olivia-anderson-fanfic

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Mexicans in the United States now have a direct line to consular assistance at their fingertips. Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez, Mexico’s Foreign Minister, has introduced “ConsulApp Contigo”, a mobile application designed to provide immediate support in emergencies, including detentions. The app connects users to consular services, offering legal guidance and critical resources in real time.

Los mexicanos en Estados Unidos ahora tienen a su disposición una línea directa de asistencia consular. Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez, Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de México, presentó "ConsulApp Contigo", una aplicación móvil diseñada para brindar apoyo inmediato en situaciones de emergencia, incluidas las detenciones. La aplicación conecta a los usuarios con los servicios consulares, ofreciendo orientación legal y recursos críticos en tiempo real.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 69

First - Previous - Masterlist - TBC

Enma sighed as he tied off Kalim’s turban for him. It hadn’t been a quick process. No one outside of Jamil had ever actually touched a turban before, so Enma had been going based on his memory of what the knot on Kalim’s turban looked like. It had taken… more than one try.

It was still better than allowing ‘anyone’ the chance to mind control Kalim, though. Jamil was a suspect, and leaving him alone with Kalim was a terrible idea.

Hence why Jamil had been dragged away by the Octavinelle students to help prepare breakfast for the dorm. The Yuus weren’t capable of magic – neither was Grim, not really – so… they were ‘safe’.

Kalim had taken it all in stride. If he thought about the strange situation at all (unlikely), he was just amused by it. “Did you get it this time?”

Enma squinted at the knot he’d tied. “... kinda. It’s a little sloppy…”

Ito swatted at his hands when he tried to reach for the turban again. “It looks fine, leave it be.”

Enma’s lips pursed into a thin line. He reached for the turban again.

Ito set their plate in their lap and grabbed Enma’s hands, lacing their fingers together.

“Can’t you just tie it in a bow?” Grim asked, his tail smacking Ito in the arm repeatedly.

(He wanted their pizza, but they were still hungry. Maybe they’d give him their crusts when they were done, but only if he stopped hitting them. They weren’t intent on rewarding bad behavior.)

“No, that’s culturally insensitive,” said Kuroki, rubbing the top of the monster’s head.

Grim stared at him blankly.

Ito sighed. “Think of it this way. It’s like… when people call you a cat instead of a monster. Kinda rude, right? They don’t mean to be rude, but they still are.”

Grim’s eyes blew wide, and he looked at Kalim. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay!” said Kalim, beaming. “You didn’t mean to! And it’s not easy to know everything about every culture, there are always blind spots. As long as you’re willing to learn, you’re still a good person!”

“I’m not sure he’s a good person,” said Enma, leaning back on his hands with a halfhearted smile. “His ‘cultural blind spots’ aren’t the reason, though.”

Grim narrowed his eyes at Enma. “Insubordination.”

“Sorry, Grim-sama,” said Enma, raising his hands in mock surrender.

Ito’s hands raised with his. Grim’s eyes gleamed, and Ito could only sigh as the monster rushed beneath their arms, snatching up their pizza.

Maybe Grim had a knack for magic after all – he should become a stage magician, making their food disappear like that.

“All is forgiven,” Grim said.

Enma grinned.

“‘Grim-sama’ may be a good person, but you’re not,” Ito said, sticking their tongue out at Enma. “I try to help you curb your perfectionist tendencies and this is the thanks I get? Bitch.”

Enma shrugged, entirely unrepentant.

Kalim flashed a smile. “I think you’re all good people.”

The Yuus��� heads, as one, all jerked to look at Kalim. Surely that was a joke, but it didn’t look like Kalim was joking. Which – what the fuck? Their monster seemed pleased with the compliment, and it wasn’t that they were exactly offended, but…

“... you’re sorely mistaken,” said Kuroki. “Like, I appreciate it, I guess? But you’re way too trusting. We tried to burn down your dorm last night. And, for the record, we’re not sorry.”

Kalim nodded along. “It’s not like you did any permanent damage. The building can be rebuilt, and it’s not like you were doing it for no reason, either. You were hurting. Lots of people lash out when they’re hurt and scared. Doesn’t mean you’re not still good.”

“You said that at the entrance ceremony, too, that I was a ‘good kid’,” said Ito.

They’d, at least, been helpful, then, so it had made sense… or, enough sense for them to move on from it without thinking about it all that much. But here he was, continuing to think they were all ‘good’ or whatever, and Ito thought they had all long since lost the benefit of the doubt.

After all, no one was ever excited to see the Yuus on their doorstep.

Except for Kalim, apparently.

“Of course! There’s good in everyone,” said Kalim.

Enma snorted. “Doesn’t mean that they care enough to listen to their consciences.”

“I mean, you might not do what’s right now, but maybe you’ll reflect on your actions later! If I condemn you today, then you’re never going to get the opportunity to grow.”

Ito’s brows furrowed. “Or we won’t, and we’ll just stab you in the back later, too.”

“Maybe,” Kalim admitted, his smile dimming just slightly for a brief second, before he shrugged. “I’m willing to take that risk.”

The Yuus just stared at him, quietly horrified. Did this man not understand the genre they were in? Had he not looked around and noticed that every person in this school would stab him in the back without a second thought if they thought the pros outweighed the cons enough? Did he just not care?

“Ito-san,” a voice called, and Ito was almost relieved to have someone interrupt. They turned and raised an eyebrow at Jamil, mildly surprised that he would openly call out to them. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Maybe he wanted to ‘prove’ that he wasn’t the perpetrator. If he had a full conversation with Ito, alone, and they came back perfectly normal, then surely he wasn’t the one mind-controlling everyone.

That wouldn’t convince either of their friends. Kuroki and Enma were far too paranoid to fall for that, but…

They shrugged, flashing a grin. “Sure.”

They followed Jamil out into the hallway. He pulled out his wand and, with a flick of his wrist, the air around them began to churn, wrapping around the pair of teens, preventing any sound from escaping their little bubble.

“You’re going to mess up my hair,” Ito said, pouting lightly.

Jamil wasn’t in the mood for small talk, apparently:

“Here,” said Jamil, reaching into his pocket and shoving whatever it was into their hand. “Take this.”

They stared at the pill bottle, their eyebrows furrowing. They looked at the label, but that was useless. It wasn’t like they knew the scientific names for medicine in their own world, let alone in an entirely different one. “Hm?”

“They’re antidepressants,” said Jamil.

Ito flinched, their eyes flicking up to meet his. “What?”

“We don’t have much time to talk about it, your friends will come check on you soon – I just…” Jamil took a deep breath. “Okay, so, when I mind control someone, I get a vague read on their emotions –.”

“What.”

“ – I think it’s to help me simulate their normal behavior better? I dunno. Anyways –.”

“You can’t just ‘anyways’ this.”

“Anyways.” Jamil said, again, seemingly just to spite them. “You really need these. So take them for two weeks, and if they don’t work we can find you a different prescription, these are just the only type I have on hand –.”

“What the hell,” said Ito, looking down at the pills in their hand, bile rising in their throat. They weren’t really against taking antidepressants, but the way they’d been given them made them feel sick. Enma had asked if being mind-controlled felt invasive, and they’d said no at the time, but they would like to amend that statement right now. “How much do you know?”

“That you’re one of the most depressed people I’ve ever met,” Jamil said, flatly.

Ito looked up at him, their eyes wide.

They blinked, and found that their throat itched. The pill bottle in their hand was open.

The pills rattled, and Ito took a moment to still their hands.

“Why?” they said.

Jamil wasn’t looking at them, apparently concentrating on the door to Kalim’s room, making sure their little ‘conversation’ wouldn’t be interrupted. “Well, we’re partners now, aren’t we? Can’t have you killing yourself before I wring all of the use out of you.”

Ito, quietly, closed the pill bottle and shoved it into their hoodie pocket.

~

The Yuus sat clustered around a lifeguard’s chair. Kuroki had taken a seat in the actual chair, Grim in his lap. Enma had taken a seat on one of the ladder rungs. Ito was on the ground, their pants legs rolled up to allow them to dip their feet in the water.

Azul had ‘convinced’ Kalim that swimming was a better workout than walking. It worked out more muscles at once, after all, and it didn’t leave you as sore when you were done.

(‘Convinced’ in quotation marks, because a ‘normal’ Kalim wasn’t all that difficult to sway.)

“You know, I’ve been thinking, do mermen dry out faster in the sun?” Enma mused. “Like, if they went and marched to the Oasis, do you think they’d get a heat stroke halfway through?”

Water splashed over their legs as Floyd popped out of the water, flashing a smile at them even as they glared at him. They were wearing swim trunks, so it didn’t matter, but they didn’t appreciate it, either.

“Don’t know ‘bout heatstrokes, Ikura-chan, but we do have to drink more water than you guys,” Floyd said, smiling widely. Apparently, he didn’t mind Enma as a person… so long as Enma was nowhere near his brother.

“Maybe that’s part of why your skin is so clear,” Kuroki said.

“Nah, it’s clear in merman form, too. Think it’s just a fish thing.”

Ito clicked their tongue. “That’s so annoying, you know. I spend so much time making sure I look good, and you guys get to just exist.”

“I happen to know how to make a special skin care cream that will make your skin as clear as ours, if you’re willing to pay for it,” said Jade, smiling. He was floating on his stomach in the water, like a corpse, with only his head above the water for the sake of speaking.

“Uh, no thanks,” said Ito. “I really don’t like the look on your face.”

“Your loss,” Jade said, sighing softly, before looking at Enma. “How about you?”

Enma’s face flushed. Poor thing. “I’d pay for the recipe.”

“Unfortunately, giving away your secrets is bad business sense,” Jade said.

Ito felt a hand wrap around their ankle, and got just enough time to think ‘oh no’ before they were dragged into the water by Floyd.

He let go pretty quick (possibly because they shoved their other foot in his face in retaliation), and they could swim, so it was fine, but their skin. Their hair!

They spat pool water in his general direction. “Your brother complex has nothing to do with me, drag Enma under instea –.”

“Brother complex?!” Floyd said, aghast.

Ito could only shrug. They’d heard Kuroki use the term in passing before, but now that they thought about it they didn’t actually know what it meant. Like, really, what was so complex about having a brother? Ito had three, it’s not like it’s hard.

The fact that Kuroki was cackling like a madman wasn’t boding well.

Damn, did this mean they had to stop making fun of Grim for always believing Ace, now?

~

“The best way to learn is through practical experience,” Azul said.

Ito looked down at their worst enemy: a cauldron.

Kuroki set a hand on their shoulder. “You can do this. We know where we went wrong last time, right? And if it fucks up again, we’ll just cut our hair, right?”

“I dunno, what if you guys get stuck in the same body again?” Enma said, frowning. “Crewel-sama –... Crewel-sensei and the Headmaster aren’t around to fix it, so you’d be stuck together until the break was over…”

Ito and Kuroki looked at each other.

They had survived last time without having to go to the bathroom together, but Crowley and Crewel wouldn’t be coming back for another four days at the very least.

“... Ito, sit this one out,” Kuroki said.

Ito joined Grim in the corner of shame.

~

“Alright, this should work,” said Enma, presenting the potion to Grim.

Grim narrowed his eyes at the potion. “Smells bad.”

“Buuuut it should give you your fur back,” Kuroki said. “Then you can be super cute – I mean cool – again!”

Grim snatched up the potion and shoved it into his mouth, vial and all.

Fur began to sprout all over his body, and within seconds their beloved monster was fully pettable once again.

The Yuus, of course, celebrated this fact by petting him. Their darling little baby hadn’t been soft for almost an entire week. They had suffered so much. Just let them have this.

“Weren’t you fish asked to make a draught of living death?” Jade asked, unaware that he was supposed to be letting them have this.

(“Some people call freshmen ‘fish’,” Kuroki explained quietly. Ito nodded their understanding, even though they had no idea how those two things were correlated in the slightest. They were, somehow, even more confused than before..)

“We tried to make it, we’re not sure how we ended up with a hair-growth potion. We’re really bad at Alchemy, senpai,” Enma said. The faint blush on his cheeks made him actually look like the picture of innocence, so much so that Ito might have believed him had they not known the truth. “I’m sure you’ve heard the horror stories...”

Jade looked like he was about to try to press for more information, but then Floyd realized that Jade and Enma weren’t their government-mandated sixty meters apart and was quick to rectify that.

~

“Hey, do you three know where the vial I lent you went?” Azul asked.

The Yuus looked at Grim.

“... Kalim-senpai broke it,” said Ito.

Azul definitely knew they were lying to his face. However, Kalim was far richer than the Yuus were, and therefore far easier to extort money from.

Azul nodded curtly and left them. They went back to saving the world, one adorable little monster at a time.

~

The day ended without incident.

Kalim had been in an inexplicably good mood for the past two days (Jamil must not be able to control two people at once). Kalim had been… well, not reasonable, but certainly agreeable. The ‘mood swings’ were finally behind them, it seemed.

“Stop sitting on the counters,” Jamil sighed. “It’s unhygienic.”

Ito shrugged lazily.

Jamil sent them a halfhearted glare, but continued working.

Ito watched for a few minutes. Not because it was particularly interesting, Jamil was making a stew, but Ito needed to sort out their thoughts.

“You’re not going to get away with this if you keep going,” they said, eventually.

Jamil flinched, but didn’t seem wholly surprised. He had been inactive the whole day, clearly he knew things were getting dicey.

Still, he said, “I can’t –.”

“I’m not saying you need to tell Kalim-senpai the truth, or that you should stop scheming entirely. I’m saying you need to lay low for a while. As your ‘partner’, I’m telling you to chill. I’m pretty sure everyone suspects you, you are going to get caught.”

Jamil hesitated. “Is there any chance you can make them all leave?”

“Not a shot in hell,” Ito snorted. “I mean, I don’t think I can even make Kuroki and Enma give up at this point, you really pissed them off. And don’t even get me started on Octavinelle, they’re a lost cause.”

Jamil slumped against the counter beside them.

“You’re gonna get hair on the counters. It’s unhygienic,” Ito said, more than a little spiteful.

Jamil sent them yet another glare out of the corner of his eyes.

Fair enough.

“... senpai, listen,” Ito said. “Stop now. Blame the coup stuff on John – isn’t it weird that things mellowed out the second he was gone? Plant that idea, let it simmer until the end of break, and by the time school starts up again no one will believe him when he says he’s innocent. You can start up again when he comes back. Octavinelle will be busy with their job, and us Ramshackle people are all in different years than you, so you can do your scheming bullshit without interference.”

Jamil stared at them.

“There’s something wrong with you.”

“People keep saying that. It could hurt my feelings someday, y’know.”

He rolled his eyes. “What’s your motive?”

Ito shrugged. “Honestly? I think it’d be funny to watch them try to pin stuff on you when you’re not even doing anything.”

Jamil gave a quiet scoff, before finally standing up straight. “I have to do it over the break. It ‘hurts’ because they’re supposed to be spending this time relaxing with their families and friends. If I did it during the school year, it’d just be overshadowed by schoolwork and all that.”

“I mean, it’s your life, you can do what you want. I hope you know that, if they find out I ‘helped’ you, I’m selling you out immediately.”

“Figures,” he muttered.

The pot began to boil over.

Ito sucked in air through their teeth. “Ooooh, that’s a bad sign.”

From the look on Jamil’s face, he seemed to agree.

~

The moment they got back to their guest room, Kuroki flopped onto the bed with a groan.

“I hate everyone.”

“Yeah, yeah, we know, bud,” Enma said, rubbing a hand up and down his friend’s back in an attempt to comfort him. “We’ll get our revenge, don’t worry, it just takes a minute to set up.”

“You know what would make this easier –?”

“A gun,” Ito, Enma, and Grim all chorused in the same flat tone.

“Exactly, you get it.”

They did not, but whatever.

Ito knelt by the dresser and pulled one of the drawers out.

It gave a little bit of resistance, for just a second, before popping out so suddenly that they fell over.

They glanced at Kuroki and Enma, who had definitely seen judging by the slight shake of their shoulders, but they were determinedly looking in the other direction to let them at least pretend that they hadn’t noticed.

An opportunity they were happy to take – they loved lying, even if it was to themself.

The drawer was tossed aside unceremoniously (as punishment for its crimes) and they righted themself on the floor. They stuck their arm into the new hole in the wardrobe, feeling around until their nails clinked against glass.

Just like that, the bioweapon was back in their hand.

“So that’s where you put it,” Enma said, sounding annoyed.

Ito raised an eyebrow at him. “We agreed that we would only use these if someone Overblotted.”

“But we could have used it to dissolve the entire dorm instead…” Kuroki whined.

Ito snickered, stuffing it into their pocket. “The fire wasn’t enough?”

“The fire was just atonement for them stealing you,” Enma said, shrugging. “We’ve got to get them back for mind controlling you, now, too.”

Ito didn’t know how to feel about that.

Thankfully, they didn’t get much time to think on it:

“– strategy meeting in their room!” Floyd’s familiar voice chimed, and the door was kicked open. The door creaked once in protest as it slammed against the wall, before its hinges gave out and it fell to the floor, dead.

Well, there went their privacy, Ito supposed. It was nice while it lasted. Fly high, door, you served them well, but now it is time for you to rest.

“Oh, great, they’re here,” said Grim.

Right. There were people here. Ito groaned a little at the reminder.

Azul’s smile threatened to falter at the less-than-warm welcome, but he managed to keep it up. “We are!”

Floyd glanced at Enma. “Go stand in the bathroom.”

Enma’s mouth dropped open in offense. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all, Ikura-chan! Go.”

Enma grabbed Ito by the arm and dragged them into the bathroom with him. Apparently, if he was going to be banished, he was taking them with him.

Ito huffed. Why should they be punished for someone else’s crimes?

They had plenty of crimes of their own for people to prosecute! This was bullshit!

They leaned in the doorframe, watching as the Octavinelle kids got comfortable. Jade seated himself in the windowsill, as prim and proper as could be. Azul started pacing on the Persian rug. Floyd picked up the drawer on the ground (the poor fallen soldier) and started methodically breaking it down, seemingly just for the sake of having something to do with his hands... Ito needed to introduce the guy to fidget toys or something.

Azul cast a glance toward their wardrobe, briefly confused as to why the Yuus didn’t have a mirror, and then seemed to discard the thought. His usual theatrics take a lot of brainpower after all:

“Kalim-san’s disposition is just as sunny as usual!”

“Gee, thanks for nothing, Sherlock,” said Kuroki.

“You just haven’t seen him switch yet,” Grim said, his eyes wide. “When he gets angry he narrows his eyes and his words get all sharp and he’s angry!”

Kuroki pressed a kiss to the top of the monster’s head. “We’ll protect you, don’t worry, it’s okay.”

“I’m supposed to be protecting you, though…” Grim said, his ears flattening briefly.

“Even the greatest mages need help sometimes.”

Azul looked like he wanted to argue otherwise, but then thought better of it when Kuroki sent him a glare over Grim’s head.

He cleared his throat. “I believe you when you say Kalim-san has been acting… strangely lately. The only question is why.”

“Mind control. We’ve been over this,” said Enma.

There was an awkward pause.

“... any other guesses?” Azul said.

Jade heaved a put-upon sigh. “Mood swings, perhaps.”

“Or, perhaps not –!” Azul said.

“But I’m not sure that’s the case,” Jade continued to talk over him. Azul looked devastated that someone was stealing his thunder. “Floyd has mood swings, Kalim-san doesn’t give off the same impression.”

“Kalim-senpai said that Scarabia did really bad during the Magift tournament and their exam scores were the worst in the whole school,” Ito said. “Maybe he snapped under the pressure.”

Jade raised an eyebrow at them. “Do you really believe that?”

“Nah,” said Ito.

Jade seemed to be waiting for them to say something more after that, an explanation for why they’d said it, maybe, but Ito didn’t give one, and Azul was quick to use that to regain control of the conversation:

“I can't imagine his demeanor would shift so drastically over something as minor as unimpressive performances. I agree that the root cause is likely to be something else entirely.”

“Gasp. Like what,” Kuroki said flatly.

“I believe it may be mind control!” said Azul, his hand on his chest.

“Woooooah,” said Enma. “You’re so smart, senpai. How could you come up with that on your own?”

“Hold your applause –.”

“No one was applauding, but ‘kay,” said Floyd.

“BECAUSE we cannot simply assume that this is the case. Jade, would you please ‘talk’ to our dear… colleague, Kalim-san?”

Jade’s eyes gleamed.

“Consider it done. Viper-san would be a harder target, but… Kalim-san might be willing to ‘talk’ openly with me.”

Oh, they were totally going to torture Kalim for information.

Ito raised their hand. “Can I go, too? I have some questions I wanna ask Kalim-senpai, so…”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 33

<Pt32

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

A finger poked at his neck, and Yuu sent Ace a bemused look.

“I just wanted to see if your – your – neck was still puffy and weird.”

“You’re talking about my lymph nodes,” Yuu said. “How ‘weird’ are they?”

“Not very.”

Ah, that makes everything so much clearer for Yuu.

He reached a hand up himself to press against the side of his neck, absently rubbing his fingers over the swollen organs. They weren’t huge, but they were bigger than they would have been if he was entirely healthy.

Yuu took a moment to snicker, a little amused that, despite how it was Yuu who had once wanted to go into the medical field, he was the one who was always being taken care of.

He leaned forward until he could rest his head on Deuce’s shoulder. “I hate being sick. This is so stupid.”

“You’re getting more and more coherent by the day,” said Deuce, rubbing his back comfortingly. “You’ll be fine, soon.”

Yuu sighed, sinking into him as much as he physically could. “Stay with me?”

“For as long as I can.”

~

“The infection’s fading,” said Deuce, letting go of Yuu’s ear and leaning out of his space… somewhat. He was still closer than was strictly platonic, but Yuu would never complain about that. “Your ears aren’t red anymore… we should probably do a few more doses of medicine just to make sure, though.”

“So, it was the earrings,” Yuu said. Grim wouldn’t be happy to learn that one, but at least it couldn’t be blamed on Ace or Deuce…

“Yeah. I can’t believe that Grim seriously tried to pierce your ears during the apocalypse. Like, even the ‘guy’ piercing your ears wasn’t an amalgamation of corpses, it’s not like this place is hygienic.”

“Says the guy that bit him,” said Ace.

“... we shouldn’t be pointing fingers,” said Deuce.

Yuu snorted. “It’s fine. I have cool earrings and you guys don’t. Sucks to suck, my piercings are better than yours by default.”

“Those aren’t really piercings,” said Deuce, rolling his eyes.

“Ooooh, called out by the ‘delinquent’,” said Ace.

“Who died and made him an expert?” Yuu said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“So many people,” said Ace.

Oh right.

Deuce leaned back on his hands, grinning despite this. “I mean, as someone who’s gotten actual piercings, I think I do have some authority here.”

Yuu and Ace went silent, glancing between each other as if to say ‘did you know he had piercings?’ Since they were both making this particular expression, it seemed that they did not, in fact, know. Which – how? Deuce was right in front of them, it wasn’t like he had a way to hide any piercings he got.

Yuu’s gaze flicked down to the only place he hadn’t really seen yet.

Deuce snorted. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I don’t think men can even get pierced there – nor would we, that sounds painful. I just got a couple of face piercings.”

Yuu’s cheeks flushed red.

Ace, however, shook his head. “You’re lying. I’m not seeing any metal in your face. And I kissed you yesterday, so don’t even try pretending you’re talking about a tongue piercing or some shit.”

Deuce pointed to a small scar on his eyebrow. “I had to take them all out. They’re too easy to grab in a fight, y’know?”

Yuu and Ace hung their heads in disappointment. The apocalypse had taken so much from them.

~

Yuu leaned against Ace’s shoulder, squinting at the soup in front of him with the kind of suspicion that should only be reserved for fellow survivors. Because that shit looked terrible, and Yuu did not trust it in the slightest. “You seriously can’t cook to save your life.”

Ace huffed. “Says the guy who’s loved my cooking for the last week.”

“I was sick and delirious. That proves nothing.”

“You’re still delirious. Don’t worry, you’ll love it when you’re healthy again. Which you will be, since my god-tier level cooking has nearly healed your illness.”

Yuu lifted his head just enough to make sure that Ace saw his skeptical look. “You put some crushed-up antibiotics in it.”

“Prove it.”

He pointed at the clump of white powder, floating lazily in the broth, bumping against a piece of chicken so processed that even Americans would hesitate before eating it.

“... that’s cocaine.”

“Dang, you managed to get the good stuff in the apocalypse? That takes some skill,” Yuu deadpanned, reluctantly taking a spoon to his soup. He poked the ‘cocaine’ a few times to break it up and then stirred it in.

He brought it to his mouth and nearly choked on the flavor. Shit. He should have just taken it as a clump and gotten it over with. Oh god. Burning his tongue the other day had been a mercy. Save him.

“Stop being dramatic,” Ace grumbled, his face red.

“He’s not being dramatic, your cooking is genuinely awful,” Deuce chimed in.

Thank you, Deuce. Yuu can always trust you to take his side!

“I miss when our housewife was still in good health,” Deuce said, flopping further into the pillows dramatically.

The bitch! Yuu had trusted him!

He glanced down at the pillow propping him up, wondering whether he was stable enough to hit Deuce with it without falling over.

If he fell over, he’d spill the terrible soup…

No, antibiotics that aren’t already expired aren’t easy to come by.

He swallowed a bit more of the soup, trying not to wince too much.

Deuce sat up, rubbing the last dredges of sleep from his eyes as a cheeky grin snuck its way onto his face. “Actually, maybe there’s a way you can win ‘good housewife’ points, Ace.”

Ace raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to do that?”

“Aw, c’mon, all you’ve gotta do is wear an apron –.”

“Yuu, lean back a little so I can punch him.”

Yuu did lean back. Not really so Ace could punch Deuce, though that was an added bonus, he just wanted to relax and enjoy the dinner theater.

Deuce snickered even as he rubbed his jaw. “Aw, c’mon, we’re in a clothing store, there’s gotta be one around here.”

“That’s not the problem and you know it!”

“I won’t make you wear anything frilly.”

Yuu smiled. “It’s gotta be pink, though.”

“Not you, too!”

“When have I ever not ganged up on whoever’s losing?”

“I’m not losing!”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m the loser here,” Yuu said, grimacing as he set his bowl aside. “Deuce, can you be a dear and grab me some soda so I can wash this taste out of my mouth?”

Deuce shuffled out of bed with a deep groan and made his way over to the door. He started searching through the snow for a soda can he’d buried in a misguided attempt to help the soda taste less metallic… it was definitely expired by now, though, and the makeshift freezer couldn’t perform any miracles…

Sometimes you need to figure things out for yourself.

Ace had been squinting at Yuu for over a minute, apparently thinking hard. Yuu turned his head to meet his gaze, raising an eyebrow.

“If I wear an apron, will you stop being a dick about my cooking?”

Yuu pulled a knee to his chest. “Sure. I can even teach you how to cook when I’m feeling up to it, if you want.”

Ace looked at him for a minute longer.

He sighed and turned to glare at Deuce’s back. “Fine, but you can’t take a picture of it, Deuce.”

Yuu frowned. “Aw, but then how are we supposed to look back on this fondly in a couple of years?”

“We will not be looking back on this! Fondly or otherwise!”

Deuce sighed as he waltzed back over, soda in hand. Unfortunately for Yuu, cold things are, surprisingly, cold. He flinched a little when his fingers tried to stick themselves to the metal, and was quick to stuff the offending can beneath the blankets for its crimes.

“Fine, fine, Ace, I promise I won’t take a picture of you.”

When Ace returned in a surprisingly cutesy apron (Yuu was pretty sure it was based on some American kids' show… something about strawberries and cakes and maybe those cabbage patch kids he’d seen in his nightmares?), he scowled at Yuu, who was holding up Deuce’s camera.

“I hope you both know I knew this was going to happen,” Ace said.

“That’s basically consent to having your picture taken,” said Yuu.

“C’mon, Ace, strike a pose, it’ll be fun,” Deuce teased.

Ace sighed, deeply, before making a lewd gesture that the kid show’s marketing team would not approve of.

Yuu snapped the picture. If society managed to make it past this, this picture would make for amazing blackmail material. No one wants to be sued by a company’s marketing team, after all.

Ace made a squeaking sound, his eyes wide. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Yuu to actually take a picture of that. Which was his fault. Yuu was not a man of honor. Ace should have never expected him to be.

Ace lunged for him, and Yuu was quick to shove the camera into Deuce’s hands for safekeeping. Unfortunately, this gave Ace time to reach for the Polaroid in Yuu’s lap.

Now, sick or not, Yuu was still someone who had survived the apocalypse. He saw someone making a grab for him, and so he reacted.

Ace hissed, his dignity broken.

“... dude,” said Deuce.

“Sh – sorry! I didn’t mean to – well, I did, but –.”

Yuu didn’t get to finish apologizing, because Ace tackled him.

Now, Yuu was a fan of euphemisms. He’d used them before, and he’d use them again in the future, too. But he is being entirely literal when he says that they started wrestling in bed.

It wasn’t exactly a fair fight.

“I can’t believe you’re attacking a sick person!”

“Who wouldn’t attack a person as sick as you?!”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Yuu said, only to hiss when a hand pulled his hair too hard.

He lifted his gaze to Ace, annoyed, only to find Ace had gone entirely still on top of him, his eyes locked on Yuu.

“Um?” Yuu said, his eyes flicking to the side to meet Deuce’s.

“Maybe he died,” he said, shrugging.

Great. Helpful, Deuce.

But their attention was quickly stolen away.

Fingers locked around one of his earrings.

Yuu’s breath caught in his throat. He grabbed at Ace’s arm, trying to hold him still, because Yuu did not like the look in his eyes.

“Ace…” Deuce said, quietly.

Ace gritted his teeth. “I hate these fucking things.”

“Obviously I do, too,” said Deuce. “But you can’t…”

“If I take them out, Grim’s gonna make him put them back in. I need to make sure that this can’t happen again.”

Yuu swallowed thickly. “Ace. It’s fine. He just wants to make sure I don’t leave him again. He’ll probably let me take them out in a few months, once I’ve proven myself to be trustworthy. It’s –.”

Ace’s expression had darkened further. He felt a light tug on his other earring as Ace threaded it through his fingers. The bell on the end gave a merry little jingle that felt so out of place right now.

“Ace – Ace, please,” Yuu said. Begged, really.

“It won’t hurt for long,” Ace promised.

Lips pressed against his own, and Yuu was quick to kiss back even as his eyes screwed shut.

Ace was quick about it, at least. Yanking them both through the flesh of his earlobes as fast as he possibly could.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Ace’s lips stifled his screams, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

It wasn’t the worst pain he’d experienced. He’d been shot just a few months ago. However, when he’d been shot, he’d been in shock for most of it, and slipping in and out of consciousness for the rest. The pain had been simply too much for his body to comprehend, so it hadn’t.

Now, though, he got to feel every second of it. His blood was too warm as it spilled onto his skin, hot to the point where it nearly burned him. Every little twitch he made seemed to brush something against his ears, and he’d get another spike of pain for his troubles.

His mouth tasted of copper. Yuu wasn’t sure whether Ace had tried to distract him with a different, smaller pain, or if Yuu had clenched his teeth regardless of the tongue in his mouth, or if the smell of blood in the air was just tricking his mind. He didn’t particularly care, either. If he was tasting blood, then he wasn’t feeling pain.

He wrapped his arms around Ace’s neck.

For a second, Ace went very stock still. The bells jingled one last time, the sound slightly garbled, as Ace tossed the earrings away somewhere.

The hands that cradled his face were covered in his blood, but they still cradled him. And, these days, Yuu had learned better than to hope for more.

“Guys,” Deuce sighed.

Ace sat up in his lap, absently reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes, only to grimace when his hair immediately flopped right back onto his forehead, now streaked with blood. Yuu must have torn up his arm at some point, his nails had made angry red lines all over his skin, but he didn’t remember doing it.

Ace sent Deuce a halfhearted glare. “What? Jealous?”

“Maybe a little,” Deuce admitted, shrugging. “But, also, Yuu’s just getting over an infection, so…”

He held up some alcohol and a shirt he’d probably chosen at random. The shirt was for cleaning him up, and maybe bandages, too, but the alcohol...

“Please tell me I’m going to be drinking that.”

Deuce made a hissing sound through his teeth. “I mean…”

“Someone’s gotta teach this man the art of lying,” Yuu said, jabbing his thumb toward Deuce, shaking his head in overexaggerated disappointment.

“Well, you’re the expert, so I’m gonna leave it to you,” said Ace.

Yuu sat up, reluctantly, scrubbing his sleeve across his face in a vain attempt to clean himself up. “Can I at least have a cigarette?”

“Yeah? You don’t have to ask permission?” said Deuce.

Oh, right. Weird.

Yuu snickered. “I mean. I kind of do need permission, since I can’t go grab them myself. I’m bedridden and weak and in sooo much pain.”

Deuce flicked him on the nose. This did not help with his pain.

Yuu would complain more if Deuce didn’t immediately get up to fetch some cigarettes in a lighter. Not because he had forgiven him, no, he would get him back when he least expected it, he just didn’t really feel like yelling at the moment.

Ace was trying to wipe his hands off on his apron, as if he were merely dusting flour from his hands. Which, Yuu supposed, considering he was a cannibal, it might actually be equivalent.

“I – I can’t believe you did all that in a little girl’s apron,” Yuu said.

“What? Red goes well with pink!”

Yuu looked at the flush tinging his cheeks a faint pink color and decided that, hey, maybe he had a point.

A cigarette tapped against his cheek, and Yuu turned his head, grinning and sticking his tongue out at Deuce.

Deuce retaliated by tapping the end of the cigarette to his tongue instead. Yuu nearly choked on the taste of paper and nicotine. They weren’t mixing well with the blood coating his mouth. Weren’t cigarettes supposed to make your tastebuds worse or something? Can they please hurry up? Because Yuu’s senses kept being assaulted, so clearly he needed to dull them.

“You suck,” Yuu grumbled.

“You’re saying it wrong. It’s ‘thank you’,” said Deuce, taking just a second to light his cigarette, and then leaning closer to Yuu, raising an eyebrow.

Yuu decided that Deuce’s crimes could be forgiven. He was a merciful juror like that.

“Between the two of you, I’m going to get, like, second-hand addicted to nicotine,” Ace joked.

“Hm. Guess I’ve got to make sure you get your fix, too, then,” said Deuce, before leaning in to steal a kiss.

Deuce didn’t pull back until Yuu was reaching the end of his cigarette. His was starting to burn low as well, and he’d probably felt the heat washing over his hand, a warning that he’d burn his fingers if he continued ignoring it for much longer.

Deuce put out his cigarette, and then turned to Yuu. “Alright, are you done stalling? Because I really need to clean those new wounds –.”

“I’m burning this terrible place to the ground the second we leave.”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

The block function was available only to “Tumblr Premium” users.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 68

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

The guest room in Octavinelle is nice. Opulent to the point where it felt like a crime to touch the delicate engravings in the wardrobe, but not flashy like Scarabia. It was still flaunting its wealth, sure, but in the ‘sheets with an uncountable number of threads’ way rather than the ‘goblet studded with gaudy diamonds’ way.

All of this to say, the pajamas were soft, and the Yuus were going to find a way to steal something from this place if it was the last thing they did.

You may think they have a death wish but, you see, they had been casually stealing stuff from all the dorms for an entire semester, and no one actually cared that much. Whether they just thought they were too pitiful to prosecute (Leona), or they just seemed to like them as people (Riddle, which was unfortunate for him), or wouldn’t notice (Kalim)... well, they had been steadily making improvements to their dorm.

Ito squinted at the blue, purple, and silver room. They weren’t even sure there was anything they wanted from this place.

Not that that mattered. They did most of the things Kuroki and Enma asked them to regardless of what they wanted, since their wants usually weren’t typically more than a mild preference, but still…

“None of these colors would go with what we already have.”

“We can always sell it and get a bunch of cheaper things,” Kuroki said, brightly, not deterred in the slightest.

Ito shrugged. Fair enough.

“I’m surprised you’re down for this, Kuroki,” Enma said mildly, peering thoughtfully at the label of what appeared to be a complimentary wine glass (which he held out of Ito’s reach the second he saw them looking, the prick). “I mean, if there’s anyone here that’d prosecute someone for a crime, it’d be Ashengrotto-senpai.”

Kuroki waved him off. “It wouldn’t be worth the hassle. Beyond the fact that places like this always factor theft into their profit margins, and I’d bet my ass Azul does that plus some, and I’m sure the guy was expecting us in particular to pull something… we’re in international waters, technically, so everything done here is technically not a crime.”

“Ohhhhh… so that’s why the school’s here,” said Ito, a tiny lightbulb pinging above their head. “The Headmaster’s tax fraud is harder to pin down if the taxes don’t go to a specific country.”

“Probably,” said Kuroki, though he seemed less than happy about Crowley's immunity to the law. “It’s probably also why people think we’re spies or assassins. If you’re gonna pick off a student, this is the place to do it.”

“Cowards,” Ito said, absently picking up a makeup holder to see whether it was something they could reasonably carry out of the place. Most of the Octavinelle students had naturally flawless skin (according to Floyd Leech), and therefore didn’t really wear makeup, so they might not notice... “If you’re gonna assassinate someone, you should at least put yourself at risk, too. Not fair if you don’t.”

“I don’t think assassins are trying to be fair,” said Kuroki.

“They should be!”

“Ito, in the nicest way possible, you have literally never done anything in the ‘fair’ way, ever,” Enma added.

Ito pressed their lips into a thin line. “Yeah, I have.”

“Name one time.”

Ito opened their mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again.

… they had to have played nice at least once in their life, right? Statistically, it had to have happened…

They snapped their fingers. “Oh! Rock, paper, scissors is fair!”

“First of all, the fact that you had to resort to that is sad,” said Kuroki. “Second of all, no it is not, I don’t know how you make yourself lose every time, but you have to be, you’ve lost too much for it to be statistically possible.”

“It’s because they always put a bit of emphasis on the one they want us to use,” Enma said, sighing. “They’ll say rock, paper, scissors, shoot. It’s stupid, but it works more often than not.”

Kuroki made a ‘huh!’ sound, officially enlightened.

Ito pressed their lips into a thin line. Damn. They’d been had.

Time to make this someone else’s problem.

“I need a midnight snack with all this thinking,” Ito lamented.

A pillow slammed into their face, and they pouted as it fell onto their lap.

“Fuck you,” Kuroki hissed, snatching up the pillow again just so he could throw it at them a second time.

Ito, understandably, dodged this one. They didn’t think that was a joke that deserved two pillows to the face.

Kuroki seemed to disagree.

But he got his win in the end. Enma managed to grab Ito while they were distracted, dragging him into a hug… of sorts, if you ignore the way they were trying to claw their way out of his arms. Not because they were particularly against a hug, they were just feeling spiteful.

“You’re never leaving our sides again,” Enma said, cheerful despite the red marks they'd carved into one of his arms.

Ito squinted. “You were looking for an excuse to say that anyway.”

“Mmm, and thank you for giving me one.”

“... I think I preferred getting hit in the face with a pillow.”

“Deal,” said Kuroki.

“Wait –.”

“Not while I’m holding them –!”

Alas, they were too late. There was a pillow in their very near future.

Enma and Ito shared conspiratorial looks.

Kuroki was smart enough to take his pillow back.

Alas, they were in a bedroom.

Enma and Ito reached for the nearest pillows.

Kuroki looked like he was regretting picking a fight. “Hold on, what if I say ‘sorry’?”

“Too late! Get him!”

“Grim! Grim, wake up and help me!”

~

“... so we have to steal the pillows,” said Enma, picking a feather out of Kuroki’s hair.

“The ones at the dorm were a little worn out…” said Kuroki.

Ito lit up. “And we can always use those old pillowcases we stole from Savanaclaw, so our red and yellow aesthetic can be maintained!”

They high-fived. Gotta love when life works out like that.

~

“I don’t want to be awake at god-awful o’clock,” Ito complained, only a step above a tantrum, and willing to throw away that small decency at any moment.

Kuroki sighed. “It’s – Azul’s orders. If we’re staying here, we have to do it.”

Ito peeked through their eyelids. Kuroki was running his fingers through his hair, trying to get the tangles out. Enma was still leaning over them, poking insistently at their cheek to keep them from falling asleep again. Grim was passed out at their side, the lucky bastard.

“You should quit your job,” Ito grumbled.

“I could say the same about you,” Kuroki said. “Say what you will about Azul, I don’t care for the guy, but at least he actually pays me.”

Enma lit up as an idea occurred to him: “You could both quit and join me!”

“Sam’s shop isn’t big enough for that,” Kuroki said.

Life was terrible for one Enma Yuuken.

And it was going to get worse!

Ito sat up for the sole purpose of glaring at Enma. “Why do I have to wake up but Grim doesn’t?”

“Because he can be carried,” Kuroki shrugged.

Ito thought about this. Their pride, or a couple minutes of sleep, which would they be more comfortable sacrificing?

They looked at Enma.

Enma sighed, deeply. And then he scooped them up. “Fine, but just until breakfast –.”

Ito had already passed out against his shoulder.

~

“So, let’s go over what we know,” Kuroki said. He was clinging to Ito’s arm while they walked, as if scared that they would suddenly be put under a spell again once they got too close to Scarabia.

Which, admittedly, might be true, the spell could be distance-related… Ito didn’t think it was, though. They weren’t sure why. Their head hurt whenever they tried to think about it.

Enma chanced a glance back at the Octavinelle students to make sure they were out of earshot.

They were very out of earshot. Floyd had taken it upon himself to make sure that Enma and Jade were never within five yards of each other, minimum.

(It had made breakfast slightly awkward, since Jade and Enma had been made to stand in opposite corners of the room with their plates.)

Jade waved at Enma.

Enma immediately looked away, the tips of his ears tinting red. “Well, the stuff with Ito confirms that there’s definitely someone with the ability to mind control. So, it’s either someone with a grudge against Kalim-senpai or someone who benefits from him being taken down.”

“So… anyone with any social capital in Scarabia at all – or someone who thinks Kalim-senpai is really annoying,” Ito summed up, swirling their coke bottle cheerily. Their heart was pounding in their chest once again! Hell yeah, caffeine!

Wait, they were a little too jittery.

Eh. Surely, that was fine.

“... yeah,” Enma said. “The secret grudge thing would be harder to find out, I feel… sure, someone could be an open dissenter to sow chaos, but sometimes it’s better to just let others talk…”

Ito hummed. “Nothing worse than an echo chamber.”

“If it’s hard to find a grudge, then we should do that second, right?” Grim said.

The Yuus immediately cooed over how smart their monster was. Truly, they grow up so fast. Look at him, making basic observations on how to best spend their time! Maybe next month he’ll stop believing Ace when their friend so-nicely offers to teach Grim fake slang!

… ugh, even being an asshole in their own brain wasn’t distracting them from how shitty they felt. Truly, it was incurable.

“Did I eat yesterday?” they asked.

Enma frowned at the, from his perspective, completely random topic change. “Er… yeah, why?”

“I dunno,” they said, frowning. “I feel – weird – I was wondering if, maybe, the person mind controlling me forgot to tell me to eat.”

Kuroki’s eyebrows knit. “I mean, maybe? You kinda just did… whatever we told you to. You didn’t start eating on your own, but when we asked you to you did.”

Ito’s eyes widened as a horrible thought occurred to them: “Wait, what about the bathroom?”

Enma snorted, patting them on the back briefly. “Don’t worry, we figured it out by that point.”

“Oh thank fuck.”

Kuroki grinned, but his amusement was quick to fade. “You really don’t remember anything?”

“Not really,” Ito said. “Last thing I remember, I was in the kitchen snacking on bell peppers at an ungodly time of the morning. Life really does screw you over in your happiest moments.”

“The culprit is an early riser, then?” Azul cut in, throwing his arm around Ito’s shoulders.

Son of a –.

Kuroki turned his head and sunk his teeth into Azul’s arm.

The group of teens stood there for a solid ten seconds, staring in a mix of shock and horror.

“Get your dog,” Azul said.

“Eavesdropping isn’t polite, senpai,” Enma said.

“You –!” He finally managed to tear his way out of Kuroki’s mouth. “You three do it all the time!”

There wasn’t any blood and, even though Ito had been expecting that (biting hard enough to draw blood is, well, hard, after all), they were still relieved to see it.

“When we do it it’s for the good of mankind,” Ito deadpanned. “When you do it it’s because you’re annoying.”

“You shouldn’t talk to your senpai like that,” Enma said.

“You’re right, I should use more thinly veiled insults,” Ito said, rolling their eyes. “And why am I in trouble? Kuroki bit him.”

“Traitor,” grumbled Kuroki.

“Kuroki does stuff like this all the time, but I expect more from you, Ito,” said Enma.

“Dickhead.”

“Puta.”

“Doesn’t ending in ‘a’ mean it’s a – uh – girl thing?”

“You’re right. I should use your preferred pronouns when insulting you. Puto.”

“Great, thanks. What does it mean, by the way?”

Ito pressed their lips together, thinking hard. “Mmmmm… bitch. Or, literally, I guess I’d be calling you a whore?”

“... oh. Hm. I guess I’m flattered you think I get lots of attention.”

“You would if Kuroki wasn’t around.”

“Hey, if his potential suitors can’t handle a little bit of psychological torture, then they’re not gonna last long, anyway. I’m saving him time!”

~

“... you’re back,” said Jamil, in the most dead inside voice Ito had ever heard.

“No one’s ever excited to see us,” Ito pointed out, frowning.

“Wonder why,” said Azul.

“A true mystery,” Jamil said. And then he flinched, watching the three Octavinelle students emerge from the dark stairway like characters in a horror movie. The only thing ruining this effect was that Jamil looked more annoyed than genuinely scared. “What are you three doing here?”

“Nothin’,” Floyd blatantly lied.

“If you have no business here, I would prefer it if you leave,” Jamil said.

“Even though we came all this way?” Azul said, his eyes wide in mock surprise.

“If you did so for no reason, then yes.”

Azul pressed a hand to his chest, aghast. “Must you have a reason to visit a – friend?”

(Azul paused before the word ‘friend’, as if he had to physically force it out of his mouth. Why is everyone at this school so socially stunted?)

“We even brought a seafood pizza as a little present,” Floyd added.

“It’s Headmaster-approved, so you know it’s good,” Ito said. “You don’t want it to go cold, do you?”

Jamil sent them a betrayed look.

The Octavinelle kids used this as an opportunity to brush right past Jamil and into Scarabia dorm.

Jamil’s eyes widened in horror. He rushed after them. “You can’t just – let yourself in!”

“I’m sure Kalim wouldn’t mind. Is he awake yet?”

“I… was about to wake him up.”

“Perfect!” said Azul.

“Would you mind taking us to him?” Jade asked.

“I would, yeah.”

Floyd beamed. “Sweet, thanks!”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Grim lifted his head from on top of Enma’s. “They sure are lively, hm?”

“Yeah,” said Ito.

~

Jamil’s complaints fell on deaf ears (or, at least, partially deaf ears), and it seemed that Jade had done his homework – he knew the exact layout of the dorm, and was happy to be their tour guide. Did that have some terrifying implications? Absolutely.

But, hey, Ito was too busy helping Enma and Kuroki take note of everyone they passed. It seemed they had taken Azul’s ‘early-riser’ comment to heart.

And there was… surprisingly few people, honestly. Ito had never paid much attention in the mornings, but apparently they weren’t the only one who was not a morning person here. They only passed around three or four people, who seemed to be patrolling the place.

Hm. Looks like Enma and Kuroki would be figuring out the truth sooner than they’d first assumed… aw, that wouldn’t be fun for anyone. Not Ito, but not Kuroki and Enma, either. If the answer was too obvious, they’d get mad at themselves for not realizing sooner. And Ito didn’t want that…

One of the patrolling students’ eyes never left the Yuus as they passed, and their expression could only ever be described as pissed.

“What’d we do to him?” Ito asked.

“Mmmm…” Enma squinted at the guy for a second, trying to place his face. “Maybe he got caught up in the fire we set… but he doesn’t really smell like smoke…?”

“Oh oh oh oh!” said Kuroki, snapping his fingers. “He was guarding the treasury.”

“Oh yeah!” said Enma. “We hit him over the head with a table.”

“How’d you pick up a table?”

“Technically we hit the table with him –,” Enma tried to put them on the right track.

“Spite,” Kuroki and Grim said, in unison.

Ito snickered, rolling their eyes. “I see.”

“... what’s this about our treasury?” Jamil asked, his eyebrows knitting.

Kuroki waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, we didn’t get to keep the shit anyway…”

(He was obviously bitter about this fact.)

Jamil glanced at Ito, who managed a minuscule shrug as if to say ‘you took my memory, reap what you sow’. The boy gave a long, put-upon sigh, before holding his hand out. “Hand over your matches. I don’t need a repeat of last night.”

Grim sniffed. “Matches? Come on, a fire like that can’t be done with mere matches.”

“And it’s the 21st century, senpai, most people use lighters these days anyway,” added Enma.

“Or fire magic!” said Grim.

“Or fire magic,” Ito agreed.

Jamil looked like he was considering taking Grim away from them to get rid of their access to fire.

“Try it,” Ito said, flatly. “See how that goes for you.”

Jamil, briefly, made an irritated face, before turning back to trying to stop the Octavinelle students from getting to Kalim’s room.

Alas, the conversation was not quite as over for Ito. Kuroki’s hands latched around theirs and he yanked on their arm to get their attention.

“Since when have you been close to Viper-senpai?”

Ito hummed, lifting their shoulders in a shrug. “I wouldn’t call us particularly close. He lent me his hair oil brand once, though, that was nice of him.”

Kuroki narrowed his eyes. His eyes flicked to Jamil. “Viper-senpai’s suspicious.”

Ito choked on nothing. “You can’t go around suspecting people of evil just because I might be friends with them.”

“I can and will.”

“I mean, he does fit the criteria,” said Enma, his arms crossed over his chest. “I mean, he has plenty of reason to have something against Kalim-senpai. And he’s the only one whose name has come up as a possible replacement for Kalim-senpai so far.”

“Suspicious,” said Kuroki, nodding along fervently.

Ito snickered, pinching Kuroki’s cheek. “You knew all of this all along, hm?”

“Nonono, I have this gut feeling, it’s him.”

“That gut feeling is called ‘jealousy’,” said Grim.

“No, it���s not.”

“Oh, damn, he’s got us,” Ito said.

~

Kalim was extremely surprised to find that his room had been invaded while he slept. Waking up to the Octavinelle students leaning over his bed might give him nightmare material for the next several years.

But he brightened up soon enough. “Oh! Hi, everyone!”

The guy’s arm looked like it was going to pop right off by the time he’d waved at everyone (he’d individually given every person an enthusiastic wave, because he was that kind of guy).

The Yuus leaned against a wall, watching everyone catch up.

Enma’s eyes flicked to Jamil, before he sighed, throwing an arm over Ito’s shoulders. “So, uh, what do we do if it really is Viper-senpai?”

“Hm?” said Ito, their head tipping slightly to the side. Had Kuroki’s half-joke alerted Enma? Or had he already been somewhat suspicious? He’d mentioned that someone was using the situation to their advantage, way back then.

Kuroki hugged Grim closer to his chest, frowning. “I mean, I don’t really care if Kalim-senpai loses his dormhead spot… and if it is Viper-senpai, then he’s definitely got every reason to be mad… but whoever it was, they shouldn’t have fucked with Ito.”

Ito smiled, holding their hands up. “I’m fine, really.”

“We have to remember, though,” Kuroki said.

“I could hit you in the head real hard and see if it resets your memory?” they offered.

“Terrible plan,” said Kuroki. Fair enough.

Enma just smiled and rested his chin on top of Ito’s head. “I’ll pass, too.”

“Look at them over there!” Azul said, pointing at the Yuus, yanking them into a conversation that was surely less entertaining than the one they’d been having. Sad. “Truly, the prime example of more heads being better than one!”

The Yuus glanced at each other, amusement gleaming in their eyes, because they technically were still one head, just from different universes.

“When there’s more than one person calling the shots, you can make up for each other’s weaknesses!” Azul said.

“Bold of you to think we have any weak spots even when we’re alone,” said Enma. Despite the fact that he was currently clinging to Ito.

Jade raised an eyebrow.

Another good point!

Enma immediately flushed bright red and tried to hide his face in Ito’s hair. Ito lifted a hand to awkwardly pat his back.

“Regardless of all that,” said Azul, shooting Enma a look as if to say ‘literally what is there to like about Jade anyway’ that Enma couldn’t actually see (nor would he answer if he could), before returning to his smarmy smile. “My point is, we can help each other improve our training regimens!”

“... I recommend against this,” said Jamil.

Kalim frowned. “I know you don’t like them, Jamil, but they have a point!”

“The whole point of this training camp is to help our dorm rank higher. If we invite the housewarden of another dorm to join us, would they not get better as well?”

“But you brought Kuroki Yuuya-kun in.”

Jamil blanched, briefly. And then he coughed, delicately. “Well, the Ramshackle students are hardly a powerhouse, grade-wise. Their dorm average was barely passing.”

Kuroki looked like he was barely suppressing the urge to grab the nearest thing made of gold and throw it at Jamil’s head. And only because he had clearly already weighed himself losing that particular fight.

Jamil turned to Azul. “I’m doing this for your own good. Leave while you still can.”

Azul shrugged. “You're absolutely right, Jamil. Other dorms are always going to be, on some level, our rivals in the grade standings. I'm afraid we'd best take our leave, boys. Kalim, Jamil, best of luck with your training. Back to spending yet another holiday stuck indoors in the dead of winter, just the three of us. It's unavoidable, I suppose...”

“And after we went to the trouble to get here…” said Jade, his voice as mournful as he could make it past the sly smile on his face.

Floyd looked like he was about a second from turning into a sad puddle on the floor. “We even brought pizza…”

The Yuus have never been so offended in their lives. This is an affront to the art of lying.

“Siiiiiiiigh,” the three of them chorused.

Did they just say fucking ‘SIGH’?!

“Wait!” said Kalim, scrambling to crawl out of his blankets.

It worked?!

“Azul is one of the top magicians in our whole school. I think Scarabia would benefit greatly from having him over!” Kalim said, almost pleading with Jamil.

His ‘friend’ looked unconvinced.

“...Besides, turning away esteemed guests out of hand would bring shame upon the Asim family name.”

Jamil sucked in air through his teeth, caught.

Azul lit up. “Why, Kalim! What a kind and generous soul you are! Naturally, I would be more than happy to share any insights I have with you.”

“The two of us will be happy to assist with cooking and cleaning,” Jade added, pressing a hand to his chest.

Floyd nodded along eagerly. “Yeah! We do it at the lounge anyway, so we're pretty good at it.”

“That would be great! And it would ease Jamil's workload, too! He’s seemed so tired lately!”

Ito perked up slightly.

Their eyes shot to Kalim.

Because… there was something there. A note of desperation that didn’t quite fit the tone of the conversation.

Did Kalim know that Jamil was overworked? Ito supposed that they should have known that already – Kalim had mentioned Jamil being overworked before, way back during the Magift incident. Ito had only really taken note of it because of Jamil’s reaction, the sudden way he’d cut to a new conversation had been interesting, but Kalim…

Well, it was a surprisingly adept observation coming from someone who had just fallen for the most obvious lie in history.

And hadn’t Kalim always been able to tell when Ito was lying?

When did he get so good at that? Why was it only their lies that he caught onto?

Perhaps because he was used to them.

… Kalim hadn’t actually seemed all that surprised, the day he’d nearly Overblotted. Maybe by the fact that Jamil had tried to drug him, but certainly not about the coup. He’d said that he didn’t care what Jamil was doing.

Which was strange, wasn’t it? Your ‘best friend’ is trying to overthrow you as ‘king’ of a dorm, wouldn’t the average person be upset about it? Wouldn’t it give you pause?

Unless, of course, you were already aware of it.

Holy shit. Does Kalim know?

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Hey here's a reminder that you're allowed to publish unfinished fics and snippets of fics that you're never going to continue and you're allowed to abandon WIPs and you're allowed to orphan unfinished fics and ficlet collections and you never have to finish a single fic if you don't want to.

And there will always be someone who reads that unfinished work and is happy with it and feels glad that they read it even if it's never continued.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 32

<Pt31

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Yuu blinked his eyes open a few days later, only to groan when the fucking headache was still there. He’d been struggling through a migraine for what felt like years now. The sunlight peeking through the window wasn’t helping things.

Pain flickered behind Yuu’s eyes every time he tried to open them. And Yuu’s head felt just a little too warm. He could practically feel the sun’s evil tendrils dusting across his nose and cheeks.

Yuu’s ears were also warm, but he figured that was probably just frostbite fucking with him.

Speaking of! Wasn’t it fucking Winter? And yet here the sun was, still trying to have its time in the limelight. Bullshit. It needed to die.

“Grim, blow up the sun,” Yuu grumbled.

He felt a hand rest on top of his head, almost petting his hair.

“Sun’s still there. If you have time to pet me, you have time to build a nuke.”

He heard zombies shuffle around. The sun faded away, hidden by the zombies… somehow. They were in a clothing store. Maybe they’d just started pasting random shirts to the windows to make the room darker.

This would be suspicious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, but if a survivor stumbled into the place they would probably leave pretty quick.

Yuu flopped onto his stomach. A small, warm weight settled onto the small of his back.

Yuu had already been feeling a bit too warm, but whatever. It was nice, he supposed.

He drifted off to sleep once again.

~

Something was wrong, Yuu realized.

His skin was too warm. The room was too cold.

He was sick.

Dully, he wondered what had caused it. Deuce biting him? The earrings? Something Jamil and Kalim had been carrying without realizing? The cold? The smoking? An inevitable result of living in the apocalypse, where healthy food was scarce and the zombies he cuddled with were covered in blood? Who knows, maybe he managed to get tetanus like a fucking loser.

Honestly, he was surprised that he hadn’t gotten ill before now.

But maybe it wasn’t that surprising. If there weren’t any people around to spread a virus, and the few people who did get sick would die off rather quickly… most people with decent enough immune systems would get by without much trouble.

He scowled at nothing in particular as he forced himself up to sit. His arms felt shaky, but this was fine. And, if it wasn’t, he’d make it fine by sheer force of will. He was too hot to be stopped by a mere illness.

“Soup,” he said. He wasn’t nauseous, but he hadn’t eaten much over the past few days (What was the last thing he had eaten? A bag of chips he’d managed to stuff down his throat a few days ago? That’s the last thing he remembered, at least.), so he might throw up if he got anything too filling. He blinked open crusty eyes. “I need soup.”

The zombies sprung into action.

He watched them run around, trying to find soup among the aisles, as if this wasn’t a fucking clothing store, until one particularly smart zombie apparently realized that that wasn’t how things work, and they all raced out the door.

He flopped back into bed.

They’d wake him up when they were back, anyway. And, besides, rest is important when you’re sick.

~

The edge of a bowl touched his lips. Yuu cringed away. Unfortunately, he was propped up to sit, pressed back against some zombie’s chest, and there wasn’t much space he could put between himself and the cold soup that tried to slip into his mouth.

He grimaced at the slimy feeling of cold soup curling around his tongue.

He shouldn’t have expected the zombies to heat up the soup. The only way to do that was with fire, and they were (understandably) pretty scared of the stuff.

Still.

It was disgusting.

He missed his m–.

He missed Grim, sorry. Grim was the only family he had, after all. And he couldn’t fault a cat for not understanding that food is best when it is warm. It wasn’t like humans regularly heated up animals’ food before feeding them.

He opened his eyes with a groan, lifting a hand to try to push the soup away from his mouth so he could look for Grim.

The bowl pressed more insistently against his mouth, almost making his jaw ache with the force of it.

Yuu pressed his lips together into a thin line, feeling soup dribble down the side of his mouth. He looked up at the zombie feeding him, his expression flat. As if to say ‘I can wait this out’.

A hand slid into his hair and yanked, forcing a gasp out of him.

Soup tipped into his mouth.

He tried to close his mouth again, but a finger slipped between his teeth before he could. He gagged, tempted to bite down, but then he’d turn into a half-zombie like Jade and Floyd and he didn’t want Grim to have even more control than he already did.

But maybe that would be nice. It wasn’t like Yuu had autonomy either way. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know enough to hate it.

… his mind was the only thing he truly owned. He wanted to keep it.

So, his mouth was held open as soup – cold and slimy and fucking revolting – was poured into it.

It took everything in him not to throw up.

They’d just make him eat more soup to make up for it, anyway.

~

There were so many – hands.

Carding through his hair. Rubbing beneath his eyes. Poking hollowed cheeks. Running along the dips between his ribs.

They were distressed, Yuu realized, distantly.

Yuu must be in bad shape, if they were clinging to him like this. Like they were scared that he wouldn’t be around to hold for much longer. Touching every little sign of illness as if struggling to come to terms with its existence.

It was all so cold.

~

Warm fingers touched his cheek. After who-knows-how-long without proper stimulation, he flinched away from it.

The fingers started to withdraw, and Yuu’s mind conjured the word NO.

Clumsy hands locked around the one that had touched him, dragging the hand closer, forcing it to cradle his cheek.

It was probably fake. He was probably hallucinating. Or dreaming. He’d heard that that could happen, when you were sick enough.

Oh shit. He must be really sick, then.

Would he die?

No, of course not, Grim wouldn’t let him.

Another warm hand joined the first, carefully pressing against his forehead. He felt their fingers curl, just for a second, as if in surprise, before the hand slid down to press against his other cheek. A thumb stroked his cheekbone.

He blinked his eyes open, slowly, and found Deuce leaning over him, a worried frown playing across his lips.

He was definitely hallucinating, then.

Yuu, assured that a hallucination wouldn’t leave him if he didn’t want it to, slowly, painstakingly, lifted his arms to wrap around Deuce’s neck.

Warm, thought Yuu, eloquently, pulling Deuce down. He wasn’t particularly strong right now, but Deuce followed instructions pretty well. He removed his hands from Yuu’s face in favor of resting his arms on either side of his head, draping himself over Yuu like a blanket, careful to not put any real weight on him.

Because he wasn’t real. Obviously.

“How do I look?” he asked, his voice barely better than a croak.

Deuce’s lips quirked at the edges. “Not great. Don’t worry, Ace and I have permission to take care of you. You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Ugh. Normal.

He must have said that out loud, because Deuce’s expression flicked through a couple of expressions Yuu didn’t have the brainpower to parse out.

“Where’re…?”

“Ace is cooking you some soup. The zombies are gone for now – apparently, you kept flipping out on them whenever they tried to get near you, so we’re their last resort.”

Their second-to-last resort, Yuu corrected absently, and then frowned as the sentence actually processed. He didn’t remember ‘flipping out on them’.

But… if fake-Deuce was here, and the zombies weren’t…

He braced an arm against the bed, and used it to push himself up just enough to press his lips to Deuce’s.

Deuce kissed him back immediately, as if he had been waiting for it. Which, Yuu supposed, if he was a figment of his imagination, then yeah he would have been.

Deuce pressed him back into the bed, which was great in Yuu’s book since his arm had already started tiring. He threw it back around his neck, holding him as close as he possibly could.

And then Deuce jolted, his mouth going still against Yuu’s. As if he had just realized what, exactly, he was doing.

Maybe he realized he’s fake, Yuu thought, wryly, wondering if hallucinations could have mental breakdowns.

“Ah, fuck it,” Deuce muttered.

He almost seemed to sink into the kiss after that, pressing so close to Yuu that it was almost hard to tell where one of them ended and the other began. Not that Yuu minded. Deuce was so warm, and Yuu wanted it.

Deuce seemed happy enough to give Yuu anything he asked for.

“Hey, assholes,” a voice cut in.

Yuu and Deuce broke apart, if only slightly. They were still breathing the same air. Deuce’s breathless pants were warm as they washed over his face.

Yuu almost whined when Deuce turned his head to look at the newcomer.

Ace had sat himself on the edge of the bed at some point. He was holding a bowl of soup, which Yuu figured was the only reason his arms weren’t crossed over his chest.

“If you get sick too, I swear to god, I’m going to put you out of your misery immediately,” said Ace.

Deuce flashed a smile that was only a hair sheepish.

“Sit him up?” said Ace, jerking his chin to point at Yuu.

Deuce, regrettably, crawled off of him, grabbing a few pillows and piling them behind Yuu’s back, until he was, kind of, technically, sitting.

Ace offered Yuu a plastic spoon full of soup. Steam curled off of it.

Yuu opened his mouth, and was relieved to find that it was just as hot as it looked. His tongue burned, but honestly this was a godsend – the soup was painfully bland, as most things that Ace made were.

Despite everything helping him, Yuu only got down about half of the broth before the nausea set in.

Ace took a moment to find a place to set the bowl, and then crawled back into bed. He looked at Yuu for a minute. His eyes flicked to Deuce, who had pressed himself to his side and clearly had no intentions of moving anytime soon.

Which was fine. Yuu didn’t particularly want to move, either.

“You’re the unluckiest motherfucker alive, I hope you know.”

Yuu agreed wholeheartedly. Despite this, he managed a smile, weak as it was.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have met you if I wasn’t, so I accept it.”

Ace huffed a fond little laugh. He took his place at his other side, tucking his face into the crook of his neck.

The two people pressed against him were fake. Yuu knew that they had to be. Grim wouldn’t let them come back. Not when Yuu had already given himself up. Grim had won, and everyone else had lost, and that was just How It Was.

So, yes, they had to be fake.

But Yuu settled in to sleep with them regardless.

It wasn’t like he was a stranger to denial, anyway.

~~~~~~~

Pt33>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 31

<Pt30

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Yuu woke up with a headache. Which is just. Typical.

Kalim was, somehow, up bright and early and happy about it, chatting away merrily… well, no, actually, ‘chatting’ implies that he was talking with someone… he was talking at Jamil, who looked like he was also on the verge of getting a headache.

This was also typical, based on what Yuu had gathered.

He pressed his fingers to his temples, sitting up just enough to glare at Kalim from around whichever zombie had decided that the bed was large enough for three. Or seven. Not that Yuu was counting. It was the apocalypse, he refused to do anything that even resembled math.

Kalim noticed Yuu was awake and lit up, waving enthusiastically.

Yuu should have just played dead.

Alas, it was too late now. He slipped out from under the scratchy blankets and shooed away a couple of zombies so he could get out of bed.

He glanced down at himself and frowned. There were streaks of dried blood all over his shirt. Brown does not look good on green. “Man, who got blood on me? Ughhhh.”

A nearby zombie raised their hand sheepishly. Probably because if they hadn’t they would have literally been caught red-handed.

Yuu pinched the bridge of his nose. No one suffered like he did, truly. “It’s fine, just, next time, wash yourself off a little, please?”

The zombie nodded dutifully.

That dealt with, Yuu walked over to where Jamil was, apparently, warming up yesterday’s leftovers for breakfast.

He took a seat by the fire, pulling one knee to his chest so he could rest his chin on it. “They really weren’t lying when they said ‘tomorrow’s another day’. Like, dang, it sure is.”

Jamil shot him a confused look.

Yuu didn’t particularly care to answer, absently bringing a cigarette to his lips and lighting it.

“Oh, that’s not healthy,” said Kalim, absently bringing his cardigan up to cover his mouth and nose. Loser. Secondhand smoke and unjustly die of lung cancer like everyone else.

Yuu rolled his eyes. “No, really? Didn’t know that before, thanks for the tip –.”

“He has asthma,” Jamil said.

“Oh,” said Yuu, blinking a few times. He looked down at the cigarette for a second. His head hurt, and he was pretty sure that was just due to withdrawals – with the day he’d had yesterday, he hadn’t remembered to smoke at all – so he needed to do this now before his headache got worse… but he didn’t really want to deal with some guy’s asthma attack. He looked at a nearby zombie. “Can I go outside for a sec?”

The zombies all seemed to have a silent debate. Then, they shook their heads.

“Come on, you can send some ‘people’ with me if you’re really that worried.”

They shook their heads again.

“Bad habit,” said one of them.

Gasp. And here I was thinking smoking would make me live a long, happy life.

A small paw nudged his thigh, and he sent Grim a slightly tired smile. The cat tried to push his leg down so he could sit in his lap. It was unsuccessful, seeing as Yuu was about twenty times bigger than Grim. Grim seemed offended by this fact.

Yuu flopped back against the floor, giving the cat plenty of space to lie down.

The zombie curled up on his chest and started to purr.

Lazily, Yuu lifted a hand into the air, squinting at the cigarette that still lay in it. It was burning low, the flames around a minute away from licking at his fingers.

With a hint of reluctance, he put the cigarette out. On his arm – more out of spite than anything. Now what’s a ‘bad habit’, huh?

A couple of zombies made sounds of protest.

So did Kalim.

Jamil didn’t seem to mind that much, looking more perturbed than genuinely concerned.

Yuu decided then and there that Jamil was, somehow, his favorite person here. At least he made sense.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Yuu asked.

He’d been traveling constantly for the last month or so. There was no telling where Jade and Floyd were at any given moment, which meant it was safest to keep moving steadily away from where they’d last seen them. But, now, he was back with the zombies, and they’d just alert him and make him move if the twins ever started getting too close. Which meant… what, exactly? He would probably stick with Kalim, since that’s what they wanted him to do and all, but what did that entail?

Kalim smiled. “Well, Jamil goes out and does all the difficult survivor-y stuff, so we get to relax until he comes back!”

Yuu squinted at Jamil for a second. Wait a minute. That didn’t make sense. Trophy and househusbands were fine and all, but they weren’t exactly common practice nowadays.

“... I’m his bodyguard,” Jamil said.

“What, like, as a job? In like…” How do you describe the world outside of the apocalypse? The real world? No, that makes it sound like their whole life here was ‘fake’, and he wasn’t in the mood to get truly existential today. Head hurty and all that.

“Yes.”

“Are you at least getting overtime pay for all of this?”

“Considering I’m his servant, not his employee, I would have to say no.”

Jamil was implying something with that sentence. It's too bad Yuu was too tired to parse through the nuances of a sentence spoken by someone who isn’t completely fluent in his language. What Jamil said and what he intended to say could have been completely different, for all he knew.

He rubbed the space between his brows. “Damn. You need to unionize.”

“Not how that works.”

Yuu opened his mouth to snap at him, but shut it immediately after. Friendly. He was supposed to be friendly. He hesitated for a minute, before opening his mouth again with full intent to play nice:

“So you’re… a bodyguard, huh? You’re kinda terrible at your job, then.”

Whoops. Mission failed. We’ll get ‘em next time.

Jamil spluttered. “Excuse me?!”

“I mean, the whole reason all this happened is that Kalim tried to call out to me while getting attacked by a horde. And you weren’t even there…”

“I was getting food for us! In case you're unaware, people die when they starve!”

Yuu snorted. “I'm sure his zombie self will make sure to thank you before he tears your throat out.”

“The chances of being found while you’re moving around are higher than if you just stay still!”

That sounded wrong. Aren’t you supposed to stay still when you’re lost? Wasn’t that a whole thing? That people will always, somehow, miss each other when they’re both on the move?

“Especially when there’s snow on the ground,” Jamil continued his attempts to explain himself. “Zombies aren’t as dumb as people give them credit for. They know they can follow the footprints in the snow.”

“... okay, but you understand that they can follow your footprints back to Kalim, too, right?”

Jamil looked away, crossing his arms over his chest. This was not a proper response.

Yuu smirked. He was an expert at winning arguments at this point.

Still, as Yuu cracked open a can of soda (it didn’t matter what type, they all tasted metallic by this point… his body was home to many microplastics, so what harm could a bit of extra metal do?), something nagged at him.

Now, all of this could have been a moment of stupidity on Jamil’s part. Several moments of stupidity, even. But, honestly, Jamil didn’t strike him as a particularly stupid guy.

And it wasn’t like they were debating theory – just look at yesterday. Clearly, that method wasn’t exactly working. So, why was he defending it so vehemently? Was it as simple as mere pride?

He watched Jamil set a couple of balls of rice on Kalim’s ‘plate’, which was actually just a random tile he’d torn out of the floor because it looked ‘clean enough’. Kalim tried to spear one of the snacks on a stick. Jamil, too, was using sticks to eat, but he was using them as makeshift chopsticks, so it was… slightly more effective, for this particular kind of meal.

No, he didn’t seem particularly prideful.

… Yuu tipped his head to the side.

He didn’t particularly trust Kalim. The guy was simply too happy-go-lucky for someone in the kind of situation they were in. Something was off about him.

But he didn’t exactly trust Jamil, either.

Because, really, who would leave the partner alone on purpose? If he was really that stupid, Yuu didn’t want to be near him, the guy was a fucking liability. And, if he wasn’t actually braindead, what was the reason for splitting up? It was risky, after all! Either one of them could get found by zombies, and while Jamil, as a bodyguard, might be able to fight them off on his own, Kalim… wouldn’t… be able to…

Oh. Ohohoh!

What if that was the point?

Jamil’s exasperation when finding out Kalim had befriended the zombies (Who would be able to kill him, then? Jamil would be held liable if Kalim died to a human, but no one can fight back against zombies, right?). The way Jamil had zeroed in on Yuu immediately after, asking who was ‘in charge’ (Could Yuu order Kalim’s death?). And, when Yuu said that he was Grim’s pet, suggesting Grim might kill for him – because what kind of owner wouldn’t flip out when their favorite pet was threated or, god forbid, hurt – he had played into Yuu’s suspicions as much as he could (“Don’t let him fool you. There are no normal people in the apocalypse”) without making his intentions obvious.

Yuu sat up slowly. Grim slid down to his lap thanks to the wonderful invention called gravity, and Yuu smiled as he stroked his hand along the cat’s back, feeling like a villain in a B-list action movie.

“Hey, Kalim, what does Jamil mean when he says he’s your servant, not your employee?”

“His family has served mine for generations,” Kalim ‘answered’.

“Oh, really? How many generations?”

“A lot!”

“Seven,” said Jamil, his eyes on his food.

Seven generations? Willingly? Yuu thought. That was a long time to maintain a ‘family tradition’, after all, especially when the tradition was being a servant.

Now, he was faced with a decision. His personal hot take was that slavery (or indentured servitude, maybe, they were being too evasive in their answers for him to tell) was not great. But. And he knows saying ‘but’ in this situation looks really bad. But hear him out:

Grim told him to be friends with Kalim.

He hesitated.

He looked at Kalim.

“He’s trying to get you killed, you know.”

Jamil went very tense. This was not the behavior of an innocent person.

Kalim’s eyes blew wide. “You sure do like your jokes, huh?”

The smile on his face looked slightly strained.

“I do love a good joke, but this isn’t one. He resents you for being ‘his superior’ and is trying to get you killed in a way that can’t be traced back to him.”

Kalim’s smile dropped. “No. No, he doesn’t. We’re friends, he wouldn’t want – that! Right, Jamil?”

Jamil distinctly didn’t say a word.

But Kalim nodded as if he had. “See!”

“Er, no, I really don’t.”

“That’s – you’re just saying this because you don’t have your fr –!” Kalim cut himself off, pressing his lips into a thin line, as if he was physically keeping the words in.

Yuu’s eyes sharpened. “Yeah? Because? Go on, say it. See how that turns out for you.”

Kalim looked like he might cry. “You’re hurting, but that doesn’t mean that you can hurt others in return.”

“I’m not the one you should be saying that to,” Yuu said, his eyes flicking to Jamil.

Jamil was glaring at nothing in particular. Smart. Glaring directly at Yuu could become a problem, if Grim took offense to it.

Yuu smiled, as innocent as could be. “You can live in denial, if you want, Kalim. I can't stop you. I’m telling you now, though. That man is not your friend. I suggest cutting him loose.”

Kalim stared at him for a minute, his fists clenched at his sides.

Yuu bit his lip to hide the way his smile started to shift into a smirk. Was Kalim really going to punch him? That’d be so dumb. But, hey, he loved being proven right about people – so, yeah, he could take a new bruise if it meant proving Kalim wasn’t as perfect as he appeared at first glance.

But then Kalim just took a deep breath in, and out.

“Leave,” said Kalim.

He held up his hands in surrender, a little bummed, but certainly not willing to lose an opportunity to abandon ship like this. “If that’s what you want.”

Within the minute, he was stepping out into the cold.

Grim, looking irritable, burrowed himself into the fabric of Yuu’s hoodie.

“What? You can still pay him back by not killing him for throwing me out,” Yuu said. “And, besides, I just wanted to warn him. As any good friend would do. Is it my fault, if he didn’t believe me?”

~~~~~

Pt32>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 30

<Pt29

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

“So, let me get this straight,” said Jamil.

Yuu raised an eyebrow. Glanced between Kalim and Jamil in a way that he hoped came across as appropriately judgemental.

“... ish. You – Yuu – are the zombie collective’s… boyfriend?”

“I’m more like their pet, but sure,” Yuu shrugged. There was a zombie child in his lap, playing with one of his earrings… the piercing kind of hurt, doubly so when it was touched, but he’d dealt with worse. “If that makes it easier for you to understand, yes, I’m their… special person.”

“And they… lost you…?”

Yuu nodded. “I’m surprised they weren’t putting up Missing Posters.”

“So, then, Kalim… calls for help, because he’s surrounded by zombies, and then…” Jamil grimaced. “Now they owe him a debt.”

“Yep!” said Yuu. Or, at least, that was his guess. The zombies didn’t really talk much, so he was doing some educated guessing.

“So, who’s the…” Jamil started, only to pause, waving his hand vaguely, as if trying to prompt Yuu to give him the word he needed. Yuu wasn’t sure where the sentence was going, so he was no help. Finally, Jamil sighed and spoke, in the most defeated tone ever: “Top?”

Yuu choked on air. “You – what – you can’t just say that!” He covered the zombie child’s ears, even if he knew the hivemind would make this useless. “I’m a minor!”

“So am I?”

Yuu glanced Jamil up and down skeptically. With those eye bags? Must be an ‘old soul’. Or one of those people who turn 29 on every birthday, somehow. He’d love to see this guy’s driver’s license, but no one bothered to keep those anymore. Alas, he had no choice but to believe him – or, at least, pretend to.

“Either – either way, I’m pretty sure you can’t even – not without becoming one – and even if you could, the morality – I – what?!”

“I didn’t mean – what’s the word?! Who wears the pants?!”

“That’s the same thing,” Yuu said.

Jamil looked at Kalim for help. Kalim was too busy laughing at the misunderstanding to speak. If it even was a misunderstanding. Yuu sure hoped so, but Jamil kept digging himself a deeper hole so he really wasn’t sure.

“He – he means…” Kalim said, clearing his throat in a misguided attempt to hide another round of laughter. “Out of you and the zombies, who’s really in charge?”

“Oh. Me, obviously,” said Yuu, flexing one of his arms. He was wearing a hoodie. This didn’t work in the slightest.

A hand threaded through his hair, and Yuu had just enough time to regret the little joke before his head was yanked to the side, a set of teeth pressing against his skin.

It wasn’t digging in. As long as it didn’t break the skin, Yuu would be fine. And they wouldn’t break the skin. He knew this. Grim would never allow that.

He brought a mocking little pout to his lips. “Aw, c’mon, guys, spreading misinformation is funny.”

A cold, slimy tongue touched the side of his neck, and that was all it took for Yuu to break, recoiling instantly so he could slap a hand over his skin, glaring at the offending zombie. The zombie just blinked back at him lazily.

“Fine. Fine. I’m Grim’s pet human,” Yuu grumbled. “He’s my extremely charismatic cult leader.”

One of the zombies closest to Yuu made a happy little squeaking sound, and Yuu felt two sets of arms sling themselves around him. A cheek rubbed against his in a weird display of affection.

Jamil raised an eyebrow. “‘Charismatic?’” he said, the doubt in his voice almost offensive to Yuu, and he wasn’t even the one being insulted.

“You just haven’t seen him as a kitty yet,” Yuu said, a dreamy sigh leaving his lips as he thought back to his kitty-baby. The real-life child in his lap was cute and all, but there is nothing cuter than a little pet.

Don’t believe him? Ask Grim. Surely, he’d agree.

“Anyways, I have divined that my personal deity has asked me to befriend Kalim over there, so I will do that.”

Jamil’s eyebrows knit. “What? He wants you to – what? Why?”

Yuu shrugged. “Because Grim takes care of his supporters. And, apparently going too long without human interaction is, like, bad for you.”

A hand tugged on one of his earrings. Yuu’s vision whited out for a second, and he had to fight the sudden, extremely strong urge to punch a child in the face.

“You’re not a human,” he reminded it, gently, patting it on the head. “You’re a zombie. And based on a cat. I don’t think it’s quite the same. I still love you –” His eyes flicked up, briefly. “– all of you – but there are some things you just can’t do, yeah?”

The kid still looked reproachful. Yuu hugged it closer to his chest to help its emotions settle.

Jamil and Kalim looked mildly horrified by the whole ordeal. Who knows why.

Yuu rested his chin on top of the zombie’s head. “Anyways. I’ll be sticking around here for a while, at least, until the zombies think their debt has been paid or they kill you or whatever.”

“... what was that last thing?” Kalim asked, his eyes wide.

“‘Or whatever’,” Yuu repeated dutifully.

“The one before that.”

Yuu blinked a few times, trying to remember. He didn’t really think about things before he said them (he tried to avoid thinking at all, really), so honestly who knows? “Uhhhhh… until their debts have been paid?”

Kalim hesitated for just a second, as if Yuu had guessed wrong, but then he let it go. He clapped his hands together. “Well, since Jamil’s here, now, we can eat!”

Yuu waved him off, absently. “I can make my own food.”

Kalim rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Jamil would never poison anyone.”

“... did you guys meet the furry cult, too?”

“The what now?” Jamil asked. “In the nicest way possible, are you high?”

Yuu waved him off, his face warming even though it really wasn’t something he should be embarrassed over. “If only. Just – don’t worry about it. I’ll cook for myself, I know what flavors I like, anyway.”

~

Yuu, absently, popped a chip into his mouth. He had forgotten the plus sides of having zombies around – the offerings they gave.

Like, sure, the bag of chips said that it was expired, but Yuu didn’t remember what Cheetos were supposed to taste like anymore, so he couldn’t tell the difference.

He felt a chin rest on his shoulder and turned to look at the zombie. He offered it a chip, which it ate out of his hand. Yuu felt, strangely, like the world’s most unfortunate horse tamer.

The zombie didn’t seem to appreciate the cheesy goodness that the expired Cheetos provided, but it didn’t complain.

Yuu turned his attention back to Jamil and Kalim. Kalim was chatting Jamil’s ear off about his day – as if they hadn’t all just gone over that less than an hour ago. Jamil was nodding along, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but, alas, the fire was already started and it wasn’t like he could just pick it up and move it.

Not without Kalim noticing and following after him, at least.

Kalim was. A Person.

Yuu didn’t get him at all.

He had, apparently, adapted to the zombies in his midst immediately. Which was already a feat and a half… Yuu himself had taken well over a month to get it through his head that there was a zombie holding him captive in what remained of his own home. Sure, you could argue at least part of this was because he was processing the fact that zombies existed in general, but still.

Kalim was, somehow, fine. He kept trying to offer the zombies portions of his food, even, as if they were just fellow survivors who had decided to join him around a campfire. The zombies, of course, declined, as they weren’t all that interested in eating rice and the few dried vegetables Jamil had managed to find (Jamil seemed relieved that he wouldn’t have to use his rations to make even more servings).

Yuu shuffled closer to Jamil under the guise of needing to warm his hands by the fire. Which he did actually need to do, his gloves had been stolen from him by a zombie at some point.

He was far more concerned with leaning in close to Jamil.

“What is wrong with him? He can’t actually be that stupid, can he?”

Jamil’s eyes flicked to look at Yuu for just a moment. His expression was weary – Yuu still doubted that he was really under 18.

After a moment, he sighed.

“Don’t let him fool you. There are no normal people in the apocalypse.”

Yuu lit up despite the warning.

He was right! He loved being right.

Now all he had to do was make Kalim reveal that secret, unsavory side of his.

Grim wanted him to make friends, and Yuu would never dream of disobeying the little eldritch being that had taken him under its wing. It wanted him to stay, so he would.

Unfortunately, Grim’s track record of letting Yuu keep being friends with people wasn’t that great.

And, if Kalim suddenly revealed himself to be less-than-perfect a couple of months into their arranged friendship… well, Grim would ‘freak out’ at the unknowns and have every reason to kill Kalim ‘to be safe’.

Yuu would rather Kalim die sooner rather than later, in that case.

~

“Baby,” Yuu cooed, his eyes landing on Grim, standing oh so tall and proud in the arms of a zombie. “Hi!”

The other zombies groaned – Kalim and Jamil flinched, wide eyes darting around nervously in search of an incoming attack, but it wasn’t that kind of groan – and started shuffling away, hiding out in the corners or even leaving the store entirely. The hivemind’s leader took precedence, after all.

Yuu knelt in front of Grim, cooing as he scratched his darling beneath the chin. “Look at you, you’ve lost a few pounds, I’m going to have to make you something extra special for lunch tomorrow, yeah? Can’t have you dying on me. What flavors are you feeling?”

Grim purred. This wasn’t exactly an answer, but who cares about that?

Yuu leaned to press a kiss to the top of his head, and then started to push himself up to stand.

Teeth caught in the front of his hoodie, and Yuu’s breath caught in his throat in return.

He scooped up Grim, carefully taking him into his arms and making sure the cat was comfortable before slowly rising to his feet once again.

Grim released his shirt in favor of burrowing into the fabric, rubbing his face against his neck, kneading the fabric around his shoulder, winding his tail around one of Yuu’s arms.

Yuu grimaced just slightly as the bandaid around his neck chaffed against Grim, who only rubbed more aggressively against the spot, with a vengeance.

“Sorry, bud, I forgot you like it when I carry you everywhere,” Yuu said, his heart still pounding in his chest. He managed a wobbly smile, which he aimed at a random zombie, so Grim could see it. “It’s been a little while since we’ve hung out, so… be patient with me, please?”

Claws dug into the skin of his collarbone, just enough to earn a wince.

He twisted his neck around to kiss the top of Grim’s head once again.

“Well, now that you’re here, I guess we should catch some shuteye, hm? I mean, you were trudging through all that snow, you’ve gotta be tired, and my day’s been kinda long, too, y’know?”

He felt Kalim and Jamil’s stares as he made his way over to a half-ruined mattress the zombies had managed to scrounge up, laying down and wrapping his arms more securely around the cat.

Well, it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to falling asleep with eyes on him.

~~~~~~

Pt31>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 67

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

Ito blinked their eyes open, only to immediately squeeze them shut tight once again as they processed the wind whipping at their face. They tried to cringe away, but there was a high-pitched squeak and the arms that had been wrapped around their chest tightened to the point that they could barely breathe.

The next thing they noticed was all of the yelling.

“– said you knew how to fly this thing!” a voice Ito couldn’t quite place said.

“I said I kinda knew,” Enma snapped right back. “It’s not my fault you didn’t hear!”

“I have the best ears here! Kuroki-san, did you hear anything?”

“If I open – my mouth – I’ll throw up,” Kuroki said, his voice somewhat muffled by the fabric of Ito’s shirt.

Wait.

Oh no. If he was this close, and he was going to throw up…

Ito took a deep breath before carefully peeking their eyes open. The wind was still there, unfortunately, but it wasn’t as bad when they were expecting it. “Don’t you dare.”

The carpet lurched beneath them all, and the sound Kuroki made suggested that he was very much in danger of vomiting, much to Ito’s dismay, but he managed to hold it back.

Thank God.

“Ito!” Enma said, his eyes wide. “You’re back!”

“Seven, just move the carpet,” said John, sending a spell toward the ground, which was way further away than Ito had expected.

Well, they were pretty sure that it was far away. The ground was a mess of kicked-up sand, making it difficult to gauge the actual distance.

It definitely wasn’t safe to fall from here, at least.

Or was it? Who knows, maybe the sand would cushion their fall.

Ito wasn’t intent on testing the theory, so they supposed it didn’t matter.

Enma sent John a dirty look before returning to the strange pattern they had been flying in before. It wasn’t even a pattern, really, it was closer to jerking around at random. Enma should never be a pilot. Or play video games, for that matter, it didn’t seem like he had the finesse for it. But the pilot thing was way more of an issue right now.

What were they thinking about again?

Ito blinked a few times to reprocess everything.

“What’s… what’s going on?”

They felt like they had just woken up from a long nap. Nothing made sense. Their brain was running at about half a kilometer an hour. They were, inexplicably, really thirsty.

And they were, somehow, tired despite the fact that they had had more than enough sleep, damn it!

“We’re leaving,” said John, flashing a grin their way, but it was slightly strained. He was leaning over the side of the flying carpet, shooting spells into the cloud of sand, but it wasn’t doing much to disperse it.

Ito blinked a few times, looking around. They had known they were on the carpet, flying through the air, but only in the way that someone knows they’re in a chair – vaguely, it’s not really something you take note of for long, if at all.

(Maybe they were getting too used to all of the magical bullshit…)

Metal rattled with every jerk of the carpet, and Ito was both surprised and not surprised at all to find that the carpet had been loaded with expensive items that Ito knew for a fact didn’t belong to them.

“... when did you guys take all of this? Why?” Ito asked.

Kuroki gave a halfhearted kind of laugh.

Grim grinned, the only one unaffected by the carpet’s wild motions (probably because he was hovering about half a meter above it, allowing him to go at his own pace). “Because they stole you, it’s only fair if we get to steal a few things, too!”

Good God these people are mentally ill.

Whatever. Ito threw a thumbs up Grim’s way. It was funny, and therefore totally allowed in their book. Plus, they had made sure to grab some cute clothes and jewelry, which Ito could appreciate.

“So, what’s the problem?” Ito said, carefully resting a hand atop Kuroki’s head to keep his face hidden in their chest as they leaned to look over the side of the carpet again.

“They’re blocking the mirror,” Enma gritted out. “I was hoping they would accumulate blot quickly and stop using spells, but… the longer we wait, the more people they drag in to help them.”

Ito hummed, their head tipping to the side. “They’re not attacking us, though…”

“Can’t,” John shrugged. “Not with you here.”

Ah. Right. The best that Scarabia could hope for was that the escapees would give up.

“Hey, Kuroki?” Enma said, his eyes gleaming in a way that was distinctly not good.

“Mnf…?”

“Sorry about this.”

Kuroki’s scream was quickly lost to the wind rushing past their faces as they rocketed toward their deaths.

They were only halfway to the ground when the sand was suddenly blasted away, revealing the mirror (and five panicking teenagers).

Enma angled them toward the mirror. He wasn’t slowing down.

“This is why you aren’t allowed in high places!” Ito yelled, but Enma either didn’t hear them or wasn’t listening.

John tugged on his arm for his attention, only to scream when even the slight shift was enough to make them veer right abruptly. It was only sheer luck that kept him from falling off the carpet entirely.

Enma course-corrected, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge any of this.

It was then that Ito noticed that Enma was no longer struggling to steer the carpet. Whether the wild jerking around from before was for the sake of testing the controls or if it was an act to throw off their captors, Ito wasn’t sure. They just knew that he was, apparently, fine now.

This didn’t mean that it wasn’t fucking terrifying to plummet through the air at a million kilometers per hour.

They leaned to press their face into the small of Enma’s back, squeezing their eyes shut tight, their arms wrapping around Kuroki and Enma both.

They could feel Enma give a sharp inhale.

He, finally, started pulling out of the dive.

They circled toward the ground. Faster than was probably advisable, but at least they were no longer in danger of slamming into the floor at Mach speed.

Of course, this came with its own problems:

The rug got swept out from under them all by a particularly strong gust of wind, sending them tumbling into the sand in a heap of limbs. The sand did nothing to cushion their fall, but that was hardly the worst part about the whole ordeal. The items they’d stolen dug into their skin uncomfortably. Sand clogged one of their ears. Someone’s elbow had decided that their stomach was its worst enemy.

Not that Ito particularly minded at the moment. After nearly watching their friends die because Enma sucked, they were perfectly happy to just… lay there with them.

At least until they heard Kuroki make a retching sound. Then they abandoned ship. They weren’t as bad with vomit as they were with blood, but that didn’t mean they liked the stuff.

Ito heard themself groan, but they hadn’t –?

John hopped to his feet and aimed his wand at the ground. The sand around them lifted, slowly, 

“Memorize where the mirror is,” John said, and Ito got about half a second to be weirded out by the fact that it was their own voice telling them this before the wind around them picked up.

It ‘picked up’ the sand with it.

Well, this brings back memories, Ito thought, staring at the vortex of sand whirling around them.

Thankfully, it was quick to lose shape, throwing them all into darkness.

Because they closed their eyes. No one wants sand in their eyes.

“Got to get rid of this –,” someone started to say, only to cut themself off with a hacking cough as sand snuck into their mouth. Sucker.

“No!” someone said, their voice slightly muffled, as if they were speaking behind some kind of cloth. “If someone hurts them by accident, it's on all of our heads!”

Someone mumbled a curse.

Ito fought a grin as they made their way toward where the mirror had been, their hands out in front of them to search for it.

They nearly jumped out of their skin when a hand grabbed their forearm, but they were tugged through the mirror before they could make a sound.

They blinked up at John, who grinned at them. “Hiya –,” he said, in that strange, muffled voice from earlier. And then he let go of them in favor of coughing delicately into his hand. When he spoke again, it was in his normal voice: “I mean. Yo.”

‘I’ what? Ito thought, vaguely.

They didn’t get much time to be embarrassed over the mistake, because John reached past them to pull Kuroki and Enma out of the mirror. Grim floated through right after them.

John gave a sigh of relief, sent another spell out into the world to kick up the sand again, and then turned to them.

“Alright. I’m leaving campus. What do you three – I mean four – want to do?”

Well, they’d love to leave campus, too, but unfortunately they had this little problem called ‘being homeless’, so that wasn’t really an option.

Besides, Kuroki would not be able to walk that far. He looked a little green. And smelled vaguely of throw-up. And Enma looked like he wished the last few seconds of his life had gone better for him.

Serves Enma right. Fucker.

But poor Kuroki…

“We have a plan,” said Enma.

John hesitated for just a moment more, before running off.

“So, do we actually have a plan, or…?” Grim said.

It was mildly concerning that Grim didn’t know.

But Kuroki nodded. “Ye – yeah, Octavinelle will protect us.”

“They will?” said Ito. They’d have more luck trying to hide out in Ramshackle. At least there they wouldn’t get beat up twice.

Kuroki didn’t explain further. Which was probably for the best. He looked like he’d throw up if he opened his mouth again.

Besides, Enma drew their attention elsewhere: “Sand.”

Ito and Kuroki went tense, immediately whirling around to look at the mirror, expecting the sandstorm on the other side of the glass to settle, only to frown when the world beyond the mirror still looked like yellow static. They turned back to Enma…

They found him staring at the ground, horrified.

A trail of sand followed in John’s footsteps, leaving a very clear indication as to where he had gone.

A glance down at themselves showed that they, too, were covered in sand.

Fuck, at this rate they wouldn’t be able to put enough distance between themselves and the Scarabia students. Sure, they had a headstart, but if they were within sight then all it would take to drag them back was a bit of carefully placed wind magic –.

Kuroki pointed, vaguely, to the mirror chamber. Enma and Ito weren’t mind-readers, so they just stared at him while he tried his hardest to speak without throwing up again.

Grim clapped his paws together. “Heartslabyul.”

Kuroki nodded jerkily, once, looking mildly perturbed that Grim had somehow figured it out.

Ito and Enma, though, lit up.

Of course. The maze.

The Yuus had, against their own will, begun to memorize Heartslabyul’s layout after all of the Unbirthday Parties they had crashed for the sake of free food, but the Scarabia students? They would have no idea where to go. And the maze dropped off every group at different places, so it wasn’t as if they could just follow the sand on the ground, either.

Ito ended up giving Kuroki a piggyback ride. It was embarrassing for everyone involved. They don’t want to talk about it.

“If you throw up on me, I’m dropping you,” Ito grumbled as they made their way along. They could hear the Scarabia kids somewhere else in the maze, having a shouting match in what Ito assumed to be Arabic.

Honestly, the Yuus could have just waited by the mirror until the Scarabia students entered Heartslabyul, then sprinted back through the portal while they were distracted getting their bearings in such a strange place. That probably would have been enough to get away…

But, hey, at least this way they could shower and change out of their sandy clothes. And Kuroki desperately needed to brush his teeth before he made himself throw up again.

~

The doors to Heartslabyul's dormitories were locked.

Grim was allowed to burn the door to cinders.

This was fine. Ito took a moment to sneak into the garden shed for some red paint, and wrote ‘SCARABIA WAS HERE’ on the cobblestone leading up to the door. It wouldn’t fool anyone with even a pinch of common sense and real-world experience, so Riddle would probably fall for it. And, even if he didn’t, there were hundreds of other students in the school, and why would magicless students ever intentionally aggravate their superiors?

Either way, if the Scarabia students insisted on being inconveniently difficult to run away from, then Ito got to be petty.

(Besides, an interdorm war would be funny.)

~

Ito hummed as they rifled through Ace’s pajamas, picking up a red hoodie and basketball shorts. It wasn’t particularly fashionable, but Ace probably wouldn’t mind it if they went missing. They were free clothes, which instantly gave them a few extra points in their book.

Kuroki and Enma poked their heads in once they were sure that Ito had finished changing.

(They’d snuck into Trey and Cater’s room for a spare toothbrush and toothpaste for Kuroki, and had nabbed some clothes while they were ‘in the neighborhood’, so to speak.)

“Can’t believe that Ace and Deuce don’t lock their door,” Ito said, absently combing their fingers through their hair to get some of the loose sand out. There was a brush nearby, but if their hair got too frizzy they’d kill themself.

“Lucky… we had to break their locks,” grumbled Kuroki.

Grim looked like he was having the time of his life. Two whole property damages? Good for him.

Ito grinned, aware that they were about to make his day: “Break a couple more locks up and down the hall for us, Grim? We need to throw off Rosehearts-senpai, after all…”

They trailed off. Not really because their sentence was finished. Grim had just already run off to Wreck Their Shit.

Enma hummed. “We should let him burn things more often.”

“Like what? It’s not like we have the money to just – buy him stuff to burn,” Kuroki said, though he looked thoughtful.

Ito clapped their hands together. “We can burn Trey’s things.”

Enma cuffed them over the back of their head.

They pouted.

“Okay fiiiiine… maybe I’ll just flambe veggies more often…”

~

Kuroki was swamped in a fraying band tee and skinny jeans – Ito would say they’d bet money that they belonged to Cater, but they only ever made bets that they knew they’d lose, so no they wouldn’t.

Regardless, he was kind of cute.

They certainly liked it more than they liked Enma’s outfit. He was wearing one of Trey’s cardigans over a tee shirt and sweatpants. Ito was definitely not seething at the sight of Trey’s clothes on their friend. Because that would be stupid. It wasn’t like anyone else’s clothes would fit him.

But, if they calmed themself by reminding themself the clothes were stolen and therefore an inconvenience to Trey, then no one had to know.

~

Getting to Octavinelle was a surprisingly relaxing affair. The Scarabia kids were hopelessly lost in the maze, from the sounds of things, which meant they got to go for a casual stroll.

Well, as casual of a stroll as you can manage when you’re knowingly walking into Octavinelle of all places.

“Are we sure about this?” Ito asked, braiding and unbraiding their hair for the sake of something to do.

Kuroki had taken to swinging his shoes around by their laces, and the motion slowed slightly, which Ito was not taking as a particularly good sign.

“... yeah,” Kuroki said, after a minute. “I’ve got something on Azul.”

“What kind of ‘thing’ do you have over him?” Enma asked, his eyebrows knitting. His hands were hidden in his pockets, but Ito could see the way they balled into fists as clear as day.

Kuroki grimaced. “... private stuff.”

Ito and Enma exchanged glances behind Kuroki’s back. The last time Kuroki had shared a secret with Azul Ashengrotto, he’d oh-so-casually stolen their rights away, and he’d already admitted he’d do it again if given the choice, so forgive them for being a little wary.

It wasn’t that Ito and Enma didn’t believe Kuroki would always have their backs, it was just that they feared that what Kuroki saw as being ‘in their best interest’ might not align with what they wanted.

And, to be fair, it wasn’t as if Ito and Enma particularly trusted each other on that front, either.

They all cared about each other, yes.

But, in the end, they were all just a little too similar to find each other particularly trustworthy.

Which begs the question – is care, on its own, enough?

~

“Oh, look at that, they’re back,” said Azul, sounding entirely unenthused to find the three (and a half) teens standing on his doorstep… his office’s doorstep, at least, they didn’t know where the guy lived, nor did they really want to know.

Ito smiled, lifting their hand in a wave.

“Good to see you safe and sound, Ito-san,” Azul said, somehow sounding even less enthused.

Ito wasn’t offended. Their senior had a huge bruise blooming on his chin, and it was taking all of their mental energy to not laugh at the sight of it.

It was a losing battle, but they were going to fight it ‘til the bitter end.

Or, at least, that was what they assumed, until Kuroki cut in to save them:

“Azul! Help us!”

Azul now looked like he was preparing to burst out into song. He ushered them inside, almost slamming the door behind them in his excitement. “Oh? What do you want?”

“Scarabia dorm dead at our feet,” Enma said in a perfect deadpan. Perfect in that Ito couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

Ito rolled their eyes and elbowed him in the side.

“... we will settle for ruining their reputations,” Kuroki conceded. Reluctantly.

Azul’s expression, somehow, brightened even further. If he were any less concerned with his image, he might have been bouncing in place. “I see, well, of course, that will come at a price –.”

“Aw, come on, Azul, can’t you do me a solid?” Kuroki said, something sly in his expression as he leaned in. “I mean, we’re friends now. We even had that little heart-to-heart –.”

A contract was shoved into Kuroki’s face, effectively cutting off whatever he was about to say. If he had ever been intending to say anything at all. Ito, privately, doubted it.

“Sign this NDA,” Azul said, his face flushed. Embarrassed, angry, or both. Ito, again, couldn’t tell.

(Maybe they should check to see what had happened while they were mind-controlled. Maybe they’d gotten a concussion or something. Their thoughts felt way too muddled today, they were off their game.)

Kuroki hummed as he took the contract into his hands, deceptively calm save for the way his eyes scanned the document feverishly. “I’d love to, Azul, but I dunno…”

Azul’s smile was all gritted teeth at this point. Ito felt bad for him.

Almost felt bad for him.

(Not really.)

“Fine. I will be. Happy. To accompany you four to Scarabia dorm,” Azul said, sounding not at all happy.

“Did Azul lose again?” Floyd not-so-quietly whispered from behind the door.

“Seems so,” said Jade, not even bothering to pretend to hide the fact that they were mocking their ‘boss’... well, not to his face, considering there was a door between them, but it was still pretty damn close to it.

Azul covered as much of his flushed face as he could with the hand that wasn’t holding onto his cane. It wasn’t particularly successful.

“Jade. Floyd. How do you two feel about paying our Scarabian neighbors a visit?”

The door swung open, revealing two grinning eels. This was an answer in itself.

Floyd crossed the room in two overly large steps and slung himself over Kuroki’s back. “So, what do you got against Scarabia, Koebi-chan?”

“Do we need a reason to hate someone?”

“Kumanomi-chan doesn’t seem all that upset.”

“Kuma – Ito doesn’t really get upset that often, anyway.”

Ito shrugged in a half-hearted agreement.

Floyd huffed, turning to look at Jade. “Do the thing.”

“I fear I cannot.”

“Fuuuuuuck.”

“We may have to investigate this for ourselves,” Jade said, shaking his head ‘sadly’, though he didn’t really look all that broken up about it. In fact, the prospect seemed to excite him. “Shall we be off?”

“Mmm let’s do that –” Ito broke off with a yawn. They were so tired, and it wasn’t even that late. “– tomorrow…”

Jade smiled behind his hand. “Scandalous.”

Ito just stared at him, trying to work out what about that sentence could ever be perceived as ‘scandalous’.

Enma leaned close to mumble that, apparently, moray eels’s mating rituals involved opening your mouth really wide…

Ito’s mouth dropped open in sheer horror and disgust.

And then they rushed to close their mouth again, their teeth clicking together so hard it hurt a little.

“... when did you look that up?” Kuroki asked.

Enma’s face flushed. “You guys know me! I like information!”

Ito snorted. “Okay, tell me about the mating habits of octopi, then.”

“They – uh – dance,” said Enma.

“No, we don’t,” said Azul.

Enma pressed his face into his hands. “It was worth a shot…”

“I hate life,” said Kuroki, pressing his face into his hands.

“You were looking into our mating rituals?” Jade said, his eyes bright. Not quite with interest – not that kind of interest, at least. More like he was happy to have just solved a puzzle.

“I went down an internet rabbit hole, okay?” Enma said. (Lied.)

Floyd looked disgusted. As did Kuroki. Ito thought this might have been the first time the pair were actually on the same page.

Floyd, for the first time ever, released Kuroki of his own volition. He grabbed his twin by the arm and dragged him away from Enma as quickly as was physically possible.

Enma rested his chin in his hand. “God, I want to punch him in the face so bad,” he said, with a dreamy sigh.

“He is going to ruin your life for his own amusement one day,” Kuroki said.

“Yeah…” said Enma, not dissuaded in the slightest.

Azul, who had been trying to find a way to use this against Enma for the past minute or so (to no avail, considering Jade was also aware of the crush, now, meaning it didn’t make for very good blackmail, and it wasn’t like he could force Jade to do anything that he didn’t already want to do), gave up in favor of giving Enma and incredulous look.

“There is something wrong with your brain. On a chemical level.”

~

Ito sighed as they flopped onto the bed, dragging a pillow close to their chest. “Did he not make me fucking sleep?” they complained to no one in particular.

The bed dipped as Enma took a seat beside them. “Do you remember anything?”

Ito shook their head. It wasn’t even a lie. They remembered leaving the guest room, walking to the kitchen for a ‘snack’, and then… nothing. Sure, they remembered who they had suspected, but they were surprised to find their memories of the confrontation were just… gone.

They had known that Kalim was weirdly unaware of what was going on, but they had just chocked that up to his personality. Maybe there was more to that than they’d originally assumed. Hm.

They barely resisted the urge to throw a fit, however childish that might have been. They had found out – whatever information they’d gotten – fair and square! Taking it away from them was cheating.

But, they supposed, it was interesting. Jamil was living up to his end of the bargain, even if it annoyed them that this meant it would be way harder to keep their friends out of harm’s way.

They turned over in bed so Enma could see their pout.

Enma snickered at their distress. Because he hated them, clearly.

Hands wrapped around one of their own, and Ito jumped just slightly, turning to look at Kuroki.

“How do you feel about me?” he asked, strangely serious.

Ito just stared at him, confused. “Uh… you’re great? I… cherish our friendship?”

Kuroki sighed, physically deflating until he had collapsed half on top of them. “You don’t ‘love’ us?”

“… no,” said Ito. “You’re… not my type? I feel like I’ve said this before.”

Kuroki gave a half-hearted kind of laugh. “Thank fuck.”

Ito, carefully, patted the back of Kuroki’s head as they looked at Enma for an explanation.

“You went… weird on us,” Enma said, after a moment’s thought. “You were all… affectionate. I got more hugs from you in an hour than I did all year.”

“You said you loved us,” Kuroki added, sounding bitter.

“It was kinda nice,” Enma admitted, his lips pulled into a thin frown. “Sucks that it was probably just… orders, though.”

Ito hummed thoughtfully. They weren’t sure whether Jamil fundamentally misunderstood them (from what they could tell, pretty much everyone at this school thought the resident magicless students were ‘weirdly loving’) or if Jamil was purposefully trying to make Enma and Kuroki uncomfortable enough to leave…

“Don’t you feel weirded out?” Enma asked. “I know I’d hate it if I was mind-controlled.”

“Not really,” Ito said, after a moment’s thought. “I’d probably feel gross if I could remember what happened, but as is… I dunno. It just kinda feels like I got blackout drunk and now I’m hearing about all the stupid shit I did the next day.”

“That’s good at least,” Kuroki said, clinging to them like a limpet. “Only one of us can have a breakdown at once, and I’m taking up that slot.”

Ito sighed, rubbing a hand up and down his back. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Kuroki shrugged.

Ito’s eyes flicked to the side. “You can – you can consider that real, if you want. If it makes you feel better.”

“... it doesn’t count,” Kuroki said.

“Shhhhh,” said Enma, wrapping his arms around them both and dragging them in close, until Ito was half in his lap, fitting snugly under his chin. “Take the win.”

“If Ito really does – then I want to hear it from them,” Kuroki said, his hands balling in Ito’s shirt.

“They’re not going to say it,” said Enma.

Kuroki gave a little sigh, but didn’t argue further.

Grim was looking between them all, confused. “I think I’ve lost track of what we’re talking about.”

“Don’t worry about it, Grim,” Enma said. “Just know that Ito loves us.”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

polycule where one guy has an “i can fix him” mindset and another guy has an “i can make him worse” mindset about the same third guy. net zero moral change

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Maribat Fic Recs!

Here is a link to the submission form!

Anonymous recommendations:

Senses by Alexiessan

lovely

A Winter Dance [Remastered] pt 1/2 ( @aliensunflower-fics )

I love the way they make Adrien act jealous without going overboard and being all weird and salty! Also lila downfall and the mildest class salt with just like this cute backdrop of Damian wooing marinette!

Riddled Past - boldlyanxious ( @boldlyanxious )

Its unfinished but I like to reread it and imagine what will happen next

truth be told - mochegato ( @mochegato )

literally hysterical ^^

Vignettes by chaotic_immortal ( @nightlychaotic )

Read it ages ago and it's STILL the fic that I think of first when I think of dickinette 🥰

The cat that caught the canary by chaotic_immortal ( @nightlychaotic )

Not usually my favorite ship but oh my gosh this was cute enough for me to make an exception!

What if We Make an Exception? - Newdog14 ( @newdog14 )

I finished it and then went back to reread it instantly it was THAT GOOD

Non-Anon recommendations:

StarWarsMum recommends How a Demon Commissions an Angel by AlixAnonymous

This is a story shows us a fun way for Damian and Marinette to meet! The socially awkward one tries blackmailing the other and it's as hilarious as it sounds. But for all that it's a funny concept, it has a lot of really heartwarming moments and it's a really cute story

aliensunflower-fics recommends The Contingency by AbyssalGuardian

Its a TimxMarinette fic its well written, finished and a fic that not only inspired me but my furst foray into timari. Its a bit on the saltier side with how it writes Marinettes friends and family but its still a delight to read!

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 29

<Pt28

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Yuu… had never really cried, before. He, honestly, couldn’t remember the last time he had. He wasn’t prone to tears before the apocalypse, and as for after… most people didn’t really cry these days. What was the point? It wasn’t like they’d stop crying and realize that the apocalypse wasn’t that bad after all.

It was as if they had all come to an unspoken agreement – if they started to cry, they would never stop.

And, besides, most of the criers had been quick to die off. If you couldn’t handle The Horrors, you’d soon succumb to them.

All of this to say… Yuu had forgotten just how draining crying was.

He slumped against the zombie that had been rubbing his back in an attempt to soothe him, his face still pressed into its chest. “Sorry ‘bout your shirt.”

The zombie just gave him a tiny pat on the head.

Yeah, Yuu supposed that zombies had priorities other than whether their shirts were wet with tears. It wasn’t like they could get sick from it. And zombies weren’t particularly clean themselves. Snot was probably the least gross bodily fluid they’d gotten on themselves.

Doesn’t mean Yuu wasn’t slightly grossed out by it.

He pushed himself up to sit, rubbing his sleeve over his face briefly in an attempt to fix his appearance (it didn’t work, guessing by the zombie’s wince), before turning to the other zombie.

It was still there. Openly fuming at being ‘neglected’, its arms crossed over its chest.

“I want Uppies. Carry me,” Yuu deadpanned, lifting his arms.

The zombie beneath him made a sound of protest, but Yuu was already being stolen away, so this didn’t help it much.

Yuu was carried to a nearby clothing store for new, not-freezing-cold-from-the-snow clothes. They picked out a green hoodie and a set of sweatpants for him, and Yuu mentally complained about how green was the worst color, but he didn’t say a word as he stepped into a nearby fitting room to change. His arms had been scraped up during the fall earlier, so the ‘wound’ was disinfected, and a bandaid was slapped over the bite on his neck. He was pushed to sit so they could fix his hair (from the horrified little gasp the zombie behind him gave when they saw the back of his head, Yuu had not done a very good job at cutting his hair on his own).

And then the earrings were offered to him again.

Yuu frowned a little, confused. “Uh, guys, my ears… aren’t pierced?”

The zombie blinked. Poked at Yuu’s earlobe, as if offended by the fact that it was still intact. And then it turned around and walked outside, coming back with some snow.

Ah. They… wanted to pierce his ears for him.

That wasn’t particularly clean, but nothing in the apocalypse was, really.

Still, if Yuu got sick – or, Grim forbid, died – due to an infected piercing of all things, he was going to burn the whole fucking ex-country to the ground.

He sat between the zombie’s legs, pliant as they turned his head from side to side, trying to make sure that the little X’s that they had drawn on his ears were symmetrical.

It must have been close enough, because the zombie started pressing the snow to his ear to numb it.

It wasn’t really necessary. Yuu was still freezing from being outside for so long. And it wasn’t like the zombies were providing much body heat, so he was just stuck suffering. He missed –.

No one. Nothing. Everything was fine. Ideal, even.

He grimaced as a needle slid through his earlobe. It wasn’t that painful, he was more grossed out by the slow trickle of blood that slid down his neck. But, two slight pinches and it was done.

The other zombie (they’d changed their shirt, good for them) presented a mirror to him.

Yuu stared at his reflection for a minute. He’d expected… more, for some reason. For the most part, it mostly just felt like his ears were a little heavier than they should have been. But, beyond vague discomfort, which he could get used to, he found he didn’t really mind. Besides, the earrings themselves were kind of cute –.

Holy shit. They didn’t just look like bells. They were bells, twinkling softly every time Yuu so much as turned his head.

And, listen, Yuu liked the sound.

Doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to give an incredulous laugh, though. Grim had literally put a fucking bell on him. That was hilarious. Wasn’t Grim supposed to be the cat, here?

He smiled and turned to the zombie who had pierced his ears. “They’re adorable.”

The zombie ‘blushed’ and looked away.

Yuu rolled his eyes internally, pushing himself to his feet. Right. Well. Onto the next thing:

“I didn’t allow you to make a shrine out of my things,” Yuu said, poking the zombie with the mirror in the side.

The zombie seemed to pout at him.

Yuu’s resolve crumbled immediately. “Okay. But let me look through it for things I want to keep, at least?”

The zombie continued to sulk, but this one was reasonable enough to nod along, taking Yuu by the hand and leading him to its shrine.

Wow it had built that thing fast. Sure, Yuu had expected it to be, like, half-built, but –.

Was that the fucking shirt Yuu had cried on? Come on, man. Or woman. Or… other.

Yuu sighed, running his fingers through his newly-cut hair, staring at the clump of it on the table. That part, at least, was expected, but still.

… whatever. It wasn’t like he needed those things. If the zombie wanted them, then they could be the king-queen-monarch-thing of recycling or whatever. Yuu didn’t mind, so long as he got to hold onto a few things.

He picked up the apron and shirt that he’d been gifted.

And the gun that they’d stolen from Cater. It wasn’t getting much use, to be honest, but Yuu liked having it.

(It wouldn’t work on the zombies, but why would Yuu ever want to shoot one of his loving supporters?)

His eyes landed on the deodorant.

It wouldn’t do much good anymore, but… he scooped it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Hygiene is important after all.

Everything else was replaceable. So, the zombie could have its fun with it. Yuu didn’t particularly care.

He stretched, groaning. “Is that everything?”

The zombie nodded. It, of course, couldn’t know Yuu’s mental checklist, but it seemed to just nod along to everything he said. Which is good – Yuu is always correct, after all. It’s nice to have someone acknowledge this.

“That place you found me in was a furniture store, right?”

The zombie nodded again.

“Alright, I’m gonna head over there. See if I can find a couch to crash on.”

Maybe he’d even find a bed. Wouldn’t that be a trip?

No, no, he shouldn’t get his hopes up.

But all thoughts of sleep were dashed from his mind the moment he stepped into the furniture store.

The person who had pointed them out to the zombies was still alive. Getting pampered, even. The zombies had, apparently, scrounged up every salvageable thing they could find in this furniture store and were now building a house around the boy. The color schemes of all the furniture clashed terribly, but it was still nicer than most houses these days. Dried blood does not go with kawaii chic. Looked kind of nice on hardwood, though.

A zombie pushed Yuu towards the stranger, and Yuu’s eyebrows knit in confusion.

The stranger, though, smiled. “Hi! I’m Kalim! Nice to meet you!”

Yuu nodded, numbly. “Nice to… meet you, too? I’m… Yuu.”

“Mhmm! So, um, Yuu, quick question – what’s going on?”

Yuu could only shrug. “They’re zombies, man, I have no clue what goes on in their heads. Sometimes they just Do Stuff and I have to deal with that.”

“Oh! Okay!” Kalim said, as if that was a serviceable answer in any way.

Yuu just stared at him, confused. It wasn’t often that someone tried to get him killed and then casually became a fellow King of the Zombies, after all.

He was, once again, pushed forward a few steps, and he turned to give the zombie a glare. Which he then softened into a confused frown. “What?”

“Go make friends,” the zombie whispered, making a shooing motion.

Yuu’s face flushed. He was perfectly capable of making friends, he didn’t need any help. He just… wasn’t currently interested right now! He thought that was perfectly reasonable, considering how his last friendships went!

His not-friendships! He’s never spoken to any human before in his life, actually!

“I’m not going to make friends with the guy that tried to kill me!” Yuu snapped.

“... huh?” Kalim said, looking innocently confused.

Fucking liar.

“You tried to send zombies after me! Like, two hours ago! How have you already forgotten that?!”

“I didn’t do that, though?” he said, frowning.

Yuu pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did you or did you not call out to m – me?”

“I did, but I just wanted help.”

Was this guy stupid?

No, there was no way someone that naive could survive this long.

“I’m being gaslit.”

“No, you’re not! I really just needed help! I mean – they were totally gonna kill me, I figured a few more people might get them to give up and leave!” And then Kalim tapped the tips of his fingers together, looking a hair awkward. “Sorry about your friends, by the way…”

Yuu was going to shoot him. Congrats, Cater’s gun, you’re about to get your first kill in ages. Jesus fucking christ.

It wasn’t like anyone here would stop him.

Outside of Kalim himself. Maybe. It wasn’t easy to dodge a bullet.

Yuu took a deep breath in, and then a deep breath out. He was kind and merciful and not a murderer. He would never kill anyone, ever. He wasn’t –.

He pressed a hand to his temple. “Know what? Sure. The zombies want me to be your friend. I’ll be the best friend you’ve ever made.”

“The way you said that sounds like a threat, don’t know if you’re aware of that!”

“I am.”

Kalim looked mildly concerned, but then he patted the couch beside him. “Well, if you want to be friends, I’m not going to say no!”

What is wrong with this guy?

Yuu took a seat beside him, smiling as he tugged his knees to his chest. “Soooooo, who’re you exactly?”

Kalim was, on the surface, a very open guy. The kind of guy who was such an open book that the words might as well have been written in his skin.

It was disgusting.

“Oh! And I’m from Pakistan, actually,” Kalim tacked on at the end of his long spiel where he did nothing but rattle off information about himself, beaming all the while. It was such a nice, kind smile that Yuu’s skin crawled. “I came here with my dad on one of his usual business trips. It – uh – wasn’t at the best time to visit Japan, it seems!”

Yuu snorted. “It really wasn’t. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Kalim blinked. “Why? Did you start the apocalypse?”

“Well, since we’re such good friends and all, I figure you can know,” Yuu said, leaning in conspiratorially to say, “Yeah, I did. My cat is the center of the hivemind. Wild, right?”

And then he watched and waited. Kalim stared at him. Processing the information was, apparently, taking him quite a long time. But Yuu could be patient, for this.

But then Kalim burst into tears and dragged Yuu into a hug.

Yuu made a sound that can only ever be transcribed as “???????”

Where was the anger? Where was the mask cracking to reveal the terrible person Yuu knew Kalim had to be beneath that smile? His dad was a businessman, for fucks sake! There was no way he was a good, normal person!

Not here!

There were no normal people during the apocalypse. This was a fact!

And, admittedly, this reaction was, in Yuu’s always-correct opinion, not fucking normal. But… Yuu was more used to the murder-y variety of fucked up.

This had to be an act.

Just a very good one.

He patted Kalim on the back a few times, awkwardly. “Uh… there, there?”

“You must have been so scared,” Kalim said.

Yuu just stared at the pattern on Kalim’s sweater. It was ugly. He didn’t have any other thoughts beyond this that can be proven in a court of law.

Kalim continued to blubber over how Yuu was ‘just a baby’. Which, first of all, Yuu knew for a fact thanks to Kalim’s earlier ramblings that he was only a year younger than him, and much taller than him! Second of all, ???????????????!

“Uh… huh…” Yuu said, slowly, at a loss for words for the first time in his life. He loved talking. This was a travesty.

He looked to the zombies for help. The zombies, however, were either seething jealously at the sight of someone hugging Yuu or visibly cooing over someone showing care for him.

Which was – weird? Shouldn’t they be at least a little offended that Kalim thought Yuu was terrified of them?! And, again, ??????????????????????????????????????????!

Thankfully, Yuu didn’t have to say or do anything at all, because Kalim was soon distracted:

“Kaliiiiiim?” A voice called, and every head turned toward the front of the store. “You still aliiiiive?”

“Yep!” said Kalim. “We’re over here, Jamil!”

There was a beat of silence as the newcomer took in the sentence.

“‘We’re’?” ‘Jamil’ repeated.

“Mhmm! Me, Yuu, and his – friends!”

Footsteps pounded on the hardwood floors as Jamil rushed into view. He wore a huge hoodie and jeans. His hands were stuffed into his pockets, holding onto some weapon but Yuu couldn’t make out the shape of it.

Of course, unless it was a lighter, it wouldn’t do much good against the zombies. And a single lighter wasn’t enough to take out this many.

Jamil’s expression went from serious, to confused, to horrified, to confused once again.

Yuu met his eyes, giving a halfhearted kind of smile. “‘Sup.”

Jamil pointed a gun at his head.

Yuu grimaced. Every zombie in the room got to their feet.

(Except for the one that had taken a seat by Yuu. They just glared at Jamil. This one wasn’t budging unless the nonexistent God Almighty himself told them to. And, even then, they’d probably risk being smited – who knows, zombies are pretty ungodly, maybe even He couldn’t take the things down.)

“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Yuu said. “They don’t take lightly to people who hurt me.”

Jamil, slowly, lowered the gun to point at the floor. “What happened while I was out getting food for us?”

“Made new friends!” said Kalim, cheerfully.

“... of course you did.”

~~~~~~~

Pt30>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 28

<Pt27

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Zombies milled around outside.

Yuu hugged his knees to his chest.

With all of the… romance drama, Yuu had forgotten to keep setting fires.

He couldn’t start up again now. He could play off the months-worth of fires as a mental breakdown, but if he were to set a fire now that Grim was actively searching for him, it would be obvious that Yuu was doing it to keep Grim away. And Yuu wasn’t stupid enough to think that Grim of all people would take well to rejection.

A hand settled on his shoulder, and Yuu glanced behind himself, half-expecting a zombie.

Deuce sent him a halfhearted smile. “Hey, Ace found a glasses display and is trying out a bunch of sunglasses. We should make him choose the ugliest ones.”

Yuu’s lips twitched.

“It’s winter, what’s the point of getting sunglasses right now anyway?”

Ace sent him a halfhearted glare from behind what must have been the ugliest set of sunglasses the world had ever known. “I’m doing it in the name of fashion, Yuu.”

Yuu raised an eyebrow. “You look like a dad going through his mid-life crisis, so, maybe not those ones if you’re going for ‘fashionable’.”

Ace gave what could only be described as the Fuckboy Smile. “Into older men?”

“Not at all,” Yuu said.

Deuce narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Mmmmaybe. Take the glasses off?”

Ace did so.

“Okay, now put them back on.”

Ace rolled his eyes, briefly, before putting them on again.

Deuce made a face. “Nope. Definitely not.”

Ace huffed and took off the glasses again. “Fine, what do you think I should go for?”

Yuu and Deuce grinned at each other.

Deuce grabbed a set of heart-shaped sunglasses, grinning as he held them out to a largely unimpressed Ace.

Still, Ace obliged, setting the glasses on top of his head, nestling them delicately in his hair.

Yuu and Deuce’s smiles dropped in favor of offense. Because why did it look kind of good? He was supposed to look stupid. And he knew, objectively, Ace did look dumb… but his stupid brain had decided that it was cute enough to overlook this.

Yuu had hate in his heart. For his heart. It was a Predicament.

Ace smirked. “How do I look?”

“Terrible. Get a new set,” Yuu said, flatly.

Ace snickered and decidedly didn’t change his glasses. Because he hates Yuu and never listens to his opinions. Clearly.

At least Yuu’s attention was stolen away soon enough:

Deuce picked up a set of prescription glasses, squinting down at them. “Hey, weren’t you a nerd before all of this? Shouldn’t your vision be terrible?”

“First of all. I wasn’t a nerd, I was aiming to go to a vet school, you need good grades to go into medicine.”

“You need a squeaky-clean record, too,” Ace said.

“Sh! Second! Of! All! Not necessarily. It’s all about how you take care of your eyes. Keep your screens as far away from your face as possible, make sure to take breaks to rest, that kind of thing –.”

“Oh god, he’s an ultra nerd,” said Ace.

“An ultra nerd that can see,” said Yuu.

“Thought you weren’t a nerd, though?” Deuce said, batting his eyelashes ‘innocently’ as he put on the glasses he’d picked up, probably intending to make a joke about seeing better and now truly being able to ‘see’ Yuu’s nerdiness for himself. However, his smile froze on his face.

He squinted at Yuu’s face through the glasses.

He slid the glasses down his nose just slightly to peer at him normally.

“Do I need glasses?” Deuce muttered.

He had been talking to himself more than anything, but Yuu and Ace had heard, and immediately collapsed in twin fits of laughter.

~

They had been sneaking past a small hoard as quietly as they possibly could. The hoard was distracted – some guy was trying to fight them off, but he was definitely going to lose at this rate.

Sucks for him.

But, hey, it’s the apocalypse. People die. And it wasn’t like Yuu knew who they were, so he really didn’t care –.

“Hey!” the guy called out to them. “A little help here?! Please?!”

They froze, their eyes wide.

It wasn’t entirely abnormal, for people to try to distract zombies with other survivors. It didn’t often work out for them, in the end, but people will do anything to survive, especially these days.

This guy couldn’t have known that he had just hit the jackpot.

A zombie cast a vague look over their shoulder, probably more out of curiosity than anything.

The ghoulish grin on its face dropped.

The other zombies spun around immediately.

A hand grabbed Yuu by the arm, urging him into a run.

The snow crunched beneath their feet. Their sneakers threatened to slip on hidden patches of ice. Breaths came in ragged gasps, clouding in the winter air.

Deuce was the one to fall first. Whether his ankle wasn’t quite healed enough for this kind of thing, or if he had just slipped on the ice and ate shit, Yuu wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter, either. Because he had been ahead of Ace and Yuu, and they ended up tripping over him, and the three teens hit the ground in a heap of limbs.

They tried to detangle themselves, but a too-cold hand settled atop Yuu’s head, and Yuu went very still.

Needless to say, Yuu was having a Day. A Time, if you will.

He turned to smile at the zombie as he was helped to his feet, taking their face in his hand. “Is this a new body? You look great.”

Zombies didn’t really have blood circulation, so they couldn’t blush, but the one before him definitely was blushing, if only in spirit. They rubbed the back of their neck and looked to the side, a tiny smile on their face.

Yuu felt a hand tug on his pant leg, and resisted the urge to look down. It was either Ace or Deuce, he knew. He also knew that he needed to nail this interaction.

Something that was made harder when he felt a finger prod at the bite mark on his neck.

He swallowed thickly, fighting the urge to slap a hand over it. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Azul Ashengrotto bit me, ages ago. It got infected and I kept itching it – it was a whole thing, but I’m fine, now. It’s not a huge deal.”

Zombies already had it out for Azul, so it shouldn’t be a huge problem if Yuu directed a few more his way. He could handle it. Probably. And, if he couldn’t, then really it was his fault for being American. Shudder.

More zombies crowded in close to him. Poking him in search of other, hidden injuries. Stuffing his arms full of what Yuu was pretty sure were offerings, ranging from food and water to seemingly random trinkets (Were those earrings? They were cute little bells that jingled merrily as he took them, but his ears weren’t even pierced?).

Yuu ignored two particular sets of eyes. Yuu just didn’t have the mental power to deal with whatever was going on with Ace and Deuce on top of fighting to keep his expression pleasant as cold, clammy hands touched him – ruffling his hair, grabbing his skin, intertwining their fingers, clinging to him…

It was a lot. He was sure that even the most extroverted of people would get overwhelmed. And Yuu was not an extrovert. If he had a choice, he would pass the winter curled up by a fireplace. Preferably with a million boyfriends and animals to keep him company, but he was willing to negotiate on that part. He was a reasonable guy! He wanted a nice, relaxing winter. Was that too much to ask for?

Apparently.

“I miss Grim,” Yuu mumbled.

(At least Grim was fluffy and cute. These were just corpses.)

“He’s a few hours away,” one zombie rushed to say. The others seemed jealous that she got to be helpful.

Yuu pressed his lips into a thin line. “Hours?”

Three zombies broke away from the huddle in a hurry. Possibly to go collect Grim.

Okay, now there were four. Yuu’s eye twitched. The number was fitting, Yuu supposed, but he really didn’t want the Unlucky Number of zombies around him.

(Or any zombies, but that clearly wasn’t something he had a say in.)

Yuu sighed, running a hand through his hair. “We should get inside. I know you zombies are fine and all, but humans need their blood to circulate. Unless you want us three to die.”

Despite Yuu’s ‘subtle’ cue that they should all go inside the nearest building and make a campfire to warm everyone up, the temperature of the air around them dropped a few degrees as the zombies looked at Ace and Deuce.

“Why were you gone so long…?” a zombie whined, twirling their finger in Yuu’s hair sulkily, as if Yuu couldn’t see that the thing wasn’t pouting at all – it was watching Ace and Deuce, its body wound up tight as if preparing to jump at them.

“The thing with Jade and Floyd freaked me out,” Yuu said, rubbing the back of his neck with an embarrassed little smile. “I wanted to get over the trauma before I came back. What if I started seeing them when I saw you guys? Then we’d never get to cuddle, and that’d suck, right?”

Two of the zombies gasped, horrified at the prospect. They were immediately swayed.

The other two, however, continued to eye Ace and Deuce like they were the very definition of filth, and were scared that Yuu might get contaminated if they let them stick around for too long.

“And they had nothing to do with it?” the zombie nearest to him asked, its chin resting on his shoulder, peering down at Ace and Deuce.

Deuce smiled nervously and held his hands up in surrender. “We know where we stand, don’t worry about it.”

“Then why did you try to run away with him just now?”

“Habit,” said Deuce, looking more and more anxious by the second. “Who wouldn’t run when they saw a bunch of zombies heading toward them? And of course I grabbed Yuu, he’s my – my – dear friend, and he had frozen up, and I didn’t want him to get hurt!”

The zombie opened its mouth, probably to zero in on why Deuce had stuttered over calling Yuu his ‘dear friend’, but Ace – for better or for worse – cut it off:

“You seem a little self-conscious about this. You’re Yuu’s favorite, aren’t you? Why do you seem so scared that we’ll make him happier than you?”

(The “Not like it’s hard to do that.” was left unsaid, but the words lingered in the air regardless.)

Yuu feared Ace was actually stupid.

Because, listen, Ace and Grim had been openly hostile toward each other since damn near the start. Deuce tended to play nice (in the beginning, at least), but Ace? No, Ace had never really hidden that he disliked Grim, and Grim had never hidden that the only thing keeping Ace alive was Yuu wanting him as a ‘friend’. Ace, sometimes, did nice things for Grim so long as Yuu asked him to, and Grim put up with some level of snide comments…

But that was before Yuu had been out of Grim’s sight for over a month (two months, if you count the shit with Jade and Floyd).

Yuu swallowed thickly, turning to face the zombies. “Don’t listen to him. He’s stressed, he doesn’t mean it – I’ll talk to him, okay? Just –.”

“Yuu?” said the zombie nearest to him.

He stopped cold. Literally. A chill ran down his spine. “Yes?”

“Make new friends.”

The zombie took a step forward.

Yuu tackled it to the floor.

… Yuu was pretty sure that he had never seen a zombie be surprised before.

Nor had he ever truly seen one get angry. Not in a long while, at least.

He dropped into the best seiza he could while still partially pinning the zombie down. His forehead rested against its chest, but maybe that would just make convincing them all easier.

“Please, don’t kill them,” Yuu said, barely keeping his voice from cracking. “You’ve already taken everyone else – my parents, my old friends. And that’s – fine – just – let them live. Please.”

“Yuu –,” Deuce tried.

“I’LL BEHAVE! I don’t need to see them – I don’t need to see anyone anymore. I won’t look at anyone else ever again if you don’t want me to! I don’t care! I’ll be so good for you, I promise, just do this one thing.”

Yuu wasn’t sure when he started crying. Only that he was, now.

Slowly, arms snaked around him, one wrapped snuggly around his back, the other hand resting delicately over the back of his head, pressing him further into its chest.

“Okay,” it said.

Ace and Deuce snapped out of whatever horrified spell they had been under, screaming and cursing and crying, their voices getting further and further away. Yuu listened to their cries, if only to make sure that Grim didn’t go back on his end of the deal while Yuu was ‘distracted’.

But their voices petered out naturally as they left earshot.

Tension seeped out of Yuu. He sunk further into the zombie’s embrace, his sobs only getting louder as relief wracked his body.

Still, he remembered to say, “Thank you.”

~~~~~

Pt29>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 27

<Pt26

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Yuu beelined for the nearest alleyway, his fingernails digging into Ace’s hand to make sure he didn’t try to run from this productive conversation that they needed to have. Ace didn’t seem like he wanted to leave regardless, both of his hands were clasped around Yuu’s own as he led him along. Which, if Grim was watching, was only going to make things worse.

“Are you stupid?”

“Probably,” said Ace.

This did not soothe Yuu’s racing thoughts in the slightest. He had a sudden, very strong urge to shove Ace. But the alleyway was too small for that. He’d just be shoving Ace against the wall, and that was not the vibe he was aiming for right now.

“You talk about choice, but where’s my choice? I said no, but suddenly that doesn’t matter?”

Ace looked entirely content as he said, “That’s not your choice, though, that’s Grim’s choice.”

Yuu rolled his eyes. “No, it’s not.”

“Hey, Yuu,” Deuce piped up. “If you’d met us in – like – school or something normal… would you have dated us?”

Yuu hesitated. “Does it matter? We’re not in school right now.”

“It matters to us,” Deuce said, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “Say the apocalypse never happened. Would you date us?”

“If the apocalypse never happened you would be a delinquent, Ace wouldn’t be a cannibal, and I would be an aspiring vet. We never would have met and, if we had, I don’t think we’d get along.”

“Fine,” said Ace, rolling his eyes. “How about this – the apocalypse ends tomorrow. Would you date us then?”

“If the apocalypse ends tomorrow, Grim’s taking me out with him.”

Deuce clicked his tongue. “You’re being an asshole on purpose.”

“Well, apparently you’re both into those, so!”

Ace snickered. “So are you. Or are you going to explain away the fact that you kissed me for a solid minute there?”

“If Grim thought you were assaulting me, he’d make your death as painful as he possibly could.”

Deuce looked like he was going to tear his hair out. “You’re so – frustrating sometimes.”

Only sometimes? Yuu was mildly impressed by Deuce’s patience.

“Sometimes,” said Ace, scoffing.

At least someone appreciates his craft.

Yuu’s amusement didn’t last long, though. Because Ace shoved him against the wall.

And, listen. Yuu was taller than Ace. If worst comes to worse, he could just push Ace off of him. However, it was very hard to remember to do that when Ace had kabedon-ed him like this was some sort of anime rom-com.

“No more avoiding the question. Do you like us?”

He swallowed thickly, his eyes flicking in every direction. He couldn’t see anyone other than Deuce – who was watching this all go down with such rapt attention that he was almost tempted to laugh.

Not that that was what he was looking for…

Yuu couldn’t see any zombies, but did that mean they were truly alone? He knew they could hide, when they wanted to.

“We shouldn’t do this where he can see.”

“If Grim wanted the right to get jealous over you, he should have treated you better. Do you like us?”

Yuu was overly aware of his hands, hovering awkwardly at his sides. “He’s going to kill you.”

“He’d do that either way. Do you like us?”

He, reluctantly, met Ace’s eyes. This wasn’t much unlike their usual sleeping position. Their legs tangled, their bodies flush against each other. But, though Ace usually preferred to press his ear to Yuu’s chest and fall asleep to the steady thrum of his heartbeat, Yuu really wasn’t that much taller than Ace. Their noses brushed against each other.

Yuu could barely breathe.

He needed to say no, but the word was stuck in his throat.

Luckily for him, when Yuu finally gave in and pressed his lips against Ace’s, and the kiss quickly morphed from soft to desperate…

Well, maybe if Ace kissed him hard enough, he could help tease the word out of his mouth.

~

Yuu sat up on their futon, stretching out with a quiet groan. He was insanely thirsty, but they were out of bottled water, and opening a can of soda was always way too loud.

Sunlight wasn’t streaming through the window yet, but he could see the horizon lightening in the distance.

He looked down at Ace and Deuce.

Ace was frowning just slightly in his sleep. The person he usually used as a pillow wasn’t there and, apparently, this was a high crime in Ace’s book, because the hand that usually curled itself in Yuu’s shirt was on the hunt for him. Yuu felt something fond tug at him as he reached out and pushed Ace’s hair out of his face.

His eyes found their way to Deuce. He had, stubbornly, managed to keep his arm around Yuu despite the fact that it was definitely a slightly awkward angle now that Yuu was sitting up.

He, carefully, started nudging Deuce’s hand off of him.

Fingernails dug into his stomach, and that was all the warning Yuu got before he was yanked into bed once again. Pain flared up his back, and Yuu silently cursed the futon for being so damn uncomfortable. It was killing him slowly – if not physically, then spiritually.

Arms wrapped around his waist more securely.

Yuu blinked a few times, thinking hard.

It took a while. It was early in the morning, and he really hadn’t expected either of his… ‘friends’ to be awake enough to process anything right about now.

“G’morning,” Yuu said, with more than a little hesitation.

“You’re up early,” Deuce grumbled.

Yuu raised an eyebrow. “I always take this sleep shift.”

“You don’t ‘always’ get up,” said Deuce.

Yuu gave a soft hum of agreement. “Had to go to the bathroom.”

Deuce gave a sigh through his nose that was reminiscent of a laugh, but not quite correct. “Sure you were.”

He craned his neck to look at Deuce, and found his expression to be pained.

“Deuce…”

“Don’tleaveus,” he said in a rush, as if he was scared he wouldn’t get the words out if he gave himself the time to think about it.

Yuu hastily turned his head back to the front.

Deuce didn’t seem intent on letting him avoid this, though, because he pulled Yuu onto his back and pinned him against the futon. The hands pressing down on his shoulders and legs straddling his waist made trying to wiggle free a lost cause.

It wasn’t particularly hot, considering Deuce looked like he was about to cry.

Unfortunate for Yuu, who did not know how to deal with that. “You – you really shouldn’t make this harder than it has to be…”

“Don’t go then, it’ll be way easier that way,” Deuce said.

“I can’t let you guys die,” Yuu said, for what must have been the millionth time by now. “I’ve learned my lesson, okay? As long as I behave, you guys won’t get hurt. I’m fine with living a life of chastity if it means you guys get to live.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

“Because I’m not sure Ace can do it,” Yuu said, his eyes flicking to the person in question, who had found one of his arms and had curled himself around it, blissfully unaware of what was going on right beside him. His gaze found its way back to Deuce. “He’s not going to accept being ‘friends’ anymore. So… I have to go, okay? It’s not like I want to.”

Deuce took a painfully long moment to think this over.

“Haven’t you heard that if you love something you’re supposed to let it go?”

“Everyone leaves me,” Deuce said, with a little smile that seemed more of an attempt to soothe himself than anything true. “My dad left, my mom hasn’t come back yet… I don’t think she –… I’m sick and tired of losing people. You can’t leave, too.”

Yuu felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Everyone I’ve ever cared for is dead. Because of me,” Yuu admitted, quietly. “Let me save you.”

Deuce looked down at him for a moment.

“We both know that’s not really possible,” Deuce said, his voice just as soft. “Stay with us until then?”

And then he tipped forward, pressing his face into the crook of Yuu’s neck.

“Be ours. Please,” he whispered.

Yuu stared at the ceiling above their heads. He adored Ace and Deuce, but if there was one thing he hated about them, it was that they made it very hard to simply run away.

Teeth sunk into his skin, and Yuu gasped, his free arm jumping to push Deuce off of him.

Deuce bit down harder in response, earning a whine that spilled from Yuu’s lips without his permission.

Yuu began to sink into the mattress, his head feeling strangely light, and Deuce gave a hum against his skin, finally letting go in favor of pressing kisses to the tiny indentations his teeth had left.

He gripped Deuce’s thigh, preparing for another round of biting that never came. Deuce sat up, his expression perfectly content. Red specks painted his lips as he trailed his fingernail in lazy circles around the mark he had to have left on Yuu’s skin.

He smiled.

“Ours.”

~~~~~

Pt28>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/search?work_search%5Bquery%5D=in+the+vardo