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mignonricciardo · 9 months

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holidaze | mv33

i am being delusional and manifesting an alternate world where max is not with kelly... ANYWHO please enjoy holiday max bc carefree maxie is my favorite and this is an entirely self-indulgent fic to play on that

summary: after one night in the club, max has some ideas on the yacht. family vacation? that won't stop him. (4.3k words) warnings: p in v, straight smut, unprotected sex, some plot, mention of max as brother's best friend, cursing, hook position and potential mating press (oops)

With waves of the Adriatic Sea lapping against the yacht, I’ve never been more grateful for my parents’ friendships to influence my own growing up. As a kid, my mum would take my brother and I to races where my dad worked and Max’s dad raced. Max and my brother raced karts together, traveling constantly back and forth between Belgium and the Netherlands, and I tagged along as much as I could with Victoria. The family had long been close friends with our mothers being best friends, and even as life threw constant change at us, we always managed to stay close. Even now, after 25 years, I lay sprawled out on the plush benches on the bow of Max’s yacht soaking up the Croatian sun. Max’s yacht has always been one of my favorite places, and invites to the floating dollar sign picked up after his most recent break up.

Beyond the confines of the yacht, Max and my brother Dion zip around on jet skis. I can hear their laughing and hollering as they send water flying at each other as they race. Despite Max’s successful racing career and Dion’s pivot into finance, they were still competitive over who was quicker at everything. Hanna, Dion’s fiance and my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, sighs as the pair of boys are particularly loud as they zip by.

“You’ve got to learn to tune them out,” Victoria, Max’s sister, grins from her spot on the bow. “It becomes a lot easier once you do.”

“You've both got it figured out,” she says, sitting up from her spot tanning.

I turn to her, lowering my sunglasses just enough, “We have years of practice. You’ll get there.”

“I’ll need to,” she smirks, wiggling her brows. “At this rate, it looks like Max will be around even more.”

I groan loudly, throwing an arm over my face so Victoria can’t see the blush lighting up my cheeks. Hanna laughs as Victoria looks at both of us with a confused expression.

“Alright, what the hell did I miss?”

She’s fully seated now, and any intentions of her dropping the conversation are gone along with my hopes of continuing my tan in peace. I drop my arm away from my face, craning my neck to look at her before Hanna can get any of her conspiracies out.

“As you know, we went to some clubs the other night. Hanna here thinks Max and I were a little close for being family friends, but we were both drunk. That was literally it.”

Hanna gasps, flying up from her seat, “It was more than that! Victoria, you should have seen it. Max could not stop staring at her ass, and she was totally checking him out all night. Her arm was looped through his anytime we walked to another club, and he was constantly helping her up from seats with hands on the waist. Dion and I felt like we were interrupting something, and we’re the engaged ones.”

“Finally!” Victoria cheers, causing my jaw to drop and Hanna to bust into laughter. “You’ve only been thirsting after him for years. It’s foul because that’s my brother, but you can finally act out whatever perverted fantasies you’ve had since we were teenagers.”

“Why am I just finding this out?” Hanna calls.

“Oh, there are years of history here. Just wait until I-”

“Hi! It’s my life, so can we please stop here?!” I snap at the two women who just snicker at me.

Victoria lets a moment of silence pass before turning to me, “Can I at least find out what I missed the other night?”

I pinch my brows but eventually nod, giving Hanna the go ahead to tell the entire story to Victoria. She starts with her typical theatrics, using her hands and animated expressions as she talks about the club.

“... Next thing you know, Dion and I are looking for them to let them know we’re good to go whenever they want to leave, and we can’t find them anywhere. After making our way around the bar, Dion sees them and nearly keels over. They’re on the dance floor, and she’s fully shaking ass on a more than happy Max.”

“Hanna, gross, that’s my brother,” Victoria cringes at the image Hanna is painting.

She continues nonetheless, “I mean, it was filthy. Dion’s head nearly explodes, but I stop him from storming over there with the reminder that they’re both adults and both so drunk they had no clue what they were doing. To avoid an incident, I go over to tell them we’re ready to go while Dion tries to look anywhere else. Thankfully, the two of them lose some of the haze and sober up and follow us out. No one said a word in the cab back to the villa.”

My cheeks are bright red at the hazy memory, remembering how I melted into his touch and the weight of his hands on my hips. The feeling of my ass pressed against him still crept up when I least expected it in the days since the incident, so I’ve been doing my best to avoid Max. Victoria looks at me, jaw agape and eyes knowing.

“It didn’t stop there, did it?” she says, and Hanna turns to me with eyes wide.

“What?!”

I pinch my brows, muttering quietly and avoiding the gazes of both women, “Yes and no. He came to my room at the villa while you and Dion were in the shower. I was drunk, so nothing happened, but he stayed the night.”

The two women have abandoned any sense of our previous sunbathing, with sunglasses discarded and sitting at full attention now as I reveal the end of the night. The two chatter to one another, gossiping about Max and I right in front of me. Once they;ve said anything there is to say, they turn back to me with expectant ears.

“Promise me you won’t say anything and you’ll drop it?” I ask with a defeated sigh.

“Fine,” Hanna says, settling back into the lounger.

Victoria echoes her sentiment, “Since it’s my brother, I’m disgusted, but I do approve, babe. You’re good for each other, even if it's just sex.”

My cheeks burn from more than the sun, no matter how much time has passed since the conversation with the girls ended. Rehashing the incident causes all of the fragmented memories to resurface, and I can’t shake the memory of his hands on my waist or the unshared detail of his lips on my neck. The sun feels a few degrees too hot, and my skin is itching with heat. I try to ignore it and mimic the zen of Hanna and Victoria, but I cave and secure the bikini straps over my shoulders before diving into the blue water. It’s refreshing — the cool waves lapping against my skin and evaporating the prickling heat. When I resurface, pushing wet hair back over my shoulders, I bob in the wake of Max who zips by on a jet ski. He kills the engine, grinning at me as he quirks his eyebrows.

“Want some company?”

I try desperately not to stare, a weak attempt at ignoring the water dripping down his neck from his hair or hands wrapped tightly around the handles of the jet ski. His biceps flex ever so subtly as he leans forward on the handle bars, and he smiles softly as he catches me staring. I run my hands over my hair, pushing the soaking strands back from my face. I grin as he watches my movements, eyes dipping to the water hitting right at my shoulders.

“Are you trying to get us in more trouble?”

He laughs, eyes squinting, “I’m just trying to swim with one of my lifelong friends. Or take her for a ride on the jet ski.”

I stare at him for a moment, running my hands over my hair to push the wet strands back from my face. All it takes from Max is a quirk of his eyebrow and hint of a grin, and I give in to his request.

“Got a life vest for me?” I ask, taking his outstretched hand as I hoist myself on to the lip of the jet ski.

I can feel Max’s eyes on my ass as I haul my legs up onto the lip, hand gripping his knee as I rise precariously. The jet ski bobs in the water at the unbalanced movement, and Max’s hands steady my waist as I pitch forward. I dangle over the blue sea briefly, acutely aware of his hands on me keeping me from tumbling over. When it feels steady enough, I throw a leg over the seat, sliding in toward Max.

He looks over his shoulder at me, “You’ve got to hang on, liefje. I don’t bite.”

I roll my eyes, sliding my arms around his waist as the velcro of the life vest presses into my forearms, “Do you want Dion to kill us?”

“He’d have my head if I let you fly off the jet ski, so we’re in trouble either way, aren’t we?”

“Hanna told Victoria about the club,” I admit to him, unable to keep from telling him as he slowly steers us toward the yacht. “I told them you stayed the night, but that nothing happened.”

“But that’s not entirely true, is it?” he says, and I just stare at the back of his head as he comes to a stall near the yacht.

He grabs my hand again, steadying me as I step onto the yacht to grab a life vest of my own. He watches me secure it across my chest, and I catch his eyes firmly planted on my chest being squeezed by the neoprene. I roll my eyes at him, muttering how he’s lucky Dion can’t see us, and he grins as he helps me back onto the jet ski. My arms wrap around his waist again, fingers brushing the exposed skin of his stomach, and he inhales sharply at the contact.

“You alright there?” I grin, my index finger doing another pass over his skin.

He breathes in again, “Hold on, liefje. I’d hate to have to dive in after you.”

“In your dreams,” I start, turning into squealing laughter as Max sends us flying away from the yacht.

My arms tighten around him, squeezing around his waist as my hips slip toward him on the soaked seat. My knees hug the outside of his thighs as we zip through the water, and my skin slides against his as the waves jostle us. My chest presses to his back, and I can’t help but become hyper aware of the lack of space between us and the warmth spreading through my limbs. Once he’s had his go at showing off, he slows the jet ski to a steady pace thats farther from the yacht. One of his hands releases his grip on the handle bars, resting over mine wrapped tightly around his waist.

He laughs airily as his fingers rest on mine, “If you wanted to touch me like this, all you had to do was ask, liefje. You’ve got a death grip.”

A surge of confidence flows through my veins at the rasp in his voice, “Touch you like what, Max?”

My hand not covered by his runs across the elastic at the top of his shorts, skimming across skin and through the scattering of hair around his navel. I smirk as his breath catches and stomach clenched at my touch.

I lean toward his ear, “Touch you like this?”

He takes a steadying breath, voice raspy as he speaks, “Please, don’t start something we can’t finish. It’s not your fault, but I can’t take it again.”

“That was nice of you, Maxie,” I say sweetly, leaning my chin on his shoulder. “Saying no because I was drunk even though I was begging for you.”

“It was the right thing,” he shrugs gently, breathing in sharply as my index finger continues its slow journey across his skin. “You were nearly impossible, though. Begging to suck me off like a good girl.”

“And if I still want to?” I hum, stopping my hands.

“Then we need to figure out a way to be discreet,” he answers, craning his neck to look at me over his shoulder. “They’re probably wondering where we’ve gone now, and I don’t need your brother mad at me again in regard to you.”

“Then, let me drive,” I say to him, taking in his side profile beneath the beating sun. “We’ll say you were teaching me. Discreet, right?”

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much convincing for Max to agree to letting me pilot the Red Bull branded jet ski. I reluctantly let go of his waist, fingers falling away from his waistband, and I notice his breath return to normal when I do. Max throws his arm out again, gripping my hand tightly to help me balance as I shimmy along the lip of the jet ski and over him to switch spots. He slides in behind me when I settle in front of the handlebars, and I notice the gap of space he leaves on purpose between us. His knees press against the outside of my thighs, and his arms wrap over mine to touch the handles. He does a crash course on piloting the jet ski, and while I pay some attention, I’m more focused on his voice in my ear and the closing gap between us.

“You want to give it a go?” he asks, hands dropping from mine to settle at my waist instead. I nod, and he continues, “Ease onto the throttle, and hold tight to the handles.”

I follow his instructions, sending us gliding across the water in a crawl much slower than Max’s turn. As our speed picks up some, I let out a laugh as the waves batter against the hull of the jet ski. Max’s chest bumps into my back with the force of the waves, and his hips slide closer to mine. I feel him bump into my ass, and his breath hitches as it does. To test my theory, I arch my back ever so slightly, smirking when his hands tighten on my hips enough to leave soft bruises in their wake. He’s straining against his board shorts, nestled against my ass with every bump from the waves, and he groans when I look at him over my shoulder.

“You’re such a tease,” his voice is strained. “You’re going to get us into trouble.”

“Us or you?” I hum, arching my back again as he sucks in air through his teeth. “I can control myself, Maxie.”

One of his hands slides to my inner thigh, fingers ghosting across the skin and skimming the seam of my red swimsuit bottoms. I gasp as he grins, white knuckling the handlebars, and the nickname I’ve used for him hangs heavy in the air. He leans forward, fingers stilling but resting heavy on my skin, and mutters lowly, “Do I need to remind you how you were begging?”

I arch my back into him, feeling his hardness press into me and his hand press into my leg, “Do I need to again?”

His fingers climb my inner thigh, rubbing circles across the supple skin, and I slump back into him at the sensation. Hands ease off the handlebars as the jet ski comes to a stall. Max’s laugh is quiet in my ear, his breath fanning across my neck, “It sounds like you don’t need any convincing.”

“Max,” I gasp, his fingers setting fire across my skin in their wake. “Max, please. I don’t care that they’re all here. I’ll make up an excuse.”

“Liefje, you and I both know it’s not a good idea,” he whispers quietly, fingers continuing their slow crawl on my skin. “No matter how bad I want to.”

“What happened to no teasing?” my chest heaves, fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The waves lap against the jet ski, and Max chuckles quietly at my labored breathing. I arch my back again, pressing myself against Max, and he curses quietly at the pressure. One of his hands slides around my thigh, gripping the skin firmly as I gasp.

“You really want to do this now?” his voice is rough in my ear, clawing for any sense of clarity with my ass pressed against him. I nod my head against his shoulder, fingers gripping at his wrist tightly. He continues against my ear, “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to take us back to the yacht. You’re going to act like you’re going to be sick, and I’m just a helpful friend. If anyone asks later, I was helping you clean up after you got sick, got it?”

I nod my head, “And what is actually going to happen?”

“We find out how good of a listener you are,” he says, and I let out a whine at his words.

Making it back to the yacht happens in a blur as I’m too consumed with images of what's to come, and lying to them on the bow is easy as Victoria asks where we’re headed. My distracted state helps sell the story, and I stumble into one of the bedrooms on the massive yacht. Max shuts the door behind him, making sure to click the lock on it, before facing me. I stand dumbly near the bed, watching his every move and ripple of his muscle as he takes steadying breaths. When our eyes meet, it’s like telepathy.

We simultaneously launch at one another, lips clashing in a familiar dance with a ferocious pace. The club had been hazy, distant memories of his hands on my hips and in my hair and his lips on my skin, but this — this is the feeling of my skin being lit from within. His hands are in my hair, tugging at the strands with a force that makes me weak, and my fingers curl into his hair as he walks us toward the bed in the middle of the room. My knees hit the duvet, and we break apart long enough to scramble onto the bed before resuming our desperate dance.

“Max, please,” I breathe as his lips work down my neck.

My hips press into his as his hands skim down my hips, “So impatient, liefje.”

“Need you to fuck me,” I say, and he groans as I do.

Max looks up from stomach, his eyes hooded and grin on his face. The image of him between my legs and my hands in his hair nearly causes me to combust, but I could care less about how desperate I look.

“You’re lucky we don’t have much time,” he answers, fingers reaching behind my back to tug at the bikini strings.

The red top falls away from me, and Max’s fingers pull the damp material away to expose my chest. His hands palm my breasts, fingers gripping at peaked nipples as I moan into his touch. Desperate pleas fall from my lips at his ministrations, and my nails scrape lightly along his back.

He groans quietly, lips brushing against my chest as he continues his tortuous touches, “Next time, when we have more time, I want to taste you.”

“Next time?” I grin, turning to a moan as his fingers dip into my swimsuit bottoms.

He nods, humming as he pulls the red bottoms down my legs, “You know there will be a next time, liefje. There’s too many things we want to do.”

I kick the bottoms off my legs in assistance, watching as he tosses them carelessly to the side before his hands tug at the waistband of his board shorts. My hands settle over his, and he slows his movements as he watches my every move.

“Let me,” I whisper, hands replacing his as I tug slowly at the elastic band.

He lets me, dropping one of his hands to his side and letting the other settle in my hair. I look up at him, biting back a grin and relishing in the power he holds over me. My fingers tug his board shorts down his thighs, hands stuttering as his cock leaps to attention when the barrier is gone. The board shorts are discarded along with my bikini in record time, and I take a moment to admire him towering over me. Fingers wrap around his shaft, and he watches with a sigh as my lips find him, wrapping around the head slowly before returning to my spot admiring him.

“You’ll get to, liefje,” he grunts quietly, nudging me back toward the bed. “When we have more time. Right now, fucking you is all I can think about.”

I curse at his words, letting him maneuver me among the pillows as he crawls over top of me. Our lips meet again, swollen lips clashing as his hips press against mine. I moan into the kiss, feeling the weight of him on my body and desperate for me. One of his hands slips between us, finding my clit to rub slow circles while his other hand slides down my leg, gently wrapping around my calf. He lifts my leg, fingers pressing into my calf, and lets it rest against his arm hooked at my hip. With another plea and minimal thought, he hoists my other leg before sliding into me. The press of him against me is mind-altering, causing my eyes to squeeze shut as my nails sink into his shoulders. The moan that falls from my lips as he slides all the way into me should be embarrassing, but I can’t think about anything else but Max.

“I know, babe,” he groans, stilling as he heaves for air. “God, you’re perfect.”

“Max, I-” I start, eyes opening to meet his. “You feel so good.”

“Fuck, we’re doing this again,” he mutters, hands pressing into my hips as he moves slowly.

My eyes flutter shut at the sensation, another moan as he begins a slow pace into me, “I never want it to end.”

“We never have to,” he answers, sweat beginning to bead at his hairline.

The pace he picks up is relentless, and the slap of his skin against mine is obscene. I can’t bring myself to care, too focused on the way Max fills me and his hands leave bruises on my skin. He hoists my legs higher to rest on his shoulders, and he hits a spot so deep within me that my eyes screw shit as I let out a pathetic whimper.

“There you go, baby,” he grunts, keeping his relentless pace. “Let me hear it, doll. I feel it, too.”

“Max, fuck,” I choke, eyes beginning to roll into the back of my head. “I’m going to-”

“I know, liefje,” he groans, voice a rasp in my ear. “I’m nearly there. Tell me where you want me.”

“Want you in me,” I answer, fingers gripping his shoulders tightly as a desperate attempt to keep from spiraling over the edge. “Please.”

“Fuck, I can’t say no to you,” he mutters, hips stuttering at a crushing pace against me.

I try to tell him — to warn him that I’m too far gone — but I can’t get any words out as the sensation overwhelms me. My eyes screw shut as I slump against the pillows, and Max isn’t far behind as I clench around him. I’m filled with warmth, and in the haze of what we’d just done, I find comfort in his body pressed to mine and our intimate connection. He lingers for a moment as he regains his senses, pulling out gently to which I protest, but he returns with tissues to clean me up as best as he can before reaching for my bathing suit for me. He props my still shaking body up, tying my bikini straps for me and sliding straps up my shoulders.

“C’mon, up you go,” he whispers, helping to pull my red bottoms up my legs and tugging at the waistband to cover my bruised hips. “There you go, pretty girl.”

He tugs his board shorts on himself, and I watch as he tucks himself into the waistband. Red scratches and indents adorn the milky skin of his back, and my cheeks burn red at the damage I’ve done.

“You’ll need a shirt to go back down, I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He laughs as he leans forward, kissing my lips gently, “I’ll tell them its from the jet ski if they ask. You got scared when I went too fast, but you were good and took it, didn’t you?”

“Fuck you,” I groan. “How am I supposed to go down there and pretend I didn’t have the best sex of my life?”

He grabs my hand to help pull me up from the mattress, “I’d agree with that statement.”

As we head to the end of the hallway, lingering at the top of the stairs to take us back to the bow, I turn to Max, hand resting on his chest as our eyes meet. We both grin when we meet eyes, and I laugh quietly as he wiggles his eyes.

“The rest of holiday, can we do this?” I ask gently, rubbing gentle circles into his skin.

“More than just holiday,” he answers, caressing my ass as we walk down the steps. I swat at him as we near the steps, but he continues, “Tonight after dinner. My room. We have no schedule.”

I watch as he heads toward Dion, leaving me to go back to the girls. God, I’m screwed.

#formula one imagine #formula 1 imagine #formula one smut #formula 1 smut #max verstappen smut #max verstappen imagine #mv33 #mv1

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izombie-ao3 · 2 months

Text

❝ Following the disappearance of your paternal figures in 1995, you- the offspring- receive a letter in the mail detailing of their possible whereabouts. The prospect of them being alive after going missing for ten years grasps at you. Waisting no time, you take hold on the letter and rush out the door with keys in hand. Your destination is as clear as day: Playtime Co. ❞ (x)

Word count: 27,051

Tags: Reader’s pronouns are YOU/YOUR & THEY/THEM, Reader is gender neutral, Reader is an adult aged 25, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Love, Strong friendships, strong feelings, Reader IS DogDay’s angel (not literally), DogDay would die for Reader, DogDay is NOT a child, DogDay is an ADULT, occasional flirting (?), Dark Humor, Blood and Gore, Swearing, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Angst, Fluff, DogDay lives, This is my Roman Empire and I will die for it, Cannon Typical Violence, Freeform writing, No beta we die like Mommy Long Legs, Possible romance between DogDay and Reader, Friends to Lovers, I kissed canon in the mouth and abandoned it on the side of the highway, Cannon Divergent, CATNAP DIES, (Updated tags)Reader and DogDay are MOST DEFINITELY in love, All characters are written as ADULTS, there are no children in this fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

Chapters: 17/?

Status: Temporary Hiatus

You were shaking from head to toe in a mixture of excitement, anticipation and worry. It was all far too much for your brain to comprehend at once; ten years- it has been ten WHOLE YEARS since your parents disappeared in 1995, and only now you get a letter basically telling you to come find them? That there’s hope that they could maybe still be alive?

“It’s... it’s insane, really, it truly is... but-“ you sigh, steeling yourself, hands tightening on the steering wheel of the car. “-It’s all I have to go off of...”

And just like that, you stick your key in the ignition and turn it, listening as the engine roars to life.

As you drive to the destination with the help of your phone’s GPS, you can’t help but wonder what you’ll say when you see them- your parents- after so long.

You half wonder if they’ll even remember you... Surely they will?

They have to.

By the time you arrive at the destination of Playtime Co.’s now seemingly abandoned building, the sun has slowly begun to set, dusting the sky a beautiful iridescent orange-pink, you wager that there’s likely only two hours left of sunlight before the whole world goes dark.

With one last glance at your car, you turn your attention to the large ominous building and feel a strange feeling wash over you and though you can’t find the right words to explain it, you can tell that a certain thickness hangs in the air.

Somethings not right with this place and you’re starting to doubt yourself and that letter. What if the sender has less than pure intentions?

What if your parents really are gone for good?

Would coming here have been nothing but a waste?

Will you find the answers to your questions?

You shake your head and sigh through your nose, clenching your fists together you brace yourself for the arduous journey ahead.

You’re here now and there’s no going back.

You need answers.

As you wandered around the halls of the deserted building, you found VHS tapes that when played back on the VCR gave you small tidbits of information about the people employed there and the place itself. It’s all very interesting information that helps you slowly understand what occurred here...

But, there is ONE glaring issue that you would’ve never thought about when first walking through those doors; being chased by an oversized toy!

You could feel as your heart pumped at an alarming pace in your chest, it was beginning to feel like at any moment it would jump out of your throat just like in those Sunday morning cartoons you used to watch as a kid.

And the cramp ness of the conveyer belt’s segments didn’t make things easier for you as you weaved from one corner to the next, desperately trying to escape your pursuer who was hot on your heels.

By the time you finally manage your escape out of the conveyer belt, you find yourself on a metal walkway with a colorful box hanging precariously nearby. Quickly, you use the mechanical hands from your grabpack suit to hold onto the box and just as you bring it slamming down, the walkway snaps in two beneath your feet.

The gigantic blue toy that had been chasing you falls through the void of darkness below, making contact with the pipes on its way down and in doing so you see... blood...?

You can’t help but blink, bewildered at the sight of blood, especially from a...toy.

But, no matter, you now that it’s too dangerous now to continue to linger, you need to trudge on.

“FIND THE FLOWER” you remember the words on the note, the mental image of the poppy flower etched into your mind, you have to find it, for it’ll lead you to the answers you seek.

The sight that greets you is a concerning one, in front of you is the door that you’ve been looking for, it is surrounded by an enormous painting of the same flower that was drawn in the note mailed to you and near it are various toys strung up with word of warning written around the door;

NO RUN

GO BACK

STOP

TURN AROUND

You don’t know what to make of it and it worries you, you’ve come so far and evaded death only to be met with...this? With... warnings? Warnings to turn back and stop?

You hesitate for a moment, but reach for the door job regardless. Opening it leads you down an impossibly long hallway decorated with yellow floral wallpaper and wall lamps, yet you relentlessly follow it.

The answer to what you seek lies at the end of... Surely...?

When you finally make it, you enter a small room where red light floods the room, the soft distinct sounds of a music box playing in the distance. And in the center of the room lies a glass display case that in it holds a... doll?

She sports blood red hair that is held up by two blue hair ties and a blue and white dress. Her eyes are closed.

You swallow hard and open the case....

ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 2: You meet Mommy Long Legs and find yourself in quite the predicament; play her games or face death. What choice do you have, but to obey?

You venture out of the small room that you were just in alongside with a now missing doll and out into the adjacent hallway that leads you out and back into the rest of the facility.

“Man...” you say, eyeing the place from ceiling to floor tile, “...this place is larger than I thought...” you can’t help but mumble to yourself. Sure the building looked absolutely massive on the outside but, being inside of it now? Man, this place felt like it didn’t have an end to it.

“...This way...” you hear a voice whisper to you, breaking you from your silence, snapping back into reality you decide to follow it. Surely the owner of the voice could tell you what happened here?

Eventually you find yourself entering an office of what could only be the owner of the company, Eliot Ludwig, reads a piece of paper resting atop his desk. Allowing curiosity to take ahold of you, you decide to pick it up and read it and find that it contains information about an experiment... ‘814’.

Huh...

You don’t know what to make of the information but decide to pocket the paper nevertheless, It seems like it could be important.

Following outside of this area, you walk into a more mechanical looking room that seems to need power.

Suddenly the loud sound of one of vents latch coming lose frightens you, causing your attention to shift. Your body tensing up, awaiting for the horrors of this place to attack you.

But, you’re greeted by the same doll from before;

“Oh! Uh...” she seemingly stumbles over her words, a clear air of awkwardness hanging from her, “...I didn’t mean to scare you! I was just- trying to get the power back on!” She explains.

You watch her, astonished that the doll is talking and moving, could... you be seeing things? No, you doubt it, especially after your encounter with that massive blue toy- Huggy Wuggy, was it?

You silently stare at her, curious to see what’ll happen next;

“Here-!” She says, and awkwardly motions for you to do the honors.

With no other option available, you use the electric hands on your grabpack, you help solve the issue by re-routing the power supply from one pilon to the next and then onto the glowing red interface that sits just beside the red headed doll.

Upon your accomplishment, you watch as she applauds you, to which you can’t help but smile slightly and nod.

“I wanted to thank you for freeing me-“ she begins, “-I was stuck in there for so long! Thank you, I’ll have to pay you back!” She adds, to which you nod, seeing as it’s only fair.

“There’s a train station near by-“ she adds and you quirk up an eyebrow, a... train station?! In this place?! Jesus! Just how big really was this building that they needed to install a whole train system!

“-It needs a code! And I have it.”

Ah, well that makes things easier, it seems that all you’ll have to do is find it and move on to the next area.

“We’re going to get out of here...!” She explains and you nod, “As soon as you get on up here!” She exclaims, chuckling awkwardly.

Unable to find a way up to where the doll is, you decide to head back the way you came and are more than surprised when you hear her speak to you again;

“I’m over here!” She exclaims, your head turns to see her, she’s in the vents! “I can follow you from here!” You watch as she scampers off before shouting for you on the other side, “This way!”

You follow the sound of her voice, you judge that she has to be on the other side and so you walk into the hallway and into a small corner where two flashing red sensors display the red and blue grabpack hands. You place them on the sensor and watch as the system green lights your entry, allowing you further access to traverse yet another hallway.

Eventually you find yourself in a rather large room that is surrounded by five closed off gates, each one has a large title overhead indicating to which area it leads to. In the center if this room lies a massive crater whose end you cannot see as it is shrouded in darkness. The doll from earlier sits just in front of the mouth of the crater, as soon as she sees you she turns around;

“Listen, I’m going to need you to trust me-“ but before she can even finish whatever she was saying, a hand from down below reaches out and pulls her in screaming.

You’re left standing there, alone, and unsure of what to do next.

“...Fuck...” you curse, “What the hell do I do now...?” You bite your lower lip in irritation and look around, there’s no way for you to proceed aside from going down the same way that your temporary companion had been abducted.

You sigh and look down at the hole before bracing yourself, “Here goes nothing!” You shout as you descend.

Coming down you find yourself to have had- thankfully- safely landed in one of the lower sections of the facility. Next to you are three locked archways that indicate the following areas that you can go into, one of which seems to spark an innate interest within you, GAME STATION.

You deduce that the door needs power to operate and are quick to find the area that needs re-routing.

By the time you finish that task, you hear the metallic door open and you waltz on over to the connecting hallway.

Right as you use the red metallic grabpack hand on the sensor that rests above the door that impedes your journey, a voice echoes from somewhere above you;

“A new playmate!!” Squeals a feminine voice, and you watch as the hand is snatched from you, leaving you with only the blue one intact.

“It’s been... SO LONG...” the female voice explains and you watch as from above the dark ceiling a long and spindly pink figure descends. She looks no different from just another toy!

“Right, Poppy?” She asks the ‘doll’ that she holds on her hand.

“Poppy!” You can’t help but belt out in response, so that’s your companions name!

The figure ignores you and using Poppy like the doll she is, mocks her voice in response, “Very exciting, Mommy!”

“LET HER GO!” You shout, demanding the... thing, this creature called “Mommy” listen to you.

Alas, your cries fall upon deaf ears as the smile on Mommy’s face stretches farther than humanly possible. Stretching her neck, you watch as her face descends further down onto yours until she is no more than a few inches away from you.

You can’t help but cringe away in disgust, yet she isn’t deterred by your actions and only follows you closely.

“Mommy heard that miss Poppy was going to just give you the train code to escape! Now how is THAT fun?” She grins, “Instead- let’s say we make a game out of it! The game station is still working! It’ll be just like old times~” she explains.

“And-“ she uses Poppy mockingly, “-If you you win all three games, I’ll give you the train code!”

Mommy gasps a sound of mock delight, “That sounds like a wonderful idea, Poppy!”

Just before she slinks away, her head beginning to follow in the motions of the rest of her body, she says one final word to you, “Oh~! You’re going to have SO much fun~! Head to Musical Memory and Mommy will get things started!”

Before you have time to react, her head shoots down towards you at an alarming rate and she stops just in front of you;

“OBEY THE RULES OR ILL TARE YOU APART AND EAT YOUR INSIDES WHILE YOURE STILL ALIVE!”

A shiver runs down your back as finally the monstrous beast known as Mommy finally slinks away into the dark recesses of the facility.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 3: You play Mommy’s games...

Arriving at the Game Station you find yourself in a colorful large open space, with- as the name entails- a large variety of games to play. Remembering the information that you’ve gathered so far of the place from the stray files, notes and fliers littered about, you piece together that this had to have been one of the major areas that the orphans of Playtime Co. would spend a large amount of their time in.

Still though, none of it makes that much sense to you- why would they even have such a place erected inside of the facility?

“I mean-“ you cut yourself off, “-I guess it makes sense..? After all, how’re you going to keep possibly hundreds of orphans entertained?” You asked no one in particular.

“You can’t just keep them locked away in their rooms...” you muttered under your breath, your eyes wandered to and fro. There was so much to look at, from the decoration that littered around, to the cardboard cutouts of what is likely to be the toys and mascots of Playtime, but what catches your eye the most were the drawings left by the orphans.

You looked at the colorful drawings, all made with crayons and markers, it depicted the kids playing alongside three key figures that you’ve now seen and gotten to know thus far;

Kissy Missy, Huggy Wuggy and ‘Mommy’.

You get a sense of... happiness from them? It seems that the children had fun with them...

Fun... huh... that’s, arguably hard to imagine when you’ve had your life threatened by two out of three of these creatures.

Sighing, you hope that at least Kissy Missy won’t slaughter you the moment you meet her.

Shaking your head, you remember what you’re here for; the train code. “Best not to keep Mommy waiting...” you mumble to yourself.

Exploring the area some more, you eventually find the room where the hands for the grab packs are made!

“Oh! Sweet!” Excitement fills you as you realize that you can get a replacement for the one that you lost.

Fiddling here and there with the strange machinery, at long last you’re given your replacement green hand!

Sometime later, you finally make you way into Musical Memory, you’re greeted by a rather strange set up; the room is roughly circular in shape, with a large open space around you that is obviously inaccessible to you. But the center of this room has a circular platform that is surrounded on both sides by round buttons

roughly the size of beach balls.

Atop the circular platform is a cylindrical protrusion that extends far beyond from the ceiling and sits just above the center arena.

You can’t help but whistle in amazement at the sight;

“And to think that kids actually played in here? Geez, you’ve got to be kidding me-“ you mumbled, “- this place would’ve terrified me as a kid...” you add.

Upon stepping inside of the centerpiece, you watch as massive screens all around you suddenly burst to life, surprising you as a result.

The sounds of odd music begins to play and the logo of Playtime Co. appears on screen;

“WELCOME TO MUSICAL MEMORY!” Voices an automated mechanical male voice.

“THIS ADVANCED MEMORY AND RECOGNITION TEST IS DESIGNED TO STIMULATE SEVERAL SEGMENTS OF THE BRAIN! ALLOWING US TO SEE HOW QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY YOUR BRAIN WORKS! A SEQUENCE OF COLORS WILL BE SHOWN, AND YOU MUST RECREATE THE EXACT SEQUENCE USING THE BUTTONS AROUND YOU. BUNZO WILL SLOWLY LOWER TOWARDS YOU-“

“Bunzo?” You croak, “Who the hell’s Bu-?” A nagging sensation in the background of your mind urges you to look up, and as you do you are greeted by the sight of a yellow rabbit with bright green overalls, holding two large cymbals in each hand.

It’s eerie dead smile focused on you.

“Ah!” You say, looking away, “Right...!”

“-WHEN YOU COMPLETE A COLOR PATTERN CORRECTLY, BUNZO WILL SLOWLY RISE BACK UP! WHEN YOU IMPUT A PATTERN INCORRECTLY, BUNZO WILL LOWER TOWARDS YOU FASTER. IF BUNZO REACHES YOU, YOUR TEST IS OVER. YOUR TEST WILL BECOME MORE DIFFICULT AS IT CONTINUES WITH LONGER PATTERNS AND QUICKER SUCCESSIONS. THATS IS ALL, GOOD LUCK!”

You swallow hard and sigh through your nose, shrugging your shoulders in a rolling motion you ready yourself for what’s to come.

However, before the game itself can start, suddenly the light die out, except for one, drawing your attention.

You are greeted by the sight of ‘Mommy’ who sits inside of what looks to be an observation room that sits way above the room, out of sight from those made unaware of its existence.

“Oh~! Isn’t it amazing~?! Mommy hasn’t seen the place up and running in YEARS!! Mommy can only imagine how excited Bunzo must be! It’s been such a long time since he’s been able to play, to cheer, to eat...”

At her last words, the rabbit above you seemingly ‘comes to life’ and clangs its cymbals together producing a rather loud sound. You snap you attention to glare at it, the creature seems unperturbed by your expression.

You hear Mommy sigh, “Ah well, that’s the dinner bell~! Good luck~!” And just like that the room floods back with light and the game begins...!

As you play the game, you suddenly watch as the machine begins to freak out, the mechanical male voice calling out an array of unintelligible colors. The buttons move around in an odd manner; twitching, spinning and even flipping!

You don’t know what to do, so you stand there dumbfounded for a moment until your eye catches sight of a hidden white button. Pressing it causes the machine to momentarily flutter, its mechanical parts visibly stuttering as they move in ways that they should not until it finally ceases all movements.

The lights shut off once again;

“Ah... it broke...”, you can hear the clear disappointment in Mommy’s voice, “...that’s no fun! For doing such a splendid job, Mommy has decided to give you PART- of the code for the train...!”

Above you, in the same place where Bunzo had previously been, comes Mommy’s hand, and in it a piece of paper. You take it with no hesitation.

“Mommy was hoping the game could last a little longer~! It’s okay though... Mommy knows OTHER ways to play with you~”

You bite your bottom lip out of nervousness and choose not to linger any longer, quickly making your leave, lest you overstay your welcome.

Arriving at the following game, you enter yet another odd location; it’s an open concept room with LOTS of space in the center for you to seemingly run or walk around as you please. Around you however is a wall that is painted in a rather whimsical manner, akin to that of Sunday morning cartoons, and inside of said

walls are an assortment of... tunnels? At least you think that they’re tunnels, since looking in them yields no more than expansive darkness.

The same sound as before of TV static catches you attention and you turn to face a lone TV screen;

“WELCOME TO WACK-A-WUGGY! THIS ADVANCED TEST IS DESIGNED TO ASSESS THE EXTENT OF YOUR REACTIONARY ABILITIES. A DUAL PALM GRABPACK WILL BE PROVIDED TO YOU FOR THIS TEST. AROUND YOU ARE 18 SIZABLE HOLES, AN ADORABLE HUGGY WUGGY TOY COULD APPEAR OUT OF ANY OF THESE HOLES! IF ONE COMES OUT, HIT IT WITH YOUR GRABPACK! THATS ALL, GOOD LUCK!”

To say that you’re surprised when the lights don’t die out is an understatement, you almost reflectively call out to Mommy, half wondering if she’d left you.

“The toys in this game, used to have strings attached to them, so they could be pulled back when they got too close to the children...” she explains.

You watch her with a cocked brow, not understanding where she’s going with this, and it’s not until you finally note what she’s holding that it finally hits you.

“Have fun~”

As you finish the game, hitting the last Huggy Wuggy on the head, you hear Mommy chime in once more;

“Oh...” she sounds incredibly disappointed at the results, “...you did it...” there’s a beat of silence before she speaks again, “HORRAY!! Mommy is SO proud of you! Here, mommy has another hint for you-“

A vent in the room opens, Mommy’s hand sticks through it, and on her hand is yet another piece of paper.

You gingerly take it.

“Only one last game left to play...” Mommy reminisces, “Hmm... sad! Mommy was hoping you’d stay here forever! Though~ it’s never TOO LATE to change your mind~” she chuckles eerily.

You can’t help but cringe away in disgust as you quickly make your way out.

As you leave the area, you find yourself in what looks to be long winding hallways that are powered by what looks to be some sort of... train tracks? You wonder if maybe the train passed through here or perhaps- some other sort of mode of transportation.

Given with how long this portion of the facility is, you’d wager that some sort of transportation did in fact pass through here.

As you make your away about you eventually come across a door that is also locked and conveniently, behind it is the lever needed to unlock it.

Sighing and thinking that you’ve struck a dead end, you make your leave, but just as you do so, you’re stopped by the sounds of a door in the distance of the locked metal frame open up. As it rises you feel dread settle deep inside of you, the sight of what greets you causing you to freeze in place.

A toy, much the same size and design as the blue one from faaar earlier in your journey appears before you and it’s making its way TO you.

Kissy Missy.

You watch as she calmly approaches, she stands there for a moment and eyes you curiously, then eyes the lever next to her, then back at you and back at the lever once more.

As if a lightbulb lit up atop your head you nod at her, “Y-Yes-!” Your voice finally finds its courage, “-I-I need to open that! Pl-Please! Please Kissy Missy!” You plead.

Though she doesn’t reply to you, you watch as she fumbles with the lever, her soft plush and somewhat weightless hands struggling to pull it down, until eventually succeeding.

As the gate slowly rises in-front of you, you watch as Kissy Missy gives you one last lingering look before turning around, as she does so, she stops again and seems to give you another once-over.

Seemingly satisfied, she makes her leave, the door at the far end of the hallway shutting behind her.

You enter what seems to be the final game area, the room appears to be dimly lit, with just enough light to see what’s around you. This room is quite unlike all the others, it seems more colorful and as you try to jump over the block-styled plush blocks, you can roughly make out other designs of the area. It seems that this one has more activities than the one before it...

The all too familiar TV static sound behind you catches you attention and you turn to face the only TV present;

“WELCOME TO ‘STATUES’! THIS ADVANCED OBSTACLE COURSE IS DESIGNED TO TEST YOUR PHYSICAL ENDURANCE AND STRENGTH! THE RULES ARE SIMPLE: THE LIGHTS WILL TURN OFF, YOU CAN MOVE THROUGH THE OBSTACLE COURSE DURING THIS TIME. HOWEVER, WHEN THE LIGHT TURNS ON; YOU CAN LOOK AROUND BUT CANNOT MOVE. YOU MAY MOVE AGAIN, ONCE THE LIGHTS TURN BACK OFF. THE LOVABLE PJ PUGGAPILLAR WILL FOLLOW YOU, IF HE REACHES YOU, YOUR TEST IS OVER. THAT IS ALL, GOOD LUCK!”

That’s when you notice the face of the odd looking dog just beside the TV screen! Compared to the other toys, his presence is not all that unnerving- well, only partly- and is more... endearing, to a fault.

“Right, okay-“ you nod, “Sounds easy enough...”

You take notice of Mommy in the distance;

“It was always SO sad to see the kids go, they called me ‘Mommy’ because I was the closest thing they ever had to one... They came for the games and then never came back...! They LEFT Mommy to DIE alone! Mommy didn’t deserve THAT~... But you...” she pauses briefly, “...you’re here, so if anyone deserves to DIE ALONE... it’s YOU.”

And just as she finishes speaking, the music begins and PJ Puggapilar makes his way towards you, slowly and lumber some, you waste no time playing the game as you’re told to.

Playing this game was the hardest one by far, but you somehow managed it anyways! As you escaped up into the same room where Mommy was mere moments ago, you find a hole in that little room and descend into it. As you walk out, the sounds of walking are heard above you;

“Where did you go?!”

It’s Mommy

“Shit, shit, shit, shit-!!” You hiss at yourself, you HAVE to get going.

“The game is over~! Come back and Mommy will give you the code! Pinkie Promise!” Mommy exclaims, but her words fall in deaf ears, you know BETTER than to trust these toys.

“Playing those games must’ve been hard! But Mommy decided you won~!” An eerie laugh fills the halls as you make your escape.

“Come baaack~!”

“Mommy doesn’t like cheaters!! The rules were so simple!”

“COME BACK HERE!”

“HOW DARE YOU DISOBEY ME!! IM GOUNG TO FIND YOU-! IM GOING TO FIND YOU-!! AND WHEN I DO-“ she cuts herself off only to laugh maniacally.

“WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Eventually as you meander and maneuver the expansive facility you come at a dead end, there’s a closed fence door that you cannot open and you don’t know where to go. Mommy’s hot on your heels and the only where else to go is back the way you came...

“Fuck no...” you shake your head, “I’ll die if I do-“

As if answering to some unholy prayer, Mommy decends from where you’d come from, screaming as she does so. She lands right in front of you with a look of bewildered rage;

“I ASKED YOU TO PLAY FAIR!! AND YOU CHEATED!! I HATE CHEATERS!!” She shouts at you, “Now~ we’re going to play ONE LAST GAME, it’s called... HIDE...AND S E E K!!”

Suddenly!! As if by done divine or unholy magic the one locked gate opens and just as it does, Mommy begins to count down from 10.

RUN RABBIT, RUN!

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 4: You escape, or do you?

With your heart pounding inside your chest like never before, you scamper through the facilities seemingly never ending passage ways. The pitter-patter of your feet being echoed and overshadowed by the massive ones just down the hall.

Mommy’s coming to get you and you’d better NOT stop running.

You hear the facility’s weaker points crumble around you under the pressure of your much larger pursuer, causing a cave in behind you at just the right moment. Giving you much opportune time to swing above the maw of yet another bottom less cavern beneath your feet.

As you escape, you enter the same familiar hallway from before, this was the same place where you had

lost one of the grabpack’s hands!

Freedom was just within your fingertips!!

You rush down the hall and place the blue hand against the scanner and watch as slowly the machine ID’s you in.

When a chime rings, indicating a roaring success you rush into the room and barely notice the machinery next to you, your eyes are only fixated on a lever that’s next to it.

On impulse you grab for the lever and pull it down JUST in time for Mommy to rush into the room, her hand lodging itself inside of the machine’s mechanical teeth.

She tries desperately to free herself as she eyes you with wild animalistic eyes, there’s a hunger to them unlike any living creature you’ve ever seen, rivaling that of a starved tiger.

Fearing for your safety, you throw yourself backwards just as she tries to reach for you with her other hand.

Just then, the machine roars to life and begins to grind Mommy’s hand down to a pulp, she screams in agony as she tries hopelessly to free herself from the clutches of death.

“WHAT’VE YOU DONE?!” She screams, “HE’LL MAKE ME PART OF HIM!!”

You watch as Mommy’s arm is taken by the machine, followed by her leg as she tries to wriggle away in vain from its grasps.

“YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME!!”

It’s not until Mommy’s torso gets crushed by the machine that she finally gives one final wail of despair that she dies.

Silence befalls the room as you stare in silent shock, your hands are shaking, your heart and head are pounding.

You’ve just managed to escape death, TWICE now.

What remains of Mommy’s body falls limply to the ground, a lifeless smile still decorating her features.

As you stand there, you watch as slowly, from underneath a blocked off door, a long spindly arm reaches out with elongated mechanical fingers.

The creature behind the limb says nothing to you, only reaching forth for Mommy’s remnants and dragging it away into the abyss.

When it finally leaves, do you find yourself sliding down the wall that your back was pressed up against.

You let out a whimper as a cry finally croaks out from your throat.

You cry pathetically, perhaps out of stress, and you allow yourself this grace.

Eventually, when you find your courage to continue, you wipe away your tears and stand back up on shaky legs and make your way back to where your original goal was; the location of the train.

And it doesn’t take long for you to reach it, when you finally find it, you discover that Poppy and the final piece of the code alongside her.

You feel her from the... web she seemed to have been entangled in, no doubt the works of Mommy.

“Let’s go...” is all Poppy offers you, and you can’t help but agree, you want to leave this hell hole and NEVER come back.

As you board the train, you input the code and watch as the buttons light up green.

You can’t help but sigh in relief as you feel that you’re one step closer to finding your freedom.

“I was so scared she’d put me back in that case...” you heard Poppy speaking to you from the train’s overhead announcer.

Wait.... Why hadn’t she gone inside with you?

“What the hell? Poppy?” You called out, but you knew you wouldn’t get a response back.

“But you saved me! You’re PERFECT! You’re too perfect to loose! I’m sorry, but I can’t let you leave-“

You watch as the train is re-routed in front of you, the escape passes you by and the vehicle turns to the right, sending you deeper within the bowls of the facility.

“I’ve never met anyone like you!” She chuckles, “Do you know how LONG I’ve been stuck in that case?! Well~ too long~! I had so much time to think and reflect- to figure out what I’d do when I was freed...” there’s a pause as she speaks, “We have to set things right, terrible things have happened, but I know that whatever I need you to do, you’re capable. We will- what’re-?!”

You watch with great alarm as the train picks up speed, far too much speed for what you think is appropriate.

“Shit! We’re going to crash!!” You exclaim, and you grab onto the red lever with your grabpack hands, pulling it down with all your might.

But it’s hopeless as the train derails, crashing down against the confines of the tunnel, debris and broken rubble surround you and as your consciousness fades, you can just barely make out the words of your new location;

PLAYCARE.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 5: You arrive at PLAYCARE and as fate would have it, a new horror awaits to make its acquaintance with you.

As consciousness slowly returns to you, you find that your body aches all over, a stinging sensation fills you throughout. When you finally do crack your eyes open, you find that your vision is unsteady, your head lolling from side to side.

That’s when you finally realize that you’re being carried... by... something?

Large purple paws adorned with equally sharp claws come into view on a casino as your would-be rescuer walks.

But before you’re given the opportunity to thank them, you’re thrown down a hatch by the same thing that ‘rescued’ you.

The last thing you see is an impossibly large smile and two white beady eyes staring back.

A pathetic yelp leaves your lips, as a malicious laugh echoes throughout the pipe.

You free fall for a short while before falling limply on metal flooring, a red flood lamp circles around

you in this new area along with an alarm that blares loudly indicating something is about to happen.

You rise to your feet and hold your side, you cringe in pain as you stand stupidly eyeing where in god’s

green earth you’ve landed now.

It’s not until the walls begin to close in that it finally dawns on you where you are; a trash compactor!! You must get out.

You scramble towards a pile of precariously placed trash and scamper through a small opening behind

the walls of the compactor.

You find that you’re free- for now- and must find a way out of where you are and go... somewhere that

isn’t here.

It’s too dangerous to stay where you are, and thus begins yet another long and arduous journey.

As you meander about, traveling to and fro inside of the guts of the facility, you find yourself using the

pistons that likely control the trash compactor as leverage to reach newer areas that would otherwise remain out of bounds for you.

You traverse a broken down metal catwalk and use the pistons near it as means for transportation, timing your jumps just right to get over to the other side.

Doing so, you catch glimpse of the same purple figure from before, although this time you now have a slightly better look at their lower half before it slinks away.

A long emaciated body with large paws to boot and a lengthy purple tail to match. A cat.

You shudder as you come to the realization that a game of cat and mouse has most likely begun, and you- my friend- are being stalked from within the shadows.

As you continue on, you eventually find yourself crawling through a ventilation shaft until eventually entering in the same room as just a few moments before. To your far and immediate right is the same hatch you were thrown into, and to your immediate left is an office door locked behind yet another grabpack scanner.

Scanning in the hands, you walk into the new area, the sounds of ringing fills the still air.

It’s a phone...! A phone is ringing!

But, who could be calling? Your pursuer? Or... someone else?

To say that you want to ignore the phone and pursue on is an understatement but, something inside you

wills you to comply otherwise and so you do, rushing off in the direction of the noise.

You find yourself inside of a small office, the distinct ringing of a phone ring much louder now, you’re

close to the source. It doesn’t take long for you to search around the room and find it, you take it with shakey hands and answer it.

“H...Hello?” Your weary voice calls out.

“Hey... Hey! Can you hear me?” A childish voice responds.

A child?

“O-Oh! Um! Y-Yes! Yes! I can!”

“You look kinda lost!” They reply

You pause, dumbfounded, “Wh-...what did you just say?”

“I can see you through the camera’s dummy!”

Cameras? When did-?

As you turn around, you spot one and sigh, oh... right. What better way to make sure that you’re

employees are working than to monitor their every move?

You smile and wave hello at the camera and listen as the voice on the other end laughs in response. “I’m Ollie by the way! What’s your name?”

“I’m Y/N, Y/N L/N...” you correct

“Oh! Well it’s nice to meet you Y/N! Look-“ they pause momentarily, “I don’t want you to die, so I’m

going to help you! Check this out! Look at the tube thing in the back wall!”

You follow Ollie’s words and turn to face the back of the room, spotting a large oddly shaped metallic

tube that slides open following some noise. And out from within it pops a large battery!

“You can use that battery to open the door!”

You grab it and place it inside of a battery socked that’s embedded within the wall. The door beside you

opens as a result. “Thank you Ollie”

“Don’t mention it!”

As you go to leave, you’re greeted by the sight of the now broken train, your eyes go wide as you stare at the carnage left behind from the crash.

“Woah!! Did you do that?!” Ollie asks

You nod, “Yeah...” there’s a distinct sadness within your voice, just when you thought you were free you were once again seemingly betrayed by the only toy you thought you could trust.

“I know you’re probably mad at Poppy for not letting you escape, but she needs you! WE need you! You are our mission! Together we can save a lot of people, including YOU!”

You walk along the path, quietly listening to Ollie speak to you from the phone as you traverse the confines of the facility.

“PLAYCARE is straight ahead, it’s the home of CatNap! One of the ‘Smiling Critters’... there used to be...” a pause, “eight of them? I think? Now it’s just him...”

“PLAYCARE is his church- his hunting ground. Whatever he wants it to be! You’d better get moving

quickly. We’ll keep in touch!”

The line goes dead and you’re plunged into silence, an eerie ness settles inside of you as you realize just

how dead and desolate this whole place is. What with the only last remnants of life being the few murderous toys and... seemingly a, child?

You don’t know what’s to make of it, nothing makes sense to you, and the more you explore the place, the more you come across fragmented pieces of information you begin to wonder just what the hell did your parents get themselves into when they came to work at such an establishment.

“Did they even know about the toys?” You ask the empty air, eyeing a poster of ‘Mommy’ who you now knew as Mommy Long Legs advertising a sweet cold drink for children.

You shake your head, you have to find PLAYCARE, it’s likely where your next goal awaits you.

You traverse the rather small area in-front of you fairly easily, having spotted what looked like a tram up ahead you deduced that it needed power and sought out to find a power source. Once founded, its power was re-routed and a chime rang throughout some speakers in the walls, the small child sized gates opened up, allowing you further passage up ahead.

You climbed the short staircase and opened the door to the tram, stepping inside you found a small seating area.

Sighing heavily, you thought that some much needed rest would do your sore body some good.

And just as the doors shut behind you, the lone TV screen inside of the tram came to life;

“Hello! My name is Elliot Ludwig, when you look around at the world today, what’s one thing it needs

more of? I asked around once; ‘Money! I can never have enough!’, ‘Understanding, I can never get any!’, the common man has lost it, each answer was different and I could perhaps see some little truth in each. But I think each was missing something, something simple! You see, not one of them could muster a smile! A smile, is hope! A smile, is love! A smile is understanding! And there is nothing more gratifying to my soul than being the reason for a child’s smile! To be the spark that ignites their hopes and dreams! For it is only through hopes and dreams that we may create a better world! One where our children need not be afraid! One where they are protected! After all, this company and its toys are nothing without them. These children deserve to smile, they deserve to love! And they deserve a safe home...-“

As you listen to the founder’s speech, you can’t help but gawk in awe at what the hell you’re looking at;

A gargantuan dome suspended on equally large metallic cables that hold it seemingly afloat in the middle of an enormous cavern, situated DEEP within the bowels of the facility.

“...that is why, it is with enormous pleasure that as the founder of Playtime Co., I announce P L A Y C A R E !! Our very own on site orphanage, but it’s not only that!! It’s a school! A playhouse! A place to belong! Our very own ecosystem beneath the surface! Dedicated in every inch and detail to ensuring a child’s smile! It’s teachers and counselors, mother and fathers until such a time they have all of that in youth! May PLAYCARE bring; joy! Inspiration! And smiles to all who enter these doors! For what gives live its meaning if not a SMILE! ”

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 6: The game of cat and mouse truly begins.

As you step out of the tram, your phone rings once more;

“Cool place, huh? Kids used to live here... now look at it...”

You look around and notice just how lifeless the place looks despite being one of the nicer looking areas

in the whole of Playtime Co.

“Anyways, do you see that statue in the middle of the room? Take the stairs that go under it! There’s a really cool room that can power all of PLAYCARE! I can give you a key when you get down there!”

Sparing no time to enjoy the sights around you, you make your way towards the large statue in the middle and find the door that sits at its base, opening it reveals a short staircase that leads downwards.

When you descend the stairs you find yourself in a medium sized room filled with electronic machines, a small desk and a few other nicknacks thrown about. However, the biggest point of interest is a funny looking colorful machine that- to the side of it- displays all of the areas within PLAYCARE that have power.

To the side of this machine you note that there’s a cylindrical vessel much like the one you saw in that first office room when you first encountered Ollie, although this time it was far smaller.

A small sound emits and before you know it, a key has appeared inside of it. It’s miniscule latch opens itself up automatically.

You reach in and fetch the key, only for your phone to ring in response, you take the call;

“Great!! You have the key! Now the question you’re probably asking yourself is, ‘where does it go?’ Well, head back out and you should find a door just to the left of the cable car you took down here.”

You had noticed that door earlier upon your arrival, you jog on over to said destination and use the key to open the door. You’re greeted with a rather dark and somber looking area, perhaps that’s due to the poor lighting and metal framework of the facility coming into view once more as opposed to the faux sky and grass from earlier.

As you turn the corner you’re greeted by a massive room and in its center is a large machine with three cylindrical barrels, the one on the far right is currently filled with a gaseous red cloud. The display on the center console for the machine reads;

‘NO POWER - GENERATOR STATUS: {OFFLINE}’

“Welcome to the Gas Production Zone, the beating heart of the whole evil PLAYCARE system! All that has you see coming from the machine is made right here in the factory. It’s called ‘The Red Smoke’. Right now, it’s all headed off to the right. We need to make that Red Smoke go to the left instead. That’s how we can get to him- to CatNap. The machine will probably have a few dumb safeguards for you to work around, but I think you can do it! I’ll call you once it’s done!”

You fiddle about with the machine, trying to see if there’s anything you can do from this end to power it. You’re no engineer, but you wager you can get it going!

After a while, you find a way into the area next door, powering on the locked door with the help of a battery and its wall socket.

This new area is just as massive as the one with the machine, though this time it has an odd looking protrusion in its center. You’re unsure of what it could possibly be, so you decide to ignore it for now and focus on following the wires from the ceiling. They’ll lead you to another power source that needs re-routing.

And it doesn’t take long to spot it and fix the issue, you hear the distant sounds of machinery whirring to life and go back the way you came. When you arrive back at the same room with the gargantuan machine, you press a few buttons to get the process going of re-routing the gas’ location from one onto another when the power abruptly cuts off.

Your phone rings once more and you answer it;

“Oh no! Someone killed the power! Okay, I’ve sent you another key. It’s under the statue, use it to get into ‘Home Sweet Home’. Then once you’re inside, find the building’s back up generator. Good luck!”

You sigh, rolling your eyes, “Of course nothing’s going to be easy, not with that goddamn cat hiding around...” you groan in frustration. You pinch at the bridge of your nose and pursue onwards.

“Fine, a vendetta it is.” You state, fists clenched in annoyance.

With key in hand, you open the doors of Home Sweet Home and walk forth into by far one of the most beautiful and equally terrifying places you’ll ever be in.

Matching green wallpaper and curtains depict both Huggy Wuggy and Poppy in such a way that you wouldn’t have even noticed at first place.

The whole style of the area is reminiscent of vintage mixed with Victorian home decor. You feel like you’ve stepped into a time capsule.

You open the only door leading you further down and it’s ‘blocked off’ by a thick wall of red mist. The same one you saw earlier in the vat of that machine.

“That... can’t be good...” you mutter

You’re hesitant to proceed but there’s no other way forward, so you have no choice but to proceed. Attempting to hold your breath and using your shirt to hopefully mask your nose and mouth you descend

down a large and winding staircase case that seems to go on for a while. Your attempts at holding your breath fail as you hack and cough for air, breathing in lungfuls of the red mist alongside it.

When you finally reach the end, you’re met with an impossibly long hallway. You stand quietly for a moment to stare in awe;

“I’m starting to think that the gas had a negative effect on me...” you speak, keeping your voice low, “... that or they hired the worst contractor in this state...” you can’t help but chuckle at your own joke.

You explore the odd layout of ‘Home Sweet Home’ and find yourself in a never ending loop of hallways, each one just as identical to the last.

Suddenly, the crackle of radio static come on and you hear the radio begin to speak;

“{TRAGIC NEWS THIS MORNING. AS OF 9:45AM, LOCAL AUTHORIES CONFIRM THAT THE BODY OF A YOUNG BOY HAS BEEN FOUND ON THE ESTATE OF THE LATE ELLIOT LUDWIG, AN ESTEEMED TOY MAKER AND ORIGINATOR OF THE PLAYTIME COMPANY. AT THIS TIME, AN IDENTITY FOR THE CHILD AWAITS OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION. FOUND UPSTAIRS IN A LARGE DUFFLE BAG, OFFICERS ON-SCENE REPORT THAT THE REMAINS APPEARED TO HAVE BEEN DISTURBED. ORGANS AS WELL AS KEY BINES FROM THE SKELETAL STRUCTURE WERE REPORTED MISSING FROM THE BODY. IT IS UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME WHETHER THIS EXTRACTION WAS, IN FACT, THE CAUSE OF DEATH}”

The radio announcement fades into static and you feel a spine tingling chill rush down your back.

“I’m hearing things, I’m hearing things, I’m hearing things-“ you try to assure yourself, you hold your head with one hand and bolt down a random direction down one of the winding halls.

“-all those notes I collected are getting to me, n-nothing’s happening here, I’m just imagining things-“ you slap your cheeks, trying to get yourself to think.

“-Y-Yeah! That’s right! It’s just auditory hallucinations due to that red mist, that HAS to be it!”

As you round yet another hallway, another radio speaks;

“{FOLLOWING RECENT EVENTS, PLAYTIME CO. WAS ASKED FOR ANY COMMENT REGARDING THE DISCOVERY. THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY, QUOTE: ‘ITS SICKENING. ELLIOT LUDWIG WAS A GREAT MAN, AND THOSE WHO KNEW HIM UNDERSTOOD THAT HE

WAS NOT CAPABLE OF VIOLENCE, LET ALONE WHAT OTHERS NOW CLAIM. HE HAD A DEEP LOVE IN HIS HEART FOR CHILDREN LIKE THIS ONE, MAKING THE ACTIONS IF WHOEVER PLANTED THIS BODY ALL THE MORE SICKENING. WE LOOK FORWARD TO CLEANING HIS GOOD NAME, BOTH IN THE PUBLIC EYE AND IN THE EYES OF THE LAW.’ STAY TUNED FOR MORE.}”

The voice at the end of the broadcast sent a vile chill down your spine that only urged you to run away in fear.

As you continued to run, the sound of a distant phone caught your ear, and so, you decided to cautiously follow its source.

When you reach it, as you go to pick it up, on the other end you’re met with... Ollie? “YOU NEED TO RUN!!” He urges you.

You feel yourself freeze in place as a sense of dread washes over you, slowly you turn to face what could possibly be behind you, only to be met with the face of CatNap, poking his head out from the corner of the door frame leading into the room.

As soon as you see him, you watch him slink away and a frightened yelp leaves your lips, your hands fly to your mouth in an attempt at further silencing you.

Cautiously you step into the same spot where you saw CatNap but thankfully are met with nothing. You trudge onwards, now on high alert for the feline’s whereabouts...

As you descend down further into the never ending hallway you feel yourself seep further into madness. As you hear the wails of children crying in your ears, the sound only progressively getting louder as you approach a room lit by a dim red light.

And all at once, the wails silence themselves, as though they were never there.

You feel tears pricking at the corners of your eyes when you finally step foot inside of the area. You’re terrified and you don’t know what to do anymore...

You eye the large VCR TV and it’s VHS player, just next to it is a red VHS. Confused you decide to grab it and slide it in, standing in front of the TV and watching whatever it is that appears next;

You’re greeted by the sight of no less than Huggy Wuggy who stares at you with enlarged pupils, an eerie dead smile decorating his features.

The sight makes you gasp softly and recoil in shock.

A recorded male voice chimes in;

“Greetings, Employees, and welcome to your first day here in Playtime! We’re certain that in the days to

come you’ll find your new family here every but as loving and supportive as your own. Feel free to wander the halls! Sit in the mess for lunch! Or watch our children play and learn to their little heart’s content. Join the Innovationists, where the bounds of science are continuously pushed. Or join the Counselors of Playcare, whose diligence and care for our children will help shape a brighter future, just you see. Now, every one of you has your part in that future, so should you come back tomorrow feeling unhappy for where you are... worry not! For your supervisor is here and happy to listen! And...”

Just as the man gives a brief pause to what he’s saying, you watch as the image of Huggy changes to one of pure unadulterated horror. Huggy’s mouth has stretched to an unfathomable degree, sharp rows of teeth make their appearance, and his eyes are now black empty voids.

You feel sick to your stomach at the sight, your insides threaten to spill as you continue to watch in terror.

“...Should you come back... may you descend into the dark and the dust, finding all that awaits you are

incomprehensible horrors... each hungry for you, each eager that they might find you. Perhaps they’d smile at you from a shadow, their smiling mouths full of teeth and meat and plastic, watching and waiting for their turn...”

Just as those final words are uttered you watch as the image of Huggy Wuggy gets closer and closer to the screen until finally and seemingly out of nowhere, coming OUT of the screen, a giant yellow hand reaches out for you and before you’re able to yelp out pathetically, you’re engulfed in the maw of the beast.

The world fades to black as you feel your body finally give up on you...

The sounds of soft thuds encroaching on your unconscious form close in.

A curious paw nudges you, seeing no sign of resistance nor movement, a low chuckle is heard.

“A HERETIC CAN BE TOLERATED. BUT HERESY CANNOT.” They whisper in your ear.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 7: Remember kids! You can spell “School” without ‘cool’!

By the time you wake up, you find yourself in a completely different room and area than before. You’re no longer in the same maze of hallways as before, this time it looks like you’re deeper inside of Home Sweet Home. And though you KNOW you have no recollection of getting here, you know just who placed you here;

“CatNap”

You can’t help but cringe when you hear yourself say that name, that... creature, that THING, it’s toying with you. Trying to break you down until you’re nothing so it can devour you just like the others.

You know better than to let that beast win and let it get the best of you. You HAVE to keep going, and you WILL.

As you walk through the rest of Home Sweet Home, you solve an endless array of puzzles here and there and with the help of the newly acquired gas mask you can ensure yourself of further harm from the red mist.

All these puzzles serve only to help further you in your journey, granting you access to previously locked and blocked off areas. The grabpack continues to serve its purpose in aiding you to reach objects that are too far out of your grasp.

As you traverse the rooms, exploring the once abandoned bedrooms of the children you open a door that takes you to one of the hallways.

You watch in fear as CatNap himself walks right beside you, the only thing separating the two of you is some haphazardly placed furniture that blocks the path.

You swallow the scream that builds in your throat and quickly rush back into the room you were just in. In the distance you hear a mocking laugh alongside fading footsteps.

“Motherfucker...” you curse under your breath.

Continuing alongside the puzzles for a while longer, you ultimately find yourself at a dead end. As you go to turn around from the hallway, something tells you to look into the barricaded room behind you.

And so you do, cautiously peering in only to see none other than Kissy Missy! She’s sitting atop a bed, quiet as can be with what appears to be a picture frame in hand. Her eyes are glued to it... perhaps she’s... reminiscing memories of a friend? A past life full of peace?

It’s a sad sight and you say nothing, quietly turning around you bid farewell, it seems it’s be better to give them space.

You continue in Home Sweet Home, solving the last remaining puzzles until the main gate finally opens, granting you the ability to leave.

You sigh happily and as you open the door, stepping outside and away from that nightmare a large ‘hand’ grabs you from behind. You let out a frightened scream as you’re thrown down to the ground, you’re met face to face with Kissy Missy who eyes you with silent rage.

A low growl begins to emanate from her mouth and you brace yourself for death. “NO, NO! LET GO!”

Poppy! It’s Poppy! She’s alive!

“THEY DIDNT DO ANYTHING WRONG!!”

You turn your head over to look at her with a bewildered look, “Poppy! You’re... alive. Where... where have you been?”

Poppy shakes her head, “It’s... it’s a long story” is all she offers you, “We’re actually here to help-“ she says, gesturing towards Kissy Missy.

You watch as Kissy Missy finally lets you go and you sit up, “This place makes her tense...” Poppy comments, “I’m glad that Ollie could help you get this far. He’s the reason we found you at all! And it looks like the train crash hurt us both...”

You nod, finally standing to your feet.

“You’ve been through so much... you deserve an explanation. Come on.”

You follow the duo to a control panel nearby that Kissy Missy helps Poppy pry open and flip a red switch. Which in turn, turns on a nearby lift.

You three get on the lift.

“Look, I’m not your enemy but I can’t just let you leave. What’s happening down here is bigger than all of us. And I NEED you... so we can get REVENGE on those monsters whose tortured you... who’ve tortured US. They didn’t act alone, they’re disciples of the original, ‘The Prototype’.”

Suddenly you’re reminded of various pieces of information and hidden tapes you saw mentioning the thing, you shudder at the thought.

When you reach the top, the little elevator gives pause, Poppy motions for you to press a button nearby and you do, hopping back on, the elevator descends.

“The Prototype knows were coming by now, you try to escape, he’ll kill you before you ever reach that front door. He’s the reason I was trapped in that...” Poppy stops speaking for a moment, you watch as she visibly shudders.

It seems that you’re not the only one traumatized here.

“... god awful case for so long! You have... no idea the things he’s done! Let me help you kill him. Let

me help you save everyone. We’ve ALL seen how capable you are. You killed Huggy, you killed Mommy, you saved me. You are PERFECT for this. CatNap is coming, he’s a final obstacle that The Prototype has placed against us. We can’t stay here. Keep yourself safe... Ollie will call you.”

As you step off the elevator and watch it ascend one last time, you nod at Poppy and watch as she smiles back.

“Be safe...!” You call out. Poppy chuckles, “You too!”

And just as Poppy told you, your phone rings, with Ollie on the other end;

“Hey, hey! It's me! It seems like Poppy explained everything now. And she turned on the dome’s back up power! Now the plan from here is pretty simple- we need to restore power to the gas production zone. First, go back to the home Sweet Home building you were just in. You should be able to find a big power cord somewhere around the porch. Grab it and plug it in underneath the statue.”

You do as you're told and descend the statue’s staircase to connect the power to the machine below.

“Awesome! Look at that! Remember that generator you turned on inside of Home Sweet Home? Well, that was the backup generator for just that building. And every building should have one. Now you’ve just taken home. Sweet home backup power and routed it here. We’re already halfway done! Hmmmm, but where to go next... everywhere is pretty dangerous around here. That Playhouse especially! So... your best bet is probably the school. CatNap usually leaves that area alone. I’ll send you the key now!”

With the key in hand, you make your way over to the building labeled “School”. Upon walking in you take note of the dank and rank odor filling the air, which makes you wretch.

“Okay! Let’s make this quick! Turn on the generator, leave, and plug the school’s power cord into the center. Be careful in there, I don’t think I can connect to you on that side of the dome. And you won’t be alone. There’s someone else in there too. They’re not your-“

The rest of Ollie’s warning fades into static, it seems that the connection has been lost. Now, you truly are alone.

What new horrors await you in this hell?

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 8: Red light, Green light.

You hear static come from the speakers located inside of the room you’re currently in and turn to face them;

“This is Miss Delight speaking. Please excuse the interruption! Students- remain in your seats until the bell has rung. And no going in the halls without a hall pass!!

You speculate that what you just heard is most likely nothing more than an automated system that must’ve broken down some time above and has likely been playing the same message.

When the static cuts off, you give a soft sigh and continue meandering about the school, going from classroom to classroom, exploring the abandoned areas.

A part of you hopes that you’ll find something of value hidden within but so far, you’ve come up empty handed. Save for one class rol. That catches your attention, it seems that one corner was seemingly sectioned off with the use of furniture.

“...Odd...” you comment, “who the hell would possibly want to camp out here...?”

Approaching the area you notice a bed covered in dried blood and viscera, and all around you are broken and bloodied toys, all very clearly deceased, it’s quite a sight for sore eyes.

You honestly don’t want to keep looking at it for any longer as you feel more nauseous the longer you do.

Moving on, you hope that you’ll find something else to look at.

You unlock an electric door using the green grabpack hand and continue in the new unlocked direction.

Exploring the rooms a bit, you discover that one of them contains a power source, it currently requires two batteries- one of which is out of reach.

With some minor searching you find one battery which you plug in and leaves you to search in the opposite side of the School.

Crawling under the debris of a blocked off area you witness the sight of something- toy? Human? You can’t quite tell- passing by just down the hallway.

You clasp a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stifle a gasp from escaping.

You stay still for a moment, waiting to see if you hear any more movement but when none greet your ears, you decide that it must be safe to continue.

As you open the next door, the same PA system comes back on with feedback static;

“Wait...” it’s that voice again, “I don’t recognize you...”

You swallow and stop in your tracks, your eyes are fixated on the camera hidden just barely out of sight

in the corner of the room.

“You don’t work here. How are you-... alive?” She asks

And honestly? You don’t have the slightest clue.

“Dumb luck, probably...” you mumble, eyeing the room, it looks to be no different from a computer lab

that you’d see back in highschool.

“Hm? Barb? Oh... Barb says you’re probably just trespassing...! CatNap wouldn’t like that you’re

here... you should consider leaving... for your own safety.”

The PA cuts off into static and you nod, “Yeah, that’s uh, that’s exactly what I’ve been TRYING to

do...!” You complain to no one but yourself.

As you look around the room, you take note of a ventilation shaft, it seems that this one connects to that previous room where the battery had been lodged. You use the grabpack to hold onto a bar that’s’ situated above you with one hand as leverage to go down.

As soon as you get down, you use the other hand of the grabpack to hold onto the battery and make your way back up and through the vent system. Only to end up on the other side, in the same room where the power system was in and place the final batter.

Doing so, allows you to electrically charge the green grabpack hand and make your way into the next area.

In one of the new rooms you entered, there appears to be a note left on the floor, you take it and read it;

{“Just a few weeks ago now was THE HOUR OF JOY. today, there’s only silence in the school. I don’t think any of us here know what to do with it. The hallways without the children carry even the smallest sounds as if they were shouts. The other teachers and I started each other constantly we have to get used to it. Something locked the front door this morning and we haven’t been able to open it.”

You hum softly to yourself as you finish reading the note;

“Seems like something big went down- ‘The Hour of Joy’- whatever that means, I’ve been seeing it everywhere...” you squint and re-read the last part over again.

“CatNap?” You snort, rolling your eyes, “Who else? Knowing him and how much he likes to play with his food, I don’t doubt it.”

As you go to pocket the note, you notice another one nearby that you likely missed when first walking in.

{“The put in me howls for FOOD. I CAN’’T THINK About anything other than how HUNGRY I AM. HARDLY HAVE THE STRENGTH TO PICK MYSELF OFF THE FLOOR. Barb speaks to me though. SHE GIVES ME STRENGTH. i’ve found that if I stand still, COMPLETELY STILL, Everyone thinks I’m DEAD. BARB Says I need to EAT, AND THAT THE OTHER TEACHERS would never see me coming. ANYTHING TO STOP THE HOWLING.”}

The bloody note gives you reason for concern and you can’t help but stop and look up, turning around slowly to see if anyone’s watching you.

You shouldn’t be here.

You should leave.

You pocket the note and move on.

You walk into another room and traverse another ventilation shaft as the area ahead of you is blocked off.

As you move through the small cramped space, you notice- through a hole below you- that THING walking by again and catch a glimpse of red and white polka dot dress and blonde hair.

You drop down into the following room, past that thing you just saw.

The PA turns on once again;

“You’re not a good listener, are you? You’re a lot like the other humans in that way. I wonder your

screams will sound like theirs too...!” There’s a chuckle, “Mmmmm... I look forward to finding out~!”

You feel a chill run down your back but shake it off, trudging on forwards regardless of the threat made against your life.

You enter an adjacent room and explore some more, only to find yet another note and this one- at first glance- looks two be much shorter than the first two you found;

{“I’M SO SORRY, I HAD TO EAT. I HAD TO SURVIVE. I ATE THEM. I HAD TO I HAD TO I HAD TO I HAD TO”}

You don’t say anything after reading that, I mean... how can you? WHAT can you? You simply pocket the note and move on.

“This place has made monsters out of all of you, hasn’t it...?”

The following area in nothing more than another class room, you walk past the cardboard cut out of what looks to be the figure you’ve been seeing walking about the place.

“Miss Delight... huh...”

You don’t give it any more attention and open the final door, and there it is! The backup generator! Completing one final puzzle causes what little light was left inside the school to die out momentarily and

in doing so, emerges Miss Delight.

A wicked toothful grin sports her face, with half her ‘skin’ peeled off you can see the flesh and sinew that holds her together. And in one hand is what appears to be a makeshift mace, under the orange emergency lights it’s hard to tell just WHAT they’re made out of but you swear you can just barely make out what appears to be pencils.

White beady eyes stare back at you.

She is unmoving, simply staring, frozen like a statue before your gaze.

What follows next is nothing short of a game of “Red light, Green Light”. Look at her and she stops dead in her tracks, look away? And she’s free to move.

You can’t let her out of your sight, even for a moment as you retrace your steps back the way you came.

Her ragged breaths and mocking laughter fill the air, always telling you of where she is at all times, and due to her innate lack of ‘lips’ you’re thankful for that fact.

Every twist and turn, every time you’re forced to look away at her to face a battery wall socket or obstacle to maneuver around, sends you blood pressure skyrocketing.

That is until you’re given a brief moment of respite, but you don’t DARE to dilly dally, you KNOW death lingers just beyond the corner. And so you pursue onwards, despite the drumming in your chest.

You fiddle with this odd battery puzzle in front of you, it’s infuriating and confusing at times, but you manage.

Finally unlocking the main gate you sprint at full speed down the hallway, not caring to watch Miss Delight anymore. And something tells you that she’s not going to give you up and allow you to escape that easily.

With her footsteps quickly approaching you from behind, you rush into the small room and yank the lever down as hard as you can and watch as Miss Delight tries to slide down to catch up to you but the door was faster, crushing her skull in the process.

You stand there in quiet shock, catching your breath as you stare at her corpse, WAITING for her to move again.

You stare.

And you stare.

But she doesn’t move, breathing a sigh of relief you turn to leave but stop yourself midway.

A sudden and curious thought crosses your mind, ‘when was the last time that you were clean and not covered in blood and viscera?’

You stop and look down at yourself, you examine your shirt, and just as you go to grab it, you stop, noting the fresh coat of blood that now permeates and has soaked itself through the fabric of your one’s favorite shirt.

You click your tongue in and sigh through your nose, “It’s all right-“ you groan, “-when I get out of here, I’ll-“

Wait a moment.

WHEN you get out of here?

You turned to look back down at Miss Delight, for all you know, a month could’ve passed by since you

first got in here. That much time has already passed, it’s going to be a while until you finally get to leave, let alone find a clean pair of clothing.

You bend down to the corpse of Miss Delight and begin to pull off her red and white polkadot skirt. “ I’m so sorry” is all you whisper.

As a respect to her, you advert your eyes, and turn away. The skirt of Miss Delight is luckily, not soaked in blood that you find yourself that it may be useful to use to perhaps fashion a shirt for yourself.

“I guess you teaching me sewing all those years back, finally did come in handy, huh mom?” You mumbled to no one but yourself.

You leave the school, triumphant, and with a smile on your lips.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 9: Tired of the senseless slaughter, you save his life. And in return, HE saves YOURS.

—

IMPORTANT: For the best experience during the chase scene, please listen to the following song: “Ride to Glory by Epic Score”

As you leave the school, humming a tune to yourself, you notice something fall out from the red- and-white polka dot skirt. You give pause pause and bend down to reach for it with one hand, it’s a piece of paper.

“Another note?”

You read it;

{“The door opened today, and I heard something enter my hall. Together, Barb and I found CatNap

waiting. AL THIS TIME, ALL THIS AGONY. It was he WHO LOCKED THE DOOR, and I know it. I wanted to KILL HIM, but I knew better than to believe I could. he seemed oddly glad to see I was all that remained. We made a deal to take care of each other from now on what we see to the other, and to HIM.”}

You folded the piece of paper and pocketed it in your back pocket, “I guess I was right” you paused briefly, “I’m so sorry this happened to you...” you spoke solemnly, your gaze was cast downwards onto the fabric, you thumbed it gently before ultimately sighing and moving forward.

You can mourn later, not now.

As you left the hall and entered what looked to be a dead end, you took notice of the new apparatus that sat behind the Hoppy Hopscotch cardboard cut out. A red grabpack hand! How odd..

You attached the new hand and looked at it curiously; the hand had taken the pose of a ‘gun’ with the ring and pinkie finger curled inwards towards the palm and the middle and pointer finger serving as the ‘barrel’.

You took notice of the hole that lay in the middle finger and thought to yourself for a moment, there’s no way that they actually gave ‘guns’ to kids... right?

Cautiously you take a step back and turn back around to the dark hallway you just back back from and fired a shot down range.

What came out from the red hand was a bright shimmering light that you swore was hot for a brief moment as it whizzed beyond you and down the hall.

As it made contact with the ground, it lit up the surrounding area in a blood red light.

“Ah! A flare gun!” You smiled, excited at the new discovery. “This’ll come in handy.” Nodding and feeling satisfied with your new discovery, you made the rest of the way out of the

immediate area only to pause after you cross the threshold of the doorframe behind you.

You’re stunned into silence as you realize that you’re inside of a cavern. The area is MASSIVE and as you bend slightly, looking over the daunting edge of the cliff side you stand on, you can see a that there’s a lot of jumping platforms that require you to use the purple hand.

It’s... not your favorite mode of transportation, given that you’re situated over the maw of an endless cavern but, beggars can't be choosers.

You steel your nerves and cross the entire area, swinging up in the air and feeling the cool damp air of the cavern against your skin as you breeze by.

Eventually you reach an area that requires you to solve a large puzzle using a combination of the purple and blue hand to unlock an elevator that allows you to traverse to the next area. Of which, by the time you’re done solving it, you now have to traverse a very precarious catwalk, where parts of it have fallen into disarray and broken down.

As you walk in by, something in the darkness catches your eye and so you turn to face and look at it, due to the darkness, it’s quite hard to see and make out. Just as you attempt to fire a flare in the direction of the mass obscured by shadows, you’re stopped from doing so when you hear the catwalk beneath your feet creak and begin to give way.

In a panic you print the rest if the way and make a leap of faith, just barely avoiding death as the catwalk collapses behind you.

You’re much farther away now than before and whatever it was that you were looking at, would be near impossible to see from this angle so you pursue onwards.

As you cross the rest of the catwalk, in front of you is a metallic door with the logo ‘PLAYHOUSE’ above it. As soon as you enter, you find that the entire place has been shrouded in darkness with only some light sources working- barely- and giving you some brightness to work with.

It looks like the flare gun will be your safest bet to traverse this expanse.

As you move around, you find that you’re being stalked by toys that look just like that of the ‘smiling critters’, the same ones that you’ve been seeing on posters around Playtime Co.

Their weird little laughs and cries cause goosebumps to rise all over your arms, they're incredibly off putting and relentless in their chase.

You maneuver and meander around, going through tubes and a plush maze, firing flares as you go to frighten away the little beasts from you. It’s incredibly claustrophobic and you find that you want to leave this area as soon as you can, so you move quickly.

Keeping an eye out for their glowing beady eyes and an ear for their little sounds that key you in on their locations.

You thank your stars when you finally leave that room, sighing in relief as you go down a winding staircase and into a... pool room!

“Weird place to have pool parties...” you comment, before moving on.

As you open the door following the pool area, you’re met with what looks to be a room filled with cellars, each one adorned with hanging chains. Most likely used on the toys that would’ve inhabited this area.

Just as you’re about to ask yourself just WHAT toy could possibly warrant being chained up in a cellar,

your ears are greeted by the sound of a ragged cough nearby.

The sound nearly makes you jump out of your skin, but you steel yourself, preparing for the worst as you

follow the source.

And as you wind the corner, you find your answer to your questions.

A large canine, colored in orange and yellow ochre fur is hanged in his cellar by chains that are connected to the wall, they’re restricting both of his arms. He’s missing his lower half, the bottom of his cell is coated in dried blood, and on his waist is a belt buckle that is secured tightly so as to prevent him from dying of blood loss.

With the pose that he’s in, he looks akin to that of Jesus Christ when he was being crucified by the Romans on the cross.

You gasp in shock at the sight, reeling away slightly in horror at the sight.

“What... what happened to you?” You ask it, half wondering if you’ll get a response.

You watch as the dog lifts its head and as it does so, on its neck you notice its collar and on it is a plastic

tag of a large bright sun.

it finally clicks to you who this is.

“DogDay?” You tentatively call out.

You watch as he silently stares at you for a moment, and though you don’t see any pupils beneath that

darkness, you still feel the weight on his gaze on you.

“You... you’re Poppy’s angel...” he croaks out, voice tired and hoarse. “Come to save us-!” He pauses,

his head hanging low for a moment as he turns to look away from you. He shakes his head solemnly, “Nothing left to save, not here...”

He turns to look at you once more, “You’re in CatNap’s home, angel. THEIR home. A million pairs of eyes are on you now. Watching, waiting, hungry. They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin and eat away you bit by little bit-“

You watch him groan in pain as he attempts to shift, the shackles holding him in place are likely digging into his wrists.

“-fill what feels empty inside themselves. That... thing...CatNap. The Prototype is his God, and this is what he does to heretics. These little toys follow CatNap to avoid that very fate- and in return, they are fed.” Another painted groan escapes his lips, but that doesn’t stop him from explaining to you what has been

going in in the facility.

“ we tried to fight it, The Prototype’s control. I’m... the last of the Smiling Critters.”

There’s a brief moment of silence where the sadness within his voice becomes palpable to you, it makes

your heart ache that he’s suffered so much at the hands of that wretched beast- CatNap.

“Listen to me-“ he pleads, lifting his head up all the way now, trying to make as best eye contact as he

can with you, “-you NEED to get out of this place. You NEED to LIVE! You and Poppy can fix this, end this madness, the torment, the- Oh no... OH NO!”

You take a step back, shocked at the sudden change and turn to look just where his head is facing, from the bottom of his cell block, you watch as little beady white eyes begin to emerge from the large holes within the walls.

Instinctively, you fire a shot at it and manage to frighten the miniature critters.

You watch as DogDay turns to face you, “Leave me, please! Just go!... RUN!!” He urges you.

“You have to survive, Angel, you HAVE to. GO! GET OUT OF HERE!!”

You shake your head, “No, not again, I’m done with this-“ you tell him, firing yet another shot at the

little holes, frighting more of the critters away. “-I’ve had enough of seeing such senseless slaughter-“ You use the grabpack hands and grab simultaneously at both his chains and PULL!!

The chains SNAP with a loud crack, metal breaks and clangs, falling onto the floor loudly.

Just as DogDay is about to fall and hit the ground, you catch him as best you can with your arms.

“-HOLD ON!!”

You spare no second glance behind you as you run with DogDay, the poor canine clings onto you with what little strength remains within him.

The two of you fall through broken floor boards and rush through a large system of tunnels, with every twist and turn you hear the beasts behind you gaining ground.

The critters climb atop one another, moving together like a wave of water, a mass of cloth and fabric ready to pry and tare away at flesh.

But you won't let them win. Not this time.

As you traverse the tunnels, running with all your strength, behind you, DogDay turns his head to see if your pursuers have made any ground and feel his grip tighten.

“ITS OKAY-“ you try to comfort him, “-JUST HOLD ON!” “THEYRE GAINING ON US, ANGEL. WE WONT MAKE IT-“ “-YES WE WILL!!”

“SLIDE!!” You announce, “DUCK!!”

DogDay ducks with you, avoiding the lip of the ceiling.

You two slide down with such speed that it nearly launches you in such a way that you almost trip over

your own two feet but manage you catch yourself just in time.

You run down a small hall and towards a room that has a purple hand platform at its end.

“ANGEL, THE HAND!! SWAP HANDS!!”

“GOT IT!!”

You press a button and watch as the grabpack switches it’s green hand with the purple hand, and just in

time too.

As the wave of mini critters closes in.

You take the leap of faith.

And for a moment, time slows down to a crawl.

You’re both airborne for what seems forever, until you finally make contact with the ground.

And when you do, frantically get on the elevator and mash the button for it to lift you up. “COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON-!!”

You’re desperate, your hands are trembling.

As the machine slowly takes you to the platform above, from bellow you you watch as the critters

desperately climb atop one another to get at the two of you.

Once at the top, you feel DogDay tap your shoulder, “LEFT SIDE, SLIDE!! NOW!!”

You run, making a mad dash and duck, throwing your body into the slide, DogDay ducks with your

movements and holds on for dear life as you two slide down the enormous slide.

As you descend, you hear the slide creak, bend and shake under the weight of both of you. “Of fuck-!!” You shout as the slide gives way under your combined weight.

And so, the two of you fall..

And fall...

Eventually you two land somewhere entirely new, but you’re not able to make out just where you are just yet, because when you finally descend, you two are flung with such great force that you both make contact with the wall. Leaving a small crater in its wake to the sheer force of the impact.

Thankfully though, your blow is cushioned by DogDay who, by some holy miracle, manages to place himself between you and the wall when you two were free falling.

You’re cradled by his arms as the two you fall harshly to the ground.

Groans are heard from both of you as you watch the tunnel that was created from the collapsed slide, come crumbling down on itself and create a massive cave in. Rubble descends down the hole following the two of you, eventually covering the entire tunnel itself.

Silence fills the air as the two of you lay there, you feel your consciousness slip from you, your vision going dark. Perhaps you had hit yourself a bit harder than anticipated on your way down.

“Angel? ANGEL!” DogDay shouts, desperation clings to his every word, “Stay with me, angel, stay with me!!”

Your vision goes black as darkness embraces you with open arms...

Chapter 10 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/53562580/chapters/135645178) : Respite Summary:

You and DogDay find some much needed respite after all the chaos you two had to endure.

{You find yourself sitting comfortably on the porch of your cottage home, a cool strawberry drink sits snugly in the palm of your hands. A cool summer breeze blows by, caressing your face, and with it brings promises of a better and brighter future...

Or so you thought...

“Mom?” You looked over to the beautiful female figure sat next to you, her face was crystal clear in your mind, even now. After all this time, you could still picture her, she looked the same as she did all those years ago.

“Do you really have to go? Can’t you call in sick?” You asked her, leaning into her touch as her hand caressed your cheek gently, “Please, mom-“ you whined, begging her to stay.

The woman looked down upon you with a gentle and loving smile that only a mother could bestow upon her child.

You felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

“-don’t go...” you whined pitifully.

you watched as she leaned down close to you, gently she pressed her lips to your forehead before smiling

at you once more. “My sweet little Angel, don’t worry, I promise your father and I won’t be gone long. It’s only a work trip!”

You felt tears fall down your cheeks. Every night, it was always the same. The same dream.

Each.

And every.

Night.

No matter how much you begged and cried, she always left you.

“I’ll be back before you know it~!” She spoke, gently booping your nose with her finger.}

“M-...Mo..m...n-..no...” you groaned quietly.

As you slowly came to your senses you could hear a familiar male voice.

“Angel?! Oh-!” A gasp left his lips, “-Angel,darling- wake up... please, wake up...”

You felt yourself slowly being stirred back into reality, gentle hands shaking you and rubbing at your back in an attempt at rousing you awake.

Slowly, you blinked away the fog in your eyes and watched as the world around you slowly came into focus.

Your eyes finally focused onto the figure in front of you, DogDay.

The poor canine had been worried sick, he was curled up as close as he could- given the state of his body- to be next to you. Gentle hands wiped at your cheeks that were damp with tears.

“You were crying, Angel...” he explained, he kept his voice low so as to not startle you after you’d awaken.

“Are you alright? You were crying out for your mother...”

You stare at him dumbfounded and open your mouth to reply but bite back your response, only offering a look of concern in return to his own.

DogDay nods, seemingly understanding what you’re conveying, “Apologies, Angel. I... may have been too forward, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not my right to know something so intimate.”

You shake your head, “I-It’s alright, you were only curious... it’s natural...”

As you two continue to lay there, you share a moment of silence between the two of you, where one of his lands lies comfortably atop your own.

“Angel?”

Suddenly, he breaks the silence.

“May I-“ there’s a pause, “Am I allowed a question?”

You nod, “of course.”

“Why did you save me?”

You pause and allow silence to fill the void for a moment, your eyes wandering as you think, until you

meet his gaze once more.

“I think EVERYONE deserves to live-“ you answer him, “- I’m tired of seeing all this death around

me...” you pause briefly, taking in a deep breathe. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

He can’t help but chuckle at your response. “What?” You ask, “what’s so funny?”

He sighs, “You really are an angel sent from above to save us, huh...?”

You smile, cracking the first genuine laugh you’ve had in a long while, “Yeah, I guess so...”

You watch as DogDay slowly pulls away from you for a minute and aids you as best he can from his current position on the ground with one hand to help you get up from the floor.

You take his hand and slowly bring yourself up from the floor and stand up, you examine the grabpack and notice some minor damages to the equipment. Thankfully it appears to be nothing serious, just a few loose parts that need to be screwed on tighter.

“I think we should probably get some rest...” you add, examining your new surroundings. You’re in what appears to be the offices of Playtime Co.

“This place looks safe enough...” you watch as DogDay tries to do the same and examine his

surroundings, he too notes that the offices look relatively safe compared to the rest of PLAYCARE. Suddenly, a ringing catches you both by surprise and makes you jump nearly out of your skin. “What was that?!” DogDay asks, confused at the new noise.

“Ollie!”

“Who-?”

Before you could answer DogDay’s question, you reach for your phone which somehow managed to

survive the fall.

“Hey, are you alright?! No ouchies or lost body parts?”

On the other side of the Playtime Co. cellphone is what sounds to be a young boy’s voice, aged roughly

that of a child’s. It catches DogDay by surprise when he hears it.

At Ollie’s last comment, you look towards DogDay and frown slightly, “I’m alright-“ you speak into the

receiver, “-But... I can’t say the same for my friend.”

“Friend? Who's your new friend?”

“It’s DogDay” you reply, “here-“ you hand the phone to DogDay.

“Hello? Whose this?”

“Hey DogDay! My names Ollie! I’ve been helping Poppy, Y/N and Kissy Missy escape PLAYCARE.

I’m glad you’re getting along well with Y/N!” You hear Ollie speak to DogDay, seemingly getting him up to speed on the situation.

You watch as DogDay hums in response, “Thank you Ollie, for guiding angel along, you’ve done well in helping them...”

“Angel? Whose angel?”

You watch as DogDay seemingly stumbles over himself and his words for a moment, you can’t help but smile. If he could, you’d suspect he’d be blushing right about now from embarrassment.

“Y/N-! I-I’m referring to Y/N...!”

You hear Ollie laugh on the other end, “Oh! That makes sense!”

“Anyways-“ Ollie continues, “I’m really glad you’re both okay... I don’t wanna lose any more friends to

this place. We’re really close to the end! By the way, where are you two now?”

“In what appears to be a room full of offices...” DogDay adds, with some of your help, he finds himself

resting in your arms. Your surprised by how much he weighs and how you’re able to carry him with just enough effort, despite his size.

You’ve helped him see further into the halls of the area you’re in, down the hall, as far as the eye can see are nothing more than offices.

“Ah! I see. You two must be in the Counselor’s Office. Hmmm... it’s not ideal, but, If you two can manage to find that generator and get it going, it should have enough juice to power the Gas Production Zone and finally re-route that red smoke! Good luck you two, stay safe out there!”

And with that, the line goes dead.

You sigh and look to DogDay, he nods at you and the two of you move forward.

“Angel?” He asks

“Yes?”

“I’ll take you up on that offer to rest...” he comments, “That fall... it did a number on me and likely on

yourself as well. It’s paramount we get some much needed respite, gather your energy for what’s yet to come.”

You nod, he does have a point.

And so, you walk a little bit longer until you spot an office room that looks relatively clean in comparison to the others, save for all the scattered papers, it’s better than nothing.

You set DogDay down on the office chair and turn to step out of the room momentarily. “Wait, where are you going?” He asks you.

“I spotted a blanket on one of the offices, don’t worry, I’ll be right back!”

You didn’t go too far to find the blanket and when you did, true to your word, you returned.

You placed the oversized blanket down on the ground and picked up DogDay once more, before setting him down on the blanket.

“There... that should be better than being on the cold floor...” you paused, “Well... not really but-“ DogDay can’t help but laugh, “It’s alright, Angel, it’s the sentiment that counts...”

You smile and nod, joining your companion’s side as you sit next to him. You take off the grabpack and

begin trying to fix it as DogDay watches on.

“Angel? Do you mind me asking you something?”

You shake your head, “No, I don’t mind, what is it?”

“I... don’t think I recall seeing you work here... were you an employee?”

You shake your head, “No, not me, but my mom and dad were...” you explain, “They went missing in

08/08/1998... roughly ten years ago.”

“The hour of Joy...” you hear him mutter softly to himself.

There it is again, that phrase again.

What could it mean...?

“So, I take it you’re here searching for them, no?” He asks

You nod, “I am... why? Does that make me crazy?”

He shakes his head, “No... I don’t think it does... but-“ he pauses.

“But?” You egg on.

“But you ARE crazy for making it this far, Angel.” He watches for your expression carefully. “My

apologies”

You snort, “for what? You’re right.”

Silence hangs for a moment as the conversation dies down for a moment, you’re quick at work on the grabpack, finding yourself almost finished with the much needed repairs.

“You’re a mechanic?” He asks

“Hardly-“ you add, “-I only know what I know about machines thanks to my dad...”

“Who was your father? I-If you don’t mind me asking?”

“No worries- He was a technician for Playtime Co., he spent most of his time fixing electrical issues and

doing tech support for the machines and computers that broke down.”

“And what of your mother?”

“Mom?” You pause, “Mom told me she helped take care of the orphans in Playtime, the most she would

ever tell me was that she was directly responsible for making sure that they were always happy and healthy.” DogDay nods, soaking in the information as you speak to him.

“They sound like good people”

“And they were...” you pause, “...I miss them...”

DogDay cringes inwardly slightly, “I-I’m sorry Angel, I didn’t mean to upset you.” You shake your head, sighing deeply, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

There’s another beat of silence before this time, YOU break it.

“And what about you?” You ask him

“Pardon?”

“We’re you always known as ‘DogDay’? Or were you someone else...?” You ask, taking notice of his

hesitance you add in, “I read about this thing called the “Bigger Bodies Initiative” and- from what I’ve gathered- it seems that... somehow... they used people and turned them into... toys.”

You hardly believed your own words, but the evidence was all there in the scraps of important documents you had collected, and that sort of evidence is hard to deny.

You watch as DogDay nods, “I was- am.” He corrects, “My real name is Oskar, Oskar Sonnen.”

You pause, your hands stilling for a moment at the mention of his name.

“That’s German” you add, surprised. “You’re German?”

He chuckles, “No, but I am descended from Germans, I’m American, born and raised. Why do you ask

Angel?”

“Well, your name literally means ‘dear sunny friend’ or ‘dear friend of sunshine’-“ you chuckle, your

smile widening, “-incredibly fitting for someone whose named ‘DogDay’”

You watch as he nods and chuckles alongside you, “You’re quite the keen observer, Angel.”

You nod, and you’re finally compete with the grabpack, finally setting it down on the ground beside you. You watch as DogDay stretches and yawns, he tries to make himself as comfortable as he can.

“Am I still allowed to call you DogDay, though? Or do you prefer Oskar?”

You watch as he seems to take a moment to consider your proposal before replying, “I’ll answer

regardless of whatever you decide to call me by, Angel.”

You nod, “DogDay it is then-“ you smile warmly at the canid, “-it suits you the most, after all...” you

gently boop his nose with your finger and watch as he chuckled, his whole body shaking in response to the wave of happiness.

“Thank you, my dear” You smile.

“Oh!” You jump up, suddenly remembering what else you wanted to ask him, “One last question?” “Anything for you, Angel, you deserve as much.”

“Where you an employee of Playtime Co. like my parents? A technician? A doctor?”

He shook his head, “No, not quite, I was... a low-level researcher during my time here...” he recalls,

“Pardon my memory, Angel, but I can hardly recall that era of my life. All I can offer you in response was that I helped the children in the Play area... that’s as far as my memory goes. Again, my deepest apologies.”

You shake your head, “It’s okay, I don’t expect you to recall everything that happened to you...”

You yawn and stretch, and watch as DogDay does the same.

“It appears that rest is in order...” he states, “Come now, Angel. You must regain your energy-“ he says, patting the space in front of him.

You nod, making your way over to him, you decide to give him ample space to himself , but watch as his arm lazily droops over your waist, holding you there.

“-I sense that we’ll need all the energy we can muster for what’s to come next.”

You hum in agreement and sigh, grateful for this moment of respite to finally gather your energy and your bearings.

Despite laying down with DogDay on the hard wooden floor over a less than comfortable blanket, you find that you’re not as tired as you imagined.

No amount of counting sheep and thinking of stories within your head help to lull you into the warm embrace of sleep.

Your eyes pan over to DogDay and watch him, he’s still as can be safe for the slow rising and falling of

his chest.

He’s sound asleep.

Good, you know he needs it more than anyone.

Suddenly! An idea crosses your mind;If you’re GOING to defeat CatNap and put an end to this once and for all, you know deep down inside that with the current state that he’s in, DogDay won’t survive not even one minute next to the feline.

You HAVE to do something about it.

That’s when your brain reminds you of the red-and-white polka dot skirt you took from Miss Delight’s corpse.

You wager that if you can scour the remnants of these offices, you’ll probably find just enough fabric scraps to not only patch up DogDay, but hopefully gift him with new legs.

Determined to have this happen, you slowly and carefully pry yourself from DogDay’s warm embrace, you don’t want to rouse him awake. He NEEDS to rest.

Once freed, you slowly make your way out of the room, creeping along just quietly enough to not make as much noise as you can.

As you leave, you close the door behind you and slink off...

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Chapter 11: DogDay awakens to you missing.

Something feels wrong.

DogDay finds himself being roused by sleep’s warm embrace by none other than his own body.

He blinks a few times, removing the haze from his eyes. When they finally adjusts he notices the empty

space in front of him.

He feels his heart sink.

“Angel?” He half whispers, begging the stars above that you’re just behind him, distracted by the clutter

of papers.

With great effort, he gets himself to turn over and when he doesn’t see your form, a pang of terror

overwhelms him.

All he can think of is CatNap.

CatNap.

That FUCKER.

Rage bubbles inside of him.

Did he take you away from him when the two of you were resting? Did he stalk the two of you and

waited to strike when a moment of weakness- of calmness, had finally befallen the two of you? How very typical of him.

That fucking cat.

Nay- that DEMON.

That THING wasn’t CatNap, it wasn’t his friend anymore, whatever that thing was, it needed to be

defeated. And to be rid of this world.

Feeling the fear rise inside of him, DogDay couldn’t control himself anymore and began calling out for you, desperately praying that you weren’t that far from him.

“ANGEL?!”

That you were still alive. “ANGEL!!”

DogDay began crawling for the door, pulling himself forward with the use of his arms with what little strength he had left inside of him.

Just as he reached the door, extending an arm for the door knob, the door swung open.

And there you stood. You were safe.

“Oh thank God” DogDay sighed, as a wave of relief washed over him. “DogDay-“ you start, “Are you okay, I-“

You watch as his demeanor shifts from that of relief to anger.

“Where the HELL did you go, Angel?!”

“I-“

Wait, no... it wasn’t anger.

“Do you have ANY IDEA how dangerous what you just did?!” He was afraid.

Afraid of losing YOU.

You bite your lower lip and turn to look away from his gaze, your eyes are cast downward. He’s right, you know.

What you did WAS- no, IS incredibly dangerous.

CatNap could’ve found you and taken you, and DogDay would’ve been none the wiser.

You step inside the room and close the door behind you, making sure to lock it as you do so for safety’s sake.

As you step inside, DogDay is finally able to take note of what you’re doing; on your hands are what appear to be various scraps of fabric and cloth, all in various colors and varying in the materials that they were made from.

It finally clicks for him what you were doing.

You were searching for materials to repair him with.

“I’m sorry”

You turn your head to face him.

“I-I’m sorry, Angel, I-I shouldn’t have- I-“

You set the materials aside and kneel down to hug DogDay, pulling him into your embrace.

“No, I’M sorry...” you correct him, “I should’ve told you before you went to sleep.”

DogDay gives you a loving squeeze as you hug him, “Still, that doesn’t warrant me, yelling at you. I’m

so sorry. Truly.”

You chuckle slightly but shake your head, “No, I think it’s warranted.”

You carefully pull away and help DogDay back on the blanket and move towards the desk where you’d set the materials down before sitting besides him.

“This was the best I could do-“ you explained, displaying to him all of the fabric and cloth pieces you found in a neatly arranged pile before him: most were scraps you’d manage to tear off from the covers of the desk chairs with the help of a knife, the rest were just an array of cloth from curtains used for the faux windows or extra company clothes that were in storage.

“Oh! And I also managed to get this too-“ you pulled towards you the red-and-white polka dot fabric that had now taken on the shape of a sack, it was holding something inside it.

Upon opening it, out spilled a hefty sized pile of cotton and pieces of foam.

“I got it from the office chairs, it’ll help me reconstruct your legs.”

DogDay nodded, eyeing the wide array of fabric closely before turning to you. “But... you don’t have any twine or or even string, how do you-?”

“-funny that you mentioned that-“ you stopped him, pulling out a small basket of sewing supplies, “-it looks like one of the employees here was a hobbyist sewer.”

Opening the container you showcased all of the supplies available to you; measuring take, seam ripper, tailors chalk, hand sewing needles, pins and pincushion as well as multiple spools of thread.

DogDay hums and nods, “I suppose you were quite lucky, Angel.” “Absolutely” you agreed.

“Now, let’s get this started-“ you began, “-let’s make sure you’re comfortable before I start-“ as you say that, you finally slip off the sweater that you had tied onto your waist. It was a miracle that the thing was still intact after going through so much.

Folding it, you placed it under his head as a makeshift pillow. “Better?” You asked him.

“Oh, Angel-“ he gasped slightly, surprised. “-you don’t have t-“ “Better?” You echoed.

He nodded, “Better”

“Good” you smiled warmly and moved back into position, sitting in front of his open lower half.

It was incredibly jarring to you that you could just see inside of him like that, especially being able to see

what you assumed to be the sack that was likely holding his insides together.

Shaking off the worry that crept into you, you willed yourself to continue. You got this.

DogDay remained quiet as you worked on sewing him up, his eyes were focused mainly on how your nimble and graceful fingers gilded about.

You grabbed the fabric that was harvested from the office chairs since the material was the strongest and used that to reinforce the now sewn shut lower half. This piece of fabric was placed atop that area and sewn over.

As you worked, you found yourself humming the same song that your mother would sing to you since you were a baby: “♩♩♩ ♭♭♩♩♩♭♭...”

“You are my Sunshine” DogDay commented.

You laughed, blushing slightly, “Thanks, you too” you joked, knowing fully well he was just talking about the title.

DogDay, though incapable of blushing, audibly made a strangled noise which only made you laugh. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

“Angel”

“Sorry, sorry! I’m just messing with you!”

He laughs, and the sound makes you smile.

It’s been a while since you had any semblance of normalcy, it was nice. You wanted more of this.

Yes, you wanted more moments just like this one.

But with HIM alongside you.

It took a LONG while, but by the time you were done, you managed to sew DogDay a brand new pair of legs, made of mismatched fabric and cloth.

DogDay helped himself to sit up with his hands and eyed his new lower half.

“How does it feel?” You asked, “Are you able to move?”

DogDay attempted to move his foot but found that nothing occurred, worried he tried again and again. You stopped him with a gentle hand placed over his stomach, “It’s okay, don’t worry, it might take some

time for your body to realize that you now have a lower half.” You commented, “The same happens to humans who undergo surgeries where they reattach limbs after accidents or for people who wake up from comas. It takes the body some time to catch up and work.”

“Don’t overwork yourself and just take it slow, okay?”

DogDay nodded, “Thank you, Angel. I’m eternally indebted to you.” He proclaimed, gently he took your hand in his own hand and gave it a loving squeeze.

You couldn’t but smile and return the squeeze, “Anything for you, pumpkin.” You don’t even take notice of the term of endearment that escapes your lips.

But he does, and in response his hold on your hand doesn’t let up.

Not that you’d complain about it.

A thought crosses your mind and you turn to look behind you, there’s enough fabric and foam left over that you could probably use it for...

you turn back to him.

“Hey-“

“Yes, my dear?”

“-how do you feel about getting a new tail?”

DogDay blinks for a moment, oh... right! Yeah, he realizes that doesn’t have one. “That would be a great addition, Angel.”

You let go of his hand and DogDay finds himself quite upset at the sudden lack of physical contact. He watches you move back over to where your supplies are and pick them up, resuming your work at sewing.

DogDay lets out a satisfied sigh as he observes.

In comparison to repairing his body and reconstructing his legs, making a tail takes significantly less time to build.

“Considering that you’re roughly the same size of an American doorway, 6ft 7in, I have enough to make your tail-“ you pause, taking out your measuring tape and taking the length of the now fully assembled tail.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Want to continue reading? Click Me!

#poppy playtime #dogday poppy playtime #poppy playtime x reader #poppy playtime chapter 3 #x reader #dogday x reader #poppy playtime DogDay #dogday

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heavyhitterheaux · 3 months

Text

Drive Safe Part 2

First Lady of Private Garden Fic (Alternate Universe)

AN: 😉😉😉

Synopsis: Jack has to deal with the aftermath of releasing Drive Safe and you learning that the song was about you. He is trying to do anything to make you forgive him, including confronting your best friend about something that happened between the two of them

Pairing: Ex-husband!Jack Harlow x Ex-wife!Reader

Read Part 1 First

Please Do Not Repost My Content Anywhere

After you told Jack to get out the house, you went and locked yourself in your studio so that he was able to get all of his belongings out of your shared bedroom.

But you knew he wasn't going to leave without a fight and kept knocking on the studio door and pleading with you to open it.

“Baby, please let me fix this. I'm going to fix this. Just open the door so we can talk.” Jack pleaded with you as you had a steady stream of tears running down your face.

When you were quiet, he spoke up again.

“I know I messed up, but I'm going to prove to you that I deserve to have another chance. I love you and that’s never going to change. I fell in love with you when I was fourteen and that's not going away anytime soon.”

Once you heard his footsteps walk away from the door, you waited a few minutes before calling Urban. Because at this point, you didn't know what to do anymore.

Of course he picked up on the first ring.

“Lil Bit…”

You couldn't even get any words out and Urban immediately just heard you sobbing.

“I'm coming, okay? Be there soon.” He said and quickly hung up. You were simply sitting on the floor and trying to stop yourself from going into a full blown panic attack.

You sent him a text to let him know that you were in the studio and did your best to get up off the floor in order to be able to open the door for him. The tears continued to flow as you sat on the couch and simply stared off into space in disbelief. About 20 minutes later, Urban was walking through the door and simply came and sat next to you while he wrapped his arms around you and you cried into his chest.

“I know and I'm sorry my best friend is an asshole. He didn't even warn me before he did it either.”

Every time you tried to talk, it just came out as sobs and he got nervous knowing that a panic attack was going to follow.

“Y/N, I need you to breathe. Not only for yourself, but for the babies. Take slow deep breaths for me.”

It took you a few minutes to even your breathing, but once you did you finally spoke.

“Urban, what did I do to deserve this?” You whispered while starting to play with the end of your curly hair.

“You didn't do anything for him to talk about you the way that he did. You've given him chance after chance but he keeps fucking it up.”

“My ex-husband writes songs about me and bashes me all while accusing me of doing something that I had no intention to do from the beginning, my supposed friends took his side when I filed for divorce and basically said I was a shitty person, but would have done anything for them, my so called other best friend probably fucked my husband but both of them steadily deny it, and I'm pregnant with three kids. How the fuck can I bring them into the world when my life is a dumpster fire? I am literally in this by myself because everyone has turned their back on me. Well, except you, which I'm very grateful for.” You said being completely honest as the tears were starting to slow down.

“I'm never going to turn my back on you. You are going to be the best mother to the three of them and that goes without saying. I can't speak for everyone else in PG, but we all know how wrong Jack was and I told him off about it. I said from the beginning before he even got signed that I would cuss his ass out if he ever did anything to hurt you. I was like she's been there since forever when your ass didn't have a damn thing to your name and not to switch up when he got famous, but of course that went in one ear and out the other.” As soon as that came out of his mouth, his phone started to ring and he looked down to see that it was Jack.

He looked back up at you as if he was asking for permission and you simply shrugged.

“You're his best friend too.” Was all you said before he decided to answer it. When he did, you could tell that Jack had actually been crying.

“Jack.” Was all Urban said before Jack started having a full blown meltdown.

“Urb, I fucked up. I fucked up bad. She's literally never going to forgive me for this.”

“Hmm, so why did you do it in the first place?”

“I overheard her talking to Taylor and I… accused her of going to file for full custody when that was never her intention. I thought that she was agreeing with her. I got pissed, started distancing myself, and then that's when I wrote it.”

“Instead of actually talking to her?”

“Look, it wasn't my best moment, okay?” Jack answered as he ran a hand through his curls, clearly frustrated.

“You've been having shitty moments ever since you separated from her. And didn't I tell you to never forget that she was actually there when you didn't have a damn thing to your name?”

“I know…”

“Be honest with me for a second.” Urban started to say before sighing.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Did you cheat on her with Taylor? Or cheat on her at all?”

“Urb! Why the fuck would you ask me that!?”

“You know the fuck why so answer the question.” Urban fired back and you were sitting there simply listening.

“I have never cheated on her with Taylor or anyone else. She is literally the only person I want. I admit that when I went to see Taylor when I was upset it wasn't my best idea because when I finished explaining to her how I felt about the whole situation, she tried to kiss me, but I immediately pushed her away from me. That's why I haven't really been around her. I’ve hurt Y/N enough and I’ll be damned if I cheat on the person that I’m trying to get to marry me again.”

Both of your mouths were hanging wide open.

“And why didn't you tell her this!? So you just let her have fake ass friends around her!?”

“I… Y/N loves her! I didn't know how to tell her that and besides if I had told her at that time, she probably wouldn't have believed me!”

“She needs to hear that from you as soon as possible.”

“How? She doesn't want to talk to me.”

“Then you better have a good ass plan to get her to. I’m tired of this and I’m not even in the damn relationship.”

“Do you think that she'll ever forgive me?” Jack asked hopeful, but all Urban did was look at you. When you didn't give him an answer, he came up with the best response that he could.

“You want me to be honest? No. I don't think she ever will. But only time will tell.”

A few days had passed and Jack had simply been moping around his condo in his feelings and trying to think of a way to get you to talk to him. He wanted to tell you about Taylor, but he didn't know where to start or even how to bring it up in a conversation. He always told you that he would never cheat on you and the thought had never crossed his mind even when you did file for divorce. He felt as if she wasn't actually being a good friend to you and actually driving the two of you apart even further. That was when he sent a text to her since his thought process was if you had actually heard it from her, then maybe just maybe you would talk to him.

Jack- Taylor, you need to tell her

Taylor- Hi to you too and what are you talking about?

Jack- Don’t play dumb

Taylor- Nothing happened so there's nothing to tell

Jack- But it would have if I didn't move and the fact that you even thought it was okay to do that is a problem in itself. She adores you, but you decided to try and kiss her husband

Taylor- And you're the one who would come to me all times of the night and talking shit about what she had done looking for sympathy. Does she know that?

Jack- I needed someone to listen! I would NEVER cheat on my wife. She's my first love.

Taylor- Ex-wife, remember?

Jack- Either you tell her or I will

Taylor- You honestly think that she's going to believe you?

Jack- Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be

Taylor- Oh how the tables have turned. I recall you REJOICING when she brought up divorce but now you're begging her to take you back?

Jack- Because that's what I thought I wanted, but I don't anymore. I want my wife and my kids. And what the hell was up with you telling her to file for full custody?

Taylor- I was just giving her options. That's all.

Jack- Sounded like you were trying to drive a deeper wedge between us.

Taylor- Think what you want, but my intentions were never to hurt either of you. I'll be honest and I'll tell her knowing that she's never going to forgive me

Jack- Well your ass should have thought about that. She's been nothing but good to you.

Taylor- And I can say the exact same thing to you

Jack- Look just tell me when you talk to her

Jack then threw his phone on the couch beside him and let out a sigh. He had no idea if Taylor was actually going to go through with It, but if she didn't he would have no choice but to tell you himself. He knew that you had another doctor's appointment in about two weeks and was hoping that you would at least talk to him before that. He looked at his phone again before grabbing it and sending you a text.

Jack- Baby, I just want to talk. Please.

He saw where you had read the text and nothing more came after that.

Meanwhile, you were at home when you decided to make peach cobbler cheesecake since you had been bored out of your mind. Ever since the song came out and you kicked Jack out of the house, you had been keeping to yourself and staying inside with Urban, your parents, Jack's parents, Clay, Dani, and your best friends checking on you.

Even your so-called best friend Taylor

You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but something was off with her and she had been acting differently ever since you told her that you wanted to divorce Jack. She didn't really say that she supported you, but didn't exactly say that she didn't either.

But in your heart of hearts, you knew that something happened between them but you just didn't know what.

You wanted to believe Jack, you truly did, but you just didn't know.

There was movement detected on your ring camera and you looked to see that it was Neelam and quickly rolled your eyes. You already knew that she wasn't here to check on you and probably only showed up for her own benefit and anything concerning Jack.

Unblocking her number quickly from your phone, you sent a quick text.

Because ever since the song came out, everyone associated with Jack got blocked. Including everyone in PG except Urban.

You- Please leave immediately

Neelam- Y/N, I just want to talk

You- Yeah, you and everyone else. You don't like me, remember? And you were glad that in your words, ‘Jack got rid of her’

Neelam- Not my best moment, but I wanted to apologize

You- Let me guess. Apologize for your own benefit. In other words, Jack has been in his feelings and not wanting to work and you need me to talk to him so that he does.

Neelam- Well…

You- No one gives a flying fuck about me despite everything that I have done for them. And not ONE PERSON has asked me if I'm okay except Urban. I am not talking to him and I'm not talking to you so fuck off and get the hell away from my house.

Neelam- Y/N, I really am sorry

You- You can shove that apology up your ass

Blocking her number again, you put your phone faced down as you continued to make the cheesecake. You figured that Urban would probably help you eat it since you weren't talking to 2fo. Once the cheesecake was put into the freezer to harden, you picked your phone up once again to send Jack a text.

You- Tell Neelam to fuck all the way off and leave me alone

It took a matter of three seconds to get a response from him.

Jack- Wait, what happened?

You- Ask her

Jack threw his head back in frustration as he quickly dialed her number.

“Hello?”

“What did you do to my wife?”

“Your ex-wife and I went to see her.”

“For what? You don't like her and you've always made that clear. Even though she hasn't done a damn thing to you.”

“I…. Because even though there may be some truth to that, you were at your best when you were with her. And I wanted to see if she was okay after everything that happened, honestly. Because I see how you were after it and she told you not to come back home so….. I actually went to see her to try to convince her to talk to you. But, she wasn't having it and I get it. I was just trying to help.”

“Well don't. I've already made a big enough mess and I don't need anyone else making it worse. You should have known better, now she REALLY isn't going to want to talk to me.”

“Don't get mad at me for something that you did. No one held a gun to your head and made you release the song. And are you coming to the studio?”

“Bye Neelam.”

Jack hung up without another word and attempted to call you, but of course it went straight to voice-mail.

Wanting to take your mind off of everything that was going on around you, Urban came up with the idea of you having a maternity shoot. He was trying to get you out of the house to do it, but you steadily declined. The only time that you ever left was for your doctor’s appointments and was trying to keep your stress level non-existent.

“Y/N, getting some fresh air would do you some good.” Urban pleaded with you, but of course you shook your head no.

“No. I’m fine being in here. Hardly anyone knows about the pregnancy and I want to keep it that way until I decide to announce it.”

“But you literally don’t leave the house unless you absolutely have to.”

“What am I leaving the house for? I have food and my streaming accounts and my studio downstairs. There is literally no reason for me to leave.”

“Being by yourself all the time cannot be a good thing.”

“I don’t really have any friends anymore as far as I’m concerned. When I have them, they are going to be my primary focus. I might not even make music again. I’ll write and produce, but that might be it.”

“But you love performing, so that doesn’t sound right.”

All you did was shrug in response.

“And I love my ex-husband and look how that turned out.”

“I… wait…. As in present tense?” Urban asked while raising his eyebrows at you.

“Urban, don’t be stupid. Of course I still love him. Besides, he’s the father of these three.”

“Then can we just forgive and move on? You know he didn’t cheat on you with Taylor or with anyone else.”

“Because it’s not that simple. Time and time again he has thrown me under the bus so to speak so if he wants me to forgive him, he needs to work for it. But they both act weird when I mention the other person so something definitely did happen between them and no one wants to say anything, but one way or another I’m going to find out.”

“One thing at a time. Let’s get this shoot done first.”

“And I have the perfect outfit to wear for it.”

—

Liked by danivalentine, claybornharlow, urbanwyatt, jackharlow, saweetie, theshaderoom, theestallion, and 10,273,965 others

y/ninsta: it's you and me until the end of time. All three of you 💕

photo cred: godfather urbanwyatt 😘

jackharlow: 💖 saweetie: WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL THREE OF YOU?!?! jackharlowsource: oh shit and she's pregnant on top of everything else happening urbandjack25: oh my damn allthingsy/n: MUVA!!!!! danivalentine: cannot wait until they get here! taylorrooks: my best friend is prettier than yours and is going to be one amazing mother! 2forwoyne: oh shloob_: I feel like I was the last to know about this quiiso: congratulations first lady yungskylark: jackharlow ummm???? jackharlowsource: sooo he wrote that song knowing that he got her pregnant? WITH TRIPLETS? normani: AHHHHHHH SO EXCITED FOR YOU claybornharlow: one is named after me right? urbanwyatt: thank you for allowing me to do this for you 🥰 y/ninsta: urbanwyatt only the best for me and my babies

After you had basically broken the internet with your pregnancy announcement, you felt as if you were suffocating and that the walls were closing in on you. That was when you decided to go to your beach house in Miami for a small getaway and you were going by yourself. You and Jack still really weren’t on speaking terms and the most interaction that you two would have would be at your doctor’s appointments. You knew that he had been annoyed with you because of you posting the announcement, but you could tell that he didn’t dwell on it because he knew that it would be another thing to be pissed with him about.

The amount of messages flooding in from everyone wanting to apologize for how they treated you were steadily being ignored and you would answer them whenever you felt like it. Because as far as you were concerned, they thought that you were making a big deal about how Jack had been treating you and that any other girl would have been lucky to be in your place. However, one thing that you didn’t tolerate was disrespect and they were simply going to have to learn the hard way. They made their bed and now they have to lie in it.

Liked by jackharlow, taylorrooks, danivalentine, urbanwyatt, generationnow, neelamthadhani, and 6,281,902 others

y/ninsta: Didn’t know how much I needed this little vacay. Countdown until extraction date is on 😂

jackharlow: can't wait for that allthingsy/n: sooo are yall back together or? danivalentine: you are literally glowing jackandy/naremyparents: I would have kicked his ass for what he did

Comments on this post have been limited

It was now around eight in the morning when your phone suddenly went off and you looked down to see that it was Taylor.

Taylor- Hey, I’m in Miami doing coverage for the game tonight. Do you want to grab lunch so we can catch up?

You- Sure, what time?

Taylor- In an hour? Does that give you enough time?

You- Yes, just send me the address

That was when you decided that you were determined to get answers out of Taylor, no matter how much of a fight she put up. You needed to know what happened and you needed to know now because you were tired of this hanging over your head.

There the two of you were with Taylor sipping on a mimosa, when you just had straight orange juice and was looking over the menu. She had been eyeing you since the two of you sat down and you could tell that she wanted to say something.

“Taylor, would you just spit it out already? I know that there is something that you have to tell me, so why are you stalling? Just get it over with.”

“I… did he tell you?”

“Did who tell me what?” You asked as you looked at her confused and sat the menu down on the table.

“Did Jack tell you?”

“Taylor, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. The two of us aren’t really on speaking terms right now.”

“Oh.”

“Well, are you going to tell me?” You asked and she began to play with her bracelet that was on her left wrist.

“I…. never meant to hurt you. You have to understand that. It was just, Jack was coming to me and telling me how he was literally waiting for you to divorce him and then two days later came to me a crying, snotting mess and asking me if I could help him in getting you to change your mind. He would talk shit about everything that you did that he didn’t like and me being me trying to comfort him...”

“What the fuck did you do?” You whispered to her so that the people around you wouldn’t be able to hear.

“I tried to kiss him, but he immediately pushed me away from him. So I wasn’t lying and neither was he. He didn’t cheat on you. I’m sorry that I broke your trust. I don’t know what came over me to do that, but what’s done is done and I can’t take it back no matter how much I want to. Jack wanted to tell you, but he didn’t think that you would believe him.”

You simply sat there and stared at her. It was already common knowledge from his conversation with Urban that he didn’t cheat on you, and he had no idea that you had been listening, but the fact that your so-called best friend made a move on him instantly made you get a sour taste in your mouth.

“Y/N? Please say something.”

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#jack harlow #jack harlow fic #jack harlow fanfic #jack harlow x reader #jack harlow x black reader #jack harlow angst #jack harlow imagine #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow x you #first lady of pg

235 notes · View notes

pluckyredhead · 7 months

Note

hi! i'm new to comics and i got in through reading your fics and wayne family adventures. i've since started reading more of the mainstream verse and i realized that most comic fans consider wfa to be totally fanon. you're one of the few i saw that disagrees. would you mind elaborating a lil on why? i'm too new to really form an opinion either way but i'd like to know your's!

(also yes i really did stalk your blog back years worth of posts i'm sorry! 😭😭)

Aw I love this! Welcome!

So I think it's really important to be clear on definitions here:

Canon means it's part of an official text. It's literally in a comic (or book or movie or other property) published or licensed by DC.

Fanon means it's made up by fans. That doesn't mean bad or good, it just means that it comes from fandom and is not part of the official text.

Wayne Family Adventures is an official licensed comic by DC, so by definition, it cannot be fanon. That doesn't mean everyone has to like it, but it's not a fan comic. It's an official DC product. It's not fanon.

Now, WFA isn't part of the main DCU canon. It takes place in a separate universe. The Jason in Batman #138 and the Jason in WFA are not the same and they are having very different experiences. (And I'm sure the Jason in WFA would be grateful if he knew.)

But that's no different than a comic that takes place in an alternate universe, like Dark Knights of Steel or DCeased, or a movie like Blue Beetle or a show like My Adventures with Superman. They all take place in their own universes, but all of those universes are canon. None of them are fanon.

What I think most people mean when they say WFA is fanon is that WFA draws on tropes and characterizations that are popular in fandom. Which...yes, absolutely. This is on purpose, and honestly, it pisses me off when people complain about it. (Not you, anon! Your question was lovely, you just triggered my unskippable cut scene of dialogue. Sorry lol.)

Wayne Family Adventures is probably the single best idea DC has had in the 20 years I've been reading comics. (The second best was the kids and YA graphic novel lines.)

I just checked, and WFA has 1.3 MILLION subscribers. That's more than every floppy comic starring Batman sells in a month, combined. It's more than literally any superhero comic has sold in decades - in this century! The combined strips have over A HUNDRED MILLION VIEWS. That is bonkerstown. That is a readership like DC hasn't seen since the 1970s. That is unparalleled success, and it's introducing characters like Kate Kane and Duke Thomas to a whole new audience.

Now, WFA was clearly designed to appeal to Batfans who were active on social media and fanfic sites like AO3 and Wattpad, and Webtoon readers. The readership of Webtoon is mostly young and female. Fandom as a whole is mostly female. The writer of WFA is female.

And maybe I'm not being fair here, but when I see people dismiss WFA as "just fanon," I always catch a whiff of "It's not a real Batman comic. It's a girl comic for girls."

I have spent the past 20 years begging DC (and Marvel, DC is not alone in this) to see women as a viable audience - as their largest potential growth audience! I have watched in dumbfounded frustration as they ignored the juggernaut success of Raina Telgemeier and Ngozi Ukazu and Alice Oseman running rings around the NY Times bestseller list and counted a 50k shipment here and there as a resounding triumph. I have literally seen them throw out survey responses from women because "those women had an agenda." (This is a true story. 2011 was rough, y'all.)

And all of a sudden, they gave us a comic actually catering to women and young people and fandom, and they put it on the most popular, current, modern platform for comics availably - and it's brilliant. It's smart and funny and stunningly drawn and every episode makes clever, inventive use of the scrolling format. They FINALLY gave us a girl comic for girls, and it's a masterpiece.

And yes, it riffs on fanon concepts. It also has its roots firmly in mainstream DCU canon. It references deep cuts. CRC Payne and StarBite know their shit. Jason Todd being a bookworm may be a fanon staple, but he does plenty of reading - including Jane Austen - in the 100% canon mainstream DCU comics.

It's not going to be for everything, because nothing is. It's completely fine if you don't like WFA. No one has to read it or enjoy it. If you're into Batman for the darkness and the crime and the ongoing plotlines and the angst, WFA won't be for you, and that's totally fine!

But to finally, finally be valued as a reader by DC, to have them do something smart and innovative and so, so well executed, and have the exact people they made it for dismiss it out of hand because Bruce has a "World's Okayest Dad" mug or whatever? Yeah, that chafes.

#wayne family adventures #this one's gonna get me in trouble

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mrsjellymunson · 7 months

Text

Hello, Stranger

Pairing: Eddie Munson x gn!reader, Eddie Munson x you, Eddie Munson x reader

For @lesservillain’s excellent Strange and Spooky Stories Halloween writing event for the prompt: ‘Stranger’

Summary: A stranger comes in to buy weird stuff at odd times, and as the cashier at the local hardware store you’re not quite sure what to make of it…

CW: 18+ (MDNI), fluff, maybe SFW though caution for mature and dark themes and allusions to crime and violence. Flirting, li’l bit of awkwardness, some swearing. Both Eddie and reader are in their 20s. Reader’s gender and appearance are not described, they can be whatever you want. No use of y/n. Time period is not mentioned, and any inaccuracies/inconsistencies about history, equipment, American schooling (I’m not from around these parts) or science are deliberate and artistic oh yes they are. No smut, I thought I’d better assess whether I could string a semi-coherent story together before attempting to add that 😆

WC: ~6.2k

A/N: I love gore, revenge movies, murder shows, true crime, science/biology/forensics and DIY (sort of), so this prompt seemed like a perfect fit. There are tiny Easter eggs from The Equalizer, Breaking Bad, 80s crime TV, The Blacklist and John Wick in here - let me know if you spot any! This is the first ‘proper’ fic I’ve posted so I’d love to know what you think. Comments, reblogs and feedback are hugely appreciated and very welcome!

(Also this is my first attempt at dividers too, I hope they worked, I literally have no idea what I’m doing!)

Yep, you were ‘that’ weird kid. Your friends in Middle School had called you a freak because you brought squirrel tails and chicken feet to show’n’tell.

“But look! If you pull this tendon it makes the claw close! Isn’t that cool?!”

No, apparently that was not cool. Especially when demonstrated against your teacher’s finger...

You’d visit a friend whose father was a doctor, begging to read his medical and pathology text books, and preferring to look at pictures of dissected and diseased organs and spontaneous human combustion over braiding your friend’s hair or talking about boys.

And, apparently, scoring a class-topping 9.5/10 for your rat dissection also wasn’t the social merit badge you thought it might be, even amongst your science-abreast academic peers.

So what if you had a strong constitution. And a love of anatomy and pathology. And then compounded it with a love of true crime, particularly serial killers and forensic methods. Surely there were worse things to be interested in?

By the time you’d finished High School you’d learned to mask your enthusiasm, covering your (apparently, socially unacceptable) fascination for all things ‘gross’ and ‘murderous’ (your friends’ words) by choosing science majors like human anatomy and pathology, criminal behaviour and forensics.

People just thought you were clever, nerdy, a scientist. You never let on that you were itching to actually experience some of these things for yourself, in real time, with your own hands…

You work the evening shift at the sprawling out-of-town homewares store on the road running out of Indianapolis towards a tiny town you’ve never been to (Hawksville? Hawking?). You work a few evenings a week plus alternate Sundays, currently in the gardening, kitchen and hardware department. It wouldn’t be your chosen section of the store (in the short time you’ve been there you’ve had to amass a lot of knowledge about tools. Also, how to politely deflect the regulars’ offers to share details of their new projects, lest you get drawn in to a half-hour discussion about u-bends or rawl plugs), but the hours suit you and fit around your college classes, and the employee discount comes in handy when things in your shitty apartment break down or your roommate carelessly breaks something, again.

The final few hours of your shifts were usually pretty quiet, barring the occasional domestic plumbing emergency, or a bored Hawkins housewife coming in looking for batteries.

You don’t mind spending your evenings amongst the tools and machinery, it gives you a chance to flick through the latest copy of forensic magazine or True Crime, or work on your college assignments.

One thing that does make the slow evenings more entertaining is the unusual clientele. A nerdy-looking guy with a moustache needing releasable cable ties, cooking oil and a large plastic sheet at 9.30pm must have an interesting backstory, right?

You find yourself concocting fantastical vignettes about the oddballs that pass through, giving them the most amusing or disturbing story you can think of as they glide by in the night.

The guy with the cable ties? Too easy. Clearly he’s got a ‘special friend’ and an interesting evening planned. TBH, that’s probably not even fictional. You call him Salacious Scott.

The friendly, rotund lady who regularly comes in for for buckets and sawdust? You know it’s Mrs Henderson, who is trying to go self-sufficient and has recently installed a composting toilet, but you prefer to imagine she’s actually a madam with a ‘specialist interest’ playroom, who you brand Madame Urolagnia.

The paranoid guy with a beard and thick glasses who won’t tell you his name, buys a lot of vodka from the liquor store nearby and comes in for plastic pipe, cladding and those slot-together foam mats for kids? He tells you he’s into martial arts and these make safe weapon facsimiles for training, but you reckon he’s actually some kind of government agent. Your imaginary name for him is Mysterious Murray.

One oddball in particular has caught your attention, and not just because he’s easily the handsomest customer you’ve had in a while.

Wait, no, you didn’t just admit that; you just find him interesting, that’s all.

It was his speed and demeanour that had struck you first, rushing in, hand atop the bandana on his head, gangly legs in ripped jeans looking like they were trying to run in two different directions at once, large, dark eyes wide as he’d frantically looked around the store.

“Uh, rope, I need rope, where’d you keep the rope?”

You’d blurted some instructions and he’d headed off, not looking in your direction.

His leather jacket and swinging chains certainly commanded attention amongst the flannel and blue denim that was usually in your line of sight, and you’d found your eyes following him, catching sight of him moving between the aisles from your position behind the counter.

He’d moved towards you with a sturdy knife, a shovel and 3 rolls of duct tape that he’d collected on his way to the checkout, arms full (he didn’t pick up a basket), when you’d ventured,

“I’d recommend the next brand up, if you want something stronger with better sticking power? It costs a little more, but it’s better quality, so overall you’ll use less”, (silently thanking Mr Wheeler’s recent diatribe on the merits and pitfalls of various brands of adhesive tape, remembering the detail because he’d gone so far as to demonstrate by sticking small pieces of it to your skin. It was a weird interaction for sure, but also oddly informative).

He’d lifted his head to look at you and your eyes had connected for the first time. Your eyes widened, and you think you spotted a slight twitch of a smile at one side of his mouth.

Oh, he’s actually really cute.

“Uh, okay, if you think that’s best”.

He dropped his eyes from yours and, after unceremoniously dumping everything else onto your counter, he’d exchanged the rolls and returned.

You’d both paused, you don’t know for how long, and you’d wondered how someone buying rope could be so captivating. But the spell was broken as you’d both spoke simultaneously:

“Did you find everything you need?”

“I’m kinda in a rush, so…”

You’d both chuckled nervously, and you’d set about ringing up his purchases, noticing that a small smile definitely now graced those previously harried features.

He’d paid with a handful of old, crumpled bills pulled from his jacket, politely declining your offer of a bag, and then he was gone as quick as he came, hurrying out into the night with the swish of the automatic doors and a breeze of parking lot-scented night air.

You didn’t know why anyone would need rope and a shovel at that time on a weeknight, but with this particular guy, who you dubbed The Stranger, you found yourself thinking that you wouldn’t mind finding out.

You’d unintentionally spent the rest of that evening coming up with fantasies about that particular customer, although, unusually for you, quite a few of them hadn’t actually involved what was on his receipt…

When The Stranger next comes in he’s after heavyweight garbage bags, more tape and a saw, but seems in slightly less of a rush.

He pauses at your counter for a few moments, making polite conversation, asking how long you’d been working here, whether you were working late tonight.

Is he trying to… flirt? Surely not…

“Thanks for the tape recommendation by the way, it was a real lifesaver. That stuff’s really good, I definitely have a new favourite!”, gracing you with a broad grin (oh fuck, that was a sight) before he was on his way again.

Another time he bought shears, tarp and a large quantity of painting coveralls.

The next trip involved wire cutters, buckets and a wet’n’dry vacuum.

You begin to enjoy The Stranger coming in buying random shit at odd hours. You can’t quite make him out. He buys a lot of gardening and decorating-type equipment (plus he’s almost single-handedly keeping the cleaning product aisle in business), but he dresses like neither - always in tight, ripped jeans, shredded band tees and his signature leather jacket. You’ve never seen him covered in leaves or dirt, and his clothes have zero paint on them. Those coveralls must do a really good job…

You build up a rapport of sorts with him. There’s always a polite, verging on friendly greeting between you, and you let him know when there’s special offers on tarp and garbage bags, and what days there are deliveries of latex gloves and those painting coveralls he seems to like so much. (Sometimes you’ll even stash a few of the latter for him under the counter if there’s a holiday weekend coming up, knowing Hawkins’ husbands will be out in force and not wanting him to miss out.)

But the ‘fantasy vignette’ and forensically-inclined parts of your brain begin to overlap, and start to tickle your imagination. It’s almost as if each selection of items he buys could be used to either dispatch someone, or dispose of a body. But that’s crazy, right? He seems way too nice to be a serial killer. And mob activity in this part of Indiana? Nah. That wouldn’t happen around here.

Would it?

It’s a quiet Friday night when you next see The Stranger. He’s picked up bolt cutters, pliers, some metal trays, a sledgehammer, a mop, and, most bizarrely of all because you’ve noticed he’s not usually one for personal safety equipment, ear defenders.

Again, he’s basket-less, barely able to contain the items piled up in his arms. They topple as he arrives at your counter, and some end up partially covering your open magazine.

“Shit, I’m really sorry about that.”

“Oh, no problem, honestly. I probably shouldn’t be reading on the clock anyway”, you say, slightly bashful, as you move the crumpled magazine out from underneath his items, smoothing it down. The Stranger’s eyes are locked on your hands, and as they move across the page they reveal a headline about a recently apprehended serial murderer and some photographs of a variety of grisly-looking, bloody weapons.

“That looks… interesting, watcha reading there?”, he remarks, leaning in.

“Oh, this? It’s about a new guy they’ve just caught over in Europe. He’s fascinating, he used such a variety of tools and methods that at first the police didn’t even think to link the crimes. Ingenious, really, when you think about it. So creative!”

You look up, and The Stranger is regarding you with an unreadable expression. Does he think you’re weird, babbling on about this murderer like you admire him? Or is he actually impressed with your enthusiasm?

“Sorry, I’m a true crime buff, it’s a bit of a pet topic of mine. And I’m studying forensics at college, so it’s kind of like schoolwork too.” You chuckle nervously, arms moving in front of your body and shoulders subtly curling in on yourself in embarrassment.

The Stranger seems to sense your discomfort, and shakes his head, making his curls bounce, smiling and chuckling along with you.

“No, yeah, uh, me too with the crime thing, actually. Well, not so much the reading, I’m more of a hear-it-through-the grapevine, hands on kinda guy.”

‘Hands on’? WTF does that mean?

“Oh, cool, coolcoolcool”. Smooth…

As you scan his items your fantasy vignette tickles your brain again.

No, don’t be silly…

You bag everything up this time, insisting it’ll be easier to carry, handing them to him and taking his crumpled bills.

Your curiosity is more than piqued and you can’t hold it in any longer. Feeling bold, you ask, “So, what’s all this for?”

“Huh?”

“The- the stuff. What’re you doin’ with it?”

The Stranger looks at you through his lashes, not speaking.

Shit, you’ve overstepped, he’s gonna leave, find a different store and you’ll never see him again.

“Uh, well, some people I know out near the big city are, er, planning a, uh, party, with a few of their, um, associates, and I think it’s gonna get pretty loud, hence the earphones. I, uh, don’t usually get involved in stuff until later in the evening, y’know, after all the main fun’s over.”

You look a little quizzical.

He thinks for a moment.

“I tidy up, but I sorta make it a bit more fun for everyone. Bring a bit of pizazz to a usually mundane part of the evening. Kinda thing.”

You process for a few moments. The ‘Mob Cleaner’ vignette you’d fantasised about screams loud and long into your cerebrum.

Nerves give way to curiosity, and you brashly ask, “So, what exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m kind of a cleaner, I guess? If someone has a problem that they’ve had dealt with and they wanna make the cleanup more, um, interesting, I’m the guy they call.”

Probing further, you clarify, “So you don’t make the, uh, mess, you just clean it up. Creatively?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

He explains he’s still quite new to the job, and kinda fell into it. His boss and his mentor are both encouraging, saying his USP is truly original (Unique Selling Point, he explains when you look confused), and that he definitely ‘has potential’. He’s learning a lot as he goes, but his enthusiasm seems to be appreciated and he wants to do well.

“All you really need is a strong stomach, imagination and a flair for the dramatic!”

He illustrates his last point by making jazz hands by the sides of his head, offering you a generous smile. Yeah, you can see how that particular part of the job comes easy to him.

“Oh, well, it sounds like fun. I hope you have a very successful evening!”

“Okay, well, thanks again! I’ll see you.”

You watch him leave, noticing in particular how well his jeans fit tonight.

What’s that saying again - I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave…?

You shake your head to rid yourself of the lewd - and crazy, yeah, totally crazy - thoughts you’re having about The Stranger and encourage yourself back into work mode.

As you busy yourself and tidy your counter you notice something small and white on the floor in front, about the size of a credit card. It must’ve fallen out of his jacket as he fumbled for cash.

Cash. Always cash. Never credit card, never cheque, never — anything traceable…

You round the counter and pick it up, thinking you’d save it and return it to him the next time he comes in. It’s a business card. The text is unfussy and clear, but glossy, bold and slightly gothic. It’s a company name above some text and a pager number, but it may well be the most intriguing piece of writing that you’ve ever come across:

E.M. Creative Disposal Services, Apprentice to Mr Kaplan & Associates, For dinner reservations call: (555)-666-6969

It’s another quiet night, but there’s already a couple of people at the counter when The Stranger arrives. Mr Sinclair needs a pipe wrench and a plunger (you don’t envy him his evening), and Mrs Wheeler has come in to buy double-As for the second time this month (although this time she also added gardening gloves and secateurs to pad out her basket. Not that you’d judge either way).

You spot The Stranger’s curls before anything else, bobbing in the fluorescent lights as he comes through the entrance doors. He spots the queue and immediately joins it, glancing towards the counter and visibly brightening when he sees you behind it. He’s carrying the sledgehammer he bought last time. As you start to ring up Mrs Wheeler’s batteries you see him examining the head of the hammer. Frowning slightly, he moistens his thumb with his tongue and rubs at one corner, then polishes the same spot on the front of his jeans.

He reaches the counter, receipt retrieved from a bundle pulled from inside his jacket.

You greet each other with a quiet ‘hey’. He continues, “I, uh, wanted to return this. Can I do that?”

“Yeah, sure, lemme ring it through the till. Can I ask why? Company policy,” you shrug, almost apologetically.

“Sure, uh, well you know that phase ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut‘? Turns out a sledgehammer does indeed obliterate the, uh, nuts… Let’s just say it wasn’t really suitable for the project I had in mind. I think I need something…”

Lighter? Easier to aim?

“With a little more finesse?” You venture, eyebrows raised, hoping you haven’t completely misread things.

“Yeah, finesse! I like that”. He beams widely at you tilting his head slightly, revealing the most gorgeous dimples you’ve ever seen, and it’s all you can do to hold on to the edge of the counter while your knees gently fail beneath you.

“Umm, you want some help choosing?”

He readily agrees and you direct him to the hammer section, both of you discussing the merits and disadvantages of various models as you choose ones from the display and encourage him to feel their weight and balance. He seems impressed, clearly not expecting you to be so well-versed in the finer aspects of hardware.

“Y’know, you really know your tools!”

You squeak out a bashful, “Thanks.”

You slip into self-deprecating mode and brush off his compliment, saying, “It comes with the territory I guess. I’ve picked up a lot working here. Plus I just sometimes browse the shelves, thinking of nefarious uses for random household objects.” Hurriedly adding, “For school, of course!”

You cringe a bit, thinking this must make you look like some kind of weirdo, but The Stranger takes it easily in his stride, commenting, “You know, you’d be surprised to learn just how much of a marketable skill that can be.”

You chat some more and he eventually chooses a smaller, less unwieldy hammer, and after he pays you part ways again.

You still desperately want to ask him exactly what he used that other hammer for, what ‘Creative Disposal Services’ actually means, and what the hell have dinner reservations got to do with any of this?

The next night you see The Stranger he saunters in at about 8:30. He has a different energy about him this evening, seeming both more relaxed but also somewhat on edge. He’s not in his usual ratty band tee tonight, you notice, and no leather jacket either. Instead he’s wearing a what looks to be a clean, maybe even pressed, electric blue raglan shirt with black half length sleeves. You spot a crimson guitar pick necklace that you’ve not seen before dangling from a twinkling silver ball chain, resting against his sternum and resplendent against the blue.

Observing his forearms for the first time you notice how attractive - and (oh!) tattooed - they are. Toned and veined, their shape and his mix of tattoos are shown off to perfection by that sleeve length, and a leather and chain bracelet that adorns one powerful-looking wrist. The glint of his chunky silver rings accentuates his large hands that peek out of his jeans pockets as he wanders over to you. He’s still in tight black jeans, but they seem a little… neater than usual. And he’s not in a rush. It’s almost like he’s not working, maybe even making an effort.

You feel a frisson of excitement - could it be that he’s come in just to see you?

Exhibit A, m’lud: Scrubbing up well.

He heads straight for your counter, and you greet each other with your characteristic friendliness.

He spies the hefty text books you’ve spread before you, and leans onto the counter to get a closer look.

“Watcha workin’ on tonight, Doctor Quincy?”

You swallow at the cute nickname, voice cracking slightly as you start to tell him about the assignment you’ve got. It’s about evidential tool marks, and how pathologists can identify what’s been used as a weapon or tool of dismemberment.

The Stranger tries to play down his interest, but his demeanour betrays him as he presses for more details, even asking if he could maybe read the finished piece.

That’s weird, right? People don’t read other people’s science essays for fun. Do they?

But you agree, promising to bring him a copy when it’s done.

The conversation lulls, and The Stranger twists the pad of one of his thumbs against the counter, seemingly a little nervous, though you can’t imagine what about.

To break the silence you slip into work mode, but for some reason drop your voice a couple of octaves and murmur,

“So anyway, what is it that can I help you with, sir?”

Wait, is he blushing?

“Um, oh, uh, I actually don’t have a shopping list today, I was, uh, just gonna browse, I guess.”

He backs away from your counter, giving it a few rhythmic slaps with his fingertips before turning away from you and ambling off into the store. He returns a few moments later with a small hatchet and mid-range fold-out knife, plus two rolls of his now-favourite tape.

“You can never have too many of these, amirite?”

He gives you that dimpled smile again, and you feel your stomach do a full (though anatomically impossible) 360° flip.

Observing his lack of focus and comparatively small selection of items, you wonder if he really needs those things, or whether he’s just picking them up as an excuse to come in to the store. Your chest heats up a little at the thought.

Exhibit B: Small, possibly unnecessary purchase. The evidence is mounting up.

Seeing the hatchet, your eyes light up with enthusiasm as you remember something.

“Hey, we just got some new stock in that I think you might like, y’know, if I’m not overstepping or anything.” You finish with a nervous chuckle.

You smile at him nervously through your lashes, skin heating even more in case this is suddenly all a bit too familiar.

He grins, responding, “Sure, go ahead!”

Your smile broadens and relaxes as you turn away from him and walk to the back shelves, crouching down and retrieving something in your arms.

Standing quickly and turning, you notice his eyes widen and immediately flick up to yours, a slightly alarmed expression on his face.

Exhibit C: Was he checking you out when he thought you wouldn’t notice? (Also, is it getting hot in here?)

With a loud thunk you lay two (frankly, terrifying-looking) multi-tools out on the counter in front of him. One looks like an oversized, overspec-ed Swiss Army knife, and the other could easily pass as a prop from an exorcism-themed horror movie. You over-excitedly explain the features of each, saying, “This one has a hammer and an axe, plus screwdrivers, pliers, a saw, wire cutters, a magnesium rod”, you look up at him quickly and ask, “do you ever need to start fires? Plus, it has…”, you wave your hand dramatically over your favourite part of the item, like you were showing it off on a shopping channel, and stretch out the syllables of the final two words for emphasis, “…a bottle opener…”. You raise your eyebrows and grin widely, like this must surely be the deal breaker.

The Stranger laughs, throwing his head back with deep-throated barks from the centre of his chest, and then he chuckles a little, bringing a strand of hair over his cheek and a curled finger to his lips. You’re slightly distracted by that glimpse of his extended neck (god, you want to gnaw at it), and that laugh? You wish you could’ve recorded it somehow.

You quickly compose yourself and continue, switching to the ’horror prop’ product, “And this one has fewer features, but I like it for its simplicity, robustness and practical charm. It’s an axe, hammer, nail puller and pry bar. And it even has a rubber coated handle, so you can still use it safely even if your hands are wet. For, y’know, whatever reason…” you finish, slightly abashed.

“Aw, Pumpkin, this is the kindest thing anyone’s done for me in a while, thank you.”

Pumpkin. PumpkinPumpkinPumpkin. Exhibit D: A term of endearment!

He takes some time to examine both articles, testing out their various features, hefting them in his (large, strong) hands (stop it!).

“I love them. Y’know what, I can’t decide. I’ll take both. What’s the damage?”

You visibly brighten, a squeak of delight that you hope he didn’t hear inadvertently leaving you as you puff up with both his term of endearment and your ever-growing customer service confidence.

You check whether he’d still like the other items he’d brought to the counter, and apart from the duct tape (“You really can’t have too much of this stuff!”), he allows you to reshelve the rest.

He watches, enthralled, as you wrap his new tools in the store-issue brown paper reverently and carefully, as though you were wrapping an expensive gift in a fancy department store, the pair of you sharing bashful looks and half smiles as you work.

As he hands over the now-unsurprising crumpled bills and takes his change his hand drifts closer to yours, glancing his fingers over your palm and lingering for just a moment. There’s a little hitch in your inhale, and you think you see his ears redden a little.

He gathers up his purchases in his arms carefully and gently, and he backs away from your counter slowly.

“I guess I’ll head out then. Uh, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I guess you will, uhh-”

“Eddie. My name’s Eddie.”

“Okay, I guess so, Eddie.” You say his name slowly, like you’re testing out the syllables in your mouth.

You continue speaking, offering your name in reciprocation.

“Yeah, yeah I know your name, it’s kinda on your little badge there.” A tiny nod indicates the plastic rectangle pinned on your apron strap near your left shoulder.

Your cheeks heat again. “Right, of course. Ha!” You inwardly cringe. Well, that could’ve gone better.

He’s still backing away, getting dangerously close to an intricately balanced display of colourful children’s watering cans. You’re about to say something, but he turns just in time, ambling towards the illuminated exit with a mumbled, “Okay, bye then. Thanks again for these…” lifting the packages in his arms, and turning to look over his shoulder a couple more times before he finally reaches the door and disappears into the parking lot.

“Hey, d’you know anything about wood chippers?”

It’s been a week since you’ve seen The Stranger Eddie, and you turn abruptly to find him walking towards your counter.

His question throws you out of your stocktaking zone (you’d been focussing on ordering enough plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets for all of Hawkins’ kids this Halloween), but you quickly slip into customer service mode and ask for more details.

Eddie explains, using mostly his arms, that he needs one that, “throws everything everywhere”. You finally work out that he means the type where you feed stuff into a hopper on one side and the shredded debris is forced out of a raised chute on the other (as opposed to the more gravity-based ones where stuff is fed into the top and simply falls out the bottom).

He’s passing it off as being involved in some avant garde student art project, a performance piece involving feeding a load of wood and, uh, paint, yeah, paint into a wood chipper and having it spray out the other side. He blusters that the students are trying to make a point about climate change, or maybe it’s deforestation, he can’t seem to decide.

He explains that the piece is to be performed indoors, that there’ll be quite a few people present, and that he also needs a large quantity of tarp and coveralls because it was likely to make a huge mess.

This is the clincher. You’re absolutely convinced there is no art project, and what’s go through that chipper is more likely to be a human body. Or, given the amount of effort being gone to, and Eddie’s flair for theatrics, probably more than one.

“What size branches?”

He looks at you, confused. “Huh?”

“The, uh, limbs. What size will you be shredding? Some of the smaller models won’t cope with thick trunks.”

He swallows. His eyes meet yours, and he licks his lips. You can’t help but stare at those full, pink… Look away! Just look away!!

He subtly smirks, slowly moves his hands across the counter, and, gently taking hold of one of your hands in his, loops his other finger and thumb around your wrist.

“Um, definitely thicker than this…” - he extends your arm towards him, and moves his other hand slowly up your skin until he gets to your upper arm - “…and maybe a little thicker than this, too.”

You hope he can’t feel the burning sensation that’s erupted up your arm. You know he can’t possibly hear your racing heartbeat or detect the adrenaline that’s coursing through your veins, but you’re acutely aware of both just the same. You briefly ponder whether you’ll need to get a fire extinguisher from aisle 7.

“Umm, how about I show you what we’ve got?”

Composing yourself, barely, you take him to the large garden implements section, explaining that for larger trunks and limbs he may need something towable.

Under the guise of working out whether various models would be suitable, you take the opportunity to dig a little and find out what kind of vehicle he drives. It’s a van, so roomy, practical for carrying a lot of equipment that needs to be kept out of sight. Well, this all tracks.

Also, your brain helpfully suggests, it could potentially be romantic, a private little hideaway where you and he could… No! Stay on topic, you’re at work for god’s sake!

As you debate the various choices you find you’re occasionally leaning into each other, shoulders and elbows lightly bumping, you stealing glances at his chiselled jawline when you think he isn’t looking.

Eddie eventually decides on a mid-size towable model, and as you arrange for it to be delivered to the collection bay he bids you goodnight and disappears out to his van.

‘Art project’, huh? I don’t think so…

You don’t see Eddie for a couple of weeks after that, and you begin to wonder whether he doesn’t like you. Maybe you went too far, did you bore him? Did you frighten him off? Did he feel pressured into buying those gadgets or the expensive wood chipper?

Maybe he’s finally realised you’re a weirdo, like everyone at school eventually did?

Trying to get out of your funk you steel yourself and ask your department manager, Keith, whether he’d seen an odd, metal-looking guy in the store at all.

“Nah, not recently, but someone like that did come in a few weeks back, asking about when you’d be working. Something about your product knowledge helping him with a job, or whatever. I told him your schedule, I hope that’s ok.”

So you haven’t missed him, and maybe he’s not avoiding you. Good, that’s good. Exhibit E: He’s been asking about you?? Oh fu-

You’re startled out of your reverie by the sound of someone slapping two plastic packets down onto the counter.

“Oh, hi Mrs Wheeler, let me ring those up for you…”

On his next visit it’s clear Eddie is restocking his cleaning supplies, and he’s even deigned to use a small trolley this time to transport the heavy and bulky items.

As well as multi-surface cleaner, mops, cloths and some heavy duty gloves, you notice his trolley also contains numerous bottles of chlorine bleach.

“Big clean-up job tonight, huh?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I guess so. I need to leave the place without any trace of the, uh, performance this time.”

“Depends what you need to clean up, I guess. Y’know, chlorine bleach doesn’t necessarily get rid of everything.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it’s fascinating, common misconception by the way. Chlorine bleach gets rid of visible stains, so that’s great if your main concern is aesthetics. But you can still detect haemoglobin, if you have access to the right tools and solutions.”

Eddie looks bath engaged and confused.

“A-heema-whatnow?”

You snicker.

“Haemo-, y’know what, never mind. Blood, basically. So actually, oxygen bleach is your best bet if your biggest concern removing all traces of, let’s say, blood and DNA. Whilst it doesn’t necessarily remove all the marks, it does degrade everything biological to the point where it’s undetectable. At least, with the tests we currently have.”

Eddie leans his elbows on the counter, giving you his full attention, resting his cheeks on his knuckles and pushing his dimpled grin up even further. Emboldened, you talk at length about haemoglobin, DNA degradation, specialist chemical solutions and alternative light sources.

He stays there, rapt, until you come to a natural stop. Just before he straightens up he quietly mumbles, still smiling, “Fucking incredible”.

With a deep breath he returns to the aisles to procure both types of bleach, pays and heads out into the night with a cheery, “Wish me luck!”

The cleanup must’ve gone well, because Eddie’s back a few days later and is making conversation.

“Hey, um, I remember reading once about some guy in England, years ago, who, like, melted people. You ever heard of that?”

You contemplate for a moment.

“Oh, d’you mean the Acid Bath Murderer, John Haigh?”

“Acid bath? Yeah, that sounds familiar.”

“Y’know, that’s actually one of my favourite case studies! It was one of the stories that first got me interested in true crime. 1940s England, dude thought he could get away with it if there was no body. Nope, sorry! When I first heard about it I thought it was really inventive, though he actually took the idea from a French guy who’d already done similar. Makes you wonder how many undiscovered dissolved bodies there might’ve been before and since, huh?”

You wax lyrical for a little while on the relative merits and disadvantages of the dissolving of human bodies in acid, even relating an anecdote about how your lab partner once chose the wrong combination of acid and beaker type, finishing with, “Hoo-boy, that was a mess!”

You become a little awkward, aware of how long you’ve been talking and the possibly-disturbingly-creepy level of detail you’ve gone into, though Eddie doesn’t seem to mind and presents somewhat like he’s paying attention in a chem class. Regardless, you decide to change the subject.

“I meant to ask last time, how did that wood chipping project go?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, really good, thanks. Y’know that advice you gave me about the chipper came in real handy. It was quite the show!” He looks gleefully at you, flashing that brilliant smile. A few small fireworks quietly explode in your innards.

“I’m so glad! Did the client like it?”

“Oh yeah, baby, they were thrilled!”

Baby. That’s new. You like it, and you add it to your growing mental filing system labelled ‘Evidence that Eddie might like me’. You can’t even remember what letter you’re up to now, you’re just enjoying stuffing it fuller every time he graces you with another morsel.

“They even gave me a nice bonus, for my ‘theatricality’.” He begins to lift his arms, but stops himself, resisting doing the jazz hands things again, reasoning there’s only so many times he can do an impersonation of a court jester before it puts someone off. “Said they’re gonna recommend me to their buddies too.”

More softly, and a little bashful, looking through his lashes he adds, “Kinda wish you could’ve been there, actually.”

Oh my, is he blushing again?

“Yeah, me too. I’d love to see you work sometime…”

“You would?”

Okay, he’s definitely blushing.

He leans in over your counter, close, so he can say in a low voice,

“Uh, just so we’re on the same page, you know what I do has nothing to do with art projects, right?”

Holding his gaze, and with your voice surprisingly steady, you swallow before confirming, “Yes, Eddie. I know.”

He huffs out a stuttering breath, and the air between you seems to heat.

He lifts one hand and rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“Hey listen, uh, I dunno if this is a little too forward, or weird, or y’know, whatever,” He’s rambling now. It’s adorable.

“I was kinda gonna ask you if you wanted to get milkshakes sometime, but, uh, maybe you’d actually wanna come out on a job with me? I’ve got one coming up on Sunday that I could really use an extra pair of hands on. I could pay you of course, y’know, for your time.”

You want to blurt out that, for him, you’d willingly burn the world and everyone in it for free. Instead, you smile wide, and settle for,

“Well, my tutors are always encouraging us to get real world experience…”

“Great, so I’ll pick you up at the end of your shift?”

“Sure, Eddie. I’ll look forward to it.”

You’re both grinning, stuttering messes.

“Great! Great. Uh, okay then, I guess I’ll see you Sunday?”

As he turns to leave, you stop him with one final question.

“Just one more thing Eddie. Should I bring my own coveralls..?”

If you got this far, thanks so much for reading!!

Comments and reblogs make my world spin, do let me know what you think.

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brothebro · 1 year

Note

Any dp/dc fic recs?

of course! Honestly, i love so many of them and I'll try to include as many as i can in my list here! The Undead Lockpicking series by Milaley: In which Danny has a lockpicking youtube channel and he lockpicks the Watchtower. Hilarious, excellent 10/10

The Bat Trap by Threee: Honestly a good ol twin switcheroo with many funny moments but also a lot of delicious angst! (a Damian & Danny twins au) Just, chef's kiss!

GLXY:PSSNGR by socraticat: Danny takes the place of his alternate universe self who lives with vlad in Gotham after vlad killed his parents. Muchas angst, lots of worldbuilding and fantastic action!

A second life by Die_Erlkonigin6083:Kid Danny who has memories from a past life and currently is Dick Grayson's clone baby (and a bunch of others but mostly Dick's) Adorable 100/10 recommend>

lex luthor's ascent from supervillainy to fatherhood by halfagone (milkywxy): Epic. Dad!Lex and and dimensional travel son!Danny. Sweet and super well-executed Cass/Danny. 10/10 i need to catch up with the latest chappies but it's so freaking good I am aaaaaa

Rooftop Express by EmeraldsAndAmethyst: Danny/Jason. Awesome af. Crime lord Jason ftw! Danny is a (supernatural)delivery boy and professional enigma in Gotham

Our Empty Graves by suomifae: Hazmat Suit, no one knows au! Danny/Jason in which Danny finds himself helping out in Jason's gang. Very cool story building, ideas and execution. Im literally screaming in every chapter. so so good!

bloodlines by halfagone (milkywxy): Danny is Diana's and Bruce's son. He of course doesn't know that. There's a prophesy involved that says Danny will end the world, Diana finds out accidentally about it and finds out she has a son (memory wipe shenanigans) and GOSH. There's so much awesome stuff happening and it's a pleasure to see them piece together the facts. 10/10 Diana rocks

Summons by DizzlyPuzzled: Ghost king Danny in which because he's underage his father gets summoned in his stead. Bruce would very much like to know why he keeps getting yote through summoning circles. Just the right amount of funny, family fluff and angst.

If You Give a Bat a Burger by Cielle_Noire: BOI I HAVE NO WORDS. the plot in this is thiccc and juicy and delicious and the mystery is the cherry on top! Danny lives in Gotham, does some ghostly sigil stuff around to protect Gothamites from bad ghosts, it backfires, we don't know why. Red duck candles are involved. The Batkids are chaos. and im here eating popcorn because it's all super entertaining to watch unfold. 100/10 jessica's duck candle

Friendly neighborhood vigilante by Elizabehta_Beilschmidt: Jazz/Jason THE FIC. honestly one of the best Anger Management fics i've ever read. Love the way Communication between partners is portrayed here and how they overcome the hurdles despite the shitshow that is both their lives (affectionate). 10/10 would read again

Danny Fenton: Dead and Loving It by HyperKid: You need an ao3 account for this one, go go go go make one because it's super worth it! Jason/Danny. They meet at the graveyard, your honour! They actively mess with Bruce and the rest of the Batkids! Gala Shenanigans! What else can i say? Go read!

Worm Off the String by TourettesDog: I am licherally dying of laughter. Peak comedy. Danny/Tim ft little baby man Danny who Tim thinks is Danny's weird af pet. Honestly, so GOOD. 100/10 comedy gold.

Press Heart to Subscribe by Die_Erlkonigin6083: A Danny/Damian fic in which Danny is a streamer and Damian watches his stream. Super cute, well executed, 100/10 sweetness scale

Imprint by Hashtag_DriveBy: Babes i dunno what to tell you. I've done fanart of this fic. De-aged baby Danny and DadHood. Human-ish Fright Knight and Excellent friend Roy. Guys seriously. SO SO SO SO GOOD. 100/10 I wanna see the kid reveal to the batfam and am vibrating out of existence imagining scenarios. - There are more but I can't possibly list them all in one go, I'll make another fic rec list later 💙

#dpxdc #dcxdp #fic recs #bro's asks

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prettyoddfever · 3 months

Note

why are you so against ryden

I'm literally only pointing out why specific examples of "Ryden proof" don't work, or were misinterpreted by people who don't know much about the band. If me being pro-reality means that you consider me anti-Ryden then, uh… you might want to examine that more.

As long as we're on this topic, I'm going to expand on an older post here and go off on a tangent:

I actually loved the Ryden part of the fandom in the pre-split days! Ryden felt like a fandom-wide inside joke that united so many fans and sparked so much creativity (sometimes it reminded me of inventing bs symbolism in english & art classes lol). I didn’t read the slash, but it’s not like those kids stayed exclusively over in their communities… they were everywhere. A lot of my favorite accounts were massive Ryden fans & fic authors. but even the most die-hard shippers in 2006 & 2007 would scoff if new fans asked if they were ever being serious with their comments. It was all just entertaining wish fulfillment done to amuse themselves. They would act like it was a legit alternate reality and write long funny primers & posts like “look guys, they are in love. this is facts… here I go with my proof," but when it came down to whether or not they actually thought it was real… no, of course not. The fanfic authors were the first to laugh and say they weren’t hurting anyone because nobody actually believed Ryden was real and everyone was on the same page. They argued that every single band had a slash community and it just came with the fame. Some fans genuinely wanted Ryden to be real, while others thought it was entertaining how you could cherry-pick events & isolate them from any context to make Ryden look plausible. And both groups were taking matters into their own hands by trying to tie enough pictures & random dots together to make it look like a happy alternate reality that satisfied everyone. It was funny.

The majority of the pre-split fandom understood that Ryden wasn’t real, so people were on the same page when they shared their “proof.” It was like an inside joke. For example, I’ll argue that unicorns could be real because I know that the person I’m talking to is aware of reality. I can get as creative as I want and just have fun because we’re both on the same page… and the other person will be like “well yes of course they’re obviously real.” It looks like we agree. But that does not mean that we truly believe it lol... we're just bored & entertaining ourselves. Someone else who is unsure whether or not unicorns actually exist might read our convo and conclude that we are certain unicorns are real and have proof! But I never intended for my silly convo with my friend to be taken that seriously.

For me, Ryden was more about the fandom. It was just fun to see a picture or new moment and wait to see if anyone else spotted the same potential too. The slash accounts across different sites/forums would even make fun of themselves for how far they would go to make everything fit Ryden. At times it felt like an affectionate joke about the band and the fandom.

I’d say the Ryden craze first took over with the huge surge of new fans during the summer 2006 tour (around the time Brendon & Ryan started fully going for the mic sharing each night). This was back when the band still read the forums and different fan sites and were trying to get a sense of what their fans were saying (such a bad idea lol). I was never totally clear on where the guys stood on Ryden in 2006 but it seemed like they were in on the joke… but it was so confusing at the same time. Like one minute they’d complain about the disgusting “pornfiction” in an interview and the next minute they’d be hamming it up for meet & greet pictures. Bden would practically hump Ryan’s leg during a show and then Ryan would suggestively run his hand up Bden’s thigh during a meet & greet exactly when he knew fans were watching… and then they’d both act like they didn’t get why fans ever came up with stories about them. I’m not saying their actions meant they were asking for something btw. I’m just saying that it’s equally true that the guys would claim they weren’t huge on Ryden and that they intentionally fueled the fire to get fans to laugh/scream at the right time. The band was super aware that the Ryden fans were a huge part of the fandom who drove a lot of the hype online… so it seemed like in late 2006 the guys were just trying to connect with a fanbase they were being quickly distanced from as they got more & more famous. Then in 2008 the guys intentionally added extra Ryden elements to their stage routine because they knew what a lot of fans still wanted to see.

So my conclusion was that it was all in good fun (except making suggestive comments to the band irl was horrible… people were even saying some seriously gross stuff to Zack about the boys and taking it waaaaay too far). During the lull of 2007, and even into 2008, there seemed to be a whole section of the fandom that was more invested in their fanfic communities than the irl band (they’d often come onto other boards & communities to ask for facts or details for their fanfics and watching the replies they got was like watching a really bad game of telephone haha so I’m guessing those plots diverged from reality pretty quickly). New fans were also being introduced to the band through fanfiction and seemed more intent on just spotting Ryden moments and learning the fanfic version of history rather than any real-life history. So by late 2008 there was definitely a small crowd who was taking Ryden more seriously and also understood less about the band. But I wasn't always sure if their tone was totally serious or not, because the joking posts had often been written in a serious tone too.

Side note on that: when I started this account in 2020 I hadn't thought about P!ATD much while I had been sick for years. I was just trying to throw myself back into the mindset of 2006 and rediscover a time when my world had been awesome & I was healthy. So when I saw all the sun/moon theories that had formed after I'd left the fandom I was like YES omg this is amazing. I lived for that kind of stuff. But then it was confusing how the same people who were currently posting all of the “ryden was real” stuff were the same ones who would quickly point out that another one of my Ryden posts wasn’t what really happened or that a photo manip that I considered fun was actually fake… I mean, obviously??? I didn’t get why there was any difference between everything. It took me a few months to get a read on the current fandom and realize that things weren't being done in the same joking spirit. I started struggling to explain why I was posting Ryden-ish stuff if I didn’t necessarily believe what I was saying (and again I’m having a hard time explaining here because it never felt like the fandom was making up crap we didn’t stand behind back then! we were serious that we believed it was a darn good connection/theory or photoshop job haha). Ryden used to be like this shared alternate lens to view events through that felt like teamwork to create. We would intentionally pretend like years of full context didn't exist and create our own parallel narrative that could coexist with reality in our minds. But now it feels like people are sharing "Ryden proof" for real as though the piles of creative nonsense are an actual recap of historic events... and you need to pick some kind of "side" to believe? Idk, it's weird. I dropped any remaining nostalgia connected with Ryden content and ended up shifting the tone & focus of my account to organizing actual facts, media, and info about events I remember.

I don't think it's ok that moments in the band's history are often distorted or erased in order to pass off certain examples of “Ryden proof” as real now. It would be a shame for ridiculous Ryden stories to be prioritized as key info about the band while normal info about band members & events gets ignored now (ex: turning Northern Downpour into some kind of Ryden thing totally erases what Ryan wanted to do with the song). A lot of people have told me that they don’t care what actually happened because they prefer their ideas anyways. And that’s fine, as long as you’re aware that what you’re choosing doesn't track with reality. (Also, I always felt like knowing the real events or original photos from a manip gave me more appreciation for how creative people were… but I suppose that’s because Ryden was more about the fandom for me).

SIDE TANGENT: I drifted away from the fandom after summer 2009 when I got sick, so I don’t know specifically what happened over the next couple years to get so many fans who were impressively uninformed about the band yet super intense about Ryden at the same time... but I'm also not surprised I guess. Some knowledge about the band absolutely faded to the background in the last half of 2006 as the overwhelming amount of newer fans invented their own answers and were more interested in freaking out over cute guys than actually taking the time to learn about the band. The knowledge wasn't lost, it was just drowned out for a while in the midst of their enthusiastic chatter. It felt like a waste of time to correct them too because they were absolutely everywhere and they weren't really harming anyone by screaming things like Ryan took his mom as a date to the VMAs lol. Maybe there was a surge of younger fans by 2010-2011 who didn't have the context to know what they were looking at too, and were very enthusiastic about Ryden? I don't know. This is all purely speculation on my part.

I actually don't care whether anyone thinks Ryden was real or not... that's definitely not my focus and I'm not trying to convince anyone of a "side" either. You can conclude whatever you want. My focus in my posts is simply to provide context for some of the inaccurate stories & examples that are currently being passed around as though they're actual history. I don't expect anyone to care. But at least the info is still available for any younger fans who might be interested in the real-life band.

#ryden

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starchxn · 2 months

Text

STARCHXN ⇥ STRAY KIDS MASTERLIST

↫Back to navigation

↝Please note that all fics written in this blog are either female-centered or Idol-POV fics unless stated otherwise.

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↝A gentle reminder that all the idols/famous person(s) mentioned in these stories are purely for fictional purposes. I do not know any of these idols personally, thus all personalities these idols portray in these fics are purely fictional and not that of their real-life personality.

↝As of 2024, I am no longer accepting or writing reader insert fics. My older reader insert fics will be kept up as a sign of my writing progress, but my writing style no longer supports romance.

↝I would like to warn that I am not in any way shipping the members, nor will there be any romantic relationships between them in any of my fics. I encourage my fic readers to keep this in mind and avoid unnecessary shipping of the characters in my fics as well.

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Christopher Bang Chan

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⇥ Mr. Sandman

Genre ↣ Angst, Fluff if you squint. Word count ↣ 1,884 Words. Synopsis ↣ As an insomniac, Chan has had countless sleepless nights. This night was the same, nonetheless, something special seems to greet him.

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⇥ Ghost Story

Pairing ↣ College Student! Bang Chan X College Student! Reader. Genre ↣ Pure Angst, Sad Ending. Word Count ↣ 2,241 Words. Synopsis ↣ After Chan's previous girlfriend disappears quite suddenly and quite literally ghosting him, he takes you in as his next girlfriend. It takes you weeks to realise that he's never going to move on in the first place. Alternatively, When some relationships are just meant to be beautiful mistakes.

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⇥ Sing To Me

Pairing ↣ Crown Prince! Bang Chan X Forgotten Princess! Reader. Genre ↣ Modern Royalty AU, Enemies to Lovers AU, Angst, Fluff. Word Count ↣ 9,829 Words. Synopsis ↣ After news sweeps the kingdom about an infamous assassin caught in the outskirts, heads turn to see who she really is, including one of the crown prince Bang Chan himself. After a failed attempt at an escape, you're directly under the supervision and interrogation of the very person you were sent to kill. Will you both be able to snap out of your hatred enough to find that there was more in common between the both of you, or will both of you end up being each other's worst enemy? OR In which acceptance and understanding can lead to one's true downfall.

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⇥ Overdrive

Pairing ↣ Slight Baker! Bang Chan X Gender Neutral Reader. Genre ↣ Strangers to (kind of) Lovers AU, (Implied) College AU, Slight Angst, Fluff. Word Count ↣ 1,357 Words. Synopsis ↣ Chan was just supposed to deliver four boxes of cupcakes to a frat house on New Year's Eve, surely nothing would go terribly wrong… right?

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Requests for this member are currently closed.

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Lee Minho

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⇥ If I Killed Someone For You

Pairing ↣ Lee Know X Reader. Genre ↣ Pure Angst, Unrequited Lover AU, Lee Know Mafia AU. Word count ↣ 4312 Words. Synopsis ↣ Minho had sworn to protect you no matter the cost, but when your naivety leads you to get trapped into an abusive relationship, will he choose to give it a blind eye like you had made him promise, or would he finally go against you just to prove just how much he loves you?

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⇥ 6:41 AM [Timestamp]

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Requests for this member are currently closed.

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Seo Changbin

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⇥ Visiting Hours

Pairing ↣ Bang Chan and Changbin (strictly platonic). Genre ↣ Angst, eventual Fluff. Word count ↣ 1,050 Words Synopsis ↣ A friend deserves to mourn the loss of the other, even if it's not so much of a loss.

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Requests for this member are currently closed.

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Hwang Hyunjin

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⇥ Royals

Pairing ↣ None. Genre ↣ Royal AU, Angst Word count ↣ 1,117 Words Synopsis ↣ Hyunjin watches his kingdom crumble, bit by bit. After the death of his parents, he was the only one who could stop his sister's terror reign, but every moment comes with a price.

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Requests for this member are currently closed.

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Han Jisung

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⇥ Burning Sunset

Pairing ↣ Best Friend! Han Jisung X Reader Genre ↣ Fluff, best friends to lovers AU Word count ↣ 1,238 Words Synopsis ↣ When your best friend Jisung says he's never once laid eyes on the beach, you make it a point to take him there, but you do have an ulterior motive. OR In which Jisung realises how terrifying yet comforting love is.

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Lee Felix

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⇥ This member's universe is in the making, check back in for his exciting adventure!

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Requests for this member are currently closed.

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Kim Seungmin

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⇥ 3:36 PM [Timestamp]

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Yang Jeongin

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⇥ Fire and Water

Pairing ↣ Phoenix! Jeongin X Merman! Chan (Platonic/Almost Guardian-like) Genre ↣ Fantasy, Angst. Word count ↣ 946 Words. Synopsis ↣ A tale of two creatures, of Fire and Water and of a new Beginning.

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⇥ 3:05 AM [Timestamp]

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Requests for this member are currently closed.

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SKZ- OT8

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⇥ Scars- Halloween Special

Pairing ↣ None Genre ↣ Dystopian AU, Angst, Sad fluff. Word count ↣ 1,113 Words. Synopsis ↣ As the world nears the second year of being dominated by the sound monster, eight boys are looking back on the scars they've acquired since the past year.

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Thank You for checking in!🌠

#stray kids #skz #kpop angst #kpop fluff #skz fluff #stray kids fluff #skz angst #stray kids angst #bang chan #seo changbin #lee felix #lee know #hyunjin #seungmin #jeongin #han jisung #✨.navigation #✨.masterlist #✨.blog organisation

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halfetirosie · 1 month

Note

For the character meme: How about Eiden?

Here we fuckin go, it's Protag-Appreciation Time!

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ Eiden ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

First impression

Relatable King! So damn likable!!! I wanna be best friends with him!!!!!!

Take notes, game developers everywhere! THIS is how you create a relatable character that’s actually interesting and doesn’t have as little personality as an unsalted Saltine cracker!

Impression now

PROTECT THIS MAN!!! He is so silly and so precious!!! ♡♡♡

The more I learn about Eiden, the more I like him! It will never NOT be funny how many different part-time jobs he’s had, it will never NOT be funny how horny he is 24/7 (literally me). I also greatly appreciate how creative/artistic he is, from his music-writing skills, “toy” design, and even clothing design! What the hell, he’s so talented! Blessed by the gods! I’m jealous!!!

Favorite moment

Can an entire event count as a “moment?” I love how in the Rainy Season event, Eiden gets to actually fully converse with Topper and Father!

Also, during this same event, you know that part when Eiden goes into Rei’s memory? This little exchange lives in my memory rent-free:

It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s sad, and it hits me right in the heart.

Idea for a story

I mentioned this in my Edmond post, but I have an Eiden/Edmond fic planned for sometime in the future! In the fic, Edmond will accidentally gain an animal companion. The fic will be told from Eiden perspective, as he watches Edmond grow his relationship with his little friend. I haven’t decided if it will include any NSFW elements, but if it does, the animal friend may or may not encourage Edmond to spend quality time with his “mate.” :)

Unpopular opinion

This might be more of an unpopular headcanon than an unpopular opinion, but I refuse to believe the theory that Eiden is a fragment of Huey (and that Rin is the other half). Absolutely not!!!!

If I’m being honest, this is moreso just wishful thinking/heavy denial on my part. The support for that theory is, objectively, fairly promising so far. But unless it’s explicitly spelled out for us, I vehemently refuse to believe it.

Why, you ask? Because I am a proud member of the Huey Haters Club!!!! Fuck Huey, all my homies hate Huey!!!!! But I like Eiden, so I do not want him to be directly associated with the original Huey’s literal soul. Being Huey descendant is fine, or maybe even an alternate version of Huey from the Earth dimension (à la NU World), but NOT Klein’s original Huey!!! Please, I am begging and praying!!!!!

Favorite relationship

His relationship with Edmond, because I’m predictable!

Favorite headcanon

Eiden has a FUCKton of suppressed rage. Like, we have seen angry Eiden at certain parts of the story (especially the early parts, like when he’s meeting Kuya and Dante) and during events. We also know from childhood flashbacks that he was a grumpy and angry kid. However, I think that’s only scratching the surface.

You know how several of the clan members have repressed their sexuality? I think Eiden represses the full extent of his anger. He has dealt with so much shit his entire life, he’s probably boiling with fury, but he’s learned not to express it because it’ll only make things worse for him. So, while he's well-adjusted an mature for the most part, I think there's a big hidden side of him that's itching to FIGHT, y'know?

#nu carnival #nu: carnival #nu carnival eiden

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multifandomlover01 · 6 months

Text

Trick-or-Treat (imaginative, I know)

Spencer Reid x Female!Reader (or at least reader with female anatomy)

WC: ~500

Warnings: 18+ MDNI Spencer giving reader coffee to drink at an implied inappropriate time so she won’t be tired later on (dubcon? Vaguely?) Mentions/descriptions of: fingering (of female reader), body hair (specifically pubic hair and it’s in a positive way), possibly OOC Spencer?

Disclaimer: reader is kinda scared of scary movies in this so if you aren’t and wouldn’t do what’s being described in this fic…sorry just pretend you’d pretend to be scared so he’d do this? But if it’s really not your vibe or how you’d act, please don’t leave unnecessary negative comments especially if it’s about people who are simply different than you or criticism about my writing that is not constructive

Summary: after having to miss your plans for Halloween weekend, you discuss alternative plans on the plan ride home while everyone is asleep

Ep: 6x6

Gif credit: marril96

“So…we missed our things…but…we still have that alternate option.” Spencer whispers in your ear as he leans into you as he sits next to you on the plane ride back from Detroit.

“Yeah, we do…if you’re up for it.”

“Of course I am. I’m always up for anything as long as I’m with you.” He kisses your temple, causing you to smile.

“Me too. Scary movie it is then. Do prepare for me to be permanently latched onto your arm with my head buried in your chest.”

“Sounds perfect. We’ll turn the lights off, all of them, keep the trick-or-treaters away, hoard the candy for ourselves…” he presses another kiss to your face, this time to your cheek.

“I thought you loved handing candy out to the kids.” You gave him a curious look.

“Why would I want to hand candy out to kids when I can be cuddled up on the couch with you curled into my side?”

“You do make it sound like the more tempting offer…”

“That’s because it literally is.” He presses a kiss to your jaw.

“Spencer.” You whisper. “We’re on the plane.”

“So? Everyone’s asleep, exhausted. Lucky for us, we’re insomniacs.”

“We drank some coffee a little bit earlier, love…which was your idea, by the way.” You nudged him with your elbow lightly.

“Oops.” He whispers, completely not sorry as he trails kisses down your neck.

“You wanna keep me up all night? That your plan?” You smile slyly.

“Mhm.” He murmurs as he continues his kisses. “Gotta keep you awake so we can watch movies and you can cuddle with me.”

“Can’t I just fall asleep on you?” You question, genuinely curious as to why you couldn’t.

“Not tonight. Tonight I want you awake and alert.”

“The more sleep deprived I am, the better the chances I’ll be scared.”

“Good. I can comfort you more, then.” He kisses up your neck to your ear where he then begins to murmur against it . “Maybe even distract you a little? Hmm? Would you like that? My hand resting on your knee at first before my fingers dance up your thigh toward your sweet center, sweeter than any candy I could ever eat. My fingers glide over your clothed clit, they rub against it slightly. Think that’d distract you enough?”

“Pretty well, I’d say…what if it’s a really scary movie?”

“Then my hand is gonna slide upward to the waistband of your sweatpants, it’s gonna slip in…my fingers are gonna skim over your abdomen, they’re gonna brush against your panties, one layer less between them and your center. Think you’re distracted enough now?”

“What if I get jumpscared? I hate those.” You chuckle.

“Then you can nuzzle my neck as my hand slips under your panties and brushes against your hair. I’ll grip it slightly before my fingers glide over your clit, nothing between them now. I’ll run them lightly over your clit for as long as you need me to. I’ll dip down and play with your folds, collecting your slick before I go back to rubbing your clit. Think you’d feel better now?”

“Probably pretty good, yeah.” You chuckled again.

“Yeah? You’d like that? You’d like me to finger you slowly to distract you from being scared while we watch a scary movie?”

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader #x reader smut #criminal minds #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction

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instarsandcrime · 9 days

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what fun words or slang do you hc for our hotel gang? 😊

(Like Husk using "chucklefucks" unironically for example 🤣)

Oh gosh, that's a good question! Let me go down the list here for as many as I can think of...

Char/lie:

-In the beginning of Va/ggie's fall, she was probably very in love and very awkward while she tended to Va/ggie's wounds. And as a fellow bisexual, would definitely throw finger guns and go "Hey...y-you?" before backing out and leaving. This has happened several times. The gay panic was probably too strong for her.

Va/ggie:

-For Char/lie I literally cannot think of anything except every Salvadoran nickname under the sun. I'm not even going to list them. Just think of any one of them and you've got it.

-Similar to Al/as/tor, but instead of terms of endearment it's terms of insults™

Al/as/tor:

-Purposefully calls Hu/sk names that put him down. In Loser, Baby there are a lot of insulting labels thrown his way, and I think after some time Al/as/tor did call him enough of those that purposefully also echoed other people to get under his skin a little more. Maybe some of those were Al/as/tor originals...

-Char/lie's are much more pleasant, but he especially likes to sneak in ma fée (my fairy, normally used for your child) as far away from everyone else as possible, and as close to Lu/ci/fer as possible knowing he's centuries old and knows what that means 10,000%. And as far away from everyone else because unfortunately, a small unfortunate part of him really does mean it.

Lu/ci/fer:

-Just. Just so many cheesy nicknames. He was once an angel, and angels are definitely sappy guys. 'Char Char', 'Stardust', 'Sweetie', 'Dear', 'Kiddo', 'My little girl', etc. Similar to Li/li/th! 'Lily', 'Darling', 'Love of my life', etc.

-Contrary to popular belief, Al/as/tor does in fact get a nickname. 'Him'. Everything else is just an insult so they don't count.

-I really enjoyed your fic Watch My Back and him calling Niff/ty 'little one'. I am sticking with that headcanon no matter what.

-Va/ggie gets extreme deja vu when Lu/ci/fer has trouble talking to her at first, knowing she's a big part of his daughter's life. So despite being straight(????) and not knowing our rich bi history, and without knowing Char/lie has done this, throws finger guns in the exact same way and goes "Hey...y-you?" before backing out and leaving. It's only happened once but Va/ggie definitely still remembers it.

Hu/sk:

-Oh An/gel Du/st. There are just. So many nicknames. I definitely agree with 'Chucklefucks' for everyone generally. Specifically, An/gel is much, much different and more personal compared to everyone else. He'd probably alternate between 'kid', 'loser', 'cher'-- in which he picked up Louisiana slang from Al/as/stor and will get away with it because he knows An/gel Du/st will never look up what it means (term of endearment for loved one)-- 'Ange', and probably when he learns his real name, 'Tony'.

-Calls Niff/ty 'the menace' or 'little menace' for obvious reasons.

An/gel Du/st:

-Calls himself 'gal' and 'dame' a lot. Fuck gender roles honestly, he's all for being called what he's rightfully deserved.

-He tends to share the 'loser' nickname with Hu/sk. But he does have others-- 'baby', 'sweetheart', and 'tesoro'. (treasure/darling). Which is unfortunate because he knows Hu/sk will look it up and get incredibly flustered every time it's used. NO ONE knows what this word means except Hu/sk and has no idea why he fled the room. At one point Pen/tious considers it a threat from secondhand observation.

-Leans a lot towards 'babydoll' and 'cutie' for Char/lie because he definitely sees her as a cute, shining ball of energy (and respects it, probably, considering where the show is going with him and redemption)

#non snz ask #ha//zb//in//ho//tel//#a/la/stor #an/gel/du/st #char/lie #va/ggi/ie #lu/ci/fer #hu/sk #ni/ff/ty

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queenimmadolla · 1 year

Text

CRUEL SUMMER - '85, PIII

summary: . . . the year Eddie Munson doesn’t give a fuck about not having graduated when he’s gotta save the girl so he can get the girl. (in which Eddie is in ST3 and reader is basically Heather Holloway) ┊ Eddie Munson x Flayed!Reader┊Main Masterlist - Series Masterlist - PI - PII

chapter summary . . . Eddie finally learns the circumstances surrounding your bizarre behavior and teams up with a ragtag group of kids to track you down and finally confront you. The only problem is you aren’t you because you’re suddenly committing grand theft auto and people around you are going missing.

chapter warnings: pining, billy hargrove (this fic is black reader friendly, I PROMISE), ‘unrequited’ love, angst, jealousy, mind control, nightmares, violence.

a/n: a very big thank you to my dear friend @kitmon for betaing this chapter! a literal angel ♡ and the detergent scene is inspired by this post, as I am a fan of LifeFire/Headdie/whatever the fuck eddie x heather's ship name would be and it was stupid fucking funny to imagine eddie seeing flayed heather do it. also didn't want to make Reader eat dirt.

word count: 8.4k

disclaimer: i can’t fucking use the ‘read more’ tab so stop messaging me about it, i wish i could but i can’t without it eating and duplicating chunks of my posts. just scroll if you don’t want to read this, it’s not gonna kill you. oh and mistakes will be fixed later, mwuah.

“No.” “What? What do you mean ‘no’?” Max demanded from her place in the passenger seat of Eddie’s van.

Eddie let out an incredulous, so-fucking-done-with-this laugh, void of any humor as he drove towards her home. They’d spent the entire car ride feeding him some utter bullshit story about weird paranormal shit going around Hawkins. Now, Eddie knew Hawkins was bizarre but he gave the credit for that to its rather conservative townsfolk. Not some preteen with mind powers and a gaggle of other kids trying to take on an alternate dimension and its monsters. He loved fantasy, so the moment they mentioned a Demogorgon, Eddie knew the whole thing was a lie. A Demogorgon was a monster that existed only within the confines of DND guidebooks and lore. Not in real life. “I mean whatever game of pretend you’re trying to play, I’m not playing.” He should have known better. Maybe they’d gotten mixed in all this when Billy had brought you over (thinking that alone caused his heart to ache) to his house and decided to have some fun with it.

“You don’t think it’s bizarre Chief Hopper suddenly has a new daughter after the death of his other one?”

“Sara.” El immediately leans forward from the back, frowning at Max’s lack of humanization for a sister she’d never get to know.

Max shot her an apologetic look before turning her attention back to Eddie who was sneering.

“You weren’t even around to see Hopper with his family, so no, I don’t think it’s bizarre! There’s a thing called adoption, you know. You adopted?” Eddie directed the question to El, glancing at her reflection in the rearview mirror.

She nodded.

“There you go!” Eddie sighed as he pulled up outside of the house they’d been directing him to, windshield wipers working aggressively to clear the constant stream of rainwater pelting down. “Look. I get it. It’s summer, you’re probably bored out of your fucking minds but what’s going on with Billy and—.”

God, he couldn’t even fucking say your name in the same sentence with him, it felt vile. Bad. What were you thinking? Why couldn’t he have just gotten to you sooner? He shouldn’t have canceled to make a few more bucks, if he hadn’t, you’d be with him. Not fucking Billy. Oh, god. No. He should have thought of another explicit word to use because his mind was racing with images that were making him sick to his stomach.

“It’s just adult stuff, okay?” He croaked out, throat thick with emotion. “It’s not whatever you think it is, you’ll understand when you get older.”

El opened her mouth to argue but Max hushed her, shaking her head as they once more exchanged a secretive look that Eddie could very much see since he had working eyeballs.

“No,” El whispered in return as fragments of what she’d seen in her trances rushed to the forefront of her mind, the last being an image of you, soaked in an ice bath with red teary eyes as you begged her to help you. Then you’d been pulled away, dragged under by something wicked. That hadn’t been her imagination. Despite having seen you, seemingly fine in the flesh, something was amiss. Your eyes hadn’t looked the same as they did, had lacked life almost.

El directed her stare at Eddie with pleading eyes.

“You have to believe me, she needs help. She asked me herself.”

Eddie frowned, exhausted with this whole back and forth. He’d been right freaking there and you’d asked her no such thing.

“When was this?”

“Last night. I can see things─”

Eddie groaned, yanking his door open. “Christ, I’ve had it. Out, everybody out.”

The girls scrambled out of the van and into the rain, staring up at Eddie while he pulled their bikes out from the back. “Enough! Enough with the magic powers, the lab, the visions and the monsters! This shit is not a game! If something wrong is going on with them, then I’ll find out on my own! I don’t have time for your little fables and I’m not a babysitter.”

Eddie was beyond frustrated. He’d wasted all this time with them when he could have been staking out your house to see what you were up to next. Instead, he’d foolishly trusted some 13 year olds and now he’d probably have to track you down.

He didn’t even know what the fuck he was going to do, obviously you weren’t going to talk to him now that you had your stupid ass ex-fling back and said ex-fling just wanted to rub it in his face that he’d gotten you because Eddie had been too little too fucking late, as per usual. Eddie just couldn’t let you settle for Hargrove, not after everything he’d put you through and how much you’d grown since Billy had discarded you. If you didn’t want Eddie, then that’d be fine.

It really wouldn’t, because Eddie would be a total wreck and never forgive himself for missing out on you, let alone be able to get over you, but he’d rather experience that epic heartbreak over you choosing Patrick McKinney instead of Eddie. Or literally, anyone one other than Billy.

Nevermind the strong sensation of danger that radiated out of the house while you’d been in it. Hell, Eddie had been reluctant to think it but the feeling also seemed to be coming from you as well as Billy. It was difficult for him to believe, he’d dubbed you Sunshine on impulse but it had immediately gained meaning as Eddie grew to know you. Regardless of how people tried to bring you down, tried to discourage you from what you wanted and where you wanted to be socially (he’d been one of those people at some point) you refused to settle, refused to give in and fall back into the crowd like your peers wanted you to. You were positive you’d shine one day. And one day, you did. For Eddie, at least. He’d just been too stupid to see it—no. He’d seen it. He’d just always assumed you’d be there. Now, you weren’t. There had been no sort of sunshine present in your dining room. You hadn’t been you.

“Just go home.” Eddie shooed them in the direction of the house, ready to go back to the trailer and collapse, though his brain was running a mile a minute to try and figure out what to do next.

As he’d been about to reach for his car door handle, it suddenly moved higher than his reach. And so did the door it was connected to.

Because his fucking van was hovering a couple of feet in the fucking air.

Eddie’s mouth dropped open, eyes wide and the hairs on his body raising at the sight of the impossible.

His head whipped around to see El, hand out towards his van with blood dripping from one of her nostrils as a look of concentration morphed her docile features into something fierce.

He watched, stunned as she lowered his van, letting it go once it was just a couple of inches off the ground and it bounced on its tires. Eddie couldn’t even wince at the damage his rims were definitely feeling.

He was stupefied, gaze moving from the van to the young girls over and over again while his mouth opened and closed like a fish.

What. The. Fuck.

“Believe us, now?” Max asked, smug smirk on her face at Eddie’s astoundment. He could only nod stupidly, mouth on autopilot.

“Definitely fucked up my rims, so don’t do that again.” He whispered out, still mindfucked.

Eddie let himself fall against the side of his van, back pressed up against the wet metal as he ran a hand down his face and pushed the hair sticking there way, the rain wasn’t even a bother to him anymore.

His brain was spazzing out, sizzling like bacon as it tried to make sense of what he just witnessed. It just—It couldn’t!

But it reminded him of the outlandish story they’d given him in the van. The government, the not so random deaths of Benny, Barb, the disappearance and reappearance of Will Byers and how Jonathan, Nancy and Steve’s weird little love triangle (used lightly, everyone could see Nancy and Jonathan would be ending up together) also was involved in the supernatural events. And The Monsters.

Eddie felt the blood drain from his face as he specifically recalled the one about Will Byers and how he’d been just about possessed by the Mindflayer, as the girls had dubbed it. A spy for its sinister intentions.

His stomach hurt.

“Okay, okay.” Eddie finally gave in, he still had no fucking clue what was going on and he really didn’t want to but there wasn’t anytime to waste trying to somehow argue his way into coming up with a reasonable explanation for all of this. It’s been obvious to him you weren’t in the most ideal of situations, despite giving him the cold shoulder, and he knew you were possibly in danger but know he knew El actually had real fucking powers and the stories they told him were true. You weren’t just in peril, you were in a life or death situation.

How he didn’t faint was unknown to him.

“What do we do?” The question escaped him in a rush as he started at Max and El, eyes wide with desperation. “We have to save her.” Max’s eyebrows furrowed as she stated the obvious and the desperation left Eddie just for a moment so he could glare at her. “I know that. How? Is it the Mindflayer?” “We didn’t kill it, just made sure it couldn’t come out,” El informed him, wiping the blood from her nose. “Look, I hate to put all of this on hold, but there’s not much we can do right now. We can recon tomorrow. Give me your phone number.” Eddie winced again, eyes darting around to make sure there was no one else around. God, why did this have to look so fucking bad? He yanked his car door open to dig around the floor of it for a piece of paper, shouting in victory when he’d found not only a receipt, but a really fucked up pen that still worked. He scribbled his phone number down and made sure to keep it snug in his palms to protect it from the rain as it was transferred to Max’s hold. “And don’t you dare think about leaving me out of any of your weird plans, I’ve seen those little looks you’ve been giving each other so I know you scheme. If it’s about her then I need to know. Deal?” “You’re not even offering us anything.” Max made a face as she shoved the receipt with his contact information into her pocket.

“Are most kids this annoying?” “Just go home and get some rest, Eddie. You look like hell,” she snorted out as she and El hurriedly guided the bikes up the driveway. “I mean it! You better not leave me out of the loop!” He shouted after them before quickly jumping back into his van. “Go home and rest. Yeah, right.” He mumbled, fumbling momentarily with the keys before the van was sputtering to life. He yanked his seatbelt on and floored it, ring clad fingers gripping the steering wheel tightly as he made his way back to your house. No fucking way was he going home, now. Not when the love of his fucking life was possibly possessed by some cthulhu fucker. Eddie didn’t even bother turning to music for comfort, nothing but you could offer that to him and you were currently busy, apparently. When he was just a little ways down the street, he turned his headlights off and slowed his speed. He’d do a quick driveby and then circle back to park a little ways from your house, scope it out to make sure Billy wasn’t hurting you. That feeling of dread returned when he drove by and saw your home, every single light off and seemingly vacant of life. It was your wide open front door that really worried him, though. Fuck the discreet attempt. Eddie swerved into your empty driveway and jumped out of the van, slamming the door shut as he surveyed for the car he’d failed to notice the last time he was present but Billy’s Camaro was nowhere in sight. “Sunshine?” He called out as he slowly crossed the threshold of your home, shutting the door behind him. The house didn’t seem all that scary anymore, he had a feeling neither Billy nor you were here.` When you didn’t answer him and Billy didn’t spring around the corner to attack him, he made a beeline for your room. Didn’t even bother knocking, just burst right in but like the rest of the house, your room was empty. Eddie’s shoulders sagged as he sighed, a hand wiping down his tired face, back leaning up against your bedroom door to shut it. The day and his newfound knowledge were finally catching up to him. He was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. And the stupid fucking weight on his chest wasn’t helping, Eddie was not a fan of melancholy or heartbreak, dealing with both the idea of the girl he loved being with someone else and being in mortal danger were not the obstacles he thought he’d have to face when he planned to confess his feelings. Selfishly, he hadn’t thought he’d face any obstacles. Definitely fucking karma. Eddie should just pull himself together to go home and wait for Max and Eleven’s (he still couldn’t believe they had nicknamed her after a fucking number, the whole time he thought it was one of those preteen phases as Eddie had once tried to make himself known as The Munster. Terrible, he’s aware) call, just like he shouldn’t deal drugs. But he does. And he wasn't going home. He’s had a feeling, now that you and Billy were aware of your parents’ plans, Billy had taken you out somewhere. It was killing him to not know if you were doing something along the lines of Max and El’s memories or if you were doing something else with Billy. Were you completely out of it? Or were you aware of what you were doing? Did you really have feelings for Billy or were you being forced to stick around him? He needed answers and having to wait ‘til morning made him want to scream. So, he did. He collapsed onto your bed, body cushioned by your soft blankets and screamed into one of your pillows. He didn’t stop until it physically hurt his lungs to continue and only then did he shift around, kicking off his sneakers as he stared up at your ceiling, another thought (one he feared to even be thinking) plaguing his conscience. Could he lose you? And he didn’t mean to Billy.

People had apparently lost their lives when this Upside Down place was involved. And now you were mixed into it, would that mean you’d lose your life, too? Eddie frantically shook his head, trying to kick the thought out of it. No. No, you did not get to die. You deserved so much more than what the world had dealt you and Eddie would move heaven and hell to make sure you got it. Whatever the fuck had a hold on you, he’d fucking rid you of it. And he was gonna tell you he loved you, too. If you didn’t love him, well then. Then, well. Yeah, he had no idea what he’d do but you’d still be alive so he could live with it. And if you did love him, then he’d spend the rest of his fucking life–your lives making sure you knew how important and loved you were. How much he loved you and wanted to make you happy. He’d do it every day. Tell you every day, if he could somehow keep from professing it multiple times a day (which he didn’t plan to). Wouldn’t be able to stop kissing you, either. GOD, how he wanted to kiss you. He’d had the urge sporadically throughout your friendship but it intensified around Christmas time last year and by the end of the school year, Eddie’s self control was hanging by a thread. He hadn’t kissed you then because he was too stupid to even think about acknowledging his feelings as well as yours. Then summer had punched him in the fucking face because all he wanted to do was kiss you stupid, hold you and just smother himself with your existence.

Only he couldn’t. You were possessed and maybe dating your ex-whatever he was, while under the influence of something non-human (his brain hurt to make sense of it). How the fuck was he supposed to un-posses you? The only scenario he could think of was that of The Exorcist and while you hadn’t seemed yourself, your neck hadn’t been moving in ways it shouldn’t so an exorcism was probably out of the question. Eddie sighed, head nestled into your pillow before he realized it was your pillow, then he was pressing his face into again, albeit much more gentle, as he inhaled your scent, the ache in his heart immediately comforted by it. On impulse, he nuzzled further into it and for a moment, he was able to pretend it was your hair and you were with him, safe and curled into his side. Where you always should have been. He cracked an eye open with a sniffle to see one of your stuffed animals staring back at him. It was the one you’d immediately dove for, to hide, when you’d first invited him over and forgot it was still displayed on your bed. He’d teased you about it for only a moment before he’d made amends by having a one sided conversation in which he befriended it. It was quickly pulled into his arms and Eddie was further comforted just knowing he was holding something you held and cared for. He hoped–full offense to the stuffed animal–he’d be taking its place in the future.

It was all too much for him, the tears slipped out before he could stop them. Eddie found himself muffling his sobs into your pillow. It was so unfair. So, so fucking undeserved. All you wanted was to be accepted, how could that fucking warrant all this bullshit? If Eddie could, he’d swap places with you in an instant. He’d do anything.

He cried so hard and so long, he eventually ended up tiring himself out. Eddie wasn’t even aware that he’d been slipping further away from consciousness, thoughts only focused on you, so much he even dreamed of you.

“You’re really not helping me out here, Sunshine,” Eddie commented with a smirk and a dry tone as he watched you get comfortable on his bed, stomach down and feet up in the air.

“You met her at one of your shows, Eddie. She knows you’re metal so literally every single piece of clothing you own is not only appropriate for your date, it also means you can’t go wrong. ‘Sides, you look great in all your clothes,” you said, rolling onto your back to peer up at him upside down.

“Now, you’re just flattering me.” But it had been the right thing to say, Eddie had already changed twice—eager to please—and just needed reassurance. You always made him feel better about being himself.

You were also making it harder and harder for him to deny his feelings.

Maybe he shouldn’t anymore.

“Sunshine,” Eddie started, voice serious to even his own ears as he closed the distance between the two of you, squatting by the edge of the bed directly in front of you. You flipped over and sat up on your knees, hands clasped together in your lap with a hopeful gleam in your eyes. “I wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay, you can tell me anything,” you quirked and Eddie felt his heart squeeze, affections for you growing as each moment passed.

He knew he could, you were always so easy to talk to. Still, something in him was scared, he didn’t want this to be another Chrissy situation. He didn’t hold anything against her, knew hurting people wasn’t in her nature but she’d still chosen Jason over him. It had stung, but he’d had you as a salve for the pain when he was finally ready to stop running from their end and stop seeking her out.

Who would he have if you got tired of him? Something about the ache he got at the mere thought of losing you told him it would hurt way more than any of his previous heartbreaks and that wasn’t something he was keen on experiencing. So, he chickened out.

“You’re my best friend, you know that?”

“Of course, I know that. You tell me all the time,” you reminded him and Eddie just leaned forward to ruffle your hair, chuckling when you fought his hand away. He stood back up and went to grab his jacket from where he’d thrown it over one of his amps. He pointedly pretended he hadn’t seen disappointment flash over your face.

He’d make it up to you later, take you to buy a new cassette or something. God, what was he thinking? He’d almost ruined it all.

“I better get going or I’ll be late,” Eddie shrugged his jacket on, watching from the corner of his eye as you quickly pulled yourself together, pushing yourself off the bed.

It was only a little awkward as you both made your way out of the trailer. You walked over to retrieve your bike from where you always left it when you came over, unchained. No one really took stuff that didn’t belong to them around here.

Except for Eddie.

“Well, I hope you have fun, Eddie. Just don’t trash her music taste if it differs from yours in the slightest like you always do and you’ll definitely get a second date.”

“What about you? Doing anything fun?”

“Oh, yeah. Babysitting some of the neighborhood kids. I think you and Lucas would get along. He’s a huge nerd, too.” You shot him a smirk over your shoulder as you walked your bike away, always too embarrassed to hobble onto it in front of him.

Eddie stood by the door of the van, the handle loosely in his grasp as he watched your retreating figure and felt the familiar feeling of longing settle into his belly.

Fuck this.

“HEY!” He called out to you, already jogging the distance as you stopped to look back, eyes wide as you noticed the sudden change in him.

“What?”

“The thing is,” Eddie started, lips pursed as he debated over what he was about to confess. It would change everything and Eddie didn’t take to change very well. It was precisely why he’d ignored your feelings and his, hoping they’d simply go away, vanish into thin air someday.

He didn’t want them to go away anymore. He wasn’t afraid of change. Because the change that would come to your relationship was the good kind. The kind that would allow him to hold your hand, kiss you, be close to you without feeling like he was pushing a boundary.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie snapped out of it, focusing on your expression again. You looked concerned, of course you were worried about him. You were one of the few people who cared for him.

He reached out, gently taking your soft hand in his, thumb stroking over your knuckles.

“The thing is . . . I love you. I love you, so much and I’ve been too chicken shit to say anything because you’re also my best fucking friend, Sunshine. I didn’t want to lose that. But if I didn’t say anything, I’d be losing the chance for more. I want everything with you, I want to be your boyfriend,” he confessed, giving your hand a squeeze as he watched you with bated breath.

You stared down at your hands for a moment.

Then you laughed.

You laughed cold and cruel and hard, before yanking your hand out of his grasp.

“You think I’d want you? After all this time?”

The pain in his chest was immediate, he could feel the blood drain from his face. Then Billy Hargrove walked around the corner of a neighboring trailer, hands in his pockets with the most smug of smirks on his stupid fucking face. The fuck was he doing here?

“Why the hell would she want you, Freakazoid? She’s my girl, always has been.” Eddie watched as he walked right up to you, slipping an arm around your shoulders as you leaned into his embrace like you were used to it, your own arms slipping around his waist. Eddie felt physically ill.

He could also feel his heart cracking, chipping and shattering into millions of pieces as he stared hopelessly at you and Billy. It got worse.

Billy leaned down, mouth devouring yours in a messy kiss that you returned with fervor and Eddie felt like he was dying, could feel the hot tears of anger, heartache, frustration and betrayal—he didn’t really have a right to feel—already running down his cheeks.

He wiped furiously at them but they just kept coming. When you and BIlly finally pulled away, it was only to laugh at him.

Then it wasn’t just you and Billy. Suddenly, he was in the cafeteria of the high school, and everyone was crowded around, laughing at him, having an absolute fit of a good time at his expense.

Eddie couldn’t breathe, wet gaze and red eyes darting around to take in all the cruel faces around him before landing on yours again, begging with them.

This time, there was no cruelty on your face. It was void of any emotion before you turned your back to him and made your way into the crowd solo, Billy was no longer present.

Eddie made a desperate attempt to follow you, trying to force and bully his way through the crowd, watching the back of your head disappear into it as he screamed your name, begging you to come back to him as the crowd got louder and rowdier. You were gone. He was left alone.

Eddie’s eyes snapped open as he gasped for breaths and jolted up, chest heaving and filled with momentary panic before he realized he’d experienced a nightmare. Or something close to it.

It wasn’t real. Thank fucking hell.

The nightmare had started off as a memory. You had been at his trailer, hanging out with him before one of his dates but he hadn’t stopped you when you left on your bike. Eddie had only watched you. Then he got in his van and went to pick up the girl he had asked out.

He fell back into soft pillows, relaxing for just a moment before he realized the pillows were too soft and fluffy to be his, as was the mattress under his body. A quick look around his surroundings reminded him he was in your bedroom.

He was also reminded of the horrifying circumstances regarding why he was in your bedroom and you weren’t.

Shit.

Reluctantly, Eddie got out of your bed, quickly gathering his things. Max would probably call soon and he had to be at the trailer to answer. He practically ran down your stairs, stopped, ran back up them to snag the stuffed animal he’d cuddled the night before. He’d need a little bit of you to keep him sane.

As he locked and closed your front door behind him, he just so happened to glance at your next door neighbor’s house, head doing a double take when he noticed their front door was also open.

Eddie did a quick glance around before he made his way over to investigate, brows furrowing when he noticed the door jam was broken.

“Hello?” He called out, pushing the door open further. The entrance was a wreck, a small table with flowers had been knocked over along with a coat rack, which had a large section of it broken off. The broken piece was only a little ways away. The home had obviously been broken into and some sort of struggle had taken place.

Eddie had a feeling both you and Billy had been involved. Just as he turned to leave, a picture had been knocked to the floor caught his eye.

Of fucking course your neighbor had to be the goddamn Mayor.

He ran back to his van in record time, quickly peeling out of the area as he weighed his options. He couldn’t call the cops, not only because he was probably still on their radar, there was no way they wouldn’t try to blame him for it. Then, he’d get locked up and saving you wouldn’t be impossible from behind bars.

Besides, they were pretty much useless. He’d have to tell Red and El.

Eddie made it into his trailer just in time to answer the phone before it could finish its first ring. He nearly broke his ankles flinging himself at it, wincing as his shoulder collided roughly with the wall.

“‘Lo?” He croaked out, mouthing ‘ow’ as he rubbed the sore spot.

“It’s me.”

Red—Max, whatever.

“What’s up?” He demanded, shoulder pain immediately forgotten.

“Your girlfriend, you know her schedule right?”

“She’s not my—yeah. Yeah, I know her schedule. Why?” It didn’t matter all that much to correct her, right?

“Does she work today?”

“No. WAIT. Yes, she’s covering for her co-worker Heather. I don’t know what shift, though,” If you bothered showing up this time, anyways. “Why?”

“Meet us at the pool then.”

“WHY?” Eddie demanded again, wincing once more when he remembered Wayne should be asleep on his bed. A quick glance into the living room confirmed his old man was still asleep. Thank god that man could sleep through the apocalypse.

“Why?” Eddie muttered into the receiver, voice much lower this time.

“We’re gonna see if she’s a spy.”

“Were you not in the same house as me, yesterday? I wouldn’t call that atmosphere pleasant.”

“I wouldn’t call any atmosphere Billy is in ‘pleasant’.”

“Alright, you got me there. But I went over again and—hello?” Eddie was met with the sound of the dial tone. He rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath as he placed the phone back on the receiver. Kids were such assholes.

He took a quick shower, probably less than five minutes, and freshened up just so he wouldn’t smell in case he ended up in close quarters with you.

When he got to the pool, he was momentarily concerned he wouldn’t be able to find them. Then he caught sight of Red and El, crouched in the parking lot in front of a nearby car. They weren’t alone.

“Oh great, you brought the rest of the little rascals,” Eddie sighed as he walked over.

“Shut up.”

“I’m Lucas.”

“Will.” Eddie had seen him on a couple of ‘Missing’ flyers, had been handed one when Jonathan was passing them around during all of his breaks and lunch.

“Mike.” He was prompted when El shoved her elbow into his rib.

“Eddie,” He introduced himself, giving them all a nod before his attention was on Red. “What are we doing here?”

“I already told you,” Max sighed, ready to elaborate once more.

“Yes, I know that. I mean why are we hiding in the parking lot?”

“Plotting,” Max stated, glancing back at where Billy lounged on the lifeguard tower. Eddie followed her stare and frowned. If Billy was on duty, then they’d most likely missed you.

You appeared on the other side of Billy, still clad in your swimsuit with a towel over your arm as you conversed.

Eddie perked up immediately and so did the sense of longing in his belly.

“What were you saying?” Lucas asked Will, referring to whatever it was they were talking about before Eddie interrupted with his arrival.

Eddie didn’t take his eyes off you, too afraid you’d disappear like you did in his dream but he was listening intently to the conversation.

“The Mind Flayer liked to hide. He only used me when he needed me.” There was that unsettling feeling again. Eddie did not like that, not one bit. “It’s like you’re a doormat. And then, when he needs you, you’re activated.”

You didn’t look like you could harm a fly, sunglasses over your face as you appeared to argue with Billy, who didn’t so much as look down at you, gesturing to a kid in the water he’d most likely called a name.

You told him Billy did that a lot and it bothered you significantly.

“Okay, so we just wait until they get activated,” Max decided.

“No,” Mike shook his head, “What if they hurt someone?”

“Or kill someone.” Lucas added.

“They already broke into the Mayor’s house,” Eddie informed them, grimly. He was trying to wrap his head around the idea of the cute lifeguard, who held his heart in the soft palms of her hands, breaking into a home and abducting someone.

“What?!”

“I went by again yesterday.” Eddie threw Max a glare as he recalled what he had attempted to tell her over the phone before she hung up on him. “And when I left this morning—don’t ask—I noticed her neighbor’s door looked kicked in. The inside was wrecked and a lovely little photo of that asshole and his wife was on the ground.”

“That’s not the Mayor’s house,” Lucas corrected him, “It’s his mistress’ house. The Mayor lives in some fancy schmancy part of town with his wife but he’s been seeing my mom’s hair stylist and that’s where she lives. I hear my mom talking about it to her friends all the time.”

“Then they got a rude interruption last night.”

“We’re not taking any more chances,” Mike declared. “We need to find out if they’re hosts to it.”

Mike, Lucas and Will ran to the boys locker rooms to check something but Eddie couldn’t be bothered to go with them, choosing to wait with Max and El so he could keep an eye on you. The boys came back within minutes and had developed a plan to capture Billy. Which just left you.

Mike had come up with the idea to lock you in the sauna with Billy but Eddie vehemently rejected the idea. He was not about to lock you anywhere with Billy, especially since he was a little more reassured of your dislike of him. While you two had been playing house the evening before, it looked like you were back to being annoyed with him today. What the hell was up with that?

Eddie noticed you walking away and stiffend. Was The Mindflayer calling you away?

“She’s leaving,” he pointed out, a desperate edge to his voice.

“Oh, shit. We can’t let her out of our sight!”

“I won’t,” Eddie stated as they crouched low to hide behind the car when you came out. He’d been expecting you to walk over to the bike racks but you made your way to the parking lot instead, hopping into the first car you saw. You dipped a little below the steering wheel before the car came to life and you drove out of the parking lot.

“Should we follow her car?”

“She doesn’t have a car,” was all Eddie stated before he bolted over to the van. Before he could peel out after you, Lucas’s face popped into view of the window and Eddie hastily lowered it in time for the preteen to shove a giant fucking walkie talkie through it.

“Use this to keep in contact and be careful!”

“Thanks, kid.”

Eddie didn’t wait any longer, speeding out of the parking lot to make sure he didn’t lose you.

His heart was racing, palms sweaty and gripping the steering wheel as he followed the car you stole. When you pulled into the grocery store, he parked further from you, just to make sure you weren’t on to him.

You got out of the car and Eddie realized you were still in your red swimsuit and white sneakers, with no bag or car keys. You glanced around you and Eddie quickly ducked down into the seat cursing as he waited a few moments before peaking over at your retreating figure. There was no telling whether you saw him or not, you were still wearing your sunglasses but if you had seen him, his presence didn’t bother you enough to stop you.

Eddie pulled out the TRC, fumbling with it until he managed to get it operating, “Eddie to Little Rascals. Come in, Little Rascals.”

There was nothing for a few moments, then static.

“Eddie?” It was Lucas.

“Yeah, it’s me. I followed her to Bradley’s Big Buy.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Buying groceries? I don’t know! But I’m gonna find out. I’ll check in soon.” Eddie didn’t bother asking how their plan with Billy was going, they couldn’t exactly trap him in broad daylight with witnesses, nor did he even care about what happened to the mondo-douche. Not after he got you involved in this fucked up mess.

He did his best to maintain a sense of casualty when he got into the store, giving a forced smile to some lady who was staring at him for obvious reasons: his attire and general appearance. “Hey, how you doin’?”

Eddie speedwalked, checking each aisle for you. He almost feared he’d lost you, maybe you’d already left the store, until he reached the laundry detergent aisle.

There you were and for a moment, he forgot about the current situation, eyes raking over your figure with deep appreciation. Wow. Just—wow.

Then you grabbed a detergent off the shelf, uncapped it and began chugging the liquid down, effectively snapping him out of his horny thoughts.

Eddie could only stare, eyes wide and mouth open, dumbfounded.

You lowered the nearly empty jug, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand before you noticed his presence, turning your head to him.

“Hi, Eddie.” You greeted him as though nothing was wrong, like you didn’t just down an entire jug of chemicals.

“Uh, hey, Sunshine.” Was all he could force out because he didn’t know if he was interacting with you or The Mindflayer. Did it even allow you to be you? Fuck, it was confusing. Did he mention how fucked up this whole thing was?

“I’d go with the lemon scented, lavender’s pretty shit.” Then you capped the jug and put it back on the shelf before walking off. Eddie took a few moments to regain his composure, trying not to have a panic attack about what drinking that shit could do to you before he was stumbling after you but he was too late.

You weren’t in the store anymore and Eddie cursed as he made a break for the front doors, running out of them just as the car you were in—an entirely new one from the one you stole at the pool—screeched by.

FUCK.

“FUCK!” Eddie gripped the roots of his hair in frustration, paying no mind to the weird looks he was getting.

You’d gotten out of there fast, there was no way you weren’t on to him following you around now. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He ran back to the van, yanking the door open and rooting around until he pulled up the walkie talkie.

“Preteens, we have a problem. I repeat, we have a colossal problem.”

This time it was Max who responded, “What is it, Eddie?”

“She knows.”

Eddie heard a bunch of them trying to talk as Max held down the button before she told them to be quiet, “What does she know? What happened?”

“I was following her inside and I caught—well, I mean it was out in the open but not a whole lot of people were around—anyways, I caught her drinking laundry detergent and I was so damn shocked, she had time to make it out. She must have been bolting in the parking lot because by the time I made it out behind her, she was already driving off!” Eddie rambled, still shook up by the whole ordeal.

“She was drinking detergent?”

“Messed up, right? She took off in a different car this time and I don’t know how she’s doing it unless The Mindflayer gives his little puppets a crash course on hotwiring.” But even that took a few moments, you’d gotten out of there way too quick if that was the case.

“You have to find her, Eddie!”

“I know, I know. I’m gonna search around town. Be careful on your end.” The TRC was tossed onto the passenger seat as Eddie started up the van.

He drove through the streets of Hawkins looking for any sign of you and while he didn’t find you, he found elements of your presence in the form of a few homes which looked broken into. He wasn’t entirely sure if you’d done it since Bradley’s or if they had been homes you and Billy had hit the night prior.

You made your way through the crowded mall, easily weaving between bodies as you approached the girls hanging out by the fountain. You’d since changed your lifeguard attire, He needed you to blend in for the next part of his plan.

“Well, well. Look who’s out of the house,” Beverly commented, hot pink lips pursed into an ignorant smirk. The rest of her lackeys giggled as if she said something remotely insulting.

“Thank you for stating the obvious, Beverly. I am—indeed—at the fucking mall and not my house,” you stated, face void of any amusement. Fix it, He commanded and your face broke out into a smile just as Beverley’s contorted in shock at your brazen reply.

“Anywho, girls, Billy sent me.” You waited for them to show signs of interest, He was pleased when they did; sitting up straighter, leaning forward to hear what you had to say. “He’s throwing a warehouse party tonight. Interested?”

Eddie was camped out in front of your house, sunk just low enough in the seat to see over the edge of the dashboard as he waited for you to come home. He had no luck perusing the town, so his best bet was to wait for you to come to him.

The stuffed animal was clutched to his chest again, mind entirely filled with nothing but thoughts and concern about you when you finally pulled up to your home in another car, having ditched the other.

He knew it probably wasn’t wise, but he needed to confront you, he had to find out what was going on with you.

The moment you were out of your car, Eddie was out of the van and calling out to you.

You stopped in your tracks, staring at him with a bleak expression, “Yes?”

He had no idea what to fucking say, so he went with, “Where have you been?”

“Around.”

His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, ache in his chest only growing, “Sweetheart, please. Please talk to me. What’s going on? You’re avoiding me, hanging around Billy again and not acting like yourself. Did I do something? If I did, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Eddie saw you fidget, brows furrowing as something akin to sadness appeared to pass over you.

“You didn’t do anything, Eddie,” He let you tell him. “Go away.”

You turned to walk up your driveway but Eddie was desperate, he reached forward to grasp your wrist and you whirled around, expression dark as your body tensed.

“I said. . . Go. Away.” It was hissed out between your clenched teeth with so much venom, Eddie almost backed down. Almost. The impending doom feeling returned, filling the warm night air with dread.

He clenched his jaw, preparing for you to attack him at that point but he’d take whatever you gave him. He could handle it, even if he had to wrestle you into submission.

“No.”

Just as it looked like you were about to make a move, something odd happened.

You froze, eyes looking both at him and beyond him. The skin of your wrist under Eddie’s palm began to move in a way that was not at all normal or even remotely human. He stared in horror as your veins appeared to bulge and crawl up your arm, following them up to your face where the veins around your eye sockets—not normally seen to the human eye—were very apparent, bulging and dark.

Your eyes were nearly pitch black.

With ease, you flung the arm Eddie had a hold of, sending him flying in the air before crashing onto the lawn on the other side of the street.

He gasped, trying to get the air that had escaped his lungs on impact to return to him and was still gasping when he managed to roll onto his side, eyes darting around until they caught sight of you running towards a telephone poll with an electricity distribution box on it.

Eddie watched, chest heaving as you tore the cover off, before flinging it at an alarming speed towards the telephone wires, one of the jagged ends catching along and snapping a wire from its place as its sparks rained down around you.

It was only then Eddie noticed the puddle of water, left over from last night’s storm, you stood in.

“NO!” He managed to yell, voice hoarse as he tried to warn you, gritting his teeth while he pushed his sore body up from the ground. He watched the wire dance around the street, sparks flying from the end.

He’d just managed to get to his feet, ignoring the pain in his sides as he ran towards you.

Before Eddie could reach you, the wire end dipped into the puddle and he was sure his heart stopped.

Only, you weren’t electrocuted as you should have been. You weren’t affected at all.

Eddie’s running slowed to a stop as you reached down, grabbed the thick wire and raised it to your mouth.

“No fucking way.” He whispered into the air, mouth dry.

You bit into it and Eddie swore he saw your body illuminate, literally glow from within like a finger would if held against the lens of a flashlight, before the lights of the homes around him flickered, as did the street lights. Suddenly, telephone pole glass insulators burst on every pole as far as his eyes could see and the bulbs of every street light shattered. The homes went black, leaving your street and probably the next couple of blocks swallowed in darkness.

Eddie could barely make out your figure fleeing under the cover of a total blackout, sprinting further and further away until he could no longer see you at all.

He stood in the middle of the street for quite some time before he painstakingly made his way back to the van.

The drive back to the community pool was filled with silence, his headlights the only source of light.

When Eddie pulled up to the pool it was obvious the area had been affected by the power outage but not too bad, a couple of lights flickering and the ones that weren’t were dim. The kids were all seated on the sidewalk, looking as defeated as he felt.

“We lost Billy. He’s flayed,” Max stated, sounding disheartened as Eddie sat next to her, grimacing at the shock of pain flaring through his side.

“So is she.” Saying it out loud made his eyes burn with the sting of tears, fists clenched as they rested over his knees. It was one thing to fear you were possibly under the control of that thing, he felt a whole new sense of terror knowing, without a doubt, you were.

He explained what had happened on his end, how you possessed almost superhuman strength and managed to drain a large region of the town of its electricity, which also explained how you were easily able to start all those cars you’d stolen. The kids deflated further as they realized exactly what they were up against this time around.

“What are you going to do, now?” Max asked quietly, fully expecting him to run for the hills. It’s what any sane person would do.

Max didn’t know Eddie wasn’t sane. And if it hadn’t been you in this situation, he would have run, wouldn’t have even been mixed into this whack ass situation.

But it was you and Eddie was done running from you. It was high time he ran towards you.

“I’m gonna save her. Or—y’know, die trying, I guess.”

“The girl,” you asked, grabbing the rag at your side. “Was it her?”

“Yeah. It was her. She knows now. She knows about me.” Before you could press it to the cut actively bleeding on Billy’s forehead, his hand darted out to grip your arm. “Will Munson be a problem?”

“No,” Brief flashes of warm, pretty brown kind eyes, a smirk, a wide grin, and brown curls managed to slip past His control before they were snuffed out, the ashes left to sink into the the grips of the Upside Down, along with your freewill.

Billy’s grip on your arm loosened and despite his bruising hold, there were no marks left behind on your skin. You were one in the same.

“She could have killed me,” he continued, and you felt what he feared. The failure of your plan. Of His plan.

“Yes.” Billy would be no match for the girl with superhuman abilities. Even with the gift He bestowed you, you may be no match for her. “But not us.”

You turned your head, both you and Billy taking in the sight of your growing numbers, various members of the community now a part of your legion, a part of Him. Soon, you would all join Him as one.

“Not us.”

And He watched you, from the eyes of the creature left behind in the world he’d been cast out of.

In his domain, the realm of the Upside Down, the being, the nightmare who would soon be known began his preparations.

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