Mama Lan

Oh now this is challenging and you are a fiend who will someday pay for your crimes.

a song that reminds me of them

Going to have to pass on this one, I can't think of anything really.

what they smell like

We know so little about her it's impossible to speculate pre-confinement, but post-confinement I presume it would be sandalwood like all the Lans. Let me take this opportunity to raise a point that has also bothered me for several years: unless someone knows more than me about this particular variety (entirely possible!), blue gentians have little if any scent. I believe the roots and other parts of the plant have a stronger scent when processed for extracts or similar, but a mass of blossoming gentians actually wouldn't smell that strongly.

an otp

N/A, we just don't know enough about her for me to have any shipping preferences in that regard.

a notp

While I know there is technically room to speculate that she did come to love QHJ, I don't think it's the most likely conclusion based on the information we have. The idea isn't something that charms and delights me either. I quite like not knowing the details because, although I'm not totally on board with LXC's desire not to know the truth, I think we know enough to be sure that it is not good. The world of MDZS is not a world where a woman who didn't return a man's love somehow conveniently came to fall for him during or after being consigned to solitary imprisonment for the rest of her life.

Reading between the lines I think the most likely sequence of events is that she chose this life over death and therefore her consent to things such as sexual activity is technical at best. I'm sure there's some good work out there around that, but it's not something I would read whether consensual or nonconsensual or ambiguous; the entire situation makes my skin crawl.

Gun to my head I find coercion less distasteful than a theoretical attempt to sell me on a genuine loving relationship existing between these two particular characters.

favorite platonic/familial relationships

Hands down LXC, mostly because this is another example of how LXC's needs are always treated as secondary to LWJ's. I'm fully aware that LXC tells the story of his mother's life and death to WWX specifically to try to communicate something to him about LWJ (I wonder what that could be), but it is still heartbreaking to me that this man describes his brother's grief in detail and doesn't spare a word for his own.

It's even worse to think of how traumatic it must have been to lose his mother, when he loved her just as much as LWJ did but had the additional burden of worrying about and caring for his didi. Both Twin Jades are raised under unfathomable pressure, but LXC's burden is still the greater and he bears it with such grace that no one ever even notices. This is why it's important to note the lengths JGY goes to in order to ensure LXC's comfort and remove as many burdens and stressors from his life as possible.

I also love the little touch that LXC often visits his mother's house—a thing that unless I've forgotten something is not mentioned in relation to LWJ, and that I therefore choose to read as being unique to him. It's nice to imagine that he has his own genuinely private space, even if being in that space is bittersweet. Clearly he feels closer to his mother there than at the family shrine, which is another nice touch emphasising how their love for each other had to exist outside orthodox spaces.

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with

I am deeply weary of fandom's steadfast conviction that the yassification of any and all female characters is a powerful feminist statement. I think I will just leave this one here.

the position they sleep in

I hope she sprawls all over that damn bed every night, and I hope QHJ never stays long enough to fall asleep in it.

a crossover au i’d love to see them in

I'm not saying never, but my instinct is that I really prefer her to remain as mysterious as she is in canon and not feature directly. That doesn't really lend itself to crossovers.

my favorite outfit they’ve ever worn

The one covered in the blood of QHJ's teacher. I don't even care whether or not said teacher had it coming.

Official Accounts Part 24- Nightmares

Summary: (y/n) was perfectly happy remaining anonymous, even if her best friends were all pro heroes and she worked under THE Hawks. Handling the technical aspects of hero work from the background suited her just fine, thank you very much. That goes out the window when suddenly her twitter blows up thanks Denki and the famed no. 2 hero is asking her to run his own official twitter as a result

If you don’t want to see Official Accounts content blacklist #hopelessoa

Warnings for description of (but no actual) major character injury and death. It occurs in a nightmare at the start of the part. If you’d like to skip it there will be a (***) to indicate the end of the dream sequence

Masterlist

You were back in that industrial complex, ribs creaking with each inhale, burnt skin pulling taut and painful, as you frantically try and get the cuffs to break. You’re at that fateful moment, the link between the cuffs catches, you start to bend them upwards, Dabi reaches for Hawks to end his career permanently but this time the cuffs slip again. The tension falls away and your wrists remain shackled as Dabi grasps hold of what remains of Hawks’ wings and sends them up in smoke. You watch helplessly, screaming for Dabi to stop as you watch Hawks screaming in agony. Except suddenly it’s not Hawks. It’s your mother, beaten and bloody on the floor as Dabi stands triumphantly above her. You rush forward to try and help but after just a few steps find yourself running smack into a clear wall. The cuffs finally release you but still you can do nothing. No matter how much you activate your quirk the wall in front of you doesn’t budge as Dabi sends the entire other side into bright blue flames and you hear the combined wails of pain of Keigo and your mother. Your fists pound against the surface keeping you from them and you’d swear there’s no worse sound in the world. But then the fire stops roaring and Dabi turns to look at you grinning, two piles of ash at his feet, and you realize the silence afterwards is infinitely worse.

(***)

You jerk up in bed with a gasp, clutching at your chest to try and steady your rapidly beating heart. “It was just a dream,” you tell yourself over and over until finally your body starts to believe it. You look over at your clock to find it’s 4am and flop back onto your bed with a groan. As much as you would love to sleep more, the adrenaline still coursing through you after your nightmare makes it very clear that isn’t going to happen. You reach over to grab your phone as you climb out of bed with every intention of calling Denki or Katsuki on the off chance one of them is awake as you go to make yourself some tea to soothe your nerves; however, before you can hit the call button and as you exit your bedroom you stop in your tracks as you make eye contact with Hawks.

“Oh shit, sorry I forgot you were here for a second. I didn’t wake you up did I?” you ask cautiously. It wouldn’t be the first sleepover ruined by you screaming in your sleep but Hawks shakes his head. “I was up already and you weren’t being loud or anything. Couldn’t sleep and typically I’d be getting ready for work now so,” he shrugs. He seems to come to a realization and it makes you a little sad to watch as he plasters on a grin, his hand sheepishly going to the back of his neck as he chuckles “Guess I’ll have to try and break a habit or two until I get better.” “You don’t have to do that,” you say shaking your head. “Do what?” “You can be Keigo here. No bullshit. So let’s try this again,” you say, making a show of turning around to go back to your room. He watches you confused as you walk back out again, pretending as if you hadn’t just seen him. “Oh, hey Keigo. Sorry, just had a nightmare and was gonna make myself some tea to calm down. I didn’t scream in my sleep and in doing so wake you up, did I?” you ask. Keigo blinks at you surprised for a moment before shaking his head with a small, somewhat incredulous smile. Something about your candor made him want to return the favor. “Don’t worry you didn’t scream this time. My own nightmares woke me up.” “Wanna talk about it?” “Not at all.” “Want some tea?” “I’d love some.”

You put your old kettle onto the stove and set the burner going before moving to rifle through your cabinets for a couple mugs and then your boxes of tea. “Any preferences?” you ask pointing at your frankly impressive collection. “That’s a lot of tea.” “I’m something of a connoisseur.” “Then I’ll have whatever you recommend.” You give him a nod as you grab two bags of your favorite and drop one in each mug. The kitchen stays quiet as you wait patiently for the water to boil. It’s a little odd, seeing Hawks in just an old tshirt and sweats, his hair still looking sleep mussed and everything. When the water is finally ready you carefully fill both mugs, passing one to him before hopping onto the counter and taking your own mug in both hands. He leans with his back against the counter beside you and still neither of you say anything as you wait for your tea to cool.

“Keigo is quiet,” you observe. “Keigo is quiet,” the man in question confirms. A pause. “Does it bother you?” he asks, and you can hear just a hint of fear there. Fear of judgment or rejection, you’re not quite sure which. Maybe it’s a bit of both. Regardless, you’re quick to reassure him. “Not at all. You mind if I put on some music? It’s kinda part of my post nightmare ritual.” “Go for it.” You pull up the music app on your phone, quickly connect it to a Bluetooth speaker in your kitchen, and thumb over to your usual post-nightmare playlist, selecting a song at random. As the music softly fills the room the two of you continue to drink your tea without anything but the soft notes of an acoustic guitar and a crooning singer to interrupt the silence. The two of you stay like that, not exchanging a single word and yet comfortable all the same, until the sun begins to crawl its way back over the horizon and red and orange light suffuses through the kitchen.

Author’s note: The song I pictured (y/n) choosing when I wrote this was Waterman by USERx, which is a collaboration between one of my favorite artists Matt Maeson and another artist named Rozwell. I haven’t listened to any of Rozwell’s solo work but Maeson has a knack for really emotional ballads, both the kind of slow, croony kind and the more powerful ones. (Y/n) typically calls either Denki or Bakugo after nightmares because Denki has been there for her since she first started getting them after her mom died and Bakugo knows what it’s like because he sometimes gets them too I know not everyone agrees with this headcanon but I like it so have it anyways oops

Taglist [open]: @cathy8taffy @katzurras @grumpyfroggies @captaincyberqueen @itskindofafairything @420-uwu @someweirdshitman @oliviasslut @the-adzukibean @a-fucking-sero-kinnie

A Pup’s Tale

Chapter 8

Over the course of the week, Master controls me from a distance. Since we are not yet ready to meat up (at least I’m not), Master tells me to follow various orders throughout the week.

At first, his commands are simple and almost silly.

Sit on the floor like a good slave you are. Furniture is for Master.

So, I sit on the floor. Of course, I don’t always do this. Master doesn’t know. I sit on the floor when prompted, but otherwise I still sprawl out on the couch or other furniture

However, its becoming more like a game. I don’t mind moving to the floor when reminded.

What did I say about furniture, boi?

That’s what I am now. Boi or pup. I like that. It is almost like a pet name you see couples with.

Things escalate as days go on. He starts asking what sort of gear I have.

What kind of gear?

Bondage/pup play/kinky gear. Any gear.

None really.

That was true. Though I do have a pair of purple fuzzy cuffs that I recieved as a gag gift for Christmas one year.

Download Etsy. Hmmm what sort of gear should you start with?

At first I am a little annoyed. What? Does he expect me to buy things too? Then, I think about it. I have been wanting to own “gear” of my own. I just need the push to do it.

Immediately, he answers his own question.

I want you to buy a collar. Purple. This.

He sends a screenshot photo. The collar looks beautiful: a deep purple with soft, fuzzy cloth on the inside. I get shivers.

Yes, Master.

Good.

I download Etsy and set up my account. I don’t know how to find that exact collar so I type in “purple human pup collar” to the search bar. I have dozens of results pop up. As I scroll through the options, I get lost in a horny trance. Soon, I find what Master has requested. The price states $20. I could afford that.

When I go to click on the buy options, I see that I could buy even more: wrist and ankle restraints, a harness, a hood, and even a tail. My mouth is drooling. I make an impulsive decision and buy them all!

I bought it, Master.

I don’t want to tell him about the extra toys—not yet, anyway.

Good, pup. Now, are you on the floor like a good pet?

A few days go by. I continue to message Master with glee, even participate in some embarrassing acts.

The day after I order my pup gear off Etsy, Master tells me that it is time for another “test”.

I easily agree and wait for instructions.

I want you to shave.

Easy. Done and done, Master. I am always clean shaven. I can’t even grow that good of facial hair.

No. Not your face. I want you to shave your privates. Smooth.

I’ve never shaved down there. Sure, I do some trim work—some light manscaping, but never have I fully cleaned myself that way. Ah, what the heck. I’ll try it. Besides, I’m a bit intrigued by how it will feel when I’m done.

Yes, Master. Right away.

I wait for his obligatory response. Three . . . two . . . one . . .

Good.

I stand up off the floor and march towards the bathroom. Then, I stop and think. I want to try something.

I get back on the floor, on my hands and knees and start crawling like a dog. The carpet is soft enough. This is an odd sensation, a new perspective on my living room. Master calls me pup, right? I might as well act like one every now and then. 

A new sensation washes over me. I feel . . . I don’t know . . . a little proud that I am doing this on my own. I’ll have to tell Master about this later.

I make it to the bathroom and get back up on my feet. I pull out my razor, shaving cream, and a towel, stripping myself naked.

I stare at the shaver, then the cream, then my nuts.

“Okay,” I say aloud. “Here we go.”

Thirty minutes later, I finish. (I know what you’re thinking. Yes, it did take a long while. To be fair, I got a little shave crazy once I started working on my cock and balls.)

I loved how smooth my skin was down there once I finished. I didn’t want to stop. Once I finished with my package, I moved on to my chest, then my armpits. Finally, I worked up the courage and excitement to shave my ass! All smooth now, super smooth. Well, with a few exceptions for my butt area. It was difficult to do for my first time.

I did it, Master. I shaved! I not only shaved my “down under” area, but I shaved my chest, my armpits, and even my bum!

You have done well, boi. Master is very pleased with you.

I feel a wave of happiness roll through my body. As I begin putting back on my clothes, my phone dings again.

Now, show me, boi.

I freeze. I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to obey, but part of me wants to ignore Master’s request, pretend I don’t read it, or flat out tell Master no. I am uncomfortable. I’ve never sent nudes to anyone before. I’m not even comfortable sending Master a picture of my face yet, (if I ever will).

How am I supposed to just send someone—basically a stranger—something so personal and embarrassing. I don’t have the best built body. I’m not strong. I have a bit of a gut. I have a smaller than average penis. I feel inadequate.

I can’t Master. I’m embarrassed. My body isn’t like the ones you see on this page. I have an ugly body.

I don’t care what you look like, boi. You are mine and that is all that matters to me. Show me. Now.

I get scared. I don’t want to disappoint Master, but I don’t want these pictures out in the world for anyone to see. What if he shares them with someone else. What if I get recognized? What if these pictures come back to haunt me some day? I don’t know what to do.

I’m waiting.

I strip. I snap. I send.

I stare at the phone with anticipation and worry. What will Master say? What will he think? Will he be disappointed?

Good slave. You did a good job. Show me the rest of your work.

I take a few more photos. A couple of my pits and my chest. I don’t snap a picture of my backside. That is one piece of me I want to keep yet.

Great work, pup. You took a big step today. Though, I am disappointed you resisted for so long. I gave you an order. When I give you an order, I expect obedience. Am I understood?

Yes, I’m sorry. I was just nervous and even a little afraid.

When I ask you a question, I expect an added ‘Master’ in the response. I also do not want an excuse. Am I clear?

Yes, Master.

Good. And do not think I forgot about that clean-shaven ass of yours. I want to see.

Without thinking I quickly send the picture with the message:

Yes, Master. Sorry, Master.

He waits a good 5 minutes to respond. Keep in mind I’m still naked in my bathroom, staring at at my phone intently as my palms start to sweat a little. Then, his name bolds in a commanding black.

Good, boi. Now that is a nice peach.

To be continued . . .

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Hidden

Square Filled: Director AU for @spnfluffbingo & Ugly Christmas Sweaters for @spnchristmasbingo

Characters: Jared x Reader; Britney (OFC)

Rating: Mature

Summary: The reader thinks it’s better if she and Jared keep their relationship a secret; he disagrees.

Word Count: 3864

Created for @spnfluffbingo & @spnchristmasbingo

“Come to my place tonight?” Jared was looking down at the script in his hands while he talked, pretending to be asking you something about how he should deliver his lines.

You swirled the plastic stirrer in your coffee and took a sip, trying to make the exchange look as businesslike as possible to anyone who might be observing. “We agreed we wouldn’t do that anymore, Jared, not until after filming is done, and we’re in post production.” 

You pointed to a line on his script as though you were making a suggestion. “If anyone found out, you know how people gossip. They’d say you slept with me to get this part.”

Jared closed his script. “So, let them.” For a second, you thought he was going to make a move, come closer to you. Touch you. God, how you wanted that, especially today. 

All day long, you hadn’t been able to get your mind off the sex scene that was scheduled to be filmed that afternoon. Here, right in the middle of this light hearted, feel good, movie was one of the steamiest sex scenes you’d ever read, or maybe that was just because you were picturing Jared in it. 

It was a challenge to remain professional and not let jealousy take control of you. An actress was about to crawl into bed, basically naked with him, while he put his hands and lips all over her. Weren’t these kinds of movies supposed to be about laughter, finding yourself, maybe helping some people? Who said anything about sex?

The next time you saw Jared, he’d be wearing nothing but a sock to cover his most private parts; and that woman, the tall thin example of what society called physical perfection with the full pouty lips and long glossy hair, would be topless and waving her boobs in his….

With that thought, you tightly squeezed your hands around the copy of the script you were holding until it was starting to fold and crease. “Y/N, are you okay?”

Your answer was crisp and to the point. “Jared, you need to go get ready for the next scene. Hair and makeup will need some time with you.” You didn’t state the obvious, that wardrobe wasn’t much of a factor.

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

It had taken you a good part of your life to come to terms with the fact that you were not classically beautiful. You had relied on that old “eye of the beholder” cliche, understanding that objectively you were not the woman that men turned to stare at when you walked into a room. You’d finally come to accept that, even though deep inside every girl wants to feel pretty.

The most devastating blow had come when you’d fallen in love with acting. It didn’t take long to realize you would never be the leading lady. Naively, you had auditioned for parts like that, thinking talent would get you one of those roles. The result was, after a number of rejections, you felt unattractive and resigned to the fact that your future in this industry was behind the camera. 

That’s where you were now, checking the framing and angles for the shot. The set had been cleared of all but essential personnel due to the nature of the upcoming scene. It was unusually quiet except for the thoughts raging in your head. It still stung that you weren’t “the beautiful one”. That long present wound was enough to give doubt about your blossoming relationship all the fertile soil it needed in which to grow. 

Maybe Jared was flirting with you, taking you to his bed, trying to get close to you because it would help his career. Your heart didn’t believe that because he was one of the most genuine and down to earth people you’d ever met in this business, but insecurity was a nasty bitch. Add to his sincerity the fact that he didn’t seem to be aware of just how gorgeous he was, remaining modest every time any sort of reference was made to his good looks. In many ways, he was too good to be true, and that’s why your head was telling you not to trust what was happening between you.

When he walked onto the set wearing nothing but a robe and the sock you knew was underneath, it only reinforced the out of control thoughts shooting through your mind and landing like daggers in your heart. You were definitely feeling more for him than it was wise to feel. What had been occurring between you was a dalliance, a fling. It was secret meetings for hot sex. Secret. Nothing could come of that. It was time to stop thinking that it might. 

It was no wonder you were struggling, trying to stop yourself from falling for him. Jared had taken control of the room without even trying as soon as he entered it. Even among actors, he was tall and well built. His muscles were attention grabbing, even under his clothes. His hair skimmed the top of his shoulders and had just enough wave in it that it almost defiantly refused to stay out of his face. It begged to be touched, and it would be very soon, just not by your fingers. 

Maybe it was his eyes that had lured you into this deep pool of confusing feelings and conflicting emotions. Of all his notable assets, his eyes had to be the best. They were unpredictable. Sometimes they were full of sunshine, flecked in gold or painted with a starburst of color through his iris that resembled a flower blooming. Other times, the shadows and the depth took over, and they became stormy gray with a flash of blue like the color of the sky when it was illuminated by lightning. 

He was looking at you with those incredible and surprising eyes now. Today they were a classic hazel, light even brown. You almost forgot what you were doing until Jared asked, “Where do you want me?”

It would be easier to tell him what you wanted him to do before she got here, so that was the approach you took. “Take off your robe and get in the bed under the covers.”

It was hard not to look when Jared untied his robe, flipped it back over his shoulders, and let it drop to the floor. His shoulders were broad, and his stomach was flat except for the well defined abs that swelled, leaving dips and valleys between them. You tried not to let your eyes drop below his waist, but they did. You darted them back up quickly. Be professional. Maintain focus. It was nothing you hadn’t seen before, but in this setting it was different. It made you a touch self conscious and overly aware of his physique. 

He was huge. That scrap of material he was wearing couldn’t hide that, and it certainly didn’t keep you from remembering the times he had stretched you to the point of a pleasurable scream while he thrust deeply into you. Today was going to be even more difficult than you had imagined.

Once he was under the sheets, you breathed a little easier. Jared looked to you for direction. Time to do your job and keep your personal feelings out of it. “When Britney gets here, I want you to get on top of her.” Well, you’d managed to choke that out and make your voice sound normal. “We’re starting more or less in the middle of the scene, none of the foreplay. It should be hot and intense from the second I call action.”

Jared arranged the sheet around his waist just so, like it wasn’t going to move. It did call attention to the way the stark white of the sheet complimented his skin tone, and made you think back to the last time you’d seen him naked in bed. That was when he first suggested you come out of the shadows, go on dates, be a couple. When the bed linens were arranged to his liking, he looked to you and asked, “What’s my motivation for this scene?”

It wasn’t an unusual question for an actor to ask a director, but part of you wondered if Jared was asking you to see what you’d say. Was it more flirting to get you to talk about sex and attraction? You looked directly into his stunning eyes and responded, “You’ve been denying your attraction for weeks now. You work together, so that makes it complicated. In the office, you haven’t been able to keep your eyes off each other. Your sexual tension has reached a peak, and it’s exploding right here.” You gave the bed a pat for emphasis, then realized what you’d said. 

You felt yourself start to flush and kept on talking to try to cover it up. “Bring some intensity to it, but keep it tender. You’re falling in love, but you’re not ready to say it. Show her with the way you touch her.” Your eyes met, and something unspoken passed between you.

Jared was about to speak, but then Britney arrived on set in a flourish. Her makeup artist was trailing behind her, making some final touch ups. She made a big show of disrobing, exposing her breasts to the remaining crew. They gawked and stared, just as she intended. You did your best not to roll your eyes into the back of your head. 

Unlike the others, Jared hadn’t paid any attention to her. His eyes were still focused on you; that unspoken thing was still in them, and there would be no chance to say it now. Britney climbed right into bed with him without any instruction from you and had the nerve to start flirting with him right in front of your face. She didn’t know what you were feeling. That was, after all, the point. You didn’t want anyone to have any idea there was anything going on between Jared and you. Or, maybe she did suspect and was being sadistic about it. Women had a way of seeing things men failed to see. 

Whether Britney knew or not, she wouldn’t care how you or anyone else felt about it. She was that girl, the one who thought about herself at all times. Romance between co-stars was good press that typically guaranteed increased media attention for the project and both parties involved. The studio would love it. Hell, they’d probably even encourage it. Scratch that. They would encourage it.

The next couple of hours were excruciating. Love scenes were some of the hardest to film under the best of circumstances. Every detail was important: the lighting, the camera angles, and most important body positioning. They competed with fight scenes in terms of difficulty to film. You would have much preferred a fight scene. 

For two hours you told Jared how to kiss another woman. “Tug on her bottom lip with your mouth. Be tender.” At one point you had physically taken hold of his hand and placed it where it would look best for the camera. It made you ready to run out of your own skin, escape in any way possible, be swallowed up by the floor beneath your feet. 

It was even worse telling her how to touch him. “Slide your hands down his back. Dig your fingers in a little.” This resulted in the sheet that was covering the lower half of his body sliding down far enough to show just a hint of butt cleavage, and it looked good. You would leave it in the final cut.

Mercifully, you finally got the takes you wanted and called it a wrap for the day. You gathered your things together and made your way to your car as quickly as you could, hardly even saying good night to anyone as you breezed by them to make your exit. 

As you approached your car, you hit the button on the remote. The familiar beep greeted your ears, letting you know that soon you would be surrounded by the warmth of the car’s interior. When the December Canadian air was frigid like this, you had to take a moment to remind yourself it was far preferable to the superficial fishbowl of LA.

Just as you touched the door handle, you heard the crunch of someone jogging through the snow. Couldn’t you be left alone ever? No doubt whatever this was could have waited until tomorrow, but being available to the cast and crew was one of the responsibilities of being the director. 

As you took a deep breath and tried to put an expression of patient interest on your face before you turned around, Jared’s voice carried across the cold winter air to your ears. “Y/N, wait.”

This required an even deeper breath before you turned around. He was barely breathing any heavier after running through the snow. That wasn’t surprising considering the shape he was in, but you were surprised he was chasing after you. Randomly, you thought he must’ve gotten dressed really quickly. It was probably your brain’s way of protecting you from deeper thoughts, but Jared wasn’t going to let you off that easily.

“I was hoping we could talk before you go.” He just really had no idea, did he? It was hard watching him with another woman, even if it was fake, when it was getting harder and harder to pretend your encounters with him were just casual affairs. It was more difficult to convince yourself you were fine with being his secret, even if it had been your idea. 

“Jared, I’m really tired. I just want to go home, okay? We can talk later.” You wished you could tell him the true reason you felt so tired, wanting more than anything to find comfort and reassurance in his arms. Somehow it felt even worse to hide yourself and your feelings from him. 

He didn’t say anything else, just nodded, took a couple steps back, and watched you get in your car. As soon as you started the car, holiday music filled the interior. Immediately, you turned off the radio in no mood for the cheerfulness. In your rearview mirror, you could see Jared. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, watching you go. Unwanted tears of frustration and confusion pooled in your eyes. You brushed them away so you could see the road.

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

Once home, you put on your favorite pajamas and started a fire in the fireplace. A wood burning fireplace was one feature you had insisted on when looking for a home in Vancouver. The rowhouse you finally purchased had a charming one, made even more so by the garland and Christmas stockings hanging from the mantel. You’d put up a row of stockings, never mind you didn’t need them; it looked better that way.

You settled in among the decorative pillows in holiday colors and plaid on the sofa, pulling one of them onto your lap and hugging it close while you listened to the crackle of the fire and watched the flames sway. It lulled you and took some of the edge off the day. Your mind was drifting to a better place when your doorbell rang.

Reluctantly, you rose from your comfy spot. You opened your front door to find Jared standing there wearing one of the most ridiculous looking Christmas sweaters you’d ever seen. It was green, covered in tinsel garland and shiny three dimensional ball ornaments. It was surprising enough he was standing there, but what he was wearing left you a tiny bit baffled and slightly amused. 

It was impossible not to smile when you took in the details of the sweater again. You asked, “Jared, why are you here, and why are you wearing that?” He responded by showing you his dimples, and your own smile got bigger. You could feel more of your bad mood melting away, and you were overtaken by the urge to reach out and play with one of the ornaments on his sweater. 

Instead of answering, he held out a box he was holding. It was wrapped in gold paper and had one of those peel and stick bows on top of it. You held out your hands and took it, noticing the box was reasonably well wrapped. He had really tried, and that touched you.

“What is this?” His expression was pleased but subdued.

“I got you something.” A smile spread across his face, dispelling any reservations he may have had. Whatever was in that package, he was clearly excited about it.

Beneath the gold paper, there was a white box the size of a shirt box. You lifted the lid; inside there was a sweater that wasn’t quite as over the top as Jared’s, but it was definitely in the ugly Christmas sweater category. It was red with falling snow and candy canes on it. 

You looked at him, a questioning expression on your face. “What are the sweaters about?”

Jared took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want you to wear it at the studio Christmas party, and I want you to go with me. Will you?” 

You saw the hope in his eyes while he waited to hear what you’d say. His words were sinking in, but did he understand what this could do to his reputation? “Jared, everyone will know.”

He glanced down at the floor and ran his hand through his hair. When he raised his head, his eyes found yours. The hope that had been there earlier had been replaced by determination. “I want them to know, Y/N. We aren’t doing anything wrong.” He cupped your face in his hand and brushed his thumb softly across your cheek. “I know what today did to you.”

“Jared, I…” You didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter because his mouth cover yours. You dropped the box you were holding and wrapped your arms around him, losing yourself in the kiss. With his hand on your waist, Jared pulled you closer to him. All the reassurance you had longed for earlier, you found.

While still kissing you, Jared lifted you into his arms and started to walk down the hallway toward your bedroom. You broke the kiss and buried your face in the side of his neck while he walked, breathing in the smell of him. 

Jared rarely wore cologne, and you were glad he didn’t, preferring that nothing mask the smell of him. The lingering hint of his soap on his freshly washed skin was comforting to you. You could smell the soap mingling with his skin now. Tears oozed gently from the corners of your eyes. He had showered before he came to you, erasing her scripted touch from his body.

He put you down gently on the bed and took off the brightly colored sweater he was wearing along with the t-shirt underneath before taking his place on top of you. You kissed his bare shoulder, wanting to leave some mark of you on him. It was the only signal he needed to start undressing you and kissing you in return.

His lips were warm on the pulse point at your neck, your collarbone, and your breasts. His hands moved over every part of your body, stroking and bringing you to a heightened state of arousal. By the time he took off his pants, you were nearly begging for him. “Jared, I need you.”

He hovered over you, his face only inches from yours. He looked into your eyes and laced his fingers through yours. “I’ve got you, Y/N. I’ll take care of you.” 

Jared made love to you slowly. He took his time and satisfied every need that was crying out from deep within you. He knew how to make you feel beautiful, knew how to make your body shake with the intensity of release, and knew how to make you feel safe after you’d opened  yourself to him completely and were feeling both satisfied and vulnerable.

You lay in his arms, your head on his chest. Jared was dragging his fingers slowly up and down your back. After a few minutes of silence, feeling the moment together, he kissed the top of your head and asked, “Could you feel it?”

You smiled, still drifting in the safe bubble he had made for you. “I felt a lot of things.”

He kissed the top of your head again and let his chin rest there. “When I touched you, could you feel that I love you?”

Your heart started to beat faster, and you raised your head to look at him. “I love you, Y/N. That’s why I don’t want to hide anymore. I want everybody to know it.”

You traced the firm line of his jaw with your fingertip. “Jared...I love you too, but that wouldn’t be good for you.” 

He sat up a little and put his hands on your shoulders. “How do you know? It wouldn’t be the first time an actor and a director were together.” 

“I don’t ever want anyone to question your talent, Jared.” Your heart was full of so many things, the truth of the words you’d just exchanged along with the fear those words evoked. 

His hands moved from your shoulders to the sides of your face. He held your face in his hands, his eyes pleading with you. “And I don’t ever want you to question how much I love you.” He dropped his hands, keeping just one under your chin to ensure you would keep looking into his eyes. “I saw what today did to you, how hard it was; but do you know what it did to me?”

No. You had no idea, hadn’t given it a thought. How could you have ignored his feelings? All you could say was “What?”

He had the most serious and pain filled expression you’d ever seen on his face. “I don’t want other women to come on to me in front of you, knowing what that’s doing to you, and not even be able to brush them off because this is a secret.” He let his hand drop from beneath your chin, trusting your eyes wouldn’t leave his now. “It hurt me to see how much you were hurting.”

“Jared, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

He covered your lips with his fingers and shook his head. “And I was so proud of you for working right through that hurt to put something on film that will make other people happy, that will make them believe in love. It doesn’t matter that what you were showing wasn’t real. Love is real. Ours is real.”

He kissed you before you could cry again. When the kiss ended, you rested your forehead against his. “You’re right. It is real, and we shouldn’t hide it. I don’t want to hide it anymore.”

Jared’s hand was in your hair, holding the back of your head. He was so close, you could feel him breathing. “You mean more to me than anything, Y/N. You always will.”

Everything: @gambitwinchester @princessmisery666 @onethirstyunicorn @peridottea91 @logical-princey @emilyshurley @beenlovingromansincedayoneish @fangirlxwritesx67 @waywardbaby @atc74 @shaniquacynthia @mariekoukie6661 @tumbler-tidbits @67-chevy-baby @fandom-princess-forevermore @terrarium-jpeg @emoryhemsworth @crashdevlin @heycasbutt @jules-1999 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @cosicas-cuquis @sammyimpala-67 @queenoftheunderdark @dean-winchesters-bacon @mrs-meghan-winchester @timelordy-fangirl2​ @sweetness47​ @hobby27​ @awesomesusiebstuff​ @kickingitwithkirk​ @sandlee44​ @supernaturalgrandma​ @lonewolf471​ @dawnie1988​ @volleyballer519​ @outcastedangel​ @kdfrqqg​ @lizette50​ @sorenmarie87​ @winchesterxfamilybusiness​

Sam/Jared: @girl-next-door-writes​ @stunudo​ @feelmyroarrrr​ @sammit-janet​ @idabbleincrazy​ @evansrogerskitten​ @focusonspn​ @autumninavonlea​ @spnxbsessed​ @durinsbride​ @deansyahtzee​ @wendibird​ @waywardnerd67​ @fullmooner​ @julesthequirky​ 

Meta – Wanda & Vision Having Children Naturally: Pregnancy, Medical Complications, & Caring for the Twins

[ Trigger Warnings: Heavy medical and hospital themes having to do with pregnancy and babies ahead! ]

This meta contains all my headcanons for Wanda getting pregnant naturally by Vision, what that means for her pregnancy and health, and what raising real, half-human, half-synthezoid children is like. I’d like to have some threads with Wanda and Vision regarding the twins if possible, so I’m getting everything written down here for reference purposes. If you have any questions or comments about anything in here, let me know!

POTENTIAL AUS IN WHICH THIS COULD HAPPEN

Without Vision – Wanda has Vision’s twins, but he remains dead. Either he’s harvested and repurposed into a weapon by SWORD as he was in WandaVision, or Wanda is able to reclaim his body for burial, but he remains dead and Wanda, at least for now, is a single mother. I would be willing to write this AU either as Wanda or as another character relating to Wanda if someone else wants to write her.

With Dad!Vision – Vision’s body is taken by SWORD, but either in the early stages of her pregnancy or after the twins are born, she confronts Hayward as she did in WandaVision. Except this time, instead of leaving after she determines that she can no longer feel him, Wanda has an emotional burst of magic (like she did when she created the Hex) that, instead of creating a temporary new Vision, infuses Vision’s original body with the energy from the mind stone that she’s been storing inside her. This essentially restores Vision’s soul, memories, and personality. All that remains is to reassemble him. In an AU where Tony Stark survives Endgame, he could help Dr. Cho not only reassemble him but also restore his organic content as well, which would otherwise have rotted away during the five years he was dead. Or… a huge fudge could be done and we could just say that Wanda reassembles him and restores his organic content herself as part of her emotional magical outburst. Vision would then be restored to Infinity War status, as himself, with all his memories and emotional capacity intact. He can then help Wanda raise their twins and would likely ask her to marry him, which he was planning on doing before everything went to hell in a handbasket in Infinity War anyway. I would be willing to write this AU as either Wanda or Vision.

PREGNANCY AND BIRTH: SPECIES INCOMPATIBILITY AND LIFE-THREATNING MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS

I tend to get very detailed and realistic when I flesh out topics like this, so I didn’t just want to gloss over things and say that Wanda has a normal pregnancy. She really shouldn’t. Even if Vision is capable of reproduction (which my version of him is) and conception can occur, there are a lot of issues with Wanda carrying partially-synthezoidal children. Their genetics would be combined, and as such, their physiologies would be a blend of human and synthezoid. What does that mean for them as far as their health, appearance, and capabilities? I’ll get to that later. But first… what effect does this have on Wanda’s health as the pregnancy progresses?

Early on, the pregnancy is fairly normal, or at least there isn’t enough wrong to set off any warning bells with regard to her health. But as it progresses, Wanda will start to experience metal toxicity and vitamin deficiency symptoms. She’ll have balance problems, she might slur her words at times, she feels weak, shaky, and has fainting spells. Her skin will also become very pale, almost translucent. This occurs because most of the vibranium atoms that were contained in Vision’s… donation to Wanda, eh-hem… have already been incorporated into the twins’ bodies, and now they need more. In the absence of more vibranium, they start to compromise by drawing away other vitamins and minerals from Wanda’s body. Whatever vibranium atoms were not incorporated into the twins ended up in Wanda’s blood and organs, causing her various potentially life-threatening side effects.

The result is that neither mother nor babies are doing very well, but by this point (probably at around three months in), Wanda’s health would be noticeably bad enough for her to get help or for anyone who sees her to reach out to get her medical assistance. Eventually she will be placed under Dr. Cho’s care. Why? Well it was her technology that created Vision’s physical body, and aside from Tony, she’s the one who would know the most about what might be required by offspring of someone with such a body. Tests will need to be done on Wanda and on each of her babies to determine what is going on in their blood, which would then give a clearer picture of what was wrong, missing, etc.

Basically, it is determined that the twins need an influx of free vibranium atoms to incorporate into their bodies as they grow. They also need a specialized panel of vitamins and minerals to grow properly. Wanda, on the other hand, needs the normal human amounts of certain vitamins and minerals for herself, but then also needs to be protected from vibranium toxicity and unwanted substances ending up in her blood. Wanda lives where Dr. Cho’s laboratory is located, and is mostly told to rest as much as possible. The less she stresses her system, the better. Twice a week, her blood needs to be cleaned of any toxic substances via a filtration process not unlike dialysis. She’s placed on a strict diet as well. Ports are carefully placed for each twin that allow for vibranium atoms and essential nutrients to be directly injected into the babies.

Because this is an extremely delicate and precarious procedure to place the ports without disrupting Wanda’s pregnancy or harming the babies, she’s basically bedridden to limit the potential for tears and other injuries. Very quickly, Wanda is forced to confront and overcome her fears of doctors, labs, and needles, which is a daunting task for her. The only thing that gets her through it is the very real knowledge that the pregnancy might fail without this intervention. At this point, Vision would likely still be dead in either AU, and so Wanda views her babies as the last living parts of Vision. She’s willing to do anything, no matter how painful or frightening, to carry her twins to term.

At around 7 ½ months, however… things begin to look grim. Despite the blood filtration processes and other attempts to keep Wanda as healthy as possible, her health begins to decline again. The stress and strain of carrying two unique babies whose genetics and biochemistry are partially incompatible with her own begins to take its toll. Dr. Cho and likely Clint or anyone else who’s been frequently caring for or staying with Wanda eventually need to have a very difficult conversation with her. If she continues with the pregnancy, there’s still a chance it might fail early, but the longer she can hold out, the better chance her babies will have of surviving after they’re born. However, the longer she holds out, the greater chance that life-threatening complications will occur, such as more seizures, strokes, and toxicity conditions. In short, she’s told that she could deliver the twins early and survive, but because the twins are unique beings, there is no guarantee that they will have developed enough to survive at this point… or… she continues to carry them, and she may lose her life. Wanda chooses to continue, because she’s willing to die to give her twins the best chance they can possibly have.

Wanda is able to make it to 8 ½ months before something changes and her health declines rapidly. When she loses consciousness, the decision is made to deliver the twins by C-section. Once that’s done, Wanda is stabilized, and a potential tragedy is averted.

CARING FOR INFANT TWINS

The twins are kept on much the same supplements of vibranium, nutrients, and other minerals as they were in the womb. A powder is basically custom-designed for Wanda that she can mix into their milk. In addition to breastfeeding them, once a day she bottle feeds them milk containing the dissolved vitamin supplement. This ensures the twins have what their bodies need to grow properly. Otherwise, they’re normal, happy, healthy babies that mostly appear human to those who don’t know their unique genetics.

At only a couple months old, however, Wanda begins to notice a few interesting things about her sons, and the reasons why they required vibranium atoms begins to become apparent. Occasionally while dressing or changing them, Wanda notices patches on their bodies that look just like Vision’s “skin.” They’re red, they’re textured, sometimes they’re hard, and at other times they’re soft. The patches don’t remain, but rather they come and go, seemingly at random. At times, Wanda even catches it happening in real time, seeing their skin ripple and change, just like Vision’s did when he was employing his human disguise. The curious thing though, is that the twins are not synthezoids, but neither are they human. Their genetic code, their blood lab results, and various other statistics come back inconclusive, anomalous, or otherwise different than normal humans. They are their own unique beings, a hybrid species.

As the twins grow and become more mobile, crawling around and such, Wanda notices that sometimes the synthezoid skin would appear as a result of impact trauma. In other words, if Tommy hit Billy while careless flailing his pudgy little infant arms, that area of Billy’s skin would ripple and form hard synthezoid skin which is stiff to the touch, like armor. Or if Tommy crawls around and bumps his head on something, the same would happen where he was hit. It’s almost as if it’s part of some kind of defense response in their bodies to armor-up if they’re being injured.

CARING FOR OLDER TWINS

Once they’re older and eating solid foods, their supplements are still mixed in once a day with whatever they’re eating. The older they get, the more the twins are able to control the transformation of their skin at will instead of it just being a passive physiological response. Billy takes after Wanda with regard to his powers, and Tommy resembles Pietro’s with his, but there are indications of Vision’s abilities in them as well. Billy is able to control his density to some extent, and Tommy’s eyes have extra lenses and extended irises that allow him to adjust his vision to better see in the dark, and while moving at high speeds. He can also see a much wider spectrum of light than humans can. Billy tends to take after Vision more in personality, being more introspective, gentler, and being a sponge for information. Tommy takes more after Wanda or even Pietro (which, Wanda would inherit a lot of genetics similar to Pietro’s with them being twins, so that makes sense), being more impulsive, a prankster, and quicker to anger.

In an AU without Vision present, as they grow and develop these abilities, they begin to ask Wanda a lot of questions about the things they can do and parts of them that aren’t like her. Wanda waits until they’re at an age to understand well enough before she tells them about their father. She’s able to find video footage of Vision to show them, and she explains as much as possible about who and what he was. Above all, she makes it very clear that he would have loved them both so much. Billy is very curious about Vision and will sit with a tablet and look up information about him all on his own. Tommy… is a bit more defensive and doesn’t like to think about Vision, because it makes him sad and angry that he had to grow up without a father. The twins are very close, however, and sometimes he watches things with Billy when they’re alone.

In an AU with Vision present, he can teach them about the synthezoidal aspects of their bodies and abilities himself. He is the proudest, happiest, most hands-on and involved dad ever. He explains what he can, shows what he can’t explain, and otherwise tries to guide his sons as best he can… in amongst loving on Wanda, of course. He becomes very much like Westview!Vision as far as personality, just happy and living the dream.

That’s all I’ve detailed for now, but if I think of more, I’ll add it here. Let me know your thoughts if you like! =)

I said fuck havin’ a chill night to myself and finally cooked this up for u guys. First excerpt from the TWENTY88 series & its mature so enjoy at your discretion✨

word count: 1,829

Déjà Vu • Jeff Wittek

He’s at another party, LA skyline so pretty dusted in pink from the roof top view that Jeff almost forgets why he’s stepped away from the fun.

You’re on his mind.

All he can hear in the music is your ringing laughter, body dancing in the crowd, on the tables, on him is the only vision clear behind his blurry eyes.

He’s fucked, truly. How is your name still the only one he can remember when his own is slurred in his mouth?

You’re in bed on the other side of town, Friday night spent under the bed sheets hiding from the real world but your phone still clutched in your hands.

The right side of the bed used to be warm with his presence, limbs tangled with no care for the messages blowing up your notifications begging to come out.

Jeff would always come through like that, only pick up the phone on the first ring when it’s your name lighting up his screen.

Fuck you into the mattress and then braid your hair before bed, TV replaying old episodes of a show you don’t care about, not when the other is laid bare right under your hands.

You almost call, thumb hovering over the number that’s been blocked for months before now. 

The doorbell ringing is a good enough distraction for now.

You can’t help but wonder if it’s a sign, a three note sound that echoes in your brain as a warning while your bare feet skip down the stairs and to the front door.

It feels like the universe is mocking you when it opens to Jeff’s looming figure on the other side. 

‘Can I help you?’ There’s no smile gracing your pretty mouth, arms folded over your chest as you lean against the door and silently block his way inside.

A couple minutes ago he was all you could think about, withdrawal a delicious kind of torture that almost had you calling him over, pride and mind aside. 

There’s no relief in the way you look each other in the eye.

Jeff leans closer, figurative first step in the way his breath stutters in his chest at the sight of you with nothing but a t-shirt and panties illuminated by the hallway lights. 

‘Missed me doll?’ He’s almost inside, one foot through the door and you can’t decide whether you want him to stop or keep going.

It’s eerily reminiscent of every argument you’ve ever had, each fall out that only resulted in him showing up at your door in the middle of the night just like this.

Except it’s been nearly six months since Jeff has called you his, since you slammed the door behind you, bags in tow and a ‘I never want to see you again’ said as goodbye. 

Your mind is conflicted, always has been when he’s both the person who’s causes you pain and then wipes your eyes dry.

Don’t let him inside, your mind screams, flashbacks of how he’s walked around all fine, like the two of you were nothing, a thing of the past.

Jeff finds his way inside, always does, through the tiniest crack in your armour that’s been your body missing his touch tonight, the ghost of a smirk is already there, lifting his mouth before your fingers wrap around the collar of his leather jacket and pull him down to meet your lips. 

He tastes almost the same, cigarettes and honey that wraps around your tongue as you moan in his mouth.

‘Missed you’ Jeff mumbles, hands grabbing at you anywhere he can, body pushing you against the door as it closes with a slam.

The whine that leaves your lips when he pulls away makes him smirk for half a second, hooded eyes staring down at the pretty picture: you’re crushed between the wood and his hardened body, pink lips wet with his saliva, every breath stuttered.

Jeff looks you in the eye as he guides his hands under the t-shirt you wore to bed, it’s not his and the thought of you no longer finding comfort in wearing his clothes at night almost drives him as wild as your hands pulling your panties down simutaneously with his lifting the material over your head. 

‘Fuck...’ You look far too smug, lips lifting in half a smirk at the way Jeff’s eyes fall to your chest and down to your glistening core before he’s on you again.

The kiss makes your knees tremble, his revenge executed as he sucks on your tongue. 

‘You want it against the wall or upstairs baby?’ Jeff pulls away long enough to ask, taking his chance to nip at your earlobe as he awaits your answer.

You’re intoxicating every one of his senses, mouth sweet with the taste of your skin, replacing any last drop of liquor left inside his mind. 

Your only answer is wrapping your thighs around his middle, hands clutching at the ends of his hair while Jeff laughs before twirling the two of you around to make his way up the stairs.

You don’t give yourself time to notice just how much longer his hair has gotten, lips wrapping around the skin of his throat, kisses littered in purples that force him to grip your ass in warning. 

The room is different, walls repainted and frames missing from their rightful place. Jeff pauses in his rediscovery of the place when your fingers rip the leather jacket from his body.

The touch is igniting, warmth spreading within his chest as you remove every last article of clothing from his body.

He convinces himself it’s the way your fingers rake down the expanse of his exposed torso that sets his heart racing rather that the familiarity of having your frame so painstakingly close again. 

He shakes his head as if to get rid of the thought. ‘M gonna devour you’ the promise is almost growled as you fall against the satin sheets of your king sized bed as Jeff follows, crawling on top of you. 

‘Shut the fuck up’ you can’t help but beg while pulling him back to meet your mouth. It’s messy, teeth clashing as you take your last chance to battle for even a slither of control.

One of you moans, a broken cry swallowed up by your mouths before Jeff pulls away to watch you writhe under him at the slightest touch. 

‘Missed you angel, so fuckin’ bad’ he repeats.

You roll your eyes, almost ask him to be quiet again when the words die on your tongue as his fingers slip to your warm core and massage around your clit. 

‘That’s my girl’ your body arches off the bed, broken cries his favourite melody.

It makes Jeff slid down until he’s face to face with his favourite sight, you’re glistening, the smell heady and so intoxicating it makes him nuzzle you without warning. 

He pulls away far enough to add, ‘missed this pussy’ before licking up your folds, tongue lapping as you buck your hips for more.

The slurping sounds of his mouth greedily encompassing around your clit is pornographic, bouncing off the bare walls, cold fingers gripping your thighs to keep them open for him. 

The sight of you almost makes him cum without reciprocated touch: brows furrowed and lips formed into an ‘o’ that sends Jeff’s mind reeling with memories of those same pretty lips wrapped around his dick in the past.

You taste even better that he remembered, mind drifting and mouth salevating at the haunting recollections late at night: sweetness he’s been deprived of for months. 

‘What the fu-’ you protest at the absence of his mouth before he moves to hover of you.

‘Sorry doll, ‘m gonna lick you clean later - need to be inside you right now before I bust’ he confesses.

There’s no fumbling for his wallet, no scooting up to the chest of draws by your bedside or sound of wrapper tearing as you stretch your legs wide open to welcome him inside.

Jeff groans at the feeling, velvety and tight in the way you wrap around him like a vice.

He’s the only one you’ve ever let have you like this: raw and animalistic in spite of the comfort of having him this close that echoes in your mind. 

The thoughts silenced by the feeling of his hips slotting against your own as he bottoms out.

 ‘Please’ Jeff smiles, ‘please what doll?’ in any other instance you’d smack your lips and roll your eyes at the boyish pride that dances behind his darkened eyes.

This time, you concede. ‘Please fuck me, hard’ 

Jeff pauses, long enough to take a mental snapshot of the way you feel under his hands, soft and pliant to the touch.

He knows how much you want it, his own mind flooded with a wanton reminder of what used to be, what he had every night.

The way to keep that at bay presents itself in the bone shattering thrusts he sets with an unrelenting pace. 

You take it all as his fingers dig into your sides, one hand travelling to pull at your hair so harsh it leaves a burning sensation on your scalp.

It’s enough to have you toeing the line between pain and pleasure within minutes, moans pretty as they leave your mouth every time he slams his tip against your g spot. 

Jeff grabs your face, hold forceful in a silent reminder to open your eyes and let him watch you come undone. 

‘Come on doll, be a good girl and come for daddy’ he kisses you again, still tasting faintly of tequila he knows you fucking hate. 

‘On my cock, c’mon you can do it’ you open your mouth to say something that gets lost in between the onslaught of curses and high pitched moans of his name as you finally cum.

Jeff follows, on the brink of something so spectacular in how you tighten around his length and pull him in with each thrust, his eyes watching your own close before he shoots his load and paints your walls in milky white. 

The weight of his body crushing your own once he falls atop you in the aftermath is too comforting to allow any protests past your sore throat, at least for now.

It’s deja vu, how you fall asleep wrapped up so tightly in each other once he finally pulls out only to pull you back atop his chest and against the pillows as you each drift off to avoid the conversation that should follow.

Jeff wants to ask you if you’ve missed him half as much as he’s longed for you since July, instead, he kisses the top of your head as your gentle snores lull him to sleep.

You almost blink the exhaustion away for long enough to tell him to either leave or stay forever, but the darkness envelopes you before either course altering demand leaves your mouth.

Rated: your emotions.

Warnings: strong deviation from the Canon/strange Viggo.

Pairings: Hiccup/Viggo.

Summary: Viggo is infected with a terrible disease, and begins to hunt his most delicious prey.Hiccup, finding out who is hunting him, tries to save him.

And also a small explanation:

word - is a plain text.

word -is a thought .

word -is the author's words.

word - is the language of a monster or monster.

HORROR AU.

Chapter 2.

"The day I was possessed by a demon".

The guards laughed softly. And how can you not laugh when your chief cackles like a sick rooster?

Viggo was laughing merrily as he watched his father lose another game of Maces and Talons.

"Son, only you can disgrace your father like this".-Ragnarok said, smiling softly at him.

"But is it my fault that you can't play?" Viggo said, still laughing.

And the ships were nearing the island "Bescheshuichetyi dragon". And as soon as their bows were firmly planted in the white sand , everyone was told to leave their cabins and go ashore.

"Well, are you ready for your first hunt?" - said Ragnarok proudly, leaning his powerful hands on his son's thin shoulders .When he heard the guard's voice from outside the door.

"You'll be proud of me , I know every weak point in these reptiles.I spent days and nights preparing for this moment, not like some people.Viggo said confidently, looking straight into the brown eyes of his best teacher , his father.He jumped out of bed and began to pack his bag .

A few minutes later, they left the cabin and went to the General meeting , where children from different tribes met. However, as soon as Viggo noticed a group of children of different ages, something made him become quiet and timid again.

In it were the heirs of other tribes and kingdoms. Their age ranged from 15-18 years .They were all dragon hunters.

After examining his new companions a little, he decided to find out more about where he was.A small village on the other side of the river caught his eye.He decided to find someone who could tell him about it.

A tall man was standing near a group of people .Approaching him, he greeted him and asked him about the village.The latter answered him thus .

"Hello, my name is Armstrong the good-Natured.As for those buildings, this is a small village, as well as a medical center.It was specially built here, because there are a lot of things in this place, graduates get seriously injured. This is where we treat them....although sometimes there were cases when children did not pass the exam, for various reasons, and came here to send a letter to their homeland to be taken away.To be honest, boy, I'm against such survival .You're too young to hunt such beasts, not like those big foreheads over there! So let's agree on this, I really feel sorry for you, you can come to me if you want ,my house is that building with a carved wooden horse head. If you ask me why you have such a privilege, I will answer right now , because you are the only 7-year-old child , around you there are already healthy deer that are about to turn twenty.That's why.Now go to hunters." With that, the mustachioed man in armor walked away.

When Viggo got the answer to his question ,he said good-bye and went back .

Next to the group that had already gathered, a man in a white coat climbed onto a wooden pedestal and tapped on a silver disk.This attracted the attention of everyone standing around.

"Dear Sirs, ladies and their children, today we have gathered for a reason, today is the very day when our children must prove themselves for the future of your tribes and kingdoms. They will have to: survive for 3 months, on their own, develop a sense of courage, ruthlessness, coolness and fearlessness. Be able to calculate their every step , because it depends on how they will lead their people. But their most important goal is to defeat the Bescheshuychetogo dragon, one of the most terrible creatures on this island.I wish you good luck. " - with these words, the elder descended from the pedestal and walked away.

Viggo was alarmed by this statement, because he had never met or remembered this class of dragons before .As a result, all confidence in victory collapsed . And he even wondered how Riker had handled it all and brought home a bunch of little dead dragons.

He did not have time to think about all this , because his father's hand clearly made it clear that it was time to say goodbye , and perhaps forever , because no one is immune from their own death.

He let him go , his eyes sad and full of fear .

An hour later, he was standing alone on the beach. Unnoticed, the others had already gone hunting.

"pull yourself together ,everything will work out for you." With this thought in mind, Viggo pulled out a book and a coal from his bag, and quickly began to write a plan of action. After all, you need to have time to do everything before sunset, otherwise you won't be able to say Hello to him later.The plan was this :

1) Find suitable shelter, both from the weather and from predators.

2) Find a source of fresh water , and it is better to find shelter there.

3) Take care of the availability of food.

4) to Prepare a sleeping place.

5) Prepare items for tomorrow's hunt.

Having written the plan, he began to carry out the first point. And putting the items back in the bag, quickly ran into the woods.

It's been a few hours or more, but he still finds what he thinks is the perfect place to hide.

Coming out of the thorny bushes, he sees a waterfall and a small river, a source of fresh water .And behind the waterfall is a hidden cave.Viggo cautiously walks up to the entrance ,narrow enough that it does not fit Gronckle, and looks around.There is nothing inside except one spacious room . And most importantly, it is not inhabited by anyone! Today, luck is on his side. He quickly found a corner to sleep in and began sorting through his bag of things .Taking a couple of pitchers with him, he left the cave, ran to the river and filled them to the top with clean water and returned to put on the floor.

"All that's left is to find some food.Sticks, stones, and leaves for a fire ,and reeds for a primitive bed."

Viggo crawled out of the cave again and searched for branches, leaves, and rocks.After about half an hour, all the necessary items lay in the middle of the cave stacked in the form of a fire.It was also good that the island is located in the South and at night it was not cold, and during the day it was warm enough.

The second race in the forest was to the pond with water lilies and frogs ,which was located near the shelter. This place could be found by following the direction of the river. So it was almost impossible to get lost. Water lilies are not reeds , but they will also pass for a bed .When he returned, he left them to dry in the sun.

The third time he decided to go fishing, in the same pond. The catch was small , but it was enough to satisfy a seven-year-old boy.

It was already evening , and the water lilies were dry .Putting the fish on them, he took their vruki and dragged them into the cave. The leaves of the water lilies were not put in the most comfortable, but still the bed. A leather bag served as a pillow. The fish was still in the bowl . When he got to the fire, he quickly lit it, after all, he was training.

While the fire was burning, he began to prepare the fish for cooking . After a few minutes, the fish is already fried on the fire .Dinner will be ready soon .In the meantime, making a curtain out of a small, thick, leather towel, he closed the passage to the cave .

After dinner, he went to bed .

Somewhere around 01: 00 or 02: 00.

He often woke up to something like crying, which gets worse every time.Viggo was very scared, but he gathered his will and decided to check who was making this cry.With the help of the still-burning fire, he made himself a torch. He left the cave and went to the source of the sound.

The crying increases, and turns into someone's painful and heart-rending moans.With each step, the forest around them only grew darker.Trees took on the appearance of strange monsters .The sky was turning a deep purple, and the stars were not visible because of the dark red clouds. The air around them smelled of dead things, and there was a sound of someone slurping.Suddenly Viggo's whole body is paralyzed, and he sees a body behind the bushes.Of the fear he hides behind the rubble and looking at a terrible picture.

Before him was a bald, disfigured, and huge dragon.From the smiling mouth of which the flesh descended in bloody streams. He recognized the prey of this monster , it was a teenager whom he met on the beach in the morning.But it's not the gnawed teenager that's more terrifying, it's the dragon .It seemed to him that it was the birth of nibelheim .It resembled a Deadly Nadder, but without scales or a disfigured appearance.Its head was covered with countless curved horns.The monster had no eyes.The wings looked like broken arms with very long fingers. On its tail instead of spikes sticking out sharp as a needle bones .The paws were much more massive, with long, razor-sharp claws .His skin color was beige like a human's, but there were veins and arteries in places .It began to smile even harder, spreading its toothy and blood-stained smile all the way to its ears.And she laughed merrily as the man said something in his own language, but Viggo didn't understand a single word .

"-×%^*?,;&:))08¥¥" .

Thank Thor, the monster was sated and soared into the sky, flying away.

Viggo, in a fit of shock and hysteria, ran back to the cave, his heels flashing .He couldn't even squeak, thinking that this creature would want to eat him ,too . He didn't want to pass this test. He was smart, and remembered that his main prey is nibelheim dragon , as they are called.

This monster was described in legends as a carrier of the worst disease , "Lekantinism".If a person managed to survive (although this word is figurative) after his attack, then he will live in agony, every night reincarnating in Lekantra.But no one knows what really happened to the man and the dragon.

This is unfortunately what our hero will have to learn.

When he reached the cave ,he threw the torch into the water and hid inside . He became hysterical. Falling on the stone floor, he began to cry loudly and call for help. But alas, no one will come to him .After a few minutes, he calmed down a little and Remembered Armstrong's words . He quickly pulled his bag towards him to get a book and a coal.

Viggo began writing a letter to his father asking him to take it back.And in addition, he could barely describe what happened to him now. After that, he put aside all the items and decided to wait for the beautiful sun.

As soon as it was morning, the birds began to sing their morning songs. Our hero was already running to Armstrong's house. He couldn't lie down to rest.

When he reached the house, he quickly knocked on the door,and then recoiled from it ,turning red as a tomato .Because he didn't expect Armstrong to come out of it just waking up in his underwear. After a few moments, he realized that he was standing in front of the child not in the best clothes and posture.The man allowed the child to enter the house , and he began to dress, ashamed.

After the morning nonsense.They sat down at the table to eat Breakfast , but only Armstrong, Viggo after yesterday ,him appetite Packed up and left him.

The man noticed the red streaks on the boy's face and decided to ask him what was wrong and why he was crying.

"Viggo, first of all, I'm sorry about this morning's concert.I am ashamed of this , I did not expect that someone would come to visit me in the morning."

" nothing ."it was very quiet.

"And one more thing, why were you crying?"

With this question, Viggo's face turned pale, and other than the strange combinations of sounds, he could not utter anything else.

"Don't be afraid, I'll have it all ,honestly."

"P ... just me ..I strongly this b..Bo..I'm afraid."

"What are you afraid of?"

" Dragon's "

"Hmm, I told you that you can't hunt them, fool, stop being afraid they are just animals , and they follow their instincts."

"-×%^*?,;&:))08¥ ¥ " Viggo said.

"Uh , sorry about what?"

"So the dragon said."

"Uh , Viggo ,dragons can't talk."

"No! HE WAS TALKING, AND I HEARD IT !"

"Hey, what are you doing, calm down , everything's fine "

"THERE'S NOTHING GOOD,I SAW A BALD AND DISFIGURED DRAGON WITH A SMILE ON HIS FACE DEVOUR A PERSON, A PERSON, AND THEN SAID THIS PHRASE AND FLEW AWAY!!!"

"Stop, wait, calm down first, just breathe in and out .Now, you said you saw a bald dragon eating a human?"

"Yes, I was very scared of him and hid in a cave.I wanted to give you the letter , to be honest, so that you could send it to my father.I don't want to stay here anymore.I'm afraid it might come back and want to eat me."

With that, Viggo began to cry again, and then opened his bag, took out the letter, and put it on the table.The man, clearly discouraged by such statements of the boy, took the letter and got up from the table.

"Viggo I'll be back soon, but in the meantime, you wait , and better lie down and sleep on my bed , you're tired.I'll send an email and come back."

Armstrong left the house and went to the post office.Viggo obeyed, found his room and bed, and lay down to take a NAP. Soon he fell asleep.

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

"!!!@@&*((¥@))₽₽₽#&&,'/_€÷¥"

Said the Monstrous Nightmare, following in Viggo's Wake. And in a few moments Viggo was in the clutches of his monster.

" (÷):^^;))-#$"

" What,......what do you want from me?!"

":)))^*^)"

And with that, Viggo is completely in its toothy mouth.He tries hard to resist, but his hands slide over his tongue .As a result, the creature tries to swallow it whole.Turning his feet to the throat, he rests them against the monster's tonsils, and his hands cling to the fangs, screaming and begging for help. Eventually, his feet slip off his tonsils, and Viggo ends up in his throat .After a few moments, he opens his eyes to see around him a black, glowing and transparent liquid-gastric juice .

"Well, that's it, my end has come, and my father will never know or find me "

" :))))!!"

But when the pain starts, something grabs him and shakes him like a rag.

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

Viggo wakes up wide-eyed, choking on her own tears.Armstrong stared at him in horror, his blue eyes showing only fear.

"Uncle Armstrong, don't worry, I often have nightmares ."

"Nightmares! Yes, you literally ran around my ceiling and growled incomprehensible phrases, rushed at me, tried to strangle and bite me.I will continue to list your antics, so-called nightmares!"

"I ... I was sleeping, and the dragon was trying to strangle me and eat me."

"Well, I don't know about the dragon, but before you go to bed, warn me, at least I'll tie you to the bed or something.""

"Please forgive me, I really didn't see anything"

"Okay, forget it.By the way, your father will be here in a few days , but in the meantime, will you stay with me well?"

"Well "

With these words, they decided to remove the mayhem of the unfortunate room.After cleaning, we went down to lunch.

In the meantime, they're having lunch. Perform different work within 2 days. Viggo no longer had such nightmares.But here comes the very moment when our hero is possessed by night horror.Day 10: 00.

Viggo picks berries for a cake in the woods .When suddenly his attention is attracted,crows gathered in a black cloud and flew away.Then he sees one tree after another break and fall on its side.And what breaks them rushes straight in his direction .Viggo is terrified and, throwing the basket, he begins to run towards the settlement.But before he reaches half the way, right before his eyes POPs up his dragon from nightmares, a giant bald and terrible Monstrous Nightmare. Its head resembled a deer's skin-covered skull, with huge curved horns .Empty and humanized eyes . .Bones sticking out of his back.Throbbing veins completed the picture.It's like a nightmare . It does not hesitate for a moment to attack Viggo.In shock, he took the hit .The claws cut through the flesh of his chest and neck, leaving huge cuts.Blood spurted from their necks.Viggo screamed at the top of his lungs .And the monster did not calm down , it began to tear his stomach and chest with its teeth, releasing black drool . But there was a whoosh of an arrow ,and Viggo fell from the monster's mouth .And it itself died, falling to the ground .The arrow went through him the skull.All Viggo could see before he lost consciousness was the terrified faces of the young hunters and Armstrong.

Our hero is not dead now he is in the infirmary. In the meantime, others are looking at the monster they shot recently. The worst thing is that with exactly the same cuts, but from other bezcheshuichetyh dragons, arrived from different parts of at least 4 people. And they were all in their bunks.

In the evening, the parents of the injured and surviving children arrived on the island.

Ragnarok raced to the room where Viggo lay ,Riker barely able to keep up with him.As soon as they were in the right room, Ragnarok ran to his son and took his hand.

"Son, if you can hear me, please answer me...."

But there was no answer.Soon Viggo's hand became cold and limp ,a sign of death.Riker and his father burst into tears .Too big a loss for them.Ragnarok wanted to take his son to Valhala that night.

Night.Everyone gathered near the common grave .The dead 5 children were put in one boat .And let the waves. But as soon as the moon peeked out from behind the clouds, something happened that threw everyone into horror.There were groans from the ship, then screams, and then growls .After a few moments, the ship began to sink into the water .And sank.A black ball with a red glowing dots began to approach the shore.Some began to hide behind the cobblestones, while others drew their bows and prepared arrows. Parents unsheathed their swords. And the tangle was getting closer and closer. Suddenly one of the creatures from the tangle climbed up on the reef.This creature was no longer a child, this huge winged creature with a piercing cry that leaped into the air and landed near its mother.The mother was horrified to see her child like this .But instead of showing my mom that everything is fine, I'm here, I'm alive, I just changed a little. He pounced on her ,then tore her throat out ,grabbed her, and like a featherless bird flew away with her dying mother.

On the second and third, they did not stand on ceremony and immediately got arrows in their temples.Kill them .The fourth, like the first, flew away.The fifth was Viggo.He turned into a disfigured dog.

But unlike the first one, he did not attack ,but ran away into the woods.

In the morning, everyone sailed home with terrible grief, and village the people down with them.

The In Between Times

AO3 link, because why not

So, current events in the Digimon reboot, the kids have 72 hours to fix the power outage in Tokyo before it's a total blackout. Until episode 16, there was a time lag as well, meaning time in the digital world ran faster than in the human world.

But the show is a fast-paced shonen anime so it’s all about action!! and not so much the little moments of downtime and camp-out camaraderie that let us really feel as if time is passing. I miss that.

SO! Since I can't get a job on the writing staff... here’s a fic about What The Kids Did At Night. Didn't think I'd write a fic for this series this early on but the muse does what she will!

Last note: I have no idea how large the time lag is, so I’m just putting in a “night” wherever I feel like one is needed. Three days RL = maybe six in the digital world. Mainly because that’s how many nights I feel like writing about.

- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - The First Night

Taichi wasn't paying attention to the time until Sora stopped, a hand shading her eyes as she peered at the treetops.

"The sun's getting low," she said.

"I can't see very well," Mimi added, rubbing her arms. It wasn't particularly cold, but Taichi didn't say anything about it.

Instead he looked down at his feet, where his shadow had grown long, getting lost in the tangle of undergrowth on the forest floor. All the ferns and bushes were tinted a reddish-gold. High above, stars studded the purpling sky.

"Should we... find somewhere to sleep?" Sora asked after a beat, something leading in her tone of voice.

He very slowly realized they were waiting for him to say something.

"Uh... sure," he said. "I mean, it's not that dark yet, we could maybe walk another hour or so."

Mimi looked crestfallen. Oh - she had been hoping he'd agree. "My feet hurt!" she whined.

"We could keep going," Sora said. "But don't you think if we wait to stop till it gets darker, it might be hard to see what we're doing? We need to eat, make a fire..."

"I can take care of the fire," Agumon piped in.

"Yeah, fire's no problem for us." Taichi patted the top of his partner's head. Agumon's chest swelled. "So we'll have light, don't worry about that."

Sora still looked uncertain. "I just... would feel better if we didn't push it," she said at last, brow knit. Next to her, Mimi's hands were clasped together, as if in prayer.

This was getting ridiculous.

Taichi shrugged. "Okay, fine with me. Let's stop for now."

Immediately the two girls perked up. "Alright!" Mimi threw her arms in the air.

"We'll be sleeping on the ground outside though," Taichi warned her, expecting her to complain a little. At home Mimi probably slept on two mattresses covered in fluffy blankets, ensconced in plentiful pillows, with a host of stuffed animal attendants. And all of it would be pink.

But she waved away his concern. "Oh, I slept on the ground in the palace Palmon and the Tanemon built for me anyway," she said. Ah... he'd forgotten she'd been here longer than him. (Also, that place counted as a "palace"?) "If you can stack enough of those big leaves and fronds it's pretty comfortable."

"W-Well... cool." He glanced at Sora, but she had already knelt to the ground and was going through her bag of supplies. So apparently they were going to camp right here, then. "Uh, then I'll leave it to you to find the best leaves to sleep on. And Sora, you guys can get started on food?"

Sora nodded without looking up. She'd pulled out a couple bottles of water and some plastic utensils. Piyomon appeared to be trying to carry an entire picnic blanket herself. Taichi thought about mentioning to Sora that she was chewing her lip, like she often did when she was thinking. It was a habit he knew she was trying to kick. Something stopped him though.

Then Agumon plucked his sleeve. "What about me?"

"Warm up your muscles," Taichi grinned down at him. "We're gonna do some heavy labor."

He'd only seen it in pictures in his Scout's Companion Guide to the Wilderness, but a makeshift lean-to didn't seem particularly difficult to figure out. At least, not with a Digimon companion to do most of the work. Taichi helped where he could, dragging logs Agumon found or felled back to their campsite, patting down the foliage until it somewhat resembled a floor. They had some trouble tying the branches off until Mimi and Palmon came back and Palmon's vines made short work of wrapping the rope around the trees. Then it was just a matter of lining the logs up diagonal to the frame they'd made and packing them with leaves. The end result, well, it wasn't very pretty. But it didn't have to be. It just had to work.

"Wow, that looks great, Taichi-san!" Mimi exclaimed, jumping up and down.

Sora hummed in agreement. "It'll be good to have if it rains."

Taichi laughed and decided not to point out it would be totally useless if it rained. They'd be lucky not to get covered in mud if a strong gust of wind knocked it over on them. But the girls were already moving the leaf beds and picnic blanket under the lean-to. Whatever. At least they were happy.

It was dark without question by now, and Taichi felt exhaustion wash over him. Building that contraption had taken more time than he'd thought. Belatedly he realized the others were gathering for the dinner Sora had prepared, probably a while ago. He dragged his tired legs toward the fire Agumon had made and dropped down in front of it like a rock.

Dinner was slices of fruit from the Tanemon village Mimi had in her bag, along with sides of biscuits and wakame rice from Sora's emergency supplies. The biscuits were hard and chalky and the rice watery, but they were all so hungry no one much cared. And the fruit was delicious. The taste was similar to honeydew melon but with a texture like cream cheese. It'd be perfect in a cake, Mimi declared.

After eating they cleaned up, and since everyone was having trouble keeping their eyes open, they wound up going straight to bed. Taichi crawled under the lean-to and kicked off his shoes and socks. Next to him, Sora and Mimi were doing the same.

"I hate sleeping in my clothes," Mimi sighed, picking at her feet. "I wish you had spare pajamas, Sora-san."

"Spare pajamas weren't on the list of emergency supplies," Sora murmured. "But I do want a bath."

A groan. "My feet look like a man's!"

"Aw. Those blisters look painful. You need better hiking shoes."

"Well, it's not like I knew I'd be hiking all over! I wish you could find a plant that makes good skin lotion, Palmon. Like aloe vera."

"What's skin lotion?"

"Hold on, Mimi-chan, I'll get you a bandage."

Taichi listened to the girls' chit-chat lying on his side, facing away. Tired though he was, his mind wouldn't stop whirring. He didn't even know what to think of first. Getting across the ocean. Stopping the blackout. Getting home...

He felt something poke the small of his back. Then Agumon's nostrils sent a puff of warm air over his skin as his partner snuggled up to him.

"Taichi..." Agumon gave a huge yawn. "I'm sleepy."

"Your breath stinks." Reaching around, Taichi pulled Agumon in, and it was better than having an electric blanket. Funny, Agumon looked like some type of cold-blooded lizard, but he gave off heat like a furnace. Agumon's eyes closed. Taichi let his fingers trace feather-light along Agumon's snout, up and over the bridge of his nose. Agumon didn't seem to mind. He was already deep in sleep.

Taichi wasn't even sure how soon he wanted to go home.

---

"Taichi."

Someone was shaking him awake. "Whuh?"

"Your digivice. I think Koushirou-kun's calling you." Taichi blinked bleary eyes until he could make out Sora leaning over him. Her tousled hair was full of sticks and leaves. Some things were inevitable when sleeping in the woods.

It was dark except for the glow of his digivice, which was beeping incessantly. Taichi looked over Sora's shoulder at Mimi, but she seemed still asleep. For that matter, so did Agumon. "Okay, I'm gonna talk to him outside," he said, standing up. (Though their shelter didn't quite qualify as "inside.")

He didn't bother with his socks, stepping right into his shoes and tramping towards the remains of their fire pit. "Koushirou?" He squatted down with his digivice held close to his ear.

"Taichi-san?"

"Hey, it's me. Everything cool?"

"Yes. It's 'cool.' Were you sleeping?"

"Yeah, but no biggie."

"Oh, is it nighttime?"

"Huh, your fancy computer can't tell time?"

Koushirou gave an indignant huff. "First of all, time is a construct. Second, yes it can tell time, but given that the environment here never changes, it's hard for me to keep track."

Taichi frowned. "What d'you mean, the environment never changes?" He picked up a stick, scratching circles in the ashes.

"I mean it's just a never-ending white void."

"Oh, that's what things looked like when I came here the first time. But now we're in some sort of jungle."

"Kabuterimon told me the true digital world is full of trees and plants and even oceans, but I haven't seen any of it yet." Koushirou sounded a bit forlorn, Taichi thought.

"Catch up with us quick. Then you'll see lots. More than you want."

"Will do." He paused. "Well, I guess I should let you go back to sleep. I'm kind of tired too, even if it doesn't feel like night."

"Wait a minute." Taichi's stick hovered in the air. "You still haven't told me the reason you called."

"Huh? O-Oh, I... there was no reason. I just hadn't heard from you in a while so I thought I'd check in."

"Hmm." A grin tugged at his mouth. "Were you bored? Lonely?"

"N-No! A-Anyway, I've got Kabuterimon with me."

"H'llo," boomed a strange voice, which Taichi assumed must belong to Koushirou's partner.

"Hi, Kabu... terimon." Taichi's tongue tripped over the unfamiliar name. "Hey, could you tell Koushirou to take a nap? Even if there aren't any stars where you guys are, human beings still need sleep."

"Taichi-san! I don't need mothering! Wait, you can see stars where you are?"

"Yeah, I told you, it's night and we're in a jungle or something."

"Wow! Do you see any constellations you recognize?"

"Uh..." Although knowing he wouldn't be able to tell one star from another even in his home world, Taichi still craned his neck back to gaze at the stars above. "Not really?"

"Interesting... It sounds as though the digital plane where you are is a facsimile of our world, so I wonder if the stars themselves look the same. That would be singularly impressive, given that the stars are always moving. I wonder which hemisphere they replicate."

"Dunno. Get your butt over here and see for yourself."

"That's the plan," Kabuterimon chuckled. "Koushirou can sleep on my back and leave the flying to me."

Taichi started to agree, but yawned at that exact moment.

"Okay, I get the hint." Koushirou sounded amused. In his mind's eye, Taichi could see the shy smile unfurling on his face. "Talk to you later, Taichi-san."

"Yeah, see you."

He stuffed his digivice back in his pocket and headed back to the shelter, stifling another yawn. He almost tripped over Sora, who was sitting up, arms wrapped around her knees.

"You didn't have to wait up for me," he said as he flopped down on the leaf bed, which was not half as comfortable as Mimi made it sound. Probably needed more fronds.

Sora gave a subdued shake of her head. "What did Koushirou-kun say?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Nothing much. Just wanted to talk, I think."

"Oh." He thought she looked a bit relieved. He couldn't blame her, a call from Koushirou most often meant another update on the increasingly volatile situation back home.

Sora pulled her knees in closer. "Hey Taichi... sorry if I sounded annoyed earlier."

"Huh?" He picked a few twigs out of her hair. "When?"

"When we were deciding if we should stop for the night or not. I just -"

"You were annoyed?" His fingers rubbed together, snapping the twigs into tiny pieces and leaving them in the dirt.

"No, well - not at you, I mean, the situation. But - I thought you might think that I meant you."

"... Huh?"

She gave a soft laugh. Her lip popped out from her teeth, and he hadn't noticed she'd been chewing it again. "You know what, never mind."

"Never mind what?"

"Go to sleep, Taichi." She turned away from him, and that meant she was done talking. He understood body language.

He rolled his eyes though, shifting so that he could tuck Agumon back under his chin. Sora might be basically his best friend, but she was still a girl. Girls were so weird.

He really was tired though, and drifted off without giving it too much more thought.

- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o -

So that’s how the first night went down! Now you know. I’m sure you were wondering. At least my muse is appeased, if nothing else.

Fight or Flight - Chapter 4: Commitment

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Heir (canon divergent from the end of book 2)

Word Count: ~3900

Rating: PG-13 (brief language)

Summary: Two and a half hours since The Walker Absconding

Author’s Note: This series follows the Walkers, their friends, and Cordonia as a whole after they flee the country with their daughter during Barthelemy Beaumont’s attempted coup. To catch up on this series, check out it’s masterlist. (link can be found via my bio - sorry, Tumblr is once again not putting my posts with links in tag searches)

Drake paced along the gravel at the side of the road, glancing over at Riley frequently. She was hunched into the back of the town car, the back door left open as she used the back seat as a makeshift changing table. 

He felt sick to his stomach. Everything was going wrong. He was surprised he hadn’t thrown up, to be honest. Olivia’s warning made everything ten times more real. And things had already felt pretty damn real.

They were a dozen or so kilometers into Greece, but he wanted to go back to Cordonia. Getting charged with treason… the thought was so upsetting. And yeah, he wanted to be there to support Liam through this crisis, too. If they all worked together, they could stop the coup and stop the threat of Bridget being taken from them at the same time. But Riley didn’t want to hear any discussion of turning around and returning from Greece. The second he’d mentioned needing to make a decision after Olivia had hung up the phone, she’d gotten defensive. Raised her voice. Told him he never should have come along if he was just going to change his mind, because her plan was final.

They hadn’t been screaming or anything, but they’d both gotten loud enough to wake Bridget, and she’d started doing enough screaming for their entire family. She was hungry, antsy, and probably a bit crabby from sensing their frustration with each other. After several minutes of her wailing, Ray had pulled over to the side of the road and rolled down the privacy divider. He’d offered to walk into the nearest town, which was only about a kilometer away, to pick up a couple of bottles of water so that they could prepare Bridget some formula, as well as some dinner for the three adults. Drake suspected he also was trying to give them some privacy as they discussed next steps. He had to have heard Riley and him getting louder with each other. It’s not like the divider was completely soundproof.

But instead of having the conversation they needed to have, Riley was essentially giving him the silent treatment at this point. She’d taken Bridget from him when he ducked behind some bushes to relieve himself, and since he’d returned, she hadn’t said a word to him. He was at a loss as to how to handle it. He knew she was panicking. He knew she was terrified. He knew she was just focused on keeping Bridget safe. But she wasn’t thinking clearly. And if he couldn’t make her see that, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

After a few moments, Riley scooped up Bridget, tucking her against her hip as she stood up, stretching her back and twisting her neck from side to side. Drake knew he had to broach the topic again.

“Look, Riley, I know you-”

“Drake, I do not want to hear this. I told you already - Bridget and I are not setting foot on Cordonian soil until we have confirmation that no one is scheming to take her.”

Drake ran a hand over his face as he let out a massive sigh. He’d never struggled this much to get through to her before. Even in those early days, when most of their conversations were all snark without any underlying friendship or affection, he’d always felt like she was at least willing to hear him out, even if she’d thought his warnings had been over dramatic. It’s weird how he was now the one arguing the opposite position, trying to convince her to put her faith in at least some of the Cordonian nobility.

“Riley, can you at least explain to me why Olivia’s plan is something you won’t even consider?”

She shot him an annoyed glare and rolled her eyes, but then she said, “If Barthelemy takes over Cordonia, Olivia is not going to be able to protect us. How can you not understand this?”

“Olivia will still be the Duchess of Lythikos, no matter who is acting as monarch. If she wants to offer us amnesty there, that is well within her capabilities.”

“But how do we know that she will be allowed to keep that title? Don’t Cordonian monarchs have the power to strip nobles of their titles if there is suspected criminal activity?”

“What are you talking about? How is Olivia a criminal?”

“I’m pretty sure aiding and abetting traitors and kidnappers is a fucking crime, Drake.”

“But Riley, we’re only going to be charged with those crimes if we flee the country. Or I guess if they figure out we fled the country at this point. If we go back now-”

“Yeah, I’m sure Barthelemy will just accept us keeping physical custody of Bridget if we go hang out in Lythikos. No way we can get charged with kidnapping her there if he decides he wants to take her and we say “no,” because being on Cordonian soil will magically protect us.”

Drake paused, rubbing the back of his neck. She had a point there. If, god forbid, Barthelemy’s plan was successful and he was able to get himself named king-regent, the issuing of treason charges for the two of them would probably be a matter of when, not if. As long as they insisted on keeping Bridget with them, which was obviously not up for debate, they likely would be charged and named as enemies of the state whether they were in Cordonia or in Greece. 

“Okay, let’s say there’s no way to prevent us being named traitors. I still think it’s worth considering that if we stay in Lythikos, we have a support system. We have a roof over our heads. We have food and clothing and money. We have friends who will help us. We don’t get anything like that if we stay in Greece.”

Riley shot him a look that was so withering, he wished he could crawl out of his skin. “And how do we guarantee that Barthelemy won’t freeze Olivia’s accounts and strip her of her title unless she turns us, known traitors and criminals, into his custody?”

“Again, she’s a duchess and head of one the the five major noble houses. Why are you so convinced that he would be able to have so much control over her legally guaranteed powers?”

“Because of what happened with Godfrey when we confronted him about Eleanor’s death.”

“He wasn’t just accused, Riley. We know he killed Liam’s mom.”

“But he wasn’t found guilty or anything. The king’s accusation was enough, right?”

Drake frowned and tried to remember the details of how things worked. He’d never bothered to pay that much attention to the intricacies of the nobility’s power structure during his schooling. After all, it was never going to matter to him. “Actually, I’m pretty sure the reigning monarch can strip any noble of their title for any reason. The noble in question can challenge it if they gain the support of the majority of the major houses, if I remember things correctly.”

“That makes it even worse, Drake! Are you telling me that Barthelemy, if he’s acting as king, could just strip Olivia of her title simply for not supporting him?”

He shook his head. “No, that would be unlikely. The Nevrakises can trace their lineage back past the birth of Cordonia. They are the longest standing major house, and they have made sure their family is well protected by the law. I can’t see Olivia losing her title.”

“But you can’t promise that she’s safe!”

Drake wanted to roll his eyes. The thought of anyone attempting to take Olivia’s title from her and walking away without serious bodily injury was laughable. But he knew that Riley was dangerously close to spiraling into a panicked mess again. So he tried to keep things steady.

“Riley, do you picture Olivia just sitting back and letting someone take Lythikos from her? I am sure her title is safe. Like I said, there are a lot of bylaws and exceptions that protect the Nevrakis family. Besides, a no-confidence vote in Liam is going to draw criticism from a decent amount of the people. He’s not an unpopular king. If Barthelemy removes a monarch and a duchess from a major house in quick succession, he’s going to risk a citizen uprising. Particularly in Lythikos.”

“But that won’t happen instantly, Drake. And Barthelemy could spin this, make Olivia look like she’s a traitor.”

“The citizens of Lythikos won’t buy that.”

“So what? Our plan is to count on a civil war where the citizens of Lythikos are willing to fight for Olivia’s right to shelter us? That seems like a far worse plan than just hiding out in a different country.”

Drake tried to suppress a sigh as he shook his head. “I think you are getting way ahead of yourself, here. We have no reason to believe Olivia will lose her title.”

“And again, I’m telling you that’s optimistic bullshit. Unless I just hallucinated Liam stripping Godfrey, a member of another major house, of all of his Cordonian titles when he was accused of a crime. Guess I got confused while I was almost dying while having to deliver a baby with almost no medical attention in a frickin’ palace bedroom.” Riley sank down on the side of the back seat, a hint of exhaustion noticeable behind the fire in her gaze.

Drake didn’t like to think about those hours before Bridget was born. He’d been scared shitless, trying to keep it together as it seemed more and more likely that there would be no medical care and that Riley or his child… or both might die as a result. They were some of the darkest hours of his life. He’d honestly had no recollection of slamming Bradshaw against the wall when Olivia had mentioned it hours later, everything just a giant blur of fear and anger and desperation, all without wanting to make things worse for Riley by letting her see how stressed he was.

But then Dr. Ramirez was there and in the blink of an eye, Bridget was crying in his arms, and Dr. Ramirez was acting like Riley was out of the woods. The earlier fears and struggles seemed so inconsequential as they held their daughter close. Saw her face. Wrapped her up and held her tight. And maybe naively, Drake had assumed with everything Riley had physically been through during her labor and delivery, that she’d kind of forgotten how dicey it had been since everything turned out okay. But hearing her now, it was clear she carried a lot of pain and fear from that time, even if she never had mentioned it before.

“Riley…” he started, crouching down in front of her, bracing himself on the open car door as he gently placed a hand on her knee, “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault,” she said with a little shrug.

Drake nodded, “Still, you should have never been in that position.”

“We should have never been in that position, Drake. Maybe you’re just blinded to how fucking bizarre this all is, because it’s all you’ve ever known, but half the things that have happened since I’ve been here are insane. And while delivering her in a palace under lockdown was one of the scarier ones, it isn’t the only time I’ve been in a position that I shouldn’t have had to handle.”

He knew she was right. Assassination attempts, photographers paid to catch her in her underwear, marriage alliances. All of it was kind of bullshit. But they’d always gotten through things together. He didn’t understand why this time she wanted to run and refused to face the problem head on. He didn’t know what to say, so he just gave her knee a squeeze he hoped was comforting and pushed himself up to standing, leaning against the side of the car next to her.

Riley bit her lip, bouncing Bridget on her lap. Bridget was getting crankier. Drake could see it clearly. They’d given her some of her rice puffs, the only snack they had in the diaper bag, which had helped placate her a little, but she was still obviously hungry. Add to the fact that she had been confined to their arms for hours, and it seemed like she was teetering on the edge of a total meltdown. She wanted to be set down, to crawl around and explore. She had no patience for being on the lam.

“Do you want me to take her?” Drake asked, holding out his arms, but Riley shook her head.

“No, I’ve got her.” Her arms tightened slightly around Bridget as she responded.

Drake frowned. Part of him was scared that if he pushed Riley any further right now, she might just bolt. But a bigger part of him knew that if they didn’t address this, that it was only going to get worse. And if they decided to stay in Greece, they were only going to have each other. Not trusting each other fully wasn’t an option.

“You don’t trust me with her.”

Riley swallowed slowly before glancing up and looking at Drake. He hadn’t exactly phrased his statement like a question, but Riley treated it as one anyway. “You’re oversimplifying things. It’s not that straight forward.”

He just shook his head, pushing off the car and resuming his earlier pacing. “It is, Riley. If you can’t answer ‘yes’ to that, well then you obviously don’t trust me.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you with her,” she said, her voice cracking slightly, “If you want to, you can hold her.”

Drake let out a sigh. “I’m not trying to turn this into a power struggle over who gets to keep her in their arms. That’s not… You’re acting like you’re the only parent here. You’ve decidedly unilaterally that our child has to leave the country. And that’s not fair.”

“You want to know what’s not fair, Drake?” Her voice was high pitched and fragile sounding, but her words were sharp and clear. This wasn’t her panicked ramblings of a couple of hours ago. This was a speech she’d held in her heart for a long time. “What isn’t fair is that your best friend showed up on our honeymoon, asking us for a wildly inappropriate favor with a heavy dose of guilt thrown on the side. What isn’t fair is that you agreed to it before even speaking to me about it. What isn’t fair is that if I hadn’t agreed to it, I would have been the bitch who rejected a guy when he was down on one knee and then forbid the guy I married, his best friend in the whole world, from helping him out.”

“Riley… I-” Drake wanted to try and soothe her, to acknowledge how much rougher everything had been than he could have envisioned when Liam showed up, solemn and resigned, with his request on that beach. But Riley wasn’t done.

“You called it an honor, Drake. That was how you phrased it. Tell me, was it an honor watching the press hound me for months, wanting to know every detail about my body? Was it an honor having to fend off two foreign powers who wanted some archaic marriage alliance with your unborn child? Was it an honor to feel backed into the corner and agreeing to one of those alliances to save my life? To save Bridget’s life? Was it an honor dragging her to balls and galas and events when she wasn’t even vaccinated yet? Because as I see it, this whole scheme has brought our family nothing but struggles and stress and sadness.”

“Of course all that shit sucked! But you don’t get to sit there and act like you are not complicit in almost every part of it. You agreed to it. You don’t get to blame me forever for a choice we both made.” Drake knew his phrasing was harsh, but it wasn’t fair for her to act like he’d forced her to do anything. If she had given him a firm “no” back then, that would have been that.

“You’re right - I should have fought you on this earlier. But I’m not going to just continue to roll along with it when it keeps hurting my child over and over again. So, I’m taking a stand now. I’m saying enough is enough. I’m done. I am not going to keep quiet about it anymore. I should have never agreed to name her heir. Hell, I should have never accepted the duchy.” There were tears trailing down her cheeks, but she held his gaze, steady and sure of her decision. Her arms locked tightly around Bridget as she squirmed on her lap, but she wasn’t distracted.

“Riley, if you had just told me-”

“Drake, I was clearly a reluctant participant from the start. Anytime I started to voice concerns, you just reassured me over and over. You never wanted to hear it.”

It was like the wind was knocked out of him. She really thought he was ignoring her serious objections intentionally? As far as he’d been able to tell, she had just wanted reassurance that she was still a good mom, in spite of all the royal pomp and drama. “Why was this the one fucking topic you decided to be coy about? Literally anything else on the planet you’ve always been blunt and direct with me. You’ve never beat around the apple tree. You called things as you saw them, at least when it was just the two of us. How was I supposed to know you were suddenly shy and reserved when it came to the biggest decision we have ever made?”

“I was afraid,” she said with a little shrug, her face downturned as she dropped a kiss to the top of Bridget’s head

“Of what?”

“Of making you choose between me and Liam.”

Drake let her words wash over him for a few moments before he responded. “Afraid about making me choose or afraid of what my choice would be?”

Her eyes flitted upward as she blinked out a few more tears. “Both, I guess. I felt bad enough that I was this… elephant in the room when it came to your friendship with him, but… I guess part of me was always a little worried that if I really drew a line in the sand, you would feel like you had to stick with him.”

Her words hurt. There was no point denying that. But at the same time, he understood. Not that he thought he might have ever picked his friend over his wife, but that feeling that others would always be more important, the fear that everyone would always just focus on Liam? Well, he got that feeling better than anyone, probably. Combine that with all her fears of abandonment, and he understood how she could have gotten to that point.

“Riley, if I wanted to put Liam’s needs first, I would have proposed to him, not you.” She let out a watery little chuckle at that, so Drake kept going, hoping he was on the right track. “You are my family. You are my whole world, okay? Bridget is the only one who’s as important to me. I love Liam like a brother, but I didn’t exchange vows with him. If you tell me you need me for something, that’s it.”

Riley tucked Bridget back against her hip with one arm and reached her other out towards Drake. He grabbed her hand and tugged her up to standing, wrapping his arms around her and Bridget tightly as she looped an arm around his neck and tucked her face against his shoulder. They stood like that for nearly a minute before Riley loosened her grip and let her hand slide down, her fingers playing with the collar of his shirt.

“I get why you want to turn around and go back, but it doesn’t feel safe to me,” she said, her eyes focused on his shoulder. “We don’t know if Barthelemy has power or not. If he does, we are going to be labeled as traitors anyway, and Olivia’s protection might not be enough to keep our daughter safe by our sides. I can’t knowingly take that gamble, Drake. I just can’t.”

Drake nodded, sliding a hand up to the back of her head and holding her even tighter against him. “You know that we are taking the much more difficult option here, right? We could probably go back and renounce our titles and Bridget’s claim to the throne without any of those fears coming to pass.”

He felt Riley nod against his shoulder. Her voice was muffled as she said, “But do we even have the power to essentially abdicate for Bridget at this point? We were included in that no-confidence vote along with Liam.”

Drake leaned back slightly, needing to look Riley in the eyes. “I don’t know, Walker.”

She bit her lip and nodded again. “Then I can’t take that risk. I would rather face a crazy uphill battle as a family than watch her get ripped from our arms surrounded by Liam, Hana, Maxwell, and Olivia.”

“We’ll stay in Greece, then - on one condition.” Riley frowned at him, so he kept going quickly before she could imagine up all sorts of horrible restrictions he could throw at her. “From now on, we decide our next steps together. If we’re doing this as a family, you and I have to be on the same page. Because Riley, I don’t think we can count on anyone else’s support going forward. And this is going to be hard enough without us doubting and second guessing each other.”

He didn’t bring up the issue of trust again, knowing it would be a moot point. She was going to have to learn to not let her fears override her trust in him, because going forward, there wouldn’t be another option. Hopefully, he would be able to show her he meant what he said by sticking by her side. 

They held each other for a few more moments, but then Bridget started doing her crabby, whiny babble, unhappy with not only being forced to stay in their arms, but even more confined between both their bodies. So they broke apart, but Riley clutched his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Drake.”

He nodded at her, keeping his hand locked on her hers. Squinting, he thought he could make out Ray, coming back down the road, a shopping bag in one hand. “We should probably come clean to him at some point.”

Riley followed his gaze and sighed, but nodded. “How pissed is Olivia going to be?”

“I think she already suspects we crossed the border. But as for us not turning around?” Drake started, but his thought was interrupted by a buzzing in his back pocket. With his free hand, he tugged out his phone. “Well, I think we’re about to find out,” he said as he showed Riley Olivia’s name across the screen.

He took one last deep breath before swiping to accept her call. “Hey, Olivia.”

“It’s just me and Hana here,” she said, not sparing any time for pleasantries, “so you need to honestly let me how stupid you guys were. Did you guys leave the country?”

“Yes. We were already across the border before I called Liam.”

There was a brief pause before Olivia continued, “And what’s your plan now?”

He locked eyes with Riley and nodded at her before he responded, “I’m sorry. But we aren’t risking coming back.”

Permatag:  @walkerswhiskeygirl   @riley--walker  @bebepac @ravenpuff02 @oofchoices @octobereighth @drakewalker04 @kimmiedoo5  @mfackenthal  @thequeenofcronuts  

The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir: @ao719 @mskaneko @katedrakeohd @jovialyouthmusic @marshmallowsandfire @axwalker @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @dcbbw @yaushie

Drake x MC: @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria  @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @notoriouscs  @drakesensworld @drake-colt-lover-99

Fight or Flight: @masterofbluff @burnsoslow @bobasheebaby @shz256 @iaminlovewithtrr​

Fazbear Frights 1-9 review.

Into The Pit:

Slow and meandering during the first half but picks up speed after Spring Bonnie shows up. Good message and good idea, but the execution could be better. 6/10

To Be Beautiful:

This story is so full of fluff, you can cut out like 60% of it and lose nothing. I know it's going for a fairy tale thing with the repetition and all, but fairy tales do that because it's made for children. Repetition is to train a child's brain to remember better. These books are aimed at teenagers, so this narrative device is not needed. On top of that, it has unfortunate implications of "Not like other girls" memes that we don't need to revisit. Only saved by its creepy af ending. 3/10

Count The Ways:

Legitimately my favorite story out of FNAF and one of my favorites of all time. It fixed the previous story's Not Like Other Girls problems by having the goth main character hate the pretty blonde and being called out for not even knowing her and being shallow. It is actually surprising to have these two stories be back to back.

The narrative device of switching back and forth between the MC facing her death and how she got up to that point means it keeps your interest throughout that the previous two stories had problems with. It makes for great drama and tension.

The main reason I love this story in particular is because of this exchange near the end:

“Silly Millie, for someone who doesn’t want to die you sure spent a lot of time talking about it,” the voice surrounding her said. “But that’s the way of things, isn’t it? Talk is always easier than action.”

“I think,” Millie said, sniffling, “that when I said I wanted to die, what I really wanted was to escape. I didn’t want death. I just wanted my life to be different.”

“Oh, but that really takes action, doesn’t it?”

And, if I can be real for a minute: I feel like that kinda changed my life. Or very least, my point of view.

As someone who has made attempts on his life before and frequently battles depression- It made my problems so much less overwhelming. Of course I didn't want to die. I wanted my life my life to improve. And now whenever the thought of suicide passes through my head, I just remember this phrase and it helps me keep it together and calm down.

And also F.Freddy's follow up with having to work for happiness is spot on too. Misery is comfortable, that's why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort. 10/10

Fetch:

I'm in the minority for not caring for this one. I felt like there wasn't any direction or character arc, I didn't find Fetch particularly scary or interesting, and the MC makes a lot of dumb decisions in it.

That being said, I love how it jumps right into the action instead of taking awhile to get to it like the other stories did. The stories tend to play out like a different book and then FNAF characters are slapped in at the end. This one gets right to it and makes it integral to its plot. 6/10

Lonely Freddy:

Another one I really love. The Frights series has a good traction with its tragedies and this one is no exception. I really connected with the feeling of being pitted against your siblings, usually by accident and circumstance with your parents. Particularly this line:

“Maybe you’ve made them what they are,” Aunt Gigi said, pausing for a moment before adding: “Hazel’s the easy one. Alec is the hard one. It’s like you put them on their own little islands.”

I wasn't Alec, but Hazel in this situation. And it made me realize what my sibling went through because of it.

And this is another story where Freddy's is more integral to the plot too, and one of the few times it's not already abandoned.

I really like how well done Alec's back and forth he had with himself whether to befriend his sister or not. It's a believable character arc when he realizes his mistake at the end unlike another story that we'll get to.

And the fact they made a God damn teddy bear legitimately creepy is a mastery of horror writing that I can only ever hope to strive for. Definitely the scariest in Frights 2. 9/10

Out Of Stock:

I agree with Dawko that this one feels best to make a 30 minute special out of. It feels like a Halloween special or creepypasta you would watch/read as a preteen. Old enough to want to explore more mature stuff, but young enough to still have more cartoony stuff be familiar. And I mean that as 100% a positive.

I also like how this one is a bit more comedy based. Like the scene where the MC gets thrown across the room after electrocuting himself and his friends dont even notice. I can picture that bit so clearly.

The climax is the best part of having a dire game of Red Light, Green Light with the Plushtrap Chaser. It's very energized and exciting that the other stories don't have as often because the subject matter doesn't lend itself to it.

The trend in these stories of kids learning to appreciate their parents, and they're parents realizing they have to sacrifice some stuff to make their child happy is very sweet. And it's no different here. 8/10

1:35 AM

What I like about this series is that you never know where its gonna go from story to story. I though for certain this story was about how the doll was gonna have an evil spirit possessing it.

But no, what actually happened is that it's never made clear if the MC is losing her mind, being haunted, or just seeing stuff because she's sleep deprived. That ambiguity makes the book a lot creepier and sadder because you don't know how this poor woman should be helped. And it ends without any clarification. That's great and a perfect idea for horror story.

That being said, Scott's writing quirks (and it's definitely Scott doing it, I can tell) of front loading info, constantly stopping the flow to have backstory and over explaining things that don't need makes it frustrating to read after several books of it. And we're not done with that either. 9/10

Room For One More:

I skipped over all the dream sequences because it adds nothing to the story. Its great you remember Sister Location, but it feels like you don't trust your audience to read a FNAF story if there isn't animatronics every couple pages. And honestly? Understandable.

I do know based on my own FNAF comic, pages featuring humans is a lot less popular than the ones featuring animatronics. And I get it, you're a bunch of furries it's more interesting to visualize. And you can go in the opposite direction and have very little FNAF stuff when they're needs to be more. The New Kid doesn't even bring it up til the last third.

But I digress. The strongest qualities in Room For One More is three points.

The location is very vividly described. The underground security office with steel walls, the radiation disposals, the musky scent. It paints a clear and unique picture.

The main character's fallen arc of self care and distrust of others is a well done cautionary tale. It goes hand in hand with the speech before of having to work for happiness, and the difficulties there are from even trying. But you still need to do it.

The body horror is not as visually disgusting as it could've been, and more conceptually horrifying. But if you have a fear of bugs in your skin or crawling in your mouth, prepare for something so much worse! And no, that's not a spoiler, it's pretty obvious where its going from the beginning. 7/10

The New Kid:

This one was disappointing. This is not the way to do a tragedy, because I don't care about the MC.

Throughout the entire story, the main character has literal sociopath tendencies. He is controlling of other people, he doesn't have any empathy, he sees other people as tools to use, he kills a bird and doesn't care- So at the end when he accidentally kills someone, I don't believe him feeling bad about it. And I sure as shit don't care about his death after him leaving his victim to die, while he was still breathing, and not coming back for a week.

Also the twist at the end makes no God damn sense and I'm not even gonna dignify it.

A better tragedy would've been his friend, Mick, getting into trouble for the murder after refusing to ever stand up to the MC. Or even the MC being betrayed by him last minute for him to learn how his shit behavior really screwed him over. But the end result ended up being an unsatisfying mess. 2/10

I'll review the 4th's books with 5 and 6, since I'm sticking with a three at a time theme and because I haven't read 4 yet.

Enough is Enough (t.s.)

Summary: you’ve had enough of Tommy going back and for between you and Grace.

AN: okay so since i just started Peaky Blinders & my opinions post got some good feedback, i decided to write this so go easy on me please 😊 they’ll be better as i get used to writing for Tommy xx

You had known the Shelby family for years. You had grown up with the family and have seen all the boys grow into men and were even deemed godmother to John’s children. 

Arthur even confided in you about his PTSD from the war. You didn’t yell at him, you didn’t judge him. You were a better choice to talk to than Tommy was.

So it didn’t come as a shock when you and Tommy started your, “relationship,” for lack of a better word. It wasn’t a legitimate relationship though. There were no formalities and nothing was ever official between the two of you. 

Then he met Grace. And everything about your little arrangement began to change. He spent less time with you and more time at the Garrison with her. Things you and Tommy used to do together became things for him and Grace. 

Arthur could see a change in your behavior after Grace came into the picture. You were more angry and short tempered and soon you were the one the guys would be afraid of; not Tommy. 

There was a time Johnny Dogs was being more bold than usual and it was getting on your last nerve. You had a short fuse that day after Tommy decided he wanted to go to the races with Grace.

He was pushing your buttons about being so uptight so you forced his head down on to the table, resulting in him being unconscious for an hour.

At the usual family meeting, you sat in your chair in between John and Tommy. You were quite disinterested in the entire conversation and Tommy saw that by the look on your face. 

“Am I boring you, Y/N?” He asked. You looked up at him and shrugged. “It’s quite possible.” You sassed back. “Then what do you propose we do about Billy Kimber?” He questioned. 

You stared at him for a moment before looking away. “Let me meet with him.” You said. The men started to murmur and glance at each other. “No.” Tommy simply said. “And why not? You had no problem handing your precious Grace over to him for a couple of hours.” You snapped. 

Arthur and John exchanged a look, both of them knowing that you were trying to get under Tommy’s skin. 

He clenched his jaw as he looked down at you, seeing the fire in your eyes. “Because Grace knows how to follow orders. And I actually like having her around.” Tommy replied. He thought he was just playing your little game. You two would always banter but it was never taken seriously. But the way your face fell proved otherwise. 

You stood up, your cold eyes never leaving his and walked out of the room. 

“Christ, Tommy. Look what you’ve done. Now she’ll take it out on all of us.” John commented. Tommy ignored his brother’s comment and followed you out. 

Once he caught up with you, he tried to grab your elbow but you forcefully removed it. “Don’t fucking touch me.” You spat. “Y/N,” He started. “Enough is enough, Tommy. You have been stringing me along like a toy ever since Grace started working at the Garrison.” You said. 

Tommy didn’t do anything but look at you. He was never really good at showing his emotions so you didn’t take it personally. Much. 

“I have loved you since I was 15 years old but there has always been someone else and I am done. I would make you decide who you wanted to be with, me or Grace but it seems your mind is already made up.” You finished before leaving him alone. 

Tommy watched you walk away from him, knowing better than to follow you and pick a fight when you’re upset. Though everything in him was telling him to go after you. 

He walked back to where his brothers and Polly were and felt their eyes on him. “What?” He asked. “You’re daft.” Polly said. Tommy furrowed his eyebrows at her as he lit a cigarette. “This is the problem with men. You think a woman will just be at your beck and call. Well, now you lost one, Tommy. The only woman who saw past all your shit and stayed by you.” She explained. 

“Well what do you suggest I do, Pol?” Tommy asked, sarcastically. “I don’t know, Tommy. What should you do?” Polly rebutted. The room dispersed, leaving Tommy to stand there alone, contemplating what he should do. 

__

Later that evening, you were walking home after a late night at a pub that wasn’t the Garrison. You felt as if someone were following you and it made your skin crawl. 

Most people knew you were intimately associated with the Shelbys. So they knew not to get on your bad side or hurt you in any way because of the consequences that followed. 

You stopped quickly, turning around and taking in your surroundings. It was eerily quiet, except for the people stumbling home in groups. You kept looking around for a few more seconds before turning your head. When you did, you ran into a man who was clearly intoxicated. 

“Pardon me.” You said, attempting to move around him. “What is a woman like you doing out so late, eh?” He slurred. “Walking home, now if you’ll excuse me.” You answered. You tried to move around him yet again, but he grabbed your elbow rather harshly. “Let go.” You snapped. “You’re not going anywhere.” He sneered in your ear. 

You kept trying to get away from him as you felt his hand start to wander. You pushed him away forcefully which didn’t bode over well for you. The man got angry, really angry and brought his hand back and hit you. 

It stunned you a bit and you stumbled back away from him. You looked up and saw him marching towards you so you did the only thing you could do. You grabbed the blade you had in your purse and plunged it in his abdomen. 

He groaned as he slowly sank to the ground, the knife still in his body. You began to panic when you noticed him bleeding out. Tommy and Arthur always told you to never leave behind the cause of death. 

You pulled the knife out of his body and scanned around the alleyway for any witnesses. When you didn’t see any, you put the knife back in your purse and made your way to the only place you could think of. 

It wasn’t too late and you knew Arthur and John would still be at the Garrison. You had no interest in seeing Tommy so you were relying on the other two Shelby brothers to help you. 

When you arrived at the pub, you kept your head down knowing there was going to be a bruise on your cheek from the slap. “Y/N, are you alright?” Grace asked you, noticing your presence. 

“Yes, I’m alright. Thank you, Grace.” You replied, not stopping long enough for anymore questions.  

You went directly to the back room and opened the door without a word. 

“Y/N?” You heard Tommy question. You sighed and wiped away the tears with the back of your hand before turning around. “I need your help.” You whispered, holding out your blood stained hands. You looked up and all three men rose from their seats at the sight of the bruise on your face. 

All three growing more and more angry the longer they looked at your disheveled state.

“What happened?” Arthur asked. You avoided Tommy’s gaze and looked at anywhere else but him. “Th-This man stopped me on my way home and he wanted me to go with him and when I pushed him away, he hit me and then I panicked. I-I stabbed him.” You stammered. 

You looked down at the blood on your shaking hands and the tears started flowing. “I killed him.” You whispered. “Oh my god.” You cried. “Y/N, Y/N look at me.” Tommy started, cupping your face in his hands. He forced you to look at him, the first time you had since you arrived. 

“Where’s the body?” He asked. “Uh, in the alley two blocks over.” You answered. Tommy looked at his brothers and signaled them to go take care of it. 

You returned your gaze back to the floor as you heard Arthur and John leave the room. Tommy walked back towards the table and grabbed a handkerchief and handed it to you. You used it to wipe the blood off your hands and let out a deep breath. 

“Are you okay?” Tommy asked. You looked back up at him and getting another glimpse of the bruise made Tommy see red. He placed a finger under your chin and tilted your head so he could see it better. “If you hadn’t already killed him I would have done it myself.” He said quietly. 

You turned away from him and walked towards an empty chair and sat down. Taking the bottle of whiskey, you poured yourself a glass and downed it quickly. 

Tommy walked back over to his original spot and sat next to you. He reached across the table to grab your hand but you pulled it away. 

“Y/N, can we please talk?” He asked. “What is there to talk about, Tommy?” You questioned. “I can see why you’d be upset about Grace and I. That wasn’t fair the way I treated you.” He said. “But you love Grace.” You said quietly. 

As you were looking at the bracelet on your wrist, you felt Tom’s hand take your own. “But, I love you.” Tommy said. Your head snapped up and you looked at him with wide eyes. “What?” You questioned. 

“You were always too good for this family. Too good to ever be with me and I knew I had to let you go to keep you safe. Because I’ll be damned if I lose the one thing I’ve ever loved.” He explained. 

You found it very hard to believe that it was you the whole time. Especially when Tommy wasn’t known to just talk about his feelings willingly. He liked to pretend he didn’t have any sometimes.

“You deserve more than me.” Tommy added. It was then your turn to make a drastic move. You leaned closer to him and placed your lips on his. 

Tommy was startled at first but soon found himself kissing you back. He placed a hand on your waist and pulled you closer to him, if it were even possible. 

The two of you finally parted when you both heard the door open. You looked down at your lap as Tommy sent a glare to whoever was interrupting you. 

“What?” He snapped. “Everything’s taken care of.” Arthur informed his brother. Tommy nodded his head curtly before standing up, pulling you up with me. “I want you to take this and get rid of it. Don’t answer any questions and see to it that no one sees you.” Tommy instructed, handing Arthur your bag. 

Arthur nodded his head and left you and Tommy alone once again. 

“Everything is going to be fine. That man was a nobody and I guarantee he won’t be missed.” Tommy said.

You nodded your head, fully believing him but you were still shaken up and feared the worst. “No one else is going to lay a hand on you as long as I’m around.” He added.

He made you look up at him once again, to show you he meant every word he said. “What about Grace?” You asked. “Grace is nothing but the barmaid. I thought there could be something between her and I but no one comes close to you.” Tommy answered. 

“I’ve been around you enough to know how you act to get what you want.” You said with a small smile.

Tommy sighed and reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, black box. Your facial expression fell when you saw what was in his hand.

“Tommy,” You started. “It’s always been you I’ve loved, Y/N. Since I was 16 years old and I saw you with that yellow ribbon in your hair and you were getting into it with John about something ridiculous. I have just tried to keep my feelings at bay long enough for you to realize your worth and leave us behind.” He interrupted you. 

“Tommy, I would never leave you behind.” You told him. Tommy looked at you for a moment before opening the box in his hands. In it was a beautiful diamond ring that made you go slack jawed. “Marry me, Y/N. Be my wife.” He spoke. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat before nodding your head. “Is that a yes?” Tommy asked playfully. “Of course it’s a yes.” You said nudging him slightly. He smiled down at you as he slid the ring on your finger.  

Once he did that, he cupped your face in his hands and kissed you deeply. After a few moments of just pure bliss, you pulled away and looked up at him.

“My mother is going to want a big wedding. In a church, with everyone there.” You spoke. “Of course.” Tommy replied. “You’d get married in a church for me?” You questioned, a sweet smile on your face. “I would do anything for you.” He replied.

Your smile grew as you kissed Tommy once more.

Cruel Summer

Summary: "Stay, Sensei, please." Siruko begs, even though it was useless. Sensei didn't belong to him. Sensei belonged to the world, to his fans, to the stage, to the microphone. This borrowed summer was the best and worst of times, where devils roll their dice and angels roll their eyes. What doesn't kill Siruko makes him want Sensei more.

Pairing: Limone-Sensei x Siruko 🍋🐶

Warnings: BL, a lot of ANGST (but I'm a sucker for happy endings, don't worry), extremely out of character, pure imagination, REALLY LONG ONESHOT FIC, PG-17 (there's nothing explicit at all, but there are heavy implications of mature themes) Please don't read if you are uncomfortable. You have been warned.

A/N:

Lately all I've been thinking about is LimoSiru, and I've been itching to write this ever since my friend Shuura showed me that picture. I'm really not good with angst, so writing this was a major challenge, and I hope I was able to pull it off.

I also want to thank this person who hates me so much, because if they didn't antagonize me so much with subtle little things that no one else sees, then I wouldn't be able to write this masterpiece. I learned that sometimes, no matter what we do--be kind, ignore, confront--they’ll find anything we do to be annoying and they won’t like us and that’s okay. We don’t have to make people like us, and they don’t have to like us too. It's really not healthy for me to be able to only write under extreme negative emotions and stress, but oh, the beauty that comes out of it is heavenly. I turned my frustrations into something beautiful, and I’m proud of it. Without this person, I wouldn’t have been fueled to finish this.

This is dedicated to all LimoSiru shippers like me. Seriously, what's not to like about LimoSiru? Have you seen how Limone-sensei acts when he's with Siruko versus how he acts with everybody else? Sensei turns into the playful, teasing younger-brother person while older-brother, responsible Siruko laughs exasperatedly at him (LimoSiru Hanany Land Reconstruction Part 1, Sensei's POV). He's usually not like that, always being the tsukkomi to chaotic Hanae, so seeing him be boke with Siruko-san is really cute. Plus, when Sensei scolds Mintosu-san VS when he scolds Siruko-san, you gotta tell me how you don't see how much softer he is with Siruko-san. And yes, it's canon that Siruko-san likes it when Sensei scolds him. He's the reason why the whole recorded voice clips went on sale, after all. Thank gods for the Number One Limojo, Siruko-san.

I should stop before the word count goes even longer. Enjoy!

"Stay."

It was still dark; the stars were still scattered across the night sky. Siruko blinks blearily, sleep still evident in his purple eyes. It was rare for him to be up this early, and for good reason. Siruko wasn't good at goodbyes.

"Stay, please. Sensei." He begs into the darkness, even though it was futile, just like all those times he pleaded before. Siruko follows the movement within the room with half-lidded eyes, crawling over to the other side of the bed. To the side where it always smelled like lemons and happiness. Limone was already buttoning up the white shirt he always liked to wear. A glance at the clock showed it was 3:15 am.

"Ohayou, Siruko-san." Sensei chuckles mirthlessly. The bed dips as the blue-haired man sits down. He takes Siruko's hand and kisses his knuckles, and with his other hand he runs his beautiful fingers through purple hair. Siruko almost purred. "You know I can't." He reasons out with a hint of regret in his deep, melodic voice.

What Siruko knows is how cruel this summer is. For the first time in years, his and Limone-sensei's break finally matched. 30 days of pure bliss--of netflix and chilling, playing games all day, going on sneaky dates, and even a trip to the beach for Sensei's birthday. It was good, all kinds of good that he soaked up and basked in because it was limited--a fragile heaven. Alas, all good things must come to an end.

Who would have thought that the man Siruko met in the net cafe so many years ago would be one of the most popular idols not just in Japan, but the whole world even. He could still remember it like it was only yesterday, when a handsome man was there staring at him as Siruko looked up from the vending machine. They struck up a conversation, and Siruko found himself attracted to this gravity of a man who was as charming as the devil and yet as kind as an angel. Since that day (during which Siruko was in high school making friends with a college student Limone), there was never a day where they didn't talk or hang out. It was almost a love story.

Except it wasn't. While their relationship progressed from gaming friends to real friends to friends with benefits, there was never really a clear status or label as to what they are. Especially when Limone started to upload videos of him singing (encouraged by none other than Siruko himself), and he got discovered by the public. Siruko knew one day he'd be popular; it was even him who nicknamed him 'Sensei' as a result of all those times Limone taught him something he didn't know, and the name stuck and now became a stage name. Singing was Sensei's dream, and he loved it with a passion burning as bright as the sun. Siruko loved it too--loved the twinkle in Sensei's eyes when he sang in front of a sea of crowd, loved the healing laugh when he gets interviewed on the TV, loved every billboard and commercial he sees as he walks throughout the busy streets of Tokyo. It's just, sometimes he wishes he had Sensei all to himself. Sometimes, he didn't want to share him with the world. He immediately feels guilty for that thought and scolds himself for being too selfish.

"Why don't you sleep a little longer. You have 8am classes, don't you? You need some rest." Sensei pecks his cheek sweetly, and Siruko chases his mouth for a better one. He needs it like the air he breathes, a kiss of passion, of desperation, of something that wasn't even his to lose, and Sensei gives it to him like he always does, a hot, bright and burning clash of lips and tongue. Heat pools at the bottom of his stomach and he breaks away to leave a trail of light kisses on Sensei's neck, hoping to make him feel how much he wants him.. hoping...

"Stop, Siruko-san." Sensei growls, pulling away and standing. Siruko stills immediately, shame burning acid behind his eyes. He internally mourns the loss of the warmth of another body. "How many times should I tell you, no marks. I can't come out wearing a hickey, you know that. Papz are everywhere." And just like that, the moment was gone. How unfair, Siruko thinks, because he knows his body is littered with colors of different shades, blue warring with purple, marks planted by none other than the possessive lips of Sensei. Limone likes to make sure Siruko knows who he belongs to. Isn't it unfair how only Siruko's body gets to be decorated with bruises and hickeys? Well, who was he anyway to get possessive over Sensei. He swallows the bile threatening to make his tongue bitter.

At least Sensei had the decency to look guilty. "I'll be touring again in a couple of weeks, in America." The idol sighs resignedly. Siruko closes his eyes in defeat; it was inevitable after all. Sensei puts on his watch with all the speed of a turtle, and Siruko knows he is stalling time, using up every millisecond he's allowed to have with his purple lover (?). Sensei didn't look like he wanted to leave either, a small comfort in the growing ache in Siruko's chest.

"How long?"

"3 or 4 months, I guess."

"That's too long."

"It's really not." That's true. When Sensei finally broke out into the international scene and started holding tours in other countries, he has been gone longer. Siruko can never begrudge him of the distance, because Sensei always Skyped and called him even in his busy schedule, even during the times Sensei can barely talk in his exhaustion. He knows, he understands with his whole being the realities of dating (?) an idol, but that doesn't stop him being upset.

He should just be grateful that Sensei spends time with him, a normal college student.

"I'll walk you to the car, Sensei."

Sensei finishes getting ready, putting his glasses and black mask on. Siruko combs Sensei's cerulean silky hair with his fingers, hair that became so messy from their bedroom activity. Siruko doesn't know why Sensei keeps coming back to him when he could literally have any man or woman in the planet, but he takes pride that he was the only one who can mess up Sensei's hair like this, a result of their dirty bedroom fun.

They walk in silence to Sensei's tacky rental car, a preemptive measure to avoid paparazzi or fans who can recognize him. Sensei holds his hand tightly, rubbing circles on the student's cold skin with his thumb. Siruko's chest is heavy, but there's no use whining. Sensei belongs to the stage, to the millions of fans who adored him. Instead, Siruko tries to think about the Sensei only he had. The Sensei who makes him watch horror movies so Siruko could cling to him when he's scared (the sadistic Sensei who enjoys Siruko being scared out of his wits only to comfort him after), the Sensei he can surprisingly outdrink (and how cute the drunk, clingy Sensei was), the Sensei who pets every street cat they see, and makes sure not to get any cat hair on him so Siruko's allergy won't act up.

August slipped away in a blink of an eye, but Siruko memorized everything. Every conversation, every place they went to, every food they ate. He's always been good at memorizing, and he stores everything in his heart. Sensei wasn't his, but the memories with him were his. No one can take that away.

The purplehead makes a whine at the back of his throat, and Sensei cracks a smile, slowing to a stop. Sensei always knew what he wanted, what he needed. He pushes Siruko-san to the shadow created by the walls in the narrow alley, but no one was around anyway, not at this hour. Sensei removes his mask as the darkness shields them from prying eyes and snakes his hand on the purplehead's waist. The singer cups Siruko's chin, tilting his head up, and Siruko can only grab onto Sensei's arm to steady himself. The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is Sensei's hungry blue eyes and his gold ear-piercing, then Sensei swoops in and captures his lips into a hot, wet kiss. Limone-sensei runs his tongue into every cavern of Siruko's mouth, exploring everything, and it feels like heaven, a toe-curling sensation Siruko can never get enough of. Sensei bites his lip and it stings, then sucks on it tenderly as an apology. The pain mixes with the pleasure, and Siruko forgets where they are at the moment. Sensei takes and leads and dominates, and Siruko can only let him, as always. Fireworks explode in his body and Siruko moans loudly, not even caring who hears. The world could burn right now and Siruko will keep chasing Sensei's lips.

It felt too long and too short at the same time. The need for air separates them, and Siruko pants, chest heaving up and down. "Stay, please, Sensei." He can't stop begging, holding onto the fever dream high Sensei keeps giving him. Siruko knows the answer anyway, knows it from the way Sensei's lips thin into a firm line, knows from the way his shoulders straighten in resolve. However, knowing doesn't make it hurt any less.

"Stop playing so late at night and focus on your studies, okay?" Sensei whispers in his ear, his hot breath tickling him. He caresses Siruko's cheek in a way that he knows will always bring a beautiful blush. Sensei likes the fact that he can easily make Siruko blush.

"Yada."

Sensei flicks his forehead, earning a grumpy pout from the student. The pseudo-teacher gives in to the temptation to kiss that pout away. "If I say yes to your idiotic request of me recording all those freaky lines you want, will you promise to take care of yourself better?"

Siruko pretends to think. "Fine, but I want that 'Bakagayo' morning alarm. It has miracle powers that'll help me for my crazy morning classes." Sensei rolls his eyes but his chest rumbles in deep laughter, and Siruko likes that. Sometimes he imagines those laughs were reserved for him, and he likes making Sensei laugh a lot. He needs this goodbye to end on a positive note, or else he'll break down.

"You'll do great, Sensei. I'm sure everyone will love the new album." He whispers back, careful not to disturb the peace of the early morn. Despite the fame, the money, the influence Limone has, somehow, he always needed to hear this from Siruko-san, and the latter is only happy to give this to him. It was the only other thing he can give, aside from a good one-night stand. Sensei says Siruko grounds him, whatever that means. Siruko doesn't really understand why Sensei needs reassurance--he was a great singer and an even greater human being, with his charm and wit and kindness, and sometimes Siruko feels silly encouraging him, because Sensei was so out of his league. Sensei was everything he's not--confident, beautiful and interesting. He and Sensei live on two different worlds. But Sensei gives him that small, shy smile that Siruko really loves, and Siruko's heart squeezes. He'll fight the world for that precious smile.

Finally Sensei gets in the car. He rolls down the window to wave goodbye, and then he's off, and in a few hours, in another country, a different timezone. Siruko waits till the car disappears around the block, comes back home, then sags down behind the door and cries and cries.

He lets the tears fall until it's time for him to prepare for class. He doesn't even know why it still hurts  even after all these years. He can't get used to it, no matter how hard he tries. He knows they can never be like any other couple holding hands on the street--they're not even a couple. He was just… that guy Sensei keeps coming back to. A friend, at best. He should be content with stolen kisses, hidden touches, forbidden passions. It's nothing new--he knows he has to keep secrets to keep Sensei. So why? Why does it kill him this much?

Maybe it's because when, three days later, he wakes up into an internet chaos when Limone-sensei's new album comes out. The Bintroll group chat descends into panic and madness of 300 messages. He ignores it all and buys the album, listening to it as he prepares a lab report, even though he already knew all of the songs before the release. He pretends that they were about him, for him. If he pretends hard enough, he can imagine Sensei is with him in the room.

Maybe it's because he sees Sensei everywhere, but it wasn't his Sensei. It was the world's Sensei. His new single is played in every music show, in every diner he eats at, it's in the lips of every conversation around him. Siruko's emotions are always a roller coaster during a comeback. It was good for his grades when Sensei is away; he can concentrate on studying while Sensei focuses on his own career. But the phrase 'out of sight, out of mind' wouldn't work when all he can see and hear is Limone-sensei.

The new single sounds really good. Siruko was really proud of him. When Sensei played it for him on the piano, it wasn't a duet yet. It was different from his usual upbeat, rock-popish songs. Sensei didn't usually sing about anything even remotely resembling love, but this one was almost like that, and that's why Siruko loved it. He didn't know Sensei intended for it to be a duet though, and as much as the woman's voice sounded nice, he preferred the version of only Sensei's familiar voice.

(It reminded him of the beach, of fireworks, of Sensei's wonderful birthday spent with Siruko, of a cruel August slipping away like a bottle of wine.)

Maybe it's because no matter how much he wants to tell his friends and family about this, Siruko can't. He does love the small world he and Sensei are in when they're together, where no one can judge them and they're alone and free to love and make love, but in times like this where he's hurting, he really really wants, needs someone he can share his pain to. It only hurts even more when his own friends talk about Sensei in front of him.

"I'm telling you, it's all promotion, promotion! A gimmick so the song will be talked about more! Not that Sensei needs it." Jiraichan huffs in frustration as Siruko arrives at their group's usual bench. He has half-a-mind to turn back and eat somewhere else as soon as he hears the topic, but that would be suspicious behavior. He tries to smile at the others as they greet him, hoping it didn't look as lonely as he really feels inside.

"And I'm telling you, the song itself is about some kind of a summer love! So… what if it's true!" Quartet argues, and Siruko's throat constricts. Did… they find out? Was their affair finally discovered by the world? Oh no, this scandal, it'll be huge, he can't be tarnishing Sensei's name… people will be hating him. It's ok if they hate me, I don't care, but please don't let this ruin Sensei's career, oh god what can he do to clean up this mess, why did he even think he can sort-of date an idol, oh my god ohmygod

"Siruko-chan? Are you okay? You look pale." Ichihachi notes, worry coloring his tone. He puts down his snacks and inspects their leader's face. Siruko didn't even realize he was on the verge of a panic attack. "Did you stay up all night studying again? I thought you got a high score on that midterms."

"I'm fine." But it wasn't true. His chest is being constricted by a big snake, squeezing air out of his lungs. The purplehead tries deflecting. "Where's Hakotaro and Minben-san?"

"They're in class. Siruko-san, have you heard of Sensei's new song? Of course you did, is there anyone who hasn't heard it yet?" Jiraichan asks rhetorically, obviously trying to change the topic away from Siruko to help, bless Jiraichan's soul, but in this case, it only makes it worse. "Do you like it? Do you think the rumors are true?"

"What.." he chokes, feeling the much-needed oxygen escape his body. "...rumor?"

"Eh you didn't know? Hang on." Quartetchi fishes his handphone from his pocket, scrolls for a while, then shows him the screen. A picture of Sensei and the female idol he had a duet with. Sensei's hand was on her back and they were laughing. They look… good together. "It says that Sensei is dating her. The internet's going crazy, but Sensei's company hasn't released a statement yet. It could be true though, I-- wait where are you going? Siruko-san?"

Siruko dashes away, feeling guilty for the three worried, confused looks of his friends he left behind, but he needs to get away. He needs to.. he doesn't know… he never knew it was possible but this was so much worse, so much more painful than earlier. He can't breathe, can't apologize to those he bumps along the way (not recognizing it was Minben-san and Hakotaro who calls his name, tries to grab him but he shakes them off violently). Nothing registers in his mind anymore than the need to get away… He needs to get out of here. He needs to…

Tears stream down his face and he can't even see where he's going. He trusts his legs to take him home, because honestly his brain can't be relied on right now. The image is flashing again and again in his mind, like his own personal hell. He shouldn't worry about it, dating rumors have always been there since Sensei rose to fame, the company will deny it later, Siruko's sure. But there was something ugly, something twisted eating him alive, making it hard to breathe. Maybe it's his insecurities, telling him that they look nice, and dating another idol must be better, because Sensei is honestly better off with anybody than Siruko, a good-for-nothing college student who sometimes streams games with his friends. He was just an old-time friend good for lonely, horny nights, and there wasn't even something between them. Maybe it was just all his imagination, the heated affection he sees in Sensei's electric blue eyes after Siruko tells a horrible joke, the promise of forever after a heated exchange of lips. He thought there was something there. But what if there wasn't?

Before he realizes it, he's in a bar, and he resolves to drown everything in alcohol. He wants to get wasted, to forget about everything, even for just a moment. Maybe even find someone he can replace Sensei with (as if, his heart scoffs). But he can't. Every time someone talks to him, it wasn't that deep melodic voice with witty banter, the voice who always scolds him but is always gentle with him, and he is disgusted with anyone not Sensei. When someone tries to flirt with him, he is revolted and he flinches away, because it wasn't Sensei's beautiful fingers touching him, it wasn't Sensei's rough yet caring touch. He goes home, drunk in the back of the cab and crying all the way home, and thankfully the driver ignores him.

Siruko doesn't realize that he's calling Sensei as he locks his front door. He curses himself as the ring goes too long; it could be any time of the day for Sensei right now, on the other side of the world. He could be preparing for interviews. He could be practicing with his crew. He could be with his girlfriend.

"Hi Siruko-san,"

And Siruko breathes clear for the first time today, that's the effect Sensei's voice has on him. His vision is blurry, maybe from the tears, maybe from the alcohol, maybe from the relief that Sensei answered the call. "Hello? Nashita? Is something wrong?"

"Is it true?" He whispers.

"Is what true? Hey, have you been crying?! What's going on?"

"You're dating her."

Siruko hears someone on the other end, maybe Sensei's manager Hanachan, muffled voices in low tones, and he feels guilty for interrupting whatever Sensei was doing. Siruko wants to hang up; he shouldn't be doing this right now, should have planned more for this discussion. He wonders if he can break up with Sensei, if he even has the strength to. The thought is so horrible and unbearable it makes him sick and want to vomit. Call him masochistic, but Siruko isn't above being a side lover, if only just to at least still be beside Sensei in some way. He decides to leave the decision to Sensei, and whatever he wants, Siruko will go along with it, as he always did. He'll follow Sensei to the ends of the world anytime.

"I'm sorry Siruko-san." Siruko intakes a gulp of air at Sensei's tone. This is it, he thinks. It's the end. "I didn't know about the rumor at all. Hanachan said the company is taking care of it."

"She's really pretty. You look good together."

"What?! No way! I told you it's not true! Jesus, Siruko-san." Sensei anger-whispers frustratedly. "I am not dating her."

Siruko pauses, forcing the words out, "But you can."

Sensei's pointed silence was an answer enough and Siruko continues. "You can date her. She's a better match for you more than I will ever be." Sensei inhales sharply that signals he's about to interrupt, but Siruko-san won't let him. For the first time, all the words are flowing. They'd be having the conversation they should have had all along these years. "It's not like we're… what are we, Sensei?" His voice breaks, and Siruko chuckles humorlessly and clutches his aching chest to keep himself together. "I know what I am to you. A friend, a good time in bed. And I'm content to be that. It's up to you now what you want me to be, but please. Please don't keep me away from your life. I… I can't stay away from you, Sensei. I'll be anything you want me to be, as long as I can stay in your life. That's all I ask for."

"Siruko-san," The blue-haired idol starts, and Siruko can picture him pinching the bridge of his nose like he does when something upsets him. Siruko wonders if the new girl knows Sensei like he does, knows how Sensei is annoyed when his glasses are fogged up, knows that Sensei hates cigarettes so Siruko gave it up for him, knows how much Sensei loves sneakers. Siruko grits his teeth angrily. No, no one knows Sensei like he does. Why is it so unfair, why can't Sensei just be his.

"I'm sorry, I know I'm interrupting something, so please, don't mind me. Congrats on your new album and single by the way. Good--

"Wait!!" Sensei shouts frantically. "Siruko-san, please, listen to me." Oh gods, here it comes. Sensei will break up with him. Knowing it's coming doesn't make it any less painful. "You're…

You're very special to me, and I don't want to see you like this. I… I'm sorry… " Siruko's breath hitches as he expects break-up words next. "...that I hurt you, I swear that rumor is false. I would always be honest to you, so please believe me." Sensei pleads. Siruko is confused why Sensei is not yet breaking up with him.

"Can we… this conversation… I think it's better if we talk personally… so I'm really sorry to ask this but, please, wait for me? I'll be home soon, I promise. Wait for me, please?"

Wasn't this something... worse? Waiting for Sensei to leave and dump him… isn't it agony? Sensei should just rip Siruko's heart out right now, swift and easy, on a phone call and not personally, instead of cruelly making him wait for months. But oh well, if Siruko has been able to keep their relationship a secret for five long years, what is a few more months.

"Okay…. I'll wait for you."

"Thank you, Siruko-san. I--" Siruko cuts him off and decides that this conversation has been long enough. He wants to sleep.

"I need to go, Sensei. Before I hang up, can I tell you something? Though, it might be the worst thing you'll ever hear."

Sensei hesitates but relents. "Sure, what is it?"

The few seconds were long enough that Sensei could be thinking he was asleep, but he waits patiently. Siruko decides it's now or never.

"I love you."

Then he hangs up.

November came. Autumn leaves were falling down, a reminder of the beauty of letting go. It had been two months since their last conversation, and it might be the worst two months in Siruko's life. Everyone noticed and were worried, and although Siruko appreciates their concern, he can't exactly tell them why he's not eating well, why he prefers staying on his bed rather than gaming like he used to, and their persuasions are becoming annoying. The purplehead leaves the lecture hall, rearranging his red scarf and wrapping his arms around his bony self. The air was cold, and something about it felt like something was going to happen soon. 

On the way to his apartment building, he sees a familiar man wearing glasses and a black suit with an orange tie, and it was so out-of-place in the sea of half-awake, half-dead zombie horde of students that Siruko couldn't help but stare. The man scans his surroundings and locks eyes with him. Siruko instinctively steps back.

The man approaches him with a big smile. "Hi Siruko-san! We finally meet! I'm Hanae Natsuki, I'm assuming you already know who I am?"

Siruko's lilac eyes widen in surprise. Of course he knows who this man is. He's the only person in the world who knows about his secret relationship with Sensei, although he's never met Sensei's manager personally before. (Even if he's not connected to Sensei, Siruko would have still recognized. Hanachan was as popular to Sensei's fans as the idol was.) He nods, unable to form words out of his nervousness. Why was he here? Is Siruko in trouble? 

"Do you still have classes? Can I invite you for tea?"

"Hai…" Siruko murmurs anxiously. Hanachan flashes him another wide smile and leads him to a sleek, fancy car.

The cafe Hanae-san brought him to was a quaint, charming one, and the smell of coffee and pastry wafts throughout the place. Hanae-san guides him to one of the more private tables. Their orders arrived moments later (expensive-looking aromatic tea for Hanachan and coffee for him, along with several kinds of pastries and treats).

"So, you're a university student? How's school?" Hanachan asks after a sip.

Siruko shrugs, "If I pretend that my professors are the monster bosses in a game I have to defeat and that every year I pass I level up and get closer to clearing the game, it's fine."

"You're a gamer?" Hanachan chuckles at the metaphor. "Sensei always makes me play horror games!" He complains good-naturedly. "What kind of games do you play?"

They converse for a while, pleasant enough to the point where they can laugh for a bit. Hanachan forks the scone to his mouth and remarks, "Now I know why Sensei likes you so much."

Siruko blinked, mouthful of croissant. "Eh??"

Hanachan shakes his head a little, grinning. "You're too cute for your own good. Listen, the real reason I met with you is this." He fishes out a big ticket and an armband from his coat. "Sensei's performing tomorrow at the Unit, so go see him, okay?"

Siruko swallows painfully, biting his lower lip anxiously. "But… doesn't he have an American tour?"

"We're on a break right now." Hanachan assures him, "He misses you. He doesn't say it, but I know him." Hanachan looks at him with heavy intensity, and suddenly Siruko knows why this man was good at what he does. Hanachan knows how to wield his charm and professionalism. Siruko privately thinks he would be super famous too if he weren't a manager. "Go see him, Siruko-san, and if you choose to, please talk to him. Everything will be alright once you talk. Got it?" Siruko finds himself unable to say no, not that he wants to. The thought that he'll be able to see Sensei fills him with nervous excitement. He nods meekly, accepting the gift. To be able to see Sensei, even just as a fan, it's enough. Siruko's stomach is filled with butterflies.

"Sa te, see you there!" Hanachan stands to leave, and Siruko scrambles to bow deeply to thank him. "You're really good for him, you know? Sensei's born to shine under the spotlight, but he won't take the stage if there wasn't someone pushing him and encouraging him from the shadows. He can fly to anywhere in the world, but at the end of the day, he needs and craves a home to come back to. Thanks for being that person, Siruko-san." 

Siruko flushes red at Hanachan's words. "Is it this easy to tease you? I might start doing it more." The manager laughs evilly, causing Siruko to sweat-drop. Hanachan places a firm hand on his shoulder.

"I know you've always been there for him, so continue to take care of him, ne? Let's play together sometime too!"

"Hai!" Siruko's lips twist upwards brightly. Hanachan is an amazing person; he was like a walking sun. Siruko stays in the cafe for a while, staring at the ticket for the details. He really really wants to see Sensei, and he's so tired of stalking him via fancams and tv shows and social media. Tomorrow, no matter what happens, whether Sensei dumps him or not, Siruko's going to see him, and that's all that matters.

It turns out, he'll be going to the concert on his birthday.

When he arrived at the concert venue, Siruko almost wanted to go back home again. He couldn't stop his hands from shaking, whether it was from nerves or excitement, he doesn't know. But the guard recognizes him (maybe Hanachan showed him a picture) and leads him to a back door, where usually the staff and crew are. Hanachan greets him and leads him to the steps that lead to the stage where Sensei already was. Siruko bites his lip and hunches to himself, hoping Sensei wouldn't notice him yet.

It was always a one-of-a-kind experience attending Sensei's concerts, and Siruko loves it. Loves the energy, loves the crowd swaying to the beat and chanting the idol's name. It was electrifying, and he can honestly say it was one of his favorite things in the world. Tonight's concert was a small one, a limited only fan member-exclusive type. But that didn't mean it wasn't crowded. It was Siruko's first time being on the other side of the stage though, and he can see the limojos and fans' excitement as Sensei taps his mic to start the show.

Siruko enjoys the show, he really does, but he feels a bit strange. Usually when he watches Sensei's concerts, he focuses on Sensei alone, blind to everything else. Now that he's on the other side of the stage, he can see the fans' reactions to everything Sensei does, the way their eyes are lit with faithful admiration, the way they absorb everything Sensei says and does, and it reminds Siruko again that Sensei is not his. That Sensei is a performer and he belongs to the microphone, to the stage, to the fans. And Siruko can tell that Sensei loves this, that he's having fun doing this, that the fanchants only motivate him to sing better, to be a brighter star than he already was. Siruko can't take this away from him, and maybe it really was for the best to part ways. If Sensei can't do it, then Siruko needed to be the one that got away. Siruko's heart drops to his stomach, melancholy seeping through his veins. I'd gladly sacrifice my heart and happiness, he thinks sadly, for Sensei.

As Siruko was about to leave, Sensei clears his throat on the mic, implying an encore. A crew hands him a guitar and Sensei jokes a little, and the fans are ecstatic. Sensei looks especially handsome under the bright spotlight, and that's not Siruko being biased. He drinks from his water bottle and suddenly Siruko feels thirsty too (it should be illegal to look that hot just by drinking water). He begins the encore by giving a message, and Siruko decides to stay against his better judgement. It might as well be the last song of Sensei's he'll ever let himself listen to.

"First, I'd like to thank all of my fans and supporters. I owe everything to you guys, and if it weren't for your support I wouldn't be here on this stage. The last five years were truly an amazing ride, and I'm glad to be able to share my music to the world. Thank you so much." He bows deeply. 

Suddenly, Sensei turns his head to the side and their eyes meet, blue connecting to purple. Sensei smiles, and Siruko can't help but to mirror it. Siruko's heart drums out loud in his ears. Limone addresses his audience again. "That's why I'm hoping that my fans can support me in this announcement I'm about to make." Sensei pauses, and there's a mix of confusion and anticipation in the air. Sensei holds Siruko's gaze again as he speaks into the microphone, and the intensity makes the butterflies in his stomach flutter harder. "There's a really special person in my life, a person that I love so much, and I hope my fans will accept that." Siruko's breath hitches. He can hear the shocked noises of the fans but he can't really process anything. Was Sensei… really doing it?

"Many of my fans have asked me before, why I don't sing about romance. I've actually written a lot, but I was scared. I know it's silly and stupid. Me? Scared?" The audience laughs and Sensei does too. Sensei can charm an entire mass of people just by being himself. "But that's the truth. The industry I work on can be ruthless and cruel sometimes, and every little thing I do is subject to the public eye. I wanted to protect this person from the hatred and the judgement, so I kept us a secret for a long, long time."

"How long?" An audience shouts, and Siruko panics, thinks that the fans won't accept, that they're angry, that Sensei's career is blowing up and Siruko's to be blamed, and it must have shown on his face because Hanachan is suddenly beside him brushing up on his elbows, and winks at him. He realizes that this must all be planned, that maybe the fan was planted there to ask it. Siruko relaxes.

"How long, you ask? Five years! It was way before I started being an utaite. Actually, you guys should thank this person because they were the one who told me to upload my singing videos." Sensei declares in amusement. His tone takes a more somber note as he continues. "I'm really sorry for keeping this from you guys, so please don't be mad." Siruko sees some people shake their heads as a reply, and he realizes for the first time that maybe, this could work. The sliver of hope shines bright for the first time in his life. Maybe Sensei can finally be his.

"I guess what I want to say is, I hope people can accept that I'm only human, and it's not a sin to love, is it?" The fans shake their heads unanimously, and some even looked like they were about to melt. Siruko feels he is about to melt too. "I decided that I want to still keep our relationship private, so I hope my real fans respect our privacy. This is me saying that I won't hesitate to shove any paparazzi cameras to their faces, bakatare omaera." The audience laughs and takes every word of Sensei's with an awesome amount of worship, like they're ready to fight anyone that stands in the way of their idol's happiness. "The most you guys get is maybe a hand or a voice in one of my social media posts, and that's it. I'm not sharing this person with anyone." Another audience shouts, "Sensei, aren't you too possessive!" and Sensei roars with laughter, making the audience join him too. "Yes I am!" He says proudly, and Siruko can only chuckle and shake his head exasperatedly.

"I won't be giving any interviews about this, so go ahead and upload this and share it everywhere. I also won't hesitate to take any legal actions, I can totally afford a lawyer or five." Sensei jokes, but everyone knows how serious he is taking this. "I'm just asking my true fans to respect that I'm allowed to love someone and I'll do anything in my power to protect it. Is that okay?"

The audience screams yes, and Sensei laughs, which is music to Siruko's ears already. He feels tears well up in his eyes and tries to hold them back by biting his lower lip. This is too overwhelming, and so different from all the ugly scenarios he was always worried about. This isn't how he imagined it to go, not this easy acceptance from his fans, not Sensei revealing he loves Siruko to the world first before Siruko himself. 

"I'm dedicating this song to that special person. I hope my feelings reach you, love." And the audience went 'aaaaaw' as the lights dim, a lone light focused on the singer.

Sensei began singing the notes to his latest single, and tonight he's performing it as a solo, the way Siruko heard it originally.  And now Siruko understands. It really was that summer: the picturesque beach on that day, the waves on his feet, the sand underneath his body as Sensei smiles on top of him. The beautiful purple twilight, the fireworks he wished would never end along with the summer. For the first time, he can finally assume that the song was his. Sensei was his.

And he can see it. That underneath the Limone-sensei that fans adore and worship on the stage was Siruko's Sensei who couldn't hold his hand in the beginning because he was too shy. That beneath all the glitter and glamour of being an idol, a star, is Siruko's sensei who knows all the spells in the Harry Potter movies, a big big dork who picks out all the vegetables in his food and whines about it unless Siruko threatens to withhold coitus if he doesn't eat it. He's still Siruko's Limone-sensei, who can master any game he plays so easily it's almost god-like, and honestly Siruko thinks Sensei would have been a better pro-gamer than an idol. 

His Sensei, who looks at him from time to time while singing, with love and affection in his intoxicating ocean eyes, something that Siruko can't be mistaken about anymore because it was so clear as the blue sky. 

As the song ended, Hanachan grabs his elbow, and Siruko quickly tries to wipe his cheeks (he didn't even realize he was crying) and Hanachan just gave him a knowing smile. "Here, go to this hotel room," he says while handing out a card. "Wait for him there, Siruko-san."

As he takes the card, he glances towards the stage and once again, blue meets purple eyes. Sensei smiles at him so tenderly it physically hurts Siruko's heart, and Siruko smiles back shyly. He's grateful for a time to collect himself before they talk, because if Sensei kept flashing that stupid disarming loving smile like that, Siruko will probaby die and ascend to heaven.

"Thanks, Hanachan."

"Sure! Just remember, put your hickeys in places we can't see, okay?" Hanachan winks.

Siruko blushes so hard he turns beet red, and Hanachan laughs loudly at his expense.

It took Siruko a long time to come down from the high Sensei brought him to. After admiring and checking out the high-class, fancy hotel room, he decides to take a shower to help calm himself down. Just as he came out of the (really big) bathroom, Sensei barges in with a loud noise, takes one long head-to-toe gawk at Siruko's robe-clad wet body, and Sensei lunges at him like a hungry predator, kissing him hard, taking his robe off faster than you can say "darling".

They're lying on the fancy bed now, silky sheets tangled up between them, the perfect afterglow leaving them to their own thoughts and to catch their own breaths. When he turns to his side to look at Sensei, he sees that Sensei still hasn't come back to Earth either, what with his dopey smile and glazed blue eyes. Siruko wants to bottle up this moment forever.

However, some matters need to be discussed first, even though Siruko would rather talk with his body than his mouth. "I think we should talk, Sensei."

"No shit." Sensei chuckles then faces him. This close, Siruko can feel Sensei's breath fanning his face, can count each beautiful eyelash, can easily touch Sensei's collarbone and feel the warm skin against his. Sensei takes his hand and kisses it, and Siruko follows the movement with his eyes. It was incredibly intimate, and he only realizes now that Sensei liked to do this all the time. He really was that blind, huh.

"First, I want to apologize. Nope, don't interrupt," Sensei puts a finger on his lips when Siruko was about to react. "This was my fault, and I'm surprised that you held out so long for me. Thinking back, that was really shitty of me and you could have left me, but you didn't. Thank you."

Sensei gathers his thoughts with a deep breath. "This is such a lousy excuse, but the truth is, I didn't have time to think about us. I was always chasing after my career, and frankly, I took you for granted. I never told you, but you're the anchor that keeps me stable and steadfast even against the stormiest weathers. The reason I can sail through this shitshow of a show business is because I have you to come back home to." Sensei traces his jawline affectionately, unknowingly repeating Hanae-san's words. Siruko's heart clenches. "You're my lifeline, Siruko-san. And you've been so patient, so kind, so understanding, waiting for me all this time. I'm so incredibly grateful but also really surprised that you haven't left my dumbass." They both let out amused laughs at that.

"After you called me that day, I realized how much I screwed up. I was so focused on keeping us a secret that I never even told you how I felt about you. So I talked to my agency, told them I want to announce us, and... wait, I realized I went ahead and said we're dating even though I never really asked you out." Sensei realizes, horror dawning on his face.

"Bakagayo," Siruko whispers Sensei's favorite phrase, making Sensei laugh. "You already said it out there, so you can't take it back. Oh my god, we're," Siruko mirrors Sesnsei's stricken pose as the realization hits him. "...dating! Sensei, punch me so I know I'm not dreaming."

"Bakagayo," Sensei shows him how it's said the right way, and Siruko giggles. He loves it when Sensei says that. "I talked to my agency, and at first they were hesitant. It's understandable, but my career could burn at our door and I wouldn't care. You can't expect an idol to sing about love when they're not allowed to love. That's stupid." He rolls his eyes irritatedly, and traces Siruko's lips with his finger.

"I did tell them I have hundreds of songs written about you, so that's good album material as any. There wasn't any point arguing with me because my mind was all made up, and Hanachan was totally backing me up hard. We pestered and badgered until they gave up and let me."

"But… wouldn't this damage your career?"

"Hmmm… the crazier fans would flip out, but I couldn't care less. Haven't you seen my fans? They're the kindest!"

"That's true." Siruko agrees. "Are you sure the limojos won't hate me?"

"Are you kidding? And aren't you my number one limojo, though?" Sensei kisses his nose, and Siruko giggles again, pressing closer. "But we're still gonna be private about this. Just as a precaution, I don't want anyone crazy coming after you, so I'm not revealing your identity if I can help it, and we still can't go out on dates in public. I'm sorry." Sensei hugs him tighter, kissing his violet hair as a sincere apology.

"It's okay, no one has to know about us. I'm already content that everyone knows you belong to me." Siruko feels Sensei laugh through the vibrations in his chest. The feeling of hearing Sensei's heart beat like this was magnetic. "But can we at least take a pic so I can tell my family and Bintroll?"

"Now? You really wanna be announcing us to them naked and just after we had---"

"NO!! LATER!! BAKA BAKA BAKA!"

Sensei laughs, and Siruko feels that everything is okay in the world. It feels like he's been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and it's been lifted off of him now. He relaxes further into Sensei's embrace, rubbing his head into the crook under Sensei's chin and burrowing further, like a feline. Sensei responds by stroking his hips, and Siruko knows it won't be long before they start their tumble in the sheets again, coz Sensei is insanely insatiable like that. But for now, Siruko savors the cuddles. Honestly, he didn't care about them hiding. It just feels better now that he can at least tell his friends, and that no matter what happens, he knows that Sensei is his. 

Of course it won't be easy, the complications of dating a famous person are always there to ruin things after all, but Siruko doesn't really care. As long as he gets to be with Sensei, that's enough. Even if he doesn't get to scream it to the world, as long as Sensei loves him back, it'll always be enough.

Siruko reluctantly pulls back from his warm cocoon of Sensei's arms to look up to Sensei's beautiful piercing eyes. "Sensei, I need to tell you something that might be the worst thing you'll ever hear."

"Hn?" Amusement dances in his blue eyes, already knowing what it is.

"I love you." 

"Jya, I'll tell you something too, but it might be even worse than what you just told me."

"Un?"

"I love you too. And happy birthday."

The kiss that came after was electricity starting up their hearts, fire burning their bones. It was blue as the beauty of sky, the loyalty and trust in every shade. It was purple painting the twilight, devotion and passion in every stroke of color.

It might have been a cruel summer, but Siruko wants every kind of summer with Sensei.

Later, the locket that was his birthday present opens up to a picture of them kissing at that beach, taken after Sensei had just turned his brain, body and soul into mush after their mind-blowing something and just right after fireworks decorated the night sky, and Siruko decides it wasn't really a cruel summer after all.

The End.

A/N:

I did imagine an omake where Siruko sends a picture of Sensei kissing his cheek while they're in bed to the Bintroll group chat, and Jiraichan screams "WHAAAAAAT", Quartetchi furiously types, "IS THIS A PRANK", Ichihachi calmly sends "Congratulations", and Minben-san teases him "Wow, way to go getting yourself a sugar daddy. Omeome!" Hakotaro calls him angrily and scolds him, but in the end, he was happy for his Niisan. (And maybe he gives Sensei the shovel talk later. Hurt my Niisan and I'll drive a wooden stake straight to your heart.)

My only regret is I want to write Sensei's pov, coz obviously Siruko can be a little bit of an adorable baka who doesnt see how much Sensei loves him---

The fantastic art in this story was made by my friend Shuura, so please do not grab or reupload it elsewhere. Thank you, Shuura! Click this to see more of her Limone-sensei art! 💙

Send me your reactions and comments! I'd love hearing your thoughts! Also, you can send some prompts or requests, I'd like to try challenging myself in writing, and any Bintroll pairing is fine! Thanks for reading~ 🌻

Also, the thought of scared-to-death Siruko-san x horror-fears-me Limone-sensei is haunting me, help I love this trope.

Lastly, I wonder if anyone can recognize the easter eggs and real references I wrote. There were a lot 🍋🐶

heart of stone (15/?)

AO3

If there’s one thing Janis has learned about herself throughout this entire experience, it’s that she really hates hospital gowns. It’s definitely not the self-revelation she expected to be having during this process, but life is weird like that, and she’s sitting in an unfamiliar room changing into the thing and thinking about how much she dislikes them. The flimsy material makes her feel like she’s not even wearing anything and she feels drowned and lost in it. Finding the arm and head holes was an adventure in itself, trying to work out what was fabric and what wasn’t. She knows that they’re not exactly built for fashionable purposes, but damn would it kill the American Medical Society to give some shape to this thing so she doesn’t feel like the ghost of a little Victorian girl?

And that’s not even touching on the fact that it refuses to stay closed at the back, because that’s not something she wants to spend even five seconds thinking about.

They only have one useful function she thinks, putting aside all their medical uses because she can’t understand or really bring herself to care about those. The only part of this thing that actually seems beneficial is the way she can slip Purrlock into it undetected. He sits against her shoulder now, hidden by the collar, his paws soft against her shoulder and his nose rubbing against her skin. It’s a comforting presence, one she desperately needs right now. The clock behind her ticks closer to 3 o’clock, the time Doctor Wiley agreed to schedule their appointment for.

She swallows past the lump in her throat and presses her hands against the bed in an attempt to get some heat into them. She won’t kid herself, not now, not after everything she’s been through with herself. She’s not scared of pain. She wouldn’t be even if she hadn’t been assured she’d hardly feel anything. She’s just scared about what comes afterwards. Because no amount assurances from her doctor or any nurses can settle that feeling that has clung to her back and wrapped itself tightly around her soul.

She gives Purrlock one more squeeze before the doctor comes in, both her parents and a nurse in tow, all of them having left her to give her some privacy. It’s not Doctor Wiley doing it, and she can’t decide how that makes her feel. It would have been a lot better to have a familiar face doing this for her.

Her own clothes are folded on a chair beside her, except her hat. That stays on, she decided, no matter what.

“Are you ready Janis?” the doctor asks. She’s pretty, with lovely eyes and one of those smiles that should be soothing, but it isn’t doing anything for her.

“Yep.” She winces when she hears her voice cracking. Her throat feels like sandpaper but she feels too worked up to ask for water. Besides, she doesn’t want anything to put this off. The sooner she’s in, the sooner she’s out.

Purrlock’s presence remains steadfast as her vitals are checked, her blood pressure, her heart rate, and she pulls herself up on the table, turning onto her side as instructed. She doesn’t know if anyone else can see it, but nothing she does feels like it’s her own body. Rather it feels like she’s watching someone else doing the movements for her. Like her brain has been taken over and she’s just along for the ride.

“Okay, we’re going to numb the area now, okay?” the nurse asks. “You might feel a little pain.” She nods minutely, her thumb stroking Purrlock becoming faster. If anyone wonders what she’s doing with her hand inside her gown, they don’t ask. The nurse wipes something cold across her skin before there’s a little prick there, barely enough for her to register it.

She avoids her parents’ eyes as they sit down next to her. She won’t say it, but she wishes they weren’t here. The weight of their gaze that they try to make supportive only makes her more uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to have to put on a brave face now.

“Okay, there we go.” The doctor’s voice comes in, a little more cold and mechanical than Janis would have liked. “That’s all working well. Can you feel anything there?” Seconds, or minutes, pass without her saying anything, and Janis realises she’s probably poking at her back.

“Um, yeah, I mean no, I can’t feel anything.” She wraps her hand around her cat and tries to take a deep breath.

“So I’m going to put it in now, okay?”

That’s when Janis’ blood goes from being cold to being pure ice, stiffening over her chest and stopping her from breathing properly. Oh god what’s the procedure for having a panic attack right now?

“Okay.” Her voice is so small and weak that it doesn’t even sound like her. Not even in her darkest moments has she ever felt as powerless as this.

She lets out a small gasp as a sharp sting attacks her back and her free hand curls into the mattress, her face screwing up as a small whimper escapes her as well. It’s over quickly, but she feels the sensation lingering on her skin.

Screw her image, she thinks, and she takes Purrlock out and holds him against her chest. Her parents are probably sighing at her right now, half-pitying looks on their faces, but she has her eyes trained on the wall behind them instead.

She doesn’t know how much longer it takes, not bothering to count anything. All she knows is her own breathing, making them last for as long as she can and trying to blank out anything else, even her own thoughts. She just clutches Purrlock harder, her other hand twisted into the mattress until the pressure on her back finally eases up.

“Okay… and we’re done,” the doctor says. “You’re going to need to keep laying there for about ten minutes or so, just to make sure everything’s okay down there. Make sure you keep pressure on it, okay?.”

Janis nods slowly, flexing her fingers just to check. She made it. She’s still here. Them, as her mouth slowly curls into a smirk, she mumbles “that’s what she said”, just loud enough for her parents to hear.

Her dad laughs at that. Her mom slaps him for it.

She turns onto her back, letting out a quick sigh as she gets off her side, and shakes out her arm, stiff from laying underneath her for all that time. Then curiosity begins to take over, so she shifts slightly and slides her hand beneath her, her fingers coming across a bandage across her lower back far wider than she would have thought.

“Hey.” Her dad slaps her arm lightly, raising his eyebrow at her. “You’re meant to be applying pressure to that spot.”

“I am,” she sighs, wriggling her hand out of it. She presses her body into the mattress to prove her point. “I just wanted to see what was there.”

“You can look at your war wounds all you like later, okay?” he tells you.

“Do you need anything?” her mom asks. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can get you some water if you need it-”

“I’m fine, Mom,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m okay, really. Just bored.” And tired, but she leaves that one out. She leans her head back and looks up at the ceiling, squinting at the light glaring into her eyes. “Can you pass me my phone?” She does so, and Janis immediately swipes past every message she’s received since this morning and ignores any and all social media in favour of scrolling through pictures of her dad. After a minute, she turns it on airplane mode, even if no-one has actually texted her yet, just in case. It’s too early to let people contact her. She needs mor distance between herself and what just happened before she can even process it, let alone tell someone about it.

Her back still kind of hurts when she gets back to her own room, enough for her to manage but still. She crawls onto the bed, the short walk through the hall having depleted whatever energy she had to begin with, and barely remembers to actually get under the covers. She’s asleep just moments after her head hits the pillow, her toy cat still clutched to her chest.

                                                                                                  *****

She goes home that Friday; the two days having dragged out into what felt more like two weeks. The whole time she felt bogged down with anticipation, her head snapping up every time her door so much as opened or Doctor Wiley passed her in the hall. Every moment was so fraught with anxiety that she could barely sit still, despite the weariness seeped into her bones. The combination alone made left her nauseous and even though she could blame it on the meds, there was always that feeling lurking just below the surface or lingering in the back of her mind. She can fake it to everyone else all she wants but she can’t lie to herself. All she can do is wait. The problem is that’s the last thing she wants to do.

Still, she’s home now, and at least she can sink into her own couch and stroke her dog and try to detach herself from the past week. It isn’t easy, especially with the painkillers her mom picked up, but the change of scenery at least does something for her. She curls up even more, pressing as much of her body as she can into the cushions, as her mom sets her sandwich down in front of her. She rubs her cheek before she goes and Janis does her best to keep herself from pulling away, even managing a smile for her. She’s getting better at this whole thing.

“You feeling okay kid?” her dad asks as he comes in.

“Fine,” she replies through a yawn. “Back hurts but that’s nothing new.” Her dad hums in agreement, turning his attention to the TV, but his hand curls into a fist by his side, his jaw clenching just enough for her to notice and more than enough to make her stomach clench. She’s not the only one waiting for results and despite their best efforts to hide them, her parents’ anxieties are just as much a part of the house as the walls and floors are.

Her mom shares a look with her dad as she sits down on the arm of the chair, her fingers running through his hair, and something else in twists in Janis’ gut. Her parents are entitled to their privacy, just like any other person, but when it’s a private discussion about her, it doesn’t sit right with her. She hasn’t quite faded to nothing yet, and she sure as hell can pick up on those silent conversations that pass between them, all worried glances and quiet touches. She doesn’t know what they say exactly, but she knows that it’s always about her and it makes her want to throw something at the wall.

“I’m going to go upstairs,” she announces, breaking through the tight silence that had fallen over the living room. She pushes herself up, wincing again at the ache in her back, and that of course sets off an alarm for her parents. They half-stand, arm extended and eyes wide, the exact same pose as though they’re actually the same person. Janis pulls her cardigan tighter around herself. “I’m okay. Really. I can make it up the stairs by myself.”

“If you’re sure,” her mom says, nervousness lining the edge of her voice. “Are you going to eat your sandwich though?”

“Oh.” She turns and quickly retrieves it from the couch, spinning back around just in time to see relief flood her mom’s face. “I’ll see you guys later.”

She doesn’t go straight upstairs though. Instead she turns the corner and lingers outside the door, her ears straining and her body pressed flat against the wall. From there, she holds her breath and waits, though for what she isn’t quite sure. She doesn’t work it out either, because seconds and then minutes pass, and the only sounds she hears are her own breathing and the faint voices on the TV. If they are going to talk about her, it isn’t happening now. And so she turns on her heel again and heads upstairs this time, closing her bedroom door tightly behind her.

Much like she did a few days ago, she crawls onto her bed, groaning against the flash of pain in her joints. She can’t be bothered to actually pull the covers over herself, so she stretches and grabs a blanket from the foot of her bed and tangles herself in that instead. Her bag sits by the foot of her bed and she tells herself she’ll unpack it later, even though her definition of later has become much more broad than it used to be. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and lays it beside her, the screen so dark and shiny that her face is reflected in it, albeit stretched and distorted.

She finally worked up the nerve to talk to Damian last night, sitting in the armchair next to her bed. Granted, he had texted her first, but she had answered, and that had seemed impossible this week. What’s more, she told him mostly everything he’d want to know about the procedure. She had embellished a little, making herself sound braver than she had been really, and she doesn’t know whose benefit that was for. But what matters to her is that she told someone, and that he seemed fairly okay with it. Maybe he’s making good on that promise he made to her.

She lets out a long sigh, her throat growing tighter when she thinks back on that exchange. The way he had looked at her, the tears shining in his eyes. Desperate for a solid answer she can’t give him. She wants nothing more than to wake up tomorrow morning and to tell him and everyone else that she’s back to normal. That there’s no more hospitals or medicines and she can go back to school. Or better yet, to wake up tomorrow and for this all to have been a horrific dream. Unfortunately for her, the past weeks have drained all that stupid naïve hope out of her, and so the last thing she feels before she drifts off is the pit of uncertainty sitting heavily in her stomach.

                                                                                   ******

She’s not much better by the next day, physically or mentally. She feels it even before she wakes up; it’s crawled up and over her like ivy over an old brick house. She wakes up in the late morning with her brain feeling like static and her vision half-blurred, buried beneath her blanket and her clothes wrinkled from sleeping in them. Against her better judgement, she rolls over, half-sits up on her elbows and blinks rapidly until her eyes adjust to the half-light of her bedroom. Her parents must have come in at some point last night, because the curtains are closed and her room is significantly less messy than it was last night. Either it was her parents or she’s taken to sleep-cleaning.

The next time she wakes up its past noon, and regardless of how much she’d like to just stay here until her brain fixes itself, she figures that the least thing she could do is show her face to her parents and announce that she hasn’t died or become a vegetable since they last saw her.

Her train of thought stops there and a coldness washes over her despite her sweater and leaves goosebumps on her skin.

She pulls on her discarded beanie and a pair of fuzzy socks and heads downstairs, finding Maxie sitting at the bottom and springing to life upon seeing her, tail wagging and eyes bright. She smiles, albeit just a little bit.

“Hey buddy,” she tells him softly, scratching behind his ears. “Either you’re really happy to see me or you really need to tinkle.”

She lets him follow her into the kitchen, counting on her parents to let him out if it’s the latter.

“Morning kid,” her dad greets from the table, a newspaper spread out in front of him. “Was just about to get worried about you.”

“I’m fine.” She reaches up and grabs the first box of cereal she finds down from the cupboard. “Just tired.” The box feels heavier than it should as she heads over and grabs a bowl. “Where’s Mom?”

“Oh she’s out meeting some of her friends for coffee,” he explains. “You know. Girl time.”

“Girl time,” she agrees with a nod. She thinks, but doesn’t say, that it’s good for her to be getting out. It’s not really a conversation she wants to have with her dad, not with where it could lead to, but it’s true all the same.

Just as she’s starting her breakfast (or lunch, really), there’s a knock at the door; a fast, sharp rap, probably on the glass. Janis looks over at her dad, finding him just as lost as she is. Apparently neither one of them were expecting visitors. He shrugs and goes off to answer it, probably expecting a neighbour or relative. They’ve been coming over almost every week now, bearing baskets or bags full of treats, for them. Fresh pastries, baskets of fruit, home-cooked dinners ready to stick in the oven. All out of the goodness of their hearts. Janis only hangs around for a little while in those cases, just enough to answer the basic questions, before finding some excuse to slip out. Nine times out of ten, it’s more her parents’ friends than hers anyway.

“Janis?” her dad calls from the door. “It’s for you.”

“For me?” she mutters. She sighs and heads down the hall, taking the cereal with her, perplexed as to who could be calling for her. Damian doesn’t even need to knock anymore and Cady always texts before they come round. Maybe it’s just another classmate, someone she got along with like Sonja or Sophie. That’d be nice, she supposes.

She stops dead in her tracks the minute the person comes into view. Her dad stands to the side, his eyes on her, and standing in the doorway is Regina George. Regina George is at her house, clad in a white sweater and blue jeans, a silver bag across her body and a Tupperware box in her hand. Her hair falls just to her chin, rather than in the long waves everyone knows her by, but that’s nothing more than a footnote in Janis’ brain. Regina George is at her front door. Alone. And an invisible force has flung her right back to that middle school yard, complete with everyone staring at her and her heart fit to burst right out of her chest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks sharply. Regina blinks, taken aback by the venom in her voice, and disgust curls in her gut. Maybe there was some freak lacrosse accident and Regina tragically lost her memory from middle school onwards. That’s the only reason she can think of as to why she would be surprised by this, because otherwise she should know that they are not friends.

“Hey,” she says. “I um… I made some pastries and I thought-”

“I don’t take charity,” she says. Heat rises in her cheeks. She may have promised to play nice for Cady’s sake, but Cady isn’t here. No one is, and even though she’s in her own home, she feels more vulnerable than she has in years. It’s not a good feeling and she fights it off with every defensive tactic she knows. “Not from you.”

“Okay,” she sighs and Janis’ fist clenches. She wonders if she could still take her in a fight in her current condition and decides that yes, she most definitely could. This cereal bowl for example could do some serious damage to her face if she throws it hard enough. “Janis… can we talk?”

“Excuse you?”

“Can we talk?” she repeats, exasperation creeping into her voice. Oh the audacity, Janis thinks. “Just for a minute?”

She takes a step back. She doesn’t want to talk to her, that much is clear. She doesn’t really want to talk to anyone but if she did, Regina would be the exception. And just her being here in her house is flipping every switch Janis has, her nerves buzzing and an electrical current surging through her. And she knows Regina, and she seldom wants to just talk. There were a lot of times in the past where she “just wanted to talk” that ended in her getting her way and Janis feeling winded. It would be immensely satisfying for her to slam that door in her surprised little face, and then open it just enough to take the pastries off her and slam the door again. And then dump the pastries for good measure.

But… she can’t say that her curiosity isn’t piqued. The fact that Regina took the effort to make pastries and take them all the way to her own house as a kind of… what, peace offering? Does Regina do peace offerings? How many people can say they’ve had Regina come to them?

This is a once in a lifetime event, and yes, maybe she’d like to see where this goes. And that’s the reason why, even as every part of her screams ‘no, no, no!’ she says, “Fine.”

Her dad raises his eyebrows at her as Regina walks past him, silently screaming “what the hell is wrong with you?” at her. She’s asking herself that same question. Maybe those pain killers are more effective than she thought. Even as he takes the Tupperware box off Regina, his eyes don’t leave her, asking for an answer or an explanation or for her to blink twice if she needs help.

Regina stands in a middle of them, wringing her hands.

“We can talk in my room,” Janis tells her. “You remember where it is?” Regina nods. “Good, go one up, I’ll be there in a second.” She opens her mouth, probably to ask what she meant, but thinks better and closes it before turning around and heading up there. The idea of Regina in her room makes her skin crawl, but she wants her out of sight and earshot for now. She waits until she hears her door opening and closing and, fighting back a shudder, she says, “Dad… if we’re not done in ten minutes?”

“Come and get you?”

“I was going to say, ‘assume that I have thrown her out the window’,” she says. “But you know, that works too I guess.”

Her dad nods, a hint of a smile on his face, but his eyes are serious.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks her. “I mean… you hate this girl. You have good reason to as well.” There’s a bitterness in his voice that makes Janis smile, ironic as that is. She feels less alone in it. But she crosses her arms over her chest and gives a small nod.

“I do…. But you just have to trust me on this,” she tells him. “I have my reasons. Besides, I can play the cancer card any time I want her to leave.”

“You’re a terrible child,” he tells her.

“I know,” she replies. “I’ll blame it on her influence.”

When she gets up to her room, Regina is standing at her wall, studying one of the paintings on it. It’s one of hers from sophomore year, and Regina looking at it makes her wince.

“Hey.” She jumps nearly three feet at the sound of her voice and manages to compose herself relatively quickly. Janis closes the door behind her and whacks on the light. “So go on. You wanted to talk.”

“I did,” she says. She pulls at her sweater and straightens it out, the gesture looking so unnatural on her that it actually scares her a little. Since the second they met, Regina has exuded a confidence Janis could only aspire to. Even after everything fell apart, Janis had to admire that part of her. Even if it was faked, it was convincing. Now she’s standing in front of her, all nervous eyes and fidgeting fingers and somehow her biting her lip in anxiety scares Janis more than her cruel smirks ever did.

“So are you going to?” she asks. “Talk, I mean. Or are you just going to stand there like a dumbass?”

Regina laughs-actually laughs-and nods and lifts her chin and looks her in the eye and after what feels like a lifetime she says

“Janis… I wanted to say that I’m so sorry-”

“No.”

Regina blinks, looking like a deer aught in headlights. Janis simply stares her down, betting that this wasn’t how she thought this interaction was going to go down and yeah maybe getting soe petty satisfaction out of that, what about it?

“W-what?”

“You heard me,” she shrugs, a grin tugging on her lips. There’s a power stirring inside her that she hasn’t felt in months, probably not since she stood up on that table in the gym and finally let rip. It lights up inside her, igniting every part of her tired body and running through like wildfire. Even if it’s not enough to block out why she’s really annoyed about it, she can still stand and revel in the image of Regina standing across from her in complete uncertainty. That’s what makes the next word taste so sweet on her lips. “No.”

Regina’s mouth opens and then closes it again, annoyance slowly creasing her face. Janis continues eating her cereal as if Regina isn’t even here.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean no,” she says. “I can say it in French if you like but it’s more or less the same thing.”

For a second, there’s a flash of the old Regina, appalled that someone dared to stand up to her and crush the dream she had in her pretty little head. Weirdly, Janis finds she had missed that Regina, even it’s more of a comfortable familiarity than anything else. Ironically, Regina at her most bitchy is Regina at her most safe.

“I… don’t… get it,” Regina says, the words drawn out as she tries to connect the dots in her mind. “Why no?”

Janis sets the bowl down on her nightstand, the bang echoing off her walls. As she folds her arms, her nails dig into the skin and her whole body shakes with the effort of holding herself back from throwing herself at Regina. Or from holding back the tears that prickle at the back of her eyes. Either one.

She could lie. It would be easy to do so, especially to her. It wouldn’t even be a lie, just an omitted truth. But for whatever reason, she doesn’t feel like doing it.

“Because…” She steadies her shoulders and takes a deep breath. “Because you’re only apologising because of my cancer.” Her voice stayed surprisingly steady the whole way through, but they both hear the crack at the end. “And the one thing worse than a fake apology from you is a pity apology.”

“Janis,” she says. Her face softens and Janis wants to rip it right off. “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me-”

“Correct. And so I don’t.”

“But it’s not because of….” She swallows hard. “Because of that. After the spring fling and over the summer I did a lot of soul searching and-”

“Regina I cannot begin to tell you how much I do not give a flying fuck about your soul searching,” she says flatly. She sighs and shakes out her hands, trying to get some feeling back into them. Feeling she’s buried for years come flooding back to her, blooming up from every corner of her soul and settling under her skin. All that resentment and anger that always simmered below the surface comes to a boiling point. “I don’t want you to apologise to me when you’re not fucking sorry.” She shakes her head, finding a bitter smile on her face. “I’ll tolerate a lot but you treating me like an idiot isn’t one of them. I would have thought you knew me better than that.”

“Well we haven’t exactly been close lately,” she mumbles. Her lips roll into a thin line, her finger tapping away at her forearm as she thinks. “You’re never going to believe me are you?”

“Nope. Not unless you strip naked and run up and down this street in order to prove it to me.”

“Pretty sure that would get me arrested.”

“Yeah well, that would be an added bonus.” She nods at that, a suppressed smile on her lips. She goes to move forwards but thinks better of it and stays where she is.

She doesn’t want to believe her. Hell, she doesn’t want to. Regina will never really understand the extent of the crap she went through. She doesn’t know about her puking at 4am, about those nights where she looked up at the ceiling until her eyes burned, about how her soul diminished little by little every time she crossed the school gates. She doesn’t know how it wasn’t just Janis’ life she ruined; it was her parents’ too. She doesn’t know how long it took until she could stop flinching from people, stop worrying that every compliment was backhanded or that every invitation was a set-up for something ugly. She’ll never know and Janis is so sure that she won’t care either. She doesn’t want her apology and wouldn’t even if it was genuine.

But the worst part of all this is… part of her thinks it might be. And she has no idea why that’s the case. She knows that trusting Regina George is like picking up a wild snake and thinking it won’t bite you. She’s got bite marks to prove it. That’s exactly what makes all this so painful for her, this feeling deep in her gut that she can’t ignore no matter how many traumatic memories she buries it under.

She closes her eyes and prays she won’t regret this.

“You want to prove it to me?” she asks. “You want to prove that you’re sorry?” Regina nods, a hopeful spark in her eye that looks uncharacteristic, but also too genuine to be fake. Her stomach clenches as she speaks, the words battling through her teeth. “Tell me afterwards. Tell me when I’m healthy and I have hair and I don’t need people’s pity. That’s when you can tell me you’re sorry.”

“That might take a while.”

“No it won’t.” There’s a defensive edge in her voice that she hadn’t expected. If the way Regina’s eyebrows shoot up is anything to go by, that was a shock to both of them. “I had this test thing last week to check how things are. And that’ll prove that I’m nearly done.” She hopes Regina believes what she’s saying because she sure as hell doesn’t. “By December this whole thing will be over anyway. Then, if you’re still willing, you can come over here and grovel and beg for my forgiveness.” She raises her chin. “There’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Regina nods slowly, no doubt weighing up her proposal in her head. Regina George doesn’t take deals, she only makes them, and this role reversal is strange to both of them. And at least for Janis, there’s a small thrill involved here. The upper hand in regard to Regina isn’t an easy thing to come by.

“Deal.” She holds out her perfectly manicured hand and Janis, after a moment’s pause, takes it, finding it cold. “See you in a few months, Sarkisian.”

“And then afterwards we can go and ride some flying pigs,” she mumbles.

Regina huffs a laugh at that and before she can stop herself, Janis does the same.

She follows Regina downstairs, intending to see her out the door. The two of them are in a tight, prickly silence as they go, unsaid, unknown words floating in the air between them and neither one willing to act on them.

She feels her dad’s eyes on them as they reach the door.

“See you later then,” Regina says, the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile. Janis only hums in some sort of agreement and even that doesn’t dissuade her.

“Say hey to Karen and Gretchen for me,” is her response, and Regina tells her she will.

She waits until she sees Regina walk down her driveway and actually disappear around the corner before allowing herself to feel relieved, to let it flood through and around her and to breathe properly and fully for the first time since she came over. She collapses face-first onto the sofa in the living room, much to her dad’s amusement.

“So how was it?” he asks.

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know,” she says, not bothering to lift her head from the cushion. “Just your regular dramatic teen girl stuff.”

“Mm-hm.” She doesn’t need to look at him to know he doesn’t believe her, but he also doesn’t press on it. “Well, the good news is, she may be a scum-sucking fart-mouthed life ruiner, but the makes amazing pastries.”

“Dad!” Her head snaps up at that and the room tilts and dips before steadying again and the black dots fade. “You ate her pastries?”

“What was I supposed to do?” he asks. “Just leave a box of perfectly good pastries sitting the cupboard never to be eaten? They were screaming my name, Janis.”

“You could have burned them. You could have set them on fire. It would have been immensely therapeutic for me.”

“Are you telling me that instead of sending you to therapy, I could have just set things on fire and gotten the same result?” he asks. She nods, a sharp pain flaring up as she does so, and he bursts into laughter.

“Oh stop,” she sighs. She rests her head on the arm of the couch, pressing her forehead into it like it can absorb all her pain from her. “What are the flavours?”

“We’ve got two. One’s apple and one’s this pecan thing.”

“Damn that witch. Making flavours I love like that.”

“She’s a fiend indeed. So which do you want?”

Her defences stay up for a microsecond. The she shoots her hand out and metaphorically waves a white flag.

“Pecan please,” she asks. “And can we at least burn one of them?”

Her dad laughs, but he doesn’t say no either and she takes it for now.

                                                                                                               ******

When Janis wakes on Monday morning, it’s with a deep, deep pit in her stomach. She knows what today is before her brain is fully awake, even before her eyes are open. She goes back to the hospital today.

And there’s a very high chance her test results are sitting there waiting for her when she gets there.

She pulls the covers up over her head and burrows under them, pressing her head further into the pillow and trying to get back to sleep. It really shouldn’t be too hard, not when she’s fallen asleep in far less comfortable positions before, in far brighter and louder places than her bedroom. But once, this once, her body doesn’t give in, and sleep deserts her in record quick time. She’s facing the music today whether she likes it or not.

Her dad is coming with them today, he told her last night.

“I know nothing might be happening tomorrow,” he had told her. “But just in case, I don’t want to miss anything.”

And as they get into the car, Janis sliding into the back this time with her hospital bag beside her, she feels a heavy sense of déjà vu. Despite how it feels like centuries, it was only two months ago she was getting into this car, whispering goodbye to her house and this whole was beginning.

The uneasiness doesn’t lessen when they get out of the car, or when they ride into the elevator. Outside the windows, the sun struggles against the grey clouds, its light blocked out bit by bit. When they stop outside her floor, her breathing is coming in pants and her hands are clammy and sweaty no matter how many times she wipes them. She considers just turning and running, pictures herself swiping her mom’s keys and making a break for it, getting into the car and driving off. She’d never make it far, but it’s a nice fantasy to tide her over.

The whole place feels off, she thinks as they make their way to her room, trying to smile and nod at people, pretend it’s business as usual, pretend there isn’t a sense of dread gnawing away at her. By the time they get within spitting distance of her room, that uneasiness has taken her over entirely and it takes all her effort to keep herself walking straight and steady. It’s not that she wants to collapse into her bed anymore, it feels like it’s the only thing she’s capable of doing.

She doesn’t bother unpacking, but her mom on the other hand makes it her mission, filling the small cabinet with all her possessions, leaving her laptop on her tray table just as she likes it. None of them speak though, so the only sound is the cars outside and her mom bustling around.

It takes five minutes for Doctor Wiley to finally show up. And if Janis felt uneasy before, she feels pure, unfiltered panic injected straight into her veins at the sight of him. He clicks the door shut behind him and her heart stops beating.

“Janis,” he greets. “Mr and Mrs Sarkisian.”

“My test results,” she blurts out. She locks eyes with him, willing him to look at her by sheer force alone. “You have them, don’t you?”

He blinks at her, perhaps alarmed at her institution, but his head then moves in a slow nod and her hand clenches around the bedpost.

“Well?” she asks.

“Janis…” She bites back her cheek. The déjà vu from the car comes back again stronger, less like a memory and more like she’s travelled back in time. Her chest grows tighter than she thinks it’s possible. “We looked at your results and… it seems the treatments now aren’t enough.”

Not enough.

Not enough.

The past two months of her life weren’t enough. All the events she missed and the sleeping through days and the vomiting and the passing out and the losing her hair… none of that was enough. Nothing she’s done up until now has been enough. Her lost days pile up in front of her eyes and blow away like dust because they didn’t. Mean. Anything. Apparently.

She wants to scream all this at him, to ask him why he couldn’t work this out earlier and what the fuck these past weeks have been for if they haven’t been doing what they should have been doing and why she had to essentially lie to every person she cares about if it wasn’t working anyway. But her mouth stays closed, her hands by her side and her body on the bed. She feels more like a hollow statue than a real person, her veins empty and her brain blank.

“So… what does that mean?” her dad finally asks. The room had been silent for so long she had actually forgotten what a person actually speaking sounds like. She doesn’t dare look back at her parents, because she knows it would either kill her more or throw her the opposite direction and she’d lunge at Wiley and tear his skin off. Or she’d scream and scream until her throat was raw.

Maybe that would feel good.

“Well… the good news is that it’s not…. It’s not the worst news you could receive.”

Maybe not for you she silently tells him.

“What it does mean is that we’re going to have to extend your treatment here,” he says. “For another four weeks.”

Four weeks? What’s four weeks? She can’t even see past today. He could have said four weeks or four years and it wouldn’t have made a difference as far as she’s concerned.

“Four weeks,” her mom echoes. “So it would end…” Her voice trails off and it becomes a question rather than a statement.

“In January, rather than December,” he finishes. “And another thing… we think it might be better if Janis stayed here permanently rather than going home.”

“But…” It’s only when everyone’s eyes land on her that she realises she had actually spoken at all. She takes as deep a breath she can and goes on, her voice so, so small. “What about my dog?”

“Your dog?”

“My dog,” she explains. “Going home. It’s the only time I can see my dog.”

Somewhere in the very, very back of her mind, an impossibly tiny part of her is saying ‘really?’. But Maxie is all she can think to care about right now. Wiley’s mouth opens and closes wordlessly and he turns and looks to her parents for any kind of direction.

They get it, of course, and her mom’s hand comes up on her back.

“We’ll work something out,” she says. The softness of her voice makes her flinch. “We’ll work out a FaceTime with him. Okay, sweetheart?”

Through her tight throat, she manages to slip out an ‘okay’.

Wiley keeps talking, some spiel about optimism and close monitoring and priorities, but the words ricochet off her and fall meaninglessly onto the floor. If they really matter she’ll get told them again. Or not. She doesn’t really care and she’s not sure if she should be worried about that.

“Janis? Janis?” She blinks and Wiley is looking at her, eyes anxious behind his glasses, his mouth drawn into a grim line. “Do you have any questions.”

She does. A lot. The first one is ‘what the actual fuck’ but nobody probably has the answer for that. Most questions she has probably don’t have an answer, but there’s one she’s willing to try.

“I… Did I do something wrong?” she asks. “Is that why all of this didn’t work?”

“Oh my goodness, Janis, no.” Wiley rushes over to her, pulling the chair over and sitting opposite her. There’s so much determination in him that she almost believes him. “Listen… things like this happen. They happen more often than we’d like to admit. But they do.” He shrugs, looking pretty helpless for the person who is meant to be in charge of this. If he doesn’t know what’s happened, then where does that leave her. “Sometimes the cancer is just more aggressive than we first thought. And we need to redouble our efforts. It’s not your fault, Janis. Don’t ever think it is.”

He can’t tell her not to do that. She can’t tell her not to do that. No-one on this Earth can make her stop thinking that. But for his sake, and her parents, she nods and mutters something that sounds like an okay, and after he exchanges a few words with her parents, he leaves, off to tend to the dozens of other kids in his care.

Her body bounces slightly as her back hits the mattress. It’s a nice kind of feeling. It makes everything feel less real. Even more so when her head falls back and she looks at the world that way. She doesn’t bother moving, not even when her head starts to hurt and she starts feeling dizzy. Out of the corner of her eye, she feels her upside-down dad leaning against the wall, his cheeks puffed out as he exhales. She can only see her mom when she cranes her neck, leaning against the wall with her head on her dad’s shoulder.

“Janis, sweetheart are you okay?”

“Nope,” she sighs. She

“Of course she’s not okay.”

“It was just a question, Alex.”

That pulls her up, even if it’s only halfway. If there was a fight brewing her face stopped it, the tension between them fading into the background. Bigger problems and all that.

She is the bigger problem. Not really, but her cancer is.

That’s when everything slams back into her; realisation, feelings, panic. It explodes inside her like a freshly thrown grenade and it blows up all her plans and her promises in its wake.

“Holy crap,” she gasps. She draws her knees up to her chest, her eyes burning and her cheeks burning. “Oh my God!”

“I know, love, I know.” Suddenly there are hands on her back, her shoulders, her arms, and she feels suffocated by them. “Oh I’m so sorry, kid.”

“No.” She wriggles and pushes the arms away, her last semblance of sanity being the reason she doesn’t smack them instead. She jumps of the bed, stumbling over the tiled floor. Her heart beats frantically, wildly against her ribs. When she puts her hand on her chest, she feels like she holds it in her chest, barriers of skin and bone be damned.

“Janis-”

The room shrinks more than it ever has and everything is on top of her, around her and she can’t breathe, can’t move for all of it. All she feels is the eyes on her and the cancer in her blood, confining her here-

“I need to go,” she chokes out. Spit runs down her chin, tears down her cheeks. “I just… I need to be alone.”

Her mom goes to protest, but her dad takes her hand, his head shaking and something muttered to her. As usual, something about her that she doesn’t know.

As she falls to her knees on the bathroom floor, she keeps her mouth covered, her whole body wracking and trembling. A sound is ripped from her throat, something that sounds more like an animal than a human, primal and deep and so, so afraid. She’s afraid, more than she’s ever been before. High school girls is one thing. Having her identity thrown out for all to see is one thing. But she could control how she reacted to both of those. Both of those were other people, external forces attacking her and she chose how to defend herself. Now the attack is coming from inside her, and her fate is in everyone else’s hands and everything is out of her hands. All she can do is subject herself to others and even then they get it wrong too.

She hug her knees against her chest, wishing she had brought Purrlock in with her. Or better yet, if Damian was here again, holding her tightly and making her feel like she isn’t alone. She shakes her head quickly, bawling at the sharp, throbbing pain in it. She doesn’t want Damian here. Not if it meant he’d see her like this or have heard that.

Oh God. The realisation crashes over her like a tidal wave and drowns her. She’ll have to tell them all. Again. Tell her friends that this thing isn’t over months after she told them she had cancer to begin with. The weight drags her down, pulling her soul right into the floor, pressing it into the wall until it becomes part of it.

She’s just one person. Just one person. Surely there has to be a limit to how much one person can take, right?

At some point, she wipes the tears off her face and stretches out her legs. Her body feels hollowed out and yet completely full at the same time. She’ll either explode or wither away to nothing and both are fine with her. Both are better, in her mind, than what her actual future holds for her.

As her mind unravels, she finds herself wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t told her mom what was wrong. If she hadn’t ran into her dad in the bathroom. If she hadn’t went to that doctor’s appointment. Applied to old-fashioned method of “ignore it aggressively and hope it goes away”. Gone to school, applied to college and for a while at least, been normal.

When she looks down, her phone is in her hands, switched off. She didn’t even realise it was in her pocket. She turns it over in her hand; it holds every person she’s ever loved in there. She switches it on, trying to avoid the sight of her reflection. She can only imagine what that’s like. She’s an ugly crier at the best of times.

She swipes it open and goes to her contacts, swiping through the list until it becomes nothing but a bright, black and white blur. Among everything else she’s feeling, she’s lonely. The kind of loneliness that comes up around a person and builds walls between them and everyone else. The kind that sends her hand lying back whenever she tries to reach out. The kind that in the end, drives everyone else away anyway. No matter how badly she wants to-and needs to- make those calls. She can’t. She physically can’t. Even the thought of talking to anyone churns her stomach.

Well, there’s one exception. She looks at the screen, the name only there because Cady put it. She’s hated it ever since and contemplated deleting it so many times, but now it seems to be her only option.

God, she really is desperate.

She has the sense to send out a quick message first, just to be sure, and she spends about ten seconds in half-hopeful waiting. As she does, she strains to hear if anything is happening outside. Her parents must have gone off somewhere, out on a walk to try to clear their heads or off to talk to someone. Or they’re doing the opposite eavesdropping on her. Or they’re doing something she really doesn’t want to think about.

She mutters ‘ew’ to herself just as her phone buzzes into life, the name filling up the screen. She takes a second and watches it ring, questioning whether or not she should do it. She feels like somehow this is crossing a line, even if the only person she’s hurting is herself. When she was younger she swore she’d never do this again, never let loneliness drive her back to her.

But her younger self didn’t anticipate this, did she?

“Hey,” she says into the phone, her voice cracking as she speaks. “Hi, Regina.”

“Janis?” At least Regina is just as confused as she is. This has to be the first time in five years she's initiated contact. “Um… hi?”

“Are you like, cutting class right now?”

“Oh you have so much faith in me,” she sighs. “No. I had a free period so I was doing laps of the lacrosse field. What’s up? I mean this is-”

“Trust me, I know.” She swallows past the lump in her throat and feels her face crumple. “I just…. I needed someone but I didn’t want to talk to anyone I actually like right now.” She shrugs. “So here we are.”

“Here we are,” she replies. They fall silent and Regina’s breathing crackles on the speaker. She can almost picture her, standing in her sports stuff on the presumably empty field, face contorted in confusion and unsure of where to go.

Janis presses her hand into her knee and takes a deep breath. When she presses her hand to her cheek, she finds it icy and clammy. She pushes herself onto one knee and keeps her eye on the toilet, just in case.

“So what did you want to talk about?"

"I got-" She pauses, the words catching in her throat. It hurts to say those words. Like someone is pricking her tongue with a pin. But strangely, it’s also so relieving. Like she’s carried a weight on her back and it’s not taken off entirely, but it’s lessened. "Do me a favour and don't tell Cady about this, okay? Or anyone."

"Keeping secrets?" There's an accusatory undertone in her voice that for a moment brings Janis' old self back.

"Don't accuse me of shit," she snaps. "I've got enough to be dealing with without you being a bitch."

When she doesn't respond, Janis worries she may have hung up on her, and she thinks 'there goes whatever crumbs of a relationship we had'. But then she comes back, a small "sorry" in her ear and she can breathe.

"Thanks." She breathes out and lets her head fall against the wall. She sniffles and hopes Regina doesn't notice. It hurts, what she's about to say. Like someone is pricking her tongue with a pin. But strangely, it’s also so relieving. Like she’s carried a weight on her back and it’s not taken off entirely, but it’s lessened.

"I got my test results back today." She feels Regina sobering up on the other end and she bites back a wave of tears. "And they're not pretty."

Closer to You

Inspired by this picture! I’ve had this fic rumbling around my skull ever since I first saw that picture, and finally (after sharing the idea with some friends on discord and getting some positive feedback) decided to write it! 

Poly!Queen but with a focus on Brian/Freddie. The aforementioned/linked pic occurs, and it’s delightful, but with a little Bit Extra that occurs. As a result of that Extra, it’s only natural that some playful one-upmanship of a kind should occur as well. 

As you might have started to guess, there is smut in this one, and in fact that’s...well that’s a lot of it askldfja. I have no defense either; I’m just having a good time here. 

Titled after the Adam Lambert song because I'm a yearning gay motherfucker lmao.

My love to all who read/like/reblog!

It was planned chaotically, was how he liked to say it. 

Step here, crawl there, on your knees then back up and over to Brian, arch your back in front of him (and admire the little smile it always earned him.) 

But the kiss wasn’t planned; a quick dip down on Brian’s part and said kiss that lasted just long enough to make his knees a bit weak as he bounced back up and away from Brian, still on schedule with the next bit of movement onstage. 

He couldn’t help the blushing though, and thank goodness they knew the crowds like they did (no shock or anger at such a kiss here, just giggles and wolf whistles and some shouting from the audience.) 

The show went on, and he tried not to be distracted by the thoughts in his head. 

Backstage, however...

---

“You little shit!” 

“Sorry,” Brian smiled. “I couldn’t help myself, but it was probably too bold. No one seemed to mind though.” 

“Why would they?” Roger asked with a laugh. “Think most of them got to see something they’d been waiting for; you made their night!” 

“We could have too,” John noted. “Might have been a lot for one show though.” 

“You find a way to lean over the kit without knocking it down to kiss me, and we’ll make ourselves the focus of the next show,” Roger said. “Let these two have their spotlight moment for tonight.” 

“You could have gotten me back with something,” Brian said as he packed up. “Honestly, I was shocked when you didn’t try anything.” 

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t be doing that,” Freddie replied as he slipped past Brian to snag some of their clothing off of the racks, getting in a quick smack to Brian’s ass as he moved. “You just won’t know when until it’s happening.” 

Brian’s face was red, but his smile eager, even as John and Roger laughed. 

“Alright, bet on who makes who come while onstage first?” Roger offered to John.

“Don’t be nasty; they won’t go that far!” 

Roger shot Freddie a look. “I’d say we don’t know that for sure.” 

---

That actually wasn’t his intention. That would be far too much interruption during a show, and too much in general at that. 

But if he could make Brian’s knees weak, make him want to drag him backstage immediately after a show and tear his clothing off? 

That would be just fine. 

Part of it was just to go off the planned track of things. He started it slow at the next show, stumbling into Brian’s area of the stage more often than he might have otherwise. Bumping hips with him, singing with him at his mic (a convenient time to grind himself against Brian’s ass), just being as much in Brian’s way as he could. 

And it earned him smiles and giggles and the occasional grind back, but it wasn’t enough yet. 

“I thought you were going to get back at me for that kiss,” Brian teased him after the show. “Was that it?” 

“I did expect more from you, Fred,” Roger said. “I’m not disappointed, just surprised.” 

“He’s not done,” John smirked. “You both know that.” 

Freddie only grinned. They’d see the rest of it as it happened, even if patience wasn’t a virtue most of them could hold onto for long. 

---

He could feel Roger and John watching him now too, as he ground his way up Brian’s leg, letting his head drop onto Brian’s shoulder for a minute. All under the guise of ‘being into the music’ (which admittedly, he was), but just as much it was to drive Brian mad. 

It seemed to work. Brian’s breath was shaky the longer he lingered there, and he missed singing along with the next few lines. As soon as he felt Brian was really weak-kneed, he drifted away again. 

And then he stayed away, except for a few runs back for air guitar, but never too close to Brian. Who did try and scoot closer to him, catching his eyes once with a questioning look when Freddie bounded away yet again.

Brian only shook his head and laughed backstage, but there was a delightful tension in his eyes every time he caught Freddie’s gaze. 

Almost there.

---

He pulled that move again at the next show, more than a few times. Truthfully, his legs were almost less tired than usual, purely because he spent so much time bracing himself against Brian. 

Grinding on his thigh, barely resisting the urge to let a hand pull Brian’s hips back when he bumped up behind him to sing with him at his mic, and otherwise draping himself all over Brian as much as he could. 

He knew for sure he’d done it when Brian broke, and reached for him one of the few moments he bounced away to cover the rest of the stage. 

There was no hiding that, from Freddie, from Roger and John, from the road crew watching, from the audience. 

Which had to explain why he didn’t hide it backstage either. 

“Please take this,” Brian commanded, politely (and if that wasn’t just adorable too) of the guitar tech that followed them backstage. “Quickly, now!” 

The tech only laughed and raised a brow when he caught Freddie’s eye. The road crew would be staying away from their area of the backstage then, at least. 

John and Roger’s laughter could be heard, but they dipped away into the other green room, and suddenly he realized why they’d insisted upon making use of both rooms at this venue. 

He giggled himself as Brian nearly dragged him into their green room, slamming the door shut behind them. “You alright?” 

“I-” Brian hesitated. His fingers went on a journey, undoing his zipper, only to switch to the buttons of his arrow-covered tunic, then briefly reaching to yank down part of Freddie’s leotard. “There’s too much to try and take off here.” 

He couldn’t help but laugh fully at that, draping his arms around Brian’s neck as he kissed him. “We can’t fuck here anyway, you know that.” 

“Do we know that?” Brian protested weakly. “There’s no law. Well. Public decency laws I guess, but I think the door locks...” 

“You’re so fucking adorable,” Freddie sighed, resting his head on Brian’s shoulder. “But I’m going to make you wait until the hotel.” 

“That is...absolutely cruel,” Brian murmured. 

“Mhm, but you don’t hate it, do you?” Freddie teased, giving him another quick kiss before moving away and working his leotard off. “How much will it kill the mood if you help me pull this off of my legs?” 

“It won’t,” Brian smiled, and waited for him to sit down in the nearest chair before kneeling down to help tug the material off. 

“Oh yes, because this is incredibly erotic,” Freddie smiled. “Dragging sweaty lycra off of your boyfriend, what more could you ask for?” 

“I’ve got ideas,” Brian replied, and leaned down to press kisses to Freddie’s bare thighs. 

It was his turn to shiver at that, with the touch of Brian’s lips and the almost ticklish feeling of his curls on his skin. 

Brian glanced up at Freddie’s cock, hard despite the restraint of the dancer belt he’d worn underneath the leotard for the night. “I thought you were going to make me wait for the hotel?” 

“Shut up,” Freddie sighed. “I’ll be fine to make it there, thank you.” 

“And you’ll hide that how?” 

“I could ask you the same,” Freddie replied, gesturing to the bulge in Brian’s tight trousers. “We’ll just have Roger and John walk in front of us.” 

“And what if they’re over in their room doing this too?” 

Freddie rolled his eyes playfully. “Then we give anyone watching us leave a show!” 

---

They didn’t, though it took noticeably more time to get ready to leave (not his fault that he got distracted by thinking of kissing the freckles all over Brian’s chest, anyone would fall to the same thoughts while helping him out of his tunic.) But that was almost better, as many of the fans had gotten understandably tired of waiting, and had left. 

“I can admit I would have lost my original bet,” Roger said as they walked down the road to the blessedly close hotel. “But I think I could make another one now that I know I’d win...” 

“Too bad you’ll be too busy with me to make bets of any kind,” John teased, and Freddie realized that Brian clearly hadn’t been too far off in assuming how they’d spent their time in the other green room. 

But that worked fine. There were nights where all of them squished into the same room, the same bed, and nights where they paired off instead. Both were good, and he certainly didn’t mind if tonight was a night of pairing off and potentially raising separate noise complaints from any nearby guests. 

Roger and John were at one end of the hall, himself and Brian at the other, and right about now he dreaded that they hadn’t argued to take the room at the closer end. Because while Roger and John slipped away into their room, there was still a long hall to walk for himself and Brian. 

But like he’d figured, there would be no making it all the way to their room without pause. 

That it came in the form of Brian, suddenly and apparently not caring about being seen, pressing him against the wall, holding his arms in place above his head, a thigh gently shoved in between his legs, made it a very good pause indeed. 

“The room is maybe five feet away,” he teased all the same when Brian finally stopped kissing him to take a breath. “Shall I carry you?” 

Brian smiled, and before Freddie could get another word out, pulled him up into his arms. 

“Brian!” he hissed it, even as his legs wrapped around Brian’s waist. “Someone could walk up here-” 

“Good,” Brian interrupted. “Let them.” 

“You are something else,” Freddie whispered, cradling Brian’s face to kiss him as Brian did his best to carefully walk them to the door of their room. 

“Yeah, but so are you,” Brian said. “We match.” 

Match they did, as Brian fumbled the door open, finally forced to put Freddie down as they stumbled inside. Matching hands reaching to push the door shut, to try and lock it quickly, then to flick on the light switch. Matching feet nearly tripping over each other as they made their way to the bed while matching fingers tugged at street clothes to pull them off and toss them to the floor. 

Normally, they might have paused now. For a shower, and to see if they really had the energy to keep going (there was the high of the show, and then the crash after, and sometimes it utterly killed any other plans they had for the night.) 

Instead, it only slowed. 

Which was both better and torturous, as far as Freddie was concerned. On his back on the bed, shirt gone, trousers open but not yet pulled off, while Brian straddled him. His head was bent down, pressing kisses to Freddie’s chest, the light touch of his curls making Freddie squirm. 

He couldn’t keep his hips from bucking up against Brian, who lifted his head and grinned. 

“Have patience!” 

But he bucked his hips again, and smirked at the groan it earned him. “What was that about patience, Bri?” 

“Oh shut up,” Brian moaned, sitting back up and leaning back to roll against him. 

And that was a picture that Freddie tried to take a mental snapshot of. Brian leaned back, his bare chest a sinuous sight that he wished he could reach and lick his way up. His trousers undone just enough that Freddie could reach forward and palm at Brian’s hard cock through his pants. It made Brian shudder beautifully, grinding himself down even harder against Freddie. 

“Patience is overrated, at times,” Freddie murmured. “Don’t you think?” 

Brian nodded, and climbed off of him long enough for the rest of their clothes to be pulled off and tossed away from the bed. 

He’d put condoms and a bottle of lube into the drawer of the bedside table as a just in case, and he was incredibly glad he had now. He could grab them without having to move away from Brian’s lips and hands, that wandered happily over his skin. 

Brian’s hands did stop to take the lube from him though, eager fingers working himself open while Freddie watched. 

Brian groaned as he worked, and Freddie shook his head. 

“Don’t you dare make yourself come. Not unless you think you can keep going after.” 

Brian only smirked in response, eyes still closed. 

He took the spare time to get a condom on, to steal the lube back for a moment and slick it over his cock. 

Another moment, and Brian was in his lap, slowly working himself onto his cock, thigh muscles shaking as he did. 

“Good?” 

Brian nodded and swallowed hard. “Think I’m going to make kissing you onstage a habit, if this is what it gets me.” 

Freddie leaned up, smiling at the moan the movement elicited from Brian, and kissed him hard. “I’d like that.” 

“So will the fans,” Brian giggled, then shivered as Freddie thrust gently. 

There was no more room for talking then, lips focused only on kissing and leaving marks at each other’s necks and chest, while Brian readjusted his legs to wrap around Freddie. 

He only kept them like that for a bit more, conscious that Brian’s knees would start to hurt the longer they stayed that way. Just as good was switching to put Brian on his back, slipping inside of him again to a happy moan, fucking him hard and leaning down to pull at his curls (carefully, mindfully, lovingly) until he felt Brian’s cock twitch and jump between them, his come warm as it hit their skin. 

He started to slip out of him, content to pull the condom off and jack himself off onto Brian’s stomach, but Brian’s hands held his hips down. 

“Keep going,” Brian’s voice shuddered. “I can handle it; you feel so fucking good, please just keep going.” 

He let himself lean back down, thrusting hard, erratic (because fuck did Brian feel good, warm around him, legs around his waist to hold him as close as possible.) 

Brian’s voice was in his ear, half wordless happy mumbling, half moaning his name, begging him to not stop.

That was all it took, and he let his eyes close, head dropped against Brian’s chest as he came hard. 

Brian’s fingers lingered in his hair, playing with it as Freddie slipped out of him, panting and pressing kisses to his collar bone. 

The need to get up and grab a towel so they could clean up was there in his mind, but he couldn’t bear the thought of moving. 

“Give it a few minutes,” Brian murmured. “I can’t...” 

“I know,” Freddie sighed happily. “Can we just stay here maybe? I think leaving bed is as overrated as patience.” 

Brian kissed his forehead, and he felt like he was glowing. “It might be. But I’ll get up eventually. Get us cleaned up. Least I can do after you fucked me that well.” 

They settled into soft giggles and gentle making out, and all he could think of was Brian kissing him again onstage. 

Sure, the fans might enjoy the bit of extra show too. As would John and Roger, and that was lovely. 

But at the end of it, it was truly all for him and Brian, and that was what made it perfect, and made his heart feel so wonderfully full it might burst. 

Oh my gosh I can't stop thinking about that chapter in "i take from you everything you allow" where Wolffe asks Plo if he's got a light for his cigarette and Plo just lights it with freaking force lightning. Could you do write a sequel to that or an extension of that scene? It's one of my favorite chapters in that fic

So that took a little longer than expected, but at last:

cigarettes and cilantro

from [ lit ]

1. 

Jedi die as easily as anyone else. 

The thought echoes in Wolffe’s mind. Jedi are not infallible. Shoot one, and he will fall over dead just like a trooper. There were so many bodies. He’d heard Generals Windu and Yoda speaking. One hundred eighty dead on the sands - and if they died like men, what else had he been taught that was a lie?

He throws his bucket onto his bunk. It rolls to a stop on top of his pillow, wobbling like a grave marker. He snarls and turns away from the macabre scene. 

His hands won’t stop shaking. They’re going to give him a Jedi. The vode have been called to action, and they’re going to give him a fragile, mortal Jedi who is not at all an invincible god, and he is going to watch his Jedi die on some battlefield because they die, that’s what they do, and Wolffe is only a man. He’s only a man, and his shaking mortal hands won’t stop shaking, damn the little gods.

He paces laps around the room. He wants to run, but outside the rest of his brothers are celebrating their first action in ten long waterlogged years, and he doesn’t want to spoil their mood, even if they are all deluded and he’s the only one who sees things as they really are. The restless energy crawls under his skin. He needs something, anything to make it stop. 

Bacara’s got that ARC vod who brings contraband in from off-world training exercises. The damn things smell like shit, but he swears they’re good for his nerves. It takes a few minutes to pick open Bacara’s footlocker and a few seconds to fish out the little paper box of cigarettes. The first breath burns, but he keeps at it and soon enough the tremors stop. 

It’s not quite enough to get rid of his sense of impending doom, but he thinks that nothing can do that anymore. They’re all living on borrowed time. There’s a blaster shot out there with his name on it, and it’s just a matter of when it finds him. 

2. 

There’s 576 troopers under his command, and 10 of them are still alive because their general is a reckless maniac. Plo Koon was supposed to be a nice, sensible High Councilor, not a walking mir’shupurla or’dinii like the 501st got, or a paklalatla diplomat like the 212th’s. 

Plo Koon is somehow even worse, because he goes about with his bad ideas and his silver tongue cheerfully. As if life is a game of cards in which he is the dealer rigging the results, and he won’t stop smiling about it. All that osik about Jedi serenity and wisdom was exactly that; Wolffe has yet to talk to a single vod whose jetti is as advertised. 

That alone would be enough to drive Wolffe to drink, except - 

Well, the whole jetti thing aside, he’s practically the picture of mandokar. He’s stubborn and an unholy terror on the battlefield, and so very pleased to be alive. If Jango could see him - well, he’d probably try to kill him, but if Jango heard his description, he’d approve wholeheartedly. And to say nothing of his loyalty; if any CC had allowed such a maneuver and risked their priority asset for troopers who really should have known better, there would be hell to pay. But the man took one look at the situation and went off to save his men simply because they were alive and needed the help.

The part of Wolffe that is predisposed to falling for people with mandokar is already bracing for impact. The part of him responsible for protecting his charge is getting ready to pickle his own liver. Since there’s not a drop of alcohol in sight, both parts are going to have to settle for chain-smoking. 

He’s got his own cigs now. Still crappy whatever’s-cheapest-and-available, but they get the job done. His standards, though low, do exist; he isn’t interested in cutting his already short lifespan materially shorter with death sticks. Bacara is a more understanding vod than, say, Fox, and didn’t kick up much of a fuss once his shit was replaced; now they swap complaints about their latest smokes. This one tastes even more like tar than usual and burns too quick.

He discards the remains of the cig and fishes out the next. A trooper - one of the lucky ones now singing the General’s praises - walks by.

“You okay, sir?” he asks.

“Just fine,” Wolffe grumbles, thumbing the wheel on his lighter for a spark. The shiny pauses.

“He’s really something, isn’t he?” he says. “The General. They said the Jedi were good, but I don’t think I really believed it. But he came back for us.”

“He did,” says Wolffe. “Don’t make him do it again,” he says, and takes a long drag. 

3. 

His General uses Force lightning, and he uses it to light cigarettes. If that isn’t a frivolous use of the Force, Wolffe doesn’t know what is. He should probably be more concerned than he is, but the calming effect of the tobacco has already settled in. 

He keeps going back to the moment Plo stepped in close, like a challenge, like an invitation, and the urge to get him up against the wall and make him show something other than his cool composure. There must be something under his facade of unshakable calm. He doesn’t have hair to pull, but his fussy, excessively draped robes would provide as good a handhold as anything. He’d resist, of course; the fight would be part of the fun, but they’ve already established that Wolffe is the better between them at hand-to-hand. Wolffe would win in the end.

They’d start with their usual exchange, short, sharp jabs to test one another’s guard, and then longer flurries as they warmed up. Wolffe would allow Plo to press forward, would draw him in slowly, gradually, until he was in throwing range. Plo would notice and fall back, and their dance would continue. And then Plo would tire, as he did without the Force, and he would slow, and maybe the first few times he lingered in range too long Wolffe would be lenient and allow him to escape, sliding just out of reach. But at the edge of his endurance, Wolffe would catch him and haul him down to the ground, hold him wrists to the dirt, pinned by Wolffe’s weight. And he’d lean in, their breaths mixing, and -

Ah, fuck. The cigarette has burned almost all the way down in the time that he’s been dreaming. He takes a last drag and shakes himself loose of the fantasy. It’s never going to happen anyway. 

4. 

He’s sitting outside watching the stars and the arm of the galaxy in the night sky. There’s nothing left to do for the night. Everything’s tucked in and the captains can take care of whatever petty issues might arise. He’s got himself an honest-to-gods night off, and he knows exactly what he’s going to do with it. 

Plo settles beside him, his robes brushing quietly against the grass, and obligingly provides a spark when Wolffe holds out a cig. The smoke curls unpleasantly in the air and Plo leans away, nose wrinkling behind his mask. It’s not especially poisonous to him; it just gets caught in the rebreather and takes forever to cycle out. Still he comes to join Wolffe when he has nothing to do except burn a pack. 

“The benefits outweigh the drawbacks,” he says when Wolffe asks. “I’d accept your company however it is offered.” He lies stretched out on the ground, head so close to Wolffe’s hip, one clawed hand resting at the hollow where his ribs end, the other absently spinning a flower that smells like cold. 

“You could ask me to stop,” says Wolffe. It’s just a pastime; he doesn’t get cravings. His hands don’t shake for lack of nicotine. But - why not indulge a little when tomorrow and its consequences may never come? Will likely never come, even, the way the war is going. 

Plo hums instead of giving an answer. “I think, when we return to the ship, I should like to plant a garden.”

“Oh?” There’s not very much room that hasn’t already been claimed. A corner in the bay area that used to be for shuttles. Maybe he could clear out a spot by the engines. Plants liked heat, right? 

Plo hums again. “I have not tasted kand in many years. It grows poorly away from Dorin.”

Wolffe resists the urge to comment. Dorin doesn’t share any of its creations well, present company included. In fact, Wolffe is convinced present company might have a few more working brain cells had he not convinced the Sages to convince General Windu to bring him to Coruscant. But Plo continues as though he can’t feel the sarcasm coming off Wolffe in waves. 

“It’s a shrub, you see. Maintaining the necessary environment through the first nonproductive seasons makes it an unattractive option for commercial off-world growers. Only a few attempts have been made, even by the Agri-Corp.”

“Seems like you might be better off trying something else,” says Wolffe. “Seems like a lot of work for something that you might never see.”

“Perhaps,” says Plo, and then he takes off on another tangent. 

5.

He’s thinking about tomorrow and all the days that come after, and he’s thinking about what being happy feels like, and mostly he’s thinking about Plo, because he can have Plo if he wants and he knows it, and he’ll take Plo even if he might lose him later, and the losing will hurt more than anything else ever could, but the not having is even worse. And each moment of having makes the possible Plo-less future even more terrifying, but also moves the future where he gets to keep Plo closer into reach, and that’s worth it, isn’t it? To have and to hold, and to keep reaching for the future that he wants. 

He’s thinking and Plo is coming to him, and he’s got a cigarette between his fingers, the last of the box. He bends it in half and bins it unlit. 

“Not to your taste?” Plo asks, falling into step behind him.

“Nah,” says Wolffe. “Think I’ve found something better.”

13 - Too See

There was only black and I began to wonder if this was death.  Was this the great beyond scholars and science speculated when the brain finally died, when the soul departed the body?  Penetrating and encompassing black?  Was this eternity? Then I coughed, and felt the dull ache in my side.  Everything in me ached.  I was hurt, but I wasn’t dead.  My senses trickled in little by little, I could pick up the stagnant veil of this place, the cold digging into my skin - though my arms felt warm crushed and numb under me.  Couldn’t feel my hands, didn’t care about that.  I tried opening my eyes and saw only black.  Typical.  And I was laying on top of that camera again.

It was a requisite.  Car keys, a cell phone, a nice pocket knife, you nod of with one of them in your pocket, it will dig into your side.  Damn camera was bigger than those, I was going to wreck the NV sooner or later.  I could cart it through sewers, keep lunatics with clubs from smashing it, but sleep on it and it’s all over. I feel asleep?  How?

I didn’t bother to figure this out, or try and get of the cold vent. It was quiet and I needed a few seconds to get my bearings, and make certain that I was awake this time. The nightmare had shaken me, I still felt those shears in my chest and the blood spilling from the wound. How unsettling to dream about my own death in this place. Made everything feel ten times more dangerous than it already was, if I touched the walls they’d scorch my hands. Same thing happens whenever I see a rattlesnake, suddenly every bush and every rock has one.

Grunting, I turn over getting off my poor camera and let the cold work its way into my coat, the thin metal buckled as my weight was redistributed.  I felt a little better, more so than that crappy fifteen minute break before I stumbled into the basement. I pulled my camera up onto my chest and stopped the recording, in order to wind it back to where I stopped. I guess when I was crawling to the edge of the vent toward the light I just passed out. Probably needed it, I’m just damn thankful I didn’t keel over while I was still at the opening or when Trager was….

That damn psycho.  I had nearly forgotten him.  Couldn’t outrun him in my nightmares. I couldn’t bear to view the footage.  The way the hoister was designed would still allow the cameras eye to record, idea for when security got involved and ordered me to put it away.  The picture was not always the best, but it’d catch the more obvious actions and conversations.  I put my hand over the speaker feed as my voice came through, panicked and pitiful.  Sounded like a different man. An hour and fifteen minutes.  Felt longer in the dream, felt like I had dreamed something else after it.  Something worse than death, either of which I didn’t care to remember.  While I was MIA Trager could have lost interest in me and found someone else to cut up.  Maybe Father Martin.  Now that was praying to god. Getting out of the vent was tricky, after my muscles had relaxed in the cramped space.  I lowered myself carefully over the edge, bracing with one arm to relieve some of the pressure in my sore hands before I dropped, then limped off the resulting shock.  I staggered into the nearby lavatory and gave the area a hasty scan.  No sounds to suggest Trager was near, or anyone for that matter.  Just the soft patter of rain on glass. What an odd sense of Deja’vu. At least the walls weren’t covered in blood, and there was no bucket full of severed head.  It had all seemed so real, so vivid.  No surprise, I had great source material.  This place could still fuck itself though. I checked the stalls before I gave pause, nothing was contained in them, not even severed limbs.  The janitorial closet did have a small table cart with files spilling over it, the pages covered in a fine silt made apparent as I shuffled them around.  I pulled out a few to view and shut the main door to the room, before settling near the shattered mirrors. Male ward.  Check.  I didn’t think I would be using the bathroom for a while, fuck you very much psycho doctor.  Sinks lined one wall and they did work.  Carefully, I washed the blood from my hands and around the ragged digits, but I didn’t mess with the injured area too much.  I would be going through hell to keep the scabs, let alone the surface from getting more ripped up than it already was. I poked a bit more at the index finger where the bone was exposed, a little amazed at how the minimal pressure didn’t bother too much.  A translucent skin still coated the bone’s surface and I could make out….uh veins…. The granola was still in my coat.  I don’t know if it was safe to eat, but it was still sealed.  I fished it out of the breast pocket and inspected it, there was a bit of blood and some dirt smudged on it, from whenever I dug around for the notepad.  The label didn’t do its contents justice, promoting high fiber in a balanced diet.  I needed sugar in my blood and this little thing was better than some overpriced dinner. I rinsed it and shook most the water off, then gingerly took the edge of the package in the thumb and middle finger of my right hand, as I pinched it normally with the left.  It was easier than I anticipated to pull the wrapper apart, but the bar was a little melted and impossible to get out whole.  I ate what I could and drank some water, a lot of water.  Then got up, moved around a bit, jumping and springing back and forth, and prepared myself for what may come. I went ahead and recorded some of the files I had picked up, nothing relevant to the Project Walrider, but there was an interesting Request notice. From: David Annapurna�� To: [email protected]  Subject: Request for Reassignment  To Whom it May Concern,  This is my third asking for reassignment after two months without an answer.  I don’t want to work at Mount Massive any more. I have been an orderly my entire adult life, but have never experience such a consistent level of secrecy and disrespect.  I even have suspicions that some of the patients may be being abused.  I know personally two of them who have been moved to the basement ward and never returned.  If I don’t get an answer to this email, I will be forced to resign, and my very well consider contacting the press.  Thanks for your time.  David Annapurna I said the name aloud then looked through the files for anymore emails or reports that related to this.  David Annapurna.  I couldn’t say I ever heard the name before, but he mentioned the press.  Was this my contact?  Why the fuck didn’t he warn me about this place?! Well, he wasn’t high clearance.  That was a pissy excuse.  He could’ve at least alerted me to the nature of some of these people?  Don’t note, “They have massive anger issues,” when the fucker throws people out of windows!  Put down, “He’s fuckin scary and he’ll eat children!!  Hope you have a pilot’s license.” Have you also met or local physician in practice?  He likes to cut off fingers, and tongues, and peoples balls off!  By the end of this, you’ll no longer have grievances for cold water. Good god, I needed to get out of here. The door gave me some trouble, the knob stuck and my palms had fresh lines of blood.  I managed to force it with little sound and stepped into the connecting hall.  Still no sign of Trager, and anything living for that matter.  I was running on borrowed time, sooner or later I’d get a nasty surprise.  The next door gave no trouble, and the room beyond looked deserted.  Beds had been left at the back near the barred windows, I almost expected to see patients chained to them but they were void of life.  The room felt colder than those that held the doomed people, but I attributed that with the lack of electricity. Even the light at the front of the room felt cold. I walked around the beds but found nothing that stood out from the usual, some files to record but nothing noteworthy.  The ominous doors loomed at the end of the room, and I stood before them studying the dry kindling that comprised their matter, the gray tone adopted after years of neglect.  I inhaled slowly and slipped one open, as always listening for the danger.  The hall beyond was short and didn’t extended into the dark depths as I thought it might, bed frames had been crammed between the walls at the left.  In the other direction was another set of duo doors, blocked with boards. I stared into the small office across from me, the dial tone of a phone hummed on the floor somewhere.  This seemed more than coincidental, this looked exactly like it did in my dream.  Except…there was a key hanging on the wall now.  I slipped over the counter and crossed to it, the label above read Elevator.  Well, now I had it. I took the key and dropped it into my pocket.  The door was jammed but with my weight braced to, the frame snapped.  I tumbled out catching the wall against my hands, the pain stretching through my knuckles nearly overshadowed the menacing scraping noise of those scissors as Trager stepped in from the next hall. “Hey buddy, where you been?” I slammed the door in his face, completely forgetting it was already busted.  He still had to swing it open, while I had already sprint over the counter and lunged into the other room.  I flung the next door shut and retreated to the middle of the room, where the shadows were not diminished by the outside light.  As I slid under a bed, the grating chatter announced Trager’s entrance.  I buried my face in my shoulder to muffle my heavy breathing. “You’re overreacting.”  He snipped the shears and scanned the room.  “How can I set you to ease?  I swear, you’re not gonna get a better deal elsewhere.” Seriously, I didn’t understand what the fuck he was talking about.  Made me hate him even more.  I tensed when it sounded like he was directly beside me, but he was nearer to the wall clinking as he dropped down to check under a bed.  He wasn’t facing me. I crawled out from my hiding spot and slinked across the room, ducking down again and faced the wrong way as he stood up snipping the shears.  For a minute Trager stood in total silence gazing over the room, the odd monocle glinting in what light slipped in through the barred window.  Where did that light brave from, through the storm?  I could almost see him clearly, the sharp textures accenting his skeletal skin.  I slipped the camera into its pack and watched him unmoving.  Waiting.  Waiting for someone to blink, someone to give in.  The rain drummed gently on the glass and I heard something thudding hard, like the desperate rap on a door. My heartbeat. Trager fixed his eyes on something in the distance to the side, and I waited for my opportunity to move.  When he turns his back, when he averts his gaze, that will be my chance.  Thunder crackled right outside the window and a sudden blaze of light lit up the room, his face snapped to where I lay. “Hey!”  He dashed over to me and reached under the bed, as I rolled away and leapt over his back, the door in my sights.  He thrust his elbow up catching my knee in midflight, and I flopped against one of the pillars.  He spun around as I recovered, “Come on now, don’t be difficult.”  He swept the shears out as I twisted away, they slapped my shoulder and I dropped hard to my knee. A bed was right beside me, I had enough time to crawl under as Trager brought his weapon down through the thin mattress.  I yowled when the shears pierced my backside, he grunted as he attempted to force the blades down but the metal frame prevented that.  I jerked out from under them, and rolled away as he tore the shears free.  As he vaulted over the next bed, I crawled under the last and shoved myself upright and sprint for the open door.  I didn’t bother to shut it as I went, I needed to reach that elevator. I exited into the original corridor, with the two rooms and the patients.  The elevator was just down at the end. Everything was as I left it, the shelf shoved aside and the door left wide open and welcoming my dubious return.  I zipped through into the cheerfully lit elevator, with the foreboding blood splatter right at its entrance.  I paid it no heed as I dug the key from my pocket and being as gentle as broad panic would allow, inserted it into the slot.  I hit the down button and stood back, breathing a sigh of relief when the gate jerked shut.  The grumpy machine gave a stubborn lurch before it began to descend.  Once I was stationary I began to notice the painful throbbing in my hands and recalling the wounds, checked to see fresh blood spilling.  This didn’t surprise me.  In my desperation to escape, I had dug my fingertips into whatever was within reach.  Just had to ignore it, and for a while I’d forget. I was slipping down to sit when I heard the gate of the elevator rattle below, and all at once I forgot. “I’m not giving up on you, buddy,” Trager grunted, accompanied by sharp metal clinks and snaps. I backed up into the furthest corner and watched him force the shears between the lock on the elevator, the mechanism snapped and the gate came loose.  He shouldered his way through and raised the shears over his head. No.   I lunged forward snaring his elbow in one hand and used the other to shove him backwards.  Trager looked stunned by this retaliation, and slapped at my face as I bullied him out the opening.  The shears spun wild in his grip grazing my hair, I tucked my face down and glared with the edge of my eye.  He snagged my coat sleeve as I pressed him out, the elevator was still going down throughout this and I was losing leverage as he leaned onto me.  I grabbed the metal frame on my right, rammed him in the chest with my elbow and threw him back out. Just DIE! Trager recovered and lunged, thrusting the metal blades at my face.  I pulled myself UP out of the lift to snag them at the base, and felt them breeze by my forehead.  We were suddenly fighting face to face, I was teetering on the edge while Trager struggled to wrench the scissors from my grip.  If he had another chance to lunge, I didn’t think I could stop him.   Something happened in that instant.  I turned my face up to his and looked into his murky eye.  I swear I saw something there, something fleeting in his expression.  And it scared me.  That ‘look’ in his face scared me more than ‘Doctor’ Rick Trager himself. “Wha—?” he stammered. Just fucking die. My foot slipped and I latched onto his shoulder, jerking him with me.  He yelped as he toppled forward, his fist gave me a good smack as he fell halfway into the elevator.  I winced from the sudden impact and snapped my arm up, when he swung the shears for my head.  He cut a long slice up my sleeve instead.  I stooped lower as they snapped once more in empty air, but it probably wasn’t necessary.  He took one more swipe at me, even as the lift lowered over his torso. The mad doctor gave a sharp squeal of pain as the machine compressed his organs, I heard bones crunch and skin splint as the metal frame nearly cut him in half.  I stepped back as he gave a small whimper, his hand finally releasing the shears - they fell between the connecting floors and thereafter lost to the depths of hell.  With the unyielding obstruction, the elevator ground to a despairing halt.  It was almost worth it. For a while I stood, back pressed against the wall as I gazed at Trager, wondering if this were true.  Was he…dead?  Was it possible to kill him? I pulled out the camera and filmed.  A little bit of blood was dripping from his lips, his oily hair had settled over the top of his bald head in clumps, and he finally shut up.  He must’ve been dead, regardless, he was no longer a threat. “How To Make Trager Juice Step 1:  squeeze.” I tucked the notepad away, wincing as my exposed bone got caught on a loose thread.  It cut at the remaining skin, but didn’t hurt the bone.  I snapped the troublemaker free and zipped the pocket shut, then turned to locate a way out.  There was an escape panel in the roof.  I secured the camera in its hoister and unlatched the panel.  I gave the now deceased Trager a final glare, before I climbed up.  A hot pain made itself known in my backside.  Where he stabbed me. The elevator hadn’t gone down very far, I still needed to reach the ground floor.  I paused under the light that greeted me, but saw a stronger source down a hall where some filing cabinets had fallen over.  An open gate was there as well, a good place to start in my search for the exit.  I stood by the cabinet and turned as far as I could to view the damage.  There was a tear in my coat, revealing my shirt and red had spilled all the way down, soaking the back of my pants almost to the back of my knee.  The wound felt soggy and it hurt when I applied pressure through the coat, but nothing else was broken.  Nothing serious.   I had to take a moment to look at my hands.  Yeah, anything short of decapitation and I’ll feel insulted. This definitely was an older section of the asylum.  The stairs looked ancient, the wood railing worn with the slick polish of a thousand hands, everything was wood and each step creaked as I took it gently.  I couldn’t shake it, but I thought I could smell something burning.  Maybe just the stale air of the hall playing tricks with my mind, it was hard to think fire with the storm outside and the soft rain splattering the windows. I walked down the steps relying on the nightvision, despite how low I was on batteries.  The current charge was still good, a little less than half remained. The gate at the steps bottom was locked effectively blocking my progress, but in a small corridor on the left was a partially rotted wall.  I crept around the railing and peered into the break, where someone had torn away the plaster surface.  The wood was loose enough that I could get some of the panels out, allowing me to lean down and squeeze through.  On the other side was a small office setup and a phone with its typical complaint.  I picked it up and set it on the receiver as I looked over the room. The desk with its neglected monitor seemed out of place in this museum.  Billboards hung on the walls, pinned with notices, a few filing cabinets lined the walls.  A shattered chair lay on the other side of the room, I flipped through the shelves loaded with medical books and boxes of files, but nothing held my interest.  On the wall hung a Team Work plaque.  I scoffed at it and searched the desk.  A few batteries had made home in a CD player. CD player?  They still made those things? I crossed to the door and paused listening before trying the handle.  I winced when my finger brushed against the rough wood.  Careful, I didn’t need to be leaving little blood trails all over the place.  I’d seen enough of that. On the other side was a larger office with only a small desk situated near an outdated furnace.  Heating must have been terrible in this place.  Not far from this set up, a crushed door was pinned in its frame.  The door didn’t matter, there was a massive hole blown out of the wall a few feet away.  I wondered if someone came in here, or if they tossed the filing cabinet through the wall.  It didn’t look like it had been previously tossed.  Glass crinkled underfoot as I stepped through, and lowered the camera to view the new area. The exit was near the kitchen, that’s where Trager caught me.  Bad memories, all of it behind me now.   It was on this floor, I’m sure.  Just needed to find a way over there.  I wasn’t certain where I was.  Some large open hall with overturned desks and files scattered everywhere, chairs lined the walls between the large decorative and ornate pillars embedded with the plaster.  The air was musty, everything used and worn out then forgotten.  This place resembled an atrium or waiting room, but with less grandeur.  Had I gone back in time?  Everything was beginning to look ancient. I had to keep in mind the Asylum was shut down in the seventies, it wasn’t exactly the medieval times but it had been built long before the more modern conveniences.  Most likely when Murkoff took over, the outdated facilities were condemned for public appearance, then they built the newer areas for their precious staff and left everything else – old drafty building and prison blocks - to the patients.  Grade A bastards right there. Then, did this mean the patients had not been in the newer section of Mount Massive when everything began?  It was clear now they traveled between the two sections via their own means, but Murkoff never bunked them with their people?  It did make sense.  If you viewed it from Murkoff’s perspective, whom barely credited their victims with a shred of humanity.  I’m sure they didn’t want the scientists awoken in the dead of night to the shrieking, when god knows what was being done. I walked along filming the walls, taking in details.  This area looked much tamer than the other section of the asylum, a lot less death and gore.  No one had been on this side at the time when the shit storm hit, probably never made it here with the front doors on lockdown.  There were no mechanical doors on this side, I had seen that first hand.  That exit was wide open and waiting for me Movement behind the windowed in office startled me, and I had jumped back several feet before a light shown through at me.  I let out an exasperated sigh as I resumed my path to the dark figure.  I didn’t get too close though, despite the wall between us.  Who knew what He was up to? “Thank God, you survived,” Martin gushed.  I sighed and lowered the camera to my side.  “I feared that secular maniac would carve you up like the others.”  He glanced around, as though he expected someone other than me to be listening or nearby.  “Meet me outside, we’re close now.”  With that vouch of encouragement he turned and jogged off. Close to what?  He took the exit, but that’s as far as I could tell.  This just made matters worse.  I had no idea what this ‘Father’ was getting at, he kept leading me around the Asylum and the idea he could locate me easily never settled well.  Not after he jumped me in the Security room. The door was nailed tight, and the glass was that shatter proof junk.  Unless the big fucker just appeared on the other side, I wasn’t getting through.  It might’ve been easier do tear the rotten wood beneath the windows, but the interior wood was either too thick or reinforced in some manner asylums included in their layout of inconvenience. On the left was a large archway that led into more dark halls, for a change of pace.  This place was a maze of halls, and I was the mouse.  The mouse that smelled burning feathers.  I’m sure something was burning, it was a blistering and out of place scent among these frigid walls.  It had that bad plastic stink from a microwave, or when an idiot burnt the popcorn.  Piercing and lingering after each exhale. The hall took a right, but beyond that at distance trailed the thin line of light beneath a door.  I pushed aside a small cart that was in the path and paused, listening as the oppressive silence wound around.  Something was hissing, a pipe in the wall, the sound was soft and inconsistent.  The light danced in its little slice of heaven and a thick vapor did not go unnoticed as it crept between the thick slats of shadow.  I gave the door a light push and tilt around the frame to see inside, the NV wasn’t necessary in the restroom due to the light wavering in the sink.  I gaged at the foul air that stung my throat and pressed my arm over my mouth.  Ugh. An arm and leg roasted away, the skin hissed and bubbled, most of it scorched with dark smoke billowing off the cooked pieces.  For some reason they were on fire.  I didn’t understand why, or what sort of logic could be behind this.  Did someone light them or was someone playing with a lighter?  This did not bode well.  The smog began to dissipate immediately with the door open, but not enough to clear the air or make it any more breathable.  Fucking hell, this didn’t even surprise me anymore.  I wish it did, I really do, but I think it’s expected by now. The fumes were making me nauseous, prompting me to shut the door and move on.  It wouldn’t be worth it to risk checking the stalls if the pyromaniac was still there, more unstable than usual due to smoke inhalation.  I didn’t doubt there was a fire here somewhere, and I’d stumble upon it too soon.  How it came to be was a mystery, but I should either do something about it if I could or try a little harder to find that exit.  Now. Let this place burn to the ground, but not before I’m outside to watch. I returned to the foremost corridor, passing by pictures of the Asylum’s founders, and an abandoned wheelchair.  Somewhere a patient or another of Murkoff’s surviving personnel shrieked, I barely paused before trying the unobstructed door at the end of the hall.  Tile walls met the NV, and as I entered the distant echo of crashing came.  I waited in the doorframe staring up and blinking, the sound of my steady breathing seemed thunderous in the small space.  The noise eventually settled into a less threatening fumbling, I tried to figure out its origins as I shut the door and slipped down the small hall.  Could it be people in the walls?   It was a short walk then a left, and I stopped to peer around the corner and listen for the natural symphony of the Asylum.  Most old buildings creaked and settled, this place murdered and screamed. I shut off the NV and scanned around.  A large shower room for the male ward, rectangular in shape with a wall built through the center.  Showers lined one wall with lockers on the other, benches to sit at and laundry baskets scattered near the lockers.  A couple of the doors looked to have been torn open, I envisioned someone was searching for the guard that lay bloody and beaten on the floor. I stepped by the man and checked the backside of the room where it ended via uprooted lockers.  A box of files had been dumped here, the contents ruined by a lot of blood and water leaking from a cracked shower head.  I flipped through some of the salvable pages and found a note that was pertinent. From: [email protected]  To: [email protected]  Subject: Annapurna, employee no. 531920  Mr. Walsh,   Please accept the immediate resignation of Orderly 531920, David Annapurna, and process him as a patient of Mount Massive to treat his prosecutorial delusions. Treatment should continue until the time of his death. Thanks, buddy.  Rick Trager  Murkoff R&D This couldn’t possibly be the same Rick Trager that liked to tie people down and cut them up.  Not by a long shot.  I noted the guard as I walked by, his wounds appear fresh and the puddle of blood still crept along the tile’s cracks.  Which only meant his killer was nearby, which didn’t mean a whole lot.  Every other persons killer was nearby, it would be weird if I ran into a none psychotic, lucid patient.  I pause and note a trail of bare feet prints leading around the next corner, and the only path currently open to me.  The shower room had excellent acoustics, but I carried on with caution when slipping around the corner. Urinals lined the wall on the other side, no lockers of alcoves for a person to crawl into.  The end of the room had no light leaving the NV as my only visibility.  The smell of smoke was getting stronger and the air was unbearably stuffy and thick, I was coughing before I opened the door and stepped into a wall of heat.  My left was blocked by tables and cabinets, I was forced to the right where the visibility was obstructed by the thick hazy.  I lingered in the next hall and checked my corners before stepping out. High above, windows wavered with orange and yellow streaks.  I walked along the wall determined to find a way around rather than through, I didn’t care how many magnet key cards I needed to pull off dead security.  The hall on the left ended in what looked like a blockade, with tables crammed at a door just to discourage the trip. The only door into the room, cafeteria the plate said, was stacked with more tables and containers, setting me a bit to ease.  I didn’t need to fight the door yet, and no one could break it down.  I navigated around discarded furniture, a broken desk and a wheelchair, toward a shattered door frame beckoning at the other end.  There had to be a way around, there had to be an alternate route to the cafeteria. The fire crackled on the other side, and the smoke seeped through a high open window.  I breathed a little easier upon stepping into the next hall, across the way another door nailed shut.  I ventured left listening to the wood crackle behind the walls, sweat gathered on my brow to slip down around my eyes.  The halls end was obstructed by all manner of useless crap, but a door had been left ajar on the right.  I was beginning to surrender to the concept of just climbing through that window. Behind the door was a small utility closet.  Fuck. There was only the open window into the heart of hell.  Fuck.  I retraced my steps and found bloody handprints on the edge of the window.  Fuck.  I climbed up, getting a face full of heat as I pulled myself over into the room.  Everything was on fire.  Even the fire was on fire. I hate this place. Upturned lunch tables, long table carts, everything piled and jammed in every direction as though orchestrated to utilize the mother of bonfires. The wooden tables were a wild blaze and at first glance it looked like there was no way through without roasting, but the floor ahead was plenty clear enough.  If I didn’t fall sideways.  The metal wasn’t on fire, only the walls and most of the ceiling.  I noted to myself to use caution with the camera, the heat could damage the memory drive and that would just wreck this entire ordeal. No matter what, I would get out of here with all my evidence, everything.  That had always been my goal in the beginning, and it has been what kept me going.  It might seem petty, but someone had to remember what happened here, and that everyone had been killed by something – the former victims, Chris Walker, a lunatic with a fancy for taking people apart.  And people were not done dying. The heat had swelled within its small confines until the room had all but burst, I coughed against the smoke and kept low out of the heavy fumes.  I stepped around the small pieces of kindling that had already fallen from the ceiling, scanning the bright yellow fingers for the safest path.  My face was beginning to feel parched as my sweat dried, and my fingers ached against the brutal onslaught.  I ducked to the side as some of the timber from above crashed down, sending a swirl of red embers across the tile.  Needed to get out of here before it collapsed. Some tables were stacked over each other, but I could see no other way around.  I pulled my collar up around my neck and ears before I knelt low and crawled underneath.  A couple dozen trays had been scattered across the floor, which I kept away from as I stood up and stopped.  A patient sat on the table beside my current path, his feet had red coloration but that could have been the orange flames mingling with my vision.  I coughed a bit at the smoke as I stepped closer to him. “I had to burn it.  All of it.”  Subtly, I raised the camera from the pack to film him. “Murkoff took so much from us.  Used us.”  He held up his hands, indicating the mutilation.  If he turned his head to my left, he looked almost normal.  “Turned us into these things because nobody cares about a few forgotten lunatics.”  He dropped his hands over his lap and slumped forward. “So let it burn.  Burn the whole god damned thing down.  Get out.” He indicated me with a thumb.  “If you still want to live.  You can get out through the kitchen.” Good to know.  But the kitchen was on fire too. “I’m not the only victim here, not by a long shot. I watch a man wait to burn to death, the most painful death imaginable, rather than stay in this place.” I put the notepad away, and wrinkled my nose at the stench of burning meat.  A Murkoff or someone was pinned under a table, rotten and on fire, a horrible combination.  There were not many areas open to me, most the tables were engulfed with flames or getting there, I crawled over a shelving cart left sideways.  A piece of timber from above hit my back, and I swatted it away before damage could be done.  I picked up the pace, before the whole roof could crash down, or worse. I snapped the camera into its hoister and pulled my coat up over my head more, as I navigated the furnace.  A table in my path was catching fire, but not enough yet to deter me.  On the other side more of the staff lay slain, dried blood stuck to their cloths and fire chewing on their skin.  I was able to get under a shelf into a side of the cafeteria that hadn’t been overwhelmed by flames.  I exited through an open door to the other side, and shut it behind me.  To keep the fire from following.  I fixed my coat and fanned some of the heat from its surface.  Felt good to be dry and warm for once, it was difficult to recall what being cold and damp felt like.  The cool threads digging into the fibers of my coat reminded me that we’d be reacquainted here very shortly.   The hall went two ways, the right had nothing but a dead end and boarded up double doors.  To suffice my curiosity I made sure those nails were tight, then wove my way around broken wheelchairs and a crushed shelf to the other side.  Cabinets and industrial shelves had been stuffed into the hall, my only path would be the dark corridor that was open opposite of the way to the inferno.  Things were looking up. An archway straight ahead would have led to another room, if not for the stacks of shelves and whatnot packed into it.  Continuing to the right was another set of double doors, one open and accessible.  The churning roll of the flames had died down once I turned the corners into this corridor, and the creeping chill enveloped my skin.  How despairing the decrepit and harmless walls around me were less unfavorable, than that of the inferno. When I entered the office wing, I shut the door and exchanged out the battery.  I examined the room over extensively seeking a way out, an alternative path much better than charging through a kitchen that was on fire.  There was little to this room, it was large but most of that were the segregation walls and an area to the side encircled by a counter, inside, the walls had a few bookcases loaded with files and books.  A receptionist’s desk?  I glanced over a few but it looked like outdated pages before Murkoff.   Through an open doorway on the left side was another member of Murkoff slumped over his desk and blood staining the carpet under him.  His wrists were black, but that was the most of his injuries.  He might’ve committed suicide, but why?  Had he received word of what was happening in the Asylum and given up hope for escape?  What had been so horrible? The other side of the room had another desk, and a dead employee slumped beside the base, soaked with blood and multiple wounds wrecked his body.  An obvious contrast between him and his colleague.  A few files had been left on the desk, I flipped through finding one that made me uneasy IF YOU’RE SEEING THINGS, SAY SOMETHING. There’s no shame in Psychopathologist Proximity Stress Disorder (PPSD). Talk to your supervisor to get help from a Murkoff Success Counselor. Well, sure!  We want you to further the Murkoff Charity Association, also called BULLSHIT.  And you too can further OUR research with your mangled corpse, or highjack your brain and make you see some scary shit! Trager had also mentioned cutting employee pensions, wonder if this was part of his scheme to collect more bodies for the fucked up carnival ride Murkoff was running.  None of this surprised me, this was Murkoff after all.  Every underhanded and malicious tactic seemed to have been employed by the cooperation in this Project Walrider, and now they reaped what they had sewn.  Death, chaos, religion, and me at the center of it all. Burning was too good for it. There was little else in the remaining section of the room, just a box of pamphlets warning about sanitization work areas, nothing to note.  Nowhere to go.  The double doors on the other side were nailed tight, unless I really wanted to fight them.  I still had no idea what would be on the other side.  Nothing? I returned to the previous hall and looked over the shelving that was stacked there, and found a few carts and things that I could dislodge.  Easy, just drag them out and push the rest through.  I squeezed through, then stopped on the other side to check my back.  The fabric was stiff but that meant the bleeding had stopped.  I’d need a mild procedure later to fix that, the wound will have set long before stitches and I was certain it needed stitches. More dark, more failed security.  Another door on my left, barricaded shut from the other side with shelves and a table.  Might be one of the doors I’d viewed from the cafeterias hall, I’m certain I did come from that direction.  I stepped along murky windows hearing…a curios tapping, almost like the rattle of pellets, but I couldn’t find the source.  It faded as I continued and I decided that was a plus.  Whenever I heard that sound…. A plaque on the wall indicated Baths and Laundry ahead, and the Cafeteria was indicated the former hall I’d come from.  From where I stood, the faint outline of a medical table was visible, laying parallel to the wall.  Beyond that a door bolted up from inside the room and therefore not worth wasting my battery.  The NV was also giving me a mild ache, the monotone green haze dug into my concentration.   I could see through some of windows on the wall, within was a room with large vats, tile floors, but I had no way of accessing it.  At the moment it didn’t seem important, unless it provided an immediate means of escape.  There was no visible door that I could make out. The hall took a left and at the end light scared away the dark, but there was a door at the wall just before the corner.  Above the frame a plate labeled the room Emergency Sprinklers.  That seemed useful, if not better than nothing at all.  Though this section of the Asylum was out of date, it would still have the barest of fire prevention.  Either it was shut off along with the lockdown, or the basement was now a pool. I entered the dim room and found a pressure gauge, surrounded by its large pipes and a tank to the side.  The gauge was not as helpful as I had thought and read zero pressure for the water.  There had to be a way to get water back into the system.  I had no idea where to start, no map was available to indicate where additional tanks would be located. Sounded like someone in the floor above was having a wrestling match.  I stepped out of the room staring up, wondering if whatever was up there would tumble down here.  Or were people trying to escape the blaze that was catching.  Maybe both. At the halls end, where the light began, was another plate reminding where the Baths and Laundry Room were, and the cafeteria that was currently on fire.  This hall would lead back to it if it wasn’t blocked by the shelves and cabinets I had viewed from the opposite side.  It might’ve been easier to climb over, if it looked stable at all.  I sighed and pivoted to the lit hall unexplored. There had to be a way to redirect water into the emergency tanks.  The bath would be a good place to start, I’d have to check and get out of there fast.  Or find a bucket for water, that would be better than nothing.  I wasn’t asking much. The only light source was a lone lamp.  Beyond, the next room was dead with electricity, but on the opposing side was another light.  From my position I could make out silhouettes, the shapes obscured by the window frame on my side.  I moved towards the open doorway, where the door was I didn’t care, it wasn’t on its hinges and therefore could NOT be locked.  I jerked in my tracks catching the flutter of a shadow on the far wall.  I saw that!  I saw that! Then the big fucker marched into view, and I receded to the dark hall I had stepped from.  I knelt down and checked the corners edge to see if he was coming, I don’t think he saw me.  Chris stepped through the shadows towards the doorframe and paused, examining the area over.  In my new position, with the camera aimed and zoomed I could easily identify the body of Murkoff’s own, suspended by a cord fixed to his throat.  Another suicide? No matter what, I was getting out of this place.  Whatever it took.