#wow it’s been months since my animal art made it onto here

[sophiejantak]

fantasy animal field guide page!

#wow it’s been months since my animal art made it onto here #animal art #creature art #fantasy creature #blender #grease pencil #nature journal #field guide #field notes #elephant #okapi

[aqua-dan]

Fav artist for Garth?

I have been thinking about this ask for multiple hours, and I am unsure if I can pick a true favorite because there are so many wonderful artists who have drawn Garth over the years! However, I think I built a pretty solid list of my top 5 artists for Garth (oops!), so here goes:

#1: Phil Jimenez

I have so much love for the way he draws (and writes) Garth! Of every artist out there, I feel he has the most love for drawing Garth and I can feel that care and attention to detail in all his work. I am absolutely in love with the way he draws Garth's expressions too! He allows him to have exaggerated expressions and really allow us to feel the emotions of the story through the art. He's not afraid of showing him in painful and less than idealistic moments, and allows his face to reflect that. I think it's something that a lot of current comic book artists shy away from for fear of making characters look "ugly." But Jimenez goes all in on it and still makes Garth look stunning 24/7!

#2: Ramona Fradon

Ramona Fradon was one of the co-creators of Garth, and was, in my opinion, one of the most incredible people in the comic's art industry. She sadly passed away last month at age 97, and she only just announced her retirement from art a month prior to her passing. Her influence on the industry, especially for female artists, was monumental, and her art style stood out so uniquely amongst others. I've always loved how fantastical her art is. She creates fascinating underwater creatures and has an absolutely precious way of drawing Garth. I appreciate that she made the decision to draw him looking as young as he was at the time, especially since a lot of other teen sidekicks were drawn to look older. I feel very lucky that I was able to get a piece of art from her (the first pic in this section!) around the time of her passing. I will treasure it forever!

#3: Nick Cardy

There is something so charming about the way that Nick Cardy draws Garth! There's a simplicity and retro feeling to it that comes off as so fun! I don't know exactly what it is about his art, but it always makes me smile!

4: Mark Buckingham

Buckingham's style is like if "stretch and squash animation" was a static art style, and I LOVE it. It looks so funky and bouncy and expressive! It's one of those styles that I don't think everyone loves, but it really works for me and makes the comics extremely enjoyable to read for the art alone! It's not super polished and has some rough edge qualities, but that's precisely why I like it!

5: Lucas Meyer

Meyer is a newcomer in the scene of comics, but WOW! I am not immune to how gorgeous his art style is. I'm so happy that he's been named the ongoing artist for the current series! (Even if I can't get good writing, I'll at least take the nice art!) I think his style is so clean and pretty. I do wish that he went more "all-in" on expressions sometimes, as I do feel that his characters all look slightly generically pretty and don't emote particularly much. That said, the art is undeniably gorgeous, and he's already skyrocketed himself up onto my personal favorites list despite only starting with DC in 2022.

I do have a few honorable mentions as well, which include: Ivan Reis and George Perez.

There have been plenty of artists who did a great job, but these are my personal favorites! Thank you so much for the ask!

#Garth #Garth of Shayeris #Dan Says Shit

[smurphyse]

Loki is dating a young woman who is a fantastic cook and one day he realizes his pants are a tad tight. He’s gained some weight but doesn’t have the heart to stop eating her wonderful food

Southern Belle

Word Count: 1691 words

Tags: body issues (not like anything too triggering, I don’t think), mentions of sex

I always love feedback, but like, please be nice lol

Send me more Loki prompts! <3 I love doing oneshots!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Here we go,” she sing-songed, carrying a large baking dish over to the table, the little hand-painted ladybugs that decorated it’s sides seeming just as excited as she.

Loki sat patiently, smiling at her as she set it down on the blue checkered tablecloth next to a tub of ice cream. She set down a few brightly colored plates, all painted with various bugs and flowers, decorated by her own hand- which were still stained with paint, he noticed fondly. 

“Peach cobbler,” she grinned, shaking her shoulders in excitement, “Just like Mamaw used to make!”

She watched him closely as he took his first bite, giggling when his eyebrows knitted together in bliss. Fuck, everything she made seemed to come from Valhalla.

His girl, his Southern Belle. The two had been dating for only a few months, ever since Loki had come to San Francisco during his travels. She had been poking around an art fair, her long curls pulled up into two pigtails as she pulled out pieces to observe.

She’d been wearing a pair of dirt smeared overalls, detailed with little butterflies and flowers, obviously hand-embroidered. They were rolled up at the ankles, her neon Converse forcing his eye to her like a shining beacon in the night. 

He’d been drawn to her, like a moth to the flame, unable to control himself as he pushed past the crowds to meet her. As he came face-to-face with her she glanced up at him and flashed him a megawatt smile. He’d been speechless, utterly besotted. 

“Can I help you, darlin’? You look lost,” she drawled, and it took a moment for the Allspeak to translate her thick Southern accent. 

“I think I’ve just been found, actually,” he chuckled, finally finding his voice. 

Her smile seemed to grow brighter, the little crinkles around her eyes deepening as she flushed deeply. 

Loki had offered her a coffee, and she took it. He’d been living in bliss ever since.

She’d come to San Francisco to be an artist, picking up little commissions here and there, working in various galleries and zipping from place to place to help out her fellow creators. She was constantly buzzing around, full of excitement and energy about the whole world around her, ready to take it on day by day.

She gave Loki courage, made him see the little details of this Odin-forsaken planet that he had mostly overlooked. He loathed to admit it, but she had made him love Earth, so long as she was on it. 

One day he would take her to Asgard, and he would watch as she painted the skies in her excitement and ecstasy. His world would be born anew in his eyes, just from the little things she would point out, things he’d never seen. 

They found time for one another whenever they could. Loki had kept himself busy working in various art fairs, finding himself a good organizer for such events. One activity that they had found pulled them together, besides the lovely rapture that was their sex, was cooking. Loki had taken it up when he arrived on Earth, mostly enjoying food closer to Asgard’s cuisines. She was from the South, whatever that meant Loki was not sure, but she insisted it meant all things ‘comfort food’. 

And comfort it gave. She’d shown him Tennessee Barbeque, ‘Pop Pop’s Soaked Ribs’, a bunch of things having to do with cottage cheese, and of course, desserts. 

He was settling down. Norns, if Thor could see him now. He’d likely have a joke or two to make of his unattached, emotionally distant brother finding love in such a creature as her. 

Loki could hear her now, singing some country song in the shower, her deep twang echoing off the tiles and through her small apartment. 

He was getting ready for the day, pulling on a deep green undershirt as he stood in his boxers. He pulled a pair of black slacks out of his little designated area of the closet and pulled them up.

As he buttoned them, he noticed they felt a bit tighter than the last time he’d worn them a few weeks ago. They had one of her art events to go to for lunch, and he’d been wearing jeans mostly when he was working at the fairs. 

Turning, Loki checked out his ass in the mirror. He still looked fabulous if he had to say, but his pants were tighter. 

Could this be a trick? Had Thor tracked him down and performed some spell to throw Loki off his game? It certainly would not be the first time something similar had happened. 

He lifted the shirt, turning to the side as he patted his tummy, his finger pinching along his sides as he sighed heavily. He stepped closer to the mirror, pressing the back of his hand under his chin. His mouth dropped open in shock, and he glared at his reflection.

He’d gained weight.

“I wouldn’t have nothin’ if I didn’t have you,” she sang as she walked back into the bedroom in a fluffy pink towel. She came up behind him and wrapped her hands around his waist, giving him a squeeze as she placed a kiss between his shoulders.

“Hey, handsome.”

Loki scoffed, feeling quite uncomfortable suddenly. She frowned against his back, her hands squeezing his sides lightly, his love handles.

He pulled away from her with a groan, the air feeling heavy around him. He turned to look at her, her lip set in a pout on her concerned face.

“I’m not feeling very handsome today, kitten.”

“Oh,” her frown set deeper for a moment, but was quickly replaced by a mischievous smile, “Is there something I can do to make you feel handsome?”

She tucked her lip between her teeth as she sauntered back up to him, placing her hands on his chest. He smiled down at her, his heart bursting in his chest. 

Loki dipped his head, catching her lips with his own. Her hands tangled into his hair as her towel fell away, and Loki took the opportunity to lift her into his arms and carry her over to the bed.

“I think I have something in mind,” he grinned, pulling her under the covers as she giggled from his touch. 

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

They arrived at the event a little late. The only craft she was not talented in was the art of makeup, but luckily Loki was, and they’d had to spend a few extra minutes covering up some of the hickeys someone had left on her neck and chest.

They were at some vegan restaurant in town that doubled as an art studio. Loki would never understand it, all these hybrid businesses were too niche, they’d have a hard time lasting in this market. But, she liked going and supporting other artists and friends, enjoyed having her art displayed on the walls of local businesses, and who was he to deny her that fun?

The little buffet table was filled with all sorts of leafy greens and vegetables of all colors. It was a vibrant exhibit, accentuated greatly by her art that complimented the bright green and orange paint job of the establishment.

“How come you don’t make food like this?” he asked, waving a blackbean taquito toward her as she gazed at another artist’s work.

“I make vegetables all the time,” she shrugged, snagging the taquito out of his hand and taking a bite.

“You make vegetables with Crisco, which I believe is just butter and animal fat mixed together.”

“I thought you liked my food, honey,” her big eyes clouded with worry, and his chest crumbled in an instant. 

“Oh, my sweet,” Loki sighed, snaking one of his hands around her waist, the other moving to cup her chin, “I do, it’s just-”

“Just what? You’ve been acting weird all day, Loki. What’s going on?”

He felt the heat creep across his cheeks, embarrassment flooding his every vein as he looked down at her. He hated feeling like this, vulnerable, but he wanted to be honest with her, to invest in this relationship.

“I’ve gained some weight recently… and I think it’s from your cooking.”

Her eyes widened in shock, “I haven’t noticed.”

His head cocked to the side, his lips pursing in disbelief. She noticed everything, from the ants on the sidewalk to the stars in the sky, she saw it all. 

“Loki, if you want me to make healthier meals, I’m more than willing. You just seemed to like my comfort recipes so much, and I wanted to make you things you liked,” she wrapped her arms around his waist, tugging his hips tightly against hers. “I have lots of recipes in my book, darlin’.”

“I do love your cooking. I guess I just feel a little… insecure right now,” he admitted, his face starting to cramp from the blazing blush across his nose.

“I really didn’t notice anything, but,” her hands dragged back to his belly, patting it softly as she stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. “Now that you mention it, I do like the little bit of cushion I’m feelin’.”

“Wow,” he chuckled, kissing her again. He covered her hands with his, giving them a soft squeeze of thanks. 

Suddenly, he had an idea. He leaned in and whispered hotly against her ear, “Think you can help me work some of it off?”

“Oh,” she feigned innocence, her southern drawl coming out in full force, “what kind of exercises do you have in mind?”

“The kind that includes me, you, and a locked bathroom door fifteen feet away,” Loki smirked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. 

“Oh, I’m gonna be so sore in the mornin’,” she laughed as Loki dragged her to the other end of the restaurant, admiring his ass in his trousers unabashedly. 

Loki pulled her into the bathroom, locking the door behind them as he lifted her onto the sink. She grinned at him, her eyes full of light as he looked at her lovingly.

His girl, his Southern Belle.

His favorite thing to eat.

#Loki #loki series #loki oneshot #loki x oc #loki x reader #if you squint #make it about you #idc #smurphyse #loki fanfic #fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki friggason

[chisakiglove]

Gallery (Overhaul x Artist!Reader):

Going out on his own at night was a rare occurence for Overhaul. In truth, he was really only doing it as a way of avoiding the work that was waiting for him back at headquarters. It was a childish way of ignoring his responsibilites, but he had to escape every-now-and-then.

The apprehensive villain measured himself a fair distance from the pedrestrians lousying around him. He continued to doubt his decision of leaving the car at home. He had forgotten the discomfort of walking among such disgusting human beings, but little could be helped in his current situation.

Overhaul had a difficult time choosing where to spend his evening. He had already eaten supper, so going to restaurant served him no interest. Sightseeing? There was nothing worth looking at in this miserable city. Although he did like watching the koi fish in the botanical gardens sometimes. It wasn't worth the walk, though. And travelling by train was the last thing on his mind. 'Maybe I should head back. What a waste.' As he was turning around, a bright, neon light hit his vision. The building itself stood at a mediocre height compared to its neighbors. However, something about it struck his interest. It was an art gallery.

He was surprised to see that it was rather clean inside. Not a speck of dust in sight, well, there might've been a few collecting on the old woman at the front desk. Damn, she would've had to be retired by now. "How can I help you, sir? Are you here for the art showcase?" her voice was soft and quiet. "Yes," he replied curtly. "It's on the second floor. I hope you have a lovely time. The artist is very talented," she informed with a wrinkled smile. Overhaul merely nodded and started up the stairs. Yes, the stairs.

There weren't as many people as he was expecting. There was a good bit of chatter, but it didn't distract from the ambience. The brunette loosened his tie the slightest bit and took the time to wander around. That woman was right. The artist certainly had some skill. Most of the paintings held a traditional Japanese style, while others were scenes of animals. He was genuinely impressed. Perhaps he'd meet them, not that Overhaul was interested in talking to anyone at the moment.

After a few minutes of browsing, he came across one painting in particular that made his brow raise. The canvas was smaller comapred to the other ones, though it looked better that way. It was a crow perching on a woman's forearm and its wings were stretched out wide. It was obvious why he liked it so much. His entire organization was based off of birds, it was only natural for him to be attracted to it.

Overhaul's attention was suddenly stirred when a stranger joined him. He glanced at her, expecting her to move onto the next piece, but she seemed entranced by it as well. He etched away from her, still waiting for her to leave. His aggravation on deepened when she started talking. "I like this one too," she began. "It kind of looks like the relationship between life and death, don't you think?" He remained silent. The young head grimaced after hearing her giggle.

"You must be a big fan of birds, huh?" the woman jested, referring to his mask. "...You could say that," he uttered. He finally bothered facing her, which ended up with his jaw slackening. She was very beautiful; more elegant-looking than anything. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to tease. Your mask just looks very creative. Did you make it yourself?" For some reason, he didn't feel as opposed to conversation as he did earlier. "Yes, I did. It took quite a while to design.” She bubbled up in excitement and inspected his face piece closer. “Oh, I can see why! Not— that you’re a bad designer. I think it looks very steam-punk!” Her flamboyancy was becoming overwhelming, causing Overhaul to inch back another step or two.

“… You must be the artist,” was his conclusion. She froze up but quickly composed herself by tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “What makes you think that?” she chuckled. The man scratched at his mask and thought a moment. “In my profession, I’ve met a lot of odd people. But you are by far the oddest.” To most it would’ve sounded like an insult. “Wow. You really think so? I guess I hit the record at being at the top of your list then. But what does that have to do with me being the artist?” The two acquaintances were clearly amused by one another. And it was obvious that this conversation wasn’t ending anytime soon.

“I’ve been introduced to several artists in the past. They’re all the same in their own way, yet they’re very different from the average person. I know that if I was in fact talking to an average person, they would’ve moved onto the next painting by now. Maybe they would’ve left, maybe they would’ve went ahead and spent their money without another thought. And you, you are definitely not an average person,” he stated simply. A look of amazement adorned her features as he spoke. “Huh… that’s quite the observation. But you don’t seem very average, yourself. Does that also make you an artist?” she teased. He quirked a jagged brow at her. “Of sorts. I’m more of a… manufacturer.”

“Ooh, of what?” He shook his head and lifted his index finger. “That’s a secret.” This might’ve been the first time in months, maybe longer, since he’d actually smiled— a genuine smile. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying himself. “Anyway,” he changed the subject by clearing his throat. He then caught a glimpse of the name at the bottom of the notecard positioned beside the canvas. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Y/n L/n.” Her expression morphed into a small pout. “Awe, I can’t think of a good alias. Well, nice to meet you…?” Overhaul stiffed as she extended her hand out to him. Despite his fears, he was somehow able to discard them and slowly wrapped his hand around hers, shaking it.

“Perhaps if we get to know each other some more, I’ll tell you.”

Maybe going out tonight wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

(he bought the painting soon after)

#i don’t care what you say this man is a sweet bean #overhaul #kai chisaki #x reader #one shot #artist!reader #my hero academia #mha villain #shie hassaikai #yakuza #germaphobia

[monstersandmaw]

Male vampire x male character - Part Four (final) (nsfw)

Wow. This part is 10,904 words, people. And in total this story now reaches 23,704 words in length!!

I hope you enjoy this part! Obviously, mlm exo(ish in this case) stories always flop on here no matter what, but some folks at least seemed to like it once it got going, and my Patrons seemed to enjoy it too. I really enjoyed getting to know these two boys, and their personalities, so at the end of the day I guess that’s what matters.

Last time, Alec learned that a few members of his immediate family are in fact vampire hunters, and he found out the truth about Sebastien too.

Heads up in this part for continued, but easing, tense familial relations, some angst/heartache (not heartbreak though), and some (consensual) blood drinking.

Thanks to those of you who have engaged with this story! And for being so supportive in general. You've been an absolute pleasure to write for.

Tumblr links to previous parts: Part One (sfw), Part Two (nsfw), Part Three (nsfw)

Alec let out a shaky breath and crossed to the sofa, sinking down onto it as his legs finally gave out. “Vampires,” he said, hardly daring to believe the word he was uttering.

“Yes.”

“And you’re one?”

“… Yes.”

“And my family…?”

Sebastien’s voice was tight on the other end of the line as he said, “Hunts my kind. Well, those of us who aren’t registered with the ‘Guild of Hunters’ —” his tone turned acrid as he spat the words out, though he kept his voice low and quiet.

“What does that even mean? I don’t know what any of this means… And did you know about my family? I mean, before? When you started dating me?”

Sebastien took another deep breath. “Yes. I knew. And it was a long time before I fully convinced myself that you did not.”

If Sebastien had thought it was some kind of trap, that would explain his reticence at the beginning for sure.

“And were you planning on telling me any of this?” Alec snarled. God, his chest hurt so much. The deception was like Jeremy cheating on him all over again, only this time the betrayal was coming from two fronts at once: from his love life and from his family. Not that he’d had all that solid a relationship with the latter to start with. Perhaps this explained why.

“I hadn’t planned on becoming your boyfriend at all,” Sebastien snapped.

“So, what, I was just a quick diversion? A casual fuck you kept coming back for because I’m such a fucking chump? Is that it?”

“No,” Sebastien sighed. “Not at all. I fell for you. Like the horrid cliche I am, the vampire fell for the hunter, and by then I had no idea how to tell you. I’ve not been with a human before, so this is all very new to me.”

Alec ran his fingers through his dark hair to buy himself a moment. “You… You haven’t?”

“No.”

“How… How old are you?”

“Do you really want the answer to that?”

“Yes!” His phone was slippery in his fingers now from the sweat on his palm but he couldn’t bring it away from his ear long enough to put it on speaker. He needed answers.

With another cavernous sigh, Sebastien said hurriedly, “Very well. I was born in 1897 and turned on the battlefields of the Great War — World War I, that is. I was dying, and a vampire named Felicity who had been working as a field nurse turned me. My first run-in with your family was not long after I moved from France to America. They were working with the American Hunters’ Guild on a case which had nothing to do with me.” He let out a shaky breath and said, “I got in the way and I nearly died. Those were the days before the treaty, of course, and before I moved to England.”

Despite his still-spinning mind, Alec managed to croak, “What treaty?”

“Those of us who get our blood from sanctioned blood banks and do not live-feed are exempt from being hunted like animals.” He spoke like he was quoting from a law code; cold and clinical; detached.

God, the way he said it made Alec’s skin crawl. It was as if he were being permitted to exist on the grounds of good behaviour and, he supposed, that was exactly the case. Even so, Alec couldn’t help the next words that just fell out of his mouth. “So you weren’t planning on feeding from me?”

“Of course not,” Sebastien retorted but then appeared to rein himself in with yet another steadying inhale. “No. It’s been decades since I’ve fed from a human directly. I didn’t plan on starting with you.”

Alec slumped back into the sofa cushions and stared up at the ceiling of his tiny apartment. “Fuck.”

After a long silence, Sebastien’s gentle tenor sounded in his ear. “Are you alright?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve never been close to my family - my dad was always an arsehole, but… I can’t believe Theo’s involved in all this. He was such a sweet kid, and we were really close until…” he swallowed thickly around the rising lump in his throat.

“Until?” Sebastien prompted when he stalled again.

“I can’t believe this is all real,” he muttered. “Until he turned sixteen and started to ‘work out’ with dad. I was at uni by then, getting my fine art degree, but whenever I came home he was just… different. Harder. Sharper. More focused. Guess it makes sense now… Well, as much as… you know…” he gestured vaguely to the empty apartment with his hands, “… as much as all this can make sense. Fucking… vampires…”

After a heartbeat, Sebastien added softly, “Quite literally.”

Despite himself, Alec snorted. “So… where does this leave us?”

Now it was Sebastien’s turn to feel clearly uncomfortable. Eventually he said, “Alec, I don’t think it’s wise for me to see you currently. Not with your family being what they are.”

His heart twisted, even though he’d been half expecting it. “You still think they’d… what, stake you, or whatever it is that vampire hunters actually do to you lot?”

“There are many ways to kill a vampire,” he said flatly. “And your family knows all of them, probably more. You need to work this out with them first as well. Talk to your brother. He seems the more reasonable…”

“I can’t believe Ellie’s in on it as well. And my mother? Fuck…”

“Talk to them.”

“Will I still see you at work at least?”

The awkward silence told him all he needed to know, even before Sebastien said, “I just sent in my letter of resignation.”

“That was quick,” he hissed, stomach dropping. “You only just left.”

“Supernatural speed,” he replied bitterly. “Comes in useful for typing papers and getting out of awkward situations…”

That sparked another question in him. “Supernatural powers, huh? Can you turn into a bat too?”

“No.”

Then he thought of Sebastien’s Halloween outfit. “Wolf?”

He thought he detected a faint smirk in Sebastien’s response. “No, sadly. No shape-shifting for me. Felicity is not of any extraordinary bloodline, and thus, neither am I.”

“Right,” he grunted. “Of course. Is she… is she still around?”

“Felicity? Yes. We meet every now and again. She and her wife spend most of their time in Venice these days.”

“Her wife? She a vampire too?”

Sebastien swallowed audibly. “Yes.”

“Did Felicity turn her too? Would that make her wife your sister?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Did she know her as a human though?”

“Yes.”

After a moment of spinning thoughts, Alec asked, “Did… you turn her?”

“One doesn’t tend to turn one’s own intended. Between a sire and their turned, there can grow… tension. Not always, but it can be enough to ruin a relationship that was seemingly solid before. Something about exchanging blood changes the soul… or so we think, anyway. It was an honour to be asked to sire her.”

“Right.” Alec felt slightly sick. “Will I at least see you before you leave?”

“I think it best if we don’t. Not while your family is still… ‘investigating’ me.”

“Are you really in danger from them?”

“Quite possibly. My name is on the treaty, but…”

Something twanged painfully again in his chest, swiftly followed by the fizzle of fear through his veins. “But what?”

“But vampires and hunters are not supposed to sleep together, Alec…”

“Don’t bang the enemy? How very Romeo and Juliet,” he snorted. “Fuck. Why does every good relationship I have turn to shit?” he asked, not of Sebastien but of the universe itself. “What did I do?”

“Alec —”

“—Don’t. Don’t make it worse by apologising or something. It’s fine. We were only together a month. I’ll get over it. You’ll move on. Heck, you’ll fucking live forever, right? What’s a month to you anyway? Nothing, right?”

The bitterness in his own voice nearly choked him, and without thinking, or even saying goodbye, he just hung up and let his phone lie in his limp fingers on the sofa cushions. It lit up and rang a moment later, but he didn’t answer it. Six more times Sebastien tried before finally giving up.

Kay was an absolute blessing in the next few days.

He didn’t tell her immediately about the whole vampire thing, but after he’d calmed down enough to be able to look at Theo without immediately busting a vein in his forehead, he hashed the basics out with him, and then told her everything. Alec told her about his newly-discovered, secret family occupation which, apparently, stretched back centuries. He told her about the fact that his eldest sister and younger brother were monster hunters in their spare time, and he told her the real reason Sebastien why had vanished overnight without a trace — yes, Alec had gone to his apartment building, only to be politely informed by the doorman that Dr. Dulac was no longer in residence and did not leave so much as a forwarding address.

That, above almost everything else, shattered Alec’s hopes of seeing him again. Like thistledown in the wind, Sebastien had simply flitted away somewhere else.

She took it about as well as he had to start with, but when she saw the seriousness in his eyes, and when, three weekends later, she came to his apartment for a definitely-not-awkward dinner with Theo, she saw video footage that Theo and his father had captured from various hunts of supernatural creatures beyond only beautiful vampires. Then she believed him. Ghouls, ghosts, reanimated corpses, demons… you name it and Theo could tell you about it.

Alec spent Christmas with Kay’s family, and Theo met him for New Year drinks in the city, joined by Ellie. It wasn’t anything like the family dynamic he’d always longed for, but the new degree of openness between them went some way to mending his still bruised heart. Slowly. Gradually. Piece by tentative, honest piece. He never joined in, but Theo started to tell him a bit about what they did. It still sounded barbaric to him, but at least it was true.

He had no word from Sebastien, and the number he had saved in his phone had been disconnected.

With the arrival of spring, Alec found himself more than usually dissatisfied with his job. He was a good teacher, and he enjoyed seeing his students’ talents evolve and grow, but the ever-increasing admin ground him down, and the politics of the faculty and the university as a whole wore on him.

“Have you seen this?” Kay asked one afternoon as they shared a takeaway coffee beneath the drifting cherry blossoms. Petals spiralled down like pastel pink and white wedding confetti, and he watched with an absent smile as a terrier snapped and sprung around on his hind legs trying to catch them while his owner stood and talked with her friend nearby. “Oi!” Kay asked, digging him in the ribs.

“Hmm?”

“Have you seen this?” she asked, shoving her phone under his nose.

He blinked, refocusing his eyes, and read the article’s headline aloud. “Council offers artists the chance to win a sponsored exhibition in the town hall with this unique competition.” He blinked. “So?”

“So?” she gawped. “You can’t be serious?”

“Send me the link. I’ll forward it to my students. They might like that.” That earned him a smack upside the head, and he scowled. “What was that for?”

“Alec, you might be the dumbest smart guy I know,” she said. “I showed it to you so that you could enter it, you giant idiot.”

He blinked. “Me?”

“I saw those charcoals you did the other week of the cathedral! They were amazing!! And the abstracts too… I still want one, by the way.”

“It’s already wrapped up for your birthday,” he groused. “You really think I should do it?”

She rolled her eyes and drained the last of her coffee without gracing him with an answer. Of course she thought he should.

“When’s the deadline?”

“Next Thursday,” she said without looking at him.

Alec licked his lips and swallowed. “Will you help me pick some images to submit?”

Her answering grin was feral.

In all honesty, Alec forgot about having even entered the competition until the letter dropped through his door six weeks later announcing that, to his utter astonishment, he had been selected as the winner. Tears blurred his eyes and he sat down heavily at the tiny kitchen table. He’d never entered any of his own art into anything like this in his whole life, and the first time he does, he gets a whole fucking public exhibition out of it?

“Maybe this year won’t be so bad after all,” he murmured. “New year, new start…” His chest still ached when he thought about Sebastien, and he hoped he was doing alright, wherever he was.

Theo had been searching for him, probably by way of apology for lying to his big brother for all these years, but he’d turned up very little. Sebastien had gone to Venice first, it seemed, presumably to spend time with Felicity and her wife, but had disappeared completely after that, with only rumours flickering here and there that he was in Paris, St. Petersburg, Prague, and then potentially Florence. Maybe.

“Venice seems like a pretty sunny place for a pair of vampires to live,” Alec commented, but Theo shrugged.

“They don’t burn up immediately in sunlight, or your professor would never have been able to take a day-job at the university. They’re sensitive to it, some more than others, but it takes a full day of constant sunlight beating down for them to burn properly.” The callousness of his brother’s response shook him, even after all these months, and Theo must have seen it on his face because he sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, and then added, “You really loved him, didn’t you?”

Alec shrugged. Yes, he wanted to say. I thought so. “I only knew him for a month or so,” was what he said carefully instead. “And even then… turned out I didn’t know him anyway.”

Theo, who had been lounging on Alec’s sofa with his legs spread and his head tipped back into the cushions while Alec made supper, asked quietly, “Did he seem… normal to you?”

“Normal?” Alec asked, not sure he’d heard his brother correctly.

“Yeah… like… did you ever suspect he wasn’t… you know…?”

“Human?”

Theo grunted and nodded his head. “Yeah. I guess.”

“No. Obviously not. Never crossed my mind. Why would it have?”

Theo scowled and turned his eyes to regard him. Alec knew that Theo looked like a younger version of himself, if maybe in better shape, and he wondered if he’d have the same steely look in his eyes if he’d been deemed ‘man enough’ to become a hunter, or whatever bullshit criteria their arsehole father had used to select which members of his family were to become soldiers and which would live normal lives.

“What?” Alec demanded.

“But you slept with him, right?”

“I’m not talking about that with you,” he said, briefly brandishing the wooden spoon at him.

Theo pulled a face. “I’m not asking about your sex life. Gross. No, I mean…”

In that moment, Alec spotted a flash of something in his brother’s blue eyes that softened him to the kid. He turned off the gas and went over to where Theo was now sitting hunched over with his elbows on his knees, running his hands through his hair. When he looked up at Alec’s approach, his face showed open vulnerability in a way he’d not seen since they were young children and Theo had got himself into trouble at school.

“What’s going on?” Alec asked, seating himself next to his little brother.

Theo bobbed his knee like a deprived caffeine addict and bit his lip. With glassy eyes, he croaked, “I keep asking myself if we did the right thing…”

“What do you mean?”

The bravado of Theo’s early twenties melted away to become a worried, frightened, guilty little boy again and he said, “I mean… if what we do is right…”

“You mean… hunting?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

“What set this off?”

His brother quirked him a humourless smirk and said, “You always did know when something was bothering me.”

Alec remained quiet, just watching him.

“We teamed up with some hunters from Edinburgh for a ‘vamp gone rogue’ case and we finally found her yesterday. She… She’d been turning people; trying to amass some kind of small army to take over from another vampire further up north. She was insane… like, completely, sociopathically insane, but… the people she turned… they were just…” he blinked, and Alec saw with a jolt that his eyes were full of unshed tears. “They were still just people.”

He feared he already knew where this was going. Still, he asked, “What happened?”

“Father wanted to put them down. They were terrified, chained up… still on the point of lashing out…”

Bile rose in his throat. “Oh god…”

“One of the hunters said she knew of a vampire who could help rehabilitate them; help them adjust to their new lives. One of them didn’t want to live as a vampire though, so father just…”

Theo didn’t need to finish that for Alec to know that father had ended the newly-turned vampire’s life in a heartbeat. “And the rest?”

“The other three went with the hunter. I don’t know what happened, but… I trust her. It’s just… father taught me and Ellie that vampires are mindless killers when they feed… that you can’t get close to them, that all they want at the end of the day is blood no matter what they tell you…  but…” he looked up at Alec. “You’ve been fucking miserable since the whole Sebastien shit-fest. I know you’ve been trying to hide it, and you’ve got the exhibition coming up next weekend, and that’s great, but… I know you’ve stopped putting yourself out there. And we did that. We fucked it all up for you. I just…” he ran his hands through his hair and sent it into wild disarray. “I just wonder if you could really have been happy with him after all.”

Alec pulled his brother close and hugged him. “I’m not going to lie,” he murmured into his brother’s dark hair. “I’m furious with father for keeping everything from me, and for making you and mum and Ellie lie to me and Angie about it as well, but… if I hadn’t seen Sebastien’s eyes go red — yeah, I thought it was just a reflection or something — and if I hadn’t seen the way he sleeps literally like the dead… I’m not sure I would have believed you anyway. I don’t forgive him for it either, but…” he sighed deeply. “I forgive you, Theo. And Ellie.”

“And mum?”

“I’m still working on that.”

Theo went slack beneath him and snaked his arms around his brother’s waist for a moment. “Thanks,” he mumbled into Alec’s shirt.

“You’re still coming to the exhibition?” Alec asked as he pulled back and went back to the stove, giving Theo a moment of privacy to pull himself together.

In truth, Alec was a little shaken too. Their relationship had been slowly patched over the intervening months, but it still wasn’t particularly close, and the matter of Sebastien had been a permanent, proverbial elephant in the room. That Theo was questioning their father’s teaching came as an immense relief to Alec though. He poured them each a glass of wine, and the two spent the rest of the evening in a quieter kind of closeness than they’d yet shared.

When the evening of the exhibition drew round, Alec was quite frankly, a bit of a mess.

“C’mon,” Theo grinned, patting the lapels of his jacket down for him and grinning up at him. “Where’s that Twayblade hunter courage, huh?”

“Must have skipped me and all gone to you,” he quipped back. “Fuck. I’m so nervous. Why am I so nervous?”

“No fucking clue,” Theo chuckled. “You’re awesome and they’re gonna fucking love you.”

“Language,” Alec said instinctively and Theo’s laughter redoubled.

“You’re a big fucking hypocrite, you know that?” Theo laughed just as Kay sidled up with three glasses of champagne awkwardly held between her hands.

“Help a girl out here, would you, boys?” she asked, proffering the glasses to them.

Alec resisted the urge to down it in one — he’d probably only choke on the bubbles anyway — and filled his lungs instead with a big gulp of air. He tried to send all his nerves into the air and then blow it out of his body in one heaving sigh to leave him calmer, but it just gave him a head rush, so he sipped the wine and turned to look around the gallery from the corner where he’d been lurking.

“What if no one shows up?” he blurted, earning him a scowl from Theo and a pout-and-eyebrow-raise combo from Kay.

He needn't have worried in the end. The marketing team had done their work, and within an hour the place was heaving and all but three of his pieces had been reserved. Scratch that. Two.

The fact that almost all of his students had turned up as well to cheer him on and trade high fives, and scrounge free alcohol and food from the canape trays, warmed him in ways he didn’t know were possible.

Overwhelmed and a little bit tearful, he stepped out of the town hall’s main exhibition space and into the small corridor that led to a fire exit and a grotty back car park beyond, letting the flush die down from his cheeks. This was what he’d really wanted right from the moment he’d graduated all those years ago; to be an artist in his own right, with people buying his work at exhibitions… It almost made him giddy to think that he had a chance to do this full time now. It seemed that Sebastien had been right when he’d said he could really make something of himself.

Ah, there was the crash in his mood that he’d been waiting for. Nothing good lasts forever, right?

Would Sebastien have been proud of him if he knew about this? Would he have been there that night, by his side? Would they even have lasted that long anyway, even without his family’s interference?

The noise in the room was gradually dying down when he gathered enough courage to step back into the echoing hall. The pale wooden floors gleamed in the low light, the white of the temporary exhibition walls almost glowing, in stark contrast to the black and grey of his charcoals. He’d chosen mostly charcoals for the show, with a few acrylic abstracts for flavour, and apparently people loved them. Every single one had a red ‘sold’ dot beneath the label now, he noted as he cast his eyes around the room.

Then his gaze snagged on someone standing with their back to him, hands clasped loosely behind them, a long, silver-blond ponytail hanging down their back. And Alec’ vision slipped sideways.

Sebastien.

It had to be him.

No one else stood with posture like that. No one else was so tall and lean and elegant and god-damned graceful, even when just standing still. And no one else stood quite as still as that.

He let out a ragged breath and swayed slightly, glancing around. There was no sign of Theo or Kay just then, and only one or two couples meandered admiringly around the room. And there, fixated by one piece in particular, stood Sebastien.

Inhaling for courage, Alec approached and came to an unsteady halt a few feet away from him. He didn’t look real, somehow. His beauty had always been striking, but now in the low light he seemed like a mirage, with his warm olive skin and contrastingly pale hair, that cut-glass jawline and —

— He turned and met Alec’s gaze with dark brown eyes alight and glassy.

“You’re here,” Alec breathed, at a loss for anything else.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sebastien said, and the sound of his voice sent a wild tingling through Alec’s whole nervous system. The man — vampire — looked uncharacteristically shy, uncertain, as he half turned to face him.

“Gotta say,” Alec said, scratching the back of his head, “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

“Should I leave?”

He chewed his lower lip for a second and Sebastien’s eyes tracked the movement before he blinked and looked back at the charcoal in front of him. It was of the Lady Chapel of the cathedral; one of the most tranquil places Alec had ever been. A shaft of light lanced down from a Gothic window high on the right, scattering fractured shards of light onto the stone floor, and behind it, just barely visible as a grey, misty outline, sat the small altar.

“You’re religious?” Alec asked.

“Mm,” Sebastien nodded. “Surprising, I know, given my ‘condition’, but there you have it.”

All the smalltalk then suddenly boiled up into thick irritation inside Alec and he scowled. “Where have you been? And why now? Why come back now? What do you want?”

He must have raised his voice fractionally because the couple admiring the seascape to their left shot them slightly scandalised looks, as if he’d started swearing in a sanctuary, and he bit back the wave of anger, halting it in its tracks.

“Shall we step outside for a moment?” Sebastien asked and Alec nodded tersely.

Passing Kay and Theo who were sitting in the chairs near the drinks table, Alec cast his eyes at them and watched Theo tense visibly. Kay laid her hand on his thigh and shook her head, at which Theo nodded and sat back, eyes hard, mouth set, but at least he didn’t appear to be on the point of leaping out and staking Sebastien on the spot.

Alec mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ at them both, and followed Sebastien out on to the street.

“You’ve patched things up with your family then?” Sebastien began, standing perfectly still beside the brick wall of the Victorian building while Alec paced.

“Mostly just with Theo, but yeah. Why are you here?” he asked again.

“Honestly? I missed you. Couldn't get you out of my head. I went all over Europe, and even to Asia briefly, and nothing I did distracted me from you, from leaving you. I had to come back.”

“You could have called,” he said, instantly regretting the way it came out like a petulant teenager’s sulking.

“And what would that have achieved?” Sebastien asked evenly. “I was hundreds of miles away.”

“You could have come back sooner? Talked to me in person?”

Sebastien sighed. “I was afraid that your family would come after me. I needed to disappear.”

“Theo convinced father to let you go. As you said yourself, your name was on the treaty, and you didn’t hurt me or hypnotise me, or whatever… did you?”

“No,” he said, pale brows pinching with evident distaste.

“Could you have?”

Sebastien levelled him with a dark look. “Yes, but… that’s not something I enjoy doing. It’s a survival mechanism — to make people forget what they’ve seen — it’s not something to be used lightly.”

“Ok, but you could have, and you didn’t, so that was another reason to let you go,” he said. God he wanted to kiss him. The realisation hit him like a gut punch and he turned away. Alec ached inside and out for those lips, those hands, those eyes… “Fuck,” he whispered, barely audible. “Are you staying?”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Alec rounded on him, frustration pouring out of him again. “Don’t answer my question with one of your own. Are you staying or not?”

Sebastien remained eerily calm, but a heartbeat later Alec saw that it wasn’t serenity in his eyes but sadness. “If you want me to, I’ll stay. I want to try again, Alec. I want… I want to be with you. I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you.”

“Feel? As in… present tense?”

“Yes. It hasn’t faded. Not with all the days and distance between us.”

“God, you sound like a shitty romance novel hero…” he scoffed. “I almost believe it.”

Sebastien spread his hands and said, “I am who — and what — I am. You know me, Alec, in a way that no one else ever has. I was utterly myself with you, except for the fact that I kept my nature from you. I hope you can at least understand why, if not forgive me. Everything else was genuine. I have never done that — been that open, that vulnerable — with anyone.”

“Even knowing what my family are?”

“Even then.”

Alec looked up at him and saw his own reflection in those dark, rich brown eyes. “Show me.”

Sebastien’s angelic face soured into a confused frown. “Show you what?”

“Your eyes. Your fangs. Show me what you are.”

“Now?”

He looked around. The street was empty on either side, with the only people around gathered outside a bar further up the street.

When he turned back to say yes to Sebastien, he found blood red eyes glowing in the man’s face. “Holy fuck,” he hissed. Every already-chiselled line on Sebastien’s face had sharpened somehow, his cheeks hollowing a little, perhaps to account for the additional hardware he now sported in his mouth, and his eyes seemed a touch more sunken. And they glowed as if lit from within.

Heartbeat thrumming out a wild tattoo, he stepped closer and Sebastien went utterly still. His chest ceased to rise and fall, and he didn’t even blink as Alec raised his fingers to his left cheek. “Show me.”

Sebastien swallowed and parted his lips. Angling his jaw a little to one side, he showed Alec the elongated canines, three quarters of an inch long. “Careful,” he murmured as Alec made to touch them. “Vampire venom is potent, even in small doses.”

“Does it really do what the hunters say it does?”

Sebastien’s red eyes glittered almost playfully. “I don’t know,” he smiled, seeming to relax a fraction. “What do they say it does?”

“Drives your victims wild, acts like a date rape drug, makes humans lose their will and their inhibitions…”

At that, a hardness returned to his features and his lip twitched in a lopsided snarl, like a wolf backed into a corner. “That’s certainly one take on it,” he said. “It creates a rush of euphoria. It’s supposed to make feeding a pleasant experience for all concerned. Endorphins in the blood make the taste sweeter, and the human feels no pain or fear.”

“Right. Gotta say I like that one better,” Alec said with a shaky smile. “But I’m not gonna risk it right here… And fuck me, your eyes are incredible.”

“They’re still red, hmm?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Closing his eyes and tilting his face upwards a little more towards the cloudy night sky, he inhaled deeply. His features softened again, and Alec watched, fascinated, as the slight bumps behind his closed upper lip slid away into nothing, presumably as his canines retracted into his gums. When he opened his eyes, they were their usual, endlessly dark brown once more.

“Better?” Sebastien asked, oddly self-conscious.

“No,” he said. “Just different.”

Something prickled on the back of his neck and he turned to find a woman silhouetted against the light of street lamp halfway up the road. “Friend of yours?” he asked, tense.

“Felicity. She came with me.”

“Why? Surely you don’t need a wingman… or, you know, woman.”

With a tiny smile, Sebastien said, “You make me more vulnerable than you realise, in more ways than one. And we weren’t sure if your family would be here.”

“Or whether they’d want to flambé you…”

“Precisely.” He inclined his head and the woman did the same, turning and vanishing even as Alec blinked.

“Can you do that too?” he asked, still gawping after her.

When he turned back, he found that Sebastien had stepped in close to him - close enough that his faint, woody cologne wafted gently around them and he felt his knees wobble slightly. He’d missed this. Oh god, he’d missed this. “Mmhmm,” Sebastien hummed. “I can.”

“Kiss me,” Alec whispered. “Please…”

Sebastien didn’t need telling twice. He took Alec’s face in both his hands and crushed a passionate kiss to his lips so hard that Alec’s mind went perfectly blank for a few beautiful seconds. When he came to, he grabbed Sebastien’s narrow hips and tugged him close, making the vampire grunt as their bodies connected.

This time, he took Sebastien’s ponytail in one hand and began to pull on it gently. Sebastien yielded at the pressure and tipped his face back, exposing the entire column of his throat to Alec without resistance. The gesture left Alec stunned and breathless. In his research with Theo over the past months, he had learned that for a vampire to expose their throat to another implied absolute trust. Overwhelmed, he pressed his lips to the bare skin and felt Sebastien gasp, grabbing at his shoulders suddenly to keep himself upright.

Over and over, the vampire shuddered tangibly beneath his touch and gasped sharply again, panting. As he shifted his hips against him, Alec felt Sebastien’s growing hardness, and at the same time, Sebastien drew back, eyes screwed shut. “Stop,” he laughed. “Not here.”

“I want you,” Alec moaned, one hand on Sebastien’s chest. “Fuck, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I want you too,” Sebastien smiled, opening his eyes. They glowed scarlet again. “And because of that, this —” he said, gesturing to his red eyes, “— isn’t going to go away quickly this time.”

“This too?” Alec said, boldly cupping the obvious bulge in Sebastien’s smart black trousers gently with his hand and making the vampire groan.

“Yeah, that too.”

“Your place or mine?” Alec asked with a dizzy grin.

“You decide. I’m booked into a hotel one street over for the next two days,” he said. “If that affects your decision in any way.”

“Yours,” he said. “I… I’ll just…” he looked over his shoulder and caught sight of the exhibition banner dangling by the door. “I should…”

Sebastien nodded slowly. “I’ll be here.”

“You’d better be,” he snarled as he adjusted himself and prayed no one would notice. He took a few steadying breaths on the threshold of the town hall and then disappeared inside.

Kay raised her eyebrows at him when he reappeared.

“Not a word,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Your hair’s a mess,” she said conversationally. “Is it windy outside?”

“Fuck off,” he grimaced and she laughed. “Where’s Theo?”

“He left out the back way,” she said. “But he told me to tell you to enjoy yourself tonight, and that he’ll stand by whatever makes you happy.”

Unexpected tears prickled his eyes and he tugged her into a hug that was probably meant for his brother.

“You can thank us later,” she said, shoving him off her. “Go be with your Prince of Darkness…”

“I’m not sure how much he’d like you calling him that,” he said as he stepped back. “I’ll have to wrap things up here first…”

It seemed to take forever, but he finally found the events coordinator and after an interminable conversation full of congratulations, agreed to stop by the next day to take down the exhibition and sort the sales out. His heart was thudding when he stepped back outside, but he let out a huge sigh when he saw Sebastien leaning against the brick building, face tilted towards the moon that was just peeking out from behind a bank of cloud.

“It’s like one of your charcoals,” Sebastien said without tearing his eyes from the sky.

Alec crossed to him and smiled when Sebastien met his gaze, red meeting blue. Alec slid his fingers into Sebastien’s where his hand hung quietly by his side.

“Ready?” the vampire asked.

Alec nodded, and let Sebastien lead him back to his hotel.

They barely made it into the lift before Alec was kissing him, backing him into the mirrored sides of the lift with a thud before the doors had even closed. He stopped suddenly, drew back and laughed, and Sebastien — who looked like he’d just got whiplash — asked, “What?”

“Vampires do have reflections after all…”

Sebastien rolled his eyes and gave an indecorous snort-laugh. The sound was rich and warm and it filled Alec’s whole consciousness for a moment. “It’s only the antique ones with genuine silver backing that don’t show our reflections. Technology has evolved, thank goodness. Now, if you don’t mind, you were kissing me senseless…”

“Sorry,” he laughed, grabbing Sebastien’s white shirt collar and tugging him down again. They nearly didn’t get out of the lift at Sebastien’s floor, but as the doors began to close again, Sebastien slid his foot into the path of the doors and dragged Alec out.

Clothes landed in a steady line on the carpet between the door of his hotel room and Sebastien’s bed, ending with them both in only their boxer-briefs on the pristine white surface of the bed. Alec was tipped back onto the duvet and lay there staring up at Sebastien who was now no longer hiding his nature from him at all. Red eyes blazed in his face and as he opened his mouth to breath heavily, the tips of his fangs were just visible. There was no denying that he was a vampire.

“Was it like this before?” Alec asked hoarsely. “I mean… did I just not see it?”

“I had to work very hard to rein all this in,” he said, kneeling on the bed and crawling a little way up it. His own boxer briefs strained at the crotch where his erection tented the fabric, and Alec’s own black ones were stained with a little spot of wetness where his cock twitched with eager interest. “I only let it slip once or twice, but you were distracted at the time.”

Alec smirked and then moaned as Sebastien’s palm skimmed up over his groin and over his stomach. He’d always been a bit self-conscious about the softer parts of him, but Sebastien worshipped him like he was some kind of immortal god, lavishing attention on him over and over until he was shaking and gasping and sweating. “Please!” he begged after what felt like hours. “Oh god, please…”

Sebastien slid off the bed and deftly removed his own underwear before encouraging Alec to lift his hips for him and drawing his boxer-briefs down too. Before Alec could think or process what was happening, Sebastien was between his legs again and had swallowed the entire length of his cock to the back of his throat in one.

“Oh fuck,” he hissed, mind whiting out.

Sparks of pleasure shot up his spine as Sebastien worked him alternately with his mouth and his hand.

He teased him, licking the slit at the tip where pre-come beaded profusely now, teasing the delicate folds of skin until Alec thought he was going to shatter apart with want. Just before it got too much to bear, Sebastien would take him back into the wet heat of his mouth and work the underside of his cock with his tongue, swallowing occasionally and making Alec’s head spin all over again.

His balls tightened and he spread his legs wider, instinctively opening himself to Sebastien.

The vampire moaned against his cock and Alec whimpered. Pulling off him, an obscenely inviting thread of saliva and pre-come connecting them briefly, Sebastien sat up and reached for the top drawer of the bedside table. “Vampires neither catch nor transmit diseases,” he said, “But if you still wish to use protection —”

“— I haven’t been with anyone since you,” he rasped. “And I’m clean anyway…”

“As you wish,” Sebastien smiled, withdrawing an almost-new bottle of lube and sitting back down between his legs. Alec eyed it and Sebastien laughed shyly. “I opened it last night…” he admitted and Alec grinned.

That smirk shattered into an open-mouthed groan as Sebastien’s finger slid inside him and he began to prepare him. There was nothing perfunctory about it either. Sebastien took his time to work him open, his fingers fucking into him slowly, almost reverently, until he crooked them and Alec yelled as white-hot pleasure shot through him.

“Still so sensitive,” Sebastien crooned and Alec just shivered in response. His thighs were quivering too now from the effort of not bucking upwards into the empty air, his cock drooling freely over his slightly soft stomach with each futile twitch. He knew he was a wanton mess, and he couldn’t quite find it within himself to care. It seem to drive Sebastien wild anyway.

When Sebastien added a third finger, still stroking up and down his thigh with his other hand, Alec broke.

“Please, please, please,” he whimpered, out of breath and desperate. He cracked his eyes open and looked down at Sebastien to find that his red eyes had been almost eclipsed by his blown pupils. He gave a weak buck of his hips to try and encourage Sebastien to get on with it, but the vampire seemed utterly transfixed by him. He worked his fingers over Alec’s prostate gently but with absolute precision, and it was going to make Alec lose his mind altogether.

“Pleasepleaseplease, I need you, please…” he wailed as Sebastien’s mercifully short and blunt fingernail caught him just so and sent another jolt through him.

Finally the vampire moved, but as he withdrew completely, the loss almost shattered him. “Shh,” he smiled, stroking a soothing circle at Alec’s hipbone. “I’m still here…”

Alec whimpered like a wounded animal but his foggy brain accepted that the loss was only temporary, and he watched as Sebastien took his own flushed cock in his hands and slicked lube up the length of it in a couple of efficient strokes, head bowing under the attention it was receiving at last. He’d focused solely, completely, on Alec’s pleasure for all that time, and the realisation sent a fresh wave of lust rolling through Alec’s entire body.

He spread his legs, but Sebastien caught Alec under his left thigh and raised his leg easily, exposing Alec completely. Before Alec could process anything, his tip was nudging at Alec’s entrance, and then he had sunk all the way in to the hilt.

Sebastien froze then, bowed forwards over Alec like a supplicant, canines openly bared, eyes screwed shut, not even breathing.

“Sebastien… please…” Alec grunted. He’d never felt as full and whole as he had with Sebastien inside him, and yet this wasn’t enough. He’d ached for this. For months, he’d ached for it, and still it wasn’t enough. “Bast, please…”

Finally, the vampire opened his searing red eyes and began to move.

Slowly at first, he picked up his pace until Alec’s back was arching and his fingers clawed great furrows in the sheet beneath him. With each thrust, Alec saw stars at let out little fractured, broken gasps. Sebastien was quiet, almost silent, while Alec himself was unable to stop the sounds from tumbling out of him. He moaned and whimpered, gasped and cursed and begged until Sebastien yanked him further down the bed and lifted his hips a little way off the mattress entirely.

From this new angle, it was so blindingly good that Alec went alternately taut and limp with ecstasy. “I’m close,” he gasped over the slap of Sebastien’s hips meeting his skin.

The vampire snarled then; an inhuman sound that sent the hairs prickling all down Alec’s body.

“Come for me,” Alec begged in a whisper, opening his eyes and watching as Sebastien chased his release with a ferocity he’d never shown before. He wasn’t careless with his strength, but he was certainly forceful. Had Alec wanted to grunt ‘stop’, he knew the vampire would halt, but that was the furthest thing from his mind as he watched the flawless perfection of this man above him. “God you’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “Come for me, Bast…”

And at the sound of his name, uttered in little more than an abbreviated wheeze, Sebastien went still, hips spasming as his spine arched back like a bow at full draw, mouth open, head thrown back, fangs bared, eyes rammed shut, a sheen of sweat covering his perfect, bronze chest, his silver hair falling around him like a veil.

The sight of him like that wrenched Alec’s orgasm from him with such sudden force that he almost blacked out, and he clenched around Sebastien’s still-twitching cock as he spilled all over himself. Vaguely, he felt Sebastien trying to withdraw, but he grunted, “Don't… not yet… please… I… unngghh…” Unable to finish the sentence as the last shock waves fluttered through him, Alec went limp against the bed, breathing hard, his blood roaring in his ears.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before Sebastien did finally move, but eventually he slid his softening cock out of him and Alec grunted at the cool slide of the vampire’s release down his thigh. He was too spent and exhausted to care about the mess though, and as Sebastien collapsed onto the bed beside him, he cracked one eye open.

Sebastien lay on his left side with his cheek pillowed on his bicep, facing Alec with his eyes closed, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Tentatively, clumsily in the daze of his recent, mind-blowing orgasm, Alec reached out and touched the delicate skin on the inside of his arm. Sebastien jolted like he’d received an electric shock, and opened his eyes. They still burned bright red, but the rest of his face seemed a little softer somehow.

“You alright?” Alec asked.

Sebastien nodded.

“Been a while too, huh?” Alec grinned, flopping back down to stare at the ceiling where little points of light still sparkled across his vision every now and again.

“Not since that last night with you,” he said, words slurred with exhaustion. “Unless you count my rather pathetic climax alone last night, which I certainly don’t.”

“Not at all?”

He shook his head but didn’t speak again. The vampire lay perfectly still — perfectly undead — and perfectly vulnerable beside him without even a sheet to cover him. His cock now lay soft across the top of his right thigh, still drooling a little and making a mess on his olive skin. Not half as much mess as Alec was currently sporting over his torso, he mused with another smile.

With Sebastien showing no sign of stirring, Alec rolled carefully off the bed and headed on shaky legs to the shower. When he returned, Sebastien hadn’t moved, and he slid in beside him, drawing the sheets up around them and lying there to stare at him in the dimness of the unlit room, processing everything. Sebastien was back, and apparently wanted to stay. He could hardly believe how well that day had gone.

Waking the next morning with a cool, lean body pressed against him, Alec sighed, relieved that it hadn’t all been some kind of fever dream brought on by the stress of the exhibition.

The fact that the man next to him was an undead vampire who didn’t breathe in his sleep was a bit unnerving, and the way he had his cheek now resting on Alec’s collarbone and his nose pressed against his neck should also probably have been a bit of a warning, but Alec couldn’t bring himself to move, except to place a soft kiss on his forehead.

Suddenly, as if surfacing from boundless depths, Sebastien’s body heaved and he drew in a great, sucking, rasping inhale through his mouth. His lips brushed against Alec’s pulse and Sebastien began breathing heavily there for a moment.

“That will never not be weird,” Alec murmured.

“Apologies,” Sebastien muttered, trying to roll away. He paused, freezing, and then whispered, “I fell asleep…” as if that was something miraculous.

“Yeah, you passed out almost as soon as we both finished,” he snickered.

Sebastien turned his big, dark, doe eyes on Alec and said, “No, you don’t understand. Vampires don’t just shut down like that the way humans do. We only sleep somewhere we know is secure and safe…”

“Oh,” Alec said significantly as the realisation plunged through him. He tucked his arm under Sebastien’s head and tugged him closer so that their bodies were once again flush with one another. “I’m glad you felt safe…”

Sebastien sighed, trailing his fingertips across Alec’s chest in absent circles. His cock twitched too, and Alec shot him a look.

With a bashful smile, Sebastien said, “I can’t help that I find you attractive, Alec…”

“Wasn't complaining,” he grinned.

It was a long time before they rolled off each other that morning, with the sun well up and the sheets damp with sweat and tangled around their ankles. Vampires, it seemed, had a longer refractory period than humans, but Sebastien also came so big when he did that Alec wasn’t surprised. He gave everything to Alec when he came that Alec could quite happily lie there all day just staring at him as he came down afterwards.

The room was chilly, however, and when Sebastien seemed to have dozed off again around ten o’clock, he headed to clean up. Again.

As the steam billowed around him, he tipped his head back into the stream of searing water and nearly yelped as the shower door opened and let in a rush of cold air as Sebastien stepped into the stall as well. Cool hands found his waist and then strong fingers kneaded his arse appreciatively before Sebastien kissed and nibbled up his shoulder and traps to his neck. Instinctively, Alec tilted his head to one side and Sebastien moaned, pressing open-mouthed kisses there over and over as the hot water coursed around his lips.

The sensation must have been too much for him because he pulled back sharply with a hiss and Alec turned to face him, water still streaming down around them. Sebastien stood frozen, eyes red, staring at Alec’s neck. “I shouldn’t…” he began. “That was stupid of me… I…”

“What happens to the treaty if the human is willing?” Alec found himself asking. He’d thought about it a lot before drifting off the previous night. If Sebastien had wanted to drink from him, to feed on him, what would happen to the tenuous peace between hunters and vampires like him.

“Don’t,” Sebastien said through gritted teeth. His canines were elongated, Alec noted.

“What happens?”

“The only way it’s permitted is if the human agrees by written contract to become the vampire’s source.”

“‘Source’?” he asked. “That sounds like an official title.”

“It is,” Sebastien said, relaxing a fraction and putting his hands back on Alec’s hips. His cock stirred with interest and Sebastien smiled. He leaned back in, as if proving to both of them that he could do this, and kissed down Alec’s neck again from the junction of his jaw all the way to his collarbones. He ground his hips against Alec and they both began to harden again.

Alec’s hand went to Sebastien’s cock and he started to stroke him gently, knowing he was still sensitive from their last round. Sebastien let out a ragged exhale, the cool breath making Alec shiver slightly in the heat of the water.

“So…” Alec pressed gently, thumbing across the top of Sebastien’s flushed cock.

“Hmm?” he asked, a little stunned.

“What is a source?”

“A human becoming a vampire’s source means that the vampire drinks only from that human. It’s… an ancient - ah - custom,” he said, gripping Alec’s shoulders as Alec upped the speed and adjusted his grip to tighten just a little around his now fully hard cock. “Rarely used today, but still… nngh…”

“Mmm?” Alec grinned, loving that the vampire’s thoughts were unravelling under his touch. “Go on.”

“You’re a menace,” he laughed breathily, nipping playfully at his neck and then kissing him hard. Alec’s back suddenly hit the icy tiles behind him and he yelped, rearing into Sebastien who wasn’t all that much warmer, though the heat of the water was raising his body temperature from the ambient temperature of the room.

“So if…” Alec began, somewhat distracted as Sebastien’s kisses continued and the vampire raked his fingers through Alec’s wet hair, scraping luxuriantly across his scalp hard enough to make him break off and groan. “If… if I wanted to become your…”

“Don’t,” Sebastien whispered. “Not yet. Not so soon after… all this time.”

The subtext was clear. Let’s see if this is going to last before I risk my life with the hunters guild and your family, shall we?

“Fair enough. Nothing to say I can’t suck you off now though, right?”

“Nothing at all,” he whispered and then immediately cursed as Alec sank to his knees and did just that.

It was only as he was handing in his own letter of resignation that the truth really sank in for Alec. He’d gone from post-grad assistant in the department to a full lecturer, where he’d stayed for six years, and now he was moving a little way out of the city, and moving in with his boyfriend of a year. A vampire, nonetheless. His life had gone from miserable to wonderful in that relatively short time.

Sebastien met him at the edge of campus after he’d handed the letter personally to the head of department. Standing under the verdant cherry trees, Sebastien looked like a vision. He wore tight, dark jeans and a loose shirt, half untucked, with his long hair tied back in a loose plait, fly-aways wisping around his head like mist. Alec walked straight up to him as the vampire opened his arms, flung his own arms around Sebastien’s neck, and hugged him.

“All done?” Sebastien asked without pulling back.

He nodded and popped back down from his toes. They were both tall men, but Sebastien had a few inches on him still. With a slightly doe-eyed expression, Sebastien smiled and kissed him gently. “I love you,” he said softly between kisses.

“Come on, you big sap,” Alec said. “I’ve got to be out of my apartment at four.”

“Such a romantic,” Sebastien sighed melodramatically.

With Sebastien’s supernatural strength, loading up the little van they’d hired for his stuff didn’t take long, and after giving his keys back to the landlord and signing the final bits and bobs, they were on the road.

The old farmhouse had been a find of Sebastien’s, and it needed some work. “Well, what else am I going to do on long, impossibly sunny summer days while you’re running your own business from the little art studio at the bottom of the garden?” Sebastien had laughed when they’d first viewed it, the back of his hand pressed to his forehead in a terribly ‘put upon’ gesture. “I might as well spruce the place up.”

“It needs more than a light ‘sprucing up’,” Alec had said, brows raised at the rotten wooden beam and the tired 1950’s kitchen. “And don’t tell me you made your wealth flipping houses back in the day.”

“Would you rather I told you I robbed the Bank of England and they still haven’t noticed?” he replied archly before planting a kiss squarely on Alec’s scratchy, stubble-darkened cheek.

With a scowl, Alec had shot him a look. “I honestly don’t know whether that’s a lie or not…”

“It’s a lie,” Sebastien snorted. “I can’t believe you think I’m a criminal.”

“You’re a vampire,” he’d retorted. “You could probably have just walked in there and demanded a small fortune in gold ingots and they wouldn’t have objected…”

“Please. I do have some scruples. And besides, I only use my charms on poor, miserable artists to get into their pants…”

“And their hearts too, apparently,” he’d scoffed as they’d left the dilapidated house with Sebastien’s hand in Alec’s back pocket, fingers firmly cupped around his arse.

It took another six months for the work to be completed, and even with Sebastien’s not inconsiderable talents in the DIY and home improvement departments, they still had to call in a team of builders to fix the pointing in one wall and to sort out a few other structural issues. But by the end of the work, the farmhouse was quite frankly the most stunning place Alec could ever have dreamed of living. Exposed oak beams and a fireplace big enough to park a tractor in were only half of the best features of the place.

One clear, frosty evening in late October, the pair sat outside on the recently finished patio, a small cast iron fire-pit crackling away and sending sparks and heat twisting up into the night sky, a glass of wine each in one hand and their free hand clasped around the other’s.

“Bastien…?” Alec said, not taking his eyes from the mother-of-pearl points of light in the sky above.

“Mmm?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about… about becoming your source.” He didn’t miss the sharp inhale from his partner, nor the way Sebastien went completely still in the wooden chair beside him. He also didn’t say anything. “I’d… I’d like to ask how often you’d need to feed from me, and… what the repercussions would be for me as the human…”

Still Sebastien didn’t speak for a long time, and Alec worried he’d spoilt the serenity of their evening with the sensitive question. Finally, the vampire cleared his throat and Alec realised with a jolt that he was near tears.

“Bast?”

At the sound of the pet-name, Sebastien blinked rapidly and two mirroring tears tracked down his cheeks in perfect synchrony. “I thought you’d forgotten all about it,” he said in a hoarse croak. “I didn’t want to bring it up again.”

“You should have done, silly,” Alec groused, and he was met with a watery smile that didn’t meet his eyes at all.

“Well, to answer your questions,” he said, trying to sound unaffected even if he clearly was. “Every three months is safe enough, so long as you take an iron supplement. If you don’t, you might feel a little more tired right afterwards. We generally take slightly less than a person would give at a blood donation, if that helps put it into context.”

Alec turned and frowned at him.

“What?”

“You’ve gone all clinical,” he said, shuffling a little and setting his wine glass down on the edge of the stone fire pit. “Do you not want this anymore?”

Sebastien swallowed thickly and looked away. In the ochre and copper flicker of the flames before them, his suddenly red eyes seemed to glow like coals. “More than you know…” he rasped.

“Then what’s the problem?”

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before turning back to face Alec with glassy eyes. “I’m frightened.”

Alec’s scowl deepened and he rose from his chair to straddle and sink down into Sebastien’s lap. Settled in his new position, he kissed Bast’s lips and stroked his loose, white-blond hair out of his eyes. “Of what?”

“Losing control. It’s been… decades since… If I hurt you, Alec… it would break me.”

“How about we start small? Just a taste?”

Sebastien looked so young then in the firelight. He suddenly looked like the twenty year old man he had been when he’d been conscripted into the army and sent out to battle to die, only to be turned at the eleventh hour by a nurse in a field hospital who’d seen something special in him. Thank god she had, Alec mused.

Alec leaned back a little and brought his index finger slowly to Sebastien’s lips. The vampire swallowed, red gaze drifting down to watch its approach before looking back at Alec’s face, searching, questioning, doubting.

Alec nodded and slid his fingertip a few millimetres into Sebastien’s mouth. The vampire inhaled, closed his eyes, and then opened his mouth properly. Alec brought the pad of his fingertip to the underside of his right canine, and pressed.

After a moment, the pressure gave way and a prick of pain like a needle pierced his skin. A bead of blood welled there instantly and he withdrew to let it swell. Sebastien clearly smelled the blood because his pupils dilated and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Easy,” Alec said. “It’s only a drop.” And with that, he turned his finger over and held it above the tip of Sebastien’s tongue.

Paralysed in a heartbeat of terror, Sebastien sat rigid, frozen, wide eyed, but Alec lowered his finger to meet the slight roughness of his tongue, and Sebastien’s eyes rolled. He moaned and let his tongue play across the tiny pinprick wound, fingers digging into Alec’s hips. The tiny wound had already stopped bleeding, but he sucked gently, drawing a little taste more. Then he released Alec and stared at him, a look of stunned awe on his beautiful face.

“How was that?” Alec asked, briefly thumbing a fond arc across Sebastien’s cheekbone before dropping his hand.

“Manageable,” Sebastien murmured.

“Ok, I have to ask, do I taste good?”

The tense spell that encapsulated both of them broke and Sebastien cracked a smile, fangs and all. “Yes,” he rasped.

“So… I can become your source?”

“If you wish it, yes. You can withdraw the honour at any time. I won’t hold you to it.”

“Good to know,” he said, only half laughing. A moment later, he said, “When… When do you want to start… you know… properly. Formally?”

Sebastien’s eyes had drifted to the rabbiting pulse in his neck.

“Now?” he asked. “It’s only been a few weeks since you went to the blood bank though…”

“That’s…” he said, hands finding Alec’s waist and holding him gently. “That probably works in my favour this time. Are you sure you want this?”

“To be ‘yours’ on your terms as well as mine? Of course,” he smiled, and watched as another tear rolled down his perfect olive cheek. He tilted his head to one side, feeling a little sheepish, and said in barely a whisper, “Whenever you like.”

“Really? Now?” Sebastien hissed, chest suddenly heaving. “Just like that?”

Alec laughed quietly. “It’s not as if we’ve just met. I know you, Bast. I trust you. I wouldn’t offer this to just any old vampire, you know?”

Unable to stop the smile from twisting his lips, Sebastien finally relented with a nod. “Alright. But not here. You’re going to want to be more comfortable.”

“But I’m already comfortable here,” he whined playfully, wiggling his hips in Sebastien’s lap, eliciting a deep, rumbling groan.

With a roll of his red eyes, Sebastien sighed. “Stubborn arse,” he grumbled without sting.

“You love my arse.”

“Yes, you’re right. I do,” he said.

Tenderly he ran his thumb down the line of Alec’s carotid and inhaled deeply. “I love you,” he whispered. And then he leaned close. He took his time kissing Alec’s neck until he was gasping and rocking his hips against Sebastien.

“Please…”

“Last chance,” Sebastien said against the skin of his throat.

Alec shook his head. “I want this. I’m yours.”

So the vampire sank his fangs into the artery. After the initial surprise and sting, Alec’s whole body lit up as the venom hit his bloodstream, and he bucked into Sebastien who held him still with what should have been frightening ease. There was no fear behind the gesture, only longing and love and sweet, aching, rolling, unending pleasure.

“Oh fuck,” Alec moaned, going limp in his arms as Sebastien began to feed, withdrawing his fangs to draw more deeply on him while he held him easily in his arms. The vampire moaned, lips locked against his skin so as not to spill anything. The motion of his throat suddenly fascinated Alec as he swallowed down his own life-force, but before he could raise his hand to touch fingertips to his Adam’s apple, pleasure exploded in his mind and he forgot everything.

When he came back to himself, he was inside, lying on their bed, with a small, soft dressing over his neck, and Sebastien sitting quietly on the bed beside him, staring down at him and holding his hand. As he blinked his eyes, he frowned. “What…?”

“It’s intense the first time,” Sebastien murmured fondly. “I did say you’d want to be somewhere more comfortable.”

“ S’perfect,” he slurred. “Fuck me…” he added, more curse than command.

“Maybe later, hmm?” Sebastien smiled. There was a flush to his cheeks that Alec had never seen before, and a brightness to his eyes.

“C’mere,” Alec said, patting the bed beside him. With Sebastien lying silently next to him, Alec rolled over and hooked one leg over Bast’s thigh. “Love you,” he mumbled, sinking into a deep and exhausted sleep, even as Sebastien’s hand came up to cradle his head.

The vampire smiled, kissing his forehead. “I love you too.”

___

Hope you've enjoyed this 23,700k story! Looking forward to your comments as always.  Don’t forget to let me  know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

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#vampire #exophilia #male vampire #vampire boyfriend #vampire x human #vampire lover #male vampire x male human #vampire hunter #mlm #long story #10k words #soft #fluff #angst #angst with happy ending

[averytinyelephant]

damn the heavens

Author’s note: This is my gift for @tog-secret-santa​! (This is my first time participating in an event for a fandom, and it’s been really fun, so thank you to the mods!!!) This gift is for @pi-a-ia​ (who’s art is amazing, go check it out!!). I tried incorporating all of your wishes in this fic, so I hope you like it! [Contains spoilers for the anime and anyone who hasn’t caught up to chapter 193 (Season 2, Ep. 113) of the manhwa.] Fandom: Tower of God (Read the Webtoon here!) Pairing: Khun Aguero Agnis/The Twenty-Fifth Baam

Summary: After the end of the Workshop Battle, Baam stares at the sky. Khun may not have the courage to chase the stars, but maybe he can carve Baam a path of light to reach them.

Gif credits to @edo-taichou​.

THE WINNING TEAM OF THE WORKSHOP BATTLE IS: TEAM SWEET & SOUR

There’s silence for one short moment. Then, an explosion of cheers.

Khun breathes a sigh of relief.

Finally, everything’s back as it should be.

—

There’s celebrations. Drinking, yelling, partying— Khun doesn’t really care for any of it. And from the looks of how he can hardly keep his eyes open, Baam doesn’t either.

“Baam, let’s go get some rest.” Baam blinks a few times at the proposal, likely not used to being called by that name again yet, but gives Khun a soft, grateful smile. “Okay,” he agrees simply, “please ask Rak-ssi too. He must be tired too.”

Khun clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes exaggeratedly at the mention of the gator, and it’s worth it for the bright peal of laughter it pulls from Baam. He agrees with a nod as Baam makes his way to their room.

They spread out a few blankets on the floor and gather three pillows to rest their heads. It’s makeshift and shabby, nothing like FUG’s luxury beds and the expensive bedsheets Khun can afford, and everyone’s still celebrating loudly in the other room.

All three of them are fast asleep in minutes.

—

When Baam wakes up, it’s to loud snoring and a heavy weight on his chest.

He blinks at the ceiling a few times before sitting up, gently sliding the still-snoring Rak off of his chest.

I… made it back.

He steals a glance at Khun wrapped up in his blanket. The way they both sleep suits them: Rak is splayed out and snoring open and carefree, Khun is turned away and closed into his blanket. Both of his hands are hidden under it as he holds the pillow under his head— does he still sleep with a knife in hand? His hair doesn’t look as disheveled as it should after sleeping for so long, so he must not have moved very much, which makes it possible that he does.

That... Baam feels a little twinge in his chest at that. What had Khun’s life been, before they met and these years they’d been apart, to make him so afraid? Suddenly, he wants to... Baam can’t really tell, but reach out, maybe, make Khun feel safe and happy— and wow, when did Khun get so close? Baam jerks his head back, pulling his hand from where it was about to land in Khun’s soft blue hair. Khun needs his rest, Baam decides, and he doesn’t want to wake him up.

He steps outside softly, checking his Pocket as he leans on the balcony and looks up at the false sky. He has a message from Endorsi that reads: Meet me at the gate by 2 PM. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.

Baam just laughs.

—

Shibisu and Wangnan drag everyone into the main room to play drinking games. Khun’s about to make his escape like the last time, but is dragged into it anyway when Baam asks him to stay, since it’s the last night before Shibisu’s team leaves for the next floor. That bastard knows what he’s doing right now, Khun realizes quickly: his eyes are shining with mirth after intentionally making a show of asking him to stay and play with them.

Khun sighs in defeat, sitting next to Baam on the floor in the crooked circle everyone’s formed. Baam gives him a bright, guileless smile and Khun suddenly has a very personal understanding of how much his own snark must irritate people (this, however, does nothing to curb how much he’ll be using it in the future). Khun’s not a fan of alcohol or getting drunk in general, and if he remembers right, Baam is a terrible lightweight. It doesn’t take much sleight of hand to swap the nearest bottle for a non-alcoholic substitute from Khun’s lighthouse.

Baam takes a sip and gives Khun a curious look, and Khun leans into him and whispers, “If I’m going to get dragged into this, I might as well get some good blackmail.” 

Baam giggles and nods at him in agreement when Wangnan interrupts loudly, “Viole! Khun! You want to share what’s so funny with the rest of us?”

Baam blushes down to his neck and violently shakes his head, and Khun takes the bottle from him to take a swig from it before answering, “I don’t know, have you managed to pick a game for us to play or did you gather us all here just to watch you argue until we all get drunk?” Wangnan deflates quickly and Baam has to quickly hide a snicker (“Seriously, Viole?!”) before Shibisu snarks back, “Do you have one to suggest then?” “Unlike you, I spend my time doing useful things, not drinking myself silly.” “He totally just can’t think of one,” Prince interjects with a sneer. Hatz adds, “Earrings is just too much of a coward to admit that he doesn’t have any friends to drink with.” “You want to say that to me again, Hara-kiri?” “Do your stupid earrings keep you from hearing me properly?” “If you want me to kick your ass that badly, you can just ask.” “Can’t you two just drop this for one night?”

They eventually agree on Truth or Dare, and while Khun does get the blackmail he was looking for, he (along with Goseng and Baam) gets stuck with the job of ferrying people back to their rooms for the night so that they don’t just stay passed out on the floor of the main room (at Baam’s request). Baam laughs at Khun grumbling as he’s stuffing a snoozing Endorsi in his lighthouse, and Khun delights in Baam’s yelp as he hops onto the side of his Blue Shield without warning, causing him to almost drop Prince and Ehwa. 

Khun has to admit, this was a lot of fun.

—

Baam asks Khun to help him cut his hair. Khun agrees. 

As Khun takes his long hair in hand, Baam sheepishly apologizes for not following Khun’s advice for talking proper care of his hair. It pulls a shocked laugh from Khun; he hadn’t remembered giving him that lecture at all until now, and he waves away the apology. 

“I’m sure you have plenty of good excuses,” he reassures, “but I’ll be holding you to it from now on.”

Baam smiles brightly, nodding so vigorously that Khun has to remind him to keep his head still and then stifle a laugh at his embarrassment. Baam’s hair smells like blood and screams and tears and loneliness, eight years too much of it to ever be washed out, and when Khun cuts off everything below his neck all in one go, Baam heaves a sigh of relief, one Khun guesses is the first in years.

After it’s done, Baam looks up at the false sky.

—

A month. It’s been a month since the workshop battle ended.

Baam came back to the us. We passed the test without any problems, and earned the right to go up to the next floor. Everything seems to have worked out well, but in fact, this is only the beginning. Emily disappeared from the Archimedes. Where could she be now and what is Cassano planning to do with her? And most importantly… where is FUG? They tried to set me up.

Apple, Micheal,… …and Rachel.

“I want to hear more stories about… what the Outside of the Tower is like.”

I won’t let them get away with this. Even if Baam tries to stop me, I will get her.

—

Baam’s late to the meeting Hwaryun scheduled. Khun teases him lightly about it, but Ehwa tells him later that she found him looking up at the false sky, some nonsense about a fairy tale someone told him about the sky.

“You must be glad,” Hwaryun taunts him, “Now, you have more time to find Rachel.” Khun only turns his head enough to meet her eyes.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know that you’re making a team to find Rachel, behind Viole’s back? The reason why you calmly accepted my suggestion was that you thought it would be a burden to go up the Tower with Viole right now, right?”

“You are trying to kill the girl who used to be your best friend’s everything. If Viole finds out, how will he act towards you?”

He makes an agreement to meet in a year at Train City, a smile plastered on his face. He hides his teeth, because the backs of them taste like lies. That’s to be expected: he’s been cut and carved from lies— he learned how to make and break trust before learning how to keep it, to hide the truth with locks and traps and smoke and screens until it damn well doesn’t exist anymore.

When he offers his hand to shake, it’s a calculated risk: he may be made of lies, but people trust you more if you seem non threatening and vulnerable. As Khun shakes his hand, he keeps his other hand in his pocket to keep the decks of cards he has hidden up his sleeve from slipping.

They fall anyway, because of course they do.

They always have, whenever Baam’s involved.

—

Khun feels his skin crawl restlessly like a billion tiny sweetfish swimming through all of his cells, only getting more intense with each step he takes towards his room. He looks out of the open hallway at the false sky, Hwaryun’s taunts coming to mind, and he’s filled with rage so white-hot and primal that it almost surprises him.

Baam’s still chasing after Rachel, he’s known that — he didn’t even need Baam to tell him to know that because he understands, he understands that Baam’s doing what he never did. Hwaryun’s probably allowing it because it gives her an excuse to force him to grow stronger for whatever purpose FUG needs Baam to fulfill, and she was right, he needed the extra time in order to—

She’d called him Viole, she’d called Baam her god. Khun’s almost as disgusted at her as he is at himself, but he’s never claimed not to be a hypocritical asshole.  

Khun knows that there’s forces much greater than him at play here; he’s made that mistake once: he’d believed that any floor test was simple enough to plan and slash his way through, he’d believed the Tower and all of its gods were small enough to contain in his hands.

He doesn’t care. He’d like to not ever have to hear that shit again.

False kings, false gods, false stars lighting up false skies — Khun’s sick of all of it.

—

Before they leave the Wolhaiksong resort that night, Baam checks his inventory to make sure he has everything he needs. He finds three large books he’s never seen before. They have similar fancy leather covers with elegantly minimalistic yet intricate engraving. They look like they’re very old, older than he can even imagine, he realizes on a closer look, since they look like that after being preserved with Shinsu. Out of curiosity, he opens one to a random page.

He’s faced with charts and diagrams of great clouds of light, explanations too dense for him to make sense of at the moment, but there’s lots of blue annotations in a handwriting that looks very familiar for one he’s never seen before. He opens the others to other random pages and finds that they’re all the same way, filled with the same familiar annotations in all kinds of colors, contrasting the old black print of the books. Baam realizes in awe that the books are about stars, pages and pages full of skies and stars, and they’re real.

”Stars are just a legend. Even if you go up, the only thing you’ll reach is this floor’s roof. That blue sky is created by shinsu, and the bright thing at night is just a light ball. I heard there are stars in the Outside world, but they don’t exist, at least, not here in the Tower.”

He can feel shock pricking at his eyes, and looks again at the covers of the book for a title, a name, anything—

and feels tears run down his face.

FROM THE LIBRARY OF KHUN EDUAN.

#i experimented a lot with my style here and i think i like it a lot #lots of scenes in tog are really really dense and you have to pick them apart a lot when youre reading so heres my process of doing that #plus some of my own stuff sprinkled in #and im sorry for how late in the day this is i had some personal complications with posting #khun aguero agnis #the 25th baam #khunbam #team baam #team sweet and sour #tower of god #vi writes #tog secret santa

[random-mha-thoughts]

Little Fluffball (TodoBaku)

Pairing: TodoBaku

Genre: Fluff

Summary:  Shouto comes home before his feisty boyfriend to a cat sitting outside his apartment that surprisingly reminds him of his special someone.

Inspo: This fanart originally by @heydenhein (it’s actually been on my list of things to write for months, I’m glad I finally got to use it~)

Word count: 1,477

Tags:  @yuki-osaki​ @liviitehe​ @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog​ @bunnythepipsqueak​ @lonelyfangirl453

a/n:  Final post for ShouCat Week! It’s a little late but hey, it’s still Friday in at least 3 timezones sooooo I’m not late technically

This one featuresTodoBaku!  It was supposed to be Todo x Reader, but looking back at the art that inspired this, I realized I forgot the cat was actually Bakugou, so surprise ship I guess!

That’s a wrap on ShouCat Week and my first event!  Hope you guys enjoyed it~  The masterlist will be pinned for the remainder of the weekend for you to catch up on the other stories before I replace it with the brand new Navi page I made a few days ago ^^.

Chibi’s ShouCat Week masterlist 

Shouto didn't know why a cat was waiting in front of his apartment door so casually.  He had a mini staring contest with the puffy blond cat laying there like it owned the place and was locked out.  The feline had turned its head when it sensed the man approaching the door, leaving Shouto extremely confused, but minutely intrigued by it.

"Are you lost, little one?" he asked, kneeling down in front of the huge ball of taking up space in front of his door.

The cat's face scrunched up into what he could only register as annoyance, striking him as odd.  He didn't know cats could express such human emotions, not to mention them having such attitudes.  Thought, admittedly, he thought there was a tickle of familiarity scratching at the back of his head.

"You can stay the night here for now.  We'll take good care of you."  He stood to insert the key into his door and swing it open.

Without a moment's hesitation, the cat sprinted inside with its stubby legs and perched itself on the middle cushion of the couch, sinking down as it stretched and purred to make itself comfortable.

Shouto almost laughed at how it managed to make itself instantly at home, and how that space was usually where the man would find his boyfriend when he returns from work.  Speaking of, he wondered where his boyfriend could be at this hour when he was sure he had no work today.

The candy-cane haired man shrugged, figuring he would come home whenever he was ready, settling next to the soft hedgehog of a cat and stroking its surprisingly soft fur.  "You definitely remind me of someone special, little one."  A soft smile played on the man's lips.

The cat turned from its laying position to shoot Shouto another annoyed glare, this time baring its teeth at him.  From this close, Shouto noticed how the eyes were the same crimson red his boyfriend has.

The man only chuckled.  Being with his boyfriend had certainly made him immune to any pointed glares from anyone.  "You two share a lot of similarities, that's all.  Your hair's the same color, your eyes are the same, you have the same attitude as him, you even chose his favorite spot on the couch to sit.  I wouldn't mind keeping you as a pet for us, we'll see what he says when he comes back."

Shouto always knew he wanted a pet, something to share with his hotheaded partner, something to solidify and strengthen their relationship, something to call their own.

The puffy cat jumped on top of Shouto's lap suddenly, growling low and staring at him.

"What is it?  Is there something you wish to say?"  The man had no idea what to do at times like this.

"Meeeooow!" it suddenly yelped, placing a paw on his shirt, glaring its scarlet eyes straight into Shouto's soul.  Surely, this cat had something on its mind, but the lack of a shared language wasn't helping the situation as he can only stare blankly at the expectant animal.

In an exasperated huff, the cat pounced onto the floor and pattered towards the nearby coffee table next to the TV, taking a photo frame into its mouth and returning back to Shouto.

The perplexed man grabbed the frame.  "Yes, this is me and my boyfriend.  As I said, you two share many similarities-"

"MEEEOOOOWW!!!"

Shouto sighed.  "I really don't understand what you're trying to say-"

Once again, the cat growled in dismay at the dense man in front of him.  How can he see one single similarity between two people and immediately theorize that they're long last family members, but not put two and two together in this situation?

The cat sat on its hind legs and tapped one of its front paws on the man's leg.  Shouto could only find it adorable how the cat seemed to have the ability to think like a human.  It would be an excellent addition to their family.  He couldn't wait for his boyfriend to come home to tell him about it.  "You're a peculiar one, little one.  I know you two will get along nicely."  His hands scratched behind the sand-colored ears standing at attention.

At the gesture, the wound-up feline couldn't help relaxing against the man's fingers, triangle ears flattening against its giant, furry head and body.

"You must love cuddles too, don't you?"  Shouto gathered the ball into his arms to bury his face in the precious fur.  "Wow, you even smell like him too."

The cat pawed at Shouto's ear before nipping at the lobe, eliciting a petal of laughter from the man.  "Alright, maybe I should have dinner and we can go to bed to wait for him."  The man cradled the cat and towed it into the kitchen, setting it on the counter.  The man began reaching for a plate and a small bowl.  "I can't really cook, the only thing I know how to do is boil noodles."

There's a hard crackling of plastic suddenly.  To Shouto's surprise, the cat had the bag of soba noodles in its mouth by the edge of the package.  The man pat it on its head.  "How did you know I needed this?  You're so smart."

The cat rolled it eyes.  It's given up at this point.

As Shouto went about cooking his meal and turned the stove on, the cat shrieked and almost slipped off the counter pushing its paw out to lower the dial.  "MEOWW?!"

"Oh, I guess I did set it too high."  The man noticed the mistake and gave the cat another well-deserved scratch behind the ears.  "Well done.  If Bakugou were here, he would've yelled at me for almost burning the house down."

After preparing his meal and setting the table for himself, Shouto sat at the table to eat his dinner while the cat sprawled itself onto the bed in the room, closing its eyes and trying to drift off to sleep on its own as Shouto finished his dinner, showered, and came back out in his sleep clothes.

"What a tiring day," the man sighed again, his muscles still a dull ache from the hot shower.  Winding down, the stress of the day finally weighed down on him.  Admittedly, he's still worried about the whereabouts of his boyfriend.  It wasn't like him to be out terribly late considering his strict sleep schedule.

But when Shouto lifted his eyes to the mattress where the fluffy lump lay fast asleep on Bakugou's side of the bed, he couldn't help but smile again.  Usually, he would talk to Bakugou about his day at bedtime, whispering to each other into the darkness.  Perhaps this cat could be the substitute he needed for now.

He climbed onto the bed and softly stroked the cat again, amused how his motions won't wake it up.  "What a champ sleeper," he cooed, gazing out the window.  "I'm worried that you won't get to meet your other dad today.  It's strange for him to be out this late.  I even called his phone, but he won't pick up."  He looked down at the mass of blond fur, listening to its deep breathing and feeling the rise and fall of its soft body.  "I'm really hoping you two get along.  Maybe not at first, since you're too similar to each other, but I know Bakugou's actually a huge softy.  He's secretly a sucker for cute things.  Maybe he'll think of you as his child."  Shouto's chuckle barely resounded in fatigued.  "No, he's probably not the type to be an obsessed pet dad."  He glanced out the window at the night sky again, his eyelids drooping.  "I hope he's safe."

A wet muscle tickled Shouto's palm, stunning him awake, only to see the cat's tongue lick him gently and purr while its eyes were still shut.

The man stroked his finger over the cat's pink nose.  "You're good at comforting, that's good."  Shouto's body finally wanted to give in.  He turned around and collapsed with a groan, his head nestled onto the cat's body.  "Let's see if you're good at being a pillow too."  His words garbled together in rising slumber.  He just barely missed the way the cat tensed at the sudden heavy weight.  "Good night, Kat-chan."

The cat only gave a final mumble in response.  "Meow..."

.

.

.

Bonus:

The first thing Shouto noticed when he woke up was his pillow being tougher than he remembered.  The cat pillow was much squishier.  He stirred to find a better position.

"Oi, wake up, you're crushing my ribs."

Shouto pried his eyes open to meet the face of his - currently annoyed - boyfriend.  "Bakugou?"  He shot up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.  "When did you get home?  Where'd you go?"  His speech was still garbled, tongue falling over itself as his groggy mind couldn't speak fast enough for his thoughts.  "Where's the cat?"

"YOU DUMBASS, I WAS THE CAT THE WHOLE DAMN TIME!  I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU NEVER CONNECTED THE DOTS!"

#todoroki x bakugou #todobaku fluff #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #todoroki fluff #bakugou fluff #Chibi's ShouCat Week #todoroki imagine #todoroki scenario #bakugou imagine #bakugou scenario #mha todoroki #bnha todoroki #mha bakugou #bnha bakugou #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction

[tloujm]

Part III: Birthday Surprise

Author’s Notes: The plot and setting may look familiar to you guys in this. I mixed Abby’s trip with Owen with Joel’s trip with Ellie. While I could have made the museum romantic, I figured the Aquarium was more so. Also, this takes place several months after the 2nd chapter. To help imagery, it is late Autumn/fall. It’s cold and flurries of snow fall but not a full fledged winter yet.

Genre: Fluff

Summary: It’s your birthday and Joel has a surprise for you. Despite being distant with him, you decide to go along and feed into your feelings for him. If you were waiting for cute, romantic Joel, this is it. This is the beginning.

Ship: Joel x Reader

Joel has loved you since he made the choice to leave the hospital with you in his arms. That was when he admitted it to himself at least. He constantly tried doing little things to make you feel better, especially after having a fight. Sometimes, that just meant giving you space. He held on tight to the moments he got to have with you that did not involve you bringing up the incident. In those moments, he caught a glimpse of what life could be like with you and he had a strong desire for that. All he wanted to do was protect you and forget about the Fireflies. 

The day before your birthday, you responded to a knock on your door only to find a wood carved version of your horse with a note attached sitting on the ground. You could tell it was from Joel by his handwriting. It explained that he had a surprise for you and it involved an early start. It was your birthday, so your positive disposition allowed you to accept his surprise.

He wasn’t kidding when he said early start. Joel was at your door knocking before sunrise. You groaned before lazily throwing your legs over the bed. He knocked again with more force before you made it to the door. He wished you a happy birthday before walking into your makeshift living room. Your eyes were tired, but you gave him a smile nonetheless when you thanked him. He sat on the couch, rubbing his hands together in front of your space heater while he waited for you to get dressed. Apparently, the surprise involved a hike to get there so you dressed in layers. 

By the time the two of you made it past the gate with your horses, the sun had begun to rise. It was not often that you got up while it was still dark. Sunsets were more of your thing. Watching the sun rise, however, was a different kind of beautiful. The sky turned brighter shades of blue as the two of you rode through unbeaten paths. At one point, the woods became too thick for the horses and you two had to start hiking. Joel secured both of the animals before guiding you in the direction of the surprise. 

“Alright, c’mon.” Joel said.

“I’m going to start guessing now.” You stated.

“You want to spoil your surprise?” He asked.

“I’ve held out long enough.” You responded. “Is it an alien crash site?”

“Stop trying to guess. I ain’t tellin’ you.” He said with his back to you.

“Okay.” You let silence fall between you before guessing again. “So is it a nice, new car? With heated seats and one of those tvs that hang from the ceiling to watch movies on?”

He sighed playfully. “You’re not gonna guess.” You fell quiet, trying to think of something even more outrageous. The two of you approached a ledge as the path grew narrower. Joel pushed back a bare branch to give you just enough room to scoot by without falling over the edge. “Mind your step.” He warned as he gestured for you to go first. 

The walkway was so narrow that there was no other choice but for your backside to brush up against Joel’s body as you walked past him. You took it slow as to mind your step. He was so close, you could feel his breath on the back of your neck. Back in the day, you would have used this opportunity to flirt with him just to watch his face go red. After safely making it passed, you did the same for him and held the branch down while he walked across. 

“Fuck it, I’m done guessing.” You spoke up, filling the air with sound. 

“Oh, good.” He replied.

“But really though, is it a movie or something?” You got really excited before he could answer. “Don’t tell me you found some old abandoned theater and dusted off the projector and somehow figured out how to power it back up.”

“Um, no.” He said, slight disappointment in his voice. “Would you have liked that?”

“I would like anything you give me, Joel.” You replied genuinely. After a few more minutes of walking, the two of you come upon a clearing riddled with frozen over puddles. In the middle of it all was a huge temple front building. You approached the steps ahead of Joel. “Is this it?” You asked with a smile on your face. You didn’t quite know what it was, but having earned an art history degree, you had a penchant for big, old buildings.

He nodded. “Yes.”

You run up the steps like Rocky during his famous training scene in Philly. The grand doors had a faded logo painted on. It appeared to be of a dolphin and a whale swimming together like the Pisces sign. You waited for Joel to catch up with you before opening the doors. He watched as you made your way inside the large lobby. There was an enormous whale hanging from the ceiling with two grand staircases on either side leading to separate wings. The dead remnants of overgrown plants decorated the dark blue walls. As you walked closer to the information desk in the middle of the room, snow began to fall from the ceiling. You looked up and noticed that part of the roof was missing. It looked dilapidated rather than the result of an attack. It allowed in the only source of light, bouncing off the walls to cast a grayish-blue atmosphere. As you made your way further in, you found a mural on the wall of different aquatic animals.

“I think this is one of those zoos but for fish.” Joel quipped.

“Shut up.” You said playfully. He chuckled.

You walked up the stairs and immediately became attracted to a room with a shark head adorning the doorway. You headed in that direction first, but Joel warned you not to. You asked why, barely giving him the time to answer before you ignored his plea and continued to the door. It looked like a lounge room for adults. The walls were really just floor-to-ceiling windows. It gave an amazing view of the small lake behind the building. There was a bar, a large tv and multiple couches. You made your way around one couch and realized why he didn’t want you to go in the room. A skeleton, mostly decomposed, was lying on it, resting, waiting. 

“I didn’t want to move the body.” Joel spoke up. “He looked too comfortable.” He referred to the pillow behind the skeleton’s back and the blanket draped over the legs. You notice a piece of paper lying on his lap; his boney fingers keeping it in place. “(Y/N), no.” Joel protested as he watched you reach for it. 

“If it wasn’t meant to be read, then it wouldn’t have been written.” You responded. The paper had all kinds of stains on it, most likely from the decomposition of the body. The writing was faded and barely legible. “ ‘I’m taking Max away from here. He can’t spend his life inside this rotting building. All he’ll do is take on your weaknesses. I want Max to see what it looks like when people are willing to stand up for what they want. The world is harsh. It’s up to us to change it. Maybe we’ll come back someday. If we do, I hope you’re not still sitting in your stupid, fucking chair’. Wow. His kids ran off and left him.”

“Jesus.” Joel mustered.

The two of you go back downstairs and eventually find a doorway shrouded by dead vines. You pushed passed them, holding open a space for Joel to follow. Painted in large white letters are the words “Max’s place”. On the other side of the doors was the gift shop. You guessed that Max used this as his room while his family stayed there. Joel let you look around the pamphlets and trinkets. He watched on with a wide grin before he beckoned you over to the open elevator. 

“C’mon over here.” He said.

            You approached the opening and looked down. “If I knew you’d brought me out here to kill me by pushing me down this shaft, I would have stayed home”. 

“I’m not gonna kill you, darlin’, but we are going down.” 

“You’re joking.” You said flatly. 

“Nope.” He popped the “P” sound playfully as he climbed onto the ladder against the elevator shaft. He held out his hand for you to take. “It’ll be ok.”

“It better be.” You whined. He took your hand and guided it onto a rung. He began to climb down and you followed. 

He jumped off the ladder first, causing the elevator wires to shake. It made you nervous but you persevered. You gently hopped off the ladder onto the elevator roof and followed Joel through the opening of the new floor. It was very dark save from the light coming through the glass windows. You were in the basement level because there was nothing but water on the other side of them. You walked up to the plaques in front of them and read about the animals that were no longer there. You wondered if they’d been hunted or simply died when there was no one left to take care of them. Joel stayed until you were done reading. He followed you around the corner and stopped in front of a large fort made of cardboard boxes. It had a child’s touch as it was painted over with cartoonish figures. 

“Solid fort, Max.” You said.

Joel approached the entrance. “Ladies first.” He held the flaps open. You got on your hands and knees to crawl through. 

“Oh my God, Joel!” You exclaimed in a breathy tone. “You gotta see this! Have you seen this?”

He nodded. You turned to him in disappointment. “I had to secure the place before I showed it to you. ‘Sides, it’s your surprise, not mine.”

“How did you find this place?”

“I found it a few months back when it was warmer. I was on patrol with Nick. We came in from back where the lake is.” Joel explained.

“This place is beautiful, Joel.” You said, almost in a whisper. The room that you had entered was semi-circular and it was all glass. Even below your feet was glass. You couldn’t lie, it scared you for a moment. You were taken off guard when a small school of fish swam by underneath you. “Joel! Did you see that?”

“I sure did.” He replied with a smile. Through the algae and seaweed covering the windows, light peeked through and projected a dark blue glow. As the water on the other side moved, so did it's reflection on your skin. Joel gazed at the sight before him. You looked ethereal and it damn near took his breath away. He watched as your eyes filled with wonder. It was the purest thing he’d seen since the world fell apart. He allowed himself to gaze at you a few moments longer before he slid his backpack off his shoulders. “Now, this took a mighty great effort to find.” He said to get your attention. You turned around as he reached into his backpack. He pretended to dig around to prolong the suspense.

You rolled your eyes. “Joel!”

He chuckled. “Okay, okay. Here.” He pulled out a light brown ukulele. “Happy birthday, (Y/N).” He watched as your face broke into a smile. It was a wholesome experience and it made him warm inside. 

She whispered a thank you and took the ukulele. “I can’t believe you remembered. You said that you’d teach me how to play the guitar and I said--”

“You said you didn’t want to play the guitar. You wanted to learn how to play the ukulele and I said I didn’t know if I could help you with that.”

You looked up at him and met his eyes. “But you said you’d try.”

He took a step closer and watched as you fiddled with the strings. You experimented with the sound of each one before making up a little, silly tune. It was not perfect, in fact it was far from it. Still, you enjoyed playing. You even did a little dance as you plucked the strings. You twirled around and caught a glimpse of a shadow. You knew it wasn’t Joel; it moved too fast. The high pitched sound of the ukulele faded out as you stepped up to the glass. There it was again! Was it a large fish? It was too small to be a dolphin. What could survive in this cold water? You watched and waited. Joel came up behind you and did the same. A seal swam out from its hiding place and swam up to you. It's big black eyes gazed at yours. You were probably the first person that it's come across in a very long time. You let out a breathy chuckle as you watched it swim away.

“I do okay?” Joel’s voice filled the room. It was the softest you ever heard him speak. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You turned to him with a smile. His grin spread wide to match yours. “Thank you, Joel.”

He continued to gaze at you with loving eyes. It made your heart flutter and stomach do back flips. You weren’t sure what was going to happen next but all you knew was that the atmosphere was perfect. You wanted to kiss him, but was too scared. He took another step forward and you let him. Now, the two of you were close enough to touch. He leaned down and closed his eyes as he did. You saw what he was doing and you wanted it so bad but…

“Joel.” You said his name while pulling your head back. 

“I’m...I’m sorry.” He looked down at his feet. 

“No, don’t be sorry. It’s not you. I just...I’m scared.”

He playfully scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“No, it's not that.” You paused for a moment. It sounded logical in your head, but you were afraid it’d sound stupid out loud. “But what if I infect you?”

Joel looked taken aback. “What?”

“I’m a carrier of the disease. What if I'm contagious? I can spread it to you from a kiss like it was a cold.” You spoke with genuine worry.

He let out a small laugh. “You know how many times you’ve sneezed in the house without covering your mouth? If spores would have come out. I would have breathed them in and I’d be long gone by now.” 

You look down in shame before laughing yourself. “I’ll remember to cover my mouth next time.” 

Joel caressed your cheek, prompting you to look back up at him. You smiled, inviting him to try again and so he did. Joel leaned down and this time, you reached up and met him in the middle. You took his bottom lip between yours. His beard brushed against your skin but it was a welcome feeling. The two of you stopped for a split second before going in again for another kiss. Joel was the first to pull away. He knew it was the first time that the two of you had kissed and didn’t want to ruin the moment by going too far. He looked down at you and realized he was ready to go as far as you’d take him, however far that was. Kissing you was a heady sensation and it was something he’d been wanting to feel for a while now. 

******

You start to let Joel in more. Your romantic feelings for him overcame your apprehension. It still lingered in the background, but you convinced yourself to focus on the present. What happened at the hospital had already been done, right? You thought to yourself. What if Joel was telling the truth? You rarely allowed yourself to play that angle. Joel and his brother respectively left the Fireflies for a reason. Maybe they did something that rubbed him the wrong way and he didn’t want to stay there and wait for me to wake up. You couldn’t help but trust Joel after he fought to keep you alive during the journey out west. He must have had a good reason, whatever it was. 

Preparing for the Jackson winter was harsh but focusing on the present was easy and your present was with Joel. He walked you up to your door the night you two came back from the aquarium. He stood there awkwardly as if he wasn’t the one who initiated a kiss from you first. The long ride back showed you that you hadn’t infected him after all, which gave you the confidence to pull him into a goodnight kiss. You caught his eyes widening in shock as you pulled away. It was so different from the Joel that you were used to. Moments like these excited you in discovering more about him. 

It’d been a very long time since you were in a relationship and quite honestly you weren’t in many of them especially after the zombie apocalypse. You could only imagine it was the same for Joel given his guarded demeanor and the fact that he never talked about any past relationships. The morning after your birthday, he made you breakfast. He did a damn good job with what little he had in the fridge. It was easy to tell how much effort he put in it between setting the table and plating the food. The rest of the day was a whirlwind of attention. You were never good at hiding your feelings, but with Joel, you didn’t want to. People in the settlement noticed the change in your demeanor. The glow on your face. The pep in your step. Lynn definitely noticed and she wouldn’t let it go. You spilled everything to her. She soaked it up like a sponge but couldn’t believe it. “Joel?” She kept asking. Unlike you, Joel was much better at concealing his feelings. He always came off as a tough nut to crack. After a year and some change in Jackson, the townsfolk found him easier to get along with, but he was still a closed book. It made you wonder if even his own brother would be surprised by how gentle he could be. 

You didn’t see Joel again until later that night after his shift had ended. You left a note on the fridge door letting him know that you’d be down at The Watering Hole, the only bar in Jackson, if he wasn’t too tired to meet you there. You sat around waiting for him, nursing your gin and tonic. You missed cell phones for this very reason. If he was running late out on patrol or was too tired to come out, he could just call or shoot you a text. This blind waiting was almost too much to bear. You figured that you would just meet him at home and come back out later if he was up for it. Just as you got up, however, you spotted him walking through the door. You watched as he said hi to the barman before scanning the crowd. He smiled when his eyes found yours. You beckoned him over with your finger. 

“Perfect timing,” You began as he sat across from you. “I ordered you a dinner a while ago, so it should be out here any minute.”

“Thank you.” The skin around his eyes wrinkled as he smiled. You noticed that he looked tired.

“We could go home as soon as the food comes if you’re tired.” You suggested. 

He waved his hand at the idea. “No, no. I want to be here with you.” He laid that same hand down on the table, palm up, encouraging you to lay yours on top. You did so and his fingers enclosed your smaller hand, giving it a squeeze. It was his first public display of affection. On the outside, it didn’t look like much, but it meant a lot to the both of you. 

“Joel,” You paused, not knowing how to start the conversation burning in your mind. “I, um....” You were nervous and you didn’t know why. What happened to that confidence you had on your birthday. Just as you decided to begin again, the barman came over with Joel’s food and drink. 

He thanked him before turning back to you. “I know there’s somethin’ here, (Y/N). I’m not alone in thinking this am I?”

You shook your head fervently. “No, Joel. I want this, whatever this is, to be something.”

“Whatever this is, huh?” He repeated. “Well how about this,” With his hand still grasping yours, his voice turned serious. “Go steady with me.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Go steady? I don’t think the kids say that anymore.” You lightly made fun of his wording. Still it was everything you wanted to hear.

His face broke into a half smile. “Well, we ain’t kids are we?” The smile turned sly as he watched for your response. 

You shook your head. “Not at all.” You said coyly. 

#TLOU #tlou 2 #tlou joel #tlou part 2 #Joel Miller #Joel #fanfic #fanfiction #Joelxreader #Joel x reader #OC #The Last of Us #Joel fanfic

[beastars-takes]

Zootopia Takes: Darker’s Not Better

The Shock Collar Draft

So, it sounds like people are largely positive on me doing some Zootopia posts on this blog, and I wanted to talk about this tweet I saw the other day:

I’ll punt on explaining why Beastars isn’t “Dark Zootopia”--that’s a great topic for another post. But I would like to talk about why this popular yet stridently uninformed tweet is so, so wrong. Why the shock collar draft was not better, actually.

And obviously, I’m not writing several pages in reply to a single tweet--this is a take that’s been around since the movie came out, that the “original version was better.” It’s been wrong the whole time.

Let’s talk about why!

Part 1: “Because Disney”

Let’s start with this--the assumption that the film’s creators wanted to make this shock collar story and “Disney” told them to change it.

That’s not how it works.

I try to keep stuff about me out of these posts as much as possible, but just for a bit of background, I’ve worked in the animation industry for about half a decade. I know people at Disney. I have a reasonable idea of how things are there.

There is this misconception about creative industries that they’re constantly this pitched battle of wills between creative auteurs trying to make incredible art and ignorant corporate suits trying to repress them.

That can happen, especially in dysfunctional studios (and boy could I tell some stories) but Walt Disney Animation Studios is not dysfunctional. It’s one of the most autonomous and well-treated parts of the Disney Company.

The director of Zootopia, Byron Howard, isn’t an edgelord. He made Bolt and Tangled. He knows what his audience is, and he’s responsible enough not to spend a year (and millions of dollars in budget) developing a grimdark Don Bluth story that leadership would never approve. It wouldn’t just be a waste of time--he would be endangering the livelihoods of the hundreds of people working under him. Meanwhile, Disney Animation’s corporate leadership trusts their talent. They don’t generally interfere with story development because they don’t need to. Because they employ people like Byron Howard.

Howard and the other creative leads of Zootopia have said a dozen times, in interviews and documentaries, that they gave up on the shock collar idea because it wasn’t working. They’ve explained their reasoning in detail. Maybe they’re leaving out some of the story, but in general? I believe them.

But Beastars Takes, you say, maybe even if Disney didn’t force them to back away from this darker version, it still would have been better?

Part 2: Why Shock Collars Seem Good

I will say this--I completely sympathize with people who see these storyboards and scenes from earlier versions of the movie and think “this seems amazing.” It does! A lot of these drawings and shots are heartbreakingly good, in isolation.

I love these boards. They make me want to cry. I literally have this drawing framed on my wall. Believe me, I get it.

But the only reason we care this much about this alternative draft of Zootopia is that the Zootopia we got made us love this world and these characters. You know what actually made me cry?

Oh, yeah.

So let’s set aside the astonishing hubris of insisting Zootopia’s story team abandoned the “good” version of the story, when the “bad version” is the most critically-acclaimed Disney animated feature in the past SIXTY YEARS.

“But Beastars Takes!” I hear you say. “Critics are idiots and just because something’s popular doesn’t make it good!”

Fair enough. Let’s talk about why the real movie is better.

Part 3: The Message (it is, in fact, like a jungle sometimes)

This type of thing is always hard to discuss, in the main--a lot of people don’t want to feel criticized or “called out” by the entertainment they consume, and they don’t want to be asked to think about their moral responsibilities. But it’s hard to deny that Zootopia is a movie with a strong point of view. Everything else--the characters, the worldbuilding, the plot, grows out from the movie’s central statement about bias.

And the movie we got, with no shock collars, makes that statement far more effectively.

To dive into the full scope of Zootopia’s worldview and politics (warts and all) would be a whole post on its own, so I’ll just summarize the key point of relevance here:

Zootopia's moral message is that you, the viewer, need to confront your own biases. Not yell at someone else. No matter how much of a good or progressive person you consider yourself to be--if you want to stand against prejudice you have to start with yourself.

That’s a tough sell! For that message to land, we need to see ourselves in the protagonist.

Judy’s a good person! She argues with her dad about foxes. She knows predators aren’t all dangerous. She’s not speciesist. Right?

Ah fuck.

Let’s fast-forward to the pivotal scene of this movie. In an unfortunate but inevitable confluence of circumstances, Judy’s own biases and prejudiced assumptions come out, and she shits the bad.

Nick, who’s already bared his soul to her (against his better instincts), is heartbroken. But not as heartbroken as he is a minute later when he tries to confront her about what she’s said, and she makes this face:

Whaaaat? Come on, Nick. I’m a good person. Why are you giving me a hard time?

People like to complain about this scene. That it’s a hackneyed “misunderstanding” trope that could be easily resolved with a discussion. They’re wrong. Nick tries to have a discussion. She blows him off.

This isn’t Judy acting out of character, this is her character. Someone who identifies as Not A Racist, and hasn’t given the issue any more thought. This is not only completely believable characterization (who hasn’t seen someone react this way when you told them they hurt you?) it’s the film’s central thesis!

Yes, Nick somewhat provokes her into reaching for her “fox spray,” and her own trauma factors in there, but she’s already made her fatal mistake before that happens.

(As an aside, people also make the criticism that the movie unrealistically deflects responsibility for racism onto Bellwether and her plot. It doesn’t. All the key expressions of prejudice in the film--Judy’s encounter with Gideon, her parents’ warnings, the elephant in the ice cream shop, Judy’s early encounters with Bogo, Judy's views on race science--exist largely outside of Bellwether’s influence. She is a demagogue who inflames existing tensions, she didn’t invent them. Bogo literally says “the world has always been broken.”)

So, anyway. But we love Judy. She’s an angel. She also kinda sucks! She’s proudly unprejudiced, and when her own prejudice is pointed out to her she argues and doesn’t take it seriously. This is bad, but it’s also a very human reaction. It’s one most of us have probably been guilty of at one point or another.

Look at Zootopia’s society, too--it’s shiny and cosmopolitan, seemingly idyllic. Anyone can be anything, on paper. But scratch too deep beneath the surface and there’s a lot of pain and resentment here, things nobody respectable would say in public but come out behind closed doors, or among family, when nobody’s watching. It’s entirely recognizable--at least to me, someone who lives in a large liberal city in the United States. Like Byron Howard.

Wow, this place is a paradise!

Wait, what’s a “NIMBY”?

Part 4: Why Shock Collars Are Bad

So, with the film’s conceit established, let’s circle back to the shock collar idea. Like I said, it’s heartbreaking. It’s dramatic. It’s affective.

It also teaches us nothing.

If I see a movie where predator animals are subjected to 24/7 electroshock therapy, I don’t think “wow, this makes me want to think about how I could do better by the people around me.” I think “damn that shit’s crazy lmao. that’d be fucked up if that happened.” At a stretch, it reminds me of something like the Jim Crow era, or the Shoah. You know, stuff in the Past. Stuff we’ve all decided couldn’t ever happen again, so why worry about it?

The directors have said this exact thing, just politely. “It didn’t feel contemporary,” they say in pressers. That’s what it means.

If anything, the shock collar draft reifies the mindset that Zootopia is trying to reject--it shows us that discrimination is blatant, and dramatic, and flagrantly cruel, and impossible to miss.

And...that’s not true. If you only look for bias at its most malicious and evil, you’re going to miss the other 95 percent.

The messaging of this “darker version” is--ironically--less mature, less insightful, less intelligent. Less useful. Darker’s not better.

Part 5: Why Shock Collars Are Still Bad

So what if you don’t care about the message? What if you have no interest in self-reflection, or critical analysis (why are you reading this blog then lmao)? What if you just really want to hear a fun story about talking animals?

Well, this is trickier, because the remaining reasons are pretty subjective and emotional.

The creators have said that the shock collar version didn’t work because the viewers hated the cruel world they’d created. They agreed with Nick--the city was beyond saving. They didn’t want to save it.

The creators have said that Judy was hard to sympathize with, not being able to recognize the shock collars for the obvious cruelty they were.

Fuck you, Judy!

But we haven’t seen the draft copies. We haven’t watched the animatics. We have to take their word for it. Anyone who’s sufficiently invested in this story is going to say “well, I disagree with them.” It doesn’t matter to them that they haven’t seen the draft and the filmmakers have. The movie they’ve imagined is great and nobody is going to convince them otherwise.

But the fact remains that the shock collar movie, as written, did not work. And, if behind the scenes material is to be believed, it continued to not work after months and months of story doctoring.

There’s even been a webcomic made out of the dystopian version of Zootopia. It’s clever and creative and well-written and entertaining and...it kind of falls apart. The creator, after more than a little shit-talk directed at Disney, abandoned the story before reaching the conclusion, but even before then the seams were beginning to show. How do you take a society that’s okay with electrocuting cute animals and bring it to a point of cathartic redemption? You can’t, really. The story doesn’t work.

Does that mean people shouldn’t make fanworks out of the cut material? That they shouldn’t be inspired and excited by it? Hell no. This drawing is cute as hell. The ideas are compelling.

But I suppose what I’d ask of you all is--if you’re weighing the hot takes of art students on Twitter against the explanations of veteran filmmakers, consider that the latter group might actually know what they’re talking about.

See you next time!

#zootopia #zootropolis #zoomania #zootopia takes #judy hopps #nick wilde #disney #chief bogo #byron howard

[maggyoutthere]

Quick listing of other stuff I used to work on and that I NEED to get back to working on otherwise I'll be drawing sth stuff only until the year ends

Think you saw someone else post these on Amino? Well yeah that was me. I was in the IZ and AHIT Aminos for a while but ended up not lasting long there XD

(This will be a longer post than what I usually do but it will have some art and au concepts for multiple fandoms so eh take a shot if u want

•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•

👏DRAW👏MORE👏HOLLOW KNIGHT👏STUFF

I really wanna draw more Hollow Knight stuff. I absolutely fell in love with literally everything about the game. The art style is so gloomy but enchanting at the same time, the soundtrack is just phenomenal, fluid animations and a intricate story.

I've only drawn sealed vessel yet because they are my daddy issues and trauma and I get to project them onto what character I want and I legit just like his design a lot.

Invader Zim au I never properly fleshed out ❤💙💛

I remember having this IZ au where for shit's and giggles but also aesthetic reasons, our normal Dib, Pilot!Dib and Zib were triplets while still having Gaz as a younger sister. Again it was more for the aesthetic of it than anything else XD I did have a plan to said au but I left it back on the IZ Amino and I'd have to download the app just to go get it hhhhhh-

I did make some art for it. It's a bit old by now but it still holds up a bit XD

Another au I have for A Hat In Time but ehh? 💜💙💛

I've been kinda falling out of the AHIT fandom. I think the whole reason I was there was a 5 month hyperfixation on Snatcher XD still I was on that Amino as well and made an au as well. I always go for aus whenever I enter a fandom; I'm not comfortable enough to make an oc yet so I start of by doing that first.

The au was about how after Hat Kid finishes the level in Vanessa's Manor, the queen actually chases after her all the way back to Subcon Forest. Snatcher tries to fight off Vanessa, but she actually proves to be much stronger than him. In a moment of panic and desperation that he can't simply get her out of there, guy's sass completely falls apart and he just angrily vents out at her. However, this time, Vanessa actually listens to him. It's been so long since she had last seen her prince, might as well try.

They somewhat patch things up, reuniting the kingdom under the condition that Snatcher will be the one in control now and Vanessa will just stand on the sidelines. She agrees cuz she's just happy to have her prince back. The au kicked off with this premise, a few years after Hat Kid leaves the planet when she mysteriously crashes right back on Subcon Forest.

This one actually had like two small stories to it I had fully written, which is unusual because I don't usually write that much. I might finish it just for the heck of it but that'll be it.

Ocs & Other fandoms cuz wow🤍🖤

I would just love to have the chance to develop ocs here, but tumblr is a little bitch to original stuff. The "algorithm" because idfk what else to call it favors fanart above anything else, so getting other stuff out there is kinda hard. Maybe I'll start doing that as well just hhh remember that not a lot of people might see it XD

I'm also missing out on a bunch of other fandoms I don't really pay much attention to anymore XD I'm a casual fan of a lot of stuff, so eh expect some random things here once in a while

JUST WRITE SOMETHING DAMMIT

Hi again I do really really love writing. Reignited that passion a while ago when I started to rp again (thanks @cyro-starfire XD) so I wanna get back to actually writing stuff. Problem is: idk what to write about. I did pick up a book my mom told me I might like so I'm trying to do that now-

Idk this is a vague one but it's just to remind myself that yeah I mainly draw but I also like to do other stuff XD

Get back to FNAF and BATIM cuz new games are coming out this year 💜🖤

I cannot STRESS enough how much of a BATIM fan I was back in the day XD I left the Amino due to some drama but I'm still planning on returning if the new game catches my attention. Also keeping an eye out for FNAF cuz I'll definitely come back to that due to the game and movie that are in the works.

I'm not exactly planning to return to the Amino itself but just start posting about said games. I don't really like that place anymore -0-'

•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•

Oof I think that was it. Tagging this will be a pain in the ass XD

#multi fandom #multifandom #hk #hollow knight #sealed vessel #iz #invader zim #iz au #invader zim au #dib membrane #pilot dib #zib #ahit #a hat in time #ahit au #a hat in time au #hat kid #snatcher #vanessa #moonjumper #batim #bendy and the ink machine #ocs #original chatacter #maggy moment #apparently you can only have 30 tags? #the more you know #art #doodle

[descendantofthesparrow]

2 part commission - Harry Hook x reader - the masked princess - part 1

commission from @musicarose​

=

You sat silently at an empty lunch table, watching as those at the next looked at you wearily and whispered to each other.

You sighed, leaning on your hand and picking at your food.

You were the second daughter of Aurora and Phillip, the younger sister of Audrey…the one everyone avoided because of your sister's attempted take over.

It wasn’t fair, almost everyone had forgiven her within the day she was returned to normal, and almost everyone shunned you for what SHE did.

You looked up, watching as your sister walked through the doors, laughing and smiling with Jane and Evie. You swallowed down the pit in your throat and stuffed some mac n cheese in your mouth.

It wasn’t fair.

--

You looked up from your sketchbook notebook as the teacher announced there would be new students joining the class.

“Everyone, I want you to welcome our new students.” you felt your breath stop as a tall, dark, handsome boy walked through the doors, his bright ocean blue eyes scanning the room as a girl with long teal hair entered in after him.

‘That’s uma’ you thought, remembering her from your sister's ramblings ‘so that must be…’

“Harry ‘ook” the tall boy muttered, obviously bored as the teacher made him introduce himself. ‘Harry Hook’ you finished your thought, finally tearing your eyes away from the handsome son of Hook.

“Alright, Harry you sit back there with miss (whatever aurora and Phillips last name is) and uma-“ you ignored the rest of the teacher's speech, watching from the corner of your eye as Harry made his way towards you and sat down in the desk next to you.

You didn’t bother to say hi, you knew the others would tell him to stay away from you as soon as they got a grip on him.

It didn’t stop your heart from latching onto him, even if you told it that it would never happen.

Because in the week and months following, you saw a side that you knew many others didn’t see.

He was a brother, his playfulness with the younger members of his crew, making faces at his sisters when they weren’t looking. His laughter as CJ jumped onto his back and demanded to be carried.

He was creative, humming little tunes as he worked, little doodles on the edges on his page, the spark of excitement in his bright ocean blue eyes when the teacher would assign an art or writing based assignment.

He was a strategist, joining tourney and quickly rising the ranks to the captain as he shaped up the team and destroying the other schools with quick and witty plans.

 He was smart, in the sense of people, able to tell if someone was angry or sad from simply glancing at their hands. He could taunt someone into messing up, leading to many a victory in tourney and R.O.A.R. along with getting someone like chad to leave the new young isle kids alone.

He was kind, you had seen him carry small animals in his coat and hoodies, cooing at them and handling them gently. He stayed with crew members and younger members of the isle as they cried or had panic attacks.

He was brave, diving into deep-sea waters as Jane fell in. tackling a rabid animal as it tried to attack dude, standing up to a deranged villain.

You just couldn’t help but fall in love with the bright blue-eyed pirate. And it sucked, knowing he only knew you as ‘the girl who I sit next to in a couple of classes and gave me a pencil one time’

So you sat in your corner, watching as girls flirted with him, and him flirt back…including your sister.

She didn’t know you liked him but it still hurt, but you knew that if he had a choice he would choose her over you.

She was more outgoing, she was the perfect daughter, she was the oldest daughter of Aurora, she was the one in the spotlight.

Why would the handsome, brave, kind and charming Harry Hook choose the plain, closed in, and unnoticed younger sister of Audrey.

Then one day.

You tilted your head, taking one of the free flyers in the clear hanging box next to the hanging poster, turning it over to see the back

-meet at the grand ballroom (cafeteria) the 31st at 7 pm-

That…that sounded fun, you smiled to yourself, you needed a night to just…let yourself be unknown because so many others would be as well.

But…your shoulders sagged, you didn’t have any dresses, and you were too socially awkward to go ask for one.

So as the day of the ball drew closer, you watched as the other students chatter about their outfits and masks, some considering asking their crush or s/o to the ball.

You listened to your sister wonder about asking Harry…and you sat in the background, sketching out a beautiful blue mask and dress, based on the blue version of your mother's classic dress.

A knock sounded at the window of your room, you and your sister looked to each other and you stood and carefully looked out, sighing in relief as three balls of light floated about.

You opened the window and stepped aside.

Fauna, flora, and Merryweather gently flew in, growing in size as they landed on the floor. “hello children~” fauna cheered, her and flora walking over to Audrey as Merryweather sat next to you, offering a cookie.

“We heard there's a ball coming up and we want to help you get ready!” flora cheered, clapping her hands together.

You sighed and sat back, Merryweather tilting her head at you “(y/n)? sweetheart, what's wrong?”

“I don’t think im going” you muttered, Merryweather puffed up and leaned forward.

“why not?”

“well, I don’t have a dress or mask for it, and the guy I like is probably going with Audrey, I- I really don’t see a reason to go” you looked down to your lap, playing with your fingers.

“well…that’s not- alright, ill help make you a dress and mask, and you'll go to the ball, and you'll turn everyone's head and get that boy!”

You shushed her, you didn’t want Audrey to hear “no! not so loud, besides, who would want me there?”

“us!” Merryweather stressed, “we’ll be there as chaperones, and we want you to go out for once and have fun!”

You sighed, laughing a little and nodding “alright, alright ill go!”

Merryweather smirked and gave a triumphant nod. “good, now show me what your thinking of wearing”

As you showed her your sketch, Merryweather's face brightened “oh my, (y/n) that is a gorgeous dress! And that mask-ohhhh that boy will go gaga over you”

You chucked, shaking your head. “alright merry”

As Audrey left with flora and fauna, merry magicked up some blue ombre fabric, gently floating the sketch page in front of her and muttering some random words and measurements.

“you'll look amazing trust me love” you sighed, letting Merryweather do her work.

“and ill enchant it so it won't fit anyone else but you since I know how your sister is” you burst out laughing recalling all the times she borrowed your clothes and never returned them.

“thanks” you settled down in the windowsill chair and pulled your sketchbook to you, sketching down a particular boy and girl dancing away.

===

You finished the wing on your liner, breathing deeply and edging from your mirror, all that was left was to do your hair and get dressed, and then it would be time to go to the ball.

“alright (y/n) you got this, it's just a ball, everyone will be wearing masks, no one will know it's you”

Audrey was already at the “ballroom” being apart of the planning committee. “and maybe- maybe harry will notice you? Yeah right”

You snorted, backing away from the mirror and looking to your bed, smiling softly at the ombre blue ball gown, the light blue mask resting next to it.

“Alright, let's do this!”

---

Harry sighed, he was bored, Audrey wouldn’t shut up and leave him alone, he wished he hadn’t been convinced to come along by evie.

He reached up, fixing the sliding mask on his nose and stood from leaning against the wall, ignoring Audrey as she asked him what he was doing.

He walked to the punch line, groaning loudly as uma stepped next to him, her teal sea-themed mask staring back at him. “your bored aren’t you?” she chuckled.

“there's no one interestin’” he snorted. Looking around the room….wait who- “uma whos tha’?” harry whispered, pointing over to the main doors.

Uma turned, her brows raising as she spotted who harry was talking about.

The masked girl wore an off-shoulder blue ombre ball gown with glitter on the end of the skirt, an elegant blue mask encrusted with diamonds placed delicately on her face.

Her (h/c) hair (curled, straightened, braided) and framing her face perfectly.

Smokey eyes hiding behind the mask, (lip type) lips painted with a tint of (reddish/peach/whatever color u want)

“Wow, she's pretty” she whistled, smirking as harry broke away from her and walked directly to the girl.

“uh oh” she chuckled “I feel like im in one of those classic fairy tales now”

“why?” Gil came up behind her, mask on top of his head, and eating honey beignets.

“you know it, the young man, bored at the ball, unamused by anyone's advances, suddenly he stops! For there she stands, the girl of his dreams!” gil looked up, seeing Harry's red-suited form walking up to the girl in blue.

“who she is or where she came from he does not know, nor does he care” uma smirked watching as harry gently grabbed her hand, the girl whipping around surprised, her ears becoming darker.

“for his heart tell him, that here, here is the maiden destined to be his~” Harry pressed his lips to her hand, smiling at her.

Uma and Gil looked to each other and chuckled “it seems we may have an addition to the crew?”

“if she unmasks herself at the end of the night like everyone else” uma thought aloud. Gentle music began to play, harry bowed and held his hand out to the girl, inviting her to dance.

She took his hand and he led her to the main dance floor, joining the others.

“uma” Gil announced in a posh voice “may I have this dance milady~”

Uma let out a cackle “you may~”

---

You knew Harry was the one who had walked up to you, kissed your hand, asked you to dance, and continued to spend the night with you.

And you didn’t care, you knew he didn’t know who you were, and would forget about you the next day. But you didn’t care, you would follow Merryweather's wish for you to simply have fun.

It had been a wonderful couple of hours, you had met uma and gil for the first time, and you loved them (you wished you were brave enough to meet them without the mask) you met his sisters CJ and Harriet.

And now you and harry sat just outside the ballroom on the balcony simply talking and laughing.

Harry tilted his head at you, a bright smile on his face “so lass, how come I haven’t seen yeh around the school, Im sure I would have noticed a bonnie lass like yeh around.”

You gave a nervous giggle and shrugged “im not that noticeable, trust me”

You jumped as the bell sounded, looking inside you saw the rest of the school standing in front of the stage where the band was, seeing fairy godmother announce the removal of the masks.

“oh, I have- I have to go!” you stood, desperate to leave when Harry grabbed your wrist, you whipped back around, chest hurting as you looked into Harry's confused eyes.

“But why? Everyones about ta remove their masks, I don’t even know yer name?” you shook free, holding your hand close to your chest.

“im-im sorry”

“10!”

“please at least tell me yer name” harry pleaded, you bit your lip, you didn’t want to tell him your name, you knew as soon as you did he would know and would avoid you like all the others.

“rose…my name is rose” really (y/n)? your mother's old name?

“rose…ill find yeh” you looked into his bright ocean blue eyes one last time and bolted, not bearing to look as the crowd said the final number and removed their masks.

…Harry looked after you, slowly removing his mask.

“ill find yeh” he muttered, he promised to himself, he would find his masked princess.

-----

You slammed your dorm room closed, doing your best to not hyperventilate. “okay…okay, breathe (y/n) breathe! He doesn’t know it was you, he won't find out!”

You stopped “oh but…” a smile bloomed on your face “even if he does….ill never regret this night”

You leaned off the door, slowly dancing as you made your way across the room.

“so this is what mom felt when she met dad” you sighed, removing your mask and gloves, placing them into a box to shove under your bed.

You paused, thumb brushing against the nose of the mask “maybe ill get my prince?”

--end of part 1 --

permtaglist

@queer-cosette​

@sephiralorange​

@lunanight2012​

@daughter-of-the-stars11​

@random-thoughts-003​

#descendants #Descendents #disney descendants #harry hook #harry hook descendants #harry hook x reader #commission work #2 parts

[vexation-virgil]

Breathe

Summary:  Roman Prince and Patton Hart are high school sweethearts with a never ending pool of love for each other (and, of course, Patton’s chickens). College is different and new and exciting. But it brings about the feelings that there is something not quite right - their love is vast and there is so much to give and they decide that they simply want their relationship to grow. Easier said than done. Enter, Logan Patrick. An intelligent and attractive boy in one of Patton’s courses that is not eager to make friends with Patton let alone build a relationship with two of them. It takes time and patience and understanding, but the three find happiness together and are ready to face whatever challenges may come their way. Which may just include the cute best friend of Patton’s younger brother, Thomas. Virgil Casey, though, had not had an easy life. But starting a new life in New York has started to look better as the three attempt to woo the anxious emo. That is until Remy Dormir, the third member of Thomas and Virgil’s friend group, gets a new boyfriend. One that Virgil is all too familiar with. TW: aphobia, homophobia, bullying, miscommunication, cheating, self-deprecation, anxiety/panic attacks, self-harm, unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy ideas of relationships, unhealthy/abusive relationships, stalking, assault, kidnapping, death threats, child abuse mentions, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, underage mentions, noncon, unsympathetic/abusive Deceit (Ethan) Relationships: LAMP, Abusive Anxceit, Abusive Sleepceit, Implied Remy/Thomas/Emile  WC: 27273 A/N: HAHA I did it! I really did it, just in time, thank goodness. This was a beast and it’s a beast I am so proud of. My big bang fic, Breathe ( @ts-storytime ). I’d like to thank @lesliealiceinwonderland for being a wonderful beta over the last couple months and really helping me chug, chug, chug along. And my family over on discord for dealing with me the last couple months. I got paired with the wonderful @nottodaylogic as an artist for this and you can check out their art HERE. So, thank you all so much for being amazing through this whole process and without further ado, Breathe. 

(Wanna read it on AO3 instead? Check it here.)

 It started with Roman and Patton.

The theater program in their high school was small, but Roman Prince was determined to make it big. Always cast as the lead, making everything a show, constantly over the top. The bigger a scene he made, the better he felt. 

Patton Hart was not nearly as loud, but everyone knew him anyway. The sweetest person around, friends with anyone who would let him stick around for even a moment. Funny and kind and soft. Patton always felt best when everyone around him was happy.

They met when the theater director put out a call for live chickens. Yes, actual, real life chickens, to be carried around on stage by Roman for one scene. Just one. One and they still needed to be living, breathing, clucking chickens. Roman was, decidedly, not happy when this news came to light. He was extremely happy, however, when a bright, bubbly boy came onto the stage with him to introduce him to the pair of chickens. 

Roman would never forget the big smile on Patton’s face when he had chuckled over the names of the chickens - a giant spotted bird with huge flapping wings named Chicken Little and a smaller, almost solid brown chicken named Drumstick. 

(”You named your chicken… Drumstick?”

“Oh, yeah, my little brother thought it would be funny to name her after something we eat. He tried to get me to name her Breast, which was when I realized that maybe letting the thirteen-year-old name her wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Roman chuckled at that, tilting his head to the side. “Then why not Wing or Thigh?”

“Drumstick was the funniest!”)

Patton spent a lot of time teaching Roman how to properly hold the chickens but even more time trying to keep Roman from panicking anytime one of the chickens made any sort of movement. Eventually, it got to the point where their time before rehearsal just wasn’t enough and Patton started inviting Roman to his house after rehearsals. 

After the first time they had hung out alone at Patton’s house to work on the chicken handling, Roman had well and truly fallen in love. All it took was watching Patton walk around the little farm to take care of the different animals. A horse named Whinny, a cow name Rocky Road (”Get it? ‘Cause cows make ice cream?” Roman hadn’t tried to correct him), a pig named Bacon, and all the different, punny named chickens. He seemed at home and comfortable there, like nothing mattered in the world except what was going on in that moment with the animals. And he’d allowed Roman into his world with a pull of his hand and a soft, sweet smile as he told him what to do to get along with all the animals. Roman had barely been able to focus on anything that was happening outside of the gentle way Patton explained things to him.

These private moments were some of Roman’s favorites during the production, and he loathed to see them end. It wasn’t hard to convince Patton to keep allowing him to come over after the curtains closed. Roman had grown attached, in one way or another, to all the different animals. And to the way Patton always seemed so at ease there. 

Roman not only loved his time with Patton, but Patton’s family as well. His mother, Eleanor, who always pinched his cheeks and told him she was going to fatten him up and his brother, Thomas, who, despite being a teenager that could really get on Roman’s nerves sometimes, loved listening to Roman tell stories or talk about theater.

Patton was a huge fan of how well Roman seemed to fit into his bubble. His small world of three had grown to a slightly bigger world of four before he even realized what was happening. One day, it was Roman coming over to learn how to deal with Drumstick and the next it was Roman coming over because it had been forever - see, two whole days - since he’d been over and Patton missed him, despite seeing him in the halls and sitting with him at lunch. 

It was Patton that made the first move, something that still surprises them to this day. Roman had a plan for asking him out, for their first date, their first kiss. But, as always, Patton had other plans. Which is to say, he had no plan. 

It had been a completely normal day, nothing even slightly out of the ordinary happening, when Patton kissed Roman the first time. Roman had been singing a quiet melody while they worked on homework together, books and paper strewn across the beds and assignments blending together. 

Patton wasn’t focused on the assignment in his lap, instead watching the way Roman seemed to lose himself in the song even as he doodled on his science homework. His dark hair swooped over his half closed eyes and his cheeks were flushed a light pink. Roman really was beautiful. 

He’d cut Roman off by pressing his lips against Roman’s. The other had seemed surprised for all of a second before he’d melted into the kiss. Roman knew it was cliché and silly, but that kiss felt like fireworks. It felt like everything falling into just the right place at just the right time. It felt perfect in a way neither of them could have predicted. 

(”You just—“

“Yeah.”

“That was… Wow.”

“Wow.”)

The moment was ruined by Roman’s phone ringing next to him and forcing his attention away. It was ruined even further by the scolding Roman got upon answering the call about missing family dinner with his parents that night, despite being completely unaware they were even home. He spent a few minutes apologizing and promising to be home soon and saying they could have dinner together the next day before he was able to turn his attention back to Patton.

Roman had pushed on a big smile and invited Patton to meet his parents. They had spent months hanging out at Patton’s with his family, it was only fair that Patton finally got to meet his. Patton laughed and kissed his nose, agreeing in an instant before he sent Roman on his way home.

Richard and Jane Prince were not happy about the addition to their family dinner. Or the fact that their son was claiming to have a boyfriend. Their perfect child couldn’t do something like that, couldn’t possibly think acting out like that was an okay thing for him to do. They didn’t dare say that in front of their son’s friend but that didn’t keep Roman from noticing the little ways they attempted to knock Patton down or the ways they continuously ignored the fact that Patton was Roman’s boyfriend.

(”So, Patton, are there any girls you’ve got your eye on?”

“Oh, Patton, you probably don’t need an extra serving of potatoes, do you? Would you like a salad?

“Roman, darling, you should take Patton here to the gym with you!”

“When are you going to bring a sweet girl home, Roman?”)

The entire night felt like a nightmare, like something Roman needed to wake up from and not something he actually had to live through. Patton had kept a tight smile on and an even tighter grip on Roman’s hand the whole evening, barely managing to kiss Roman’s cheek goodbye. Even after Patton had left, the terror didn’t end. Roman had earned himself a lecture on just how inappropriate it was to behave like that after not having seen his parents for months. He had no reason to act out, he had everything he could ever want. It had taken all of Roman’s strength not to scream back at them. He’d gone to his room and stayed there trying to convince himself that everything was fine as he made sure Patton was okay.

It was clear everything wasn’t fine, though, when Roman showed up at Patton’s door step in the middle of the night in tears. Eleanor brought him inside without asking questions, she just listened as Roman explained through his sobbing that all he wanted was acceptance, the bare minimum, and his parents wouldn’t even give him that. Eventually, Roman had fallen asleep on the couch with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and Eleanor offering quiet comfort to him.

Roman pretty much didn’t leave after that. The Hart family welcomed him with open arms and constant reminders that Roman was always welcome there, no exceptions, even when Roman tried to argue and tell them they didn’t have to keep him around. 

(“We know, darling. But we want you here. You’re Patton’s boyfriend and Thomas loves you. You were practically here all the time anyway, the only difference is now the guest bedroom is your bedroom.”

“But--”

“No buts. Go help Patton set the table.”)

The only time Roman ever went back to his house was when he knew his parents were home, when he knew they’d want to have ‘family time’. It wasn’t often, just once every couple months over the course of their senior year, but it left Roman drained every time as his parents continued to push what they wanted onto him. When he got back, Patton was always waiting at the door with hot chocolate and Disney movies and more hugs than Roman could ever possibly handle. Roman really loved him. He really, really did.

Despite how close they were in the beginning stages of their relationship, Roman and Patton’s relationship only grew closer and stronger while their peers’ relationships crumbled within weeks or months. Classmates would sweetly refer to them as ‘relationship goals’ which always earned a cheerful “we don’t even play soccer!” from Patton and a fond eye roll from Roman. They were voted best couple during senior awards and Roman’s prom queen gave up her crown to allow the two prom kings to dance together.

High school ending and college beginning was a bittersweet time. They moved to New York together at eighteen and shared an apartment - financed by Roman’s too full college fund and generous weekly allowance - while attending courses at NYU. It was far from home, far from the Hart family, but it was a new and grand adventure they were excited to pursue. 

Thomas and Eleanor visited during the holidays, insisting it was more fun to visit them than it was to have them come home. Thomas came out to them the Christmas after he turned fifteen. Eleanor brought Roman flowers after seeing him in his first college show, despite the small role, the year he turned nineteen.

They had well and truly settled in by the time they were twenty, true New Yorkers and a sickeningly sweet domestic couple. 

Roman had been the one to bring up the idea that it felt like something else could fit into their relationship. They’d talked about what it could be endlessly.

(”It’s been four years, do you think we should get married?”

“Is it fostering? Should we try that?”

“Maybe we should try some new kind of date night. It’s been so long since we gardened, maybe we could find an urban garden to do something with?”)

After having discussion after discussion, Patton suggested they try dating someone new. Not separately, but together. Patton had called it a ‘throuple’ with a little laugh before he talked a little more seriously about the idea of polyamory and asking if that was something Roman even wanted. Roman had agreed, said it sounded right and comfortable when thinking about attraction and himself. He still loved Patton dearly but he felt there was enough love to give to another person, maybe more if Patton was comfortable with it. Patton had kissed him and told him they could start thinking about it.

Days, weeks, months went by without finding anything or, really, anyone that felt right. Patton had felt discouraged and unsure and Roman had been right there with him.

And then, Patton met Logan Patrick.

--

They met while taking a human development course in their second year of college. Patton had sat down next to him on the first day of class with a cheery smile and pointed out that they had the same glasses. 

It had earned a less than enthusiastic response but that didn’t deter Patton, who was determined to make a friend in every course. He’d done it through his first year, he was going to do it now. Even if it took the whole semester to bond with this one specific classmate. Luckily, it didn’t take that long when, after receiving a barely passing grade on the first test, Logan had offered to help Patton study. Simply to assist in improving his grade, of course. 

Logan was a very good study partner, always managing to keep Patton on task even as his mind wandered. He somehow managed to make connections between where Patton’s mind was going and the text, keeping them on topic and helping Patton learn all at once. 

(”Suzy, one of the babies I work with, she always cries and cries when her mommy drops her off until I can get a chance to pick her up and—“

“And that is what Freud describes as the id. The child - Suzy - has a desire to be held and while she is not being held she is experiencing displeasure, so her cries are her attempt to gain satisfaction.”)

Patton realized he had feelings for Logan during midterms. It had felt like weeks since he had been able to spend any sort of alone time with Roman where they weren’t studying or sleeping. In contrast, he and Logan had been together almost constantly to study for their shared class. The two of them had been in the library, taking a short break from going over vocabulary they needed to remember for their test, when Logan had looked out on the campus and told Patton he missed being able to see the stars. 

Logan had looked so sad, so exhausted, and Patton had wanted to help. He had asked about the stars and Logan lit up, immediately going off about his favorite constellations, their placement in the sky, and the stories behind them. He went so far as to pull up pictures on his phone when it seemed like Patton couldn’t quite picture what he was saying. 

They had abandoned their studying for a full hour as Logan talked and Patton hung onto every passion filled word he said. He’d seen the similarities between him and Roman and just… Fell. Fell for another one of the brightest stars in the sky.

There was some guilt there, though. Guilt over the fact that maybe he only felt this way since Patton hadn’t been able to see Roman or spend time with him. Guilt over the fact it felt like he was trying to replace Roman when he absolutely wasn’t trying to do that. He still loved Roman with his everything, he always would, but, still, the thought ate away at him every time he looked at Logan and felt the butterflies in his stomach. 

The first opportunity he had, he talked to Roman about it. Roman who gushed with him and promised him he didn’t have to feel bad and told him he must, must, must see a picture of this stranger who had caught the eye of his beloved.

(”Show me! Show me the stranger who is threatening to steal away my love!”

Patton chuckled, shaking his head nervously as the guilt in his stomach reared its ugly head again. “He’s not going to steal me, Ro, he doesn’t even know I like him.”

“That is besides the point, darling. I want to see a picture of this man who has captured your attention.”)

Patton hadn’t been able to provide a picture - Logan was not a fan of having his picture taken and hid behind something every time Patton had tried, resulting in some blurry photos - but a promise was made to have Logan over for dinner one night. Roman had seemed pleased with that answer and had kissed Patton’s temple before going to make them popcorn for their last minute movie night date. 

Logan and Roman met the day before Columbus Day, not long after Patton made his promise. They had no morning classes on that next day - Roman’s were cancelled, Logan never had any, and Patton was fine skipping his math class just this once. It gave them the ability to stay up and talk late into the night if they wanted to.

Dinner went well, as far as Patton was concerned. Roman had loved Logan the moment he saw him. He had already heard Patton talk about this friend-turned-crush of his and to put such an adorable face to someone the first love of his life liked was just the icing on the cake. And they got along! Where Roman could rant and rave about musicals, Logan could fill in with fun facts about a line or the way the scene was first presented. Where Logan could name the constellations, Roman could dramatically tell the stories of where the names came from. It may have been information they both already knew, but that didn’t make the conversation less entertaining for any of them.

Patton had left for all of three minutes to grab dessert after it seemed like Logan was going to stick around for a while when everything went south. It was the door slamming that got him to abandon his attempt at opening a wine bottle with a broken opener and go running back into the living room. Roman was standing, staring at the door, looking utterly confused and somewhat hurt.

(”What happened?”

“I tried a pick up line? He got… Very upset with me. I don’t think I have ever heard anything scarier than the way he just scolded me before he just… Left.”

“What did he say?”

“He thought I was trying to cheat on you! I was going to explain but he didn’t give me a chance to say anything before he stormed out!”)

A misunderstanding. A miscommunication on Patton’s part. He probably should have explained that they were polyamorous and open to finding a new partner, or partners, but he couldn’t think of a way to casually bring it up to Logan without revealing his crush at the same time. Of course, the one time Patton didn’t want to overshare and actively avoided doing so had led to disaster with just a single pick up line. 

Logan had felt terrible and avoided Patton for days following what he had initially labeled ‘the incident’. He had even skipped class, something he was normally unwilling to do even when he was sick. He was unsure how to tell his only friend that it seemed as if his partner was attempting to ‘make a pass’ at him. 

When he had finally summoned the courage to talk to Patton about it, Patton had felt so embarrassed as he mumbled the truth so quietly that Logan wasn’t able to hear him the first three times he said it. Apparently, Patton and Roman being poly and Patton having a crush on him had been an unexpected answer for Logan, as he had stared at Patton for a solid minute without saying a word before he turned and left. 

Patton had cried right there in the library as soon as Logan had left his sight. 

All hope had not been lost, though, seeing as Logan still sat with him in class, still studied with him when he was struggling as they got closer and closer to finals. He had even agreed to tutor Roman when his role in the winter show was threatened by a near failing grade in his math class - on the one condition that Roman was absolutely not allowed to flirt with him. 

But Logan no longer talked about the stars in length, there wasn’t a spark in his eye as he explained something Patton could tell he knew a lot about, their interactions were less friendly and more like those that they had with the rest of their peers. Patton felt horrible knowing that he might have completely ruined their friendship.

Logan had decided the best way to deal with these feelings his friend had for him was to keep him and his partner at a safe distance. 

He wasn’t completely willing to give Patton up - he was the first person outside of his own family to truly show him any sort of kindness since high school. He was too cold, too uptight, too tense, too cruel for simply not understanding what the people around him were feeling at any given moment.

But Logan had also been aware of what Patton and Roman must have wanted from him. A couple looking to add a third member - especially a couple that had been together as long as he knew they had been - was most likely only looking for a change in their sex life. He didn’t have a problem with them doing that, he respected their decision as a couple to do that, but that was not something he was able or willing to provide for them.

Logan had realized at a young age that sex was not something that held any interest to him. He decided for sure after a less than enjoyable attempt with his first boyfriend when he was sixteen. It wasn’t the worst thing he had ever experienced, it wasn’t near as bad as when he broke his arm as a child after falling from a tree while trying to identify a bird, but it was not something he had wanted to do again. He didn’t understand what his partner had found so appealing about it and had told him as much the day following. His partner had not taken kindly to Logan’s decision to not have that sort of relationship with him. 

It was hard to forget the explosive breakup and vicious promise that Logan was destined to spend his life alone if he kept on about that. The same sentiment was shared by almost everyone he interacted with after they broke up. Word spread quickly and teenagers are relentlessly cruel to anyone who does not fit in, and Logan had not by any means.

He had grown to accept what his peers had displayed as a fact to him over the course of the previous three years. Logan was “broken” and, therefore, destined to be alone. To him, that meant less time spent trying to understand the emotions of the people around him. He didn’t need those sorts of close relationships, anyway, and he was happy to keep everyone at arm’s length. 

It hadn’t seemed like Patton was content with that, though, and that had frustrated Logan to no end at times. He had tried to open up and that had led Patton and his partner to decide he was what they needed to make their private lives a little more interesting and Logan did not want to do that. Patton had taken to asking questions about Logan’s past, wanting to know about his childhood and his friends and the things he did outside of class and studying. Logan had kept his answers minimal, sure that when the semester ended and they were no longer required to interact, Patton’s pursuit would end.

That was not what happened. If anything, it had seemed as if his friend was trying even harder to spend time with Logan. Asking him over for dinner again, inviting him to study “parties”, begging him to go see Roman perform so that Patton didn’t have to sit alone. If Logan hadn’t started to feel something he couldn’t quite name towards his friends, it might have been easier to tell them no. 

Logan had learned to quite enjoy his time with the couple during that second semester. Roman, despite being loud and argumentative at times, was actually quite sweet and much smarter than he let on. Logan was able to hold many conversations with Roman on many different subjects into the early hours of the morning as Patton laid across their laps and snored softly. And Logan did actually enjoy his dramatics from time to time, when it was appropriate. Or when it made Patton laugh.

Logan had wished he would be able to make Patton laugh as much as Roman did, but cherished every time he did. His laugh always made Logan’s chest tighten a bit with something that could only be described as longing for something he couldn’t have. The first time he had made Patton laugh had been when he had unintentionally made a pun, and the soft giggles it had earned him rang in Logan’s head for days afterward.

It finally all got to be too much - the feelings, the longing, the fact he couldn't be what they wanted - before spring break. Patton had been loosening Logan’s tie, telling him to relax while he made dinner before they started studying for midterms, and that smile and Roman’s teasing from the other side of the room had made him finally snap.

(”Yeah, stop acting like you’re going to Sunday mass every time you’re here, Lo, loosen up a bit,” Roman said, tapping his pencil on a textbook behind him.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough! You both need to stop. Immediately,” Logan bit out, voice sharp even as he gently swatted Patton’s hands away from the knot of his tie. “I am aware that the pair of you would like to make your relationship more interesting, that maybe it has grown plain, but I am not going to be a part of your… Relationship in that way. And if you want to continue a friendship of any sorts, then both of you need to cease any attempt to get that from me. I am not interested in sex. With anyone. Ever.”

Patton blinked up at him, a small frown on his face as he took in everything Logan said. “Aw, Lo, we wouldn’t try and get you to do anything like that if you didn’t want to. We’re not going to try and change your sexuality, it’s okay.”

“My what?”)

The three of them had abandoned their studies in favor of having a serious discussion instead. Patton worked on comforting Logan and reassuring him that they had never thought of doing something like just adding someone to their relationship solely for sex, while Roman found terms and labels that helped to describe what Logan might feel instead.

When Roman had read out the definition of asexual and then furthered the explanation of it as lack of sexual attraction or low or absent desire for sexual activity, Logan had actually cried from relief. That was him. That was how he felt. It didn’t stop as Roman had continued to discuss that sexual attraction and romantic attraction weren’t the same thing, that they weren’t tied into each other and that even if he didn’t feel any sexual attraction, he could still feel romantic attraction. If anything, it had made Logan cry more because maybe he wasn’t actually broken.

In his flurry of feeling more than he’d allowed himself to in years, Logan kissed Roman. It was the first thing that came into his head, the first thing that seemed like an adequate enough thank you for the elation Logan had been feeling in that moment. The kiss hadn’t lasted long, Logan had pulled back the moment he realized what he had done, but the second kiss of the night with Patton had lasted much longer. 

Logan hadn’t realized just how much he’d denied himself by ignoring any sort of romantic feelings he had for Patton and Roman, but the other two seemed determined to show him that night, reassuring him that they were happy with whatever he was willing to give.

During the first year of their relationship, though, Logan still kept them at what he considered a safe distance for what they had. A relationship. He spent more time with them, he allowed them to be close, he kissed them when he felt like a moment required it. But he never came over uninvited, he tried not to initiate more intimate moments, he didn’t dare stay the night. He hadn’t wanted to risk getting too close to them and having them change their mind. Having them decide that they truly did want more out of a partner than he was able to give them.

It wasn’t until they had been together for a year that Logan really accepted that they were truly okay with it. They had given him flowers with a large key in the center of the bouquet, Patton’s idea, and a small envelope with a key inside.

(”What is this?” Logan asked, earning a giggle from Patton and a playful eye roll from Roman.

Patton moved to sit beside him and leaned against his side sweetly. “It’s a key. For here,” he told him as he tapped the small, dark blue heart they had painted on the key - presumedly with nail polish if Logan knew Roman at all. 

“Why?” 

“So you can move in!” Roman said excitedly. Logan gawked at him, surprised and maybe a little overwhelmed, which had his boyfriend practically tripping over himself to fix the situation. “You don’t have to share a room if you don’t want to! We have another bedroom! Or-- or, you can just have it and come over whenever and--”

“Roman,” Logan interrupted, voice a little watery despite himself. “Thank you.”)

Logan did not move in, but he did take advantage of the key by allowing himself to come over uninvited. It never seemed to bother his partners, even on nights where he came in late after tutoring sessions to earn extra money for his text books.

He kept his dorm room partially for his own sanity and partially because his scholarship required him to have one. Being required to have one gave him a place to retire on extremely late nights and somewhere to turn in the middle of the day when the trek to the apartment just wouldn’t be worth it. It also gave him somewhere to go when the noise and the excitement grew to be too much. Patton and Roman, though he loved them dearly, were a lot at times. Two constant balls of energy outweighing his own subdued nature. He needed a little room to breath and they were more than willing to give him that, even if it meant being apart. 

The room remained necessary when Thomas came to New York for school and occasionally found himself seeking out Logan for assistance with school work or just life, at times. Where people typically saw his logical advice as ‘useless’ or ‘unfeeling’, Thomas took it and added what he needed and thanked Logan for helping him see things a little clearer.

Thomas found himself in Logan’s room to study or to relax, finding comfort in something that had traces of his brother around when he couldn’t trek across town to get to his apartment. Logan’s roommate, Remy, being there pretty often was nice, too, but definitely not the only reason he hung out in Logan’s dorm rather than his own.

Remy and Thomas had grown close in those days where Logan abandoned the dorm but Thomas didn’t, binge watching whatever they wanted and studying together and doing anything they could while young and free in the city. Thomas growing close to Remy meant him being around even when they weren’t hanging out on campus. It was only a matter of time before Roman and Patton loved their little brother’s new friend.

Life continued on like that. The older three of the five graduated and got jobs. Logan started graduate school and Thomas and Remy got an apartment together. Things stayed constant. Things stayed happy.

Their friend group grew a bit, though stayed mostly just the five of them.

Until Thomas became particularly good friends with a skittish young man in a theatre appreciation class.

Until Thomas introduced them to Virgil Casey.

--

“Do I really have to go with you? I--I mean, these are your friends, not mine and I don’t. Fuck, I dunno. I don’t like strangers, Thomas.”

To say Virgil was nervous about meeting Thomas’ brother and his boyfriends would be a severe understatement. It terrified him. If they were even half as active and excitable as Thomas was, he was going to be running out of the apartment before introductions were even over. 

“They’re not really strangers. I’ve talked about them to you and talked about you to them. Therefore, you’re only really strangers through the technicality that you haven’t met in person yet,” Thomas reasoned, hooking their arms together as they started their way up the stairs.

Virgil blew out a sigh and did his best to relax with the touch. Thomas wasn’t going to bring him into any dangerous situations, Thomas wasn’t going to leave him there all alone to fend for himself. Thomas had probably even warned them that he didn’t exactly like loud noises or quick movements. Probably. He hoped.

Thomas continued chatting with him as they walked and Virgil focused on that rather than the anxiety he was feeling. Being around his friend was calming and it was nice to even say he had a friend, something he’d lacked for years before he moved to New York. 

Thomas had been the first - and, really, so far only - person to get passed the shyness and the fright written on every inch of Virgil’s body and try to befriend him when they were sat next to each other in a theatre appreciation course. 

It had taken almost all of that course and a slow process of talking in class and then studying together on campus for Virgil to relax with Thomas. Eventually, it stopped being just studying on campus and turned into hanging out. Despite their new found friendship, Virgil still had trouble accepting that Thomas really wasn’t going to try and hurt him or use him. Really, it had taken meeting Remy to finally convince him of the realness of their friendship. The way Thomas looked at him with all the love in the world, and the soft looks Remy gave him in return, was unlike any look he’d seen his parents give each other or that he'd had turned on him… It really showed Virgil that Thomas wasn’t like the people he’d run away from.

Even with knowing Thomas and knowing the kind of people in his circle, there was that bit of terror as they reached the door to his brother’s apartment. What kind of people lurked behind that door? What kind of relationship was hidden there? What kind of secrets were tucked away?

Apparently, a person that could be described as an absolute ray of sunshine was what lurked there. Sunshine pulled open the door pretty much the instant Thomas knocked on it and immediately pulled him into a hug. “Oh, I missed you so, so much!” Sunshine exclaimed, making Virgil jump at the sheer volume of it.

Thomas quickly hushed the hugger with a smile on his face as he returned the hug. “Pat, it’s been, like, two days since I saw you,” he reminded him with a little laugh. He pulled back and carefully grabbed Virgil’s shoulder, waiting for a small nod before Thomas looked back at Sunshine. “This is the friend I was telling you about, Virgil. Virgil, this is my brother, Patton.”

Sunshine - Patton - smiled impossibly wider at Virgil who shifted under the gaze. Patton was practically vibrating with what Virgil assumed was excitement. “Uh… Hi,” Virgil greeted, his voice quiet. If his words hadn’t been so short, his voice probably would have shaken. Meeting new people was never fun for him.

“Hi! It’s so nice to meet you, Virgil. Thomas has told me a lot about you and you just seem like the sweetest little thing!” Patton looked like he was going to pinch Virgil’s cheeks in excitement. Virgil leaned away, a grimace covering his face. “Ah, right, sorry! I’m pretty loud sometimes but I’m just really, really, really excited to meet you. Don’t worry, I already told Roman that he’s gotta keep his voice at ground level.” Patton cracked a wide grin at the confused faces turned towards him. “Get it? Ground level? ‘Cause he’s gotta keep it down!”

Virgil cracked a little grin at that and nodded. “Yeah, I get it. Thanks,” he mumbled. He shifted for a moment, letting his eyes fall back towards the ground.

“Oh! How silly of me. Come on in, you guys. The gangs all here. Just a warning, Logan might try to talk your ear off a bit and if he gets to be too much, just politely tell him to stop and he will.” No worries about that, Virgil could never really tell anyone to do anything. He would just let them go on and on until-- Oh. That was a familiar face.

His old tutor - one Logan Patrick - sat on the sofa seemingly grading assignments with a red pen and, from what Virgil could tell, many, many notes. Logan was a big part in Virgil even being able to go to college and meet Thomas after tutoring him through his GED studies. And he hadn’t really changed at all in the time since Virgil had seen him, still the same button up and blue jeans with a tie to ‘make him look more professional’. Virgil had always thought that was ridiculous because he had never been given a reason to think Logan was anything less than professional. He never pushed boundaries, he offered support in a clear and concise manner, he had been the embodiment of something Virgil had needed in his life years before he got it. “Hey, Mr. Patrick,” Virgil greeted with a small wave. Whether it could actually be called a wave or not was up for debate considering his hand barely left his pocket, but that was about as good as it was going to get.

Logan glanced up from his papers with a surprised look on his face. “Oh, Virgil, how good to see you again,” he told him as he put the worksheets aside and stood, hand extended for Virgil to shake. Virgil shifted on his feet a moment before realization dawned on Logan. “Ah, right, you are averse to that. My apologies. I will simply, ah, wave, then.” Logan lifted his hand up by his shoulder and waved lightly.

Virgil chuckled a bit and nodded as Thomas bumped into his side, an unspoken question written across the look his friend gave him. “Uh, yeah. Mr. Patrick-- Er, Logan, he uh. He tutored me when I first moved to New York. I was workin’ on getting through my GED since Et-- Since I dropped out of high school, you know? Needed some help.”

Patton grinned brightly and wrapped an arm around Logan’s waist while Virgil spoke. “Logan is a fantastic teacher. I’m so glad he was able to help you out! I probably wouldn’t have managed to finish my degree without his help.”

“Yeah. Same. Don’t know where I’d be without him.” Probably back in that awful place he’d called home for years but Virgil didn’t want to dwell on that. It was a good day and that meant good thoughts only. 

A somewhat uncomfortable quiet covered the four of them as they stood there. Logan was never good at casual conversation, Patton knew Virgil was nervous and didn’t want to push him, Thomas wanted Virgil to get to know his family without his own interference, and Virgil still did not like meeting new people. Sure, he knew Logan, but Patton was new and Patton was loud and he didn’t want to risk having that volume turned against him.

The silence disappeared as soon as the third member of the household came in from the kitchen, a bottle of wine in one hand and a dangerous amount of glasses in the other. Virgil was sure one of them was going to drop before Danger Man put them down on the table. “Alright! It is too quiet and you all are too tense so we are going to have a glass of wine and calm down so we can actua--” Danger Man fell quiet as his eyes landed on Virgil and something unfamiliar crossed the strangers face as his eyes went up and down Virgil. “Thomas told us he was bringing one of his nerdy science friends but I had no idea there could be two gorgeous nerdy scientists in one space.”

Patton chuckled at the unintentional pun and Virgil shrunk under the gaze. “Roman,” Thomas said, voice soft and familiar and grounding for Virgil, “I know this is a lot for you, but can you tone it down just a little?”

“Oh, of course! Where are my manners? Roman Prince, at your service, my dear,” he greeted as he bowed to take one of Virgil’s hands and-- immediately got smacked in the nose as Virgil scrambled to get away from the touch.

Patton blinked at the reaction, Roman whined, and Thomas and Logan seemed to have all their focus on Virgil. Virgil breathed slowly, deeply, taking a moment to count to ten and then back to one. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t malicious in the slightest and Virgil knew that. It was okay. “Sorry. Sorry, I--” Virgil pushed out before snapping his mouth shut. Apologies never worked. He should just accept whatever is going to come at him.

“Ah, no, don’t apologize. I should have asked before taking your hand,” Roman assured him as he rubbed his nose slightly. “It wasn’t even that hard! Nothing broken, nothing bruised, it is… Quite alright.”

Huh. An unexpected reaction but a welcome one all the same in Virgil’s opinion. He nodded and forced a small smile. “Yeah… Uh, wine?” Get back on topic and nothing can go wrong.

Mostly true, too. The rest of the afternoon went by with casual conversation and only a few moments where Virgil could feel the world crumbling in on him. Thomas being there helped Virgil from letting those moments truly crush him and there was just something about Patton that helped Virgil relax. It was all… Nice. It felt almost normal, too. Well, at least, it felt like what Virgil assumed was normal.

At the end of the afternoon, Virgil actually found himself able to give Patton a quick hug and Logan a small handshake. He just nodded at Roman, put off by the looks Roman had been throwing in his direction throughout the night. He knew what Roman wanted, that look always came with wants and demands, and he was afraid that getting too close would give Roman the opportunity to actually express that. Staying close to Thomas saved him from that for now. 

“They were… Nice,” Virgil told Thomas quietly as they arrived back at the dorms after a silent trip.

Thomas smiled brightly and nodded. “See. I told you you’d like them,” he said, only a trace of smugness in his voice. Virgil huffed. Thomas had been right about that but… First impressions were always positive. It had been with him, too. The real question was: what was the next one going to be like?

--

With Patton cleaning up and Logan returning to his papers now that their guests were gone, Roman paced around the room on a rant. “Are we just not going to talk about how cute Thomas’ friend was? Or the fact that Logan already knew him and failed to inform us of how cute this man is? Or the fact that there is so much space in our bed and there is absolutely room for--”

“Roman, sweetheart, I love you,” Patton said to cut him off as he picked up the plates that covered their coffee table. “But what exactly are you talking about?”

Roman groaned and dropped onto the sofa besides Logan. It sent the worksheets Logan had stacked next to him toppling to the floor, which did nothing but make Logan annoyed as he moved to pick them up. “I’m talking about Virgil! And how absolutely amazing he is! He was quiet, yes, but that’s because he was nervous, I’m sure. He had such interesting things to say and he has such an amazing laugh and smile and hair and-- I could keep going, you know? I think… I think there is a discussion to be had here and neither of you seem even halfway willing to have it!” 

“Well, Ro, it’s just-- We just met him and from what Thomas has told me - told us, we were all listening when he first told us about Virgil - he’s not interested in that sort of thing and it would be unfair to him for us to even think about trying.”

“I understand that, sunshine, but you can’t tell me you’re not thinking about what it might be like to try! Starlight, you’re with me, right?”

“No, Roman, I am not ‘with you’ on this,” Logan grumbled as he sat back on the sofa, carefully putting his papers on the table. “Virgil has been through things that you and I cannot even begin to comprehend. I do not even know the half of what he went through before he came to New York but I know enough to say that it was a horrible situation he was lucky to get away from. If he is uninterested in a relationship with someone - especially three someones - then we must respect that. I know that is hard for you to wrap your head around with the way you pursued me, but it is simply the facts. You must accept that there is a line here that you cannot cross.”

“Are you saying that you are unhappy with our relationship?”

“That-- That is not what I am saying and you know that,” Logan told him as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I am simply saying that I know how hard it is for you to give up when you have your mind and your heart set on something. I think that you need to… You need to back down on this for now.”

Roman huffed, slumping into the sofa unhappily when Patton sweetly patted the top of his head. “If it helps, neither of us have completely shot down the idea of another person! It’s something we’re open to. Just… Not with Virgil. Not right now,” he told him with the hope of getting him to be a little less pouty.

It didn’t work. If anything, it only made Roman pout more. If they were just as interested, why were they so unwilling to try? Roman wasn’t sure but he was sure that he was going to do something about this if it killed him.

Let the wooing commence.

--

The next time Virgil came over, Roman waited until Patton had dragged Logan off to the kitchen for help with carrying the food out and Thomas had disappeared to answer a call from their mom before he made his move. He couldn’t let them find out his little plot before Virgil was in the right mindset or they’d make him stop before he got anywhere and that just would not do!

“I have a surprise for you!” Roman told him, keeping his volume down but his excitement level up. Virgil blinked at him, seeming to shrink into the sofa at the sudden words spoken in his direction. Roman smiled widely at him and stood before he walked towards the closet in the room. As he dug around, he called out a quick, “Don’t look so scared! It’s nothing bad.”

When Roman reappeared in front of Virgil, it was with his hands behind his back and the same wide smile on his face. To anyone else, the smile might have felt nice or even charming but it just managed to put Virgil even more on edge. After a few beats of silence, Roman pulled his hands out from behind his back and showed off a small bouquet of flowers. It was mostly pretty petunias and colorful cosmos. Virgil stared at it like it was a personal attack against him. “They’re-- They’re flowers!” Roman told him, only faltering a moment at the way Virgil looked physically hurt at the sight of them.

“I-- Uh. What did I do wrong?” Virgil asked. His eyes flicked from the flowers to Roman and then he trained them on the floor. 

Roman could see the other’s shoulders shaking and dropped the flowers onto the table before he moved to sit beside him, carefully placing his hand on Virgil’s knee. Virgil jerked it away on instinct before remembering, he’s supposed to welcome the touches from people who want things from him. Especially when he’s done something wrong.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, angel,” Roman assured him as he pulled his hand away. He didn’t want to scare Virgil any further.

“Cl-clearly, I’ve done something. You go-got me flowers.” Virgil’s voice shook as he spoke. He’d done more wrong shying away, he’d probably made Roman angry, Roman was probably going to--

“No, no, no. I got them because I saw them and they reminded me of you! They’re purple, like your hair! I thought-- I thought it would be nice.”

Virgil shook his head and looked sideways at Roman. “Just tell me. What did I do wrong?”

Roman blinked. He had already told Virgil that he’d done nothing wrong, why couldn’t he just believe that? What was so foreign about being given flowers just because to this guy? “Haven’t you ever gotten flowers? They were just at the store and they were pretty, like you, so I got you the flowers! Isn’t that nice?”

“I-- Yeah. Sorry,” Virgil mumbled, moving forward in an almost robotic motion to pick up the flowers from the table. It was what Roman expected, it was what Roman wanted. He should just keep his mouth shut and accept the flowers and over-analyze his own actions later. Virgil would figure out what he’d done wrong later and he’d deal with the consequences of those actions later. “Thank you, Roman.”

Roman only frowned, ready to open his mouth and start spewing off more questions because that response was not the response of someone who really wanted to accept the flowers before Thomas came back into the room. “Mom wants to know when you guys are gonna invite her back up, as if she doesn’t already know that she can just come up whenever,” Thomas said, a pleasant smile on his face that dissipated as he took in the scene in front of him. “What did you do?” He asked as he moved to sit between Roman and Virgil, gently rubbing his friend’s back as he shook.

“I just… I got him flowers! I thought they were pretty!” Roman exclaimed, holding his hands up innocently.

Thomas raised a brow at Roman and nodded slightly, wrapping one of his arms slowly around Virgil’s shaking shoulders and pulling him close to offer quiet reassurances and talk through what happened, wanting to get Virgil’s side of the story on this one.

Roman was shooed away when Virgil glanced at him with wet eyes, the fear in them clear as day. Roman didn’t even really need to be asked, Thomas just started to look up at him and he stood to disappear down the hallway with the hope of being able to overhear some of the hushed conversation. He wasn’t that lucky, wasn’t able to find out just what he did wrong. The only thing he heard was Logan’s quiet goodbye and Patton’s cooing and promising to see Virgil again soon.

And then his name being called out by his partner, in that tone Roman always thought sounded like a parent about to scold their child. Patton didn’t use it on either of them often. Not unless they royally screwed up. And Roman had.

When he reentered the living room, Patton and Logan were sat on the couch - a terribly concealed look of disappointment on Logan’s face and a tired look on Patton’s as he waved Roman towards the chair across from him. It reminded him a bit of family dinners with his actual parents, though he didn’t feel near as much dread sitting in the seat across from his partners as he always did sitting across from Dick and Jane Prince.

“So… Sweetheart, you want to tell us what happened?” Patton asked, giving Roman a small, encouraging smile even as he tried to mask the disappointment in his voice.

Roman sighed slightly and kept his eyes trained on his feet. “I gave him flowers and then… And then he asked my what he did wrong? I get you two flowers all the time! So, I thought it would be a good way to try and bridge that gap with him and make him feel more comfortable.”

“And why would you do that after we explicitly told you not to?” Logan questioned. He never had any shame in hiding when he was upset, or trying to get straight to the root of the problem. “It was made clear to you that we are not interested in pursuing him at this time because he is clearly not interested in doing so.”

“Because you are interested in pursuing him! If we’re all interested, then what is the harm in showing him that we’re interested!” Roman defended with his arms crossed over his chest. “I had no idea that he was going to react like that or I would have chosen a different tactic but I am not going to sit idly by and wait for him to show us a sign that he might, maybe, possibly have an interest in any of us. I make plans and I make my interests known and I don’t see why you two can’t just trust me on this!”

“Roman. I am going to say this one more time and I need you to really, seriously take this in. Virgil has been through some terrible hardships at the hands of someone else. It is not your place to try and force him to have any amount of interest in you or me or Patton. It is your place to be his friend and that is all. If anything comes from that, then we will welcome it. But for now, there is a line that you are not allowed to cross. Doing this now is only going to hurt any possible relationship you have with Virgil, platonic or otherwise.”

Roman straightened out a bit and raised a hand to argue a frustrated ’but-’ leaving him before Logan lifted a finger and silenced him.

 “I am not just looking out for Virgil, Roman. I am doing this for you, too. Because I love you and pushing this issue will undoubtedly lead to both of you getting hurt. I do not want that, nor do I want you to do something that you will regret,” Logan continued, calm and cool, before he waved his hand for Roman to join them on the sofa. Patton gladly moved to the side to allow Roman to sandwich between them, leaning heavily against his pouting boyfriend as Logan took his hand to complete the circle. 

Roman relaxed in their embrace and tried to accept what Logan was saying. Even if it made Roman grumpy to admit, Logan was usually right. Except when it came to the definition of infinitesimal. But this was far from an infinitesimal issue and Roman had to approach it graciously. He’d have to apologize. Without flowers. He hoped Virgil likes chocolate...

--

Virgil leaned heavily against Thomas, still working through his breathing exercises even in the safety of his friends’ apartment surrounded by warm blankets. Fucking. Flowers. It had to be flowers, didn’t it? Something that used to make him smile, something he used to dream about getting.

Something that now made his chest tighten. Something that now made him feel sick to his stomach. Something that now made his mind reel with the sheer number of things he could have done to be given flowers. 

(He’d settled with accidentally hitting Roman the first time they met. I’m sorry you reacted the way you did to my affection.)

Thomas continued to remind him that Roman didn’t know, but that Virgil’s reaction was still valid. Roman had no malintent but it was still okay for Virgil to be scared after everything he went through. Virgil knew better. He knew he wasn’t supposed to react to things with so much fear now. It was ridiculous, he was behaving like a child who was scared of the dark. Over flowers.

Thomas was quiet and soft in his comfort as he rubbed Virgil’s side and talked about where they were, the lights he could see outside the tiny apartment, the textures of the furniture around them, the sound of all the happenings around them. 

The quiet was quickly and abruptly ended when the third member of their small group came in, practically kicking down the door as he carried in some precariously balanced coffees on top of a box of pizza. Virgil jumped at the noise of his friend and gripped Thomas’ shirt tightly before he managed to actually take in the sight before him.

Remy Mercier stood in front of them, clad in his typical sunglasses and leather jacket despite it being both night time and not exactly cool out, a smile on his face as if he’d just come in with the answers to all of Virgil’s problems.

“Alright, babes, I’ve got the answers!” Remy exclaimed, the smile not flickering even a bit as he set the pizza down - without knocking over any of the coffee by some miracle.

Thomas sighed and gazed at Remy with an overtly fond look that Virgil knew very well. The one that spilled all of Thomas’s best kept secrets without a single word and yet was still continuously missed by his closest friend. “The answers to what, Rem?” Thomas questioned, a single brow raised as Remy dropped onto the sofa next to Virgil.

Remy rolled his eyes as if the answer was obvious before returning Thomas’ fond look with one of his own. The fondness, the feelings, were a little better concealed by Remy but Virgil didn’t miss them. He’d learned to read people and their expressions quickly so that he could properly react to a situation. “The answers to this… Dilemma our Dark Roast Babe is dealing with,” Remy informed him as he started pulling the blanket off Virgil. Virgil whined indignantly at the loss of the warmth but stopped once Remy took the place of the blanket, having wrapped himself in it as he continued speaking. “The answer is to accept that shit fucking happens sometimes and if your brother and his boyfriends are even halfway decent people they’re not gonna give a fuck. The next answer is to eat some pizza, watch some movies, and remember who you are and where you are and how you, Virgil, got here.”

Thomas snorted, straightening out a little and deepening his voice to say, “Remember who you are, Simba.” His face remained serious for all of three seconds before he burst out laughing. The way Remy rolled his eyes at Thomas but still smiled actually did help Virgil relax. Even if that was a terrible joke.

“Guess that means we’re watching Lion King?” Virgil joked.

And it was a joke. It was. But Thomas was up on his feet before he even finished the question to dig around for the DVD. He knew it was there somewhere. Remy and Virgil shared a look for a moment before just laughing at Thomas’ antics. After a moment, Remy went to aid Thomas in his search - too close to his friend to actually be any real help - and Virgil was left alone, wrapped in his blanket burrito.

Virgil just watched, breathing slow and deep like he’d been taught, and just let himself relax as his friends started just tossing DVD cases through the room as they looked.

Virgil was lucky to have them.

--

Chocolates. Chocolates. A box of chocolates with a piece of paper attached to it that had nothing but a red, cursive ‘R’ and a little heart on it. Virgil knew he should have expected it - even though Thomas promised him that Roman really hadn’t meant anything with the flowers - but still it came as a surprise after a couple weeks of just bonding with the three of them. He’d let himself grow comfortable too quickly. Logan was familiar, Patton was sweet, and Roman had been keeping a safe distance after the flower incident. 

Virgil had even started to come over alone. Their apartment had turned into another safe space outside of his small dorm room. Thomas and Remy’s apartment and the Terrific Trio’s (a nickname given by Remy upon his first encounter with them) apartment were the only places he felt like he could truly breathe.

And all it took to ruin that was a box of chocolates from Roman.

Virgil had seen the chocolates when he’d returned to his dorm room after a study session with Logan. Roman must have snuck them into his bag when they’d all eaten dinner and Roman had left to ‘use the restroom’. Lies, lies, lies. Virgil couldn’t stand them. His eyes had stung with tears as he processed the fact that they lied to him. They had lied. Roman had lied. 

But, it didn’t matter that they lied. It didn’t matter that it hurt. It didn’t matter what Virgil thought or felt about the chocolates because he knew what they meant. He knew what Roman wanted and he could tough it out and get through it and deal with that breakdown later.

Virgil showed up at their place for movie night on Friday as requested - no Thomas or Remy to protect him from the inevitable  - and knocked on the door. Patton greeted him but he didn’t really hear anything Patton said as he led him in, just a quiet buzz that he assumed was Patton speaking. He smiled and nodded a bit when Patton turned and gave him a look that made it seem like he’d just asked a question. 

Apparently, that was the response Patton needed before he disappeared and left Virgil alone in the living room. Alone. Until Roman came. All it took was a hello and that same, charming, deceitful smile from Roman before Virgil tensed up. Breathe. You know what to do.

Virgil blew out a breath and took a few brave steps in Roman’s direction, pulling at the ends of his sleeves for a moment before looking up at Roman, all doe-eyes and innocence he’d perfected over the years. The only thing that ruined it was the shaking. He was out of practice after nearly two years away. “How… How do you wanna do this?” Virgil asked, angry at the way his voice was too quiet, too shaky. Roman was going to be upset with him.

“Uh,” Roman started, laughing a little uncomfortably. “I mean, we usually do this on the couch, so.”

Okay, okay, Virgil could do that. Patton and Logan might see but… But that was okay. They were Roman’s boyfriends, they probably knew this was going to happen. 

Virgil stopped fiddling with his sleeves to pull off his jacket, carefully setting it over the edge of the chair before he approached Roman. He still couldn’t stop the shaking, but that was okay. Maybe Roman wouldn’t notice.

Roman noticed. He noticed the shaking and the way Virgil wouldn’t quite meet his eyes and the way he approached like this was a well-rehearsed routine of his. When Virgil snaked his arms around his neck and tried to pull him in, Roman stepped back and placed gentle hands on Virgil’s hips. “Woah, hey, Virgil, what are you doing?” He asked, concern written across his face.

“I’m… I’m giving you your gift. As a thank you,” Virgil told him with a scrunched, confused face. 

“A thank you? A thank you for what? The chocolate?” Roman asked. Virgil nodded slowly, the confusion on his face slowly giving way to fear. Fear that Roman thought had no place on a face as innocent as that. “Virgil, Virgil, you don’t have-- You look so uncomfortable, why don’t you sit down?”

Virgil shook his head. “No. No, I’m fine. This is-- I know what I’m supposed to do. You gave me something so I give you me so we’re even. I want this to be fair.”

“Virgil, you don’t have to give me anything. I’m not asking for anything from you. I just wanted to give you something sweet because you deserve to be treated well.”

“I-- No, I don’t. I know how I’m supposed to be treated. Can we just-- Can we just get this over with, please?” Virgil asked, trying to pull Roman in again. 

Roman moved his hands from Virgil’s hips to his shoulders, causing the other to freeze. Roman felt awful about the way Virgil seemed so afraid of what he might do but it made it easier for him to push the other backwards onto the sofa. Calling for Patton and Logan, Roman grabbed Virgil’s jacket and very slowly draped it over the other’s shoulders. The other immediately took the chance to curl the jacket around himself. 

“Roman? What’s wrong?” Patton asked, rushing into the living room with Logan not far behind him. Roman gestured at Virgil panicking on the sofa and Patton quickly rushed to his side. Logan looked as if he was ready to start lecturing Roman for giving Virgil this level of stress once again, but stopped short when he saw the anxiety written across Roman’s own face.

Patton went to comfort Virgil with a gentle touch and some sweet words but pulled back when Virgil twitched away from him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he muttered, squeezing the jacket tightly. “I need a minute. I need a minute and then I’ll be ready. I-I’m sorry.”

Patton blinked, looking towards Logan and Roman across the room before he asked, “Ready for what, hun?”

“I--” Virgil paused, taking a deep breath. “Roman gave me chocolates and-and I need to thank him for that. I need to be ready to thank him, I just-- I need to calm down.”

Logan scrunched up his face, glancing at Roman who still looked anxious and confused. Clearly, whatever this was wasn’t something Roman had anticipated in the slightest. When Patton turned to look at them in search of answers, Logan simply shook his head. None of them knew what was going on.

“Virge, kiddo, what do you mean by that?” Patton asked, turning back towards Virgil with the sweetest smile he could possibly put on in this situation.

Virgil felt the blood slowly leave his face at the question. They wanted him to actually say it. They wanted to humiliate him and remind him just what he was good for. Virgil looked down at Patton’s feet and swallowed thickly before he glanced back up at Roman. “I was getting ready to let you fuck me,” he said, trying desperately to keep his voice flat and factual. He missed the mark by a mile, voice shaky and scared.

Patton made a surprised noise, covering his mouth with his hand. Logan looked shocked as his grip on Roman tightened slightly to keep his boyfriend from rushing forward. Roman looked absolutely horrified. The one among them who hardly allowed hands on his shoulders or quick hugs had just said he was going to allow Roman to fuck him. And he was going to allow it because Roman gave him chocolates. The whole idea was absurd. None of them quite knew how to react.

Roman was the first to speak, surprisingly. He shook the horror away and let the sadness he felt take over as he slumped against Logan. “Virgil… I would-- I know that’s not something you’re interested in with me and I would never make you do something like that. It was just a gift. The only thanks I need is to know that you’re happy with the gift. You don’t have to give anything in return for that,” he said, keeping his voice soft and quiet so he wouldn’t scare Virgil any further.

“That’s not true” Virgil mumbled, letting out a weak laugh. “I know you want something.”

Logan spoke up next, leading Roman to a seat as he moved across the room to sit beside Virgil. “He honestly does not, Virgil. If there is one thing I can promise you, it’s that. One hindrance that kept me from joining this relationship was my fear that they would ask something of me that I am unable to give. I am asexual and I was afraid that… That they would be interested in… In sex, with me, and as soon as I told them I was not interested, they assured me that they would never push me to give them something I did not want to. It would be the same for you,” Logan explained, his voice soft as his hand rested on Virgil’s knee.

Virgil moved away, shaking his head. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he grumbled. “I know how this works. You give someone something and you get something back from them, whatever you want. It’s that fucking simple. Your partner wants to have sex then you do. That’s it.”

And that hurt. It hurt Logan and it hurt Roman for his partner and it hurt Patton to think that Virgil could actually believe that. Logan retreated into himself as Roman jumped to his feet and began to rant about consent and sexuality and boundaries to the room, the sadness turning to annoyance in a snap to defend his partner.

Virgil shook. He kept his eyes down towards the floor and he nodded at Roman and he apologized so quietly it was hard for anyone to hear. He looked terrified and ready to bring his hands up to protect himself the moment he needed too. Roman didn’t notice, Logan didn’t notice. Luckily, Patton did.

Patton carefully grabbed Roman’s hand and led him back to his seat, hushing him in an instant before he went back to crouching in front of Virgil. He slowly, slowly brought his hands up to grab Virgil’s and bring his attention up from the ground and onto his face. “Vee, honey, you do know you’re allowed to say no to your partner, right? If you really, really don’t want to do something, you can say no and they should respect that. Your wants are important,” Patton explained, voice just as gentle as his touch.

Virgil scrunched up his face, the tears in his eyes threatening to fall out when he did. But he knew better, he knew not to cry. “No,” he mumbled shakily. “No, they’re not. Because-because if you want a relationship to work that means you need to do what they say, when they say it. It-- It means doing things even when you don’t want to so that they know you care. It’s how you show you l-love them.”

The room was deadly silent as the three processed what they just heard, their hearts broken at the thought of it. Several moments passed as they racked their brains to find something, anything to correct Virgil, to comfort Virgil. 

“Virgil…” Logan started, cautiously “That is not the way a healthy relationship works. You-- You shouldn’t be expected to do something you don’t want to do. I have… I have never been asked to do something that is uncomfortable for me with these two. Not even once. I take it that you have.”

After a moment, Virgil nodded slowly. No point in lying to them now. 

Patton leaned forward, hands tightening slightly around Virgil’s. “Oh, hunny, I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, voice shaking a bit as he tried his best not to cry. 

Roman stood from his seat once again and moved to sit on the sofa next to Virgil. Beneath all the hurt, there was something burning in him that wanted to destroy whoever had hurt Virgil like this. But that wasn’t where his focus was right now. His focus was on trying to calm his partners, himself, and Virgil. “I… I would like to tell you that I will never expect something in return if I give you anything. And if I ever, ever put you in a position where you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, you are more than welcome to tell me. You are more than welcome to tell me no,” Roman told him earnestly. “The last thing I want is to put you in a position where you feel obligated to do anything. And I am so incredibly sorry for putting you in that position now. While it was not my intention, it is my fault. Not yours. Not in the slightest.”

Virgil shook his head and took a shaky breath, ready to protest, but was cut off by Patton scooting closer and parting Virgil’s knees in the process. He was sure this was it, but was proven wrong when Patton only wrapped his arms around Virgil’s waist and held on tightly. The breath Virgil had taken rushed out of him and he folded himself in half over Patton, finally allowing himself the relief of crying. Of holding onto someone else and letting himself feel the weight of all of this. 

It didn’t take long for the other two to join them, Roman sliding to the floor to wrap himself around Patton’s middle and Logan doing his best to get a grip on all three of them. 

Virgil wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, crying and holding onto each other. But, he knew by the time he fell asleep that they’d all ended up on the floor, covered in blankets, and they knew his story. 

And that didn’t feel so bad. 

--

After that night, growing close to the three boys over the following months came as easy to Virgil as breathing air. 

Which is to say, it wasn’t always easy. 

There were moments where Virgil would revert back to that same, scared kid because things like that happened. Things like that would always happen because of what he’d been put through. But, now, when that happened, it wasn’t just Thomas or Remy who had to try and figure out how to bring Virgil back into the real world.

When Virgil lost track of where and who he was, Patton would sit and tell him about the city’s lights, pointing out the apartment’s window as he did. Roman would describe the show he was currently rehearsing or sing to him something that the other thought he might enjoy. Logan would talk to him about classes and work and the mundane things that life held. When they were all together, the three would wrap him up in their arms and do what they could to protect him from the monsters that haunted him.

They knew his story and that made it that much easier to accept that what they told Virgil was true - none of them wanted to hurt him, all of them wanted to show that they cared about him.

Inevitably, Virgil started to grow… Feelings for them. He would stutter when Roman complimented him, his heart would skip a beat when Patton laughed, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face when Logan went on a tangent.

It was scary. Terrifying, even. It had been years since Virgil had allowed himself to think about a relationship in any way. Friendship had been hard to gain, and dating was a completely different beast that taunted Virgil. 

What if everything changed when he made his feelings known? What if this had all been an elaborate act? What if they showed a different side of themselves when they got together? What if, what if, what if?

There were so many what ifs that ran through Virgil’s mind as those months passed. But, watching the group interact gave him the proof he needed to believe that these were not secretly awful people. Virgil was allowed to see glimpses of them that were private to the word outside the walls of that apartment. Logan breaking down from stress, Patton dealing with emotions he didn’t know the source of, Roman doubting himself after speaking with his parents. Each and every time, their partners did everything they could to make it better. Put away Logan’s books and made him sleep, wrapped Patton up in blankets and reminded him it was okay to be sad, told Roman that his parents had no influence on the wonderful adult he’d grown into. 

Virgil trusted them with his everything, Virgil loved them completely.

And he told them as much. Granted, it wasn’t the way he had planned to do it, but he had. It had come up naturally while watching the three make him dinner for successfully completing his finals. Virgil had been laughing as Roman pouted about being denied access to the stove and it had just bubbled out.

(”Roman, you know what happened the last time we allowed you to be the one at the stovetop. You burnt rice. You cannot be in charge of the chicken,” Logan said, shaking his head with a small smile.

Roman crossed his arms over his chest, bottom lip pouting. “That was one time! And a different food. I think I can handle this.”

Patton rubbed Roman’s arm and kissed his cheeks. “We know you can’t, honey, and that’s okay!” He told him with a voice as sweet as sugar. But it only made Roman pout even more. Which made Virgil laugh. And laugh and laugh.

He wasn’t sure why he found it so funny, all he knew was the he felt light and wonderful and happy. A rare feeling for him. And something he hadn’t dared to say in years just slipped right out. “I love you. I really, really love you.”)

They had sat after that incident and talked for hours about what that meant, what Virgil needed from them to make him feel safe and comfortable with them, where the boundaries needed to be set. The three had taken all of that in, returning his affections with so much sincerity that Virgil had cried a few times throughout the evening.

Three became four and life seemed to be looking up. Virgil was moving on with his life, not allowing his past control him anymore.

For all of a month.

And then he came back.

--

“I just-- I thought I was finally getting somewhere with Remy and then he meets some guy at Starbucks and suddenly it’s all about him!” Thomas whined, throwing his hands up in defeat as he fell backwards onto the sofa. 

Virgil chuckled at him with a small shake of his head. “You had to know he wasn’t going to wait forever, Thomas,” he told him, tossing a piece of popcorn at his friend and getting half-heartedly scolded by Logan for making a mess. “Besides, we all know Remy is madly in love with you and you are the only one who can’t see it.”

“He’s right, you know. We have all known since you started constantly crashing in Logan’s dorm instead of your own. You gushed and gushed about this ‘cool guy’ you met and then we met him and we could all see how painfully obvious his crush on you was. Except you. I tried to get you to ask him out then, but, no, I was crazy for suggesting such an outlandish idea,” Roman reminded him. 

Virgil watched the two bicker back and forth, Patton soon joining in on teasing his little brother. With a fond look on his face, he leaned back into Logan and the other wrapped his arms around Virgil’s middle to hold him in a loose embrace. These nights were some of his favorites. The nights where they stayed in and ate pizza and watched movies and played together. It was such a stark difference from the last ‘relationship’ he’d been that it almost gave Virgil whiplash.

That didn’t scare him so much anymore. It reminded Virgil of all those relationships he’d seen in those cheesy teen movies that Roman had been shocked he hadn’t seen when he first started coming to movie nights. All smiles and sweet kisses and quiet conversations over the phone until Virgil fell asleep in his dorm and them waking up to the phone ringing in the middle of the night to calm him down after a nightmare. It was warm and comfortable and safe. Virgil loved it.

“That’s not even the point here, guys!” Thomas exclaimed, pulling Virgil out his thoughts as Logan tightened his arms around his waist to help keep his boyfriend calm with the raise in volume. “The point is that Remy’s boyfriend sucks and none of you will listen to me!”

“Does he actually suck or are you just a little bit jealous?” Roman teased with a little smirk.

Thomas huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “No! He is actually the worst. They’ve been dating for, like, three months now and-and I don’t know! Remy cancels plans with me now and will leave in the middle of plans we kept if he gets a text from his boyfriend. And I’ve never seen Remy even slightly scared of anything but he actually seems terrified of what Ethan might do if he doesn’t drop everything immediately to come be with him.”

Virgil’s mind came to a crashing halt. Did he hear that correctly? Did Thomas say-- It couldn’t be the same one. It was a commonHe was states away from that monster and he had been so careful about not letting anyone know where he was. Not that he truly had anyone to tell. So, it couldn’t be the same one, it just couldn’t. 

“Have you talked to Remy about it?” Patton asked cautiously, wrapping a comforting arm around his little brother’s shoulders.

“I’ve tried to,” Thomas mumbled as he leaned into his brother’s side, “but every time I do, he brushes it off and says that I worry too much. Which usually I would agree with but… This Ethan guy gives me a bad vibe. And all I know about him is his name and whatever I could get from his FaceBook. I think it’s the last name. Too close to devil to be a good guy.”

“What? What was his name?” Virgil asked as he shot up straight, eyes wide with fear.

Thomas blinked at the question, confused about why Virgil would care about that one little detail. “It-- It’s Ethan DeVille, I think. Like Cruella DeVille. That’s the only reason I remember it. I-- Vee, are you okay?”

Virgil was far from okay, his breathing quickly becoming erratic as he stood up completely to gather his things from around the apartment. He ignored all the questions, all the concerned looks, all the gentle attempts to get him to sit back down with them and talk. Not right now. Right now, he needed to find Remy and help him before it was too late.

“I-I’ve got to go. I’ll call in the morning,” Virgil told them before he rushed out of the apartment. He stopped only briefly to call out an ‘I love you’ to all of them.

In the end, he was glad he had. 

Because when he managed to get back to his dorm, there was a familiar face waiting for him, looking as calm as ever. Virgil knew what hid behind those dual-toned eyes and that gentle looking smile, though. 

And before he could even think to run again, Ethan Deville had his arm in a bruising grip that Virgil did his best to try and get out of.

”I missed you, Virgil,” Ethan told him softly, though any ounce of sweetness on his face completely gone. “I think it’s time we go home now, don’t you? You wouldn’t want that dear friend of yours to get lonely, would you?”

Virgil froze. “What did you do to him? What did you do to Remy?”

Ethan smirked smugly and yanked Virgil close. “Oh, nothing yet, my dear. And it can stay that way as long as you listen to me. Do you think you can handle that this time? Or am I going to need to teach you a lesson? I sure would hate to have to hurt someone who hasn’t done anything wrong,” he whispered.

Any fight Virgil possibly had left in him melted away. He wouldn’t dare put someone he cared about in danger. Virgil gave Ethan a small nod, heart pounding in his chest as Ethan laughed at him.

“Good. Leave your phone. It’s time to go.”

--

The house Ethan pulled up to looked almost cozy. 

It was in a line of similar looking homes, simple two-floored homes with white picket fences surrounding the tidy looking lawns. Virgil could see the rose bushes planted in front of the porch and wondered how much it was going to hurt when he ‘tripped’ off the porch into them. There were no lights on despite the late hour and Virgil hoped that Remy had gotten out of there, had managed to slip out while Ethan was gone and run to safety. It was unlikely, but Virgil could still hope. At least for a little while.

Ethan pulled open Virgil’s door, ever the charmer when there was a possibility that someone could be watching them, and kissed Virgil when he climbed out. Virgil pushed on his perfectly practiced smile as he slipped his hand into Ethan’s. His stomach rolled as Ethan gave him another quick kiss, holding Virgil’s hand so tightly it hurt. 

It scared Virgil how easy it was to fall back into those long unused practices. He showed no visible signs of discomfort or panic because he wasn’t allowed to feel those emotions, not anymore.

The house was quiet when Ethan led him in, locking the door behind them. Virgil counted the locks silently. Three. Three different locks. Keys needed for two of them.  Ethan would never leave those keys alone, Virgil would never get out of here unless Ethan wanted him out. 

“Sit,” Ethan commanded, pointing to the couch without even looking at him. Not that he needed to. Virgil knew how to listen. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find you? Are you really that stupid?”

Virgil swallowed and hugged himself tightly. “N-no, of course not, Ethan. I… I didn’t plan to be gone that long, I--”

“You didn’t plan to be gone that long? Three years, Virgil. Three. Years. It’s laughable, really, that you think I would believe that. I know you thought you could get away from me. It’s cute,” Ethan said, laughing a bit flatly.

Virgil knew what came after that laugh but there was still that feeling of shock when Ethan’s fist made contact with his face. Tears filled his eyes as the pain blossomed over his cheek and his hands came up to protect him from further injury, giving Ethan the opportunity to grab his wrist and yank him up. “Don’t you dare act like I’m that stupid again, do you understand me?”

“Ye-yes, I’m sorry,” Virgil mumbled, choking back tears as he nodded at Ethan.

“Good. You have a lot to make up for. That idiot told me, you know. Told me about those boys and how happy they made you. You should consider yourself lucky I took the moron instead of one of them. I would not have been so merciful to them.”

Virgil was quiet for a moment before asking a very cautious, “can I see him?”

“You want to see him?” Ethan repeated, chuckling darkly before he pushed Virgil back onto the sofa. “Sure. Why not? But first…” He played with the zipper on Virgil’s jacket a moment and Virgil’s mind kicked into gear, reminding him what to do.

Ethan was going to give him something he wanted, but first, Virgil had to thank him for it.

Virgil went into auto-pilot, moving through the whole experience like an actor who’d been performing the same role for years. He didn’t cry, he reacted the way Ethan always wanted him to, he didn’t flinch away from harsh hands on him. A perfect performance from someone who has been taught how to act.

When Ethan was finished, Virgil sat still on the sofa and did his best not to pick at his skin. There was the need to separate the person who went through that and the person he had become over the last three years, but he couldn’t wash this all away with Ethan standing right there.

“Oh, I missed that. Not your best, of course, but I’ll forgive you just this once. You’re out of practice after all that time away,” Ethan said, smiling softly at Virgil for a moment as he buttoned up his shirt. Things were always better for a short amount of time after, Virgil remembered. A very short time, it seemed. When Ethan finished dressing, he grabbed Virgil’s face harshly and forced the smaller man to look him in the face. “However, if you intend to keep making these… Silly requests, I will expect much better of you in the future. Do I make myself clear?” Virgil nodded slowly, silently and Ethan grinned at him like a cheshire cat. “Good. Now, get dressed. Leave the hoodie, we need to be sure the dummy understands just what you’re saving him from.”

Virgil obeyed quickly and quietly, not questioning Ethan allowing Remy to see the bruises forming over his skin. He could rescind his offer to allow Virgil to see his friend and all Virgil wanted to do was make sure that Remy was alive and well. Ethan led him upstairs when he finished dressing, unlocking a door - just a twisting lock on the outside, Virgil would have to remember that, he wouldn’t need permission to visit if he snuck away in the night - and pushing it open for Virgil.

When Virgil laid his eyes on Remy, he nearly cried. He could see the rise and fall of his sleeping friend’s chest. Alive, check. Well, however, did not get a check. Virgil could see the bruises on Remy’s wrists in the shape of hands that squeezed too tightly, bruises on his cheek from sharp smacks. He could only hope there was nothing hiding under Remy’s clothes.

“I thought you said you hadn’t done anything to him,” Virgil said, voice weak as he approached the bed.

Ethan snorted. “I didn’t do anything to him. He did it to himself. The moron kept trying to get help, kept trying to get out, kept being too loud. I needed to teach him a lesson.” The man paused, narrowing his eyes at Virgil. “Do I need to teach you a lesson about questioning me or are you finished?”

Virgil glanced back at him and apologized quietly. He knew he’d pay for it later either way, but he knew a quick apology would still allow him the time to speak to Remy.

“Good boy,” Ethan murmured, pushing away from the doorframe. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Don’t do anything stupid.”

With that, Ethan left, leaving the door wide open. If it weren’t the second floor, Virgil would try and convince Remy to get out through the window. Ethan had what he wanted now, he wouldn’t chase after Remy. But Virgil wasn’t going to risk the possibility of Remy getting hurt more than he already was. He’d figure out another way to save his friend from this hell.

Carefully, Virgil reached out a touched Remy’s arm to wake him. The few times he had had to wake Remy up in the past, it had taken minutes of shaking and shouting to get him to so much as grumble at him. This time, Remy was up as soon as his fingertips made contact and the usually rough and tough man put his hands over his face and started muttering rapid apologies for anything that came to mind.

“Remy, Rem, it’s me, it’s Virgil,” he assured him, gently taking Remy’s hands in his to pull them down and allow the other to see his face. “It’s just me. Ethan went downstairs, he’s not going to hurt you anymore. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

For a moment, a look of utter relief crossed Remy’s face. It was brief, fleeting, but it was there. Virgil smiled, wincing at the pressure that put on his bruising cheek, and the relief disappeared. “No, no, no, no,” Remy muttered, sliding his hands out of Virgil’s to pull at his own hair. “He said— I thought—“

“Whatever it was, he lied. He— It’s something he does a lot,” Virgil said quietly. He had discussed that with his therapist a couple times since he started seeing him a few months back. Ethan had lied to Virgil and he was going to continue that cycle. 

“He promised. He promised that he’d leave you all alone as long as I— Where is everyone else? Are they okay?”

Virgil pulled at the hem of his shirt and sat carefully on the edge of the bed. “They’re okay,” he assured him softly as he reached back for Remy’s hand so he could examine the bruises around his wrist. “Probably in bed by now. He was… Waiting for me in my dorm.” Guilt covered Remy’s face in an instant that Virgil missed, focused on the bruises on Remy’s wrist. “I think these are gonna be okay. Nothing broken as far as I can tell. They’re going to heal and then you’ll be done with all this, okay? He’s not— It’s not going to happen to you anymore.”

Remy looked confused for a moment before the realization came. “Vee, no, you can’t. I can take it,” he told him with a wobbly voice. Remy had no shame in crying, didn’t try and hide the tears from him and Virgil marked that as a good sign. Ethan hadn’t completely destroyed the person he knew yet.

“I can. I’ve done it before. This is- this is what I ran away from. But I know how to handle it, I know how to handle Ethan.”

“Please, don—“

The begging was cut off by a glass shattering against the wall in the tiny bedroom. Ethan stood in the doorway, laughing at the way the two of them had jumped. Virgil was back up on his feet and standing in front of Remy to keep him out of sight. “Time’s up, boys.”

Remy snapped his hand out and grabbed the back of Virgil’s shirt. No, he wasn’t ready to let go, he wasn’t ready to be alone again, not yet, not yet, not yet. Virgil stumbled just enough to find himself sitting on the edge of the bed, fear filling him from the unintended disobedience. 

Ethan snarled, storming into the room and grabbing Virgil by the hair to yank him up. A pained noise left Virgil’s mouth and earned him a hard smack across the face. “You should know better,” the man snarled, pulling hard at Virgil’s hair. “Do I need to teach the idiot a lesson on your behalf?”

“No, no! I’m sorry, I’ll be good— I’m sorry, please, don’t,” Virgil begged as he grabbed Ethan’s arm in an attempt to ease the pain of the pulling. “I’ll make it up to you, I’m sorry.”

“You bet your ass you will. Let’s go,” Ethan growled while he tossed Virgil in the direction of the door by his hair before he let go. Virgil didn’t dare make a peep about the pain this time and just rubbed the top of his head. He glanced back towards Remy and gave the crying boy a little nod.

A silent promise to save him before it was too late. 

--

It didn’t take long for the others to realize something terrible had happened to Remy and Virgil.

Remy had missed a coffee ‘date’ with Thomas without so much as a text or a note left on the counter for him to find. Even since meeting Ethan, Remy was decent enough to tell Thomas he wasn’t going to be able to make their plans work, Ethan wanted to do this or Ethan wanted to do that.

And Virgil never called that morning. If there was one thing they all could count on, it was that Virgil kept his word without fail. As morning turned to afternoon, the level of anxiety in the tiny apartment quickly grew until Logan suggested, in the calmest tone he could muster, that they go check his dorm room. He must have been up late, he must have overslept. 

Patton didn’t have the heart to tell him that if Virgil hadn’t slept, he would have called them in the middle of the night. 

Their fears were confirmed when they reached Virgil’s dorm to find his door cracked open and his phone discarded on the bed, notifications of all their missed calls listed on the screen. On the tiny desk, there was a note that read ‘don’t look for me’ in handwriting that didn’t match anything else scattered on the desk.

“Virgil wouldn’t write this. If he— If he wanted to leave, he would have told us, right? He wouldn’t have just left,” Patton muttered, hands shaking as he picked up the piece of paper. “Vee seemed so happy last night, he wouldn’t—“

Logan nodded. They had to believe that that was the truth for their own sake, even if the idea that Virgil would just run away from them nagged at the back of his mind. 

Roman, on the other hand, shook his head. “No, he wasn’t happy. You saw the way he stormed out last night! He clearly was not happy and planned to just break our hearts by getting us to love him and then abandon us for no—“

“You know as well as I do that that is not true,” Logan cut in, keeping his voice as flat as he could. “After everything Virgil went through, he would not have planned to hurt us this way. And he did not leave angry with us. He left feeling anxious. What were we talking about before Virgil left?”

“Thomas… Thomas was talking about Remy’s boyfriend. Ethan.. De-something,” Patton supplied as he wiped his wet cheeks. When had he started crying?

“DeVille,” Roman told them. “Like Cruella. Thomas said that was how he remembered. Cruella DeVille, Ethan DeVille.”

Logan nodded once more. “Why would a name like that cause him to panic like that? Do you know if he has mentioned anyone by that name?” The other two shook their heads and it was quiet for a moment as they all racked their brains for answers. “Do you think—“

“Could it be—“

“His old boyfriend.” Logan and Roman snapped their mouths shut and turned to Patton, surprised and waiting for an explanation. “Vee— He only mentioned it one time, I almost forgot. I asked him if he wanted to watch 101 Dalmatians - I think… I think you guys were gone, picking up dinner or something - and he said no. And he’d look so scared and— I asked him why and he told me. He told me his ex-boyfriends name. And I forgot. I should’ve— I didn’t even think—“

“Patton, darling, breathe,” Logan reminded him softly, grabbing Patton’s hand before he could go spinning down the rabbit hole. “I know you are about to blame yourself for this, but it is not your fault. There would be no reason for you to try and remember that as we believed that this man was still in Florida, states away from Virgil. We believed that Virgil was safe. That may not be the case now. We need to call Thomas. Do you want to talk to him or would you like me to?”

Patton sucked in a shaky breath and nodded along with Logan. Logan was right, he knew that, but that didn’t keep him from thinking he should have filed ‘Ethan DeVille’ under ‘things that need to be remembered quickly’. “You can talk to him. I-- You’re better at thinking things through, you’ll know what to say. I’ll probably just cry,” he told him, sniffling.

“And there is no shame in that. Roman? Why don’t you take Patton to go get something to eat?” Roman started to protest, to insist that they needed to stick together right now, but a stern look from Logan had him closing his mouth and nodding. It was better to distract Patton and they both knew it. “I’ll meet you at the cafe just down the street, alright? I love you both.”

Patton and Roman gave similar sentiments along with soft kisses before Roman led Patton out. Logan sighed, dropping onto Virgil’s bed and finally allowing himself to take in the space Virgil lived in. It was tiny, cramped, but everything was tidy, save for the desk. The bed was made neatly, all his clothes hung in the closet or put away somewhere. There weren’t many personal things throughout, just a backpack on the floor next to the bed. It did seem as if Virgil was ready to throw his things into a bag and skip town at any given moment. The only thing saving Logan from actually believing that was the framed photo on top of the dresser. A picture of the four of them a few weeks after Virgil had first told them his story. Roman had insisted they take Virgil to see the Statue of Liberty and demanded they at least take one picture. Virgil had gone through the effort of printing the picture and framing it when it could have just been set as the lockscreen on his phone. He wouldn’t leave of his own free will without telling them.

Logan took a deep breath to pull him out of his thoughts, pulling out his phone and dialing Thomas’ number. Surprisingly, Thomas picked up on the first ring, with a panicked, “Logan! I was just about to call you, Remy-- He hasn’t been at the apartment in days and I thought he was just… I don’t know, avoiding me because the last time we talked I told him I really didn’t like Ethan and--”

“Thomas,” Logan cut in, having to try a couple times to actually get Thomas to stop talking. “I think I know why Remy hasn’t been answering your calls. But I’m going to preface this with telling you that Patton is going to need you. And I know that whatever comes next is going to be… Difficult but we will get through. You, me, Roman, and Patton.”

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

Logan blew out a shaky breath. “We-- Virgil is missing. Or, we believe so. We also believe that it was Ethan who took him. Ethan DeVille is Virgil’s ex-boyfriend,” he explained, listening as Thomas’ breath quickly grew shaky on the other end of the phone. “It is possible that Ethan also has Remy. That he… He took him. And I know that is-- That is a terrifying thing to consider but we must consider it regardless. I--”

The shaky breathing on the line quickly turned to tears and Logan decided that maybe this was a conversation they should have had in person. He couldn’t comfort Thomas at this distance. “I should have said something sooner, right? This is my fault! I should have told you what I knew and then you could’ve helped him sooner and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“That is not true. There is no way you could have known any of this was going to happen and you will not blame yourself for it. What you will do is meet us at the police station in an hour, alright? There is plenty of time to get them help. There is plenty of time to save them.”

Thomas didn’t speak for a moment but Logan could picture him working to get his breathing under control and tapping out his counting on his leg. “Okay. I can-- I can do that. I’ll meet you there in an hour,” he agreed after a couple minutes.

“Okay, that’s good. Thomas? Be careful. Everything is going to be okay, I promise,” Logan assured him softly before they said their respective goodbyes and hung up.

Logan breathed slowly.

He wasn’t sure he should have made that promise. There was no way to know that for sure. When they reached the station and were met with Officer Anton Mann, Logan realized he may have broken his promise already.

“You said he’s only been gone since last night. There’s nothing we can do to help you sir, sounds to me like he just had a fun night out on the town,” the officer told them, clearly disinterested in their plight. Anton was turned away from them and typing something on the computer in front of him. If it wasn’t for the fact that Logan could see the reflection on the officer’s sunglasses revealing that he was on Twitter, he might have actually believed he was typing out a report.

Logan glared at him, hands on the counter curled into tight fists as he tried to keep his composure as he spoke. “I also told you that he ran away from an obsessed, abusive ex-boyfriend three years ago and has been running from him since.”

“Doesn’t sound like he ran very well if he stayed in one place for three years,” Anton said, shrugging a little bit as he clucked his tongue at them.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was the one that made Patton cry and latch on to his brother and the one that made Roman step forward with fury in his eyes and the one that made Logan finally lose his cool.

“Sir! My boyfriend and my friend are in trouble, do you not understand that? You are causing my partners great distress by acting so flippant about this! You are causing someone I call my brother great distress. I am not going to sit by and allow you to do this. You are going to write this up and you are going to help us because that is your job! Why the hell are you behaving as if it isn’t?”

Anton simply raised a brow at the group of him and rolled his eyes as he spotted Patton sniffling into Thomas’ chest. “Probably because you’re definitely overreacting,” he said flatly.

Roman looked ready to throw a punch or seven when another officer joined Anton behind the desk and placed a hand on the rude man’s shoulder. “Doesn’t sound like they’re overreacting to me,” he said, a brow cocked and his head tilted to the side.

This officer was joined by another who started to pull Anton from his seat and push him aside as he said, “yeah, this sounds like an actual issue to me, right, Prokras?” The other nodded and let go of Anton to allow his partner to push Mann out of the way. “Right! Okay, so, if I heard correctly, you three having a missing boyfriend and you have a missing roommate and you think they were both taken by the missing boyfriend’s abusive ex,” the newest officer said, dropping into the seat and typing away before looking at Logan for confirmation.

Logan simply blinked, confusion covering his face for a moment before he managed to shake himself together. “I— Who are you two?”

“Besides the officers who are taking your case, you mean?” The officer behind the desk asked and Logan nodded. “Guess I did just skip right over the introduction part, huh. I’m Officer Percy M. Genta and this dashing gentleman behind me is my partner, Officer Nate T. Prokras. You can call us by our first names or our last names or just Officer will do, but I get a feeling we’re going to be spending quite a bit of time together while we work on this so I’m fine with skipping passed the awkward stage of calling everyone by their fancy titles. Now. Who are all of you?”

Roman stepped forward to save Logan from his awkward, confused spluttering with only a slight glare in his own face. “I’m Roman Prince. These are my partners, Logan Patrick and Patton Hart. And the one holding Patton is his younger brother, Thomas. Thomas’ best friend, Remy Mercier, is missing, along with our fourth partner, Virgil Casey,” he told him, answering the first question Percy had asked in addition to introducing all of them. 

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Roman. Hm… Maybe nice isn’t the right word. These are pretty unfortunate circumstances to be meeting under. But, not to worry. If you’ll follow us, we’ll talk through everything you know as of now and we can get started on finding your loved ones, alright?” Percy said, a small and sympathetic smile crossing his face. 

Roman took Logan’s hand and glanced back at Patton and Thomas, as if he was waiting for some kind of confirmation that they trusted these two to take the case for them. As if they had another choice. Patton sniffled and straightened himself out by pulling away from his brother and tugging on his sweater before he nodded seriously. A nod from Thomas quickly followed and Roman looked back at the pair of officers in front of him. “Lead the way.”

--

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks in this hell and Virgil felt like he’d never left it in the first place. The routines were so easy to fall back into. Yes, Ethan. No, Ethan. I’m sorry, Ethan. Please don’t, Ethan. I know, Ethan. The only thing that kept him from completely surrendering to the way things were, the way things always had been, was that locked door across the hall from Ethan’s bedroom.

Remy was behind it. Remy was suffering. Remy didn’t deserve this, not like Virgil did. Virgil had run away and Virgil had made Ethan angry and Remy had just been connected with the wrong person. Virgil had gotten him into this mess and he was going to get him out. 

There weren’t many opportunities to see him, but Virgil decided maybe that wasn’t the worst thing. Not seeing him meant that Ethan wasn’t hurting him, that Virgil was doing good and protecting his friend. But, still, it made Virgil anxious.

He didn’t know if Remy was getting food or getting water or how his bruises were healing. He didn’t know how Remy was feeling. He did know that his friend probably wasn’t feeling anything close to okay, but he still needed to really know.

So, Virgil made a plan. Ethan was on a schedule, a consistent schedule that almost never changed. They were up by six in the morning and Virgil made him breakfast. Then they had sex and Virgil did all he could to make Ethan happy. Then Ethan had whatever fun he wanted out of Virgil before he went to work. Virgil did laundry and looked out the window and wished for someone to come save them before he made Ethan lunch. Ethan came home for his break, angry and annoyed, and took it out on Virgil before he ate and drank and went back to work. Virgil cleaned his wounds and made sure the house was spotless before Ethan came back. Dinner, more drinks, more sex, more beatings, then in bed by ten.

It was consistent and unchanging. Considering how intense Ethan could be, Virgil was grateful that he could at least tell what was going to come next because it made finding time to sneak away and see Remy easier.

The first week, Virgil had to relearn the schedule, relearn how Ethan slept and how heavy of a sleeper he was. How despite being a possessive man, Ethan didn’t want to hold Virgil at night to ensure he wasn’t going to leave again. Virgil didn’t know where the keys were, there was no getting out. 

The second week was just building the courage to sneak away, to break the rules, to risk his little bubble of safety to check on his friend. Virgil started small, just leaving the bed and walking around the room for a bit before he went and laid back down, just to make sure Ethan wouldn’t wake with the movement. Then he got bolder by leaving the room, walking down the hall and listening for any sign that the man in the bed was waking. Then it was going to the kitchen, searching for small things that wouldn’t cause a big problem when Virgil added them to the grocery list. Then it was just a night of reminding himself that he needed to do this, he needed to see Remy again, he needed to ensure that his friend was okay. 

It was day seventeen before Virgil actually managed to get himself to do it. To sneak out and see Remy without asking permission. 

He left the bed around one in the morning after staring at the ceiling for three hours looking for a sign that this would all work out. No such sign came but Virgil went with his gut anyway, sneaking down to the kitchen to gather the food he’d tucked away there. 

 He had hidden away a few days worth of water bottles and small foods like granola bars, slices of bread and cereal in baggies, and cans of fruit with the pull tabs. It wasn’t much, but it was what he was sure he could pass off as things he’d eaten while Ethan wasn’t home if he was questioned about it. As long as Remy hid whatever trash there was until Virgil could come take it away, there wouldn’t be an issue. There wouldn’t be an issue. 

The lock to Remy’s room was quiet as Virgil turned it and the door hardly made a noise when he pushed it open. Remy was on the floor in front of the window, staring out at the moon like it would provide all the answers he needed. Virgil remembered doing the same thing the first few times Ethan had left him alone in a locked room for days, begging for the moon to grant him an explanation for why he was being treated the way he was. The answer never came and Virgil had decided on his own. He deserved the way he was treated. 

“Remy,” Virgil whispered, quietly closing the door behind him. Despite the soft tone, Remy still jumped when Virgil spoke and Virgil just pushed on a soft smile as he moved to sit beside his friend. Remy looked… Better. The bruises Virgil had seen that first night were nearly gone, but they’d been joined by a dark, purple, swollen black eye. “I didn’t even know he came to see you,” he mumbled, reaching up to carefully touch the sensitive bruise.

Remy pulled his face away and turned back to the moon. “The other night. He brought me something to eat. I— I asked if I could see you again because I haven’t seen you since— He didn’t like me asking for things,” he muttered, frowning at the moon. “I thought you forgot about me.”

“I would never forget about you, Rem, I just… It’s hard to ask for things from him. And even if I did, I don’t think he’d say I’ve been doing good enough.” Virgil shook his head, pulling the pillowcase full of food towards them. “I’ve been getting this together the last couple days. Stuff you can open and eat with just your hands. It should get you through the next couple of days, I think. There’s water bottles, too. You can refill them in the sink in the bathroom if you want. If you don’t, I can—“

Virgil was cut off by Remy wrapping an arm around his waist and holding on loosely. It only stung the bruises there a little bit, Virgil was used to much tighter grips on his bruises anyway. “I’m sorry,” Remy told him. His voice was soft and shaky and so reserved, Virgil almost didn’t hear it. 

When he turned to look at his quiet friend, he found that the other had started crying. Good. That was a good sign, Virgil reminded himself before he brought a shaky hand to wipe at Remy’s cheek as he asked a quiet, “why?”

“Be-because you’re here because of me. I-- Ethan told me you were friends and I believed that. And when he asked me for your address, I gave it to him because I-I’m a fucking moron and I thought he-he was going to send you a letter or some shit. And I’m so fucking stupid for believing you would ever--”

“Remy.” Virgil very carefully pulled Remy off of him, cupping the other’s cheeks to keep his attention on him. “There was no way you could have known. And-and Ethan, he-- He has always been good at manipulating people to believe what he wants them to believe. He did it with me, he did it with our neighbors, he did it with you. It is not your fault. I should’ve-- I should’ve told you more about my past. But… But we can’t undo it now. I can’t undo it now. But I’m going to help. I’m going to get you out.”

Remy laughed weakly, shaking his head. “How?” He asked quietly, voice filled with utter defeat. That, Virgil decided, was not as good of a sign as the crying had been. Virgil didn’t want someone who would have kicked down doors and thrown fists to deal with someone else’s demons to seem even a little defeated.

“I don’t know yet,” he told him honestly. “I don’t know, but I’m going to get you out of here and I’m going to get you home. I’m going to get you to Thomas, okay? He’s been so worried about you, you know? It’s cute. He-- He still insists he doesn’t like you but we know better. We all know better. He’ll be so relieved to see you.”

“I miss him. I miss him but… What if-- What if this makes everything different?”

“Take it from me, it’s going to be different. It’s going to be different and it’s going to be scary and-- And you might not trust what you see but you can trust what you know. Thomas is… He’s too good to do anything but love you. He was the first person I really trusted after that whole thing, remember? You know you can trust him. He’ll follow your lead on this, whatever you need.”

Remy was quiet for a moment before he nodded, wiping at his cheeks as he pulled away from Virgil. “You’re right. You’re right,” he agreed softly, letting his eyes turn back to the moon. “He comes every couple days with food. You didn’t… Need to bring me anything.”

“Every couple days isn’t good enough. Even I get to eat every day and I-- Not the point. I’ll bring more in a couple days. I’m gonna come check on you more, now,” Virgil promised. “I know I can get away with it, now. So… So, don’t worry about me. I’m doing okay. Don’t ask him to see me again, okay? Just… Just let him bring the food and leave. Please?”

There was a beat and then Remy nodded again with a quiet thank you falling from his mouth. Virgil nodded in return, leaning back against Remy’s side and closing his eyes. If he didn’t think too much, Virgil could almost imagine they were back at the apartment, watching movies and relaxing, and that the moment of peace was going to be ruined by nothing other than Thomas running in while he sang some Broadway song at the top of his lungs.

But, Virgil was never good at under-thinking things and soon found himself giving Remy a tight hug before he went back out into the hall. It hurt to lock Remy back in but they’d both be at risk if Ethan were to find out Virgil had snuck away in the night. 

It was time to get back to reality.

--

Three weeks.

Three weeks and they had found nothing.

Roman had spent three weeks watching his little family try to pretend they weren’t losing their minds the more time passed without news from Nate and Percy.

 Logan had thrown himself into his work more than usual, something Roman wasn’t so sure was even possible. If they weren’t sleeping or at the station, Logan was at the school or working on grading assignments or creating new and exciting things for his students to do just to keep his mind off of things. 

Patton was doing his best to stay positive, or at least that was the image he was trying to keep up but Roman had known him for far too long and was able to see right through the act. Patton worked and Patton cleaned and Patton smiled and Patton assured the rest of them that everything was going to be okay but Patton cried at night when he thought the other two were asleep and Patton shook when they were faced with more nothingness and Patton worried and worried and worried.

Thomas, Roman believed, was having the most realistic reaction to all of this. He had sat with his advisor and pushed off his classes for a semester, had decided that he needed to process what was happening and not try too hard to split his life into the parts where he stressed about what was going on and where he worked himself to the bone to pass his classes. But Thomas was also trying to stay strong for his brother. He saw what Roman saw, the fragility of Patton, and did what he could to keep Patton from seeing how scared he was about all of this.

Roman wasn’t going to say he was dealing with all of this in the healthiest way, but he was doing better than the rest of them in his own personal opinion. He was letting himself cry and he was letting himself panic and he was letting himself think of all the worst possible outcomes for this. At least Roman was feeling. Like actually feeling.

On days like today, where they were faced with the reality of their situation as they sat across from Nate and Percy with nothing new to tell them except that Ethan DeVille hadn’t been seen or heard from in months and there was nothing that they could trace, Roman was really hit in the face with all those emotions. Logan had only nodded tensely before he dismissed himself. Patton had smiled brightly and squeezed Thomas’ hands too tightly and said he was sure they’d find something soon. Thomas had pulled Patton up and away when he saw that Patton was getting ready to crack and crumble.

Roman didn’t move for several moments, just staring at the officers as he processed this. This nothingness. The lack of answers they were giving him. “How? How do you have nothing? He couldn’t have just-- Just disappeared like that. You don’t mean that. You can’t,” he denied, shaking his head harshly. “He had to… He had to use his credit cards to move or his phone to-to talk with Remy, can’t you use Remy’s information to find them?”

“Roman. I know that this is incredibly difficult to hear and to understand, but those are the facts as we know them. But that does not mean we’re giving up on this particular lead. It just means that we might have to explore some of the other possibilities,” Percy told him with this small, sympathetic smile on his face.

“Other possibilities? There are no other possibilities on this, Officer Genta! He’s the one who did it, that… That devil took my friend and he took my boyfriend and I-- I-- You have to find Ethan to find Remy and Virgil. That’s it. That’s it.”

Nate stood up and clapped Roman on the shoulder before guiding the distraught man up to his feet. “We believe you, Roman. We really do. And we’re not giving up on that trail, we promise. I promise. But we’re going to look into what else might have happened so that we have a better chance of finding them, okay?” Roman was quiet for a moment before he nodded, wiping the tears from his face. “Okay, good. Now. Go be with your boyfriends. You all need each other right now.”

Roman nodded again and gave Nate a quick hug. Quick was maybe a little bit of an under exaggeration, considering none of them had really taken the time to hug each other and they were probably all desperately in need of that sort of affection. It lasted probably longer than what was actually comfortable for the officer but Roman detached feeling a little lighter. He thanked the officers softly, giving them a little wave and making a joke about seeing them at the same time in a couple days. It wasn’t a joke he enjoyed making and yet he made it every time.

The ride home was quiet. They were always quiet when they left. Roman thought it was so they could all digest the fact that nothing had changed. That there were still empty seats at their table that weren’t going to be filled any time soon. 

When they returned to the apartment, they all went their separate ways. Logan went off to grade assignments, Patton went to cook them dinner, Thomas ran off in search of a Disney movie to try and distract them all after dinner, and Roman went on the hunt for an audition, an endeavor that always ended with scrolling through the pictures he’d managed to capture of the four of them before Virgil disappeared.. All in the same small apartment but worlds apart.

It wasn’t until the sound of something crashing against a wall somewhere in the apartment echoed through the space that any of them even seemed to remember that the rest of them were there. The sound of the crash pulled Roman’s eyes from his phone as he jumped with surprise, the sound of wrecked screams sent Patton flying from the kitchen, abandoning the dinner prep he’d been working so carefully on, the sound of clambering feet and swinging doors brought Thomas away from his fond search through movies.

The source of it all came as a shock. Logan sat on the floor of the ‘guest’ room  - the room that had once been his and had slowly been turning into Virgil’s - with shaking shoulders and his face buried in a pile of black fabric to muffle the sobs coming from him. Across the room was the remains of a lamp that used to sit on the bedside table, a scratch marked the paint where it had hit the wall and glass littered the otherwise tidy floor. “Logan…?” Patton started cautiously, taking a couple steps into the room.

Logan’s head snapped up in an instant and he dropped the fabric to wipe at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Patton, I-- I am incredibly sorry about the lamp. I… I don’t know what came over me.”

“Oh, honey,” Patton mumbled, voice soft as he waved Roman into the room and dropped to his knees in front of his partner, careful to avoid the glass shards that had skittered across the room. Roman joined them and slowly took the fabric from Logan as Thomas disappeared to grab a broom. It only took a moment of examining the black pile in his hands for Roman to understand what had caused Logan’s sudden outburst.

The unassuming pile of fabric was one of Virgil’s hoodies. Virgil had allowed Roman to paint a little stormcloud on the jacket a few months back, before their relationship had even truly started, after Roman had taken to affectionately calling the other their stormcloud. He hadn’t been able to stand how Virgil thought that he was constantly ‘raining on their parade’ and had done his absolute best to turn what Virgil saw as a negative into the positive they all believed he was.

“I thought he had this with him,” Roman muttered, allowing his hand to ghost over the shaky lines on the lightning. Virgil had teased him the entire time he painted and it had ended with some unclear lines. “I thought he grabbed it.”

It was Patton’s turn to hold the jacket and he pressed it up against his face to take a deep breath. It smelled like their detergent, some form of proof, in Patton’s mind, that Virgil had truly started making their home his own. Virgil had started leaving things around and doing laundry there and Patton just knew if he looked around a little bit that he’d find notebooks and hair dye somewhere around the room.

“He-- He did not. Clearly. It was under the bed and I--” Logan explained, eyes focused on the ground in front of him. “I was looking for something, I don’t even remember and it was under there and I got… I got frustrated. It has been under there for weeks and no one checked. No one looked.”

The tears started rolling down Logan’s face once more and Roman didn’t hesitate to pull his usually stoic and strong partner into his arms, holding on tightly to what he still had. It came as no surprise to him when Patton joined their small pile and laid the jacket out over all of their laps. “We’re not-- We’re not done looking yet. There’s still so much to look through, it’s not- It’s not over yet,” Patton told him as he reached over to take Logan’s hand.

“It’s not,” Roman agreed quietly. “It’s not and it won’t be until we’ve found him. This isn’t… This isn’t the last thing we have.” 

Logan nodded a bit, spreading his free hand out over the tiny storm on the jacket and mumbling a shaky, “you’re right. We’re not giving up. Not yet.”

“Not ever.”

There in the tiny guest room, surrounded by pieces of a broken lamp, the three of them finally all allowed themselves to feel everything they’d been ignoring. But, they also allowed themselves to remember that they weren’t alone in this.

They were going to get through this together.

--

Four weeks.

Four weeks and Virgil saw no end in sight. 

Maybe that was because Ethan had finally ‘trusted’ him enough to let him out of the house. Virgil was never left unsupervised when he was outside the small house - let out for trips to the store and dinner dates only - but it was a sign, in his eyes.

A sign that Ethan truly believed no one was going to come save them.

That didn’t keep Virgil from trying to, at the very least, get Remy out. He had started sneaking out to see the other on a near nightly basis, just to make sure Remy stayed positive, to make sure his friend remembered that he was going to get out of here. Virgil could see that little bit of hope in Remy’s eyes dimming day by day.

It didn’t help that Remy was able to watch out the window as Virgil left with Ethan in the evenings. It was like he knew that it meant Virgil had given in to Ethan’s will but he was only doing it for Remy. Ethan had grown more consistent in threatening Remy’s safety for lack of compliance. Any small act of disobedience could cause Remy harm, something as small as not acting quick enough, and Virgil was not going to allow that. He wasn’t going to give Ethan the opportunity to hurt Remy more than he already had.

But, Virgil still hadn’t been able to sneak the keys away from Ethan in order to get Remy out the front door. Which severely limited his options for getting Remy out. The kitchen window wasn’t big enough, the living room windows opened out at an angle, the back door had its own set of locks Virgil hadn’t even seen the keys to. He was going to have to reconsider the second floor windows now that Remy finally seemed close to healed. Sure, Ethan would notice the screen missing, but it wasn’t like Virgil wasn’t going to be in trouble anyway. Even if Remy devised an escape plan on his own, Virgil would end up in trouble anyway. For letting him escape, for not telling Ethan that Remy had a plan, for not stopping him. It didn’t matter if Virgil actually knew or not. It would be his fault.

Virgil wasn’t focused on that right now, though. He was focused on the way Remy shivered on the floor even though he’d yanked all the blankets off the bed and wrapped himself in them like a burrito. As the summer gave way to fall, Virgil had noticed it getting colder, but he hadn’t taken into consideration that all Remy had to keep himself warm was whatever Ethan had given him for clothes and what he could find in the room. All Remy had to keep himself warm were thin sweats, a t-shirt, and cheap blankets.

Virgil decided that that wasn’t enough as he pulled off his warm jacket - a new one that Ethan had bought to replace the ‘rags’ that Patton had gifted him when he decided that he wanted to get rid of any remaining piece of Virgil’s ‘old life’. “I can talk to Ethan about getting you something warmer, like a hoodie or something and some… Warmer blankets,” he told him, holding  the jacket out for Remy.

His friend took it easily, a sad looking smile on his face. “Something tells me he’s not just going to agree to that,” Remy mumbled.

“I… I just have to thank him properly. I have been doing better, been… Been making him happier, I think. With what I’ve been doing, so I just need to step it up a little. Just. Have to thank him right,” he said again, eyes on his lap as he began thinking of ways to get what Remy needed.

“What do you mean?” Virgil blinked, glancing back up at Remy to find the other giving him a confused look. “You said… You said thank him right. What does that mean?”

Oh. Ethan had never made Remy thank him. That was good, Virgil thought. It was good that Remy hadn’t been forced to learn what the ‘right’ way to thank someone was, what the right way to thank Ethan was. “I, uhm, sometimes…. Or-or every time, really, that I ask for something or Ethan doesn’t do something he could have, he, uh, I have to thank him for it. Usually with like. Uhm. Sex,” Virgil explained, scratching the back of his neck. It seemed that after learning that that wasn’t how things were typically done, it had become much harder for Virgil to talk about. He knew it wasn’t right now. He knew that that wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

“Virgil… Vee, you don’t have to do that. You don’t, it’s okay. I’m not… I’m not going to freeze to death or anything,” Remy told him with a shake of his head. He didn’t like the thought of Virgil doing something like that just for him.

“It’s not something new, Rem. It’s… It’s just life with Ethan. I’d be doing something like that even if you weren’t here. Probably… Probably because I didn’t smile wide enough at the neighbor, I didn’t look happy enough, and all I got was a slap when he could have… Well. He could have done whatever he wanted to,” Virgil told him with a small shrug. 

That exact scenario had happened just days before, after one of their dates. Ethan had stopped to chat with their neighbor and his wife and had expected Virgil to play the part of a content partner who wanted to join the walking club and babysit the neighbor’s kids and had an interest in talking about new recipes to try. But Virgil had been tired, he’d been exhausted from sneaking out to see Remy the night before and getting screamed at by Ethan for crying, and his smile had been just a tinge to small and his conversation skills had been weak. And Ethan had let him have it when they’d gotten inside, more yelling, a slap across the face, and a demand for a thank you since Ethan hadn’t just thrown him into a room and left him until he learned how to act right.

Those weren’t exactly comforting words to Remy who looked positively appalled at the facts that Virgil laid out for him. “Has he… Was he always like that with you?”

“No? Maybe. Kind of. Uhm… It-- He wasn’t always this bad. We got together when I was fifteen. He was a senior, then, and he, he came up to me and he asked me-- No. He told me we were going to dinner together. He told me when and where and told me to be there. And I was. It was just. It seemed great to me, then. That a senior boy wanted to take me out, you know?” Virgil told him, looking over at his friend who watched him talk with a sympathetic look on his face. Virgil wondered what it had been like when Ethan asked him out, if it had actually been asking. “But, uh, he was controlling right away. And I didn’t know anything different than that, I didn’t know anything about relationships. Ethan was my first boyfriend and my parents weren’t really a great example. But... Eventually I figured out that it wasn’t right. It took three years but I figured it out. I didn’t really get what a relationship was supposed to be like until I met you and Thomas.”

Remy snorted, covering up his mouth quickly. It wasn’t the time to laugh, not while Virgil was telling him his story. Virgil smiled though and pushed forward. “I know… I know you two aren’t together but. But I know you love him. I know because it was always… It was just… I don’t even know how to explain it. The way you looked at him… It showed me what love was supposed to look like. It wasn’t supposed to be what I had-- What I have with Ethan. It wasn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be the terror I felt any time I did something that could make him angry, it was supposed to be the pure peace on your face whenever Thomas leans against you and holds your hand. I didn’t-- This isn’t answering your question,” he trailed off, laughing a little. “He didn’t always hit me or make me thank him for doing the bare minimum but it wasn’t ever right.”

“You can tell me about it, if you want,” Remy said after a moment, pulling Virgil’s jacked tightly around him.”I want to know. And… And we’re going to be here a while so… So, I think I should know. So I can, I don’t know, help you. I don’t know how but… But I’ll try. Even if it’s just by sitting and listening.”

“It’s. It’s a lot, you know that, right? It took me… Hours to tell the other three. It’s not a happy story.”

“Virgil. I know. You don’t… Have to preface this by telling me it’s not a good story. I know that. I know,” he reminded him quietly as he reached over to grab Virgil’s hand. 

Virgil was quiet for a moment before he nodded, taking a deep breath and just… Started talking. He told Remy everything - from the example his parents set for him and starting the relationship between him and Ethan to learning what was expected of him and what to expect from Ethan if the rules were broken. From sneaking savings into an envelope under their shared bed to running away in the middle of the night, scared and alone and unsure what to do next.

It wasn’t until he heard the angry roar from down the hall that Virgil even realized how long he had been talking. Remy shot from where he had been resting against Virgil, eyes wide with fear as he watched his friend scramble up to his feet and try to get out the door. If he was fast enough, maybe Virgil could convince Ethan he had just woken up early and had gone to get coffee started. Maybe he could keep things okay for now.

Virgil had no such luck. He never had much luck when it came to Ethan. The angry man was at Remy’s door when he pulled it open, pure rage written in every inch of his stance. Virgil stumbled back into the room when the other took a step towards him and he flinched before Ethan’s fist even came up. The punch to his jaw only made him move back further, making the man in front of him even angrier. “What are you doing?”

“I--I--” Virgil stuttered intelligently, waving his hand at Remy. A silent gesture to go hide, to not give Ethan the chance to turn any of this anger on him.

“You, you,” Ethan mocked as he grabbed the collar of Virgil’s shirt to yank him forward. He only had a moment to try and steady himself on his feet before Virgil was tossed towards the ground with a thud. “What the hell do you think you’re doing in here? You know you’re not supposed to be in here without permission. I did not give you permission,” he growled. 

Virgil shook his head and looked behind him. No Remy. Good, good, he didn’t want Remy to have to see this. “I’m sorry, I-- It was cold and, and, Remy--”

A swift kick to his ribs had the words catching in Virgil’s throat. It didn’t matter what he said, he knew that. Nothing was going to cool Ethan’s fury, now. The early morning beatings were always the worst. They didn’t happen often but Virgil remembered them. Remembered that Ethan angry first thing in the morning had landed him in the hospital scrambling for excuses for broken wrists and concussions and stitches.

Virgil could tell this was going to be no different, except perhaps that he was going to have to beg Ethan to take him to the hospital. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know where the hospital was, but he was going to need someone to make sure his lungs were alright with the way Ethan’s foot was continually slamming into his rib cage and his stomach as he screamed at him. He thought that would be it, the kicking and the screaming and the reminder of what the rules were in this house. 

But Ethan hadn’t given himself a reason to truly try and destroy Virgil yet and this served as the perfect excuse. Virgil knew he was supposed to be forgetting his old life and that included Remy. To betray Ethan like this? To spend time with that pathetic excuse of a man Virgil called a ‘friend’ when Ethan had expressly forbid him to? No. No, Virgil needed to be taught a lesson this time. Needed to be reminded just what Ethan could do to put him in his place. 

Ethan straddled Virgil, a sick sort of smile on his face as he slammed his fist into Virgil’s nose a few times until he could see the deep red color of blood coming from his nose. There was nothing Virgil could do to keep the pained sounds from coming now, not with Ethan sitting directly on top of his sore torso. He choked on sobs until Ethan’s hands made their way around his throat and squeezed until the sounds were stopped from pure lack of ability to breathe.

The hands only came off when Virgil’s clawing seemed to become annoying enough for Ethan to decide to grab one of his hands and push and push and push and slam into the ground to hear a satisfying crack and scream. Ethan only laughed as Virgil started to squirm under him, grabbing his play thing by the shoulders and lifting him just enough to slam his head back onto the hardwood floor of the bedroom. Black spots filled Virgil’s vision and he briefly hoped Ethan would have the mercy to stop if he passed out, have the sense to take him to the hospital.

And then he saw Remy. Remy holding something that shined in the light of the rising sun. Something that Remy slammed down into Ethan’s back. Something that caused Ethan to stop and let out his own pained scream. Something that came out dark and red, drops falling from it as Ethan turned in a rage towards Remy. Something that went crashing back into Ethan’s chest when he rushed at Remy.

Virgil’s head spun as he watched Remy shove Ethan away from him, the stronger of the two stumbling back as he wrapped his hands around the knife protruding out of his chest. The shirt on him was quickly growing dark, gray turning to black as blood came rushing out of Ethan’s chest. Ethan’s mouth opened and closed, shocked eyes on Remy, before he collapsed to the floor in a heap.

Remy stood still a moment, chest heaving and hands shaking while he processed what he’d just done. But he didn’t have time to focus on that, he needed to focus on his friend’s eyes fluttering shut after he’d watch that monster slam his head repeatedly into the ground. “Virgil, Virgil, hey, hey,” he said, shaking himself out of his stupor to rush to Virgil’s side. “I need you to sit up and… And stay awake. I’m going to call an ambulance, I need you to stay awake until it gets here.”

Virgil tried and failed to speak, his chest aching after the abuse it’d suffered and his mind too tired to try and push through the pain. He nodded slightly and let his eyes slip shut until Remy called his name again. And again. And again. Cycle repeating until Remy made a promise to be right back. 

Virgil didn’t last long enough to see him return, letting himself quickly slip out of consciousness.

--

Bright white was the first thing Virgil saw when he woke up. The light hurt his eyes as he blinked awake and Virgil squeezed his eyes shut again to block it out, sharp pain shooting across his face. He tried to lift his hand to shield his eyes instead and ease the pounding in his head, but found that he dragged some tubes up with his hand. That was unexpected.

“Oh, good, you’re awake!” A far too cheerful voice said and Virgil heard someone shuffle in his direction, beginning to mess with the thing attached to his arms. “I just made your friends go get food while I looked you over and let me tell you, that was not an easy task. They haven’t left this room since you two got here and I could tell they needed a break. Anyway, how are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”

Virgil made a noise of annoyance as he listened to the man - a nurse, he realized, as he took in the scrubs that had little cartoon drawings on them. Lilo and Stitch. So, he was in a hospital, Ethan had been smart enough to bring him in. But, Ethan wasn’t answering for him. Ethan always answered for him. There was silence for a long minute as Virgil remembered what had happened, what Remy had done, and then he seemed to panic. Remy had stabbed Ethan and Virgil didn’t immediately see him and he couldn’t keep his mind from immediately thinking of all the worst case scenarios as he tried to sit up and get off the bed. “Remy-- Where’s Remy?” Virgil asked, breathlessly. Why was it so hard to breathe?

The nurse scrambled to stop him, gently placing his hands on Virgil’s shoulders to push him back down against the bed. He withdrew his hands the moment Virgil flinched away and gave the scared man a sympathetic look. “Lay back down, Remy’s right over there,” he assured him, pointing across the room to where Remy was sleeping, attached to an IV drip but otherwise seemingly unharmed. Virgil let himself relax. Remy was here, Remy was here, Remy was okay. “Well, I’m glad he pretty much demanded to be in here with you. I told him that we’re not really supposed to do that with surgical patients - put them in rooms with other patients, I mean - but he refused to be anywhere else. Told me that I was either going to put him in the same room as you or deal with him later because he was going to refuse treatment so you wouldn’t be alone.” The nurse laughed a bit and shook his head. “But I think he knew you weren’t going to actually be alone. All those nice boys showed up not long after you went into surgery and we were already treating him in here… Oh! I should probably tell you what’s going on here, shouldn’t I?”

Virgil blinked but nodded slowly, careful not to move the little tubes in his nose. It would be nice to know what the hell was going on.

“Okay, well, my name is Emile Picani and I’m your nurse for the night shift! You’ll be here for a couple days and I should be your nurse every night, except maybe Saturday and Thursday because those are my nights off and-- Well, that’s not too important. Anyway, you’re going to be here for a little while because you had surgery, but it shouldn’t be more than a week as long as you’re healing alright,” the nurse, Emile, explained with a tiny smile. “You had a couple of broken ribs and a pneumothorax - a punctured lung, which is probably why you’re feeling like it’s a little hard to breathe right now. The doctor performed a minor surgery to reinflate the lung and you’re just going to have to take it a little easy while your ribs are healing to make sure that that there lung stays inflated. You also have a minor concussion, so now that you’ve woken up, we’ll be keeping you up for a little bit so we can make sure your noggin is alright. Your right wrist was broken and is in a nice little cast, purple per the request of your friends. Your nose was also broken and we set it back in place before we put in the nasal cannula to help you breathe.

“Uhm… There’s also some scattered bruising and small cuts, particularly in the, uhm, lower region of your body, which we, uhm… It’s evidence of... Well, there isn’t much that can be done for those but we can treat for pain and discomfort as much as needed. We’ve already got you on a nice little regiment of stuff to help with that. If you’re ever feeling like you’re in pain and uncomfortable, you can press this button -” he stopped talking just long enough to point out the bright, red button next to Virgil’s arm on the side of the bed “- and someone will come and help you out. No need to just sit there and be in pain, okay? There are plenty of people here who want to help you, alright?”

That was so much information to take in, so many negative things said in a bright voice as if that would make it seem better. It didn’t, not really. If anything, it made Virgil feel worse. He’d been to the hospital for almost everyone of the described ailments, but never all at once. It was like Ethan’s goal had been to kill him. Virgil, for the first time in the past month, was grateful Remy had been there with him. He might not have survived this otherwise. “M-my boyfriend...Where is he?” He asked, voice shaky and soft.

Emile frowned a bit and glanced in Remy’s direction before letting his eyes fall back to Virgil. “I assume you’re referring to the man who did this to you, yes?” Virgil nodded and Emile let out a soft sigh. “That man will not be able to hurt you again. Or anyone, for that matter. He is currently awaiting an autopsy.”

Perhaps Virgil should have been sad to hear that. He had spent years of his life with Ethan, had had many of his firsts with Ethan. First date, first kiss, first broken arm, first hospital stay. Virgil cried, but not out of sadness. Out of pure fucking relief.

Virgil was free.

He was really free.

“Thank you,” Virgil told him quietly, a small smile on his face. Oh, that kind of hurt. The smiling. “Uhm, I need-- Face. Hurts.” It wasn’t the most eloquent phrasing Virgil could have used but it was what Virgil could provide at the moment.

Emile was quick in treating the pain, inserting something into the IV attached to Virgil’s forearm and then patting Virgil’s hair carefully. “I’ll be back shortly, you may be a little sleepy but I am sure your friends will be happy to see that you’ve opened your eyes. They should be back soon,” he promised Virgil, who was already feeling some of the pain leaving his body. “The doctor will be in shortly to give you some tests to make sure your brain is a-okay, but for now, just relax, okay?” Virgil nodded and the nurse quickly scribbled some things onto a clipboard before he left the room.

Virgil sagged against the bed and allowed himself a moment to just breathe. To feel the weight leave him as he processed the fact that Ethan was gone. To realize that he wasn’t going to have to spend the rest of his life with Ethan or running from Ethan or worrying that Ethan was going to find him or his little family. Virgil was able to relax for the first time in eight years.

Briefly, anyway, because when Virgil started looking around the room and spotted Remy again, he remembered that his friend was here because of him. Remy was here because Virgil had been selfish. He’d let himself make friends when he knew, he knew that Ethan was out there, that Ethan wasn’t just going to give him up. 

Remy wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Virgil. The others were probably only actually here for Remy. It made sense that they would come for him. They probably all hated him, now. After everything Virgil had put them through, he wouldn’t blame them. He’d made them suffer through all of his problems from the moment he met them. Not knowing how to talk to people, not knowing how to act with people, not knowing what he was and was not supposed to do in friendships, doing everything wrong and hurting them in the process.

They were probably only ready to see him awake so they could tell him they wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Virgil had too much baggage, Virgil had gotten their friend hurt, Virgil wasn’t worth the effort anymore.

Virgil just hoped they were kind enough to wait until Remy was discharged or moved. He wouldn’t be able to watch them dote and worry about Remy while he was in his current condition. 

Virgil was pulled out of his thoughts by the door opening, the sound of bickering slightly muffled by the sound of balloons rubbing against each other as they pushed through the door frame.

“I told you we should have just gotten flowers, Roman. Remy told you the same thing before he went to sleep,” someone said, Virgil was pretty sure it was Logan at the back of the pack.

Patton laughed as he came into the room with a giant handful of balloons. Some plain colored, some covered with stars, a couple with big letters saying ‘get well soon’. Virgil felt tears in his eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he could miss someone’s laugh, he hadn’t let himself think about that too much. It had hurt. “I think he’ll like the balloons, Lo-bear. I bet it’ll even help him get whale quicker!” Patton giggled, pulling down a balloon with a whale on it. 

“And on top of that, Remy also told us not to get him anything but I don’t see you chastising Thomas for buying him flowers and chocolates!” Roman announced, carrying in flowers and being followed in by Thomas who was quickly turning a light red color.

“He was lying. He wants flowers,” Thomas mumbled as he passed Virgil’s bed to set the flowers on the small table next to Remy’s bed. Virgil didn’t miss the soft and fond look Thomas gave his sleeping friend and he was happy to note that some things just don’t change.

Logan trailed in after all of them, holding a small bag with some unknown contents in it, and sighed. It was useless to try and reason with his boyfriends now and he knew that. Still, he smiled as Patton seemed to struggle with finding somewhere to put the massive amount of balloons and Roman rushed to set the flowers down to help his partner. It was so nice to see some of the life brought back into them now that they had Virgil back.

Logan’s eyes went to Virgil’s bed and it seemed to take his brain a moment to catch up with his eyes. Virgil was awake, tears on his cheeks and some cracked, weak-looking smile on his face. “Virgil,” he breathed out, slowly approaching the bed.

“Hi, Lo,” Virgil greeted with a shaky voice as Logan took his uncasted hand and held on tightly. It should hurt, Virgil thought for a moment, but the pressure was warm and comfortable as opposed to the crushing feeling of Ethan’s hand in his. Logan’s tight grip lacked an intent to hurt him.

The weight tied to the bottom of the balloons hit the ground with a thud as Patton caught on to what was happening, gently pushing Roman’s hands away from the strings as he rushed to the bedside with tears in his eyes. “You’re awake! Oh my goodness, I am-- I missed you so much, I’m so… Can I give you a kiss? Or a dozen? Or more? I just--” Virgil cut him off with a small nod and Patton quickly started kissing over any bit of unbruised face he could reach.

Roman seemed frozen in his spot by the balloons as he watched the other two fawn over their partner. He was feeling so many things all at once at seeing Virgil awake and he just wasn’t sure which to react to first. Virgil’s eyes found Roman’s and Roman saw the fear there, the fear that Roman may not actually be happy to see him, and he racked his mind for something to say to make it go away. There was nothing he could think of that seemed to properly express how relieved he was and before he could say anything, Thomas had him by the shoulders and was guiding him to the group with gentle reminder to not be an idiot. Roman tripped over himself until he was seated on the edge of the bed with a hand on Virgil’s ankles. “I missed you,” he told Virgil when Patton pulled away. “We all missed you so, so much. I don’t think we would have survived much longer without that phone call from the police station.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared to get a phone call,” Logan said quietly. Virgil thought he could see tears in his eyes. 

Virgil didn’t like seeing all of them like this. They had all been happy as they were when Virgil had forced his way into their lives and they looked broken now, worn down by the pain they’d been put through while Remy and Virgil had been missing. And he had caused that. He was behind all that pain.

“I’m sorry,” Virgil muttered, the happy smile having fallen off his face as he looked between the three of them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… To scare you guys.”

“Oh, Virge, honey. You don’t need to be sorry, this wasn’t your fault, you know that, right?” Patton asked softly as he brought a hand up to try and carefully wipe some tears off the bruised skin around Virgil’s eyes.

Virgil shook his head and forced out a little laugh. “It is. It is my fault. I shouldn’t have… Have let you guys care?” Virgil paused, coughing lightly. “I got Remy hurt and all of you are crying and it wouldn’t have happened if I had just… Just kept you at a safe distance, just stayed away then. Then Remy wouldn’t be here and you’d all be happy and--”

Logan squeezed his hand and cut Virgil off. “We are happy. We are happy, Virgil, because you’re back. We’re not crying because we’re sad. We are crying because we are so happy you’re here and you’re awake and you’re alive,” he told earnestly, Roman and Patton nodding along with him.

“But, if I had just--”

“Virgil, stormcloud, darling, we don’t need to talk about that. Because it doesn’t matter. We can’t… We don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t let us in and we don’t want to think about it. Because you did and we love you and we wouldn’t change a thing about this. Well, no, I would want you to be less hurt but-- But, I’m just so happy to have you in my life. Exactly how I have you now,” Roman assured him.

“And you don’t have to worry anymore,” Patton tacked on. “This chapter of your life, it’s… Well, it’s not closed. I don’t know if it’ll ever really close but… But there’s no more to add. You’re safe, now, and you have us and we’re not going anywhere. None of us are.”

Thomas appeared at his side and nodded his agreement, patting Virgil’s shoulder gently. “Remy basically refused to leave your side, it was tough to keep him out of the operating room. He has so much he wants to say to you and he’ll be really glad to hear you woke up. He and I are sticking around,” he said with a little smile.

That seemed to light a bulb over Roman’s head and he leaned towards Virgil to whisper, “I think your nurse might be sticking around, too. Thomas refuses to admit it but he’s got a couple crushes.” Roman winked and Virgil let out a wet laugh, nodding again.

There was still more to work through, more things to talk about, but for now, Virgil was going to believe them. And he was going to let himself be happy. And he was going to breathe.

Because he could.

Virgil could breathe.

#ss big bang 2019 #sanders sides #lamp #abusive anxceit #abusive sleepceit #remy/thomas/emile #my fics #sanders sides fic

[ask-the-munchkin-crusader]

Amy’s Arrival Pt. 1

((Before we begin, this art was done by @mychaoticland. Check out Syd’s work; it’s really awesome! Thank you so much Syd! This looks amazing. Now then, on with the show!))

The elementary school bus pulled up to the last house on the corner with a layer of snow still covering the lawn. A small child with emerald green eyes waddled off the bus in her big green winter jacket, green hat, black snow pants, black boots, bundled from head to toe in warmth. Her blue and green backpack bounced on her back as she hit the ground and made her way to the house. She opened the door and was instantly hit with warm air instead of the bitter cold of the Wisconsin winter air.

Once inside with the door closed, she slid her backpack off her back along with her jacket, revealing her light green striped shirt she was wearing and her black skirt hidden beneath her snow pants. She slipped off her boots and her hat to reveal her curly brunette hair tied back in green scrunchie.

The young girl made her way to the kitchen to see a young teenager with faded red hair making some popcorn in the microwave. The child silently giggled as she went to sneak up on him. She used the kitchen island as a cover for sneaking and slowly crawled on the ground and around until she saw her target. She stuck her head out from behind the island and just as the teen bent down to look for a bowl, the girl rushed over to try and tackle him down in a hug. She didn’t knock him down entirely but she did cause him to wobble and waiver a bit in his balance.

“Got ya!” The small girl declared as she held onto the older boy.

The teenager rolled his eyes and went to pick up the girl and give her a proper hug. “All right, all right, you got me,” He stated and then set her down on the island counter. “Now can I please get back to making my popcorn, Amy?”

“Only if I get to have some,” Amy stated, a grin plastered on her face.

The teen rolled his eyes once more. “Well, fine,” He said as he poured the snack into a bowl. “Since we’re going to be watching Stardust Crusaders in a little bit.”

Amy gasped when she heard this. It had been over a month since they had finished Battle Tendency and Amy had become hooked on the show. Kyle, her older brother, had gotten her into JoJo after he was sick of her watching Steven Universe, My Little Pony, and Miraculous Ladybug for the umpteenth time. She became hooked instantly and was a huge Jonathan fan and cried at the end of Phantom Blood. She had such a blast with Battle Tendency though and instantly recognized Caesar’s voice actor as the same one who voiced Chat Noir. After that, she would constantly draw pictures of the Joestars and give them to her brother to hold onto since he was, in her mind, the one with all the foreknowledge on everything JoJo. Plus, she kept bugging him to let her see the next part even though he wanted to take a break from JoJo for a bit. Now they were going to actually get to watch Stardust Crusaders.

“Wait, how come you changed your mind?” Amy questioned, wanting to know the reason as to why they were now getting to watch the next part.

“Well, the schools sent out an email saying that there was going to be a snow storm coming in tomorrow, so no school tomorrow,” Kyle explained as he picked up the bowl in one arm and his sister in the other one. “And if we’re lucky, we might get the next day off too.”

The grin came back to Amy’s face as she was sat on the couch. Kyle gave her the bowl while he set up the DVD player and Amy couldn’t help but bounce with excitement at finally getting to watch part 3, which Kyle would say was a universally loved part in the JoJo community. Once the screen came to life, it went straight to the home menu and had who Amy assumed to be the new JoJo on the screen. He was a tall young man with a black school coat and black pants on as well as a bunch of belts around his waist and a strange hat that blended with his hair. “Is that the new JoJo?” she asked Kyle as he grabbed the remote and came to sit down next to his sister.

“Yep, his name is Jotaro,” Kyle said as he hit play. “Now, Amy, are you ready to enter the world of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders?”

“I’m ready,” Amy determinedly said.

“You’re weird, you know that?”

“So are you!”

 Episode Commentary by Amy

“Wait, wait, wait….why does that guy have a chicken man behind him?”

“WHAT?! JERKY-MC-JERKFACE DIO IS BACK?! NOOOOO!” –EP1  

“That red-haired guy reminds me of you, Kyle, except he seems cooler.”

“Ewww! Is that a zit on his head? It’s so gross!”-EP2

“Oh no! Poor Ms. Holly!”

“Wow, that was a really cool group pose. Do you think they practiced that?”-EP3

“I knew Joseph being on a plane was a bad idea. Maybe they should’ve taken a boat.”

“What’s up with that guy’s hair? Is it because he’s French? Or is it because it’s the 80s?”-EP4

“Do you think they have to pay back for all the food and the tables?”

“That’s really sad about his sister dying. Would you avenge me if I died?” –EP5

“Why do Jotaro and Kakyoin wear their school uniforms all the time? Aren’t they sweaty in them?”

“You know, I’m starting to like Jotaro more now.”–EP6

“Why do I have to cover my eyes again? It’s just a monkey, right?”

“Now I want gum.” –EP7

“Did that reception guy sound like DIO? That’s not good if he did.”

“What?! Kakyoin can’t really be a traitor, can he?!” –EP8

“Man, I forgot how intense this can get at times,” Kyle remarked as he got up and stretched himself out. He and Amy had practically been sitting for four hours straight. Plus, he needed to change the DVD over to the next disc.

Amy, meanwhile, still sat on the couch with a dumbfound look on her face while Kyle got up to get the DVD out of the DVD player.

“Amy? You okay?”

“…..That just can’t be right!” Amy shouted, coming back to reality and scaring her brother with her shout. “Kakyoin can’t be a bad guy! He’s like, the super nice one! He can’t still be working for jerky-mc-jerkface, DIO!” The girl crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. “We have to watch the next episode, Kyle!”

“We will, we will,” Kyle said, grabbing the disc set and putting the first one away. “But Dad’s on his way back with pizza so I thought we’d take a bit of a break.”

“But-” Amy was about to protest when her stomach gurgled from hunger. She hadn’t realized how hungry she actually was until Kyle pointed it out. Plus, taking a small break would be good since she could talk to her brother and Dad about everything that was going on.

Just then, a car pulled into the driveway and Amy jumped off the couch in excitement. She raced to the front door to see her Dad coming up to the door with a pizza in his arms. She opened the door for him just as he was about to do it himself and hugged him. “Hi, Daddy.” She greeted her Dad, slightly shivering in the cold.

“Hi sweetie,” Her Father greeted back, walking into the house with the little girl hanging around his waist. He closed the door and handed over the pizza to Kyle while he started taking off his winter attire, revealing his black shirt and black pants for his mechanic uniform. There was a grease spot on his front pocket but overall, he looked relatively clean. He had brown hair like Amy cut to his ears and brown eyes that matched her brother. Once he had his boots off, he picked Amy up and threw her in the air, causing her to giggle. “Now what have you two been up to?”

“Watching JoJo,” Amy answered, heading to the kitchen island to sit down and get her pizza. “We’re gonna watch all of it before we go back to school!”

“Oh, well all right,” Mr. Armstrong said as he came to get a slice of pizza for himself. He wasn’t sure about all this “anime” but he saw no harm in it. Heck, he even worked with a young kid at the auto-shop who recommended this JoJo show to Kyle. “Just don’t stay up too late, all right?”

“Got it, Dad,” Kyle replied this time, grabbing some soda out of the fridge for the three of them. The red-headed teen also grabbed some red cups as well for them to use since none of them wanted to do dishes later. “How’s Mom doing helping Evelyn?”

“Well she’s warm, that’s for sure,” Mr. Armstrong said, a bit envious that his wife was all warm and toasty in Florida while he was freezing in Wisconsin. Then again, he and Mrs. Armstrong had an agreement that if he helped their eldest get to school that she’d go there to help out if a need arose. “But she should be back by the end of the week, if the weather permits.”

After finishing up most of the pizza- saving a few slices for later- Amy rushed back to the couch, practically jumping over it, and grabbed a hold of the remote. Just as she pressed the on button, the lights in the house suddenly went off and plunged the current family of three into darkness. Amy screamed at this sudden change of lighting and Kyle quickly grabbed his phone and turned on its flashlight, giving some light in the dark.

“Great, the power’s out,” Mr. Armstrong grumbled. He went into the kitchen and pulled out three medium sized flashlights and gave one to each of his kids. “The storm must’ve shut off the power. Kyle, you mind giving me a hand with the breaker? Otherwise we’ll be shivering all night.”

“Sure,” Kyle said, turning off his phone flashlight and stuffing it into his pocket for later.

“Amy, you stay here and man the house while we’re gone,” Mr. Armstrong instructed his youngest as she went to turn on the flashlight. “Holler to us if the power comes back on.”

“Got it, Daddy,” Amy saluted to her Father as she played around with the flashlight.

“That a girl.”

After her brother and Dad left to deal with the breaker, Amy continued to turn her flashlight on and off in amusement. She wanted the power to come back on so badly so she could resolve the cliffhanger of whether or not Kakyoin was indeed a traitor, which she couldn’t believe him to be. This was worse than when Steven Universe went on hiatus after revealing White Diamond. Come on, power, come back on,Amy prayed as she moved the flashlight around the room to illuminate all the objects in the dark.

Just as she was shining the light onto the TV, it suddenly sparked to life and caused Amy to yelp in shock. She quickly hid under the blanket on the couch but quickly came out from her spot when she realized that it was only the TV coming back on. “Daddy, Kyle!” She shouted over the couch. “The TV’s on!”

There came no reply. They must not have heard her.

She was about to go in person to deliver the news when the TV started to have static snow on the screen. The young girl turned her attention back over to it and watched as a figure appeared on the screen. It slowly came into focus to reveal itself to be DIO. “You’re watching me. Well watch this!”He said, pointing at the screen. Then it went back and looped him saying that over and over again.

Amy rolled her eyes at this, thinking that the last episode was on repeat again. She thought Kyle had taken that disc out…..Oh well. Amy tried popping out the DVD from the DVD player but the remote refused to work so the scene continued to loop over and over again. “Come on,” Amy sighed as she repeatedly tried turning the TV off with a remote. She didn’t want to keep hearing DIO over and over again. (In her opinion, she got enough of that in part 1).

After doing this for a few more minutes, Amy gave up on the remote and decided to go to the DVD player to pop it out from there. As she pressed the eject button, she failed to notice something slithering out from the TV and coming to her. Just when it seemed like the DVD would come out, she felt something grab her right arm that she had leaning against the TV. Amy looked up to see a purple vine wrapped around her. (Surprisingly, despite having thorns in it, didn’t hurt her). “What the-?” Amy gasped as she tried to pull her arm away.

Then, without warning, another purple vine pounced out from the TV screen and wrapped itself around Amy’s other arm. The little girl struggled to break herself free from the vines but her child-like strength was nothing in comparison to them. Suddenly, the vines began to pull back into the TV and started taking Amy with her. She tried grounding in her heels into the carpet to keep from moving, but again, she was a little girl and these were other-worldly vines. (You do the logic here).

So, to deal with this, Amy did the next best thing; she screamed for help. “Daddy! Kyle! Help me!”

Instead of hearing the sound of footsteps heading towards the room or her brother or Dad calling out to her, she heard nothing. How could they not hear her?

As the vines started to disappear into the screen, Amy’s hands started to faze right through it like there wasn’t even a hard surface there. Amy started to struggle even more as her arms up to her elbows started going through the screen as well. “HELP!” She shouted as her head was pulled through. Soon, her whole body was pulled through and the TV went back to being fuzzy.

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

Amy found herself falling down an endless hole that reminded her of the TV fuzz she had been witnessing on the screen moments prior to being pulled through. Her arms still had the purple vines wrapped around her and seemed to be pulling her down more and more. “Let go of me!” She shouted as she started using her feet to pry herself free. Once her left arm was somewhat free, she yanked it free and smiled at her success. “Nice! Okay, one more arm to go!” With her one arm free, she focused on her trapped one and after a few more attempts, she was able to break free from the vines entirely. “Yes!”

“So, you think you’re clever?”A voice echoed through the void.

The young girl looked around in confusion, trying to find the source of the voice. Was someone here with her? “Huh?”

“I’ll admit, your attempt in escaping me is amusing,” The voice taunted. “You weren’t originally apart of all this, but now that you are, I plan to take full advantage of the situation. I see a great opportunity in your arrival.”

Amy couldn’t get what this voice was saying at all. Opportunity? What on Earth was the voice going on about? And didn’t it sound like- Amy gasped when she recognized it! “You’re-”

Before she could finish, a smaller void seemed to appear and Amy was pulled through at a much more rapid pace than before. She screamed as she fell through the new funnel to end up who-knows-where.

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

The next thing Amy knew, she was on what felt to be a carpeted floor. She slowly sat up slightly bonked her head on a bed frame. It wasn’t bleeding or anything, but it still stung to hit your head against metal. “Oww,” She slightly winced as she sat on her knees, trying to keep from watching. As she sat on her knees, she noticed that there was some smoke in the air like a fire had just been put out. What the heck is going on?Amy thought as she went to look around.

“But, that can’t be true, can it?” A voice from behind said.

Amy wasn’t sure what to make of the unfamiliar voice and quickly ducked to the side of the bed closest to the window. Someone was in this room with her.

“You know as well as I do: Hermit Purple says Kakyoin is a traitor, a servant to DIO who will someday betray all of us,” Another voice added to the mix.

Slowly, Amy peaked up over the side of the bed to see who was actually in what she now figured to be a hotel room. As she slowly rose up, she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be two largely built men before she ducked back down in fear. She decided to listen more to what they were saying;

“It can’t be!” The first man growled.

What can’t be?Amy thought.

“There must be a reason!” The second man shouted. “I won’t believe Kakyoin is a traitor!”

Wait, Kakyoin? Now Amy was puzzled. Did she hear him right? Did he say Kakyoin? Slowly, the little girl poked up back up to get a better look. When she got a better look at the men, she silently gasped. Who she found before her were Avdol and Joseph?!

#amy #kyle #mr. armstrong #[amy's arrival] #((feel free to send in questions before pt. 2 drops)) #jjba oc #jjba oc blog #origin story time #jjba au #jjba au blog #[blog event] #[written work] #jojo oc #jojo oc blog

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2019

i mean, everyone's doing these write-ups, right? might as well hop onto the bandwagon

towards the end of last year i had one of my typical existential crises about my media consumption: am i slowly disappearing up my own ass because i no longer care about most of the pop culture people like to discuss ad nauseam? but on the other hand, isn’t it more responsible to find the niche items made by non-mainstream and marginalized creators? on the third hand, wouldn’t i be much happier if i just watched FMA Brotherhood over and over again, preferably while starting a new Mass Effect playthrough at the same time?

the answer to all these questions is probably “yes,” but i decided to try something different going into 2019. for every week of the year, i would try to get through a year’s worth of content for some kind of media, be it comics, video games, TV, etc--they didn’t all have to be recent, or even new to me, but once i was done with that week i’d be done, even if i didn’t finish the content, and i’d make a judgement based what i’d seen on whether i want to continue. mostly, i was trying to avoid what happened to me with video games in 2018, when i was hating every second of playing Uncharted but still felt obligated to finish because everyone and their houseplant liked Uncharted or listlessly doing the Master Hunter achievement in RDR2 because the main quest made me miserable.

the actual outcomes of this Project(tm) are a little more complicated than anticipated--some media i could finish in a day, while trying to play through ALL THE CONTENT OF AN MMO understandably took much longer than a week--but it all kind of evened out. in the end i did 48 weeks of this, and used December as my catch-ups month to follow up on some things i didn’t get to finish. i thought i’d give my thoughts on each of the things i consumed this year as part of this project below in a concise manner--and yes, i know the people who’ve read even one (1) thing i’ve written are probably laughing right now, particularly given how long i took in this introduction just to get to me point, but i really am going to try!! it’s all an exercise in shameless self-indulgence, basically, but hey: if any of you want to chat at length about any of this stuff below, hit me up.

(quick note: you’ll only find media that i chose for this particular project below, so things i watched socially with friends--like certain film properties slorping me back into Disney’s gelatinous monolith--are not included)

Devilman Crybaby (anime, finished 1/5/2019): honestly i should have twigged onto what the year was going to be like when the first thing i drew from the metaphorical barrel was demon tiddies and apocalyptic existentialism. i was determined to dislike it for most of the year due to fundamentally disagreeing with its main thematic thrust, but i kept THINKING about it even months after. at this point i’ve kinda mellowed out. it’s definitely not a must love, but there’s enough queer metaphor and philosophical richness in it to make it worth checking out.

Attack on Titan (manga, 3 volumes finished 1/12/2019): this is the second time i’ve tried to get into this franchise and...yeah, no. i still don’t see the appeal. the fascistic overtones juxtaposed with absolutely no one having a sense of humor wigs me out to no end.

Young Justice (TV, 2.5 seasons finished 1/31/2019): honestly, what even is there to say? they’re my kids. they’re back and grown up and making even more terrible decisions. i screamed when i saw Babs in her wheelchair.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf (book, finished 2/10/2019): i tried VERY HARD to like this book, given how much i liked Brief History of Seven Killings, but it just...didn’t click for me. which honestly is fine, since i don’t think it was made for me either.

Dragon Age (3 games, finished 2/28/2019): i feel like there’s always a part of me that’s going to think of this series as “the other one,” but y’know. it’s good. it’s my second playthrough (as a mage for all three) and it’s good! i even went around killing all the dragons in Inquisition because Knight Enchanter was a blast. appreciate the higher queer content vis-a-vis Mass Effect, even though i couldn’t care less about any of the plot. Dragon Age II is the best one, do not @ me

Bitter Root (comic, 4 issues finished 3/1/2019): i love intergenerational dramas and i love stories about vampire slayers, so this was aces. my only complaint is the pacing was a little slow for a story that was going on hiatus after five issues.

Pearl (comic, 6 issues finished 3/3/2019): i know that he’s done great things and grudgingly admit that he’s probably a net positive in the industry but Brian Michael Bendis can suck my entire dick

Lazarus (comic, 5 trades finished 3/ 4/2019): i really thought this was going to clench the position for comic of the year. it’s Rucka doing Highly Relevant Dystopia! it’s a corporate Lannisters AU! it’s a highly personal story about a woman with high privilege and little agency! what more could you want

Immortal Hulk (comic, 2 trades finished 3/ 4/2019): i vibed with the horror feel, but i don’t honestly think it’s THAT exceptional. being set in 616-verse means there was still ton of baggage i didn’t know or care about, since i’ve now swung more to the DC side of things

thank u, next (album, finished 3/5/2019): didn’t Ariana Grande get canceled this year for some reason? oh well, i liked her album

When I Get Home (album, finished 3/13/2019): i vividly remember listening to this for the first time and feeling vaguely disappointed that it wasn’t more like Seat at the Table until i realized that i was covered in goosebumps. still don’t understand the magic but it is Good

The Bird King (book, finished 3/23/2019): pretty much everything you’d expect from a G. Willow Wilson book--spirituality, the female lead finding Themselves and the Answer and learning they’re the same thing, etc etc. i’m slightly resentful that her Wonder Woman was so lackluster while this was so good, but whatevs

Psychodrama (album, finished 3/29/2019): possibly my favorite album of the year? dense and emotionally raw in a way i really appreciate. Dave has a Mercury and he’s younger than me

Mass Effect (4 games, finished 4/7/2019): wow guys did you know that Mass Effect is good! it is. all of it is actually, even the Mass Effect 3 ending, another controversial finale to a big franchise that i will obstinately defend. even Andromeda, which isn’t AS good as the trilogy but still has a lot of heart. all its bugs have been exhaustively patched since launch anyway

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV, 4 seasons finished 5/13/2019): i’m...still kind of mad about this finale, but can’t exactly deny that this show is one of the best things to ever happen to me, or television probably. i didn’t even mind new!Greg that much! tho he was probably the nail on the coffin of me jumping onto the Nathaniel train.

Knights of the Old Republic/The Old Republic (3 games, finished 7/4/2019): did you guys know that KOTOR II was my first ever video game? i feel like that...explains a lot about me. anyway, the first game is a classic and the second is a deconstructive classic and playing either of them is basically a fun way for me to turn off my brain these days. even the MMO wasn’t as much of slog as i worried it would be. the Imperial Agent storyline had some nice surprises and i dig the general atmosphere of ruthless pragmatism and crushing loneliness.

Wanderers (book, finished 7/13/2019): Chuck Wendig is a very well-intentioned man in dire need of a strict editor. still good tho! some VERY punchy emotional bits and an ending that still leaves me with vague existential terror.

Code Geass (anime, 2 seasons finished 7/20/2019): i feel like this is on the polar opposite of the spectrum as Devilman Crybaby, because i don’t think Geass is GOOD on like, any basis, and i actually find its central moral message kind of abhorrent? but some part of my lizard brain LOVED the High Imperial Family Drama (it’s been a good year for me and Lannister types, hasn’t it? well, with the obvious exception of--never mind), so...yeah. have i discovered the true meaning of guilty pleasure

The Farewell (movie, finished 7/23/2019): how could i not a) watch this and b) love this and c) feel emotionally cold towards this at the same time because the situations depicted were so similar to mine that i ended up feeling kind of alienated

The Nickel Boys (book, finished 8/8/2019): i STILL haven’t read Underground Railroad, but here i am a book late and a dollar short to appreciate Whitehead’s new book. the man’s stylistic versatility is jaw-dropping and i appreciate the plotting in contrast to like, 90% of the litfic out there that’s just “protagonist sad in different milieu”

Durarara (anime, 2 seasons finished 8/31/2019): it’s fucking bonkers and i loved pretty much every second of it? even the second season, where i finally got the BruceNat AU i deserved??? the first anime i’ve seen where everyone was relatively soberly dressed. the answer was love and having feelings and asking your middle school best friend to hurl you like a projectile so you can chop your girlfriend’s head off with a demon katana

Lover (album, finished 9/1/2019): i feel like with all the Discourse surrounding Taylor Swift re: she’s the devil incarnate or re: she’s good, actually the fact that she makes fucking bops gets kind of lost in the conversation. i have no vested interest in her as a person but i liked Lover, even though London Boy was “what if Style but stupid”

Are You Listening (comic, finished 10/2/2019): my actual choice for best comic of the year if i were giving out awards like that. it’s coming of age! it’s grief! it’s queers! it’s trauma! it’s magical realism! it’s cats! it’s expressive gorgeous art! Tillie Walden has an Eisner and she’s younger than me

High School DxD (manga, 2 volumes finished 10/10/2019): i don’t even know how to talk about this series?? i actually kind of came around to the whole “main character is a perv but goes hard for consent” by the end of the second volume, but it’s still...bad. i only can have lingering conflicted feelings about one Japanese adaptation of Christian mythology per year

Ghosteen (album, finished 10/18/2019): much like Immortal Hulk i thought it was fine but over-hyped. it’s Nick Cave doing his Nick Cave ethereal music thing. i still can’t tell what any of the lyrics mean, except Jesus is there sometimes

Watchmen (TV, 2 episodes finished 10/29/2019): i am nOT FUCKING CAUGHT UP so please watch out for spoilers. it is on my high priority list of things to be caught up on tho--i appreciate that the plot is blatantly unsubtle but still manages to give me aneurysms and i appreciate the political overtones just kinda...balances on a razor thin wire and also gives me aneurysms. i wanna say i have no expectations and would be fine if it does a full dive into the horrible bland depths of the both-sides porridge, but i’m sadly a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof

Syllabus/Making Comics (2 comics, finished 12/24/2019): it’s funny--even before Making Comics came out i was like “man i miss Lynda Barry” and then BAM. it’s incredible how her work just makes me feel taken care of, even when we’re wrestling with tough topics or she’s demanding that i draw a Batman in 30 seconds. kudos for immediately shooting to the top of my gift list for my sister also

Allegiance/Choices of One (2 books, finished 12/24/2019): fun and largely inoffensive, but i was honestly hoping for more. the level of Empire apologia going on was too much for me, someone who thinks Mara Jade is the best Star Wars character of all time (still?????? still). it reeked a little of Zahn believing his own hype as the only valid guy in Star Wars Legends of whatever

Aldnoah.Zero (anime, 1 season finished 12/24/2019): turns out i also can only have “trash but my trash” feelings about one Japanese mecha show with higher art pretensions and patriotism verging into jingoism per year, and this one ain’t it. it’s not as good as Code Geass and Code Geass ISN’T GOOD. at least Geass attempted character complexity and moved at enough of a breakneck pace to distract me from its questionable bits. Aldnoah is just...bland, and nothing gets accomplished or revealed in 12 episodes, except the baffling and contradictory motivations of the main bad guy.

Baldur’s Gate (game, unfinished): yet again something i really wanted to like, given *gestures at all the BioWare above*. i think it’s mainly the Seinfeld issue, where it actually predates my own experience with video games and was so formative for the Western RPG genre that what was innovative just comes across as kind of staid now. i didn’t DISLIKE it, and will probably play the sequel since it’s supposed to be more character-driven, but by the time i finished the vanilla campaign i just didn’t have it in me to squint at more tiny avatars on the screen, so the expansions ended up a no-go.

most prominent thing i noticed about this list is that only one 2019 movie made it on the list and ZERO 2019 video games did so. the former i’m okay with because i currently live with two film people with whom i’m happy to tag along to the cinema. the latter bums me out a little more, because there WERE a few things i wanted to play this year, but all of them came out just as my semester was reaching its catastrophic boil, so i had no time. maybe i’ll use my free time after the New Year festivities to catch up on those.

to conclude: this worked out pretty well! i ended up finishing all but one of the things, and only a few were bad enough that i have no interest in seeking out more content. i’ll probably do this again in 2020--we’ll see if the scheduling can withstand a full year of grad school hell

#let's break out a new tag for this since this isn't really meta #conspicuous media consumption

[edogawatranslations]

Danganronpa Kirigiri (3) - Chapter 4, Part 3

Table of Contents | Previous: Chapter 4, Part 2

“Now, we’d like to question you all individually,” the officer announced. “We’ll call you into a separate room one by one to hear your accounts. We ask for your kind cooperation.”

“Are you kidding me? We have to stay here?” the brunette protested. “My skin’s drying out. Are you going to do something about that?”

“You there, in the kimono. We’ll start with you,” the officer said, completely ignoring the brunette.

He led the spectacled woman into a separate room, with other officers trailing behind them. One uniformed policeman remained behind to keep watch over us.

“I didn’t expect things to turn out like this,” the man in the sunglasses said. He seemed like an easy-going person. His voice was calm and polite, and he didn’t look the slightest bit agitated. “But I’m surprised. I didn’t think the two of you were detectives too.”

“...'too'?”

“Yes. It turns out, every single one of us gathered here today is a detective.”

“R-Really? You’re also a detective?”

“Indeed.”

“Why didn’t you tell the officers?”

Was it something he wanted to hide?

“Detectives haven’t had the most cordial relationship with the police. We know from experience that flaunting our job title isn’t always well received. That’s all there is to it.”

“You Ryuuzouji grunts don’t understand,” the man in the Hawaiian shirt jumped in. “A run-of-the-mill detective like me ain’t got the same sorta standing.”

The industry sounded harsh... Once again, I realized just how inexperienced I was. I had no idea what the life of a detective was truly like.

“Well, it’ll come out during questioning, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to identify myself to you. I don’t wish to be on Mr. Ryuuzouji’s bad side.”

The man in the sunglasses pulled out a Detective Library ID from his inner suit pocket.

Salvador Yadorigi Fukurou: DSC Number [752]

“I specialize in art forgery crimes.”

He was even wearing sunglasses in his ID photo. The guidelines must not have been stringent, since it wasn’t an official document like a passport or driver’s license.

“Wow, you’re at Rank 2? I’m stuck at 8,” the brunette whined, leaning over with her legs still on the glass table.

I couldn’t picture someone like her as a detective.

She reached into her cleavage and pulled out an ID card. It was covered with sparkly stickers.

Korisu Kakitsubata: DSC Number [488]

“I handle animal cases. Or I guess more specifically, animal welfare cases?”

The stickers doubled her card’s thickness. I hadn’t heard of any detective who decorated their ID... Could that thing fit into the terminal at the Detective Library?

“My turn,” the guy in the Hawaiian shirt said, flashing his card.

Hajiki Yaki: DSC Number [666]

“Gamblin’s my forte, but I’m not the one makin’ the bets. My job’s to sniff out unlawful gamblers and make ‘em wish they’d never been born.”

“Did you share your identities with each other?”

“Yes,” Yadorigi answered while adjusting his sunglasses. “It came up in our discussion before you two arrived. We determined that identifying ourselves would be wise.”

“Someone musta planned it this way,” Yaki said, using the glass table as a mirror to fix his collar. “We all got the same birthday invitation, but we got sent different requests along with it. I was told this place was an illegal gamblin’ den. Since that’s in my line of work, the bait was meant for me.”

“I was asked to determine the authenticity of the paintings in this mansion,” Yadorigi added with overexaggerated hand gestures. “If that request was fabricated, then the person behind this must be quite familiar with detectives. The birthday invitation was suspicious, but that made us more susceptible to take the bolder lie at face value.”

“My letter said this place was the site of illegal wildlife trade," Kakitsubata added. "I didn’t want to bother coming here, but like, wouldn’t it be sad if that was true? Those poor animals...”

“So all of you took the bait and walked right into a trap.” I summarized.

“No, we didn’t,” Yaki snapped.

“No, she’s right. We should admit as much,” Yadorigi said. “We fell for the criminal’s trap and are now suspects in a murder investigation.”

This situation reminded me of the Sirius Observatory case from last month. The detectives received fake requests and were lured to the scene, and ultimately to their deaths.

But this time, there was only one victim. With the police on the scene, the likelihood of additional murders was low, but we still couldn’t rest easy.

“So? Is it true? Are the two of you really detectives?” Kakitsubata asked.

I showed her my Detective Library ID.

“You look so young, how old are you? Are you in high school? Really? Aren’t your boobs a little big for your age? Wait, you’re not even a homicide specialist, but you get to join the investigation? No fair, I want in on that!”

“Well, these are special circumstances...” It wouldn’t be appropriate to explain everything, so I changed the subject. “Oh, Kyoko over here is even younger than me; she’s in middle school. Isn’t she cute?”

“What’s your specialty?” Yadorigi asked curiously.

“Small talk won’t do us any good,” Kyoko replied curtly. “You all fell for the criminal’s trap and are being suspected of murder.”

“Hmm...” Yadorigi crossed his legs and threw out his arms. “You’re correct. We need to solve this case. It’s not just our honor at stake; we could be falsely charged.”

“Murders ain’t my cup of tea. You solve it.”

“Huh? Murders, like, creep me out!”

While Yaki and Kakitsubata started quibbling, the spectacled woman returned. She gracefully took a seat on the sofa.

“Miss Kakitsubata, the officer asked me to send you in,” she said.

“What, it’s my turn? I’m sleepy. Are the police going to do something if my skin cracks? Wait, isn’t this like getting in trouble at school and getting called to the principal’s office? This is exciting.”

Kakitsubata continued her monologue on the way to the other room.

“We were introducing ourselves to these young detectives,” Yadorigi said calmly.

“Oh, then allow me to do so as well.” The woman covered her mouth with her hand and smiled. “My name is Sara Mizuiyama. Have you been informed of the reason we came here?”

Sara Mizuiyama: DSC Number [527]

“My story is the same as the others. I received a request for advice on remodeling this mansion. My specialty is architecture.”

“Oh, I forgot to ask earlier, but do any of you know anything about the man who was killed?”

“His name was Suntetsu Shirasu, 52 years old,” Yadorigi answered. “We searched through his belongings. The only thing of note was his Detective Library ID. His DSC number was [126], which means he dealt with crimes of religion, specifically those involving oriental cults.”

“I wonder if this case has anything to do with religion,” Mizuiyama said, tilting her head.

“That’s a plausible theory,” Yadorigi replied. “Maybe he was killed because of his line of work.”

“What happened to him before we arrived?” I asked. “He seemed to be taking shelter in that room, but...”

“Taking shelter? That ain’t right.” Yaki reclined onto the sofa and waved his arm left and right. “He up and disappeared... ‘Cause of that, we started wonderin’ if he was the one who invited us here. That’s why we peeked at his things and found his ID. Then we started lookin’ for him and ran into that shut door.”

“I was able to enter the dojo earlier in the afternoon,” Yadorigi explained. “But when I returned later, the door wouldn’t open. Since the door has no keyhole, I surmised that someone was keeping the door shut from the inside. As I wondered who it could be, everyone else joined me, aside from Shirasu.”

Naturally, they concluded Shirasu was holed up inside the room. While they were struggling to open the door, Kyoko and I appeared.

Shortly afterwards, the case occurred.

The moment the victim was stabbed, Yadorigi, Kakitsubata, Yaki, and Mizuiyama were with us on the other side of the door. Logic thus dictated that none of them could be the murderer.

But the locked room presented a mystery—how did the murderer enter and exit the dojo?

“Would you mind recounting in detail everything that happened before we arrived?” Kyoko asked.

“Very well,” Yadorigi answered with exaggerated gestures. “I’ll have to explain everything to the police anyway, so a practice run wouldn’t hurt...”

They arrived at the Takeda Haunted Mansion today (or more precisely, yesterday), January 10th, at around 1 PM.

I had unsealed the Duel Noir envelope an hour earlier, at exactly noon. That meant all of the actors had gathered at the stage within an hour of the curtain rising on the Duel Noir.

It was impossible to lure everyone to the mansion in that short span of time. Did the criminal predict that I would open the envelope at noon on the 10th, and prepare everything in advance?

No, most likely the criminal had sent out the invitations in advance and was waiting for me to unseal the envelope before executing the crime. For better or for worse, that happened to be the same day everyone was to gather here, so the killer quickly set their plan into motion.

After arriving at the mansion, they quickly introduced themselves to one another. At that point, everyone was still wary of the others and hid their true identities as detectives.

They waited a full two hours together, until 3 PM. The host never showed up, causing them to grow suspicious of the situation. Everyone then decided to explore the mansion by themselves. We would need to ask for their accounts individually.

At 9 PM, they started questioning the legitimacy of their investigation request. Someone suggested they all leave. But then, Kakitsubata revealed herself to be a detective. In succession, the rest of them revealed their true reason for visiting the mansion. Except Shirasu—at that point, he had already gone missing.

The others now strongly suspected Shirasu to be the man who invited them all and began searching for him. However, they couldn’t find him.

At 10 PM, Yadorigi noticed something odd about the door leading to the dojo. It wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard he tried pulling.

In the next thirty minutes, Kakitsubata, Yaki, and Mizuiyama appeared. Another thirty minutes passed as they shared their findings.

That was when Kyoko and I showed up.

I knew what happened after that. While we were trying to open the door, a noise came from inside the dojo. We broke into the locked room, turned on the light, and discovered a man lying in the center of the room with a katana in his back.

“Was that noise we heard Shirasu being stabbed and collapsing onto the ground?” I asked.

“I believe so,” Kyoko responded. “When I rushed over to the body, blood was still seeping out from the stab wound.”

“Ain’t it weird that the killer wasn’t in the room?” Yaki asked with his arms crossed.

“The room was pitch black,” Mizuiyama added pensively. “What if the murderer used the darkness to escape through the door we opened?”

“Can’t be. My ass was still on the ground when you all went in and I didn’t see nobody come out. Nowhere for them to hide behind the door either, since it opened outward.”

“I had to feel around for the light switch, but that didn’t even take a minute,” Yadorigi explained. “If the criminal escaped under the veil of darkness, they couldn’t have gone far.”

“But there ain’t nowhere to run to.”

“Kyoko and I checked outside after that, but there weren't any footprints in the snow.”

“Then where did the killer disappear to?” Mizuiyama asked, bringing her pointer finger to her lips and tilting her head.

“Only one answer. Those warriors,” Yaki replied, furrowing his brows.

“The armor was empty. There’s no changing that,” Yadorigi refuted.

I had also inspected the armor. Nobody was hiding inside. And I didn’t find any suspicious device or tool either.

“Not that. You know what I mean...”

“What?”

“A ghost! You really gonna make a grown man like me say it?”

“You think a ghost possessed the armor and stabbed Shirasu with a katana?” Yadorigi asked sternly.

The possibility was nonsensical; it went against logic and science. A man couldn’t be killed by a ghost warrior...

Besides, this was a Duel Noir. Straying into the occult was a waste of time. The killer used some trick to carry out the murder for the sake of revenge—that much was certain.

But the question remained—how?

The room was completely sealed. When the victim was attacked, the suspects were outside. The lack of footprints around the mansion eliminated the possibility of an uninvited guest.

Everything pointed to the murder being an impossible crime.

Next: Chapter 4, Part 4

#dr kirigiri #danganronpa kirigiri #kirigiri #danganronpa #novel #light novel #translation

[marie-bluem]

   Random Entry: 07/01/20

    (Please don’t reblog, repost, etc)

        It’s been raining a lot lately, which has kind of put me in a nostalgic mood lately and given me this sudden urge to want to look back on some of my old blog posts, entries, and past years. Also the current state of our world right now and other things, especially the current state of the U.S. right now, has made me feel sad ( I am kind of feeling a tiny bit of that summer time sadness/blues ;-;)🌦📔      

  However, seeing the progress being made by everyone working together to bring more awareness to the inequalities and issues that still need to be addressed, not just in the U.S. but in the world in  general, and being able to help and take part  with my friends and just being able to keep in touch with my friends, has made me feel more hopeful and inspired as well. Overall, the past month of June had just kind of put in a reflective mood and want to reflect back on some things/ memories/ personal experiences etc and just write about and comment on some things like some of my past posts as an effort to try to write gain a bit more on here.

       Also I’m really sorry anons that I haven’t finished answering the rest of your anons. As  you saw from my last posts, these past months have been months where many have been working together to spread more awareness and info on issues like police brutality, mental health awareness, BLM movement, Juneteenth and more, that I just personally felt it was and still is more important to reblog posts on those topics in order to bring more awareness to those topics, and limit my amount of personal posts/ posts that don’t have to do with those topics. So I’m really sorry, but I have not forgotten about your anon asks! What I plan to try to do is answer just one of your asks once a week and like I said I will still post/ reblog some personal posts  but I will also try to reblog more posts containing info on more important topics. So I will still try to post/ reblog personal content and continue to answer some of your anons! ^^

Okay lol you can just ignore the rest of my text below lol (you don’t have to read what is below this ;-;) Like I said , the rest of the text will be a few of my comments/ thoughts as well as thoughts  I remember having when I reblogged some of my old entries, posts etc. ^^ . Also please don’t reblog this post (I’m sorry I just really don’t want to encounter a lot of weird tumblr bots again 😥 😭

January 2013:

      Aw My first posts and the beginning of this blog  ^^ I can’t believe it has already been more than 7 years since I created my Tumblr blog. I remember not knowing anything about Tumblr until my friend Emily told me “Marielisa, have you downloaded Tumblr, you should make your own Tumblr blog and follow mine please”. We didn’t even have proper phones back then (I had an old blackberry phone lol) since we were still in middle school. I remember only being able to log onto Tumblr when we had computer lab or got to use and take home our school’s iPads. Lol since I was way more shy back then, my friend ended up writing my first post saying hi and asking others to follow me and recommending me some blogs . My friend and I were really into 1D back then so I remember most of the blogs I followed back then were blogs about 1D, polyvore outfits, outfit mood boards, London, Paris/ traveling and quotes. Lol I remember Zayn being my favorite 1D member followed by Liam (before Liam shaved his hair lol; my friend and I were shook 😶 ) I remember Zayn being my favorite due to his introverted and shy yet playful personality. Wow a lot of time sure has passed since then. But, I guess some things never change though because traveling is still one of the things on my bucket list, I still hold this unexplainable yearning and wanderlust for visiting Europe (especially France and Italy),and also still am very fond of poetry, book quotes,  moodboards, and listening to 1D throwback songs from time to time with my friends✨ 💛.

February 2013:

Aw I think this is when The Perks of Being a Wallflower had come out. I remember being really excited to see how the movie had turned out since The Perks of Being a Wallflower was one of my favorite books at the time and held (and still does) a special meaning for me. Haha I remember ‘falling in love’ with Logan Lerman, wishing I could meet my own “Charlie” / Logan Lerman lol. Lol I remember wishing to be able to meet a some-what shy, dorky/ funny and thoughtful guy whom I could be awkward, silly and care-free with and share songs with haha. I also remember falling in love with the ost of the movie. To this day, Heroes by David Bowie aka the tunnel song is one of my favorite songs (as well as Come On Eileen and more favorite songs which just keep on accumulating ;-;) (I also remember wanting to have my own living room routine dance with someone.  Lol if anyone has read this far and gets this reference, I appreciate you 💝 )

Some extra notes (thoughts):📔✨

From looking at some of those posts I also realized that some things haven’t change like my love for strawberries lol, my love for city views, and my love for cozy, fluffy sweaters and cardigans (sweater weather).    🍓🌃  🧥

 I also still enjoy listening to some songs from The Beatles and really old songs in general.🎶

I no longer want to find a “Charlie”; I just want a thoughtful, kind, and funny guy who can be both quirky/ silly and serious depending on the situation, as well as hardworking, honest about his thoughts (is able to open up to me about his thoughts, feelings, worries so that I can do the same and so that we can both find comfort in one another and not second-guess one another) and a good listener/ someone whom I can have random, deep or silly late night conversations with lol, go on spontaneous outings with, and whom I can just be my some-what shy, awkward, random lol , sensitive, normal self around . (Also someone who preferably loves/ enjoys  Spring and Autumn (especially Autumn) just as much as I do and who loves animals/ pets ;-;)

Spring 2013: 

      The time during which I got to watch the movie “The Art of Getting By” and time during which I really did feel a bit lost in my thoughts. (The Art of Getting By also has one of my favorite indie osts ) I remember having a lot of thoughts (‘worries’’) on what might happen after I finished middle school in May and started High school in June (It makes my heart feel warm remembering the small things my younger self used to worry about) I remember wondering about what High school was going to be like, feeling kind of anxious and scared about getting lost on the first day of classes in a bigger school compared to my small middle school. Lol I remember thinking: Would I be able to make any new friends or at least have some of my middle school friends attend the same high school as me? Would I have trouble opening my locker again? Lol my middle school self didn’t have any clue as to what was going to happen and the many things my high school self would experience and overcome. (Lol the things my middle school self used to worry about 😆 🤧  

     Thinking back,  I think that if my middle school self were to have known or been able to take a glimpse at what my high school was going to be like and known how I would have to attend classes with much older college students I think that my middle school self wouldn’t have known have to feel nor believed it and might have even felt more overwhelmed about starting high school. I don’t think my middle school self would have been able to see just how much that experience and my decision to attend my high school over the other program that had also accepted me, would allow me to not only mature a bit more and grow as a person, but also learn to take control over my anxiety (little by little) and meet and befriend some of the most kindest and dear people to me who are now my closest and dear friends. 

       Because of that I can’t help but to wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn’t decided to attend the high school that I did, met the people that I did.  If I didn’t meet my friends of now back then would I, by some chance have still been able to meet them in a different place at a different time? That’s why I’m really glad I decided to attend my high school because even though it did lead me to experience some of the most difficult and mentally draining periods in my life , I would not change my decision if I was given a chance to go back and change it. I can’t imagine my life today without my friends whom I met back then and some other special people (particularly one person) because even though they might not know it or realize it they changed me in a good way and became a  very important and precious part of my life. I’m very thankful for having been able to cross paths with  them and for them having crossed paths with me 💖 .

August 2013: 

    I’m trying to think back as to what or who hurt me to reblog those posts lol 😶(wow I was so emo; My last year of middle school was filled with angst huh ;-; ) but I can’t remember. This made me realize though that there is some truth in what some people say in that: as time passes by we learn to slowly heal, let go, and forget of the things or people who might have hurt us. Before we know it, we don’t remember any of those not so happy times or those memories just don’t hurt anymore because as time goes by we begin to make  more happy and precious memories with people and friends that make us feel warm and loved. As for embarrassing moments/ memories (we all have them ^^  lol )  I found that as time goes by those memories don’t feel as embarrassing anymore but rather funny making me feel fond of those moments and smile at how funny and precious those moments actually were. So, if any of you reading this also have some not so nice memories just know that with time, and as you slowly learn to let go of them and spend more time making more happy memories rather than dwelling on those not so pleasant memories,  those not so pleasant memories will slowly heal and scatter away. As for those embarrassing memories, they will slowly blossom into something precious you might fondly look back on one day and laugh at 😆  (which is one of the best feelings).

September 2013: 

     My first full month attending  my high school (AHS) lol. I remember I had gone on a trip with my family early that summer so I wasn’t able to attend the summer bridge program that my high school organized for freshmen students. Since I didn’t go to the summer program, I couldn’t help but feel  nervous and a bit lost on the first day of classes because I didn’t know which homeroom class (cohort)  I was supposed to be in. I also didn’t know any of the teachers or anyone in my class because my childhood friend (Em) got placed in a different class. Apart from her there were only 2 other people from my middle school that were also accepted into my high school, but I wasn’t close with them/ didn’t know them that well.  I remember feeling very anxious and shy when I walked into my class, especially when I saw that most of my classmates had already become a bit more close with one another over the summer. I felt  so small and was way more shy back then. But I ended up worrying for nothing because my first day of high school ended up being very nice. 

      Even though I didn’t know anyone in my class, everyone was nice and ended up making me feel more comfortable. I will always feel thankful to my friend Amber because she was one of the first people in my class who talked to me and helped introduce me to some of the friends she had already made in the class . Because of her, I was able to make some other high school friends in my class who were all also nice and friendly and made me feel comfortable by starting conversations with me (if by any chance Karis and Kaylyn you are still using your tumblr blogs and read my post lol I just want to say thank you for understanding my shy personality and giving me time to open up, I will always appreciate that). I remember that after that first kind of nerve-wrecking month of school lol, I was also able to befriend my  current, close friends Darlyn, Yasmin, as well as meet my other current-close friends Erika, Frances, Trisha, and Nathaniel, who although I wasn’t really close to them back then (but was able to meet thanks to my childhood friend Emily) , have now all become precious friends of mine 💖 💛  I’m also thankful, because of those friends I was also able to meet you - a  little bit weird, dorky and kinda shy , blue shooting star like boy who I think will always have a special memory corner in my heart  just like my friends and everyone I love, despite you maybe never knowing that and that’s okay. I hope that maybe one day when we meet and actually see each other in person after many years with our group of friends, we can say hi to each other, talk, laugh, and smile normally and forget about past awkwardness.

Extra notes:📔✨

I remember wanting to be able to go to one of those old red phone booths in London, that people had turned into book trading posts/ spots where you could take some of your old books to the phone booth and exchange them for other book that other people had read. (I still kind of want to do this to be honest lol ;-;) 

Looking at my post of that blanket fort reminded me of how I always wanted to build my own blanket fort and decorate it with fairy lights and invite my friends and boyfriend to watch a movie while eating popcorn and baked pastries inside the fort lol (I still want to this too shh lol >.<)

Looking at that post of a drawing of an old and vintage record player also reminded me how I never want to get one of those old vintage record players or anything that’s an antique tbh due to so many horror/ scary movies that I have watched ;-;

That post of the mountain overlooking a crescent moon made me want to go on a road trip and camp with friends under the night sky while roasting s’mores after this pandemic subsides 🤧

October 2013: 

       I think this is when most of my friends read and or were reading the Fault in Our Stars lol since the movie was said to come out in 2014. I remember that particular quote really resonating with me and being one of my favorites from the book as well as the quotes: “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you”, “Some infinities are bigger than other infinities” and the quote I came across for which the title was ironically based on:“The Fault Dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, for that we are underlings”.🌃       

        I remember the quote:” My Thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations” really resonating with me at that time because I remember having so many thoughts and often feeling a range of emotions and sometimes feeling more deeply about some things compared to others and my friends and not knowing how to explain or express thoughts/ feelings to others in a way that made sense to them. It’s like I had so many ideas and thoughts but I often found myself holding them back because I just did not know how to get my words or thoughts across, especially during writing/ when it came to writing essays for class etc. I remember that being one of the main reasons as to why I didn’t really enjoy nor looked forward to English/ writing class despite loving to read books, and free-writing. I don’t know, I guess the teaching style of my 9th and even 10th grade English teacher and class in general, just made me feel so restricted when it came to writing about my personal thoughts/ ideas regarding a book or topic. Due to that, I kind of started to get writer’s block more often and did not enjoy writing for a while because I just personally felt that the class’ and teachers’ preferences when it came to writing about our own personal ideas and thoughts made writing feel less free, authentic, and fun and instead made writing feel more forced and restrictive.It also at some point made me feel discouraged to try to express my thoughts and opinions about a book/ topic through writing due to those teachers not allowing me or others more time and freedom to gather and express our thoughts so that they could understand them/ try to see them from a different point of view. But it’s okay, that did not stop my love to free-writing during my own time and my love to want to capture some moments, feelings and thoughts in writing. Overtime, I found that academic writing will always in some sense feel more restrictive and forced,  but that does not mean that all English professors are the same, and will make writing and reading feel restrictive because I really enjoyed my English college classes during 11th and 12th grade. My English professor during that time allowed us to be more free with our writing, opinions, and thoughts while still helping us improve our writing skills.

     During 2013 I also remember still feeling scared and anxious to share my personal opinions and thoughts on topics a lot more during conversations with my close friends or simply during class participation in fear that I might say something wrong, not know how to explain myself in front of a bigger group of people , and that others might laugh at me for that, due to not so nice past experiences. But thanks to my friends’ understanding nature, empathy, and encouragement,  I slowly started to gain more courage, feel more confident, and slowly but surely began to open up to them a lot more about my inner thoughts, random and quirky thoughts lol, worries, and rants haha and vice versa- they opened up to me more too which allowed all of us to find comfort  within one another and I’m very thankful  and will always be thankful for that💖  💝

 Another quote that I remember being very fond of was the quote: “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you” because it’s true. We don’t really get to choose if we get hurt or don’t get hurt, but we do have some say and or power in deciding who we allow to hurt us or keep on hurting us. We have the ability to change and leave  a situation/ place/ etc that keeps hurting us and or making us unhappy.

   Another quote that I remember being very fond of was the quote: “ Some infinities are bigger than other infinities”. I remember finding this quote comforting in  the sense that although maybe my time spent with a family member, group of friends, crush, or significant other might one day come to an end and or turn out to be a smaller infinity due to certain life circumstances, my smaller infinity with them will still have been very precious and felt like a bigger infinity to me that will never cease to end in my memories. That quote was also comforting in a sense that it led me realize that although our time with someone whom we care about and love might be a smaller infinity during a certain point in our lives, we could come across that someone once again during a different point in our lives (future) and find that all that time our time with that someone was actually one of those bigger infinities made up of smaller infinities. 

        🌌 ⌛️💫

      The last quote related to the Fault in Our Stars that I remember being very fond of is: “The Fault Dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, for that we are underlings”. I remember liking this quote because I remember thinking about how often times, our first instinct as human beings, when something terrible happens to us or something does not go the way we had hoped, some people  tend to blame forces that are bigger than us and or that are out of our control. Or sometimes we tend to hold ourselves back from doing something that we love and  trying new things, in fear of failing, something going wrong, not being able to do things at the same pace as other, fearing change, or just simply comparing ourselves to others which in turn ends up making us feel like “underlings”, when it shouldn’t have to be like that. Overall, that quote led me to think about how often our worst enemy and or greatest critic is our own self. But, we can all be like the stars and feel bright, when we begin to allow ourselves to not just love and care for others, but also slowly but surely, love and care about ourselves as well which is not easy but not impossible ,and surround ourselves with people and things that make us feel loved, happy, and motivated and not allowing others to continue to hurt us with their invalid assumptions and criticism.

Wow, who would’ve known that The Fault in our stars would have a big impact on mine and my friends’  perspectives during that time haha ;-;

Extra notes:📔✨

After looking at the quote “I want to sleep for 2 years and wake up with a degree, an apartment, and money in the bank”my high school self had reblogged,  I started to think about how sad and boring that would have been If I had been asleep and missed out on 2 years of my life and just magically woke up with a degree, an apartment, and money and not actually lived through those experiences and small achievements, as well as miss out on all the memories that I would have made with my friends and family during that time. Although some of these past years during my journey in obtaining my degree and becoming more stable and independent have been hard, exhausting and sad at times, there have also been so many happy and fun moments with my friends and family that have made up for those bittersweet ones and so I think it would be sad to live without knowing about those moments and memories. 

Ah the song “Sweater Weather” lol; I remember me and my friends Emily, Amber, Darlyn, Kaylyn, and Michelle really liking the song when it came out lol. I remember thinking it was such a perfect/ cliche song to listen to during a chilly, crisp Autumn day lol. I haven’t listened to the song since high school but I think I might add it to my rainy day/ Autumn throwback songs playlist lol ^^

November 2013: 

      For some reason, what I remember the most from November of 2013  is that my Envirothon group met together for the first time with other high school groups representing their school in the Maryland envirothon at Camp Schmidt lol aw wow I can’t believe that happened so long ago. I remember my biology high school teacher (Mr.Cordon) selecting my friend Darlyn, Amber, along with a few others from our freshmen year,  and a tenth grade group and me as the two groups to represent our school.  Omg lol I remember being assigned to represent and lead the Wildlife portion of the competition and my friend Amber being in charge of the soil  and environment portion while my friend Darlyn being put in charge of the nature/ tree information section despite her being allergic to various types of trees. I feel really sorry about that to this day because what if she had gotten a really bad allergic reaction. I still don’t know to this day how or why  Mr. Cordon decided that  😭 😭

It felt kind of nice though to get away from our Campus  for a while and being surrounded by so much nature and fresh  breeze :)   

Extra notes:📔✨

Looking back at these posts also makes me realize how some other things about me and some of my preferences haven’t changed. I still  do quite enjoy rainy days, especially those rainy days where I don’t have any important things to do and I can just stay inside while listening to the rain outside and watching movies from the comfort of my room lol or taking short walks in the rain. 

I also still have this appreciation for black and white photographs; Like I mentioned in another post of mine, I just think that black and white and grainy photos have this unique mood and just give this very soft, nostalgic feeling when you look at them.

I also still love acoustic songs and guitar covers of songs and scenery photos of different places 

I also still love the look of busy cities like Paris, New York, London, etc when they are completely covered in snow and only the twinkling lights from buildings can be seen; Idk I just like the soft and subdued feeling snow gives to those busy cities :)

I miss being able to learn a new language; I’ve been thinking about starting to  teach myself the basics of a new language over this summer break lol but I’m not sure where to start or which language to pick ;-; 🤔 So far I’ve been thinking about learning either French or Korean but we’ll see lol; If I do decide to start learning, my goal is to just at least get to just 1 level above beginner’s level 🤧

Okay I’ll stop here for today and do this again with of my other posts another day ^^.