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puhpandas · 6 months

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What's an average conversation between Evan and Gregory like?

(also inspired by an instagram prompt about a flashlight duo sickfic)

Burrow-Nest-Fort

(2,922 words)

Gregory gets sick overnight, and Evan, who stayed over, gets sick as well. They hang out in their little quarantine together with no worries whatsoever.

Gregory groans, long and miserable as Evan takes the thermostat he found in the bathroom out of his mouth. "100.4." Evan says.

"Whyyyy..." Gregory asks aloud, bags under his eyes and completion pale as he sprawls out under his comforter. "I didn't even do anything."

"Nobody gets sick on purpose." Evan smiles a bit, putting the thermostat down.

"You slept right next to me like, all night." Gregory points out. "Do you feel sick at all?"

Now that Evan's thinking about it, he does feel that little prickle in the back of his throat that's the universal sign of an incoming sickness. "...Yeah."

He'd spent the night after coming home with Gregory after school on a Friday like he usually does. Throughout the night, he and Gregory had shared his bed, and Gregory had woken up this morning sick as a dog with no fanfare whatsoever.

Gregory groans again, the roughness in his throat accentuated by the dragged out line. "Great." He frowns, and the stuff clogging up his nose is evidently heard in his voice. "I get sick for no reason and now I make you have to deal with it too."

"Its okay." Evan says genuinely. "Its not like you wanted me to get sick. It's my fault for needing to get in bed with you when I'm too much of a baby anyway."

Gregory just narrows his eyes at Evan at that, his already sunkissed tan cheeks redder from the fever. He just sighs, letting his head fall back against his pillow. "I'm not even responding to that. You know what I'd say anyway."

Yeah. He does. The same thing Gregory's been telling him the past multiple months every time Evan feels sorry for himself. Evan himself sighs, feeling sorry for, well... feeling sorry for himself. "Yeah."

Theres a short spurt of silence after that, but its broken by Gregory. "Whatever." He sucks in through his nose, trying to breathe through the gunk. "Hey, since you're already gonna be a prisoner like me, come here."

Evan raises a brow. "Why?"

Gregory reaches at the foot of his bed to grab his laptop that has ten-thousand stickers on the back. He opens the lid, patting the empty space on the bed next to him. "Let's watch TV, or something. If I don't do something other than lieing here I'm gonna explode."

Evan giggles. "You look like it, too." He says, looking at Gregory's extremely red face from the undoubtedly harsh fever. "You better stop talking until you get a drink or your throat will feel awful later."

Gregory let's his head tilt back against the pillow as he shifts to get more comfortable. "Is my Dad home?"

He takes a look outside the window and sees the white van in the driveway. "Yeah?"

"Go tell him about our predicament." Gregory tells him. "I'd rather get the smothering over with before we get in the middle of an episode."

Evan smiles instinctively at that. "Okay." He replies. "But I'm about to be sick too, okay? It's almost my time to be bedridden too." He says on the way out of Gregory's room.

"Then hoard the snacks while you're down there!" Gregory calls at him, his voice sounding like death.

Evan only says the keywords 'Gregory' and 'sick' before Freddy is thundering up the stairs with Evan struggling to keep up with an armful of junk food.

He only gets to the door seconds after Freddy, but he's already doing said smothering. Somehow, three new throw blankets and a few pillows have appeared out of thin air, and are being tucked around Gregory like a nest of fluff and plush.

"What happened?" Freddy asks, ever worried. "Did something cause this?"

Evan watches Gregory shrug from his bed as he walks around the other side of Freddy, dumping the snacks onto his bedside table. "I dont know." He says, sniffling. "I just woke up sick. And he probably will be too."

Evan knows Gregory must have pointed at him because Freddy is smothering him the next time his brain catches up. "Do you feel alright, Evan?" Freddy asks him, crouching down and feeling his forehead and his temples. "Or should I quarantine the both of you."

Evan laughs slightly, and cringes at how the prickling is steadily getting worse. His head begins to feel a little warm. "Quarantine, I guess." He smiles. "I feel it coming."

"I am sorry." Freddy looks apologetic, despite him doing nothing. He pats Evan on the arm, and hes at the door in an instant. "Get comfortable, you two. I will make you both some soup and orange juice and get you some medicine later."

"Thank you!" Evan calls out half-hazardously as Freddy leaves the room. Gregory pats the little empty space in the next Freddy built for him and hoists his laptop on his knees. "We gotta pick something to watch."

When Evan finally sits down and gets settled with at least two blankets wrapped around his shoulders, he checks the laptop screen to see Gregory browsing an array of TV shows on some streaming service.

Gregory wrestles a hand out from underneath the blankets to point at one. "That one okay?"

Evan laughs at bit, making a miserable noise when his nose begins to clog up. "Yeah. Watching a baking show when your aunt isnt home and we cant get out of bed to make anything is a great idea."

Gregory huffs, and Evan cant see his face, but he imagines he's making one. "No I wont." He says. "My aunts cupcakes are better than any of these people could make."

Evan wiggles a bit, letting his body relax fully into the bed. Gregory's shoulder is pressed against his, and a bit of his hair is touching his forehead. "Stop." He laughs. "You're gonna make me want some."

Gregory laughs, pressing play and clicking on the first episode of a random season. When the episode starts playing and introducing contestants, he makes grabby hands at Evan. Evan just pulls his arm out of the blanket cocoon hes wrapped in and hands him a bag of chips, grabbing crackers for himself.

"This is a Halloween show." Evan points out. "Its January."

"This one is funny though." Gregory replies on the other side of the pillow, sniffling. "They have to carve stuff out of big pumpkins for like, a setting for their food."

Evan's brows raise. "Oh."

Theres this girl that says shes in the show because shes alone and wants to win the prize money for herself and to show everyone that she can do it. Shes one of the only people in the roster who doesnt have a partner or kids at home. Evan thinks hes rooting for her. Theres another guy who looks like hes fresh out of school and says he wants the prize money to start his career and open his own location.

"I'm rooting for him." Gregory says after munching on a handful of Lays. "I want to see how far he gets."

"You just pick the ones that look like theyll struggle so you can feel bad for them." Evan points out.

"I pick the ones who might struggle to watch how they fare against everyone else." Gregory corrects. "Its fun. The skill of watching reality TV is one you havent yet learned, Evan."

Evan scoffs a bit, laughing, and Gregory shifts next to him. "You'll learn as you watch." Gregory tells him. "Trust me."

So after that, Evan just stays quiet and watches. Gregory makes comments now and then, and then later complains about how his throat feels like sandpaper. Evan watches people rush around the kitchen and sketch elaborate sets for their food to be showcased in and carve faces and bodies and animals into pumpkins.

The judges are harsh and kind at the same time. A team's food gets burnt. Some come out perfect. A team gets pounded by the judges and the team the the guy Gregory is rooting for is on is the same the girl Evan's rooting for is. Their team wins the challenge and gets an advantage.

By the end of the first episode, Evan thinks he understands why Gregory watches so much. "Wow." He says just above a whisper, the prickling throat having finally set in all the way. Having nothing to focus on and away from how crap he feels makes him groan in misery, and Gregory isnt far behind him to follow.

"Anthony needs to step it up to impress the judges." Gregory manages in-between sipping at the bottle of water by his bed. "He almost screwed up the decoration."

Evan rolls his eyes, and thinks about how proud winning a challenge made the girl he's rooting for proud of herself. It makes him happy.

"I just want to see what happens next." Evan says, smiling. "I've never watched a lot of TV like this."

"You're missing out." Gregory replies. "Its fine. We can catch you up during our little quarantine."

Their little quarantine. Evan smiles outwardly. That sounds fun. Even if being sick sucks.

Its right before the second episode that Freddy returns to Gregory's room, a big piping bowl of chicken noodle soup in his hands with about two entire hand towels wrapped around the bottom and two spoons stuck in the bowl. He puts a tall glasse of orange juice on the bedside table next to Evan, and the other on the window sill next to Gregory.

Evan unwraps his sore limbs from the cocoon and sits up on the bed, pushing his head with a pillow as he and Gregory use their legs as a table. "Thank you..." Evan says to Freddy, grateful but not without the layer of guilt underneath. "I appreciate it."

"Its no problem, Evan." Freddy smiles in that kind, genuine way of his that's never ever made Evan feel on edge or nervous. Evan grins when Freddy pats him on the head, and Gregory smiles when he does the same to him. "Now I'm sorry, you two," Freddy trails off, pulling a bottle of cough syrup out of an invisible pocket. "But medicine before food, please."

He and Gregory both make ick noises at that, making faces. Freddy laughs at them while he pours the medicine into individual spoons for the two of them, and Evan watches with a twisted lip. "It will make you feel better."

"It better if it tastes like that." Gregory sticks his tongue out. "They're trying to kill us."

"Quite the opposite." Freddy shakes his head, holding out the spoon for Gregory to take first. "Its better to just get it over with, Superstar."

Evan watches as Gregory twists his face into the most dreadful expression hes ever seen, and he cant help but smile in amusement when he makes a show at swallowing it down and making disgusted noises.

Evan takes his with much less more fuss, but his eyes water at the awful fake quote unquote 'grape taste'. He cant help the way his face scrunches up, and both Gregory and Freddy laugh at him.

"Evan," Freddy begins suddenly after capping the medicine and taking the spoons back. His voice sounds more serious, and Evan "I'm going to have to tell your family something about why you aren't home."

Immediately, Evan's stomach drops to his feet.

He must have reacted outwardly, because Freddy frowns. "I know." He says. "But it will be alright. I'll tell them exactly why you're staying over, and--" He cuts himself off, and Evan dares to acknowledge the faint clench in Freddys jaw. "Surely if anything they would not care more than they would be upset."

And Evan finds that Freddys right. He's so used to Michael being in his face all the time that he forgets that his Father is at best neglectful and at worst barely present in his life. If his Father were to react in any way other than a quick 'alright' to the call, it would be a thanks that Evan is out of his hair for at least a few days.

The thought alone tends tears to his eyes. He ducks his head, squeezing his eyes shut when the tears make his nose that much more clogged and his face from the fever that much more unpleasantly hot. "Just tell them that I'm staying the night instead of being sick."

Better to not say he's sick in case his Father suddenly catches onto the maybe lie and thinks more than Evan wants him to. Besides, he could deal without the extra attention from Michael.

Freddy looks like he wants to say something about that, but he doesnt. When Evan peeks up through his home-cut accidental bangs, Freddy just nods, choosing not to linger.

"Alright, Evan." He smiles reassuringly. "Do not worry about it, okay? I'll tell them exactly what you told me to. Just let me handle it."

Just let me handle it. Something about that lingers to him, and it sticks to the walls of his mind.

He's never had anyone to handle it for him before. He's never had someone to take the reigns in regard to his dad and brother to the point where Evan isnt involved. Where he went have to worry about it.

He nods after a few moments, and Evan almost tears up again at the patience. "Okay." He says simply, his voice cracking and rough. He swallows, and ignores the gravelly feeling. "Yes, I would... I would appreciate that. A lot."

Nobody says anything after that, but the silence in comfortable. Freddy just grabs the back of Evan's head and holds it to his chest in a hug, and does the same to Gregory. Gregory snakes an arm around Evan's back and holds him close.

They stay that way for another minute until they break apart, and Freddy smiles that comforting smile at him that's like a weight taken off of his shoulders. "I will handle it." Freddy says again, jerking his head towards the soup. "Now finish your soup, boys. It'll be good for your throat."

Then he shuts the door, and the room is silent. The only sound is Gregorys table fan he always has running and the faint sound of cars outside. The heater kicks on in the house, and the sunlight spills through the open window and casts onto their little bed nest as the only source of light.

Gregory leans back into the bed and gets comfortable, dragging Evan back with him when all he's doing is picking at a roque thread in the hem of his shirt. When Evan looks up, Gregory is smiling with dry, cracked lips, and despite looking like death, its warm.

He doesnt mention anything that just happened. He doesnt try to guess what Evan's deal is and try to help him like he usually does, and Evan's thankful. Gregory seems to understand that now isnt one of the times to do that.

So Evan let's it go. And when Gregory gestures the the soup and nudges Evan's spoon closer to him, Evan just starts eating.

They're back to commentating the show in now time. The soup is only warm instead of hot now, but it still soothes their throat, and the steam clears up their sinuses some. Gregory keeps cracking jokes about the contestants and making fun of the corny host, and Evan laughs along with him, drinking orange juice when his throat prickles.

They marathon the season until the sun passes over the house and all that's left is the dim white sky of winter. The team with both of their favorites makes it to the finale.

The two teams fight over the biggest pumpkin. One of them is uncoordinated and theres a heated argument. Their pumpkin falls and breaks. The other splits up and finishes the pumpkin set in record time and completes their concept with no forks.

By the end, the team they both ended up rooting for wins, and Evan watches as the guy Gregory was rooting for gets his career started, and the girl he was rooting for talks about how she'll open her own bakery and she has friends for life now.

The soup is gone and the orange juice drained by the time the season is over. Gregory says theres eleven more available to watch.

Gregory puts on another season, and Evan burrows further into his little burrito and this time picks a contestant after the team's are decided to be against Gregory.

They watch a whole nother one, and halfway through, the sky outside darkens early like it does in winter, but despite the exhaustion from being sick, Evan wants to go another few hours.

Eventually, right near the finale, Evan and Gregory are forced to leave their blanket armor because Chica apparently came over at some point and baked them cupcakes as a suprise. She brings hot chocolate with her with peppermint sticks in them for their throats, and they eat through them like beavers with wood.

They dont move all day. They only get up to go to the bathroom at the end of the second season (Evan's team won, by the way) to brush their teeth, then they're back in their burrow-nest-fort without asking Freddy to get the air mattress.

Evan still feels like crap when he smushes his face into Gregory's pillow, but it's alright because they're in their little quarantine, and he's out like a light either way, looking forward to another season tomorrow.

ao3 link

#the show theyre watching is halloween wars btw.#i was inspired because my sister and i have been watching face off together (goated show) and reality tv has been on the mind.#ive always been a fan of baking shows and halloween wars has been a favorite since i was a kid because of the elaborate pumpkin sets lol #just wanted to write them hanging out. being bros.#nothing too crazy happens and evan doesnt let his family ruin having fun because for once #he has his real family to handle it for him sometimes. that means the world to him.#evan also was thinking william might think that hes somehow done that 'toughening up'#williams been pounding into his brain since he was little.#of course its toxic masculinity but by now evan knows its not right and he is the way he is and isnt changing.#its just not nice to hear. and michael would be teasing him for 'rebelling' and shit like that #also kudos to you if you noticed the girl evan was rooting for reflected him =)#pandas writes #my fics #flashlight duo oneshots #flashlight duo #gregory #evan #oneshot #sickfic #fnaf gregory #evan afton #basically just put prompts i thought could apply to this oneshot at the top lol

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seventh-district · 7 days

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not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

#today's gone Badly and i'm upset but instead of venting abt it i'm gonna channel that energy into doing a bit of tag rambling abt Boothill #well. less abt Him and more abt uh. self-analyzing my anxiety surrounding contributing to fandoms. he's just today's catalyst #like. i know it's mostly a me thing. i'm hypersensitive to criticism and very conflict avoidant + socially anxious + perfectionistic etc.#so I'm the one that keeps myself from posting more stuff out of fear of being criticized or called-out for what i've made #bc inevitably Someone's gonna see it and think its OOC or a problematic take or they'll misread my intent. etc etc what have you #but like. that's inevitable. there's no way to communicate every single thing with all of the nuance required to avoid misunderstandings #and other times it's not a misunderstanding it's just a difference of opinions and that's Fine!! there's no accounting for personal taste #there's no accounting for several things actually. taste�� bias‚ lore-knowledge‚ differing levels of chronic-online-ness‚ etc #so this isn't me complaining abt the state of fandom culture (although i do think. sometimes. ppl take shit a bit too seriously)#but anyways all of this is mostly just anxiety-fueled. it's not like i very often actually even receive negative feedback or anything #if anything ppl tend to tell me that i'm overthinking it and killing my own fun and worried that my stuff is more OOC than it is #which like. yeah. Yeah u right :) but that's just the way that i am! always losing the idgaf war i suppose #anyways what's Boothill got to do w this ur wondering. well. i've been thinking abt the quickly emerging concept that he's illiterate.#and it just. has me feeling a lot of ways. and watching ppl disagree over it has me feeling some Bad ways. bc it's def a loaded topic!#if you'll pardon the pun there. and i don't rlly have anything new to add other than that i'm conflicted abt it.#like yeah i saw the leaks days ago. of him mentioning 'not hitting the books' much as a child when we ask him why he sends voice messages #or voice Transcriptions ig. ykwim. and like. *braces for impact* ...i liked it? like. it doesn't feel right to call it endearing #i'm not trying to infantilize him. ok that's not the right word either but ugh. you know? what i mean?? who am i kidding even i don't know #it's not quite right to say that it feels like Representation either. but it's something close i guess #as a southern person myself who didn't receive a 'complete' education due to factors that weren't to do with my intelligence #the concept of seeing him as a capable force to be reckoned with and respected who also happens to have not received much formal education #i like that. i do. but there's so many issues w it at the same time. like. as i said‚ being southern myself has me Wary of the way Hoyo is-#writing him. as well as of the way that the fandom is taking the bits of his lore and running away w them. and i'm Very aware of how ppl-#will see a southern character and be All Too Eager to agree that they're lacking intelligence based on our Redneck™ stereotype #sigh. and before we even go too far with this. it's not even confirmed that hes completely illiterate. which is a valid criticism i've seen #there's Multiple reasons that could make him prefer voice to text. but regardless. i'm just worried that ppl will misconstrue my intentions #like. example: that edit i made the other day of him saying 'no thanks i can't read'. wasn't me playing into the stereotype of-#'haha dumb country boy can't read!' it was. in my eyes. something he'd say as a joke to make light of a potential insecurity #like. i think there's far more depth to Boothill's character if ppl could look past the surface. and i dont wanna contribute to the problem #but sometimes ppl Will have stereotypical traits and i wish the same could apply to characters as long as it's done Thoughtfully.

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arolesbianism · 5 months

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Wendy 💥

#rat rambles #starve posting #thinking oh so hard abt my terrible son #god dont starve is so messed up for giving every character heaps of examination quotes to sift through I love it sm #its such an agonizing but delightful experience to scroll through heaps of dialogue thats just a character going yep thats a rock #only to get absolutely sucker punched by the random like super impactful piece of dialogue that ruins your life #or just the event sections where we get to see them be silly billies for a bit and it just makes me so happy #like wendy's cawnaval and hallowed nights candy dialogue make me so happy and sad at the same time #along with winters feast but mostly just because of the holiday cheer dialogue #the hallowed nights candy dialogue is my personal favorite tho simply because wendy is so silly #I love watching this kid get more and more excited abt the events throughout each ones dialogue its absolutely delightful #I also like wendy's general soft spot for food and its funny to me that this sad wet british boy actually likes spicy food #abby doesnt tho another tick to add to the shes just like me fr list #I sometimes wonder what abby's favorite food would be in a world where she was playable #realistically probably also banana pop but I think it'd be fun if it was smth different #in particular my personal hc is that her favorite food is jerky partially cause she just likes jerky and partially because her dad would #sometimes buy jerky for the twins and abby would always try to get wendy to give her half once she was done eating hers #I also wonder the same abt charlie and the og ds exclusive characters but thats less important to me #Ill have to go read through wheeler and walani's food dialogue for inspiration at some point tho I think thatd be fun #I know wheeler like scrambled eggs but thats not an option so rip to her #not a clue abt walani tho Ive only read like half of her dialogue #I should read all of it tho I like her a lot I just forgot where I left off #and the rest of the gang can explode ig idk #idk I might read through wilba dialogue at some point and I might reread wagstaff dialogue too but theyre not top priority #I think the next character I wanna do a proper sit down and read for is wickerbottom #Ive read decent chunks of her dialogue already but pretty scattered chunks #but yeah Ill probably not get to that for a lil bit since Im in too much of a wendy mood rh #Ive also been thinking abt roleswap wendy a Lot lately I need to design him soon #mostly because I need to one up that w3n-d concept design because I am. not a fan lol.#I will be taking inspiration from the almost bug like eyes tho its kinda ugly but I also kind of like it at the same time

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pizzee · 2 years

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here there be monsters

GET THIS BEAST AWAY FROM ME. i’ve been writing this for so long o my lord it was an endeavour let me tell ya. here’s the jack backstory fic no one asked for but i deliver anyway, here on Ao3 where the formatting is actually decent. warnings for a brief description of a panic attack and general horror elements (blood, mentions of death, monsters, etc)

AND THANK U @tiptapricot FOR BETA READING I LOVE U 💋💋FRUIT GOD NATION RISE UO

From a distant dream, somewhere on a shoreline miles away where it’s not quite dusk but not yet dawn, he sits and listens. Jack, she says, and he glances up to meet her gaze. Jack, she repeats, then reaches out and shakes him awake.

Lissa sits over him, a string of pearls strung up in a smile, eyes glittering with palpable excitement. She whispers his name again, his nickname, then his hidden name revealed to no one.

“Idiot.” She laughs, poking his cheek. “Come on, get up!”

He groans and bats her hand away, gently shoving her off before rolling over onto his stomach, right to the edge of their bed. He adjusts his covers a bit tighter and tries to ignore her. He knows it’s futile—she’s relentless when she gets like this, like there’s jet fuel heating her veins, pumping her heart, forcing her to move—but it doesn’t hurt to try. Jack likes his sleep. Lissa always has other ideas about what he can be doing.

“Come on!” Another shake, then a breath of frustration and Jack knows exactly what that means. There’s no preparing for it. He braces.

The covers are ripped off and thrown to the side, and so his pleasant bubble of warmth is gone and he’s left splayed out on the bed in the night chill. There’s no sleeping now.

He rolls back over and throws one arm over his face, peeking an eye out to look at his sister grinning. “What do you want?”

She pokes his cheeks, alternating sides while he fills them with air and lets her push it out. She laughs. He smiles.

Lissa points to the side. “The eclipse.”

Jack shifts to glance where she’s pointing, out the single window in their tiny room. The moon is bright. It’s orange. He bites back the bit of dread that always worms its way into his heart like a curse at the sight of it and keeps up with the act, fondly indulging, the fearless big brother. Jack swallows around the stone in his throat and pushes up to sit, letting Lissa crawl onto his back so he can carry her outside.

“Oof, you’re getting too big for this,” he groans quietly, allowing her to slowly push open the door of their room so they can tiptoe out of the house. Jack’s careful to step only on the floorboards he knows creak the quietest, especially when they move past where Mamá sleeps restlessly on the sofa.

“Maybe you’re getting too old,” Lissa says directly into his ear once they’re out of Mamá’s earshot, then grabs his head and redirects it in the direction she wants to go. “Ándale!”

On he goes, out through the house and up the hill, to the spot behind a row of bushes where a makeshift campsite sits. They made it last summer, on the first full moon they didn’t leave. When Mamá didn’t drag them out of the house with no explanation of where they were going, only that they were moving. On the first night of many nights they’d spent in one place in a long, long time. Jack lets Lissa hop off his back and follows her past the leaves and branches to a soft patch of land where she plops down onto the grass. He settles beside her with a sigh.

“Your nightgown is gonna get dirty.”

Lissa rolls her eyes in a manner that’s so like their mamá he has to laugh. She shoves him for it, and he apologizes, and they sit side by side, staring at the bright orange moon looming above like a bad omen. It’s so vibrant it’s almost red, oozing moonlight like an open wound. Jack shudders, then tries to disguise it as a shiver, wrapping his arms around himself.

Something grazes his shoulder and Jack nearly jumps, but it’s just Lissa, her touch staying light and easy. He glances at her.

She smiles. “Scared?”

No, Jack wants to say. He should say, should shake his head and be ok.

Moonlight.

His nails dig into his arms.

“Yes.”

There’s no more words between them. She moves closer, leans against his side, and falls asleep with her hand in his, crescent moons left embedded into his skin. Jack doesn’t join her. He stays awake, listening to the wind and her breaths until pink and orange paint over the purples of night as the sun stretches his arms across the sky. Not quite dawn, not quite night.

Mamá makes them pack that afternoon and they leave in the evening. Jack has to heave the suitcases filled with gifts she insists on bringing, while their clothes are relegated to being stuffed in school backpacks.

“We can’t show up empty handed,” she tells him as she fills yet another bag with baby clothes for a cousin he’s never met and ceramic plates for an aunt he doesn’t remember, “it’s rude.”

“We haven’t seen these people in years,” Jack complains.

“You’re sixteen, it’s about time you meet them. These people are your family.”

Then she does the thing. She stops dead in the middle of what she’s doing and stares blankly at the only picture on the dining table that sits atop stacks of nearly past due bills. It’s a faded old brown and beige photo of his father, high brows, a smile that pushes at the corners of his eyes, hair swept back and graying. He looks happy. Jack guesses he was.

Mamá’s hands move in a practiced pattern: she swipes her eyes, slowly with the pad of her thumbs as if tears were shed, and then stretches and reaches out, fingers retracting into loose fists, closing tightly, and lowering into her lap. Her breath catches. Jack watches silently.

“When he was alive,” she starts, she always starts, “we’d visit them once a year in Oaxaca. It’s tradition.”

Is it tradition to never stay in one town for more than a month for almost a decade? Jack doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say anything at all. Mamá goes back to packing gifts and humming songs and by the time Jack comes back in for the next round of things to stow away, the frame on the table is empty.

The journey from Guadalajara to Oaxaca takes an entire day and it’s hard not to feel like they’re leaving and never coming back. Their little car is brimming with things. There’s hardly enough room in the back for anyone to sit, so Lissa ends up sitting on Mamá’s lap in the front or on the center console, where—when he isn’t driving—Jack diligently ensures her safety with an arm constantly holding her steady. Most of the time is spent singing along to songs on the radio, and playing games. Charades ends up as a game of act out whatever animal or person Lissa tells you to and have Mamá guess it. Which, when playing with Lissa, always goes off the rails.

“Who am I supposed to be?” Jack asks her while they wait in the car at the pit stop.

“The paper says it.”

He waves it around in front of her. “Bigfoot isn’t real.”

She gives him a disappointed look. “He is, I know because I’ve met him.”

“You two have lunch together?” Mamá asks as she shimmies back into the car and hands them both burritos from the food truck they stopped at.

“Yup, he’s a big fan of tea.”

“Of course he is.”

They end up debating several other theories that Lissa proposes as a universal truth.

“The chupacabra is a werewolf.”

“That’s assuming the chupacabra is real.”

She scoffs and waves her hand dismissively. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Jack chuckles and Lissa begins rambling, but he doesn’t miss the silence from their mamá, who sits with Lissa on her lap and stares blankly out the window. Her fingers are dancing across the edge of a paper. The photo of their father. Jack keeps his eyes resolutely on the road.

Night rolls around and they pull over to switch drivers. Jack moves around some luggage and makes enough room for Lissa to sleep in the back, at the expense of having to hold a suitcase in his lap, but it’s worth it. It’s dark when they continue, the sky pitch black, the road an even darker maw ahead, its teeth the sparse lights blurring past. The moon is out of sight, but it’s somewhere above. Jack doesn’t like it, so he closes his eyes. He’s half asleep when Mamá speaks.

“I will tell you a story.”

She doesn’t look at him to see if he’s awake. Her eyes stay on the road, headlights occasionally offering a glimpse of her face. Her mouth is a tight line, eyes seeing but unfocused, her hands tight around the fabric of the wheel and hair unruly from a day of travel. It makes the shadows lengthen beneath her eyes, cast over her cheekbones and under her nose, and they remind Jack of that story. La llorona, wailing over her lost children. He listens.

“A man and his wife lived in a village in the shadow of a castle. It was abandoned, only the Ghost meandered about the halls, whispering to itself, wishing it were dead. And yet it lived. The man’s wife was with child. One day, the lord of the castle returned. An evil man, who feasted on the blood of innocents and had a long shadow that did not grow as the sun descended. He returned and claimed dominion over the land, demanding all who live in the castle’s shadow acknowledge his lordship and pay taxes.

The man did not accept this new lord, but he lived in his domain. So, he captured moonlight in a bottle and sunlight in a box and placed both at the doorway of his house, preventing the lord from entering without permission and allowing him and his wife to live peacefully. The rest of the village fell into despair in the absence of light, but the man cared for his wife too much. When she went into labor, he was forced to leave his home, taking the box of sunlight with him as protection, to find a midwife. In his absence, the lord drank the wife’s blood and killed her, then made the infant drink moonlight, cursing it.”

“What were they cursed with?” Jack asked, his voice quiet.

Mamá hums, running her hands up and down the edge of the wheel. “When the moon waxes until it wanes, on the first night of their eighteenth year, the child would transform into a savage beast, driven to rip up everything in sight until its rage was quelled by the dawn.”

The car is briefly lit up by a street lamp. Mamá turns and stares at him, eyes piercing.

“They turned into a monster and slaughtered his village. They ate flesh and bone and was not satisfied until the sun rose three nights later and they were left steeped in blood and horror.”

Jack’s nails dig into the palm of his hand and he makes sure to hide the pain, keeping his breaths even, holding her gaze.

“Why are you telling me this?” he whispers, hoping he doesn’t sound as terrified as he feels.

Mamá doesn’t react for a beat, and Jack knows he’s missing something in her expression that’s supposed to tell him why. He doesn’t understand. Then she blinks and turns back to watching the road as if she said nothing. He’s left to sit in oppressive silence until she speaks again. Quietly, casually, forcefully.

“When he was alive—“ she begins, then abruptly changes her mind. “Learn from it.” She says nothing else.

Jack looks out the window, face hidden from Mamá’s view by the suitcase in his lap, and doesn’t sleep until exhaustion claims him sometime well into the morning when he can just start to make out the outlines of roadkill by the asphalt. He dreams of drinking moonlight and blood red stones and transformations in shadows and mornings filled with fear.

They arrive in Oaxaca around mid morning and it’s a whirlwind from there. Driving through the city, it’s nothing like Guadalajara. It’s older, with narrow cobbled streets and virtually no sidewalks, all small colorful buildings that have the charm of age and a need for a fresh coat of paint. There’s fewer tourists and fewer cars and fewer familiar sights. It’s nothing Jack isn’t used to, not with the constant monthly moves they did for so long. It became so constant he started waking up just before midnight every full moon and anticipating Mamá bursting into their room and rushing them out with suitcases they never even unpacked, the only picture that ever mattered clutched tightly in her hand, Lissa’s hand in the other. Jack always just trailed behind them.

The event (a family reunion or whatever it is), is being held at an event hall that looks like it was used for a wedding just a few hours prior. There are still pink rose petals scattered across the floor and plates of half eaten cake in the trash. And it’s absolutely brimming with people. They’re spilling out of the front entrance and on the covered patio out front, all conversations and laughing and smiling and reminiscing on stories and history Jack doesn’t know and never will. It’s too much.

“Mamá,” he whispers as she finally puts their sadly sputtering car into park. He looks out the window and then back at her. “There’s too many people.”

She furrows her eyebrows and follows his gaze, before grinning, her expression a little amused but mostly understanding and sympathetic as she takes his hands in hers.

“You’ll be fine mi amor.” She pulls him closer and plants a kiss on the crown of his head. “Mi caballero.”

It’s moments like these that make the terrifying tales and the dead stares and the constant moves worth it. When she strokes the back of his head and smiles at him with all love. It’s always all love, but there’s sometimes—oftentimes—something… solemn, almost paralyzed underneath.

“And if it’s too much,” she continues while unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching back to shake his sister awake, “for either you or Analissa, just tell me and I’ll cover for you.”

Jack smiles and launches himself over the center console to grab Mamá’s face and kiss her cheek. “I love you.”

She’s stunned for a beat, but then laughs bright and loud and shakes her head. “Yes I know, I love you too. Now get out.”

He does as he’s told, with a deep breath and quick mental pep talk, shielding his eyes against the sun as he pushes open the door. He’s been hidden from it for the almost fourteen hour ride, and now it rolls in waves over his skin, a gentle caress of warmth. Jack lowers his hand with a deep sigh and smiles into the sunbeams.

“You must be Laura’s boy,” an unfamiliar voice says.

Bliss flees, chased out by anxiety as Jack blinks away the multicolored dots littered across his vision and turns to whoever’s talking. It’s a woman in a dress that looks like wildflowers, a wide sun hat keeping her shaded. She takes him in, then pastes a smile on her face and presents him a gloved hand.

“Maria Rodriguez,” she says, “your cousin.”

“Uh, Jack—“

“I know.” She grips his hand hard mid-shake, enough to make the bones in his knuckles creak, and watches him from beneath dark lashes. She takes a deep breath before letting go, and all the while her grin never falters and is never anything but sharp. Something satisfied settles as she slides her hand free. Jack quietly sighs in relief. “We’ve been waiting to meet you for so long, it’s nice to finally see you around.”

He bites back a grimace and changes it into a wavering grin. Maria’s expression ticks and she opens her mouth to speak again when Mamá sweeps up from behind with Lissa in tow and clasps a hand on Jack’s shoulder firmly. Her smile is all bite when Jack glances over at her.

“Maria, where’s your husband?” she asks, voice dripping with fake politeness.

Maria shrugs and shifts, inching back. “Dead.”

Mamá clicks her tongue, feigning pity, and looks her up and down. “Ah, I see you’re in mourning.”

A burst of laughter that almost makes Jack jump erupts from the woman. “Always.” She makes a show of adjusting her sun hat and lets the humor fall. “Funny that. Until next time.”

And she’s off, turning back into the venue and ignoring a gaggle of children that call her name as she goes. Mamá’s hand falls from Jack’s shoulder. She swipes at her forehead, face already red from the sun, and rolls a suitcase balancing a pile of extra giftbags atop in front of him.

“Who was she?” Jack asks.

“Un pinche perra,” Lissa says, reciting with her eyes closed and a small grin.

Mamá lunges out to snatch her wrist. “Analissa!”

She dances out of reach, giggling as she runs into the venue and yelling behind her, “You said it first!”

“She’s going to be the death of me…” Mamá groans while Jack tries and fails to stifle a laugh behind his hand, receiving a light slap on the back of his head for his troubles. “You both will.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. “Not if that Maria lady doesn’t manage it first.”

Mamá hums. “She’s—they’re all…” She trails off and levels him with a serious look. “Listen, none of these people here know you. Only you know yourself. Don’t go to the crypt when we’re here, don’t listen to anything they tell you, they always lie.”

There’s an urgency and directness in her voice that’s different from usual. It borders on desperate. Jack pinches his lips together into what he hopes is a reassuring look and wraps two of his fingers around hers. Her face softens, her shoulders ease, and it’s worth the bit of dread that’s coiled tight in his gut, the bit that gets a little tighter when he sees the edge of the photograph sticking out of her pocket.

Jack ignores it, as he does best, and shoots a lighthearted look at the suitcase. “But you brought them a car full of gifts.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s rude not to.”

“And is it rude to stay any longer than dinner?”

Now she laughs. “Just until dinner.”

By the time they finish unloading the car and enter the venue, dinner seems too far away. Jack’s met enough Gregory’s and Maria’s and Juan’s and Julia’s to fill a phone book, and he’s been asked if he “Remembers me?” followed by an inevitable “I met you when you were 1/2/3/4/5, you were so cute, you have your mother’s/father’s smile” so many times that he’s started cutting them off as soon as he hears ‘Recuerdas—’ with a swift “no, sorry,” a smile, and a quick shuffle away to the safety of the bathroom. He’s also heard enough contradictory stories about his parents that it’s become impossible to keep what he knows really happened separate from what others say.

“Your uncle Felipe and your mother always had something going on…” Tia Omira gossiped over a glass too many of wine.

“He was in a motorcycle gang, the asshole keyed my car,” Primo Julio complained.

“They met at a dance but were part of different communities,” Abuelo Hugo said, “a love that could never be.”

“Isn’t that the plot of West Side Story?” Jack asked.

Abuelo Hugo gaped. “The lack of respect from your generation…”

And so on.

Not even sitting by Mamá ends up being safe, since he’s always getting dragged into conversations with family members she very clearly does not like, and all he can do is watch them make passive aggressive comments to each other until he’s excused to go use the bathroom or eat or check on Lissa—who’s thriving commanding the other kids on how exactly to play freeze hide and seek—or any other excuse he can conjure up. It’s boring, everyone else his age was allowed to go into town because they’ve gone to every other family reunion but oh no, Jack has to stay and try and memorize every person’s name, relation to him, and short irrelevant story about what they remember about his father. And it seems like he’s the only person who doesn’t remember him at all.

Outside of the glimpses of the photo, in the mirror, in a dream.

So he finds himself doing exactly what he thought he’d be doing: nothing. He sits on the balcony overlooking the backyard, legs dangling between the bars of the railing, and tunes out the chatter of inane family drama and politics coming from the people eating at the tables behind him . He starts counting blades of grass in the yard behind the venue just to have anything to do, when the air shifts and there’s the clicking sound of heels making their way towards him. They stop beside him, and from the corner of his eye, Jack can make out black pointed toes, then knee length leather boots that lead up to a high collared dress and a small grin.

“Hello,” the person greets.

Jack blinks. “Hi.”

They tilt their head. “Jacob, is it.”

It isn’t a question. He answers regardless. “Just Jack.”

They click their tongue and their expression sours for a second so short Jack thinks he might’ve imagined it. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh…” He chews on his lip and musters a sheepish grin. “Enjoying the view?”

The person’s mouth quirks up, as if they don’t know how to smile, before they break out into radiant laughter that drowns out everything else. They smile at him, all teeth, eyes overly bright.

“I’m sorry,” Jack licks his lips and scratches behind his ear anxiously, “who—“

“—are you supposed to be?” they finish, then shrug. “Lupe. Your…” they grin, “abuel, of sorts.”

Abuel they say, yet their face is absent of wrinkles or any signs of aging, besides the light circles under their eyes that speak of a night or two without sleep. Jack frowns.

“Not to be rude,” he prefaces before adding, “but you look more like a cousin.”

Lupe’s eyes widen briefly before they burst out laughing again. They lean forward against the railing and point back inside at Abuela Imelda, who’s hunched over at a table where people are shouting questions at her. Jack’s heard she either responds to them the next year, or doesn’t seem to hear them at all.

“I’m older than her,” Abuel Lupe says, then straightens and clasps their hands behind their back, “but it’s just Lupe. Call me Abuel Lupe and I’ll hunt you for sport.”

There’s a look in their eyes that says they aren’t joking. Jack worries his lip for a moment before making to stand.

“Don’t move,” they command and he does as he’s told. They look behind them at the rest of the party, then move to sit beside him. “You seem to be having fun.”

Jack scoffs. “Are we really related?”

“We are. Paternally, directly.”

“How come no one here knows you then?”

They rock their head side to side for a second. “I know everyone here. Only a few know about me.”

“Why?”

“I knew your father.”

Jack huffs at the immediate topic change and draws his knees to his chest, resting his chin atop them. “You and everyone else,” he mumbles.

Lupe raises an eyebrow and narrows their eyes. “You’ve heard enough stories about him then.”

“No it’s not that I just…” Everyone knew him better than me. “I’d rather hear about something else.”

There’s a long pause, where the only sounds are the draw of breaths and the muffled chatter spilling out from inside. Jack’s attention is inexplicably drawn to Lupe, who stares intently at him in a way that makes his blood run a little colder. He fights the urge to move away.

“You are sixteen, no?” Jack nods. “I will tell you a story.”

They spread their palms flat over their knees.

“Long ago, after los conquistadors first came, there was a child. They lived with their father low in a valley, far from the village. The child wished to visit the village, but their father said no. He told them he was keeping the world safe, keeping them safe from the world, that he loved them very much but would not let them leave.” They hold up a finger. “Only one of those things was true.”

Jack chews on the inside of his cheek hard enough he tastes iron. “Which one?”

Lupe holds his gaze for a beat before curling their finger into a fist and lowering it back to their side. They shift, for the first time in what seems like ages since they sat, and begin to drum their fingers to a silent rhythm. A death march. They look at the yard, still buzzing with kids, and Jack does the same.

“The child grew and on their eighteenth birthday, they snuck down to the village, away from their father, and lived. For the first time in…” their eyebrows pinch, then smooth, “ever.” They sigh and lightly run their fingers down the bars of the railing. “The next day the moon was full and the village decimated, the blood on the child’s hands. Face. Teeth. In their belly.”

Lupe brushes their fingers along their throat. “Until they choked and coughed in disgust and a river of red poured from their mouth and swept away what was left.”

[And they returned home, five nights after the third, blood still caked under their fingernails and dripping from their tongue, terror clinging to every part of their body. It was still dark. The moon was gone but it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

The door creaked open when they pushed and they took one step inside and saw Father, sitting in a chair facing the door, a sword in his hand. It was carved from silver and glinted faintly in the shallow morning light. He looked up, eyes shadowed. He saw them. Clutched the hilt tighter and tighter until his hands shook and bled. They watched.

Father raised the sword, and asked, ‘What are you?’

A shadow in the doorway, they answered. ‘I don’t know.’]

Lissa tells Mamá she wants to go into town, so after a bit of arguing and bartering and promising “No I will not get into a fight with the other kids if they aren’t being pinche—“

“Analissa!”

…promising they will not get into any trouble and Jack will accompany her and they must be back before dinner, she lets them go.

“Thank you for asking for me,” Jack says as soon as they make it out of the venue and start making their way up the road to the town square.

“It’s fine, I wanted to go too, and you looked depressed.”

He forces himself to smile and shoves his hands into his pockets to hide how they shake. “I was fine.”

Lissa hums, unconvinced. “Right because fine entails staying in the bathroom for hours.”

“It wasn’t that long.”

It wasn’t. He ran in there, caught the breath that didn’t want to fill his lungs, gripped the counter until he thought he’d either break his hands or the sink, and bit his knuckles. All with the faucet on, so no one could hear whatever moment he was having after Lupe left. He’d timed it. Only 20 minutes of keeping his heart from pounding to a stop and sheer panic.

“It was only a few minutes,” he continues, then slows so his sister can skip in front of him, “and you were busy being a tyrant.”

She spins indignantly. “Hey! I asked if anyone wanted to take charge and the one kid that did lost the arm wrestle against me.” She brushes dirt off the skirt of her dress and smiles. “I’d say that was fair.”

Jack snorts. “Anyway, Mamá wouldn’t let me go to town if I asked.”

Lissa makes a face, then slows to his side when they come upon the path that’s apparently supposed to lead them there.

“Yeah she’s funny with that.”

Jack sighs. “Tell me about it.”

“Oh but once you turn eighteen you can do whatever you want!”

Once you turn eighteen–

Jack shakes away the fear that’s lodged itself in his throat and grins around it.

“Y-you just want someone to take you places,” he forces out and hopes not that Lissa won’t notice, because she always does, but that she’ll let it drop.

And she does, with a tick of her eyebrow and the ghost of a frown. Before it can settle, she spots something beyond his shoulder and starts tugging him off the trail, back in the direction of the venue.

“Lissa, I don’t think this is the way to the city,” he tells her uneasily, trying to remember where they’re going so they can find their way back.

She nods. “It isn’t, but I was talking to some kids earlier and they said the crypt is nearby.”

“The crypt?” The only place Mamá told them not to go. “I don’t—“

“Our entire family is buried down there! And maybe if we look hard enough, we can find Papá and—“

“Lissa!”

She stops and spins to look at him. Jack huffs and pulls his hand free, putting it on her shoulder and frowning. “Mamá told us specifically not to go there.”

“Yes she did.”

“And?”

“…and?”

Jack pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath. “Look, I know you’re used to doing whatever you want and getting away with it—“

“I am not!”

“—but I was left in charge here. And if she finds out that I took you to the crypt after she explicitly told us not to…” He rubs the back of his neck and tries to keep the anxiety out of his voice. “I’d rather we not tempt fate.”

Lissa furrows her eyebrows and, after a second, her expression softens and understanding no twelve year old should have sweeps over her face, before it’s quickly colored by rebellion.

“Isn’t that what it’s all about? Tempting fate?” Her stern look twitches to something mischievous. “Or are you going to live behind Mamá’s skirt your whole life?”

Only in the shadow of a photograph, moonlight, standing in the doorway, in Mamá’s and every adults’ eyes.

He gives her a flat look and groans when she doesn’t crack because she knows he will.

“Fine! Fine, lead the way.”

And she does, quietly, confidently, and so well Jack starts to wonder if she can actually sniff places out, or if she just has zero cares in the world. Probably both.

When they stumble upon the entrance to the crypt, they find it’s half buried underground, only a small section open that someone would have to get down on all fours to crawl through into what looks like pure darkness. Basically, ‘do not enter’ is written on the doorway in bright red paint. With the added bonus of what looks like actual blood on some of the stones constructing it and lightly splashed over the Rosillo family name engraved in the stone across the top. They crouch by the entrance and peer inside.

“Should we?” Lissa whispers.

Jack hums and moves his lips side to side as he thinks. “I don’t know. Is it a bad idea?”

“Probably.”

“…let’s do it.”

Lissa starts moving to jump but Jack second guesses his probably idiotic response and grabs her arm before she can throw herself headfirst into a dark, suspicious tunnel that might lead to hell or something.

“Wait wait. I’ll go first.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You. Really?”

“What! You don’t think I’d survive?”

“No.”

Ignoring her offensive comment, Jack rolls his eyes and pushes her back. “Ok listen, I’ll go down and if I don’t respond in ten minutes, you go get someone for help.”

“You mean I can go down and find you.”

“Let’s pretend you’ll listen to me for once? Please?”

She laughs and it feels good to hear. She hooks her pinky around his and nods.

“Ok alright. Don’t die.”

Jack wraps her in a hug and tries not to make it too tight, too desperate. But she knows, she always does, and hugs him back equally fiercely. He pulls away and messes with her hair.

“I won’t.”

He salutes her before he starts crawling through the opening. There’s light inside, just enough that he can make out the slope of loose rocks that lead down from the opening just as he looses his balance. Suddenly, he’s tumbling down and landing flat on his back, pelted by some falling rocks from the pile.

“Are you alive?!” Lissa yells down into the crypt and it reverberates too loud and worsens whatever headache he can feel coming on.

Jack groans and rolls onto his side, the bruises already making themselves known. “Yeah,” he shouts back, then mumbles, “painfully.”

“That was quite the fall.”

Jack yelps and leaps to his feet, stumbling back and falling over, again, back onto the pile of rocks. It hurts just as much as before, but now he’s stuck in a small enclosed area with a mystery man who’s standing not that far away from him,with no way of escape. Pain is about the last thing in his mind.

“Jack!” Lissa shouts.

The man presents his palms, but it’s hard to make out his face with just the light coming from the hallway. He says something incomprehensible while Jack blinks, disoriented, and stares for probably too long.

The man seems to catch his mistake and shifts to perfect, albeit heavily accented, Spanish. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you don’t speak English.”

“Who the hell are you?” Jack asks, wrapping his hand around a stone and clutching it tightly.

The man sees the motion and inches backwards a bit, keeping his hands up. “I could ask you the same thing, kid. You just broke into my family’s crypt.”

Jack wrinkles his nose and takes in said crypt. The walls are made of stone, arching in and poorly lit by sparse torches along the walls. There’s a single hallway of coffins on both sides. It’s… normal. Jack isn’t sure what he was expecting.

He turns his attention back to the man. “Technically the entrance was open, I just walked in. And this is my family’s crypt. So who are you?”

The man cocks his head a bit, like he’s listening for something, then tilts it up like he’s… sniffing the air? Jack’s probably just imagining things.

“Philip Russell.”

Jack raises an eyebrow and pushes himself to his feet, with a bit of effort and moves further into the crypt but stays away from Philip. “Who?”

“Uh, Felipe. Sorry, I know our family can be a bit…” he trails off and shrugs, “funny with names.”

That rings some bells. A memory of a letter from someone, Philip written on the shredded envelope and Sinceramente, Felipe at the very bottom of the page. Mamá would always scoff and toss it out with the rest of the trash.

Philip points. “And you’re—“

“Jack!!” Lissa yells again.

Jack sighs and hums. Philip nods. “Right.”

Philip moves slightly, just enough so the light shines on his face and he looks… like Jack. Or, more like Lissa, but she always took more after their father, apparently. Dark features, some height for her age, an expression like they always know what you mean because Lissa always does. He looks like family. Jack doesn’t drop the rock. Philip notices.

“I’m not gonna kill you kid,” he says lightheartedly, “and I think you would’ve done a good enough job of that, braining yourself on those rocks.”

As if on cue, Lissa comes falling down into the crypt, prompting Jack to go and help her.

“Like that,” Philip says from behind.

Once she’s up and has dusted off her dress, Lissa squints and points accusingly at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Lissa,” Jack groans and rubs his eyes. “Whatever happened to staying outside and going for help?”

She shrugs, a little too nonchalantly for potentially being stuck in the crypt with someone who’s relation to them they still don’t know. “You’re really turning into Mamá now.”

“Wow, wait you’re Gregory’s kids?” he exclaims, then claps excitedly. “You’re both so grown! I’m your tío, I met you both when you were, hm what was it a decade ago?”

“When I was six,” Jack supplies tiredly.

“Yeah! Gosh you were both so cute. Do you remember me?” He smiles and holds out his hands but they both just stare. He sighs and relents. “You look like you have questions.”

“I don’t—“

“Why are you American?” Lissa blurts out.

Philip reels back, then barks out a startled laugh. “I’m as American as you.”

“So… not at all?” She continues. Jack pinches her arm and shoots her a look, but Philip’s already answering.

“Hm, depends on who you ask, when you ask it, and how you do the asking. But is Mexico not in the Americas? What are they teaching you in school these days…”

She flushes and huffs. “It is. I meant—“

“I know, kid. I moved there. Hm, really my family moved there when I was young. Hence why our last name is Russell, not Rosillo. Made it easier to find work and all. It was me, my parents, my… older brother.”

Their father, Jack can fill in. “Why are you here?”

Philip raises his eyebrows and looks over his shoulder, at the end of the hall where it’s especially well lit. “To honor our ancestors. The same reason why I assume you're here, despite Laura definitely telling you to stay away.”

Jack cringes. “How’d you know?”

“Some things never change. Your mother is no different.”

He knows that. Too well.

Lissa leans out and stumbles forward, squinting at the light. “What’s down there?”

Philip follows her gaze. “Your father.”

“Really?!”

“In a way.” He beckons them on and they follow, Jack leading with Lissa close behind him.

They walk to the end of the hallway, past walls lined with coffin upon coffin, different names and remembrances carved beneath each slot they’re slid into. Some of the coffins shake along the way, some bang. Lissa jumps; Jack tries very hard to stay calm.

“Is that normal?” He asks, pointing at one of the shaking coffins.

Philip stops and glances at it. “The dead sometimes become restless.”

Lissa inches closer to one and reaches out. “Sh-shouldn’t we let them out—?”

Her hand is snatched away before her fingertips can grace the edge of the coffin. Philip lets her go as fast as he grabbed her and says, flatly: “The dead are dead for a reason. They are meant to stay that way.”

He continues on, but it’s nearly impossible to not hear the shaking and banging, the echoing sounds compounding into screams. Jack doesn’t think of it that way. He doesn’t.

They come to a stop at the end of the hall, before a statue of a saint, hooded, face covered, head bowed, and holding a bowl half filled with water dripping from the ceiling. Gregory Russell is inscribed at the base of it, along with several other names that look centuries older. Jack looks back at the face of the statue. It’s crying.

“You know, I knew your mom before your dad met her,” Philip continues.

Jack balks. “Really?”

“Ah well. Laura and I go… way back. But your dad was a better fit for her. A bit less… wild, I guess.”

Lissa snorts but it’s halfhearted. She keeps looking behind her, at the now still, quiet coffins. “You do seem pretty boring.”

Philip chuckles again, tight. “Anyone told you you look just like your dad?”

“Only when I’m here.” She looks more intently at the name that Jack’s been staring at, crouches down and traces the loops and letters with her fingers. “Do you know what happened to our father?”

“You don’t know?”

Jack answers for them. “No.”

Philip sucks in a breath and mutters something too low to hear that sounds like a countdown from two before he drags a hand over his face and sighs. “I’ll tell you a story.”

“Please no, I’ve heard…” Jack digs his nails into his palms and forces himself calm again, “I’ve heard enough.”

But everyone seems intent on telling him every tale without actually saying anything. Philip gives him a long look and his face hardens. “If you’re saying that then you haven’t. You have to know. You have to remember.”

He wets his lips and glances at the statue, then back at Jack before straightening and inhaling deeply.

“There were two brothers. Think of them like Cain and Abel.”

“You’re telling us Cain and Abel?” Lissa drawled.

“Listen,” he snaps with more than a little fury and frustration, with a lot of fear. Lissa grips Jack’s hand harder. “They fought over everything. Money, authority, women. Birthright. Until one day, something changed. The eldest he—“ He shakes his head. “He killed someone. He nearly killed the younger brother. He had him inches within death and then…”

Jack swallows hard. “What stopped him?”

“…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

The crypt is too big, too stagnant. The air smells like iron, rust drips down the walls in cascades of red. The statue sobs.

“What happened next? To the older brother.”

[He ran and ran and by the time morning beamed upon the land and he’d found shelter he was done running, but he could not stop. The eldest brother would continue running until the breath left his lungs, replaced with moonlight that he never drank but was forced to carry in his blood, in his heart. Replaced with that upon which he would gasp and choke, and die.]

“He died.”

The crypt is too small, too narrow. The air feels like ice and it burns his skin. The statue wails.

“A-and the younger?”

[Three shots rang out and by the time he turned back, by the time he got there, all that was left of the elder sibling, whatever he’d become, was a pool of blood seeping between the cobblestones and staining the street. And the casings of three silver bullets.]

“Never saw him again.”

They walk back in silence. Somewhere along the way Lissa gets tired, so Jack wordlessly crouches so he can carry her on his back, where she fights hard not to doze off but inevitably loses the battle. They make it back well into dinner and the look on Mamá’s face as they walk in, covered in dirt and sweat and twenty minutes late, is everything and nothing like he could’ve imagined. She doesn’t react, not like how she’d be expected to. There’s no yelling and stomping or even a change in her expression. She keeps smiling after hearing whatever joke someone just told her and holds it while she pins him with a stare.

She’s furious. Jack knows.

She excuses herself when he goes to put Lissa down on the sofa, letting her yank his arm and drag him outside, well away from the venue and windows, into a dimly lit shed that’s too cramped for two people. Her voice is too loud, the light hurts Jack’s eyes, and his head hurts almost as much as his chest does. It’s hard to breathe.

“Where the hell were you?” she hisses, low and steady. “Don’t lie.”

He wasn’t planning on it, but that makes fire rise from his feet past his heart to his mouth.

“The crypt,” he spits, “that’s where.”

“I told you—“

“I know what you said but you never told me why and I…” He tempers himself a little, tries to stay calm. “I spoke to Tío Philip.”

Her expression darkens, mouth tight. “Felipe.”

He stops his face from twisting. “He told me about my father, and—“

“You had no reason to speak to him.”

“It’s not like you would tell me anything. And everyone here just recalls these-these stories and half of them are lies and the other half are—“

‘What are you?’

He clamps his mouth shut and moves to wipe the sweat off his face when Mamá grabs a hold of his wrist.

“What do you want to hear?” she snaps. “That he was shot dead in the street like an animal? That we couldn’t have a funeral because they stole his body? That your family acts like nothing happened when it was their fault, when it will be their fault?! He’s dead, Jacob, let him rest.”

Jack rips his arm out of her grip and moves back to brace himself against the table and lets the anger speak. “You’re allowed to have a picture but I can’t even get one solid memory? Everyone here tells me stories Mamá, you tell me stories, but I don’t know what’s real—“

She shakes her head and mumbles, “They’re all real and none of them are.”

“I don’t understand!”

“You aren’t meant to! For God’s sake you are a child, you don’t need to—“

“Don’t you see that I do! I—I don’t know who I’m supposed to be… I don’t get it, you don’t—you don’t treat Lissa like this.”

Mamá’s face goes flat. She shakes her head more fervently and her voice wavers almost as much, her tone pressing. “She’s not the same, she isn’t— you are my first born. You are nearly eighteen. Do you understand what that means?”

Jack groans, “I don’t! I don’t and everyone keeps telling me I should but no one will tell me why. Why Mamá? Why are we here? Why—why can’t I go down to the crypt or talk to Lupe? Why—“

She yells then. “Because I said so! Because I’m trying to keep you safe and you seem intent on doing everything in your power to get yourself killed!”

Like your father.

She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t need to. She still clamps a hand over her mouth as if she did. She shuts her eyes against the tears that are shed regardless and she falls to her knees at his feet.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…” she mutters between sobs, grabbing his hands. “Forgive me please forgive me.”

“…Ok.”

She wipes her face with her dress and looks up at him, face still shiny. She pleads. “Let’s leave, let’s… Let’s leave.”

“…Ok.”

They leave Oaxaca before the main course, after awkward goodbyes to family members Jack will probably forget again and whose names he won’t care to remember.

“I’ll see you soon,” Lupe tells him, grabbing his hand loosely but stopping him in his tracks. They sit at the head of the table, but no one looks their way. They let him go with a grin. “Vaya con Dios.”

He tries not to run.

Mamá drives, even if she’s been awake for almost twenty hours. She slips behind the wheel and starts the car without a word. Jack puts Lissa in the back, now clear of things, and she hardly stirs, only mumbling once to dreamily ask if it’s Christmas yet. He tells her no and sets his jacket over her, then sits in the passenger seat. He looks out the window and watches them pull away, the venue growing smaller and dimmer, its warm glowing lights making the stark white walls seem inviting, before eventually, it disappears around a corner, hidden by trees. The road blurs by, everything blends into itself, and with the moon out of sight, out of mind, Jack drifts.

He wakes twice. The first time still feels like a half-dream he can’t remember. He’s leaning against the door, the top of his head pressed to the window and neck aching. Someone is singing.

“Hoy me tengo que ir mi amor…”

It’s familiar. It’s warm, it’s bright. It’s a weight on the edge of his bed, hands tucking him in, his name. It’s Jack, mi hijo. It’s a face, a smile. Not Mamá’s, it’s... Memories that fade just as suddenly as he remembers. And a song, a lullaby.

“A solas yo te cantaré soñando en regresar.”

The second time is more solid. The car is stopped, he’s lying on the center console, and there’s a hand, fingers running through his hair. Gently, easily. Whispers of apologies and quiet cries that trail off into silence. Mamá falls asleep. Jack stays awake.

Something pokes his shoulder. He carefully shifts to look behind him at Lissa, on her knees in the backseat, crouched low.

“Hey,” she says.

He exhales quietly.

“Is Mamá asleep?”

He blinks and carefully nods.

She points outside. “Can we?”

He chews on his lip, closes his eyes, musters the courage, and nods again. Once Lissa’s climbed out and up onto the roof of the car, Jack carefully moves Mamá’s hand from his head and places it in her lap. He looks at her for a beat. Tear tracks stain her cheeks, her eyes red. The picture of his father is held loosely in her other hand. Jack reaches in the backseat for his jacket and drapes it over her. Before he gets out, he presses a kiss to her temple.

“Took you long enough,” Lissa grins once he’s settled beside her.

He runs his tongue across his teeth and nods.

She scoots closer. “Are you ok?”

Yes, he wants to say. But he looks up and there the moon is. Waning. And it should be comforting, that it isn’t full, that’s it’s not a spotlight shining only and directly on him. But—

Moonlight.

He shuts his eyes and hopes it’s dark enough that he can pretend there aren’t any tears, that there’s nothing wrong because there isn’t. There isn’t.

“No.”

Lissa throws her arms around him and he buries his head in her shoulder and, for the first time in what feels like forever, he feels safe.

She falls asleep and just before he does, he carries her back inside the car and settles in the backseat, with her on his lap and Mamá still settled in the front. Then, he closes his eyes.

And he dreams. Of a shoreline, where the sun sits low but time feels wrong. There’s no pull of moonlight, no force making his bones shiver and ache. But the comfort of sunshine is a faded memory and he’s stuck in limbo between the two. Someone whispers behind him, words he doesn’t want to understand so he keeps looking at the sea and wishing, praying for anything but night, for anyone who’ll listen, but it doesn’t come. What comes instead is her voice.

Jack, she says, and he glances up to see her, wading through the water to him. Jack.

Her fingertips ghost along his cheekbone, tracing the outline of him, reminding him. To focus. To remember.

To change.

The sun is up far before him, already moving across the sky, stretched and spread comfortably above. Not dusk, not dawn. Morning.

#werewolf by night #jack russell #lissa russell #yea yea sometimes i write #cw panic attack #cw horror elements #WOOO YES FINALLY ITS DONE GRACIAS DIOS #god i swear i've been writing this shit forever #i liked writing it it was fun #had to cut out so many extra scenes because i would've just been writing a whole ass book #i cut a longer car ride at the begining. an extended interaction with lupe. jack and lissa and some random kids walking arond town #uhh just some quirky lines with philip and a dinner scene #AND ITS STILL 8K+ WORDS I CRY

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kojakaj · 6 months

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being an older sibling is like fine and fun. until its like. “oh my intense desire to protect and defend you is because i traumatized you throughout our entire childhood on accident. and somehow you still managed to live a better life than me in every aspect. and the only way i will ever be able to make up for how much i scared you is to constantly be in your service from far enough away that you never know.”

#i didnt traumatize her on purpose i was just mentally ill as a kid #idk #theres only so many times u can scream that u want to kill yourself before ur little sister hears #and when u share a room shes gonna find the blades u hid sometimes #i hope she never knows the things ive done for her #do u think she knows that i would step into the arguments with my father and yell the loudest so that he wouldnt yell st her #do u think she noticed that i would always fight back for her so that it would come my way instead of hers #idk. its mostly over now #my dad doesn’t scream as much #which is good but i sometimes wish he would #idk why #i mean it was never that bad anyway #but like. you’re allowed to externalize all of that rage when somekne else starts it #thats why he likes to piss us off #cuz the rage is gonna be there no matter what. its nice to let it out and have matched too #i dont want to be like my father but theres something comforting in the fact that at least he has the same thing in him #less comforting that i know it will never go away #idk its more fun to hurt someone else and be hurt by them then to just hurt urself #ANYWAY #lol. i got off topic but whatever.#this should go on the mentally ill side blog but whatever #milo ignore this post <3 unless ur texting me abt it #but like those r ur options u gotta acknowledge it to my face or completely ignkre it

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princekirijo · 10 months

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Captain!Mitsuru is like yes she's a girlboss from afar. Like whenever she appears on TV or at a public conference whatever, she is so confident and a true leader, and when the Phantom Thieves meet her for the first time, they're intimidated by her (in a scary hot woman way). She's def matured a lot from her high school days.

But don't get me wrong this woman is a girlfail. She is my wet pathetic milf. She's crying in her office when she thinks no ones looking. Yes she has a loving wife but she's dealing with the horrors (Kirijo Group sins still biting her in the ass)

#au tag #captain au #beating this woman with a stick #captain!mitsuru holding her baby son for the first time: i am going to make sure my family's past will never hurt you #mitsuru 17 years later: fuck.#thinking about my favorite girlfail #i mean y'all already know how much i love mitsuru so like i have so much fun with captain mitsuru #there is a part of me that's like yeah she is going to appear ooc to some and that's urgrhrrh #but also i feel like thats unavoidable given the whole nature of her place in the au (her being older and such)#but i enjoy her and at the end of the day i think thats the main thing and if other people like her too then win for me #but yeah her relationship with her kids is sooo fun for me to brainstorm #with riku its very much: i love you so much but because of our family's history there will always be something in between us #and i wish that i could save you but ive done my best #and then yuna its much more: we are very close and i adore you and im sorry if it seems i ignore you sometimes its just your brother is #well a handful in the best way LMAOOO #do yall get my vision #i project a lot onto riku and mitsuru as you guys know so like their relationship is very personal to me #yes this was inspired by that mitsuru angst post lmaooo #i love mitsuru BUT i love bullying her even more #i cant even expand too much on the whole “family groups sins beating my sons ass despite my best efforts” thing because spoilers #which is like captain au will be real some day as a fic or comic so i gotta hold on to some spoilers you know #mitsuru is a sad wet cat of a woman and we need more people to realize this (this is what makes her hot trust me)

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chaosspear · 2 years

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anyways im just gonna keep talking about my thoughts until i can empty my brain for sleep anyways as someone who believes that sonic unleashed missed some potential with the implications of the werehog transformation-- i think some of you are a little too edgy about the werehog sometimes.

#i say this in like a light hearted way btw it doesnt really bother me too much #as long as everyones being normal about it and having fun its harmless #just sometimes i see stuff like 'the werehog transformation is actually extremely unimaginably agonizing for sonic' and im like O_O'#i feel like that one reply to that winnie the pooh post like isnt there enough hate and pain in the world.....#i think you can make the werehog edgier and angstier for funsies i just think that a middle ground might be better. in my own opinion #like for all the pain and stuff you add for angst there needs to also be a resolution and relief and healing to it for it to work and not #feel like just torture porn. idk it feels uncormfortable when people take the werehog and just make it a catalyst to put sonic through #intense pain and misery when like these are still kids media.#also btw when i talk about missed potential up there i mean like #i think unleashed couldve done more with people seeing sonic as scary and have sonic more openly struggle with his appearance and #physical abilities conflicting with who he sees as himself and his nature.#again these are all just opinions like i said unless people are being really weird about it i dont think theres anything wrong #its just a personal dislike of mine

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starrycat123-blog · 2 months

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gender is so weird. why do I feel like I'm a girl most of the time, a woman almost never, usually a man/guy when I'm not a girl, and never a boy?

#i mean. i stick with girl gender most of the time bc afab and its convenient but sometimes i just feel like a man #and “woman” almost never feels right #and i have memories of not wanting to look like a boy as a kid??#like. what was up with that highschool memory of secretly trying on one of my brother's ties while helping him declutter and being thrilled #idk i hate womens business clothes but love the mens version #and i think its convenient that they get one suit for formal occasions and can be done but i do like dresses sometimes #only fun dresses though they have to be the ones that flare out and spin. not the form fitting ones #doesnt really matter bc i usually just stick to tshirt shorts bc i live somewhere hot and i dont want to use he him pronouns #maybe they them but ive never had the guts to ask anyone for that #the aesthetics i think i want most are comfy. girly girl. business man. and masc lesbian #alas i hate shopping and live in heat and have no courage so the only aesthetic i wear is comfy #anyway can anyone tell me what gender this is #like i cant just say cisn't

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othercrossee · 1 year

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everytime i draw noir, he looks slightly different each time

#z rambles #i think its horrible to know that v*olo is probably the most fun im gonna get paintin these guys #most likely cuz hes the easiest to draw out of all of them #ad*man is a pain no matter what. i want irida to be perfect so im plagued with perfection #noir is just. noir is my kid so sth precious. i wanna take my time with it but i only have 10 hours each #3 hours spent already and ive only done what. 20%? cuz i was so dumbfounded with her lashes #then i realized i forgot to use the old ref #using one layer to pain is easier and have the look i want but oh boy! sometimes painting over the mistake feels so taxing #not really but u get what i mean i enjoy painting

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begginmonty · 7 months

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working with mike

(this doesn't follow the plot directly and mike works like more than just 3 shifts, also this is legit 2k words long i got so so so carried away im just so in love with mike, apologies!! its also not been proofread sorry <3)

before mike is hired alongside you, steve raglan had given you the job a week or so ago after you had lost your last job over a silly customer dispute (the customer is never right) and steve was your last hope at job, and bingo he had one. here you are 2 weeks later, waiting by your car outside the rundown pizzeria, waiting to train the new guy whose supposed to help you

a car pulls up and out comes a very pretty, but very tired/drained, looking guy, you introduce yourself with a small smile and he doesn’t return it, and is like “im mike”, you give him the benefit of the doubt that he hasn't smiled at you, new jobs are stressful.

the first shift goes fine, you tell him the basics and show him the training video tape, which alongside your commentary of making fun of some of it and nit-picking little things finally gets an amused smile from him. you can see him ease up a little. he doesn’t talk as much as you do but he seems to enjoy your ramblings.

you show him the showtime performance after he looks confused about ‘animatronics’ . watching his reaction of the animatronics rendition of talking in your sleep by the romantics is a little amusing to you but you were the same way when vanessa had shown you originally.

“its something isn’t it?” he doesn't reply, he just stood looking in disbelief.

when morning rolls around, you show him how to lock up and then give him his own key that steve had given you.

“wasn’t so bad was it?”

“it was..different”

the second shift alongside mike is different but a good different. he’s running a little late and walks in on your blasting an 80s hot pop hits tape over the old speakers, vacuuming the main dining area. a smile, that melts his heart a little, lights up your face as you see him walk in.

“im sorry i’m late the babysi-”

“hey, dont stress it. you still made it!”

he is not used to someone being so nice and friendly to him?? its foreign but he finally cracks you a small smile, watching you as you turn on the vacuum and continue listening to the music. (i need to hug him i stg)

he hasn't met anyone as nice as you in a long long time, it’s refreshing for him

and not in a creepy way !!!!!!!!!!! but he watches the cameras and watches as you just listen to the music as if the world isn’t there and continue to clean the area.

“need a hand?”

mike speaks up as you take a break leaning against a table, facing the main stage, the curtains open (as your next task is going to clean around the animatronics, it’s getting too dusty), music turned down quietly. he comes and leans against the table with you. you start small talk, saying something about the animatronics and you guys talk a little.

“so, you said something about a babysitter, do you have, like, a kid or something? sorry if im being too nosy, please tell me to shut up or something” mike cannot get over how nice you are

and then mike explains his living situation, and then the two of you get into a discussion about how families can suck and be shitty ect

and mike really likes how you don't pry or ask him lots of questions like others have done in the past, this man is really liking you and he’s only know you for two days

“this guy…must’ve been on something to make this place” and mike laughs a little !!! for the first time you got him to laugh !!

“yeah it’s something isn’t it..” both of you are sat against a table just staring at the animatronics in front of you

the two of you make small talk as you wipe down the dust covered tables but you can see how tired he is, he’s yawning a little bit.

“hey, you know, you can like sleep on the job by the way?” he looks up at you from the table, “sometimes i take a good couple hours nap in the office, no ones breaking into this place anytime soon”

he tries to protest and mentions towards the cleaning products and you brush him off, “go, you need it”

mike feels a strange warmth in his heart the hasn't felt, maybe ever? and he naps for a few hours whilst you continue to clean around. cleaning isn't in your job description but honestly you’re worried about the level of dust entering your lungs y'know

a loud thud and chair scraping noise comes from the office and you run to it and see mike on the floor, he looks confused and you help him to sit up. you ask if he’s okay but he seems out of it, “mike, whats wrong?”

sitting on the floor together, mike explains everything to you and opens up to you about a little brother he had, and tells you about his dream issues and sleep issues and you can see he’s upset and shaken by this dream. He shows you the sleeping pills and he explains the dream theory he’s been reading about.

“this is the part where somebody usually calls me crazy”

“you aren’t crazy, mike” mike notices how kind you eyes are and how warm your voice is, “i’ve seen crazy. you are far from it” you joke a little and he has the faintest smile tug at his lips.

finally home time woo !! as you lock up the gate, you watch as mike goes to his car, “mike wait!”

he turns around almost instantly at your voice as you run up to him, you pull something out from your hoodie a fazbear security badge and hand it to him, “you’re officially security now” he takes it from you and thanks you with that small smile.

3rd shift passes (you could’ve sworn foxy was standing in a different spot and bonnie’s hand placement looked completely different) and vanessa comes for her weekly visit and meets mike. when you aren’t with them, vanessa brings up the fact that you’re one of the kindest and nicest people she’s ever met and mike agrees.

next shift goes by and another and you guys have a long conversation about everything and you tell him more about yourself. hes never really been romantically involved with anyone but somebodysss got a crush (its him and well, you do too). and then you let him sleep and decide to tackle the old kitchen. (you could’ve sworn you heard someone walk down the hallway but you double check and no ones there)

mike dreams again and you swear you hear a groan and you walk to the office to see him, out of breath, breathing, clutching his arm and theres blood coming from it and he looks up at you trembling. “oh my god mike, what happened?”

you sit opposite him, patch him up and make him a hot drink, and he's explaining everything to you and you can tell he’s really getting bothered by these dreams. (you also think hes hurt himself from falling off the chair somehow..unbeknownst to you)

he’s tearing up a little and you just hold his hand in yours, and he's looking at your kind eyes and he doesn’t know how to react to being touched, he stops talking (mike is incredibly touch starved oh my god) and, carefully, you lean forward and hug him very gently.

he’s stiff at first but you can feel him relax into the hug and he wraps his non-injured arm around you and grips onto your back, “its okay mike. you’re okay” you can tell he really needs this hug and you can tell no one has really hugged him in a long time.

when the shift ends and you say goodbye for the day, your car just refuses to start. you cannot start it at all. you get out the car and look at it in a huff, but lucky for you mike hasnt driven a way yet

he gets out his car and you explain to him about your car, and he offers if you want a lift home or at least back to his house (his house is much closer than yours) and you can call someone about the car and you agree.

the drive is nice, you notice he has a great taste in music

meeting abby!! mike excuses himself for a shower whilst you're ringing the mechanics for your car, and he accidentally falls asleep on his bed after. when he wakes up (a good hour or so later, which you really don't mind) he walks into the living room to see you and abby sat on the floor colouring together with a cartoon on the tv, and you guys are really getting along and she’s wearing your security guard vest and badge. (her friends told her to trust you)

“uh abby, why dont you get ready for school?” mike speaks up, causing you both to look in his direction.

you can't fight the fact that he looks hot with joggers and shirt on, looking sleepy as hell aHHH

“okay” abby smiles and gives you back your stuff and runs off to her room to get ready for school.

he walks over to you and sits down on the couch, “im sorry for falling asleep-”

you sit next to him and place your hand on his arm and smile, “its fine, mike, really. your sister is lovely”

mike looks up from your hand and looks at your face. he looks sleepy and gorgeous and you look gorgeous to him and your eyes are so kind and theres a moment. some sort of magnetic force kinda pulls your faces closer together.

“im gonna be late!” says abby running into the room.

mike drops abby to school and you stay in his house, waiting for the mechanic to eventually call you back like he says he will. you feel a little awkward sitting on his couch watching tv but you have nothing better to do.

he comes back he offers you a shower and some of his clothes as he feels bad for you having to sit in work clothes.

the way his heart feels when he see’s you walk out to the bathroom and back to the couch next to him wearing one of his sweatshirts and a pair of his joggers as well hMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm (too early for love?)

he smells good

you must both drop off to sleep, as a few hours later mike opens his eyes for a minute to the TV showing some drama show, and then he notices a heavy feeling on his chest. there you are, passed out, in his clothes, head on his chest peacefully asleep.

this is something he’s never felt before !1!!1

he blushes (thank god you’re asleep) and brushes a hair out of your face, staring down at your sleeping face (uh oh someones in love) before grabbing the worn blanket from behind him and throwing it over your exposed legs.

you stirr a little, your arm wrapping around his lower half and he's so flustered and sleepy and aHHHH

he wraps his arm around your shoulders gently and passes out again (PART 2??)

#mike schmidt x reader #mike schmidt #fnaf x reader #five nights at freddy's #five nights at freddy's x reader #fnaf movie #fnaf movie x reader #fnaf movie imagine #mike schmidt imagine #five nights at freddy's imagine #william afton #movie ver

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