for me to defeat the beast and end the reign of terror it had placed over the kingdom. It will no longer be a problem and people will be able to return to their homes. Of course, they’re going to need aid to rebuild.”

“Aid that they will receive without question,” Gai assured him. “Now let’s focus on the main issue.”

“There is no issue,” Kakashi continued with that same cool attitude, never for a second giving away what was going on in his mind. “The beast will be taken care of. That is the only thing that matters.”

Gai wanted to scream.

To fight, argue, and cry.

To lash out and demand an explanation for Kakashi’s attitude.

He didn’t, though. There was no outburst that would aid in this situation, and it would only serve to embarrass him and Kakashi in the long run. Instead, he turned to his advisors and steeled himself for the impending conversation. “You’re dismissed.”

“You’re majesty!” Four of them gasped, but before they could even begin to argue both Genma and Ebisu set about ushering them all out of the room. There was a bit of argument along the way, but once they were out Genma turned around and pulled the doors shut.

With everyone gone the room was now deadly silent. The weight of Kakashi’s sacrifice hung over the two of them as they stood there staring at each other.

Summoning upon just an ounce of strength, Gai began to speak. “How long?”

“Your majesty?” Kakashi answered with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t understand.”

“How long,” he repeated. “How long have we known each other, Kakashi?”

“twenty -seven years,” the answer came without hesitation or doubt.

“Twenty-seven years,” thinking back, he couldn’t help but smile. There were so many memories the two of them had shared. Times, when they had sat under the beautiful maple tree in the garden reading the book Choza-Sensei, was teaching them about. Hours they had spent running around the castle trying to see who could name the most people in the pictures that hung on the castle walls. The nights that the two of them had spent entangled in each other’s arms, whispering their promises and hiding under the blankets like five-year-olds whenever they heard footsteps just outside the door. “And this…” he waved a hand toward Kakashi, indicating the declaration he’d just made in front of him and all of his advisors. “This is how it ends?”

Lowing his eyes, Kakashi sighed. “Someone had to put a stop to it.”

“Someone,” Gai agreed as the tears began gathering in his eyes. “Not you.”

“Name someone else,” Kakashi insisted, repeating the same request he had made earlier. “One other person that can handle the task. Anyone.”

A list of names ran through Gai’s mind, but every single one of them fell short.

None of them had Kakashi’s skills. His drive, intelligence, speed, abilities with a sword. Some of them could match his skill in one or two areas or even beat him in select areas, but they weren’t as skilled as him all around.

He was the master of all trades.

The knight who had done everything in his power to perfect all of his skills, setting himself apart from others as exceptional. Once upon a time, Gai had felt nothing but pride about that. Now, all he could feel was crushing, painful regret.

“Anyone else,” Kakashi spoke again, his voice pleading this time. Begging Gai to provide him with one simple name so that he wouldn’t have to be the one to make the sacrifice.

So that he could stay here, by Gai’s side where he was supposed to be.

“I-”

“You can’t,” a bitter laugh ripped up from his throat. “I tried to think of one too. I spent all night trying to come up with one name. One person who could carry out the plan I’d come up with, but they’d all die.”

“So will you.” Tears spilled down his cheeks.

“Maybe, yes,” lowering his eyes, Kakashi drew in a breath, and for the first time since they’d met, Gai could see his lover's resolve wavering. “But I’ll succeed. That’s the difference.”

“You are so…”

“Arrogent?” Kakashi completed his sentence with a shaky chuckle.

“Selfless,” Gai corrected him, though what would usually be spoken as a compliment came out as a complaint this time. “Don’t go.”

“I have to,” Watching as his lover took a step forward, Gai found himself holding a breath as a hand came up and cupped his cheek. The warmth of Kakashi’s hand was comforting, and for just a second he was able to focus on that.

A second was a short amount of time, though, and the reality of his situation soon came crashing into his silent getaway and yanked him right back into reality. The last place he wanted to be.

“Tomorrow,” he begged, hoping to cling to as much time as he could even if it seemed hopeless. “Leave tomorrow morning.”

Kakashi simply smiled, though there was no joy in his eyes when Gai stared into them. “Tomorrow,” leaning in close, he pressed his forehead against Gai’s and closed his eyes. “And who knows. Maybe I’ll return before dinner.”

Gai laughed for the first time since hearing Kakashi’s decision. “I’ll tell the kitchen to make salt-broiled saury to celebrate.”

His heart ached, but these were precious moments.

If this really was going to be his last night with his lover, he wanted it to be fantastic. A night that he could remember for the rest of his life. No tears, no arguing, no dreading the morning to come.

Tomorrow he could spend his day fretting. Tonight, he would focus on reminding Kakashi how much he was loved, even if it broke his heart to do so.

#AU-Tober #AU-Tober 2023 #Kakagai #Royalty AU #King Gai #Knight Kakashi #Angst #Slight Angst

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brezchez · 6 months

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I remember - Tenrose

Welcome to the first of my 1989 themed fics! I know that Style is before this, but I'm having a bit of trouble writing it at the moment so I'll be releasing the next ones and hopefully, before this is all over I'll have written it.

This fic is written from Rose's perspective, sort of like a diary entry in a way, and takes place around 5 months after their goodbye in 'Doomsday' (I'm still in mourning). If you spot any lyric references, comment them!

With that all being said, enjoy :)

Song: Out Of The Woods

Pairing: Tenrose (Tenth Doctor X Rose Tyler) - Doctor Who

🥀⌛

I once knew a man called The Doctor. He, like his name, was strange, mysterious and confusing; you could rarely ever get a straight answer out of him. And if you managed to, it would only be because you’d have to force every damn bone in his body to get it out.

When he talked, it would sometimes be as if he was only saying words, making noise, not as if he knew that someone was listening.

But I was.

I was always hearing The Doctor. I soaked up his endless rants like a sponge absorbing water, and I loved it. Somewhere along the lines, I think that, one day, he picked up that I was actually there, that I was someone who was present with him in the moment, someone who was willing to truly pay attention to every word that flew out of those pinkish little lips of his.

He saw me, like I saw him, and that was all I needed in life.

Looking at it now, it all seemed so simple. Those adventures that we’d have all seem like distant dreams now. What I wouldn’t give to go on just one more with him. Please, just one. Every night, I look up at the stars. I search for that blue box, knowing that I’d never find it yet still clinging onto that glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, I will. Mum says that she understands, and I suppose to an extent she does. But she’ll never know how much my heart aches and cries and screams for him. And neither will he. He’s probably off bouncing between galaxies and shooting all over space, battling evil forces and saving the entire universe from destruction. The worst part is that he won't have anyone with him. He's alone, and that’s what breaks me the most.

During every adventure we’d go on together, my head told me it wasn’t safe. I always knew that there was a looming danger hanging over me, whispering in my ear that whatever foreign planet that we were on would be the last I’d ever step on. The constant questions: Are we out of the woods yet? Are we in the clear yet? They’d continuously ring in my ears like sirens blaring, but I’d ignore them.

That constant anxiety of being around The Doctor; I’ll admit it was suffocating and of course frightening. But at the same time, it was also so thrilling. To know that I would spend the rest of my days living on, not just the edge of the universe but also the edge of life; I revelled in the feeling. And to also be by The Doctor’s side through it all? I knew that that was all I wanted. Gone was the boring life I knew as a shop assistant in London - I never wanted to go back.

But of course, fate had other plans.

Looking at it now, The Doctor and I… we were built to fall apart, yet somehow we’d always find a way to fall back together. It was as if we were defying the laws of time and space itself by surviving through everything. Our first adventure (with his new dashing face) on New Earth, becoming stranded on Krop Tor, dealing with aliens in 1953 or even stopping an attack from outer space during the 2012 London Olympics. All the while, those questions: ‘Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet? Are we in the clear yet? Are we in the clear yet?’, they would echo over and over and over again, swarming in my mind. There were times where I’d think they’d come true and the end would finally catch up to me.

However, we pulled through it all, and we did it together. But I guess, with every disaster that we made out of alive, the angrier the universe became. Until finally, we were dealt the final blow and I was separated from him. Forever.

Not a day goes by that I don’t remember his face; in those final moments that I saw him, the real him, not just a hollow image of a man I used to be able to touch. I remember his expression as clearly as if I was still there, the daleks screaming as they were being sucked into that void and me, clinging onto that damn lever like a lifeline. His eyes, wide with dread as his face paled in horror; it burned into my memory, scarring me forever. Whenever I close my eyes, I can still see it.

The next time I saw him, it wasn’t him. Not really. He said it himself, “just an image, no touch”. I remember how quickly my heart dropped and all my hope vanished. I remember breaking down, sobbing, falling into a million pieces right in front of him. I remember wishing that we would hold me, comfort me, tell me it was just a glitch in the system that he could easily fix, like he always knew how. But he had to tell me the truth that I wouldn’t face.

I still remember that grin on his face that always did its best to hide The Doctor’s true emotions, and those silly, sweet eyes that would betray him, and lay himself bare to me when we said goodbye. The last things he said to me, that I was the one adventure he could never have, will stay with me forever, cemented in my memories like the stars in the sky.

I’ll always remember the aching of my heart, the screaming pain of confessing through my sobs, “I love you.” And I’ll always remember his final words…that were never finished.

“Rose Tyler…”

* * *

I once knew a man called The Doctor. He, like his name, was strange, mysterious and confusing. But that’s who he was, and that’s who he’ll always be. Maybe I’ll never know what he was going to say to me that day, at Bad Wolf Bay. Maybe I’ll never truly know if he ever loved me back. Maybe I'll never know if I'll ever see him again.

But I'm out of the woods now. Hopefully, I'll be in the clear soon too.

🥀⌛

Please like, comment and reblog! 🫶 (If I haven't broken your heart too much)

#1989 taylor's version #1989 tv #taylor swift #swifties #tswift #fanfic #out of the woods #doctor who #tenrose #timepetals #tenth doctor #rose tyler #david tennant #billie piper #rose x ten #1989 song fics

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clumsiestgiantess · 7 months

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Day 14: Linger

Some fucked up shit (whump) I wrote several years ago, re-written for your viewing pleasure.

(For those of you who don’t like torture scenarios, you can skip this one; idk what younger me was on when I wrote this)

Hailey

My parents are fighting again. At least, I like to think of them that way — parents instead of total strangers. It's been harder and harder to see them shouting like this. I can hear their screaming all the way from my room on the top floor. It's been hard on my brother too, I think. He hides it better than I do. I just want things to be normal again.

Sighing, I slunk downstairs and slipped outside before anyone noticed me. Taking a deep long breath, I gently closed the door, peering into the dark. Walking out to the edge of our yard- sorry, table, I sat down on its edge. Four years of living on a surface raised several whole feet in the air and thinner than you is definitely not for everyone; I'm ok with it though. I don't fall off too often anymore.

My family and I; we’re all dolls. Yes, literally. I’ve been like this as long as I can remember, passed from hand to hand, attic to garage sale. The girls in this house — they used to play with us all the time. It was amazing! The world of plastic would fall away into something real and true. Life was only worth living for those moments. But the older human grew up, and the younger one was bought a brand new dollhouse, unlike this ancient one. Soon after our abandonment, my parents — the older dolls — started arguing nonstop.

Sometimes I'll imagine what life would be like if I lived on my own, but then I wouldn't have a life. Literally. My whole reason for existing is to be played with. I wouldn't be miserably listening to a never ending argument, but I'd be miserably sitting in the dark, alone, by myself with nothing to live for. So that's not really an option. The pent-up stress and depression that comes with being rejected took its toll on everyone in different ways. I come out here to sit at the edge of our table and wait for one of the humans to come down. Maybe, just maybe, they’d remember us. Even if they don’t want us around, surely they’d pass us along to another human that does.

Just then, the basement lights snapped on. Yelping in surprise, I slipped off the ledge and braced myself for the hard ground below. As a doll, I can go from flesh to plastic pretty much instantly, so I can't get hurt from this kind of thing. Every once and a while I forget that as plastic, I’m immune to the fall. Even without pain, the drop is still plenty terrifying. I'm not supposed to be seen by humans — not without being plastic — so I scrambled away from the open floor and hid behind one of the table legs. Apparently, humans don’t like it when we’re flesh like them.

When I was younger, I vaguely remember all of us trying to live life alive, like humans do. When an actual human found us, they got so scared they passed out. My oldest sister tried once more to interact with them, but she didn’t come back. I tried to ask what my parents meant by that, but they didn’t give an answer other than she was never coming home. Now I know that they’d tried to ‘exorcise’ her — a gruesome process humans inflict on dolls like us to stop us from living. I didn’t even know we could die until then. None of us show our living selves anymore. As long as we’re complacent, nothing bad happens.

The girl who’d come downstairs so suddenly was the older one. She ran right past me to the door with her dog in tow, so I took the opportunity to get climbing. She never comes down to play with us anymore, so I know I have some time before anyone notices me where I didn’t belong.

My first few attempts to scale the table failed pretty miserably. I kept sliding back down the slippery wooden columns which served as table legs. Finally, I'd managed to climb halfway up the vertical surface when the door to the yard opened, letting in a hyperactive puppy with the girl right behind it. After running a few laps around the basement, the fluffy bullet settled down on the couch while the human pulled out her phone and sat down beside it.

Inch by inch, I slowly began hauling myself up the table again, refusing to go back down. It had taken me so long to get where I was. In hindsight, that wasn't one of my best ideas. The dog spotted me moving less than a few seconds later, and began barking as loud as it could at the table leg I was currently climbing. Instantly, I was back on the floor again. "Hey!" the human yelled annoyedly, marching over to her dog. "What in the world are you barking at?! Is your ball under there?" Before I could even think about running, she'd stuck her head under the table and spotted me. I was way too quick for her to catch me alive, though.

By the time the human got down on her hands and knees, I was already back to being plastic. "Were you barking at this?" she asked the dog as she held me out for it to sniff. Now that I was plastic, the animal seemed to lose all interest in me and went back to lay down on the couch. The girl shook her head and walked back with him, but she'd taken me with her, placing me down on the bookshelf beside the couch. "You are such a strange dog, Cooper," she said, patting the husky puppy as she sat down again.

Ok, I've been sitting here for an HOUR now and the girl, Ellie, if I remember correctly, still hasn't left. She got up a few minutes ago to get her headphones though, and she hasn’t looked up from her phone once. As quietly as I could, I began to slide away from my spot on the bookshelf. Mind you, I'm still five inches tall, so one wrong move and I'm easily seen. I was at the edge of the shelf now, so I hardened my skin to plastic and inched off the ledge, letting myself drop to the ground. I'd begun traversing the floor, sure I could make the short jog to the play table, which had doubled as a dumping ground over the years.

Just a quick jog, only a few seconds between me and the safety of the table. "Holy shit!" I froze, mortified. In my prehipreal vision, Ellie stood up, staring down at me from somewhere too far up for me to see. Before I could even think of running or going plastic, Ellie rushed to a bin nearby, grabbed a fake treasure chest, and closed it around me. The plastic lock clicked shut, and she thundered up the basement stairs yelling urgently. "Mom! Look what I found!" Panic seized my chest, constricting the air out of my lungs. Say something, anything! "NO! Please! Please, you can't tell them!" I yelled, banging on the side of the box. I've just destroyed my life.

Ellie

Running as fast as I could, I slowed as I heard my mom reply. "What is it honey?" Thinking back to the tiny doll, I asked myself: was telling her the best idea? Every time adults found out about something like this in any movie, book, or even real life, they usually messed it up one way or another. Rather than telling her the truth, I said I'd forgotten. "That's alright," she replied, "Tell me if you remember what it was." I ran about halfway down the stairs before she stopped me. "Now that you're upstairs, why don't you help set the table for dinner?" I wasn’t upstairs anymore, but I knew I couldn’t argue. Before I could try to make up a good enough excuse, she had me fishing out spoons and forks from a drawer in the kitchen. I'd left the locked chest on the couch downstairs.

After a seemingly endless dinner, I was called away from the basement again to put away the laundry. Groaning, I trudged down the hall to my room. It wasn't that I was afraid the doll might escape the box; I was more afraid of my sister finding her. Claire, my younger sister, loves catching cool bugs and other various small creatures. I know she’ll absolutely adore the tiny doll from the basement. The problem was, she almost always forgets about the things she takes 'care' of, and leaves them in their containers without… anything. Now that I think about it, I don't think she's ever taken care of something that's lived for more than a month.

Once I was finally done with the laundry, I raced back downstairs. Hesitantly, I crept back to the couch and let out a sigh of relief; the chest was still there. No one had come down before me. As carefully as I could, I flipped open the lid, peering in. The small doll inside jumped in surprise and backed into a corner. "Wow," I breathed, "You... you're alive." Glaring at me, she grumbled under her breath. "You aren’t supposed to know that." I startled. For some reason, I’d been unsure whether she could talk. "What.. Why?" I asked, both confused and alarmed at once.

"Well, it’s.. for safety," she replied, “Humans don’t react well to seeing us alive. I.. don't know exactly what will become of us if we’re found out, but everyone says bad things'll happen if we are." Huffing, she sat back down on the bottom of the chest. After a second or two, she glanced up at me. “So, get it over with already.” My brows furrowed in confusion, wondering what she was insinuating by her last statement. "But I didn't tell anyone,” I said, glancing back at the stairway, “No one knows except me." The doll froze and looked up at me incredulously, "You're a liar. I can hear through this box, and I heard you yelling to your mother.”

"Did you hear me tell her about you?" I quipped. I could see she was about to say something snide in return but stopped, "... no. That doesn't mean anything, though. You still could've told them while I was sitting down here." Leaning back, I tried to think of a way to convince her I wasn't lying. "If I told someone, don't you think I would've brought them down here to convince them?" That silenced her for a while. "So, you didn't tell anyone?" she finally asked, shock spilling into her voice. I shook my head. Getting back up from the floor of the box, she grumbled as she started climbing over the side of the chest. "Even if you told no one, you still know. To me, that's one human too ma- AAH!" As she tried to climb up, her elbow knocked into the lid and it came crashing back down. Trapping her inside it again. "Are you alright?" I asked, lifting it gently back up.

"Just get me out of this thing," the doll sighed. “If you’re not going to trap me, I’m leaving. Like I was saying, you shouldn't know about me." As I listened to her talk on and on about how dangerous it was for her, I tilted the box so she could hop out. "If you know, someone else is bound to find out about me eventually.” I watched her with silent awe. She isn’t even plastic, though I know for a fact that she was when I used to play with her.

When I used to play with her. What a strange thing to do to someone very clearly alive. She’s.. a doll, that’s the point of her, but a living doll…. As the thought sunk in, I realized how most people would be frightened at that phrase. Flashes of horror movies danced in my head and I began having second thoughts about trapping her. Maybe it is better if I let the doll have what she wants. I cleared my throat, causing the little thing to jump at the sound. She’d scaled down the side of the couch where I’d placed the chest, and watched me warily from the floor. The distance between us didn’t feel like much, yet she looked so much smaller.

“Are all of you alive?” I asked, trying to stop the tendrils of fear in the back of my mind from slipping into my voice. The doll turned away from me purposefully, “I can’t tell you that.” Yes. Yes they are. “Is everything alive?” A sneer drifted onto her face. “Of course not! That would be impossible to hide! I don’t think anything is alive besides us.” The doll cringed a moment later, realizing her slip-up. Slowly, she turned back around to glance at me, trying to catch whether I’d recognized her mistake. "Alright, I guess I'll be upstairs then," I quickly headed towards the staircase as horror movies again plagued my thoughts. "Ok, just… please don't tell anyone," the doll stressed. When I turned to leave I replied, "I don't think anyone will believe me anyway,” before quickly dashing up the stairs to safety.

I've been staring at the ceiling of my room for the past half hour now, trying to make sense of what I just discovered. Was it better to leave the doll alone, or would it be better to trap her again? If my sister found her and mistreated her like everything else she owns, she might invoke whatever paranormal wrath the dolls might have. I debated it over and over in my head all through the night and into the next day. I'd just finished breakfast when a crashing sound echoed through the house. What was that?" I called in exasperation, expecting Cooper to have accidentally knocked something else over again. "It sounds like it came from downstairs," I heard my sister reply. The basement? Oh no. The doll.

I raced out of the kitchen and scrambled for the basement door. "I'll get it! No one move; I'll check it out!" Not waiting for a reply, I raced down the stairs and froze at the bottom. One of the other playhouses, a windmill with two small floors, had fallen off the table and smashed on the floor below. At least it wasn’t some possessed doll ritual.

"Everything's fine!" I called to my family, "Something just fell off a shelf, that's all!" I stepped forward to assess the damage when I noticed a string attached to a broken piece of the windmill. Pulling it off of the balcony, I realized there was a kind of grapple at the end. Strange. I followed the string with my finger, tugging it along through the cracked plastic pieces to find what the other end was attached to. Splinters of cracked plastic parted, revealing the doll from last night. I found her beneath the rubble, unconscious.

Hailey

My life is literally over. I thought I might be able to salvage it, but as I walked into the dollhouse it became painfully apparent that I was done for. Everyone knew what had happened. Of course they did; the dining room had a clear view of the couch. I'd been warned explicitly by everyone in this place that if anyone screwed up, they'd pay for it. One mistake would affect everyone, not just the doll who was to blame. My so-called 'parents' locked me in my room, blocking the way out with a heavy shelf. The only reason I'm not still stuck in there is my crafty escape plan I'd devised on day one of the fierce arguments. Thankfully, I made it out with my climbing grapple and my freedom.

I planned to live on my own. It’s really the only option now. I won’t really miss the old house or the dolls there, but I wasn't expecting them to actually stay true to their word. I kind of assumed that the threats to imprison me were fictions purely to scare me away from the idea of escape. All night, I trekked across the massive basement floor, not daring to stop for anything until I reached the place I was headed. I was going to live in the two story windmill on the shelf by the stairs. It was less used than the dollhouse, and basically inaccessible to any of the others without a grapple like mine.

It was already early morning by the time I reached the stairs. The distance between the dollhouse and the other end of the room didn’t look nearly as far from my window. However, my legs ached from the journey. When I finally got to the shelf, I used my grapple to scale each section. It was easier going scaling each individual section rather than trying to climb the whole thing, even if it took a longer time. Almost at the top, I threw up the hook and latched the end of it to a balcony at the top of the windmill. Just as I'd begun hoisting myself along, I heard a faint creak. My line slid and I froze, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Fearfully, I looked up. I was just in time to witness the top of the windmill snap off the building. Screaming, I desperately grasped at my line, but it was no use. The whole thing had fallen with me. I managed to become plastic before I hit the floor, but I barely had time to blink before the entire building fell on top of me.

Mommy and Daddy are fighting. I don't like it, so I turn instead to my pretty little world of make-believe. My dollies have such a nice life; if only my life were like theirs. A big house, big adventures, and best of all, a big loving family. I notice the sky getting dark. Placing the dolls in their beds, I rush to the window. A single star shines in the early night sky. "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight," I recite at my window ledge, "I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight." I suck in a deep breath, and with it I utter: "I want to live like a dollie, my whole family and me."

I woke up with a start, flinching upright in a panic. What was that? No, I… Shit. I know what that was. That was me. The real me. Before I was like this. How could I have forgotten? "I'm.. not a doll," I whispered to myself, "I never was."

"What?" I flinched at the new voice. It was the girl, Ellie. She was bending over me, concerned and way too close for comfort. I quickly scrambled backward to get away, only to nearly fall over into the sink behind me. That's when I realized Ellie had taken me to the bathroom. She'd woken me up by splashing water on my face. "Could you, you know, move back a little?" I asked, feeling very crowded by her looming presence above me. "Oh, sure, of course," Ellie easily put a bit more space between us. "I just didn't catch what you said before."

The realization came rushing back, hitting me full force like a kickball to the gut. So that was the reason I didn’t remember how I ended up in someone’s living room. That’s why we tried acting human before we recognized how dangerous it was. But it’s impossible.. how did we end up as playthings?

"I- I'm a person," I said with a shudder. "I remember now. It came to me in a memory when I got knocked out.” My solemn voice bounced loudly off the walls of the small bathroom. This.. girl, she can’t be more than 16. I’m.. I think I’m 20? I was way younger than her when I made that wish — more like her sister’s age. How had I grown up? How had I grown up like this? The human- the girl- the teenage girl technically younger than me- loomed over me like a giant. Because she’s a human, my mind replied smoothly. But.. so am I.

“It's.. I.. I think I cursed myself to be this way,” I stuttered, avoiding eye contact, “Both me and my family." Ellie withdrew further back, eyes growing wide. "I knew it," she whispered in fear, "This is how horror movies start; a cursed doll and their unsuspecting first victim." Ellie stumbled out of the bathroom, looking at me in newfound horror. "No, I-!" I tried to explain, but she cut me off. "I should've told everyone about you! Maybe if they knew, they would lock you away somewhere, and you wouldn't be here now — about to kill me." I blanched, watching her backpedal towards the stairs. "Wait, no, I don't want to hurt you! What are you talking about? Where are you going!?" I yelled, panicking as she reached the bottom step. Ellie dashed upstairs before she heard anything else I said.

This is bad, really bad. I have to stop her. Now. Hardening to plasticity, I jumped from the bathroom counter and took off at a run. Being stupid little doll size, I couldn't get very far. She was long gone by the time I made it to the stairs. I cried out in anguish. Each stair was a few inches — or maybe a centimeter — taller than me. Having no other way to get to Ellie, I started climbing. The family upstairs was nowhere to be found by the time I reached the ground floor, which took ages. Ellie wasn't there. Thankfully, I know where her room is, though. I've been on this floor once or twice when Ellie decided to bring us up here to play. It was often during some sort of vacation scenario where the story required a dramatic change in scenery.

I shuddered at the memories, taking a moment to rest in the doorway. I’d been played with, and I’d liked it. Now, I feel like vomiting just thinking about someone so big picking me up and forcing me around.

I ran over to the girls' hallway. Luckily, it was a straight shot to Ellie's room. Unluckily, I had to pass Claire's room to get there. I crawled down the hallway, keeping to the side of a wall to avoid attention. For a while, I really thought I would make it through without being caught, but as it turns out, Claire was not in her room. "Oh, wow!" gasped a voice from above. I didn't even have time to process that I'd been spotted before I was snatched up. My vision spun from being yanked to such a dizzying height so suddenly. I desperately tried to free myself from her grasp, but my protests were only met with a tightened grip. The world whirled by at a sickening speed.

Suddenly, I was thrust into a dollhouse. This one was nothing like the one in the basement. Everything was uncomfortably plastic, and it was completely open on one side. Most annoyingly, it was also scaled to the wrong size. Even in this dollhouse I still seemed to be a few feet smaller than normal.

Claire gazed in at me, again getting way too close for comfort. I desperately searched for a way out, but there aren’t even any stairs leading off this floor. "ARE YOU REAL?!" Claire squealed in excitement. I yelped, quickly shoving my hands over my ears. "OH MY GOSH YOU ARE ADORABLE!" She reached for me and I screamed, despite myself. "Please!" I cried, "Please stop yelling. I'm going to go deaf!" Claire whined and snached me out of the dollhouse. She held me close to her face and started petting me. "Aww, I'm so sorry little thing. You're just so cute! Look at how small you are! So tiny!" I could practically feel my dignity slipping away. "No! Stop it! I'm not a doll, I'm a person! Put me down!" I shoved at her fingers, but they didn't budge.

Claire giggled, sending chills down my spine. "I know you're a person, silly! Dolls don't talk!" She only laughed at my feeble attempts to free myself. "You're my very own tiny person. Even better than a doll! We're going to have so much fun together!" My stomach dropped. She knew? She knew I was a person, but she didn't care? Claire placed me back into the dollhouse and shut it. I was too stunned to move. Only when I heard the click of a latch lock did I snap out of my stupor.

"Wait!" I cried, rushing to the window, "Let me out of here! You can't lock me in here!" Claire only giggled and poked her fingers in through the window next to mine. I retreated backwards in alarm, tripping over myself and falling hard on the pink plastic floor. "Yes I can," she said cheerfully, "You're mine now! I can do whatever I want with you!" How can something so sinister be spoken so happily? I threw myself against the window. It was criss-crossed into tiny square sections for decoration, effectively trapping me behind a cruel set of plastic prison bars.

The lights in Claire’s room flicked off, and soon she was asleep. Devastated, I searched the floor one last time for a staircase down, or a non-barred window, but no such luck. There was a bed made entirely of plastic — the covers only a wavy texture on the bed frame. Peering out the side window, I could see the latch that kept the dollhouse shut. I stretched as far as I could, almost getting my shoulder stuck in the window frame, but I was just short of the latch. Retreating to a far corner of the room, I curled up and cried softly. Why, why did I have to figure out that I’m a person now? Doll me would’ve loved being this little girl’s plaything.

Ellie

I was right! I knew it! And now I'm going to be murdered for it. I raced into my room and locked the door, determined to stay safely behind it the rest of the day. I only came out for a few brief moments to grab meals before disappearing into my room again. As I panicked about what to do and how to survive, I searched up ways to get rid of the cursed doll. Of course, the internet offered very little help. Most of the articles I found were clearly fake, and the others were all based on horror movies, which are also fake. Either way, most of the suggestions were awfully dramatic. Many of the passages told me to burn her alive, which seems a bit excessive.

Eventually, due to my recent search history and my phone somehow knowing my location, an article appeared in the 'things you might be interested in' tab. At first I ignored it; the text was a ranked list of the most haunted things in the state. However, before I clicked away, a picture caught my eye and my heart stopped. It was a photo of the dollhouse in the basement; discolored and filtered to make it seem more sinister, but definitely the dollhouse. I sucked in a shocked breath of air. There was a paragraph posted below the picture.

#4. The Wilson House

Unlike most of the haunted houses on this list, you can't visit or tour this home… unless you're five inches tall. Late one June night the owners of the house, Mike and Veronica Wilson as well as their children, Victor and Hailey Wilson, were all at home when the seemingly impossible occurred. Their house and car, along with the things and people inside of them, vanished into the night. This awfully strange disappearance left police baffled after picking up on what they thought was a prank phone call about a "missing house". Even stranger still, all that was left of their whereabouts was a dollhouse, confirmed to be a replica of the Wilson home. Today, the replica is lost to time. This leaves horror seekers and mystery solvers with the same question: Was it a kidnaping, alien abduction, or was there something darker at work here?

I stared open-mouthed at my phone, reading and re-reading the paragraph and the entire article to see if there was any more information. The halls were dark by the time I stopped scouring the internet for the Wilson house. According to the few sources, the family had been on the brink of collapse when the house disappeared with both parents, the 17 year old Victor, and the 6 year old Hailey.

Slowly I slunk under my covers, uncertain. The doll said she'd been human once; she'd cursed herself and her family. Between the first article and what she'd said, I’m fairly sure I just stumbled across the truth about who the doll is. The worst part? I really doubt she would have hurt me. There were only a few things I could find about the disappearance, but what I couldn't find was how it had come to be in the tag sale we'd bought it from years ago. My best guess was that someone scraped it off the side of the road, then lost interest in it. Most of the articles were dated a few years after I was born, so it was entirely possible people had forgotten its origins and left it up for sale.

I was up late that night, thinking. Hailey was likely the doll I'd met, though she'd clearly grown somehow since she'd been cursed. She looked older than me, and she was already six the night the house went missing. I wish I could go back downstairs and talk to her, but I don't want to risk waking up my family. She’d been pretty adamant on ensuring the secret of her existence. Now I understand why. Hailey’s probably worried I told everyone, and she's lucky I didn't. All this time that me and my sister have been playing with that dollhouse… they were alive. Not just alive, but actual people too. Though, apparently Hailey had only just realized it today. I have so many questions, and a major apology for jumping to conclusions about her, but they would have to wait until tomorrow.

That morning, as soon as I woke up, I headed to the basement. I searched everywhere for Hailey — the dollhouse, the toy bins, the shelf, even the remains of the windmill, but I found nothing. She’d seemingly vanished. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't find her anywhere. I spent the entire morning scouring the basement, but to no avail. Finally, I gave up the search to eat something. I assumed that Hailey had run away, so I checked the backyard next. I was halfway through my search — and planning to go through the front yard next — when my mom called me away to help her put together a new table for the deck. If Hailey was still here somewhere, I’d find her eventually.

Hailey

I was woken way too early this morning. So early in fact, that I forgot where I was for a moment. That was until the wall next to me was pulled away, and Claire's awful grin fell into view. "Good morning little thing!" she said in a sappy voice, "I'm going to get breakfast and then we can play, ok?" I groaned, but she'd already disappeared out the door. However, Claire left the dollhouse wide open. I quickly seized the chance to escape. Switching to plastic, I jumped down to the floor and raced to the doorway. I barely made it halfway across Claire's room before I collapsed. I cursed my night of little sleep and my horribly tiny figure. If only I weren't so small! I could easily escape this place if I were still human. But that was entirely my fault, wasn't it?

By the time Claire had returned, I'd managed to hide amongst a clutter of stuffed animals by the door. I was far too exhausted to go any further. Once Claire realized I was gone, she rummaged through the entire dollhouse; haphazardly shoving things out as she searched. When she'd emptied the entire thing and still hadn’t found me, Claire quickly became hysterical. Enraged, she began to tear her room apart in search of me, her voice harsh on my ears. "New doll, where are you!?" It was terrifying to watch from my perspective on the floor. Even though Claire can't be more than six or seven years old, she still towered above me. As she searched the opposite side of the room, I ran out the door as quickly as I could.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" I flinched so badly I tripped, hitting the hardwood floor face first. Like yesterday, I was torn away from the ground at a sickening speed. "WHY DID YOU RUN AWAY LIKE THAT?" Claire cried ridiculously loudly, "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN." "Or what!?" I spat, "You already lock me up, anyway."

I shouldn't have tested her. I don't know why I did. All I remember after that was violent force whisking me through the air, then I woke up on the floor of Claire's room. My head throbbed and I could feel major bruises blooming on my arm and back where I was laying. She threw me. Claire reached for me again, and I panicked. I don't think I'll survive that a second time. "Wait!" I hated how desperate I sounded, and I hated how it felt, but I had no choice. "I fell out and got lost, I'm sorry!" I lied. "It won't happen again, I swear. Please don't-" I swallowed a sob, "Don't do that again, please."

Claire smiled an awful, satisfied smile and backed off. A few seconds later she returned with a handful of dolls. "That's ok to get lost,” she assured me sweetly, “I get lost sometimes, too. Don’t worry, it's only your first day." I grimaced. Only my first day. I tried my best to do what she asked after that incident. Claire made it horribly clear that she would happily hurt me, or even end my life, if she felt like it. Days blurred together, mixed with the same bullshit acting she forced me to do — all similar family drama scenarios she played out with her dolls and me. It wasn't quite torture; it was bareable, at least for the time being.

Claire made sure to watch me at all times after my first day. I know I told her I hadn't meant to run off, and she said she believed me, but despite that, she always kept one eye on me at all times. However, as long as I deal with the stupid little things she asks me to do, I won't get hurt. I just have to keep playing along until she lets her guard down and I can escape.

Unfortunately, she never let her guard down again. It was far too easy for her to lock me up inside the dollhouse day after day. I never got another chance to run. For what felt like months, I slaved away trapped in Claire's room. Since I could move on my own, she forced me to act out little scenes for her. I became an actor, a puppet on a string for her to do with as she pleased. Charlie was my new name. Though I continuously try to tell her I already have a name, she stuck with Charlie. I knew better than to refuse her.

It was agonizing mental torture day in and day out. All of her dolls were the same scale as the dollhouse, so my role was that of the small, youngest sister; always belittled by the rest of the family, yet somehow always the center of attention. Claire made sure of it. She adored me, but in all the wrong ways.

I was dragged along everywhere with her, but I feared both her wrath and the potential fright from her sister, who thinks I’m possessed or cursed. Technically, I am cursed, but not in the way she’s probably thinking. There was a brief moment where I was desperately tempted to tell her, though. Claire had me with her, sitting right beside her sister. All I had to do was call out to her, and she’d likely take me far away from my awful captor. But then what would she do to me? Rat me out to her parents? Try to ‘exorcise’ or kill me? No, it’s better to stay where I am. Claire also tried to hide me as best she could. I guess she thinks I might try to tell someone or run away again. At this point, I don’t think I have the strength to run away.

Late one afternoon, as I was sitting around the table for a 'meal' with the other dolls, I snapped. Not the violent kind of snap like twigs underfoot, but rather a quiet, groaning crumble like that of a felled tree. I remember it so clearly. It was right in the middle of a scene where I was supposed to talk about my fake day at fake school with my fake family. My line came, I opened my mouth to speak, and.. started sobbing. Just out of the blue. I couldn't keep pretending any longer.

Slipping out of the chair that was just a little too tall, I fell to the ground and continued to bawl. Two fingers dragged me out of the dollhouse to the bedroom floor. I could feel Claire's gaze on my back. I held in a sob long enough to glance upward, and instantly sobered. My frustrated tears dried on my face.

Claire gave me such a cold, evil glare that my breath hitched in my chest. "That isn't your line," she said annoyedly, "Get back in and say your line." I tried. Trust me, I really tried. In fear and in vain I tried to go back, but I collapsed within the first two steps. Before I could continue on sobbing, I was yanked off my feet and thrown angrily down on her little kid's table in the corner. I could only watch in terror as her form loomed ever closer. Desperately, I tried to form an apology. Even if I had, I doubt that would've stopped her.

"Please, don't do this! Whatever you want to do to me-" Claire effortlessly pinned me down while I struggled for freedom. "No! I'll do anything! Just stop! STOP! PLEASE!" My pathetic sobbs fell on deaf ears. I quickly turned plastic in fear of what would happen, and thank god I did. In one terrible motion, she grasped my right arm and tore it clean off. All that was left was a gaping plastic socket.

"Huh, maybe you are a doll after all," Claire mused, noticing it. I screamed, but no sound came from my mouth. I don't exactly have vocal chords when I'm plastic, or a throat for that matter. I can barely even move.

A new realization dawned on me quickly afterwards. If I turn back, my arm will bleed out. My plastic form would have to be my only form. Unless I could somehow bargain for my arm back. I did; I tried desperately to get her to listen. But I couldn't get her to understand me before, nevermind now — I literally don't have a voice. "Forget your lines and you'll end up with more than just your arm missing," Clare threatened at the end of it all.

What did it matter? I can't act for her now. I was just like the rest of her dolls, still and compliant. I could move around with enough effort, but why bother? After only a few days of staying plastic, I became completely lethargic. There was no hope of escape. I would die here. Can I even die now? Being plastic, I don't think I can.

Ellie

I'd long come to terms with the fact that Hailey had run off. Wherever she was, I hoped she was doing alright. There wasn't really much I could do to find her beyond the searching I did, so in the end, the thought of her haunted little dollhouse was melancholy at best. I visited it on occasion; I even took her older brother to try and get answers from him on where his sister might’ve run off to, but he sat there lifelessly the whole time. Hailey really wasn’t kidding about them trying to keep the secret. The rest of the dolls don’t even know they’re people, I don’t think.

I really did try to befriend him, though. He was clearly adult age, so a lot of my befriending probably went right over his head. Still, I sat around and gave him company for several days. Once in the middle of the night, I caught him sneaking around and immediately got up to see him, but he fell over plastic before I got close. Two weeks went by before I put him back and gave up on him. Finding Hailey slowly became less and less of a priority.

That was until one day, while I was watching a show on TV, I noticed my sister playing with her dolls on the floor to my left. This was a completely normal occurrence, except there was a new, familiar-looking doll that caught my eye. Shuffling inconspicuously closer on the couch, I peered down. It was Hailey. It was undoubtedly Hailey. And she was missing an arm. I blanched at the sight, and for a moment, I thought she was dead. Then I remembered the strange way she could switch from flesh to plastic. Hailey had been a plastic doll instead of flesh and blood beneath the splinters of the small dollhouse where I’d found her. Her transformation must be some sort of unnatural defense. I knew Claire would never willingly give Hailey to me though, so I chose to improvise.

I pretended to be uninterested in her games, and glued my eyes to the television. When Claire disappeared down the hall to use the bathroom, I swept in and stole Hailey away. In a half run, I rushed into my room and locked the door behind me. Once I was behind the safety of my bedroom door, I carefully placed Hailey on my desk. Her plastic form fell sideways, limp. I stilled, was she dead?

"Hailey?" I'd never actually called her by her name before. Almost agonizingly slowly, she sat up. Her movements were almost mechanical as she tried to make the best use of the few joints she still had. Her missing arm only added to her limited movements. Wait, without her arm… "You can't turn back, can you?" I realized solemnly. Hailey slowly shook her head, mute. I couldn't even tell what she was feeling; her face was a mask of dull plastic expression. No doubt it was somewhere between terrified and miserable.

"Where's your arm?" I asked her. "It must be in my sister's room somewhere, right? If I bring you with me, could you help me get it?" Hailey nodded vigorously — the fastest I’d seen her move. Eagerly, I reached out to pick her up. A second later, she pressed herself against the back wall behind my desk. Though I couldn't read her expressions, she made it clear enough that she would NOT be manhandled. I don't blame her, especially knowing where she's actually been all this time.

I cupped my hands together and held them out for her, gesturing to climb in. Hailey’s plastic form shuddered, but she slowly shuffled her way into my hands, balancing awkwardly on legs that barely bent. I lifted her up and cautiously opened my bedroom door. Slinking quietly down the hall, I uneasily watched the doorway to the living room. Claire was frantically searching through her things, no doubt trying to find where Hailey had disappeared to. Thankfully, where Claire was currently situated in the living room made it hard for her to see down this hallway.

I slipped into her room and waited patiently for Hailey to give me the next directions. It must've been pretty hard work. She had to put in so much effort to simply point at things around us to guide me. As it turned out, her arm had been stashed in one of Claire's jewelry boxes. We'd found it just in time, too. My sister's footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Her room was one half of a jack and jill set, connected by a bathroom. Before Clare made it to her door, I'd slipped away into the bathroom and out into the other room. I waited in the second room — a guest bedroom; my room was just beyond this one. Hailey shifted nervously against my fingers, cold plastic pressing up against warm flesh.

Once I was sure Claire would be in there for a while, I crept back into my own room and re-locked the door. Placing Hailey back on my desk, I examined the plastic arm I'd stolen. Hailey desperately tried to stand, but the weight of the plastic was off balance, and she kept falling over backwards. Eventually, I sat down and took her gently in my hand, cautiously bending her plastic limbs to let Hailey sit down. She went completely still the moment I touched her. I didn't know whether it was because she trusted me, or because she was afraid of me, but I'm guessing it was more of the latter.

"I don't know if this will hurt or not, but I'm going to try to shove this back in now, alright?" I asked, holding out her arm. Hailey nodded, slower this time, like she was more hesitant. With one hand, I propped up Hailey’s body, and with the other I held the blunt side of her arm. Carefully, I pressed the plastic joint back into its socket. Tenuous pressure soon built up enough to snap the limb back into place with such a loud crack, that for a moment I thought I'd broken it.

Hailey took one small test movement, then immediately swapped back. Her ridgid, plastic features melded and smoothed. Her once expressionless face seemed to vanish beneath a horribly terrified expression. Hailey’s face was streaked with tears, and her eyes were bloodshot. It looked like she hadn't eaten or slept in days, which might very well be the case. She hesitantly edged herself backwards to the far side of my desk, whimpering as she felt the wall behind her, blocking her from going any further. "Are.. Are you going to kill me?" she asked in an eerily hollow voice, "Be-" she paused to cough, "Because I'm cursed?"

Oh, right. The last time we saw each other, I ran off in terror. Now, I know the truth; it was evidently clear. Despite her somewhat chilling abilities, Hailey really is just a person. A person who'd been tortured by whatever hell my sister thought to do with her. "Of course not," I answered in the kindest voice I could muster, "I'm not my sister. I won't hurt you."

Immediately, Hailey started crying. She knelt on my desk, head bent over as she quietly sobbed. I carefully reached out and scooped her up, unsure how else to comfort her. "You're ok," I whispered when she flinched in my grasp. For the first time, I noticed the ugly purple bruises that lined her arms. "Forget what I said to you before. I'm sorry I ran out. I swear I went back to apologize the very next day. It never occurred to me that my sister had found you. I kinda thought you left."

Hailey only curled up tighter in my hands. Eventually, she was all cried out. I placed her down and she stumbled backwards drowsily. I caught her before she could fall, and eased her down. She slumped over and almost fell asleep right then and there before she bumped one of her bruises and flinched awake. Startled, Hailey looked up at me frighteningly. "Why am I.. tired? So.. tired?" She could barely form words.

"You're probably sleep deprived, and by the looks of it, starving too." I lowered her to the surface of my desk, "Stay there, I'll get you some food." I raced out of the room and straight to the kitchen. A slice of bread and a bottle of water were all I could grab before dashing back. Again, I double checked the lock behind me. Hailey had fallen asleep, but I'd taken enough health and science classes to know that this was bad. If she fell asleep now, there was a good chance she wouldn't wake up.

I shook Hailey awake; thankfully she hadn't completely checked out. Then, I quickly ripped up the slice of bread into pieces small enough for her to eat, and handed her one. She scarfed it down while I poured out some water into a bottlecap for her to drink. It looked so wrong watching her practically eat from my hand, but right now Hailey probably couldn't care less. After making sure she'd eaten enough, I let her sleep. It was a bit safer now that her body had something to sustain itself for a while longer.

I dutifully sat at my desk until she awoke. Only leaving once to poke my head out the door to say: "No Claire, I haven't seen your missing doll, but I'm sure it's around somewhere. After all, it can't just get up and walk away, can it?" As I sat there patiently, I thought through what had happened between Hailey and my sister. Could Claire really be that sadistic? Why did she do this to Hailey? I had to admit, she didn’t have the best track record, but she should surely know better than to do this to a person, right? I huffed, plunking back down next to my desk. While Hailey slept, I looked over her bruises. She looked awful, tortured even. I gave my sister the benefit of the doubt and hoped that this had only happened because Hailey could barely move and couldn't speak. Hopefully, Hailey had been plastic the whole time, and my sister had only mistook her for another doll.

Hailey

I was greeted with three different kinds of pain when I woke up. My stomach was eating itself from the inside out, my head was pounding, and the bruises everywhere throbbed dully. I groaned a little in agony, and the whole right side of my vision shifted. My first instinct was to brace myself for the worst. I'd been sleeping, and it was daylight. Surely Claire would punish me for this. However, when nothing happened, I risked a glance at the gigantic figure beside me. I realized with a mixture of relief and terror that I was now held captive by a different sister. At least this one understands that I'm a person. This one tries to communicate with me.

Then, I noticed the plate of food and water to my left. Not even bothering to ask if I was allowed to, I scrambled the short distance across the desktop and ate. I was in the middle of another ravenous bite, having eaten a good amount of the available food, when Ellie suddenly interjected. "You probably shouldn't eat much more, you don't want to get sick."

Who the hell cares if I get sick? I'm hungry. I tried to keep eating, but she reached for me and I practically flung myself out of the way. Trust me, I wanted to stand my ground, but I'd been attacked so many times for disobedience it was like a natural reflex to me. My landing only made my bruises throb angrily, and I sucked in a harsh breath of air to calm the pain. Ellie gave me a sympathetic look and poured me a fresh cap of water. It only then occurred to me that I was very much her pet, all things considered. I came when I was called, did as she asked, ate from her scraps. Hell, I even cried right in front of her as she held me. I didn't like that revelation one bit.

"What do you want with me?" I asked, remembering our brief conversation before I passed out. "If you're not going to kill me.. am I just your pet now?" Ellie seemed shocked, which might be a good thing? I watched as she looked between me and the plate of food next to me. No doubt recognizing the sad predicament I was in.

She sighed, "I read about what happened to you." Ellie leaned forward slightly and looked me over. "You're Hailey Willson, aren't you?" It was strange hearing my real name for the first time in who-knows-how-long. I almost didn't recognize it. "Yes, I'm Hailey Willson, a REAL person. I- I'm not a doll.. please, I-" I what? I'm tired of being treated like shit? I just want to be normal again? Was it not my own damn fault that I'm stuck like this?

"Just.. I'm begging you, you have to understand." But how could she? Never in her wildest dreams would Ellie be in the same situation I am. "I'll try to," she answered cautiously, "And you aren't my pet, or anything like that. I do see you as a person, honestly I do. I know how this looks," she gestured to the meager little meal she'd given me, "but I swear it's only because I was in a hurry. You're not a pet, you're not a doll. I.. don't know.. a friend, maybe? That is if you're willing."

I knelt, trying to process what I was hearing. My head pulsed painfully against my skull. "That's.. Thank you, I- I just don't feel like making any more life-altering decisions right now." Ellie nodded, and I eased myself backwards until I was lying half propped up on a stack of books piled on the desk. I closed my eyes and took a few shuddering breaths. How had I screwed myself over so completely? Everyone, even a little kid, has more control over my own life than I do. Any of these people could do whatever they wanted to me, and I'd have no choice but to comply. Sure, I would be treated, for the most part, like I should be here with Ellie, but that was entirely up to her. If she felt like it, she could turn on me in an instant and I would be powerless against her, against any of them.

This was all too much for me; I could feel hot tears sliding down my cheeks. Not again. I must look like such a pity case to Ellie. No wonder she wants to take care of me. Then again, I probably looked just as bad around her sister, but Claire had never so much as given me a day off. I don't want to be 'taken care of', though. I just want things to be normal. A longing pain jabbed at me from the inside as still more tears seeped through my eyelids, now shut tightly.

I'll never have a normal life, I realized in mental agony. Even if I am a person, at least to Ellie, there are still so many things I’ll never be able to do on my own.

While I sat hunched over in desperation, I began to wish that I'd never known I was human. My life as a doll was terribly simple, but at least I didn't feel like this. I cut myself off at the last moment, eyes flickering open. You idiot! Wishing on stupid shit is exactly what got you into this mess in the first place!

I gasped, realizing that I could've doomed myself a second time. Slowly, I turned to Ellie. She was still sitting next to me, hand slightly outstretched like she wasn't sure whether she should try to comfort me with it. Her face was etched with worry; she looked almost as helpless as I felt. It was slightly relieving to see Ellie so distraught — so entirely different from her psychotic sister. I know that probably makes me a terrible person, but it’s reassuring to know that she actually cares about me. Despite everything, I just might survive.

#again I don’t know what inspired younger me to write this…#this is the only one of my ‘old g/t’ stories still worth salvaging #The rest of them are either half-baked ideas or too short to be considered stories #g/t #giant tiny #whump #promptober/inktober

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sixpossumsinatrenchcoat · 9 months

Text

Talking to Ghosts (5/5)

A post-game Omori epilogue exploring how each member of the gang would adjust in the wake of the true end. This time, it's Basil's turn.

It’s Karaoke Night at the Faraway County psych ward.

‘Night’ is relative. Karaoke Night is 4 pm on Tuesdays. And it’s mandatory. Basil knows, because every Tuesday, he begs the doctors to leave him out of it. He’s too tired, or too sad. Or too dangerous. He could be a risk to the other kids. Just let him stay in his room. Please, please, please let him stay in his room, just this once, just for tonight. No one will know. He’s tone-deaf. He has an anxiety disorder, he has a permission slip and everything. The new meds made him lightheaded and he’s afraid he’s going to fall.

But Group Activity is mandatory. No exceptions. Not even for Laurie, who can only store new memories for four minutes at a time, and who sometimes jerks upright halfway through a song to bang on the walls and scream for someone to let her out. Definitely not for Basil, who doesn’t have it in him to make a scene. (Not even at the scene of the crime. Even with his shears buried in the wet mush of Sunny’s eye, Basil never screamed. He never shouted. He only ever whispered. Please, Sunny, please don’t fight. I’m trying to help you. Please let me help you. This is the only way.)

Participation is mandatory, too. You have to go up in front of the other kids and pick a song and then sing it, in front of everyone. With the lyrics scrolling down the staticky screen and eighteen other underage psychos staring staring staring. The only thing you get to choose is your song.

It takes a few tries, but Basil finds the shortest song on the list. It’s ‘Ain’t No Sunshine,’ by Bill Withers. Two minutes and four seconds. And the vocal range isn’t too wide. And it’s, um, ironic. Because of Sunny. And how he went away. And how everything good went with him.

"And I know," Basil is mandatorily, non-optionally required to sing. "I know, I know, I know, I know."

He can’t sing loud enough to drown out the voices. He can still hear the other patients whispering. Weird. Unwanted. Did you hear what he did to his—

You might think it would be easier, being here. More structured. Less… complicated. Without all the excruciating intricacies of high school. But even in the psych ward, there are castes. In-groups and out-groups. Once there are teams, someone has to get picked last.

The Voluntaries are here on purpose. They checked themselves in, or were checked in by loved ones that actually loved them. They’re here because they couldn’t take care of themselves, but they’d like to. Or because they wanted to die, but they’re open to the idea that they won’t always want that. They get patio access by default, and only get it revoked if they find some inventive new way to use flat gray concrete to hurt themselves.

The Involuntaries do not want to be here. They hurt someone, or tried to. Or they don’t even know where ‘here’ is. Or they wanted to die, but they know in their bones that they never won’t.

Basil is here voluntarily. He could have k-killed Sunny. Even if Sunny really refuses to press charges (which is completely insane, after what happened)... Where else would Basil even go? Back to school, where everyone knows what he did? Home, to sleep in a room stained red with Sunny’s blood? No. No, thank you. Basil is here because he wants to be.

…But he’s the only one who’s here for a violent crime, so he gets shunted in with the Involuntaries anyway.

###

Basil sleeps alone.

Not everyone gets their own room. The other kids have to share. Probably because the other kids didn’t try to kill their best friend. Everyone here is broken, but not all of them are dangerous. Not like Basil.

(Everyone knows that Basil is dangerous.)

The other kids are jealous. They haven’t said so, but Basil can tell. He can see it in their faces, their cold flat mouths and hating eyes. Why should he get his own penthouse suite when the rest of us are crammed in like termites? Why should he get rewarded for being worse? But it isn’t a reward to Basil. Basil hates being alone.

(Basil has always, always, always been alone.)

###

In the psych ward, Basil’s schedule looks like this:

8 AM. Wake up. The nurses hand out your meds. They make you say “ahh” so they can check under your tongue.

8:10 AM. Hygiene. The nurse walks you to the shower, if you want to shower.

8:30-11 AM. Sit in your room and wish you were dead.

11 AM. Arts and crafts. The Voluntaries are allowed to take pencils and papers back to their room to draw or write or journal.

12 PM. Lunch. Lunch comes in a flat white tray. It’s gray mush, white mush, and green mush. The nurses say the green mush used to be vegetables, but Basil knows a thing or two about vegetables. Let’s just say he’s not convinced.

12:30-2 PM. Sit in your room and wish you were dead. The Voluntaries get patio privileges for this part. Basil wouldn’t know, because he hasn’t earned patio privileges.

2 PM. Group therapy.

4 PM. Group activity. (This is the worst part.)

6 PM. Dinner. Like lunch, except at night.

6:30 PM. Basil gets his private session with the shrink. It’s supposed to be therapy, but Basil is pretty sure they’re just checking to see how dangerous he is. Not that it would matter if it was therapy. It can’t do Basil any good, because Basil can’t tell anyone why he’s really here.

7:30-8:30 PM. Sit in your room and wish you were dead.

8:30 PM. Lights out. The nurses make you take your meds. They come by every 15 minutes all night to turn on the lights and make sure you didn’t kill yourself with, Basil isn’t sure, maybe the sheets or something? Or just by holding your breath? Basil isn’t sure.

Then you do it again and again and again and again and agai—

###

After they hand out your meds, the nurses check under your tongue to make sure you really took them. Basil always takes them. Why wouldn’t he? Not being on drugs obviously wasn’t working. Might as well try something new.

The pills don’t always feel the same. They do different things on different days. They’re different pills, probably. Different colors and sizes and shapes. The doctors are searching for the perfect cocktail, the right ratio of the right chemicals to make it so Basil can’t gouge out any more eyes, but can still get out of bed without falling down.

Probably if he asked, they’d tell him what they’re giving him. Basil wouldn’t know. He’s never asked. It doesn’t feel very important. And anyway, even if he did get an answer, drug names are basically just noise. Like made-up jargon from a pulpy sci fi novel. Hydraximantus. Fluoroprazodone. 'Hit the warp drive, Venlaxodon. We’ve got to make it through the Fluoxetine system before daybreak.' 'But Captain! The Chlorpromazines barricaded the Ziprasidone wayport!' 'Get ahold of yourself, man! I’ve routed the sub-thrusters through the Olanzapine Engine. Those filthy Sertralines won’t know what hit ‘em.'

Sometimes the pills make Basil feel heavy and slow, and sometimes they make his heart race like a cornered rabbit. Sometimes he feels both ways at once! That’s always interesting. Like Basil is two different people fighting over one body. Or like quantum superposition. Schrodinger’s psycho. Until you've cracked open his skull and looked inside, the subject can be considered simultaneously psychotic and dangerously sane. Is Basil dead inside, or still alive? There’s only one way to find out.

Today, the drugs make time all smeary-slow. The seconds stretch and snap like melting cheese. The tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall becomes tick… t i c k … . . t i c k . . . . as time dilates around you. Then all at once, the universe seems to realize its mistake and the clock has to race to catch up, tickticktickticktickticktick. Breaths sharp and shallow. Fingers fussing, fussing, fidgeting. Pulse tripping skipping stumbling.

It doesn’t really bother him, but it does make it a little hard to write. The tip of Basil’s pencil keeps getting snagged on two seconds ago and then shooting way past the mark.

Normally, that would be fine. Writing is like taking pictures: it's just another way of holding onto something that was never going to last. Imposing permanence on something as fleeting as a moment. And it’s not as though there's anything here that Basil wants to keep.

…But the doctor gave him homework to finish before their next session, and Basil is only allowed to use a pencil under supervision, during Arts and Crafts. So he really has to do this now.

The other kids only get one-on-ones once a week. But not Basil. Basil meets with the psychiatrist every day. This is another of his privileges. More special treatment to set him apart from the herd.

Basil hates his private sessions. Not because he doesn’t need help—because, ha ha, wow, Basil very definitely needs help—but because the doctor can’t actually help him. Because Basil can’t tell anyone why he’s actually here. What happened to send him sliding so far off the deep end. Who he was trying to protect.

(Sunny will never have to get checked into a psych ward, because Basil will never, ever tell.)

This week, Basil’s homework is writing letters.

Not to send, obviously. Who would open a letter from Basil? No, it’s just another pointless exercise. Just another way to take the time in front of you and put it behind you.

The doctor says that Basil’s letters are private, for Basil’s eyes only. But Basil can’t afford to believe that. If it was only his future at stake, it would be one thing. But he can’t take that chance on Sunny’s.

He focuses on the tip of the pencil and tries to move his hand so slow that, even if he slips out of sync with time, the lines won’t get too scribbly.

Dear Kel. Sorry. I bet I really scared you. I know how you feel about Sunny—

—Stop. Wrong. Three sentences deep and he’s already fucked this up. Basil isn’t not supposed to know how Kel feels about Sunny. Kel probably doesn’t even know how he feels about Sunny. He scribbles it out and starts over.

Dear Kel. Are you having fun at school? You always have so much fun. I was always jealous of how much fun you have. I guess I still am a little jealous. When everything is bad, I can’t not look at it. I can only sit in it until it swallows everything, and there’s nothing left in me that isn’t bad. But when everything shattered you were fine. You were fine so fast!!! When we lost everything, you picked yourself up and found something else. You lost everyone and then you just—had a new everyone. Like it was easy.

What is it like, for it to be that easy? What is it like to be someone people like? To have people like you so much that you can start over with nothing and still never have to be alone?

Basil could never be like that. Basil used to have friends, but that was probably a fluke. A sort of statistical anomaly. Even though Basil is so weird and unnerving and wrong, and even though he could never figure out how to act like a normal person, Aubrey still found him and brought him to the others. And then, for a little while, Basil didn’t have to be alone.

But that was only an illusion. A kind of magic spell that Mari cast. Then after Sunny k— After Mari went away, there was no one left to keep the magic going. The runes degraded. The circle lost its form. The illusion shattered to shards.

Basil was never supposed to have friends, because no one ever taught him how to be one. Everyone hates Basil. Everyone always did. Even here, where everyone is supposed to be all messed up and wrong, the other kids can still see that Basil was made wrong.

“What makes you think that?”

Basil blinks.

Time stretch-snaps into place around him.

…Right. Right, his one-on-one with the psychiatrist. He gets private sessions every day, even though no one else does. “S-Sorry?”

“What makes you think that other kids don’t like you?”

Basil squints rheumily across the table. What kind of a stupid question is that? How did this doctor get all the way through doctor school without getting any less stupid?

How does Basil know the other kids don’t like him? How could he not? It’s just obvious. It’s so obvious. Other kids never liked him. If the doctor can’t figure that much out, maybe she should be working in a different field.

It’s not like Basil doesn’t know how he looks. He always knows. All the hours he’s spent hesitating, trembling, talking like a nineteenth-century fucking street urchin from a BBC miniseries… Basil knows. He says things like “goodness gracious” and he never knows what to do with his hands and it takes him a million years to say what a normal person could say in three words. His grandma used to say that he had an ‘old soul,’’ but that’s just what grownups call it when a kid can’t figure out how to be normal.

Maybe if he was a little less self-aware, he could make it work for him. Like how Sunny is weird, but the kind of weird that makes him seem mysterious and interesting. Maybe if Basil could just shut up for two seconds of his life, he wouldn’t have to feel so embarrassed. If he has to be such a weird little freak all the time, the least he could do is keep it to himself.

But he can’t keep his stupid mouth shut. Sometimes it feels like Basil’s spent half his life watching himself from the outside. Covering his eyes and cringing as his body stammers its way through the most awkward, totally-unnecessarily-long-winded pizza order of all time. “O-Oh, um, and as far as, um, parmesan, you really couldn’t overdo it; which is to say—um—if it costs more, or if it’s, um, a bother, there’s no need to go out of your way; but if it’s not an inconvenience…”

Meanwhile everyone else has finished their meal. Everyone else is halfway through the movie and Basil is still agonizing on the sidewalk, trying to remember how to buy a ticket. (‘One adult ticket?’ No, surely you don’t have to say ‘adult,’ that sounds insane. —Unless that’s what’s normal, and not-saying it would sound insane? Do you have to specify the showtime, or is it more polite to wait for them to ask? Or would that just be wasting their time?)

Why don’t other kids like Basil? Well, how much time do you have?

The doctor nods thoughtfully. “Hm. Yes. I can understand why you’d think that way. Reaching out to others, making yourself vulnerable… It’s scary, isn’t it? At least resignation feels safe. Certain. Giving up hope can bring you a lot of peace. But do you know what I think?”

Basil could take a guess.

At the edge of his vision, he can see the doctor smile. “I think that, if you make up your mind about people without even trying to get to know them, you’ll be safe from rejection—but you’ll also miss out on a lot of potential friends. And I think that kind of loneliness might hurt even more.”

Basil has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. If the shrink knew anything about anything, she would know that being thrown away hurts a hundred times worse than being alone. Tennyson wrote that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to love at all, but that’s stupid. And wrong. It just makes it sound like Tennyson never had to get thrown away by someone he loved. It makes him sound spoiled. Sheltered. Pathetic.

Not like Basil. Basil knows exactly how much it hurts to love and lose.

Besides. Basil had a best friend once. That best friend is now missing 50% of his eyes. If giving up hope might keep other kids from the scars of Basil’s love, then that sounds like a mercy to Basil.

###

Today the meds let Basil see through his skin. When he holds his hand up to his face, he can see the lines of his palm start to squirm. His fingerprints swell and contract, swell and contract. Blue veins wriggling like centipedes.

“Okay?” the nurse asks.

Basil stares. “Wh-What?”

“It’s a privilege,” she says sternly. “Not a right.”

Basil is beyond lost. “S-Sorry. Um. Wh–What is…?”

“Patio access?” She sounds exasperated. He’s trying her patience. What else is new. “If you take advantage of that privilege, you’ll lose access.”

Basil’s knuckles whiten. Oh. Patio access. But that’s— That’s only for the good patients. The Voluntaries. And the kids who earned it through good behavior. It isn’t supposed to be for someone like—

“D-Do I have to?” He can barely force the words out but it’ll only hurt more, the longer he waits.

“Ehh? Have to what?”

“D-Do I h-have to… u-um…” (shut up, shut UP, she HATES you, for god’s sake just STOP TALKING.) “Um. S-Sorry. Never mind. Thank you very much. I w-won’t take it for granted.”

###

Patio time is outside. After ten days staring at the same blank white walls, it’s almost unfathomable.

It’s not like it’s some kind of Eden. It’s just a slab of gray concrete flanked by gray concrete walls. But overhead there are trees, living and breathing and sheltering the porch under generous boughs. There are birds streaking past in a flurry of feathers and song. There are clouds scudding by and breezes tickling the hair on your arms. And when Basil picks up a leaf, he can see through its skin, too. Its veins look just like his.

And patio time is supervised. Which means Basil is allowed to use a pencil.

Today’s letter is to Hero.

Dear Hero.

… Dear Hero. I know you can’t ever forgive what happened but I hope one day you can understand that it was my fault, not S—

He scribbles it out. He can’t take that risk. He doesn’t want to do his homework wrong, but he can’t hurt Sunny any more than he already has. He can’t let anyone find out what they did.

Basil starts over.

Dear Hero. I know we I ruined everything. For everyone but especially for you. And I know you think that everyone thinks you’re okay now, but I always knew you weren’t. I guess I had some, um, experience, trying to be something I’m not. Trying all the time to be good, and—having it never be enough.

Maybe I could have said something. Maybe if I’d said something, you wouldn’t have just… lost yourself, and sunk and sunk and drowned. Maybe if I’d said, Hero! I see you! I know you’re not okay! Then you could have shared it a little, and maybe it would have got a little less heavy. But I didn’t. I knew it was my fault and I didn’t do anything. Because you didn’t want anyone to see you like that, and—I guess I didn’t want anyone to see me, either. Not even you.

…Maybe especially not you.

I guess if anyone gets it, it’s you. You never let anyone see the real you, either. Mari would have—

Basil stops short. He doesn’t get to say that. It doesn’t matter that his letters are only ever going to end up in a landfill. It’s not his place to say what Mari would have wanted.

Before everything happened, Mari used to make Basil nervous. Not because she was mean, or anything like that. Just because she saw too much. She was sharp, like Sunny. But unlike Sunny, she could see the world through other people’s eyes. Like Sunny, she could tell if something felt off; but unlike Sunny, she could puzzle out how and the why. Empathy, not sympathy.

—Which is all well and good for people who want to be seen and known. That’s probably why Hero loved her so much: because Mari was the only one who ever saw through his disguise. But Basil never wanted to be seen. For Basil, being seen could only ever be a threat.

The psychiatrist frowns. “Do you think that, if your friends saw the ‘real’ you, they would reject you?”

He almost laughs. Because, honestly… What kind of a stupid question is that? Of course they would. Basil isn’t like Hero, whose deepest, darkest secret is that he very occasionally has a mean thought. Basil’s deep dark secret is that he’s poison. He was made wrong, with a hungry hole where his heart was supposed to be. He’s ugly and anxious and awkward, and unwanted, and afraid. And he wants to be wanted so, so, so much more than he wants to be good.

(Basil would do anything to be needed. He would do any number of vile, disgusting, unforgivable things.)

“I’ll tell you what I think,” the doctor says confidentially. “I think that, if you shared some of those feelings with the people who love you, they would only love you more. I think that flaws are deeply human. And that a real, flawed person is far more lovable than someone who seems perfect.”

Basil chokes on a snort of laughter. Because…. Sure. Great. Ve~ry helpful. It might even be true, if his biggest flaw was, say, a lisp, or a videogame addiction. But it isn’t. It’s his whole personality. Basil is the flaw.

###

Today the meds make Basil feel afraid.

His pulse skips and skitters. His veins fizz with flight-or-flight. Heart in his throat. Sparks on his tongue. Jumping at shadows and slithering down the halls with his back pressed to the wall. When another kid shoulders past him on the way to group therapy, Basil almost swallows his own tongue.

Honestly? It’s fine.

Basil has always lived with fear. Fear feels comfortable. Familiar. Like a childhood friend that you hate. A roommate who pisses in the sink and never does the dishes and clogs the shower drain with spit and hair and blood, and sleepwalks, and sleep-talks, and wakes you up every night when they crawl into your bed and scream.

Today’s letter is to Aubrey.

Dear Aubrey,

How did you learn to be so brave? I always wondered about that.

Because when, say, Kel was brave, it was enviable, but not confusing. It was only because Kel had never known any reason not to be. Kel was loved from the day he was born. He never had to learn how it felt to be thrown away, so he didn’t have any reason to fear it.

But Aubrey was like Basil. She was alone until she wasn’t. She could see how fragile everything was, even—no—especially the things that looked rock-solid. She knew exactly what she had to lose. And still she was so brave! She said exactly what she thought and thought exactly what she felt. She wasn’t spoiled or sheltered or stupid. She was just true.

Being with you, Basil writes, and hesitates. He chews the end of his pencil. When I was with you… I think those might have been the only times I ever didn’t feel afraid. Even after everything went wrong, and you hated me, and wanted me dead… You still made me feel braver. Because I was more afraid than ever, except when I was with you.

He’s a little surprised to find that it’s true. Basil is afraid of a lot of things, but he was never scared of Aubrey. Aubrey is just so real. Tangible. Grounded. She always sees exactly what’s there. Even her threats made him feel safe. Bad, but safe. Like stubbing your toe, or getting a flu shot. Aubrey always made him feel more real.

I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, he scrawls. You were the one—the ONLY one—who never looked away. Even when you looked at me with disgust, you still looked. You’re the only one who never tried to look away. I was the one who ran.

In the end, it was just another game of chicken. Which means the outcome was set from the start. Basil always flinches first.

I guess I was probably using you, a little, he writes dreamily. Because I knew what I deserved, but I was too scared to do it. You were the only one I could trust. Steady, stalwart Aubrey. I would have liked to be killed by you, I think. At least then I wouldn’t have to be afraid.

“You know,” the doctor says thoughtfully, “fear isn’t always a bad thing.”

Basil snorts.

“Really! Of course it often feels bad. But it’s an instinct, like any other. It’s how your body keeps you safe.”

And oh, ha ha, what a nice idea. What a charming notion. It’s probably even true, for other people. But not Basil. Every wrong thing he ever did was because he was afraid.

“Hm,” the doctor says thoughtfully. She taps the end of her pencil against the desk, like Mari used to. “Here. Let me show you.”

She reaches out and pushes on his shoulders, hard enough to knock the chair out from under him. Basil opens his mouth to scream and chokes on muddy water. Black. Viscous. Slick and unsettlingly warm against his skin. He can see something swaying above him, thick boughs and dry leaves and a long black stripe of knotted rope. And something else. An absence. There’s something missing, something that should be there but isn’t. He can see it in the space it should have filled, like a hole in the dark. Like a mirror that can see inside him. Empty. Empty. Empty.

The thing he can’t see floods him with fear. Bloody, blinding terror. Basil thrashes and flails but he can’t move. He can’t move. His limbs are bound with ribbons of black hair, heavy wet like cold black rope. Water rising past his chin. The stink of wet dog, piss and mud and copper. Cold hands squeezing at his ankles, his wrists. His throat. If he could look around he would see her.

Footsteps. Coming closer. Basil struggles but the thing he can’t see holds him fast. She won’t let him go. Not after what he did.

Through the fog of his terror he can barely make out the outline of Sunny. Not Sunny as he is now but Basil’s Sunny, from before everything went wrong. Small, pale, snide. Utterly assured. Bulbous head brimming with ideas.

“S-Sunny,” Basil gasps. “I’m scared. H-Help me, Sunny, I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid. Please.”

Sunny reaches out and in that moment Basil knows, he knows that Sunny isn’t here to help. Sunny’s eyes are cold. He isn’t angry, he’s revolted. He doesn’t care if Basil lives or dies. But even so, it’s Sunny. Basil’s best friend in the whole world. Basil can’t help himself. He reaches back with both hands. Clasps Sunny’s hands in his. Tries his best to smile as Sunny holds him under.

—Basil wakes up gasping. Stuffs a hand in his mouth to stifle the scream. Not that he’d be the first. Half his neighbors wake up screaming. Day and night, you can always hear Laurie banging on the door and shouting herself hoarse. Help, someone, anyone! Help!! I’ve been kidnapped!! I don’t know where I am, please, let me out! Let me OUT!!! You can’t keep me here forever!!!!

That’s the difference between her and Basil. Laurie still has somewhere else she’d rather be.

Keep reading Basil's post-game here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43929270/chapters/124036630

Or start from the top: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43929270/chapters/110454879

#omori spoilers #omori basil #omori sunflower #omori photobomb

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