#but if it ends up being phantom shuffle it's because it stuck in my brain with little claws

[rindomness]

i merely believe she should be allowed to go apeshit. supporting women's wrongs etc etc

#rin draws stuff #persona 5 #im considering very tentatively calling it phantom shuffle au #but i know if i start calling it that i wont stop. so name is still up in the air #but if it ends up being phantom shuffle it's because it stuck in my brain with little claws #anyway. it's fun. it's very fun. #and justice haru deserves the world. and to kill whoever she wants in it #phantom shuffle au

[sunsetcurvecuddles]

assuming you're still doing the prompts and i need more of this in my life so

touch starved willie ft willex?

hiii i'm So Sorry How Long This Took but have exactly what the doctor ordered <3

i've been bruised by your light | 1.6k | willex + willie&julie&the phantoms | G

--

Usually, arriving at the studio is the strangest mix between utter, overwhelming chaos, and finally feeling like he can exhale. On one hand, Willie’s arrival is greeted by a blended cacophony of tuning instruments and varying amp volumes, interrupted by cheers when someone notices his presence. The song crash-lands as Reggie yells in delight, Willie!, and Julie twirls around, lights up, almost trips on her microphone cord.

Luke complains about stopping halfway through the song, but with this huge goofy grin on his face, the kind that proves to Willie that Luke actually isn’t mad in the slightest because two moments later he unceremoniously dumps his guitar on the couch to bound over to Willie, hands outstretched, palms up. (The way Luke Patterson acts, you’d think no one had ever hurt him before.)

Finally, once the others have stopped bounding around like puppies with guests, Alex will navigate his way out from behind his drum set. His bright, nervous smile will make whatever Willie risks by coming to visit utterly worth it.

And, well. If the memory of the way they all tackle-hug him, right there on the Molina’s driveway, keeps Willie going on the days when he doesn’t think he can stand it any more, all the sneaking around and the glancing over his shoulder and the cold sweats when Caleb looks at him a moment too long -- then that’s unrelated, probably. If the only way he can hold himself together is by taking a moment, late at night in his own room, to close his eyes and envision these moments, with arms around him and chatter above him and elbows in his ribs and he doesn’t even care, where he’s surrounded by friends and their excitement and love, where his body feels real and the ache that seems to haunt his chest temporarily abates -- that’s his own business.

Today, though, when Willie arrives at the studio, he’s primarily met with an eerie silence. He knows the silence itself contains nothing ominous, and that his own afterlife experiences has left him predisposed to dread, but still. He can’t help the prickling down the back of his neck when he appears outside the studio to no sound at all. Immediately, his brain begins producing worst case scenarios: Caleb found out. Caleb found out and has taken them all as punishment. Someone scarier than Caleb got there first.

He pushes these thoughts aside, and takes stock of his surroundings. He can’t see any signs of a struggle, not that a ghost-struggle would leave many signs. The door is propped mostly closed, but it opens easily when he pushes against it. So he opens it with one hand, the other curling into the hem of his sweater.

The sight that greets him floods him with relief, like warm water dumped over his head, like surfacing out of a pool when he’s held his breath too long. At the same time, it fills him with a longing that strangles him all over again.

It looks something like this: Julie and Reggie are cuddled up on the couch, in a tangle of limbs so tightly intertwined it’s impossible to tell where one vocalist begins and another bassist ends. Reggie’s hair is all messy, like he never lets it be when he’s awake, and he’s drooling slightly. Julie’s still in her exercise gear, so Willie guesses she had dance in last period at school or she just got back from working out with Flynn. Regardless, her clothes have sweat-stains and her cheek, pressed to Reggie’s arm, is all squished up so he can hardly see her face. Luke is plastered on top of the pile, spread across them like a weird impractical blanket, snoring.

And at the end of the couch, bearing the not-inconsequential weight of three pairs of legs across his lap, Alex sits, head tilted against the back of the couch. Always the lightest sleeper of the group, though, Willie has barely drawn a breath in the studio before Alex is squirming, rubbing one hand across his eyes and sitting up, blinking against the light spilling in from the open door. He looks unfairly adorable, and on top of the relief, it makes something in Willie’s chest both soar and ache.

“Willie?”

Alex whispers, but his voice seems to echo in the space. It’s a great practice room, Willie thinks, with these kinds of acoustics. The others don’t stir; Luke carries on snoring just as steadily as before, and Julie doesn’t move. Reggie’s nose twitches, but maybe it would have regardless.

“Hey, hotdog,” says Willie.

Right away, Alex asks, “Are you okay?” even though he’s still waking up and even though, to Willie’s own ears, he sounded level and casual and fine.

Willie takes stock of the shaking in his fingertips, the deep pond of hurt in his chest that seems to spring up from inside him whenever he isn’t distracted, the cold sweat of relief down the back of his neck. Thinks that these things should have ended when his life did. “Yeah, man” he answers. “Just didn’t know where you guys were, couldn’t hear the, y’know--” He makes a little high-hat noise with his mouth, just to see Alex’s nose scrunch up in response, “--from outside, so I thought you might be… somewhere else.”

Alex tilts his head, looks at Willie through slightly narrowed eyes. Then says, “Are you cold?”

Shit. Willie drops his hand from where he was rubbing the inside of his elbow, because he hadn’t even noticed himself doing it in the first place. “A little, I guess.”

Alex reaches for him, before looking down at the legs still stacked high over his body, and frowns, in such a comically put-out way that Willie stifles the urge to laugh. His body hums, the relief and the shakes easing off but the ache, the whirlpool chasm inside him opening up deeper. Usually that feeling is gone, once he’s here with Alex, with all of them. Once they’ve all rushed up to greet him, once he’s been knocked flat by their overenthusiastic hellos, like he’s just entered a puppy daycare.

“Here,” Alex says, shuffling down the couch a bit so that there’s slightly more room on his lap. “If you can sit on the arm?”

Willie gets the idea. The arm of the couch looks pretty sturdy, despite its age, and technically Willie is a ghost, so he’s not sure if he weighs anything at all to a piece of furniture. So he sits, sideways along the arm of the couch, and Alex wraps an arm around Willie’s waist, fingers curling into Willie’s hip.

All at once, the feeling, the one that’s usually gone, starts to ebb and fade, like it’s washing away. Willie caves to the instinct to tuck himself closer, presses along Alex’s side until they’re connected from shoulder to knee, and tries not to let the desperation for it show, tries not to crumble apart altogether.

“How long do you have?” Alex asks, voice barely a murmur into Willie’s hair just above his ear. Willie sighs out a longer breath than he meant to.

“Not -- not that long,” he manages.

“How long?” Alex checks again, his thumb swiping up and down Willie’s side rhythmically in a way that lulls Willie under, makes him rest his cheek on Alex’s shoulder before he can even think about it.

“Like, an hour?” Willie lets his eyes close as Alex runs a hand through his hair, not even flinching when Alex’s fingers get stuck a little at the back of his neck and he has to tease out some tangles to continue. “Maybe a little more, but not a lot more.”

Alex presses his face into Willie’s hair. He maybe kisses the side of Willie’s head, but Willie might have imagined it. Luke wriggles a little in his sleep, and it doesn’t burst the bubble Willie had created in his head, more expands it, opens it up just a little more so that instead of it just being Willie-and-Alex inside of his ball of safety, it’s Willie-and-Alex-and-Julie-Luke-Reggie.

“Okay,” says Alex easily. Then, softer, “I’m really happy to see you.”

“You too,” Willie whispers back. He’s turning to goo, he can feel it, as Alex rubs the hand from his waist up and down his back, while the other continues to gently detangle Willie’s hair. He feels… dopey, almost, exhausted from the huge rush of feelings and then the series of reliefs, one after another. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Wanna actually see you, not sleep.”

“Please relax,” Alex murmurs. “I’ll wake you up before you need to go. I’m just glad you’re here with us.”

Alex feels like a blanket, Willie thinks blearily. Or not like a blanket, but the feeling of being with Alex is like the feeling of being under a wonderful blanket. On the inside of Willie’s chest, they feel the same.

Soon enough he’ll have to go back to the club. Prepare for the show that night, make small talk with the other staff, pretend to Caleb like today is any other day. Before he knows it he’ll be in his own bed, lying staring at the ceiling, reliving this moment, trying to grasp every sensation, every phantom touch. Will even try to remember how it sounded when Luke snored, the way that Julie’s toes kept poking him under the arm, how Reggie keeps whispering gibberish under his breath in his dreams, because all of them sound safe and like home.

For now, though, it’s real and all around him. For now, the ache in his chest subsides, and Alex’s hands are gentle and careful, and Alex’s body is warm wherever they touch.

All Willie can do is savour the feeling, so he can remember it better when it’s gone. Until next time he can sneak away to a rehearsal.

#this is quite literally just a jatp cuddle puddle feat. willie and i love that for them! #jatp #willex #willie jatp #alex mercer #fanfiction #ask #fairylightsandrainydays #julie and the phantoms

[greenninjagal-blog]

Deja Vu pt 5

Heyyy guys! whos ready for 24 pages of hurt and comfort and then plot? If you’re new around you can find the first chapter [here] and if you need a refresher, the previous chapter is [here]!

Summary: Remus can see the future. Sometimes too much. Dee is there to pick up the pieces.

Word Count: 10283

TW: mentions of suicide in detail, temporary character death, blood, 

Read on Ao3 || My general Writing masterlist

Its three AM and there’s something wrong.

Its three AM and he’s standing on the balcony of a hotel in a city he doesn’t remember the name of and he hasn’t slept in a day and a half. His head hurts, and his throat is dry, and he’s having a hard time keeping his hands from shaking.

The air smells, like smog and like grime and earth and rain, like something so familiar and worldly that he should be grounded in it and not just floating over everything. Any yet here he is, floating, drifting, hovering and haunting and utterly untouchable by anything.

The sky is heavy and hard and dark, grumbling and threatening with its load so much so that one couldn’t tell where one cloud started and another ended. It was reminiscent of the gritty asphalt of a highway, of black snow piled on the sides of the roads, of endless piles of ashes.

There’s something wrong.

With him.

Its the fourth floor, and the balcony framed by a blackmetal fence. A few doors down another guest has left a flag up for some sports team and it flaps in a breeze that one wouldn’t be able to feel on his arms. Actually he can’t feel his arms at all anymore. He can’t feel anything, anymore.

Down below there’s nothing but a parking lot: concrete sidewalks and empty vehicles and a couple lamps that bring just enough light that phantom people don’t trip over the sidewalk on their drowsie attempts to get inside before the skies crack open again. Its quiet.

Too quiet, he thinks. Like the whole world was holding its breath. 

Its makes the sounds of sirens and broken glass and a car alarm screech in his head. His fingers curl around the railing, stiff and cold and white knuckled. He feels….mechanical, with his joints frozen solid and his breath so even he forgets its there. Like his body isn’t his own even though its the only one he’s ever known, and someone else is holding the controls. He’s stuck. 

But he’s not really. He knows he’s not. At any point he can make a choice. 

He just hasn’t yet. He’s holding his breath along with the world, with the sky, with the night and the shadows and the future.

And because he’s holding his breath, he’s stuck here, seeing, watching, feeling, thinking, floating.

--He stays, and its as easy as breathing, as lonely as it is too. The air is cool, the rain starts in thirty minutes, chilling to the touch and turning his body to stone. There’s nothing to watch, but he does it anyway: stare into the emptiness around him and forget everything he’s ever been. Time drip, drip, drips away and the sky is still crying and Dee is too when he finds him for some reason.---

--He stays, and its as hard as breathing, as lonely as it is too. The air is cool and the rain starts in thirty minutes but by that time he’s sitting on the railing with his legs between the rungs waiting for a whisper to knock him off. Time drip, drip, drips away, and the sky is still crying by the time Dee breaks down the door to his room in a frantic desperate frenzy--

--He leaves, turns, heads back inside without a fuss. There’s a complimentary water bottle on the desk and the remains of Wendy’s frosty that he never finished thats an accurate representation of what his insides look like. It's funny going down his throat, like drinking warm swamp water and tasting each tadpole egg as it goes down his throat. It makes him want to laugh, makes him want to feel something, makes him so tired and he shuffles over to the Queen sized bed and face plants into the torn and shredded comforter. He doesn’t sleep, can’t sleep, won’t sleep and his headache makes him wish the comforter suffocated him.--

Its three am.

--He leaves, turns, goes without even stopping to grab his room keycard. His head is sudsy, fuzzy, buzzy and the complementary lights make his eyes ache in a way beyond being physical. He trips over the fourth step on the staircase, and hits the seventh and ninth on the way d--

--He leaves, turns, goes without even stopping to grab his room keycard. His head is sudsy, fuzzy, buzzy and the complementary lights make his eyes ache in a way beyond being physical. He avoids tripping on the fourth step on the staircase. The air feels like static, like his thoughts, like everything and anything and nothing at all. There’s no one outside, not at this hour, not in this section of the city when the sky is so finicky like this. There’s a 24hour diner, and he knows its there because he and Dee ate there earlier and the music was shit but it was louder than his thoughts right?

“Uh,” The waiter says, when he shows up. “We have a no shoes-no shirt- no service policy?” Like its a question. And its funny in a way that makes everything around him feel like cotton. He didn’t even realize he wasn’t wearing shoes.--

--He leaves, turns, goes without even stopping to grab his room keycard. His head is sudsy, fuzzy, buzzy and the complementary lights make his eyes ache in a way beyond being physical. He avoids tripping on the fourth step on the staircase. The air feels like static, like his thoughts, like everything and anything and nothing at all. He walks in a direction, any direction, this direction, that direction until he’s as lost as he feels and the sky cracks open and drowns him--

Its Three AM.

--He goes, slowly, lethargically, but determined. He collects his things, his memories, his presence, and stuffs them back in his travel bag and zips it shut with more force than is necessary. Shoes, shirt, jacket, soap. His head is sudsy, fuzzy, buzzy and the complementary lights make his eyes ache in a way beyond being physical. He avoids tripping on the fourth step on the staircase. The air feels like static, like his thoughts, like everything and anything and nothing at all. He stops, stands, breathes like his lungs are on fire and he has so many regrets but nothing hurts more than when he thinks about how Dee is gonna hate him when he wakes up in a few hours and finds himself all alone again--

--He goes, quickly, chaotically, but reluctantly. He collects his things, his mistakes, his presence, and stuffs them in his bag zipping it closed. Shoes, shirt, key card. His head is sudsy, fuzzy, buzzy and the complementary lights make his eyes ache in a way beyond being physical. He stops outside the door across the hall and he’s just enough of an asshole to unball his jacket and gently hook it over the door handle for Dee to find in the morning and hate him for. The air feels like static, and its buzzes under his skin breaking through the numbness as he walks to that stupid 24 hour bus station and disappears forev--

--He goes, quickly, chaotically, but reluctantly. He collects his things, his mistakes, his presence, and stuffs them in his bag zipping it closed. Shoes, shirt, jacket, soap. His head is sudsy, fuzzy, buzzy and the complementary lights make his eyes ache in a way beyond being physical. He stops outside the door across the hall and before he knows what he’s doing his knuckles are rapping on the wood so hard, so loudly, so desperately that he can feel the shockwaves all the way to his elbow. 

Dee opens the door, looking disgruntled and like he just woke up (he did, he has, he will) but not upset and really thats all he needs to see isn’t it? He doesn’t really think because the second that the door is open far enough, he’s launching himself into Dee’s arms and they both stumble backwards into the room. Dee should tell him to get lost because its too early to be anything other than insane but he doesn’t and then his lips are colliding with any part of Dee he can get to and--

ITS THREE AM.

--He throws his head back and scREAMS. As loudly as he can, as long as he can, as much as he can until he can’t breathe, until the silence of the morning shatters like the glass facade it is, until the echoes of his voice are ringing in his ears and he can’t possibly hope to hear anything else. Until the lights of the surrounding buildings flicker on and the other visitors are frantically looking out to find the source and the banging on his door matches timing with the pounding in his own brain. He screams until he can’t anymore because he’s too busy laughing.--

--The TV is on and then its not because his fist is going through the screen in a mess of blood and knuckles and laughter--

--His bag is in his hands and then its not because he’s throwing it over the railing to see if it sets off the car alarms when it smashes the windshield of the car on the street.--

--He’s on the railing, balancing like a tightrope walker and then he’s not because he bent his knees and jum--

Its strange, He thinks, watching his crumpled body dent the front of an SUV and feeling each shard of the windshield going through his spine and flesh and setting off all the fun dazzling alarms that can be set off. 

Its strange because this is not the first time he’s seen his life snuffed out. Its not even the hundredth time. Tonight alone he’s seen his body go into a freefall at least three hundred times.

Its strange, he thinks, its weird. Its three AM and there’s something wrong with him.

It takes a whole minute for the receptionist running the front desk to come running out of the building because she hadn’t been looking and the car alarm was the first thing that warned her anything was wrong. It takes thirty seconds for someone else to react to her screaming. Another minute for someone to open out their doors and come running to her aid. At three minutes, there’s a man standing over his body, yelling.

Then the vision cuts off because he can only see three minutes after his death and not a millisecond more. 

He’s stuck watching again and again.

A million possible futures, a billion different endings, a trillion things that could be tweaked ever-so-slightly that change the outcomes, and he can see them all. It doesn’t make sense-- shouldn’t if he thinks too much about it. Because time should be passing while he stands here watching his death, but instead the whole world halts while he flickers in and out of reality and he can’t-- won’t-- isn’t--

There’s no what ifs. There’s the facts: this will happen when he jumps, when he falls, when he dies, when he goes back to bed, when he runs away.

Something warm hits his hand, practically igniting his whole arm. Suddenly he snaps out of the loop, blinking three times and the world returns to him as the present moment. He blinks slowly looking down at his hand where the shadow of a dark liquid is splattered just below his index finger knuckle, rolling over the side of his hand, and pooling on the flat of the railing he was gripping. Laughter rumbles in his chest, crawling up his throat like a hundred beetles trying to find their ways out by any means possible. 

His legs buckle and his knees hit the concrete at the same time his giggles start exploding between his lips into the silent morning. He clings to the railing and presses his forehead into the slim bars, as his chest heaves for oxygen that doesn’t quite taste right. He gulps in so much he can’t imagine why he feels lightheaded, his mouth tastes like blood, and his palms itch where the cold metal is cutting to the flesh.

He’s twenty one, richer than he ever dreamed of being, and there is something wrong with him. 

Why is there something wrong with him?

Dee doesn’t have this problem. Dee changes into other people, animals, hybrids all the time; how come he doesn’t get stuck? Why doesn’t he wander around with a head full of golden curls and horns? Why don’t his legs morph into a fishtail without warning sometimes? Why doesn’t Dee wake up in a fit because he can't remember who he is or who he’s pretending to be?

Why is he the only one who can’t get a grip on himself as he floats in the air like the coming rain and then goes crashing to the street below again and again and again? 

Why can’t--

Why--

Why is there always blood trailing down his face? Why does his head hurt so much and why does his mouth taste so bad? Why is he stuck staring at the congealed blobs on the concrete underneath him and why does he feel so numb about it? Why can’t he just--

-- The windshield shatters underneath him, his head slams against the roof, so hard everything bends and breaks and his soul is forcibly ejected from his body and that alarm screeches into the sky and the girl at the front desk comes running out, screams, and then the guy is over him, yelling nonsense and climbing on the hood with him, reaching out, fingers pressing against his non existent pul--

Its so annoying. He knows it's annoying. He’s annoying.

His skin prickles and itches with phantom glass shards. And his eyes ache and burn in a way that makes them water and screw themselves closed. And his head pounds and drums to a rock concert that outplays the thunder overhead.

He’s stuck, on the fourth floor balcony, with his forehead pressed to the railing, with his mind floating in the nothingness, the everythingness, the possibilities and the emptiness. He’s lost, losing himself, free falling and smashing into the hood of the car again.

And its three AM still, forever and never and he wants it to stop being three AM and wants to stop feeling his spine snap like a toothpick. 

But that means he has to move and change things and make a decision.

And he shouldn’t be scared of this, shouldn’t be worried, shouldn’t want to cry just because he needs to make a choice. Everyone makes choices, everyday, without even thinking about what they could be affecting. Who they could be affecting.

And most of the time those choices don’t mean anything at all. What kind of cereal do you want to eat? What music do you listen to? How many alarms do you sleep through? In the end it doesn’t matter. How can it?

Everyone dies after all.

-- car alarm screeches into the air, stealing all the peace and quiet and the isolation from the night. The girl at the front desk comes running out, tripping over the curb when she sees exactly what landed on the hood of the car and her scream is so fucking funny he wants to laugh but he twisted a little in the air and now there’s glass shards cutting open his lungs and filling them with blood and his vision is all blurry, cutting out faster than before, but slower than that time he fell purposely head first and isn’t it weird how he calls it “falling” as if he didn’t bend at the knee and--

Everyone dies.

So why does he still care so much? Why does it still hurt to think about Silver Sedans and why cant he glance at snow globes without remembering how easy they are to swing down on someone’s unsuspecting skull? Why does he still think about doctors and therapy and wonder why it hadn't worked before?

Everyone dies.

And yet he cant breathe when he thinks about casino cash boxes in the middle of crowds, about jewelry store doors being blown open, about children who think "super power" and "can do no wrong" are synonymous. He cant breathe when he thinks about all the meanings of the term "suddenly", about how quick and fast things can happen, about how differently things could have gone.

Did it make a difference? 

Was it the right one?

Or was it supposed to be that Roman, for all his liveliness, for all his popularity, for all his basking in attention and the terrible life lessons he had taken upon himself to teach his brother-- was it supposed to be that Roman should have died 13 years ago to a reckless teenage driver in a silver sedan? That Dee should have died several endless months ago stealing a cash box he couldn't have kept? That one day soon a man named Logan will find his life suddenly stolen by a misstep on a rainy afternoon?

Was he supposed to be changing things? Or was he supposed to have merely watched, observed, accepted? 

What if there were choices and because he made the wrong ones, he is falling, falling, falling, splat, now?

Everyone dies.

-- girl at the front desk comes running out, tripping over the curb when she sees exactly what landed on the hood of the car and her scream is so fucking funny he wants to laugh but he twisted a little in the air and now there’s glass shards cutting open his lungs and filling them with blood and his vision is all blurry--

Is this how he's supposed to go?

Its Three AM and time doesn’t move but somehow he finds himself lying on the balcony twisted up in knots and drooling blood from the back of his itchy, burning throat. He’s on the cement balcony; he’s on the hood of a car. His fingers are wrapped around the railing like he thought it could anchor him in the middle of a hurricane; His arm is twisted and broken up in seven different ways and there are shards of glass in his shoulder cutting off the nerves. Its raining soft and sweet and gentle; he’s crying because this is not how he wants to go, please don’t make him go like this, he doesn’t want to leave--

He’s alive and breathing through undamaged lungs; He’s dead and Roman is twelve minutes older than him because his vision is black and the front desk girl is screaming again.

The thunder rumbles. He feels it in the air when every molecule in Earth's atmosphere vibrates and in the ground when every raindrop splatters into nothingness. He can feel the rain pouring over his body, plastering his thin shirt to his heavy limbs, caressing his face to the point where he can't tell the difference between it and the from blood in his hair--

--twisted a little in the air and now there’s glass shards cutting open his lungs and filling them with blood and his vision is all blurry, cutting out faster--

He's on the ground splayed out like a massacre. A hot mess, except he's so cold and empty and everything hurts.

When was the last time he slept? 

His head aches, his eyes feel so heavy, and there’s something twisting in his chest: something wriggling and heavy that’s not the glass tearing through his muscles, but just as real as it. He thinks it's terror. But how can he be scared when this is what's supposed to be happening? 

Unless it's not. In that case he should be more than just a little scared. He should be frightened, horrified, aghast. His limbs shouldn’t feel like lead weights dragging him down because there should be adrenaline, right? He should be so desperate to change this fate that he launches himself--

--the guy is over him, yelling nonsense and climbing on the hood with him, reaching out, fingers pressing against his non existent pulse and he almost wants to curl into the touch but he’s dead and his vision is black and there’s nothing left--

--back into the hotel room, tripping over the sliding door base and stumbling his way into the carpet. He should be so full of nerves and that his hands are shaking, that he can’t imagine being alone, that he throws himself out the door and across the hall to the safety that is Dee’s always welcoming arms.

Because Dee is safe. And warm. And Dee’s….Dee’s…

They’ve been running around for months now, amassing a fortune larger than they can just carry around, enough to buy the moon from the sky if they wanted it, enough for them to not need to have two separate rooms at all. 

But if they share a room, he knows what will happen. What should happen. He knows the only reason Dee doesn’t know about everything, about his hatred of the color red, about why he won’t get near a silver sedan, about why he needed to make that phone call just to hear that his mother had completely forgotten him again-- the only reason why Dee doesn’t know is because he hasn’t asked yet.

Is it a mercy? Or a threat?

Can it be both?

Is it supposed to be both? 

He can’t keep a secret. Not for the life --cutting open his lungs and filling th-- the life of him. Not from Dee. Because he’s seen a billion deaths that could have happened, he’s seen a hundred different realities and drowned in all of them.

Because he’s tasted asphalt under the tires of cars on a highway, felt the wind caress him off the top of skyscrapers, fallen asleep in a bathtub of blood in a hotel room. Because he’d died so many times before he ever reached Twenty One and no one cared.

But suddenly Dee had shown up and he kisses like he knows time is limited here on this Earth, in a way that he’s never been able to convince anyone else. Not Roman who sang and danced to everyone else’s tune, not his mother who tried to fix him and then forgot him when that got too improbable, not his dad who stayed silent when he should have been anything else, not the kids at school, not his teachers, not his doctors.

Dee had shown up believing in him and that meant something. He didn’t want it to mean nothing in the end. He didn’t want it to end.

Not like this.

Please, not like this. Please, please, please, pleasepleaseplease--

“REMUS!”

Its not Three AM but Remus is staring at the pouring rain in the sky wondering what the fucking hell just happened to him. 

He’s wet and not in a fun way. His head rings. The air is lighter, the morning later, and his limbs are trembling from being outside in the middle of a fucking thunderstorm. His clothes stick to him like a second skin, and Remus does not like the implications of that at all. 

He blinks, once, twice, thrice, and his lungs struggle to gain anything worth keeping. Everything in him is screaming for his attention, making him writhe with the sudden influx of stimuli. His fingers and toes are freezing, his stomach is aching, his head pounds and his thoughts feel like the inside of his brain is coated with molasses or some shit that makes him so slow to register anything around him.

The touch is burning. Remus at once needs it like he needs oxygen and needs it gone because its boiling him alive from the inside out. He wants to scream, but the most he can get is a pathetic little whimper.

“Remus, what the fuck,” Dee says so unelquently that Remus is pretty sure he’s crying.

That makes two of them.

“I don’t--” Remus clings to Dee, because he’s real and solid, and Remus’s throat is coated in blood from a swan dive he didn’t take. “I don’t, I don’t, please--”

The balcony is slick with blood and rain, mixing so freely Remus has a hard time looking at it. Dee helps him move, slowly, because everything makes him dizzy. Water pours off pockets on his body, and drags the dredges of his insides over the edge and on to the car below. Remus flinches with each drop, each splash, each splatter.

Remus wants to laugh. He cries instead.

“I’ve got you,” Dee says. “I’ve got you, darling.”

Remus almost wonders who he’s talking to. Darling? Him? Isn’t there someone else Dee should be calling that? Someone softer, someone kinder, someone who isn’t covered in their own blood and getting snot on his clean vest? Someone who doesn’t hold himself at a distance and play pretend that he’s okay like he’s still eight years old and hasn’t picked up that stupid red rubber ball yet?

“Remus,” Dee says, and it takes him a moment to focus on the way that Dee is in front of him, a hand gently cupping his chin and sending shivers all through his frantic body. They’re so close and Remus is sobbing and Dee is still here. 

“I don’t need you,” Roman had said four years ago and then again every time Remus had closed his eyes since. Roman had been his tether, his anchor, his goal and his reason to do just about anything. Because that was what brothers were for, right? He had done everything he could to see his brother smile, to see Roman feel loved, to see Roman live unafraid of dying.

But when Remus was floating alone in the nothingness, the emptiness, the everythingness, Dee was the one who had shown up. Why was it that a stranger he met by chance at a casino wanted him there more than his own brother? Why was Remus covered in blood and crying and one swan dive from becoming an actual hot mess and Dee was still here, holding him, calling him darling, and speaking to him so softly? 

“The one thing I want…is for us to stick together.” Dee had said several hundred billion futures ago.

Dee is right there and Remus can see the stars in his eyes, those soft, worried blue grey eyes that are uniquely his right along with the tears trailing down his face. Dee is right there and his hair is swept to the side, utterly mused from its the slicked back look that Dee likes. Dee is right there.

And Remus’s lips are on his. 

Remus feels like he’s back in that IHOP from forever ago, feels like he’s bending over a table and just put Dee’s hand in syrup for funsies, feels like the clueless waitress is about to run over to them and command that they stop. He feels like he never punched Dee in the face for having feelings, feels like there was never a kid in that mall, feels like he didn’t drive for ten hours just to get away from himself.

Dee kisses like he needs the control. Remus kisses like every second is going to be his last.

Because everyone dies at some point and Remus is not the kind of person people stick around with. Because at any moment he might lose everything. Because the universe and the deities he doesn’t believe in are not nice. Because Remus, of all the people in the entire world, is aware of how short a second can be.

Dee pulls back with a pant, his pupils are blown wide, like a fucking cat. His fangs tease from between his lips, dripping with a smear of blood that’s probably Remus’s.

“I can’t tell if it's the blood loss or if you’re serious,” Dee says in that nauseating smart tone of his, “But can we put a pin in this?”

“Fuck you,” Remus says, because he can’t really think of anything else to say to him when he looks like that, when Remus’s chest hurts, when he’s so tired he thinks standing might kill him, when he’s so cold and Dee’s lips are a fire that he wants to ignite the rest of his body.

“Clothes off first,” Dee says somehow breathless and with more oxygen than Remus thinks he can ever get into his lungs. He can feel his fingers, twisting and pulling at the edge of Remus’s soaked shirt, dragging it up and over Remus’s head without any help from him at all.

Remus leans forward before the curve of the collar can stop him and chases after Dee’s warm lips.

“Rem--fuck, fuck, Remus!” Dee says again, and its the softest way anyone has ever said his name before. “Remus, we have to get you into dry clothes--” But then Dee is the one pushing his lips into Remus’s so what does it matter?

Water drips from Remus’s bangs into his eyes, and blood makes his mouth taste like metal and whatever the fuck it was that he ate last. Dee tugs at his shirt again and it finally comes off of him. Without any ceremony it goes flying behind them, somewhere in the room, and the resounding splat makes Remus flinch.

Dee hoists him up from under his arms, holding him when Remus ragdolls completely and stars blur his vision entirely. Remus digs his chin into Dee’s shoulder (he’s taller again; taller and stronger and carries Remus without real problems). Remus should feel bad, probably, because he’s soaked to the bone and now Dee is too, but all he feels is tired. A flicker of pain dances in his awareness, his arm whimpering from cuts Dee gave him at the rest stop. Its gone before he even recognizes what it is fully.

“Your internal temperature,” Dee breathes, placing Remus down, and oh this is familiar. A bathtub. Remus has been in a tons of those before taking keys, scissors, his own nails to his own w-- “is a fucking ice cube.”

Dee’s hands are trailing on his shoulders, on his collarbone, up his neck and cupping his cheeks. He’s so warm, and his touches paint Remus in invisible blisters, like Dee is turning his body into an arsonist’s memorial. He’s a pyre and Dee is the torch come to turn him to ash.

The water is a surprise. The rumbling of the hotel pipes sounds like thunder and Remus tries really, really hard not to let his stomach swoop with the dizziness the pounding in his head makes. Dee is talking to him, Remus thinks. But the words sound so much more prettier when he can’t understand them.

Dee has a really nice voice. Remus likes it, likes him. He likes the way it sounds talking french even when Dee is drunk off his ass, he likes the way it makes shapes and moves when he’s speaking, he likes the way the words always seem so genuine even when they aren’t, won’t, can’t be.

Remus feels his head tip back and his eyes follow the way that Dee’s lips form that perfect circle and maybe that’s a bad thing, but he can feel all his limbs tingling from warmth for the first time in fifty billion Three AMs that didn’t happen. 

He is scared, but Dee is still here. 

He lets his eyes close and sleeps and trusts that Dee not is go  ing to b  e lik   e ev  er   y ot  her pe  rson tha  t Re mu s  ha  s e  v  e  r    m    e      t

H    e  c  o me s  to w ith hi s he ad fe eling heav y as s hit a nd his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Remus is warm, and its the type of warmth that he hadn't remembered he’d forgotten: the type that reaches all the way down to his toes, to the tips of his fingers, that winds its way around his limbs and cocoons him in an embrace that makes him want to stay there forever. He’s warm and safe and its all he’s ever wanted. 

“--strikes again! It seems that wherever malcontent is stewing, the Prince shows up to stop it. This week alone he’s been all up and down the East Coast. Crime rates in nearly seven states have gone down 8% over this past month.” 

Remus blinks his eyes open, with far more effort than he probably should need. He feels tired, in a way that's ingrained deep in his bones, carved into the marrow with a switchblade and decorated with flesh that's only there for show and not for use.

“I hear you, John. At the press conference held by the Department of Defense earlier today, Princeps--”

“See, Is it Princeps or Prince? I’ve heard it both ways recently.”

Remus is in a bed and he’s under the covers, tucked in with a care Remus doesn’t think he’s been given since that day he first saw Roman die and his mother didn’t know why he was crying yet. The ceiling looks like popcorn kernels, and he has a lucid memory of sharing a bag of popcorn with Dee and tasting the salt and butter and feeling his teeth break on the unexpected seeds.

“I think it was Princeps. Although Prince certainly has a much better ring to it. Brings back the chivalry, doesn’t it, Ladies? If he keeps this up I’m gonna start expecting more from the men around me-- that means you too, John! Coffee on Tuesdays isn’t going to be enough.”

“Oh good god Karen! You sound like my wife. Pretty soon us normal guys aren’t gonna be able to begin to compete with the World’s First Real Superhero.”

“Oh Fuck that noise,” Dee says, followed by a thump of something hitting the ground across the room. 

It takes much more energy than Remus thinks it should but he manages to leverage himself just a bit: folds his arms to his sides and presses his elbows into the quicksand mattress and with a grunt he pushes his limp upper body into the air. For a wonderful split second, he stays upright, breathing fine and taking in the sight of Dee sitting casually at the foot of the bed, legs crossed and one of his dress shoes in his lap with a buffing brush in his hand.

Dee spins at the noise, dropping his brush and tossing his other shoe into the void around them. “Remus!” He’s around the bed in the next instant, gently catching Remus’s shoulders and laying him back on the mattress. “You’re awake-- I didn’t-- Are you-- wait no fuck…”

His touch is fire, even through the T-shirt Remus is in, which, he realizes in a cotton stuffed thought process, doesn’t smell like his own. There’s the distinct smell of fresh ink, of shoe polish and dried linen and of something that he hasn’t ever been able to put a name too other than “Dee”. He’s wearing Dee’s clothes, lying in Dee’s bed, wrapped up in Dee’s blankets and Dee is standing over him fretting like a mother hen.

Its almost funny considering that Remus can’t remember if his own mother had ever done that for him. 

Remus wonders what it would take to get Dee to lie down next to him and sleep too.

He blinks and when he opens his eyes again Dee is kneeling next to him and urging an open bottle of water to his lips. Remus takes it like a drowning man takes in air. Its cool, almost cold, even though logically Remus knows its just room temperature and it feels so fucking good going down his throat and taking away the bad taste in his mouth. 

Its like metal and Remus tried very super hard not to imagine the finger’s propping his neck up as shards of a windshield slicing through his medulla. His tongue pries off the roof of his mouth he nearly chokes on the small sip he gets.

Dee pulls the water away but he stays and Remus thinks that three inches has never been so far away before in his life. Dee’s breath is warm, a tickle against his cheek, a caress that for some stupid reason makes him want to cry.

Isn’t he out of tears yet?

“Hey,” Dee says, barely more than a whisper, as if he’s afraid talking too loud will shatter this reality. Remus kinda wishes he’d forgo all the talking and just go back to kissing him; his thoughts are fuzzy but Remus is certain there’s at least one place that Dee missed on his neck.

“He…” Remus swallows, “hey.”

“You alright?” Dee says possibly softer than before. It almost doesn’t suit him at all. Remus has known him for months now, known every inch of his personality, every scale on his face, every breath from his lungs. Remus has seen him live and laugh and love and lie and its all been loud and proud. He’s not soft and he’s not kind and Remus loves that about him.

Soft and kind people are forgettable; Dee is not.

“I’m…” Remus’s mouth is too full of words to actually say anything at all. His chest aches when he inhales, and  “Kiss me again?”

There’s three inches between them, two, one, and Remus’s lips touch against his so softly he almost thinks it is a dream. Light as a feather, careful, and simple, like he’s asking a question and waiting for Remus to say “no”. For a greedy as he is-- and yes Remus knows Dee’s greedy, knows that when money is involved his appetite for it grows tenfold, knows that they could have all the luxuries in the world and Dee would still want something more, knows that “satisfied” is not a word in any dictionary Dee has-- for as greedy as Dee is, the way he kisses here, now, in this instant, is like he won’t fight if it gets taken from him.

(Which is as stupid as it is ridiculous. When was the last Remus had denied him something he wanted?)

“Like this?” Dee breathes into his mouth, “Kiss you like this?”

This is different, this is new, this is strange, Remus thinks. Because this is not like any future he’s ever seen. Not like bending over an IHOP table, not like knocking on Dee’s door in the middle of the night, not like winding his fingers around Dee’s suit lapels or his tie or his waist and dragging him closer. 

Its warmer, burning through him like he’s made of gasoline and even the smallest touch of their lips is enough to make Remus combust. Dee doesn’t bite, although Remus knows he can, and usually does, but takes all that Remus will give him.

“Ye-yes,” Remus pants, “please--”

Dee smiles at him, a wisp of his brown hair floating down over his misty eyes. He looks like an angel, ethereal and untouchable. Remus is so busy being in awe of the way he looks that he completely misses the flash of movement in his peripherals until the pillow is actively coming down on him.

“Fucking!” Dee snarls, slamming it down on his face again and again, “Dumbass! What the hell were you thinking?!” 

“Ow! Owowowow!” Remus yelps in between being smothered. Is it bad he kinda likes it? “Sorry!”

Dee slaps the pillow on his head one more time and then sits back on his haunches. He pants a couple times, because he’s a prissy rich white boy who’s never worked out before now, and then massages his temples.

“Goddamned idiot,” Dee huffs, “What the hell was that? You didn’t answer your door and so I shifted my way in and you just fucking... you were... I thought...”

Remus watched him breathe, watched him shudder and shake and stare down at the carpet like it held more answers than Remus’s face. 

“Dee--”

“I know what we said, okay?” Dee spits out, “I know that we made that agreement about no feelings or shit but I lied okay! I can’t do this without having emotions. I look at you and I just… I don’t want to ever see you hurt. I’ve been looking up medical references on how to handle the nosebleeds and I’ve been trying to get you to eat foods to thicken your blood just a bit because god knows you don’t eat enough broccoli as it is--”

“Dee.”

 “--and I was trying to figure out how to say something because I’ve known something has been up for so long now and I should have said something sooner-”

“Dee.” 

“--but then you were just about out of your mind all that day and you took the keys and drove us and I was afraid if I said something you were gonna leave me behind and I think if I lose you I’m not gonna… I’m not gonna…”

“Dee!” Remus says and the shapeshifter finally looks up at him. His eyes are red rimmed, and his face is pinched like he’s trying still trying to hold back a word hurricane and it’s tearing him up inside.

“I’m sorry,” Dee says, with a quivering lip. “I’m sorry, I’m sorrysorrysorr--”

Remus wants to launch himself off the bed and steal the syllables from Dee’s mouth. He manages to flop over, and hang himself off the edge of the bed, dangerously close to falling right into Dee’s lap. 

“Why are you apologizing?”

Dee stares at him, like he’s from another world, like he’s not real, like he’s another piece of a future that isn’t going to happen and Remus wonders why this one feels more fake than any other future he’s ever lived through. 

“That’s super not like you,” Remus says, talking like there isn’t a lump the size of a boulder in his throat, talking and hoping his words aren’t gonna be the thing that scares Dee away finally, talking without thinking, “But if you really want to make it up to me, you can get back up here and kiss me again. Maybe something saucier if you--”

Dee hits him with the pillow again, and he tumbles off the bed right into Dee’s lap, bruising where his head collides with a knee and his neck does something not-good.

And then… well then Remus is staring up at Dee and whatever else he could possibly say wanders off somewhere in his mind, leaving only a painful silence in their wake: a sizeable gap, a puzzle piece hole where something should be but there isn’t and it pretty much ruins the whole picture now, doesn’t it?

“Tell me something, Re,” Dee says and Remus thinks that he should have said something, anything, everything, anyway.

Whatever it would have taken to get away from this, to put it off, to push it away until they both forgot about it and things wouldn’t have to change. He doesn’t want things to change, doesn’t want Dee to look at him and expect something different because if he does Remus will and then he’ll slip up one day and Dee will realize how much better off he could be and then Remus will be alone. 

And he was alone for four years and he doesn’t want to do that again. Not now. Not ever.

He doesn’t think he can. The idea of driving without having to fight over the radio station, of having to talk to the hotel receptionists himself or sleep in his car again, of turning with one of his hilarious comments only to find an empty space next to him? It makes his stomach rebel to consider.

Out of all the people in the world he knows how lonely being alone can be.

“How long?” Dee says, “How long were you out there?”

For a moment Remus thinks about lying. Of saying just a few minutes, thirty tops, don’t look at me like that. Of pretending, of doing that make believe-- but then he remembers how much lying is like acting and how much he hates being a performer.

“Since… three am.” Remus says and the honesty burns his tongue, “And I couldn’t…I couldn’t move. I was stuck.”

Dee’s grip on him tightens, which is frankly startling because Remus hadn’t even realized Dee was holding him. There’s an audible swallow, a gulp, that’s nearly a whimper and Remus doesn’t know which of them make it.

“Th-three,” Dee echoes, lips shaking so much that Remus sees double and wonders if he could kiss that shake away. “W-what do you mean you were stuck?”

Remus blinks away the cold feeling of rain pouring over his body, of gravity dragging his core downwards, of his neck snapping to the side, of a receptionist screaming and car alarms turning his thoughts to mush.

“Like… like just physically stuck, Remus?” Dee asks, “Like you fell and hurt yourself and couldn’t get up?” 

He sounds so hopeful about it that Remus wants to lie again.

He grinds his molars together and shakes his head instead. There’s blood in the back of his throat. Why does the truth always end with blood? On a snowglobe shattered on Roman’s head, on the gravel after it drips from Dee’s nose, in the back of Remus’s throat right here, right now.

“Stuck,” Remus says, “as in I couldn’t get out of the future.”

Dee breathes slow, hard, painfully. “Th-that can happen?”

Its not like Dee to be scared. It makes Remus feel less stupid for hiding it for so long. He doesn’t trust himself not to start unravelling at his seams if he opens his mouth again so he just wiggles his shoulders.

Dee exhales every atom in his lungs, Remus breathes them all in. The silence is awful, but its better than words.

“Has it...have I made…” Dee says, which is bad. 

“No,” Remus says, so tired, so exhausted, “No, Dee. You didn’t make me do anything, okay? Don’t think that. I look because I want to. And when I get stuck its my fault--”

“What causes you to get stuck?”

Remus’s mouth closes with a click. His eyelids ache, heavy and itchy but his arms are way too cumbersome to even think about rubbing them. 

“I don’t…” Remus says and stops, because he does know. He spent all morning thinking about it, spent eleven billion trillion freefalls thinking about it, spent a thunderstorm and an unconsciousness thinking about it. What causes him to get stuck?

What makes the visions repeat, the future to become repetitive? What makes living feel like deja vu?

“Whats the smallest animal you’ve ever turned into?” Remus asks, “Like an ant? A worm, maybe a spider?”

Dee crinkles his nose at the mention of spiders. “An African Egg Eating snake. I used to ride in the pocket of….nevermind. Why are you asking?”

(Its the first time Dee has ever brought up the insinuation that someone else knows about his power. Remus doesn’t know what to think about that so he doesn’t.)

“When you were that small, did you ever…were you ever afraid? Of being crushed?”

“You get stuck in the future because you’re afraid of it?” There’s no judgement in his voice, just desperate curiosity and a need to understand why Remus is so fucking suicidal.

“That’s not an answer,” Remus points out, but it falls flat when Dee just stares at him. “No. Or yes. Maybe? Do you know how many possibilities there are in the universe? How many things are impacted from just one decision? The Butterfly Effect-- you know that right?”

Dee’s eyebrows furrow, “You mean from the concept of time travel? Where if you go back in time and kill a butterfly you can start a chain reaction of events that drastically alter the future and prevent yourself from ever being born?”

“Yes!” Remus says, “Exactly. Except think about if Every. Single. Object. Is a Butterfly. Your clothes are a butterfly, your shoes are a butterfly, what cereal you eat in the morning is a butterfly, the music you listen to, what bus you take, if you make eye contact with a stranger, if you smile-- They’re all fucking butterflies.”

Dee’s not following. Its cute how he tries to pretend like he is.

Remus swallows and tries again, “You wear a suit most days, right? Say we’re out in public and you wear a suit and so as we’re walking everyone moves out of the way for you, cause like… youve got money. One of the guys who moves out of the way isn’t watching where he’s moving and he bumps into a woman with a baby waiting at a crosswalk. She’s off balance so she falls into the road and oh no a bus is coming! Splat! No more woman or baby all because you wore a suit. And the bus driver gets fired and the media paints him as a devil so he can’t get rehired and really thats just the last straw since his wife died of lung disease last week so he gets a belt and bye bye. Guess what his son sees when he stops by for a visit the next day? Everyone loves free trauma--”

“Remus,” Dee says, “You need to breathe.”

Remus gasps in all the air in the entire world and its still not enough to calm him down. Its not enough and Remus doesn’t think it will ever be enough. He’s shaking right there in Dee’s arms and he’s begging for air that  his lungs refuse to hold.

“There are so many,” Remus wheezes, “So many, Dee. And people die all the fucking time in them.”

“Shhh,” Dee murmurs but Remus can’t get himself to stop.

“Everyone dies and I can’t-- I don’t-- If I don’t stop it isn’t it my fault? If I do stop it, is that what I’m supposed to do? I was standing there and I could see everything and I felt so wrong doing it. What if next time I’m not fast enough? What if something like the mall happens again? What if I can’t save you in time and I’m left staring at your corpse knowing I could have?”

Dee smells like shoe polish and dried ink. His heartbeat feels like a drum beat, pounding louder than Remus’s thoughts when the shapeshifter yanks him up and into a hug that Remus can’t possibly hope to return. He doesn’t realize he’s crying again until the side of his face is pressed into Dee’s chest and he’s breathing in the scents and hearing that heartbeat. 

Dee’s hands rub fiery circles on his back and he’s rocking them gently, like Remus is an unruly newborn who doesn’t know a thing about mortality yet. 

“Shh,” Dee whispers, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Remus feels like he’s falling again even though he’s safely in Dee’s arms. The ground is coming isn’t it? And if he opens his eyes it will be there and Remus will go splat and there will be no more do-overs. 

The possibilities are so big, so large, so many. And everything has an impact. Cause and Effect and everyone ends up dead in the end. Roman and a silver sedan, Dee riddled with a bunch of bullet holes, Logan and a cracked head in an unlabeled open manhole-- it could happen at any moment, every moment, this moment. 

Remus’s visions are so large and he’s so small and every time he makes a choice it feels a bit like he’s setting this life up for a tragedy. It wouldn’t take much for the comic forces in the universe to crush him like an ant, or a worm or a spider or an African egg eating snake.

“We’re okay,” Dee says, wiping away a tear from Remus’s eyes. “We’re going to be okay, Remus.”

He talks like he’s the one with the ability to see the future.  Or that he’s going to fight every god there is until they are. And there’s a part of Remus that believes him.

It sounds like a promise, like a challenge, like Dee is waiting for Remus to ask him how he knows and Remus doesn’t have the guts to actually do it. Always a coward. After all, when things get bad, Remus runs, doesn’t he? Away from home, out of the car, into his mind.

The room around them turns golden and orange and then purple and grey and Dee makes no movement to change where they are curled up on the floor of a hotel room. The carpet is hell but Dee keeps rocking them and hums until Remus’s tears dry up and he himself forgets how to push air out his nose.

Somehow throughout all of this the TV is still on, playing the news or a rerun of the news from earlier, but it feels muted from the world: something in the background, something not real, something that can’t ever touch them.

“Do you feel better now?” Dee asks softly.

Remus groans, “headache.”

Dee nods absently. He presses a kiss to Remus' forehead, “I have some ibuprofen.”

“Won’t work,” Remus presses his nose into Dee’s collarbone, “Medication doesn’t do shit for me. Never has.”

“Then we need to get something to eat,” Dee says subdued.

“Ice cream for dinner?” Remus suggests.

“You need a protein.”

“What if I put hot sauce on it? And chili peppers.”

 “Those are not proteins, dear.” There’s a ghost of a smile on Dee’s face, which isn’t much, but considering how crappy both of them feel, Remus counts it as a win. He breathes in and listens to Dee’s steady heartbeat.

“Dear” and “Darling” make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It sounds so eloquent coming from Dee, so natural and easy. One of Dee’s hands trail up Remus’s back and twist around the curls at the base of his hairline. Remus thinks he wouldn’t mind staying like this forever.

“--Secretary of Defense, Dragana Witchall, made this announcement this afternoon regarding the influx of beings with so called “super powers”--” 

“Wait what,” Dee says, shifting them to the side to get a better look at the screen. Remus follows his gaze by proxy. On it is a recording of a lady who matches Janus in terms of dressing immaculately: a plum striped pantsuit and with a white shirt underneath and no jewelry. Her blonde hair is pinned back in the same professional bun that just about every no-nonsense teacher Remus ever had had. She looks about three seconds away from slapping every reporters’ hands with a ruler and giving them detention for questioning her.

 Remus hasn’t ever seen her before. He thinks he would remember a face like that.

“Emergency legislation,” She says, and Remus gets chills, “Has been put in place to ensure the safety of all beings living in America.”

“Oh no,” Janus says.

“Starting immediately, under the implications of the Next Evolution Act, all beings with discernible inhumane abilities will be required by law to register their abilities with the Federal Bureau of Evolution (FBE). While this is to protect all citizens from possible catastrophic danger, we have been assured that identities of those with such power will be handled with the utmost professionalism and confidentiality. Information about locations for registration will be shared in a few moments. We ask that people seek out these locations as soon as possible and will implement incarceration for an indeterminate amount of time for those who refuse to cooperate with the FBE. In the meantime, we encourage all citizens to remain calm and look to the future with hope.

“Now, here with a few words, is Princeps, who has graciously agreed to partner with the American Government--”

The rest is drowned out by the cheering of the reporters as the self acclaimed superhero steps into the screen, onto the stage, up to the podium and everyone surges forward.

Remus feels sick looking at it: the cheery smile of the man in white with a red plastered face mask and eyes that seem to stare into his soul, the way he takes control of the podium with ease and fluidity, the way that the camera bobbles trying to get closer. Princeps-- Prince-- whoever he is soaks in the chaos of the questions being thrown at him and revels in it.

Dee’s nails prick into Remus’s back.

“They can’t do that,” he says.

“I think they just did,” Remus says, maybe laughing, and wondering how much the government is paying the guy on stage to stand there. He doesn’t look real. He looks like someone’s fantasy, a pipe dream, a day dream created to placate the undercurrents of terror. Remus gets the urge to throw something at him, just to see if Princey boy here would dissipate into smoke like a dream too.

“No, Remus,” Dee says, fixing him with horrified gaze, “They- They cannot be allowed to do this. Forcing people to register with the government-- You know what that is right? They’ll sit you done in a windowless room and ask you how much you love your country. Enough to die for it? Enough to put your life on the line for it? And then they’ll turn you into a human weapon. And that’s just if you say yes automatically.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then they’ll tell you to fill out this form with your home address and let go you on your way and about two weeks later you’re going to be killed in a drunk driving accident.” Dee snarls between his fangs, “Or-- Or one of your family members will go mysteriously missing, okay? And they’ll show up on your doorstep and ask again. And even if that doesn’t happen, they’ll be some asshat who hacks the database or sneaks into the Headquarters and gets his hands on even a portion of the list and releases it and people will die from prejudices. This is bad.”

Remus stiffens. 

Princeps is still on TV talking animatedly to the reporters who hang on his every word. “As I was saying, with the help of the FBE, I managed to gain control of my abilities, which otherwise could have hurt those around me. In fact the FBE helped all of my team--”

“Excuse me, Prince! ” A reporter interrupts, “Did you say Team?”

The figure on screen laughs brightly; Remus thinks it the most irritating sound he’s ever heard even if he can’t pinpoint why exactly. 

“Yes, fair maiden! I do have a team! They are the most wonderful people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, Although I started my journey alone, I’m proud to call them my friends. We’re few in numbers now, but hopefully with time and patience, more brave souls will step forward to help us protect our homes and the lives of the people we love--” 

Remus is pleased that both him and Dee fake gag at the same time.

“--That being said, each of us have agreed to partner up and help the FBE with their registration. I, myself, and my partner will be heading out to the West Coast right after this and we’ll be in the Portland area for most of the week for any of you fine folk who may want autographs.” He flashes a brilliant, blinding smile at the camera.

“Portland,” Remus repeats. “Isn’t that where we are?”

Dee has a look on his face and Remus knows that look. Very well in fact. It’s haunted his favorite memories in the past several months: the moments before he’s picked a mark, moments before he nudges Remus in the side, the moments before they start planning on how to do something illegal.

Its based on trust: Remus will find them the future that works, Dee will listen without hesitation and they’ll get out together.

Dee shifts and wiggles a bit, sticking a hand in his pocket and comes back with a coin, the purple Barney from the Baskillisk Casino where they met that had wandered off the floor in Remus’s pocket. He rolls it between his fingers.

“Are you...can you…?” He asks.

“Still see the future?” Remus finishes.

“Without it hurting you.” De says, “Because it's a definite no if you’re gonna end up in a pool of your own blood like that again. I’d rather not know things than not have you here next to me.”

Remus is quiet, which is unlike him. The TV switches to a commercial break about toothpaste or something and the screen illuminates Dee’s very kissable lips very nicely. 

“Tell you what,” Dee says, shakily, “Heads, we do something about it. Probably end up taking out an entire new branch of government and putting some superheroes in the hospital. And possibly become the most wanted men on the Earth. Tails, we ignore it until we can’t.” 

He swallows. Then he balances the coin on his thumb. In the dark of the room Remus can’t even tell which size is which.

--It flings up into the air with an impressive height, flipping eight times by its pinnacle and another eleven by the time it comes down on the floor and bounces into another arc, another flip, two, three. And Remus thinks that “supposed to be” can go fuck itself, because he doesn’t care what should and shouldn’t happen all of a sudden.--

It flings up into the air with an impressive height, flipping eight times by its pinnacle and another eleven by the time it comes down right into Remus’s palm.

“What do you know,” Remus says, innocently as it comes. “It landed on Heads."

[Chapter 6]

#Deja vu AU #Demus #Janus Sanders #Remus Sanders #tw:suicide #tw: blood #KISS KISS KISS KISS #look I was so excited to write this kiss scene alright #Epic level of foreshadowing here #Guess whos gonna show up in the next chapter guys #the dragon witch #roman sanders #the Plot emerges! #finally!! #sanders sides

[kinglazrus]

The Haunting of Danny Fenton

Chapter Three: Second Time’s the Charm

Word count: 2246 | [ffn] [ao3] | [previous] [next]

Valerie lied. Contrary to her memory, before this day she has met one solitary Fenton face-to-face on exactly one occasion. That occasion was her first day of high school freshman year. As part of an orientation process at Casper High, all freshmen started school one day early. They got to drift from class to class, familiarizing themselves with the hallways, getting used to their lockers, and meeting their teachers in what was meant to be a low-pressure environment.

The principal, Ms. Ishiyama, believed having the building to themselves for one day would help relieve that first-day anxiety, especially without all the older students looming over their small, fragile bodies once school began for real. Some of the freshmen appreciated this. Valerie thought it was stupid. But whatever. They didn't do any work, only got a rundown of what to expect from their first year of high school.

The focal point of this orientation was the student assembly at the end of the day. To make things go more smoothly, the students had been called into the gym in alphabetical order, by surname. Students A to B. Students C to D. Students E to F. Students G to H.

By complete happenstance, Daniel Fenton, who had been in the bathroom when his letter group was called, ended up at the back of the line for E to F students. Valerie Gray, who was no slouch despite being spoiled most of her life, moved quick enough to be first in line for all G to H students. It took ten minutes for all the students A through Z—Martin Zachary, the only Z in school—to get settled. By then, Danny and Valerie had already been sitting side by side for six awkward minutes.

Awkward for Danny because he thought Valerie was very pretty, and he was very not. Awkward for Valerie because some weird boy kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, and she did not appreciate his attention. No words passed between them for the entirety of the assembly. It was only when Principal Ishiyama finished her thirty-minute speech about the impending doom that was their high school careers that Danny finally got the courage to speak.

As the gym filled with the sound of stomping feet, students pounding their way down the bleachers, eager to head home at last, Danny lurched to his feet, stuck out his hand, and said, "I'm Danny."

Valerie tossed her hair over her shoulder and replied, "Not interested."

The next day at school, Danny did not attend. Two weeks later, his parents officially dropped him out of Casper High. Three weeks after that, his name and face were plastered across newspapers all over the country. Young Daniel Fenton, only fourteen, victim to a tragic accident and a terrible disease. You can't blame Valerie for not connecting the Danny she brushed off her first day of school with the boy whose name she would later learn and never forget. Before his accident, there was nothing remarkable about Danny Fenton.

Now, however, he cuts a striking image.

Danny lounges in the armchair across from Valerie, flanked on either side by his parents. He props his chin on his fist and drums the fingers of his other hand on the opposite armrest. In the back of her mind, Valerie thinks all he needs is a gun and he can be a mafioso from an old film. One flick of his finger and he can sentence her to death.

The image is ruined by his abundant frailty. Thin wrists she can snap in one fist, long bony fingers, hollow cheeks. He looks like a skeleton brought back to life rather than a boy edging closer to death. There's a slim difference between the two, but it's significant enough that Valerie finds one more apt than the other. His ashen skin and the green bruises around his eyes only further cement her opinion.

Perhaps a mafioso is the wrong comparison. Perhaps he reminds her more of the grim reaper, here to steal her soul.

"You don't look that different," Danny says. Even his voice is fragile, moments away from giving out.

"I'm sorry?" Valerie asks, taken aback.

"From high school. You're older, obviously, but you look the same."

Valerie presses her lips together, unsure of how to respond. Lying seems like the best option. Laugh, brush off the comment, then move on to the logistics of her stay. Maybe pepper in a quick word that Danny's changed a lot since then. Unless that would be rude. She waits too long, though, letting the seconds tick by as she flounders.

Danny's eyes widen in realization. He smiles at her, tight-lipped and resigned. "You don't remember me."

Valerie purses her lips and shakes her head.

"But you know who I am."

"Of course."

His smile slips into something more sardonic. "I guess you're interested now."

Valerie, realizing she's being mocked but not understanding why, scowls. It's bad form to cuss out her clients, but she wants to right now. Two minutes with Danny Fenton and he's already getting on her nerves. That takes special skill not many people have.

To her right, Tucker snickers. So far, he's stayed silent at the edge of the room, leaning against the wall. Not a Fenton but not a stranger. The grim reaper's right-hand man. The display of loyalty, subtle, almost imperceptible if not for how Tucker watches Danny like a hawk, is jarring. Valerie never would have thought the boy who chased a different girl each week had a loyal bone in his body. Apparently, he has one, and only one, for Danny Fenton.

Cutting through the awkward air, Valerie turns to Danny's parents. "When do you leave?"

Danny rolls his eyes, obviously unimpressed with the transparent deflection.

"Tomorrow," Maddie says, obliging Valerie. "We'll be back next Wednesday. Tonight, we want to show you the setup we've been using recently. It helps us measure how strong the Shade's presence is." She steps away from Danny's chair. Jack follows, both of them heading for the hall. "But that's for later. I'll be getting dinner started now. Octavia should have brought your bag to the guest room while we were in the warehouse. Tucker can show you where it is."

"What about..." Valerie trails off as Maddie and Jack leave the room, glancing at Danny.

"Oh, no. I love this chair. My favourite spot in the whole house." Danny sinks lower in his seat, kicking one leg up on the armrest. "I will chair-ish it for the rest of my days."

Valerie blinks. "Did you just–"

"Come on." Tucker hauls Valerie up by her elbow and drags her away.

"Sorry my jokes don't sit well with you!" Danny calls after them.

Tucker doesn't let go of Valerie's arm until they reach the foot of the stairs, well out of Danny's sight. She can still hear Danny muttering angrily, and Maddie and Jack shuffling about in the kitchen.

"Okay, first rule." Tucker takes off his beanie and runs his hand through his hair, which is longer than Valerie thought it would be, and curlier. "Don't agitate Danny."

"Agitate him?" Valerie whispers, her voice hissing between her teeth. "I barely talked to him. If anything, he agitated me."

Tucker shakes his head. "He puns more when he's agitated."

"'Puns' isn't a verb."

"It is now. Just, don't agitate him, okay? He'll get all worked up and then..." A muffled, wet cough punctuates Tucker's statement. He gestures emphatically, a silent I told you so. "The guest room is to the right, at the end of the hall. I need to help Danny."

Valerie crosses her arms and watches him leave. If he can't even tell her how she agitated Danny, then he doesn't get to make her feel guilty about it. He doesn't. He doesn't. Another hoarse cough rings out, the kind that tears at your throat and leaves it raw and aching. Valerie swallows, shuddering at the phantom sensation in her own throat.

She dithers on the stairs, uncertain. There's nothing for her to feel guilty about. Danny got himself worked up. Whatever he remembers that Valerie doesn't, it's not her fault. Their interaction must have been so minuscule for her not to recall it. Anyone else would have forgotten it. But Danny hadn't.

In Valerie's defence, it had been a short, meaningless exchange that anyone could forget. Not even a whole conversation, a mere sentence and a half passing between them. The first of many hollow conversations she would have over the next four years. But for Danny, it was his last high school experience. And you can't fault him for clinging to that final shred of normalcy when his life pitched into the deep end of abnormal not even four hours later.

But Valerie couldn't possibly know all that. So she sighs at the unfairness of it all, turns on her heels, and heads back toward the living room with an apology on her lips. A soft murmur stops her in her tracks inches before she steps into view.

"Your jokes are getting sloppy," Tucker says.

"There are only so many quality chair puns in existence, man. Cut me some slack," Danny answers, voice gruffer than before.

"I couldn't chair less."

"Ugh. I hate you."

"Shut up, you love me."

A moment of silence.

Danny clears his throat. "Yeah. I should text Sam."

"I don't think she's got service in Peru. Besides, she's getting home in a few days."

Valerie racks her brain for a moment, pondering whether she knows who they mean. Surprisingly, she does. Samantha Manson, another former classmate of hers, like Tucker. Last Valerie heard, Sam is backpacking in South America.

"I know. But it'd be nice, wouldn't it? For her to find that when she's done. Just in case." Danny's voice goes quiet at the end. Valerie's stomach flips at those despondent words, dismay seizing her. Evidently, there is more to Danny's situation than anyone has told her thus far.

"Don't be so fatalistic, man." A weak attempt at humour. Tucker's voice carries a strained hint of laughter.

"Damn it, Tucker, I'm being realistic!" Danny shouts.

In the kitchen, Maddie and Jack go silent. The whole house holds its breath following Danny's outburst. Now more than ever Valerie feels like she's intruding on a private moment, not just between Danny and Tucker, but the household at large. The wall, cold at her back, leaches the warmth from her splayed fingers. The very air bears down on her. She doesn't believe in household spirits, not the way some people do, where they treat a place with dignity, breathing life into inanimate walls and acting like it carries a soul. But, as silence rings out through the hall, she senses the house rejecting her, trying to push her out of this painfully intimate moment.

The strained atmosphere shatters when something clangs in the kitchen. The oppressive feeling vanishes. Valerie releases a breath she held for far too long and slumps against the wall. She presses a hand against her chest, trying to calm her beating heart. The Shade hasn't even shown up yet and she's already on edge.

Too busy trying to mollify her nerves—damn combative instincts, damn house—she doesn’t hear the sound of dragging footsteps until Danny shuffles around the corner. He falters when their eyes meet.

"Enjoying yourself?" Danny hisses, quiet enough that only Valerie can hear him. He brushes past her before she can reply, hobbling toward the stairs. As he passes the entrance to the kitchen, he raps his knuckles on the frame, grabbing his parents' attention. "I'm going to my room. I'm not hungry."

Jack pokes his head out the door and frowns. "You sure?"

Danny waves over his shoulder, his hand so delicate it gives the impression it can shatter at a moment's notice. A gentle breeze can rattle his bones, Valerie's sure of it.

Jack turns back into the kitchen, catching Valerie's eye along the way. He studies her a moment, his stern demeanour once again contradicting the jovial attitude Valerie knows him for. It feels like a test. If she passes, Valerie can't tell. Jack simply nods at her and ducks completely out of sight.

Knowing when she's been dismissed, Valerie heads up the stairs. She overtakes Danny, who has only made it halfway up, and reaches the landing. Remembering Tucker's instructions, Valerie turns right and seeks out the last door. As promised, her suitcase is already inside, sitting at the foot of the bed.

A loud slap has Valerie looking back before she can close the door. She spies Danny finally at the top of the stairs, leaning heavily on the bannister, one hand gripping the newel post. Hunching over, he holds his throat and coughs, another painful hack. This time, she doesn't make any move to help him. She closes her door as quietly as possible and turns to her suitcase. Some might think her callous for such a heartless display, but she knows she's the last person Danny wants help from. He's too proud, like her, and would rather suffer in silence than accept assistance from someone he doesn't care for.

A bleak, dispirited frown settles on her lips. She and Danny seem to have three things in common so far: self-destructive pride, a strong disdain for one another, and the grim acceptance that Danny Fenton is not long for this world.

#thdf #danny phantom #phanfic #danny phantom fanfiction #valerie gray #bodyguard au #hurt/comfort #supernatural

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Capturing the Sounds of Absence

Memories of the day Little Stevie vanished are still stuck in my mind. And so vivid. Like it was just yesterday. The feeling of pine needles on my skin, as my fingers brushed over the ground where I knelt. An empty little clearing, not far away from the camp’s recreation center. Where I had seen the flash of light the night before.

We were searching for clues that might help us find him. Cyn, you were frantic. Mike, you were calm. I was somewhere in between: I could barely hear anything outside of the sound of blood rushing in my ears. But I was not hurrying, I was trying to pay attention to every little detail.

Yet all I felt was dread. Right then, already, I felt like we’d never see Little Stevie again. I mean, I had a weird feeling the day before when he stayed behind after falling out of bed. Like we’d never see him again if he didn’t come along on the overnight hike. I just couldn’t place it at the time.

Unfortunately, my feelings would turn out to be right.

Even now, when I see a missing kid’s face on the side of a milk carton, I think of seeing Stevie’s picture there for the full year after his disappearance. Feeling a pang of guilt, wondering if I—or we—could have done anything more to find him before Granny Gurdy drove us home from Camp Silver Creek.

It was so strange.

That clearing, where the flash of light flared up in the middle of the night—that was it. I swear that is when and where he vanished. I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but I feel it in my bones. I know it. Just as sure as the guilt that followed, I felt an unnerving sense of certainty.

Even now, thinking about that place—the place of Stevie’s vanishing—it still gives me the chills.

No sounds whatsoever. None of the crickets, no buzz of flies or mosquitoes in the air, not a single bird chirping or any owl hooting. Not a single friggin’ sound except the ones we made in our hurried search. Mikey pointed it out, but I got goosebumps as soon as he mentioned it.

The clearing was devoid of all life. Like the hand of God had reached down from the sky and snatched it all up, leaving behind nothing but that chunk of forest grounds and trees behind. And those pine needles that my fingers brushed over. Digging into my bare knees.

It smelled like lightning had hit a penny. A metallic scent hung in the air, and it stuck to my tongue; like copper. Or blood.

And most of all, the smell of ozone. Even though there was no sign of rain that night or day.

The tree tops swayed gently in the breeze. Like giants, looking down at us. Silent witnesses to Little Stevie’s vanishing. Some part of me wanted to just ask them. Pose the questions out loud: where did he go? What had happened?

When counselor Raymond found us and strong-armed us to leave, anger bubbled inside of my gut. I had kind of hoped that you would have resisted him more; allowed us to continue looking for Stevie. But back then, you were not as radical as you are nowadays. And I had just had no words and no courage to defy Raymond. I felt so helpless, so useless.

I believe the anger remained. But it all turned inward. I’m not angry at anybody else about this anymore, just at myself. If I had been sharper, if I had somehow had the mental clarity to put things together, maybe I would have found something.

Maybe if we could have snooped around longer, we would have found him. Or more concrete clues.

But now, nothing. It has been years.

I never forgot about it. About any of this. I sometimes wake up, just startling awake, thinking I’m still thirteen and it’s still back then. But it’s not, and I feel both sad and angry.

Then I tell myself that there’s nothing we can do about it anymore. It has been five years.

Five friggin’ years.

Now, I know this is getting long-winded, but please hear me out. I experienced something weird last night. Something I can’t explain either, just like Stevie’s vanishing. And it made me want to return.

You know how I sneak around home at night sometimes? To quietly use Dad’s stereo and make the mix tapes of rock music? Yeah, I know. Friggin’ eighteen and they still don’t let me listen to “the devil’s music.”

Anyway, it was one of those nights.

Everybody sound asleep. Even though I had done this dozens of times before, my heart was pounding like crazy, as usual. I moved slowly when switching cables, with enough routine to do it almost blindly, but moving with a careful slowness not to knock anything over. As usual, I was all jumpy and nervous, doing my best to keep each click of the buttons on the tape recorder as quiet as I could. Watching those wheels spin, wishing it worked faster.

And because of that, I remember thinking about CDs at the time. Like, can you copy tape audio to CDs? Is that going to be the new thing? It was the thing I wanted to look into; I was daydreaming of getting that kind of new gear once I’d get a job and move out.

My heart fell into my feet when I heard footsteps upstairs. I froze. I was the proverbial deer in headlights. I was so afraid I was going to get caught this time, finally. After all these years, my mixtaping art career would come to an end. Within the blink of an eye, my mind played through a dozen scenarios; combinations of getting grounded, yelled at, or the stereo cables getting locked away or something. What I dreaded the most, by far, though, was losing access to making mixtapes.

I didn’t even dare stop the copying process, for fear of the telltale sound of the buttons clicking drawing any attention. Maybe, if I was lucky, someone had just woken up and was going to the bathroom.

I ducked down next to dad’s stereo tower. Just waited there, in the darkness, silently stuffing the paper of the track list into the back of my pajama pants.

And I listened.

The footsteps were heavy. It didn’t sound like bare feet, or socked feet, or even slippers. Like someone was wearing shoes upstairs, which was weird to me, but I was terrified to begin with, so my brain didn’t really register this detail until way later.

The footsteps thumped down the upstairs hallway. They neared the end of the stairs until they stopped abruptly.

I waited with bated breath. From where I was hiding, I couldn’t see up the stairs. The angle concealed whoever was standing there.

Then a bright light flashed.

I could feel all the blood drain from my face. My body tingled all over.

It was just like the flash of bright light back then. Five years ago. Like a flash of lightning, but without a sound. And this time, it was up close. Much closer. I couldn’t tell you what it really was. A camera’s flash? A flashlight being flashed on and off? An actual flash of lightning? I don’t know. I just don’t know. My eyes were so adjusted to the dark at that point that I was blind for several seconds.

I don’t know what I was thinking at that point and from here on out, my memory starts to become one big messy blur.

I forgot completely about the tape in the recorder deck and approached the stairs. Quietly. Step by step, lurking through the darkness, with my vision slowly recovering, and only thin beams of light entering through cracks in between the curtains. Closing in on the stairs until I could see up their entire height.

Nobody was standing up there. But I saw movement. In what little light was inside our darkened house, it looked like someone was shuffling through the upstairs hallway, and casting shadows that danced atop the stairs.

No footsteps to be heard.

Sane people walk away from danger, but I think my sanity had temporarily punched its card and checked out. I climbed those stairs to see.

I had to see. I had to know.

Then the smell hit my nose again. Ozone. Inside the house. But all windows were shut and it hadn’t rained in days, anyway.

Once I had crept to the top of the stairs and could look down the hallway, I saw nobody there. All doors closed. All but one: the door to the attic at the end of the hallway, it stood ajar. Just a crack, maybe an inch wide open. Some light shone in through the attic windows up there. It made the shadows dance some more, telling me, beyond any doubt, that someone was moving around up there.

That’s when I heard the whispers.

I mean, I’m not even sure whether they were whispers, or just a voice, muffled by distance. But I swear to God, I’m not making this up: it sounded like Little Stevie. And with that, I mean what he sounded like five years ago.

His voice was too soft for me to make out any specific words.

So I crept down the hallway, inching closer and closer to that attic door. I don’t think I cared anymore about getting caught, though. None of that was on my mind anymore, at this point.

Not even when one of the wooden steps beyond that door, leading up into the attic, creaked underneath my foot. I didn’t care about it waking anybody up.

Some part of me hoped I’d find Stevie up there, after all these years. Plucked from reality, brought back here out of nowhere. I know how crazy this sounds, but it made sense to me at the time, somehow. That must have made me move faster. I went from creeping around to walking right in there. Into it.

In the attic, I don’t understand what I saw. If I try to recall anything, it seems like I stood there for several seconds, dumbfounded, mouth agape. Or paralyzed? I don’t know. It’s like my mind was trying to grasp what I was seeing and still hasn’t caught up to it.

When I concentrated on it this morning and tried to remember, my nose started to bleed.

What I do, however, remember was the light. It flared up again. Just engulfed me. The smell of ozone was back, and now became more intense. And a ringing sound filled my ears. It was deafening. I kinda still hear it, like a phantom sound in my mind.

I still heard it when I woke up. I woke up in bed, with the ripped piece of paper with my track list still stuffed into the waistband of my pants. I was completely tangled in the sheets, like I had thrashed around in bed. And the mixtape? Right in my hand.

I felt like crap, like I had been run over by a truck. Like I hadn’t even slept. And I was so confused. I know it now, as I speak of it, I was missing time. Time between whatever—whenever that light was enveloping me, and waking up in bed.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking. I was asleep—dreaming. But hear me out—there’s more.

First rays of dawn were shining in through the window; I had woken up well before anybody else in the house.

I knew what I had to do. I had to seize this moment. So I rushed downstairs into the living room and headed to dad’s stereo. Checked it all out and realized, with the sense of dread budding inside of me again, that I had not switched around the cables after my mixing session. I was lucky I hadn’t gotten caught, that I had woken up like this. But my mind was not really focused on that.

I slapped the tape right into the recorder, turned the volume down as far as possible as to not wake anybody up, and started listening in to what I had recorded. Obviously, it should not have picked up anything. It was only set to record from the other tape deck. No mic. But I somehow hoped it would have picked up something. Little Stevie’s voice—maybe that ringing. No matter how little sense it made.

At first, everything was normal. Def Leppard. Fast-forwarded a bit. Stevie Nicks. Fast forward. Kiss. Fast forward. Pink Floyd, AC/DC, the Stones. Then the whispers started. I rewound a little bit and immediately stopped caring about where they started. I tried to see if I could tell if it was really Stevie’s voice on the recording, but Mick Jagger was just too loud by contrast and I would have had to turn it up louder to really make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

I fast-forwarded more. Hit play. The ringing sound that had filled my ears—it was there. In my mind’s eye, so was the bright white flash of light. And something else? I think I blacked out for a split second. Not sure. I rewinded, then hit play again.

Garbled sounds. The friggin’ deck started chewing up the tape. I panicked and tried to save it, but the mangled strip was stuck and just unspooled as I pulled it out of the machine. Not the first time I had experienced this, but definitely the most infuriating.

With trembling hands, I manually spooled it back up into the tape after doing my best to delicately remove it from whatever it had snagged onto inside the deck’s innards.

I swallowed deeply and tried to play it back. Seconds into Undercover of the Night, just garbled, mangled noise. It was too messed up, I just couldn’t hear Stevie on it anymore, let alone the ringing. The tape was trash.

So, sure, maybe I was dreaming. But all of this was all too real. And what about the tape? And let’s say, for just a second, that all of this was just a dream: then, at the very least, I feel like my mind is trying to tell me something. Like we missed something out in the woods out there, and that we might be able to find out what happened to Stevie.

Or maybe I’m just plain friggin’ crazy.

(A deep sigh fills the ensuing pause on the tape’s playback.)

The anger at myself from back then is long gone. I just know we need to do something. We need to go back to Camp Silver Creek. Maybe we will find Stevie. Or maybe, at the very least, we will find closure.

I don’t know what exactly we will find, but I am scared. And I don’t want to be scared anymore. That’s exactly why we need to do it.

So what do you think? Are we going back there?

Please say yes. I don’t want to go alone.

(The rest of the audio on the tape beyond this is dead silence.)

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #hyperrealism #Camp Silver Creek #tape #recording #1980s #80s #mixtape #rock music #light #missing time #hallucination #whispers #mystery #disappearance #missing kid #vanishing #summer camp #entity #presence #unnatural

[zzloch]

FTSFMLM Chp 1. The New Girl

FFnet- https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13382202/1/Fairy-Tail-School-of-Myths-Legends-and-Monsters

Wattpad- https://www.wattpad.com/story/191336896-fairy-tail-school-for-myths-legends-and-monsters

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters but I do own the plot

A blonde girl stood in front of a large school with a banner that said 'WELCOME NEW STUDENTS' the 15-year-old, smiled to herself. She was finally here, the school that she would be attending for the next seven years (a/n in the universe there are eight years of high school because high school and college are combined). She had already dropped her stuff off at her dorm and had practically run to her new school, so she wasn't late.

The blonde walked inside, following the directions she was provided with at orientation. While looking down at her schedule, the Angel-Witch girl bumped into, what she thought, a hard wall. She looked up, okay so it wasn't a wall. "Uhh hello," she waved at the raven-haired boy who she had run into. The boy scoffed. "Umm, sorry," she mumbled. "It's fine, I'm Gray by the way, and this creep behind me is Natsu," he said, pointing behind him. Lucy studied the boys in front of her. She noted the dark scar the boy had across his face that generally went hand in hand with being a full devil. Lucy looked up at the boy "So, you're a-""I'm not a creep" a scaly pink-haired boy punched the devil in front of her. "What the hell, Dragon boy," the pinkette stuck his tongue out at the devil. A full-fledged fight broke out between the two, which ended in a draw. The boy turned to face Lucy. He had red scales that covered his arms and surrounded his face. "Hi, I'm Natsu" the boy stuck his hand out "Lucy," she said, shaking it. Lucy smiled at him with, what her family had dubbed her "Angel smile" and she swore she saw Natsu blush. "Where are you headed?" Natsu questioned.

"Umm room 1381."

"That's our first period," Natsu said, referring to him and gray. The dragon-demon grabbed the Angel-witches arm and ran down the hall and to the right and stopped in front of a room

"Fire Breath, slow down."

"Speed up, Ice brain."

Lucy giggled as they walked into the room.

"Duck!" A brunette screamed as a glass bottle came flying at the doorway, barley missing Lucy. "Sorry, I forget my own strength." The girl rubbed her neck. "I'm Cana, Cana Alberona" Lucy smiles at the brunette "Lucy Heartfilia" "Luigi, come 'er" "It's Lucy" she rolled her eyes at the boy, but nevertheless walked over to the group the pinkette was with. "Shut up" a voice came from the doorway silencing all the very loud people in the room. "Welcome back to school, kids" a ginger-haired man, with the same soft glow that Cana had, but it was a bit brighter, was now standing in front of the room at a desk. "I'm your teacher, Mr. Clive. Today is an opening day, so everyone sit in the seat I tell you to" Mr. Clive walked in front of his desk "Natsu Dragneel" he said, pointing at the front left seat. Natsu groaned. Mr. Clive then pointed to the chair on the other end of the room "Gray Fullbuster" Gray rolled his eyes and got up. "Cana Alberona," he said, pointing to the front middle seat. "Loke" he pointed to the chair in between gray and Cana. The three high fived as Loke sat down. "Lucille Heartfilia" Lucy slowly shuffled to the front as people stared at her, amazed that one of the most prestigious families daughter was at their school. Natsu flashed a smile at her. "Next row, Jet, Droy, Levy" The trio that was sitting in the back walked over to their seats, the small blue-haired girl talking excitedly to the two boys. "Laki, Kinanna" The two purple-haired girls walked to the front. "Elfman, Max, Warren, and Nab" he finished the list "Now there are a lot fewer people this year but if something happens to the children at Phantom Lord" a boo ensued, 'They clearly don't like Phantom Lord High' Lucy thought to herself "those that can get in will join our class. Now time for introductions. Say your name, species, and a fun fact, I'm Mr. Clive, I'm a full Daemon, a minor god and I am a teacher" he smiled then pointed to Natsu "Hey guys, I'm Natsu Dragneel. I'm a Fire Demon-Dragon, and I can set fire to stuff." Lucy moved her body as far away from the overly reckless boy as she could without drawing attention to herself. As the demon dragon sat down, Lucy stood up "um I'm Lucy Heartfilia, I'm half Angel, Half Witch. I uh," she blanked on something interesting about herself "I have wings" she shrugged, every angel did, but it was the only thing she could think of. "Can we see your wings?" A girl with lavender hair asked. "Uh sure" Lucy let her wings fall out of the slits in her outfit, every outfit of hers had them, it made it easier to open her wings when needed. Each one of the blondes wings was a good 5 feet, or so, some of the white feathers had gold tips, and they glistened in the sun. "Cool," the entire class was amazed at her wings. The blonde pulled her wings back into her back. Lucy blushed under the attention as she sat down. Cana stood up next

"Cana Alberona, Half-Daemon, half-Fairy. I can shrink, that's kind of cool I guess" As the brunette sat down, An orange hair boy with cat ears stood up. "Loke, I'm a celestial being, the reincarnation of Leo the lion to be more specific. I can fully transform into a lion," the boy said. He then bowed, which caused Gray to roll his eyes. "Hey, I'm Gray Fullbuster, I'm an ice devil. I-"Natsu cit him off "Can strip unconsciously" Gray grunted his teeth, trying not to jump to strangle Natsu. "No, I can turn people to ice," Gray said, "like you flame brain" Gray held up his hand and froze the boy. "Gray! No using powers" Gray rolled his eyes and sat down. Lucy was watching intently as everyone introduced themselves. Here are the notes she gathered

Natsu- Dragon-Demon

Lucy (Me)- Angel-Witch

Cana- Fairy-Daemon

Loke- Reincarnation of Leo the Lion

Gray- Ice Devil

Jet- Speed Demon (A/N I'm so Creative)

Levy- Fairy-Sprite

Droy- Dwarf

Laki- Hamadryad (A/N a type of nymph)

Kinnanna- Naagin (A/N a shapeshifting cobra)

Elfman- Demon

Max- Setiaad (A/N Native American Sand Monster)

Warren- Warlock in Training

Nab- Shapeshifter

"Alrighty, now that you all know each other we are going to split up into groups and learn more about each other. The row you are in is your group. Now find a spot and talk to each other, I'm gonna work" Cana scoffed at the man's word and rolled her eyes as she got up and the two boys sitting next to her followed suit, Natsu grabbed lucy's arm and pulled her along as they headed to a corner of the room. Lucy looked around and saw everyone chatting like old friends, she felt really out of place. "Hey, pretty girl you gonna sit down" Cana nodded to space available besides her on the floor. Lucy put her head down and sat with them. "So what did yall do over the summer," Cana asked. "Suffered in the heat, what about you?" "I spent a lot of time looking after Romeo, his dad went out a bit." "How old is he now?" Gray asked, "Thirteen I think" "Cool, cool, What about you, new girl?" Lucy looked up in surprise at the dark-haired boy. "Me?" Gray nodded "Uh, I didn't do too much I floated around heaven finished up my witch training and uhh, oh I read a lot." Lucy put her head down again, out of shyness.

“Hey, new girl chill. We aren't that bad." Gray commented, "Well, you are pretty bad," Natsu said back. "What was that fire breath" "You heard me Stripper" As the two boys started to wrestle, The classroom looked behind them and just sighed and went back to talking. Lucy was astonished that they just brushed it off "Boy's what if Erza comes in" Cana yelled at the two. They immediately froze and stopped fighting. Leo shook his head and smirked. The bell rang, and someone grabbed Lucy's arm. "Come on Luce I'll take you to your next class" Natsu smiled at the girl, and she smiled back. This school was gonna be a lot of fun

Hope you like this Au, I've been working on it for a while, and I am kinda proud of it so, yeah. I would love some suggestions for the kind of monsters each character are. If I get something wrong with the mythology of a particular creature feel free to tell me and I will fix it

-Z.Z Loch

#fairy tail #fairy tail fanfiction #FTSFMLM #zzloch #lucy heartifilla #natsu dragneel #fairy tail au #fairy tail fanfic #monster au #gray fullbuster #cana alberona #leo #loke #gray and loke brotp #brotps #fairy tail brotp #nalu fanfiction #nalu

[comfort-blankets]

*Scenario*

@bootyshakerkegrimm

Could you do scenario with Junkrat and Zenyatta who notice that their s/o is in a lot of pain, yet keeps on working even though it's starting to effect their work?

Aah I love Zenyatta! This is my first time writing for him so it may suck a little bit, but hopefully you enjoy it deary <33

I’m thinking about changing my icon to Zenyatta, maybe even one with him wearing a flower crown, but I can’t seem to find the perfect picture anywhere.

Anyways, tell me if it isn’t long enough or if I didn’t quite portray them correctly, because I’m all ears to constructive criticism!

Zenyatta:

It always begins with the gentle touch on your shoulder. He has no perception of how it is to feel, but he knows that the tissue there may not be agreeing with you. Here you are, bent over this desk with your terrible posture you always pretend you don’t have, pen scribbling away on your latest project. Work is hard, they’re being too rough on you. At this point even Satya asks if you have received enough sleep to be well enough for a bigger day tomorrow, Jack insists that you go eat dinner with the rest of the team.

But paperwork needs to be done, and the alerting thought of knowing it isn’t blares in your brain until it is completed.

This includes leaving Zenyatta to feel isolated from you.

At first he thought it was just a small portion of time you’d be busy, reminding you to drink plenty of water and coming in often to ask if you want a break. This work that plagues you destroys your mind, and when he sees it his concern heightens greatly.

Although it is hard to break you from these papers, his persistence would soon accomplish something. It would have to, or else he just wouldn’t stop.

So when your eyes tear from a world of specifically particular events and how to logically solve them, you see that the beautiful sunset has left you, a portrait made of twinkling lights has settled above, and the one you care for has a very worried aura about him.

“You have not rested like I’d recommended earlier?”

Zenyatta’s voice is as calming as it always has been, already making your muscles relax and ache for sleep. You open your mouth to tell him that you have taken a few breathers, but quickly close it when you discover that you cannot lie to him. Your body has rested none today, it’s been working day and night, morning and evening.

You did not even bat an eyelash at the emphasized knowledge of what not drinking or eating could do. Not even a drop of the liquid that kept you alive was consumed, and in hurting yourself you hurt your loved one as well.

The worst part was that even if you did lie, he would know. “I have to finish this.” It was the last set of logical questioning when even you finally realized your brain could work no longer.

“Perhaps we should speak to your advisors?”

When Zenyatta offered to talk with someone, this was when things were growing a bit too serious for him to handle. It was unknown how a monotone, mechanical voice could sound so caring and worrisome, though perhaps it came with knowing him for such a long time. The hand on your shoulder took an unusual action from the past encounters with no longer keeping the regular stillness it held, intricate and well manufactured metal fingers tugging on your shirt.

Tekhartha Zenyatta could become impatient sometimes, but his tended to come out more with sadness than anger. You’ve only seen him the slightest bit peeved a handful of times, and amazingly he still manages to calm himself.

His blue eyes that were created to observe and calculate still shine even in your silence, but it’s easy to tell that it’s unnerving him.

“Please.”

You have never heard that tone before, and it makes a bit of fear spike up randomly from the depths of your mind.

His speech is stuck sounding calm and almost inspirational at all points in time, but the glitches in his voice box are not something of a problem with his gear.

This is his way of growing emotional. To cry.

Your back screams at you when you rise from the chair slowly, and despite the fact that Zenyatta has no tears to physically shed he hides his face with the other hand, looking down.

His hand has yet to stop clinging to your shirt.

As the glitches in his tone begin to come out with small whirring noises, he has reached his end emotionally. His shoulder gear shivers, knees looking unstable to keep him standing. You have been working much too hard, you have been hurting him while harming yourself. You have unlocked a weakness that you never want to find the key to again. So with this new found knowledge that even an omnic such as he could cry, you pull him to rest his face in your shoulder.

“Okay.”

And while you lay in bed that night, a warm mechanical body curled around the back of your own for the first time in a few weeks, you decide it feels nice to have a full stomach again.

Little engines working for things you could never understand whirr behind you. Your name is whispered with a dash of reverence.

“Hm?” Your tired body responds in the least dedicated way possible.

“Promise me you will not abuse the needs of your body again. I care for you deeply.”

A hand rests on your hip at this remark out of pure concern, nothing more.

Shifting around a bit, the covers over you make a soft shuffling noise as you turn around. Kissing was never a topic you really ever got on about, but Zenyatta could always see the importance of it to humans. So of course when your soft lips that he could only imagine being able to fully feel touch the metal plate of his forehead, a small puff of steam comes from his shoulders, causing you to laugh and have to wave the sheets in order to get the heavy oxygen away from your lungs.

“I promise.”

Junkrat:

You’ve been promising Junkrat something, and you feel that you may not be able to keep doing this particular activity anymore.

You work incredibly hard, almost harder than Winston does whenever he finds something interesting that he wants to study for the time being.

For the time being.

This is when you start to have differences in capacity of working.

Of course, you have no choice when it comes to doing these loads of paperwork in a short time frame, because your advisors have told you plentiful times otherwise whenever you ask them to give you a break.

Junkrat is not helping.

At least his buddy Mako (Are they buddies? Not even you knew at this point, though the giant man seemed to have no issue with you) was trying to distract the messy man from getting his ashy fingerprints all over your papers. Jamison isn’t stupid though, and never will be. He can only take so much with being away from you, and it kind of concerns him how long you sit in one place. His worry is always exposed in very different ways than the usual pep talk from others, trying to get your attention to make you focus on something else or joke around until you laugh. What frustrates him is the fact that you always end up telling him to go away politely at some point, explaining that your boss will be upset if you don’t get some ungodly amount of papers on his desk by tomorrow.

It’s been 2 weeks since you did your little reading sessions with him, since he seemed to love it whenever you spoke of mythical beasts or actions in the making of the mind before bed. He loved the sound of turning pages, never finding himself into reading books until he discovered that he could make you laugh from giving all of the characters funny voices. Sure, his grammar wasn’t that great and sometimes you needed to tell him what a word was several times in a row, but at least he was trying.

Jamison especially missed falling asleep to the smooth/gravelly sound of your voice, something to chase away his nightmares about where he was years ago, his missing limbs and phantom pains.

A book was laid on your desk by ragged and skinny fingers.

You can’t even be bothered to read the title, boring words from other papers ruining the thought of reading anymore than you had to already. The cover seemed rather magical, waves of sparkles and purple across a midnight sky, something you may see a preteen girl reading. You remember a long time ago of Jamison making you promise not to make fun of him or ever tell anybody about his guilty pleasure of lighthearted books. Perhaps the simple plots and happy endings made him forget about the real world.

This time, there are no words or funny antics shared between the two of you, and it’s one of those rare instances that Jamison looks strangely melancholy.

“Jamie?”

His face tightens into a sort of childlike pout, but those dark eyes keep looking downwards. He doesn’t do it often, but it seems that he’s scrubbed himself clean to avoid your scolding in the morning of the white sheets being ruined again. Hell, he’s even taken the time to dress himself in proper sleepwear.

“Stop that.” 

It’s blunt and direct, much different from the way he clowns around the room, pulling boring books off your shelf and threatening to replace them all with little bang snaps one day. Both of you are stressed, and although for different reasons, Jamison is the first one who wants it to stop.

“Stop hurting yourself.”

When you finally get onto the bed, the tall explosive man that has been labeled as one of the most dangerous criminals in the world lays his upper body in your lap. Despite being a person of jagged body shapes, he looks a lot more soft like this, curled up like a child.

Your tired hands open the book he recommended to the first page, reading much slower than usual from the eyestrain earlier today of boring black letters against pale white paper. There’s something calming about reading a regular book rather than a strict syllabus on what you’ll be expected to do in your next project. Nothing to be memorized or to be taken too importantly, to write in your little agenda of what you’ll be doing on what day of the week on what week of the month. Just a smooth sailing story of a young girl riding a boat in her dreams, on a mission to find her lost stuffed tiger that she loved so dearly. You get so invested in the simplicity of it that you reach the end of the chapter book, the magical undertone leaving to form a heartwarming denouement when it turns out that the toy was under her bed the entire time.

When the book finally closes, you see that the man has fallen asleep on your stomach, a bit of drool threatening to drip from his ajar lips. Peaceful, something you wouldn’t usually see from a man who bombs his enemies for a living. For a moment you wonder how much of the reading he’s been asleep for, and another for if he’ll beg you to read it over tomorrow because ‘it ain’t the same unless it’s your voice’.

You find that you don’t really mind the thought of doing so.

Perhaps you should take a break.

Please be sure to take care of yourselves, because there’s always someone out there who cares for you <3

#imagine #junkrat #jamison fawkes #Zenyatta #tekhartha zenyatta #overwatch #scenario