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fanmoose12 · 3 years

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a little something for @bruciesnat :) i know i've promised it like a lifetime ago, sorry for the delay! oh, and i decided to combine it with a prompt i also received a long while ago <3

Mike doesn't know why he's doing this. Doesn't understand how he agreed to it, can't comprehend why Erwin would make him do it. Mike doesn't know what he had done to deserve this- this punishment.

He's- he's a good man. An honest one. He serves to ensure the future of humanity, he risks his life to give others a better one.

He's good at it too, he's excellent at fighting and slashing and scouting. He was the best one at it, before- before the annoying midget came.

The same annoying midget, who is insanely strong and easily irritated. The same annoying midget, who has a crush on their adorable Hange. Hange, who Mike has to seduce to test Erwin's theory that Levi, insanely strong, easily irritated Levi, truly has a crush on their Hange.

Mike swallows heavily as he sits next to Hange, just a little too close as Erwin instructed. He smells that it won't end well.

He cringes, as he puts his arm around her shoulders.

Mike likes Hange, a lot actually. Sometimes he feels like they're siblings that were torn apart by some bigger entity. So yeah, he likes Hange. But definitely not like that.

But, oh well, anything for the cause, right?

"Hey, Hans," he murmurs, adopting his most seducting tone. He hopes that his smile is charming enough to captivate their dear scientist. "Are you free tonight? I have two tickets to the theater perfomance," he leans in closer, lowering his voice to what could probably (Mike is an eternal optimist!) be called an enticing whisper. "They're showing the creation of the the Walls tonight."

Somewhere on his periphery, Mike can see a swift dark shadow that oozes the smell of detergent. That shadow, it grows closer, its aura becoming more menacing.

Mike can only hope that if Levi attempts to kill him, Erwin would intervene.

Although... knowing Erwin, he'd just write Mike's death off as a necessary sacrifice.

He takes his hand off Hange. The shadow retreats a few steps back.

"Sorry, Mike," Hange shrugs with a small, apologizing smile. "I showed that play to Levi a few weeks ago. I had my fill of religious propaganda for now. But if you're looking for someone to accompany you," she winks and turns around. Mike's heart sinks. "Levi really liked going to the theatre! He'll be happy to tag along, right, Levi?"

Mike meets Levi's eyes, and sees nothing but desire for murder inside.

Mike quickly scrambles to his feet. "You know, I'll just ask Gelgar to go with me. I'm sure he doesn't have anything better to do."

And they can get wasted afterwards. Mike really needs that after this conversation.

Just as he retreats, Levi takes his place, sitting down next to Hange, also just a little too close.

The mission had failed spectacularly, but, Mike consoles himself, at least he learned that Hange and Levi went to theatre together. And sometimes intel is more important than the victory, right?

Ah, if only Erwin would share his opinion on that.

***

Erwin's second attempt is even worse than the first one, but, at least, this time it doesn't directly involve Mike. Still, he's an unwilling spectator to it, and, just as the last time, he doesn't like where all of this is going.

He already feels bad for the poor guy Erwin hired to hit on Hange during the annual military ball. Where did Erwin get the money - did he take them from the Corps' funds or his own allowance, Mike doesn't know, and, frankly, he isn't sure which option is more disturbing.

At least, the actor is handsome, Mike doesn't know if Hange would like him, he doesn't know if she has a type, and if she does, he hopes it's not annoying midgets, but the guy is handsome, there is no denying that.

Hange has cleaned up fairly well too, the white suit looks excellent on her, bringing out all of her best assets, demonstrating her wide hips and lean, long legs. The hair, gathered in a neat bun, shows her long, gorgeous neck, and the light make-up make her even more gorgeous than usual.

When she and Erwin walked through the front door - him in his blue suit and Hange in her white, symbolising their Wings of Freedom, everyone had their breath taken away.

Even Mike was a little shocked to see Hange dressed up like this, and Levi, who stood right next to him, was completely blown away, staring at Hange with wide-eyed, lovestruck look.

Thanks to Levi's ridiculous expression, Mike now understands why Erwin goes to such length to bring their resident weirdos together. It is delightful to watch Levi behave like that, and Mike longs to see more of this side of him.

Soon after Hange and Erwin make their grand entrance, their guy makes the first move.

He approaches Hange, his eyes bright and smile so charming it makes Mike envious that Hange is at the receiving end of it. He kisses her hand, whispers something in her ear.

"He praises her recent experiment. I thought it was a good place to start," Erwin explains quietly to him.

"Ah," Mike nods. So Erwin thought every detail through? Not surprising at all. "Think this would have an effect on Levi?"

"It already does," Erwin says, pointing to a furious cloud of black hair and suit that is approaching them at a rapid speed.

"Has four-eyes lost all shame?" Levi practically growls, his eyes throwing flames. "Is she seriously flirting with a fucker from the MP?"

"He's not a soldier," Mike answers, reciting a legend Erwin created. "He's actually a wealthy merchant from the South. Heard he sells apples to the King himself."

"And since when Hange is interested in someone like him," Levi crosses hands on his chest, his glare turning even darker, as Erwin's actor takes Hange by the hand and leads her to the dance floor.

"You know, you can ask Hange to a dance," Erwin advices with a pleased smile. "Then she won't be able to flirt with others."

Levi scoffs. "I would rather fight a horde of titans than dance with stinky four-eyes."

Maria, Rose and Sina, Mike thinks. They're worse than children.

"Hange has taken a bath before coming here," he tells Levi.

Levi rolls his eyes. "And now she looks even more awful than usual."

Mike shares a look with Erwin. Does Levi prefer usual Hange, when she doesn't bath for days and her eyes water from the lack of sleep? It almost sounds cute.

"This is the last time I'm attending this shitty ball," Levi swears to Erwin. "Even wine here is shitty."

He marches away immediately after that, heading to the table with wine. Mike can barely stop his laughter, as he watches Levi take a glass of wine, drink a few large gulps of it, and then wince, his mouth moving as he probably murmurs violent curses. He doesn't take his eyes off Hange and her dance partner, and relaxes only when the song ends.

Both Mike and Erwin watch intently as the actor kisses Hange's hand once again. Hange blushes, and Mike almost coos. Levi grabs another glass of wine.

When the actor starts leading Hange away, in the direction of the balcony, Levi starts moving too. He intercepts them just at the edge of the ballroom.

Mike knows he should have expected something like that, knows that Levi doesn't exactly possess the best of manners, but pouring wine over someone? Over his own colleague and friend? Mike certainly didn't expect that.

He's delighted to see what happens next, though.

What happens is that Hange's gorgeous white suit is ruined and Levi wraps his hand around her wrist and drags her to the bathroom. He sports a unusually pleased expression and Hange is laughing herself silly.

Not a bad ending to this endeavor, Mike thinks.

"Another disaster," Erwin sighs.

***

Third time is a charm, or so Mike hopes.

This time Erwin decides to take matter in his hands, and that another sign that this plan will succeed.

The plan is simple, yet, hopefully, effective. Erwin is to whisk Hange away to some remote location, create a scene that would look like a moment between lovers, and Mike is to call Levi there and make sure he witnesses it all.

Erwin is a brave man, Mike thinks, as his Commander explains the plan to him. He would never dare to do something like that to humanity's strongest. To awaken his jealous streak... Mike is glad he's not in Erwin's place.

One sunny afternoon, the plan is set in motion. Erwin takes Hange, and Mike goes to find Levi.

He finds him fairly quickly, in the middle of cleaning Hange's room. Man, he could at least try to make his crush be less discreet. But that's beside the point now, because Levi is cleaning Hange's room and not watching Erwin and Hange. Mike confidently strides up to him.

"Levi! I've just been looking for you."

"What do you need?" he asks boringly. "And have you seen four-eyes? I can't find her all day."

Erwin prepared some legend, a reason why Mike needs Levi, but in the heat of the moment, Mike can't remember a single word. So he just yells "Come with me!" and hope that Levi follows.

Thankfully, he does.

Mike leads him to the stables, where Erwin is already at it. His palm is on the wall, next to Hange's head, and from Mike's point of view, it certainly looks like they're in the middle of... something naughty.

Next to him, Levi tenses, and Mike can practically hear his teeth grinding.

Mike prepares for something very ugly, but then...

"I- I didn't know that Erwin and four-eyes-" oh, fuck, it sounds like Levi is genuinely sad, like he's heartbroken or something. Mike feels a strange desire to hug the little guy and pat his head. But then he remembers that he and Erwin are the reason for Levi's distress right now, and... remorse starts kicking in.

"Levi, listen, it's not-"

"Levi!"

As always, Hange is the one to save the day.

She breaks free from Erwin and sprints to Levi, a wide smile on her face. "You won't believe what Erwin had just told me! He gave me permission to go in the town's library and bring back all the books I want! I'm in dire need of your muscles, humanity's strongest, you'll go with me, right?"

Levi still seems grouchy, but under Hange's sunny grin, his angry facade crumbles. "I don't know if Commander will allow it..."

He doesn't even try to hide his bitterness and irration. Mike disguises his chuckle as a coughing fit.

"Erwin!" Hange turns to him, eyes pleading. "Can Levi go with me?"

"Sure," Erwin nods. "Take all the time you need."

Hange yells in triumph, loud enough to make Mike wince. She grabs Levi by the hand and drags him away. Erwin watches them with a wistful smile.

"I don't think we should get involved in their relationships," Mike says, as he approaches Erwin. He stands close to his Commander, their shoulders pressing against each other. "We should let them figure it out themselves."

"Agreed," Erwin says. "I'm sure they'll manage well enough even without us."

Mike watches Hange wrap her arm around Levi, and is inclined to agree. They will certainly manage without them both.

Or, at least, Hange is able to manage.

And that should be enough.

#levihan

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obwjam · 3 years

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Ok so I loved your ‘Anakin gets shrunk’ thing but now I’m also imagining a scenario in which the tiny is suddenly as tall as their giant friends.

AH THANK U i’m glad you liked it 🥺🥺 but also yes i think about this all the time too..... mayhaps it would go something like this

————

It happened suddenly, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where only a few people were paying attention because nobody thought it was going to work. They had finally made significant progress on their mission to reverse engineer the Separatist weapon that shrunk Anakin Skywalker to just a few inches tall, and a few members of the Jedi Council were eager to see if the nonstop work had paid off. Standing near him was Jayla, his lifelong tiny friend who had helped keep Anakin sane during the worst month of his life. There was a non-zero chance this antidote wasn’t going to work, so she was on standby in case something went wrong.

It worked, though. Maybe a little too well.

There was a blinding light that filled the medical bay as the growth ray was activated. Anakin felt like his body was being torn apart before the pain melted and his eyes adjusted to the room. Wow, everything is so much brighter.

“Anakin!” came the excited and relieved voice of Obi-Wan.

“Did... did it work?” Anakin asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Yes, thank the Force, it did— oh my...”

Sitting on the table to Anakin, there was a new person in the room. It was Jayla, who was no longer four inches tall and instead seemed to be taller than even the five-and-a-half-foot Ahsoka. A splitting headache was all that was left after the fire in her body subsided. No matter how many times she blinked, she couldn’t see clearly.

Anakin turned, following Obi-Wan’s gaze. His jaw just about hit the floor. “What the...”

“Ugh, why do I feel so—woah...” Jayla slurred through her words, and her voice suddenly sounded like she was screaming. It felt like the words were traveling from her brain to her mouth in slow motion. Through the pain in her head, she strained her eyes to try and make out the figures in front of her. She took a shortened breath. Why did everything feel so closed in?

A concerned Jayla? was the only thing she heard before her eyes rolled back and she passed out right on the table.

Anakin and Obi-Wan rushed to help her as Ahsoka, Yoda, Plo Koon and Mace Windu watched in subdued shock.

Ahsoka was the one to break the silence. “Uhm... what just happened?”

Nobody really had an answer. They threw out speculations as Anakin stood at Jayla’s bedside, making sure she was okay. It didn’t take long for her eyes to start fluttering.

Anakin waved his hand and shushed the group as Jayla stirred awake. At first, her eyelids remained heavy and she could barely make out what she was seeing. But suddenly, the face in front of her took shape. Anakin was shockingly close to her, and yet, he didn’t look big at all. It must not have worked.

“Anakin...” she muttered, finding her voice. “What happened? I got the worst headache... oh kriff, that thing didn’t work, did it?”

“Jay,” Anakin cut her off. “It... it did work.”

Jayla blinked, thoroughly confused. “Um, are you joking? You’re still tiny.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Then why—“ she started, but once she looked over to where Obi-Wan’s voice was coming from, she nearly swallowed her tongue. Obi-Wan was eye-level, but he wasn’t bending down, and his face didn’t take up her entire view. In fact, he was several feet away, but it felt like he was right next to her. She tried to reach into the Force to figure out what was going on, but she flinched away when a thousand different sensations flooded her mind. It hurt almost as bad as the headache.

“Take it easy!” Anakin cautioned as Jayla shot up, her eyes wide. Stars flashed briefly in her vision. Her limbs felt like jelly. “You don’t look so good.”

“Stop, stop...” Jayla squeezed her eyes shut as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “You’re talking too loud.”

Anakin turned to Obi-Wan, a look of concern passing between them. The Jedi in the corner stayed put, partially so they didn’t startle Jayla and partially because they were still in shock.

Jayla stared at her feet and took a few deep breaths as she allowed the world around her to normalize in her brain. Even though the floor was so far away from her now, she could still see it in excruciating detail. She swung her legs a few times, gasping when the tips of her toes brushed against the cool tile. When she remembered the Jedi standing in the corner of the room, she glanced up, only able to hold eye contact for just a few uncomfortable seconds before moving her head back down. The Force confirmed what seemed too impossible to be true — not only did the antidote grow Anakin back, but it grew her, too.

“I’m... uh. Wow. I’m really... wow,” Jayla breathed, eyes still trained downward. “This is... really weird.”

“How do you feel?” Obi-Wan was now standing next to the bed. His mind was racing to find a potential explanation for what was in front of him.

“Um. Confused,” she said, still getting used to the projection of her voice. She was too afraid to look Obi-Wan in the eye. “Everything feels loud.”

“How can something feel loud?” Anakin questioned.

“I dunno! It’s... it’s like my senses have been dialed up to 100. Like something is bound to happen at any moment.”

“Sounds like you’re just a bit anxious,” Obi-Wan said. “I don’t blame you.”

“No no, it’s more than that. Like... like I can hear what’s going on outside the door. All the people walking by, how their footsteps sound. And how Rex is standing in the hallway and trying to act like he’s not nervous but he’s really freaking out ‘cause he doesn’t know why it’s taking so long and he’s assuming it didn’t work. And the medical droid — the one over there, across the room — it’s making some sedative. Mixing bacta with... something green. It smells awful in here, too, and it’s really distracting.”

Obi-Wan and Anakin stared at her in stunned silence for a moment. Neither of them had sensed Rex outside the room, much less what he was feeling, and the medical droid was too far away to make out the labels of what it was mixing. They certainly couldn’t hear anything going on outside of their little huddle. And the room didn’t even have a smell.

“Hmm.” Obi-Wan calmly rubbed his chin, casting a sideways glance at the other Jedi masters in the room. They seemed to all be thinking the same thing. “We can discuss this later, Jayla. Right now, we need to make sure both of your vitals are stable.”

Jayla nodded, again closing her eyes in an attempt to reduce her bubble of perception. She couldn’t take all the noise.

“Ahsoka, please keep Anakin and Jayla company and let me know if there are any anomalies in their readings. Masters, if you don’t mind?” Obi-Wan jerked his head to the door. Yoda, Plo Koon and Mace Windu, who had stayed surprisingly silent through the whole ordeal, followed Obi-Wan into the hall. They were a little astounded to see Rex as described: leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his fingers gripped tightly around his armor. He perked up when he saw the group of Jedi, but didn’t say anything as they moved off to the side. If they didn’t know any better, they would have just assumed he was tense about being in the Jedi Temple.

“I don’t know what to make of this,” Obi-Wan started. “What went wrong?”

“Too close, she was standing, when we fired our antidote,” Yoda said with confidence. “Caught in its range, she was.”

“I agree,” Mace chimed in. “Though that doesn’t explain why it has the exact same effect on her when it was only intended to reverse what had been done to Skywalker.”

“Maybe the effect wasn’t the same. She seems to have this... heightened connection to the Force,” Obi-Wan offered. “I knew she was strong with it before, but now...”

“It seems that the strength of her abilities grew with her physical body,” Plo finished.

“But Skywalker’s connection to the Force was never diminished,” Mace said. “Besides, that’s not how the Force works.”

“Possible, it may be, that this is not a matter concerning the Force,” Yoda said, drawing the attention of the other matters. “Hyper-attentive, her species is. Always like this, she could have been.”

The four Jedi considered that possibility. It made sense on the surface — she had always been quick and perceptive, and seemed to sense things coming before they happened. Now that she was their size, she was just interpreting her surroundings like normal, but on a much bigger scale, which allowed for picking up on things that humans or togrutas or anyone else would miss.

“If that is the case, then I’m afraid our little Jayla is going to be very overwhelmed by her new world,” Obi-Wan posited. “It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“We don’t even know how long she’ll be like this,” Mace stressed. “The truth of the matter is we have no idea how either of them will react to this antidote in the long-term. We need to keep a close eye on both of them, at all times.”

“Leave that to me,” Obi-Wan said. He was growing increasingly worried about how Jayla was taking all of this. He wanted to be there for her.

“Master Yoda and I can analyze the readings to see if we can find anything helpful,” Plo looked down to Yoda, who nodded in acknowledgment. “It will take some time, but as long as their vitals are stable, I see no reason to keep them cooped up in the temple.”

“We still have this war to deal with,” Mace grumbled.

“We can’t send them back out there. Especially Jayla. Not yet,” Obi-Wan protested. “We need to run more tests first.”

“With all due respect, Master Kenobi, there’s only so much a medical droid can tell us,” Plo responded. “We may have to see them in action to get a better sense of their boundaries.”

Obi-Wan considered this. “For Anakin, I suppose I agree with that. But we don’t know what our antidote did to Jayla, or what it will do. We should keep her here for a while.”

“She won’t like that,” Plo said.

“It doesn’t matter what she likes or not. We have a responsibility to keep her safe.”

Mace turned to Yoda, who had stayed silent in the debate. “Master Yoda, do you feel comfortable letting Jayla go out on the battlefield with Skywalker and Padawan Tano once she settles down? If she’s really as perceptive as you think, she could be a huge asset.”

Yoda hummed. While the idea of throwing Jayla back into battle like nothing happened felt odd to him and he was concerned with putting too much on her plate, he also agreed with Mace’s reasoning. The situation in the galaxy was dire, and they needed all the Jedi they could get to fight off the growing influence of the dark side. Plus, he knew his former padawan would adamantly refuse to stay in the temple.

“She may go. But careful, we must be. Know not how she will react to such a chaotic environment.”

“Very well, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan said. If Yoda thought it was okay, he supposed he could go along with it. “She’ll have me, Anakin, Ahsoka and Rex with her. She’ll be well protected.”

The Jedi all nodded, feeling slightly better about the situation. Obi-Wan watched as the other three filed back into the medbay. He made his way over to Rex, whose anxiety was easily sensible now. He sure had a lot of explaining to do.

————-

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I? I don’t think you understand how weird this is for me right now.”

“No, no, I think I understand perfectly. Did you forget the last month?”

“That was different!”

“Please! I wasn’t going around touching everything like I just woke up from stasis.”

“I’ve never held a book before, okay? I had to see what it was like!”

Anakin and Ahsoka were taking Jayla on a grand re-tour of the Jedi Temple. The place was almost unrecognizable at Jayla’s new height of five feet and eight inches. She didn’t understand how she was still so much shorter than Anakin.

“Come on, master,” Ahsoka dared to interject. “Don’t you think you’re being just a little unfair?”

“Psh, no way. Suddenly being tall is way less awkward than suddenly being small.”

“Is it, though?” Jayla said, finding a windowsill to lean against. She wasn’t used to this much walking. “I feel so... exposed. Everyone can see me now.”

“Isn’t that nice, though?” Ahsoka asked. “I mean, don’t you want people to notice you?”

“I guess...” Jayla trailed off, tracing her finger along her wrist. “It’s just really overwhelming. It feels like everyone’s staring at me.”

“I think they are,” Anakin muttered. Word traveled fast in the walls of the temple.

“I never realized you had a tattoo,” Ahsoka said, noticing for the first time the intricate symbol on Jayla’s wrist.

“Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s something everyone in my village gets. Or, got. Here.” She held her wrist out, still getting used to the fact that it was the same size as everyone else’s. “These symbols here, that’s a language. I never actually got to learn it fully, and I’ve forgotten almost all of it, but it means al’hora dessili. Clan of Al. The animal-looking thing is a corano. It’s part of ancient legend. It symbolizes intuition, which I guess was the trait that was most prevalent in me when I was young.”

“How could they have known?” Ahsoka asked. “I mean, didn’t the council come and find you when you were an infant?”

Jayla sniffed a laugh. “I think I was almost 10 when they found me.” She exchanged a knowing glance with Anakin. “And I think it was entirely by accident.”

Ahsoka blushed. “Oh. I had no idea.”

“That’s by design,” Jayla smirked. “Master Windu was the one who discovered me. Hah, out of all the things I’ve seen, that might have been the scariest day of my life. Even now, when we’re almost the same height, I’m still kinda freaked out by him.”

A gust of wind caught Jayla’s hair and she lost her words. Something like that used to knock her off her feet, or at the very least, push her back a bit. But now, that breeze was like a kiss on her cheek as she gazed out in wonder at the busy world below. The towers still towered, but in a majestic way instead of an imposing one. Everything seemed within reach.

“Excuse me, sirs.”

The three whipped their heads around to find Rex standing with his helmet resting between his arm and his side. Obi-Wan was deep in conversation with someone else across the way, answering many of the same questions that Rex had posited on the way over.

“Rex,” Anakin smiled.

“General Skywalker. It’s so good to see you back to normal.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Are you feeling alright?

“Yeah. A little sore, actually. And just a bit tired. But if that’s what it takes, then I don’t care, because I’m just glad to be me again…”

Anakin trailed off when he realized Rex was no longer listening to him. Once he had locked eyes with Jayla, neither of them could tear their gaze away from the other. They both felt like they were looking at an entirely different person. Jayla’s stomach kept turning.

“Hey, Rex…” Jayla said slowly, as if she had just learned those words and was trying them out for the first time. “You’re, uh. You’re taller than I expected.”

Rex blinked. “I could say the same for you, sir.”

Jayla bit back a smile. “Yeah.”

Several beats of silence followed.

“Well.” Ahsoka could barely take it. “This is awkward.”

Anakin tapped Jayla’s shoulder. “I think she short circuited.”

“I think you should stop poking me,” Jayla retorted, playfully punching Anakin in the shoulder. Well. She thought it was playful.

“Ow! Kriff,” Anakin reeled back. “That hurt, yknow.”

“What? Really? M’sorry,” Jayla stammered, staring at her hand. I didn’t hit him that hard.

“If this is how strong you’re gonna be, then you’ll have to take it easy on the punches,” Anakin jested. “Save it for the Separatists.”

“If that’s how strong I’m gonna be...” Jayla repeated anxiously. “I don’t know how much I like that.”

Rex gave the two Jedi next to him a concerned look. They didn’t need words to know that it was time for one of them to change the subject.

Ahsoka spoke first. “Hey, why don’t we go to the dining hall and get some grub? I don’t know about you all, but I’m starving.”

“Uhm, I don’t really think I should,” Jayla said tentatively, rubbing her neck. “I have no idea what eating food could do to me. Or Anakin, really.”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Anakin muttered. “Well, what about the gardens? We still need to finish our grand tour. Rex, why don’t you join us?”

Rex’s face flushed red. “Oh, I--I shouldn’t, sir.”

“Come on, it’ll be nice! How often are you in the Jedi Temple?”

“This is my first time, sir.”

“See? Now you have to come. Jayla thinks it’s her first time in the temple too. You can touch the plants together.”

“Okay, listen--” she started, but stopped when she realized how exhausted she was. Getting angry took up a lot of energy. “Ugh. Can we take it slow? We’ve done so much walking already.”

“We’ve been out of the medbay for an hour!”

“Well, when you suddenly grow 15 times the height you’ve been all your life, you tell me how you feel!” Anakin wanted to keep poking fun, but nothing about that sentence was funny. Jayla sighed. “Sorry. I’m just… really tired.”

“Fresh air will help,” Rex interjected, daring to enter the conversation. “Trust me.”

Jayla gave him a small smile. The butterflies in her stomach were still there, but not as bad as before. “Okay. Let’s go.” She turned to Anakin. “Oh, and I will be touching all the plants.”

Anakin snickered. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Hey, if this is gonna be a long-term thing, then I’m gonna have fun with it. And half the fun comes from annoying you.”

“I wish I could get away with that,” Ahsoka muttered under her breath.

“Come on, kids! The tour continues!” Anakin waved the group forward. Jayla chuckled and even Rex cracked a smile.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

#lol this turned into a whole ass thing #the power of size swaps #and the power of me launching into excrutiating detail #it’s like if you were to grow an ant #mfs could carry like 1000 pounds by themselves #jayla’s hulking out #also really just jumped at the opportunity to dive into jayla lore #dont flame me for copying anakin's story beats it has a purpose #me: i will be answering more prompts!#also me: spends the whole day on this #it's not a phase mom this is just who i am #okay that's enough #obwrites #star wars g/t

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something-fanfiction-ie · 4 years

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Page Numbers

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: Detailed descriptions of crime scenes, mentions of rape and sexual assault, murder. Just getting into the angst guys...

A/N: So I decided after like two people responded (thank you guys) to split the second part into two because it was so ridiculously long. You guys don’t even want to know how much I had to cut off this to end this at a place I felt comfortable. Rest assured, you’ll probably get the next part tomorrow. Remember to like, comment, reblog, message me, send me asks, and just do anything to feed my constant need for praise and attention from strangers. As always, thank you so much! I love you all and I hope you enjoy!

___

[Part One]

“I can never figure out if I like local cases more because I get to sleep in my own bed every night we work the case, or if they make me more uncomfortable because they’re so close to home.”

Rossi glanced at Morgan, who cast his eyes to the review mirror as he spoke. Reid sat in the back, a little smile playing at the corners of his lips as he read something on his phone.

The youngest member of the BAU team had been uncharacteristically chipper over the last three weeks, constantly taking calls or responding to texts. Even when he started to ramble about something no one was really interested in listening to, the topics were about things that were of a happier nature. Things like a single grain of rice having five times more DNA than an entire human being has in their whole body, or that the term ‘nerd’ first showed up in print in the book, If I Ran the Zoo, by Dr. Seuss published in 1951.

He shoved the cell back into his pocket, looking up into Morgan’s eyes in the mirror. He knew that they knew that something was up, but he didn’t want to say anything until it got a little more serious. And it was rapidly going that way. Spencer had spent nearly every second of his free time with you, doing things like getting coffee or going back to the bookstore that just so happened to be forty minutes out of his way.

In fact, just last week you had come over to his house to have dinner and watch a movie. You begged him to watch The Princess Bride instead of some very obscure French movie that no normal person would actually own.

“I love all the new and intelligent things you show me, Spencer, but I want to show you a new and slightly less intelligent thing. Let me rub off on you for a change.”

You quoted the entire thing, your lips silently moving with every word spoken during the movie. Afterward, you confessed that you had read the book even more than you’d seen the movie and could probably quote it just as easily. He picked up a copy from the library this morning before coming into work. While he hadn’t had the chance to read it yet, or either of your own published works, he was determined to finish it before he saw you again.

It was only 493 pages, so it shouldn’t take him that long.

“What?” He blinked, his brows dipping dangerously close to those impossibly long lashes of his. Morgan looked back to the road, his own amusement twitching at his cheeks.

The car bumped over a dip in the road just before they pulled into the already packed driveway of the crime scene. Rossi shut the car off and Morgan pulled his sunglasses on before getting out of the car, but not without a teasing comment.

“Get your head in the game long enough to solve this case and you can go back to whatever has had your attention these last couple of weeks. Okay, kid?” The blush that colored his cheeks was the same shade as when he realized you were staring at him in awe that first time you met.

Inside, the mood of teasing and distractedness changed. Everyone focused while crime scene techs circled the room taking pictures and gathering every bit of tangible evidence they could possibly find.

The first victim, or by the looks of things, the last victim, was a male in his early to mid-forties. His salt and pepper hair was combed back and styled, his beard perfectly trimmed. Even in death his clothes were unrumpled, only the pool of blood-soaked into his khaki pants and maroon shirt ruined the look of an otherwise very put-together man.

He was slouched in a wooden chair pulled into the living room from the dining room table, his hands bound behind his back with three blue zip ties, his ankles bound to the legs of the chair exactly the same way.

“The victim is forty-four year old, Joseph Kyle. He’s a lawyer with Kyle & Anderson. Cause of death appears to be two gunshot wounds to the chest.”

The next victim was a woman. She wasn’t as put together as her husband, laying in a pool of her own blood on the kitchen floor. Bruises and cuts littered her arms and legs, massive handprints still marred the skin around her biceps. It went without asking that she had been sexually assaulted, her underwear hanging on the knob of a drawer and her skirt bunched around the top of her thighs.

“Synthia Kyle, forty. Stay at home mom. She was stabbed sixty-one times in the abdomen, chest, and thighs.”

The last three victims were children. Each in their own rooms, each tucked into bed and shot in the head execution-style. One look around the room and anyone would know that they were happy kids, smart and well-rounded, and loved.

“James, Massey, and Devan Kyle. Seventeen, fifteen, and ten. All shot in the head.”

For all the evidence that could be seen with their eyes; the brutal attack against the mother, the cold killing of the father, and the remorseful executions of the children, it shouldn’t have been so hard to form a profile.

“And where is the number?” Reid turned his whole body away from the little boy's room, the image of him lying in bed with his eyes closed and a bullet hole in his head was enough to turn the pits of his stomach against him.

The lead detective, a slight man with inky black curls and piercing blue eyes, led them into the dining room. The number ‘302’ was smeared across a painting hanging on the wall, the blood so thickly layered over the Botecelli copy that is dripped down and over the golden frame.

“At first glance, it would appear to be a family annihilator. His primary goal being the rape and torture of Synthia Kyle, and the rest of the family simply casualties of his rage, but just like the last three crimes, there is nothing even remotely similar in victimology or the killings.” Reid’s lips skewed to the side, crossing his arms and combing over every detail.

“Alison Crane was sexually assaulted as well.” Morgan offered the information up with skepticism, aware that, besides the numbers at every crime scene, it was the only thing that could be pulled from the two. Rossi shook his head, his eyes scanning the air as he thought.

“Alison Crane was kidnapped and beaten before she was found three days later on the Chesapeake Bay. Her wrists slashed. She was staged with remorse, a-a cloth laid over her eyes and her arms crossed over her chest. That couldn’t have been done by the same unsub.” Rossi looked over at Morgan because even still, they knew that it was the same guy because cut into the top of Alison’s arm had been the number nineteen.

It had taken Reid all of two seconds to realize they were page numbers when he’d seen the piece of paper that had been pinned to the second victim’s chest. Obviously torn from a book, the triangle scrap of paper had only had the number 85 printed on it.

And just as difficult as it had been to pin down a book during the Fisher King case, it felt as if it was ten thousand times harder to find the book being used now. All they had were page numbers and murders. They’d narrowed the list to crime novels, but there were still so many books on the list that even with Reid, it would take years to sift through them all.

Garcia has been sad to watch the young doctor leave her office in disappointment when she revealed her ability to narrow down books was still no good. Not that it was her fault since the lack of a central database for every book known to man, made it very frustrating for anyone that tried to narrow down a book based only on crime scenes. And this was still given the assumption that this book was actually published and not a story the unsub had written himself.

This would be the third homicide in this case, the first one done since the FBI had been asked to assist the DCPD. The crossing of victimology and the numbers on the victims had been enough for unit chief, Hugh Lowe to pick up his phone and request for the BAU to stop this man.

Other than the book revelation, and the geographical profile that Reid had come up with, there wasn’t much progress. It had only been two weeks since the death of the first victim and now their unsub’s body count had gone from two to seven.

A young woman kidnapped outside her dorm in Georgetown, held hostage, beaten, and raped for three days, then staged at the Chesapeake Bay with her wrists slashed and clean clothes on.

An older man was beaten in his home while his wife is away on business overseas, killed with a tire iron to the back of his head, stripped of his clothes, which sat folded beside his splayed out body, his ring finger cut off. His wedding ring had been on the clothes beside him but they couldn’t find the finger.

And now a family of five.

It was frustrating, to say the least, each agent so annoyed by the case that none of them spoke on the ride back to the BAU.

“So I don’t have the book, mon ami, but I do have a possible connection in victimology and a shortlist of possible suspects, or at the very least persons of interest,” Garcia said excitedly when all three glowering men came through the clear doors of the BAU. They each lifted their heads and eyebrows with piqued curiosity.

“My link is Georgetown. Alison was going there for a major in political science, Mr. Walters had been a chemistry teacher there before the death of his first wife ten years ago, and I just found out that our newest victims, Synthia and Joseph, met there in the spring of ‘88 as a senior and a freshman.” Garcia had to admit that their minds were quick to gather the information, turning it over in the cogs that constantly spin inside their brains, but her mind was faster.

“Did you-“

“Cross-reference Georgetown alumni with a list of crime novelists? And then cross-reference that list with people who lived in Spence’s comfort zone? ‘How did you know to do that Garcia?’ you may ask. Because I’m a genius. Quick, boys, follow me.” Her heels click in rapid succession as she leads the men into her office of computers, colorful do-dads, and pictures. When she takes a seat, Morgan leans directly over her shoulder, Reid standing just behind her, and Rossi stands just to the side of him.

The list that pops up is only four names, the tension that has been in all of their shoulders relaxes a little at the first stride in the case that they’ve made sense they started working it. Reid’s shoulders tense up again when he notices a familiar name that sits at the bottom of the list.

“This one, click on it.” He points to the line at the end and watches as Garcia moves her mouse over to the area he was pointing to and clicks to reveal a face he knows too well.

You smile back at him in your freshman year Georgetown photo, a set of bangs cut that you don’t have anymore. In the picture you seem impossibly young, your eyes full of excitement, although he knows that you aren’t that much younger than he is. Even still, for some reason, he half expects your smile to be missing teeth you seem so young.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), graduated from Georgetown in 2000 with a master's in criminology. She’s published two crime novels in the last two years. She doesn’t have too much of an eventful life; she isn’t married, has no children, pays all of her bills on time, has no detectable significant other. Mom is a detective with the Atlanta PD, Dad walked out before she was born, no siblings, nothing more than a couple speeding tickets against her.” Rossi pulls one of his hands from his folded arms, pointing at the picture with squinted eyes.

“I met her last year, very briefly, at a publishing party. We couldn’t have talked for more than ten seconds, but she seemed like a good kid. You think she’s our unsub?” Everyone looks to Reid, his expression is stone cold and unreadable.

Garcia almost wishes she hadn’t made the connection in the first place as she watches the muscle in his jaw tick, his eyes flying across the screen several times before he turned away from the group’s prying eyes. Nerves of a whole other kind had exploded inside him, forcing his hands to open and close like fluttering butterfly wings at his sides.

“I’m not sure. Just call her in for questioning.” He wants to say he doesn’t think it’s you, mostly because he doesn’t want it to be you. The thought that he could have invited a serial killer of this magnitude into his life, into the life of his team, it makes him even more nauseated than he had been earlier standing in the middle of a messy crime scene.

But when he runs to the library and finds both copies of your books, flipping to pages nineteen, eighty-five, and three hundred and two, he almost cries. On each page reads a word for word, detailed description of every murder that had happened in this case so far. The first girl even had the same name as the first victim.

By the time you make it to the BAU and you are escorted to the interrogation room, he’s read both books cover to cover. He keeps telling himself that there’s a chance you weren’t doing this, that you weren’t the killer, but it’s so hard to believe when you were the mind behind every murder.

As he looks at you from behind the one-way window pane, a mixture of anger and, strangely, hope has begun to swirl around his chest.

“You sure you don’t want to come in with me?” Prentiss says, looking back at the doctor as she reaches for the door. Spencer shakes his head, lips pursed and heart racing. He couldn’t go in their unbiased, willing to accept that you could be the unsub he’d been chasing for the last two weeks.

“Hi, I’m SSA Emily Prentiss with the BAU, nice to meet you, (Y/N).” She stretches her hand across the table and you return in kind, your shy smile stabbing into Reid’s heart like a knife.

“I’d like to say it is nice to meet you too, but I wish it were under other circumstances.” The chair across from you screeches on the floor as Emily pulls it out to sit in. She absentmindedly flicks her slick black hair over her shoulder before laying the files in front of her.

“Unfortunately, I’m always under circumstances like these, working at the BAU.”

“‘Bad guys don’t take days off,’ that’s what my mom used to say,” You glance at the file on the table, chewing the inside of your cheek like you were trying to keep yourself from saying anything more, “I was told I was needed to give my opinion on a case? Although, I’m not sure how I could be of much help. I just write.”

Spencer watches you push a piece of your hair behind your ear with a small chuckle, glancing at the window like you could see him behind it.

“You’re a published author of two books, not just any writer.” Prentiss is relaxed, letting the case file sit between you like a hook dangling between a fish and a fisherman. You keep looking down at it, curiosity eating away at your nerves the way it used to when your mother came home with a new case.

“Tell that to my mom, she’s still holding out on me joining law enforcement.” It’s a joke, but every profiler watching reads into it. It isn’t hard to fit it into a working profile, the unsub feels unappreciated in her skills as an author with the apparent disapproval her mother has over her career. To both appease her mother and stake her claim as a serious author, the unsub is killing the same way she’s written in her books.

“Why didn’t you? Join law enforcement, I mean. You’re obviously very intelligent, you had a masters from Georgetown at just seventeen, and you seem to have a pretty good grasp on the politics and procedures of law enforcement careers.” For just a moment, you consider the question and your answer to it, but Spencer can see the exact moment that it clicks in your mind on what exactly is going on.

Your entire body language changes; your shoulders curling in toward your body, the chewing of your cheek intensifying, your hands pulling back from their relaxed position on the table and tangling themselves into your lap.

“I’m not here as a possible expert witness, am I, Agent Prentiss?”

Emily responds by opening the file, at last, pushing the pictures of the crime scenes across the table for you to have a look at. Seven pictures splay out in front of you and it doesn’t take you long to register the familiarity behind them all. You have to swallow the bile in your mouth before you speak again.

“I’m a suspect.”

“You’re the only suspect.”

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid imagines #spence reid #dr spence reid #criminal mind imagine #criminal minds #dr spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you

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brain-deadx0 · 3 years

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Frozen Heart ch 7

Chapter one: Do you Wanna Build a Snowman

Previous: Reindeers are Better than People

Chapter Seven: In Summer

Warnings: Innuendos curtesy of Remus, minor injury of a main character, referring to someone as an it (temporary), let me know to tag

Patton and Remus had been walking in silence for a long time. Remus seemed a bit down since the marriage argument and Patton felt bad about that. He wasn’t sure why it upset Remus, but something about it did.

“Hey Remus?” He asked.

Remus looked over, “Yeah?”

“Um, are you okay? I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything earlier…”

Remus blinked, “...What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well it’s just… you’ve seemed kinda...”

“Wait, have you been guilt tripping yourself this whole time?” Remus asked. The look on Patton’s face was a definite yes. Remus rubbed the back of his neck, “Look, I still stand by my statement about marriage at first sight, but at the end of the day it’s none of my business. You didn’t hurt my feelings or anything.” Remus told him.

“Oh… but I thought… you just seemed…”

“I’m not used to holding full out conversations with other people is all.” Remus told him, “So don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?” Patton asked again.

“Yep. Trust me, my family is all about speaking your mind. If we had a problem I’d let you know.” Remus told him with a reassuring smile.

“Good.” Patton sent a smile back, “So um… would you be open to talking then? I don’t really like silence so much. You don’t have to of course!” He reassured him.

“Eh, why not.” Remus shrugged, “Anything in particular?”

“Oh, well you mentioned your family. Can you tell me about them?”

“Sure. They’re a bit weird, but in a good way. I’m the tall one though, by a lot.” He gave Patton a somewhat sly look that Patton didn’t understand before saying, “I’m also the biggest.”

“So most of your family is on the shorter side?” Patton asked.

Remus smiled wide, “Something like that.”

“Do they live here in the mountains?”

“Yeah. They’re practically part of the mountain at this point. I don’t see them so much during the warmer months though since now is usually when I’m busy getting handsome strangers in my hole.”

Patton laughed and Remus sent him another one of his grins he tended to wear after some of his jokes that Patton didn’t always get. “Does that happen a lot?”

“Nah. But that’s ok. I like theirs even more. Especially when they have a large stick in the front.”

“Are the sticks used to mark where the pits are?” Patton asked. He didn’t see one when he fell in Remus’s trap, but then again he hadn’t been looking either. Come to think of it Remus said he didn’t mark his.

Remus’s smile widened again, “Something like that.”

Patton was about to ask what he meant but his attention quickly shifted to the scene in front of them, “Woah.” He breathed. There was a large group of willow trees ahead of them. The branches were frozen and were glittering in the sunlight, “It’s so pretty.”

Patton was awestruck as he slowly made his way through the trees. He couldn’t stop trying to look in every direction just to take everything in. Until he noticed two eyes staring down at him from a branch above his head.

As much as Remus hated the cold, he never truly got sick of seeing snow. He still remembered the first time he saw it. It was a couple months after his family adopted him. He grew up in a place where the temperature never got below “cool summer day” and his eyes had been so big they were close to popping right out of his skull. He probably looked about the same now as he stared at the frozen trees. He’d never seen them freeze like this before!

Remus probably could’ve spent a long time staring at the trees alone, but was torn from his nostalgic wonder by screaming.

“Ahhhhh!”

Patton and the… thing, screamed in unison for a moment before the thing fell off of its perch in the tree and scurried backwards and away from him.

“What the hell is that?!” Remus asked in amazement.

Now that the… snow… thing? Cat? Was on the ground and not looming over him, it was actually kinda… “Cute.” Patton told him.

“I am not!” The snow cat told him indignantly.

“Ah! It talks!” Patton said in shock. He then watched as Remus walked over to the talking snow cat and picked it up. He held it under the arms and stared at it for a moment, much to the snow cats apprehension.

“Oh. My. God.” Remus said, “You’re so creepy!” he told it before hugging it tightly.

“H-hey!” The cat said before hissing angrily, “Put me down!”

“But you’re so- ah!” Remus looked down at the once puffy snow cat that was now covered in large spikes of ice and- oh my gosh are those fangs! Those weren’t there before!

“Oh my gosh-Remus! Are you ok?!”

Remus stared at the growling cat in his arms before slowly looking to Patton with a wild grin, “Patton can I keep him?!”

It earned him another bite from the prickly snow cat.

“Remus- Remus let it go!” Patton told him.

“Aw…” Remus whined before unceremoniously dropping the cat who immediately turned to hiss angrily at him.

“Hey, hey it’s ok.” Patton told the cat as it’s tail swished back and forth, “No ones gonna hurt you. Ok?”

After a moment of looking back and forth between him and Remus, Patton was relieved when the spikes on its back, as well as claws, disappeared into the deceptively soft looking snow exterior. The cat was by no means calm, but at least it didn’t look ready to attack either.

“There we go.” Patton said, “Everyone just calm down a bit.”

“I’ve seen some weird shit up here but this thing takes the cake.” Remus told him, “It’s neat.”

“I think we all got off on the wrong foot.” Patton told the nervous snow cat, “How about we start over? This is Remus,” Remus wiggled his fingers in a wave, “and my name is Patton.” The cat tilted his head as he seemed to consider Patton, “Do you have a name?” Patton asked.

The snow cat blinked, “Uh, it’s- it’s Virgil.” He told them as he rose to stand on his hind legs.

Patton stared at the now bipedal snowcat, Virgil, and for a moment was thrown back to when he and Logan were little. They were building the snowman they always did and Patton was adding its ears and tail.

“Wait… you’re Virgil.” He said in disbelief.

“Yes…?”

“You know this thing?” Remus asked.

Patton nodded, “Sort of anyway. Logan and I used to build him all the time when we were kids. He was never, well alive, but, you know?” He said before realizing something, “Wait did Logan make you?”

“Uh… probably? Maybe? All I know is I open my eyes, I’m in the middle of nowhere, and am somehow alive and freaking out.” Virgil told him. He still looked like he was freaking out.

“Accidentally making a living being. Just another reason to use protection.” Remus said sagely.

Virgil glared at him for some reason, “I don’t think Logan knew he could do that?” Patton told Remus.

“Maybe someone should teach him about the birds and the bees then.”

“... What do birds and bees have to do with it?” Patton asked.

“Nothing.” Virgil told him; sending another glare to Remus.

“Anyway…” Patton said in confusion, “You look exactly the same!” He told Virgil, “...Well, almost.”

Virgil cocked his head in confusion as Patton removed the black and purple scarf before wrapping it around where Virgil’s neck was. “There we go!” Patton told him as Virgil inspected the scarf, “Oh wait! Your nose.”

Patton thought for a moment… he didn’t exactly have any extra buttons in his bag. He glanced down at his coat before pulling the top button off. “Here we are.” He smiled before placing the button onto Virgil’s face. Virgil scrunched his face at the action but didn’t seem otherwise bothered. “Perfect!”

“Uh… thanks?” Virgil told him.

“Of course!” Patton grinned, “So Virgil, you wouldn’t happen to know where Logan is would you?”

“Not really…” Virgil told him, Patton deflated a bit, “I guess I could show you where I woke up though? I mean, if nothing else he would’ve been there at some point right?”

“That’s a great idea!” Patton told him.

Virgil ducked into the scarf, “It’s just an idea.” He mumbled into the fabric.

“Good ideas, bad ideas, who cares?” Remus told them, “If you guys are done pussyfooting around, which way are we headed?”

“Right.” Patton said, “The sooner we find Logan, the sooner we can bring back summer and go home.”

“Oh joy. Heat.” Virgil deadpanned.

“Oh… sorry...?”

“Meh,” Virgil shrugged, “My existence is a curse upon humanity and I’m ok with it.”

“Jeeze. Been sentient for a day and already a pessimist.” Remus snorted.

“Don’t worry Virgil!” Patton told him, “I’m sure we can figure out a way to bring back summer without you, um… you know.”

“Whatever.” Virgil told them, “Come on, it’s this way.” He said before leading them up the mountain again.

Roman had been worried ever since Patton left. Not to mention he had left last night and still hadn’t returned. He caught himself glancing at the gates regularly, hoping to see Patton return with or without the king. But as it stood he couldn’t spend all day staring out at the distance, Patton had left him with responsibilities after all.

He offered one of the many cloaks he was carrying to yet another shivering citizen.

“The castle is open to everyone!” He reminded the ever growing crowd, “There is soup and hot drinks in the great hall!”

Roman was sorely tempted to join the citizens in the warm room, it only seemed to be getting colder and he did not enjoy the freezing temperature. But he wasn’t going to, at least not until the crowd outside was in there as well. It was a royals duty to ensure the safety of the people first and foremost after all. Even if it meant freezing on his part in the meantime.

“Prince Roman,” an irritated voice called.

He looked to see the Dutchess of Weslton marching towards him with two of her bodyguards. Feeling a long and unnecessary conversation coming, he quickly passed off his stack of cloaks to a nearby guard, asking them to continue handing them out, “How may I assist you, m’lady?” He asked the duchess.

“Are we expected to sit here and freeze to death while you give away all of Arendelles tradable goods?” She scowled.

“Prince Patton has given his orders and-”

“And another thing!” She interrupted, “Have you stopped to think that perhaps the prince may be conspiring with an evil sorcerer in order to destroy us all?”

Roman sent her a glare, “Do not question the prince or insult his honor in such a way.” He commanded, “Prince Patton left me in charge and I will not hesitate to protect the citizens or their country. Even from treason.”

“Treason?!” She gasped in offense.

“Now if you’ll excuse me-” Roman was interrupted by a commotion near the gate.

He quickly left the woman and made his way over, hoping to see Patton, but was instead met by the princes sweaty and nervous horse. One of the castle guards managed to quickly grab hold of the horses reigns as the crowd began to murder nervously.

Roman looked around as if Patton would materialize out of thin air. Patton had told him how well trained the horses were, so for one to show back up without it’s rider meant that something had to be wrong. Patton was in danger. Roman cursed himself. He knew he shouldn’t have let the prince go alone. He could feel the eyes of the courtyard staring at him, waiting for a response.

“It appears the prince’s horse has returned alone.” He announced, “I’ll need volunteers to assist in the search to find him!”

It didn’t take long to get a decent search party put together. Roman made sure they were all well equipped with survival and medical supplies. He ordered several pairs of riders to search the nearby woods in case Patton was still close and left the castle staff with instructions on how to carry on until he returned with the prince.

He couldn’t voice it out loud, but he knew Patton was in danger. And Roman was determined to save him.

#frozen heart #brain dead writes #frozen au #sanders sides #fan fic

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cyborgsquirrel · 4 years

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Sanctuary: Chapter 2

Pairing: Wolfstar

Summary: The epic tale of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, from their first meeting until their happily ever after.

Link to Prologue

Link to All Chapters

March 13th, 1971 As always when he woke from a transformation, Remus was lying on his stomach. He assumed that the wolf curled up to sleep when the moon set and counted it as a blessing that he didn't have to experience the pain of morphing back into himself every time. One excruciating change every month was awful enough, two would be unbearable. Something was different this morning, though. Usually, he woke up to the nauseating stench of blood and agonising pain in various body parts, but this morning, all he could smell was damp earth and pine trees and, apart from a general ache in his bones and a deep sense of fatigue, he only felt a gentle breeze caressing his naked body. His heart pounded as the realisation hit him. The wolf had escaped. Grunting with the effort, he rolled over and opened his eyes to the sight of the bright blue sky filtered through the tree canopy. The sun's rays were warm on his skin. Thank Merlin they were in the middle of a heatwave or he'd be freezing. When he looked around, he recognised his surroundings to an extent. He knew those woods, had spent many long hours in them over the previous few years, but he didn't know where he was within them. One part looked very similar to another, and he had no idea which direction the house lay. His parents would find him, wouldn't they? But no, the woodland was huge, and he wasn't sure if they were even in a fit state to look for him. A shiver went down his spine and he swallowed hard, pushing the thought away. It was up to him to figure out how to get home. He could do it. He listened hard, hoping to hear the trickling sound of the stream that ran near his home. If he found that, he could follow it back, but he heard nothing but birdsong and grasshoppers. His breaths were coming short and fast, and he needed to calm down. Panicking would not help the situation. The woodland lay to the south of his home, so he needed to go north. But how could he work out which way was north? The sun! He looked up at the sky again. The sun sat very high, almost directly above him. Close to noon then, but morning or afternoon? He wasn't sure. While he waited for the sun to move, he checked himself over. Very few injuries, some scratches and bruises, but nothing worse. The wolf must enjoy being outside. Not that he could ever let it happen again. He shuddered. Merlin, he hoped his parents were okay. Merlin knows how long it would take to walk back to his house, and he would need his strength if the journey was long, so he lay back down to rest. It wasn't long before he fell asleep. When he woke for the second time, the sun had moved a little. He couldn't have been asleep for long, but it was enough to work out which direction he should walk. So, he got to his feet and set off towards home. His legs were weak and shaky under his weight, and he needed to take frequent breaks along the way to rest. The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time he glimpsed his house through the trees. He took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for gory scenes of carnage before he approached. Remus pushed the front door open and walked inside. He'd been expecting a mess, but the state of the living room made him gasp. The wolf had torn the upholstery off the sofa and armchair, ripped the curtains down and shredded the carpet. Worst of all, the Beast had smashed the TV to pieces. Looking at it caused a tightness in his chest; his mum would kill him. If she lived to see the destruction. He hoped she was still alive to be able to kill him. Finding no sign of his parents in the living room, he went through to the kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief to see the room relatively unscathed; the wolf had knocked the dining table over and smashed the back door off its hinges, but the rest of the room seemed normal. He checked the rest of the house. His room exhibited its usual state of post-full-moon horror, apart from the door no longer being attached to the frame. That was new. His parent's room and the bathroom were untouched. The wolf must have gone straight for the living room, straight for his parents. He inhaled deeply and found no scent of human blood. A promising sign. But if they survived, and they were unhurt, then where were they? He grabbed some clothes from his parents' room and went to the kitchen to find something to eat and wait for them to show up. Their absence continued well into nightfall, and he paced the floor in front of the living room window, watching for their return. During the evening, he had cleaned up most of the mess, paying particular attention to clearing the fireplace of obstruction in case they came home by floo. While doing so, he'd briefly considered flooing to St. Mungo's, but if he did, and they weren't there, the Ministry could find out his wolf had escaped. It was an executable offence. He couldn't take the risk. There was nothing left to do but wait. A loud crack sounded from the kitchen. Remus' head whipped around, and he hurried towards the sound. When he turned the corner, his dad was standing with his back to the door holding his mum. She was leaning against him, sobbing into his chest. Neither of them noticed him in the doorway, but he let out a breath and relaxed his tense muscles. They were both okay. "Shh, honey, we'll find him," his dad said, rubbing her back. "I can't bear the thought of him out there all alone in the dark. He must be so scared, Lyall," his mum said, still sobbing. Remus stepped forward. "Mum, it's okay. I'm right here." His mum's head jerked up and his dad released her, spinning around. "Remus?" she said. "Oh, Remus, you're okay! How did you get home?" "I'll tell you in a minute, Mum," he said, "but are you okay? I didn't hurt you, did I?" "No, we're fine, sweetheart. Your dad apparated us away the moment we heard the wolf break your door down. I was so worried though. We started searching as soon as the sun came up, but we couldn't find any sign of you." They went through to the living room and his dad reparo'd the sofa and armchair. He could do nothing for the TV, though. His mum had given it a sad look but hadn't said a word about it, which only made his chest tighten even more. When they were all seated, he relayed the story of his journey back to the house. His mum praised him for his ability to think logically in a crisis. His dad only said they would need to find something more secure for the next full moon. -o-o-o-o-

March 21st, 3:27 am Standing out in the back garden of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, Sirius shivered. It was bloody freezing. He looked around at his extended family, all dressed in their Black family robes, jet black and inlaid with a swirling pattern in silver thread. None of them seemed to be cold, heating charms no doubt. His bitch of a mother had likely "forgotten" to do his robes intentionally. He scowled at her when she wasn't looking and then another blast of frigid air hit him and he shivered again. He didn't want to be there. The Black family ritual disgusted him, and the long-dead ancestor that invented it was probably insane. He'd long since decided to get rid of the practice when he was head of the family. Strengthening your magical core to enhance the casting of dark magic was unnecessary if you didn't use dark magic. The family stood in a large circle around a vast silver cauldron, which gleamed under the light of the half-moon, a glowing beacon in the dark garden. Inside, a deep purple potion bubbled menacingly. His father stood at the cauldron stirring the potion, moving his lips as he counted. Seven stirs clockwise, one anti-clockwise. His father raised a hand, and his cousin Bellatrix stepped forward. She sprinkled her handful of powdered nightshade into the cauldron with a flourish before returning to her spot in the circle. The potion turned a sickly green as his father began stirring again in a different pattern. He had never understood why they all needed a role in making the potion. Surely, his father could make it alone and just give them all some in the morning, you know, during the daytime. His father raised his hand again, and Bellatrix's sister Andromeda walked forward; she plopped her five dragon claws into the potion one at a time. In between the addition of each claw, his father stirred the potion clockwise, and the brew lightened a little. By the time Andromeda had finished her job, the potion glowed a pleasant sunshine-yellow. When she returned to her position, she glanced at Sirius across the circle and pulled a face. His father stirred the potion in a slow figure-eight pattern. The ritual continued on, each member of the family stepping forward in turn to add an ingredient. The potion changed colour many times during the process, and the fire beneath the cauldron burned hot, then cold, then hot again. When his father raised his hand for the last time, the potion was an ominous black, dark as the void of space, and Sirius took his turn stepping forward. His mother had given him the ingredient flobberworm mucus, the most boring one in the potion and the last to be added. The fluid's single purpose was to thicken the potion. Annoyed at having to stand out in the cold night for several hours just to add a thickening agent to a potion, he stomped up to the cauldron, poured the vial's contents in with a splash and stomped his way back to his position, letting his irritation show on his face as well as in his body language. His mother scowled at him. Her expression promised punishment for his actions, but he couldn't care less. With the potion completed, Kreacher appeared holding a tray of silver goblets inlaid with emeralds. His father decanted a little of the potion into each, and Kreacher took them around to the family members. When everyone held a full goblet, his father checked the time, and at 5:38 am, the moment of the equinox, he raised his goblet and said the words of the incantation. Everyone raised their goblets to their mouths and drank the potion. Sirius raised his too, but only pretended to drink. He assumed he must have drunk the potion when he was small, but he hadn't since he was five and his uncle Alphard had explained to him what it did. Hopefully, the potion's effects had worn off. He wanted no part of the dark arts. When everyone began heading inside, he poured the contents of his goblet into the shrubbery and spotted Andromeda doing the same. Interesting. March 24th Sirius paid dearly for his behaviour at the ritual. His mother had chained him in the cellar, and three days had passed with no food. Regulus couldn't reach him down there, and he lay on the floor, weak from the gnawing pain in his stomach. He shivered from the cold moisture of the cellar. There was the odd rat scuttling about, but Sirius didn't mind rats. He talked to them, and they kept him company in his misery. His wrists were sore and bleeding from the rough manacles, and his arm muscles ached from dragging the heavy chains around whenever he moved his arms, so he tried to stay as still as possible. He regretted being so impulsive at the ritual. Letting his annoyance dictate his actions was a mistake. If he had kept himself under control and behaved with respect, he wouldn't be suffering. It was the same way every time. He would get the urge to do something, and he never stopped to think of the consequences. He wasn't sure if he even could think ahead in that way. His brain didn't seem to work like that. He would feel something and need to act on it immediately. He felt the urge to run, and he ran, the urge to jump, and he jumped. Stopping himself when he felt like that seemed impossible. He didn't understand how other people could do it. He was still lying there, on his side on the filthy ground, when the heavy door creaked open. Peering up, he made out the silhouette of his mother framed in the doorway. He blinked a few times, and his vision cleared. She sneered at him. "Have you learned your lesson, you insolent little brat?" she spat. "Yes, Mother." His voice came out croaky from lack of use. She flicked her wand, and the manacles fell from his wrists. "Get cleaned up and then join us in the dining room for dinner, and you better behave yourself." Merlin knows how he would maintain proper table manners when he felt so weak, but he needed to try. Another punishment so soon would surely kill him. -o-o-o-o- March 30th Remus watched his dad digging the hole in the garden and shuddered. He could see only the top of his dad's head, and he was still digging, streams of dirt flying up out of the hole and adding themselves to the growing pile at the side. Swallowing hard, he tried not to think about how cold he would be, waiting there for the moon to rise in the winter. Hopefully, his dad would think to add a warming charm, but that was unlikely. Transforming there would be brutal. Cold always made pain feel worse, and the wolf would hate being confined in such a compact space, especially after its taste of freedom. The beast would undoubtedly take out its frustration on itself. He hugged himself and gripped his sides, digging his fingers into his ribs. If it kept his mum safe, he would endure it. His throat tightened, and he grimaced. He hadn't been treating his mum as well as he should recently. The wolf made him irritable and short-tempered, and he kept snapping at her over the slightest thing. His mum told him not to worry, that heightened emotions are a natural part of growing up, but he didn't believe her. She was just trying to make him feel better. Maybe one day the wolf would take over his human body completely and there would be nothing left of him. His dad continued working in the garden over the next few days. When the pit was complete, he laid a foundation of concrete and reinforced the structure with enchanted rebar. Next, he began building up the walls with cinder blocks, enchanting each one as he went. Remus sat with his back against a tree in the garden, enjoying the pleasant breeze through his hair and the sun's heat on his skin. He was rereading The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 for the fifteenth time and practising the wand movements with a stick, but the distant roar of a car engine made him look up. The sound grew louder, and a minute later, his mum's battered blue hatchback came into view. He watched as she pulled up in front of the house, exited the vehicle and retrieved several bags of groceries from the boot. She glanced over and, spotting him under the tree, yelled, "Remus, can you come inside a minute, please?" Remus sighed at the interruption to his studying. He grudgingly closed the book, marking his page with an old scrap of parchment, and dragged himself to his feet. When he entered the kitchen, he found his mum grinning inanely at him. "I got you a present." "Why?" He gritted his teeth and fisted his hands at his sides. He didn't deserve a present. She shouldn't be spending her money on him, especially when they were spending so much on building his cage. Didn't she understand that it only made him feel worse? "Because I love you and I know how worried you are about your temper. I saw this in the second-hand book section at the charity shop, and I thought it might help." So it was a second-hand book? That eased his guilt a bit. They usually cost less than a pound, and he never could say no to a book. "What is it?" She handed him a bag, and he pulled the book out and stared at the cover for a beat. Calm the Beast with Meditation. The book was muggle, so the title couldn't be literal, but still, it made his heart hurt. "You saw this, and it made you think of me?" he said, looking up with tears burning his eyes. His mum bit her lip and frowned. "Well... yes... but not because of the title. Oh, Remus, wait, don't..." But she was too late. He dropped the book and fled to his room. He stayed there for the rest of the day. His mum considered him a beast. There was a painful tightness in his throat and it was hard to breathe. He didn't know how to deal with his feelings, so he made himself get angry instead. The emotion came easily. The anger always burned, bubbling away just beneath the surface. All he needed to do was stop suppressing it. His rage came out in a whirlwind of fury. He screamed and roared, battered his fists against the wall and kicked the furniture. The destruction he wrought on his belongings rivalled the wolf. Neither of his parents came to intervene. Probably too scared of the beast. He eventually wore himself out and fell into a fitful sleep full of nightmares about the wolf killing his parents. April 3rd The next day, Remus couldn't bear to show his face, and he watched from the window again as his dad worked. He had finished laying the cinder blocks the day before, and that day he was positioning one-inch thick steel rods across the top to seal the opening without blocking off the airflow. He fixed each one in place with a permanent sticking charm. How was he going to get in and out? A knock sounded at his bedroom door, and he winced. Time to face the music. "Come in," he mumbled, turning away from the window. The door opened, and his mum walked in holding the book just like on his birthday. "I'm sorry I upset you yesterday, sweetheart. Will you give me a chance to explain?" she asked. She shouldn't be the one apologising. It was him that had overreacted. "No," he started, and she winced. "I mean, yes, you can explain, but I meant no, you shouldn't be saying sorry, I should." He paused to stop himself babbling. "I overreacted and I'm sorry, Mum." She sat down at one end of the bed cross-legged and smiled at him, patting the spot in front of her. He joined her on the bed, and once he was settled, she started talking. "I bought this because it's a book on meditation. If there had been another with a different title, I would have bought it instead. But this was the only one," she said, looking him in the eye. "Do you believe me?" "Yes. Of course." "Good. Now that's out of the way. I thought it would be helpful to you because meditating gives you more control over your emotions and it can even reduce pain," she said, holding the book out to him. "Please, give it a chance?" He took the book and turned it over to read the back. The blurb confirmed everything his mum had told him, and it intrigued him. Could a muggle practice really help with such a magical problem? He would give it a shot. Anything was worth a try if it would keep him from becoming a monster. May 12th Remus had been practising meditation every day for several weeks, and he found it was helping a little to compartmentalise the pain of the transformation. Following the instructions in the book, he had built a fortress in his mind. His castle contained hundreds of rooms. In some, he placed memories that he didn't want to think about. In others, he placed emotions, so he could control when they came out and when they didn't. One room in his castle was specifically built for the pain of transformation. He had built it with thick steel walls and a door from a bank vault. He placed the pain inside and locked the door. Morphing into a wolf still hurt, but it was lessened a little, and he was better able to control his reactions to the pain. Hopefully with dedication he could lower the pain to a more bearable level. He wasn't delusional enough to think he could ever make it disappear completely. The book had said he would need to rebuild his mental landscape each time he meditated, but that didn't seem to be the case for him. When he built something in his mind, it remained there when he left and was still standing when he returned. It must work differently for magical folk. Meditation did nothing to control the behaviour of the wolf though, and the full moon two days earlier had been brutal. The wolf hated its new cage and made sure that he knew it. He had woken in the morning to find his body torn apart; the wolf had left great gouges in all his limbs and had attempted to chew its paw off. It had almost succeeded. His hand had been dangling from his wrist. It had taken two full days to recover from his wounds, even with the accelerated healing that came as a free-gift with lycanthropy. Now that he could get out of bed again, he was eager to get back to it. Meditation was the first thing he did every morning and the last thing he did every night, and this day would be no different. Indeed, it was even more important to practise when he had missed two days because of his injuries. He sat on the floor with his legs crossed and his back straight. His head was lowered, his hands in his lap and his eyes closed. He sank into his mental landscape and took pleasure in its familiarity. His mental image of himself differed from reality. In his head, he didn't have rings under his eyes, and he wasn't pale and sickly. His mental self was strong and healthy, and he walked with quick strides as he approached the front door of his fortress. It looked like a medieval castle on the outside, surrounded by tall fences to keep out intruders, but on the inside, he had decorated for comfort, with smooth painted walls and carpeted floors in pale blue. The door opened for him as he strolled up, welcoming him inside. He explored the halls, checking on the rooms to be sure everything was as it should be. Some doors that were supposed to be locked had opened in his absence, and he worked on securing them again. Once he was satisfied with his mental housekeeping, he left, locked the door behind him and opened his eyes. Meditation always left him with a deep sense of calm, even better than walking in the woods. He didn't lose his temper as much anymore, and he no longer felt like he was losing control of himself to the wolf. He really should thank his mum for buying the book for him. Maybe he could get up early and make her breakfast.

Chapter 3

#fanfiction #harrypotter #marauders #wolfstar

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daydream-hobii · 5 years

Text

Shadows & Wolfsbane | Chapter 17

Genre: Poly!AU; Werewolf!AU; Shapeshifter!AU; Fluff; Angst

Pairing: BTS x Female!Reader; Alpha!Reader, Beta!Seokjin, Alpha!Yoongi, Alpha!Hoseok, Alpha!Namjoon, Omega!Jimin, Beta!Taehyung, Beta!Jungkook

Summary: Y/N is the youngest Alpha in her compound, owning a whole village. She was born by two Omegas, and originally wanted to be killed, but things were changing in her universe. At the end of the year, each Alpha can pick up to 30 new warriors, wolves that have been training, and the youngest always starts. Y/N never really chooses, asks for the ones who were unwanted such as the old or disabled. This time, she picks the strongest seven players among the warriors, and the other Alphas aren’t too happy, but she chose them for other reasons…. Hopefully, they’ll help her with the predicament she’s found herself in….

Warning: Mentions of Abuse, Sexual Assault, Depression, Anxiety; Suggestions of Smut; Read with caution <3

Word Count: 1,248

// Previous // Next //

Author’s Note: Welcome to Chapter 17! Please let me know what you think of this chapter, I love getting feedback! I hope you enjoyed it!!! ^_^

I turned around slowly, eyeing the weapon. I knew about guns, but no one was allowed them for the sake of silver bullets. The history behind them cause great harm to our kind, humans wanted to be rid of us. There was only one weapon in the community… it was the one the man was holding.

It was technically a trophy. Children learn about it from a young age, showing the weapon to them for both awe and fear. The last human to have fought us had this weapon, our leader during the time killing him before he could use it on him. I could only imagine the pain it causes…. Was it even loaded…?

“You ruined everything,” He growled, his fangs flashing and eyes turning red. “I knew you should’ve never been an Alpha.”

I stayed silent, staring at him with steady eyes. Behind me, I heard the three boys arguing with Dex and Sooki, who made them stay back. I knew Sooki had handed off Hoseok to someone who looked like a doctor, so I didn’t have to worry about him. I didn’t want them to get even more hurt then they already are….

“I told them this would happen, you’d be a traitor, no one ever listened,” He said, gun still pointed. His finger was on the trigger, making me nervous. “You’re no better than the humans that tried to get rid of us!”

“You’re the one holding the gun, not me,” I replied, eyes flashing yellow.

“Shut up!” He yelled. His finger twitched, itching to pull the trigger. “You are a waste of an Alpha!”

I felt someone grab the back of my shirt, pulling me backwards. The gun went off, bullet following me into the portal. Dex took the time to shut it, bullet flying past us and landing in the wall. My eyes were wide, heart beating too fast for comfort. Jungkook threw his arms around me, tears wetting my shirt shoulder. Yoongi and Taehyung tried to come, but some more nurses came and dragged them away. This made Jungkook and I stand to follow, but Sooki stopped us.

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asked, wide eyed.

“They need rest, the doctors will care for them,” She replied. “A couple are in surgery.”

“What?” I asked, wide eyed.

“Some have major injuries, others are alright, but we like to make sure,” She replied, giving a small smile. “You need rest. Both of you.”

“We need to see them,” Jungkook said. I put my hand on his arm, making him look at me.

“She’s right, Kookie,” I said, gently. “We need to rest. There’s nothing we can do while they’re in the hospital.” Jungkook merely nods, exhaustion defeating him.

“Take care of them,” I whispered. I nodded to Sooki, who gave a soft, comforting smile back.

Jungkook followed me back to the housing units, going to my room. Jungkook came with me, but I just ignored him. I went straight to the bathroom, stripping of my clothes and jumping into a hot shower. The water made my muscles loose it’s tension, and when I saw the blood and dirt going down the drain, I couldn’t help but flinch.

I listened to the door open and close, but I didn’t feel surprised. There was a numb atmosphere settling over me. The cold from the outside hit my skin as the shower glass pushed open, Jungkook getting into it with me. I shivered as his hands went on my shoulders, lips pecking my neck.

This moment had a strange atmosphere. It wasn’t sexual at all, just intimate… comforting. His hands went down my sides, making me lean into his back, my tears mixing with the water droplets. I heard him sigh, kissing the back of my head as we stayed into the hot flow of water. For only knowing these seven for a short while, my heart was bound to them. As if it was destiny that we all became a pack, became a family.

We both got out, drying off, putting on pajamas, and going to the bed. I laid my head on Jungkook’s chest while he had his arms around me. Feeling vulnerable was something new, and I didn’t know how I felt about it. Lying here in a Beta’s arms… felt so comforting. It made me feel safe…. Shortly after the thoughts, I feel fast asleep.

When I woke up, it was night time once more. There was soft whispering, but I knew it wasn’t Jungkook by his steady breathing. We hadn’t moved from our original position. I decided to just lay and listen to the voices.

“They look so peaceful,” Jimin whispered. I could hear him frowning.

“They’d want to know, especially Y/n,” Taehyung whispered back. “She’s the Alpha.”

“What’s going on?” I mumbled, still groggy from sleep as I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

“The boys are out of surgery,” Taehyung said, sitting on the bed next to me. “Hoseok and Namjoon were pretty bad, they were bleeding internally and had a couple broken bones. Yoongi has a busted leg, it’s a miracle it’s not broken. Jin’s eyes are more open now, and he has a cast on his arm.”

“Are Hoseok and Namjoon awake?” I asked, getting out of bed and quickly going to the closet, grabbing some clothes left in there by the people here. I was wide awake now, and my heart was racing.

“No… not yet,” Jimin said, frowning. He looked especially worried. “The doctors said it doesn’t look good.”

“Take me there?” I asked after I finished getting dressed.

“Jimin, stay with Jungkook so he doesn’t worry,” Taehyung said. “You look tired….”

“I won’t argue with that,” Jimin mumbled, kissing Taehyung’s cheek before doing the same to mine. Just as he crawled into bed, Taehyung and I walked out the door.

The night air was cool and crisp, feeling nice across my hot skin. Taehyung grabbed my hand, squeezing gently - he must know my worry. We went to the opposite side of the town to where the large hospital was. When we walked in, it was very quiet, peaceful even.

Taehyung took me straight to where the boys were, their rooms were side by side. The first room had Hoseok, making my heart drop. I stared through the window at his still body, the only noise his heart beat. He was so… broken.

“This is all my fault,” I whispered, my voice cracking as I got choked up.

“Why would you say that?” Taehyung asked, wide eyed.

“If I just didn’t choose you guys…” I said, looking at him. “None of you would’ve gotten hurt. We wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“I think we’d be in one much worse,” Someone behind us said. I looked to see Seokjin slowly walking over, frowning. “If you didn’t pick us, we all would’ve been separated…. The Alphas would be torn down, Jimin would be someone’s side piece. Taehyung, Jungkook, and I would be… no one.”

“But you’d be safe,” I retorted, staring at him. “Even if the Alpha’s were torn down, it wouldn’t have been as bad as this.” I looked back in the window to Hoseok’s room, tears threatening to spill as I bit my nails anxiously.

“No, we’d be miserable,” Seokjin replied. “because we’d have a missing piece in our heart… we’d be missing out of possibly the kindest, most wonderful Alpha we’ve all seen, met even…. That would not be a life worth living….”

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bahrlee · 4 years

Text

Suck the blood from my Wound

Enter: Raph the Womf

🦇🦇🦇chapter 5: Impossible🦇🦇🦇

The next day, the three girls were reported as dead due to…. Throat related injuries. They didnt go into much detail as to not disgust or trigger their viewer's, they just mentioned the basics---they were found in the woods with their throats ripped out, bitemarks present---but still. It left him a little nauseous, and nervous. They were only in kindergarten, and here they were, viciously mangled buy someone in the woods during probably one of the happiest day of their lives. He tried to connect Dook too the crime, that would so obviously point to him, but there was just something so off about it in the first place. Were vampire fangs that strong enough to pull out a little girls trachea? Mitzi would definitely think so, in fact he remembered she said so.

Even though it was still offputting, he didnt let that ruin his day. He needed to get his house back to its former glory since that weird night. He found it hard to go on with his day, however, since there was an unpleasantness in the air that couldnt be ignored. Everyone all day was looking over their shoulders, hugging themselves, holding their children close to them as they walked down the streets. He has never seen a mother walk so quickly from him, a man with long blonde hair wearing cargo shorts a a shirt with flamingos on it. They were scared of any man, he guessed, since men always seemed to be the killers. Even ones who look like theyd surfed since they were toddlers. Which reminded him that he needed to surf again soon. Ever since Fatz left, he never found the motivation to hop on a board for awhile. But for now, today's goal: paint over the scratches on the wall. He was so happy it was only the paint that chipped, no actually wall damage, because he didnt know how to fix something like that. He wasnt good at fixing things.

The inside of the store was just as somber. Mothers pulling their kids from the toy isle when they usually let them explore it by themselves, the newspaper wrack was completely empty, things were just so different. It was only one murder, and everyone was losing it, like Ted Bundy was on the loose. And it was only one murder. Well, three, but it was all done at once. Who knows what would happen when or if another one happened? Who knows what would happen if they found out that a possible culprit was a vampire? That was too scary to think about, so he stopped and went to go get him some paint. He didnt even know what to do about the carpet yet.

Heck, what was he going to do about anything anymore since the possibilities seemed endless, now that there was a vampire loose through town.

🦇🦇🦇

He stayed up late, but for the last couple days hes been staying up TOO late, trying to contemplate what he has learned. He just lived his life. Making a deal to become some sort of spy, getting himself involved in a rivalry between two different cryptids who treated it as though it were the civil war, except one of the sides wasnt even aware of what was happening and what the other was planned against them.

Just like he predicted, he didnt see him that much. For the first day, he once again had nothing to report to Mitzi. The next day, same thing. He hasn't seen him since their conversation at Roxys. She did return her part of the deal, providing the conversations you usually had with a friend. He even sat in the water with her, so she didnt have to be in such shallow places. That case if anyone walked by they wouldnt see the rest of her. They didnt get too deep, just stories, small talk, interesting things about being a sea monster and vice versa since even though she lived a double life she didnt exactly know too much, the normal stuff. She seemed a little upset he hasn't seen him, but it's not like he was seeking him out every single day. He wasnt a stalker. What a funny turn of events that would be though, if the HUMAN turned out to be the stalker instead of the vampire. That would be interesting. He hoped she didnt cut the deal off, and kept explaining to her why stalking is actually a bad thing, feeling shamefully desperate. But he couldnt help it, he had no friends.

He crossed his fingers, however, that they would cross paths again, both to satisfy Mitzi, and to see him again. He was so torn, when he spotted him acrossed the room at a comedy club while out with Fatz, he didnt know if he should go up to him.

🦇🦇🦇

He preferred to sit in the back of everywhere, appearently. Maybe because it was so dark, and secluded, that he wouldnt be called out by the comic onstage at this particular place. Although it felt so out of place for him to be anywhere in town, or anywhere around town, really. Maybe theres this whole council of vampires, and hes on a mission right now given to him by them. Maybe he just liked to hang out at relatively dark places, or examine the nature of mortals. Or…. Maybe he was looking for his next victim, adult and in the next town this time, to mix it up a little.

His shoes were glowing this time. Similar to the vintage boots he wore, but this time the stars and crescent moons lit up. That was enough to mesmerize him.

"Whatcha looking at there, Beach?" Fatz asked, noticing his glances.

"Well obviously that boy over there." Esmeralda answered him instead of Beach. That was the thing with her, she answered all of Fatz' questions, even when directed to him, or somebody else.

"Hes a new guy. Met him at the movies once." Beach explained.

"Guess we didnt have to order you food tonight then," Esmeralda quipped. "You got yourself a nice meal right over there."

"Esme, I tried to flirt with him, okay? It's like flirting with Wednesday Addams child if she had a baby with the Willy Wonka from Tim Burtons awful adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." He angrily drank his coke.

"Maybe you're just a bad flirt, you know?"

"Oh be quiet, Esmeralda. Beach is fine. Hes charming!" Fatz retorted enthusiastically.

"If you're so charming, go up to him. Say hi. Buy him a drink." Esmeralda advised.

"He doesnt drink." Beach quickly reverbed.

"Well now why doesnt he drink?"

Because hes a vampire, future Mrs. Geronimo.

"I dont know. I jus know hes not much for actually living in the moment you know, he just…." He turned and looked at him again, his head so obviously in the clouds. "....Kind of observes everything."

"You always go for the types that just sit there and look pretty, dont you?" Fatz said. He always questioned his type. The very monotone, 'too cool for school' men who tended to be more introverted and less talkative, two opposites of Beach. He liked his conversations. He was one of the best people to converse with because he kept it going. But he always went for the guys who's social skills were a bit stale. At least that's what Fatz thought, the truth was hes been with men of all kinds, Fztz only saw the shy guys, who were much less sh the more you got to know them. Fatz just tended to hold onto first impressions a little longer than he should.

"Shut up, quit acting like you know my type." He glowered.

"Cant deny it, Beach." He shrugged.

Some friend he was.

Esmeralda checked the time on her phone. "Fatz, its 10."

"Oh, what? Its 10 already?" He said.

"Yeah! We gotta go Beach, we're sorry. We gotta get sleep so we catch our flight to Louisiana for my family reunion tomorrow." She said.

A little mad that they were leaving, but understanding he had no control over it, he let them leave. He wasnt going to be too petty about it. Speak of Louisiana, however… he turned and saw Dook there, legs crossed, shows glowing---he still couldnt get over that, he wanted glowing shoes now---his eyes fixated on nothing.

Now that he was alone, he could probably try to talk with him. Mustering up his courage, he stood up, forgetting how tall he was for a moment and feeling a bit clumsy, and walked over to him. He seemed to be really deep in his own mind, because when he said hello, he jumped.

"Jesus christ!" He exclaimed. "What?!"

He held up a hand and waved. "Hello."

He exhaled loudly, giving him the stink eye, genuinely annoyed by his presence. "What the hell are you everywhere I go?" He spoke, putting emphasis on every word.

"Just find it funny that we find each other everywhere."

"No, you come up to me, say your shit, trying to get into my pants or whatever."

These non-mortals sure had some big mouths on them. But he guessed if they cant even get along within their world, of course they dont put any care into their interactions with humans. Was this his life now? Getting yelled at by two overgrown leeches for the rest of his days?

"No, I just came over here to say I like your shoes." He said. "You dont drink alcohol, but do you drink soda?" He recalled him drinking something at the movies.

Dook pointed to the soda on the table. "Little too late for that, man."

Dangit.

"Why are you so rude?" He asked him. "Why cant you just talk to me like a normal person without everything coming out of your mouth being a nasty comment? Why cant I just treat you nicely and be treated nicely back, huh?"

Dook slightly smirked at him. "Ficety."

Beach was a tad frustrated, but it only made him want to try harder. "No, you're ficety. I'm just trying to talk to you."

"You a nice guy?"

"No, I'm Beach."

And he finally heard him legitimately laugh. He was surprised at how audacious it was, and how much it revealed about him---he was a pretty goofy person. He seemed to be one for jokes, and humor. "Oh my god, alright, you're pretty funny, you can stay I guess. Sit down."

He obliged, feeling like he just achieved something impossible.

"So, Beach, if that's even you're real name, which I know it isnt, go ahead. Make this a speed date. Tell me a-a bit about yourself."

"Um…. Well…. I like surfing, and writing---I was an english major, actually---"

"Oh, interesting. Tell me something smart."

His mind drew a blank.

"Oh yes, wonderful. Did you uh, drop out or anything?"

"No, finished all four years. First one in my family not to drop out to persue a career as a rockstar, actually." He babbled, just excited to be getting through to him in any way.

"Huh. Interesting. I never went to college." He stirred the straw in his soft drink, smiling modestly.

"Did you drop out to become a rockstar?"

He thought for a moment. "Eh, kinda just happened. My dad forced me to play in a band when I was a sophmore. Actually, uh, enjoyed it and decided to stick with it for awhile. After that, I sang with my sister for a bit, and then something happened, and now I'm here."

"Huh." He knew what the thing was. He was immortalized. "Tell me about her."

"She lives back home. Three kids. A bit older than me, that's why she already has three. School music teacher." He said.

"Cool. I have a brother who's much older than me. Not as cool, kinda mean." He sighed.

"Hm, not very close to anyone, are you? I always see you alone. Guess that's why you bother me a lot."

He shook his head. "Yeah, my one friend who was just here a moment ago left, and hes been drifting away a bit. Everyone else is a workmate or an acquaintance."

Dook pulled the sleeves to his shirt over his hands and placed them under head chin. He was so obsessed with the way he dressed he couldnt handle it. "No wonder you're up the new guys ass."

Beach couldnt help be giggle. He was glad he was funny.

Dook reached over and grabbed one of those tiny pencils used to fill in Keno cards, and a napkin, and wrote something down. "Guess I'll amuse you for now." He slid it over to him. It was his number.

"Oh my god." He did it. It was out of pity, so obviously out of pity, but he got his number.

And finally, the late night comedy club announced its next act, after a long while of radio silence. The emcee came on stage, everyone cheered, well except for Dook who just glared up at him---well not really glare, he just seemed to have a case of a resting tired face, which wasnt necessarily a bad thing, but it still looked funny---seemingly board of every comedy routines seen tonight.

"Sorry for the delay everyone, we just had a minor difficulty with some of our guest comics tonight. But thankfully, one of them came prepared. Please everyone, give it up for Rolfe DeWolfe, and his no-so-friendly sidekick, little Earl Schmerle.

Once again everyone cheered accept Dook, who's eyes widened, a little stunned by his presence. The comedian, clad in a plaid vest and black undershirt, with a wacky voice and a yellow puppet on his hand, smiled and thanked the audience for being there.

"I knew he was here." Dook murmured.

"What---"

"Beach."

"Yeah?"

He leaned down, and turned his shoes off. "Can we leave?"

"Why?"

His eyes were locked on the comedian in a strange, prey-like state. "Hes not that funny."

It was very obvious it was not because of that reason, but of course he couldnt point it out.

He stood up slowly, creeping quietly (or as quietly one could walk in heels) through the dim room, as Rolfe and the puppet began their routine. Yes, Dook was actually correct, the routine was…. Meh. It made you smile, not laugh. But of course that wasnt the point if the whole thing going on right now, was it? He copied his moves, standing up and moving quietly, this time actually quiet because of the fact he was wearing actual shoes.

Beach Bear copied him, slinking out of his seat and following him to the door. They slipped out, into the warm night. The way he just…. Stared at him. He was going to take note of that. If only he remembered the name of whomever was onstage.

"So um…. What are we doing now?" He asked him.

"Ummm…. I dont really know." He laughed nervously.

"What do you know about that person in there?" He asked. "Seemed a little more than 'hes not funny.'"

He sighed. "You dont wanna know." He said.

Beach had a few guesses.

Dook shrugged and looked around, still a little alert. "We can just…."

"Take a walk?" He guessed.

"I mean…. Why not?"

The more time to get to know him.

🦇🦇🦇

He dodged any personal questions, and the ones he did answer, he didnt go too deep into it. Simple, vague answers. No names of people, no small anecdotes, no detail. They did just meet anyways, of course he was valid for keeping most things for himself. Beach already knew things he was keeping from him anyways. He seemed a bit more anxious than usual, however, seeing that puppeteer onstage seemed to shake him a bit. Genuinely worried about how disoriented he seemed, he asked him if he were okay.

"Yeah, I'm fine. If-if I go into it, itll just…" he trailed off.

"Oh, okay. Just…. Making sure. You need to sit down or something?"

He shook his head. "I said I'm fine." He repeated.

"Like I said, just making sure." He sighed.

He hoped that not every moment between them would have some kind of stale silence between them. It was starting to get annoying at this point.

"Wait." Dook stopped, so he stopped, a little confused.

Dook crouched down and turned back on his shoes. "There. Better." He smiled, as if those shoes were the source of his pride and joy.

"Whered you even get those shoes?" He asked him.

"Goodwill."

"Huh. Are they battery powered or something?"

"Yeah. Batteries go in the heels." He said.

"You dress very cool."

"Um…. Okay, uh, thanks I guess." He laughed modestly. "You dress like you play beer pong."

He snorted, realizing it was entirely true. "But I'm serious. You're just… unapologetically bold in the way you dress. And I can tell you dress because you like it and not for attention, because you certainly dont seem like the type who likes all eyes on them." He explained.

"Well, yeah. Nobody can tell me what to wear, so…" he shrugged. "Many people think I'm a girl at first, but…. You know, whatever. I-I like it."

"Same thing about the mullet?"

He laughed again, covering his mouth shyly. "I mean…"

"It looks good on you though, not everyone can pull off a look like that."

Dook shrugged, grabbing the long part of his hair. "Yeah. I guess."

The streets were so serene when they were empty. Even though there was the abduction of three little girls who were found dead the next morning, and he might be standing next to the culprit, the night still felt so welcoming, and calm. Something about the street lights shining down on the sidewalk, the neon of the open signs in almost every window, the clearness of the night sky which he caught Dook glimpsing up at in awe once every few minutes.

"You like space?" He asked.

"Yeah. When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut." He said. "When um… playing with the band I always said I was gonna play with them until I could go to space." He said. "Didn't happen, though."

"Do you still wanna go there?"

"I mean, yeah, it would be cool."

The way the stars glistened in his eyes as he looked up at them in complete amazement.

"I feel the same way about the sea. I wanted to go underwater, like, in a submarine, for my whole life, just to explore. Don't you think it's weird how we know our moon better than our sea?"

He thought for a moment, looking a little hazed, maybe from the way the waning moon was shining down on them, distracting him from the real world. He seemed to be the type with an imagination.

"I can't believe every single one of those is a star up there. Every single one." Dook said. He began wiggling his fingers a bit in excitement.

He's never seen him impressed before. Maybe he should try and use space theme pick up lines to flirt, maybe then he'll notice him. But the only one he could think of was the classic your ass is out of this world joke, which he didn't think was a very cool one to throw his way. He might get punched in the face. He also was way too tired of thinking of something. These late night outings were really starting to get to him. It wasn't even that late out, compared to how late he usually stayed out.

"How close were you to achieving your submarine dream?" He asked him.

"I surf. That's about as close. I love it." He responded.

"Ah. The closest I got was space camp as a kid." He ran his fingers through the bangs and his mullet.

Beach put his hands in his pockets and kicked a rock into the road.

"Didya try going into biology or something to get into the ocean?" He asked.

"Oh no, my science grades were…. Not too good. I majored in english." He answered.

"How old are you?"

"23." He said. "What about you?"

Dook froze for a moment, thinking. Probably doing math in his head, which he probably wasn't very good at, from the way he snuck his fingers out to count. He didn't know why he was assuming so much from the little things, but he was.

"21." He finally said.

So he must've been 21 when he was turned into a vampire. And from the looks, it was in the 80s. Now he was wondering a lot. How did one even get turned into a vampire? He tried remembering back to Stoker's Dracula, Sookie Stackhouse, vampire chronicles, heck, even twilight. A bite? Excessive drinking of the blood? Canoodling with your partner, accidentally killing her, because vampires are apparently that strong (he hoped that wasn't the way, if anything that happened in twilight was true he'd probably run over to Stephanie Meyers house and drink HER blood)? All these questions he couldn't ask, because he didn't tell him. It was probably a very hard thing to tell in the first place. Mitzi was always incognito, and had a human end a close friendship with her once they found out about her secret, so he wasn't too surprised Dook was the same way. Mitzi was merely a teen, but Dook has been around for awhile---how many times was his heart broken by both partners and friends fearing him once they found out?

"So you're a drummer, right?" Beach asked. He couldn't be in his own head for too long.

"Yeah?" He said.

"Howd you get into drumming?"

"Band. You know…. School band."

"Huh, cool. I played Tenor sax."

"So you like Rush and have a strong disliking towards cornets." He assumed.

"Stereotypes, really?"

He shrugged. "What? You know it's true."

"Well then…. Since you're a percussionist I believe that you yell yeehaw any chance you get, have weak lungs, and have an affinity for Oingo Boingo."

He looked to his side with a knowing smile. "I mean I do like Oingo Boingo---"

"HA!"

"What? You just proved my point!"

They both started laughing, the feeling of their bond growing a bit stronger.

"What chair were you?" He asked.

"Always like…. Second. Third. I'm not the best. And…. Lemme guess, you were first chair a-and got all the solos?"

He shrugged. "We only had two in the top band, what can I say?"

He liked the constant laughter between them. It was a good sign, he believed. Laughter was an important step to any kind of relationship. If you couldn't see yourselves traveling the world as a comedic duo, what was the point? So his Hope's were set high, just as a love sick gay person should be.

🦇🦇🦇

When they walked back to the club (both of their cars were there, they couldn't just walk home), Dooks goodbye was surprisingly hasty. Maybe he didn't want to encounter that guy that was here earlier, in case he was still loitering about, because his eyes carried the same alertness they did at the moment he spotted him. But he had his number now, an all powerful thing that Mitzi would be very happy to hear. He went to his car, very proud of what he accomplished, happy he finally got through to him enough to get to know a little more. When he had his hand on the handle, however, he heard something… interesting. A struggle of a woman was what he could compare it most to. He heard a male voice, one that wasn't Dooks, saying something. Remembering Dooks quick exit off of centerstage, he was inclined to follow the sound. He followed it to the side of the building, where he could clearly hear a woman's muffled screams. He could also hear the words from the other, currently disembodied voice, urging on whomever had her pinned.

"You want to starve, Dook? You can't just not feed for three months then go purge on woodland creatures for the next week!" The voice scolded.

Against the wall, he peaked over the corner, and saw the sight of Dook with a terrified blonde against the wall, fangs out, the pure look of struggle, and willpower in his face as he bit his lip, as to resist his urge to plunge them into her neck. The other dude was the comedy man, mister Ralph whats-his-name (man no wonder he was performing in a small comedy parlor in a small town in florida), was trying to egg him on to make the kill. Dook opened his mouth, obviously starving, but unwilling to bring harm upon the poor, unsuspecting patron, and turned away, dropping her to the ground. She shot up and scrambled away, probably scared for life. He turned back around the corner, hoping he wasn't spotted.

"Come on, Dook!" Comedian guy huffed at him. "Why can't you just be like every other vampire planet? Why do I have to force I yoh human blood?!"

"I mean…. ED?" He responded, scared but able to respond in his usual way.

"You were turned into a vampire to get rid of that." He groaned, tired, but seemingly used to his sass.

"Well that didn't work, did it---" there was a thump against the wall.

He turned to peak again. This time it was Dook against the wall. He had a hold of him with his shirt. He pulled out something in his pocket, and from closer examination, he made out the classic---a wooden stake, fit to kill any vampire with a stab to the heart. He lightly placed it against his chest, Dook visibly shaking, and struggling with all his might.

"You'll reap what you sow, Dook. If you don't follow orders, if you don't keep yourself alive for the better of your kind, you'll pay." He threatened.

Dook brought up his leg and kicked his stomach, the comedian losing grip on him and falling back, the stake falling to the ground.

"My kind is human, got it? I'm not doing anything for a vampire, or a werewolf, or-or for anyone, really!"

"Was human, Dook. You're one of us now, and you have to accept it. You do the duties bestowed upon you, I wouldn't be on your tail all the time!" He got up.

"Fuck you." He replied. The comedian screamed and threw his fists at him, only smacking against the brick as Dook flew out of the way.

"I can't believe I was assigned to you, my god!" He seethed.

"Then LEAVE!" He shouted.

"I won't, because I'm not disobeying my orders! It's my job to keep people like you in check and I'm sticking by it until the end of time, like what i'm supposed to do. I'm going to keep following you until you feed on humans, turn humans, and be grateful you died in our hands."

They both stared at each other silently, eyes fixed on the other with intimidating adrenaline.

"If you don't, you're dead. And I'll make sure of it. I'll make sure you don't up and head out of town this time."

"You wish."

He grabbed him by the shirt again, and began pulling him to the front.

Terrified, he turned back around, eyes wide.

Mitzi was gonna have a ball, hearing this.

4 notes · View notes

utanoprinces · 6 years

Text

Indigo Anhedonia

Ai wishes he could be a little more human.

It’s summer.

Ai hates summer.

Maybe it’s the humidity. It always sticks up and around his joints, making his clothes cling to his ‘skin’ and making his eyes feel blurry no matter how many times he blinks. Maybe it’s the way the heat and the moisture clog his chest, stifling his breath, keeping his fans from doing their job to keep him cool. Or maybe it’s the fact that everyone is so, so very passionate about life at this time of year, always raving about this event or that activity that they can do now that the heat is strong enough. He hates the heat though… and he hates that he can’t seem to grasp that joie de vivre no matter how many pages of social media he scrolls through, desperately seeking an answer for what drives everyone to be so… much.

Sometimes he forgets he’s not human. He gets caught up in the moment, in the desire to nail a performance, in drinking tea during a break and staring out the window of a nice cafe as he watches pedestrians walk back and forth on the sidewalk outside. Yet… it always creeps up on him again, when he’s finally alone and in the quiet of his room at the end of the day. He doesn’t feel like other people do. His brain is programmed to analyze responses lightning fast and supply the ‘emotion’ that best suits the formula of the moment. He knows that human brains function in a similar manner and yet… yet… yet…. There are still times when he wishes he could just feel without it being such a… process.

Disconnect.

He licks his lips, staring at the reflection of the plastic CD case sparkling on the ceiling. He’s lying on his bed, dressed in whatever he grabbed this morning. He doesn’t quite remember. Well, that’s not entirely true. He knows it’s a thin t-shirt and a thinner button-down and a pair of capris and high tops and--he presses his hands to his eyes. He knows, okay? That’s the problem. He always knows… and he wishes he could just… not know, sometimes. Not in the sense that he didn’t know about marshmallow dye or the way he’s inexperienced with a lot of feelings. Rather, he wishes he could just not know and instead be able to be a bit more creative. A bit more flexible.

He’s always hammering things out in the back of his mind. Burners are always full of pots and pans of elaborate dishes as he constantly tries to process a thousand concepts at once. His information always comes from elsewhere, though. His fans whir loudly in his chest. Has there ever been a single time where he came up with something on his own? A thought… on his own?

Now, now, his mind says placatingly. No one develops an opinion or idea entirely on their own. There’s nothing new under the sun.

He comforts himself with the knowledge that he does make choices. He chooses what he wears, how he composes songs in his free time, what food to eat each day. Those are all… from his own preferences, right? Swarmed with a buzzing sensation deep in his stomach, he sits up, barely containing his growing frenzied energy. He just wants to exist for a bit without the constant processing in his head! He’s about to really lose it when he hears a knock at the door. He breathes deeply.

“Come in.”

It’s Otoya, eyes bright and smile sunny as ever. “Hey, Ai-senpai! You wanna come hang out with us?” Ai blinks at him, face neutral and eyes emotionless.

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“Well, it’s mostly just me an’ Syo, gonna toss a Frisbee around for a bit, but the other guys will probably be there. I know Natsuki’s bringing popsicles.” He giggles, “We convinced him that store-bought ones were fine.”

Just be.

Disconnect.

Ai scrunches his fingers into his pant legs subtly, then nods. “Sure.” Otoya perks up, pumping his fist.

“Great! Let’s go!”

~~~

The sun is at that angle where everything turns salmon pink. It’s a weird effect that Ai has yet to research the reason for, but it happens every summer and it always burns his sensors a bit. Or… maybe everyone feels that way; he’s not sure. Closer to the horizon the haze becomes more golden. Insects flitting through the air glow like molten metal when the sun hits them just right and there are cicadas buzzing in the distant trees, somewhere out across the campus.

Otoya leads him to a portion of the lakeside. It’s a pleasant, grassy expanse with some benches, not too far off the path.

Masato is resting on a blanket on the grass with a cooler, shifting the ice around to better house the variety of drinks and frozen treats he’s attempting to pack it with. Natsuki is hovering over him, arms laden with grocery bags. A cardboard box of popsicles is also on the blanket alongside a mystifying container of chili powder. The box is nearly torn to shreds. Someone was a bit hasty with opening it.

“Oi! Get!! Away from me!! With that!” Syo’s voice pierces the drowsiness of the setting. Ai looks over to see him backing up from Ren, who is dual-wielding a pair of chili-powder-dusted, real-fruit popsicles.

“Trust me, Shorty,” Ren says, smooth voice tinged with glee. “You don’t know till you try it!” Tokiya speaks up from the bench he’s sharing with Cecil, not even bothering to glance up from his sketchbook.

“Ren…”

Ren rolls his eyes but backs off. “Okay, okay. More for me.” He sticks one of the popsicles in his mouth and winks at Syo, who glares at him. Otoya flails an arm out in a boisterous wave.

“Sorry I’m late!” The others look up at his approach. He jabs a thumb towards Ai. “I noticed Ai-senpai had been holed up inside all day, so I thought I’d invite him.” Natsuki perks up immediately.

“What a great idea! He’ll have a lot of fun, I’m sure of it!” The others nod and mumble their greetings. Otoya smiles at Ai and lightly pats his shoulder.

“Sit wherever! This is just a hangout, so just do what makes you happy!” Ai nods vaguely, watching Otoya jog over to Syo and offer him the Frisbee he’d been carrying. Ai glances around the setup, feeling a tad out of place. He’s used to spending time with Syo and Natsuki on their own, but not all of Starish.

‘What makes him happy’, huh….

He walks over to the blanket. Masato smiles at him politely.

“Mikaze-senpai. Can I offer you anything to eat or drink?” Natsuki darts an arm into the cooler and drags out a grape popsicle. He offers it to Ai, grinning warmly.

“Ai-chan! You like grape, right?”

Ai’s chest twists. Does he? Or was that another solution to a pre-programmed formula? He silently takes the popsicle and nods at both Natsuki and Masato, then retreats to an empty bench and sits down while unwrapping it. The ice crystals glisten and begin to melt the second the sun hits them. He watches them coalesce into droplets and slowly slip down the sides of the popsicle. The noises of Starish goofing off and socializing around him fade into the background, giving way to that constant trill of the cicadas. He allows the melt to coat his fingers.

Just be.

It’s sticky. Layers of it dry and harden, then new ones form as the popsicle keeps melting. His eyes burn from the ambient sunlight, from the brightness glinting off the lake water.

“What...is my purpose?” “Your name is Mikaze Ai. You are an idol… and you will help wake my nephew, Kisaragi Aine, by living life in his place.”

Ai stares at the ice melt encrusted on his fingers. I… Am I real?

Sometimes he feels like he doesn’t exist. Like he’s watching his life through a computer screen. Maybe that’s why he enjoys video games so much… the familiarity is easy. He feels like there’s always a barrier between him and his surroundings, no matter how many times he goes shopping with Syo and Natsuki, no matter how many times Ranmaru cooks dinner for him and Quartet Night, no matter how many times he stands in the aisles of the tea shop, staring down at the herbal blends like anything he chooses will even matter in the long run. He swallows, distantly aware that his hands are shaking and his fans are stuttering and--

Splat! He looks down. His popsicle has finally had enough of the summer sun and snapped in two. He blinks at the shining purple clump of ice on the ground.

“Ai-chan!” Natsuki is suddenly next to him. He giggles good-naturedly. “You have to eat them quickly when the sun is out like this!” Ai looks up at Natsuki vacantly, still coming back to reality from his near-shutdown. He processes what Natsuki said and then turns back to his mostly-gone popsicle.

“I suppose so.”

“That’s okay~” Natsuki hums. “We have a lot! So many! Do you want another?” Ai doesn’t reply right away. He considers for so long that Natsuki looks concerned. “Ai-chan?” “Yes,” Ai decides. “I’ll try again.” He’s not so sure that he’s talking about the popsicles, but… it comforts him, somehow. Natsuki nods firmly.

“Sure! Grape again?”

Ai glances at the cooler, then stands up, walking over to it. “I’d…” he kneels down to open the lid. “I’d like to pick my own, I think.” Natsuki follows him over and nods, humming his awed agreement. Ai peruses the selection, considering each flavor slowly. Then, he stops himself.

This is exactly what you don’t want to be.

You have to take a step to change a habit.

Disconnect.

Just be.

He reaches in without thinking about it, pulling out the first one his fingers touch. It’s yellow. He closes the cooler lid and stands up, unwrapping his new popsicle, then quickly places it in his mouth. The scent hits his nose first--piercing and clean. Then the bitter tang spreads over his tongue, tingling and electric. It’s yuzu.

“Mikaze-senpai?” Masato says, worriedly.

Ai exhales shakily. His eyelids flutter; his lashes are wet. “I-I’m fine,” he murmurs. Masato’s brows knit a fraction, but he says nothing more.

“Watch out!” Otoya shouts. Ai turns just to see the Frisbee--on an errant throw--whizzing towards him. He quickly dodges, free hand darting out to catch it. Syo and Otoya come to a halt, both nearly collapsing, out of breath from their mad dash towards him.

“W-wow, Ai-senpai!” Otoya says when he’s caught his breath. “You’re good at this! Do you want to try passing it around a bit?” Ai stares at the Frisbee in his hand. He’s never considered it before. He’s always hated needless exertion and… he’s never really had anyone to experience this sort of thing with--to play with--in the first place. The yuzu flavor stings his tongue. It burns deeper down inside him, igniting a host of emotions he’s never really felt before. He’s a bit overwhelmed. Normally, this situation would make him run for the nearest closet to cool down in, but… the ice is already doing that. He looks at Otoya and Syo.

“How do I do it?”

They grin, matching expressions, eyes lit with excitement. Otoya nearly falls over himself in his haste to explain but Syo is already darting away, looking back at them over his shoulder.

“Just throw it, Ai!”

Otoya shrugs goofily, then runs off as well. “Go for it, Ai-senpai!”

Ai glances between them, feeling something new...something warm and bright, stirring inside him. He realizes that he’s already taking another step. Right here. Right now. He pulls his hand back, closes his eyes....

Let go.

...and throws.

“Wow! It’s going so far!” “H-hey! That’s too far!!”

He opens his eyes again and… he laughs. It’s small. So quiet no one else looks over at him, too busy watching the spectacle of Otoya and Syo charging across the grass. As he feels his fans slow to a normal pace again, he takes another lick of his popsicle. The citrus is strong. It pierces to his heart and for just a moment--he sees. He understands. He feels. Here, surrounded by his ridiculous, wondrous underclassmen, he feels more real than he ever has before.

Let go.

Just be.

Connect.

#uta no prince sama #utapri #mikaze ai #starish #a fic

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thegalanerd · 6 years

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oc appreciation month - week 4: all oc hell breaks loose

memento mori; remember that you will die

first chapter, first draft (wordcount: 4101~) (since we’re doing whatever this week, i decided to throw this out (bc lbr im prob not gonna publish this story anytime soon))

If you asked Sloan Guerra last night if she planned on waking up after passing out on her uncomfortable couch to an alarm screaming out “Runaround Sue”, a pounding head, dry mouth, a need to purge whatever it was sloshing in her stomach, she’d give you that. She wouldn’t have remembered it, but she’d believe it.

If you told her she’d wake to all that plus Laura Hale standing over her impatiently, pressing her chilling hands against the back of her neck, well, that’s probably where she would have told you to fuck off.

“Jesus!” Sloan lurched up, tumbling off the couch and nearly rolling into her coffee table. The movement sent a wave of nausea through her, and before she could process anything else, she found herself scrambling to her bathroom, slamming the door open. Seeing the lid of the toilet down, she only barely managed to turn to the tub before emptying her stomach of whatever the hell it was she drank last night.

It felt like forever, but she finally finished. Chest heaving, legs shaking, she spit into the tub before reaching down and turning on the water to wash away the mess. She’d wash it better with bleach later; for the moment she just wanted to get it out of her sight.

Laura stood at the door, watching with concern as Sloan shuffled to the sink, turned on the hot water and proceeded to wash out her mouth. Her hands shook as they gripped her toothbrush, and more than once she had to pause to hold on to the counter so that she wouldn’t fall to the side. She rinsed her mouth, splashed water on her face to try and get the crusty feeling of unpleasant sleep from her. When she looked up, a message had been written in the fogged mirror.

You promised

Sloan felt herself deflate, and if she was in a better state of mind would have been impressed that she was able to shrink anymore into herself. “I know,” she said, voice hoarse from a night of drinking and morning of retching. She reached up and wiped a hand through the message, erasing it, before turning to face Laura. Her eyes were sympathetic, but also disappointed, and Sloan wished she was still drunk so she wouldn’t be able to see her.

Sloan hobbled past Laura into the living room, ignoring the scatterings of clothes, books, and files, the bottle Sloan had demolished the night before left empty and tipped over next to the couch. Before she had disappeared, Laura had given her shit about it, called it disgusting, and offered to buy her a maid for a day. Sloan had waved her off, claiming that it would be cheaper to bribe Stiles and Scott to do it for her.

The kitchen was just as bad as the living room. Dishes had to be washed, the table cluttered with boxes and bags of take out. She didn’t have to look in her fridge to know that it was near empty, and the only things she did have in there were probably past their date. But there was one thing Sloan kept clean and stocked, ready or use: her coffee machine and her single most favorite mug.

It had a monkey painted on it, it’s front on one side, the back on the other, and its arm acting as the handle. She’d had it for years, a gift from a former best friend. Laura had expressed surprise when she first saw it.

“He still has the matching cup,” she mused, and Sloan didn’t know how to feel about that.

They stood in silence as Sloan started her coffee, one by choice and the other not. There were things she had to do. The Sheriff to see, a murder to report, a death to relive, an apartment to clean. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave her place just yet. Not with her pounding head and foggy senses.

“Do you remember anything?” Sloan asked, and Laura shook her head. Before she could feel despondent over it, Laura’s hands rose, touching her throat before falling to her abdomen. Sloan knew enough about werewolves to know what that meant. Her throat had been ripped out. She had been torn in half. Laura’s eyes went wide in surprise.

She didn’t remember dying, but she knew how it happened. Most dead were like that. An instinctual knowledge.

“Another werewolf…” Sloan huffed. “Fuck.”

She’d have to call Amos. See if he’d send her some wolfbane bullets without asking questions. She knew he wouldn’t, because over the last five or so years she had worked with him in L.A., he had developed an intense protectiveness over her that was damn near smothering. Something about her being one of the few humans he let into his life. More like Javier - another rare human for Amos - shoved her in, but details.

Maybe she could call Javi instead, and make him pledge silence.

The last of the coffee dripped into the pot, and Sloan poured herself a cup. She waited as long as she could stand before downing half the cup, scalding her tongue and throat in the process. It’d make her sick later, but for now, the heat and caffeine were sobering. Maybe she could guilt the Sheriff into buying her a greasy breakfast… lunch?

“What time is it?” she muttered, and upon realizing it was nearly noon, let out a curse. “Fuck, let’s go report your murder then, I guess,” she said, throwing back the second half of her coffee.

Growing up, the Sheriff Station had been a second home to Sloan. Her father, Hugo, had been a deputy and would often take a young bored Sloan along with him on quiet patrols. She would go after school, and they would go home together. After his death, she carried on the tradition, but with John Stilinski instead. Her father’s best friend, her godfather, her adoptive father after Hugo’s death.

She wondered what Hugo would think seeing his daughter walking into the station with a raging hangover, large sunglasses covering half her face, hair swept up messily. Her clothes were wrinkled and and slept in, still stinking of alcohol, and her olive green utility jacket was a size too big. It fit better when she first got it.

She scowled at the light, at the bark of laughter from somewhere in the bullpen.

“Looking good, Guerra!”

“Eat shit, Wesley,” she snapped back, raising a middle finger at the deputy that called out to her. He had been a pain in her ass since they shared classes at Beacon Hills High School, and she couldn’t help but wonder why the hell John hired him.

“Sloan,” Clara Baird, the day receptionist greeted as she walked past the front desk. She had been there since Sloan started Junior High, and she looked the exact same, if not for the greying in her hair. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to talk to Juanito,” she answered, pausing before entering the hallway that lead to the office. “He in?”

“Does he know you’re coming?”

“That means he’s in,” Sloan decided, and carried on her way.

“You can’t keep doing that!” Clara called after her. She ignored it.

The hallway would eventually lead to the holding cells, but about halfway down, it lead to the Sheriff’s office. Sloan knocked once, leaning her head against the door in exhaustion as she did so, and felt the vibrations through her skull.

“Come in,” a muffled voice called, and Sloan stepped in. Sheriff John Stilinski - endearingly dubbed Juanito by the Guerras - sat at his desk, looking over a variety of papers. Sloan recognized the format of reports, records, and, of course, the pictures. The lower half of Laura Hale’s mutilated body. Not that John knew that.

“Sloan,” he said in surprise upon seeing her, only for the surprised expression on his face to give way to concern. “Christ, kid, you look like crap.”

Sloan sighed and walked in, grabbing the closest chair and dropping in it bonelessly. “Ask me how I feel,” she told him flatly, and he scowled. The expression fell from his face as she went on, pulling off her sunglasses. The light in the office was softer, and Sloan was convinced that John did it on purpose. For days she walked in hungover to hell. Or maybe for his own days walking in hungover to hell. “You found a body last night.”

“Aw, kiddo…”

Sloan ignored it to reach forward, scrambling for one of the pictures. She pulled it toward her and her stomach rolled at the sight of it. Laura was naked, probably had turned during the fight, and whoever killed her didn’t give her the dignity of covering her.

“Shit,” Sloan muttered, tossing the picture back and doubling forward, cradling her head, rubbing at her temples to combat the ever growing pounding there. She didn’t look forward to going to the woods, to seeing if she could see what had happened.

A hand dropped on her shoulder, and she picked up her head to see John crouching next to her. Sympathy in his eyes. “You saw who it was already?” She nodded. He sighed. “You usually don’t go drinking until after you’ve shared.”

“Yeah well, seeing your childhood best friend’s dead sister in your apartment kinda fucks you up,” she said, and John went still.

“Laura Hale?” He looked to the picture. “This is Laura Hale? I didn’t even know she was in town-”

“She came back a couple days ago,” Sloan interrupted, and he looked at her sharply. “She… She hired me to look into the Fire.” She paused as she pulled her messenger bag out from under her, as she had sat on it.

“We already closed that case,” John said.

“You closed it too early,” Sloan said bitterly, pulling out the beginning of her report for Laura. It was just her notes from her conversation with Laura, people she thought she should see and talk to. Her request to not go to the sheriff. But Laura was dead now, and Sloan knew that she was the last person to see her alive, and she wasn’t about to be accused of murder because of a dead woman’s wish.

“Sloan, all the evidence pointed-”

“Evidence can be fabricated, can be tampered with,” Sloan cut in. She looked up at him, and he almost drew back at the sight of her. The dark circles that looked more like bruises under her eyes, the red veins that stood out against the white and dark brown of her iris. Seeing Laura had brought back horrible memories. Spirits black and charred and still screaming in agony before their earthly pain left them. “The Hales stayed for three weeks,” Sloan said darkly. “Accidental deaths - even violent ones - never stay that long.”

Three weeks they roamed Beacon Hills. One of Laura’s cousins, a little girl only seven years old, kept following Sloan around asking her to play with her.

Sloan had her stomach pumped for alcohol poisoning for the first time after the Hales were killed.

“I’m not asking you to reopen the case,” Sloan said softly, holding out the notes she had already taken. He looked at them reluctantly before letting out a sigh of defeat and taking them from her hands. “I’m just… letting you know what I’m up to. And I’m asking for help. Files from the fire.”

John seemed conflicted. “Kid, you know I hate when you get into this stuff.”

“Just following in my daddy’s footsteps,” she said with a weak smile. “Both my daddies.” He huffed, patted her shoulder. “I’ll be careful. And I’ll bring you what I find.”

“I don’t suppose you already know what happened to Laura?”

Sloan hesitated. John knew about Sloan’s Sight. He didn’t quite understand it, but he knew, and he helped her when he could. But he didn’t know about the Hales. Didn’t know about werewolves. Didn’t know about the creatures that resided in the realm of the living.

It wasn’t her place to share that knowledge. Her’s was the domain of the dead.

“I haven’t gone yet,” she answered instead. “I’ll let you know what I find.” She made to stand, and her knee ached, her back popped. “Keep an eye out for the rest of her.”

“You need to rest, kid. And lay off the alcohol.”

She let out a dry laugh. “I’ll do both when I’m dead.”

Sloan loved the preserve once. Most of her childhood was spent hiding amongst the trees. Not alone, of course. Derek Hale, former best friend, had always been with her. They played games of pretend - Of knights and dragons, of villains and heroes. The dead never followed her into the preserve, instead seeking her mother’s attention back at their home closer to town. They had their very own Terabithia in the Beacon Hills Preserve, Derek and Sloan.

But even death eventually reaches Terabithia.

Sloan followed as Laura moved through the preserve. Like most dead, Laura moved as though she walked, but her feet never touched the ground, and she glided more than anything. It unnerved Sloan once. She’s since gotten used to it.

They were deeper in the Preserve than Sloan has been since her junior high days, and much closer to the Hale house than she was comfortable with. She worried that that was where Laura lead her, and if it was, then Sloan was sorry, but she wasn’t going to be touching and seeing anything. She’d been traumatized enough by those deaths.

“Are we almost there?” Sloan asked, and immediately regretted her sharp tone. Laura was leading her to the place of her death. That was never pleasant for the dead. But Laura seemed to understand Sloan’s anxiety, and nodded. She pointed to a small incline, and Sloan nodded.

“Alright. Just over that?” Laura nodded. “Cool.” She looked at Laura, who didn’t make a move to go on. Returning was hard for most dead, and Sloan didn’t blame her for hesitating. No one wanted to relive their deaths. That’s what Sloan was for. “You don’t have to stay for this. I can find it.”

Laura seemed relieved, offering Sloan a small smile, and it struck her how much like her brother she looked like when she smiled.

“I’ll bring out the Ouija board tonight,” Sloan offered as Laura faded, and within seconds Sloan was alone. She didn’t move for a moment, instead taking in her surroundings. She had since removed her sunglasses, leaving them behind in her car as the day grew cloudy. It might rain later.

She went up the incline, and let her shoulders drop upon realizing she would have to go down the other side of the small hill. Laura’s other half wasn’t there, but Sloan felt the familiar cloud of death. She eased her way down only to slip at the bottom. She landed on her back, and slid down the last couple feet. She hadn’t hit her head, but she almost wished she had, so she’d have an excuse not to get back up. The tree branches above her danced, and she raised her arms out to them, grabbing at them aimlessly with her gloved hands.

Now was not the time to lay around playing dead. She had a job to do.

She forced herself up, but didn’t bother brushing herself off. She felt twigs and leaves stick in her hair.

“Aesthetic,” she said before laughing humorlessly. Her smile fell away when she noticed a mess in the dirt and leaves in front of her. Blood.

Laura had died there.

Sloan approached it carefully, not wanting to disturb the scene more than she knew she would. She pulled one of her gloves off and stuffed it in her pocket before kneeling just outside the circle of death.

Sloan hated doing this. But the sooner she did it, the sooner she’d get her answers. The sooner she’d help Laura move on. The sooner she’d get to put the whole thing behind her.

She took a deep breath and pressed her bare, shaking hand into the dirt and leaves.

It hit immediately. She felt light tremors wrack her body as her eyes rolled back into her head. Right before she dropped into the memory, she swore she heard a faraway, familiar voice call her name.

Gasping. Choking on blood. Grabbing at her throat, stop the bleeding. Stop herself from dying. Dying. She’s dying. Fear, cold terror, floods her body. Above her, yellow eyes bleed crimson as she coughs her last living breath.

A boy. Shaggy hair, wheezing breath. Stumbling down the hill, landing hard. Fear. Running, falling, heavy weight holding him down. Pain searing through his side. Fiery crimson eyes.

“...oan! Sloan, come on, wake up, Sloan!”

She gasped, sucking in air and immediately coughing it out, eyes snapping open as she’s pulled from the memory. Her vision was dark, blurry, and panic flared in her chest.

“Sloan, breathe, you’re fine,” the voice, familiar, painfully familiar, ordered her, and she sucked in another breath, squeezing her eyes shut. Phantom pain seared across her middle and her throat, and she swore she still felt the teeth clamped down on her side.

“That’s it, just breathe.”

Someone held her, she realized, as a hand brushed her hair from her face. The touch grounded her; touch always grounded her while she dove into memories. Amos and Javier used to hold her like that when she came out of them for their cases in L.A., and it made her ache for them. She opened her eyes, and this time she could see, though only blurry shapes. She blinked again, and her vision cleared.

She didn’t recognize the face above her at first. The strong jaw threw her off, the lack of baby fat she had memorized. But there was no denying those eyes, the concern in them, and for a moment Sloan felt fifteen again.

Derek Hale loomed over her, but a different Derek Hale. A Derek Hale that should be on the completely opposite side of the country. That had no reason to be back in Beacon Hills the day after his sister’s murder at the teeth of another werewolf.

It occurred to Sloan that Derek was a werewolf.

She slammed her hand into his face, shoving herself away from him. The action took him by surprise, giving her a chance to roll away from him.

“Sloan, what the fuck-” he exclaimed in outrage, stopping short at the sight of the handgun she pulled free from her shoulder holster, which had been hidden by her oversized jacket. She was still kneeling on the ground, about a yard or so away from Derek. Closer than she wanted to be. The gun pointed at his face didn’t have monkshood bullets, but she figured it’d down him long enough for her to get away.

“Sloan-”

“Show me your eyes,” she ordered, voice cold as she slipped the gun off safety. His brows shot up in surprise.

“What-”

“Derek Hale, I don’t wanna shoot you in the face after seeing you for the first time in six years, so you better show me your fucking eyes.”

And he must have heard the tremor in her voice, seen her shaking hands. She fought to keep her vision clear, because she felt that she’d slip back into the memory at any moment, but not until she knew. She pulled back the hammer when he had yet to flash his eyes at her.

He raised his hands in a placating manner. “Your eyes, Derek, not your fucking hands.” And that did it for him. His eyes flashed, and they flashed blue. Not yellow, which she was so accustomed to seeing, but not red, which she was so terrified of seeing. She at least knew where the blue came from.

She let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, and lowered the gun. Derek still looked at her with something akin to fear in his eyes, but she ignored it as she lowered the hammer back safely and slipped the gun back to safety.

“Thanks,” she said tonelessly, and let herself fall back in melodramatic exhaustion. “God, I’m so fucking tired,” she whined, and wondered if Laura would mind if she napped mere feet away from where she had been killed.

“What the fuck was that about?” Derek demanded, and his voice was outraged. Sloan hummed; she had never heard him sound like that before, not even after Paige. “Why do you have a gun?!”

“In case a werewolf I haven’t seen in years sneaks up on me while I’m in the middle of a memory drop,” she muttered as she placed it back into its holster. And then decided that maybe she shouldn’t be rude to him. She struggled to sit up, and once she did, looked at him closely.

He looked just about as unkempt as her. His clothes slept in, black leather jacket with too long sleeves. Dark circles under his eyes. Red rimmed eyes. He had been crying, she realized, and come to think about it, his voice had sounded so panicked when she came out of the drop.

Shit.

He knew.

“I.” She swallowed as a sudden lump of emotion caught in her throat. “Derek, I’m so sorry.” It came out barely a whisper. His face fell, shoulders slumping.

“You saw her?” he asked, and Sloan nodded.

“Last night… she appeared in my apartment.”

He looked around hesitantly. “Is… is she-”

“She faded out before I came down,” Sloan told him. “It’s hard for them,” she went on to explain. “They don’t like reliving it.”

“So you do it.”

“So I do it.”

“That’s fucked.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence. Tense, awkward silence.

“You look like shit,” Derek said finally.

“So do you.”

“I drove all night.”

“I drank all night.” She paused and looked past him to the murder spot. “Did… did you move her?” He didn’t answer, instead looking away. Sloan clicked her teeth. “Dammit, Derek.” She stood, and swayed a bit once she was up. “Can you prove you drove all night?” she asked, and he looked at her in shock.

“Why?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Your sister was murdered and you appear the day after?”

“I didn’t kill her!” he snarled, standing, and Sloan took an unsteady step back. She didn’t know him anymore. Just because he didn’t kill Laura didn’t mean he still hadn’t changed. Shit, he had changed even before he had left Beacon Hill after the Fire.

“I know. And John will believe me when I tell him. But you still need to prove it, because the vision of an alcoholic will only go so far in the evidence room.” She turned. “Speaking of alcohol…” She squeezed her eyes shut at the wave of nausea passed her by. She opened her eyes and stared up at the hill she had to climb to get back to her car. She’d nap when she got to it.

“You’re just going to leave?” Derek demanded as Sloan started her uncertain climb. A pin prick of pain flared in her side, and she thought it was bullshit that she’d get a stitch now of all times.

“I did what I came to do,” she called over her shoulder, voice breathy as she found it difficult to catch her breath. “I need a nap.” She shook her head. She needed hit the gym, more like. She’d never been so out of shape that going up a small hill fucked her up.

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” Derek said, disdain dripping from his voice. It would have hurt her seven years ago. It had hurt her seven years ago.

“So you’ve mention-” She grabbed at her side, legs giving out, and she fell to her knees. Wheezing breath, shaggy hair-

“Sloan?” she heard Derek call out, uncertain.

“Fuck.” Sloan doubled over, pressing her forehead to the forest floor as the Memory came rushing back to her. That… that was new. She opened her mouth to express her concern, but nothing came out. She felt her throat tighten, like a phantom hand slowly squeezing around her neck.

Wheezing breath, shaggy hair. Searing pain in her side.

She tipped over on her side, gasping, clawing at her throat.

“Sloan!”

It seemed she inherited, if only for a moment, her memory’s asthma. Panic welled in her chest. Shit, she thought. She’d never had a memory follow her after she stopped touching something. Shit. Scott McCall fucking killed me, the fucker.

#jsut gonna #throw a whole ass chapter out there #this is v much a first draft #listen i just wanna share sloan with the tumblr void #just saying #oc: sloan guerra #seer of ghosts #fd: teen wolf #fic: memento mori #ocappreciation month #a lot of fucks in here i noticed #ah well #this derek is more of an asshole than my kh derek #i love it ares would hate this derek #sloan hates this derek and its great

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blooblooded · 3 years

Text

Tony and the Thing from the Void

Tony

Tony regained consciousness and immediately understood how dire the situation was.

He was sitting in a chair, his arms tied behind his back and his ankles tied to the legs with what felt like phone charger cords. His head throbbed and he was aware that a smear of blood had dribbled from his temple, where Kassidy Nguyen had struck him with a lamp. The blood was still wet, so he knew that he had not been unconscious for long. He saw that the door was now closed.

He did not yet understand what was happening, but knew that he was double fucked. Tony turned in the chair and began to move his wrists back and forth to try and loosen the cord they were tied with. “Oh god,” he said to himself. “Oh fuck.”

Tabby and the rest of the girls had gone with the awkward Northern boy Marty to talk to someone called the Prime Minister. Tony had stayed behind to take care of Kassidy because she had been too sick to leave. In pain. Shivering. Spitting up blood. She had been in bad shape since they had left Eden. He was the only one that knew that she was not entirely herself and had stuck around to make sure…make sure of something. Make sure she was OK.

Up until now, he had not fully realized how Not Herself Kassidy really was. Or what that meant. He had not wanted to See.

“Anthony,” said Kassidy. No. Not Kassidy. Kassidy had never called him that. Kassidy had never tried to hurt him. Kassidy had never looked at him in the way she was looking at him now. It was the….thing inside of Kassidy that now spoke. It was the Book, the entity from the Void. “You’re awake. I was worried I hit you too hard.”

There it was. The thing in Kassidy’s body. He saw how it had destroyed her. Her arms and face had grown too thin but her belly was swollen grotesquely, the way that bodies become during malnutrition. Her skin had a grey cast to it and the acne on her cheeks had turned into bloody, crusted scabs. Black veins were visible at her temples, running up her arms. Dying. Kassidy was dying. And this thing had taken complete control.

A part of him hated her for letting it inside of her. Stupid little girl. Just a stupid little girl, full of grief and rage. But how was she supposed to know what was going to happen to her? The moment that she touched Cihad’s Book, it was all over. He knew what it was like, what it was like to willingly choose something destructive only for it to take complete control.

It had been sitting on another one of the chairs in the room but now it got up to approach him. It wobbled a little, like it was about to fall over. Too weak.

Tony struggled harder against the cords that bound his hands.

“It’s good to be able to talk to you,” said the thing. It stood before him. An unthinkable monster, curling itself inside of a sick young woman. “I never thought I’d be able to actually talk to you.”

“Oh god.” His heart pounded in his chest and he tried not to look at it. He didn’t want to see it. “Oh fuck. Tabitha! Goddamn it, Casey!”

“They aren’t here,” said the thing. It chewed absently on one of its fingernails. “You don’t need to scream. You’re not in any danger.”

It couldn’t know that. Tony gritted his teeth, worked harder against the cords. Sweat poured down his forehead and soaked his shirt at the chest and armpits. The smell of fear radiated from his pores. No. He would not die like this. This wasn’t supposed to be the way he died, so far away from home. There were people he needed to get back to. Cynthia, she was only 12 years old and did not even know he was still alive. He couldn’t die here, this thing couldn’t kill him here. Not until he got back to his daughter and made up for how he had failed her.

“Can you stop?” asked the thing in Kassidy’s body. In front of him now and crouched down, resting it’s arms on its knees. Still wearing Kassidy’s clothes, the torn jeans, the loose long sleeved shirt. But not Christopher Nguyen’s jacket. When the jacket went out of the picture, Tony had known something was wrong without even needing to See. “I can’t talk to you when you’re jerking around like a rat in a trap. I want to talk. I’ve been so alone.”

“Nope,” said Tony, panting. “Nope, nope, nope.”

“Aw.” It put its hand on his knee. A chill shivered up Tony’s spine and he did what he could to jerk away from it, but could not move much. The chair was carved from wood, ornamental, heavy. “I don’t know why you’re so scared. You don’t need to be scared. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to kill you. I care about you, I’ve cared about you for 3 years. Even when I was trapped, formless inside of that Book, I was hoping you were OK.”

“You killed my wife,” said Tony. It was useless to struggle so he stopped. His mind rolled back and forth between his options. Talk to it. Waste its time. Maybe Tabby would come back. Maybe someone would save him. He could not save himself. Even as a young man, it had not been something he was capable of. “You— you’re killing my friend.”

It smiled in the unsure way that something that does not know how to smile does. Kassidy’s lips were chapped and peeling. Her teeth had turned brittle, the gums receding. “Kassidy? She wanted this.”

“No.” Tony turned his mind to Tabby, reaching out for her. He was not a psychic, not really. He had no telepathy, only the cursed, useless Sight. “No.”

“Yeah.” It squeezed his knee. “She was nothing. So stupid and weak and sad. She wanted to be something. She let me inside, it was her choice. And now she’s gone. It’s peaceful. No more pain or fear, only me. I take care of her.”

He was not a violent man but Tony wanted to lash out at this thing, smash it to jelly. Kill it. Kill it for what it was doing, for what it had done. He remembered the way that Cathy had looked at him before she had plunged the knife into her own chest, he remembered the way she had screamed. Back then he had not been able to understand it, he had not understood the totality of how this parasite obliterated every part of the self. But Cathy had known. She had felt herself slipping away and made the choice to take control one last time.

It was a choice that Kassidy had been unwilling or unable to make.

“Go away,” he said. “Please. Just go away. Why are you doing this? Go back, just go back to the Book. I don’t know why you’re doing this?”

“Why does anything do anything?” It asked. It leaned over his lap, still crouching, and untied the knotted cord that was binding his wrists. Even though his hands were free, Tony found himself unable to strike out, unable to even move. It was an unfortunate leftover of his childhood: when faced with danger, his first instinct was to flee, and when he was unable to do that, he froze. Why hadn’t he just run away from home when he was a kid, why had he just taken everything? Easier to freeze. People were less likely to hurt you when you were limp and quiet. But this wasn’t a person. “I just want to live. You know, I just want to live. I deserve to live just like anything else.”

“Please,” said Tony, ice water running through his veins.

It took his hands in its own. Kassidy’s hands were very small and several of her fingernails had fallen off to reveal crusting infected nail beds. It turned Tony’s hands over gently so that it could look at the raised white scar running thickly up his left forearm.

That had been from when he was 17, stupid and cowardly, trapped in foster care. It had been bad enough for stitches, but not bad enough to be taken seriously. When his foster parents had found him passed out in a bathtub and covered in blood, they had just yelled at him for being stupid. Tony had never regretted doing it. Sometimes he regretted not trying harder, regretted that he had been a scared child unable to bring the blade down on himself again.

“You don’t even want to live,” said the thing living in Kassidy’s body, with a contemplative tone like it was unable to understand. “Did you know that humans are the only creatures I’ve seen that do that? I’ve lived for thousands of years, I’ve lived in countless worlds. Every other living being fights to survive. Not you things. You put yourselves in danger, you consume things that aren’t good for you, you even actively try to die. Why is that? What were you thinking about when you did this to yourself?” It lightly touched the scar on Tony’s arm and he drew back with force like he had been burned.

He had not even talked to Cihad about this, there was no way he was about to explain 41 years of suicidality to something that was not human.

It was all too much. Tony willed himself to move, to react, but could not. What good would it do? He had seen Kassidy use blood magic, he had seen the way that she had made the pyrokinetic secret police agent writhe and squirm on the ground when they were fleeing Eden. If he hit this thing or tried to get up, what if it did something even worse to him? It could pull his intestines out of his asshole or make his one good eye burst like a grape. It seemed to…like him, but for how long?

Tabby. Tabby needed to come back. Tabby and her gun. Or the witch, Jules, with her white magic. Or Anatole Surkhov with his magic starmetal sword. Or Esther, Rosaline, Casey, anyone! Anyone.

And then—

A WATER PLANET WITH FOUR MOONS. THE SEAS ARE GREEN AND WARM, POPULATED BY THE RACE OF SHAPESHIFTING SLIME CREATURES THAT NOW LIVE ON EARTH. THEY ARE BEING HUNTED INTO EXTINCTION BY THE ENTITY. THE WATER IS TURNING BLACK WITH THEIR ICHOR. IT IS HUNGRY, IT IS SO HUNGRY, AND IT WILL NEVER STOP. THE CREATURES FROM THAT PLANET HAVE THEIR OWN MAGIC, THEIR OWN PRIESTS, AND THEY RIP A HOLE THROUGH DIMENSIONS TO SEND THEIR OFFSPRING TO EARTH, TO SOMEWHERE THEY CAN BE SAFE. THE ENTITY FOLLOWS THEM THROUGH THE RIFT BUT ITS BODY IS TORN FROM IT BY THE VIBRATION OF EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD. IT IS SCREAMING AND SCREAMING AND FEELS FEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME AND—

Tony squeezed his eye shut to block out the Sight. No, no, he did not want to know. He did not want to know about this thing, did not want to know where it came from, did not want to know what it wanted. His head pounded.

“What’s wrong?” it asked. Tony could still feel one of its hands on his knee.

“Go away,” he said. The air was cold, even inside of Florence Gauthier’s estate, and his sweat was lowering his body temperature. “Please go away.”

“You don’t like me? I gave you your Sight.” It rose up. Tony clutched his hands to his face. “You need to get used to me. We’re going to be very close for a while.”

Tony’s eye shot open. Did it mean to leave Kassidy’s body and enter his? No, it would have already done that. Would it? Did it need…did it need permission? He would never accept that. He could accept a lot of things, but never that. It was not the slow death and rot that scared him, it was the violation. He felt his legs start to tremble.

If it left Kassidy’s body, she would die. He understood that much. He understood that it was keeping her alive, making her watch as it sucked everything from her body and made her decay. Even if it left her and allowed her to survive, how would she ever come back from something like that? Cathy had chosen death instead, Cathy had…Cathy…

“What does that mean?” He asked. His mouth was as dry as sandpaper and his own voice sounded raspy. “What does that mean?”

It stood before him and pushed its hair out of its face. It looked down at itself, pulled at its shirt. “I like this world,” it said. It ran its hands down Kassidy’s body. “I like humans. You feel so much. I like the way you eat and drink so that you feel good. No other creature does that either. You just do things for pleasure.” It lifted up the edge of its shirt a little to show its swollen abdomen in an awkward parody of sensuality. “Do you want to have sex? I want to know what that’s like.”

Tony’s breath hitched in his throat. He could not speak.

Wherever Kassidy’s consciousness was, he could only hope that she was not aware of what was being propositioned. But Tony could not spare much thought for her when he was much more worried about himself.

The thing laughed, horribly, it was something that did not know how to laugh. It was more of a wheeze. “Relax” it said. “I wouldn’t make you. What, you don’t like her? You only like Cihad Tariq, don’t you? The two of you always used to go at it like rabbits. You used to make him hurt you. You’d ask him to put his hands around your throat so you couldn’t breathe. Did you really like that or did it just excite you to be so close to dying? I was always there, you know, watching you. You were funny.”

“Stop,” said Tony, stupid and frozen and very afraid. The knowledge that this thing had about his sex life with Cihad was obscene.

“Are you excited now?” It asked, then leaned over him, put both of its hands on his shoulders. Kassidy smelled like rotten meat and her eyes had filmed over. “Are you aroused to be so close to dying?”

For the first time in his life, Tony Delmont was positive that he did not want to die.

What he wanted did not matter. The thing inside of Kassidy’s body leaned forward and pressed its open mouth against his. This was something that did not understand what kissing was and it did so sloppily, with teeth. Panic finally burst through Tony and he tried to shove it away from him or pull his head back, but the creature had monstrous strength despite its 90 pound frame. At first he thought that it was only kissing him, acting on some sick impulse of wanting to experience human desire. It was not.

Hot, slimy fluid gushed from its mouth and into Tony’s. He began to choke and gag, his throat closed up against it, but there was too much of it and he found himself being forced to swallow. The liquid was thick, the consistency of pudding, and had a metallic, organy taste. When he tried harder to pull himself away, the creature just pushed itself against his face with greater force and their teeth clicked together. He could hear its stomach constricting and pumping as it regurgitated.

There had never been an experience in his life so abject and humiliating, forced to kiss something that was vomiting into his mouth. He had seen documentaries where mother birds regurgitated food to feed their young and this seemed to be a repulsive twisting of that act. He could only think of his need to get away, to try and get whatever was inside of him out.

The demon pulled its face away from him. Its mouth hung open, dripping black slime down its chin and shirt. It dragged the back of one hand across its mouth, then spat on him, and more of the black slime hit him directly in his good eye.

“Was that good for you?” it asked in Kassidy’s voice.

Tony’s mind had just about decided that this was all a fucked up nightmare, that this wasn’t really happening to him when--

IT NEEDED TO GET ITS GENETIC MATERIAL INTO HIS BODY TO CHANGE IT, IN THE SAME WAY THAT ROSIE’S BODY HAD BEEN CHANGED. IT NEEDED HIM TO CHANGE BEFORE IT TOOK HIM TO THE LOST COLONY BECAUSE IT WAS GOING TO STRAP HIM INTO A DEVICE THAT WOULD ALLOW A NEW CREATURE TO BURST FROM HIS BODY. A REAL BODY, A SUSTAINABLE BODY THAT WOULD NOT DIE. AND WHEN IT OCCUPIED THAT NEW FORM, IT WOULD BE FREE TO ROAM THE EARTH, CONSUMING EVERYTHING THAT MOVED.

Tony sucked in lungfuls of air so that he could scream.

The door to the room opened and in walked Casey Agapama, holding two mugs of tea. She looked at Tony, tied to a chair, panting and shivering. She looked at the thing that had once been Kassidy, leaning over him with its black mouth. For a fraction of a second, she was perfectly still, but that was only as long as she needed. The polar opposite of Tony, she instantly took action. She dropped the mugs, bounded across the room with four long strides, and seized the creature with both arms to wrench it away from him.

Immediately, Tony bent to untie the cords binding his ankles, then collapsed to his hands and knees. He jammed two fingers down the back of his throat as hard as he could to trigger his gag reflex. A little trick from his years of drinking. It took a few tries, then Tony heaved and vomited at least a cup of black slime onto the wooden floor. The smell was unbelievable. He repeated this process until he saw only bile and the remnants of his lunch. His stomach lurched, he dry heaved. Was it enough? It had to be enough.

“What the fuck?” Casey yelled, struggling with the creature. She had pinned its arms to its side in a bear hug but it was fighting hard to get away from her. “Kassidy! Calm down, what the hell is going on?!”

“Anthony, you stupid insect!” It kicked its legs, no match for Casey’s strength. Despite everything, it was still inside of a dying body. “I’ll just do it again!”

PRODUCING THE FLUID TOOK A LOT OUT OF IT.

Tony scrabbled up, dizzy and his head spinning from vomiting, terrified and half insane. The instinct to freeze was over, replaced by the older instinct to drop everything and run. He could just go, just go far away. The woods, the wilderness, anything was preferable to being stuck here in the same place as the demon of the Void. He would die in the woods, yes, he would starve and freeze, but that was better, that was so much better. Killing himself would be so much better.

But no. He had to go home somehow. He couldn’t die. Cynthia was still out there.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Casey gave the demon a little shake, as if that would bring Kassidy back. Of course she thought that. She didn’t know. She didn’t know that Kassidy was gone and that this was just a hollowed out shell, a body for a parasite. “Calm down, OK, just calm down!”

Tony scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. The black slime that had been spat on him felt tacky on his skin, it gummed up the fabric of his shirt. He tried to calm his breathing as he drummed up the courage to look at the thing again.

“You would have liked it better if I had choked you,” said the creature from the Void. It stopped fighting against Casey now, realizing the futility. Much easier, much better to try to use its words to try to hurt him. It blinked rapidly, its eyes rolling back under its eyelids, smiled so that it showed Kassidy’s decaying teeth. “I’ll remember that. I’ll remember that next time. You don’t want to die anymore, Anthony? I’ll remember. Someday you’ll beg me to let you die but I’m not going to let you.”

He did not want to die. Not really. Not anymore.

“There’s not going to be a next time,” said Tony. He pressed himself back, further away from it, pressed against the wall. His stomach spasmed and churned and he knew that it didn’t matter that he had thrown up. Somehow it had infected him. Something really bad was about to happen to him, something that he did not understand. He knew that, but he also knew that he would not allow this creature to have a second chance. “You-- you’re gonna go back to the Void.”

And it just laughed at him. Laughed and laughed.

There was no getting away from it and Tony knew it. All he could do was again, wipe his hand across his mouth.

CYNTHIA

Cynthia Tariq-Delmont found herself in a dream that was not her own.

She saw a planet covered in a warm green ocean, lit by the gentle shine of four moons. Beneath the water lived a species of shapeshifting chitinous invertebrates. Somehow she knew about them, she knew that they had lived on this world for millions of years, that their civilization was unlike her own, but was a civilization nonetheless. The shapeshifting creatures swam through their oceans, communicated with one another as a psychic hivemind, and raised their gelatinous larvae until they grew exoskeletons and could protect themselves from predators.

And she knew that they were scared. She could feel the chittering fear of the hive. Because something, some predator, had ripped a hole into their world to devour them. The warm green ocean was turning black with the slime that made up their bodies, the water boiling with ammonia.

Cynthia blinked and found that she was under the water, inside a cave-like structure built from porous pink rock with holes in the roof that let light from the four moons inside. But the light was darkening now, going out, because the moons were being eaten up. Everything was being eaten up. The water, the invertebrate creatures, even the light itself. Inside of the cave were a pair of mate-bonded creatures, along with a translucent egg sac containing a couple hundred of their larval offspring. She looked at them and sensed their desperation, a desperation that was shared across thousands of others belonging to the hive-mind.

The mate-bonded pair of creatures were the same size as she was, with segmented black carapaces and fan shaped tails. The heads were unusual; five eyes and a clawed proboscis extending over toothy mouths. Somehow she knew that this was the usual adult form of these creatures, but that they could shapeshift into any form they wished. The larvae in the jelly-like egg sac were only tiny black balls of slime, each no bigger than her thumbnail. Over the next several hundred years the larvae would grow larger and larger until they reached maturity.

Cynthia looked at the egg sac and felt a pang. She knew that her sibling was in there.

These creatures did not have a spoken language. They did not need one, they communicated through the psychic hive. Individuals could communicate their personal thoughts and feelings by changing their color like a squid does. She watched the mate-bonded pair dapple their carapaces red, she watched them nuzzle each other with their proboscises, then touch their egg sac.

A plan. The invertebrate species had their own magic, their own priests. If the predator destroying their planet could rip a hole between worlds, so could they.

They wanted to protect their offspring.

Inside the egg-sac, the little black larvae squirmed and looked up at their parents. They were too small to be a part of the hive-mind, too small to understand what was going on.

The water around Cynthia turned black and she could sense the presence of something huge, something with only one purpose: to consume. A high pitched buzz filled her head and she watched the carapace of the mate-bonded pair of invertebrates dapple a terrified yellow.

And she woke up in her own bed.

The dream had been so nonsensical and surreal that for a moment she considered disregarding it as the result of eating pizza a little too close to sleep. But those thoughts, those images, could not have possibly come from her mind, they had to be from someone else. She looked at the digital clock on her bedside table. 5:00am. Cynthia rubbed her face and got out of bed, stumbled around in the dark.

Careful to be quiet so that she did not wake up her Dad or Tony, she walked out of her room, into the hall, and into her sibling’s room. Until she was 9, Billy had always slept with her. They had liked to curl up inside the top drawer of her dresser. But then her Mom had died and they all had to move; the new house had three bedrooms. Dad had said that it was OK for Billy to have their own. Good thing too, since now Billy had grown larger and more...solid, less apt to spend long periods of time in a form that resembled a blob of pudding.

Billy’s room was cleaner than hers was. They liked the blue walls. They had a dresser full of clothes for when they wanted to go out in public on days that their body was solid, visible to people who didn’t have Abilities. Pictures of the family on the dresser. A picture of Mom too, even though she had never actually been able to see Billy. It was the kind of room that a normal 14 year old kid would have. Their bed was underneath their window and it had blue blankets.

Her sibling was tangled face-up in their sheets. Their body was mostly humanoid, but could only manage monochromatic colors. When they slept, they liked to wear pajamas, and had a loose tank top and shorts on. Billy’s face was screwed up, 4 eyes closed tight. They made squeaky, whimpering sounds.

“Hey.” Cynthia put her hand on her sibling’s arm. Their skin-- if it could be called skin-- was always clammy and had the texture of soft silly putty when they were in this form. “Hey.”

Billy opened all of their eyes. Two eyes were where they were supposed to be on a normal human face and two smaller eyes were higher up on their forehead. “Huh?” they said. Billy’s voice sounded almost exactly like her’s did, since they had learned to speak from mimicry. “Are we late for school?”

“No. You were dreaming.”

“Oh.” Billy sat up and untangled themselves from their sheets. “Weird. I think I dreamed that I was drowning, but I don’t need to breathe.”

Cynthia thought about the planet covered in a warm green ocean and its four moons. Maybe they didn’t need to know about that. Maybe knowing about that would make them upset. It was hard enough for them here, trying to be a normal kid when they weren’t one. She reached up to take off the silk scarf she used to keep her braids neat.

School didn’t start for another 3 hours so it was useless to try and get back to sleep. “Sorry. I thought you were having a nightmare, it woke me up.”

They shrugged. Billy’s face rippled and changed, rearranging and sucking the two extraneous eyes back inside their head. It was getting easier and easier for them to appear like a highschool aged kid. They had more control over their body, no longer worrying that they might grow an extra pair of arms or split in two when they got upset. While their true form-- their larval form, Cynthia thought-- was still a 35 pound mass of black slime, they preferred to look human. Now that others could see them in certain forms, they wanted to make friends and experience life.

Billy rolled out of bed. They were taller and thinner than she was, and in this form their skin was stark white and their hair and the inside of their mouth was black. “What time is it?”

“It’s five.”

“D’you think Dad is awake yet?” Billy smoothed down their pajama top.

“Dunno. Let’s see.”

Downstairs, the lights were already on. Dad woke up early to go for a run before work most days. It looked like he had already been in the kitchen and left; the tea kettle was still warm. Cynthia opened the fridge to look for something to eat.

Usually their fridge was only stocked with healthy food. Dad was particular about that kind of thing, and willing to shell out extra money if it meant getting himself and his kids real meat and eggs instead of the insect-protein alternatives. He bought fresh produce and whole grains at great expense to himself. Things like sugar cereal and snacks had always been rare. Now, however, Cynthia’s birth father Tony Delmont had moved back in, after almost 5 years of absence. And Tony’s tastes were….more proletarian. It meant that there were heavily processed toaster strudels and bags of chips on the house now.

Tony. Cynthia was still not sure what she thought. She was not yet comfortable with calling him by anything but his name. The years he had spent in her life could be counted on the fingers of one hand. She’d give him a chance. If he left again, for the 3rd time, that chance was all he would get.

She shoved a couple of toaster strudels in the microwave, two for herself and one for her sibling. Billy didn’t need to eat, just like they didn’t need to breathe-- they just liked to.

“Did you finish your geometry homework?” she asked her sibling, waiting for the microwave to beep.

Billy sat down at the kitchen table. Their posture was normal, if not a little slouchy. A few years ago, they would have just melted into a black blob of goo instead of trying to maintain their physical form. “Uhhhh. No. I’ll copy yours.”

“No the heck you won’t.”

“I’ll copy Rach--”

“What are you doing up so early?” Suddenly, Tony was in the kitchen with them, having walked in silently from the living room. His long hair hung around his shoulders and he wore the same clothes from the night before. His eyepatch was not on, and Cynthia found it hard not to stare at the unnatural whiteness of his prosthetic. “Morning, Cyn.”

“Morning.” She hesitated for a moment, then walked over and hugged him. Hugging Tony was always awkward, it felt like he did not have much experience doing it. Still, he wrapped his thin arms around her and patted her on the back. “Sorry if we woke you up.”

Billy said nothing, but their hair started to stick up from their head and their face started to split, revealing the black goo inside of them. As if noticing this, they used their hands to press their face back together, and hunched over, watching Tony.

The relationship between her sibling and her birth father was the source of a lot of underlying tension in the household. When Tony came back again 2 months ago, Billy acted the way they always did-- friendly and curious. But Tony’s disgust and fear was not something that he could hide. He’d cringe away to keep them from touching him, and would look at them the way that someone looks at something that wants to cause harm. Tony never said anything, never did anything, but his feelings were obvious.

And it was hurting Billy’s feelings.

Tony stretched and pulled a band from his wrist so that he could tie his hair back. “I was awake. I was talking with your Dad this morning.”

Sometimes he just said things like that, not realizing how uncomfortable it made other people. Tony was an open book. He didn’t lie, he didn’t even...half-lie, like he didn’t hide what he was thinking or feeling. Maybe that was part of having the Sight. Or, maybe that was Tony’s way of having the Sight.

As for Cynthia, she kept herself closed off. She didn’t want to See.

The microwave beeped, and she left Tony’s side to grab breakfast, putting the toaster strudels onto plates. She handed a plate to Billy and sat down at the table next to them. Tony sat down on her other side and wordlessly scrolled on his communicator.

“I heard Lulu Boggs wants to be prom queen,” Cynthia told her sibling, since she was unable to think of anything to talk about with her father. It wasn’t just because he was an adult-- Cynthia got along with adults just fine-- it was because she didn’t really know him. “You think anyone’s gonna vote for her?”

“Maybe,” said Billy. They bit off a corner of toaster strudel and their teeth grew longer and sharper as they ate. “Have you figured out who you’re going to ask to the dance? I’m gonna ask Andronicus Lemay, I think he really likes me. We’d make a cute couple.”

“Ewww,” Cynthia said jokingly. Andy was an Artificial in their class, weird but nice. She didn’t know who she was going to ask to Prom, but would probably end up asking Leah. It wasn’t that important to her.

Tony’s gaze had snapped up from the flat screen of his device and onto Billy. Some of the color had drained from his face. His good eye was very wide. “What do you mean, couple?” he asked them, his voice a little shaky.

There had never been a moment where Tony had spoken directly to them. Usually when Tony was in the same room as Billy, he didn’t even look at them. This had been the source of more than a few arguments between him and Dad over the last few months. The shock registered on Billy’s face. For a second, their skin rippled, like they were going to collapse back into their slime form. “Huh? Like date? Like me and Andy?”

The air in the kitchen grew heavy. Tony’s good eye was very blue, blue-er than blue.

“You-- why would you do that?”

“Tony,” said Cynthia haltingly, sensing what was about to happen without knowing why.

Billy was having a hard time maintaining eye contact with Tony. Their face split down the middle, all the way down to their neck and their hair began to float, stand on end. They shrugged, almost helpless, not understanding. “I dunno? He’s cute and I like him? What are you asking me?”

Tony smiled like he was in great pain. Like he was hurting. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head. “D-Does this boy know you’re...you know…”

“What, that I’m trans?” asked Billy. A few small eyes popped up on their foreheads and blinked. “Yeah, he knows. He’s nice, I went to get ice cream with him last week.”

“No. Does he know you’re not a person?”

There it was. The terrible thing. The terrible thing that she had always known Tony believed, but had never imagined he would say out loud. Billy stood up from the table abruptly and walked out of the kitchen. They were able to maintain emotional control enough to remain bipedal, but Cynthia could see that their body was slipping and changing. She heard them walk upstairs and shut the door to their bedroom. The fact that they did not slam the door in anger was indicative of their personality.

Furious on the behalf of her sibling, Cynthia stood up too. She grabbed her plate up off the table and clattered it into the sink. “What’s your problem?” she asked Tony, her voice raising just below a yell. “Why would you say that? That was so hurtful!”

Being almost yelled at made Tony flinch a little bit. “I know you care about them, but they’re not a real person. They’re not.You don’t know about those Things like I do, you don’t know what they can do to people. Billy just said that they want to go out with some boy? How is that fair to that boy? Some...some Thing just deciding that it likes you?”

7 YEARS AGO TONY TOUCHED HER FATHER’S BOOK AND AN ENTITY FROM BETWEEN DIMENSIONS NOTICED HIM. IT HAS FOLLOWED HIM EVER SINCE. IT HOLLOWED OUT HER MOTHER’S BODY. IT WANTS TONY’S BODY. IT LOVES HIM AND HATES HIM AND NEEDS HIM AND IT IS HUNGRY AND WILL NEVER STOP TRYING--

Cynthia closed her eyes to block herself from whatever knowledge she had just accessed. She did not need to know it. She did not need to understand Tony’s reasons for being so afraid of her sibling. Even if those reasons were valid, it still wasn’t right for him to make them feel...othered.

“Whatever,” she said. Tony looked miserable, staring down at his hands. “Billy is a person. They’re just a kid. You’ve been through a lot, but so have they. Something ate their whole family, their whole planet. I’ve Seen it.”

“I’ve Seen things too,” Tony said, very quietly. “Please, you have to understand. Something a lot like that thing did something bad to me, it’s still doing something to me. I—I just don’t want that happening to anyone else. These things, they can…change people’s bodies.”

“But you know that’s different.” Cynthia thought about the way her body had changed. Thought about how she was stronger than any other kid in her class, thought about how when her baby teeth fell out they were replaced by sharp canines and incisors. “What’s so wrong about Billy liking someone if he likes them back? They should get to be happy too.”

“They shouldn’t even be capable of liking a human that way.”

She knew that he wasn’t really thinking about Billy’s innocent crush on Andy Lemay. Tony was thinking about himself. Thinking about himself and some other...thing….that had set its sights on him, some other thing that had changed his body. Cynthia could understand this and could understand why he was hurt and afraid, but could not accept the way that he had just treated her sibling.

Billy was not the same as the thing that had set its sights on Tony.

But she didn’t have anything more she could say to him, to her father. Cynthia only shook her head and left the kitchen to be with her sibling. She left Tony alone with his dark thoughts.

#writing

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miguels-talons · 6 years

Text

Fallen Star

Something I wrote a while ago- warning, this is one of my longer fics and it’s going to be one post, all the parts together, already written. Tell me what ya’ll think ;)

Anti had always loved stars. He loved everything about them. The way they twinkled and shined brightly, even during the darkest of nights. The way he could lock his gaze on one- the furthest to the the east- and use it's shining as a distraction from the pain wracking his body.

His mother has always hated him. He's never known why. Perhaps it's because of what they are, what their nature is. His mother may have given birth to him, but that does not mean under any circumstances that she ever wanted him.

Demon mothers always hate their children. And the fathers simply do not care. That is why Anti has never known his father, has only ever known the pain his mother puts him through every night. When she tears at the flesh on his body, ripping new holes in different spots. The wounds do heal not long after being torn open, but they still hurt. They hurt like hell.

That is why he always watches the stars as the shadows that wrap his body to heal the newest wounds. The east most Star, more specifically. That one has always been his favorite. The way it stands out against the rest. The others are always dull whites and yellows. But not this one. This one is a bright and loud red. Much more appealing to watch then the others.

He uses it as comfort when his mother finally abandons him in a crumbling shack, having become fed up with his presence.

Anti has always loved the stars. Which is why when one crashes in his yard directly beside the small house his mother had left him he takes it for himself.

He had been watching it as he always did when it suddenly began to move about quickly, shooting to the right and the left. He at first believed it to be what the mortals called a shooting star. And perhaps it was. But it came directly towards him and crashed down nearby. It had been a glorious sight. Bright hand red and blinding with a loud crash. He had ran out once the light and sound vanished, hurrying to find the star he loved so dearly.

He just hadn't expected it to be in the shape of a human.

The star was in a crater, human shape curled up tightly in a ball. A small glow of red surrounded it, lighting the edges of the hole it had created by smashing into the Earth’s crust. It looked to be a male, black hair and tan skin hidden behind the dim glow of red.

And it was beautiful.

Anti instantly took the star from the hole, hurrying inside with it in his arms. He ignored the way the star’s skin was burning hot against his freezing skin. He's a naturally freezing demon, his power being cold and electrifying. This star could melt him if he weren't careful.

He set it on a chair and yelled back, looking it over. It was still glowing, though the dim lighting was beginning to slowly fade further, bringing in the familiar darkness of the house. He watched it and began to panic. What if that was not supposed to happen? What if that meant the star was dying? Not knowing what to do, he grabs a handful of the ragged blankets he has and threw them around the star, hoping that that could help in some way.

And he may have wrapped a rope around the star’s entire body.

He is a demon and demons kept what they loved to the selves if they had the chance. And of course he wanted this beautiful star all to himself.

Anti sits down on the floor in front of the star and crosses his legs, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands to keep an eye on his new star. It isn't until a full hour passes before the star finally begins to stir, groaning softly, eyes moving about behind its eyelids. Anti perked up and scooted closer, wanting to see what would happen.

The star’s eyes slowly crack open, revealing a pair of bright amber pupils. There is a wiseness inside of them, a look of all knowing. Anti looks deep inside of them and knows he could get lost in the oceans of knowledge they contain. He pulls back a little when those knowledge filled eyes land on him, looking him up and down. They look like small stars contained inside the human shaped star. The red glow had returned slightly, weakly lighting the area around its source.

They stare at one another for a good five minutes, Anti watching in awe while the star gives him a displeased stare. Finally the star tries to move, testing the restraints tied around its arms and waist. And before he could stop himself he informs: “You're not leaving.”

The star pauses and returns its attention to him, tilting its head to the side as it continues to study him. The red glow slowly grows stronger, further illuminating the room. Anti takes a step back as the light draws closer to him. He had been able to ignore the pain that the light had caused him before, but that's only because he had been filled with demonic adrenaline. Now if it were to touch him it would sear his shadows and cause him a great amount of pain.

“And why not?” The star asked suddenly and it's voice shocks Anti to the core. He had heard many kinds of strange and terrifying voices from all kinds of demons but this voice- it's completely and fully unearthly. It sounds like a thousand voices mushed together as one yet at the same split into a million more. And it's beautiful yet painful at the same time. It fills Anti’s ears, invades his mind and yet he doesn't hear it all at once.

Anti holds a hand up, showing that despite how strong it sounds he too is strong. “Because you belong to me now,” he answered, raising his voice to be heard. He would not be intimidated by his new star. It belonged to him now. It was his star.

The star slowly blinks at him before a small smirk tilts his lips upwards. “Seriously?” It questioned and something like amusement fills its tone. That discourages Anti a little bit he stands strong, nodding his head best he could. It chuckles and rolls its shoulders. “Okay, then, little thing. I am yours.”

Not believing his ears at first Anti narrows his eyes suspiciously. He knows it could not be this easy. But the star continues to hold his gaze, the smirk having grown into a full smile. He nods once more and crosses his arms over his chest. “That is right,” he declared despite his fast beating heart. He purses his lips. “What's your name?”

The star hums in a low tune, tapping its fingers against the arm rests. The tune is strange and twisted and beautiful all at once, only becoming further mysterious because of the star’s voice. “I think…” it mumbled, obviously in thought. “I think I will stick with Mark, for the time being.”

Anti stares at it, dumbfounded. “That's such a simple and ordinary name for a star, though,” he pointed out and it shrugs.

“It will work, for now,” it replied dismissively before raising its own eyebrow. Small dots that look similar to stars begin to fill its hair, all different colors. The red glow is growing further and there's hardly any room for Anti to stand. “And what is your name, little thing?”

“I'm not a ‘thing’,” Anti snapped pointedly, hugging his arms tighter around his chest. The star shrugs once more, as though it cares not for his words. And maybe it doesn't. He can't tell or care to. “But my name is Anti. I am a demon.”

The star named Mark grins widely, eyes scrunching up a little from how wide and bright the smile is. It's almost a star of it's own from how bright of a smile it is. “Pleasure to meet you, Anti,” it stated and looks down at the rope tied around him. “Now, would you be so kind as to untie me? I am yours so I will not be leaving any time soon.”

And somehow, Anti knew that it would not. That is how he got his own star. And how this whole thing started.

____

Mark was beautiful.

Anti had already known this fact when the star was merely a dot in the sky. But now he knows it tenfold with the natural beauty living with him. His life had been dull and dark and bland until the star came along, warming and brightening every aspect of it up. And Anti found that he could stand in the star’s light, thrive off of it, in fact.

Anti knew he was falling in love before he could stop himself.

Mark hadn't tried to escape as of yet but that didn't stop other people from coming to them. So many species across the board are attracted to Mark. Humans, cats, dogs, anything living is attracted to it's heat, it's light, his aura of warmth and protection. Some would try to take it away but before Anti could even change form and attack Mark would always kindly turn them down.

Mark always stayed by Anti’s side.

Anti had asked why one day and the star had simply answered: “Because I am yours.”

Anti revels in the response.

Mark is his star.

One night they tread through the forest around Anti’s log cabin. The star had stayed with Anti for around a month now and hardly once left his side.

Except for now.

Anti had bent over to collect his latest soul. That's what they do every night. Hunt down nearby humans so that Anti could eat the souls they hold. Anti is not proud that he can only eat souls, but it's a fact he can't change so he doesn't think too much of it.

He's just turning around to tell Mark that he finished when he finds that the star is no longer behind him. Anti’s eyes widen and he straightens up fully, eyes darting around to try and find his star. Where did it go?

“Mark?” He called, hoping maybe the star would answer him. When he doesn't get an answer his heart begins to race. No. Mark wouldn't leave him. It said it wouldn't. It's his star. No one else's. He runs in the first direction he faces, tearing through branches in such In search of his star.

And then finally there's that red glow. He pushes out and onto a clear hill where Mark stands at the top, staring up at the night sky.

“Mark! What the hell?” Anti demanded, coming to a halt beside his star.

Mark doesn't even glance in his direction, seemingly too caught up in staring at the sky as though it could see something. Anti follows it's gaze, squinting his eyes to try and see what it's looking at.

There. A large and black area covering a mass of stars. That isn't normally over the night sky. “What is that?” Anti questioned, glancing towards Mark and then back to the sky.

The star hums in thought and slowly blinks and its glow dims slightly. “A black hole,” it answered and it's voice is low and flat and it sounds scared. Terrified.

And maybe Anti knew why the star sounded so scared.

____

“Why do you stay, really?” Anti asked one day, another month had passed since Mark had left his side. It hasn't left again. “You say you are mine but I feel as though I shouldn't believe that.”

The star is sat on the floor of the cabin on the other side of Anti. It had been silent, staring off into, well, space, and had jumped when Anti spoke suddenly. It's beyond wise eyes lock on the demon and it tilts its head.

“Because I am yours,” Mark answered and Anti growls softly because he knows that's not the truth. He wants to hear the truth. Not this lie. The star hums softly, appearing to read Anti’s emotions and thoughts. “You do not believe me.”

“Of course not,” Anti replied, crossing his arms over his chest tightly. “A star like you wouldn't stay out of the sky just because I want you to.”

“You do not know that,” it pointed out softly, the millions of voices mixing and splitting simultaneously. Anti narrows his eyes, pulling his knees to his chest now.

“Why would you stay with me? Why would you simply become my star?” He's happy that the star is his but he must know the reason, why the star would so willingly become his. “You are a billion year old star that is above my meaningless demonic existence. Why would you care to be my star?”

“Because I am yours,” Mark answered and normally that would please the demon but now it makes him want to tear his hair from his head. It seems to sense his displeasure because it looks to the floor. “Because the black hole.”

Anti raises an eyebrow at the new answer, at the way the star curls inwards on itself, fear clear in its eyes. The glow around it dims and this fact concerns the demon. The star is constantly bright and burning. It only dims when it sleeps or is hurt. Is the star hurting?

“What do you mean?” Anti asked then, slowly moving closer to his star. He sits down beside it, looking it over in worry. He tenderly grabs its chin, turning its face towards him. “It's okay, little star.”

It chuckles softly and actually leans into his touch, eyes softly closing. The glow dims a little more and Anti actually misses the warmth. “I am by no means little, demon,” it muttered and Anti rolls his eyes, removing his hand to flick its forehead. It giggles now and Anti loves the sound. But then it frowns and loses the happiness, the red changing a few shades darker. “The black hole is coming.”

“What does it want?” Anti prods softly when the star doesn't seem to want to continue.

Mark hands suddenly, glow brightening greatly with his movements. It blinds Anti momentarily until his eyes adjust and he can watch it pace. “It wants nothing but darkness!” It exclaimed and its angry now. Anti doesn't like it angry. The ground beneath its feet burn in the shape of its footprints and small flames begin to eat at the wood flooring. “I had been sleeping, just as us stars are supposed to, but then it came to my line, disrupted my slumber! It took the formation and made it further dust! It ruined everything in my line!”

Anti purses his lips, not really understanding anything the star is saying, really. He scratches at the back of his head as he tries to process what any of this could mean. “So the black hole made you come here?” He asked, trying to clarify.

The star sighs heavily, eyebrows furrowing together. “Yes,” he said and his voice is tight. “He woke me and forced me from my line. I had to escape- I couldn't be devoured by it. Now formation may be gone and I left my line!”

“Then why are you still here?” Anti asked and his voice cracks. His star is so upset, so scared and hurt. He longs to help his star somehow.

“Because the black hole,” Mark replied and it's voice is small, all of the extra voices fading to nothing. Anti’s eyes widen because he can hear just one voice- the star’s true voice, he believes. It's smooth and thick and deep and so so entrancing. The star turns its eyes to the demon and Anti can see the fear, the unending sadness in them. “Because I'm scared.”

Anti frowns deeply and stands as well, walking over to his precious star. He wraps his arms around its shoulders and brings it close, breathing in deeply through his nose. It's stiff for a moment before it hesitantly returns the hug, arms wrapping lightly around Anti’s waist. It buries its face in his shoulder and he holds it tighter.

“It's okay to be scared,” Anti informed, lightly running his fingers along the star’s warm skin. It shakes a tad in his hold and he's not sure if it's because of its emotions or because of his own cold skin. “Black hole seems terrifying from here. Must be even worse when it's nearby.”

The star nods against his shoulder and Anti sighs, closing his eyes tightly. Memories of his mother flash through his mind but he pushes them aside. This is not about her. This is about his star and it's fear. “But I know you can get past it,” he continued softly, rubbing his fingers down his spine. “You are strong, my little star. You can fight it.”

Mark draws in a deep breath and Anti can feel him warming beneath his touch. “It's so dark and black and cold,” it said and it's voice trembles.

Anti pulls away a little to meet its eyes, giving it a soft look. “So am I.” And Mark fell back into his arms, crying and crying into his shoulder.

There's another crash a few nights later, jarring Anti from his slumber. Mark was already running out and the demon had to quickly scramble after the star, making it outside as Mark has already reached the new and steaming crater.

“Jack!” Mark yelled suddenly and it leaps into the crater. A moment later and there's a burst of light and warmth and Anti has to skid to his feet because he can't see. Once the light fades Mark is climbing from the hole, helping up another strange looking man. This one looks to be falling to dust, bits of it swirling from its body. “Anti! Help Jack!”

Anti hurries forward once he's heard his name and looks over the new person. They're just as warm as Mark, but only a little less. They have strands of star dust coming from their body and their eyes are a bright yellow, staring at Anti with a tiredness.

“Who is this?” Anti asked, looking from Mark to the face of “Jack”.

“This is Jack. They are the formation from my line,” Mark replied hurriedly, rushing past Anti and into the cabin. The “formation” leans heavily against Mark and Anti wonders what could have happened. “Did it reach you?”

As Anti steps inside he can see Jack nodding. Mark lays them down on the floor and they lean into the wall. “It came,” they spoke and their voice is loud and accented like an Irishman's. It's an all surrounding tone yet at the same time too silent. “It came and it tried to take me but- it didn't. It said it didn't want to take me. It only wants to take you.”

Mark frowns deeply and it turns from Jack, looking to Anti with wide and fearful eyes. His heart aches for his poor star. It is so scared and Anti wants to help him. It runs to the window a moment later and glances outside and it lets out a small scream, falling backwards. Anti is hardly fast enough to catch it, pulling it close to his chest. When he looks outside he too is shocked at what he sees.

Blackness spreading across most of the sky, dark trendles curling around and outwards.

“I tried to make it not want you,” Jack spoke from his spot on the floor and his legs are merging, turning into a long and whispy tail. “But it was determined. It wants you to go out.”

Mark’s breathing is rapid and Anti’s heart breaks now. He pulls it away from the window, trying his best to soothe the now panicking star. He sits down and pulls it into his lap, curling his arms around it and running his fingers through it's hair. It leans into him but its eyes are still locked on the window.

“Why does it want to kill Mark?” Anti demanded the formation now, wanting to know why anything would want to kill his precious star. He begins to whisper soft nothings into Mark’s ear, hoping to calm him further.

Jack flinches and the tail of stardust curls in wards and they rub at its forearm. Then their eyes narrow. “And who the hell are you to ask?” They snapped, clearly not trusting him.

“Someone who has helped his precious star,” Anti growled in answer, sharp fangs grinding together as he speaks.

“Your star-” the formation is snarling, clearly agitated by the response. “It belongs to no one-”

“It belongs to me!” He interrupted and pulls his star closer to his chest, as close as he possibly could. Mark nuzzles at his chest, burying its face in his shirt. The formation narrows they're eyes and finally Mark speaks.

“Jack, I am his,” Mark stated simply and its voice returned to its powerful volume of a million at once. Jack falls silent, confusion clear on their face. “But I will not be here much longer.”

Anti lets out a shaky breath because he's known the star would one leave but it's still hard to wrap his mind around. It has been with him for so long now. He would miss it. “It will go and return to its place,” Anti agreed, nodding sharply.

“I do not know if it will be able to,” Jack said softly, regretfully. They meet Mark’s eyes and Anti can feel it stiffening. “It blocks the way home. You would have to go through it.”

Mark shakes his hold and Anti places a kiss to its head. It lets out a small sob and the sound tears Anti’s heart apart. He presses his lips to his star’s ear, whispering softly: “I know you can do it.”

The star sloppily grabs onto Anti’s wrist and the grip is tight despite the uncoordinated grab. It nods and Anti can't help but smile proudly. “I want to help you,” he then told it because he does.

“You can't,” it stated and Anti frowns now. “You can't leave this planet. You belong here.”

Anti shakes his head. “No. I have nobody to love or love me back,” he pointed out and he tightens his hold. “You are the only thing I have ever loved, my little star. Please don't leave me alone again.”

Mark is silent for what seems to be an eternity before it finally nods. “You will forever sleep with me,” it informed and he shrugs.

“That's a small price to pay,” he informed in a low tone, kissing its cheek. “I just want to be with you.”

____

They wait until the next day arrives to head out. Mark holds tightly onto Anti’s hand, fear clear in its eyes as it stares up at the blackness covering the sky. Anti squeezes its hand in reassurance and winks at it. It draws in a deep breath and nods.

Jack had gone ahead. They said that it didn't want to hurt them and that appeared to be true because there had been no fight.

Now it's their turn.

Mark holds tight to Anti’s hand and suddenly the red glow crawls over the demon’s skin, surrounding him completely. There's a lightness to his body and they both begin to float off of the ground, the star leading not the way forward. The black seems to notice them coming. Large and black tendrils creep from the sky, reaching out down and around them. Mark falters a moment but regains courage when Anti runs a thumb along his knuckles.

They plunge into the darkness, all light cut off around them.

Anti can't see anything except for Mark’s light for some time. Until finally the shadows and black begin to circulate until finally a man who looks too much like Mark forms in their path. It's skin is pale grey and black tentacles sprout from its back, spreading out and attaching to the rest of the storm. White eyes lock on them.

“There you are,” it said with a grin and its voice is like Mark’s but so much worse. It holds a hand up to point at Mark. “You have been the hardest star to follow thus far. I will commend you on that. But now, you are mine.”

Mark’s eyes narrow and it pulls further forward to face the dark monster. “No,” it stated and it's words resonate, pulse around them. They push at the black clouds around them, pressing them back. “I will not be snuffed out yet. I still have years left to burn and I will continue to until I blow out like a candle. You will not kill me.”

The black hole growls, lips drawing back to reveal rows of sharp fangs. It launches at them and then Anti is flung from Mark and all he can is watch as he drifts away, watching the creature tear at his precious star.

____

He's awoken by warmth and light. His eyes crack open to reveal Mark’s face not too far from his, star filled eyes lit with worry. They both smile when they see one another and as they hug does Anti realize they are still drifting through space. He pulls away a moment later to glance around.

“Where are we?” He asked, trying to see if the earth is nearby. Instead there are unfamiliar planets orbiting them far off and he can just see the dot that is Jack.

“We are in my line,” Mark replied with a grin and Anti’s heart soars because his star had done it. But then a solemn look crosses Mark’s face and he places a hand on his cheek, wondering what could be wrong. “Now we must sleep. So I can once more warm the planets that need me.”

“And so we shall sleep,” Anti said softly, running his thumb along Mark’s cheek. His star smiles a blindingly bright smile and their lips press together, eyes closing.

And they fall asleep like that. In one another’s arms, curled up around their love.

Mark’s star gleams brighter than it ever had after that.

____

Hope ya’ll enjoy this random fic idea!

#mine #writing #fanfiction #markiplier #markipliertag2 #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #darkiplier #stars #space au #space #black hole

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smoldinopup · 7 years

Text

Jonghyun - The Letter - 2017.06.14 - Fan account

Epic Fan Account of Doom…or Fluffiness (but that sounds less cool)

People who follow my blog attentively might know that I flew to Seoul on Monday to see Jonghyun in concert on June 14, because I only mentioned it like 14142112313 times on here. This trip went as smoothly as room tempered butter on a piece of toast. Pics and a video of my trip and some fun facts can soon be found on my travel blog, but no one cares about that now, right?

Let’s get to the actual content of this post *whips out her non-existent kazoo to play a song*

@krge @gone-with-the-bling, because you two wanted to read it! ^^

I went to SM Town at noon to buy some merchandise. I had typed down everything I wanted on my phone to make things easier for me as well as the staff working at the merchandise stand. When I arrived shortly before 12 around 30 people were already waiting in line (or more like sitting on the floor). Luckily they played Jonghyun and SHINee videos throughout the waiting time on some huge screen, so the time until 1pm passed really quickly.

It was my turn after only 10 minutes, but by then the kazoo was already sold out, which still shocks me. Not every person in front of me bought one so I’m still wondering how many SM actually sold? 15? I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that they only sold a handful of kazoos. I already read several fan accounts that they were quite short on some of the merchandise in general, but I thought it would get better in week four. Apparently not…I’m still meeh about it, because the kazoo was the one thing I looked forward to the most. Anyway, I got my merchandise (I went a little wild *coughs*. Random side note, the T-shirt is such good quality! I’m in awe and will never take it off again! Especially compared to those flimsy T-Shirts with that ridiculous sizing they had for the FIVE tour in Japan, Jonghyun’s T-shirt can only win.)

Left side: Jonghyun’s T-shirt (free size) Right side: SHINee’s FIVE T-shirt (size S). The thing with the FIVE T-shirts, before you wash them the print looks beautiful because it’s holographic. After washing it this effect is gone. The material is also much thinner than the one they used for the Jonghyun T-shirt, and the sizing was ridiculous. Those T-shirts were super short as you can see in the photo, but super wide (it’s like a crop trop in a way) I don’t even know how Minho wore that T-shirt with his long upper body. Jonghyun’s T-shirt on the other hand... I mean you want to wrap yourself up in it and pull it down to your knees (which I can’t, because I’m too tall, but smaller people can wear it as a dress, which is adorable). They were produced in different countries, which might be a reason for the difference in quality. I don’t know, but SM please produce your Japanese tour shirts somewhere else in future!

After taking photos with the shining babes at the photo booths (SM ships 2min and Jongkey…just saying) I went back to the SM merchandise shop to buy some more SHINee merchandise and then did some sightseeing around Seoul before coming back at 7pm for the actual concert that started at 8pm.

I sat in the left block in the third row, which was amazing, and I wish I had been able to stenograph during this whole concert to capture all the details as soon as they happened like

But yeah, that didn’t happen. So please bear with me, I try to write it down as accurately as I can remember it, but like I already mentioned in my ‘fan accounts’ for the SHINee concerts I’m only human (an old one on top of that) and I can’t possibly remember everything (even if it breaks my heart). So please be aware that the following passages will be filled with a lot of cringe worthy love that I feel for this adorable human being.

You have been warned!

So, grab a snack, make yourself comfortable and enjoy the ride. I should just write this like a fan fiction…lmao (maybe not)

The opening VCR was him riding in a car and then walking along the beach. The presentation of the video was so nicely done, because they switched screens from left, to middle, to right as Jonghyun walked along the beach, so the audience basically followed him in his steps. He also looked astonishingly beautiful in that VCR, but let’s be real…when doesn’t he look astonishingly beautiful. The VCR was shot together with the video to ‘Lonely’, because the beach and the outfit he wore were the same as in the music video.

We stood up for the opening songs, which is always nice of course, but also made me very uncomfortable, because I was a head taller than anyone else in my block, and I constantly worried that people behind me might not be able to see the stage that well. Sorry people who sat behind me, I can’t do anything about my height T_T. Like I mentioned above I was sitting in row three, but I forgot my glasses at the hostel and therefore Jonghyun was still a little fuzzy around the edges, and I naturally tilted my head to look at the screen from time to time (force of habit…which I acquired during the Japanese concerts).

Jonghyun wore a white T-shirt instead of the red one for the opening stage. Something like one, two, three Seoul Youth was written on it. But I’m not completely sure if that’s completely accurate, so don’t nail me down on it.

Just like the red T-Shirt he sleeves of the white one had been generously cut off. However, I sat on the wrong side and only caught a glimpse of the tattoo on his ribs. Pity! But better than the T-shirt were those jeans! His jeans were torn in all the right places and whenever his legs moved one could see the muscles nicely contract in his thighs (is that too detailed, I wonder?) Anyway, I can attest that the boy got some booty and thighs now (@every-person-who-has-an-url-talking-about-jjongs-non-existent-butt-might-consider-an-url-change). I have to admit that I spent the majority of the first three songs with looking at his thighs and butt. I’m sorry, Jonghyun. Please forgive me my rudeness! I’m just not used to seeing you having an actual booty.

There were dancers accompanying Jonghyun for a lot of the songs again. Though, while I thought they are a nice touch during the X-Inspiration concert, they often felt like too much for this concert series, and to me it didn’t feel like they added much to the performances. But that’s just my opinion, and I’m sure others loved the dancers. As I mentioned in my “I’m screaming into the void, but I have to scream anyway post” right after the concert, Jonghyun came to the left side of the stage in the beginning of ‘White T-Shirt’ and pointed into my direction while saying ‘You’re so rock n roll’. He could have also pointed at all of us, but let me have this one little moment of fangirl love and let’s all assume he did point at me, because I stood out the most in a lot of ways, and yes, I’m more rock n roll than even Mr. Kim will probably ever be, so it would have been very fitting. (ﾉ≧∀≦)ﾉ lmao

So, that being said I was totally overwhelmed by all the fan chants. I mean sometimes I love doing them, but at other times it feels suffocating and too much, like I’m part of some Army? I have the Japanese SHINee fan chants down perfectly. You can wake me up in the middle of the night, play me a random Japanese SHINee song and I will do every fan chant perfectly (including synchronized fan light movements). I’m also quite confident in doing the Korean ones, but most of the Jonghyun ones just exhausted me. I can’t even remember if we did all of them in December? December is still such a blur. It’s a pity that I didn’t write everything down back then, because my brain is weak and so was my heart. Anyway, it took me a few songs to get into the right fan chant groove.

When the VCR to Rewind played I was shocked to hear Jonghyun speak German. I was like O.O ??? What is this foreign but familiar sounding language doing here? Is he Lady Gaga? There was Spanish, and Japanese as well…I wonder how he came up with using German and Spanish from all existing languages. Did he open Google and ask ‘How to count in different languages’ and he thought those are the fancy sounding ones? Or did Jonghyun think ‘Roo’s ancestors were German, so let’s go with some Rammstein vibes’. Either way I’m still not over it. Kim Autobahn you can speak random German words to me all day. The video was just like the song title… very repetitive. Jonghyun did the same things again and again. But I believe by now most have seen the snippet of the VCR that was posted a while ago.

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in ‘Suit Up’. It is one of my favorite songs on the album. The band was way too loud and overpowered the softness of Jonghyun’s voice while singing the beginning of this song. The audio technicians should have changed the volume of the microphone or something since it’s never a good thing if the band is louder than the singer. As of the performance of the song, Jonghyun was rolled inside on some arm chair by some pretty female dancers who tried to ‘seduce him?’ I’m not sure, but they also stripped him off his purple jacket and his tie later into the performance, so I guess we can call it the art of seducing Kim Jonghyun. But like I’ve mentioned earlier while I loved the dancers during the concert in December, I felt like they didn’t fit the mood for the letter series, but do you do Jonghyun or SM, whoever decided that it’s a good idea to include dancers. He wore a purple suit during this segment by the way. There was a fan account that stated that he looked slimmer, because the pants fitted looser around his thighs than they had done before. I agree with that account since the pants indeed were a little looser, but I’m not sure this had anything to do with weight loss. Is it possible to lose so much weight around one’s thighs in a mere week? I don’t know. I don’t know. It also doesn’t matter…he looks beautiful no matter the shape or size! So, let’s move on.

‘Staring into Space’ was absolutely adorable, but I didn’t expect anything else, just watching him put on the robe and the little bed cap made everyone in the audience squeal in delight and him smile shyly in return. He knows he looks adorable in that outfit, but he still always acts surprised when the audience is more excited about him dressing up in cutesy outfits than seeing him undress himself. Anyway, the props for this performance stood on the left side of the stage. Some boxes, some lights, something he could sit/lie on. I’m not sure what it was exactly, something like a bench covered in pillows and a blanket? At first he only sat on it while singing, and I was already like…boooohh everyone said how adorable you get during this performance, don’t disappoint me now! As if he had heard my thoughts he lay down with that little dog plushie (that wore some polka dotted hoodie) and pulled down the sleeping mask, and then playfully tugged the mask down on one side so only one eye peeked out. You can imagine the squeals coming from all sides. He continued with pulling the other side down as well so his nose and his mouth were basically covered by the sleeping mask. It looked adorable. He’s such an adorable human being and he’s very aware of that. After the performance ended he got up to take the robe off and he was quite amused by the disappointed reaction of the audience, because everyone wanted to see him continuing the concert in that outfit. It’s definitely a look! Next SHINee comeback should include sleeping masks and robes.

For ‘Blinking Game’ some fancy looking lights were lowered onto the stage behind Jonghyun, and the scenery gave off the atmosphere of some fancy jazz club, and one only waited for a contrabass to start playing.

We used the hand bells for ‘Gloomy Clock’, and Jonghyun had a lot of fun altering the rhythm randomly to confuse the audience. Sometimes he really does act like a little kid, having the most fun by bringing mischief to the stage. But it shows how much he enjoys performing, and seeing him have so much fun, makes one’s heart feel really warm and fuzzy.

I’m quite sad that the talk segments were basically me sitting around and having no idea what Jonghyun was talking about. That’s what I personally like about the Japanese concerts, because there I understand most of the things they say, which is quite nice. But yeah, it’s not their fault that I don’t speak Korean. Anyway, before the cockroach song he looked for a couple again (apparently there was none…or no one wanted to out themselves) so he picked out some girl who had been single for a very long time. I only understood a few words, and tried to figure out the content of their conversation by clutching onto every straw that was thrown, and after that one fan account I was surprised to realize that I wasn’t that off with my speculations. It was really fun listening to their conversation, because that girl was very fierce (I loved her since she was not shy to voice her opinion) and ranted so much that she apologized several times when Jonghyun got all ㅎㅅㅎ--- O_O--- :’D and wondered why she sounded like she was mad at him. It was adorable. She mentioned Minho at some point, but I’m not sure what she said. Did she refer to him as her ideal type? I don’t know.

The cockroach song was awesome live, and the animation of the cockroaches were so adorable! Especially when one cockroach was sitting on Jonghyun’s head. He got all embarrassed when he saw himself on the screen with that cockroach head on his, and started laughing. Speaking of little, embarrassed Jonghyun. He also got very shy when all the fans excitedly waved their fan lights around when he sung the now infamous lyrics of ‘Where are you?” You know the drill. It was amusing. But what else did he expect the reaction of fans to be when he wrote those lyrics? Probably no one is going to look at him in disgust when he sings ‘Where is the person who is going to kiss me?’ Are there any fan accounts about what Minho did during this part when he attended the concert yesterday? I expect Choi to jump up from his seat and point at himself!

The second girl he talked to was one of the people who sent in letters. I have absolutely no idea what the conversation was about, but she was very shy and said annyeonghaseyo very, very awkwardly and shyly and also sounded slightly bored on top of it (an interesting mix), which Jonghyun apparently found quite amusing and mimicked the greeting in the same awkward manner and tone. We can conclude Jonghyun likes to play and tease the audience. In general I got the feeling that he really enjoys talking to the fans, listen to their stories, and give them advice. It felt like group therapy session with Doctor Kim. For the talk segments he walked around the stage and when reading the letters he sat in an arm chair in the middle of it. At some point he was wearing a huge white shirt with a wide collar and some pretty necklace. It was such a nice and dreamy outfit. Did I mention how beautiful his eye make-up was done? His eyes looked so pretty and shiny, and… *inserts all the hearts*.

The stages I feared the most were the ones starting off with ‘Let me out’. I really thought I would start crying him a river right then and there, but luckily that didn’t happen. The prop for this stage consisted of some cocoon looking 2m tall foldable wall that surrounded him, and he wore all black with a black corsage like binder around his waist. Let me tell you that corsage did things to his figure. I mean we all know he has a tiny waist, but that binder only emphasized that, which made his shoulders and arms look massive while it made his waist look even tinier. Especially when seen from the side with the light falling onto him he looked like some statute in a museum. I think this was my favorite outfit of the night, because he just looked very dark and mysterious, but also very soft and beautiful at the same time. This guy is just a contradiction, but what else is new.

Like some fan accounts already stated the performance to ‘Let me out’ is quite intense and Jonghyun puts his everything into it, but just like with ‘Suit up’ the band overpowered him during the quieter parts, which is a pity. I don’t know if this was a general problem and just no one mentioned it until now, because fans tend to throw all form of critic out of the window as soon as they are graced by his presence or if the concert I attended was an exception. Maybe they should have arranged those songs differently, because performing them live requires some special attention in my opinion so the haunting feeling of the music and lyrics get across to the audience. After ‘Let me out’ Jonghyun pushed the cocoon open and continued with ‘Elevator’, one of my all-time favorite Jonghyun songs. It was very powerful and I sat in the audience with goosebumps.

The duets between Jonghyun and Shawols were beautiful. He should consider recording a song with a bunch of Shawols as duet partners in future. I especially liked the Shawol duet to ‘Love belt’, because it makes it easier to yell ‘I NEED YOU. I LOVE YOU…HOLD ME’ at Jonghyun without seeming like a crazy person. (/・・)ノ

The VCR before the encore seems to change every so often and while it was a rice brand Jonghyun advertised last week, he did some advertising for a drink this week. He tried to act as if he was seducing that bottle in his hand, and ran it along his face and so on. It looked hilarious. I laughed so hard. I live for funny VCRs. After the video ended everyone’s head suddenly turned to the entrance of the theater, and I was like ‘What is going on? Why is everyone turning their head around?’ I figured out why around ten seconds later when Jonghyun came down the aisle on the left side for ‘Deja Boo’ and everyone started screaming. Holy guacamole I wasn’t ready for seeing Jonghyun that close. I thanked all existing Gods on this planet that I sat in the left block so he passed me only a few feet away and came to a halt right in front of my block. HE’S SO TINY!!!! *USES ALL CAPSLOCK IN THE EXISTENCE OF CAPSLOCK* AND SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! Wow, I was so dumbfounded that I just stared at him like the weak fangirl I am. How do people survive fan signs? I mean yes, he’s just a normal human being, no need to put him on any pedestals (that’s 100% correct) but holy daisy…if he isn’t one of the most beautiful human beings I was able to lay my eyes on. His skin was glowing! If it had been me standing right in front of him in that first row I probably would have gaped at him without feeling any shame. He has just a very engaging aura. I mean it is one thing to see him up close on stage, but when he’s literally on eyelevel with you…oh my oh my…how do people manage to act all normal around him? Are they dying on the inside from all the tiny firework explosions and fan feels? Tell me your secrets survivors of the US fan meets!

Random anecdote: 10 years ago I met my back then favorite guitar player during a meet and greet and expected to die right then and there. However, I didn’t die and I carried a table with him instead and told him how tiny he is, which resulted in the singer laughing and saying ‘Well, what a nice compliment!’ Me being as smooth as a spiky cactus. So thinking about this fan girl episode of mine I probably would say something stupid instead of dying inside. But I matured, I wouldn’t call Jonghyun tiny to his face. I learned from this embarrassing episode that still haunts me at night sometimes.

The concert ended with ‘Fortune Cookie’ and ‘Beautiful tonight’. As always Jonghyun directed the audience during ‘Beautiful tonight’ and I looked at every kazoo around me in envy. I wanted to become a kazoo kid. I will forever be bitter about this. But I might just buy one from ebay and start my kazoo career anyway. No need for Jonghyun’s concert logo on this genius music instrument. I loved how he cherished every single person in the band accompanying him, and jammed along to every instrument. He played air bass guitar, it was so adorable and cute and I just wanted to pinch his cheeks and pat his head.

The ending of a concert always makes me feel very empty and this time was no different. As soon as Jonghyun left the stage I felt a wave of ‘So this was it. The final goodbye’. It’s always the worst part of a concert, because you just don’t want it to be over yet. The concert was a little over 2 hours, I believe, and everyone stormed out of the concert hall to wave Jonghyun goodbye at SM Town’s side entrance. When I arrived at SM Town that day I tried to figure out where all those ‘Arrival’ and ‘Departure’ photos had been taken, but I didn’t have to look long for it, because the entrance is right next to the actual entrance of SM Town. So, I followed the crowd and waited behind a barrier. I think at least half of the audience waited for him there, and most of them had their phones and cameras ready, already filming the door. Some of the girls even had little stools they could stand on so they could see the entrance better. He exited the building shortly after, waved into the crowd like usual and then disappeared into the waiting car. Nothing too dramatic…

It was a beautiful concert; very cozy and somehow very intimate. I for one belong to the group of people who prefer small venues, and I never understand why some fans have it as a goal to attend a Tokyo Dome concert at least once in their lives. I mean you do you, but it sounds more fun than it actually is. I already disliked the size of Saitama Super Arena with a little over 30.000 seats and I don’t want to imagine how a hall filled with over 50.000 must feel like. Yes, the ocean might look beautiful with 50.000, but it already looks beautiful with 500, so I don’t know what the big deal is…especially if you happen to only get a ticket on the fourth/fifth floor. But to each their own I guess. One needs to have a goal in life after all, and if it’s attending a SHINee concert, then that’s a really good one! So, you go Shawols! ^^

I should end this here, but I want to add a last note on the global packages. Last year I got a global package for the first X-Inspiration concert, because a) I didn’t know better b) his first concert was on my birthday and therefore I wanted to go there whatever the cost. As most of you know the global packages are very pricy to begin with, but in the case of the X-Inspiration concerts they also offered a lot in return, and you could choose the price category of the hotel. So after calculating everything, I thought, well the price is not too bad, and I still don’t regret buying that package, because it was a wonderful experience that I treasure a lot. However, this time the prices for the global packages were even higher, you couldn’t choose the price category, and they offered nothing at all except for the goodies. All I thought was ‘SM, what are you doing???’ This being said, if you have the money, just go for it, but if you are on a budget you might want to look around a little. There are trustworthy Korean sites which people use to resell their tickets and if you are lucky enough you might find a ticket to a reasonable price. The one I found was only 40$ more than the original price and was a seat in the third row, so I’m not complaining.

So, in conclusion: Did I have fun at the concert? Yes, I did! Was it enjoyable? Yes, definitely. Would I do it again? Oh yeah, anytime. There is just something about Jonghyun or SHINee as a whole group that makes me incredibly happy, and I’m very thankful that they never fail to put a smile onto my face. ♡

Thank you! (♡＾▽＾♡)

#kim jonghyun #jonghyun #SHINee #dü speaks #the agit #SHINee adventures in Japan

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woozletania · 7 years

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Living with Rocket 1 (GOTG slice of life) - PTSD, mild violence

Author’s note: “Rocket turns out to be a high maintenance friend once you actually spend more time with him. The raccoon's hidden PTSD causes problems for the crew and Peter volunteers to help.”

Living with Rocket By Strega

Rocket was a tough little guy. Rough, tough, foul-mouthed, often angry and almost always heavily armed. You might not like him, but you had to respect him. Peter Quill had learned soon after meeting him how commanding the little raccoon could be. The prisoners at the Kyln had no trouble taking orders from a furry, three foot tall, fifty-pound creature. Stature wasn't everything; confidence and a willingness to use force counted for a lot. Rocket had both of those in spades.

You'd never know how hurt and vulnerable he really was under all that bluster. Not until you lived with him.

The first clue was where and how he slept. The Milano, designed as a multi-person fighter and transport, had half a dozen small bunk rooms. Each was no larger than a prison cell and contained little more than a bed with pull-out drawers under it, with the exception of the captain's room, which had a larger, more comfortable bed and a private bath instead of the communal one. The one lack was that only the captain's room had a door. It was a functional enough arrangement as long as you didn't agonize over privacy and as the Guardians grew accustomed to living on board each took a room and used it as you'd expect someone to use a bedroom.

Except Rocket. The first time Peter went looking for him he found the raccoon had pulled all the drawers from under the bed, stacked them on the bed proper and curled up in the dark little cave thus revealed, surrounded by guns and little Groot's pot. Peter had just smiled and went on with his day, not realizing at first what he was seeing.

Two days later he had to ask Rocket to put his room back together. The raccoon had somehow managed to pull the plating off the wall from the space under his bed and retreated further into the dark with Groot. It was a claustrophobic little burrow but though if anyone could safely do that to the ship it was Rocket the raccoon agreed, after a brief argument, to put everything back where he'd found it. He could sleep on the pillow he dragged under the bed, Peter told him, but please don't make a nest in the air vents again. It blocked the air flow and sometimes you could smell raccoon musk throughout the ship.

Instead Rocket installed a door to his room. How he did that Peter wasn't sure, but within two hours of their argument there was suddenly a sliding door between the raccoon's room and the hall. When Gamora and Drax expressed their admiration at that bit of engineering the raccoon grumbled good-naturedly and built doors for their rooms too. His strong little hands and innate mechanical skills were a marvel to behold but by then hardly a surprise, given what they'd seen up to this point. All seemed well with their odd little friend. It wasn't.

Two days later the raccoon woke up screaming and the whole crew burst into his room, finding him backed as far as he could go under the bed with Groot, the whites of his eyes showing around the feral irises and a huge gun in his hands. It took Peter five minutes to calm the raccoon down and get him to come out. Peter told the others he had it covered and sat down to talk.

"What's the matter, Rocket?"

"Whaddya mean? Nothing's the matter." But the furry little hand that pulled Groot's pot close to his hip was shaking. He'd been sleeping in just his pants, not the armored vest he wore, and Peter noticed once more the polished metal bolts protruding from the raccoon's collarbones. You couldn't see any scars under the fur but he was sure they were there. He'd only seen Rocket's back once but knew that it was far, far worse. Who knew what other horrors lurked under Rocket's fur?

"Were you in pain? Problem with your cybernetics?"

The raccoon let out a harsh little laugh. "No. No problem. I just woke up wrong, OK?"

"Okay pal. It's your business." But the seed of worry was planted and Peter insisted that Rocket not lock his door or, and this took a lot of arguing to get across, set any traps to keep people out. Eventually Quill had to point out that they might get a hull breach and have to get into any room to repair the ship. Even the captain's room wasn't locked, he pointed out.

A week later Rocket woke up screaming again and this time only Peter came running, but only because he waved Gamora and Drax away. Like last time he had to talk Rocket out of the fortified hole under his bed where he sat shaking, clutching Groot tightly and denying everything. Quill looked at the hand holding the pot and saw the unnatural knobbyness of Rocket's knuckles. There were bolts there under the fur, he was sure. And in how many other places?

"I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over," he remembered Rocket saying. He hadn't really thought about it before. How long had that hell been? What had they done to that poor little animal that eventually became Rocket?

During the day Rocket was tough and capable, easily angered but so useful to have around that no one gave it a second thought. He looked funny but he was part of the team. But at night the raccoon was alone, except for Groot, and that's when his terrors came.

Rocket spent all the next day working on something he called "aerorigs". He hadn't been impressed by Star-Lord's jet boots other than to comment he'd once used something called "rocket skates", and his clever little hands were soon at work making them all jet packs. Like Quill's mask they used mass displacement technology to hide most of their bulk and were half the size of Peter's Walkman when not activated. They would allow you to fly for up to two hours when he was finished, the raccoon said, though you could run out the fuel supply a lot faster if you overloaded them.

He was rough and tough and snarky but Peter was beginning to worry and that night he silently slid the door to Rocket's room open and peeked in. For a change the raccoon was curled up on the bed and Peter could see him shivering as he slept. His little furry hands twitched and he whined in his sleep as he tried to push some invisible tormentor away.

Groot was there, still in his pot though as of that morning he showed the ability to leave it for a short time, and Peter saw how the little tree was stroking Rocket's fur as he slept. Wide innocent eyes turned to Peter and Groot gestured for him to approach.

Quill grimaced as he stepped closer, seeing the inflamed flesh around the shoddily installed cybernetics on the raccoon's back. How much must that hurt? Rocket didn't like doctors, he knew. He didn't like to be touched in general and he didn't trust anyone who might jab him with a needle. His back needed care but he covered up his pain just as he covered his scars up with his tunic.

Groot nodded as Peter reached out and put his hand on the nape of Rocket's neck. He felt the awful tension in the sleeping raccoon and the shivers that ran through his body as the nightmare gripped him. Quill did what Rocket would never let him do when awake. He petted Rocket until the shivering raccoon finally relaxed and calmed down. A little human kindness did what no amount of bravery and bluster could do: it banished the terror, at least for a little while.

The nightmare seemed to come to Rocket at about the same time every night and soon Quill grew used to silently sliding the door open and creeping in on slippered feet to soothe the traumatized raccoon's sleep. Groot's eyes brightened each time he appeared and though the little tree could once more talk, albeit in a way only Rocket could understand, he must never have told the raccoon about Quill's nocturnal visits. One time Quill fell asleep before stopping by and woke to find little Groot tugging on his pants leg and pointing silently at the door. He was as worried about his friend as Peter was.

It helped. Quill hadn't noticed Rocket's bloodshot eyes until the whites cleared, and the little tremor that sometimes ran through his hands even during the day soon subsided. Gamora caught Peter in the hall a few nights later but a lifetime of training as an assassin had taught her to keep her mouth shut. She glanced in only long enough to see him petting the shivering raccoon before returning to her room. It cost Quill a bit of sleep but it was worth it and Rocket didn't know what was going on as he slept.

Until a few nights later. Peter found a tube of universal antibiotic in the ship's medical store and brought it with him during his nocturnal visit. Groot looked on approvingly as he calmed Rocket by gently petting him as he slept, then Peter applied some of the antibiotic to his fingers and went to rub it on the worst parts of the raccoon's back.

He should have waited for the creme to warm up. The second his chilly fingers touched the bare skin of Rocket's back the raccoon growled like an angry cat and rolled over. Before Peter could yank his hand away cybernetically augmented hands grabbed his arm and sharp fangs sank into his hand.

The breath hissed out of Peter as bones ground together between the raccoon's teeth. Either raccoons bit a lot harder than he thought they should or even Rocket's jaws were augmented. Blood dripped down his fingers onto the bedclothes and only a hard upbringing with the Ravagers allowed him to stay calm. Instead of trying to pry Rocket's muzzle open he used his other hand to gently scratch behind the raccoon's ears.

Slowly the bite loosened and Rocket's beady eyes blinked open. They flicked back and forth as he took in what was happening and only when he was sure he wasn't under attack did he finally let go of Peter's arm.

"Quill? What are you doing in here?" His ears went down as he saw the bloody state of Peter's hand. "Aw, man. Sorry about that. But what were you doing in my room?"

Groot patted Rocket's furry shoulder and piped out "I am Groot," and Peter, for the first time, was pretty sure he knew what the little tree said. He was going to bet he knew, anyway.

"Groot waved at me as I went by your room and pointed at your back," Peter said as he put pressure on his bleeding hand. Rocket's fangs had gone right through the thickest part of the meat. "I'm sorry, I should have waited until you were awake, but I thought if I put some antibiotic on it you'd sleep better."

"Oh," Rocket said. "Uh, thanks."

Gamora glanced in from the doorway but Rocket was looking at Groot and didn't see her. Peter frantically gestured her away. The raccoon was never going to open up if he thought they were ganging up on him.

Fortunately Peter had a pocket full of smart medical patches he'd brought in case Rocket's back was even worse than it looked and he was able to staunch the bleeding and kill most of the pain from the bite. If Rocket had bitten down any harder it'd take more than that to fix his hand but stab wounds through muscle were easy with Ravager medical tech.

"Rocket, I'm sorry I didn't ask you first," Peter said, "But your back looks really bad. I'm here anyway, could I smear some of this stuff on before I go?"

"But I bit your hand." The raccoon didn't apologize, but he didn't ask Peter to leave, either.

"And I'm gonna pay you back, because I bet this stuff is going to hurt."

That made Rocket grin cruelly, but Peter saw the gleam in his eye. Rocket really did like hurting people, but he was starting to appreciate having someone to trade barbs with. He was beginning to trust Peter. He hadn't even mentioned that he woke up to being scratched behind the ears. And his back really must have bothered him, because he turned away without another word and waited for Peter to apply the creme.

He'd never put the cap back on the new-bloody tube and this time Peter waited until the stuff warmed up on his fingertips before applying it. It was the longest look he'd had at Rocket's back and the scars were horrifying. Some were inflamed and the flesh around the largest implant looked infected. It must be agonizing but Rocket never complained. The little raccoon just sat there stiffly as Peter applied the antibiotic. There were two spots so nasty looking Peter slapped smart patches on them and a third that probably didn't need one but got one anyway.

"You have to take better care of yourself, man."

Rocket shrugged. "Augmented immune system. It wasn't gonna kill me any time soon. Groot used to put stuff on it but he's too little now and I don't like doctors."

"It has to hurt."

The raccoon grinned as he looked past his shoulder at Peter. "Everything hurts, humie."

That was all Peter got out of Rocket, who curled up on his side so the covers wouldn't get medical gel on them. Except for one last comment: "And close the door when you leave."

Gamora was waiting silently in the hall and Peter didn't say a word until they were all the way up in the cockpit. The Milano was parked next to a particularly pretty nebula, far from the nearest jump gate. There was no need of a pilot when they were just killing time until the next good assignment came down the hypernet.

"His hearing is better than ours but all the ship noise should drown us out if he's still awake," Peter said.

"He's broken," Gamora said without preamble. "I've seen this before in torture victims. Even when released they are weak." She'd been around Peter enough to know from his face that she shouldn't have said that and went on. "I mean, there's no telling how he will react if someone learns how to manipulate him. He's emotionally vulnerable."

"So am I," Peter said. "So is Drax. So are you!" He pointed a finger at her chest. "None of us are perfect. You can be manipulated by bringing up Thanos, Drax is a berserker and I've got Ravagers who want me dead. I'm not going to give up on a friend just because he's been through hell. Have you given up on Nebula?"

Gamora was silent and he went on. "You were turned into a cyborg to serve Thanos. You had parents and he killed them. Rocket didn't even have that. He was this poor little thing they turned into a weapon and cut open over and over until he was what they wanted him to be. Then he got loose and I like to think he killed every last one of them. He's never had a crumb of love or comfort his entire life and we're all the family he has."

Peter rubbed his bandaged hand. "We've all lost family. Rocket's had it worse than any of us. I know he's little, and he's mean and he plays jokes that get us in trouble. He made me go get that guy's leg right in the middle of our escape from the Kyln! But he's my friend. I'm not giving up on him and if nothing else you oughta appreciate how useful he is to have around. He got us out of the Kyln and made the weapon that helped kill Ronan."

Finally Gamora nodded. "I admit...he is useful. I've never seen someone as good with technology. Even if he couldn't fight he'd be worth having on board and he's a brave fighter too. And I guess he isn't any more immature than you are."

"Thank you," Peter said. "Sorta."

Drax had appeared silently at the stairs and stood listening, only to nod wordlessly and head back to his bed. There was a kindness and consideration in his giant frame you wouldn't suspect if you hadn't seen him gently petting Rocket when Groot died. He must already have suspected what was going on and shown up just long enough to confirm it before signaling his agreement. They would put up with their friend's issues because that's what friends did.

So things continued as they'd been, with Rocket sleeping better, Peter spending a few minutes a night petting him or putting antibiotic cream on his back, and the rest of the crew pretending they didn't know what was going on. And if Rocket was sometimes awake when Quill showed up he kept his mouth shut too.

He'd never admit he let someone pet him, it smacked of being treated as an animal. But he'd lie there pretending to be asleep, accept that crumb of human comfort, and then the next day he'd go to work on the ship or some weapon or the aerorigs or whatnot. And if he was a little happier, and smiled a little more often even when he wasn't being snarky or hurting someone, that was all Peter needed out of the deal.

#Rocket Raccoon #Guardians of the Galaxy #peter quill #gamora #drax the destroyer #baby groot #ptsd #blood

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shootingstarcipher-blog · 7 years

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The Runaway (Chapter 1: State of Mind)

He was older now, but not as much as he felt. He stood there in front of the mirror one morning – the morning he woke up to find his whole world had collapsed around him, leaving him hopeless, alone, and ultimately broken – and decided there and then that he needed to get away. From within his mind there came a laugh – a cold, derisive giggle of megalomania – and he stared back at his reflection with contempt. You’ll never get away, his mind shrieked, and his hand instinctively flew up to cover his gleaming yellow eye which always made his other one seem so dull and lifeless. His right eye was always yellow now – yellow and with a tiny black slit for a pupil. His left remained a permanent hazel.

It took a while for the laughter to die down but when it did, he looked back at himself in the mirror and smiled (only a small smile, which for most people would have been barely passable as an expression of emotion at all, but that was all he could muster). “I will get away,” he said sternly, more to himself than the source of the shrill laughter inside his head. “From you, and from all of this.” He pictured himself raising an eyebrow – for it was something he had never managed to do and could only imagine finally being able to do it – and tilted his hat on top of his head as he spoke. Then, glancing back at the mirror one last time, he turned on his heel and started to pack.

All he wound up taking with him was a few spare changes of clothes, all the money he had, some books he must have read hundreds of times and some emergency food and drink for the journey.

He paused to consider which of his two hats to wear and which to pack. This may seem like an unnecessary hurdle which should have been easy to overcome but, given the circumstances, to Dipper Pines it was a troubling and arduous task to accomplish. The first was a blue and white trucker hat depicting a Pine Tree that was important to his life than perhaps he even he himself had yet to realise. The other was grey and dog-eared, but sentimentally priceless nonetheless.

Both of them, at some time or another, had belonged to Wendy Corduroy.

In the end, he chose to where neither and pack both. It was a decision he half-expected to regret in the days to come yet simultaneously assured himself he was making the right choice.

The last time he had journeyed to Gravity Falls, it hadn’t been a pleasant trip. He still went every summer, ever since his parents had forced him and Mabel to stay with their great uncle Stan four years prior. But the last time hadn’t been for a holiday or for a visit to his great uncles and the friends who lived there; the last time he had gone for a funeral.

The bus was late but that wasn’t surprising. It was late every year. This time, however, he was on his own. That made it so much worse.

Although he hadn’t initially intended on getting off as the bus passed through the town, when he eventually got there he felt he couldn’t let the opportunity slip through his fingers – not after last year, not now he knew how fleeting life really was. His uncles were both in their seventies and though he could barely imagine anything attacking Grunkle Stan and getting the better of him, or Ford making a simple yet costly mistake resulting in his demise, imagining how hurtful it would be to lose either of them without taking the chance to see them one last time proved to be an even more difficult task.

As a twelve year old boy taking his first look at the business belonging to the so-called “Mr Mystery”, he had once thought that the Mystery Shack was just that: a dilapidated, run-down shack (the mystery being why anyone bothered to visit it). And in spite of his initial impression of the decrepit shack that had since become a second home to him and his sister, he had hoped and hoped that it wouldn’t have changed at all since the first time he’d been (after all, it had been just the same the last time he’d visited).

Now, as he stood there in front of it again – eyes squinted and one hand coiled into a fist, the other grappling for the strap of his backpack – he felt like he was being taunted. The voice in his head was quiet for once, but the feeling of a presence hiding inside his mind remained.

It wasn’t at all like he’d imagined – or how he’d hoped. Even more derelict than usual, the Mystery Shack was definitely on its way out. If he had thought it had been on its last legs before, then now it must have lost one or two those, balancing precariously on the weakest pair of wooden support beams ever recorded. He wasn’t sure if the voice was telling him this or if he was coming up with it himself, but a terrifying thought suddenly flashed through his mind – only for a moment, but the message was clear and one that had immediately engraved itself into his mind. If this is how bad the Shack looks, then what about Stan and Ford? After all, they were even older than the Shack.

It must have been at least twenty minutes before he could force himself to enter the house. He didn’t bother knocking; he never did – not here. There was no need for it here.

The first few seconds he spent inside the Shack answered none of his questions and created a thousand more. The house was a complete mess – and not just in Stan’s usual untidy way. Cracks in the walls, deep holes in the floorboards, smashed glass and broken bottles littering the floor in every room. And there was more. Family photographs had been savagely torn up, Stan’s chair had been tipped over and seemingly attacked – with bitemarks and long, fierce scratches tearing it to shreds – and the television set lay shattered on the living room floor. If Dipper’s common sense had overridden his curiosity, he would have left there and then and never looked back.

But then he would have had no hope of finding out what had happened. And what’s more, he would have regretted every second he spent not knowing whether his uncles were dead or alive.

He couldn’t have been sure that they were alive and he certainly didn’t think they were safe even if they had managed to survive the attack on their home, but he was determined to protect them if he could. They would have done the same for him, after all – and in fact they had, many a time during his and Mabel’s first stay in Gravity Falls.

The basement was where he headed next. If they were still inside the Shack, that’s where they’d be; he was completely certain of that. And so he quickly arrived at the conclusion that they had already left – either by choice or by force – as the basement was completely void of human life. Something was different than he remembered it, however. The portal that Ford had built at his enemy’s instruction, the one that almost destroyed the entire world, the one Dipper had watched his uncle pick apart piece by piece and demolish… That portal was standing there in the centre of the room, looking as if it had been stood there forever – as if it had never been taken apart and destroyed.

Yet it had. He knew it had. He remembered it so clearly. It had been Grunkle Ford’s life’s work – the masterpiece that marked his place as one of the world’s greatest minds and stood as testament to his genius – and Dipper had watched him tear it to shreds, unpicking and unwinding every inch of his greatest mistake. And now – as if by magic – it was back.

Curiosity and longing drew him to stand at the very edge of where safety ended and the unknow began, whispering to him from the depths of his mind, tempting him to step forward and find out just where that portal would take him. But curiosity killed the cat – and quite possibly his two great uncles as well – and although satisfaction brought it back, logic told him that there was no guarantee that he would be brought back to life by whatever lay beyond the line drawn across the concrete floor of his uncle’s basement.

He wanted to get away, but not like that. He wasn’t yet at the point where he’d willingly put his own life on the line without reason. Or anybody else’s, for that matter. Sanity had not completely deserted him yet.

And so logic and reason drowned out the curiosity and the longing, bringing him back to the front door of the Mystery Shack, which he then stared at for a considerable amount of time before deciding to continue on his way. Stan and Ford would be rescued. But for the time being, he had somewhere to be – somewhere he’d have an awful lot of time to figure out what might have happened to them.

He didn’t take the bus this time. He walked instead. It wasn’t far, anyway, and the peace and quiet gave him ample opportunity to think. But thinking wasn’t good for him. Thinking allowed buried memories to resurface and taunting voices to haunt him. His uncles were gone, they told him. He’d never see either of them again. Just like her. Just like all of them.

“I will,” he snapped as he pushed drooping branch out of the way and trudged past it, glad that he was alone so that nobody heard him talking to himself. “And don’t you ever talk about her. Ever. You didn’t deserve to know her.”

“I didn’t know her – not as well as you, Pine Tree.”

That made him stop. It sounded different this time, like it wasn’t coming from inside his head anymore. Like it was real. He had accepted long ago that voices speaking to him from within his own mind were nothing more than hallucinations, his memories confusing themselves with the present reality and manifesting as calls from beyond the grave – because Bill Cipher was in fact dead.

But that nickname. The voice had never – not even once – called him that since Bill Cipher’s reign of terror and madness had come to an end. It had always sounded the same but simply uttering those two words immediately confirmed that the voice did indeed belong to the monster he had witnessed commit countless unforgiveable actions at the expense and suffering of his friends and family.

He whirled round the instant he heard it, expecting to find the demon floating in mid-air behind him as had been the case so many times just a few years prior. All that greeted him was silence and empty air. Maybe his sanity really was slipping away. Maybe he shouldn’t have been alone in the woods at all.

#billdip #angst #gravity falls #fanfiction

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oldscarredlove · 7 years

Text

AfterGone - Part 1/3

The Origins of AG

Error > @loverofpiggies (tag ain’t working) Swap!Sans > @(can’t remember)

After all this time I still remember what it was like when the human came here to the Underground, the prison of the monsters hidden deep in Mount. Ebott, I’ve lost all sense of time here, when you’re alone you kind of lose all your senses and sanity. Looking over to the other side of Snowdin river, the fields of wooden crosses and blocks of stone, I mesmerized how this all happened… — It is said that the human had fallen into the Underground from the surface landing onto a pile of golden flowers, making them sound like some kind of angel that fallen from the Heavens with golden wings. They were the most innocent thing down here, their smiles and laughs were all it took for the monsters to be befriended and give them their trust.

Right to the very end. No one ever got to see the light of the surface, every single monster that came face to face with the human ultimately ended up being left as a pile of dust. I made sure to never even be within range of the human’s toy knife, being the only one to see their true self.

The human may have fallen as if an angel had been sent to us… But no one ever questioned why the angel had fallen, it was because it was a monster, even more so than ourselves. — Haunting laughter filled the golden corridor, the light of the barrier shining through the windows were blinding my eye-sockets but I’d much prefer look at something that wasn’t the human in front of me. Their cheeks were rosy and their smile was just as it always was but with a more twisted and darker reason other than befriending.

Their yellow shirt was no longer tucked from their brown trousers, the black suspenders hanging loosely on either sides of their legs and their dark shoes powdered with the dust of the slain. Their knife had lost its shine during the journey here, it was pointed at me for the fifth time and I could feel my soul ache in a familiar pain.

“Here again, huh Sans?” Questioned the demon-child, “I wonder how many times we’ll dance like this.” They giggled manically and their soulless eyes looked at me from under their messy fringe.

“The real question is…” I felt my left eye glow before I opened my eyes again, staring into the soul which should have never existed. “Why aren’t you burning in Hell like you should be?” —RESET— Something was different, something has changed and I have no idea what and whatever it was, it was making my bones rattle, it crawled up my spine the entire day, I just couldn’t focus on anything.

It took longer than usual to leave the house, I was heading toward the Waterfall post when it happened, hearing the slice before the bang. I hid in the shadows of the Snowdin woods as I watched Papyrus, my beloved sister, crumble into nothing but ashes, Chara practically skipping away whilst humming a strange tune.

When the human vanished, I came out and wobbled toward the blood-coloured scarf on the ground, hesitating when I reached out for it. “P-Papyrus…? S-Sister…?” I fell onto my knees, burying my face into it and felt myself shiver, feeling the true cold of the situation for the first time.

I was never there to see my sister turn to dust, mainly because I knew I’d lose my mind, I could feel it crack, splitting in half and my eye-socket burning with hatred. “I shall make sure…” I looked up from my spot on the snow, “they burn in the flames of Hell.” — The scarf was wrapped around my neck when I next faced the human, after blasting them with my little pets, they collapsed onto the ground and were silent for a full minute. Then they started to boom with laughter, I could hear them struggling to breathe and see the tears fall onto the floor. They looked up to me with that scary face and had an expression of someone who’s had an awful idea.

“Hahahaha! Why- Why didn’t I think about this before?!” They started to howl again and I could feel their sins surrounding me, it was almost enough to choke me.

“What is it, kid? You’re kinda creeping me out here.” I scowled at their attempt of getting up and falling down again.

“Join me!” I froze in place. “Join me in the next run! Let’s kill everyone! They’ll never-”

“No.” It was all I could say, they’d managed to make me lose my ability to speak, ‘no’ was the only word I could formulate.

“Listen to me, Sans!” They stood up and spread their arms toward me.” They’ll never have to know! I can just reset the timeline and they’ll all just forget, only we will remember!” They held out their disarmed hand. “Join me Sans, it’d be so interesting to see if you’d be able to kill your own-”

Looks like I’m ganna have’ta use my special attack early. —RESET— “Oh! Good morning Sans! You’re up unusually early today!” Papyrus was grinning like a fool as usual, I starred at her in-tents-ly, trying to burn this image of her into my skull. Her heroic cape-like scarf, her shining ‘battle body’, her happy face, looking at me like I was a saint.

How wrong she was, it was almost enough to break me entirely, she was always seeing the good in everything whilst I was her polar opposite. She was the saint, always trying to save those I would’ve discarded without a second thought, being honest and soft forever and always.

“Heh, yeah…” I looked away, ashamed. “Hey sis… I kinda forgot… What would you do if you became the Head of the Royal Guard?”

She looked at me with an expression of bewilderment, amazed I’d forgotten when she’s spoken of it a million times. In truth, I wanted her to picture her happiest day before it all came to an end. As she turned away from me and explained everything with joy, I materialized my claw and sliced at her, making sure to go through the soul to ensure she didn’t feel any pain.

I didn’t want her to even see the human or myself, before she even started to crumble I broke apart, I let the claw fade off and knelt onto the floor, disgusted with myself for what this timeline has in store. After several minutes, I got up, my body rattling loudly, I had no words to say to her, what could I say? “I’m Sorry…” — I was sitting inside Grillby’s when the human came, I heard the door open and footsteps come closer to me, they stopped and were followed by a giggle. “No one’s here, huh?” I said nothing. “Where’d they all go? Did you warn them? Because if you did I can just reset an-”

“I killed everyone.” It was silent for a whole two minutes then booming laughter filled the diner.

“WOW! So you’re going to join me?!” I nodded, they cheered. “This’ll be fun! I can’t wait to see how this goes, par’ner!” I wasn’t so sure. — By the time we reached the Queen’s throne room and that flower-thing were reduced to nothing, we went into the room that was before the barrier, the human was still grinning like a clown with their cheeks the same red as Papyrus’ scarf.

“Now that, Sans, was what I called a good time!” They winked at me like I should agree, but all I felt were the sins crawling up my back.

“It’s the end now kid, we had an agreement: When this was all done with, you’d make sure no one ever knew about this…” I stared at them with hatred, feeling my soul pulsing in agony.

They tapped their knife against their forehead, as if they’d forgotten something. “Oh right!” I was hoping they’d stab them-self in the head. “Ok then, a deal’s a deal.” They steadied their knife. “Goodbye Sans.”

Zoooom….BANG.

My eye-sockets widened and I could feel my jaw drop (not literally), I stared in horror and what’d just happened. The dark grey floor was suddenly covered in red and a choked chuckle rang through the room.

“There… The deal’s done.” And with those dying words, they collapsed onto the ground and time froze. In the monster’s place was a human in different colours, their face was pale and their magenta shirt was stained with blood and their blue trousers and brown boots were dusty.

Staring at this other human, I realized that I’d made a deal with the literal Devil, turning my own words against me. I zipped to the human and started to shake the human around brutally, screaming and sobbing at them to RESET, they always did, why was this any different from the other times they’d died?

My thoughts already pieced the answer together, it was because Chara had killed this human ever since they first possessed them, stealing and destroying a little piece of their soul for every second they were inside them. I started to get slow and my voice was becoming a whisper.

“Please… Bring them back…” — Whilst heading back, I picked a bunch of flowers, gold and blue, and covered each with the dust with a single monster. When I got back to Snowdin, I summoned my claw and made each flower a hole, buring them and placing a wooden cross I’d made from fallen branches in the nearby forest at the head of the grave.

When it came to those I cared for especially, I made them a tombstone, carving their names and a small message into the rock. The last two were Papyrus and the human, although I had never met this human child before, it felt like we could’ve been pals in another lifetime.

When Papyrus’ grave was done, I wrapped her scarf around her tombstone and stood up, looking around at my handy work. My hoodie was torn and tattered, itchy from all the dust it’d collected during the run, I went inside and headed to my room, throwing all the clothes I was wearing into the trash.

When I came outside again in my new clothing, I noticed that time had literally stopped, I guess without the human, there was nothing else to proceed… My head tilted down and I climbed onto the roof, feeling nothing but shame, vengeance and disgust. I felt sick to my non-existing stomach and felt like the ghost of Papyrus behind me, watching my every move in anger and betrayal. — I started to cry out of nowhere, I’d looked at the window of the living room and noticed I’d become skinnier and had actually grown at some point. Ever since… I haven’ had much to eat, resources were becoming scarce and I’ve now had to start living off of plants, forcing myself to become a vegan.

It could’ve been because I’d grown and believed that time was starting again, only to have my hope crushed when I’d stared at a clock for what seemed like an hour. Or it could’ve been that I’d glanced at the calendar that was next to the door and saw that (for me) it has been over a year since then.

Whenever I slept and woke up, I’d count that as a day. I hardly got sleep anymore, resulting with bangs under my eyes somehow and becoming an insomniac. I always got nightmares of Papyrus, staring at me in hatred with marks on her body from when I’d sliced her but dripping with her blood.

I left the house from feeling claustrophobic and jumped onto the roof and sat down on its peek, resting my skull into between my knees. The new clothes I’d made shortly after finishing the graveyard hung loosely to me, during my growth I’ve had to alter them to make sure they were bigger than myself, to be sure I was prepared for any more unexpected growth spurts.

Silence has been the only thing I’ve heard now, other than the imaginary voices of the other monsters before they were massacred, so after a few minutes of self-loathing, you could imagine my shock when I heard a glitch rip and a confused voice ask:

“What’s this place, Error?”

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