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persephone-plasmids · 3 years

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Debriefing

Deacon and Sole fanfic.

[AO3]

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

Debriefing

Deacon and Sole walked in complete silence through the abandoned Nuka-World park. Not because they were worried they’d attract the attention of ferals, but because neither of them seemed to be mature enough to address the incredible kiss they’d both just shared. Of course, nearly having Sole kill him when she got poisoned by HalluciGen and meeting a super dramatic Ghoul named Oswald had also distracted them. But Deacon was fairly certain the kiss was the real reason for the silent treatment he was currently getting.

I shouldn’t have done it, Deacon thought to himself. Although even as he thought this, his mind replayed the sensation of Sole’s lips against his and he felt his cheeks flush.

Sole was walking ever-so-slightly ahead of him, her hips swaying back and forth in a way that Deacon tried to ignore.

Right. He needed to fix this. To get things back to normal.

“Hey Charmer, did I ever tell you about the time I went undercover as Magnolia for an entire week?”

Sole slowed her pace a bit so that Deacon could fall in step beside her. “Go on,” she said, raising an eyebrow with an amused look in her eye.

“I did the whole shebang. Donned the red dress, wore a black wig, sang all the songs.”

“Flirted with the patrons?” She asked.

“That was my favorite part,” Deacon said. “You wouldn't believe how many free drinks I got that week. It’s amazing what people will do for a pretty face.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Sole’s lips, but the action just brought Deacon’s attention right back to the very area he was trying to forget.

He cleared his throat nervously before continuing. “I'll tell you, though. I’m not a fan of shaving my legs. I could never quite get that little area behind my knee.”

At this, Sole snorted, trying to suppress her laugh and failing miserably. “How do you even come up with these ridiculous lies?”

She still wasn’t looking at him, but he preferred it that way. If she wasn’t looking at him, then they weren’t in danger of suddenly kissing each other.

“Who says that’s a lie?” Deacon asked, his voice easily slipping back into its smooth unconcerned cadence.

“Literally anyone who’s ever met you,” she said, looking down at the ground as they walked. “I can read you most of the time. But I’m finding it harder and harder these days.”

“Oh?” Deacon asked.

He wanted to know what she’d meant by that, but he never did get his answer. Instead, he heard the familiar clomp, clomp, clomp of power armor approaching them. Deacon rolled his eyes at the Paladin’s lack of subtlety and Sole moved a bit further away from Deacon.

The motion would have been almost imperceptible to anyone but him. But it still gave him complicated feelings. Was he hurt that she didn’t want to be seen being this familiar with him? Or did it give him hope that she was feeling that same connection to him, even if she was trying to ignore it.

“Soldier,” Danse said, nodding to Sole before turning to Deacon. “Liar.”

“Ouch,” Deacon said, placing a hand over his heart and stumbling back a few paces dramatically. “Shots fired, Paladin. Right out the gate too.”

“Told you everyone knows you’re a liar,” Sole said under her breath, grinning as she looked at Danse.

MacCready appeared suddenly beside Danse, out of breath and wiping blood from his hands. “There’s a serious Bloodworm infestation here. I think we should get out of Dry Rock Gulch. It’s not worth the effort.”

“That’s just as well,” Sole said. “The Synth isn’t in Nuka-World. They’ve already made it out of The Commonwealth.”

“Is that so?” Danse asked. “Outstanding!”

“Bingo!” Deacon shouted.

Everyone stopped and turned to look at him in confusion.

“Danse said ‘outstanding’. That’s the last square I needed on my boy scout bingo card.”

No one said anything. Instead, Sole’s cheeks immediately flushed a dark shade of scarlet as her eyes grew as wide as saucers. She stared at Deacon in horror and had she not immediately looked away from him again, he would have thought there was a Deathclaw behind him.

Danse cleared his throat uncomfortably before Sole began loudly speaking. “So, I think we’re all done here. The Synth is safe and we’re all alive. Let’s head out.”

Sole’s voice sounded unnatural. And the way Danse turned away from Deacon with a stronger look of annoyance on his face than normal, told him that something was wrong.

As Sole and Danse began walking away, Mac sidled up beside Deacon and said in a low voice, “Not really your color, is it?” Before snickering and joining Sole and the tin can.

Deacon brought his hand up to his lips. When he pulled them away, he could see that they were stained with Sole’s red lipstick.

“Perfect,” he groaned.

--------

Things back at Railroad HQ had been normal when Sole and Deacon returned to report to Desdamona. Painfully normal. The kind of normal you got when you were trying too hard to make things seem normal. Sole was still avoiding eye contact with Deacon, but when she thought he wasn’t looking, he’d catch her staring.

Again, his sunglasses proved beneficial for more than just his Railroad missions.

“Thank you both for your continued efforts on behalf of The Railroad,” Desdemona said, after they’d given her the news concerning the Synth in Nuka-World. “Charmer, you’re getting much more efficient in your debriefings.”

“Charmer can debrief me any time,” Deacon said, giving her finger guns as Sole just shook her head in exasperation.

“Deacon, do I need to refresh your memory on the no fraternization rule?” Desdamona asked.

“Oh come on, that was funny,” Deacon insisted.

“Deacon?” Desdamona was still waiting for him to answer.

“No Des. I’ll do my best to shield your ears from my incredible wit. But just know you’ll be missing out.”

“I think I’ll survive,” Des said shortly. “You’re both dismissed.”

And with that, the imposing woman walked away.

“Sheesh, tough crowd,” Deacon said, pulling on the collar of his white shirt for effect as he smiled over at Sole.

“I mean… she is right though,” Sole said, looking down at her hands instead of at Deacon. “We probably shouldn’t joke about stuff like that.”

“Are you… we joke about that kind of stuff all the time,” Deacon said incredulously. “I mean… if it makes you uncomfortable of course I’ll stop. I just… thought that was sort of our thing.”

Deacon could feel his cheeks heating up as he desperately tried to save the situation. If Sole was uncomfortable with their joking, it was news to him. She was usually the one to start the innuendos. But he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

The kiss may have tarnished their friendship a bit, mostly because it made it impossible for Deacon to keep lying to himself about his feelings. But he didn’t want it to completely ruin what they already had.

“I just… don’t want people to talk,” Sole said simply, still looking down at her hands.

“Yeah, of course, Boss. Whatever you say,” Deacon answered, rubbing the back of his neck before trying to assume a nonchalant posture. “Just trying to keep things light. I’ll resort to the old failsafes instead. You know… the nuclear apocalypse… the hopelessness of our existence… Danse’s extensive grooming routine.”

Sole almost smiled at this last bit. He could tell from the way her jaw tensed. But instead of smiling she just nodded. “Thanks, Deeks.”

Without another word, Sole gave Deacon a curt smile, turned on her heel, and walked away, leaving him totally and utterly confused about where they stood.

Idiot, he thought. Did I seriously think I could kiss Sole without things getting weird? Do I really want to throw away my closest friendship just because I… what? Feel something for her? Big deal. I feel something for Fancy Lad Snack Cakes and I’m not making moves on them.

Deacon refrained from letting out the gigantic sigh that had settled in his chest, not wanting to draw attention to himself. Instead, he ducked into the escape tunnel and out the back door into the small underground room just beyond the main section of Railroad HQ.

Pulling out a cigarette, Deacon nearly jumped out of his skin when Sole lit a match beside him.

“Geez! Are you kidding me?” Deacon whisper-shouted at her, jumping back against the wall and hitting his head in the process.

He dropped his unlit cigarette to the ground and rubbed the back of his head where it had made contact with the bricks.

“I thought you were always aware of your surroundings.”

“And I thought you were a baby Deathclaw about to drag me off to mommy like a bleeding morbid trophy,” he said, still whisper-shouting. “Why are you back here, Sole?”

“I needed some alone time,” she said, her face slightly amused as she watched him come down from his scare. “And then you just followed right behind me.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Deacon said. “I didn’t even see you come back here. Trust me, I don’t go around looking for humiliation more than once a day.”

“Excuse me?” Sole asked, her eyes narrowing at his words.

Deacon swallowed, realizing he was being too honest again. He didn’t want her to know he was hurt. Hell, he didn’t even want her to know he had actual feelings for her.

“I mean… I have gone looking for humiliation in the past,” he began, trying to think up a lie funny enough to distract Sole from his honesty. “Like this one time--.”

“Deacon, stop,” Sole said, shaking her head. “Sorry, I just… I can’t do this.”

“Yep, no problem,” Deacon said automatically, without really knowing what she was talking about specifically.

Odds were, he probably didn’t want to know. He’d made a point of detaching himself from the people around him. It was a necessity in The Railroad. But it had also been crucial for his survival after Barbara. Sole broke down that resolve and made him feel out of control in a way that he both loved and hated.

Sole turned to leave but stopped herself and instead faced Deacon once more, looking at the ground with a deep sigh.

“I’m just going to say it, okay?” she began, now looking up to meet his eyes before frowning. “Geez, Deeks, will you please take those sunglasses off so I can actually see you?”

Panic.

He needed his sunglasses. Otherwise Sole might find out just what a terrible bluffer he actually was.

“You know what? Never mind. This might actually be easier if I can’t see you.”

Her words were doing nothing to comfort him and he was desperately trying to quell the mild panic attack that was rising in his chest. “Sole, if I’m dying, you really need to just rip off the bandaid and tell me.”

He grinned at her, but they both knew it was a facade to mask his panic.

“I appreciate you telling me about Barbara. That took a lot of trust to open up to me about her.”

Well this wasn’t looking good.

“And I felt instantly connected to you because of it. We… we both knew what it was like to experience loss.” Sole frowned but pushed through it. “And honestly, after everything with Nate, I didn’t think I’d ever… feel anything for someone again.”

Deacon had to stop this conversation. He’d made her uncomfortable. And he hated himself for that.

“You don’t need to say anything else, Boss. I got it loud and clear,” Deacon said.

But Sole wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.

“I don’t think you do,” Sole said. “I get that you flirt. It’s what you do. And it was always fine with me but… I can’t keep putting myself out there just to find out that this whole thing is a big joke to you. I’m not like that. It… it hurts too much.”

Deacon’s heart twisted inside of him. Had he misunderstood this situation completely? There was no way. Because as much as he’d dreamed about Sole reciprocating his feelings, he never thought it would actually happen.

Deacon had been a bigot back in his youth. Someone had died. He’d been a violent man. Sure he’d changed, but there was no way someone as good as Sole would be able to look completely past that. She may say his past wasn’t important, but she was just being polite. That’s who Sole was.

There was no way she could ever truly forgive him. He knew that. And he didn’t think he’d deserve that kind of forgiveness even if she did offer it.

“I respect you too much to break up our team, because we really do work well together… I just need the flirting to stop,” Sole said, looking down at her hands again as she twisted them together. “I want… I want you, Deacon. And it’s fine that I can’t have you. Really. I can learn to live with that. I’m a big girl. But… I’m not good at differentiating your joking with what’s real. I never have been. You know that.”

Deacon was staring at Sole now with the most shocked expression he’d ever worn.

She was saying that she had feelings for him. Wasn’t she?

Of course, he could just ask her for clarification, but that went against every instinct inside of him that was screaming at him to make a joke.

He realized a bit too late that he had been staring at her in silence for quite a while. She looked up at him uncomfortably with a wince. “So… are we good?” she asked. “Even though… you know… I just told you I have a crush on you like some five-year-old on the playground?”

There it was. The confirmation.

Deacon’s mouth might have actually dropped open in shock. He wasn’t sure.

“Okay, well… this has been sufficiently awkward. But I said what I needed to say. So…” she gave him a soft awkward slug on the shoulder. “Good talk, Sport.”

She instantly shook her head in embarrassment at her own words.

“Yeah, I’m going to leave now,” she mumbled, ducking her head down and turning to walk away.

“Wait, hold up just a minute,” Deacon said, finally regaining control of his brain. At least partially.

Sole turned around slowly and reluctantly.

“I swear if you make fun of me for this, Deeks, I will fill your pillowcase with cayenne pepper while you sleep.”

“Whoa,” he said, raising his hands up in surrender. “That escalated way faster than it probably should have.”

Deacon reached down and hesitantly took Sole’s hand in his own.

“I just… are you actually saying you have feelings for me?” Deacon asked.

Sole’s cheeks flushed at his straightforward words. Deacon was never straightforward. Except for the time he’d told Sole about Barbara.

“Seriously, Deacon? You’re going to make me say it again?”

“You feel things for me?” Deacon repeated, trying to rephrase his question so that there was no confusion. He wasn’t doing a great job. “Not like the way Danse has feelings for his power armor, right?”

“I mean, I’ve seen the way he looks at his power armor. So, maybe,” Sole said, that ghost of a smile returning to her lips. “Seriously, can I go now? I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this humiliated. This is worse than the dream where I show up to school naked.”

Deacon’s eyes grew wide behind his sunglasses at this statement. “Okay, well I’d definitely like to hear more about that in a minute,” Deacon began. “But I just… I feel like I need to be absolutely certain. You, the perfect, beautiful, compassionate, smart, brave, sexy, savior of The Commonwealth, have romantic feelings towards a former-bigot, current-man-child, broken, immature, and hopelessly lost human?”

Realization seemed to dawn on Sole in that moment. At his words she could see the insecurity dripping off of him, cleverly disguised by jokes and a devil-may-care attitude.

He felt the shift between them. Felt the way she squeezed his hand with confidence now, knowing that his flirting wasn’t a joke. That his casual contact wasn’t all that casual.

“Well… the jury’s still out on whether or not you’re a human or a synth,” she whispered with a grin. “I still haven’t tried your recall code on you.”

With that, Sole pressed her lips to Deacon’s. He hadn’t kissed Sole many times, so he didn’t have much to compare it to, but this kiss definitely felt different. Her hesitation was gone. Her lips were confident as they moved over his, and he smiled at her touch.

“Can we go back to that whole, dream business you were talking about a second ago?” Deacon asked, but Sole instantly silenced him with another kiss, which he was just fine with.

Her hands roamed slowly up his chest, as if she were taking her time to enjoy the moment. Goosebumps erupted all over his skin at her touch.

As she gently bit his bottom lip, something he definitely hadn’t expected from her, he couldn’t stop himself from being too aware of their surroundings. He wanted to melt into the kiss. He wanted to thoroughly enjoy this moment. There weren’t any more questions between them. They both understood each other finally.

But they were also in Railroad HQ. Anti-fraternization Zone Number 1. They may have been in the escape tunnel, but agents regularly used it as an overflow for the headquarters.

“Hey,” Deacon said, pulling away from Sole regretfully. Confusion lined her features. “So… I want this. You have absolutely no idea how much,” he began. “But… we’re not really in the best place for… grown up bonding time.”

Sole smiled up at him. “Doesn’t that sort of make it more exciting?” she asked.

What? Where had this Sole come from?

Not waiting for his response, she kissed him again, harder this time. He tried to exercise restraint.

He failed.

Instead, he pushed Sole up against the wall, parting her lips with his tongue and pressing his body against hers. Every fiber of his being burned to be even closer to her, but even with this bold new Sole that stood before him, he knew she wasn’t that type. She’d want to take things somewhat slow. And he was fine with that.

Besides, after years of being completely touch-starved, any contact was like a revelation for Deacon.

His hands found her waist, softly kneading the smooth skin there as his mouth moved against hers. She made a little noise that encouraged him further, prompting him to trail his kisses down to her collarbone instead.

She grabbed his hair in a slightly painful manner, but he didn’t mind. Instead, he focused on the very important work he was doing on her neck while her hands pulled him more firmly against her.

“Deeks,” she said breathlessly, though he hardly heard her. His lips were too preoccupied with just how perfect her neck seemed to be. How had he not noticed before? “Dea-con,” she said again, still just as breathless.

This time he heard her. And he loved the way his name sounded when she was the one saying it. The way her breath hitched at the end of the first syllable when he’d nipped at her neck. That desperate quality to her voice.

“Mmm?” he mumbled, now slowly moving his lips back towards hers.

“You…” but her words were cut off by another kiss. “Said we should be careful here?” she finally managed, between kisses. “About Des?”

This was more like the reserved Sole he knew. But he was enjoying himself too much. He was finally kissing her. Really kissing her. Not just for fun. Not as part of a ruse for a mission. Not in some psychotic funhouse where he wasn’t sure if she really wanted to or if it was just some weird trick of the drugs in Kiddie Kingdom.

Being able to touch someone after so long was like an oasis in a desert. And she saw him. Really saw him. That was normally the last thing he wanted from someone. But it was all he wanted with Sole.

“Screw it,” Sole said between another kiss before she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him harder against her body, shuddering as they crashed together.

“I already told you, I left a backup in the escape tunnel,” Tinker Tom said from somewhere near the room’s entrance. “Now if y’all would give me two seconds, I could actually go get it.”

Sole instantly broke the kiss, looking wide-eyed at Deacon in a panic. He pressed a finger against her lips and grabbed her hand. Without a word, Deacon pulled her towards the exit at the far end of the room. It would lead them out into the cool night air of The Commonwealth.

As he held her hand and pulled her behind him, he couldn’t stop the embarrassing little smile that broke across his face. He heard Sole giggle behind him and it only added to the pure unadulterated joy that was beginning to permeate his very being.

She saw him. She saw all of him. And she still wanted him.

------

Note: This fic makes me seem like I don’t like Danse. I actually love him! I just like to make fun of him :)

Also, if you enjoy my writing, I’m an author IRL. I’ve got 13 published books, but my favorite is Parrish. You should check it out if you like ghosts and love stories between weirdos.

#fo4 #fallout #fallout 4 #fanfic #fallout fanfic #fallout 4 fanfic #deacon x sole #deacon x sole survivor #deacon fanfic #fallout deacon #fallout deacon fanfic

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little-mad · 3 years

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Downsides of Thievery Pt. 1

~ Next Part ~

“Maybe stealing from an interdimensional diplomat wasn’t my greatest idea,” Gavin thought to himself from his current position in a jail cell.

He’d been hesitant about the job right away. Stealing from humans was one thing, but stealing from alteons was on a whole new level. However, the payment the client had offered Gavin had been too tantalizing to refuse. Who knew it was bad to be greedy?

“Shit,” he grumbled under his breath. How was he supposed to know the diplomat would have some weird magical artifact thing that could detect and identify trespassers? That was just unfair. Gavin was a good thief, so good that he’d managed to make a career out of it. If he had been caught due to his own ineptitude maybe he wouldn’t be so peeved. But this was just a matter of not having enough information. Thus making it unfair.

Prison was something every criminal feared, but it was also something every criminal prepared for in some sense. If Gavin was headed for prison, he might not be so worried. Sure it would suck, but at least he felt sure his undeniable charms would make him friends in no time. But Gavin wasn’t headed for prison--no, he was being extradited to the alteon dimension.

Gavin shivered at the thought. Despite having stolen from one, he had never actually seen an alteon in person. Pictures and videos could only do so much, at least that’s what people said. Apparently the true gravity of an alteon’s massive size couldn’t be understood until you saw one in real life.

Not only would Gavin quite literally be put in the hands of an alteon, but he would also be getting taken to a completely different dimension that only a few very important humans had ever visited before. Maybe he should’ve felt special.

Were the circumstances different, Gavin might’ve even felt excited for the adventure. His work had taken him all over the world, it would be thrilling to get to see a whole new one. However, he had a feeling he wouldn’t exactly be getting the grand tour.

It was at that moment that Gavin began to hear footsteps approaching his cell. A few moments later, two business-suit clad federal agents appeared. Gavin scrambled to his feet and took several unconscious steps towards the back wall. The key jangling in one of the agents’ hands told him exactly what time it was.

“Your ride is here,” the female agent announced, a slight smirk playing at the corner of her lips.

Gavin scowled.

The key carrying agent swiftly unlocked the door and beckoned for Gavin to exit the cell. “Come on, we don’t have all day,” he stated impatiently.

“Aren’t you going to cuff me or something?” Gavin questioned, taking note of the fact that neither agent had brought handcuffs with them.

The woman’s smirk grew but she remained silent. “The alteon won’t need cuffs to restrain you,” the man responded.

Gavin instantly felt the pit of fear in his stomach grow. Horrible images of himself trapped in gigantic hands were invading his mind. Being given over to the alteons meant that his civil rights would be essentially irrelevant. Unless alteons had laws protecting humans, which he doubted, then they could do pretty much whatever they wanted with him. Gavin swallowed hard.

“A-actually, I’m okay staying here…” he stammered. God, he hated how pathetic he sounded. Gavin’s line of work required a lot of guts, and while a healthy dose of caution was always good, he had never considered himself to be cowardly in any sense of the word. But now...well now he felt like the biggest fraidy cat in the whole world.

The male agent gave Gavin what almost seemed like a sympathetic look. “Sorry, but that’s not an option,” he said, once again making a beckoning motion with his hand.

“Dad was right. I should’ve become a doctor,” Gavin thought miserably to himself as he very reluctantly exited his cell.

The trip up from the cell block to the roof of the building pretty much felt like a march to death. Federal employees stared unabashedly at the man practically being sacrificed to giants. Some wore looks of pity, while others had smug expressions on their faces, as if to say “serves him right.” Were Gavin in a better mood he probably would have scowled at the nosy jerks, or at least stuck his tongue out at them. But as things were, he was in no mood.

Rael sighed as he shifted his feet impatiently. It didn’t elude him that every human in the vicinity stiffened at his movement. He refrained from rolling his eyes. It was irritating how the humans constantly acted so skittish all the time, as if he would suddenly go on some sort of rampage.

“Why did they have to give me this assignment?” Rael mentally groaned.

Unlike many of the members of the Imperial Guard, he hadn’t joined with some idiotic fantasy of glorious duels and honorable battlescars. Rael joined because he knew it was the easiest way to elevate his station. Plus standing guard at the palace was easy work that he was perfectly content with. That’s why he had been less than pleased when he'd been informed he would have to venture to the human dimension to retrieve some human criminal.

Prior to today, Rael had only seen a human once, it had been from a distance and only for a second as they were being escorted into the palace. Therefore, he’d had no personal reason to dislike humans. It was just that from everything he had heard about them, they sounded so...annoying. And so far, his experiences with them today had proven that to be fairly accurate.

Rael suppressed a sigh as he glanced around. Thankfully the building he’d been told to go to was at the edge of a human city, meaning he wouldn’t have to put up with civilians gawking at him. The federal agents gathered on the roof in front of him were bad enough.

The stories about how giant being in the human realm would make you feel rang true. Rael felt positively colossal next to people who looked to be barely taller than his fingers. Not to mention the building he was standing beside, which appeared to be three stories, reached no higher than his knees. “Humans are lucky our imperialistic urges died a century ago,” Rael thought. Taking over the human realm would no doubt be a piece of cake, even with their supposed technological advancements.

“Sir!” Rael’s attention was caught by the shout of one of the humans standing on the roof below. He looked down to see the speaker was the woman who appeared to be in charge. “We apologize for the wait, the prisoner is being brought up now,” she announced. It was almost amusing, the way they had to yell for their tiny voices to even be perceived by him.

“Good,” Rael responded simply, electing not to mention the fact that the prisoner should’ve been ready and waiting for him when he arrived.

After a few minutes, Rael caught sight of the door on the roof entrance swing open. Three humans stepped out. The two dressed similarly to all the other federal agents practically had to drag the third one out. It was difficult for Rael to see from so far away, but the odd one out appeared to be a young man. He had light skin, a crop of messy brown hair, and appeared to be quite slim.

Rael raised a single eyebrow. “This is the prisoner?” he questioned as he eyed the man. He didn’t look like much, which was applicable to pretty much all humans, but Rael found it hard to believe that this one could’ve successfully stolen from an alteon.

“Yes, sir!” replied the woman in charge. “His name is Gavin Stone, he’s believed to be associated with many high profile robberies,” she explained.

Rael spared the human called “Gavin Stone” one last look before giving a shrug and reaching for the miniature iron cage attached to his belt.

The cage, which had been especially made for this occasion, was quite simple in its construction. The thing didn’t even have a lock because the latch to open the door was too big for a human’s miniscule hands to manage. It would do perfectly for keeping the criminal contained throughout the duration of the trip back to the palace.

The moment Gavin had laid eyes on the alteon, his body had practically separated from his mind. Physically, he was moving forward with the guidance of his two escorts, but his mind was still struggling to process the impossibly large person looming above him.

If the alteon’s size wasn’t strange enough, the guy looked like he’d stepped right out of a Renaissance Fair or something. His skin was a soft brown color, and he had long black hair that was tied into a loose ponytail behind him. His eyes were a striking teal color that stood out against his angular features. As for his clothing, he looked to be wearing what appeared to be some kind of light leather armor over top of a forest green tunic. Oh yeah, and then there was the fact that he had pointy elf ears.

Gavin had known the alteon dimension was almost medieval in nature, and he’d known the alteons had pointy ears, but it was still so damn bizarre to see in person.

As Gavin was in the middle of gaping, the giant began to move. He flinched at the action, and he noticed everyone else on the rooftop tense up as well. Clearly nobody was comfortable around this--this thing! “How can they hand me over to that?!”

It wasn’t until he had been practically shoved to the edge of the roof that Gavin’s brain caught up with what his body had been doing. Frantically he looked around him. All of the agents, including his former escorts, had backed away from the edge of the building closest to the alteon. This left Gavin stranded, with a giant man a mere few feet away.

With a hard gulp, Gavin tilted his head back to look up at the creature who was about to snatch him away. Those teal eyes were glancing down at him, and in his hand was a cage the perfect size for holding a stupid human who really should’ve just become a damn doctor.

#so yeah...i've got some new ocs #get ready for some juicy fearplay in this sucker #g/t #giant/tiny #g/t writing #g/t story #g/t community #my writing #oc: Gavin Stone #oc: Rael #g/t fearplay

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sebbybooks · 3 years

Text

Wreck My Daydream

Part Two

Sebastian Stan x Fanfiction

18+

Tagged🎄

@wayward-mikaelson

Cataglottism

(n.) kissing with tongue

I’m already wet and Sebastian barely even touched me.

I hardly gave myself a moment to be ashamed or even stir in the crass words I was using even if I had only thought them. Like a diary I suppose there was no need to lie to myself considering it was one hundred percent true. I, Nellie Lennox, was unabashedly met with unending desires that washed away my trepidations that led up to this moment.

In its place I felt this newfound sense of possibilities that I wasn’t actually making an ass out of myself with my sudden confession of feelings for Sebastian. In my defense I didn’t just wake up one morning after having some epiphany as to why I wanted to be with him. The thought of us together made itself at home in the back of my mind.

Almost like a what if. . .

However, I couldn’t help but be terrified of all the ways it could go wrong. What if I had made things weird between us forcing us apart? Life would be a bitter existence if Sebastian wasn’t around in some capacity. For the longest time I tried to find him in different relationships. It is a messed up philosophy, but it almost worked. Whenever things would get too serious it nearly terrified me. I was their someday and they were my maybe. I owed this last relationship that is still so freshly cut more than that.

I owed myself that.

On the unique and rare chance I somehow got lost in a very realistic maladaptive daydream, I’m pretty certain Sebastian wants this too. Just thinking about what he had told me seconds ago made my heartbeat drum to a dizzy rhythm. Imagining myself getting fucked to the beat of it was a completely different type of sensation.

Retraining my focus on the now I could see it in Sebastian’s face all the wheels going around in his head. Confusion? Uncertainty? Regret?

“You don’t get to do that.” I tell him. I felt like I was going to climb out of my own skin if he left me suspended in the silence for a second longer. Sebastian tipped his face closer to mine, our lips gingerly brushing against each other. Perhaps he was feeling ambivalent in regards of his feelings for me? After all this was sprung on him in the middle of the night.

Sebastian shook his head as if he was at war with himself. “I want to.” His voice was strained and dangerously low, like something was causing him utter misery being this close, yet not knowing exactly when to pull away.

“Then why don’t you.” I dared him.

I was growing impatient with this slow burn we had somehow started. I wanted to play with this fire. If I got burned in the end by his touch then so be it. At least I would forever be marked with a reminder of knowing that I at least went after something I wanted with no apology. I wanted to see how far he was willingly to go.

Sebastian removed his hand from the security of being wrapped around me. I feigned a disappointed sigh at the lack of contact. My entire body must have been on autopilot , because I didn’t recognize the position I was in. I practically sat in his lap with one leg wrapped around him and the other one mindlessly dangling over the bed. Of course the mind reader that Sebastian was naturally grabbed ahold of the side of my thigh and wrapped it around his back.

It wasn’t like I was naive to sex or never had my fair share of romantic conquest. Regardless of my experiences I still felt like a gigantic ball of nerves. The way he stared down at me with a heated look in his eyes as if he wanted to posses every inch of me. Hell, I felt like I could come undone from that alone.

The hand that was planted on my back slowly drifted downward trailing the curve of my backside gripping my ass through my thinly silk hunter green shorts that matched the top. Earlier I had berated myself for wearing scantly clad pajamas to bed. Now I am thanking my lucky stars I opted out of the option of wearing a red Christmas onesie that had polar bears wearing scarfs around their necks. They were ones my mother insisted the whole family wear.

If I had I probably would not have been able to feel his erection that was restrained in his sweatpants. Trying to situate myself closer I rocked into him slightly, massaging myself on him. My ears didn’t miss the subtle groan Sebastian let out from the feel of my weight pressing further into him.

His silence wasn’t lost on me and he still hadn’t answered my question so I did it again. I wanted him to say something. My nervousness abated at this point. I twined my arms around his neck, grinding myself against him again and again. All the while Sebastian watched my every movement with a hint of a star struck look in his eyes. The feeling was certainly mutual I was even shocking myself at my behavior.

“Nellie,” Sebastian finally says, voice husky. He usually only ever calls me by my nickname so I was more than sure that he was not fully himself.

“I’m a big girl Sebastian I can handle whatever you need to say.” I tell him, holding in my breath.

“Alright,” he said with uncertainty. “You and me, this, it’s not a good idea.” His tone was barely audible and even more so he sounded hurt. Everything in me froze.

“And why is that?” I asked him more confused than ever. Suddenly feeling absolutely self conscious as I over analyzed every intimate word I just shared with him. I was even more horrified by the fact that I was dry humping my best friend.

He let out a darkly laugh. “It’s pretty damn obvious Nells.” Sebastian says rather ominously.

“...It’s not actually.” For someone that wants nothing out of this, Sebastian was holding on to me like an anchor and I on the other hand just wanted to get away and sink.

Admittedly, I was losing this game of tug a war. There was only so much I was willing to endure even I had my limits. “You’re giving me whiplash Sebastian .” I tell him honestly, “ I’m not like those other girls you go for that are satisfied with you just dangling yourself in front of them like a piece of cake that I can’t have. I meant what I said when I told you I didn’t say it just to hear you say the same.” My voice could only rise so high in pitch.

I definitely didn’t want to wake up the upstairs guest that would love nothing more than to recap this conversation over breakfast. Then like an unexpected bolt of lighting startling you from a distance, Sebastian kissed me.

Sebastian

I am a selfish bastard.

My mind fell quiet when I looked at her. I wanted to swim in the serenity and peacefulness that was this smart, vibrant, sexy, and uniqueness this woman possessed. I only wondered even in the darkness could Nellie see my eyes as plainly as I can see hers. If so could she see the shame reflecting in them? I could feel the nagging weight of my conscience siting on both of my shoulders, arguing back and forth over what I should and shouldn’t do. It was kind of ironic that the devil in my ear insisted that I give in to the angel in my lap.

God knows I waited for her and that I would keep waiting if I had to in this lifetime or the next. It was always going to be Nellie for me. I wanted to tell her all of this, but the longer I held on to this slice of heaven I was given during this random hour. I also knew that this moment was fleeting. I basked in the way she looked at me, the way she held on to me like I was an object of virtue. I also got a sample of what it would be like to lose her the second she began to slip away on her own accord. So, I did what any poor fool would do in my position. I kissed her.

It wasn’t exactly suave or how I imagined it would go. My mouth sort of crushed against her unmoving lips in a rushed and unskilled manner. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I certainly could do a hell of a lot better than this. An yet, it was still like I predicted it would be, filled with pure unadulterated pleasure. Nellie’s lips were sweet and warm, exactly how I imagined forbidden fruit to taste like.

A perfect mixture of firm and softness that drove me wild. She flattened her hands on my bare chest as if to brace herself. Nellie pushed herself away, but her face was still so close to me. She didn’t speak and neither could I. I forced myself to look up at her and hoped that she could see I would do everything in my power to earn her forgiveness. That it was a mistake I will make right somehow.

“Nell,” I let out an exasperated breath. “ I have a need for you that goes deeper than just lust and I know that it will never truly be sated. The killer thing is I’m already at risk of losing you before I even had you.”

Nellie stared hazily up at me.“You already have me.” She whispered, our lips still grazing. Those four simple words set off a firework in me. This time when I kissed her our mouths came together like we needed to feed off of each other’s oxygen in order to survive. I’d suffer if I didn’t have it.

My mouth was greedy for hers, and I could imagine she felt the same. The moment I felt her lips slightly part open to let me in, less than a second our tongues slid together in a torrid and sensually slow pace. We kissed like a couple of eager teenagers. My heart threatened to leap from my chest when the tip of Nell’s tongue moved across my bottom lip. She tastes like gingerbread , mixed with some other divine flavor that I can only assume is Nellie. She arched herself closer into my chest and I could feel the points of her hardened nipples through her top. I seized the opportunity to press her body close because I needed more.

I wanted to feel the heat of her soft skin on mine. She returned her arms back around my neck tightly holding me in place as she angled her head kissing me back with the same ferocity. Deeply, and oh so thoroughly by the way she sucked on my tongue. I had a rough grip on her ass keeping Nellie steady as she straddled me. I was so damn hard for her. If my dick could get even harder it was bound to. Nellie did that thing again where she grinds down on my erection and I cursed at myself to not combust. I grabbed ahold of her hips guiding her to move faster, harder.

I kept telling myself to savor her, fucking take my time with this moment. I couldn’t just rip those tiny little shorts off and sink myself into her over and over until we’ve both had enough. But even then I would always need more of her. I wasn't a sentimental man, with Nellie I at least wanted to try. I wanted my first night with Nell to be a little less spontaneous than this. It wasn’t like I came prepared for festivities filled with endless fucks. Plus the added fact I couldn’t let things get too carried away especially since she still didn’t know what I have done.

Yeah, I am a very selfish bastard.

I didn’t want this to end. I wanted my mouth to explore every single part of Nellie. I wanted the taste of her to live on my tongue. I wanted to go as far as she and my consciousness would allow me.

“I need to touch you.” I panted, between every nip and kiss I left on the delicate area of skin under her jaw.

“You’re already touching me.” She says with a soft laugh, which was a melody to my ears. I was but at the same time I wasn’t. I needed to rid Nellie of any barrier that prevented me from branding her skin with my touch.

“This…off.” I tug gently on the bottom of her tank top before returning my hands to rest on her thighs, caressing them as I sucked on her neck for dear life. Going back and forth between grazing her neck with my teeth then licking over the area to soothe any imprint I’ve left.

Nellie crisscrossed her arms reaching for the hem of her top gracefully pulling it over her head. She purposely fell backwards onto the mattress aiming her shirt at my face. For as long as I’ve known Nell she was never one to be shy in her own skin.

“Imagine how unsexy that would have been if I hit my head on the headboard.”

“As long as you didn’t hurt yourself I would have just pretended that I didn’t see a thing.” I teased.

“Ah, to think they wonder where all of the good men have gone.” Nell scrunched up her nose pretending to be lost in critical thought.

I cock my head to the side. “Mm-hmm. Are you mocking me?”

“What if I am?”Her plump wet lips spread into a smile.

It was miracle I caught a word of what she said to me. I swallowed a groan as my eyes drift over the area of her body that was naked from the waist up. Nellie was clearly a stolen painting from the Louvre that I had no intention of returning. All I could do was stare.

With her legs still draped around me, my hands slide up the curve of her torso passing her ribs. I sensed that she was watching me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of her just yet. The pads of my fingers traced over to her breast and my mouth practically watered at the sight of them. She was ethereal.

“Don’t suddenly go mute on me Sebastian.” She let out a shaky breath.

I’ve heard her say my name a thousand times. Hearing her say it in this state created a feeling of warmth that filled my chest. I could only begin to imagine the different ways I wanted to hear her call out my name. My gift, my best friend, my Nellie. Those last words had a sting to them even as I thought them. Deep down I knew that was never going to be true.

I eased all the way down my tongue traveling around the dip of her navel. Creating a path up the center of her abdomen. I knew that Nell was extremely ticklish. The slightest form of contact would automatically turn her into a ninja. From the way she was pressing herself back into the mattress I knew she was trying her hardest not to flee. Of course I found it rather enticing so I made sure to spend extra time over the areas of her exposed skin I knew to be the most sensitive. Brushing the tip of my nose between her breast my mouth finally latched on to what I’ve been waiting for.

“So fucking beautiful.” I say as I graze my mouth over the stiff peak of her nipple. I was in awe over the ability that they simultaneously could feel hard yet felt extremely soft. I dragged the tip of my tongue around the bud of it in a languid movement before sucking it in deep. I loved listening to the sounds she made while I sucked and devoured as much as I could fit into my mouth. I wanted to hear a symphony of the noises that escaped from Nellie.

Going for one after the other not wanting to miss out on either. Nellie kept a limp hand pressed into my hair keeping me close as if I dared to stop.

Writhing underneath me Nellie gasped,“Touch me.”

Now she understood what I meant. My own body felt betrayed by my decision. I literally ached from pain and pleasure. Truthfully I wouldn’t opt for a better scenario than this. I would be more than gratified with giving Nellie an orgasm or two.

Still leaving featherlight kisses across her chest. With one hand I reach down and brushed along the dip of Nellie’s hip, then began to tug away at her shorts. To my surprise she was bare underneath. This was a new and uncharted territory we were crossing.

Tell me to stop, say that this is just the wrong time, tell me we would never work. Those words never escaped me, the sound of the goddamn doorbell intervened for her. My movements hesitated then shortly I picked up on inaudible chattering out in the hall. Nellie turned her head in the direction towards the door which I hoped like hell was locked. “Maybe we should go see what’s going on.” Her eyes widened.

“Or we could stay here and not shame the fact that I was two seconds away from wrapping your legs around my face while I tasted the slickness between your thighs. ” Nellie released a ragged breath and I meant every word.

To my dissatisfaction we were composed in under three minutes. I felt a strange sense of comfort and pride seeing that ever so often I’d catch Nellie looking in my direction smiling like she had some big secret she was bursting to tell. Which only made me feel like an even bigger asshole. The walk downstairs was surprisingly noisy. Someone had plugged the Christmas tree back up and there was a chilly wind breaking in as the front door came to an immediate shut.

Nellie’s parents were both moving around in a fast pace trying to find new spots to put a couple of suitcases. I had to swallow down a chuckle at the sight of their bold choice of pajamas. Nellie had already beaten me to the bottom of the staircase just as I rounded the corner of the spiral stairs.

“Cousin!” Vanessa squealed rushing over towards Nellie, who excitedly embraced her the same. They exchanged a few excitable words to each other that I tuned out. I was busy focusing on the six foot son of a bitch with a puppy dog expression on his face standing awkwardly behind them.

“Now you know Nells Bells you can’t have Christmas without good ole St. Nicholas can you?” She winked at a stone faced Nellie who just looked straight ahead at her ex boyfriend Nick. “I hope it’s okay I brought him over with me. I saw him at the airport dozed off in a chair.” Vanessa whispered as she leaned into Nell, like she just earned a gold star. Soon as Vanessa’s wild dark brown eyes caught ahold me I knew my bubble was about to pop.

“Something told me I was off the naughty list this year.” Vanessa bit at her glossed up lips and made a beeline towards me, wrapping her arms around my waist. She smelled like an overtly sweet perfume that tortured my sinuses. “Did you forget how to work a phone or what? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days. I miss you.” She cooed.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nellie watching the two of us. This was my punishment.

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cheri-translates · 3 years

Text

[CN] 3rd Anniversary Love Carnival - Victor

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for an event which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

Victor’s Prologue: here

3rd Anniversary Masterlist: here

[ PART ONE ]

The moment we step into the carnival venue, my gaze is completely consumed by a gigantic merry-go-round.

MC: What a dream-like merry-go-round! Let’s ride this as our first attraction!

When Victor sees the golden coloured merry-go-round before him, his expression freezes in place for a moment. However, he still stands in the queue with me.

MC: Eh? You’re agreeing just like that?!

MC: “I don't waste my time on such senseless things”.

I mimic Victor, channelling a stern expression.

MC: Don’t you typically say that? Why did you agree so quickly today?

I make a face at him. When Victor sees this, he furrows his brows and gives me a gentle knock on the head.

Victor: Spending my time on a pointless rejection is even more of a waste.

I turn around, glaring at Victor. However, all he does is stare back plainly at me.

Victor: Because of a certain childish individual, my tolerance levels have increased by quite a lot.

I specially pick a double-manned horse. Along with the romantic music, the horses start ascending and descending, moving in a circular motion.

Couples in the surroundings are raising their phones, taking photographs with various poses. Every screen is filled with brilliant smiles.

Somewhat influenced by such an atmosphere, I turn my head to look at Victor.

As expected, Victor, who is sitting on a black steed, looks so stern that it’s as though he’s participating in some investment report meeting.

Sensing the gaze I tossed at him, Victor looks at me.

Victor: What is it?

MC: Victor, do you want to smile a little?

Victor: Why?

MC: Because when people are happy, they’d subconsciously want to smile. In the happiest place on earth, and having such an adorable lady in front of you, don't you feel even the slightest bit of happiness?

Victor: You aren’t humble at all.

Despite what he says, I can clearly see a handsome arc at the corners of his lips.

MC: Can you appreciate the joys of being on a merry-go-round now?

Victor: That’s only if seeing you look silly counts as one of the joys.

MC: Can’t you just honestly say that you’re very happy when you’re with me?

I wave my fist at him in a threatening manner.

Victor sighs. Looking back at me, he says in resignation:

Victor: I’m happy. But it has nothing to do with the merry-go-round.

As the music gradually softens, and the merry-go-round is about to complete its turn, I realise that we haven’t taken a picture yet.

Just as I adjust the angle, attempting to include Victor into the frame to obtain a “group photo”, he senses what I'm planning to do.

Victor takes my phone, then leans down closer to me.

Victor: Look at the camera.

He lifts the phone up, pressing the shutter.

[ PART TWO ]

MC: High-altitude glass platform bridge…?

In order to try a more unique attraction, Victor and I have come to the high-altitude glass platform bridge with the direction of the guide.

Victor: Want to try it?

After a moment of hesitance, I nod.

MC: Since we’re already here!

Looking death calmly in the face, I stare at the pathway, resolutely joining the queue.

Although I’ve already mentally prepared myself, I regret it the moment I step onto the platform bridge.

MC: I can’t do this. People need to stand on the ground!

I grip the railing at the side, carefully inching forward at a tortoise’s pace.

Just as I plan to tell Victor about my regret of overestimating my confidence, I lift my head and see him waiting for me composedly.

Likely seeing that I haven’t moved after such a long time, Victor sighs softly, walks towards me, and offers me his hand.

I immediately reach out, holding his large palm.

A warm sensation sprouts from our laced hands. Victor follows my pace, walking slowly to the other end of the platform bridge.

MC; You aren’t afraid?

Victor: Why should I be afraid?

He pauses for a moment, then gives me an explanation which leaves me unable to retort.

Victor: Since it’s open for visitors to experience, there are definitely sufficient safeguards to ensure the safety of the amusement facilities.

MC: …

For a moment, I actually don’t know where I should begin.

The person is the one feeling scared. What does that have to do with the safety of the facilities?

Or should I be in awe that because of such a reason, he can overcome the fear that humans have about falling from high altitudes?

Victor: If you’re really scared, don’t look under your feet. Look forward.

While doing that, I still can’t help but mutter:

MC: During such moments, shouldn’t you say things like “If you’re scared, hold me tight”, or “If you’re scared, just look at me”?

Victor casts me a glance.

Victor: Do you think that’d be useful?

MC: Mr Victor, do you know the power and vigour comfort brings?

Victor: The next time you can’t finish your proposal, I think I could reuse this saying. You can use your vigour to increase efficiency, and not ask me to postpone the meeting.

I look straight into Victor’s eyes, the discipline of the working class enabling me to harden my backbone and face this investor even at a high altitude.

MC: Are you a monster? Must you bring up things that’d upset me at this time?

Victor looks at me, a slight smile in his eyes.

Victor: You’re so full of vigour. I think you aren’t afraid anymore. All right, you can finish the rest of the path yourself.

Hearing this, I realise that the transparent glass platform has already reached its end. The following path is lined with carpet.

In the midst of our banter, I’d actually completed the entire journey without even realising it.

MC: Victor, were you deliberately criticising me earlier to divert my attention?

Victor: I should be the one with questions. When I’m by your side, where else could your focus be diverted to?

I’m left dumbfounded. Victor chuckles, as though he doesn’t care how I’d respond to his question.

Like earlier, he walks in front of me unhurriedly, not releasing the hand holding onto mine.

Victor: The next attraction probably has a queue. Follow closely.

[ PART THREE ]

MC: I didn’t expect the restaurants in the carnival to serve pretty tasty food.

I take a bite out of a heart-shaped lemon cake, and can’t help but exclaim in awe.

Initially, I had only noticed that the food laid out on the tables for patrons was shocking.

The extremely big and bold words on the leaflet - “Carnival Special Couple Set Meal” - stirred my heart.

Without another word, I pulled Victor in, pointing at the leaflet excitedly.

I didn’t expect that no matter whether it was the presentation or the taste, they left one pleasantly surprised.

MC: Victor, should Souvenir also introduce a couple set meal in the future? Like this heart-shaped cake - I’m really optimistic about its popularity in the market! I think it can attract quite a number of people.

Victor: No.

Unsurprisingly, Victor rejects my idea.

I sigh.

MC: CEO Victor, as the most ambitious and most knowledgeable on how to advance in the market, LFG is a business miracle. What does it receive most praise for? Isn’t it how it’s bold enough to try expanding its capabilities? Also, as the manager of Souvenir, are you really not considering including such a mentality into your dishes?

On the spot, I present a report involving how to expand Souvenir, and anticipate his reaction.

Victor is the same as always. Both arms are crossed over his chest as he listens to my report seriously, then he gives his comments.

Victor: The report lacks proper thought. Rejected.

MC: Why’s that?

I feel slightly indignant.

Victor sets down his hands, signalling that I should shift closer.

I have no idea what he’s planning to do, and lean over while confused.

Victor’s fingers brush against the stray hairs near my ear, rescuing a strand of hair which has been entangled with my earring.

When his finger brushes lightly against my earlobe, I suddenly think of how Victor was the one who put on this pair of earrings for me before we headed out this morning.

Victor: Souvenir isn’t a business. Its existence is unrelated to any business models.

MC: What is it related to then?

Victor: The manager’s personal preferences.

He retracts his hand, looking at me calmly.

Victor: The presentation and image of such dishes don’t suit Souvenir’s usual style.

Regretfully, I split the heart-shaped strawberry pie, placing half onto Victor’s plate.

MC: Since the manager has already put it that way…

MC: It looks like I can only seize this opportunity, and experience the fluffy, soft strawberry pie here.

I let out a soft sigh. In my mind, I can’t help but imagine - if Victor were to make this, I wonder how it’d taste.

MC: It’d definitely be several times more delicious than this.

Victor finishes the strawberry pie, and doesn’t seem to hear my soft mutter.

After a short period of silence, Victor’s serious voice pipes up.

Victor: It won’t be an item on the menu.

Victor: But this doesn’t mean I can’t make it for you once at home.

Victor elegantly cuts the food on the plate, not much expression on his face.

Only I know the warmth underneath that quiet display.

MC: When the time comes, I’ll invite Mr Victor to appraise it with me.

[ PART FOUR ]

We walk and pause, finally ending up before the Pendulum ride.

Pointing at the attraction, where shrill cries can be heard constantly, I think of that children’s day when he had taken the “Time Traveler” ride with me.

And how time had stopped for a few seconds during the descent.

[Note] This is a reference to Fairytale Date!

MC: Want to give this a try?

I turn my head, looking at Victor expectantly.

Victor: No.

As I expected, Victor rejects me.

MC: Victor, could you be scared?

Victor: Of course not.

His expression is stern, and he looks forward.

MC: In that case, ride it with me!

While saying this, I pull him along with me and we sit down.

There’s still some time before the ride begins. The chatter and laughter from people in the queue before us continuously drift over.

Enthusiastic visitor: A friend of mine took the Pendulum before. When it was over, he calmly said that it wasn’t much. In the end, he started puking after taking a few steps.

Happy visitor: Hahahaha, the same thing happened to my colleague. He sat for the ride in another place once, and screamed until his voice was hoarse at work the next day. He had to drink chinese medicine for the entire day.

I’m somewhat tickled by the conversations.

MC: They’re speaking so exaggeratedly. How could that be possible? What do you think?

The criticism I expected doesn’t arrive.

Finding this a little odd, I look at Victor, realising that he’s strapping on his seatbelt seriously, his expression stern.

Oh…?

I really wish I could take out my phone and snap a picture of this Victor before me.

The Pendulum truly lives up to its name.

At first, I even thought it’d be so-so.

But when the Pendulum’s amplitude grows increasingly larger, till it feels like I’m being tossed around, I can’t help but scream.

MC: Ahhhhh–

This! Is! Too! Scary!

Just when I’m forced to sit through these parabolic motions, my left hand is gently held onto by someone.

Bracing against the violent wind, I open my eyes. Victor is sitting straight and quietly in his seat. His posture is tense, yet he looks as though he’s very calm.

Amid the shrill screams, I can vaguely hear his voice.

Victor: Don’t be afraid.

Stepping off the Pendulum, I immediately grasp for the railing at the side.

However, when I see Victor’s crooked tie and slightly unkempt hair, I can’t help but burst into laughter.

This time, I don’t let this chance slip by, and keep this dishevelled Victor in my phone.

I make a decision to have this picture printed out to be placed at the bedside.

Victor: …what are you doing this time?

MC: Nothing, nothing! Oh yes, what do you think of this attraction?

Victor: …so-so.

MC: If you’re afraid, you can just say so. It’s a normal human reaction, and I won’t laugh at you.

Victor: I’m not afraid.

MC: In that case…

I look at Victor, my smile growing wider.

MC: Let’s ride it again!

Victor: …

MC: You aren’t going to prove that you aren’t afraid?

Victor: Let’s go then.

MC: Eh?

Victor: Since you’re so enthusiastic about this ride, you’ll definitely experience it together with me. Am I wrong?

Seeing Victor arch his brows slightly, and turning my game against me, I respond with certainty–

MC: I’m sorry! We’ll head to another attraction right now!

[ PART FIVE ]

Perplexed and not knowing which attraction to go to next, an uproar in front attracts my attention.

MC: Eh? Did something happen?

I pull Victor forward with me.

I see a man holding a large bunch of roses and pink balloons, kneeling down on one knee in front of a woman.

The woman’s face is red from shyness, and her eyes are filled with touching emotions and surprise.

MC: Someone’s proposing!

Looking at the scene before me, I can’t help but tilt my head and whisper into Victor’s ear as he stands beside me.

MC: It’s so sweet. I hope they can be together for a very long time!

Victor turns his head slightly, as though sensing the envy in my tone.

Victor: You’re very envious?

MC: A little.

Victor frowns slightly, looking as though he can’t comprehend it.

Very quickly, however, he seems to think of something.

Victor: Stand here and don’t move. Wait for a while.

Before I can react, Victor has already left.

I stand rooted in place.

At the side, the proposal is still ongoing. The man stammers as he takes her down a walk through memory lane, clumsily taking out a ring box.

The girl’s eyes have long since been brimming with happy tears.

I look at Victor, not knowing what he’s going to do, and not knowing what will happen next.

Under my expectant and nervous gaze, he walks over to the person selling balloons, and buys a small balloon flower.

MC: …

I knew it!

Victor: Give me your hand.

When Victor returns, he speaks in his usual tone.

Then, he holds up my hand, lowers his eyes, and ties the balloon flower to my wrist.

Seeing this childish action contrasted with Victor’s serious expression, I can’t help but chuckle.

With me, he’s done so many things that are, according to his standards, a waste of time, meaningless and utterly childish.

It doesn’t seem to be a bad thing though.

My heart is encased with a sweetness. Raising my wrist happily, I crinkle my eyes as I look at the balloon flower under the sunlight.

MC: It’s so pretty!

My gaze is completely absorbed by the balloon flower, and I don’t even notice that the crowd afar off has burst into applause. That man’s proposal probably succeeded.

Victor: You’re satisfied just like that?

MC: Hehe, the most satisfied person in the world! Let’s go, we still have to head to the next attraction.

I turn my head and prepare to leave, but Victor grabs my wrist.

MC: What…!

Pink coloured balloons and flower petals fill the air, spreading happiness all around.

And in this corner with only the two of us, a gentle kiss descends on my forehead.

Victor: The most childish person in the entire amusement park is probably right in front of me.

Victor looks at me, saying the critique that I couldn’t be more familiar with.

In his eyes, there’s also a smile and gentleness that I couldn’t be more familiar with.

The celebration and clamour have nothing to do with me.

All the happiness and clamour, all the ribbons and fresh flowers, can’t compare to a word from him.

Nor can they compare to the somewhat childish balloon flower on my wrist.

I smile while standing on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around Victor’s neck, and giving him a kiss.

MC: He’s also in front of me! Being childish with you is the happiest thing in the world.

I hear a soft chuckle, then a warm breath. Following this, my forehead feels a tender touch for the second time.

Victor: Dummy.

Fireworks event: here

#this is just a re-post of the love carnival translations!#I'm doing some mild renovations to the blog so don't mind me #the previous translations were split according to parts rather than love interest which I find really disjointed!

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x0401x · 3 years

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Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #14

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Santa Invasion

“What’s this?”

“Ice cream.”

“Well, I can tell that much just by looking, but...”

“To be precise, it is an ice cream cake.”

A gigantic ladybug was sitting on the low table. Its vivid red and dark brown-like black shades were definitely berries and chocolate. The back was decorated with flowers like marguerite. It was adorable. And huge. It was a hemispherical cake that looked like a basket ball cut in half, the name of a store from Dogenzaka printed on its box. It was 7PM. The last customer had left, I was done with the cleaning and all we had left to do was closing the store. It was still the second week of December, so the mayhem of making provisions for winter presents was a few ways ahead, but the number of clients was increasing little by little.

Just what on earth would this beautiful jeweler come up in such times?

Due to a habit of his from whenever he had something that was hard to say aloud and thus failed to speak up, Mr. Richard Ranashinghe de Vulpian had a serious crease forming just slightly between his brows. It made me feel at ease. This guy didn’t make a face like this when he was burdened with something that was actually difficult to say. He would speak more bland and expressionlessly instead.

“This is a little souvenir.”

“Are you going to a customer’s place after this?”

Richard’s reply was a gentle “no” in English.

He’d been often speaking a mix of Japanese and English lately. When English-speaking customers came by, he would switch completely to English as if for practical assessment, so I was desperate just to keep up with listening to them. I was grateful for having him as my English conversation teacher.

“A certain good-for-nothing who works with finances is currently in Japan, so...”

“Ah, Jeffrey-san, is it? He seemed so busy last time... Sorry, forget what I just said.”

“No need. That is a correct interpretation, so it is nothing to apologize about.”

Despite saying this, Richard’s facial expression did not seem even remotely satisfied as he swiftly took an indigo envelope out of his pocket. It had no seal, so it must have been handed over to him. The content was a pop-out card, and under a paper-craft cake colored with gold leaves and uneven printing, it was written in very tasteful Japanese: “I’m going to hold a party at the hotel, so come over. I’ll be waiting.” The date of the party was today and the place was the room of a luxury hotel in Tokyo. A home party? No, a hotel party.

The title was “Richard’s birthday party”. The plate of the pop-up cake didn’t say “Merry Christmas”. It said “Happy Birthday”.

Christmas Eve on the 24th was this beautiful shopkeeper’s birthday.

As I returned the card to him, a crease once again formed between Richard’s brows as he said with an unsparingly decisive tone, “How very embarrassing.”

“Doesn’t seem so much like it from your face.”

“Because I practiced making it. But this is extremely embarrassing. I think it is not something that warrants going through the trouble of arranging a plane ticket.”

“I wonder if anyone else will be going.”

“It seems Chieko will attend. I received an e-mail yesterday saying, ‘I am going to show up as a surprise so please take care of me’.”

“Is that even a surprise? Well, okay.”

Chieko-san was Richard and Jeffrey’s private tutor in the past and I was acquainted with her to some degree. I wondered if Homura-san, who had married her daughter, was also coming. No, not happening. He was a customer of Etranger, so Richard would probably feel abashed if he did so.

“If it goes on like this, the people lying in wait in that room will just gang up into an assembly to celebrate me.”

“What even is ‘ganging up to celebrate’?”

“They are ganging up on me. I likely will not be able to say anything other than ‘thank you very much’. I need reinforcements. If you would like, could you come with me?”

“Me too? That okay?”

“Of course. The party starts at 8PM probably because it coincides with Etranger’s closing hours. That British safe-like man is not narrow-minded enough to leave you out.”

It was written there that the party would begin at 8PM. We had 30 minutes. There was no spare time to make a pudding. What to do? What should I do?

Richard was apparently unable to let my groaning an “ngh, ngh” while deep in thought go unnoticed. “If it is impossible for you, just say so right away. I know that you are at the final stage of studying for your exams.”

“That doesn’t matter. Why didn’t you tell me a bit earlier about this? If I knew, I could’ve made preparations for it... Aah, is that why?”

“It is. I recall saying that you should refrain from being overly distracted.”

“I don’t think a ‘celebration’ is ‘overly distracting’, though.”

“Anything is fine, so please answer. Will you come or not?”

He didn’t have to go as far as asking me something like that.

I bowed in a way that wouldn’t cause any hairs to fall onto the ice cream ladybug. “I shall humbly accompany you.”

“Very well.”

“Sorry, but before that, I gotta go to the toilet for a bit.”

I hastily rushed to Etranger’s restroom and unlocked my phone in a flash. I then tapped on the e-mail app. Of course, the destination could only be one person.

“Help. I’m sorry but I just got informed about the birthday party, so I have no present.”

Jeffrey-san.

The contents of the message were not at all on a level that someone should send to the person they owed their life to, but he would understand.

The reply came in a matter of seconds. As expected, he worked fast.

“Good evening. I have everything, so there’s no problem if you come empty-handed. There will be champagne, canapés, chicken pie and cake, and I plan to have chocolate fondue coming up at the end.”

There was a proud smiley emoji at the end of the text. It seemed this was going to be a big deal.

Richard would probably have work tomorrow, and he wasn’t the type to get wasted or stuff his face with sweets in the middle of the night. It seemed I also wouldn’t have to worry about dinner. It made me feel sorry. This was the same old pattern. This course of eating and seeing good stuff amidst the confusion of the moment made my stomach hurt when I thought better about it.

“Don’t you know anything that Richard wanted?”

The response came after a moment, “My bad, but nothing comes to mind. How about you give him what you want most?”

What I wanted most. I could only think of refill shampoo and new socks. I’d be ashamed of giving things like that to Richard. After all, this was a mixture of birthday and Christmas party—

Just as I was thinking this, a genius inspiration sprouted in my head. It wasn’t the best solution. Not at all. But I felt it could work. This was too obvious, but if only I had the necessary materials for it, I could do it immediately.

Making up my mind, I came out of the restroom, apologized for making Richard wait, and as we rode to the designated address on the jaguar, I had him stop the car in front of a mass retailer for a moment. I told him I wanted to buy refill shampoo for my home. Richard was exasperated, but didn’t have any suspicions in particular.

We arrived at the hotel, got into the elevator, and on the way to the party venue, I made sure to walk a bit behind Richard. Staying out of his sight was essential.

When he opened the door to the suite, sure enough, Jeffrey-san and Chieko-san were waiting inside. Giving off a relaxed atmosphere, a room-service feast even bigger than what I had imagined from the phone call was waiting on the table for the main guest.

“Happy birthday, Richard. Chieko’s here too. Surprised?”

“Of course. Very surprised. Extremely.”

“Hmm, by the looks of it, I guess there was some information leak. Well, that’s okay! Where’s Nakata-kun?”

“What do you mean ‘where’? He’s right here. Seigi... Seigi?”

My eyes locked with Richard’s. I had locked them with Jeffrey-san’s before that. I was grateful that he had done me the favor of not laughing.

I politely shook my head at my boss, who was making a flabbergasted face. “My name is Santa.”

What I had bought at the mass retailer was a handy Santa makeover set. The three-piece set consisted of a hat, a put-on beard and a Santa costume, but I hadn’t had time to change into the costume, so it was folded up in my bag. I intended to borrow the suite’s bathroom to put on the costume. If I at least had my face ready, I could somehow make it work.

Richard was dumbfounded. It was the obvious reaction. But I wanted him to forgive me for this. After all, it was December and today was a party day.

“I’m Santa Claus! I came from the North Pole. Please take care of me for today!” After introducing myself, I thought that maybe this wasn’t an exemplary self-introduction for Santa, but it was already too late.

Jeffrey-san, who completely livened up the mood whenever he got excited, went along with the joke, saying, “Wah, Santa-san, thank you for coming from such a faraway place!”

I was grateful for that one. And that was how I got away with playing the role of a worldwide mascot-like old man character from the Arctic for the day. The ice cream cake brought by the star of the party was a success, and we had a toast with both champagne and royal milk tea. Chieko-san was wearing a kimono, the remade peridot brooch on her chest.

It had already been more than half a year since then, but to my body, it felt like even longer ago.

My location had moved from Japan to Sri Lanka, as one would expect, and I was busy fully enjoying a spring in which white temple flowers were blooming in Kandy, my new home. But for some reason, Santa was here. A beautiful blond, blue-eyed man slipped in and out of sight, but his outward appearance was that of Santa Claus. It was the kind of Santa costume that you could buy at the costume section of any mass retailer. One of the sad things about unmatched beauty was the fact nobody could actually claim that his natural beauty was ruined by the look. The brilliance of his blue eyes, which looked like they could suck you in, was the same as ever.

“I am Santa Claus. I came from the North Pole.”

“But now’s a hot time of the year.”

“Santa Claus is a symbol of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I do not think it is particularly strange.”

“T-That might be true. Well, then... what’re you doing?”

“Santa does what Santa does. The tradition of Santa Claus, much like the language of jewels, has a wide variety of legends to it depending on the region, but either way, the role of a saint who grants blessings to little children, women and those in need is a guise commonly demanded in society. And for you, here it is.” Saying this, “Santa” offered me a plastic, loose stone display case that I was all too familiar with. There was a red stone stuck between the cushion and transparent lid. “Can you identify this gemstone?”

“Tourmaline, I guess. Red tourmaline.”

“Good for you. Did you know that it has one more name?”

“Rubellite.”

“Perfect. Large, pinkish-red tourmalines are called by that name, and it is a stone of which huge carved crystals have been loved as works of art, such as the amulet of Empress Dowager Cixi and the Romanov royal treasure, the ‘Strawberry Pendant’.”

As I peeked at the stone inside the case, humming that it was pretty, the beautiful jeweler cleared his throat and started over.

“Just as people’s feelings dwell within beautiful stones, this one is filled with the feeling of celebrating the start of your new life, from your family back in Japan, your friends and your superior at work, with whom you have a relationship other than the aforementioned and that neither of us knows how to define. Santa is wholly thankful for being in the position to bestow you with such a gift. I forgot to say it, but happy birthday. Nakata Seigi-san. I sincerely pray, all the way from my home in the Arctic, that this year will be a fruitful one for you.”

“Thank you. Seriously, thank you for always, Richa...”

“Santa. I am a passing Santa.”

“Then let’s go with that. By the way, if you’re Santa, where are the reindeers?”

When asked this, the man in disguise answered with a cool gaze that the reindeers were using stealth technology nowadays so that they wouldn’t be found by radars, hence they couldn’t be seen. He had it down to the details.

“It’s been about ten years since the last time Santa-san came around. I’ll take good care of this. Santa-san, you take care of your body too. I’ll ask my boss next time I see him about the person who gave you this stone.”

“You should. Well, then.” With a bow, Santa left for a car parked in the courtyard. I probably wasn’t supposed to see him off. I’d feel bad for the stealth reindeers.

The red stone stayed in my hand.

I had told a white lie. It hadn’t been ten years since Santa had last showed up. This was the first time ever since I was born. In my home, there was always someone playing the role of “Santa”, such as Hiromi, Grandma and Nakata-san, so they never tried to tell me nice lies. Nakata-san probably just followed Hiromi’s way of doing things, though. The fact I thought up something like that last December, when Jeffrey asked me what I “wanted most”, might not have been unrelated to this. At any rate, to me, not even once was there any supernatural existence who would leave toys by my bedside if I were a good kid. Until this day.

After a while of standing by the garden, where it was always summer, and listening closely to the cries of birds with my eyes closed, I unlocked my phone. The Wi-Fi range of the house seemed good, and so I could send e-mails immediately. The contents were simple. The destination was my boss, Richard.

“Santa came to my place. But he left so quick that I couldn’t make him tea.”

The reply soon came: “Are you half-asleep?”

If he really thought that I was half-asleep, then maybe I should delay the reply for a few more minutes, I thought, but I didn’t write anything further. The house’s cleaning was half-assed and I had to check the security. I also wanted to know as many of my neighbors as could.

Together with the feeling that I had suddenly been given something I had forgotten, and that I didn’t even know I had forgotten, I put rubellite in the jewelry safe and stepped out into the Sri Lankan provincial city. I had nothing to fear and no hesitation. The ill feeling that I’d be living here alone had disappeared. After all, Santa had come by. Far from elementary school, I was now an adult who had already graduated from university, and it currently wasn’t December but May, where the only anniversary I could think of was my own birthday, yet Santa had come by. Such an impossible thing had happened.

So I could do my best, I thought.

And so, I could be getting ahead of myself, but I began thinking about my plans for this December. Would there be a second chance for Santa to appear? If not, I wanted to make one. I decided to fuss over the outfit a little more and prepare proper gifts this time. Then I’d tell him stories about jewels and try to make him laugh a lot. That, too, was Santa’s duty.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinha de vulpian #richard ranashinghe de vulpian #richard #jr short story collection #jeffrey claremont #novel #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #my translation

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yellowocaballero · 4 years

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Continuation of Human Relations (Oh My God, They Were Roommates)

This is a 16k story that’s a bit too short for AO3 but a bit too long for Tumblr that acts as a continuation of my Archivist!Sasha and Immortal!Jon fic Human Relations. I recommend that you read that before this. This story takes place between S2 and S3, and is about Sasha and Georgie’s roommate adventures. I’m uncertain if I’ll continue this and post it on AO3, post it on AO3 as it is, or what, but for the time being I’ll at least post it here.

Serious content warnings for discussion of abusive friendships, gaslighting, discussion of 19th century racism, implied transphobia, and discussion of police brutality. Nothing more serious than what we saw in Human Relations, but it does have a much more explicit investigation of Jon and Elias’ relationship. Rest under the cut. Happy Birthday, @magickko.

EDIT: HAHA READMORE DIDN’T WORK, YIKES.

Sasha dreams, every night.

Nightmares, mostly. Statements given and Statements stolen run endlessly through her head in a scrolling loop, crying out for mercy, as its figures cry and scream. Sasha looks at them through a camera, pushing the button and clicking the shutter again and again and again, searching for that perfect shot frozen in time.

A woman, trapped under a thousand pounds of dirt and crumpling metal. Snap. A woman, chewing keycaps, eyes riveted on a flickering screen. Snap. A woman, lost in her fiance’s grave, pleading for someone to find her. Snap.

A man, eating canned peaches, alone. Snap. A man, swinging an axe with a frantic strength born of terror. Snap. A man, and the look in his eyes, betrayed. Snap. A man, gunshot wound leaking blood out of his chest, eyes rolling in the fluorescent lights. Snap.

When Sasha wakes up she is always surprised to find herself in a guest room, always out of place and out of time as she stares up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Maybe the worst part is those two seconds after waking, where she doesn’t know where she is, adrift in time and space. Then she remembers, and she’s faced with the situation all over again.

Namely, the fact that she was couch surfing in the Grim Reaper’s guest bedroom.

Sasha dreams, every night.

Namely, the fact that she was couch surfing in the Grim Reaper’s guest bedroom.

Georgie Barker wasn’t a mystery, and she’d be the first to tell you.

Of course you’re welcome to stay as long as you need, honey! I always love having Jonah owe me a favor. Don’t worry about the cops and the law, nobody will ever find you here. Seriously, the entire department’s in my pocket. It’s no hassle having you here, it’s a big flat! It’s been years since I’ve had a roommate, this’ll be fun!

The one thing she hadn’t understood was Sasha begging her not to let Jon in to see her. He knows exactly where you are, Georgie pointed out. He knows you’re not actually a murderer, Georgie said. He might be able to help explain some of what’s going on, Georgie hinted. Jon would respect my wishes, but if Jonah really wants him to talk to you, he’ll definitely do it...

“Please,” Sasha had croaked, the uncomfortable morning after she had stumbled into Georgie’s flat. The Admiral wove around her legs, purring up a storm, and Georgie was munching on avocado toast and sipping pomegranate juice. “I just - I just need some space.”

“Why?” Georgie asked obliviously. That was something that Sasha was rapidly learning about Georgie - she didn’t hold back with impolite questions, or her opinion. She seemed to be regarding Sasha’s life as her own personal Youtuber Drama, which Sasha really didn’t know how she felt about. Her life wasn’t a spectacle, but she guessed even the warfare and tragedy of ants were of obscure and strange interest to humanity. “He’s feeling, like, totally bad about framing you for murder. I can tell he super wants to apologize to you about everything.”

Martin’s words echoed through her mind, from what felt like a decade ago: Jon had ruined Martin’s life, but to him it was as simple as a momentary inconvenience. “I don’t want his apology,” Sasha croaked. “I want not to be on the run from the police. I want to go back to my flat. Unless he’s going to make me human again I don’t want any stupid apologies. They’re useless.”

“Hm. Well, you’re free to stay here as long as you need to, of course.” Georgie sipped at her tea. They were sitting around the breakfast table, Sasha desolately shoving eggs into her mouth as Georgie drank her tea that Sasha was reasonably sure was spiked with brandy. Rich people were literally never sober. “It’ll be so much fun, like a sleepover. We can do each other’s nails and talk about boys!”

“My boyfriend thought I was a monster for the past month and now thinks I’m a murderer,” Sasha said flatly.

“Oh, I see.” Georgie tapped her lips thoughtfully. “We have to get you laid, huh?”

“I am literally on the run from the cops.”

“That’s very sexy to some people,” Georgie assured her.

After that, Georgie waved goodbye and swanned out of the house, either going to her studio to work on her podcast or doing some work for her real estate empire or writing a best-selling book or schmoozing with celebrities or attending parties at exclusive nightclubs or working part-time as a bartender just for gossip or devouring souls. Just from Sasha’s one day at Georgie’s flat, she knew that she did all of these things and then some. It was a stunning contrast to Jon’s laziness, or Elias (Jonah’s) single-mindedness.

Maybe you lost the energy to be so productive after your two hundredth year. Sasha didn’t fucking know. Hopefully she would never know. Or maybe Jon just appeared to be lazy, and every moment that he was complaining about being bored he was secretly manipulating world leaders. Maybe Jonah’s dedication to spreadsheets and dress code was a front, and he was secretly pulling the puppet strings of her entire life…

In the empty spaces of Georgie’s spacious flat, it was easy to be paranoid. Sasha lay on her luxurious couch, hands folded across her chest like a corpse, trying not to think of anything, thinking of everything. Thinking of Tim: of his smile, of his scowl, of his cold looks given to someone he had thought was a stranger. Thinking of Martin: his warm smile, his sharp looks.

She struggled to think of other friends, other family members who gave her comfort, but drew up a blank. Her parent’s faces were blurred after ten years of no contact, not so much forgotten as repressed, and her baby siblings were likely unrecognizable to her now. Almost as unrecognizable as she was to them, probably. Tim, her boyfriend who hated her, and Martin, her subordinate who she had almost never had a conversation with that wasn’t about work or Jon...that was it. All the friends she had in the world. She was sleeping in the guest room of a podcast host/Grim Reaper whom she had met once, and that was all she had.

Loneliness was Sasha’s constant companion. In a crowd, in her family, in the world - no matter how many people she had been surrounded by, she had always been alone. She had never had anybody in the world to rely on besides herself, and for the first time in a long time she was achingly aware of it. Nobody who loved her was going to help her. She was alone now.

After an hour of lying on the couch and crying, Sasha desolately watched Netflix cooking shows on Georgie’s gigantic flat-screen TV, trying very hard to think of absolutely nothing at all. She only moved to pet Georgie’s silky long-haired cat whose name she had already forgotten, and even he left quickly once she lost the energy to give him attention.

That was how Georgie found Sasha when she came home: lying on the couch, still dressed in borrowed silk pyjamas, watching idiots on television fuck up cakes. Georgie’s arms were laden with shopping bags, with names of exclusive London boutiques sprawled along the side, her deep black pits of eyes hidden by designer sunglasses. She burst through the door happily, her cat running up to her and winding through her laps as he purred, and easily kicked off her red pumps. She stopped in the doorway of the living room, looking strangely excited.

“Sorry I’m back to late! Utterly bogged up at work, there was a plane crash and I was processing corpses for hours. I had to do some serious retail therapy just to deal with the tedium - darling, have you moved?”

Sasha grunted.

“You look like Mikey Crew threw you off the Shard,” Georgie said sympathetically. “Utterly disastrous. Don’t worry, Aunt Georgie’s here to make you feel better.” She lifted her bag triumphantly. “I bought you new outfits!”

Sasha eyed her warily.

“You get no say in this,” Georgie said kindly. “Chop chop, we’re doing face masks too.”

That’s how, somehow, Sasha found herself playing an unwilling dress-up doll for the Grim Reaper. Georgie had taken Sasha’s casual mention that she had no clothing besides her work pantsuit to heart, and had hit up her favorite boutiques for ‘cute outfits that accentuated her figure and made her eyes pop!’. Or something. Sasha wasn’t much one for fashion.

As it turned out, Georgie Barker had a walk-in closet. Because of course she did.

The looks ranged from Sasha’s usual, as Georgie put it, ‘sexy librarian’ look, to ballgowns, to tennis outfits, to moddish, to vintage, to wintery. It was February, the seasons lingering in British chill, and according to Georgie the perfect solution to this was a mink coat that was probably worth a month’s rent on her flat.

Strangely, all of the outfits fit perfectly - and Sasha knew that her measurements were difficult to find. Georgie took it in stride, clapping enthusiastically each time and suggesting accessories and how to mix and match the outfits.

She would have thought that she was too dead inside to actually enjoy it, but so far as distractions went it actually worked pretty well. Georgie chatted about everything but their actual problems, and Sasha had absolutely no input or choice in what Georgie decided to dress her in, and by the time they had transitioned from nail painting to watching Legally Blonde and eating ice cream from the carton Sasha was actually feeling a little relaxed.

“The musical’s better,” Georgie informed Sasha imperiously as Sasha dug around in her carton for chunks of cookie dough. Georgie was clutching a glass of wine in one hand, while Sasha was contenting herself with ice cream. Best not to drink when she was this sad. “Reese is such a doll, though. Allergic to shellfish, poor dear, but I told her not to let Leo pick the restaurant.”

“What I’m wondering,” Sasha said carefully, teeth cracking into the frozen chunk of cookie dough, “is that half the time when I see you, you’re dressed like a 2008 goth in jeans and t-shirts.”

“Oh, honey,” Georgie said pityingly, patting her hand. “I used to spend two hours getting dressed each morning. I’m never doing that to myself again. You, however, clearly have never had nice clothing in your life. It’s written all over your face. People’ll walk all over you if you always look like you’re straight from a charity shop. We gotta buy you some self-confidence.”

“Thanks. I think.” On screen, Elle flourished and achieved her dreams. Sasha tried not to feel jealous. “It’s not really as if I had a lot of girly sleepovers as a kid…”

“Word,” Georgie said sympathetically. She patted Sasha’s hand again. “Jon was the same way, you know. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to renovate that boy’s wardrobe. He has no idea how to dress to impress.”

“Do we have to talk about Jon right now,” Sasha groused. “He’s the last person I want to think about.”

“He means well,” Georgie soothed, as Elle Woods proudly proclaimed on television how she, yes, she, was a strong independent woman - who didn’t need a man! “It’s not his fault he’s stupid. He’s just so helpless on his own, you know, he needs girls like you and me to make sure he’s not wasting a decade fixating on obscure Bolivian religious practices or whatever.”

“Helpless? He’s a two hundred year old man.” Sasha spitefully grabbed the bottle of wine from the coffee table, pouring it into a spare glass and drinking it quickly. It probably cost thousands of pounds, but it just tasted like wine to her. “It’s not my job to make sure his little feelings aren’t hurt.”

“Of course not,” Georgie said, but Sasha had the sense she was being calmed instead of listened to. “But Jon’s...you know.”

“I don’t, actually.”

Georgie made an interpretive hand gesture. Sasha stared at her blankly.

“...I still don’t.”

Georgie sighed. “He’s delicate. Jonah babies him, honestly.” She patted Sasha’s hand for the third time, making her skin crawl. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him see you until you’re ready to forgive him. Every woman has the right to some time to herself after a guy fucks her over. You two’ll patch things up, right as rain.”

There was nothing Sasha wanted to say to that, nothing she wanted to think about, and she kept drinking her wine and watching the movie, out of lack of any other options.

That night, she drunkenly tipped into bed, so blasted that she slid immediately into sleep and did not dream. It was the first relief she’d had in what felt like a very long time.

It wasn’t Sasha’s job to fix Jonathan Sims.

It really, really wasn’t. It wasn’t her job to make him feel better, or forgive him, or save him from himself. If Martin wanted to waste his time and energy doing that, then god fucking speed, but Sasha had other priorities. She had been profoundly fucked over and had her trust abused by three different men lately, and she wasn’t going to be the one to patch things up.

Two of them she had no desire to patch things up with at all. Two of them she’d be perfectly happy if she never saw again. The last one...Sasha didn’t know what she felt. But that was nothing new.

That being said, as Sasha chewed her way through hangover medication and an acai bowl the next morning, Georgie’s inane chattering about tricking some celebrity or another into taking her to Hungary for authentic Hungarian food didn’t register nearly as loudly in Sasha’s mind as her words about Jonah and Jon.

Jonah babies Jon. That was what she had said. It...it was accurate, right? It had to be. Georgie had known Jonah and Jon for a hundred years, and Sasha had barely heard one authentic conversation between them. She’d known them for a year, and known Jonah’s true nature for maybe a few days. There was no way Sasha understood their relationship better than Georgie did. It just didn’t make sense.

Finally, she put her spoon down, cutting Georgie off in the middle of her ramble about the majesty of Hungarian food made by genuine Hungarian grandma hands. “What did you mean, ‘Jonah babies Jon’?”

Georgie blinked at her, clearly barely remembering the conversation, before recognition dawned. Then she shrugged, sipping her protein smoothie. Which may or may not be spiked. It seemed as if her solution to hangovers was to just not stop being drunk. “Oh, you know how those two are. Jon swans around the world doing whatever he wants, Jonah holds the fort down at home. That’s why Jon’s fun, you know.” She sighed nostalgically. “Romantic cruises to the Bahamas for two months, we tear up the Bahaman government and start a minor military coup, then we take a tour of the beaches. You haven’t lived until you’ve dug your toes into Bahaman sand.”

That was something Georgie said frequently: you haven’t lived until you’ve done X, Y, or Z. It seemed as if Georgie was very intent on living, and very intent on defining it in discretionary ways. To Sasha, living was simply the act of not being dead, but Georgie was almost fanatical about experiencing life.

“If he’s so much fun, then why did you break up?” Sasha asked, before she realized what she said. “I mean, it’s really none of my business, feel free not to answer that -”

But Georgie just laughed lightly. “That’s just how Jon and I work. We spend a few weeks together in bliss, and then we go our separate ways for six months or a year or whatever. Work’s always taking us different places, and seeing each other all day would make us hate each other. Some people work best when they’re not in each other’s pocket.” She took a long drag of the smoothie before speaking again. “Besides, he’ll always be second in my life to having fun. And I’ll always be second in his life to Jonah. It’s just how we work. It works for us!”

It seemed to. Last Sasha checked, Georgie and Jon seemed to be very amicable despite being exes. Lackadaisical, on-and-off, passionate yet going years without seeing each other - it was a relationship uniquely in the providence of workaholic immortals.

It wasn’t until Georgie had already waved goodbye, making Sasha promise not to spend all day on the couch again, that she realized that Georgie hadn’t quite answered her question.

An image flashed through Sasha’s mind - Jon’s face, as he dared to disagree with Jonah, and was utterly ground into the dust for it.

There was something more to this. Something that wasn’t obvious on the surface, something that was so well hidden maybe nobody even knew it was going on. Or maybe it was deeper than that, more insidious: maybe whatever was going on was so well-known and pervasive that it simply wasn’t spoken about. Not polite, not the kind of thing you say about your friends, not normal. Not in polite company. Not vocalized. Utterly taken for granted.

Sasha walked into the guest room, pulling out her phone from her bag and staring at its blank screen. Holding her breath, she hesitantly turned it on, staring at it blankly as it slowly booted up.

She shouldn’t be turning it on. She was perfectly aware of how, given a warrant, the police could track cell phone location, texts sent and received, everything. She could do it herself. The crushing weight of surveillance, the fear of being found and seen and rooted out, settled over her shoulders like an old, familiar friend. A comforting blanket to wrap herself up in at night: where, even if the fear was terrible and awful, at least it was familiar.

You could get used to anything, Sasha thought. Any behavior, any fears, any horrors or tragedies - anything could become normal, given enough time. A year. A hundred years. After two hundred years, maybe you wouldn’t even recognize it as happening at all.

Like a flood, the text messages poured in. Notifications chimed in a cacophony, as text after text after text popped up on her phone. Missed calls. Emails popped up, notifications from the doorbell camera, reminders from her fucking Duolingo...

Dizzily, Sasha scrolled through the texts. Lots from Tim, as expected, and a few from Martin, as expected. Some texts from her mother, which - which wasn’t expected. At all. Sasha hadn’t even known that she knew her number.

Sasha’s brain stuttered over the Spanish, having been years since she spoke it. Her brain also stuttered over the gratuitous misgendering, which was also blissfully novel yet just as uncomfortable and upsetting as ever. Translated, it was a slightly accusatory question about why the police had been calling them about her whereabouts. What had she done? Had she gotten in trouble?

No matter what you did, the text read, God will forgive you. Just call them back.

Sasha stared at the texts, brain buzzing. She felt sick. Forgive her? They’d forgive her? They thought she’d done it? They thought she was capable of -

Horribly, awfully, tears pricked at her eyes. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe you never really grew accustomed to pain, even if it was felt a thousand times. Maybe some pain you never acclimated to, never scarred over or calloused. Maybe sometimes the more you were hurt, the worse it hurt. The pain her parents gave her - how they cut off contact, the misgendering, the coldness - hurt just as badly at thirty six as it had at twenty six, at twenty, at fifteen, at nine. It had always hurt.

So stupid. Sasha deleted the text messages. She didn’t have time for this. She wasn’t a child. She was thirty six goddamn years old, that was way too old to still care about your parents. To still need them.

She clicked on Martin’s texts next. The first one had a timestamp before the murder, the rest afterwards.

Martin: where are you?? I found Tim (he tried to kill me w/an axe but we’re ok now) and were trying to get out of here. I explained everything to him. We’ll meet you in the archives.

Martin: Police are looking for you. I know you didn’t do it so call me back. Tim’s worried. Jon doesn’t seem that worried...

Martin: Shouldn’t text you anymore. Please be safe & careful.

Jesus. Jesus, she had been terrible to Martin. She was a rotten friend. Sasha hiccuped, rubbing at her eyes. She needed to get him a gift basket. Five. He was a freak, but he was her freak. Maybe.

Finally, almost holding her breath, she pressed on Tim’s messages. There were a lot of them - more than was safe, Sasha distantly registered. The first five were from the same time Martin had sent the second text. She guessed it was right after the police finished talking to them. He had called her slightly before - likely when they found the body - but there were also two texts from two am last night.

Tim: pick up your phone

Tim: pick up your phone are you okay im so sorry

Tim: baby please please pick up

Tim: we need to talk & im sorry & i hope ur safe

Tim: dont text me back

Then two texts from two am:

Tim: to warn you im drunk but im sorry (AND DRUNK) but in my defense im a shitty boyfriend. If you want to break up its fine but id like to make it work but i get if you cant because cops i guess. Bitch tonner wont stop bothering me make her stoppp

Tim: I love you and I wish that was enough.

Sasha rubbed at her eyes, exhausted. She wished it was enough too. She knew it wasn’t. Strongly, like burning, Sasha wished so desperately that she had never met Jonathan Sims. Maybe, in that world, things were okay. She and Tim were happy.

She scrolled through the rest of the notifications. Strangely, she even had two texts from Melanie.

Melanie: Hey, I heard what’s going on. I know you couldn’t have done it. A LOT of cops are bothering me - Hussein and Tonner have called like five times. I think you know them? For legal purposes I’ll say that you should turn yourself in or whatever.

Melanie: oh and Martin said to tell you that Mr. Bouchard’s been asking me a lot of questions about what im doing and my job situation - dunno y tho

That….probably wasn’t good.

No texts from Jon. She wouldn’t know what to do if he had. She doubted he knew her number, or how to work a phone. The last thing she could deal with emotionally right now was an apology. She didn’t know what to do about Tonner or Hussein or Melanie. Those were all problems she couldn’t fix right now.

Really, there was only one problem she could fix right now. She walked over to the door to the balcony, carefully stepping out onto the 20th story balcony. She carefully ejected her SIM card, snapped it in half, looked underneath her to make sure there were no passerby in the exclusive London neighborhood, and forced her fingers to release from the phone so she could watch it fall twenty stories onto the concrete.

She imagined a smash, a crack, but it didn’t make any sound at all. Sasha forced herself to step back inside, leaving the past behind her.

There was a lot Sasha had to force herself to do that day. Georgie owned a few laptops, but she hadn’t given Sasha permission to use any of them yet, and she didn’t want to intrude. Despite Sasha’s own...reservations about her personality, she really was being incredibly kind by letting her stay and trying to cheer her up. She did, however, have a great deal of antique books, and Sasha eagerly cracked open the first edition copies of fiction novels from the 19th century. Was that a first edition Pride & Prejudice? Oh, score!

She wasn’t hungry, but she forced herself to eat. Food tasted like ash in her mouth, but that always happened whenever she was upset. She forced herself to take a shower, impossibly intimidated by Georgie’s small army of hair care and hygiene products, and even cautiously let herself take a bubble bath with a bath bomb. It was...weirdly luxurious, but maybe not surprisingly. Georgie’s bathroom was like the Queen’s, and you could practically swim in the bathtub. It was intimidating and weird and uncomfortable, but Sasha forced herself to appreciate it. How many people got to take a shower in a stall with five different showerheads?

Halfway through the day the housekeeper came in, terrifying Sasha deeply, and she retreated to her guest bedroom to let the woman work. She inspected her newly painted toenails glumly, halfway through Pride & Prejudice, forcing herself not to think about how Jon could have been a background character in the novel. Wasn’t he in his twenties in this time period? Wasn’t that when he and Jonah Magnus had -

Sasha drank more wine, and put on another cooking program. She hadn’t watched telly all day, so technically she could tell Georgie that. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was anything productive to do. No work, which sucked when she was a workaholic. No computer to waste time on. No friends she could talk to without the police investigating her. She couldn’t go outside, again due to the aforementioned cop situation. Her life was her work, and her bosses had just framed her for murder.

Somewhat buzzed, Sasha stole several pieces of intricate stationary and wrote down everything Leitner had told her before he was murdered. It wasn’t nearly as much as she wanted, yet far more than she knew what to do with. Halfway through her notes deteriorated into a bizarre sort of mind map, lists of cases connected together and obscure monsters and figures pointing to each other. Salasea and his endless array of dangerous trinkets, mysterious yet lonely ship captains, Michael and his gently twisting deceit, Gerry Keay and his bizarre heroism, Leitner and his ruinous imprints, Agnes and her desolate fate, and the oft-mentioned yet barely understood man, whose name was whispered by shadowy figures entrenched in the supernatural world, Jonathan Sims…

Did he know? How often his shadow stained her statements? Did he care? Did he know how thoroughly he had ruined her life?

She scoured her memory for hints, writing down everything she could remember of his cameos in random statements. Of Leitner’s testimony, the immortal figure who so easily attained what Leitner and Mary Keay had spent their entire lives grasping for. Was there a hint to his true nature, his true allegiance?

In the corners of the cute stationary, Sasha doodled a small eye. She stared at it, and couldn’t help but fight the notion that it was staring back.

She scratched it out, feeling paranoid, not feeling paranoid enough.

A few hours later, Georgie came home, and Sasha fought the pathetically hopeful trepidation. When she heard the front door rattle she left her room, intending on welcoming Georgie back and proving that she hadn’t been watching telly all day, but she stopped short in the hallway when she heard the loud sound of voices. Specifically, the loud sound of Georgie’s still slightly unfamiliar voice, and the quieter tones of a voice that was far too familiar to her.

“ - if you’ll just let me talk to her, she’ll understand.”

“And she said that she’s not seeing you,” Georgie said firmly. Sasha held her breath, pressing herself up against the hallway wall. Next to her was a doorway that led to the living room, that led to a foyer. If she craned her head she could just barely see Georgie standing in the foyer, arguing with a figure holding a leather briefcase that made Sasha’s heart leap into her throat. “You really did screw her over, you know.”

“I know,” Jonathan Sims whined. “I want to apologize. It’s not my fault. Jonah got pushy again, you know how he is.”

“Ugh, tell me about it.” Georgie scoffed. “Did something happen between you two? Sasha was asking all sorts of weird questions.”

“Just Jonah being his usual insufferable self,” Jon said, so carelessly and casually that if Sasha hadn’t known better she would have believed him. “It probably alarmed her, seeing how that man really is. I’m sure she’s feeling very overwhelmed right now.”

“She really is, the poor dear,” Georgie said sympathetically. Sasha’s hands clenched into fists. “But you aren’t getting past this foyer, honey. I’m sure she’ll want to be friends again once Jonah gets the cops off her case.”

“Martin’s giving me a hard time,” Jon sulked. “Says this is all my fault that the dreadful little wolf girl is sniffing around. It’s not my fault. If my Archivist just let me explain, she’d see that it’s not my fault.”

“That Blackwood boy’s always giving you a hard time,” Georgie sniffed. “I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with him. He’s overly moralistic and doesn’t know how to have fun. You spend too much time with him.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Georgina Barker,” Jon teased. He stepped forward a little closer, and although Sasah couldn’t see his face she had the feeling he was smiling. “It’s a bad look on you.”

“Idiot,” Georgie said fondly, “everything’s a good look on me.” She stretched up on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Ditch him and come party with me, darling, I’ll show you a wonderful time. Maybe after all of this nonsense blows over.”

“Judging from what I can make out of Jonah’s monologuing, we ought to get our parties in while we still can,” Jon said glumly. He opened his briefcase, passing a manila folder to Georgie. “Give her these. She’ll be getting hungry. Tell her that the top one is from work, and the second is from me.” He hesitated for a second. “You really think she’ll forgive me?”

“If it’s not your fault, then why do you need to be forgiven?”

Jon was silent for a long minute. Finally, he said, “I’ll talk to you later, Georgie. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Georgie said easily, casually, as if she had said it a thousand times, a million times. “Take care of yourself.”

She stood in the foyer after he left, arms folded, one delicately manicured finger tapping against her arm. She eventually turned around, poking her head into the living room.

“You can come out, darling, I don’t bite.”

Sasha guiltily stepped into the living room, crossing her arms defensively. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

But Georgie just rolled her eyes. “Please. My best friends are Jonathan Sims and Jonah Magnus.” She looked thoughtful for a second. “Well. My oldest friends. Anyway, if you’re in the same house as one of those Beholding types you aren’t getting a private conversation. I’m super used to it.” She held out the manila folder, and Sasha cautiously stepped forward and took it from her.

“Beholding types?”

“Oh, you know, you and your lot,” Georgie said dismissively. “Can’t do anything about that annoying little megalomania the Eye gives you. Have fun with lunch, I have to freshen up. It takes ages to get the scent of Jon’s musty old books off me.”

But Sasha was already tuning her out, because in the manilla envelope there were two Statements. They thrummed under her fingers, charged with energy and power and fear, and Sasha could feel herself gripping them. The first one was a classic Magnus Institute Statement, just like she would have read at work, but the second was what looked like a photocopy of a piece of paper. Judging from the ornate script, it was old, and when Sasha’s eyes wandered to the date her eyes widened. July 21st, 1823.

She looked up, already frantically searching for a tape recorder, and immediately saw one sitting on the coffee table. She didn’t think twice about it, already sitting on the plush white couch and setting the papers out. Which one first - oh man, they were both so exciting - her fingers drifted to the one Jon gave her, and she picked it up. That one, then.

Sasha James pressed play on the tape deck, feeling a familiar thrill go through her at the gentle whirring. She cleared her throat.

“Statement of Sasha James, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, regarding a letter sent by Barnabas Bennet to Jonah Magnus. Statement begins.”

And, as Sasha’s blood ran cold, she began to read.

My dearest Jonah,

I hope you are well. It was an absolute pleasure to vacation at your estate this summer. I’ve never had such interesting conversations with a like-minded individual, and since returning to my own estate I have been sorely missing your company. You have introduced a great deal of brightness and acute interest to my life, and without you the luminescence of Heaven does not thrill me. How I wish you were around to thrill me again!

Do not concern yourself - I have maintained my studies. The library you loaned me is of great interest, and I have been spending many a quiet night bent over one of your occult tomes. I have never felt so enlightened. A world is opening up before us, Jonah, one of richness and wonder, and for the first time in many years I find myself excited to rise each morning. I thank our Heavenly Father each day that I was so fortunate as to cross your path. You must remind me to discuss with you the report by Smirke in detail - fascinating! Theoretical, of course, all theoretical - but the concept of classifying the devils that so bewitch man into fourteen unique taxonomies fascinates me. We must discuss it.

Jonah, I trust that this letter reaches you in private, and that you shall not betray my confidence by discussing it with anyone. I have a private grievance I wish to address with you. It is regarding your boy, the one kept so close in your confidence and trust.

I would never hasten to question any of your decisions, for I trust they are made with great deliberation and forethought. But I must question why you keep that boy so close to you. His air is strange and fey. While summering at your estate, I would frequently see him awake at late hours, pouring over some tome or report or another (I would swear that he reads better than I!). I know he’s somewhat of a project of yours, bringing him into Christianity and your charity, which will surely be rewarded etc etc, but I cannot shake my strange trepidation.

If I were to be quite honest, my fear of him.

He always asks questions. Disturbing and distressing questions. And when I deign to answer them, he acts as if he truly understands. Moreover, that he understands more than me - that he possesses some secret knowledge that only he has obtained. I catch him listening at doorways and around corners frequently, and no matter how many times I box him about the ears for it he will not cease. You encourage it, allowing this behavior. Even after I reported to you the pagan rituals which I am confident he is performing, you brush me off. You two are strangely close. I’m simply concerned for you, Jonah. Please heed my advice: that boy is trouble. I fear that he will bring you into trouble also. Do not allow this paganism to steer you away from the light of our heavenly Father. I understand that the occult is of great interest to all of us, discovering the secrets of the world and its many mysteries, but it is only an academic interest. I would never go so far as to partake of these devilish rituals myself, and you ought to dissuade yourself of such a notion also. Do not allow that John to lead you astray.

I wish you most well. I am encountering some trouble of my own - debts and such - but do not concern yourself with them. The situation is well-handled. I hope to write to you again soon.

Yours, faithfully,

Barnabas

...supplemental.

Jon. Why did you show me this?

Is this your definition of vulnerability? Of honesty? What, are you trying to justify your decisions to me? I get it, it’s disgusting. These people were disgusting to you. I can’t know how you feel, but I think I - my parents -

What I mean is, I can’t understand. I can’t imagine how hard this must have been. I understand how Jonah was the only one to… ‘get’ you or whatever. How he was the only person to see how brilliant you are, how much you have to give.

But, Jon - I don’t think Jonah thought any better of you than Barnabas did. He was just better at hiding it. I don’t know, I didn’t know him and I still don’t know him - but you get that the way he talked to you back then wasn’t right, right? You get that it was fucked up, right?

I don’t know. I don’t think you get that. I don’t think anybody does. Georgie’s too close to it, too used to you and Jonah’s ‘quirks’ or whatever. I...don’t know anything Martin thinks, but I feel as if you’d be pretty invested in keeping this from him. But I’m close enough to you to see it, and I’m far enough away from this that I understand. Something’s really fucked up about this situation. I’m worried I’m the only person who sees it. I hate being that person, the person who Sees it all, who knows it all, but is powerless to do anything about it. You understand, right? You understand how much this is hurting me?

I’m not sure you do. If you’re showing me this, trying to show me how hard you had it, how misunderstood you were, just so I forgive you...I don’t. And it’s manipulative, so cut it out. I’m not sure if you’re consciously doing that, I really don’t think you’re emotionally intelligent enough.

But you aren’t dumb, Jon. I know it’s a defence mechanism or whatever to pretend that you are, to act childish, but you aren’t.

Ugh, listen to me. I sound like Martin. Disgusting. I don’t give a shit about this, I’m not your therapist. But you keep on making your problems my problems, and I’m not tolerating that. We’ll talk when I’m not fucking wanted for murder for something you were complicit in.

Get your act together. I don’t forgive you. Statement fucking ends.

As if Sasha’s life wasn’t hard enough, Georgie wanted to go dancing.

“I am literally wanted by the police.”

“The nightclub’s so dark, nobody’ll even see your face,” Georgie promised.

“Shouldn’t I be spending my time working on my conspiracy theory board?”

“Honey, no offence, that thing is so tacky.”

“I hate clubbing.”

“You’ll like the way I do it!”

“I really don’t want to -”

“Tough nuts.”

So, of course, that’s how Sasha ended up shoved into a tight dress, heels, and makeup, pushed into a taxi, and quickly deposited in front of a warehouse looking building. There was a long line out the door, of women with straightened hair dressed somehow identically, yet way worse, than Sasha, all looking very cold. Georgie looped her arm through Sasha’s, white teeth flashing as she grinned widely, and escorted them both straight through the doors and past security.

She, it seemed, was a known quantity. Sasha, who had spent the last year working in a mill to feed evil psychic vampires and the ten years before that locked in academia, which was basically the same thing, was not a known quantity to any nightclub. She had not been clubbing since uni, which was approximately five lifetimes ago.

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Sasha said into Georgie’s ear as they transitioned from the furiously cold February air into the swelteringly hot club. It was dim and smoky, the noise overwhelmingly grating at her ears. After so long in a quiet office, in a silent flat, she could barely handle it.

Georgie said something to her.

“What?” Sasha yelled. “Georgie, I don’t want to be here!”

Georgie frowned at her, and unlinked their arms so she could reach up on her tiptoes and clasp Sasha on the shoulders. “You have been accused of murder! You just split with your boyfriend because of clown trauma! You haven’t had fun in years! You deserve this, queen!”

You know...maybe she did.

Georgie pressed a drink into her hands, mysteriously procured from somewhere, and without thinking too hard about it Sasha downed it in one gulp. Georgie whooped, clapping her on the back, and directed her towards the bar. She flashed her platinum credit card at the bartender, and suddenly Sasha was MVP of the night.

You know, Sasha thought dizzily as she was given a toxic blue drink and pushed onto the dance floor, maybe she did deserve this. Didn’t she deserve to have fun? After the way things ended with Tim, couldn’t she just act like a normal girl and go clubbing with her friends to dance away the pain? She was almost forty, way too old for this, but maybe she could forget for a little bit. She had never had the opportunity as a teenager, not even as a young adult. Couldn’t she do this, before she died?

Maybe women closer to forty than thirty dealt with this with - with book clubs, with sisterhood, whatever. Maybe women closer to forty than thirty were married, had kids of their own. But Sasha was just Sasha, stuck in a literal dead-end job, going nowhere good, and this was all she would ever have.

Maybe Georgie was right. Why not live, before she died? Everybody on earth died - everybody, that is, except for a small group of people who were willing to sell their soul for the privilege. At least maybe this way she could have whatever joy she could fit into her life before all opportunity was lost, and she was lost.

A man sidled up to her, asking for a dance, and she evaded him. But then there was another one, and another one, and Sasha found herself fleeing back to the bar and ordering another drink. Too soon. Way too soon. She found herself digging in her borrowed purse, searching for her phone, wanting to call Tim or talk to him or ask him if they really were broken up so she could have rebound sex with random dudes in bars, but the purse was empty of both a phone and a wallet. That’s right - she had destroyed it. Because the cops were after her.

Next to her, out of the corner of her eye, a man sat down at a barstool. He said something to the bartender and leaned towards her, mouth spilling something obscured by the crush and heat and sound of the club. He seemed to be asking if he could buy her a drink. Sasha shook her head dizzily, confused and lost. Then he leaned in closer, and Sasha could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Are you sure? I’d like to dance with you!”

Sasha shook her head no again, frantically.

“Aw, come on -”

Then, as if by magic, Georgie was at her elbow. Unintimidating, not more than one hundred and seventy centimeters, with teased hair and sharp black lipstick and eyeliner, she raised an eyebrow at the guy. But there must have been something in her eyes, or a lack of something, because the guy rapidly slipped off the barstool and melted into the crowd, leaving the drink the bartender slid onto the counter behind.

As if she had planned it, Georgie easily stole the drink and knocked it back. She tugged Sasha down, yelling into her ear. “Come with me, darling, let’s check out where the real party is.”

Without taking no for an answer, Georgie grabbed Sasha’s hand and tugged her through the outskirts of the crowd, ducking and weaving between small clusters of people and women dancing the night away. Sasha’s vision swam, details and faces lost in the endless ripple of flashing lights and sound, until all she felt was Georgie’s cool hand in hers, and it wasn’t until they emerged from the choppy sea of people into a small hallway off the main room that she felt like she could breathe. Sasha’s head swam with movement and smoke, and she was barely cognizant that they were in a hallway for a bathroom or something.

But Georgie walked confidently past the bathrooms, into what appeared to be a storage closet. She confidently opened it, halting at the door frame to glance backwards at Sasha. A smile quirked at her bow lips.

“You coming?”

Sasha, slightly intoxicated though she was, couldn’t fight the skepticism. “This is where the real party is? A supply closet?”

“Oh, my dear Archivist,” Georgie said, smirking slightly. “The world is full of far more delights than you could understand. Follow me, and stay close.”

Then Georgie stepped forward, disappearing into the closet, and as little as Sasha wanted to step inside more dubiously supernatural hallways she wanted to be left alone in this club even less, and she ducked after Georgie into the unknown.

The unknown, as it turned out, was another club.

Or, more accurately, a pub. It was a nice pub too, all smoky yellow lights and burnished wood booths. The booths were upholstered in soft and cushy looking brown leather, and the sound where nowhere above a quiet murmur. It didn’t seem to be abandoned, the shadows at some booths deeper than others, but for the life of her Sasha couldn’t puzzle out the faces or figures of anybody at these shadowy corners. There was a single bartender, wiping a grimy glass over and over. He nodded at Georgie when he walked in, and Sasha was forced to wonder how many dubiously physical supernatural bars and hang-outs existed in random back rooms of mundane stores. Were these things just everywhere? Or were there only a few, and so long as you had the right key any door could be an entrance? It was just Sasha’s intuition, but she felt as if it was the latter.

What would, could Georgie open up for her? What power, what majesty? What world of power and control could Jon give her, that Jon was trying to hard to give her that she kept refusing? Nobody was telling her the cost. Nobody was letting her make a decision. She was being swept up in the wake of giants, and Sasha was just trying to keep her head above water.

Georgie was still walking confidently down the aisles, and Sasha stumbled trying to keep up. Finally, she came to a stop in a back corner, utterly secluded with a booth that stretched the entire corner, large enough for seven or more people. Georgie turned to Sasha, smiling broadly, and Sasha tried not to feel intimidated.

“Honey, these are my friends. Girls, this is my new roommate, Sasha James!”

With a flourish, she made a little tah-dah motion, and the smoky yellow lamp above the table flickered on.

The table was crowded with women, or women appearing people. Absolutely none of them were familiar. No - in the corner, there was one person who was familiar. Michael, blonde hair hurting her eyes in curly ringlets, hands in his coat pockets. He smiled crookedly at her, jarring her adrift.

“Uh,” Sasha said, confused. Who were these people? “Hello?”

A short East Asian woman in a white tank top and black jeans scowled from where she was slouching in her seat. “One of those Beholding patsies? Please, Georgie, they’re so insufferable.”

“I like this one,” Georgie said cheerfully. She slid into an empty seat, and Sasha cautiously sat next to her. “Play nice, everyone.”

“You’re such a grouch, Jude,” a woman said, leaning forward and looking interestedly at Sasha. Her eyes were dark and big, her head cocked, giving her an almost insectoid air. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person finally, Archivist. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re really making waves in our little community.”

“Patsy Archivist,” a tall and burly white woman with cascading brown hair said shortly, taking long gulps of a pint. “What’s impressive about that?”

“I’m impressed with anyone who puts up with Sims and Magnus long enough,” the insectish woman said. “No offence, Georgie.”

“Oh, they’re insufferable,” Georgie said cheerfully. “Have you heard how those two like to socialize? They go to galas. With those awful little Fairchilds and Lukases and whatever. It’s just tragic.”

“Word,” the insect woman said, raising her glass. The rim seemed to be coated in cobwebs, making Sasha feel vaguely ill. “Much rather have a pint at a nice little pub with friends. But we haven’t introduced ourselves, have we? My name’s Annabelle Cane. I’m sure you’ve heard of me in all those little stories you like.”

Anabelle Cane. Sasha swallowed. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“A proxy Archivist she may be,” Michael said serenely, “but perhaps our most successful yet. She’s already coming along so much further than Gertrude ever did.” He winked bizarrely at Sasha. “Michael, but you already know that. They and them, if you please.”

Oh. Sasha blinked at them. “Thanks for...saving my life back there. And Tim’s and Martin’s.”

“My pleasure,” Michael said affably. “You’re the most fun I’ve had in awhile. Always nice to have the Eye owe me a favor.”

“They’re just mad they didn’t get to kill Gertrude,” the brunette said evenly. “Julia Montauk. You should know me too, I think. Is it true you killed someone?”

“I definitely didn’t,” Sasha said heatedly. “It was a set-up.”

“Relax, we’re all killers here,” the woman in a tank top said. She scowled at Sasha. “Jude Perry. What the fuck do those old money ponces think they’re doing, installing another patsy Archivist this late in the game? I would have thought that they learned their lesson after that bitch Gertrude.”

“Archivists are quite slow learners,” a woman piped up. She sat in the corner, strangely oddly. Her skin was shiny and strange in the dim light, almost plasticish, and her dark eyes hadn’t moved from Sasha’s face since she walked in. “Nikola. A pleasure, Archivist.”

“Are you guys all…” Sasha trailed off uncomfortably. “You know?”

“Serial killers?” Julia Mauntauk asked flatly.

“Inhuman monstrosities of plastic and flesh?” Nikola inquired.

“Daughters of fear entities that control our every action?” Annabelle said.

“Embodiments of unknown concepts made sentient, forced into a shape that cannot suit them, locked in flesh and fractal prisons, always screaming in endless turmoil, unable to understand the horrors of the concepts of ourselves, always searching for the sweet release of death that can never quite be obtained, because that which does not live can never die?” Michael said serenely.

“Assholes?” Jude Perry said flatly.

“The sexiest Avatars around?” Georgie asked.

How did Sasha’s life devolve to this point.

“...yeah,” Sasha said. “Hey, where can I get more drinks?”

Unsurprisingly enough, the drinks came very fast. Service was excellent when you hung out with eldritch women, Sasha supposed.

The conversion flew thick and fast after that. In Sasha’s experience, joining a new group of established friends meant being ignored for favor of pre-existing dynamics. It was always uncomfortable, and no small part of why she just didn’t join new groups. Tim had never had that problem - he had a loud and persistent personality, the kind that made you pay attention to him. He dominated any room he entered, by force if necessary. It always seemed exhausting to Sasha, but Tim didn’t really seem to have anymore real friends than she did lately. His personality was like an ocean, overwhelming and everywhere, but when his mood turned sour it was just as intense. Gulfs of pleasure, intense pain - it seemed exhausting, to feel so deeply. God knows Sasha didn’t.

But today, in this group, she seemed to be novel. Maybe new fear avatars were a rare enough thing, or at least ones with Georgie’s seal of approval. They aimed a barrage of questions at her, and Sasha did her best to keep up with each one.

How did Sasha know Georgie? Mostly through a mutual enemy. Oh, fuckin’ Sims, right - you guys friends? No, I hate him. You guys fucking? Ew. Right, right, Sims is a giant prude - actually I heard that he doesn’t really - no, Jon decided a while back he doesn’t do that, and we all respect his decision - ew, though, nobody wants to imagine that. So why are you two friends? We’re roommates, mostly, I’m kinda on the run from the cops. Who’d you kill? Nobody. Who’d that old fucker Bouchard kill? Jurgen Leitner, mostly.

“Cheers to that!” Julia said abruptly, raising her glass. “Hate that fucker.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Annabelle said, downing her own drink and what seemed like an improbable quantity of spiders. She leaned over the table to where Sasha had hastily been stuffed in, beetle-black eyes gleaming. “But really. What are you doing here?”

“As I said,” Sasha said uncomfortably, “I got framed for murder -”

But Annabelle just waved her hand. “No, no, we know that. I’m asking what are you doing here? With people like us, in a place like us? You’re just a sexy librarian. Your highest goal in life was owning your own cottage house one day. How’d you get wrapped up in the tangled web of our world?”

Sasha’s mouth ran dry, her head spinning in a way that didn’t really seem to have anything to do with the alcohol. How had she ended up like this? Who was to blame?”

“Jonathan Sims,” Sasha said dizzily. “He -”

“Didn’t know you Beholding types were in the process of lying to yourselves,” Annabelle said, casually yet brutally. “No, really.”

Sasha opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said, “I guess I just asked all the wrong questions.”

It was a pretty way of dressing up the real answer: that Sasha didn’t know.

Maybe her thoughts were obvious, because Georgie cooed sympathetically and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Cheer up, honey, it’s not so bad. Not everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it’s just your own rotten luck.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jude called, lifting her glass. “I love my fucking life. It’s hookers, coke, and blow from here to Scotland. The life of a woman with power’s a thousand times better than the life of a woman without, James.”

“What is with you people and hedonism,” Sasha muttered.

“Why not?” Nikola asked, tilting her head strangely. “Life’s so short when it’s this long. It’s just bread and circuses, Archivist. We all need...entertainment.”

“Humans are always trying to make sense of it all,” Michael said arily. They were digging their fingers into the table, scoring long grooves in it. “When you know there’s no meaning, no purpose, then everything else just...falls away.”

Sasha didn’t know if she believed that, but she bit her tongue. Instead, she said, “What about those Avatars like Magnus or Raynor? They seem really...driven.”

Georgie giggled, light and airy, and leaned in. “That’s because they don’t know.”

She shouldn’t even ask. She shouldn’t - “Know what?”

Georgie smiled, sharp and wicked. “That there’s no point.”

And that was all she would say on that for the night: conversation after that devolved into parties, restaurants, drugs, and conquests. Maybe the women were right, in their own clearly demented way: that without death there was no meaning, when when there was no meaning only pleasure held any significance. If there was no afterlife, no reward or punishment - which Sasha didn’t believe, but they seemed to - then there was no reason not to do what you wanted. To have fun. To take revenge.

If all Georgie wanted was to have fun, and if all Jon wanted was revenge, then what did Jonah Magnus want? Sasha didn’t know. She had the feeling that if she didn’t figure it out, she wasn’t going to live much longer.

Why had Jonah Magnus done this to her? What was the point of framing her for murder? She couldn’t do her job like this. What’s the point?

Half-drunk, head spinning, she found herself vocalizing this. Somehow, Annabelle Cane had ended up sitting next to her, letting spiders run along her slightly too long and too jointed fingers. Annabelle Cane just smiled at her, jaw slightly slacking open to expose teeth.

“Maybe it’s just to fuck with you,” Annabelle posited. “Why not? Do you think he has another reason?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha groaned. “I don’t know anything. Everything’s confusing and terrible. I could never understand those psychopaths.”

“You won’t make it very far in this line of work if you never ask why,” Annabelle scolded. She paused a second, spider running thoughtfully across her eyeball. “But too many questions damns you just as effectively, I suppose. Hm. Jonah’s quite good, isn’t he.”

“Why me,” Sasha groaned. “Everyone’s trying to keep shit from me, it fuckin’ - it fuckin’ sucks, man. It sucks. Nobody would tell me what’s going on, but I don’t think anybody knows what’s going on. Not even Jonah, or Jon, or - or anyone. Nobody but me.”

Annabelle blinked at her, somewhat curiously, before leaning in. Her perfume lingered in the air, a heavy rosy scent. “Do you know something that Jonah doesn’t?”

“Yeah,” Sasha slurred, world fading in and out. “Jonah doesn’t know that Jon -”

Then the world faded into black, and Sasha fell asleep.

If she had felt too old for this at the nightclub, she definitely felt too old for this hangover. Sasha spent twenty minutes crouched over a toilet bowl, reluctantly shoved the Eggs Benedict in her mouth that Georgie insisted was a hangover cure, somehow, and refused the Bloody Mary that Georgie also insisted was a hangover cure that her Mum used to feed her. The thought of Georgie’s Mum filled Sasha with a deep fear, incapable of imagining somebody who was both likely born in the 1800s and who had raised a hellion like Georgie.

When Sasha mumbled this to Georgie, she didn’t look offended. She just smiled, strangely fond. “Oh, none of this is my Mum’s fault. She was a darling, her and my Da. My childhood was positively idyllic. All things considered, you know.”

Yes, Sasha thought, struggling to imagine 1910s London in her mind, idyllic. She took another look at Georgie, squinting slightly as her head throbbed. She definitely seemed younger physically than Jon, but Jon had a particular way of carrying age about him that had nothing to do with his appearance. “When did you stop aging?”

“I forget, honestly,” Georgie said airly, sipping her own bloody mary. For some reason, Sasha didn’t believe her. “It always takes a while to notice, you know. I suppose, logically, it would be about when I died the first time.”

That, more than anything, alarmed Sasha. “I thought you couldn’t die.”

“Not permanently,” Georgie said, as if this was somehow obvious. “Eat your eggs, they’ll get cold.” Sasha frantically shoved eggs in her mouth, desperate for the story. But Georgie just sighed and propped her chin on her hand, eyes distant. “You know how it is. Small town girl, grew up in North Birmingham, Alabama - back when it was just a tiny little thing, you know. I wanted to be a star. I always did. Scared of dyin’ in the dirt. If I was gonna die young, I wanted to do it where everybody knew my name. So long as they remember you, it’s no kind of death at all, really.” She sighed, lost in memory. “I could sing so good...so I went to Harlem, ‘cause all my friends and I always had dreams of going to Harlem and making it big singing in the jazz clubs. They didn’t get so far, staying at home with their babies, but I did. Wasn’t really made for babies and such, I think.” Something strange emerged in her words, the last vestiges of a Southern accent. “I was pretty, and I could sing, and I took to the spotlight like a duck to water. It was tough, but man - if it ain’t tough, it ain’t worth it. I worked so hard. Like I was working myself to death, almost.”

She trailed off, birds softly trilling outside, and Sasha was silent.

Quietly, Georgie began speaking again. “Got into some trouble. You know how it is. I spent dozens of years wondering if it was my fault, if there was something I coulda done differently, zig instead of zag...but now, I don’t think so. Just my own rotten luck, you know. Put my trust in the wrong people. Had the wrong sentence whispered into my ear.” She shrugged listlessly. “Couldn’t handle the truth. Just another girl who couldn’t handle the limelight, that was what they said. But I was set up to fail. All those jazz clubs were ganger run, you couldn’t avoid it. Every girl in that golden age fell prey to those men, same as I did. I just wanted to feel again. Tried everything once, just to feel something.” She sighed, taking another drink. “Got shot. Got back up. I remember it, clear as day. Must have been 1923. I scrubbed the blood out of my show dress and went back on stage that night, cuz you can’t get a rep as a flake. They said, that day...that day was my best performance.”

She trailed off, Sasha finally alert. She wanted more details, almost desperately, but she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to risk putting the whammy on her host, even if she wasn’t sure that she could. If Georgie was being purposefully vague...well, Sasha wasn’t entitled to her pain.

Instead, she said, “I bet you were good.”

Georgie smiled at her wanly, eyes far away. “I was the best.”

They sat in silence for a little while, eating their food, Sasha’s head ringing and mind buzzing. What about this picture was she not understanding? What was so important that she was missing?

Finally, Sasha carefully floated, “I bet you must have met Jon soon after.”

Georgie looked up from her bloody mary, surprised. “Oh, yes. Just a few months after. He must have caught the word on the wind, you know, of that singing girl who got back up after getting shot in the lungs.” She sighed, propping her chin on her hand again. “Saw him in the front row of my club. He was so handsome, and so finely dressed. But there had been something strange in his eyes, you know? Like little marbles, reflecting the lamps. He caught up to me afterwards, and I figured he was just another fan to squeeze dry, but he told me in his funny little accent I’d never heard before that he could help me.” She swallowed, looking away. “That he could help me understand what was happening to me. Why I was having those strange dreams, seeing those strange tendrils. I guess he was right. After I met him, I understood it all. Things moved fast after that.” She smiled weakly at Sasha. “I suppose you know the rest.”

She really didn’t, but Sasha understood the dismissal for what it was. “Yeah. Thanks for telling me all of that.”

“It’s no secret,” Georgie said dismissively. She smiled cunningly. “A hundred years later almost exactly, and what I did to those gangsters was still my finest work. They say that if you pass by an old building on St. Nicholas Avenue, you can still hear the screams. Anyway, I have a meeting with my land development company in an hour, must run, ta!”

On that distressing note Georgie swanned out the door, and Sasha was left alone with nothing but a stack of conspiracy theories, an opulent flat, and bad memories.

Time seemed to move quickly, yet sluggishly, after that. After another day of writing down literally every Statement she could remember off the top of her head and trying to fit them into the weird and seemingly kind of arbitrary categories that Leitner had given her, she had hit a roadblock. She couldn’t remember any more Statements, she didn’t have access to them, and the ones she did remember she either already sorted or couldn’t dredge up enough memory of them to sort them in a satisfactory way. Either that, or the Statement itself was just incomprehensible - Sasha still didn’t know what the fuck was going on with Tessa’s problem. She tended to have a better memory of the ones that seemingly mentioned the Avatars in the background, just because it had been so startling to actually meet them - and a few even mentioned Jon, usually in context of Salasea or any Eye Statement.

When Georgie came home that night, they watched another movie and they both studiously avoided mentioning anything supernatural. Best not to take work home with you, even if Sasha had never quite been good at that.

The next day Sasha did what she should have done in the first place, and hacked into the Magnus Institute server.

It was seriously, comically easy. Sasha had installed a backdoor connection to the desktop of her work computer from her laptop ages ago, and all she had to do was borrow one of Georgie’s laptops and redownload the program. With an easy virtual desktop she was already in. It was somehow satisfying to see all of her work programs pop up on the borrowed laptop, and it was almost a relief to access the Archive drive that connected all of their computers. More importantly, where they all put their research follow-ups and the spreadsheet that documented the debunked, uncertain, and verified statements. It had gotten to the point where if the statement refused to record on the computer they automatically put it on verified, but what Sasha really wanted from that spreadsheet was the one sentence description they had all put for each Statement.

From there, it was much easier. Sasha, sick of the disorganized conspiracy theorist aesthetic, made her own spreadsheet and began categorizing the verified Statements that way. Much more reliable than working from memory.

If only she could actually access the Statements...Sasha’s life would be so much easier if everything could be digitized. The debunked ones were typed up, filed, and recorded, but the verified ones only existed on paper. Couldn’t be typed up, couldn’t be recorded. It was so stupid.

Sasha checked the clock. Eleven am on a Wednesday. They were definitely all still working. Maybe…

It was an invasion of privacy. Did she actually care about that? No. Was she worried about apparently being locked into an employment contract with an...entity of some sort that preyed on invasions of privacy? No, although she felt like she should. Was she concerned that Jon and Jonah were trying to turn into her a conduit of this entity’s power into the world, probably gradually turning her, if not evil, at least into a giant dick? Somewhat.

Words echoed through her mind, and Sasha’s fingers halted over the keyboard. Her powers manifesting differently than Jon’s...her unique skill with hacking…

Well, that was just kind of offensive. Sasha had worked hard for her skills. They weren’t given to her by Jon’s weird god. Also - seriously, a god? It was just a malevolent eldritch entity living in a separate dimension that encroached tendrils into Sasha’s life. There was nothing divine about it. That was just offensive. Sasha was a good feminist, transgender Catholic on the run from the law and didn’t worship false idols.

It was only then that Sasha noticed a folder on the drive that she hadn’t created. It was labelled ‘For the Archivist’. Despite herself, she clicked on it.

It held a few pdfs. Sasha clicked on one curiously, and saw that they were photocopies of statements. No - of Statements. She was already recognizing this one as one of those spider ones. She quickly printed them all out, conscientious of how easily supernatural files corrupted, and quickly exited the drive and the virtual desktop.

It wasn’t until Sasha was already in the kitchen and pulling down a bottle of Jack that she realized what she was doing. She sighed, replaced it, and fetched herself some sparkling water instead. She drank it slowly as she returned to her laptop and logged remotely into the police database, which she already had a backdoor into.

It occurred to Sasha, perhaps belatedly, that if the police found her laptop and the incredible variety of highly illegal programs meant explicitly for accessing secure servers she was probably triple going to jail. This time, for something she had actually did.

All of the hacking had never felt illegal. It had just felt...well, fun and necessary. It had never been about whether or not she should, it had been about if she could.

Was that how it had started for Jon? Collecting household secrets because he had to, so secure the money and influence he desperately needed, because he could, because it was fun?

Whatever. Sasha shook herself. She could have her moral crisis after she was no longer on the run from the cops for murder. This wasn’t the time to be squeamish about something that wasn’t hurting anybody. She knew, as Jon probably did, that just because something was illegal didn’t make it wrong.

It was easy to log onto the police database and check out her own open case. She frequently checked out open homicide cases for fun, but it somehow hit a little different when it was her they were talking about. Incident, Senior Citizen, Offence: First Degree Murder, Location of Arrest: N/A, yeah, yeah, yeah…

One victim, a John Doe. Foul play was suspected...yes that’d be the gunshot wound. No witnesses. Reporting officer’s narrative...Elias Bouchard and Jonathan Sims the Fifth had walked into Head Archivist Sasha James’ office to discuss work with her when they found the body. Both were shocked and called the police...gun found at the scene had her fingerprints and the ballistics matched...suspect still at large. Friends and family had been contacted, everyone denied knowledge of where she was. Suspect had a noted history of mental illness...great…

The officers dispatched had been Alice Tonner and Basira Hussein. Sasha found that strange: Basira had history with one of the witnesses and the suspect, wouldn’t it be unprofessional to send her out?

There couldn’t be that many sectioned officers, Sasha reasoned. Even if the incident hadn’t officially been sectioned, because the police report still existed, as a general rule if something happened at the Magnus Institute it was sectioned until proven otherwise. Even if the murder itself was seemingly mundane.

Out of curiosity, she searched up Detective Tonner’s records. Been on the force for a long time, worked her way up the ranks. Very, very few cases and incident reports for a detective who had been on the force as long as she had. Sectioned, obviously, but even Basira had more official cases than she did. When Sasha clicked on the incident reports, they were extremely spotty and strange. Obvious details were omitted or censored.

Something cold began to creep down Sasha’s spine. She found the arrest records of the latest four people with official records of Detective Tonner arresting them.

Almost all of them had entered custody with bruises, cuts, and in one case a broken limb. They all had records down as ‘resisting arrest’. Sasha felt sick.

There was one case that stopped strangely short. A clear perp, a rapist but one with little evidence, who Tonner had quickly caught. That was where the case ended: the report that Tonner had found his hiding spot, but no arrest, no trial, no prison sentence. When Sasha investigated the perp, she found that he had unceremoniously vanished shortly after Tonner had reported that she had found his hiding spot. A month later, a death certificate had been filed.

Sasha stared at the death certificate, nauseated. This was who she was dealing with. A vigilante, some batshit pig who had obviously decided that the law was best taken into her own hands. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but...if anybody looked at Sasha’s case on paper, they’d say the same thing.

And that was just the cases on record. It was the only obvious instance Sasha could see of Tonner having offed someone just because she felt like it, but cops were good at covering shit like that up. How many other arrest records had fallen in the cracks? How many other dead perps that nobody gave a shit about? How many sectioned cases?

God, Sasha was fucked.

She begged off hanging out with Georgie that night, instead staying in bed with the covers pulled tight over her head as if that could ever protect her. Why was Jonah doing this to her? What did he have to gain? If he wanted her to die a mysterious death in the bottom of a ditch, why wasn’t he man enough to do it himself?

Tonner was going to murder her, Sasha thought hysterically, and she was going to pat herself on the back for keeping another monster off the streets.

And Jon knew. The fucking hypocrite. He wasn’t going to help her. Nobody was. But, god, she was so alone…

The next morning, as if she knew, Georgie slipped Sasha a burner phone over the breakfast table as they both robotically ate quiches.

“It should be untraceable, but just know that anybody you call you’re putting at serious risk,” Georgie warned, before her expression softened. “This’ll all be over soon, honey. I promise.”

“Did Jonah tell you that?” Sasha asked bitterly.

“Nah. I just know those two.” Georgie delicately ate a forkful of quiche. “They get bored of terrorizing humans pretty quickly. Now, Michael’s a different story. They’ll terrorize someone for decades. I’ve seen them do it!”

“Great,” Sasha said.

It seemed to be at this point that Georgie realized she was actually making Sasha feel much worse, because a slightly panicked expression crossed her face and she quickly reached out to pat Sasha on the hand. “But I’m sure they won’t do that to you,” Georgie said quickly. “They love you! Jon especially. Jonah’s just on another of his little power trips right now, he’ll get over it. And Jon, like, feels really bad about this whole thing. He’s been super annoying about it, actually -”

“See,” Sasha said, standing up to clear away her dishes, “I would rather handle an enemy who obviously wants to kill me than a friend whose good side I always have to be careful to stay on, who I can’t afford to ever make mad. I guess that’s the only difference left between me and you people.”

She angrily put her dishes in the sink, where the housekeeper would do them, and stalked to what was rapidly becoming her room, slamming the door.

Flopping down on the bed, she stared at the burner phone. Tim wouldn’t be at work yet. They could talk. They could -

Do what? Get back together? Split up? Could he explain, beg for her forgiveness? Did she have to apologize too? Sasha didn’t understand.

That was rare for her. She understood a lot of things, or at least she thought she did. Maybe she had been lying to herself, about everything: that her and Tim were a good idea, that Martin was sketchy, that Jon was evil, that Jon was kind, that Georgie just wanted to help her, that there was nothing that Jonah Magnus would do to her, that she was safe and human and a good person.

God, her capacity for self-delusion was ridiculous. But maybe people needed a little bit of self-delusion to survive. Nobody could live in complete honesty, in full sight of their flaws and shortcomings. You could burn away, living like that.

No. No time or space for fear. Sasha wasn’t afraid of anything. If she kept telling herself that, maybe it would be true. She desperately punched in a number that she didn’t remember memorizing, holding the phone desperately to her ear, her one connection to humanity.

It rung, and rung, and one, and Sasha’s heart thumped in her chest.

Finally, the ringing stopped, and a slightly sleepy voice punctuated the dead air. “Hello?”

“Tim, it’s me,” Sasha burst out, everything she wanted to say to him rushing through her throat and choking her, and she burst into tears.

Distantly, through the sound of her crying, she could hear Tim on the other side losing his shit, and eventually wrangling himself to calmness.

It was almost funny, how they could work each other up like that. Eventually, by the time Sasha had managed to wrangle her own crying, Tim had calmed himself down enough that he was able to clumsily try to cheer her up.

“We’re all fine. Everyone’s perfectly safe. Martin’s gotten, uh, even more annoying since you left, and we’ve technically hired Melanie, which is - not good but it’s funny? Are you still crying? Please don’t still be crying.”

“I’m fine,” Sasha hiccuped. She rubbed at her red eyes. God, she’d missed him. “Tim, what happened?”

The line was silent for a while. Finally, he said, “Is this line secure?”

“Uh - probably? I mean -” Sasha quickly checked herself. She didn’t want to mention Georgie. The less he knew the better. “ - it’s a burner, if that’s what you’re asking, and I’m not the one who bought it.”

“Where are you living?” Tim asked harshly. “Are you homeless? You have to come stay with me, I can -”

“You mean the first place Tonner will look?” Sasha shot back. “No. I’m safe, I’m dry, things are fine. That’s all you need to know.” She softened her voice. “I promise, if it was safe I’d tell you more. I want to see you again. Tim, I - I’m really sorry.”

Tim laughed hoarsely, without humor. “Shouldn’t it be me saying that? I’m the one who thought you were a monster.”

“...yeah, that one’s on you.” Sasha sighed miserably, lying down on her bed, wishing Tim was next to her. “I am, though. A monster, I mean. Tim, I - I’m definitely not entirely human anymore.”

“God, Sash, that’s the least of our problems right now,” Tim said, laughing slightly again. “Can you just tell me what happened? I know you didn’t fucking do it. That dick Bouchard keeps playing dumb and his shitlead lackey keeps on avoiding the Archives. I bet Sims killed that old man, right? He totally did. Martin keeps on saying that his precious Jon wouldn’t let you take the fall for something he did, but I’m not so sure.”

“I...it’s more complicated than that.”

Sasha explained in short order. For once, Tim was totally silent the entire time, letting Sasha dispassionately recite the entire sad story. She finished it at Michael helping her escape, not detailing where she had been dropped off.

Finally, after a long silence, Tim said, “So this is my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Sasha said harshly. “You were manipulated, same as I was.”

“I’m the idiot who -”

“Yes, you were being an idiot. You should have talked to me, talked to anyone. You should have done anything other than your homicidal partner in crime. You definitely shouldn’t have been buying a fucking black market gun when I know for a fact you have no idea how to shoot. But you tried playing hero and you played straight into Magnus’ hands. You fucked up. Okay? Now let’s try to do better.”

More silence, until Tim sighed. “Can’t believe the Douche’s Jonah Magnus. Explains why Sims is always playing lackey for him. Can’t wait to spill to Martin how his boyfriend framed his boss for murder.”

Sasha chewed her lip, uncertain. She hadn’t shared the details of Jonah and Jon’s conversation too closely - it had seemed private. “See, I’m not sure this is...entirely Jon’s fault.”

Tim groaned. “Not you too! Why is everyone but me and Melanie a fucking Sims apologist?”

“Jon and Jonah are...they’re weird, okay?” Sasha moved to chewing her hair, uncertain of how to describe it. If it should even be described. It seemed so private, so unsuitable to name...but maybe everybody thinking that was how these things stayed perpetuated for so long. “I think Jonah’s kind of, you know, abusive?”

The line went silent again.

“Wow,” Tim said finally, “Martin’s going to be so disappointed his boyfriend’s taken.”

“They’re just friends! I think. I’m like, ninety percent sure. But you didn’t hear them, Tim. They’re really...it’s messed up. Trust me.”

“Jesus, Sash, why are you defending someone who fucked all of us over like this? Sims is a big boy, he’s responsible for his own shitty decisions and the shitty company he keeps.” Tim snorted. “I’ve heard them talk, anyway. If anything, Magnus is the one always giving into Sims and his little tantrums. Jesus, I just want to throttle the both of them.”

“Maybe you need to get over your anger issues and focus on actually solving the problem for once,” Sasha snapped. “Nobody has time for your revenge fantasy, Tim! We need to fix all of this.”

“Which one is it, Sash?” Tim asked coldly. “Was I manipulated, or was it my anger issues and hero complex? Are you going to decide if this is my fault or not?”

Sasha’s heart stuttered in her chest. She didn’t know how to explain to him what she knew - that it was everything, that it was all of the above, that he was manipulated through his anger issues and hero complex, that Tim had been pushed in a direction but he had taken the steps all by himself. But she couldn’t blame him entirely, because Sasha had been manipulated the same way, and so had Jon and Martin and Georgie, and if she started thinking like that then she would have to start hating the whole damn world.

“Tim, are we going to stay together?” Sasha whispered, broken-hearted. “Can we even still be together? I love you. I want you here with me. But there’s so much ugliness that’s growing between us. I don’t know if this can be fixed.”

A long silence again. Sasha wanted to be there with him, to read his face, to see what he was thinking. She had always understood him so well, or at least she thought that he did.

“I love you too,” Tim said finally. “I want to fix this too. I - I don’t know, Sasha. I love you. The thought of you alone, in danger, and not even knowing where you are, is fucking me up. It’s like Danny all over again, Sasha, I can’t handle this. Can we have this conversation again when I know you’re safe?”

“Okay,” Sasha said, and she knew that this was probably the best both of them could do right now. “Are we staying together?”

“...I don’t know.”

“...are we breaking up?”

“...still don’t know.”

“Okay,” Sasha repeated again, and sighed. “I won’t call you from this phone twice. I’m doing the best I can here. I’m safe, I think. Things will be okay, Tim.”

“Sash,” Tim said, “I don’t remember the last time things were okay.”

And neither did she, and they both knew it, and she hung up on him without saying anything further. She lay on the bed, listening faintly to the sound of the housekeeper vacuuming, staring up at the fan as it beat in a steady rhythm on the ceiling.

Was Tim right? Was she reading too much into Jon and Jonah? It wasn’t her job to fix Jon, to puzzle out his weird psychology. Maybe he was just an asshole without a spine,and there wasn’t anything more to that.

No. Sasha didn’t believe that. This was a puzzle that she hadn’t solved yet, and she had the feeling that at the heart of this puzzle was the key to finally keeping herself and Tim safe. She couldn’t abide a mystery, couldn’t trick herself into thinking that the truth wasn’t important. The truth was all Sasha had. She couldn’t close her eyes to it, that awful and ugly reality.

Tim...he had been such a bad idea. But he had always been her favorite one: the way he could always cheer her up, his bright and bold smile, his courage and heart and sensitivity and vulnerability. He had loved her, truly and wholly, for who she was. He knew the ugly corners of her and loved them as much as he loved her best attributes.

Was that still true? Was Sasha turning into a person that Tim just couldn’t love? Was Tim turning into someone that Sasha couldn’t love?

People changed. Sometimes they changed apart. And for some strange reason, Sasha just couldn’t bear the thought of that.

Lying on the bed of a grim reaper, crying like a broken-hearted teenager, Sasha didn’t notice that the housekeeper’s vacuum had stopped running. She didn’t notice the knock on the door, or the creak of the door opening, or the gentle rise and fall of voices. She only heard it when there was a soft knock at her own door, and she was forced to roll off the bed to open her bedroom door.

Standing in front of her, looking nervous, was the housekeeper. Standing behind her was Jonathan Sims.

He looked pretty bad, Sasha noted clinically. Eye bags, even more pronounced than usual, stood starkly under his eyes, and his hair wasn’t as cropped short and styled as it usually was. It had grown out a little, making Jon look more like a tired modern guy walking the streets of London than a centuries old immortal psychic vampire. He was still dressed in a suit, as he always was, but the suit jacket was off and his dress shirt was rolled up to the elbow.

He stared at Sasha, probably registering every minute change in her appearance as she did his, before glancing down at the housekeeper. “You’re excused for the day. Thank you for your time.”

He passed her something - probably neatly folded bills - and nodded at her as she shakily nodded back and escaped the flat as quickly as possible. Jon stepped backwards in the hallway, gesturing for her to come out, and walked back into the living room. Because Sasha was just slightly too prideful to barricade herself in the bedroom, and partly because she wasn’t sure that Jon wouldn’t break into a woman’s bedroom, she stepped out into the grandiose yet cluttered living room with him. He stood in the center, hands in his pockets, looking over the flat with a clinical eye.

“Georgie’s sense of interior decoration is as immaculate as ever,” Jon noted clinically. “She used to spend months getting every house we ever lived in just right. Said it was her job as lady of the household. She had never been a lady of any household, of course, not in the way that Jonah and I had once known - but her fun’s important to her, and it doesn’t hurt anybody important.” He sniffed slightly. “You coming to stay here was for the best after all. She’s been lonely, I think.”

“I’m staying here because I’m homeless,” Sasha said flatly. For the first time, she noticed a small manila envelope under his arm, tucked slightly into his back pocket. “Because of you.”

“I’ve kept your flat for you,” Jon said eagerly, stepping forward, and letting his cold mask fall. In him now was something eager, something almost pleading. Sasha forced herself not to step away. “All of your possessions are intact, and I can get your bank accounts unfrozen easily enough. Once all of this blows over, your life can be right back to normal.”

“Wow,” Sasha drawled, crossing her arms, “how kind. Were you so busy being this nice to me that you forgot that Georgie barred you from this flat because I don’t want to fucking look at you?”

“She’ll get over it,” Jon said dismissively. “She’s been wanting us to make up, anyhow.” He stepped closer again, fluorescent green eyes fixed on her large and warm brown ones, and Sasha fought the tingle crawling up her spine. “Sasha, I really am sorry. Jonah was out of line in what he did. But - but you know, he really does know best. Even if it doesn’t seem so. What we’re doing now, it’s for the best for your development. I promise this will all blow over soon, and things will be better. For all of us.”

“For a subject of a truth god,” Sasha said, voice dripping sarcasm, “you have a unique ability to lie to yourself.”

Jon puffed up, scowling down at her. ��That’s ridiculous. I -”

“Does Jonah Magnus respect you?” Sasha pressed.

Jon...hesitated, and they both saw it. Jon frantically tried to cover, quickly saying, “Of course he does. I’m his partner, and we’ve been partners for two hundred years. There’s nobody on earth he respects more than me. There’s nobody he respects but me.”

“Then why does he talk to you like you’re an idiot?”

“He talks to everyone like that.”

“Because he doesn’t respect anyone but you. You just said that. But if he respects you, then wouldn’t he talk to you differently?”

There it is - Jon’s shoulders hunched slightly, unconsciously on the defensive. “Does he give you equal input on decisions?”

“I always give my -”

“Does he listen to them?”

Jon was silent. Finally, slowly, he said, “Jonah was right. He said you’d get like this.”

Fuck. Sasha’s heart sank, even as her jaw dropped in incredulity. She had lost him. “You must be kidding.”

“He said you’d get jealous.” Jon crossed his arms, turning slightly away from her, but what he clearly meant to be a closed-off stance just seemed defensive. “He said that you’d get upset that I’m more loyal to him than to you. What we’re doing now is for your own good, Miss James. You’ll see one day that this - this unpleasantness is helping you grow.”

Unpleasantness? Unpleasantness?! Putting her life at risk was an inconvenience? “I’ll see, huh?” Sasha said bitterly. “Just like you saw? Just like how you changed your mind from this being cruel and traumatic to it being a momentary unpleasantness?” She barked a short laugh, not very humorous at all. “I was there. He called you stupid, he said that you couldn’t trust anybody but him, and he called you an idiot. Are those the words of someone who respects you? Of someone who even likes you?”

Jon stiffened, mouth tightening, and he broke eye contact and looked away. “Don’t concern yourself with the private business between Jonah and I.”

“When you’re having the conversation over a cooling corpse that you framed me for then you’re making it my business, you absolute shitheel!” Sasha yelled, finally losing her temper. “Your bullshit is ruining my life! Your complete inability to stand up to that sack of shit is ruining my life!”

“Shut up!” Jon yelled, seemingly having taken her losing her temper as permission to lose his. Distantly, Sasha was aware of his stupid this must have looked: two fully grown adults, yelling in a living room like children. “You’re a spoiled child who doesn’t know anything! All I’ve ever done is try to help you, and you spit in my face! You’re no better than Martin!”

Abruptly, strangely, Jon stopped short. He seemed almost embarrassed, almost in pain.

And just like that, Sasha knew. “He’s not letting you see Martin, is he.”

For just a split second, Jon’s expression crumpled, but he forced it back into his haughty mask. “I decided that it was best I didn’t waste my time with manipulative traitors.”

“Was that your idea?” Sasha asked flatly, abruptly extremely tired. “Or was it Jonah’s?”

Jon was silent. They both knew the answer.

“If you walked up to Jonah now and told him that you wanted to start dating Martin, do you think that you’d leave that conversation still wanting to do it? Or would you somehow decide, all by yourself, that you’ll end up doing what Jonah wants anyway?”

Jon didn’t say anything.

A strange mix of emotions swirled in Sasha’s stomach. Anger and disgust mixed with pity and sadness. What had Jon been like, before he met Jonah Magnus? Had he been a good person?

But maybe that wasn’t so important. Maybe the question that had to be asked was - what kind of person would Jonathan Sims be without Jonah Magnus in his life?

All at once, the fight seemed to go out of Jon. His shoulders sagged, and he abruptly deflated. He looked down at the ground, ashamed and aware of it. He had always been aware of it. He had just been lying to himself. Maybe it was impossible to live without it.

“I don’t know what to do without him,” Jon said quietly. “I’ve never - I need him.”

“You don’t,” Sasha said, abruptly exhausted. “You want to help me, Jon? You want to protect me and Martin? You can’t do that while staying friends with Jonah Magnus. You have to choose. So long as you stay close to him, you are going to stay within his complete control. That’s what he does. He controls everybody and everything. And you’re letting him. You’re justifying it. You’re doing his work for him. Everybody around him is - even Georgie. There are two people in your life who are trying to get you away from him, and he’s trying to convince you to cut them out of your life. You think that’s a coincidence?”

Jon opened his mouth, then closed it. Weakly, he said, “You’re wrong.”

“I need your help, Jon,” Sasha whispered, and to her shame found her voice cracking. “I need someone on my side. I can do it alone, but - but I’m scared. And I don’t want to. I need help. I’m scared.”

But she knew, even as she said it, that Jon was scared too. He couldn’t reach out a hand to her - not now, not here. Jon had carried around his fear for hundreds of years, pushing it down and pretending it wasn’t there, and it informed everything he’d ever done. Scrambling for power, exerting that power, desperately dominating even as he was dominated - it stemmed from that fear, all of it. And Jonah Magnus kept those flames fanned, because a Jon who was afraid was a Jon who could be controlled.

A Sasha who was afraid, who was isolated, who was trapped, was one who could be controlled.

The realization was dizzying. Somehow, the thought that kept running through her mind was - who’d do that? Who was such a terrible person that they’d go through all that trouble, all of that plotting, just to make someone suffer? Not because they disliked them, not in revenge, not because of any human emotion - but just because it was convenient? Useful?

Because you could?

So this was what power did to a person, Sasha realized. So this was what power and immortality and money and supernatural gifts did to you. It made you someone who Sasha could never hope to understand, whose depths of depravity she could never truly rationalize. To Sasha, who prided herself on knowing people and being able to understand them and their motives - it was almost a relief, almost a blessing, that she couldn’t possibly understand the motives of Jonah Magnus at all.

Jon stared at her, fluorescent green eyes wide, and for just a minute she could see the fear that she knew was there written all over his face. For just a minute, Sasha and Jon were scared together, both trapped in tumultuous waters that they couldn’t control. For the first time Sasha empathized with Jon.

Jonah Magnus was somebody that Sasha could never understand. But Jon was, and for the first time Sasha knew what Martin meant when he said that he felt as if Jon had been a good person, a long time ago.

You can’t understand someone and hate them. Not really. You could be angry, upset, betrayed...but if you really understood someone, backwards and forwards, true hate was difficult to find.

“I have to go,” Jon said, almost dizzily. He shoved the manila folder at her, both of them having forgotten that it was even there in the first place. He glanced at it, frightened and guilty. “Be - be careful when meeting Jude Perry. Don’t take her at her word. I have to go.”

He fled, as if the hounds of hell themselves were snapping at his heels, and Sasha was left standing in an opulent hallway, clutching a manila folder as if it was a time bomb, completely certain that it was meant to hurt her and cause her pain and damage her, completely certain that she was going to read it anyway.

Like Jon - what choice did she have?

But as she stumbled back to her room, as she sat down on the comfortable chair and thumbed on the tape recorder that sat at the desk, the words of Jonathan Sims ran through her mind. His warning. A clumsy attempt at protection. At the very least, a signifier of desire.

Sasha knew, as she sometimes knew things, that Jon had started out somebody who deeply desired to protect others like him. To take revenge, to grab power, yes, but also to spread that precious knowledge and resources around. He had never stopped thinking of himself as one of those vulnerable people, people who society had stepped on and ground into the dirt. Deep down he had just wanted things to be fair, wanted some justice in the world. Jon, at one point, had only wanted to help.

Maybe she wasn’t so alone after all.

“Statement of Sasha James, Head Archivist…”

#my writing #YES I KNOW THIS IS TOO LONG FOR A TUMBLR POST BUT CONSIDER: ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR AO3 AND MY STANDARDS ARE INSANE #jonathan sims #georgie barker #sasha james #archivist!sasha #human relations #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #jonmartin #jason's tims age

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grailfinders · 4 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms Far Side #2: Tohno Shiki

We have another guest build today from u/Magical-Biche on Reddit! While I’ve been tackling Fate Grand Order characters, they’ve been hard at work making builds for other parts of the Nasuverse. Today, they’ve built Shiki! No, not that one. Not that one either. No, Tohno Shiki. No, the other- you know what? Forget it, I’ll let Magical-Biche take over from here. (I’ll put the level-by-level breakdown below the cut, or you can check out the spreadsheet here.)

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Now that my personal favorite is done, today we’re attacking the main protagonist of that really good *anime* that is Tsukihime, Tohno Shiki. As with the previous build, this one will contain heavy spoilers for many routes of the visual novel. Read at your own risk! Also, this build works for Nanaya Shiki, just make sure you change the alignment from neutral good to like, chaotic or neutral evil. This build is based on Tsukihime, Kagetsu Tohya and Melty Blood.

Tohno Shiki is a skilled demon slayer who fights with a knife. He’s merciless against his targets, as he falls into a trance while fighting them to tap into his latent potential. He can also use the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

For this build, we’re looking for 3 main things, which are :

Shiki’s bread and butter, the mystic eyes of death perception. While there is no simple way of having the MEoDP, we’ll try to maximize our damage on a single hit, on a single enemy.

Shiki might not look like it, but he’s extremely agile. While we have low health, we’re pretty hard to hit, and good at simply avoiding damage.

Shiki has a weird fighting style where he’ll fall into a trance when he’s fighting certain enemies, such as demons and undeads. We might not be able to get that as a feature, but we can easily get bonuses against our favored enemies.

Race and Background

Shiki is a plain old human, fighting with only his own limbs. And his OP Mystic Eyes, but we’ll come to that later. We’re playing the variant human, as we have little use for more than 2 stats on this build, and we’ll be using that extra feat. Shiki fits the Urchin background… okay-ish-ly. He’s an orphan, but he grew up playing outside in a gigantic mansion. However, he did know Arihiko the delinquent for a long time, which means he certainly did some illegal things once or twice. Anyway, the proficiencies are great for the build, and the bonus feature fits our role very well. We’ll be taking the alert feat so we’re better at not being surprised and pretty much always hit first. We also get a skill proficiency, and we’re going for Survival.

Stats

Going with the standard array, we are going to need a few stats for our multiclassing. However, all three classes we’ll be getting levels in are Dex based, and 2 uses wisdom heavily, so we won’t spread too much. We’ll start by getting as high Dex and Wis as possible, as those will be our main offensive stat, and main spellcasting stat. Shiki is nimble and agile, and when he’s not obsessed over a target, he makes wise decisions. As is needed for a harem protagonist, he has a decent charisma, so we should get that stat to at least 13. Next, we have our little quirk: Shiki has bad health because of “Anemia”. In truth, he’s only alive because his sister gives him half her life force, which explains why he tends to pass out. He’s actually resilient, but for the sake of fluff, we’re going to let our Con sit at 12, not bad, but not great either. Next, we’re not particularly intelligent nor are we stupid, so we’re leaving our Int at 10. Finally, we can dump our Str. Who needs strength when you can cut anything easily?

Class levels :

1. Ranger 1: We’re starting by getting our first favored enemy with a few levels of ranger. At level 1, we get our favored enemy. We are taking the Fiends. That gives us an advantage on survival checks to find them, and on intelligence checks to recall information about them. It’s not really strong, but it can always prove handy. Additionally, we can take the Abyssal language, which is common among demons, and fiends in general, to communicate with them. We also get natural explorer, which helps us move in certain environments. For the sake of flavoring, try to convince your DM to let you choose the “city“ terrain, which doesn’t exist in the rules, but simply makes a lot of sense. If they refuse, we can take Mountains, as we grew on a forest on a mountain.

You also get Str and Dex saving throws proficiency. The Dex is awesome, but we dumped Str, so that one won’t be too useful. We will keep our leather armor for now, since we might die if we are too underprotected, but we’ll get rid of it later. Also, you could play with a single knife, to stay true to the character, but let’s say that a shortsword is basically just a very long knife, or else our damage will really be pathetic. We won’t use the bow, but it doesn’t hurt to have it as an option on the side.

2. Ranger 2: We get our fighting style and our spellcasting. We’re taking the Duelist style, which makes us hit harder when we wield a single weapon. We will have plenty of use for our bonus action later, but for now, we can stick with dual wielding when the party needs more DPS. For our spells, we’re taking Hunter’s mark, which is the closest thing we have from the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception: it boosts damage and it helps us tracking our target, as if we could see its lines of death. We’re also getting Fog Cloud, which is an amazing tool for our hit and run tactics we’ll only get better at with levels.

3. Ranger 3: We finally chose our archetype, and we’re going one on one master with Monster Slayer. This archetype gives us a new spell, protection from evil and good, a great defensive spell that even works on allies. We’re also getting Hunter’s sense, which is another part of our Mystic Eyes. It lets us see a creature’s weaknesses a few times per long rest. We’re also gaining Slayer’s prey, which boosts our damage just a bit further beyond. Next, we’re getting our primeval awareness, which helps us track our arch nemesis, the fiends, and other creatures too.

The last gift level 3 gives us is a new spell to learn, so we’re getting Jump, to further boost our movement.

4. Ranger 4: Our first ASI, and we’re getting our Dex as high as possible to boost our AC and damage.

5. Ranger 5: This is why we haven’t multiclassed yet: we finally get our multiattack feature! Now, we can really start doing some big damage despite our weak weapon.

Also, we get a new spell from our archetype, Zone of truth. It’s a… niche spell, if anything. It can help with interrogations, but that’s about it. We’re also taking darkvision, which helps our poor human eyes with a LOT of encounters, because demons hunt at night, usually.

6. Monk 1: We’re taking a very short detour into the monk class. We’re here for the unarmored defense, which can give us a very high AC later on, which is great for our survivability. We should sell our leather armor at that point, as it’s no longer needed. Also, we get martial arts, which let us do an attack as a bonus action with our fists, as long as our other hand is wielding a monk weapon. Our fists now deal 1d4 damage, plus our Dex bonus, which is actually weaker than our other shortsword. However, it makes it so that we can still do three attacks, with our multiattack feature, and keep the bonus damage from dueling. In the end, the lower base damage of the fist is mitigated by the +2 of our fighting style. The multiclassing into monk only gives us proficiencies we already have, which is unfortunate.

7. Ranger 6: We get a new favored enemy, the undead. It gives us the same bonuses as before against undead, which includes vampires. Since undead don’t have a dedicated language, we’re taking undercommon as a new language, since it’s a common language enough that Undead might speak or understand it. Undercommon, undead, maybe they’re related?

We also get a new terrain for our natural explorer, so we’re getting forest or mountain (if you could deal with your DM to have the city terrain for your first level). It honestly doesn’t matter much, as we’re a city-dweller, so we should go with what our party needs there, really.

8. Rogue 1: We’re getting our final new class this level, the rogue. A level 1 rogue gets Expertise, which makes us experts at 2 skill checks. We’re taking Perception and Stealth, so we’re less likely to be surprised and more likely to surprise. That puts us, if we did take the Standard array, a whopping +10 on Stealth checks and +9 on perception checks. We also get our big boi damage with Sneak attack, which let us deal an additional 1d6 damage if we have advantage on our attack, or when we have an ally in melee range of our target. We also get the Thieves’ Cant, which we won’t use much because of our lore. We get a new skill proficiency, acrobatics, as well as a proficiency with thieves’ tools.

9. Rogue 2: We get our cunning action, our main hit-and-run tool, which lets us dodge or disengage with our bonus action. It does not sound that great, but it can really save us in some situations, we can’t forget we have that!

10. Rogue 3: We get our roguish archetype: we’re a Swashbuckler, to further our ability to challenge a single opponent. This subclass gives us Fancy footwork, which lets us play around our enemies freely, as long as we hit them. Great when combined with our multitude of extra attacks. We also get something else that’s great: Rakish audacity. This feature allows us to duel pretty much anything and still deal our absurd sneak damage. This makes it that we can always sneak attack creatures if no other enemy is near our target. We also get our charisma modifier added to our initiative, which is cool, but we already have our starting feat which gives us plus 5, so it’s nothing more than icing on the cake. Also, our sneak attack goes to 2d6.

11. Ranger 7: We do a last detour, now that we have somewhat stable damage and nice utility, to complete our Ranger build. We get our second archetype feature, Supernatural Defense, which makes us extremely resilient to our prey’s grappling and skill-check-triggering spells. We also get our last spell, which will be Silence, to help us sneak around.. You know, it’s almost like we’re a Rogue or something.

12. Ranger 8: Our last Ranger level gives us an ASI, which will go to Dex, maxing our base damage and pushing our AC to 18. We also get our last Ranger feature, Land’s stride, which is niche but helps us not to be grappled by plant monsters and plant based attacks, as well as crossing even difficult terrain really fast.

13 Rogue 4: The only thing we get this level is another ASI, which we pump into Wis, which boosts our AC and that’s it, as we have no spell which requires or triggers checks. It also helps tracking our prey, and boosts our passive perception through the roof.

14. Rogue 5: UNCANNY DODGE! Finally, we’re starting to get our survivability to the next level. Just react to halve damage, once per turn. Yes, it’s limited to enemies we can see, but just look at our perception. We just know where everybody is. We can face tank the big boss’ big hit, if it manages to even hit us, or just survive one more turn a dumb arrow who managed to hit a 20 on the dice. What’s more, we get a shiny new sneak attack dice, pushing it to 3d6.

15. Rogue 6: A new layer of expertise. We can grab expertise in Insight, which will help us find out if Arcueid really is Arcueid, or some weird theatre obsessed 500 years old vampire, and Survival, so we just won’t lose track of our prey.

16. Rogue 7: We gain another extremely useful defensive feature with Evasion. It simply allows us to completely negate incoming fireballs, most traps and a lot of other stuff by changing how we take damage from those effects. Whenever we need to make a dexterity saving throw to halve damage, we take 0 damage on success now, and half on a failure. Nothing much to say, it just is as strong as it sounds. Our sneak attack goes up to 4d6.

17. Rogue 8: Fourth ASI, we’re getting our damage even slightly higher with the martial adept feat. We gain a superiority dice we can use to trigger either the Disarming attack, to have an even greater advantage on our poor opponent, or the Precision attack, in case we’re 1 or 2 away on the dice to hit our opponent in a critical moment.

18. Rogue 9: next is our final subclass feature, Panache. It’s… not the greatest. We’re taking this level mostly because of the last feature we can grab, but using this feature can quickly become dangerous, no matter how evasive we are. It can fail, as we have low Cha, and Wis saving throws are quite frequent. We should only use it as a last resort. It can help us get our harem outside of battle though, so there’s that. Our sneak attack now deals 5d6 damage.

19. Rogue 10: ASI time! This time, we’re finishing our Wis, that goes up to 19. Our AC is high, our perception checks are even higher, and we have huge bonuses to even skill checks we aren’t proficient with, like medicine. We have a +15 bonus to our perception, so no one really can hide from us anymore, no matter how sneaky.

20. Rogue 11: Our final upgrade before going to beat the hell out of Tarasque. We’re reliably talented, which means we can’t realistically fail skill checks we’re proficient with anymore. In other words, we will always have a minimal result of 27 in Insight, perception, Stealth and survival skill checks, and a minimum of 21 in sleight of hand checks. Finally, our sneak attack dice caps at 6d6.

Pros : We’re a big damage dealer, without even using precious class resources. As long as there’s one creature at the edge of the pack, we can use our Sneak Attack as much as we want, once per turn. We have pretty good stats, excluding our Constitution, which makes us weirdly tanky. Bad dice RNG can fuck us up, but we have a way to mitigate most damage. We’re also great at escaping thanks to being a rogue with access to jump, even though a few more Monk levels would have made us an escapist expert.

Cons : We have pretty low HP thanks to only a +1 modifier on our constitution, so we’re not great at long fights. We pretty much have exactly one way of attacking, which is slashing, slashing and slashing. Investing in special enchanted weapons might be a must past a certain level. Also, our fist attacks are a bit useless outside of using them for Fancy Footwork. Finally, our damage can fall off quickly if the enemy attacks in large numbers.

#Fate and Phantasms #Tsukihime #Tohno Shiki #DnD 5e

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geraskierficrecs · 4 years

Note

litcherally anything where geralt is being mean to jaskier and then is guilty when it actually upsets the bard bc he doesn’t think before he speaks :( and then making up for it and realizing how all these things he’s said over the years have weighed on jaskier and JUST TRYING TO BE BETTER AFTER THAT. tysm i love ur writing

Get ready to hurt.

______________________________________

It happens so suddenly that Geralt finds himself stunned and stumbling like a soldier in his first battle.

He’s surrounded in a field full of growling, snapping ghouls trying to kill the fucking massive alghoul in the center when he hears it. Unmistakable despite the unexpectedness.

“Geralt!”

Jaskier’s voice is high on adrenaline and foolish courage as he rushes into the fray with his Geralt’s spare sword held high. He slashes at the ghouls who turn toward the noise, managing through luck or skill to hack off the head of the first and shove another away.

Geralt curses viciously--torn between the need to protect the damn fool and the logic of killing the alghoul first.

The beast decides it for him, slamming one hand into Geralt’s chest and leaping to close the distance between itself and Jaskier.

Jaskier turns--blue eyes wide and frightened--and takes the hit on his side, falling beneath the onslaught of a monster of nightmare and legend. He disappears beneath the weight of it.

And Geralt sees red.

He feels his hands grip onto the oily, slick, and rotting skin of the next ghoul and yanks its head loose in one vicious pull. His sword moves in a violent arc through the next, clearing the way to the alghoul with almighty purpose.

He can’t get the image of Jaskier’s expression out of his mind.

It drives him to madness as he roars and slams his weight against the alghoul--the last of the monsters left in a field of blood and viscera. The beast shrieks, bloodied jaws reaching for his throat, but Geralt is beyond caring. His sword is too large for such close conflict so he lets it fall to the grass, rolling with the rotting creature as they struggle bodily for control.

His hand slips low and finds the familiar hilt on his thigh.

He thrusts upward, blade moving like an extension of himself. High and sharp and cutting deep--

He feels the wet pull of muscle giving way beneath his fingers and snarls into the face of the beast above him--

A twist, and then it goes still, face frozen in a permanent maw of agony.

Geralt lays still for a moment, panting, before he shoves the carcass off of him and gets to his feet. His heart is still pounding a vicious rhythm in his chest thanks to the adrenaline and potion he’d downed before wading into the fray. He scans the impromptu battlefield desperately, terrified of what he’d find.

Then, a groan and a small shift of movement.

Panic and terror gives way to anger as Jaskier slowly gets to his feet using Geralt’s sword as a crutch. He turns--his face streaked with mud and oily blood--and beams at Geralt.

“Well, Geralt, I think we really proved--”

“What the fuck do you think you were doing?” Geralt’s voice is whip quick and carries the same sting. He sees Jaskier’s expression falter, but he’s near seething now. “I told you not to come near this area.”

“I know, but you didn’t come back when you said and I--”

“What? You thought you would be able to come in and save me?” Geralt’s sneer felt as sharp as the ghoul’s hunger. “Did you really think you would be anything but a gigantic pain in my ass here?”

Jaskier’s voice trembles slightly and he leans more heavily against the sword. “Geralt-”

“The only thing you are good for is crafting lies to charm women into your bed and getting on my last damn nerve--neither of which is any good here!” Geralt paces away from him, trying to blow off some of his frustration by kicking on of the corpses.

“Please, I--”

“What, Jaskier? How could you possibly think that I would be glad to see you rush in like a damn fool just to get yourself included in the next stupid ballad you--”

Geralt’s words give way to horrified silence a moment after Jaskier fell unconscious on the ground.

He runs forward, ignoring the mud soaking into his clothes as he pulls Jaskier up against his chest. The bard is pale, completely limp in his grip. The stolen sword falls to the ground from lifeless fingers and Geralt feels his fury drain away so quickly he is breathless.

“Jaskier,” he calls, shaking the man. “Jaskier, wake up.”

Nothing.

The only sound he hears is the echo of his vicious words and the heart beneath his palms beginning to slow...

_____________________________

The bite is high on the chest, just above a dusky nipple and the heart that continues to pulse weakly.

The sight of it makes Geralt feel a cold sweat creep down his back. A ghoul’s bite is poison for human, Vesemir’s voice murmurs from his memories. Better to kill the poor creature than to let it make the change.

Just the thought of using one of his blades to slit Jaskier’s throat makes him turn and vomit bile and regret onto the grass.

There are more injuries littering Jaskier’s body, but Geralt knows that it is the bite that will doom them both. Already black lines filled with poison are spreading away from the cutting--taunting Geralt with their inevitability. This close to Jaskier’s most vital organs, it might only be a few hours before the bard would draw his last breath and awake a monster.

Unless...

Geralt’s hands shake as the reach for the knife at his side. It’s still caked with ghoul’s blood and he pauses to wipe it clean meticulously. He reaches out and cups one of Jaskier’s clammy, cold cheeks and whispers,

“Forgive me.”

And begins to cut.

_____________________________

Jaskier’s wakes--wild and glassy-eyed--after Geralt makes the second incision.

The ghouls blood stinks like rotten pus and burns like acid as it drips sluggishly from each carefully placed cut around the bite. His mouth is bloody from coaxing the black liquid free and his hands are forced to pin Jaskier flat against the earth as he works.

The bard screams, high and agonized. His eyes fix on Geralt mindlessly and tear carve pale trails through the dirt streaked across his face.

“Please--no! Don’t!” he begs, “Geralt, please!”

Geralt grits his teeth, feeling his own eyes burn at the betrayal in those blue eyes. “I have to get the poison out.”

His knife digs deep once more, the line jagged as Jaskier arches bodily in a weak attempt to escape the pain. He thrashes, wild as an animal caught in a trap, and sobs.

“Please, Geralt. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, I’m sorry.”

The bard babbling cuts off with another scream as more blood gushes from the wound. His body seizes and Geralt is forced to lay bodily against his in an attempt to keep him from hurting himself more.

Geralt’s heart is made of ice and stone as he sees the last of the darkened and sickly blood run clear of the wound. His hand clenches around the slick handle of his knife and he takes a deep breath. The scent of poison and rot has faded now beneath the acid sharp scent of pain radiating from the sobbing bard.

He takes a breath and tells himself he deserves this suffering.

His hands trace the sigil Igni as he looks over the trembling man beneath him, face turned away from the Witcher and teeth chattering in agony.

He waits until the blade is red hot before he presses it firmly against the bite.

Jaskier’s scream sends the birds into flight.

__________________________

There are no towns close enough to risk moving the bard nor does he have some hidden trick that will summon a mage or a healer to his side. It is the first time since the mountains of Cairgorn that he has wished to see Yennefer, if only for her ability to heal what he seems incapable of not destroying.

Jaskier is still in his arms as Geralt carries him out of the woods and down a game trail that takes him to the trapper’s cabin that had started the mess. There are scratches and blood along the walls, but the door and windows are still intact. The bed stinks of old sweat, but Geralt finds fresh sheets laying limp and forgotten on the clothesline outside.

He makes the bed quickly, the unfamiliar task sped by the sight of Jaskier lying silently on the ground nearby.

The silence, he decides, might be the worst of it. It gives him plenty of time to remember the cruelty of his voice and the hurt he seemed to spew at Jaskier at every opportunity. Somehow, he always manages to lash out against the only person who has ever remained loyal and devoted even after seeing the worst parts of him.

But this, this might be the final blow that brings Jaskier’s endless faith to its knees.

Geralt tries to tell himself that he could watch Jaskier leave him if it meant the bard would survive this.

It is little comfort.

____________________________

Geralt stands watch over the too-still body for three days before he begins to hope that Jaskier might live.

He’s barely left the small bedside except to call for Roach and bring water and food for the bard. He washed away the blood and mud until Jaskier looks soft and young--so damn young--and almost peaceful. If you ignored the red, angry burns across his chest.

The scars are brutal--far more fitting for a Witcher than a bard. He winces when he thinks of what Jaskier will say when he sees them. The vanity and snobbishness of the courtiers Jaskier plays for is foreign to Geralt, but he would strip the skin from his bones to keep Jaskier from feeling their scorn or pity.

Geralt has ruined so much of the man laying pale and broken before him.

He leans his head against the mattress, feeling his eyes burn once again at the reminder of what he had done. Jaskier could have died with Geralt’s sneering and mockery still echoing in his ears. He would have believed every bit of the poison the Witcher spewed in place of real emotions and to avoid the concern he truly felt. It proved what Jaskier had been trying to disprove all along:

Geralt was a monster.

_____________________________

The Witcher wakes to hands carding through the tangled strands of his hair.

For a moment, his mind is at peace, enjoying a rare moment of calm with Jaskier--

Geralt’s head snaps up so quickly the bard jerks in surprise, wincing as the gesture irritates the wound on his chest. Geralt feels his body tremble faintly and his voice is raw with emotion when he speaks. “Jaskier?”

Jaskier gives him an awkward smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ah, yes. Sorry for waking you. It just, it looked like you were uncomfortable.”

The bard’s voice is raspy and rough from the screams Geralt will hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life. He stands quickly and grabs a cup near the water pitcher to press to Jaskier’s lips. “Stay still,” he says, “You still need to rest.”

“Must be bad if you stayed,” Jaskier answers with a trace of bitterness. Blue eyes flick to Geralt and then skitter away to focus on the fingers toying nervously with the sheets. “You don’t have to, you know. Stay, that is. I know I shouldn’t have distracted you like that. You don’t owe me anything--it was my fault.”

Geralt’s throat goes tight and he falls to his knees beside the bed. He grips Jaskier’s hand like it’s made of glass, pressing his forehead against his palm. Tears drip unnoticed down his cheeks and his voice trembles, “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Geralt...”

The Witcher shakes his head when Jaskeir starts to speak, determined to release the words that had been swirling in his mind since he’d seen Jaskier charging into battle.

“I should never have said those things to you. It’s just--I thought you’d died when that alghoul turned on you and it was easier to be angry than be scared. Then you nearly died right after I said all those horrible things, and I--”

Jaskier’s hand shifts against him, coaxing Geralt’s chin up until he was staring at the bard while tears dripped down his cheeks.

“I would never survive losing you, Jaskier. Not now, not decades from now when we’re both old and slow. I will never forgive myself for all the scars and the pain I’ve caused you and I wouldn’t blame you if you chose to leave me for it.” Just the thought made his stomach twist in knots. “But if you give me a chance, I will spend the rest of my life making up for every horrible thing I’ve said to you.”

Jaskier’s eyes are bright with an emotion that Geralt is too terrified to hope for. His fingers tighten around Geralt’s jawline until the Witcher raises up on his knees to close the distance between them.

“Ready to start making it up to me?” he purrs and leans forward to swallow Geralt’s sigh of relief with his lips.

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ffastoriesforfatties · 5 years

Text

Be careful who you go home with..

Jackson followed her into her apartment after a damn good first date, she turned and locked her door before sauntering over in a seductive manner, long sleek black hair running over her shoulders. “Some wine Mr. Macintyr?” She asked in a sultry voice, giving him a sly smile, pouring him a glass from an expensive bottle on her counter, she slid it towards him and he gratefully accepted it

“You know Jackson this has really been a surprisingly good date, all the ones I’ve been on recently have been pretty drab...” She swirled her wine in her glass for a moment “I love a guy who can eat.” She chuckled a moment and Jackson sipped his wine and looked down at his slightly distended stomach from over eating at dinner

“Yeah I’m really having fun with you Evelyn, it’s been many levels above all my recent dates too.” He pauses for a moment “And I’m glad you’re not put off by my appetite haha”

“Haha you’re cute Jackson, what do you say we watch a movie to wind down the night?” Evelyn grab the remote as she questioned him

“Sure! I’m down” just as he said that he felt an odd rumble in his stomach but ignored it as he carried his wine over to the sofa, they put on some comedy and Jackson continued to drink his wine. During the middle of the movie Jackson looked down and realized his middle looked bigger and softer, so he excused himself to the bathroom which peaked Evelyn’s interest.

Jackson looked at his reflection and noticed his belly was bigger, like actually bigger! It pushed against his shirts buttons and was soft and jiggly, not just that but his pants felt a bit tighter on his ass and thighs...

Evelyn pushed the bathroom door open and watched Jackson staring at his reflection “Like what you see?” Evelyn asked in a seductive voice

“What? N-....” He trailed off and look at his body in the mirror, he felt, good?

“Yeah you like it don’t you? Would you like to just keep getting bigger, and too have no responsibilities? Just let go......” she whispered in his ear and shivers went down his spine, and he let go...

Suddenly he felt his belly growing, he turned to the mirror and watched his belly grow out in front of him, straining buttons on his shirt. His hips grew and put massive pain on his waist since it was making his belt so tight, he frantically tried to unbuckle it but his rapidly inclining weight did it for him, his belt buckle snapped and his belly flopped forward in a wave of fresh fat exploding from his jeans, his jeans around his thighs were also starting to rip until it ripped right on the inseam and his new fleshy thighs replaced his old toned ones. His pubic region also gained weight, becoming doughy and fat right above his “member” his belly continued to grow until his buttons completely ripped open leaving his belly to grow free and his now sizable man tits to expand. He frantically went to pull off the remains of his shirt when he felt his arms getting suffocated and barely managed to. He looked at his face and saw new chubby cheeks and a cute double chin that surrounded his face. The growth finally stopped and he observed his now mostly naked body except for a pair of very skin tight boxers clinging to life. His stomach was a massive potbelly that was hanging about an inch over his boxers elastic while still being impossibly round and portly. Further up he cupped one of his man tits that must’ve been a b or a c and rested neatly on his huge belly while creating a thick roll between them. His arms were fat and pillowy as were his wrists and now sausage-like fingers. His face sported an adorable thick double chin and dimples cheeks, his thighs were the size of his middle before the weight piled on and his ass was now corpulent and well rounded.

Jackson looked amazed and he felt so heavy and plump. He began to play with his belly in the mirror watching g it jiggle and shake when he lifted it and pooped it back down, he pinched and shook his new arm fat and cupped at his new moobs

“Wow look at my big fat man, like what you see?” Evelyn came over behind him and slid her hands to either side of his belly and felt its heaviness.

“I- I’m speechless” Jackson just stared and poked and prodded his new body with amazement but his boner spoke for him. Suddenly a wave of hunger came and he realized his appetite is probably big enough to match his size. His stomach audibly rumbled and Evenlyn got a sly smile on her face as she lead him to the kitchen and pulled out his chair. He fit snuggly in between the arm rests with a little bit of fat pooling on the edge of the arm rest.

Evenlyn disappeared for a moment into the kitchen and returned with a cake and a pint of ice cream, Jackson’s mouth watered at the sight of the cake and that clearly amused Evenlyn. “Hungry boy, aren’t you?” She laughed a little bit before setting it in front of him when he hurriedly started digging into it with the fork she provided. “You’re going to be pretty hungry from now on, since you decided to let go and give into your piggish desire....” Evenlyn places her hands on his belly as he ate and then Jackson felt more growth, as he ate his stomach grew, not just because he was filling it with cake, it was getting fatter as well, filling his lap more and more causing him to need to lean more forward to get the cake. His sides swelled with pudge and pushed against the arms of the chair, he felt his fat squeezing over top and bottom the arm rests and his ass starting to hang over the sides of the chairs seat. His stomach was now almost hitting the tables edge and his moobs looked fat and plump sitting on his self like belly. Jackson couldn’t even stop enjoying the cake, he moaned with pleasure every time he felt himself growing but he couldn’t put his fork down.

Eventually he finally finished his cake in its entirety. And when he looked down he moaned with pleasure at the pain of the arm rests digging into his sides from all the weight he just gained, his belly took up as much space as a small dog or toddler on his lap would but it was just a jiggly pot of jello, his man tits grew nice and plump making a good thick roll between them and his potbelly, his thighs were each as thick as his old waist and his ass flowed over the edge of the chair a bit

“Care to flow me to the bedroom fat boy or do you need some more food?” Evelyn playfully asked and put out her hand to help Jackson out of the chair, and he took it and Evenlyn tried to pull him out but it seemed he had gotten stuck,

“Well you’ve certainly got yourself into a predicament.” She said as she looked at his fattened ass stuck in the chair “I guess you’ll have to eat yourself out...” Evenlyn went and grabbed a pie, “Eat up fat boy..”

Jackson gave her a look but he realized it was his only way out, and he noticed a little bit of hunger creeping back in even after devouring that whole cake by himself. So he dug in again and just like the cake he started to grow again just it seemed a bit slower this time. He finished about half the pie when he leaned back and wiped some crumbs off his belly that was getting more and more shelf like. And in a perfect moment, right as he took his last bite of pie his weight swelled just enough to the point that the arm rests creaked and snapped off which let his trapped belly and lovehandles finally escape. Trying to celebrate his victory he attempted to stand up but needed a second (or third) try to get on his feet since he grew so much since he sat. Evelyn giggles a bit at that causing Jackson to blush but make his boner even harder.

Standing his belly stuck out almost the width of another person from his fattened frame, his belly hung a little bit over his public region which had grown immense pudge in the area above his junk, he had ripped his boxers clean off and his fat hips and thighs grew free. Higher up his arms had gotten adorable and doughy and had doubled in size but in pure fat, no muscle. His moobs were a big enough size to make many women jealous and they rested neatly into his belly with a cute roll on either side of his body to highlight the chubby ness. His double chin was adorable and sat around his face at all times no matter how high up he was looking. His cheeks also acquired a very cherubic appearance.

Evenlyn got a huge grin on her face and grabbed his hand to lead him to her bedroom and he stumbled after her trying to get used to his new weight, jiggling every step which only egged Evelyn on she brought him in and closed the door behind her, she came up and put her hands on either side of his belly underneath and lead him over to her full body mirror next to her closet doors and moved to holding his belly from behind

“Wow look what a fat piggy you’ve become Jackson..” she shook his belly a little bit before sliding her hands along his rolls to his man tits as she cupped and shook them to show their size “What do you think of your new body fat boy?” She moves her hand to his throbbing erection and grasps it in her palm before lightly moving her hand up and down slowly causing Jackson to let out an audible moan although quiet.

“This is the first time I’ve had a date get *this* far in months but I’ve never-“ He gasped a little bit from the feeling of Evelyn gripping him tighter “never felt this turned on or excited, my- my entire life” he observed his new body and almost busted. Just then Evelyn stops and starts to push him towards the bed and takes her panties off and pulls her tight black dress over her head revealing a delicate lacy black bra and nothing else. She starts to straddle him and leans down to kiss his chest before moving his belly out of the way so she can grab his dick and start to ride him. She plants her hands on both sides of his gigantic belly as it jiggles with the movement. Jackson pants and moans even though he’s barely moving and Evelyn pokes fun at him

“Wow panting already.. you’re one fat boy aren’t you..” she feels him harden even more so she continues “Such a piggy, you gave in so fast, couldn’t resist being a fatty huh? A fatass like you wouldn’t have been able to hold off the weight for much longer even if I didn’t come along huh?” She slapped his belly for good measure

Their night continued on until Jackson was so exhausted he had to fall asleep, the next morning Evelyn woke up much earlier than Jackson and fixed him a breakfast perfect for a fatty like himself.

“Wake up piggy...” she saw Jackson stirring and prodded his plump middle with her elbow until he started to sit up, he pushed himself up with his doughy arms until he was finally semi upright, his gargantuan belly filled his lap and like before his adorable moobs sat perched a top it. He scratched his chin (more like double chin) before going to rub his eyes to open them to the wonderful sight of a pigs breakfast, a plate piled, PILED with a cheesy egg scramble absolutely smothered with cheese on top, a mountain of bacon and another plate stacked with alternating pancakes and waffles all dosed in maple syrup and covered in whipped cream and berries. As well as a milkshake also topped with an incredulous amount of whipped cream. His eyes lit up and immediately grabbed fork and thanked Evelyn and remarked on his hunger which only made Evelyn chuckle.

He devoured his breakfast filling his belly until the whole meal was no more, he sat back and rubbed his naked belly.

“Hey I have some clothes for you” Evelyn went to a drawer and picked out an outfit she brought to the bed. “Come try them on” Jackson obliged and swung each fatty thigh over the bed before hauling himself up. His gargantuan belly exploded in front of him and he stretched his arms before walking over to the clothes. He pulled on the boxer briefs which were pretty tight up and then followed them with a pair of jeans. He brought them up to his thighs which is when he really had to start tugging to get them up, he finally got it to right below his belly when he realized he couldn’t button them, he meekly looked to Evelyn for assistance which she happily did but realized they were merely unbuttonable

“Damn, you grew more than I anticipated fat boy..” she went back to the dresser, “ looks like we’ll have to try something else” Jackson started removing the jeans as Evelyn went and grabbed sweat pants, she tossed them to Jackson and he pulled them on and got them up but they got like leggings they were so tight. Evelyn came up in front of him and tightened and tied his draw strings just to make them tighter, then she handed him his T-shirt which was just a basic navy tank top . He pulled it on and it was immediately tight just on his upper torso, he dragged it down and got it to cover most of his belly but it left 2 inches and his whole under belly exposed.

“Woooow, you’re so fat piggy, can’t even fit a triple X tank top..” she grabbed his belly, guess we’ll have to go to the store”

Part 2 coming soon

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

Text

Episode 126: The Good Lars

“Maybe I should be trying to fix my life.”

The Good Lars is a massive bummer, and it makes me so, so happy.

Lars has always been a character with a ton of potential that, in my mind, is muted by his inability to learn. Pretty much all of his focus episodes have been about him taking a big step towards his character growing, but then resetting to his typical jerky self in his next episode instead of actually continuing that growth. On a rational level I can appreciate the realism in a stubborn character’s inflexibility, but even if it’s by design, it’s super frustrating to watch. The Good Lars shows that he still has a long way to go, and pointedly lacks the Lars Learns conclusion that Lars episodes like to bait us with, but this is where it finally feels like his story is going somewhere.

The New Lars was apparently the first step that stuck: seeing everyone, including his parents, prefer Steven-as-Lars to Lars-as-himself must’ve been a wake-up call. I love his final speech in that episode about hating how weird Beach City is, as it casts a surprising new light on his surly attitude, but after so many false starts we need some follow-through to make that speech fully land, and The Good Lars fits the bill.

Right off the bat, we see Lars take a genuine risk and put his food out there for Steven to try. We’ve known since all the way back in Lars and the Cool Kids that Lars’s apathy is a practiced act, and it’s hindered him again and again and again in every relationship he has. And we’ve known since Island Adventure that he’s a skilled cook, so it’s not a stretch that his abilities extend to baking. That he’d hide just how much he likes making food is totally in line with what we know about him, so it’s gigantic that he opens up about it here.

Steven is a terrific test subject for Lars’s food, as beyond his general kindness and enthusiasm, we’ve already seen him praise Lars’s food before in Island Adventure. The problem is that Lars is aware of this, which allows his self-destructive nature to undermine his sense of accomplishment in seeing someone love his baking. There’s not much critical value in praise from someone who only ever provides praise, and when presented with an opportunity to take an even bigger risk by letting the Cool Kids try his food, Lars flounders.

He may be growing, but he’s still cagey and irate. He takes a big step, but he’s too afraid to leap. But because he might move forward at last, because he might change his status quo on a show where the status quo is more than capable of changing, Steven and Sadie and the audience are given room to hope. Just enough room to hurt us when he can’t go through with it.

That fragile sense of hope radiating throughout The Good Lars is amplified by its status as the calmest episode in the show’s third act. It’s just so quiet compared to its surroundings, with no major confrontations by virtue of Lars’s pivotal moment of cowardice occurring off-screen. Our happy scenes are tinged with melancholy, and our sad scenes have glimpses of joy, and it’s the perfect tone to set for our last moment of peace before Steven’s life falls apart again.

All of my issues with Lars over the past 120-odd episodes are given new meaning as we see him waver back and forth in The Good Lars. Yes, it’s annoying that he refuses to retain lessons he learns throughout the series, but we see here that his dismal self-confidence doesn’t allow him to trust that he’d be accepted for who he is, so of course he falls back on prickliness over and over again.

To be fair, it’s hard to tell where he stands with Buck, who seems to enjoy messing with Lars but who also seems to genuinely appreciate Lars, but who also might only genuinely appreciate Lars out of irony because that’s totally a thing Buck would do, but who also might love irony so much that his ironic appreciation of Lars might wrap back around to genuine appreciation. It’s awesome that we see Buck in his Shirt Club tee showing off the guitar skills he picked up from taking lessons with Greg; referencing an episode that explored the downside of Buck’s allergy to sincerity paints Lars’s own attempts to hide how he feels in a damning light. Even we the audience can’t be sure if Buck thinks Bingo Bongo is “transcendent” because he likes it or he thinks it’s dumb and that it’s funny to say that it’s great. I'm pretty sure it’s the former, but from the episode alone there’s just no way to be sure.

So it makes sense that Buck, whose mastery of the detached facade is undeniable, is an aspirational figure for Lars, who’s uncannily bad at playing it cool. As much as I’ve praised the Cool Kids for being far more delightful than the Cool Kid trope often allows, they’re not without their flaws: it’s a little stinging that they still use terms like “Donut Kids” and “Donut Girl” instead of real names with their ostensible peers (but then again, they’re often referred to as “The Cool Kids”). Nobody, not even Lars, is fully to blame for Lars’s insecurity, but Buck’s affected demeanor sets a poor example for a kid who puts him on a pedestal.

Lars’s wavering consumes the first half of the episode, and throughout the baking montage we get shots like the above, where Steven and Sadie are capable of relaxing but Lars is obsessed with getting things right. It’s refreshing to see him so passionate, but this obsession is just another manifestation of his insecurity, his need to be perfect so that he’ll fit in. There’s a subtle cultural element to his ordeal, as ube is a traditional Philippine dessert that Lars writes off as “my family’s weird purple cake”—while I somehow doubt the Cool Kids are racist against Filipinos, it tracks that a kid who’s desperate to fit in would fear anything that sets him apart.

Still, it’s a pleasant sequence where Lars lets his guard down, first in the joy of baking and then as he opens up to Steven. His opinion that baking is lame is perhaps the most adolescent aspect of this very teenagey episode, because it’s an absurd notion which he believes so strongly that he can’t seem to fathom that it’s about the coolest skill you can bring to a group whose idea of a good time is a potluck. Lars thinks he’s lame, and he loves baking, thus he thinks baking is lame. His lack of self-worth even extends to people who like him, as he casually asserts that nobody knows he likes to bake when Sadie and Steven are right there; it’s a rotten thing to say, sure, but it comes from a severe confidence shortage.

Lars’s attitude is simple to understand early the series: he’s insecure, so he acts like a jerk to hide his soft interior. But The New Lars and now The Good Lars thrive by diving deeper and showing just how bad his self-esteem issues really are. This isn’t run-of-the-mill teen angst, it’s the kind of depression he describes in Island Adventure, and when we understand how much he’s suffering he suddenly fits right in with Pearl and Lapis Lazuli at their worst. This is what we needed of him for his big moment in space to hit home, so thank goodness we get it right on time.

Steven’s pep talk seems to do the trick, and we move into our third act with that bubble of hope just waiting to be popped. It becomes clear pretty quickly that something’s gonna go wrong when Steven excitedly amps up the ube, and seeing Sadie alone hammers the hard truth home, but before we make it official there’s a lovely moment of Sadie, who’s no stranger to awkwardness herself, quickly winning over the Cool Kids. I’ll never get tired of how great these kids are, and even Sadie will talk about it soon enough.

The search scene is a fascinating montage, showing Steven failing over and over but accompanied by a jaunty score that keeps our hopes alive despite what’s now an obvious conclusion. Steven’s leap into the air is the first big moment of the episode that involves weird Gem stuff, and its sudden appearance highlights how down-to-earth our little adventure has been; in the same way, his instinct to use mind powers is soon trumped by the human pragmatism of just calling Lars. It sets the stage for an all-too-human resolution to Lars’s story, as Steven’s phone call ends with him finding the ube in the trash right outside Buck’s house, right as he’s imagining aloud a reality where Lars lets himself be happy.

Which leads to our story’s greatest trick, the aspect that cements it as one of my favorites: despite the name and the deep focus and the new insights we gain from that focus, The Good Lars was never a Lars Episode. It’s a Sadie Episode, and it’s a beautiful one.

Sadie, like Lars, is afraid to branch out. But unlike Lars, she’s brave enough to try anyway, and shares her hidden love of singing with the Cool Kids. She’s so invested in helping others that she forgets that she’s allowed to help herself, and if that sounds familiar it’s because it’s Steven’s entire character arc. When the mood dips to its lowest point with the ube in the garbage, we could’ve had an ending that matches the sadness of a hurting kid failing even when his friends believe in him. But instead, we get a scene of quiet grace as Sadie shares her voice and is praised in the way Lars strove for. She hears that he’s not coming, and takes a deep breath, and lets it be. She can’t control his night, but she can control hers, and she chooses her own happiness instead of letting his issues ruin her evening.

She and Steven have both accepted Lars for who he is, and while both want him to move past the barriers he’s set up, the lessons of Sadie’s Song return with a vengeance in a way that makes me wish so badly that I liked Sadie’s Song. Steven has traces of his worst self from that story by wondering if they should’ve pushed Lars even harder, but as Sadie starts to agree with him, she realizes that no, they shouldn’t, because it’s not up to them to make Lars happy. They can try, and they should, but friends aren’t failures if their friends can’t take steps for themselves. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s one last reminder that Steven shouldn’t put the world on his shoulders before Steven goes and puts the world on his shoulders.

I call this a Sadie Episode because she’s the one that grows in it. Lars is in his rut of inaction, just as Steven is in his rut of misplaced responsibility, but Sadie gains the confidence boost of new friends and a new perspective into her relationship with a guy who came this close to admitting that he loved her to Steven. Lars is about to fail her through his cowardice in the same way Steven is about to fail Connie through his hubris, and like Connie, Sadie will use the opportunity to stand up for herself. And let’s not forget that this is the episode where Sadie Killer meets the Suspects.

The cliffhanger from Doug Out goes unacknowledged until the very end of The Good Lars, especially because Sour Cream seems unfazed by Onion’s disappearance for now; perhaps some viewers watched the episode waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I imagine such a lens colored the whole story in a way it didn’t for me. I wasn’t surprised by the reappearance of the two Gem silhouettes, but it remains a spine-chilling way to end such a human-centric tale. And even this provides us with hope, allowing us to imagine that Lars didn’t bail after all and was simply kidnapped by aliens. Stuck Together soon snatches that hope away, which is par for the course for Lars’s arc, but it’s a powerful episode that can make a character’s kidnapping seem like a good thing.

I understand the irony of me saying that an episode about Lars going nowhere is the episode that finally sees Lars going somewhere, but as Mindful Education (and therapy in general) suggests, acknowledging the problem is the first step towards solving it. Lars is about to become a major player, and Sadie is about to earn a new arc of her own, and I can’t think of a better way to set up both of these threads than The Good Lars.

Future Vision!

Beyond the reveal that he trashed the ube before his capture, Stuck Together generally acts as a direct sequel to The Good Lars.

“Bingo Bongo” was magical from the start, evoking Root Beer Guy’s equally magical “Bingo Bango” from Adventure Time. But seeing Lars own it as a badass space pirate is great shorthand for how much he’s grown.

Steven’s pep talk to Lars about going to the party is echoed in his pep talk to Lapis about returning to Earth in Can’t Go Back. Not only because both speeches are good advice, but because unfortunately neither succeeds to make the listener move past their anxiety by the episode’s end.

A story about Steven trying to help someone hellbent on sabotaging themselves and hurting others? That sounds like a good idea for a movie!

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

As always, I’m a sucker for tone, and The Good Lars gets that feeling of teenage dreams grappling with the nightmare of depression just right, both for the victim and for friends of the victim (some of us got to be both!). It’s not overwrought, and we’re still allowed some joy, but it sucks to be so stuck in your head that you can’t move, and this episode captures that sensation way more succinctly than, say, Hamlet. Am I saying it’s better than Hamlet? Not really. But I heard somewhere that brevity is the soul of wit, and it’s certainly briefer.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Doug Out

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

6. Horror Club 5. Fusion Cuisine 4. House Guest 3. Onion Gang 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#the good lars #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 5 years

Text

Fic: explosion

For the Whumptober 2019 Day 2 prompt: explosion!

Summary: When the breakdown finally arrives, it’s nothing like Dick once pictured it would be: a spectacular implosion, buildings collapsing on themselves and raining debris until there’s nothing left but a flaming pile of rubble. The weight that he’s been collecting (for too long) just seems too big for the letting go to be anything short of a disaster. Instead, it starts slow, without him even noticing.

aka: at the end of everything, Dick breaks down, and his family is there for him.

Warnings: future!AU, Titans s2 spoilers upto 2.04, some swearing. this is some truly indulgent shit.

When the breakdown finally arrives, it’s nothing like Dick once pictured it would be: a spectacular implosion, buildings collapsing on themselves and raining debris until there’s nothing left but a flaming pile of rubble. The weight that he’s been collecting (for too long) just seems too big for the letting go to be anything short of a disaster. Instead, it starts slow, without him even noticing. It erodes him with the unceasing regularity of the tide, instead of cracking him right through the centre.

It starts with the end, the night after Deathstroke is defeated and the Titans, both old and new, are gathered at the tower. The gigantic rooms are about as small as Dick has ever seen them, filled with people and music and laughter and chatter. Superman and Green Lantern-themed party decorations hang from the ceiling, (“literally all that was available last minute,” Gar had told him earlier that day, like somehow over the last year he’d gotten better at lying to Dick. Hah.) glittering in the lights, and there are pictures everywhere—trophies of their biggest triumphs, and snapshots of smaller, more intimate moments that Dick has no memory of ever posing for or taking.

Dick walks through the party, beer in hand, feeling strangely light-headed. The music sounds muffled, and he hears snippets of conversations as though they are coming from very far away. He smiles vaguely at Gar talking animatedly to Rachel and Rose, flits, ghost-like, between Jason and Dawn throwing down for an impromptu sparring session, and gestures with his beer at Donna across the room, hoping that’s answer enough for the curious look that she’s giving him.

Joey catches his eye from where he’s sitting with Kory and Conner. You okay? he signs. You look unwell.

“I’m okay,” Dick says loudly—maybe a little too loudly, because he can barely make out anything over the roaring in his ears—and keeps walking, determined not to be a buzzkill (this once, Rachel had said, crossing her arms over her chest but with a playful twinkle in her eye).

Somehow, he finds himself sitting at the kitchen table, watching Hank determinedly mix something in a giant bowl.

“You’d think he’d know the difference between walnuts and peanuts,” Hank’s saying. “I mean, just on principle. The kid’s got a smartphone and every fancy gadget money can buy and he doesn’t think to text me oh hey hank, you weren’t really planning to bake a cake with peanuts, were ya? Because that would be ridiculous, oh no, not him—”

“You do a mean Jason impression,” Dick says. “Gotta save that for the actual party.” Now that he can actually hear himself speak, he winces—he sounds scratchy and hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in a while (he hasn’t spoken in a while).

Hank stops mixing to stare at him. A beat passes before he sets the bowl down and walks around the table to sit next to him. “You feeling all right, man?”

Dick sighs. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid. Usually when he gets like this—wobbly, sad, there but not quite—he discreetly escapes to his room and punches and cries and screams into pillows, stares at the ceiling and the walls, listens to loud music or makes notches on his desk with his bare fingernails, anything to quell the desperate, seething mass of feeling inside of him. It almost always works.

“Just tired,” he says. It’s not even a lie.

Hank nods, then throws an arm around Dick’s shoulders, pulling Dick towards him. “Yeah right,” he says, “like you’re going to weasel out of the party with that excuse. Roy still hasn’t forgiven you for skipping his birthday to go to wilderness survival training in the Amazon, and that was a hell of an excuse.”

“You say that like I had a choice,” Dick mutters.

“You coming back and lecturing us on camping styles and insisting that we stock up on twenty different kinds of insect repellent? Definitely a choice.”

Dick remembers Hank dragging him away then just like this, reminding him none-too-gently to get his goddamn head out of his ass once in a while. He opens his mouth to laugh, but to his horror, hears a sob escape instead.

Hank freezes. “Dick?”

God-fucking-damnit. He really, really can’t do this here, not in front of all these people. He wriggles out of Hank’s hold and staggers in the general direction of his room, his vision swimming. The music stops, there’s a litany of concerned voices and numerous hands reaching out to stop him, and Dick squeezes his eyes shut and keeps moving because if he doesn’t—

if he doesn’t he can’t—

“Dick please,” Rachel says, and her voice cuts through everything like it always does, like it did when she saved him from Trigon (when she saved them all). “Dick, what’s wrong?”

He’s in his bedroom with Kory, Gar and Rachel, trembling like he’s going to fall apart with the force of the ticking time bomb inside of him. He wants to reassure her, but he can’t find the words or his voice, and so he looks to Kory, pleading.

Please, he tries to say. Not with them here.

Thankfully, she seems to get the message, and ushers them out of the room. Within seconds, she’s back in the room, her arms around him. She’s warm enough to be right at the cusp of uncomfortable, her skin glowing faintly in the dark room. Dick leans into her touch even as she says, “It’s okay. It’s just us now, Dick.”

And Dick… crumples.

He cries—loud, keening sobs that are barely muffled by her shirt. Every time he thinks he’s just about spent, a fresh wave of sorrow washes over him, and he starts all over again. He doesn’t understand where this is coming from—why this sadness is pulling him along in its current and washing him up on shore feeling empty and bereft—when everything is over, fixed, saved. He only knows the feeling of a festering wound being sliced open, spilling pus and infection until the blood runs red. He only knows what it means when something blows open, spitting smoke into the air as fire burns everything clean.

There’s so goddamn much to burn through.

He realises that at some point he stopped crying and started talking. He’s not making much sense, not even to himself, but the words pour out of him like a messy afterbirth anyway. At one point all he can say is it’s been so cold for so long and he doesn’t know if that means all the nights training in the Batcave past the point of collapse, or if it means trying so goddamned hard to keep himself together while everyone fell apart around him because he’s the leader, this was his idea, or if it means living with the guilt of Joey and Slade and Zucco and Bruce festering inside him, trying not to let it spill out of him even if all he wanted to do sometimes was tear at his hair and scream—

“I understand,” Kory says, the only words she’s said the entire time that he’s been falling apart. “But it won’t be cold forever.”

He collapses against her, utterly spent. She threads her fingers through his hair, singing something both indistinct and ethereal—Tamaranean, he guesses.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice like smoking wreckage. “I shouldn’t have—put all of this on you. It’s not fair.”

“Maybe not,” Kory says lightly. “Perhaps you will return the favour one day.”

“I want to,” he says, and there’s a longing there, a wistful belief that he will ever be strong enough to do for others what Kory is doing for him.

“You will,” she says, and continues to sing. He falls asleep to the sound of her voice.

#titans #my fic #dick grayson #koriand'r #hank hall #whumptober2019 #no. 2 #a byronic cupcake

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alexkestavin · 5 years

Text

This is not a happy story

( I just want to preface this by saying none of this is canon but I just wanted to try writing something due to my writing funk that I have been in. With Ellie’s constant adoration of it while I was writing I feel very comfortable posting this.)

WARNING: DEATH, BLOOD, TORTURE ALLUSION, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

Darkness swallowed around him like a void of nothingness. No sounds, no light, not even a feeling of touch. All of it was just black. Black and unending. And then a pressure. As if everything was trying to squeeze the last speck of life out of this void. The silence became deafening the darkness too bright.

It was then that a voice boomed out, “We did not forget about you, flea.” The voice sounded large almost impossibly so. It threatened to break Alex’s ear drums.

“We did not forget how you dabble in our darkness. How you swim within it. Taking its power for your own. We did not forget she who has driven our whispers out. Who has kept you sane for months longer. We have come to reclaim you, little flea. To take your sanity and corrupt it for our own making. You swim within our power and expect to stay free? No. You are ours to do with as we wish. You have lived freely long enough.”

Alex struggled against the voice. Feeling the darkness penetrating his mind. The darkness of his past coming to the forefront. The pressure that had been surrounding him and threatening him to choke on a lack of air seemed to release just ever so momentarily. Once it came back on however he was thrust forth.

A soft crunch of snow could be heard under his feet as he stumbled forward. Everything sounded just slightly muffled. Much like the world when there’s a new blanket of snow upon the ground. The brightness nearly blinded him. His eyes adjusting slowly as he’d look around. He couldn’t figure out why this was familiar.

The cold bit into his form as he’d trudge through the snow. The evergreens jutting up at odd angles all around him. The sounds of nature completely void. It was eerie in the way that a padded room could make someone crazy.

His steps continued forward before he’d start to see drops of red within the snow. They continued the way he was headed and it caused him to pick up his pace. Someone needed help. As his hands rubbed at his forearm and biceps to gain some kind of heat from the friction, his eyes flicked back and forth over the drops of red that grew heavier and more numerous. Alex moved to pick up the pace. His eyes drawing forward.

There appeared to be the crest of a hill before him. Or was it a mountain? Everything was disorienting and he felt as if he’d been making his way through this snow forever. The closer to the crest the red covered more and more of the snow. And once he reached the top his eyes went wide.

Before him for seemingly miles before him were rows and rows of his wife. All of them laying within a plain of blood and flesh. Alex rushed forward to the closest one. The cold growing harsher as he got closer but the snow covered ground was just blood now. Alex waded through the viscous chilling liquid that stained his clothes and skin. His arms wrapping around the closest Ellie as he pulled her close to him, “No no. NO! I can’t lose you. I can’t.” Or that’s what he was trying to say. The words wouldn’t leave his lips. No sound could escape his mouth. But there was a deafening roar of screams that started to arc out all around him. Each Ellie’s mouth was open and wailing into the sky.

As he held his wife and endured the constant screaming Alex felt his vision going dark. Tunneling before he’d fall back into the nothingness once more. That pressure returning as he’d choke for breaths. The voice returned.

It seemed to chuckle delightfully before speaking, “We can make that a reality. Hundreds of thousands, millions of your beloved all dead and screaming out for help that will never come. You can’t save her. Just like you can’t save yourself. You are -OURS-.”

The pressure intensified as Alex would choke and gasp for air. He could feel his hands reaching out for something, anything. He didn’t expect to actually grab on to...something however. What terrified him is how it tried to wrench away from him. Something was there in the dark with him.

And then he heard it. Himself, “Stop! Don’t hit her! Let her go!”

Alex’s eyes opened as he’d look down. He was standing within his home...his old home. Before him was a terrified girl with jet black hair. And next to him was a boy, roughly ten or so. Alex just stopped as he’d drop to his knee. There he saw himself at ten years old. Which made him Andres. He’d stare down at his hands before looking up towards a nearby mirror.

All Alex could see was his own adoptive father staring back at him. His eyes went wide before the room flashed. All he could see around him was blood and decay. A concordance of chuckling surrounded him.

Upstairs was a thump...thump...thump noise. Spread out every ten seconds or so. He looked into the mirror once more. Now it was decayed and tarnished but he could still see himself a bit. Alex looked decayed and bloated. Only he still looked liked his adoptive father. Like how he’d look if he had died. His movement was sluggish.

As he slowly made his way up the stairs the thumps grew louder. They were coming from the end of the hallway. Alex tried to look into each room but the doors gave away to pitch black. It was clear his destination was the door at the end of the hall. The thumping started to thunder in his chest.

Those bloated fingers pressed against the door and the sight within was horrifying. Beyond the blood that coated the room Alex stood over countless bodies of himself. The child version or himself. In the corner stood a grown Alex who was slamming his own head against the wall and crying.

When the door creaked open he’d jump out towards Alex before disappearing into a cloud of bloody dust. Alex felt his vision darkening once more. Then the pressure. All of it was so heavy. He couldn’t take this anymore. He wanted out. He needed out. But the voice would just chuckle.

“You don’t get to leave until you have sided with us, flea. Don’t you get it? You’re trapped here. Trapped in your own mind which is ours to control. Once you break. Then you’ll be allowed to leave. Not a moment before.”

The pressure subsided once more. Alex felt his senses return. First his feeling and then his sight. He could feel the thick liquid before he could see out of it. He was within a giant vat. His eyes searing with pain as he tried to look through the heavy viscous liquid.

Outside of the vat Alex could see hundreds of himself and his wife, Ellie. They were just murdering each other in a giant war. Alex tried his best to slam upon the wall of the vat. Even going as far as trying to draw upon his magic. However the second he did so. Everything froze and stared directly towards him.

Each and every person beyond the vat had a crazed look upon their face. Even those presumably dead on the ground looked at him with that same crazed look. Alex tried to swim his way up to push up on the top.

It was futile unfortunately. Finding it hard to breath once more Alex watched as the hundreds of himself and his wife just continued to stare at him. Those unsettling eyes looking at him within the vat. That is until one of the Alex’s picked up a javelin from the ground and chucked it right at the vat. Unfortunately with no-where to go it speared right into Alex’s arm. While also shattering the giant glass tube that surrounded him.

The jelly like substance spilled out from within the vat and the various hundreds of him and his wife immediately sprinted at him like animals. They ripped Alex out of the liquid and dragged him across the giant room. He felt so weak and he was coughing up that liquid that was in his throat. The javelin still sitting in his shoulder.

Everything was so loud and unsettling. That is until he was thrown down before a throne. Or was it a set of thrones? However what he saw was even more unsettling. Sitting before him was yet another him and Ellie. However they were clearly the leaders here. They sat upon these thrones with those same unhinged eyes. Ellie was sharpening a dagger that was covered in caked blood. Alex was surrounded by what appeared to be other Ellie concubines of some sort.

As the Alex sitting within the throne raised his hand. He was dropped by the subservient Alex’s and Ellie’s. Alex Prime just looked at everything. His right hand reaching up to clutch the wound in his shoulder. Coughing up more of the liquid, “What...what the fuck is this?”

Around him a concordance of laughs seemed to erupt all at once. Said laughs were immediately silenced by the supposed “King Alex”. The concubine Ellie’s moved aside as King Alex stood up. That unsettling grin of his widening as he’d step forth. He seemed gigantic in size. His form seeming to stretch upwards forever until he stepped down off the raised platform.

His right hand coming to smack across Alex Prime’s face, “We hear you’ve been dabbling in that dark magic. The void and shadows. What possibly made you think that was a good idea, hmm? How do you think this goes, Alex?”

Behind him Queen Ellie piped up, “Let’s just kill him. It’d certainly be more merciful than the man deserves.”

King Alex held his hand up, “No no. They want him alive. They want that mind. The resilient fortress it is. They want someone like that. Someone who takes so much to break that it will be beautiful to see. Like an explosion that takes a bit to go off.”

Queen Ellie just grinned, “Let her torture him. If she can’t break him. I don’t know if there’s much that could.”

Alex’s eyes half closed as he’d look down at the dirty marble floor, “I just want to wake up. LET ME OUT OF HERE!”

As King Alex snapped his fingers the other Alex’s and Ellie’s would pick Alex up and take him to another room

Alex Prime’s eyes went wide as he saw a seemingly normal Ellie within the room. It was unsettling this gorgeous golden eyed woman offset by all of the torture impliments within here. The door was shut and she locked it once he’d been strapped down. A soft loving smile upon her lips, “You’re safe now, love. Nobody can hurt you in here.”

Alex’s eyes were hopeful once more. Wanting to believe anything that could make all of this better. When she started to mess with some of the implements he would just smile nervously, “Ellie. What are you doing? Don’t listen to them. It’s you right? My wife? The one who can get me out of here?”

The Ellie just grinned happily, “I’m afraid I’m not -that- Ellie. She hasn’t existed for a -looong- time. And she wouldn’t be able to help you here to begin with, Alex.” Ellie gave the man a perky smile before picking up a scalpel and what appeared to be a bone saw of some kind.

What he had missed was the crazed eyes hidden behind the fake love and the fake caring. She was just like the others. Preferring to make herself seem like a friend instead of an enemy. Alex struggled at the bindings. His entire chest and waist lifting up off the table as he’d try to wrench away from the leather straps.

It wasn’t of any use unfortunately. All he could feel was the pain of the blades cutting into his flesh. His scream echoed endlessly within the infinite halls of Alex and Ellie. And then a single sentence, “I love you Alex. You’re safe now.”

Everything went dark once more. It was different though. Moon peaked through blinds. The snoring of wolves could be heard. The feel of his beloved in his arms were confirmed by a soft squeeze. Alex’s breathing quickened. Was this real? Or was this another nightmare?

He couldn’t tell.

He couldn’t know.

He doesn’t know.

#my writing #I hope you guys enjoy #I know it's very long #but it kind of needs to stay together

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thehomierobbstark · 5 years

Note

What does Erik do when Bae is being bratty in public?

A/N: Ya’ll seemed to really enjoy the last one, so here, have a longer one! Thank you anon for asking! [i ride for my thick chicks but i couldn’t find the right pics, sorry yall :/ ]

Whewwww

First of all

God Bless that mans patience, because you? stay Trying👏🏿 It ™👏🏿

Y’all were at an amusement park in the height of summer after graduation after you’d decided to link back up with all your college friends one last time before fall came

Everyone was boo’d up, but especially Erik, who stayed hanging on you from the moment you got there

He couldn’t help it, you just looked so cute with your black and silver braids up in space buns and the ocean blue Van’s you paired with your white summer fit

He just needed to be onn youuu in somee wayy so he could let these niggas know that ‘this mines’

Soo you sucked it up, and put up with your needy ass man hanging all over you

….. for a total of five minutes

“Yeah, so uhh…. this not bout to work,” You lean back from your scrunched up position in the corner of the booth where he’d pulled you in to be under his arm. The rest of your crew was still in line, ordering food.

He gives you a confused look, not really sure what you’re talking about.

“Wassup? You wanna go somewhere else for food? I think they got a vegan spot around the corne-”

“Nah, son, this not bout to work,” You interrupt him, gesturing between the two of you. You feel a spike of heat flash over you, and your patience starts to grow thinner.

You fuckin hated being hot

It was honestly one of the worst feelings to you, and this gigantic, sweaty nigga was determined to be all up in your space, fuckin up your qi

“Baby,” you give him a little pat on his arm, trying to keep it together. “I love all the physical affection you’re trying to show me, but you gon have to cut that shit out.” *record scratch* “It’s too hot for all that.”

During the winter, those warm, cuddled up moments were cute and all, but now that the cold was gone so was your desire for unnecessary body heat, and you needed him to get with the program

He kisses his teeth. “I’m just tryna hold my baby girl, watchu getting all buck for?” He says defensively, acting like he wasn’t currently trying to be the actual ball to your chain.

“Okay, well, hold me in your heart or somethin, shit. You makin my back sweat,” You pull at the sleeve of your shirt to trying to air it out a little, unsticking it from you.

That was another thing you fuckin hated; sweat

You could put up with it if you had to, like when you did your occasional morning run or participated in whatever foolish activities Erik managed to get you into, but it still always made your neck scrunch up at the dewy gross wetness that lingered behind on your skin

Tbh, you turned into a total 👸🏿Diva when it was hot, and you weren’t putting up with any of Erik’s lovey dovey shit in the 102º heat

“Wowwww, so you really just gon block me out like that, babe?”

“Like a fuckin linebacker,” Your comeback is quick, zero hesitation.

Your friends start heading back to where you are, so he drops it, deciding to not be a grump in front of them and thinking that maybe you just needed some space for a little while till you cooled back down

Nnnopeeee

You may have felt icky on the outside, but it didn’t mean you still didn’t want allll of the attention from your man

It’s like your body knew it wasn’t going to get any physical affection in this heat, so to make up for it, it transferred all of its resources over to your mouth

And that mouth? Smh

Poor baby, you was skrugglin

“Erik, where are you going?”

“I wanna go ride on this one babe, come with me.”

“Why is it so hotttt,”

“Ooo, DOG!”

“I want a churro.”

“Why aren’t you listening to me right now?? Didn’t you hear me say I saw a dog??”

He’s torn between being fed up with you’re annoying, aggravating ass and squishing you to death in the tightest hug because he loved it when you started acting all needy

One second you’re dragging him to all the toy stores in the park to find a Pussyfoot stuffed animal, and the next you’re mad when he tries to hold your hand to take you there because ‘it’s too sweaty”

And when you had a hot flash?

Lord help any chick that looked even somewhat in Erik’s direction, because by then you were ready to add in the knuck component to your 1-2 crazy bitch combo

After he had to drag you out of the funnel cake shop to keep you from throwing hot fudge and strawberries at “that googly eyed bitch in the back”, he decided to take you to one of the secluded tables in the back of the park to talk.

“Sit.” he orders, pointing at the table top, and you hoist yourself onto the warm concrete, scooting back a little to make room. He slides the plate of funnel cake onto the table, arranging the shopping bags he placed behind you to give you both cover. He situates himself on the bench in between your legs, pulling the plate of food over to him to unwrap it.

He spreads your legs open and puts the dessert there when he finishes, resting his hands on the outside of your thighs.

“Right now, you gon eat and listen, cuz you been acting like a fuckin brat all damn day and I’m not having any more of your shit lil girl.”

Your face immediately scrunches up, frowning at the factual statements he was making. You want to open your mouth and start denying your bad behavior, but the look on his face tells you that it would be very unwise.

You only open up again after watching him use his fork to pick apart the funnel cake, dipping it in chocolate sauce and holding it to your mouth to feed it to you.

While you chew, your eyes drift over his defined arm muscles being showcased by the maroon sleeveless hoodie he’s wearing, the scent of his heady cologne wafting up to your nose, distracting your senses for a moment.

You want to bury your nose in his neck and deeply inhale his scent, but you restrain yourself, not wanting to get falsely accused of trying to distract him.

“Aight so whats the deal, baby girl? You ain’t even wanna hold my hand cuz you was being such a drama queen earlier, but now you tryna bite every bitch head off in a 5 mile radius cuz they can’t tell that we together.” He feeds you another piece, this time with a chunk of strawberry, holding it with his fingers.

You accept it, wrapping your lips around his meaty fingers and taking the treat from them, sucking generously at the pad of his thumb.

He maintains his composure, watching as you swipe your tongue over the dust of powdered sugar on your top lip.

“Why you being so difficult, mamas? You actin like you don’t know how to act right.”

You roll your eyes, eyebrows furrowing in irritation as you start to get defensive. Sure you might have been acting out a little bit, but its not like he was entirely innocent in this either.

“Well, maybe if you didn’t wear shit like that when we go out, I wouldn’t have to act so fucking ‘difficult’.” You use your fingers to put up air quotes, voice laced with attitude.

He narrows his eyes at you. “Excuse me, little girl?” Its more of an opportunity for you to reevaluate your statement than it is a question, but you steamroll over the subtle warning, still going off.

“You mad you can’t be all up on me rn so we can look like we together, but you stay showing off your arms and shit like you’re not also taken.”

He grabs the plate of half eaten funnel cake and puts it off to the side, moving forward so that his face is closer to yours.

“You better change the way you talkin to me or we gon have an even bigger problem in a second.”

You ignore his threat, scooping up the plate to munch away at your anger.

“Shut the fuck up Erik, you’re irking me right now,” You mumble around a mouthful of food, eyes focused on the pile of whipped cream and pastry.

You didn’t see it when he pulled down the black joggers he was wearing to reach in and free himself, stroking slowly while he waited for you to swallow the food in your mouth. Before you could take another bite, he snatches the plate out of your hand, tossing it somewhere before pulling you to the edge of the table, gripping you under your knees.

“Clearly you need some sense fucked back into you because its obvious you lost it all somewhere in this goddamn park.” He grabs your shorts, roughly pulling them off before sliding you off the table and into his lap. He hooks two fingers into the side of your cotton underwear and rips them off, stuffing the material into your mouth.

“I swear if you cum I’ll take you home and bend you over for another 2 hours,” His tone is vicious, and you’re already wet from the way he’s gripping your waist tight and looking at you with pure fire in his eyes. He lifts your ass up and positions himself under you, thrusting into you powerfully and filling you all the way up. You let out a sharp cry, softened by your makeshift gag, and he covers your mouth with his wide palm, leaning into your ear.

“Shut the fuck up and take it,” he growls, and he tightens his arm around your lower back and starts to pound into you, struggling to keep his own breathing even and his grunts quiet.

With the tall shopping bags on the table blocking the view, no one can see what you’re doing in the corner, and you wrap your arms around his shoulders and bury your face, praying that there’s no cameras pointed in your direction.

Somehow you both manage not to get caught, and its been 20 minutes now of his thick member slamming into you over and over again non stop. You’re wrapped around him so tight, struggling not to let go as you feel your 6th orgasm trying to fight past your mental barrier, and you push on his thighs weakly trying to lift off of him.

“I can’t I cant I cant,” you chant, your head falling back as you take in shallow breaths, a single tear falling down your face.

“You fucking better,” He snarls, and he digs his fingers into your cheeks gripping hard, spreading your ass apart further. His thrusts start slowing down, and he lifts you up, laying you down on the table with his body hovering over yours.

It’s a riskier position, and your legs bob over the shopping bag blockade he’s created as he keeps going. You scratch at his arms, whining his name to try and warn him.

He ignores you, circling his hips into you sloppily as he starts to reach his climax, and right as he starts to release, he pushes up your cropped shirt and sinks his teeth into your breast, moaning into you as ropes of cum shoot inside you.

He collapses on top of you, both of you breathing heavy and sweating even more than you were before.

He lazily smushes sloppy kisses into the side of your face as he comes down, nibbling on your cheek and the sensation of his beard tickles you.

“Daddy,” you whisper hoarsely, throat dry and aching from the fabric.

“Hm?” he hums, his body too tired to look up at you.

“I’m hungry again.”

#i know this was probably the absolute wrong time to post this but i wanted to get it out there #erik killmonger #bp #erik killmonger fan fiction #erik killmonger x black!reader #erik killmonger x reader #black panther fandom #black panther fanfiction #black panther #TheHomieFics #nons #headcanon ek #erik killmonger headcanon

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creeperchild · 6 years

Text

Funtime Freddy x reader -Chapter 1 - The encounter

Note: This is my first Reader x Fanfiction. I got huge help from my beloved Girlfrien @thefredricus to correct my bad writing! She is such a huge help!

2nd part: https://creeperchild.tumblr.com/post/619663923427328000/funtime-freddy-x-reader-chapter-2-danger

Enjoy the reading and tell me what you think!

(y/n) = your name

(l/n) = last name

(y/a) = your age

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You take a deep breath. This is your first day in the business called "Circus Baby's Pizza World". This place is pretty scary for you since you hate mannequins and robots.

You applied to the job WITHOUT knowing that they had animatronics in their company.

'How stupid am I?' you think to yourself as you step into the cold abyss of the building. Only a light on the ceiling flickers on your way to the elevator. You walk slowly towards it while staring fascinated at the walls to your right and left.

The dim light reveals drawings of children, how they play games, eat pizza or cake, or with... "Animatronics." slips out of your mouth while exhaling and a shiver runs down your spine. With shaking legs, you enter the small room that immediately closes the doors on you and traps you inside of it. You feel the movement of the elevator and a tablet pops up in front of you. It introduces itself as HandUnit. The yellow tablet speaks once again:"Please enter your name as seen above the keypad.

This cannot be changed later so please be careful." With those words a keyboard appears on the screen. You let out a sigh and closed your eyes for a moment.

Your name is (y/n). You are a (y/a) year old girl that really needs money after you graduated school. You wanted to move out and have your own life. As well with a new partner, since you are single. Let's just say your ex... was kind of a dick to you.

"Asshole..." parts your lips in a dying voice as you clench your fists together.

A voice snaps you out of your dreadful thoughts: "It seems that you had some trouble with the keypad. I see what you were trying to type, and I will auto-correct it for you. One moment. Welcome: Eggs Benedict."

You blink in confusion as the elevator stops at your destination. A cheerful music appears and fills the room instead of the silence. You hesitate as the HandUnit gives you the order to open the door of the elevator. The doors snap open and give you a heart attack. It reveals a lot of yellow tape with the words "DANGER" written on them, taped all over the exit of this god damn lift to hell. You suck air through your teeth and slowly crouch under the tape and towards the dark and small vent that offers you an entrance to your working place. It is barely enough space as you squeeze trough.

The air is hot and thick, and the vent seems to have no end. All of a sudden

HandUnit speaks again, way louder than in the elevator. You jump up, hitting your head on the vent. "ARGH!"

Covering the back of your head while mumbling swearwords, you listen to the loud and clear voice: "Allow me to fill this somewhat frightening silence with some light- hearted banter. Due to the massive success and even more-so the unfortunate closing of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, it was clear that the stage was set – no pun intended – for another contender in children’s entertainment. Unlike most entertainment venues, our robotic entertainers are rented out for private parties during the day, and it’s your job to get the robots back in proper working order before the following morning."

YOU NEED TO DO WHAT!? Your jaw drops as you hear what the voice says.

"That was NOT what the advertisement said!" you hiss slightly while checking if your head bleeds.

Finally. You enter the room where you are supposed to work. Slowly standing up, you notice you got a huge headache from the hit on your head. Great! Blinking and huffing, you examine the room that is finally exposed to you. Once more a shiver crawls up and you shudder. The room is flooded in a dirty green color. Monitors decorate the room, along with masks and small robots. Your body flinches as your eye catches the sight of them, holding your breath. Beside the creepy bullshit that you see are some desks, a clock, a fan and other small details that gives the room more character.

You try to calm down as the familiar voice is heard again: "You are now in the Primary Control Module. It’s actually a crawlspace between the two front showrooms. Now, let's get started with your daily tasks. View the window to your left. This is the Ballora Gallery Party Room and Dance Studio, encouraging kids to get fit and enjoy pizza. Let’s turn on the light and see if Ballora is on stage. Press the blue button on the elevated keypad to your left."

A keypad on your left lights up in two colors. Blue and red. The blue button has a noticeable light showing. You press it and a light shines outside on a spot with nothing else to be seen. "Uh-oh, it looks like Ballora doesn’t feel like dancing. Let’s give her some motivation. Press the red button now to administer a controlled shock. Maybe that will put a spring back in her step."

'Controlled shock? What the fuck is wrong with you guys?' You bite your lip as you eye the red button with the lightning bolt symbol. You may be scared of robots but you felt sympathy as well for them at that point. Either way it was your job and you didn't want to get fired already on the first day. A frown appears as you press the button quickly. A loud shock was to be heard and all of a sudden the lights go out.

Sitting in darkness some noises can be heard. Terrified as you are, you hold yourself to a wall in panic. "It seems that the power system cannot be restarted automatically. You will need to restart the power system manually.", the casual voice said.

All of a sudden you hear noises from the right vent of the room. The sound of metal hitting the vent grows closer, as well as your panic. Adrenaline shoots into your blood and your first thought is to crawl in the opposite vent towards Ballora's Gallery. Crawling through as quick as possible, you hold your tears back. You feel the vent ends here, but sadly enough not the darkness. The metal noise is getting even closer. Your only thought is 'run'.

You took a huge sprint into the unknown darkness as you follow the only navigation point you have. A bright light peeking through the door crack far ahead of you.

'Shit, shit, SHIT!' is the one thought that haunts your mind.

But before you reach the self-picked safe spot, something grabs your ankle and pulls you back into the dark void you try to escape from. You fall on your side and get violently dragged away. A small spark of a broken machine reveals the face of the attacker. You gasp as you see the young ballerina robot, crawling along the ground like a spider, its posture being impossible for a human. You only spit out the word:" MONSTER!" Fighting for your life, you try to kick the animatronic in its face and struggle and wiggle out of her grip. Your foot slips out of your shoe and as well out of her steel grasp. You take the chance and sprint towards the only lit room in this hellish place. You slam the door before the abomination reaches it, violently knocking and banging against the door. You press yourself against the door and slip down to end up curling into a ball, hiding your face into your legs. Tears drip down and sobs can be heard from your exhausted body. "I see you over there in the dark! C~Come on out!", a shrieking voice chirps. You lift your head and face a gigantic animatronic bear stepping closer towards you. Immediately you crawl away from him as far as possible. You press your body against the wall and eye the creature in front of you. The robotic bear has the main color of white and some parts with pink and purple. He owns a black hat and bowtie. His chest has a speaker and two buttons on it. His right hand wears a blue bunny puppet. A bowtie adorns the neck of the small robot as well, but in red. In his left hand he holds a microphone. One step after another he gets closer and grabs your wrist with his cold hand, dropping his microphone for the action. Lifting you up in the air by your wrist was no problem for him. A moan of pain escapes your throat as you in panic try to get slip out of his hand:" L-Let me go!". you cry out. The animatronic chuckle deep and amused:" W~why should I do that?" Now you can’t keep it back and start to cry in front of him. The puppet point at you as it speaks in its high-pitched voice, peeking at the bear: "Don't you see? The birthday boy is crying!" The big robot gasps dramatically and drops you harshly on the floor. He then turns away with his puppet and whispers to it. You rub your butt and you try to hold in the pain to not getting his attention again. You notice the thick tubes, dangling from the ceiling down the ground and crawl towards them, hiding between them while the two are still discussing. The both of them turn back around just to realise that you aren't there anymore. "B~Birthday b~o~oy? Where aaaaare you? ", he let out of his rather insane chuckle. You rub your wrist that is slightly injured by the freaky bear. A snarling could be heard: "Bonbon! We couldn't have lost him THAT EASY!" The bunny hissed in defence: "Why me? YOU are the one who scared them!" The bear lets out a sigh:"You~u are right... please find him!"

With those words the bunny separates himself from the stub of an arm and with a loud thump it falls to the ground. The puppet was laying for a second on the ground and didn't move an inch. "Is..he dead..?", you whisper to yourself as the motionless puppet lies close to you. Suddenly the head lifts up and spies you already in your hiding spot: "FOUND YOU!" You decide to leave your hiding spot and run out as the 'small' robot crawls towards you and tries to grab you. You try to open the door, but the bear is one step ahead of you and slams it closed with his free paw. Frozen in shock, the legless puppet reaches your legs and clings onto you as if his life depends on it. The bear uses his huge paw and grabs your face to pull it closer to his own. He eyes you closely in every angle possible. Your tear-filled face wasn't the most appealing at that moment, but why is he so focused? He opens his mouth, slightly and slowly. 'Is that my end? eaten by a robot?' is one of many thoughts and fears that goes through your body. "BONBON, THAT IS NOT A BOY! IT'S A BIRTHDAY GIRL!", he yells at the bunny, surprised. You aren’t sure if it's out of anger or happiness. The mechanic bear lets your head go, as well as the puppet your legs. Your fear in your face and the backing off signalises the big robot to not step closer. His ear drops slightly in shame and sadness as he speaks again:" I~I'm sorry that I might hurt you...!" He picks up the puppet and places it on his right arm again:" My name is Funt~time Freddy and this is Bonbon!", he gestures to the puppet. The puppet smiles and waves his arm from side to side: "Hello~!" Speechless as you are, you eye the named robot and can’t say a word. Funtime Freddy steps close and tries to grab your shoulder gently to get your attention. You flinch by the touch and tug your shoulder away from his hand. He pulls it back to his body and opens his mouth to speak. Before he can say something you drop on your knees and start to cry. Covering your face with your hands to hide it and not see him anymore, you let out a sob. Funtime kneeled down on one knee and huffed, slightly frustrated. "Everything is gonna be o-kay..!", speaks the bunny in a soft voice. You feel how he tries to rub your back in sympathy. You yank your elbow into Bonbon's face and try to get as much space between you and the animatronic as possible. Bonbon holds his nose in pain and says something muffled, probably inappropriate. Funtime Freddy is going to say something, but Bonbon interrupts him: "I-I'm fine! Don't you worry!", while still holding his noise and forcing a smile. After a while of silence, you slowly lift your head up from your knees and peek over to Funtime Freddy. He stares at you in silence and blocks the door by sitting in front of it, taking away the only way to escape. 'DAMNIT!' you think as you lay your head down again in silence. You notice that your body goes slowly limp, falling for the tiredness that overtook it. Your vision goes blurry and all over sudden black. You slowly gain your consciousness back as you feel something around you. It is fluffy and light, but you don’t bother to open your eyes to see it. Finally you remember in what situation you are in and snap open your eyes, realising a blanked was wrapped around you. Blinking in confusion you check if Funtime Freddy is still on the same spot: 'YEP! There he is...and still blocking the door!' You sigh in disappointment and eye him slightly more as your vision becomes more clear. He isn’t staring at you anymore. His head is hanging slightly down and his eyes are shut, while Bonbon is laying next to him. Both don’t move at all. Apparently they are in 'sleeping mode' or something. A slight smile crosses your lips before the harsh reality crashes down on you once more. You can't just move a 200 pound robot without waking him up or breaking your own back!! You hold the blanket close to you and curl up more in it. You wonder where this blanket came from or who tucked you in it. The only person who crosses your mind is the pink maniac in front you. You shake your head in disgust by the thought of him getting closer to you. You lift your arm to see what time it was.

2:48 am.

You wait in your new earned comfort blanket for the time to pass by. After half an hour it gets colder for some reason. You hide more and more in the fluffy blanket and bite your teeth together as you shake. You can’t help but whimper from the biting pain of the cold, reaching under the blanket.

The bear’s ear twitches and you can swear he was smiling for a split second before a deep and low humming sound comes from his chest. You opened your tired eyes slightly as the sound continues to hum.

A warm wave of slight heat hits you and you start getting curious. Crawling closer but holding back your whimper, you feel more warmth coming from him. The urge not to die by freezing forces you to get closer to the sleeping bear. You ignore your fear completely now.

Your fingers touches his chest lightly, the source of the sound, and you notice he doesn't feel cold anymore. He must have a heater inside of his system. Like in a trance you cling to the lifesaving warmth and lay against his chest.

Suddenly the two robotic arms of the bear snap around you and hold you in a firm grasp. You look up in fear. The bear glares down at you with a smile. You want to scream as the thought comes through that the heater is a trap. Tears drip down as you stare at him in shock. Not even a dying sound escapes your throat.

Before you can start sobbing he gently presses his index finger against your lips."shhhhh... You don't want to wake up Bonbon", he whispers gently as he looks to his beloved puppet friend, who is sleeping quite comfortably against his leg. You gulp and look up to him. He smiles gently and pulls you closer to himself. You squeak in surprise as he presses you closer to his chest.

You want to move, but you can’t. All what you could do is stare in silence. Funtime Freddy starts to hum a tune of your childhood memories while rocking slowly back and forth with you. Oddly enough, it soothes you and before you realised you became, once more, a victim of your tiredness.

You slowly open your eyes and stretch a bit. You slept really well. Looking up to Freddy, who was apparently already awake, examine something. Like a small card of plastic, holding it up towards the light to read it better.

He hasn’t noticed that you are awake and mumbles a bit:" Aha.. (y/n) (l/n) ... (y/a) years old... interesting.", he spoke with a big, goofy smile on his lips. WAIT A SEC-

You look around and you notice your purse next to him, open wide. You blush slightly as you remember it was in your back pocket of your jeans. 'Did he really look through my pockets while I slept?!'

You snap back out of your thoughts and stare Freddy down, till he notices you. He stares back with eyes open in surprise and the embarrassment of getting caught red handed.

He quickly hides the card behind the back of his metal body and speaks with a shaky voice:" O-oh, g~good morning (y/n)-". He realised he gave away the hint that he really stole your ID!

You stand up and immediately try to reach behind his back and snatch the card out of his hand. In response he lifts his left hand up in the air in hope you don't get the card, while still sitting on the ground, getting a bit nervous while blushing in embarrassment.

You try your best to reach for it, but he bends in a weird direction to make it harder for you. You try your hardest to get your personal information back as you accidentally push the bear over and fall on top of him.

One step closer to your goal!

You bend forward to get it.

Freddy squirms and tries to hold you away with his stump and flops on his belly and lets out exhausting noises: "g-get off of

me!" He squeaks more as your climb over his back to get back what belongs to you.

Your fighting stops as you hear knocking on the door and it opens right after. The small, legless bunny peeks in and stays quiet for a while before giggling: "What are you both doing here?" He looks amused. Both of you look at him, then to each other and again back to Bonbon.

You both quickly get off of each other and Freddy blushes worse than before and looks away.

"Aaaaanyways...", the puppet continues, rolling his eyes:" I got what you wanted, Freddy!" Bonbon nudges the door open with his tiny paw and pulls in a plate with some slices of pizza.

By the sight of it your stomach growls and you can’t keep your eyes away from it, since you didn't eat for over 12 hours now.

"Oh boy, she sure looks hungry!", chirps the blue one. Freddy picks him up and puts him back as his 'right hand' and hands you the plate with the delightfully smelling pizza:" Here you g~go! Knock yourself out!" You can’t help but smile as you sit down to give your attention to the greasy slices.

Bonbon takes the opportunity and whispers to Freddy: "You like her, don't you Freddy?" The bear looks quickly away as his cheeks warm up. Looking back at Bonbon with the most helpless glare gives him the clear answer. The Bunny raises and lowers his eyelids as a human would wiggle his eyebrows and smiles wide, signifying that he knows.

"BONBON!" shouts Freddy in embarrassment and scare you half to death. You hold your plate tight to you as you lower your head in fear. Funtime Freddy frowns and stutter even more than before, a bit ashamed of himself: "I-I-I'm sorry that I scared you (y/n)...just keep eating!" A nervous chuckle comes from him before he turns away again.

"If you don't tell her tonight that you like her, I will!", Bonbon says with the biggest smile on his face. Funtime Freddy growls at Bon: "Bonbon! You can't jus-"

He sighs and looks slightly to you:"F~fine..." A slight blush creeps up on his face. The small animatronic enjoys that Freddy is a mess and covers his snout with his tiny paws to let out a giggle. "Don't worry, you are not the only one who likes her!", his little friend speaks as he pats Freddy's back. Freddy eyes him as he raises an eyebrow. The bunny shrugs it off as he say:" She seems to be nice!"

All of a sudden Bonbon gasps and turns around to get your attention: "Hey (y/n)! How about you meet our friends! I bet they will be excited to see you!"

"What friends?", you spit out while eating the last bites of your pizza. He wiggles a bit and throws his arms up in the air in excitement: "Funtime Foxy, Ballora and Circus Baby of course! And others as well!" You swallow and look a bit oddly at them. Freddy shakes his head in agreement quickly and smiles a bit crooked and awkward.

He waddles towards you and offers you a paw to help you up. Slowly but unsurely you give him your hand and he pulls you up. You aren’t sure if you should trust him.

But after all what he did for you felt more relaxed around him and Bonbon. You could even say...enjoying his presence.

You hold his paw tightly as he opens the door and walks with you into the darkness.

#fanfiction #x reader #fnaf #five nights at freddys #Funtime freddy #bonbon #sister location #fnaf 5 #five nights at freddys 5 #cute #creepy #romance

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