#I don't think I know anyone else w two middle names which is weird

[melloween-candie]

Hold still [C.G]

Bully Carl Gallagher x Bullied Reader

Summary

You've known Carl for a very long time, and for a very long time, he has been picking on you. It started off small but gradually escalated to a much more painful issue. Your friends think he likes you. You think it's the other way around. But Carl, his thinking is different.

A/n - I realized that I have been using the same point of view throughout almost all of my writing, and I figured it was boring to constantly read like that, so I'm changing it up! Anyways the point of view I've been using is secondary. Figured if anyone cared- I am now going to try writing in first person.

Also, I figured I might as well finish this since it's been sitting in my drafts since day one. It's small and simple, I kinda wished I did more to it, but who knows- maybe I'll make a part two for it someday or just recreate it entirely.

Some parts in this fanfiction aren't canon. Meaning it wasn't from the show!!!

Warning: Self-harm, bulling

Word count: 1,443

[Angst/fluff]

Part 1, Part 2

Shameless Masterlist

Fandom Masterlists

/"Talking"//Thinking//Muttering-Whispering/

***Y/n's Pov***

I was cleaning up the bloody mess I made on my wrist. This was the third time this week that I did this to myself. I couldn't help it, though. I've been feeling depressed lately, at least more than usual.

It's not anything in particular. However, my mother would say otherwise. She thinks it's all cause of that "no good Carl." In her own words too. Though she wasn't wrong.

I've known Carl for years, and he hated me ever since we met. I don't know why he hates me; he just does.

I never did anything to him in particular, or at least I don't think so.

"Y/n! You better hurry; otherwise, you'll be late again!"

That was my mother. I should probably go...

"Coming!"

Time skip!~

It was currently breakfast time here at my school. I normally hate breakfast time, along with lunch and free time too... My friends say I'm weird for that, but truth be told, I hate it because of him...

"Yo! Carl!" A random guy yelled. "What's happening?" He says as they get all friendly.

I bit my lips and held my books tighter. All-cause Carl Gallagher just entered the room.

Carl Gallagher... He's umm... something? Most people would call him a bully, especially if they saw the way he treated me, but honestly, I just think he uses me as an excuse to not look weak. After all, back then, during elementary school, he had this reputation of which he'd beat up kids just for looking funny.

Honestly, I envied him about that. Not caring about what anyone else thinks and just doing what feels right to you. I want to live like that.

The bell rings, signaling everyone to head to class.

Oh great. I hate this part. Reason is because I'll have to walk past him and if you were listening, he's not so friendly with me...

"W/n! There you are!" Carl gave you a big smile. "I was looking for you!"

"Ah... it's Y/n..." You said, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. "Never changed the name." You laughed awkwardly, trying to break that uncomfortable feeling.

"Rrright. Anyways! Where's my homework?" Carl didn't sound so friendly no more.

"Right here." You handed him your notebook. "If you could, I'll need tha- and he's gone." You sighed in defeat as you walked towards your first-period class.

I know that was pathetic, and you probably dealt with worst, but that was him being nice. Believe it or not, I got lucky. He was in a good mood this morning soo...

You entered your class and sat down.

Anyways, Carl used to like me. Or at least that's what my friends would always say back when we were still in middle school.

Nowadays, they don't really care about my situation with him anymore. It's old news to them. Which I don't blame them even if they did care; they couldn't change anything about it.

"Y/n? Y/N!"

"Uh?!" You snapped out of your thoughts. "Oh, hey, bff/n. What's up?"

"What's up?! What's up with you? I've been snapping my finger's in front of you for the last minute. What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

This is bff/n. S/H/T are amazing. In fact, S/H/T is the only one that still cares about well the Carl situation.

"Did Carl do something again?" S/H/T said?

"No. Not exactly..."

"Where's your notebook?" S/H/T asked.

"Uhmm-"

"I KNEW IT! HE TOOK IT AGAIN, DIDN'T HE!"

"Keep it down!"

"Y/n! How can you be okay with this!"

"It's okay, really-!"

"He's tormenting you!" S/H/T interrupted. "Eventually, it'll turn into something way worst!"

"He's been 'tormenting' me for years, and it's never gotten too bad-"

"TOO BAD?!" S/H/T yelled. "He gave you your first panic attack! He embarrassed you countless of times..."

And there S/H/T goes. This is going to take a while.

You rested your head on the palm of your hand as the teacher walked through the door. Closing it, signaling that class is about to begin.

Time skip!~

"Look, Y/n. I'm just worried about you. Every year Carl does this to you, and only you; for some reason, doesn't that make you feel somewhat uncomfortable?"

"I mean... Eh?" You shrugged your shoulders. As your best friend groans in irritation.

"Look, Y/n. There's a 50% chance he likes you, and the other 50%, well, who knows but try to fight back or at least say something!"

"Ughh, bff/n. You know that will only make him mad," I said as I grabbed my math book for my next class. "And besides, as long as I don't irritate him, I'll be fine."

"Yeah, well, still..."

Time Skip~

Math class was as irritating as usual. Carl being Carl, kept throwing paper balls at me. Him and his group of friends kept snickering to themselves, making it a little hard to concentrate... Why did the teacher assign me to sit next to these people... ugh.

Anyways that's not the worst part. The worst part was when we got our homework papers back. Normally I would get really good grades in math, but today I got a B+. I rolled my eyes in aggravation. I have to bump this grade back up.

However, I thought it was only my grade that dropped... When I got into the hallway, Carl grabbed me unexpectedly.

"What the h*ll is this?!" He held his homework paper to my face as his other arm held onto my shoulder, pushing me against the lockers. The people just walked on past, pretending they didn't see anything.

"Uhhh..."

"Uh- UH?! Don't act stupid!" He yelled tauntingly. "You're supposed to be the smartest person in our grade! So why do I have a B on this paper?!"

"Look I'm sorry but It was just hard for me to focus during that lesson-"

"THE HEL* DO YOU MEAN HARD?!"

"Well- Well, maybe if you'd stop throwing paper balls at me, I could have focused better!"

Uh oh. That was the moment I knew I had screwed up... Carl's face turned bright red with anger as he dragged me towards the janitor's closet.

It was dark and dusty in there; it was like barely anyone ever cleans in there.

"Listen you! I told you before I gave you my homework- give me an A, or I'll kick your as*!"

I don't know what's gotten into me lately, but I said something I thought I never would-

"Why?! Why do you even care? I mean, you've never cared about anyone or anything before, so why do you care so much about your grade?!"

"Are you stupid or something? I don't, but football does. If I don't keep a good grade average, I'll get kicked off, and if I get kicked off, I'll kick you off this EARTH!" His hold on me grew tighter. I couldn't help but back up; because of this, he pushed forward.

"Ow!" I squealed. I could feel the blood starting to droop down my arm. I didn't realize this, but there were a lot of sharp objects in here... or at least it felt like it. With that, Carl grabbed the dangling on switch, turning on the lights.

He didn't notice at first, but eventually, he saw the blood. He looked at it and then looked back at me. He still had that irritated look on his face as he continued to hold onto his homework.

"Tch." He quickly grabbed my arm and pushed back the sleeves. I couldn't even react. "What the he*l?" His tone became quieter, but if his face could speak, it'd say something like, "Seriously? Cutting yourself? You're so weak."

Then without even saying anything, he started looking for something, not letting go of my wrist while doing so.

"Wha- What are you doing?" I said as he yanked my arm. He then clearly found what he was looking for, but the closet was a little too small, so I couldn't really see what he was starting at. He grabbed it, and I heard this taring sound. To my surprise, he was holding a piece of tissue, cleaning up my wound.

"You need to be more careful." He grumbled.

Huh?!?! I was so confused by this. He must have assumed that those cuts and scares were all accidental...? But what's weirder about this is why- why does he care?!

Maybe my friends were right... at least in a way. I blushed at the thought. Maybe he did like me, at least a little...

A/n

I wanted to give the reader the feeling as if Y/n is actually talking to you, as if you are the voice in, well, your own head. Or if you want you can think of it as you talking to an invisible friend in your head. Which ever works for you.~

[songmingisthighs]

Hooked

introduction pt. i | pt. ii | pt. iii

ch. lxiii - weeping

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??? × reader, ateez × reader

A freshman hookup rekindled into something new. With an incentive, of course. But what would happen if your 'relationship' led you somewhere you never thought would happen to you ?

It took Seonghwa a while to work up his courage and knock at your door. True, he was the one who contacted you first but truth to be told, he wasn't thinking when he chatted you up. But he had already said that he was coming so he had to do it.

You called out from inside with a shaky voice, very noticeable to Seonghwa. Before he walked in, he took a deep breath to calm his mind and stabilize himself. When he felt he was ready, he opened the door and peeked in.

"Hi (Y/N)," he greeted. You were sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, initially staring at your bed before snapping your head to look at Seonghwa. From your bed, you forced a smile at him. The use of your name was rather... hurtful but you couldn't complain after what you've done. Yeosang's words kept replaying in your head nonstop

"Hey, Hwa, I'm sorry," you said, your gaze dropped to your intertwined hands on your lap.

Seonghwa raised an eyebrow at you and walked towards your bed after closing the door behind him. He took a seat by your side, rather awkwardly if he had to admit.

"Why are you saying sorry for?" he asked. He had an idea as to why you said sorry. But to him, it wasn't that important at the moment, he was honestly just glad that you were unscathed.

You couldn't look at Seonghwa directly, the shame and fear were eating you alive and it made you uncomfortable. You wanted to tell him how you felt, how sorry you are, and what drove you to wordlessly disappear like you did.

But you don't know how to start.

So you sat silently as tears began to drop from your eyes.

Seeing this, Seonghwa's heart broke and he immediately enveloped you in a hug. "Honey, why are you crying? Did I said something wrong?" he asked as he started to rub your arms, chuckling slightly. You couldn't let any words out, you could only let out pitiful sobs as you bury your face in his chest, your arms slowly wrapped themselves around his slim waist.

Due to the uncomfortable position, Seonghwa slowly leaned back onto the headboard with you so you could be snug in his arms.

As per usual, Seonghwa's arms felt like home, you felt completely protected and cared for. Which was annoying since you were supposed to be at odds with them all.

You both stayed in that position, completely disregarding everything else. As you sobbed, Seonghwa kept rubbing your back soothingly. sure, you both liked the silence and the calmness of the situation. But there were just a lot of things left unsaid and the both of you realized that there were things that you needed to talk about.

"We really do miss you, you know?" Seonghwa said, breaking the silence. You looked up through your tears to see him smiling softly at you. One of his hands reached forward to wipe the tears off your cheeks, "We were really useless without you, you know?" he told you with a pout. You couldn't help but giggle at him, "Yeah? I was miserable too, you know? I couldn't tell any of you guys where I was and I had to hide at Haknyeon's apartment that he shared with his roommates," you told him.

Just as you were about to get comfortable again, Seonghwa pulled you back slightly to look at your face. He had his eyebrows furrowed whilst looking at you with a weird expression.

"You weren't with your parents?" he asked. It was your turn to be confused. You furrowed your eyebrows back at him, "Well, yeah, I couldn't stay at home," you told him.

It was true. You were tormented knowing that Sunhee, Jinhee, and Gaho knew about things going on at the frat. So much so that it made you paranoid.

In the end, you turned to the one person you knew could protect you, your cousin Haknyeon. Sadly, he had recently moved in with three other men in a nearby apartment which his other seven friends were staying on different floors. The plus side was you had sure security and you were never lonely.

"Why couldn't you stay at- did your parents knew that you were staying somewhere else?" he asked.

Confused at the sudden change of tone in his voice, you sat up and turn to face him with crossed legs, "No, they don't know. Why are you making a big deal out of this? It's not like Haknyeon and his friends are bad guys," you tried to reason with him.

But at the mention of 'guys', Seonghwa's eyes bulged out and he immediately sat up straight, "Guys?? His roommates are guys??" he asked in disbelief.

A bad feeling crept up in you and you suddenly felt like you don't wanna say anything anymore. But you know you had to answer him if you don't want the situation to become worse.

"How many people were there?" he asked. His once soft expression turned hard, his jaw clenching and his fists balled up. "There were three roommates in his apartment, so there were five of us," "Was Haknyeon always there with you?" "N-no, there were times when Haknyeon had to go out to deal with things and his roommates stayed behind, at least two of them were always around,"

You were being honest, so you didn't have to feel nervous. But somehow you do. With how Seonghwa was staring at you, your brain was blaring the danger alarm.

As his fists unclench and his gaze faltered to a softer one, you began to relax slightly. Seonghwa let out a sigh as he looked to the side, seemingly thinking about something.

But then something flashed in his eyes, it was as if he made a sudden realization.

"What did you meant by 'three in his apartment'? Why did you have to specify that there were three roommates in HIS apartment?" he pressed.

You swallowed the lump in your throat. You didn't even realize that you said that. With the way he asked the question, you just knew that the conversation was not going to end well.

"What I meant... Was... That... Uh..." your voice turned softer as you tried to think about the perfect way to explain to him. But the intensity of his stare messed your brain up, "Haknyeon's other friends also lived in that apartment on different floors, so sometimes all twelve of us hung out together,"

At the mention of the actual number of guys there, Seonghwa jumped off the bed to stand towering over you with his hands on his waist, "So eleven!? There were eleven men around you in which three were always with you during the night!?" he exclaimed.

"W-well, if you put it like that-"

"How else am I supposed to put it, (Y/N)!? You LEFT us for whatever reason there were only to go to an apartment with more guys?? What the fuck, (Y/N)!?" he spat out.

His insinuation that you were out whoring yourself hurt. It hurt so much.

As you tried to speak, your voice cracked, "Y-you think I re-really went out to other guys?" you asked, obviously brokenhearted at the insinuation.

If Seonghwa realized how much you were hurt because of his words, he definitely didn't show it. He let out an exasperated and sharp sigh as he ran a hand through his hair, "I don't know what to think, okay? But Yeosang made a good point earlier; you DID leave us with no explanation and without telling anyone, and now you told me you were staying with other guys? How am I supposed to think!?"

Tears began to drop from your eyes once again, "Hwa, I was with my cousin," your voice was so small, that you were sure Seonghwa couldn't hear you.

Especially with how emotional he got.

"We're not mere options, (Y/N). The fact that I had to tell you that is just infuriating, you know!? We were worried sick about you, and where were you? Having fun with your cousin and his guy friends," he stopped himself when he felt like he was getting overwhelmed. He took a couple of deep breaths with closed eyes, trying to not blow up. As best as he could at least.

After calming himself down, he spoke up again, "I know we were never official, but we told you we loved you and we were genuine about it. If options were what you were looking for, you're with the wrong guys. You're free to make your own choices, but don't play with someone's feelings if you were never sure to begin with," he said before turning around and leave the room.

Feeling hopeless, you broke down and cried out. Tears streamed down your face like a waterfall as your breath became uneven. Your head pounded from the overwhelming emotion and lack of oxygen that tried to enter your lungs through your pitiful sobs.

You tried your best to not cry too loud by covering your mouth and folding yourself into a fetal position on the bed.

The boys really hated you. They all think you were just playing with them and that you left to pursue something more. You considered Yeosang's and Seonghwa's words, how you didn't even try to communicate with them. For whatever reason you had, you just HAD to make a choice alone. A choice that affected nine people.

Maybe it was best to really leave them.

They deserved someone better than you, someone, who would be able to be there with them and be honest and open. Someone who wouldn't just bring shit to them. That someone could've been you, but maybe you hurt them too much to the point that it was all too late.

So you grab your phone from the nightstand after sitting up to dial a number.

The call connected and the person at the other line picked up almost immediately.

"Hello? Yeah, it's me. I-I know it's late and I-I h-have no right to bother you again after everything, but do you think you can help me?"

taglist :

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[reidgraygubler]

multiply (kyle orfman/reader)

Title: multiply Request: no Couple: Kyle Orfman/Fem!reader Category: angst/smut w/ a taste of fluff Content Warning: SEXUAL CONTENT (penetrive sex, unsafe sex, mild hatefuck, grinding/groping, heavy petting, light breathplay (hand over mouth and nose) breeding/impregnation kink, fingering), zombies and zombies eating humans, death, descriptions of death, death of a grandparent (grandmother), mentions of guns and gun violence (but none actually happening), petnames (kitten/officer) Word Count: 5,943 Summary: After narrowly escaping her grandmother eating her, Reader is on her own to find other civilization. She meets the Orfman family and they take her in for safety. Reader and Kyle share a special bond. A/N: I am in love with this piece, so I hope you guys love it as much as I do. thank you to @reidetic for beta/editing this for me! this was also written for @imagining-in-the-margins "there was only one bed" trope challenge for june! thank you all so much for the support! i really do appreciate it. check out my masterlist!

{***}{***}{***}

My grandmother was alive… And then she was dead… And now she’s alive again. Which is very confusing because I watched her die. Like I can’t be the only person experiencing this, right? It’s not some weird fever dream either, I don’t think. This has to be a town wide phenomenon.

My grandmother was acting totally normal too. As if she didn’t die. She was living life day to day, making cookies, knitting, and sipping her tea, just like she did before she died. It was like life went back to normal. And then… She tried to eat me. That’s definitely not normal. Is it?

Who eats another person!? Zombies! That’s who! And how do you kill a zombie? I don’t really like that answer. Because I love my grandmother. She’d do nothing to hurt me, except eat me, I guess.

I gotta get out of this house. It’s not safe to stay in the house with her anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time. So instead of killing her, like any other sane person would do, I just left. I packed my backpack with a few clothes, snacks and water, and I left.

Turns out it was a lot more than a town wide phenomenon. It was country wide. Everyone was experiencing their dead loved ones returning from the dead. Just showing up, like how my grandmother just showed up. It caused something of an uprise, too, considering people don’t just come back to life after being dead, and they’re eating other humans. It wasn’t an uprise. It was terror, pure terror of the people who didn’t die and come back to life.

I hadn’t left my house in a while, at least since my grandmother came back. So I didn’t realize just how dire the situation was. Piles of burnt stuff were all over the place. Cars with shattered windshields were crashed into trees or homes. And the number of bodies just on the street was… incredibly disturbing.

I needed to find any sign of civilization, and quickly. There was no telling just how long I’d make it alone. I probably only had enough water for the next day or two. And the only zombie movies I’ve seen were Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, and that wasn’t very helpful… Well maybe Zombieland was helpful.

A long branch with a sharp and pointy end was sitting in the middle of the road. I grabbed it, hoping it’d be enough of a weapon to protect me from the disaster around me. I silently hoped, and prayed to whatever God was up there, that I’d find safety before nightfall.

I was beginning to lose hope as the sun started setting; the sky lighting up with the fires around the town. Several people wearing orange jumpsuits came running around the corner, each carrying various weapons in their hands and over their backs. I nearly fell to the ground because of how startled I was. I tried to pay attention to the crowd around me, but the pavement chewed up the palms of my hands.

A guy with a crew cut hairstyle seemingly looked in charge. Weird to have a gangly and scrawny man be in charge of a zombie take out group. He had this weird stature that he held, like he was trying to be intimidating but not everyone took him seriously.

The guy looked right at me and pointed a gun at my head. I slowly lifted my hands and stared at him.

“D-Don’t shoot! I’m human!” I shouted as I stared at him. He stared back, stepping closer to me. He dropped his gun away from me, but still kept his guard up.

“Human my ass!” The guy with the crewcut shouted. I looked at my hands, watching as blood began seeping from my palms. I quickly looked back at him, hoping he’d look at the human blood.

"Thoughts on smooth jazz?!" he asked in a loud tone. I stared up at him, feeling the terror bubble up my throat.

"I-I… Not my first choice in music?" I furrowed my eyebrows, as I wondered what this had to do with anything.

"Thoughts on dirt?!"

"Ew? Good for gardening? I don’t know!” I shouted back before I stumbled to my feet. The guy with the crew cut cautiously stepped closer to me as he examined my face and body. I’d assume it was because he was looking for any impurities I could possibly have. “I almost had to kill my grandmother. But… But I had to leave. I couldn’t do it. So I left. I left because she lunged at me… from across the table,” I mumbled as he stepped back. “I just need somewhere.. To lie low for the time being. I promise I’m safe.” I whispered as I looked at him. The guy looked back at the rest of his team, gauging their thoughts and concerns about letting me go with them.

“You can come with us. But the second you turn your back on us, or turn into them, don't be shocked when I’m the one to put a bullet into your head,” his voice got scary low as he stepped right up to me. I swallowed roughly and nodded.

“Understood,” I whispered as I looked up at him.

I was shoved into the middle of the crowd of orange jumpsuits. The guy with the crewcut took the lead and brought us to a house that was guarded by tall cement and steel fencing. The people who were currently occupying this home knew how to keep themselves safe.

We entered the fenced in yard of the house, the leader making sure everyone got in safely, and no undead beings followed us. Then we entered the house. I was half expecting it to be stripped down, or decayed. But when we got in… It looked like a normal home, just no power, and the windows boarded up.

“Oh! A new person!” A woman exclaimed once I stood in the area that was once a living room. She came right up to my side, looking at me with a bright smile. She was very happy that I was here. “Don’t worry! You’re safe now!” she cooed as she threw her arms around me. I froze, my body refusing to move as she embraced me.

“I-I…” I swallowed roughly as she pulled away from me. I barely had time to say anything else as she pulled us to sit on the couch.

“I’m Judy Orfman. Kyle is my son.” She smiled as she gestured towards the crew cut guy wearing the orange jumpsuit.

“Mom,” Kyle muttered as he pinched the bridge of his nose. I snickered as I looked back at Judy. I smiled softly as I gave her my name. It was weird how homey this place felt, albeit our situation in the world. Part of me wondered if Judy had any part in that.

“My husband, Noah, is out right now. And my other son, Zach, is with one of the women. She also had to kill her grandmother,” Judy whispered that last part. I looked at her with wide eyes, feeling a certain nervousness settle in the pit of my stomach. I could tell she meant well, and I shouldn’t be scared around anyone here. Everything that’s happened is just unsettling. When I woke up this morning I wasn’t expecting to have to escape zombies.

“Is it okay i-if I lie down? I’m just very tired after everything that’s happened.” I I looked between Judy and Kyle.

“Oh! Kyle, honey, you should let her sleep in your room. She obviously needs it,” Judy spoke to her son as she carefully smoothed out my hair. I looked at her with a small smile. I loved how motherly she was. It was definitely something I needed in a time like this.

“I’m not going to do that, Mom.”

“We don’t have any more bed space. You’re the only person with a bed big enough to hold two people. We aren’t going to force her to sleep on the floor or on the couch.”

“I-I don’t have an issue with the flo-”

“Non-sense! Kyle has plenty of space!” Judy clapped her hands together as she glared at Kyle. Kyle looked back at her with wide eyes before dropping his head and mumbling something. Even though Kyle was in charge of the orange jumpsuits, Judy was the head of household. Anyone could argue with her, but she would end up getting her way no matter what. Kyle probably knew better than to fight his mother.

“So it’s agreed then! You guys will share the room!” Judy smiled brightly. “Just no funny business.” She then glared between me and Kyle. I looked at her with wide eyes before shaking my head.

“Ugh! Ew! With him!”

“Her?! Are you serious?”

Even though I basically said what he said, I was still hurt by his utter disgust behind his words. I tried not letting it bother me as I grabbed my backpack and stood up.

“Why don’t you show her around? The bathroom, kitchen, bedroom.” Judy stood up beside me as she looked at her son. Kyle begrudgingly moved towards the opening of the living room, leading off to a new area.

“C’mon,” he grumbled as he looked over at me. I looked at Judy before looking back at Kyle. I dropped my head before dashing up beside him.

Every room he showed, I was met with a new person distraught by the events of the day. Kyle just showed me the room. I didn’t really know what I was expecting when he showed me around the house.

“Finally, this is where I sleep,” Kyle muttered as he gestured towards the closed off bedroom. A small smile grew on my lips as I entered the room, heading right towards the bed. Kyle, however, stopped me by grabbing my backpack and pulling me back to the door. “And just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Judy said I could sleep in here, too. So I figured I should take my side of the bed.” I looked up at him, folding my arms over my chest. A smirk grew across Kyle’s lips before he nodded. At this point we were standing toe-to-toe, and our chests were practically pressed together.

“You’re adorable,” he muttered before pulling my backpack off my back and tossing it to the left side of the bed. “If I find out you’re cuddling with me, you’re outta here. And if I see you going through my shit… You’re dead.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” I whispered before looking away from him. I walked away from him and towards the bed. Even though I wasn’t facing him, I could feel Kyle’s eyes on me as I went through my bag. “Are you just going to stand there and watch me? Or are you going to let me sleep peacefully?” I asked as I dropped my shoulders and the things I was holding.

“Until I know you won’t fuck around with stuff you’re not supposed to…” He spoke out loud. I rolled my eyes before turning to face him.

“Do you want me to just mess with your stuff while you’re here?” I asked as I walked back around to his side of the bed. Kyle’s eyes widened and his jaw steeled as I went to his night stand. “Or will you leave me alone so I can get some rest?”

“I’ll leave you alone the second you back away from that nightstand.” His words were quick and sharp as he spoke. A small smirk grew across my lips as I looked back at him. I stepped away from the night stand and stood in the middle of the room. “I’ll come back in an hour,” he muttered before leaving the room.

With a deep sigh, I returned to my side of the room, finally getting ready to lie down for the first time in what feels like days.

{***}{***}{***}

I don’t think time exists anymore. Ever since the world went to shit, it feels like days felt longer than 24 hours. So it was hard to say how long I’d been in this safe house. I wished time was still relevant...

I try not to let things bother me. But I feel like it’s especially hard in this house with all of these people I hardly know. It was even harder because I was still sharing a room with Kyle. And he is probably the worst person I’ve ever met. He talks in his sleep. But he wouldn’t own up to that. Noooo, he’s too good for that.

The first night I realized he was talking in his sleep wasn’t too bad, mostly because it was him talking about stuff that happened before before a stupid zombie apocolyspe. But now it’s just annoying shit. I never get a moment alone anymore.

For a moment of privacy, I sat in the closet. It was just for a moment before the doors swung open and a woman my age sat down beside me.

“Zach wants to go to a stupid graveyard today,” Erica muttered as she sat down. I looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. “He wants to visit Beth’s stupid grave.”

“Beth’s his ex-girlfriend, right?” I asked, still unsure of who people were here. She nodded as she began picking at the loose threads on her pants. “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Erica.”

“Okay, but when the dead start trying to kill me, then I’m going to talk ill of the dead.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” I muttered as I looked at the floor in front of us. “It’s still not really safe to do that… Little weird.” I glanced back at Erica with a raised brow. She looked back at me and grimaced. I had nothing else to say, granted conversations between us didn’t last too long. We had nothing in common other than our grandmothers tried eating us, therefore we had to kill them. So what was the use of us talking? I knew a friendship would never grow between us.

With a resigned sigh, I stood up, leaving Erica in the closet alone. I ignored her bothersome questions as I walked away from her. I didn’t want to be around her, or really anyone. So I went to the safest place I could think of, hoping no one else would be there, my shared bedroom with Kyle.

Of course, it’d just be my luck that Kyle would also be there. He was sitting at his desk, wearing nothing by his boxers while he cleaned his gun. I just didn’t realize that till I had fully entered the room.

“What the fuck!? What are you doing?! Don’t you knock!?” he shouted as I entered the room more. I turned and looked at him, my eyes wide as I stared at him. “S-Stop staring! Are you crazy!?”

“Me crazy!? You’re the one cleaning your gun half naked!” I shouted as I gestured at his attire. I quickly threw a hand over my eyes as I blindly searched for the bed.

“It's how I relax!” He shouted back. Once my body finally touched the bed, I laid back, quickly throwing a pillow over my face. “Can you leave?”

“How come you get to relax but I don’t? Roommates remember?” I sat up and glared at him. He glared back at me, keeping his hands on his gun.

“It’s so funny to me that you were going to be a police officer?” I scoffed as I laid back. That seemed to strike a chord in him, causing him to stand and look at him.

“What? I didn’t tell-”

“You talk in your sleep,

“No I don’t, Kitten,” Kyle retorted. I stared at him for a moment, trying to comprehend what he just called me. Kitten? Really? Seriously? “If anyone talks in their sleep, it’s you.” He pointed at me. I smirked and shrugged.

“If you say so… Officer.” I grinned before reaching up to shut the lamp off. Kyle stayed sitting in the darkness. I could only imagine his face was beet red, and his knuckles were white as a ghost as he held his gun.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Kyle’s voice came through the mild darkness. I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me.

“Taking a nap, Officer, because it’s how I relax.”

{***}{***}{***}

It had to have been the middle of the night. I couldn’t be too sure. I just knew it was late at night, and Kyle’s whole entire body was clinging to mine as he talked.

“Someone’s gotta repopulate the world… Why… Why don’t you do it with me?” Kyle mumbled into my chest. I stiffened as his hands drifted all over my body. “You’re like the only feasible person to do it with.”

“Okay, first off, rude,” I muttered as I shoved his body off mine. It was impossible to keep him off me though, because the moment his body was away from mine, he knew, and instantly wrapped his arms back around me ten times harder than before. “Secondly, haven’t you heard of personal space,” I groaned as I laid perfectly still on my back. I finally just gave in and let him keep his arms around me. No use in fighting that.

“C’mon, Kitten,” he mused as he nuzzled his head into my chest more. I widened my eyes and looked down at him. “We’d make some pretty cute kids.”

I hate this so fucking much. And there was no way I was getting out of this. I just wish this was when I knew the weird sex dreams started...

{***}{***}{***}

I laid perfectly still on the bed. The lights were off, and Kyle was perfectly asleep. I was envious of his sleep. The last time I had a peaceful night of rest was ages ago. The nightmares I had were awful, keeping me awake till dawn. But also, Kyle also talked in his sleep and always clung to me like his life depended on it.

I’d be lying if I said Kyle and I hadn’t gotten close. Even though part of me still hated him, the other part of me knew that he was probably the last person I had to be friends with, other than his mother and Erica.

With a deep groan, I shoved Kyle awake, nearly pushing him to the floor.

“What the hell was that for!?” he shouted from his spot on the ground beside the bed.

“You know when you talk in your sleep…” I spoke aloud. I kept my eyes on him as he glared at me.

“No I don’t,”

“You sure about that, Officer. How else would I know you wanted to be a cop?” I scoffed as I stood up off the bed. Kyle watched as I walked around the bed and stood at the foot of it.

“You… You read through my personal belongings.” He shot back as he stood to his feet.

“Y-You have a diary,” I stifled my laughter as I looked at him. Kyle glared at me again. “No, I only know that because you talk in your sleep. And at first it didn’t bother me too much because it was cute shit like being a police officer, or having a family and kids, and cute shit… But now… For the last week, Kyle, you have been having sex dreams. And I wake up to you clinging to me…” I lifted an accusing finger as I spoke. Kyle looked at me, waiting for me to continue my rant. Which was rather surprising because he hardly lets people finish their thoughts or rants before he interprets them. “Do you know how weird that is?! Having sex dreams about someone who’s just sleeping next to you?” I stared at him for a moment, trying to understand if he was going to say anything. “Whatever, I’m going to help Judy.” I scoffed before turning to leave the room.

“With what? It’s midnight!” He gestured to the dark window. Yeah, that was true. Judy was probably asleep. I just needed to get out of the room and let my frustrations be out instead of held in.

“With something!” I shouted at him.

“Kitten, wait,” Kyle started before grabbing my wrist and pulling me to face him. I spun around on my toes and looked right at him. I couldn’t help but feel annoyance grow on my face as I stared.

“Why do you call me that!?” I shouted at him. Kyle stayed silent as he stared up at me. I could see a certain confusion grow on his face as he tried to connect the dots to my question. “Kitten! Why do you call me that?! You’ve called me that since I got here.”

“Well… I…” Kyle paused for a moment. I watched as his mouth opened and closed a few times, and his jaw clenching momentarily. I stared at him, as he sat in thought for a very long time.

“Whatever,” I scoffed as I turned to leave again.

“Because you’re attractive…” He finally spoke after an eternity of silence. He looked up at me with a stilled face. “Because I’d fuck you,” he stated truthfully. I blinked, taking a step back before I stared at him.

“That’s a bit of a raunchy way to say you want to sleep with me.” I folded my arms over my chest. Kyle smirked before shrugging. “I’ve been sleeping with you for the last month.”

“You-You know what I meant,” he muttered as he approached me again. I stopped right in front of me, our toes just barely touching. “Well, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Want to have sex with me?”

“You… You want to have sex… During the end of the world. Bit cliche don’t you think?” I was still taken aback that he just asked that. I’m still stuck in the argument we had less than 10 minutes ago. And now he wants to have sex with me?

“Well I wouldn’t say that it’s the end of the world. But that’s essentially what I’m saying… Yeah, I wanna have sex with you, during the end of the world.” Kyle shrugged as he looked at me.

“If you say so… Officer,” I whispered with a shrug. Kyle looked at me, his jaw stealing at my words. “Someone’s gotta repopulate the world.” I smirked at him. I could tell my words did something to him. It was obvious that he did indeed want someone to repopulate with. And I was the winner of that contest. Not that I’m complaining.

“Don’t… Don’t call me that,” he warned as he cornered me between his body and the bed. I took a deep breath as I looked at him, feeling my heart rate pick up in my chest. He still made it possible for me to escape if I wanted to. But, at this point, who says I wanted to escape?

“Why? D-Does it do something to you, Officer?” I whispered as I lifted my hands to his shirt. A small smirk grew across his lips as I smoothed out the wrinkleiness of the fabric against his torso. I could feel the semi toneness of his chest through the light fabric.

“You tell me yourself, Kitten,” he muttered before pressing his hips into mine. My breath was instantly knocked from my lungs as his bulge pressed into my legs. “Tell me now… If you want to stop…” he half growled into my mouth. I quickly shook my head as he pressed his groin into me more.

“P-Please,” I whispered before I pulled my lips between my teeth.

“Please what, Kitten?”

“Don’t stop,” I whimpered into his mouth. He looked down at me, a pleased smirk growing on his lips before he quickly pressed his mouth along my face and then down my jaw. It was impossible to stay down on earth the moment he began leaving little bites across my neck. A soft whimper fell from my lips as he pushed me back down on the bed.

“We gotta be quiet… My parents are in the next room over. Don’t want them hearing us,” he whispered into my ear as he quickly threw a hand over my mouth. I took a deep breath before he pressed his thumb over my nose. “You think you can do that for me, Kitten?” He kept his voice low, almost a growl as he spoke. With his other hand, he carefully pushed past my pajamas and cupped my pussy.

I wanted to nod, but I knew the nod would mean nothing the second I whimpered again. Kyle smirked as he slowly moved his fingers over my clothed sex. I don’t think I’d be able to be quiet...

It just got harder to stay quiet the second he started stroking my clit over my panties. He knew exactly what he was doing. Driving me nuts, that’s what. He could’ve gone slower, and I would’ve hated him for it… Or loved him. At this point they were both interchangeable.

I bit down so hard on my lips I was sure they’d bleed as he moved my underwear to the side. My lungs slowly grew a blaze, feeling a certain tightness in my chest as he slowly moved a finger between my folds, slowly pressing it into my entrance. A dark smirk grew across his lips as he withdrew his hand.

“I didn’t know a kitten could get so wet,” Kyle mused as looked at his glistening fingers. He quickly glanced at me, his smirk growing daker by the second. Then he carefully stuck his fingers between his lips, sucking on them for a brief moment. A soft whimper came from me, causing him to laugh. “She tastes good, too,” he hummed.

Kyle carefully dragged his hand down my side, tracing over my waist and hips, before diving back into my pants and underwear. He knew exactly what he was doing, on purposely making me make noises. Because the second he started stroking over my clit, I couldn’t stop any sound that came from my mouth, even with his hand over it.

“This is already better than any dream I had, Kitten,” he murmured in my ear. I swallowed roughly and nodded. He smirked as he gently pushed a finger into me, quickly followed by a second. “If you’re quiet I’ll move my hand.”

I hummed as I closed my eyes, my head lolling to the side. Kyle dragged his hand from my mouth, sliding it down to my chest. My lips stayed between my teeth, forcing myself to be quiet as he started massaging my breasts.

“D-Don’t stop, whatever you do… Please k-keep going,” I struggled to say as his movements hastened. His thumb carefully brushed against my clit, causing me to push my head back into the bed beneath me.

“You like this, don’t you?” Kyle laughed lightly. I could feel my chest lifting away from the bed the heavier my breath grew. “How long has it been since you’ve been touched like this? Since you’ve been used?”

“Kyle, Kyle, please,” I bit down on my lower lip. I brought one of my hands to rest over my mouth, while the other held his arm.

“I’d call you a desperate, but I’m the one having sex dreams of you.”

The funny thing is… I was desperate. Even though he was the one having the sex dreams, I was the one having the thoughts when I was awake. And a lot of the thoughts were hoping this would happen. Guess we’re bothing having dreams coming true.

It was only a matter of moments before I was finishing over his hand. My eyes stayed closed as I tried catching up with time. And in the few moments I had, Kyle had climbed off the bed and quickly undressed, leaving me still in my pajamas. I didn’t feel rushed, but I hated that I was still wearing clothes.

Once I had my moment of recollection, I sat up, peeling my shirt off and kicking my pants to the floor. I was too busy undressing to even notice that Kyle was staring at me, watching my quickness and excitement. But when I finally did sit back and look at him, he was watching me with a smirk on his lips.

I tried not to let my eyes linger on his body for too long. When I noticed his hard length, I couldn’t help but stare. Then he laughed, forcing me to look up at his face and swallow roughly.

“No, please, keep staring,” he muttered with a smirk. I slowly blinked before shaking my head, silently lifting my hand to him. I could feel my sudden neediness radiating off my body, surely Kyle could sense it from where he was standing.

When he didn’t move, I slowly moved my legs apart, making it so there was space for him to kneel comfortably. He smirked again before crawling onto the bed, coming right up to my face.

“Tell me, Kitten, how badly do you want this,” he whispered against my lips. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before nodding. “Use your words. I trust you know how. You were pretty vocal a few moments ago.”

“I don’t think you understand, Officer, how bad I need you,” I murmured as I looked up at him. The corner of his lips twitched at the nickname I had so lovingly given him. “Only you can help me.”

“Damn right I am,” he muttered before roughly pressing his lips to mine. I threw my arms around his neck as he moved so his length was pressing against me. My breathing stuttered slightly before I began gasping for air as he very slowly entered me.

Once he was fully sheathed in me, Kyle knelt straight up. I stared at him, watching as he hooked his arms under my knees. With that, he managed to press deeper into me, inciting a moan from me.

“More,” I tried to whisper as I looked up at him. His eyes locked with mine for a moment before rolling his hips into mine. He fell into a steady rhythm, hitting the right spots at just the right times.

Any conversation between us ceased to exist, leaving us with struggling moans and gasps for breath. My hands ran over my body, trying to relieve myself of something.

Kyle dropped one of my legs, bringing his hand to between my legs. My head fell back before rolling to rest against my shoulder, feeling the eventual relief in my abdomen.

“You feel so good, Kitten,” Kyle mumbled before dropping my other leg and coming back down to my face. I huffed out a breath of air before lifting a hand to his head. “Better than anything I could ever imagine,” he added before pressing his lips to mine. I hummed, pushing my fingers through his hair.

“I’m gon-gonna cum,” I whined before biting my teeth into his shoulder. Kyle ran his hands up my back before pulling me close.

“Yeah?” he groaned into my ear. I nodded as my breathing grew ragged. “Me too,” he added as his movements grew faulty. He pressed his forehead to mine, his heavy breath fanning across my skin. My eyes stayed glued to his.

“Do it, please do it,” I whimpered. Kyle’s eyes grew darker the moment the heaviness of my words hit him. I don’t think I was supposed to notice his brief pause, but I did. “I’m serious.”

“You know what-”

“God, Kyle, I know. I know what it’ll mean,” I cut him off, lifting my back up into his body. He looked at me for a brief moment before capturing my lips in a gentle kiss. I threw my arms around his neck, holding him close to me.

“If that’s what you want,” he moaned, his movements turning sloppy. I knew I wasn’t about to last long. “Someone’s gotta have my kid.”

“Let it be me then,” I cried out. My legs wrapped around his waist, keeping him in place. “Please.” My whole body tensed around his as my head fell back as I tried to keep quiet. Kyle looked down at me before putting his hand over my mouth. Then a warmth- that I didn’t realize that I missed- grew in my stomach.

Kyle fell, laying against my body. With that, we fell into silence. The only sound was our heavy breathing and the sounds of crickets outside. The silence was nice though.

“My mother better not find out about this,” Kyle said after an eternity. I laughed and shook my head.

“Then you better hope I don’t end up pregnant, because she’ll find out eventually,” I sighed deeply as I brought my hands to hold the back of his head. His body stiffened before he lifted his head to look down at me.

“I’ll tell her in the morning.”

“Well you don’t have to do that,” I laughed. He stared at me for a moment. “You tell her she’ll probably break us apart. And, well, like I said earlier… Someone’s gotta repopulate the world.”

“No, yeah, you’re right. She’d probably kill me if she found out we’re having sex,” he stated before trying to move away from me. “Actually I think she’d kill me then pray I come back to life for that kid.”

“I’m not living through someone trying to eat me twice.”

“I can change that,” he teased with a smile. I stared at him once I realized what he meant.

“Tomorrow night please. I’m so tired.”

“If you say so,” Kyle laughed before slipping out of the bed.

Some months after the apocalypse ended

“You look mighty dashing in that uniform, Officer.” I looked at Kyle as I smoothed out the few wrinkles in his shirt. I tried my hardest to hold the young boy in my arms the moment he became fussy.

“Don’t start that now. I can’t be late,” Kyle warned as he looked back at me. I smiled and shrugged.

I looked up at Kyle with a soft smile on my lips. Although our son was young, he tried to blindly reach out for his father, but failed as he was just out of the child’s reach. “Be safe out there,” I whispered before pressing my lips to his.

“Of course I will.”

“Good, because your little man will be pissed if he finds out you’re not coming home.” I smiled before kissing him again. “But I think I’ll be even more pissed than your kid.”

“Please. I’ll come home in one piece, with no bites.”

“You better, Officer.” I smirked again.

“Well since you asked so nicely,” Kyle scoffed before rolling his eyes. I smiled and nodded.

“Good luck out there. Judy’s making dinner so be home in a timely manner.”

“Okay, for real, I gotta go. See you later, Little Man.” Kyle smiled as he rubbed the top of his son’s head. I smiled before puckering my lips. “And I’ll be home before you know it.” He quickly pecked my lips. “Love you.”

“Yeah, yeah, love you too. See ya later.” I swung our son over to my other hip, resting him gently on my hip. I turned around and slowly walked back up to our home.

“It’s not too soon for another one, is it?!” He shouted from the end of the driveway. I turned and looked at him as I made it to the front door.

“If anything, we can practice!”

if you want to be a part of a taglist (lmk if ur 18+ for smut) or have any comments about this one-shot, let me know here

taglist: @thebluetint @muffin-cup @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto @spencersmagic  @spenciegoob @flipperpenguins @broken-stardust​ 

[loveshacks]

diego and soundman's accents

this one was a little harder since neither of them are given specific bithplaces in canon. i had to make a few assumptions in order to assign them an accent ^^' but somehow i feel like i got a more precise idea of their voices than gyro and johnny's?

Soundman: in canon, he's never given a more specific heritage than "native american" which, thank you. thanks. that helps. also for all my ~15 minutes of forum scouring i could not find anyone else who cared to try and figure out what tribe he might be. So I will do my best:

We know at least that they live somewhere in the desert, with their intro scene having a backdrop of mesas and cacti. we also know that they ride horses, which helps to narrow it down a little. based on that im guessing Apache, since Apache people are more well known for their horseback riding than their neighbors in the desert, the Puebloans. Some Apache people did live in tipis like Soundman's tribe seems to, but the Apache groups that lived in the desert (Lipan and Mescalero) generally lived in wikiups, which are similar, but less easily transportable. Like I said he doesn't seem to be based on any specific tribe, so the references to Native culture are all over the place.

But as if Apache is specific enough! Apache itself has two distinct languages within it (Eastern and Western) and at least four dialects within those. I'm going to assume Soundman is Mescalero Apache specifically, which would mean he speaks Mescalero-Chiricahua. Here is a sample of someone switching between english and Mescalero- altho that's a much more modern example, i think we can assume that's pretty close to how Soundman would speak!

My guess is that he learned english entirely from his books, since his tribe seems to be pretty anti-contact, so i believe his english would be pretty accented and probably become more adapted/smooth throughout the race. ok transcription time!

/ aj wɛl k'las͜ t̬ɛ k'an.t'ɛ.nɛnt wɛt maj fiːt ɛ'lõ: /

"eye well c(l)ass t'e cantenent wet my feet el-oan" (VERY roughly) here's the IPA reader , i recommend Ines for best results

reader friendly text: aj wɛl klas͜ t̬ɛ kantɛnɛnt wɛt maj fiːt ɛlõ:

the mescalero language does not have the [ð] (that, the), [ɹ] (red), or the [w] sounds, so i figure the "th" jumps to the next best thing, a flap [t̬ ] (butter, medal) and an [l] is slipped in in place of the [ɹ] as they are both pronounced in the same area of the mouth, assuming he doesn't just skip over the sound entirely. as for the [w] sounds, the neighboring languages, Western Apache and Navajo both include a [w] sound in their alphabet, so i don't think it's impossible for Soundman to say 'wet water is wet,' assuming he had contact with people outside his tribe.

The biggest difference is in the vowels. Mescalero does not have the [ɪ] (will, hit), [ə] (alone), [əʊ] (own, loan), or [ɒ] (cross, hot), and those are just the sounds i needed for this sentence ^^'. They do however have 4 different nasal vowels, which are kind of hard to imagine the sound of if you aren't familiar with them, but think of how the french say "jean" and you have a nasal 'a' right there. So I think Soundman would often slip back into nasal vowels, especially in place of a vowel/nasal consonant combo at the end of a word: the end of 'alone' slips to the soft palate, and he doesn't hit the 'n' sound on its own. Mescalero also doesn't have any diphthongs, most notably the [au] in sound. so his name probably sounds more like / sã: mã / assuming it's not a translation of some longer phrase.

The vowels would be the defining feature of his accent, since it seems a lot of english vowels don't translate into mescalero. Also, didn't get to mention this, but mescalero also has quite a few sounds that are more...lisp-y (i guess?), like [ɬ], [ɣ] and and [k'] idrk if i can write out an accurate pronunciation, check them out on this interactive chart. So i think he would end up using those sorts of sounds pretty often especially in place of tighter consonants, so like 'slip' might become 'shlip' and 'contact' might become "conta(cht) " with the ending "k" sound going towards the soft palate and being pretty closed off.

Diego: he's a poor british dude, so you'd think we could just pin him with a cockney accent and call it a day. Sadly it's just not that easy. And i like making things complicated. Cockney accents are found among lower class Londoners- aka city dwellers, and Diego was born and raised somewhere in the countryside. A few miles (or kilometers i guess, we're in the UK now) can really be a world of difference on an accent. so:

during his intro his parents take him "into the mountains" so that puts us up in the north of the country- and then he flows down a river and grows up on a farm. So I am pinning him with a Yorkshire accent, since it's an area of countryside directly next to the mountains, while newcastle seems a little too north (but imagine geordie diego lol) and scouse (liverpool) seems a little too far south/also on the other side of the mountains.

Here is the oldest example i can find of a yorkshire accent, someone born in 1912, and luckily it doesn't sound tooo different from the modern accent, at least not to my american ears :~). But, given his goal of 'climbing the ranks of society' it also makes sense for him make an effort to cover up his natural accent in order to sound more posh (aka upper received pronunciation). I'm thinking then that his speech would be characterized by a lot of dropped r's/ non-rhoticity (obv), glottal stops at the end of words (mostly to replace t's d's and k's), omitting h sounds from the beginning of words, as well as diphthong vowels and a majority of frontal vowels. he might even roll his 'r's if they're in the middle of a word, like 'brando' / bɾɑ:ndɔ /

if he's really minding himself though, he'll be sure to enunciate his t's & h's, follow the rises and falls of upper RP, and not roll his r's, since that would give him away as a...u know, / blʊ:dɛ kʰʊ:ntɾɛ: fʊ:k /

the vowels would be a little harder to mind, since upper rp vowels are generally formed nearer the front of the mouth, while yorkshire vowels are less restrained, more open (formed with a low tongue/open mouth), and not very subtle. yorkshire accents can also create diphthongs where there are none, so floor may be pronounced, flu-or.

/ a:bɛts kʰɑ:ntʰ be: fɛkst jʊs laɪʔ feɪtʰ /

" 'abets c(ah)n't b(eh) fex'd, joos lai' fate" (roughly) IPA reader i recommend Geraint or Amy to get the best results.

kinda weird sounding. i know. like i said, i think he would have trained himself to hit his t's (otherwise it would sound like, "abe's, ka' fae' " ) and some more posh sounding vowels like in can't (caaahn't) and be (beehh). And then there would be the bits of his natural accent that slip thru the cracks, like the dropped 'h' in habits, and the long 'u' sound in 'just.' (dkm he might sound sorta like louis tomlinson)

so there u have it ^_^ i might do valentine, steven steel and hot pants next

[thedemisedroyal]

Dangerous Betrayal | TVD/TO

The Vampire Diaries & The Originals

AU Story

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 | 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓

𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝙾𝙽 𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃 𝙵𝙸𝚅𝙴!

• E S M E •

"Please, just make it stop!" The princess yelled in agony as she held her head. All the memories rushing through her mind, all the pain, all the hurt, everything bad she had done in her life ran through her head. But it was intensified by a trillion, this was on purpose, they wanted her in be pain.

Adara and Eila laughed manically, "Oh poor little baby, is something wrong?" Adara baby talked, chuckling in between. The princess yelled out, closing her eyes, trying to fight it, but she can't, she couldn't. The girl was consumed with guilt, making her walls around her mind tremble, they were weak, ready to fall down at the slightest of touch.

She had been tortured for years and years, after her mother banished her from the Void, they had sent her to Heaven. Her parents left her there as they hadn't finished their final punishment for their youngest daughter and child for her crimes. Until then, she would be tortured, just for laughs, just for entertainment.

"You know, for the Goddess of All Creation, you are weaker then I thought you would b-"

"Esme!" The Gilbert broke out of her thoughts, she fell into her head and she looked at the mirror in a weird angle, making her eyes shine like a golden-yellow. Making her the olden days, the years that started all of this. "Esme come on, we're gonna be late!" Elena shouted once more, the two, had school, as always, and were back into cheerleading, the younger twin seemed more willing to go then the oldest. But it made sense, things were different now.

Esme grabbed her bag and water,"Coming!" The middle child yelled, running out of her room and downstairs. "Let's get this show on the road." Esme mumbled under her breath, seeing her sister, not in her cheerleading costume.

• A U T H O R •

As time went on, Elena and Stefan had gotten much closer, dating now, which led to Esme of course threatening him if he didn't anything back to her sister. But all in all, Esme liked Stefan, trying to get close to figure out what he wanted in the end.

But days went by and she had met Damon as well, sensing he was also a vampire. But Jordan also noticed Damon looked at her with some sort of admiration, or maybe some sort of love. She had no idea was this was about, but she would definitely find out soon. As it was all too weird, now that her best friend, Caroline Forbes, was dating this Damon, who was eyeing her.

Right away she didn't exactly like him, he was a cocky and arrogant man who liked to stir up trouble. For instance, when Elena had a little dinner party with Bonnie and Stefan, Caroline and Damon had arrive unannounced, soon the blonde pulled the younger twin downstairs to join the fun. Which was a very awkward introduction between the raven haired and brunette.

It was even more awkward when the oldest Salvatore brother talked about their past live affair. Who was named Katherine, Elena had informed her sister on the love triangle, whilst the two watched and dried dishes when everyone else was in the living room. Then he walked in, and then Elena left the two alone, awkwardly.

During the time, Damon and Esme got to talk a bit, trying to get to know each other, but the girl felt very uncomfortable as Damon had this weird look in his eyes, a softness, with a genuine smile on his face which was rare for him in his case. Luckily, Bonnie had came in to ask if she needed more help, as Esme was taking quite a bit of time in the kitchen.

But that was awhile ago, and now it is the day of the football game. And the girl needed to be on her game for the cheerleaders and her best friends. Though it didn't help with the Tyler and Jeremy fight, and Stefans cover nearly blown with the cut on his hand, with Elena as witness.

• E S M E •

"God guys, I'll be back, I left my jacket and water in the car." Esme rubbed her forehead, Caroline and Bonnie nodded, the Gilbert quickly ran out the field and into the parking lot. The game was to start soon, and if she wasn't present soon the Forbes girl would have her ass. Esme quickly opened up the trunk, grabbing her maroon colored jacket and her big water bottle, that's as surprisingly still cool after being left in the car.

She swiftly turned around, gasping as she was face to face with Damon Salvatore. "You scared me. W-What are you doing here?" The Gilbert questioned, Damon looked over his shoulder quickly, then putting his hand to the side of his mouth,"I'm hiding from Caroline." He whispered. Esme quirked a brow,"And why is that?" She playfully whispered as well.

"I needed a break. She talks more then I can listen." Damon widened his eyes for a second. "That could be a sign." Esme nodded her head, kind of uncomfortable. "Well, she's awfully young".

Esme narrowed her eyes at the Salvatore,"Not much younger than you are." She responded back, Damon chuckled a bit. "I don't see it going anywhere in the bigger picture. I think she's drive me crazy." Damon spoke, Esme rose her brows and tilted her head a bit. "Caroline does have some really annoying traits, but we've been best friend since the first grade and that means something to me." The Gilbert defensively spoke, sternness in her manner.

The girl watched as something switched in the raven haired man,"Duly noted. I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable. That's not my intention." Damon talked in the soothing voice, as if he was trying to persuade her. But the girl didn't fall for it, Damon was already on her bad side,"Yes, it is. Otherwise you wouldn't put an alternate meaning behind everything you say."

Damon smiled, shaking his head,"You're right. I do have other intentions, but so do you." Esme folded her arms across chest,"Really?" She questioned, wanting to see where he was going with this. Damon hummed as a response,"I seem 'em. You want me." Esme scoffed, feeling offended,"Excuse me?"

"I get to you. You find yourself drawn to me. You think about me when you don't want to think about me. I bet you even dreamed about me." Damon looked straight into Esme's eyes, the girl immediately knew what he was trying to do. "Compulsion." The voice in the back of her head reappeared for her once again. The girl was confused, what was this little voice, and most importantly, what the hell was Damon trying to play at here.

She snapped back into reality when she heard his voice once again speak,"And right now.. You want to kiss me." Esme had this emotionless look on her face, though it was pure anger, Damon smiled as he succeeded or he thought. He slowly leaned in with a smirk, Esme looked at his lip, before her face was painted with a scowl, and without thinking, Esme raised her hand and slapped him hard.

"What the hell?" Esme scoffed, glaring at him,"I don't know what game your trying to play here. Maybe trying to mess with Stefan, I don't know. But I don't want to be a part of it. And I don't know what happened in the past, but let's get one thing straight." Damon was in complete shock, Esme locked eyes with the man, who was holding his cheek,"I am not a pawn." Esme glared once more before tightly holding her water and jacket and walking away.

She didn't even realize what she had just done, she had blown her own cover...

• S T E F A N •

The blonde haired vampire watched as Matt walked away, feeling slightly more happy and comfortable with the complicated situation between him, Elena and Matt, but it was short-lived as he heard someone clapping behind him. He swiftly turned around, to see his older brother leaning against the brick wall.

"Isn't that nice? Stefan joins the team, makes a friend." Damon announced, pure sarcasm out of his tone of voice. "It's all so,'Rah, Rah, Go Team, Yeah'!" Damon raised his arm in a fist bump, clearly mocking his brother. Stefan shook his head, turning his body to leave,"Not tonight. I'm done with you." As he turned he was met face to face with Damon, who used his vampire-speed. Damon tilted his head, "Nice trick with Esme. Let me guess— vervain in her bracket? Necklace or ring maybe?"

Stefan was confused, he never gave the girl any vervain, only Elena. But he made sure to not show any unsureness, as he didn't even know why he couldn't compel her. "I admit, I was a bit surprised. It been a while since anyone could resist my compulsion." Damon lifted his eyes, throwing a innuendo in there. Stefan kept a cold, and stern face, unfazed,"Where'd you get it?" The older brother asked, "Does it matter?" Stefan started to walk away, going around his brother.

"Guess I could just seduce her the old-fashioned way. Or I could just..eat her." Damon cockily spoke, knowing that caught his brothers attention. Stefan stopped, turning around, confidence in his body,"No, you're not gonna hurt her." He slowly walked towards him as Damon turned around to face him.

"No?" Damon arrogantly asked,"Because deep down inside there is a part of you that feels for her. I was worried that you had no humanity left inside of you; that you may have actually become the monster that you pretend to be." Stefan with confidence, knowing he wouldn't hurt her, not if she looks the way she is.

Damon squinted his eyes,"Who's pretending?" Stefan looking him in the eyes,"Then kill me." Damon smiled,"Well I'm— I'm tempted." He looked up, shaking his head as he looked as if he was deciding. "No, you're of. You've had lifetimes to do it, and yet, here I am. I'm still alive. And there you are. You're still haunting me. After one hundred and forty five years. Katherine is dead, and so is Natasha. And you hate me because you love her, and you torture me because you still do. And that, my brother, is your humanity." The two had a tense stare off, but it was quickly interrupted by the annoying douche, Mr. Tanner.

"Salvatore!" The blonde haired man turned around with a stern expression, the teacher walked towards him with open arms,"What the hell? We've got a game to play!" He yelled, frustrated, Damon looked at the teacher with an idea popping in her head. "If that's my humanity..the. What's this?" He gulped, flashing a quick and sarcastic smile towards Stefan.

Then using his vampire-speed to Mr. Tanner, his vampire fad slowly unraveling, his fangs then digging themself into Mr. Tanner's neck. He yelled in pain,"No!" Stefan yelled, seeing as his brother slowly drained the teacher for all he was worth. Then just like that, he was dead, Damon turned around, blood all over his mouth, dripping to his chin, his vampire face still out,"Anyone, any time, any place." Stefan blinked in shock, this was going to be a lot more tougher.

• E S M E •

Dread...that's what filled the Gilbert body as she was in the field with the rest of the cheerleader, practicing. Until that emotion she knew all to well filled her body, it nearly paralyzed her when she felt the sense of death. She could smell it in the air, feel it in her finger tips, taste it on her tongue.

She held her head as a pain rushed through her body, she walked away from the group, though no one noticed, luckily. Then aloud ringing filled her head, making her groan, she opened her eyes, but shut them immediately when the lights hit her. "Fuck!" Jordan clenched her eyes in pain, she then moved further away from her group, feeling a sudden breeze of wind hit her face and body. She opened her eyes as she heard no one, and felt no light on her.

"What in the?" Jordan looked around her new surrounding, seeing she wasn't even on school soil anymore. No, she was in the empty park of Mystic Falls, far away from the school. She then felt a rush of power surge through her veins, Jordan gasped as she lifted up her hands to see scarlet red flares dancing around her hand.

"What's happening to me?"

[orange-waterfalls]

Say It Back(Part 1/2)

Host x gender neutral!reader

@thekillingjoke-haha ty for the request!

Part 2

A/N: BRO I FUCKIN LOVE THIS ONE. I was on a writer's block and then CAVETOWN MY LORD AND SAVIOR apparently made a song called "Sweet Tooth". I took a lil bit of inspiration from the chorus(hence, the title). You took inspiration from a song, so did I lol. It took me a bit to find the mood for the story, but once I found it I couldn't stop lol. So. Two-parter. Uh a bit of cursing, Rated T. Slight angst for a minute. The names I used are not people I actually know, they're from a random name generator website. Enjoy!

Word Count: 2.0k

Requests are open!

--

The Host stares at them from across the room.

Well… less ‘stares’ and more ‘keeps his head facing their general direction’. Even so.

They are beautiful. Even with the loss of his sight, he knew they were beautiful. On the inside, at least. He smiles in content as he hears their angelic laugh from across the room. Bing is making jokes again. The Host might’ve been jealous if he were a lesser man and if he weren’t so focused on how their happiness made him happy.

He doesn’t very much understand what he is experiencing. He’d seen movies, he’d read books, he’d listened to songs. He knows what love is. He knows it well.

What it feels like, however, was a completely different ballgame.

Host more focused on his work than on romance. Besides, he just doesn’t like people. He wanted to fall in love at times, but he just couldn’t.

Y/N on the other hand makes him… feel things. He’s not sure if it’s love, he just knows he really enjoys everything they do.

He doesn’t even care that they barely talk to him anymore.

Well… he cares, obviously, but…

You understand, don’t you? Good.

“Host? Hooost. Host!” A voice calls from his side. He hums in response. Bim rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair. “Have you been listening to me for the past ten minutes?”

“No,” Host answers flatly. Bim smiles when he looks over to where Host was facing.

"So you've finally realized you have a crush?" He teased. Host raises his eyebrows.

"Finally?"

"Oh, yeah. We’ve known this, Host, it's really obvious." Host furrows his eyebrows.

"We? What does Bim mean by ‘we’?" They hear footsteps and turn towards the front.

Y/N standing in front of the two, a small, awkward smile on their face.

"Hey," Y/N greets softly. The Host is frozen in place.

"Hey!" Bim says, a wicked grin on his face as he sees the effect on Host. "Didya need something?"

"Yeah, um… Bing told me to ask you where Wilford would be…"

"Oh, well I know nothing about Wilford. I don't think anyone does," Bim explained. “But Host here knows everything, so…” Host turned to Bim angrily. He turns back to Y/N when he hears them clear their throat.

“So, uh, Host?” They ask. Host has to keep himself from shivering at the sound of his name.

“Hm?”

“Where is Wilford?”

“W-Wilford is d-down th-the hall… uh, t-to th-the right f-from the b-bathroom…” Host stutters out, voice cracking once or twice. Y/N smiles and nods in thanks before remembering Host is, in fact, blind.

“Uh, thank you…” They laugh, embarrassed. Host tries to give a small smile. His face isn’t used to that yet, so he settles for a nod. They walk away, and he increasingly becomes more sad and more embarrassed as their footsteps fade away.

“Wow,” Bim laughs, “For a narrator, you can’t talk very well, can you?”

“That is not true, the Host can talk very well…” He pauses, “When he is not around Y/N…”

“Oh, so it’s just them, huh?”

“Yes, they very much affect Host and he isn’t quite sure he likes it…” Bim smiles at Host. “What is the problem with Bim Trimmer?”

“There’s no problem, Host, I’m just happy for you!”

“Why would Bim be happy that Host cannot speak correctly?”

“Because you’re in love, dumbass!” Host would have found the insult very… well… insulting if he hadn’t become distracted by the previous phrase.

‘Because you’re in love’. Was Host in love? He wasn’t sure what that felt like.

There was Serena Munoz in kindergarten. They dated for a couple days. She didn’t like how he read constantly, and decided to break up with him. Host wasn’t in love with Serena. He wasn’t even sure he had a crush on her. Maybe he dated her just because she asked. It didn’t affect him when they broke up.

Then there was Jesse Snow in the sixth grade. He was nice. Trumpet player in the band. They liked to read together in the library at lunch and after school. They recommended books to each other and even wrote a couple stories together. They sat next to each other in math and passed notes in cryptography so the teacher wouldn’t understand. They would, though. But Jesse was scared. Two boys dating in middle school? Not the best for his image. He probably got teased or called gay(which he was) and that’s why they broke up. He liked Jesse. He was sad when they stopped talking. But he didn’t think that was love. It was more of a ‘like’ than anything.

Then Asa Holmes in his senior year of highschool. They were really different. They had blue hair, but he could see the natural-brown in the roots. They wore a lot of black and spikes and chains. They listened to punk rock and heavy metal. Host liked the heavy metal more, so they listened to that more often. They did homework together at Asa’s house, and Asa would start dancing halfway through and it kind of annoyed Host, but he also found it endearing. Then they graduated and promised to keep in touch, but Asa just… couldn’t. Host understood, and they stopped. He was disappointed, but he wasn’t in love with them.

Is this what love feels like? Is it a weird feeling in your stomach when you look at this one person? Is it your heart racing when you see them laugh? Is it hyperventilating when they come over to talk to you? Is that what love is?

Oh.

Oh no.

Host is in love.

Y/N had managed to weasel their way into the dark and lonely place in his soul and fill it with hope and joy and love.

And, oh, how he absolutely loves you.

And what the hell is he supposed to do about that?

--

“Uh, Host?” Bim calls after 20 minutes of silence from the writer. “Are uh… are you okay?”

“No,” Host answers instantly.

“Uh… why not?”

“Because… Host is in love…” Bim is quiet for a second and Host worries he’s gone Deaf as well. But Bim lets out a loud laugh that startles Host.

“Bing! Get your ass over here, you owe me $30!” Bim yells. Bing groans and drags his feet over to them, mumbling as he takes the money out of his wallet. Host begins to zone out, all the noise around him fading into nothing.

Host was… in love. What was he to do? Tell Y/N? No… he couldn’t. They might hate him. They might think he’s awful. They might stop being around him completely. He couldn’t handle that.

So, what was he to do?

“So, what’re you gonna do?” Bim asks, as if reading Hosts mind. “You’ve got to tell them of course.”

“No.”

“No?” Bim scoffs, “Wha do you mean, ‘no’? You have to tell them, Host!”

“Hos does not have to do anything. Host is content with watching from afar.” Host explains. There’s a pause.

“That’s goddamn creepy, Host,” Bim states. Host frowns. It is a bit creepy.

“Host cannot tell them,” He whispers. Bim, finally seeming to understand, sighs and leans forward.

“Look, Host, I know you’re scared. I know this is unfamiliar territory for you, but…” Bim starts. Host leans a bit towards him, wanting to hear what he has to say. He may treat the man like he’s annoying, but ultimately, Host cares about his opinion. Bim sighs again.

“If you don’t tell them, you’re going to regret it. Trust me I know…” Bim pauses, and Host begins wondering who hurt him. “But, these are your feelings, Host! You can’t keep them bottled up inside you forever. It’s unhealthy. You need to tell them and if they like you back, great! If they don’t, that’s too bad, watch ‘Dirty Dancing’ on repeat and eat a tub of ice cream like the rest of us.” Host tilts his head a bit.

“Host cannot exactly watch--”

“Oh, you know what I meant, smartass!” Bim laughs and Host smiles. He does know what Bim meant, and he undrstands. He just needs to say it. How would he say it?

‘Hi. I like you. Say it back.’

That’s a bit too forward.

But forward is what Host does. It’s who he is, he can’t change that.

He’ll just say that to them when they come back.

Y/N walks back into the room where Bim and Host are. They’re wearing different shoes, he can tell. Are they wearing different clothes as well? Why would they be?

Wait…

“Wow, hey Y/N! Who you dressing all nice for?” Illinois says from somewhere else in the room. Host is pale. He doesn’t want to know.

“Well,” Y/N chuckles, “I’m glad you asked!”

No.

No, no, no.

“I’m actually going out for lunch.”

“Really? With who?”

Stop.

Stop!

“It’s ‘whom’.”

“Fuck you, Google. Y/N, spill.”

Don’t.

Please, don’t.

“I’m going out on a date!” They finally finish. The room is completely silent. Not that Host would hear anything with the ringing in his ears.

He felt bad. He felt so bad. He hated this… feeling. He was so upset.

“Well, don’t all talk at once…” Y/N jokes awkwardly. Bim finally decides to take pity on them.

“Wow! Didn’t know you had it in you!” He teased. “Congrats!” The other egos joined in in a chorus of congradulatory phrases. Host was silent.

“Well, I better go. Wish me luck!” They said, practically bouncing out the door. Everyone said goodbye to them, and the door finally closed. Host could feel everyone’s eyes on him. They all knew. The all knew. And he didn’t until he was too late to do anything.

Typical of him.

“Host…” Bim starts. Before he can say anything else, Host shoots up and makes a beeline for the bathroom. No one calls after him, no one tries to stop him, no one does anything, He is grateful for that. He just wants to sit and wallow, and that’s exactly what he plans to do.

--

Host heard a soft knock on the door.

“Host?” Bim asks quietly. “Host, it’s Bim. Are you okay?”

“No,” Host whispers. “Host is not okay. Why would Host be okay?”

“Well, uh… you’ve just… been in there a while. I figured you’d have gotten a bit better…”

“Host has not.”

“Oh…”

Silence for a moment, and Host thinks Bim will leave. No matter how much he may try to seem cold, he does enjoy the man’s company.

“Don’t worry. I’m still here.”

Host lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Bim?” He hears the other man shift so he is sitting out side the bathroom door.

“Yeah, Host?”

“Do you think Host is worthy of love?”

“Yes.” Bim said immediately. Host waited for an explanation. He got none. He supposed that’s just how it works. Sometimes you don’t get an explanation.

“Bim?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think that Y/N could be in love with Host?”

“I think… you shouldn’t bet on it.” Host’s shoulders fall. “But, I also think that there is a possibility and you should tell them soon before they fall in love with someone else.” Host brought his head up. Bim was right.

Y/N was going on a date. Presumably, their first date with this person. Dates are used to figure out if someone is in love, or gives an oppurtunity for someone to fall in love. There was still time. He still has time.

Host swings the bathroom door open and Bim hits his head on the floor.

“Ow! Dammit, Host!” He cursed. Host couldn’t feel bad. Not now.

“Host needs help.”

“With what?” Host turns towards Bim, who pulled himself to his feet.

“With getting Y/N to fall in love with me.” Host heard nothing for a second. Then, a chuckle from the gameshow host.

“Alright,” He sighs, “What do you wanna do?”

[csykora]

[A tabby cat curled up in the middle of a bubble hockey board. Or you, being comfortable in an athletic community that’s good enough for you]

Hiiiiii! I’ve been looking at ice hockey and it seems a cool sport and something that I might want to do as a hobby. Only Im disabled. Do you think I could still do the thing? Do you have ideas on how to start doing the thing? Ive often found it hard to do sports because coaches or trainers don’t know shit about disability and so have no clue how to teach you things or what you may or may not be capable of and telling them is useless because they make assumptions about your body and gah. Cheers

Hey—

Yes. Do the thing. Please go do it! I am not your coach, not your trainer, only friendly local bone witch—which I am very annoyed to have to say because you are a great athlete to work with.

Can I point out a couple things you just said?

You’re offering to do a trainer’s homework for them.

The early game didn’t have coaches. People milled on and off in whatever situations they felt like. Coaches and trainers came onto the scene so that someone was keeping track of who was actually good at what, when they needed support, and how to use them to best effect. That’s their whole gig.

Talking to folks on this blog, I’ve learned lots of people have this impression that capital-A Athletes have some factory-settings-standard body, any deviation a disaster (and they themselves can’t be athletes because they don’t.)

I think it’s very useful to smash this idea. Every athlete is a grab bag of weaknesses and weirdnesses, from old injuries down to handedness. Every coach longs to have three right-shot defensemen, and has made peace with the fact they’re not going to get them. Their job is to play with all the mismatched pieces they do have until they fit into a team.

If you present a coach or trainer with information about your abilities, and they don’t want to use that information, the problem you got right there is a shit coach.

Despite what the National League believes, there are more than 32 coaches in the world. 

Throw a stick up here and you’ll hit another amateur coach. When we’re little, if we get a shit coach or PE teacher, we get stuck. That does real and lasting harm, which I am happy to go on at length about, but to flip it around:

Now, you are a big Zee, who wants to learn to play as a hobby, with the goal of having fun. That’s a powerful place to be.

I won’t say there aren’t stakes: you could get hurt, physically or emotionally. Sharing information about your body with other people to try to keep yourself from getting hurt all the time can be hard. Playing can make you feel physically accomplished and capable in your body, which is a deep need I think we all have, so having to back away if a team does turn out to be shit is hard. So I don’t say “you can always quit a team” lightly, but…there is no threat if you quit a shit team, no one (who matters) will get mad or make you go back.That means you can advocate for yourself, and if a reasonable shot at advocacy reveals that a coach isn’t just unfamiliar with how to do their job for someone with your disability but uninterested in doing their damn job for a disabled person, you can wave them farewell and find another.

Now, our goal is for you to find a good trainer, who just needs to be given information about what you (not someone with the ‘same’ condition, but you specifically) have got going on.

I’m going to tell you to look up an adult learn-to-skate program. Most rinks will have regular learn-to-skate and learn-to-hockey programs spaced throughout the year (often paired so you spend “first semester” on skating before the people who want to move up to hockey). Look up different rinks, talk to people about the rink culture and the coaches there. If you have the time, maybe spend a while hanging out there watching the open skates, local team practices or public classes, getting a sense what it’s like and telling yourself you have as much right to be in that barn as anyone else. Then sign up for a class. But first I want you to be devastatingly, Hepburn-ishly confident in talking about what your disability means for you.

From the information you’ve just given me, I don’t know almost anything I would need to work with you. You may or may not know that information about yourself already, but you can figure it out.

“Mild hemiplegia” is not a super-medical phrase. Hemiplegia is complete paralysis on one side of the body, where you are unable to move those muscles on purpose. A mild to moderate loss of muscle strength on one side is hemiparesis.

These terms are, to be honest, mostly used to organize medical literature. They describe very specific signs that might happen for a variety of reasons. Other symptoms like loss of sensation, loss of range of motion, involuntary muscle spasms, or loss/delay of involuntary motion (reflexes), which may or may not occur with plegia/paresis, have to be specified and described. If I were treating you I definitely wouldn’t describe your case as “hemiplegia”, I would call it “hemiparesis” with a lot more descriptive words around that (and I probably wouldn’t use either when talking to you).

It’s not that you used a word wrong. I’m concerned that 1. people have made you think you have to use A Medical Name for your disability for it to be taken seriously, but also 2. because the stroke happened so early, you’ve actually been denied care and opportunities to learn about it.

1. First, for the record, you don’t have to justify your disabled identity to me. And while I really (really) understand the self-protective urge a lot of us have to try to say, “my condition is really real and serious, it has a Real Medical Name, please believe me”, I think that (outside of a legal context where you’re seeking protected accommodations) that strategy often isn’t as useful as we hope it will be to communicate with other people in our daily lives. The people who demand to see your Really Medically Serious card before making accommodations will always find something else to demand, while people who aren’t trying to be assholes will be better able to help you if they know exactly, practically how.

It’s not that one way of talking about your disability is wrong, but I want you to talk about it in ways that are useful to you, that help you connect with other people and get you what you want.

2. I’ve worked with a lot of elders who have paralysis or hemiparesis from strokes later in life, after being able-bodied for most of their lives, and doctors and therapists jump right up in there teaching and training them to “recover” that “lost function”. They/their families can’t not know all the medical words just from hearing them over and over. But what often happens when a person is disabled since childhood is that…they aren’t seen as having “lost capacity” that can be “saved”, but as having a baseline “low level of function” that’ll never change, so much less attention is payed.

I’m using the air quotes because many people’s disabilities are present throughout their whole lives, and someone’s disability or disabled identity is not just a “problem” to be solved or gotten rid of. But people with disabilities grow and change, especially when we’re, you know, children. What often happens is that parents/authorities encourage able-bodied children to play, practicing motions and building up their bodies’ ability to move, while children with disabilities get benched from practice, benched from not just one activity but from being active at all, which means being benched from developing their bodies in the ways that might actually work for them, and from developing relationships with their bodies.

Proprioception, for example, is a combination of some fundamental ability/capacity/threshold/potential/whathaveyou and skill developed through experience that changes in context. Ever seen a baby? None of them know where the hell they are. A baby that can crawl is let loose to explore the world and bump into things that trigger their nerves until their body learns to fit all that sensation information together and use it. A baby that doesn’t crawl for some other reason often doesn’t get a chance to explore, to experience those sensations or train up that skill. And a kid that has a different threshold for stimulation, who naturally seeks out more or less or a different sort, is often stopped from stimming in ways which would provide their body information they could process.

As an adult, you get the chance to look at what you want to do and how your body can do it again.

So…

I want you to go throw a ball at a wall. Try to catch it. If you do any exercises already, sit-ups or pushups, do some of those. Run around the block, jump around on your bed. Stretch or just swing your arms and legs around. Find some small objects to use as weights and lift them, with either arm and then either leg (or set them on the floor and see if you can push them).

Work your way up your body one limb at a time, first thinking just about that limb on its own and then comparing the two sides after you’ve done them both. Don’t put a value judgement on anything yet, just pay attention: if your feet feel okay after running around, if you had more strength in one spot than you expected, if you had fun jumping, if there was a time you thought you might wobble but were able to correct, count that too! Think about each activity you did, the sensations around it, and whether that stim was satisfying, overstimulating, or not stimulating enough.

I want you to be able to go to a learn-to-play program, ask to talk with the coach at an appropriate time during the application or orientation, and say things like, “I have this condition. This is what it means: I have less strength with one arm, but I can move it as fast as the other, and with the same range of motion. I don’t grip items as well with one hand, or I tend to grip very hard. I don’t feel this type of sensation in this area, but I do feel that”.

Your coach is then going to recommend exercises to build strength in particular areas, or modifications to exercises so that you can do them without needing to use a particular area; they might have you try different equipment (find a tape job or adapted hand position that helps you keep hold of your stick, etc), and they may also encourage your towards and start training you for a particular position where you could do the most. When it comes to sensation, they’ll know to watch you closer for injuries in that spot that you might not notice.

This came in while I was applying to go back to university, and I bribed myself through the short essay section by pausing every hour to eat chocolate and sketch out what I would have you do for hypothetical positions and exercise plans. That’s still a long way off, but I’m very invested, so a couple things I want you to think about as you work towards the goal:

Keep sled hockey in mind. It’s not always a fit for people whose disability involves their arms, but it’s a cool community and most rinks will offer clinics where you can try out a sled and get a sense of the game.

How do you feel about getting hit with a puck? From your description, stickhandling and shooting may not be super fun for you. They may be, but if you give them a fair try and start to fee discouraged, try picturing yourself as a defender focussing on positioning or shot-blocking, or a goalie. Some people never ever want to do it, which is fair, but if you’re at all interested I’d love to see you try some time in goal! Everyone’s different but some folks the weight of the pads and the focused role can be really good stimulation. If your handling or footwork doesn’t feel great, goaltending would let you focus on moving your body more naturalistically as a whole to position in front of shots. And everyone else will love you for volunteering!

Write back and tell us how it goes!

[theeeveetamer]

Helloo! Hm, if you don't mind, I have a request for some more of the modern omegaverse? Particularly how Leo and Takumi met, or the scene with good ol protective Ryoma :)

Alright here we go. I know nothing about this is specific to high school, but in my modern Omegaverse I always envisioned Leo and Takumi being high school sweethearts.

I had a lot of fun writing this, so it ended up being really damn long. Like, almost 40 pages. Couple of notes: I know Mikoto isn’t their canon mother but since she has an established relationship with all of the Hoshidan sibs I think she’s easier to write and makes more sense in Omegaverse. I based this on my high school’s class scheduling, which was four classes a semester, 90 minutes per class. We called them blocks but most places have ‘periods’ so they’re referred to as such for simplicity sake. Finally, I’ve arbitrarily decided that America’s drinking age is 18 in this fic because it should be.

Tags: Omegaverse, High School AU, Omega!Takumi, Alpha!Leo, falling in love, Lower Middle Class Leokumis, Mentions of child abuse/alcoholism

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282396

“Alright are we ready?”

“Yep! On three!”

Takumi slid his finger under the lip of the envelope, and his friends followed suit.

“One… Two… Three!”

They all tore the glue seal, some more elegantly than others. Hinata got impatient half way through and just ripped the envelope down the middle. Oboro’s wasn’t much better, but at least she’d managed to tear it lengthwise like she was supposed to.

They all pulled out their class schedules at the same time and compared.

“Alright I have geometry first thing… Ugh.” He groaned. He liked math as much as the next guy, but that early in the morning?

“Damn, I have it third.” Oboro pointed out. “But we have the same teacher, so we can at least do the homework together.”

“Wait, I thought we were taking that next semester!”

They tried to schedule their class preferences so that they matched up, but that still didn’t guarantee they would get classes together. Hinata always mixed up at least one class and took it in the wrong semester.

“No, Hinata. We were going to take art next semester, remember?”

“Well shit.” He laughed. “You guys’ll still help me, right?”

Takumi rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

“C’mon Takumi, what do you have next?”

It didn’t take them long to hash out the schedules. He was on his own first period, but he and Oboro had gym together fourth period. He and Hinata shared American History during third period, which also meant they had lunch together. They were all taking different language courses anyways, so he knew he’d have at least one class by himself.

With that settled he was scanning his schedule again just to ensure they shared the same teachers.

“Fuck…” He muttered under his breath.

“What is it?”

“I just realized that we have Izana for history.”

“So?”

Hinata was the oldest in his family and Oboro was an only child, so they didn’t have the ‘benefit’ of having older siblings go before them. Sometimes it was nice because he knew which teachers were good, and sometimes it was awful. If he had a quarter for every time a teacher said ‘Oh, Shirasagi? Are you Ryoma’s little brother? Well he was a joy to have in class!’ he’d be loaded.

“Ryoma and Hinoka both had him! They say he likes to play matchmaker with the Omegas in the class. Plus, he assigns a lot of group projects.”

“Ugh, great! You’ll be my partner right?”

“Obviously, dude.” Even though working with Hinata usually resulted in both of them getting distracted and goofing off until last minute, he wouldn’t have it any other way. As long as he got his A he didn’t really care how the project got done.

Though, he was concerned about a little more than just the group projects. There were definitely more Alphas in their school than Omegas, and ever since he’d presented he’d been dealing with dumb ‘matchmaking’ teachers. Heck, they were doing it before he’d even presented! And pretty much every time it happened the Alpha fell head over heels for him, and he absolutely did not reciprocate.

He couldn’t even count the number of calls Mama needed to make to the school about it on both hands. And whatever number that was, he’d probably have to double it to even get close to the number of overstepping Alphas Ryoma beat the shit out of on his behalf. In fact, most Alphas were beginning to treat being seated next to him as a death sentence, which wasn’t exactly doing wonders for his romantic life. The only Alphas in their grade willing to go within fifteen feet of him were Hinata and Oboro.

He tugged anxiously at his collar. Oboro seemed to notice because she finally changed the subject.

“Well, we only have a few weeks left of summer! Let’s not waste it thinking about school!”

“Damn straight!” Hinata agreed.

“Come on, Mama said dinner would be done around six. And hey, she bought a ton of popcorn for movie night!”

_________________

The first day back was always the worst. Farewell to staying up until four am and waking up at noon, hello dragging his ass out of bed at seven am. At least Ryoma was a senior this year, so Mama let him take the car to school. Hinoka took shotgun and he sat in the back with Sakura. She was fiddling with the strap of her messenger bag and biting her lip nervously.

“You look cute today, baby sister.” She really did. He could tell she’d woken up early to do her hair and makeup, and she’d picked out one of her favorite dresses. It was a far cry from his ratty old jeans and tshirt or Hinoka’s athletic shorts and tank top. He hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair out when he woke up, he’d just thrown it in it’s regular ponytail. He almost envied his sisters’ shorter hair.

“T-Thanks! I’m just so n-nervous, you know?”

“You’ll see! High school isn’t so scary!” Hinoka threw over her shoulder from the passenger seat. “Heck, you’ll be sick of it before long!”

“Come on Hinoka. Let her have one day before you make her jaded.” Ryoma chuckled.

“You’ll do great.” He patted her hand. “Let me know if you get lost okay? I can help you walk to class.”

“A-Alright.”

______________

The day went pretty quickly. It was the first day, so most of the teachers were just going over their syllabi and doing some dumb icebreakers so the class could get to know each other. It was mind numbing, but at least he could doodle in his notebooks and just pretend to be paying attention.

He’d been silently dreading third period all day, and all was well until then. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. It would be nice to sit next to Hinata, but if Izana really was a matchmaker then that could make things awkward. Then again, he’d rather things be a little awkward with his best friend than get harassed by some Alpha that needed to learn the definition of ‘boundaries’.

Hinata was already inside the classroom. He waved at Takumi from around the middle of the classroom and motioned to the empty seat beside him. The desks were laid out very strangely: Each row had six desks, and  three columns consisting of two desks pushed together.

“No alphabetical order?”

Hinata shrugged. “He just told us to sit wherever.”

The man in question was currently behind his computer at the front of the room. The bell rang, but he still seemed intent on whatever he was working on. A few minutes of idle chatting later he stood up and stepped to the center of the room.

“Good afternoon everyone. I’ve created a randomized seating chart for you all. Please come sit in your new seat when I call your name.”

They were about ten desks in when the pattern became obvious. Of course every Omega just so happened to be paired with an alpha, despite the sizable portion of Betas in the class. Randomized. Sure.

“… Shirasagi, Takumi!” He squinted his eyes at the paper for a moment. “Weird, I think I had your brother. Or was it a sister?”

“It was both…” He mumbled dejectedly as he took his seat.

“Alright then let’s see… Windmire, Leo!”

Oh gods. Anyone but him.

Their brothers had been feuding since Ryoma’s freshman year, he couldn’t even remember what about. Something about a failed science project that both of them insisted wasn’t their fault. After that it was pretty much silently agreed upon that the Shirasagis would avoid the Windmires, and they would do the same. He’d never personally met Leo, but he’d heard stories. Mainly about how he was a stuck up pretty boy.

And yeah, just looking at him walk across the room he’d believe those rumors. He had a way about him that was hard to miss. He never slouched or shuffled; He strode along like he was above it all. And he was tall. At least six foot or so. Which, Takumi supposed wasn’t all that impressive for Alphas in general, but at fifteen or sixteen most of them were still growing and stood at around five foot eight to five foot ten. That meant he was constantly looking down his nose at everyone else. It was a little intimidating, at five foot six he’d pretty much stopped growing, and he was considered tall for an Omega. Sakura was only five foot two.

The blonde dropped his newly acquired textbook and notebooks down on the desk next to him. They didn’t say a word to each other as Izana finished assigning seats. It seemed like his siblings hadn’t exaggerated: Every Omega in the class was paired off with an Alpha. When that was done he handed out the syllabi and moved back to the front of the class to go over it.

“In this class I believe in learning the value of teamwork! So, you’ll have four group projects. Three due throughout the semester and one final project. Your project partners will be the person you’re sitting next to. No exceptions. These are big projects and will require outside work, so be sure to get your partner’s contact information.”

He heard the Alpha beside him audibly groan. He was, quite frankly, a little offended. Sure he and Hinata goofed off, but he was still a straight A student damn it! Where did this asshole get off?

They suffered silently through the remaining eighty minutes of class until lunch. When the bell rang he reluctantly turned to his seatmate.

“So…” He was loathe to do it, but unfortunately he had to. “We should probably exchange numbers.”

The Alpha rolled his eyes as he pulled out his phone.

“I’m sorry, do you have a problem with me?”

“Just don’t tank my grade. It’s bad enough that I have to associate with a Shirasagi, but an Omega?”

Ah, there it was. The old stereotype that an Omega couldn’t be smart, too. Boy, was this asshole in for a rude awakening.

“Look, I’m not happy about this either.” He growled as he typed his number in. “But I’m not about to get a B just because I’m stuck with you as a partner.”

With the exchange done he collected up his backpack and met up with Hinata, who was waiting by the door for him.

________

“Ugh, can you believe that guy!” He groused, shoving his sandwich into his mouth. Hinata was similarly scarfing down his food, but they were sitting on their own because Oboro had a different lunch.

Between complaining he was also scanning the room for Sakura. She’d texted him that they had the same lunch and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t sitting on her own. He finally caught sight of her – she was kind of hard to miss with the pink hair – sitting a few tables away with her friend Hana and some blonde girl he’d never met. Reasonably assured she was in good hands, he continued his complaining about Leo.

“I mean, the nerve of the guy! Implying that I can’t do work just because I’m an Omega!”

“Yeah, I can’t believe it either.” Hinata added through a mouthful of chips. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I would have failed algebra if it wasn’t for you.”

“Exactly! I mean–” He realized quickly that he probably shouldn’t be insulting his friend’s intelligence just to prove a point. “Sorry, Hinata.”

His friend just waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s talk about something else.”

He tried to keep his attention off of the blonde Alpha, but he kept catching him out of the corner of his eye and getting infuriated all over again.

__________

The rest of the day was, thankfully, pretty uneventful. He’d almost forgotten all about Leo and his prissy attitude until he got home and he and Sakura were helping Mama with dinner. He and Sakura were chopping up vegetables while she prepared the meats. Hinoka was still at baseball practice and Ryoma was in his room working on his college essays.

“So how was school?”

“Great!” Sakura started excitedly chattering. “Hana and I have a lot of classes together s-so that was good! And I met a r-really nice girl named Elise in first period!”

“That’s great, sweetie! What about you Takumi, did you have fun? Make any new friends?”

He shrugged. “Not really. But there was this one guy in my history class…”

“Oh? You met a boy?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Mama! It’s not like that! He’s… He’s completely insufferable!” He let out a frustrated sigh. “Mister Izana paired us up for every class project, and this dumb Alpha thinks I’m stupid just because I’m an Omega!”

“Oh dear… Well I’m sure it won’t be so bad. Once he gets to know you I’m sure he’ll warm up.”

“I dunno, he’s a Windmire. They’re, like, predisposed to hate us or something!”

“I’m sure he can’t be that bad. You know what I always say, never judge a book by its cover!”

“Yes, Mama.” He rolled his eyes. Of course she didn’t get it. She hadn’t even met Leo, she had no idea how rude he’d been!

He finished up slicing the vegetables and Mama shooed them both out of the kitchen so she could finish cooking. He didn’t have much to do since there wasn’t any homework, so he decided to bum around on his laptop until dinner.

He hadn’t really intended to start cyberstalking Leo, it had just kind of happened. It started when he tried looking up the Alpha’s social media, but the guy was a ghost. None of the Windmires seemed to have any online presence, and the only pictures he found were from what he was guessing were Leo’s friends. He’d just wanted to get a general idea of the guy, but after an hour of coming up blank finding anything became an obsession. How could he not have anything online? It was just so weird!

He finally stopped when Mama called them all down to dinner, and he realized how ridiculous he was being. So what if he couldn’t find any information? Why should he care about this asshole anyways? He shut the laptop and hurried to the dining room.

____________

The first month or so went by without too many problems. He and Leo mostly just ignored each other during class, and once it was over he made a quick escape to lunch with Hinata. They didn’t get the details about their first project until late September. It wasn’t much, just a paper. It was about three pages and due in two weeks, so he wasn’t too worried about it just yet.

He stuck the project requirements into his folder and headed down to lunch. The second he left the room his phone buzzed in his pocket.

We should get started on this project today.

He glanced over his shoulder. Leo was literally standing ten feet away from him. Was he for real?

He pulled his phone back out to respond.

Dude, you’re literally standing right there. You couldn’t talk to me?

He watched as the blonde’s phone buzzed and he typed his response. This was ridiculous, was he really so conceited that he couldn’t even talk to him?

Look who’s talking.

“Ugh!” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Come on Hinata, let’s go.”

All of lunch was a back and forth.

The project isn’t even due until two weeks from now.

I’m not going to fail this class because you wanted to wait until last minute.

Fine! We can start working on it tonight then! Your house or mine?

Better do yours.

Alright, meet me by the exit after school. My brother will drive us.

Gods, what an arrogant asshole! As if waiting a week would kill them! If he were working alone he could get it done in two days! Not to mention the fact that he wanted to start working on it on a Friday night! Sure, Takumi had just planned to stay in and watch movies, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have had plans!

Sakura was already waiting by the door, along with her blonde friend. She waved at him as he approached. “B-Big brother! This is my friend, Elise.”

“Oh, uh, nice to meet you.” Now that he was closer he could see that she was an Omega as well. The heat suppressants could make it hard to tell sometimes, but only Omegas wore collars like that. Hers was made of dyed black leather and it was studded with little purple rhinestones to match her black and purple dress.

“Ta-ku-mi,” She enunciated every syllable in his name carefully. “Did I say it right?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you too, Takumi!” She beamed up at him. Geez when Sakura said Elise was friendly she wasn’t kidding. They hadn’t known each other five minutes and she was already chattering away like they’d been friends for decades.

Leo turned up a few minutes later. Takumi caught sight of him down the hall, and he seemed confused as he approached.

“Elise? What are you doing here?”

Did they know each other?

“Aw, Leo! Did you make friends too?”

The Alpha side-eyed him and then shook his head. “Absolutely not. We’re just working on a project together. What are you doing?”

“Xander said I could stay over at Sakura’s tonight! We’re gonna get together with Hana and Effie to do girl stuff!”

“Did you ask father too?”

She pouted. “You know how he is.”

“… Alright, but you need to finish your homework beforehand.”

“Yeah, yeah. Camilla already gave me the lecture. Sakura and I are gonna get it all done before dinner.”

So, Elise was Leo’s little sister? He hadn’t really considered the possibility that Sakura’s new friend was a Windmire, but he supposed it made sense. He’d forgotten about the youngest sibling since she was the grade below him and they’d never had classes together or anything.

It was almost cute watching them; It reminded him a lot of his relationship with Sakura. That didn’t mean Leo wasn’t still a complete asshole, but he supposed even assholes had their moments.

Ryoma finally came down the hall, backpack slung over one shoulder and spinning his keys around his finger.

“Who are your friends?”

“We aren’t friends.” He and Leo said it in unison. Ryoma raised and eyebrow, and Sakura giggled.

“W-We’re just working on a project.” He finished lamely.

His brother shrugged his shoulders, but he was glaring daggers at Leo already. It wasn’t angry, more like don’t you dare fuck with my little brother, asshole. Leo shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Alright, well let’s get home.”

He’d never really felt self-conscious about his house before. It wasn’t the biggest, and it certainly wasn’t the nicest. He’d known Hinata and Oboro for so long that none of it mattered because… Well it never had before. He didn’t know much about Leo, but this stuck up pretty boy was probably used to nicer stuff.

Mama couldn’t work because she didn’t have an Alpha to sign off on it. Papa made pretty good money, but after he died they had to cut back and make do on the insurance money. They only owned one car since Mama only left to do errands, and she could do those once they got home from school.

Their house was a standard split-level with three bedrooms and a basement. He and Sakura actually shared a room, and Ryoma and Hinoka did the same. Mama took the smallest room and his older siblings had the master bedroom. The basement was a general family room, with a nice but old flat screen TV, an old Nintendo that he’d found for twenty bucks at a neighbor’s garage sale, and a big sectional couch. The upstairs had a much smaller TV and couch that Mama mainly used to watch the news. Or to stop arguments when everyone wanted to watch something at the same time.

The nicest piece of furniture they owned was probably their dining table. Mama had been saving up for a new one for years because the old one was too small for a family of five, and she liked it when they all ate together. Plus, one or more of their friends usually came over for dinner more often than not and she liked entertaining company. It made the small space a little cramped but Mama always made sure it was clean and overall it was pretty cozy.

They all kicked their shoes off, and Takumi tried not to look at their guests faces when they stepped inside. He wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from punching Leo in the face if he got condescending about it.

“Come on. We can work on our project in my room. Sakura, are you and Elise okay in the living room?”

“Y-Yeah no problem!”

It would be a little too cramped in their small space with four people in there. Usually when they did homework they all set up on the dining room table and did it together. But he didn’t want to disturb Ryoma and Sakura since he and Leo would probably be pretty distracting with their talking.

Mama greeted them at the top of the stairs.

“Perfect timing. Ryoma dear can you give me the keys? I need to go grocery shopping.”

“They’re in the key bowl by the door.”

“Great!” She looked over their two guests. “Are you two going to be staying for dinner?”

“Oh, right! Mama this is Leo, and that’s Sakura’s friend Elise.”

“Nice to meet you Missus Shirasagi.” Leo extended a hand for her to shake.

“Please, you can just call me Mikoto.”

“I don’t know how long Leo and I will be working on our project, but Elise will definitely be here for dinner.”

“Alright I’ll buy a little extra then!” That went without saying, though. Mama always bought extra for guests. She grabbed the keys and headed out, and Takumi led Leo down the hall to his room.

“Takumi!” Ryoma called out to him from the living room.

“What?”

“Leave the door open!”

“Ryoma!” He could feel his face heating up. Gods, like he would ever do anything with this guy!

He left the door open anyways, mostly because it was better than having Ryoma randomly barge in and “need something” like he always did if Takumi shut the door.

There wasn’t a whole lot of room to spread out. Most of the space was taken up by two twin beds. Their room was about ten feet wide, and there was about four feet of open space between the beds. They each had their own nightstand, and there was a dresser shoved in the closet. It was a pretty wide closet, but they had to share. Three of the four dresser drawers belonged to him, but two thirds of the closet belonged to Sakura because she owned so many dresses.

All in all, it was pretty obvious what belonged to whom in the room. Sakura had a lot of decor of her namesake: Her lampshade and bedspread both featured cherry blossom patterns, and she had a variety of little bobbles including a little glass cherry blossom tree that Mama made for her by hand. She also had a few canvasses hanging from the walls with several different designs, one of which featured cherry blossoms once again. Most of it wasn’t her choice, it was just what people bought her for birthdays and Christmas. It was a good thing she liked pink.

His side was a little plainer decor-wise. In addition to his bed and nightstand he also had a bookshelf that was overflowing with books on history and philosophy. There were so many that he’d begun stacking them on top of the shelf as well. On top of those books an old Shogi board was perched, just in case any of his siblings ever wanted to play with him again. They had a few other board games on the top shelf of the closet. Sometimes they had game nights on the weekend, but for the most part they went untouched. His bow and a quiverfull of arrows were currently leaning in the space between the nightstands. He didn’t really have anywhere else for it, since his kendo equipment was underneath the bed and there was no more room in the closet.

“Sorry it’s not very big.” He dropped his backpack on his bed and pulled out his laptop. Mama bought them all the same cheap little chromebook one year for Christmas when they were on sale. It wasn’t the best, but it got the job done.

Leo just shrugged and followed suit. His laptop was bigger, but it also looked pretty old. He brought out the charger as well.

“Got an outlet somewhere? The battery on this damn thing is burnt out.”

Once they were finally set up on the floor he pulled the assignment sheet back out of his folder.

“Alright, looks like we have to discuss the fallout after the civil war. Three pages, double spaced, yadda yadda. And a presentation to the class.”

“You haven’t even read the assignment yet?”

“When was I supposed to read it? Izana gave it to us at the end of class, and I wasn’t going to read it over during gym class!”

“Gods I’m going to fail.” The Alpha muttered under his breath.

“Hey!” Takumi growled. “Would you stop treating me like I’m some ditz! I’m trying to get an A too, you know! So just start the damn powerpoint and I’ll start the paper.”

He flipped his textbook open to the relevant chapter and started scanning for information.

The Alpha sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m just used to my partners slacking.”

Well of all the things he’d been expecting, he certainly hadn’t seen an apology coming.

“I-It’s fine. Let’s just get this done so I can actually enjoy this weekend.”

They worked for a solid hour, only talking to ensure that their points matched up. He was probably a third of the way done with the rough draft of their paper, and Leo was about half done with the powerpoint when they were interrupted by Elise entering the room.

“Leeeeooo!” She called from the door.

“What is it, Elise?”

“Can you help me with math?”

“Have you done all of the problems you can solve?”

“Yep! And Sakura helped me with some, but there are a couple we can’t get.”

“And you finished your other subjects?”

“Uh huh! We did those first.”

“Alright, I’ll come help you in a few minutes.”

“Okay!” She skipped back down the hall and sat down with Sakura at the dining room table.

Leo shut his laptop and shoved his books back into his backpack.

“I thought you wanted to get this project done?”

The blonde rolled his eyes. He was just now noticing, but had they always been that color? Or was the dim light in his room playing tricks on his eyes? He hadn’t really been paying attention, but he swore he would have remembered such vivid red eyes.

“This is exactly why I start projects when they’re assigned. We don’t have to do it all today.”

He left all of his things on the floor of Takumi’s room and headed back out into the main living area.

Takumi had managed to get all of his homework done in class today. He was pretty bored in geometry, so he usually did the homework as he was taking notes. Plus with ninety minute classes their teacher usually gave them half of that time for homework. His language class usually made it a point not to assign any homework, and their history class assigned the project in lieu of any real homework. So he decided to take his laptop into the living room and start picking out a movie for tonight. Ryoma had disappeared to somewhere, probably over to Saizo’s house to hang out.

He was actually currently stealing his good friend’s netflix, and with October on the horizon most of the queue was horror movies. It was just easier to stay logged in since they usually hung out at his house. Hinata didn’t usually mind, as long as he didn’t hog it or remove things from his list.

Elise and Sakura really only had two math problems they couldn’t get on their own, and once Leo walked them through the first one they didn’t even need help on the second. He got the sense that this was something Leo did a lot, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed by it. Maybe he wasn’t as stuck up as everyone seemed to imply.

“So,” The Alpha finally spoke directly to him. He’d been so focused on his computer that it startled him. “You like horror movies?”

He shuddered at the thought. Horror movies always made his nightmares so much worse. “No, actually. This is my friend’s account. I take it you do?”

“Mhmm. That’s too bad, I know a few good ones you might enjoy.”

“… Nothing too scary?”

“I suppose that depends on your definition of scary.”

“Hmm… Well I don’t do paranormal. Hard no on anything paranormal. I also don’t really like monsters or ghouls or anything like that.”

“Home invasion?”

“Yeah I think I could do that.” If he were being honest he would have said not in a million years, but he also didn’t want to seem like a complete wuss.

He grinned. “I have the perfect movie. Do you want to watch it on my laptop?”

“W-What? You mean, right now?”

He shrugged. “I’m here, and obviously we’ve both already checked out of this project for today. Besides, I don’t want to leave in case Elise needs me for something else.”

Just then he was saved by the bell – or rather, his mother.

“Takumi! Come help me get the groceries in!”

He hopped up and ran to the car, thankful to get out of that conversation. Maybe he wouldn’t have to watch a horror movie after all.

“Would you like some help with those?” Leo asked, indicating the bags she was carrying. She handed them off to him gratefully and he finished getting them into the kitchen. Then Leo helped him bring in the few bags from the car, and they were done in one trip. He tried to help put things away, but Mama shooed him back out into the living room.

Leo was standing by, waiting for him to get done.

“So, how about it?”

“I don’t know if we have time for a movie. Mama when is dinner?”

“Oh don’t worry about it sweetie. There’s plenty of time for a movie.”

Fuck. Looks like he was doing this.

“Alright, sure. Sakura will probably want the basement so she can get ready for her sleepover, so we can watch it in my room.”

With Ryoma out he could finally shut his door. It wasn’t that he wanted to do anything, he just liked having the privacy. Leo set his laptop up on the bed.

“Turn off the lights.”

“W-What?”

“Come on, it’s a horror movie. You have to set the mood!”

He flicked the lights off and sat down. He tried to keep a respectable distance, but it was hard when they were watching on a laptop. They had three or four inches between their shoulders at best.

It was a little weird, if he was being honest. He’d never had an Alpha on his bed unless it was Hinata or Oboro. He hadn’t realized how weirdly intimate it was until he was sitting with the blonde. His heart was racing, though that was probably just from the movie. Though, by the end of it he was actually clinging to Leo’s arm and hiding his face in the sleeve of the blonde’s hoodie.

They were nearing the end of the movie. By now there had been a few tense moments of this woman trying to escape her would-be killer, and a few jump scares to set his nerves on edge. She was trying to crawl back in her window while the killer chased her, and he had to stop himself from shouting go, go, go, go!

The door to his room slammed open and he screamed. Not a yelp or a cry of surprise, he actually yelled out in terror and hid his face behind the Alpha’s shoulder.

“Takumi?” It was just Ryoma. Apparently he hadn’t been as gone as Takumi thought him.

“Gods, Ryoma! You scared the shit out of me!”

“My apologies. I just wanted to know if you needed anything.”

“Yeah! A new damn pair of underwear! Geez Ryoma, can’t I have the door closed for five minutes without you barging in!”

His brother put his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. Finish your movie, mother said that dinner will be ready soon.

As soon as he backed out Leo chuckled. “I didn’t think you would be that scared by this movie!”

“I-I wasn’t scared! He just surprised me is all!” He scooted away from Leo and drew his knees up to his chest.

“Of course, obviously.” Leo nodded. “Alright pay attention. We’re almost at the end.”

They very end of the movie was more action packed and didn’t have as many jump scares, so it was a little easier to get through. She managed to fight off her attacker and call the police in the end. And hey, the cat didn’t even die. When the credits started rolling Leo shut his laptop.

“So, what did you think?”

“The entire plot of this movie could have been avoided if this woman just owned a landline.”

“That’s… Exactly what I always say.”

There was an awkward lull in the conversation. After a moment he finally responded again.

“W-We should get to the dining room. Mama is probably waiting for us.”

He reached for the light, but in the dark he didn’t see the stack of books hanging a few inches over the edge of his bookshelf. He accidentally bumped them and brought the entire pile down.

“Shit!” He muttered. He managed to flick the light on. Only five or six books ended up on the ground, and he quickly picked them up and re-stacked them on the shelf.

“The Stranger?” Leo picked the top paperback off the stack and flipped it over.

“Well aren’t you nosy!” He shot back, defensively. Most people that saw his book collection automatically labelled him a huge nerd, including his older siblings.

“I’ve been trying my hardest not to snoop, but it’s kind of hard not to notice when you’re a complete klutz and knock over piles of books. Besides, it’s one of my favorites, I couldn’t help bringing it up.”

“I actually haven’t finished it yet.” He admitted. “Nihilism isn’t really my thing, and I can’t stand the main character!”

“Really? I think it leans more absurdist myself. How far did you get?”

“Uh, I think I was about half way through part one.”

“You should try again. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

He took the book from the Alpha and tossed it on his nightstand.

“You know, for a pretty boy you’re kind of a dork.”

He was into philosophy and history? What was next? Would Leo tell him that he’s on the school’s chess team?

“I could say the same of you, Takumi.”

Wait, did Leo just call him pretty? Did he just call Leo pretty? To his face? Oh gods, like he needed another reason to go red as a tomato. He hurried past the Alpha and took his seat at the table with the rest of his family and Elise. There were seven places set at the table. Ryoma was sitting on one end, Mama on the other, and Elise, Sakura, and Hinoka on one side. That left two places on the other for he and Leo to sit. He took his usual seat nearest Mama, but Leo hung back a moment. He checked his watch.

“Actually I think it’s time I headed home.”

He wasn’t about to stop Leo, though he was a little disappointed. He’d just found out that they had so much in common, and he’d been kind of hoping that they could chat more.

“Please stay for dinner at least! Sakura was just telling me about how helpful you’ve been, it’s the least I can do.”

He looked conflicted, but he ultimately sat down.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Mama smiled at him, then leaned over and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.

“Is this the boy you’ve been complaining about? He’s so polite!”

“Mama please!” His face was already red enough from that earlier pretty boy comment.

“So, Leo.” Oh gods. Ryoma was going to do this to him? Tonight? “You’re working on a project with Takumi?”

“That’s right.”

“Uh huh. How’s your GPA?”

“Ryoma…” He muttered under his breath.

“I have a perfect GPA, actually.”

“Good, good… Because, you know, my brother doesn’t waste his time with stupid men.”

“Ryoma!” He growled. Mama patted him on the arm.

“Now come on Ryoma, he’s our guest. There’s no need for this.” Yet. He could hear it in her voice. Gods, had his entire family gone crazy?

The rest of dinner went pretty normally, aside from Ryoma’s incessant what-are-your-intentions-with-my-brother grilling. When it was over he helped Mama clear the table, and Leo excused himself.

“I really must get going.”

“Do you live far? I can drive you home, if you’d like?” Mama called out from the kitchen. She was in the middle of doing the dishes, and Ryoma was helping her dry.

“It’s not far.” He answered quickly. “Really, I’d prefer to walk.”

“Alright. It was nice meeting you!”

Ryoma was just glaring daggers at him over her shoulder. Takumi pushed him toward the stairs and followed him into the entryway.

“Uh, sorry about him.”

Leo just shrugged. “Believe me, I’ve seen worse. Why don’t we get together on Sunday to finish the project?”

“Y-Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

“I’ll text you.”

He headed out and Takumi shut the door behind him. It was still pretty warm out, but he hoped Leo didn’t have to walk too far. It was starting to get dark, and it looked like it might rain later that night.

All in all he was no longer absolutely dreading seeing Leo again. Hell, he was a completely different person than he usually was in school! He’d even called Mama ‘ma’am’!

He headed back upstairs to see if any more help was needed. Sakura and Elise had long since retreated into the basement to get things set up, and Hana and Effie would probably be there soon.

“Your friend seemed nice.” Mama was just finishing up the dishes and wiping her hands on a nearby towel.

“I don’t like him.” Ryoma slammed a plate down in the cupboard a little harder than usual.

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to like him, Ryoma. We’re just doing a class project together. Besides, he hates me anyways.”

It was true. Just because he was polite didn’t mean he liked Takumi. He was probably just minding his manners for once.

“Oh I don’t know about that, sweetie. The two of you seemed to get on just fine.” She had this glint in her eye.

“I told you, Mama, it’s not like that.”

“Good.” Ryoma muttered under his breath.

Gods, what a pain! He loved his brother, but he could be too overprotective sometimes. Heck, he still glared daggers at Hinata, and they’d been friends since they were five!

“I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

He spent the rest of the night watching dumb youtube videos to try and shake the horror movie from his mind.

_____________

Saturday went by pretty uneventfully. He and Hinata went to kendo practice in the morning and then they spent the rest of the day bumming around the park while the weather was still warm. Then later that night Oboro came over for their regular movie night.

Hinata hooked his laptop into the TV and started flicking through the movies. He and Oboro were already sitting on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn between them.

“So how did working on your project with Mister Prissy-pants go yesterday?”

“Actually, not terribly. It was, uh, actually kind of fun.”

Both of his friends stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

“Woah, hold the phone. You had fun. With Leo?”

“I mean… Look, he was still kind of a dick but I don’t know. We have a lot in common, and he was actually really sweet with Mama and his sister.”

Hinata whistled. “Well looks like it’s the end of the world everybody. Oboro, do you still have that zombie invasion action plan we wrote up?”

She shoved him. “Who said it was going to be a zombie invasion?”

“Who said it wasn’t?”

He was thankful that they didn’t push the subject, at least. Mama had been giving him that look ever since and Ryoma kept pulling him aside to have the talk. Just the memory of it made him shudder, and he was glad that Hinoka needed him for something before he could really get into it.

“I know you don’t like them, but can we please watch a horror movie? I know of a really good zombie flick now that you mention it!” Hinata urged.

Zombie movies, strangely enough, didn’t really bother him. Maybe because he knew how unlikely a zombie apocalypse was, and most of the movies were pretty bad anyways.

“Fine. But no more until Halloween!”

He started playing the movie and sat down on the couch next to Oboro. They were only about ten minutes in when he got distracted by a text from Leo.

Hey, sorry but I’m not going to be able to meet tomorrow.

What? Why?

Some family stuff came up. Sorry, we can talk about it more on Monday?

Alright, just don’t go tanking my grade with your slacking.

“Hey!” Oboro snapped her fingers. “Eyes on the screen!”

“Sorry, sorry!” He shut his phone off and set it aside.

He was a little disappointed. Maybe Leo got scared off by his family after all? But still, they could have met up at the library or something. He just hoped his overbearing brother wasn’t about to be the reason he failed a class.

______________

After awhile he started wondering what exactly came up to stop Leo from working on their project. Just three days ago he’d been so insistent that they get the project done immediately, but now he was delaying?

Though, it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened. He walked into third period, and the first thing he noticed was the blonde in the second row. His left eye was swollen and bruised up. Takumi took his seat and set his backpack down.

“Geez, what happened?”

“Oh this? It’s nothing.” He brushed it off. He didn’t seem interested in talking about it, so he dropped it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.

“… Did you want to get the rest of this project done today? I was thinking we could go to the library after school.”

“Yeah, sure. Sound’s good.”

He couldn’t pay attention for the rest of class. He knew it wasn’t any of his business, but he couldn’t help speculating. What the hell happened? Heck, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ryoma hunted him down after he left their house. Not that it’d happened, he could think of plenty of people that would want to punch Leo in the face.

______________

They decided to head to the library separately after school. Takumi arrived first. It was a pretty big library, and they’d agreed to meet near the back. There was a section specifically designed for teens to hang around in. There were a few tables, some computers, and a couple of board games, TVs, and even a game console. He didn’t usually come back to this section, but it was the most recognizable one so he’d picked it on a whim.

He was currently sitting at the chess table they had back there. He didn’t really have anything to do until Leo got there, and his phone was running low on battery so he was absentmindedly moving the pieces around.

There wasn’t really anyone else around, so he perked up immediately once Leo came in.

The Alpha nodded at the board. “You play?”

“Oh gods, you are a chess nerd. I knew it.”

Leo shrugged and dropped his backpack on the ground next to his chair. “My father used to play with me when I was a kid.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, it was… Do you want to play a game?”

“Sure, but I’m not that good. I prefer shogi.”

“Show-gee? Is that like chess?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

As it turned out, Leo was quite good. He won pretty easily, and as much as he wanted to let his competitive spirit out he pushed his chair out and moved to one of the tables.

“You don’t want to play another game?”

“Oh believe me, I’m going to kick your ass in the future. But Mama wants me home for dinner so we should probably work on the project.”

They managed to finish up their project over the next two hours of working. He finished the paper, Leo finished the powerpoint, and then they swapped to proof read. He was pretty happy with the work overall, but he did veto some of Leo’s color choices for the slides.

When they were done he packed up his things, and Leo did the same.

“Would you like me to walk you home?”

He didn’t live too far from the library. It was about half way between their high school and his house. All together it would be about a fifteen minute walk from there to his house, but Mama and Ryoma wouldn’t usually let him walk anywhere by himself. They lived in an okay neighborhood, but they definitely bordered on a bad part of town. Another fifteen minutes of walking past his house and there was nothing but ramshackle ranch houses and trailers. He’d originally planned to call up Ryoma or Hinoka to get a ride, but it was a nice day, and if he had Leo with him…

“Are you sure? I can get a ride?”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s on my way.”

“Y-Yeah, sure.”

It would be nice to get some time to talk without his family or school projects getting in the way. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was actually starting to like Leo. But hey, how couldn’t he? It was like someone reached into his head, pulled out all of his favorite things, and stuffed them into the body of a tall, pretty Alpha. And those eyes? Gods, those piercing, red eyes. It almost wasn’t fair.

He found out that they had even more in common on the walk home. His favorite food was beef stew, which was kind of like a soup. Though it was second only in his heart to tomatoes. Takumi had brought up the subject accidentally, and Leo had begun rambling on about them.

“… And when you bite into them! Gods it’s divine!”

“Woah, hold up. You eat raw tomatoes?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“No. Actually, I don’t think anyone does.”

“You’re missing out.”

He scrunched up his nose. “Gross.”

Leo gently nudged him as they walked. “Hey, don’t make fun. Someday I’m going to have a garden full of just tomato plants. Then you’ll see.”

Takumi pushed him back, just a little harder. “Don’t be such a weirdo, then!”

Those fifteen minutes almost went by too fast, and before he knew it they were standing at his front door. He didn’t really want to say goodbye, but Ryoma would probably just embarrass the hell out of him, and if he didn’t come home for dinner Mama would be upset.

“So I’ll uh, see you in class tomorrow?”

“Couldn’t miss it if I wanted to.” He answered dryly. It was one of those jokes that wasn’t really a joke, the kind Takumi couldn’t help laughing at.

Leo waited for him to get inside the house before he left.

“Takumi? I thought you were going to call for a ride? You didn’t walk home alone, did you?”

“No Mama, Leo walked with me.”

“Really, he did?”

He rolled his eyes. “He was just being polite. He said it was on his way anyways.”

“Is it?”

He shrugged. He’d just taken Leo’s word for it but he didn’t check to see if the Alpha had turned back the way they came or not.

“I’m going to finish up the rest of my homework. Do you need anything?”

“No I’m fine dear. Dinner in an hour.”

Ryoma and Sakura had long since finished their homework, but Hinoka was still sitting at the dining room table when he put his backpack down. She’d probably just walked home from practice and taken a shower – Mama always made her take a shower before dinner so she didn’t stink up the place.

He loved Hinoka, but he didn’t really get to spend that much time with her. Once she got to high school most of her free time was spent either at practice or hanging out with her teammates. That, and she and Ryoma were quite close. Pretty much anything he shared with her got passed on to his brother, whether he wanted it to be or not. He supposed it made sense, he was far closer to Sakura and they were far closer to each other, but it made it much harder to relate to her.

“So…” She opened up the conversation. “Leo?”

“Oh gods, not you too!”

“Hey, I’m not judging! I think it’s great that you’re getting along! He’s a good kid.”

“He’s sixteen, he’s not a kid. And how would you know what he’s like?”

She shrugged. “Just the impression I got from him at dinner. And sometimes his sister helps out at bake sales and things for the team. She talks about him a lot.”

He did vaguely recall a busty, purple haired Alpha coming by a few times in the past to see Hinoka. She hadn’t been around long enough for him to register the connection, but now that he thought about it he did hear quite a bit about Camilla. Mostly jealous rumors from the girls in his grade, or the guys bemoaning how she only ever seemed to flirt with other girls.

“Well you don’t have to go running to Ryoma. Like I told him, we’re just doing our class projects together.”

“Alright little brother. I believe you.”

_______________

The due date for their first project came and went. They got an A, obviously, and strangely enough Takumi couldn’t wait for the next one. He and Leo worked well together, and it was nice having a project partner that didn’t distract the hell out of him for once.

In the meantime, they started spending more and more time together. In addition to his Saturday movie nights with Hinata and Oboro, he and Leo had a Friday movie night now too. Sometimes they watched them in his room, sometimes the basement. They’d begun switching off between B horror movies and terrible sci-fi flicks. Sometimes they didn’t watch a movie at all, they just played video games or a board game or just talked.

It was a few days before Thanksgiving, so they’d decided to have their movie night after school on that Tuesday instead. Though they’d never gotten around to picking a movie. His computer was lying a few feet away, HDMI cable plugged in and idling on the Netflix home screen.

He was lying down on one end of the couch, knees bent, and Leo was on the other. Their legs were just barely close enough to touch.

“What do you guys do for Thanksgiving?”

“Nothing really.”

“Really? Nothing?”

“Father hates holidays.”

“Your father sounds like a dick.”

The Alpha snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”

He’d been wondering for awhile. Leo never talked about his family, or at least he didn’t talk about his dad. Over the past few months he’d been slowly piecing some things together, but the picture was still frustratingly incomplete.

“… Hey Leo?”

“Yeah?”

“You remember that black eye you had a few months ago?”

“What about it?”

“… How did you get it?”

He immediately regretted asking. Leo sat up, and Takumi mirrored him.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Leo just shrugged. “Why bother hiding it? My father isn’t exactly the most even tempered guy. He kind of flipped his lid when Elise came home that Saturday morning. Kept ranting about how she was whoring around with Alphas – I guess he smelled your siblings on her. I tried to stop him from throwing her out.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It is what it is.”

Takumi scooted closer to him. He didn’t really know what to say, so he did what he always did when one of his siblings was upset. He hugged him. The Alpha seemed surprised, but he didn’t pull away.

Leo smelled nice. Like a forest on a sunny, warm day. Like dirt and grass and… honeysuckle? It was a lot to take in at once. And he was so warm and his skin was so soft…

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and he pushed the Alpha away quickly just before Ryoma could see them. Leo scooted back quickly and he turned to his computer screen so Ryoma wouldn’t suspect anything.

“Are you two doing okay down here?”

“Get out of here, Ryoma! Mama told you not to bug us!”

He was trying to hide his blushing face from his brother, but it was a losing battle. He might have been mistaken, but he thought he saw a small tint to Leo’s cheeks too.

“As long as the two of you are… getting along.” He gave Leo the I hope you aren’t fucking around down here look before he went back upstairs. Gods, he was only fifteen, why did Ryoma not trust him to keep his hormones in check?

“A-Anyways… Do you want to spend Thanksgiving here? I’m sure Mama won’t mind, she always makes too much food.”

“You don’t have to be nice to me just because of my father.”

“It’s not because of that! I would have invited you, anyways. Geez, who doesn’t have a holiday celebration?”

“… I’ll think about it. And thanks for the offer.”

______________

He’d been friends with Hinata and Oboro for a long time. They were both Alphas, but he’d never felt anything special for them. He’d never gotten butterflies in his stomach thinking about them, and he’d never spent hours going through his closet to find the right outfit before he saw them. But here he was, Thanksgiving morning, doing exactly that.

He tried to justify it. Well we’ve never had guests before. At least, no guests that weren’t Hinata, Oboro, or one of his siblings’ friends.

But then wasn’t Leo just one of his friends, too?

Mama was okay with him coming over, just like he knew she would be. Ryoma was less than thrilled, something about how he was “too young to be dating”. Whatever, he’d get over it. He and Leo weren’t even dating. He wasn’t even sure if the Alpha liked him.

He pulled at least five things out of the closet and laid them over the bed. He was staring at them hopelessly when Sakura came into the room. She was already dressed for the day in an oversized orange sweater-dress and some plain black leggings. She even had a pair of matching orange slippers and a matching headband and gods he’d never envied girls for having so many cute clothing options, but he was right now.

“A-Are you trying to look good for Leo?”

“Help.”

He’d never in a million years admit to crushing on someone to his older siblings, but Sakura was different.

“J-Just be yourself! I’m s-sure he likes you just the way you are!”

“Yeah, but I still want to look nice! But I also don’t want to look like I’m trying to look nice, you know?” He’d been wearing sweatpants and plain v-neck t-shirts the last couple of times they’d hung out. He couldn’t help himself, it’d been Friday! That was his comfy day!

“A-Alright, let me see what I can do.” She giggled.

It wasn’t too far off what he’d normally wear, in the end. She pulled out one of his usual black v-necks and a pair of jeans, but she also managed to dig out an old button down that he was pretty sure he’d gotten as a hand-me-down from Ryoma. The sleeves were a little long, so he just rolled them up to the elbows and left the front unbuttoned.

The only accessory he really owned an extensive collection of was hair ribbons. Mama usually bought him the same thing for every birthday or Christmas: A book and a hair ribbon. He loved both, so he wasn’t complaining. Sakura found a plain orange one to match the Thanksgiving theme and he quickly tied his hair up with it.

With that all sorted, they spent most of the rest of the day cooking with Mama while Ryoma and Hinoka cleaned up. They didn’t really do the traditional American thanksgiving, instead Mama tried to cook everyone’s favorite foods. There was almost always miso soup for him, salmon for Ryoma, and pickled vegetables for Hinoka along with rice, duck, a salad, and some stir-fried vegetables. She also made tea, and Sakura’s favorite mochi for dessert.

It was a pretty big task to cook it all, and they always had a ton of leftovers. Mama joked that she was glad they were finally old enough to help her out, since she used to do all of it by herself.

Hinoka popped her head in around four o’clock.

“How many places should we set?”

“Hmm… I think we’ll be having nine?”

“Nine? Who all is coming?”

“Well there’s the five of us, Leo and Elise makes seven… And since they’re coming I told them to just invite their whole family, so Xander and Camilla makes nine.”

He heard Ryoma groan from the living room. “You invited Xander?”

“Well I wasn’t going to invite everyone but Xander! That would be rude, Ryoma!” She yelled back.

He’d considered inviting Oboro and Hinata as well, but Oboro was travelling to visit family this year and Hinata’s parents were inviting over some relatives so he had to be at home. Plus, he’d avoided having Leo meet his friends thus far. Not that he was embarrassed of them or anything, he just wasn’t sure how well they’d all get along.

Everyone arrived around five, and he ran down to get the door before Ryoma could jump at it. Only Camilla, Leo, and Elise were at the door, and the eldest was holding a bottle of something. It was lightly snowing outside, so he ushered them in quickly.

“Thank you so much for inviting us, dear!” She handed over the bottle.

“Yeah, no problem. Make yourselves at home.” He hung their coats up on the nearby coat rack. Camilla and Elise ran upstairs, but Leo hung back with him.

He pulled the bottle out of the bag to get a better look at it.

“Sake? Where did you guys even get this?” As far as he knew, none of them were of age. Well, Xander might be eighteen, but he wasn’t there.

“Father won’t miss one bottle. He doesn’t even like sake, it’s just been sitting around the house.”

He shrugged. Mama sometimes drank sake, and usually she would let them have a taste around the holidays. He just put it on the kitchen counter and started getting down the serving dishes for the food. Camilla wandered in a few minutes later.

“Is there anything at all I can help with?”

He’d never seen an Alpha offer to help with kitchen stuff, but there was a first time for everything. Ryoma and Hinoka would usually help out, but only if directly asked.

“Oh don’t worry about it. You’re a guest! Besides, we’re almost done here. Just go take a seat, dinner will be in a few minutes.”

He caught a few snippets of conversation as he and Sakura carried dishes out to the table. Mainly Hinoka and Camilla discussing what the baseball season would look like come spring. Ryoma occasionally added to the conversation, but overall it was nothing he was too interested in. Elise must have been in the bathroom, and Leo was boredly sitting at the table. It didn’t take long to get everything on the table, so when it was all ready he took his usual seat next to Leo.

“Won’t Xander be joining us?”

“I’m afraid he had to work, actually.” Camilla answered. Mama took the empty plate away and he, Leo, and Hinoka all shifted over a little to make things even. He ended up sitting directly across from Sakura, Leo was in front of Elise, and Hinoka was facing Camilla.

“This all looks wonderful ma’am! I hope you had some help!” Camilla added as they began passing things around the table.

“Yes, Takumi and Sakura are quite the little chefs now!” She laughed. “I remember when they were little they tried to help cook and they nearly burnt the house down! Little Takumi came sprinting down the hall, hair singed to drag me out of bed… And what do I find in the kitchen? Ryoma and Hinoka standing over a smoking pan and Sakura crying in the corner!”

They all laughed about it now, but he remembered that year all too well. That was the year Papa died. He was maybe five? Mama didn’t get out of bed for weeks unless it was to take care of them, and little seven year old Ryoma thought it might help cheer her up if they cooked for her. Of course they were kids so none of them knew how to cook. It got her out of bed, though. It was easy to laugh at in retrospect, but at the time it had probably shocked her back into being alive and a mother.

But it wasn’t really the time for such discussions, so he laughed along.

“Mama kept the knives out of reach and I wanted to make soup. So I just dumped whole vegetables into a pot of water. Didn’t even turn the stove on. I thought her head was going to explode!”

“Kids just do the strangest things, don’t they?” Camilla added. Though, wasn’t she still a kid herself? “When we were little Elise wanted to play princesses, and unfortunately poor Leo was the only one around at the time. Elise dressed them both up in mother’s clothes and used up every last bit of her makeup! By the end they both looked like something straight out of a clown horror movie!”

“Oh? Is that where the love of headbands stems from?” He teased, nudging Leo’s foot under the table. The Alpha scoffed.

“Coming from the guy with a collection of hair ribbons.”

“Hey, don’t knock ‘em. Do you even know how hard it is to use scrunchies when you have all of this hair?”

“Why not just cut it?”

He mock-gasped. “Blasphemy.”

Leo kicked him playfully under the table, and he laughed.

Thankfully, it ended up being a very bearable holiday. Ryoma didn’t spend half of dinner re-grilling Leo like he usually did when the Alpha came over, and his brother even seemed to get along with Camilla. Plus, after dinner they all went down to the basement to watch dumb holiday movies. It was a pretty big couch, but with eight people was still a squeeze. So, naturally in the interest of making space he had to get as close to Leo as possible.

He wasn’t on top of him or anything, but he was practically glued to his side. They also didn’t have too many blankets in the basement, so he and Leo had to share. About half way through the movie the overwhelming scent of honeysuckle and grass and Leo was starting to get to his head, and he was getting antsy. They didn’t normally sit this close when they were alone, and his Alpha scent was doing very weird things to his hormones.

He started fidgeting with his hands, scratching his nails down the leg of his jeans or tapping his fingers. Leo tapped the back of his hand with his knuckles. He froze, and once he was still the Alpha grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together under the blanket.

He was at a complete loss for words. At no point did Leo’s eyes leave the screen, but he did squeeze his hand when Takumi looked over at him from the corner of his eye. He felt like he was about to explode. Leo was holding his hand. He could have died happy then and there.

When they left he was on top of the moon. Maybe Leo did like him back. He was so giddy he could barely get to sleep.

________________

He was hopeful when he returned to school the following week, but the Alpha didn’t seem keen on acknowledging that anything had happened. He didn’t bring it up, and it certainly didn’t happen again. Even when they were completely alone in his basement.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to happen after Thanksgiving, but it certainly wasn’t nothing. They finished their last two projects together, and they kept their regular Friday night hangouts, but nothing happened.

Tomorrow was their last day before the end of the semester. He and Sakura were already in their pajamas and ready for bed, but they weren’t sleeping just yet. He was lying face down with his head buried in the pillow, and she was sitting on the end of his bed with him.

“I don’t know Sakura, maybe I’m an idiot. I thought he liked me.”

“Maybe he does? I m-mean, he did hold your hand.”

“But that was a month ago! Why hasn’t he done anything else? I thought he’d ask me out or try to kiss me or something, but he’s acting like nothing happened!”

“W-Why don’t you ask him out then?”

“Are you crazy? What if he said no? Gods it’d be so embarrassing!”

“Maybe he’s j-just waiting until the end of the semester?”

He looked up from his pillow. She had a look to her that immediately set something off in his head.

“Sakura… Do you know something?”

She giggled. It wouldn’t be unusual… She was friends with Leo’s little sister, and Elise was becoming notorious for being a bit of a blabber mouth. Sakura got up and scurried back to her bed.

“C-Come on, it’s late. Worry about it t-tomorrow.”

It didn’t make him feel better, but it did give him a little hope.

___________

He waited anxiously for third period. It was the last day of classes before winter break, so most teachers didn’t have anything for them to do. He had his Geometry final in the morning, but that was about it. He hadn’t even bothered studying because even if he completely failed he’d still be getting an A in the class. Third period they were just doing presentations for their final projects, and he and Leo had already presented theirs.

Leo leaned over to him when he sat down in class.

“Hey… Can you wait for me after school? I want to ask you something.”

His heart was already pounding, but now it was doing double time.

“O-Okay.”

The rest of the day couldn’t go by fast enough. He barely even touched his lunch, and Hinata spent the entire time teasing him about his “future boyfriend”. He didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. For all he knew Leo wanted to talk about something completely unrelated.

When the end of the day came he anxiously waited by the exit for Leo. Ryoma still had to drive them home, but he hoped that his brother wouldn’t show up and kill the moment until after Leo had asked him whatever he was going to ask him.

The Alpha was with one of his friends, the white-haired one with the eyepatch. They looked like they were debating something, and eventually Leo gave an exasperated sigh. His friend apparently got his way, at least if his giddy look was any indication. The other Alpha sniggered and pushed the blonde his way.

“Hey, Leo!” He tried to be casual, but his excitement was bleeding through in his voice.

“Hey, uh… Look this is going to sound stupid, but Niles wanted me to ask…”

“Uh huh?”

“I was just wondering…”

“Yeah?” He tried not to get his hopes up, but damn were his hopes up.

Leo sighed.

“How much would it be?”

“For what?”

“For you to blow me in the bathroom.”

He had no words. He just gaped at the Alpha for a minute, and finally stuttered out an “Excuse me?”

Ryoma was less calm about it. He’d apparently been coming down the hall behind Leo, and unfortunately for the blonde Alpha he’d heard the whole thing. His backpack thunked to the ground behind him. Leo’s eyes widened as Ryoma grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.

“What makes you think that you can talk to my brother like that?”

“W-Woah, hey hold on-”

But he didn’t get to finish his sentence. Ryoma punched him straight in the mouth. Leo recoiled, then bolted in the opposite direction. His brother tried to run after him, but Takumi grabbed him by the arm.

“Ryoma no!”

“You’re just going to let him disrespect you like that? I know you like him, but come on Takumi!”

“He’s not worth it. You only have one semester left until graduation, do you really want to get suspended or worse?”

That seemed to level his head. He took a deep breath, then picked his backpack up off of the floor.

“Come on. We’d better get home before I change my mind.”

The drive home was a quiet one. As soon as they were home he dropped his backpack in the entryway.

“Hey how was school?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He called over his shoulder and ran up to his room. Mama tried to follow him, but he slammed the door and curled up in bed.

What an asshole! Just when he’d started actually liking Leo, he goes and acts like every other Alpha! Was that all he was to these people? A set of fucking holes? They had so much in common, they’d had so much fun together over the past few months, but all he cared about was getting his knot swallowed? Fuck it, he was never talking to another Alpha ever again. They could all shove it, for what he cared. He’d just die alone.

He’d just resigned himself to wallowing in self-pity when there was a soft knock on the door.

“Not now, Mama.”

She came in anyways and sat down on the end of his bed.

“Ryoma told me what happened. Do you want to talk about it?”

He sat up and let her wrap an arm around his shoulders. He buried his face in her shirt and just let the tears loose.

“I thought he r-really liked me! I’m s-such an idiot!”

“Shh, it’s okay baby. There’ll be other Alphas.”

“They’re all the same! They’re just looking for somewhere to stick their dicks!”

“You’re still young. There’ll be other Alphas. I didn’t meet your father until I was in my twenties.”

“Yeah, but Papa wasn’t awful!”

She let him cry it out, until his chest hurt and his eyes were dry and he was sniffling and hiccuping. It probably took a good three hours, but she didn’t leave his side. She just held him and waited. Only once he’d cried himself dry did she speak up again.

“Why don’t I take you all out for dinner?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Consider it a reward for your good grades?”

“We haven’t even gotten our report cards back.”

“But I know you all did wonderfully. Come on, it’ll be fun. You can have all the miso soup you want!”

“… Alright. Thanks, Mama.”

He blew his nose and washed his face off. His eyes were still a little red and puffy still, but he grabbed his coat anyways.

Everyone else was already ready to go. Ryoma must have filled them in too because Sakura ran over and gave him a hug as soon as he got to the living room.

They almost always went to the same restaurant when they went out for dinner. It was a little Japanese place on the other side of town. Mama liked to go there sometimes because that was where she and Papa met when she used to waitress there. The food was pretty good, and they ran special all-you-can-eat sushi deals so they could get a lot for pretty cheap. Plus, Mama got a discount.

Everyone tried their best to keep it light. He ate about five bowls of miso soup, and by the end of it he was feeling a lot better. He even managed to smile at a few of Hinoka’s dumb jokes.

By the time they were done it was snowing pretty hard outside, and it took them awhile to get home in the blizzard. It was already pitch black outside, but when they pulled up to the house there was someone sitting clearly on their front stoop. He caught a flash of blonde hair as their lights went past, and he heard Ryoma swear from the front seat.

“That bastard!”

Mama pushed him inside the house as soon as they were in the garage. Takumi tried to follow her, but she stopped him.

“Just go talk to him, sweetheart.”

“But Mama–”

“I understand, just ask if he wants a ride home. I’d send your brother to do it but…”

He rolled his eyes and pulled his scarf over his nose. Leo stood up when he saw him come out of the garage. His lip was busted and bloody, and he was shivering but otherwise he seemed fine. He brushed off a fine dusting of snow from his shoulders.

“Takumi I–”

“Don’t.”

“Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, and after I say this I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“Fine. What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would you say that to me in the first place?”

“It was just a stupid dare. I was going to apologize afterwards, but your brother kind of decked me and I wanted to avoid being beaten to a bloody pulp.”

He shook his head. “You don’t get it! It isn’t funny! Do you know how many times I’ve had Alphas seriously say that kind of stuff to me?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you would be so hurt by it, I thought it would just be a dumb, harmless joke. There’s no excuse, and all I can do is apologize.”

He was shivering like crazy now, and his cheeks and nose were bright red. He must have been standing out there for awhile if he was in such a shape. He knew Alphas ran a little warmer, but Leo’s coat wasn’t very thick to begin with and he didn’t have a hat, gloves, or scarf.

He let out an exasperated sigh and grabbed the Alpha by the wrist.

“You’re going to freeze to death out here, come on.”

He dragged him into the house. Ryoma was already waiting for them in the foyer.

“What is he doing here?”

“Don’t start, Ryoma.”

Takumi pulled him into his room and swapped Leo’s coat out for one of his thick wool blankets. He tossed his own coat and scarf aside and sat down next to the Alpha on the bed.

“… Thank you.”

“You looked so pathetic out there.”

Leo chuckled. “I must have just missed you, I’ve been waiting for an hour.”

An hour? It must have been ten below out there!

He bumped him with his shoulder. “You’re an idiot. Why didn’t you just text me?”

“Because I felt like an ass, and my father took my phone away when he saw the split lip.”

“Still, it could have waited until tomorrow. You could have frozen to death.”

“But I didn’t.”

“No, I guess you didn’t.”

Leo shivered under the blanket. He pulled one half of the oversized blanket over his shoulder and scooted closer. Leo’s skin was cold to the touch, and now that they were in the light he could see his lips had been turning a bit blue. His blonde hair was dripping as the snow melted off of it, but he rested his head on Leo’s wet shoulder anyways.

“Takumi?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to ask you something, too. I mean, I meant to ask you something after I completed Niles’s stupid dare.”

His heart was beating out of his chest. “What was it?”

“I wanted to know if you would go out with me? I mean, the theater is doing some showings of old documentaries and I thought you might want to go with me… But I understand if you don’t want to, after all of this.”

“Y-You mean like… On a date?”

“Well… Yes, that was the intention?”

He’d been waiting for this for months now. And, in spite of the events of the day he was still ecstatic.

“… Swear you’ll never talk to me like that again?”

“For as long as I live.”

Leo didn’t hesitate in his response. So, neither did he.

“Alright, but you’re on probation. And you’re buying the popcorn to make it up to me.”

“Of course, I am a gentleman after all.”

“A gentleman that asks Omegas to choke on his dick?”

“Not all Omegas, just the ones I like.”

He laughed in spite of himself.

“Well, good luck getting Ryoma to like you after that one.”

“Baby steps, Takumi. Baby steps.”

[kittytishers]

I DON'T REMEMBER YOUR AK TAG SO ALL THE ONES YOU DIDN'T DO YET PLS

gdi spacey

1. You woke up naked next to the last person you texted, what would you say? uhhhh id be pretty fuckin weirded out but considering he lives in georgia id just be like “FIRST OF ALL HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET HERE?????” but like why would i be naked anyways thats the real question who sleeps without their pjs?? dont answer that please i beg

2. What’s going on between you and the last person living being you kissed? He’s pretty sick so we’re taking him to the vet today :(

3. If your significant other was into drugs, would you care? depends on the drugs. if they were into weed id want in on some obvi but anything else and id just be eeeehhhhh naaaaahhhh

4. Is your last name longer than six letters? how does 11 letters sound?

5. Was your last kiss drunk or sober? ive never been drunk in my life so take a wild guess

6. Have you ever wanted to have someone but you messed it up? nope.

7. What does your last received text say? “Ooh”

8. How many times have you kissed the last person living being you kissed? more than i can count -w-

9. Where was your last kiss at?  in my house because we both live there

10. When is the last time you saw your sister? This monday before she headed off to disneyland for her honeymoon!!

11. What do you drink in the morning? milk because its in my cereal

12. Where did you sleep last night? my fuckin bed -.-

13. Do you think relationships are hard? i think with the right person it shouldn’t be that bad.

14. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you? i wouldve done a different story for my creative writing project

15. You’re locked in a room with the last person living being you kissed, any problems? he’s sick so that would be bad :(

16. Would you rather it be sunny or rainy? sunny

17. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you? lol nah

18. Are you wearing jeans,sweatpants,or pajama pants? PAJAMA SHORTS HAHAH

19. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 years from now? I hope so

20. Does anyone like you? Not that i know of

21. Have you ever kissed someone with a name that starts with an S? nope

22. Is the last person living being you kissed gay? I mean he’s neutered so technically he’s ace

23. Is there a person you CANNOT stand? the guy who sits behind me in english -.-

24. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?  yeah. proll ynot gonna tho

25. In the past week have you cried?  probably

26. What breed was the last dog you saw? my dog is an english springer spaniel so

27. Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower? out of the shower duh

28. Have you ever kissed a football player? HAHAHAHAH

29. Do you think you’re old? if i think im old i cant call my friends old so im just gonna say no

30. Do you like text messaging? yup

31. What type of day are you having? S T RE SS 

32. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced? no but i like how it looks on other people

33. Do you prefer warm or cold weather? cold because SWEATERS

34. Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you? Three! @pseudonymouslps​ @celestialbomber​ and @luciferhimshelf​!!! they are all great btw follow them if you arent already

35. Would you prefer a relationship or a fling? i want a relationship first and then ill figure out how i feel about flings

36. Are you a simple or complicated person? is anyone a simple person???

37. What song are you listening to? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etb0xDIFXR4

38. When you say you’re sorry do you mean it? yeah of course.39. Is there a girl that knows everything or almost everything about you? @2cutepandasian​ knows a lot i think. she is my first mother after all40. What made you start liking the person you like now? i mean i don’t have a person i like rn so41. When did you last receive a text message? not quite sure. all i know is the convo started like 6 am my time lmao42. What is wrong with you right now? everyhting???43. How well do you know the last female you texted? my mom continues to confuse me -.-44. Does anyone disgust you? my dog sometimes45. Would you date someone right now if they asked? DEPENDS ON THE PERSON I GUESS??? IDK I THINK ITD BE KINDA WEIRD46. Are you in a good mood right now? i guess so47. Who was the last person you talked to in person? mi madre48. What color shirt are you wearing? black likE MY SOUL49. Has someone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear? i dont want to hear anything my mom says tbh50. Anyone you’re giving up on? nah51. Do you hate the person you fell hardest for? lol i didn’t really fall for anyone

52. Have you ever thought about giving up on someone but couldn’t? no i dont like giving up on people wtf???53. Do you like rain? im an ml fanatic of COURSE 54. Do you care if your significant other drinks? at this age? yeah. when im older than 18 i wont give a fuck55. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them? yeah thats always how it goes 56. Do you like to cuddle? HWO DOESNT??57. Are you shy? not shy just unwilling to engage in conversation with people i dont know or carea bout 58. Do you get along with girls? i get along with anyone i want to59. Have you dated the person you texted last? he’s 5 years older than me ew no like god hes like a brother to me but to date him no wtf??? 60. What do you carry with you at all times? a hair tie and my phone 61. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you? hells yeah. the two outcomes are death or living life rich its a win-win 62. Do you think you can last in a relationship for five months? i mean i hope so 63. Think back to October, were you in a relationship? HAHAHAHAHHAHA 64. The person you like kisses you on the forehead, do you find this cute? i dont like anyone right now but the person i liked a lil while back,,, yeah its be adoarble..;l.,,65. Did anything “cute” happen in the last week? i mean i saw my sister get married like if that isnt cute then idk what else is

66. How old are the last three people living beings you kissed? 4 and 10

67. Would you rather pay to get your nails done or do them yourself? dude nail salons are the best but i can make my own nails i dont really care68. Which do you like better- Zebra print or leopard print?    animal print in general is lowkey trashy imo69. Do you have any stickers on your car?    dont have a car lolol70. Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne?    who??71. Blackberry, Android, or iPhone?   iphone fuck yeah 72. When’s the last time you had pizza from Pizza Hut?    looooong time73. Do you like diet soda?    never had any so i cant say74. What color are the walls in your room?    white75. Are you 16 or older?    nope but next year76. Do you watch Pretty Little Liars?    no77. Do you have a job?    no  78. What are your initials?    LZ80. Are you from the south?    I’m from SoCal but not The South™

81. What does your last status on facebook say?    facebook thats cute82. Do you still talk to the first person living being you ever kissed?    of course how else will i yell at him to stop fucking with my shit?83. Are you closer to your mom or your dad?    dad definitely84. Have you ever done cheerleading or gymnastics?    ive done gymnastics before yeah85. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters?    Hidden Figures87. Would you rather wear heels or flip flops?    im in a flip flop mood rn. ive been wearing heels all weekend -.-88. Is your phone touch screen?    yeah90. Have you ever snuck out of your house?    no where tf would i go91. Would you rather swim in a river, lake, or pool?    pool please i dont appreciate fish feces being on my body92. Have you ever made out in a car?    HAH i wish93. …Had sex in a car?    HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA94. Are you single or in a relationship?    take a wild guess based on previous questions its not that hard to figure out i promise95. What were you doing last night at midnight?    screaming at myself to FINISH THE DAMN PAPER96. When’s the last time you saw fireworks?    4th o july97. Do you like the camera on your phone?    it serves its purpose98. Have you ever had a friend with benefits?    nope99. Have you ever passed out from drinking?    nope100. Are you friends with people on facebook that you actually hate?    youre asking as if facebook is still relevent101. Have you ever had a pregnancy scare?    im 15 and ive never had sex in my life. no.102. Name your favorite Kesha song:    WAKA WAKA103. Do you have any tan lines right now?    no but its getting warmer so soonthaank god this bs is over. i wish i could say i hate you but i dont lie

[thethirteencreators-blog]

Chapter 6.5

"The idiot still isn't answering his phone? Is he working late or something?"

This would be such a simple answer and I wish I could just smile and say, "Sure! That is exactly what's keeping him!" However, I know that this is a lie and I have never been good at lying. I twitch when I lie, my lips betray me and form the most devious grin, and my voice sweetens itself to the point of me sounding like a cartoon character from the sixties. "No, he isn't working late. I walked by the café. It's closed, everyone is gone," I explain to Lyric, slapping my hand onto my knee to keep my leg from shaking. My friend purses his lips, a sign that he was either really irritated or really confused. (Good chance of it being both.) The two of us were in his studio apartment, plopped down on his couch, staring blankly at the muted television in the middle of the room. I came to Lyric's place about five minutes ago and caught him in the middle of watching the movie adaptation Hairspray for the thirtieth time. He invited me in and offered me a pop, but I declined. Caffeine was not what I needed right now. I was already jittery enough. Lyric lifts up his arms in a thoughtful gesture. "Have you tried calling his coworker?" I throw him a pointed look. "Why would I have Jasmine's phone number?" It's ridiculous for him to even assume I would have it. "I don't know. She's cute." Is he joking? I can't tell if he's joking. "Not my type. Or yours, I thought." I throw him a questioning look. Lyric chuckles, taking a sip out of a cherry colored bottle of pop. "Hey, I'm pretty open minded." In all the time I've known Lyric, he has not once actually showed any interest in another human being. When I say this, I don't mean he doesn't have romantic feelings for anyone. I mean he literally finds people the most boring beings on the planet, which is why I believe he enjoys acting so much. Up on stage, he isn't surrounded by people anymore, he says, but actors. Actors are not just people in his eyes. What they are is something so much larger with so many different layers to them. Actors are the only people he can discover any intrigue in. "Anyways," I huff, changing the subject back to a more pressing matter than Lyric's so-called open mindedness, "if Jimmy calls or shows up or you see him somewhere for some reason, tell me please? That way I will know he didn't get stabbed thirty-seven times in the chest or hit by a bus." "Why is it always a bus with you? Why can't people be hit by cars anymore?" Lyric points out, getting up from his sitting position and following me towards the front door. I stand there for a second, trying very hard to let my worry go and laugh along with him. "Jimmy is too sly to get hit by a car. If he's gonna be crushed, it'll have to be something huge," I reason, rubbing my lips together. They are so dry. When I see Jimmy, I'm gonna kick his butt for taking my lip balm. My friend reaches around my body and unlocks the door for me. "Jimmy is probably fine," Lyric assures me, his hand on my shoulder. He gives me a tight squeeze, an odd show of affection from the man who hates physical contact. I have to pause when he does this and stare, which he returns with a small smile. Lyric's smiles are so rare. He knows how much I love them. "Don't get all paranoid, man. Knowing that loser, he's probably in the drama room having dinner with his mama." "Why does having dinner with his mom make him a loser? His mom is really cool," I point out. I've never understood why kids are so anti-parent. Yes, my parents weren't perfect and spent eighty percent of their time nagging at me, but I never felt a need to shove them away. I was never ashamed of them, even if they might have been ashamed of me. During the period of time after I came out as pan to them and the day I announced I wanted to go to Broadway, they seemed a little iffy on how they felt about me. We cleared it up, though, and they went back to loving me unconditionally after the initial shock wore off. A group of blonde girls stroll by in matching purple dresses, trilling about some band they were going to see live. One of them, apparently, won free tickets off the radio and another splurged to get them a limo. Kudos for them. "His moms are pretty chill," Lyric agrees, setting his hip against the doorframe. "I'll see you tomorrow for rehearsal before class, Alto. If I receive any contact from the alien life force we know as Jimmy John, I'll let you know." "You are so weird," I laugh, listening to the sound of the door clicking shut behind me.

------*

The dorm is in an oddly tranquil state when I return home sometime around midnight. Even though Lyric instructed that I don't let paranoia overcome me, I couldn't help but wander the school grounds for a few hours. I even walked all the way to Jimmy's favorite restaurant about a mile away from the school. Sometimes he goes there in the middle of the night to get some cheap noodles. That actually has become his routine during finals. Patricia, the owner, loves him for all the business he brings her. I even went as far as to actually call his mother when all else failed. She told me that she saw him at around three and hadn't heard from him since. To avoid freaking her out, I assured her he was probably just practicing somewhere secluded, wanting privacy. There's no sign of Jimmy anywhere. No call, no text, no email... Absolutely nothing. Something happened, I know it. I can feel it in my stomach every single time I think about him; this overwhelming, aching dread repeatedly splashes over me like a bucket of blood. Wherever Jimmy is, he isn't safe. I'm almost up the first flight of stairs when I consider calling the police. This might be nothing, but I refuse to take a chance. If Jimmy really is in trouble and I did nothing to help him, I will never be able to forgive myself. "Hey, Alto!" I hear someone call. I look up and find the sweet smile of Edda waiting for me. She is worn down and borderline weak looking, but still manages to be the brightest star in the room. "You were out late." I wave her off. "Hi, Edda. I was out looking for Jimmy," I explain, playing it off as if this were nothing. There is no reason to worry anybody else. "What were you doing? Partying?" "Yikes, me?" she chuckles, slapping her hand to her chest. Edda has lived down the hall from Jimmy and I since she started here last year. The two of us have a minor friendship made up of mostly childish banter and musical references. Also, she is one of the only people who does not look ready to barf when I make a terribly wonderful pun. (For example, H-2-Oh No! When I used this on my neighbor, Madison, she looked ready to slam my head in her door. Would I have blamed her? Probably not.) It's nice having a friend who doesn't treat me like the freak I know I am. I appreciate her more than I appreciate Jimmy sometimes and that is saying mounds about our simple contact. Edda pauses on the stairs before me and gestures to the tag on her shirt. "My staff kind of bailed last minute at the paper, so I'm pretty much on my own. I just needed to run back here and pick up some photographs I forgot for the front page." Ever since the beginning of the year, Edda has been the head of our school's newspaper. She is the one who compiles it all together, writes editorials, finds leads for her team of three (counting the resident cartoonist, Kam) to follow, prints everything out, and sets up the newspaper stand in the main hall. "That sucks," I say. "It keeps me busy," Edda shrugs, adjusting a strap over her arm. "Well, I best get going. Nice seeing you, Alto." "You too," I nod, watching her descend the stairs and exit through the side door. Just as I reach into my pocket, I feel my phone start to buzz. Finally, Jimmy has messaged! I pull out my device and see his name printed across the screen. Thank god, Jimmy! I hit answer and let out a breathe of relief. "Jim-Jam, you scared me to death! Where have you..." "Heads up!" the phone cackles and I'm propelled forwards. The stairs thud beneath me with each roll until I'm at the bottom, my body trembling with pain. I lift my hands and cradle my head, attempting to recollect myself. My phone lies beside me in about three different parts. For that to have happened, the fall must have been pretty intense. "Why?" I choke out, lifting my head. The attacker is nowhere to be seen. "W-where'd you go?" I try to get up but my body refuses. Every one of my limbs feels ten times its size. I can't even move my left leg. Did I break it? Could I have broken it after only falling down half a flight of stairs? A horrible thought strikes me quite suddenly and I feel bile in my throat. What if I was right and Jimmy was hurt? Maybe the same person who did this to him is doing this to me. My shoulder stings. There's something pricking it. Before I can look, what I assume is a bag is thrown over my head. I'm engulfed in darkness for a few seconds. I don't fight it. I lay there and wait for it take me away.

[survivormoheli]

Episode Twelve - “Phoenix i just want u to know u that  i don't think of u just as an object to buy me things” - Tara

Tara

i'm genuinely rly sad about richie leaving. i wish i put in more effort to talk to him n b friends w him bcos he has such a fun character. what stopped me was i knew he thought i was a leaker and i just thought he wouldn't of wanted to b friends w me but i should've tried to make him want 2 b friends w me anyway lol i'm sorry richie u deserve better

Blake

HOLY MOTHER OF GARBAGE WE PULLED THAT OFF! LYNN AND TARA SAVED MY ASS TONGIHT! GIVING ERIC FAKE PROMISES FOR THE FUTURE! OMG IM SOO HAPPY WOW I HONESTLY THOUGHT MY BUTT WAS GOIN HOME OMG! WOWOWO ERIC WANTED ME OUT. goodluck phoenix and tim AND ERIC >:0 FINAL THREE ME LYNN AND TARA

Blake

o and i was scared earlier bc eric was talkin to lynn about gettin me voted out but lynn finessed the shit out of him! and then i was scared shitless bc raffy omg he does not enjoy me at all lmao! inhope me and him can make up after this game!

Blake

Lynn: My love. My sunshine. My better half. I will see you soon <3 You better win this effing game! Show everyone you are a threat. I love you and we were together from the beginning now finish this without me! Tara: OOOO Tara they have done me dirty! Fight in my memory! CONQUER THIS LAND <3 Fight like I know you can! I am going to miss you too though! This game better end soon lol Eric: OOOOOOO ERIC if im going home you must’ve flipped…. RIP. GREAT MOVE THOUGH I respect your gameplay from turning yourself into a threat instead of continuing to be a goat! Richie: I still think you’re a threat! I wish you the best of luck (you are going to need it bc look at all the amazing players left)! Pull some big moves make me love you! Give me more than humor I wanna see you kill and stab ahha! Phoenix: Where are you? Big move maybe? You planning to ride Richie to the end? Tim: Well played you got two big threats out simultaneously from flipping! Taking something from my book I see? LOL (I’m not being sarcastic btw) Everyone: OK ANYONE OF YOU CAN WIN THIS GAME! PULL SOME BIG MOVES, BLINDSIDE SOME PEOPLE, AND DON’T LET THIS GAME’S SNAKINESS DIE OUT! EVERYONE PLAY TILL THE VERY END TO WIN! THINK ABOUT WHO YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN AGASINT. MAKE SOME HUGE MOVES! IM SO EXCITED TO SEE WHAT YOU GUYS ARE GOING TO DO!

(what i wud of said if i went home tonight at the F7 tribal)

Eric K

That was a stressful lead up to tribal. Richie was really trying to convince me to flip but it just didn't feel right. Why would il allign myself with people I've barely talked to and just trust that I'm not on the bottom? Of course I realize that Blake is a huge threat and needs to go before f3 or he will be the winner. I had a good chat with Tara and Lynn separately and we all agree that he needs to go. Hopefully it'll happen in two tribals from now since he has an advantage/immunity that can only be used at next tribal.

Tim

So Raffy and JG voted for me? They really think I was playing some middle when in reality I was just being social and going into survival mode. Like Raffy I didn't even vote for you to go home so fuck off and JG you went home because of the blind round and you dont even have any proof that I voted for you so bye!

Blake

Hi yes Goodmorning. I woke up from my peacefull slumber and was INTERROGATED! TIM i guess was like ima ask who Blake wants  int the F3 and i was shook bc none o my allies were awake or off doing something to help me formulate a response... AND WELLL PEOPLES BLAKE IS NOT THE BEST AT JUST NOT RESPONDING OR GIVING A GOOD RESPONSE! TIM asked if i was takin tara and lynn to F3 or Tara and Eric (really cnfused bc i thought i was obvi i was takin lynn not matter what?) SO ME BEING THE GENIUS THAT I AM AND NOT REFUSING T RESPOND SAID "  Well i want to win so I wanan go with ppl who I think I can win against" in all honesty im scared if i said someting with names eric might freak or some shiz! bc i am taking tara and lynn. i know i could of lied and said im takin lynn and eric but that just sounds rude. you know taking? lol. oooo WELL NOW TIMMY IS PLEADING HIS CASE WITH ME. I REALY LIKE TIM TBH. PHOENIX IS THE ONLY PERSON HERE WHOO DOES NOT TALK TO ME OR TRY TO AT ALL ITS REALLY RUDE. BUT OMG THIS IS THE LORDS DAY AND IM FEELING ATTACKED

Blake

The lords day is Timmy's day today

Blake

I just had i thought. I think the winner of this game will either be more or whoever takes me out. (TIM) STAY AWAY. maybe it wont even be me and i think to highly of myself XD

Tim

The longevity of my game relies on these immunity results. If I win, I fight on to another round. If I lose then... well looks like I can't afford to lose.

Blake

OBVIOUSLY MY ASS HOLE IS GOING NEXT ! SOOOOOOOO WOW I HATE EVERYTHING AND NOT KNOWING WHAT THIS ADV WAS

Lynn

OHMYGODSHAHSBSB i feel like this vote is gonna go to rocks and that is gonna be rocks between 3 people and odds are not in my favor ajsjdn i have awful luck ohhhhh my god okay well honestly going out by rocks isn’t the worst way to go 

Blake

OMFG ok im like 99% sure that i am safe! bc i think tara and lynn will vote for tim! all we hav to do is get phoenix to flip! omg this is stressfull i hate i hate! WHY AM I BEING TARGTED ALL THE TIM OMG AHHHH! ERIC IM COMING AFTER UR ASSHOLE U BETTER WATCH OUT BUD U BETTER KEEP WIINNING OR U R GOING HOME!

Tara

omg so just got back from hanging out w phoenix n had a bunch of fun! we watched love simon and i had to try not to cry like 5 times, happy tears tho. also ijust remembered like a couple rounds ago i said that i would get phoenix to buy me ice cream and he offered but i said no!! and now i realised it ruined my whole thing n yikes! i guess the offer counts? and he also bought me m'n'ms which i am eating now n they r delicious. also phoenix i just want u to know u that  i don't think of u just as an object to buy me things HAHHAHA fbdksf i REALLY ENJOYED HANGING OUT WITH YOU!!! and i hope we do it again sometime soon!!!!! sorry for forgetting u're lactose intolerant like twice. but ya phoenix was super fun. hopefully this is the start of a new alliance!! i think this round i'm going to vote tim bcos i feel like it'll make f5 a lot more cruisier and less stressful for me than having to rely on lynn not flipping on me or anyone else not flipping on me. hopefully eric can win immunity again so we can vote out blake. it was rly weird talking about game with someone face to face? and like planning about it and stuff. idk thank u phoenix for the fun day out!! also I MADE F5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i can't believe i did that!!!!!!!!!!!!! woooh!!!

Eric K

I am so happy that I won two immunity challenges at once!! I chose the advantage hoping that this would be a good chance to take out Blake. Since I talked to Tara and Lynn about eventually cutting Blake out, I think this would be a good opportunity. I just hope he does not have some sort of advantage to screw this up...

Tim

So I lost the challenge and I'm not dissapointed in myself, Im just unhappy that I couldn't win the challenge when I most needed to. And now I'm in jeopardy.

Tim

So Eric pretty much nominated me and Blake up for elimination which sucks harddd. I guess I have new hope in the game. It sucks that he didn't just do Blake and Phoenix but I guess he considers us his biggest competition to win. 

Tim

So Ive been heavily campaigning to Tara and Eric but who knows how this will turn out. Hopefully Eric just lets me go to rocks.

Eric K

I am very frustrated that Tara is not willing to go for Blake. The things she's saying are making me think that she would rather keep Blake long term and is potentially just using me... Even with me voting Blake, the numbers wouldn't be there and I would be outing myself early on. I guess I just have to keep on winning immunity challenges and hope I am not being played.

Tara

omggg so the most awkward thign happened i tried to call tim bcos i felt rly bad that we hadn't talked all season and i genuinely rly like him n i just wanted to chat but he turned it into a plea session, idk why i didn't expect that, n then i just like waited it out until he stopped fkdfs and then he started talking 2 me about his day so yay but then he was like ok i'll go grab some food and i was like ok seeya tim sorry about everyhting n he was like so you are voting me? and i was like yaa i'm sorry and then it just got rly awkward and silent and he was just looking at his computer screen like looking like he was about to cry and it wasl ike FIFTEEN WHOLE SECONDS of like silence and oh my god. i am an awful person. i love u tim. i'm glad i voted him out bcos i don't rly trust eric all that much but it forces him to work w me now so he can vote out blake n lynn n then  i can hopefully take phoenix to f2 or convince eric to take me to f2. yayayyyay can u believe i'm here and i have a PLAN go me