#still believe in the soap between Ro and him

[thesamoanqueen]

*Seth Rollins has officially joined your anti-Whitey groupchat as special guest*

#still believe in the soap between Ro and him #if it couldnt be Jey to replace Ro it must have been Seth #seth freakin rollins #my blog is a no cody blog so yes

[trashyswitch]

Roman's Spa Day

Roman has been overworking Thomas lately. So, the main sides decide to give Roman a spa day to relax him. But, THIS spa day has a secret twist mixed in...

I'm on time again! And I'm mostly caught up on my college courses! *Snoopy dances* Look at me go!

Here's Tickletober Day 16: Massage

Roman has been overworking himself ever since Thomas voiced the Throat-Lobster in Phineas & Ferb: Candace Against The Universe. Roman had been making Thomas work his butt off for the audition and the voice recording, and was so proud when Thomas took his improv advice! Even though meeting the voice of Dr. Doofenshmirtz was an amazing experience, Roman had been overwhelming Thomas as of late.

Finally, enough was enough. Patton, Logan and Virgil were all very annoyed, yet very worried about him. So, the sides had a quick meeting to determine how to help the poor creative side simmer down and take a break. By the time the meeting was over, all 3 sides knew exactly what to do: they were going to set up a spa day for him. Only this time, there was going to be a little twist added to it...

Patton offered to be the blind-folder and the usher for Roman. So, that meant he needed to guide the blind Roman along to every single room that was needed for the spa day. Roman was sitting at a desk, writing down something in a bright red journal. At first glance, it didn’t even look like Roman at all! It looked like Logan, if he chose to wear red that day! Patton walked into the room, and frowned upon seeing the state Roman was in. His posture was off, he had bags under his eyes, his hair was a filthy mess, and his desk was covered with props and scripts. Patton sighed and pulled out the blindfold he was gonna use. Nervous he was gonna make Roman angry for doing this, Patton gave himself a Hunger Games good luck salute before taking on the actor.

Patton wrapped the blindfold around his head super quickly and tied it into a knot. “WHAT THE- HEY! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER- HAHA! HEHEHEHEY!” Roman shouted. Patton had quickly started tickling him to get him kneeling on the ground and double-checked his blindfold knot. “WHOHohoho...Who’s there? Who DARE FIGHT THE GREAT ROMAN?!” Roman shouted, reaching for his sword. But...his sword wasn’t in its usual spot! Not only that, but the entire belt was missing! “Hey! My sword! Give me back my be-”

Patton quickly covered up his mouth with his hand, and curved it so Roman couldn’t bite his hand. “Shhhh...Calm down Ro.” Patton ordered. “It’s just me: Patton.” he told him.

“How do I know it’s you, and not Janus faking it?” Roman asked.

Patton smirked. “Would Janus know that THIS tickle spot exists?” Patton asked as he lightly tickled his chin.

Roman snorted and squealed in surprise, before kitty fighting the fingers in front of him. “Ohokay. Good point.” Roman mentioned, before reaching out for his hand. Patton brought his hand to Roman’s so he could grab it, and lifted him up. “You ready for the time of your life?” Patton asked.

Roman’s giddy smile dropped slightly. “For what? Why did you blindfold me? What’s going on?” Roman asked. Patton only led him through Roman’s door frame and out to the hallway. “And where are you taking me?” Roman asked.

Patton smiled. “To the living room!” Patton replied.

“That’s it?” Roman asked as he pulled the blindfold off. “Why did you blindfold me just fo-” Patton took the blindfold from Roman’s hand and tied it back on. “It’s a surprise.” Patton replied as he tightened the knot on the back.

“Oooh.” Roman reacted. “Is there a pinata?” Roman asked eagerly.

Patton giggled. “Nope.” he replied.

“Oh. A sword fight?” Roman asked.

Patton smiled. “You’ll see…” he replied.

“Oooooh!” Roman reacted, clapping his hands as he was pushed into a tent entrance by Patton. Roman threw his arms up in front of him, and seemed to relax when Patton gave him his arm to hold onto again.

“Here you go.” Patton offered, pulling a chair out and gently sitting the man down. “There.” Patton muttered as he removed Roman’s blindfold.

“Well...I will admit that I never imagined Patton to go for the blindfolding method.” Logan told Roman.

Roman took one look at Logan and bursted out laughing. Logan was dressed as a cross between a wizard and a fortune teller. “Hello Roman. I am going to be your fortune teller.” Logan said calmly, despite being laughed at by his customer. “And despite what you may believe, I have had plenty of practice on multiple other folks. So as long as you stay still, I will be able to read your palm.” Logan explained.

Roman finally managed to stop laughing and calm himself down. “May I have your right hand please?” Logan ordered politely. Roman nodded and gave him his right palm. Logan read the palm carefully and started to focus on the 3 lines on the hand palm. “Hmm...Artistic and adventurous.” Logan told him. Logan smiled as he read the second palm line. “A sensitive soul with an appreciation for literature and fantasy.” Logan explained.

Roman chuckled. “Well, of course you said that. You’ve known me for years.” Roman mentioned, not really believing in the art of palm reading.

Logan continued to read his plan despite the judgements from Roman and read the third line. “Wow! A positive person!” Logan told him. Roman smiled and placed his left hand on his chest.

“Awww! Thank you!” Roman replied.

Logan smiled and looked closer as he slowly drew the line of fate out with his pencil. “A successful life up ahead.” Logan told him.

Roman snorted. “I wish…” Roman reacted.

Logan frowned slightly as he read the palm. He wasn’t believing much of what he was saying. So, he decided to start purposefully poking and drawing out the palm lines to create feeling. “Patient, hard-working and practical, I see…” Logan added, focusing on the Mount of Saturn. “You’re also energetic, creative, and passionate! A good set of traits.” Logan added, drawing circles around the Apollo mount on his hand. Roman started to cover his mouth a little as the need to giggle and smile awkwardly, started to take over. The movements Logan was doing, were starting to tickle him and make him all giggly.

Logan noticed this, and continued his actions. “And...Wow! You have the water hand! Oval palms,” Logan started drawing his finger on the outside of his palm. “And long flexible fingers!” Logan drew down his fingers with his index finger one by one. Roman finally let out an uncontrollable, small giggle.

Logan smirked. “And of course:” Logan lightly grabbed his wrist with his non-dominant hand and started skittering his index and middle finger on the palm of Roman’s hand. “Sensitive palms!” Logan teased as he tickled his palms.

Roman giggled at the teases and rested his forehead on his arm as he giggled and snorted. Sensitive? More like a giggle spot. “Ohohokahay. Thahahank yohohou Lohohogan.” Roman attempted to tug his hand back. But of course, Logan had Roman’s ticklish palm right in his own and was taking advantage of the cute ticklish spot. “Lohohogahahahan! Lehehet gohohohohoho!” Roman begged through his giggles and snorts. Logan smiled, fluttered his fingers one more time and let go of his wrist. Roman brought his palm against his chest and scratched it to get the ticklish sensations to leave him. “Ehevil. Evil fortune man!” Roman accused, sticking his tongue out.

Logan smirked and stuck his tongue out right back at him.

“Enjoy your appointment.” Logan said with a smile.

“Appointment?!” Roman reacted, before his eyes were blindfolded again. “HEy! What’s up with all the blindfolding?!” Roman asked.

Patton giggled. “It’s to keep you on your ‘toes’, silly!” Patton said with a wink towards Logan. Logan gagged, but sent him the thumbs up back. “Don’t you trust me?” Patton asked.

Roman guffawed. “With how you blindfolded me earlier, not really.” Roman replied. Patton did the puppy eyes at Roman and stuck his bottom lip out in mock sadness. “Awww…Patty is sad now, UwU.” Patton whined in a high-pitched furry voice. Roman giggled and felt around for Patton’s side, before squeezing his side in revenge. Patton squeaked and pushed his shoulder, causing Roman to laugh out loud.

With that, Patton and Roman were off to the next room! Patton led Roman down a few hallways, and into a bedroom ready all ready for him! “We’re here!” Patton greeted as he entered. Patton sat Roman down, turned his chair around a little and removed the blindfold. Roman took a moment to look around and smiled as he realized this was Virgil’s room! Only this time, there was a table with multiple tools and items on it.

“Hi Roman.” Virgil greeted on the other side of the table. Roman giggled and clapped his hands. “Sweet! I’ve been eager for a manicure!” Roman reacted as he placed his hands on the table, separated and ready.

Virgil started off by examining his nails and clipping them into shape. He clipped them in a curved motion, and carefully filed them into the curvy shaped they were gonna be. Virgil aimed for oval-shaped nails for this part, and took a bit of extra time to make sure they were as identical as he could make them. Next, Virgil grabbed two big bowls from underneath the table and put a bit of gentle shampoo into the bottom of the empty bowls. Next, Virgil grabbed a kettle off the heating item and poured the water into both bowls, allowing the soap to bubble up a bit. With one quick temperature test, Virgil placed the bowls into the correct spots and signalled for Roman to insert his nails and his feet into the bowls.

Roman slowly put his hands in, but quickly put the rest of his hands in the water. With his feet, he put them in almost right away. Roman let out a full sigh of relief upon feeling the warm temperature of the water. “Feeling relaxed, Princey?” Virgil asked.

Roman nodded. “Mm hmm…” Roman replied.

When the water time on the fingers were done, Virgil let Roman remove his hands before gently patting them with a towel. While Virgil did this, Patton moved the table away and started working on Roman’s feet. Roman rested his dried hands onto the armrests that were beside him and let Virgil work on his manicure, while Patton removed one foot at a time, placed the exfoliating cream onto his feet and started rubbing and exfoliating his foot.

While the manicure was amazing and very relaxing, the pedicure was a bit...ticklish... -Okay, a lot ticklish. Roman was biting his lip through the whole exfoliating process due to the crystals in the formula tickling and lightly scratching his entire foot wherever Patton’s palms massaged. It tickled a lot, and made him giggle a little despite his attempts to keep it in.

Patton couldn’t help but giggle at this as well. “Ticklish?” Patton asked. Roman bit his lip harder and nodded his head. “Y-Yeah...a bihit.” Roman replied.

Patton finally placed his exfoliated feet back into the water and washed his feet off. Roman finally took the moment to relax while the exfoliating crystals slid off his ankles and disintegrated into the water. Roman’s foot was soon removed and patted down with a towel. After placing it down, Roman’s other foot was removed, patted down with a towel and placed aside. After that, Patton put some cream onto his hands and started massaging his foot. With the feeling of Patton’s massaging palm, Roman started to relax more and more. Patton brought the cream up his ankles as well, and up the lower calf. As Patton started to gently massage the top of Roman’s foot with his fingers, he smirked as he heard slight giggles form Roman again.

Patton looked up at Roman with a starry glint in his eyes, and snuck a couple tickles under his foot. Roman’s foot twitched and he let out a titter. “Pahahat, cahaharefuhuhul!” Roman ordered.

“Awww! The poor prince is too ticklish for massages! It would be rude if I were to…” Patton started skittering his fingers under his toes.

Roman snorted and threw his head back with newfound laughter. “NAHAHAHA! PAHAHAHAT! CAHAHAHAREFUHUHUHUL!” Roman begged. Virgil smiled and nodded for Patton to keep going. Patton’s smirk grew wider as he flattened Roman’s foot and scratched on Roman’s inner arch. “NohoHOHOHOHO! NAHAHAT THEHEHERE! GAAHAHAHAHAHA!” Roman laughed helplessly.

Patton smiled innocently. “Your laugh is so cute, Ro-Ro!” Patton complimented as he moved to the ball of Roman’s foot.

Roman squeaked as his laughter went up about 3 octaves into high-pitched giggles. “Ihihihihi’m toohohoho tihihihicklihihihish thehehehere!” Roman told him.

“Oh, you think this is bad? I haven’t even started massaging the middle of your foot!” Patton reacted.

Suddenly, Patton pushed his flattened thumbs into the middle of Roman’s inner and outer arch.

Roman wheezed and threw his head back as fits of cackles left his throat. Roman took in a big breath and- “OHOHO GAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! NOHEEL! NOHOHO HEEEEEHEHEHEHEEL!” Roman shrieked and laughed himself silly.

Patton giggled and laughed along with him as he enjoyed the sound of Roman’s contagious laughter. Despite the ticklish feeling and wiggly reactions, Virgil was still capable of painting all 10 of Roman’s nails almost perfectly! As Patton slowed his tickling down and gave Roman some time to breath, Virgil let the right nails dry and started putting pretty silver jewels on Roman’s left hand’s nails as decoration.

Patton’s ticklish endeavor soon returned to actual foot grooming. To finish it all off, Patton put some clear polish onto his nails and put tiny little glitter dots onto Roman’s toes to replicate the design Virgil created on Roman’s fingernails. When those were done, Patton gently started clearing the polish and bowls off the table while Virgil put his own polish, cream and tweezers away. As Roman gained his breath back, he looked at Virgil and Patton’s handiwork:

Virgil had given him oval, bright red nails with silver sticky gems curving the side of his nails! It was so pretty!

And Patton had gotten a bit more natural, and simply did more of a massage then a pedicure. He had put finishing polish on his toenails, and placed sparkly dots on the side of his nails, similarly to his fingernails!

“Wow! I am impressed, you two! Thank you!” Roman reacted happily.

“No problem.” Virgil replied.

“You’re welcome, Ro!” Patton replied happily. “And now, one more thing!” Patton declared. Roman beamed in excitement and got up off the chair.

Surprisingly, Patton didn’t put a blindfold on him this time! He just grabbed Roman’s soft wrist and led him to his own room. Patton’s room had a massage bed in it, with blankets, creams and heating pads. “Okay. I’d like you to take your shirt off, show off those abs of yours!” Patton said, pausing to poke one of Roman’s abs. Roman doubled over and giggled in surprise before he removed his shirt. “Now please lay down, and relax.” Patton told him politely as he started up some piano music from a radio. Roman laid down on the massage bed like he was told and let out a big breath of relief, while Patton got started almost right away:

Patton started off with some simple back rubs to loosen him up and keep him relaxed. Patton started rubbing his back muscles somewhat quickly, but softly. He moved up the back, down the back, and out to the sides. He did practically every hand movement possible, right onto Roman’s back. But whether it was actually a back technique or an improvised session from Patton, Roman couldn’t tell you. What he could admit however, was just how nice it felt.

...And then Patton started tapping his fingers lightly on his upper back.

“Hehe...Hehehehehe! Pahahat, thahahat tihihicklehes!” Roman reacted.

He should’ve known this was gonna happen! Considering how often tickling showed up in the entire experience, he should’ve been able to predict Patton’s movements from calming to ticklish. But, here he was: giggling under the fingers of Patton again.

“I call these...the sprinkle fingers. Doesn’t it feel like hundreds and hundreds of sprinkles are falling on your back?” Patton asked as he continued the 4-finger tapping.

Roman’s giggles got more and more frequent the lower Patton went. “Ihihihit feheheels like- TihihickLISH RAHAhahaindrohohohops!” Roman replied.

“Oooooh...that’s a good idea.” Patton replied.

Then, Patton started swaying his hands back and forth across his back. “This movement reminds me of fluffy icing being lathered and smoothed onto the top of a cake.” Patton told him softly as he continued the back and forth hand movements. He was moving both his hands around like a pair of icing spatulas. It felt amazing, and a lot more relaxing than the ‘sprinkle fingers’.

Patton smiled and continued the technique, before moving onto something new: Patton started walking his index and middle finger backwards from the top right side of the back, to the bottom. “I call this...the tiny moonwalk.” Patton told him.

Roman snickered at both the ticklish feeling from his fingers, and at the name of the silly technique. It tickled a lot, and made him shiver and giggle. “Nohohoho mohohoonwahalks plehehehease. Tohoho tihihicklihihish.” Roman ordered. Patton slightly frowned in disappointment, but dropped the negative attitude as he came up with a new technique:

Patton started rubbing and smoothening the top of Roman’s back with his fingers alone. He lifted his fingers off the skin, moved his hands down, lowered his fingers and started massaging again. He repeated this rubbing process all the way down his back, and even continued it up his back. Roman seemed to enjoy the feeling at first. But the piano silence quickly filled with giggles and laughter as the technique reached Roman’s lower back. Roman’s back was the most ticklish part on his body, that not even massouses can continue massaging him without causing some ticklish laughter.

Patton smiled at this adorable fact. “Say...How would you feel about a mini massager?” Patton asked.

Despite being tired, Roman’s eyes widened in horror as his imagination overwhelmed him with how ticklish that would be!

Suddenly, a vibrating sound could be heard, which only worsened his imaginative thoughts! “This mini massager is shaped like a turtle!” Patton reacted before placing the mini massager’s legs onto the small of Roman’s back.

Roman let out a surprised squeal! “aaAAAAHAHAHAHA! PAHAHAHAT NOOOOHOHOHOHO!” Roman begged.

Patton let out an almost evil giggle as he moved the massager around. “Patton YES!” he replied as he moved the massager up and down his lower back.

Roman wiggled around and laughed hysterically at the super ticklish massages! Oh gosh! It was so ticklish! He couldn’t believe just how ticklish a simple battery-charged mini massager could be! It was nuts! Roman laughed and snorted into his arms in ticklish excitement. This was both torturous, yet unbelievably fun! If there’s one thing Patton nailed, it was the inability to get bored during the massage! Who in the world could get bored when your back was being tickled to pieces by a turtle designed mini massager?!

Patton continued this ticklish technique for a good 10 more minutes before turning the massager off and rubbing away the ghost tickles. Patton softly resumed the icing-spreading technique he used earlier, to calm Roman down and let him breath.

The rest of the massage was a mix of feather light tickling, careful rubbing, and even massaging of the back ribs. Roman’s reactions often went from relaxed, to laughing, back to relaxed. There was no in between for Roman! It either tickled, or it felt good! That was the spectrum.

After the entire spa day, Roman could proudly say he feels a lot more at ease and relaxed. He could even say he feels an extra hint of giddy and giggly! Thomas could not believe the difference the sides were capable of creating on Roman. A spa day was exactly what Roman needed to relax and reward himself for the creativity he’s come up with.

#ticklefic #massage #ler!logan #ler!patton #lee!roman #roman needs a break

[krismusings]

Discord thread featuring: Roman and  @aaronhart93

When: The first time Roman purposely stayed the night at Aaron’s flat.

Mentions: -

Description: Roman plans to stay at aaron’s, and they get to know each other better, talk about feelings, and Ro tops (wow)

Trigger Warnings: sexy time, and gross feels.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman and Aaron had spent a few nights together in the past, but not necessarily on purpose. Usually one of them was too wasted, tired, or high to really make it back home after a late night of fun. Tonight was the first time Ro had bothered to bring his overnight bag, which honestly was a little extensive. He’d laid out everything he needed for his bedtime routine on the millionaire’s marble countertop, his OCD forcing him to place the items in order. He’d grabbed a bowl of ice from the kitchen, something that confused Aaron, but the actor assured him it had a purpose. He pursed his lips as he reached for his toothbrush, taking his time to brush, and floss until he was satisfied. Next he did a quick ice water bath on his face, opening up his pores so that he could properly wash with a block of homemade charcoal soap, scrubbing every single inch of his skin before rinsing with steaming hot water. He wanted it to be painful almost, like he was scrubbing away all of his insecurities. It didn’t make sense to a lot of people, so he rarely showed this side of himself. His creams and serums were next, wanting to make sure his skin stayed hydrated, or else he’d definitely breakout. Poor Aaron was probably wondering where the hell he was at this point. Speaking of Aaron, the barista happened to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, turning to catch the other male standing in the doorway. “How long ‘ve you been there??” Roman asked with a flustered smirk.

Aaron

Aaron was quick to get ready for bed in comparison to Roman. Almost a little too quick. Roman had briefly told him about his extensive nightly routine and mild OCD, but Aaron wasn't really quite sure what to expect. He gave Roman some time in the master bath while he went to go fill up their wine glasses with the rest of the bottle. It had been a long time since Aaron had seen Roman really it had only been like a week, but anything longer than 12 hours was cause for withdrawal symptoms.He was just in his boxers when he returned to the master bedroom and set their wine glasses down. He half expected Roman to already be in bed by now, so decided to peak in on the actor to see what exactly was taking him so long. Boy, was it a sight. He finally realized what the ice was for as stood in the doorway between the bedroom and the bathroom, watching Roman practically scrub off a layer of his skin. He was...wow. Just wow. Aaron couldn't keep himself from smiling like a dumbass. He forced himself to take several deep breaths to keep his stomach from doing a million 360s. This wasn't the fucking x-games. Chill, Aaron. His dumb smile turned into a smirk when Roman finally realized he was there. "Long enough." He chuckled. "You done? Or do you need more time?" He asked, almost picking on him in a way.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

“Heyyyy...” Roman pretended to be offended by Aaron’s accusation that he was taking a long time. He knew the man was right though, he definitely needed to trim off some time on his routine. “I’m done, thank you very much.” The actor wiped off his hands on a hand towel before folding it neatly by the sink, and then he was moving over to the other male. He wrapped his arms around Aaron’s neck, pulling him close because he wanted to, and decided to rub his nose  against the smaller’s. Ro was an overly affectionate person, he couldn’t help but want to do cutesy things. “Do you wanna wind down in the living room, or the bedroom?” The actor wiggled his eyebrows.

Aaron

Aaron was actually really happy to know that Roman was comfortable enough to do his nightly routine in front of Aaron like that. He could tell by the way that he was joking with him that he didn't mind the businessman watching him intensely. It was hot...intimate even. Speaking of intimate....Aaron stepped closer to Roman when he started walking over towards the millionaire. He instinctively wrapped his arms around the taller's waist and hummed when their noses brushed past each other. Aaron smirked. "Mmm, bedroom." He hummed, pressing his lips to Roman's without even a little bit of hesitation. Roman was becoming so familiar to him. They were starting to get to know each other in a way that lovers did. Which, of course, terrified Aaron. But it also made him feel so god damn warm at the same time. "C'mon." He grabbed his hand and pulled him over to bed.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman of course was hoping Aaron would say bedroom, so he went easily when he was tugged towards the bed. “Ooo, you got wine.” The actor observed as soon as he was positioned comfortably on top of the mattress. He relaxed with one leg crossed over the other, sipping on his wine glass while he looked over the smaller’s master bedroom. He’d seen it before of course, but he didn’t think he’d really taken it in until now. “You know, I love this room. Don’t think I’ve told you that before.” He turned to raise a brow in Aaron’s direction. “What’s it feel like to be king of the world?” Roman asked before taking another few sips of his wine.

Aaron

"Of course I got wine." He mused, as he leaned against the headboard. He held his arm out and motioned for him to snuggle into him. He gripped onto the wine glass and looked proudly over his room as Romans spoke. "Yeah...thanks. I hired an interior designer to help me bring a vision to life, and she helped me with the entire penthouse. My bedroom is my favorite part though." He admitted, humming contently. Aaron was a workaholic, and when he set his mind to something...He most definitely completed it. When he moved to Kingsboro a few years ago, he had a vision for this place and he wasn't going to stop until he got exactly what he wanted. That translated to many other parts of his life too. Aaron really was like a king. He only wished he was the king of the world. But right now...hanging out with Roman was exactly what he wanted, and he really did feel like a king. "The real question is...how does it feel being the queen?" He asked the actor with a shy smile.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

“Ha!” Roman managed a dry laugh, looking over Aaron’s face from close proximity as he thought over what he’d said. He was smooth, so of course his words reflected exactly how the businessman had managed to be so successful. Sure, a lot of it had to do with who his father was, but Aaron had maintained his status all on his own persuasion skills. “I wish that was true. I feel like I’m always just scraping by, finding the next best thing.” Roman reached out to play with the waistline of Aaron’s boxer shorts mindlessly. “I still can’t believe I’m in your bed. You could have anyone you want.”

Aaron

Yeah, Aaron was smooth but Roman constantly flustered him. it was honestly a mystery as to how Aaron could keep his cool so often. He wasn't quite sure what exactly Roman meant by 'scraping by to find the next best thing', but what he said next actually surprised Aaron. "You really have no idea how great you are, do you?" He his neck to look down at Roman. Ahh...fuck. Aaron was in so fucking deep with Roman, he didn't think he'd ever be able to get out of the hole we was in. He smirked and rubbed his thumb along the other male's arms. "I want you, Roman Beckett. Am I not making that clear enough?" He actually chuckled a little bit.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman’s eyes searched Aaron’s as he spoke, feeling like his throat was closing up as he tried to think through this. Quentin. They both loved Quentin, but Aaron? God. He was just...he was...Roman was definitely falling for him, too. “But...what about Q?” He reached for the smaller’s shoulder, gripping it before dropping his touch down to Aaron’s bicep. He’d gone from never being in love, to giving his heart away so easily it felt like. But, at the same time, this wasn’t easy at it. It was enough to shift his anxiety into high gear, the fear of losing everything riding on his nerves. “Are we doing the right thing here?”

Aaron

Aaron shifted a little bit when he mentioned Quentin. It was weird. When he was with Roman, he missed Quentin and when he was with Quentin he missed Roman. He was happy with them when he spent time with them separately...but he was even more happy and...even a little complete when he was with the two of them. "It's not wrong. I mean...we all agreed this was okay." He took another big gulp of wine. "I love Quentin. You know that more than anyone else. I've loved him for a while. But Roman I..." JESUS CHRIST, AARON YOU'RE NOT EVEN DRUNK. "I feel very strongly towards you too. Obviously. I'd be hurt loosing either of you. And I can't...like I can't lose both of you either." He set his wine glass down and ran his free hand through his hair and he let out a deep breath. this was heavy.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman felt terrible suddenly for bringing up something that was obviously so sensitive for the other. He hadn’t been thinking, they were being honest, and open, getting even closer to each other than they had been before. Roman wanted to know more about Aaron, as much as he could know, and that included seeing into his heart. “Aaron, you’re not gonna lose me.” He assured the smaller while placing a hand on the businessman’s chest, feeling his heart racing below. “I know things are confusing right now, trust me. My head is in a million different places. But, I do know I love being around you. I don’t want it to stop.”

Aaron

Aaron placed his wine glass on the side table after quickly downing the rest of the drink. He placed his free hand over Roman's on his chest and let out a heavy sigh. He could feel his heart beating in his ears so he knew that Roman could feel his panic right now. The barista's words did comfort him though. "Good. I love..." Aaron Hart. "...being around you too." He smiled down at his softly and kissed him softly on the forehead.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman moved his own wine glass to the side table when Aaron did, watching him once again with intense eyes when he started to say what he loved. It made Ro’s heart jump for a moment, he had to admit, but when Aaron finished the statement, he quickly realized he wasn’t going to say what he thought he would. The actor nodded, and pressed his fingertips into the other’s firm chest, like he was trying to make sure Aaron was even real. His eyes slipped closed at the kiss to his forehead, and then he decided to curl up against the smaller with his cheek now pressed against his pec. “I know how it feels to be scared to lose someone. I think I’m the world’s worst when it comes to abandonment issues.”

Aaron

Aaron gripped onto Roman’s hand tighter and brought his other hand up to run his fingers through Roman’s hair, petting him like a kitten almost. Aaron wasn’t really surprised when Roman told him that he had abandonment issues. He knew he was adopted, and he figured that as probably where it stemmed from. Aaron didn’t have abandonment issues exactly, but losing his father so young most definitely made him afraid of losing important people. Roman being one of them. “Why?” Maybe he was overstepping, but if he was falling for Roman like he thought he was he wanted to get to know him even more. Even all the bad things about him.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman was practically purring with the hand in his hair, making him want to nuzzle against Aaron’s chest, so he did. Literally, he was like a human cat right now. His heart sank like lead in his chest though when Aaron asked him about his abandonment issues, something he knew he’d have to talk about with him one day. He was still somehow not prepared. “My mum gave my twin sister and I up for adoption when I was five. She was...messed up. A prostitute. I had a lot of repressed memories about her that started coming up when I was a teenager, and my parents kind of just always made me bury it, thinking I’d imagined things, or maybe it Jus’ makes them uncomfortable. I dunno.” He squeezed an arm around the other male, wanting to somehow get closer.

Aaron

Aaron was no mental health professional, but he could tell just by the way that Roman sometimes acted that he had some trauma. He wondered what he would noticed if he actually was a mental health professional. Aaron held onto Roman tightly because Aaron knew that he would want to be held even closer if he was telling someone about his dad and all the fucked yo shot he’d done. “I’m sorry.” He sighed. “But the only way I’m leaving you is if you drag me away kicking and screaming.” He admitted, trying to make him laugh a bit now because that was some heavy shit. “Do you know what happened to her?” He asked. fearing he was over stepping again, he quickly corrected himself. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want.” He pressed his lips together to get himself to shut up.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman didn’t necessarily want to look Aaron in the eye for this, but he pulled back anyway, deciding to lean his cheek against his fist while he held onto Aaron’s arm that was still around his waist. “I have no idea what happened to her. Don’t know anythin’ about my dad either. It’s weird...not knowing about the people you came from. All I know is my Mum wasn’t a great person, and apparently neither was my father.” He looked solemn, though Roman really hated getting so serious on what was supposed to be a nice night. “Sometimes I wonder which one I take after. I’m nothing like my adopted parents.”

Aaron

That was crazy to Aaron. He knew he family tree going generations back. Even before his family came over to America. He knew all about how his great great grandfather came to New York City during the potato famine and worked hard to build the foundation for what Aaron was working with today. His money was old old. He squeezed his shoulder and craned his neck to look down at him and meet his eyes. “Maybe you’re just your own person. You don’t need to take after either of your parents.” He suggested with a shrug.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

“Well I know I don’t need to.” Roman responded easily, looking up into Aaron’s intensely blue eyes, and maybe getting a little lost. Fuck. They could give the damn sky a run for its money. Not that the sky had any money, but you know what I mean. “But I think we all have this need to want to know where we come from, it’s just easy to take advantage of it for most people, when the answers are all there in front of you, y’know? I’ve never been able to hear “you’re just like your father” or “that sounds like something your Mum would say”. I’m just always thinking about the shit I had to go through as a kid, and how I thought that was normal. It’s no wonder I’m so fucked up now.” His voice broke a bit at the end, bottom lip quivering before he was forcing himself to look down at the bedspread between them. “I try to pretend like I’m confident, but I’m not.”

Aaron

Aaron ran a hand through his thick hair again and let out an exasperated sigh. Yeah, he had no clue what to say. He'd never really heard a story like Roman's before...except Quentin's that is. Bit odd that both men he'd been falling for had immense trauma...but Aaron wasn't really thinking about that right now. He was really just wrecking his brain trying to find a good way to respond. He gripped onto Roman even tighter when he heard his voice quiver. "We're all a little fucked up, Roman. And we're all hiding part of ourselves from other people." He told him, almost laughing a bit. "You're definitely not alone in that." He sighed, continuing to run his hands through the other's curls.January 6, 2021

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman flicked his gaze back to the other male when he explained further,  clearly telling the actor things he needed to hear. He never talked about his issues, therefor he never received advice. It was nice for once, to have someone tell it to him like it is, from an outside perspective. “I know, it’s jus’ hard not to feel alone sometimes I guess.” He lifted a hand to run his fingertips down the side of Aaron’s face, stopping at the cleft of his chin with a smirk. “I love your chin. Have I ever told you that?”

Aaron

Aaron nodded his head. Even with Des and Alison and everyone he entertained, it was easy for Aaron to get in his head sometimes. “If you ever feel alone like that, make sure you come talk to me and I’ll just to make you feel less lonely.” He smiled and smiled even wider at romans touch. “I don’t think you have.” He chuckled and looked down at him loving. He reached over to play with a curl in his face then tucked it back behind the actor’s ear. He was very silent, unsure of what to say but he knew that he didn’t want to stop looking at Roman. Not for a long time.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman managed a smirk when Aaron said he didn’t think he’d mentioned it, which was honestly a little shocking seeing as how this was one of his all time favorite facial features on the man. “I had to have mentioned it. It’s my favorite part of your whole face.” He held onto Aaron’s chin, and rubbed his thumb up the line of his cleft. “Makes you look like Clark Kent. Especially when you wear your glasses. I like a lot of things about you though...too many things.”(edited)

Aaron

Now Aaron was liking the direction of this conversation a little bit more, although, he was really happy that Roman had opened up to him more. Like he'd told him he could do from the start. He was being compared to Superman, which was pretty fucking cool. Roman maybe even made him blush a little bit. Damnit. "You know...my favorite part of your face are those fucking dimples. Even though I like everything about that fucking face." He chuckled. "But I'll bite. Tell me...what else do you like about me?" he nearly smirked.(edited)

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman smirked when Aaron commented on his dimples, because of course he had to show them off now that they were being discussed. He wasn’t surprised when Aaron then asked what else he liked about him, because the millionaire definitely came off as someone narcissist and needing that extra boost. He was so sweet though under all of that, Roman was someone who luckily got to see that side, and he was so thankful. “You know I love your eyes. Your amazing hair...this jawline....” the actor started while running his finger along Aaron’s jaw. “I love your body, I love your heart...that’s probably my favorite bit.” He placed his hand against the smaller’s chest once again. “I love how much you love your daughter, and the way you look at me...”

Aaron

Aaron practically melting into Roman as he spoke to him, his blue eyes looking down at him with adoration. His heart jumped after every phrase. Roman really did have a way with words, even if the barista didn’t know it. He smiled even more and his heart became even fuller when he mentioned Des. That was one thing about Aaron that no one could deny - he loved Des with all he had and was a great father. Much better than his own. Once again, Aaron rested his hand on Roman’s. “Roman Beckett...I’m supposed to be the smooth one.” He smirked before leaning down to finally press a soft, loving kiss onto his lips.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Honestly, Roman had read more than enough romance novels to consider himself an expert at the idea of love, but knowing about something was completely different than putting it into practice. Still, he must have done a good job judging by the way Aaron was kissing him now. Ro shifted closer to the other male and buried his fingers in the dark strands at the base of Aaron’s neck. He tasted so good, the hint of wine still heavy on his tongue. The actor let out a soft sigh into his lover’s mouth, and then hooked his leg over Aaron’s waist. “Mmm, well maybe I’m smooth, too.” Roman mumbled against the other pair of lips before biting at them.

Aaron

Humming softly, Aaron smiled on Roman’s lips contently. Aaron’s hand in Roman’s hair reached to cup his cheek gently and his other hand moved to wrap around the back of Roman’s thigh to pull him in closer. He breathed him in, taking in his scent. He could smell the product he’d just used and the remnants of whatever cologne he used that day. “Looks like I’m going to have to get used to that.” He actually chuckled a little bit before he opened his mouth to slid his tongue inside of Roman’s sexy mouth.(edited)

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman smiled against Aaron’s lips before pushing himself closer, causing Aaron to roll onto his back so that the actor could shadow over him. Ro was known to love giving up control in the bedroom, but sometimes he couldn’t help but take it back over. He liked Aaron so fucking much, it was like he needed to get that energy out. He needed to grab hold of his hands, and pin them above his head while he positioned himself between the smaller’s legs and pressed his erection against him. They’d talked briefly about Roman topping before, and maybe now was the time to try it.

Aaron

Aaron's back hit the mattress a bit more forcefully than he thought it would. Okay. He liked where this was going. Aaron let out an almost inaudible moan into Roman's mouth when he pinned his hands above his head and rubbed their hips together. Aaron squirmed a little under his grip and even tried to get out from under it. He just wasn't used to giving up control right away like that. It definitely took him a moment to realize what was happening. As soon as he did, he felt his body relax and lifted his hips up to met Roman's. "Fuck."

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman’s heart was racing, pounding to the point he wondered if Aaron could tell. Of course he’d been turned on beyond belief every time he was with the other male, but tonight was different. It was like he was finally taking down that very last walk with Aaron, letting him in completely, showing him every side of the actor and trusting him with his heart. “Yeah...” Ro breathed out against the smaller’s lips, just grinding his hips and allowing the friction between them suffice for now. He wanted to take this slow, build up the anticipation, but he could already tell that wasn’t going to last long. His forehead leaned down against the millionaire’s, keeping them close while deciding to take Aaron’s bottom lip between his teeth.

Aaron

"Yeah." Aaron whimpered softly, letting his upper body completely relax under Roman as he rolled his hips with Roman's. He let out a dirty little moan when Roman tugged at his lip and craned his gaze to catch a glimpse. Fuck. He was absolutely stunning.  Had these past couple of months with Roman been real? Or was it some lucid dream he was stuck in? Regardless, he wanted to stay in whatever reality he was in with Roman. Within what felt like less than a minute, he felt his length press up against his pants. "Fuck...fuck..." He panted, blue eyes hooding as he pressed his head back into the mattress, arching his back to meet Roman's hips even more.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman wasn’t sure that he’d ever heard Aaron whimper before, but that was something of sheer beauty. Seeing him in this position, he was already starting to feel a little addicted. Ro didn’t want to ever pull away from this beautiful man, but he did so only to grab some lube. As much as he wanted to just plow into Aaron, he knew he needed to be careful. He spent time getting them both completely undressed, and then he was ready with the lube, getting his fingers coated as he slipped the digits inside of his lover, making sure to hook them in the direction of his prostate while keeping eye contact.

Aaron

The businessman had no doubt that Roman was going to be an amazing top. The man's dick was fucking massive and Aaron was hard just thinking about the other filling him up. Aaron cooperated with Roman as he got them undressed, but let him do most of the work. He had a feeling that Roman was the one that was going to be doing most of the work tonight anyway...might as well start now. Aaron gripped onto Ro's bicep as his fingers prodded at his entrance, mouth gaping open slightly when Roman quickly found his prostate. "Yeah...fuck, baby. Right there." He whispered, looking up at Roman through hooded blue eyes.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Aaron looked so sexy like this, probably his favorite way he’d ever seen him. That face, it was like something straight out of heaven. Or, maybe it was hell. Either way, it was appealing, and Roman was enjoying it. He continued to massage his fingers against the smaller male’s prostate, nothing too intense, but just enough to drive Aaron a little crazy. He wanted to get him close to exploding, build him up just to reel him back in. Edging like this always guaranteed a mind blowing orgasm while being fucked, and hopefully they’d both cum around the same time. “That feel good, baby?” He asked in a rasp.

Aaron

Roman knew exactly the right way to tease him. Aaron liked things quick and intense...this had all of that intensity, but he knew that Roman was trying to build him up to an incredible orgasm. That was just another one of the seemingly hundreds of reasons why Roman made such a good sex partner. Aaron squeezed down on Roman's arm even harder. "Mmmm...yeah." He hummed, a thick rasp in his voice. He instinctively reached down to stroke his own hard that was now just about standing straight up. A gesture he knew would probably get him in trouble.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman lifted an eyebrow when Aaron began playing with himself, something the actor quickly put a stop to by reaching for the other’s wrist. “Don’t make me tie you up.” He warned in a low rasp, his piercing green eyes boring into Aaron as he pulled away from him to grab some lube. Now, he was actually going to get his lover opened up. As much as he’d love to just plunge inside of him, he was well aware of his own size, and knew he needed to ease into this. “Put your hands behind your head.” Roman instructed while watching Aaron closely, his lubed up fingers now sliding inside of the smaller and seeking out his prostate once again.

Aaron

Aaron’s jaw dropped a little and he looked almost offended when Roman snatched his hand away. That look quickly turned to one of playfulness when the other male spoke to him in that voice that got all deep and raspy when they were in bed. The thought intrigued him and he thought about reached for his dick once more, but decided that being a submissive slut tonight would be hot. SO. he did was he was told, lacing his fingers together and sliding them under his head like he was watching a good movie. Which...in a sense he was. Aaron’s legs spread even more for the other male as he slid his digits back inside of him. “Fuuuuuck, Roman.” he bit down on his lip.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Aaron looked so sexy like this — not that he didn’t always anyway, but this was really something special. The way his biceps looked while he was posing, that expression on his face, enthroned in pleasure. Beautiful. “Yeah baby, you’re love it, don’t you? Dying for my cock?” He began to pump his fingers in and out of his lover, going fast at first just to see how far he could push Aaron. The other male was always so in control of every situation, it was extremely hot to see him start to crumble a bit for Roman. “I wanna fill you up so bad, watch your squirm for me.” The actor leaned down to place some kisses over the smaller’s stomach while he added another finger.

Aaron

Aaron’s hips arched as Roman moved his fingers in and out of him. This felt good now, so he knew that Roman’s entire length inside of him was going to feel even better. Fucking amazing actually. “Yeah...” he said breathlessly as he craned his neck to watch Roman was on him. He let out a string of moans as he watched a small amount of pre cum leaking out of his practically throbbing cock. “Fuck me. Please.” He begged, even though he knew Roman was probably going to spend a little extra time torturing him and opening him up. He cheated and ran a hand through his favorite brown curls while he kissed his stomach in a sexy, yet loving way at the same time. “Baby, I want you so bad...” he said, again, breathlessly.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman loved seeing Aaron like this, begging, in rare form. Sometimes Ro would act as a power bottom, and take control, but it was never like this. It was turning him on to a level he didn’t know existed, which was making it nearly impossible to deny the smaller any more. “Okay.” The actor nodded, and pulled back so that he could slick up his cock, and line up with his lover’s heat. “Aaron....” Ro sighed as soon as he began to inch in, trying to take his time as to not hurt the younger, but fuck, he wanted to just thrust all the way in so badly. “You’re so fucking tight, ughh...” he moaned, and leaned down to press his lips hard against the other’s.

Aaron.

It was time like these when Aaron wondered why he didn't bottom more. Roman immediately hit his prostate effortlessly. Aaron groaned out loudly, the face he made was one of both pleasure and pain. Aaron ran a hand through his curls and fisted his locks as they kissed, strings of moans left his lips as he did. "Fill me up all the way, baby. Please." He begged, his voice was deep and raspy. He leaned up to bring their lips together again, their tongues slide to together effortlessly - like they were two part of a whole. Corny...but that's how it felt.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman also was wondering why he didn’t top more, because this was fucking heaven. Aaron was so tight, and begging for him to fill him up completely. Who wouldn’t want that? Ro moved his hips forward, pushing as far into his lover as he could possibly go, bottoming out with a low groan as he clamped his teeth around Aaron’s bottom lip. Once he was ready, the actor then began to start thrusting, moving in and out of the younger male at a steady pace. The pleasure pulsing through his body was making it hard to breathe, which in turn was giving him some sort of dizzy high. Roman turned his head after a few more seconds, choosing now to nuzzle against Aaron’s cheek, and then made his way down to his neck for an open mouthed kiss.January 12, 2021

Aaron

Aaron gripped on to Roman’s shoulders once again as he slid into his balls deep. He let out a deep, guttural moan when Roman continuously hit his prostate just right. “Fuck.” He groaned before licking into Roman’s mouth. He punched out heavy breaths and low groans before sliding his fingers through his hair and gripping on tightly. “F-feels so good, baby.” He called out for him with a dirty moan. Roman was so good at this. Of course, he wasn’t expecting anything less but that didn’t take away from the absolute euphoria he was feeling right now. Like no feeling in the world could ever compare. “You fuck me so good.” He choked out before kissing him again and moaning into his mouth.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Of course Roman was in a total state of euphoria. Aaron felt amazing, so tight, and warm around his cock. It was hard not to try and focus on that sensation, and nothing else. He cared about Aaron too much to do that. He’d much rather make sure he was feeling as good as he possible could. “You’re mine.” Roman practically growled down at the smaller, and then was kissing his with as much passion as he could possibly build. Ro loved kissing, and was a great enough actor to play it up even more. Not that he was pretending, but normal people also didn’t sound the way he was sounding in anything other than a porno. Aaron deserved his own real life porno.

Aaron

Roman's words only made Aaron more eager for him. He loved the idea of being all Roman's here and now. "I'm all yours, Ro." He said lowly, between sloppy and intense kisses. A string of moans left his lips and echoed onto Roman's. The way that Roman sounded almost made it seem like he was putting on a show. A show he knew that Aaron would fucking love. It seemed like he already knew him so well at this point - exactly what he liked in bed at least. His hands slid up to laced through his hair, giving his locks a few good tugs. He squeezed around Roman's cock, moving his hips up to meet Roman's thrusts.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman wasn’t going to be able to last much longer. This was all thanks to the fact that he didn’t top probably as much as he should. The second he was buried in a tight ass, it was hard to control himself, and Aaron was absolutely no different. He felt amazing, not to mention the emotions behind it, this was nearly impossible.  “Baby...” he breathed out, curls draping his face as he looked down at his lover. Having his hair pulled was yet another thing that was only serving to make him borderline lose it. Aaron knew all his buttons, and wasn’t gonna make this easy. “I’m so close. I’m gonna fill you up.” He moaned, and leaned down to bite that cleft chin he loved so much.January 18, 2021

Aaron

He was thankful to hear that he was close. Truly, Aaron wasn't sure that he'd be able to lat much longer himself. How could he when he was fucking a man like Roman? He probably one of the most physically flawless men in all of New York City, and he was just...so perfect in every way. Not just physically...even though he was a greek god. Roman brought out parts of Aaron that not everyone saw...some parts of himself that Aaron didn't even know that he had. His jaw gaped open when the older male nibbled on his chin, and his head pressed back onto the bed beneath him. "Cum for me, baby. Fill me up, Roman." He begged him. He could feel his own cum collecting right at his tip. "I'm close too." He said breathlessly.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✩

Roman could feel his entire pelvic region burning at this point, but he was enjoying this way too much to care. He could feel Aaron’s pre cum on his lower stomach as their bodies rubbed together, hopefully giving the smaller male some great friction to the head of his cock. The actor began to somehow snap his hips even faster when he was told Aaron was close, trying to nail his prostate as roughly as he could without causing any actual pain. Within seconds, he was moaning through his orgasm and filling up his boyfriend to the point he was overflowing onto the bed. “Aaron!” Ro rasped out while gripping the sheets tightly below.

Aaron

Aaron gripped onto Roman's shoulder's most tightly than ever, nails digging into his skin and everything. He let his head fall back into the pillow as he looked at Roman through slitted eyes, trying his hardest to keep eye contact with the other man. Roman was hitting his prostate just right, and the way his dick was rubbing against his body created the perfect environment for an intense orgasm. "Fuck, Roman!!" He screamed as he created a mess over both of them. "Fuck...ooo..." He whimpered as he came down from his amazing high, endorphins floating all in his head and running through his body. Yeah, he was definitely bottoming more often.

#discord #☆ﾟ*・ﾟ Interaction — ↳ aaron #tw: smut

[my-brothers-corrupted]

My Brothers, Corrupted

Chapter Three : Section Nine : The Separated Twins

Chapter One l Chapter Two l Chapter Three

Trigger warnings for physical and emotional abuse, hallucinations, and panic attacks.

On one side of the world, Henrik is exploring what it would mean to be free of Anti – what it would be to fight. On the other, Trick does something harmless that ends with him being punished and then even deeper under Anti’s hypnosis.

The Separated Twins

Anonymous asked: I believe in you. I believe in all of you that you can help Trick see that Anti isn't good for any of you and that he should not settle for the constant abuse he suffers under him just for the occasional glimpses of affection and attention. Please Blue... You and the others have to show him, show Trick that love shouldn't be painful. It should be warm, healing, and brings you up rather than down. -🦀

“Yeah,” murmurs Blue. “Yeah, I’d like for him to know that.”

He’s lying in his and Trick’s room, picking dully at Trick’s Switch, Noodle cautiously set at the end of the mattress beside him. He looks a little better than when you last saw him a couple days ago, but he’s still so worn. At least he’s wrapped up in Trick’s warm nest and wearing comfy old clothes.

“He deserves better,” he says. “I don’t know how to show him. But I’ll love him as hard as I can, damn sure… all of them. I miss the others.”

Anonymous asked: Hey Anti, maybe if you would treat your brothers like actual brothers and go to them for comfort instead of to beat them, maybe you wouldn't be such a miserable piece of shit. Ever think of that? Mindboggling, I know.

Anti breathes out a long sigh through his nose.

He’s moving around his room, his form shifting slower than you’ve ever seen it shift before, gradually making himself look more like Red. Flowers flicker and then die around his feet. He stretches and the flame of a candle breathes hotly towards the ceiling before settling down again. His body flickers moment to moment. His room is cleaner than it was before, much of the blood stained disappeared or hidden in the brown of the carpet, but printed pictures are beginning to take up the space on his wall.

“You’re all cliches of each other,” he says finally, voice thin and irritated. His eyes, when he turns to you, are vivid blue beneath glasses that look like Dok’s. “Nothing you have said has ever convinced me, spectators. Try to be a little more entertaining. I could turn you off again at any time.”

aether-mae asked: Hey Jackie, now that you’ve got max with you to help you out, I was wondering if u were still thinking of heading back to Peru to find Doc?

Ro and JJ are still with Max two days later.

Ro is wearing his new blue hoodie. He is clean. His cheeks have more color and there’s even a bit of sun in his face. He smells like honeydew soap because he’s been having a hot shower every day. He’s shaved.

He’s cut his hair too. Just a little. There’s no more dye in his hair. It’s his hair. He cut it. Well, with Dapper’s help. And some enthusiastic compliments from Max to boost his confidence.

He looks good.

Max is on the bed with Dapper, a stack of playing cards on the sheets between them.

“Okay, then I - do I need the joker? Mate, have mercy on me, you’re signing too fast. Hey! I’m a perfectly capable learner, I’ll have you know. Fine then, wait til I kick your ass at this. Oh, what, does that mean I lost? Shit. You rigged this. Next round I got you.”

Ro laughs and comes to sit beside them. Max pauses for a moment to grin at him before going back to his card game.

“Hey,” says Red after a little while.

“Yeah?”

“I checked with Dapper last night,” says Ro. “I was wondering if your offer to take us back to Dok in Peru still stands.”

Max looks up at Ro, smiling. Dapper gives him a fair chance and then steals all his cards.

“Wh - JJ!”

“Careful, he’s merciless.”

“No joke. Deal me another round. Really, though, Ro? You’d let me drive you? We can get another hotel tonight and be there in a couple days. I’d about die to see Henrik again.”

Red nods, smiling back at him. “Yeah, I mean it. We want our Dok back. Need to see my little brother. We might not have the others right now, but we’ll figure it out once we’ve got… Henrik.”

“Jackie,” says Max, clapping his hands together. “This is the best news. I’d love to. Can’t wait to see you fidget like a maniac through hours of car time.”

“Oh, fuck, don’t remind me.”

“Hahaha. Okay, yeah! Let’s head out tomorrow first thing, then! We’ll get a rental car if we can find one or start on the bus. Have to get you lots of snacks and entertainment, I know. There was this one time you and I were on a trip and by the end of it you were just about upside down in your seat. We were visiting Ireland so you could show me some of your home…”

Max and Dapper play cards. Max talks, loud and earnest and comforting. A friend. A friend who isn’t his family, a friend who wasn’t ordered to look after him by Anti. Just somebody who likes Jackie for Jackie.

Jackie sits on the bed and listens to Max talk for hours. Tomorrow, they’ll head back towards Lima.

Anonymous asked: Hey Anti what's those pictures in your room?

Anti pauses, his eyes narrowing, but he doesn’t bother to move you from position, letting you get a look at the pictures. They’re of his brothers. No, wait - just Doktor and Red and Dapper.

There’s one where Dapper has Red over his shoulder, leading him up towards the house in Peru, where Doktor is waiting to look after him. There’s one of Doktor and Dapper asleep side by side on their mattress. There’s one of Dapper staring out a window in Norway towards the glowing lights in the sky, one of Red hiking proudly up the mountain, one of Doktor staring placidly up at Anti, slicked entirely in blood and still holding a scalpel. All of them take place from the eye of a camera. Dok petting Noodle, Trick’s shoes just visible in the corner of the shot. Dapper looking sweet in his blankets and over-sized hoodie, hugging his bear to his chest. Red like a statue in motion, wielding his fighting staff, younger than you’ve seen him since Dapper sent him to the past. Rows and rows of pictures of them.

Anti shifts unhappily around his room, his body changing slightly, slightly. His hair curls up and tinges teal at the fringe, and he runs his fingers through his own hair like he’s petting himself.

Anonymous asked: How did you get all those pictures? Do you like take snapshots with your mind or something? Or did you have an actual camera?

“What’s the difference?” he grumbles. “I’m basically a walking hard drive. With a taste for blood. And, uh. I don’t know. Sentience. Hair. A couple too many teeth. I can go back and watch anything my cameras have recorded whenever I want. Printing them out is just moving data.”

He throws a knife at the wall, burying it just above one of Dapper’s teddies on a dresser.

spicydanhowell asked: seems like you really miss them, hm anti?

“Well, they’re mine, and I’m fucking pissed they’re gone, yeah!” He buries another knife on the teddy’s outline. “The only thing I know is that they’re fucking alive and probably not in jail. But I’ll have them back soon. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. Trick’s such a little sycophant he almost makes up for the others being gone. He’ll be home soon and then I can have some goddamn rest. This is some bullshit. Tell God I want a fucking refund.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Wow, Anti. You actually miss your pets? Or do you really consider them your brothers?

“Family is a construct,” growls Anti, picking up the bear in his hands. “Dapper is a warm body. Doktor is an immune system. Red is a guard dog.”

He sighs and throws it aside.

“Fucked up, though. Used to hate how loud Red would be through the walls. Now I kind of want to hear him. What a little brat. Can’t believe he was separated from me. Bulletproof vest. Locked door. Guard dog. Safety.”

Anti puts his hands in his red hair.

Anonymous asked: Where's trick? Is he alright?

“Trick went to get some dinner and some books at the library,” Blue answers you, smiling faintly. “He really likes being allowed have some freedom. Just a bus ride and a couple errands, but he gets all proud, like he’s my breadwinner, taking care of me, haha. I love him. He’s mostly alright, but, uh. I have been noticing him acting strange.”

Blue draws his eyes away from the cartoon animal game he’s playing on Trick’s switch for a moment. “Something wrong in his head, I… I don’t know. He reacts strangely when I ask about Dok. I’m scared. I think it’s a trauma thing. He seems so spacey all the time. But he’s happy, I think? For the most part? Every now and then I wake up to him crying next to me, clutching at me, but who can blame him for that? I think I’d be more scared if he wasn’t upset that Dok was gone at all, which is… how he acts during the day. But yeah, I think he’s as okay as I could expect him to be, mostly. He plays this little thing constantly.”

Blue shakes the Switch at you for a second and the screen blacks out. Blue jolts, lifting his fingers away to see if he accidentally hit the power button.

“That’s not yours to play with,” comes a cool voice from his doorway.

Blue jumps and drops the Switch, letting out a hissing sigh through his teeth, annoyed and afraid, as he can’t help but be every time he’s in Anti’s presence these days. Every time he hears him, sees him, smells his oil smell or feels his electric sting, he is back on a Norweigan beach he barely remembers, back on the Rio Puturnayo, back in a hospital room, huddled on the floor as the blows rain down.

“Fuck off, Anti,” he spits.

Anti’s mouth curls with a snarl at him. “Poor little kitten,” he coos. “Poor stupid boy.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” says Blue.

“Or maybe I just don’t care,” answers Anti, slinking back into the living room, his eyes still on Blue as they both wait for Trick to get home.

bupine asked: why no pictures of trick or blue, anti? are you missing your boys? also, you seem to be having trouble keeping a stable form. any idea why that is?

“I have Trick and Blue,” grumbles Anti, throwing a hand up. “Don’t need to see them. Know where they are. Know that they’re safe. And I’m not - shut up!”

He glares down at his own body, flickering and flashing.

“I always glitch, that’s - I have a brand, goddammit! It’s this flesh that’s fucking horrible, I - motherfuck.”

He hisses and buries his claws in his own right arm, watching blood well up against the flesh for a second. Then the arm flickers back into incorporeality and the blood trickles onto the floor. He growls, yanking on his hair for a second, trying to keep calm.

“So infuriating,” he snarls. “I’m more powerful than I’ve ever been, but my own body rebels. Stupid fuck. Symbolic, probably, don’t you think? Even my own flesh knows I didn’t grow it myself.”

He barks out an odd laugh, shape-shifting again, that subtle, slow, constant switch. Just reassuring himself, with every moment that passes, that he can still do it. That he can still become data, immerse himself in code, travel by electricity. It’s just getting harder, that’s all.

And he is powerful. This, at least, is true. The windows of the house are blooming with flowers. The candles were Trick’s idea. Dozens of them lined around the house, constantly burning. A chance for his power to express itself instead of devouring him.

Anonymous asked: How are you feeling, Blue? It’s good to see you again!

“Thank you,” says Blue, cooling a little as Anti walks away, pulling you back to him and flopping back on the bed. “I’m feeling, well. I’ve kind of gone stagnant? Like the last couple days, I feel okay, but I’ve stopped… getting better, sort of. Just tired and kind of achey and, well, frail. Having bad headaches too, and I still, uh.”

He touches his foggy eyes.

“Tried glasses,” he says quietly. “Big thick prescription glasses. Trick called me Monty Mole for two hours without fail. But they don’t cut through much of anything. The world is a permanent blur, ha… but you know what! Otherwise, I’m okay. Just been resting. This asshole hasn’t bothered me too much.”

He lets his hand flail towards Anti irritably.

“Oh, and guess what?”

He smiles winningly at you and then -

He pushes himself to his feet without help! All the way from sitting on the mattress on the floor to standing upright.

“Tada! Thank you, thank you, that’s right, I’m Blue the Magnificent, I’ll be here all week! Oh - shit!”

He crashes back towards the wall, laughing a little from the surprise and the slight embarrassment, though he still looks pleased with himself. He snatches up a cane that’s leaning on a windowsill and steadies himself on it, smiling at you.

“Tada,” he repeats warmly, standing upright.

“Meow,” cheers Noodle.

“Thank you, my dear.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Is Noodle keeping you good company, Blue?

“Well,” sighs Blue. “The truth is I’m not really fond of cats.”

He stares down at Noodle and Noodle stares back at him.

“But after a bit of that hospital breakdown you saw, I know that Anti made me stop being fond of cats,” he adds softly. “And… killed mine.”

Noodle mewls softly, stepping forward to weave between his legs.

“So I’m trying to get used to him again!” says Blue, trying to find his cheerful voice. “Because I did like cats, I did! I don’t know what else he changed about my mind when he first took it over, but I want it back. And Anti can try to destroy me but I will keep fighting against it, even if only in these little ways.”

He summons his determination and leans down. Noodle bursts into throaty purring as Blue’s soft fingers scratch across his skull and golden kitten ears.

Anonymous asked: Hey any progress is good progress babey!! You’re doing so well! Very proud, so yes, cheers all around for Blue the Magnificent!

“I know, haha, thank you, yeah! I’m excited, I am! Like, it’s such a small step, but it’s a step, you know? It’s nice being able to get to the bathroom on my own and stuff like that. Honestly, when you’re really sick, it’s the small things that can be really demoralizing. Not that there was anything to be ashamed of! But it… felt like there was. Especially with how helpless I know I am in front of him.”

He glances over at Anti sitting in the den and he straightens his back fiercely, standing on that cane. He did good. He has to keep believing in himself. He’s making progress and Anti can’t stop him fighting.

Anonymous asked: HmmMMMM Anti it looks like your emotions are bleeding though a little bit....y’know cuz red is- yeah anyways, where did Chaser go?

“Great, great,” snaps Anti. “Yeah, I get it, betrayal of the flesh, blah blah. You know what, I already look fucking indistinguishable to the person I hate most in the world, so maybe destiny could just call that fucking good, but no, let’s add on to the discomfort of looking in a mirror.”

He kicks the stairs in the den space just for the hell of it. Stupid tangible feet.

“Not even my face,” he whispers, low and bitter. “He lives in the curves of me, in the cut of my jaw, in the way my eyes move. No matter how much I try to shape-shift. I wake up every morning looking just like him - but not like him - all over again. Bullshit. Made me a copycat and a fake at the same time. Bullshit.”

He heaves out a sigh, his black eyes stormy.

Laughter from the street interrupts his mood and he sits up a little, his face calming. He can hear Trick. Good, Anti’s sick of feeling alone. He gets up and looks through the window above the kitchen sink.

Trick must still be coming down the pavement because he can hear him talking and laughing, but he can’t see him. Who the hell is he talking to? Himself? Did his little mind finally snap? Is Anti going to have to burrow into his fleshy little head yet again?

“I’m telling you, I do like them!” he hears Trick laughing. “I do, I’m not lying, haha! It’s just I think the satay noodles are my favorite. But all the shit you guys cook is amazing, seriously. Yeah, I - no, I don’t think I have! Oh! Maybe I can try it tomorrow. Will you be there again?”

Anti stands back on his heels, frowning. His form flickers darkly.

Anonymous asked: We’re really proud of you, Blue. Really. You’ve been so strong though all of this. I’d be squishing you in a big hug rn if I could! Keep doing what you’re doing, be independent and don’t let no bitch tell you what you can’t and can do! You’ve got this :)

“Don’t let no bitch - haha, okay, thank you.” Blue laughs and sits down on the sill of his window, letting his head rest against the glass. “Hey, tell Trick to hurry up with dinner. That’ll be the real celebration. I love the hawker food he keeps bringing me. Glad I can eat for real, even if this is a little annoying.”

He takes the nasal cannula out of his nose in preparation for dinner. He’s getting better at breathing without it, even planning to try to sleep through a night without it soon. His lungs are recovering from the smoke and the burning. He breathes in deeply against the cool glass, his eyes noticing something out near the front of the house he’s never seen before, a colorful mess of cloth. Someone must have left it behind on the rusted old pole of metal that used to hold a hummingbird feeder or something. Weird.

Anonymous asked: Hey, trick! Whatcha up to?

Anti steps slightly back from the kitchen window and let his mind flood into the camera Trick carries with him.

Clothes shuffle and move around the screen. If you had to guess you would say Trick’s probably shoved the little camera in his hoodie pocket. From that one circle of light in the side of the pocket, you can see white hands with long red nails, and you can hear her tittering laugh over the sound of Trick’s almost breathless, enthusiastic talking.

“Dude, no! I’m telling you, these are for my nerd brother.”

“You’re sure? You’re sure? You’re not a secret professor of poetry, Connor?”

“Fucking look at me, do I look like a professor of anything?”

“Uh… skate-boarding?”

“Skate - ” He cuts himself off with a laugh and they both dissolve into giggles. Her hand brushes over his as they both gesticulate.

“Maybe weed?”

“I could be a professor of that, okay, you’re right. How about Minecraft?”

“Yeah, professor of Minecraft, I can see it. Kittens?”

“Now you’re just flattering me. I do love my kitten. Converse?”

“Noodle-eating?”

“Super Smash Bros.”

“America.”

“Just the whole of - hahaha!”

And they’re laughing together, there on the pavement just out of Anti’s sight as the sun glows red and pink over them. They’re laughing together and holding poetry books they picked out together at the library and take-out boxes full of hawker stand noodles and you know it’s Xin Yi, you know it is, and when there’s a soft silence and you can hear the both of them pause and look and breathe - well, then you know that he’s leaned in to press his chapped and loving mouth to her soft cheek, and that’s she smiling, and so is he.

Anti steps back again from the window.

He can hear the blood pumping loud, loud, loud through his head.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Trick! Trick! Be careful!

Trick’s still got his camera turned off.

The message goes to Blue.

You see his eyes flicker and his pupils shrink. His hands grip down tight around you.

“What?” he stammers. “What did Trick do?”

He’s on his shaky, shaky feet before you can answer. Staggering out into the den, using his cane, his oxygen strapped to his back. Trick. He has to protect Trick. That is all that matters.

“Trick?” he calls. “Amata?”

But there’s just Anti in the kitchen.

Still as can be.

The floorboards beneath his feet have burned down to the earth below.

Smoldering still.

Anonymous asked: Wait Anti don't punish Trick please! You know that he'd never leave you or doubt you or anything like that. For god's sake, he attached the collar that's traumatized him so much for you and never left your side these past days and helped you ground yourself and did those little things like the candles around the house for you. He's utterly loyal to you and he's undeniably yours, please Anti. Don't punish him for this.

“You can’t hurt him,” says Blue, over the soft hiss of the floorboards burning.

Anti doesn’t move.

“He loves you,” says Blue, louder. “Maybe more than anyone ever has. He’d do anything to make you happy. It’s horrible, but it’s true. He loves you or he thinks he does. Deeply, deeply. You can’t hurt him. They’re right. He’s done everything for you. He’d give you anything. Utterly loyal, undeniably yours. Maybe the last one of us who is. You can’t punish him for this. Just tell him no and he won’t - whatever he did, he’ll stop.”

Trick is coming up towards the door.

Anti stares at him, his eyes flickering. Black, brown, red, green, blue, white.

“Anti,” says Blue.

He is begging.

“Anti.”

spicydanhowell asked: you fucking did this though. in another world, if you were kind to them, they could have been a happy little brainwashed following for you. but you're not even kind enough to be a good tyrant... that's interesting.... you Drove them Away. they don't love you anymore. none of them

Anti can hear the words pounding through his own head.

You drove them away.

They don’t love you anymore.

None of them.

Anti has hurt, and hurt, and hurt, and hurt them.

He knows that.

But he always thought he would be enough to make it not matter.

He always thought he would be enough if he just tried.

Dapper is gone. Red’s not there to make him feel safe. Dok’s not there to help him if he’s hurt. Blue doesn’t want him. And all Anti has had for almost two weeks now is Trick.

Warm, loving Trick. The collar wrapped around his throat. His fierce blue eyes.

Anti thought he had been good to him. Kind to him. Warm to him.

And he still isn’t… he still can’t be… Trick still wants…

“Hey, Blue?” he says.

“What?”

“Why am I not angry?”

“You - are you not?”

He is paralyzed. Impaled. Petrified like a fossil.

“My chest hurts,” he says, and he leans over the silver sink of the unused home and vomits blood like a mortal.

Anonymous asked: You know he'd burn down the world for you if you asked him, would stay by your side even if you're burning in hell or lashing out at him. As Blue said, just order him or tell him that he can't do this ever again and he'll do it within a heartbeat. Please, Anti...

“Awww,” says Blue, and you can hear the cold sneer of his mouth even before you can see it. He moves on his shuddering legs to stand behind Anti, close enough that he can feel the burn of his own magic dammed up too powerfully in Anti’s chest. “Poor thing. Is my stolen magic making the little demon sick? Are you such a little virgin you get jealous of a single kiss on her cheek? What exactly are you compensating for that you can’t bear to see your fucking brother find a cute girl to hold hands with? Does that sting, Anti? Does it burn? Imagine if someone told you to hold that much power in for weeks… and weeks… and weeks… and then, after you lost control after all that obedience, they possessed you, cut you open, stole your soul, and blamed you for it. Would that hurt, do you think, little demon? Does it burn, Anti, does my magic burn?”

Anti turns like a snake striking to spit blood into Blue’s face, grabbing him by the throat and sending him crashing to the ground.

“Trick is the only one left who loves you,” cries Blue even as he scrambles away, his blue eyes flashing, his chest heaving for air. “Trick is probably the only person in the world who cares about you at all, and you’re going to hurt him because he blushed over a girl who showed him kindness? No wonder you’re so fucking miserable, you snake-faced son of a bitch. You need control so badly that you can’t even consider that we could ever love anyone other than you. How do you bear the twin system, anyway?”

“I’m the one who makes you love your twins,” hisses Anti, blood sliding out of his mouth. “You and Red could barely stand to look at each other before I wiped your minds clean.”

A burst of pain slams against Blue’s chest. “That’s not true!”

“Trust me, darling, it is, you can ask them. Red was baring his teeth at you, didn’t trust you, didn’t want you there. Then I swept it all away and told him to love you and he woke up not even knowing why he felt so fond of you. That’s what your whole relationship is based on. Just like your dislike of cats, Blue. I choose everything about who you are and you don’t even realize it.”

“Shut up!” screams Blue. “You’re a liar!”

“You’ll never be free of me. None of you will. This - this is the last straw, this and your traitorous brothers hiding away in South America. I won’t take any more of this. I will destroy this girl. Not just her but the warmth of her, the meaning of her, the need for her. Trick won’t even want anyone but me and the people I choose for him when this is over.”

“Guys?” squeaks a terrified voice at the door. “Wh - wh - what’s - ? Anti? Blue? Are you hurting each other?”

“Your fucking brother is losing his mind,” chokes Anti, turning to vomit over the sink again, fire licking across his teeth. “Shouting at me while I’m ill.”

“Don’t listen to him, Trick, he wants to hurt you for kissing that girl!”

Trick stares between the two of them, utterly flummoxed. Anti sets his gaze on him and a sudden terror rushes into his bones.

“A - Anti? Big brother?”

spicydanhowell asked: trick... sir... anti's gonna be mad at you for this???

“But - but - no,” stammers Trick, holding out his hands, confused, bewildered, terrified. “Anti, I… you’ve been so nice to me. You wouldn’t hurt me just for - she’s so nice, Anti, why can’t I - ?”

Anti’s hand draws back to strike him and Trick cowers and the blow -

The blow -

“Trick,” hisses Anti. Chokes Anti. Stammers Anti. “What - why would you - I don’t understand?”

“Anti,” says Trick, and then he starts laughing.

Anti stares at him, eyes huge. He looks down at Blue and Blue stares back at him, shaking his head.

“Anti!” Trick repeats, and grabs his shoulders. “Man, come on, what the hell!”

“Don’t laugh at me, you little brat!”

But he is, he’s laughing, and smiling at Anti, and holding his shoulders, and hugging him. “You’re so - oh, fuck’s sake, Anti. Are you jealous I kissed a girl?”

“No!”

“If you need help with girls, I could - ”

“I don’t care about girls, Trick!”

“Oh, well then maybe Blue or Red would be more help in that department, but - ”

“I’m angry at you!”

“But you wouldn’t hurt me,” says Trick softly, still smiling. “You would never hurt me.”

Blue stares up at Trick.

And he can see - oh, fuck, he can see the glaze of the hypnotism over his eyes. He can see the influence.

Trick can’t even comprehend it right now, that Anti would hurt him. Trick probably didn’t think twice about bringing Xin Yi back here.

Because Anti is his family and Anti loves him and Anti wouldn’t hurt him over a kiss on the cheek.

Right?

“Trick,” he hears himself whisper. “My little brother.”

How many times has Anti wormed inside his head today alone? How many of his thoughts are turned back towards him? How much of Trick is even still in there?

“You… didn’t even think about it, did you?” says Anti, very quiet. “How I would react to this.”

“No, I did! I want to tell you all about her, she’s so cool! Anti, she’s super cute, did you see her? And hey, I think they might have a brother, I could - ”

“Stop,” says Anti. “Stop. Let me breathe for a second.”

Trick stops immediately and fetches a towel from the bathroom, returning moments later to start wiping the blood gently from his mouth. “Poor thing,” he mumbles, touching Anti’s face without fear. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Anti. But you shouldn’t feel threatened. That’s kind of dumb, man.”

“I’m going to kill you,” growls Anti.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Trick, smiling at him.

And that’s it. It’s done. You see the moment Anti regains control.

The confusion is gone. The snake is back.

“Oh, Trick,” he soothes, reaching out to cup his face in return, and Blue gasps and hides his face as Anti’s eyes turn black and drowning. “You don’t understand, do you, little brother?”

Trick’s eyes unfocus like a blind man’s. He hums distantly, the towel pausing on Anti’s cheek.

aether-mae asked: Trick, it’s not safe to have friends outside of your family at the moment, as much as I hate to say. Anti will definitely hurt her to keep you all to himself.

“You’re going to hurt me?” asks Trick distantly, swaying slightly on his feet.

“I thought about it,” answers Anti, smiling sweetly at him, carding his hands through his hair. “It would have been so easy. Maybe I still will. Shove you in the shed and beat you til you’re sobbing for me to kill you.”

Trick’s eyes flicker, but his mouth is still smiling.

“It’s not your fault, really,” says Anti, brushing his fingers through his soft locks. “You have abandonment issues, don’t you?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You just want everybody to love you, poor thing.”

“I do,” confesses Trick, his face faltering with grief. “I do.”

“Course you fell for a sweet girl. Blue’s been useless to you. Dok’s gone. You must have been confused. But, see, you don’t know what I know, Trick.”

“What, Anti?”

Anti puts his head down on his shoulder, staring up at him, his mouth close to his ear.

“I’ve seen girls break your heart, Trick.”

“Break my heart?”

Anti runs his fingers over the scar in Trick’s head.

“She made you do this… you don’t remember. I made you stop thinking about her. I set you free from her.”

“You… you weren’t being possessive. You were trying to protect me?”

“That’s right, little brother. Besides, what do you need her for? Your family is right here, Trick. You don’t want to give our cover away, do you? They’d send you off to jail… take all your brothers away from you… take me away from you. You don’t want that, do you?”

Trick shakes his head swiftly, making himself dizzy. He clutches on to Anti for support, eyes drifting back towards his skull.

“Stop it!” screams Blue, no longer able to stand it. “Leave him alone! You’re ripping him apart every day! He doesn’t like having you in his head?”

“You want me to bind you up in your own vines and beat you til you cry again?” snaps Anti, turning to level a violent glare at him. Blue is paralyzed beneath the gaze.

Anonymous asked: We've seen old magical books, Anti. Blue's magic is going to kill you. It's adjusting your form to fit its true host and it'll keep doing it until it wastes you away or gets rid of your old incorporeality. You've made quite the big mess for yourself, haven't you? And still all you can do is boil in rage and self-righteous anger. Your rage controls you, you've never been the one in control here. That'll never change, Antisepticeye.

Anti seethes with fury, turning his venom gaze onto you, clutching Trick tighter, tighter, tighter to his chest.

“You don’t want to see that girl ever again,” hisses Anti. “Unless it’s when the two of us go to slaughter her for ever laying a hand on what belongs to me.”

“What belongs to you,” repeats Trick distantly, hiding his face against his neck and humming a song to himself.

“You didn’t like being with her. The sight of her makes your heart race. You’ll feel ill if you see her again. You’ll want to hide and come back to me. You’re terrified she’ll hurt you like the first girl did. You don’t want that. You don’t want to be with anyone anymore. Just stay here with your family, with your brothers, where it’s safe. Where no one can hurt your heart. You won’t go. You won’t want anyone other than me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“In fact,” Anti adds in a snarl, turning back to you, and this, you can hear, is your punishment. “If you ever start to think that anyone is more important to you than me, I’ll take the memory of them from you forever.”

The slightest trepidation interrupts Trick’s daze. You see the flicker of his eyes.

“H… Henrik?” he whispers.

Anti’s possessive grip on him tightens, tightens, tightens.

“Yes,” he whispers. “If you ever break the rules like this again, I will make you forget even Henrik.”

Trick seems to wilt against him, panting softly.

“I have the power. You would forget everything about him. And he would still remember you, but you would only see a stranger. Wouldn’t that be just horrible?”

He nods against Anti’s shoulder.

“Anti, I - I’m sorry. I’m sorry, forgive me.”

“Don’t worry, Trick,” Anti whispers, gripping his hair. “I will help you make this right.”

Blue stares up at him from the floor, tears in his eyes. Anti smiles viciously back. His teeth are still red.

Yes. He is in control. No one else. And maybe it feels like the others abandoned him, betrayed him, turned against him, found someone new. But no - no. Soon, soon as Blue can travel, they will go back to Peru.

And then Anti will take his family back again.

No one else will get in the way.

No one else ever could in the past. Kamenye. Brody-Chen. Deshmuhk. Sforza. Every casual hook-up Marvin was sleeping with, every idiot friend or loyal coworker. They don’t even matter now. They’re dead, or gone, or scattered like cowards in hiding across the earth.

Anti looks up Xin Yi’s last name.

Koh. Pretty.

Koh won’t matter either.

“We will make this right,” he repeats.

And he does not notice the fabric fluttering on the hummingbird feeder in his front yard.

A warning sign.

There are consequences to the blood that Anti has shed across the earth.

There are survivors.

Anonymous asked: Tell me you didn't touch Chase's family, Anti. His kids??

Anti smiles down at Trick’s dazed face.

Then he slaps him so hard Trick goes crashing to the earth, a handprint red against his skin, and Blue lets out a scream on his brother’s behalf, crawling forward to snatch him away from Anti.

“Stupid fucker,” growls Anti.

“You’re disgusting!” screams Blue, hiding Trick against his chest. “Hurting other people just so you can feel like you’re in control! It’s pathetic!”

“I am in control!” Anti screams back, jerking forward fast enough to make Blue cry out in fear, grabbing his broken nose. Anti laughs hard, throwing his head back. “I’m the pathetic one? Every one else is like a squirming rat to me! Chase’s fucking kids. You should be grateful I don’t kill children. But it doesn’t matter. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He’ll never, ever see them again. Even if he could get free of me, those little brats are so deep in hiding even Red couldn’t hunt them down.”

“He has children?” cries Blue. “You took him from his family? Trick has children?”

“He belongs to me!” screams Anti. “He was always owed to me! The children were more of an accident than I was, and that’s a fucking miracle. Now get in your room before I decide I want to see you eating through a tube for the second time this month!”

Blue grabs Trick and scrambles back towards their room, his brother barely able to cooperate.

“Fucking girl, touching what’s mine!” he hears Anti scream, his body spasming apart into a myriad of violent colors, blood weeping down his chin again, meeting the open wound in his throat. Roots tear at his feet and the candles in the room burn like fire spirits performing a ritual to a war god. “Thieves, everyone, everyone! I hate outsiders, I hate intruders, I hate them! This is our story! The six of us and him! Anyone else is a distraction, an outlier, a mistake. Anyone else who tries to intervene can die like the worms they are.”

Blue drags Trick into his room and collapses, slamming the door shut behind them.

Anonymous asked: Literally- Bitch- Anon said "you let your rage control you" and you /immediately/ let your rage control you. Jesus christ your lack of self awareness is downright hilarious at this point Anti.

Your screen-four camera goes flying across the room the moment the message reaches Anti and crashes into Blue and Trick’s door, shattering your view into static. Blue lets out a little yelp, backing away from the door.

A drawn-out yowl like a tiny tornado siren from behind the mattress indicates Noodle’s terror.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” calls Blue to the cat, panting, pulling Trick into his lap and touching his reddened face. “Oh, Trick, Trick… my love, my amata, my brother… are you alright, my heart, are you okay? Your kitten wants you, yeah? Should I get him for you?”

Trick’s eyes are screwed shut.

He is crying in silence.

“My love,” repeats Blue in a whisper, pressing their foreheads together and gathering him into his arms. “My love. Here I am. Here I am. No one will hurt you now.”

Anonymous asked: It's literally in your own best interest to give Blue's magic back, Anti. It will kill you if you don't. YOU JUST VOMITED UP BLOOD. well, it IS your choice to keep it or not, but you won't have anyone to blame but yourself if it does something irreparable to you.

You can see him from the cameras in the corner of every room.

Panting over the sink.

Face white. Image moving.

“I’m powerful,” he whispers. “I’m more powerful than I’ve ever been. Every day, my control is stronger. At the end of every day, I’m so ill I think I will die, and I bleed and shake and grow ill like men do, b-but… but the rest of the day… my strength, my strength!”

He crumples slightly over the sink, his arms trembling.

“If I could just find a way to be both tangible and incorporeal… there must be a way… there must be a way to fix this yet. And even if I wanted to, even if I wanted to…”

He stands for a long, long time shivering over the sink.

In fact, most of you will have turned your attention away by the time he speaks again.

And even if you have not, he still speaks so quietly as to barely touch the ear - a whisper to make the kitchen a confessional - a secret -

“I don’t,” his bloodied tongue confesses. “Know how.”

Anonymous asked: Stand strong Blue. Defend your baby brother. Even if he does hurt you, at least that'll prick a hole in Trick's current false reality and bring him back to earth a bit.

“Right,” whispers Blue, curled low around Trick’s body. “Yes, I have to look after him. Yes, no matter what. Trick… amata. Fuck, I used to know your name… but it doesn’t matter, I love you.”

He cards his thumb across Trick’s cheeks, brushing tears away. “It’s okay, mo deartháir. Just hold onto me. Oh… well, let me get my oxygen.”

He grabs at his chest for a second, struggling softly, trying to pull in air. Eventually he manages to pull himself across the room and put his cannula back in his nose, taking a deep breath in.

“Blue,” cries Trick softly, clutching at his shirt.

“Trick,” answers Blue, wrapping back around him. “Trick, Trick. Sh, darling, okay. Here, look, your little paper, do you want it?”

He presses the blue crinkle paper into his brother’s palm and Trick wraps his fingers around it, hiding in Blue’s stomach.

“And your cat? Come here, kitty kitty, yes, there’s a good sweet boy.”

He scoops Noodle up and places him on Trick’s chest. He’s a sweet, intelligent cat, and immediately he is banging his little head up against Trick’s chin, mewling for attention. Trick palm closes around his growing golden body. Soft as duck down.

“What happened?” sobs Trick. “I was - I was happy and then so scared and I can’t remember why… Blue, someone’s going to hurt me, don’t let them hurt me! Blue, Blue!”

“No one’s going to hurt you,” swears Blue, pulling him close. They’re warm as space heaters against each other, curled up on the floor together. “It was - Trick, it was Anti, but I won’t let him - ”

“Oh, no,” breathes Trick, looking immediately dazed again, his eyes drooping. “He protects me, he loves me, he would never…”

Distantly, he touches his stinging cheek. Blue pulls the fingers away and leans down to kiss the mark, stroking his fingers through Trick’s hair as he cries soft against his chest.

“I was so happy,” says Trick. “Where did it go? What happened? I can’t remember… I must have really fucked up, Blue, I’m such a screw-up, I ruin everything…”

“I’m so sorry, amata,” whispers Blue. “Oh, no, Trick, not for a moment. You didn’t do anything wrong at all. You didn’t do a single thing wrong. You didn’t know Xin Yi would be in danger here. You didn’t mean to make Anti angry. You didn’t do anything. You’re so sweet to me, and to him too, even though he doesn’t deserve it.”

“Who’s Xin Yi?”

Blue winces, putting his forehead down against Trick’s. “I… I…”

“Is - Blue, is Anti going to make me h-hurt someone?”

“I - I don’t know, Trick. Not if I can help it. We won’t let it happen, okay? We won’t let it happen.”

“Please hold me…”

“Here I am.”

“Blue,” whispers Trick. “I love you more than air. But I want Dok so, so much. Why isn’t he here? Why won’t he come back to me? Doesn’t he want me anymore?”

“He’s just lost, Trick,” Blue answers. “He still loves you so much. Won’t it be nice to see him again after so long?”

“I’ll hug him,” says Trick simply, his breathing beginning to calm a little. “I’ll be able to sleep again, when Dok is… when Dok is…”

His gaze drifts. He’s only allowed to think about Dok for so long. His brain no longer holds on the thought of him for more than a minute, and so, several times a day he feels a great pang of grief, and then a numb confusion as it disappears again.

“Just let me hold on to you,” says Blue. “I got you.”

“You got me,” answers Trick, smiling weakly up at him. “You’re really good to me, Blue. Love you so much.”

“I love you, Trick.”

“Ekk,” says Noodle, licking Trick’s chin. Trick hugs him close and listens to his roar of a purr.

Blue finds Dok’s shirt amid Trick’s nest. He drapes it over them both. Faintly, Trick registers the smell of him. Blue’s fingers soothe his pain and his fear away, moving through his hair and across his back. Blue is holding him. Blue loves him. No matter what. Right now, it’s all that matters.

Anonymous asked: Trick please... You don't have to change yourself or act like someone you're not for the sake of making everyone happy. They love you for you. They love Trick and not... Whoever. Just... Blue please tell him? It would mean a lot more if it came from you. -🦀

Blue softens, staring at you for a second.

Fuck, but he’s glad to have someone on his side.

“You guys and Mr. Noodle here,” he murmurs, curling low over his brother, hugging him close.

“Hey,” he whispers. “I love you just the way you are.”

Trick stares up at him, his eyes wet and his mouth smiling sorrowfully.

“Blue,” he whispers, like a single-syllable song.

“Don’t want you to think you have to change for him,” chokes Blue, kissing his cheek again.

“Who’s him?”

He can’t bear to fight with him about Anti right now. Blue puts his face down against Trick’s shoulder.

It’s Trick’s turn to run his fingers across Blue’s scalp, soothing him even as he continues to cry. Their arms wrap around each other’s shoulders and ribs like a weary twilight Pieta. Blue gives his brother time. He needs it too. A half hour, an hour. Rocking him in his arms and listening to him snuffle and cry and try to figure out what happened, his confused mind making a mess of it and leaving him exhausted in Blue’s arms. Still, he has enough presence of mind to find the most important thing to say, when finally Blue feels his heart slow against his fingertips.

“I love you too,” swears Trick. “Just the way you are.”

“Anti made me the way I am,” says Blue. “And it’s not enough to protect you.”

“It’s always enough,” Trick says, with a reverence like a prayer. “Don’t you know you make me want to love myself?”

Warm hands and bodies pressed close together. The purring of a cat and the brotherhood shared in twin eyes.

Blue knocks their foreheads softly together.

“You and me?” he whispers, settling down against their nest.

“Yes,” says Trick. “No matter what happens. I have you, Blue.”

“Amata,” says Blue, trying to make up for the times Anti has said it with his lying mouth, trying to make up for all the times Anti corrupted this one truth that still remains. “Amata. Amata. Beloved. I love you.”

The sun has come down blue as the felt between the night sky and warm on their shoulders. Trick, Blue realizes, has fallen asleep in his arms.

--------------

Anonymous asked: Hey Henrik, you should ask the magicians for some candles that you can light on the shabbats! I think finally being allowed/able to practice your culture will really help you on your journey to healing. Remember dayenu, remember the blessings and songs. You're free, dok, you can have more than just Hanukkah now.

You find Henrik sitting in that dusty library basement, surrounded by the tall shelves of the books, flipping wearily through the pages of some stiff yellow tome. He’s surrounded by books, but, for once, all on his own. He no longer feels the need to be lead around or escorted. He knows he’s not a prisoner and, what’s more, he goes where he pleases.

“Ah,” he says, pushing his glasses up on his nose and giving you a small smile. “Well… that’s very nice. And I’d like to do some of that, maybe. I remember my songs and blessings even when I’m with Anti, but I don’t always use them anyhow.”

He sighs and fiddles with the pages of the book. “It is just not that easy as jumping back into it, yeah? Like… fuck, I don’t know. Anti’s not the only thing that’s been stopping me from my practices, I guess. My relationship with my faith is… well, it’s a lot of strings to untangle. I’d like to go back to having a real community, but even if I didn’t feel like I was going back to Anti soon, I’m still not sure I feel like I… I belong, you know, I’m just…”

He trails off, pulling his book closer and shaking his head.

There’s movement on the other side of the library and he blinks, looking around, but he settles back down to his reading.

“Trying to find more info on what Anti is,” he says, changing the subject. “But no real luck. I don’t think he’s anything anyone has ever seen before.”

cest-mellow asked: hey henrik, i’m glad they took you here. it’s very pretty. but, listen, there is a way you can potentially help blue and stop anti. this is gonna sound scary, but emmanuela wants to take a little look inside your head, just to see what antis done, nothing more. she’s very warm, she doesn’t want to cause you or your brothers any sort of harm. she really will help you, and blue, and red and dapper and trick, if you trust her with this. she won’t use any of this against you, it’s only to help.

“Oh, scheisse,” groans Henrik, putting a nail between his teeth. “JP mentioned something like that at dinner. I - oh, get this! They made me eat fucking lamb’s intestines and wouldn’t tell me what it was until I was done, haha. I wanted to be pissed but, okay, listen, lamb’s intestines? Kind of good. I ate… a lot of it, haha.”

He’s a healthier person than when he came here almost two weeks ago, his face flushed with health. He’s been exercising again - turns out he’s something of a runner, which is not something he would have guessed about himself - and he eats three meals a day, every day, and sleeps in every morning.

“Wait until I get them back with something really German, then we’ll see who’s laughing. Oh my gosh, I can still feel how chewy it was! And the kids are so funny, because they will just gobble it down, they just - ”

He pauses and clears his throat. “Sorry, we were talking about Emmanuela. Yes. Um.”

He lets out a deep breath, fidgeting with his book. “I think I trust her. I know the others do and that’s about enough for me. But someone in my head is - that sounds scary, I - I don’t know. I’ve been disillusioned about so many things for so long and I’m still waking up to them. I’m scared she’ll find that there are important things I believe in that are lies too. That maybe everything is a lie. She’ll find something like Trick doesn’t love me without Anti there or Dapper is as bad as Anti or Anti is really… is really…”

He shakes his head slowly, staring down at his books.

“Is really and truly irredeemable. I don’t know that I could bear it…”

There’s movement again, closer to him. He blinks, looking up, shrinking in on himself a little. The lights flicker off on one half of the library and he jolts, staring around him, shadowed half in darkness. Footsteps and he shivers.

“Hermann?” he calls. “Nina?”

No answer from the darkness.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Henrik, maybe you should be on your guard. Where did all the others go?

“I don’t know, just hanging around,” he says, getting to his feet. “I - I’m just being paranoid. Nobody can reach me here. Nothing’s going to hurt me.”

It’s become something of a mantra for him. He whispers it to himself after nightmares and triggers, hiding away on his own, holding his own arms around his shoulders.

“Maybe I’ll go. It’s getting late anyway. I’m just being paranoid. Nobody can reach me here. Nothing’s going to hurt me.”

“Funny,” answers a voice, and Henrik shudders, backing against the shelves, his breath picking up in his chest.

This voice has the thickest Spanish accent yet, almost too heavy for Henrik to understand. The shaking of the voice - the croaking, rasping, cold hiss of the trembling voice - does not make it any easier.

“Funny,” repeats the Old Man, somewhere close by. Somewhere between the shelves of the placid, dusted old library, half-dark. “Funny, funny. A joke, almost. My son, you know, he think the same thing before your brother kill him.”

A snake longer than Henrik’s entire body comes dripping down the bookshelf in front of him, golden eyes fixed directly on him.

hurricael asked: Hey magicians, do you know if someone giving back magic has ever been recorded? And if so, how? Like, magic that was taken and then given back to that person ((I'm a little timeline-muddled so if this doesn't fit here feel free to ignore it))

“Have you been looking for answers?” asks the Old Man, and Henrik whirls as his voice seems to move, almost like Anti’s does, and Henrik feels his heart constrict. “Have you been looking for salvación for your killer family? For all the different kind of murderer you love? For the one who kill Jose, and the one who kill Christofer when he go to help you, and the one who tortures Genesis?”

Fuck. Henrik closes his eyes tight against the memories. No! He won’t be intimidated by this man. He won’t be cowed. He’s Henrik, Dok, their brother.

“You don’t understand!” he cries. “You don’t understand anything about us.”

“Everybody like to say it’s complicated when bad things happen,” answers the Old Man. “You are here, you talk about religion down here? Talk about going back to being a good Jew? It’s complicated. Nobody understand. You tell yourself. But sometimes? You were just wrong. You were just evil. And not everybody deserves salvación.”

“No,” croaks Henrik. “You can’t just - ”

“If you had wanted answers,” says the Old Man. “I am the one who know every book in this library. Here’s your answer: no, your thieving, blood-thirsty brother can’t give the magic back, or at least that is not in any of the books, in any of the history. Same way your black and white brother can’t undo the scars on Genesis, and your red brother can’t bring my child back from the dead.”

Henrik leaps the snake and races back towards the stairs. His hands are growing wet with - oh, oh, what is this? When did he begin to bleed?

“Hey!” he screams, tumbling against a bookshelf. “What are you doing? Please stop! I’m sorry about your child but I didn’t - ah!”

Blood is running down his cheeks. Down his chest. Down his arms. He screams as cuts appear, painless but weeping, across his skin. Thick, heavy scars in some places, neat little patterns in others. The same scars Anti and Dapper gave Genesis. Henrik can feel the star shape on his cheek. Chain burns redden on his shaking wrists.

“The longer you stay here,” hisses the Old Man. “The more tired I am of excuses for everything your family is done to mine. You are not worth defending if monster comes back. You were not worth Jose and Christofer. You should not be here.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: GENESIS! ANYONE! HENRIK IS IN DANGER!

Genesis gets the notification on her phone, turning you on to let you see her splayed out on her bed, eating crackers.

“What?” she says through a half-full mouth, and then the message kind of registers, and she’s scrambling to her feet, spilling crumbs everywhere. “What? Where is he? Anti can’t have gotten in here. Emmanuela!”

She races out of her room, tearing open the door to Henrik’s room, but he isn’t inside.

Anonymous asked: Genesis, the Old Man is attacking henrik, isn’t there any way for you guys to stop him??

“Motherfucker!” shouts Genesis, even louder than she called for Emmanuela, tearing down towards the stairs. “He would not! He did not! Emmanuela will eviscerate him!”

“Genesis? What’s going on?” calls one of the three children, poking their heads out of the dining room.

“Go get everyone for me, now! It’s an emergency. The Old Man’s lost it. I shouldn’t have left the medico alone!”

She’s charging down the stairs already. “Henrik!” she shouts. “It’s okay, I’m coming! It’s not real, medico!”

Henrik can’t hear her. He’s curled up in a ball, clutching at his head, your camera abandoned beside him.

“Do you remember me?” asks a voice you haven’t heard in weeks, and the heavy boots of the enormous magician who had tried to carry Trick back to the car to be with Henrik appear in your vision. Christofer leans down over Henrik and blood comes pulsing from his throat, a great dog’s-teeth wound tearing his neck into bloody shreds. “Do you remember I tried to help you?”

“Stop!” he screams. “Please, no!”

There’s another body behind him a moment later. You’ve never seen this magician before, but you know who he is. He holds the great black book that Anti stole and used to take Marvin’s magic. Red killed him.

“Is it easy?” says Jose. “To pretend all the people you hurt are just side characters, nameless, forgotten the moment you put a blade in them? How many people have you killed, medico? How many of their names do you remember now? All of them had people who loved them.”

“I never wanted to!” screams Henrik.

“But that isn’t quite true now, is it?” sneers Jose’s image, and Henrik can hear himself laughing wildly, crazed, can hear the horrible squealch of his scalpel impaling a body again and again, cackling and babbling in German, and Anti cooing in his ear:

“There’s my good Doktor. There’s my little torturer. Now, at last you can admit it - you never became a doctor to heal anybody. You always wanted to feel what it would be like to kill someone and hold their heart in your hands.”

Henrik sobs and wraps his arms around himself. “Trick!” he screams. “Trick, please!”

Anonymous asked: It’s an old man, talking about how red killed his child. They’re in the library and he’s freaking Henrik out!

Genesis bounds down the stairs and finds Henrik shaking at the bottom, curled into a ball, holding his head and babbling.

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t mean to. Let me go back to Trick. I did what you asked. Let me go back to Trick. I’ll be good. I’ll be good. I’ll be good!”

She falls to her knees beside him and cups his face in her hands, shushing him lowly, looking over him for injuries, but, while Henrik’s camera shows you rivulets of blood and bodies standing over him and the great long body of a constrictor snake creeping along the floor towards him, there is nothing in Genesis’s phone camera except Henrik himself, whole and unharmed, rocking on the floor.

“I’ll make him stop, I’ll make him stop, it’s just an illusion,” she reassures him, leaping back to her feet. “Viejo, paras! I’ll go get him, medico, stay here!”

Almost as soon as she’s rushing down the library shelves to find the Old Man, Hermann is crashing down the stairs to fall at Henrik’s side, taking his hands in his own, his eyes looking wildly around.

Anonymous asked: There's a reason we've done away with 'an-eye-for-an-eye' punishments. It's not as simple as your family hurt mine so I get to hurt yours back. We judge based on individual actions and we learn and grow and forgive if we choose to. I get that you're mourning your family's losses, but hurting Henrik won't take away your hurt. You're just putting more hurt into the world.

“They’re right, so cut it the fuck out!” screams Genesis, rounding the corner of the bookshelves, and there, at last, you see the Old Man.

His dry mouth is twisted into a terrible snarl.

The wrinkles around his eyes are soaked in tears.

He cries in silence, glaring at nothing, his eyes glowing faintly gold from the magic he’s using on Henrik.

“Viejo,” calls Genesis, her eyes softening, though her mouth is still taut with anger for her friend. “Stop. Stop. Jose wouldn’t have wanted this.”

“It does not matter,” he mumbles in Spanish, tears splashing onto the floor. “He is not here and never will be again.”

Anonymous asked: Question old man: who the hell are you HELPING by doing this? You passed-on family is gone, and the ones who are still here are trying to help this guy sure himself out and stop a demon so he can't hurt anyone else. You're directly impeding progress on that front. You're certainly not helping yourself by debasing any trust your living family has in you.

“You can kick me out after this if you please,” he tells Genesis, slumping back in his chair, his hand limp on the table before him. “It doesn’t matter now.”

She comes to stand beside him, her eyes flickering. After a moment, she puts her hand down on his shoulder.

He reaches up and traces the scars that Anti left her, his eyes clouded with both age and misery.

“Stop,” she says. “Please, I’m asking you. Jose was not the only one who loves you. I’m ashamed of you now. Stop, for my sake. For Jose’s memory.”

He scoffs and shakes his head, but at her request, the glow in his eyes fades away.

Henrik chokes and slackens across the floor as the hallucinations fade away, still shuddering. Hermann is murmuring reassurances to him, trying to get him back to his feet. It’s best to get him out of the library before anything else happens.

Genesis and the Old Man are still together in the darkness. He stares down at the wood of the table and closes his weeping eyes.

bupine asked: old man, these men have been through so much pain. i understand you have too. but wishing more pain on them does nothing. it doesn't help you feel better, i'm sure, and it won't reverse any scars or bring any person back from the dead. i am so sorry about your son. anti has done a lot of terrible things, and his brothers have too, as a result. but they're hypnotized, they have no choice. save your rage for someone who truly deserves it.

“The medico is a good man,” whispers Genesis, leaning down to touch his hand. “You would know that if you had given him a chance.”

The Old Man shakes his head slowly, slowly.

“I mean it. He’s like me, viejo. He’s like Jose was too. How many of us have come here because people hurt us and set us down paths we never meant to go down? This is supposed to be a place to have some peace. To find yourself. Why would you do that to him? He was hypnotized. He was lost.”

The Old Man just shakes his head. Eyes still closed. “No. Hypnosis only goes so far. Maybe the demon killed Christofer. But Jose was killed by one of the servants. And he should have fought. He should have fought it. I don’t care how hard it would have been. He gave himself up to the demon and Jose died for it. If that red man ever comes near this place, I’ll show him what it feels like to watch the people you love most die around you. I’ll shatter his mind til he’s in pieces and you can call it an act of mercy, then, because the demon won’t use his hands for murder after that.”

“Stop,” snarls Genesis, shaking her head. “You stop. Don’t you dare threaten any one of them. I’m ashamed of you. I’m ashamed.”

Anonymous asked: Why did you do that? Did you hope to gain something from torturing him?

“He plans to go back to the monster,” says the Old Man. “He still loves his brothers. Maybe he should have a chance to see them for what they really are. Maybe he should see himself for what he really is. Not one monster. Six.”

Genesis draws away from him, mouth pursed. She doesn’t know what to do. She’ll leave it to Emmanuela to decide what to do with him. Her hand falls away from his shoulder.

Anonymous asked: Sir, I’m sorry that you lost your child and I can’t begin to understand how that might feel, but taking it out on Henrik will not bring him back. Henrik was brainwashed and manipulated to do what he was told by the demon he was with, and he didn’t even kill him. Your child’s blood is on the demon’s hands, not his.

Genesis draws away from him. Doesn’t have the energy or time to comfort him while Henrik’s in pain and it’s his fault. She moves back towards the stairs, leaving the Old Man behind in the darkness.

“Wasn’t the demon’s hands either,” you hear the Old Man whisper, quiet as Genesis moves away from him. “I was the one who sent him to fetch the book. My son…”

If you were seated back at the table with him for a moment, you might have seen one more illusion, one more of his magic tricks - a young man sitting there beside him, healthy and strong and beautiful, smiling at him and reaching out to hold his hand. But no matter how long the image sits so lovingly beside him, the warmth of his fingers and the touch of his skin would never come down on their father’s palm again.

Anonymous asked: You underestimate the demon’s power. They did fight, and they’re still fighting, every single minute of every single day. Some days are harder than others, scarier than other, and sometimes they have to do things that aren’t too pretty to survive. They have known nothing else but survival and their abuser. I respect the place that your opinion comes from, but it is also one of misguided anger and it is beyond wrong to trigger a victim because you are hurt. It is not your place to pass judgement.

“Come on,” murmurs Genesis, carrying you up the stairs. “Let’s not waste any more time with him. If he doesn’t see that now, words won’t make him see it. He’s in a great deal of pain. Fuck, I knew he had objected to letting the medico wander free, but I never thought…”

She shakes her head, hustling up the stairs, where she finds a panicked JP waiting for the elevator.

“Genesis! What’s going on?”

“Old Man gave Henrik Nightmares. Maybe you shouldn’t bother him right now, JP.”

“He did not.”

“He did. Come on, I can hear him crying out. I need to check he’s okay.”

JP grabs his wheels and hurries after her.

“Where’s Nina?”

“Lying down. Baby’s really hurting her.”

“Damn baby,” mumbles Genesis, and despite the situation JP snorts out a laugh, running his hands through his hair. “Hermann? Where are you?”

“We’re in Emmanuela’s office,” Hermann calls back.

Henrik grabbed you at some point and you’re clutched tight in his shaking hands, listening to him wheezing and choking out terrified German. Hermann is kneeling close beside him and Emmanuela is sitting on his left, her eyes faintly gold, trying to pull him out of the last of the illusions.

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to! Red didn’t mean to, he didn’t want to hurt them, he didn’t want to hurt us, he just - he- I didn’t!”

“Hey, you’re safe,” Hermann whispers, squeezing his hands. “You’re safe, you’re safe.”

“I want Trick! Trick! Please, where is he?”

“I don’t know, amigo, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

spicydanhowell asked: if you wanna comfort henrik, try rubbing his back or his head. his twin used to do that a lot

“Can I touch you?” asks Hermann.

Henrik is already gripping at his hands, disoriented and lost and afraid. “Trick?” he sobs.

“It’s Hermann, medico. It’s okay.”

“I want my brother,” he chokes. “I want - I want Anti.”

There’s a slight shift in all the magicians around him, glances exchanged and mouths twisted. Emmanuela gets to her feet and begins ushering people out of the room. “Give him some space.” The children race off, followed by a more reluctant JP and Genesis. Emmanuela sits down at her desk to give him room, and Hermann shifts closer to Henrik. He reaches up to touch the back of his head and, when Henrik only falters into it, he strokes gently at his hair, still clutching his free hand.

“I’m sorry he did that to you,” says Hermann. “I meant to protect you. I’m sorry.”

“No, he was right,” sobs Henrik, clutching at his face. “I’m a murderer and a sadist, I always have been, I love the sight of blood, just a freak… my brothers have all killed people, except maybe Blue, and we do it all just because Anti tells us to, and do you know what the worst part is?”

“Medico, Henrik, sh, sh…”

“I still love him,” cries Henrik, feeling something snapping inside his chest. “I still love him! He is my brother! I know he is a monster and I still want him! The Old Man was right. I’m just a monster too, wanting to be with him, wanting to be his.”

He crumples across Hermann’s shoulders, tumbling against his chest, and Hermann just reaches out to hold him, stroking slowly at his hair.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Hen.... it's okay. Yes you might have done wrong in the past, but that does NOT make you a monster. You will wee Trick soon, okay?

“I need to go back to him,” Henrik is sobbing, gripping at Hermann’s shoulders. “No, I mean it! I’ve been thinking it this whole time, I - I can’t - I’m not ready to leave Anti, or at least not leave Trick and my brothers with him.”

“Medico,” says Emmanuela.

“No, I mean it,” he repeats. “I meant to tell you - you, mostly - ” He casts you a red-eyed glance, hiccuping. “I plan to go back to Anti. I do. I’m not - I’d like to stay. I would. But I can’t leave Trick and Blue behind, or the others. I have to be there to look after them. That’s my job. I’m planning to go back to Anti. I am. You shouldn’t try to stop me.”

Emmanuela sits back in her chair, sighing. Hermann gives her a desperate glance, but she’s turned away from him.

“You can’t do that,” whispers Hermann, gripping Henrik’s head tighter. “You have to stay safe.”

“I know there’s nothing selfish about staying away from someone who’s treated you poorly. But I still… I still need to be with Anti. I feel his presence clawing at me. He’s so deep inside my head. And what’s more, I want to be with him. I can’t just give up on him, or on the others. They must be suffering so much. I have to look after Blue and protect Trick as he comes down from what Anti’s putting him through. Besides, I’ll only bring Anti here if I continue to hide. It was never feasible, me staying here. I need to go back to Anti. I want to go back to Anti. I want to go back to Trick.”

“This is horrible,” says Hermann, shaking his head. “No.”

“He’ll make his own choice,” says Emmanuela softly.

It would not be the first time she’s let people go, no matter how unwise it seemed.

“He’s an adult and a free man. He’ll make his own choice. But first he must let me make sure he sees as clearly as he can.”

She turns and levels her gaze at Henrik. He swallows shakily and stares back.

Anonymous asked: Henrik, no, it's okay. You're okay. He had such a powerful hold, it's completely understandable to still be affected by it. He changed you, and you're doing a wonderful job recovering. And remember, Henrik, he messed with your head, and if the core that's you got shaken up by it, that's okay, he meant it to do that. You're okay, buddy.

“How much of who I am is him messing with my head?” whispers Henrik, burying his face in his hands. “How much of who I am is really me and how much is him? How much of him is really a monster and how much was real in the times when he made me think he loved me? How much of any of us is real? Are we just puppets? Was the person I was anything like this at all?”

Hermann looks helplessly over at Emmanuela, who, at this point, is mostly looking sad for him. Henrik hides from her pity and pretends the warmth against him is Trick’s.

“Can I see?” she asks.

“Inside my head?”

“Yes.”

“Could you if I said no?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t.”

Henrik stares down at the floor, exhausted, his heart still pounding so hard it hurts. He chokes on a sob and tears come drizzling down his face. What a mess he is. What a mess he’s always been, long as he can remember.

“Can you help me get my memories back?” he asks in a croak.

“Maybe,” she says. “It depends on the way the monster took them.”

He looks up at her, startled.

“What, really?”

“No clue til I try.”

Hermann is rubbing soothingly at his knee. Henrik glances over at him, meeting the calm trust in his eyes. Henrik looks up at you, nervous.

“Okay,” he says softly, clutching you to his chest. “But if you try anything, they’ll tell me!”

Emmanuela chuckles, soft and low.

Hermann leaves them alone in the room. Henrik feels awkward staring up at her, and a little afraid.

“What is this going to answer for me?” he asks in a croak.

“Well,” says Emmanuela. “How much of his control was ever voluntary for you. How he got in your head, which might, in turn let us know how to get him out. How real some of the things you’ve believed are. What happened to your memories - locked away in your brain or just destroyed.”

Henrik laughs and tugs on his hair, shaking his head slowly. “Well, fuck,” he says. “That might be too many answers.”

“Just take it easy,” she says. “Close your eyes.”

“I feel very stupid,” he admits.

She laughs without mocking him. He closes his eyes.

Here are some things that are true.

Henrik von Schneeplestein did not for a moment choose Anti. He did not agree. He was not convinced. Even more so than Blue, he was shoved down this rabbit hole; he was broken in half and then rebuilt. The remnant of that time makes old scars tingle along his body, burns and cuts and bones ever-so-slightly out of place. Anti told him he didn’t know how he got them. Probably from the old master, he said. Probably from that old and painful life. Briefly, Henrik feels the ghost of a memory, staring across at Trick before he was Trick, the two of them whispering encouragement as the days went by, until at last Henrik shattered, and Trick fell down with him.

Here are some things that are true.

Anti falsified all of it in the beginning. The feeling of fondness towards him. The feeling of safety. The lie of the danger outside. There was no one coming for them, except old friends who missed them, or at least what few of their old friends who remained alive. Henrik had people he loved and he forgot them. Henrik loved Jameson and Jackie and Marvin and he forgot that too. Things changed as time went on. Dok loved Anti. Dok loves Anti.

Anti has, at moments - at small, fleeting moments, loved him too. Earnestly and truly. There is a bullet scar in Dok’s side that will never go away, but the only reason he survived it at all was because of the great black dog that guarded him from their enemies. The great black dog that took bullet after bullet for him, and saw a dozen possible futures at Dapper’s hands, and chose the one where Doktor did not die. There were moments where he would look over at him and think, at least, ‘he is something worth loving.’

Selfish love, sometimes, but at moments, present.

For the most part, however, Anti has not loved him, not slightly, not well, not enough, and that was a choice he made. Killing Henrik was an act of revenge, and from there, Dok has been tortured again and again by the hatred of the monster he came to call his brother, and it isn’t fair, and it wasn’t loving, and the brotherhood between them is, if real, a terrible, terrible curse to him, and he doesn’t deserve it.

Here are some things that are true.

Anti is jealous and Henrik’s memories are gone, permanently. Not locked away. Not hidden. Destroyed. Powerful magic. Powerful theft. Henrik will never remember that old life. Only glimpses of it, ghosts of it. Emmanuela searches and Henrik sees distant things - a house in the middle of the forest. The disappearance of a little brother. The flight from home. His brothers around him. Chase. But these are empty gaps where memories once were, not things recalled.

Here is one thing that is true.

“He’s entangled himself completely in your family,” says Emmanuela. “In your mind.”

Dok loves Anti. Henrik loves Anti. He does, he does. Despite everything. Despite the false foundation.

“He made it seem real,” she says. “Because the family between the rest of you was real. As time went on, you lost the ability to distinguish between the intruder and the reality. And he just became another brother. Flawed, maybe, but so were all of you. A bad temper, you said. You couldn’t see that he wasn’t real. Because if he wasn’t, than what does that make the rest of it? False as well? You knew it like this: ‘I love Trick and Trick loves me, truly and fully. Anti gave Trick to me. Anti must love us too, truly and fully, or wouldn’t that mean Trick didn’t love me too?’“

Henrik tries to breathe, burying his face in his hands. He did not feel her in his head, but he felt the remnants of so many things he’s forgotten or tried to forget. Grief and anger and hurt and pain and happy things, too, but less of them, not as many as there should have been.

“He is a talented manipulator,” she says. “More powerful and skilled than anyone I’ve ever come into contact with. I don’t know - Henrik, I’m sorry - I don’t know how you’ll convince yourself fully that he really is as bad as all that. No matter what I show you, no matter how much time you have, he will still be buried in there by virtue of his power. This web - I don’t know how to break it. You love your brothers and your brothers love you. Anti is caught up in the middle of that, hiding in the subconscious, unable to be ratted out without ratting the real love out too. It’s not fair. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you’re just wrong about him,” Henrik sobs. “You have to be, if he seems so real!”

“Henrik… this is what I mean. No matter how much you cling to him, you know, logically, what’s real. You saw him hurt your magician that night. He could have killed him. You’ve seen him lock your little brother away in his room for months on end. You’ve seen him twist the others into things they never wanted to be. You’ve been hurt by him yourself, medico. You know. You know.”

“But I still love him,” says Henrik.

“Yes,” says Emmanuela, very soft. “That’s a normal part of abuse, but… I don’t think that this will go away normally.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” says Henrik.

He tries to breathe. He’s got this. He’s fine. He’s a motherfucking certified genius, he can figure this shit out.

“Here are my options,” he says. “One - I run away and I stay gone and not only does Anti hunt me for the rest of my life, but I’ll always feel attached to him as long as I’m attached to the others, who, as far as I will know, will continue to be tortured by Anti.”

Emmanuela just watches him. She will let him make his own choices.

“Or, two - I find a way to disentangle Anti from my family. Not just my image of my family, but the whole of my family. Realizing, logically, that he is a horrible son of a bitch has so far proved useless. I still know that I love the others, and they love Anti, or at least some of them do, and as long as that’s true, he’ll always be buried in there somewhere. I can’t escape him alone. None of us can. So to get away from him, I’d have to - ”

He stops short, staring at the wall.

Looking up at last.

“We’re… all going to have to turn on him together,” he says. “Aren’t we?”

Emmanuela looks at him. She has endless eyes. Her dark hair gleams.

“Yes,” she says. “I think so.”

He sits back on his chair. Staring at that wall. Stained glass windows at the side of it. Letting in the light, but letting it in blood red.

“Impossible,” he says. “Impossible.”

“No,” she says, reaching out to touch his hand. “It isn’t. It’s just a fight, Henrik. And you’re going to have to fight it. With them. Not alone anymore. With your brothers. Stop watching each other get hurt and stand together. Find your family again. The real one. You don’t have to surrender.”

Blood red streaks across him. Light and color and the blank face of the wall. The closed door waiting to be opened.

“I need to see Anti again,” he says, very soft.

“To fight?” she asks. “Or to give up?”

He doesn’t answer.

She leans back in her desk, her eyes faintly gold.

“I’ll make preparations for if you choose to leave,” she says. “I’ll give you weapons. Protection. Anything I can. It’s your choice, Henrik.”

He walks back to his room alone, and sits on the bed, and stares at the wall.

Here is a truth, a great truth, greater than anything else that he knows, great enough, he thinks, perhaps, to fight for:

He wants to be free, and bring his family with him.

But it will not be easy.

------------------

aether-mae asked: Hen, when Anti comes, I want you to keep this time in mind. Keep in mind how you are safe and happy with the magicians, and remind yourself you are bringing this contentment to trick. Bring trick away from Anti so he can enjoy this with you.

You can find him in the sunlight.

They’re playing a partnered card game that involves slapping your hand down on the cards faster than everyone else, coming up with secret signals to communicate, and a lot of wild giggling, especially from JP and Nina, losing it on his right side. He’s sitting down against the wall with one arm around her shoulders and one arm around her rounded belly and their black hair is glowing in the light. Henrik tugs you closer to him at the beeping, but he’s distracted by the chattering of Genesis and Hermann and Basilio, who is eagerly perched in Henrik’s lap, trying to slap the cards every single time a new one falls.

“You have to wait for a sandwich of cards,” laughs Henrik, dragging his little hand back again. “Like, maybe an eight and then something else and then another eight. A sandwich.”

“Que?”

“You have to - haha, you’ll learn, you’ll figure it out.”

Basilio slaps the cards again and Henrik breaks down into laughter.

Loud laughter. Loud, deep from the bottom of his chest. His head falls back and his eyes squint up and his shoulders shake with it.

And he catches your message out of the corner of his eye, and pauses to read it, and fuck, fuck.

He has to fight, doesn’t he?

He has to fight for Trick to have this.

If he’s going back -

The sun is golden on him. His skin fits him right. There is a child laughing on his lap and friends around him.

If he’s going back, he’s going back to fight.

He has to bring this joy back to his brothers.

He strokes Basilio’s dark hair and -

“Sandwich!”

- slaps the cards.

“Henrik,” groans a chorus of accented voices at him as he collects the cards he’s won, and he’s laughing again, and he’s warm, and Hermann’s hand comes down on his own just for a moment as if to say, ‘yes, brother, here we are.’

Anonymous asked: I don't think you need to figure out exactly who you were under his control, because I think the lines were blurred enough that we might never quite know. People do things they wouldn't usually to survive, and to protect themselves, and I do not think you can be faulted for things he made you do. And as you begin to come back, we can begin to figure out who you are now.

They devolve into sitting around and kicking a football around eventually, Henrik sitting on the sidelines and drinking beer with JP as Genesis and Hermann play monkey in the middle with Basilio.

“It’s kind of frightening,” he tells you, though he says it calmly. “Knowing that I have to find myself again. Knowing that I will never be that same person I was. But I think I want it. I think that’s something I want to stand up for. For my chance to be Henrik, and not just here, sheltered away from him. For my chance to be Henrik again in all things.”

“That’s the good part about it,” says Nina, turning to smile at him. “You go through so much you don’t know how to get back that person that you used to be, but then… then you get to choose the person you become. And that person becomes someone who is a survivor despite everything. A fighter despite everything. You choose strength and it shapes you.”

She smiles softly at the brick beneath her feet, turning her head to gaze at her husband, stroking her hand along her belly.

“Every day,” she says, touching Henrik’s shoulder. “We’re choosing. It’s okay to make new choices. Okay to be a different person. Every day a new person. I think that’s what’s really beautiful about being a person at all.”

aether-mae asked: Henrik! My lovely fellow. Red and Dap are on their way to you, without Anti and with no intention to return to Anti (as of yet). Is there any way you know of that could bring you to them faster or would you like to wait for them?

“What’s this? Red?”

“Hermann!”

Emmanuela’s coming up the stairs, beckoning for him. He hurries over to her and they exchange a few soft words. She presses something into his hands and leaves again.

Hermann stares down at it for a second. Holds it in his hands.

“Henrik,” he calls, trying to steady his voice, turning back towards him with a smile, holding a phone. “It’s for you.”

“It’s what?” Henrik gets onto his feet. Hermann just holds the phone out to him.

Henrik puts it to his ear.

Soft breathing, shy and nervous. Soft mumbling in the background. Soft shuffling and a deep breath.

“Dok?”

Henrik’s heart is a bird uncaged.

“Red! Oh, oh, I - I - is it you, is it? Bruder, is est du? How, how, Red, Red, I - ”

Red is stammering and babbling and stumbling just as much as he is on the other end of the line, his voice hoarse and shaking.

“We used the cameras, Max sent his phone number to them - I didn’t think it would work, thought it was a trick, fuck, Dok, is it you?”

“It’s me, it’s me! Red! I didn’t know if you were alright, I didn’t know if you were in prison… tell me something only you would know!”

“I - I, um. For Christmas this year, Trick got you coffee.”

Henrik bursts into laughter without knowing why, gripping his hair. “Red, Red!”

“Dap’s here too - he says your favorite book is the Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder and he loves you and he says you better believe it’s him, he loves you, he loves you - ”

“Oh, my little brother, is he well? Put him on the phone, I need to - no, wait - ”

It’s Red’s turn to laugh, and then they’re just having a breakdown together two countries away, listening to each other’s voices, chattering everything that comes to mind, and Henrik can hear Dapper clicking and striking his hands together at Red’s side.

“Dok, we want to come get you.”

“You want to come get me?”

“Yes. Yeah. We’ve got a car. We’re headed your way. Dok, I have to see you again. I can’t take all of us being separated anymore. I don’t know how we would have survived without the help we found.”

“Well, that I understand,” chokes out Henrik, gripping that phone like it’s keeping his head above water. “Red, yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. Come get me. I need to see you. My brothers. I love you.”

He didn’t mean to make Red’s voice shake even harder. He thinks he hears tears in his eyes. His strong older brother crying just for him.

“Where can I find you, Deutsch?”

“The market,” Henrik answers immediately. “Where we bought coffee and polar bear shirts and dog tags and rings. Red. Bruder, hermano, my friend. Come get me.”

--------------

Anonymous asked: Hold on just a while longer Blue- No, not blue, Marvin. Hold on just a little while longer. The missing brothers are free. I don't think anything anti does could convince them to come back to him at this point. Anti has enemies that will take him down in this weak state. Almost there you strong, wonderful magician. Protect Chase, protect yourself, I can't make promises but I feel the end to your pain is on the horizon. Do not go gentle. Rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle. Rage against the dying of the light.

He sleeps every night now with his arms wrapped tight around Trickshot. They tangle up in blankets and brothers’ shirts and the tube for his oxygen.

The end of your pain is on the horizon.

He curls his body around Trick’s. As if he can protect him. At the least, he has to try. His fingers stroke the hair at the nape of his neck. Trick squirms closer to him in his sleep, mumbling and throwing his arms around him, entangling their legs. Noodle readjusts to sit nearly on his face.

They would not begrudge you the quick look in on them as they slept. You are, after all, a beacon of safety - for Trick, a sign that Anti watches over him; for Blue, a steady ally against everything that hurts him. A friend.

It is late, though. How long will you watch him? How many of you are looking on? Everything is still. Have you often peered at the silence of them? At the little moments, where nothing exists but the hand of their brother clasped in their own? Loyal watcher. You see things they do not always see. It is late, though. Will you go to sleep? Who taught you to watch so vigilantly? You remember the things the rest of the world has forgotten - glitches and Silent Nights and white string and comas. You remember things that never happened, because Jameson undid them.

The watchful few. The handful of you. It is late, though. Will you sleep?

Movement in their window.

A shadow, at first. Pausing. Casting a low shade of darkness over what little light comes in through their window.

The shadow shifts.

Closer.

And then there is a silhouette in their window. The silhouette of a person.

They do not know you’re there. They do not know you see.

They come close to the window. Cast that black and impenetrable shadow down over Trick and Blue, asleep on their mattress. The perfect outline of a person looking down at them. For a moment, they only stare down at them. Unmoving. Cold.

They move away again. You think they wear a cape. No. You think they have the wings of a bird. In the moonlight, a flicker of gold.

Trick and Blue sleep. Tangled up in blankets and brothers’ shirts and the tube for his oxygen.

Loyal watcher. It is late, though.

How long will you watch?

How long will the shadow?

End Section Nine of Chapter Three: The Separated Twins

#chapter three #writers of jack

[pain-somnia]

ssm19 day 22

SasuSaku Month 2k19 Day 22: Early Mornings Rating: M (hardhardhard M, y’all have been warned) Disclaimer Day’s Notes: hello hello everyone! I made this as a continuation to last year’s fic for “Body Talk” which was a birthday present for @roraewrites 💕

Happy Birthday Ro! I hope you enjoy it a lot. This sequel is much longer than the “Body Talk” fic ‘cause I gotta make everyone work for that smut. Remember that ShiItaIzu and TenKarin show up in this fic.

Just Stay

Usually her morning routine consisted of her waking up before her roommates and making herself tea. She would sit outside on their veranda wrapped up in one of her oversized cardigans and get some reading done before Karin strolled out of her bedroom whining about hunger pains and needing nourishment.

Karin took over the cleaning of the apartment as long as Sakura or Tenten did the cooking. It worked out for the two of them considering Karin was anal about cleanliness but would burn pots attempting to boil water.

Tenten can deal with that today.

Sakura was too comfortable to move. The usual chill she felt in the mornings was gone and her body was much more relaxed than it had been in weeks.

I’m not getting up today. It’s Saturday anyway and I don’t have work until...tomorrow. Good.

Sakura snuggled into her pillow and sighed. She needed to catch up on sleep anyway. She was slipping back to sleep when an arm snaked around her waist and pulled her back against a hard body.

She instantly tensed up and her eyes opened up wide. Distantly she could hear the sound of dogs barking.

This isn’t my bed!

Sakura shifted slightly trying to sneak out from under the arm holding her in place. A deep voice whined and a face pressed into the junction of her neck and shoulder. The hand of the arm around her snuck under her top.

Sakura stared down at the baggy black shirt she was wearing. The front of the shirt had the name of a band she vaguely knew.

This isn’t my shirt!

A subtle shift of her legs had her face heating up. She was lacking a pair of undergarments and with the way the owner of the arm had slid the shirt up she was completely exposed from the waist down.

A little late to be embarrassed about that Sakura!

She mentally chastised herself and settled back against the body that was holding her. Now that she was more awake she recalled how she got herself into her current situation.

The shirt she was wearing belonged to her neighbor. It was the shirt he was wearing earlier that morning when she ran into him at the laundry center.

She remembered being tired afterward and too comfortable lying back with her head pressed to his pillows. She could have gotten up and grabbed something from her basket but didn’t want to move. Sasuke had pulled his shorts back on and grabbed the shirt he had discarded from the side of his bed and pulled it over her head and helped her into it.

I should leave now...right?

Sakura’s lips twisted to one side and she contemplated her next move. She didn’t want to leave but she wasn’t sure if she would be overstaying her welcome if she stuck around and waited for him to wake up.

This is what happens when I do shit I’ve never done before.

Sakura turned her face into the pillow under her head and groaned. It was a little late to think of the consequences especially when she had enjoyed herself so much the night before.

Heat traveled up her face as she recalled the feeling of his hair brushing against her inner thighs and the way he took her little bundle of nerves between his lips. After they had snuck into his room there was a repeat performance in which he made sure she was nice and slick.

Having no experience in hookup culture, Sakura wasn’t sure if she should stay until Sasuke woke up or disappear before he did. Waiting seemed like the best decision, the one that would benefit her the most. But she wondered if she would seem too forward if she kept lying in his bed.

I’m sure he wouldn’t mind another...round.

Sakura buried her face in her hands. She was making herself too at home in her neighbor’s bed. Gingerly, she pried Sasuke’s arm off of her and scooted to the edge of the bed. Luckily the apartment was carpeted and she wasn’t shocked by the potential cold before she could slip her feet into her slippers. Sakura shuffled over to her basket of laundry and slipped on a pair of skivvies and pajama boxer shorts. Feeling a bit chilly in the air conditioned apartment, Sakura snagged the hoodie on Sasuke’s desk chair and slipped into it as well.

Closing the door behind her, Sakura made her way over to the bathroom. The apartment had almost the same set up that hers had except it had an extra bedroom. She splashed water on her face and used the toilet. After she washed her hands she was unable to find a hand towel so she shook them to dry. The bathroom was clean but there was not much in it. The hallway bathroom in her own apartment was just for her because Tenten and Karin had an ensuite in the master bedroom and she had all of her toiletries and a shelf full of her makeup. Her bathroom was an extension of her own room so it felt weird sitting in a bathroom that luckily at least had toilet paper and hand soap to use.

“So you were the one making all that noise,” Sakura whispered to Shiro, who was waiting right outside the bathroom when she exited. “Lemme guess, you’re hungry?”

Shiro yipped and followed at her heels as she led him to the kitchen where she assumed she would find something for him to eat and something to drink for herself. Shiro clung to her, rubbing his head against her arm as she tried to tip kibble into his bowl. A bigger dog came up behind her and whined at the empty red bowl next to Shiro’s and she filled it up as well.

Playing it safe, Sakura ignored the bottles of juice and grabbed the pitcher of filtered water from the fridge. Sasuke obviously had roommates and she didn’t want to mess with anything that could have belonged to a specific person. Pouring herself a glass, she leaned back against the kitchen counter and enjoyed the chill of the water as it slid down her throat.

It was still pretty early in the morning for Karin or Tenten, so Sakura was sure she neither would be looking for her and even if they were they would assume she went out for a jog.

I doubt they would have any energy to be up anyway. Sakura shivered recalling the excitement Karin had about a bag from her favorite sex shop. No doubt the two of them had broken in whatever toy Karin had brought home and spent the whole night enjoying it to the fullest.

Not that Sakura was one to judge considering how she had spent her night. Her cheeks burned as she thought about how Sasuke had gripped the back of her head when she sucked her cheeks in around the head of his cock and teased the slit with the tip of her tongue.

Wonder how he’d feel about that kind of wake up call? Sakura giggled inwardly, her insecurity upon waking up dissipating with the reminder of how he felt below her, bucking his hips as he chased his orgasm. The grip he had on her hips had left a bruise but she kind of liked the tinge of pain from when she poked at it.

Setting her glass down in the sink, Sakura took a deep breath and matched her way across the apartment back to Sasuke’s room. She was only a few feet away when the door to the bedroom next to Sasuke’s opened up.

“Oh, shit!” A gangly boy with messy brown hair exclaimed upon seeing her. “You’re still here.”

Warmth flooded her cheeks again. Of course someone had heard them going at it! Sakura shifted on the balls of her feet, feeling severely under dressed as the boy continued to gawk at her.

“Can you not stare at me like that? It’s creepy.”

“What? Ah, sorry!” The boy looked down at the floor and scratched the back of his head. “I just didn’t expect you to still be here when I woke up.”

The heat left her body at his words. She had been so caught up in her own daydreams that she let herself believe that what she wanted was also what Sasuke did. Clearly from his friend’s reaction to her presence, she had overstayed her welcome.

He probably thought I would see myself out if he kept sleeping.

“I was just on my way out.”

Quickly, Sakura gathered her basket from Sasuke’s room, sparing him a single glance. He was still asleep, lying on his stomach. He hadn’t woken up when she moved or now that his roommate was talking to her outside.

I expected too much, huh?

“I can pass on a message if you—“

“Don’t bother,” Sakura cut off his roommate and left the apartment, rushing up the stairs to her own like she should have earlier that morning.

.

.

.

Groping around with his right hand, Sasuke blindly felt around for the missing warmth of a body next to him. A moment later, something small and furry had made its way into his outstretched arm and licked the side of his face. Lifting his head, he blinked the sleep out of his eyes and realized that Shiro had cuddled up with him.

Did I have an elaborate wet dream?

Sasuke sat up and pulled a knee to his chest. He was sure that he had brought Sakura home the night before. Scanning the room, he looked for anything out of place.

Where’s my hoodie?

His hand-me-down police academy hoodie that Shisui had given him was gone and from under his desk he could see a scrap of fabric with a familiar polka dot print.

So that’s where I threw those...maybe she went to the bathroom or something…?

Rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm, Sasuke shuffled out of his room. He went to knock on the bathroom door but the light was off inside. He twisted the doorknob and opened it a crack. No one was inside.

Shuffling down the hall, Shiro at his heels, Sasuke didn’t find her in the living room either. He did find Kiba lounging on the couch and eating a bowl of cereal. A bowl of Sasuke’s cereal.

“Dude, what the fuck.”

“I ran out. You’re also out. I’ll buy you another box.”

Sasuke ran a hand through his messy hair and crossed his arms in front of his chest. She wasn’t in the apartment. Did Sakura just...leave? She didn’t seem the type to hit it and quit it but perhaps he was wrong.

“By the way,” Kiba mumbled through a bite of cereal before swallowing, “that chick left already. I asked if she wanted me to tell you anything but she just said not to bother.”

Sasuke walked over to the couch and sank into the couch cushions. He pulled his knees up toward his chest and wrapped his arms around them before falling sideways against Kiba.

“She used me.”

“And she stole your clothes.”

The door to the bedroom facing the living room opened up and Shino shuffled out in his slippers and his long hair falling around is shoulders.

“She would have stayed but some idiot doesn’t know how to talk to girls.”

“Are you really trying to kick me when I’m down?” Sasuke glared at him. This was exactly why he didn’t like hanging out with them, Shino especially.

“Not you. The other idiot.”

Sasuke looked up at Kiba and seethed. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t say anything!” Kiba pulled his bowl away from Sasuke so that he couldn’t knock it away. “I just told her that-that...ohhh.”

“Oh, what?”

“My bad.”

Sasuke launched himself on top of Kiba, punching him wherever he could reach. Shino intervened, hooking his arms under Sasuke’s armpits and yanking him off of Kiba.

“And you didn’t stop him?” Sasuke twisted his body in an attempt to get out of Shino’s hold.

“At first I thought I was dreaming the exchange but then I remembered that you had woken me up with how loud you were being.”

“We weren’t loud.”

“Your headboard knocked right against the wall. I thought someone had broken into the apartment.” Shino shivered and shook his head. “She’s not a screamer but when it’s three in the morning and everything is quiet, you can hear her moaning really clearly. Next time play some music or something.”

“It was so early in the morning too, you ass.” Kiba grabbed one of the throw pillows and swung it at his face. Sasuke grabbed the couch cushion from underneath him and threw it at Kiba, immediately sitting on top of it and sandwiching Kiba between it and the couch.

“Sasuke, get off!”

“Fuck you.”

.

.

.

There wasn’t much he knew about her. He probably should have thought about that before tonguing her down the way he did. Or before he let her wear his favorite band shirt. It was a concert exclusive and now he wasn’t going to see it ever again.

He had expected to wake up and find her curled up in his bed, soft thighs poking out from under the oversized shirt. He expected to make her some of his favorite tea or steal some of Shino’s coffee if that was more her thing and then taste that as he snuck some kisses and secured a date before his roommates could scare her off with embarrassing stories.

Even though they lived in the same building, he had a hard time running into her again. He figured he could see her on a Monday or Wednesday morning but she never came. He tried his luck again on Tuesday and Thursday nights and still no sign of Sakura.

Sasuke tried on days he normally didn’t go to the gym in the hopes that she had switched up her workout schedule. He wasn’t a morning person, but he forced himself to wake up earlier than usual and take Shiro out for walks sooner in the day than even the dog liked.

These early mornings are going to kill me, Sasuke groaned inwardly. He was walking back up the hill to his apartment, Shiro in his arms because the lazy ass had plopped his body onto the ground and refused to move.

“No more! I can’t do it!”

Sasuke turned his head in the direction of the whining and heavy panting. At the bottom of the hill was the redhead from the free yoga class and her girlfriend with the twin buns hairstyle.

“Come on, Karin.” The brunette jogged in place and tugged on the redhead’s arms trying to urge her forward. “Just up this hill and we’re done.”

“How do you and Sakura do this everyday?” Karin whined. She wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s waist and pressed her face into her hip to keep from completely doubling over. She looked ready to complain some more when she caught Sasuke’s eye. “You!”

Karin snapped straight up, complaints about no more energy and muscle pains forgotten, and stormed up the hill in his direction. She was just about to grab at him when her girlfriend wrapped her arms around her torso and lifted the tiny redhead off of the ground.

“Lemme go, Tenten!” Karin flailed in her arms, kicking her legs out in Sasuke’s direction.

“Sorry about her,” the brunette━Tenten━apologized, embracing Karin tighter. “She has a short fuse. You know what they say about short people━━”

“The closer to the ground, the closer to hell?”

“Fuck you, pretty boy!” Karin made herself heavy and slipped out of Tenten’s grip. “I’m going to punch you in the throat.”

Sasuke stuck his arm out and palmed Karin’s head, keeping her a safe distance from his body and Shiro as she flailed her arms around.

“I’m guessing this is about Sakura?” Sasuke directed his question at Tenten who was obviously the more levelheaded of the two.

“Yep!” Tenten wrapped her arms around Karin’s torso and lifted her up off of the ground again. “She should have known better than to hook up with a neighbor.”

“What’s wrong with hooking up with a neighbor?” Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the two of them, waiting for the response. He had his own ideas but wanted to hear it from the friends that Sakura was comfortable enough to live with.

“Well,” Tenten raised her hands as if she were weighing imaginary objects, debating with herself before finishing with, “it’s really…awkward.”

“And fucking dangerous,” Karin spat. “You could have been a serial killer.”

“But mostly awkward in this case.” Tenten patted Karin on the head in a silent plea for her to keep quiet. “Rejection and getting dumped sucks and it’s even worse when there’s a chance of running into the person that doesn’t want you everyday.”

“I see.” Sasuke looked back and forth between the kind faced brunette and the feral redhead. It would be easier to tell them the truth, explain what had actually happened. But he didn’t want Sakura to hear the explanation from her friends. “I’ve been looking for her. I need to━”

“Piss off!” Karin snatched her girlfriend’s hand and stormed pass Sasuke. She turned back around to make a rude hand gesture and stormed ahead, Tenten protesting the whole way back to their apartment.

Shiro yipped at him and panted happily, begging for attention.

“You were absolutely no help at all.”

.

.

.

She hadn’t meant to use it but it was cold and she had snatched the hoodie without thinking about it’s color or the embroidery on it. Sakura didn’t notice until she took it off to stow it away in the coat room of the yoga studio.

She had been tempted to leave it hanging on the doorknob of Sasuke’s apartment door. It would be easy to sneakily leave it there on her way down to her car. But the sweater was worn out in a very comfortable way and she liked how large it was.

She only wore it in the privacy of her apartment. Karin called the clothes she absconded with her “spoils of war” and had mentioned how it was the least that was owed to her.

She had told her that while both she and Tenten were wearing baggy shirts from a couple of her ex boyfriends while cuddling on the couch.

“And exhale,” Izumi, the instructor, called softly from her place in the front of the class.

Sakura had found the studio that had given the free class for her apartment community but had preferred to take her classes with Izumi who hadn’t been an instructor at the demo class. Izumi was a lot more fun to talk to and eventually the two of them started hanging out outside of class.

“I really want an avocado smoothie.” Izumi bounced in place excitedly as she waited for Sakura to gather her things.

The older woman had been extra bubbly lately due to finding out she was pregnant. She was going to have to switch the class she instructed soon and Sakura wanted to take as many classes as possible before the swap.

“Is that a craving or part of that diet?” Sakura teased. Izumi groaned dramatically and pulled out a journal from her canvas bag.

“I don’t know who’s worse,” she complained. “Itachi with his food monitoring or Shisui with his hovering. The baby is lentil sized right now but he’s constantly putting his hands on me whether to stroke my belly or to rub my back.”

“You’re complaining about back massages?”

“Sometimes it gets to be too much. I just wish━”

“Hm?” Sakura questioned as she pulled the hoodie on. Izumi had just stopped mid sentence.

“Where did you,” Izumi swallowed and pointed at the sweater, “get that?”

“Oh, this?” Sakura rolled her eyes as she adjusted the strap of her yoga mat on her shoulder. “It was stupid. I let some guy take me home and I ended up leaving with clothes I borrowed because I was being stupid thinking he wanted me to stay.”

“He took you home?” Izumi continued questioning.

“Yeah…” Sakura shifted on the balls of her feet, uncomfortable with the way Izumi was looking at her. “I thought about returning it, but it felt weird. I didn’t wanna run into him, you know?”

“Such a small world,” Izumi muttered before linking arms with Sakura. “Smoothies are on me today.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Izumi patted her on the arm. “Just leave it all to me.”

.

.

.

“Sasuke Uchiha!”

Sasuke sat up, pausing the game he had been playing with his brother-in-law. It was Saturday and after his shift at the vet he always visited for dinner. It was part of his weekend routine. What wasn’t part of that routine was for his sister-in-law to come bursting in through the front door of her condo shouting his name.

“What did you do?” Shisui asked, brows pulled down in confusion.

“Nothing,” Sasuke responded before a throw pillow was smacked against the back of his head. “What the hell, Izumi?”

“Why are you taking girls to your apartment, huh?” Izumi smacked him again. “Mama Mikoto didn’t let you move out so you could be acting like a little player!”

“Are you serious?” Shisui guffawed. “Sasuke got laid? Looks like Fugaku’s plan didn’t really work out. Wait, why do you know about it?”

“A girl in one of my classes was wearing that ratty old hoodie you gave him,”Izumi sniffed, tired from hitting Sasuke repeatedly with the pillow. She collapsed on the couch on the other side of Shisui.

“Wait,” Sasuke turned warily to look at Izumi, “You know Sakura?”

“Well at least you know her name,” Izumi snapped at him.

“Alright, hon,” Shisui rubbed her shoulders and tried to calm her down, “please spill all of the tea.”

“She doesn’t even have all of the facts,” Sasuke scoffed. Shaking his head he removed himself from the living room and headed to the kitchen where his older brother was preparing dinner. “Your spouses are irritating.”

“Did you use protection?” Itachi asked without looking up from chopping board.

“Of course I did.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Sasuke leaned against the sink and watched his brother make his knife cuts all even.

“Would you believe me if I said that this was all Kiba’s fault?”

“Don’t blame others, Sasuke.” Itachi dumped the onion he had been chopping into a pan on the stove and the oil cracked and sizzled. He stirred it up and then added minced garlic. “So...do you want to fix whatever happened with Izumi’s friend?”

“I’ve been trying but I haven’t been able to speak to her because I never see her around anymore,” he admitted. Sasuke had been waking up earlier than he ever did and still Sakura evaded him.

It was starting to feel as if Sakura didn’t mind Kiba’s slip up, that she had planned to leave anyway. Her friends did say that it hookups with neighbors were awkward, which could have probably meant that she had planned on never seeing him again.

The girl with the twin buns had mentioned something about rejection. Sasuke clucked his tongue and grabbed one of the julienned carrot slices. He chewed on it and thought over what the girl had said about rejection and getting dumped. And then about what Kiba said about asking if Sakura had a message and how she said not to bother with one.

Ah.

It all finally clicked into place and Sasuke no longer felt like eating. He dumped the rest of the slice into the sink and ruffled his already messy hair.

“I’m not really feeling it tonight, Itachi. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Are you sure?” Itachi turned away from the stove, concern laced in his tone. “You can wait and I’ll pack some stuff up for you and the guys. I know Hana would appreciate it if Kiba got some real food.”

“Nah. I’m sure he went out on a date tonight anyway.” Sasuke grabbed his backpack and went to the front hall to grab his shoes.

“Oh? I didn’t realize Kiba could get a date,” Itachi called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, well,” Sasuke grunted as he struggled with the heel of his Chuck Taylor’s, “one of us had to be able to.”

“You’re leaving already?” Izumi shrieked from her spot in the living room. “I’m not done talking to you!”

“Well, I’m done talking to you,” he retorted back before slamming the door.

“Rude!”

“Hon, he can’t hear you,” Shisui reminded her in a soft voice, attempting to calm her down. They had all been attempting to get pregnant for over a year and he didn’t need her stressing out. “Let’s just let Sasuke be Sasuke.”

“God, that’s what I’m actually worried about.” Izumi rolled her eyes and bowed her head forward. “Can you actually get that spot there? I got a knot.”

“Of course.”

.

.

.

Sakura immediately slammed a pillow over her head when the alarm went off, an instinct from her dorm days. Assholes were always setting of the alarm whenever they broke the microwave rule and decided that making popcorn at three in the morning was a brilliant idea. Usually it was nothing and they had made all of them march outside in whatever state of dress━or undress━they happened to be in.

She waited for whoever it was that was cooking, probably Karin, to deactivate the fire alarm in their apartment. After the alarm kept ringing and ringing, Sakura remembered that Tenten and Karin had gone to their friend Lee’s wedding in Suna.

“Oh, fuck!”

Scrambling out of bed, Sakura slipped on her fuzzy slippers. The door to her apartment had already slammed shut behind her when she realized she had forgotten her keys and the door had been set to automatically lock when it was closed.

She cursed loudly and was scolded by a mother dragging her sleepy kids down the stairs for her language.

“You should hurry out!” The woman’s husband shouted over the wailing of the fire alarm.

Sakura followed the family down the stairs and out into the garden apartment’s parking lot. There were a bunch of families huddling together, conversing with each other to try and figure out if it was an actual fire. She crossed the parking lot to where her car was parked and leaned against it. She hugged herself, feeling self conscious about having only an oversized t-shirt on. The Sasuke T-shirt.

Scanning the crowd of people, she didn’t spot him anywhere outside even though she did see the tall topknot kid and the gangly boy that Sasuke roomed with. Crouching down, Sakura used her car for support so that she wouldn’t fall onto the pavement. She didn’t want Sasuke’s friends to see her out there in nothing but the shirt she had worn for her walk of shame back to her apartment.

.It would have been nice to sit in her own car like what some of the residents were doing but she just had to forget her stupid keys. She was going to have to wait for the fire alarm to be deactivated and for someone from the fire department to tell them all it was safe to return to their homes.

If she had been smart enough to grab her keys━and her phone! She couldn’t believe she forgot her phone!━she could have been taking a small nap in her car. Sakura had barely any sleep the last few days. She had altered her schedule to keep from running into Sasuke and she had yet to get used to it. The alarm ringing had cut into the few hours she had expected to get that night.

I can’t even call maintenance about my door.

Sakura buried her face in her hands, muffling a scream of frustration.

.

.

.

Sasuke was glad the night the fire alarm went off at his apartment building that he had a shift at the animal clinic. He preferred working reception during the overnight shift because unless there was an emergency, the only humans he had to deal with were the vets and boarding staff.

Kiba had texted him about how they all had to wait outside until it was deemed safe to go back inside. Because of the time of the night that the alarm went off none of the office staff or maintenance members were around to let them know what was going on. A firetruck had even been dispatched to their garden apartment which meant the residents of the neighboring apartments were also woken up. Kiba had been lucky enough that the cat hair girl, Tamaki, had called to check on him so he and Shino just went to crash at her place.

Sighing, Sasuke adjusted the strap of his messenger bag on his shoulder and locked his car. The only problem of the permit parking only lots was that he could never find a spot in front of his own building when he came home late. Usually he would head to the gym after a shift but all he wanted was a shower and to get in bed. He was still recovering from all of those early mornings waking up to try and run into Sakura.

Making his way to his apartment, Sasuke did a double take unsure about something small that he saw sitting between a set of parked cars. Two weeks of searching and it wasn’t until he wasn’t looking for her that Sakura finally appeared back in his life.

“Sakura.”

Said girl lifted her head from where it was resting on her knees and blinked slowly up at him.

Jesus Christ, was she sleeping out here?

“Sakura,” he called out to her again, waving his hand to get her to focus more on him.

“Jesus Christ, not you.” Sakura buried her head back in her arms and knees.

If he were being honest, that hurt a bit. If he were being honest.

The raccoons can get her for all I care.

But he didn’t move from where he stood. Sasuke continued to watch her as she tried to make herself as compact as possible.

I’m going to regret this.

.

.

.

The next thing she knew, Sakura was flung into the air and then scooped up and tossed over a shoulder. It all happened so quickly that her mind went blank for a moment. She didn’t know what to say━didn’t know what had just happened.

He was carrying her like a sack of potatoes. A sack of potatoes!

“Sasuke, what the hell?”

“I’m taking you to my apartment. I’m assuming you locked yourself out when you evacuated.”

“Put me down, Sasuke!”

“Nope. You were making a stupid decision.”

“Well, it was my decision to make!” Sakura squirmed against his grip, attempting to free herself even if she ended up falling on her ass.

“Your decision was going to get you mauled by raccoons.”

Sakura stopped squirming and thought for a moment. The management had posted flyers about raccoons foraging in the community bins. And some of those raccoons could get almost as big as she was.

“Can I at least be allowed to save my dignity and walk by myself?”

Gently, Sasuke lowered her to her feet. He adjusted his shirt on her so that she was properly covered. And grabbing her hand so she couldn’t run, he led her up the stairs to his apartment.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I thought that the first time,” Sasuke muttered as he pulled her in front of him and unlocked his apartment door. He caged her in his arms as he did so to hinder any escape attempts while he was preoccupied.

With a hand on the small of her back, Sasuke pushed her forward into the apartment.

“Here,” Sasuke unlocked and handed her his phone, “call maintenance and see if they’re still here or if you’re going to have to wait until the office opens at nine.”

Without even waiting for her to do it he headed into his room and retrieved a towel and a shower caddy. That explained why the bathroom had been so sparse when it came to toiletries.

“I’m going to shower.” Sasuke dumped a duvet on the couch. “You can use that. The aircon is really strong.”

The bathroom door had shut and the water started running before Sakura used his phone to call maintenance. The number was on a magnet on his fridge just like in her own apartment.

She called and called again and no one picked up. She really wished that their voicemail box came with an away message for their hours. Giving up on calling for help, Sakura locked Sasuke’s phone up like a good girl who didn’t invade the privacy of others and curled up on the couch with the duvet.

She sighed to herself and snuggled into the blanket. It smelled like the fabric softener that Sasuke used in the laundry room. 

It would be very easy to sneak away now that Sasuke was in the shower. Very easy to forget about his neighborly behavior. But the more she tried to think of sneaking into his room for a pair of sweatpants and to think of somewhere else to hide, all she could think about was Sasuke standing in his scrubs from the animal hospital under the soft glow from the lamp post outside.

So soft. So worried.

Sakura sank deeper into her blanket burrito and groaned. She was worse off than she thought.

.

.

.

Sasuke stood outside his bedroom door and peered through his wet bangs at his guest sitting on the couch. Sakura was bundled up in his duvet, looking even smaller if that was possible. Shaking his head he entered his room and pulled out boxer briefs and a pair of sweatpants to wear.

He shimmied into them quickly and headed into the living room to check on Sakura.

“Were you able to reach maintenance?”

“Nope.” Sakura stretched her arms up and out of the cocoon she had created with his blanket. “As nice as this place is, they had to be flawed somewhere.”

Sasuke sat down next to her, keeping as safe of a distance as possible so he wasn’t crowding her.

“Where are your roommates?” Sakura asked after a moment.

“They went over to Kiba’s new girlfriend’s apartment. That girl in that building on the side closer to the main street named Tamaki?”

“Oh, the one with all of the cats.”

“Exactly. How did you know that?”

“She lost one of them and we found it trying to break into our apartment after it snuck into our building.”

“Ah.”

They were back to silence. They had never truly spoken and it was the reason why the silence now was so awkward. The longest conversation they had was with their bodies.

“Do you,” Sasuke mulled over his words, “want something to drink?”

He wanted to slap his own forehead or pinch the bridge of his nose. It was something on his mind but not the thing he wanted to bring up. He had wanted to ask if she wanted to discuss what had happened between them two weeks prior.

“No. I’m okay.” Sakura snuggled into the blanket again. “You should stop with the nicey-nice act. It’s getting weird. You don’t have to worry about me overstaying my visit. I’ll leave as soon as the leasing office opens.”

“Nicey-nice?” Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her in confusion. “It’s just an offer of a drink. And I don’t act. I do what I want because I want to.”

“Oh, I know that,” Sakura huffed. “You do what you want and don’t care about what other people want.”

“What are you even getting at? You don’t even know me,” Sasuke snapped, frustrated. “You’re the one that does what she wants. You’re the one that left.”

“You wanted me to leave!” Sakura turned to face him, cheeks flushed a vivid red. She opened her mouth but then closed it, cocking her head to the side as she observed the way Sasuke watched her.

His cheeks were dusted a pale pink and his lips were set in a tight line.

“You’re the one that left.”

“You didn’t want me to leave...did you?”

“Did I tell you to leave?” Sasuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath before exhaling it slowly. “I let you stay sleeping in my bed and let you wear my shirt when you had a perfectly good basket of clean clothes not even five feet away.”

“You wouldn’t even wake up. I thought that was ‘cause you didn’t care what I did.”

Sasuke averted his gaze and glared in the direction of the media entertainment set across from them.

“I’m not a morning person,” he admitted. “I take afternoon classes. I work third shift jobs and I was—“

He clamped up but now that he was talking Sakura didn’t want him to stop. The more words tumbled out of his mouth the more he pouted and the cuter he got. Reaching out to him, Sakura took his larger hand in her own small hand and rubbed her thumb over his.

“And you were what?” She asked him softly, leaning into him as she did so. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously but adjusted his body so that he carried her weight comfortably against him.

“Really, really comfortable. I don’t think anything could have woken me up, not even that god awful shrieking of that tiny friend of yours.”

“She’s not that tiny, we’re the same height.” Sasuke looked at her pointedly, an eyebrow raised. “Oh, shut up!”

Sakura giggled and nudged him with her shoulder. She flipped through different emotions quickly but Sasuke was grateful that she no longer seemed upset with him.

“I’m sure I could have woken you up.” Sakura shrugged and gave him a coy smile. “I actually had planned on it, until you know.”

“Oh? And how did you plan on doing that? I was out cold.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would.” Sasuke shrugged and returned the coy grin. “But I think you’re just bluffing at this point.”

Sakura scoffed. He was trying to goad her into making a move.

“Guess we’ll never kno━”

He was cut off by Sakura knocking him down onto the couch and straddling him. His eyes widened in surprise but he still gripped her hips in both of his hands. She brought the duvet up and covered herself and Sasuke as she covered his mouth with her own. She nipped and sucked, pulling his lower lip into her own mouth before slipping her tongue into his mouth and sighing contently.

She ghosted kisses on his jawline and dragged them down, keeping the blanket over her head so that Sasuke couldn’t see her as she pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat and down his sternum, trailing them lower and lower.

Sakura could feel him trying to pull the blanket off but she held on tightly as she kissed right above his belly button, feeling the coarse hair that trailed from his navel again her chin. Needing the use of her hands, she let him tug the duvet away as she cupped him through his sweatpants.

“Are you sure you want━?” He sucked in a breath as she squeezed him through the cloth.

Sakura waggled her eyebrows as she slipped her hand into the band of his sweatpants. She gripped him in her hand and pumped her fist. With her other hand she tugged on the waistband of his pants. He lifted his hips to assist her in removing his pants. She only got them around his knees before she dragged her tongue up his hardening shaft. Flattening her tongue on the head, she played with the head of his cock before engulfing it with her mouth.

Sakura scooted up and lied down so that she could wrap her breasts━just large enough━around his shaft. She squeezed them together to hold him in place as she bobbed her head up and down as far as she could go.

She hummed in delight when Sasuke’s fingers sank into her hair.

Yeah, this would have been a good wake up call.

.

.

.

Sasuke groaned at the sensation of being completely wrapped in warmth. Sakura’s mouth was hot and wet and tight when she sucked in her cheeks. Any longer and she was probably going to make him come before he could even get a chance to touch her properly.

That just wasn’t happening━it couldn’t happen.

“Come here,” Sasuke ordered, gently nudging her head off of his cock.

“But I like where I am.” She gave him a sure lick and then another.

“Sakura. Just get up here.”

“No thank you.”

“Sakura just sit on my face.”

.

.

.

Sakura knew she was making a stupid face, mouth hanging open and eyebrows drawn down.

Did he really just…?

Sasuke sat up and pulled the borrowed━stolen━shirt over her head and worked on pulling off her cotton boy shorts. Sakura stood up and shimmied out of them, giving Sasuke a chance to fully remove his pants and boxer briefs. Once they were both free of all of the clothing they had on, Sakura went back to straddling him, still unsure of what he wanted her to do.

“Come on.” He tugged her up, guiding her with his hands to turn around so that her back was to him. “You gotta move further back than that. Come on.”

Legs  trembling, Sakura scooted back to align herself so that her thighs cradled Sasuke’s head. The height difference was a minor setback but with help from her hands it was likely to work out in their favor.

“Um,” Sakura looked over her shoulder, “do I start—“

She let out a squeak when Sasuke gave a sure lick against her core. The glare she tossed his way earned her another stroke of his tongue.

Okay doing this now I guess...

Sakura swirled her tongue along the head of his cock and with her hand she pumped at a slow pace, easing herself into steadier and faster strokes as she bobbed her head lower on his shaft. Flattening her tongue she dragged it up from the base to the head, making sure to dip the tip of her tongue along Sasuke’s slit.

A set of vibrations against her nether lips made her aware of his groaning against her folds.

She hummed back as she bobbed her head up and down again, matching with the tempo of her pumping fist, tightening on the downstroke.

Sasuke gripped her hips and held her against his mouth as he tugged her clit between his lips and sucked, rolling his tongue against the nub.

It was a peculiar sensation, not being able to see him moving but being able to feel everything as he twitched in her mouth and caused pleasant vibrations when he moaned.

Sakura grinded down, hoping he got the hint.

She cried out when he smacked her smartly on her bottom before pressing open mouth kisses to her labia. Sakura was about to turn in place again and shove her ass into his face when Sasuke took her clit back into his mouth and sucked hard at the same time he inserted two fingers, He hadn’t even considered easing her in with a single digit first.

Sakura gasped, clutching on the fabric of the couch cushion. She was going to end up coming all over his face at the pace Sasuke was going considering he was aware of how sensitive she was.

God, she wanted to come.

“Sa-Sasuke, I━” Sakura was cut off when a high pitched cry got caught in the back of her throat when Sasuke finally got her to that release she was itching for. Sasuke continued to lap at her folds, letting her ride out her orgasm.

Sakura could feel Sasuke sitting back up underneath her. He lifted her gingerly so that she didn’t fall off of the couch in the process. She could really appreciate all of the time he spent working out when he manipulated her body so easily so that she didn’t have to move around so much herself when she was feeling boneless after her high.

“Ah, fuck.” Sasuke pushed his bangs out of his face and huffed. “I gotta go get a condom. Gimme a sec.”

“It’s fine, “ Sakura breathed out. She tugged on his arms so that he wouldn’t pull away. “I’m on the pill so if you want to you can just, you know.”

Sasuke sat up on his knees and spread Sakura’s legs open on top of them. He took himself in hand and brushed the tip at her entrance.

“You sure?” He asked, rubbing himself around the opening and upward so that he flicked at her delightful little bundle of nerves.

“Just━please, Sasuke,” Sakura whined.

He didn’t want her begging tonight━morning, as the birds chirping outside under Sakura’s cries were warning him of the rising sun━so he did what she wanted and pushed himself inside of her. Sasuke went slow slow slow, thrusting at a steady pace, trying to build up to his own release slowly so he could have Sakura crying out so sweetly again.

Sasuke adjusted his body so he was cradle between her thighs and having to brace himself on one forearm as the hand on the other arm fondled a breast, kneading it and circling his thumb over her nipple. He covered her mouth with his own, not having had nearly enough of her kisses before she went down on him.

Sasuke build up to a faster pace of thrusts, Sakura’s moans rolling into his mouth and harmonizing with his groans. He knew she was getting close again by the clenching of her inner muscles around him and the way she clung to him, nails biting down on his shoulder blades and thighs squeezing tight around his hips.

“Harder, deeper,” she demanded and Sasuke willingly complied. He slowed his thrusts into a deep roll, snapping his hips hard against hers.

Sasuke snaked his hand down away from her breast and wrapped his hand around her thigh, pulling it tighter to him. The slow build up he wanted was flooding and soon he would be crashing into that blissful release. Sakura clenched tighter around him and he could no longer keep from spilling into her. Sasuke kept her tight up against him as he grinded into her deeply.

Suddenly he felt exhausted, reminding him that his plans for that morning was to take a shower and go to sleep because he had been running on barely four hours of sleep. He buried his head in the crook of Sakura’s neck and sighed.

“We should probably move to my room.”

“We should,” Sakura agreed. “But I’m too fucking tired.”

Sighing once more, Sasuke sat up and grabbed his clothes and Sakura’s. He slipped back into his underwear and sweatpants and helped Sakura back into his shirt. Grabbing the duvet, he wrapped it around Sakura so she looked like a burrito and then lifted her up over his shoulder again.

“Are you serious?”

“Maybe if I make it difficult for your to escape, you’ll actually stay this time.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Sakura squealed as Sasuke dropped her onto his bed.

“Good.” He crouched down so that he was looking at her eye to eye. “Because as fun as this all is, I think it would be nice to know your last name. And your major. And what bands you like. But for now, sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

“It is morning,” Sakura reminded him. He gave her an unimpressed look that had her biting her lip to hold back the smile threatening to break out. “Fine. I’ll stay. I planned to.”

“Good,” he repeated before climbing into bed with her.

.

.

.

Kiba hung up his keys on the key hook right by the door. He and Shino had gone to the diner a few blocks away before heading back to their apartment and picked up something for Sasuke and themselves to eat.

Knowing the guy, Kiba was sure that Sasuke wouldn’t crawl out of his room until two in the afternoon.

“Something seems different,” Shino commented, slipping out of his street shoes when he entered the apartment.

“You know what,” Kiba frowned and looked around the living room, “you’re right. Something feels off. Almost...tainted.”

“I’m going to put the food away,” Shino announced. “And get the dogs something to eat too. Glad Tamaki was cool with us bringing them over last night.”

“Yeah, she’s the best.” Kiba dropped his body onto the couch. It was Sasuke’s couch technically, but it was so comfortable that he practically lived on it.

Huh? What’s that?

Kiba leaned over and grabbed something light blue that was peeking out from under the couch. Holding it up, it became apparent that what he was holding in his hands was a pair of girl’s underwear.

Kiba dropped it and shot up from the couch.

“What the fuck!? Sasuke!”

#sasusaku #ssm19 #ssm19d22 #ss fanfiction #day!fics

[lemonyellowlogic]

the harder the rain, the sweeter the sun: chapter twenty-three

-o-

masterlist

first

previous

-o-

chapter twenty-three: the insecurity

The next day, after they had all traveled miles upon miles, they stopped once more. Patton had slept with Diego and Roman the night before, and was with Logan and Virgil that night.

Virgil had found a different job with helping Remy unload, and somehow, with Virgil no longer trying to catch fish with Emile, the avian managed to actually capture much more. They roasted over the fire after being gutted and cleaned, and Roman still sat in front of the fire turning the spit. 

He did all he could to ignore Diego and Patton, who were laughing and sitting much too close together. Roman’s heart ached in his chest, and his throat felt like it was closing, but he ignored them, focusing on the fire.

Logan had returned from his tent where he had relaxed since gathering the firewood, and joined the three sitting by the fire. He gave the human a glare and sat as far away from him as he could, but Roman could handle that. 

Virgil soon joined the two, huffing as he slumped in between them. Roman wanted to rub his back, ask him what was troubling him, but he couldn’t, having to focus on the slightly unstable spit. 

Logan ended up doing it instead, and Roman’s glare into the fire grew stronger and his lips pursed. He didn't listen to Virgil’s words, instead ignoring him as much as he was Diego and turning the spit.

Roman was mad, but at who, at what he didn’t know. Roman was always aware he wasn’t needed, but now, with everyone split off in groups of two, it was even more aware. 

Virgil and Logan bickered, but not like Roman and Logan did. These two actually seemed to enjoy each other’s company when they weren't fighting over nonsense. 

He hated that Diego and Patton being close made him upset, and he forced himself to swallow his hurt. Roman remembered how when Diego had told Roman of his past that Patton was mentioned, and that he was his first actual friend or something along those lines, but he wasn’t expecting to meet the merperson.

Patton was very nice, very polite and eager to help, and Roman couldn’t even let his anger out on him. He didn’t deserve it, but Roman was still frustrated.

He had finally found friends, people his mother had tried getting him to make for years and that he repeatedly failed to due to them being afraid of his status, and he finally found people who didn't know of it. He thought that maybe now he’d find his people, but it’s clear to him now that Diego and Virgil only gave him attention, and hugs, and cuddled him, and tried to kiss him because there was no one else to choose from.

Roman let out a quiet bitter chuckle, and Diego glanced at him, confused, before his eyes grew wide, “Roman, the fire!”

Roman shook his head, blinking in confusion, and found the fire had grown high and it was now overtaking the fish. He yelped, quickly lifting the stick holding all of the fish away from the flame and allowing Diego to splash river water onto the fire, not extinguishing it but calming it down significantly. 

Roman’s face grew bright red as Remy and Emile walked over from where they discussed the map, and looked confused onto the scene.

“What just happened?”

“I...I um…”

Roman looked at the stick, and was glad to see only one of the fish actually was burnt at all. It seemed as if the fire managed to avoid the majority of them, but the one it had burnt was burnt enough the taste would almost definitely taste like coal.

“It’s okay, Rem, the fire just got a bit high but the fish are fine, right, Ro?” Virgil cocked an eyebrow, and everyone turned to Roman, who slowly nodded, his face still burning.

“One of them isn’t, but I’ll take it. I’m sorry.”

Logan rolled his eyes, grumbling, “Just like a human to mess up even cooking.”

Roman pursed his lips, looking at his friends in hope of some defense, but they laughed instead, and Roman felt mortified. Virgil grinned at Roman, nudging his shoulder once he saw his expression, “Aww, it’s okay, Ro. We all know I’m the chef in the group, but we’ll keep you for your fire-making anyways.”

The group snickered a bit more, and Roman gave Virgil a tense smile that he seemed to believe, turning away from him to focus back on Logan, and Roman let the fake smile fall. He took the fire off the stick, placing each fish on the indestructible plates Remy had pulled from the air, and he handed them out to everyone. 

They all thanked him, though Logan did so begrudgingly, and they all began to eat. Roman halfheartedly picked at his fish, the meat tasting like ash for two different reasons. But still Roman pushed it down, giving Remy a short nod when they asked about directions and attempting to clear all of them out. 

Roman rushed his meal, and quickly stood up, mumbling how he was going to wash up at the river before bed. Virgil and Patton wished him goodnight, while Diego just rolled his eyes with a smile. Logan ignored him.

Roman sighed as he dunked his head into the river, using his fingers to comb out the tangles, no soap to be used. He quickly stripped and washed, and then huffed as he used his shirt to dry himself, walking back the camp without it on and wrapped around his hair in a mock towel.

Patton turned to look at him as he walked up, and his grey eyes widened, and his cheeks darkened, and Virgil just whistled, looking up and down at his chest.

He stiffened and blushed, but smiled honestly for the first time in an hour, before walking into his and Diego’s tent alone.

Roman laid under a thin blanket, his arm under his head as a faux pillow. Roman didn’t like camping. The last time he camped, he was eight, and his mother had finally convinced his father for their family to spend time together in the wilderness. His father was busy, and stayed at the castle, but Roman didn’t care. Remus huffed, but quickly forgot as Mother let him fish freely in the river.

There were guards there but Roman didn’t care, they stayed off in the background most of the day, but Mother gave them each their own meal, and they thanked her kindly for them. Roman was upset that he didn’t think of it, but his other only chuckled, kissing his forehead before leading all three of them into a tent she had set up herself.

Roman bit his lip as he remembered how his mother had carded her fingers through his hair, promising she’d always protect him no matter what, that she'd always be there. She promised that wherever a fire burned, she’d be able to see him and keep him safe, and Roman believed her.

Roman dreamed that night of flying with his brother, Mother laughing and waving to them as fire flew from her hands and caressed them.

But then, months later, fire did the opposite of protect him, consuming his mother when she was inside of her horse barn, eating her and the horses up and leaving Roman behind.

Roman hated how fire still comforted him after what it had done to his mother, but he still believed a child’s wish of the fire protecting him, and his mother's ghost watching from the flickering flames.

Roman heard Diego open the flap of the tent, and Roman yawed, turning towards him. Diego jumped, looking sheepish, but Roman just waved him off.

“I was already awake, you’re alright.”

“Oh, good.” Diego laid down next to Roman and smiled lightly, burying his scaled side of his face into Roman’s chest, and quickly getting comfortable. Roman tensed when he first laid, but relaxed the longer the merperson was in his arms.

Roman didn’t know how he felt towards Diego and Virgil anymore. Did he like them as friends, or even more? What would his father say if he found out his firstborn son was attracted to men? And not only just men, Alimagian men? Why did his heart flicker like a spark when Logan looked at him? Why were Patton’s smiles hitting him so hard?

He didn’t care. Roman knew his life didn’t matter as much as the six Alimagians’ he had grown to care about. Roman silently and bitterly laughed, he even cared for Logan, who hated him with all of his heart. Roman was weak, a coward for not fighting back at the cottage days ago.

Roman would sacrifice his life in an instant for any of them, and was prepared for that exact thing to happen. Maybe soon, and maybe after. But he’d do it.

-o-

last

#lemon talks #lemon writes #thtrtsts #thtrtsts spoilers #thomas sanders #sanders sides #ts sides #dlamp #remile

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 35: The Sports Festival Part 8: Round Four—FIGHT!

Presenting the next raw and unedited chapter of my on-going, next-gen, My Hero Academia fic, Their Hero Academia!

Earlier chapters can be found here

Mika hadn’t seen Shiro since his fight with the moth girl from General Studies.  Which was worrisome.  Her ex-tweenage boyfriend was moody under the best circumstances and not always the world’s most gracious loser.  If he hadn’t rejoined his 1-B classmates in the stands, then it meant one of two things.   Either he had been hurt a lot more than it had looked or he was somewhere sulking.  

Her money was on sulking. With having Doc Clock and her Rewind Quirk for a doctor, competitors taken out of the fight generally got back up pretty quickly.  Plus, she just knew Shiro.

As expected, she found him on a bench in one of the hallways beneath the stadium, just outside the waiting rooms, hands folded in front of him, head down.  He’d lost to the moth girl and thus any shot at fighting Kirishima-Bakugo.  Kirishima-Bakugo had lost her own fight too, but she supposed that was small consolation to him.  Who’d known Todorki had had it in her?

When she’d talked with him at lunch with Kana and Anime, they’d offered him fairly contradictory advice. Kana had suggested cutting out the theatrics and just having an honest conversation with Kirishima-Bakugo. Anime had suggested a wacky scheme in which he pretended to be dating Kana in order to make her jealous (that had been shot down as both a) not desirable by either party, b) illogical because Kirishima-Bakugo knew Kana was interested in Haimawari and c) something that only worked in bad manga and soap operas).  Mika’s suggestion of hijacking the broadcast equipment and making an anguished declaration of love on the big screen had also been shot down.  Of course, she hadn’t been completely serious about that, but it would have been hilarious to see him try.  She’d ultimately sided with Kana.  Just because she loved drama didn’t mean she wanted to see him get hurt.

She plopped down on the bench next to him.  “You okay, ‘ro?”

“Mmm.”

She put an arm around him and scooted a little closer, until she was pressed right up against him. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Mmm-nnn.”

“Okay, you don’t gotta if you don’t wanna.”  She gave him a little squeeze.  “You wanna touch my boobs?  That always cheers me up.”

“Mmm-nnn.”

“You just been down here the whole time?”

He shook his head.  “I brought a post-victory gift to Kocho. She’ll need her strength to keep fighting.  I’d intended to check on Kirishima-Bakugo too… but lost my nerve.”

Well, at least he was talking.   “I’ve got some time before my next fight.  You want to tell me how to beat Dashi?”

“I’ve got to stand with my Class.  But I’m sure you can figure something out.”

So much for that.  “You want me to just sit here with you for a while?”

“Mmm…hmm.”

Sure, Shiro was a pain in the ass.  But he was also her friend.  She could be here for him, for a little while at least.

***

Koharu held her breath for a moment, then let it out slowly, thoughts racing through her mind faster than she could keep up with.  Sitting in the Waiting Room, getting ready for her next fight, she should have felt exhausted from everything she’d done so far, but instead only felt wired with nervous energy.

She’d beaten Shiro Monoma and made it to the second seed.  It was, frankly, almost unbelievable.  She’d taken down a Hero Course student.  Granted, she’d had an extremely favorable match-up.  She was pretty sure she couldn’t have taken down Deku’s kid or the bird girl.  But she couldn’t let psyche herself up like that.

Absently, she unfurled her proboscis and inserted it into the protein pouch she was holding, slurping up the contents.  Being unable to eat solid foods was inconvenient sometimes, but she managed. There were a surprising number of options available on the market these days; insect Quirks like hers or other variations were surprisingly common.  

Surprisingly, Monoma had actually brought it to her.  She’d meant to get one from one of the food stalls, but had gotten caught up watching the other fights before her next.  She’d tried to apologize for beating him, but he’d waved her off. Said he just wanted to support an up and coming talent, now that he was out of the running.

She didn’t know what to make of that.

And, of course, her next fight would be one of the few Hero Course kids she actually knew.  She liked Ojiro and her friends, Sero and Sato. They’d been more than welcoming and encouraging in just the short time she’d known them.  On the other hand, she was pretty sure there was very little Ojiro could do to her if it came down to it.  She just had to stay out of her way.  Even if she went invisible like she had in her fight against that cartoon girl… Well, Koharu might have a couple tricks up her sleeve for that.  She’d never tested them against someone invisible before, but she supposed there was no time like the present.

She wondered just what the odds were of making it to the Hero Course.  The famous Hitoshi Shinso, the Underground Hero known as the Voice, had gotten knocked out in his first fight, and yet had impressed Eraserhead for him to take him under his wing.  He was still a legend in the General Studies Courses.

Koharu had already gotten farther than he had.  She didn’t dream of winning, not with the people in the other matches.  She wouldn’t last a minute against Todoroki, she was certain.  Maybe she could take Mineta, if she could keep out of range of those sticky balls she shot.  Maybe.

The door to the waiting room opened.  “Kocho?”   She looked up to see a cat-eared woman with dark hair at the door.  One of the teachers from the Business and Management Courses, she thinks.  “They’re ready for you.”

She took another breath. This was it.

***

“And we’re back and ready for the second seed!  First up, Koharu Kocho, the Moth-Maiden of General Studies!  She’s already made her mark getting this far, surpassing even some of the Recommendation Students!  Will her winning streak continue?  And facing her is Kimiko Ojiro, the Invisible Girl of the Hero Course!  She proved her stealth and skill already, but is it enough to last?”

“You do realize this is a serious competition and not some reality television show?”

“It can be two things!”

Ojiro gave Koharu a friendly wave.  “Oh, man,” she said, “I can’t believe we’ve got to fight!  Totally unfair!”

Koharu shrugged apologetically.  “Just how the matches worked out, I guess.”

Ojiro crossed her arms. “Yeah, well…” she said, then pointed dramatically, “don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because I like you!”

She smiled.  For someone invisible, Ojiro obviously had a flare for theatrics. “Yeah, well, I’m not going to go easy on you either!”

“Ladies,” Hawkeye said, sounding very tired, “if you’re ready?  FIGHT!”

Immediately, Ojiro winked out of existence, her clothes becoming as invisible as the rest of her. Koharu drew in a deep breath, then flapped her wings hard, lifting off the ground.  Before she had gotten more than a foot up, though, she felt a leg smack into her midsection, knocking the breath out of her and knocking her back to the ground.   Another blow came almost immediately, punch upside her head.   Ojiro was obviously faster than she looked (Which, given that she was invisible, probably wasn’t hard.), having closed the distance between them quickly.  A third blow followed, another punch that made the world go blurry.

She had to do something, had to get back in the fight.  She couldn’t just get smacked around like this!

She flapped her wings hard, forward instead of down, feeling her left wing slap into Ojiro.  Koharu used the brief moment it bought her to let loose with a blob of String-Shot, unfocused and messy.  A yelp let her know she’d nearly hit Ojiro, who winked back into existence briefly, before turning invisible again.  

Another pair of blows slammed into Koharu before she could get her guard up and she lashed out with her wings again, flapping wildly until she her right wings connect with Ojiro again. It didn’t give her much time though; Ojiro was tough and Koharu was forced to bring her wings back in, folding them in front of her protectively.  They served as a shield for a moment, blocking several fast blows. Koharu winced. Her wings were tougher than they looked, but they couldn’t take too much of a beating.  She tried to swat Ojiro away with them, but missed each time. Ojiro was clearly getting her rhythm.

The blows stopped through and the sound of shoes on concrete suggested Ojiro was trying to get behind her. Koharu flapped her wings as hard and fast as she could, desperate to get airborne.  A rush of air behind her suggested she’d done it just in time. Now in the air and out of grabbing range, she actually had a moment to think.  She could unleash her Scales, but unless she knew where to aim, she’d have to throw them pretty broadly and even then, she might miss Ojiro.  And if she used up enough of them before she took Ojiro out, she’d be unable to fly and then they’d be right back where they started. So first things first, she needed to find her target.

“Hey!” came a voice from somewhere down below.  “Get back down here and fight me!  What’d am I supposed to do now?”  A broken piece of rubble floated up in the air for a moment before it went flying at her, but Koharu dodged it easily.  There weren’t any would-be projectiles big enough for Ojiro to hurt her with, even if she could throw that far.

With what most have seemed to onlookers like a violation of all common sense, Koharu closed her eyes.

The feathery antennae that sprouted from her forehead, which normally hung loose, lifted up and began feeding information to her brain.  For a moment, it was overwhelming.  Her antennae brought forth all kinds of sensory information, very different than the information returned by her eyes, ears, or nose.  It took a few seconds for her to make the switch from one set of senses to the other successfully.  But once she did, she was aware of where everyone in the stands was, aware of countless foods being eaten, of all kinds of conversations happening, and, most importantly, where exactly Ojiro was.

“HAAAACK!” Koharu shot out a thin stream of her String Shot, quickly entangling Ojiro’s legs.  The invisible girl let out a cry of alarm as she tripped and went down.  But she caught herself, keeping her from hitting her head or otherwise injuring herself.

“Hey!  No fair!” Ojiro said.  “I’m invisible!  Lucky shot!”   Koharu’s eyes snapped open and she could see that Ojiro had returned to visibility and was working to try and free herself.  This only served to get her hands stuck as well.  “Oooh, yuck!  This stuff’s disgusting!”

Koharu took another breath, then dove down, swooping in at Ojiro.  She grabbed the back of the girl’s gym uniform and kept flying, right up to the edge of the ring. Once there, all she had to do was let go and Ojiro went flying out of bounds.

The crowd exploded with applause.   “Ojiro is out of bounds!” Hawkeye announced.  “Kocho wins!”

“I think we’ve got a rising star here on our hands!  What’s a girl like this doing in General Studies? The Hero Course is missing out and the second seed is off to a bang!”

Koharu walked over to Ojiro. Her String-Shot was already starting to dissolve; she hadn’t put too much effort into it, she’d just needed Ojiro immobilized for a few moments.   She offered Ojiro a hand up and felt a hand wrap around hers.

“Thanks,” Ojiro said, as she helped her up.  “Also, gross! That stuff came out of your mouth! I’m gonna be washing my hands for a month!”

Koharu had to laugh at that. “You’re not the first person to say that.  Really am sorry about beating you, though.”

Ojiro shrugged.  “I didn’t even think I’d get this far. Besides, somebody’s gotta win!”

Koharu didn’t think that someone would be her, not beyond this.  But she was proud of what she’d done.  Maybe… just maybe, this would all work out.  Placing was no guarantee; there were stories of General Studies students who’d made it to the Tournament round more on luck than skill and hadn’t moved anywhere.

So she guessed the real question was, was she lucky or skilled?

She just had to keep fighting to find out.

***

“And now we’ve got Mika Miketa back again, facing off against Kimiko Dashi!  I’m really hoping for a good, clean fight this time!  Nobody needs a repeat of the last time Mineta got in the ring!”

“It’s the kind of trick that only works once anyway, Mic.”

Mika stepped into the ring, across from Kimiko Dashi.  The tri-hair colored girl looked pretty relaxed and that really wasn’t surprising. Her match against the wheeled girl from 1-C had taken less than five minutes, since all Dashi’d had to do was freeze her and then accelerate her out of the ring.  Which meant she couldn’t get hit, not even once, or it’d be all over for her. And that might be a tall order. She was pretty light on her hooves, but if all she had was one shot…

“Tetsutetsu warned me about you, you know,” Dashi said.  “And I saw your match against Kan.  I’m not going to fall for your mouth.”

“Really?  Kana’s ratting me out?  That is just so incredibly rude.”  Mika gave Dashi her best smile.  “You wouldn’t believe the number of people who’ve said that though.” She got a glare in return.  Must have been doing something right.

Hawkeye pinched the bridge of her nose.  The English teacher seemed to be having a bad day.  There had been a lot of talking and not fighting today.  But she knew the job was dangerous when she took it.   “Are you done making a mockery of things, Mineta?” she asked.

“Sure thing, Teach,” Mika said.

“My apologies for the delay,” Dashi said.  Mika made a face.  Suck-up.

“Then… FIGHT!”

In a snap, Dashi brought up her arm and fired a red “stop” beam from it, but Mika was already moving, the beam sizzling through the air where she had been.  She lowered her head and fired an opening volley of sticky balls from her horns, not really bothering to aim, just to disorient.  If they stuck to Dashi, so much the better. But even if they didn’t, they might trip her up later.  Mika would just bounce off.

She kept running, hooves slamming into the concrete.  Dashi kept firing, red beams racing through the air.  Hopefully they weren’t hitting anyone in the stands or anything.  Provocation probably wasn’t going to work here; she was actually going to have to fight.

Mika turned and fired, launching another volley of her sticky balls at Dashi.  Dashi was quick on the defense though and fired a red beam again, stopping them in mid-air.  They hovered there without stopping, neither moving forward nor falling. Just like she wanted.  Mika took a running start then jumped, sailing over the blasts Dashi put her way.  She landed on the hovering balls and then bounced, launching back up into the air.  

Dashi tracked her ascent for a moment then fired a yellow beam.  Mika hadn’t known she could do that!  Crap!  She’d only seen the blue and red beams so far. It struck her dead on and time seemed to slow to a crawl.  She was still falling, but at a fraction of the speed before.  Below, she could see Dashi moving out of the way, seeming to be a blur.  

After what seemed like an hour but was probably only a minute or so, Mika hit the ground.  Fast as she could, she spun around throwing a roundhouse kick.  Just like she’d predicted, Dashi was right behind her, about to fire another beam. The kick connected, hitting the weird traffic light looking gizmo Dashi wore on her arm and throwing off her aim. Probably helped her focus her Quirk or something.  A red beam went wild, heading towards the stands again.  Mika followed up with a second kick, hitting Dashi in the stomach and sending her flying back a few feet.

Mika fired off another sticky ball, a single one from her left horn.  Dashi, still dazed from the kick, fired off a series a red beams, none of them hitting it.  Instead, the ball smacked right into her open right hand with a slightly wet plop sound.  Dashi tried to shake it off, but it held fast, and would for a while yet.

Then, Dashi brought her hand up and jerked in surprise as nothing seemed to happen.  She looked down at her hand like it had betrayed her, trying again to shake the sticky ball from it.   .  “What the?”

She brought her hand up again and this time Mika could see the barest hint of red flashing around the ball.  Slightly bigger than a softball, her sticky ball had been large enough to cover Dashi’s palm and fingers.  And with the ball blocking the beam, Dashi’s Quirk was effectively taken out of the fight. All this time and Mika hadn’t seen her ever fire a beam out of her left hand.  Combined with her support item there, it had suggested to her that Dashi could only fire her beams from her right.

She’d been correct in that guess.

Mika raced across the ring and Dashi’s face twisted up in anger.  “You’re… how did you…  You’re not supposed to be this smart!”

Closing the gap, Mika lashed out, kicking again with her right leg.  Dashi sidestepped the blow, trying to return a punch of her own, but Mika ducked away from it.  Still partially ducked, she rammed into Dashi’s middle, horns on either side of her. With a jerk and a twist, Mika lifted Dashi, and gave her a toss out of the ring.

“Dashi is out of bounds!” Hawkeye announced.  “Mineta wins!”

“How about that, folks?  Class 1-A’s horned girl takes the win again! And all without a single dirty joke! I guess we won’t have to edit the home video version of this fight after all!”

Mika grinned.  And very quietly, she spoke to herself.  “I’m more than a pretty face,” she said.  “Or a foul mouth.  That’s just more fun.”

***

“You.”

Isamu jumped when the door to the waiting room flew open.  He’d been so deep in thought that he’d lost track of his surroundings.  But it wasn’t one of the teachers come to fetch him for his match.  No, it was the person who scared him most in all the world.  Kirishima-Bakugo.  Her red eyes were locked on him in an intense glare that, if she’d had some kind of eyebeam Quirk, would have meant he was dead.

“Yes?” he said.  “Me?”

Apparently his mouth was running on extra stupid today.

“You’re fighting Izzy.” It wasn’t a question.

“Ah, yeah,” Isamu replied, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.  He was pretty sure he could get away from her before she could kill him. And somebody would surely be here any minute to fetch him.  He probably wouldn’t die today.

Kirishima-Bakugo crossed her arms and frowned, hesitating, as though searching for the right words. Probably searching for the best way to describe how she’d explode his head.  It seemed to be her go-to intimidation tactic.

“If you’re going to threaten me,” he said, “can you just get it over with?”

That got a laugh out of her, which, in all honest, was far scary than any other sound he’d ever heard her make, including all the different times he’d heard her scream “die!” He scrambled up out of his chair and towards the back of the suddenly too small room.  There was no escape.

Katsumi recovered from her laugh and he thought, for just a moment, he saw something like amusement or approval in her eyes.  “You’re starting to grow a spine,” she said.

“Ah, maybe?”

She shook her head.  “And now you’ve blown it, Newb.”

“You were, you were saying something about Izumi?” he tried.

She nodded.  “Right.  I don’t like you, and you don’t like me.  But we both like Izzy.”

He nodded.  More like he was terrified of her, but not setting her off was probably in his best interest, so he was just going to be agreeable. Unless she was here to threaten him if he wound up hurting Izumi when they fought.  Which would probably be pretty hypocritical, given how all out he’d seen her go against their mutual friend, but he also wouldn’t put it past her.

“Izzy, lots of people treat her like she’s fragile.  I did. More than I should have.”  She jabbed a finger in his direction.  “So don’t go easy on her.  She wants a fight?  Give it to her.  Or you’re going to answer to me.”

Okay, he was not expecting that.  He didn’t claim to understand the full extent of the friendship between Izumi and Kirishima-Bakugo; he only knew how protective the latter was of Izumi.  That had certainly seemed to shift in the fight between the two.  A now, she was telling him to fight instead of trying to scare him off?

The coma theory continued to look more and more likely.  Coma dreams didn’t have to make sense.

“I can…  I can do that,” he said, finally finding his voice.

“Good,” Kirishima-Bakugo growled.  “Remember it, Newb.  I find out you went easy on her…”  She made a cutting gesture across her neck, then turned and left.

Isamu realized he’d been holding his breath and finally let it out, sucking in gulps of air greedily. That girl was going to be the death of him some day, he was sure of it.

But for now, he had to survive his next match.

#their hero academia #my hero academia #fan fiction #fan fic #my writing #isamu haimawari #katsumi kirishima-bakugo

[bewareofthorns]

jeepers! meet rowan ‘ro’ sharpe, tenant of room 3b, college student tentatively majoring in history and wholesome all-american boy learning to stand on his own.  this is legiterally the worst ™ intro, but it is also everything i applied with! 

·      ☆ ⤻ logan shroyer. meet ro sharpe. he is/are a 20 year old history student, who’s been residing in apartment #3b for a year. usually , you can catch him on the subway listening to a whiter shade of pale  by procol harum and their roommates insist that he reminds them of rumpled sheets, sunlight streaming through a half-opened window and tangled earbuds. the libra has been described as candid & guarded but since he’s known as the all-american, i guess we’ll just have to wait and see .

a brief intro

think basic white boy. now more basic. even more basic. if ur at fuccboi, ur going in the wrong direction. 

he is absolutely the kid in high school that you wanted to hate, but that you couldn’t. his parents raised him right and that frustrates others around him to no end.

he’s as american as apple pie and just as sweet. if you met him in his native environment, he’d probably be somewhere in between a state fair and a football game. picture like any movie where the underdog leads his team to state. that was him in senior year.

he had a mom and stepdad and two little siblings that he left behind in ohio. (and sometimes, though he hates to admit it because it sounds like something a coward would say, he wishes he had never really left them.)

the world is bigger than he thought it was. and there’s times when he’s in the apartment and people are walking by that he can’t help but be a little afraid.

on social media, if you scroll back in time, before the apartment, all his posts before got is pictures of these two little kids and like football cleats and like terrible shaky videos of performances he did with the awful band that he made with his friends. he never thought he was going to go to new york city for college. he never thought- that this would be his life.

the drama that goes on, the messiness of the rest of the people who live in the apartment—as much as he never expected it to be, this is a vibrance that sucks him in, that has a hold on him that he can’t really explain. there’s a joy to it, of course, an intenseness that he can’t deny. 

just a fish out of water here in the city. part of him wants to go back to when he just had one girlfriend for like four years and they were going to go to college together and get married and he was going to be an actuary or a tax auditor or something. part of him still believes that he will– 

but he also knows. he loves this life. he’ll never be able to go back. 

I”M LITERALLY CRYING I LVE HTIS BEAUTIFUL WHITE BOY. HE LIVES SUCH A GOOD & WHOLESOME LIFE. I BET HIS MOM WENT ON HIS FIRST DATE WITH HIM WHEN HE WAS 14 AND, WHEN HE WAS 7. HE WALKED AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND GAVE EVERYONE THEIR MAIL FROM THEIR MAILBOXES EVENTHO THAT’S A FELONY. HE JUST WAS A GOOD WHOLESOME KID.

.

More

1.       His mom and his bio dad never got married and, while his dad did his best to be around while he was really young, his job eventually took him away to nyc and both of them agreed it would be best if he didn’t look back.

2.       though he remembers missing his biological father terribly at first, he was young enough that it hardly mattered. within the next few years, his mother got married, ro was adopted by his stepfather, and he would get two new half-siblings. 

a.       by the end of the first year of the marriage, ro had already taken to calling his stepfather ‘dad’. after all, it was his stepfather who took him out to backyard and taught him to play catch. it was his stepfather who helped him with his math homework and bought him christmas gifts. it was his stepfather who was there. and to ro, that was all that mattered. 

3.       he never once thought his childhood was missing anything. he took bass guitar and swimming lessons; he played on the local baseball team and, then, after deciding it wasn’t for him, joined the football team. he had a good group of friends and even did fairly well in school.  

4.       it wasn’t until he got into high school that things started to fray at the edges. after pulling a prank at school and getting into trouble, his stepfather sat him down and asked if he were acting out bc he missed his real father. he hadn’t been– at least, he hadn’t thought he was, but, when the gate was opened, he admitted that he wanted to at least meet the man who he had so few memories of. 

5.       so he did. and it went okay. There were no hard feelings. They agreed to keep meeting up.

6.       ro was lucky, though. as he was forced to navigate through this complicated relationship with his father, he was able to escape the perils that usually plague teens in  high school. 

a.       he was smart enough to talk with the academically-inclined and creative enough to hang around the arts kids, but his true saving grace was his position on the football team. he was good at it— enough that by his junior year, he had gotten an offer to join the reserve team for his dream school. it was a good scholarship and it also allowed him to pursue the degree that he was interested in (econ and math). 

7.       but despite accepting the offer almost immediately— he never ended up actually enrolling. Because he had also secretly applied to a nyc college to spend more time with his bio dad who lived in the region. And when he got accepted, he just knew-

a.       i don’t think he understood what he was getting into. the college he is going to has technically a better reputation than the state school he had originally wanted, but he just wanted– to know his dad better. to have a real relationship with his dad before it was too late.

b.       it weighs heavy on his mind that he threw away the larger college scholarship, the chance to be with his friends, the football offer — all just to spend some time in nyc for the more frequent opportunity to he feels guilty, as if him just being here is some kind of betrayal to the family that raised him. 

8.       lastly, ro absolutely calls his mom and stepfather every week, but still finds himself struggling to hold a conversation with his father. They don’t meet up as often as he thought they would. School takes up too much time for him. And his father is always working. And though his father is the one paying for his rent and also a chunk of his tuition, he still longs for a better connection.

9.       he’s really just a small town boy from ohio and here, where it seems like everyone parties and engages in a rock star lifestyle, he’s incredibly out of his depth. he’s sweet and he’s young and he’s responsible. he’s not here to spiral out of control or be number one  he’s just here to learn what it means to be a student. And also… if he can, someone’s son. 

fun facts

       he skateboards. everywhere.

       he doesn’t drink coffee.

       he stopped drinking soda when he turned 17 for a dare and never picked it up again.

       he knows how to knit.

       he’s a hardcore romantic. his mom took two tries to get it right, but she got it right.

        Did he have a high school gf that lasted for almost the full four years? You betcha. Did they break up because he went to NYC? You got it. Is he heartbroken over it and trying to fill the void? Done and done.

       In the apartment, he’s definitely trying to be the voice of reason. That’s not to say he can’t get down with the best of them, but he’s also always trying to get things under control.

        Since he’s 20, that also means—he’s not very good at standing his ground.

WANTED CONNECTIONS are fckn everything. 

exes, crushes, fwb, mentors, enemies (petty or deep-rooted... but i dare u to hate him). my literal fave r weird shared communal space plots. 

someone who will buy him contraband since he’s underage !! he swears he’s responsible

someone who he gives life advice to (in all of his iDiot 20 yo boy brain glory)

someone who gives HIM life advice to counsel him through being an idiot 20 yo boy 

someone who he caught doing something outlawed in the building

smoking? parking your bike in behind the potted plants? look we all know ur growing something behind the succulents but i don’t want to know okay. 

I was sticking my head out the window and you were draining water onto the pavement. Dude I see you. My god. We all have sinks. 

our mail keeps getting switched up ?? look ??? idk ???

We do our laundry at the same time every week and there’s just NOT ENOUGH MACHINES and its super weird bc like. we  never talk elsewhere about it. but every week we show up with full baskets at the SAME TIME

I know you keep ur door unlocked and so like. we’re friends. you won’t mind if I just pop in to use ur dish soap. i like ran out. 

KEEP UR NOISE LEVEL DOWN U HEATHEN. IM STUDYING. are u singing? is that a cat’s yowl? are u… Look IF YOU DON’T i’ll put a hole thru ur door.

#twelve.intro

[fandomimatrix-blog]

Rick and Mortis

Genre:  Fanfiction

Fandom:  Rick and Morty

Author’s Note:  Based on a joke made by YouTuber Jesse Cox in the Scary Game Squad playthrough of “FAITH”.  This turned out a lot darker than I thought it would.  Oh well.  Open the floodgates, lovelies.

Rick crossed his arms.

“I fail to see how I’m at fa—ult here,” he said.  “Y-You know, a lot of people woul-would be thrilled.”

Beth stared at her father, barely keeping a handle on her emotions.  She could feel the anger straining against its leash, she could feel the enraged tears pricking at her eyes.  But Beth remained steady, staring down a calm-faced Rick Sanchez.

“No, most people would be horrified,” said Beth shakily.  “How...how could you…?”

The words were lost.  Beth was trembling in both suppressed grief and bitter rage.  She’d always tried to excuse Rick for his sins. She’d stood up for him at times when doing so made her look almost delusional.  But this was a whole new level for both of them.  Beth wasn’t sure she even wanted to forgive Rick, let alone had the strength to try.

Rick continued to glare at Beth.  He understood her sorrow.  But at the same time, he thought she was being illogical.

“You told me I could grieve however I wanted,” he said.  “And I did. What’s your problem?”

Beth shook her head.  She could scarcely express her emotions.  Beth had indeed told Rick that any way he chose to deal with the tragedy was perfectly alright.  She knew he wouldn’t cope in the usual way, but this went far beyond her anticipations.

“Yes, I did,” she said.  “But this.  Dad, this is sick.  I don’t understand how you could think this is okay!”

She let herself go for a minute, the anger spilling from her.

“This isn’t one of your stupid experiments,” she said.  “He isn’t one of your stupid experiments.  He is—was—a human being.  How could you not see that?”

Beth balled her hands into fists.  She felt like a toddler screaming at her parent over some imagined slight.  But unlike a toddler, Beth knew every bit of anger—no matter how petty—was justified.  Beth had made up her mind.  She wasn’t going to forgive Rick for this. That ship had sailed along with her trust.

Rick threw up his arms.  

“Why are you being like this?”  he demanded.  “After all your whining about how I ne—ver do anything go—ood for this family, you’re getting mad at me for it? That’s fucking insane!”

Beth took a step forward.  She could feel her fingernails digging into her palms.

“Did you really think I wanted this?”  she said.  “Are you really trying to justify your actions by blaming me?”

Bitter tears poured down her cheeks.  Beth felt like she was beating her fists against a brick wall.  She knew it was foolish to try to reason with Rick.  But shouting at him made her feel slightly better.

Rick spread his hands appealingly.  He knew he could get Beth to see sense.

“I literally brought your de—ad son back to life using the science equivalent of dark magic!”  he said.  “D-Do you think anyone could just do that?  Like just, just pop down to Arby’s and or-order one alive son for five dollars?  I did it for ze—ro dollars and it took me ten minutes.”

Beth pressed her hands to her face.  In the struggle between sadness and anger, the latter was winning.  Rick’s audacity was playing with her already fragile nerves.

“You didn’t bring him back to life,” said Beth.  “You turned him into that...thing.”

She shuddered.  Beth wouldn’t look at the creature huddled in one corner of the room.  She could feel its eyes on her.  They were the eyes of her son, but so very different.  

Rick gestured towards the creature in the corner, his eyebrow raised.

“How is that not bringing him back to life?”  he said.

The undead creature shifted restlessly.  It had been watching the adults for quite some time without making a sound.  The only clue to its presence had been the subtle aroma of decay.  

Beth swallowed a lump in her throat.

“Rick, take that thing and leave my house,” she said.

Rick stared at Beth in disbelief.  He couldn’t believe this was how she chose to repay his kindness.  He’d done this for her.  Maybe a little bit for Jerry and Summer, but mostly for Beth.  He didn’t understand how she could be so ungrateful.

“Beth, come on..,” he started.

But Beth jabbed a finger at the front door.  Her window of tolerance had closed.  She’d given Rick the chance to apologize and he had ignored it.

“Leave,” she said.

The force in her voice offered no chance for debate.

Rick shook out the last few drops from his flask.  

“You tr-try to do something nice and this is how they re—pay you,” he said.  “Let that be a lesson to you, Morty.”

Per Beth’s request, Rick had loaded up his ship and taken off.  He was going to give her a few weeks, maybe a few months.  Eventually Beth would come to her senses and apologize.  Then Rick could return home and their lives could once again readjust.  

“She’ll co—me around,” he said.  “She always does.”

Morty put his hands on the back of Rick’s chair and leaned forward.  A long shower had done him a lot of good.  But that stench of rot remained evident underneath all the flowery soap.  His joints were still stiff from lack of use, making all of his movements very slow and deliberate.

“Are you su...sure?”  he said.  “What if sh...she does-doesn’t?”

He was still having trouble forming sentences.  Given the nature of his resurrection, his speech patterns might never be entirely normal.  It didn’t help that Morty’s brain was moving at twenty-percent less efficiency than that of a wholly living person.

Rick shrugged.  He hadn’t thought that far ahead.  Beth forgiving him had seemed such a foregone conclusion.  But now that Morty mentioned it, Rick remembered the look in Beth’s eyes.  That hadn’t been her normal look of stern disapproval in reaction to him messing up. That had been a look of true rage and betrayal.

“Then we leave,” he said.  “I have a fucking spa—ace ship, Morty.  A spaceship and a portal gun.  We can go wherever we want.”

Morty hung his head.

“So I’ll ne-never see Mo...Mom again?”  he said.

Rick tried to play it off, but he was bothered by the idea.

“Who knows?”  he said.  “Who cares?  We can ex—plore the universe together.  None of that matters.  Nothing matters.”

Rick thought about Beth and Jerry.  With him gone, they might get back together.  He wished he could be there to intervene.  But with the whole universe and many others to explore, Rick knew he was foolish for dwelling on what he’d left behind.

“Wh-Why did you bri..bring me back?”  said Morty.

Rick shook his flask again.  He wouldn’t look Morty in the eye.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “To prove my capabilities?  To make your mom happy?  Because I have a dark sense of humor?  Who even knows with me, Morty?  I’m a riddle.”

Rick put his flask down.  He stared out the windshield into the vast nothingness between planets.

“Don’t you worry,” he said.  “We don’t need anyone.  I don’t need anyone.  We’ll be okay.”

He leaned forward and clutched the steering wheel.

“You can take a nap if you want,” he said.  “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Morty didn’t need to “sleep” in the traditional sense, but he did need to give his body a rest.  He curled up among the empty bottles and various bits of trash in the ship.  He closed his eyes, feigning an impressive imitation of sleep.  Morty allowed his mind to drift and his thoughts to flow without interruption.  

Rick collapsed over the steering wheel.  He needed a nice long sleep himself.  An actual sleep, complete with his usual surreal dreams. Rick felt as if he hadn’t slept in a thousand years.  It was closer to a thousand days.

“You’ll be alright, Morty,” he said.

Beth might not believe him, especially if she never saw him again.  But Rick knew that—at the very least--Morty was going to be okay.  

#rick and morty #fanfiction #sad #writing #rick and mortis #mortis #scary game squad #jesse cox #rick cares about morty #tw: mention of child death #morty dies

[igothxmewcrk-blog]

Matt pitches H*omecoming Sequel Post 1

so today and most of this week I’ve had Crackle on my P*S4 just to watch a sorta nostalgic cartoon based around my muse’s adventures in high school (not the one prefaced with U/ltima*ate). that series is titled Spectacular, much like a run of his comics between the 70′s and 80′s.

and there are some issues, things better left unsaid or never explored in it that just ended up happening, but it took itself as seriously as it had to. just, no more serious than the movie franchise that had just ended a year prior to the show’s premiere.

in this show, every episode is only a half hour long, and it ran for two seasons (it had a buildup for things to come in a possible third season and onward, but then D*sn/ey bought M/arv*el and S/ony still owned most of everything S/pider-M*an, other medium adaptations included, and i guess somehow the writers and studio just decided to can the series on some major cliffhangers). Roughly about 26-30 episodes. again, every episode gave its little precursors to the next one, or one to follow later on, usually in an ending scene, or midway thru every few episodes. this gave the show depth that superhero dramas like Smallville and its CW successors of today express in their stories, but to hell with that, S/pectac*ular S*pid/ey did it best!

this show grounded Peter in realism, showed you his high school. Midtown was a magnet high school, and was addressed on letterman wear as M^3 (Midtown Manhattan Magnet, or for a science pun, M to the third power, or cubed, tee-hee). that’s right, MCU was not the first to show you Peter’s class of supporting civilian characters at his school, this animated series was. 

some things to note:

L/iz Al*len was Latina

G/wen S*tacy was, for better or worse, represented as P/eter’s equal, a nerdy girl in glasses, but by S2′s finale (spoilers from this point on) she ditched the eyewear, and I think either grew out her hair in an impressively short time, or otherwise it had been in ponytails or partially in a bun Idk the show just ran with it to give the unexpected ending some images to relate it even more so to comics

M/ary J*ane existed but only ever was P*ete/r’s fall fling date, and a close friend, nothing more

Fe/licia H*ardy was simply B/la*ck C/at in this, but she’s connected to P/ete as her father was B*en’s killer, and when that’s revealed, she’s never seen again

Ed/di*e B/ro*ck was around for most of the show both as a college student who assists P/ete, G*wen, and the C*onn/ors family in an ESU biochem/engineering lab; he gives off a sorta play cousin vibe, like he and P/ete go back a long way, and it’s nice to not see him as the jerk who eats Pe/ter’s dust in the Bugle

with that being said, he does bond with V*en/om in a unique way different than he has from past adaptations, or the original comic origin. in fact, he was obsessed with knowing how it ticks the moment he’s given Dr. C/onn*ors’ approval to help observe and give reports on the alien life form’s behavior(s). when S/pidey returns the symbiote to containment, and thinks chilling it to a frozen state will stop it from tacking onto anyone else, Ed/war*d heats it back up to its normal temp, unlocks containment, and WHAM! time to exact revenge on the enemies he just found out are one and the same.

anyways, B/rock and P/arker parents were lab partners, but what they did exactly wasn’t given much explanation. they just hint at this so as to make people aware that M*ay and B/en are not to be confused as P/ete’s parents (y’know, in case anyone would be S*pidey inept)

H/arry Os*born was Goblin first, but N*orm reveals it was part of his plan, so you get a gripping O/bo*rn family soap opera in a tv-y7 rated program. hellz to da yesss!

while L*iz in MCU has a father who’s a villain, that isn’t canon anywhere else; however, her brother becomes Molten Man, a self-destructive decoy to keep S/pid*ey off of G/oblin’s trail as he tries to create a criminal empire in Manhattan

everything else isn’t too noteworthy, id say watch or buy it if you’re interested

also, this show was simply, during its short run, kept within the world of S/pider-M*an, so there were no S/H/I/E/L/D, F*4, or other M/arv*el crossovers.

now, why do I say this mumbo jumbo about a show when i title this my personal pitch for a H*omecoming sequel? bc the existence of Br*ock and the Os*borns is still a very crucial thing to be hopefully adapted by MCU somewhere down the line along with the real MJ and maybe even JJ J*ameson and an Un*cle B/en flashback scene.

my pitch is as follows:

perhaps introduce Br/ock in a similar manner as the aforementioned show, but def adapt a believable Os/born family for H*ome/coming 2.

I at first liked the inclusion of H*arry in the TASM franchise, but I quickly got pissed that he was made the villain so soon.

so simply make him the rich kid he is in the above mentioned series, but like, give him the common role Fl/ash Th*ompson has had in the past. jock with a heart of gold, and maybe stretching himself a bit thin in multiple extracurricular programs to give him this lovable sense of ‘i can do anything.’ also, to further his rich boy stats, give him a car that puts Fl/ash’s dad’s wrecked sports car to shame. and maybe not let H*arry carry the goblin mantle, but have him disagree with F/lash on S/pider-M*an???? idk...

write in Ed/ward Br*ock as childhood friend of Pe/ter, but have him be riddled with mental instability, a ruined childhood, abandonment issues, and a similar passion for science like his friend, or at least give him some harmless hobby or subject he excels in prior to his likely ascension into villainy.

with Pet/er likely going to space for In*finity W/ar, establish that he’ll unknowingly bring home the symbiotic substance on his person.

perhaps make this a subtle suspenseful thriller with both Symb*iote S/pidey and V*enom, give it PG-13 teen horror vibes and a fall 2019 release????

explore the existence of the c-list rogues, non-powered thug villains, perhaps give them motivations to steal from OS/CORP, which can be represented as a new rival to S/tark Ind*ustries. this could provide buildup for Nor*man to want to become Goblin in a possible third installment.

most importantly tho, give us Mary Goddamn Jane Watson

#✍ spoodermun (ooc) #🌠(wishlist) #idk i just had a lot to say #sorry if this is ranty or too long

[alchemistc]

The Price 5/?

Summary: Killian and the Swan begin to settle into the castle together.

an: A few choice songs I listened to while writing this: “Horns” by Bryce Fox, “Hey, Brother” by Aviici and “Dauðalogn”by Sigor Ros, so, I guess, take from that what you will.

tagging @kmomof4​, @the-captains-ayebrows​, @jadeddiva​, @artielu​, and @dreadpirateemma​

Chapter List: One/Two/Three/Four

Chapter Five

Whatever small truce they’d called between them to contain the storm that night, it did nothing to stop her aggravating him at every turn, nor did it put an end to his impulse to try her patience whenever possible. There was a comfort in knowing one moment shared between them was not enough for him to grow too at ease with her.

Still, over the course of the next few weeks, they begin to grow a rapport.

They’d even begun to form a routine, of sorts.

Killian woke well before the sun, habits still unchanged despite his new and rather leisurely lifestyle, and spent a few minutes staring in annoyance at the silks and brocades and lace hanging in his wardrobe before putting on his own worn clothing.

Twice a week, instead of glaring dourly at the choice of clothing the Swan had left him with, he fashioned himself a basin and some soap from the air around him, and washed the aforementioned worn shirt and trousers, the simple, ordinary motions of the task soothing his mind. The Swan had given him a book of spells meant purely for cleansing, but he preferred the methodical action of doing them himself. The thought in his mind had exasperated her, but they’d moved on to something new the following day.

He spent an hour after that skulking the castle, surprised to find every day something he hadn’t discovered the previous day.

The kitchens held their own sort of magic - or perhaps his worked it, he was still a bit unsure - and every morning he lit the flames in the stove and the hearth, and every morning some delicacy appeared: honey glazed breads stuffed with raisins; delicate croissants, buttery and flaking against his tongue; porridge just the way his mother used to make it; sausage and fried eggs when he’d tired himself or forgotten to eat after his lessons the day before.

Very occasionally, he found dishes that were completely foreign to Misthaven, things he’d bought off street carts in distant lands, and he enjoyed those more thoroughly, losing himself in the memory of bustling bazaars and exotic spices, loud and intricate textiles and delicately crafted pottery.

The books she gave him became a bit of a game - solely for his own amusement, at first, to see the exasperation on her face every morning when he handed it to back her. At first she hadn’t believed him - couldn’t fathom how he’d grasped at the intent of the spellwork all in one night, and she’d begun to test him on it - sending hexes his way just to see if he understood the workings of defensive magic, asking him theories behind different elements, throwing up walls of spellwork just to see if he could solve their puzzle.

When she finally came to admit that he wasn’t merely being insolent, she, too, began to play at scheming, grabbing for ever more difficult tomes every evening, a challenging glint in her eye as she handed it off without a word.

She’d yet to find one he couldn’t devour by breakfast.

Killian can’t decide whether he’s begun to like her, or if he’s just been starved for company.

She’s stubborn - by the gods, she’s more stubborn even than him - and whatever vulnerability she’d shared with him the night they’d conquered the storm together had only made her more reticent since.

Still, she was surprisingly funny, once her wit was not aimed solely at wounding him, and there was a comfort in her presence, a calming stillness that felt foreign and familiar all at once.

There were days where they sat in the library together, debating the merits of using air instead of fire, or speaking of the witches and wizards whose words filled the pages around them, or he maintained small, concentrated workings, where he longed to grip her hand once more, and feel the sturdiness of her power stand rigid against the clash of his own, feel it give, just a bit, to let the rage of his storm in.

And then a moment later she’d scowl and call him a fool as whatever spell he’d been holding fell to pieces in his distraction, sifting through his fingers like sand, and he’d forget all about it.

Today he finds her pacing the library in a foul mood, muttering to herself - at least, he believes it is to herself, although she darts a glance over her shoulder once, and pins a terrible look against a wall of books behind her.

Killian makes a point of knocking his knuckles against the door as he enters, and she snaps to attention, a wild look dissipating as she takes him in.

A scornful one overtakes it. Wonderful. He does so enjoy her ever vacsillating moods.

“I have provided you an astonishing supply of clothing, Jones, have I not?”

“You have.”

“And yet, here you are, months later, still in your rags. Tell me, are you things not fine enough for you?”

Killian is in no mood to be treated like a child. Or a subordinate.

“I don’t like them. They’re stuffy, they’re overly complicated, and I’ve no use for them.”

She huffs, sullenly, and Killian wonders when it was she’d decided to drop her unflappable persona. Was it that night in the storm, when he’d felt the presence of her magic sink into his own? Or had it been earlier, while she wandered the halls of her own castle like a ghost to avoid him? Perhaps after, when he’d sat across the table from her at the dinner they occasionally shared and told her a bawdy joke he’d expected her to be annoyed with, only to get to the punchline and find her covering her mouth with a handkerchief, her eyes glittering in amusement despite her attempts at hiding her laughter.

“What, exactly, would you prefer then?”

Killian stares at her for a beat, and then raises his arms, turning his gaze pointedly downward to himself. “This.”

She sighs, impatient but surrendering, and pulls a book from the shelf behind her.

She tosses it across the room to him, ignoring his surprised yelp, and spins to a chair facing away from him, falling into it in a heave of irritation.

Killian tries, and fails, to keep his amusement hidden, but for all that he’d thought he would despise every moment of his time here, he can’t help but think no other pupil had ever managed to provoke her so. Then again, few had ever found the specific pleasure in it that he did. Few had likely ever dared. It helped that when she grew to annoyance, the veneer of her self-possessed facade fell away, and her eyes blazed, her voice changing pitch as color rose in her face.

Yes, he quite enjoyed watching her emotions play out. Perhaps, one day, he’d manage to pull out some sincerity.

The Swan snorted from her spot, hidden from his eyes, and Killian shot a glare at the back of the chair, thinking get out of my head.

He doubted the thought did much - it seemed more a reflex than anything else, as though she was so used to it she had never thought not to have her mind half in his.

The spellbook in his hands is light, barely larger than a children’s story, but when he opens it the lines of script are thin and tight, winding along the pages like threads of an embroidery. It takes him a moment to grow used to it, but after a few furious blinks he realizes it is spellwork for altering fabric.

He reads through a few pages, sitting at the chair behind her desk, until he begins to grasp the method behind it, and turns his head in search of something to try it out on.

His gaze lands on the buttery leather of the Swans jacket, but the impish thought has barely crossed his mind before she waves a hand, his wardrobe emerging from the air behind her, blocking her entirely from his view.

He pulls the most obnoxious jerkin he can find from the thing, giving it a grimace before he sets it on the desk, and begins to catch the threads of the working.

The Swan goes still and silent behind the wardrobe, something in her still curious to know his methods, eager to understand his power, but Killian ignores it, lets the magic slip nimble and soft through his fingertips, lets the memory of his own shoddy work as a young boy with a needle and a sewing palm slip into the working, the memory of mending his shirts flowing into it as well.

When he opens his eyes again, the jerkinis gone.

In it’s place is a vest - far more ornate than anything Killian has ever owned, but still somehow simple enough for his taste, with black embroidery winding on a blood red silk brocade, black piping along the edges, finely shaped brass buttons lining either side of it.

Satisfied, he lays it aside and sets upon the rest of the wardrobe.

The spell comes easier to him, this time, and soon enough he’s turned the whole thing into clothing he’ll actually wear, and feels no remorse for the loss of the ridiculous frippery. Pleased with himself, he finally returns the vest to it and slides around both the wardrobe and the chair to stare defiantly at the Swan.

She gives him an unimpressed look. “Now put the wardrobe back where it belongs and summon the other one.”

------

They dine together two or three times a week, though it’s the only time he ever sees her eat. She has an affinity for the rum he summons up, but she picks at the grand plates of food piled high, and watches him eat with a mixture of disgust and amused alarm. He’s never tasted so much good food in his life, and if not for the amount of walking he does, searching out the castles secrets every morning, he is certain he would lose his fit physique in days.

Tonight he dons his new clothing, giving himself a satisfied once over in the looking glass before he heads down to the hall where they usually meet.

It’s one of the smaller chambers in the sprawling castle, intimate enough that he is sometimes able to forget exactly how alone they are in it, and he enjoys the slide of the trousers against his legs, the new cut of his shirt, with it’s high collar lined with yet more buttons, and the way the cool evening air slides through it to his skin.

She’s already there when he turns into the chamber, staring at the roast swan with an unimpressed air, and he’s already gearing up for battle with her, ready to wave his hand over the thing and change it back to the chicken he’d had planned before she’d made him run all the way up to his chambers to ensure he’d sent the wardrobes both back to the exact spot they’d been taken from.

Instead, her breath catches in her throat when she glances up and catches sight of him.

Killian can see the effort it takes her to swallow as she stares him up and down, and he supposes he does look quite different.

He’d used a spell to slice off most of the length of his hair, a week before, annoyed to have it always in his eyes while he let his gaze sweep the pages of spellbooks, and though in theory the clothes he wore were nearly an exact replica of the one pair he’d come with, these are certainly finer, the slick leather of his trousers, the dark sheer material of his shirt, which he’d worn as usual, buttons undone until they met the opening of the vest he wore.

A word flits across his memory, one he hasn’t thought of in ages - rapscallion - and he raises an amused eyebrow.

Whatever had caused her sudden lapse of self control, it’s gone by the time he settles into the seat across from her, leaning heavily against the back of it, his legs spread wide.

She clears her throat, darts her glance to the table, and then reaches for a silver goblet decorated with fine, thin winding vinework, downing the contents of it and reaching for the bottle of rum to refill it at once.

Killian watches her in surprise as she piles her plate high with food, even pulling a leg off the bird on display in the middle of the table while she spoons vegetables out of their serving bowls.

He watches until she grows uncomfortably aware of his stare, and slows her movements before finally tilting her head up to meet his gaze. “What?”

His shoulder jumps up in a shrug. “You don’t eat, much. Usually.”

“It’s not necessary,” is all she will tell him about the matter, and most of the time, he would let it lie, but tonight he is curious, and he can tell that the murmurings of his thoughts on the matter annoy her.

“And yet, tonight you’ve loaded more on your plate at once than I’ve seen you eat in all my time here.”

“I’m hungry,” she tells him, eyeing the line of his collarbone and the way the thin shirt lies against his chest.

It’s a thought that hasn’t entered his mind before now (at least, not often, he will concede). The way she’s looking at him is curious, and new, and he feels his ears burning, but he can’t help the smirk that darts across his face, making her scowl at him and return to staring at her plate.

She’s far from unattractive, even with the strange paleness of her hair and the glittering of her skin, and he imagines that she must once have been a great beauty. The stories always made her so, a gorgeous, terrifying beast, who cared for her people by slaying their enemies.

But it is not that, exactly, that draws him to her, that makes him think of her in the dead of night when the magic is roiling under his skin and he can’t find a position that is comfortable for more than a few minutes. Trying to figure her out is maddening. There are days when their arguments about theories and methods for spellwork grow so heated they fling remnants of magic out into the room they are in, where the library grows warm enough for her to unbutton the cuffs of her shirt and roll the sleeves to her elbows, and her hair breaks from it’s bun in tendrils to curl loosely around her forehead (in the heat of the moment, he’ll watch the way her fingers brush them behind her ears with fascination, his own hands twitching with the desire to perform that action themselves).

No, it’s not that, that keeps him awake at night, wondering about her.

When he closes his eyes, he wonders what her life might have been like, before she saved Misthaven. Had she had a family? Friends, perhaps a lover? Had she known the comfort of other people, in her life, or had she always been so...alone?

He can feel the annoyed press of her magic against his skull, always moving and changing, like the spring runoff rushing to forge new paths in the ground as it makes its journey to the sea. Embarrassed by the train of his own thought, he pushes back against it, thinking of immovable boulders forcing the water to move around it, and just like that, the rush of her magic flows around him, instead of through.

She looks both impressed and disappointed.

“Stay out of my mind.”

She hums, and returns to her meal.

By the time they’ve finished, she’s eaten two full plates of food, and drank half his rum besides, and yet they are still both pent up and frustrated, the energy ringing between them. He has a vague inkling of a thought, one he hopes she hasn’t seen herself, and tries to remember what he’d done before he realized that he was charming enough to flirt his way into an easy fuck while ashore.

She shoots him a quick, frrustrated look. “It’d be far easier to stay out of your thoughts if you didn’t fling them across the room.”

He scratches behind his ear bashfully, and takes another swig of the rum, and then it comes to him. “Have you ever handled a sword before?”

The Swan had been taking a drink of her own; she coughs, her face turning a becoming shade of pink as she attempts to compose herself.

------

The yard is bathed in deep shades of red and purple as twilight sets in, shadows cast by their figures as they circle each other. Killian hadn’t thought for a moment that she’d take him up on the suggestion of sparring, but there’d been a sparkle in her eyes when he’d said the words, her gaze turning far off and distant for a moment before she turned a frankly wicked grin on him. “You couldn’t handle it.”

Surprised by the playfulness in her voice, he’d responded as though to a woman he’d met in the tavern, and not the powerful sorceress he’d disliked so fiercely only weeks before. “Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t handle it.”

While he’d been choosing himself a weapon from her collection in the armory, she’d stripped herself of her jacket, and in the low light in the yard, he watched her now as she paced back and forth.

She has good form - he can see that already, in the few parries they’ve shared as they test each other out - there is something almost familiar in the way she carries herself, the way she holds the hilt, the way she settles her weight from foot to foot.

He lets out a delighted bark of laughter when she rushes towards him, raising his own cutlass against the attack of her broadsword, and the clash of metal rings through the yard as he pushes back, using his weight to shove her away.

He presses his advantage, his shoulder rolling as the sword makes a high arc, but she defends the blow, her leg kicking out to push him back, catching him in the gut and nearly doubling him over.

He grins again. She’s no novice, at this - she has a style, knows how to use her body - knows when to fight dirty. There’s no urgency in their movements, yet, though he can sense already that it will get there - for now they are toying with each other, feeling each other out. She parries his attacks, he uses the strength of his limbs to press her backward, she spins and settles low, carrying her weight where she can use it to her best advantage.

They go on like that for a while, until the sun has sunk below the horizon and the only light above them comes from the reflection of it in the clouds above. His blood is humming in his skin, and he can already feel the delicious ache of a good fight settling into his muscles. What has delighted him most, though, is the constant stream of insults they’ve been sending back and forth at each other, nothing of true ill intent, merely a battle of wits to match the clanging of their swords, the rhythm of it almost musical as the fight goes on. It reminds him, unnervingly, of the stretch of her magic against his own.

She doesn’t tire, but he can see her losing focus, settling too easily into their steady rhythm, and there he finds his upper hand.

She goes for the kick, again, ready to let the momentum fuel her spin, but he catches her leg, instead - her eyes widen in the moment before he yanks, and she goes tumbling to the dirt with a cry of bewilderment.

The sword in his hand swings towards her as she falls against the gravel, and hers rises to meet it, but he’s won, and they both know it.

His smirk is wide and triumphant as he presses his weight into the blade, watching her arms quiver to hold him away from her.

She sighs, her breath coming in deep huffs as she struggles. “Going to stab me now, Jones?” It’s a joke, mostly, but neither of them are ignoring the fact that not very long ago, were they in this position, he would have tried.

“I assure you,” he says, voice low as he leans over her. “When I jab you with my sword, you’ll feel it.”

In the darkness descending on them, it is difficult to see her expression, but he feels the discomfort of her magic as it rushes out, sending him flying backward and away from him in a wave.

They don’t speak as they return to the armory, returning the weapons to their places, and she pulls her jacket back on, turning towards him at the doorway, her face bathed in the low light of one of her lanterns, shadows flickering across her skin.

She seems to want to say something, but is unsure what, exactly. Killian again struggles to keep the wish to see inside her own mind to himself as something indecipherable crosses her expression, and finally, she turns to leave.

“I still won!” he calls out behind her, unsure why he wants her to stay, if but for a moment more.

She glances over her shoulder, eyes rolling, mask firmly back in place, whatever she’d been feeling hidden well now. “Whatever you say, Jones.”

His lips turn up, a genuine smile lighting his features, and as she turns away he catches a wisp of her own grin.

------

The fight had done nothing to ease the tension thrumming through him - it had, in fact, made it worse, like a line pulled taught with no slack to ease it. But the spar had, at least, exhausted him, and he curls into the four poster, his eyes drifting closed as he summons up a quieter, softer version of the ocean spell outside his window, and the hushed sound of water lapping against the stone outside eases him to sleep.

The blast of cannon beats against his eardrums as he rushes up the shoreline, eyes intent on the shoddy barricade set further up the sand. There are swords clashing, and pistols firing, and all around him the sound of grunts and cries, men falling to the sand, unmoving.

He ignores it, eyes searching frantically, his heart pounding viciously against his ribcage.

Cannons blast again, and chain shot goes sailing past him, careening through the barricade, the force of it driving back two men with a wild scream.

The heat of the sun beats down on them all, and over the clatter of bullets and the screams of the men, he can hear the ocean tide whispering behind him, calling out to him, attempting to ease his mind.

He longs to turn towards it, but he is still searching, still desperate, and he moves along, further up the beach, past a man grasping at the bloodied stump of his leg, past the barricade, inland until he has to leap boulders to make it to the treeline, where the majority of the fighting is being done.

Amidst the trees, the sound of the ocean fades, and Killian ignores the clash of swords around him, eyes casting about.

The desperation seeps into his marrow, his chest tight with worry, as he watches a man slit another’s throat, only to keel over a moment later with a blade through his belly.

He crumbles to the ground, but the man who’d done the job iis already turning away, raising his sword against another attack - he sins and parries, his jacket whipping around him, and fells this attacker, too, yelling out a command Killian can’t hear over the din of battle.

His fine jacket is stained with blood, his boots caked in mud, his curling hair covered in a fine dusting of sand and soot, but he looks glorious, standing tall and firm against the onslaught. Killian moves towards him, reaching out a hand -

From his left, a man rushes towards the great warrior, but he doesn’t see the attack coming, his back towards it as he surveys the scene, and Killian feels panic rising within him as the man grows closer, raising his sword -

“Liam!”

Killian blinks away the dream, the moonlight lanterns flickering to life at the bedside as he scrambles to rid himself of the coverlet, already reaching for his boots at the bedside before he realizes where he is.

Just a dream, he whispers over the pounding of his heartbeat. It’s just a dream. Outside, the sounds of the ocean stir something inside of him, and he takes a few deep, steadying breaths, eyes closed as he leans against the serpentine carvings of vines on the headboard

He startles as the door to his rooms bangs open, reaching for a weapon, anything that might help him, and finds only the book the Swan had given him the night before, the first he’d failed to complete in a single night, and he wonders vaguely if he’ll be able to grasp it’s complexities before their meeting that morning, if only to continue their battle.

He throws it without another thought, the frenzy of the combat in his dream still driving him.

The Swan catches it with ease, his dread eased somewhat at the sight of her, but only for a moment.

She’s still in her jacket and trousers, although the vest she wears beneath it is  open, a strange sight to him, as buttoned up and crisp as her appearance usually is. There is a concerned pinch to her features, and her hands shake as she sets the book on the sideboard.

“Get up,” she tells him, her gaze sweeping over his rooms, avoiding his eye. “Something’s happened.”

#cs ff #cs fic #leiutenant dark!swan #the price #gettin' in to the good stuff now

[unholyhelbiglinked]

Bite Me | You’re Undead to Me

I had never heard Damon scream with so much agony before, his face twisted and words angry as he continued to clench onto the iron bars of the Salvatore wine cellar. It was equipped for stuff like this; for stuff like him.

Vervain thrived in a small patch of light to the side of him, keeping him weak and unable to do anything against Stefan and I, even if he did decide to try and escape. I had started my shift about an hour ago, my main focus on keeping my eyes open as Damon continued to shout profanities at me.

"You know, Ro." He said, voice breathy as he leaned heavily against the door. I glanced up from my phone, the blue light setting an odd shadow across my features. His hands grasped at the metal rods that gave him enough room to see into the basement hallway. "We haven't really had a chance to talk since I came into town."

I stayed quiet. We hadn't talked for a reason. Damon Salvatore wasn't a person I liked to associate with on a regular basis. Even when my sister had fallen into those blue eyes and dark persona. He gave me an odd feeling, one that was deep and couldn't be changed with him begging to be let out.

"Me being locked up in here won't help you win her back, you know." He grumbled, his jaw clenching as I finally lifted my gaze from the phone screen, hitting the lock button to make it a little darker in the small space.

"Caroline?" I scoffed "Thanks to you she's so confused that I'm surprised she even remembers her name. She'll forgive me."

"Not Caroline." He sneered, his teeth looking almost a yellow against how pale his skin had gotten. "Not Elena, or that little Bennet witch either."

I stared silent, not sure what he was playing at. He had a bit of gumption to him, like he had something over my head that even I couldn't comprehend. I cocked my head to the side, my arms crossed over my chest.

His voice was a lowly whisper "You couldn't care less about any of them. You only want one girl. And me being in here isn't helping your case."

My chin lifted slightly, his words not phasing me much. At this point he would do anything for blood, anything to stop that incessant burning in his throat. "You being out here wouldn't help my case either, now would it?"

"Does he know?" Damon knit his eyebrows together "Does Stefan know the real reason you're fighting so hard to fit in here?"

I was quiet again, staring into those electric blue eyes. No, he didn't. Stefan wasn't going to find out anytime soon either. His willingness to help keep Elena safe was the only thing I had going for me at the moment, even if it was just for his odd love life. Neither of us questioned the other, and we liked it that way. With Damon locked away like the animal he is, that wouldn't change.

A dry laugh pulled me from my thoughts "Oh my god, you haven't even told him, have you?"

My jaw clenched as I drew in a breath, my nails digging slightly into my arm.

"Zac!" I called to Stefan's uncle, the one who had formal ownership over the Salvatore boarding house. He was reluctant to step into the basement, his eyebrows knit together as he lifted his chin slightly. He looked like a Salvatore. Brooding and annoyed at all times. "I have to go to that fundraiser. Make sure he stays put."

Damon swore under his breath, his eyes no longer taunting me. They were filled with a sharp and unforgiving anger. One that suited him well, but still gave me chills. No matter how used to it I had become.

"Rowan, I said sexy." Caroline barked at me roughly, her words cutting through the air as I couldn't help to roll my eyes. She was in nothing more than a pair of skimpy shorts and a tank top that rode up a little too far.

The bruises had faded, Caroline left with nothing more than a few hazy memories of Damon Salvatore and the hollow fear of his presence. She would phase out every once and awhile, completely forgetting what she was doing- Elena convinced it was trauma. But it was the compulsion. It had to be. We spent the whole night keeping her from screaming herself awake.

"I know, I know" I mumbled "but I got your sponges, so at least I did that right!"

"Hmm," Caroline pursed her lips, taking her cold hands and dragging it down the front of the flannel I wore. She took a few buttons with it, the shirt opening to expose my stomach and a darker bra. "Better!"

I stared at her in awe, "How did you do that?"

"Practice." She chirped, handing me a large blue bucket filled to the brim with soap and warm water. "You're with Bonnie today. Don't get into too much trouble."

I shrugged my shoulders, a bit uncomfortable with all the half-naked teenagers all around me. Bonnie was struggling to soap the inside of a hood. The minivan looked quite large next to her, the girl sliding off slightly as she soaped up the red surface.

"Whoa," I caught her just in time for her to almost hit the wet pavement, a laugh moving through her lungs as she shook her head. "Slow down there, tiger. The cars not moving anytime soon."

"Not at my rate." She laughed again, a smile forming against my lips.

I just shook my head as I reached my longer arm out, washing the spot that she couldn't quite reach. We talked for about fifteen minutes, finishing up a car and half before the sun started to disappear behind a large cloud. I didn't mind a small break from the heat, my main focus moving to the ticket table.

Elena sat there, she looked like she was stressed out, running a hand through her hair every once in a while as the line started to build in front of her. "Hey, Bon I'm going to go help out Elena if that's okay with you?"

"oh, it's fine with me" She lifted her chin "But Caroline will kill you."

"Good thing she's nowhere to be found, right?" I shrugged stepping away from the car as Elena let out a small mix between a sigh and a growl at the sight of me. She couldn't stand me being this close after lying about Caroline, but she did appreciate the help. It made the line move faster, the two of us knocking it out quickly.

"Elena," I finally spoke after the line had gone.

"Rowan, don't." She turned towards me "It's my turn to talk, and your turn to listen."

I nodded at her, keeping my silence. She was steaming turning red under the sun as I heard a few garbled orders barked out by some head cheerleader. Her voice was annoying and nasally. Elena glanced over for a second too, then back to me.

"Why are you so guarded, huh?" She asked me, I was silent, knowing that she didn't truly want me to answer "You and Stefan both refuse to just... just tell me what is wrong. I could have helped with Caroline."

"I didn't want you to get hurt," I mumbled slowly. "Damon is not a good guy."

"Stefan said he left." She clenched her jaw roughly, "I want you to be honest with me from now on. I know it's not your specialty. The whole opening up thing. But I'll just keep bothering you until you do."

She shoved her shoulder into mine, causing a small smile to fall upon my lips. "Got that Pierce?"

"Got it," I chuckled, shaking my head softly as an older man stepped up to the table. He was an older guy, a striped shirt stretched over his body. Sweat stained the fabric, as he knit his dark greying eyebrows together. He clenched a twenty dollar bill in his hand.

Elena smiled sweetly at him "What can I help you with today sir?"

"I know you," He completely disregarded the girl next to me, his dark brown eyes hitting mine like ice. "I know you from somewhere."

"I'm sorry," I said politely, "I don't believe we've meant sir."

"No, I know you." He said, his age showing in his voice "I'm sure of it."

The head cheerleader who had been screaming at Bonnie this whole entire time seemed to step over towards us, holding onto the mans shoulders "Grandpa, what are you doing here? I'm sorry if he was bothering you guys."

We both shook our heads quickly, Elena speaking first "No, no not at all."

She ushered him away regardless. Elena staring me down for a few seconds as I shrugged my shoulders. "Do you have this?" she asked, standing quickly. The legs of the chair scraped loudly against the asphalt. "He forgot his change."

I simply nodded. The man hadn't even paid before being dragged away. Elena had dashed from the table though, not giving me much time to react before another small gasp erupted through most of the school parking lot.

"Oh my god, my car!" the same head cheerleader screamed out, everyone stumbling back from a red luxury vehicle. The color was enhanced by a river of flames, gas making a known presence in the air as Bonnie stared directly at the vehicle.

She was frozen in place. I moved as quickly as Elena had, my hands on her shoulders. They were cold, the look on her face was distasteful and malice. "Bonnie, Hey!"

A large gasp filled her lungs as she finally tore her gaze away from the car. Her chocolate brown eyes meeting mine with nothing but fear. Tears ran across her skin, leaving wet trails as she raised her fingers to her lips. Pressing slightly.

"I did that?" She asked in a hushed whisper. I nodded in silence. The Bennett witches had a lot of power here. Too much. It was everything that Bonnie was feeling, all that energy trained into one thing. "Please don't tell anyone, Ro. Please."

The smell of burning wood was the first to fill my nose. It's rustic scent masking the overwhelming sensation of spilled blood. Anger was the first thing I felt, anger and fear that mixed together so well to create a blur of emotions.

"Stefan," I spoke softly. He was running around, trying his hardest to find a weapon. Something to use against the mad man that was just released on the world. He threw a chair against the carpeted ground, wood splintering slightly under his pressure. "Stefan!"

I grasped his shoulder as he panted roughly, a growl escaping his pale lips as he clenched a severed chair leg in his palm. "You need to calm down."

"Calm down?" he asked, my grip strong on his sweatshirt "Rowan, he murdered Zac in cold blood. My only uncle is dead. My blood deprived brother is on the loose and you want me to calm down? He has to die."

"He is your brother." I said quickly, seeing tears flood those dark green eyes, I pulled the makeshift stake from his palm. "But if you think this is what's best."

"It is." He whispered, a tear moving past his waterline. "Any shred of emotion I thought my brother had left is gone."

I nodded, "We'll search all night if we have to."

Stefan gave me a thankful look before the two of us walked towards the door of the Salvatore boarding house. I grasped the wrought iron handle of the door. The hinges whined as I pulled the door open.

Elena stood in front of us, her hair disheveled and chest heaving up and down. She looked like she was mid-step away from the house, sleeves pulled down over her palms as she spoke smoothly.

"What are you?" she panted a few times "What are you? The both of you."

Stefan was tense beside me, breathing out a few times as I searched her face for anything more than betrayal. "You know," I said.

"No," She shook her head "I don't."

"Yes you do." Stefan finally spoke "or you wouldn't be here."

"it's not possible. It can't be."

I stepped forward slightly, Elena seeming to mimic me as she stepped back as little. I placed the steak I was wielding down on the small table next to the front door. "Everything you know... everything you think you know. Is about to change. Are you ready for that?"

She stared at me blankly, a bit of anger in her gaze. "What are you?"

"Vampire." Stefan gave her the answer she was searching for. One that made her go silent, skin going a bit pale.

"I-I shouldn't have come." She started to step away, a bit of panic crossing the man's face as he knit his eyebrows together, staring at me. I clenched my jaw.

"No, no please." Stefan's voice cracked as Elena slipped by him and rushed towards her car. I was faster, her main focus on looking behind her as I stood in front of her car. She ran into me, my hand touching the edge of her elbow to keep her steady for a second before she took a startled step back.

"How did you do that?" She asked me, searching my face.

"Please don't be afraid," I said shifting my weight as she tried to get to her car door.

"Let me go." She snarled.

"Elena," I said "There are things you have to know. Things you have to understand."

"Let me go!" She repeated, shoving past me as she finally got to her car door. The tires peeled across the gravel as she wasted no time getting from the Salvatore's driveway. Stefan stumbled back, pressing his hands against the top of his head.

"What are we going to do?" he growled, pacing back and forth as my mind raced for answers.

"I'm going to go to her place. She needs to know she can't say a word about any of this." Stefan opened his mouth to object but I held up my hand "You're too upset. About Damon. About Zac, about everything."

Elena's window was open by the time I got there. Her footfalls soft against her carpet as she kept her back turned towards the window I had just entered through. She ran her hands through her hair a few times before I spoke.

"Elena." She panted a few times, breath shaky as she rushed towards her bedroom door. She started to pull it open. I was a bit taller than her, my hand pressing against the door above her head as I kept it closed.

She breathed heavily, pushing her face against the frame as she clenched her eyes shut.

"We would never hurt you." I said as she let out a small sob. "You're safe with me. With the both of us."

"All those animal attacks?" She turned to face me slightly, keeping her cheek against the door. "Those people who died?"

She was facing me fully now, my hand directly near her shoulder as I spoke "No, that was Damon."

"Damon?"

"Yes," I lifted my chin. "Stefan doesn't drink human blood. That's not how he chooses to live. Elena, I have other ways that don't harm anyone. I can explain all of this to you. But I beg you Elena, do not tell anybody."

"How can you ask me that?" She said between whimpers.

"Because you knowing this, is dangerous. For so many reasons."

She stared at me, tears continuing to drip down her chin as she shook from fear and anger. She was quiet, quiet and stoic as I kept my palm close to her. "You can hate me, but I need you to trust me."

"Just go," She whispered. "Just please, go. If you don't want to hurt me... then just go."

I let out a small breath, stepping away from her after a few long seconds. It didn't take long to leave her room. But it would take a lifetime to forget about the betrayal written across her features.  

#tvd #vampire diaries #gxg