#but I’m hoping he’s just naturally stuck in his awkward teenage stage because it makes it all the more comical

[abizarreyodelingincident]

Braaaaaaains...

Jason Todd is legally – and biologically – dead. His family noted his lack of pulse at three in the morning, inside the cave, his body laid out on a table with medical instruments.

No, really, tell him something he doesn't know.

What else crawls out of a grave moaning and groaning?

Or, Jason thought his family full of the world's greatest detectives was smarter than this. Apparently not.

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

It had been an ordinary night. Calm. The stage for very little costumed crime and barely more regular, non-insane crime as well. Half the menagerie that made up Dick's loving ragtag bunch of younger siblings had even taken the night off.

Nothing should have make him arrive to silence this thick, to this faint echo of sniffling.

He sprinted after the noise.

Damian's fine, left before me. Duke didn't go out, nor did Steph. Babs spent the evening with Cass in the cave, Tim swept the bowery and said he was going to stop by Jason's place to-

He collided with a shaking, tear stained Tim right outside the medbay.

There was a body on the closest table. Others around it, crying, pacing, muttering in denial.

Dick couldn't look.

No, no, please, please no. I can't do that again. I can't!

Scarred skin, too pale – to be Duke or Cass – by death. His breath hitched. No. He. Fuck.

He knew those scars. Those arms. That chest and that fucking Y from navel to shoulders.

“Dick! Jason... he was...  I found him in his apartment. And I brought him to the cave... but... Jason doesn't have a pulse. He's... cold...”

Dick stumbled.

No.

No, no, no, that... that couldn't be real.

He caught himself on his little brother. Brought himself into a hug too tight, as painful as the arms gripping his ribs and back. A grip meant for a lifesaving light at sea. For a safeline over a ravine.

Twice. He'd lost the same brother twice. And this time, he didn't even have the excuse of inexperience and unstable situations. He... he patrolled the city whilst his brother was dead, completely oblivious to the fact. How could he? How dare he not know?!

“Shh, Tim, I'm here. I'm here.” But not for Jason, whispered a vicious part of him.

“What's all this?”

Dick's heart just about stopped.

Damian stood at the entrance to the lockers' room, uniform folded under one arm, hair slightly damp from a shower and Bat-themed pajamas worn without shame. His mild annoyance was proof he had no idea of the drama that had happened not twenty feet from him.

With reluctance, he let go of Tim, a gentle hand lingering on his shoulder, before he took a few steps toward his youngest, most vulnerable brother.

“D-Dami, I... ”   Damn it, he had to be the one to tell Damian about this. Because otherwise, the person to break the news would be Bruce, and-

Shit.

Bruce.

Oh God. How could they possibly tell him- ? After all their fights, the goddamned shattering that had broken the man he had been, and their last conversations even being more admonishment about protocols that Jason had flippantly disregarded. Bruce would never recover. That was it. The end of Batman.

...But first, God he hated himself, wanted to just curl up in a corner and forget everything, first he had a young brother he needed to talk to. One... one little brother less than just this afternoon.

“Jason... ” He swallowed, his throat tight, his heart in denial, the words so damning, but needing to be said. “Jason did not make it. He... he's dead.”

Damian stayed thoughtfully silent.

Not... not the tearful reaction he had expected, but Damian had grown up surrounded by so much death and horror that he would obviously be guarded. And oh, Dick's heart went to his baby brother, and he truly wished he could

“I do not understand. Why such theatrics for the zombie?”

Dick gasped, knowledge warring with the flash of anger.

“Damian! He's our brother!”

“Did he lose his head?” Damian demanded, and Dick's mind buckled.

“Huh, no, but that doesn't have anything to d-”

“Then, why are you acting so weirdly emotional, Richard?”

Before Dick's temper could catch up to his mouth, the longest and most painful-sounding gasp erupted from the medbay, where, to the general shock of all, Jason's gray-ish body shot upward with both his arms raised.

Electroshocks didn't make you jolt like that.

Electroshocks, in fact, remained in their kit on the other side of the medbay, unused. Because Jason had seemingly been dead long before he had been brought to the cave.

That was roughly the moment when Dick's brain caught up with the first of many hints. Latched onto it with a fool's hope.

“... Damian... When you were calling Jason a 'zombie', what did you mean?”

Damian's brows scrunched up together, a look he meant to be intimidating, but had more in common with a disgruntled kitten. “Exactly that, Richard. Do we not have files on zombies in the computer? Dead bodies walking about animated by unholy powers?”

Jason's not- Dick forced the half formed thought to a halt. For once, he rather wanted to be very, very wrong in how he perceived his family.

“What's with all the noise? Can't someone try to sleep like the dead without screaming?” Jason groused. “Should have gotten myself buried ag-OOF!”

“JASON!” screamed the hysterical teenager that had launched himself at a very lively dead body.

“Huhh? Hi, Timmy?” Jason said blearily, ruffling Tim's hair, eyebags suspiciously prominent. “... Fear gas?”

The blinking slowed, the fog of sleep drifting away as he silently begged the rest of them for an answer.

Happily provided by a still crying Tim. “I thought you were gone!”

“What is dead may never die,” Jason quipped, his mouth twisting in that cocksure grin from his Robin days.

And Dick wanted nothing more than to stop right there, pass out from the relief and joy of his little brother being alive and kicking, but...

But... 

That joke. One of many morbidly unfunny jokes and puns.

Bone-deep fatigue crushed his back. A bitter curse for whatever higher forces messing with them echoed strongly inside his skull, before he gave in to the inevitable and inhaled a few times for patience.

“Jason. We thought you were dead-dead.”

With prickly, hedgehog style affection, Jason pushed Tim back and stood up, stretching. “Come off it, Goldie. I wasn't even decapitated. I mean, if you were really worried, you could have just called a necromancer or something.” His expression hardened. “But if you ever call a necromancer on my ass, I'll shoot your perfect glutes.”

Yup, yup, yup, this is happening.

Tim finally wiped the rest of the tears away, helped by one of Stephanie's handkerchiefs, when he froze. “Wait. Your skin's still pale as a corpse.”

The flicker of amusement in Jason's eyes killed it for Dick.

God, how could they have all been this idiotic? If Wally ever learned about this – Shit, did Roy and Kory know before him?!

They were going to laugh their asses off at him.

Jason, unaware of the world recalibration happening in his poor big brother's mind, shrugged and rolled his shoulders – who creaked suspiciously loudly, more like rusty hinges than normal body parts. “Eh, I'm just a bit hungry. Nothing a meal or two won't fix and get some blood flowing back under my s-”

“You're a zombie.”

They turned toward him.

“Way to cross the finish line on time, Mister Rabbit,” Jason drawled.

Barbara, for once, looked completely unprepared. “A zombie,” she repeated, dazed.

Stephanie's nervous giggle died out when she noticed the lack of humor. “... No!”

Cassandra furiously looked down, muttering in her fist. Duke, by contrast, had the expression of a person stuck in a very awkward nightmare.

Even Jason's good-natured ribbing faded in when faced only with the distant screeched of bats. “... Hm, guys, bats, roostery, parasites and octopi? This is old news. What's with all the... ”

He vaguely gestured at their faces.

“Old news?” Tim rasped like he was being strangled.

“I came back from the dead years ago! Come on! Am I in a parallel universe? Hey, Demon Brat,” Jason called, baffled, “you knew, right? I didn't imagine that, right?!”

“Of course, Todd. Mother informed me of everything. Besides, Grandfather's interest in your state of being was of interest for a few weeks. How could I have been ignorant about your zombified state of being?”

In the corner of his eyes, Dick noticed Tim's, Barbara's and Cassandra's expressions all pinching in displeasure. In a way, Dick was reassured. He hadn't been the target of a family-wide hoax to discredit him as an attentive and loving eldest brother. No, he was just naturally blind, apparently.

“He knew?” Tim growled, like it was a personal failing of the fabric of time and space.

Damian's tone was the exact opposite. “And none of you realized...?”

Dick squirmed. “I... huh... you see...”

His baby brother eyed him, completely unimpressed, and for once after years of partnership, Dick felt he deserved every single ounce of it.

“I see... I shall reevaluate the value of this 'detective training' I've been given if this is the result then,” he said, the nearest thing to completely disavowing his older siblings without saying so.  

In other circumstances, perhaps the others would have demanded that Damian stay and explain, but he suspected the quelling look it would have deserved prevented them. Not one of them spoke until Damian had disappeared upstairs and the elevator doors had closed.

“Jason, since when have you been a zombie?”

Jason blinked, jaw hanging. Juuuust enough for some of the scar tissue on his face to stretch past normal. Why did Dick only notice that now?

“Wait, you're all serious? How could you not know? I told you guys!”

And there was Dick's pride rearing its ugly head, because no, no he had not been told and maybe his deductive skills needed a very complete overhaul, but his memory was still excellent!

“You never said that. Heck, we weren't even talking until two years ago!”

“I literally told you all that I crawled out of my grave by myself, groaning the entire time. No experiment, no Lazarus Pit, just a body waking up in its own coffin and deciding to breathe fresh air. Does that not scream 'zombie' to you?”

They cringed.

“Not the only one that returned from beyond,” Babs mumbled. He could see her pull up the mental list right there.

“I greeted you all last meeting with a 'What's up, my bat folks? It's me, your favorite zombie!'. What did you think that meant?”

“That you're an asshole with a morbid sense of humor?” Stephanie quipped, and Jason momentarily paused his indignation to high five her. Fair's fair.

“Okay, but what about that time I got shot in the chest and I told you all not to worry about it?”

“I just figured you were going to get stitched up by Leslie or yourself, you know, regular bat neuroses,” Tim confessed.

Dick made a mental note to keep a much closer eye on Tim's patrols for the next few months.

“From a bullet chest wound?” Jason asked with an incredulousness that was not at all earned, because he was a freaking zombie!

“I thought your armor had blocked it! The hole wasn't bleeding!” Tim protested, cheeks red and tone defensive.

“Well, yeah,” Jason replied. “I don't bleed. It's like some fruit pulp or something. Ain't coming out if you don't press. My heart's not pumping.”

That's a 'nevermind' on the smoothie I saved for after patrol.

“Well, I know that now,” Tim said.

“I feel like I should write it down on the plaque or something,” Jason still sounded amazed, and might have pinched his arm just to be sure he hadn't been daydreaming, “Like, 'a good soldier AND A VERY DISCRETE ZOMBIE!' in big flaming letters. With a spotlight. And a dictionary opened on 'Zombie' or 'Undead'. You know, just in case the next batbrat to come along needs a few subtle hints about my true nature. What'd you think, Dick?”

He could not have been blushing harder than he currently was. “I think shut up.”

“Of course. What about when I shoved my deadly cold toes at Tim under a blanket?”

“Cold feet.”

“Never eating around you guys?”

“Daddy issues with Bruce,” Barbara deadpanned, and got a sock thrown at her for her honesty.

However, Duke, poor kid, turned green. “Wait, so when you offered me some jellied brain... was that not a death joke?”

Dick's stomach spontaneously shrivelled.

By the grimaces and sharp inhales all around, that was a common reaction.

Then the worst possible thing happened: Jason grinned.

He strutted, all confidence and brashness, and viper-quick, snatched an arm around Duke's shoulder. “Narrows, Nightlight, my tiny bitsy bro, everything I do is a death joke. My very existence laughs at death.”

Inside the batcave, the groaning was long-suffering and shameful.

“But that was actually brains,” Duke countered.

“Yeah. Calf brains. It's a delicacy.”

Tim massaged his forehead. What a mood.

Duke narrowed his eyes. “It was purely for the joke, wasn't it?”

Jason patted him on the back so hard Duke faltered. “One tragically wasted on your obtuse mind. I prefer me some Tête fromagée instead. Less like grainy jello.”

Stone-faced, Barbara wheeled herself toward the batcomputer. There, upon a series of quick clicks, she opened up the Bats's files. “Alright, you had your fun. Do you need to eat brains or are you just the world's least funny meathead?”

“I'm the world's most misunderstood vigilante!” Jason loudly protested, milking their pain for all it was worth. And then some. “But yeah, I do. No grey matter in there” -- he tapped his belly -- “no thinking up here.” -- his skull.

“Need some better quality brains then,” Tim stage-whispered to Stephanie.

Cass pointed the finger at Jason. “No killing for brains.”

Jason's good humor flickered with a flash of green. “Ain't ever done it, never will. It's a matter of morals, not hunger, Cass.”

Dick swooped in that minefield before it exploded.

“Great! Proud of you, Jay! You're the good kind of vegetarian zombie,” he said, putting an arm around his ginormous little brother's shoulders.

Wait a minute...

“Hey, you're older than when you died! Zombies don't age.”

“No, I was thrown into a Lazarus Pit, and the evil waters cured the malnutrition-induced delay on my growth. Haven't aged a day since.”

“I just thought you had a weird babyface thing going on,” Tim said.

Jason's grin turned sardonic. “Quite the opposite, Timber.”

Dick put his head in his hands in some vain attempt to prevent his brain from leaking through his ears.  With his luck, his little brother would 'playfully' eat some of it. “There's no way you look this rugged at biologically sixteen! I refuse to believe that.”

“Can you imagine my power if I'd been allowed to reach my full potential?” Jason leered, eyebrows waggling like waves in a sea at storm. “So many heart attacks.”

Barbara and Cassandra exchanged a silent look, and, after a solemn nod, Cassandra reached up to slap Jason upside the head.

“Thank you, Cassandra,” Barbara told her. “Jason, never do such a thing again.”

The disgruntled groan that followed must have been on purpose, because Jay was indeed an asshole.

“Besides, it's not like the world will ever know,” Tim said, cutting, a smirk hiding by his hand.

Dick really thought his little brother was far too relaxed upon learning that Jason was one with the undead. Sure, they had all encountered various levels of zombies during their missions, from all sorts of oral traditions and cultures, alien viruses and hidden nanobots piloting meat puppets. It wasn't even classified as a nation-wide crisis to encounter free-roaming zombies. But since the chronically unalive individual in question was one of their own, Dick felt he was owed at least a whole evening of frazzled panic and incomprehension for once.

“Oh?” Stephanie instead asked, sensing blood.

Tim shrugged. “Well, you know, no pulse, no blood flow,” he said with an angled eyebrow nodding at Jason's crotch

Stunned silence followed, their expressions varying from disgust, horror, unholy glee and, from Jason himself, wide-eyed shock that his shrimp of a little brother had had the balls to assimilate the zombieness fast enough to mock him for him.

Dick prayed for patience. For fortitude. And for an alternate timeline where he was an only child.

Why, for all the love of cotton candy and professional uncriminal clowns, did Tim put THAT image of Jason inside their brains? What had he done, him, a loving model for all of society, to suffer like this?

Maybe if he asked nicely, Jason would eat the image out of his head. He owed Dick that much after this clusterfuck of a conversation.

“Ooooooooh,” Stephanie crooned, miming getting dunked on. With acrobatics.

Jason huffed. “Like I was ever interested in the first place. I ain't Dick.”

“Okay, no slut shaming or virgin shaming, in fact, no shaming at all, please. In this house, we accept all sexualities, but we don't give out raunchy details about any of it, I only have so much brain bleach.”

“Share?” Duke pleaded in a whisper.

Oh, I wish I could, you young innocent soul.

A few beeps turned their attention back to Barbara and the batcomputer. “Well, that's one long overdue update to Jason's files. Anyone else want to share their 'obvious' medical condition?”

“Excuse you, being dead is not a medical condition.”

“I will make you wish for the peace of the grave, Jason.”

Droplets dripped from nearby stalactites.

A few bats flew overhead.

Jason turned to them like nothing had been said.

“Right. That was fun. Best night of my month. Can't wait to tell the Outlaws.”

Dick resigned himself to a series of unflattering texts by the absolute dickheads that were his second family. He could already tell the messages would blow up his phone to the Moon. 'You didn't know your brother that came back from the dead is a zombie?!'

“Have mercy and wait tomorrow morning?”

That smile could have been great or terrible. “You're lucky I'm in a spectacularly good mood, Dick.”

He had lifted his leg over his bike's seat when Duke was struck by genuine worry.

“Wait. Does Bruce know?”

Jason barked out a laugh.

“Of course he does! God knows he's got some massive blind spots, but he's obsessive, paranoid and I find subcutaneous trackers on me every week. No way he didn't get the hint before now.”

But, as his gaze went over the rest of them, his good cheer dimmed, his grin slipping off his face as surely as a bit of decayed flesh.

“... Right?”

#fanfic #Jason Todd #Zombie Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Batsiblings

[five-rivers]

Snow and Song Chapter 5

About five seconds after Danny registered the huge crowd of people gathered in the park (and why were they there?  Had there been some kind of event he forgot about?), it began to snow.   Danny looked around himself in alarm.  He was often insensitive to temperature changes (and a few other things, according to his sister), but it wasn’t nearly cold enough snow.  It was September.

He looked up.  There weren’t even any clouds.  

A snowflake, perfect and crystalline, stuck to his eyelash.  

Alright.  When something weird and unnatural started to happen in Amity Park, usually there was a ghost involved.  All Danny had to do was find the ghost causing it to… snow…

Oh.  Right. He was a ghost that could make snow.  

He was an idiot.  He hadn’t even noticed his core activating.  His cheeks flushed with cold.  This was so embarrassing.

Wincing, he looked back down at the crowd.  Only about a tenth of the people had phones in their hands, winking camera lenses pointed up at him, but that was more than enough.  He felt entirely too visible.  

… Which he could fix because he was a ghost, darn it, something that he kept forgetting about tonight.  Berating himself, he adjusted his visibility down to zero and flew away.  

Almost at once, all the birds took off, the sound of wings obscuring whatever the humans down below were saying.  

Danny didn’t stop until he got home, trailing snow all the while.  He was not looking forward to tomorrow, but for tonight, maybe, he could forget what had happened.  

He went human, phased off his clothes, laid down on his bed, closed his eyes, and started to-

“Maddie!” shouted Jack.  “The ghost-kid is on TV again!  He’s in the park!”

“Oh, good!  Go start up the GAV!  This time, we’ll catch him!  I’ll be with you in a minute!”

Danny let out the breath he had been holding since his dad startled him from his doze in a long sigh.  He resigned himself to being woken up at least once more that night.

.

.

.

The first rays of sunlight filtering through Danny’s window brought with them something that would have chilled Danny to the core if his core weren’t naturally frosty.  

Music.  

He peeled his eyes open slowly, grudgingly, because it was still September, and sunrise was still quite a bit before the time he had to get up in the morning.  Hoping he was hallucinating, he trudged over to the window and pulled back the curtains.

Ah, yes.  He hadn’t quite expected to find a bunch of cultists standing outside his house with a boombox, playing back a rather scratchy version of Tale as Old as Time, but, somehow, he was unsurprised to do so.  What exactly were they attempting to accomplish here?

One of the younger (about six years old) cultists waved up at him.  Resigned, Danny waved back, then let the curtain fall back down.  

He rubbed his eyes.  Normal teenagers didn’t have to deal with cults that worshiped them as a god.  Even that dude from Nazareth was a full adult before he got hit with the heavy stuff.  

(Yeah, because it wasn’t at all a sign of megalomania, mental instability, or good old-fashioned insanity to compare himself to that guy.)

(He didn’t want a cult, darn it.)

What did they want, anyway?

He got dressed and started downstairs.  To his horror (but again, not surprise) he heard more music emanating from the kitchen.  

“What are you guys doing?” Danny asked.  

“Oh, morning, Danno!” boomed Jack.

“Shh, shh,” said Maddie.  “We need to go over that last part again.  There are pancakes on the stove, sweetie.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Thanks. But, really, what are you doing?”

“Analyzing the sound patterns of Phantom’s voice!” said Jack.  “We missed it before, but he must have a low-level mind control power!  Just like that Rockstar ghost!”

“Sneaky post-human ectoplasm glob,” muttered Maddie. “That’s how he’s got so many people on his side.  He’s brainwashing them.  But don’t worry, sweetie.  As soon as we figure out how he’s doing it, we’ll be working on a cure!”

“Well,” said Danny, trying not to sound bitter. They had made him pancakes. “That’s news to me.”

.

.

.

Danny stepped out of the house and sighed in the general direction of the cult.  

As always, acknowledging them in any way shape or form proved to be a mistake.  They rushed at him.  

“Daniel Fenton,” intoned today’s leader, a man wearing robes colored in an approximation of Phantom’s suit.  His beard was… interesting.

“What?” asked Danny.  If only there was a way to skip through awkward conversations like this, like there was in video games.  But, no, life was like one, huge, un-skippable cutscene.  Tragic.

“Last night, our Lord Phantom gave us a message. A message, and a divine task.”

Danny was pretty sure he’d remember that.  “What task?” he asked, resigned.

“To spread his word through song!  And you, his prophet, his chosen, his blessed consort, shall reveal his intent upon the stage of the Casper High School Musical!”

“I’m begging you, call it anything but that.”

“We will do anything to make the Casper High School Musical go well!  We are at your command!”

“Please stop picketing my house and harassing me on the way to school.”

“We have fine members of our choir here to audition for you!  Please take word of their worthiness to our Lord Phantom.”

Several of the cultists began to sing.

“Danny!” called Jazz from the driveway.  “Stop feeding the cultists, or we’re going to be late for school!”

.

.

.

“So,” said Sam.  “The Ghost Watch feed blew up last night.”

“I know,” said Danny.  “I feel so stupid.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” said Tucker.  “But we really do have to put some time aside to test whether or not you really do have a pied piper ability.”

“I made it snow while I was singing,” said Danny.

“Ah.  We’ll have to look into that, too,” said Tucker, making a note on his PDA.  “Who wants to bet that the ‘Phan Club’ will try to incorporate last nights performance into the play somehow?”

“That’s not funny,” said Danny, closing his locker. “Guys, what if I accidently mind control the audience?  Or start a snowstorm inside?  The cultists are already on top of this.  They were outside my house this morning.”

“Again?” said Sam, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, again.”

“What did they want?”

“They seem to think that there’s going to be some kind of revelation in the play,” said Danny.  He caught the look in Sam’s eye.  “Sam.  No.”

“Sam, yes.”

“Cults are not a toy,” cautioned Danny.  

“Not the way you’re using them, they aren’t.”

“Seriously, Sam.  No matter how much you want to change the world, do not use a cult to do it. It never goes well.”

“Christianity started off as a cult.”

“And would you say that went well?  I’m asking you this as a Christian.”

“Are you a Christian?” asked Tucker. “I’ve never seen you in a church. Can you go in a church? Have we tested that?”

“I—What?  I’m not a demon, Tucker.  I went to church, uh…  Last Easter. I can totally go in a church.”

“You had to think of that for an awfully long time.”

“What about a synagogue?” asked Sam.  “Or a mosque?”

“I don’t know.  But you’d think that if I could go into a church, that’d mean I could go into the other ones.”

“But what if you couldn’t?” asked Sam.  “Would that mean that religion is more right than the others?”

“Or more wrong,” said Tucker, “since Danny is a good guy.”                                                                  

“I—” started Danny.

“PHANTOM!” screamed Wes from down the hall, interrupting whatever revelation Danny could potentially have had.

“Oh, great,” said Danny.  “I’m not Phantom, Weston!”

“Kids,” said Miss Lyn, poking her head into the hallway.  “Please don’t shout in the halls.  Class is about to start.”

“I have proof, this time!” crowed Wes.  “I have video.”

“Oh, no,” said Danny, with perfectly flat affect. “Are you here to harass me with yet another badly photoshopped, grainy, vertically filmed, twenty-second clip of me ‘transforming’ into Phantom like some kind of anime heroine?”

Wes reared back, face coloring and nostrils flaring.  

Danny would feel worse about what he had said, if half the videos in Wes’s last ‘Fenton is Phantom’ presentation hadn’t been exactly that.  Tucker had made several of them and stealthily dropped them in various chat rooms for Wes to find, as something halfway between a joke and an exercise in misdirection.  

As soon as Wes had included one of those in his presentation, it was doomed to be a laughingstock.  Again, Danny almost felt bad.  

“No!” said Wes.  He puffed his chest out.  “From Ghost Watch!”

“Uh huh.”

“I kind of feel like we’d be hearing about it from more than just you,” said Sam.  

“Yeah,” agreed Tucker.  “If the news decided Danny was Phantom’s dead twin or whatever, you’d think some of his groupies would be swarming.”  He pointed at a pair of Phan Club members who were having a sedate conversation near the water fountain.  “Where are the groupies, Wes?”

“Did you not learn your lesson from the beauty pageant?” asked Sam.  “Or Egypt?”

“I don’t know, didn’t you learn yours from Desiree?”

“Who’s learning what from Desiree?  Because you should ask her for a better naming sense.  I mean, you just copied.  Lame.”

“You’re talking to me about copying?  You vegans are the copiers!  Vegetable burgers, tofurkey, where does it end?”

“With the abolition of the cruelty of MEAT!”

At this point, most people would have started edging away from Sam and Tucker’s patented and infamous meat vs. veggies argument.  However, Wes had long since proven himself to be of sterner stuff, and Danny wanted to hear what he was on about.

“Guys,” he said, “guys, it’s not working.  He’s still here.”

Sam and Tucker turned back towards Wes.  “Bummer,” said Sam.  

“Yeah, Wes, why do you have to be such a bummer?” asked Tucker.  

“Let him speak,” said Danny, magnanimously, twirling his hand.  

Wes glowered.  “Well, now I don’t want to,” he said, mulishly.  

“Come on, Wes, what’s the video, don’t leave us in suspense!”

Wes attempted to glower harder but failed.  Grudgingly, he held up his phone, which did, indeed, play a video from Ghost Watch.  Danny watched himself singing for several long seconds before returning his gaze to Wes.

“I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove.”

“The song, you idiot!  It’s from Beauty and the Beast!  And I know the drama club gave you that music.”

“A movie that thousands of thousands of people have watched and know the music for?”

“That doesn’t matter!  You’re the only one who has any reason to sing it.”

“You mean, other than everyone else in the drama club?” asked Sam, bored.  

“Or anyone who likes Disney?” said Tucker.  

Wes opened his mouth to make some kind of riposte.

The warning bell rang.  

He closed his mouth.  “I’m watching you, Fenton!”

“You and everyone else,” muttered Danny as Wes retreated down the hallway, pointing at him.  

Why was everyone around him so ridiculous?

.

.

.

“We’re doing Snow White, not Beauty and the Beast!” howled Razor, baring his teeth at the hapless Phan Club member that had suggested adding ‘Tale as Old as Time’ to the song list.

“If you guys had taken that bet, I’d have so much money right now,” said Tucker.  

“Students, please,” said Mr. Lancer.  “We can’t have any actual copyrighted music in our play. Not without paying for it.  And I’m not negotiating with Disney.”  He looked into the distance.  “Not again.  Never again.”

Danny did not want to know the story behind that, but nevertheless, he had to ask… “Are you okay, Mr. Lancer?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Lancer.  “Thank you for asking.  In any case, my lovely drama students!  Today, we are going to do our first round of auditions!”

“But, sir, we haven’t finished the script, yet!” protested Mikey.

“Right you are!” said Mr. Lancer.  “But I have found that things go more smoothly when we have people already in the main roles.  There’s less… outright sabotage and script jockeying.”

“What does that even mean?” whispered Samhain (aka Kevin) loudly.  

“People trying to change the script to fit a certain person so that person gets the role,” said Paulina.  “Or exclude a certain person.  Which I would never do, Mr. Lancer.”

The covetous glare shot in Danny’s direction indicated that Paulina’s words might have been less than truthful.  

Mr. Lancer chuckled.  “I didn’t think you would, Miss Sanchez!”  He began writing on his whiteboard.  “Now, we already have our Prince Snow White, our Princess Charming, and our Evil Queen.”  He nodded at Paulina as he wrote the roles on the board.  “Now, we need our seven dwarves—”

“Ghosts!”

“Excuse me, yes, ghosts.  Thank you, Mr. Baxter.  Our Huntsman—”

“Or woman!”

“Yes, thank you, Miss Thunder,” said Mr. Lancer. “Huntsman, or Huntswoman.  And… Let’s see…  Snow White’s parents, for the prologue, Princess Charming’s retinue, and… I think that’s it.  Alright, let’s start with the ghosts.”

“Shouldn’t they have names?” asked Mia.  

“Well, sure,” said Mr. Lancer.  “But we can’t use the Disney names.  You’ll have to come up with your own.”

“Phantom!” screamed Paulina.

“Here we go,” said Danny, burying his head in his hands.  

“You want to bet that we’re going to wind up with your whole rogue’s gallery?” asked Tucker.  

“If you need money, Tucker,” said Sam, “you just have to ask.  Rates on my loans are very reasonable.”

“Isn’t usury against your religion?” asked Tucker.

“Nope,” said Sam.  “Not at all.”

“I am incredibly against this development,” said Danny.  “The cults are going to have a field day.”

“Ember!  Ember! Ember!”  Chanted the punk goth crowd, which had split off from the larger goth subgroup.

“I am somehow even more against this development,” muttered Danny.  “Mr. Lancer! I don’t think it’s a good idea to include a ghost who gets power from people saying her name!”

“Shut up, Fentonnage, what do you know about ghosts?”

“My parents study them.  I know a lot.  More than I ever even—”

Danny narrowly dodged the workbook Dash flung at him.

“Mr. Baxter!” scolded Mr. Lancer.  

Sadly, when everything shook out, Danny did not get his way.  One of the seven ghosts was named Ember and was going to be played by Star.  Because why not?

“At least the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady aren’t on the list,” said Sam.  

“But ‘Hamlet, father of Hamlet,’ is,” said Danny.  “Why does that bother me more than Ember?”

“Because you hate Shakespeare?”

“No, I don’t,” protested Danny.  “Shakespeare is a perfectly nice person.  I just don’t like how his writing is taught in schools.”

“You’re going to break Mr. Lancer’s heart saying stuff like that,” said Tucker.  

“He wrote love poems to boys.  Why do they skim over that?”

“Excellent point, Mr. Fenton!” exclaimed Mr. Lancer, who had somehow materialized behind them.  “Shakespeare was definitely bisexual.  I wi—”  The teacher stopped.  “Nope, can’t use that word.  It would be nice if the state let me teach it like that.  Along with the crossdressing.  School board won’t let me.”  He shook his head.  “Dale Baxter. Someday, someday he’ll lose an election. Eventually.”  He took a deep breath.  “Next time we meet, we’ll be doing auditions, okay?  I want you all to think about what parts you would like! And, Miss Gray, I’d like to have a word with you about your role in our production, alright?”

#Danny Phantom #snow and song #fic #my fic #phanfic

[violetleaves]

filming: season one, episode five | days five & six time: varies, but mostly end of day. location: on set! inspired by: this song, a weston nichols self para!!! for @harmcomforts​

      rock me real slowly,                        put a bib on me.                  i’m just like a baby... droolin’ over you. & the things you do. 

        it must be pure luck that in the midst of wes’ massive crush on charlotte, he’s had multiple opportunities to film scene after scene beside her -- more of them romantic in nature than usual. going into the filming of episode five, wes was aware that they’d be sharing a bulk of their screen time together, as the episode does focus heavily on his character oliver and the budding relationship between him and lakeynn -- but it’s not just the chemistry between two fictional characters that’s being picked up by the camera. no, it must be obvious -- painfully obvious that wes cannot keep his eyes off the other girl. he hopes he’s being subtle, considering it is scripted that towards the end of the fifth episode the two become progressively more handsy and gazey with one another. and he’s especially grateful for this, because otherwise, he’s not exactly sure how he’d be able to handle his feelings on set if it weren’t for these perfectly scripted moments, like where she’s propped up on his lap for a scene and he’s staring at her like she’s the most marvelous thing he’s ever laid eyes on. 

ever since the night of his grand apology in the janitors closet, the harmless, blossoming infatuation for charlotte has erupted into much more. the only thing that occupies his mind aside from his memorized dialogue is charlotte. her heavenly voice, her infectious smile, the sweet scent of her shampoo. the next day out on the rowboat didn’t exactly do much to calm these growing feelings either.  how could it, when she’s saying things like you can kiss me again whenever you want? in fact, it only seemed to inspire more in him, a side of wes that he’s never actually experienced before. jealousy. growing up in the spotlight, adored by fans and disliked by cast-mates, the opportunity for a serious romance was slim, and the public ones that charlotte has probably heard about were nothing more than a show; something put on by his mother to encourage more publicity. jealousy never came up -- unless it was falsely being suggested by a media outlet. this is something that he’s been meaning to talk to her about, but it’s been difficult... for a couple of reasons.

number one being that wes can’t seem to form a proper sentence around her. all of a sudden. when they’re in between takes, or watching another cast member filming one of their scenes, wes can never seem to find the right words. it’s like someone has stolen his charm, replaced him with an awkward teenage boy who can only seem to think about kissing her every five seconds. even when they’re not near each other on set, when wes is left alone to play brickbreaker on his phone in the corner until his next scene, he’s distracted. getting past level seven hundred isn’t top priority anymore -- staring at charlotte from across the room, practically drooling over how divine she looks underneath purple-toned stage lights is a far more worthwhile activity. it would be a miracle if she hasn’t noticed the way his green eyes follow her around the room when they’re not filming a scene together. 

and number two... is a whole other story. it involves his mother, and he’s not sure he’s ready to talk to charlotte about her yet. other than vague comments about her here and there, wes has remained steadfast in not bringing her up, and he doesn’t want the two of them to ever interact if he can help it. wes knows that the moment his mother is aware that there’s something going on between them, she’ll milk it for as much, and as long as she can. no longer will this relationship that feels actually real, and sparks something inside of him that he’d only ever acted out before -- once the claws of his mother have dug into them, it will never be the same. and wes wants to protect charlotte from that for as long as he can. 

which is why he’s attempted to limit their romantics to only their scenes, as much as he wants to whisk her away to his trailer when they’re finished for the day in the hopes that maybe they can build more onto their relationship other than just lip-locking on and off camera. there are definitely eyes on him, ones with gossipy mouths attached that will definitely report back to his mother the second they realize that their on-screen relationship has escalated. even the sight of the two of them sitting a little too close to each other could be perceived as some kind of romantic gesture, so he’s a little overly cautious. he’s still nice. he’s still the good guy he promised her in that closet that he would be, but he isn’t reaching to hold her hand when there are others around, as much as he wants to delicately trace his fingers over the intricate lines on her palms. 

over the passing couple days, the second they’ve wrapped for the day, wes finds himself in close proximity to charlotte, and he’s stuck with the struggle of keeping his eyes from wandering to places that they shouldn’t: the small amount of cleavage the outfit they’ve chosen for her is showing, the way she looks a little too good in those jeans.... the tantalizing pucker of her lips. there’s a part of him that wants to push her to the side, make a mean comment and run back to his trailer to fantasize about her like a little kid in grade school with an innocent crush. he can’t do this though -- they’ve come too far since their connection in the closet for him to do anything more than pretend he sees danny out of the corner of his eye and mumble: 

       “um.... i’m sorry, i have to go but... i’ll see you in the morning.” he does always leave her with sweet smile and a gentle touch on the arm, as if to secretly say he’ll be thinking about her when she’s not around. because he is -- nonstop. she’s gracefully dancing around his mind, and he’s writing down each and every thought about her in private, composing lyrics that he’s confident will never see the eyes of anyone besides himself. unknowingly, she’s got him wrapped around her finger, desperate to explore more of her than what’s been shown. he’ll wait -- impatiently, but he’ll wait. for that perfect secluded moment where they can be alone, and he can somehow manage to get his confidence back. it’ll happen. he believes it will. 

#{wes & charlotte} #harmcomforts #this song been STUCK in my head for DAYS and its been wes vibes the Whole time #i made gazey a word #if i say its a word -- its a word. its my birthday #i just listened to this song for like 4 hours straight lmao #that tag made more sense when i wrote this on my birthday

[harmony283]

[DGM] Lead

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY @a1y-puff !! I actually got this out in time I’m so proud of myself! Ahem, originally based off the prompt “putting their hand on your back to lead you”. Managed to expand this past the initial Drabble it was 💚

Kanda wasn't quite sure when he started doing it, just that one day he started pressing his hand to Allen's back when he started walking in the wrong direction. At first it was so they didn't get even more lost than they already were--being in unfamiliar territory, after all, was pretty confusing on it's own. It didn't help that this city had alleyways upon alleyways that were commonly used as shortcuts. So really, who could blame him?

But then he started doing it on the main roads, where many people traveled and where it was impossible to miss the gigantic signs advertising what street name they were on, or where they were being led to. Yet even here, Allen didn't seem to notice much, which maybe was why Kanda didn't notice.

Or at least that was what he told himself.

It got even worse, though, two months later when their vacation was coming to a close. It was supposed to be a senior trip, despite Lenalee and Allen not being anywhere near senior age, but they wanted the trip to be about the four of them before Lavi and Kanda eventually moved into the dorms to start their first semester of University at the local, but hot shot, University.

Point was, when Kanda started leading Allen through the hallway of the small bungalow house they somehow managed to rent for the summer even he couldn't ignore it anymore. Especially when, on the last night, when Lavi and Lenalee had already gone to bed, Kanda found himself leading Allen down the hall to his bedroom. A hall even Allen couldn't get lost in because it only led to their bedrooms, dammit!

He tried to pull his hand away, but he knew it was already too late. Allen was overly conscious of him, just like Kanda was overly conscious of the fact that yes, he could feel Allen's warmth through the thin tshirt he was wearing. So when they got to Allen's room, where before it would have been natural to part ways, Allen asked, almost tentatively, “Did you….want to come in?”

Like Kanda could really say no to that tone of voice. Didn't that say something too?

****

Allen wasn't quite sure when Kanda started doing it, just that he noticed that hand on his back more often than not. Maybe it was because of the twists and turns of the alleyways here and the fact that Allen knew he had no sense of direction, but he hadn't really expected Kanda of all people to be the one to guide him. It was Lavi's idea, initially, to go on this trip. Allen half expected him to be the perky as heck tour guide, claiming something or other about visiting this city at some point with his grandfather ‘way back when’....whatever that meant. Lavi was also the only one who knew the language fairly well, but at least they'd had almost a year to prepare for the 2 months they'd be here.

It was supposed to be a last send off, before Kanda and Lavi went away to university. Really, maybe that was why Allen was so overly conscious of Kanda now? Because he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he wouldn't see him every single day like he had since sometime in, what, middle school?

They'd met on a rainy cold March, nothing like the steamy humid end of May heat of this city because he accidentally got shoved by someone else and got Kanda's, as well as his, backpack soaked when some jerk drove by and sloshed muddy road water up onto the sidewalk.

He'd apologized, but of course Kanda didn't forgive him. Maybe that was what started it, or at least the animosity. Allen wasn't quite sure when the actual friendship started, if he could even call it that. He knew they knew similar people. That day was just a day that Lavi hadn't been there to calm Kanda down, apparently (seeing as none of them could drive, even moreso Lavi because of the eyepatch none of them ever talk about). He somehow even knew Lenalee, who was closer to Allen's age and it seemed like that friendship preceded even Lavi's by years. Allen didn't ask about that either, until Kanda visited one day when Allen was over and her brother treated Kanda like family.

It maybe happened two years later, when Allen finally entered high school. Two years of occasional fights, bloody noses, getting patched up, but also learning about each other so really maybe it was just natural they became friends? It really was the four of them making their way through life as awkward teenagers, even if Kanda never looked like he had an awkward stage in his life.

But right Allen was getting off track.

The point was somehow they went from that….to this, where even on the main roads Kanda would do it. The hand pressed against his back as they tried to catch up to Lavi who somehow always knew where he was going. He was probably doing this on purpose now, too, something Kanda kept pointing out. Even Lenalee started doing it, or even when she didn't Kanda's hand refused to move and Allen was left dealing with Lenalee's increasingly inquisitive looks.

It made him feel very uncomfortable, but Kanda never once seemed to notice. Allen was almost thinking they'd go the entire trip with Kanda painstakingly Not Noticing.

But then it happened. The last week or so of their trip. Suddenly that hand wouldn't move, even when they got back to the tiny little place they rented. Now, Allen knew he was directionally challenged but this place was tiny enough that really the only things he couldn't find were some of the canned vegetables that one time Lavi asked him to help cook some local dish and even then that was because he hadn't paid attention to where Lenalee put it and there were several cabinets to choose from.

Case in point he knew exactly where his room was. It was down one hallway, same as with Lenalee, Lavi, and Kanda's rooms. It was impossible for him to get lost on the way from the front door.

And yet Kanda still did it.

Allen had a feeling Lavi had noticed for a while now, just like Lenalee, because no matter how many times he'd trail off ahead of them (and be a horrible tour guide) he'd always wait and see, no matter how quickly (or not) they'd get to their destination. So yes, usually that meant Lavi would get to their rented place sooner than them. Usually Lenalee would nab the shower first, under the telltale reason of “ladies first” so Lavi would loiter on the couch watching the local news or reading. So he'd see them come in, which meant he saw when Kanda still didn't move his hand even to lead Allen to the kitchen.

Maybe that was when Kanda started to ‘get it's. Allen didn't really want to know what was going through his head when he did, just that he caught Kanda staring more. But the words would always get stuck in his throat before he could ask. Or Lenalee, or Lavi would always barge in. At this point they were probably watching closely too because--

God. It felt like they were on the cusp of something, but Allen didn't want to get his hopes up. Why was he hoping for anything?

Or maybe he was his own dosage of oblivious too. Maybe Kanda really had noticed the entire time how often they'd get stranded together, where Kanda had to lead the way home. Maybe Kanda was just as overly aware of all the staring being done too, or maybe in typical Kanda fashion he didn't give a rats ass about that and instead only noticed because he just. Kept. Doing it.

Even on the last day, when they finally made it home and there was only one tiny desk lamp on for them. The house was silent, the TV wasn't on, if Kanda really focused he could hear Lavi snoring through the thin walls. Lenalee was probably in bed too. They were the only ones awake, and /that/ was when it hit. All because he looked back to see Kanda staring at him, with his hand still there on his back. It didn't even move as they made their way down the tiny hallway to Allen's room. Here, where they would normally part ways so Kanda could just /turn back around/ and walk to the room he always passed for this last week or so just to make sure Allen got to his.

But this time the air was thick, Allen's heart was in his throat, where it had no place being, so he had to wheeze out the words, “Did you….want to come in?”

****

Surprisingly Kanda didn't say no. In fact he didn't say anything at all, he just nodded his head and followed Allen in. Somehow, even in the dark room, Allen managed to not stub his toes on anything though a part of him was cursing for not packing earlier. They'd probably laugh at him in the morning but honestly it didn't seem too important now. He just slowly waded to his bed, to the small side table to turn on the bedside lamp.

He really didn't know what to make of Kanda's expression, just that he could maybe kind of see why he was so popular to the general populace. Sharp cheekbones, shadowed just right in the dim lighting, broad shoulders that led down to a well defined muscular chest, stomach and--oh. He jerked his eyes back up and mumbled out, “We--you should probably change. I--sorry, what was I thinking, we've been out all day--” Would Kanda want to shower now or was it too late to? Did Allen smell? God, why didn't he think of that? Though now they'd run the risk of waking everyone up with the creaking pipes--

Suddenly he felt a hand on his head ruffling his hair, “Oi, you're thinking too hard. I can take one in the morning.” Allen hesitantly glanced up, “And unless you have shit that fits me in here I can sleep shirtless.”

So he didn't want to leave?

Allen swallowed thickly and tried desperately to pretend his face wasn't as warm as it was, “W-Well okay then. Let me just change out of my shirt and then we can--lie down?” It occurred to him then that if Kanda had been a bit more aware of...everything, then what might this look like to him? He'd learned a year or two ago that Kanda didn't necessarily care, at least about….certain things. Like gender.

Allen was still trying to figure that out for himself, but when he backed up and nearly sent the lamp careening off the table, well suffice to say Kanda pressing up against his back and half pinning him to the table helped make his mind up.

“Be careful.” Talking in his ear definitely didn't help. Did help. Allen was confused now but his ears were probably red and even in the low lighting it was probably obvious.

“R-Right.” Allen stuttered out, stumbling a bit when Kanda righted them both, “I'll. Um. Find a shirt now.”

Kanda said nothing, only raising an eyebrow and walking to the bed where he--yes, he was stripping off his shirt and tossing it in the ‘dirty clothes’ pile Allen created, along with his jeans--

Oh he was staring again.

“Well? If you're just going to stare get over here.” Sometimes Kanda had no tact, but at least Allen knew how to respond to that. With a huff, and doing exactly what Kanda didn't suggest. He even took his time picking out a shirt before sliding off his dirty shirt, khaki shorts, and sliding on his fresh sleep shirt before making his way back to the bed. Whatever mood from earlier had not necessarily disappeared, but at least he could breathe a little easier and seeing Kanda in his bed wasn't as earth shattering.

In fact he looked kind of comfortable, even on the clearly old mattress.

So Allen poked his side and said, “Scoot over.”

For once Kanda listened with very little complaining. They'd done this before--sharing beds. It was a necessity after all, if they wanted to sleep over for the night and not sleep on a couch. Allen didn't mind this, even if it was a little different too. For one, Kanda usually never faced him in his sleep, and for two normally neither of them slept shirtless for fear of a parent barging in.

So yes, okay that was distracting.

“You're staring again.” Kanda hummed, a small smirk on his face.

Immediately Allen pouted, “I was just thinking.”

“About?” Kanda prodded his leg with his foot, but it wasn't enough to be considered a kick so really Allen couldn't complain.

But then what could he really tell Kanda what he'd been thinking about? Would that really be a bad thing? It wasn't the most awkward thing, no, he could think of several moments that were possibly worse--

Which had him thinking of those, of how even through it all they stayed friends, became friends. That was what this trip was about, right? Thinking about that, and how much--

“I'm going to miss you.”

That clearly hadn't been what Kanda expected to hear, judging from the look on his face, but then something happened. Something soft, but resolute, Allen could see it in Kanda's eyes just as he could see that smirk soften to a smile. He really was gorgeous when he smiled, maybe Allen was lucky to see it, he knew, it meant Kanda trusted him.

So maybe when he scooted closer Allen shouldn't have been so surprised, this trip showed him a lot, after all. Maybe this was just a natural progression of that? This friendship, the memories, yeah he might not see Kanda as much over the next few years, and what if he goes out of state for university himself? If he went at all? That sent a jolt through him, and that's when he saw it too--the same reflection back in Kanda's eyes. He wasn't normally a sap, so Allen knew he'd probably always remember them:

“I'll miss you too. Doesn't mean we can't still see where this goes.” Then he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Allen's and added, “Now sleep. Our flight's early tomorrow.”

Allen felt himself smile, “Okay.”

#d. gray man #my fanfiction #Yullen #kanda x allen #Allen Walker #Kanda Yuu #Lavi #lenalee lee #AU

[searchingwardrobes]

Christmas in Storybrooke: 3/13

Summary: My Hallmark Christmas movie fic in which flights get cancelled and Henry’s “best friend’ gets snowed in with him in his quirky hometown for Christmas. Only with magic and fairy tale characters.

Yes, you read that right. I outlined this fic, and it will be 13 chapters (well, 12 plus an epilogue) because apparently my muse loves to torture me. Once I finish Sleepless in Seattle, I’ll be updating this daily to hopefully finish by New Years. Hopefully . . .

Rating: M for suggestive scenes and adult situations, not smut

Trigger warnings: Henry is an adult. Read that again: Henry is an adult. Look at the picset: that’s Andrew J. West. If Henry actually behaving like an adult makes you feel icky, the don’t read this.

A03

Tagging @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @kday426 @bethacaciakay @teamhook @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @winterbaby89 @distant-rose @yohoyohoafandomlifeforme

Chapter Three: White Christmas

 Henry rolled over on the lumpy futon, groaning and arching his back. How had ever slept on this thing as a teenager? Across the room, Evie was still asleep in the bed from the old guest room. She was on her side, one pillow under her head and a second one clutched to her chest. Her brow was furrowed and her fists clenched, and he wondered not for the first time why her body was always so coiled and tense in sleep. She seemed to be so steady most of the time, so unfazed by the rough nature of her work. Did she keep it all bottled inside?

He threw his blankets aside, also casting off such melancholy thoughts about Evie. Maybe she just couldn’t relax in an unfamiliar place while she was missing her family. He pulled a sweatshirt on over his undershirt, put some thick socks on his feet, and padded down the cold hardwood stairs to the second floor. It was quiet there, but he could hear voices drifting up from the ground floor along with the sounds of someone working in the kitchen. Sure enough, he found his siblings scurrying around the kitchen while his stepfather stirred a pan of scrambled eggs at the stove. A timer dinged, and Killian smoothly pushed the pan off the hot burner and opened the oven door to pull out a pan of cinnamon rolls.

“Morning, lad!” he called to Henry, in his usual bright morning voice. Killian’s love of the early hours had always been a source of slight irritation for both Henry and his mother. It never felt right that he was so chipper when the sun was barely rising.

Of course, the upside was having a breakfast chef. Once they had convinced him that broiled mackerel was not a suitable breakfast food, that is.

“Grab these eggs, for me?” Killian asked as he set the pan of sticky rolls on the countertop. Hope was next to the fridge pouring glasses of orange juice. Soon, they were all gathered around the table with plates of food.

“I’ve missed breakfast like this,” Henry sighed as he bit into a cinnamon roll. “Usually I just grab a donut or a bagel on my way to work.”

“Why do you still have to work for that online newspaper?” Hope asked. “You wrote that book.”

“Well,” Henry sighed, “novelists don’t exactly make a ton of money, especially when they self- publish. I have to pay the bills somehow.”

“It was a fantastic read, Henry, I couldn’t put it down,” Killian added, “I don’t know why a publishing company hasn’t picked it up.”

Henry warmed at the praise. Everyone in Storybrooke had supported his career. He was pretty sure everyone in town had bought multiple copies of his first novel. But to hear Killian support him like this meant even more. Not only because the man read voraciously but because he was the closest thing to a father he had ever had.

“Well,” he said, struggling to swallow his bite of egg as his heart soared, “I think they see fairy tale retellings as only selling in YA markets, and mine is definitely an adult book.”

“Yeah,” grumbled Hope, “Mom and Dad won’t let me read it yet.”

“Sorry, kid,” Henry sympathized.

Leia attempted to wipe her sticky fingers on the front of her nightgown, and Killian wordlessly handed her a wet wipe. “When do we leave for the farm, Daddy?”

“No!” Charlie protested, almost spilling his juice, “the Snow Festival is first!”

“But I want to ride Buttercup!” protested Leia

“Shut up, you two,” Hope snapped.

“Don’t tell your brother and sister to shut up,” warned Killian.

“Fine,” Hope muttered, rolling her eyes.

“And you two,” Killian added, pointing at the twins as they stuck their tongues out at each other, “you know full well we’re going to the festival first, then the farm. There’s no point arguing about it.”

“The festival’s going to be lame this year,” Hope pouted, pushing at her eggs with her fork.

“Hope,” a voice said from the stairs, “watch it, young lady.”

“Swan!” Killian exclaimed, jumping from the table and rushing to his wife, “I was going to bring breakfast up to you!”

Emma waved him off as he helped her into a chair. “I’m fine, babe. I’m not an invalid.”

Killian frowned as he started scrambling some more eggs. “But I worry about the stairs, love. It seems like a lot of strain, and Whale said you’re not supposed to over exert yourself.”

Emma rolled her eyes exactly as Hope had earlier. “You insist on carrying me up the stairs, going down is no big deal. And I’m already having to be pushed around the festival today in a wheelchair. At least let me eat breakfast at the damn table with my family.”

“Words, Mommy!” Charlie crowed with a smirk.

“Speaking of the festival -” Henry began hesitantly.

“Don’t worry,” Emma assured as she reached her hand over to rest upon his arm. “I sent a message to Elsa, and we also had an emergency town meeting. No magic.”

“Like I said,” Hope grumbled, “lame.”

“What’s lame?”

The silence became palpable as every head swiveled to the bottom of the stairs where Evie was just coming down. She had combed her hair and put it in a smooth, low ponytail, but she still wore her snowflake flannel pajamas.

“Hope was just expressing her opinions on our town’s annual Snow Festival,” Killian smoothly explained as he set a plate of food in front of his wife. “I’m afraid she’s getting to that age -”

“The tween age?” Evie laughed as she took the empty seat between Hope and Emma. She looked over at Hope and winked. “I remember those days.”

“She only thinks it’s gonna be lame cause there’s no mag-”

Henry reached over and clamped his hand over Leia’s mouth. “No . . . magi . . . “ he stuttered, wracking his brain to come up with a lie. “You know, the three wise men?”

“Yeah, magi,” Emma put in, “there . . . uh . . . used to be a live nativity scene . . . but, uh, people complained about the animals -”

“And their poop!” Charlie finished, dissolving into giggles. “Camels poo-oop, camels poo-op -”

“Charlie, that is not appropriate at the table,” Killian told his son firmly.

Henry caught Evie’s eye, who was holding her hand over her mouth and trying not to laugh. An awkward silence fell as Evie and Emma both started on their food.

“You know,” Evie finally spoke up, her gaze still on her eggs, “I work for the FBI. I can tell when people are lying.”

Silence reigned again, as the entire Jones family exchanged concerned glasses.

“But,” she continued, “I can also tell when a lie is innocent and when it’s more . . . nefarious. This is clearly a lie I can overlook.”

Everyone let out breaths they didn’t realize they had been holding.

Evie took a sip of juice, then added, “For now.”

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

The family ended up being late to the festival, what with getting three kids out the door and maneuvering Emma’s wheelchair down the porch steps. Emma’s irritation at using said wheelchair not necessarily helping matters. So by the time they reached town hall, it was packed. Luckily, Regina, Zelena, and the Charmings had saved them a nice spot up front. The crowds, of course, also eagerly parted for the savior, calling out well wishes and concern for her and the baby. If Evie noticed Emma’s special treatment, she didn’t comment on it.

“As if this weren’t humiliating enough,” Emma grumbled under her breath. Henry exchanged an amused glance with Killian; they both knew his mother wasn’t fond of being fawned over like the princess and hero that she was.

Further introductions were necessary as Evie met the rest of Henry’s family for the first time. He had prepared his grandparents ahead of time to call themselves his aunt and uncle, and Neal at 13 was old enough to play along and pretend to be Henry’s “cousin.” Little Ava wasn’t even a year old and not yet talking. Evie eagerly took the baby from Mary Margaret (no “Snow” Henry had lectured everyone over the phone), and the little one seemed just as eager to be in Evie’s arms. His other mother and Aunt Zelena were also on their best behavior, welcoming Evie with rare warmth. Twelve-year-old Robyn was fascinated by Evie’s career in the FBI.

“Have you ever had to shoot someone?”

“Robyn!” Zelena reprimanded. “That is not an appropriate question!”

“It’s okay,” Evie laughed as Ava gurgled and grabbed at her nose. “No, Robyn, I haven’t. Most of what I do is more boring than you would expect. I mostly talk to people after they are brought in. I try to get them to tell the truth.”

Henry could tell by Robyn’s expression that she was disappointed. He also knew Evie was being vague on purpose; her specific job with the bureau wasn’t exactly an appropriate topic for children.

“Well,” Regina said, “it was nice to meet you, Evie, and I can’t wait to talk more later, but right now I have a job to do.”

His mom made her way up to the stage that had been set up in front of town hall. Everyone cheered as she waved to the crowd and stepped up to the microphone.

“Welcome everyone, to our annual Snow Festival!” she paused while the crowd cheered some more. “I’d like to welcome to Storybrooke, Qu-Mayor of Arendelle, Elsa Frost!”

The crowd clapped half-heartedly as this was much shorter than the usual speech. Normally, his mother reminded everyone of the Snow Queen and her spell of shattered sight that was thwarted by sisters Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle. Even though the spell happened in the summer, not the winter, the town had voted that the Saturday before Christmas was the perfect time to celebrate the historic Storybrooke event.

As Elsa came up the steps to join his mother, Henry realized he had never seen her dressed in normal clothes. Instead of her usual royal gown, she wore a simple blue off the shoulder sweater dress with black leggings and boots. Her hair was still braided over her shoulder, and laced through with decorative snowflakes. He wasn’t surprised to see her without a coat, hat, or mittens. As she often said, the cold just didn’t bother her. Everyone else gathered around, even his mother on stage, were bundled up and shivering.

Elsa embraced Regina, then turned to the microphone. “As always, I am delighted to be here. This town is full of so many dear friends.” Here Elsa searched the crowd, her gaze resting on Emma and Killian for a moment. “And now, I would like to present, Arendelle’s yearly Christmas gift!”

With that, Elsa lifted a large sheet off an ice sculpture that stood on the ground in front of the stage. Next to him, Evie let out an awed gasp, but she was the only one impressed. Everyone else gave only polite applause.

“That’s amazing,” Evie told him, “I’ve never seen something so intricate! And how did she get the ice castle to glow like that?”

It was beautiful, and it was no doubt made from Elsa’s ice magic. But normally Elsa made the ice castle while everyone watched in awe. The castle was slightly different every year, but it was always big enough for everyone to explore. It would have slides and turrets and winding staircases. Then Elsa always ended the presentation with a burst of magical snowflakes, intricate and as big as your hand that twinkled with glittery multicolored magic as they floated over the crowd. In comparison, this year’s sculpture was a huge disappointment. Hope caught his eye, her arms crossed and her eyebrows lifted as if to say, told you so.

“Henry,” Evie leaned over and whispered, “um, why is everyone glaring at me?”

Henry looked away from his sister and saw Leroy giving Evie a look so hateful he was surprised daggers weren’t shooting out of the dwarf’s eyes. “Oh ignore Leroy, he’s always in a bad mood.”

“No, Henry, not just him.”

Henry scanned the crowd to find that she wasn’t exaggerating. All of the dwarves were gathered around Leroy like a group of rural thugs from The Outsiders. Granny was giving her the stink eye over the edge of her bifocals, and even the fairies were staring snootily down their noses. Henry scowled, rubbed Evie’s arm comfortingly and marched over to Granny and the dwarves.

“Will you all lay off?” he hissed so Evie couldn’t hear. “It’s not her fault that her flight got cancelled. She’s essentially stuck here for Christmas, so the least you can do is make her feel welcome.” Without waiting for a response, he marched over to the fairies. “How do you think it looks to have a group of nuns shunning a visitor to town? I’d expect this from the dwarves, but not from all of you.”

“I agree,” a voice spoke up from the edge of the group.

Blue turned to face the petite blonde. “Tink, you aren’t even part of our order anymore.”

“And this is exactly why. You’re really going to pout over a silly little festival?” Tink then turned to Henry apologetically. “Hook told me about your friend. Introduce me?”

“Um, okay,” Henry said hesitantly, “but none of that Hook business, and your name is Tina, okay?”

She nudged Henry with her elbow. “I can be subtle.”

God, I hope so, Henry prayed to whoever would listen. As he walked back over to his family with Tink, his concern only increased. His other grandfather and Belle had joined them, and Elsa was bent over Emma’s wheelchair giving her a tight hug. Mercifully, Gideon had taken off somewhere with Hope, Neal, and Robyn. That was three less magical youngsters he would have to worry about. Hopefully the twins would keep behaving themselves.

“Henry!” Belle exclaimed, bounding over to him and embracing him in a tight hug. “We’ve all missed you. Did Killian tell you I have six copies of your novel in the library?”

He glanced over his shoulder to where Tink was introducing herself to Evie. Since his best friend’s eyes weren’t bugging out of her head, he assumed it was going well.

“Um, yes, he did, but considering that everyone in town bought their own copy, I think it was overly generous of you.”

“It was not,” scoffed Belle. “That book is a masterpiece, and we need to make sure it’s preserved for the future. Isn’t that right, Rumple?”

“Aye, it’s a great accomplishment, my boy.”

He slapped Henry on the back and smiled, but Henry still couldn’t shake the feeling that Belle was always happier to see him. Nevertheless, he shook his grandfather’s hand in greeting.

“We’ve been meeting your friend Evangeline here,” Belle continued in her eager, friendly voice. She put an arm around Evie in a half hug, and his friend tossed him a look that clearly said help! It wasn’t that Evie had an aversion to touch like Emma did, but meeting so many people all at once was clearly overwhelming her. Mary Margaret was now on stage announcing the snowman building contest, giving Henry a perfect opportunity to rescue her. He extended his hand towards her.

“I believe you told me once that you’ve never built a snowman?”

Evie grinned and took his hand. “I did.”

“You know what they say,” he told her with a wink, ”you never forget your first.”

He had no idea what possessed to say something so audaciously suggestive in front of his entire family.

“He gets that from me, you know,” Killian commented to Grandpa David as Henry walked away with Evie on his arm.

He had no idea what that meant, either.

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

“You know,” Evie grunted as she rolled their snowman’s head across the snowy ground, “no one ever mentions in Hallmark movies what a workout snowman building is.”

Henry chuckled as he helped her roll the head on top of their snowman’s torso. “I don’t think Hallmark movies are the best place to get accurate information about snow.”

Evie draped a scarf around their snowman’s neck, then looked around at the competition and frowned. “Ours looks like Frosty, but some of these are works of art.”

Henry nodded as he gave their snowman a carrot nose. “It’s gotten very competitive as the years have gone by.”

“Look at your stepdad and the twins,” Evie pouted.

Henry followed her gaze to see Killian lifting Leia to put a garland of poinsettias on their snowfairy’s head. It also not only had wings on its back, but Killian had helped the kids add glitter to intricate carvings along the bottom. The snowfairy had an hourglass figure as well.

“Yeah, Killian’s pretty artistic. You should see him carve a pumpkin.” Of course, he used his hook for those, but Evie didn’t need to know that. Come to think of it, he normally used his hook in the snowman building competition, so it was pretty impressive that he had done so well without it. “He and the twins won last year.” Until the twins were disqualified for bringing their snowpirate to live, that is.

Evie bent down to press buttons into the bottom of the snowman. “So what’s up with your grandpa?”

“What about him?”

“You and him; you seem kind of . . . distant.”

“Oh,” Henry replied, shaking his head. He had thought she was talking about Grandpa David, and he suddenly realized she thought David was his uncle. “Yeah, we’re not that close really.”

“He doesn’t have to be so cold,” Evie said with an edge to her voice.

Henry sighed as he turned the pebbles they were using for the snowman’s mouth in his hand. “I’ve tried to figure out why he’s like that, but I’ve given up. He says he loves me, but . . . .” Henry started pressing the pebbles one by one onto the snowman’s face. “It may be because of my dad. People say I look like him, and since he died . . . maybe it’s painful for my grandpa? But then other times, I wonder if he just doesn’t like me.”

“He should be happy to have a bit of his son in you.”

Henry shrugged. “Could just be his personality then.” Or being the Dark One, once again something else Evie couldn’t know. “Or it may be my stepdad. Killian and I are close, and, well . . . Grandpa has never liked Killian much.”

Evie nodded as she stood and brushed snow off her knees. “Everyone has some dysfunction in their family.”

“Even your perfect suburban family?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, Henry, you have no idea.”

She gazed over his shoulder and smiled at whatever had caught her eye. Henry turned to see Hope, Neal, Robyn, and Gideon shoving handfuls of snow into each other’s faces and laughing instead of working on their snowman. Evie squinted.

“Is that . . . “

“Cerberus, the two headed dog of the underworld? Yep, it is,” Henry answered.

“Guess they’re Percy Jackson fans,” Evie mused as she put the top hat on their Frosty.

“Yeah,” Henry said dryly, “guess so . . . “

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

Evie plopped down on a bench next to Elsa who had been sitting and chatting with Emma in her wheelchair. Henry smiled as Evie said something to his mother, and they both laughed. When he reached them, Evie grinned up at him.

“I was just telling your mom how miserably we did in the competition.”

“And I was telling her that the only time I got so much as an honorable mention was when Elsa was my partner.”

The Queen of Arendelle giggled. “I think the judges felt sorry for us. You would think I of all people would be able to build a simple snowman.”

Emma grasped Elsa’s hand, her laughter leaving her breathless. “You should have seen it, Evie, a pitiful little thing that only reached our knees.”

“It looked like it was already melting,” Elsa added, fanning at her cheeks as tears filled her eyes from laughter. “With that huge carrot nose and crooked stick arms.”

“We named him Olaf,” Emma finished.

“Like in Frozen!” Evie exclaimed. “Cute! I bet you get Frozen jokes a lot with the name Elsa, and being blonde, and -”

“Dad!” Hope yelled so loudly over Henry’s shoulder that all four of them jumped. When they all swiveled towards her to find out why in the world she had screamed that way, she pointed near the ice skating pond. “I want to ice skate with Dad.”

“He’s coming over here now,” Emma pointed, then she mouthed to her daughter thank you.

“Mommy, mommy, look!” Charlie shouted, waving a blue ribbon in his hand as he and his sister and Killian approached. “First place!”

“And we didn’t even -”

Killian clapped a hand over Leia’s mouth before she could finish. “We didn’t even have the biggest snowman,” he finished.

“Our cerberus would have won if his second head hadn’t fallen off,” Hope grumbled.

“Uh uh,” argued Leia, “our snowfairy had glitter!”

Charlie stuck his tongue out at his big sister.

“Can you three get along for five minutes?” Emma groaned.

“Daddy!” Hope squealed, bouncing over to grasp Killian by the arm. “Come skate with me!”

Killian’s eyes grew wide and he scratched behind his ear. “Now love, you know how ridiculous I look trying to ice skate.”

Henry bit his lip to hold back his chuckle. A pirate who spent two centuries on a tropical island wasn’t exactly the most coordinated man on ice skates. Teasing him about it had become a favorite past time for all the Jones children.

“I see you, Henry,” Killian protested, wagging a finger at his stepson.

“How about if there’s a beginner on the ice with you?” Evie spoke up. She turned bright eyes on Henry. “I’ve never ice skated, but I’ve always wanted to.”

“I thought lots of people skate in New York City?” Charlie asked.

“They do, I guess,” Evie said with a wrinkled nose, “but what they don’t show in the movies is how crowded those rinks are. And I’ve never wanted to make a fool of myself in front of that many people.”

“Come on, then!” Hope cried, pulling her father down to the edge of the rink. Evie was right behind his little sister, and with a shrug to his mom and Elsa, Henry could do nothing but follow.

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

Evie was clinging to Henry as if her life depended on it. Just staying upright was an incredible feat, and to say they were going a snail’s pace around the rink was an understatement.

“Whoa - oooh - woah!” Evie cried out as her feet slid back and forth beneath her. Her grip tightened on the collar of Henry’s coat.

“Careful!” he cried, wrapping his arms tight around her waist. “You’ll take me with you!”

“I take it back,” she muttered into her shirt, “building a snowman is a piece of cake compared to this.”

“You know,” he said against her hair, “it’s easier to skate going forwards.”

Still pressed against his chest, she tilted her face to look up at him. Her face was flushed, and wisps of her auburn hair had come free of her low ponytail. The green of the beanie on her head made the green in her eyes brighter, and even though there seemed to be a thousand layers of clothes between them, he was keenly aware of every one of her curves.

“So,” she said with a grin, “how do I turn around without falling on my ass?”

He suddenly realized he had a goofy grin plastered on his own face, and quickly cleared his throat. ”Um, very carefully?”

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the detailed instructions, Scott Moir.”

“If that makes you Tessa Virtue, I beg to differ.”

“Ha, ha, can you just help me face the other way, smart ass?”

He frowned down at her. ”Actually, I think it would be easier if I turned around.” He loosened his hold on her and then slowly let go with his left while keeping a firm grip on her with his right. “Don’t move,” he warned her as he pivoted. He tucked her into his side. “There, see?”

She wasn’t looking at him, but down at her feet. “Now how do I move?” she whispered as if talking too loud would sent her feet flying out from under her.

“The way my mom taught me is to pretend like your marching, only with tiny steps.”

“Which mom?”

“Does it matter?” Henry laughed. “It was Regina. Now, try it.”

Of course, he also had cursed memories of Emma teaching him. In his mind, those false memories still felt real. He cleared his throat to push the thought away as he watched Evie tentatively shift her feet back and forth.

“See, you’ve got it!”

Apparently, he had spoken too soon. Maybe there was a dip in the ice. Maybe it was the shock of Gideon Gold flying past at top speed. Maybe it was simply a sudden lack of balance. Whatever it was, Evie’s feet flew out from under her as a scream tore from her mouth. Henry moved to catch her, but her iron grip on his coat brought him down with her. He took the brunt of the fall and cushioned Evie’s landing.

Luckily, hysterical laughter poured out of her mouth. Henry let out a breath of relief, even as pain shot up his hip. Her laughter was contagious, and soon they were both breathless with it. Evie rolled off him and onto the ice, holding her side as she attempted to calm down. Henry rolled over to look down at her, his hand ghosting over her head, and then down her arm.

“Are you okay?”

“Me?” Evie gasped, laughter still spilling from her lips. “I landed on top of you!”

“As small as you are?” Henry teased. “You just knocked a little wind out of me.”

“Shut up with the short jokes,” she told him, smacking him lightly in the chest.

Without thinking, he grasped her hand and pressed it to his chest. They were both wearing mittens, but his heart still thudded. His gaze drifted from her eyes, those flecks of gold now shining merrily, and down to her lips. They were pink from the cold, but still full, and -

“Henry?”

“Yes?”

“The ice is kind of wet.”

“Oh,” he said, a blush filling his face as he scrambled to his knees. He helped her up, and once again she was clinging to the front of him, her nose buried in his coat.

“I think I’ll stay right here this time,” she told him.

That was definitely fine with him. The thought came unbidden, and Henry suddenly knew that his feelings for Evangeline Crawford went far deeper than friendship. But could he really expect to win this woman’s heart when every other word out of his mouth was a lie?

#henry centric fic #cs ff #ouat ff #christmas fic #christmas in storybrooke #family fluff and feels #henry mills #henry mills brings home a girl from the LWM

[mycasandstarrs]

SPN 10x05: “Fan Fiction”

As a former theatre kid, this episode brings me so much joy.

“Ghost? Meet Winchester.”

There’s our girl!

“Where is the Samulet?”

“Oh! I took it off. It kept hitting me in the lips, and...”

“That amulet is the symbol of the Winchesters' brotherly love!”

!!!

“There is too much drama in the drama department.” Well...yeah.

“Why couldn't they just do ‘Godspell’ like good little skanks ? Instead it's this... awful, unbelievable horror story. Hmm! Like that stuff really happens! Huh, theater is about life, you know? Truth! Truth! Where is the truth in ‘Supernatural’?”

What the fuck kind of teacher is this??

I had a theater teacher who told us theatre was magic. I think she would’ve liked Marie’s play about Supernatural.

There she goes.

“I mean, it's close, but it's just.... It needs a little more grrrr!”

Our very special title card.

“Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot

Our beautiful Baby.

Dean awake before Sam? A shocker.

“A teacher in an all girls school went missing in Flint, Michigan. She was heading to her car, disappeared, and nobody's seen her since.”

“Dean, there's nothing here that even remotely suggest there is a case.”

“There is nothing that even remotely suggest there isn't a case. Boom!”  

Logic!

Hell yes!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Robbie Thompson.

“Ugh, theater kids. Great.”  

“What? I was a theater kid.”

“Barely. You did ‘Our Town’, which was cool. But then, you did that crappy musical.”

“The - ‘Oklahoma’? Hugh Jackman got cast off of ‘Oklahoma’.”

“You ran tech, Wolverine.”

Hey, Techies are just as important as the actors.

They missed the huge banner advertising the show??

hahahaha, their faces are hilarious. Granted, if I found out someone made a musical about my life, I’d be speechless too.

“If there is case... It probably has something to do with all of this.” It has everything to do with it.

Marie, writer/director, and Maeve, the stage manager. (Fun fact: I was a stage manager once! Lots of fun, work, and telling people to shut up and pay attention.)

“I'm Special Agent Smith. This is my partner, Special Agent -”

“Smith.”

“Smith. No relation.”

Again with the joke.

There’s plenty of singing in Supernatural, mostly from you, Dean.

“If there was singing, it would be classic rock. Not this Andrew Floyd Webber crap -”

“Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

Love the improv correction.

Don’t shoot down “Carry on Wayward Son”, Sam.

I also had a theater teacher who went through a divorce.

“Maeve, right? You're the stage manager?”

“And I understudy Jody Mills.”

Maeve would make a great Jody!

“I'm gonna throw up.” Shush, Dean.

“I mean, I gotta say, it's kind of charming. The production value, and the...” I love Sam’s sincere interest tho.

Rule #1: You never touch the props.

“Why are they standing so close together?”

“Um...Reasons.”

“You know they're brothers, right?”

“Well, duh! But... Subtext.”

We gotta address that.

“You know, back when I did tech in school, we had two CD decks-”

“I'm sorry, I have to go sign the delivery.”

Aww Sam! I would love to hear his theater stories.

Pfft, Sam.

“There's no space in Supernatural.” We got close to it...

“Chuck stopped writing after ‘Swan Song’. I just- I couldn't leave it the way that it was! I mean, Dean not hunting anymore, living with Lisa?! Sam, somehow back from Hell, but not with Dean?! So, I wrote my own ending.” I don’t blame her.

“Dean becomes a woman.” Would still wanna see that happen in an episode.

“So, Sam came back from Hell. But without a soul. Then, Cas brought in a bunch of Leviathans from Purgatory. They lost Bobby. And then, Cas and Dean got stuck in Purgatory, Sam hit a dog. They met a prophet named Kevin, they lost him too. Then Sam endured a series of trials, in an attempt to close the gates of Hell. Which nearly cost him his life. Then Dean? Dean became a demon. Knight of Hell, actually.”

S6-9 summary, courtesy of Dean.

Here comes the second hand embarrassment.

“That is some of the worst fan fiction that I've ever heard ! I mean, seriously, I don't know where your friend found this garbage!” Oof, I still don’t like that.

“Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in real life. Although, we do explore the nature of Destiel in act two.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh, it's just subtext ! But, then again, you know, you can't spell subtext without.... s-e-x.”

!!!!!

Hi, Jensen.

“I don’t understand.”

“Me either.”

“I mean, shouldn't it be... Deastiel?”

LMAO SAM.

“You know... How about Sastiel? Samstiel?”

“Ok, alright. You know what? You're gonna do that thing, where you just shut the hell up. Forever.”

Teasing brother, Sam.

“This whole musical thing, everything, it's... It's all a coincidence? There is no case?” When is it ever just a coincidence?

“Get in the car!”  

!!!!!!!

BUT HE NEVER DENIED IT THOO, that’s all i’m saying.

“You know, we should've done ‘The Outsiders’, like I told you.”

Maggie’s the second person to get kidnapped.

“I called the cops, and a bunch of adults just told me I have an overactive imagination.” :(

“It is all real. And so are we. I'm Sam Winchester. That's Dean.” NO NO NO.

“You guys are way too old to be Sam or Dean.”

“Oh, yeah!”

“More of a Bobby/Rufus combo? Maybe.”

How old do they think Sam and Dean should be???

“We are what the books called hunters.” They believe that.

First guess: a tulpa.

“How do you kill an idea?”  

“Well, in ‘Hell House’, Sam and Dean burnt the house down, to take out the one tulpa they hunted.”

Correct!

“Gird your loins. It's horrifying.” Umm...okay.

I love how reluctant Marie was to burn her prop.

“What?”

“It’s not a tulpa.”

“Say it one more time, but just a little bit more Arnold--”  

LMAO, Dean.

Calliope.

“According to the lore, Calliope manifests creatures from the story she's tuned into.”

The show must go on.

An understandable panic attack over the possibility of getting eaten.

“Is Marie gonna get eaten?” Shush.

I love when Dean calls people “champ”. It’s so sweet and endearing.

“If Sam and Dean were real, they wouldn't back down from a fight. Especially my sweet, brave, selfless Sam. There's nothing he can't do.” !!!

“I used this for my one-woman ‘Orphan Black’ show, last year.” Marie is the theater kid I would’ve lowkey wanted to be.

“Writer. Director. Actor. I'm gonna Barbra Streisand this bitch.” FUCK YES! KICK IT IN THE ASS!

Dean fixing Stage!Cas’ tie!!

Funny Sam asked for Chuck...

“Oh! I-I, I love him. I do! But honestly, the whole author introducing himself into the narrative thing, it's just not my favorite. I kind of hate the meta stories.” I politely disagree.

“Alright, listen up, girls. Now, you're all here, because you love ‘Supernatural’.”

“Actually, I was hoping we'd do ‘Wicked’.” 

“I want you to get out there, and I want you to stand as close as she wants you to, and I want you to put as much sub and add text, as you possibly can. There is no other road. No other way. No day, but today.”

“Did he just quote ‘Rent’?”

“Not enough to get us into trouble.”

“Ghooooost-facerssss!”  This episode just adds wonderful years to my lifespan.

You know what I would pay to watch this play in full???

“The Road So Far”

There it is.

The misunderstood thumbs up, lmao.

Sam goes bye bye.

Maggie and the teacher.

They were in the school’s basement.

Hello, Calliope.

“I’ll Just Wait Here Then”

Nothing makes me more emotional than seeing the audience fall in love Stage!Cas, much like we did with our real Cas.

“If I have to sit through that second act, one more time... There's robots, and tentacles, and space. I can't even.” lol

“A Single Man Tear”

That exorcism special effect is so wonderful! I can see how they do it now, but from the audience’s POV, it’s absolutely magical.

What the hell did the audience think Dean was doing??

“We're through the looking glass, here, people. Strike the wendigo set, let's prep the priests costumes. And Sarah? Get understudies into hair and makeup.” Maeve’s a A+ stage manager.

“Supernatural has everything. Life. Death. Resurrection. Redemption. But above all, family. All sorts of music you can really tap your toe to. It isn't some meandering piece of genre dreck. It's... epic!” Agreed.

Stage!Dean is a pro if she could keep singing with everything going on in the background.

lmao at the one guy putting on his poncho.

Original Stage!Sam knocks out Calliope.

Understudy!Sam kills the Scarecrow.

Sam kills Calliope. A trifecta of Sam Awesomeness.

RIP Calliope. Killed by Sam.

The audience must be wondering how they managed to do that for years.

“Take a bow, Sammy.” Take a bow too, Dean.

“Thanks for saving my friends.”

“Sure.”

“You know? If you'd cut your hair a little, you'd make a pretty good Dean.”

Aww.

“Dean? You never should've thrown this away.” YYYEEESSS

“It never really worked. And, I don't need a symbol to remind me how I feel about my brother, so...”

“Just take it. Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

I love Dean’s panic when he realizes he just called a teenage girl a “bitch” without meaning to, lmaoo.

Take it away Stage!Winchesters!

Let me tell you, I literally bursted into tears when they started singing “Carry On Wayward Son”. It’s beautifully done.

Starting with Stage!Mary, who is more or less Square 1 of the entire story.

i remember a lot of people being upset about Cas not being part of the family lineup at the end, and I get it. But if Marie was only going off of the first 5 seasons, it makes sense that she didn’t see Cas as family yet because Sam and Dean didn’t see Cas as family yet. They’re just one year shy of that.

BUT the same girl who plays Cas is on stage as Adam, a technical Winchester. You could say Cas took over Adam’s role as the third Winchester “brother” because canonically speaking, that’s the highest title Sam and Dean have given Cas.

“Who's that?”

“Oh, that's Adam. John Winchester's other kid. He's still trapped in the cage, in Hell. With Lucifer.”

lmaooo. Awkward.

“Don’t you cry no more.” I sing, while crying.

I wish he had kept the Samulet Part 2 on there.

A picture perfect ending.

...One last surprise.

“Oh my gosh! But wait... That means that- Calliope came for me or for-?” Did Marie know who he was?

I thought it was Cas...

I legit lost my goddamn mind when I saw him.

A perfect episode of Supernatural, in my most humble opinion.

#supernatural #spn summer rewatch #spn liveblog #spn 10x05 #fan fiction #our 200th episode :')

[frozenbluecookies]

My @feastoffortuna2017 gift for @feanor-no. Hope you like it :) It’s also on AO3.

If Given A Chance Word Count: 2453 Nico takes Will to the Underworld to officially meet his father. Things do not go according to plan. Or: The one where Will goes to meet Hades and meets Persephone instead. Will is wonderful, Persephone is surprised and Nico needs a hug (and a mother).

Just for the record, this was not Nico’s idea.

Standing outside the gates of Hades’ palace, he glanced over at the boy standing beside him. Children of Apollo really didn’t fit in down here, he thought. Will looked entirely too sunny for the underworld, with his golden hair and the cheerful sparkle in his sky-blue eyes. Even his clothes looked summery; a camp t-shirt and shorts. He looked ready to head to the beach, and not at all like he was about to meet the Lord of the Underworld.

Nico shoved his hands into the pockets of his aviator jacket. “I thought Meet The Parents was supposed to be the nerve-wrecking stage of the relationship.”

Will laughed. “Oh I’m nervous all right. I’m just taking a moment to take in the scenery.”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve never been to the Underworld before,” Will shrugged. “I’ve been curious.”

“You can sight-see later,” Nico grumbled, setting forward for the palace gates. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Falling into step beside him, Will glanced over curiously. “You really think it’ll go that badly?”

Sighing, Nico shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I doubt he’ll blast you into smithereens or anything, and he’s been trying to be a better dad recently, but he’s not exactly a people person.”

Will grinned, nudging his boyfriend with his shoulder. “No mystery where you get it from, then?”

Nico rolled his eyes and nudged him back, but otherwise ignored his comment.

They passed through the gates and into the garden beyond. Will’s eyes widened with wonder, and Nico smiled slightly. Awed Will was cute, not that Nico had any intention of telling him that.

He probably should have figured Will would like the garden. True, he probably would have preferred sunshine and fresh air, but the Garden of Persephone was more than beautiful enough to make up for it. It was like something out of a mortal fairy tale. Silver bushes gleamed in the dim light, luminescent mushrooms of every shape and colour lighting up the gloom. Precious gems the size of watermelons glittered in the flower beds and the orange flowers of the pomegranate trees glowed, almost flame-like, in the darkness.

Turning his thoughts back to his father, Nico frowned. “Maybe I should have sent word ahead, let him know I was bringing you with me on my visit this time.”

“Why didn’t you? You had time.”

“You make it sound like this was planned. You convinced me to bring you along literally yesterday.”

“Still.”

Nico sighed. “I don’t know. I guess because he isn’t exactly a normal dad, even by demigod standards. But, besides Hazel, he’s the only family I have. I’m just…nervous, I guess. I want him to like you.”

“I want him to like me too,” Will grinned, trying for levity as they ascended the palace steps. “I mean, it would be kind of awkward if your boyfriend’s godly dad hated your guts. Besides, my dad seemed to like you enough.”

The skeleton guards by the doors stood firmly at attention as they walked past, heading for the throne room. Nico snorted. “Your dad was in the body of a mortal teenager. Besides, Apollo has always been one of the friendlier gods. Hades is not.”

The black marble doors to the throne room swung open as they approached. As they entered, Nico’s eyes went straight to the balcony overlooking the Fields of Asphodel, upon which sat the thrones of the Lord and Lady of the Underworld. Immediately, he stiffened.

The larger throne made of fused bones, where his father usually sat, was empty. The throne beside it, however, was not.

Upon her black, flower-shaped throne, Persephone looked as though she’d rather be just about anywhere else. Her eyes narrowed as they landed on him. “Nico.”

She clearly hadn’t been in the underworld long. As the autumn and winter months wore on, she tended to grow pale, her colour fading away. At the moment, though, she was vibrant, her ebony hair lustrous and her dress flooded with the shifting colours and shapes of various summer-bright flowers. Her brown eyes, which might seem warm to some, were stone-hard as she surveyed her stepson.

Nico gritted his teeth. Of all the people to run into down here, his stepmother was the one he least hoped to see. “Lady Persephone. You’re back early.”

Irritation tightened the corners of her mouth. “Yes, I am. My mother has been rather busy this time around, and the harvest season seems to have started somewhat early this year. So I have returned. And so have you.”

“I’m just visiting,” Nico ground out. “Where is my father?”

“Called away for the moment. There’s been a re-structuring of the Asphodel overpass system, or so I’m told. He should be back by the end of the day.” She turned her gaze towards Will, eyeing him curiously. “I see you’ve brought a companion. Welcome to the Palace of Hades, son of Apollo.”

Will bowed slightly. “Lady Persephone.”

Nico smiled tightly. “This is my boyfriend, Will Solace.” He turned to Will. “Come on, I’ll show you around a bit. I can have one of the servants notify us when my father returns.”

Will glanced between his boyfriend and the goddess before nodding. “Okay.” He offered a respectful nod to Persephone, “My Lady,” before allowing Nico to lead him out of the room.

They’d made down three consecutive black marble hallways before Will ventured, “I guess you two are always like that.” Nico had told him about his strained relationship with his stepmother, but it was one thing to hear about it and another to see it himself.

Nico nodded tersely. “She doesn’t like me much, and the feeling has been pretty mutual ever since she turned me into a dandelion.”

“You never did tell me why-”

“Nope.”

“Okay.”

After a long moment, Nico sighed. “I was nervous, you know, the first time I met her. I was… I guess I was resentful, because, I mean… She wasn’t my mother. But at the same time, I couldn’t really remember my mother much…and I wondered what it was like, you know, to have one. Guess I’m still wondering,” he shrugged.

They walked on in silence for a minute or two. Nico’s shoulders seemed to sag, weary and worn in that way that reminded Will just how much his boyfriend had suffered in his short life.

He made the decision without a second thought. “This winter, I’m taking you to meet my mother.”

Nico stopped dead, staring at Will with a wide-eyed expression that was somewhere between shock, awe and terror. “And I can promise,” Will continued, “that she will love you. She kind of already does; I tell her about you all the time,” he admitted sheepishly.

For a long moment, Nico was frozen. Then his expression melted into the tiniest of smiles and he wrapped his arms around Will and hugged him tight. “I love you.”

Will grinned and hugged back. “I love you, too.”

When they pulled apart, Will glanced around. “By the way, where are we going?”

Nico blinked and glanced down the hall. “Oh. Right. I was supposed to be giving you a tour.”

Will frowned as Nico shook his head as if to clear it. “You’re tired.”

His boyfriend sighed. “I didn’t sleep much last night. Too busy worrying about,” he gestured wordlessly back in the general direction of the throne room. “The shadow travel didn’t help.”

Will laid a hand on his shoulder. “You should go take a nap before your father gets back.”

Nico frowned. “But-”

“I can look around on my own. I’ll probably just end up back in the garden anyway.” Will smiled. “Go get some rest.”

With a last, searching glance, Nico nodded. He leaned in to peck Will softly on the lips before heading off down the hall.

Once he’d turned the corner and vanished from sight, Will stuck his hands in his pockets and began to amble back the way they’d come. He took his time, stopping to peer into every room he passed. Finally, as he’d expected, he stepped back out into the garden.

He moved slowly through the flower beds, just taking it in all over again. It really was incredible, that all of this existed so far away from the sun’s warmth. He followed the side paths as they wound away from the palace doors. He lost track of time as he meandered, stopping to look at every new kind of plant that he came across.

Some time later, he rounded a dense cluster of gold-leafed bushes and found himself in a small clearing, a round garden table at its centre with a chair on either side.

In one of those chairs sat Persephone, contemplating the garden around her with a small frown, a quartered pomegranate on a plate at her elbow. Without looking at him, she asked, “How do you like my garden, Will Solace?”

“It’s amazing,” he answered honestly. “One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” Right next to the view from Half-Blood Hill at sunset and Nico laughing in the sun.

The goddess smiled slightly. “Yes, it is truly lovely. It was a gift from my husband, originally. It has grown since then, of course, but it was one of the first things that won Hades my heart. It is something of a sanctuary of mine, now, a reminder that there are some things that I love down here.”

She gestured to the seat across from her. “Please, join me.”

Will took his seat obediently, watching the goddess warily. She noticed his look and smiled slightly. “I feel it would be remiss of me as a hostess not to offer you some refreshment.” She indicated the pomegranate, her smile turning wry.

Respectfully, he shook his head. He was perfectly aware of what that would mean. Much as he loved Nico, he had no desire to spend the rest of his life down here. “Thank you, My Lady, but I’m fine.”

She chucked softly and took a dainty bite for herself. After a moment, she said, “I have always liked Apollo’s children. They tend to appreciate nature more than some.”

“Most of us do love the outdoors, I suppose,” Will said with a polite smile.

“And yet, here you are,” she said, regarding him contemplatively. “For the sake of that boy.”

Will regarded her carefully. Then he ventured, “Lady Persephone, I mean no disrespect, but… Why do you dislike Nico so much? I understand that he’s your husband’s son, and not yours, but…”

The goddess straightened in her chair, eyes cold as she glared at him. “He is a product of my husband’s infidelity.”

“I understand that, but… That’s not Nico’s fault. He didn’t ask for it.” He really, really, didn’t ask for it.

Persephone’s voice was frigid when she replied. “You would do well not to question a goddess, boy.”

Will hesitated, wary, then persisted. “My Lady, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, it’s just that, well… Nico doesn’t have much in the way of family. And he was separated from his mother too soon, something I think you can relate to.”

Persephone seemed to soften slightly at that. Will pressed on. “Nico never got to see his mother again. And he hasn’t had a mother figure since. Some kindness from you might help him more than you realise. He can’t help that he was born, and he’s not a bad person. At all. He might surprise you, if given the chance.”

Persephone considered him for a long moment. Then, she spoke, slowly, as though she were tasting every word carefully before letting it fall. “You are bold, Will Solace. Few would dare presume to convince a goddess to change her mind.”

Will’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. “Maybe not as few as you’d think.”

“Hmm, yes, you demigods do tend to be a troublesomely strong-willed lot, don’t you.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Most gods would have turned you into some form of plant or animal for daring to question them. I’m sure Nico has told you about his brief tenure as a dandelion.”

“He has, but he hasn’t told me why you turned him into one.”

“No, I suppose he wouldn’t. Perhaps that shall remain a family secret.”

At that moment, a skeleton appeared around the corner and approached the goddess. Bowing, it clacked its jaws together rapidly before straightening and awaiting a response.

“It seems my husband has returned.” Persephone stood, the picture of elegance and poise. Addressing the skeleton, she said, “You may go.” It bowed and turned on its heel, disappearing back into the garden.

Will got to his feet, smoothing out his shirt nervously. Persephone turned to him. “I will consider your words, Will Solace. I will guarantee you nothing, but I shall consider them.”

The sound of running footsteps approached from the path. Then Nico burst into the clearing, breathing heavily. He froze upon seeing the goddess. “Lady Persephone,” he said, eyeing her cautiously.

“Nico.” She stared at him for a long moment, tilting her head pensively. Then, “I would like you to join me for breakfast here tomorrow. My mother left behind a vast assortment of cereals on her last visit that will be suitable for you to eat.”

With that she swept past him, pausing at the edge of the clearing to add, “You are fortunate to have a significant other who cares for you so. You have chosen well.” Then she turned the corner and vanished from sight.

Nico gaped after her, then whirled to face Will with the expression of a fish who had just been slapped across the face. “What did you say to her?!”

Will smiled. “Just that you’re not a bad person.”

“You convinced her to invite me to breakfast?”

Will held up both hands helplessly. “I had nothing to do with breakfast, I just asked her to give you a chance.”

“You…” Nico shook his head, still unable to believe what he’d just heard. Persephone had just complimented him. He was tempted to look up and check whether the underworld ceiling had started falling on his head.

Unable to find the words he needed, he fell back to the reason he’d come running in the first place. “My father’s back.”

“I know.” Will grinned. “Let’s finally do this, shall we?”

Nico stared at him for a moment longer. “I love you.”

Will’s grin widened. “I know.” He stepped in and kissed his boyfriend gently. “I love you too.”

Then he grabbed Nico’s hand and started leading him back towards the palace. “Now come on. Let’s not leave the King of the Underworld waiting.”

#feast of fortuna 2017 #solangelo #nico and persephone family feels #will is the best bf

[coexistxcoldrain]

Soul Meets Body

Title: Soul Meets Body (AO3 Link, please visit! :) ) Author: yaoionshavedice / hesonlytiny Rating: Explicit Warnings: Smut Ship: Masato/Colin; MasaHiro Words: ~30.000 Summary: “Don’t worry, no need to pay me back. This won’t make me broke.” After that, he actually put an honest smile on display; one of those that reached your eyes and made your ears move. I had to say, I was caught slightly by surprise and felt too perplexed to respond anything of importance. “Nice nose you have there, by the way.” Notes: Not a native speaker! Please do give constructive criticism :) I know this ship is ... not rare, but rather non-existent. So I’m sure it’s hard to get into if you’re not familiar with one of those lovely men. There’s a few links and pictures on my AO3 story if you’d like to have some more information. Have fun <3

Soul Meets Body

Chapter 01

“Hey, man. Don’t wanna pester a stranger for change but … my card isn’t working. Can you lend me a buck or two?”

The weird guy in front of me lifted his head in confusion as if I had accidentally said something in Chinese instead. His tousled dark hair peeked out under his black beanie. That’s strange, I recalled myself thinking, if it weren’t for his rainwater blue eyes, I could have easily mistaken him for a fancy black-and-white painting. And because I was starting to feel awkward about this whole thing, I felt like adding a rushed “I swear I’m not a beggar, I’ll give it back to you. See, I’m not from here …”

“Obviously,” he remarked dryly and lowered his head again in search for some coins. “We don’t go around with change that often here anymore.”

Something about his accent was drawing me in; making me want to focus solely on his lips when he spoke. It wasn’t as though I was an expert on British dialects – I really couldn’t tell if he was from London or any other random place – but his words left his throat so smoothly and yet tugged so heavily on his tongue it left me befuddled.

“The credit card wave hasn’t hit Japan all that hard yet,” I laughed awkwardly but waited for a satisfying reaction from him in vain. He certainly wasn’t the extroverted happy-go-lucky type by any means. Maybe those prejudices were true after all.

“Thought you’d be from America – judging by your accent.”

At this remark, I paused for a moment. I knew he didn’t mean any harm, though I had to face this kind of reaction on a daily basis. I certainly didn’t feel a close connection to my American heritage; not like my brother did, anyway. But in the eyes of the Japanese, I wasn’t Japanese enough, either. So I forced a plain smile on my lips to conceal my caution. It had been so long since I’d actually felt offended by similar kinds of comments.

“I am. I am half.”

“Half …” he mused and finally picked out the right amount of cash I’d need to buy a sandwich and handed it to me. “Don’t worry, no need to pay me back. This won’t make me broke.”

After that, he actually put an honest smile on display; one of those that reached your eyes and made your ears move. I had to say, I was caught slightly by surprise and felt too perplexed to respond anything of importance. “Nice nose you have there, by the way.”

I immediately faced the shelves in order to avoid any suspicious glances from strangers the moment he was gone. My Japanese genes were strongly imbedded in me after all. Even at 32 years of age, I couldn’t handle a stranger complimenting me.

Paralysed with painful embarrassment, I rubbed my red cheeks and waited for my head to cool down. At least the chill from the fridges in front of me was somewhat helpful. I could act calm and collected all I wanted in my everyday concert environment – in my heart I was still a shy, reluctant person.

***

I had to admit – I kept thinking on and on about that guy ever since I had left the store. Meeting him again by chance in such an enormous city, especially considering I wasn’t living here and about to move on, was, simply speaking, luck I didn’t have to spare. Band mates were noticing I was acting kinda off. Though I didn’t want to admit it to myself that this whole thing felt, oddly enough, like two twelve-year-olds falling in love at first sight. Of course, however, I couldn’t speak for him …

I was 32. Men my age were long married by then in Japan. I had had my fair share of long relationships throughout the years, though not one of them even with the slightest potential of prevailing. I could never hold onto them, they could never catch me the way I needed them to and in the end all there was left was me and the road. I know that sounded more melodramatic than an entry in a teenager’s diary. But here I was, making fun of my love life in order not to feel too sorry for myself.

The truth was: I’d really tried it with girls. I truly had. I was attracted to them … in some way. I just never quite knew what to do with them. Hard to explain. They never stuck around and I was never too sad about that fact. I moved on. I had my plans, I had my schedules, I had my music. At first, I’d thought that I was distracting myself from all that, but that was not quite it. I would be lying if I said I did not feel the slightest bit of relief whenever one of them left. It just got to me that I’d always be left alone.

Whenever we were staying longer in the same city, we were fortunate enough to get our own private hotel rooms instead of sleeping in the tour bus. And so I sat on my bed there that night – it was already far too late – and zapped somewhat dully through the channels. That’s where I spotted him. And I felt my jaw drop to the ground.

It seemed like I had some luck left after all – even if not exactly the desired amount.

I quickly found out the name of the show he was starring in and it didn’t take long for me to unearth his name. After that, I might or might not have gulped down his Wikipedia page. He was not at all unknown. Not at all. I felt as if in shock. Not that daydreaming a little about actually getting to know him better would have been realistic by any means before that. For various reasons I should not have to list, of course. But now … this changed quite a lot, didn’t it? Contacting a stranger – hard, but not impossible. Contacting a famous stranger on the other hand? I was fucked. Just not in the good way. I just felt silly how I reacted; he really got to me. I’d seen so many different people from all over the world in these past few years – and he got to me, just like that.

Colin Morgan, the page said. One year older than me. Irish. Did quite some theatre work – Ariel in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” undoubtedly being one of his most famous ones. Won an award for the portrayal of said role. Landed the leading part in a 5 season long running show called “Merlin”. Played in films and shows together with Tom Hardy, Chris Hemsworth Colin Firth. I was baffled.

I could see he was passionate. Talented. And oh-so invitingly magnetic. My heart did a little jump. Although, I had to admit, the situation at hand could have been worse. I wasn’t quite sure whether the stalker image suited me, but at least now I knew where he was currently performing. I had locations, I had dates. And even though I should technically feel rather lousy about it all, the general bubbling thrill prevailed. I didn’t know I had it in me, acting so stalker-ish.

“Geez.” I dropped my phone on my forehead. It bounced onto the bed with an admittedly louder thud than I’d expected. I was going crazy. Not the I-eat-ice-cream-for-breakfast-kinda-crazy but a full-on I-order-a-fishing-hat-on-amazon-so-I-can-go-feed-the-local-ducks-at-6am-in-the-morning-kinda-crazy. This was ridiculous. Each and every friend of mine would spend literal hours here laughing at me.

And I couldn’t wait seeing him again.

***

My heart was thumping in my ears; my throat; my veins. I couldn’t swallow anymore. Again, I felt like 12.

So I was standing here, right in front of The Old Vic Theatre in London, eyeing the scenery from a few cautious feet apart. I couldn’t have been luckier to have the two most important factors on my side: it was our day off between two shows and he was actually performing on stage right this day. It was late already and kind of dark, minus the street lamp lights. And busy, too. I waited here in order for him to finish his show and come out, though, to be fair, I didn’t quite know how popular he was and if I even had the chance of meeting him this way. I already felt crazy enough doing this. But I would have never forgiven myself had I not tried it at least.

I nervously rubbed my palms; even though it was unhurriedly becoming spring, the nights were still chilly enough. But just as I finished that thought, the first excited pairs of spectators left the building and started lining up right in front of it, making my blood boil hot. I could feel their excitement and rush of adrenaline on my skin; suddenly the air was filled with leftover sparks and electricity. It reminded me hugely of the energy produced at our gigs and instantly felt at home and suddenly very calm.

I stood there for maybe a few dozen minutes, I didn’t count, as the entry filled with lots and lots of waiting fans. Then, he finally appeared.

In the soft shine of the street lights, his hair shimmered wet and curled around the edges of his ears, he had to have come right from under the shower. I had to admit, however, that I felt like a big old creep lurking at him from the shadows. So I hoped he’d finish the signing session soon enough. After a while I found it fascinating that his fans did not seem to ask him for any photos with him often; he mostly just signed flyers, shirts and DVD’s.

When most had already left and he had quit talking to the last two girls, I nervously scurried a bit closer; waiting for my natural impulses to kick in and do something. Maybe I should have come closer sooner, though I still felt pathetic. But as he waved them goodbye and turned to go back inside, maybe pick up his belongings, my instincts finally did show up and so, out of fear of passing up the chance, I ran the last few steps and shouted “Hey, nice nose you have there, by the way!”

I saw him stopping in his tracks and turning around again to face the odd disturbance he had run into after such a long day. I could see he was still puzzled the first few seconds; I could see it in his eyes. But then, it finally clicked and he laughed out loud at the sight of me. And what a sight that had to have been. If one could die from cringe, this would have been my clue.

“This … is not a coincidence, is it?”

“I’m afraid not, sorry,” I scratched my head in order to have anything to do with my useless hands. “But I swear I didn’t know about you when we met.”

“So … you’re saying you’ve been stalking me?”

“Can we just stop here with all the allegations and questions?” I chuckled awkwardly at my own petty joke. But he seemed to listen and understand. “No, I’ll be honest. I saw you on TV last night. And it kind of felt like a sign … maybe?”

“That’s your honest?” he grinned, but did not look me in the eyes. Now that I stood before him for the second time, I realised that he was also quite a bit taller than I was. “Tell you what. I’ll be out in, like, another half an hour. I have to discuss something first. Meet me at The Cut in a bit?”

I was too paralysed to say anything of substance then and there, really. So I nodded and got a short but endearing smile from him in return.

My head felt dizzy as he got inside again and I was left there in the cold, yet feeling weirdly giddy and hot to the touch at the same time. I didn’t even notice the chilliness surrounding me anymore.

***

“So … you’re a tourist then?”

The waitress brought us a glass of white wine and a Gin Tonic. I thanked her.

“Not quite,” I admitted and tilted my head. The vibe in the bar was smooth and calm. The lights were dimmed and rain had started to fall; drumming a soothing melody against the wide window panes. “I’m here for work.”

“Oh?” he smirked and took a first considerate sip from his glass. “So you mean business?”

I knew what he meant but for some reason I just couldn’t fully relax in his presence, so I watched him laugh about his own joke and chuckled nervously; burying my nose in my drink. “Sorry, we might have a curious kind of humour, don’t let it bother you. I’m just bantering.”

The cold liquid ran hot and nicely stinging down my raspy throat. I nodded and put on a short smile. “Say, is it often that you go for a drink with some random guy you just met or did you just feel lonely?”

“You must be kidding, I’m a busy man,” he laughed again, his ears waggling. “I would not do so if I didn’t find you attractive in any way – if I can be that blunt with you.” He put down his glass and leaned forward a few tiny inches; his voice soft and smooth, his tongue suddenly light as air. “I mean, I assume you must be feeling the same way. Or else you wouldn’t have stalked me, right?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds so pathetic,” I grinned and shook my head; the heaviness of my thoughts and concerns slowly dripping from my shoulders. He just had this all-encompassing presence surrounding him like a fine mist; I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was strange, but in a very good way. He certainly did not look as witty and sharp as he actually was. I wasn’t used to that at all but as I warmed up to the idea bit by bit, I felt more at ease opening up to him. So I unconsciously shuffled a bit closer even. “I just couldn’t get you out of my head, frankly.”

“So that’s settled then, I guess,” I heard him muse as he swayed his wine glass in a mindful manner. Why did I feel like that this was not the first time he did something like that? “Oh, I just realised … You haven’t told me your name. I’m Colin.”

I took his hand, all the while chuckling to myself. “I know. It’s Masato Hayakawa.”

“Masato Hayakawa … Good, now that we are no strangers anymore, it’s okay for you to get inside my car, right? Only that I don’t drive a car when I’m in London, I’m afraid.”

I shook my head as I let go of his hand, evidently amused. But the sensation of his firm grip yet soft touch lingered like a spark on my skin even seconds after the hand shake. For the first time, I actually took in his body and all I could see of it. The faint rise and fall of his clothed, broad chest; almost close enough to touch and my fingertips itched so badly for it. His bare underarms, he had rolled up the sleeves of his dark wool sweater, rested nonchalantly on the small table between us. His long, delicate fingers had been fiddling with a piece of paper after our touch, as if he was drunk with thoughts – but instead he looked me right in the eye the second I lifted my gaze again. Abruptly, a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach – but an enjoyable one at that.

“I took the Underground, too,” I heard myself say in a cushioned, faint voice. Not any one of us could deny the obvious attraction we felt for each other any longer, not if we wanted to.

“Where you’re staying at?”

“You couldn’t get any blunter now, could you?

***

The second we closed the door behind us, he pushed me up right against it. With his mouth muffling my thoughts and worries, he drummed long forgotten sensations inside my veins instead; replaced the dark, twisted voices. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. It was just him engulfing me as though there had never been anyone else.

Somewhere along the line we had lost our jackets.

It had been so long for me. Not necessarily the physical part per se; but that I actually felt something. Lust, desire, passion … I just knew that I wanted him. I didn’t think about what came after. This was the only thing that mattered right now.

I certainly wasn’t keen on admitting it, but it was so immensely pleasant to let someone else be in control that, on top of it all, was also quite a bit taller than yourself. He pressed up against me so effortlessly and stole my breath, tucked at my shirt and brushed through my damp hair. I could have sworn his hands were everywhere and surrendering to them was just so easy.

Unhurriedly, he licked the sensitive skin on my neck where my heartbeat pulsated vigorously underneath the Vena tattoo. I felt him tracing each and every stroke of black ink and I clawed at his sweater; almost desperately.

After all that, he wordlessly dropped to his knees, kissing down my hip bones towards my happy trail and then looked up.

“Whoah, whoah, you’re sure?” I exclaimed, seemingly out of breath and slightly shaky myself.

“What did you have in mind then, princess?” He did it again; just like that. Muted me with a snap of his fingers, any words of resistance I might have had – gone. Where did he take all that confidence from? No one ever called me “princess” in situations like these; but I had to admit, I liked it. “Don’t you want to feel my tongue on you?”

He licked the sensitive skin down there, unbuttoned my jeans with one hand; meanwhile, the other one dragged lazy strokes across my chest from under my shirt. It felt heavenly. “I–I do …”

“See, doll, wasn’t that hard now, was it?”

“Oh, it’s hard,” I laughed, as he finally tugged at my pants and pulled them down; my hard on tenting my briefs. He intently traced the shape of my dick before he let his hot breath flow over the fabric. I twitched. My fingers wandered intuitively towards his head; brushing through his hair, dragging at the strands. It felt so good to be with someone who knew exactly what he wanted. To feel my own fever be met with at least the same amount of hot anger and ecstasy.

I didn’t leave the hotel tonight in order to find someone to have sex with – but our bodies exhaled that kind of electricity that made you wonder if there could have been any other outcome than this one to begin with.

Finally, he slipped my shorts down to my ankles. Seeing that now the tightness of the fabric was gone and a delicate chill brushed my skin, I shuddered; overwhelmed with all these new sensations. Didn’t know I could even feel anything like this.

I couldn’t bring myself to look down, as he let his tongue wander from the base of my hard cock to the tip. I gasped, he grinned; I felt it on my skin. Assertively, I pushed my hips forward and his head closer to my groin; and instead of resisting and lecturing me in his I-know-better-voice, he obliged and took in my full length. Overwhelmed, I threw my head back against the door; eyes closed and breath drawn in sharply, his own moans muffled. I couldn’t even realise how far he could take me in without any effort whatsoever. My head felt dizzy and feverish hot.

Slowly but surely, he established a firm rhythm; one hand on my hip, the other alternating between jerking me off and massaging my balls. I didn’t even have to think about holding myself back; my first hesitant, testing thrusts now meeting his movements harder, faster and rougher. He didn’t complain at all, quite the contrary, really; under my shallow breath, I heard him moan and sob around my cock, but his pace only got more rapid.

This whole situation fucked me up so badly, I didn’t even know where my head stood anymore. Every inch of my skin prickled as though his hands were still wandering across my body. My stomach felt hot and I could not grasp a single thought. Somewhere along the line I heard him open his fly and pull out his own dick but at this point, I really could not say anything, respond to anything, let alone interfere in what he was doing. The still functioning part of my brain told me that he was about to jerk himself off while sucking my dick, even though I would have died to taste him myself, but I was not able to interrupt him.

The warm pressure and the awareness that it was this beautiful man who willingly took in my full length let me finally lose my head completely. Our matching rhythm grew hastier and more careless. Maybe I hurt him with my fast thrusts, though if I did, he seemed to like it. I desperately yanked at the locks on his head that I could reach and hold onto; moaning all the way and relishing in the fact that he was hopefully exhaling sounds of pleasure while he was choking on my cock.

“W-wait … I’m coming–“ was all I could croak out in my current state, though of course he did not stop. Then a huge wave of electricity jerked through my body; if it wasn’t pitch-black behind my eyelids to begin with, now it was.

It took me a few seconds to realise that I had come in his mouth and he was still indulgently sucking and licking at my dick; cum already swallowed.

Now I grasped that I was panting; felt the rise and fall of my own chest. My arms limp and totally out of energy; I leaned against the cold door and brushed through his damp hair. We hadn’t even turned on the lights.

“Will you stand up? I want to kiss you.”

After another soft lick, he wiped his mouth sloppily and got to his feet; still this never-disappearing kind of smirk tugging at his lips. “Sorry, I might have just ruined your shoes.”

I chuckled breathlessly. “That’s fair enough, I guess.” With my hand behind the back of his head, I pulled him closer to me until our noses and foreheads touched. I could hear his pulse. A weirdly intimate moment between two strangers; so much more affectionate and warmer than the act before. Then I finally touched his lips with mine.

A soft kiss, not rushed by any means. I could taste the faint characteristic bitterness on his tongue but it only made me love this more. I pulled him even closer to me – my fingertips still itched.

***

“That was not your first time, though, was it? With a man?”

I shook my head no but realised he could probably not see it in the dark. I lay on the big king sized bed while he stood at the open window, smoking. “No. Never had a real relationship with one, but I’ve had my fair share of flings. With one guy.”

“Did you want more?”

“No, he did.”

“I see,” he mused, exhaling slowly, probably thinking. “I’ve slept with a few guys. But I couldn’t get over this one in particular. Isn’t it always like this?”

“The irony,” I agreed, rustling on the bed sheets. Even though the street noise entered through the window and soaked our hair and minds, I still could not concentrate on any other sound than on that of him inhaling the nicotine. “What we want is what we don’t get and what we get is not what we want.”

After a while, he closed the window, had probably finished smoking, only to turn around with a huge gesture; a smile plastered all over his face in the dark. “Was he as good looking as me?”

“Oh, quite the opposite,” I blurted out before quickly realising what I had just said and started backtracking. “I– didn’t mean he’s ugly. He’s just … short, blonde, petite, bratty … very Japanese-ish. He’s the opposite of you.”

“You don’t like the opposite of me?”

Even though we just had sex, him acting so obviously flirty with me, in such a witty and positively provocative way on top of it all, still left me dumbfounded. I had never actually questioned myself why I hadn’t liked my former affair the way he had liked me. After meeting Colin, however, I wondered why I had never felt this giddy and complete with anyone I had ever been with before. It felt so easy.

All these stories about “love at first sight” … how true could they be?

Through the blurry darkness, occasionally illuminated by street lights and passing cars, I watched him stroll towards the other end of the room. “What is someone like you supposed to do with a piano inside their hotel room?”

He let his fingers glide over the wood surface, hesitantly sitting down in front of it. “What do you mean ‘someone like me’?” I laughed.

He chuckled silently to himself as he opened the cover deliberately, almost as if he was remembering some long forgotten, nostalgic memory that he had softly carried in his soul. I instantly grew more attentive; my eyes fixed on his delicate outline in the dark.

The tune he then played reached my ears only faintly but oh so very pleasantly like shallow river water you dip your naked feet in when summer is at its peak. Even though I didn’t know the song that was on his mind, I could tell it was dear to him; he had to have played it a lot gentler and slower than the original would have sounded. After a while had passed, he chimed in.

I do believe it's true

That there are roads left in both of our shoes

But if the silence takes you

Then I hope it takes me too

So brown eyes I'll hold you near

'Cause you're the only song I want to hear

A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

As always, I was a prisoner to my thoughts and inactions. My instinct told me to get closer to this melody which let the hairs on the back of my neck stand up; but instead I stood there, motionless. When will this guy stop putting me in such a constant state of awe?

“I know I’m not the best singer,” he smiled loudly. “I’m an actor after all. But, you know, when you go to classical drama school …”

“You have to have vocal training too, yeah … You’re not half as bad,” I laughed, finally finding the courage to shift closer, letting my fingers wander from his shoulder to his neck. “Your voice is a tad too low for this part, though.”

“I know,” he started to explain with a soft voice, slowly turning towards me, searching for my gaze in the darkness. “But I like it. My lovers always ever had blue eyes, you know?”

I didn’t quite know what to make of this statement, really. This new side of him, a far more insecure, maybe even affectionate side, confused me even if no man was ever just black and white. I knew I didn’t have blue eyes, is all. For some weird reason, however, I felt challenged. If I was good at one thing, it was singing after all.

Tell me how do I let go?

When all I know is to hold on

Every memory that you left

Keeps me from moving ahead

Tell me how do I let go?

I never had to say a word

It's like you always saw me through

But all you ever asked of me

Was to hold you like I always do

I never had to say a word

It's like you always saw me through

But all you ever asked of me

Was to love you like I do

Tell me how do I let go?

When all I know is to hold on

Every memory that you left

Keeps me from moving ahead

Tell me how do I let go?

Frankly, I didn’t know what I was expecting, maybe laughter or amusement – an awkward smile. But Colin kept strangely silent after I had finished the view verses of the song that I had spontaneously felt like singing. The air was electrified but painfully silent. I shouldn’t feel the need to apologise for choosing such a clichéd sad song. But now that he kept quiet, I felt a bit stupid for doing so nonetheless. This song meant a lot to me and we had yet to publish it still. I had written it a long time ago but hadn’t had the courage to come forward with it. It still hurt a lot thinking about it and thus I generally didn’t.

So I was grateful for this bizarre kind of bubble we were in right now; our own world, so to speak. It didn’t feel real and maybe the past wasn’t, either. Maybe it was the orgasm after taste, the blurry light floating through the gloom or just the general vibe. But nothing here felt like reality. I would have never opened up my heart this way to a total stranger. A stranger I just had sex with, on top of that. Someone I had just met.

“You should do that professionally, man.”

Admittedly quite startled, I could only croak out a nervous little laugh at his conclusion. I didn’t plan on telling him any time soon, really. It would then somehow feel more real; too real, to be honest. I just could not seem to keep my fingers off other well-known people in the business who were not that excited at the prospect of the common mortal finding out about it. Me neither, of course. And I didn’t want to have to deal with that yet again.

“It’s called ‘January 1st–“ I whispered into the darkness because I didn’t know what else to say.

Colin was just standing up and about to say something as well when someone knocked on the door. His lips were now mere inches apart from mine.

“Er … would you?” I hinted at the bed with a funny tone in my voice I couldn’t seem to cover up and he obliged without a word. Then I opened the door; Sugi in front of me.

“Hey … I thought I heard something. Where were you earlier?” He asked in quiet Japanese.

“Ah– sorry. I thought I’d messaged you guys. I just needed to clear my head, is all. I went for a walk.”

“Not a problem, mate,” he bumped my shoulder with his fist and then pointed behind him. “We wanted to grab a pint. Care to join us?”

“Yeah,” I contemplated; having to pause a second in order to find the right words. “I’ll be there in a minute, all right?”

Sugi nodded and left to join the others in the lobby. I stood there; irrevocably back in reality again. Erratically, I closed the door. I would have loved to live in our little bubble forever but we both probably knew that that was not possible.

“Your friends?”

“Colleagues, actually.”

“You sound hot when you speak Japanese.”

I chuckled at his flirtatious remark but it only sounded nervous in my ears. That was it, then. Going for a drink, sleeping, waking up, eating, sound check, concert, in the bus and to the next city. No time to see him again. The lump in my throat was too big to swallow at this point; I had difficulties expressing what really was on my mind.

“We’re … meeting up at the pub outside.”

“So there’s my clue to go, right?”

“I’m afraid so.”

He strolled towards me from the dark corner next to the bed; holding his hands up as though declaring truce. “Hayakawa-San, it was nice to meet you.”

Instead of the anticipated kiss, he shook my hand but quickly came around and pulled me towards him. “Will you give me your phone number?” I whispered against his lips.

“I don’t have one. I promise I’ll find you.”

“You–“ I started, confused by this statement, though could not finish my thought as he finally closed the space between us to kiss me. It was a light one, not rushed at all. No passion and yet it felt appropriate under these circumstances.

“See you around, princess!”

***

“Hi, hi! Wait, please!” Someone shouted in my general direction as I was about to get on the bus. Since the person spoke English, however, no one but me felt addressed and turned around.

It was a short, well-rounded girl with long, dark hair. She looked to be Japanese, or Asian for that matter, though her accent was unmistakably British. I put on a professional smile while I paused in my tracks and heard the others ignore this small interlude. “Yes?” “Hi, sorry for interrupting you guys! I don’t want to bother you. It’s just that I was at your concert the other day and I didn’t get to meet you. I just wanted you to sign my CD.”

I had to admit, I was a tiny bit disappointed. For a second, how could it have been any different, I thought it might’ve been Colin saying goodbye. However, this girl seemed to be nice and I didn’t feel annoyed in any way. So I took the CD off her and chuckled softly. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Mio.”

“You’re Japanese?” One of the security guys had handed me a black sharpie I scribbled some words with on the cover.

“Yes. I do speak Japanese, I just feel more confident speaking English. I’ve been raised here.”

“I know the feeling,” I smiled a genuine smile before giving the CD back to her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to go now.” I lazily pointed at the bus behind me and the few people left standing around and watching us.

“No, no. I understand, don’t worry! I enjoyed the gig! Hope to see you again soon!”

She waved a last time before vanishing in the crowds of busy people. But it still felt like a weird encounter, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, though. Maybe it was the fact that she was yet another hāfu, just the other way around.  Or that she would stay in London and I would have to go back to Japan, regrettably sooner than later.

***

I sure as hell hadn’t counted the days but it definitely had been months since I’d last seen him.

Japan had safely transitioned from rainy season to typhoon season and it had been yet another unbearably hot and dry but humid summer beforehand. I had witnessed the blooming of the sakura trees which had lost their soothingly pink blossoms mere five days after they had drawn their first breaths. The heavy rainfalls had soaked my sleeves not only once or twice. And now, as the cicadas sang their lullabies each night, I wondered if he still cramped his dark locks of hair underneath his beanie.

I honestly didn’t want to conjure up any gloomy thoughts because that was not like me. I had to act my hopeful and good-humoured self when I was on stage; and frankly, I wanted to. The more positive thoughts you let roam in your soul, the more effect they would have on your psyche. I lived for that, normally. But I did miss him. Not being around him was worse enough; but not even being able to communicate was as atrociously debilitating as finding yourself lost in the dark woods at midnight. Sometimes, in a quiet moment, I asked myself if he had played me after all. If he did own a phone – just not as far as I was concerned. He’d promised that he’d be in touch. And frankly, if he’d really wanted to he could have very well done it by now. I felt ashamed for admitting it even to myself – but I was too proud trying to contact him instead. I didn’t want to keep running after him like a desperate school boy. And here I was thinking that what we had felt that day was genuine and honest.

But what did they say? Life goes on. And I knew mine would. Harder and faster even than any other.

I had hidden myself listening to music in the farthest corner of the building, as I was used to be doing right before a concert to calm my nerves and get me in the right mind-set. As I was sitting there, nodding rhythmically to some random Papa Roach songs, I felt someone tapping my shoulder out of the blue. First I was startled as I was so deeply sunken into my routine but when I looked up, Hiroki stood before me; his gaze falling down on me like broken glass shards. As confused as I was at first, it all made sense since MY FIRST STORY actually was the supporting act for this concert in Nagoya. Of course I’d known this, even if I hadn’t been particularly delighted at the prospect.

“Your pre-concert habit?”

He looked to be nearly ready for their gig, too. Wearing his hair a warm brown colour these days, which suited him undeniably nicely, he did not appear to be as unpleasant as his recent behaviour had actually suggested. It made his features even softer and perfected the sparkle in his eyes when he smiled brightly.

“You know better than to bother me now.”

“I just wanted to check if you were okay,” he shrugged his puny shoulders but this annoyingly satisfied grin never quite left his lips.

“Yeah, right,” I huffed and reached for his arm to pull myself up. He didn’t even act surprised in the slightest. We must still make a good team after all. “That’s so you.”

In front of me, Hiro shuffled his feet and could not hide from the fact that he did indeed still look a bit like a little lost boy. Our love affair felt so far away; I felt so immensely dissociated from him even though we were currently facing each other. I observed the shape of his soft lips but I could not for the life of me remember how they tasted.

“You didn’t like the idea of touring together, am I right?”

“Honestly? No, I did not. Alexandros would have been quite enough. I could not provide any valid reasons, though,” I explained in a low voice, leaning against the cold wall behind me; sobering up my mind. I was not that tall, however, Hiro still only came up to my shoulders. “We perfectly managed not touring together throughout all those years. Low-key without attracting attention.”

“There’s nothing to attract attention to anymore, though …”

There was still disappointment to be heard in his high pitched voice I used to fall asleep to. After all these years and fights and tears. I knew I had broken his heart back then but I was not the one that would be able to mend it back together. And so I decided to change the subject.

“I heard about your break-down at the Budokan,” I started hesitatingly but reconsidered my choice of words and started anew. “No, what I meant was: I saw it. I felt really sorry. Those were heart-wrenching words. I know how hard it’s been for you.”

“Right … we haven’t really been talking since, huh?” Hiroki mused but at least I could not see any genuine grief reflected in his carnelian coloured eyes. “It’s been years, though. I’m fine. Thanks for caring.”

“Hey,” I said with a soothing tone to my voice and put one arm around his shoulders. They felt fragile and delicate like bare skinned branches in a storm. Foreign. How had it been like to kiss his name into the pale skin of his neck? “Let’s go for a drink after this. As friends. Maybe there’s more to talk about than we think.”

***

Seeing that Alexandros was one of Coldrain’s supporting acts too, we could not help but perform Kill Me If You Can together on stage. Going up there as mates and singing these familiar notes and words, so unlike our own songs, felt wrong in all the right ways. Suddenly, I was back in late 2015, early 2016. I was still with Hiroki, the rich sounds felt like honey on my tongue and today they were still as warm as the last sunrays we’d felt on our skin before we broke up. And when it was finally time for us to go up on stage I couldn’t help but to think about Colin one last time as I performed January 1st. We had finally published it and even though everything felt like K and both melancholy and joy swelled up inside my body thinking of him, I now also associated the song with this God damn Irish guy.

Tell me how do I let go?

When all I know is to hold on

Every memory that you left

Keeps me from moving ahead

Tell me how do I let go?

I never had to say a word

It's like you always saw me through

But all you ever asked of me

Was to hold you like I always do

I never had to say a word

It's like you always saw me through

But all you ever asked of me

Was to love you like I do

Tell me how do I let go?

When all I know is to hold on

Every memory that you left

Keeps me from moving ahead

Tell me how do I let go?

I sang these verses with each and every emotion I could evoke as I was thinking about our shared moments somewhere in the back of my mind. Trying to figure out simultaneously if I’d honestly missed him or if I was just so tired of feeling left alone. As we’d finished the song, however, and I stepped off the stage under cheers and applause from our fans crying ankōru, I again remembered that back in London this was the song I chose to sang in that hotel room. These were the lines that had come to my mind like a lost memory ready to be reawakened.

The memory of Colin’s soft touch on my neck, however … his tender looks that melted into my skin like gentle summer rain. I was not able to let him go just yet.

***

It was already far after midnight when we exited the venue; arm in arm. Frankly, I did not worry about photographers or passersby who could see us like this. It didn’t mean anything. He was the little bro of one of my best friends – people knew. We were having fun, we were laughing loudly and grins were wide; I held him close to my side by his shoulder and together we staggered through the little side streets as though we were drunk. We had let the other guys leave without us; our tussled hair still damp from the previous shower. I didn’t know what we would really be up to but we’d planned on going for a drink as friends. But right now, I felt intoxicated from his too sweet cologne and wondered if his birthmarks where still on the same spots I remembered them to be and if there was new ink to discover on his porcelain skin. I knew I probably shouldn’t sleep with my ex, but I felt so disappointed in myself and in the whole world. I knew I would probably break his heart again – but for some vile reason I felt like I deserved this one.

The earth was still cooling off and even the pavement underneath our feet appeared to still be emitting the last warmth of the late summer’s day. It was a stark contrast to those bitter cold evenings in London. The wind grazed our cheeks only so very delicately once in a while and I threw back my head to inhale the pure night air which was rich of excitement and thrill.

“You know, this feels so familiar,” I heard him purr close to my ear; our movements kind of sluggish as if we cherished every step along the way. I myself was just as eager to forget that Colin ever existed. I had to let him go. Just pretending for one night that Hiro’s moans and breathy laughter beneath my body in the sheets could freeze my unanswered longing. I knew that was kind of fucked up. “Don’t you miss our banter?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted under my breath and it wasn’t even a lie. We did have chemistry – that much was true. We’d felt an instant connection the first time we’d really spent time together. It had been interesting with him the first few months; the first year. He always said what he wanted to say, he was such a little brat and back then I was absorbed with taming him – to the point of obsessiveness even. He hadn’t learned a thing, though, but in bed he did what he was told like the good little boy he was. Yes, sometimes I missed that.

“My begging?” his grin tugged at his lips and reached from one cheek to the other as he carefully observed my reaction; as if he’d guessed my thoughts.

I let out a low growl and buried my nose in his soft hair. Still as hopeless as ever. No wonder my fingertips itched for the sensation of pressing his wrists into the hard mattress. “Your ‘yes’s’ and ‘of course’s’.”

I couldn’t help it and felt my dick twitch in my trousers at the mere thought. This here didn’t have this mysterious delicateness wafting around our heads like blue mist. There was no electricity, no pining to the extent of experiencing pain. I didn’t want to trace his collarbones with my fingertips and wasn’t going mad at the idea of him breathing out my name. I wanted to fuck him because this felt familiar; comforting. I knew how he’d react; I finally remembered how the little sobs on his tongue tasted.

“Long time no see, nice nose.”

The familiar dark voice came out of nowhere and tore at my attention in the roughest of ways. My first reaction was to persuade myself that my mind was playing tricks on me. To dissuade me from making this huge mistake I would most definitely regret in a lot of different ways. But before I could conclude any of my further interpretations, the voice spoke again and I stopped in my tracks.

“Busy?”

“That’s not fair.” I turned around with an unbelieving sigh as if I was reprimanding a ghost of my past that no one else but me was able to see. Of course it was Colin. Now. Out of all people. Why now.

“That’s kind of awkward now,” he admitted with a stiff smile that I had not seen once on his bold lips before. It made him seem more human somehow, I realised with dismay. “Isn’t it?”

Not quite knowing how to react, I let go of Hiro’s shoulders who then looked at me in confusion and mild irritation. His English was not good enough to follow our simple conversation, especially with Colin’s thick Northern Irish accent and Hiro being stressed out enough as he was. In the meantime, Colin walked closer to us in the shine of the street lights; his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets, the black beanie sitting on his head as if time had been standing still all along.

“I don’t really know what to say, to be honest with you,” I heard myself speak in a low voice as though it wasn’t me making these sounds. Time had never felt more like an eerie dream; not since back then in the hotel room. I had waited for him – for months that had felt like centuries. I had pined after and longed for him, yes, I had cried. Once. I’d been drunk and very frustrated, maybe a bit angry even. But I’d been so hopeful that we would see each other again and now, out of all times, he just appeared out of thin air? How was that fair? I was about to forget him!

“A … ‘hello’ would be good for starters?” he smiled at me; the one that made it seem like his blue eyes were closed entirely and little laugh lines appeared right underneath them. “After that … what about an ‘I missed you’? Because I know I did.”

For a second, I felt so very bad for Hiroki standing next to us like an oblivious toddler. I felt his gaze drift from me to Colin and back, but I could not force my own eyes off Colin’s. I just couldn’t explain how he did it; it was like he had magic for real. I was lost. Then he extended his hand for Hiro to grab.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Colin, nice to meet you.”

“Moriuchi Hiroki,” he spat out like a foul fruit but took Colin’s hand nonetheless, had to have realised what the guy in front of him wanted without actually understanding.

“This is … my ex-boyfriend,” I explained cautiously and knew that Hiroki was listening intently for key-words. On Colin’s face, however, I saw that everything had finally clicked into place.

“The fling …” he mused with a fleeting look at Hiro. He didn’t mean it in a bad way, I supposed. He ought to have remembered our night and our conversation. Yes, I had meant Hiro back then. He hadn’t been more than a fling to me in retrospect. But I also knew that this special tone in Colin’s voice when he said the word didn’t sit quite right with me, either.

“I’m sorry, but didn’t we want to go someplace?” Hiro’s Japanese sentence totally out of the blue only underlined my low-key uneasiness as it shook me back to reality and to what was actually happening then and there. I agreed – we did. And even though my lungs suddenly felt as though they were filled with water, I swallowed it down and watched as my hand crawled back on Hiro’s shoulders once more.

“Yeah, you’re right, we did,” I replied in Japanese, followed by a short, unsure glance at Colin. I was mad up to the tip of my hair; both at him for not contacting me and suddenly appearing out of nowhere with that anger inducing “I’m-Innocent”-grin. I thought as though he was probably just insecure and felt sorry for all of this too … maybe. Something about the way he shuffled his feet restlessly and perhaps he really was. He had definitely met me at the wrong moment because right now I was determined to stay angry at him and to not give in so easily even though my fingers itched yet again for his touch. Then the longing set in too and mingled with all of that built-up frustration in the pit of my stomach and suddenly I felt like vomiting. I just knew that I had to get out of there. Now.

“I’m sorry, Colin. I have plans tonight.” I swiftly thought about asking for meeting up another day or for how long he was planning on staying, solely for conversational purposes of course. But the words just weren’t eager to roll off my tongue. I saw it in Colin’s eyes that he’d expected something … anything more but it didn’t come and it hurt me, too. Subconsciously I grabbed Hiro’s shoulder harder and I only noticed when he tensed up underneath my hand subsequently.

In the fleeting shine of the street lights Colin tried his hardest not to let any more emotions play out on his face but he was a good actor after all. I could not seem to detect anything other than a thin, cold wall between us anymore. “I see. Sorry to have jumped at you like this,” he nodded and smiled warmly. “Maybe I can contact you some way? I do have a phone now, you know.”

I had to laugh out loud at his last revelation and for a moment I let go of Hiro’s shoulders. I didn’t make fun of him, I just appreciated his weird sense of humour still; even in situations like these I supposed. “Yeah. Yeah, go on. Give me your number, I’ll message you.”

I was somewhat surprised when he could tell me his own number right off the bat. I had difficulties recalling my own number still and it hadn’t changed in years. But then again, it was technically Colin’s job to memorise lines. After I had typed the digits in, he put on yet another smile and crossed his arms awkwardly. “I’ll be here for another week or so. I thought I’d do a bit of sightseeing while I’m at it. Never been here before.”

I nodded approvingly and said a casual goodbye that he reciprocated, although seeming visibly reluctant in doing so. A stray thought stuck between the then and now that was meant to be uttered out. But then I had already started walking again until I could only feel his stares biting into my back and I had to force myself not to turn my head to look at him one more time. It was like ripping off a band-aid, really. Once we had turned the next corner, I felt the weight being lifted from my shoulders entirely.

***

“This wasn’t quite what I was expecting.” Hiroki was sitting next to me like a proper pile of wet laundry, a beer in front of him on the table between us.

Yeah, considering our touchy-feely attitude before we’d both thought about going home … until Colin had appeared. I knew Hiro was aware of why we ended up in a shady, little izakaya then after all. The mood in here was smooth and slick like honey and had claimed a similar colour, too. Everything glowed and shone like dipped in golden sun rays; staff raced from one end to the other and old sararī man dressed in black sat there after their long work day either depressed or laughing about nothing of importance with their colleagues.

Had Colin cut me out of a night full of good sex or had he appeared at exactly the right moment for me to realise that what I had been about to do was a huge mistake? I just knew that Hiro was pissed that he couldn’t touch me this way nor be close to me. I felt his unsure glances and saw his pouts and heard his sighs but I didn’t feel like comforting him. I was in a God damn awful bad mood.

“Who was that guy anyway?”

I hesitated before trying to answer his question. I didn’t quite know where to start with this, honestly. I didn’t feel like responding but thought he deserved as much. “Met him in London. We had a thing back then. But he hadn’t contacted me until now.”

I searched his face for a fitting reaction but to my own surprise he didn’t seem to be taken aback in the slightest. He had his sleeves rolled and his elbows propped up on the table but much to my dismay I realised that it didn’t quite have the same effect like when Colin did it. “I thought you’d wanted to be more careful? Shagging a random bloke you find on the streets doesn’t sound like it.”

“Shh,” I reprimanded him, even though I knew no one paid attention or could even hear us, the music and chatter was just too loud. It still felt bad talking about such a private matter in public. “He didn’t know me and London is about as far away as Narnia. I call that careful enough.”

“Guys always think with their dicks, honestly,” he rolled his eyes and I laughed.

“You’re one to talk. What did you think we’d be doing tonight?”

Hiro shrugged nonchalantly in front of me but I could sense a fleeting smile on his lips nonetheless. He was a brat indeed, one of the worst I had ever encountered and he was immature and quite childish every now and then. But at times like these, when he acted all-knowing and almost sophisticated, I always ended up feeling astonished. I guessed sometimes I just wanted him to stay this cute, little boy that did not know any better as to be jealous and clingy all the time to the point of enraging me forever – so I could go on telling myself that he was just a toy for me to play with and nothing more. But I did have to own up to the fact that he was growing up and developing all the while. He was no child anymore and of course he wanted me to know.

“Yeah,” he went on, his eyes avoiding mine. A sip from his beer. Then he bit his lip. “Of course. We’ve been flirting the whole time. I’d much rather be somewhere else right now.”

I nodded and searched for his hands on the table but did not dare to touch them in the end. He was a good person. I did like him. He was not a toy. But he also didn’t make my mind go crazy and my heart desperate. I myself still didn’t know what I was going after. I could, here and now, settle for Colin. But then what would I decide on exactly? Surely not to be with him, right? Even if he’d wanted to be in a relationship with me, even if – how would that even work? It wouldn’t. So I was at a loss for words and actions, I realised. It did not matter. It did not matter at all.

“I like you, Hiro-Chan, you know I do,” I tried to console him the only way I knew as I reached for his hands after all and he flinched at my touch, startled, “but it wouldn’t be anything more for me, I’m afraid. I don’t love you.”

I watched him nod lazily but understandingly, his eyes still not meeting mine but at least he didn’t pull his hands away. So we sat like this for a while, not exchanging any words or glances. I guessed he needed this to calm down and collect himself and eventually he came to.

“You know? I really needed to hear that, thank you,” Hiroki mused and finally he lifted his gaze but drew his hands away from under mine. “I’ve known that of course. Didn’t want to believe it, however,” he laughed a short lived laugh but it was full of genuine warmth and so I smiled, too.

“It’s been years since we last came together, though,” I tried to make him remember.

“Oh, we came all right.” A wide grin on his lips that gradually evolved into a full-on laugh and I just had to chime in. A boy at heart, always.

“Would you please stop being so suggestive in public,” I told him off with a flicker in my eyes and a smile upon my lips still; the tension in the air rose again from out of nowhere. He was my ex after all. There’d always be this special kind of connection.

He then fell silent for a few minutes and was suddenly eager to empty his glass. I saw it in his face that he thought about us and our affair back in the day. His ears grew hot. “I don’t need to hear I-love-you’s. And I don’t need to know which guy you’re seeing. But I am still serious about earlier. I want to come home with you.”

“I– Hiroki, I don’t know,” I followed my first reflex because I knew I shouldn’t but then I awoke to the whole situation at hand and everything fell into place. Colin had come here to seek me out, yes. But it had been half a year at least since we’d last seen each other. He couldn’t leave London, I couldn’t leave Japan. Even if those feelings were real – No, it definitely was better to let them fade away. “You know what? Yes. My place is not far away. Let’s go.”

***

At first it was kind of awkward to let him inside my flat and close the door behind us. I’d moved since we’d broken up, so he’d never been here before. My dogs were currently at a friend’s who sometimes took care of them when I was away for longer periods of time, so there was no one and nothing at all greeting us but an uncomfortable silence.

I watched him look around the apartment curiously like a cautious cat. It was big for Japan’s standards but not as much for Tokyo’s. That should explain him being impressed, at least a bit.

“It appears you have good taste after all,” he commented cheekily as he turned around with one of his dazzling grins.

My living room was bright and mainly ruled by colour combinations of wood brown, white, grey and black. There were lots of little indirect lights and a huge glass front on one side, covered with white curtains but you could still see the colourful glow of the city below us. As much as I loved touring and seeing so much of the world, I adored being home – I just felt at ease here.

“You’re here with me, I suppose that counts for some,” I purred in his ear after I had closed the short distance between us and rested my underarms on his shoulders. He seemed intrigued and melted into my touch exactly the proper way I needed him to this moment. He still smelled sweet and familiar; a touch of a bitter alcoholic aroma in between. I grazed his ears with my lips tenderly. “How do you want me to take you?”

Suddenly the awkwardness disappeared and sparks full of electricity filled the room. It was like back then once more and all the memories came rushing back. It felt so natural and easy to touch him again and to feel his warmth. I was hot all over and it reached my throat and neck and ears. I could feel him shiver beneath my hands and every thought of any other person in this moment was just gone.

He gasped for air and I felt him brush through my locks nervously. It had been so long that it almost felt like the first time all over again. Like our first encounter. Unsure and tentative but also full of hot want and arousal. A step forward and I could feel his hard dick pressing into my thigh again.

“You decide–“ His soft voice broke. “I want you to decide.”

This was the code word, really. Hiro didn’t want to have vanilla sex, which we had had occasionally. He wanted me to lead, to dominate him. And I had missed it so much that I had forgotten about this special longing for it altogether. I had enjoyed being called “princess” by Colin, I wouldn’t deny that by any means. But Hiroki was such a perfect little sub that my lungs felt like inhaling fire and smoke right now. It burned inside of me, this desire, and so I snapped and pulled him into my bedroom before pushing him down onto the bed in front of me.

“Clothes off.”

The lights in here weren’t turned on but there was still a shimmer coming in from the living room; it was just about bright enough for me to observe Hiro’s facial expressions closely.

He obliged immediately and pulled off his hoodie and pants without a word; his shoes already discarded somewhere along the way. Now he was sitting there in front of me; only in his briefs and panting softly with arousal tainting his breath.

“You know better than that,” I scolded him with this strict tone in my voice I had honestly missed using the last couple of years. “All clothes off.”

He held my gaze and I could see a flicker of nervousness in his eyes, but in the end he did as he was told and finally sat there naked. The fine mist of light made his skin look amber coloured and so exposed. His stiff cock pressed against his stomach; twitching beautifully whenever my eyes fell upon it. I myself finally felt the heat rise in the pit of my stomach and it became hard to contain myself. I wanted to push and break him; to pull him to the edge and leave him there. To suck up every breath he offered me and let him beg for more.

“You feel safe now, princess? I swear you won’t do so for much longer.” With my right hand I pushed him onto the bed by his chest and held him there with all my strength as he gasped delightfully for air. Our noses almost touched and I inhaled his breath but I didn’t lean down far enough to kiss him; not yet.

Then I got up again and opened the fly of my jeans; pulled the fabric down and felt the rush of cold air on my cock. I hadn’t been this excited for a long time. And even if this didn’t mean anything, it still felt so dangerously good. I wanted him all over me and hear his pleas and moans. And right this moment I knew why I had once loved fucking him.

“Get on your fucking knees, you little slut,” I ordered him with a cold stare and again, he obliged without a word.

I felt his body heat on my own skin as he tested the waters with light touches and careful fingertips. I didn’t want him to, however, and so I quickly decided on using a rope to tie his hands on his back. I grabbed it from out of my nightstand, which I hadn’t used in a long, long while, and when I stood in front of him again he knew fair well what I was about to do.

“Get up and turn around.”

He did as he was told, heart beating fast and loud in his chest, and I tied up his skinny arms. He drew in a breath sharply since I might have laced it up a tad too tight but I did not care and neither did he. Then I ordered him back on his knees again.

Now that he was kneeling there like a good little boy, my heart skipped a beat at the mere sight of it. His eyes shimmered beautifully as if he’d tear up any moment and his mouth was opened invitingly. I tenderly traced his lips with my thumb and he closed his eyes in response; relishing in this feeling I was gracing him with. I could not wait to feel his warm mouth finally engulfing me again. Feeling his tongue and throat and seeing him gasping for air in desperation.

“Suck my dick until it’s wet.”

Seeing that he almost immediately leaned forward to lick at my cock and sigh in pleasure at the first taste, I concluded that he had to have waited for this moment for a lot longer than I had even. Almost as if he was made solely for this purpose alone. He did not flinch when I pushed my groin closer to his face and he did not care about getting saliva all over his face. I missed him worshipping my cock so badly.

I combed through his brown, soft hair delicately and closed my eyes for a few seconds; just savouring every little twitch and flicker that shot through my body like an inferno. But suddenly I was back at the hotel in London again and sensed Colin’s hands over my torso and backside; his breath wafting over my shaft and his grin wide and teasing on my skin.

I opened up my eyes again and decided that it was enough. My heart beat way too fast for my tastes. “Open up your pretty mouth.”

Again, he did as he was told and watched me intently as I pushed myself past his lips. He wheezed and I groaned and then he finally began sucking on my dick for real. It felt heavenly. He knew exactly what to do, even after so many years. Even with his hands tied back. He was completely wrapped up in it; as though this here was his only remaining purpose and I could not even begin to describe how lovely he looked right this second.

With my hands still in his hair, I held his head steady and tried a few careful thrusts which he took in gladly and with ease. Sometimes I thought he’d been born without a gag reflex and this thought enticed me immensely. I could not hold back my moans any longer and so my pace grew faster, more rapid and careless. But he still took me in so willingly; his eyes were closed and there was a precious tint of pink on his flushed cheeks. Not once did he gag as I pressed myself deeper and deeper and oh fuck, it felt so heavenly. A fire in the pit of my stomach that gradually spread through my whole body.

This lasted for a few minutes and while I was enjoying it to the fullest, it was still not quite enough. He’d once told me that he loved face-fucking the most out of everything. To let someone use him like that was his greatest bliss and that thought turned me on even more. I was now pressed inside his mouth as far as it would go, he’d taken me all in and I saw in his eyes that he was struggling to breathe, so I let go of him and pulled out my wet cock. He immediately gasped and heaved and panted in distress, pain and lust after I’d pulled out and I watched him for a few seconds until he had regained his composure, then I stroked his cheek.

“Will you be a good boy and climb onto the bed?”

Just as before, Hiro only nodded, swallowed hard and then obeyed without a word. With his hands still tied behind his back and his backside facing me, he waited for me a bit awkwardly. I knew that he would be so deliciously tight this way. But then I noticed something silvery and shiny between his butt cheeks and stopped slightly baffled in my tracks before breaking out into short laughter.

“Are you serious?” I chuckled as I touched the base of the steel butt plug he’d apparently inserted earlier himself. He shuddered. “When did that happen?”

“I– When I know that I’ll be seeing you … sometimes I do that,” he admitted with a shy, almost unnoticeable voice. And now it was I who had to gasp for air.

Of course I didn’t know. But thinking about all the times we’d briefly met at concerts and festivals over the past few years! I had a feeling that I should probably punish him for that but it turned me on so much that I swallowed this first urge down. “Like back then …”

“Like back then.”

I heard my own breathing ringing in my ears as I felt myself snap again; there was the end of my tether once more. He just had this strange power over me that made me someone I could not recognise at times. It wasn’t anger and it wasn’t aversion but it did make me have a short fuse. Sometimes these feelings deep in my stomach scared me; they sat low and growled and were like a fire pit inside of me. I wanted to hurt him, just a little. Just to show that I was still in charge here. And so I pressed his upper body harder down onto the bed, he yelped softly in surprise. Then I leaned close to his ear.

“You know you shouldn’t have done that.”

He nodded.

“You know I’m gonna fuck you so hard that you won’t be thinking of wearing that the next

few weeks.”

Again, a nod from him.

I pulled off my shirt with one hand a bit clumsily and walked to the bedside table to get out some lube and a condom. Hiroki remained as frozen in this position as possible; only his chest rose and fell from his shallow breathing. He looked to be as eager as I felt. It’d been so long for me and I hadn’t asked him how long it’d been for him.

As I was standing right behind him again, I stroked his back lightly and drowned in this sight. My cock twitched and I slowly exhaled thinking about what was coming next. I missed seeing him so ready and needy in front of me; just waiting for my cock and orders and insults. Only last time he had talked back more fervently. So I put on the condom and applied some lube with slow strokes; tilting back my head, I felt all those lights and flashes roar through my body. I let out a low sigh and a smile escaped my quivering lips.

I wanted him; here and now. Or maybe I just wanted this intimate and mundane feeling of the time we once had. I would be lying when I said I did not think about Colin once.

“You want my cock, right?” I asked him and began rubbing myself against his bum; spreading lube everywhere. Right in front of me, Hiro nodded again. “Tell me how much you want my cock.”

A short unsure silence followed suit. I knew he was still horny as fuck and I could see his hard cock twitch between his legs because he knew I was watching him closely. He liked me watching him in these awkward positions because it embarrassed him and all I ever wanted was to fuck this humiliation out of him. After I had inflicted it upon him, of course.

“I want you to fill me up,” he croaked out in response after a while; his voice rich of both shakiness and arousal. It made me so high to think about how he couldn’t touch himself in this position – a game we’d played so often before but it never got old. He wanted to feel so defenceless and totally at my mercy, he wanted me to lead him and tell him what to do. That was why we were so perfect for one another. Like two puzzle pieces. I loved all of the sensations he made me feel. But it was just a game and nothing more. “Please. Take me.”

“You know I won’t untie your hands this time,” I purred from behind him as I reached for the base of the butt plug and began pulling it out slowly but probably still a tad too fast for his taste because I heard him exhale sharply in response. But the thing was: I did not care at all in this moment. He loved pain and pain I gave him. “You can beg for it, though.”

The thought of him wearing the plug all day, and only for me on top of that, just because he’d imagined being fucked by me again, had me almost go up in flames right then and there. He was ready to use, just like that. And though it felt somehow weird to have no bodily reaction from him, no real passion with body pressing against body and lips against lips, I knew that he loved it this way, too. Taking him against the wall or even entangled lying on the bed on top of each other would feel neither right nor genuine coming from me and he knew it. For Christ’s sake, it’d stir up his hopes all over again would we have done it any differently.

I felt his body shiver beneath my hands that graced the soft skin on his back; followed my fingertip down his spine with my eyes and counted every vertebra until I had found this one birthmark my hand finally stopped at. The lust in the air was so thick it felt hard to breathe and I knew he longed to be fucked. I bet his hole started to feel so empty and was aching for more. And so I gripped his hips tightly and guided my cock inside of him.

Finally, the blissful feeling of warm tightness surrounding me. For a moment, time stood still and I could hear nothing anymore; no sounds reached my ears and only after that did I realise that I had begun to groan loudly.

I knew Hiro was wheezing down there and trying to steady his breath after I’d just thrusted in without any warning and without concerning myself with being gentle. But it just felt so good and once again, I did not care. I was already up in him as far as it would go; right up to my throbbing balls. The plain sight of it was dangerously exciting. How he swallowed me whole. And I was not the smallest guy by any means.

Hiro panted; his breathing shallow and heavy on his tongue. His needy voice, that I had missed so much, made my dick twitch inside of him and he shuddered delightfully in response. I grinned. “You’ve missed that, right?”

Hiro nodded well-behaved; his skin now hot to the touch. It had always felt kind of evil; kind of dirty – to fuck your friend’s younger brother without him knowing. Without anyone knowing and with said brother loving it with every fibre of his quivering body. How he could beg for more and take so much in and be such a good little fuck but play the lady killer in public. It made my heart jump. Right here, this mattered. This and nothing else. Then I slowly started to move inside of him and he exhaled in surprise and everything else was again dissolved into nothingness.

He was so tight and so wet from the lube and I could feel my fingertips boiling with my heartbeat pulsating in them as he tried to push himself back against my cock; to meet my thrusts in between the best he could with his hands still tied back. He wanted more as it obviously didn’t hurt him yet enough. I drew in a breath sharply.

“Have I permitted you to move?” I grunted and was almost alarmed by how foreign, threatening and deep my voice sounded. I held his hips steady and rushed a few times forward at a rapid speed that made the back of my head grow cloudy. It was all too much; the pressure, this sight of him, the feeling of using him, the power, the familiarity, his scent. I just wanted to fuck him senseless until he could not even beg anymore. He deserved it, he so totally did. He was everything I could concentrate on right this second and it felt weirdly freeing after all these months of longing.

“No, I’m sorry.” His voice was still shaky and breathless but he could still moan and sigh rhythmically to my long, hard thrusts. His arching back was a lovely sight to behold but still not quite enough for me. I wanted to look him in his cloudy eyes and watch him coming; to see his stiff cock rock back and forth without getting touched.

“Thought as much.” Losing the rhythm for a moment, I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around abruptly with one single but harsh motion after I had pulled out of him. The moment he realised that his back had suddenly collided with the mattress was so pleasing; the brief shock reflected in his amber coloured eyes made the smirk on my lips grew even wider.

There he lay on his back in front of me in the dim lit, much too warm room. Helpless. Exposed. And oh so pretty. His arms still tied up behind his back had to have hurt under his weight in such an awkward position but as long as I carried out my threat and fucked him mercilessly, there was no way he would complain. He knew fair well what he had gotten himself into tonight.

I watched as he parted his lips slightly but didn’t dare say anything before I slid inside his warm tightness again. The high it got me was beyond any words. I felt myself closing my eyes instinctively because the sensation was just too overpowering.

Not shorty after did I begin pressing into him relentlessly and without sympathy. I heard him whimper and cry and little sobs leave his wet mouth. Eyes closed. Back arched. His balls were so hard and tight and didn’t look like they could last any longer; the dark red tip of his cock gleaming with pre-cum. But the desperation in his hooded eyes when partly opened was the absolute greatest of it all. His head jerked backwards every time I thrust into him and it made him look like a pretty little doll.

Somewhere along the line our breathing began matching each other’s and I lost track of my heartbeat in my ears. All I could see was him. It made my heart so full and contented I swear it felt like bursting out of my chest. But I also felt myself growing more impatient and accelerated and I made sure to let him know. His eyes seemed to beg for more and I could not wait to give it to him.

“You love being used like that, princess?” I hummed in a sweet honey-like voice and took his breath away with a few unreasonably hard thrusts. Hiro nodded weakly; the blush on his cheeks not leaving the shadow of his nose even once. I could see him break into little pieces and it made my insides tingle.

“I can’t hold it any longer …”

But it wasn’t a plea; it wasn’t enough despair for me to actually meet him halfway. He knew I wanted to hear more than that. This wasn’t our first time but I was so close to coming. “Say that again,” I threatened him and gripped his neck tightly. He struggled to breathe.

“Please, Masato … please.”

“What ‘please’?” I growled and ripped his head back by his hair. A chocked howl from his mouth; eyes squeezed shut. He loved every second of it. “Use your fucking mouth.”

For a second I thought he had started to cry for real. The sobs on his tongue sounded so delightful. I wanted more of that noise he made; see him in even more pain and pleasure at the same time. “Please let me come, please. I can’t–“

I couldn’t take it anymore. It was all too much. He looked so fucking pretty bound and gagged with despair and helpless like this. A single tear rolled down his cheek but I knew it was just pure lust and ache for a final release. I didn’t feel it when I picked up the speed a tad too fast and he didn’t, either. In and out and bliss and sparks in front of my eyes and in my veins. Somewhere along I had started to stroke his dick half-heartedly and knew that it was both not enough and that it had to be sufficient all at once. Our groaning echoed in the bedroom but it was hard to care. Let the neighbours hear it, whatever.

Close to the edge, I leaned forward over his bound body; a few hard, fast thrusts and I was almost there. I was aware that I grazed the soft and sensitive skin of his hard cock in the process. This had to be enough for him; no more fucks to give. He knew what he’d gotten himself into after all. A kiss. Tongues, hot breath, a moan swallowed down from his wet, shaking lips. Warmth, explosion. And something wet spreading between our bodies.

Chapter 02

It had been awkward at first to untie him and clean up the mess we’d made in a bit of a silent contemplative manner but in the end we had pulled ourselves together. Sobered up. I didn’t regret doing this. It had been fun and we’d both definitely enjoyed it. Just gone with the flow and how everything would have played out naturally anyway. We were both adults and responsible for our actions and we wouldn’t have changed anything. It was just that I felt this deep heartache right beneath my rib cage slowly but surely crawling inside my lungs and I just wasn’t able to mend it.

None of us smoked at the window in the dark.

“You don’t regret this now, do you?”

His unsure voice came from somewhere behind me and spoke out exactly what bothered my troubled mind. I knew he’d preferred resting in my arms but I honestly didn’t feel like it and he didn’t complain. “Of course I don’t. It was fun. But it was obviously the last time for real.”

“No need to justify,” he mumbled but without seeing his face I could not determine if he truly meant it. Then a rustling of fabric and footsteps. Careful fingertips on my naked skin, caressing my back and hips. “We’ll put it down to a last goodbye for old times’ sake.”

It ought to have been quite the funny picture really – both of us looking so irrevocably lost and butt-naked in the doorway to my living room; hesitant to say or do anything wrong. The lights were far too bright and I would have loved to turn them off and just go to sleep.

“Thank you for taking me with you tonight, anyway.” As if on cat paws, Hiroki sneaked past me and came to a halt in front of my restless toes. Suddenly right then and there I could not manage to avoid his eyes any longer. They shimmered black in the dim lit room. Then he kissed me gently on the lips; his hands lingering on my neck and jaw but they felt so awfully broken on my skin somehow. It really felt like a goodbye. He was such a sweet boy but I hadn’t experienced anything more than lust with him and I was so sick and tired of feeling only lust. “Masato, I can’t change the fact that you don’t love me. And I’m sure it’s for the best if we don’t meet again. I just hope that you’ll find the one.”

“That’s way too mature, especially coming from you,” I snorted amused but gave him a quick appeasing kiss on his nose nonetheless. I could hear it echo in his cracked voice – that he just wanted to trigger a certain reaction from me. “I mean … such a cliché. I don’t think I’d be able to say anything like that–” to the guy I’m in love with.

“I’m right, though, aren’t I?”

I nodded and strolled past him into the kitchen to pour myself and him a glass of water. Normally I loved late night after-sex conversations but this one required digging so far into my soul that I felt the itch for cutting it off immediately deep in my bones. “You’re probably not wrong.”

“Do you think he means it?”

“Mean what?”

Hiroki leaned on the kitchen counter and watched me intently as I shoved a glass into his hand. “You haven’t heard from him in months and now he appears out of nowhere just like that?”

I shrugged and downed my drink in one go so that I didn’t need to answer him right away. Suddenly I felt the need to drink even more. Maybe another beer or two.

“Will you hear him out?”

“Christ, Hiroki, I don’t know yet,” I spat out and felt sorry for the harsh tone in my voice immediately after. But I did not apologise and instead opted for a calmer way of speaking when I opened my mouth again after that. “I thought you’d quit being jealous?”

The little boy in front of me took a deliberate sip from his glass; his eyes were cast over. I didn’t mean to be selfish or nasty to him in any way but I was also losing my patience. That little bit I’d had in the beginning, anyway. It was getting late and after the orgasm had subsided, there was nothing but numbness in its wake. That was almost always the case, anyway … when you’ve been basing your feelings on lust and passion – there was just nothing to replace it once the craving was gone.

“I’m not jealous, I’m serious. I care about you.”

“Yeah, would you mind and let me make my own mistakes, please?”

I slammed the glass relatively hard onto the counter, maybe a tad too hard because Hiro flinched right as my gaze fell on him. That anger from earlier had not left; quite the opposite had happened, honestly. And I shouldn’t be surprised. “Sorry, Hiro. I don’t wanna kick you out so late at night … but I think it’d be best if you go.”

“Okay,” he spat and his glass followed suit. “It’s totally fine if you’re angry at him or yourself but don’t take it out on me, seriously. I don’t know what you want from him, but London sure as hell seems to be as far away as fucking Narnia.”

Without another word Hiro left to get his things from the bedroom. It took him a short while to get dressed in silence but to me it felt like mere seconds. I was left a bit dumbfounded behind the kitchen counter and stared at the counter with our two glasses on top of it. I just couldn’t manage to lift my head to watch him leave but then the door already slammed shut with a rather loud bang and I was left alone again with my thoughts, still butt-naked.

***

It had been a few days and I still had not called. I couldn’t explain it but for some reason, whenever I was about to dial his number, my mind went totally blank. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. At times I didn’t even know what I wanted in the first place. The reason for calling him, for having his number. I didn’t even know if he was still in Japan. I could figure it out easily, of course. Just text him and get it over with but I just didn’t. And maybe I should listen to my gut feeling this time around.

I had typed and deleted a fair amount of messages already like some sort of schoolgirl cliché but it didn’t change the fact that I could not make out whether contacting him was the right thing to do or would get me into even more heartache trouble. So I kept on doing that for a few more days for good measure.

»Hey, Colin. Sorry for taking so long. Had to think. Didn’t want to call you. I miss you. You’re still in Japan? Masato.«

The last message I tried to send but didn’t, again, because I reconsidered the whole thing and threw the phone into the next corner where it landed somewhere next to me on the sofa. I sighed and rubbed my eyes with both hands. Tour was over, album released, interviews given. Suddenly I had all this free time on my hands and I didn’t know what to do with all of it. I felt overwhelmed if anything. This ringing aimlessness you get after you’d been studying for weeks on edge for an important exam and suddenly it’s over and it’s like you don’t exist any longer. I felt like crawling back into my little hole and don’t emerge again until next spring. Hibernate. And maybe all those problems would magically go away … a man can dream, right?

The thing with remaining in that state was that you didn’t get a single thing done. You’d either want to go big or go home and in my case I’d much rather stay in bed. So even the little things felt like a huge burden; doing the dishes, going for a walk with my dogs, even showering. I didn’t see the point but forced myself to do all of it anyway. I’d had been so fucking busy the past few months that it hadn’t been all that bad – this longing for Colin. But now it had come back full force. Seeing that I didn’t even feel like watching a film, I started googling weird shit and ended up typing in his name.

I mean, what could go wrong, right?

The first few pages were Wikipedia and IMBd; no sign of him on social media at all. Even though I’d known that already of course. Then I spotted a short video clip advertised on Google which looked to be a Trailer of a recent film. Of course I hadn’t heard about it and I hadn’t kept up with anything work related. I’d never actually thought about watching any of his films or shows. Strange? Maybe. Maybe it was because I’d find that kind of weird, too … if it was the other way around. But in the end my curiosity got the best of me and I clicked on the link.

However … to my absolute horror, I quickly realised that it was actually a gay romance and so I panicked after the first few seconds and paused it again. If I hadn’t lost my breath so very spectacularly that I spontaneously choked and had to cough, I probably would have laughed about these ironic circumstances. Once that was done, I buried my face in my hands to calm down my ridiculous bastard of a heart. I hadn’t watched him kill a person, so why could I not take it? Yeah, I had not expected anything like that but even I knew that I was being ridiculous.

“Christ, you’re absurd,” I mumbled to myself and took another deep breath before starting the video again. This time determined to watch it till the end. Hardly two minutes. I could take that …

It was not half as bad as I thought it would be. I did not feel like it was me in there, getting to know him, fortunately. I did not feel like suddenly all the world knew what I was up to. And good thing I didn’t feel any jealousy watching him kiss and shag another guy in front of me. At all. The dialogue was funny and realistic even and once I’d adjusted seeing him like that, I could let my guard down and enjoy looking at his face on screen. It still felt foreign, however. Like having met him had just been a dream after all. Because at the end of the day, let’s face it, I didn’t truly know him and this person on screen was not the Colin I had met. It was yet another figure, someone who was not him but looked it. It was like we had never met at all. The person in that film, Benjamin, was so painfully awkward that I couldn’t seem to connect the dots between him and Colin. He was a good actor. Colin had been rough and well-spoken and bold; so very witty at times that I could not handle him. He’d been huge confident smiles and perceptive touches. But he was oh-so beautiful still, I felt myself swoon and shivers run down my spine. The tips of my ears felt very hot all of a sudden.

Yeah … I should have known that that was a definite way of remembering how we ended up in bed. These days I stopped myself from even acknowledging the fact because it distracted me on such a high level that I did not seem to be able to function any longer. Up until this point, I had refrained from going any further, clicking through seas of pictures and videos; dwelling in past memories and letting the waves wash me away. But this time there was no one stopping me any longer, especially not me and I felt this massive wall that had held onto all of these feelings and it was crumbling fast.

“God, I should not be doing this,” I mumbled to myself and a hot sigh escaped my lips.

In front of me were all the pictures that came up when you typed in his name. Old and pretty recent ones too, it seemed. His eyes were drawing me in and his smile made my heart sink to the bottom of my stomach. All of a sudden I felt his hands everywhere on my body; felt his itching stare and heard his honey-deep voice in my ears. His scratchy beard stubble rubbing my skin a rosy red. I remembered how it was like combing my fingers through his dark hair and how his breath touched my skin ever so lightly.

I searched for that one picture that made me go hot all over but instead clicked on the recommendation that added “body” to the mix and suddenly he was almost naked on most of them. A few weren’t him and some were obviously manipulations but the others caught me totally off-guard. It just added to my memories and imaginations; I could feel my fingers on his skin and rock-hard abs. I was kind of skinny too but I certainly wasn’t as buff as he was, which was funny when you thought about it. He didn’t look the type at all. His face was sort of androgynous and his smiles were open, warm and pretty. You could spend all those hours watching his lips move and being hypnotised by his lake blue eyes … so that you’d never guess what he hid underneath that sweater.

A rugged breath tumbled over my dry lips like an old elevator stopping in its tracks. I had been so frozen in shock and pure bliss that I had forgotten what it was like to breathe through my nose and to wet my lips. The laptop sat on my lap a bit uncomfortably, so I pushed it a few inches away towards my knees. It was easy, drowning in this sea of feelings and shivers if I only let myself. Lust drunken, I slid my hand over my clothed chest lazily down towards where my jeans sat loosely on my hips. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears already and the cold air hurt weirdly in my nose when I inhaled.

He was everything and nothing in my mind right now and that was all that mattered right this second. Different to how I felt when I was with Hiroki. A different kind of pain and a different kind of mind numbness. I liked this one a lot better. I wasn’t angry anymore and I didn’t do this out of spite; it was a kind of bitter-sweet longing and pain deep in my chest. A kind of pain you wanted more of.

It felt heavenly when I touched my hard dick through the fabric of my jeans. I quickly opened the fly and reached inside to adjust it so that it wouldn’t be as uncomfortable anymore. I felt kinda bad that I was about to get off to one of his pictures. But then again … would he mind? It also felt kinda off-limits. Something you don’t do but kind of wished that he’d know about. That he’d watch you jerk off to his face. Something I wouldn’t want him to find out and yet … it was hot.

I first thought about only getting my dick out – low effort – but then I reconsidered and got rid of my jeans and briefs at once. It just felt better and I could relax. I sighed as I fantasised about what it would be like to get rid of all this fabric covering him still and stroking his broad chest. Instead I finally grabbed my cock in a firm grip. I felt my knees weaken the moment I touched myself. It wasn’t the fact that it had been too long for me, it obviously hadn’t. But it was different getting off on the thought of him. It was a different feeling and a different orgasm. I tried thinking about his deep voice and the commands he’d give me; about the belittling but loving names he’d call me. The strength with which he’d pin me down. With him, I just wanted to lose all control and give him all my “yes’s” that I had to offer, not the other way around.

Even though it wasn’t that warm in my apartment, my breath left my tongue boiling hot and little shivers almost had me taken off my shirt as well. I watched my hand tug at my dick and wished it was him all the while studying the hair on his chest and his deep set eyes on those photos. I felt my breath become rapid and my movements faster. It was like a rush; all lights out. My vision grew blurry and I closed my eyes–

But then my phone rang.

“Fuck,” I blurted out, totally startled by the horrifyingly loud sound of the device. I thought I had muted it but here we were – a ringing phone and my dick still rock-hard.

I wasn’t one to ditch a call and it would have felt wrong to ignore it and continue on with my endeavours unperturbed … so I frantically tried to calm down my breathing and my overwhelmed heart and blindly fished for my phone. Why on earth now? I didn’t know any better, I was just so startled and felt eerily caught red-handed. I didn’t even think about checking the caller’s ID or bothering with polite etiquette and just straight up answered the call crimson-faced and hoped the other person wouldn’t notice.

“–Moshi moshi …”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, and then someone cleared his throat.

“Masato, is that you?”

“I–”

I had to swallow a huge lump in my throat twice before I could muster up the courage to say anything that made sense. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, I was sure this was Colin, it had to be …

“Yes. Sorry, who are you again?”

Had to ask. Just for the record. His accent was as thick as ever and the tone in his deep voice sent shivers down my spine. My cock wasn’t hard anymore after this mess but I sure as hell felt ridiculously pitiful with my butt and junk out like that, answering calls from basically strangers.

“Er … it’s Colin. Sorry. Your sudden Japanese messed with my ability to form coherent sentences.”

Yeah. Here I was; sitting like a huge loser naked on my couch and trying not to let him hear my agitated inhales and exhales of far too dangerously needed air. I hadn’t noticed that I had smacked my free hand on my face to prevent him from seeing it, which he obviously couldn’t anyway. Hopefully.

“I–” Again, the sheer loss of my words was astounding. He had to have thought I’d lost every trait of a normal human being. “Sorry, Colin, give me a moment …”

I just couldn’t sit here like that and talk to him as if nothing had ever happened. So I quickly searched for my briefs and pants and put them on before picking up the phone again; this time a little less embarrassed. It made things at least a bit more bearable under these circumstances.

“So, here we are …”

“Yes, I suppose so …”

“How are you calling?”

“How? …I don’t understand.”

I listened to him breathe calmly on the other end of the line. There were no other noises besides our silence, so he had to be somewhere private. Maybe at home even.

“I mean … how did you get my number?” I whispered as though somebody could hear us after all. It didn’t even feel real. Awkward. We’d never talked on the phone before; it had been months before I’d seen him again a few days ago. I didn’t know how to shake this unpleasant feeling off of me.

“You … did send me a message earlier, didn’t you?”

Oh no. Oh no. I couldn’t quite tell him that I hadn’t intended to send it to him, could I?

“Er … yes. I guess so. Yeah …”

Stupid fucking Irish bastard. Even if I’d sent it knowingly – I hadn’t expected him to go full-on nuts and call me right away?! In which world was that acceptable? I scratched my head nervously and waited for his next move. I was honestly as awkward as the next guy in real life, especially in situations I’m thrown into just like that. So this could only get progressively worse.

“I’m sorry if my call took you by surprise. It’s just … I really did miss you, too. And I’d thought about you when I got your message. So I just called.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just didn’t say anything at all. I couldn’t tell if this ache in my stomach was the result of me being happy or not being able to accept what was happening. Maybe I was just weary; suspicious. I couldn’t see through him and it bothered me.

“I’m still in Japan, by the way …”

Obviously, I was still attracted to him. Or else this encounter wouldn’t have been so damn awkward on my side. I wouldn’t have searched for a picture to jerk off to. And if I’d been more careful, I probably wouldn’t have sent the message by accident.

But I just couldn’t bring out a word, so I heard him sigh in the background. “Listen … I’m really sorry for what happened. I can’t make you fancy me and I’d understand if it’s been too long since then. We only hooked up once after all. It’s crazy to act like that after a One-Night-Stand.”

I frantically searched for anything that caught my attention and glued me into place. Anything that could tell me what to say next. What to think next. But I couldn’t find anything. Couldn’t think of a single argument. The room was bright from the shadows of the day and white and grey and black. My dogs were asleep. And the couch beneath me felt far too firm. It was so hard to concentrate. There had been a time when I’d known what I wanted to say to him but it was all gone now. “I’m honestly so bad at this on the phone. You’re still in Japan? Then let’s meet up.”

Breathing on the other end. I couldn’t believe what I had just blurted out and so I bit my lip so hard I didn’t feel the ache anymore after a short second. I knew it was silly worrying about his response when it was him calling me and telling me that he missed me. I just couldn’t help it.

“Yes,” he responded at last and I could hear him ponder over my rushed words. “Yes, let’s do that.”

***

We decided to meet up in Sakae this evening when the sun had already set and had left us with a dark cloak of anonymity. The lights were flashing bright and the laughter of cheerful night owls lay thickly in the early autumn air. That’s why I wanted to meet him in the Sakae Park instead. It wasn’t big or anything, but at least it wasn’t that far away from Sakaemachi Station but also not directly next to Kibo no hiroba, Oasis 21 or Nagoya terebi tō. Sakae was, after all, a busy downtown area and lively throughout the night. But I honestly felt more comfortable talking with him here. Not at home. Not at another Izakaya. It was dark and late and most people chose going shopping or doing karaoke over strolling through a dimly lit park in the middle of the night.

Nervously, I clutched my grey coat closer to my body and pulled my baseball cap down low over my face. It wasn’t that tremendously cold yet but this mild uneasiness in my bones made my whole frame shake and shiver. I was sitting on a small wooden bench and waited for my heart to calm down. Why did it feel like meeting an ex in order to sort out confused feelings after a nasty breakup? Something inside my head tried to tell me that it would go away eventually. I should ignore it. But acknowledging his sudden appearance made it far too real all of a sudden and my feelings started to bubble up inside of me uncontrollably.

I put up my hands to my face to breathe on them; warming them up. They were ice cold. And my heart raced for miles. My feet wouldn’t hold still. Each and every little noise startled me. I was on high alert and I hated myself for acting so childishly. That I couldn’t control my emotions at all. We’d played at the Budokan. We’d made it. Friends, family and other bands we were close friends with came to congratulate us. There were flowers and cards and it was filmed. We’d truly made it in Japan. You know you’d made it when you’d played at the Budokan. We’d accomplished so many truly insane things. We were in our 30’s. But I guess there was still something missing …

“Masato?”

When I looked up, Colin squinted down at me. I couldn’t quite see it in the dark – only the back of his head was illuminated by the street lights and made his face appear even darker – but I’d thought I’d seen a small smile.

“Hi,” I replied as I got up somewhat hesitantly. But there was nothing to wait for. I couldn’t exactly stay here on this bench. The greeting was awkward and it seemed like we both didn’t know what to say or do. I didn’t shake his hand and I sure as hell didn’t try to hug him. He didn’t, either. He had to have been warry after our last meeting. Couldn’t blame him.

“Wasn’t so hard to get here, was it?”

“No,” he shook his head accompanied by the thick accent in his dark voice. Again, a shiver ran down my spine and let the little hairs all over my body stand on end. He was taller than me still, of course, and in the blurry darkness I could sense the outline of his body and it was hard not to touch him right then and there after all.

For a short second I tried to recall all of those strange happenings that had led to us meeting here. Plot twists and incidents you’d only expect to find in films and novels. He’d come to Japan because of me; to find me. I had to keep reminding me of that fact over and over again so as not to make a huge mistake. I owed him a second chance. I owed him that much. And I knew I had to forgive myself as well. I owed me, too.

“Should we just … walk for a while?”

“Fine by me,” I heard him laugh light hearted as though we were planning on going to a tea party instead. Sometimes I worried that he might not feel the same agony I had felt. This longing and itching for his fingertips on my skin. His lips on mine. His laughter in my ears. But I knew I had to rely on my faith this time. He showed affection differently. I knew he cared. He had to.

As soon as we started walking slow little rounds across the tiny park, I felt my shoulders lift and become lighter already. I exhaled deeply and risked a hesitant side glance to try and guess how his face looked but it was just too dark. It wasn’t as cold anymore; maybe because I wasn’t sitting on this cold bench anymore, maybe because I felt the warmth of his body radiating towards me in a soft, caressing brush of air. It was him then who raised his voice softly to speak first.

“I’m sorry you had to come here to meet me, this could have been handled a lot better,” he mumbled under his hot breath with his eyes glued to the path in front of us. He wasn’t unsure, he didn’t sound like it; it was just his accent all over again. “But I want you to know that I’m still sorry about it all. I was so preoccupied with life … I didn’t realise what was happening. Before I knew … half a year had passed. And I couldn’t forget you.”

I swallowed hard and gave myself a few more moments to let it sink in. This wasn’t news to me. I believed him that he had missed me and that he cared for me. That he liked me. I had forgiven him, deep known. I knew it. But I was wrestling with far scarier demons – what was about to happen? What if we liked each other? What then? What would it lead to if we were on the other ends of the world; separated because of work and life?

When I looked at him; when I thought of him … I didn’t think of him as a fling. I longed for him, yes, but there were feelings. Huge, scary feelings. Something I had scarcely felt before. An affair just wasn’t in the picture here. I wanted more. More or nothing at all. So at my age … it was natural to think this far already now, wasn’t it?

“I feel like such a stupid mug, really,” he suddenly laughed into the silence before I could say anything first. It sounded apologetic enough to stop me in my tracks and make me start listen closely again. “I’ve never met anyone like you. That scared me.”

“I believe you, you know,” it broke out of me just like that. And I breathed out exhaustedly as if I had held my breath the whole time. “I think that had to be said. I believe you and I … guess I feel the same. Only that I’ve committed to those feelings a bit … faster. I’m trying to get over myself here.”

“Yeah … I guess we both are.”

During the last few minutes we had involuntarily started walking closer to the other, as if an invisible power had drawn us together. We didn’t look where we were going anymore or didn’t care. We were just walking. And thinking. And sometimes listening to the other’s breathing. Somewhere in the distance the muffled sounds of cars and voices.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you hook up with your ex-boyfriend that night?” he whispered a bit lost and for the first time ever I could actually sense that his feelings for me might just be real after all. Even if it was only jealousy. It was dripping off his tongue and it made me smile and warm me up from the inside. “I know it’s none of my business … And I swear I’m not judging, but–”

“Yes, I did.” Again, I couldn’t hold onto myself. But I also wanted him to stop babbling awkward nonsense. I could sense that he wasn’t used to feeling like this and to say things like these. Even if I wasn’t, either. I tried. “It didn’t mean anything, though.”

“I guess I deserved that then,” he chuckled clumsily and a second later, his hand accidentally brushed mine and he jumped but he did not pull away.

“It’s not about deserving anything or not. I didn’t do that to mess with you. I might have been disappointed … or frustrated. And I guess he was there.”

Finally I risked a fleeting glance at Colin and I could see him nod in the dark. I wanted to be honest with him because that was what it took. The bare minimum. “I see … Well, colour me jealous, then.”

I smirked silently and tried my hardest not to let him see or hear it; I was just so amused by our little conversation that I ignored each and every little voice in my head and put my arm around his shoulders to pull him closer to me. Just as I had done with Hiro that night, only that Colin was far taller than me and his broad shoulders felt heavenly. Finally I could touch him; allowed myself to touch him. And the best part was: I felt him melting under my fingertips as well.

“Nothing to be jealous about, but I appreciate your honesty. We fought again. There’s a reason why he’s my ex …”

I felt myself slowly gaining more control over this situation and my own feelings. It lifted my spirits into the sky and my chest felt like it was about to explode. Something I hadn’t felt for years and years. My fingertips were hot, as were the tips of my ears. I smiled; brightly, until my ears hurt. This felt so right. It felt like he was finally mine. I couldn’t think about all the issues confronting us like swallowed demons anymore. Finally I had made up my mind that I wouldn’t let them tonight.

“I like this …” I listened to him hum; the vibration in his voice ringing nicely comforting in my ears as he nestled closer to me. It was like the ice between us had finally melted into nothingness and had just left enough water at our ankles to make us shiver with anticipation of what was to come. “You know I was at your concert, right?”

“You were?”

“I picked you up next to the venue, didn’t I?”

His words slightly startled me, so I didn’t really think anything of it as I let go of his shoulders subconsciously. We had stopped walking and stood there, in the middle of the street. Somehow, somewhen … we had left the park, apparently. “I … wow, now you’re pushing, huh? … Since when did you know?”

It was brighter now, seeing that we were on an actual street with lots of colourful neon lights and passing cars, so I could see his face; and his dark blue eyes glistened exhilarated, dimples pulling at his cheeks. Dark stubble framed his face nicely. But this time, he didn’t wear a beanie. I wondered. “A while. You know that your face pops up when you type in one of your songs, right?” he laughed with a high pitch in his voice; his eyes almost closed. “That song you were singing back at the hotel? Yeah …”

“Don’t tell me you remembered the lines. We only now published the song.”

“I had tried to search for it before. I found it weird that it never got me anywhere. And then … suddenly it did.”

Silence. I gave myself some moments to mull this over. Had he even found me had I sang a different song back then? Had he even wanted to in the first place? And was that even important?

“You can’t imagine my face when I realised that was you. I felt so stupid. And then … sort of turned on.”

“Oh jeez, would you–” I stumbled over my own words and transformed my first impulse, namely to push my hand hard against my face, into holding his mouth shut instead, literally. Then we both laughed out loud about all the tension and awkwardness and pleasant static in the air between us until he shoved my hand away.

“I sucked you off and came all over your shoes; I bet you can bear to hear some words.”

“Oh my God, Colin …” I smiled unbelievingly as I turned away to continue walking but I was still amused all the same. Funny how I’ve always thought that I needed to be in charge when it was actually the other way around. “It’s just that I … it’s weird, yeah? And then you went to see the concert?”

He nodded. “Not quite my kind of music … but the energy was infectious. I had the time of my life, really,” he again broke out into warm laughter and I felt myself relax into his voice. How could he draw me in so easily?

We walked alongside the street now; people passed us but didn’t look at us. Sometimes they did. Probably because of Colin’s foreign appearance. Walking next to him, I had to have looked more foreign, too.  I didn’t know where we were going, but I was hyper aware that we were now surrounded by other people and the public. It felt nice, however, to have walked out of the pitch black park; at least it was a stark contrast to the street leading to Oasis 21.

“You know … It’s kind of embarrassing to say, but I find it mildly ironic that I fell for a singer.”

Walking next to him, I took a look at his face to see his reaction, but he did not look back at me. Every now and then our shoulders bumped but our hands didn’t so much as brush against the other again. “Why’s that?”

“My newest film … it’s the reason I’d been so busy, honestly. My character falls for a foreign singer, too.”

I smiled as I remembered the trailer I’d watched both intrigued and with a heart beating frantic rhythms of underlying panic … and then got off to one of his pictures. I’d forgotten about it all together. Or conveniently erased it from my memory for a few hours. It’d been a day since then. And now my ears were hot all over again.

“I’ve watched the trailer …”

Now he chuckled nervously and scratched some spot behind his ear like an uneasy cat; but I saw this trivial quirk and had to smile nonetheless. This situation was still surreal and I’d dreamt of living through it. Just talking about anything and everything; telling him my innermost thoughts and sharing with him my fears and joys and everything that I appreciated about him. Being so honest with him felt as though being lifted out of sky deep water. It didn’t happen as much with Japanese people. Not that early on, anyway. But somewhere deep inside of me I knew that I needed that.

“Good, yeah. Good to know,” he nodded at me with a face ripe of mild embarrassment, “I just want you to know that … that that was basically me coming out.”

“Coming out to … who?”

He chuckled again and did a nervous little dance with his fingers which he then stuffed away awkwardly. “The public? I haven’t told them directly. I never do with these things. I’m really just a very private person in general. But I told them that Benjamin was basically me back in my teenage years. I know they understood.”

“Huh …”

It felt like this whole thing had been a huge deal for him after all, even if he’d never say so. Next to me, I could sense his body shake softly, but then it stopped. He wasn’t insecure about his sexuality, that wasn’t it. And yet … this side of him surprised me.

“Why are you so private?”

He shrugged his shoulders just as a couple passed us on the street, but I only had eyes for him. “Always have been, I don’t know … I’m just a quiet bloke from a little rural-like town in Northern Ireland. What even is ‘Instagram’?”

I snickered amused before again taking hold of his shoulders and shaking him gently before pulling him close to my chest for a few long seconds. Then he retreated.

“I know– No, I know what Instagram is,” he laughed as he freed himself from my friendly grip. “Actually, I recently registered … just to follow you.”

“Get out,” I said with a voice thick of disbelief. We had stopped walking and now stood right in front of the UFO-like building Oasis 21, which loomed, blue neon-lights and all, in the background. As always, the place was alive with lots of different people but I still only had eyes for him. I hadn’t expected anything like that and was now rightfully taken aback.

“No … But I’ll tell you why at a different time.”

His blue eyes gleamed excitedly, probably from pure happiness and from all those colourful lights; they tinted his dark hair an otherworldly arctic colour, too, as if he was just a projection inside a video game. But we were facing each other now. He was here and so was I. Smiles bright on our lips and our panting, out of outright devouring excitement, staining the air left and right.

I just couldn’t take this “no-touching-allowed”-flirting any longer now that we were surrounded by people.

“Sorry, Masato,” I heard him mumble before I saw him rush towards me. I couldn’t seem to react in any way, honestly, before he had me tackled into a short-lived but passionate mouth-on-mouth kiss; soft hands framing my face longingly and all. Then he stood right in front of me again as if nothing had happened. White puffs of air leaving our mouths.

One second. Exhale. Two seconds. Inhale. Holding my breath.

I felt the tips of my ears grow hot again and this time I couldn’t say whether out of panic or arousal. Maybe both.

“Are you insane?” I mouthed as I dragged him away from the daylight-lit building and passing people while I frantically looked over my shoulder; paranoid. I knew he felt sorry for losing control so very easily but he did not understand the consequences.

“Look, even ‘normal’ couples don’t do that in public here.” I shook my head and concentrated on the path in front of us, leading us away from all the hustle and bustle.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise … and then it was too late.”

“I wouldn’t have cared so much in the park …” I sighed as I felt my heart calm down to a relatively normal rhythm again the more we diverged from the station. “But look, I’m sure it’s okay. It was just a second and people here usually respect privacy. I’m not a big celebrity …”

I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy after this encounter, nonetheless.

Colin next to me nodded silently but his unusually pale complexion told me he was as anxious as I felt. Different countries have different customs after all. He did not know any better. But this was a delicate topic here.

“Hey, it’ll be alright, cheer up,” I smiled wonkily but cushioned the urge to give him a friendly nudge. “Let’s just … calm down and go to my place? There’s an opened bottle of white wine in my fridge …”

***

“I really don’t know what’s gotten into me, sorry,” Colin apologised for the seventh time this night and made a tensed up face; little wrinkles appeared next to the corners of his mouth. As time passed, I had lost the ability to know what to say exactly because it couldn’t be changed and since I was sure that no one had noticed for real, these icky feelings of unrest and queasiness would eventually subside. Or so I hoped.

So I shrugged and put on somewhat of a strained face myself. “Don’t be. Just remember not to do that again,” I laughed lightly and took a sip from my glass. I deliberately held back on telling him to stop apologising and hoped he’d gotten the subtle message.

Had it been risky to take him with me on the train to my apartment after this encounter? Maybe, maybe not. Celebrities here went years and years without having their personal relationships discovered and suddenly married out of the blue. Granted, usually none of them were gay.

I watched my fingers play with the stem of the wine glass. We were sitting on my huge grey corner sofa; in front of us the white couch table with a view out of the glass front. Around us the soft, dimmed light creating a comfortable atmosphere that made my gloomy thoughts a tad lighter as they retreated to the back of my head but I could still feel them linger there. It had irrevocably reminded me of the fact that I was different after all. That I had told myself that I still found women attractive and that I would eventually meet the right person to marry and have kids with; and maybe I still did … in some way. But attraction in some way was not enough anymore in this case. All I wanted was someone I could go up in flames for and it’d been long since I’d last felt this way about a woman. There weren’t many openly gay public figures around here; not many role models. Here, you either married a person of the opposite gender or you just didn’t. People didn’t go around proclaiming their support of the LGBTQ-community. There weren’t any famous people who used their voices to press ahead the movement and educate the stubborn masses. And I just knew that I didn’t want to be the guinea pig.

“Can I do anything to lighten your mood?” he asked innocently with a small smile playing upon his lips, before he put his left hand on my knee. I was positive that he hadn’t intended it to be received in a flirty manner, but it made me grin in a childish way nonetheless.

With a soft sigh, I leaned the back of my head against the back rest to look him in the eyes sleepily – their colour resembled nothing but recently fallen winter rain. Nothing you’d see often. “It helps that you’re here … That you’ve come back to my place. I appreciate it.”

“And yet … You look as if you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

“I do. But I’m afraid I’m not ready to tell you yet.”

Colin nodded understandingly as he drew back his hand after he had brushed cautiously up and down my thigh a few times. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that all of this felt so intimate; so exciting and yet so familiar. As if we’d known each other for much longer already. He made it hard for me to breathe and my heart agitated. I anxiously took in all that was him; the perfectly straight nose, his dimples when he smiled, his smooth underarms and broad chest hidden underneath that flattering button-down. His slightly too long black locks curling around his ears. He had them set back, he’d told me. They surely weren’t as prominent anymore as in his Merlin-days but I still didn’t quite know what to think of that. I had already met him with pinned-back ears; though, when looking at older pictures, I did find them charming. They’d suited him in a strange way.

“No need to,” Colin proclaimed with a soothing tone in his voice and took a sip of his drink as well. I just loved listening to him speak and watching his lips move; his dark accent was nurturing some inner demon inside of me and I did not yet know if that was a good thing. “But I’ll be listening whenever you want me to.”

By then, he had crossed his legs and our knees were faintly touching; his left arm wrapped around the back rest, so ultimately around my shoulders as well. Sitting there closely intertwined and slightly intoxicated, I didn’t want to think about all of these issues anymore. It felt good, being here with him. I felt safe. As safe as I could feel, anyway. And it felt right. So, again, I tried to shove these thoughts to the back of my head and wondered for a short second how well it would work out this time around.

I saw my chance the moment he carefully placed his glass back onto the table and felt myself dashing forward without having finished my last thought completely. With my hands caressing his face, I pressed my lips onto his’ as though I couldn’t breathe without him and I had to smile against his teeth when he drew in a surprised breath. The body wants what it wants.

So this was it – the final straw. I really did need him to breathe; to live. Who was I kidding? His soft lips on mine felt unimaginably heart-wrenching; like everything I’ve ever longed for. I could feel his teeth hidden behind them with every little peck and bite. Those lips were more delicate than any others I’d ever kissed. They felt foreign and yet thoroughly exhilarating. Nothing I was used to. Our kisses earlier this year in winter had been tainted with lust and desire, and these were too, but they were something more altogether. Longing and affection had been mingling and mixing long before; tucking relentlessly at my nervous system and soul. And finally I could kiss him again, this time with more passion; more lust and feelings and my whole heart on the silver plate but I did not care. Either he took me whole or not. This time, I wouldn’t let him go.

“Now it’s allowed?” he managed to croak out between tongue on tongue and little pecks.

I nodded against his forehead and was about to push him back on the sofa and yelped surprised when he pulled me onto his lap instead. “There’s a right time and place for everything,” I added breathlessly.

“I see,” he mused against my lips; this kiss now gentle and soft and slowly fading into somewhat of a lively game between us. “You didn’t plan this, did you?”

I shook my head no and couldn’t resist the temptation to let my hands wander down his neck to feel his biceps and chest and abs. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever sat on anyone like that before but I liked the unfamiliar rush of excitement shooting through my body like little heat waves whenever I inhaled his breath. I could feel his hard dick pressing against my thigh and eventually became aware of my own jeans being too tight.

Time had honestly stopped in its tracks. My mind was so fuzzy with affection and desire that I probably couldn’t intervene even if I wanted to. I didn’t think about tomorrow anymore; or even about the next couple of hours. There was just the sole and deep urge to touch him wherever I could; to kiss him until both our lips went numb … to hear him gasp my name in my ears. I didn’t want to dominate him – suddenly this idea grew very uninteresting in my mind. For the first time in … ever – I realised why people preferred having sex with people they actually loved.

After a while he loosened his soft grip from my jaw where he had held me to kiss me and leaned back; from under half-closed lids, I felt his stare churn this foreign fire deep inside of me further. A desperate sigh left my mouth. “You look so awfully pretty like that,” he breathed out.

Colin let his thumb rest on my lower lip before letting it wander downwards to feel the pulse on my neck, then stopping at my Vena-Tattoo. Another whimper. I lost my breath. I knew that I was prone to blushing hot when I was aroused and so bothered; but I also knew that my lips had to be swollen as well and that one was new. Colin on the other hand didn’t look quite as troubled. He eyed me up and down with a fixating stare; his rainy eyes clouded with what seemed like craving too; and under it I felt myself and the rest of my restraint melt like the freaking polar caps.

“Will you get rid of your shirt for me, Princess?”

As if hypnotised, I managed a short nod before pulling my white shirt over my head and letting it fall to the floor; the cold air now sweeping over my skin, sparking goose bumps and sending shivers down my spine. I had missed being called like that. For the longest time I hadn’t even realised what that did to me; what that could do to me – the power he held over me simply by using as plain a word as that. I just couldn’t get it into my head. I had used it on Hiro not long ago, more or less subconsciously, but it just didn’t have the same impact, either for me or him. And I just couldn’t quite put my finger on why, aside from the fact that Colin could probably say a lot and I’d still worship each and every word right off his God damn lips.

“You’ve never been handled like this before, have you?”

Again, a weak shake of my head. I heard my pulse in my ears. Then he grabbed my hips to press his groin against mine. While I yelped in surprise like an innocent teenager, he let out a long, satisfied sigh. I felt my ears grow hot. I’d just never been in a situation where I was the sub; where I didn’t know his next move and being ultimately at the mercy of someone else and not in charge for once.

“I bet you’re gonna love it. My cock deep inside you, doll, you’re gonna love it so much.”

His promise, thick with want and anticipation, made me think about how it would feel; how his cock inside of me would feel when he filled me up. I’d never been there. I didn’t even know what his dick looked like. And at the very thought, I felt my heart skip another beat. There was a short exchange of heated glances and immediately after I broke the contact, he pulled me towards him by the back of my neck into yet another kiss. I whimpered and he groaned and with all my might I tried to press my body as close to his’ as I could possibly manage. My hands where everywhere all at once, I’d lost track of them all together. I just knew that his chest felt heavenly and my jeans were too tight and I couldn’t get enough of his breath on my tongue and his nose on my cheek. I just couldn’t seem to get quite close enough, no matter how hard I tried.

Somewhere along the way, he had lost his button-down shirt and he or I, I couldn’t recall, had opened up my fly and now my erection poked out at him quite frankly. Feeling kind of awkward about it, I decided to get up from his lap. But then standing right in front of him, I suddenly had the most amazing view of his broad and well-toned chest and stomach, so I forgot to breathe for a second. He wasn’t as scrawny as he appeared at first glance; which I had undoubtedly discovered in my google image search of him. How could he manage to hide that so well? I was neither lanky, nor was I fat by any means – but compared to him I seemed so small and short.

“Wanted to have a better look?” he smirked and moved into a comfortably sprawled out position on the sofa now; covering practically the entire space. Almost no place for me left to sit next to him. Then, after a while, I boldly climbed out of my jeans and tried not to look too lost and unsure. Because I wasn’t, I was so endlessly excited about this whole thing, I just didn’t know what to expect.

“Come here, beautiful,” he whispered breathlessly, as if in awe, as he softly beckoned me over and eased my doubts in the process. I swore he had to have seen my heart pounding beneath my chest, ready to jump out of it, when I’d finally shuffled close enough so that my feet touched the couch. With loving fingers he took a soft hold of my hips and leaned forward. I held my breath when his lips touched me. He was so confident in what he was doing; it didn’t feel fake at all, almost as if it really came naturally to him. And thus it felt so easy for me to melt into his touches and obey his soothingly voiced demands. Suddenly I knew why it felt so different compared to me ordering Hiro around – Colin did it in such a loving, appreciating way that you didn’t even have time to question it. It was hot, following every request of him that is, but I also loved being treated like something precious by him. I wanted to give it to him all – my undying compliance and the chance of having someone he could protect and care for. Someone who moaned just for him. I felt my heart take a leap at the thought.

“You can answer me, you know,” he breathed and his hot breath warming up the fabric of my briefs made me shiver. Then he looked up at me from under his long dark lashes. “I want to hear your pretty voice,” he mouthed at my clothed erection but I could only muster up a weak nod instead.

Not even slightly bemused, he continued on with his efforts and I was back at the hotel. The lights were off and faint car noises reached my ears. Everything was clouded in a delicate kind of mist and felt so new and exciting and suddenly I realised with a missed heartbeat that this time I was sure that I wanted him; that I wanted this, us, and that there was a chance of him staying. Finally.

“Will you touch me, please?”

Colin chuckled. “I will swallow you down, sweetie.”

I hadn’t realised that my mouth stood wide open but now I was in an urgent need to catch my breath and welcomed my ungraceful expression. With careful hands, he pulled down my briefs and suddenly I stood naked in front of him; my hard cock twitching at the mere thought of him taking me inside his mouth. Even though we’d had sex before, we hadn’t been naked together. He’d never seen me naked and neither had I seen him, but now that it was happening, it felt like pure ecstasy running through my veins. Suddenly I knew why Hiro liked it so much – this faint sense of being at his mercy and at the same time I was functioning as his little doll he could delight in. He could look at and get off to.

Then he finally delivered on his promise and started to lick a tender line up my shaft. I moaned under his tongue and he grinned. My hands now in his hair.  “A cock ring would look so pretty on you, doll.”

I could only mumble something very unintelligible before he was already licking the tip of my cock to make it wet before taking me all in. I instinctively held on to his hair so tight that I had to loosen my grip again when I noticed, though Colin did not seem to be bothered in any way. With half-closed eyes, I watched his head, slowly bobbing back and forth, blur into a mist of blacks and whites, sending sparks through my whole body. He was so insanely good at it that it made it hard for me to stop him. But I wouldn’t have been able to control myself any longer hadn’t I intervened. And Jesus, I would have regretted it.

“You already want more?”

His voice was soft and did not at all sound rigid and as though he’d just deepthroated someone. Smooth like freshly fallen snow and just as bright it was and maybe I just focused too much on that aspect so as to avoid the actual question he’d asked. But yes, yes I wanted more of him. So desperately.

My breath came out at a rapid rhythm now but also wouldn’t slow down. Then he finally took the hint and stood back up. Close to my naked self, he appeared to be even taller. “You know, you have to tell me. I’ll make you comfortable.”

He brushed my right cheek and jawline with his thumb and I felt his breath on my lips. His dark coloured blue eyes, or what I could see of them covered by his thick lashes, were clouded but attentive. Then I nodded. “I want more of you.”

Colin smiled lovingly before he kissed me. Every spoken word directed at him felt like miles and miles of stones falling off my shoulders. It was hard every time, telling him exactly what I wanted, giving in to his dominating nature, but then it got easier every time I’d do it and this rush of excitement whenever he’d flash a proud smile after that, was addicting. It made me smile, too. It made my heart flutter and cheeks glow. It was like training a young dog, really, if you’d think about it. Praise and telling off. The thing was, though, that it worked. I knew about it and I wanted it to work. I wanted his attention and wanted to make him proud.

“Tell you what, princess, you’re gonna hop onto the sofa and wait for me. I’ll go get some lube and a condom.”

Again, I nodded well-behaved and did as I was told. I didn’t quite know how to feel, though. I was so excited to finally feel him but I also didn’t know what to expect. Obviously I’d had anal sex before, just not on the receiving end. I knew how to prepare and how to relax. I knew what he’d do to me, probably. But giving in and just letting go of your control was not as easy as it sounded. So I tried to relax after I had giving him unintelligible clues as where to find all of it.

I watched him stroll into the living room again with slow, confident steps and a smirk on his lips; condom and lube dangling in his hand. His pants were open and rode low on his hip bones; he wasn’t wearing his socks anymore. This ridiculously fascinating view of him almost made me want to hide away again. I didn’t think I was ugly … but he was just so gorgeous.

His smooth laughter in my ears when he sat down gingerly calmed my nerves again. I felt like such a stupid little virgin.

“It’ll be so good,” he whispered into my ear as his lips grazed my skin and his fingertips my cock, his other arm wrapped around my shoulders, “I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it for days.”

My thoughts jumped from him sucking my dick to his fingers fucking me and then his cock deep inside of me. It was pure chaos up in there and so I kissed him to quieten up my lousy head. For one second I thought I’d seen surprise in his eyes but the next second the impression was gone and he was kissing me back with everything he’d got; hand on my jaw and fingers in my hair.

“When I watched you on stage, screaming and growling, all I could think of was you on my cock.”

My heart pounded loud in my ears and even though I felt like that this was my clue to get embarrassed, I just felt so frighteningly turned on.

“I really want to do that before, though,” I hummed soft-spoken, a bit nervous, as I broke the kiss and got to my knees instead. It was not so easy getting rid of his jeans even though they sat so very loosely on his hips. Once his pants and briefs were gone, though, I had to hold my breath. I wasn’t one to judge and, honestly, size didn’t matter to me as an at-least-bisexual-probably-gay-man, anyway. I’d never thought about it this way. But his cock surely was bigger than I had expected. Not large, not 8 ½ inches. But proper thick. Staring at it in somewhat of a state of awe, I couldn’t figure out if I could even take it into my mouth, let alone my arse.

“That’s a can of coke,” I joked and only then did I hear myself and laughed to cover up my awkwardness. Luckily, he laughed too.

“We’ll be careful and we’ll take it from there,” he breathed; voice raspy and low and with his fingers in my hair again. I loved those affectionate touches so very much. His cock twitched while I looked at it and I could swear it got even bigger. But I really, really wanted him inside my mouth, too. All we had ever done was him sucking me off. I just really wanted to know how he’d taste and smell like and how he’d feel. The weight of him on my tongue. I’d never before been confronted with “issues” like these and I had never really spent a single second thinking about anything like that. I’d never had to. But I knew that I trusted him and that I didn’t need to be nervous. So I went along.

I had sucked dicks before of course. I loved it, too. Even though I’d let Hiroki handle the majority of the dick-sucking. It’d been a while, though, but when I got close to him and breathed in this familiar scent, I felt the desire in me build a mountain. My heart jumped just as my tongue touched the underside of his cock for the first time. I couldn’t exactly look up and him in the eye, he had his head thrown back and our positions were too awkward, but I heard him sigh in a low voice and that was all I needed to go on. My hands, that I had been resting on his naked thighs, now moved of their own accord up and down, so did my tongue. It was a hell of a task to get him wet enough for me to finally take him in fully. Wouldn’t exactly be smooth enough dry, but there was just so much surface.

I loved the way he winced when I reached his tip and started to suck on it and felt myself grin so that my teeth touched him only faintly. He looked so breathtakingly amazing like this, I just couldn’t comprehend how I had such a beautiful person at my mercy and in my mouth. And when I first took him full in, he moaned and I felt it grow hot between my legs. I hadn’t been aware that sucking dick could do something like this to you. I literally felt my desire rise to unknown heights and my cock wouldn’t stop twitching. I just couldn’t figure out how to take him fully into my mouth, it would only go so far. But Colin still seemed to enjoy it; moaning, groaning, he held onto my hair and guided me up and down gently. Not too forcefully but still determined. Having such a hard and thick cock inside your mouth was an exciting feeling I’d never felt before. It made my mouth water and honestly look forward to the next part of this. I was so hot all over. So hot and bothered that I didn’t even realise it when he finally pulled me up and off his cock to give me a sloppy kiss. I was gone by then; totally wasted and high on his smell and taste. Eyes hooded, mouth open.

“You want more, don’t you?” he whispered; almost as drunken as I felt. I nodded.

Yes. Yes, right now I didn’t want anything more than me naked on his lap. Feeling his hands wander across my body, hearing his moans and little sighs; crying my name. I wanted to touch his warm skin and burn the image and feel of him deep into my soul so that I would not be able to forget about it ever again. I didn’t know when we could be seeing each other again. And I didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Come here to me, pretty,” Colin slurred and gestured for me to join him on the couch, so I hastily got up and sat next to him. I lost myself in the way he looked at me tenderly; tracing invisible paths we were yet to take onto my skin with his finger. His breath on my cheek and his beard stubble almost touching my skin; tickling. He was so close. My heart skipped a beat. “Just relax, yeah? You’re gonna love my two fingers inside of you.”

I nodded, felt a delicate blush creep on my cheeks, but there was just nothing I could do anymore. My body was not mine, neither was my head. It was as though I had entirely surrendered to him; body and mind. My eyes clouded with lust and drunken with want. Fuzzy. Like cotton wool inside my head. I’d never before experienced anything like it but I knew that I was about to get addicted.

I only casually noticed how he spread some lube on his fingers to warm it up; next thing I knew he started touching me gingerly down there, drawing gentle circles and adjusting me to the feeling. It was foreign, I had to admit, though the idea of it had always been in the back of my mind, so I wasn’t really surprised when it felt better than I’d expected.

I was still lying in his arms, having spread my legs ever so slightly, feet on the couch. He was good at this; still not too forceful and slow enough for me to enjoy it. But there was a certain boldness to it, too. He knew what he was doing and so I could relax into his movements and little purrs of affection and love. His thumb caressing my shoulder and little pecks on my neck. Until he pushed one finger in. But it came naturally, there was no time to be surprised. I’d been so ready for this. If anything, I longed for more.

And so I voiced my displeasure with a soft moan. I wasn’t even able anymore to look him in the eye; I had my eyes closed and closed they wanted to remain. But his finger felt so dangerously on the edge of being satisfying-yet-not-satisfying-enough, the way he moved; pushing in and out and growing faster with every movement. He knew it, I knew he did. He loved to tease me; I could feel his grin on my cheek and his rapid breathing on my skin. I knew he watched me going insane. Until a second finger finally joined. I yelped when he did it but it didn’t feel foreign anymore, nor did it feel uncomfortable. It felt just like it was supposed to feel when you really wanted someone inside of you – immediately and all at once.

I was clawing at his soft skin at this point and it felt far too hot in here. I grew careless, impatient; shuffled closer and closer to him until I almost sat on his lap. I held onto his shoulders and back and hips and chest as though I was afraid I could slip any second. I didn’t know how to express my longing any other way, really. I’d only ever taken anything I wanted, I’d never been depended. But my mouth remained sewn shut except for a few desperate moans that rolled off my tongue so very heavily. If that was how two fingers felt … how would that end?

“Do you think you have it in you to get on my lap, princess? Do you think you could do that for me?”

His voice was honey-sweet with a tint of a mischievous grin but I couldn’t think straight, all I could feel were his fingers sliding in and out of me. “Shut up,” I whispered; not because he embarrassed me but because I just didn’t know any better. My whole being was already so full of him that I didn’t even think another bit of him could fit inside of me. There was just no space left. My heart felt so full.

But then he pulled out his fingers cautiously and wiped them on a tissue. I watched him breathlessly; totally out of touch with myself and my surroundings. I honestly had tunnel-vision at this point. Next he opened the condom wrapper and put it on; watched me watching him. Smiled encouragingly. Then he took the lube and spread it over his cock. My gaze was fixed on his dick. His hand lingered there ever so slightly. We made eye-contact for a second and then he began stroking himself. Slowly, gingerly so as not to mess with the condom, he massaged up and down and I felt my eyes glued to this sight of him. Suddenly I actually felt like I was blushing. At least my ears grew hot. It made me think about watching him like that all the time, until the end, up until he came.

Honestly, there were just too many sensations going on and I didn’t know which one to give my full attention.

“Do you want to sit on me?” he asked in a seductive tone of voice and there was just no way I would have said no. This time, again, I only nodded and followed through.

With a swift motion, I swung one of my legs over his lap while I held onto his shoulders. I felt his cock twitch against my thigh. I couldn’t hold onto me, so I dashed in to capture his lips and he obliged without a word or gesture of resistance or protest. Now that his fingers weren’t inside of me anymore but my want hadn’t been satisfied, I felt the loss of that filled up space deep inside of me. It kind of … tickled. It sparked thunder and flames. It spread throughout my body and just wanted to be complete again. It was just another kind of longing. Why had I ever missed out on that before?

I felt him position himself, taking his cock in his hand to guide it to my butt. I felt him nudging at my skin. I sighed both in relief and excitement. Then he finally pushed in. I had to admit, my first reaction was to hold still and cramp up. It wasn’t uncomfortable and it didn’t hurt, maybe it was just the surprise of it all and the unfamiliar position. But he waited patiently, I could hear his breath leave his lips in weighty waves; hands firmly on my hips and his eyes only looking at me. Now his vision was just as cloudy as mine.

“It’s okay, take your time,” he mouthed at my lips but I could see him shiver and shake; felt him twitching inside of me. Something we had longed for so insanely long and now mere seconds felt like centuries. That’s why it didn’t take long for me to relax again, seeing that it didn’t hurt at all. All I could feel was this space that wasn’t filled up how it was supposed to and so I lowered myself farther down on his cock. Until I had him almost balls deep inside of me. Colin’s groans were so low that they ringed in my ears. He would have probably made a perfect shouter. I just couldn’t figure out where to put all this arousal and lust and want and all-encompassing desperation.

I felt myself claw at his skin again but he just grinned. Brushed a single strand of hair out of my face. My cheeks had to have been charcoal-glowing red by then. All I was able to hear was my heartbeat in my ears and his breathing on my neck. He kissed my tattoo. I yelped. Then I finally started to move up and down and was blinded by sparks dancing across my vision.

God, I should have listened to Hiroki. It wasn’t even the dominance-kick I needed. I didn’t miss it in the slightest. How could I’d been so strangely wrong about that? All he did was filling me up and I’d never been so perfectly happy in my life before.

With his hands on my hips, he supported me in my awkward movements and for a moment he didn’t do anything other than staring at me with a half opened mouth. I was hypnotised by it and it seemed to be as if my legs moved of their own accord. “You look so awfully pretty like that, doll … Oh my God– you don’t even know what that does to me.”

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. It felt so full and complete. The thrill of it all! The affection I held for him. The excitement of the moment. The lust building camps and fires inside of the pit of my stomach. I knew it was spreading. I could feel it in my fingertips holding onto his skin desperately. I didn’t feel the need to say anything and he didn’t push me. He just wanted to let me know and it felt so good. Everything that had been wrong with mine and Hiroki’s interaction. Love was not just a feeling now after all, was it?

Somewhere along the way he had started to carefully thrust upwards to meet me but there was no way his movements weren’t becoming hastier and harder by the second. I had started to hug his shoulders and bury my nose in his neck and hair. He smelled so gorgeous. I didn’t even feel the need to touch myself; I honestly wouldn’t have thought that a dick inside of you could feel enough. It was a different kind of arousal, a different kind of sensation. We weren’t even fully aware of how loud our moans were that filled the room.

Then he kissed me again, deep this time. It became hard to keep up the rhythm as my arousal got the better of me. I was panting by then and he had to have known that I was exhausted. Not from effort per se, but this different kind of penetration just made your legs weak and your breath shaky and so I was glad that he had started to lead this whole thing.

“I want you to look at me when you come, okay?” he mumbled, I almost hadn’t understood what he had been saying; his lips were heavy and his words were slurred. Honestly, he tried to look as unbothered as he could manage but it didn’t work. He was in this as deep as I was and it made me so childishly giddy inside. “Can you do that for me?”

I nodded.  He reached down to stroke my cock. I gasped in surprise.

“You can come all over me too, princess. I want you to.”

My forehead found its way to his on its own. Our hot breath mingled and made our cheeks damp. I just couldn’t describe it, he was so thick and filled me up perfectly and yet it didn’t feel as enormous as in the beginning but it was still so overwhelming. Our rhythm, however, grew more rapid and rapid by the second and somewhere in my head I had the thought that it should actually hurt more than it did but all I felt was pure arousal. We didn’t think about it anymore, it was too easy to just act on it. The harder and faster our movements, the louder our moans became; the more I loved it. By then, we were moving in unison – the way two gear wheels meshed with one another. Like we were made for it. It just felt natural. And soon I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Quite literally even.

“Look at me, look at me,” I heard Colin exclaim forcefully, as if he was actually scared I would forget, but it was too hard not to look him in the eye, anyway. Though, admittedly, it was also hard to keep my eyes open with all those different sensations running through my veins. I alternated between touching his chest and cupping his face with both my hands, I didn’t know where to put them. I just knew that one of his hands was on my cock and the other somewhere on my body, drawing red lines and digging holes.

It all got too much pretty fast. The pressure and friction and heat. And I still couldn’t get as close to him as I desperately needed to. He wasn’t holding off any longer, his thrusts came harsh and deep but I still rolled my hips downwards to meet them. I wanted to make him come. I also wanted to see him come. Our faces were mere inches apart and I could taste his breath on my tongue but his stare kept me from actually diving in to kiss him senseless. I wanted to watch each and every little detail when his features moved to make way for other expressions. To watch his nostrils flare, somehow it made him look even prettier. Realer. If that made sense.

My ears picked up on the change in his voice; his groans becoming deeper and louder. I knew he was close. And now that he’d found the perfect angle and pace to jerk me off, I knew that I couldn’t last any longer, either. Nothing but this mattered anymore and we held onto each other like lovers falling from the sky. I didn’t have to say anything when I was about to come, he knew and held my face in his hand. It was hard keeping my eyes open but the expression in his eyes was worth it all; like a deep understanding and admiration but mingled with this fire still burning in them, it looked so hot. That gave me the last kick, frankly said. That he was watching me closely as I came all over his chest and stomach; the first shot even reaching his neck and jaw, but I only saw it faintly. Like through a curtain. Slowly it began dripping down his sides but he did not stop moving. My body felt so light and insanely hot that it became difficult to move. My heart exploded. I’d never felt so exhausted, my body was just limp. All of these little fireworks exploding in my chest had given me the rest. But now he was close too and I did my best to still meet his thrusts; I could see it in his eyes that me coming had been the last drop, however, and so I watched him close his eyes in ecstasy and scrunch up his nose, mouth wide open. I was in awe. His arms and neck showed his veins as he pushed me further down on his cock a tad too hard and I had to gasp. Now it hurt. But maybe that was because the arousal had been subsiding.

When he’d stopped moving, panting frantically, I cupped his face and kissed him for at least half a minute, I couldn’t really tell. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Those intense feelings rushed so fast through my body so that I felt my eyes well up; tickling. I’d done my best to get as close to him as possible but it seemed like there was no way I could ever achieve that feeling I was seeking. This was as close as it would get. When we parted, he licked his lips contemplatively and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. A short smile.

“I’ve wanted to tell you how pretty you look but I just couldn’t get out a word seeing you like this.”

I chuckled amused, slightly overwhelmed as I didn’t exactly know what to retort, and reached for the tissue box to wipe the semen from his skin. More than I had expected, by the way, we were lucky it didn’t reach the couch. “You’re such a bootlicker, you know that?” I told him finally but didn’t meet his gaze.

“I’m offended,” he laughed and supported me as I climbed off his lap before he made himself busy with taking off the condom and disposing of it. “Don’t act as if you didn’t like being called pretty, beautiful and princess.”

I shrugged my shoulders and hoped that he meant every single word he’d said, every time he’d said them. But I didn’t exactly want to ask him about it. “Yes, I love it.”

Then he laid his arm around my shoulders to pull me closer and I relaxed into his touch; his smug smile strangely underlining the seriousness of it all. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I love that you enjoy it.”

***

“So, you told me you’d tell me why you followed me on Instagram.”

“That was literally two hours ago, Masato,” I watched him laugh and almost choke on his words, obviously still slightly embarrassed, for whatever reason. He shouldn’t have told me in the first place, really. “Isn’t that obvious, anyway?”

“I want to hear it from your mouth,” I insisted with a straight voice. We’d put on our clothes again and were now lying somewhat on top of one another on the couch. No one smoked by the window this time around, either. But tonight I didn’t care. I didn’t want this to end. It wasn’t just comfortable – it made my heart so perfectly full, like there was no way I could ever be happier in any other moment. I felt at ease with the world as I counted his heartbeats silently and realised that they were mine, too.

“Okay,” he prepared himself, straightening up a bit. His hand on my shoulder did a little patting gesture. “When I found out about you and your band … I just needed to know what you’re up to. I liked seeing you, okay? I stared at some of those pictures … maybe a bit too long.”

He’d started stroking my shoulder again with his thumb while I traced his abs through his shirt. Lying here with him and talking about these things felt so easy all of a sudden. Like a huge weight had been lifted from both our shoulders since we’d had sex. Talking always seemed so easy after that. “So you’re saying that you jerked off to my pictures?”

“I … wouldn’t put it like that.”

“Yeah, me neither if I were you.”

Again, he laughed; this time I felt it on top of my head. Then he placed a kiss there and breathed out, making a spot on my hair feel warm and damp. I followed suit, conveniently leaving out the circumstances of our awkward phone-encounter. “I know we’re just starting out but … I can’t help but to think of where this is gonna take us.”

“Where? I don’t know … forward?” He shrugged his shoulders, I nudged him dissatisfied.

“You know what I mean.”

“The distance …”

“Not only that, you know. We’re both busy people. I have my career and so do you.”

I didn’t even think about the possibility of letting anyone know about our steadily increasing feelings for one another; the relationship we were about to build. One problem at a time, they say. When there was no relationship due to distance problems, I wouldn’t have to fear telling anyone, obviously. But that thought lay heavy like a bag of stones in my stomach and closed up my throat. That feeling when you suddenly had everything you’d ever wished for and then it turns out that you’d been mistaken all along … that wasn’t pleasant at all.

“I’d love to tell you that it’ll all work out fine and that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with matters so difficult to resolve so soon. But that’s not what you want to hear, is it?”

“I’ll get us a glass of water,” I answered queasily instead to dodge the question and got up. No, of course this wasn’t what I wanted to hear from him. Although I should have known it, really. This specific issue wasn’t just resolved on its own, that was just not how things worked. We were from different parts of the world and that was it. It just felt so eerily similar to back then when he walked away from keeping in contact with me. Back at the hotel where he wasn’t concerned about how to find me again. He had found me in the end, obviously, but I did not think that he intended to at first. And that stung.

When I came back with two glasses in hand, he sat upright on the couch and took it without a word. Nipped. Watched the floor. I shuffled about nervously because I didn’t quite know what to say or do. I didn’t want to speak it out loud. Then it would become far too real for my taste. I craved the mysterious after-glow from our hotel room; the dark mist that had settled over us like cotton wool. He had rejected me back then, in a way. But I had not cared as much. Mostly because it hadn’t felt real in the first place. But tonight my heart beat so heavy in my chest that it hurt and it made it hard to breathe.

I love him I love him I love him I love him

Then he got up and looked me in the eye – dead straight.

“Come to London.”

“Wha– I can’t. That’s literally where I’ve just been.”

“I mean, why don’t you move there?”

“I– I … Colin, I have a career here. I can’t just move to a different continent, I–”

Silence. He just stared and as he did so, something in his eyes lit up and I couldn’t pull away from that sight.

“Okay.”

#coldrain #my first story #maifasu #colin morgan #masato hayakawa #hiroki moriuchi #myfirststory #masato david hayakawa #hayakawa masato #moriuchi hiroki #fanfiction #smut #MasaHiro #MasaKi #MasaLin

[worldofadvent]

NEO World of Advent Chapter Eighteen

Cero opened his eyes groggily as a hand suddenly drooped down from the side of his bed, smacking him in the face. He felt irritable and unrested, as though he had slept on something hard. Cero felt the solid metal of his flooring with a groan of realization. He had spent the night on something hard. Clover had refused to get out of his bed in a bid of stubbornness. It wasn't as though his bed was made for two people or as if she didn't have her own, entirely unused bed in the opposite side of the room, decorated in whatever girly colors Clover liked.

Apparently decorating her bed was a purely artistic exercise, however, as she had displayed no real intent to ever actually make use of it. He remembered talking about how comfortable it looked to Clover's oblivious comments about how she was used to his instead. He had made a makeshift sleeping bag from what little covers she was willing to relinquish and a pillow, but his back still ached from hours spent on inflexible hard ground. Doesn't she know we can't share a bed anymore, Cero thought irritably as he glared at Clover's peaceful face. Her face would forever look like that, he realized, stuck in between the stage of childhood and her would-be teenage years. It struck Cero that she might actually not realize why they had to use separate beds now after all.

Elves did not breed. They were either created accidentally through electromagnetic interference or purposefully, as Clover had been. Cero brought a fist to his forehead for once again failing to see things from her perspective. She was only about eight months old in real time and had likely never heard of humans' habit of sexual reproduction. His mother had probably neglected to clue Clover in on this facet of organic procreation, and he doubted his Dad would take it upon him to have the "Birds and the Bees" talk. Or, as his mother referred to it as, just The Talk.

Clover really did not relish the idea of having The Talk to Clover simply because she had at last taken on a form that was no longer socially acceptable for him, a fourteen year old, to sleep beside, but it needed to be done. It was fine when she only took up the end of the bed, but now she was too big to fit on merely the opposite side of the cot. She had also taken to getting under the covers, too Cero remembered. His face heated up with the memory of the first time she had snuggled up beside him. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Even though he hadn't convinced her to move out of his bed yet, he couldn't in good conscience sleep in it with her.

Cero decided to make use of his being awake by taking a shower. Hopefully Clover would be awake by the time he was done, and he needed something to take his mind off of it. He turned the knobs in just the right way, relishing the stream of warm, but not unduly hot water in his hand as he tested it. Satisfied with the temperature, he stepped inside. Shower time was a surprisingly productive period for philosophical introspection, Cero had found in the past, and now was no exception.

It was amazing how quickly Clover had asserted herself as his most important person. He loved Ciel and Zero, of course, but they were his parents. They almost didn't count. That besides, there would always be a certain level of distance between them. He'd never had this sort of closeness with another being, not even Sorra or Grey. Sure, they were fun to hang around, but so much of the time they were off doing their own thing to spend time with him. And it wasn't as though the Resistance Base had that many kids to talk to. His age group was a rare commodity inside the Base; Cero was really the only young teenager in the building.

Clover had been his first real friend, he thought with some shame. He heard people talk about hanging out with friends before, but always wrote it off as time spent in the company of those who found each other's company mutually beneficial. He didn't expect the level of urgency he felt to make Clover think he was worthy of her friendship or that he wasn't too boring. Too often he had chased potential playmates away with subjects like Arcadian history or the off-putting level of interest he had in video gaming. Somehow, he had managed to not chase Clover away with his nerdy hobbies, and had even shared them with her by some happy twist of fate.

Well, one of them anyhow. Clover never really shared his interest for history books, but she was every bit the gamer he was; maybe even more so. He could talk to her about things he couldn't talk about or didn't want to with others. He felt less awkward around her, like he mattered when she were in his presence. When he told her that he had a hard time accepting that he was Zero's son, she told him that he was a hero in what way she could at the time. When he was Cero, he was a nobody. Or worse, the son of two legendary heroes whose legacy he could never hope to uphold. As Clover's best friend, he felt like he was actually worth something.

Others had only ever seen his blonde hair and intense blue eyes, too intimidated to look past his parents to see the awkward, stumbling nerd who hated violence but loved playing video games with it. Clover was different. But the same qualities that allowed her to not care about that resulted in her inability to understand basic social convention. For heaven's sake, Cero thought, she thought that if you hid under a cardboard box, that actually made you invisible after playing that game with all the incomprehensible storylines.

Clover was still learning about the world. It was unfair to expect her to know what he did with her relatively little worldliness. He had fourteen years worth of mistakes to learn from, while she only had eight short months inside one small corner of the world. He doubted as though Clover had ever even been outside the Resistance grounds or had ever even wanted to. She seemed content to rule over her small section of the planet with his parents, Hibou, Sorra and Grey, Aunt 'Lou, and the others who stepped in and out of their daily lives. She had no idea how big or scary the world really was just yet.

There was a sound of a video gaming being turned on in the other room and Cero realized that he had been in the shower for a very long time now. He dried off his wrinkly skin and brushed his teeth, spitting out a glob of minty freshness before putting a new set of clothes on. Thankfully he had the insight to take a fresh pair of garments with him before he stepped behind the shower curtain.

"Hey Cero," Clover greeted him as the door opened. Her back was to him as she engrossed herself in some sort of hack n' slash adventure. "Take that, minotaur," she crowed. "That's what you get."

"Hey Clover." Cero took in a deep breath. "Do you know why we can't share a bed anymore?"

"Um no," Clover paused the game. "Not really. If it's about space, I'm sure your parents can get us a bigger one. This one is kinda small, now that you mention it."

"That's not the problem," Cero said. "Two people sleeping in the same bed, especially if they're of the opposite gender… It's not something you're supposed to do."

"Why not?" Clover frowned. "I don't see a problem with it."

"It's not you," Cero said. "It's people. They would probably think we were doing something else in it."

"Who cares what people think? What's so wrong about us sleeping beside each other? It's warm and comfortable, even if you drool in my hair from time to time."

"Because it's what people in a relationship do," Cero explained.

Clover cocked her head sideways, confused. "Are we not in a relationship?" She seemed upset.

What.

Cero panicked, but realized that she probably didn't know what they meant, either. "Not like a friendship relationship, a relationship relationship."

'I don't follow. Am I missing something? I thought we were in a relationship," Clover explained. "I was told that two people in a relationship love each other and spend time with each other a lot and sleep together. Am I wrong?"

"They were talking about people in love," Cero explained. "It's different. Like how Mom loves Dad or how Dad loves Mom. Not like how I love Aunt 'Lou for example."

Clover frowned again; he could tell he said the wrong thing again. "Oh. Well, whatever. Let's go see if we can get more people to join that tournament thing." Her normal exuberance around the subject was deflated, her shoulder sagging. "Maybe if we say there's a prize more people will join."

Cero eyed her disappointment with some concern. Hopefully whatever it was would go away soon, he thought. He knew she wasn't happy about having to use a different bed, but it wasn't up to either of them. She should be back to her normal self soon, Cero thought. If nothing else could revive her natural exuberance, it would be the thought of pummeling their friends in the name of fun, friendship, and brutal pownage.

Downstairs, Cero's father was rubbing his eyes as he held a cup of steaming oil in the other hand. "Hello Cero," he said with a yawn. "Why are you up so early? It's usually noon before we get to see either of your faces."

"Couldn't sleep," Cero said. "The er, bed was too hard or something."

Zero nodded knowingly. "I can relate to not being able to sleep," he said. "Do me a favor and tell your mother that she can work on whatever project she's found herself caught up in during the day, will you? It's impossible to get any sleep with her machines making noise."

"I'll let her know." Cero gave him a questioning look. "So why are you up if you didn't get any sleep?"

"Oh I got some sleep," Zero said. "It's your mother who's managed to spend the entire night not getting her rest. She's passed out on her work desk right now. I would move her, but the last time I put her back in bed, she accused me of messing up some of the equations." The subject was apparently a sore issue for him.

"Aunt 'Lou's the same way," Cero said. "She's too focused on whatever new treatment or cyber elf design is happening to properly take care of herself."

"Let's just say that Ciel passed on a few of her undesirable traits among her positive ones to her sister," Zero said. "I hope you don't follow their example."

"I'll try?" Cero made no promises; it wasn't as if he hadn't spent entirely too much time trying to crack a certain encryption or figure out his own unique brand of hacking. "But you can't blame me if I do. I come by it honestly."

"Don't I know it." Zero nursed a long sip of the steaming oil. "You know, this is supposed to help reploids stay awake. I'm told that the crystals used are freshly ground. I can believe it."

"Does it help?"

"No," Zero said as he threw the mug, liquid and all into the trash. "But it sure tastes like dirt." He walked away, grumbling irritably.

Cero stared at his father's retreating form, wondering if he had just made a dad joke. "Weird…"

"Your father sure acts differently when he's cranky," Clover remarked. "I thought he was immune to morning syndrome."

"Apparently not," Cero said. "I guess everybody has their limits."

"You think we should have asked him about the tournament," Clover wondered. "It might not have been the best time though, come to think about it."

"Yeah," Cero said. "Just let him work it out in the weapons room. He's always happier after he sets a new record for number of bulls-eyes hit in a short manner of time."

"That's a thing?" Clover laughed. "Who's in top place?"

"Dad, obviously." Cero recalled the scoreboard. "He's also second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh place too."

"Not a lot of room for competition, is there?"

"Nah." Cero smirked. "But there's a reason why he's hosting the tournament in the first place; nobody would ever join if it meant fighting him."

The two of them spent the day coming up with clever ways to trick people into participating in their tournament. Clover wanted to have their agreement in really fine print beside some sort of contract, but Cero said it was illegal. And highly immoral, he added, wondering not for the first time if his elf was an evil mastermind in the making.

By the time lunch was ready for them all, Zero had apparently found solace in knocking the eighth ranking tally from the scoreboard and was back to his gruff, stoic self. "Your mother will not be joining us," he told Cero. "She is busy making up for the sleep she denied us both last night."

"I'll try to get her to stop being such a night owl," Cero said, "But I don't think I'll have much luck."

"I doubt you will either," Zero said airily, "But maybe your input will be worth more than the countless times I've told her to get a proper rest. She has an annoying habit of discrediting sources that are inconvenient for her, such as a brain needing a good eight hours' break from advanced engineering."

"She does tend to do that," Cero said. They both knew how she would often find some inherent flaw in a study that got in the way of her abusing her body in the name of science. "Maybe if you frame it right, she'll listen. It's not like she's getting anything done now and your brain does work better with a good amount of sleep."

"Try that," Zero said grumpily. "Maybe then she will listen to reason." He sighed into another cup of whatever he had tossed out earlier. "This really does taste awful. By the way, Hibou said he was interested in that tournament of yours."

"Hibou?" Cero took in the information in bewilderment. "He's the last person I expected to be interested."

"I doubt he is really interested in the tournament so much as impressing a certain someone by being in it," Zero said in a rare expression of derision as he rolled his eyes.

"This is really getting out of hand," Cero said. "At this rate I'd be surprised if she doesn't know. He's done everything short of actually talking to her."

"Oh I'm pretty sure Allouette remains blissfully unaware," Zero said. "It would take something pretty drastic for her to put her nose in anything other than that clipboard of hers."

"Which is good for Hibou I suppose," Clover said sadly. "It's lonely loving someone without knowing if they love you back."

Zero took a careful sip of coffee-oil. "It might be for the best."

Clover shook her head defiantly. "No. He should fight for her affection."

"Maybe," Zero said. "Just so long as he is prepared in case she does not feel the same way about him." Clover huffed in an uncharacteristically sour mood.

"What was that about?" Cero looked at Clover in concern. "It's not that big of a deal; I'm sure he'll get around to it eventually."

"I'm sure he'd make for a good relationship," Clover said, "If Allouette would just give him the chance. Don't you agree?"

"Yes?" Cero looked to his father for support. "Am I missing something?"

"You'll figure it out," Zero told him. "For now, I suggest you go hit Colbor and Faucon up and see if they want to join the tourney. I saw them practicing in the target range earlier."

"Probably to knock someone else's record off the spreadsheet again," Cero said amusedly. "You know you're the reason why Mom has to keep resetting them, right?"

Zero said nothing, just hummed and tapped the table. "You should hurry," he said eventually. "They might be headed up to eat soon."

"Alright." Cero wished his father a good day as Clover tugged his arm toward the exit, unsatisfied with his normal walking pace. Soon, they were sprinting to the elevator shaft, where they took to the munitions firing range, or MFR for short.

"Hey there Cero!" Colbur waved them over as Faucon's eye remained fixated on his own targets. "Come to practice your aim?"

"Nah," Cero said. "I wanted to ask you guys a question. Would you be interested in joining a tournament of ours?"

"It has a million prize zenny," Clover added quickly.

"No, it doesn't," Cero said smoothly, shushing his duplicitous friend. "But it should be really fun. Kind of like the Grand Serena."

"Sounds fun," Colbur said. "I can't speak for Faucon here, but I'd be interested in joining." There was a clatter as Faucon let his rifle down.

"Sounds fun," he said. "I was trying to make it on the scoreboard this time before Zero filled it completely up. I guess I'll have to settle for ninth place. Oh well," he said as he admired his handiwork. "In a way that makes me second if all the other scores are your father's."

"Speaking of which," Cero said, "Wouldn't it be simpler to just update the first place instead of posting the top scores in succession?"

"Oh yeah," Colbur said. "Totally. But every time we bring it up, it gets rejected by the MFR Committee."

"Who's in the MFR Committee?" Cero had never heard of it before.

"Zero," Faucon said. "Just Zero."

"That explains a lot, actually." Cero eyed the first eight scores with a shake of his head. "I guess being a legendary maverick hunter isn't good enough for his self-esteem."

"Don't tell him we said this, but your Dad can be a bad sport sometimes," Colbur said. "I respect the guy - I mean, who doesn't? But it'd be nice if we could be at least second place at something for once."

"You could sneak down when Ciel changes the scores," Clover suggested. "That way you could be first for a bit."

"Zero decides when they get taken down and Ciel only makes him do it when they're all in his name." Colbur sighed. "He's a monster."

"Maybe we should try our luck in one of the Arcadian shooting ranges," Faucon said dejectedly. "At least Zero probably won't hog up the scores for himself there. Neo Arcadia has to be notified every time he sets foot in the city limits," he explained.

"Really?" Clover sounded surprised. "I thought we were on good terms with them."

"We are," Colbur said. "It's just that he kind of counts as a 'Weapon of Mass Destruction' and was on the Most Wanted list for a good number of years. Seeing him roam the streets might make people nervous."

"What's the city like?" Clover looked deep in thought. "I've never been."

"It's big," Colbur said. "It's not like the Resistance, where we all know each other from somewhere. A lot of the people there won't ever see each other after passing by. But there's some pretty neat stuff if you're willing to work around all that."

"I do like neat stuff." Clover tugged at Cero's sleeve. "Hey, can we go?"

"I'd have to ask Mom," Cero said. "She said to ask her if I wanted to visit the city."

"Then what are we waiting for!" Clover tugged harder. "Let's go!"

"See you later," Faucon told them. "I'll see if I can get the tenth spot in the meantime."

"On no you don't," Colbur said through the lens of his own rifle. "That one's mine." The two bantered good-naturedly as Cero and Clover made their exit, both signatures secured for the tournament.

Clover hovered by Cero's side as he clutched his mother's door handle hesitantly. "What are you waiting for? Let's go."

"Quiet," Cero hissed. "I don't want to catch her in a bad mood. If we wake her up, she might not let us go." He creaked open the door gently, allowing only a trickle of light to alert her of their appearance. "Mom?"

The room was already lit, its sole occupant scrambling to cover something up before realizing who was at the door. "Oh good," Ciel said, holding a pencil to a sheet of paper. "I thought you were your father for a moment there."

"What are you doing," Cero asked suspiciously. "Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"

"What your father doesn't know won't hurt him," Ciel said. "It's just a few harmless equations. I'll go back to bed once I'm done."

"Right..." Cero said. "Well, I was wondering if you could let us have a transfer to the city. If you're too busy, I could always just ask Dad…"

"No!" Ciel cleared her throat. "No, that won't be necessary. You can go. Just er, be sure not to let it slip that I wasn't getting my forty winks, will you? Here, have some pocket money for your trip." Ciel passed him a wad of bills with a wink. "If he asked, I was asleep."

"How would you give us permission in your sleep?" Clover pointed out the obvious flaw in her plan.

Ciel frowned. "Tell him you woke me up. I wasn't happy, but you pressured me into letting you go. Have fun! Now if you'll excuse me, I have some solutions - er sleep, to get back to." She shut the door with a guilty wave of her hand.

Cero closed the door. "I feel dirty," he said. "I was supposed to get her to sleep, not get bribed."

"Who cares," Clover said brightly. "I don't mind being the dirty cop if it means going outside for once."

"You know," Cero said. "I think you'd make an excellent villain."

"You really think so?" Clover seemed to take it as a compliment. "I've tried looking for games where you play as the bad guy, but they're so hard to find."

Cero rolled his eyes. "I don't want to have to be the guy who has to save the world from you," he warned. "Don't go all villainy on me."

"I wouldn't try to take over the world," Clover told him. "That would be too much work. I'd be content with some kind of gang, like the mafia."

"Oh good," Cero said sarcastically. "So long as it's just the mafia, that's fine." The conversation turned into a debate over the morality of antiheroes as they made their way to the transerver. "Hey Rouge," he greeted the operator on duty. "Mom said we could go to Neo Arcadia."

"Did she now?" Rouge picked up a phone. "Let me just check with her real quick."

"She's erm, sleeping." Cero felt the lie slip out with a internal shudder. Maybe he wasn't that different from Clover after all. "Best not to wake her."

"Okay," Rouge said. "I trust you. Are you two ready for transfer?"

Cero turned to Clover. "Are you?"

"I think so?" Clover looked up at Rouge. "How do you get ready?"

"Just stand still," she advised them. "The motion sickness will wear off in a minute."

"Motion sickness?" Clover latched on to Cero tightly as blue waves appeared around them. "What motion sickness?"

Cero found himself beside a very woozy cyber elf a second later. Clover groaned into his shirt, as if smothering her face in his sweater could block out the feeling of nausea. "Are you okay," Cero asked. "It takes a bit of getting used to."

"I think I'll take the train next time," Clover said. "That was not my favorite way to travel."

'It's fast though." Cero looked around them, at the tall spires and endless waves of people passing them by. "Nothing beats teleportation."

"I think I still need to put a few skill points into my transmission abilities." Clover groaned, but was steady enough to look around on her own. "Big place."

"It gets bigger." Cero jumped back as someone whizzed by them on a Slider. "Watch where you're going," he called out. "Maniac."

"We should hold hands," Clover suggested.

"Yeah," Cero said. "I wouldn't want you to get lost in this place."

"Yeah, that's it." Clover cleared her throat. "So, where are we going?"

"Anywhere we want to. There's an ice cream shop if you know what that is. It's kind of sweet and they sell E-Crystals of the same flavors."

"I know what ice cream is!" Clover explained that even though she can't digest human food, she liked to taste it from time to time. "Someone left a tub of it in the cooler," she said.

"Well you can actually swallow this stuff." Cero directed her to the Iron Maiden, a rather risque shop depicting a female reploid in a seductive pose. Clover raised an eyebrow at him.

"Mom doesn't have to know," Cero said. "It's just a decoration anyway. The food's really good."

"I suppose Ciel doesn't have to know if ice cream is involved," Clover said. "Lead the way!"

Inside, Cero found himself hoping that he went unrecognized, but was soon disappointed as a few Advents sitting at a nearby table pointed at him excitedly. "This is a popular hangout for Advents," he said. "It sells human and reploid food."

Cero and Clover waited their turn at the counter until the clerk took a good look at Cero and called his manager over. "Are you that Resistance Kid," the manager asked Cero. "You look just like him."

"Yeah," Cero said, rubbing his neck. He actually hated it when people called him 'Resistance Kid.' It reminded him that no one took the time to see him as Cero. "It's Cero, though. Call me that; it's simpler."

"Alright Cero," the manager said. "I'm Reggie. What can I do for you?"

"I was hoping I could get a banana split," Cero said. "What do you want, Clover?"

"I'm still deciding." Clover's eyes browsed their selection intently. "Hey, what's chocolate flavor?"

"Are you two on a date?" The shopkeeper watched Clover with some amusement. "I don't remember seeing her before."

"No, nothing like that," Cero told the man. "She's my elf. Are you done deciding?" he asked Clover.

"Not yet," Clover said. "What's in Moose Tracks? What's a moose?"

"Just get chocolate," Cero advised her. "It's a good flavor."

"I need to make sure I get the right one. Do you have samples?" Clover spent the next fifteen minutes sampling every flavor they sold. Cero's two scoops of vanilla were already melting by the time she made her selection, the chocolate flavor Cero had suggested from the start.

"Hey man," a table of Advents called them over. "My name's Tom. Are you the Resistance Kid?"

"He likes to be called Cero," Clover said through a mouth of chocolate flavored crystal. "This is good. Do humans have something like this?"

"Yeah," one of the people at the table said with a snicker. "It's called chocolate." One of his friends gave him a high five. "So Cero. What's it like having Zero as your old man? I bet you know all kinds of sick moves."

"I don't actually like fighting that much," Cero admitted. "This is Clover, by the way."

"He's my Advent," Clover informed them. She made a sound of ecstasy as she chomped on another mottled brown crystal.

"He's your Advent?" He turned his attention back to Cero. "Are you sure you don't know any badass sword swings?" He held out a hand for Cero to shake. "That's lame. But it was nice meeting you, kid. And uh, elf."

Cero shook it, ignoring the glare Clover gave him as he did so. They found an empty table, where she ignored his presence in favor of sweet, sweet cocoa. "I can't correct everyone I meet, Clover." Cero munched on a piece of candy in his banana split. "It's not like the whole world knows you don't like being called that."

"It's the way," Clover began but shook her head. "I guess it doesn't matter. But how is it okay if I'm your elf, but it's weird when you're my Advent?"

"People are weird. Look, I'm sorry. I don't feel that way, but I can't go arguing with everyone who does. Besides, that would make the Resistance look bad if I did."

"Alright," Clover conceded. "I guess that makes sense. You can buy my forgiveness with another one of these." She popped the last crystal in her mouth, eyes rolling back in pleasure.

"I'll get you vanilla next," Cero said. "Those are the classics."

"I shall defer to your expert opinion." Clover swung her feet back and forth in anticipation of more sweets. Soon, she was busy debating whether she liked the sweet but subtle flavor of vanilla or the rich creamy sensation that only chocolate could provide. "It's so hard to choose," she said. "Hey, what's that?" She pointed to a shop filled with icons like keychains with the main characters of Spellblade hanging off the edge or wallets depicting a certain kind of animated show.

"That's just a pop culture shop," Cero said. "They're a dime a dozen."

"It's beautiful." Clover was already immersed in the waves of cheaply made trinkets and accessories. Soon, Cero lost her in the sea of merchandise. On the other end of the shop, she called out his name. "Cero, over here! Look what they have!"

"Keep it down," Cero told her. "You have to be quiet inside of stores, even if it's like this one."

"But it's the Forest Spirit's cloak," Clover said excitedly, pointing him at a set of robes worn by a female mannequin. "No way. It's the whole thing!"

"Yeah," Cero said. "It's called a cosplay. People dress up as their favorite characters and go to conventions in these."

"You knew about this?" Clover pointed an accusing finger at him. "What else have you been holding out on me?"

"It's just a costume," Cero told her. "And there are a lot better ones than this one." He could see his words were lost on Clover as she got the shop clerk's attention.

"How much is that one," she asked. "The Forest Spirit cosplay."

"It's a little expensive," the clerk said. "Do you have three thousand zenny?"

"Cero," Clover said desperately, "How much did Ciel give you?"

"Not that much. Besides," he said, "I'd be in trouble if I spent it all at once. Let's leave; there are cooler places to visit."

"Wait," she asked the clerk. "Do you accept autographs for discounts? I know Zero. He's this guy's father."

The clerk rolled his eyes. "Sure you do, miss." He walked over to help another customer. "She knows Zero. Yeah, right."

Cero glared at her. "You know I hate it when people use my name like that. What gives?"

"Sorry Cero." Clover looked genuinely remorseful. "I got a little excited."

"It's okay," he said. "I just don't want people to actually ask for an autograph. It's like people expect me to carry his signature with me everywhere I go."

"I won't do it again," Clover promised. "But I do want to keep looking around. What's this?" She held up pen with the head of the six headed samurai stuck on the end of it. She pressed its head and it lit up. "Ooh, shiny."

"You know you can do that with your entire body, right?" Cero reminded her that she could turn herself into a minor beacon at will by using one of her animal elf traits. "How does that excite you?"

"Don't ruin this for me," Clover said. "I want to revel in neo-capitalistic glory for a bit before I become cynical and boring. Like you," she added with a playful poke.

"Forgive me for losing my mind over a pen with a head on it," Cero said. Clover gave him a pouting look that let him know she wanted it.

"Please, Cero? I'll be your best friend."

"You said I already was." Cero folded his arms. "I'm not buying that."

"Please?" Clover cranked her puppy eyes up to maximum voltage. Cero sighed. Soon, the two of them left the shop as Clover clicked the pen nonstop. "I wonder if they sell more of these."

"Please don't." Cero groaned, but couldn't help but smile at Clover's giddy expression. She was a true force of nature, doing as she pleased with hardly any regard for what others thought about it. "Come on, take my hand. I don't want Mom to worry if we've been gone for too long."

Clover took his hand happily, humming a tune that the shop had played in the background. She swung the two of their arms back and forth as they waited for the return transfer.

#megaman #megaman zero #mmz #capcom #ocs #long story #fanfic #fanfiction

[fountainpenguin]

Did you know that Youngblood was played by Taylor Lautner - a.k.a. Jacob Black, the werewolf from the TWILIGHT SAGA?!

Yep! I looked it up.

There’s a joke in the next part of “No Anesthetic” where Y.B. and Sitarist talk accents and make the obligatory voice actor joke. It’ll be several months before it’s up (since “No Anesthetic” is on hiatus for now, but I really wanted to get one chapter done because it would have bothered me otherwise), so I’ll pull up a nice chunk. It’s very much a rough draft in this stage, but I’m kind of liking it.

I grew up in Georgia so that’s a direct reference because IF I HAD NICKELS

“I can catch lobsters too, with the right traps. I’m from Maine.”

“That the case? You don’t sound like you’re from Maine. I’d have guessed Michigan.”

“Well, what did you think Mainers sound like?”

“Heavy on the ‘ayuh’s and sharp on the ‘ing’s.”

With a shake of his head, Sorrel plops down on the rock beside me. “I say ‘ayuh’ sometimes, but I read a lot of books, and if there’s a Mainer in it, the author usually milks it too much. Me, I grew up there, so it pops out when it feels right but I don’t think about it a lot.”

“I shouldn’t judge,” I say as an afterthought. “Before I ended up in the Ghost Zone, I grew up in Georgia.”

“Heh. You don’t sound very Southern, so I never would have thought that. Let me guess: ‘Nobody actually talks like that’ there?”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, you have no idea. In all my years, I think I met one. Maybe two.”

Sorrel nods, briefly going cross-eyed with concentration. “I guess we shouldn’t say nobody talks like that, but people also shouldn’t assume everyone talks like that. Every place is a big place with many people, so each person talks a little different from someone else, and we should all just say ‘Okay’ and live our lives, ayuh.” Then he freezes and looks at me. I hope he doesn’t notice the smile behind my paws.

“I’ll let that one slide. But if you say ‘different from’ instead of ‘differently than’ again, we’re going to have a lengthy talk about your grammar.”

“Geesh, I’m only eight.”

My smile fades. “Yes, and get used to that. Since you were born in the Living Realm instead of this world, you’ll be this age forever, unless you think you can be the first to uncover the Elsewhereness.”

“Oh.” He scratches his chin. “In that case, I want you to know I’m actually eight and a half, so technically almost nine, and since it’s above five, you could round it to ten.”

“I’ll make it a note,” I reply through a yawn. “Give it a few decades and you might lose the accent and take after mine. I’ve heard it’s during your teenage years that the speech patterns really set in.”

“Take after yours?”

There’s an awkward silence for at least thirty seconds, and I spend all of it mentally cursing myself for letting that slip out of me. “The Ghost Zone is a melting pot of cultures and time periods,” I correct myself. “You’ll meet many interesting sorts here, and they all begin rubbing off on you after a time. For example, what decade was it when you last remember being alive?”

“Decade? Uh, the 1960s.”

“Curious. We have ghosts drifting about from the 1990s, 2010s, 2017s- Oh, those fellows have interesting stories to tell. A good friend of mine from… I want to say the late 1800s has been stuck on an admittedly hotsy-totsy tomato” - for a human - “who recently arrived here from the 1980s, actually. Not that she’s noticed him yet, and frankly I doubt she ever will. If they ever do get pinned, remind me that I owe you a handful of [_unnamed ghost currency]. You’ll have to meet him one of these days. He’s a real… cool cat.” They could have long talks about their hair and/or fur colors changing from red to green upon passing into the Ghost Zone… I could curl up in front of his fireplace… Yes.

His eyes light like firecrackers. “That is so cool! So the world doesn’t end before 2000? Do we colonize the moon? Or Mars? At least tell me we’ve got remote-control lobster traps. And I bet the pranks would be wicked good.”

“I’m afraid I don’t keep up with this sort of thing. _I was a bird[_?] in the living world, remember. You’ll have to ask one for the line when you find him or her.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to do that. I love stories. But if you say ‘hotsy-totsy tomato’ again, then you and me are going to have to talk about your grammar.”

“‘You and I’.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s also slang, not grammar, per se.”

“Ugghh, you are the worst, and that’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.” Sorrel folds his arms behind his head and leans back. A moth flits up and lands on his toes as his natural glow ebbs and wanes. “So… how did you get to the Ghost Zone anyway, Sit?”

Tl;dr Yes, I know my favorite characters’ voice actors, son.

#Anon #asks #YOUNGBLOOD! #Sit the skelebirb #No Anesthetic #ridwriting #Going Ghost! #99% true as far as we remember