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lazyneonrabbitt · 3 years

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Night shifts.

Daryl Dixon x Reader Werewolf AU

You are new to the prison and Rick takes you on your first night watch shift. When something catches your eye he sends you after it. When you wake up the next morning you discover things you would have never guessed were real.

Running from walkers was not how you wanted to spend your first week alone after months of being with a group and to be fair, you were done. You were close to passing out from dehydration when you made it out of the forest lines and onto a highway, spotting a gas station to hole up in only a minute away. running in and barricading the door with your last bit of energy, you passed out almost immediately after.

"Hey, we're here!" Glenn called out to Maggie when they passed the treelines and went onto the highway where Rick had sent them. "That old place? Are you sure there's stuff left in there?" Maggie wasn't sure about it all but at least there weren't any walkers around it it'd be easy to check out and be gone without wasting too much time. They tried the main doors but they wouldn't budge, like they were locked down from the inside so they went around to check for another entrance. With a little effort they managed to take down the door in the back and went in to scope out the place and listening in for any walkers and finding none. They felt relieved when there wasn't a fight to prepare for and started digging through what was left of the supplies in the back room, making their way to the front, towards the blocked front exit. As they expected they found nothing useful in the small gas station, but when they rounded past the last supply rack they found something they weren't expecting.

"You think she's alive?" Glenn wondered, slowly stepping forward to check for any injuries but found none. "I don't know, doesn't look like she's turning so I guess not." Maggie replied as Glenn was already close enough to shake her. As he did so, she jolted awake and unsure of anything that was going on. Maggie had her gun readied at her side and Glenn moved back to a safe distance. "What the hell?" Was all you could groggily manage to speak. The two of them asked you a few questions that you barely managed to answer and were given some water when you regained enough consciousness to move at least somewhat well again. Thanking them you asked why they were here and they explained they were just looking for supplies and the place seemed to be abandoned. "We could ask you the same, though." Glenn chimed in. You told them your story of being alone and running from walkers for a while before eventually ending up here and passing out, how you hadn't eaten anything all day and drank your last bit of water this morning.

When they finished clearing the place, Glenn and Maggie agreed to take you with them to the prison where their group lived. On the way there, which took longer than their way to the gas station, seeing what state you were in, they mostly kept quiet about their current living environment even with you asking questions every now and then. It was close to nightfall when you all arrived at the prison and you were stopped by a man in a sheriff's hat. Immediately on you and not letting you take another step onto the property after answering his questions. He sat you down and talked to Maggie and see what info she had on you ans so she repeated everything you had told her, getting approving nods from Glenn who was keeping an eye on you while also reassuring you Rick was less scary than he currently came off as.

After all the talking you were allowed to stay under constant surveillance. This only lasted a week, after which you were allowed to roam around on your own and were set on shared watch with Rick so he could teach you all their ways in case walkers would breach the fence. During the early hours of the night nothing much happened and you had to admit the view of the forest edge looked nice under the moonlight. From time to time you heard a walker rustling through nearby bushes but Rick reassured you to was nothing to worry about until they would start to pile up on the fence. After a long stretch of silence you saw something run across the field and you shoved Rick's shoulder to make sure he'd see it as well. The moment he looked it ran out of sight towards the other side of the building before emerging on the other end again after a short moment. This time Rick saw it as well and sent you towards the fences to go check it out. You ran from the watch tower towards the edge to check out whatever it was that you saw but you couldn't get a clear look at it so after a minute of walking back and forth across fence you decided to go through them, you were armed after all.

The thing was near the treeline and wandering around, seemingly not noticing you watching it. When it ran off you were so intrigued that you followed it out into the woods, not giving a single thought to what you were even following or all the other dangers out there. you followed the thing for a while, getting a better look at it and seeing it resembled a large dog of some sort. Honestly it only reminded you of your favorite monster movies you always watched back in the day, but that was all just suits and CGI. You loved those movies, zombie movies were cool as well until you suddenly all started living in one of course. But that was different, right?? No way other monsters were real as well. you weren't gonna run into a group of murderous vampires living as cannibals, but this creature in front of you did look an awful lot like a werewolf, and not even a small one. while it was hunched over and on all-fours it still reached almost to your shoulders.

You were so deep in thought that you didn't watch your step and tripped over a branch, causing the creature to jump up and tread towards you. As you got up you couldn't take your eyes off it, afraid it would jump you so you backed up until you hit a tree. You were stuck between a large tree with no branches to climb onto, and a huge, murderous, and now that you saw it up close, clearly werewolf.It snarled at you, getting closer to sniff the air and snapping its teeth at you only an inch away from your face.This was gonna end bad.

Back at the prison, Rick was slapped across the shoulder by Maggie. "Did you really just sent the new girl after him? Are you insane?" She whisper-yelled at him. She had been awake and saw you run into the woods after he had snuck out. "Trust me, if you saw how he's always starin' at her, you'd do the same thing. He's not gonna hurt her." The two of them discussed their views for a while with Maggie being totally against the whole idea and Rick feeling like he did a great job. "Come on, Maggie. There's no way he's gonna do anything to her. He's been staring at her like a lovesick puppy ever since they first talked." Rick tried to convince her again. "And you have to admit that she tries her hardest to be around him and actually gets along with him pretty well." He was right, Maggie had talked with her from time to time and it was clear that she liked being around him. Whenever she didn't have any tasks for the day she'd always tag along on hunts with him and she'd be the first one at the gate when he would return from an early morning run to see if he needed to be stitched up. "Fine, I'll give ya this round. But if she gets hurt, you are the one who tells everyone what happened." She jabbed her finger at Rick's chest to make her point that much more clear and returned to watch the horizon for any movement.

Both stared into the distance in peace until they caught movement out in the field. "See? Told you I was right!" Rick called out while Maggie grabbed a pair of binoculars to get a closer look. "That's not a deer in his mouth, Rick." She spoke softly as she shoved the binoculars into his chest, urging him to take a look. It was indeed him who was walking back onto the property, probably on his way to his usual hideout. He followed his steps and tried to focus on what he was carrying that according to Maggie wasn't a deer. "Oh shit." He let out as he lowered the item and rushed off the stairs towards the abandoned back of the building. When he rounded the last corner he had almost caught un with them and saw him now carefully placing you down in the emptied shed, on top of the cloths they had put there for when he'd turn back. The pile of clothes neatly folded next to the door. He deemed the situation as safe and left back to the guard tower to finish his shift.

You woke up before the sun started coming up and were shocked to find out you weren't in the woods anymore. Truth be told you couldn't remember what happened. The creature snapped at you, looking like it was ready to chow down on you and then everything went black. Taking in your surroundings you learned you were in some kind of shed, you were on a pile of fabric and there was a pile of clothes, illuminated by the moonlight near the open entrance. Trying to get up you learned that it wasn't a heavy blanket that was on you, but an extended arm draped over your waist coming from behind you. You quietly wiggled out from underneath the arm and went to investigate. Your first move was to go outside and look where you were. You were at the prison, but on a side of the building you had never been before. After being sure you were at least somewhat safer than you expected you went back inside, passing the pile of clothes again and decided to take a look. There was a pair of boots, a larger size so you assumed they were a guy's, together with some torn and patched up jeans and a shirt with sleeves torn at different lengths. Taking away at the pile one piece at a time, you found something that you immediately recognised. "Daryl?" You said out loud upon seeing his winged leather vest. A low growl came from behind you. You had been so focused on the clothes that you hadn't realised you might had woken up the slumbering beast.

You got up and ran without thinking of it and ended up cornered within seconds, Daryl's vest still clasped tightly to your chest. Eyes wide, you couldn't cast your gaze away from the creature in front of you. Now, on its hindlegs you were able to fully take in it's size. You were even more terrified than before in the forest, this time there was really no way out. You dropped to your knees, hugging the vest of your dear friend closely and cried, begging for someone to hear you and come save you but no sound other than sobs left you. You saw the light shift in your vision and carefully looked up, seeing that your cabin partner had now sat down and was staring at you. Blue eyes staring right into yours before getting back up and crawling underneath the pile of blankets in the corner, completely covering itself except for its tail poking from underneath it all. Every time you tried to take a step closer you were growled at, louder each time until you gave up and sat back down in the furthest corner. Eyes trained on the pile, you saw every small movement that happened and every breath the beast took. Its breathing became heavier and now started to get louder and snarls and growls would come out more and more until another sound broke your concentration and had you jump up a little. It sounded like a bone snapping in half, joined with other nasty snapping and tearing sounds. The pile moved but you couldn't make out what was going on as you covered your ears, trying to block out the gruesome noises until everything stopped moving and the shape beneath the piles had shrunk to half its size. All you heard now was breathing like someone had just ran from a herd of walkers. While everything seemed safe, you were too afraid to move from your spot so you stayed. Sitting there with Daryl's vest still in your hands you waited for the sun to come up and go find your group again. You companion's breathing had evened out and you assumed they'd fallen asleep again. Gathering all your courage you creeped closer to the pile and took in its shape, making out the shape of a person and carefully taking the first blanket away, sadly not revealing anything. The next one only uncovered an arm, lazily thrown over what you assumed was a head still covered in blankets. You sat there contemplating your next move. Were you going to take away another layer or were you gonna leave this one alone and let them wake up in peace?

Yeah, you were seeing who it was that terrorised you throughout the entire night. Taking a deep breath you took the edge of the next fabric and carefully lifted it, but before you could get a look your wrist was grabbed tightly and you were thrown on your back with whoever it was over you, snarling and ready to attack. You let out a surprised yelp as you were thrown down. At least now you could get a good look at who it was, and it wasn't who you expected to see. "Daryl?" You sighed, on one hand relieved he wasn't killed like you thought before when you found his vest. On the other hand completely out of it now that you figured out his probably biggest secret. Did others know about this place? Did they know about him and weren't they afraid?

Keeping your eyes on his you had to try your hardest not to let them wander off when you remembered he was in fact still very naked. "Please," You quietly pleaded. "get dressed.." You mumbled as you covered your eyes with your free arm, making sure you wouldn't see anything and trying to make him feel maybe less uncomfortable.He grumbled something you couldn't make out before you felt him move off you and heard rustling of clothes. "Where's mah vest?" You heard him ask and moved a bit only to feel it underneath you. Sitting up you slowly moved your arm away from your face and relaxed when you saw Daryl was dressed enough to be less distracting at least. When you were about to get up to hand him his vest, he'd walked across the shed and sat down in front of you like he did earlier tonight before he has changed back. "M'sorry." It wasn't much but it was enough for now.

You handed him his vest and stayed quiet for the most part. Not knowing what to say and what could set him off like when you woke him up scared you enough to not talk to him at all except for answering his questions or comments. It took a while for the two of you to get comfortable around each other enough to go out on a morning hunt but after words could be exchanged well enough to make a plan you were good to go. You left through Daryl's secret way out and started tracking a deer that had walked close to the forest's edge. Closing in on it you came across the spot where he had you cornered and almost attacked you, causing you to stop in your tracks and freeze up all of a sudden. The area was nothing special, just a small spot with no low bushes and some large trees. The thing that set you off were the claw marks that were now as clear as day on a lot of the surrounding trees, showing just how much strength was behind those claws. You didn't hear Daryl call for you and you didn't realise he had taken down the deer by now without much of your help in the end. "Hey," He called again, not getting a reply and put a hand on your shoulder causing you to jump. "Ya alright there?" He looked concerned at first, but there was something else underneath. You shook your head to get out of your daze. "Yeah I'm good. Sorry." You apologised without really knowing what there was to apologise for. You didn't even realise you had frozen that bad. Daryl looked around him and only now really connected the dots. He let out a sigh as he walked over to you, showing you his hand. "S'normal again now. See?" He held his hand up, turning it so you could get a good look. "I aint hurtin' ya." It was more than just a statement to him. This was a promise he was going to keep no matter what would happen from now on. You accepted his words and agreed to move back to the prison with your freshly hunted deer.

After you both finished your morning routines, Daryl walked over to your cell, asking you to follow him outside. The two of you walked back to the shed behind the building and sat down to talk properly this time. It wasn't that you were scared anyone, it was more of an anxious 'what if' feeling that kept gnawing at your thoughts. How were you gonna be sure he wouldn't get angry at a wrong question or what if you couldn't agree with something he insisted was right? "Hey," was all he said to get you out of your thoughts again. "Yer almost panicking here. Ya still scared of me." It wasn't a question but more of a statement and truth be told, he was right after all. You were scared of your friend and you had no idea how to change that. You didn't want to be but the feeling was still there, it kept eating at you that there was a chance that you'd do something wrong enough for him to snap. Being unable to stop those thoughts, the tears joined rapidly after. You didn't know what t say or how to even stop crying but you knew that letting out the emotions was a good way to show that you had no clue how to handle all of this and needed the help. Daryl wasn't sure what exactly to do but he knew that touching you wasn't going to help. He had brought his pack and dug around for some leftovers that he didn't finish before turning last night and offered what he found. You accepted the food and kept in in your lap, being unable to eat anything while you were still crying. You mumbled a thankyou and moved over to Daryl, dropping yourself onto him and letting him know you were okay with him getting closer and you weren't afraid of him touching you when he wasn't angry. Daryl was surprised with this turn of events, it was a turn for the better at least. "Can ya tell me what's up? Cus' this shows ya ain't scared of this me at least." He didn't want to pry but he had to get at least something out of you now that you had some privacy. You were still softly sobbing but it had gotten less already. Taking deep breaths helped to calm down, and having Daryl's arms around you now in a protective manner was really getting rid of most of your fear. "You scared me last night." This was the first time Daryl had to go through something like this. Yes, he had to tell others in the group about his issue and it ended in Rick almost shooting him during a full moon before Daryl saved his life, and Carol hadn't spoken to him for days after she saw him turned but she came to his cell on her own to apologise and accept him for what he was. He also hadn't attacked either of them. Not that he really touched you, but he scared you enough for you to pass out, and again afterwards in the shed enough to make you cry almost twice.

"I ain't hurtin' ya, ever." He said again, hoping to convince both you and himself because truthfully he had no idea if he was ever going to hurt her if he wasn't in control."I like you. This is all new." Small sentences were your way to go for now and Daryl accepted that immediately. He nodded and hummed in approval of your confession, hugging you a bit closer and moving to sit more comfortable. "I like ya too. Tha's why ya ended up in that shed." You let out a huff of laughter at that, making it sound like he had some other plans if you hadn't passed out. "Ya I was gonna tell ya all this, but now ya saw everythin' already.." He wanted to talk, but he had no clue where to go at all, nothing that he wanted to say felt like the right words so he opted for a question. "Wha'cha think of all this?" He motioned at the shed and the cleared off area and himself as well, hoping that your answer would spark some more conversation and solutions.

Sighing, you thought hard about your words. Some things popped into your head and before you could lose your thought again you spoke. "I'm good with it. You're good and you're you and you kept me safe, you know." He did know. He knew he kept you safe last night, but the words that hit him the hardest were the ones no one had told him before. He was still him, even if he looked different or had a second nature that could be dangerous, he was still him. "Thanks for tha', girlie." You were regaining your smile and laughed. "Yeah, my friend's a dog. what's your story huh." You joked laughing out loud. It was a sound Daryl had heard before when you and Carol were on tasks together and laugher would fill the prison hall. He couldn't get enough of it.

"So, yer okay with bein' here with me? Gotta admit ya kept me calm last night." He now wasn't looking at you but at the ground and you were sure you could see a small blush creep up on his face. "Daryl," You turned in his lap so you could look at his face properly. You took his face in your hands to make sure he wasn't going to look away. "I'll stay with you for as long as you need." You made your statement as clear as you could possibly make it, hoping he'd understand everything behind those words. "Hell, I'm just gonna say this now before I lose the courage.." You took a last deep breath and just went for it. "I've kinda wanted to ask you if you'd want me as your girlfriend, but all of this happened before I got a chance to but you have to know I still want that, even after learning all of this."

Now it was Daryl's turn to laugh happily and pull you close to him, nuzzling your cheek and accepting your request with more glee than you had ever seen on him. "I love ya." He admitted finally, kissing your cheek to not overstep his boundaries in true Daryl fashion.

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon imagine #twd #twd x reader #twd imagine #the walking dead #the walking dead imagine #the walking dead x reader #twd daryl #imagine #x reader #twd fanfiction #fanfic #sometimes I write

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st4rlabsforever · 3 years

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post-episode 3 fix-it

words: 2.9k

notes: i started a long fic based on this post after watching ep 3. i cannibalized some snippets from another fic i wrote last week so if you see similar scenes, that’s why. i think this will end up being 12-15k words endgame sambucky by the end, but i refuse to post on ao3 until it’s complete. this is the first 3 scenes. feel free to comment and message me your thoughts since i’m still very much in the writing phase :)

summary: “It’s the kind of statement that should be screamed into Bucky’s face, but he’s learning that when Sam’s angry – when he’s truly angry – he’s just as soft-spoken as he is when he’s in one of his pensive moods. And he lets his anger build and build and build until it bursts in spectacular fashion.”

“I didn’t back Steve on the Sokovia Accords,” Sam says unprompted one day. They’re so close to apprehending the Flagsmashers and wrapping up this ridiculous saga.

“I don’t follow,” Bucky says.

“I was the one who refused to sign it first. Not Steve.”

Sam says it so softly that Bucky has to strain to hear him. Sam is loud and chatty and half the time he keeps up a constant stream of chatter just to get on Bucky’s nerves, but Bucky’s coming to realize that when he really wants to make himself heard, he’s soft spoken and mild. Bucky doesn’t entirely follow his train of thought, though.

The thing is, Sam is unreadable when it really matters. He offers words of comfort where needed – in Germany, after seeing Walker with the shield that wasn’t his, knowing that it had affected Bucky just as much as himself; in Madripoor, Bucky’s hand on the throat of some henchman or other, Sam’s hand on his when the Soldier’s memories threatened to overtake him; even in Riga, when Bucky’s guilt over releasing T’Chaka’s killer bubbled to the surface and Sam had checked in with him even though he couldn’t have possibly known about Bucky’s meeting with Ayo. Sam speaks with his eyes, always a searching look that leaves Bucky raw and feeling like he’s been x-rayed. I see you, is what those eyes say.

In contrast, Bucky’s words of comfort feel hollow. He knows that Isaiah is still a live wire for Sam, checks in with him after Madripoor when he can tell the conversation with Nagel weighs heavy on his mind. But he doesn’t see the way Sam does. He knows he’d missed something important because that conversation had ended in an argument and a threat from Sam to destroy the shield.

He never gets a chance to ask Sam what he’s getting at, because Torres signals to them that they’re at the drop point before all hell breaks loose.

***

In the end, after Karli and the Power Broker and whoever else decides to show their head from the emporium of supervillains are dealt with and they finally have a moment of peace, Bucky says, “The shield looks good on you.”

Sam freezes a few paces ahead of Bucky, the shield strapped loosely to his wrist.

“We make a good team,” Bucky says softly.

What he doesn’t expect is for Sam to whirl around suddenly. The look of barely restrained fury is enough to nearly knock Bucky off he’s feet. They fight without ever really fighting all the time, squabbles over who went left and who went right and who was supposed to lead and who was supposed to follow, but never has he seen Sam look like this before. The fury verges on hurt and it’s so fucking visceral that Bucky can barely breathe.

“You don’t get to say that,” Sam says quietly. His voice shakes and he closes his eyes like he’s steadying himself.

“I said I’d squash it until the mission was over, and I did. But you know what? I’m not doing this anymore.”

“Sam–”

“You don’t get to tell me what a good team is. Not after all the shit we just went through. You invited yourself to Munich, and I thought, ‘Fine. I could use the extra set of hands.’ We went through it together against Thanos and I respected that.”

Sam shakes his head. “But then you went off on some lone wolf woe-is-me bullshit, and look at where it got us. You broke Zemo out without even asking if I was down with that. You knew I wasn’t and you forced my hand. Now I’m an accomplice.”

“He was our only lead–”

“Bullshit. That field trip to Madripoor led us right back to Karli. Torres ended up tracking them to Riga anyway.”

“But the Power Broker–”

“–showed his ugly face in the end. All we got out of Madripoor was you digging up your trauma and us getting our faces plastered all over the internet. I promised Sharon one goddamn thing and I can’t even deliver on that now.”

“But I went along with it, fine,” Sam continues. “I knew it couldn’t have been easy reaching back into that headspace, doing what you did to Selby’s men.” The memory blindsides Bucky. “So I tabled it.” Sam taps out a tally with his fingers.

“And back in Baltimore, you’d been too keyed up about Steve being wrong about you to even listen to what I had to say. Again, I tabled it.” Another tally.

“I’ve been meeting you halfway this entire time, man, and I’ve gotten near nothing in return. You kept Isaiah a secret from me, and at first I thought you were just clueless about how damn significant it would’ve been for me to know about him.” Sam shakes his head.

“But then we met him. You saw what they did to him. The one Black supersoldier – a fucking hero – and look what they did to him. You saw it with your own eyes and you still sat there and lectured me about what you thought I should’ve done with that goddamn shield.”

“There’s precedent for it, you know,” Sam says. It takes Bucky a moment to realize Sam is expecting an answer.

Bucky doesn’t know, is the thing. He feels like he’s all of five years old again, put on the spot. He’s reminded of when Zemo just had to let him know about the African American experience; he’d felt chastised and embarrassed enough to pretend like he’d had any clue what themes lurked in Marvin Gaye’s work. Sam just searches him with those eyes, searches Bucky for something yet unfathomable and decides he hasn’t found it. That hurts more than anything else; Bucky wishes he could sink into the ground, make himself as small as possible. Sam doesn’t notice, or else doesn’t care, and just plows on with a scoff.

“You don’t even know the true history of the country you’re living in. Figures.” He shakes his head. “You’re not ever going to be able to separate the shield from the history Black folks have endured at the hands of this country. Not now, not ever.”

Sam doesn’t even look angry anymore. Angry, Bucky can deal with. It would be a relief, even.

Instead, Sam looks at him with a disappointment that somehow surpasses what Steve could have ever accomplished.

“Whatever. I tabled that, too,” Sam says. “And then after Madripoor, after we heard that doctor go on and on about Isaiah’s blood like he wasn’t even a real human-being? I said my piece and all you did was throw that shield bullshit back in my face.”

“Sam–” Bucky tries again. He’s mortified to hear the crack in his own voice.

“It’s honestly breathtaking,” Sam says with something that might be akin to genuine wonder, or maybe even morbid curiosity in his voice. “We saw the same things in Baltimore and Madripoor, but your head was so far up your own ass that you never once stopped to think all of it was just proof to me. That the shield in the hands of a Black man wouldn’t make any damn sense.”

It’s the kind of statement that should be screamed into Bucky’s face, but he’s learning that when Sam’s angry – when he’s truly angry – he’s just as soft-spoken as he is when he’s in one of his pensive moods. And he lets his anger build and build and build until it bursts in spectacular fashion.

Sam’s not even done yet. “And that’s another thing. Stealing the shield from Walker…” Sam rolls his eyes at the memory. “You want to run around with that giant frisbee, fine. That’s your business. But then you forced it on me–”

“That’s not fair,” Bucky says immediately. Desperately. “You didn’t have to accept it.”

“The whole damn country was watching,” Sam says hotly. “It was either accept it, or shit all over Steve fucking Rogers’s legacy and make myself into the villain half the country was already hoping I’d turn out to be.”

“You were dead wrong for that,” Sam says. “I stuck around until we took down Karli because it was the right thing to do. After Munich, though, this little adventure was all you. Zemo, Madripoor, the shield.”

Sam shoves the shield into Bucky’s arms, the impact so sudden that it forces him back a step.

“Since you’re so obsessed with this thing, it’s yours. Congrats,” Sam says sarcastically. “I’m sure you’ll do it proud.”

Bucky lets out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

“For what it’s worth,” Sam says, “Steve might not have understood everything about me. But in Vienna, when it came time to sign the accords? He was considering it. I put my foot down first and he listened.”

Sam shrugs. “Whatever you thought we were, it's not a team.”

Bucky knows where to drive the knife in to kill a man in as few twists of the wrist as possible – a brutal economy of movement and technique. But Sam...it pales in comparison to what Sam’s capable of. His weapons aren’t knives and his targets may not be made of flesh and blood, but he knows exactly where he needs to strike to rip Bucky open raw. Bucky feels like he’s been flayed alive.

“How about that long vacation?” Sam says, and claps Bucky on the shoulder.

And we’ll never have to see each other ever again goes unsaid.

Fuck.

***

The thing about ignoring Sam’s texts was that Bucky responded if they were actually important. It just so happened that most of the nonsense Sam sent was inane prattling about his day, about his job, his sister, his nephews. Now that he’s on the receiving end of it, though, it feels awful.

3/25/21, 2:58 AM

I’m sorry.

Delivered

3/28/21, 1:51 AM

Can we talk?

Delivered

3/31/21, 3:05 AM

Let me know what to do and I’ll do it.

Read 3:34 AM

4/1/21, 12:42 AM

Or if there’s anything you need.

Read 1:05 AM

Yesterday, 1:00 AM

I’m available if you need another body for a mission.

Read 1:02 AM

A week into the admittedly one-sided exchange, Sam turns his damn read receipts on. It’s ridiculous and it’s fucking asinine and it gets under Bucky’s skin immediately. It’s a form of twenty-first century psychological warfare that he’s unfamiliar with and already can’t stand. Mainly, he hates that it makes him seem desperate (he’s not), needy (he might be, especially when he realizes with horror that he actually misses Sam’s rambling texts), and ridiculous (he definitely is, because he’s letting petty mind games get to him).

Normally, Sam would send him nearly daily updates on his comings and goings – whether he’d been in New York, D.C., or New Orleans. The radio silence is unsettling. Bucky wonders if Sam made good on his promise to take a long vacation. And then....

The thing about apologies is that Bucky isn’t sure he’s ever done a proper one in his entire life, at least nothing beyond a rote “I’m sorry” with the “let’s move on” part left unspoken. But it stands to reason, Bucky thinks, that a proper apology can’t be given if he’s not completely certain what he’s dealing with. That’s all well and good because he’s got the world at the tips of his fingers, is what Yori always said. And when he grows frustrated with reading on his tiny phone screen, the New York Public Library is only a train ride away.

Sam had mentioned precedent, so Bucky’s first search is for medical experimentation. He knows for a fact he was good at this once, a memory of Steve whining about him being too good at exams coming up unbidden. He reads voraciously. Anything and everything that might offer a clue on what he’d missed. And it doesn’t take long for him to find what he’s looking for.

He reads with dawning horror. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Eugenics. God, the fucking Nazis had even modeled their race science on the American school of thought. The things that the history books left out. Some of it was even happening under his nose in the 30s, he’d just been blissfully unaware. He somehow ends up down a rabbit hole where words like `prison industrial complex’ and `school-to-prison pipeline’ make increasingly more persistent appearances. New Jim Crow. COINTELPRO. War on drugs. The way all of these horrors reached their long arms into the twenty-first century.

Bucky’s going to be sick. The memories come up one after another.

Just give him your ID so we can leave.

You think you can wake up one day and decide who you want to be? It doesn’t work like that. Well, maybe it does for folks like you.

So you’re telling me that there was a Black supersoldier decades ago and nobody knew about it.

This is what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to come here in your over-extended life and tell me about my rights.

The shield wasn’t yours to give away.

He spends the next week in his downtime reading. With the mission being over and his parole in jeopardy, his downtime mostly coincides with every day of the week.

Had Steve known?

No, he thinks. Steve was compassionate, but he wouldn’t have known because he’d taken one look at the problems of twenty-first century America and decided he’d had enough. Then he’d ran back to the 40s to live out some fantasy that simply didn’t – couldn’t – exist anymore. Had he eventually become aware of all the issues plaguing this country that they’d been able to ignore as starry-eyed kids in Brooklyn? Bucky hopes not, because that would mean he’d...no.

A part of Bucky thinks he’s so surprised because he’d thought things – race relations, civil rights, not things, his brain amends – had been getting better in the 40s. Deep down, though, he knows that’s a lie. A 2 AM read through Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States confirms it. Shady politicians. Klansmen who went back to their day jobs as cops, judges, firefighters. Mass incarceration taking its place as the new king on the throne of segregation. Evidently,

There had been plenty of folks – white folks – raising an uproar about these hidden horrors back then. The seeds of those movements had even been there in the 30s. Bucky tells himself that he’d been raised during the Great Depression, that his family had been too focused on putting food on the table to focus on social movements, but that, too, ends up being a lie. The poorest and working class whites – some, at least – in movement and solidarity with civil rights. Not him, though. Apparently he’d had his head up his ass back then, too.

Bucky can see the bigger picture a tiny bit more clearly, now.

Fine. So he’s been disarmed of the little lies he’d used as shields, and he also owes Sam one hell of an apology.

Somehow, he doesn’t think “I’m sorry, I was ignorant then but I read some books and now I know better” is going to cut it. Maybe a commitment to do better would work? Perhaps after Baltimore, but not now. That ship had long since sailed. Some grand act of service, then? He’s sure he can think of something Sam needs in this post-Blip world that he can provide. He vaguely remembers Sarah mentioning something about a ship and bank loan. That could be a starting point.

It doesn’t take much time to find the public records on the Wilson family business and then the not-so-public records on the denied bank loan. It wouldn’t take much for him to pry a little, not when seedy bankers were astonishingly amenable to the threat of violence. But he’s reminded of Zemo and figures that he ought not to do anything so drastic that could jeopardize Sam’s family situation further.

He snorts. Did growth that came several months late still count?

In the end, he decides to rip the bandage off quickly, which is how he finds himself in the sticky Louisiana heat with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, staring back at an incredulous Sam through his open door.

“I did some reading recently,” Bucky says.

“Hmm.”

It’s not outright refusal, so Bucky continues.

“About, um, the things you mentioned last time. Precedent.”

“Huh.”

For someone who’s normally so expressive with his language, Sam’s one-word answers as nerve-wracking as anything.

“I didn’t fully appreciate the situation that you were in. That you’re still in,” Bucky amends.

Sam shrugs. “It’s cool,” he says in a way that doesn’t sound like he really believes it. Bucky wonders if this is a test; he feels just as lost as he did on that plane a week ago.

“Let’s do this outside,” Sam says, closing the door behind him and ushering Bucky away from it. “Walk with me.”

They head down to the pier mostly in silence until Bucky breaks it. “I’m sorry for making it all about me,” he says.

Sam stares at him. It’s true Bucky might stare a little too much on occasion, but Sam’s stares are utterly unnerving in the way he seems to see right through Bucky when he really wants to, like he’s already mapped out all there is to know.

#sambucky #sam wilson #Bucky Barnes #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws spoilers

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rinrinp42 · 3 years

Text

The Red Planet

For the first day of @jangobiweek, Enemies to Lovers (though it more ended up pre-relationship). It did end up longer than I expected, also there’s violence

Jango wanted to rub his temples, but he trusted Priest about as far as a Hutt could throw. At least outside of being on contract together. He had only tracked the di’kut down because he was a good soldier. Same with Reau. Ward was better but also could just fade into the background to the point that it’d be hard to pinpoint what jobs he’d been on.

But then, the four of them being on this planet was Priest’s fault so honestly, it might not have been worth it. The damn di’kut demanded they go to Ord Radama before heading to Kamino and then the solar storm hit and scrambled the nav. And now they had crashed on this planet.

This… weird, maybe abandoned planet? There were old building overtaken by plants and a few other old crashed ships. Jango wasn’t even sure they were in the same system anymore.

“Hello there!” a voice cut through the cold air.

All four Mandalorians whirled to face the voice.

It was a Jetii, fresh from their kriffing temple. His red hair was that growing out from a buzz that indicated he was recently a Padawan.

“Jetii,” Priest growled.

“I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. It would seem we all were caught in that solar storm,” the Jetti grinned at them.

Jango glowered beneath his buy’ce before taking a fortifying breath. He was starting the process to get his revenge.

“So, it would seem,” Jango spoke.

The Jetii was silent for a moment.

“Well then, I will let you be,” he spoke then and then turned away.

Reau made a sound of disgust that Jango felt in his soul. Jetii arrogance.

They found a ship that might just have a part that could be jury-rigged to get them off the planet, but it had taken them hours. And there was something about this abandoned planet that was making Jango’s skin crawl under his kute. He and Priest had gone in the old ship to search the parts while Reau and Ward stayed outside to keep an eye out.

Just because they hadn’t seen anyone since the Jetii left didn’t mean that there was no one else there. Especially as they kept hearing things moving just out of sight. Even if it was weird that they couldn’t pick up anyone on the scanners.

“I don’t think this’ll work,” Priest finally sighed, “the parts you said we’d need to connect it are missing. Maybe if one of the other ships had something similar but…”

He was right, damnit. That was the problem with having an experimental ship, the parts were sometimes so specific that he had limited options to repair it or he needed more parts than otherwise to make it work.

“There’s the buildings we haven’t gotten to,” Jango pointed out, “we should probably look there for extra parts. I think I say a port when we were crashing.”

No need to explain why he hadn’t aimed for the port in the first place. Priest had also seen the plant life that had creeped violently through the buildings. The tundra like area they ended up in was better in the lack of hidden dangers for the ground.

When they exited it was to Reau scanning the horizon. She was carefully moved her gaze from ship to ship as if she would miss something miniscule if she went to fast.

“Reau?” Jango prompted, his own hand coming up to flick on his scanners.

“Ward’s gone,” she spoke quietly, “we were circling to keep an eye on everything and he didn’t meet back up with me. At first I thought he had seen something and slipped off to investigate but he hasn’t shown back up.”

That… that was unsettling. Ward wasn’t someone Jango was particularly close to but he knew the other man well enough that he wouldn’t expect Ward to not check in. And Slave I was unusual enough that there was no chance of Ward finding the right piece to get off. Especially given that Jango had a secondary part that needed to be plugged in to leave given he didn’t actually trust any of them.

“Which side was he on?” he asked, mind already racing.

Reau nodded towards the buildings, “that side.”

Well, guess they were checking out the port then.

They were about halfway there when the Jetii showed up again. This time he was disheveled, thrown off by something. He paused when he spotted them, eyes raking over them.

He swore violently when he saw Ward was missing. The type of swearing that even without knowing the Jetii Jango could tell was out of place coming from him.

“How long has your friend been gone? Did you see him get taken?”

“What’s it to you-” Jango could hear the sneer in Priest’s voice and rolled his eyes.

Was Jango the only one that didn’t let his hatred of Jetiise cloud his mind? Obviously, he had run into something.

“Reau, tell him,” he ordered.

She stiffened and threw a glare through her buy’ce at him but answered.

The Jetii ran a hand threw his hair.

“Listen, this planet,” he spoke, eyes scanning the area around them restlessly, “it’s filled with some sort of, I don’t know, twisted organisms? They don’t act like normal for their species and they…”

His eyes met Jango’s through the visor.

“We weren’t the only ones to crash here due to that storm. They consumed the others. Turned them to be like them. At least those that they didn’t eat.”

Jango felt a chill go down his spine. He didn’t know why he trusted the Jetii, but he did. It was insane, but…

“We can’t leave,” he said, “our ship broke when we were landing.”

The Jetii nodded, “mine as well. Maybe we can cannibalize my ship for your’s? Work together to get off of this planet? We can part ways after that.”

Jango hesitated. He didn’t want to work with the Jetii, even if he believed what he said. Yet the Jetiise had new ships than what they had been seeing.

“Fine. Lead the way.”

“So, why’s a Jetii all the way out in the Esstran System?” Reau asked, “isn’t it a bit close to the Sith Worlds for your lot?”

Of course she couldn’t help but to poke at the Jetii. Jango really shouldn’t have expected better of her.

“It was the Sith Worlds that I came out here for,” the Jetii said, “I was trying to find information on a Sith.”

Great. A Jetii scholar. Probably didn’t do battle often then.

“The last mission I went on with my Master we were attacked by a Sith as we were protecting the Naboo Queen. Given that the Sith have been gone for centuries, it raised questions.”

Priest paused at that, and Jango almost joined him.

“You mean there are dar’jetiise in the Galaxy again?” Priest demanded.

Jango wanted to know as well, a sliver of unease digging into his mind, replaying every meeting he had had with his employer.

He might despise the Jetiise for the hand they had in the destruction of the Haat Mando’ade, but the dar’jetiise had used Mando’ade, had made their culture into a puppet to be directed by them, had pushed them into much that, in retrospect, had weakened them. Historically allies meant, in truth, used and abused by the dar’jetiise.

And Jango had a feeling he had walked into yet another trap set by them blinded as he was with a lust for vengeance. And, a voice not unlike Jaster’s whispered in the back of his mind, look what it has already led you to do. Who you choose to work with.

The Jet- Kenobi turned back, mouth opening to reply.

It was cut off as something tackled Priest down, clawing at his beskar’gam.

It had once been human, that much Jango could tell. But now? Now it was emancipated beyond anything he had seen, skin tight to its bones except where he could see vines writhing underneath.

Reau screamed in rage, bringing her blasters to arm and started to shoot.

Kenobi grabbed both Jango and Reau and yanked them back.

“They travel in packs; we need to move.”

Reau kept shooting as Kenobi tried to pull them along, eyes darting around, tense. Sure enough, others joined the being in tearing Priest open like he was a lobster.

Jango pulled his arm out of Kenobi’s grip and tossed Reau over his shoulder, carrying her as she kept shooting.

“Get us to your ship Kenobi!” Jango ordered.

Honestly, kriff this entire planet. If he could he would destroy it just to make sure no one else had to deal with this.

Kenobi gave one sharp nod and moved forward. It took a while for Reau to stop firing and then she just snarled at him to put her down and was silent.

The Jedi Starfighter Kenobi had was a Delta-6 Sprite, luckily. Jango had retrofitted parts of one for Slave I before.

They quickly stripped the parts they needed out.

“Can you use your Jetii powers to carry that?” Jango asked, mind racing for how to get them back to Slave I.

“Yes, but I won’t be much use in a fight if I do so.”

“That’s fine. You stay in the middle. I’ll take point, Reau’ll bring up the rear. We need to get back to my ship quickly and get off. I don’t like our chances with those things the longer we linger.”

They both nodded.

They encountered two more packs on their way back. One they were able to avoid, seeing them a while off and diverting around some of the crashed ships. They were tense the whole time, Kenobi keeping the parts as close to himself as possible, and they moved slowly. But the pack wandered off, searching for meat elsewhere.

They weren’t able to avoid the second pack though. That one spotted them between clumps of ships. It also had a transformed Ward. But it seemed as though Ward had taken down much of the pack before they got him, as it was only numbering 3.

Jango was able to shoot down one of them, a Zeltron in the tattered remains of black robes before they got close enough that he had to bark at Reau to join him in taking them on.

The things moved fast enough that they couldn’t get either down before they were too close for blaster fire. Not with allies there as well and Ward still in beskar’gam, though missing one [pauldron]

Jango was able to push Ward back some with his flamethrower, the flames pulling an inhuman screech from Ward. He kept trying to put himself between Ward and Kenobi, hoping to hold off long enough for Reau to finish off the other one and help him take down the now-inhuman Ward.

Reau, on the other hand, pulled out a kad to keep the other one back. That one, a blond humanoid, didn’t seem bothered by the various cuts Reau landed on them.

Reau was able to end it though, when she impaled the thing and it pushed her down. It sank down on top of her, her kad going through it more and more. It tore at her as she struggled to keep it away. Its hands catching on and ripping her kute before she pulled one of her blasters out. She pressed it to the thing’s head and pulled. It toppled over, still.

At the same time, Kenobi twisted around Jango and with a hum, his blue jetii’kad cut through Ward at the neck.

Kenobi immediately deactivated his jetii’kad as Ward fell over as well.

Jango wasn’t sure how he felt about a jetii’kad killing another Mando’ad, but.

But Kenobi had just saved his life.

“We need to move,” was the only thing he could think to say.

It was lucky. They were close to Slave I.

They hurried there. Jango and Kenobi worked quickly and efficiently to install the parts, patching what they could.

Jango handed Kenobi the piece he had taken from the cockpit and told him to start up the ship as he grabbed Reau.

He found her outside, stripping her beskar’gam off.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“My kute was ripped,” she said, “that thing bled on me. I won’t risk exposing the rest of the galaxy to whatever is on this planet.”

She hesitated then, looking at him. It was a look filled with too much that he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“You would have been a great Mand’alor,” she told him, “make sure my family knows I fought bravely. Give them back my beskar’gam.”

Her lips quirked then, “maybe apologize that I couldn’t send back my blasters and kad. I want to take as many of these [fuckers] out as I can once you two are gone.”

“’lek.”

It was all he could offer her.

He closed the hatch then.

“It’s just you and me,” he told Kenobi as he joined the Jetii in the cockpit, “Reau is staying. She thinks she’s infected.”

“Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la,” Kenobi murmured.

Jango closed his eyes and the ship took off.

It was going to take a while to figure out where to go once they were free of this planet and Jango had some decisions to make about what to tell this Jetii.

Because he was going to tell him. He refused to be a pawn to the dar’jetii and Kenobi…

Obi-Wan Kenobi cared.

#My writing #jangobi week 2021 #jangobi #jango fett #obi wan kenobi #tbf this more ended up a pre-jangobi #zombies #tw: character death #dred priest #isabet reau #llats ward #mace sent obi off to look into maul and give him time to mourn #and also adjust anakin to the temple #jangobiweek2021

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the-homicidediaries · 3 years

Text

Issei Sagawa

“Sometimes I wonder why I did such a horrible thing. Maybe it’s because I come from another planet, or another dimension and accidentally fell to Earth like a meteorite, disguised as a baby crying on the street. My mother walked by and took pity on me. I must have come from a place of cannibals, and I’m the only one of my kind who exists on this planet.”

Good afternoon, everyone who takes the time to read this!

Today, I have the very displeasure of telling you about one of the most.. bizarre human beings I have ever read about.

I have been interested in true crime ever since I could remember. My father is really interested in it as well, so growing up there were always books laying around about the worst of the worst kind of people. Even to this day, my dad and I share stories we heard or a new podcast we listened to or swap books; it’s real fun. And when you are heavily interested in true crime, you hear and see so many similar stories. This person had an abusive childhood and became a serial killer, this person was not longer interested in being a family man so he killed his whole family and moved away to start a new life, this person was strung out on drugs, this person caught her husband cheating on her and stabbed him as a crime of passion, etc. And while I am not downplaying or excusing these murders AT ALL, because no one should be murdered, I do find myself skipping stories like that. They don’t check my boxes.

Cannibals check my box. And I have, admittedly, unconsciously, been surrounding myself with cannibalistic aspects. I just finished (another) three part podcast about Jeffrey Dahmer, I’m reading My Friend Dahmer, and watching Attack on Titan like my life depends on it. (Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga series turned into a long running anime about three conjoined towns who are constantly being attacked and eaten by the HUGE human-like zombie creatures, but that is for another day.)

Have I rambled enough? Yes. Yes, I think so. Let’s get into ittttt.

Issei Sagawa, known as Pang or The Kobe Cannibal, was born on April 26th, 1949 in Kobe, Japan to a very wealthy family. Issei has said himself that his childhood was the happiest time of his life and he was a carefree child. He said his parents love him deeply. One thing to note about Issei is that he was born prematurely (and he looks.. off) and doctors did not think he would survive. Issei said because of this, he has always seen himself as an undesirable person. So, instead of friends, Issei had books! Because his family was so wealthy, Issei was afforded an incredible education and was able to travel all over the world and learn about music, art, literature, etc. He was very interested in art. This will come back around later.

So how does a rich, seemingly normal, intelligent child become a cannibal? Issei contributes a few things to this: *Issei said his first cannibalistic urge happened when he was in first grade and saw a fellow classmate’s thighs. *Issei said sex was a taboo subject around his household. He said when he had reached a certain age, he began having erections, like all boys do, but he thought he was sick and was too embarrassed to tell anyone. He didn’t know how to relieve himself at this time.. soooo. He, uh, got help from his dog. Yeah. Yeeeah. (I watched an interview he did with Vice about ten years ago, which I will link below, and watching him describe this so nonchalantly made me the most uncomfortable. Actually, he is nonchalant the entire interview and it’s so disturbing and uncomfy. At one point he says, “I think my sexual desires began to distort around that time.” Yeah, I would say so, buddy.) *Issei said he would have a reoccurring dream where he and his brother were being boiled in a large pot to be eaten. Issei said he flipped the script and began to fantasize about what it would be like to eat someone. As with most premeditated killers, his fantasies escalated from curiosity to behavior. *Issei was obsessed with western women. He said they are tall and beautiful and he has described himself as a “weak, ugly, and small man”. In an interview after what he keeps calling an “incident”, Issei claimed one of the reasons he consumed human flesh was to “absorb her energy”.

Issei said he did practice a good amount of restraint for his cannibalistic urges until his college years. While attending Wako University in Tokyo, Issei said he saw a beautiful, blonde, German woman walking by and he was “dazzled by her white thighs”. One day, he broke into this woman’s apartment on the ground floor. He said his plan was to hit her in the head with an umbrella so he could get a knife from her kitchen and cut into her buttocks and eat it. He was extremely hesitant and his knees accidentally brushed against her stomach, waking her up. She screamed and Issei fled. Police charged him with attempted rape. Issei said he did explain to psychiatrists about his sexual urges but they didn’t consider it cannibalism and let him go.

After this, Akira (his father) sent Issei to study comparative literature at Sorbonne University in France in 1981. In the interview, as Issei is recalling this, he said his mother had the an extremely sad look on her face the day he was leaving, “like she knew something horrible was going to happen”. (I could think of a reason why.)

Issei had not forgotten about how close he had gotten to fulfilling his fantasy of eating a European woman back in Tokyo. He was convinced if he was more prepared he could follow through with it flawlessly. He said when he moved to France, he would bring home a sex worker almost every night, but everytime he tried to shoot her, his fingers would freeze. While studying at Sorbonne University, Issei set his eyes on 25-year old Dutch student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei said Renée was so beautiful and he had never seen anyone like her before. (She really was stunning and looked like such a sweet person.) He also said he didn’t want to get caught staring at her, so he began making sketches of her. From what I read, and I do not know how accurate this is, the two started as friends and eventually Issei began to pursue Renée romantically. He would take her on dates to art museums and dinner. When he confessed his feelings for her, she insisted they just remain friends because she was not sexually attracted to him. So Issei lied to Renée and told her his professor wanted him to record some German poetry. Renée didn’t think anything about helping out a fellow classmate, so she was happy to come over and help. Issei said he picked out the poem she read, and as she was reading the poem out loud at his desk, he pulled a rifle out of a closet and shot her in the neck. He said she kept reciting the poem after he shot her, then she just.. stopped. Issei said he fainted after he shot her and when he came to he almost called an ambulance for her, but he knew he would regret it if he lost this opportunity to act out his fantasies.

I am going to quote Issei verbatim from his interview with Vice.

TRIGGER WARNING

“I lied to her that my professor wanted some German poetry recorded. That was the pretext. She didn’t doubt a thing. I chose the poetry. I reached for the gun while she was reading. I was talking to her with a smile on my face. I was really scared. Yet I did pull the trigger. She... kept on talking... until suddenly she fell silent. First she collapsed onto the desk, then fell to the ground with the chair. I laid a towel under her head then undressed her. I had everything planned out in my head from which part i would start feasting on and such. Starting with her ass. I thought it looked the most delicious. It had to be the right cheek, not the left. The left cheek is closer to the heart and I’m scared of blood. I abruptly bit into it, but it was too hard to bite into. It hurt my jaw. I tried cutting in with a fruit knife but it didn’t go through. I gave up and went to the market. I bought a curved meat knife. Finally it went through the flesh. I thought I’d see red meat right away, but there was a yellow corn-like substance, which I later found out was fat. I had to cut deeply to reach the red meat. I don’t remember if I sliced it off, or tore it off with my fingers. I put most of my favorite parts, like the thighs, in the fridge.”

My face right now.

He’s leaving out a lot of details on this.. right after he shot Renée, he had sex with her corpse. And, like I said before, he is so nonchalant about all of this. He ate a LOT of her. I saw a picture of eleven paper plates loaded with human flesh, muscles, and fat. Both of her breasts, her nose, her tongue, her bottom lip, and most of her lower half (her hips, middle of her stomach, and thighs) was missing. He did say he tried to eat her breast, but it was mostly fat and he didn’t enjoy it. Her buttocks, however, “(It) melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi restaurant.” He continued to try different parts of Renée’s body. He would fry pieces of her and eat other parts with mustard. He even decapitated her. He took pictures of Renée’s mutilated body and would have sex with it while listening to the recording of her reading the German poem.

For four days.

He mentioned how June is the hottest month in Paris and he was worried the body would start to rot. So he took Renée’s body to the bathroom and cut her up so he could get rid of it. (He also mentioned after finishing his graduate program, he wanted to go to Greece. He said he took a big luxurious boat and actually shared a table with a butcher and his wife during dinner. He said the butcher was a fat, jolly man and told him how to butcher meat. Issei wrote a letter to the butcher after “the incident” thanking him. He said the butcher never wrote back.)

One he had cut the body up into pieces, he placed the pieces into two suitcases and, made plans to dump the body in a lake in Bois de Boulogne, called in a cab. “It wasn’t easy getting the body into [the suitcases]. The torso is extremely heavy. It’s really hard to cut to begin with. It’s nothing like a horror movie.” When the cab driver picked up Issei’s suitcases to put them in the cab, he asked Issei if he had a dead body in them. (That tidbit made me really sad.)

Once Issei reached the lake, he pushed the suitcases down the slope. He vastly underestimated how light it still was outside at 8 pm. He said several people were sunbathing still. The sun was setting across the lake, and Issei said for the first time, he saw color. He was fascinated watching a young boy and his grandfather at the top of a hill and while he was distracted, another man came up, opened one of the suitcases, and saw a bloody bedsheet with legs wrapped in it. A woman screamed and someone else yelled, “Murderer!” Issei said he just walked away.

Issei was, of course, arrested. He was interrogated by three psychiatrists who deemed him mentally insane. Issei was sent to a criminal psych ward, but before he could even begin treatment, he was deported back to Japan because the French people were very uncomfortable with him being there at their expense. Once Issei arrived back in Japan, he mentioned the hospital he was staying at didn’t conclude that he was mentally ill, just that he had a personality disorder. Issei was forced to leave the hospital without undergoing any treatment. He did not serve any time in prison for ungodly crimes he had committed. Actually, in a weird turn of events, he became a local celebrity. He became an author, had several interviews, has illustrated mangas (that’s why I mentioned he loves art), made porn, and was even a food critic. He even travelled to Canada, Mexico, and Iceland with two friends of him. I don’t have time to cover all of that because that in itself could be a whole other essay, but like I said, I will link the YouTube video I watched below.

And that is the gruesome, awful, gut wrenching story of Issei Sagawa.

Below are pictures of Issei Sagawa and his victim, Renée Hartevelt. I am also linking the Vice interview on YouTube as well as the crime scene photos. Please view at your own risk.

Thank you for reading. <3

Crime scene photos: https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sagawa-issei-photos-2.htm Vice Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BosZxa1bYcE&t=336s

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alpaca-writes · 3 years

Text

Mystics, Chapter 28

When Arch becomes hired on at Mystics by the strange shopkeeper Lyrem Nomadus, everything seems to be going well- in fact, their life nearly becomes perfection. Soon enough, however, Arch realizes that perhaps not everything is as perfect as it seems….

Read Chapters 1-27 and more HERE

Taglist: @myst-in-the-mirror, @livingforthewhump

CW: gore mention, manhandling, violence.

Lyrem and Arch have an opportunity to catch up with one another in the Underworld.

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: GOOD INTENTIONS

Dragged up to his feet and through the halls of the caverns, Arthur didn’t resist. Lyrem followed closely behind.

“I cannot wait to see the look on Arch’s face when they find you torn open beneath them,” Paimon jeered on. “It would truly be the highlight of my life.”

“Arch would never hurt another person like that,” Arthur countered assuredly, “Not me, and not anyone, ever. Not unless they were being forced. You’re a liar.”

Lyrem scratched the back of his neck, keeping to himself. Paimon turned his head, expecting some response from his friend by now. Lyrem had convinced Arch to do innumerable misdeeds without anything more than an encouraging smile. He should be revelling in Arthur’s assumptions more than anyone.

But he wasn’t.

Paimon led the man down the spiral stairs and through the halls where the decaying creatures writhed in the shadows. Arthur shuddered as he saw them skittering about. They clearly wanted to come in close, but something was turning them off of the scent, causing them to fall back into the darkness where they could find it.

“Didn’t you hear me? The bet’s off if Arch is forced into it, even slightly,” Arthur imposed, despite being dragged along as though he weighed nothing, by a creature who had a foot on him in height. “I get it, you know. I get your games. What more can you do to turn innocent souls into monsters like Lyrem? You must have so much fun preying on desperate people”-

Lyrem opened a door across the hall from Apollo’s chamber, and allowed Paimon to push Arthur through. He stumbled in, cut off from his speech and grasped his leg that was giving him hell. He wasn’t finished. The rage boiled up inside him, threatening to overflow. They separated; Paimon pulled one of the shackled chains across the room.

“You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised that you’re a tainted evil son-of-a-bitch,” Arthur grimaced, eyeing Lyrem, “-especially after learning what you did to Rosanna. You’re a sick bastard, whether or not you serve a demonic god creature.”

Lyrem had found it mostly easy to keep himself calm up until this point- up until more specifically, he had heard that name. The memories that Hades and Persephone had pulled out of him were numerous and purposeful, but now he knew that they weren’t confidential either- how much had they been able to see that Lyrem hadn’t even realized? How much did they share with others?

He grasped Arthur by the neck, pushing him up against the wall.

“If you dare to speak my mother’s name one more time, I will destroy you right here, right now,” in the threatening calm, Lyrem’s eyes burned with a determined fire. “And you will never see Arch again. Is that understood?”

Arthur, while struggling against the old man’s surprising amount of strength for a dead man, looked back at him with a confused glare.

“Lyrem, my friend,” Paimon interceded with cuffs in his hands, “why don’t you check on our young protégé and make sure they aren’t sneaking about?”

“You stay the hell away from Arch, you sons of bitches”-

Lyrem stepped away from Arthur to fulfill Paimon’s request. the cuffs lashed out, snapping Arthur’s head to the side as he was met with the blunt force from Paimon who simply wanted him to remain quiet. As their captive fell to a crumpled heap against the wall, Paimon took the opportunity to fasten the cuffs to each wrist, and then turn the crank of the pulley system that would soon have him suspended a little ways off the ground. Feeling torn, Lyrem left Arthur there to suffer. It wasn’t like the man hadn’t already suffered enough- and with the recent quip he pulled out about his mother, Lyrem felt some vindication leaving him there.

Meanwhile, Arch was lost in their own world, wandering through the upper hallways with a discman in one hand and headphones attached to their ears. Paimon had offered them a selection of CDs from the Mortal Realm for them to enjoy and they did so quite frequently since they received it. Lyrem came upon them as he turned the corner up the stairs. They didn’t notice him at first, until he tapped their shoulder. They jumped, nearly a foot into the air, and pulled their headphones off. They let them rest around their neck. The sounds of Kula Shaker rocked the hall even through the headphones. Lyrem grimaced, it couldn’t be good for their ears.

“It helps with the alarm bells,” they reasoned aloud. “What’s up?”

“I was hoping we could talk,” Lyrem said, leading them further from the stairs and the caverns below. “It occurred to me that we haven’t had a moment to speak without Paimon around.”

Arch turned their head, scoping out for any sign of the demon, and then returned to Lyrem with an awkward smile.

“Why do we need to talk without him?” Arch chuckled through the question unnerved. “We didn’t do anything wrong, did we? Wait- did I?”-

Lyrem shook his head, “no, no. Of course, not.”

Arch swallowed back some nervousness and found themselves outside their bedroom door. They opened it, and let Lyrem inside.

“Cool. Okay, great. Then… what do you want to talk about?”

“You. I want to know how you are feeling… being here.”

Arch blinked. “Fine.”

They set down the discman onto a desk and then leaned against it, finding it difficult to meet his eyes which were looking at them increasingly more concerned as the seconds went by.

“I’m feeling fine,” they repeated. “… I thought… you would want me to be fine- to be happy here.”

“Oh, I don’t care about happy,” Lyrem spoke briefly as an aside. He smoothed out a corner of their crumpled-up bedspread and sat himself down. “Do you miss Earth? Do you miss your family?”

Arch’s face twisted; their nostrils flared. “No.”

They swallowed again. It happened a lot sometimes, when they knew that they’d need to maintain composure.

“Arch, it’s okay if you miss them. I won’t punish you for it.”

Taking a breath, Arch left Lyrem there, and found their way to the washroom. They closed the door and turned on the tap for some refreshing cold water. Lyrem waited until they emerged again, red faced from a towel that was used a bit too vigorously.

“Everything is fine, Lyrem,” they answered finally. “My uncle will miss me. But my mom is in the Labyrinth. She might never come back after what you did… and that’s… fine.” They managed, barely.

“She never liked me much anyway. At least here, I have two people- well, you and a demon- to look out for me. I don’t think I would ever have that anywhere else.”

Arch scratched the back of their neck as Lyrem listened in.

“And I’m going to learn more, right? Eat a few more hearts and Paimon thinks I might be able to manage some telekinesis. That would be pretty amazing, right?”

Lyrem stared at the floor.

“Right?” Arch sat themself beside him on the bed.

Lyrem turned. He found it difficult to bring himself to meet their gaze, but once he did, he was at a loss for words. Their eyes, which were once a young and rich mahogany were now strained and desperate with the knowledge and guilt of their actions. It had been a tiring game to pretend these things didn’t bother them- the crow’s feet beneath their eyelids told him as such.

“You need to go,” He nearly whispered.

“What?”

“You shouldn’t be here. You need to leave this place. You need to escape, Arch. I’ll do my best to help you. I have thought about a series of ways to help you leave, and only one is really a plausible scenario to execute with success, but”-

“H-hold on,” Arch’s brows furrowed. “What the hell are you saying? Is this… is this a test? Are you two testing me?”

Lyrem shook his head. “No, no. I would never trick you like that.”

“Then why are you saying this? This isn’t you”-

“Paimon is not who he says he is,” Lyrem said, meeting their eyes steadily. There was so much to explain. “He’s not a demon at all. The hearts that he gives you to eat, are not sources of power. He’s been lying to you.”

A shiver ran down Arch’s spine. As the meaning of Lyrem’s words sunk deeper, their fists clenched on their lap until their knuckles whitened.

“What do you mean they’re not sources of power?”

Lyrem fell silent which was highly inconvenient at the time.

“I asked you a question, Lyrem!”

His eyes snapped up to them. They had stepped off the bed in their fury and stuck the end of a fingernail in their mouth. They gnawed at it until it ripped the skin on one side and bled.

“Fuck,” Arch hissed and winced.

In all the rage, Lyrem remained calm and seated. “I am sorry Arch. I never knew either. But we have a chance to escape and we must take it.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Say again?”

“We don’t have a chance to escape. I signed myself over to Paimon. He can control everything I do.”

“A simple fix. We have to find that contract then and destroy it”-

“He’s already turned it to ash! It’s not just a piece of paper, it’s… everything. That’s why I’ve been doing what he wants. There’s no point in fighting it, Lyrem- not when he can just force me to do everything, anyway. I’ve already tried. I’ve… I’ve given up! I’m a torturer now, a cannibal, and that’s all I’ll ever be. I’ve come to accept it- just like you asked me to!”

Lyrem shook his head. “I shouldn’t have done that- it was wrong, and I put your life- your soul- in danger by doing so. I only wanted you to become the best version of yourself”-

“No, you didn’t!” they snarled in reply. “You were lonely! And you wanted to save your own skin! Don’t act like this was all some sort of mistake with good intentions! You are a monster and you made me one too. So, thanks a lot, man.”

Arch stepped into the washroom again to tend to their finger. They emerged, focusing solely on the small tissue that slowly turned pinker as they pressed it on. “By all means, you can try to escape. I don’t care what you do, but I’m cutting my losses here. Paimon’s too powerful to”-

Arch froze, seeing Paimon standing in the doorway.

“To what, sweet thing?”

Lyrem stood at the foot of the bed, also too shocked to move any further. Arch darted their eyes between them both. This was definitely not a test. As they stood frozen, without a word to say, Paimon walked slowly through the room, gaining the attention of Lyrem on the way.

“Paimon, please. I can explain”-

“Not another word from you, my friend.”

Lyrem remained silent.

Arch stood to attention for Paimon as they paced. He didn’t like it when they cried. Out of instinct to explain themselves, their head shook from side to side.

“I- I- I didn’t- I wasn’t going to”-

“I know,” Paimon finished for them. “It’s alright, Arch. I believe you.”

They breathed out in relief as Paimon’s hands cupped their face. He tilted his head down to plant a soft kiss on their forehead before turning away. Arch looked to Lyrem with concern and fear of what would happen next.

“But you, my friend…” Paimon tutted as he approached Lyrem. “You have yourself plenty of explaining to do.”

“Yes, I know, I”-

“But I care not for hearing it now.” Paimon interrupted. “I’ll have you strung up in the caverns below just like our other guests.”

For not having a working heart, Lyrem still felt as though his was pounding its way out of his chest. He wasn’t impervious to the anxieties that came with making a god angry- his last encounters with Hekate and Hades showed him that much- but they were kind in comparison. They were relatively understanding at minimum and patient with humankind. This was Paimon. He was vengeful, and wrathful, and he didn’t care for people.

“Please Paimon, just listen to me for a moment. We’ve done so much together and I have no intention on leaving, but Arch is… Arch is young and they deserve a chance to live their life the way they want it”-

Paimon squared himself up in front of Lyrem as he stumbled through his words and grinned sympathetically. He shook his head. Lyrem continued, knowing that he was losing the battle.

“-let’s not destroy their life before it’s even begun. Please, we- we’re friends, Paimon”-

Paimon let out a chuckle, which turned into a laugh. And he threw his head back in a burst of raucous amusement, causing Lyrem to silence himself once again.

“You think we are friends?”

Lyrem swallowed and regarded him seriously. “Well, yes. That is what we agreed”-

“You,” Paimon pointed at him, then poked him forcefully in the sternum, “are MY friend. That is what we agreed. I gave you Maria, and in exchange you agreed to be my friend. MINE. I am not and never have been your friend, Lyrem. Everything I did for you since then was out of the goodness of my heart.”

Paimon shot a quick glance to Arch who was still frozen in place, watching the spectacle unfold.

“Charitable, aren’t I?”

Arch nodded. Lyrem looked away from them in shame, thinking on the spot, and gripped the jeweled knife that he had pulled from Arthur.

“Cwsg sy”-

Lyrem collapsed to the floor before he could finish the sleeping spell on Paimon. He didn’t exactly expect it to work, but it was worth a shot. The knife clattered to the ground, as though returning itself to its rightful owner.

Arch didn’t pay attention and instead found themself at his side, wanting to support Lyrem’s head from the harsh ground as he landed. Paimon ushered them away before they could get a good look at the damage.

“I’m surprised by his stupidity. I taught that sleeping spell to the Fae myself hundreds of years ago,” he said, tutting. He glanced to Arch, whose knees raised to their chin. “And you, sweet thing, should get up off that dirty floor. It’s not where you belong.”

“Paimon, please don’t hurt him,” they begged, hardly hearing what he had just said.

He sighed out of frustration. “Stand up.”

They stood.

He snapped his fingers, and Lyrem’s soul/body vanished. “I’ve hurt him plenty already, I think. Now, from you,” he ran his long fingers through their soft hair, “I would appreciate just a little co-operation.”

They swallowed and nodded.

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scaryshortstories · 4 years

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The House

The old, battered house on the corner of Upland Drive and West Street, at the edge of the village I grew up in, always had a grim fascination for the children in the neighbourhood. There were all kinds of playground rumours about the nature of its occupants, from a family of cannibals who plucked unsuspecting victims from the street after midnight, to a lonely old man who had a crazed look about him and who could be seen peering from the upstairs windows on occasion, terrifying passers by with his unblinking stare.

Of course, the temptation to terrify your peers was too much to resist, and so my friends and I would, on occasion, be forced, on fear of humiliation, to sneak up to the front door, ring the doorbell, and stand on the front doorstep for as long as we dared before running off. I think the longest I managed was about 10 seconds before the indescribable noises growing louder from within the house became too terrifying to bear.

Another story that was passed around by the youth (and some of the parents, who frankly should have known better) was that poor Tom Brand, a timid child only a year younger than I was, who had died of some rare incurable childhood disease, was actually snatched by whomever occupied the creepy old building and was never seen again. Nobody really gave any credence to this theory, but it certainly added a frisson to the dares and challenges that occupied so many of the locals in the days before you could scare the shit out of your mates with a YouTube video.

Many years later, for reasons which aren't important now, I found myself back in the village, which was now more of a town, and while the creepy house was still there, and still seemingly occupied, it was no longer on the edge, and was overlooked by an estate that had appeared on what used to be fields on the other side of the road. The building had a charm about it that was accentuated by its condition - maintenance work had clearly been carried out throughout the years, so there were boards nailed over gaps in the tile roof to maintain a semblance of weather proofing, and broken window panes had chipboard stapled to the frame from within. There were still plenty of weeds in the garden, and no real lawn to speak of, yet it wasn't totally out of control.

I decided I would photograph the building, out of a combination of curiosity and nostalgia. I suspected many of my friends from the time we all lived here would be grimly fascinated to see how little it had changed in the intervening years. I took my phone out of my pocket and grabbed a quick eye level snapshot. Looking at the photo, I noticed a face in one of the upper windows. I'm not the sort of person who believes in ghost stories, so I looked up and, sure enough, there was someone watching me from upstairs. He looked like a frail old man, with wispy grey hair, watery eyes and thin lips, but there was a keen sense of intellect behind his face. He didn't look the least bit creepy; quite the opposite in fact, and gestured to me to wait where I was before disappearing back inside.

A few moments later the front door opened, and he appeared, grinning. 'Nick, isn't it?' he asked. "I remember you well - always out photographing things that nobody else noticed. I can just about forgive you for those doorbell pranks; I was young too once, hard as it is to believe, looking at me now." He waved his walking stick to emphasise the point. "You've hardly changed a bit!"

It was a while before I recognised him. "Mr... Anderson?" I offered.

He grinned. "Yes! Well remembered! Seems I haven't changed that much either!"

Mr Anderson had worked at the primary school I went to. He wasn't a caretaker as such, but he was quite handy with tools so would often help out with maintenance work where needed. From what I understood he volunteered his time for free - it gave him something to do in his retirement, and saved the school some money through not having to hire contractors to do the work. Looking at his house, and the state it was in, I was surprised to find that its occupant was someone who really ought to have been able to take more care of it.

He must have read my face and guessed what I was thinking. "I know, I know, I really should take more pride, right? But I have my reasons... hey, why don't I put on the kettle, and I can tell you what's been happening since you and your family left?"

I checked the time on my phone, hesitated for a few seconds, then thought, what the hell? Opportunities like this don't present themselves every day, and the chance to get to the bottom of all those unsavoury rumours and put them to bed was hard to turn down. I nodded, and walked in.

He showed me to an armchair in his front room. The interior of the house was pretty much what I expected from the outside - it was showing its age, but functional, with the minimum effort expended on every piece of repair work. Peeling wallpaper had been ignored, but socket in the wall had a screw missing but had been gaffer-taped in place. A hole in the wall where the light switch used to be had been covered by a piece of cardboard, and there was no bulb in the bare light fitting, suggesting that this room was not used much, if at all. The chair I was sat in had a distinct smell of age, and several holes in the upholstery had been darned up, but it served its function and was surprisingly comfortable.

I could hear the noises of Mr Anderson preparing drinks from the kitchen at the back of the house. "Tea or coffee?" he shouted back. I chose tea; I'd usually prefer coffee but didn't want to gamble on his choice of instant.

After a while he came back through with two cups, a pot of tea and a plate of Custard Creams. He poured the tea and placed the biscuits on a table in front of me - "Help yourself," he said, "I know they were your favourite!" When he saw the question on my face, he grinned and added: "Oh they were everyone's favourite back then!" That was a fair comment, so I helped myself to a couple. They were a bit soft, and had an odd metallic aftertaste, that I put down to age.

The tea was good, as was the conversation. Mr Anderson (it turned out his first name was Jens; he was Swedish by birth but had lived in England for as long as he could remember) told me all about the pranks he had had to endure back when we lived in the village. Doorbell ringing in the middle of the night, groups of children standing outside his house then screaming dramatically and running off when he went to the window to look. He would often receive unpleasant packages through the letterbox, and I started to feel a bit sorry for him. He had done a lot of good work for the school, and how had the children repaid him? When I mentioned this to him he was philosophical: “oh, you were just kids, and you needed to have your fun. If it wasn’t me it would have been someone else, and I’d rather it were someone who could handle it.”

I asked him how come his house was so unkempt when he was so good with his hands. He stared at me and I worried I’d overstepped the mark. Then he laughed, “Ha! I’d ask the same question! You see, the thing is…”

I blinked hard, more than once. My head was starting to spin, and his voice was beginning to sound distant. He didn’t seem to notice my discomfort and carried on talking, gesticulating around the room as he spoke. Eventually I lost all the strength from my muscles, the teacup fell from my hand and my head started to drop. As my eyes began to close, I was aware of Mr Anderson looking at me intently, before standing up and walking towards me. Then the night descended.

I woke from a dreamless sleep. Moonlight was streaming in through a hole in the wooden board that was stapled over the window. I was lying down in what seemed like a bed, but with no pillow, so my head was tilted down against the mattress at an awkward angle, but it wasn’t painful like it should have been. I had no awareness of my body, and couldn't detect the position of my arms or legs. In my peripheral vision I could see a blanket that seemed to be covering me up to my neck,

I couldn’t move, and all I could see in front of me was the silhouette of what looked like a child’s head, no more than a few inches away from my face. The hair was patchy, backlit by the moon, but the face was hidden by the darkness. I closed my eyes again and fell back into unconsciousness.

I woke again a few hours later - I knew this because the moonlight had moved across the wall slightly. It must have been striking a mirror as it was reflecting onto the face of the figure opposite me. I couldn’t see much, but immediately I recognised the features of Tom Brand, the boy who had been taken from us so cruelly young. His face hadn’t aged at all. Were the stories true? I remembered his funeral - did they have an empty casket? Questions started to buzz around my head like flies around a corpse.

The thing that looked like Tom opened its eyes and I would have cried out but was silenced by what else happened. My eyesight seemed to shift so that instead of just seeing what was in front of me, I had a fully three-dimensional awareness of the entire room. I wasn’t seeing from a single viewpoint, but was somehow seeing through both Tom’s eyes at the same time as my own. Fear rippled down my body; what was happening? How was this possible? Was I still dreaming?

The door opened and the light was switched on. Mr Anderson looked at me. “Now you can find out what I do that keeps me from my household chores!” he said cheerfully. He lifted the blanket covering both me and Tom from the bed. I didn't even have to move my head - our four eyes could take in the full horror of what was now lying on the bed.

My naked torso had been fused at the waist to Tom’s, which was covered in scars and wounds. Our four legs emerged at unnatural angles from below our hips. As Tom regained consciousness I became aware that I was sharing his thoughts and memories and could now remember, as though it had happened to me, the day Tom had been playing Doorbell Dare on his own and had waited just a few seconds too long on the doorstep. Mr Anderson had opened the door, yelled “you fucking kids!” and knocked Tom clean to the floor with a cricket bat. Memories of unspeakable experiments with the human anatomy blurred into each other as Tom’s brain had tried to block out the horror. And now he finally had some company.

My mouth opened in a scream, but no sound came out. “Oh, no use trying to make any noise,’ said the old man. He held up something in his hand, a jar with some form of human body parts inside. “I’ve gone to the trouble of removing your vocal cords.”

Tom and I watched, with all our three dimensional awareness, as Mr Anderson placed the jar with my voice trapped inside it on a bookshelf alongside other jars of body parts. He walked over to the abomination that Tom and I had become, checked my pulse, flashed a torch into my eyes, nodded to himself, wrote in a notebook, then left, turning the light off and returning us to our eternal night.

#shortstories #horror #horrorstories #childhood #nostalgia

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klitzo · 4 years

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I’m a new writer and this is one of the first flash fiction pieces I’ve done, it’s not done yet and needs some work and it would be awesome to have some input 🥺 I have a bad habit of trailing off

The newspaper of the abandoned post office crunches under my feet like dry leaves as the sour nuclear air pours in through the hole in the boarded up windows. I take a deep breath and think about before the bombs fell, about my family, my dogs, my cousins aunts and uncles. After the nuclear exchange between the U.S.A and the lower regions of Asia it’s not surprising nor more tragic that everything here was blown into ash. This is one of those situations where you say, you should have seen the other guy, like after a bar fight. While the survival rate here was actually pretty low with only a seven percent rate , which consisted of managing not to get blown to bits or die from radiation poisoning, Asia has a survival rate that is a whopping zero point zero three. And ruining chances of survival there are also reports of strange mutated versions of cats dogs and even bears, deformed and oversized beyond recognition. I am so glad that America had hit first taking out all operating missile storage and launch sites in the entirety of Asia. Of course we missed a couple and our major cities still got hit but not country wide annihilation. I walk past busted printers toward the door which is swinging open on its hinges banging open against the tack board behind it, I’m making sure to check for any salvageable wire to pull out as well as for any batteries or food. Before the apocalypse I really had taken for granted flashlights and McDonald’s ,now , I’d probably drink a water I found half full in the bottom of a dumpster. I see only one light switch that hasn’t been screwed open and ripped of its contents and get straight to work on pulling of the cap and tearing the wire out. The wind picks up and gusts through the building, creaking the floor like it could fall apart any minute and carrying in the smell of something rotten and rancid. With my back turned towards to door I give one final heavy yank and the wire comes loose and I fall backwards with a loud thud just in time to see somebody slam a nightstick across my forehead.

Crickets, that’s the first thing I hear when I attempt to open my eyes, darkness, that’s what surrounds my vision, thick heavy musk from the scratchy sack that has been placed over my head stings my nose, it extends down my shoulders keeping me from lifting my arms up. I can feel the pressure from the ropes, tied in segments around my arms legs and ankles. I think I should be panicked here, but strangely the sound of the crickets and the cool night air is strangely calming. I can smell dew which means it’s morning but the crickets are still chirping so it’s not late enough for the birds to be out. That means I’ve been unaware for roughly 11 to 12 hours. The last thing I remember is pulling scrap wire from the post office, something smelling rotten and being hit over the head. I roll around a little bit and begin to kick my feet side to side and hear the thud of what sounds like a wooden box on all sides. I kick my feet upward to find that there is no lid. I ponder for a moment, I should at least try to free myself before waiting around and seeing what happens and who is gonna show up to untie me, worse case scenario it’s cannibals and they are here to eat my booty, best case scenario there were some wasteland-globetrotters holed up in there and the freaked out when they saw me. Usually globetrotters are friendly for the most part but you get the occasional that would stab you over a good pair of boots. Then you have the marauders and desperados, marauders don’t care much for violence but they do go around looting whatever they can find and if you get in the way of that you’re kinda fucked. Desperados, you see, that’s a different story these reckless, rambunctious, and bold bandits will go around killing raping and salvaging whatever they can with no regard of life. Awhile back there was reports of another fallout shelter opening at the old retreat, and being as close as I was I packed my bags and walked 153 miles to Jacksonville, Orlando has been my home for the last 10 years. But when I arrived 12 desperados had people all lined up at the front gates and slaughtered every last one of them children first by cutting Thru each side of the cheek and down across the neck, it was traumatic to watch but I can’t imagine how the people felt who broadcasted all over to families and every last one of the dirty raiders roaming the wasteland that there were supplies and safety. It was sad all around and goes to show that the desperados are motivated by uncalled for cruelty. I wonder where my bag went, it’s probably been gone through and tossed. A small rush of excitement goes through me when I remember that I had been keeping knives on me lately and I begin to move my hands around and check my pockets for the switchblade I keep on my waistband, not surprisingly, I find that apparently I have been checked for weapons and my knife was removed. I really hope my bag is still hidden in the service passage and that when this is all over I can get ahold of my last bag of beef jerky and my 22. Caliber it’s been pretty useful at putting holes in some things. Rummaging through my pockets I find a corroded and rusted bottle cap and in my haste to grab it I slice a small cut in my finger. Perfect, I think and straight away I bend my wrist at the most uncomfortable angle possible and begin to saw away slowly

#flash fiction #original story #new writers on tumblr #new writerblr #storytelling #fiction #apocolypse #writing prompt #epoxy #butter slime #icee slime

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9uk · 5 years

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Where Are You?

⌲ summary : Kim Taehyung. That is the name of a nobody in school constantly carrying a camera around with him. Also, the name belonging to the guy who carried your last words

⌲ pairing : thirdeye!taehyung x reader

⌲ word count : 10k

⌲ genre: pinch of fluff, heavy angst

⌲ warnings : themes of depression, suicide, self-harm and paranormal activities. character death. taehyung can see ghosts that is.

⌲ a/n: this is quite different from what i usually write but i just needed to get the plot that has been bothering my head for months out of me. nonetheless, enjoy & feedback is always welcomed.

The way life works is a true wonder.

Expect the unexpected, predict the unpredictable. It's all bound to happen one day, at a certain point of time in our very lives. You just have to catch that split moment, the millisecond on the dot—where a mini twist in your words or actions can bring about a very drastic change. It can be a tiny alteration that causes the downfall or rise of a situation. The choices we make for ourselves or others, is very much alike to a heavy dew sliding off a leaf and carelessly falling into stagnant water. The mini waves of the impact send the lily pads nearby dancing, a floating hibiscus petal to drift further into the unknown and push a sleeping fish a centimetre away from entering the opening of a heron's beak. It's the butterfly effect, minuscule yet major. Be it a coincidence or some cruel twisted joke god decided to play on you—you solemnly swear you heard a voice of another being in this house. A house you were supposedly alone in. It could be the cannibal. There is more than a fair share of emphasis placed on 'supposedly' because at this very moment, you are certain as heck that you are not the only one in here. Here being the old crooked house that sits alone by the edge of the second highest hill in town, standing obstinate to the ground despite the occasional flooding showers and hurricanes your region suffered. The old folks claim that the house belongs to a war veteran whose entire family starved while waiting for their sole bread-winner to come home. The man never made it back to his doorstep where his three children and spouse awaits, hope draining with every growl of their stomachs and in complete oblivion to the impending fall to the grave. Every so often, the family of five could be sighted behind the murky windows. However, there are also mediums who concluded from ridiculous superstitions and calculations of the house's location that a possible dead body could still be inside, and its vengeful spirit is bent on seeking retribution for the plain injustice of their murder. Depressed souls would see it as the way to the end, Blank minds and torn hearts enter the house with nothing but one wish—death. The number of suicides that occurred in the house is a little over a hundred—one hundred and three spirits to be exact, nothing more, nothing less—loitering within its four walls. There were instances of teenagers stepping foot into the forbidden site with hopeful hearts for a thrill and a video camera in hand, seeking for juicy content to gain views and be the first to break the belief — the bunch of kids were reported missing on the news a few hours after. The statistics are somewhat the building blocks to the infamous reputation it holds today. When the police went inside to search for the families' missing loved ones, it did not work out at all. In fact, the number rebelliously increased, the police force losing yet another one of their colleagues.

That's when they decided that everyone is prohibited to enter, unless they carried a death wish. It is almost like the Suicide Forest in Japan, tarnishing those who visit with a conflicted soul. Even the authorities chose to not touch the house, claiming it was still on a long-term lease. And under whose name?

They would never reveal.

The house became something everyone refuses to lay finger on, or even talk about. The ominousness it contained drove humans miles away, like a sleeping dragon not wanting to be bothered the slightest bit. It's almost like a door to a parallel universe or something. You did your homework regarding the possessed piece of property. The internet's local ghostbuster website shares more about the rumours circulating the house.

You can't escape once you make it through the two front doors. This is as clear as day already, the number of missing bodies serving as solid evidence. Questions however, still bugged at your mind.

Why exactly is that? Were all the window sills locked? Or is the door just created to be one-way? Sometimes people are so caught up with their fantasies that they forget to look at things more logically.

A cannibal was living inside. This is just a mere speculation, but it was not impossible. It seemed like the most rational explanation one could provide to the disappearance of people. Leftover bones can be easily cremated, destroying all traces of the deceased. But you had rather resort to jumping off a cliff or simply overdosing to kill yourself—than to ferociously be feasted on by your own kind.

It was some kind of portal to another world. Although these kind of things were not scientifically proven, it was still a valid suspicion because nothing ever made sense about that creepy house. Maybe people went in and get sucked into another dimension or flung into hell. Maybe the books were right. As well as the shows and movies on television. Everybody was afraid, of what the gaunt and creaky relic held between its paint-flaked walls and dirt-smeared window panes, why people went in and never got out, why citizens were constantly missing—but the discovery couldn't be anything more valuable than a life. But you clearly cared a whole lot about yours, because you are not even batting a lash when you tell your friends that you were going to check the cursed place out. All you receive is the dropping of jaws and the heavy pleas for you to not go, because apparently ten years ago a man as bold as you executed the similar plan you had and- "Guess what Y/N," Woo-gi leaned across the table, the bowl of mashed potatoes shifting forward a little. "He died. Unnatural cause of death. His body was never found and the saddest thing is that the family couldn't even give him a proper burial or send him away in peace." Her attempted blazing eyes fixes on yours, and her fingers creep to the knife resting on the surface of the table cloth.

Woo-gi is making the best efforts to get you to empathise with the family of the deceased man, knowing that trick works perfect on your soft putty heart. Lifting the cutlery up, she brings it down and mercilessly stabs into the piece of char-grilled pork chop for effect. There is a shredding sound of the piece of meat being torn apart by your dear pal. The vegetables at the side jump up in shock. "Gone. Just like that."

Her voice is a cold, menacing one which intended effect worked perfectly on your rather timid self, the bumps on your skin appearing unwillingly.

Her gaze finally drifts to the dish plate and leaves yours, allowing you to ponder over her words. In her final attempt to scare you out of the hasty decision, you only chew on your corn salad nonchalantly. She was right, it was a deadly risk but you wished you treasured your life as much as a normal person would. You didn't have any care in the world, dead or alive. So why not make the reason of your death be 'died exploring a haunted house', how cool and mysterious would that be on the headlines? "Sounds like a dream come true for me," You sweep the coleslaw you have no interest in to one side, isolated from the rest of the dish. Gone forever, just like that? You have been spending the past few years of your life sinking into the mattress and hoping the blankets would swallow you whole and cease your existence—what made her think that you would be afraid of something like that? Then you realise that your friends have no clue about your disorder. In fact, no one did. In their eyes, you were this outgoing girl who cracked plenty of jokes and lived with a happy family. At times, you would go overboard with your imagination but that's something people who felt constrained and suffocated often possess. Their stale life is the cause of their fantasies and aspirations running too wild.

But nobody would understand. She shakes her head and sighs, exasperated. It was like there were no words in the dictionary that can come together to bandage the open wound in your heart, or get rid of the black sticky substance bugging your insides since day one—even as a close friend, the most she can do is to pray for the best for you. No one can really help you out of this sunken pit, the route is yours to take.

"I'm telling you one last time," Woo-gi lunges forward to grab both of your hands, eyes glistening with worry, trying yet again, her utmost best to stop you in your dangerous expedition. For the last time. "Don't go."

Life works in mysterious ways, and you're the kind of person who would stubbornly step on a freshly mopped floor and try walk across it despite having a bright yellow caution sign shoved in your face. Maybe this would be the turning point in your life. A life which encompasses of...well, nothing much. The world's too tiring of a place to live in. And that is also why, you are in said haunted house, face to face with an unexpected human being. "Hey," Every drop of blood in your body freezes. It's the first thing you hear before a piercing scream leaves your chest, rattling the window panes. The sudden call startles the shit out of the shivering mess you were, your body jumping backwards out of reflex. You shun away from the piercing light being aimed straight into your eyes, arms coming up to block the sudden encounter. Cannibal? Cannibal! You shrieked and jumped back further upon realisation, making a beeline for the doors. Both feet took you there as fast as they could, the wooden planks beneath your heavy stomps threatening to snap. Except when you reach for the handle, the first rumour is proven to be true. The doors wouldn't budge. You shake them with all your might, only left with creaks and a stubborn obstruction to your fleeing. Your heart pounds wildly against your chest, with the knowledge that the monster is a few feet away from your panic-stricken form. "Just give up." The low voice appears behind you, the hairs on your back shooting up and your hands frozen. Why were you even so afraid? You wanted to die anyways. Nothing is able to coherently come out of your parched throat, only able to quiver in fear. "Do I really look that ugly?" The tone is derisive, so human-like and you think you may have overreacted. Whipping around, you are only met with bright white as a beam of light is pointed directly to your face. You may have been mistaken. But that doesn't stop you from feeling threatened. "Put that away." You commanded and once the shining path of white is directed to the ground, your hands slowly descend from shielding your face. "Kim Taehyung?" "Y/F/N?" The both of you speak out in unison upon the recognition, despite the low lighting playing as an obstacle. It was dark, but you can almost make out the look of shock on his face as he takes a moment to register your existence right in front of him. As for you, relief overwhelmed the surprise you felt and for once, you were thankful to see Kim Taehyung. A fair bit of questions were going through your mind now, and your heart was close to jumping out of your mouth any time soon. But somehow you managed to stay relatively calm.

As long as Taehyung was standing there, looking at you with a face of confusion, you wanted to end your life faster to escape the interaction with this guy. Or to explain what in the world you were doing in a horrid place like here. God wouldn't let you die in peace, he had to let you bump into Taehyung minutes or hours—nobody knows—before your anticipated death. The only thing going through your mind is how you have to explain why you were inside the most forbidden house in town. Then, another thought flickers in your mind. What was he doing here then? It couldn't be... For some reason, he stands there, still astounded by your presence. Wait no, it had nothing to do with your presence. It was you. Just like how having a guest in here came off as no surprise to him, but the fact that it was you... You feel like you rendered him speechless, disbelief widening his eyes and parting his lips. He was acting strange. Just a few moments ago, he was telling you so confidently about the fate of the doors and now there was a 180 degree change in his vibe. He kept staring at you, the moonlight flaunting a light shimmer to his black orbs and you felt queasy under his relentless gaze—like he held some sort of power over your empty soul. You couldn't decipher just what is it in his eyes, your head hurt as you tried to think.

It was never the same case in school though. While you exuded an aura of confidence wherever you walked, leaving a trail of your floral scented shampoo and fruity perfume, Taehyung would keep his head low and try to blend in with the shadows. He didn't smell like anything, nor did he frequently speak.

To his pals, at the very least. The moment you hear the name Kim Taehyung, the first word that comes to mind is eccentric. You weren't exactly someone to judge people in this manner, but you know him barely—only to the extent where you can only think of an adjective like that to describe him. You've seen him more than a couple of times around in school—always carrying a vintage camera around—but have never spoken a word to him. For an obvious reason, he was located in the best class—the one where the top students are—while you are in just another average class.

He was just another schoolmate to you. The both of you have never interacted during your whole journey in high school, except for that one time. However, you have only heard things about him. Unpleasant things that make your blood boil a little, because you feel like everyone should be treated equally no matter the circumstance.

One would say, "Kim Taehyung? You mean the guy who sits in the garden for an hour after school, waiting for a butterfly to land on his pinky finger? I mean, who even does that?"

Another would comment, "He's constantly talking to himself and his polaroid films, if that is even possible. Other than that, he either talks to flowers or trees. Sometimes, he eats by himself and then he raises his spoonful of rice to feed the person sitting opposite him—only that there isn't anyone there. Some girls screamed and ran away, even their boyfriends were scared of such a person. That is mainly why they didn't do anything bad to him.”

You didn’t have much thoughts about the guy, but you admired how he could be himself without the fear of being excluded from the norms of this society. He could find the comfort in being alone, and that was the type of peace you wish you possessed.

That one day, things blew out of proportion. It was a normal Tuesday, nothing extraordinary but school and sleep. You were seated with your usual group of friends during lunch, when suddenly a yell breaks through the canteen, followed by several laughters induced with pure evil. Almost the entire cohort turns to the infamous corner—just a small turn into the back kitchen where the trash is taken out by the vendors—the place where many students are dragged in there and come out with a blue black to the eye and nasty purple patches all over their limbs.

The whole cafeteria slowly fills with hushed whispers and serious gossiping, heads turning to one another unable to drop the topic for now. Yoongi walks out from the corner, followed by a few of his friends of a milksop. Wussies, you silently remark on their terribly feigned outer strength and masks of bravery. Nothing but imbeciles, you curse them in your head. Yoongi and weaklings plop right next to you, the eyes from the surrounding tables discreetly catching up on the interaction between the both of you. "Y/N! You look gorgeous today." He tries to place his hand onto your waist but you quickly shun away from him. The small action itself caused the whole canteen to blanketed with silence, every pair of eyes now focusing on the drama that was about to unfold between the notorious gangster and his proclaimed girl. "Don't fucking touch me you disgusting piece of shit." You have had enough. The menacing words seem to pierce through every wall in the school, every person at the scene being informed of your opinion towards Yoongi all this while. You stand up, pointing a finger of accusation directly at his face—to which he flinches at, caught off-guard by your swift movement. If you had the opportunity to get away with it, you would have dug your nails into his eyeballs and gouge them out of his eye sockets, then feed one each to the weaklings by his side. Instead, you take a deep breath. Small gasps leave everyone's lips and he panics—ego bruised by your harsh rejection. Yoongi was your boyfriend. You've been tolerating him for quite some time now, all for the sake of your parents. Without this relationship, your dad would have never been able to clinch the business deal with his father. All it took was a couple of sweet phrases and fake smiles, you couldn't be bothered with the rest of him other than the profit he could bring to your company. Yoongi on the other hand, seems to interpret the relationship in a very different way. He seems to have grown fond of you and naively believed that love between the two of you is real. You never put a single thought or effort into the relationship with Yoongi, not wanting to mislead him any further but some guys just can't seem to get the message, despite the many obvious hints you've dropped. You never ask him out.

Or when he does, you would only politely decline. In school, most of the time you stick like glue to your friends and try to avoid him and his rambunctious clique at all costs. Your dear friends took empathy in you and helped you out of certain situations concerning Yoongi at times. Somehow your boyfriend's pleasant way of proving his worth was to step on the backs of people who seemed inferior to him to climb his own ladder of pride.

It was like after each time he nailed someone to the ground and kicked their guts out, Yoongi feels like he reached another level of achievement. It's sickening to the thought and you want to have nothing got to do with that narcissistic asshole. This behaviour of his begin not too long ago, a few days prior when he marked his first victim. You were puzzled, but you didn't probe. He bullies physically and mentally, using their screams and pleas to feed his ego and push himself higher up the ladder. He started torturing anyone who ticks him off or come in his way to no end, and you think you may just be next albeit being his supposed girlfriend.

The conduct only made you despise him even more. Come to the thought of it, the things you do for your parents include self-depreciation and the loss of any shame left in your skin. You can feel the anger slowly twisting in his veins, radiating off his now clenched fists. Contrary to his untamed anger building within him, his friends are slowly retreating from his side, trembling in fear at your spit of acid. You chuckled, almost despicably—both at the cowering of his tough underlings and the way he almost peed his pants at the mere fling of your index finger. He realises that you are mocking his fragility and there are a couple of muffled giggles ignited in the crowd—his temper starts to get the better of his mind as the emasculation finally dawns over him. Before he can lay a finger on you, you are already a step ahead of him—grabbing the cup of hot tea off the table and splashing the boiling liquid onto his uniform, scalding his body. You thought you had might as well went all out in punishing a rascal like him. Your friends reach for your arm, trying to hold you back from going any further in dealing with the jerk and you throw the cup onto the ground, causing it to shatter into fragments—the sound of the porcelain splitting and cracking into pieces haphazardly rings through their ears. You'd like to refer it as a clear warning to everybody witnessing the event—to simply not mess with you.

You wished to be left alone.

While he screams in agony at the possible second-degree burn, you waltz away from the commotion nonchalantly. You think that that scumbag ought to have a taste of his own medicine someday, and if no one else dare stuff it down his throat, you would more than gladly do so. You find yourself striding off—to the hidden corner behind the stalls. And there, you discovered the bloodied body of Taehyung. With a broken camera by his side. A boy like him deserved more than this, no human should ever be hurt as badly as this—especially for no reason at all but one's inability to control their emotions, and the poor decision to vent it out on others can make horrible things happen. You kneel down by his side, checking the wounds inflicted on him. Fishing out a packet of tissues you always keep in your pocket for emergencies, you wipe the blood stains off his abused skin. He's in too much pain to express his surprise at your assistance, grunting as you pressed the tissue against the wound. When the bleeding on a certain cut has stopped, you offer him the support of your arm to let him sit up straight. Taehyung holds onto your forearm and pulls himself up from the ground. He groans as he does so, his back clad with bruises and soreness.

You noticed that he was stunned into a daze, probably at the grasp of realisation that someone was actually helping him. But you ignored his feelings, just shifted your attention fully onto the fixing of his injury. You recall having a plaster tucked away in your purse and you quickly take it out as well, secretly laughing at its design—hot pink with Hello Kitty.

Taehyung doesn't miss the sound of light escaping your lips, and he himself bites down on his lip to hold back a chortle at the girlish visual of the bandaid—temporarily pushing the questions behind your intentions away. You actually felt glad you could bring a smile to his face with something like the childish print of a bandaid. Nonetheless, you peel it off and gently place it over the deep cut on his forearm as he tries to control his wincing. "Hey, it's alright. You can cry out for all you want," You smoothed the plaster flat and tight on his skin. When you lightly slap the face of the Hello Kitty to tease him, he lets out a yelp—something that sounds puzzlingly adorable coming from him. "Here, have this." You fish out a piece of candy from the other side of pocket, handing it over you the victim. The amount of surprise he shows never ceases. You let out a short laugh, "I know you're not a kid, but still..." You smile up at him. "Just take it as a form of apology for what I caused you to go through." Taehyung doesn't move a muscle, just sillily blinking at your actions. You take his hand and shove the sweet into his palm, closing his fingers around it.

For a brief moment, both your eyes meet.

There is an unexplainable exchange of thoughts running through each other's minds and it was close to feeling like the two of you shared something in common. Taehyung was ostracised in school and probably the life he had out there judging by his abstruse personality and unfathomable behaviour. He was a prisoner out here in the real world.

Freedom, but yet he can't truly express himself without being placed behind bars in the eyes of others.

You are guilty of doing so in the past, when he was nothing but a lingering, mystifying shadow that held no importance in your life. That's exactly what you did to him—judge and rule him out of the ordinary. All you feel for him is sympathy, and that isn't anywhere better than the culprits themselves if you weren't about to step out and lend him a helping hand. Regret washes over your system as his dark pupils venture into your soul.

You were not as innocent as others perceive you to be. Bystanders were the invisible strokes of support to the metal bars that locked him up. His hand, although held by you, was trying to cling onto your grasp and not wanting you to leave. You would consider yourself a lucky chap indeed, having born into this world with food and shelter, kin and kith. In fact, rather luckier than the rest to be able to own what you like and not solely what you need. Above all of the materials your parents could afford, you were trapped in incongruity of being a prisoner of your own. You didn't know what you were passionate about in life, and to live without passion is akin to being dead. You just did well in your studies because the society deems that degree certificate as a strong foundation in your job. But you truly did not know if you really enjoyed burning the midnight oil to continuously mug or if the elation of attaining a perfect score on your assessment is pure, or just for the sake of your insatiable parents. Education is key. Well definitely, to a certain extent and you have witnessed how far your own set of parents are willing to go as long as you achieved soaring colours of distinction.

Sleepless nights, wandering mind and a stagnant heart. Sometimes the urge to pretend to be ill to escape the torment of school. Sometimes the subconscious act of bringing the kitchen scissors to your wrist and slit... You want to collapse to the ground and never be able to wake up again. You wished a drunk driver would accidentally run you over and end everything for you. Then nobody would know about how tired you were of this pointless life. You were a prisoner of yourself too. With no doubt, you and Taehyung are definitely similar in many ways the world can't see. "See you...soon, I guess." A soft chuckle emits from you like that happening would be a miracle, but the expression does not reach your eyes. Your eyes that were blocked by a wall of defence to your vulnerability of an emptiness. She is broken. A whisper goes by his ear. She needs help. The raspy voice travelled to his other ear, making him shiver slightly but unnoticeably. Taehyung could feel it too but he was in no place to ask about your wellbeing. He could only stare and wonder. The eye contact was broken off, before your hand recedes from his, carefully. He catches the way a faint smile ghost on your features as quickly as it appeared. A bittersweet kind of happiness. But he doesn't say a word, even after your figure grows smaller with every step you take back to class. What you missed, is the shutter of the camera lens, floating in the air. "Hey, don't touch that!" He snatches the device back and winces at the stretch he feels in his back muscle.

"Y/N." The wooden planks beneath him cursed out loud, warning sirens of his voice turning stern. Besides his low voice and creaks of weak wood and nails, there is only a dripping sound from some leaking pipe. "What are you doing here?!" It is the second time he has raised the question to you, but you only keep silent, eyes searching the room for answers.

Why hadn't you disappeared or get eaten by some ferocious beast yet? Taehyung was only complicating your attempt of suicide. You tried to keep your head clear when you first pushed the rusty front door open, disallowing the memories to flow into your mind.

It was a blockage to all forms of happiness in your life, to prevent your pathetic self from backing out. But Taehyung, an actual human being, catching you in the act of wanting to kill yourself just shot a dose of reality into your numbing heart and racing thoughts.

"Uh..." You wet your lips.

"What about you? What are you doing here?" You turn the cameras back to him. It would not be shocking if he came here to take his life as well. Taehyung purses his lips in serious contemplation before candidly answering. "I can see ghosts," He looks down like it was something to be ashamed about.

That wasn't the case for you. You were completely taken aback by his confession but you found it extremely intriguing. "Oh—Wait what?" One thing about the revelation was that it for sure explained a lot about the way Taehyung acts. You trust his words, but you don't know how to link it to the fact that he was standing right in front of you in the living room of this damned house. Raising a brow at him, you wish for him to elaborate further. "I uh, heard r-rumours circulating around in school, that uh," He pinches his brows.

"You were going to come in here. So I kind of decided to see if it was true." You were amazed by his candidness.

"And it is." You mused.

It was heartwarming to see that someone actually bothered to risk their life to come look for you. Then again, Taehyung is a guy filled with secrets. God knows, but maybe he is the owner of this house. When his eyes capture yours for one more time, it drowned you into the whirlpool of emotions he was feeling.

Something like denial, frustration and lastly, regret. The eye contact is never broken. Like Taehyung was staring so hard at you to try and figure the different parts of you out, to evaluate every inch of you and you squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze. "Why are you looking at me like that?" You croaked out, beginning to feel very creeped out despite the tinge of softness laced in his eyes. "You—Urm, you—! Argh!" He only hesitates even more, turning into a stuttering mess. You jump back in surprise at his reaction. Lost and confused as to how to provide you with a suitable reply, he yells and pulls at his locks of hair. It was when he proceeds to fall to the ground on his knees and seemingly begin whimpering into his palms, all surprise turned into worry for the guy. You kneeled down and called out to him. "Shit—Taehyung!"

"What do you seek, young man?" "Your whole point here is to know and advice me." Taehyung bites back. "Very well. An unsolved mystery, something concerning a girl and regarding the old house just down the street." He shuffles his cards and keep them away neatly. It seemed like those tools will not be of any use to Taehyung, and he clearly understood why the man's face have fallen drastically—it isn't a simple case a few cards can crack. You were not only beautiful, you were inculcated with kindness, you held a type of pureness lost by many as they grow up, you spoke in a manner that is highly respectable and the crowfeet that form at the side of your eyes whenever you laughed too hard couldn't get any more adorable. He shifts uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat, and gulps anxiously. "Was her body found?" Taehyung doesn't know.

He doesn't know where the hell you went or what the fuck you were doing, he only knows that when his eyes flew open, he felt the cold of the night stinging on his skin and an empty space next to him. You were no longer in his arms and the next moment he is springing up from the worn out couch and beginning his search for you. He looked every nook and cranny of the house for you but to no avail. The only resort left got him sitting across a renown psychic. But even the expertise in this region seems to find this case uncrackable. "No." He tilts his head, bringing out a rock of some sort. Taehyung sees it as a mere rock but not to him apparently. "This is the Magic Stone." His fingers fidget around with the purple coloured object. He does this continuously, causing Taehyung to perk an eyebrow up at his claim. The psychic burrows into deep concentration, a conclusion forming in his head. Then, all movement ceases. "Her soul has to bring you there herself."

The medium's advice sounded strained, like it was the hardest thing to come to a conclusion like that. It's a clear excuse when he says the reason of those teardrops rolling down his cheeks are caused by the wind.

You want to reach out and pat him on the back in hopes of alleviating his pain but you quickly retract it back as the muffled sobs through his fingers grow even louder. All you could wonder at that point in time was whether something bad was happening to Taehyung. Maybe the demons in this house were taking him away first.

Maybe he is really going to die. Then, with every drop of care drained from your exhausted body, you placed your hand on his clothed back with a strong determination to do your best and ease him (into the underworld most likely) without any pain. "Are you okay?" Only for his cries to stop abruptly when he feels your hand smoothing over his back. Hastily, Taehyung removes his hands from his face and turns around to look at you. His eyes were red and swollen from all the desperate weeping, saliva of sorrow pooled in his mouth as he watches you with a kind of anguish and concern. It mirrored the look you gave him when you saw him lying on the ground, beaten up. This is where the two of you are similar.

Prisoners, but of two entirely different reasons. You drifted your gaze to his elbow and notice the striking dash of pink. The band aid still being there was what solidified the certainty that this was all real. This wasn't some kind of twisted dream. And that would only mean one thing. Because your hand did not manage to rub his back, for the paleness casting over it only sank into his body, deep into his spine—only for his body to be in one piece as you fast to recede it like you had just touched a strong flame—unable to feel anything touching your palm even when you made that physical contact with him. "Taehyung... why..." You inspect your hands carefully. Your skin was never this white. All the hairs on your forearm had disappeared as well, your whole body lacking any hint of life. It felt surreal. Like something that would only occur in dreams.

"Why can't I touch you?" Maybe if you try pinching yourself, you would wake up. Maybe this was just one of your daily nightmares from stress. It was when you started aggressively pinching the pale skin on your arms, thighs, waist—you realised you could still feel yourself. The only difference being that it was so, so cold. It was similar to touching an ice pack, frosty and nothing much else.

Cold. That's how you feel and the perplexity that hit you all at once began transforming into larges beams of anger, sadness and helplessness. You wanted to cry as loud as you could for help. "Why do I feel so cold?!" You refused to believe anything your senses were telling you. Everything your naked eyes were showing you.

Lunging forward, you run your hands all over Taehyung again and hope to actually feel something tangible.

To your dismay, your fist only goes through his heart like he was made of air—no, like you were made of air.

You were the dead one here.

"The police have searched the whole compound of the town and spread the news of the missing school girl country wide. In the past two weeks of finding the teenage girl, Y/F/N is still unable to be located. If you have come across—Zap." Taehyung clicks the button on the remote control and flings it to the other end of the couch in frustration. He ruffles through his hair, hoping for hints of you to magically pop up in his head. The thing is, the both of you had barely spoken to one another. Plus, he had a tough time speaking to the people at his-and your-school. One week. One whole week since the disappearance of your body. The police are proven to be fucking useless and incompetently unreliable, he mentally notes. He figured that the fastest method to locate you, would require him to act out on his own. The list of things that can happen to your body goes down a long scroll that even Taehyung himself is unwilling to imagine. He wants you to at least, still be in one piece when he finds you. He uses the term body, because your soul is for sure loitering somewhere in town. It can't go too far from your body, a rule he remembers by heart. So, it wouldn't be entirely impossible to detect where your corpse would be. Think, think, think! He repeats like a mantra in his bursting head. Where would you go if you were this free, lingering spirit? And then he recalls.

"You're up here again."

He pushes himself up onto his usual spot—a high wall surrounding the perimeter of the rooftop, granting anyone up here a perfect view of the school field and vast blue sky. The job of the wall is to prevent any students from falling over and have their bodies crush to pulp when they plop to the ground floor. But Taehyung doesn't play by the rules. Where is the fun in that? He often questions anything that has to do with system and order. As a person who lives by pure intuition, Taehyung brings himself to the top floor for the second time after just doing so the day before. It could be the voices whispering encouragements for him to pay upstairs a visit, or maybe it had to do with a very strong gut feeling tugging at his chest. Nonetheless, he was here.

The boy from yesterday is situated at the exact place as before. His skin was terrifyingly pale—but not translucent—and the cracking of his bones could still be heard whenever he swinged his legs. He must have just died a few days ago, Taehyung concludes. The boy doesn't acknowledge Taehyung, nor does he reply.

"What are you doing here?" Taehyung cranes his neck a little to face the boy properly—who in turn was staring at his feet with a strange amount of attention. Then upon following his line of sight, Taehyung realises how small and young the boy was—his own legs were almost twice as long as the kid's.

"My brother," He finally speaks, but only softly.

Taehyung digests his answer for a moment, before cautiously popping the second question. He knew better than to ask why the boy had died, it would probably even send the kid into a fury and then to hell, which was the last thing Taehyung wanted to happen to him. "If you don't mind me asking," He nervously grips the edge of wall.

The boy tipped his chin up slightly, intrigued by his words. His big round eyes came into view, leaving a heavy load to weigh at Taehyung's heart. His eyes, still freshly glistening and vibrant with blackness illustrated the bright and long road that awaited him in his life, only to be torn apart by whatever fatally tragic accident he was met with. It's a pity. It's a pity how some promising futures can be so easily robbed of in a blink of the eye. It is not a frequent occasion where tears pricked at Taehyung's eyes. He closes them for a second, before getting the question out. "Who is your brother?" The boy now turns to fully face him, legs still swinging regardless. His eyes looked way bigger and innocent than Taehyung had thought they would be. And it doubled the pain beneath his ribs.

It's suffering to bump into an innocent soul. He had rather someone who acted the way they deserved their death. The boy switches his stare on Taehyung now, silent while his orbs grow shinier. "I'm sorry in advance," The child looks like he was about to burst into tears. Taehyung felt the same. What was a sweet boy like him even apologetic for? "Min Yoongi." Taehyung blinks in surprise. The boy was gone. A series of giggles echoed in the stairway and without another thought, Taehyung hops down to hide himself from whoever was there. He does not recall any platform being built after the wall. He simply knows that if he falls over from such a risky position, he would die. He heaves a deep sigh of relief when the platform does not crumble into pieces under his full weight. He thinks it must be the doing of the boy. His smile is cut off when the footsteps and voices grow louder, noticeably two female students just hanging out. Unlike being rash as himself, they only prop their elbows on the wall, admiring the scene as that. Which he was grateful for, otherwise he would definitely get caught for loitering around carelessly. "Finally. Something great about this shit hole." Taehyung sticks onto the wall like a lizard, trying his best to be away from the edge. "Honestly, the perfect spot to take fresh breather," the other voice makes an appearance. "No one ever comes up here unless you want to be making a serious offence." A flock of birds crosses the sky and Taehyung secretly hopes they don't share the tiny space with him. "For peace and quiet, I'd give anything." The first voice replies. He silently nods in strong agreement. And he recognises it as yours, because of that one time you were called up to present a book review in Literature class. Your voice was distinct yet soft, you spoke with a sense of urgency to bring your point across and yet still manage to maintain your composure in your tone. He must say he’s never been this impressed by a presenter before.

And here he is, hearing the same voice again. This time, much quieter and lower compared to in class, but it leaves him beyond intrigued of the next content spilling out of your mouth. "Then, where are you going to get your dear peace and quiet after this semester?" The second girl with the higher pitched voice asks. "Hm, great question." The first girl ponders and probably stares into the horizon.

Then she replies, after the earth spins a full round. "Somewhere with sand and salt maybe." She answers seriously, after much consideration. "Can't you just say the beach? You idiot." "Whatever. Just checking if that peanut brain of yours is working." A gasp can be heard. "You better run before I catch you!" Their shoes leave heavy footsteps on the concrete and their voices gradually fade away.

Taehyung feels bad for eavesdropping onto their conversation, but it was something he couldn’t help even if he did not want to.

Speaking of which, Taehyung hasn’t thought about what he’d like to do during spring break. Maybe he’d bring some flowers and offerings for Yoongi’s brother and the others always by his side. Without being seen, that goes without saying.

They’d be over the moon to receive flowers because no one is really there for them. Or have simply forgotten about them. Taehyung wonders if anyone would bring him flowers when he passes on.

Still, Taehyung felt a seed of envy being planted inside of him, wishing that he could go to the beach or park during the season of blossoms with friends and genuinely have a good time. He has never gotten the opportunity to hang out with any normal human ever since birth. He told a friend he trusted about his ability of seeing things normal people couldn’t and the boy went about telling everybody about his confession which led to the beginning of his ostracisation

Weirdo. Freak. Those were the names he eventually got accustomed to being called as.

The seed of envy grows. The both of you are lucky enough to be discussing about where to head to for vacation, something he couldn’t do.

Lucky enough to be going on a vacation. Not everyone has that blessing.

He wish he could be like everyone else. Lead a normal life, have friends, and be wealthier. This way, he wouldn’t have to struggle so much.

For a moment, he wishes that he could replace the position and live the life of anyone else.

Like the girl who can play the violin.

Like the boy always sleeping in class.

Like the school’s janitor.

Like Yoongi.

Like you.

"Hey you! What are you doing up there?!" Someone like a security personnel yells at him from downstairs. Now, how the hell was he supposed to get back up there?

You must not be far. His feet dents the soaked sand beneath, leaving prints that queued in line to be washed up by the incoming waves. With the ends of his pants rolled up, he spins around aimlessly to search for you. It was fortunately a weekday, which allowed the beach to be emptier. And that would make the task of spotting you much easier. He strolls along the coast, patiently kindling his instincts to take him wherever you were to be. It feels almost surreal—the texture of the grainy sand rubbing against the sole of his feet, the gentle whispers of the arriving waves, the wind slicing through his thick hair, ruffling it like feathers—how peculiar it felt to realise that he is alive, being hyper aware of all five (or six) senses.

The tangibility of things would signal that he is actually a living human, but something intangible is missing in him and it makes the whole experience of being alive feel so...detached. Every part of his body felt like it didn't belong to him—it was his toes coming in contact with the sand and not him, it was his hair dancing with the wind and not him, it was his legs moving on their own accord and not Taehyung. This is what happens when you interact with supernatural beings for the whole of your life, he thinks.

"Hey watch your step!" A shout intrudes his thoughts. Taehyung pauses, retracting his feet back. The small kid carries on building her sandcastle with her companion. Watching their busy hands, Taehyung tries to figure out who exactly was the one who warned him. Regardless, he whips out his camera to take a shot of the girl building sandcastles. "Yay! It's done!" The girl pats the top of the castle and runs towards the benches shrieking in contentment, failing to withhold the excitement of breaking the news of the small achievement to her mother. The other girl however, only smiles at Taehyung and vanishes. He runs his eyes across the ground. Just below his toes, there laid a tiny baby turtle. It scurries, towards nowhere, seemingly unable to acquire the skill of waddling on the fine sand like all his other pals. A meter ahead, his friends totter in clusters towards the entrance of the sea. The poor buddy struggles hard to walk properly, let alone find the correct direction home. He suddenly grows conscious of the couple of seagulls chilling by the water. But he was too preoccupied with the aim to find you to bother about the weak creature. As he was just about to dismissively stroll away, something tells him to make a turn and save that baby animal. He should make a difference when he can. He definitely should. He could actually salvage a situation. A life that is. He jogs back faster than the predator birds could, quickly finding the turtle again and gently picked it up. The shell looked too big for its body and its two big ebony eyes popping out of its sockets gazing at Taehyung—are filled with gratitude. Or so he assumes. The creature makes some kind of fuzzy noise—of happiness—when it is put down onto the sea line to join its siblings. The rambunctious clique waddles their way into the ocean, gliding across and surging into the water, one by one, delightfully. The seagulls trots away, lunch stolen. He continues his trail. Slowly, a pier approaches. And similar to Yoongi's brother, a girl sits at the end of the wooden platform all by herself.

She radiates frozen, cold heat and as he gets closer, the temperature dives. He carefully crafts his steps towards the lone spirit, begging the planks to not creak too loudly in fears of scaring her away. With every inch he gets closer to the girl, the clouds present in the sky turns darker, accompanied with the flush of even more greyness which eventually overlays the initial coat of cyan. The familiarity of the uniform boosts the confidence in him to call out your name. "Y/N?" She stands up—indeed the girl reported missing—and Taehyung was glad it was you. The troubles fogging his mind seem to have cleared at the plain sight of you. He was relieved that he had at least found your soul. It was another thing to find your body though, and that is the main objective here. Connecting your body with your soul would be the final resort in sending you off in peace. He had a day left. Twenty four hours before you wouldn't be able to leave in peace. Before your pure soul would dissipate into a fiery pit of wrath, abandoned in the darkest abyss until you transform into a vengeful spirit. All the hatred, pain and misery would be instilled in your afterlife that is deadly inescapable. These overwhelming amount of negative emotions trapped in your soul would then leave you in this state, forever. The sight was inexplicably depressing. Just a few days ago, you were real to the touch. He could feel your fingers smoothing over the plaster on his arm. He could see the satisfaction radiating off the smile you flashed at him before, leaving. He could smell the light cherry blossom from your shampoo flowing in the air. He could hear the base of your sneakers hitting the floor as you paced your way to class. Yet now, the wood underneath wouldn't make a sound as you got up.

Your lips were chapped and your crusting skin was faded. Compare to a few days ago at the house, you looked much worse and haggard.

The corners of your mouth quivered, itching to bring forth expression but unable to do so. You couldn’t even smile. You couldn’t even cry if you wanted to.

Now you were toeing the line that crossed the real world and heaven apart.

Somehow he feels like it is partly his fault. Maybe if he had tugged onto your wrist and asked you to stay back a little longer. Maybe if he was quick enough to catch you after school. Maybe then, you wouldn't have had the chance to end your life. Caged by your fingers, was a head of pink.

"I heard that pink carnations stand for the remembrance of the dead,"

His brows furrows at your words. How is it that you were able to comfort him so easily, while he is here having a difficult time to even form words to express his grief. But he was sure that like him, you didn't crave for sympathy at all.

Maybe if he had clung onto the empty look in your eyes, thinking more than he should, stepping out of his comfort zone to care for you. Then perhaps, this situation would never take place. Then with a heaving chest, he clenches his teeth to embrace the fact that you are no longer existent in this real world. It was pointless to think about all the possibilities that could have dodged this situation.

"I hope someone remembers me."

Uncontrollably, a bead of tear seeps out and rolls down his cheek. His nostrils flare up as the sadness and realisation overtakes every cell in him that was fighting against the tide of sorrow. His heart feels like someone plunged their fist into his bare chest and ripped it out. Thrown onto the ground and stomped into pieces.

Lips quivering, Taehyung fights back the devastation and gathers the last scrapes of sensibility in his mind, using all the energy his rationality could afford—brings the camera looped around his neck up to his eyes, and snaps.

Through the lens, a pink carnation levitates above the pier, the ocean a transverse blue spread across the rectangular panel, accentuating the vibrant colour of the dainty flower.

The camera lowers, along with his head.

He was sobbing by now, all the while you gently hold the flower and stare at him with the same hollow eyes. “Why?!” He grits out between cries.

"Why..." The later one comes out in broken, incoherent snippets.

You are really not here anymore. With him.

"I'm weaker than you think," You breathed out with a faint smile following the confession. His heart clenches and twists into a tight knot, pulling at his conscience.

"And don't you worry, I will return to my body."

The fact that you were still trying your best to maintain cheery for him despite being dead twists his heart viciously. The world is too cruel to you, and to him. An angel like you deserves to seek your happiness in a better place like the skies above. The visage of you is becoming transparent, signalling your departure. Taehyung musters all that is left in him to take a step forward and press his palm softly to your face. He could not feel anything but his hand was just there, for support and consolation.

"I will remember you."

His words of affirmation sets your heart at ease. You finally understand how they would all say, that the true pain does not lie within the process of dying, but in truth lies within the witnessing of those who love and care for you, break down. After climbing out of your state of denial at your own death, you have come to terms with that fact and wish for nothing more than to end the whole suffering. It lurches at your heart seeing a guy like Taehyung who you were not even that close to, crying like he had just lost a precious belonging. Like the world had just lost a precious belonging. You hoped that people remember you. For all your hard work in this world, for all the full marks you attained, for all the certifications you achieved, for all the smiles you have bring and the band aids you have placed on others. You hope that when people think of you, it is nothing but filled with goodness. There were, no regrets to say the least.

Your body may not be in its best condition, but the accident pulled your death off pretty well. It left you with no second thoughts, no last words, just a brutal blow to your side and head. It killed you with perfection, leaving no hesitation and last words—just met with the end in a solid second. You're suddenly worried Taehyung gets into trouble again.

"If anything, I'll protect you alright?"

Taehyung chuckles unbelievably through sniffs.

"We'll meet again.”

Your final words splinters apart, the bottom half of your body already beginning to dissipate. You gradually dissolve into the thin air—the cold mist and you becoming one— and the skies clear up in no rush. The carnation drops to the wooden floor with a thud.

I will remember you.

It was a chilly night, an expected downpour to attack in about an hour. His curtains danced to the rhythm of the wind, flowing about violently. "The body of the missing school girl has been recovered after a hiker going for his morning exercise smells rotten flesh in the woods. The police suspect that the girl may have jumped off a cliff from above as an attempt of suicide." Taehyung shifts his attention back to the mac and cheese turning cold on his lap. At one point, the winds were so rough that the vase sitting on the top of his dresser wobbles in jeopardy before another ferocious blow arrives through his window and topples the glass over, onto the ground. Shattered into fragments. Water spills out and the pink carnation flows along on the liquid like a dead body in a river. He internally groans at the mess he has to clean up afterwards, but it is only for a short moment before his attention is snatched by the voice of news anchor on television once again. "However, the forensics department has confirmed with the backing of further detailed analysis of the crime scene, that there were skid marks indicated on the road at the edge of the cliff accompanied by scraps of car paint evident on the victim's clothes." The carnation on the ground blackens, curls up into a crushed stalk of wither.

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kaiser-king · 5 years

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Hazbin Hotel fanfic chapter 2: Making enemies

Here's chapter 2 of the fanfic. Hope you all enjoy it. Once again Spades belongs to @lolalovestruck

It had been about a month since i found myself down in Hell and joined an arms smuggling ring. It was a pretty nice job to land so quickly and it let me get good knowledge of the pentagram's layout. It was basically like a large scale city, just with much higher crime rates than the average.

Along with the new job, Spades, who i had taken to affectionately calling boss, supplied me with new amenities. A proper cell phone in case we needed to contact each other and a good, if a bit scratched up, 1911 pistol. I sat on my bed that whole night watching videos on how to take apart and put together weapons until i could dismantle and reassemble the piece without any difficulty. I also ended up making a machete out of a random chunk of metal and a busted wooden baseball handle simply out of habit.

Work was also pretty easy. It was no different than when i was alive, just instead of peddling drugs it was weapons noe. Any given day I'd deliver a box of revolvers or a gym bag full of Kalashnikovs to anyone with the money to order it, and since i still had some of my old skill with parkour from my life, it wasn't too hard to get back used to the regimen sith how often i made deliveries. I often enjoyed an off hand compliment from spades when she'd bring up how nicely business had been picking up since my arrival, not that they were having trouble, she was happy to see even bigger numbers of deliveries and cash flow. It also helped to keep me focused. It scared me to think i could've been just another bottomfeeder, left behind and struggling in some alley as i fought for food everyday. Now though, i live comfortably with a good job. And it was obvious i was the favorite, so there was no worry that I'd ever be turned on.

Lost in my own musings, i almost missed a phone call from Spades herself. A picture of her sitting at her desk sipping from a mug of coffee as her eyes glanced in my direction. I had taken the picture on a whim, but she liked it so much she went ahead and set it as her new icon for me. I slid my thumb across the phone and answered. "H-hey Boss, need a delivery taken care of?"

Her voice came just a bit staticy before clearing up. "Yes actually, it's one of our regulars. They want some heavier firepower." I could hear her tapping on the keyboard as she checked the info. "Can you deliver a few anti-personel smaws to our regular dead drop on the southside of the pentagram? I hate to dump more work on you but i know you're someone who can get such an important job done."

"Of course boss! You can count on your number 1!" I never liked to disappoint, and having Spades trust me with something that seemed quite important, i was on the rooftops with a gym bag full of rocket launchers in no time. Funnily enough, my apartment was on the way there so i decided to drop by for a mid trip snack. A couple cans of soda and a bite of jerky only took a second to grab, but of course there just had to be a knock at the door. A glance at my watch tpld me i was making good time, so i decided to answer, maybe make a friend who wasn't from work.

I wasn't quite prepared for what i was about to see though, as i opened the door to be met by a tall woman who's neck seemed oddly bent. Her skin quite pale as a head of teeth freshly coated in a crimson shade grinned at me. She was wearing an old rock band shirt that was probably from before i was even alive and a pair of grunge pants. Her voice was a bit rough, like used sandpaper and i couldn't quite place her accent. "Hey neighbor... i uhh, don't do this much but i notice you're either here all day or gone somewhere and i never catch you headed in or out. Would you.. like to hang out for a bit?" She brushed a bit of dark brown hair behind her ear. It was quite obvious she seemed to be the type to keep to herself more often, i decided against my better judgement since i had a good 10 minutes.

I was lead to her room with walls plastered with vintage rock bands and more old school types from well before i could grasp what music was. She just plopped onto her bed and cracked open her own drink. "My name's Tore by the way. I'm a hungry ghost, it's basically a cannibal spirit i guess?" She chuckled a bit as she took a sip, washing the gore from her teeth as she swallowed. "You won't believe my luck today, i found a dead guy with a broken bottle shoved in his face. He was a bit scrawny but tough meat is tasty."

As she talked about my first victim, my hand instinctively covered my eye, which was still intact thankfully, but now sported a scar of three claw marks. Of course it was now hidden under the scrap of cloth i used as a kind of mask, but i could still feel the pain every once in a while, like when you get a lump in your jaw, painful for a bit but easy to forget about afterward. We spent what little time i could spare talming about innocuous everyday things, the way all awkward first meetings go. While she was nice enough, something about her spooked me as she came closer and sniffed my neck. "You smell tasty at least. Everyone else smells like some form of garbage, but you..." she took a deep inhale of my neck. "You smell pleasent."

She didn't notice my reaction thankfully, and the beep of my watch indicated my time was up. "Well, this was quite nice tore, but i have a job to do. I'll catch you later ok?" While she seemed nice enough, i just couldn't stay any longer, and the strangeness of her deep inhale of my scent was rather offputting as i pulled the bag over my shoulder and made my way out the door. Before i left though i was nice enough to leave my number. Maybe she was just one of the weird kids, after all i was pretty strange myself, but it ultimately was the last thing on my mind as i continued with the delivery.

The southside of the Pentagram was one of the more violent areas in Hell. Due to a previous purge that happened before i ended up here, there was a huge turf war going on between a few of the bigger players. Thankfully, as an arms dealer we had no qualms about who owned the place, i just made the deliveries.

The dead drop was a hole in the wall bar called Devil's Drink which specialized in cheaper alcohol and bottomfeeder patrons, but we got plenty of cash using it as a dead drop so Spades had no real qualms with using it.

Something that worried me though, was the fact that a hydra was staring me down with all 10 of his heads. Not a single one took their eyes off me for even a second as I waited for the next 5 minutes and ordered a drink, just as i had been taught to do when dead dropping in any public place. A couple Blue Hawaiians later, 15 minutes had passed, so i stood up and left the delivery underneath the table closest to the bar as was standard. When i had made it to the alley way though, a gruff voice startled me.

"Oi, Rat boy! I got somethin to say to you!" Startled, i turned to see the hydra glaring at me as he followed me out of the bar. Now that i could see him better it was obvious he was well muscled and broad chested, with a military bearing and a look that threatened death. Of course my fight or flight senses kicked in, and i knew this gut would be too much to handle on my own so i ran as fast as i could.

Of course this prompted the hydra to give chase as i turned down different alley ways and back streets to try and escape, but he managed to keep up quite well, never being more than five steps behind me until i ended up cornering myself in a dead end. I turned to face the man who had chased me so far from the bar as each of his heads held a grimace on their face.

"You're pretty quick, but you don't have the stamina or the knowledge to escape me." He grabbed me by the shirt collar and lifted me up against the wall. "I know you're supplying my enemies with weaponry! Tell me who your boss is and we can make this go by so much easier."

"I don't know what you mean, i just deliver the weapons, i don't choose who gets them. If you're in the market for them I'd be happy to direct you to the proper channels." I shuddered in his grip as I feared for my life. It had only been a month and I'd never ran into anyone as scary as this so far.

A wicked grin spread his lips apart revealing his own sharp teeth. "I don't want your weapons. I want you out of business. So tell me who your boss is so i can take care of him. And put you out of a job."

For some reason the first thought in my head was why does everyone have sharp teeth. The second was that i would never betray Spades' trust like that, so i bit his arm, making him drop me as i pulled out my haphazard machete to defend myself. "I'm not gonna give you anything you limp neck dick head!" I wanted to push my advantage and lunge for my foe as he held his bleeding arm, but he was too quick and backhanded me against the wall with his good one. The impact wasn't bone breaking, but i felt all the wind leave my lungs as i hit the wall and then the ground. Left gasping for air, i could only look up to see a bit connect to my face and cause my vision to go blurry as i felt more pain from my ribs as he stomped me into the ground again and again as i struggled to defend myself. A few minutes seemed like hours before he finally stopped and delivered another swift kick to my face.

"Pitiful rat, take that back to your boss. Let him know who he's messing with when he gives weapons to the losing side. Remember the name Kiln when you make another run like this." The hydra, Kiln, laughed as he walked off, leaving me broken in the alleyway.

It took a while, but i managed to pull myself onto my feet, and struggle back to base to report in. Despite the complications, the job was done, and i had to report that to her. So i shambled my way back, machete in hand as i paid no attention to anyone i passed, until i finally made it back. I struggled to slide the keycard as my hands wouldn't stop shaking from the pain i was in. The door opened and i shambled inside, headed straight to Spades' office.

With a knock at the door i could hear her voice had a certain chirp to it when she answered. "Come in! I hope to hear some good news Vik..."

Her chirpy grin immediately dropped when she saw the state I was in. Without a word she stepped up to me and took my chin in her hands. A thumb dragged across my mouth to wipe away the blood, even though more was flowing from my reopened eye scar. Despite her expressionless face, her eyes seemed to stare at me with an acute intensity that even Hell's fire couldn't match. She pulled my face closer and stared into my eyes, and what she said next caused me to shudder as her words were dripping with venom abd unrestrained rage.

"Viktor, who did this to you?"

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jayalaw · 5 years

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Twelve Days of Doomsday, Day 22: How to Be A Pirate

This was a fic I wrote for @jettara years ago but has never been published. It’s a little different than what she read.

@thefellowshipofthedragonmark

Heirs and Helheim

It was one of those nights, when the right words wouldn't come. Bath night probably had something to do with it, given how Stoick the Vast, O Hear His Name and Tremble, Ugh Ugh Ugh, was trying to wash both of his dragons at once, Rottfang and Hookfang. They splashed and struggled, and sneezed soap bubbles.

"Father," Hiccup started, then stopped. He was drying off his dragon Toothless, after an unwilling bath. To put it best, dragons and soap did not agree at the best of time. Neither did Vikings and soap. "You best be getting to bed, son!" Stoick the Vast cried, clapping Hiccup on the back. "After all, tomorrow we're sailing to the Isle of the Skullions and finding the treasure!" "But Father . . ." Hiccup tried again, trying to find the words. Some way to invoke the shame that he had felt, that sense of uneasiness and dirt that made him want to hide from the chief of Berk, though Hiccup had done nothing wrong. "And of course you'll find it, being the heir! I have complete faith in you!" "Y-y-es. H-he does!" Toothless snorted with glee. "Because T-t-Toothless will f-find that t-t-treasure!" Hiccup took a deep breath. He knew that it had to be said, or it never would be. "Father, something happened with Alvin the Poor But Honest Farmer today," he said. "When I was bathing with the other Vikings in the Great Hall and getting my scent checked." "What happened?" Stoick asked, one hand wrapped around each dragon firmly. "Did you get congratulated or told how good you were?" "He was . . ." Hiccup wasn't sure how to put this. "He was . . . studying how I bathed. Alvin kept telling me I had missed several spots." There was an awkward pause. Stoick released his hunting dragons, who took off immediately. The Vikings on Berk did not like to bathe, and had only done so for the treasure quest. Vikings offering to help others bathe was unheard of. "He even offered to help me wash up," Hiccup went on, his voice trembling. "If not for Toothless hissing at him, he may have insisted." "Hiccup," Stoick said, though his tone was also uncertain, "he was probably making sure you were clean enough. Can't be too careful when Skullions are involved." "There was something else. I was practicing my fencing, and he gave me some lessons." "But that's good!" Stoick boomed. "You need to put that new sword I gave you through the wringer! The more you practice, the better you will be! It's in your blood!" "I don't know why he'd bother," Hiccup said. "Since he's helping us find the treasure. He even praised the way I fell!" "Fencing needs good form, son. Every warrior must know that." Hiccup sighed. It wasn't the fact that Alvin had offered him a fencing lesson; Hiccup could have cried in relief, since he was useless with the blade, as Snotlout liked to taunt. It was the fact that Alvin had been looking at Hiccup the way that Toothless looked at hapless rabbits. Toothless liked to chase rabbits down their warrens, and he'd bite their feet if they would stand still. "It's just the way he was looking-" "Nonsense, son! You can't judge a Viking based on how he looks at you! It's all about the intentions. Did he say anything threatening?" "No . . ." "Did he pull a sword on you?" "No, he unscrewed it." Hiccup shook his head, realizing that he sounded idiotic. "Forget about it, Father. I probably am just nervous about the treasure hunt . . ." He had no luck in forestalling his doom; Stoick started on one of his lectures, namely about how Vikings didn't get nervous about glorious quests. Toothless started nibbling on Stoick's wooden chair in annoyance, and Hiccup had to pull the dragon away before they lost another piece of furniture.

Later, on the Lucky Thirteen, a rather hideous man grabbed Hiccup's left arm from behind and held a knife to his throat. Other hideous men did the same to all the Hooligans, only sparing Alvin. Even Snotlout got taken by surprise, and Alvin had trapped Toothless in an empty barrel. It's been a horrible day, Hiccup thought, right arm throbbing in a sling. First Toothless finds a giant limpet shell instead of treasure, SNOTLOUT finds the chest, Skullions nearly eat us alive and now we're invaded. Why am I surprised that it's getting worse? "I thought I would provide a - uh- surprise ending to our journey," Alvin said, charming as ever. "I do like surprises, don't you, my dear Stoick?" Hiccup and the Hooligans listened with numb disbelief as Alvin explained that he was not a Poor But Honest farmer but the Great High Chieftain of the Outcast Tribe. Alvin in fact had taken the opportunity to disarm Stoick the Vast and attach the sword Stoick had taken, the Stormblade, to his hook hand. "Toothless knew," Hiccup mumbled, unable to speak loudly because of the knife against his throat. "He knew what you were." The Outcast holding him shook his left arm to quiet him. "All of you Hooligans are about to enter the slave trade yourselves, in the very important role of slaves," Alvin went on. "I am sure you will all make excellent slaves because you are all very strong and frankly, none too bright. And I do hate to threaten, but anybody who objects will thoroughly regret it." His eyes landed on a nose-less Outcast uncurling a whip, and he surveyed the other Outcasts as they started loading the Hooligans onto the smaller ship. Hiccup and his captor were in the rear, so fortunately Hiccup wasn't forced to march immediately. The knife fell from Hiccup's throat, and he could see that the other pirate trainees-- Snotlout, Dogsbreath-- were released and prodded. "To Chieftains and their descendants we pay the ultimate sign of respect," Alvin said, "by eating them." Hiccup gasped. So did Stoick. "But that's cannibalism," the chief protested. "I know, I know, it's very old-fashioned of me," Alvin admitted, "but I would lose respect in front of the rest of my Tribe if I dropped ALL the old traditions . . ." He tore through Stoick's stammering protests as if they were bits of old fishing net, and casually mentioned that Stoick's descendants would also be eaten. "The question is, WHO is the Heir to Stoick the Vast?" Alvin asked, his upper lip trembling with suppressed laughter. Stoick stood alone, tall and proud, though his mouth gaped in shock. Snotlout hid behind Dogsbreath, not making an effort to volunteer. Alvin's eyes met Hiccup's, and the Outcast seemed to offer a challenge: Do you value your life over your father's dignity? Oh you'll live as a slave, but you'll be our slave, and you'll belong to me. There are so many things I could teach you, boy, so many wondrous and delicious things that you would never dream of, and all you have to do is keep quiet. Hiccup couldn't do it. He couldn't let his father stand there and face an undignified end, without anyone by his side. Someone had to stand with him, to die free rather than live as a slave. The Outcast had released him, so Hiccup made to stand on a bench, clear his throat, and say the important words. "I am the Heir to Stoick the Vast." For a moment, disbelief from the Outcasts. A proud smile from Stoick. A cold, unfeeling expression from Alvin. Hiccup took it all in as he stood on the bench. Alvin watched as two Outcasts carried Hiccup to set him beside his father. He looked amused at what Hiccup had chosen, certain death over certain slavery. Hiccup would've liked to have some meaningful last words, perhaps even said, "I love you" to his Father. There was no time, however, with the Stormblade in Alvin's grasp and lifted high above Hiccup's head. "This won't take a second," Alvin promised, but in his eyes Hiccup could see the lie. The Outcast chief was going to make this death blow last. You aren't escaping this, boy, Alvin's expression promised. Death or slavery, I will have you. Hiccup shut his eyes. Then he heard a loud thump, Alvin shrieking in surprise, and had to open them. He saw Toothless fly out of a fallen barrel, a barrel that had crashed into Alvin and knocked him onto the deck. As the same time, he saw his father wheel around and deliver a devastating punch to the Outcast behind him. Not today, he thought to himself, as he groped for that same Outcast's keys and used it to free several Hooligans from their shackles. Not today, Alvin.

#httyd #fellowship of the dragonmark #httyd fanfic #httyd books #alvin the treacherous

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galadrieljones · 5 years

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A Funeral: Chapter 3

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth | Rating: Mature

Content: Existential Angst, Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Nature, Touch-Starved, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Violence

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their little journey together, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. In their desperate search for meaning, they endure a number of small trials, which bring them closer to one another as well as to the unchecked plights of the natural world.

Masterpost | AO3

Thanks @bearlytolerablethethird for the banner!! ^_^

Chapter 3: Poor, Unfortunate Souls

They rode off the next day about seven in the a-m. Mary Beth’s filly Apaloosa was a good size, and her name was Winston. Mary Beth herself was a good rider, a fact of which Arthur was aware, but what he did not know what that she tended to get distracted quite easily. Arthur himself liked to stop and take in sights for sketching, but with Mary Beth, he noticed that she did not really desire to all out stop, she just liked to slow a lot, trotting along to survey the terrain, or to squint at something in the distance that he most certainly could not see. She rarely spoke out loud about it. This was a nice thing about Mary Beth—she did not have to say everything that was on her mind. It was somewhat of a relief. She did like to talk, but when she did, it always felt like there was a purpose to it. Even if that purpose was simple. She didn’t make much for idle chit chat, but he did sometimes, and so he could speak a little bit, and then she was always glad to respond and she could go and go and go if they got on a topic they both liked and understood. She was also very interested in Arthur himself. She liked to know all about him, all about his feelings and his past. He didn’t have many people for this—interested in what it was that went on inside his head. They only needed him for what he could do.

As they got on, late into the morning, he rode a little bit ahead, but he tried not to get too far. He was determined not to be in a hurry but this first day was making him realize that his typical way of doing things was perhaps a little fast. He was not used to company in the wild and so he tried to slow down because that wasn’t the point. In fact, he was not yet sure what the point was, whether it was more to hunt a moose, get free, or just to be with Mary Beth. Sometimes he felt more complicated than he thought he deserved to be. Like that a man who has killed as many other men as he—he was not entitled to his depths. He thought most of the time he ought to just shut the fuck up and get on dealing with this unclear life, but then he would come upon somebody he actually enjoyed being with, and that changed things. He thought sometimes he still hung onto Mary because she had made him feel that way, too. But that was all in the past as she was back on a train somewhere, god only knows. And so he flung all thought of her away, off a cliff, and tried to face forward for a while.

For further supplies and ammunition, they made a stop in St. Denis. The streets were crowded that morning, and the sky was filled with its requisite pollution clouds. Mary Beth was a little thrilled to be in the city, but she also drew a little unsure of herself once they hitched their horses and went over to the gun store. She walked with her head down a little, and she would look around suspiciously from time to time.

When Arthur asked her what was wrong, she said every time she came to St. Denis she felt enchanted by the lights and cobblestone streets but she also felt she did not fit in.

“I ain’t like these people, Arthur,” she said. “You ain’t either. Don’t you feel it? Or, maybe you don't?”

Arthur thought on this.

“I do,” he said, nodding. He felt bigger than everyone in St. Denis. He felt wider. He felt sometimes like he couldn’t fit through their delicate doorways, designed for frenchmen in fancy suits. “But it’s all just a bunch of feathers, Mary Beth," he went on. "There are good people, and there are bad people, just like in our world. It’s just that here, they smell nicer, so it ain't always easy to tell.”

This made Mary Beth laugh. He adjusted his hat and held the door for her to the gun shop. A little bell rang over head. They went inside and were greeted by the shopkeeper. “You smell fine, Arthur Morgan,” she said. "You smell like mint, and tobacco. Like man, of course, but that is to be expected."

Arthur blushed. It was an uncommon thing to hear. “I suppose I’ll take that as compliment,” he said, though he did double check once she was past, just to make sure she wasn’t only being nice. He’d had a bath two days before in the saloon hotel so actually, for once, it truly wasn’t that bad.

While in the gun shop, Arthur purchased many rounds of ammunition for many different kinds of guns. Mary Beth purchased a shotgun with sturdy handling and a bag full of slugs. When they road out the city, Arthur stopped them at a marshy tributary of the Kamassa River, and he was keen to give her a little bit of a lesson on that gun.

“I can use a shotgun, Arthur,” said Mary Beth. There were bugs buzzing in their ears. "I ain't a invalid."

“I know,” he said, swatting. “This one’s heavy though, Mary Beth. It ain’t a sawed-off. It'll handle different, I promise.”

“I suppose you're right,” she said.

They tied up their horses. They went through some simple things. Mary Beth shot a turtle and then felt badly about it.

“You didn’t kill it,” said Arthur, squinting as they watched it hobbling away into the marsh. “You just…dented it a little.”

“I don’t like shooting animals,” she said. “Unless I’m eating.”

“We can eat a turtle,” he said. “In fact, I know a decent recipe for the soup. But like I said, it’s getting away. There it goes. It's gone now." He waved. "Bye, Mr. Turtle.”

She shoved him in the shoulder. It gave them both a laugh.

After they finished, they each had a can of beans and shared a fresh peach for lunch. They fed their horses. They sat on a blanket by the water. The weather was warm. Arthur loosened his collar and rolled up his sleeves. “Mary Beth,” he said at some point where they sat, with their legs out, looking at the water.

"Yes, Arthur."

“That gun," he said, "for you—don’t you go shooting unless you absolutely must. And I mean absolutely. You understand?”

“I know, Arthur.”

“Yeah, I know you know," he said, smoking a cigarette. "I just—I don’t mean to be patronizing. I just needed to reiterate. For my own reassurance.”

She blushed a little and ate a piece of the peach. “Reiteration achieved,” she said. And she saluted him.

They rode again, and this time, into the early evening. There were few horses out that day but plenty of wagons heading down south to St. Denis. This was kind of a strange place, where they were. Arthur didn’t altogether like or trust it, so he took them out west a bit, en route toward Emerald Station—a longer way, but with the sun on its way out, he wasn’t interested in escorting Mary Beth through the unmitigated horrors of the Bayou and the Blue Water Marsh. It’s not like she was dainty, but as he was no man of the southern tradition, and there was little he could do to predict the codeless tactics of cannibals and raping racists. He did not even know how well he could protect himself, let alone himself plus a pretty girl. He almost always avoided the marshes at night.

They rode about till dusk, making it all the way up to south of the stables near Dewberry Creek. Arthur had wanted to make it to Emerald Station by nightfall, but with two of them, and their extended lunch in the marshes, the day had gone slower than he anticipated. So he decided that, rather than try and ride into nightfall, when the old creatures and the monsters and the weirdos come out, they’d head off the road and make camp early, when they could still catch view of the horizon.

They came upon a covered bridge. With the dusk was coming fog. Arthur felt a chill, like maybe something wasn’t right. They idled at the bridge.

“I was thinking,” he said to Mary Beth, leaning and petting Sarah’s mane with his hand, “we could find a good spot up yonder. Rather than pushing through into the night. What do you think?”

Mary Beth was glancing around. She finished off an apple then tossed the core to the earth. “I think that’s wise,” she said. “Plus I’m getting hungry. I mean, for more than just fruit.”

“Me, too,” said Arthur. He resituated his coat and his hat and lit a smoke. They trotted the length of the bridge side by side. Mary Beth made a joke about rivers that Arthur laughed at but would soon forget. At the end of the bridge, Arthur’s horse shuffled around like she was disturbed. She was a fast trotter, but a skittish animal

“Whoa, girl,” he said, reining her gently. "Whoa. Whoa."

“Arthur,” said Mary Beth. "Arthur."

“What is it?”

That is when he looked up, and that is when they were approached. Three men on foot, one with his shotgun brandished at his hip, another holding a torch, standing at the end of the bridge. They were nasty characters, wearing plain clothes and with teeth missing. Arthur knew right off what was going on and signaled for Mary Beth to make a full stop. "Hold up," he said, real low.

The men stood in a row. The first one was chewing something. He spat right onto the surface wood of the bridge, a big nasty mouthful of brown juice. “Howdy,” he said. He wore a porkpie hat. “Fine evening.”

“Indeed,” said Arthur, still with the cigarette hanging out his mouth. “How can we help you boys?”

“We’ll be taking your horse,” said the man, raising his shotgun a little. He surveyed the scene, the situation, raised it higher. “And all your money, of course." He seemed to think on it then, rearrange his plans. "And the girl.”

Mary Beth seemed to take offense. "Fat chance," she said.

Arthur shushed her, made kind of a low chuckle. “That is amusing, good sir," he said. "But I am afraid we'll have to decline."

"Excuse me kindly."

"Why don’t you just move aside?” said Arthur, very serious then, laying his hand on the grip of his pistol.

The man in the hat became angered maybe then. Emboldened by Arthur's aloofness. He picked his gun up a little higher in response. His voice got louder. "Dismount your horse," he said.

Arthur raised his eyebrows, plucked the cigarette from his mouth, and surveyed its burning ending. Then he flicked it the earth and gave all three of the men a long, lazy look in the twilight. At first, he did not speak.

“Did you hear me, boy?”

“Arthur?” said Mary Beth, in a high whisper. She did not sound scared, merely ready. “What do I do.”

Arthur's voice was low, barely more than gravel. "Don't touch that gun, Mary Beth."

She nodded, waited.

“You got till the count of five,” said the man in the hat now. He was a brave soul.

“Oh yeah?" said Arthur. "Five? And then what?”

“And then I shoot,” said the man. He set his sights on Arthur. "You, then the girl." Nobody moved. “One…two…”

Arthur rolled his eyes then. It was almost in slow motion. But he drew his pistol at a whip speed, and inside of three seconds, shot two of the men dead. The third got spooked, dropped his torch, and ran off. It was over, just like that.

“Shit,” said Arthur, watching the third man go, squinting into the advancing night. A bunch of birds had taken off at the ringing of his pistol. It was still smoking. He settled Sarah a little without even paying her a glance. He was trying to decide whether to take off after the man on horseback, or to concede. “Where’d he go?” He chose to concede. But then.

“Sweet fucking Christmas, Arthur Morgan.”

Mary Beth’s voice was high and exasperated. It was such an unusual sound—he did not usually hear women’s voices in moments like these. It yanked him out of his trance. “Excuse me?”

“You blew their heads clean off!”

He just stared at her. She was giving him a kind of scolding look as he came back into their reality. “Yeah, I know,” he said, scratching behind his ear. He holstered his pistol. “I didn’t want that, but what would you have had me do instead? Let them take you?”

She trotted her horse up to the mess. Brains and blood all over the bridge. “Geesh.”

“It was them or us, Mary Beth.”

She sighed again. “Oh, Arthur.”

He did not know what to say.

Suddenly then, she was off her horse. And then she was on her knees beside one of the dead men. She was rifling through their pockets. Arthur came to again and looked around in sudden clarity. Whoever that man was who got away, he might be coming back with law, and that was not good. “Mary Beth,” he said, hurried. “What on god’s earth are you doing?”

“You shot the fellers. Least we can do is rob them.”

Arthur shook out his head. His horse was shifting. “I have committed murder in semi-daylight,” he said. “One of them got away. We need to leave. I don’t need no more bounties in New Hannover territory, Miss Mary Beth.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “But at least this way their deaths was worth something.”

“Their deaths was worth your life.”

She waved him off, picking through the second dead man’s jacket. “Got a couple wedding bands here,” she said. “Gold. Real nice. Married and dumb, I see. Fuckin idiots.”

Arthur lit a cigarette, a nervous habit. He was keeping watch. “All right. Grab those and let’s get a move on now. Come on.”

“Got em,” she said. And then she tucked the rings and a couple watches into her dress pocket, plus a handful of change and she mounted her horse. “All’s good, lieutenant. Let’s ride.”

He laughed at this. She was awful funny. He trotted out front. “You are a brave woman,” he said.

“Wasn’t I who done the shooting.”

“Don’t take much guts to shoot two men in the head like that, Mary Beth. Just skill.”

“Yeah well, you call it what you want it. But I know what I know. And I know it was them or us, Arthur. I do. I’m just making it hard for you is all. I am grateful.”

He smoked, smirking in a bashful quiet. This he did not expect. “Okay then," he said. "Don’t mention it. Let's just go."

They picked up and rode like hell past the river. Arthur took them off the trail in a short while, and they built a fire and Mary Beth prepared a little venison for their dinner, with a couple cans of carrots on the side. They made camp, and they had dinner, just as the sun sank out of view, soaking the whole sky with its fiery farewell.

#red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #mary beth gaskill #red dead redemption #rdr2 #arthur x mary beth

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disinvited-guest · 5 years

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10/27/2018 NYC Mini Recap

Since there is a full length recording of this show as well as several videos, and because I want to be all caught up on recaps going into my next round of shows, this is just going to be a mini recap.

-I took a bus and two trains into the city, then walked several blocks. I had planned to get there earlier than I did, but it all worked out, as due to some intense strategizing and brilliant execution on the part of @monopuffstan and @integrityproject , we snagged a spot in the front row in front of the drum riser. It had been far too long since I had been over on that side of the stage, and I really enjoyed the change in perspective.

-While we were waiting, we saw a bunch of the backstage goings-on through a gap in a curtain that covered a balcony over stage left. Just about everyone passed through that point before the show, and Dan and Linnell both peeked around the curtain to check out the crowd.

I- realized at this show that Curt has a tablet set up in front of his riser.

-The setlist wasn’t an exact replica of the night before, but it was fairly similar.

-Dan was right in front of us for the Damn Good Times solo, and it’s even more spectacular up close

-I got a smile from Danny towards the start of the show. Towards the end, of the second set, you could see him checking the first few rows from one side of the crowd to the other and making sure he had acknowledged everyone he recognized. I got another smile then, and I thought it was nice to see how much he cared about us fans.

-Linnell was taking pictures on a disposable camera as they came onstage, and while Flans was greeting the crowd.

-Flans referred to Terminal 5 as both “the concrete box that rocks” and “our home away from home, even when we are at home”

-Linnell apparently had slept most of the day, then had and exhausted conversation with his wife about how strange Canada was “that was weird”

-They claimed in touring Canada that the had missed Moosejaw and Winterhat, but had been to Sascacheeeee....

-Flans talked about going on someone’s twitter profile (sometimes when a person posts something incomprehensible, he explained, you have to check out their profile) and they described themselves as "shy af." He pretended to us that he had no idea what that could mean, and Linnell told him it was a photography term and it stood for out of focus. “It all comes back to photography.”

-Flans mentioned that he had presented Robin with their first ever piece of taxidermy (the mini-tiger which he had mentioned in Ithaca). They’ve decided to keep it in a nook at the top of their basement stairs. What happened next is too hilarious not to include longform.

Flans: The interesting thing about taxidermy is that you either lose all your friends or you gain a whole new set of friends who are just a little bit creepier.

Linnell: Or you could just taxidermy your old friends. It’s a win-win.

Flans: It’s that kind of outside of the box thinking that’s kept this band fresh for all these years

They continued on that vein for a while, the exact wording of which I forget, then continued

Flans: What’s a little cannibalism among friends?

Linnell: I didn’t say anything about cannibalism.

Flans: And that is the basis of our collaboration. You mention taxidermy and I’m like “hey cannibalism!”

-Flans said the second set is all fusion rock and we’d have to pay to leave.

-When Linnell tried to start during the Future of Sound on his Kaoss pad, nothing happened and he had to reach up and turn it on, which everyone saw since the camera on his keyboard was projected to the big screen

-Flans told us we weren’t in the oversized paper clip section of staples when introducing the contra alto clarinet.

-When introducing All Time What, Flans said Dan was on the keyboards. Dan eyes got huge, and he asked Danny about it. Danny went over to Flans and told him that he was introducing a different song than was next on the setlist. Flans asked him what was on the setlist, then brushed him off, saying that that was the song he was introducing. Linnell then teased Danny that it was “a little early in the show to start fuckign everything up.” Danny threw his hands in the air, walked back over to Dan, and said something to him, obviously to the effect of ‘are you going to play keyboards on this’ which Dan responded to with an adamant headshake.

-According to Flans they don’t have any other time to talk, so the show is also a meeting for them “last week they confronted me about the cold medicine and I was like ‘I don’t care guys, I am an autonomous individual of destruction.”

-According to Linnell, they wrote Let’s Get This Over With when they were “stone drunk and flat broke in the Louisiana rain,” in a deep gravelly voice that he claimed was his “real” one

-Dan was wearing his Chicken Parm Shirt. Linnell pointed out to us all that when he first came onstage wearing his jacket, it looked like it said “ick ar” and that when he was wearing his guitar strap it had said “chick arm.” He thought maybe there was more to the shirt than just chicken parm.

-Since we were in New York, Flans figured everyone had a solid theatre background. He told us the “safe word” for the night was new song.

-When Linnell announced they were reaching the end of the first set, he said it was “when we will be taking our hopefully well deserved break.”

-Flans apparently usually listens to an audiobook during the break. Linnell thought it was a Keith Richards autobiography, but Flans claimed it was The Making of A Star is Born (which made Marty shoot him a dirty look). They decided that the audiobook was narrated by Gilbert Godfrey, which was apparently an in-joke based on the rotating narrators of the Keith Richards’ autobiography, which Flans had been listening to. Linnell has decided that the last chapter of every audiobook should be narrated by Gilbert Godfrey.

-During Spy, Linnell started yelling “Now the night is gone!” over the guys playing instead of using the song sample he has programmed.

-Curt felt a little bit towards the end of the first set Dan covered a bit of his part during When Will You Die, and the Spy intro was a little shorter than it had been. Whatever it was, he recovered a lot of his energy by the second set.

-I met @marcuskane briefly during the break between sets!

-Flans discussed George Soros again during the Quiet Storm. Apparently, they are making The Shining 2 about him, and how he is everywhere, doing everything.

-Linnell told us in the future of 1844, everything has the word space in front of it: space beards, space horse-and-buggy, etc.

-Flans used the phrase “push back the hands of time” in introducing Applause Applause Applause, which caused a few gasps in the front few rows before they started the song.

-How Can I Sing Like a Girl was a “long distance dedication to anyone not running for the Supreme Court” because it “wouldn’t be the acoustic section without unwanted political comment.”

-The electronic drums in an acoustic set are “a musical non-sequitur” according to Flans

-Curt was right in front of us for the intro to Istanbul, which was unbelievable.

-Linnell claimed that he was a kid in the year 3000 BC before the Mesopotamians

-When Flans introduced the Sun as being the single off their new album, the crowd went wild like Flans had demanded they do for new songs during the previous set.

-“The sun is like a huge atom-smashing device for crushing. The heat and light from the sun are caused by the nuclear reaction between this finger. That’s it.”

-At the beginning of the show, some people were yelling out requests and Flans told them “That’s right, we’re not taking requests.” They tried it again before She’s an Angel, and someone handed Flans that fake setlist that had shown up on Miscellaneous T a few weeks before. When thanking people individually a bit later, Flans told him “you have a lot of ideas but this is neither the time nor the place.”

-Dan’s guitar was having trouble during the second set and he had to switch to another for a few songs.

-Flans started Operation with “People of Terminal 5 New York, allow me to inform you about my operation.”

-Flans sang his individual thank yous to the crowd with Linnell’s keyboard accompaniment.

-During band intros, Dan did that thing where he tracked and repeated bits then played over them, shutting it all off abruptly with his foot.

-Danny squeezed up next to Marty on the drum riser during Curts intro to have a conversation with him. There is not enough room up there for two people

-Danny mimed eating when he was introduced as from Long Island “where the weak are killed and eaten” once again, but since he was using a ‘spoon’ it looked more like he was eating cereal from a bowl than the weak who had crossed him.

-“How bout that band? Only one rehearsal!”

-Coming out for the second encore, Linnell told us “You’ve made a happy band very old.”

#tmbg #recap

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talldarkandroguesome · 5 years

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30th of Evening Star, Sundas

Pip and her friends have been doing much to prepare for the Old Life celebration tomorrow and for the New Life Festival the following day.

I had gone to the tavern and while I was waiting for Pip, the siblings she had brought a few days prior were there. The two of them seemed very keen to chat me up, ordered me all sorts of fancy wines and small plates of food.

They kept scooting closer and closer on either side of me, fed me wine dipped food, and could not seem to keep their hands to themselves.

I assume that since we did not get to share much of the previous encounter together, they were looking for the chance to get a more personal time together.

They asked me to come to their room so that we could get to know one another better. With treatment like that, who was I to say no?

We hadn’t made it halfway up the stairs before their hands were everywhere, under my clothing, unlacing my trousers, squeezing my backside.

By the time the door of their room was closed, I hadn’t a stitch of clothing on. It was a whirl, time just moving so quickly. I felt like I was suddenly bound to the bedposts with both of them atop me. They were making tiny little cuts and playing with the thin trails of blood they bore out.

The brother let wine run down his body, feeding it in thin trails to my mouth, while the sister sat astride me, licking patterns around the cuts. The whole thing was very rousing. It had been a while since I had enjoyed such treatment.

Yet, before we had the chance to get started on anything more serious, there came a pounding on the door.

The sister asked the person on the other side to leave us alone, that we were busy.

Pip’s voice sounded through the door and I suddenly worried if perhaps I had overstepped a bound. I have been so used to giving of my body freely, I had not stopped to consider if she wished us to be singularly inclined. Though, I had thought it fine since we had engaged with the pair before. Yet that angry tone had me worried.

The sister opened the door to Pip and she and the pair began to argue and hiss at one another. I tried to apologize to Pip, but she held up a hand and I stayed quiet.

After a long argument in some language of man that I was unfamiliar with, they seemed to come to an accord. Then all three turned their attentions back towards me. Pip picked up the small blades the siblings had been using and she took the lead, directing the other two what they were and were not allowed to do.

Similarly, she had me make amends by servicing each of the three of them to her specification, her eyes always watching me and my every move. I was eager to please her with such an exquisite gaze cast my way. I enthusiastically pleasured all three of them and gave myself to any of her and her friends’ desires. To be made an object of pure satisfaction.

We kept at it until everyone tired. The sun’s light began to lighten the room and the trio hissed and bade me shut the curtains. Then we all slumbered.

I awoke some time later, the others still asleep, and cracked the curtain so check the time. The other three hissed and demanded I shut it.

I promptly shut the curtain and returned to bed. I was late in the afternoon, judging by the light. And I admit, as hung over as I was, the light burned my eyes too. Even my skin hurt from the brightness.

I swear, these three are worse than Nords when it comes to drinking. I don’t even know how many bottles we went through. Must be a lot for me to lose track of the number and to get so lightheaded from it all.

Eventually I drifted off to sleep once again, exhausted for a whole night of drinking and the attentions of three lovers. I also may have been cut a little more than comfort, though I never saw too much blood. My cuts still stung if I turned too much.

I woke to a big plate of meat. It was cooked, but rather on the rare side. Usually I prefer, big pieces of meat like that to be more thoroughly cooked. But the smell of it alone made me realize how long it had been since I had eaten. I must not have partook in much of what I was given the night before, because this meat tasted unprecedentedly good. I felt famished.

I must have been rather a sight too, because the others laughed at how I was eating. I felt very self conscious then and apologized for how I was eating.

They told me not to worry about it, but it was hard not to, with all three of them watching me.

I asked them if they wanted any of it to eat. The brother replied he had other meat which interested him more and his hands were back on me. He told me he was hungry for more.

I asked if I could not take a potion to cure my hangover first, and they all seemed very interested. I told them that I dabbled in alchemy, so I brewed my own potions. I showed them one of my hybrid cure poison and cure disease potions. I told them I used it after any encounters with new people to prevent the spread of disease while curing me of my hangovers.

They all agreed it was ingenious and the siblings commissioned me to make them a few for themselves. I agreed, though I admitted I would need to return home to craft them, since that is where my supplies are retained.

I took the potion and felt much better. With food in my belly and my hangover cured, I was ready to cater to the needs of the others. I also took a healing potion so that they could start with a new canvas for whatever pleasant deviancies they had in mind for the night.

I can’t recall half of what happened, there were so many mouthed and tongues and teeth upon my flesh, an excruciating euphoria of ecstasy.

I do recall them all asking to come back with me so that I could provide their potions. I told them we would have to be quiet so that none knew they were there.

I had them wait down below my window as I went inside to unlock it and let them in.

Of course, who should I see in the hall as I’m coming in, but Tel.

I called the shadows to me and tried to move past him. I must have been in a rage, because, though I managed to go beyond him, I ended up throwing myself onto a padded couch. I stood up as though I had meant it to be that way and continued on to my room.

Once inside, I shut and locked my door, then went and unlatched the veranda window. I checked that no other soul was outside on theirs, then invited them all to climb up.

I was happy to have Pip in my room. I could show her so many things I could only talk about before. The trio spent time walking around and trying on my silks and jewelry, before they decided they wanted to watch me make some potions.

I made half a dozen of my potions, three each for the siblings. As payment, we all had another round of their favorite game. I had Pip help me into a gag so that I could not make sound that could rouse any of the neighboring rooms’ occupants.

When I awoke this morning, I was alone. A note in my hand from Pip said that she had not dared to wake me while I slept so peacefully. It gave her love and told me she could not wait to see me again the next night.

I was so groggy in the early evening light. It took me a while to garner the fortitude to go and take the potions and get dressed. I went to the baths, enjoying the feel of the warm water and the moonslight filtering in. I felt the constellations of cuts Pip and her friends left on me, a reminder of just how much care and consideration they give to me. I feel as though, while lessened to my feelings for Pip, I have some stir of emotions for the siblings too. Something about them makes me feel whole in a way not too dissimilar from how Pip makes me feel.

I do not know if they are Pip’s lovers already and that is why she introduced them to me slowly, or if they are just friends. I should find a time to ask her about it.

It also goes to show that Pip was not lying to me about Tel. Clearly Pip is not the jealous type, she is happy to share me with others. Tel must have made the whole thing up.

It’s infuriating, if flattering. I am glad they like me enough to be jealous and/or possessive of me, but it is my life and choices! Pip is clearly well suited to me. We enjoy the same things, we have compatible needs in a relationship. Those are the qualities one looks for in a lover.

While I would never participate in her cannibalism, that’s a Bosmeri tradition, therefore I do not need to adhere to it, I am happy to help her to practice her faith, so long as it truly is the killing of enemies or the wicked. It is like the arrangement Nabine and I had. I can do that again. And this time, we may have other lovers to join us. What a wonderfully fun group I have been lucky enough to meet. I must get ready to go back to the tavern to see them all again.

#ESO #TES #Dunmer #Bosmer #RP #Elder Scrolls Online #The Elder Scrolls

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queen-of-deans-booty · 6 years

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Bedtime Stories- Part 2

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,322

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

Another attack under your watch. Another person in the hospital, hurt, because you, Sam and Dean couldn’t figure it out fast enough. You were still clueless as you were yesterday so as hard as you tried, you couldn’t figure out what you were hunting.

You decided to visit the newest victim, Julie Watson, who was attacked in the woods with her boyfriend, Ken, who died. You were walking down the hallway with the brothers when you saw two real deputies walk out of the room Julie was in. You bit your lip, knowing that if they saw you in what you were wearing they might ask questions and that wouldn’t be good for you.

You and the brothers turned to each other and started whispering, to make it look like you were just there to visit someone. The deputies didn’t seem to notice you and walked past you without a second glance. You let out a sigh of relief before breaking apart and walking into Julie’s room. She looked like a mess and you hated that she was in so much pain of losing someone she loved.

You could feel her pain.

Dr. Garrison from when you saw Kyle, was talking with a crying Julie.

“Please, please,” she pleaded.

“Shh. Hey, we need to observe you while the drugs still might be in your system.” Dr. Garrison stated.

“I have to go. I have things to do, arrangements I need to make!”

“It can wait. Now you need to rest. Stay. I'll be back in a few minutes,” Dr. Garrison said, turning around before spotting you. “Ah, Detectives.”

“Dr. Garrison.” Dean nodded as a greeting.

“What the hell is going on here? My whole town is going insane.”

“Trust me, we’ll let you know as soon as we do.” You promised him even though that was a lie. Dr. Garrison nodded and sighed, leaving you and the Winchesters to talk to Julie.

“Hi, Miss Watson? We just need to ask you a few questions.” You said gently, showing her your ID badge, Sam, and Dean doing the same.

“Do we have to go over this again? Now?” You hated how broken she looked.

“We'll try to be brief. Miss Watson, can you tell us how you got away?” Sam said, getting right to the point.

“I didn't eat as much as Ken did, so I wasn't as out of it. And, when the old woman was... carving up Ken, I shoved her, and she fell. Cracked her head on the stove,” she paused to take a few deep breaths, to take this all in. “She's dead, right? I-I killed her?”

“Do you have any idea why she'd do this to you?” Dean asked.

“No! One minute she was a sweet old lady and the next she was, like, a monster.” Julie explained. You bit your lip and knew that Ken and Julie were attacked in the woods. When you replay her words in your head over and over, this story sounds familiar.

Two people, a male and a female, walk through the woods to find a little cottage with a sweet old woman inside, asking them if they’d like to come inside for sweets. They trust her and then she turns on them, eating them both.

You weren’t big on childhood stories but this sounded like… no, it can’t be… that was only a story… right?

“Can you remember anything else?” Sam asked, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Um, yeah, did you find a little girl there, by any chance?”

“A little girl? At the house?” Sam asked, confused. You were confused by this detail but it still didn’t deter you from your suspicions.

“I thought I saw her outside the window. She, she just disappeared. Just vanished, into thin air.” Julie explained. Sam and Dean looked at each other but you stared at Julie, trying to piece her story together.

“This disappearing girl—what did she look like?” You asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, every detail does,” Sam said from behind you.

“She had this dark, dark hair and really pale skin. She was around eight. She was a beautiful child. It was... odd to see her in the middle of something so horrible.” Julie said with a sigh. You knew she was tired and you nodded, backing up a bit.

“Thank you for your time,” You walked away, Sam and Dean following you out of the room. “I think I might know what is going on here but we need to see that house.”

“You got it,” Dean said, leading the way to the car. Since the crime scene was known to the public, Dean already knew where to go. When you got there, your suspicions were further solidified. You got out and sighed, running your hand through your hair.

“Wanna tell us what you’re thinking, sweetheart?” Dean asked, walking next to you.

“Yeah, in a minute. Let’s just see if there is sulfur anywhere outside before I say anything.” You said, walking off to the right side of the little cottage. Sam and Dean walked the other way and when you met back in front of the house, it turns out all three of you were empty-handed.

“Alright, no sulfur, then let’s try EMF inside,” You suggested, walking inside the crime scene. It was still a little bloody but your theory was looking pretty good at what was going on. Sam was waving the EMF around, trying to figure out if the little girl was a spirit or not.

“Anything, Sam?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, it's going nuts. When I went over here by the window... There's definitely a spirit here.”

“Who stood outside the crime scene and watched,” Dean commented.

“Looks like,” Sam shrugged.

“Okay, here is my theory,” you said, making the brothers look at you. “Fairy tales.”

“Oh that's—that's nice. You think about fairy tales often?” Dean teased you.

“I’m serious Dean,” You said.

“Wait, I know which one you’re talking about,” Sam said, taking a step to you.

“Would someone like to enlighten me?” Dean asked, hating the feeling of being out of the loop.

“Dean, come on. A guy and a girl? Hiking through the woods? An old lady tries to eat them? That is Hansel and Gretel. Now that I think about it, Kyle and his brothers, they were construction workers. They built houses. They were attacked by the Big Bad Wolf.”

“Three Little Pigs.” Dean voiced your thoughts.

“Exactly.”

“Wait, I thought these things ended happily?” Dean asked, confused.

“Well, the newer versions fit for children and bedtime stories, yes. But the originals? Hell no,” You said, making Sam take over.

“See, the Grimm Brothers’ stuff was kind of the folklore of its day. It was full of sex, violence, and cannibalism.” Sam added to your thought, making Dean sigh.

“So, you think the murders are uh, what? A re-enactment? That's a little crazy.”

“Crazy as what? Demons and ghosts and shit?” You pointed out.

“Touché. Then how is the creepy little girl involved?”

“Um... Well, she must've been here for a reason. I'm willing to bet you top dollar she was at the construction site too.” Sam said.

“We gotta do research now, don't we?” Dean groaned and you and Sam both nodded. He sighed and finished up with what he was doing at the cottage before walking back to the car to head to the library. Now that you knew what you were dealing with, the question now is how can you stop it?

You, Sam and Dean split up to figure out what exactly you were dealing with. You went with Dean to the library and Sam went around, going to police stations and trying to see if he could uncover anything. You hoped that Sam was having good luck with this because you and Dean spent the past six hours in the library, coming up with jack shit.

“God damn it! I am going out of my mind!” Dean growled in frustration, closing the book he was reading.

“Don’t worry, we will figure it out. We always figure it out. Let’s take a break and go see if we can find Sam.” You suggested and he agreed with you. You shut down the computer you were using and put the books back where you found them before exiting the library.

You found Sam walking towards you guys and when you met, you knew he found something but you didn’t know if it was good news or bad news.

“So?” Sam spoke first.

“We checked every record they had. Found the usual amount of violent childhood deaths for a town this size.” Dean informed him and you three began walking to the park that was across the street.

“Okay,” Sam sighed.

“Wanna know how many how many were little girls with black hair and pale skin?” Dean asked his brother.

“Zero.”

“Zero! You wanna know how many how many little girls with black hair and pale skin that have gone missing? Right again. Zip. zilch, nada. Tell me you've got something good because we’ve totally wasted the last six hours.” Dean said with a sigh. You three walked into the park and strayed from the trail.

“Well, you ever hear of Lillian Bailey? She was a British medium from the 1930s.”

“She got a thing for fairy tales?” You asked Sam.

“Nah, trances. See, she'd go into these unconscious states where, um, get this, her thoughts and actions were completely controlled by spirits.”

“A ghost puppet master.” You said.

“You think that's what this kid is doing? Sending wolfboy and grandma into trances, making them go kill-crazy?” Dean asked.

“Could be. You know, kind of like spirit hypnosis or something.”

“Trances I get, but fairy tale trances? That's bizarre even for us.” Dean said, still skeptical. You and the brothers stopped walking when you found a bullfrog in front of you, croaking as if it wasn’t bothering anyone.

“Yeah, you're right. That's completely normal.” Sam said with an eye roll, looking at his brother.

“Alright, maybe it is fairy tales, totally messed-up ones, but fairy tales. Hey, you wanna be the princess that kissed the frog?” Dean joked, nudging your shoulder.

“Hell no.” You immediately said, looking away from the frog and to Dean.

“Hey. Check that out.” Sam said, pointing to a house across the park. You and Dean looked in that direction and didn’t notice what he was pointing at until you saw a pumpkin sitting on the porch.

“Yeah? So, what, it’s close to Halloween,” Dean said, walking with you and Sam over to the house.

“You remember Cinderella? With the pumpkin that turns into a coach, and the mice that become horses?” Sam pointed out.

“Dude, could you be more gay?” Dean asked and Sam gave him the biggest bitch face Sam has ever given him.

“Sam, this is just a pumpkin. I mean, I’m not dismissing your theory or anything but how can you go off of just a pumpkin?” You asked, ignoring Dean’s earlier comment.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Sam said, walking to the front door and got on his knees. He started to pick the lock and you and Dean blocked him from anyone that could see him. He got the door open soon and you walked in behind them, shutting the door.

“Well who knows, maybe you'll find your fairy godmother?” Dean teased his brother. Sam rolled his eyes and Dean smirked, knowing it bothered him. You split up from the brothers, walking to the kitchen, on alert for anything that might happen in the house.

Dean and Sam split up as well, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly, you heard a noise come from inside the kitchen and you took your gun that you always had from behind your back and held it in front of you. Sam and Dean joined you when they heard the noise as well.

“Help I'm in here!” A female voice said from inside the kitchen. You opened the door with your gun raised and saw a teenage girl handcuffed to the oven.

“It's okay. We're here, we're here. We got you.” Sam said, immediately rushing to the girl to help her. He took out his lock pick kit to unlock the cuffs.

“You have to help me. She's a lunatic.” The teenage girl panted.

“What happened?” Dean asked while you checked the kitchen out for anything wrong.

“My stepmom, she just freaked out, screamed at me, beat me. Chained me up.”

“Where is she now?” Sam asked as he worked.

“I don’t know.” You sighed and looked out the kitchen door to see a little girl with black hair and pale skin looking at you.

“Dean, Sam,” You said, catching the attention of the brothers. They saw the little girl, just as she was walking away. You followed her, keeping your gun out. This must be the little girl who Julie was talking about earlier. You walked into the living room where you saw the little girl go but she walked out of sight. You rolled your eyes, not in the mood for this bullshit.

You walked through the house, looking for the little girl. When you walked into the dining room and didn’t see her, you knew something was up. You heard a creak come from behind you and you turned around, seeing the little girl there, staring at you.

“Who are you?” You asked but didn’t receive an answer from her. She continued to start at you until she started flickering like a spirit does. She vanished from sight, leaving a red apple in her place. You looked at it and picked it up, knowing what this meant.

Red apple meant Snow White. The wicked step-mother poisoned the apple which in turn, poisoned Snow White. Was this little girl poisoned by her mother?

Series Rewrite Junkies:

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yoolee · 6 years

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If Lee wrote otome #8 | Interstellar Shoestring Budget

PREMISE:

Top Secret and yet also chronically underfunded, understaffed, misunderstood government office focused on extraterrestrial affairs - primarily, keeping their presence a secret, helping stranded extraterrestrials integrate into Earth society, processing planned visits, occasionally preventing mass invasions - with a basically nonexistent budget, since the people making the decision on where to allocate money can’t know the truth. This means cobbling together disguises with the help of a local community theatre department or high school art program, macguyvering weapons together from duct tape, staplers and tech that’s 20 years out of date, and relying on an unpaid (extraterrestrial) intern to handle social media updates and PR. 3D prints most of their supplies. TAKES PLACE IN LAS VEGAS probably. Where else would you hide the fantastical?

Potentially fatal extraterrestrial parasite found? Let’s hope roach killer spray works on it. I think there’s some under the break room kitchen sink.

Large scale invasion by the Truorans imminent? We avoided the last one with Tweeter - do they have Tweeter? Do we know anyone who can communicate in Truoran? No - let’s try emojis then, I guess.

Newly stranded alien has blue scales and six eyes? Welcome to Earth - here’s a mepipe contouring video and some concealer, good luck.

Zero mind-control memory wipe devices - unless they can convince an alien with those abilities to do it, they pretty much have to rely on chicanery, natural skeptical instincts, and bribery (as a last resort, because, budget).

(side note - super tempted to say it’s old enough to have been ‘Ye Olde Extraterrestrial-Earth Transfer Support’ but over time the ‘olde’ and ‘support’ got dropped so now it’s just YEET)

HEROINE

Bad at delegating - takes on too much too often (usually because she’s so used to not having budget to hire more people to do it). Somewhat high-strung. Prone to trying every new ‘this will change your life’ trend out there but never makes it more than a month or two before falling back on bad habits. Excellent cook, often of very, very weird combinations in hopes of landing on the right mix for some of her clients (even though many of them find the practice of coming together as a group to independently ingest energy sources bizarre). Staunch believer in trying for peace first - just because we can’t communicate doesn’t mean we don’t have common ground, and just because something is unexplained or unfamiliar doesn’t mean it’s dangerous. Too tired to be scared of anything, which is good, because sometimes the existential questioning of her reality and the world beyond it can be derailing. Went straight into the military after high school, which is how she ended up learning about extraterrestrial outreach. Still keeps a lot of service habits. Currently trying to wean off of caffeine (it’s not going well). Has no social life because she is always on call for work. Angry and hurting about the cruelty of the world--not just hers, but universally--but tries to ignore the anger in favor of doing small things to make it better.

Love Interests

Alien 1: Alien who integrated into Earth six-seven years ago when heroine was first being assigned to the department. Has some serious telepathic ability, which allows them to conveniently convince anyone looking at them that they’re seeing a regular, normal human being, instead of what they actually are (basically energy-based, rather than having a solid manifest form). Unfortunately, they also kind of uses it willynilly to ‘convince’ people of over things, because they don’t believe in subscribing to human ethical codes except when convenient, which makes them a teensy bit untrustworthy. Generally seems content (even happy) to be on Earth, making a significant effort to establish a long-term life. Occasionally acts as a consultant to the department since their ability makes them generally able to communicate with most species, so long as they produce rational thoughts on a similar level, but refuses to help for free, dealing instead in favors (doesn’t need money since they can just convince people to fork over twenty bucks or food for free or whatever they need). Super shady about their backstory. Does not deal in absolutes - their perception of reality is somewhat more multi-tiered and probability-based. Originally from a species with collective thought/memory - something they were shut out of shortly after arriving on Earth, without explanation. Semi-dealing with the trauma of that, and waffles between being elated with their independence, and feeling a profound sense of loss and severance.

The Techie: “I have a computer science engineering degree from MIT and I took this lousy-paying government job because I thought I’d get to hack into alien spaceships but instead I’m basically the Help Desk for Earth-integrating aliens.” Eternally despairs over the incompatibility of Earth tech and extraterrestrial tech - though they’ve managed to make a few basic communication consoles work retroactively and never give up on writing some kind of code or program that will ‘click’. Teensy bit of a mad scientist when it comes to dismantling alien stuff to try and figure out how it works. Perennial smarta--. Knows how critical they are and milks it - basically constantly threatens to leave and go work for Fwoogle (particularly when called upon to do something like unjam the printer). Generally has to be bribed to participate, but more reliable than they pretend. Sociable nerd. Constantly dealing with parents who are disappointed because they expected them to be an Aluminum Valley billionaire by now. Builds apps that provide helpful tips for integrating aliens, and programs the 3D printer to print out disguise pieces.

Actually does quit to go work for Fwoogle or a startup in their own route to avoid coworker issue - except they get sucked back in to at least helping due to some major trouble.

The oh shoot we ended up in space for the final act route - and not only did we end up in space, but we are stranded on a ship that uses totally different tech than ours?

Alien 2: SUPER UNHAPPY about being stuck in this backwater solar system, with such a horrible, rude, unpleasant, backwards-thinking, awful-acting dominant species. May or may not be plotting to wipe them all off the face of the planet. Very volatile (in a literal sense - their surface tends to react explosively with Earth’s atmosphere), though they are trying hard to control it because that’s potentially fatal. From a very aggressive species that has a narrative of peace-through-conquest - but their last mission to do so, there was a catastrophic failure, and that’s the last Alien 2 knows.

Private Industry/Casino Owner (Alien 3): From a shapeshifting species that is essentially adaptive - becoming more and more like their surroundings as time goes on, which means they have super easily integrated into Earth society. Unfortunately, they arrived on Earth back when the Mafia was running Vegas, so, those are the behaviors that are integrated first. Generous but violent. Persuasive, arrogant, has a strict moral code that is a mix of alien and Earthling. Genteel but vicious. Literal embodiment of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger due to adaptive abilities. Has amassed enough of a fortune through running a (super shady) Vegas casino that they have opened their own charity to support extraterrestrials on earth. Frequently tries to hire MC to run it (look at all the resources you could have) but she considers it a conflict of interest (she’s more afraid they will entice away Techie). Has every intention of making Earth an interstellar destination for extraterrestrial tourists - regardless of what Earth’s governments think of it.

Space Pirate (Alien 4): There has to be one, okay? Child of a union between a generally terrifying species and one that inadvertently created them in a last-ditch effort to halt the conquest of their planet, which did not make for a great childhood as they were somewhat disdained by one parent’s species and feared by just about everyone else. Because of this, they have a very strong dislike/distrust of organized groups (governments in particular) but (deep down) they still believe in individuals, as they’ve found several of their life who have become friends or family (or crew). Fiercely loyal to their own. Likes Earth because as an unintegrated planet, they can come and go without scrutiny (except for one measly office that sometimes harangues them). Operates in a very gray morality - stealing is okay, killing in self-defense (even proactively) is okay, doing what you have to survive is okay (though they try to be one to make that decision before their crew), but some things just aren’t. Values independence and freedom over all else. Does not get along with Alien 1 at all because of the collective-thought aspect.

Conspiracy Theory TV Producer: coming soon maybe idk

Supporting Cast:

Various clients:

Doesn’t experience time in a linear fashion which makes them super hard to keep track of.

Myth bases - various types of dragons, mermaids, selkies, etc

A neon-based organism that is colorless and a low-energy loner, and returning them to their home would require a massive amount of voltage, which when applied totally alters them.

A sodium-based organism to whom water is toxic, making it a massive time crunch to get them to a desert location

A mercury-based parasitic organism that has found it can ‘merge’ with humans as their skin absorbs it, giving them a mobile vessel that blends in, except ultimately their toxicity kills their host and they have to find another.

Starkillers! Check it out. Iron-based organisms born from the death of massive stars (creating iron takes more energy than is released by the fusion, so stars that make iron essentially cannibalize themselves) - they are subsequently feared by default by most species that recognize the power inherent to stars. They consume other entities in search of the greater energy they once had. Consuming carbon-oxygen based entities stabilizes them into steel-based organisms.

Various visitors who they haven’t figured out how best to communicate with but they’re trying!

Fire cat: An alien lifeform that seems to be a physical, tangible manifestation of heat. It followed heroine home from work and refuses to leave. Since it likes to cuddle and has taken the shape of an Earth cat (...except for the fact it glows like a hot coal), heroine doesn’t really ask too many questions (Even though sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she swears she sees some massive, fiery shape). She’s still not sure what it eats but it seems content. It’s even started purring on occasion. It will absolutely scorch her fingers if she pets it when it’s not in the mood, though. She keeps telling it she’s a dog person and it keeps giving her a perfect Judgey Not-Actually-A-Cat stare.

Author Roomie: Former frustrated wild child who has (sort of) settled down - with a vengeance. Only leaves the house when they have to - which, given modern conveniences, means almost never - or when they finish a book, at which point they disappear for a few days and MC never knows where they go. They actually hired one of MC’s extraterrestrial clients to act as them for book signings and the like. Was raised by their ‘aunt’ *coughcough*my ode to Aunt Beast*coughcough* who was, in fact, an extraterrestrial, which is how they know about all this. Super helpful in coming up with cover stories. Incredibly laid back about life, incredibly NOT laid back about their book plots - tends to bite MC’s head off (figuratively) around deadline time or when stuck on a particularly tricky chapter. Thoughtful, in the sense that they think things through before answering, clever. Jealous that fire cat loves heroine but won’t sit in author’s lap unless it is SUPER cold outside.

Author’s Editor: Had an absolutely hysterical panic attack when they found out their number one author’s stand-in was not from the planet Earth. Still prone to being hysterical about it if they think about it too much. Chronically weeps over their trouble child client - who is a consistent top ten bestseller, but the definition of exhaustion to work with. Ebbs and flows with author’s mood - when author is laidback, editor is stressed, when author is stressed, editor is the picture of serenity and encouragement. Totally ends up dating ET stand-in even if they have hiccups.

Author’s Aunt: The sort of being who imparts strength on/in others simply through steadfast grace. Just a profoundly loving presence. Healer in a very literal sense, she can help most species to be well and healthy, but there is not a good way to articulate how. Very, very old and has been on Earth a very, very long time - even before the government started a program to integrate aliens, she was acting as a kind of welcomer/healer/mentor/surrogate family to stranded aliens - and the occasional hurting, angry, frustrated human child, as was the case with Author. Often beats the government to the scenes of crashes. Home is always open to anyone who finds their way there. Heroine sees her appearance differently than the author does - when asked about it, neither can really explain why or how, since AA does not perceive the world visually.

Intern: Snarky college kid who acts like an absolute slacker but it’s all a smokescreen for a pathological need to exceed expectations - they actually work super hard behind the scenes. Primary duties include yelling PHOTOSHOP on forums where people post pictures of extraterrestrials. Always seems to have energy. Acts like they are super grouchy about having to adhere to the overly rigorous NDA but is actually extremely zealous about making the world better and safer for all of its residents.

#otome #if lee wrote otome #alien otome #aliens #extraterrestrials #extraterrestrial

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