olivia-anderson-fanfic

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

TWST ANIME

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 23

<Pt22

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

Yuu hummed as he leaned back against the windowsill, smiling peacefully despite the three horrified faces across the room from him. This was at least partially because of the cigarette in his hand – it wasn’t the first he’d had that day… in fact, he’d smoked the entire time he’d been setting up. His head felt far emptier than it probably should, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. Frankly, it was for the best.

Azul made as if to take a half-step forward.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Yuu said. “You see how most of the carpet is darker than it should be? That’s oil! And, if you get it on your shoes… well, I don’t want to be liable for a murder, if the flames travel to you, you know? I still don’t have a kill count, and I’m trying to stay under Par.”

Floyd looked like he was considering trying to make a jump for Yuu. Yuu would be mildly impressed if he did. After all, fire was the only thing that could truly damage a zombie. He would be putting himself at risk.

It would be stupid.

And, regretfully, Floyd seemed to know this, because he stopped himself.

“We’ll hunt you down,” Floyd promised. “Your friends’ days are numbered.”

Yuu held up his hands in a kind of surrender, his smile not wavering in the slightest. “Now, isn’t that a bad thing to tell the guy with all of the power here. You’re not really convincing me to show you guys any mercy right now.”

“You’d burn this place down either way,” Floyd snapped.

“And you’d kill Ace and Deuce even if I stopped now,” Yuu said. “So, how about we both stop lying?”

Floyd clenched his fists, looking around for something to throw at Yuu.

(Please, as if Yuu would be stupid enough to leave something heavy within reach.)

“I cannot believe you would do all of this, after everything we have done for you,” Jade said.

Yuu fought back a scoff. Right. They’d done so much for him. He was sure that, should he ever get out of the apocalypse, his future therapist would love these two. But Yuu?

Well, Yuu could do without them, if he were being honest.

He crossed one leg over the other, idly, feeling the early-winter chill drift through the open window behind him. Wafting over his back. He knew, logically, that it was freezing, but for once that didn't bother him.

“I’m being plenty merciful here. This is actually a revised version of the plan! Earlier versions ended with Azul-senpai over there bleeding out, but he’s been nice…ish, so he gets out of this unscathed.”

“Unscathed?! You’re planning to burn down everything I’ve worked so hard to create!”

Tough luck, Yuu thought. Your friends over there ruined the peace I worked so hard to cultivate. Drop them. I'm not the only person that will want to get even with you, and they might not be as kind as me.

“Rebuild, then,” Yuu said, as if he really thought that it would be that simple. “I wish you luck. I really do. I just don’t want to be here for it.”

Jade's eyes never wavered from the cigarette in Yuu's hand. “Winter is coming. You could freeze out there.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Yuu shrugged, absently flicking his cigarette a few times, watching the three teens across from him tense up with every little spark that sputtered out of his cigarette. The grin on his face was, for once, very real when he said, “And, obviously, I’ll have the fire to keep me warm.”

Yuu tossed the cigarette into the center of the room, and beamed as a fire roared. It nearly singed off his eyebrows, but it didn't, so who cares? He threw a wave over his shoulder he knew that none of them would be able to see clearly through the flames, and then turned to the window.

Parkour was less easy when Yuu only had one fully functioning shoulder, but it still wasn’t bad. He was tall enough that he didn’t find it too difficult to reach from windowsill to windowsill, and he knew how to land safely, now, even if he did fall.

He rolled out of his two-story drop to disperse the impact. And then he rolled a second time, for Funsies.

He popped up, grinning at his friends.

“Ready to go?”

Ace tossed Yuu two backpacks. Yuu opened his, and was more than a little pleased to find nothing out of place. Not that he thought Ace and Deuce would steal anything, but he couldn't help but smile seeing all of his old things still right where he had left them.

“I can’t believe I have to carry Deuce’s fat ass,” Ace complained.

A glance at Deuce’s foot showed that it had been properly splinted, and he was currently using his bat as a kind of crutch, but they would need to run over the next few days, if they wanted to truly put distance between themselves and the twins. Which meant that Yuu and Ace would be taking turns carrying Deuce – with a heavy lean towards Ace, since Yuu was injured, too.

Ha. Sucks to suck, Ace.

“Don’t worry,” Yuu said. “You’ll only have to do it for a few blocks. After that I can get some zombies to –.”

“No!” snapped Ace and Deuce, in unison.

Only to balk when Yuu snickered.

“So-sorry,” Yuu said, trying to keep his laughter under control. “It’s just – you should have seen your faces!”

“We got into this mess because of zombies! And it’s not like you’re always super unbiased about the fuckers, either! Of course we’re going to –...” Deuce said, only to trail off.

Yuu cast a glance toward the apartment building he had just clambered out of. The fire was spreading to other rooms, now, flickering dangerously in the windows, and there was an ominous creaking sound that indicated that the building might collapse any minute.

The twins had yet to emerge. If Yuu had to guess, Azul was frantically trying to get a hold of the flames. As for the twins, there was a 50/50 chance that they were either helping him or laughing at him for trying.

So, no, that wasn’t what had drawn Deuce’s attention. Yuu turned and saw him looking directly at him, actually. The furrow in his brow was just a little deeper than usual, as if he were thinking hard. It looked painful.

Yuu poked the space between his brows, watching the wrinkles deepen. Hm.

“Don’t worry, Deuce. Outside of – maybe – Grim, they’ll avoid us for around a month.”

Some of the tension left his face, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

Deuce limped just a little closer to Yuu. A hand settled on his bad shoulder, pressing down. Not enough to do damage, but certainly enough to fucking hurt.

“Ah –! Ow?!” said Yuu, jerking away from him. “That’s still tender, you know!”

“Sorry,” he said, despite not sounding very sorry at all. “But you need to sober up. We really need to get running.”

“We,” mocked Ace. “There’s no we about it.”

Yuu’s mood wasn’t much better. Though for completely different reasons.

Ace snickered. “Don’t worry. If you want, we can commit arson tomorrow or something.”

Yuu brightened back up again, as if he had never been upset in the first place. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“This is why you’re my favorite.”

Ace craned his neck as far as it could go for the sole purpose of smirking at Deuce. Deuce looked like he no longer wanted to be carried by the guy, hesitating for just a moment, before ultimately clambering onto his back.

This did not mean that he was going to be the bigger person, though.

“This is what I get for being the sensible one,” Deuce sighed.

“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” Ace said.

“Have you met yourself?” Yuu said. It was a dark day, when he agreed wholeheartedly with Ace of all people.

“Clearly I’m the only one of us here with any actual brains. I swear, the only reason you two are alive is that you don’t have any for the zombies to go after.”

Nevermind.

“You’re a cannibal!”

“You’re an arsonist! And you have a fucking zombie for a best friend!”

Yuu threw his hands up in frustration. “I only did that once. And Deuce here is an ex-delinquent, he’s done way worse than me!”

“'Ex' is the important part of that–! No, why are you dragging me into this?!” Deuce said.

“You were always in it, Mr. ‘Sensible’.”

They debated who was the most rational of the three of them for the next few blocks.

Deuce and Ace had vehemently argued that Yuu should be put in fourth place. They can't count past two, apparently. Which means Yuu wins by default.

And he won fair and square by pointing out that they should actually be putting all of their energy into running, not arguing. That shut Ace and Deuce up really quickly, and everyone knows that the best way to win arguments is to make everyone else give up! Hell yeah!

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 22

<Pt21

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

Yuu sighed as he leaned out the window, smoke steadily spilling from between his lips as he peered out over the complex.

He had to admit, the place was surprisingly nice. People were actually working together to make things run smoothly, which was a first. Maybe returning to a proper society was possible… so long as the overseers were zombies who could kill you in seconds if you dared to step out of line.

Still, it was a nice place to be, at least from Yuu’s perspective – a generator that allowed for light up to an hour past sundown, a consistent source of food, and water (though it was still scarce)!

And all for the small price of his freedom!

Ugh, he was bored out of his mind. He had a couple of books to keep him company, but he would much rather be messing around with Ace and Deuce. Not that he could ever tell Jade or Floyd this, of course. So, he suffered.

His chin in his hand, he scanned the people below, watching them go about their days.

Ace was the easiest to spot. Even at this distance, the red hair stood out. Natural gingers were rare, after all. Yuu watched the blob rush around. Ace and Deuce were always working, as far as Yuu could tell. Jade and Floyd couldn’t directly hurt them without Yuu chewing them out, but they could still make sure to give them the worst jobs.

He couldn’t find Deuce, though –.

Oh. Almost directly below him.

Deuce knelt on the floor, a broom in one hand and a trash bag in the other. As Yuu watched, he swept the ground, probably cleaning up all of the cigarette butts Yuu had tossed down over the past few days.

And then he paused, lifting his hand, peering at whatever he was holding. A cigarette, if Yuu had to guess, but who knows what you could find on the ground in an apocalypse.

(Maybe he’d found a syringe and was trying to figure out what, exactly, had been in it. Yuu had done that a few times himself. It was a fun past time, if you were bored out of your mind and had very low standards for what constituted as ‘fun’.)

Still, he hoped that Deuce had taken an interest in one of the cigarettes. It was Deuce’s preferred brand, of course, which would hopefully tip him off to Yuu’s location.

Not that Yuu could try a different kind of cigarette even if he wanted to, he didn’t know the names of any other brands.

(And, besides, if the dilapidated convenience stores nearby ran out of Yuu’s preferred brand, they’d have to go on longer ‘excursions’ to find more for him. It would be a shame if Jade and Floyd were forced to disappear for days, or perhaps even weeks, in search of something Yuu could smoke…)

After a painfully long moment of watching and waiting, Deuce looked up.

Yuu flashed a smile, waving. From this far away, he couldn’t really see Deuce’s face, but he could still see the way his posture straightened. He gave an exaggerated wave back, to make sure Yuu could see it, probably, or maybe he was just that excited.

And then Deuce dashed away, probably to tell Ace.

~

Two days later, there was a knock on his door.

Yuu frowned, looking up. Jade and Floyd weren’t really prone to knocking. They just kind of barged in under the pretense that this place was just as much theirs as it was Yuu’s.

It could be Azul, Yuu supposed, but it wasn’t nearly late enough for the boy to turn in. And he really only came when forced to by Jade and Floyd. Who, again, would kick the door down if they thought it would be faster.

Yuu pulled a small knife from his pocket. One of Ace’s, though the twins could never know that. They were already being nice by letting Yuu hold onto a knife, and only because they knew it wouldn’t hurt them. He didn’t need to give them a reason to take it away.

He walked over to the door and threw it open.

And was surprised to find himself pointing a knife at Ace and Deuce.

For a moment, the three friends just stared at each other.

Yuu had the sudden, childish urge to throw himself at them for a hug. But he wouldn’t do that. Because he wasn’t childish.

Deuce wrapped his arms around him.

Yuu, distantly, heard his knife clatter to the floor, and Ace gave a small hiss as if feeling the knife’s pain. But Yuu didn’t particularly mind any of this as he hugged Deuce back, tucking his face away in the crook of his friend’s neck.

“Loser,” he mumbled.

Deuce gave a little sigh. “We don’t see each other for weeks, and the first thing you do is call me a ‘loser’. Of course,” he said, sounding nothing but fond.

“If you didn’t want that, maybe you shouldn’t have acted like one,” Yuu said.

He felt Deuce pull away, just enough to start dragging him to the nearby bed for a place to sit, but Yuu shook his head. What if Jade and Floyd, like, smelled Ace and Deuce on the bedsheets or something –?

It occurred to Yuu that this kind of thought process wasn’t all that unlike a cheating spouse. Was he a cheating spouse?

… whatever. It wasn’t cheating if it was an arranged marriage that he was fundamentally opposed to! That’s definitely how it works!

He dismissed the thought.

He led his friends to sit beneath the windowsill. This place always smelled of smoke, much to Azul’s chagrin, so it would be more than enough to mask Ace and Deuce’s presence.

Within seconds, they had settled back into one of their usual positions. Ace sat in the middle, leaning against Yuu’s shoulder, his legs slung across Deuce’s lap. Deuce threw one of his arms across their stomachs. Yuu laced his fingers with Deuce’s, his cheek smushing ever so slightly against the top of Ace’s head.

It was comfortable.

He’d missed them so much.

“It’s so boring without you guys,” Yuu whined, instead.

“Can’t believe you only see us as entertainment,” Ace teased.

Yuu smiled, completely unrepentant. “Can’t believe you won’t accept a compliment.”

“It’s not like it’s abnormal for him,” Deuce said, completely serious… save for the gleam in his eyes.

“I accept compliments fine, I just don’t consider that a compliment,” Ace lied to their faces.

Yuu and Deuce exchanged cheeky grins.

“Okay, sure,” Yuu said. “I mean, you always react so normally when I say I think your eyes are a pretty shade of brown.”

Ace made a choking sound. Which was very normal. Good job proving Yuu’s point, Ace.

“And when I say I think that your varsity jacket really suits you you always accept the compliment so easily.”

Ace tried to knee Deuce in the face. Unfortunately for him, this was not an easy thing to do when you’re sitting right next to each other. He ended up falling over, directly into Yuu’s lap, which he shot right out of, shoving at Yuu as if all of this was his fault.

Well, if Yuu was going to be unfairly prosecuted, then he should at least commit a crime, right?

“You’re actually really helpful,” Yuu said. “I appreciate you more than you know.”

“You look really cool when you fight,” Deuce added.

“I like your sense of humor.”

“I kind of miss the freckles you had towards the end of summer, you should hang out outside more so they come back –.”

Ace had finally had enough. Instead of burying his blushing face in his hands, he grabbed them both by the head and forced their foreheads to make a very sudden, rough acquaintance with each other.

“Owwwww,” whined Yuu, falling to the floor. Not dramatically. This was the perfect amount of drama for his newfound headache.

“Shiiiiiit,” said Deuce, holding his head. “Why are you such a tsundere?”

“That hurt, man. I know Deuce is, like, hardheaded and all, but this is ridiculous,” Yuu whined.

Deuce pulled his hair in retaliation for the admittedly unprompted insult.

Yuu threw his arm out, hitting Deuce directly in the nose.

With that, the three teen boys were stuck wrestling for their lives.

Ignore that all three of them were laughing the entire time. Truly, it was a ferocious battle with high stakes.

Which Yuu won!

Mostly because Ace and Deuce hadn’t wanted to risk actually hurting him!

But! He still won!

He peered down at his two friends for a moment. Flushed faces, still laughing just slightly, their clothes and hair a mess from the tussle…

Really, how they had survived this long without Yuu was a mystery.

He snickered as he helped them both up into sitting positions.

“I missed you,” Ace admitted.

Yuu felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Maybe his headache was more of a problem than he’d thought, because clearly he had no reason to start bawling over three simple words.

“We’ll get you out of here,” Deuce promised.

Deuce had always been so hopeful.

Which was fine. Between Ace and Yuu, they needed someone like Deuce around to keep their pessimism balanced. And they were happy to indulge Deuce’s optimism so long as they could find a way to keep Deuce’s spirit intact if it was ever revealed that they were hopelessly screwed.

Yuu turned to Ace, expecting to find someone to silently commiserate with, only to find Ace nodding along to what Deuce had said.

“... guys,” Yuu sighed, suddenly feeling very much in need of a cigarette. Somewhere, he recognized that it was bad that he was becoming dependent on them, but maybe his body should stop releasing the damn stress hormones if it didn’t want him to breathe in the Lung Destroyer 3000s. “You know where I am, now, you can come visit. We’ll just have to settle for that.”

“And what happens when they catch us together?” Ace said.

“We just won’t let them catch us.”

Ace and Deuce both gave him flat looks. Which, okay, fair –.

“But what happens when we leave?” Yuu said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Jade and Floyd have all of the knowledge other zombies do, that’s why they know about me in the first place. If they can see through the hivemind’s eyes, then there isn’t any place to truly hide from them at this point.”

“Then we run,” Ace said, shrugging. “They’ve got a whole society they’re trying to make with Azul, right? They can’t be gone for too long without consequences.”

That… was probably true…

Deuce rested his hand on top of Yuu’s. “This place isn’t good for yo – for any of us, really. So, let’s leave.”

Yuu hesitated, biting his lip.

“I… have an idea for how to distract them long enough to put some distance between us, but it might take another week or so to set up.”

Ace and Deuce looked at each other. Yuu couldn’t help but frown a little. Since when were these two so in sync?

“Anything we can do to help?” Ace said.

“If either of you ever get assigned to the kitchens, can you snag some cooking oil for me? As much of it as you can get away with… but, preferably, not until the night we escape, they’ll know what I’m up to if they notice beforehand.”

Ace and Deuce narrowed their eyes at him in unison, suspicion radiating off them.

Which was fair. At this point, Yuu wasn’t really trying to hide his past as an arsonist. He’d pointed out his apartment complex of his own volition. He’d outright told Riddle Rosehearts how to commit arson with the supplies he would have on hand.

“Hey, Yuu, your old apartment complex burned down, right?” Deuce said.

“Yeah, it was so tragic.”

Yuu flopped back across Ace’s lap. Ace was looking a little bit proud, something smug shining in his eyes. Yuu poked his cheek a few times, watching as a tiny smile threatened to steal its way across his lips.

“There’s hope for you, yet,” he teased.

Yuu gasped, as if he had heard the best news ever. “I can be evil, one day, too?!”

Deuce nodded along, ruffling Yuu’s hair. “I believe in you.”

The three of them managed to look at each other for a solid five seconds before they broke, smiles creeping across their faces.

Yuu’s snickers petered out quickly, though, in a soft, content sigh.

Of course, good things cannot last forever.

Loud footsteps came pounding up the stairs – the stairs leading up to Yuu’s little apartment were metal, for the sake of announcing intruders’ presence long before they could get to the room.

Yuu didn’t have to guess who would be running up to them in such a hurry. He jumped up, off of Ace’s lap, and looked around with wide eyes.

“Window,” Ace gasped.

Deuce threw it open, and then lowered himself down, carefully. The next window was too far away for him to safely reach. He would have to risk falling. They were only four floors up, but that was more than enough to do damage (or worse).

A quick death falling from great heights would be preferable to turning into a zombie, though.

Deuce barely managed to get to the next window, crumpling in on himself upon impact, making a funny whining sound, his hands flying to hold his ankle.

Yuu gave a sympathetic wince. He’d had an injury like that before. It was not fun.

It was possible to work through it, though, he knew.

Deuce, indeed, set to work. He fumbled with the window lock for a second before pulling a set of lockpicks from his pocket. Yuu was surprised to see Deuce had even had lockpicks on him – had he carried those before?

Ace grabbed Yuu by the arm, physically pulling his attention to him. “I don’t know if I can make that jump. Can you lower me?”

Yuu flashed a smile, returning Ace’s grip. “Don’t worry. I’m a king at letting people down.”

Ace snorted, and then turned back to the window.

Yuu was still in the process of helping Ace when the door hit the wall with a loud bang.

Floyd had arrived.

Yuu froze where he was. Leaning out of the window, Ace hanging just a meter too high for Deuce to easily reach him and help him down.

His hand, still wrapped around Ace’s arm, felt clammy.

“Floyd!” Yuu said, his voice cracking just slightly on the ‘y’ sound. “You’re home early!”

Floyd stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Well, two of our charges are unaccounted for. I needed to make sure you were safe.”

Yuu thought that, even if he hadn’t known it was Ace and Deuce that Floyd was after, he would have figured it out from those two sentences alone. The way he’d said that was entirely too formal, as if he had been practicing his explanation the entire time he’d been running up the stairs.

Yuu also thought that they were fucked.

He smiled and tried not to look too strained as Ace swung a bit, nearly sending an unprepared Yuu tumbling out the window.

He threw his arm out to catch himself, giving a low hiss when it connected with a nearby wall. His shoulder was more healed than injured by this point, but it was stiff from disuse, and it didn’t particularly like it when he moved it too fast or carried anything too heavy. And he had done both of those things. Fun!

“You okay?” Floyd asked, his tone perfectly pleasant as he stepped closer.

He knows he knows he knows, Yuu’s brain screamed, which wasn’t helpful!

“Almost – almost fell there!” Yuu admitted.

“Well, if that’s true, I should probably check your shoulder,” Floyd said.

Yuu felt a too-cold body settle beside him at the window.

Floyd peeked past him.

There was no hint of Ace or Deuce.

Not until there was a loud bang as a door slammed somewhere downstairs.

Floyd, finally, released the high cackle he’d been trying to hold back for the previous minute.

Yuu’s skin crawled at the sound, at the too-wide smile that spread across Floyd’s face.

Yuu caught Floyd by the hand before he could turn and book it right back down the stairs. He’d used his left arm, so Floyd couldn’t simply tear his way out of Yuu’s grip, not without injuring him… which he seemed to be considering. Yikes.

Yuu pulled the box of cigarettes from his pocket, his expression as content as can be despite the sound of feet pounding down the stairs. “Can I have a light?”

Floyd’s eyes gleamed with amusement. And, so, he humored Yuu by lighting the cigarette. It took a few tries for the paper to catch. Floyd had always been a little impatient when doing this for Yuu, and was doubly so when eager to catch his friends in the act.

In the end, Yuu bought them about twenty seconds.

Not much, but still something.

He worried his lip silently, listening intently for any sign that Ace and Deuce had been caught.

“Yuu,” a voice whispered after a second.

Yuu blinked and looked out the window again, smiling when he saw Deuce.

“I’m surprised Ace let you stay. I thought he’d argue more,” Yuu said as he dragged his friend back up to join him on the windowsill.

“No time. And he’s always had better endurance.”

Between the years of smoking and Deuce’s history as a track star (where he had been more focused on short dashes than marathons), Yuu supposed that checked out.

His eyes flicked to Deuce’s leg, still hanging out of the window. His ankle was angry and red, swollen beyond a reasonable size.

Yuu grimaced. There was that, too. Running would not be an easy thing for him, not for a while.

He sighed, pulling a drag from his cigarette. “Floyd’s gonna be coming back up later, you should leave, soon.”

“Yeah, probably,” Deuce agreed, making no move to leave. Instead, Deuce snatched the cigarette from between Yuu’s lips.

Yuu glared at him. “You’re not allowed to smoke, this isn’t bad enough to justify it.”

(Of course, Yuu would never consider any situation ‘bad enough’. He was supposed to be the guy’s impulse control, after all. Though that might be a little more difficult from now on, now that he was, probably, dealing with a mild-to-moderate addiction himself.)

“Then you’re not allowed to smoke, either,” Deuce retorted, setting the cigarette in his mouth and taking a deep breath in. The tension in his shoulders bled out. Yuu was pretty sure he had never seen Deuce look quite this content.

Yuu almost missed the slight furrow that always lingered in Deuce’s brow. At least that was natural.

Yuu sighed and held out a hand to take his cigarette back, with full intent to grind out the flames and toss it out the window.

“Just light a new one,” Deuce said.

“I don’t have a lighter,” Yuu said, shaking a new cigarette out of his box as if to prove to him that cigarettes don’t come pre-lit.

Deuce smiled. “You really were a goody-two-shoes before the apocalypse. Put that in your mouth.”

Yuu raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not falling for that trick. You just want me to look stupid.”

“I’m not you.”

Yuu sighed lightly. He wasn’t giving up, was he?

Whatever. Deuce could take the win. Yuu set the cigarette between his lips, biting down just slightly on the end to keep it in his mouth while he turned to look at Deuce, crossing his arms over his chest.

Deuce just gave a light laugh and leaned closer to him.

Yuu blinked as the end of his cigarette touched Deuce’s. It took a moment for the cigarette to catch, but it did eventually start to spark. A warm glow washed over his face.

Deuce drew back, looking extremely proud of himself. “Tada. It pays to have an ex-delinquent as a friend sometimes.”

Yuu pulled the now-lit cigarette from his lips, watching smoke curl between them.

“I’m going to chain smoke so much, now.”

Deuce choked on an inhale.

~~~~~

Pt23>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 21

<Pt20

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

“Can’t believe I showed you around the whole complex and you didn’t even pay attention!” Azul said.

Yuu lifted his hands in a shrug. “It’s not like it’ll matter.”

The twins didn’t seem to care if Yuu, nicely put, took himself off the census, so he doubted he would be allowed to walk around freely.

Frankly, he was pretty sure that the only reason he was allowed to walk around now was because Jade and Floyd were too busy torturing his friends for the high crime of Being Yuu’s Friends to remember that Yuu himself existed.

He wasn’t sure how long that would last.

He worried his lip.

And then he pulled a cigarette box from his pocket. It was Deuce’s. Yuu had never given the boy any, so it was still full. There was a splatter of blood across the already red packaging from one of the many times Yuu had been injured.

He shook a cigarette out and brought it to his lips, flicking his lighter to light it.

He had no intentions of breathing it in. In fact, doing so would defeat the purpose of this:

Establish a pattern.

If he inhaled, he’d start coughing, and that would be… well, an indication that he didn’t do this often. And embarrassing, which was far more of a problem, in Yuu’s eyes.

“That stressed already?” Azul said, looking a little too pleased about it. The dickhead.

Yuu smiled, and it was real, because he was more than happy for any excuse that would get the cigarette out of his mouth, if even for a moment. “This isn’t my first rodeo. And, y’know, I was starting to miss my old arson days, I’m glad to have an excuse to do it again.”

Azul’s smug little smile dropped.

“Please don’t burn down my mall. Do you know how long it took to get this place functional?!”

“Don’t give me a reason to burn the place down, and I won’t,” Yuu said. “It’s really that easy.”

“You know it’s not.”

“Get your dogs on leashes. I’m a cat person, you know?”

~

They were in the room that Yuu was sure he wouldn’t see the outside of for quite some time.

At least there was a window, this time.

Azul was already preparing to leave. But he hesitated, his hand in the doorway.

He turned to look at Yuu.

Yuu had flopped on the floor to inspect the carpet, stunned to find that there were no hints of blood among the white. Who cleaned this (because Yuu needed to ensure their pay was, at the very least, doubled)? Was it, somehow, untouched? Wild.

“How are you so calm about –? Nevermind. You’re clearly insane. Pro tip: if you want Jade and Floyd to not kill you, make sure they’re never bored.”

Yuu looked up just long enough to flash a wink his way.

“Who could ever get bored of me?”

~

The second Jade appeared in the doorway to Yuu’s house, he held a hand out for Yuu’s lighter.

Yuu smiled sweetly, batting his eyelashes. “You’re gonna have to fight me for it.”

He barely even got the sentence out before a fist came sailing for his head.

Yuu stumbled back, his eyes wide. He really hadn’t expected Jade to call his bluff.

But, hey, Yuu never really got to fight… anything, really, anymore! Who knows! Maybe attempted murder could be fun, if your target is literally unkillable!

He pulled a knife from his pocket and launched himself at Jade.

~

Yuu, of course, lost. He, frankly, wasn’t willing to risk popping the stitches in his shoulder again, because Ace and Deuce would never let him hear the end of it if they found out… and also, ew, pain, or something.

So, he got his ass handed to him. He was definitely going to have a few bruises in the morning.

On the bright side, though, Yuu got to stab Jade a few times. Which is basically free therapy. Stab any ‘Jade’s in your life to cancel your prescription to Mental Illness today!

Wait, he’d had a goal with all of this, hadn’t he?

He turned onto his side to face Jade. “Can you guys at least light my cigarettes for me?”

Jade raised an eyebrow, amused. “And since when have you taken a liking to smoking?”

“Very recently,” Yuu said, smiling innocently.

Jade smiled. It was an unnatural smile, stretching too wide on his face. The kind of smile zombies wore when they had just set eyes on their newest prey.

Jade didn’t trust him in the slightest.

But, apparently, he was into that:

“If that’s what you need to live comfortably, we would be more than happy to provide that for you,” Jade said. “... so long as you do not do anything idiotic, I don’t see the harm in providing you with small things like this.”

Yuu raised an eyebrow. “What would I even do? Swallow a flaming cigarette whole?”

“... you see, you have managed to come up with something far beyond anything I could imagine in a mere few seconds, and this is not instilling me with faith.”

“Shutting up now!”

~

Yuu blinked as he stepped out of the bathroom, and found Azul there.

Jade and Floyd were also there, but that, at least, was expected. They were zombies, they slept with Yuu – they slept in the same bed as Yuu, sorry, Yuu wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. Lord knows he got enough of that shit from Ace.

Regardless, the symbiotic nature of Yuu’s relationship with zombies was irrelevant. Azul was here and it was weird.

He frowned at Jade. “What’s he doing here? Aren’t we going to bed?”

Jade smiled. “Of course, a good night’s rest is vital for one’s health.”

“... you didn’t answer my first question, not sure if you noticed!”

“I did.”

“Floyddddddd,” Yuu whined, spinning on his heel to look at Floyd instead. “Heeeeelp.”

Floyd lifted Yuu off of his feet.

Hm.

“It’s my shoulder that’s injured, not my legs,” Yuu said, his patience already straining. It was day three, and actually using those cigarettes was becoming more and more tempting by the hour.

“I know!”

Yuu sighed through his nose. Loudly. Frankly, it didn’t sound much different than the scream he was suppressing, just a little quieter.

Thankfully, no one acknowledged it.

Unfortunately, this was also infuriating in its own right, so Yuu really wasn’t getting any wins here.

He looked at Azul. “Has anyone ever bitten them out of spite before? Because it’s really tempting.”

“I’ve considered it,” Azul admitted.

“You could always be the first, Yuu-chan!” Floyd said.

Yuu glared up at him. He would not be tricked into becoming inhuman, thanks.

Unfortunately, Floyd just seemed to think this was cute, because he pressed a kiss to Yuu’s forehead and squeezed him just a little tighter.

Yuu stabbed his knife into Floyd’s shoulder.

Which made his entire arm spazz out for a second. So, Yuu went crashing to the floor.

Yuu suffered. Every day. All the time.

Maybe this is why you don’t stab the people who are carrying you. An important thing to remember for later.

He sighed, pushing himself up to sit. At least the carpet cushioned his fall. A little. Like, marginally.

“Why are you here, senpai?” Yuu asked.

Azul hesitated, briefly, shuffling from one foot to the next. “Well, running a society is somewhat time-consuming, and I, occasionally, forget to sleep.”

“‘Forget’,” Jade said. He didn’t actually scoff, but the feeling of a scoff was definitely there.

Azul pulled his glasses down so he could glare at Jade. Yuu’s gaze caught on the dark bruising beneath his eyes.

“How do you forget to sleep for, like, three days in a row?” Yuu said.

Now Azul was glaring at him, too. Fun.

(It actually was a little funny, watching Azul’s head spin on a swivel so he could continually glare at either Jade or Yuu.)

Floyd rested his chin on Yuu’s good shoulder, smiling widely. “Exactly. So, since he’s stupid and can’t take care of himself, we take care of him instead!”

Yuu just nodded along. This all checked out. He still wasn’t sure why Azul was here, though.

“Now,” said Jade, placing his hands delicately on Azul’s shoulders before pushing him over, sending him toppling into the bed. “Sleep.”

Oh. Ohhhhhh.

If Azul wasn’t going to sleep, then Jade and Floyd were going to make him sleep. And the only way they could do that was if Azul was in the same bed as them.

Which would be fine. If Yuu wasn’t also, according to Zombie Law, forced to sleep in the same bed as any zombies who were currently watching over him.

“I’ll sleep on the couch!” Yuu said hastily. “It’s within view, so you guys don’t have to –!”

Arms wrapped around his waist from behind, lifting him just far enough off of the ground that he couldn’t get enough leverage to run away.

He went for his knife, but found his pocket already empty.

Damn it. He’d already used the stab Floyd in the shoulder trick once before! They were wise to it, now! Nooooo!

Despite their struggles against The System, it wasn’t long before Yuu and Azul were forced to lay beside each other in bed, as stiff as boards despite the two zombies wrapped around them.

Said zombies were openly staring at the two humans in their arms. Which is fun. You know, ever since Yuu was a little boy, he had always thought that the thing that would make sleep easier was two sets of eyes on him while he was trying to relax! So, really, he was having the time of his life right now!

(At least Grim had the decency to pretend to sleep.)

Yuu looked at Azul.

“If you have a nightmare I’m making you deal with it on your own.”

Azul’s eyes narrowed. “You’re such a disrespectful junior.”

“I am not doing any of the ‘there was only one bed’ tropes.”

~

“This place smells like an ashtray,” Azul commented when he stepped inside a few days later, his nose wrinkling.

Frankly, Yuu agreed. He tried to stay in the corner, to keep it as far away from where people actually lingered as he possibly could, but that wasn’t really how air worked…

He looked at the ceiling, and realized there was a thin layer of smoke over the whole room. Honestly, he’d barely even noticed. Dully, he wondered if he was slightly high. He had been trying to not inhale anything, because a cigarette addiction didn’t sound particularly easy to deal with, but… well, he was certainly calmer than he should be when cooped up like this.

He shook his head to clear it, and took a moment to recall what the conversation had been about. He really was high, huh?

Whatever.

“Certain people won’t let me open the window.”

Jade and Floyd sported infuriating smiles.

“I do not smell anything,” Jade said.

“You don’t breathe,” Azul hissed.

“We can breathe if we want to,” Floyd said, doing an exaggerated inhale –.

And then he erupted into a coughing fit.

“Ha!” said Azul. “Told you!”

Needless to say, Yuu was now allowed to open the window to smoke.

(If, privately, he missed the high, and maybe ‘accidentally’ breathed in cigarette smoke every once in a while, then that was no one’s business but his own.)

~~~~~

Pt22>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Best part of writing longfics is that i get to make big plot that goes fucking insane. Bad part is i go insane with it

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 64

First - Previous - Masterlist - TBC

Ito woke up on the floor.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t particularly surprising. The only thing that was even slightly different from normal was the ceiling — it wasn’t made of rotting wood, as they were used to, but instead of adobe, painted with swirling patterns that threatened to give them a headache.

Or maybe that was just the caffeine withdrawal…

Their eyes flicked to the side, briefly, and they found Kuroki leaning over the side of the bed, his lips pursed into a thin frown. Checking to make sure they weren’t dead, as usual.

But, the moment he realized they had ‘caught’ him, he flushed red and disappeared again.

Cute, they thought, absently.

And then they groaned and rolled under the bed, curling up into a tight ball.

“Ito…” Enma sighed. They felt a finger prod one of their calves. “Come out.”

“I’m nonbinary.”

“... gasp,” said Enma, flatly. “I’m so shocked.”

“You shouldn’t be. You should have expected this.”

“... get out from under the bed,” he said, sounding oh-so-very tired. Maybe he should join them under the bed for a second nap.

Ito told him this.

Enma retaliated by grabbing them by the foot and dragging them out from under the bed. Like a monster in a horror movie.

But instead of killing them, he threw a set of clothes into their lap. The clothes were blue, so Ito would honestly prefer being killed. Blue was not their color.

They glanced at Enma and Kuroki.

Enma had gotten orange. It washed out his skin, making him look just a hair strange, but he didn’t seem to mind all that much.

At least Enma, too, was being forced to deal with Fashion Crimes.

Kuroki, however, got red?! Bullshit.

Sure, it technically fit their personalities better, if Ito got a calm blue to show they were ‘easygoing’ or whatever and Kuroki got red because he was an angry lil dude… and the quality was nice, they were pretty sure this was real silk, which was so cool… but consider: no.

Ito threw their clothes at Kuroki. “Here. It’ll be a bit big on you, but you like that, anyway.”

Kuroki lit up.

~

Kuroki threw a bottle of sunscreen at the side of Ito’s head.

Ito opened said bottle and squirting as much of it into their hand as they could.

They slapped the cold sunscreen onto the back of Kuroki’s neck, giggling when he screeched, rubbing frantically at the new cold spot on his skin.

It was, perhaps, not the best way to apply sunscreen, but sunscreen applied in strange ways would always be better than no sunscreen at all.

Ito absently rubbed some of the excesses into their cheeks.

Kuroki looked at them like they had grown a second head. “You’re taking care of yourself? Willingly?”

Ito raised an eyebrow. “What, were you guys preparing to hold me down to put sunscreen on me or something?”

Their friends were silent. Which didn’t bode particularly well.

They crossed their arms over their chest. “Of course I’m going to wear sunscreen in the desert. I could get wrinkles!”

“Or skin cancer,” Enma said, faintly.

“I feel like I could beat skin cancer. But what can you do about wrinkles? Cry?”

Kuroki looked like he was debating replying to the ‘cancer doesn’t mean shit to me’ comment, but then he just shook his head to himself and said, “I dunno. You could get Botox.”

Enma cuffed Kuroki over the back of his head. “Don’t give them ideas! They’re willing to wear sunscreen! Who cares about the ‘why’ if it works?”

Ito felt a smile threaten to pull at their lips despite their mild annoyance. “It’s fine, Enma, I wouldn’t get a Botox injection, anyway. The Botox expands under your skin over time and, after a while, you start looking weird.”

Enma and Kuroki blinked at them, shocked.

Oh, right, they were from 2020 and 2025-ish respectively. It hadn’t started becoming common knowledge until somewhere in the late 2020s.

Or, maybe, the teen boys just hadn’t thought to care about the long-term effects of Botox. Honestly, both options were equally likely.

Oh well. Ito went back to making sure they didn’t get any premature wrinkles.

~

“Hey, do we have to put sunscreen on Grim?” Kuroki said.

They looked at the monster under their care, snoring away peacefully. He didn’t have fur anymore, because Azul was evil, so applying sunscreen to the monster wouldn’t be as difficult as it would have been a week ago.

But the ‘difficulty’ wasn’t why they were hesitating.

“... I dunno…” Ito said, scratching their head. “Look up whether… I don’t know. Seals? Is that what his texture is closest to, now? Check to see if seals can get skin cancer.”

Unfortunately – but not unsurprisingly – there was nothing on the internet about whether the sun ever gave seals skin cancer.

They decided that they would rather err on the side of caution.

Grim, to his credit, didn’t seem to mind. Ito wasn’t sure if Grim was aware that the Yuus weren’t simply petting him for the sake of petting him, but they certainly weren’t going to break the news to the monster.

“You should wake me up like this more often,” Grim said, his voice barely audible over his own purrs.

Ito pouted playfully. “No, that’s not fair. I can’t be the only person that gets kicked out of bed all the time.”

“You don’t have veto power,” Enma said, grinning.

“I veto that statement,” Ito said.

Kuroki snickered, before falling against Enma’s shoulder, tucking his face out of sight, as if he were in mourning. “Fuck, why didn’t we think of that? Now they have all the power.”

“It’s okay, I promise I’ll only use it for evil sometimes.”

Enma snickered. “Well, I guess, if it’s only sometimes…”

~

John’s face screwed up in a confused expression when he opened the door and set his eyes on Ito and Kuroki. “Uh… I’m not sure… aren’t you two supposed to be swapped?”

Ito and Kuroki blinked back at him, entirely innocent. As if they had no clue what he was saying. Because, had they truly been innocent, they really wouldn’t know what he was trying to tell them.

“Like… your clothes are wrong…?”

Ito and Kuroki looked at each other. Feigned surprise.

“Oh, you know what, that makes so much more sense,” said Ito. “I did think the shoulders were kind of tight on this…”

“Should we change real quick?” Kuroki said, his hands fluttering around nervously. “Do we have time to?”

John glanced at his phone for the time and grimaced. There was not, in fact, enough time, unless they wanted to risk the wrath of the unstable Scarabia Housewarden. Which they already knew John was not willing to do.

All of this was, of course, a coincidence. Ito just took a long time to wake up in the mornings – doubly so when they didn’t have caffeine. Really, it couldn’t be helped.

(Please ignore the way that Ito and Kuroki’s expressions sharpened into smirks the moment John turned around. It meant nothing.)

~

Ito felt like they had been fried and served.

The sand beneath their feet shifted with every step, threatening to send them to the ground. Part of them was tempted to allow this – they were so tired.

The only reason they didn’t was that the sand was even hotter than the air. Somehow.

Their mouth was dry. Their throat clicked with every swallow.

It was all too much. And not the kind that allowed them to simply slip out of their mind, no, they were kept, frustratingly, present. They had never felt as tethered to their own body as they were in that exact moment.

The too-warm monster in their arms wasn’t helping. But said monster was just a baby – a toddler, they were pretty sure – so Ito wasn’t intent on making him brave the elements on his own.

Besides, they couldn’t really complain, not when Enma had been tasked with carrying Kuroki. Kuroki was unathletic at the best of times. He had only barely made it to the top of the stairs. Neither Ito nor Enma wanted to watch the guy keel over from heat stroke after being forced to walk for miles through the desert.

Kalim was shouting at them, ordering them to stay in formation. The megaphone he was yelling into making his voice sound robotic, ringing with a coldness that only made the desert heat sting more.

If Ito’s arms weren’t so full of Monster, they might have flipped him off.

Jamil hung close to them, visibly fretting. “Can’t you guys just… listen to him?” he asked, almost pleading.

“Kill yourself,” Kuroki said, bluntly.

“Sorry, orders from our Housewarden trump anything your Housewarden tells us to do,” Enma said, as if he had ever listened to anything Kuroki told him to do.

Kuroki, wisely, opted not to point this out.

Whether or not Jamil knew they were lying to his face, the point had been made clear: they weren’t budging on this.

Jamil worried his lip.

Ito hesitated, their eyes flicking over the crowd of Scarabia students, marching steadily onward. None of them were talking – they were too tired to. This didn’t mean that none of them were listening. And, if the dorm lived up to its reputation, then…

They looked at Jamil. “Kuroki has asthma.”

Kuroki’s face flushed in embarrassment, but Ito was going to pretend that his face was just red from the heat.

They had more important priorities, after all: they didn’t care if he was embarrassed, so long as he was alive.

A few nearby Scarabia students glanced at each other. But they looked confused.

Shit, the people of the Scalding Sands spoke a different language. Did they not know the word ‘asthma’ in Common?

It seemed like the answer was ‘no’, because Jamil’s lips tugged into a frown. Clearly, he knew it was a problem, because his eyes had widened briefly after Ito had told him that Kuroki had a condition, but as for what the condition was…

“Asthma…” Jamil mumbled, struggling to place to word. “As… thma… oh! الربو !”

The nearby Scarabia students immediately went tense, whispering among themselves.

Ito watched the rumor creep, slowly, along the group of marching students. It hopped from person to person.

Until it reached the front.

Kalim froze mid-shout.

He nearly dropped his megaphone in his surprise, fumbling with it for a moment. Everyone groaned as the machine released a high-pitched whine. A couple of yajugen’s ears flicked backward, their fur bristling in irritation.

And then Kalim brought it back to his lips. “Hang in there, everyone! The oasis isn’t that far away!”

Jamil lifted a hand to rub one of his temples. “Aaaaand now he’s back to normal,” he muttered, more under his breath than anything.

Ito’s eyes flicked to him.

Jamil raised an eyebrow at them.

Ito flashed a smile. “Thanks for your help, senpai.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ito’s smile didn’t waver in the slightest.

He’s a liar, they thought, their gaze returning to the front.

~

The oasis was pitiful, really. The trees were alight with life, a vibrant green, but they had stolen almost all of the water from the nearby pond. Now, there was barely enough water for people to dip their feet in.

Not that Ito was all that eager to take off their shoes and enjoy it. The sand beneath their feet was strange – rock hard. Not quite wet, but it certainly had been recently.

At least they weren’t in danger of slipping anymore.

Ito watched a couple of Scarabia students rush to the water, trying to make the most of what was there.

The Yuus were a little sick of playing in the water, after all of the stuff with Octavinelle.

So, instead of lying face down in the shallow water like John, they instead opted to collapse under the shade of a tree in a heap of sweaty limbs. It was extremely uncomfortable, and probably not the best for cooling down, but none of them moved to rectify this.

Kalim hopped down from his high horse (sorry, elephant) and rushed over to them, his eyes wide. “Are you four okay?!”

Ito lifted their head just slightly to squint at him.

It was like he had two completely separate personalities… and Ito would, normally, assume that it was some kind of Multiple Personalities situation, because that was the natural conclusion… but natural conclusions were always wrong in this world, so they had their doubts.

It was, probably, magic-related.

Too bad they had never been all that interested in the magical aspects of this place.

They glanced at their two friends. Enma was glaring at Kalim, his arms still wrapped around Kuroki, smothering the boy, tugging him so close to his chest that Kuroki was in danger of suffocating. Not that Kuroki minded, the little parts of his face that Ito could see were lax, he looked content to the point of possibly falling asleep.

Ito sent Kalim a smile. “We’ll be fine, I think. Some water would be nice, though.”

Kalim’s eyes widened. “Water? You need water?”

“My throat’s as dry as a bone,” Grim complained. “I’m not a dog. Bones suck, you know!”

Kalim, with fumbling hands, pulled his wand from one of his pockets and pointed it at the sky, his smile brighter than the sun. “Then water you shall have! I'll make sure it’s cool and refreshing for you, ‘kay? Respite in the Scalding Sands, a neverending party – dance! Sing! Oasis Maker!”

A drop of water landed on top of Ito’s head.

And then it was quickly joined by another. And another.

The previously painfully cloudless sky was shrouded in rain clouds, water pouring down in sloughs.

Honestly, it should have hurt. Rain this thick and intense usually felt like a hundred tiny punches, beating down on their head, threatening to knock umbrellas out of the unwary’s hands.

Instead, it was soothing. A cool balm for otherwise feverish skin.

The Yuus breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Kuroki pulled away from Enma, briefly, to cup his hands, smiling when water gathered in his palms. He brought his hands to his lips.

Grim tipped his head back to try to catch some water on his tongue. It was much less successful than Kuroki’s attempts, but it is what it is.

Enma frowned. “Guys… don’t drink rainwater, you don’t know what could be in it!”

Ito wasn’t quite as worried. In many places, rainwater was safer to drink than tap water. Not that they particularly wanted to drink rain or tap water themself. They barely even drank bottled water if they could help it.

“Oh! Don’t worry! Magical water is extremely pure!” Kalim said, the gem in his wand still glowing faintly. “And I can make as much of it as you need!”

“If you’re really freaking out about it, try some!” Grim said, nudging Enma’s hand with his paw. “It's basically the perfect temperature. Not too cold to drink, but not lukewarm, either. And it goes down all nice 'n smooth, like fresh spring water!”

Enma looked doubtful, but he did lick his lips briefly to test the water that had inevitably gathered there.

“It’s… nice,” Enma said, sounding mildly upset to find that he was wrong.

Ito giggled.

Enma sent them an exasperated look in return. He flicked their shoulder. “You should drink some.”

Ito hesitated.

They would still prefer bottled water, but a glance at the animals that they paraded through the desert showed that they hadn’t been carrying anything of use. Just flashy ‘outfits’. So, this was their only option.

They tipped their head back and joined Grim in trying to catch water in their mouth.

It was extremely ineffective.

But they still grinned widely as they did it, fighting back laughter at the mildly exasperated expressions Kuroki and Enma sported.

“You’re such a child,” Enma said.

“You’re just jealous that you’re all old and wrinkly.”

“Wrinkly?!” Enma gasped.

“They’re right, you’re going to get forehead wrinkles any day now,” Kuroki said, nodding along.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Ito said, poking Kuroki’s forehead and watching it immediately scrunch up.

“Hey! I’m on your side!”

Ito stuck their tongue out at him. “Bold of you to assume I’m on a side at all.”

Kuroki narrowed his eyes, and then flung himself at Ito, wrapping around them, clinging like a limpet that would die if he was parted from their side. “I’m making a side for us, then! Right here, right now!”

Ito snickered. “What are you talking about?”

“And I’m also on their side!” Enma joined in, dragging them both into his lap so he could hug them more comfortably.

Kuroki huffed. “That’s not how it works!”

“That’s my line!” Ito said.

They managed to pout for a solid five seconds before they broke, leaning against Enma, sliding their arms around Kuroki.

Something in the back of their mind settled. Being this close to Kuroki and Enma felt right.

It wasn’t, they knew, but it certainly felt like it was.

It seemed nice, like the path of least resistance. Ito liked sailing calm waters. It would be easy to give in and love Enma and Kuroki, to let the memories of their family fade into just that – fond memories – and move on. No one would blame them, after all, it wasn’t like they were getting much choice in the matter.

Unfortunately, Ito feared that the calm waters that they sometimes wanted to sail only appeared that way. That they would get swept away by a hidden current beneath the waves and find themself drowning, even more helpless than before and even less capable of doing something about it.

This world was dangerous.

“I’m glad you all seem okay,” Kalim cut in.

The three Yuus jumped, their heads spinning to look at Kalim.

Ito was mildly surprised the guy had stuck around – Ito, certainly, would have left out of sheer awkwardness if they had been fourth-wheeling a scene like this.

But, no, Kalim seemed ecstatic.

… no, actually, that was slightly off. He was energetic, sure, and smiling widely, but his hands were once again fluttering around nervously as he said:

“Is – is this really all you need? I’m not sure what we brought, but there has to be something more I can do to help you all!”

Ito frowned just slightly.

This was getting to be a bit much.

Even coming from Kalim, who had always insisted on rectifying all perceived wrongs to the point where it was somewhat funny, this was excessive. Usually, he backed off when he felt satisfied that things would be fine, and providing them water like this should have sated him, but he was still hovering, something strangely intense in his gaze whenever it settled on Kuroki. As if he was expecting the boy to drop dead any moment.

Kuroki had asthma, yes, and asthma can be fatal in fringe cases, but this level of care wasn’t necessary. Especially not when Kuroki wasn’t even actively having an asthma attack.

It seemed Ito had gotten more than they bargained for. They had expected a reaction, of course, when they had told Kalim, however indirectly, about Kuroki’s condition. They had thought Kalim would feel bad and stop yelling at them.

This was more than they had ever expected.

But maybe they should have set their expectations here, in the first place.

They thought back to their allergy to hedgehogs. Everyone had freaked out. Even when it had just been the smell of hedgehogs lingering on Ace and Deuce’s clothes that very first day, so faint that it had only barely irritated their nose… they had run away as soon as they possibly could.

And Ito was pretty sure that they had never seen anyone here get sick, either.

In a world with potions and magic spells and advanced tech and people made of stronger constitutions… what did people think of people with chronic conditions?

Ito had already assumed most of the people here would think of the Yuus as essentially disabled on account of their magiclessness – they had already proven as such, treating them with far more care during fights than they really needed to. Now, they wondered if, in this world, Ito and Kuroki really were disabled.

It wasn’t a particularly fun thought to have.

But it could be useful, so they mentally pocketed the information, and then turned to Jamil, who was slinking his way over slowly, his hood up to keep the rain at bay.

“Kalim, let it go,” Jamil sighed. “We should start heading back to the dorm.”

Kalim blinked up at him. And then his face screwed up in a truly childish pout. “Already? A little more time to catch our breath wouldn’t hurt any!”

“The sun will rise higher if we take too long. The hotter it gets, the worse our trip back will be.”

“You've got a point…” Kalim pushed himself to his feet, and then turned to the dorm at large, beaming. “Okay, guys! Let's get back to the dorm and have breakfast! Back to marching!”

~

The Yuus had been allowed to ride back on the elephant with Kalim. Kuroki had made friends with the elephant, somehow, and Grim had sulked jealously for all of five seconds before Ito and Enma had started attacking the monster with pets to make up for Kuroki’s temporary ‘infidelity’.

~

“– this is getting insane,” a student whispered.

“I really never thought Kalim-senpai would do something like that…” another said.

“And to a kid with الربو of all things,” said a third. “That guy could have died.”

“I mean, Kalim-senpai didn’t know,” the second hedged. “Once he did, he let all four of them ride the elephant with him!”

The first voice scoffed. “The fact that he made them walk at all was cruel.”

Ito popped one of the kunefe cookies they had pilfered from the kitchen into their mouth, grinning. 

Different world, same politics.

The cookie crunched between their teeth, and they rounded the corner.

The Scarabia students didn’t look as surprised to see Ito as they should have. They were surprised, yes, but only that Ito had revealed themself so easily – they had known that Ito was within earshot, why else would they speak in Common instead of in the language of the Scalding Sands?

That conversation had been for Ito’s benefit.

But why? What was their goal?

Ito’s shoes clicked a merry tune into the floors as they rushed to the guest room they were technically being held prisoner in.

And yet. They were having the time of their life.

They had been so worried that their Winter Break would be boring, after all. Why shouldn’t they be happy to learn that they had been wrong?

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 20

<Pt19

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

Hm.

Yuu could admit that being carried places made him feel kind of regal. He was a man of simple pleasures. He could see the appeal of being princess-carried until the end of time.

If he wasn’t fucking terrified, maybe he would be enjoying it more.

“Azul won’t bite us, either,” Jade said. “It’s as if he doesn’t care about science.”

Oh. And there was that.

Jade and Floyd wanted Yuu to bite them.

“I – I’m not a vampire, I’m not really interested in drinking blood,” Yuu said, wincing a little when the joke came out too flat.

“But aren’t you curious?” Jade asked.

Yuu’s eyes flicked away from Floyd, briefly, to Jade.

And then to Ace and Deuce. Trailing along behind Jade. A white-knuckled grip on their weapons.

Weapons that, of course, wouldn’t be all that helpful in this case, seeing as zombies are able to regenerate any cells you didn’t destroy.

Yuu had their only lighter. He wasn't quite suicidal enough to set fire to a person who was actively holding him, and he didn't want to draw attention to the weapon lest it get taken. So, they were shit out of luck.

They had become complacent.

Floyd’s face filled Yuu’s vision, his nose nearly touching Yuu’s.

Up close, the glassy sheen of death made the twins’ brown eyes look almost yellow.

Yuu’s breath caught in his throat. He shrunk as much as he could in Floyd’s arms to try and put just a little more distance between them.

“Jaaade,” Floyd said, almost whining. “It’s so annoying, when his eyes stray. Can’t we just kill them?”

“No,” snapped Yuu, before Jade could even open his mouth.

Floyd huffed.

“Now, Floyd, you know just as well as I that Yuu-chan has threatened to – how you say – end himself if Ace and Deuce were unjustly killed.”

Yuu nodded along fervently. He didn’t really remember saying that, but he didn’t remember a lot of things, and he’d say anything to keep Ace and Deuce alive.

“So? We can always bring him back,” Floyd said, smiling down at Yuu.

His teeth were too sharp.

Yuu didn’t want to even swallow, too scared that it would draw the zombie’s gaze to the Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck.

“It – it wouldn’t be the same,” Ace said, his voice squeaking just slightly in fear.

“Wouldn’t it, though?” Floyd said. “I mean, no one knows Yuu-chan like we do. And even if we do get something wrong because we don’t know him perfectly, then how would we know it was wrong, anyways?”

Was Yuu even breathing anymore? He certainly didn’t feel like air was entering his lungs like it was supposed to.

Jade said, tapping a finger on his chin rhythmically. “And, I do have to admit, Yuu-chan is great, but he’s hardly perfect. He has quite a few rough edges that I wouldn’t mind sanding out.”

No no no nononONONONO.

NO.

~

He was on his own two feet. Jade and Floyd were still leading him along by the hands, like a child they were scared would get lost in the mall they were steadily getting closer to, if only they left him alone for a few seconds. Walls stretched high above their heads. Barbed wire gleamed in the waning light of the sun, already creeping below the horizon.

Yuu couldn’t remember getting here, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to, anyway.

“Floyd! Jade!” a voice screamed.

A person clad in heavy clothes ran up to them.

It wasn’t like in the movies. Where people run at each other in slow-mo and envelope each other in a delicate hug to show just how much they had missed each other.

A knife lodged itself in Jade’s forehead.

To his credit, Jade didn’t even seem annoyed by the blood now spilling over one of his eyes, blinking lazily at the boy. “It’s nice to see you again, too, Azul.”

The guy was too busy hitting Floyd in the shoulder with a crowbar to answer him. But, surely, if he wasn’t preoccupied, he would have said ‘hello’. It would have been rude if he didn’t, after all.

The guy finally noticed Yuu, lodged between the two zombies, both of his hands thoroughly trapped within their own.

If anything, his expression only twisted further in disgust.

“Do I really look that bad?” Yuu said. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to fix my hair before getting kidnapped, you’re just gonna have to bear with me.”

The guy’s already pale skin went even paler. He hit Floyd with the crowbar. Again. With actual intent this time. Yuu heard a bone crack.

Floyd, of course, couldn’t feel pain, being a zombie, but he did give a gasp of offense. “Hey! Ow?!”

“You two disappear for a while week without even telling me that you were leaving and for what?! To kidnap some random guy?!”

“Azul, this is hardly ‘some random guy’,” Jade said. “Azul, meet Yuu-chan.”

For a moment, the boy’s face flicked from anger to pure shock.

His lips pursed into a thin line.

‘Azul’ grabbed Yuu by the arm and yanked him out of Jade and Floyd’s holds, pulling him behind himself.

“Aw, what a kind, responsible senior,” Yuu said, smiling.

Azul sent him a glare over his shoulder. “Am I your senpai?”

“I mean. Your hair is white. Clearly, you’re getting up there in years –.”

“Know what, Jade? Floyd? You can have him back.”

Yuu squeaked and tucked himself into hiding behind Azul. It probably looked ridiculous from the point of view of… everyone, really – someone as tall as Yuu should not be cowering behind anyone, but he had to try!

Azul tried to pinch the bridge of his nose, but all he managed to do was hit himself in the head with his crowbar.

Yuu was reconsidering hiding behind him.

(No. Azul was, probably, safe. Safer than Ace and Deuce, at least. Jade and Floyd were already at risk of snapping and biting Yuu’s friends even when they didn’t do anything to piss the twins off. If Azul could blatantly attack the twins without retaliation, then he was Yuu’s best bet.)

“And who are they?!” Azul said, pointing at Ace and Deuce with the hand that wasn’t holding onto Yuu.

“Some gum that has stuck to the bottom of Yuu-chan’s shoes,” Jade said, his smile cold.

“And,” Floyd added, his eyes bright with sadistic glee. “The reason for the hole in our defenses.”

Every eye fell upon Deuce. On the bat in his hand, wrapped in barbed wire.

Ah, shit.

The beginnings of color began to rise to Azul’s cheeks.

“... in our defense, we didn’t think it’d ever come back to bite us,” said Deuce.

Unsurprisingly, this did not alleviate any of Azul’s anger.

~

Ace and Deuce got dragged off with the twins with the orders to do ‘anything short of killing them’.

The twins had sulked about their foiler murder plans for all of five seconds before grabbing Yuu’s friends and throwing them over their shoulders, carrying them off to do who knows what. Torture, probably.

Yuu turned away, toward Azul, smiling. “‘Sup,” he said, offering him a hand to shake. “I’m Yuu, the resident court jester.”

Azul eyed him warily.

He still shook his hand, though. “Azul Ashengrotto. I’m a sophomore.”

Yuu’s eyebrows knit. “Uh – what’s a ‘sophomore’?”

“... American thing,” Azul said, sighing.

Yuu yanked his hand away, as if he had been burned. “You’re an American?!”

Azul frowned. “Why does everyone react like that?”

“American…” Yuu said.

Things, suddenly, made so much more sense. Of course Jade and Floyd were American. Who else would so casually kidnap someone without care for their mental health?! Americans!

(Yuu ignored that kidnappings occur everywhere. Clearly, those crimes were also done by Americans. Tourism exists, after all!)

Azul sighed, pushing his sunglasses up his nose to pinch the space between his brows.

When he looked at Yuu, his eyes were a pale shade of blue, webbed with red, irritated blood vessels.

Ohhhhh, he’s albino, Yuu thought, feeling a little bad for making fun of the guy’s hair, now. Only a little, though, the guy was American so being a dick to him was clearly fair play.

He crossed his arms over his chest uncomfortably. “So, uh… I guess you’ll need to show me around the place, since I’ll probably be sticking around for a while.”

Azul raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to make a break for it?”

“They’d kill Ace and Deuce if I did,” Yuu shrugged. “And I can’t outrun every zombie in the country.”

Azul nodded along. “Yeah. If nothing else, at least Jade and Floyd keep me safe. Where’s your zombie?”

Yuu frowned, more than a little confused. “Well, Grim is – all of – all of them are my zombies –? What do you mean ‘Jade and Floyd keep me safe’? From what? Other zombies?”

“Yeah…?” Azul said, just as unsure.

“Doesn’t their affection for you transfer to other zombies? That’s why Jade and Floyd like me ‘n all… it’s a hivemind…”

Maybe Jade and Floyd were lying to Azul to keep him close?

“Yeah, it’s a hivemind, and they all hate us three. I’m just the only one that they can actually retaliate against.”

Yuu blinked dumbly.

Azul’s eyes widened. “Oh, you don’t know! Jade and Floyd bit the zombies, they weren’t bitten by them. So, the hivemind doesn’t have as much of an effect on them. I think that scares the other zombies –.”

“Excuse me, they did what?!”

~~~~~

Pt21>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

28. Which fic is closest to your heart

Oh, easy!

Canary

I gush about it at every given opportunity, but I really do think it's probably the best fic I've ever written BECAUSE the subject matter is so close to my heart.

Thanks for your ask!

Ask game

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

4? :0

4. Post a screenshot of one of your favorite comments

Let's seeee. I could go the sentimental route and point to the first comment one of my friends put on one of my works (if I did, I'd probably point to my friend Ace :D), but that seems a little biased, soooooo...

Probably this one on Dancing 'Til the Break of Dawn:

I reread it whenever I'm feeling down :D

Thanks for asking!

Ask game

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

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[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 63

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

Hm.

So. Ito has been kidnapped.

That is certainly…

Hm.

They ran a hand through their hair, glancing back at the door they had been shoved through. It hadn’t locked behind them, which wasn’t all that surprising considering John had been apologizing the entire time he’d dragged them here. He was, at least, pretending to feel bad, which meant the unlocked door was a must.

They could hear John getting comfortable on the other side. Opening the door would force him to lock it for appearance's sake, which would make escaping much harder.

But, of course, if he locked it, then people probably wouldn’t be on guard…

Damn. Why hadn’t they asked Deuce to teach them lockpicking?! They carried bobby pins everywhere they went, they could have been in and out so quickly.

Ito sighed, setting Grim on the bed.

Grim looked up at them with wide eyes. “What do we do?”

“Uhhhhhh…” said Ito, glancing at the door. If they could hear John shifting around outside, then John could hear anything they said, too. “I don’t know, yet.”

It was a great excuse for not saying anything. Because they, in fact, truly did not know yet.

They pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Why don’t you sleep for a bit? I’ll try to think of something while you’re out, yeah?”

Grim hesitated. “Are you sure, henchman? I can always blow the door down.”

“Call that Plan B. You know I like being a little more subtle than that,” Ito placated.

Grim seemed a little bit dubious about the whole thing, but the bed underneath him was soft, and he drifted off pretty quickly.

Ito smiled, softly, stroking a hand down his back, to make sure he was really asleep.

And then they turned to the room at large, their smile dropping.

It was a simple guest room with an en suite bathroom. Pretending to need to Go and escaping somewhere along the way was out of the question.

It was a few stories up, and the windows didn’t open, so making a great escape through a window wasn’t possible, either.

Ugh.

Ito’s eyes flicked to the mirror on the wardrobe.

They… hadn’t gotten their hands on an actual mirror since they’d gotten to Twisted Wonderland.

They approached it, slowly, almost scared of what they would see.

But it was just… them.

They weren’t sure why, but they had been expecting some kind of change. For their face to not be their own. To be unrecognizable.

They were a little thinner, they supposed, but they had had less access to food, so that wasn’t all that surprising. Their face was less well-maintained, there were a few pieces of hair between their brows that they hadn’t caught, and a few above their lips that they had missed.

They met their own eyes, briefly, and recoiled just slightly.

Had their eyes always been quite that dark? Were they actually dull and lifeless? When people looked at them, did they, too, get the impression that there was nothing staring back?

It was stupid. They knew there was someone in there – they wouldn’t be thinking if there wasn’t. They were being paranoid, looking for some kind of confirmation.

They shivered, just slightly.

And then they hooked their hand around the frame and yanked on the mirror.

They stepped to the side, watching dispassionately as the mirror hit the ground.

“Oh – oh my God!” Ito gasped, kneeling down to clean up.

John burst into the room. A hand grabbed Ito by the back of their shirt and yanked them away from the mirror shards.

“You’ll hurt yourself!” John snapped. “Let me do it.”

Ito nodded, watching through their bangs as John swept the glass away with a gust of wind magic, hugging themself.

“I don’t know what happened!” Ito said, forcing their voice higher. “I was just trying to – to – preen a little and it just fell!”

John led the broken pieces of the mirror out the door, before sending them a placating smile. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”

They nodded jerkily.

“And your familiar, is he –?” He glanced at Grim. “How is he still asleep?”

“Honestly? No clue,” Ito said, careful to keep their smile tinged with nerves.

John sighed, softly, running a hand through his hair, fox ears just barely twitching upon his head. “Well, I guess it’s fine. Just… be more careful, yeah?”

Ito nodded again.

They watched him leave once again. Absently, they wondered where he would dispose of the mirror. Would it give them enough time to run? They hadn’t seen any trash cans along the way.

But, to escape, they would have to run up the stairs, and Ito was far less used to the trek than the Scarabia students.

Man…

Ito flopped back on the bed beside Grim, dragging one of their hands out from beneath their armpits. They lifted the mirror shard in their fist, glaring up at it. It was relatively big, but it wouldn’t do them much good unless they were prepared to stab someone.

Which they wouldn’t do. Unless it was necessary, of course. And they doubted it would be. But it still gave them a sense of comfort.

They, slowly, pulled their phone from their pocket.

Let’s see…

They tapped on the one labeled ‘Birdman /neg’ (it seems like Kuroki had renamed all of the contacts) and brought their phone to their ear.

“Hello, you’ve reached Dire Crowley.”

“Crowleyyyyy, I’ve been kidnapped,” Ito whined.

Crowley made a sound not unlike choking on air. “By who?”

(Ito was pretty sure they heard him mutter the words “Why didn’t I think of that?”, but they were going to ignore that.)

“Scarabia. Kalim-senpai’s having some sort of – I dunno – mental break…? And now I’m stuck here.”

“But you have your phone? Are they treating you poorly?”

“They’re gonna make me do a march in the desert, and a bunch of extra homework,” Ito said. “Can you deal with it? Pleaaaase?”

Crowley was quiet for a moment more.

“... well, you know, had you just agreed to come along with me for vaca – investigation, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Oh, you petty bitch.

Ito tipped their head back in a groan. “Alright. Fine. I’ll tell you if they try to, like, kill me or something. In the meantime, I guess it’s my problem, not yours. Bye.”

“Byebye!” Crowley said.

Ito hung up, glaring at the ceiling as they thought.

Alright. Plan… well, not Plan B, that was the Grim-blows-shit-up plan. Which Ito would totally circle back to if worse comes to worst. But, for now, Ito was moving on to Plan C.

Making it Crowley’s problem Pt2.

Also known as: weaponizing their friend group.

Ito picked one named ‘Public Enemy #1’.

“Yea’h’llo?” Ace said. He didn’t sound entirely awake. Ito recalled, suddenly, that the Queendom was a few hours ahead. Whoops.

Oh well. He was awake, now, so…

“Ace! Remember how you said that we should call you if something happened?”

“Yeeesssss?” he said, suddenly much more alert.

“Well. You see. I’ve kinda been kidnapped. And the Headmaster sucks, y’know?”

Was Ito implying that the Headmaster was the one who had kidnapped them? Perhaps. But they hadn’t said it outright, which meant, technically, they weren’t lying!

Ace was quiet.

“Where’s Crowley?”

Ito rattled off the man’s vacation details with ease. They crossed one leg over the other, absently bouncing their foot. “So, you know that, if you say his name, he’ll hear what you say, right? He knows you’re going to go after him.”

“Good.”

Hm. Ace might actually kill Crowley.

Or Ito, when he figured out they were leaving out information.

Or both of them, honestly.

Eh.

Ace needed to find Crowley to get the Dark Mirror open, anyway. Sending him after Crowley was the only way to get him back to campus, as far as they knew, since all of the trams from the school to the village at the base of the mountain would be down for the break… unless Ace wanted to climb the mountain or something, which Ito doubted.

“Great. See you later!” Ito said, cheerfully.

Ace hung up before they could. And without even saying goodbye! How rude.

They pouted. Absently, they scrolled through their contacts again. They could call ‘2 cool for skool’ or ‘Alpha Male Podcaster’, but they were pretty sure Ace would fill them in anyways and, if he didn’t, then Ito figured the two of them should be allowed to enjoy their break.

More importantly, they didn’t want to interrupt their friends’ sleep, so it seems they were moving on to ‘Octopussy Gang’.

“Ito-san!” Azul said, before the phone had rang even once.

There was yelling in the background.

Ito blinked. “I thought this was Floyd Leech-senpai’s number.”

“It is! But! I need you to tell your friends that you’re alright, and on your way home, please. I’m putting you on speaker –.”

“–  FUCKING GIVE ME THE PHONE, AZUL.”

Ito snorted. Ah. So, that’s what was going on in the background.

“You’re doing alright, yes, Ito-san?” Azul prompted, sounding like he was speaking through gritted teeth.

Ito hummed lightly. “Yeah. Doing great.”

“Great, so you two can calm –.”

“I mean. Scarabia kidnapped me, but y’know. The food is nice and the room is free, so I’m dealing.”

“WHAT.”

There were several overlapping voices on the other end of the line after that, a loud BANG!, and then things went more-or-less quiet.

Someone was breathing hard into the mic.

Enma, apparently, because he said, “Hey, Ito. Anything we need to know before we come get you?”

“Did you kill him?” Ito said, flatly. “Because I’m pretty sure phone calls can be recovered as evidence. We cannot go to jail.”

“Nah, he’s… fine-ish.”

Ito decided that was good enough.

“Uhhh. The entrance to the dorm is right next to the mirror. Say fa-ta-ha. Also, the ceiling will have bugs on it.”

Enma sighed, softly. Ito could practically see the way he pinched the space between his brows. “The things I do for you.”

Ito felt their face warm. “M…hmm… thanks.”

“See you soon,” Enma promised.

“See you,” Ito echoed.

“Here’s your phone, senpai,” Enma said, his voice so very sweet.

There was a beat as the phone was handed off.

“Did you not hear me tell you to inform your friends you were doing fine?” Azul asked.

“I did say that,” Ito reminded him, frowning. “I just also ‘informed’ them that I had been kidnapped right after, so they didn’t pay much attention to that.”

Azul hung up.

Ito’s mouth dropped open.

What is wrong with the kids in this world?!

They turned off the phone, sulking, turning onto their side to drag Grim into their chest. This was terrible. They had been kidnapped, and hung up on (twice!), and there was a mirror shard pressed uncomfortably against the side of their stomach. Truly, this was the worst possible dimension.

Grim turned over in their arms, burrowing into the fabric of their shirt.

Awwwww.

Okay. There were some good things about being in this dimension. They supposed.

They let their eyes slip closed, allowing themself to drift for a while.

Not to sleep, they didn’t want to miss it when Enma and Kuroki got there, but drifting nonetheless.

They could spend the time thinking, of course, but, frankly, they hated what their mind always circled back to:

What did it matter, if they accepted this world or not, if they couldn’t go home, anyway?

What was the point in trying to change things, if everything was predetermined from the moment they’d come here?

How were they supposed to care about anything, when nothing was real?

Why were they still playing along?

But Ito preferred to let those kinds of thoughts pass them by.

It was nice, sometimes, to simply not Be. To let their eyes glaze over and their expression go slack and let their mind simply slip out of their head. To focus on making sure their breathing – which they were, unfortunately, extremely aware of – was as even as they could make it.

Because, again, there was no point in doing anything here. Things were going to go however they were going to go regardless of whether Ito wanted them to, so they might as well sit back and let things do what they wanted. Less stressful that way.

Perhaps a little more depressing, but everyone has to make tradeoffs from time to time.

Hm. Another thing to Not Think About.

It took about an hour for them to hear voices coming down the hall.

“– we could steal their weird-as-hell golden toaster, and then sell it to buy a normal toaster and bread to toast,” Kuroki said, laughing maniacally.

“Er,” said John. “I can hear you, you know.”

“No, you can’t,” Enma said.

“Hear what?” Kuroki blatantly gaslit the poor guy. “Are you sure you’re not having a psychotic break? They tend to happen when you’re stressed out, you know.”

“The Headmaster should really get someone on campus to deal with people’s mental issues,” Enma agreed.

“... so, Ito-san is in this room here,” John said, apparently deciding to ignore all of that, and Ito blinked their eyes open just in time to watch the door fling itself open.

Ito sat up, still hugging Grim to their chest, smiling at their friends. “Hey, guys.”

Kuroki trudged over and damn near collapsed on top of them, sending them right back into the plush mattress. “So many stairs…”

“You were going downstairs, shouldn’t it have been fine?”

“It’s so hoooooot,” complained Kuroki. Regardless of his complaints, he pressed against Ito’s side and hung on like a limpet. So it couldn’t have been too bad.

Ito hummed. “Not made for winter or summer, huh?”

Kuroki gave a huff of annoyance. This wasn’t an answer, but they were happy to let it be.

Ito looked up at Enma. “How’re you feeling?”

“Traumatized,” he deadpanned. “Those… bugs…”

“I appreciate you,” Ito said, softly.

Enma crossed his arms over his chest. The tips of his ears tinted red. “You owe me.”

“I do,” they agreed.

Enma flopped back on the bed beside them, groaning lightly. “You owe me so much. Bugs, Ito, there were bugs.”

Ito was aware. They had warned him about said bugs. But they, politely, decided not to say this, instead opting to take his hand and interlace their fingers.

Enma looked at their intertwined hands, his lips pursed. “It’s a little too hot here for cuddles.”

“Kuroki’s dealing with it,” Ito pointed out, grinning.

He sighed. “Well, I can’t be upstaged by Kuroki of all people.”

“Fuck you,” grumbled Kuroki. And then he lifted his head just slightly to glare at John, who was hovering in the doorway, looking extremely awkward. “What are you still doing here?”

John shifted from foot to foot, unsure. “Because I haven’t… shown you two to your rooms, yet?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Enma said, smiling. “We’re staying here.”

John blinked. “... oh?”

“You guys have already kidnapped Ito once, who says you won’t do it again?” Kuroki said.

The other two people in the room nodded their agreement.

Grim probably would have done the same, but he was currently snoring away. Must be nice. Now that the shock and adrenaline of being held somewhere against their will AGAIN WHAT THE FUCK WAS THEIR LUCK – had faded, they were exhausted.

John opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if he really wanted to say something but couldn’t muster up the willpower to, before apparently thinking better of it. “Uh – hm – sleep well.”

“Is he our senpai?” Enma whispered.

“No, he’s in our class,” Ito said.

Enma squinted at John for a second, as if trying to place him.

“He’s friends with that one guy who – who –...” Ito frowned, trying to think of the word for it. “Doesn’t… talk.”

“Oh, the mute kid?” Kuroki said.

“... suuuuure,” Ito said, because they weren’t sure if that was the word but damn if they weren’t going to pretend they knew it.

John was, apparently, sick of being gossiped about so openly (or, at least, upset that he was, according to the three of them, pretty much unrecognizable when he wasn’t with his friend), because he sighed and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Absently, Ito wondered if he would have to sleep out there.

And then they decided that, really, they didn’t care all that much.

“So, what’s the plan?” Ito said.

“Destroy this place from the inside,” Kuroki shrugged.

Ito hummed. They had expected that. “I’ve already told the Headmaster about what’s going on, so we’re well on our way.”

Enma pressed his cheek against the top of their head. “Aw, you know us so well.”

“Well, yeah, if there’s any guarantee in life, it’s that you guys’ll be petty at every given opportunity.”

“Don’t want to hear that from you,” grumbled Enma.

Ito settled down to sleep. “Wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing.”

And, despite their friends’ complaints that it was hot, Ito drifted off feeling pleasantly warm.

(To be fair, though, they had always liked warmer climates, so it could just be that.)

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the Break of Dawn - Pt 19

<Pt18

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

“I can’t believe you’re making me clean while injured,” Yuu lamented, shaking his head.

Deuce didn’t respond, he was too busy dragging Yuu’s plant pots back inside. The plants were withering slightly, the weeds had gotten to them while Yuu was away, and the cold certainly hadn’t helped… but Yuu had faith.

Not a lot of faith, but still more faith than he did when he first planted those seeds, when he wasn’t even sure whether they would sprout.

… unless the seeds had only sprouted to be contrary or to prove a point. In which case… they will never succeed. Mwahaha!

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Is it impossible to annoy yourself? Because he was pretty sure he had just managed it. That was kind of depressing.

“You started cleaning, we didn’t even ask you to,” Ace said.

“You’re evil,” Yuu sniffed.

“I mean, yeah, true, but this isn’t why.”

Deuce set the pots down and groaned, stretching his back for a moment, before sending Yuu a flat look. “Are you admitting that you’re injured, now? Because you still haven’t finished your coconut water and cereal.”

Yuu’s sweeping took him to the other side of the store.

Because he was a good ‘roommate’ who cleaned up after both himself and others!

Which was, frankly, a necessity. Putting three teenage boys together during an apocalyptic scenario was a recipe for disaster hygiene-wise. And it was made even worse by Ace, who tracked blood everywhere he went, because he sucks.

Don’t worry, though, Ace was doing his penance:

Yuu had figured out that Ace wasn’t half bad at knitting, and Ace was now being forced to make Grim clothes. The little booties had already been acquired, but it was getting cold out and Grim didn’t have nearly enough fur to deal with it. So, of course, Yuu had decided to make this someone else’s problem. Ace’s in particular because, again, he sucks.

Would Yuu have made him do it regardless of Ace’s many crimes? There is insufficient evidence for a court of law to reliably name him guilty (nor a functioning court of law at all), so… no.

“It should be illegal to make me pay child support in this economy,” Ace complained from somewhere in the store.

“There’s no one here to prosecute!” Yuu said.

“Yeah, well, there’s no one here to make me pay, either!”

“Sucks to suck,” said Deuce. He had moved on to taking stock of their current supplies, checking to see if they were running low on any spices. Because he was surprisingly helpful from time to time.

Mostly when his food source was in peril.

Why was everyone so food-motivated these… days…?

Right. Apocalypse. Yeah, that makes sense, actually.

“Why doesn’t he have to pay?!” Ace said.

“‘Cause he helps me out from time to time. Willingly,” Yuu shot back, rolling his eyes.

Ace groaned. Loud to the point of being theatrical.

Yuu simply grinned and continued sweeping the floors.

Until he reached the front of the store.

… was that a flyer? Huh? Huh?

The doors slid open automatically when he neared it, a small bell chiming above his head, but he barely paid that any mind, reaching around and yanking the flyer down.

Cold air washed over his face as he peered down at the… foreign thing in his hands.

Many things about this made Yuu pause. The fact that someone had apparently found their hiding place was a big one, of course.

But, also, how did someone get their hands on a computer and a printer in the apocalypse?!

No, there was definitely something wrong with this.

“Yuu…?” Deuce said, standing on tiptoes to try to see over the aisles. Unfortunately for him, he was just a little too short regardless (an unfortunate consequence of being a mere teenager), and only his terrible green hair could be seen over the shelves.

Yuu ran a hand through his hair, stepping backward, letting the door shut in front of him.

And then he shook his head to himself, stuffing the flyer into his pocket.

“You good?” Deuce asked, coming around the corner, twirling a pen around his finger idly.

“I just… thought I saw something out there,” Yuu said, after a second. “My fan club’ll deal with it, if it’s a problem, though.”

Deuce pursed his lips. He nodded, slowly, and then went back to work without another word.

Yuu wasn’t surprised. Deuce, for some reason, was starting to seriously dislike Grim, and Yuu couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why. Beyond the whole ‘being perfect’ thing, Grim… hadn’t really done anything to Deuce, as far as Yuu was aware. In fact, they had been getting closer as of late, Yuu had seen the two cuddling on more than one occasion (which he was very normal and not jealous about).

Not to mention Grim had saved all of their lives not too long ago!

Sure, he had only saved Ace and Deuce grudgingly, because Yuu asked him to, but Yuu was being entirely genuine when he said that he couldn’t force Grim to do anything he didn’t want to do. If Grim found that he truly couldn’t tolerate Yuu’s friends, he would bite them and force Yuu to move on.

So, yeah, honestly, Deuce had nothing to be upset about.

If anything, Yuu had more reasons to be upset with Grim.

Not that Grim could ever do anything wrong, of course, even if he tried!

It was just…

Grim was being a little… strange. Quieter, more prone to hiding and watching Yuu from the shadows. He still accepted pets when Yuu initiated them, happy to let Yuu scratch him behind the ears, but he no longer came over and rubbed up against Yuu’s legs until he dropped what he was doing in favor of pressing a kiss to the cat’s head.

His mental health was dangling from a damn string. But Grim had never really taken to cat toys, so waving that in front of him wasn’t going to lure him out…

And it was even worse for Yuu’s physical health, seeing as 99% of his survival strategy hinged on Grim liking him.

Yuu was reminded of that one story of a lady who went to the vet because her pet snake had started acting strange – eating less, laying out straight beside her in bed instead of burrowing in the blankets, that kind of thing… only for the vet had told her that her snake wasn’t sick, it was preparing itself to eat her.

It was not a particularly great thought to have.

Especially not when someone had, apparently, found their hideout. His fan club was supposed to have stopped it. Why hadn’t they?

He’d love to pretend that it had been left by a particularly bold fan club member, but zombies can’t read.

Yuu pulled the flyer from his pocket again, squinting down at the words.

Hm. It was… in English. That was… a choice, considering they lived in Japan. Yuu had taken English classes before, but it had been ages since he had even thought about school, and languages tend to slip away when you don’t use them. He could, probably, sound out the letters, but that wouldn’t help if he didn’t know what the sounds meant.

He glanced at Grim. Hiding amongst the shelves, peering at him from behind what had probably been a ketchup bottle once, but was now a weird, dark brown color. He wondered, absently, if the zombie could speak in English.

Then decided it didn’t matter – Grim wouldn’t tell him, anyway.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Deal with this for me, please?”

But Grim… didn’t.

The next day, there was another flyer. Yuu frowned, wondering, absently, whether the cultist fight had hit the Zombie Supply Chain a little too heavily. He doubted it, if only because that should have been a beating for the cultists, what with how much they had been outnumbered. Yuu would have been surprised if any died, let alone enough that his entire stalker base would suddenly go missing.

Maybe ugly-bob-man was on vacation. Or something. He wouldn’t stay gone long, though, not if Yuu was in danger. The perpetrators would become well-acquainted with him soon enough.

And yet, the day after that, there were three more fliers.

This time, Yuu hesitated, genuinely considering telling Ace and Deuce, before deciding he really didn’t want to. Things had settled down somewhat, and they’d just had a long few weeks. They deserved, like, a month of relaxation before the bullshit started up again. And this would definitely trigger his friends’ paranoia.

Yuu didn’t want to have to deal with that.

He didn’t even want to deal with his own (totally nonexistent) trauma, thank you very much!

Still, he sighed as they settled down for bed that night, and said, “Do either of you know any English?”

“Not really,” said Ace, shaking his head just slightly as he settled down against Yuu’s chest. “I know a couple of words, ‘cause tourists used to stop me from time to time to ask for directions and shit, but usually I just used Google Translate, y’know?”

Yuu nodded, because he absolutely did know.

He also thought it was annoying that Americans always came up to him in Japan expecting him to know English for them. They were the ones visiting! They should be the ones making the effort to learn how to speak with him!

There. His weekly rant about Americans is over. Time to tune in for Deuce’s answer.

“I know some!” he said.

Yuu blinked. “Really?”

Deuce said something that Yuu couldn’t understand.

Yuu clapped politely. “What’s’it mean?”

“‘Hand over the money’,” Deuce said.

“... Deuce,” said Yuu.

“What the fuck,” Ace said, emphatically.

Deuce huffed. “It’s still more than you can do.”

“That is not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

“Maybe I don’t, huh, have you ever considered that?!”

“Aw, practically bilingual and yet you can’t understand a basic sentence?”

Yuu ignored their bickering. There wasn’t any real heat behind any of Ace’s words, so he didn’t have to fear Ace stabbing Deuce out of anger. And, if Deuce tried to punch Ace, he’d have to move a lot beneath Yuu to do it, and that should be enough to wake him up before a real fight could break out.

So, he was free to drift.

Dully, he thought that it wouldn’t matter if he told them about the flyers. Neither of them would know what it said, either.

It could be someone asking to team up, for all they knew – they hadn’t been killed yet! That was a good sign!

But Yuu knew that Ace and Deuce would not see it that way until they were sure what the words said. He should try to find an English-to-Japanese dictionary before telling them about it. No need to worry them over what could be nothing.

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t seem to have a choice.

He wasn’t a pious guy, but he was starting to become one. If only because there was no way there wasn’t someone up there laughing evilly as he went through The Horrors again.

Yuu woke up to a dark store. Because the store was always dark at night, that’s the whole point of nighttime. He didn’t feel tired enough to go back to sleep, though. He blinked a few times to let his vision adjust to the darkness, absently pushing Ace’s head away, grimacing at the wet spot of drool that the boy had left on his chest. Why had he started sleeping in the same bed as his friends again?

Right. The futon.

Worth it.

He, slowly, extracted himself from the cuddle pile, careful not to wake either of his friends.

And then he started making his way to the front of the store.

He had woken up early, after all, he might as well see if he could catch the particularly determined salesmen in the act –.

Hm.

It might not be nighttime.

Yuu stared at the layers upon layers of fliers pasted to their door. A little awed, a little horrified.

He ignored the normal chime of the bell above the door in favor of stepping outside.

Fuck it was bright out. Yuu gave a hiss, immediately covering his eyes with his hands, almost blinded by the appearance of the stupid sun.

He heard what sounded like a laugh.

It… didn’t belong to Ace or Deuce.

Yuu flinched away from the sound, immediately dropping his hands.

There were two tall, blurry figures, both standing a little too close comfort. But they didn’t try to touch Yuu, they simply… stood there, dark figures that loomed over him just slightly, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

Honestly, it was a little menacing.

But Yuu preferred this over an outright murder attempt.

“... who’re you?” Yuu asked, rapidly blinking the tears at the corners of his eyes away, trying to take in anything about the people in front of him. Their hair looked somewhere between blue and green, so his vision must have been really fucked up.

Or maybe it was just a lingering effect of the two separate times Yuu had experienced blood loss. Or the concussion he was still, probably, recovering from! Frankly, Yuu was the chew toy of the Gods, and it was not fun!

“I’m Jade. This is my brother, Floyd,” a cool voice said.

Yuu nodded along. The names were a little strange, but he knew of a guy named Riddle, so it wasn’t too big of a deal.

“My name’s Yuu –.”

“We know.”

Oh! Okay! So the menacing vibes are certainly not going away!

No, he is just paranoid. Surely. There are normal, not horrifying reasons for them to know who Yuu is.

“Cool, cool, cool,” said Yuu, unsure how else to react. “Do you, like, know me from school or something? I’m sorry, I don’t really remember…”

“Why haven’t you been reading our flyers, ne, Yuu?” Floyd almost whined, which wasn’t exactly an answer to his question.

“I can’t read them – even if I wanted to, it’s impossible,” Yuu snapped. “I don’t know how you expect anyone to read English in Japan.”

“... oh,” said the second one.

“Yeah. Oh,” Yuu said, sighing. His vision had finally cleared, for the most part. Their hair really was blue-green, it seemed. Yuu figured that made sense – surely Deuce couldn’t be the only person with skewed priorities, though Yuu had been sure that most people who were dumb enough to bother with their hair during the apocalypse had died off by now.

“We can read it to you, then!” the second one said, a hand on Yuu’s shoulder.

It was his good shoulder, thankfully, so it didn’t hurt, but it was still a little more familiar than Yuu would usually prefer.

Before he could protest this, though, he found himself being dragged over to the wall of flyers.

He glanced behind himself, toward the boy’s brother (twin, maybe?), Jade, who had seemed more calm and collected, but the guy didn’t seem all that intent on helping him.

Great!

Where the fuck was Grim?!

“See, it says here that we’ve cleared out an old mall, so we’re inviting everyone to come live as part of a society again! It’ll be great!”

“Oh,” said Yuu. He blinked at the pair, unsure why they put him off so much. Like, sure, they were probably stupid – there was no way that plan would end well – but that shouldn’t make him uncomfortable… well, they had blue-green hair, so maybe that was just triggering his oh god I’m cursed senses? “Uh. No thanks. Going to the Cornucopia in the Hunger Games sounds safer than whatever bloodbath is gonna happen there.”

Jade smiled, his eyes gleaming strangely in the light. They were light brown, he was pretty sure, but they looked slightly off in a way he couldn’t really describe – glassy, maybe? But he certainly didn’t look like he was close to tears…

“You misunderstand, Yuu. This isn’t an offer. We are telling you that you’re coming with us.”

“Oh!” said Yuu, again. He forced a smile. “Coolcoolcool. Counteroffer.”

Yuu slid a knife into Floyd’s side.

… neither of them seemed to mind all that much.

Floyd merely pouted, as if offended.

Yuu yanked the knife back out – more out of confusion than anything. Normally, he would leave the knife in, because taking it out would put Floyd at risk for bloodloss, and if anyone knew how much of a bitch bloodloss could be it was Yuu…

But the blood that bubbled from Floyd’s new wound was sluggish, darker in color than it should have been.

Yuu stepped back, nearly stumbling over a curb, his knife out in front of him. “What the – what are you?!”

Jade drew his lips into a frown, but it was more mocking than anything. “All that pouting over the past few weeks about how us zombies aren’t talking to you, and when we finally do you go and stab us. How hypocritical.”

What?!

~~~~~

Pt20>

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Canary

Probably my magnum opus. The character arc that Marinette goes through is extremely gratifying. AND it's funny as hell. Truly, the whole package.

Bound

I have a personal beef with soulmate aus and it shows.

How to train your Drake

One of those stories where you can tell the author is having fun while writing it, I feel. More worldbuilding than story, and a breath of fresh air for me personally considering worldbuilding is my favorite thing about writing.

Sisyphean

I like writing characters playing mind games with each other, what can I say? Also, ADeuce is doomed by the narrative and it gives me life. Because I'm a sadist.

Dancing 'til the break of dawn

Reinterpreting characters in a way that suits their new circumstances is probably one of my favorite things to do. And I LOVE zombie aus. Technically a story made for me and me alone but other people can read it if they want. :D

Hmmmm tags

@izanae @starwarsmum @otome-wandering @wildbookcat @sarcasticbambi

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love! <3

Thank you @aimmyarrowshigh for the tag!

The Steady Beat of Her Heart - Kate Bishop/Yelena Belova Yelena gets roofied while out on a mission and Kate is there for her. Together they track down those responsible and deal out some vigilante justice. I loved this as I got to explore protective Kate and see how and what she'd do to make sure Yelena wasn't harmed again. This fic was actually a drabble to begin with and with some encouragement, skylarkblue suggested I try to flesh it out.

Bluebird Caged - Kate Kane/Harper Row When Kate rescues Harper, she doesn't realise she's in love with her until Leslie Thompkins decides to meddle. I love this fic because I got to explore both a soft and caring side to Kate.

You Give Me Strength, You Give Me Hope - Christine Chapel/La'an Noonien Singh Christine decides to accompany La'an across the galaxy while trying to help Oriana find her family. On their quest they face many difficulties including an accidental marriage that becomes too real, and feelings they can't hide from one another. This fic is one of my favourite. Getting to explore their relationship while having barely anything to work with has been a hurdle, but I love where this fic is going. It's about half complete and I hope to write a lot more of it this coming November.

You Know I'm Here For You - Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair After being attacked by a group of thugs, Enid is scared and alone. She calls the only person she can trust. This one was a little challenging to write but I enjoyed the challenge and learnt how to experiment a little with my writing.

Leave That World Behind - Darcy Lewis/Wanda Maximoff & Lorna Dane After finding out about her past and who her biological family are, Wanda gets a phone call one night. Her eleven year old sister is an orphan with no where to go - she's unsafe where she is with suspected mutant abilities. Darcy and Wanda travel to the US to bring Lorna home to her new family. I love this fic as I got to explore different sides of Wanda and how she and Darcy came together to take care of her sister.

I tag @figachilles @nokomiss @abyssal-ali @bifairywife @river9noble

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 62

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

They sighed, squinting at a map of the school. They knew the place pretty well by now, but they had never actually taken the time to note where the fireplaces were… because they had never had much reason to think about it. Obviously. Who bothers to keep track of fireplaces?

If they went around on autopilot, they might have been able to find all of them, but conscious thought had ruined their life once again.

See, this is why they don’t think.

Ito tilted their head to the side. “Which side is the North end of the castle again?”

Enma squinted at the sun outside, absently rolling his shoulders – not quite in a shrug, more as if he had a crick in his neck.

He had been fine while in the snow as it made him numb to any overexertion he might have accumulated, but now that he was out of it he was sore.

Ito and Kuroki were going to hold this over him for the rest of his life.

(Starting tomorrow. He was in pain now, so they would patiently wait to be assholes about it until he was feeling okay again.)

“Uhhhhhhh. Sun’s on this side, so this is either East or West… which means…”

He pointed in two opposite directions. Then shrugged, as if to say ‘one of these, I dunno’.

Helpful.

“What time is it?” Kuroki asked, looking right at Ito.

Which was fair. For some reason, Enma and Kuroki weren’t actually all that great at remembering that time existed, and they refused to wear watches.

Ito had a watch. But that was more ornamental than anything – for the aesthetic. And in case Kuroki or Enma needed it. They didn’t need to look at it to know it was around… “18:30-ish?”

Kuroki blinked. “Oh. That’s way later than I thought it was. Is that why I’m hungry?”

“No, that’s because you don’t eat enough,” Ito said, immediately.

Instead of responding to their valid point about how he would not survive the winter if not for the wonders of modern technology, Kuroki took a moment to look outside, peering at the sky.

“Onceeee there wasssss the sunnnn,” Kuroki sang, quietly. “Rising in the eeeeaaaast…” He then made a couple of pointing motions, muttering under his breath, until he finally turned to face North.

Ito pressed a quick kiss to his cheek as a reward, before heading off in that direction.

~

Enma crouched by the fireplace, his eyes bright. Possibly because of the flames reflecting off of them, but also because of the fire faeries hidden amongst the flames, dancing around, trailing fire in their footsteps.

Ito made sure to grab him by the back of his shirt, since Enma was leaning far too close to the fire for comfort, and they didn’t want to risk him falling in.

One of the faeries paused, peering back up at Enma. It lifted its hand in a wave, smiling.

Enma beamed. “Hi.”

The fire faerie made a strange, crackling sound in response.

Enma blinked, and then glanced up. “It can’t speak to us…?”

“I mean, it’s not insane to assume that different species speak different languages,” Ito said. And then they frowned. “Don’t know how we could replicate their language enough to have a proper conversation, though. It might have different vocal cords… if they have vocal cords at all, I guess.”

“But the Headmaster said faerie can imbue their voices with magic, and that’s why he technically speaks every language,” Enma said, seeming genuinely disappointed.

Kuroki shrugged. “I mean, they look way different from Crowley. They might not be the same species… maybe they just have a different skillset?”

“Wait, he can speak every language?” Ito cut in, raising their hand. “Is he like Grim?”

Grim frowned. “I can only understand you three, ‘cause you’re my familiars. The way Crowley said it, I’m pretty sure he can do it with everyone.”

Ito blinked. Would Crowley be able to understand them if they spoke in Spanish, then? They didn’t get a lot of opportunities to. Technically, they could speak to Grim in Spanish, and sometimes did in private, but if either Kuroki or Enma were around they would get somewhat sulky over not being able to understand what Ito was saying. Kuroki would feel left out, and Enma would want to know exactly what they were saying, and they would be stuck translating for them, which made it more trouble than it was worth.

No matter how much they tried to explain that direct translation was actually super hard – even harder than just outright speaking English – their friends didn’t really… understand. Knowing something intellectually doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually process it.

It made sense. Kuroki and Enma didn’t speak a second language, so of course Ito didn’t expect them to truly get it. And, in the end, it wasn’t too difficult to simply speak in English all the time. They were fine. English wasn’t the language with the most native speakers, but it was the language that the highest number of people knew (usually for the sake of business, or because the internet tended to be English-centric), and they had traveled enough with their parents to get a lot of practice.

It was just… tiring, sometimes.

Sometimes, they wanted a few moments to decompress and simply speak the language they had been born with.

Unfortunately for them, no one in this entire dimension spoke Spanish, so they were shit out of luck.

(There was Professor Yaxha, who seemed to be this universe’s version of Incan, and Trein, who spoke what appeared to be Latin for academic purposes… but Ito couldn’t exactly explain why they knew a strange mix of what would essentially be Incan, Latin, and two things that would be complete gibberish as far as this world was concerned.)

They were pulled back into the conversation when Enma grabbed their hand, tugging slightly on their arm. Ito blinked back at him, a little bit off-kilter now that they had stopped drifting.

Enma didn’t seem surprised to find they hadn’t been listening.

“Can we give them some food?” Enma repeated, his eyes bright.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Ito said, slowly, pointing to the logs not that far away from the fireplace. At least Crowley hadn’t made them chop wood and/or carry it across campus.

“Nonono. I mean, like, food food.”

Ito stared at him, blankly.

Kuroki, though, seemed to understand. “We don’t have that much food, though. I don’t want to give our limited food to literal fire.”

Oh, so that’s what he meant.

Enma sent Ito a pleading look.

Ito shrugged. “Sure. We can always raid the kitchens for stuff to eat while we’re tending to the fire faeries there.”

Enma lit up, pulling a small breakfast bar from one of his pockets.

“You know, you always have that on you, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat one of those,” Ito said, their head tipping to the side.

Enma shrugged as he peeled it open. He offered it to the fire faerie, who eyed it warily. It approached the granola bar it had been offered, poking and prodding at it curiously. Tiny wisps of smoke curled from the food.

“Started bringing it around with me that one time Kuroki fainted. It’s got caramel and chocolate. Salt, sugar, and carbs are all supposed to help with blood pressure and/or sugar… I think…? Guess I can look that up, now…”

Kuroki’s face flushed bright red. He didn’t seem to know what to do with the display of care, so he turned to Ito, flicking them in the arm. “Stop checking our pockets!”

Ito huffed. “Hey, those are basically my pockets too! I only have two, and putting things in your back pockets can mess up your spine. You guys have soooo many, and I need some extras. It works out.”

“Just wear a jacket!” Kuroki said.

“No. It’s ugly. Think of this as – uh – reparations,” Ito joked to a very confused Grim.

“Is that why I keep finding random pens and things in my jacket pockets?” Enma said, his eyes widening in realization.

Ito treated their pens with the same level of care that they treated their notebooks – which is to say they tossed them into their backpack at random and hoped they would be able to find them when they needed them later. But Enma seemed relieved, for some reason, so they nodded along.

Enma’s shoulders relaxed and he went back to watching the fire faeries.

Oh. Great. The fire faeries seemed to be worshipping the granola bar, now.

~

“Alright, last fireplace is in… the kitchen,” said Ito, after squinting at the map for a while just to make sure they weren’t missing any.

“I wonder if they have any food to spare there,” Grim said.

“Ruggie probably took everything close to its sell-by date,” Enma said.

Kuroki, however, could never be deterred when it came to getting things for free: “Who said we were going for things that were close to their sell-by date?”

“The ghosts might give us some food if you ask them, Enma,” Ito said.

Enma considered this.

“It’s worth a shot,” he decided.

“We can always just steal if they say no,” they added.

Enma and Kuroki nodded along.

Grim frowned, raising a paw. “Isn’t stealing food… bad? Wasn’t that the whole point of Ace’s whole Thing with Riddle a few months ago?”

(“Rosehearts-senpai,” Enma corrected, absently. Grim blew a raspberry at him.)

“It’s not bad if you really need it, and are stealing from someone who has more than enough,” Kuroki assured.

“Or if you really want some,” Enma added.

“Shhhhhh,” said Kuroki. “In order for a slippery slope to work, you have to get them to used to the first thing and then slowly get worse.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Grim said.

“... do you want food or not?” Ito sighed.

Grim immediately stopped protesting about the morality of what they were doing. They probably should have pulled that card earlier.

~

“I smell spices,” Grim said, his nose twitching.

“You usually smell spices when you’re heading towards a kitchen,” Enma said.

But, as they neared the kitchens… well, it became abundantly clear that Grim was talking about someone cooking, not just the mere existence of spices.

“Do you think the ghosts forgot that there’s no one around to feed?” Kuroki asked, his eyebrows knitting.

“Maybe it’s for us!” Grim gasped.

It was not.

It wasn’t even the ghosts’ doing, surprisingly.

No, from the looks of it, the entirety of Scarabia’s dorm members had decided to spend the day in the school kitchens. Which was already strange – all of the dorms had at least one kitchen (even Ramshackle, though theirs’ was definitely more defunct than the ones the other dorms enjoyed), after all, so if everyone had piled inside that meant that either every kitchen in Scarabia had broken down or they were making food for every person in the dorm at once.

Ito supposed that it was possible that they were having a party to celebrate the end of the semester, or the start of Winter Break.

But Scarabia… wasn’t really supposed to be on campus. The going-away party should have been yesterday or the day prior. Ito was pretty sure that the Dark Mirror had been powered down the moment after Crowley had left for vacation.

If they tried to go home now, they would have quite the downer of a realization.

The Yuus peered around the doorway, frowning confusedly, trying to make sense of the strange happenings.

“Why are you four here?”

Enma yelped and attempted to punch Jamil Viper in the face.

Luckily for Jamil’s face, Jamil was actually good at dodging, and sidestepped with ease.

Enma looked thrown. Ito figured that it was probably because of Enma’s constant complaints about how no one at this school was good in a fight – someone knowing the first rule of fighting (hit them more than they hit you) was probably a hell of a shock.

“We have our reasons,” Kuroki said, immediately. “Why are all of you guys here?”

“We have our reasons,” Jamil parroted.

“They’re cooking,” Grim whispered.

“That is one of the reasons, yes,” Jamil said.

Kuroki’s face flushed.

Ito sighed. They could argue that, honestly, Jamil had way better reason to be suspicious of them, considering they had just been kinda-spying on his dorm, and people were technically allowed to stay on campus over the break, people just usually didn’t want to.

“Our esteemed Headmaster has asked me to maintain the fireplaces on campus. The last one’s in the kitchen, but we’re willing to wait until you guys are done.”

Enma gave them a look that screamed ‘we are?’

Ito just shrugged. It wasn’t like they were on a strict schedule. And, besides, it wouldn’t be easy to steal from the kitchens if the entirety of Scarabia Dorm was there. So, what other choice did they have?

Jamil tilted his head to the side. “Do you think you could help out a little?”

Ito raised an eyebrow. “What, not scared we’ll poison it?”

“I taste test everything that gets put in front of Kalim regardless of who makes it, he will be fine,” Jamil said, casual in a way that he probably shouldn’t be?

“And… who taste tests for you?” Ito said, slowly.

Jamil just stared at them, as if they had asked something stupid.

Ito’s eyes narrowed, briefly, before they yawned. “Sure, I guess Kuroki and I can help. Enma, tend to the fire, yeah?”

“What about me?” said Grim.

“You can taste test what we make,” Ito said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, smiling.

“Hell yeah. That’s my favorite job.”

“The most important one, too,” Enma said. “Only the best for our boss.”

Grim nodded along, unaware that Enma was teasing him.

Ito raised an eyebrow at Enma, briefly, their lips twitching into a grin. It was bold of him to make fun of Grim for not being allowed in the kitchen, when he, too, had been sent away for the sake of this world’s future.

For Enma’s part, the tips of his ears tinted pink, but he still grinned back at them.

Ito’s gaze flicked to Jamil again, and found the boy watching them.

Ito flashed a smile, hoping that their choice to have Grim taste test everything they cooked – ensuring that Jamil wouldn’t have to worry about them poisoning it – would actually put the boy at ease, instead of making him more suspicious of them. They didn’t know Jamil well enough to know what he responded well to, so they had gone for what would help the most people and prayed that it was the right choice.

It really was an olive branch. Ito didn’t have any reasons to hate the guy, nor were they close enough to him to mess with him for fun, so why wouldn’t they be nice?

(If they had wanted to be mean, they would assure him that, even if they wanted to murder someone, they wouldn’t opt for poison. Underhanded means, sure, they absolutely were a knife-in-the-back kind of person, but not poison. It went against their morals – food was food. And they would even be telling the truth when they said it. But people usually got uncomfortable when they implied that they had thought through their preferred method of murdering people. Who knows why.)

Finally, Jamil’s eyes cut away, and he brushed past them, into the kitchens, a hand thrown behind himself to gesture for them to follow.

Jamil led them to an empty workstation.

Okay, well, empty as in it had no people in it. The Scarabia students had been using it as a place to stack all of the dishes they hadn’t wanted to clean yet. When they noticed the newcomers, several people pointed their wands at the stacks upon stacks of pots and pans, blasting them with various types of magic. Water magic in an attempt to scrub some of the pots clean, wind magic to try and move everything away, fire magic thanks to a particularly frazzled-looking first year…

One of the pans exploded under the strain. People ducked under the shrapnel with a kind of practiced ease. Ah, the ‘joys’ of living in a magical prep school. Everyone is used to magic mishaps by the end of the first semester.

Jamil told them that he wanted them to make shakshuka. It wasn’t a particularly difficult dish to make – hell, a lot of people make something similar without realizing it – but it did require a bit of care, since all of the ingredients had their own specific cooking times.

Again, not too bad, unless you have to manage an entire kitchen at the same time, in which case things become dicey.

So, Enma was ushered off before he could accidentally curse the cookware, and Ito found themself drifting as they cooked, more on instinct than anything.

Their eyes flicked up to the first year across from them. A Scarabia student, obviously. They were pretty sure he was in their class, but he hadn’t made much of an impression either way.

The magical mishap, though, had drawn their attention. Because they couldn’t remember the guy ever messing up spectacularly enough for them to notice – and sending flames rocketing from his wand was definitely enough to make them draw their eyes at least once.

And, if magic was all about visualization, then had the flames been on purpose? They might have brushed it off as an accident if he had somehow messed up water or wind magic, but to summon flames…

Was he trying to seem incompetent?

Or was he actually incompetent?

It was a school, after all, messing up wasn’t entirely out of the question.

Frankly, they were surprised no one had died yet.

The bar is in Hell.

And Crowley was barely clearing it.

But, hey, at least he was clearing it! And that was worthy of – well, not praise, but certainly not scorn!

Ito turned off the burner and set the dish aside, content that the eggs had been cooked enough to not give someone salmonella.

Was salmonella still a thing here? Did it affect mages, who were supposedly stronger than regular humans?

Eh. Who cares. The eggs had been cooked enough to get rid of any bacteria, if any had existed in the first place, so they supposed it didn’t really matter.

They had managed to make the food without causing a fire (or, at least, not an unnecessary one, seeing as they still had gas stoves in this universe, for some reason), and for this Jamil seemed eternally grateful.

Which was rude, in their opinion. They were good at cooking, thank you very much! Hell, they were so good at cooking that they managed to pass the Culinary Crucible while trying to fail!

But whatever. Sometimes people are rude, and you just have to deal with it, because making a scene is way more effort than just brushing things off.

“Thanks for this,” Jamil said, dipping forward just slightly in a bow.

Ito bowed, too, even though they weren’t sure whether it was right for them to do so. If it was wrong, Jamil didn’t say anything.

Ito snatched up Grim by the collar before he could launch himself at the plate they handed off to Jamil.

Grim squirmed, looking like he was tempted to let his head separate from his neck enough for the ribbon to slip through. Now that the Yuus knew, Grim didn’t seem to care about who knew his death status. In fact, Ito suspected that they were the only people who hadn’t known, and no one had told them because they had assumed that the Yuus would know, too. So, yeah, Grim had no reason not to sever his head. Ito quickly shifted to hug the monster around the middle instead.

Grim huffed, spitting flames. Said flames missed Ito by a long shot.

“Why can’t I have any, huh?!” Grim said, his voice nearly a hiss. He might not be a cat, but he certainly was one at some point.

“You already tried it,” Ito reminded him.

“So?! We never get to eat anything spicy, you know!”

They raised an eyebrow. “I add in spices after I make Kuroki’s portion.”

“It’s not the same,” Grim lamented. “The spices don’t get to marinate enough.”

Ito, privately, agreed.

Kuroki frowned just slightly. “You could always make something separate for me, if you’re really missing spices that much…”

“Too much work,” Ito said, shrugging.

“Or I could cook my own food,” Kuroki tried.

Ito flicked him in the shoulder. “Please. It’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is!” Grim said, puffing up with anger, only to deflate when he realized he didn’t really have anything he could be angry at. “Bet if we had gone on that vacation with the Headmaster there would have been tons of spicy food…”

Ito couldn’t say for sure whether or not this was true – there are a lot of tropical places that this world’s version of the tropics could be based upon, and all of them had their own specific ways of seasoning food.

“Hey, I wouldn’t have minded,” said Ito, shrugging. “Look at Enma and Kuroki, they’re the ones who said no.”

Enma groaned, nearing them, soot smeared over the bridge of his nose. “Why would you throw us under the bus like that?”

Kuroki made a face. “That’s messed up.”

Ito grinned, opening their mouth –.

“If you really want to try something spicy,” Jamil cut in, making the Yuus jump. They really needed to stop acting like they were the only people to ever exist. “You could always come over for dinner. We have more than enough food to go around.”

Grim immediately started giving them all pleading looks.

Ito sighed. Their eyes flicked to meet Jamil’s. “If it’s really not too big of an imposition, I guess…”

He gave a thin-lipped smile. “Don’t worry, it’s not! And, besides, I’d rather not owe you four for helping out today.”

Kuroki looked like he was about to disagree, now, because damn it they liked being owed!, but then there was a buzzing sound from Enma’s pocket.

Enma pulled out the phone, squinting at the number on the screen for a second, before hesitantly bringing it to his ear. “Um, hi?”

The phone call didn’t last long. The most notable thing was that Enma’s eyes widened, briefly, when the person on the other end of the line said something – which is to say, not much happened.

“... Floyd Leech-senpai says that they finished prepping our room for us.”

Oh, right, that. Ito had forgotten about that.

“Kuroki can’t come with us to eat food in Scarabia anyways,” Grim pointed out. “He should deal with it.”

For once, Kuroki didn’t argue. Instead, he eyed the phone in Enma’s hand warily.

“Did we ever give them our number?”

No, no they hadn’t.

Hm.

This was probably fine.

“Go ahead and deal with Octavinelle,” Ito said, bumping their shoulder against Kuroki’s. “They’ll probably have something you can eat there, and someone has to make sure that they didn’t booby trap the room.”

Kuroki looked like he would rather be force-fed peppers.

“I’ll go with Ito and Grim, then –,” Enma said.

“No,” said Kuroki, immediately grabbing Enma by the arm. “Figure out how to deal with Jade Leech-senpai, because you’re acting weird about it all and I don’t like it.”

“You just don’t want to go alone,” Enma huffed, rolling his eyes.

“I just think you should get over it!”

“I’m sorry, would you be ‘normal’ about seeing someone’s…?!”

“Yes! I saw their dicks, too, y’know! And look at me! Normal!”

Huh?!

Ito was so confused.

But they were perfectly fine not knowing things. In fact, they would much prefer it in situations like this.

“Guys, not in front of the baby,” Ito said, covering Grim’s ears.

“I’m not a baby!”

Doubtful.

“I know, I am,” Ito lied.

“Ito-san, Grim-san?” Jamil cut in again. Poor guy. It must suck being around people who forget about you every time you stop talking. In their defense, though, the guy was kind of forgettable. “We should get going soon, we can’t serve Kalim cold food.”

Kuroki and Enma looked at Ito.

“Are you sure you’ll be fine alone?” Kuroki asked, hesitantly.

Grim huffed. “They won’t be alone! I’ll be there, and I would never let any of my henchmen get hurt!”

Kuroki and Enma, however, looked at Ito.

They shrugged, smiling. “It’s just dinner. I’ll be back in three hours – max, yeah?”

~

Ito hugged the dish to their chest as they followed the procession of Scarabia students. Chatting with each other in low tones, clumped into small established friend groups.

They let their steps slow just slightly, until they were standing next to that one Scarabia first year. They were pretty sure his name was, like, John, or something similar, but they weren’t going to risk being wrong by saying his maybe-name aloud. Not when they needed answers.

And Maybe-John was the guy who was most likely to give them the information.

If he had truly done fire magic by accident, then the guy seemed nice enough, if a bit ditzy, and might let things slip.

And, if it wasn’t an accident, then the guy was clearly trying to seem unintimidating. Probably to make the Yuus feel more comfortable talking to him (perhaps in a mistaken attempt to try and get on the Headmaster’s good side through them, which… yeah, no, that wasn’t something he actually wanted… not that they would tell him). Which meant he would give them information if they wanted it.

They smiled at him. “You’re in my homeroom, right?”

The guy smiled right back. “Yeah, actually, I’m surprised you noticed.”

“We know this guy?” Grim whispered.

Ito snickered, nodding. “A little. He’s in Alchemy with us, we just spend most of our time in there getting blown up, so we’ve never really talked.”

His eyes widened. He moved his arms, awkwardly, as if he was trying to make a placating motion but couldn’t do so when he was carrying a pot as big as his entire torso. “No, no, that’s not what I meant! I just – you guys don’t really talk to a lot of people outside of each other.”

Neither do you, Ito thought, thinking of the Savanaclaw student the guy was frequently found with. But they weren’t interested in that, so instead they said:

“I’m just messing with you,” Ito said. “Besides, you’re not that great at Alchemy, either, are you?”

He looked away, tugging long red hair into his face as if to hide a blush. At the angle they were standing at, Ito couldn’t tell whether it was real.

“Ugh, I can’t believe you know that, that’s so embarrassing…”

“Don’t worry about it!” Ito laughed. “We can be bad at Alchemy together. Start a study group or something.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes brightening just slightly. “Your dorm’s pretty empty, think I can come over sometime over the break for a study session? Because, I don’t know if you’ve seen the homework yet or not, but I’ve got no idea what to do.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure we’re staying at Octavinelle,” Ito said, their eyes narrowing when his happiness dimmed ever so slightly. They forced their eyes to crinkle at the edges in a smile. “But we’ll probably be sick of them in a day or two, you can come visit then.”

He nodded quickly. “That sounds great.”

… he wanted to stay out of his own dorm.

Why, though?

They considered outright asking why they were staying over the break, but they didn’t want the guy to feel interrogated and start clamming up, so they would have to ask later, or find someone else to talk to…

Besides, they had finally reached the mirror.

Ito looked over it.

At first, it looked as if there was no design engraved in the silver surrounding the mirror. That the most interesting thing about the mirror leading to Scarabia was the thin trail of sand leading away from it. But then they noticed the snake head near the top.

The silver band encircling the mirror was, apparently, a snake eating its own tail.

They were quick to step through the mirror.

They blinked at the blast of warm air.

It wasn’t like Savanaclaw, which was also warm but in a humid way which made their hair frizz. No, this was dry, sand blazingly hot even through their shoes, each step uncertain. An unending wasteland in every direction.

Ito sighed a little in relief. They much preferred the heat to the snow waiting for them on the campus grounds.

Enma and Kuroki would hate it, though, they thought, grinning bemusedly.

Their eyes turned onto Grim, absently wondering if the monster was going to struggle with the heat, what with all of his fur, or if him being a fire-related monster would shield him from the heat, too… only to be suddenly reminded that Grim didn’t have fur anymore, and the monster seemed fine.

Ito moved the dish in their hand to rest on their hip so they could carefully tug the bobby pins out of their hair and (reluctantly) shove them into their pockets, silently wishing either Kuroki or Enma had come with them – if only so they could borrow their jacket pockets. With both the bobby pins and their phone, they felt strangely off-balance, even if they knew, logically, that the extra weight shouldn’t be enough to throw them off.

“So, how long will we have to walk?” they asked.

Grim’s eyes widened. He turned to look at Ito. “We have to walk?!”

“I have to walk,” Ito said, and grinned a little when the monster immediately rushed to curl himself around the back of their neck.

Grim was warmer than most of the other things that Ito would willingly touch while in the desert (namely: a water bottle, or an ice pack if they were feeling adventurous), but he was much cuter, so… the tradeoffs were, probably, worth it.

So long as they didn’t get heatstroke.

They turned to look at Jamil for an answer to their question, only to find the people of Scarabia… well, they weren’t quite laughing, not openly, but they were definitely amused.

“Don’t worry. It’s a long walk, but it won’t be in the sun,” Maybe-John promised.

Ito raised an eyebrow, absently looking around for something they had missed. Maybe it was, like, an anti-mirage? A barren landscape that fades away to reveal a dazzling place they had never noticed before…?

“ فَتَحَ ” said Jamil.

Ito was only given a half second to puzzle over what that could mean before the ground began to rumble, the sand beneath their feet shifting. Sliding away from them, slowly congealing into a mass that sprouted from the sand, taking the shape of a tiger’s head.

Slowly, its mouth opened – unhinged, really, stretching far larger than a tiger’s mouth ever should – revealing a staircase that led deep underground.

The staircase was hardly lit. The ceiling was dotted with what looked to be facsimiles of stars, and they did have faint golden glows, but this wasn’t nearly enough for them to be comfortable walking down a set of stairs with only them for guidance.

“I’m not going in there,” Ito said, hugging Grim closer to their chest.

Jamil gave them a flat look. “Then stay out in the sun.”

Ito went in there.

Slowly, they descended. Most of the Scarabia people opted to rush down the stairs, not concerned with the steps after over a semester’s-worth of walking up and down them every day… and, perhaps, more importantly, they were all carrying at least one dish each, and while there wasn’t any reason to fear the food going lukewarm in this weather, it was still annoying to carry. The sooner they got down, the better.

Ito, however? They were taking their sweet time. Falling down the stairs wasn’t exactly on their to-do list. Especially not when they couldn’t even see the bottom.

Jamil seemed content to stay close.

“Ssssso,” Ito said, their eyes determinedly never leaving their feet. “What does… fa-ta-ha mean? Is it a spell?”

“No. It’s a literal keyword. Directly translated, it would mean… ‘unlock’,” Jamil said.

Ito nodded.

And then something hit them. They stopped walking in favor of turning to glare at Grim’s head, resting on their shoulder. “Why am I still carrying you? You can float.”

Grim’s eyes widened. “You’re going to make me move on my own?!”

“It’s, frankly, safer for you,” Ito said, but if Grim wanted them to continue carrying him then… sure. He would complain the whole way down if they didn’t, which was way more trouble than it was worth.

Absently, Ito pressed a kiss to the top of Grim’s head.

Jamil stepped slightly closer, and Ito glanced up, mildly curious.

“Wasn’t he covered in fur before?” Jamil asked.

Ito shrugged just slightly. “He was, yeah. We’ve got to make a potion to give it back to him.”

Something flashed in the corner of their eye and Ito blinked. One of the stars on the ceiling had, apparently, fallen to earth.

And mages love to act like they’re better. Seems like they’ve never heard of tape before.

… why was the star moving?

That’s a bug.

They jolted back a step.

“Oh, Jesus –.”

Right. Stairs. They were on stairs.

~

“Are you okay?!” Kalim asked for the millionth time, his eyes wide.

Ito had answered ‘totally fine’ the first few times, but now they were too exasperated to bother with that, since Kalim seemed to be pushing for a different answer.

So, instead, they grumbled that they were, “Peachy.”

They really weren’t injured, though. Jamil had managed to catch them with wind magic before they had cracked their head open, and then had proceeded to levitate them the rest of the way down the stairs. It was embarrassing as hell. Frankly, they would have preferred it if they had simply fallen the whole way down. “Can’t believe I was scared of a –...”

They had forgotten what those godforsaken bugs were called.

“Scarab,” said Kalim.

“That’s the bitch,” Ito said.

“They’re not dangerous,” Kalim assured them. “But, if it makes you feel better, Jamil –.”

Jamil covered Kalim’s mouth.

Ito raised an eyebrow at him, but decided to let it go. The guy did save them from a rather embarrassing death there.

Instead, Ito lifted their head to look at Kalim. Slowly –  not because of reluctance, Grim had decided that he was now their helmet. Which they would be more than fine with if the monster wasn’t messing up their hair… but whatever. So long as his claws didn’t start digging in, they could tolerate it. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t fix their hair afterward.

“So… why did they decide to use bugs and not just – I don’t know – stars?!”

“... it’s cooler?” Kalim said, unsure himself.

Ito stared at him, blankly. Thought that Enma would hate it here.

Kalim smiled. “Well, those bugs are cooler. I mean, besides what they symbolize back home – rebirth and regeneration, cool, right?! – the real-life bugs actually use the stars to navigate! It’s kind of awesome, don’t you think?”

Ito could admit that, if that was true, that was kind of interesting. Enma would probably like to know that, fear of bugs be damned the guy still liked random information (so long as he didn’t have to see the bugs himself), but Ito? They now had a one-sided grudge against these things. They were evil. They had to go. Ito couldn’t afford an exterminator, but they were buying one in spirit. Those things needed to count their days.

“I’m so sorry that you got hurt,” Kalim said, even though they hadn’t been. “Can I make it up to you?”

Ito pulled a plate of kebabs towards themself. “This food is more than good enough to make up for it, don’t worry.”

“No, no, I insist!”

“... I mean, if you have any Coke here, I’d accept that.”

Kalim looked at Jamil. Who shrugged and shook his head.

Kalim looked devastated.

Ito, too, was pretty devastated that this meant they would need to rely on Octavinelle to get them their fix, but they were a little better at hiding it.

“Don’t worry, I was mostly kidding,” Ito lied, smiling.

“You weren’t,” Kalim said, and Ito jolted. They blinked, mildly perturbed when Kalim grabbed one of their hands and solemnly promised that, “When school starts up again, I’ll get a lifetime’s supply of Coke shipped to the school for you.”

Damn, that was tempting. Too bad they were currently extremely unsettled, and didn’t exactly feel eager to accept the offer.

“You… don’t owe me, I was the one who fucked up. If anything, I owe B-Viper-senpai, since he kept me from breaking my head open.”

Kalim looked reluctant, but he let go of their hand. “If you say so. Just tell me if you want me to make it up to you.”

Did he not hear what they just said?

Kalim sure was… an interesting guy. Good intentioned, Ito was pretty sure, just…

“Hey, Grim-chan! Have you tried this goat's milk blue cheese yet? It goes great with crackers.”

“Don’t you think that ‘Grim-chan’ is a little too familiar –?” Grim started, only to almost choke when Kalim shoved a cracker into his mouth.

Or, rather, pushed a cracker into his mouth, because wow this guy was pushy.

“Good, right?”

Now, personally, in the face of Kalim’s sunshine-y smile, Ito would have hesitated to say no.

Grim, however, had no qualms saying what he thought: “Ew, moldy cheese –” Another cracker found its way into his mouth, and he tried to spit it out, only to find another. “H-hey –!”

“He prefers tuna to cheese,” Ito said, quickly, grabbing Kalim’s arm to stop him from shoving yet another cracker into Grim’s mouth.

“Oh!” said Kalim. He looked at Jamil, who shook his head once again. Kalim slumped a little in his seat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you two were visiting, so I didn’t even get to prepare your favorite dishes!”

“That’s fine, you’re not psychic. I would have been more weirded out if you had known ahead of time,” Ito said, pulling Grim into their lap to better protect him, absently wiping a few crumbs away from the monster’s mouth. “And, even if you had known, it’s not like Sam’s shop is open right now, and shipments from outside are halted for the break, so it’s not like you could have done anything, anyways.”

Kalim sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right…”

Ito grinned. “I always am,” they joked, lightly, their mind racing a mile a minute. They were so close to being able to ask why Scarabia was still here in a way that would feel like a natural extension of the conversation, but they were just a little bit off, enough that it would be too sudden to ask about it. “Except for the times when I’m wrong. Like when I waited too long and Bucchi-senpai got to Sam’s Coke supply before I could.”

Kalim gasped. “Did he know you wanted it?”

“Don’t think so,” said Ito, shrugging. “He bought out the whole place, pretty much. Wanted to take it all home, I guess, but it means that Ramshackle is shit out of luck food-wise.”

“Yeah, we have the same problem,” Kalim said, nodding along. “We weren’t exactly planning to stay here, so we have to make do with what we had leftover in the kitchen.”

Ito tipped their head to the side. “Wait, seriously? Are you gonna need to go to Octavinelle for help, too? Because that’s what we’re doing for food. They’re the only people that actually planned to stay over the break, I think.”

A white lie, but who cares? It wasn’t like it mattered in the grand scheme of things.

And scheme was definitely the word to describe what was going on.

Kalim waved them off. “I think we’ll be fine. Worst comes to worse, I can always send everyone home early.”

(Out of the corner of their eyes, Ito saw people start shoveling food in their mouths faster.)

Hm. So, it was a choice that Kalim was making, which everyone else disagreed with. The choice had been relatively last minute…

Ito blinked at him, oh-so-very innocent. “Why not send them home now? You shouldn’t wait for people to starve…”

Kalim seemed to think this over, before snapping his fingers and pointing at them. “You’re right! I should send them home!”

Huh?!

“W… what?” Ito said, their expression going blank for a second in sheer surprise.

“You’re right,” Kalim repeated, as if he thought that Ito had simply not heard him. He set his hands on the table, pushing himself to his feet. “Really, a few bad grades, a bad performance in Magift… does it really matter? We can always work on that after the break – but Winter Break is all about relaxing!”

Ito felt like they had whiplash. Not, exactly, because of Kalim, the guy hadn’t changed his tone once, but Ito had been so sure that they were finally on the cusp of knowing what was going on, and this was not it.

Kalim clapped a hand on their shoulder. “Thanks for talking this out with me! I’m going to tell everyone the good news!”

Ito looked at Jamil, who seemed just as surprised by this development as they were.

And then Jamil forced an awkward smile to his face. “Er, are you… sure Kalim? This is quite different from what you said not even a few days ago…”

“I am!” Kalim said.

“... if that’s what you want,” said Jamil, reaching over to straighten out Kalim’s turban, before drawing back. “Go ahead and tell everyone.”

Kalim nodded, disappearing through the nearest door.

Grim looked at Ito, who was still staring at where Kalim had just been, stunned.

“Henchman?”

“I… was wrong,” Ito said, slowly, their eyebrows knitting.

Grim patted the top of their head. “Not everyone can carry the burden of always being right like I can.”

“Of course, Grim-sama,” Ito said, scratching him behind the ears, smiling halfheartedly when Grim gave a low purr.

They felt eyes on the side of their head.

Jamil frowned at Ito, something complicated in his expression. They pulled a smile to their face, hugging Grim closer, quietly wondering what he was thinking. The guy didn’t talk much, did he?

Kalim appeared on an upper balcony.

The feast hall went silent.

“After a short chat with Ito-chan, I have been reminded of what Winter Break is supposed to be about – rest and relaxation.”

Despite his words, Kalim’s expression was strangely flat.

Jamil went tense.

He grabbed Ito by the arm, a little more harshly than they would normally expect from him.

“Senpai –?”

“You need to go,” he whispered, urgently. “Now.”

“What? Why should I –?”

Kalim’s arms leaned against the balcony in front of him. A grin spread across his face, but it was colder than the one he usually sported.

“But none of you have earned the right to relax.”

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Maribat fic recs!

I have decided to start a new event to help us come together as a community where we can anonymously recommend fics we enjoy. I will be posting everyone's recommendations on the last day of every month, so look out for those posts!

I can start:

My favorite fic in this fandom is I Would Like One Family Please by Celestial_Void_the_3rd on Ao3 (@celestial-void-the-3rd).

A bit of a basic rec, but I really do enjoy it! I think that the characters are well-written and interesting. The character interactions always make me smile (for one reason or another...). The recurring gags also make me Very Happy. I recommend it, but PLEASE check the tags/warnings before reading. Thank you to the author for writing it!

Here is a link to a form you can fill out with your own recs!

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Unfamiliar

Part 6

Demon!Grim gets summoned by a bunch of kids accidentally and immediately decides to adopt them in retaliation

<P5

Grim poked his head into the kids’ room the moment he got home. He wasn’t sure why he did this – it was illogical. They were asleep and, even if they weren’t, they weren’t likely to disappear. But it still gave him some kind of relief, to poke his head in and see them all still in bed.

Ace blinked an eye open, curious, but not enough to lift his head. Seemingly content to lay there for a while longer.

Grim sent a short wave his way before closing the door. He walked over to his kitchenette, unpacking all of the items he didn’t really understand. He squinted, suspiciously, at the chicken. Wondered, absently, whether Ace could eat it raw – he was a dragon, after all, surely all of it would turn to ash in his stomach regardless. He unpacked the cauliflower, and was even less sure what to do with it.

Okay! He would do Deuce’s first! Maybe he would figure out what to do with the other things while he cut up the watermelon.

Ace wandered out of the room after around half an hour, Trinity and Deuce on his heels. This was more because of the hands dragging them along than any real want of their own. From the looks of things, Trinity and Deuce very much wished to be asleep. Trinity was half-stumbling behind Ace. Deuce hadn’t even bothered to open his eyes yet.

Ace was the one that Grim’s eyes focused on, though. Partially just because he was the one in front, but mostly because he was looking at the mess of foods in front of Grim with an expression that could only be described as ‘abject horror’.

“Um,” said Grim, smiling nervously. “Bon appetit?”

“Why is there an entire boiled cauliflower on the table?”

“It’s healthy!” said Grim. Though he was less sure about this when leveled with Ace’s unimpressed look. “It tastes bad, therefore it’s healthy!”

“It’s a vegetable, so you’re right about it being healthy, but why a whole cauliflower?”

Grim looked down at the cauliflower. “... bon appetit?” he tried, again.

Ace sighed, taking a moment to sit Deuce and Trinity down at the counter (Deuce immediately slumped over, head pillowed in his arms, trying to sleep again), before walking around the kitchen island, shooing Grim away from the food.

“Trinity, are you okay with riced cauliflower for now?”

Trinity, who had been staring endlessly at the counter as if trying (and failing) to discern the answers to life’s mysteries that lay within the marble pattern, squinted at Ace.

“... are you fine with –?” Ace started to repeat himself.

“Yes,” she decided, finally, nodding.

Ace looked so tired. But in a very different way than Deuce and Trinity were tired. This was a bone-deep kind of tiredness that only came when your friends were being stupid. He walked over to the fridge. Opened it. Immediately closed it again. He lifted his head to level a flat look Grim’s way.

“Why do you have a severed arm in here?”

“Because it would decompose if I left it out…?” Grim said.

This, apparently, was not the right answer. Ace closed his eyes, counting to ten.

And then he opened the fridge again, peering inside.

“Why do you have nothing but tuna?”

“I like tuna.”

“Tuna isn’t even supposed to go in the fridge!”

“It’s better when it’s kind of crunchy!” Grim defended himself.

Ace closed the fridge again. “How have you lived this long?”

“Can’t die.”

Ace sighed through his nose. “Are we doing anything today? Because we need to go food shopping.”

“Well… it’s come to my attention that you three have to go to school at some point…” Grim said, eyes flicking between each kid in turn. He was relieved to find that none of them seemed particularly against the idea (or, at least, no more against the idea than any other kid would be). “Deuce, I’m not sure what your mom will want to do on that front – or if you’ve already finished school – so I have to wait for her… but I assume you want to go to school with these two?”

Deuce nodded, firmly.

Grim sighed. “Then I definitely have to talk with your mom. In order to go to school, you need to prove your identity, and I’m not sure how it works for fae considering – you know – you can’t tell anyone your name.”

The three kids looked horrified.

“We have to use our real names?” Trinity asked.

Grim hesitated. “You have to write them down for the people who work at the BVS, yes. I don’t have to see it, and we can tell your teachers about your… situation before school.”

This did not seem to help with the impending anxiety attacks he was about to deal with.

The door to the kids’ bedroom slammed open.

“Why is my son so –?!” Delilah started, only to pause when she laid eyes on three devastated kids. She blinked a few times, processing, before looking at Grim, no longer mad, just very confused.

Grim sighed. “I told them that they have to go to school…”

“And…?” she prompted.

Grim shuffled from foot to foot. “Well, in order to go to school here, you have to prove your identity –” Delilah seemed to catch on, her eyes widening. Grim rushed to finish his sentence. “– whichmayormaynotrequiretellingpeopletheirNamesbutitshouldn’tbethatbad –.”

“Must they go to school here?” Delilah cut in.

Grim’s mouth snapped closed, and he could admit, privately, that he was glad she had stopped him before he had rambled for too long. But the thing she had distracted him with was... “Where else would they go to school?”

“In the fae realm,” Delilah said.

Grim supposed that made sense. Not using your real name would be expected there. And it wasn’t like fae were that different from demons when it came to randomly adopting children, though he was under the impression that the ‘adoptions’ were more like ‘stealing humans away’. The faerie that had stolen Ace, Deuce, and Trinity wasn’t exactly a rarity, outside of the choice to treat them terribly.

(Also, stealing Deuce, another faerie, was probably, if he had to guess, a faux pass.)

So, if it was common for faerie to steal random children, and common to treat those children as if they were your own kids, then it was fair to assume they would have a similar schooling system to demons – one focused on making sure that every species can get the education and life skills that they would one day need to get by.

It might work.

Unfortunately, Ace and Trinity still looked stressed. Probably because of the Trauma.

Deuce worried his lip. “Okay, I… have a plan.”

The two kids looked at him, identically confused expressions on their faces.

“If – if you Give me your Names –.”

Trinity jerked away from Deuce so suddenly that, had Grim not been as fast as he was, she would have fallen off of the barstool entirely. From the look on her face, she was half-tempted to fall anyway, just to get that much further from Deuce.

Deuce held up his hands placatingly. “If you Give them to me, then you can’t Give or Tell your Names to anyone else, they’ll be mine. Which means no one else can have you, okay?”

Trinity still looked nervous, but less so.

Ace, however, narrowed his eyes at him. “Will you give them back after?”

“... if you want me to, I will,” Deuce said, more than a little sulky at the prospect.

Strangely, this did seem to comfort Ace somewhat. Maybe it was just the knowledge that a faerie can’t lie, but Grim suspected that Ace was more comforted by the fact that Deuce wasn’t hiding that he wanted to keep their Names.

Less than a minute later, the door to Grim’s apartment slammed shut behind him and Delilah.

He turned to look at the woman, his eyes wide. “Did I just get kicked out of my own house?”

She looked amused. “Think so, yes.”

“... alright.”

He pulled out his own phone and started frantically downloading as many books on codependence and childhood trauma as he could. Because Deuce literally owning their Names sounded like a recipe for disaster codependency-wise. He couldn’t really stop them, Giving someone your Name only took a few seconds and it wasn’t as if he could watch the kids every minute of every day (he had to go back to work at some point), so… he would just have to mitigate the damage…

Hm. So, codependency was not what he thought it was. He scratched his head. Apparently, it was the specific kind of enabling relationships that form when one party is addicted to a substance. That… might be helpful at some point, he supposed, as a precaution, he wasn’t intent on offloading the books from his phone (he had already paid for them, anyways), but it still raised the question of what to do.

He leaned closer to Delilah to whisper, “Do faeries have therapists?”

Delilah shook her head. “Not really. When you live as long as we do, it’s better to self-actualize on your own.”

Demons were much the same.

Well, they didn’t self-actualize. They tended to look at their problems, go ‘hm’, and then get used to it because they had millions of years to do so. But he could see the appeal.

Hm. Welp. That was unfortunate.

Maybe he could get tips from the other school kids’ parents in a PTA meeting or something? But they were likely to all be faerie, who didn’t have therapists, so…

Looks like Grim was going to have to get a degree in psychology. On top of working and raising kids.

At least he wouldn’t be bored anytime soon, he supposed.

The door opened to reveal Deuce, who looked like he was vibrating in place. Which was… certainly interesting.

“Can we come back in?” Grim asked.

Deuce stepped aside, still beaming widely.

Trinity seemed fine. She had plopped herself down on the couch and started flipping through TV channels. Grim felt a strange sense of solidarity when she chose a romcom, and then grimaced when he remembered that she was a child and romcoms weren’t always child-friendly.

But, first…

Ace was seated next to her, but not slumped into the cushions like she was. He was sat bold-upright, staring at his hands. Not quite in a daze, but certainly weirded out.

“This is so weird,” Ace whispered. “It’s just… gone.”

(Trinity slid the remote into one of the pockets of her robes, which would make subtly changing the channel much more difficult for Grim.)

“It’s fine, you get used to it. Honestly, I thought it was weirder having my name again…”

“Your names aren’t gone,” Deuce sighed. Then, he jabbed his thumb into his own chest, not quite pointing at where his heart was but certainly near it. “They’re right here.”

Aw.

“Ace, yours is all… warm. Trinity, yours is kinda fluffy.”

Oh, that wasn’t a metaphor.

“What does mine feel like?” Grim asked, mildly curious. He didn’t have a soul, so his Name was pretty much the closest thing to it he had. He wanted to know more about it.

“... big,” decided Deuce.

Ah, children are always so eloquent.

But, everything seemed to have been settled, so he was happy to leave it be.

Within the week, the kids had been sent to school. Apparently the bureaucracy in the fae realm was extremely efficient. Grim was almost jealous.

He was actually jealous when the ground beneath his feet began to glow.

He was being Summoned.

And, unfortunately, he suspected he was being summoned to court.

His lips pressed into a thin line when he blinked his eyes open and found himself in a courtroom, being peered down at by a judge clad all in black.

Someone’s been watching too many human court dramas, what kind of demon wears clothes? Grim thought, rolling his eyes internally. Not externally, though, because he was currently standing trial.

Not that he was sure it would help.

See, there was a reason why demons refrained from making deals, even if it was an easy way to get rich in a short amount of time.

Only a few higher-ups had a license to make a Deal for someone’s soul. Everyone else was sent out to actually follow up on the terms of the Deals that they made (to make sure that people got their money, or that whoever it was died, or whoever it was didn’t die… that kind of thing).

The only way someone like Grim could make a Deal was if it had been an accident. Something that the demon simply stumbled into, rather than something they purposefully sought out.

Which was, more or less, what had happened.

However, the demonic justice system wasn’t particularly fair. Not exactly because they were all ‘evil’, it was just that no one involved in a court case – be it the defendant or the actual judge – wanted to be there in the slightest. Which meant that people were incentivized to get a case over with as quickly as possible.

… they weren’t prone to getting it over with by dismissing a case or declaring the defendant innocent.

Grim slammed his forehead against the desk in front of him, over and over. Maybe if he tried hard enough, God would get annoyed by the sound and smite him.

But he was a demon and God wasn’t merciful to demons, so Grim suffered:

“I was summoned by them, I had no choice in the matter.”

“It says here that you were Summoned multiple times, and even pushed a few people out of the way of the Summoning Circle to ensure you would be sent back.”

“They insulted me,” Grim said, so very close to snapping. “I had to defend my honor.”

“If they insulted you, then why did you take them in?”

“They grew on me,” said Grim. “Like mold.”

Silently, he wondered if asking Delilah to bring the kids over once school ended was too exploitative. Demons think kids are cute, and he does not want to rot in jail for the next hundred years or so for the high crime of wanting to be able to afford said kids. He can make a play for sympathy points…

And then his phone rang.

Grim rushed to pull it to his ear, ignoring the offended looks on the judge and jury’s faces. Surely that wouldn’t become a problem later.

“Hello?” he said, uncaring of whether it might be a scam call or not.

“Is this Ace’s guardian?”

Grim’s smile faded slightly. “Yes?”

“He got in a fight with one of the werewolves in his class and –.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Grim said, sighing.

The judge gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t just –.”

“Something has come up. I’d say that it was nice to meet you, but it wasn’t. Hope to never see you again! Bye!”

And then he left. Some people tried to stop him, but he was faster, so who cares? You can get out of anything if you’re fast enough.

He might have looked a little frazzled by the time he reached the principal’s office, but that was fine. So long as he didn’t have blood on him, who cares?

The faerie at the desk wrinkled her nose at him.

Ah. Riiiiight. Faerie actually care about appearances…

Eh.

“What happened?” Grim said, taking a seat by Ace.

The werewolf kid’s parent wasn’t there, suggesting that Ace was at fault for the fight, but Grim wanted to hear it from his mouth.

The werewolf kid, though, answered for him: “He said I was annoying!”

“No, I said you were annoying as hell,” Ace sniffed. “Get it right.”

Grim sighed. “Ace. You live in Hell.”

The principal gave him an incredulous look. “Is that really what you’re focusing on?”

Grim shrugged. He had suspected from the beginning that Ace and Trinity might get in trouble today, they had been on edge regardless of what Deuce had done to protect their Names. Frankly, they had lasted longer than expected (Trinity was still doing well, good for her), so he was going to take this as an overall win.

The door swung open, revealing a teacher, who was holding Deuce and another kid by the back of their uniform shirts.

Grim stared. Okay. That wasn’t expected –.

“He asked for Trinity’s Name,” Deuce said, his expression dark.

Grim stiffened. That was kind of messed up. Sure, they were kids, but –.

“I did NOT! I simply asked what I should call her! And! I’m not even a full faerie, I wouldn’t be able to DO anything with her Name if I had it!”

Oh. Okay.

Ace, though, either hadn’t heard the boy’s explanation or didn’t care, because he launched himself at the child, knocking them out of the teacher’s hands and sending them both to the floor. The werewolf child tried to pull Ace off of him, probably out of a sense of solidarity, but then Deuce kicked him in the head – something he was only able to do because he was still hanging from the teacher’s hand. Not that the faerie’s grip on Deuce lasted long. The teacher let go of Deuce in their surprise, and Deuce quickly joined the writhing mass of limbs on the floor.

Grim pressed his face into his hands. He strongly suspected that was not going to be getting much information from the PTA members. Or maybe they would have too eager suggestions as to where the kids could get therapists.

“Deal with your children,” the principal said, horrified.

Ughhhhhh fineeeeeee.

“If you two are here, how is Trinity doing?”

Ace and Deuce froze. Which wasn’t a particularly good thing to do in the middle of a scuffle. But it allowed the adults enough time to drag the kids to different parts of the room.

“I’m fine,” Trinity’s voice chimed.

She stood in the doorway, her hand interlaced with a small child’s. Human-esque, save for the slight pallor to his cheeks and fangs poking out from between his lips, a little too long for his current height.

Trinity’s neck was bleeding. There was blood dripping from the vampire child’s mouth. Grim could put the pieces together.

Trinity didn’t seem to mind that she had, probably, been attacked. She was used to ‘losing’ blood for the sake of rituals, so she was used to the feeling of having more blood outside of her body than in it. Witches are made to lose large amounts of blood over time, even if seeing it in person was always more than a little horrifying.

This, of course, did not matter to Ace and Deuce, who immediately tried to jump the vampire.

Grim suspected that he had a long few years ahead of him.

But, as he knelt by Trinity to wipe at her neck and make sure the damage wasn’t too bad, he quietly thought that he didn’t mind all that much.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

All fae-n and games: A Fae-ke written by oliviaandersonisntmyrealnamelol | @olivia-anderson-fanfic

A Batman Podfic read by mistbornhero for 🎃 pod-o-ween 👻 filling the prompt 🍄uncanny 🍄 and the podfic bingo square 🎙️character voices 🎙️

A changeling finds a new home.

Podfic Length: 22:19 minutes