#some if the gross stuff people say has been working its way into my dreams | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

1kook · 4 years

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kissanime & foreplay

this is part of my netflix & chill collection !

summary; You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans. warnings; mentions of hentai yes u read right, kook leads most of it, cunnilingus, masturbation (f), oral (f), use of a sex toy, fingering, nipple play, face sitting/fucking/riding idk (f), praise kink, hints of dumbification, cum eating, jk is like passive aggressive in this one, 4 (f) orgasms, this is the kicker: sub kook at the end😳, like 2 sec of dom yn lol, & u get 0.002 sec of adams apple kink misc; more dumb story lines, made up sex stores bc my creativity knows no bounds, Jungkook plays nice but is actually mean for the majority of it, once again doyeon plays a pivotal role in the furthering of women empowerment, internal love monologues about jk best boy<3 wc; 8.2k

notes; back when kissanime was offed I remember looking at this fic in the drafts like what the hell we gone do now.. n almost deleting it but I was like yknow what this isn’t a 1kook fic unless there’s smthn weird going on so here we are. also yes I know ohshc is on Netflix shut up!!!!!

HAPPY BDAY MY LOVE AND MUSE JEON JUNGKOOK !!!! 🥺💜

—

The good thing about getting your own apartment is that you finally have a place to call your own. There’s no limit on how many potted plants you can squeeze into a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment, and if there was one, you’re twelve in and no one has said anything to you yet. You don’t have to share the shower space with anyone, label all your products with a hastily scribbled name. There’s a bathtub—something you haven’t had the pleasure of using during college—and a fairly open living space. There’s so many empty spots to fill with useless decorations and family heirlooms and that ugly plastic rooster Jungkook won you at the summer kick-off fair last month.

The bad thing about having your own place is that the entire world and their mothers seem to know now. Despite graduating from college, you still keep in touch with your trusted graduate mentor Kim Namjoon, who is still very much in school, and has made it his mission to bring you a new plant every week, hence your growing collection. Your childhood friend comes over every Saturday morning to lounge around after her Friday nights out. Jungkook, although the only one who is ever actually invited, runs through your strawberry scented body wash like a madman.

And of course, Doyeon.

Your beloved college roommate of four years, Kim Doyeon, has been the bane of your apartment experience so far. Unlike you, who had slaved away for four years, saving every penny you made during college for this moment, Doyeon was a big spender. She blew every dollar she ever came across, which is why she’s going to be stuck living at her parent’s house for at least a couple more years.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, if she wasn’t the most maniac online shopper in existence. It hadn’t been a problem in college because she was always good old pals with the students who worked the mailroom. If they saw something questionable, they’d let it slide as long as it was under Miss Kim Doyeon, Room 229.

The reason it became an issue for her now is because it’s poor Mrs. Kim who signs over the package from Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide! one Tuesday afternoon as it is delivered to their suburban home.

So now she’s taken to ordering all her freaky stuff to your new apartment, where the small cabinet by the door has quickly become home to her impulsive shopping habits. Truthfully, you don’t mind accepting Doyeon’s weird packages, and have long since grown used to the uncomfortable looks the mail carrier gives you.

Jungkook’s supposed to come over today and you really hope he doesn’t ask about the state of your hall cabinet. Now that you work at a small company outside of your degree to make ends meet, time with Jungkook has been significantly decreased. You weren’t in college anymore, so you didn’t have the luxury of dropping by his house whenever you wanted to in between classes. Of course, it’s mostly your schedule that conflicts with your planned hangouts, because Jungkook is still working his dream job from home.

However, because Jungkook is quite possibly the most amazing person on this planet, he’s started coming over every Saturday night to make sure you’re still alive and not dying. And so weekly media binges are a thing, and it’s currently week four.

He gave up on showing you the Marvel movie franchise last week, after you had asked where Wonder Woman was three times in a row. Since the Barbie Movie Debacle of last month, you’ve found a nice medium between who picks when. Jungkook picks most of the time, because most of the time you don’t really care. It’s become a running joke between the two of you that movie binges are usually just terribly masked excuses to go to town on each other, so you don’t mind missing an entire 15th Century French Revolution documentary if it means Jungkook is deep in your guts by the time King Louis XIV gets beheaded or whatever they did to him. Is it too obvious you didn’t watch the documentary?

Occasionally, there are instances where one of you genuinely does want to watch something, in which case you have an intense match of rock-paper-scissors to decide who’s picking that night. Most of the time, Jungkook wins. But for every match Jungkook wins, he promises you’ll pick the next one so you’ve long since stopped trying to actually beat him.

Long story short, last weekend you sat through a two part Ancient Aliens episode on the connection between aliens and American presidents.

It was the most god-awful conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard of, but Jungkook ate up every minute of it. By the time the two hosts announced their conclusion you were just about ready to rip your own ears off and single-handedly fist fight every producer on the channel for allowing the production of such an atrocious show.

Anyway, because you had so bravely sat through the entire evening without complaints— well, no complaints towards Jungkook’s terrible taste; the show, however, was not safe from your wicked tongue —Jungkook has so graciously allowed you to pick the media for this weekend.

You’ve been telling him for the longest time that you were going to hook him on anime. It was one of the few interests you always believed Jungkook should possess, being a weeb and all, because it was only fair that he had one questionable trait to balance out the rest of his perfection. Liking anime isn’t bad— if a hottie like you enjoyed it, then it obviously had its perks. However, you know a lot of other people are turned off by anime-enthusiasts due to preconceived notions of the genre and the viewer-base.

Now, it was a widely known fact that you always had ulterior motives. So maybe turning Jungkook into a weeb was just a ploy to turn other women off from him and keep your jealousy at bay. Sue you, your boyfriend was a walking wet dream, and you’d do anything to keep him to yourself.

After long deliberation, you’ve decided on introducing Jungkook to anime with a classic: Ouran High School Host Club, a god among anime, a true Beyonce among shoujos. The only problem was that you absolutely refused to pay Crunchyroll or Funimation when you could so easily find the entire show on KissAnime.com, home to only the finest of hentai ads and Are You a Robot? questions.

He sends you a text when he’s outside your building, and five minutes later there’s a rap against your door.

“Hi,” you smile up at him, heart fluttering in that same trademark way it did whenever Jungkook was within a five foot radius. He smiles back softly, leaning down to peck your lips as you step aside for him to enter. He’s got on those cotton sweats that you love, the ones that send your brain into a censored frenzy. But he’s also got that soft curl to his hair that lets you know he came here straight out of the shower in his hurry to see you. How you managed to bag a dream boyfriend like him was beyond you.

You bask in the overwhelming feeling of unannounced love for all of ten seconds before Jungkook is lifting up a square package you hadn’t seen at his hip. “Mailman gave me this,” he says, waving around the signature bright pink packaging of Sexuality Unleashed. Jungkook, for all his politeness and respect, seemed to falter in those categories when it came to you. He turns the box over, reading the big fat name of the company on the side. “Since when did you start buying sex toys?” he asks rather loudly in the hallway.

You yank him inside, hurriedly slamming the door shut before any of your neighbors can come out into the hallway and get a peek of this avid sex toy consumer. “They’re not mine!” you hiss, standing still when he uses you to balance himself as he tugs off his shoes. You snatch the box out of his hands, turning it around to make sure it is actually addressed to your home. Sure enough, it’s for you. Couldn’t there have been some other sex toy fanatic on this floor?

With his shoes off, Jungkook wastes no time enveloping you in a hug, the Sexuality Unleashed box tumbling to the ground. “It’s okay, baby, no need to be embarrassed.”

You groan, leaning your forehead against his shoulder as he continues to pat your back like you’re actually embarrassed to be caught buying toys— you’re not. You’re embarrassed he caught you with a sex toy you simply can’t put to use. “Whatever,” you sigh, “your gross popcorn is in my bedroom and it’s probably stale.”

He releases you, not before pulling you into a slow and languid kiss that has you clutching tightly at the front of his shirt. He pulls away with a soft smooch, right eye falling into a wink. “Bring the box, gorgeous,” he teases, before sauntering off in the direction of your bedroom.

You groan loudly. “It’s not mine!” you repeat, but for some reason do as he says.

Not only do you have no idea what’s in this package, but you’re frankly not too keen on finding out. You’re more interested in Jungkook’s reaction to one of your favorite animes of all time. The package is tossed onto the end of the bed, where Jungkook has already stripped himself of his socks and cuddled beneath your covers.

Your laptop has gone dark from inactivity so you slam down on the space bar to bring it back to life. Your first mistake was pressing anything at all. It flickers back on alright, but you forget that you are working with a minefield of ads ready to explode. You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans.

“What the hell is this?” he asks in a tone that screams he has never had to fight viruses off his computer just to watch something at two in the morning.

You ignore him, cuddling into his side as you hurriedly type in the title of the anime before another annoying ad can intercept you. “KissAnime,” you answer for now, accidentally clicking down on the mousepad with the heel of your palm. Another tab opens up to some sketchy credit site. You huff.

“Baby, I swear I just saw like twelve viruses,” he says. “And what even are these?” he scoffs, jabbing a finger at one of the many ads that lines the perimeter of the website. “Animated teacher porn?”

By the grace of god, you somehow manage to get onto the episode selection screen without having another tab open on you. You smile in relief, turning the power of your excitement onto Jungkook… only to find his eyes narrowed in on the square advertisement for some hentai website. “What? You wanna watch hentai now?” you snort, placing the laptop on his legs as you cuddle into his side.

Jungkook sputters, cheeks tinting red at the mere insinuation he would ever consume such media. “No,” he glares, releasing the arm around your shoulders to huffily cross them over his chest. “I am not going to watch anatomically incorrect illustrations of a woman teacher relieving herself, ___,” he says rather matter-of-factly.

You snort, repeating, “a woman teacher,” mockingly and in a high pitched voice that, honestly, doesn't sound anything like him. You click play on the video box that appears after only about twenty more pop-up ads. “Silence, you nymphomaniac, the episode is starting.” Jungkook pulls you close with a displeased expression, finally quieting down when you put it on full screen and the ads disappear from his view.

You’re beginning to wonder if Jungkook really is the script and plot dissector he claims to be, or if he just lives to get under your skin. He doesn’t make it three minutes without finding something to critique. First it’s the quality of the frames, and then it’s the characterization of the lead character. He nitpicks everything about the best anime in existence, and by the end of the first episode you’re considering breaking up with him.

“Oh my god,” you groan, tearing yourself away from him. He’s all laid up against your mountain of pillows, tongue prodding at the insides of his mouth in that ridiculously attractive habit of his. Usually, you’d be tripping over yourself to kiss him, but you’re about two seconds from ripping his head off. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, baby,” you sigh, picking up his hand in yours. “You gotta shut up.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “I have to shut up?” he asks in a scandalized tone. “You sang through the entire intro, off tune may I add.”

At this rate you’re getting nowhere, so you just snatch the laptop back up before you actually hurt his feelings. You escape the full screen, met with those hentai ads that are slowly becoming the bane of Jungkook’s existence.

“Who actually watches those anyway?” he mumbles, covering the sidebar full of naked cartoon ladies with his palm for you, a real gentleman if you ever saw one. “Really?” he says, knocking his pointer finger against a particularly raunchy ad with the caption Be a Good Boy and Let her Play beneath it.

You snort. “You are such a baby,” you tease, pinching his cheek much to his annoyance. “What? Can’t handle seeing some anime titties?”

Jungkook shoves your hand away, leaning back to become one with the pillows as you continue onto the next episode. “They’re just weird,” he admits. “And make unrealistic faces.”

“Unrealistic,” you repeat, finally giving one of the ads the time of day. There’s an adorably drawn character making the most perverted expression, knees hiked up to her chest. Her face is twisted up, drooling like a dog and with her eyes crossed in ecstasy. You shrug. “Just because you can’t get those faces out of me doesn’t mean they’re unreal.”

The second the words leave your mouth Jungkook is letting out a scandalized scoff, sitting up to level you with another glare. “First of all, I can get you like that,” he defends, tapping his finger against the ad on screen. “In fact, I can get you like that without even trying, so let’s not say anything too drastic now, okay?”

His sudden bout of defensiveness makes something playful in you switch on, laying back down beside him with a smirk. “Oh, you can make me all stupid like this?”

Jungkook scoffs. “Yes.”

“Uh huh,” you drawl, tracing a finger up his chest teasingly; Jungkook knocks your knuckles away, obviously still butt hurt about your comment. That’s fine, because a slightly riled up Jungkook was always the best Jungkook. You sit up and lean in close, letting your hand slip beneath his hoodie, palm running over his bare shoulder and around the top of his back. You give his nape a light squeeze, lips pressed against the shell of his ear. “Why don’t you prove it to me, Jungkookie?” you purr, before pulling away.

His jaw twitches at the nickname, one shapely brow unconsciously arching as he regards you with a calculative expression.

The thing about Jungkook was that, after almost a year of dating, you know just how to push his buttons. He has a rather calm and collected exterior to him, the same one he’s had since the day you met him, but beneath it all was a childish competitiveness that raged with the heat of ten suns. He disliked being taunted like you were doing now, especially when his credibility was at stake.

Honestly speaking, you don’t doubt Jungkook can make you look as goofy and messy as those hentai ads. In fact you’re rather confident he can. Either way, him being right or you being right, you would still get some fun out of it.

“Hm?” you add, tracing your hand up to dance over the skin of his cheek, pads of your fingers running over that stiff jaw. “Are you scared I’m right and you’re wrong?”

A hand snaps up to catch your wrist, fingers tight around your skin until you’re shivering against him. “Oh baby, I can make you cum until you cry,” he murmurs, his usual sweet and lilting tone dropping to a low vibration that makes your pussy throb beneath your panties. Your heart leaps in your chest, lips falling open when he ducks down to brush them against yours. It’s too light, just a simple touch that makes you follow his mouth when he pulls back.

With one firm shove, the laptop is tumbling off the bed, thudding loudly against your bedside rug. Jungkook leans over you, his usual trademark doe eyes zeroed in on you with the focus of a laser. “Have a little faith in me,” he teases, and when he presses close you can feel his fattening cock flush against your thigh. Your body is begging to be touched, every brush of his fingers against your skin searing trails in their wake.

Suddenly, he’s drawing back. “Kook?” you frown, barely biting down on a childish whimper when he snuggles back into your mountain of pillows, one arm stretched behind his head.

He flashes you a smile. “Go on,” he says, arms behind his head. “Show me how to get you like that.”

“By myself?” you ask, shifting onto your knees anyway. Jungkook nods, a soft jut of his chin as he gives you another one of those easy going smiles of his. His goal seems a little unclear, but you had a ridiculous amount of trust in your boyfriend that whatever he had planned was certain to be good. With one final skeptical glance his way, you sink down onto your bum, knees spreading and giving him a clear view of your little pink boy shorts, elastic band hugging your waist.

The material of your t-shirt is guided away, held to your chest by the hand currently not traversing the length of your stomach, gliding across soft skin, over your belly button and past that band until it slips beneath. You chance another look Jungkook’s way, only to find his eyes wonderfully downcast in the direction of your core. That smile is gone now, replaced with a somber look as he watches your hand move mysteriously beneath the fabric of your undergarments.

The first brush of your forefinger against your swollen button makes you twitch, back arching at the sensation that is magnified by his watchful gaze. “Mmh,” you bite down, hand twisting in the material of your shirt. Jungkook’s eyes glare a molten path across your skin, from the comfy bra that peeks out from beneath your rumpled shirt to the wrist slowly working beneath your panties.

A hand falls over your thigh, tattooed fingers giving the skin a light squeeze as you get to work swirling your bud around. The sight of his inked skin on yours makes something warm blossom in your lower abdomen, your eyes following the inky swirls up, up, up. They lead you to the face of your very handsome boyfriend, long lashes fanning across his cheekbones as he watches you play with yourself. “Wanna take these off for me?” he says, the tip of his pointer finger wiggling beneath the fabric of your shorts.

You nod hurriedly, wiggling around on the bed until you’re on your back, legs bent in front of you. The shorts come down your legs; the simplest press of your thighs makes something quiver in your abdomen. You toss them off to the side, and just as you go to sit back up, Jungkook places a hand on your knee. “Stay like this for me,” he says, sitting up from his mountain of pillows to glance down at you. You melt into the plush mattress beneath you, staring down at him between your legs. He’s got that adoring look in his eyes, the one that makes you feel so warm and in love, it’s only natural your hand slips down to play with your bare clit again. “That’s my girl,” he smiles, rubbing a hand down the outside of your thigh, urging your legs to fall open.

There’s this overflowing vat of arousal that builds up inside of you everytime Jungkook is around, like the moment your eyes land on him you’re reminded of every position he’s ever had you in. You remember the soft brush of his hands on your body, the way his lips feel on yours, the soft tickle of his hair when he gets too close. It makes your heart lurch in your chest, like if you don’t grab onto him tightly this feeling will slip through your fingers and out of your life. So you were crazily in love with your boyfriend— now what?

A puckered set of lips meets the inside of your thigh, the action ripping you from your overly gooey, overly soft inner rambling. Your hand trails down your quivering pussy lips, collecting your dripping wetness as you go. At the same time, Jungkook kisses down the inside of your thigh, soft smacks of his lips against your skin filling the air with an emotion that makes you bite down a whimper. Your hole puckers at the brush of your fingers, anticipating an entrance that you yearn to give into soon.

His mouth is on you before your finger can go deeper than a centimeter in. But Jungkook doesn’t brush your hand off, doesn’t shove you away to prove his mouth was undoubtedly better. He places a kiss over your knuckles, before swallowing up your significantly smaller hand with his, that of which he clasps together over your navel.

You groan, head rolling from side to side. “Don’t be so soft with me,” you whine, leg twitching when he presses a kiss against your engorged bundle of nerves. “Push me around like that one time, you know I like it.”

Jungkook grins, mouthing over your clit with practiced ease that has you releasing all kinds of whimpers and sighs. He’s got his other hand wrapped around your thigh, strong arm pulling you closer to that devious mouth and tongue that lavished attention on your clit. “Need me to be mean to you, baby?” he purrs, curling his tongue in such a way that it makes your entire body tense up, muscles pulled tight. “Want me to push you around like the stupid little girl you are?” You moan, head bobbing up and down at the ideas he stuffs in your mind. As he moves down the length of your cunt, that round nose you love brushes against your bud, and the cheeky shit takes an obnoxiously loud sniff of it, a soft groan breathed against your lower lips. “But isn’t this better?” he hums, languidly molding his lips against your lower ones, much in the same way he does with the ones on your face; he moves slowly, slips his tongue in every few seconds before eventually diving in head on. “Slow... and so easy.”

“Kook,” you mewl, getting this overwhelming urge to cover your face with your hands. But you can’t, because he’s knotted one hand with yours and his fingers only tighten when you try to yank them apart. Instead you’re left pressing one knuckle against your mouth, brows pinching as he begins slowly fucking his tongue into your cunt. “F-Faster,” you beg. He, of course, ignores your plea.

The wet mass moves past the clenched muscles around your hole, nose brushing against your lips with every intrusion. Every few cycles he stops to press a kiss against your pussy, so hard and wet that it hurts when he pulls off. You’re left writhing and moaning, your heel knocking against his shoulder when he pushes your leg up closer to your chest. “It’s enough,” you cry, your entire body shivering.

Jungkook pulls off with a loud pop, lips glistening with your arousal. He’s got this glint on his eyes, like he’s thoroughly entertained by your reactions. He shuffles around to get comfortable, finally releasing that grip on your hand. Immediately, your newly freed hand jumps forward to tangle in the hair above his ear, tracing down the delicate curve of his cheekbone. Jungkook turns his head, pressing a soft peck against your open palm that makes your heartbeat thunder in your ears.

As he moves around, his leg bumps against something that has both of you pausing. It sounds out of place next to your shallow breaths, and both of you glance down only to catch sight of that stupid package from Sexuality Unleashed teetering on the edge of the bed.

The moment you see it, it’s like you’re transported into an omnipresent view of the scene, the next few hours flashing before your eyes as Jungkook snorts. You know he’s going to reach for it in two seconds, and you know he’s going to tear the hot pink packaging apart with his bare hands. He does so with a scary amount of power, the industrial tape not standing a chance against him. A box roughly the same size as the package falls out, and before you can kick it away and save yourself from suffering beneath Jungkook’s teasing antics, he’s snatching up the box.

“The Bullet Bestie,” he reads aloud, dark eyes flying across the text with lightning speed before that box is also being ripped open. (Briefly, there’s a voice in your head that thinks of Doyeon, but you’re not sure why.) Out tumbles a little pink bullet with a strap on one end that bounces against your thigh and an even smaller remote.

“Baby,” you rush out, the sight of the tiny toy making your heart thunder in your chest. “We can look at it another time,” you try, hands coming up to brush against his face again. “Why don’t you finish off here?” you ask, a sickeningly sweet politeness dripping off your tongue as the knot in your tummy fades into the background of his attention.

Jungkook ignores you, picking up the remote with a wondrous look in his eyes. Before you can try to persuade him back between your legs, a quiet click cuts you off and the little bullet whirls to life. You yelp at the sudden vibrations against the inside of your thigh, so close to your throbbing core. The jump of your thighs has it falling onto the mattress below you, wide eyes snapping back to the smirk that grows on his face.

“No,” you say slowly, sitting back up, “no, no,” you try, your usual assertiveness melting into a whiny cry as you try to wiggle away from him and the nefarious ideas infesting his lust-addled mind. You’re barely turning, ready to make a run for it and hand him his victory by forfeit, when Jungkook is catching you by the waist. Your hips get pulled up, arms clawing uselessly at the sheets beneath you as he drags you close to him. He’s fast, already having moved onto his knees behind you, and when he yanks you up, you can feel every hot plane of his body aligned with your backside. “Kook, please just make me cum,” you gasp.

There’s a smile pressed against your shoulder, lips still wet from before, kissing along the side of your neck. “Look at my girl,” he murmurs, and you nearly jump out of your skin when something smooth is traced along your thigh. One hand slips beneath the material of your shirt, soothingly rubbing circled against your skin. This hand also holds the tiny remote between two fingers, and every nerve in your body is on edge waiting for it to be used. “Where’s that smartmouth now?”

“Jungkook,” you try to warn. But there’s no bite to your words, only an anticipation that grows the closer he moves that damned toy between your thighs. “Baby, we-we can play another time, okay? Just please—“

A soft click, and suddenly your spine is giving out on you, upper body flopping forward as Jungkook runs the vibrations over your clit. Of course Jungkook follows, never letting you slip far from his reach. A loud moan spills from your lips, lower lip wobbling at the unreal amounts of pleasure he bestows upon you with such a small toy. “W-Wait,” you sob, the coil from before suddenly magnified tenfold. It makes your orgasm loom over you bigger than ever, a wave that threatens to spill over and drown you in one go. “No-please.”

His mouth presses against your ear, hot breaths fanning against the skin there. “Hey pretty girl, does it feel good?” he husks out, kissing just below your ear. “Aw fuck,” he groans, something stiff pressing against the cleft between your cheeks, “can’t even see if you’re making that stupid face right now.”

You are, but you don’t even have the words to tell him that. The moment the vibrator had made contact with your already ravished clit, your eyes had rolled into the back of your head. You don’t doubt you look like those silly ads you’d laughed at earlier, mouth opening and closing every few seconds as he circles the toy around your bud. You settle on a high-pitched whimper that has Jungkook laughing meanly against your ear.

It ends too soon, the stimulation from Jungkook eating you out for a few minutes combining with the bullet to form a powerful duo that swallows you whole. An embarrassingly loud moan rips itself from your throat, hands twisting in the sheets beneath you as it washes over you. It’s so powerful, it blinds you, pussy spasming. Jungkook’s name is repeated about a thousand times in between, your body eventually melting back into the mattress as the final shocks run through you.

The vibrator clicks off just as quietly as it turned on, your harsh breaths filling the room in its place. “Good girl,” Jungkook praises, raining down a parade of kisses against your shoulder. You mewl in appreciation, still awkwardly shoving your face into the mattress, and your hips in the air. From the corner of your eyes, you watch him set the glistening toy off to the side, and you’re just about ready to thank the heavens for such an experience with your boyfriend, when said boyfriend hits you with a curveball.

The gentle pecks against yours shoulder dissolve into harsh kisses, rough hands trailing up your waist. The t-shirt gathers around his knuckles, pushed and pushed until he’s got those same hands cupping your breasts. “Did you like that?” he asks, biting down against your shoulder; the sensation is dulled by your shirt being in the way but it still makes you whine. You moan softly, nodding against the mattress as he gets to kneading your breasts over your bra. “Mm,” Jungkook sighs, “my pretty girl was so good for me, wasn’t she?”

Those deft fingers run back down, crawl beneath the elastic of your lounge bra and push it away until your breasts are bouncing out of their cage. “Kook,” you sigh, eyes fluttering shut as he traces circles around your nipples. “W-Wait,” you whimper, suddenly reminded of the swollen cock pressed against your backside when he leans closer.

“Shhh,” he soothes, tweaking your nipples. “Relax for me, sweetheart,” he coos, flicking your hardened nipples with his fingers. You can’t relax, not with your body still so sensitive and him playing with you. Still, the low intonation makes something soft and warm settle in your chest, the kisses against your jaw making your eyes fall shut. “That’s it,” he says, giving one nipple a playful twist that draws a high-pitched moan from you.

Just as you’re beginning to fall into the rhythm of Jungkook’s caresses and voice, he releases one breast to traverse his hand down and over your tummy, to your sensitive pussy. You gasp, biting down on your lip as he teasingly flicks your clit with his fingers. “Bet you could come again now,” he murmurs, taking the tip of your earlobe into his mouth and nibbling softly. You groan, shoving your face into the sheets as if that will save you from your doom. “Bet your pretty little pussy can cream itself just like this, isn’t that right, sweet girl?”

You whimper, hips bucking back against him when he begins nudging your bud, lewd sounds reaching your ears. His other hand remains on your breast, no longer toying with your nipple but simply holding it almost comfortingly. There’s a smirk pressed against your skin, that pearly white smile you usually adore so much teasing you as he circles your nub.

“Come on,” he encourages quietly, kissing up the column of your neck again. You moan, thighs quivering as he strokes a second orgasm out of you with no struggle. Your eyes and throat burn at the heat that washes over you, and you release a hoarse scream into the mattress— Jungkook chuckles at the sound, egging you on with that low voice until your muscles go limp a second time.

When he rolls you onto your stomach again, you try desperately to cover the tears that blur your vision, turning away from him like a child when he tries to look. “Crybaby, crybaby,” he sings teasingly, prying your hands away to capture your mouth with his for the first time that night. “Lemme see those tears, baby,” he purrs.

He tastes like you, tongue dripping with that sweet tang of your pussy, and he smells like you too. It strokes the flames of you ego, arms eventually wrapping around his shoulders as he settles above you. He pulls off with a curl of his tongue against your swollen lips, brown eyes lazily staring down at you. It’s embarrassing how well kept he still was compared to your half-nude state of dress. His skin is all glowy and pretty, not a single tear track in sight, and his grin is still too relaxed for your liking.

Jungkook’s body feels so warm and comforting against yours, muscles keeping the heat trapped between your bodies. You go to brush a hand through his hair, needing to feel the familiarity of those silky locks, before he’s suddenly leaning away. He shuffles onto his knees again, glancing down at your thoroughly abused cunt with a quirk in his brows.

“God,” you groan, knocking your foot against his side. “Just fuck me already,” you huff despite your earlier fatigue. You could only go so long without feeling Jungkook’s fat demon cock inside of you.

He snorts at your snappy tone, cutely tilting his head to the side to move his hair out of his face. His jaw looks sharp from this angle, facial features covered in shadows the lamplight behind him can’t touch. “Can’t,” he announces, and you could pull your hair out from all this unnecessary build up.

Truth to be told, you and Jungkook were both equally as unrestrained when it came to each other. Most of the time, the lead up to actual, penetrative, key-in-lock sex included a couple minutes of heavy petting from his end, and maybe a half assed handjob from you. Sometimes if you felt extra attentive, he’d eat you out and you'd him off. But for the most part, the two of you jumped straight into it after an orgasm, like horny teenagers despite the two of you being twenty-three now.

The most adventurous you’d ever gotten up until the point was maybe two orgasms bestowed upon you by a crazed Jungkook. And, well. You had hit two orgasms now. You were ready for his monster cock.

“Kook,” you whine childishly.

Jungkook shakes you off, placing a palm on both your knees. Slowly, he spreads your thighs apart again, eyes zeroed in on the glossy folds that come into view, the sparkling pearly cum that leaks out of your hole. “I can’t, baby,” he says, almost pained. “I gotta clean you up first,” he insists, and before you can tell him how counterproductive it is to lick you clean of your arousal before fucking you, he’s diving face first into your cunt.

But the biggest surprise doesn’t come from Jungkook going in for thirds, but from the hands he clasps around your thighs, the sheer strength he uses to roll you over (ignoring the shriek you let out) to sit you on his face. “No, no,” you yelp immediately, “I-I‘ll break you,” you cry, trying to escape from his hold.

From beneath your thighs, dark eyes peering up at you daringly, you can see the clear warning on Jungkook’s face. It’s a look that loudly says don’t you dare fucking move, shapely brows sending a jolt of genuine fear down your spine for a moment. “Jungkook,” you fret, trying to ignore the arousal that only continues to blossom as his tongue laps against your folds for the second time that night. “I’m, I’m,” you stammer, hands burying themselves in his hair as he ignores your cries. “I’ll break you,” you try again, spine arching when he slurps your clit into his mouth. “I-I’ll—“

He pulls off with a pop. “Fuck my face, baby,” he says, as if he hadn’t heard a single of your concerns at all. His nose nudges against your clit, a whimper catching in your throat. Briefly, his hand disappears from around your thigh, and when it returns, that tiny bullet vibrator from earlier is pressed against your thigh. “You got that?”

You nod, internally torn apart by your fear of crushing him and your need to drag your cunt all over your boyfriend’s handsome face. You glance down at him, watch him slip that vibrator into his mouth for just a second and lewdly coat it in his saliva, before he’s reaching around to shove it past your pussy lips. They’re still swollen and puffy, but have long since relaxed enough for him to slip it in. “B-But what if—“

“You won’t,” he cuts off, readjusting himself closer to your cunt again, “come on, pretty girl.”

The reason you think you and Jungkook click so well was because he was able to bring that vulnerable side out of you every now and then. He knew you liked to parade around with that huge superiority complex, and he loved it. But he also knew there were things you liked and disliked, and sometimes it took a little pushing for you to reveal them.

For a second, that horny cloud over his irises lifts, and he gives you one of those cute, sloppy winks as he taps your thigh gently. “Fuck my face, sweetheart,” he whispers, “drag that pretty cunt all over me until I can’t breathe.” A gasp catches in your throat, hands unconsciously curling against his scalp. He notices, and flashes you a lazy smirk. “You can do that, can’t you?”

Something akin to adoration blooms in your chest, and before you can blurt out something embarrassing—like I love you—there’s a soft click that has The Bullet Bestie revving up inside of you. You gasp, the sudden vibrations deep inside your pussy making your hips snap forward, clit rubbing against Jungkook’s nose.

“O-Oh,” you cry, and that’s all it takes for you to lose it. Your hips start off slow, at first just savoring the wet drag of his tongue against your lips, his nose against your clit. He sticks his tongue out for you, and part of you wants to tell him he’s a good boy, that corny hentai ad flashing in your mind, but you doubt you’ll survive the aftermath of that. Once you find that perfect pace, your hands are practically yanking at his hair, pushing him further into the mattress as you ride his face like he’s nothing but a toy. “Kook, Jungkook,” you pant, grinding your lower lips against his all too eager mouth.

It feels oddly weird being over him like this, using him like this. You like to think you and Jungkook have equal power in the bedroom, but you will admit that more often than not, he assumes control by default. You’re not particularly bothered by that, because you doubt you’d ever come up with the crazy ideas Jungkook did when he was horny (okay, a lie, because you definitely have thought of crazy sex schemes before).

But, this moment…

The power was quickly going to your head. “Fuck,” you sob, roughly dragging the length of your pussy over and over his face. The hands around your thighs are pressing against your skin with a strength that would hurt were you not blinded by arousal. His eyes are shut, lids fluttering open every now and then as he watches you buck wildly over his face like he was a pillow in high school and your parents were gone for the weekend.

It doesn’t help that the rhythmic pulses of the vibrator inside of you are doing their job well, the tongue that slips into your pussy joining together to form a powerful combination. It’s ultimately what has you halting your manic thrusts, instead falling into a slow grind over him. Your hips circle, eyes squeezed shut as you lose yourself in the lapping of his tongue against your dripping hole. “Mmmf,” you mewl, biting down on your lower lip as the wet muscle prods against a delicate spot within you. You hear feels light, view of the gorgeous man beneath you obstructed by the eyelids that can't seem to stay open. “N-No,” you cry, pulling his hair more roughly than you intended to in order to redirect him. “There, there,” you whimper, holding him tight against your pussy.

Beneath you, Jungkook exhales harshly against your lips, hands moving frantically over your thighs as he works his tongue inside of you alongside the bullet vibrator. If you weren’t so caught up in your own pleasure, all kinds of sounds spilling from your lips, you would have heard the quiet moans that fall from his. Alas.

It takes a few more pulses from the toy and a few more licks from Jungkook until you’re coming for the third time that night, features twisting up as your pussy clenches around his tongue before spilling down his mouth. Your back arches, a defeated moan escaping you as you release the same mess he’d claimed to clean up onto his lovely face. You can barely breathe afterwards, mouth dry and head dizzy when Jungkook finally pops back out from between your thighs. You barely have enough time to lift yourself up, pussy lightly brushing across his Adam’s apple as you stop yourself from crushing his windpipe. It makes you twitch.

“Good girl,” Jungkook praises with a cheeky smile that distracts you from the bullet toy he retrieves from your quivering cunt. His face is absolutely glistening from your arousal, skin warm and flush. He’s looking up at you like you’re some mythical goddess and he’s but a humble villager coming to pay his respects at the temple that is your body. Fuck, were you okay? You don’t think you’ve ever felt this good in your entire life, and Jungkook’s mushy gaze was doing things to your heart.

He presses a kiss against the inside of your thigh before helping you off of him, laughing meanly when you flop limply down beside him. He’s still fully clothed, a fact that irks you when he leans over to kiss you with that glossy face of his. “D’you like it?” he mumbles, kissing softly down your face. You nod, legs twitching from the aftermath of that wild ride. “I saw it, y’know,” he says suddenly.

“Saw what?” you mumble, mindlessly rolling your head to the side and exposing more skin when he begins kissing along your neck.

Jungkook says nothing, just rolls over you. Part of you thinks he’s crazy, but you’re suddenly hit with the realization that while Jungkook’s drawn three orgasms out of you in the course of an hour, you hadn’t done anything for him. Before you can dive head first into swallowing his cock, he’s kissing you softly. “That stupid face,” he smirks, slotting his mouth against yours. “That weird, now realistic face,” he tacks on.

You huff out a laugh, throwing your leg around his waist comfortably. Jungkook smiles, kisses you one last time before settling in your arms, face cutely pressed in between your boobs. “Hey,” you call, “don't you wanna cum too?”

He shakes his head, a soft sigh filling the air. “Nah,” he says, cuddles closer into you. “Rest now, baby.”

You roll your eyes. “I can feel your dick against my thigh,” you point out, wiggling your pelvis upward to brush against his throbbing erection. Jungkook holds you down in an effort to stop you. “Fuck me.”

He groans against your collarbone. “No, you’re tired,” he tries to convince you, but his skin is warm and flushed in the way it always gets when he’s riled up. “Sleep.”

With the leg around his hip, you pull him closer. “Fuck me, Jungkookie,” you purr, using the hands in his hair to turn his face up towards yours. His dark eyes are drawn down cutely, pouty lips too. “Use my body,” you suggest, “I’m yours anyway.”

His eyes flutter shut, a quiet whimper falling from his lips. “Don’t say that,” he sighs, “makes me wanna do very mean things to you.”

You smile. “You can do whatever you want to me, don’t you know that?” Another groan, his head falling forward until he’s hiding in your neck. Still, there’s movement from below, he sweats slipping down at his hips until that throbbing cock is pressed into the tiny crease where your thigh meets your pelvis. There’s a moment of hesitation, and you wonder if this is what he felt like earlier when he’d managed to get you to sit on his face. “Inside, Jungkookie,” you murmur, reaching down to line him up with your sensitive entrance. He whines softly, arms wrapping around you as he pulls you close. “Good boy.”

Despite your earlier belief that you’d never survive an encounter with Jungkook after using such a term on him, the result is much different from what you had anticipated. He visibly melts into your arms, cock slipping past your folds easily. “No,” he says, his voice feathery and whiny against your ear. “I can’t.”

You soothe a hand down his back, eyes fluttering shut as he begins slowly rutting against your swollen lips. “That’s it,” you encourage, tugging softly at his wavy hair. Jungkook moans wantonly against your neck, rolling his hips harshly against you until his arms are the only things keeping you from jostling out of his hold. “Do you like this pussy?” you ask, purposefully clenching around him, tummy tightening at the stimulation you keep packing on.

Jungkook shudders, pace growing slipping inside of you. “Yes,” he pants, “s-so wet… creamy.”

“Yeah?” you huff, pressing a smiley kiss against his forehead. “It’s yours.”

“Ffffuck,” Jungkook chokes, picking up his pace as his well-deserved orgasm reaches its peak. He’s breathing harshly now, and it’s taking everything in you to keep your pussy tight around him. But after the night he’d given you, the sounds and faces he pulled from you, it’s the least you can do. Besides, your body, after being so thoroughly pleased, still rears up for one final orgasm with him. “Mine,” he growls, bucking his hips into you. “You’re mine, baby, mine,” he seethes, ending his little tryst with a piston of his hips that makes you gasp, body almost unconsciously spasming around him. It’s painful, but so, so delicious how he manages to pull this last orgasm from you as he finally busts inside of you.

He comes with a stuttering garble of words, none of which you catch as he collapses into your hold for the final time that night. “Fuck,” he pants afterwards, leaning into your touch when he finally registers the soft combing of fingers through his hair. “That was evil.”

You laugh, pulling him closer. “As evil as you making me suffer through three orgasms before putting your dick in me?” you tease. Jungkook slips out of you, and you know it’ll be a hassle to clean your sheets tomorrow but it’s worth it.

“It’s called building the scene,” he weakly defends, blindly tugging the puffy blanket over the two of you. “I was gonna rhyme it with that horrible website you made me use but I already forgot it’s name.”

“Rude,” you snap, “it’s called KissAnime.”

“And fore-play,” he suddenly says, and you almost yank his eyeballs out of their sockets for doing that stupid thing again.

—

epilogue

Two weeks later, your favorite website and home to hentai ads is shut down after years of piracy. Jungkook laughs at your demise, sits and actually cackles at your heartbreak, until he eventually comforts you with his flaming demon cock and a subscription to both Crunchyroll and Funimation. Doyeon spends weeks tracking down a missing package, apparently some freebie she’d gotten for being such an avid customer on Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide! before eventually finding it in your drawer. And because her and Jungkook have some awkward life-long rivalry for your attention, he doesn’t pay for that.

—

#goldenclosetnet #networkbangtan #bangtanhq #ksmutclub #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook smut #jjk smut #jeon jeongguk smut #jjk fic #jungkook fic #bts fic #bts smut #mine

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aminiatureworld · 3 years

Text

Disappearance III

Character: Childe, gn!reader

Word Count: 2,581

Warnings: None

Premise: In which there is an argument and the reader disappears.

Author’s Note: Childe my favorite character, how I love to torture you.

But genuinely I really like how this one came out.

Childe

Childe craned his neck to stare at the clock on the wall behind him. Sighing at the lateness of the afternoon he turned back towards the papers in his lap, trying desperately to focus, to not let his thoughts drift off to the argument that had taken place in the morning.

It had started out simple enough. Childe had informed you that he might be gone for some time, as the Tsaritsa had requested a high-level reconnaissance mission, and Childe was to be the one to lead it. He thought that you react much the way that you always had, assurances of his success, light-hearted reminders to stay safe, and a goodbye kiss as you two settled back into a normal routine before the day of departure. Instead however, your lips had slanted into a frown, and you stopped making your breakfast to turn and face your partner.

“Childe, I wish you wouldn’t always take things on yourself.”

“What do you mean darling?” Childe felt a wave of surprise wash over him. After all, what else was he supposed to do?

“I mean that you’re being entirely too reckless Childe. You know that you have too high a profile to be doing stuff like this. I… I would like you to sit this one out. Just this one.”

Childe couldn’t help but laugh, whether out of irritation or genuine amusement he wasn’t sure of. “As much as I appreciate the concern, I can’t do that. No leader worth their salt would send their underlings off alone, even if they are some of the weakest underlings in the world. No one’s been able to pull the wool over me yet darling, it’ll be perfectly alright.”

“You’re not listening to me,” your voice picked up in intensity. “Childe I really try, I try to remind myself that you’re a Harbinger and able to take care of yourself; but sometimes it’s just too much. This is too much.”

“You’re being silly,” Childe said, trying to keep his tone light. “I’ll be fine. Besides, I can’t disobey the Tsaritsa. She wishes me to do this so I will. It’s as simple as that.”

“The Tsaritsa is far away, she has hundreds, thousands under her command. She won’t bat an eye at your safety.”

“Like you said, I can take care of myself.”

“But what if one day you can’t? What if, what if one day you don’t come back. Please, just this once; just this once don’t go.”

“I know that the length of time is upsetting, but you can’t react like this every time I have to go away for a while. I promise that you’ll have me all to yourself afterwards.”

“It’s not about that Childe! Please, please listen to me. I’m worried about your safety. I’m worried one of these days you’re going to end up in a fight too big even for you. What will you do then? What will your underlings do? What will I do? Please, tell the Tsaritsa you have to stay and make sure the Bank stays out of trouble, or that nothing happens in Liyue. Please, don’t go this time.”

“You’re being irrational.” By now Childe was definitely irritated.

“No, I’m being realistic. You don’t take care of yourself enough.”

“You’re just underestimating me. Besides, I’m a better fighter than you’ll ever be. It’s not like you can protect me even if I stayed here.”

“What?”

“It’s not like staying in Liyue would be any safer, better to face things head on. For the Tsaritsa, for Snezhnaya, that is the most important thing. If you can’t see that, you’re just being stupid.”

Although Childe regretted the words almost immediately after they left his mouth he could see that saying that would’ve had no effect. So instead he watched silently as your face clouded over and you stormed out the door, not bothering to grab your food as you slung your pack around you back and walked out. A part of him wanted to call after you, but he knew that even if he did you probably wouldn’t listen. Even if you did, what could he say? After all, he had simply spoken the truth; even if you couldn’t accept it as such.

Now Childe sat on the couch, eyes glazing voer as he stared at all the paperwork that needed to be done before his mission. He had already spent a hectic, uneasy day at the bank. Though he knew that none of his underlings would be foolish enough to try to pull something while he was gone, Andrei would make sure of that and Childe would make sure of Andrei, it was still tedious, boring work. This was in no way helped by the lingering ill will from his fight with you earlier. Though Childe ultimately forgot fights relatively quickly the time right after was always an uneasy one, filled with sudden flashes of irritation replaced suddenly by the wish for it all to have never happened.

He had hoped that you might be home by the time he arrived, but your absence wasn’t truly much of a surprise. Besides the fact that you were still probably angry with him, something Childe couldn’t really fault, you had recently been involved with some project near the Chasm, and it was hardly surprising that something that big caused you late hours. Still he couldn’t deny the fact that he was somewhat disappointed, or maybe disheartened was a better way to put it. He hated fighting with you, especially fights that lasted. Even if he was irritated with you, even if he thought that you had demanded something impossible, he still regretted snapping at you. He just wanted you to come home now, that way he could apologize and explain the situation better. That way he wouldn’t leave with any ill will behind him.

The clock was excruciatingly slow, but the insult of that wasn’t registered until Childe dozed off. Waking up in the middle of the night he was surprised at your continued absence. Though he had expected that sleeping on the couch might’ve happened, your total disappearance was certainly something that threw him for a loop. Making his way to the bedroom and flopping down on the bed Childe closed his eyes, pushing away the anxiety that clustered at the edge of his thoughts.

Perhaps you’d ended up staying with Hu Tao, or maybe you’d gone back home to your family. He had been awfully mean after all, and you were never the kind of person to take his insults sitting down. Still, if that were true why hadn’t you packed more, or come back to collect your things? It didn’t make any sense. Questions and half baked reasonings floated through Childe head as he tried to delay the inevitable pull of sleep. The last conscious thought he could remember was the knowledge that at least you would be back tomorrow.

You were not, in fact, home tomorrow. The Harbinger’s time spent at the Northland Bank was almost completely useless, the meeting with the people he’d be going on his mission with even more so. Though Childe wasn’t necessarily the most attentive listener, often letting his mind wander when his fellow Fatui members fell into arguing about the most insipid things, he knew that paying attention to a plan as a whole was critical to its success. Even so he couldn’t bring his mind to focus on the maps and profiles that sat in front of him. Where were you? It seemed like such a silly question, but the longer it floated in Childe’s head the colder he felt.

Finally the meetings and the menial tasks ended and Childe could go home. Sprinting down the winding streets of Liyue, not bothering to hide the fact he was in a hurry, Childe burst into the apartment. His heart sank as he was met with the same image he’d seen when he’d left that morning.

Afterwards Childe wandered around the docks of Liyue, trying to keep the quickly fragmenting pieces of his mind together. He knew that he was probably overreacting, knew that you were simply staying away because of what he said, knew that it wouldn’t be forever – you would have definitely told him if that were the case. Still he couldn’t help but feel dread crawling over him, saturating the cracks of his brain as he wondered how he’d managed to fuck everything up so much. He had underestimate how much his words must have affected you, and that only made him feel worse. Finally exhausting his walk along the pier Childe set off towards the edges of the city and into the vast wilderness of Liyue. He needed to find something to fight.

The nightmare continued on into the next day, then into the day after that. Childe could barely remember what he did during those days, walking around as if possessed, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few moments before his thoughts inevitably found their way back to you. Mostly Childe ended up sleeping, dozing off at his desk or on the couch, papers fluttering from his hands onto the floor. Mostly Childe dreamed of you.

They weren’t dreams of any particular note, their contents incredibly mundane. Not that it matter to Childe; within those dreams he felt nothing but happy domesticity, a calm that washed over him as he walked with you to the market or lay next to you under the stars. Always you would appear in his dreams suddenly, and always he would throw his arms around you, clinging to you as if even an embrace wasn’t enough. Always he woke up with a sense of desolation so vast it threatened to consume him.

Finally on the fifth day Childe couldn’t take it anymore. Waking up at almost the crack of dawn the Harbinger rushed to the Bank. He wouldn’t stay long, only enough to inform Andrei that he’d be out for the day. Then he’d go to the Guild and check and make sure everything was okay. Then, well he’d figure out what to do then. It seemed pathetic to chase after you, not to mention gross. He wouldn’t become a stalker, wouldn’t let himself fall into such pathetic behavior. Still, he had to make sure you were at least okay. As long as he did that, well, the rest could come later.

Striding into the Bank Childe was met with a surprising sight. Normally Ekaterina stayed firmly tucked inside her receptionist cubby, even more antisocial than the likes of the Balladeer or the Fatui that guarded Dragonspine. Now however she stood at the front of the booth, wringing her hands this way and that as she stared at a piece of paper in front of her. Feeling a sudden sense of dread Childe walked up to her.

“Ekaterina?”

“Oh!” Ekaterina whirled around, look on her face one of utter anxiety. “My lord, I was horrified to hear of the news, tell me, do you know if they’re almost free?”

“What are you talking about?” Childe narrowed his eyes.

“Why, your partner. I only heard today from Nadia; no wonder you’ve been so distant recently, if it’s not too much for me to say so. I only hope that they’ll soon be rescued, I’m sure you know about the situation better than I do though.”

“Ekaterina, what in the Tsaritsa’s name are you talking about?”

A shadow passed over Ekaterina’s face, a look of utter dread. Swallowing slightly she stared at a spot in the wall right to the side of Childe. “You partner, my lord, I’ve been informed that they have become trapped in one of the caverns of the Chasm. I thought that you knew about it, it’s been five days after a–”

Childe didn’t hear the rest of what Ekaterina had to say. Whirling around the Harbinger slammed his way out of the bank, aiming towards the nearest waypoint. Cold dread washed over him and with it desperate determination. He’d rescue you. If he had to tear apart the entire Chasm and raze all the mountains in Liyue to the ground so be it.

Approaching the Chasm Childe felt a rush of adrenaline wash over him. He was terrified. By the Seven, he was utterly terrified. Images of you flashed in his mind, images of you cowering in the dark, stuck at the bottom of an endless pit, lying on the ground with no air or food or life in you. How could he have let this happen? How could he have not known of this before? Anger burned within Childe, anger at himself. He should have never let you walk out of your apartment without apologizing first. He should have enquired after you after the first night you didn’t show up. He should’ve been the first person there for you, instead of the last person to know. He was so utterly stupid.

Approaching what must’ve been the site of the accident Childe felt his stomach drop to his feet at the sight of you. You were covered in dirt, cuts spread across your arms and legs as you slumped against a Guild member, dragging your feet in an awkward shuffle towards the stretcher that must’ve been meant to bring you to the apothecary. There were a variety of Guild members flocking around you, along with one of the doctors of Liyue, who was scribbling notes down furiously. Your expression was utterly dazed, as if you weren’t exactly sure of what was going on, something that tore Childe apart.

Stepping towards you Childe called out your name. At the sound your head jerked up, and you gave a hoarse sort of cry before turning to make your way towards him. Sprinting towards you Childe stepped backwards as you fell awkwardly into him. Steadying you for a moment before wrapping his arms around you Childe felt all his emotions crashing over him, so intense that he couldn’t control them anymore. Ignoring the tears that tracked their way down his cheeks the Harbinger let out a shudder.

“Thank the Seven, thank the Seven you’re safe. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, alright? You don’t have to forgive me, but by the gods I’m so sorry.”

“I wish you had been there,” you mumbled softly. “It was so dark, I couldn’t see anything. I thought, I thought that I might never see you again.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said all those things to you, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You should’ve fold so easily you know, you should be really, really angry at me.”

“I don’t want to be angry at you though, I just want you to stay.”

“Then I will,” Childe tightened his embrace around you. “I promise I will.”

“Okay.”

Having apparently said everything that had to be said you let Childe sling you onto his back, refusing to be carried to the hospital in the stretcher. As you appeared to doze off on his back Childe made a promise to himself. Even if he couldn’t disobey the Tsaritsa, even if he couldn’t change who he was, he would never leave you when you needed him to be there.

You would never find yourself needing him to be there without the chance of your need being met. That he promised you.

#genshin impact fanfiction #childe x reader #childe #genshin impact #genshin childe #requested #fanfiction #scenarios #my writing

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quicksilverownsmysoul · 3 years

Text

13 Going on 30 pt. 3

A Peter Maximoff x reader fanfic based off the movie 13 going on 30

Summary: You are so excited when the most popular girl in your school agrees to come to your 13th birthday party. But after a cruel prank you find yourself wishing that you were popular and older. By some miracle your wish is granted but isn’t as wonderful as it seems. You turn out to be a major jerk and you don't even talk to your best friend Peter anymore. Can you fix everything and get back to normal or are you stuck living like this forever

Warnings: Angst, Some suggestive content, But it’s mostly pure fluff. (Also Peter has no powers in this fic, and some scenes will be changed to fit Peter and his personality and so I can be creative with it!)

Word Count: 2103

Peter thought it was safe to say that adult life sucked. And it wasn't just because he had run out of lucky charms this morning and had to settle for something called shredded wheat that was hidden away in the back of the panty. They were gross and tasted like cardboard, but Peter was all out of groceries so this would have to do.

No nothing had seemed to go right for him after high school, he went to college, (even though he spent most of the time partying and goofing off), got the degree and yet he was barely scraping by. But he couldn't complain, all that much at least. He enjoyed his job and even if at times it was hard to earn money he wouldn't trade it for the world. He had fallen in love with photography in freshman year and decided to major in it. He had a minor in business too, something you had always told him would be useful as a backup. You were always practical like that, making sure he never completely fell over the edge. But he was hesitant to use it, because in using that minor it kinda meant he was giving up his dream. Giving in to the regular, soul crossing 9 to 5 job that everyone seemed to have. Peter was a dreamer at heart, in a way it would kill him to do anything other than photography.

He ate a spoonful of his cereal, making a face at the dull taste. Chewing, he glanced over at the stack of bills littering the counter. A lot of them were piling up, sooner or later he may have to give into the normalcy of a business job. Work had been slow lately and very boring. More often than not people hired him to take photos for their weddings or graduation, simple stuff. Stuff that had him bored out of his mind. But there were no clients currently so until he got one he had all the time in the world to himself. Which he loved at first but now it seems he was falling into a bit of a routine.

Peter aimlessly wandered around the kitchen lost in thought, his eyes drifted toward the collection of pictures pinned to his fridge. There was a picture of you on there, from before you had cut him out of your life. Peter set the bowl down on the counter and gently lifted the magnet to pull the picture off. It was a polaroid of you two, You had your arms wrapped around Peter’s shoulders, hugging him from behind. His hands were resting on yours, you both were smiling, teeth missing.

This picture was from the first day of first grade. Even back then Peter had had some feelings for you. And the way his eyes looked at you and not the camera was proof of this. Peter ran his thumb gently over the faded picture, for a moment he let himself wonder about how you were doing, before he snapped himself out of it. He put the picture back in its place and picked his bowl back up. It was too early to be having thoughts like that.

Peter yawned and lazily plopped down on his worn out sofa, flipping through the channels on the tv. There was nothing on, signing he threw out the rest of his cereal, it had gotten soggy while he was busy reminiscing. He dropped the empty bowl into the sink, only adding to the collection of unwashed dishes. He glanced over at the phone and the soft blinking of the red light, indicating he had voicemails he hadn't listened to yet. He knew he was going to have to take her calls sooner or later but right now he didn't want to deal with her.

He headed to the park and decided to do some laps on the path, running always helped him to relax and clear his head. He always got stares and shy smiles from the women that were jogging, he found out that apparently the silver hair that everyone made fun of him for was very attractive to women now. Something he used to use to his advantage to pick up the occasional hook up.

After that he went to go get groceries and then played on his pacman machine until lunchtime. He totally knew how to spend his time. He made his way over to the kitchen and looked at all the new groceries he had bought. Twinkies, instant ramen, mac and cheese, he picked up the box of lucky charms, weighing the option of eating it for lunch. He thought better of it and put it back on the shelf, he really needed to eat healthier, god knows sooner or later his metabolism was going to give out.

He picked up the phone and placed an order form the Chinese place a couple blocks away, ordering way more food than he needed. That way he wouldn't have to cook for the next few meals. Peter was inherently lazy and cooking was not something he was very good at. So when he would he just ordered takeout and leftovers so he could eat them later. He hung up the phone and walked over to the fridge and took out the milk, drinking it straight for the carton, while he was doing that he heard a loud knock on the door. “That was quick.” The knocking continued non stop over and over, “I’m coming hold on!” He yelled out as he shuffled to the door and opened it peering through the opening that the chain allowed. “You know it’s rude to-'' The words died in his throat. There was a woman standing at his door, wearing a coat over her night dress.

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

You hadn't been able to pay attention to the briefing your boss gave, your assistant came in about half way through and handed you a small slip of paper. She said that she had found Peter’s address like you had asked. You had pulled her into a hug, creating an awkward tension in the room. The meeting had seemed to go on forever, and for the life of you you couldn't even remember what it was about. As soon as the meeting ended you had bolted out the door, ignoring the calls of your boss and colleagues telling you that work wasn't over yet.

You had found his apartment after randomly asking strangers in the street which way it was. You were at his door, the number on it hanging lopsided. You began to rapidly knock until the door was pulled open. “You know it’s rude to-”

He paused as he saw you staring at him. He furrowed his brows in confusion. “You’re not the chinese delivery guy.”

You felt your eyes widen as you took him in. “Peter?” You asked in a small voice.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at you. “Yeah?”

You let out a sigh of relief, smiling. “You’re tall.” You looked him up and down. “And you’re so handsome.”

His face turned red at your words. He didn't even know who this random woman was that was standing here, telling him he was handsome. He leaned against the doorframe, taking another drink out of the carton. “I’m sorry do- do I know you?”

He watched your face fall. “You don’t know me?”

“No?” He said, wiping the dribbling milk off his chin. Even after all these years his mannerisms were the same.

“Wait! “ You said rushing forward. He jumped slightly at the sudden action. “It’s me, I saw you yesterday. Well I was thirteen yesterday so I guess it wasn't yesterday. Because now i'm old and I don't know where I am-” Peter watched you ramble on and slowly began to close the door. You continued on. “But you were there at my party-”

Peter paused, squinting his eyes and looking at you closely.. “(Y/n)?” He asked hesitantly, reopening the door as much as the chain would allow. “(y/n) (y/l/n)?” You smiled wide at him.

“Yes! Yes it’s me!”

Peter slammed the door shut in your face. You heard him unlock all the locks on his side of the door, when he was down he swung the door open. “Hey.” he gave you a small smile. You lunged at him and tackled him in a hug, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck. He just stood there frozen, slowly moving his free hand up to awkwardly pat you on the back. “Come in I guess.” He muttered.

You pulled back smiling at him. Even after all this time your sweet smile could make his heart skip a beat. You looked around his small apartment taking it all in. Peter did his best to kick discarded clothes into the closet, and keep you from seeing what a mess it was. You looked along his walls to see framed pictures of portraits and beautiful landscapes. “Are you still taking pictures?” You asked,

“Uh yeah, they pay the bills.” He quickly grabbed the pile of unpaid bills, stuffing them behind the couch cushion. “Usually.” He muttered under his breath. You were pacing around his apartment, in confused circles. He nervously rubbed the nape of his neck. “Hey, (y/n) I don't wanna be rude but why are you here?”

“Petey I told you.” You said moving closer to him, he let out a little laugh.

“Petey wow, no one has called me that in ages.”

“Petey listen I came here cause something really weird is happening. Yesterday was my 13th birthday and then today I woke up and I’m this!” You said gesturing to your body. Peter tried his best not to look you up and down, he couldn't deny that you had grown up well. You were even more beautiful than he remembered. “And you’re that!” You said gesturing towards him.

Peter looked down at himself self consciously. “Gee thanks. Do I really look that bad?”

“No!” You quickly said. You felt yourself blush as you looked him over. His hair was tousled and messy, he was wearing an oversized pink floyd crop top and from the looks of the hem it seemed he had made it himself. You watched the veins in his hands ripple and his arms slightly flex. “Uh you,” You let out an embarrassed laugh. “You actually look really good, like really good.”

Peter flushed at your words and turned away so you couldn't see his blushing face. “Wow.” He whispered under his breath, he lifted a hand up to his face, doing his best to hide the smile that was forming. He turned back to and regained a serious composure. “Are you sure you're okay (y/n).” He took in your mismatched outfit and broken heel. “Are you high? Have you been smoking pot? Doing drugs, cause if you are I’m not judging as long as it’s just weed or something. Cause I mean I get it, I get stressed to and every now and then need-”

“No, no.” You said shaking your head rapidly. “Wait do you do-,” You lowered your voice to a whisper. “Do you do drugs Peter?”

“No! No.” Peter shrugged. “Ehhh well not drugs, just weed.” He defended. But looking at your judgmental eyes he quickly continued on. “And I don’t, well I don’t that much any more. It was in college you know how it was.”

“Actually I don’t.” You moved even closer to him. “Look, I was sitting in my closet, and I- I skipped everything. I can’t- I can’t remember my life.” Your eyes were watery as you started back at him. His heart ached seeing you like this. You continued on. ‘You need to help me remember my life.”

At this he scoffed, and pretended to look around as if you were referring to someone else. “Me?” he said pointing to himself, letting out an airy laugh. “That’s rich.”

“What why?” He let out another laugh at your response, this one was dry. He looked at your face and saw that you weren’t kidding, you were serious about asking for his help.

“(Y/n) I can’t.” He was in disbelief, did you seriously have no idea what you had done to him. “I don’t know anything about you. I haven't seen you since high school.” Your face morphed into one of confusion.

“What?”

What he said next pained him, and he couldn’t bring himself to look you in the eyes. “(Y/n). We’re not friends anymore.”

You felt your heart shatter into a million pieces. “What?”

Taglist:

@lets-imagine-fanfics @steamboat-local @weasly-twin-simp

Let me know if you want to be added!!

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literaphobe · 3 years

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Two questions:

1. What do you feel about CorpsexSykunno ship?

I feel like it's MarkiplierxJacksepticeye all over again, starts out innocent and turns uncomfortable.

(Also I think real people shipping is gross in general)

2. Dream smp makes me so nervous, not necessarily because of any of the members but due to (1) the history of online teams dominated (and lead) by male influencers, (2) minecraft youtube's general history of exploiting fans. I feel like it's going to end badly. You seem to be enjoying it tho, and it's definitely up my alley, should I get into it?

1. Corpse and Sykkuno are not comfortable being shipped! Neither of them are okay with being shipped with ANY of their friends in general, so like, don’t do it, or if u do like. i guess just don’t say anything about it? it’s really not hard to just enjoy their friendship. like it’s an endearing friendship n there’s nothing wrong w liking it. but. nothing more u know. plus both of them have made it clear on several occasions that they’re both straight and my gaydar agrees JFKDKDK like they’re just. Friends. Who care about each other :)

I definitely think it’s not like the markiplier x jacksepticeye situation, because for one u have jack himself telling people not to ship etc etc and also BECAUSE of that u have people actively policing any form of shipping. it’s honestly gotten to the point where it’s annoying but i genuinely don’t think it’s that big a problem, plus the rising popularity of the amigops puts less pressure on one-on-one corpse + sykkuno interactions, since people now wanna see all four of them play games together n not just corpse n sykkuno!

2. I get why Dream SMP would make u nervous. An interesting thing I realized when I started finding out more about people on that server is that there’s marginally more poc on it than I previously thought and also A LOTTTTT more lgbt+ people than i previously thought. Like genuinely why are so many of u so gay. And like that affects the stories being told obviously. Like. I don’t think it’s perfect n I don’t follow EVERY person on the SMP, just like i obviously don’t know everything about every minecraft YouTuber like fkdkdkdk i would say the only people i watch are dream, george, quackity (and even then i haven’t seen most of quackity’s YouTube videos) and like I’ve seen a couple of tommyinnit’s videos Fjdjdjdj and sapnap obviously but he has like 10 videos and i watch Karl’s streams if certain people are on it. yeah i think that’s about it like i do like the feral boys (dream george karl quackity sapnap) and i have seen maybe one or two skeppy videos

Anyway I get ur concerns about online circles dominated by male influencers too. but quite frankly compared to past circles ive seen its genuinely not that bad and also. In terms of holding them accountable, I think mcyttwt makes VERY sure of that (which honestly has devolved into a problem. because privileged haters will dig up stuff on creators that either a. has been addressed properly or b. is just. several years old and i don’t like how minorities are being weaponized. also i cannot stress how little i care that some minecraft YouTuber said the r slur 10 years ago when they literally never do it now. like. i worry so much because so many of these stans who think they’re ‘educating’ are just wearing themselves out n burning themselves out. so many of them are minors too)

but like. the people i am kept up w definitely do take responsibility and accountability. like dream especially gets accused of stuff that’s either fake/not him or something that’s just like out of this world (e.g. accused of queerbaiting. w george. interestingly no one ever accuses george directly of doing this) and no matter what he like addresses it properly and accordingly. like looking at his journey as a creator over the past year he’s grown a LOT and changed so much and matured a lot and i think like. looking at how much he’s blowing up and how much more of a following he’ll gain. I feel much better that it’s him who has this following as compared to. Certain people. And like. It’s upsetting to see how a lot of people have this impression of him that’s objectively false? Due to all the fake stuff that gets spread by haters (most often white for some reason???)? Because genuinely he’s not the creator we need to be so worried about?

Anyway in terms of getting into mcyts in the dream smp. I knew who Dream was because he’s played among us w the amigops a lot n they all like him because he’s just a good natured amicable person. I vaguely knew who george was because of dnf n also people putting his stupid face on my tl all the time. I thought he was pretty n hated that I thought that. I don’t care anymore tho. Like what’s wrong w looking at pretty people. I deserve it. Anyway! I got into their videos through GEORGE first, funnily. I think Minecraft, But I’m Not Colorblind Anymore was the first one I watched and it’s very very good. It’s endearing because it’s George trying out colorblind glasses for the first time n he’s nervous but Dream is there with him to make him feel more comfortable. And also Dream is so happy n emotional (he talks about tearing up at the thought of George being able to see colors properly) and their friendship is just very endearing. The video starts w george taking a colorblind test and we find out he has protan colorblindness (severity: STRONG which makes them crack jokes about how George is SO strong 😤)

anyway these losers. Decide to test the colorblind glasses on colors in MINECRAFT because of course that’s the whole video and it’s really heartwarming to see George learn how colors look like again n Dream just being excited about it the whole time n then George taking the colorblind test again at the end but with the glasses on... n then u go on to watch more george videos but it’s the ANIMAL CHALLENGES. like George Speedruns Minecraft But His Friend Is (Insert Animal, This Animal Is Always Dream) and like...... yeah so I watched a bunch of George’s videos n I went onto dream’s channel out of curiosity

And i was like. What the fuck. These videos are so WEIRDLY named. What the fuck is Finale, Finale Rematch, Grand Finale???? But dream has adhd too and in hindsight I absolutely would’ve titled the videos in a similarly confusing way. Anyway dreams manhunt videos are...... a work of art. I swear to god like even if u don’t know jackshit about minecraft they are very entertaining and weirdly impressive.

Basically in Minecraft Manhunt: Dream has to beat the game, but his friends are there trying to kill him. If they kill him even ONCE, they win n the video ends. He’s allowed to kill them repeatedly though. Manhunt started with one hunter (George, to one’s surprise), then two hunters (Sapnap and George), three (Sapnap, George, BadBoyHalo), and now four (Sapnap, George, BadBoyHalo, Antfrost). The next stage is possibly 5 hunters but idk who is the fifth yet. Anyway the thing that’s so entertaining about minecraft manhunt is:

1) Dream’s Parkour & PVP skills, which he developed and trained over such a short period of time n got REALLY good, it’s satisfying to watch him do risky maneuvers n succeed, the ways he’ll jump from a high place but clutch w either water, blocks, horses, boats, scaffolding, etc, to escape from the hunters

2) Dream’s TRAPS, like he actually does research for possible plans n traps he could do to counter the hunters, since there’s so many of them and only one of him, and he can’t just fight them in combat exclusively, since he’ll lose eventually if he gets ganged up on. I won’t spoil any of his traps, but they’re very good and also very dramatic. It’s amazing

3) The banter and taunting!! The lies and tricks!! They’re all really close so it’s easy for them to crack jokes during a lull where neither party is engaged in a fight, they’re all on the same VC so they can potentially say stuff to trick each other, or they can hear the other team say stuff that gives them an edge

4) The editing. Like the pacing is incredible, and all the bgm used is SO good at setting the atmosphere n making things more tense n exciting etc. like “dream’s manhunt music” is honestly a meme at this point but he actually unironically uses it and it unironically makes the videos better. Also dream edits all the manhunt videos by himself!! he doesn’t hire editors to do it for him or anything

idk what else to say but yeah I watch most of dream n george’s YouTube videos and they’re in most of each other’s videos and I like their dynamic a lot!! Especially since they still have not met in real life but already know they want to like live together (forever, according to George), and it like reminds me of the friendships I have because most of my close friendships have been made online. And like. They remind me that online friendships aren’t actually inferior. That’s it :) sorry this is so long

#ask #mcyt #dnf #dream smp #amigops #corpse husband #sykkuno #dreamnotfound #georgenotfound #dreamwastaken #sorry so sorry I just #never have that many ppportunies to talk about this #n I realized I had the energy to answer this ask apparently #fjdjdjdjd #askplus

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hamphobicbasil · 3 years

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Could u elaborate about the dsmp story being bad? Not a rabid/brain dead fan, just genuinely curious and I enjoy reading people's rants lolol

oh you dont know the floodgates you just opened

a few things:

1. despite not liking the creators of the dsmp anymore, I don't actually hate most of them. [the ones that are particularly unsavory fall outside of this of course] so all that I'm saying i truly mean in a critical sense towards the story, its also just all purely my opinion as someone who enjoys fictional and fantasy stories and who like criticizing works to see what it does well and what it doesn't do well

2. for clarification I'm going to use the c![name] to indicate when I'm talking about the characters. Don't get me wrong, I think its annoying too but its the only way I'm gonna be able to write this thing without getting something across the wrong way yknow?

3. I stopped watching the streams after November 16th, [save for one Techno one but I closed out after a particularly bad story beat lol] and so all information coming afterward is all second hand from either me seeing people on twt talk abt it or people dming me. All i really know is up to dream's imprisonment and some stuff past that.

4. This is mostly aimed towards the "main" story, so stuff abt the badlands, eggpire, and whatnot are briefly mentioned.

anyways uh, i'll try to be brief but also include enough information to get why i feel the way i do on some stuff across

A. Performances Alright obviously these people are all streamers, so obviously they might not be the best actors, and hell no one is even asking that of them. However, when you're telling a story that's based on the audio with the visuals kinda coming to a second, it's gotta be pretty strong. I will say, some of the best actors in my opinion are Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. I would include Ranboo but I never watched any of his story bits or story streams so I can't say much. Wilbur and Tommy are excellent in selling their character's emotions and feelings, when I watch the stream I don't feel like I'm watching an rp but an actual thought-out story yknow? And one of my favorite Tubbo examples was in the Hog Hunt video whenever Techno attacked him, he sounded genuinely afraid and I believed everything his character was feeling.

However, unfortunately, not everyone is gonna be that good. And I'm gonna say it; Dream and Techno have to be the worst out of the entire cast. I understand Techno's whole character is this monotoned badass, however, when really emotional moments hit I feel like he never lets that fall, and a lot of intense moments just ring hollow. And I'm sorry but Dream's attempts at being intimidating leave me laughing whenever I watch them. It feels like he watched that one scene from The Marriage with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson and said "Oh this is what good acting looks like! Just yelling." His whole "I don't give a FUCK about Spirit!" speech isn't as great as people keep making it out to be. And whenever he tries to act coy when being a villain it feels like a guy reading the script for the first time, a bit like he's trying too hard. I have more problems with his character but his portrayal certainly doesn't help.

Everyone else is fine, and I don't feel strongly either way about a lot of them.

B. The "Lore" Okay first off, I can't be the only one who thinks it's silly that people are calling the dsmp's story "lore" when it's not, it's the fucking story. Lore indicates backstory to either the world or the characters, which a lot of the streams don't really pertain to. This is a really petty section but god it's a weird pet peeve of mine.

Other than the misusage of "lore" vs "story", the actual lore and world-building of the world are so lackluster that new elements can be introduced whenever and it often feels cluttered or not well thought out at all. And here's the thing, I feel like if the writers sat down just for a few minutes to establish world rules and general history, a lot of this could be solved! but so much is made up on the spot that it starts to feel like they're grabbing at straws to keep people invested, trying to reach that next high and intense story beat without actually earning it.

C. The Egg / Eggpire This is a pretty minor note since I was only invested in the Egg storyline for a little bit, but god it's so underused that it's almost embarrassing. Bad has provided this super interesting antagonistic force that's infecting the SMP, can control people, and who one of our main character is immune to, and it's just never used or even talked about again? Now I understand if he wanted to keep it to a side storyline only, however, to introduce this borderline eldritch creature and force within the world and then never have it dealt with is so weird.

D. The Writing Oh boy this is. kinda a big one. Now I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty obvious I have a bias for the Wilbur writing over the current team [that consisting of Dream, Quackity, and Tommy mostly]. I don't this his writing is perfect by any means, the characters constantly bringing up traitors got obnoxious after a while, and writing Hamilton but in Minecraft really isn't the modern Shakespeare or anything. However, I think his exploration of characters and plot progression was a lot more thought out and well planned, like he actually had two brain cells behind the story yknow? The current team I think fails to be as emotional or even impactful, things happened too fast and my god was everything drowned in angst for so long.

Don't get me wrong, you gotta have your characters face hardships to make them reach their goal believable, but some of the shit they put the characters through just felt like too much. From c!Tubbo's constant comparison to c!Schlatt [who btw, fucking ordered his death and kept him from his friends in a nation he felt trapped in] and on a side note, i kinda really fucking dislike the "c!Schlatt dad!!" au's or the au's where c!Tubbo inherits some of Schlatt's features, it would be like c!Tommy getting a c!Dream mask after his exile, it's feels so weird yet people eat that shit up for some reason.

But god, did c!Tommy get the brunt of it all and in retrospect after his final death, it kinda feels really fucking gross. Now obviously, I'm not trusting any of these people to write decent mental health representation, but c!Tommy's PTSD and how it was explored was just degrading. [Specifically the scene in that one Techno stream where he saw the final control room from the first war, and had a flashback / panic attack where he started calling out for c!Dream. I understand this is an actual thing people with PTSD will experience, but it felt so fucking stereotypical it got on my nerves. I actually had to close out of the stream because it made me feel sick, fiction shouldn't leave you feeling that way.] And don't get me started on how they basically reused the formula from the previous arc. [Problem introduced -> Tensions rise as things start to fall apart -> Big confrontation -> Exile -> Return from Exile -> Blowing up L'Manberg, again.]

And speaking of characters-

E. Character Arcs, or the lack of them In my genuine opinion, some of these characters' arcs are so disappointing. Especially c!Tommy's. I'm not one to believe that he was a "selfish" character or anything, however, his goals were simply set on his discs and maybe c!Tubbo, he didn't have much outside that. However, L'Manberg gave him something to care about, he gave up his discs for it and he fought for it tooth and nail, I think it taught him to open up to others and trust more. It was a great character arc for him to have, seeing him still fight even after his first exile alongside c!Wilbur, to return safely to the nation that he and his found family had built.

But then his second exile happened, and I feel like all of that was undone.

c!Tommy's exile genuinely pisses me off for so many reasons. It's not that characters can't have their low points after reaching a major change or feeling like they've "completed" their arcs or anything, but it's more of the fact that it seems like he's never going to heal that feels like a spit in the face, especially to people who might have had setbacks like that before. Progress isn't linear, sometimes things happen and you get knocked back down, it can take a while to get back up, but I don't think c!Tommy's character is ever going to be allowed to get back up. From c!Dream, who pretty much was a constant abuser in his life, killing him then reviving him, and his still fractured relationship with c!Tubbo, which by the way I have a had time believing they would still be friends after all that happened, it feels like he can never get a win and it's generally kinda a shit way to treat your characters who have been abused. Of course, not all abused characters are going to get happy endings, I'm not trying to dictate that they all should, but c!Tommy deserves one and the fact that it's so obscure feels shitty.

Side note: we still don't have a canon reason to give a shit abt the discs. Like I'm sorry but without some sorta connection to the MacGuffin why should we give a shit about him getting them other than "he wants them lol". Like hell, I would even accept the classic "they were the last gifts from his parents" or something, but we still don't have a reason.

c!Tubbo also lacks a fulfilling arc as well, from someone who started out as a yes man, he has progressed a bit into having his own interests first, but besides that sometimes his character makes me so. depressed. He's easily one of the most pushed around and hated characters within the story, all for being a kid who didn't know what to do and he's in the same vein as c!Tommy; these kids can't get a break. Also, his anti-violence beliefs morphing into the "lets kill c!Techno lol!" bit was so out of place and without proper build-up it was like. what. And now he's building nukes?? god c!Tubbo makes me so sad because he's kicked around constantly and never given a chance to grow.

Another small note, I also don't really enjoy c!Techno at all. Besides the previously stated reasons of lack of emotions when they're really needed, I find his character to be weirdly pretentious. He talks as if he's constantly been betrayed and hurt but I personally, don't see it? Like, I think one of the main examples was the Pogtopia vs. Manberg war, yknow he wanted to end the government but they just reinstated it after they won = c!Techno upset. But this doesn't make sense to me because why did he think otherwise? The entire time c!Tommy had talked about taking back their nation and starting again, so the fact that c!Techno suddenly thought there would be a sudden change is, to put it bluntly, kinda fucking stupid. I don't want to say that he "plays the victim" or anything because that feels a bit harsh, but his character feels so far up his own ass that I can't enjoy him.

I have a major grip with c!Dream as well, but that's getting it's own fucking section.

F. L'Manberg This is a quick note before we get into the, forgive me for this, endgame, of this entire rant, since the next two sections are tied together. But god, L'Manberg makes me upset because it feels like they gave up on it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is supposed to be c!Wilbur's "unfinished symphony", the thing that destroyed a once charismatic and widely loved man, his attempt at power that utterly ruined him. But the fact that it just got blown up in the end after everything and left to rot felt like such a waste of time. From the first war, to Pogtopia, to even c!Tommy's exile, it all felt fucking worthless in the end, and the story is actively closer to how it was when it started now more than ever. I wished it was actually allowed to exist and continue to be a peaceful place in what is a chaotic world, but no it was just snuffed out because why dedicate to this concept of finding others you can band together with and feel safe. fuck that noise apparently?

G. The Villains Now villain-wise, I'm only talking about c!Dream [during the first war], c!Schlatt, and c!Wilbur. And believe it or not, this is actually mostly positive.

Now I'm not gonna lie, c!Dream as a staring antagonist wasn't bad actually, he posed a genuine and threatening opposition to L'Manberg, even if we didn't know his real intentions or motivations as to why he was against it. He's lucky in this sense because he didn't have to be good, he had to be passable. If anything, he felt more like an anti-hero than a tyrant or traditional villain, and my god do I wish he kept this theme going forward.

Now quick disclaimer, I don't like JSchlatt as much as the next guy, he's an adult man who should know better than to joke about some sensitive topics and act the way that he does. But the one thing I'll ever give him is that damn, was he a good actor for his character.

Now here's the thing, c!Schlatt wasn't particularly deep at all. He had no real motivations behind his exile of c!Wilbur and c!Tommy other than getting competition out of the way, had no reason to act the way that he did and yknow? that's fine. The reason why he worked was from his performance alone, he was actually intimidating. When he came onto the stream and was doing his typical bad guy stuff, it was actually intense to see what he would do. Whenever he would almost catch c!Tommy back in Manberg, whenever he would begin to pressure c!Tubbo, it put you on the edge of your seat and it felt like everything would change at the drop of a pen. He's a villain to be a villain, and this works out because he's just charismatic and well put together enough to make it interesting, even without the backstory or motives.

c!Wilbur however, is much more tragic, and the best villain of the story. He essentially was the "mentor turned evil" trope and it felt terrible watching him descend into madness, unable to trust barely anyone except for c!Techno and c!Tommy. Hell, in the end I think he still cared about them both, despite losing everything. Sure, he blew up L'Manberg, but there was still a smidge of the old c!Wilbur in there made everything he did feel melancholic. His death at the hands of his father after achieving his final wish was chilling, and something I still think about.

Until yknow, Ghostbur came back way too soon to let people feel his loss as a character within that world. And then he got revived, pretty much-undoing everything that moment meant for his character lol.

And then there's the worst one:

H. Dream. I'm going to be completely honest, c!Dream is one of the main reasons why I dislike the current dsmp stuff so much. Outside of his actions as a person, the way Dream decided to write his character as this overpowered madman of the dsmp really just. destroyed any intrigue that he could've had. Perhaps this is from my growing dislike towards him, manifesting into a bias towards his character, but god I cannot fathom why people try to insist he's interesting when he has as much depth as a fucking puddle.

And here's the thing, I'm not even entirely against c!Dream being a villain, hell I think he would've been great as an anti-hero if anything. Make him sympathetic but not through c!George to get your precious "DNF" points or anything, but show him actually caring about the people within the dsmp, including c!Tommy and c!Tubbo. This would make his rival status with them just a bit more complicated, sure they're enemies, however, he doesn't want to hurt or kill them, and there's still a level of friendship there that keeps them bonded when things get super bad. This could've been super interesting to see, the first villain of the story receiving a sorta redemption arc then descending into madness as he started to fixate on being a god. This is all how I feel personally, but god do I feel like it would've been better than his current character, and hell would've worked with how he was during the Pogtopia arc, before the war that is. I'm not trying to tell Dream how to write his own character, but there are so many other ways he could've done the madman seeking to become god rather then. whatever the hell we got.

Because instead, we got this power-mad asshole who does things... because he can? And that's one of my major issues: he tries to surround his character in mystery to make him "intriguing" but it's kinda like c!Techno, it comes off as pretentious. Not only that, but you cannot keep waving around this mystery of a backstory without ever actually revealing it. I know the story isn't over, but c!Dream is effectively at his lowest point, now would be the time to reveal his backstory. But no just keep it in the dark and keep everyone guessing, that's totally fun and not at all tiring and annoying. (sarcasm, if anyone needs it)

And back to his performance, he doesn't sell this aloof, cynical and strategic warrior that has perfected the blade or some shit, he comes off as some angry guy yelling on reddit. which i don't need to tell you, isn't intimidating. It feels like he's trying to have c!Schlatt's intimidation combined with c!Wilbur's depth, but instead he's like a little brother who's trying to hard to mimic his older brother and is kinda embarrassing himself.

but other then that i dont feel too strongly abt the dsmp lol

but seriously, these are the main complaints I have abt the story tbh, I could probably talk about more but I wont because man. this is probably gonna get me in trouble if any of the hyper-dsmp fans actually read it.

#wow this is long #txt #anti dsmp #anti dream #dsmp crit #dsmp critical #yeah im tagging it i dont give a shit #dream crit #dream critical #the story is shit yo!

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makeroomforthejolyghost · 3 years

Text

In Search of Lost Screws (RQBB '21)

Here at last is my entry for the 2021 Rusty Quill Big Bang!

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Rating: T Word count: ~30k Warnings: Chronic Illness, Mild Body Horror, Internalized Ableism, Canon-Typical Spiders, Mention of Canon-Typical Suicidal Ideation, Alcohol Other tags: Cane-user Jon, EDS Jon, Canon-compliant, Season 5, Set in 180-181 (Upton Safehouse period) Characters: Jon Sims, Martin Blackwood, Mikaele Salesa (secondary), Annabelle Cane (secondary) Relationships: Jon/Martin Summary: While staying at Upton House, Jon and Martin accidentally break their bedroom’s doorknob, and can’t get back into the room until they fix it. Meanwhile Jon tries not to break into literal pieces without the Eye, and also to pretend he’s having a good time as he and Martin lunch with Annabelle, parry gifts from Salesa, and quarrel about whether Jon’s okay or not. He's fine! It's just that the apocalypse runs on dream logic, and chronic pain feels worse when you're awake. Excerpt:

“Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?” “I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here.” “Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.” “Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?” Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice. “Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him. “Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.” “Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.” Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

Huge thanks to @pilesofnonsense for hosting this event; to @connanro for beta-reading; and to @silmapeli for their amazing illustration, whose own post you can find here.

If you prefer, you can read this fic instead on Ao3. I won't link it directly, since Tumblr has trouble with external links, but if you google the title and add "echinoderms" (my Ao3 handle), it should come up!

Crunch. “Oh god. Shit! Oh god, oh no—”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

A clatter, then a noise like a small rock scraping a large one. Jon’s heart plunged; halfway through his question he knew the answer.

“I—I broke it? Look, see, the whole thing just—take this.” Martin tore his hand out of Jon’s and dropped the severed doorknob in it instead. Then he dropped to the floor, diving head- and hands-first for the crack between it and the door as if that crack were a portal between dimensions. Jon closed his eyes and shook this image away, hoping when he opened them again he could focus on what was real.

He should have known this would happen from the moment they left for breakfast. Every time he’d opened that door its knob felt a little looser. Why hadn’t he warned Martin? Well, alright, he didn’t need powers to know that one. He just hadn’t thought of it. Been a bit preoccupied, after all. And even if he had thought of it, that was exactly the kind of conversation he’d been shying away from all week. Watch out for that doorknob; it’s a little loose, he would say, and yeah, probably Martin would answer, Oh, thanks. But there was a chance Martin would say instead, Why didn’t you tell me?—and all week Jon had obeyed an instinct to avoid prompting that question. All week he had made sure to enter and exit their room a few steps ahead of Martin, and hold the door open for him. Martin probably just saw it as Jon’s way of apologizing for their first few months in the Archives together, and once that thought occurred to him Jon had started to look at it that way himself. Maybe that’s why he’d forgot this time.

“Nooo-oooo, come on come on!”

“I don’t think you’ll fit,” Jon said, when he looked again and found Martin trying to wedge his fingers under the door.

(Martin used to leave Jon’s office door open behind him—perhaps absentmindedly, but more likely as a gesture of friendship and openness, which the Jon of that time would not suffer. Sasha and Tim, n.b., only left his door open on their way into his office, when they didn’t intend to stay long; Martin would leave it gaping even if he didn’t mean to come back. Every time Jon had sighed, pulled himself to his feet, and closed the door behind Martin, drawing out the click of its tongue in the latch. And a few times he’d closed the door in front of him, so as to exclude him from a conversation between Jon and Tim or Sasha that he, Martin, had tried to weigh in on from outside Jon’s office.)

“What are you looking for?”

“The—the screw, I saw it roll under there. It fell down on our side. Oh, my god, it was so close—if I’d reacted just half a second earlier, I could’ve?—shit.”

“Oh.” Jon huffed out a cynical laugh.

“I can’t believe it. I broke Salesa’s door! He welcomes us in to an oasis, and I break the door. Oh, god—I’ve broken an irreplaceable door, in a stately historic mansion!”

A few more demonstrative huffs of laughter. “No you didn’t.”

Martin paused. He didn’t get up, but did turn his head to look at Jon. “Yes I did. It’s right there in your hand, Jon—”

“I should’ve known. Check for cobwebs, Martin.”

“Oh come on.”

“This can’t be your fault—it’s far too neat. This is all part of Annabelle’s plan.”

“Do you know that?”

“W-well, no. I can’t, not here. I just—”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Jon. Pretty sure it’s just an old doorknob.”

“Did you check for cobwebs?”

“Of course there are no cobwebs. A spider wouldn’t even have time to finish building the web before somebody wrecked it opening the door!”

“Then what’s that?” With the tip of his cane Jon tapped the floor in front of a clot of gray fluff in the seam between two walls next to the door, making sure not to let it touch the clot itself.

Martin rolled over to see where he was pointing, and almost stuck his elbow in it. “Ah. Gross. Gross, is what that is.”

“Christ, I should’ve known this would happen. I did know this would happen,” Jon reminded himself—“just ignored the warning signs because I can’t think straight here.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Jon. It’s a corner. Spiders love corners. I mean, unless you can prove the corner of our doorway has more spiderwebs than anywhere else in the house—”

“Well, of course not. You forget she’s got her own corner somewhere, which we still haven’t found by the way—”

“So, what, you think Annabelle Cane lassoed the screw with a strand of cobweb.”

“Not literally? She could be sitting on the other side of the door with a magnet for all we know!”

Martin peered under the door again with an exasperated sigh. “She’s not.”

“Not now she’s heard us talking about her.”

God, what a delicate web that would be, if all he had to do to avoid the spider’s clutches was reach a door before Martin did. Perhaps if he’d knocked first that’d have saved him. Maybe Martin was right. How could Annabelle know him well enough to foresee this mistake? Most of the time he hated people opening doors for him, after all.

Why do people see someone with a cane and think, Only one free hand? How ever will he open the door!? They don’t do that for people with shopping bags—not ones his age, at least. Letting another person open a door for him felt to Jon like… defeat, somehow. Like admitting the dolce et decorum estness of this version of reality all nondisabled people seemed to live in where he couldn’t open doors. And that version of reality horrified him. Not so much the idea of being too weak to open them—that sounded merely annoying. Like knocking the sides of jar lids on tables and swearing, only with doors. He had beat his fists against enough Pull doors in his time to figure he could live with that. It was more the idea of becoming that way. Letting his door-opening muscles atrophy ‘til it became the truth.

But sometimes you just let a thing happen, and forget to hate it. That was the thing about pride. Sometimes your convictions and your habits stop fitting together—you believe Fuck this job with all your heart, but still tuck in your shirt when you come to the office. And then you fly back from America in borrowed clothes, and pop in at the Institute like that on your way to Gertrude’s storage unit, and that’s what changes your habits. Not the knowledge you can’t be fired; not your now-boyfriend’s plot to put your then-boss behind bars. A thirdhand t-shirt with a slogan on it about how to outrun bears.

On his way out this morning the doorknob had felt so loose in Jon’s hand he almost had told Martin about it. But Martin had been full of let’s-go-on-an-adventure-together-style chatter—like when they’d left Daisy’s safehouse, only, get this, without the dread of entering an apocalyptic wasteland—and listening to him put the door out of Jon’s mind before he’d had time to interject.

Their first day here—or at least, the first they spent awake—Jon had inadvertently taught Martin not to accept invitations from Salesa. The latter had bounded up after Martin’s lunch in linen shirt and whooshy shorts and was, to Martin’s then-unseasoned heart, impossible to deny. So Jon had spent thirty minutes on a creaky folding chair, lunging out of his seat on occasion to collect a ball one of the other two had hit wrong, and trying to keep Salesa’s too-bright white socks out of sight. He’d pretended he preferred to sit out, knowing Martin would worry if he tried to play. But he hadn’t done as good a job hiding his boredom as he thought. “Thanks for putting up with that. Sorry it went on so long,” Martin had said as they re-entered their bedroom. “I just couldn’t say no to him, you know? For such a cynical old man he’s got impressive puppy eyes.”

“It’s fine? You know me, I don’t mind… watching.”

“I just mean, I’m sorry you couldn’t play. How’s your leg, by the way? Er—both your legs, I guess.”

“It’s fine. They’re both fine. I didn’t want to play anyway, remember? I don’t know how.”

“Sure you don’t,” Martin replied, words tripping over a fond laugh.

“I don’t!”

“Come on, Jon. Everyone knows how to play ping-pong.”

Martin had turned down Salesa when he showed up the next day in khaki shorts and a pith helmet with three butterfly nets, without Jon’s having to say a word. More emphatically still did he turn him down when Salesa mentioned the house had an indoor pool, and offered to lend them both antique bathing suits like the one he had on, “Free of charge! A debtor is an enemy, after all, and in this new world I have no wish to make an enemy of” (sarcastic whisper, fingers wiggling) “the Ceaseless Watcher who rules it. I have nothing to hide from you,” he’d alleged, for the… third time that day, maybe? Each morning Jon resolved to count such references; he rarely missed one, as far as he knew, but kept forgetting how many he’d counted.

But Salesa was a salesman, and over time his efforts had grown more subtle. He stopped showing up already dressed for the activity he had in mind, and instead would drop hints at meals about all the fun things they could do if only they would let him show them. Martin loved how the winter sunlight caught, every afternoon around four, in the branches of a tree visible outside the window of their bedroom. “Ah, yes,” Salesa had agreed when he remarked on it one morning. “Turning it periwinkle and the golden green of champagne.” (He poured sparkling wine—the cheap stuff, he said, not real champagne—into an empty juice glass still lined with orange pulp. Over and over, without once overflowing. The oranges weren’t ripe enough to drink their juice plain yet, he said. But they’d still run out of juice first.) “If you think that’s beautiful”—he paused to swallow bubbles come up from his throat, waved his hand, shook his head. “No. On one tree, yes, it is beautiful. But on a whole orchard of bare trees in winter”—he nodded in the direction of Upton’s orchards—“the afternoon sun is sublime. You can see how the twigs shrink and shiver under its gaze; the grass rustles with a hitch in its breath as if it fears to be seen, but with each undulation a new blade flashes gold like a coin,” &c., &c.

“Wow. Sounds like you really got lucky, finding such a nice place to, uh. Sssset up camp?”

Jon knew Martin well enough to hear the judgment in his voice; if Salesa recognized it then he was an expert at pretending not to. “And it's only a two-minute walk away,” he’d said, instead of taking Martin’s bait. “It would be such a shame for my guests not to see it.”

“Oh, well. Maybe in a few days? It’s just, we’ve been outside nonstop for ages. It’s nice to be between four walls again. Besides, we don’t know the grounds as well as you do—and the border isn’t all that stable, you said? Right?”

“It is if you know how to follow it! I could accompany you—show you all the best sights, with no risk of wandering back out into the hellscape by mistake.”

“We’re just not really ready for that, I don’t think. Right, Jon?”

“Mm.”

“Are you sure? If it were me, a foray into a beautiful natural oasis would be just what I needed to convince myself that my peace—my sanctuary—is real.”

“If it is real,” Jon couldn’t stop himself from muttering.

Salesa remained impervious. “You would be surprised how difficult it is to feel fear in a place like that. I don’t think that is just the camera.”

“We‘ll think about it,” Martin conceded.

“Yes—you should both think about it. I am at your disposal whenever you change your mind.”

And so on that morning they had narrowly escaped. Would they had fared so well today. The problem was, on these early occasions Jon had interpreted Martin’s No thankses as being, well, Martin’s. But after a few more of Salesa’s sales pitches Jon began to second-guess that.

“Is it warm enough in here for you both?” Salesa had asked them last night at dinner. “I worry too much, perhaps. I only wish the place took less time to warm up in the morning. At breakfast time, in sunny weather like we've been having, I’ll bet you anything you like it’s warmer out there than in here.”

“It’s alright; we’re not too cold in the mornings either. Right, Jon?”

“Hm? Oh—no.”

“Perhaps we three could take breakfast out there, before the weather changes.”

“Ha—that’s right,” Martin had laughed. “I forgot you still had that out here. Weather changes. Brave new world, I guess.”

Salesa smirked and shrugged. “Well, braver than the rest of it.”

“R…ight. ‘We three,’ you said—so not Annabelle?”

“Mmmmno, probably not her. I have tried taking spiders outside before; they never seem to like it much.”

Nearly every day, here, Jon found a spider in their bathtub. The first time Martin had been with him. Martin had picked the thing up with his fingers and tried to coax it to leave out the window, but by the time he got there it’d crawled up his sleeve.

“Excuse me.”

Martin pulled back his own chair too and frowned up at him. “You okay?”

“Just needed the toilet.” He tried to arrange his mouth into a gentle smile. “Think I can do that on my own.”

The other two resumed their conversation the moment Jon left the dining room. Before the intervening walls muffled their voices Jon heard:

“I suppose that does sound pretty nice.”

“Pretty nice, you suppose? Martin, Martin—it’s a beautiful oasis! What a shame it will be if you leave this place having done no more than suppose about it.”

“It is a bit of a waste, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t need to sit on the ground, if that’s what concerns you. There are benches everywhere.”

He’d been just about to cross through a doorway and out of earshot when he froze, hearing his name:

“Oh, ha—not me, but, Jon might find that nice to know,” Martin said. “Thanks for.” And then silence.

Was that the whole reason he kept declining invitations to explore the grounds? To keep grass stains out of Jon’s trousers? Martin was the one who’d sat down on that godforsaken Extinction couch; why did he think—?

Not the point, Jon told himself as he sat on the toilet and set his forehead on the heels of his palms. He tried to watch the floor for spiders, but his eyes kept crossing. The point was that if—? If Martin was lying about wanting to stay inside—or, more charitably, if he was telling the truth but wanted that only because he thought Jon would have as dismal a time out in the garden as he had at ping-pong—then…?

He imagined holding hands with Martin while surrounded by green. Gravel crunching under their feet. Martin smiling, with sunlight caught in the strands of his hair that a slight breeze had blown upright.

“And if you get too warm,” he heard Salesa tell Martin, as he headed back into the dining room, “we can move into the shade of the pines! You know, they don’t just grow year-round? They also shed year-round. The floor under them is always carpeted in needles, so you need never get mud on your shoes.”

“Huh,” Martin laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”

“But of course there are benches there too,” Salesa added, his eyes flickering up to Jon.

As Jon hauled himself into his seat he asked, in a voice he hoped the strain made sound distracted ergo casual, “So, what, like a picnic, you mean.”

Not a fun picnic. Not very romantic, since their third wheel was the first to invite himself. Salesa neglected to mention how much wet grass they would have to trek through to get to his favorite spot; that there were benches everywhere didn’t matter since they couldn’t all three fit on one, so they ended up sat in the dirt after all—and n.b. it required a second trek to find a patch of dirt dry enough to sit on at this time of morning. Jon was so sick with fatigue by the time they sat down he could barely eat a thing, though he did dispatch most of Martin’s thermos of tea. His hands shook and buzzed, and felt clumsy, like they’d fallen asleep; he ended up getting more jam in the dirt than on Salesa’s soggy, pre-buttered toast. He felt as though the rest of his flesh had melted three feet to the left of his eyes, bones and mind. Eventually he elected to blame his dizziness on the sun. When his forehead and upper lip started to prickle, threatening sweat, he stood up and announced, “It’s too hot here.”

Or tried to stand, anyway. One leg had oozed just far enough out of its joint that it buckled when he tried to stand; indigo and fuchsia blotches overtook his sight. He pitched forward, free arm pinwheeling—might have fallen into the boiled eggs if Martin hadn’t caught him. “Jon! Are you okay?”

God, why was Martin so surprised? This must have been the fifth or sixth time he had asked him that question since they left the house. One time Jon had bent down to brush dirt off his leg and Martin had thought he was scratching his bandages. So he asked him were they itchy, had they started to peel, did they need changing again, were they cutting off his circulation (no, not yet, not yet, and no). How could someone be so attentive to imaginary ills and yet miss the real ones? At another point, an enormous blue dragonfly had buzzed past, and instead of Did you see that? Martin had turned around to ask Are you okay. Now, on this fifth or sixth occasion, for a few seconds of pure, nonsensical rage he wondered how Martin dared stoop to such emotional blackmail. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, Jon thought; aloud he snorted, as in malicious laughter. His throat felt thick, like he might cry.

“Fine, I’m just—sick of it here.” He pulled his arm free of Martin’s and overbalanced. Didn’t fall, just. Staggered a little.

“Should we move to the shade? We could try to find those famous pines, I guess.”

Jon sank back to the ground. “What about Salesa? Do we just leave him here?”

“Oh. Right,” said Martin. Salesa had eaten most of Jon’s share, and drunk both Jon’s and Martin’s shares of wine. Now he lay asleep in the dirt, head pillowed on one elbow, the other hand’s fingers curled round the stem of a glass still half full. “I guess, yeah? I mean he seems to know the place pretty well, so. It’s not like he’ll get lost out here.”

“We might, though.”

Martin sighed. “True. Should we just head back to our room, then? Maybe get you a snack.”

“Not hungry.”

“A statement, I meant.”

“Oh. Alright, sure,” Jon made himself say. “That sounds like—sure.”

So then they’d headed back, and only Martin had a free hand, and Jon was too tired by that point to distinguish his mind’s vague warning not to let Martin open the door from his usual pride on that subject—and that kind of pride never does seem as important when it’s your boyfriend offering. So he’d dismissed the warning and, well, look what happened.

When he got up from his knees and turned round Martin frowned at Jon. “Are you alright? You’re sat on the floor.”

Jon frowned, too—at the seam between the floor and the hallway’s opposite wall. “I was tired.”

“You hate sitting on the floor.”

“I sat on the ground out there,” Jon said, with a shrug that morphed into a nod in the direction they’d come from.

“Yeah, under duress,” Martin scoffed. “In the Extinction domain you wouldn’t even sit on the couch.”

There was something odd in Martin’s bringing that up now; somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jon could hear a pillar of thought crumbling. But he lacked the energy to find out which of his mind’s structures now stood crooked. “I think this floor is a lot cleaner than that couch,” he said instead, with an incredulous laugh.

“Even with the cobwebs?” Martin didn’t wait for Jon’s answering nod. “Fair enough,” he said, one hand on the back of his neck as he twisted it back and forth. He dropped the hand, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Looked at Jon again. “Yeah, okay. Guess we don’t have to deal with this right now. Let’s find you another bedroom first.”

“Maybe that’s just what Annabelle wants,” Jon muttered, deadpanning so he wouldn’t have to decide whether this was a joke.

Martin snorted. “I’ll risk it.”

Find was a generous way to put it; in fact there was another bedroom only two doors down. By the time Jon got his legs unfolded he could hear the squeak of a door swinging open down the hall. When he looked up, Martin said as their eyes met, “Nope—bed’s too small. You good there ‘til I find one that’ll work?”

“Seems that way.” Jon tried to smile, relief warring with his usual If you want something done right urge. In the quiet moment after Martin neglected to close that door and before he swung open the next one, Jon made himself add, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Oh wow,” Martin said of the next room, in whose doorway he’d stopped. “This one’s a lot nicer than ours. It’s got a balcony. Wallpaper’s pretty loud though. D’you think that’ll keep you awake?” Laughingly, “I know you don’t close your eyes to sleep anymore, so.”

“How loud is ‘pretty loud’?”

“Sort of a… dark, orangey red, with flowers?”

Jon shrugged. “I won’t see it at night.”

“Oh, god. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Should we do this one, then?” Instead of closing the door, Martin swung it the rest of the way open, then strode back to Jon’s side of the corridor, arm already outstretched. Jon managed to stand before Martin could reach him, but, as it had done outside, his vision went dark for a few seconds. He felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder before he could see his frown.

“You alright?” Martin asked yet again.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“It’s just—you don’t usually blink anymore, except for effect.”

“Oh.”

Out there, none of the watchers blinked. At first, soon after the change, Martin had asked Jon to try, “Because it just feels so weird. Like I’m under constant scrutiny. Literally constant, Jon. You get why that feels weird, right?” (Jon had agreed—sincerely, though he wondered why Martin needed to ask that question in a world whose central conceit was that being watched felt weird. He’d also chosen not to point out that his scrutiny, like that of Jonah Magnus, was not, technically, constant, since he did sometimes look at other things. But he still rehearsed this retort in his mind every time he remembered that conversation.) Turned out it was hard to time your blinks properly when your eyeballs didn’t need the moisture. He’d forget about it for who knew how long, then remember and overcompensate by blinking so often Martin at first thought he was exaggerating it on purpose as a joke. It got old fast, in Jon’s opinion, but even after he learnt Jon didn’t intend it as a joke Martin still found it funny. “You’re doing it again,” he’d say every time, shoulders wiggling. Eventually Jon had asked him,

“You know you don’t blink anymore either, right?”

“Oh god, don’t I?” When Jon shook his head, with a smile whose teeth he tried to keep covered, Martin squeezed his own eyes shut and pushed their lids back and forth with his fingers. “Ugh—gross!” And for the next half hour he’d done the whole forget-to-blink-for-five-minutes-then-do-it-ten-times-in-as-many-seconds routine, too. After that they had both agreed to pretend not to notice the lack of blinking. Jon figured he couldn’t hold it against Martin that he’d broken this rule though, since Jon himself had broken it first, on their first morning here:

“You blinked,” he had informed Martin as he watched him stir sugar into his tea. Martin, who had not only blinked but broken eye contact to make sure he dropped the sugar cube in the right place, replied with a scoff,

“Didn’t know it was a staring contest.”

“No, I mean—”

“Oh! I blinked!”

“…Right,” Jon said now. “I’m—it’s nothing.”

Martin sighed. He closed his eyes, but probably rolled them under their lids. Jon used the inspection of their new room as an excuse to look away, but took in nothing other than the presence of a large bed and the flowered wallpaper Martin had warned him about.

“‘Kay. If you’re sure.”

Taking a seat at the foot of the bed, Jon looked down at his grass-stained knees and prepared himself to ask, Look, does it matter? I’m about to lie down anyway, so, functionally speaking, yes, I am fine.

“So, you’ll be okay here for a bit while I go figure out what to do about the door?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll come check on you as soon as I know anything, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“Although—if you’re asleep, should I wake you up?”

“Yes,” Jon replied before Martin had even got the last word out. He heard a short, emphatic exhale, presumably of laughter. “Wait—how would you know, anyway?”

“Oh. Yeah, good point.”

Jon looked down at his shoes. His fingers throbbed in anticipation, but he figured he should spare Martin the horror of getting grass stains on a second bedroom’s counterpane. The first shoe he pulled off without untying, since he could step on its heel with the other one. But he had to bend over to reach the second one’s incongruously bright white laces, biting his lip when he felt his right femur poke past the bounds of its socket as between a cage’s bars. On his way back up his vision quivered like a heat mirage, but didn’t go dark. He scooched himself up to the head of the bed. Made sure to face the ceiling rather than the red wallpaper.

A few months into his tenure in the Archives, Jon had discovered that if you close your eyes at your desk, even just for a minute, you can trick your whole body into thinking you’ve been gentle with it. But that trick didn’t work anymore. Out there, this made sense; interposing his eyelids between himself and the world’s new horrors couldn’t push them out of his consciousness, any more than it had helped to close the curtains at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin’s sentimental attachment to sleep had baffled him, as had his insistence on closing his eyes even though they’d pop back open as soon as his body went limp. Here, though, Jon sympathized with Martin’s wish. He too missed that magic link between closed eyes and sleep. Probably he should just be grateful for this rest from knowing other people’s suffering? The thing he had wished to close his eyes against was gone here. But now that most of his bodily wants had synced up with his actions again, it felt… wrong, like a tangible loss, that he couldn’t assert It’s time for rest now by closing his eyelids. That it took effort to keep them joined. Jon even found himself missing the crust that used to stick them together on mornings after long sleep.

That should have been his first sensation on waking, their first morning here. After seventy-one hours his eyelids should’ve been practically super-glued together. Instead, they’d apparently stayed open the entire time. It wasn’t uncomfortable—he hadn’t woken up with them smarting or anything. Hadn’t noticed one way or the other; after all, when not forced awake by an alarm, one rarely notices the moment one opens one’s eyes in the morning. He just didn’t like knowing that he looked the same waking and sleeping. It didn’t make sense. The dreams hadn’t followed him here, so what was he watching? He could see nothing but the ceiling.

He rolled over, hoping to look out the window. Doors, technically. Between gauzy curtains he could make out only wrought-iron bars and the tops of a few trees. A nice view, he could tell; when he got his second wind he was sure he’d find it pretty. For now he wondered how much more energy debt he had put himself in by rolling over.

Drowning in debt? We can help!

How had he not foreseen how horrible it would be inside the Buried? The inability to move or speak without pain and loss of breath—“Just imagine,” he muttered sarcastically to the empty air, as though addressing his past self. “What might that be like.” He’d lived for years with the weight of exhaustion on his back—heavier at that time than it’d ever been before. And he knew how it felt to risk injury with every movement. What an odd frame of mind he must have lived in then, to think his magic healing wouldn’t let him get scratched up down there. Had he thought it would protect him from fear? I must save my friend from this horrible place! But also, If I get stuck there forever, no big deal; I deserve it, after all. There seemed something so arrogant about that now, that idea that deserving pain could somehow mitigate it. That because monsterhood made him less innocent, it would make him less of a victim. How could he have thought that, when he’d known pulling her out of there didn’t mean he forgave her? He should apologize to Daisy for—

Right. Nope, never mind.

He began to regret rolling over. If he planned to stay on his side like this for long, he shouldn’t leave his shoulder and hip dangling. He could already feel their joints beginning to slide apart. But his body had started to drift to that faraway place from which no grievance ever seemed urgent enough to recall it—neither pain now nor the threat of greater pain later. Nor the three cups of tea he’d drunk.

After he and Martin had fallen asleep on Salesa’s doorstep, Jon had vague memories of being led up the stairs to their bedroom, though he remembered neither being shaken awake nor getting into bed. Just a seventy-odd-hour blank spot, followed by pain of a kind he had thought he’d left behind.

It wasn’t that watchers couldn’t feel pain, after the change. They could, but it was like how real-world pain felt through the veil of a dream. Your actions didn’t affect it as directly as they should. In the Necropolis Martin had asked him, “How exactly does a leg wound make you faster?” If he’d had the courage to answer, at the time he would have said something about his own wounds not seeming important now that he had to tune out those of the whole world. That wasn’t it though, he knew now. Pain just worked differently out there. When Daisy attacked him, it had hurt—but the wound she left him hadn’t protested movement. Not until he and Martin entered the grounds of Upton House. You could bear weight on an injured leg just fine out there, because it wouldn’t hurt more when you stood on it than otherwise.

Sometimes, when his joints slid apart while he slept, he could still feel it in his dreams. Up until 13th January 2016 (for months after which date he dreamt Naomi Herne’s graveyard and nothing else), his sleeping mind used to craft scenarios to explain its own pain and panic to itself. Running from an exploding grenade, staying awake through surgery, that sort of thing. But over the years, as the sensation grew familiar, his dreams about it became less urgent, their anxieties more mundane. He’d shout for help from passing cars, then feel like he’d lied to the stranger who opened their door to him when it turned out running to get in the car hurt no more than standing still.

Even before the change, it’d been ages since he’d had to worry about that. Since the coma, Beholding had fixed all these accidents, the way it’d fixed the finger he tried to chop off. They wouldn’t reset with a clunk, the way they had when he used to fix them by hand. It was more like his body reverted to a version the Eye had saved before the moment of injury. When he tried to pull open a Push door he’d hear the first clunk, followed by about half a second of pain, then after a gentle burst of static—nothing. Just a door handle between his fingers that needed pushing. If he tripped on uneven pavement he might still go down, but his ankle wouldn’t hurt when he stood back up, and the scrapes on his hands would heal before he could inspect them. Here, though, in this place the Eye couldn’t see, Jon lacked such protections. He didn’t have the dreams either? And that was more than worth it as a tradeoff, he was sure. But it still smarted to remember that pain had been his first sensation waking up in an oasis. Not birdsong, not sunshine striped across linen, not the warm weight of another person next to him. He knew he’d come back to a place ruled by physics rather than fear because he’d woken up with gaps between his bones.

“Jon? Are you awake?”

“Hm? Oh. Yes.”

“Cool.” Martin sat down on what felt like the corner of bed nearest the door. “I think I know how to do this now.”

“How to put the doorknob back on?”

“Yeah. God, I still can’t believe it twisted clean off in my hand like that. With no warning—like, zero to sixty in less than a second. I mean, can you believe our luck? The thing’s perfectly functional, and then suddenly it just—comes off!”

“Er…”

“Oh, god, sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“What? Oh—hrkgh”—Jon rolled around to face Martin, hoping the little yelp he let out when his leg slopped back into joint would sound like a noise of exasperation rather than pain. He found Martin sat looking down at the severed doorknob which poked up from between his knees. “No, Martin, of course not, I know—”

“Still, I’m sorry about—”

“No, it’s—it’s fine?”

On that first morning, Jon had managed to get his limbs screwed back on properly without making enough noise to wake up Martin. He’d limped out of their room and down the hall, pushing doors open until he’d found a toilet, whereupon he sat to pee and marveled that the flush and sink still worked. It was bright enough inside that he hadn’t thought to try the light switch on his way in—too busy contorting his neck to look for the sun out the window. On his way out, though, he flicked it on, then off. Then on again and off again. How could it work, when there was no power grid the house could connect to? Automatically Jon tried to search his mind’s Eye for a domain based in a power plant or something. Right, no, of course—that power did not work here.

When he got back to their room he found Martin awake. “Oh—morning,” Jon told him with a shy laugh.

“It—it is morning, isn’t it,” Martin marveled. Then he asked if Jon could hand him the map sticking out of his backpack’s side pocket. (What good are maps when the very Earth logic no longer applied here, after all. But Martin was rubbish at geography, so Jon still had to provide the You Are Here sign with his finger for him.) Jon grabbed the map on his way back to bed, and was about to tell him about the miracles of plumbing and electricity he’d just witnessed—not to mention the bathtub he’d admired on the long trek from toilet to sink—when Martin frowned and asked, “Why are you limping?”

“Am I?” Jon had shrugged, then cleared his throat when the motion made his shoulder audibly click. “Daisy, must be.”

“No, Jon. That’s the wrong leg.”

He slid both legs out of sight under the blankets and handed Martin the map. “It’s nothing. It just… came off a bit. Last night."

Before Jon could add It’s fixed now though, Martin said, “I’m sorry, what?”

Jon had assumed Martin understood the kind of thing he meant, but that he’d misled him as to its degree—i.e., that Martin objected to his talking about a full hip dislocation like it mattered less than what happened with Daisy. So he’d said,

“No, sorry, not all the way off—”

And Martin just laughed. “What, and you taped it back up like—like an old computer cable?”

“Sort of, yeah? It—it does still work, more or less.”

“Right, of course. No need to get a new one, yet; you can just limp along with this one. No big deal! Just make sure you don’t pull too hard on it.”

“I mean.” By now he could sense Martin’s sarcasm, his bitterness; that didn’t mean he knew what to do with them. So he'd said with a huff of laughter, “I can’t just send for a new one. That’s—that’s not how bodies work. You have to….” Wait for it to sort itself out was the natural end to that sentence. But he hadn’t been sure he could say that without opening a can of worms.

“Wait so… what actually happened? Are you okay?”

Only at this point had Jon recognized Martin’s response as one of incomprehension. What happened exactly? he had asked, too, when Jon told him the ice-cream anecdote. Did no one ever listen when you told them about these things?

“Nothing. Never mind. It’s fine.”

“Oh come on.”

“It’s. Fine! It’s not important.”

And then for days Martin kept alluding to it. Like some kind of reminder to Jon that he hadn’t opened up, disguised as a joke. Every time something came out or fell down he’d mutter, “So it came off, you might say.” Eventually they’d fallen out over it, and now neither one could come near the phrase without this song and dance.

“Don’t worry about it, Martin,” Jon assured him now; “I’m over it.”

“…Uh huh. Well, putting that to one side for the moment—I think I can fix this?”

“Oh? Great!—”

“—Yeah! It should be simple, actually. I think I just need to replace the screw that fell out? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be anything actually broken, just, you know,” with an awkward laugh, “the screw lives on the wrong side of the door now. But if we can just put a new one in the door should be fine.” He looked to Jon as if for help plotting their next steps.

“I—I don’t, um. Think we have one.”

Martin’s shoulders dropped; the corners of his mouth tightened. “Yeah, I know we don’t have one, Jon. I just mean, we need to find out where Salesa keeps them.”

“Oh!” Jon replied, in a brighter tone. Then he registered what this meant. “Oh. Right.”

“Y…eah.”

“Any idea where to look?”

They checked what seemed to Martin the most obvious place first. Salesa used one of the ground-floor drawing rooms as a sort of repository for everything he’d left as yet unpacked—all the practical items he hadn’t been able to repurpose as toys, plus some antiques he’d been too fond of or too nervous to part with. Two nights ago, Salesa had noticed the state of Jon’s and Martin’s shoelaces, and insisted they let him replace them with some from this little warehouse. “Please, come with me; I’ve nothing to hide. You can have a look around, see if I have anything that might help you on your journey….” As he said this he’d counted to two on his fingers, as though listing off attractions they should be sure not to miss.

Jon watched Martin perk right up at this. All week Salesa had kept pleading with them to tell him about any luxuries they had wanted while touring the apocalypse, so he could try to find something to fulfill those wants. “Well, I—I don’t know about luxuries,” Martin had ventured the third time this came up. “But I do think we might run out of bandages soon, so. If you’ve any extra?”

“Of course, of course, yes, how prudent of you, always with one eye on the future. Must be the Beholding in you.” (Neither Jon nor Martin knew what to say to that.) “But there will be plenty of time for that. I meant something for now, while you are here, while you don’t need to think of things like that.” And sure enough, each time Salesa had come to them with presents from his little warehouse (booze, butterfly nets, more booze, antique bathing suits, &c.), he’d forgot about Martin’s homely request for gauze and tape. Martin insisted they change the dressing on Jon’s leg every day; by now they’d run through the bandages he brought from Daisy’s safehouse. So when Salesa suggested they accompany him to his repository, Martin said,

“Sure, yeah! That sounds really helpful.” (Salesa clutched his heart as though he’d waited all his life to hear such praise.) “Er. The things in your warehouse, though. They’re not L—um.” Leitners, Martin had almost called them. “You don’t think they’ll develop any… strange properties, when we leave here, do you?”

“Of course not,” Salesa had answered, stopping and turning all the way around in the corridor to face Martin with a frown. “Martin, I promise, only my antiques are cursed—and even then, not all of them.” He’d resumed the walk toward his little warehouse, but turned around again and held up a hand, as if to preempt a question. “There are, indeed, yes, some items out there, touched by the Corruption, which can pass their infection on to other things they come in contact with. But, no,” he went on, his voice fighting off a joyous laugh, “no, the only item I have like that does almost the opposite.”

“Oh.”

Salesa nodded, but did not turn around this time. “Strange little thing. It’s an antique syringe that, so long as you keep it near you, repels the Crawling Rot. I like to think it helped dispatch that insect thing Annabelle chased away. But if you try to get rid of it,” he added in a darker tone, “all the sickness, the bugs, the smells, even stains on your clothes—everything disgusting that it’s kept away—they remember who you are, and they hunger for you more than anyone else. The man who sold it to me….” He shook his head ruefully, hand now resting on the door.

“Was eaten alive by mosquitoes,” Jon muttered.

“Something like that, yes,” said Salesa, as he jerked open the door.

Jon hated the way his and Martin’s shoes looked now. He hadn’t had to put new laces on a pair of old, dirty shoes since he was a kid, and the contrast looked wrong—the same way starched collars and slicked-back hair on kids look wrong. Jon’s trainers were gray, their laces a slightly darker gray, so these white ones wouldn’t have looked quite right even without the dirt. Martin’s had once been white, but their original laces were broad and flat, while these were narrow and more rounded. The replacements’ thin, clinical white lines looked something between depressing and menacing. Too much like spider web; too much like the stitching on Nikola’s minions. When they came undone on this morning’s walk, Jon had made sure to tread on them in the mud a few times before tying them back up. Poor Dr. Thompson’s syringe must have retained some of its power here, though, because they still looked pristine. Jon wondered if it had no effect on spiders, or if without it this whole place would have been draped in cobwebs.

Martin seemed pleased with their haul, though. Despite Salesa’s amnesia on the subject, his little warehouse held more plasters, gauze, medical tape, antibacterial ointment, alcohol wipes—the list went on—than one man could ever use. In a strange, raw moment Jon liked to pretend he hadn’t seen, Salesa had wrung his hands as his eyes passed over this hoard. His lip had quivered. He’d practically begged Martin to take the whole lot away with them. “What harm will come to me here? And if it does come, what good will it do, protecting one lonely old man from skinned knees and paper cuts? The two of you—where you are going—the gravity of your mission!” At this point he’d seized one of each their hands. “Everything I have that even might help, you must take it. Please.”

“I—yeah,” Martin stuttered. “This is—really helpful, yeah. We’ll take as much as we can fit in our bags.”

Salesa had let go their hands by this point, and crossed his arms. “Right, yes, bags, of course, the bags. Are you sure you don’t want my truck?”

“Oh, well, thanks, but I don’t think either of us knows how to—”

“To drive a truck?” Salesa uncrossed his arms and began to reach for Martin’s shoulder. “I could teach you—”

“It won’t work without the camera anyway,” pointed out Jon. “We have to walk.”

Martin sighed. ”That too. ‘The journey will be the journey,’ as Jon keeps saying.”

“I said that once,” Jon protested.

No such success on this return visit. They found a small pile of miscellaneous screws, one of which Martin said would work (though it was the wrong color, he alleged, and had clearly been meant for some other purpose), but the screwdriver they needed remained elusive. “I mean, I can’t be sure they’re not in here—the place is as bad as Gertrude’s storage unit. We could spend all day here and still not be sure—”

“Let’s not do that,” said Jon, pushing an always-warm candlestick with a pool of always-melted wax out of Martin’s way with his sleeve for what felt like the hundredth time.

“No arguments here.”

“Where to next?”

“I guess it makes sense that they’re not here. This room’s all stuff Salesa brought, and why would he bring home-repair stuff when he didn’t even know where he’d wind up.”

“Except for the screws.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t look like he keeps screws here, remember? There’s just a couple random ones lying around, like he forgot to put them away or something.”

Jon peered between the clouds in his mind, trying to catch sight of Martin’s thought train. “So you’re saying the screwdriver should be…?”

“Somewhere less… frequented, I guess? They’ll probably still be wherever they were when Salesa found the place.”

“Not somewhere that was open to the public, then.”

Martin sighed. ”I mean yeah, probably. Not that that narrows it down much.”

“Somewhere… banal, less posh.”

“Not sure how much less posh you can get than this place. But yeah, I guess. Have I mentioned how weird it is you’re the one who keeps asking me this stuff?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to help? I just…” Jon closed his eyes, which itched with the warehouse’s dust, and rubbed their lids with an index finger. Odd that his eyes weren’t immune to dust, when leaving them open for seventy straight hours hadn’t bothered them. And why didn’t the syringe keep dust away? In Dr. Snow’s day (not far removed from Smirke’s, n.b.), Jon seemed to recall that dust had been used as a euphemism for all waste, including the human kind Dr. Snow had found in the cholera water. It was like how people today use filth—hence the word dustbin. And hadn’t Elias once called the Corruption Filth? Jon opened his eyes and watched Martin swirl back to full color. “I can’t seem to corral my thoughts here,” he concluded.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s actually kind of fun, it’s just—I’m so used to being the sidekick,” Martin laughed. “Besides, I miss my eldritch Google.”

“Should I go back out there, ask the Eye about it, then come back?”

Another laugh, this one less awkward. “No. That won’t work, remember? This place is a ‘blind spot,’ you said.” The words in inverted commas he said with a frown and in a deeper voice.

“Right, right. I forgot,” Jon sighed. He lowered himself to the floor and examined the finger he’d felt snap back into place when he let go his cane. During the five seconds he’d allowed himself to entertain it, the idea of heading back out there had excited him a little. A few minutes to check on Basira, verify what Salesa had told them about his life before the change, make sure the world hadn’t somehow ended twice over. Give himself a few minutes’ freedom of movement, for that matter. Out there he could run, jump, open jars, pick up full mugs of tea without worrying a screw in his hand would come loose and make him drop them. He could stand up as quickly as he thought the words, I think I’ll stand up now, without his vision going dark. God, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter! He would just know every tripping hazard and every look on Martin’s face, without having to ask these clumsy human eyes to show them to him.

“Honestly, it’d almost feel worth it to go back out there just to formulate a plan to find them. At least I can think out there.”

“Hey.” Martin elbowed him slightly in the ribs. Jon fought with himself not to resent the very gentleness of it. “I think I’ll come up with the plan for once, thanks. Some of us can think just fine here.”

Was it just because of Hopworth that Martin’s elbow barely touched him? Or because Martin feared that Jon would break in here, in a way he’d learnt not to fear out there?

“Oh—I know,” Martin said, clicking his fingers and pointing them at Jon like a gun. “We passed a shed this morning, remember?”

Jon squinted. “Not even remotely.”

“No yeah—on our walk with Salesa. I tried to ask him what it was for, but he kept droning on and on. By the time he stopped talking I’d forgot about it.”

“Huh,” said Jon, to show he was listening.

“That seems like a good place to keep screws and all, right? If it’s so nondescript you can’t even remember it.”

“Sure.”

“Great! Are you ready now, or d’you need to sit for a bit longer?”

“I’m ready.” This time he accepted Martin’s hand, not keen to trip on something cursed.

“Anyway, if we don’t find them and Salesa’s still out there, we can ask him on the way back.”

Jon’s heart shrunk before the prospect of inviting Salesa to be the hero of their story. Please, Mr. Salesa, save us from our screwdriver-less hell! They would never hear the end of it. It would inevitably remind the old man of the countless times in his youth when he’d been the only man in the antiques trade who knew where to find some priceless treasure. Let Salesa open their stuck door and they’d find Pandora’s bloody box of stories behind it. He winced and let out a grunt as of pain before he could stop himself. “Let’s not tell him, if we can help it.”

“Of course we should tell him,” Martin protested. “We can’t just leave it broken like this.”

“But if we can fix it without his help—?”

“What? No! Even then, he’s our host. We have to tell him. It’s his door, he deserves to know its—I don’t know, history?” Martin sighed, shoving one hand in his hair and holding out the other. “If he’s got a doorknob whose screw comes loose a lot, he should know that, so he can tighten it next time before it gets out of hand. I mean, we’re lucky it only chipped the paint when it—when it fell off, you know?” (Jon, for his part, hadn’t even noticed this chip of paint Martin referred to.) “And—and suppose he’s only got this one screw left,” tapping the one in his pocket, “and the next time it happens his last screw rolls under the door like this one did.”

“And what is he supposed to do to prevent that scenario? There aren’t exactly any hardware stores in the apocalypse.”

Big sigh. “Yeah, fair enough. I still think we should tell him. It just feels wrong to hide secrets from him about his own house, you know?”

“Fine,” sighed Jon in turn. ”Should we tell him about the scorch marks on the window sill as well?”

“No?” Martin turned to him with an incredulous look. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I mean—I was, but—”

“Please tell me you get how that’s different.”

“Enlighten me,” Jon said wearily.

“Seriously? Of course you don’t tell him about the?—those were already there! If we’d put them there, then yeah, of course we’d need to tell him.”

“So it’s about confessing your guilt, then. Not about what Salesa makes of the information.”

“I mean, I guess?” Martin looked perplexed, lips drawn into his mouth. “Actually, no. Because those are just scorch marks, they don’t—you can still get into a room with scorch marks on the windowsill, Jon.”

“And yet if you’d left them you’d tell him about it?”

“Well yeah but if I told him about it now it’d just be like I was—leaving him a bad review, or something. It’d just be rude. ‘Lovely place you have, Salesa. So kind of you to share your limited provisions with us refugees from the apocalypse. Too bad you gave us a room whose windowsill could use repainting!’”

Jon laughed. “Yes, alright, I get it.”

Martin’s sigh of relief seemed only a little exaggerated. If he hadn’t wiped pretend sweat from his brow Jon might have bought it. “Okay, that’s good, ‘cause”—when Jon kept laughing, Martin cut himself off. “Hang on, were you joking this whole time?”

“Sort of?”

“Were you just playing devil’s advocate or something?”

“I mean—not exactly? For the first seventy or eighty percent of it I was completely serious.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. It was just—fun. It felt nice to take a definite sta—aaaa-a-aa.” Something in Jon’s lower back went wrong somehow. An SI joint, probably? The pain caught him so much by surprise that when he stepped with that side’s leg he stumbled forward.

“Whoa!” Martin’s hand closed around his upper arm. Jon yelped again, from panic more than hurt this time, as his shoulder thunked in its socket. “Jon! Are you okay?”

“Don’t do that,” Jon hissed, trying lamely to shake his arm out of Martin’s grip. It didn’t work. The attempt just made his own arm ache, and produce more ominous clunking sounds.

“I—what?”

“It was fine. I don’t need you to catch me.”

Martin let his arm go. “You were about to fall on your face, Jon.”

“I’d already caught myself—just fine—with this.” He gestured to his cane, stirring its handle like a joystick.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know, look?”

“It’s not—?” Martin scoffed. “Look when? It’s not like a rational calculation. I can’t just go ‘Beep. Beep. See human trip. Will human fall on face? If yes, press A to catch! If not, press B to’— what, stand there and do nothing? It’s just human nature; when you see someone falling that’s just what you do. I’m not going to apologize for not calculating the risk properly.”

“Fine! Yes, okay, you’re right. Forget I said anything.” Throwing up his free hand in defeat, Jon set off again—tried to stride, but it was hard to do that with a limp. Even with his cane, he couldn’t step evenly enough to achieve a decisive gait.

It was fine, Jon reminded himself. He’d had this injury (if you could call it that) a thousand times before. When it came on suddenly like this it never stuck around long. Sure, yeah, for now every step hurt like an urgent crisis. But any second it would right itself as quickly as it had come undone.

“No, no, I understand! Point taken! Note to future Martin,” the latter shouted from behind Jon, voice troubled by hurried steps; “next time let him fall and break his bloody nose.”

Trusting Martin to shout directions if he went the wrong way, Jon pressed on, rehearsing comebacks in his mind. Is this not a boundary I’m allowed to set? You don’t let me read statements in front of you. Isn’t that part of human—isn’t that my nature, too?

Oh, yes, human nature, that must be it. You didn’t lunge after Salesa at ping-pong the other day, did you? I saw you opening doors for Melanie when she got back from India. You stopped for a while, did you know that? You all did, everyone in the Archives. And then—it’s the strangest thing!—you all started up again after Delano. Maybe you lot don’t see the common factor here; people always do seem to think it’s more polite not to notice.

So what if I had broken my nose? You nearly broke my shoulder, catching me like that. Does that not matter because you can’t see it? Because it wouldn’t scar?

They were all too petty to say aloud. Too incongruous with the quiet. He could hear his own footsteps, and Martin’s, and the clank of his cane’s metal segments each time it hit the ground, and a few crows exclaiming about something exciting they’d found on his right. Nothing else.

“Looks like Salesa went inside,” Martin shouted from behind him.

Jon stopped walking and turned around. “What?”

“Left a couple things out here, but yeah.” Martin jogged to catch up with him, from a greater distance than Jon would have expected given how much limping slowed him down. He must have veered off course to inspect the clearing Salesa had vacated. In one hand he carried an empty wine glass by its stem, which he lifted to show Jon.

“Huh.”

“Yeah.” When he caught up with Jon, Martin stood still and panted. “Guess it won’t be as easy to ask him about it as we thought. If we don’t find what we need in there,” he added, glancing demonstratively to something behind Jon.

Following Martin’s eyes, Jon finally saw the shed. Nondescript boards, worn black and white by the elements. Surrounded by hedges three months overgrown.

Turned out it wasn’t a shed anymore, though—Salesa had converted it to a chicken coop. “Explains the boiled eggs,” shrugged Jon.

“God, they’re adorable. Do you think it’s okay to pet one?” Martin crouched in front of a black hen with a puffball of feathers on top of her head. (Martin called her a hen, anyway, and Jon trusted his authority on animals other than cats). “I don’t really know, er, ch—hicken etiquette,” he mused, voice shot through with nervous laughter.

The black hen sat alone in a little box, and didn't seem to want attention. A little red one they’d found strutting around the coop, however, ventured right up to Martin and cocked her head, like she expected him to give her a present. While Martin cooed over her and the other chickens, Jon went outside and laid flat on his back in the grass under a tree. “Take your time,” he shouted. “I’m happy here.”

Sure enough, when Martin emerged from the coop and helped him stand back up, whatever cog in Jon’s pelvis or spine he had jammed earlier was turning again. And by the time they got back to the house, Martin had talked himself into the idea that maybe all the house’s doorknobs that looked like theirs came loose a lot, and Salesa had taken to keeping the screwdriver to fix them in, say, the hall closet, or in their toilet’s under-sink cabinet.

“I think we’re gonna have to find Salesa and ask him about it,” concluded Martin, when these locations turned up nothing they wanted either.

“If you’re sure.”

Jon sat down on the closed toilet seat. Hadn’t that been what he said just before the last time he sat down on the lid of a toilet before Martin? He’d dutifully turned away, that time, as Martin undressed, wanting to make sure he knew he’d still let him have some privacy. But then, of course: “Where should I put these, do you think? —Er, my clothes I mean.”

“Oh. Um.” Jon had turned his head to look at the stain on Daisy’s ceiling, for what must have been the tenth time already. “I can hold onto them if you like.” Which then meant Martin had to get them back on before Jon could undress for his own shower and hand him his clothes. As he’d piled his trousers into Martin’s hands a tape recorder fell out of one pocket and crashed to the floor, ejecting the tape with Peter’s statement on it. “Shit,” Jon had hissed and ducked to the floor to pick it up, trusting the slit in his towel to reveal nothing worse than thigh.

“Shit,” Martin echoed. “I hope that wasn’t your phone.”

“No—just the recorder.” Still on the floor, Jon clicked its little door shut and pressed play. Sound of waves, static, footsteps. He switched it off. “Seems alright.” Thank god, he stopped himself from adding. Jon didn’t want to lose this one, this record of how he’d found Martin, in case he lost him again. But he didn’t want Martin to hear the sounds of the Lonely again so soon, either. That was why he’d stayed with Martin while he showered, rather than waiting in the safehouse living room. He wouldn’t have insisted on it, of course. He didn’t exactly believe Martin would disappear again? But long showers were such a cliché of lonely people, and steam looked so much like the mist on Peter’s beach, and when Jon asked how he felt about it, Martin said that thought hadn’t occurred to him,

“But as soon as you started to say that, I.” He’d stood with his teeth bared, half smiling half grimacing, and bringing the tips of his fingers together and apart over and over. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Heh—it scares me too now, if I’m honest. That’s… a good sign, I guess, right?”

They had come a long way since then, Jon told himself. They were more comfortable with each other now. On their first morning here, they’d showered separately, but after (Martin’s) breakfast Jon’s irritation had faded and he had resolved to pretend along with Martin that this was a holiday. So they’d got to use the enormous bathtub after all— the one at whose soap dish Jon now found himself staring as he sat on the lid of the toilet. When the heat made him dizzier, as he’d known it would, he had relished getting to rest his cheek on Martin’s arm along the rim of the tub, where it had grown cool and soft in the few minutes he’d kept it above the water.

“Let’s have lunch first,” Martin said now; “you’re getting all….” While he looked for the right word he dropped his shoulders and jaw, and mimicked a thousand-yard stare. “Abstract, again. Distant. People food should help a little, yeah? Tie you back down to this plane a bit?”

“Probably,” Jon agreed, smiling at Martin’s tact.

But to get to the kitchen they had to pass through the dining room—where they found Salesa snoring in a chair at the head of the table. “Let’s just ask him now before he gets up and moves again,” maintained Martin. Jon shrugged his acquiescence and leant in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. Why hadn’t he used the toilet before letting Martin lead him here?

”Um, Mikaele?” Martin inched a few steps toward him, but a distance of several feet still gaped between them. “We have something to ask you, if that’s—hello? Mikaele?”

A likely-sounding gap between snores—but nope. Still sound asleep. Salesa sighed, licked his lips, then began to snore again.

“Mikaele Salesa,” called out Jon from his post at the door, rather less gently. “Mikaele Salesa!” He turned to Martin, meaning to suggest that they eat now and trust the smell of food to wake Salesa, but stopped himself when he saw Martin creeping timidly toward Salesa with his hand outstretched.

“Sorry to disturbyouMikaele,” Martin squeaked out, so quickly that the words blended together. He gave Salesa’s shoulder the lightest possible tap with one fingertip, then snatched his hand back with a grimace of regret as Salesa’s own hand reached up, belatedly, as if to swat Martin’s away. “Oh, good, you’re—”

Salesa interrupted with a snore. Martin sighed and turned to Jon. “What d’you think? Should I shake him?”

Jon pulled out a neighboring chair and sat on it. “No need for anything so drastic. Try poking him a few more times first.”

“Right.”

Once he’d tired of rolling his cane between his palms Jon bent down to set it on the floor. He’d learnt his lesson about trying to hang it on the back of these chairs, though in this fog it had taken several incidents to stick. Every time it ended up crashing to the floor, when he scooched his chair back or when Martin tried to reach an arm around him. Then again—he conjectured, bent halfway to the floor with the cane still in his hand—if he did drop it, that might wake Salesa.

Two nights ago Jon had got up to use the toilet, and knocked his cane down from the wall on his way back to bed in the dark. It crashed to the floor; Jon swore and hopped on one foot back from it, imagining the other foot’s poor toenail smashed to jagged pieces as it thumped to life with pain. Meanwhile he heard rustling from the bed, and Martin’s voice, querulous with sleep. “Jon? Jon, what’s—happened, what—are you.”

“Nothing it’s fine go back to”—he’d hissed as his knee decided it had enough of hopping—“don’t get up, just. I’m gonna turn on the light, if that’s alright.”

“What fell? Are you okay?”

“The cane. I knocked it over in the dark.”

“Oh.”

He got no verbal response about the light, but guessed Martin had nodded.

From a distance his toe looked alright—no blood, anyway, so he could walk on it without risking the carpet. Jon picked his cane up from the floor and steered himself to the foot of the bed, where he sat down. His toenail had chipped, it looked like—only a little, but in that way that leaves a long crack. If he tried to pick it straight he’d tear out a big chunk and it would bleed. But if he left it like this it would snag on the sheets, on his socks, until some loose thread tore the chunk of nail off for him. What could he do for this kind of thing here? At home he’d file the nail down around the chip, then cover it in clear nail polish, and just hope that’d hold out until the crack grew out and he could clip it without bleeding. But here? A plaster would have to do, he guessed. They had plenty of those now.

Jon hated bandaging, ever since Prentiss—in much the same way that Martin hated sleeping in his pants. He’d had time to learn all its discomforts. How sweaty they got, the way they stuck to your hairs, the way lint collected in the adhesive residue they left. Didn’t help he associated them with that time of paranoia. They didn’t make him act paranoid, understand; he just habitually thought of bandage-wearing as what paranoid people do. It made an echo of his contempt for that time’s Jon cling to his perceptions of current Jon. On his first morning here, when the ones on his shin where Daisy’d bit him peeled off in the shower, he hadn’t bothered to replace them. After all, the bite only hurt when something pulled on it or poked or scraped against it, so he figured his trousers would provide enough protective barrier.

“That healed fast,” Martin had remarked, when he noticed the undressed wound in the bath—and then, when he looked again, “Yyyyeah I dunno, I think you might still want to bandage that. We don’t want dirt getting in there.”

“Do I have to?”

“Humor me.”

When they got back to their room he’d let Martin dress it himself. Martin had sucked air through his teeth. “This is days old—it shouldn’t be all hot and red like this.” According to him these were early signs of infection, which would get worse if they didn’t take better care of it—i.e., keep the wound freshly bandaged and ointmented. Jon refrained from pointing out that when the cut on his throat had got like that he’d left it uncovered and been fine. But he did ask what worse meant. “Really bad,” testified Martin. “I had a cut on my finger get infected once. Really disgusting. You don’t want to know.”

Jon smiled at him, raised his eyebrows. “After Jared’s mortal garden I think I can handle it.”

Martin smiled too, but wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “There was pus involved.”

“Oh, god! How could you tell me that!” gasped Jon, hand to his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it also hurt? A lot? And it can make you ill. So we should try to avoid it, yeah?”

He’d tried to disavow the disappointment in his sigh by exaggerating it. “Yes, alright.”

“Don’t know why you’d want to leave it exposed anyway. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Well, sure, when you do that,” Jon had muttered, flinching away. As he asked the question Martin had lightly tapped the skin around the gash through its new bandage. A second or two later Jon added, “Less than when I got it? It’s hard to tell; it’s… different here.”

With a sigh that caught on phlegm and irritation, Martin asked, “Different how?”

He hadn’t been able to answer then, but he knew now, of course. It hurt the way things do when you’re awake. Not with the constant smart and throb it had when he’d first got it, but, it snagged on things now. Had opinions on how he moved. When he bent his knee more than ninety degrees, that stretched the skin around it painfully. Also if he knelt, since then the floor would press against it through his trousers. And stepping with that foot felt odd. Didn’t hurt, exactly, but sort of… rattled? Like a bad bruise would. This all seemed so small, compared to the moment of terror for his life that he’d felt when Daisy bit into him—that gaping wound in his new self-conception, which his healing powers had sewn up so quickly. The ritual of bandaging it every evening seemed so otiose, so laughably superstitious. He despised the thought of adding another step to it.

While Jon went on examining his toe, Martin asked, “What was the... thumping. It sounded like.”

“Oh—no—I didn’t fall; it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No—yes—stop, it’s nothing, don’t get up. I just forgot I left it on the—leaning against the doorwall” (he hadn’t decided in time whether to say doorway or wall and ended up with half of each) “so I walked into it, er, toe first.”

“Oh,” Martin said again. Jon could hear him subsiding against the pillows behind him. “It came down?”

Big sigh. Jon’s fingernails met his palms. He set his foot back on the floor, and when his hip whined in its socket he clenched his teeth and kept them that way. In his mind he heard days’ worth of similar jokes. When he couldn’t get a jammed jar open: So you’re saying it wouldn’t… come off? When they got back their clean laundry: Can you believe all those grass stains came out?—oh, sorry: that they came off, I meant. Always with an innocent laugh, like Jon’s original phrasing had been just, what, like a Freudian slip, rather than something perfectly comprehensible that Martin had refused to engage with, taken from him, and rendered meaningless on purpose. “No it did not,” he snapped, “and I would appreciate it if you’d quit throwing that back in my face.”

“Whoa, uh. O…kay. What’s… going on here exactly?”

“You—?”

His heart plummeted; his face stung with embarrassment. Came down, Martin had said—not came off. He’d just been confirming that Jon’s cane had fallen down.

“Oh, god—nothing, never mind. You did nothing.”

“Well that’s obviously not true.”

“I just—I thought you’d said ‘came off.’ I thought you meant, had my toe ‘come off.’”

“Oh,” said Martin, yet again. When Jon turned to look he found him still blinking and squinting against the light. “Do you… need me to not say that anymore?”

“Not when I—?” Not when I’ve hurt myself, Jon meant. But Martin hadn’t done that, so this grievance didn’t actually mean anything. He’d been seeing patterns where there were none, and now that he’d seen through the illusion Jon knew again that Martin never would say it like that. “No, it’s fine. Do whatever you want.”

Martin turned the tail end of his yawn into a huff of false laughter. “Nope. Still don’t believe you.”

“Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense with the information you have. It’s all just—me. Being cryptic again.”

“Okay, uh. Are you waiting for me to disagree? ‘Cause, uh. Yup—you’re still being cryptic. No arguments there.”

Jon just sighed, really scraping the back of his throat with it. Almost a scoff.

“Sooo do you wanna fill me in, or.”

“No?” With an incredulous laugh. “Well, yes, just.”

He hadn’t known how to start from there, while so tightly wound and defensive. It seemed cruel to raise such a sensitive subject when Martin sounded so eager to go back to sleep. Or maybe he just didn’t want to hear Martin whimper apologies. Didn’t want to deal with how fake they would sound. They wouldn’t be fake; he knew that. But they would sound fake, which meant it would take an effort of will, a deliberate exercise of empathy, to accept them as real. He wasn’t in the mood to hear yet another person say I’m sorry, I didn’t know; much less to respond with the requisite It’s okay; you didn’t know. It would take a strength of conviction he didn’t have right now.

“Y—you don’t have to explain it tonight? I’ll just, I’ll just not use that phrase anymore, and maybe in the morning you’ll be less in the mood to lash out at me for things that don’t make sense.”

And what was there to say to that? It had taken Jon three tries to force out, “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Good night, Jon.”

“Good night. I still need the light, for.”

“That’s fine. Just turn it off when you come back to bed.”

“You won’t wake him up,” a new voice interjected.

Annabelle. Jon couldn’t see her, but he had learnt by now to recognize that voice, with its insufferable upbeat teasing inflection like every sentence she said was a riddle. He caught a glimpse of movement, then heard the click of her shoes on the floor. She must have poked her head round the doorway at the far end of the table while she spoke, then scuttled off again. At last he got a good look at her, as she put her blonde-and-gray head through the closer door.

“He’s a very heavy sleeper,” she informed them, with a smile and a shrug. “You can shake him all you want; it’s not going to work.”

Martin cleared his throat—trying to catch Jon’s attention, presumably. But Jon feared Annabelle would vanish again if he took his eyes off her. Not that he wanted her here, either, but?—he at least wanted to know which direction she went when she disappeared.

“What are you doing here, Annabelle.”

She shrugged two of her shoulders. “Just offering you some advice.” Then she used the momentum from the shrug to push herself backward, out of the doorway back into the corridor. Before the last of her hands disappeared off to the right, she waved to both of them.

“Well, how about some ‘advice’ about this, then—”

“She’s already gone, Martin.”

“Seriously? God—which way did she go?” Jon pointed; Martin bolted down the hallway after her. “Oi! Annabelle!”

“Shhh!”

“Annabelle! Do you know where Salesa keeps the—”

Jon did his best to follow him, praying all his limbs would go on straight this time. “Don’t!”

“What? Why not?” he heard, from the other side of the wall. Thankfully he could no longer hear Martin’s pounding footsteps. He overtook him in the hallway, just about able to make out his face around the dark swirls in his vision. “She’s as likely to know as Salesa, right?” Martin continued. “And it’s not like she’d lie about it. I mean, what would be the point?”

“I just don’t think we should give her any kind of advantage over us,” Jon snarled. The attempt to keep his voice down made the words come out sounding nastier than he intended.

Martin scoffed. “You don’t think maybe this is a bit more important than your stupid principle about not accepting help from her?”

“Is it?” Jon took hold of Martin’s sleeve, having just now caught up to him. “The new room’s fine. It’s even nicer than the old one, right? We could just stay there.”

“I already told you, Jon. I’m not just gonna leave it like this.”

“’Til Salesa sobers up, I meant.”

“If we have to, yeah, but—? All our stuff’s in that room. The statements’re in there.”

“I just don’t think we should show her that kind of vulnerability,” Jon hissed, shifting from foot to foot in his eagerness either to sit down or go somewhere else. “I don’t want to give Annabelle something she can use over us.”

“How does this make us more vulnerable than we are eating her food?”

“It doesn’t, alright? That doesn’t mean we should add more to the pile!” He watched Martin shrug and open his mouth, but cut him off in advance: “Last time we had this argument you were the one maintaining she was dangerous.”

It was on their first night here—their first awake here, anyway. They’d been heading back to their room, Martin lamenting that he’d not packed anything to sleep in when they left Daisy’s safehouse. “Won’t make much difference to me,” Jon had shrugged at first.

Martin had shaken his head, grimaced at something in his imagination. “I hate sleeping in my pants. It’s just gross. Dunno why anyone would choose to do it.”

“How is it gross?” Jon had laughed. He’d expected to hear some weird thing about its being unsanitary for that much leg to touch sheets that only got washed every two weeks, and to argue back that in that case shouldn’t he sleep in his socks. Disdain for the body seemed damn near universal, and yet manifested so differently in each person whose habits Jon had got to know up close. Georgie had heard that underarm hair helped wick away the smell of sweat—so she let that hair grow out, but shaved the ones on her stomach for fear they’d smell like navel lint. And Daisy, a woman who used to sniff her used-up plasters before throwing them in the bin, would spray cologne in the toilet every time she left it. Jon had enjoyed getting to know which of bodily self-contempt’s myriad forms Martin subscribed to.

But this turned out not to be one of them. Instead Martin explained, “It’s so sweaty. Like sitting on a leather couch in shorts, except the leather’s your other leg? Ugh. I hate waking up slippery.”

“That’s why I put a pillow between mine,” laughed Jon. “Suppose I will miss Trevor’s t-shirt, though. Now that I don’t have to worry about showing up in people’s dreams like that.”

“Oh, god, right—what is it? ‘You don’t have to be faster than the bear’—?”

“‘You just have to be faster than your friends,'” Jon completed, in the most sinister Ceaseless-Watcher voice he could muster. Martin snorted with laughter.

And then they’d opened the door to discover Annabelle had done them a fucking turndown service. Quilt folded back, mints on the pillows, and a pile of old-timey striped pajamas at the foot of the bed. “Huh. Cree…py, but convenient, I guess. Least they’re not black and white, right?” Martin unfolded the green-striped shirt on top, then handed it with its matching trousers to Jon. “These ones must be yours.”

“Mm.” Jon let Martin hand him the pajamas, then tossed them onto the chair in the opposite corner of the room (from which chair they promptly fell to the floor). The mint from his side of the bed he deposited in the bin under the bedside table.

“So who’s our good fairy, d’you think? Salesa, or.”

“Annabelle,” Jon hissed. “Salesa was with us all through dinner.”

Martin nodded and sighed. “Yeah.” He sat down on the bed, still regarding the other set of garments—these ones striped yellow and blue—with a puzzled frown. “God, I’ll look like a clown in these. You sure I won’t give you nightmares about the Unknowing?”

But Jon said nothing, still hoping he could avoid weighing in on Martin’s choice whether or not to accept Annabelle’s… gifts.

“It’s probably Salesa’s stuff, at least. Not Annabelle’s. I mean,” Martin mused with a brave laugh, “he’s got a lot of weird outfits on hand apparently.”

“Unless she wove them out of cobwebs.”

“That’s not a thing,” Martin groaned, making himself laugh too. “Spider webs aren’t strong enough to use as thread.”

“Not natural ones, maybe,” Jon said with a shrug and a careful half smile. With no less care, he turned the sheets and counterpane back up on his side of the bed, restoring the way it’d looked when he and Martin made up the bed that morning. Stacked the frontmost pillow back upright against the one behind it. Punched it a little, more as a way to break the silence than because it looked too fluffy. Then sat down in front of them and put his shoe up on the bedside table so he could untie it—glancing first at Martin to make sure he didn’t disapprove.

“I mean, I guess,” Martin mused meanwhile. “Not sure why she’d bother, though. Maybe it’s”—with a gasp and a smile Jon could hear in his voice—“maybe she’s put poison in the threads, and that’s why yours and mine are different. Mine’s got—I dunno, some kind of self-esteem poison, like, a reverse SSRI, to make me feel like you don’t need me, so when she kidnaps you I won’t try to save you. And yours….”

As Jon pulled off his now-untied shoe one of the bones in his hip jabbed against some bit of soft tissue it wasn’t supposed to touch. He gasped and dropped his shoe. It thudded on the floor.

“You alright?”

“Fine. Some kind of dex drain, probably.”

“Ha.”

After a silence, Martin spoke again: “Are you sure you’re okay staying here for a bit? Sorry—I kinda bulldozed over your objections earlier.”

Jon finished untying his other shoe, then paused to think while he shook the cramp out of his hand. “No,” he decided. “You didn’t bulldoze, you just…questioned. And you were right to.”

“Still, I mean. It might not be a great idea to stick around here with the spider lady who’s had it in for us since day one. Have you re-listened to the tapes from the day Prentiss attacked, by the way, since you got them back from the Not-Sasha thing?”

“Right—the spider, yes.”

“Yeah, exactly! You wouldn’t even have broke through that wall if it hadn’t been for the spider there!”

Jon nodded and scrubbed at his eyes, trying to muster the energy to match Martin’s tone. This was an important conversation to have, he knew. And a part of him shuddered with recognition to hear Martin talk about those tapes. He had re-listened to them—first at Georgie’s, one night in the small hours as he cleaned her kitchen, thinking clearly for the first time in months and trying to pinpoint the exact moment his thoughts had been clouded with paranoia, so that he might know what signs to look for if something else tried to infect his mind like that. And then again after Basira found the jar of ashes. That time he’d just wanted to suck all the marrow he could from the memory of Martin with his sensible corkscrew and his first answer to Why are you here, even if it did mean having to hear himself ask if Martin was a ghost. A few weeks later, however, after Hilltop Road, he’d done a fair bit of obsessing over the spider thing with Prentiss, yeah. He just wished he could remember what conclusion he’d come to.

All he could remember was going for those tapes yet again only to find them missing from his drawer. But he’d been chasing phantoms all day; it was late at night by then, and when he’d dashed out to tell Basira his fear Annabelle had stolen them, stolen his memories from him just like the Not-Them had, he’d stood there over her and Daisy’s frankenbag for what felt like an hour, mouth open, unable to utter a sound. It felt too much like going to wake up his grandmother after a dream. So he’d told himself to sleep on it—that he’d probably left the tapes in some other obvious place, and would find them in the morning. And when he remembered his panic, the next day at lunch, and checked his drawer again, the tapes were back, right where he expected them. He’d dismissed it as a dream after all. But no—Martin must have borrowed them. He must’ve been worried about the Web, too.

“It’s… it should be okay. I don’t think it’ll be like that here.”

Martin sighed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“That thing where you just—decide how something is without even telling me why you think so. I mean it’s one thing out there, when you ‘know everything’” (this in a false deep voice) “and can’t possibly share it all, but here? When you’re just guessing, like everyone else? Why don’t you think it’ll be like that here? And what does ‘like that’ even mean?”

“I'm sorry—you’re right—I just mean, I don’t think she has her powers here. Based on what Salesa said about the camera, and on what happens when I try to use my powers….”

“Salesa just said the Eye can’t see this place, though. What about that insect thing he said found its way in?”

“I mean.” Jon shrugged. “We managed to find our way here without the Eye’s help.”

“Yeah, but if the Web has no power here then how could she have called me on a payphone? She had to have known where I was to do that, yeah? And she couldn’t know that from here unless the Web told her to do it, right?”

“Maybe? We don’t even know if the Web works like that.”

“Told her to do it, made her want to do it, gave her the tools to do it, whatever. You know what I mean. Look—we know the Eye’s not totally blind here, since it can still feed on statements. Right?”

Jon wondered now how either one of them could have been so sure of that. “Apparently,” he liked to think he had said—but more likely he’d replied simply, “Right.”

“So then by that logic the Web still probably likes it when she—I don’t know, when she manipulates people here. It probably still gets, like, live tweets from her about it. How do we know it can’t use that information to weave more plots around us?”

“If that’s even how it works,” Jon had replied again. “The other fears don’t work like that—they don’t plan, they just.” He tried to sort his intuition into Martin’s live tweet metaphor. “The fears just like their agents’ tweets, they don’t… comment on them, o-or build new opinions on what they’ve read. It boosts the avatar's… popularity, I guess? Their influence?” Jon hadn’t even logged into Twitter since before the Archives. “But unless the Web is different from all the other fears, it doesn’t—it’s not her boss. It doesn’t come up with the schemes, it just.”

“Isn’t it literally called the ‘Spinner of Schemes’, though? The ‘Mother of Puppets’?”

And Jon couldn’t remember what he’d said to brush off that one.

“Of course she’s dangerous,” Martin said now. “I just don’t see what sinister plot of hers we could possibly be enabling by asking her where to find screwdrivers.”

Jon scoffed. “She’s with the Web, Martin! The ‘Mother of Puppets,’ the ‘Spinner of Schemes’? You’re not supposed to be able to see how the threads connect. Anything we ask her gives her another opening to sink her hooks into.”

“So what, you just don’t want to owe her a favor?”

“Yes?” Jon blinked—on purpose, needless to say. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I mean—why do you think she’s here, Martin, ingratiating herself with us?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the one place on Earth that hasn’t been turned into a hell dimension?”

Jon snarled and set his head in his free hand. The dizziness was coming back. “In her statement Annabelle said the trick to manipulating people was to make sure they always either over or underestimate you.”

“Okay,” granted Martin, as though prompting Jon to explain how this was relevant.

“She’s trying to humanize herself,” he maintained, scratching an imaginary itch behind his glasses. “We shouldn’t let her.”

“I mean, she is physically more human here.”

“Is she? She doesn’t seem to be withdrawing from the Web; she’s not—like this.” Jon turned his wrist in a circle next to his head.

“Yeah but she’s been here for months, right? Maybe she’s passed through that stage.”

A bitter huff of laughter. “So you’re saying she’s reformed.”

“No. I’m saying the fact she’s not all—loopy here doesn’t necessarily mean she still has any power.”

“She’s got four arms and six eyes, Martin!”

“And you sleep with your eyes open and summon tape recorders, Jon!”

“Well,” mused Jon with a wry smile, “not on purpose.”

“That’s my point! You’ve only got—vestiges here, yeah? I’m not saying we should trust her; I don’t wanna be friends or anything. I’m just saying I don’t think the actual concrete danger she poses here is what’s making you hate the idea of asking her for directions.”

“What about that insect thing Salesa said she chased off. Does that not sound spidery to you?”

“We don’t know that! Maybe she waved his syringe at it.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath through his nose. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to bring up this next part; he feared it might make Martin too afraid to stay here any longer. “I think she’s plotting against us.”

Blink. “Well, yeah. Of course she is. She’s been plotting against us for—”

“Here, I mean. I mean, I think that’s why she’s here. She’s been hiding from the Eye on purpose so she could lure us into her trap with her spindly little”—Jon thought of the earrings that dangled from Annabelle’s ears like flies, swinging with her every sudden movement. Unconsciously he struck out with his hand as if to catch one, closing his fist around empty air. “Without my being able to see either her or the trap. At best, she’s here gathering information about us so she can report it back to her master.” He pictured the thousand spiders he’d seen birthed during Francis’s nightmare crawling back and forth with messages between here and the nearest Web domain—

“I thought you said the fears didn’t work that way,” pursued Martin—

“And every little thing we tell her is one more thread she can use to pull on us.”

“Okay, but, even if you’re right, ‘Hey Annabelle, our doorknob’s busted, can you help us find the tools to fix it’ isn’t actually a fact about us.”

“But that’s just the best-case scenario, Martin! The worst-case scenario is that she predicted we’d get locked out of our room, or even loosened the screw herself—”

“Not this again—”

“—because she knew we’d have to ask her for help, and wherever she tells us to look for the screwdriver is where she’s laid her trap! Think about it—this couldn’t happen outside the range of the camera, right? It would only work in a place where I can’t just know where to find something. That’s the only scenario where we’d ever ask her for directions.” Martin sighed, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes. Jon looked right at him, hoping to catch them on their way back down. “What if her plan is to trap us here forever so we can’t go stop Elias? What if by trusting her with this, we give her the tools to keep the world like this forever?”

Again Martin sighed. He bit his lip, at last seeming not to have an argument lined up already.

“I can’t actually stop you from going after her”—Jon heard Martin scoff, but pressed on—“but I can’t take part in this.”

“You sort of already did stop me, Jon.” He lifted his arm, pointing vaguely in the direction she’d gone. “We can’t catch up with her now.”

That wasn’t quite true, Jon knew; Martin had chosen to stop and listen to him. Instead of pointing this out in words Jon smiled, meekly, and reached for Martin’s hand. “Guess that’s true. Are you, er, ready for lunch now?”

His answering scoff sounded fond, indulgent, rather than incredulous. “Yeah, alright.”

With Martin’s hand still in his, Jon turned around—an awkward business, while holding hands in such a narrow passage—and began to walk back towards the dining room. At the end of the corridor stood a tall, thin, many-limbed figure, holding a water carafe, a stack of glasses, and four steaming plates of food.

“You boys getting hungry?” As she stepped toward them her shoes clacked against the floor. How had they not heard her approach? And what was she doing back at that end of the corridor?

“How did you—?”

“I have my ways. I’ve brought lunch for you both, if you’re amenable.”

“Oh—well, thanks, you’re, you’re just in time, actually.” Jon didn’t dare look away from Annabelle Cane long enough to confirm this, but suspected Martin had directed that last bit at him as much as her. “Can I help you with those?”

Annabelle managed to shrug without dislodging anything from the four plates in her hands. “You can take the napkins if you want,” she said, extending toward Martin the forearm from which they hung.

Jon sat back down in the chair he’d left at a haphazard angle—though it felt weird, since he usually sat on the table’s other side. He thanked Martin when he handed him a napkin, and allowed Annabelle to set an empty glass and a plate of food in front of him. It was a pasta dish, with clams—from a can, he reminded himself. A can and a jar of pasta sauce. Couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes to put together.

“Salesa’s still out of it,” observed Martin. “Don’t think he’ll make too much of his.”

“A shame,” Annabelle agreed. She set a plate down in front of the sleeping Salesa anyway. “Maybe the smell of food’ll wake him up.”

“Are you going to eat with us?” Martin asked, as he and Jon both watched her deposit a fourth plate across the table from them.

“I may as well. We do still have to eat to live here, don’t we?” Jon could tell she meant this comment as an invitation for him to join their conversation, but he didn’t intend to take her bait. “Besides,” Annabelle went on, “this way you’ll know I’ve not saved the best for myself.” With one hand she picked up her own plate again; another of her long, thin arms reached out to take Jon’s plate.

He dragged it to the side, out of her reach. “No, thank you.”

“Alright. Martin,” she said, looking over at him with a patient, patronizing smile. “Will you switch plates with me?”

“Oh, my god,” Martin groaned into his hand. “Sure, why not.”

Something small and gray skittered across the table toward her. For half a second Annabelle took her eyes from Martin. Her nostrils flared; one of her eyes twitched; Jon heard a stifled squawk from behind her closed lips as she swept the skittery thing over her edge of the table. He made no such effort to hide his scoff. Did she think she could play nice, by declining to hold little spider conversations in front of them? That they’d think she was on their side as long as they couldn’t see her chatting to her little spies?

“Thank you,” Annabelle sing-songed meanwhile, returning her gaze to Martin. “You’re sweet.”

On their first morning here, after showering and then shuddering back into their filthy clothes, Jon and Martin had barely left their room before Annabelle dangled herself in their path, with cups of tea (Jon refused his) and an offer to show them to the pantry. From this tour Jon had concluded that all food in this place was tainted by her influence. And he didn’t actually feel hungry at that point? He remembered Martin remarking on his hunger before they’d both fallen asleep, but Jon had felt only tired. Surely that meant he still didn’t need food here, right? It’d been like that before the change, after the coma—he’d needed sleep and statements to keep up his strength, but could function just fine without… people food. So he’d resolved to accept nothing offered him here—or at least, nothing Salesa and Annabelle hadn’t already given him and Martin without their consent. No tea, none of Salesa’s booze, no use of the huge industrial washing machines, no food.

That resolution lasted about nine hours. He knew because on that first day time still felt like such a novelty he and Martin had counted every one. Once he’d tried and failed to compel Salesa—once he’d heard him give a statement and managed to space out for half of it, rather than transcending himself in the ecstasy of vicarious fear—Jon started to grow conscious of his hunger. After two hours he felt shaky; after four he started picking quarrels, first just with Annabelle when she showed up with snacks, then with Salesa, and then even with Martin; after six he felt first hot, then cold. Finally around the eight-hour mark he was hiding tears over an untied shoelace, and figured it was worth finding out how much of this torment people food could solve. He sat through dinner, flaunting his empty plate—then stole to the pantry for something he could make himself. Settled for dry toast and raisins. “Couldn’t you find the jam?” Martin had asked him.

“Didn’t think of it,” Jon lied, once he’d got his throat round a lump of under-chewed toast.

“You want me to get some for you? That looks pretty depressing without it,” Martin said, with his eyebrows and the line of his mouth both raised in a pitying smile.

“Better make it one of the sealed jars.”

“What, so Annabelle can’t have got to it?” Jon nodded, chewing so as to have neither to smile back nor decide not to. “You know she made the bread, right.”

Of course she had. Jon dropped his head onto his fists. “Fuck.”

“What did you think?” mused Martin with a laugh. “That Salesa just popped down to the supermarket?”

“I don’t know—that they’d taken it from the freezer, maybe?”

“I mean, that’s possible,” Martin granted with a shrug. “Should I get you that jam?”

Big sigh. “Fine.”

In reality he’d stared up at the row of jam jars in Salesa’s pantry for a full ten seconds before deciding not to have any. He feared spiders would spill out of the jar onto his hand as soon as he got it open. But he also feared he might not be able to open it at all—only hurt himself trying. Way back in their first year in the Archives together, Martin had once seen him struggling to get open the jar where he kept paperclips. Jon hadn’t realized he was being watched—or, that is, that Martin was watching him. In the Archives the sense of someone watching was so omnipresent one soon lost the ability to distinguish Elias’s evil Eye from other, more mundane eyes. Anyway, after three minutes’ effort and nothing to show for it but a misplaced MCP joint in his thumb, Jon had given up on paper-clipping the photos Tim had pilfered for him to their relevant statement and begun hunting through his desk drawers for a stapler instead. And then a high-pitched pop above his head made him startle so badly he gasped, choked on his own spit, and flung the picture in his hand across the room like a paper airplane.

Around the sound of his own cough he could hear Martin shouting Sorry, and Tim and Sasha laughing on the other side of the wall. Martin’s laugh soon joined theirs, though it sounded desperate, sheepish. He dove after the photo Jon had dropped, and then, when he came back with it, explained, “Got the paperclips for you.”

Jon frowned. “This is a photograph, Martin.”

“No, I mean—?” His laugh came out like a whimper; he picked the unlidded jar up an inch off the table, then set it back down. “Here.”

Okay, so, not exactly an auspicious start, but, it still became a thing? Martin opening his paperclip jar. At first he’d wished he could just remember not to seal it so tightly; he could get it just fine when he stopped turning it earlier. At least when the weather hadn’t changed since the last time he opened it. But then when they all started leaving the Archives less often, and the break-room fridge filled up with condiments that all seemed to have twist-off lids… he’d kind of liked that? Martin would hand him the peanut-butter jar, with its lid off and pinned to its side with one finger, before Jon had even finished asking for it. This seemed to be the pattern behind all his early positive impressions of Martin: the jar lids, the corkscrew, the way he managed to make mealtimes at the Institute feel like proper breaks. Martin had seemed like such an oaf to him at first—clumsy, absent-minded, always seeming to think that if he professed enough good will with his smiles and cups of tea and I know you won’t like this, but, then no one would notice his impertinent comments and all the doors he left wide open. All the dogs and worms and spiders he let in. He’d seemed to Jon the human embodiment of a fly left undone—more so than ever after the morning he’d walked in on him wearing naught but frog-print boxer shorts. But he had this easy grace with things that needed twisting off. Banana peels, bottle caps, wine corks, worms.

And then when he came back after the Unknowing Martin was never around. Jon and Basira and Melanie all lived in the Archives, like Martin had two years before, but by that point he wasn’t on Could you open this for me? terms with any of them. But he hadn’t needed people food anymore, and if he subluxed a joint it would heal instantly anyway. So he’d just struggled and sworn, feeling stupid for shrinking from the pain even after having chopped off his own finger. And it got easier with practice. By the time he and Martin reunited, he’d got so used to it that sometimes he’d hand jars to Martin already unlidded. Martin hadn’t seemed to notice. Finally, one evening a day or two after that row they had over the ice-cream thing, Jon had opened a jar of pasta sauce (he’d taken up people food again at Daisy’s safehouse, if only to make their time there feel more like a regular holiday), and reached out to hand it to Martin—then paused and retracted the hand that gripped the jar, remembering his promise to be more open about.

“This is, um.” He’d glanced up at Martin, then back to the floor as the latter said,

“Huh?”

“This is one of those things that’s got better since the coma. Since I became an avatar. I can, um. I can open jars now? Without.” He’d almost said Without hurting myself, then remembered that wasn’t technically true. Deep breath. “Without lasting harm. It—it hurts for a second? But the Eye heals it instantly. That's why I’ve been.”

“Oh,” Martin said, seeming to stall for time as he absorbed this information. He accepted the jar which Jon again held out to him, and turned it around in his hands, eyes on its label. “Yeah, I—I noticed, you’re really good at opening jars now,” he went on with a laugh. Again he paused, and blew a sigh out of his mouth. “Right. Okay. Thank you for telling me?”

“I’ll try and be better about….”

Martin nodded, turning back to the stove and beginning to stir sauce into the pasta. “Yeah. I, uh—I didn’t know that was why you used to need me to open them for you?” Since the other night’s argument, Jon had gathered as much. He nodded too. “I thought you were just, heh, you know. Weaker than me.”

“I mean, I am—”

“Well yeah but you know what I mean.”

“I do. I should’ve told you.”

“No, I—actually I think you’re in the clear on that one, if I’m honest. I just—it’s just weird? I thought I was done having to” (another blown-out sigh punctuated his speech) “having to reframe stuff I thought was normal around some unseen horror. Sorry,” he added when he’d finished beating sauce off Daisy’s wooden spoon; “that’s probably not a great way to.”

“No—it’s fine?”

“Suppose it sounds like an exaggeration, now, after all we’ve.”

Mechanically, Jon nodded, without deciding whether he agreed or not. Around an awkward laugh, he confessed, “‘Unseen horror’ might be the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone describe it.”

“Er. Yikes? That sounds like you might need some better friends, Jon.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, laughing again. “I—I just mean, it’s nice to hear something other than?” Jon paused and pushed his little fingers back the hundred or so degrees they each would go. First the left, then the right. Other than what? Well, doubt, for a start. Though most of the doubt he heard from outside himself was implicit. Careful silence from people he told about it; requests people made of him seemingly just so he’d have to tell them he couldn’t do that; impatience, bafflement, suspicion from strangers. Why are you out of breath, the woman behind the Immigration desk had asked him at O’Hare, as if breathlessness incriminated him somehow. But that wasn’t the response he’d subconsciously measured Martin’s phrase against. What he had in mind now was more like… bland support. Hurried support. Assurances quick and dutiful, yet so vague he could tell the people who gave them were thinking only of the mistakes they might make, if they dared to acknowledge what he’d said with any more than half a sentence. The I’m sorry you’re in pain equivalents of Right away, Mr. Sims.

That was it—unseen horror was an original thought. Martin had put it in his own words, rather than either borrowing Jon’s or using none at all. “Other than a platitude.”

So at Salesa’s when Martin came back with the jam jar he handed it to Jon. Jon made a show of trying to open it, but could feel his middle finger threatening to leave its top half behind. It frightened him, in a way he’d forgot was even possible. For such a long time now, pain had just been pain? He’d grown so unused to the threat it held for normal people. The threat of actual danger, of injury. He’d set down the jar on the table in front of him, and crossed his arms in front of it.

“Can’t get it, huh?” Martin asked; Jon shook his head.

How much danger, though, he wondered. Earlier that day, after he and Martin got out of the bath, his left index finger had popped out while he was buttoning his shirt. It still ached when he used the finger, or thought about the cracking sound it had made—but didn’t throb anymore without provocation. Not much danger there; not even much inconvenience. He supposed if he hurt his middle finger too then he might have some trouble with his trouser button the next time he had to pee? Right, yes, what a cross to bear. I hurt myself doing x; now it hurts to do x. But it already hurt to do x, didn’t it? Didn’t x always hurt, before the change? Why did he so fear to face an hour or a day where it hurt more than usual, but not so much I can’t do it?

“So you’re saying it won’t… come off?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“What if I open it and it’s full of spiders?”

Martin had smiled, rolled his eyes, pulled the jar toward him, and twisted its lid off with a pop. “See? No spiders in this one.

“While you’re here, Annabelle,” Jon heard Martin say, “I don’t suppose you know anything about where Salesa keeps his screwdrivers?”

Annabelle tapped her chin and said, very pleasantly, “Hmmm. Perhaps they’re where he left them after the last time something broke.”

Martin’s lips drew closer together. “Yeah,” he nodded, “probably. Any idea where that might be?”

“Perhaps he keeps them next to whatever screw comes loose most often.”

“And do you know which screw that is?”

She shook her head, though who knew whether that meant she didn’t know or merely that she didn’t mean to tell him. “Perhaps he only uses the item when he’s alone,” she said, with a shrug and a sly smile.

“…Ew.” Annabelle cackled like a school kid pulling a prank. “Right, great,” sighed Martin. “Thanks a lot. Forget it. You done, Jon?”

Jon glanced sleepily down at his plate. Only half empty, but cold by now. “Yes.”

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Annabelle,” Martin said, sliding his and Jon’s plates toward her side of the table.

Instead of energy, lunch gave Jon only a slight queasy feeling—like one gets from eating sweets on an empty stomach.

“God”—hissed Martin, with clenched fists, as they ambled back to their room—“‘Perhaps he keeps them next to the screw that gets loose most often.’ Yeah, figured that out already, thanks! Can you even believe her? Sitting down to eat with us, as if she’s all ready to help, and then the best she can do is,” he paused and straightened, then said with a finger to his chin in imitation of Annabelle, “‘Oh, hm, guess he only uses it alone. Oh well!’”

“Don’t know what else you expected.”

Martin sighed, his arms crossed now. “Guess I should’ve done what you asked after all, since that accomplished nothing.” After a moment he went on, “Least it wasn’t a trap, right? I tried not to give her anything she could use against us.” With a smile Jon could hear without looking at him, “You notice how I pointedly didn’t offer to help clean up?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jon confessed, laughing a little.

“No?!” Again Martin paused on his feet, frowning, incredulous. Jon wished he wouldn’t; standing still made him dizzier, took more effort than walking, like that poor woman in Oliver’s domain. Daniela? Martin shook his head at himself. “Ugh—then who knows if she noticed, either. I thought I was being so obvious!”

“I mean—”

“Wait, hold up, let’s double back.”

“Are you going to go back and tell her it was on purpose?”

“No, just”—he echoed Jon’s laugh—“no, of course not. I just wanted to try that wing’s toilets next. Didn’t want her to see which way we were going.”

“Oh.” By this time Martin had turned around and started to walk the other way; Jon hung back. “Er. I thought—I thought we were going to our room first.”

“What, the new one you mean?” asked Martin, turning his head around to look back at him.

“…Yes,” Jon decided. Until this moment he’d forgot about that, and been daydreaming of their original bed.

“Sure, if you want. Do you need a break?”

“I… I think so, yes.”

Martin turned the rest of the way around, shuffled toward Jon and looked him over, with a concerned frown. He took his free hand between his fingers and thumb, brushing the latter over Jon’s knuckles. “Yeah, okay. You still seem pretty out of it. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” answered Jon, though he smiled in relief at Martin’s willingness to change the plan for him.

“Food didn’t help?”

His stomach seemed hung with cobwebs; his mind, like a large room with half its lights burnt out. His light head seemed attached to his heavy, aching body only by a string, like a balloon tied to an Open-House sign. He still needed the toilet. “Not really?”

“Yeah, thought not. You need a statement, huh.”

Jon shrugged, avoiding Martin’s eyes. “Probably.”

In the interim bedroom Jon sat down at the edge of the bed, bent down over his legs, and untied his shoes, wondering why his life always came back around to this. His hip got stuck like a drawer that’s been pulled out crooked, so he had to lever himself back up with his arms, trapping fistfuls of counterpane between thumbs and the meat of his palms. It made his hands cramp, but that helped—the way it would have helped to bite his finger. When he’d got himself upright again he sat and blinked for a few seconds, hoping each time he opened his eyes that his vision would’ve cleared.

Martin sat down next to him and put his hand on Jon’s arm. “You’re blinking again. You okay?”

“Just… kind of dizzy? It’s an Eye thing.”

He let Martin pull him towards him until their shoulders touched. “Yeah. Makes sense. Nap should help. Statement’ll definitely help.”

“Right.”

They agreed to lie on the bed rather than properly in it, not wanting to have to put the covers back together afterward. Jon set his head on that squishy part of Martin’s chest where it started to give way to armpit, knowing to angle himself so the scar tissue pressed the hollow part of his cheek rather than anywhere bonier. It was normally dangerous to lie half on his back, half on his side like this, but he’d lately discovered he could use Martin’s leg to keep his hip from falling off. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder twitching and cramping, whether to pull the joint out or keep it in who could tell. But it’d be fine as long as he shrugged the arm every few minutes.

All the ways they knew to spend time in each other’s company had come together in Scotland, where he’d had none of these worries. Even after the change, on their journey, with nothing but sleeping bags between them and desecrated earth, he’d borne only the same aches he’d been ignoring since he read the statement that ended the world. Jon imagined lying next to Martin like this on the cold stone of a tomb in the Necropolis, surrounded by guardian angels’ malicious laughter. Not feeling the cold, or the grain of the stone against his ankles and the bandage on his shin—just knowing it was there, like when you watch someone suffer those things in a movie. Less vivid even than a statement about lying on a tomb; in Naomi Herne’s nightmare he’d felt the stone in her hands.

“Hfff, okay—ready to get back to it?”

“Mrrr.”

“…Jon, are you asleep?”

He shrugged his hanging shoulder. “No.”

Nose laugh. “Come on, wake up.”

“Mmrrrrrrr.”

“My arm’s asleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It won’t wake up ‘till you get up off of it, Jon,” said Martin, gently, between huffs of laughter.

“Hmr.” Jon rolled away to face the wall with the window, freeing Martin’s arm.

“Do you want me to go look without you?”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.”

Cold air washed over his newly-exposed arm, ribcage, side of face, the outside of his sore hip. It was cold on this Martinless side of the bed, too. He rolled back over into the shadow of his warmth, but that still wasn’t as good as the real thing. Maybe he could pull the covers halfway out and roll himself up in them.

“Aaagh, no—Jon”—Martin’s cool hand on top of his as he tried to hook his fingers round the counterpane— “we’re trying to leave the room the way we found it, remember?”

“Hmmmrrgh.” He consented to leave his hand still when Martin’s departed from it. A few seconds later, a rustle against his ear, the smell of smoke and old clothes.

“Here.”

Jon crunched the jacket down so it wouldn’t itch his ear. “You won’t need it?”

“Probably not.”

“Hm.”

“I’ll be back for it if I have to go outside again, yeah?”

“Okay.”

In his mind’s eye they trudged into the wind, hand in hand. It blew Martin’s hood off his head, and inverted Jon’s cane like an umbrella. He shrunk himself further under Martin’s jacket, relishing the new pockets of warmth he created as his calves met his thighs and his hands gripped his shoulders.

“Ooookay…! Wish me luck?”

“Good luck,” managed Jon around a yawn.

Martin had been right about the wallpaper. Not only was the red too bright to look at comfortably; it also had the kind of flowered pattern just complex enough that every time you look back at it you’re compelled to double-check where it repeats. Every fourth stripe was the same as the first, right? Not every second? And that weird little scroll-shaped petal—he’d seen that one too recently. Was it the same as?—No, that one was a bud. He pulled Martin’s jacket up so it covered his eyes.

They’d put their jackets through the laundry with everything else, their first day here, but that hadn’t got the smell out. Enough time had passed between the burning building and their arrival here for the smoke to embed itself permanently into their jackets and shoes, like how duffel bags once taken camping always smell like barbecue. And everything they’d ever shoved in those backpacks still had some of that odd, sour, Ritz-cracker smell of clothes left unwashed too long.

Daisy used to smell like smoke and laundry, too, once she quit smelling like dirt. It was the smell of the old green sleeping bag she’d zipped up to Basira’s. She said she’d have showered it off if she could; she didn’t like it. To her it was a Hunt smell—it reminded her of her clearing in the woods. But there weren’t any showers in the Archives. She’d point this out every time, in the same wry voice, so Jon was sure she’d intended the metaphor. No showers in the Archives: you couldn’t hide your sins in a temple of the Eye. This had comforted Jon—or maybe flattered was the word, though he knew her better than to think she’d have done so on purpose. He just wasn’t sure he agreed. He’d hid his sins pretty well from himself, after the coma. It was easy; you just had to lose track of scale. No one could remember all of them at once, after all. Others had had to point the important ones out to him.

Were those footsteps he could hear out there? Not Annabelle’s—? No; her clicky shoes. These were blunter. Could be Salesa, awake at last, come to invite them to play a game with him. “How do you two feel about… foosball?” he would say, drawing out the last word in a husky whisper. Only then would he swing the door wide open to reveal himself in a shiny jersey, shorts, and studded shoes. He set his fists out before him and turned them in semicircles, pretending to manipulate the plastic rods of a foosball table. Jon curled still more tightly into himself at the thought of Salesa’s face, how his showman’s grin would crumple like a hole in a cellophane wrapper when he realized the fun one had gone and that he faced only the Archivist. “Oh—hello. Jon, is it? Where has your lovely Martin gone?”

“Oh, uh. Martin needs a screwdriver to fix our door, so I.”

He watched Martin march his silent way slowly, solemnly down a corridor that grew darker, grayer, vaguer with every step until the webs that lined its every side and hung in laces from the ceiling began to catch on his shoes, his belt, his glasses.

“I let him go off alone.”

Jon’s whole body flinched. He gasped awake—oh shit. How had he just let Martin go? He had to—couldn’t stay here—find Martin—keep him out of Annabelle’s clutches—

Stick-thin bristling spider legs tapped the floor of his mind like fingers on a table. Find Martin. Jon instructed himself to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed and reach down to grab his shoes. He twitched one finger. See? You can do this. In a minute he’d try again and be able to move his whole arm, push himself up onto one hand. Find Martin.

Also probably go to the toilet. With an empty bladder his head would be clearer, he could figure out which direction to look first.

After Hopworth, while he laid on the couch in his office waiting for the strength to throw himself into the Buried, Jon had imagined Martin and Georgie and Basira and Melanie all stood around that coffin, wearing black and holding flowers. Denise? No, it definitely had three syllables. A scattered applause began as Jonah Magnus emerged from his office, closed behind him the door printed with poor dead Bouchard’s name, and stepped up to the podium. Georgie, not knowing his face, began to clap; Melanie stayed her hands. Elagnus’s shirt, hidden behind suit except for the collar, was striped in black and white. A ball and chain hung from his sleeve like an enormous cufflink. He opened his mouth to speak, and a tape recorder began to hiss.

“What are you doing here?” asked Basira.

“Never underestimate how much I care for the tools I use, Detective. I wouldn’t miss my Archivist’s big day.”

“So they just let you out for this.”

Elias shrugged with false modesty. His chain jingled. “When I asked them nicely.”

“How did you even know he was dead?” interposed Melanie. “Basira, did you tell him about the—”

“She didn’t have to,” said Elias, raising his voice to cut Melanie’s off. “Nothing escapes my notice, and I like to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.”

“Well—it’s—good to see you.” Tim’s voice. Unconvincing, even then.

Jon steeled himself to hear his own voice stammer out, “Yes—y-yes!” but heard nothing except the hissing of the… tape. Yes, that was the wrong tape—the one from his birthday.

“Anyway. Somebody mentioned cake.” Elias jingled as he arranged his hands under his chin.

Tim scoffed. “They didn’t serve cake at my funeral.”

“I preferred going out for ice cream anyway,” pronounced Martin, his arms crossed and his nose in the air. Jon pushed himself up on shaking hands. Find Martin.

They had gone for ice cream at John O’Groats before the change, while living at Daisy’s safehouse. Martin had apologized on behalf of the kiosk for its measly selection—no rum and raisin. Jon pronounced a playful “Urgh,” assuming Martin had cited this flavor as a joke. “I think I’ll manage without that particular abomination.”

“Wait, what? Why did you order it at my birthday party then?”

Jon stood still with his ice cream cone, squinted into space, and blinked. “I did?”

“My first birthday in the Archives, yeah!”

“Huh. That’s… odd.” Martin placed a gentle hand on Jon’s back to remind him to resume walking. “I suppose I must have been—huh. Yes,” he mused, nodding slowly as his hypothesis came into focus between his eyes and the ground. “I must still have thought I was tired of all the good flavors at that point.”

He heard Martin scoff a few steps ahead of him. “What, and now you’re happy with plain old vanilla?” Then he heard arrhythmic footsteps thumping toward him from Martin’s direction; he looked up to find Martin reaching his napkin-draped free hand out toward Jon’s ice cream cone. “You’re dripping again,” he explained.

Jon mumbled thanks and shrugged a laugh. “I-I’ve, uh. Come back around on most of them.”

“Except rum and raisin?”

“No—I’ve come around on it, too, just, uh.” He tried to make the shape of a wheel with his ice-cream-cone-laden hand. It flicked drips of vanilla across his shirt. Martin came at him with the napkin again. “Thank you. I just disliked that one to start with.”

“…Right. Okay, so what revolution occurred in your life before the Archives that overturned all your opinions on ice cream flavors?”

So Jon had told Martin about that summer when his jaw kept subluxing. He’d used that word, assuming Martin was familiar with it already—incorrect, as he knew now. Presumably Martin had gathered from context that Jon meant he’d hurt his jaw, in some small-scale, no-big-deal way whose specifics he’d let slide as an unimportant detail. But then as the anecdote wore on he must have begun to feel the hole in his knowledge. And lo, at last Martin had invoked that dread specter the clarifying question.

“Okay but so your grandmother had no problem with you basically living off ice cream all summer?”

“Well, she did when I could chew. But not when it was that or tinned soup.”

“Ah—right. ‘Cause you hurt your… jaw, you said?” Jon nodded. “What happened exactly?”

“Oh. Uh. Happened? Nothing, just my—I was born, I guess. Just part of my genetic condition; I happened to get it especially bad in the jaw that year. I-it’s much better now, though,” he hastened to add when he noticed Martin’s frown.

“What genetic condition? You never told me you had one.”

“Didn’t I?”

At the time, the anger in Martin’s answering scoff had surprised him. “No, Jon, you never said.”

“Oh. Sorry? I—I mean, you’ve seen me with this for years—I just?—thought you knew.”

“Seen you with—what, the cane, you mean? I thought that was Prentiss!”

Jon glanced to the doorway to double-check that was where he’d left his cane.

“What? No,” he had mused. “Of course not. I’ve had this since….”

“But you never used it.”

“No—surely, I—”

“Not once before Prentiss.”

Even as he’d said the words, Jon’s memory of that time had returned to him and he’d known Martin was right. Before Prentiss attacked the Institute he’d brought his cane with him to work in the Archives every day, and every day left it folded up in his bag. All out of an obscure notion that if he’d used it before Elias and before his coworkers, they’d take it as a plea for mercy, an admission of weakness or incompetence. God, he was naïve back then. He’d used the cane often enough back in Research; why hadn’t he worried Tim and Sasha would find its new absence conspicuous? That they’d worry just as much about his refusal to use it? The whole thing seemed even more stupid, too, now that he knew Elias must have noticed the change. How it must have pleased him, to see his shiny new Archivist so obsessed with proving he was fit for the job.

“Yeah but,” Jon pursued, instead of voicing any of this, “Tim never—?”

Martin nodded and shrugged. “I don’t know; I figured Tim didn’t get them in the legs as much as you did. I didn’t see you guys after the attack, remember? Not ‘til you got out of quarantine.”

“Right, no, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry,” said Jon mechanically, already consumed with the question he asked next. “Martin—did you think it was the corkscrew?”

From Martin’s sigh Jon figured he’d been expecting this question. “Kinda? At first, yeah. Half for real, half just—you know, as a habit? Like, ‘Look, a way to blame yourself!’” He splayed out his hands, rolled his eyes.

“Yes—I do that too.” Jon barely got the words out above a whisper; he couldn’t not smile, but fought to keep it from showing teeth. A muscle under his chin spasmed with the effort.

“But then I noticed you switching sides with it a lot, so, yeah. I knew it couldn’t be just that.”

“Really?” He waited for Martin’s answering shrug. “You’re the first person who’s ever noticed that. Or at least commented on it.”

“Sorry?”

“No—it’s.”

This attempt to communicate a similar sentiment, Jon recalled as he reached for his shoes, hadn’t gone as well as the one a few days later (over unseen horror &c.). Beholding had at that moment presented him with the image of a fat, hunched woman in shorts. She shuffled forward a few steps in a queue at Boots, next to him, and shifted her weight so the cane in her right hand supported her nearer leg. He felt a strong impulse he knew wasn’t his own—one born partly of resentment, part exasperation, part concern—to tell the woman that was bad for her shoulder, that she should switch hands too. But knew if he tried she’d either pretend she hadn’t heard it, or tell him off for criticizing her. Jon didn’t know what she would say more specifically; the Eye didn’t do hypotheticals. It had given him no more than this single moment of preverbal intuition. After the change he could have sought out other conversations Martin had had with his mother, and they might have given him a pretty good idea. But he’d promised Martin not to look at things like that.

He managed to dislodge a finger while tying his shoe. The other shoe he’d pulled off without untying; in a fit of impatience he tried now to shove his foot into it as it was. No good—he got the shoe on, but it just made the other index finger, the one he’d hooked into the back of the shoe behind his heel for leverage, pop off to the side too. Jon was afraid to find out what shape it would end up in if he pulled his finger back out of the shoe like that, so he had to untie it after all, one-handed. Then carefully extract his finger. It sprung back into place as soon as he removed the offending pressure (namely, his heel), but he still whimpered and swore. The corners of his eyes pricked with indignation when he remembered he still had to pee.

In this case, for once, Beholding had told him the important part: that that was why Martin had noticed. Had he noticed Melanie, too, Jon wondered, when she got back from India? She would switch hands sometimes, too—but, of course, without switching legs. He wondered if that had picked at the same unacknowledged nerve of Martin’s that his mother’s habit had. It had bothered Jon, too, but in a different way. He’d resented it a little, but also felt humbled by it, the way he always did by others’ discomfort. Getting shot in the leg seemed so big? Like such an aberration. So uncontroversially important—probably because it was simple, legible. Georgie could convey its hugeness to him in three words. She got shot. Obviously there was more to the story than that; there were parts he could never…

Well, no. There was a part of it he felt he should say he could never understand: that she’d kept the cursed bullet because she wanted it. In fact he was pretty sure he did understand that. But he didn’t have the right to admit it, he didn’t think. And no reason to hope she would believe him if he did. The second he’d learnt the bullet was still in there, after all, he and Basira had rushed to dig it out. Surely, from her perspective that could only mean he didn’t and could never understand. Or maybe he just wanted her to see it that way—wanted her to get to keep that uncomplicated resentment of his ignorance. It made his perspective look stupid and ugly, sure. But the truth made it look self-absorbed and pitiful. The truth was that until Daisy insisted otherwise, he’d assumed only he could see his own corruption and assent to it: that the others must not have known what they were doing.

Then again, maybe even if Melanie knew that, she would see only that he had underestimated her. Maybe it didn’t matter how much she knew.

Melanie switched off which hand she held her white cane with now, too. But that was probably healthy? Jon knew no more than the average person about white-cane hygiene. He just remembered feeling the floor drop out of his stomach when they’d got coffee together during his time in hiding and he had seen her switch her original, silver cane from hand to hand. Part of him had wanted to scoff or rationalize it away. How much could the shot leg hurt, really, if she still noticed when her arms got tired? But another part of him shuddered at the thought one arm alone couldn’t compensate for the weight her leg refused to take—that she had to keep switching off when one arm got weak and shaky from supporting more weight than it should have to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced pain or impairment on that scale. He had, though the thought of a single injury sufficing to cause it still made him feel cold inside. It was that he kept seeing proofs, all over, everywhere, that the parts of his life he’d only learnt to accept by assuming they were rare weren’t rare.

Leitner hadn’t made the evil books; he’d just noticed they were there. And then had his life ruined by their influence, like everyone who came across them. Jon had had no time and no right to deplore the holes Prentiss had left in him and Tim, because on the same damn day he learnt someone had shot the previous Archivist to death. Alright, so it was him, then, right? Him and Tim—just doomed, just preternaturally unlucky. Tim, handsome face half-eaten by worms, estranged (as Jon then assumed) from a brother who seemed so warm and accepting in that picture on his lock screen; Jon, saved from Mr. Spider only by his childhood bully, now fated to take the place of another murder victim—and also half-eaten by worms. But no; he and Tim had got off lightly. Look what had happened to Sasha the same fucking night. The very thing whose influence convinced him the world had it out for him? Had killed Sasha. Literally stolen her life. How many lives around him got stolen while he mourned his own?

“I want you to comment on it,” Jon had managed to clarify. But Martin had scoffed as he stood in the foyer of Daisy’s safehouse, hopping on one foot to pull off the other shoe:

“Yeah, well. You haven’t exactly led by example on that one.”

“How could I?”

He accepted Jon’s scarf and long-discarded jacket, hanging them up beside his own. “Gee, I don’t know—commenting on it yourself?”

“On… switching which side I used the cane on.”

“Don’t play dumb, Jon. On this ‘genetic condition’” (in a deep, posh voice, with a stodgy frown and fluttering eyelashes) “you’ve apparently had this entire time. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I thought you knew, Martin! Why would I mention it in a childhood anecdote if I didn’t think...?”

“Well I didn’t know, okay? You never told me. You never tell anyone anything about what’s going on with you, you just—you just make everything into another heroic cross to bear.”

“That’s not—?” He wanted to tell Martin just how little that made him want to say about it. But he guessed Martin was really talking less about the EDS thing, more about how he’d spent their whole first year in the Archives pretending to dismiss the statements that scared him. How he’d sent Tim and Martin home when he’d found out about Sasha. How he’d stayed away from the Institute even after his name got cleared for Leitner’s murder. “What do you want to know.”

“Why you never—?” In a similar way, Martin seemed to reconsider his initial response. “Yeah, okay, right. Object-level stuff, yeah?” Jon nodded and wanly smiled. “Okay, so. What’s it called?”

After taking a minute to ditch his shoes, wash the sticky ice-cream residue off his hands, and drink some water, he’d sat down on the couch with Martin and told him its name, what it was, what it did. What does that mean, though, Martin kept asking, so he’d explained how it applied to the anecdote about his jaw. Martin asked why it meant he needed a cane.

“Be…cause all my joints are like that.”

“Yeah, but why does it help with that? What is the cane actually for, is what I’m asking.”

Jon hated being asked that question. “It—it means I don’t fall over when one of my joints stops working? A-and… also makes walking hurt less. I suppose.”

“So, when they’re working right, that’s when you don’t need it?”

“No—yes?—sort of. Now sometimes I just need it when it’s been too long since I had a statement. I get sort of. Weak.” Quickly Jon added, “But I don’t need it for stability so much since the coma.” He’d shown Martin how now, when he pulled out his finger, the Eye would just sort of erase that version of reality—how the dislocation wouldn’t snap back, but simply cease to exist. As if his body were a drawing on which the Beholding had corrected a mistake. He put his palms together behind his back, in the way he’d been told one couldn’t without subluxing both shoulders, and told Martin to watch how the hollows between his shoulder bones vanished. He opened his jaw ‘til it jarred to the side, and told Martin to listen for the static.

But Jon had never shown Martin how these things worked before the coma. Martin had no reference for this kind of thing; he understood only enough to find the sights unsettling. “That’s—no, that’s okay, I’ll”—he stuttered as Jon fumbled with his kneecap in search of a fourth example—“I-I get it. I’ll take your word for it.”

“I just thought.”

“No, I—? I don’t need you to prove it to me, Jon.” (The latter nodded, blushing, trying to smile.) “I get… I’m sorry. I guess I get why it’d feel easier not to say anything if? If you think it’s either that or have to convince people it’s a thing.”

Again Jon nodded. He suspected Martin wasn’t through talking yet. But Martin still wasn’t looking at him, eyes squeezed tight against Jon’s party tricks. So, to show he was listening, Jon said, “Yes. Er—thank you, Martin.”

“I just don’t like it when you hide things from me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You could at least ask if I want to know about them, yeah?”

Even at the time, Jon had doubted this. If they’d had this conversation after the change, he might have pointed out to Martin that when you mention something the other person has no inkling of, you make them too curious to decline your offer of more information, even if afterward they’ll admit they wish you’d never told them.

“Or ask me if I even recognize what you’re talking about, the next time you start going on about some childhood anecdote where you incidentally had a dislocated jaw. Honestly, would it kill you to start with, ‘Hey, did I ever tell you about x’?”

“No, it wouldn’t. You’re right. I’ll try. What… kinds of things did you—? For the future, I mean. What kinds of things did you want to make sure I tell you about.”

Martin sighed, in that way he did when he thought Jon was going about something all wrong. But after a pause to think, he did ask, “About this, or in general?”

“Either—both—first one, then the other.”

“Okay. I guess… I want to know when you’re hurt, mostly. Like—I can’t believe I even have to say this—that’s kind of important, actually? How am I supposed to know how to behave around you if I never know whether you're secretly in pain or not?”

This seemed weird—both now and at the time. Jon figured he must be missing something. If Martin thought he only needed the cane because of Prentiss then, sure, that might have affected how he imagined Jon’s discomfort to himself, but? Wasn’t the cane itself an admission of pain? Why did Martin think he owed him more than that—that he had owed him more than that at the time, no less? Did he not realize how fucking private that was? What a surrender of privacy the cane represented?

But, no, he reminded himself now; nondisabled people don’t realize that, unless you tell them about it. Repeatedly. Over and over. It only seems obvious to you because you lived it already.

“Er.” At the time he’d just shown Martin his teeth, with the points of his left-side canines joined. Nominally a smile, but more like a show of hiding the grimace beneath than an actual attempt to hide it. “That’s harder than you might think? Technically I’m always….”

“Oh.”

“Sorr—”

“—What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

“I’m—not always aware of it?” He disliked that phrase, in pain—how it implied a discrete and exclusive state. One could not be in Paris and at the same time in London; similarly, most people seemed to assume one could not be in pain and also in a good mood. In raptures. In a transport of laughter. That when one admits to being in pain, one implies that’s the most important thing they’re conscious of.

“Well that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, I know—‘if a tree falls down in a forest’—blah blah blah.” With a gentle smile to acknowledge he’d picked up this mode of speech from Martin. He turned his wrist in circles so it clicked like an old film reel. “Philosophically speaking, if you’re not aware of pain, you can’t be in it. Maybe ‘technically’ isn’t the right word.”

“Oh yeah ‘cause that’s the angle I want to know about this from.”

Jon sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I just mean, it doesn’t always matter to me.”

“Well it matters to me,” Martin scoffed.

“Yeah—I’m getting that. Is there any way I can explain this that you won’t jump down my throat for?”

Martin sighed, groaned, pulled at his hair a little but made himself stop. (He doesn’t pull it out, Jon knows—he just likes having something to grab onto during awkward conversations. Usually emerges from them looking like a cartoon scientist.) “Okay, yeah,” said Martin. “I get it. I’m sorry too.”

“I mean—when you get a paper cut, that hurts, technically, right?”

“Well yeah, a little, but that’s not the kind of—”

“But just because you notice that hurt doesn’t mean?” He paused to rearrange his words. “You’re not going to remember it later unless someone asks why you’ve got blood on your sleeve.”

“Y—eah. Sure.”

“Is that…?”

“When you’re suffering, then. I want you to tell me that. And—whenever something weird happens? Like, before it stops being weird and you talk to me like I’m stupid for not already knowing about it.”

“What if”—this far into his question, Jon worried it might come off as a smart-alecky, devil’s-advocate thing. So he paused, pretending he needed time to formulate its words. “What if I haven’t decided yet whether it’s weird or not.”

“That in itself is pretty weird, Jon.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want to be part of that conversation. I want you to trust me enough to bounce ideas off me! It’s not like—? I mean why wouldn’t you do that?”

Jon had shrugged and grimaced, hands in his trouser pockets. “Not to worry you?” he’d suggested. But as he bit his lip and shimmied down from the bed Jon knew now that that was the sanitized version—and probably, if you’d asked him a day before or afterward, his past self would have known that too. Most things you told Martin, he’d either ignore them completely or latch onto them, refuse to let them go, and interpret everything else you said in the light they cast. Jon had learnt not to raise any given topic with him until he was sure he wanted to risk its becoming a long, painful discussion. This was part of why he hadn’t kept his promise, he told himself as he turned their interim bedroom’s doorknob. Why he’d said so little about anything weird that had happened to him at Upton House.

“Martin?”

“Oh hey, Jon—you’re awake.” Martin glanced in his vague direction but stayed bent over his work, so Jon could not meet his eyes.

“You found the screwdriver.”

“Yeah! And a screw that matches better, see?” He fished the first one they'd found out of his pocket and held it up next to the door for comparison. Jon supposed they looked a little different—bright yellowy gold vs. a darker gold. “They were in the library, of all places. There’s a little box full of ‘em that he keeps right next to his reading glasses, apparently. Guess he must break them a lot. How are yours, by the way? Any bits feel loose?”

Dutifully, trying to keep his dazed smile to himself, Jon pulled off his glasses. Folded and unfolded each arm, jiggled the little nose pieces. He shook his head. “Don’t think so. You can have a look yourself though, if you like.”

“Remind me later. Should’ve brought the whole box, probably,” Martin said, voice strained as he twisted the screw that last little bit. “There!” His open mouth broadened into a smile. “Time to see if it worked. You wanna do the honors?”

Jon shook his head, breathed a laugh through his nose. “You should do it. You’re the reason it’s fixed.”

“I mean, yeah,” shrugged Martin as his hand closed round the doorknob, “but I’m also the reason it broke.” It opened with a click. “Ha-ha! Success! Statements—our own clothes—our own bed! Er. Ish.”

Something tugged in Jon’s chest; he’d forgot the statements were why Martin thought this quest so urgent. He lingered at the side of the bed while Martin rummaged in his backpack, remembering for once to toe his first shoe off while standing.

“Man. Looks sorta underwhelming now, after the other room, huh?”

“Least our wallpaper’s better.”

“Tsshhyeah, and our view.”

Jon didn’t turn around, but surmised Martin must be looking out at that tree he liked. “Is it four already?”

“Uhh—nearly, yeah. You were out for a while; took me ages to find that damn thing. Here you go,” announced Martin as he slapped a zip-loc bag full of statement down on the bed.

(“So they won’t get water damage,” he had answered a few days ago, when Jon asked him why he’d individually wrapped each statement like snacks in a bagged lunch. “What? It’s not like we have to worry about landfills anymore. If I put them all in the same bag, you’d take one out and not be able to get it back in.”)

“What happened to my jacket, by the way? And yours?”

“Uhhh.”

“Right, okay,” Martin laughed; “I’ll go get them before I forget. I’ll put this away too, I guess” (meaning the screwdriver still in his hand). “Don’t wait for me, yeah? I don’t mind missing the trailers.”

Jon smiled. “Sure.”

As Martin hurried off, Jon sat down to untie and pull off his other shoe, threaded the lace back through the final eyelet from which it’d come loose, picked up the first shoe and untied that one, then stood up and set them by the door next to his cane. Both hips and all ten fingers behaved themselves throughout. As he walked by the vanity he grabbed the coins he’d removed to do laundry the other day and stuck them back in his trouser pocket. Useless, of course, but he’d missed having something to fidget with. He squatted down and peered under the vanity for the hair tie he’d dropped, for the fifth or sixth time since he’d misplaced it. Didn’t find it. That was fine; he had another one around his wrist. His knees felt weak, so instead of standing back up he crab-walked to the foot of the bed and sat down with his back against it. Straightened his legs out before him on the floor. Then he dug the coins from his pocket and counted them. Yup—still 74p.

Danika! Not Daniela—Danika Gelsthorpe. God, he would never forget one of their names out there. Never underestimate how much I care for the

“I'm back. What’s down there? Did you find the screw?” asked Martin as he hung their jackets up behind the door.

Jon shook his head. “Forgot about it. I was looking for that hair tie.”

“Well you’re on your own there; I’m done finding things today. The screw can wait,” Martin laughed—“he’s got a whole bag inside that box in the library. Do you need a hand getting up?”

He let Martin help him. Both knees cracked; the world’s edges went dark for a second. “Thank you,” he said, and it came out more peremptory than he’d meant it.

“Statement time?”

“Right. You don’t mind? I can wait ’til we’ve both had a rest, if you don’t want to be in the room while I.”

“No, I’m alright; I’ll stay here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you hated statements.”

Martin shrugged. “Not these ones so much, now that. Heh—they’re almost nostalgic, if I’m honest. ‘Can it be real? I think I’ve seen a monster!’”

“They are a bit,” agreed Jon, looking down at the plastic-sleeved statement and making himself smile.

“Go on. Seeing you feel better will make me feel better too.”

That made it a bit easier to motivate himself, Jon supposed. From the moment he’d lain down on the bed he’d felt like he was floating on gentle waves—like if he let himself listen to them he could fall asleep in seconds. But that wouldn’t make Martin feel better. And no guarantee it would him, either, once he woke up again. He rearranged the pillows behind himself so he’d have to sit up a little; this might help keep him awake, and it meant he could rest his elbows on the bed while he held up the statement, rather than having to lift them up before his eyes. It made his neck sore, a bit, this angle, but that was fine. That might help keep him awake, too.

He sighed, readying himself for speech. Then heard a click, and felt a familiar buzz and weight against his stomach. The tape recorder had manifested inside his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

“Statement of Miranda Lautz, regarding, er… a botched home-repair job. Heh. Seems appropriate. Original statement given March twenty-sixth, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

[Image ID: A digital painting of Jon and Martin on an old-fashioned canopy bed with white sheets and orange drapes. Jon sits on the near side of the bed, reading a paper statement. He frowns slightly, looking down at the statement in his hands; he wears round glasses perched low on his nose. He’s a thin man, with medium brown skin dotted by scars left from the worms, and another scar on his neck from Daisy's knife. His hair is long and curly, gray and white hairs among the black. Jon sits supported by pillows—several big, white, lace-trimmed ones behind his back, and one under his knees. His right leg is slightly crossed over his left ankle, on which a clean white bandage peeks out beneath his cuffed, dark green trousers. He wears an oversized red hoodie and red-toed brown socks. Sat on the far side of the bed, next to Jon but facing away from both him and the viewer, is Martin—a tall and fat white man with short, curly, reddish brown hair and a short beard. He has glasses and is wearing a dark blue jumper and gray-brown trousers. Past the bed on Martin’s side, the bedroom door hangs ajar; in this light, it and the wall glow bluish green. On the near side, though, the light grows warmer, the orange canopy behind Jon casting pink and brown tints onto the white pillows and sheets. End ID.]

It seemed to be a Corruption statement, or maybe the Spiral. Possibly the Buried? A leak in Ms. Lautz’s roof caused a pill-shaped bulge to appear in her kitchen ceiling, about the size of a bread loaf. Water burst from it like pus from an abscess (as she described it. Nothing else Fleshy though, so far). Ms. Lautz repaired the hole in her ceiling, but every morning a new one reappeared somewhere else. Sometimes they appeared bulging and pill-shaped like the first one; other times she found them already burst, covering the room in water shot through with dark specks like coffee grounds.

Jon wished he’d refilled his empty water glass before starting to record. His mouth was so dry that every time he pronounced an L his tongue stuck to its roof. At this point he’d welcome a hole to burst in it and flood his mouth with water. Then again, he did still have to pee.

Eventually she and her spouse hired someone to find out what was wrong with the roof. She described hearing boots tramping around up there for half a day while they checked out all the spots where she and Alex had reported leaks. The inside of Jon’s trouser leg pulled at the bandage on his shin, making it itch. The repair men told Ms. Lautz it’d be safer and barely any more expensive to replace the whole thing. The ring and little fingers of Jon’s left hand were starting to go numb from having that elbow too long pressed against the bed. Miranda and Alex thanked the roof people and sent them off, saying they’d think it over.

He began to regret crossing his legs this way. He’d balanced his right heel in the hollow between his left foot’s ankle and instep, and in the time since he’d arranged them that way gravity had slowly pushed his foot more and more to the side, widening that gap. By this time he was sure it was hyperextended—possibly subluxed? It hurt already, and, he knew, would hurt more when he tried to move it. This rather ruined his fantasy of heading straight for the toilet when he finished reading.

Martin was right; these old statements seemed positively tame, now. He knew he owed it to Ms. Lautz to engage with her fate, but?

No. No buts. Whatever hell she lived in now, it looked just like the one she was about to describe for him, only worse. You can’t even pretend you’re sorry she’s living out her worst fear if you stop in the middle of reading that fear’s origin story. Never underestimate how much I

Once the repair men had left, Miranda Lautz wandered into her kitchen for lunch. She found her ceiling bulging halfway to the floor, with the impression of a face and two twisted arms at its center. Like someone had fallen through her roof, head first. Jon’s stiff neck twinged in sympathy. Miranda screamed and strode to the other side of the house in search of beer, figuring she'd find better answers at the bottom of a bottle than in her own head. When she got back to the kitchen with them, the beer bottles didn’t know what to do either, but said—

“God damn it. Not ‘ales’—‘Alex’. Obviously.”

He let the statement’s pages flop over the back of his hand, let his head tip backward until the top of it bumped against headboard and his eyes faced the ceiling. That settled it, then, didn’t it. If he had the Ceaseless Watcher looking through his eyes, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that—and he certainly couldn’t change position while recording. On top of his more substantial regrets, Jon had spent their whole odyssey before they came to Upton House ruing that he’d sat at the dining-room table to read Magnus’s statement, rather than on the couch or the bed. The chairs at that table had plain, flat wood seats—no cushion, no contouring for the shape of an arse. When he opened the door to the changed world, the cataclysm had preserved his bodily sensations at that moment like a mosquito in amber. He’d had a sore tailbone and pins and needles down his legs for untold eons. Right up until he and Martin crossed from the Necropolis onto the grounds protected by Salesa’s camera, where his tailbone faded out of awareness and his head filled up with cotton.

“Ohhh. ‘Alex’. Okay, that makes a lot more sense,” laughed Martin meanwhile. Jon could feel Martin’s shoulder bouncing against his. “She must’ve written it in cursive, huh.”

“I can’t do this right now, Martin.”

“Oh—okay, yeah. You rest; I’ll finish it for you.”

Jon closed his eyes and let air gush out from his nostrils. But you hate the statements, he knew he should say. Wouldn’t this make it easier, though? To let Martin have out this last bit of denial first?

The tape recorder in his pocket still hissed, still warmed and weighted down his stomach like a meal.

“Thank you,” he said.

The operator on the phone said she and Alex should wait for the ambulance to arrive, rather than try to free the man in the ceiling by themselves. Jon turned his neck back and forth, hoping Martin couldn’t hear its joints’ snap/crackle/pop. He picked his elbow up off the bed and shook out his hand. But when the paramedics cut the ceiling open, only a torrent of water gushed into their kitchen—water flecked with a great deal of what looked like coffee grounds. A day or two later the roof people called, to ask if they’d decided whether to have the roof repaired or replaced. They assured her none of their employees had gone missing. At the time of writing, Miranda and Alex still hadn’t decided what to do about the roof. A week ago, they’d found a squirrel-shaped bulge in their bedroom ceiling; they’d packed their bags and come to stay with Alex’s sister in London.

“Right! That wasn’t so bad.” Martin set the statement down and stretched his arms over his head. “Huh.”

“Hm?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just—it’s been a while. Thought it might feel, I don’t know, worse than that? Or better, I guess, since the Eye’s so ‘fond’ of me now.”

“I don’t think they work here.”

“What?”

“The statements. The Eye can’t see their fear.”

“Oh.” Jon could feel Martin deflating. He let himself avalanche over to fill the space. “You don’t feel better, do you.”

“No.”

“Maybe it’s just—slower here, like it’s taking a while to load or something. Remember how long the tape recorder took to come on last time? It was like—you were like— ‘“Statement of Blankety Blank, regarding an encounter with”—Oh, right,’ click.”

That was true. The tapes had known Salesa would give a statement before it happened, but with these paper ones they’d seemed slow on the uptake. Martin had also sworn the recorder that manifested to tape Mr. Andrade’s statement was a different machine than the one Salesa’d spotted that first morning. Jon wondered which machine the one in his pocket was.

Not relevant, he decided. He shook his head in his palm, stroking the lids of his closed eyes. “No—if they worked here I wouldn’t be able to stop in the middle of one.” As soon as he said it he winced, bracing himself for argument.

After the change he remembered wailing to Martin about how he couldn’t stop reading Magnus’s statement—how its words had possessed his whole body, forced him to do the worst thing any person ever had, and forced him to like it, to feel Magnus’s triumph as they both opened the door. Martin had pressed Jon’s face into his clavicle, rubbed his nose in the scent of Daisy’s laundry soap, covered the back of Jon’s head with his hands. Tried to interpose what he must then have still called the real world between Jon and what he could see outside. He’d said over and over, I know, and We‘ll be okay. Jon had known that meant he wasn’t listening, and yet still hadn’t been prepared for the argument they had later, when he mentioned in sobriety the same things he’d wailed back then.

“Hang on”—Martin had pleaded—“no, that can’t be true. I’ve been interrupted in the middle of a statement loads of times—and I know you have too.”

“By outside forces, yes, but you can’t decide to stop reading one. Believe me, Martin, I wouldn’t have—”

“Tim did.”

“No, he didn’t—”

“Yes he did! He was gonna do one and then Melanie—”

“No, Martin, I’ve heard the tape you’re talking about. Tim introduced the statement but didn’t actually start—”

“He did so! He read the first bit, and then stopped. ‘My parents never let me have a night light. I was—’”

“‘Always afraid, but they were just’....” Behind his own eyes he’d felt the Eye shudder and throb with gratitude. Just that sort of stubborn, it had seemed to sing, in a bizarre combination of his own voice with Jonah’s with Melanie’s, which doubled down when I screamed or cried about something, instead of actually listening.

“Yeah,” said Martin, forehead wrinkling. “And then he said, ‘This is stupid,’ and stopped.”

“You’re right.”

Jon still had no satisfying answer to that one, and cursed himself for having opened that can of worms back up again. It had been Tim’s first-ever statement, he reminded himself, and maybe Tim had never intended to get even that far. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to interrupt him, as Melanie eventually did. Even out there, the Eye couldn’t really show him things like that. He could find out what Tim had said—could look it up, as it were—and what he’d thought, but motivation was a bit too murky, multilayered, complicated. It wasn’t real telepathy? The vicarious emotions the Eye gave him access to worked in broad strokes, generalities—just like common or garden empathy. Sure, he could imagine other people’s points of view more vividly, now that he could see through their eyes. But he still had to imagine them to life, based on the clues around him and what emotions those clues stirred in him. It didn’t work well for situations like this; he could hear Melanie’s footsteps and feel Tim’s reluctance to read a statement, but that was it. Enough to concoct plausible explanations; not enough to pick out the truth from a list of them. Plausibilities were too much like hypotheticals.

In the timelessness since that argument with Martin, though, Jon had also wondered whether it mattered if Tim had read the statement before recording it. He didn’t have footage, as it were, of Tim doing so; either the Eye had more copies of the statement’s events than it needed already and so had deleted that one from storage, or, conversely, perhaps it could no longer see versions of it that relied too heavily on the pages Mr. Hatendi had written it on, since Martin had burned those. But Tim’s summary, before he started reading. Blanket, monster, dead friend. It was bad, sure (like the assistants’ summaries always were, a ghost of past Jon interposed). But it sounded like the summary of a man who’d read it with his mind on other things. Inevitable and gruesome end. How he tried to hide; he couldn’t. Not at all like that of someone skimming it for the first time as he spoke. He did rifle through the papers though? So Jon couldn’t be sure. The suspicion ate at his mind, especially here. Could he have kept the world from ending just by—reading Magnus’s statement, before he went to record it? The way he used to way back at the start, before he trusted himself to speak the words perfectly on the first try? You didn’t mean to record it, did you? No, I’m sure you told Melanie and Basira you were just going to

“Guess that makes sense,” Martin said now. “So, you’re still feeling…?”

“Not great?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I feel human, here.”

“Oh wow. That’s—”

Jon told himself to put the hope in Martin’s voice to bed as soon as possible. “I know I’m not—not fully.” He allowed a smile to twitch the corners of his lips, flared his nostrils around an exhale that almost passed as a laugh. “Most humans don’t spontaneously summon tape recorders. Or sleep with their eyes open.”

“Yeah, but still, you don’t think maybe—?”

Again Jon hastened to cut Martin off. “A-and even if I was, it’s. I know that should be a good thing? But—”

At this point Martin interposed, “Should be, yeah! You don’t think it might mean you could—I don’t know, go back to normal? If we stayed here for a while?”

“Maybe? I-I might stop craving the Eye so much, but we’d still have to go back out there eventually, to face Elias, and. To be honest with you, Martin?” He huffed a laugh out, bitterly. “My ‘normal’ wasn’t exactly...”

“Right.” Martin sighed. “So you mean you feel like you used to, as a human. Which was…”

“Not great.”

“Right.”

“I haven’t been very well, here.” Jon shrugged for the excuse to duck his head. He could feel himself blushing, the heat spilling from his face all down both arms. Good thing the tape recorder in his pocket had gone cold.

Next to him, Martin puffed air out of his cheeks. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m dizzy and confused without the Eye, and it—it can’t fix me here? When I.” He drew in breath, lifted his heel off his ankle and set that leg to the side, letting its foot roll into Martin’s shin. Bit his lip and scrunched his nose in preparation. Flexed the other foot’s toes, trying to isolate the lever in his ankle that would—there. Clunk. Then a noisy exhale: “Jyyrrggh. When that happens,” he choked out, voice strained by both pain and nerves. “It’s like before I became an avatar. I have to fix it myself, and it doesn’t just.” Magically stop hurting, he hoped went without saying; already he could hear Martin sucking air through his teeth. It made Jon’s cheeks itch. “Shouldn’t have let myself get used to a higher standard, I suppose.”

“What? No—of course you should have. Did you think I was gonna say that?”

“No, of course not; I just meant—”

“You deserve to feel healthy, Jon.”

“Do I? Health is clumsy, it’s callous, it, it lets terrible things happen because they don’t feel real—it can’t imagine them properly, can’t understand what they mean….”

“Okay, first of all, ouch.” Jon snarled a laugh at that, without knowing whether Martin meant it as a joke. “Second of all, that is not why you—why the world ended, okay? Especially, ‘cause, you weren’t ‘healthy’ then. You read Elias’s bloody statement because you were starving, remember?”

“Hmrph,” pronounced Jon, to concede he was listening without either confirming or denying the point.

“And thirdly, you’re not ‘callous’ out there? You don’t”—a scoff interrupted his words. “You don’t ‘let things happen because they don’t feel real’—that’s sure not how I remember it. Okay? I remember you crying for—god, I don’t know, days, maybe? Weeks?—about how you could feel everything, and couldn’t stop any of it. That’s the thing we’re hiding from here, Jon, so if you don’t actually feel any healthier here then what even is the point?”

In a voice embarrassment made small Jon managed, “I mean? I’m still kind of having fun.”

“Really? You don’t seem like it—”

“Not today, maybe—”

“Right, yeah, no; spending all day trying to fix a doorknob isn’t exactly—”

“But I don’t want to leave yet. I should still have a few good days left before the distance from the Eye gets too….”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” For a few seconds he tried to think of something better to say, then gave up and told the truth, though in a jocular voice to hide his self-consciousness. “Always was the person who got ill on holiday.”

“Oh, god, of course you were—”

Voice growing higher in pitch, Jon pleaded, “It didn’t usually stop me from enjoying it?”

“What about America?” laughed Martin. “Did you still enjoy that one?”

“Of course not—I got kidnapped.”

“I mean, yeah, but you were pretty used to that too by then, right?”

“God.” Jon sniffed, crunchily, reeling back in the snot he’d laughed out. “Besides. That was a business engagement.”

Martin acknowledged this comment with a quick Psh, as he turned himself around on the bed to face Jon a little more. “Can I trust you to”—he stopped.

“Yes.”

“No, let me—that wasn’t fair; I can’t ask you that yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Martin; I didn’t—”

“Of me, I meant, it wasn’t fair.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been ignoring your distress all week because I wanted it not to matter.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘distress,’” pointed out Jon. “Plus, I have been sort of, er. Secretive, about it.”

The exasperation in Martin’s sigh was probably meant for him, not for Jon, the latter reminded himself. “Yeah, but you’re not subtle. I can tell when you’re hiding something. It wasn’t exactly a big leap to figure out what. But I told myself it was temporary, and that you were acting like.”

Jon laughed preemptively. “Yes?”

“Like a little kid in line for a theme-park ride.” Again Jon laughed—less at the comparison itself than at how much Martin winced to hear himself say it. “I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you more seriously.”

“And I should have told you what was going on with me.”

“Yup,” concurred Martin at once.

“I know you hate it when I keep things from you.”

“I do—I hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too.” Martin waved this away like a fly. “I just—you said you think we’ve got a few more days, before it gets too much or whatever.”

“Yes.”

“Can I trust you to tell me when we need to leave?”

Jon tried not to answer too quickly, knowing vaguely that that might sound insincere. “Yes,” he said again, after pausing for a second. “You can trust me.”

“Okay? Don’t try to spare my feelings, or anything like that. Like—don’t just go, ‘Oh, well, he’s having a good time. That’s fine; I don’t have to.’ Yeah? ‘Cause I won’t have a good time if I’m worried you’re secretly suffering.”

This Jon did know; it sent a thrill of recognition down his spine, as he remembered their first day’s ping-pong adventure. “Right. I’ll do my suffering as publicly as possible.”

“Uh huh.” Martin’s arm tightened around Jon’s shoulder. “Just don’t worry about disappointing me? I mean, sure, I like it here, with the whole ‘not being an evil wasteland’ thing, but I’d much rather be out there with you happy than with you than spend one more minute in paradise with her.”

With a smile, Jon replied, “That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

“I suppose we do.”

As they walked on out of the range of Salesa’s camera, Jon glanced backward one more time and thought, Yes, that makes sense—but couldn’t quite recall what he had expected to see. It was like when you look at a clock, and tick Check the time off your mental to-do list, then realize you never internalized what time it was. “Pity,” he mused.

“What?”

“It’s, er, going away. That peace, the safety, the memory of ignorance.”

“That’s… Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Do you remember any of it? W-What Salesa said? Annabelle?”

“Some, I think. It’s, uh… do you mind filling me in?”

“Wait, you need me to tell you something for once?”

“I guess so. It’s, er… it’s gone. Like a dream. What was it like?”

After a pause Martin said, “Nice. It was… it was really nice.”

“Even though Annabelle was there?”

“I mean, yeah, but she didn’t do anything,” shrugged Martin. “Except cook for us. That was weird.”

“She cooked?” Jon watched Martin nod and smile around a wince. “And we let her do that? I let her do that?”

With a scoff Martin answered, “Under duress, yeah.”

“Huh.” Jon twirled his cane in circles, wondering why he’d thought he would need it. “Well, she didn’t poison us, apparently.”

“Nope. And believe me, we had that conversation plenty of times already. Er—maybe just let me put that away for you before you take somebody’s eye out, yeah?”

Jon nodded, folded his cane and handed it to Martin, then made himself laugh. “Was I… a bit neurotic about it.”

“About Annabelle?” Again Jon nodded. “Oh, we both were. We kept switching sides—one day I’d be like, ‘But she’s got four arms, Jon!’ and the next you’d be like—”

“She had four arms?”

“Yup. And six eyes. But your powers didn’t work there, so we thought maybe hers didn’t either? Never did find out for sure. God—you remember the day we got locked out of our room?”

“Er….”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Sorry.”

Martin’s lips billowed in a sigh. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“So… what happened? Who locked us out? Was it Annabelle?”

“No, no, no one locked us out. It was just me, I uh—I sorta broke the doorknob? God, it was awful. Went to open it and the whole thing just came off in my hand, like” (he made the motion of turning a doorknob in empty air, and imitated the sound Jon figured it must have made coming off) “krrruk-krr.” Jon fondly laughed; he could imagine Martin’s horror at breaking something in a historic mansion. “It was just one screw that came loose, though, so you’d think, easy fix, right? Except the bloody screwdriver took forever to find. Turns out Salesa kept them in the library, of all places.”

“S-sorry—what does this have to do with Annabelle?”

“Oh—nothing ultimately, just.” Martin grimaced at his own recollection. “God, we had this whole argument over whether to ask her about it, and when I finally did can you guess what she told us?”

“What?” managed Jon; his throat felt small and weak all of a sudden.

Martin put a finger to his chin, and blinked his eyes out of sync. “‘Perhaps he keeps them next to something that breaks a lot,’” he recited, with an inane, self-congratulating smile. For a fraction of a second Jon could recognize it as Annabelle’s I’ve-just-told-a-riddle expression. But the memory faded and he could picture her face only as he’d seen it in pictures before the change.

“O…kay. And was that… true?”

“I mean, yeah, technically. Useless, though. And after we spent so long agonizing over whether it was safe to ask her….”

Jon allowed himself a cynical laugh. “Are you sure she didn’t orchestrate the whole thing?”

“Ugh—no, it wasn’t her. We had this conversation at the time. You made me check for cobwebs and everything.”

“And you… didn’t find any?”

“Of course not, Jon; it was a doorway.”

“Right. Doorway, yes.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling better? You still seem a bit….”

“No, I’m—I feel fine, I just can’t seem to. Retain anything concrete about… where did you say it was? Upton House? God that’s strange, that it would just be….”

Part of Jon felt tempted to deplore it as a waste of space, on the apocalypse’s part. These stretches of empty land were one thing, but a mansion? Couldn’t they at least get a Spiral domain out of it?

“I mean, not really. He told us all about it, remember? With the magic camera?”

“Right, yes,” Jon agreed.

“Well, we got it all on tape, if you want to listen to it later.”

“Yes, that sounds—all of it?”

“Well not the whole week or anything. It just came on whenever it thought it was important, I guess.”

“So not the part about the doorway.”

“Nope.”

“Pity.”

#tma fic #the magnus archives #rqbb2021 #rusty quill big bang 2021 #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #suddenly a tma blog #scri wrote something

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sabraeal · 3 years

Text

Not Necessarily a Virtue

[Read on AO3]

Obiyuki AU Bingo 2021 Practical Magic AU

There hadn’t been a plan when Obi picked up the phone.

All it had taken was one rogue text-- another case assigned to his social worker, one that was enough of an emergency that it his behavioral issues seem tame in comparison. Her chair rattles when she stans, its plastic back hitting the filing cabinets with a metallic tang, but her hands tremble more.

“This will be just a minute,” she says, smile plastered tight to her face. And then she leaves him there alone, his file open on her desk, flaws left out for the world to see.

It doesn’t bothered him. There’s no point, not when he already knows: he’s trouble with a capital-T, each failed family drawing him closer and closer to being unplaceable. Some people have a face only a mother could love, but Obi-- Obi has that for his personality. Though considering how each of his six almost-moms signed him away with a sigh of relief, walking out the plate glass doors without even a glance back, maybe he has the sort of personality that makes people reconsider whether they could be a mother.

So here he is again, freshly abandoned, back in the sterile halls of social services for the seventh time without a place to call home. He’s not even twelve.

Not that these people aren’t trying to change that-- he’s not some cat left at the shelter, free to a good home. Unless Kerry or Janine or the girl at the desk he didn’t get to read the name tag of wanted to sleep on their couch, they have to find someone to take him for the night. And he knows from experience, there’s always a family that believes they can change him. A young couple who thought all problem children needed was just a little extra love. By the time Kerry came back, there’d be good news waiting, a miracle crafted by three people who didn’t want to miss the Masked Singer finale. They’d pack him into the back of a car and ship him off to a new place to fail. Because no matter how many homes they tried to make for him, it’d never change how he felt.

Obi had tried, at first. He was just a little kid, wanting to be loved, but every home he went to itched like hives in his head, a constant buzz that set his teeth on edge and made him do anything, try anything to leave. He belonged somewhere else, somewhere not here, and he knew it like he knew Kerry’s other case had overdosed on a bottle of sleeping pills in his foster mother’s cabinet-- with an inexplicable certainty.

He waits thirty seconds after she leaves before he slides off the the plastic seat she’d put him in. They love these things, oddly shaped and in primary colors that make the little kids giddy, but Obi hates them. He’s undersized, and putting him in these kiddie rooms always makes people treat him like he’s eight instead of eleven, asking him about Blue’s Clues.

But that’s not why he gets up, not entirely. There’s a buzzing in the back of his brain, a knowing, and it makes him stand, his hand straying to the glass door. He can’t see anything outside, at least not anything besides more kiddie chairs and offices, but he steps out nonetheless. He steps out and, unerringly, turns to face the girl waiting for him down the hall.

“It’s you.” Her tawny hair stresses the elastic she’s trapped it in, too thick. It’s not one of those hair ones either, but one of those thick rubber bands they use on the produce in grocery store. It hurts; he knows because it’s common sense, but also because he just...Knows. Their eyes meet, and even though he doesn’t her name, they’ve known each other forever.

His mouth is dry when he asks, “Do you know me?”

“I saw you in a dream.” She takes a step toward him, her sneakers scuffed and worn, just like his. “You’re Obi. I’m Torou.”

He doesn’t know this girl. There’s a hundred ways she could get his name; one of them is sitting on a desk behind him right now. But when she looks up at him with eyes he’s only ever seen in the mirror, he holds out his hand. “Come here.”

His heart pounds with each mincing squeak of her sneakers on the tile. She’s taking too long and she’s coming too fast; each terrible second convinces him he’s making a mistake at the same time he’s doing what he was always meant to do. By the time she slips her hand into his, he’s trembling, but it doesn’t matter because they both are and this--

This is right. And he knows exactly what to do.

It’s holding her hand that he picks up the phone. He fucks it up the first time-- he gets that gross digital buzz before he notices the sticker beneath the speaker, informing him 9 dials out-- but the second one his fingers guide him, releasing the number he has no reason to know. A number he has no reason to believe will work, that could have just come from the weird recesses of his mind but--

But he’s not surprised when a man picks up. “Who is this? Do you know what time--?”

“We’re here,” Obi says, and it shouldn’t be enough, but it is. “Come pick us up.”

A specter arrives on the front walk at noon.

Obi knows by the hush in the office. Or really the weight of it-- it’s been quiet like this since last night, since he and Torou sat down on the big bean bag couch in the waiting room, and Obi announced they wouldn’t be letting go. His case worker had crouched in front of them, that sweet smile plastered to her lips, and told him that they’d only have to be separated for a night. But he’d known-- the way he always did-- that every word was a lie. His fingers tightened in her grip, narrowing his eyes until the woman shivered, and that was that.

Kerry stayed with them, of course; she’d slept in her office, under a blanket it’s clear she’s never used and had only just discovered wasn’t comfortable no matter how many Sesame Street characters were on it. They’d been tucked under another by a younger girl with trembling hands, her eyes darting between them as she smoothed out its edges. He’d heard them through the walls this morning while the rest of the office filtered in-- government buildings like this were always cutting corners, leaving things like this paper thin, stuff that would go up like tissue in a fire.

Do you think they’re twins? one asked. Trembling hands, he guesses, since her voice does as well, like a chihuahua in a sweater. I’ve heard about this happening with twins. They look and just know.

Can’t be, we have their birth certificates, says another. Kerry, probably; she might be a liar, but she’s one of the only people in this place that has her head screwed on right, too. Two different sets of parents.

And the man they called last night? This one is stern; their manager maybe. He’s not really sure how this all works; he’s not even twelve, and he can only just know so much. Who is he?

There’s a heavy pause. I...I don’t know.

So when he arrives, dressed like an undertaker and holding an umbrella beneath the bright New Mexico sky, the whole place goes quiet. When he walks it’s stiff, like it took a hundred volts to get him up off the table and he’s only just gotten used to the idea. Obi casts a look down at Torou, at where her hand is white knuckled in his, and thinks about how he knows things, and wonders just what she might be able to do.

The man enters, umbrella folding in a single neat motion, before he says. “I am Lata Forenzo. I believe you have my...niblings.”

Niblings, Obi learns, is like siblings, only sideways.

“It was a simplification,” Lata says, his voice a deep, hesitant gravel. He casts a speculative look at the taxi driver, adjusting the gloves on his hands. “Niece and nephew is an unwieldy phrase, and time, after all, is of the essence.”

“Is it?” Torou’s eyes are wide, and for the first time since last night, her hand leaves his, gripping on to the cloth at Lata’s knee. “Is there something after us? Those bugs, they’re not--”

“No.” Obi’s known his uncle for barely more than a half hour, but he knows he isn’t a tactile person. Even still, Lata looks down at Torou, his not-gold eyes somehow softer, and puts two fingers over the bones at the back of her hand. “But it is time to bring you home.”

Home is an island. It takes the whole night to fly in, and when they land the sun is just barely scratching the sky. Even still, there’s no stopping; Lata bundles them straight into a cab, shushing them before they can make much more than a peep.

“We’ll be home soon,” he says, and the next time he wakes them, salt stings Obi’s nose, and he’s being carried over a threshold.

“Are we here?” he slurs. The house is weird-- angular, really, with a hall so narrow he could kick out a leg and stop them up like a cork. He nearly does, just to be cussed, but he catches Torou still wrapped up in her blanket, lolling on the couch, and says instead, “Can you let me down?”

Lata hesitates, fingers stiff where they wrap around his knees and shoulders, but he nods.

Obi’s feet-- just wearing socks now, somehow-- press on the floor, and he knows: he’s home.

“Oh,” he breathes, hands flying out to steady himself. “Oh.”

When he looks up, Torou’s eyes meet his, round and wide. “I felt that.”

Her own feet swing down-- bare-- and the moment she touches the wide old planks--

“Oh.” Lata braces himself against the wall, the sound bitter on his lips. “So it’s true. There will always be two.”

They aren’t his words, Obi knows, but they’re important. They’ve got that feel, the same as when Torou said she dreamed of him. The sort that are going to be life-changing, one way or another.

But Obi’s had enough of that today. Enough of it for a lifetime. He glances over at Torou, and she nods. “Can we go outside?”

Lata blinks, eyes pulling from the wallpaper to fix on him. After a long moment, he says, “You know where the door is.”

Obi does, somehow, and when he opens it--

It’s paradise.

Home has rules too, loads of them. It’s quiet time from nine to eight, though Lata doesn’t much care if they’re sleeping, so long as they’re in bed. Teeth have to be brushed twice a day-- he’d glowered when Obi said he had good teeth and only needed the once, standing over him for a week morning and night to see the rule stuck. There’s only one dessert after dinner; Obi balked at that one, until he’d learned that a limit on quantity wasn’t the same thing as size. He and Torou find three old sundae dishes in the cabinet and pile them high with ice cream and every topping they can find, and when they slap Lata’s down in front of him, cheeks bulging with their own towers of sweets, all he’d does is give them that small, reluctant twitch of a smile and dig in.

They have to make their beds and pick up after themselves-- this house has treated us well, Lata tells them, it’s only right we take care of it in return-- and they have to tell him if they plan to play in the yard; but in return their sheets are always clean, and dinner’s promptly at six. When they come back in, sweaty and exhausted from the summer heat, there’s always a bowl of fruit waiting for them and cold drinks.

He’d known, in the way he always does, that this couldn’t last. So when summer’s heat began to cool, he’s not surprised to see Lata waiting on for them on the veranda, mouth pulled into an even grimmer line.

“It’s time,” he says, “for a Family Meeting.”

“School,” Lata says with the sort of relish and derision only a professor like him can summon up, “is starting. Which means there are new rules.”

Fingers brush at Obi’s, and when he reaches out, Torou’s fingers knit in his. He knows what rules these will be-- his parents had them to, the only ones they’d ever made. His mother had gotten down on her knees the night before kindergarten, nails digging into his shoulders, and used a voice so dark, so unlike her, he’d dreamed of button eyes staring into his for a week. His father had tossed out their Coraline DVD after that.

“Forenzos,” Lata starts, already sounding weary, “look after each other. So you’ll walk together, both ways, and if one of you gets into trouble--” he fixes them both with a stern look-- “I expect both of you to run.”

Obi stares. “What?”

“You’ll come back right after school, unless we have previously discussed plans,” Lata continues. “You’re far too young for...cellular phones, so I expect that if you make plans with friends, you will discuss them with me the night previous, or you will come home first and ask permission. Not,” he murmurs, just barely audible, “that I expect you’ll have much trouble with that.”

“Is that...” Obi’s jaw works. “Is that all?”

“I expect you to keep up your grades.” Lata’s brow furrows, taking them in, as if he’d never once questioned whether or not they would be stellar students. As if most people don’t look at the both of them and see future high school flunk outs. “If they are slipping, I’m afraid I’ll have to limit your free time until we are able to bring them back to an acceptable level. Homework is to be done at the table, and once you are done, your time is yours until dinner.”

Torou’s hand squeezes his. “We?”

Lata blinks. “Excuse me?”

“You said ‘we.’“ She clear her throat, eyelashes fluttering with nerves. “If our grades are bad, you said we would, uh, fix them.”

“Of course.” His mouth pulls at the corners, annoyed. “How could I possibly ask you to rectify such a thing on your own? You’re already doing the best you can, if you still struggle, then it’s clearly something we both-- oh my,” he murmurs mildly, “she’s leaking.”

“Sorry,” she sobs, pink burning on her cheeks, the way it never did on his. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” Lata flails out, yanking a tissue from the box, shoving it into her hand. “I just...hope that you find this all fair. I was always quite good at school, but my sisters--” he glances at them, wary-- “varied. I hope I can only...encourage you to your best.”

“But what about...” Obi snaps his teeth around the words. If he doesn’t ask, then it won’t become a rule, and his uncle can’t be disappointed when he breaks it.

The pictures on the wall prove that they’re family, that Lata truly is his mom’s brother, even if they don’t share much more than a hair color. But Obi’s never seen it, the way he does in pictures of Torou’s mom, where there’s a flick of the hand or a cock of a hip that says they spent their childhood together, inextricably intertwined forever in ways they would never understand.

But Lata raises a brow now, and he sees it, that small thread that ties him to his mom, that says brother. “About...?”

“The other stuff,” Torou blurts out, coughing down a sniff. “He wants to know what we...”

Her words peter out too, like she can’t figure out what to do with them. He can’t stop knowing, and she can’t stop dreaming, and the thought of having to pretend they can is...tiring this time, in a way it never was in the system.

His mouth wraps around the words with a curious sort of wonder. “Other stuff?”

“You know,” she mutters, so small. “The weird stuff.”

Lata jolts in his chair, spine as straight as a poker. His hands press flat against his knees, and when he looks at them, the gray in his eyes in thunderous.

“This is the most important rule,” he tells them, voice oddly resonant, “you must follow it. Promise me.”

Obi’s heart sinks into his stomach, but he nods, fingers squeezing Torou’s tighter.

Lata’s hand presses heavy on his shoulder, leather flexing over cotton. “Don’t ever hide yourselves. Not for anything. Not for anyone.” Obi dares to look up, and Lata’s gaze is waiting to catch him. “Being...normal is not necessarily a virtue. There is no shame in being who you are, none at all.”

Or what you are, he doesn’t say, but his eyes do, loud and clear. He doesn’t say what that is either, but--

Obi knows. Just like he always does.

And if he didn’t, well-- he would have found out soon enough.

It’s a small island; small enough that K-12 are all squeezed into one school, though Lata tells them that by the time they go to senior high, they might have built another. It’s still not small enough for Torou and him to be in the same class, so he drops her off at the door with promises to find her at lunch and moseys down to his own. It puts him a little behind schedule, the school bell ringing on his heels, and when he steps in--

The room goes silent. Twenty pairs of eyes stare at him, round and wide, not a single person daring to do much more than breathe.

“Forenzo,” the teacher says, faint. “You must be...the Forenzo boy.”

“Yeah.” He grips at his shoulder. “Obi.”

“You can take your seat...at the back,” she says, before hurrying to the board, eager to put her back to him.

“I thought my mom said all the Forenzos died,” a boy whispers as he passes. “Except the old man, of course.”

“No, they just left,” says the one next to them. “Chased out. Because they’re, you know...”

Obi does; he always had, even before he had a word for it.

“I don’t think a boy can be a witch,” a girl says, thoughtless and thoughtful at the same time. “They’re wizards, or something.”

“Warlocks,” scoffs another. “Don’t you know anything? And they do blood magic with little girls--”

Obi grits his teeth, eyes forward. There’s two empty chairs in the back, one in the corner by the window, and the other next to it, and he steers toward that one-- window seats always get him in trouble--

And the boy next to it scoots away, fear bright in his eyes. Obi looks back at the teacher, but she’s writing her name on the board real slow, like she’s hoping this might solve itself.

Fine, he can take a hint. He takes the window, sliding in behind the desk. The girl in front of him scoots forward too, making sure her chair doesn’t touch his desktop, and he sighs. At least they’re all getting this out of the way first.

A bag drops, right next to his seat.

“Ms Kino!” There’s a girl there, smaller than everyone else, though her voice makes her twice as tall. In the morning sun, her hair burns bright like the horizon. “Can I change my seat?”

“Shirayuki?” The teacher blinks back at them, and Obi could swear she breaks into a cold sweat. “Shirayuki, I’m not sure that’s--”

“I can’t see the board from over there,” she says, every syllable digging in its heels. “There’s glare. Because I’m so small.”

Ms Kino squints back at her, and really-- there’s no denying how small she is, at least a head below Obi and he’s nothing to write home about either. “If you’re sure...”

“Great.” She drops into her seat with a thump as loud as thunder, setting out her notebook and pencil with the sort of purposeful efficiency that says there’s no doubt she’s here to stay.

Obi slips his out of his backpack too, so quiet so the other kids will stop looking at him like he’s going to set the place on fire, but he hears, “You’re new, right?”

He looks down, and there’s the girl, smiling across the aisle. “Yeah. I’m--”

“Obi, I heard.” She leans toward him. “I’m--”

“Shirayuki.” His mouth twitches. “I also heard.”

Her smile stretches towards a grin. “You know, Ms Kino likes group projects.”

He blinks. “Does she?”

She nods. “Would you like a partner?”

“She hasn’t assigned one yet,” he says, a little lost.

“She will,” this Shirayuki says, confident. The way he is, when he knows.

He nods, slow. “All right, so for the next one.”

“To start.” She fixes him with a look he can’t get out from under. “Are you eating lunch with someone?”

“Ah, yeah.” He feels guilty about it now, for some reason. “My um. Cousin.”

She brightens. “Great. I’ll show you guys the best place to sit.”

He’s been adopted, he realizes, like the way the cats around the house aren’t. And this girl means to keep him.

For once in his very short life, Obi doesn’t mind knowing. Just like he always does.

#obiyukibingo21 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #practical magic au #ans #there is so much to be written for this fic and i desperately want to write all of it #like honestly consider this a teaser for a fic i COULD write #one that would involve shirayuki obi and torou being childhood friends #and obi casting a spell of forgetting #and later shirayuki finding obi and torou again #after they have possibly murdered the resurrected then killed again torou's ex #and obi trying to hide that secret at the same time he's trying to keep shirayuki from remembering #while also desperately wanting her to remember because sure this Zen guy seems rich and nice but ALSO MAYBE YOU COULD LOVE ME???#like the notes i have for this potential multichap are CRAZY i wish to UNLEASH them #also LATA/GARRACK #and also Lata ruminating on love and loss and the complicatedness of inherited trauma #but uhhhhh with magic you know how it be

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pizadowa · 3 years

Note

generally a lil nervous to ask, buuut, since I’ve seen a few people chat about how Ivy/the sibs would take care of Carmen when she gets sick, but how would Carmen take care of Ivy if she got sick? I curious to see your take on this 👀 (Carmivy intended?)

oh anon don’t be nervous or shy, this is a very benign ask and I like to think I'm not intimidating 😢..😭

but anywhoooo ... I actually have thought about this before, so I felt like whipping up a quick Ivy POV ficlet rather than strictly talk about Carmen ... :)

-- --

Unlike Zack’s sensitive chemical makeup, Ivy's immune system is built like a supercharged ox, and when it comes to sickness she has vastly more experience being other people’s—namely Zack’s—begrudging caretaker than catching anything herself.

In the nearly three years she’s traveled the world with Team Red, she can count on less than one hand the times she’s fallen ill, and each instance hardly interfered with their capers, not to mention her self-prescribed medicine of “toughing-it-out” has gotten her through even the roughest days. She's not exactly a fan of admitting defeat to a cold, nor being so useless that someone would need to take care of her, especially when that someone is almost always Zack. His questionable understanding of the human body means he's less adept at relieving any real symptoms and more so at keeping her company enough to distract her frazzled, sickly mind. It's not ideal, but it’s the only thing she knows, and it’s better than getting Carmen involved; Ivy would rather their getaway driver catch her sickness than their very important team leader.

So when she wakes up one day in their new HQ to immobilizing muscle pain, a presumably contagious case of the sniffles, and a very concerned Carmen seated at her bedside instead of Zack, she’s more than a little bit freaking out.

“Wh… Carm?” Ivy submerges part of her face under the covers, fearful of spreading her mystery contagion despite their distance. For extra good measure she directs her head away to her night table, taking note of a glass of water and tissues that definitely weren’t there before. “How long have you…?”

Carmen brings one leg onto the bed and curls her palms around it as she speaks, “Not too long. I was actually just wrapping up some sets when Zack ran in screaming like a banshee about you. It’s amazing that didn’t wake you up.”

Ivy’s vision focuses out of its watery haze enough to comprehend Carmen’s tight athletic wear and exposed skin that’s somehow less sweaty than her own. A cold-hot chill sends her into shivers.

“I’m pretty sure that was the demon in my fever dream." She cringes at the sound of her own nasally voice wreaking havoc on her aching head. "Where is he, anyway?”

“I sent him out to the store and had Shadowsan tag along to make sure he doesn’t go overboard with the anecdotal home remedies.”

The imagery has Ivy falling into laughter that quickly becomes a strained coughing fit beneath her thick blanket. Carmen noticeably teeters away, which only adds to the discomfort in her chest.

“Ugh, sorry for the gross sound effects.”

“Don’t be. I had a feeling you wouldn’t be doing too hot in the morning. You were hardly eating and going to bed earlier than Shadowsan.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yeah. So, all-in-all, I was expecting this.”

“Double ugh.” She buries herself within the bed until the only thing she can see is threaded darkness. The weight by her legs shifts closer, and then there’s a gentle hand on her blanketed bicep. It’s warm even through the fabric.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. Actually, I guess do sweat it if you have a fever. Do you have a fever?”

Ivy’s about to answer when the blanket peels back and the hand that was on her arm presses firmly to her forehead. She blinks past the slender forearm in her view and over to Carmen’s determined face leaning closer with each passing second. For a moment their intense eyes cross paths, lock on to each other before softening completely, and Ivy is overcome with an urge to hold on. To what, she doesn’t know, but one of her hands takes the initiative and reaches up to Carmen’s wrist—which pulls away just as her fingernails make contact with smooth skin.

“You feel warm, but it’s hard to say,” Carmen contemplates aloud and returns to her previous spot on the bed. “We’ll need that thermometer once Zack and Shadowsan are back, but in the meantime, I’m here. Whatever you need.”

Ivy struggles to push a scratchy lump down her throat as she shoves her hand back under the covers.

She's not used to this. Unless it’s Zack—who’s almost too obliging for his own good—she avoids asking for help as much as possible. She prefers to handle most things perfectly well on her own, and she’s since learned her hard lesson of what happens when you owe a debt to others. The very thought of burdening Carmen with something as dumb as a little cold sets her nerves even more haywire.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she grumbles weakly.

Carmen shoots her a look like she's just said a profane insult. "I shouldn't?"

"Yeah, I'm all sick and stuff. Wouldn't you prefer to be...not...sick and stuff?"

"Checking your temperature is nothing. And besides, you were probably contagious days ago. If I got it, I got it.” Ivy’s face contorts into a sarcastic pout, but Carmen preemptively interrupts her griping with a raised hand. “I’m just saying it takes a bit more than that to knock me down, and if I’m fine now, I might as well help out. Seriously, I think I get sick even less than you do."

Ivy pauses to consider it, only able to recall taking care of a Carmen who has been downed by injuries and overexertion, not acute illnesses. Not even a little upset stomach from too much delicious food like she and Zack—though mostly Zack—are wont to do.

"Still, I don't wanna risk it." Ivy shuffles on her back to the farther side of the bed. "I appreciate your concern, Carm, I really do, but I'll be fine. Just send Zack in here once he's back."

"Oh." Carmen frowns at her in a way Ivy’s never received before, and for an intense split second she feels a strange pang of guilt. "Sure, but...this is the same Zack who thought the best remedy for altitude sickness was sticking a fan at the front of the tent to magically blow in more oxygen?"

"Uh—"

"And who once drank a phony herbal miracle cure from downtown that made even his worst food poisoning look like a work of art?"

"Ew-uh, gross!" Ivy scrunches up her entire face, only relaxing it once she sees lightning behind her eyelids. "Okay, okay, I get it. You really don't want Zack taking care of me."

"It's not just that."

With great effort Ivy sits up out of her cocoon for the first time that morning. "What'd'ya mean?"

Carmen twists her torso completely toward Ivy. "You guys are always looking out for me when I'm down for the count. And you, you've been the only one taking care of Zack for how long?"

Ivy offers a small chuckle of understanding. “Too long.”

"Exactly. So the least I could do is return the favor and pamper you for once. I may not be a doctor but I do cook a mean sopa de mondongo, and that's always helped me when I was sick on the isle."

"I don't even know what that is and I feel better already."

"Wait ‘til you actually try it. Funny enough we actually have all the ingredients, but not the basics for treating a nasty cold, go figure."

"Food is the priority around here."

Carmen snatches a glass of water from Ivy's night table and extends it over the bed to her. "Finish this, I'll go get started on the soup. The guys should be back soon with some medicine. Think you can hold out just a bit longer?"

Ivy takes the glass in her hands and peers down at its fullness with a warmth in her chest that crawls up her neck. “Yeah, yeah I think I can do that.”

"Good."

“Oh, and...I’m really happy it’s you here right now. Like, really really happy.” Ivy pauses. “Don’t tell Zack I said that.”

She peers up from her watery reflection to see Carmen beaming at her in silent affirmation, and she does her best to offer the same expression. She takes a few slow sips of her lukewarm drink, fully expecting Carmen to have left by now, but instead the other girl shifts closer on the bed. Closer into Ivy’s space.

"You know,” Carmen starts, her voice husked low despite not needing to, and Ivy can feel her heart beating across every inch of her body, “I'm told I give amazing massages, in case those muscle aches become too much trouble for you.”

She trails her hand along Ivy's covered thigh before lightly squeezing down her ankle, and the peculiar sensations have Ivy frozen with nothing else to do but gawk at her. She offers an unreadable smirk with lidded eyes that cast her mind further into delirium, and walks out of the room without another word.

When she’s fully registered that she’s alone again, Ivy wolfs down the rest of her water, barely managing to fend off a spell of wheezes, and quickly discards the glass to the empty sheets next to her. With a buzzing in her cranium that ripples throughout her entire body, she flings herself down to her pillows to smother her overheated cheeks with a shaky sigh.

"I should get sick more often."

#q #anon #carmivy #mine #carmen sandiego

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tuanhood · 4 years

Text

lambda

pairing: frat!mark tuan x reader

genre: angst, enemies to lovers (kinda), smut, fluff

warnings: 18+, language, cringey frat stuff, dirty talk, oral sex (male receiving), explicit sex.

word count: 11,400+

summary: your last choice was renting a room at a frat house over the summer, especially after you told yourself you were done with anything frat related, but when your ex ditches you last minute its your only option. now... if only you could stop dreaming about the president of lambda chi.

a/n: surprise again! mark won the poll!! but like I said i think i’m going to continue doing a frat one shot for each member. so it’ll be like a little anthology series!! but i have no clue when i will write the other once so please bare with me :) Also if there’s some frat stuff in here that doesn’t make sense just let me know in my ask or if you have any questions i’ll be happy to answer!

“Who do you know here?” you found yourself being asked before even fully stepping onto the property.

The douchey guy with his backwards baseball cap and muscle tee – sporting his letters of course – looked you up and down as if trying to place you.

“No one actually.”

He looked confused, “wait seriously? You’re just going to admit that right off the bat? Usually people try to make something up.”

“See I’m not here to play games… Kyle? I’m guessing your name is Kyle. I have the unfortunate pleasure of living here over the summer, because this was the cheapest and most last-minute housing I could find. Now I’m just going to go up to my room and mind my own business while you and your brothers throw this stupid party that better be over before midnight.”

“You could have just said you live here…” the boy mumbled mostly to himself, “well welcome home and congrats on moving in! I’m Bambam by the way.”

He thrusted his hand forward to you, almost forgetting about the mob of people behind you waiting to get in and see if they pass the “vibe” check to get past the front door. You were sure in any other circumstance you would not be passing the vibe check.

“Wow Bambam…” you said to yourself considering the name. He looked delighted as if you were so enthralled by the unique quality of it. You were however, thinking about how Bambam was even worse than “Kyle.”

“And you are?” he asked.

“Dude can you stop flirting and keep the line moving! I’m trying to get wasted before 11!” someone yells from deep in the line behind you.

“Hey! I’m the one who says how fast or slow this line moves! Fuck off man or you can go find your own kick back,” Kyl- Bambam yelled.

Snorting, you rolled your eyes, “you call this a kick back?” You gestured to the full house behind him, deciding to leave out those who were sitting on the roof.

“If the normal school year isn’t in session and the house isn’t over 50% occupied with members, then it’s a kick back. Chapter rules.”

“Would love to see that rulebook, if you have it handy,” you laughed, joking. Somehow, Bambam didn’t get it and cocked his head to the side absorbing your comment, “you really want to see the rules? I mean I could bring it to you later if you-”

“That’s fine Kyl-Bambam, I’m good. I’m just going to go inside now.”

“Bet, see you later.”

The way he said it makes you think that he means he’ll see you later at the party. That would however be completely wrong, because there was no way you were going to hang out with these disgusting egocentric heathens that just want to fuck and get drunk.

Fraternity housing hadn’t been you first choice for this summer. In fact, it probably hadn’t been your last choice either, but this is what you were stuck with. Staying at school over the summer had been a very last-minute choice – for reasons you weren’t ready to discuss – and by the time you were searching for housing, everything that was cheap and decent had been taken. Instead you were left with cheap and… chaotic.

“Whoa watch out!” You heard being yelled by some douche in a bucket hat as soon as you stepped into your new home.

It had been a week since you moved in, but you hadn’t made any effort to get to know any of the other people staying over the summer. Regardless of whether they were in the same predicament as you or if they were actually members of the org, you weren’t particularly interested in face to face time. After the Spring Quarter you had, you needed alone time and this summer you didn’t plan on making friends with your housemates… Especially if they were in a frat.

Your first week had actually, however, gone somewhat okay. No one had tried to interact with you – in fact you had barely seen anyone else in the house – and there had been no disturbing sounds or noises… It almost didn’t feel like you were living in a frat house, besides the urinals in the bathroom and the boxes of energy drinks that lined a few of the hallways. You were pleased to say the least, until you turned onto Greek row and heard all of the noise from the corner.

Please don’t be Lambda. Please don’t be Lambda. Please don’t be Lambda. Please don’t be Lamb-

The silent prayer in your head clearly hadn’t been heard as you had grown closer and closer to the house you were staying in. Lo and behold you had been met with a very large line of people waiting to get in, loud music and trash all over the lawn. What had you been expecting by choosing to live in a frat?

The bucket hat guy’s warning didn’t faze you. As soon as you process his words you placed your hand up to smack the Styrofoam football he had thrown to the ground. You weren’t in the mood for an obstacle course, you just wanted to get to your room and put in earplugs so you could rest before work tomorrow morning.

“Whoa you got mad fast reflexes. Do you play?” he asked grabbing the object off of the sticky floor.

You couldn’t tell if he was genuinely curious or not. But judging on the way he eyed you up and down, there were other things that were actually on his mind.

Side eyeing him, you snorted, “yeah… I’m not doing this,” you motioned your hand at him in circles and turned to head towards the main stairs. His words stopped you, “wow are we heading there already? Just give me a minute to tell my brothers I can’t watch drinks table anymore.”

Instinctively you cracked your knuckles, bucket hat guy found himself clearing his throat noticing the small detail that showcased your frustration. Turning around, it takes everything in you not to slap him, but more likely than not, this guy probably lived with you as well. Although you didn’t care for being friends with your housemates, it probably wouldn’t be a good look to be the housemate who slapped the people she shared a home with. So instead of a physical reaction, you simply clenched your jaw and went with the most basic response.

“I live here. I’m going to my room.”

Instead of showing any kind of shame or embarrassment for his very wrong estimate about where the situation was going, bucket hat clicks his tongue – almost in a disapproving way.

“Just watch out… we’re using the rooms on the second floor for hookup space. Or wait was it the third?”

As if you couldn’t have been more annoyed.

“What the fuck? How can you guys use the rooms up there when people are renting them out? How can you even use them when they’re locked?”

Bucket hat started to blink too much as if considering your very real query, “The President has a master key to all the rooms. What do you expect deciding to live in Greek housing for the summer?”

If you had known how much this frat didn’t care about personal space or just basic human rights, you would have never chosen to stay at Lambda Chi. In fact, you would have never chosen a fraternity at all – cheap price or not.

“Is it the second or third floor?”

“Don’t remember,” he hummed, no longer paying you any mind but twirling the football in his hand and eyeing a group of girls who had walked by.

Groaning, you snapped your fingers to regain his attention, “It makes a difference so remember.”

He shrugged and looked at you with an annoyed look on his face, “listen you’re kind of bringing my mood down… And I think I hear someone calling me from the kitchen so…” he pointed his thumb somewhere behind him, “I’m just gonna do that instead.”

Bucket hat guy leaves you standing in the main foyer, squished amongst other people, without another word. Although, you swear you heard him mutter something about you “not passing the vibe check.”

Left without a clue of what to do, you figured that the only viable option you had was to go find the President. Luckily bucket hat gave you one sliver of useful information.

Whipping around, you go to ask Bambam where exactly you could find the President, but he’s too enthralled in a conversation with one of the girl’s waiting in line to get in. It probably would do you more harm than good to get involved in that.

Searching around the space in the front of the house, you look for another brother who could perhaps help you with your task.

Right… Shouldn’t be too hard. Just look for someone who’s confident enough to think they’d be able to get out of a DUI.

A loud laugh caught your attention, it comes from a guy holding a Grey Goose bottle and letting random girls take pulls out of it.

Perfect.

You approached him, placing a gentle hand on his arm that holds the bottle to get his attention. He took notice of you immediately, giving you the same exact look bucket hat had given you earlier. What was up with these guys? They weren’t even trying to be subtle.

“You want a pull?” He asked with a smirk, shaking the bottle in his hand at you.

Shaking your head, you cleared your throat, “I’m looking for the President… Where would I find him?”

Grey Goose bottle guy wiggled his eyebrows at you. Gross. “Ah I see… you want Mr. President. I think he’s in his room.” You wanted to be cordial, but these people just weren’t making it easy.

“What room is his again?” You asked, batting your eyelashes in the most normal way possible – as if that was normal for you.

Grey Goose placed his hand under his chin and tapped it as if deep in thought. He paused and smiled, “I’ll tell you if you take a pull.”

Where were you right now? In what dimension was this actually happening to you? If you told your friends back home about having to take a pull from a bottle of Grey Goose in order to find the President of a fraternity to get him to stop maybe letting people hook up in the room you’re paying for, they wouldn’t believe you. You didn’t believe it.

Sighing you brought your hand up, in a “give it to me” motion. Grey Goose smiled proudly and brings the bottle up, tipping it into your mouth once you have your head leaned back and lips parted. It felt like forever by the time he finally brings the bottle up from your mouth. The burning sensation in your throat makes you want to throw up, and for a moment you think you are, but somehow you manage to take a deep breath and control yourself.

“That was awesome! I think you took like a shot and a half.” I know, you wanted to yell at him, but you bit your tongue. Usually pull meant a swig, not 66 milliliters of vodka.

Wiping your lips with the back of your hand, already feeling lightheaded, you repeated your earlier question, “what room is his?”

Grey Goose nodded, “he’s on the third floor. There’s a huge sign on the door that says President with the chapter’s crest, you can’t miss it.” If it truly was that easy, maybe you should have just gone looking yourself instead of being blackmailed into consuming alcohol the night before you had to work.

“Thanks,” you muttered to him, not bothering to wait and hear a response. You found yourself back at the main stairs, taking two steps at a time until you reached the third floor. It wasn’t long before you realized Grey Goose was right, his room wasn’t hard to miss.

Usually you were a rational thinker. You liked thinking out your thoughts before you turned them into actions, but in this case, you couldn’t stop yourself from knocking on the door as soon as you’re in front of it.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

There’s no answer. Was it possible he wasn’t in his room anymore? You tried again.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

This time your ears catch noise behind the door. There was someone inside, but they were just choosing to ignore you.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

This time the noise was clearer and you can make out specific words being said.

“Maybe they’ll just go away.”

Before you could stop your usual logical mind, you’re reaching for the doorknob – annoyed by this “President” who was trying to make you leave. To your surprise, the handle turns and you swung the door open slowly, being met with a mostly dark room aside from one bedside lamp being on.

“What the fuck?” The deep voice startled you as if you had been expecting no one to actually be on the other side of the door. What the hell were you doing?

Your eyes landed on the large bed in the middle of the room and you really wished you hadn’t. The two half naked figures on top of one another looked at you with wide eyes, the girl immediately grabbing the comforter to cover herself pushing the guy, causing him to fall off the bed.

“Are you for real right now?” the guy asked you from the floor, “get the fuck out!”

You felt frozen in your spot, your hand still on the door knob and unable to break your gaze from the boy on the floor. It was like you were a virgin again based on the way you were staring at his toned chest and muscular arms. You were certain if he hadn’t been sitting and crouched on the floor, you would be eyeing the black boxer briefs that rest on his hips.

“What’s wrong with you? I said get out!”

It’s almost as though his second demand for you to leave is what woke you up, suddenly mumbling a “sorry,” and shutting the door closed.

Opening the door to someone’s room without approval wasn’t something you typically did – you had simply done it as a reaction to the stressful situation you were in. Openly staring at a frat boy definitely wasn’t something you typically did either. It was like your brain had shut off and you weren’t going to let it happen again.

You continued standing in front of the door, unsure of what to do. Should you wait for him to… finish? Was that even the President? Maybe this was your sign that the third floor was the hook up floor. If so, then you were in the clear to go back to your room… so why didn’t your feet want to move?

“Mina come on! Don’t leave! We can keep going!” This time the voice behind the door is much louder and clear.

“You were dumb enough to leave it unlocked! I shouldn’t even be doing this anyways… my loyalty lies with Sigma Chi.”

“What? Just because they’re Phi Mu’s affiliate frat? That’s bullshit!”

“My sisters will kill me if they find out I was with a Lambda,” you heard her say, her voice becoming louder signaling she was approaching the door.

“I don’t understand why that has to stop us from fucking though!”

The door swung open and you find yourself taking a step back, looking away to pretend like you weren’t eavesdropping. The girl glanced at you and rolled her eyes before ignoring the boy behind and heading down the hallway to go downstairs.

While pretending to be fixated on the wall’s chipped paint, you glanced out of the corner of your eye to see the guy in his doorway, clearly annoyed at the situation. He ran his hand through his hair out of frustration and you can’t ignore how fluffy it looked. You watched him run it through three times, before you make yourself look away.

“You,” he grumbled pointing at you, “Here. Now.” He quickly turned, going back into his room, leaving the door open for you to follow. You think that maybe you shouldn’t follow him, but judging on the way he looked back at you with an intimidating stare, it was probably the right choice.

You awkwardly stood next to his desk and watched him reach into his closet to grab a robe to throw over his naked torso, shielding his body from you. As he tied it and sat down on the bed, leaning forward, you’re able to see a sliver of his chest and collarbone where the robe hangs down. It confused you as to why he wouldn’t just put his regular clothes back on, but you found yourself not being annoyed in the slightest at the display of skin.

His eyes bore into you, and it’s almost as though he’s waiting for you to speak first – to say something to make up for your invasion of his privacy.

“Are you the President?”

He looked at you as if you were insane, “what the hell does it say on the door?”

All of the annoyance and frustration that had fueled your fire downstairs, making you a woman on a rampage had dissipated. For some reason standing in front of this guy, you felt like a small child being talked down to. In any other situation you would fight back and show him you weren’t going to take his tone, but for some reason you couldn’t find it in you.

“I was just making sure… okay?”

Mr. President cracked his knuckles, “Why the hell did you barge into my room?” You don’t answer him. You were trying to think of what you would normally say or do to a guy like this, but your mind went blank once again. “You just cost me a hook up tonight, so speak.” His tone is a mixture of aggravated and bored – if that was something that was even possible.

“I mean you’re the one who left the door unlocked…” you mumbled to yourself, but the anger on his face signals that he heard. He threw up his hands, “That still doesn’t give you the right to just walk into a room that’s not yours.”

That really got you. You felt the flame within you being lit once again. “Look who’s talking.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one who’s letting people’s rooms be used for sex without their permission. Invading their privacy!” you growled.

Mr. President blinked at you blankly and judging on his reaction, it almost seemed like he didn’t know what you were talking about. Oh… he’s good.

“Excuse me? What kind of place do you think this is? This isn’t an authoritarian regime.”

You took a step forward to where he sat on the bed, waving your finger, “then explain to me why one of your little minions downstairs told me that.”

“I have no clue who would tell you that… or why.”

“Bucket hat… football,” those are the only two words you can think of to describe him, but you hoped that would be enough. Almost instantly he nodded, “Ah Jaebeom… Yeah he was definitely just fucking with you.”

You took a step back out of shock. This was all a joke? These idiot Lambda Chi boys had been playing you? “So, I took a pull from Grey Goose guy’s bottle for nothing? I came up here for nothing? I walked in on you and Ms. Phi Mu for nothing?”

He ignored your comment about the girl’s sorority, a clear admission that you had been listening through the door, “Grey Goose? Do you mean Youngjae?”

The last fifteen minutes had filled you with enough inconveniences, stress, annoyance and embarrassment to feel like a lifetime… and this was only after one week of living in this house. How were you going to last the entire summer? Deal with all of the parties… the douchey boys objectifying you and treating everything like it was a funny joke. Not to mention their chapter’s President who seemed bitter and rude. Surprisingly attractive… but bitter and rude.

Instead of confirming Mr. President’s suspicions that Grey Goose guy was indeed this Youngjae person, you nodded solemnly towards the direction of his door, “I’m going to my room.”

“Wait… you’re living here over the summer?”

When he asked the question, you begin to feel the alcohol you had consumed earlier. Instead of feeling drunk it made you feel dizzy, tired and heavy. It made you feel even more defeated than you already felt from your sudden reality that this was your life for the next three months.

You threw up an unenthusiastic thumbs up and slowly made your way to the door. He looked at you stunned for your sudden disengagement in the conversation you were having. Although to you it didn’t feel like a conversation. Conversations were meant to be constructive, collaborative… Whatever this was, wasn’t that.

You’re in the doorway when he speaks again, “It’s Mark by the way… for when you dream about me later.”

Clenching your fists, you don’t give him the satisfaction of looking back no matter how much you weirdly want to. To see his fluffy hair, bounce as he shakes his head from side to side, that golden tanned skin, his huge-

That’s enough.

That night it takes you nearly two hours to fall asleep. You spend the first hour with a pillow over your head, trying to drown out the party downstairs. The second however, is spent thinking about one… Mr. President. It makes you feel nauseated and when you finally wake up for work the next the morning, all you can remember is the fluffy hair in your dream.

Four days had passed since the party and you hadn’t run into any of the brothers since then. No Kyle, no bucket hat, no Grey Goose. Or Bambam, Jaebom and Youngjae… or whatever. And no Mark. Not that you had been thinking about seeing him again.

Those four days felt peaceful – normal almost, that was until now. Those calming four days came to an end when you came home from your afternoon shift at work, the guys all sitting on the front porch with beers in their hands.

You were quite aware of “porch” culture amongst the fraternities at your school. The members would drag ratty old indoor furniture such as loveseats and armchairs onto the porch near the front door and sit there for hours. They’d drink their beers, play their loud music and shout things at people walking by. Yes, you knew porch culture very well… It was how you had met your ex-boyfriend.

“Well look who we have here!” Jaebeom – sans bucket hat – shouted as you began walking up the path to the porch, “haven’t seen you since the party sweetheart.”

“Shut up man you can’t say that stuff anymore. Feminism and all that,” Bambam said hitting Jaebeom’s shoulder. If you were held at gunpoint and forced to pick a favorite out of them – it would probably be Bambam. He had done the least to annoy you thus far, but you weren’t holding your breath.

“I’m going inside,” you hoped your emotionless tone is enough to get them to leave you be and just get into the house. You’d rather not spend any more time than you have to with the guys – especially during porch time.

“Heard you got history on the row Y/n,” Youngjae’s words made you stop in your tracks. This was the last thing you wanted to talk about, especially with them. You gave Youngjae a death glare, trying to communicate with him to keep his Grey Goose filled mouth shut.

The way Mark looked up at you behind his IPA doesn’t go unnoticed by you. In his mind he was trying to be discrete. He tried to present a look that was a mixture of intrigue but also indifference, even though in reality he was eager to hear his friend’s story about you.

“Some Sigma Chi history to be more specific,” Youngjae wiggled his eyebrows and you have to stop yourself from slapping the smile off of his face.

If there was anything you truly knew about frat guys, it was that every action they did or thing they said was all meant to get a reaction out whatever person they’re torturing. Acting like you didn’t care was going to bring the stakes down for Youngjae and he would ditch the story altogether. Clearing your throat, you shrugged your shoulders, “yeah so what. It’s history and history is in the past so… that’s all that needs to be said.”

He looked at you with the same stupid smile and it doesn’t falter at all. You must have shown too big of a reaction in your response.

“You dated Ryan for almost a year – I’d say that’s a record for someone at Sigma Chi,” him and the boys laughed – all of them except Mark who’s still looking at you, but pretending not to.

You tell yourself not to get upset, not to get angry or cry – because that’s what they wanted from you. Here they were treating the “relationship” you were in like a joke and you had to remain a stone wall, unaffected. Well fuck that.

“Yeah it was a record for me falling for the stupid and douchery of the typical frat guy who was actually fucking other girls the entire time unbeknownst to me because in actuality he never considered us together. But hey what can you do when you’re dealing with guys who have big egos and small dicks?”

The boys stared at you with blank faces, you swear you see Mark smile behind his bottle.

“Is she talking about us too?” Jaebeom whispered to Bambam, “Dude… I think maybe.” Without another word, you pushed open the front door aggressively, making sure it closes behind you loudly.

You don’t know why you thought your “relationship” with your ex-boyfriend was going to work out. The two of you had met because you had been passing by his house during porch time and he cat called you. What the fuck were you thinking? Even at that point you had thought guys in fraternities were terrible, but for some reason that day you just went along with one of them objectifying you… And you fucking made him into your “boyfriend.” That day you had been feeling insecure and low – that was the only explanation you had for your out of character actions.

Being with Ryan only continued your influx of out of character actions. You spent all you free time with him when you weren’t in school or working. Apparently however, all of his free time hadn’t been spent with you. The truth came out after you had planned on staying with him over the summer at his family’s lake house. It had been something you two had talked about for months and when you were only a month away, he had hit you with a bomb.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this live together thing over the summer. Samantha might get mad.”

To which you had asked, “who’s Samantha?” Then the guy who you had thought was your boyfriend went on to explain how the other girl he was seeing – Samantha – would get jealous if he brought you to the lake house instead of her. The next thing to come out of your mouth was a big “fuck you” and “I never want to see you again.” Hence why your decision to stay at school over the summer was so last minute and you were forced to stay in a fraternity house which was so much like the one your heart had been broken in only a month earlier.

You should have known Ryan wasn’t serious about you – no frat guy at your school would ever be serious with an unaffiliated girl like you. The sex should have told you how serious he was. It would always be the fast, rough kind of fucking where he mostly had you in doggy position or with your mouth around his dick. There was none of the lazy, slow passionate sex that came when you were actually serious or mesmerized by someone.

“What the hell is up with Sigma Chi getting all the hot girls?” you heard Jaebeom ask from the porch. The idiots had left the front window open so anyone could hear what they were talking about – but there weren’t really any boundaries when it came to brotherhood. Instead of leaving and going upstairs, you remained frozen in your spot with an ear positioned to the window. For some reason it seemed like living in this house was turning you into an eavesdropper.

“Guys don’t talk about her like that.” The chiming in from Mark surprised you, he had been so silent outside when you had been present that you didn’t really expect him to defend you.

“Oh really, why?”

“She’s not just a hot girl…” Mark paused for dramatic effect and you can practically hear all the guys on the edge of their seats, “she’s a super-hot girl.” You rolled your eyes as he finished his thought about you, the guys all giving him high fives and verbal agreement.

“So, what do you say Mr. President? Gonna try to hit that?”

Mark didn’t answer the second question, “Mr. President?”

Bambam laughed, “Oh yeah I overheard her on the phone the other night and that’s what she called you.” Okay maybe Bambam was no longer your favorite, “Mr. President and his fluffy hair.” You aren’t sure if you should be embarrassed because of him exposing you or offended because of the voice he uses to mimic your own. You did not sound like that.

Once again, all the guys laugh, but this time you can’t hear Mark’s own stand out giggling in the mix. For some reason you wished you could see his face right now. That’s when you decide it’s probably best to go upstairs.

“Take it, take it all,” Mark growled into your ear as he thrusted into you at a brutal pace. You couldn’t respond to him; your mind was too hazed over with pleasure.

“Wow my cock’s that good that you forgot how to speak? I know you think you’re smarter than me, but it looks like you’re wrong. All it takes is for me to be inside of you for one fucking minute for you to act like you don’t even know your own name.”

He’s right. He’s so right and all you can do is agree with him.

He brings his hand down between the two of you to rest on your clit, tapping his finger at the same pace he pumps into you at. “I know you think I’m a dumb frat boy who’s only good at drinking and partying, but how about now, hmm? Don’t you think I’m good at fucking this tight pussy?”

You awake with a gasp. You’re covered in sweat and your hand has somehow found its way underneath your shorts and underwear. Why the fuck were you having a sex dream about Mark? It felt like your entire body was on fire, even your fan being on the high setting wasn’t going to help you in cooling down.

Getting out of bed, you decided to head downstairs to the kitchen. What you needed was a popsicle and a bag of ice. The ice was to help how hot you felt, the popsicle was a distraction from thinking about whatever the fuck your subconscious had just come up with.

“Hello?” The voice coming out of nowhere causes you to jump as you swing one of the freezers in the large kitchen open. You attempted to squint your eyes in the darkness to make out who the voice belongs too, but it’s too difficult to see.

“If you keep your eyes like that, you’re going to ruin your vision,” the lowness of the voice takes you back to only moments ago in your room when you had been hot and absolutely bothered. It was the same voice from your dream.

“What are you doing down here?” you asked, moving your head around the space, still unable to properly see him.

Suddenly, Mark’s face comes into view as he stepped closer to you so he could be seen in the light of the freezer, he’s so close, you hold your breath, “what? No hello?”

You scoffed, “I usually don’t when people are just down here sitting in the dark.” Mark doesn’t respond to your comment about him lurking and positioned his glance to where your hand was placed in the freezer, “feeling hot?” Your eyes went wide, “w-what?”

He pointed to you hand resting on the box of popsicles, “the popsicles…” Laughing awkwardly you pulled one out from the package and go to reach for an ice pack, “oh… yeah.”

Mark nodded his head, “it’s pretty hot tonight… That’s why I came down here. You know heat rises and all that stuff… I’m on the third floor so…” he drifted off and his tone sounds off, unlike when you had first met him. He almost sounded nervous?

“Listen… I want to apologize for the guys on the porch the other day. They brought up all that stuff about you and your Sigma Chi dude… and it wasn’t cool.” You don’t think about the fact that he called you super-hot and laughed with all the guys, but instead you focus on how surprisingly genuine Mark sounded.

“I’m sorry too about coming into your room and ruining your night.”

“Nah you didn’t ruin my life,” there’s a weird pause and it makes you look away from him, but he’s quick to continue, “I mean that girl was just some stupid Phi Mu bimbo.” Without thinking about it, you hit his arm and he flinched at the pain, “ow!”

“You can’t call a woman stupid or a bimbo just because she wouldn’t sleep with you!” He placed his hands up in surrender, “Sorry, sorry! I’m still learning.”

Mark reached behind you into the freezer and grabbed a popsicle himself. When his arm brushes your shoulder and he gets close enough that you can feel his breath on your face you feel the same pulsing in your core from your dream.

“You should probably eat that… It’ll melt,” he motioned to the popsicle in your hand once he’s back in his original spot, “and close the freezer.”

“Right…” you nodded. It felt like you suddenly lost all intellect when you were around this guy, what was happening to you? It had happened with Ryan… but not on this scale at all.

Shutting the freezer, you’re both met with the darkness of the kitchen. This time you’re able to focus in on Mark’s face despite it being pitch black, both of you opening the wrappers of your icy dessert.

“Besides…” Mark began, going back to the previous topic, “from what I’ve learned… sorority girls are trouble. Not really what I’m looking for. I’d much rather be with someone unaffiliated.” His words caused you to choke on your popsicle, coughing until you feel like there’s no breath in you. Mark’s thankful for the darkness, otherwise you’d see his smile at you being so caught off guard.

“Are you okay?” He asked patting your back, just as you’re at the end of your coughing fit.

You nodded your head, but then realize he probably couldn’t see your gesture at being fine, “yeah I’m okay… just… went down the wrong pipe, ya know?”

“Oh, I know.” The way he said it almost suggests something, but you try not to think about it. Otherwise your panties were going to get more damp than they already were from earlier.

Mark takes a deep breath in and sighs after a moment, “I know you think I’m a dumb frat boy who’s only good at drinking and partying-” he began, but you cut him off immediately when you recognize his choice of words.

No fucking way.

They were the words from your dream. You felt your heart beat out of your chest and you became worried. You really didn’t want to hear what he was going to say next.

“I’m going to bed!”

“What?” Mark feels confused at your sudden announcement and the way you quickly rush out of the kitchen, the sound of your feet running up the stairs the only reply to his question.

You were strange… that was for sure. But he kinda liked it.

Smiling to himself, Mark finished up his popsicle in the darkness and headed upstairs to go to sleep.

“Mark fuck… please fuck me.”

“Oh, is that all you want from me? Is that all I’m good for?”

You aren’t sure what to say, what you need to do to convince him. “N-no.”

“Then tell me… what do you want from me... Really?”

The quick racing of your heart awoke you from your dream. Fuck… not another one.

Should you go see a therapist? Why was this happening to you? It was the third night in a row you had woken up to a Mark Tuan sex dream. This one however, felt different. Unlike the two before it where he was rough with you – this one it seemed like dream you wanted more. Of course, dream you wanted to still be fucked senseless by him – aka the frat boy way – but she was also holding back. She wanted more. She wanted something else. But what?

Climbing out of your bed, you trail down the hallway to the bathroom.

During normal term time all of the bathrooms were for the guys living in the house, but luckily for you they made a few of the bathrooms in the house “ladies only” for the few girls living in the house over the summer. You pushed the door of the bathroom open, being met with the now familiar poorly drawn and weirdly sexual woman stick figure picture taped over original sign.

Expecting to see an empty bedroom, you felt your jaw drop to the floor at Mark’s naked figure in the shower. He hadn’t even bothered closing the curtain.

You felt like you couldn’t move, you felt like you couldn’t think. With his eyes closed under the stream of water, your eyes trailed down his muscular shoulders to his toned abdomen, slowly going down to his length. The same one you had been dreaming about for the last three nights and your fantasies certainly didn’t do it justice.

Before you could truly comprehend the creepiness level of what you were doing, you heard Mark yelp in shock.

“What are you doing!” he yelled, grabbing the curtain from the side and moving it over the lower half of his body.

Your mouth went dry, “I-I-” You attempted to say something, but you felt your eyes watch the droplets of water that cascade down his skin.

“Y/n!” His words snapped you back into motion and you look up at him. It was difficult to say whether the redness on his cheeks were coming from the heat of the water or from his embarrassment of the situation. Mark himself wasn’t sure.

“I- this is the girl’s bathroom. Why are you in here?”

“This bathroom has the best water pressure in the house… I thought since it was so late no one would come in,” he stuttered.

Even though you’re supposed to be having a conversation with him, you find yourself still thinking about how he looked when you first walked in. How long and thick his cock was.

Still recovering from your dream and the peep show you had just been exposed to, you find yourself moving closer to the shower, “you didn’t even close the curtain… It’s almost like you wanted someone to come in here and find you.” He doesn’t say anything, but you make no mistake of noticing the way he grips the curtain harder against his body and the way his breathing gets heavier.

“Did you want someone to find you?” You’re so close to him now that you can feel the steam from the shower opening your pores.

Mark licked his lips, “maybe I wanted you to come find me.”

“Maybe or you did?”

“You know… you do kind of owe me.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. What was he talking about? Weren’t you guys being all sexy? Weren’t you about to do something?

At your nonresponse he smirked and dropped the curtain, revealing all of himself to you once again, “you cockblocked me, so now it’s time for you to make up for it.”

Just like that with your core beginning to throb almost painfully at how much it wants to be touched, you’re set into motion. You join him in the shower, not even caring about getting your pajamas wet. It’s almost as if no logic matters in this moment to you, instead it’s all about you and Mark and your desires for one another.

He pulled you into a heated kiss, pulling you flush against his soaking wet body. You feel his length pressed up against you and you moaned instinctively at the feeling. Your hands roam up and down his body, feeling those muscles you had been obsessing over since your first encounter, stopping when your hand reaches his hardened member.

Instantly Mark groaned out at the feeling of your hand slowly stroking him. He had already felt sensitive and worked up as he had already been thinking about having you under him before you had entered the bathroom.

Mark’s noises send you into another moment of not caring about reality as you kneeled down before him. In any other situation you would be disgusted at the fact that you were willingly on your knees on the floor of a frat’s shower, but this wasn’t any other situation.

You plunge yourself onto him, mouth wide and your tongue lapping at his head. The sudden and almost vicious sucking nearly caused Mark to lose his balance and slip. You pay no mind to the water cascading down your back and beginning to weigh down your hair as you feel yourself be spurred on by the grunts and moans leaving Mark’s mouth.

As you moved more him into your mouth getting a mixture of pre-cum and water dripping from the corners of your lips, you felt Mark buck his hips into you further. The sudden fullness in your mouth until his head was at the back of your throat made you choke around him, Mark bringing his hand to the top of your head to stroke your hair.

“I know how good you are at choking. I know how much you love it, keep fucking going.”

The vibrations from you moaning at his words caused Mark to throw his head back, “show me how much you want my cum. Moan for me, show me.”

Bobbing your head up and down his length, you make no mistake as you continue your noises around him – not for his benefit, but you genuinely felt turned on at just giving him head.

“Fuck, I’m gonna-” before he finished his thought, you felt his warm release in your mouth and you make sure to swallow it instantly.

The sounds of the shower running and Mark’s heavy breathing, coming down from his climax fill the bathroom. It feels like you could just stay here on your knees forever listening to the sounds and you would be fine.

Once Mark catches his breath, he leant down to grab your hand and lifted you up off the wet – and probably filthy – ground. He pulls you into his arms and placed a kiss on your forehead, “damn what the hell am I going to do with you?”

It’s like his words mean more than what he’s going to do with you in the bedroom and somehow that is the thing that finally snapped you into reality. It’s not seeing him naked; it’s not kissing him; it’s not getting down on your knees and suck him dry and it certainly isn’t swallowing his cum. What the hell am I going to do with you?

What the hell was he going to do with you? And what the hell were you going to do with him? The two of you didn’t make sense and you had to remind yourself that you were in a frat house… doing things of a sexual nature with a frat bro. You were not going to find yourself trapped like you were with Ryan. You had sworn off the kind of guy Mark is. You needed to leave it here… no matter how wet and turned on you were right now.

You took a step back, away from Mark and out of his arms, “I- um I should get dry.”

Mark took a step forward and you took another back. He cocked his head to the side, “well… let me help you.” His seductive gaze doesn’t go unnoticed to you, but you have to think with your head for a second. You had already gone against your own “no more frat boys, they can’t commit” beliefs once, you couldn’t do it a second time. You had to quit while you were ahead.

“I’m going to head to bed,” you stepped down from the shower and onto the bathroom tile. Mark lost for words at your sudden distance, “what? Why? Let me take care of you… You haven’t-” Waving your hands, you cut him off not wanting to hear it, “Mark… Don’t. Let’s just leave this at this. Me blowing you because I owed you one…” when it comes out of your mouth, you realize just how ridiculous it all sounded.

Mark took a step toward you, also coming out of the shower and reached to grab his towel, wrapping it around his waist. “Leave it at this? Y/n… I don’t think you understand, I-”

“Mark, I know the kind of guy you are. It’s who your friends are, it’s who all the guys living in this house are, it’s who my fucking ex-boyfriend was. I really can’t do another guy who’s just going to fuck me like I’m an object and be under his charming douchey spell, thinking that he’s all mine. I already did it once and if I did it twice, I think it would kill me. I’m sorry if I led you on or whatever by sucking your dick and making you think that we were going to fuck… and as much as my body wants to, I know it would be smart for me.”

Despite the seriousness of your words and confession, Mark found himself chuckling at the end of your monologue. He’s laughing at your word choice of “sorry if I led you on or whatever by sucking your dick,” but you don’t think about it that way. You think he’s laughing at all of it.

Typical frat guy, you think.

When he noticed the way, your mouth turned into a frown, he feels his heart leap out of his chest. He didn’t want to see you upset… ever. If he could just take some time to talk out how he was feeling to you, then maybe you’d understand how he was – “Goodnight Mark. I’d ask you not to tell you friends about this, but I know you will.”

And just like that you’re gone.

Two weeks and there had been no words exchanged between you and Mark. He had tried countless times to get your attention and talk to you, but you acted as if he didn’t exist. It didn’t go unnoticed by the other people in the house. Bambam prided himself on picking up on sexual tension and when he saw the way you and Mark acted around each other on that day on the porch, he felt it. Sure, the two of you hadn’t said anything, but Bambam could feel the pull between the two of you.

Although previously you didn’t talk to Mark that often in general, Bambam could sense something had happened – something wasn’t right between the two of you. It made him upset to see his brother so down, so… emotional.

“Guys… We have to do something about this Mark and Y/n situation,” Bambam said as he watched Jaebeom and Youngjae practice their beer pong aim in the backyard.

Youngjae looked at him confused, “what do you mean Mark and Y/n situation? There’s something going on there?”

Bambam felt like he wanted to hit him. How Youngjae could be so clueless? He wasn’t sure. “Do you not understand basic human emotions?” The older boy blinked at him mindlessly, before going back to throw the ball at the cups on the other side of the table.

“So anyways… I was thinking we could-”

“That was two! That was two! It totally hit the side of the other cup before it went in!” Youngjae yelled, interrupting Bambam’s big idea.

“Are you kidding? No way. Just take the one or I won’t even give you that,” Jaebeom rolled his eyes, he had enough of Youngjae’s cheating.

“What do you mean you won’t even give me that one? It went in!”

“Guys!” Bambam yelled, interrupting their bickering over the trivial game. They both looked at him with wide eyes, “Can you listen to me? I have a plan.”

Yawning, you decided it was probably time to head in for the night. It had been another long week of trying not to think about Mark.

You barely knew anything about the guy… but for some reason you had this weird pull to him. Deep inside your stomach you had this feeling telling you that this was the guy for you, he could be the one. You pushed it all down, your mind was just playing tricks on you – you were delusional thinking he could be the one.

Heading down the hallway to the bathroom – yes, the same bathroom – to brush your teeth you spot Youngjae coming down the corner. You tried your best to avoid his gaze, it was better safe than sorry to just proceed by ignoring Mark’s friends too.

Out of the corner of your eye as you pass one another, you notice the strange way he stares at you. It’s almost in a diabolical way… but that wouldn’t make sense, right?

Weird.

You’re probably on your sixth yawn when you finally head back to your room, reaching the door and going to turn the handle. Except… the handle won’t turn and your door won’t open.

No, this can’t be happening right now…

Trying again a few more times, you realize it had somehow locked on you. And you… like the idiot you are, left the key inside when you went to the bathroom. Was God playing some kind of sick joke on you? How were you supposed to go to sleep tonight?

That’s when it dawned on you that there was only one option.

The President has a master key to all the rooms

Jaebeom’s words flashed in your head over and over again. You tried to think of something else that could get you back in your room and under your warm covers tonight, but you come up short. You had to go up to Mark’s room.

Slowly going up the stairs to the third floor, you find yourself on the borderline of passing out at how completely nauseous and lightheaded you feel. The only way you could truly make this out alive was if you just pretended to be confident.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The door swung open immediately after the third knock, Mark looking surprised to see you at his door.

He felt his hands grow clammy, “Uh… What’s up?”

“I-I locked myself out of my room… And I heard the President as the master key so… here I am.” Mark felt his heart fall at the reason for your visit. Some stupid part of him had thought that maybe you were here for him and not a key to your room, “yeah… just give me a minute.”

Mark stepped inside and you reluctantly follow him, letting the door shut behind you with a bang. Both of you jump at the noise and softly laugh when you notice.

“I get scared easily,” you mumbled.

Mark snorted, “I can tell.”

Crossing your arms, you moved towards him, “What’s that supposed to me?”

“What do you think? That you’re too scared to explore anything you have with someone, because you got hurt once. Tough, Y/n but getting hurt and let down is a part of life,” he looked at you once as he fumbled through his drawer, looking for the key.

“It’s not just that I’ve been hurt. You’re a-” He cut you off, rolling his eyes done with your overdone argument, “I’m a frat guy, I get it. We’re all the same, blah blah blah. Save it for your dissertation on how I’m scum for your Psych class or whatever.”

“I don’t think you’re scum,” you said softly.

Mark shut the drawer, unable to locate the key in this part of his desk and turned to you, “then why do you hate me so much?”

You shuffled in place, unsure of what do with all of these pent-up feelings that not even you were sure how to describe – and you were the one feeling them. “I don’t hate you. In fact, that’s the problem… I like you so much, I’m so attracted to you and I barely know you! I’ve had so many dreams about you that it’s made it all even worse.”

Before you could stop him, you felt Mark’s lips on yours and you find yourself being suffocated again – sidetracked from your original intentions of forgetting him. However, the way his mouth moved against yours and the way his tongue slipped past the crease of your lips made you not care. But of course, he was a good kisser, he probably did this all the time to all the girls.

You felt his fingers grip the hem of your top. He bunched the material just below your breasts as his hands splayed across your ribcage. He allowed you to pull away, your chest heaving and your eyes closed, before he tugged the material of your top up and over your head. The two of you looked at each other, as if absorbing what the two of you were doing.

When he dropped the fabric onto the floor, he moved his mouth to your neck. He can’t help himself as he marked your collarbones with his teeth, every inch of you is practically covered with marks when he’s done. While your mind is caught up in the feeling of his lips on your neck, his hands moved to cup your breasts.

He made you feel so damn good, you didn’t care anymore.

“Mark,” you breathed as you shifted your head to give him better access, “d-do whatever you want. Fuck me however you want. Just do something.”

You could feel the vibrations of Mark’s laughter against your neck as he reached around your back to unsnap your bra before he pulled away to watch the material fall to the floor. His eyes glued to your chest for a moment, his pupils darkening with lust, before he returned his lips to yours in a heated kiss.

Your hands dipped beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. You allowed your hands a moment to roam, before you break the kiss and tugged the material of his shirt up and over his head. Once again you feel hypnotized by his chest, just as you had been the first night you met him. You wanted to trace your finger over every muscle, every vain and every inch of skin. Mark helped you out of your pajama pants and returned his lips to your neck.

“As much as I would love to do fuck you until you feel me in every single part of your body, I want to take my time. To show you just how beautiful you are, just how much I want you.”

In your sex induced brain you have a moment of clarity to consider his words. Take his time? Weren’t frat boys supposed to be rushed, quick and just be rough with you? You had not a doubt in your mind that Mark would be able to deliver on that, based on how he had first acted around you… but slow? Sensual? Was he even capable of that? You weren’t expecting him to be so… soft and delicate. It wasn’t a part of his brand.

This time when Mark brings his lips back to you, they’re much softer – he kissed you at an unhurried pace as if he had all the time in the world with you. He gently nudged you to lay on your back, your fingers going to tangle themselves in his fluffy hair. He brings his fingers to curl at the waistband of your panties, “is this okay?” he breathed against your lips. You feel yourself begin to grow more wet at his ask for consent.

“Yeah,” you mumbled, your eyes closed and your hands tugging at his hair, “more than okay.”

With your permission, Mark slipped his hand into your panties. Brushing your folds lazily, his fingers gentle and unhurried as he allowed you to pull away and catch your breath. When he brushes your clit and felt yourself jolt in surprise beneath him. He attached his lips to your neck and began pressing kisses along the column of your throat.

No words are spoken as you moved one hand from his hair and gently squeezed his hardening cock over his sweats. Mark moaned against your skin and moved his fingers a little quicker but not changing his lazy pace as he worked to rile you up. It doesn’t take long as he slipped a finger into your heat and hears you release a content sigh at the feeling.

“You’re so gorgeous usually,” he whispered against the column of your throat as one of his hands go up to pay attention to your breasts, kneading them gently. “But, fuck, you’re even better naked.”

At that you laughed, “You’re not so bad yourself Mr. President, you know for a frat guy and all.” He smiled at you, capturing your lips in another kiss, nudging his sweatpants and briefs down.

The continual strokes of his fingers, working you open along with his hand on your breast makes you feel dizzy. You attempt to focus your attention elsewhere, pressing kisses to his heated skin as he rubbed your clit with his thumb.

You could feel Mark shifting above you, reaching for the stash of condoms next to his bed, before he ripped open the foil packet and pulled away to roll the latex onto his length. His slowness practically drove you to insanity, you just wanted him inside of you now.

“Mark please, I want it.”

Smiling at you, he leaned forward to press a kiss on your forehead, “princess you’re going to get it all.”

Mark returned his lips to yours as he sank into you. His pace is slow, lazy and soft, as he began fucking into you. You had always thought that slow and sensual sex was the best kind of sex, but maybe you were wrong. With Mark it felt like your whole body was on fire – it was pure torture. The way he jutted his hips into you at a rhythm had your core aching for more. It was like all of your senses were heightened, everything felt so much more pleasureful with the way your body was hanging on every thrust.

He buried his face into the crook of your neck and groaned as he felt you tug at his hair again. You felt like you were going to go insane and you needed something to grab onto. For you, Mark was willing to do or be whatever you wanted – something he had never remotely thought of doing for anyone ever, including the guys in the fraternity. He was ready to be at your beck and call, to take you like this – making you feel every single stroke, every single time pump into you.

Mark brings his hand between the two of you back to your core and circled your clit once again, allowing you to fall over the edge. “I know you’re going to look so pretty when you cum, please cum for me. I’ve been thinking about it since that night in the shower.”

His mention of the shower brings you back to thinking about how good it felt to have him in your mouth, how good he tasted when he came on your tongue, how much you’d like to be on your knees for him again. These final thoughts have you clenching around Mark, his groaning getting more consistent telling you that he’s close. He nipped at your skin and sucked the spot under your jaw at the same time he thrusted himself at a semi-faster pace, hitting your g-spot. That finally makes every part of your body go numb, and you feel your hips buck forward involuntarily, everything in you spasming.

As he watched your strong release and felt your walls throb around him, Mark began falling over the edge himself. You felt his hips stutter, his breathing shallow, and his hand clenched your hip firmly as he spilled into the condom and you found yourself wanting the moment to last forever as he remained on top of you. You feel him everywhere, warm and solid and entirely him. He pressed a kiss to your lips, another lazy peck, before he pulled away to tie the condom, tossing it somewhere on the ground of his messy room.

“Are you really just going to throw that on the ground?” you laughed. Mark shrugged, “what if you forget about it later?”

He smiled, wrapping his arms around your naked body and brings you as close to him as he can, “nah there’s no way I would forget this.”

Two Months Later

It was hard to believe that summer was finally ending and the new school year was right around the corner. No longer would be stuck in what you once considered was your own personal Hell – the Lambda Chi Alpha house.

The personal Hell had somehow shaped itself into one of the biggest blessings of your life. It had given you Mark Tuan.

“Finally, you’re home!” Mark smiled, patting the open spot next to him on the love seat at your return from work.

As soon as you plopped down, Mark pulled you close to him, resting one arm around your shoulder and the other on your thigh, “want the aux cord?” he mumbled into your shoulder, nuzzling the side of his head against it.

“No! She always gets aux cord when she’s porchin’ it up with us! It’s not fair! She plays that weird K-pop stuff and makes us the laughing stock of the whole street!” Jaebeom whined.

You laughed, “Don’t knock it until you try it!”

“I have tried it and I hate it,” Jaebeom quipped back, crossing his arms to show his firm disagreement on the matter.

“Fine let’s do One Direction this time.”

“Like that’s any better!”

“Can you guys shut up I’m trying to think of something to say to that girl,” Youngjae grumbled in annoyance at your bickering with Jaebeom.

You looked to see a girl walking by the house. Judging on her large backpack, casual clothes and tired face she had been at the library. You doubt she would be up for any unwarranted cat calling. “Don’t say anything!”

Youngjae looked at you confused, “what… I’m trying to shoot my shot.”

“As a girl, please trust me when I say don’t.” Youngjae pursed his lips in thought, “not even if I just tell her she has a nice smile?” You look at the girl frowning, “she’s not smiling and no not even that.”

“Get a load of this guy,” Bambam said as a guy in Phi Kappa Tau letters walks by – most likely to his house. Judging on all of the times you’ve spent on the porch with the boys now, you knew what was coming. Standing up, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “PHI KAPPA TAU SUCKS.” The guy turned to the porch, eyeing Bambam and flipped him off.

Sitting down, Bambam shakes his head, “it’s because he knows it’s true.”

“Will you ever listen to me and realize that it’s stupid to shout at another frat?” you asked.

Bambam shook his head firmly, “you can’t just get rid of tradition Y/n.”

Mark firmly nuzzled his head into your shoulder again, kissing the side of your neck, “pay attention to me.” A clingy boyfriend might be annoying to some people and at one point in time you also thought that way, but with Mark you couldn’t get enough of it. The way that he was so dominant and attentive in the bedroom, but then so needy and clingy when it came to being in public. Especially when you were with the other guys.

“Anything for my number one frat star,” you cooed, pinching his cheek.

“You know I hate it when you call me that!” Mark whined, “you pay more attention to the guys then you do to me.” As he pouted you leaned in to give him a peck, but instead he brings the hand resting on your thigh up to cup your cheek, deepening the kiss. Youngjae, Jaebeom and Bambam all groan.

“Y/n?” Your name being called breaks you out your bubble with Mark. The bubble that made you feel like you two were the only people in the world that existed. Pulling apart from his lips, you both turned to see who the culprit is that ruined your moment.

“What the hell are you doing at Lambda?” Ryan asked. It doesn’t hurt to see him again; it was just annoying.

“Back from your lake house I take it Sigma Chi?” Mark asked. You had told Mark everything about what went down with you and Ryan – and if looks could kill… Ryan would already be in his grave.

“I’m not talking to you,” Ryan rolled his eyes, “what the hell are you doing at Lambda?” He asked again.

Without thinking about it, you find yourself standing up and cupping your hands around your mouth just as Bambam had done earlier, “SIGMA CHI SUCKS!”

Ryan couldn’t believe his eyes, he stood there blankly on the sidewalk in front of the house, “what? Very funny Y/n… I know you don’t mean-”

You do it again, “SIGMA CHI SUCKS!” The boys on the porch with you begin to laugh.

Ryan pointed a finger towards you, waving it in the air, “now just wait a minute-”

“SIGMA CHI SUCKS!”

Your ex-boyfriend clenched his jaw, “You weren’t even a good fuck anyways!” The words should hurt you, but they don’t because you know it’s not true.

“Uh… Yeah she fucking is,” Mark retorted, standing up next to you, “why don’t you go home Sigma Chi?” And just like that, you and the guys on the porch have your second middle finger of the day – this time from your ex-boyfriend.

As he walked off in the direction of the Sigma Chi house you all laughed at how blatantly offended, he was at just the fact that you had said his frat sucked. It was middle school taunting, but of course it would work on someone like Ryan. Ryan was a special breed of asshole and it makes you feel stupid to think that you had once grouped Mark with him. All of the Lambda boys.

Mark kisses your shoulder, “what are you thinking about?” His smile melted you – it always does. He was one you had been waiting for and somehow your body and subconscious knew it before you did.

“Just how happy I am to have you by my side Mr. President.”

“I’m happy to have you by my side too,” Mark hummed, but soon he pauses, “unless it’s during beer pong… because you really suck.”

“Mark!”

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