#(however it's ALSO the new chapter six)

[ckret2]

who wants a prism break?

So, the Theraprism! The Theraprism sucks, right?

This is like, a good day.

The Theraprism clearly sucks.

Have a one shot of Bill escaping Theraprism with the most desperate escape plan imaginable: reincarnation.

(Warning for, as you might expect, psychiatric hospital abuse.)

####

There are fates worse than death. Like boredom, for instance!

####

Everything was black and numb and silent and cold so so cold but no he could only call it cold if he felt cold and Bill didn't feel coldness there was just the absence of a feeling the absence of heat the absence of light the absence of sound the absence of touch the absence of air.

The absence of everything.

Bill had loved a void once—a micro black hole. Every time they touched it slowly killed him, spaghettified his limbs, drained his energy. His energy was so vast that she never claimed a drop of a drop of a drop of his reserves—but it still hurt like nothing else to be crushed and stretched and ripped and consumed by her event horizon. The pain was wonderful. Being shredded was ecstasy.

This void was the opposite of her. 

He couldn't even feel anything when he tried to scream—without air, he couldn't feel his vocal plates vibrate. He couldn't feel his hands, his face, his eye; he tried to bite himself just to feel something and he couldn't feel his mouth, he tried to rip open his wounds and couldn't find them; why couldn't he see his own light, why couldn't he see his blood, where had he gone, was he gone—

Reality returned like a light bulb being switched on.

The first thing he registered was a shrill sound on the verge of inaudibility; and then the pain in his eye, his sides, his wounds; and then the dull gray light, the hard floor under his knees, the antiseptic stench in the air conditioning.

He stopped screaming. The shrill sound stopped.

"Energetic as always, are we?"

Bill blinked blearily at the Orb of Healing Light hovering before him. He croaked, "I'll regurgitate you."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." A glowing translucent clipboard manifested in front of the Orb. "Well, you've gone through this enough times to know the drill! Do you need a moment to recover, or—?"

"No no, I'm fine, I'm fine." Bill slumped forward, trembling hands on the floor, waiting for the vertigo to pass. "I'm fine. Do your thing." He'd rather get the post-Solitary Wellness Void reorientation interview over with.

"Perfect. What's your name?"

"I'm ol' Vinegar Pete."

"No clowning, please."

He sighed loudly. "Bill Cipher."

"Good. Where are you?"

He considered saying hell, but decided he'd used up all the clowning he could risk for one day. He didn't want to go back in. "The Theraprism. Ward 333."

"Very good. When are you?"

"I was gonna ask you," Bill groaned. "How long was I in the hole this time? A million years? Ten million?"

The Orb checked its notes. "Eight minutes."

"Wh—no, no I know that time moves slower out in reality than in the prism. I'm not asking how much time passed in reality, I'm asking how much time passed here."

"Eight minutes," the Orb repeated. "Outside the Theraprism, one third of one second passed."

Bill groaned again and flopped flat on the floor.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"Why are any of us here?" Bill asked the gray linoleum tiles. "Usually because some dumb beast tripped into the booby trap that sets off its reproductive process. How's your species work, you pop outta nebulas, right—?"

"I meant, coming out of the Solitary Wellness Void."

"Oh." Bill tried to remember what his infraction had been this time. "Because I failed to escape."

"Because you tried to escape."

If he'd succeeded, they never could have punished him. "Sure."

"Good, you seem oriented to your surroundings. Let's get you to the nurse and then back to your cell." The nurse? What did he need a nurse for?

He only realized then that he must have succeeded in reopening his wounds in the SWV: the never-quite-healed crack across his exoskeleton was wider, the edges chipped and bent. It hurt. His eye socket hurt too; he tasted blood. With the way his whole body usually ached after leaving the void, he hadn't even noticed.

Through the crack in his exoskeleton, his edges had frayed into fine golden threads. The sight of silvery blood on his hands made him nauseous; he hastily looked away and reminded himself it was only his own. 

####

As Bill wearily followed behind the Orb and two security guards followed behind him, he had to periodically turn to hover sideways to streamline himself. These days he was so weak that he could feel the air resistance pushing back against him when he floated; with his wound reopened, he felt like the air pressure could snap his exoskeleton along the crack and break him in half.

"You're not Emmy," Bill said. "You're, uh..."

"A-AOX4."

"Oxyyy," Bill said weakly. "Heyyy. S'been a while. Usually I get a personal welcome back from the void, why didn't Emmy show? Don't tell me it doesn't see me as a threat anymore!" He'd be offended if it didn't. D-SM5 was the closest thing he had to a nemesis these days. Even if he couldn't beat it, he wanted to think he still irritated the daylights out of it.

"Director SM5 couldn't make it. It's overseeing the preparations for Paingoreous's reincarnation."

"That's today? Good riddance." Paingoreous had started getting sanctimonious the past few hundred group therapy sessions—don't you have any compassion for your victims and it's possible to live a happy life without slaughtering all your enemies first and maybe I should ask for permission before I vivisect my friends' faces—passive, self-defeatist crap like that. Vivisecting your friends and seeing who complained was how you found out who your lame friends were! Now that the wet blanket was leaving, the rest of them could get back to spending their sessions reminiscing about the glory days and trying to set the donuts on fire when the therapist was distracted.

"Yes," A-AOX4 said pointedly, "it is good he gets to leave to go become a productive member of reality. We're all so happy that he's rehabilitated enough to earn a new chance at life." (Bill rolled his eye. A-AOX4 ignored it.) "Wouldn't you like a chance to rejoin reality, Bill?"

More than anything. He'd been in this crystallized brain's perpetual dreamscape for what felt like both a thousand years and a single day—time never passing, an eternal inescapable moment. He'd tried to break out, sneak out, or bargain his way out more times than he could count; sometimes he was locked in the SWV as punishment; and sometimes the staff gently stopped him, confiscated his supplies, and chastised him for the effort—and the reminder that he was as powerless as a child was worse than the void. He'd gone delirious from the boredom, hallucinating screams and burning faces as his mind struggled to stimulate itself (and he'd been medicated for it). He'd so despaired of escaping that he'd looked for a way to burn up the remains of his energy and vanish for good (and he'd been medicated for it). He ached with the need to see the stars again.

But not enough to sell his soul for it. If he took the staff's route—let them break him down, sandblast off his rough edges, erase everything that made him him, and finally physically transform him into some alien creature—then whatever left the Theraprism would no longer be Bill Cipher.

"What, and force you guys to find a new 'unique case'? I wouldn't do that to you! I know how much you love me," Bill said. "Besides, why would I go through all that just so I can reincarnate as a sentient snowflake, or Mi-Go antennae lice, or..."

"A butterfly," A-AOX4 cut in, an edge of impatience creeping into its tone. "Paingoreous has chosen to reincarnate as a butterfly. We all think that's a very productive way to channel his desire to digest his own skin."

"Unless it's one of those blood-drinking butterflies, lame." Bill scoffed. "Wait—hold on, you said butterfly? Like an Earth butterfly?"

They were, of course, not actually speaking an Earth language, but an interdimensional pidgin that borrowed words and grammar from dozens of worlds. When around the Orbs of Healing Light that held half the staff positions, Bill tended to speak a dialect of the pidgin that used flashes of light for 40% of its vocabulary. It was perfectly possible that the word Bill knew as "butterfly" was also used for some alien creature, but—

"Yes, an Earth butterfly. A Vanessa atalanta, to be precise."

Aw, boo. Not even a cool butterfly. "He's reincarnating on Earth?"

"Yes. Many of our patients reincarnate on Earth. As long as you're careful about which region and century you reincarnate into, it's at the top of our recommended list of Goldilocks zones."

There was another phrase that Bill recognized, but this time he was sure his definition was not A-AOX4's definition. "Whaaat do Goldilocks zones have to do with reincarnation."

"You didn't pay attention to the orientation session on our outpatient reincarnation program, did you."

"What! I didn't get an orientation session!" said Bill, who probably didn't remember any such session because he didn't pay attention to it.

"Well—we rank millions of planets and their dimensional parallels based on their potential to help patients reintegrate into reality. We do try to set our patients up for success," A-AOX4 said. "To qualify as a Goldilocks zone, a planet has to meet the Theraprism's rigorous list of criteria: its lifeforms, cultures, laws of physics, and position in interdimensional society must all be conducive to a patient's continued recovery. We want to ensure that our patients' new lives are neither so difficult as to retraumatize them, nor so easy as to let them coast by avoiding continued personal growth, but right in the middle, so that they're emotionally and spiritually challenged without being overwhelmed. The Goldilocks zone: a perfect compromise between two extremes."

"Yeah, sure, sounds great." Bill could feel his eye glazing over in disinterest. Fight it, Cipher.

"Do you miss Earth?"

Bill tilted to glance askance at A-AOX4, and was surprised to see it had turned to focus a spotlight on him. Oh—it thought it had finally found a carrot to dangle in front of him. That was a popular strategy here: they figured out what a patient wanted most, and then used it to coax them into good behavior and "rehabilitation"—better still if they could attach a sense of urgency to it. Don't you want to see your descendants again before the last of them dies out? Don't you want to see your homeworld before its sun swallows it? Don't you want to reconcile with your god before the heat death of your universe?

But Bill had no universe, no homeworld, no family; no lovers or friends or gods that hadn't betrayed him and left him to rot here; and he'd remained smugly steadfast in refusing to give D-SM5 and its minions anything else it could use to get under his chitin. He was proud that he was too broken for even the famed Theraprism to fix him.

A-AOX4 probably thought it had finally found an opening. It might be useful to let it keep thinking that.

"You kidding me? Earth? Pfff! I don't miss that overgrown asteroid one bit!" He waved off the suggestion, and winced when the gesture tugged wrong at his reopened wound. "But hey, you don't study a world for millions of years without finding a few things about it to like. The music's pretty good. And the movies and literature, though if you ask me, they peaked between the first two World Wars. I like trees, evolution did a great job with trees. And humans really went off with the architecture. The pyramids? 10 out of 10. And some of the locals aren't bad, I've got a few exes from Earth."

"Do you? How many exes?"

"Living? Just a hundred forty or fifty," Bill said dismissively. "Earthlings just have those pretty eyes, you know? I'm a sucker for a pretty eye! But outside of that, no, there's nothing on Earth for me."

"I see," A-AOX4 said lightly, and dropped the conversation.

Hook, line, and sinker.

####

The original definition of a "Goldilocks zone" came from astrobiology. The Goldilocks zone was the ring of space around a star in which an orbiting planet could support liquid water and thus water-based life: not too close to the star and too hot, not too far and too cold, but just right. Earth, for instance, orbited Sol in its Goldilocks zone.

It was from this definition that other, more metaphorical definitions of Goldilocks zones emerged. Such as the Theraprism's: a world that was neither too stressful nor too boring for a newly brainwashed—sorry, "cured"—patient. And apparently Earth was in that Goldilocks zone, too.

Which was very interesting to Bill—because in their search for a new home, the Henchmaniacs had come up with their own definition of a Goldilocks zone. For them, it was a dimension close enough to the Nightmare Realm with a thin enough barrier that they could easily punch through it, but not so close and so thin that puncturing the barrier would pop it like a balloon and cause the dimension to immediately prolapse into the Nightmare Realm—which was a problem they'd had before. More than once. They needed a dimension they could easily cut a hole into, but control it, so they could slowly pump the Nightmare Realm's contents in. A barrier neither too vulnerable nor too strong, but just right.

And wouldn't you know it—but Earth happened to be in that Goldilocks zone too. Right next to a point in the dimensional membrane so thin, the Nightmare Realm could almost stretch through and kiss it.

####

Since Bill Cipher was infamously known as the last survivor of a trillion-years-extinct species, and had until recently been capable of instantly repairing himself, there were no medical records on how his anatomy worked. It didn't help that at some point eons ago he'd somehow managed to graft a 3D exoskeleton to his 2D anatomy without breaking his own physics, meaning no one had seen his true body in recorded history. Bill knew how he worked, but refused to offer any hints. So the Theraprism staff had to guess at Bill's medical treatment.

But Bill was still made of energy, and even weakened he could eventually self-repair. So whenever his injury was exacerbated, the nurse tended to just patch up his exoskeleton to keep it stable enough to send him back to his room.

On top of his mysterious anatomy, the staff had no idea how to medicate his physiology. They knew he could be medicated—Bill's personal substance (ab)use experiments were notorious far outside the Nightmare Realm—but they had to treat him like a newly-discovered form of life in figuring out what affected him, how it affected him, and how much it took. He'd been on and off hundreds of drugs as they tried to chemically stabilize a mind for which they had no idea what baseline stability looked like. D-SM5 had told him that between the enormous doses needed to impact his energy-based physiology and the vast variety of drugs he'd been through, Bill's medication regimen was the most expensive in the Theraprism. He took some pride in that.

He had very few things to take pride in anymore. He clung to what meager victories he could.

If Bill got his way, he wouldn't be medicated at all. None of the substances they wanted him on were what he'd call recreational. (Although for a while he had gotten away with not telling the docs that one of his antipsychotics had given him a side-effect of kaleidoscopic hallucinations.) Plus there was the fact that he'd heard rumors that quite a few pharmaceutical execs were good pals with a certain director—not that Bill would name names, of course!—that's his motto, Don't Slander Maliciou5ly!

But when he resisted taking his meds, they could send in the guards to pin him down so a nurse could inject a sedative so strong he wouldn't remember anything that happened for the next few hours to months (hard to tell) until they started tapering it off... and although he'd rather die than admit it, after losing that fight five or six times, even he had to admit to himself it was a lot less scary to just take their rotten drugs. Better to go through his days with his mind dulled and hazy than blacked out altogether.

To retain what little pride he had left, he'd reached a compromise with his jailers.

When the nurse had finished attaching the reinforcing splints around Bill's injury, they grabbed a medication measurement cup, filled it halfway with syrupy eye drops, and double-checked Bill's chart as they dropped thirteen different pills (plus a fourteenth pill for a painkiller) in the cup.

As Bill redressed, he eyed the unappetizing cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and things he'd forgotten the purpose of but that probably weren't doing whatever the doctors hoped and definitely weren't doing anything Bill liked. "My straw?"

"Right, right." The nurse handed over one of the wide-diameter disposable white straws they kept on hand for patients who struggled to drink (or, in Bill's case, patients they struggled to get to drink).

Only a tiny fragment of Bill was actually locked up in the Theraprism—like pinching the glowing lure of an anglerfish in a trap while the rest of the fish thrashed outside—and because most of Bill's vast energy was elsewhere, he was nearly powerless. But he still had enough energy to heat up a finger, twist the straw around it, and hold it there until it had melted into a new shape.

The nurse sighed. "Do you have to do that every time? You ruin more straws than you get right."

Imperiously, Bill said, "Leave me to my whimsy." He tugged off the straw when it had cooled down to examine the corkscrew shape he'd made. The wall was a little flattened in one place, but he could pinch it back open. "See? It's perfect!" Cheerfully ignoring the nurse, he stuck the straw in his cup and slurped down his pills like tapioca balls. He tried not to remember what was in them.

A-AOX4 had left Bill with the nurse, but the two mall cops with medical kinks known as Bill's personal guards were still waiting nearby. The nurse's office was next door to the cafeteria—for ease of patients picking up their medications at meal times—in an anteroom that was connected to the rest of the ward by a set of locked double doors. A couple of guards were stationed near those doors at all times, and generally the guards assigned to Bill hung around with them while Bill was in the cafeteria or nurse's office. Bill floated up to them, regarding them with the disinterest of a king ignoring the servants he expected to open doors for him, and continued to ignore them as they escorted him back to his cell, one in front and one behind, while he sipped on his drugged cocktail.

The Dimensional Tyrant Ward was already one of the most heavily-guarded wards in the Theraprism; but to reach the maximum security cells, a patient had to pass several increasingly heavy security checkpoints with increasingly impenetrable security doors. The final door was warded against all magic, unhackable, unbreakable, and so airtight that even without his exoskeleton there was no gap Bill's 2D form could slide through. The doors to each cell—outfitted with tiny one-way mirror portholes, no latches or hinges on the inside—were a little less heavy duty, but packed with just as many failsafes. The Dimensional Tyrant Ward's max security hall had the most advanced security architecture of any psychiatric facility in the multiverse.

Bill had made a trillion year career of trying to break his way through a door nobody wanted him to go through. He could think of seven different ways to get through the doors. Sooner or later he'd find a way out of this place altogether.

A few of the doors had modifications: this one with a metal slab over the porthole to protect passersby from the occupant's petrifying gaze, that one with extra soundproofed padding coating the door. Bill was almost insulted his own door didn't warrant any special modifications.

His favorite door was The Beast's. A comfortingly yellow triangular sign on the door displayed a black symbol of a steak. Red signs above and below read "CAUTION! FEED UNSEASONED MEAT ONLY." "NO SUGAR ALLOWED." The Beast's heavy snuffing was audible through the door; his hot, sickly sweet breath seeped through the slot in the door that had been installed to deliver his food.

Bill's escorts automatically drifted to the far side of the hall to avoid The Beast. Bill, whose first medication was already starting to kick in, zigzagged lazily back and forth across the hall, heedless of how close he came to The Beast's cell.

Bill had never seen this door opened once in all his time incarcerated, and the dust settled on the additional chains and padlocks stretched across the door showed just how long it had been since the last incident. But some of the patients who'd been here longer than Bill still couldn't bring themselves to speak of the last time he'd escaped. Elder eldritch gods shuddered and gibbered nervously at the mention of his name. 

Bill tilted over to try to peer through the food slot at The Beast. A quivering, sickly blue eye stared back at him. Honestly, Bill thought The Beast was adorable.

Outside Bill's door, the guards waited for Bill to finish his medicine, hand over his cup and straw, and open his mouth and lift his eye out of the way so they could check and make sure he'd swallowed them.

And then he was left in his cell.

####

A perfect cube of uniform dull grey tiles supernaturally lit by a uniform dull grey glow, no light source, no shadows; in a max security room in the Maximum Security Wellness Center, patients weren't even trusted around light fixtures. The staff had removed everything Bill had used thus far to commit violence or attempt escape, plus a few more things as punishments for various infractions: journal, paint, pens, books, magazines, puppets (he missed those the most), even the furniture. He'd never earned the privilege of a TV or radio. By now, all he was permitted were black, red, yellow, and blue dry erase markers to draw on his walls—and the red and blue had gone dry; the "Be a TRY-angle!" poster they'd replaced whenever Bill left the room until he gave up and stopped tearing it down; and the clothes on his back. He'd gradually gotten himself banned from every extracurricular and recreational activity the Dimensional Tyrant Ward offered. Whenever he was fresh out of the SWV, when his restrictions were highest, his schedule consisted of mandatory individual therapy, mandatory group therapy, med checks, and the cafeteria.

He spent the vast majority of his time in his cell, sitting curled up alone, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating, waiting for nothing at all.

####

The seamless door swung open and admitted an Orb of Healing Light.

Bill blinked blearily up at the Orb. It was hard to tell how slowly time passed here, but he was sure it couldn't have been more than a couple hours since he'd been returned to his cell: that was when his medications made his mind the foggiest. "Emmyyy. Where ya been? Didn't see you when I came out of the Solitary Dullness Void. Nice of you to, uh..." A second ago he'd had a clever quip about how D-SM5 had clearly dropped by because it missed Bill, but he'd forgotten how to word it.

"Well, I'm here now. I'm flattered you missed me, Mr. Cipher."

Bill blinked heavily. "You turned that around on me," he griped. "Not fair." Ugh, the room was spinning. He flopped on his back.

"A-AOX4 tells me you showed an interest earlier in our outpatient reincarnation program," D-SM5 said. "Since it looks like your schedule is light these days, I thought you might be interested in attending Paingoreous's reincarnation?"

It took him a moment to process the offer. "Really? That's something people can attend?" What was the catch?

"We usually only extend the offer to the departing patient's friends, and—exemplary patients. But... I thought you might benefit from watching the process for yourself. It may encourage you to take a little more interest in your future."

For it to push a possible lead so fast, it really was desperate to find some leverage they could use on Bill. It probably thought of this as a rare opportunity—a patient from Ward 333 wasn't ready for reincarnation every day.

"Wow. I sure am encouraged," Bill said. "You have no idea just how encouraged I am."

####

If an unambitious office building and a utilitarian hospital reluctantly got married out of a vague sense of heteronormative social obligation, had a depressed child, and the fae spirited it away to replace it with an even more depressed changeling child, the child's small intestines would look a lot like the Theraprism's interior hallways: it was windowless, it was labyrinthine, it was beige, and it was grey, and it didn't even care anymore. Monotonous commercial high-traffic carpet alternated with monotonous commercial high-traffic linoleum. The fluorescent lights buzzed just enough to be annoying, but not quite enough that you'd feel justified in snapping and screaming "I've had it!" as you swung a pleather-seated metal chair at the light fixture.

Even though Bill had been languishing in the Theraprism for hours and/or millennia (Bill couldn't tell; he couldn't feel the passage of time), he hardly knew his way around the Dimensional Tyrant Ward, much less the rest of the facility. As D-SM5 led Bill (and six guards) out of Ward 333 and into a lower security zone, he looked for any scant identifiable landmarks and tried to memorize which turns they took by coding the lefts and rights and ups and downs into a mnemonic word. The walk helped wake him from his medication stupor; but his mind never quite felt fully on.

Bill had only briefly glimpsed the Theraprism's reincarnation unit during intake, just one of many rooms he'd been whisked past as he was dragged to Ward 333 screaming and cursing the Axolotl's name. Entering the unit now, it looked like an occult sacrificial altar carved from marble that had been modeled after a 23rd century starship's teleportation platform, contained in a room that looked like a magic planetarium: glowing stars hovered around the dome of the ceiling. Against the back wall in pale pink marble was carved an impossibly long axolotl, swimming in a figure 8 so its vapid smile almost caught the tip of its ribbonlike tail. Bill glowered at it. Backstabber.

He, D-SM5, and the other observers who'd already arrived were in a connected observation room with an enormous, thick window and a sealed door. Next to the window was a large computer console encased in the same marble as the reincarnation altar. That probably controlled the process.

The audience consisted of three aliens who looked a little like Paingoreous might have with his face unpeeled, a few patients and staff Bill recognized, more he didn't, and Jessica with the shining spherical head and the thirteen fingers. Oh boy. If he'd known Jessica would be here he would have tried to polish. Bill straightened his bow tie and smoothed his rumpled orange jumpsuit.

Paingoreous himself was already in the next room, standing on the altar. At the sight of Bill, his exposed facial muscles twitched, as though trying to widen his eyes even though their eyelids were already long gone. "Bill? What are you doing here?"

D-SM5 answered before Bill could blurt out a witty retort. "I invited Mr. Cipher. I thought he would benefit from seeing what he can look forward to once he's improved. I hope you don't mind."

Paingoreous's face immediately smoothed out. "Yes—of course, director, if you say so. I remember how difficult it was in the early days. I'm happy to help my fellow patients in any way I can." Suck up. A dry note entered his voice, "Especially a more troubled patient."

Bill took one of the folding chairs lined up in front of the window and shot back, "I'm about to have one less trouble! Byyye!" (Did Jessica think that was funny? Sometimes she did. He snuck a sideways glance to see if she was laughing. Oh, right—she didn't have a face.)

Paingoreous didn't dignify him with a response. Too good for the likes of Bill, no doubt. Paingoreous wasn't obligated to answer anybody—except the staff, of course.

Bill had never met the real Paingoreous. By the time Bill was committed, the monotony, medication, and mandatory therapy were already well on their way to killing whoever Paing had once been. No way the offensively bland sap leaving now was the same one who'd come in with his face skinned and muscles pinned open.

A technician was already turning on the computer console, running through a whole list of checks as the machine booted up. A hum filled the room as the altar began to softly glow. To all appearances Bill was facing forward, slitted pupil aimed straight at Paingoreous; but his anatomy was built for watching things out of the corner of his eye and his real attention was focused on the reincarnation technician. "So how's reincarnation work in this dump?" Bill asked D-SM5. "I didn't get the orientation."

"Yes you did," D-SM5 said. "I was there."

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't remember seeing you."

D-SM5 sighed. "First, Paingoreous's memories of his current life must be erased, to give him the best fresh start possible and to comply with Earth's soul sanitization regulations."

"Seems like a big waste of time. His head's already empty enough."

One of the Paing-ish aliens a couple seats over shot Bill a dirty look. "That's my son in there."

"Not for much longer, he isn't."

"Be respectful," D-SM5 said warningly.

Bill ignored it. "So once you've scrubbed his brain clean, what then?"

"Then, we reincarnate him. We've already carefully selected his destination and species; except for special circumstances, we generally don't customize the patient's body further, as the program is already set up to divinely design the body most well-suited to the soul about to inhabit it."

"If these bodies are so perfect, why customize them at all?"

"We wouldn't want, say, a recovering pyromaniac to be reborn with pyrokinesis." (Bill felt unfairly targeted.) "Once his species and destination are entered into the program, off he'll go to start his new life as an egg."

"An egg?! Sheesh, wasn't going through childhood once bad enough? I assume his childhood was bad, anyway! Nobody with competent parents ends up like him."

The Paing-ish alien beside Bill bolted out of their seat and lurched aggressively toward Bill. (Ha. Too easy.) The next alien over tugged them back by the arm. Bill was sure he heard a whispered, "Careful, do you know who that..." 

D-SM5 said, "One more crack like that and you're going back to your cell."

"Fiiine. Why can't he skip straight to being a butterfly, though?" What he really wanted to find out was how to skip straight to adulthood.

"For starters, because spontaneous generation has been heavily restricted on Earth since the 15th century, and banned completely outside of special circumstances since the 19th century."

Spontaneous generation. The creation of fully formed life from unliving matter: maggots that emerged from flesh, geese that emerged from barnacles, snakes and crocodiles that wriggled out of the mud of the Nile. He'd always planned to legalize it again when he took over. So if the only reason the Theraprism couldn't do it was because it was banned, then they must have the technology for it, right?

Bill tuned D-SM5 out as it prattled on about the mental health benefits of restarting life and beginner's mind and boring therapeutic psychobabble, and ignored the flashing lights and divine music as Paingoreous's memory, personality, and identity were all wiped clean. He was only interested in what the reincarnation technician was doing. (Although when Bill briefly glanced at Paingoreous, his shape seemed somehow uncertain, as though his molecules had only just walked into the room and promptly forgotten what they'd come in for or who they were supposed to be. Ready to be reshaped into something else.)

The technician opened up the primary reincarnation program, checked a box confirming that the patient's previous incarnation had been erased, and began setting up the specifications for his next incarnation. Choosing the reincarnation world was easy enough: under the drop down menu, the "Goldilocks zone" worlds were sorted first. Earth was sixth on the list. Choosing a dimension was just as easy.

However, choosing the location and time period looked more complicated; rather than searching through a handy list of continents or geological epochs, the technician checked Paingoreous's patient file and typed a couple of long strings of numbers into the blanks for the coordinates and time. They didn't look like any date system or coordinate system Bill was familiar with. How the heck would he work with that?

And selecting the species, to Bill's horror, meant scrolling down a menu ordered by how frequently a species had been selected for reincarnation at this facility. That was insane! The Theraprism always discharged patients as unambitious species where one member was nearly incapable of making a meaningful impact on the local biosphere—anything useful like an octopus or a goat would be buried amongst the literal billions of species that had received zero reincarnations. Couldn't you just start typing the species's name to jump down to—? But no, the Theraprism's keyboard didn't have characters to type human loan words. The technician seemed to be scrolling manually.

That was fine! That was fine. Whatever Bill left as, he wouldn't be it for very long. He wasn't shopping for a makeover; just for an escape pod.

The technician located Vanessa atalanta (147 prior reincarnations) and kept moving, tabbing past a dizzying array of options—sex, size, coloration, visual clarity, caterpillar spine distribution, a whole list of health conditions and mutations the technician skipped—and every box she tabbed past automatically filled in with the word "DEFAULT". How many boxes could be filled in with defaults?

Bill leaned toward D-SM5. "So do you chuck these suckers out anywhere random on the planet or what?"

"Of course not," it said promptly. "What a thought! We take a deep interest in our discharged patients' well-being. We never leave where they spend their next lives at the whim of the computer's randomized decision." 

But they could leave it up to the computer. Still watching sideways as the technician scrolled past an "advanced settings" button without touching it (was that where the spontaneous generation option was hidden?), Bill asked, "Do youalways choose for the patient, or can the patient make requests?"

Dryly, D-SM5 said, "Unless you make some enormous progress, I doubt you'd get clearance to reincarnate anywhere near that town you terrorized, if that's what you're wondering."

"What! Who said I want to visit that crummy valley! All those mountains and trees? Ugh! No, do you know what kind of place I like? The Greater Cairo metropolitan area. Dry! Sandy! Flat!" said Bill, who detested flat landscapes with all his heart. "Covered in pyramids! Sometimes with my face on them! Plus there's the Nile! I love the Nile! I love being in the Nile! I'd spend all my time in the Nile if I could! I've had some loser ex-friends say that living your whole life in the Nile is an unhealthy coping mechanism to avoid addressing problems in your life, but if you ask me they're just jealous of how amazing my life is—"

"Ready for reincarnation," the technician said. "Proceed?"

D-SM5 left its seat, hovering closer to the glass to catch Paingoreous's attention. "Are you ready?"

"Sure," said Paingoreous, who clearly wasn't certain what he was claiming to be ready for.

"Proceed," D-SM5 said. Bill fell silent, paying close attention to how the technician began the reincarnation process.

She clicked a button that said "EXECUTE" (gruesome), clicked through a couple more confirmation screens, and then the faint background hum grew to a rumble and the magical stars glowed brighter. "Ten seconds," she said. "Nine... eight... seven..."

"Hey!" Bill shouted through the glass. "Friendly tip for Earth! Humans love when you fly into their eyeballs! You should do that!"

D-SM5 rounded on Bill, glowing furiously at him. (Maybe it was Bill's imagination, but he thought Jessica looked amused. Worth it.)

The soon-to-be caterpillar formerly known as Paingoreous stared in confusion at Bill. "Okay," he said—and then there was a bright flash of light.

He let out an awful wail of pure soul-rending agony.

When the light faded, he was gone.

The observation room had fallen perfectly silent.

"That's fine," D-SM5 said. "That's—that's normal."

####

Every once in a while, the Theraprism got something right. It was one of the few big government-sponsored "respectable" institutions that didn't make a fuss about how Bill ate. They just let him go to the cafeteria, strip down, unpeel his exoskeleton, and hang out with the photosynthesizers for half an hour or so in the corner under the grow lights. No gasps of horror or screams of outrage—not from the staff anyway; some of the patients took a bit to get used to it when they were new. It was a refreshing change.

On the other hand, even though they were willing to turn a couple lights high enough to melt most mortals' eyeballs when Bill was feeding, he never left feeling truly energized. The grow lights were designed for species with leaves and solar panels; they weren't designed to fuel up a god made of energy. A few bright lightbulbs didn't measure up to raw starlight.

He figured there wasn't any point in complaining. As much as he hated feeling like a gas tank trying to burn a dust mote for fuel, he knew that they knew that long before he even reached 1% of his usual power, he'd be strong enough to vaporize the Theraprism with the snap of a finger.

When he'd had his daily dose of light, he folded shut, redressed, and drifted over to the actual food for dessert. He grabbed a bottle of an allegedly "lemon" nigh-flavorless clear soda—this would do—and hovered toward the exit.

The cafeteria monitor stationed in the door elbowed her way in front of Bill. "Ahem."

"What?"

"You know the rules. No food outside the cafeteria."

"What! This isn't food, it's a soda. Beverages aren't food, everyone knows that." The monitor didn't budge. Bill tried whining. "C'mooon, I got injured in the void today. Look at this!" He gestured demonstratively at his splints. "Look how much pain I'm in!"

The Solitary Wellness Void made this cafeteria monitor uncomfortable. She'd never said so directly, but she tended to turn a blind eye when patients who'd just come out of the SWV were more aggressive than usual or tried to sneak extra desserts. One time when Bill had come out of a week in the SWV, she'd wordlessly slipped him a couple of packets of low-sodium fear sauce, a condiment usually distributed exclusively to the obligate phobophages in the ward. "Besides, it's my birthday! I'm a birthday triangle! You wouldn't deny a birthday triangle a soda, right?"

"Is it really your birthday?"

"Heck if I know. It could be. I don't know it isn't."

She was trying not to smile. "Fine. Just one time. Don't let anyone catch you with it and finish it before you're back in your cell."

"You got it, toots." Bill glided past her.

He slipped from the cafeteria into the nurse's office before his guards could catch sight of his illicit drink. "Hey, bartender! I'm here for my nightcap."

The nurse prepared Bill's evening battery of drugs. He bent his straw into a fun zigzag—honestly it was really more of a sad N shape—slurped down half the eyedrops, and opened his soda to refill his cup.

The nurse looked over at the hiss of the cap opening. "Hey! Hey—"

"It's just soda!" Bill protested. "The cafeteria monitor said it was fine! Besides, what's a little soda gonna do? Nullify all seven of my antipsychotics before I reach my cell?" (Bill had overheard the nurse grumbling to a colleague about the amount of antipsychotics he was on. They thought it was utterly excessive, considering that they'd had no evidence the drugs were doing anything but making him more erratic—which was something, because Bill had seen patients near drooling catatonia from their meds without any of the nurses questioning their current dosage. Conversely, the docs thought Bill's odd biology meant they needed to give him more if they wanted any hope of impacting him.) "Come on. It's not even caffeinated!"

The nurse took the soda bottle to check the ingredient list, then relented. "Fine. I suppose it won't do any harm."

"You're a peach." Bill topped off his cup, poured the rest of the soda over his eye, crushed the bottle, and consumed it too.

"The plastic probably isn't good for you, though."

"I like the way it melts in the back of my throat."

As he drank his medicated soda and got escorted back to his cell, he lazily drifted back and forth in the hall as far as the guards would let him go, dawdling more than usual—he knew they hated it when he dawdled, but they knew he hated spending one second more in his cell than necessary and grudgingly put up with a little lollygagging to keep the peace. But their tolerance ran out in the max security hall as Bill slowed down even further near The Beast's cell. The guard behind Bill pushed him. "Hurry up." 

"Hey!" Bill wobbled off path and stumbled into the wall, spilling some of his drink. "What's your problem!"

"You stopped moving."

"I did not! I'm just taking my time! Enjoying the weather out here."

"Well, take less time."

"Ugh, fine. Didn't realize you had plans I'm keeping you from." Bill rolled his eye and kept moving.

"Hold it!"

Bill froze. He turned around. The guard was pointing at a streak of clear fluid that had spilled from Bill's cup and rolled down the door. His bones frosted over.

"You dropped a pill," the guard said.

Bill's gaze focused on the circular soap-green tablet on the floor. "Are you kidding?! Aren't the other twelve enough?"

"No exceptions, Cipher."

"You don't expect me to eat it off the floor!"

"Do you want to go all the way back to the nurse's office for another?"

Bill groaned in frustration. "Fine!" He snatched it up, wiped it off on the guard's sleeve, and popped it in his mouth. The guard raised a fist; Bill bared his fangs; and after a tense moment, the guard backed down first. The Theraprism had taken nearly every other power from Bill, but it couldn't take his teeth—and though he knew the guards would win any fight, Bill could make it hurt.

They returned him to his room; Bill handed over his cup; they checked to make sure his cup was empty, inspected his mouth, and locked him in.

He hoped they wouldn't notice that half his pills had stuck in the zig-zag bend of the opaque white straw.

He hoped they wouldn't notice The Beast's tongue thrusting through his food slot to lap up the spilled soda that was running down his door and over the bright red "NO SUGAR ALLOWED" sign.

His entire plan hinged on it.

####

Bill was drawing on the wall with his scant art supplies when he felt reality ripple around him, like the wave in a still pool when someone new quietly slides into the water. He looked up from his work. It was happening.

There were several thuds; then a crash; and then the peal of a prison alarm piercing the air. The alarm melted into shrill dolphin-like laughter, and then the frenetic staccato of a hyper speed dance song that threatened to fracture Bill's internal organs. He shuddered as the sound tore at his wound like freezing ice crystals expanding a crack in a boulder.

But he rose into the air and turned to face the door, ready.

Just in time for the door to vanish. The Theraprism melted away like mist in the sunlight—and oh, the sunlight was glorious. The wide open sky pulsed maddening colors so vivid that the faraway rainbows looked monotone in comparison; the land consisted of rolling hills of candy-coated tongues and stomachs and muscles, the paws of enormous buried corpses thrusting up into the sky, the crevasses between burial mounds running with artificially-flavored saliva. It was Bill's kind of place. He wished he had time to hang around.

Before him, orange fur matted with a fine dust of powdery sugar, wild eyes contracted to pinpricks, stood The Beast.

"You did it, you beautiful monster!" Bill shrieked with laughter. "I knew you'd come through!"

The Beast rumbled, "Em deerf evah uoy."

"You're welcome! You can return the favor later! Me, I have somewhere to be." While The Beast was asserting his personal reality on top of the Theraprism's idea of reality, none of the Theraprism's walls or doors existed. Bill wasn't sure exactly how far The Beast's radius of influence extended, except that it was at least far enough to get him out of the maximum security hall—but he had to move now, before the guards rallied to sedate The Beast. Bill slipped a finger into the band of his ankle bracelet and found that under the influence of The Beast's physics, the stiff plastic stretched like a warm rubber band. He tugged it off and tossed it aside. "Seeya, pal!"

But The Beast held up a paw, blocking Bill before he could zip off. "Noob ym tpecca," The Beast said. "Hself ym emusnoc."

"Oooh. Woww." Bill looked at The Beast's candy paw. "Oh, man. Generous offer! You have no idea how tempting it is to take a taste, but I've really gotta get somewhere, and I've gotta be at least sober enough to pull that off..."

"Emusnoc," The Beast insisted. "Hsur ragus eht fo ssendam gnilims citatsce eht ni em nioj. Rehtegot srorroh letsap dna serusaelp kcis hcus wonk lliw ew. Evarg lufituaeb ym ni em htiw tor."

Bill stared again at the paw. The tip of his tongue slipped out beneath his eye to lick hungrily at his waterline. When was the last time he'd been on something that felt good? "Oh, what the heck!" He took The Beast's paw. "I can do this buzzed! How much damage can one little lick do, anyway?"

####

The guard heaved open the maximum security hall's door. The floor was covered in tacky pools of neon candy and removed ankle monitors. "It's just like we feared," the guard shouted into a walkie-talkie, glancing quickly through each cell door's window. "Every single max security patient escaped under The Beast's reality-altering field."

The guard stopped at the sight of neon yellow and orange, peering through the window at the triangle flopped flat on the ground and surrounded by powdery pink sugar.

"Well," the guard said, "all of them except Cipher."

Through the walkie-talkie, D-SM5 tiredly said, "He licked the paw, didn't he."

"Looks like it, boss."

D-SM5 groaned. "All right! Positive thinking! That's the second biggest threat in the ward already accounted for! Silver lining to Mr. Cipher's substance use issues. Assist in securing the others."

####

The good news was that The Beast seemed happy to frolic randomly around the Theraprism rather than head toward the exit, forcing the other escapees to follow along to remain under his reality-altering protection rather than get stranded in small rooms and locked-down halls. The bad news was that his meandering route let him pick up more and more revelers. After an hour, only a third of the max security patients had been re-captured and dragged back to their cells, and twice as many medium security patients had joined the riot. 

A-AOX4 was on hand in the maximum security hall to supervise as the guards brought in super-powered escapees. Most of them came back loopy on either The Beast's toxins or on the sedative that had been injected to keep them calm. A-AOX4 was checking them for awareness of their surroundings—name, where are you, when are you, why are you here—as each one was locked back in their cell.

And each time it passed by Bill's cell, it glanced in, concerned.

Bill had been almost pleasant when he'd come out of the Solitary Wellness Void—maybe after all those sessions in isolation he was finally ready to be more of a team player. And D-SM5 had said that he'd been unusually well-behaved and attentive during the reincarnation. A-AOX4 had hoped their most surly patient was finally opening up. It would be a shame if this incident with The Beast resulted in his new progress backsliding.

Plus, it took a heavy dose of anything to impact Bill at all, much less knock him out cold. He'd already had to go to the nurse earlier today; what if he needed medical attention?

So after locking up the latest subdued prisoner, A-AOX4 said to one of the guards, "Take over monitoring incoming patients. I'm checking on Cipher."

It unlocked the door and hovered into the room. "Cipher?"

No response. He was plastered flat to the floor.

"Bill?" It floated lower to check his condition. 

He was paper.

Paper meticulously colored in with yellow marker and folded into a triangle; scraps of paper colored black, carefully torn into hand and feet shapes, and shoved in the sleeves and pants of his prison uniform.

A-AOX4 lifted up the paper. On the other side was Bill's "Be a TRY-angle!" poster. He'd written across it, "IS THIS TRYING HARD ENOUGH FOR YOU?"

It turned toward the door—and discovered Bill had filled the wall with a drawing of himself making an obscene gesture, with a word bubble that read, "GIVE MY REGARDS TO THE AX! And tell Jessica I said bye xoxo"

It zoomed out into the hallway and grabbed its walkie-talkie. "Director SM5! Cipher's escaped his cell! He left a decoy! He's not with The Beast, we don't know where he is!"

There was a moment of dead air. And then the director growled, "I think I have an idea."

####

Trying to keep his giggles as quiet as possible, Bill looped through the Theraprism's halls, drifting between The Beast's rolling fields of hard candy corpses and the Theraprism's rigid monotone halls. What had he been worried about! Getting hopped up on astralplanar sugar before escaping his cell had been a great idea! It gave him instant shortcuts through half the walls! And he could handle a little buzz like this! He was totally in control of his actions and knew exactly what he—

How long had he been flying the wrong direction? He turned around. Wow was he high, he could barely focus on anything but all the colors. He wondered if The Beast's toxins had any weird interactions with his meds.

He was lucky The Beast had decided to dawdle around the Dimensional Tyrants Ward: here at the far end of the Theraprism, there were no signs of crisis beyond the sealed doors indicating the facility was under lockdown—and once he was outside a high security ward, there were plenty of cracks, gaps, and vents that Bill was thin enough to slide through. He hadn't even seen a guard since he'd left his cell. By the time he reached the reincarnation room, The Beast's landscape was fading out and the sugar crash headache was fading in, but the facility was still on lockdown and no one seemed to be looking for Bill. He slipped beneath the locked door and powered up the console to the reincarnation machine.

He skipped straight to the reincarnation program and checked the box that said, yes, the patient's brain had been washed. He paused when a warning pop-up blocked the screen. The technician hadn't gotten a pop-up. He had to read over the two-sentence warning three times before he understood what he was looking at. The soul sanitization routine hadn't been run recently, was he sure the patient's memory was erased—ugh, yes. He irritably clicked the confirmation and hoped that would be the last of it.

Bill quickly selected Earth and dimension 46'\; he tabbed past the coordinates and date, and they both automatically filled in "DEFAULT." D-SM5 had said the computer would make a "random" decision if you didn't plug in a time and place, but the staff didn't know Earth like Bill did. If he left the time and place up to the whims of fate, then something as weird as a trillion-year-old alien chaos god escaping a criminal insane asylum to spontaneously generate as a fully grown mortal would be sucked straight into the weirdest place and time on Earth. Gravity Falls: August, 2012. Weirdmageddon. He was willing to bet his life on it.

He was betting his life on it.

After that, with any luck, he'd be able to shed his new body like any other puppet and return to his castle in the sky. If for some reason he couldn't get out of it, he'd only need to pull a couple of magic tricks outside a normal mortal's capabilities to catch his past self's attention, find a way to prove his identity—heck, with any luck, they'd be seeing through each other's eyes and that would instantly confirm it—warn his past self about the Pines' treachery, prevent his own death, save Weirdmageddon, restructure the universe in his image, and rule his new party paradise as god-king for all eternity. Easy.

He scrolled down the list of available creatures, looking for something that would be easy to reach the Fearamid and prove his intelligence with—something with vocal cords that could speak eye-bat would be useful, it'd save him a lot of trouble if he could just shout at his sentinels in their own language and startle them into listening—but, to his surprise, the first useful species he found was humans, down amongst the species that had received a single-digit number of reincarnations from the Theraprism. Really, humans? They allowed that?

Over the blaring alarm, a voice made an announcement. He completely tuned it out—and only realized a moment after it ended that he'd heard his own name. They knew he'd escaped.

Bill didn't have time to search for anything better. He selected humanity.

He tabbed past dozens of features he could choose from for his body—default default default default—who cared what the body peed out of, he wasn't keeping the thing long enough to fill its bladder! He clicked open the advanced settings—there, spontaneous generation! He hoped this thing wouldn't drop him on the sidewalk as a baby, but usually when a human suddenly popped into existence, it was an adult sculpted from clay or something, right? He'd be fine! He checked the box for spontaneous generation.

He got another error message. He groaned. He wasn't sober enough for this.

Something about spontaneous generation being banned on Earth after 1859, is he willing to assume the liability if the patient generates after—yeah sure whatever, he clicked yes. Another pop-up prompted him for the digital signature of the person assuming liability. He typed in D-SM5's name.

As soon as he clicked enter, another error message popped up. "What!!"

He flinched at the sound of a muffled pneumatic hiss. Outside, somebody had unlocked the doors to this hallway. The alarm was still blaring; the Theraprism wasn't coming off lockdown. That meant whoever had unlocked the hall was coming for him.

"Focusss." He skimmed the new warning. Something about humans being on a list of species for which spontaneous generation was restricted—what loser had written a law about that! Who cared if a fully-formed, brand-new human popped out of thin air in the middle of town! What about Bill's wants?! He checked another box YES HE'S SURE HE WANTS TO SPONTANEOUSLY GENERATE A HUMAN YOU MONSTER and pounded enter.

Another pop-up. It wanted to know on which god's authority the spontaneous generation had been authorized.

Bill froze. Why did it need to know. Would it check? A machine that could reincarnate a soul was probably also a machine that could shoot off a prayer. Or was Bill supposed to have some kind of divine authorization code? Which gods were even allowed to authorize that kind of thing? He didn't know which stupid legislative body had made this stupid law or what their stupid definition of a god was! Gods weren't even real, they were just stupid, arrogant, stuck-up jerks who were powerful enough to trick people into thinking they were important! Like Bill! What name were they looking for?!

He heard voices in the hallway. He darted over to the door, slid his fingers through the seams around the doorframe to crush the latching mechanism so it couldn't be opened, and darted back. That wouldn't hold them long; he knew from experience that the guards could bust down the doors in these low security wings without much difficulty.

"Bill Cipher!" That was D-SM5. It had come personally? In any other circumstance, he'd be flattered. "Open up immediately!"

"Has that ever worked?" A god, a god, a god... his eye caught on the bas relief at the back of the next room. If there was any god this place would accept orders from... The guards were ramming the door; the bending metal groaned. He typed "THE AXOLOTL" and hit enter.

The button grayed out but the pop-up didn't go away. The screen froze. "What." Bill tried clicking again. The cursor turned into one of those little spinning balls that meant the computer was quietly having a stroke. "No no no no—"

D-SM5 hollered, "You know what the consequences will be if you don't—"

"I'm not listeniiing to yooou!"

"You're only going to hurt yourse—"

Dropping his voice to a demonic boom to drown out the director, Bill recited, "'I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited! People were not—" There was a shriek of tearing metal, and then a bright glow behind Bill as D-SM5 peered through the gap in the door. Bill started talking faster, "'Were not invited they went there they got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow—'"

The pop-up disappeared. The cursor returned to normal. The box next to spontaneous generation was checked. Bill stared for a split second, then quickly closed out the advanced settings, scrolled to the bottom of the page, and hit "EXECUTE."

Someone blasted the door out of its frame; based on the blinding glow that accompanied the blast, Bill suspected that wasn't one of the guards, but D-SM5 itself. He frantically clicked through the next two confirmations, flung a couple of folding chairs toward D-SM5 and its thugs, and dove beneath the door to the next room. Ten seconds.

"Cancel the reincarnation!" D-SM5 snapped.

A guard ran to the console. (What if they saw where Bill had gone? They could probably guess the planet, but would the computer keep records of his destination, what his new body looked like—) "I don't see a cancel! I don't think—"

"Then get him off the altar!"

Five seconds. Please spawn as an adult and not a baby, please spawn as an adult and not a baby, please— Bill hadn't broken the door between the observation room and the altar; the guards easily unlocked it. "No no no—!"

"Don't let him esc—!"

Three seconds. An impossibly bright light shone down on Bill. He reflexively peeled open his exoskeleton to accept it. LIGHT—oh, he felt even more alive than the time he'd stolen a bottle of stimulants from the nurse station, ground them up, and snorted them off Mrs. Mirrorcube's back. His eye widened, taking in as much free energy as he could—and then he focused his gaze through the window on the console, focusing the infinite light into a laser powerful enough to instantly melt through the window and explode the computer. The guards fell back, trying to shield their tender mortal flesh from the fury of Bill's fire. Enjoy the blisters.

D-SM5 bellowed, "Bill Cipher, you mo—!"

"CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SUCKA!" He could feel his body ripping apart, cracking open at the wound. It hurt, but not the hurt of dying; it was the euphoric hurt of spaghettification, of being infinitely sucked beyond a beautiful event horizon. Bill's triumphant cackle filled the air—

—and then the room was silent and dark, and Bill was gone.

####

(If you're new here: I posted this as a one shot because I think we could all use a little Bill escaping from Theraprism, yeah? However it's ALSO part of my ongoing Bill-stuck-in-a-human-body fic I'm currently editing for TBOB compatibility. So, if you enjoyed this and want to see where post-reincarnation Bill goes, check out the fic!! And if you DON'T want to read the rest of the fic, I hope you enjoyed the one shot and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If you do check out the main fic be forewarned it's only 100% TBOB compatible up to chapter 6. After that it is, bizarrely, 98% TBOB compatible, because somehow I accidentally wrote a fic that lines up with the book so well that I'm legit worried people could use TBOB to work out fic spoilers. But I still need to edit the remaining 2%.

If you're NOT new here: hey gang this is the new chapter 6!!! I finished editing this chapter about fifteen minutes before post time so it's not as polished as my usual chapters, but I hope it didn't read that way. Anyway, I look forward to hearing what y'all think!)

[fairytaleendingss]

Room For One More?

Chapter 1

Summary: After a sudden eviction from your home, your friend Mary puts you in contact with her high school friends, James, Sirius and Remus who just so happen to be in need of a roommate. However, living with a group of boys you’ve never met before proves to be more complicated than you expected; especially when they’re all so attractive.

CW: None I don’t think.

Pairing: Poly!Marauders x fem!reader

——

To say that life had been crazy lately would be putting it lightly. You had only just moved to the city six months ago, in pursuit of a career you were still yet to achieve, got landed with an office job that you were only barely qualified for, and the eviction notice on the door of your shitty downtown apartment was just the icing on the cake.

For a good few days it seemed like your world was caving in around you as you tried to collect yourself and figure out the next steps. In a city like London, real estate was scarce, not to mention expensive, and you were still working to pay off your student loans.

It was only two days before you were set to be kicked out when your new friend, Mary stepped in and saved the day.

You met Mary at your new office job and she’d been somewhat of a saving grace from the beginning.

She had been a splash of colour in a sea of black suits and beige blouses. She’d been quick to introduce herself, inviting you to join her for lunch on your first day, during which she caught you up on all the ins and outs of office politics. The two of you had become fast friends, something you were extremely grateful for.

And you found yourself even more grateful for her, as her car pulled into the driveway of the apartment building you were about to call your new home.

“How do you know these guys again?” You asked, glancing up at the red brick structure through the passenger window.

“We all went to high school together,” She explained. “I know them really well, trust me they’re great guys.”

You believed her. She’d never given you a reason not to. But still, moving into a household with three strange men that you’ve never met, is bound to be daunting nonetheless.

“And you’re 100% sure they’re okay with me moving in? I mean, they don’t even know me!”

She only giggled. “Don’t be silly! They’re completely on board. They’ve been looking for a new roommate since their other friend Peter moved out a month ago to get a place with his girlfriend, Sybil. They were just about to put up an ad on Craigslist, for heavens sake. Trust me, you’re doing them a favour. If I love you, they’ll love you too.”

You nodded at her but your heart still hummed unsurely in your chest. You took a deep breath. It was now or never.

After a treacherous journey up the narrow staircase with boxes in hand, you arrived at the door to the apartment. Mary was behind you, lugging a suitcase full of your clothes. You wished, for a moment that her friends at least lived in a building that had an elevator. You erased that thought from your mind a moment later, when you remembered that these people were doing you a massive favour. Besides, you were hardly in a position to complain.

Taking a deep breath, you knocked on the door. When it swung open you had to make a conscious effort to pick your jaw up off the floor.

Standing in front of you was the most attractive man you’ve ever seen. He was fair and lean with long strands of dark hair fanning his face. He was chiseled in a way that made him look delicate, almost doll-like but he also had tattoos lining his arms and chest, which you could see poking out from beneath his white t-shirt. He was leaning against the doorframe, effortlessly cool, looking down at you with a flirtatious smirk on his face.

“Hey there gorgeous. You must be the new roommate. I’m Sirius.”

You peered up at him in shock, not quite sure how to respond to this man who had the face of a Greek God. And did he just call you gorgeous? You weren’t sure what you were expecting but this definitely wasn’t it.

“Um, hi,” you stumbled awkwardly. Your hands felt clammy even just looking at this guy, how the hell are you supposed to live with him? “I’m y/n.”

His grin only widened “Pretty name for a pretty girl.”

“Ugh, stop flirting with her Sirius! And move out of the way, this stuff we’re carrying is heavy you know.”

You’d almost forgotten Mary was there until she’s stepping forward, shoving past Sirius who was blocking the doorway, and entering the apartment.

“Sorry hun, just trying to make conversation,” Sirius teased, stepping aside gently to let you in.

The place was bigger than you expected. Not huge but definitely comfortable, and better decorated. The picture you’d created in your imagination could only be described as a “bro cave” with bean bags on the floor and minimal furnishings. However, you were pleasantly surprised to see that the place is rather nice and homey, with comfortable leather furniture and a few framed artworks on the walls.

“Well, welcome home,” Sirius said, following you into the living room. “I can’t take any credit for the interior design, unfortunately. That was all Remus. Speaking of, I’ll go get him. I’m sure he’ll be happy to meet you.”

Sirius padded off down the hall, making his way to one of the rooms and banging heavily on the door.

“Remus! The new roommate is here! Don’t be rude and come and meet her!”

The boy that emerged was equally as attractive as Sirius. He was taller than the first boy, with a mop of sandy hair and dark, piercing eyes. He wasn’t as effortlessly cool as Sirius, he was more lanky and hunched in posture, but he had a sort of nerdy charm about him that was very endearing. He was dressed in a thick woollen jumper and his hair was mattered. He blinked up at Sirius, like he hadn’t quite caught up with the situation yet.

“What’s going on?”

Sirius just rolled his eyes. “Our new roommate is here! Come and say hello!”

He peered out of the doorway. Looking in either direction before his eyes landed on you. Not quite sure what to do with yourself, you sent him an awkward wave.

“Hi,”

“Hi,” he replied in return, with a tight lipped smile. Then he turned back to Sirius.

“Could you go away now please? I was having a nap.”

“Fine. Sorry.”

There door was abruptly slammed in his face.

You stood in the living room, holding a box to your chest awkwardly, and you couldn’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable about the interaction. Sirius could apparently tell, and was quick to jump to your aid.

“Don’t worry about him,” he said dismissively. “He’s just in a mood. He’s a med student and all the studying is driving him wild at the moment. He’ll come good after he gets a bit of sleep. Now, how about I show you to your room?”

He directed you down the hallway to a door at the end. Inside, you could already see Mary hanging up your clothes in the wardrobe.

“So this is you,” Sirius muttered, gesturing to the space like a magician revealing his assistant had not, in fact, been sawed in half. Then he sent you another flirtatious smile, something you were quickly learning was a signature of his.

“I’ll leave you girls to it but just shout if there’s anything you need. Although, if you want someone to help carry boxes, I’d recommend waiting until James gets home later on. He’s the athletic one of the three of us. And let me tell you those stairs are a killer.”

You chuckled, a genuine smile overtaking your face for the first time in this whole experience.

“Thanks Sirius. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it,” he drawled, giving you a wink.

Mary rolled her eyes. “Okay Sirius. Thank you but you can go now. We have a lot of unpacking to do here.”

Once Sirius had departed, you and Mary got to work on unpacking your things. Luckily for you, Peter had left behind a bed frame and a few pieces of furniture in his move, a saving grace considering most of your stuff had come with the previous apartment. You still had a mattress strapped to the roof of Mary’s car that needed bringing in, but like Sirius had said, Mary insisted that you wait for the mysterious James to return from work to help you carry any of the heavier items inside (With the way the others talked about him, you could only imagine he must be a superhero). Instead you busied yourself with unpacking your random assortment of trinkets collected over the years.

“So how are you feeling about the place?” Mary pried, unpacking a few shoe boxes into the bottom of the closet.

“It seems alright,” you admitted. “To be honest, I was a little nervous going into this but Sirius seems nice. I think he and I will get along.”

Mary smiled. “Oh good! I knew you’d like it. And just wait until you get to know the other boys better too. You’ll fit right in! I’m sure of it.”

You have her an anxious smile. “I really hope you’re right.”

—

It was a few hours later, when the sound of the door clicking open caught your attention.

“Honey! I’m home!” A playful voice boomed down the doorway.

You slowly emerged from your room to greet your final roommate. The guy was visibly buff and wearing a mud-covered jersey. He had matted tuft of thick dark curls and round glasses that balanced on the edge of his nose.

You couldn’t help but admire him as he kicked his shoes off.

“Hi. I’m y/n. I’m your new roommate.”

He looked up curiously before his expression morphed into a dazzlingly charming smile. He began to approach you and you held out a hand for him to shake. He bypassed the gesture all together, instead choosing to engulf you in a bone-crushing hug.

You were caught a little off-guard at first but tentatively hugged him back, heat rising in your cheeks as you felt the muscles of his biceps flex against you.

Pull yourself together!! You thought.

As he pulled away, he looked down at you, a few stray curls falling in front of his eyes. He smiled widely, reminding you somewhat of a playful puppy.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” He exclaimed. “Mary’s told me so much about you.”

You couldn’t help the smile that crept onto your own face as you looked up at him. You really liked James, you decided.

“How have you been settling in so far?” He continued.

“Pretty well, I suppose. I’ve done most of my unpacking now.”

He nodded. “That’s good. Well if you need help with anything, let me know. I’d be happy to assist.”

You grimaced. “Actually there is one thing you might be able to help me with?”

He raised a brow expectantly.

“How do you feel about mattress transportation?”

—

Manoeuvring a queen sized mattress up three floors of narrow stairs proved to be a challenging task. But somehow, between the two of you, you managed it.

By the time James actually wrestled the mattress on your bed-frame, you were just about ready to collapse on top of it.

Mary, unfortunately, had found the whole display hilarious, especially the moment where you’d lost your grip and send the mattress sliding down the stairs back to the first floor. So instead of offering to help, she’d taken the opportunity to film the entire ordeal on her phone. You expected it would be gracing social media by the end of the evening.

“Well, I’d say that’s a job well done!” James exclaimed as he finally dropped the material onto the bed-frame.

You chuckled. “Yeah! I mean it only took an hour and a half.”

James smiled and checked the watch on his wrist.

“It’s getting late and I really should shower. But how about we order pizza afterwards. We could have dinner and get to know each other a little better.”

“I’d like that.”

“Great! Mary, darling, you’re invited too of course.”

The girl looked between the two of you, smiling playfully. Then she shot you a look.

“Thanks for the offer Jamie but I actually have some stuff I need to get done back at home. You guys enjoy though.”

She sent you a wink as she went and your eyes widened.

“I’m going to go wash off, but there’s a take out menu on the fridge,” James said. “Pick out whatever you want. My shout.”

—

A short while later you found yourself sat on the loveseat, a plate of pizza in your lap while Sirius and James sat side by side on the couch, bickering about the most recent episode of the Bachelor. You couldn’t help but laugh as you watched on.

They argued in a way that was firm but affectionate. You could tell that they were particularly close and had clearly known each other a long time.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Sirius exclaimed, waving his piece of pizza in the air for emphasis. “Jennifer was such a bitch! She totally deserved to be sent home.”

James gasped in mock offence. “No way! He should’ve kept her. They had a special connection.”

“Are you kidding?” Sirius blurted. “All she did was talk about herself. She barely even gave him the time of day.”

“I disagree! She was playing hard to get. Girls only do that when they like someone!” James stated matter-of-factly. You couldn’t contain your snort at the comment.

Sirius turned to you then, a smirk adorning his gorgeous face. “Well, lucky for us, we now have a girl here to settle agreements such as these. What do you think, sweetheart?”

You rolled your eyes affectionately at the nickname. “If I’m being honest, I have to agree with Sirius. Jennifer was kind of a bitch.”

Sirius cheered and James held a hand to his chest dramatically.

“Well you’re both wrong,” James joked. “We must have been watching two different shows.”

Sirius scoffed. “Nah, mate. You just have a terrible radar when it comes to girls. I mean, you’ve been chasing the same girl since you were fifteen and she’s still shown you no interest.”

Your eyebrows raised at that one. “Wait what? I feel like I’ve missed a chapter here.“

“She’s just a friend.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Yeah, a friend you’ve been in love with since third form.”

James sighed.

“There’s this girl, Lily, in our friend group,” he began to explain, looking rather bashful. “And I’ve kind of been into her for a while but she always turns me down.”

You grimaced, clicking your tongue in sympathy. “That sucks. But hey, If she’s managed to keep your interest for all these years then she must really be special. I’d love to meet her sometime.”

James smiled gently. “I’m sure you will soon. She and Mary are quite close.”

Sirius face lit up suddenly at that. “Actually guys, that reminds me. The band is playing a gig on Saturday and everyone’s coming. You should join us y/n!”

“Hold on, since when are you in a band?” You queried. “I thought you were a bartender.”

Sirius chuckled. “I’m a bit of both! Bartender by night and lead singer of ‘Snakes and Lions’ by… well also by night I guess.”

“Basically, he plays in a band on the weekends,” James clarified.

“Yeah, and soon, we’ll be world famous!”

“Well I’d love to come and see you play,” you uttered.

“Great, it’s a date then.”

“What’s a date?”

You all looked up to see that Remus had finally emerged from his room. He looked tired and a little disheveled. Although you supposed that was the only way you’d had a chance to see him so far.

“Rem, mate! Come join us! We got Italian sausage just for you!”

Sirius gestured to one of the pizza boxes on the table and Remus nodded, grabbing a plate to fill.

“We were just telling y/n about Sirius’ gig this weekend.”

Remus looked up at you for a moment, his tired eyes unreadable. Then he straightened himself up and came to stand before you awkwardly.

“You’re um… you’re in my seat.”

Your eyes widened. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

You shot up from the spot, feeling rather mortified by the interaction.

“It’s okay, you can come sit here!” James stated, sliding further towards the armrest of the sofa and patting the spot in between himself and Sirius.

You sat down tentatively, but Sirius threw an arm around your shoulder which helped a bit in easing the nerves.

You found yourself glancing over at Remus. He seemed quiet as he munched on his pizza. You couldn’t help but feel a tinge of frustration towards him. He’d been nothing but rude to you since you arrived and you had no clue why.

“So tell us, y/n. What brought you to London?”

Your thoughts were cut short by Sirius’ question.

“Well, I just finished my degree not too long ago and I decided I needed a change, I suppose. London has a lot of good opportunities.”

“What did you study?” James asked, leaning his head in his hand as he looked down at you.

“Literature actually. I want to be a writer.”

Sirius brows shot up. “Really? That’s great. You should talk about that with Remus. He loves books.”

“Hmm?” The boy looked up then, as if having been lost in his own world, before brought back by the sound of his name.

“Y/n studied literature at university.”

He glanced over at you, only looking mildly interested. “Oh, that’s good.”

Then he turned his wrist glancing down at the watch that he wore. “It’s getting late. If you all don’t mind, I think I will finish dinner in my room. I have a lot of work to do.”

You frowned at that. Had you done something to upset him? Why was he so eager to get away from you?

“Alright mate. We’ll see you in the morning,” James muttered, oblivious to the issue.

Remus nodded at him before getting up slowly and sauntering back into his room.

James continued munching on his pizza happily but Sirius clearly noticed the way you tensed at the boy’s exit. He leaned in closely, speaking in a low tone so only you could hear.

“Sorry about him. He really isn’t like this usually. I’ll have a talk with him.”

You sighed. “No no, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

You really didn’t want to be a point of contention between these boys.

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble-“

“No it’s fine,” you shook your head. “Actually, I’m feeling a little tired as well. I might turn in for the evening.”

James looked over at you with gentle eyes. “Okay. Sleep well.”

“Thanks,” you murmured, jumping up from the couch. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Once you got to your room, you lay back heavily against the door, sighing. You considered the events of the day. There had been few hiccups but you decided then and there that you’d do whatever you could to move past them.

You got along well with James and Sirius seemed friendly. It was just Remus who you were yet to win over.

As you got ready for bed, your mind ran over the interactions that you’d had so far and wondered what might be the root of his frustrations.

Maybe things will be different tomorrow, you thought, as you settled in for the night.

[yanderedrabbles]

Misery - Part Two

Based on Misery by Stephen King

Stuck in the mountains, you foolishly decide to drive through a blizzard. The man that drags you from your wrecked car brings you to his cabin and patches you up. But as the snow piles up outside, you start to suspect that your rescuer's intentions may be far from pure.

Previous Chapter

The thing that brought you straight from unconsciousness and howling into the world of the living was your shoulder. In the bleary haze after you crashed, you were hurting in so many places that you couldn't have focused on an individual ache even if you tried.

It wasn't until the stranger popped your arm back into place that you realised it was dislocated at all.

You woke up with your shoulder and upper back a sharp, aching mess. You also woke up screaming.

"Easy, easy there ma'am. Hush now, you can take it."

The stranger's thick drawl was right next to your ear and you turned your head to find his hands on your upper arm.

You groaned. "I'm suffering enough without being insulted."

You tried to sit up and a host of new pains made themselves very known. You slumped back with a small gasp.

"I may look rough, but I am nowhere near old enough to be a ma'am, thank you very much."

To your surprise, he laughed. And if you weren't becoming intimately aware of your pain tolerance, you would have realised what a nice laugh he had.

"Hell, if you're this lively after I gave you morphine, I'm terrified to find you sober."

The man next to you was slowly taking shape out of the halos of light that streaked your vision. Grey eyes, that was the first thing you noticed. A kind of gunmetal grey that you would have found frightening if he hadn't been smiling.

"Oh, I've never had morphine before."

If you were hurting this much after getting doped up on pain meds, a part of you was terrified about them wearing off. A smaller part of you worried terribly about how much he'd given you. The rest of you however, was succumbing to the deep sleep that banged up bodies seem to demand.

Dimly you realised the stranger had stood up and was about to walk away. You thought of your car in the snow and your body hunched over the steering wheel, blood dripping little by little onto the floorboards.

Your hand shot out with a speed you didn't think yourself capable of and grabbed his wrist. The stranger stilled and looked down at you. Tall, that was the second thing you noticed.

"Please don't leave me."

You were falling asleep against your will and your voice was cracked with pain.

He wavered and then slowly sat down in the chair next to your bed.

"Alright then, I'll be right here. So you go on back to sleep."

Kind, that was the third thing you noticed about him.

As you fell asleep, your fingers stayed wrapped around his wrist. In that isolated cabin, with the wind driving snow down the chimney and rattling the hastily put up winter shutters, former USMC Corporal Andrew Wilkes smiled for the first time in six months.

......

Waking up the second time was much slower and a whole lot less painful.

You opened your eyes to the watery light of early morning. A thousand different aches called for your attention. To start with, your left leg was a throbbing mass of low grade suffering. Everything below the knee felt stiff and bruised. No, sharper than just bruising. You would have to take a look for yourself later.

Your ribs felt tender, like you'd gone head to head with a kickboxer who harboured a very personal grudge.

Your shoulder however, was a thousand times better than last night.

You sat up slowly, the sheets rustling quietly. Your mind felt slow and groggy - it must have been the after effects of the morphine. You heard a quiet groan and froze.

The stranger was asleep on the armchair next to you, his upper body resting on the bed. You still had your hand clasped loosely around his wrist but at some point in the night he'd shifted and now his other hand was draped over yours.

His hands were nicked with a collection of little scars and his palms felt calloused with work, but they were warm and you found yourself comforted by that.

He was handsome too, with thick blond hair and a five o'clock shadow on his jaw. A raised scar carved a crescent on his cheekbone and without realising it, you reached out to touch it.

Your fingers must have been warm because he smiled just a little before he opened his eyes.

"Mornin' ma'am."

Was his voice always so deep or was it just sleep? You pulled your fingers away from his face with a jerk.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."

He sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw with his free hand. You noticed he was wearing a courdroy jacket lined with sheepskin. For some reason, you thought it suited him perfectly.

"Ain't a bother. Besides, I'd be a damn shitty medic if I slept longer than my patient."

There was a faint clinking sound and you realised he was wearing a pair of dog tags on a chain around his neck.

"I'm Andy, by the way. Andy Wilkes."

You smiled. It felt strange to just now be learning his name, after you'd spent all night clutching onto his wrist.

"Y/N."

You cleared your throat, suddenly awkward despite your drowsiness.

"Thank you, for saving me. I would have died in the snow if you hadn't rescued me."

You looked into his eyes and then quickly away. Something about that gunmetal gray made you shiver.

"I owe you my life."

He was thoughtful for a moment.

"It was pure fate that I even saw your car way down in the trees. And good luck that I know enough first aid to fix you up."

He shrugged. "It ain't me you should be thanking."

"Still, others might not have stopped for a stranger."

He raised a brow and glanced down at the hand you still had clasped around his wrist. "How about you let me go and we call it even?"

Were you blushing? It sure felt like it, with the way your cheeks suddenly tingled. You let go like he was made of lava.

"Right. Um...Sorry about that."

He shot you a small smile. "Don't be. It was...nice."

He stood up and your half unconscious observation had been right - he really was tall. He was wearing Levi's and a pair of cowboy boots. There was a dark stain down his left leg and with a start you realised it was your blood. He hadn't even changed since bringing you here.

"You were banged up pretty bad. You should have some breakfast and then I can give you more pain medication."

You nodded eagerly. Your pain had faded a little when you spoke to him but it still throbbed throughout your body.

"And uhh..." He looked away from you and rubbed at his jaw. "I'll give you some clothes to change into."

He brought you a flannel shirt and a pair of sweatpants you felt sure to drown in. He set them on your nightstand and dragged open his first aid kit.

You raised a brow at the size of the thing. In addition to the regular bandages and disinfectant, he carried hypodermic needles, sutures and a whole host of injectable ampules. Is this how he had access to morphine?

"I used to be a medic, back when I was in the Marines." He smiled at you properly for the first time. "You're in good hands, I promise."

He put his fingers under your jaw and tilted your face towards him. You flinched as peeled back the gauze above your eyebrow.

"Let's get a good look at you - how are you feeling?"

You tried to smile and couldn't find the energy.

"It hurts."

"I'd be surprised if it didn't. This cut up here was pretty bad. You were bleedin' like crazy."

He dipped a cloth into a murky white antibacterial liquid and dabbed gently at the cut. He was close enough that you could see the pulse that beat in his neck.

"I've given you a few stitches up here. They seem to be holding fine."

"Stitches? Do you think it'll scar?"

He paused. "Maybe. But you're pretty enough that a little scar ain't gonna make a difference."

Okay, this time you were definitely blushing.

He bandaged you up again and his hands trailed down to your shoulders. From the look of him, you'd expect him to have a heavy touch, but he was careful and gentle.

"Shrug, maybe move around a bit."

You managed it, despite some stiffness.

"Good. We'll need to focus on working your shoulder a little everyday. Keep you limber as the swelling goes down."

"Yes, sir."

He tensed up for just a second before he continued.

"Any bruising or cuts you think I might have missed?"

"My ribs are hurting something awful."

"Lay down."

Good god, was he a natural at giving commands. You found yourself on your back without really realizing you moved. He lifted your shirt up and you flinched at the feeling of his hands on the soft skin of your belly.

"Take a deep breath for me."

You managed it without too much of a struggle.

"Good. Looks like it's just some bruising."

You noticed the lace of your bra peaking out from under your shirt at about the same time he did. He pulled his palm away from your waist like you scalded him and yanked down your shirt with none of the clinical professionalism with which be raised it.

He cleared his throat. "It's your leg I'm worried about."

He turned away from you to bend over your right foot, but not before you caught the redness creeping across his cheeks.

Your jeans were cut open to the knee and your ankle was a bulging monstrosity wrapped in layers and layers of bandages. He kept one hand wrapped around your calf as he worked and when you flinched away, he just tightened his grip and continued.

"It looks like a very nasty sprain. Grade 2 at least. Might take a few months to heal totally. For now though, you absolutely cannot walk on it."

He looked up at you as though to emphasise his point. "Any activity for the next few weeks will just set your healing back. Not to mention hurt like a bitch."

He sounded so mean when he swore that you dropped your eyes.

He straightened up. "From the look of things, I reckon you've bruised some of the bones in your calf too. So just keep off this leg."

"Ummm." You felt stupidly bashful with his hand still on your leg. "How am I supposed to move around?"

"Hmm. I might have an old crutch lying around here somewhere. If not, I'll just have to carry you."

He said it so damn casually, as if picking you up was the easiest thing in the world. You remembered how easily he got you out of your car and realised that to him, carrying you was just as easy as hauling wood or slinging a ruck on a march. Hell, easier maybe.

You were just a little afraid of his strength.

He nodded to the clothes he left beside you. "You try and change and I'll go and get your breakfast ready."

It was only after he'd closed the door behind him that you realised - he hadn't said anything about taking you to a hospital.

Next Chapter

Masterlist

[persephone-writes]

A Diviner's Guide to James Potter: Series Masterlist

(ongoing) - read on ao3

Description: Being friends with Lily Evans was difficult when you were head over heels for her ex-boyfriend, James. Your problems are only made worse when you begin receiving strange omens that point to a less than desirable future.

Genre: Friends to lovers, slow burn (I mean it!), fluff & angst.

Rating: Teen (swearing, alcohol/weed/cigarettes, no smut). More detailed warnings for the whole fic can be found on Chapter One.

Series Word Count (so far): 147.5k

+:｡.｡.｡:+*+:｡.｡.｡:+*+:｡.♡.｡:+*+:｡.｡.｡:+*+:｡.｡.｡+

Chapter One: The Omen

You tell your friends about your odd findings while working on your most recent Divination assignment, all while trying to push away your growing feelings for James

Chapter Two: The Heart Wants What it Wants

Answers to your predicament are few and far between when Sirius gets a letter from his parents and the Gryffindor quidditch team receives some excellent news. 

Chapter Three: Wicked and Wayward

Gryffindor plays Hufflepuff in the fourth match of the season, complete with an eventful after party.

Chapter Four: Paranoid

Hogsmeade is fun, but not when Sirius dangles a dangerous secret right in front of your nose.

Chapter Five: The Blizzard

A late winter storm buries Hogwarts in piles of snow, causing James to grow increasingly restless. It also blows in a much needed answer.

Chapter Six: Portraits Talk

Sirius attempts to quell your anger, though the pressure of acting aloof threatens to topple you.

Chapter Seven: Communing with Nature

You receive another omen which points to nothing good, though James is always there to help ease your mind.

Chapter Eight: The Duel

Mulciber becomes a looming threat to you and your friends, only increasing your existing anxieties. 

Chapter Nine: Red and Gold

Old insecurities are brought to the surface, but James attempts to reassure you with the promise of a fun weekend. 

Chapter Ten: Scurrilous Scoundrel

A night of firewhiskey, dancing, and racing hearts is unfortunately cut short when you stumble across eerie meeting. 

Chapter Eleven: The Hour Struck Nine

Tensions between you and James run high when you, Peter, and Marlene return to the RoR.

Chapter Twelve: Discontent

After nearly seven years, you finally make it into Dumbledore’s office, though this does little to ease your growing nerves, especially when it comes to James.

Chapter Thirteen: A Lovely Shade of Turquoise

James forces you to talk about what happened, opening up a can of worms you wish you could charm back in.  

Chapter Fourteen: The Stars Can Speak

After your fight with James, you're left entirely unsure how to act. However, your friends, and the stars, have some (un)helpful suggestions.

Chapter Fifteen: Repairo

Two diverging paths are presented to you: avoidance or intuition. Which one will you choose?

Chapter Sixteen: The Chaste Moon

The full moon comes just before Easter, fostering a time of rebirth and renewal…among other things. 

Chapter Seventeen: An Invitation

You and the others search for answers regarding the return of your nefarious classmates. 

Chapter Eighteen: Innamorati

Presents, dueling practice, and parties, oh my!

Chapter Nineteen: Yours, James

You and James are forced to deal with the highly eventful nature of Saturday night.

Chapter Twenty: And Then There Was You

You learn more about James's former pining, realizing there is less to fear than you initially thought.

Chapter Twenty-One: Severus' Story

It seems as though the past always has a way of catching up with you (and everyone else around you), even if Quattlebaum has hopes for your future.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Tears

Still reeling with your discoveries, you're left to deal with the aftermath.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Hourglass

You try your best to help Sirius with his brother, even if it means trusting your abilities in Divination more than ever before.

Chapter Twenty-Four: A Cliff Worth Plummeting

You have an interesting run-in with Peeves, forcing you to confront the inevitable.

Chapter Twenty-Five: I Know

You have a run in with an odious adversary, reminding you that your problems may not end at graduation.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Coming Soon!

•-—✼.o○☆———☆○o.✼.o○☆———☆○o.✼—-•

Antique book cover credits:

The Deer-Parks and Paddocks of England by Joseph Whitaker, Captain Courtesy by Edward Childs Carpenter & Goldfish Varieties and Tropical Aquarium Fishes; a Complete Guide to Aquaria and Related Subjects by William T. Innes

[loveindefinitely]

༊*·˚ NEW JOBS AND DEATH THREATS — cod x reader

CRAVE YOU — call of duty x reader CHAPTER ONE

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price + alejandro vargas + rodolfo 'rudy' parra + könig + keegan p. russ

warnings. nsfw, fem!reader, prison au, serial killer au, reverse harem, therapist/patient, medical inaccuracies, graphic violence, depictions of murder, everyone's unhinged, poly tf141, minor ships, threesomes, foursomes, gangbangs, this is not medical advice!!

series masterlist. read on ao3.

Life was hard. That was a fact.

Bills and groceries didn’t pay for themselves. That was also a fact.

Adding these two factors together, the final product will be a high-risk job in one of the highest-risk places on Earth. That’s… not a fact.

And yet, here you are, standing at the visitor entrance of Las Almas Prison, sporting a disgruntled grimace and a new pair of black slacks that you’d splurged on. They, at least, made your ass look good, although that was truly the least of your worries.

No. Your current list of worries looked something like this;

Getting Murdered

Getting Attacked

Vomiting Within The First Five Minutes Of Your New Job?

…Yeah. Something like that.

The early morning sun is blinding where it sits, just off to the side of the giant concrete building that was the main offices and Visitor Centre. The fact that you were standing in front of what was only a small part of the overall prison grounds was… alarming.

You were well aware that this was the largest prison in your country, housing the most lethal and awful of criminals. Some you’d seen either on the news, or heard of in passing conversations.

This was the real deal. And, somehow, you’d managed to find yourself being hired to work here. You. Work with serial killers. The worst of the worst.

With the stress on your bank account, and the endless struggle that was trying to find a stable career in the current job market, you simply had no other choice but to accept the offer. It paid extremely well, had great benefits, and your safety was… fairly considered.

The amount of NDAs, liability clauses and agreements, however?

Not the best at calming your nerves, to say the least.

The biting chill of the winter wind has you wrapping your arms around yourself, leather bag slung over your shoulder as you finally step through the automatic sliding door.

You’re not surprised to find that the chill only deepens inside the concrete walls of the building, with no heaters or air conditioning from what you can see. There is, however, bright white overhead lights that do nothing except aid the throbbing in the side of your head – probably due to the restless sleep you’d had the night before, anticipation and anxiety warring inside of your thoughts.

There’s an office in front of you as you step in, with only a few decades-old couches to your right, in front of a dingy TV that’s turned off. Saving their budget for more important things, you suppose.

The walls are a pale, grimy yellow, with sparse photos hung about, framing newspaper articles that are surely from the last century, and black and white pictures of the prison’s opening.

It’s an unsettling place, that much you’ve already gathered.

You haven’t even actually been inside the prison, you remind yourself, your stomach churning where it now lays at your feet.

Without a second thought, you continue with hurried steps to the front desk, where scratched plastic encases the sole woman inside, sitting behind a monitor. There’s a circle of holes that allow for sound to pass through, but other than that, there’s no way of entering from this room. With a quick study of your surroundings, you see a steel door to the left of where the desk sits, with a small square window covered in iron bars.

…Jesus christ.

“Can I help you?” The woman drawls, sliding her glasses further up her nose. Her voice is nasally, and the words come out in a slow drawl as she looks you up and down, unimpressed.

You give her your best smile, although even you can tell that it’s an uneasy one. “Yes! This is my first day, I think I’m supposed to be meeting Kate Laswell?” You ask, nerves betraying your voice with unsteady breaths.

The woman snaps her gum.

You stand there.

She blows it again.

You continue to stand there.

Her gaze is bored and completely void of any thought, before she nods slowly. “Laswell… I’ll call her.”

Really, you couldn’t be more shocked if you tried. What the fuck was happening? How could one lack so much… professionalism?

“Hi, Kate. Yes, it’s Jenny. I have a new hire who apparently wants to see you…” Her voice remains that unbearably slow, sloth-like delivery, before her eyes unhurriedly meet yours again. “What’s your name…?”

You give it to her, tone only the slightest bit impatient as you roll back on the heels of your feet. You can only hope that your black boots are appropriate; you’d figured that they were safe, closed-toe and still somewhat professional.

Time would tell. Jenny was giving you the impression that they were more than acceptable, because at least they got you to do your job in a timely manner.

Jenny says a few more words to who can only pray is Laswell on the other end of the phone, before she places it back in its holder. 

“Laswell will be here any…” She pops her gum once more, and maybe, just maybe, you can understand the urge to murder. “Moment.”

You give her a tight, painful smile. “Thank you, Jenny.”

She doesn’t respond, and you decide to just stand back and wait. You certainly weren’t complaining – any more conversation with her would’ve ended with a severe lack of hair on your head.

A minute passes, before a buzz in the pocket of your slacks has your throat tightening. 

Pulling out your phone, your next exhale comes out shaky as you read the text.

Charlie: get milk otw home used it all

No ‘good luck’. No… ounce of care for you, or the absolute stress that comes with a new job, let alone one like this.

When you’d told him about the offer, all he’d said was, “It might make you worth something for a change.” Didn’t even question, not for a minute, the risks that came with a job like this. He simply couldn’t give less of a fuck.

“Doctor?” The sound of a door opening, and the kind, almost motherly tone of the voice has you shoving your phone into your pocket once more as you turn to the source of the sound.

It’s a woman, her hair pulled back into a slick bun, one hand holding what seems to be a clipboard. Her other hand rests in the pocket of a white coat, not unlike one a scientist would be fashioning in a lab. Her smile is warm, the corner of her eyes crinkling as you direct a smile of your own her way.

“Kate Laswell?” You ask, extending your hand for her to shake. Taking her hand out of her pocket, she accepts it gracefully, nodding her head.

“The one and only,” she says, before gesturing to the steel door she’d entered through. “Now, today we’ll get you set up with a keycard, general rules, and I’ll have you meet two of your patients.”

You nod, following her as she swipes a card in a black reader, before the red light buzzes green, and she pulls the door open. Right behind her, you take an unstable deep breath as you take in the greyed, jagged walls, a complete contrast to the painted ones of the entrance room.

“We really are so glad to welcome you to our team,” she continues, her black work shoes clicking against the smooth concrete flooring. She doesn’t turn to you as she speaks, but her voice carries around the echoey hallway. “You’ll make a great addition. A necessary one, also. We’ve needed an innovative, young therapist for a while. Most of our… previous hires have held out-dated beliefs, and a lack of humanity for their clientele.”

That makes your brows furrow in confusion. “That’s… odd,” you murmur, before pausing your steps as Laswell stops, swiping her keycard, before entering another room.

As you step into the newly revealed space, your eyes go wide as you take it in. 

It’s a wide, large space, with several floors. Metal staircases sit at either end of the vast space, allowing access to every floor. Guards sit at every level, some walking around the space where you and Laswell stand.

It’s a lot, all at once. You’d never even stepped foot into a prison – not before now.

“Most inmates are at the mess for breakfast,” Laswell supplies, turning to you with a neutral expression. She gestures for you to follow her back out of the space, and you do with hurried steps. “The ones you’ll be dealing with, however… they usually eat by themselves.”

You don’t decide to push that statement, not now, as you continue to follow her down the hallway.

“You won’t be seeing much of the prison,” she admits. “There’s heavily guarded spaces on the top floor for your sessions, both for your protection and for the safety of our staff and other low-risk inmates.”

You nod, humming a sound of affirmation as the two of you start heading up the cleaner steps at the end of the hallway. The staff staircase, you suppose.

“Today, you’ll be meeting two of our more… understanding ambers.”

You raise a brow. “Ambers? What does that mean?”

She turns her head over her shoulder, just enough to shoot you a knowing look. “Ambers are our highest-risk inmates. We house ten of them, and you’ll be dealing with eight as per your contract.”

Your stomach falls. You’d known, of course, that the risks were high when applying for this role. But… this was more than you’d imagined, in a way. Ambers. Huh.

Silence falls over the two of you as you make your way up the never-ending steps, no windows in sight. It’s unnerving, in a creepy, strange way. When you finally reach the top, you try and hide how out of breath you are from that small exertion.

Fucking christ.

Laswell, for her part, looks completely fine in an effortless way. You can’t eve find it in yourself to be envious. The feeling’s closer to admiration.

“Here’s the files on them both. You’ll be seeing Kyle Garrick first,” she hands you the clipboard she’d been carrying, and you accept it with only a slight tremble. She doesn’t comment on it, and you find yourself warming up to her already. “They’ll be restrained, and there is heavy security, so you needn’t worry about that side of things.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” you say earnestly, flipping through the files without reading much of anything, not yet. 

She waves you off with a soft chuckle. “None of that. Kate’s more than fine,” she insists, and you give her a bright smile in return. Maybe this job wouldn’t be so bad – a boss like this was much better than a creepy middle-aged man any day of the week.

You don’t realise you’ve made it to a small room until she stops walking, scanning her keycard and pushing the door open, gesturing you in. “While you have your first two sessions, I’ll sort your keycard and the rest of the processes out. I wish you luck.”

With that, the door shuts behind you, and you’re alone in a small room.

It matches the rest of the hallways you’ve seen – grey concrete walls, grey concrete floors. The only furniture, however, is one metal table drilled into the floor in the centre, one chair on either side. 

…It’s depressing. Not at all like you’d prefer, not for a fucking therapy session, but then again, you hadn’t met your clients yet.

Ambers. High-risk.

With a deep breath, you take a seat at the chair closest to you, finally reading through the top file on the clipboard.

Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick. 

You skim over the height, weight, sex – immediately reading the comments made and his sentence.

Mass murderer. Motivated attacks.

Your eyes go wide, almost comically so, as you bite at your lip, folding one leg over the other as you continue to read. 

Of course, you’d prepared, been made aware that you’d be dealing with murderers. But having it in black and white, right in front of you, is a whole other thing entirely. 

Apparently, they were motivated attacks. Targets being large CEOs, specifically those with reported claims of misuse of power, and those against green laws. Anti-environment types.

The motive is… you’re aware killing is bad. You hadn’t spent years studying for a degree in Psychology to think otherwise. But it wasn’t as simple as some made it out to be. You’d done papers suggesting that certain motives implied healthier patterns, healthier outlets.

If you had to choose between him killing pregnant women, and CEOs with broken moral compasses?

It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out your answer.

You’re about to flip the page when there’s a knock on the door on the other side of the room, before it opens.

There’s two guards that walk in, before a man in an olive green jumpsuit follows, hands cuffed tightly together in front of him, head down. Another guard from behind shoves him in, too rough for your liking. You sit up straighter, eyes assessing as you take in the man in the jumpsuit.

He’s forced into the chair opposite you, before one of the guards grabs his cuffed wrists and chains them to a rig in the middle of the table. You’re grateful for the precautions, but there’s a part of you that feels guilty watching the manhandling of the seemingly calm man.

“Half an hour,” the most brutish guard of them all grits out, beer belly spilling out over his belted jeans. He jostles the chain attaching his wrists to the table unnecessarily, and your eyes narrow.

He goes to leave, along with another guard, but one stands to stay in position inside, beside the door.

Your brows furrow, and you speak up before you can stop yourself. “Sorry, sir, but my sessions will need confidentiality, as for the best results. I’m sure that I’ll be safe with his restraints.”

The guard stares you down, seemingly mulling your words over, before shrugging and leaving the room, door shutting behind him.

…Huh. Alright.

You find your posture relaxing, just slightly, which is odd, considering you’re now only a metre or two away from a convicted murderer.

His gaze is trained to the table, left foot tapping incessantly against the concrete floor.

“It’s nice to meet you, Gaz,” you say with a soft tone and a gentle smile. You figure that his nickname is the best bet, not wanting to stir up any possible traumas with his given name during your first session with the man. “I’ll be your new psychiatric evaluator.”

His eyes flick up, meeting yours, and he nods slowly, as if awaiting a punchline. 

“Is it okay for me to call you Gaz?” You ask, tilting your head to the side and flipping to an empty page to take notes on. You’d need to grab a notebook from home, you decide.

He relaxes, only the smallest of movements, and he nods. “Gaz, yeah.”

Your smile widens at the small victory. Any step towards progress was a huge one, in your eyes. You’d be facing a lot of them in the coming days.

“Do you have any advice for this place?” You push, trying to form a bond of trust with the dark-haired man. “I’m gonna be honest, you’re my first patient, and I’ve only met Laswell and… Jenny?”

His mouth quirks at that, a dimple showing to the left of his mouth as he looks back up at you. “Jenny’s a character, ain’t she?”

You laugh, a genuine one, and nod. “She certainly is. You’ve met her?”

He shrugs, shoulders relaxing slightly. “Few times, yeah. She drives me up the fuckin’ wall.” His accent is only minimally apparent, but his voice is of a somewhat humorous tone.

Small victories.

“Well,” he exhales, settling into his chair a bit as he seems to ponder. “Do ya know who else you’re assigned to?”

You’d been sure to thoroughly go over your contract, and you were allowed to disclose your other patients between your others. They’d find out within the day, anyways, so there was no point in being discreet.

“It’s only you and a… John Price? Today. I’m sure I’ll find out the other six over the next few days,” you say, appreciating that he’s starting conversations. It’s more than you’d allowed yourself to hope for.

Gaz’s eyes light up, and even if you hadn’t been incessant in watching him, it’d be an obvious shift in emotions. “Price?”

You nod, quickly making a note on your clipboard, before folding your hands in your lap as you gesture for him to continue with a quick inclination of your head.

“He’s the best. Man’s a legend,” he enthuses. “Love ‘im.”

There’s… a hidden truth to that statement, that you make a mental note to unpack during a later session. Your smile is a natural one as you say, “He’s an amber, correct? Laswell told me I’d been assigned eight out of ten ambers… you’re one of them, right?”

Gaz seems to fold into himself, and you kick yourself for going back to square one. He answers, however.

“...Yeah. Only Ghost ‘nd Valeria are aggressive, though. We’re just… misunderstood,” he murmurs, and in the back of your brain, you find yourself believing his words.

“Thank you,” you smile, and he responds with a sharp one of his own. Maybe you’d covered more ground than you’d expected. “I think it’d been mentioned that I was only assigned men, due to the nature of the job, or something like that.”

Seeming to mull over your words, he starts to slowly nod. “Sounds ‘bout right. As long as you don’t get Graves, you’ll be alright. The others are… fuckin’ weird, but they’re good men. Mostly.”

That’s a lot of information at once, and quite frankly, it takes a moment for you to process. 

“‘Good men’. What do you think it takes to be a good man?” You ask, curiosity laced into your tone. Getting to ask such questions of a convicted murderer, it’s a thrilling, exhilarating task.

His eyes don’t shift as he replies. “Good men do the acts others are too scared to do. They see the evil in the world, and rid of it with their own bare hands. You can be an ethical murderer, Doc.”

Those words, they’re – they’re authentic, and conviction aches in their structure. 

You swallow around a dry mouth.

“You think you’re a good man?” You ask.

His smile would be seen as warm to any who weren’t aware of his acts, but to you – it’s chilling. Haunting in a way you’ve never experienced.

It remains as he answers.

“I think that I’m a man who people wish they had the bravery to be.”

a/n. okay so im really nervous about posting this, cause ITS EIGHT FUKCING LOVE INTERESTS and also im a humanities girl not a science one!! sociology all the way not psych!! so forgive me for all the inaccuracies and legality issues please. im just a girl. hopefully u guys will like this one? i mean, obsessed serial killers cod is smth i need so here we are. all comments and feedback mean so muchhh ty ily mwah mwah mwah

taglist comment/msg to be added. [nothing to see here.]

[indecisivemuch]

hii first of all luv the username cause as a libra rising, samedt ;-; i'd like to make a request for a luke x f!reader fic pls!! um, so they're best friends, and luke decides to confess to r by giving her gifts, letters, trinkets, etc. with hints about his identity, but she doesn't know who they're from. so she asks for luke's help to find out about the identity of her secret admirer. but what if there's like a mistaken identity and she thinks it's someone from the hermes cabin (maybe chris? or one of the stoll brothers idk) and luke's just all pouty but nonchalant or something, but deep down he's like 'how do i even make her see' or something (while also second guessing that maybe he shouldn't confess it's him) like fluff with tiny angst :>

Message in a Bottle

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Summary: You got a secret admirer and recruited Luke to help you find out who they are...ignoring the most obvious option (Fluff, angst, best friends to lovers, happy ending)

Note: I'm so sorry for the six month hiatus. It wasn't by choice, I swear 😭. So many bad things kept happening that prevented me from writing (is this the writers curse people kept talking about?). Also, the request wanted only a sprinkle of angst, but I kinda got out of hand with it I think 😭 (sorry).

Word count: 4.4k (whoops)

You’ve always thought that too much of something is bad. Yet, ever since the day your life intertwined with Luke Castellan’s, you weren’t very sure about that anymore. 

The two of you arrived at camp around the same time, entering a friendship that felt like hitting the jackpot. Your early days together were something that you both treasured dearly. Every time you thought a certain time period would someday be reminisced as the golden days of your friendships, new things would come, and top it off. 

However, golden skies were soon evaded by clouds of pink hues. You found yourself noticing and appreciating small details you haven’t noticed before about your best friend. Initially, you acknowledged the growing feeling but decided that they better remain as footnotes in chapters of your life. However, fate’s design was different to your plans, because two years later, here you were: you looked at him almost in the same way a fool would look at the world with rose-colored glasses (but then again, maybe it was because you have learned to embrace and adore his flaws).

“Luke!”

The Hermes cabin counselor snapped his head towards the sound of your voice, eyes straying from his duty of the hour. A smile began forming on his face as you came to view, almost like he has always been programmed to do so. There was a certain spring in your steps. Moments like these made Luke feel like he was a minimalist because your happiness was somehow enough to guarantee his own. 

You situated yourself next to Luke on the ground, not minding the dirt.

“Hey now, I’m meant to be watching these kids train, don’t come over and distract me,” the Hermes cabin counselor warned, though he didn’t move his eyes away from you. He simply couldn’t.

Everything about you served as a distraction to him. From the soft smirk gracing your lips to the innocent tilting of your head. Every little detail about you was captivating and was equally capable of drawing his attention away from wherever it was meant to be. 

In fact, his attention issue around you was getting rather shameless because his friends have begun picking up on it and started teasing him for it. Personally, Luke doesn’t think it was his fault. His eyes just happen to draw to you in every room like second nature, while his mind short-circuited every time you were near. 

Maybe, and just maybe being rational and able to function properly has stopped being his forte…at least whenever you were around.

Your eyes moved to the group of kids that were only going to be at camp for the summer. From the looks of it, Luke has just assigned them to practice sword fighting in pairs. You then glanced back at your best friend, discreetly drinking in the sight of him. 

No doubt he did his fair share of demonstration before letting these kids go off on their own, because right now, his face was slightly flushed, veins evident on his forearm while the familiar orange shirt clung onto his body with glistening sweat.

You shook away the non-platonic thoughts and teased him, “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t pass up on talking to me. You adore me too much.” 

Damn right, he does. Luke could feel his cheeks heat up again.

“Fine. What are you here for, firecracker?”

“I got another gift,” you informed, presenting the bracelet in your hand. 

For the past month, you have been receiving small letters and gifts. This time it was a handmade bracelet with beads of your favorite colors, as well as charms that represented some of your hobbies and favorite things. It was clear that your anonymous admirer had put a lot of thought into such a small item. However, as always, there were no identities attached to it, leaving you clueless about the person behind these gestures.

Luke took your hand in his, eying the accessory that perfectly fitted your wrist. He started toying with the beads around your wrist that were shining in your favorite color.

The boy’s gaze flicked from the object to you, catching your soft and warm look. Gods, if you kept looking at him like that, he might just actually stop thinking logically. He could practically feel a confession lingering behind his lips, threatening to spew the second his ropes of restraint died.

“Anyway, I came here with an idea,” you broke the silence. “What if I try to find out who this person is? I mean, some of these gifts are quite specific. They seem to know my favorite color, flowers, and things I like. Surely, it wouldn’t be that hard to narrow it down and figure it out?”

Something shifted in your best friend’s behavior and you could feel it. There was a slight flustering look on Luke’s face as he avoided eye contact with you. It was rather strange to see the Hermes cabin counselor so fidgety. Luke has always been confident and composed, and you’d often be the one to humble down his playful cocky remarks. Half-way through looking at his behavior, you began speaking:

“You…”

Luke could feel the blood draining from his face at your facial expression, his face paling despite how flushed he was seconds ago from demonstrating sword fighting. The boy tried to regain his composure, though his attempt at seeming nonchalant failed as you touched his arm. Did you—

“You can be my inside man, talk to these guys to see if they’d slip up or something like that.” 

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Luke hastily replied, clearing his throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that come across as a suggestion? I hate to break it to you but being best friends means you sorta have to participate in my schemes,” your lips curled as Luke grunted at your words. 

“Yeah, but—”

“Luke, please…it’ll be fun,” he almost scoffed at your words and unconvincing argument. Clearly, the two of you had different definitions of fun. Just as he opened his mouth to reject your idea again, his eyes caught yours. You were looking at him in such an eager and heart-warming gaze that it made him forget what he was intending to say.

Ah, there was no denying anymore. Being rational and able to function properly has truly stopped being his forte.

“Fine,” Luke uttered, the word pricking his tongue as regret started kicking in as he accepted being your accomplice. This decision could only come back to bite him in the ass. He watched as you quickly celebrated his lack of restraint.

“Ah, you gave in quite quickly,” you jabbed.

“Shut up.”

Oh, you were going to be the death of him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Two days have passed since you got Luke to agree to help you find your secret admirer. Though, the boy must say, the last forty eight hours have been slightly comedic for him, watching you trying to track down your secret admirer…

While the real sender of those gifts was right beside you, nodding along to your every word. 

Luke’s mind trailed to the origin of this “secret admirer” idea. He started it as a way to abate the urge of straight-up blurting out how love-struck he was with his own best friend, while also testing out the waters before finally confessing his feelings for you. 

Though it was slightly amusing how the idea led him to where he was right at that moment. The Hermes cabin counselor zoned out as he pretended to speak to another boy you thought was behind those sweet gifts and letters. 

Luke used to have those feelings under rein, but self-repression only caused it to grow exponentially. Initially, the Hermes cabin counselor dismissed those beyond friendly thoughts, thinking they would eventually fizzle away. However, against his predictions, this fondness towards you became a sort of companion to him for three long years. 

Not only that, years of excessively burying these feelings six feet underground also came back to bite him in the ass because instead of having his feelings under control, they now have the upper hand. 

Sometimes he felt like a puppet, while his feelings plucked the strings. His facial expressions were forever cursed to be sculpted in raw yearning whenever around you, having no choice over how he reacts to everything related to you.

But it didn’t matter, because he was going to finally confess soon.

Luke almost burst out laughing at the way you were standing in anticipation, waiting for his intel on the most recent candidate. It was entertaining, to say the least, pretending to engage in investigative conversation before heading back to you, shaking his head in feigned disappointment. 

However, it didn’t take long before the Hermes cabin counselor started feeling sour.

Just as he made it back to your side, he watched as you started talking again, already discussing the next guy you thought might have done these things that Luke himself came up with. He eyed your in sync footsteps with a heavy heart. Despite the matching movement, he somehow still felt eternally behind. Luke was so close, yet so far away, and never quite able to grasp onto your ever moving attention. 

Did you not consider him as an option at all? Did you truly not see him as anything other than a good friend? It started stinging him knowing you were considering all these other guys as potential candidates — the faces that now haunt him in his sleep, poisoning his mind with an acidic jealousy that was eating away his common senses and fueling immoral thoughts. 

Soon enough, that same jealousy seared his mind with this overwhelming self-doubt. Luke’s foot started feeling cold at the thought of confessing. Gods, he never thought the same security behind anonymity would now make him feel desperate to be seen by you. 

“Maybe I should give up,” you concluded, mindlessly staring ahead. Your attention elsewhere gave Clarisse and Chris an opportunity to send each other knowing looks. The two have been watching you run around in circles on a goose hunt, not knowing to look right behind at the sulking figure that was trailing after you. 

Your distracted state also meant you didn’t notice the moping human situated beside you. However, hearing your declaration of ending your chase, Luke saw a window of opportunity. Maybe now was finally the time to be truthful. After all, if he doesn’t tell you, then how will you know and see him? Luke’s momentary motivation carried him through waves of dejection.

“Y/N, I need to tell you something,” Luke blurted out without much more thought or preparation, and his tone made you fully turn to him. Just as words finally formed and the boy opened his mouth to tell you—

“Hey Y/N, can I talk to you privately?” Somebody interrupted. Your eyes didn’t leave Luke immediately, but when you saw your best friend’s momentum had faltered, you turned to the stranger. It was another Hermes boy, somebody who you’ve seen around. You politely agreed and left with him. 

“So, I heard you’ve been looking for the person who’s been giving you anonymous gifts. And well, it’s your lucky day, 'cause…” the boy stared you up and down while you subconsciously took a small step back when he leaned forward. “...I’ve decided to come forward and reveal myself.”

“Okay…well, prove it” you squinted. Though your skepticism didn’t make the Hermes boy in front of you falter. Clearly, he expected this.

“The first thing you were given was a note, and…the two most recent gifts were a cassette tape and a bracelet — which was made from beads of your favorite color and charms like…” you zoned out as the boy started listing out some of your favorite activities that were indeed the charms on your bracelet. You fiddled with the bracelet that you had purposefully hidden out of his view right behind your back.

There was a pinch in your heart that signaled the last bit of hope dying. 

Oh…so Luke really wasn’t your secret admirer.

You internally scoffed at yourself. You should have known right after he said yes to helping you out with finding your secret admirer — which was originally an idea used as bait to determine if Luke was the sender or not, because if it was really him then he wouldn’t have agreed to help you out with this. However, not only did your best friend agree without much convincing from you, but he had seemed so nonchalant and unaffected as you named all these boys you wanted him to talk to. 

Perhaps this secret admirer thing was something good. Somebody has shown interest and their actions have been nothing but sweet. Those letters contained words that were eternally bound to your memories, even altering the way you view yourself for the better. Maybe you could get to know this person and move on from hopelessly crushing on your best friend.  

Halfway through, you realize you were so engulfed in your thoughts that you have zoned out to half of the things the Hermes boy was saying, and merely caught onto the last bit of his speech:

“...thinking maybe we could go on a date and get to know each other more tonight?”

Your stomach churned again, yet you nodded your head.

Move on. Move on. Move on. Move on. 

Your friends gave you questioning looks when you got back to where they were, clearly curious about what you were pulled away for.

“So…that was my secret admirer, and I’m going on a date with him tonight,” you hoped you sounded more enthusiastic than you were feeling. You tried convincing yourself at least it was good knowing definitely how your best friend actually felt about you. Quickly sitting down, you kept your eyes on Clarisse, knowing if you even looked over at Luke, he’d be able to tell straight away that something was wrong.

Your lack of focus also meant you didn’t think much of the quiet murmur from your best friend: “Sorry, I just remember I need to do something.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time. It was now the afternoon and you just finished getting ready for your date. As you were leaving, you spotted a note at the foot of your cabin. Seeing your name written on the paper, you picked it up while eying it peculiarly.

“You could be the one that I love, 

I could be the one that you dream of,

Message in a bottle is all I can do, 

Standing here hoping it gets to you.”

Your gut feeling stirred, hitting you with waves of higher certainty over suspicions you have previously had and denied.

Those lyrics were directly associated with a memory from summer two years ago. 

Luke and you were sitting by the campfire when he asked what your favorite song was. You told him the name and mentioned you hadn’t listened to it in a while because using technology devices with signals were dangerous for Demigods. The conversation slipped your mind but clearly loitered in your best friend’s mind, because two months later while on your way back to camp from your quest together, he gifted you a tape player along with a cassette of said song along with others that you liked.

You blinked away the image of you leaning on Luke’s shoulder while the two of you listened to the song together on the train back to camp.

You re-read the note again while shaking your head. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps, that Hermes boy knew the song and it was also one of his favorites. Perhaps—

Your hand started trembling around the paper. Your eyes landed on one small detail in the note: a particular handwriting choice. The rest of it matched with previous notes, but there was one singular scribbling feature you’ve never seen used before. 

Everything came crashing down and your internal eternal cycle of excuses and denial shattered.

You ran. It didn’t matter that it was raining and your attire was getting soaked. It didn’t matter at all because you were frustrated and confused. In other instances, you would have been elated at the possibility of mutual affection, but in that moment, exasperation blinded you from sensibility. 

If what you have concluded was true, then why on Earth would he allow you to go on a date with a person who stole credit for things they didn’t do? This whole time, he made you feel like a fool — for waiting that long and having hope after all that time; for asking the person you were looking for to hunt them down with you; for sulking despite having what you thought was a good opportunity to come along; for borderline going on a date with an imposter; and for not seeing it all along that it was him. 

“It’s you, isn’t it?” you called out.

Despite the rain, you could see your best friend’s figure stiffened before turning around to face you. The boy stood with his hands behind his back, not yet daring to look at you. 

“The “th”. You connected the cross in the ‘t’ directly to the ‘h’,” you presented the note in your hand, pointing specifically at the slip up that Luke had made in the latest note, not caring of the raindrops that were hitting the paper. “It’s how I write it, and you started writing it the same way a year after we got to know each other because you liked the way it looked,” you pressed further.

The expression on Luke’s face painted your theory into the truth of the situation. You felt your hand slightly shaking at the revelation.

“Why? You left anonymous gifts and notes and watched me put on this hunt — which by the way, was for you. And didn’t even say anything when a guy lied and said he was my secret admirer? Is this one big cruel prank?”

“No—”

“Oh! Well then, surely at one point in this whole thing, you felt like you should just tell me?” 

“I was going to.”

“Then where were you when I was just about to head out with that fraud? Maybe if you really liked me and really cared for me, like all those damn notes say, you would have fought for m—”

“I did,” Luke finally raised his voice, his face briefly hardened in an attempt to convey his desperation. His chest heaved, and the way it did almost made you think the anger radiating off every inch of his skin right then was directed towards you. But it wasn’t, and he knew you knew. 

“I confronted him right after he claimed that he was the one who gave you all those things.” 

Invisible ivies rooted your foot to the ground. You gulped, trying to digest the information you were given. However, it finally sunk in when Luke’s hands appeared from behind his back. It was then that you could see the bandage wrapped around his knuckles. Your breath hiccuped in both flattery and worry at the implication of what he had done. The darkness behind those deep hazel-brown orbs reflected a certain side of your best friend that you hadn’t seen before. Although, part of you felt like you wouldn’t mind it.

It made Luke’s blood boil knowing what he dedicated to you from the bottom of his heart was spoiled by ill intentions. Luke should have known better than to carelessly write all the letters and craft those gifts right on his bunk bed, rather than discreetly. 

Once again, the Hermes cabin counselor was pulled back to memories from an hour ago. The way the other boy shot remarks at Luke’s lack of precautions, boasting his wrong-doings like someone incapable of having a guilty conscience. Luke's jaw tightened as the image of the sly smirk on the other Hermes boy's face flashed in his mind, but a wave of satisfaction ran through him as he recalled how quickly that smirk was wiped away by his own fist.

They might be brothers by a fraction, but blood or not, that boy was dead to Luke the second he tried tricking you.

“And no, I wouldn’t have let you go out with a fraudster. Never,” Luke’s eyes softened. “And in case it’s not implied enough: I like you…a lot. I was going to confess but then this guy came along lying,” Luke could feel that tremor returning once more to his fist. He hated that something he built, from scratch, on the foundation of sincerity was momentarily tainted by the hands of a spineless liar. Not only that, he hated witnessing somebody so dear to him getting deceived in such a tasteless manner.

“I also…didn’t want to get hurt. It was starting to seem like you would ever consider me as more than just a friend with the way you were listing out all these other guys. So for a bit there I was considering just keeping quiet…forever” he confessed, eyes now straying away from you and down to his shoes.

You observed your best friend through a new perspective. So your initial suspicions were true. You had thought it was him because all the things you have received hinted to somebody who knew you so well, and who else at camp but Luke knew this many things about you. But ultimately, another part of you — the proclaimed “logical” side — has hyper-analyzed every split second you two have shared and deemed that Luke has not given any true signs of interest in you beyond as a friend. Thus, you dismissed the thought of Luke being your secret admirer.

You know now to trust your gut feelings more.

“Oh, Luke Castellan, you dumb ass…” you spoke softly underneath your breath, but you knew he heard you perfectly clearly from the way he slightly peered up. Your heart almost shattered at the dejected look on your best friend’s face and the thought of him burying his feelings eternally. You sure as hell would not allow that to be this timeline.

“I’ve liked you ever since the day you went out of your way and gave me that first cassette tape,” the marveled look on Luke’s face over your confession made you continue, “I guess I should have known it was you…cause gift giving has always been your love language.” It seemed like the boy was too stunned and struck frozen. However, his shell-shock state didn’t last long, because soon, your best friend’s gaze reverted back to the way he has always looked at you, only slightly more intense.

Your eyes fluttered at the sight of Luke Castellan in front of you at that moment. You were finally able to see the effect you’ve always had on him. The way his lips hung slightly agape, eyes dilated in such a way you were no longer able to see their usual color anymore, chest slightly heaving despite lack of physical reasons for such a reaction. You almost wanted to hit yourself for being such a fool and not spotting these details sooner. 

“Now, Castellan…you have two options,” you stepped closer to him, leaving an appropriate amount of personal space in between. “You either kiss me or—”

Luke grabbed your wrist with his uninjured hand and pulled you in. The same hand-guided your arms around his neck while also effectively eliminating the remaining distance between you two. 

Without hesitation, he kissed you.

Likewise, you returned the action without a second thought. You frankly didn’t care about the rain that was soaking the both of you. Kissing Luke felt like such a natural act that it felt simply like diving home. The way he held you made you feel like you were a national treasure he was so afraid of losing. Gods, you don’t think you mind doing this ever so often.

Though, there was a certain urgency in the way Luke kissed you, as if afraid you’d either vanish or you’d change your mind. You pressed your lips harder against his, hoping he’d understand you didn’t intend on leaving or having a change of heart.

A grunt escaped his throat as you kissed him harder. Oh, Luke Castellan already knew he was in immense trouble. He knew almost immediately that the concerning number of thoughts he had about you each day would only increase tenfold from this day on. He wondered if you could taste all of his unspoken words. If kissing you felt like this, he might as well sign away his heart, body, and mind to you. In fact, he’d sign anything you put in front of him without even considering the fine prints. 

Luke slowly backed you against a tree, giving you a bit of support to lean against whilst shielding the both of you from the heavy rain. He smiled into the kiss as you hummed at his action, feeling it echo against his lips. His heart tugged, almost leaping out of his chest when your hands made their way to both sides of his face, cupping it intently like holding something yours. Yours. Fuck, he loved the sound of that. 

You were the first to break the kiss. The both of you gasped for air while maintaining eye contact. The close-up view of his intense gaze drove your cheeks rosy. You could not help but admire the way his locks of wet curly hair clung onto his forehead, while raindrops fell from his face, some following the length of his eyelashes before falling — Oh, the way he glanced down at your lips at that second made you feel almost like you had the power to convince him into anything at the moment. 

“You’re my best friend…” he broke the silence.

“Mhm.”

“...but what if I want you to be more than that?”

“I can be both,” Luke’s lips broke out into a smile, and you mirrored his facial expression. He leaned his forehead against yours whilst softly rubbing his thumb soothingly against your waist.

“I’m not against that.” 

As a larger grin broke out on your lips, Luke’s eyes further softened. He realized right there and then that anything you wanted, he would not be against it. A breath of relief quietly escaped beneath Luke’s breath. He could not wait for whatever was in store for the both of you in the future.

Good thing his messages in a bottle did get to you.

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

masterlist

join my Luke Castellan taglist (or to remove yourself from)

[kanekisfavoritegf]

PERFECT LOVER: The Life of Nanami Kento the 35 Year Old Virgin

MINORS & BLANK BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT YOU WILL GET BLOCKED

SYNOPSIS: Kento Nanami, a 35-year-old introvert with a tendency to avoid social interactions, has made a conscious decision to steer clear of romantic entanglements. However, everything changes when he meets a new colleague at his birthday party, (Satoru's Idea). From the moment they meet, he is mesmerized, finding himself increasingly unable to resist her magnetic presence. Like taking a bite of forbidden fruit, he becomes ensnared by the allure, delving into a realm of infatuation and finding himself unable to break free. As he delves deeper into this newfound connection, Nanami begins to realize that he craves more than just a fleeting experience and yearns for more than just a fleeting taste of what she embodies.

Table of Contents

WORD COUNT: 1.5K

CHAPTER SIX:

Kento’s bathroom was nice, and it was also nice the last time you sat on the edge of his bathtub, hungover. 

You stared at the drying white patch on the bottom of your dress and fought the urge to break out into uncontrollable laughter. 

It was hilarious, it shouldn’t have been, but it was. This whole situation was starting to dawn on you; Kento Nanami, no matter how tall and how stoic and sneakily flirty he was, was a virgin—a virgin who was trusting you to be the calm and collected one. Running to the bathroom after having him release on you isn’t painting the image of a calm and collected person.

Opting for a calmer approach, you changed out of your dress first and threw on his shirt. It was black and oversized, with the words “Metallica” written in big white letters.

Metallica? He didn’t seem like the type.

When you opened your door, you were half surprised not to see Kento standing at your door waiting to usher you back into the kitchen, but he was nowhere to be seen. Walking down the dimly lit hallway and back into the living room, it was empty, with no sign of the blonde anywhere. You made sure to step over the rug and look over the couch to see Kento setting up the dinner table.

Candles lit and food already set down, Kento walked around the table, fussing over every last detail. It was cute to watch from a distance. You approached slowly and quietly, stopping once you were close enough to watch but far enough not to be detected. He hummed along to some jazz song that played in the background.

“Can I sit down, or should I keep watching you shift the cutlery to the right and then the left again?” You smiled at him, stepping into the warm yellowish candlelight. Its soft scent hugged your body and filled your nose.

“I don’t know…” Kento looked up at you, “I quite like my view right now. Maybe I’ll make you stand here for the rest of the night as I eat.”

“You wouldn’t be so cruel, Mr. Nanami.”

“I just might.”

Kento took your hand and led you to your spot. You were across from each other at the ends of the table. 

“So Metallica?”

“Don’t seem like the type, do I?”

“Not in the slightest.” You laughed.

“Was very antisocial in high school.”

“More so than now?” Kento nodded before continuing,

“It was comical how bad it was. Anyways, my lack of want to socialize, along with wired earphones and a lock on my door, I found solace in music, loud, loud music.

Long story short, he was a big emo kid who swore that his life was not just a phase.”

“Awe. I was a big Orchestra nerd, Cello first chair, Always.”

“Of course you were.”

“I look like an Orchestra kid?”

“No, you look like the type to be perfect at everything.”

“You flatter me, Mr. Nanami.”

“Don’t let it go to your pretty head.”

“You think I am pretty?” you asked, taking another bite of the food, holding back the urge to moan at the taste.

Nanami didn’t answer immediately, taking a slow sip at his wine as he held your stare. 

“You have no idea what I think about you.” You couldn’t look away even if you wanted to; it was like he dared you to break it first to give in. Kento was pulling you in each direction. Did he want you to take the lead, or did he want you to give in? Something in his eyes, a glimmer of defiance. 

Take the lead, it is.

“Eat your food, Kento.” You said, a small smile painted on your face as it was your turn to take a long swig at your drink. The red wine slipped down your throat and warmed your stomach.  

“I think you should do the same, Y/N. I can’t have you drinking on an empty stomach.” You laughed under your breath, taking a bite out of your food, watching as he followed along, only eating when you did.

Soon, nothing was on your plate and an almost empty wine cup.

“Come to the couch and bring the bottle with you, Kento.” Standing up, you didn’t wait to see if he had followed your order; you heard the quiet sound of his steps tracking behind you.

Sitting across from you, Nanami Kento looked on, a proud man. 

“What do you want from me, Mr. Nanami?” Fear tightened its grip on your heart, uncertainty casting a shadow over your thoughts. You were both grown adults; there was no need to beat around the bush. Casual relationships were a familiar territory for you, but they always left someone hurt. Was Kento looking to be serious, or were you just a pawn in his game of manhood? A person must satisfy his desires and boast about them to Satoru. No matter how much you wanted to belive he wasn’t like that, he could be that type. 

“I am a virgin.”

“As we have previously established.”

“I like you, but I am a virgin.” He took a deep breath before continuing. His eyes not on you fully. “I want to please you. I want to give you what others also could. But I— I don’t know how.”

“Kento… We don’t have to jump straight into the sex. It can wait.”

“I don’t want to wait. I want you to teach me.”

“Teach you?” 

“Yes. So tell me what you want, and teach me how to do it. I’ll be good for you; I’ll be so so good if you give me time to learn.”

“You want me to teach you?”

His head nodded rapidly as he inched closer to you, and now on your thigh, ghosting over your damp-clothed cunt.

“Fuck.” You whispered under your breath.

“Is that what you want? Me to fuck you?” His head fell into your neck, panting as his hand pressed against your pussy. 

You shook your heads at his words. You did want him to fuck you, but your head became less and less there as his fingers rubbed you over your panties. 

“No? you don’t want me to fuck you?” He was teasing you. Mocking you.

“Kento.” You warned him as you pressed yourself into his hand more.

“Y/N.” He mirrored.

 “I want you to make me cum.”

“Teach me.” He whispered against your skin. Hands tugging at your panties until they ripped. He discarded the wet fabric on his rug and kept his attention on you. More so, your aching cunt. With one thick finger now inside you, you writhed against him.

“Tell me what to do, Y/N.” He demanded.

“Pump in and out.” He nodded, watching your face as you let yourself be taken by the pleasure. 

“Oh fuck, Kento. More. More Please More now.” You grasped his hair, tugging it back slightly as you moved your hips in time with his digit. 

“Another one?”

“Yes, God Y-Yes.” 

With another finger in you now, your whines and moans became more consistent as he forced them out of you.

“Curl your fingers up. Kento.”

He didn’t even verbally respond. He was too busy moaning at you, moaning as if your pleasure was just as much his as it was yours.

His head was already nuzzled in your neck. He took a long stripe at your jugular as his fingers made a come here motion inside you. 

You were a mess, moaning and panting. It was like he was pulling pleasure from you on a string. His breath felt hot against you, and in between the groans of pleasure he received, grinding into your words so high pitched, so whiney they couldn’t have possibly been from him. But they were.

“Teach me.” A bite to your neck and a groan followed. You could barely breathe, let alone process his words to you.

“I am teaching you.” You slurred through a honeyed tongue. 

“Teach me”, He repeated, licking over his previous bite. “Please, Y/N. Show me how to make you cum,”

“Y-You, are already doing– Fuck!” It was too much; you tried, but the words failed you. Your sentences became nothing but incoherent babbles, 

“I thought you said you wanted me to make you cum,” Kento removed his fingers, taking them to his mouth, “So Teach me, Y/N.”

He raised your hips until your legs sat over his shoulders and mouth hovering outside of your wet entrance. He took a greedy stripe at your cunt; slowly, with so much pressure, a broken sob escaped you. It was a single lick, and he pulled away immediately, not before moaning at your taste.

“Please,” he begged over and over as he continued to force your hips against him.

“Teach me.” He licked again. This time, no moan left you. Despite your mouth being wide open in the shape of an “O”, You didn’t make a single sound. Your body convulsed, and you came all over his chin.

“Teach me,” Kento demanded one last time. And you nodded mindlessly along to his words, and Kento had cum again, just from the sight of you.

Preview...

“Bend over and be a good girl.”

TAG LIST: @marikuchanxo @sukunasstomachtongue @getosgirlfailure @allysunny @tojicvmslut @typefeisu @aiyaaayei @villsophie @sillysillygoofygoose @jinleft @rivversin @haikioo @destinyblue-jjk @ramonathinks @actuallysaiyan @actuallysaiyan @melisuh123 @ureuphoriasworld @jaeminsmilk @rileyglas @bonnieblue0606 @alwaysfreakingout @lovelyiida @ayesayman @dreamgirl5300 @swoozleee @belle-oftheball34 @zeunys @yuzu-ku @aomi04 @y0urpr3ttyp0ck3tpussy @zombriesworld @hazzelle-kento @miinhooo @lucilles-witchery @areyouflying @cosmolight @doingthisjusttoreadnanamihcs

CHAPTER SEVEN: loading...

CLICK HERE FOR A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

[writingwithfolklore]

Emotional Exhaustion

While your characters may just literally be a bunch of squiggles on a page, they still carry very real relationships with your reader because of the amount of emotional investment readers put into the story. Readers can share in characters' dreams, learn more about them, get annoyed with them or feel endeared by them, but that also means that they can be burned out by them.

              In real life, relationships with your friends have a give and take. You’re there for them for both their good times and bad. If a friend, say, shares only their good times with you—you may feel cheated out of a deeper intimacy and vulnerability with that person, whereas if they only share their bad times, you may feel emotionally exhausted or burnt out by them. In both cases, real life people can make boundaries and still maintain these friendships. (And by the way I’m making hugely broad generalizations of friendships, so call it an example)

              However, readers can choose at any point to walk away from a book with zero consequences. You, as the writer, play the role in being the balancer between good times and bad.

              Asking your reader to stay invested in, say, six chapters of intense, all-consuming, deep emotion is asking a lot of them emotionally. We can become burnt out from a constant flux of strong emotions and reactions. You’ve probably had a time in your life where you had one of these big reactions—like sobbing or screaming. It doesn’t really take that long to tire yourself out, we’re not really made to feel huge things 24/7. (Again, super huge generalization, stick with me here)

              So how do we keep readers on-board when a lot of really devastating things need to happen? The answer is in pacing out your downs and ups, and making use of the reflective scene. Allowing characters to reflect on what’s just happened to them or how they feel about things not only allows for this bit of emotional break, but also gives the thing that happened a bit more weight and demonstrates its impact on the character. During these scenes, characters can:

Reflect on their own

Talk to someone trusted about what just happened

Plan ahead

Avoid facing what happened through an easy distraction (think gambling, catching a movie, etc. if that’s how they’d rather deal with things)

Visiting family or people outside of the drama

Or even travelling, if the plot demands of it

As well, consider that if a series of very emotionally draining things needs to happen, your character is unlikely to react to the last one with the same intensity as the first. Just like the reader and in real life people get burned out from strong emotions, your characters can’t be expected to react to every horrible thing with the same intense screaming-crying-raging emotion. Your reflective scene will still give these moments weight, if that’s what you’re concerned about, and feeling guilty over feeling little or nothing can add an additional interesting dynamic to a character facing down challenges.

Happy New Year everyone!

[potatomountain]

Case: It's Us - Masterlist

!!!!!!!! Please read first: Book 1~ Case: It's You !!!!!!!!

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED IF SEEN INTERACTING WITH ANY OF THIS SERIES, LIKES INCLUDED!

Pairing: Poly 0t8 Ateez x fem reader AU: Mafia/detective Genre: action, romance, thriller? Ongoing Word Count: 3,507 Summary: After 3 months since agreeing to join them fully, you had buried yourself into work to make up for how less you have been feeling since the traumatic incident. However, crime does not stop so you can properly heal, nor is it a burden you have to face alone. Eight is now nine, a lesson to be learned while also fighting for everything you believe in, and learning to believe in something new. General Warnings: 18+, member x member smut content and side ships, poly dynamics, lots of gay, kidnapping, killing minor characters, some members showing sadistic sides. Reader is recovering from a huge trauma so there will be light triggers, panic attacks, etc. General dark themes like stalking, killing, kidnapping, cnc, blood play, and a criminal world that condones human trafficking, r@pe, child slavery, and more. Smut warnings on the chapters that have them. About "Reader": For the sake of the story Reader is physically fit and professionally trained as a detective. There are some personality traits that are more based on the backstory of reader and so forth so I understand that it isn't entirely "reader insert". I try to avoid using y/n completely, thus the pet names. Reader is Fem for plot purposes however, reader's height, skin, weight, hair and eye color are left as vague as possible so you may picture her as yourself. Otherwise you can read it like an oc and picture your version of a femme fatale badass. Author's Note: I would like to note that the city this all takes place in is fictional, same with the country. Like Gotham or something similar. I know nothing about being a detective or undercover work aside from what i've seen in dramas. The world, characters, and actions are completely fictional and do not reflect on any of the idols used in this fic! edited in: All idols are aged up to be in their later twenties to early thirties for the time period to make sense (they didnt just become this influential after a few years but a decade). There will also be chapters that are backstory and will most likely be before MC arrived. Banner and dividers made by me! Beta readers include: @bunnliix , @adelusionforyourthoughts, and @yourfatherlucifer for all chapters. For any additional betas will be tagged in the chapters! Networks are first tags <3

Chapters

Act 1: The Vipers - One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten

Act 2: The Goblins - TBD

Act 3: The Circle - TBD

Act 4: The Pirates - TBD

Act 5: The Wolves - TBD

Act 6: The Guardians - TBD

Taglist will always be the first reblogs!! Rules to apply for the taglist lie on Chapter 30 of book 1! Will cap at 100. Slots: 50/100

[madschiavelique]

A Crown of Ink : Chapter 12 - Six of Cups, Reversed

summary : holidays are over, and the trip to demacia starts off quite particularly. also, be prepared for two new characters to be introduced in this

content warnings : none lmfao, BOO forced proximity, BOO um speaking heart to heart? feelings are scary man

word count : 9.4k

author's note : okay after much emotional torment i'm HERE! i changed campus in the mean time and am about to get back to school soon, so i thought i could let y'all get this piece of food in the mean time since chances are i won't be able to post in a while - as always, i have no clue of whether this is good or not IM JUST A GIRL OKAY

NOT proofread for now

masterlist : here ．．discord : here ．．playlist : here

The holiday had gone well, you and Eris having taken advantage of the money Jayce had given you before the masquerade to spend afternoons shopping and exploring. You weren't particularly proud of the gesture, but if he was, according to Eris's reading, perfectly well off financially, then perhaps you could afford to be a little selfish.

You had roamed almost every street in Piltover, entering an unimaginable number of shops and hanging around to buy pastries and other delicacies.

Eris was partly stared at by her few piercings, but she didn't really care. The Pilties could call her a louse all they wanted and she wouldn't even hear them.

She had bought new notebooks which she used for her personal Tarot readings, Piltover's paper being transcendently different from Zaun's. The two of you went round bookshops, buying a variety of works, both historical and fictional, and leaving with bags full of new tomes to add to your personal libraries.

The goodbyes came too quickly for your liking, as per usual. After spending a long night talking about everything and nothing, as you always did, and sacrificing your sleep for the pleasure of longer company, you walked Eris back to the bridge.

You hugged each other tightly, promising to send each other letters as you always did, and parted again. You'd waited until she'd reached the end of the bridge before waving goodbye and turning away. 

You had returned to the emptiness of your flat, regaining the feeling that lived with you just a few months ago. No flatmate, no friends in the building, just you and your thoughts.

It was strange. The routine that had so quickly settled into your life had profoundly upset your principles, and now that you were momentarily back to them, you had no desire to be here.

Of course you appreciated your solitude, your possibility of having time just for yourself, without no one else around. But everything had undergone a metamorphosis, like a snake shedding its old skin and leaving it somewhere for someone to come back and see the slimness of its silhouette and admire its evolution.

You felt sorry for your old carcass, what was left of it was miserable and it seemed impossible to get rid of it entirely. The paint still hadn't dried on the walls of your soul and your mind, and you wondered when the day would come when you'd finally be able to hang pictures on them without staining anything.

Fortunately for you, however, Sky arrived a few days after Eris had left and gave you a hug. She had loosened up and backed away from you when she remembered that she had a cold and didn't want to give it to you.

You chatted a bit about your holiday before the last weekend of the break came and you went back to work.

Pearl finally found you again and took you in her arms, her new perfume permeating the whole room with an exquisite blend of jasmine and geraniums.

"What happened to you?" She asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "You look good!"

You smiled at her. "Did you see yourself? I don't think any customer will be able to give you their order in one go from your charm."

She grinned, giggling. "I never thought you were born without a frown," she remarked as she passed behind the counter, "you have to tell me your secret."

You hadn't really changed anything aesthetically, but you felt that something was profoundly better, like a constant relief that enveloped your shoulders.

The other morning's discussion with Viktor had given you a different perspective. You expected to see him at every street corner, to hear the distinct sound of his cane on the parquet floor of the café and for him to approach the counter to ask you for his usual mocha in a walnut-cracking accent, his lips closing his sentence to forbid any possible rebuttal.

You wondered if he would stick to the last clause, and therefore come and visit you at the café during this last weekend, unless he was finally enjoying not having to put up with your nonsense any more.

You finally imitated Pearl and joined her behind the counter.

"No secret," you said as you made sure your apron was neatly tied, "just the fresh relief of being on holiday. Oh and the exciting dread of going on a trip."

"You? Getting out of this place?" She questioned, crossing her arms over her chest.

You made sure the condiment stand was perfectly arranged. "If you have any gift ideas you'd like to get from Demacia, I will try my best to get it for you."

"Demacia?" Pearl exclaimed. "What's your visit to the White City worth?"

"A class trip, something to strengthen the ties between Piltover Academy and Demacia Academy apparently," you recited.

"I've always found Demacians pretentious and with a very black-and-white mentality with no in-betweens," Pearl remarked with a shrug, "but I envy some of their seaside scenery. Don't bother with plants or anything, theirs are temperamental and real calamities to maintain. Just like their guys."

You smiled, arching an eyebrow. "Did you have a fling with one of them?"

She sighed. "I don't really hear from him any more, it turns out he ended up in prison and I left the White City to move here instead."

You frowned. "In prison?"

"You heard perfectly," she smiled, "of course I had my rebellious side back then. But what can I say? He was handsome, intelligent, captivating..."

"Another second and I find you leaning over the counter, your cheek in your palm as you curl a lock of hair around your finger thoughtfully like a schoolgirl." You smiled, imitating the gesture as she pressed her fist against your shoulder.

"Haha," she laughed falsely, "mock me. We'll talk about it again when you too have someone your eyes are looking for in every room you go into."

Your smile faded at this simple phrase, straightening as you tried to pretend that her remark hadn't affected you. However, nothing escaped your colleague's sharp gaze.

"Did I..." her eyes crinkled as her lips stretched into a mischievous smile, "did I hit a nerve."

"There's nothing to hit," you sighed as you uselessly ran your hands over your uniform to pretend to smooth out the creases.

She gazed at you for a moment, her eyes gracefully made up with a light brown shadow surrounding you.

"Is it Jayce?"

You giggled. "What? No, plus," you leaned towards her, "sorry to break your chances but he is already taken."

"With such a face I would have been worried if it had been otherwise."

The café doors opened before Pearl could say anything more about the situation, the first customer entering and your day finally beginning.

Yet as the day wore on, you kept coming back to Pearl's words.

Why were you seeing Viktor everywhere?

You found him in the Mochas you served, the dark brown of the coffee reminding you of his hair, his smell, the faith of waking up to warmth. 

You found him in the violet of the falling night, in the pansy flowers that persisted through the winter, in the fabric of your masquerade dress that you sometimes pinched between your fingers in the morning while deciding what to wear.

You found him in the amber of the hall fire, in the candles of the street lamps that guided you home, in the sun that caressed you in the morning and bid you farewell in a show of colour in the evening.

He haunted you, even in his absence.

The remedy for this came soon enough, however, when the day of departure arrived, and your whole class gathered on the zeppelin arrival docks. An army of students bundled up in scarves, hats and mittens swarmed around as the sun barely rose, tracing the gargantuan silhouette of your means of transport.

Of all the zeppelins moored on the quays, The Young Prince was the most massive. Of a length that you couldn't even make out from where you were standing, it bore its name in capital gold letters that stood out brightly against its creamy colour. You remember hearing that it was a technological feat that drastically cut travel times. What's more, it, which was usually used to move heavier goods, would go faster given that for this journey it would only be carrying you.

"Come closer, come closer!" Heimerdinger called, having made his way onto a cubic container about your size so that the group could see him properly.

With his fur, he didn't seem to suffer from the cold, apart from his nose and ears which were a little redder than their usual pink.

"All right," he clapped his hands together when he had your attention, "first of all, hello everyone."

The class replied with meagre hellos, their voices tired. Your eyes searched Viktor and Jayce for a moment before returning to those of Heimerdinger once you'd understood you couldn't find them yet.

"We are going to go over a few details of our trip aboard The Young Prince here, so that our little group stands on the same wavelength. First of all," he raised a gloved finger in the air, "the speed of this prestigious machine will have the privilege of getting us to Demacia by tomorrow morning. The journey will therefore be one day, and one night, and that's why we're going to leave it up to you to choose your cabin partner."

You'd fully expected to find yourself sleeping during the journey, and the possibility of sharing a cabin with someone had of course percolated through your mind. When you turned to Sky, however, Orceylia had already attached herself to her arm.

Although you weren't particularly thrilled about this, you were expecting it. The fact that you lived with her and therefore already spent a lot of time with her must have been the winning argument for you to end up like this.

"Professor, can the cabins be mixed?" A classmate asked.

Heimerdinger nodded, bringing his hands behind his back. "The cabins are indeed co-ed."

Some of the classmates looked at each other with knowing glances before Heimerdinger resumed his explanation.

"I would ask you, however, to choose wisely, given that the duo you will form with your partner will remain the same during our stay." He took a small step to the side. "As part of your, how shall I put it... ah! Immersion, you will be assigned to another pair of Demacian Academy students who will be your guides during our stay."

That's all we needed, you thought. You weren't too keen on the idea of socialising, but you could see how it could potentially enrich your academic life.

"Well, I'll leave you free to go on board and choose your cabins with your fellow traveller," he chirped, "we will have plenty of time to discuss your stay and what is in store for us on the journey."

Without further ado, the students began to move forward, and you had no idea who your travelling partner would be.

It was then that a tall brunette head emerged from the crowd, accompanied by his eternal sidekick, chatting away.

Viktor had his back to you, and Jayce was talking to him, his face tucked into his collar as his gaze met yours. He smiled at you, waving and coming towards you as Viktor turned.

His eyes landed on you, and you felt a warmth spread through your chest.

"Come there," Jayce laughed as he came to hug you, having not had a chance to see you for a while.

His thick arms held you so tightly he could have broken your ribs. "Your comfort will be short-lived if you don't let me breathe," you managed to mumble.

"Oh," he stepped back, suddenly aware of his strength, "sorry."

Viktor reached your level in turn, your eyes settling on him with a small smile.

"Hey."

He smiled at you back, "Hey."

"Are you sharing your cabin with Sky?" Jayce inquired.

You shrug. "No, she's already got someone else."

"Great!" He exclaimed.

You arch an eyebrow. "Great?"

"I mean," he laughed nervously as his eyes darted between you and Viktor before he put his hand on Viktor's shoulder, "Viktor doesn't have a cabin partner! Why don't you guys just temporarily become roommates?"

"Jayce," Viktor began, "I don't think forcing this choice on Miss would be appropriate-"

"I'm sure everything will work out just fine," he smiled, turning to you, "what do you say?"

You pursed your lips, apprehensive to contradict him, but immediately closed them in consideration. It was only for one night, in a bunk bed, sleeping. Nothing more, nothing less surely.

"I thought you were as inseparable as a fingernail and a finger," you remarked as you exchanged glances with Viktor.

The latter parted his lips for a moment as he turned to Jayce. 

"It seems my dearest work partner has found a subterfuge to escape my impossibly clingy attitude," he commented with a sigh.

"Hey don't say that!" Jayce snarled at the sarcasm. "You're the one that refuses hugs, not me."

"You refused a Jayce hug?" You asked, falsely shocked.

"He obviously put aside the fact that he could break any of us like a toothpick," he sighed.

"Which is exactly the reason why I'm not sharing a cabin with you." Jayce turned to you. "I've already had a chance to visit the ship upstream, the beds are too short for me. I have to sleep on the bottom mattress so my feet don't dangle out into the void for my cabin mate."

You understood the situation. Given that Viktor wouldn't be able to climb the ladder leading to the top mattress without immense discomfort, it was preferable that he occupy the bottom place, which could prove to be a slight problem if Jayce, who was easily the size of a fridge, had to take the top bunk.

"Alright," you nodded.

Both men turned to you, Jayce asking first. "Alright?"

You shrugged, resting your eyes on Viktor's. "I don't mind sharing cabins with you."

Viktor seemed as stunned as Jayce that you'd agreed, especially as the latter seemed taken aback by the simple fact that you hadn't glared at Viktor even once since the start of this conversation.

"Are you sure?" Viktor asked anyway.

You nodded. "Yes."

"Really? Because," he shrugged, his hand readjusting on his cane, "if you don't that is profoundly understandable you know?" 

You chuckled. "Why would that be understandable?"

"I should probably point out," Jayce pointed out, "that until recently you wanted to threaten him with salt or poison his coffee."

"Glad it's something that can remain in the past then," you replied, nodding and raising your eyebrows.

Jayce seemed deeply confused, his head continually swivelling between Viktor and you. "Did I miss something?"

"No," Viktor laughed softly, lowering his head and swinging his cane slightly against the floor.

"Plus I don't think I should be in danger with Viktor in my cabin," you added.

The latter returned your gaze. "Really? What makes you think you would be so safe?"

You let a playful smile spread across your face. "What're you going to do? Pounce on me?"

"Don't be so quick to think of this possibility as evitable," he straightened, chin high as his half-closed eyes remained on yours, "we still haven't had our chance to race after all."

"Race?" Jayce repeated, seeming to sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand of confusion. "Don't tell me you guys are in another competitive state again."

"I don't know who would win," you smiled, "that would be very close..."

But the words you were hoping to form faded from your lips as a blonde head you knew all too well came into your field of vision.

Tyler, dressed in a long coat and turtleneck, advanced with a clenched jaw towards the small bridge leading to the airship. He didn't offer you a glance, but your eyes had enough time to notice a purple mark on his cheekbone.

If your eyes weren't deceiving you, it was indeed a huge haematoma spreading across his cheek. This time, however, you had no recollection of having been the reason behind it.

"What happened to him?" You asked.

Jayce and Viktor turned to him in turn, Jayce sighing.

"Since when to you care about his state?" Viktor inquired.

"I don't," you corrected, "I'm just curious."

Jayce shook his head slightly. "From what I heard from Mel," he raised his fingers, looking at you both, "and don't tell anyone you heard that from me from her, it looks like Hoskel's been trying to correct some of Tyler's behaviour."

"Wouldn't be too late." You crossed your arms as you watched the blond's silhouette enter the airship. "Which behaviours exactly?"

"I think your little presentation to Councillor Hoskel at the masquerade and the eventual link made by his idiotic brain between the first time Tyler came back with a broken nose and you are of effect."

"Hmm," you hummed, biting the inside of your cheek lightly.

You had no empathy for him, he'd disgusted you enough to last a lifetime, but it was deeply strange to see him like this. Violence, no matter where it came from, was always an alien on someone else's skin.

"I think we should get on The Young Prince before he leaves without us and all the cabins are taken," suggested Viktor, beginning his walk towards it.

You followed him, Jayce and Viktor's poor sense of direction in linear spaces clearly getting the better of them as you took the lead to guide them. Heimerdinger was there, making the roll call and ensuring that all the students were present.

Once this was done, the students dispersed, each returning to the cabins they had begun to occupy. Jayce rejoined his sleeping partner, leaving you and Viktor to look for a cabin. You finally found an empty one, and beckoned Viktor to come in.

The space wasn't large. It was a small long room with no windows, simply furnished with a bunk bed, a small wardrobe for longer journeys, and the luxury of a tap and mirror.

The toilets were apparently at the end of the corridor, and you'd probably be without showers for the whole of this short trip to save water.

You trudged along, bringing your suitcase to the side of the bed. The space was far too small, but it wasn't for comfort, it was simply to get through the night so you could get on with your task.

You turned to Viktor, who also seemed to be observing the cabin with no particular expression.

“You don't snore, do you?” You questioned, removing your scarf and placing it on your mattress.

He shrugged, his eyes still roaming the few elements in the room before regaining your gaze. “No, however you talk in your sleep.”

You recoiled in confusion, as Sky had never mentioned this detail before. “I what?”

He stepped forward, passing in front of you. “When you had your fever,” he sat down on the bottom mattress with a heavy sigh, “you kept mumbling things in your sleep.”

You chuckled, crossing your arms over your chest. “I was delirious, that doesn't make it a recurring occurrence.”

“Does it now?” You recognized his playful tone of condescension elegantly disguised as levity.

You tilted your head down slightly, chewing your cheek to prevent a smile from spreading too far across your lips. “Careful, Moravec,” you emphasized, ”Tyler might not have received his purple stain from me but that doesn't mean your favourite colour needs to lay on your face as well.”

He came to rest his chin on his cane, pensive for a moment without finding your gaze. “You had no difficulty wearing it to the masquerade, though,” he remarked, regaining your eyes.

Your cheeks warmed slightly and you decided to shed your coat and hang it on one of the corners of the bed. “What's this got to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything,” he confirmed.

“I didn't know purple had such power,” you breathed.

“It's not the things themselves that have power, it's we who give them power.”

“What a transcendent and revolutionary philosophy, it's well worth a few lyrical songs and a quotation in yet another modern collection of two-bit poetry.”

He smiles, playful. “I'd mention your name in the credit of that work, which is sure to make me excessively rich with young ladies.”

You chuckled, the vision of middle-school girls scrambling to get hold of the book and crying that very evening over pithily simple and mediocre quotes. “I hope the cover is purple then.”

He nodded, smiling. You couldn't help but feel relief, a pleasant reunion that reassured you and filled you with joy. Your useless little quarrels and verbal jousts had changed little, and you found more enthusiasm in them than you would have thought.

You had wondered whether time and distance would change you, make you... awkward around each other. But it didn't, and the familiarity of this strange complicity covered your heart with warmth.

The vehicle began to shake, the take-off had begun. You turned to him.

“Wanna race to the windows?” 

He laughed softly in a hum. “I think I'll pass on this one,” he sighed before lying back on his mattress, ”short night calls for a short nap.”

You nodded. “See you at lunch then?”

“See you at lunch, Miss.”

You smiled, strangely missing the appellation on his lips, even if the origin of the nickname seemed dubious. You'd long thought it was just another nickname, a polite etiquette. He did call Sky that after all, and so did she. But there was something, a secret truth, a whisper ready to burst near your ear and your heart that would explain everything.

You left the cabin, joining the other students in what appeared to be a large common space. 

Despite its industrial appearance and more-than-welcoming, useful nature, the Young Prince's overall space was not unpleasant. On the sides of the room, large bay windows gave you an unobstructed view of the sunrise, which covered all the clouds in a layer of cottony orange.

A few sofas and armchairs were arranged and had no doubt been moved by the students for better immersion. Card games were already out on one side, while a small group of students surrounded Heimerdinger, listening to his rantings.

Sky beckoned you to join her on the sofa for a game of cards, and you smiled as you reached her.

The day had gone by faster than you'd expected. After many games of cards, it was time for lunch, which had been prepared for you by the crew. Viktor finally joined you at this point, an unearthed man's head accompanying him in an equally energetic gait.

Jayce came over to him, putting his hand on his shoulder and urging him over to one of the windows leading outside, Viktor seeming to tense up instantly. Perhaps he was afraid of heights? Or airsick?

The departure had been an assembly of sensations to take in, the floor vibrated slightly, and the ventilation left a continuous muffled sound in the air, like that of an air leak or an old refrigerator. But you'd forgotten both by force of habit.

The rest of the day was taken up with a lecture by Professor Heimerdinger on the various regions you were flying over and their histories, interspersed here and there with anecdotes from his own travels that allowed you to lift your quills from your papers for a moment.

It was already getting dark outside when his class was over, and a little historical lesson this time about the Young Prince was presented to you, which you could only partially listen to.

The truth is, you were feeling very distracted. Your eyes and thoughts kept returning to Viktor, as if they were drawn to him like magnets and you couldn't shake the feeling.

Was it just some kind of compensation? Like a way of lightening the invisible balance of not having seen or crossed paths with him for a long time?

But a week wasn't such a long time, was it? It was only a handful of days, just a little while during which you hadn't seen him, heard him or exchanged with him.

All in all, now that you thought about it, it had seemed like an eternity.

You pushed the thought from your mind, trying to divert your gaze to the nighttime outside, and take your mind off things by playing a few more games of cards until dinnertime came and went, and bedtime took its place.

And that inevitably you'd find yourself with him to endure in the same room for an entire night.

When you returned to your room, Viktor was already there. He had propped his cane against the bed's ladder while his long fingers worked on the buttons of his uniform jacket.

Your eyes lingered for a moment on their movement, their meticulous, habitual pinching, pushing dark, shiny disks out of their housings as he shed his jacket and moved on to his shirt. Your cheeks heated for a moment, straining to look away and reach for your suitcase to open it and grab your toiletry bag.

You felt his gaze on you, kneeling on the floor as you grabbed your toothbrush and toothpaste to face the sink. In the reflection, you saw the pale, mole-strewn skin of Viktor's torso.

He wasn't as thin as you'd thought. He didn't necessarily have bulging muscles the size of tree trunks like Jayce, but he wasn't devoid of muscle. He was lean.

When he offered you his back in sight as he sat down to open his suitcase and grab his pajamas for the night, you noticed a small metallic sliver stretching across his back like bolts along an arch. 

You'd heard of this kind of procedure, a spinal fusion, an operation aimed at straightening the spine and preventing it from drifting into deformity.

You could imagine that Viktor's posture wasn't intact, that his leaning on his cane must have greatly impacted the tension in his muscles due to the lack of support.

“I can feel you staring at me,” he remarked as he slipped on his top, ”You aren't being subtle, you know.”

Your cheeks heated with embarrassment as you lowered your eyes and deposited a line of toothpaste on the straight bristles of your toothbrush.

“Sorry,” was all you managed to say as you stuffed the brush into your mouth, tucking your free hand under your elbow as you began to brush.

But your eyes inevitably fell back on the back of his head, on his hair, slightly messy after his nap. What would it be like the next morning when you woke up?

“Are you trying to piece a hole in my skull?”

You smiled slightly, removing your toothbrush from your mouth to articulate despite the foam. “Is it working?”

You couldn't see his face, but from where you were you could see his cheekbones rise. “I guess the only way to find out is for you to continue doing so, which would bring me ultimately to ask - why are you staring at me?”

You let your toothbrush hang in the air for a moment, the freshness of your toothpaste invading your mouth and almost anesthetizing it. 

“Just wondering,” you finally say, before bringing it back into your mouth and simply speeding your brushing.

He then stood up, pants in hand. “Wondering about what?”

You stopped brushing again, sighing as your gaze met Viktor's in the mirror, taking your toothbrush out of your mouth once more.

“Wondering when you're going to ask me to close my eyes,” you replied, your eyes landing on his pants as you resumed brushing.

He smiled, slightly surprised all the same. Surely he was expecting to have to go to the toilet at the end of the corridor and bother trying to change in a very small and uncomfortable space.

“That would be now,” he affirmed.

You nodded, spitting into the sink before turning to the nearest corner of the room and lowering your head.

“Tell me when you're done,” you noted simply before resuming your toothbrushing.

He said nothing, the silence simply inhabited by your brushing in the room taking over before you heard the distinguishable thud of a cloth settling on a blanket. You heard the distinct sound of a metal belt buckle being clutched, and of fabric flowing down thighs to end in a heap of folds. You could hear him grabbing his other pair of pants, of a fabric already lighter than the academy pants, and slipping them on.

“Done,” he announced simply.

You returned to the sink as if nothing had happened, trying as best you could to avoid his gaze, but feeling it on you you couldn't help but meet his eyes again.

It was, of course, the first time you'd seen Viktor in his pyjamas. A simple loose-fitting t-shirt and loose-fitting brown plaid pants. You'd never seen him in such relaxed clothes, but the snag was that one of your own pyjamas you'd brought along was almost identical.

“Did you go through my stuff?” You asked as you finished cleaning your teeth and rinsed your mouth one last time.

“What?” He asked, confused by this remark.

You sighed, looking at his outfit for a moment. “Turn around, I'm gonna change.”

He nodded, asking no more questions and turning around, imitating you and lowering his head. You couldn't help noticing that he had a more defined back than you'd expected, under his black T-shirt.

You grabbed your pajamas, shedding your uniform in turn.

“Why would I go through your stuff?” He asked, still motionless as you finally took off your shirt and felt the air in the room stick against your skin.

You slipped the top on quickly, switching to your belt buckle. “You will understand soon.”

Your pants fell into a heap of folds on the floor, which you pushed with the tip of your foot before slipping your pants on your legs one by one and tightening the drawstring so that they wouldn't fall.

You watched him for a moment, his back to you. He seemed so far from the academic you knew, and a warmth settled for a moment in your belly just at the thought of how being friends with him outside of the frame of the Academy settled warmly near your heart.

“You can look now,” you finally said, surprisingly nervous.

He turned, and raised his eyebrows. His eyes returned to yours for a moment, as if for confirmation that this wasn't some kind of joke, before continuing their observation.

He seemed to part his lips for a moment, as if to say something, but nothing came as he closed them again. His eyes watched his own outfit, surprised.

“How could it be the same color as well...” he said, almost absently.

“Did you go through my stuff?” You asked again.

His eyes returned to you. “Do I look like the kind of guy that would go through your stuff?”

You sighed. “No,” you admitted.

He couldn't help but laugh softly for a moment, however, before turning away from you and sitting down on his bed.

“What?” You asked, confused by his laughter.

He chuckled softly before reaching into his satchel and pulling out a book for the night.

“It seems that whatever happens fate always finds a way to bring us back on the same level,” he smiled, exchanging a glance with you before pulling open the tucked-in blanket and slipping under it.

You weren't in the mood to sleep yet, or to stop talking to him, strangely enough.

You came to cross your arms, hooking your leg in front of the other as you pressed your shoulder against the ladder of your bunk bed.

He was watching you, waiting for what you were going to say. You held his gaze for a moment before lowering it, biting the inside of your cheek as the floor seemed a much better conversation companion.

“You didn't come to the café at all,” you confessed.

He was half-sitting up in bed, leaning on one elbow as he watched you. He seemed surprised, as if some deeply sad news had just been delivered.

“We had to unpack a bit too many boxes,” he explained.

You shrugged, tentatively regaining his eyes. “I could have helped.”

“You were with your friend,” he emphasized with a gentle smile, ”it would have been rude to disturb her stay by depriving her of your presence.”

You rolled your eyes, remembering the number of elbows Eris kept nudging you with as she urged you to go and find them eventually. “I doubt my presence would have made that much difference.”

“Believe me, it would have,” Viktor admitted.

You straightened up. “What do you mean?”

“I don't think you've ever tasted Jayce's coffee, and I hope you never experience it, or rather, the torture of it.” He grabbed his book, settling back against his pillow as he gained his page. “Jayce was so fed up with my wincing that he finally suggested the idea of hiring you as our personal barista.”

“Really?” You chuckled lightly as you imagined Jayce's face breaking down as each attempt he made at his coffees was perpetually punctuated by a frown from his sidekick. “How's it paid.”

“We give you a little paper for each day and we add these gold star stickers on for all your good coffees until you get unlimited access to Heimerdinger's lab.”

Your eyebrows jumped to the ceiling. “You guys have access to his lab?”

Viktor abandoned his reading to regain your gaze. “His previous assistant, remember?

The discussion you'd had with him a few weeks ago before the exams came back to mind, your fingers tingling under the memory of his wrist in your hand.

“Ah,” you remarked, ”right.”

A short moment passed during which neither of you said anything. You remembered that discussion so well, how could you forget it when it had been so profoundly decisive?

You were about to climb the ladder to your bed before he broke the silence.

“Why were you so adamant about being first all the time?”

You paused in your movements, your hands resting on the ladder's handrails as the question stirred a bitter feeling in your stomach. 

“Was it just pure perfectionism? Or... something else?”

You regained his gaze, inhaling harshly. “Something else,” you confirmed.

“Which was?” He asked.

Sure, you were friends with Viktor, but were you really ready to open up to him on this subject?

“I can't tell you yet,” you sighed, pressing your lips into a thin line, ”but... I guess once you hit the ground really hard you never really want to jump from that cliff again.”

Her eyes tried to pierce you, to detect beneath the innuendo and your enigmatic answers the truth so shy and distant.

“Hmm,” he hummed before lowering his eyes to his book.

Part of you wanted to talk to him about it, for him to understand the genesis of your intentions, but you didn't feel up to facing this yet. It was too soon.

When you finally climbed into bed and picked up your own book for the evening, you couldn't help thinking about the card you'd drawn that very morning.

The six of cups had seemed so sweet to you, with its little illustration of cups full of flowers. The description of it, however, came less close to softness as the card came out upside down - reversed.

Gifts from the heart. A walk down memory lane. Kindness. Sharing. Protection.

Two children share a cup in a walled town. Flowers grow from the cups, implying growth and manifestation in the real world. The silhouette of an adult man, perhaps a soldier, moves away, suggesting that this is a space of youth. Old situations disappear. The exchange of cups between children reflects the gift of the heart.

Only this description didn't seem to be enough for you, and you searched through your belongings for one of the Tarot explanation books Selene had passed you.

The Six of Cups Reversed appears as a reminder to break free from nostalgic sentiments that may be holding us back. In its reversed position, this card signals unresolved issues from the past that we must confront and release in order to move forward. It urges us to let go of old patterns, memories, and attachments that no longer serve our growth. Instead of living in the past, we are encouraged to embrace the present moment and look towards the future with a sense of renewed optimism. 

But you couldn't unravel the threads of the past, couldn't untangle them and free yourself from their oppressive embrace. You sincerely hoped, however, that one day you'd be able to break free, to extricate yourself from this spider's web whose mistress was no more.

You turned off the lamp right next to you on the wall, unable to swallow a single line of text in your book.

“Sleeping already, Miss?” you heard just below you.

You sighed. “No, I'm too busy having a conversation with the ceiling right now.”

“Really?” You could hear the smile on his lips. “What is it saying?”

“I don't know, I don't speak ceiling,” you smiled stupidly in turn, ”I just listen to him and nod not to hurt his feelings.”

“How thoughtful of you.” He turned a page in his own book.

“What can I say, I wear my heart on my sleeve.”

He chuckled. “That you do.”

You leaned to the side, protruding from your bunk bed to look at him playfully.

“Was that sarcasm or a generic statement?”

He didn't even turn from the lines of the book to observe you. “A bit of both.”

“How is that a bit of both?”

He sighed, lowering his book to look at you this time. “You're willing to give me free coffee and use your meager vacation time to come and help us move boxes out of our apartment, but if I remember correctly not long ago you flatly refused to pass me a single candle."

You rolled your eyes. “That's because you were forcing on with the magic words.”

“Politeness is no mean feat,” he pointed out before taking up his book again, ”obviously with you anyway.”

“Please and Thank Yous are not meagre things to throw in the air,” you sighed, ”they're words, they have weight on all things. I can't use them haphazardly with the wrong people.”

“Of that I am aware, Miss.”

The underlining of your nickname made your skin itch like nettles.

“When are you going to tell me why you call me that?” you questioned, shaking your head.

“I don't call you just that, i call you Miss,” he corrected.

“Fine,” your eyes rolled into their sockets, “when are you going to tell me why you call me Miss?”

“Once I will know why you were so adamant on being first.”

It was a war of stubbornness, two obstinate relentless people who wouldn't give in for anything in the world. You chuckled, letting yourself fall back into bed with a heavy sigh.

“Have a good night, Miss."

You stirred under your blanket. “Have a night, Moravec.”

There was a moment of silence before you felt a thump under your mattress, hitting right in your back.

“Hey!” You huffed indignantly as you leaned to the side again to stare at him.

He had his cane in hand, depositing it back on the floor as if nothing had happened.

“Are you trying to destroy our pseudo-friendship?” you articulated.

His brows furrowed before his eyes met yours again. “Pseudo? Since when did we demote to the term pseudo?”

You bit the inside of your cheek. This had never been the case, but the fact that he had a reaction when it came to this detail softened you slightly.

“Fine,” you nodded in agreement, ”we haven't demoted.”

But he wasn't about to let this one go, leaning over the side of his bed so he didn't have to tilt his head to talk to you every time. “What would confirm our friendship in your eyes?”

The question left you speechless. What did you want from this friendship? Was it attention? Time? Complicity?

Seeing you dwell on the subject, he squinted. “New clause to the the friendship clause list, we shall always be honest to each other, no matter how much it hurts.”

“I wasn't about to lie,” you corrected.

“Alright then tell me,” Viktor demanded.

“I...” you began, but what did you really want?

Never before had you had a friendship like this one, having had such a different and complex arrival in your life as Viktor, and you found yourself bereft of reference points.

“I don't want our friendship to be rushed,” you admitted, "I know I'm not the easiest to be around, nor the nicest, but," a small piece of skin rising from around one of your fingernails had your full attention as you tried to get rid of it, ”I really want to be your friend. I think I...” you sighed before regaining his gaze, ”I admire you, Viktor. Truly. And I know it's going to take me a while before I can consider myself as your equal and accept that someone like me can be the friend of someone like you.”

His lips parted, his eyes blinking a few times. Maybe you'd said something stupid after all.

Your cheeks warmed, and you looked away, ready to lie down. “Forget it.”

“I admire you too.”

You froze in your tracks, your eyes finding his again. They were soft, sincere.

“What?” The word came out of your mouth, feeling as if you'd heard it wrong and simply couldn't take in the information.

His chest swelled with a deep breath. “You,” he began, his eyes resting on the cover of his book, his index finger tracing the ridges of its leather binding, “you are always so determined, so invested in every matter whether big or small. It felt like you were...” his eyes returned to yours, rising to your height, ”unreachable.”

Your heart felt soft, his revelations taking it between warm palms that caressed and coddled it, whispering sweet words you'd never heard and had to discover with gentleness and not stupor.

“The reason why I kept coming to you and try to speak with you was not out of spite of the consequence of my academic results on you, but because...” His eyes were soft in yours, his lips parted. “Who wouldn't want to have you as a friend?”

You felt a strange sensation around the back of your neck, trying to swallow the emotion that was about to twist your throat like a can.

You breathed in, smiling slightly and lowering your voice, hoping that your throat wouldn't hatch something that would brutally shatter this moment. “I'm not that great of a friend.”

He shrugged, “I mean,” his eyes returned to you with the crease of a smile, “you literally beat Tyler's ass after what he did in the hallway.”

You rolled your eyes. “That's because he deserved it.”

“And yet you were the only person who stepped in,” he emphasized, ”twice.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, reconsidering those moments.

“I don't see a single reason for me not to be your friend,” Viktor resumed.

You rested your cheek on the back of your hand. “I spoke to you horribly.”

“So did I,” he remarked.

“I treated you terribly.

“You were frustrated, anyone would react that way.”

“I threatened you,” you smiled.

“With spitting in my coffee and throwing salt at me. Pretty weak threats if you ask me,” he remarked, one eye crinkling as his lips formed an inverted smile.

You arched an eyebrow. “Challenging me to make better ones?”

He smirked, a flash of mischief crossing his eyes. “Do your worst.”

You smiled softly, a light laugh ricocheting in your throat without ever exceeding the limit of your lips. He sighed, his shoulders relaxing.

“I'm proud to be your friend,” he assured.

Your belly flooded with a warm sensation. A thin smile spread across your lips.

“I'm proud to be your friend too,” you confirmed.

You remained silent for a moment, seeming to soak up this truth, these mutually shared words and the clarifications they had brought to your doubts.

“Prouder than a Demacian?” He questioned maliciously.

You smiled with a sigh. “Let's not get patriotic already, we'll have the entire duration of this trip to taste the regret of coming here.”

“Fine,” Viktor admitted, dropping his book on the floor next to his cane, ”let's sleep to face our incoming enemies.”

You nodded, lying back in bed as Viktor turned off his light.

The room, now bathed in darkness, apart from its orange neon sign indicating where the door was, felt silent. You placed your hands on your belly, its warmth soft and new.

“Goodnight, Viktor,” you murmured.

“Goodnight, Miss,” you heard, a smile spreading his lips.

When the ship's general alarm sounded in the room, you woke up with a jolt. It wasn't a pleasant alarm to wake up to, and you hoped it wouldn't be repeated in the next few minutes.

You struggled out of your blanket, wearily climbing down the bed ladder and fumbling towards the sink mirror to admire the undoubtedly pathetic state in which the night had left you.

As you turned on the light, you heard a grunt. You turned towards the bed, Viktor stirring in his bed and folding his pillow over his head. You suppressed a laugh, grabbing your toothbrush to get rid of your morning breath and rearrange your appearance.

By the time you'd finished rinsing your mouth, Viktor was still asleep. You approached him.

“Hey, time to wake up,” you whispered.

He grumbled, lifting his pillow to see who had the audacity to speak to him. Realizing it was you, he promptly folded back his pillow with a sigh, drifting back to sleep. You smiled, imagining the mornings he and Jayce must have spent when Jayce had to drag Viktor out of bed.

“Want me to get you some coffee?” You suggested.

He stirred slightly, huffing. “Only if you make it.”

His voice was low, husky and hoarse with fatigue. You rolled your eyes. “On it.”

You turned off the mirror light, taking advantage of the room's darkness and the meager neon light to change out of his sight. Once this was done, you quietly left the room. 

The corridor was deserted, the other students surely taking their time to wake up. You walked up to the general area, which was practically empty apart from the few members of staff. You approached the counter, asking very politely if you could use their coffee equipment, attesting that you worked in a café and wouldn't damage their material.

They gave you free rein, confirming however that they didn't really have any quality ingredients, just the basics needed for a trip. Still, you managed to find enough to make a mocha, and your usual coffee to wake you up.

The preparation took no time at all, accompanied by the sun waking up over the clouds outside. The world was slowly awakening, and the more or less upright students were already gathering in the common room as you headed back to your cabin, two coffees in hand.

On entering the room, Viktor had at least made the effort to sit up straight, his eyes staring into space and his hair wild. This time, the laughter was harder to suppress and you couldn't help but chuckle.

His eyes left their fictitious points to settle on you, squinting as he frowned.

“Are you mocking me?” He asked.

“I'm not,” you confirmed, stepping towards him, handing him his coffee.

“Why did you laugh then?” He asked, reaching for his cup.

You brought your own coffee to your lips, blowing on it with a smile. “Because of the state of your hair.”

He patted his hair with his free hand, feeling the cowlicks he was going to have to battle with his comb. He sighed at the prospect, bringing the coffee to his lips to take a sip.

He sighed at ease, humming a breath of relief.

“I forgive you,” he articulated.

“Jayce's coffee was that bad?” You sneered.

“No, but your coffee is too good,” he explained, ”my standards will never be the same again.”

There was a knock at the door, and you went to open it. Jayce stood behind it.

“Good morning,” he smiled, looking impeccable as always, ”how was your n- is that coffee?”

His eyes landed on your paper cup.

“Cheers,” Viktor added, raising his coffee cup in the air somewhere behind you. 

Jayce's eyes landed on the latter, seeming outraged. “Where did you get those?”

“I made them,” you confirmed, taking a sip.

“Can I get one?” he asked.

“As if you needed to ask,” you smiled.

“Thank you,” he sighed with great relief, ”but first I'm on a mission to get this one out of bed.” He pointed at Viktor, who finally grabbed his cane to straighten up.

“No need,” the latter confirmed as he walked towards you both, ”the power of a great coffee has done enough to make me rise without a problem.”

You let Viktor change while you waited for him outside the cabin.

“So, how was the night?” Questionned Jayce.

“Slept fine, although I have to say the mattresses are really thin,” you replied, taking another sip of your coffee.

“I wasn't enquiring about the quality of your sleep, I was wondering if you and Viktor had a duel to death before sleep,” he corrected.

You shrugged. “Well both of us are still alive, so that must be a positive thing don't you think?”

“I guess,” he said, raising his eyebrows, ”you both seem to be doing oddly good.”

“I thought you'd be happy about that,” you remarked.

“I am, believe me,” Jayce corrected immediately, ”I guess I'm just... surprised that this is going so well all of a sudden.”

“Yeah,” you smiled, your eyes finding a point in the void as you thought back to your conversation last night, ”that's understandable.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, his eyes suddenly narrowing in confusion as his lips pouted, “what's this race thing by the way?”

Viktor came out at the same moment. “It's nothing for you to worry about,” he replied instead.

So you returned to the common room for the last bits of information you needed to know about the trip, Heimerdinger displaying his usual energy while half the class was still trying to extricate itself from the arms of sleep.

Your eyes drifted outside, the landscape having changed drastically. Valleys of white stone overlaid with green, while the clear blue water seemed to form a sea of sapphires.

You were sent back to your rooms to stow your suitcases as The Young Prince prepared to land.

“Think the duo we'll get assigned to will be good?” you asked as you and Viktor exited your cabin.

“They could never be better than us,” he asserted, to which you couldn't help but smile.

And so, at last, the small world of the entire class was reunited to exit the Young Prince, its airlock opening onto the small gangway leading you to the dock.

The air was fresh with the scent of flowers and sunshine brought to you by the wind from the sea.

Outside, a group of students were waiting for you, accompanied by what must have been the Academy's headmistress, whom Heimerdinger immediately came to greet. She was a tall, slender woman with long, straight features, her dress strict and asymmetrically impeccable. Her long chestnut braid hung to one side as she shook Heimerdinger's hand, her grey eyes crinkling as her thin lips smiled at him.

Her eyes overhung by fine eyebrows that were the least severe aspect of her face turned to your group once it was fully assembled.

“Welcome, dear students, to Demacia.” She had a flattened accent, her T's straighter against her teeth and her more pronounced R's scraping toward the back of her throat. “I am Diane Lolanthe, the principal of Demacia University.” 

With an elegant wave of her arm, she pointed to the group of students in their white, blue and silver uniforms, in contrast to your own warm-toned ones dotted with gold.

“The students of Demacia are delighted to welcome you among them,” she smiled, her hands joining together, ”I hope their behaviour will match that of those at the prestigious Piltover Academy.”

“Prestigious,” Heimerdinger repeated with a chirp, ”the reputation of our establishment envies many of the attractions of the University of Demacia.”

Your eyes roamed over the group of Demacia students. Many looked almost military in their posture, and you expected nothing less from them. Their reputation was, after all, massively based on their defensive side.

They seemed to be watching you all, some leaning over to whisper in others' ears. Were they making fun of you? Did they already have stupid remarks to share with each other?

Madame Diane and Heimerdinger chatted for a moment, taking out papers and exchanging ideas for a few minutes before straightening up and placing themselves between the two groups.

“Right then,” Diane resumed, bringing a document in front of her, “I have here the list of groups formed for the Demacia pairs.”

“And right here the list of groups formed for the Piltover pairs,” informed Heimerdinger.

“One by one, we'll call the pairs who will be joining each other on the side. Please get ready.”

From both sides, the pairs joined, Viktor and you remaining next to each other as you crossed your arms.

The roll call then began, the Piltover students coming forward first as Heimerdinger whispered information to Diane, no doubt giving the students' profiles to guide her an idea on who might be associable with whom.

As the list dwindled, so came your turn. 

“Moravec and Phathe.”

Viktor and you approached, Heimerdinger sketching a smile and exchanging whispers with Diane, who raised an eyebrow, glancing at the remaining students, and sketching a chuckle.

“Laurent and Crownguard,” she called. 

Demacia's students began to murmur among themselves, some of the quartets already formed being informed by their acolytes. You frowned, your eyes darting to the duo approaching you.

A young lady and a guy about your age came up. The girl had an athletic figure, her gait confident, while her hair, styled in a severe bob with red streaks, framed her breathtakingly beautiful face. The man accompanying her was tall, probably reaching Jayce's height with an imposing, muscular stature, his hair short and brown, his eyes lowered on your duo with curiosity.

“Nice to meet you,” you began, hoping eventually to socialize for once in your life.

The young lady looked you up and down, arching a judgmental eyebrow before moving on to Viktor. She wore her smile like a loaded pistol.

“I take the prince,” she pronounced in an accent similar to Diane's, ”you take the rag.”

You frowned as she walked over to Viktor and picked up his suitcase to free his arm that wasn't holding his cane and wrap her hand around his bicep.

“Shall we?”

Viktor seemed simply at a loss for words as the lady began to pull him towards the rest of the group.

You watched them advance, chuckling as you felt as if you'd been punched in the stomach.

“Excuse her,” sighed the young man who'd stayed by your side, ”she's never had many people put her back in her place in her years of life.”

“No kidding,” you breathed as you both began to move forward to follow them.

“Let me take your luggage,” he offered.

You smiled politely. “Don't worry, if I can't pull my luggage anymore, that makes me a lousy rag.”

“A rag capable of such strength is quite a feat in these cases,” he smiled.

You smiled back, at least one of them was civilized enough to carry on a conversation.

“I'm Garen, by the way,” he introduced himself, offering you his hand, which you came to shake, callused and rough. “And the spoiled brat that just blatantly insulted you is Fiora.”

“Nice to meet you,” you asserted before introducing yourself in turn. 

Once you'd arrived with the rest of the group, you reached Fiora and Viktor. The girl gave you a sharp look, and you returned it, the other students around you observing the scene.

This was going to be a special stay.

✦﹒ previous chapter ✦﹒ next chapter

taglist : @doctorho @6selkie @yunloyal @kryscent @hypocritic-trash-baby @kapitankarate @a-lovers-card @ababanerb @lolixsstuff @forget-me-not-my-dear @smolanchovy @shugar0cone0alt @harrys--ferret-blog @suuummerrr @stillinracooncity @noxturnalmoth @dlbitch @cloufire @csolya @kathyholdsagrudge @furblrwurblr @potatointhedirt @atrocioushaircut @ren-ni @schrodingersraven @urmommt @enoojnij @stilinskisensation @emlovesya @soupsaurus @luvreadingfics @the-valars-sapphire @solbringer @adorabluesposts @pxszels @nerolovesseongjiyuk @cyberwears @cryptidcut @seohaepeachyun @danielsbackupglasses @2hiigh2cry @16novvs @cicadastoner @patchs-cuiosity-corner @w41k3r-94290 @minniiv @roku907 @lumilarity @peachy-writings @disturbyn @ddandelionfluff @holymotherfxrkingshirtballs @notyuralycat @glenn-slayer @k07ume @hexb0nes @ravngers @fushirika @glenn-slayer

[ozai-the-bonsai]

Like Lovers Do

| Part 1 | Part 2 |

Pairing: Daemon Targaryen x fem!reader

Summary: You and Daemon would dream about marrying each other before both of you became victims of political marriages, very much against your wills: he was sent to the Vale and you to the Riverlands. However, when your lord husband passes away, you return to King’s Landing, only to find out that your childhood sweetheart is now wearing a crown of his own.

A/N: I am finally back for the Daemon x reader fics, you lovely people! I hope you still remember me after that loooooooooong gap... Anyways, I once again wrote too much and couldn't even get to the point I was heading - I intended this story to be a one-shot but it seems I will be writing another chapter for the spicy stuff ;) I hope you enjoy it! (I am also open to any Daemon requests you might have for me!)

Warnings: I am not a native English speaker, strong language

Taglist: @throughgoeshamilton @mirandastuckinthe80s @xicesam @mariamyousef702 @eddiemadmunson @dont-try-pesticide @sweetybuzz25 @hc-geralt-23 @schniiipsel @ttae-yong @syrma-sensei @asiludida164 @kaitieskidmore1 @irmavanity-blog @pax-2735 @trickrtreatart @shanzeyxsyed @random-human02 @scarwicht @xcallmetaniax @instabull @niiight-dreamerrrr @my-dark-prince @stargaryenx @abaker74 @babywolff @sonnensplitter @bi-narystars @softtina

You had almost forgotten the way his voice sounded.

Fourteen long years had it been, the last time you were given the privilege to let your eyes wander on his handsome face as long as they desired.

You had expected time to have changed you in all the possible ways anyone could ever imagine, the years you had spent at the Riverlands being no different than a bird in a cage did harden you to your very core; however, the moment his sweet voice reached your ears again, you felt yourself melting just as you did when you were six-and-ten.

For the first time in fourteen years; for the first time after you had left King's Landing, you were feeling the warmth in your heart again, waking up from its deep slumber, melting the frost that used to be your heart.

At first, you hadn't even believed it when you heard the whispers roaming the castle about the return of the Rogue Prince.

"Prince Daemon is back," the whispers had said, "and he is wearing a crown."

King of the Narrow Sea? You had thought to yourself, following the crowds into the Throne Room. Is he going to challenge his brother now? Have the years turned him completely mad?

And now, you were watching him, King of the Narrow Sea, give up his crown to King Viserys.

He really is back.

After the ceremony in the Throne Room was over, the Royals and the Small Council moved to the Godswood to celebrate the Prince's victory over the Triarchy. You weren't quite sure whether it was expected of you to join them; however, upon seeing the way your father looked at you, you decided to follow them. Your heart was racing as if it was trying to break free from your chest.

Your father's position in King Jaehaerys’ and after him King Viserys’ Small Council had allowed you an easy, enjoyable life within the walls of the Red Keep, allowing you to share the early years of your youth with Prince Daemon, growing up alongside him.

Until he decided it was time for you to marry a rich lord and be shipped to the Riverlands, of course. You had known long before your father made his decision that you would, sooner or later, have to marry someone - preferably some lord from one of the Great Houses.

However, you had expected your father to come to you with this delicate matter first, instead of shaking hands with the lords as if he was doing some kind of trade.

"I do not care about some stupid lord in the Riverlands," you had told your father upon hearing the terrible news about your future. "I am going to marry Prince Daemon, Father. How can you even begin to compare him with any other man in the Seven Kingdoms?"

"Prince Daemon is going to the Vale," your father had responded in a cold voice. It made you realize he had wished for you to become the Prince's wife perhaps even more than you yourself had. "It has been decided that he is to take Lady Rhea Royce as his wife." Upon seeing the tears beginning to form in your eyes, your father had held your hands. "I am sorry, my sweet girl, but there is no other way."

Even though you had known all these years, deep down, that your father's only wish was for you to have an easy, wealthy life (and at the meanwhile keeping his good connections, and establishing relations with the strong houses), the anger you had been feeling never really faded away.

Yes, you had led a wealthy life for the last fourteen years; however, being the second wife of a (compared to your six-and-ten self) fairly old lord had taken all the happiness you had ever known from you. It was almost as if you had forgotten how to enjoy life...

After arriving at the Godswood - since the Red Keep was enormous, it always took ages to get from one place to another - you too poured yourself a glass of red wine as you stood beside your father. King Viserys and some other members of the Small Council were talking with Prince Daemon, mostly about the war against the Triarchy.

Somehow, it seemed like Daemon didn't even notice you were there, maybe he didn't really recognise you after all those years - you couldn't say.

Until King Viserys saw you standing next to your father, the Master of Coins.

The King's face lightened with a bright smile as he turned his eyes to his younger brother, placing his left hand on Daemon's shoulder. "Brother, you surely remember Lord Beesbury's lovely daughter," the King spoke with a delightful tone. "She has, too, recently returned to King's Landing."

The world froze around the two of you when Daemon's purple eyes met yours. Every other person standing there with you faded away, and all the other sounds melted into silence until it was just you and him, the same memory playing in front of your eyes.

"I am going to make you my Queen one day," Daemon whispered in your ear. "I promise you."

You were out at the Godswood, sitting under the moonlight - both of you had to be around sixteen, it was shortly before the calamity that was your marriage.

You raised an eyebrow in his direction. "So you plan on winning me and the Iron Throne?" You asked him, only to earn a cocky smirk.

"You would be surprised to see what I am capable of, my Lady."

I have seen what you are capable of, my Prince, you thought as you came back to reality. You were breathing heavily. Capable of winning a war without the support of the Crown, earning your very own crown - but you still gave it up to your brother.

To prevent the awkward silence from getting any longer, Daemon quickly wore his famous smirk as he nodded at the King. "Of course, how could I not," he spoke with a charming aura surrounding him. Taking a step towards you, the Prince held your right hand gently and brought it to his lips. "It has been many years, my Lady." The Prince told you. "Though, it is somewhat unfair that the years have not touched your beauty, not in the slightest."

The poker face, which only showed a humble smile fitting of a lady of your position, would never give away that you were, in fact, dying inside. Feeling his lips and his touch for the very first time in fourteen years had hit you like a wall of bricks.

"You flatter me, my Prince," you spoke with your best I-am-a-noble-lady tone. "Congratulations on your victory."

Before continuing the conversation with his brother and the other Lords, Daemon gave you a small nod - only you realised that he had allowed his eyes to linger on your face longer than they needed to.

[Time Skip}

"I wasn't expecting to see you here again, after all those years."

Hearing his velvet voice, you raised your head to look at Daemon, who was standing to your right. Fixing your silver dress and crossing one leg over the other, you waited for him to continue speaking.

"Why aren't you at the Rivenlands?"

You raised an eyebrow at the Prince as you responded while mimicking the same cocky tone he always used. "Why haven't you been at the Vale all those years?"

The edge of Daemon's lips curled upwards as he shook his head, he was wearing a red, long-armed tunic under his long, black cloak - proudly carrying the colours of his House. "Your attitude hasn't changed even in the slightest, love."

You rolled your eyes at him, keeping your attitude, not letting it falter under the heavy weight of the love your heart still carried for him. Of course, it would have been a lot easier to give into your heart's whispers and welcome him with arms wide open; however, you had grown overmuch furious with him over the years.

First and foremost, he had broken off every damn contact with you at an instant as soon as you had left King's Landing. You haven't heard from Daemon for fourteen years. News and gossip about his doings had reached your ears, of course, but not from Daemon himself.

And second, it had hurt you too fucking much when you saw he had done nothing to fight for your love. As the Prince, he could have had more of a say in the matter than you, but all he had done was tell you goodbye and disappear into the night. That was the last you had seen of him, fourteen years ago.

At first, you had thought that perhaps, Daemon had found the idea of marrying Lady Rhea Royce more appealing than marrying you. Until the news had reached the Riverlands about the Rogue Prince's failed marriage - not long after, he had returned to King's Landing, never to visit the Vale ever again.

Rhea Royce had never been what Daemon desired, and apparently, you too - else, he would have at least tried to find a way to arrange something, anything.

Placing your hands on your lap, you asked. "Can I be of further assistance to you, my Prince?"

"You can start by providing me with an answer, my Lady," Daemon said, arching an eyebrow in your direction. "Why did you return to King's Landing? Has your lord husband got a place in the Small Council now?"

"He has passed away," you spoke with a low voice while playing with your fingers. "A few months ago."

The Prince licked his lower lip. "I would wish to offer you my condolences, love," he spoke, "but I have never liked the sight of that cunt."

Your eyes widened with shock upon hearing his words, you hissed between your teeth. "Seven hells, Daemon!" The Prince shrugged in a careless manner. "Show at least some respect to the dead!"

"Will you be staying here?" he asked, earning a nod from you. "Why not stay at the Riverlands?"

This time, you turned your eyes away - his intense gaze was making you feel dizzy. "There is nothing for me there, at the Riverlands. My late husband's eldest nephew holds the Lord title now." Taking a deep breath, you leaned forward to pour yourself some wine. "You see, we didn't have any children to inherit my late husband's position, hence there was no more need for me."

Upon feeling Daemon's hand closing on top of yours, you quickly raised your head to look at him. Gently, the Prince took the carafe from your hands to pour you a glass of wine. With slow movements, he handed you the glass.

"I thought the whole idea behind you marrying that old man was to provide him with heirs," Daemon spoke, his purple eyes lighting with curiosity. He didn't even explicitly ask about the reason behind the failure but you could easily read it from the way he looked.

"We did try, for years, but..." Taking a moment, you took a big sip from your wine. "He could have tried with a dozen other women for another ten years and it still wouldn't have changed anything."

Daemon pursed his lips upon understanding the meaning behind your words. "I see, this explains why he didn't have any heirs from his first marriage, too." You nodded. "Good riddance, should I say now? At least you are free from that burden of yours."

"As if you cared about me or my burden," you snorted. Upon seeing the confused look inside his eyes, you first drank your half-empty glass - all at once - and then stood up. Raising your head, you looked Daemon in the eye, your faces standing dangerously close to each other. "It has been fourteen fucking years, Daemon," you spoke with a low voice but still, your fury could be heard in every word. "And not one fucking raven from you. You just walked away from my life, as if I meant nothing to you!"

Towards the end, your tone tended to become higher, thus you took a deep breath to keep yourself under control. From the corner of your eye, you could see Queen Alicent and your father taking a curious look in your direction.

With his left hand, Daemon held you firmly on your right wrist as he whispered, looking down at you. "You meant everything to me," he put emphasis on each word. "Don't you dare act as if you don't know it."

Your chest brushed against his with every breath, you could feel the warmth radiating off his body. At that very moment, the only thing you wanted was for Daemon to push you against the stone wall behind you and kiss you until you couldn't remember your own name anymore.

With slow movements, Daemon leaned into your ear, his warm breath brushing against your neck. You didn't even realise you were pressing your lips against each other - your breaths were heavy, your head felt dizzy and you slowly got drunk with his smell surrounding you.

"Do you have any idea," the Prince whispered in your ear, his voice full of sex appeal. You could melt right then and there, inside his arms. "How many nights I have spent, thinking about you?"

Back then, when you were both young and in love, Daemon had never touched you other than sharing small kisses (and rarely not-so-small kisses) for you wanted to wait until marriage.

In retrospect, you believed your younger self to have been too naive and, well, young - after seeing one could in fact do whatever they desired as long as it was discrete enough.

Now, all the lust and desire you both had been bottling up for years came to the surface.

Holding onto the last bits of your will, you took a step back, putting some visible distance between Daemon and yourself - so that you could think clearly once more.

"Then why," you asked, your voice sounding weaker than you wanted it to. "Why did you disappear from my life?"

The Prince cast a quick look at the curious people around you - some of the council members seemed kind of interested in your conversation with Daemon since they were sending curious looks in your direction every other second.

Muttering something under his breath - he was probably cursing at the nosiness of the people - Daemon quickly put on one of his most charming smiles. "Perhaps the lady would like to grant me the honour of dining with her this evening," he spoke with his velvet-like voice as he took your hand and brought it to his soft lips. The mild wind was causing his silver hair to sway ever so gently. "Where we can discuss further, as long as she likes."

Your heart skipped a beat.

Of course, you knew what his true intention was. This invitation was more than just a dinner where you could both scream at each other about the fourteen years you have lost - it was also to make up for all that time.

Your brain was shouting at you, telling you that you were making a big mistake - the Prince was still married, even though his marriage had been a bigger failure than yours - but your desires were stronger.

"I would love to, my Prince." The words left your lips before you could even think.

Daemon winked at you before leaving Godswood. "I will be waiting for you in my chambers, love."

[rivalsispunk]

The Interview (Chapter 1 of ongoing series When We’re Alone)

Best friend’s dad!Declan O’Hara, boss!Declan O’Hara x AFAB reader

Journalist Declan O’Hara is in need of a personal assistant as his Corinium career skyrockets, and his daughter Taggie has the perfect candidate: her best friend. What seemingly starts as a professional relationship soon snowballs into something both Declan and reader were never expecting and are no longer able to deny.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, (eventual) smut, cursing, age gap romance (reader is a few years older than Taggie), more warnings added per chapter

Word count: 3.1k

Author’s note: Hello! Long time reader, first time poster! Please be kind but also let me know what you think! Proof read but probs still some mistakes. Not entirely canon, Declan still works for Corinium, Maud has disappeared to god knows where and the rest, well, you’ll have to read to find out :)

© rivalsispunk please do not steal, copy, or translate any of my work onto other platforms!

Chapter One: The Interview

You were going to positively kill Taggie once you returned to the Cotswolds. Only she, your closest friend since you relocated to the country after finishing your university degree six months ago, could convince you to cut your gap year short in favour of interviewing for a personal assistant job at Corinium. And, for her father, Declan O’Hara, no less.

“Oh, go on!” Taggie had pleaded with you over The Priory’s kitchen counter. “I know you’re getting bored out here. You can’t spend all of your days sitting around here, helping me peel the shite out of prawns for dinner parties.”

“Why not?” You plucked a grape from the fruit platter she’d just finished assembling for an event at Freddie and Valerie Jones’ that evening. “I happen to like spending all my time with you. Even if it does mean peeling shite out of crustaceans.” You eyed your friend with faux suspicion. “Are you getting sick of me already?”

“Of course not! I just think you’d be grand at it, that’s all, what with your journalism degree and all,” Taggie explained. “You’ve heard Daddy when he comes home. Always complaining about the sorts he’s had to interview. Plus, he already knows you. That’s ought to win you some points right there.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t be all bad,” you confessed, mulling the opportunity over as you chewed through another handful of grapes. It would look amazing on your resume and you’d have a foot in the door at one of the biggest TV networks in the United Kingdom. Plus, it wouldn’t kill you to have a front row seat to Declan in all his glory every single day. You would never mention it to Taggie, but you fancied her dad a rather handsome sod.

“Say you’ll do it. At the very least, for me?” Taggie bat her thick eyelashes at you.

“Fine,” you eventually relented, a smile cracking over your face at the new possibility. “I’ll go in for an interview, but no promises. And I don’t want you convincing him of me either! I want to get this job on my own merit, okay?”

“Convince Daddy of you? Please, he already adores you.” The sentiment spread fire through your chest. Tag rounded the kitchen bench and grabbed you by the hand. “Now let’s find you an outfit! Mummy ought to have left something halfway suitable behind.”

Taggie nor Declan had said much about their absentee matriarch Maud in the recent weeks since she fled the countryside after yet another explosive argument between her and her husband. You knew better than to ask, but you could tell by the way Taggie’s shoulders sagged at the sight of her mother’s partially empty closet that her absence had a somber affect on her.

You’d only been into the main bedroom of The Priory once before, when the room was overtaken by Maud’s florally perfumes and extravagant evening gowns. This time, however, the space was so intrinsically Declan; all heady cedarwood and whisky and smoke. Shirts with patterns of plaid and tartan as well as numerous odd, natural-coloured socks were peppered across armchairs and vanities, while a stack of memoirs sat on his bedside with a full ashtray perched atop. Your heart swelled, and sunk simultaneously, at the thought of Declan being sat up here alone at night, or early of a morning, thumbing through a book while taking slow drags of his cigarette as he let himself be consumed by a life far different to the one he was currently living.

“How about this?” Taggie’s voice ripped through your daydream, forcing you away from thoughts of her father. You peered at the oatmeal-coloured dress she had retrieved from the closet, surprised that Maud owned something so…brown. You’d always known her to wear jewel tones that complimented her flaming red hair. You shook your head, and thus began a cycle of Taggie suggesting an outfit and you shooting it down. Eventually, you agreed to Taggie swapping out your creature comfort jeans and Wham! T-shirt for an old black pencil skirt that you were convinced had given you hives from the way your legs hadn’t stopped itching since you put it on, as well as a silky fuchsia blouse that stretched a little too tight over your breasts. While your friend had done a good job at assuring you that you’d fit right in at the Corinium offices, you weren’t as convinced.

The receptionists, all in latest season fashion with not a hair out of place, had looked you up and down as soon as you stepped foot in the marble foyer, snickering behind your back about your fashion fauxpas once you’d checked in. Sarah Stratton wasn’t as covert with her judgement. As you sat outside Declan’s office, waiting to be called in, Sarah outwardly guffawed when she spotted you across the floor. You’d met her several times in passing at parties and Corinium events you’d previously attended as Taggie’s plus one, and for the most part, she’d kept her observations to herself. But now, as her red heels clip across the carpet, her gaze set right on you with her matching rouge lips upturned. “I would never have expected to see you here, darling!” she coos down at you, reaching for a strand of hair that has slipped in front of your shoulder. “And playing dress ups, no less!” Another laugh tinkers out of her as she twirls your hair around her finger. “Interviewing for the assistant job with Declan, hm?”

You nod with a taut smile and try not to let her comment about you looking god-awfully out of place get to you. Sarah’s eyes shift to Declan’s closed mahogany door and tuts. “Well, good luck, sweetheart. Seems like you’ll need it with the way the rest of those interviews have panned out.”

“Oh, hop off it, Sarah!” an unmistakingly Irish voice barks from your left. Sarah jolts upright and despite the embarrassment that tinges her cheeks pink, still manages throw a sultry smile in Declan’s direction. Your posture matches her pin-straight stature as you side-eye his office. It hadn’t occurred to you that he wasn’t inside, preparing for your interview the way you had been all morning. You’d crafted your pitch of yourself perfectly, complete with ideas and suggestions for potential guests for Declan’s show, anything to set you apart, make you seem even a fraction less useless that the interviewees that came before you. “Don’t you have anything better to do? Where’s James?” he questions Sarah, alluding to the very common knowledge that she and her co-host James Vereker are having an affair. Declan makes a show of raking through his moustache - god, that moustache - then adds with a smirk, “James and better. Probably not two words that should be in the same sentence, eh?” Sarah’s smile plateaus at that, and that stiff upper-lip culture she was dying to marry into takes its place.

“I’m sure I can make myself busy, Declan. Got a show to prepare and all that. Ciao!” She doesn’t look at you again and you’re grateful that Declan starts to speak before you bumblefuck your way through the silence.

“Ciao,” he repeats once Sarah’s out of earshot . “Doubt that leech of a woman’s ever had a decent carbonara, let alone stepped foot in Italy.” he says, offering you the first genuine smile you’ve received all day. “Let’s get to it, shall we?” He swings open his office door and holds an arm out. “After you, love.”

“Thanks.”

You shuffle into the room ahead of him, completely oblivious to the way Declan’s eyes are trained on your arse in a skirt that’s familiar to him, but he’s unsure how. Right now, however, he doesn’t care, because it fits your body so magnificently, as if it were made for you. He fights to ignore the dull throb beneath his trousers while he watches you sit, the black fabric pushed to its limits as it stretches across the globes of your arse.

God, has she always been so… womanly? Declan wonders, then immediately chastises himself for leering so openly at his daughter’s best friend. Yes, she was a few good years older than Taggie, and always a beautiful girl, but he was glad his middle child had finally made a friend amid the shitshow that was the move to the country and his crumbling marriage to Maud. He didn’t need to muddy the waters with pervacious thoughts about the young lass’ curves. If only she’d shown up to his office in her usual ripped jeans and George Michael-adorned tees.

“Everything okay, Mr O’Hara? Should I sit somewhere else?” you ask when you notice Declan frozen in the doorway with a furrow etched in his brow. You immediately start second-guessing yourself and wonder if this was a bad idea after all. You can only imagine everyone else who lost out on this job before you faced that same expression. He shakes his head at you, at himself, then busies himself with straightening his maroon tie as he moves to sit behind his desk. You shift in your seat, trying to thwart of the lingering itch Maud’s skirt has buried into the back of your thigh. You think if you can wriggle just so, you can ward it off for at least the main portion of the interview. While you think your subtle movements go unnoticed by Declan because he’s perusing your resume - impressive, he’d earlier noted in black pen beside details of your internship at The Times - he’s been clocked onto your behaviour since he’d laid eyes on you across the office. Scared shitless, and he doesn’t half know that Sarah’s sneaky comments only added to it, thanks to the way you’re fidgeting with that damned skirt mere metres away from him. If Declan had any less sense in him, any less dignity, he’d have half the mind to tear it straight from your body. Of course, he decides against it and tries a less barbaric approach to settle your nerves.

“No band t-shirt today?”

Now it’s your turn for your brows to knit together. “I’m sorry?” Declan nudges his head in the general direction of your chest and your chin dips in response to see what he’s referring to. There, your vision is flanked with fluorescent pink and a tinge of flesh where the silky material doesn’t quite stretch to cover your breasts between buttons, and you silently curse Taggie for allowing you to wear something so borderline revealing at her father’s workplace. Plus, you were surprised he’d even noticed your usual attire.

“I thought it was best I grow up a bit in the clothing department if I were to go for a job at Corinium,” you confess. Declan doesn’t miss the way the swell of your breasts arch against your shirt when you take a deep breath and fold your arms across yourself. “But now I’m thinking the bright pink was a mistake.”

You peer across the expansive wooden desk expectantly, and Declan pitches his hands up in mock surrender. “Don’t ask me! Fashion, clearly, is not my strong suit. All I know is, according to my girls, leaving the house with ladders in your tights is a big no-no unless you’re a gothic or Winona Ryder.”

You chuckle at that, even more so for knowing that his youngest daughter, Caitlin, would be all for half-shredded tights.

Declan looks coy as he sips from his tea. “But if it counts for anything, you look lovely.”

“Well, I should hope you think so. These are your wife’s clothes, after all.” Your confession elicits a splutter from the otherwise put together man in front of you. Tea spouts from his lips across the desk, marring your resume and any other papers with brown stains. You immediately spring into action, scanning the room for a towel, handkerchief, anything that could mop up the mess.

“Sorry, love,” Declan says quietly, thumping a fist against his chest. “Wrong pipe.”

That’s when you see it, a pocket square the same colour as his tie poking from his breast pocket. Without thinking, you lurch across Declan’s desk and pluck it from its resting place, and begin soaking up the liquid. Declan ought to help you, it’s his mess after all, but he’s frozen at the view you’ve awarded him as you lean over. Your cleavage fights against the V cut of Maud’s blouse and Declan can just make out the ripple of a black lace bra below the neckline. He can’t even imagine Maud in that outfit. Right now it’s all so you. His cock stirs at the sight and he can’t help the pained groan that bubbles up his throat.

“Stop,” he breathes in barely a whisper. You don’t, of course, you can’t hear him, and you keep wiping at the desk, your breasts bouncing with every swipe up and down.

“Christ, girl, stop it!” Declan explodes, bolting up from his chair. Thankfully, the height of his desk hides his growing bulge, but it doesn’t matter. The look of pure fear painting your face has the same effect as a cold shower. You sink back into your seat and begin spluttering apologies, that you shouldn’t have used his pocket square, that you were out of line and another dozen variations of sorry, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. Declan mirrors you by returning to his chair, raking a hand over his face.

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he states eventually. “I don’t give a dying rats arse about the pocket square. It’s just… I’m a bloody fool just standing here while you clean up after me. I can’t have you doing that. You don’t even work for me.”

Despite the shock of Declan’s outburst, you manage to muster up a bit of cheek in response. “I don’t even work for you yet,” you correct him.

Your confidence juts Declan’s eyebrows to his curly hairline and a grin cracks across his face. “Cocky little thing, aren’t ya? Go on then.. tell me why I should hire you.”

You spend the next twenty minutes talking Declan through your university studies and experience, the tension from earlier already forgotten. When Declan mentions he once worked with your media law professor, the conversation detours into the pair of you sharing stories about your experiences with the man, far too senile and set in his ways to do the younger generation any good. The rest of the interview carries on like that, you and Declan laughing and exchanging anecdotes like two friends in the pub rather than an employer vetting a potential employee. You’re about to pitch the idea of getting Farah Fawcett on Declan’s show when the office door thumps open to reveal Corinium’s managing director, Tony Baddingham, at its entryway.

“O’Hara! If you’re done with giggling like a little schoolgirl down here, we’ve got a production meeting to get to,” he bites, barely glancing in your direction. You don’t miss the roll of Declan’s tawny eyes as he waves Tony off.

“Alright, Tony. Give me five, I’m just finishing up here,” he says before introducing you by name.

“Nice to meet you, Mr Baddingham,” you tell him, standing to shake his hand. He doesn’t properly look at you until your palms meet, and your spine stiffens when his beady eyes rake over you.

“One of Declan’s assistant candidates, I presume?” he wonders aloud.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you’re far prettier than some of the other trolls we’ve had roll through here recently.”

“Tony,” Declan warns. The last thing he wants is another man leering at you like you’re a rite of passage for them.

“Right, well, lovely to meet you,” Tony clasps his other hand over the top of yours, careening his neck so he’s at your eye level. “Hope to see you around here. You’ll definitely be a much-appreciated addition.”

Offering a tight-lipped smile, you reserve the urge bawk in his face. You’ve worked with enough Tony Baddinghams to know his interest in you has nothing to do with your professional ability and everything to do with aesthetics. Fucking men.

For the most part, they sickened you and Declan all the same, but for the latter, he was mainly sickened with himself for wanting to pummel Baddingham for the way he was eye-fucking you. But who was he to talk? He’d been doing the exact same thing just minutes earlier.

When Tony leaves the office, he leaves the door ajar, a reminder that Declan is expected elsewhere. You’re about to ask Declan if Tony is always so…Tony, but he’s already got his briefcase in hand and is ushering you towards the door. “I have to admit, I was surprised when Taggie said you wanted to interview for this position, with you being on a gap year and all,” he confessed as you strolled out onto the office floor. “But you know your stuff. You’re bloody intelligent. Passionate. That’s rare these days.”

“Thank you, Mr O’Hara.”

“Please, call me Declan. Here, and at The Priory. Just Declan,” he smiles and you return it.

“Alright, then. Declan.”

“I’ve got to get going, but I’ll let you know about the job. There’s a couple more interviews on the books in the next few days, I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course.”

Declan gives you a curt nod, and you start for the elevator, but you barely make it five steps before he calls you back.

“For what it’s worth, I’d be lucky to have ya here. And like I said, you look great, but I prefer the jeans and t-shirts. They’re much more…you.”

His admission sends your heart thrumming against your ribcage, and red creeps up your neck and onto your cheeks. “Thank you, Mr O’Ha- Declan,” you correct yourself. “Thank you, Declan. See you around.” You turn on your patent black heel, leaving Declan standing there with an image that’s bound to haunt him for nights to come: you in that fucking skirt.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this, and if you’re feeling generous, a lil’ reblog won’t go astray <3

[areislol]

A time to tell

► PAIRINGS. genshin men x gn! creator! reader

► GENRE. sagau, reverse isekai, domestic life/slice of lofe, explicit/sexual (18+ for the nsfw chapters) themes.

SYNOPSIS. albedo created a machine where it would bring back their creator, who was stuck in another world, back to where they belong. but instead of bringing you here to them, it brought them to you.

WARNINGS. eventual smut, harem, angst with comfort.

STATUS. on going//i will try to update as fast and best as i can but i do procrastinate a lot so.. i do have school and work to do so updates may be a bit slow.. i will try my best though!! i do not have a specific update time, i just update whenever I finish a chapter so please bear with me, i wish i had an allocated timetable or something but i just can't fit that into my schedule (posting on a specific time).

EXTRA. i started this series because i needdd to feed my love for reverse isekai fics and i saw that there werent a lot so i was like !!! why not create my own? also, the chapters that had NSFW content in them will have the 🔞 logo beside the chapter name.

- reader is in college (has a part time job)

TAGLIST. open

> RECOMMENDED SONGS WILL BE INCLUDED IN THE CHAPTERS <

“y/n, we will be here for you for however you want us to be, we will leave even if you asked us to just please, please don’t leave us.”

chapter index

i. chapter one - the start of it all

◇─where you find yourself in a room with 24 handsome men, the thing is.. you know them from the popular game that you even played and spent hundreds of money on.. genshin impact!

ii. chapter two - the morning after

◇─the morning after everything had happened, you decided to do a little bonding session.. which was by watching your favourite movies with them of course!

iii. chapter three - a shopping spree

◇─you decide to go shopping to buy some things for you and the men, you bond by watching movies with them and playing UNO.

iv. chapter four - "you really took took care of us, huh?"

◇─a couple days goes by after meeting the men, all is going good, your daily routine has changed, and the fact that you start work tomorrow too doesn't help anything at all.

v. chapter five - Back to work

◇─you have to return back to work after having your days off, little did you know you would find out something that would absolutely make you feel at unease and that would make you paranoid forever.

MINI FIC - Merry christmas! (wait why are we supposed to say that again?)

◇─celebrate christmas with them!!

vi. chapter six - The stalker

◇─not in a million years did you expect to ever get yourself a stalker, how did you? no idea. but with the sudden help of a woman she manages to find a way to catch the stalker. will you and your friends or well, the men, see her ever again, and will they meet for the good or bad?

vi. chapter seven - A walk in the park

◇─deciding that it has been quite some time since the men went out, you take them out to a park and have a picnic, bonding time if you will.

viii. chapter eight - Credit where it's not due

◇─you finally have some time to understand elisa, and to be honest, you aren't sure if you and her get along.

MINI FIC - A New Year’s With You

◇─happy new years!!

[newtsniffles]

BETWEEN YOUR EYES

the jackal x oc

chapter one

WARNING: this fanfiction will contain mature scenes, violence, and coarse language.

word count: 1.6k, a short set-up chapter. enjoy!

if you enjoy this fanfiction, please don't forget to interact.

CHAPTER ONE: ONE SHOT, ONE KILL.

Grace McCarron loved the smell of coffee. Especially in the early mornings when the sun hadn’t risen and the streets were still wet with last night’s rain. It irked her though, how people could be so loud at such an early hour. Couldn’t people just be quiet? Talk at a normal volume, it was only the hour of six. 

The blonde’s fingers rap against the counter in a steady rhythm. Her expression reads neutral as she watches the customers enjoying their breakfasts, discussing work projects and gossip. It was all so mundane, every word they said was capable of drawing a yawn from her lips. Nobody is interesting this morning.

With a sigh, Grace reaches under the counter for the remote, flicking on the television in the corner. Her head tilts, blue eyes sparkling with intense focus at the headline written across the lower third of the screen. 

Manfred Fest assassinated.

Grace’s eyes narrow, something interesting. Her attention is only being drawn away by the sound of a customer waiting to order. A young woman, brunette, she’d be mid-twenties. 

‘It’s horrible isn’t it?’ The woman says.

‘I’m on the fence,’ Grace admits. ‘What can I get for you?’

‘A latte, please… You don’t think it’s bad?’

‘That a fascist offended somebody and got himself killed? Not really.’ Grace presses the coffee, clicking it into the machine before foaming the milk. With practised expertise, she fills a takeaway cup with the espresso and milk, creating lines of art on the top. 

‘I don’t know much about foreign politics,’ the woman taps her card.

‘Take it from me, be glad he won’t be the new German Chancellor.’

Grace’s attention is brought back to the screen as the customer walks away with her latte. A single sniper shot from a distance of over three kilometres. Impressive. More than. The corners of her lips tilt into a small grin, leaning back onto the counter with crossed arms, she watches the news report.

It had started raining again, like it usually did in London. The sound of tires driving over the slick roads was comforting to Grace. Red brake lights reflected in the puddles by the footpath, headlights and street lamps casting a warm hue despite the darkening sky. She loved the rain, the sound of it pattering against whatever surface. However, it did make it hard to get a decent line of sight. Her lips quirked slightly, a lover of challenge. One blue eye closed, a glint of thrill in the other as it stared through the scope of a personalised sniper rifle. 

Sleeping with the blinds open, Grace could never understand it, but it certainly helped her in this case. The target laid across his bed, his thumb scrolling across the screen of his phone. The lights in his apartment were on, everything visible. He was so stupidly vulnerable. She could’ve shot six times over by now, but would there be any fun in that? Her finger taps against the trigger as she recalls the deviance of the sleazy man. The world would be better off without him.

BANG. One shot, one kill.

Grace pulls her head back from the sniper, standing up, she starts to pack down the rifle. Her eyes don’t leave the window of the now-deceased target as she unscrews the barrel, packing it all into a case. She hurries downstairs, unlocking her car and driving off swiftly. Chances are nobody would find him until morning, but it is still safer to get away as quickly as possible.

The internet cafe was practically dead at this hour, a lone stranger or two.  It had started to rain outside again, Grace could hear it on the roof, see it on the windows. It was also a Wednesday, unlikely that it would be busy. She plugs a USB into one of the many PCs, accessing Dark Core.

Access Chatroom:

Username: xxxfOxTROT22971x$

Password: ************

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___ job complete.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___he will not bother you anymore.

FPOxENT779X___thank you.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___yes.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908 one new message.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908___Big admirers of your work. Have project we think will interest you. Superlative remuneration.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i don’t work for money.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908___What do you work for?

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___enforcement of consequence.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908___There is a man who needs to face consequences.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908___Can’t talk here.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908___Will you meet in person?

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___where?

Grace sits back in her seat, her finger traces her bottom lip as she waits for a response. This was an odd one, but they seem insistent. For them to know of her work, they had to have communication with sources she had helped in the past.

CRTVDSTRYR*1908___Will make a transfer of good will. Location attached.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___tomorrow morning.

Logout.

A sum of $10,000 has been transferred to your account.

A transfer message has been left.

Grace shuts down the computer, taking out the USB, she packs it into her handbag. Her lips quirk as she exits the internet cafe. Something new, something interesting, a potential challenge. This calls for a stop at that delicious dessert bar down the road from her apartment, a nice meringue or maybe some ice cream would do.

For once the sun was out in London, albeit only slightly, but it did still make Grace look less ridiculous for wearing a cap and sunglasses. She notices a woman sitting on the park bench, must be her. Her black coat flutters behind her in the wind as she sits beside the other woman.

‘Who are you?’ Grace asks.

‘Irish?’ The woman responds with a question.

‘And you’re American.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why am I here?’ Grace leans back against the park bench, crossing her legs. ‘What did he do? Was it assault, did he hurt the kids…?’

‘Ulle Dag Charles.’

‘UDC… the River man?’ 

‘Yes,’ She answers.

‘I don’t see how exposing the rich is a crime,’ Grace grins. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve wasted my time.’

‘If he releases River, it’s not just the rich who fall. All secret networks will be exposed, you’ll be discovered.’ The woman turns to face Grace, trying to get a look at her expression. She quickly realises it’s impossible with the cap and the darkly tinted glasses. ‘You’ll go to prison for a long time.’

‘If that’s the case, hidden networks of paedophiles, rapists… it will all be exposed. You think they’ll go after little old me?’

‘I think even after exposing the rich, they’ll still have the power, and they’ll still be protected.’

‘You’re very insistent,’ Grace observes. ‘Why me?’

‘Because you always get the job done.’

Sighing, Grace looks up at the cloudy sky, the sun peaking out slightly. She sucks in a breath of the fresh park air before responding. ‘This job is a bit harder than the others…’

‘Which is why we’ve hired a second… professional, such as yourself.’

‘First, you ask me to eliminate a man for wanting to expose the rich, and now you tell me I’d have to work with another person?’

There is a silence that passes momentarily between the two women as they stare each other down.

‘River is good for nobody. You will go to prison.’

‘No, I won’t.’ Grace smirks knowingly. ‘Who is the other person?’

‘He is one of the best, alongside yourself.’

‘Who is he?’

‘I don’t know his identity…’ She answers. ‘He took out Fest.’

‘Ah.’ Grace’s lips immediately quick upwards, a grin taking over her expression. She stands up, hands in pockets, she stares down at the woman still sitting. ‘And what do they call you?’

‘Zina.’

‘Zina… I don’t kill innocent men. Give me one good reason to take this job, and not because of River.’

‘...’ The American woman sits there contemplating for a moment, her mind working a million miles an hour. ‘You don’t have to take the shot. We need you to… babysit.’

Grace lets out a loud chuckle, ‘babysit?’

‘It seems our other hire is caught up in a few… troubles after the fest situation. We need you to ensure he gets the job done, and if he fails to, you step in and finish it.’

‘Well… let’s hope he doesn’t fail.’

‘Is that a yes to the job?’ Zina sits up straight.

‘He is aware, I assume?’

‘He will be made aware.’

‘Get me in contact,’ Grace turns around and walks away, her coat once again billowing behind her.

It was another early morning, three days after Grace’s meeting with Zina. She sat behind the counter at the cafe, it was a very quiet morning. A Sunday morning, not many were up and about. She opened her laptop, plugging in her USB.

Access Chatroom:

Username: xxxfOxTROT22971x$

Password: ************

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___who are you?

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___should i not be asking you?

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___i do not need babysitting.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___ah.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___the other ‘professional’

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___nice shot.

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___refuse the job.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i don’t think i will.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i get bored sometimes.

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___then stay out of the way.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i do the job i’m hired for.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___don’t get into trouble, and i won’t have to step in and clean it up.

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___i don’t need anybody to clean up.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___a little birdy told me otherwise.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i am not the enemy.

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___i don’t work in teams.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___there is a first time for everything.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i’m not here to steal your job.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___i’m here to cover your ass so you can get it done.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___you said you don’t work in teams, that means you have no connections.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___you will fuck up, you will go to jail.

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___Munich.

**&525marTinGuerrE^$___i will send the hotel details.

xxxfOxTROT22971x$___see you there.

═══════════════════════════════════════════

enjoy? consider a tip. https://ko-fi.com/newtsniffles

taglist: @ysabay @blue-and-yellow-jjk-pjm @fawkes5050 @our-future-is-up-to-us-2 @itszara-theurbanwitch @wintercrows @rosie-read-that @kpopgirlbtssvt

[ladysharmaa]

Wild Hearts

Jasper Hale x original character

Summary: When a new girl arrives at Forks, she seems to catch Jasper Hale's attention. However, he and his family are hiding a secret. What they don't know is that Evelyn has a secret of her own

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Evelyn had taken the news that she and Jasper were mates surprisingly well. However, she had asked the vampire to take it slow and not to rush things. Jasper had accepted without a second thought; all he wanted was for Evelyn to be happy. He would wait hundreds of years for her if need be.

But the two had grown much closer. They exchanged small, innocent touches, were always glued together when they were together, and none of this went unnoticed by the rest of the school. The girls looked at Evelyn with envy, both for having caught Jasper's attention and for her mythical beauty, while the boys glared at Jasper with anger. The vampire was quick to return the glare and pull the dark blonde closer to him.

Evelyn had also spent more time at the Cullens' house. Jasper invited her over every day, and although he said it was because he always missed her, she knew that one of the reasons was also because he didn't like the conditions of her house. But she really liked her place, since it was the first time she lived alone. Always living in the demigod camp, she had to share her cabin with six other daughters of Aphrodite. Although they were very close friends, arguments always ended up happening.

Something else had also changed in Forks. Apparently they were going to receive a new student, Chief Swan's daughter. Once the man gave her a ride, he told her how happy he was to have his daughter living with him again after so many years apart.

That morning, it was Jasper who picked her up at home so they could go to school together. She was just putting on her boots when the doorbell rang.

"The door is open!" she shouted to the person on the other side, who she knew was Jasper as she heard his car pull up.

"Darling, how many times do I have to tell you to lock the door?" the vampire sighed and scratched the tip of his nose in exasperation. "It's dangerous, someone might come in."

"I knew it was you." She rolled her eyes at Jasper's protectiveness.

He saw her pull on her coat and point to the door, indicating that they should go. However, the boy motioned with his fingers for her to come closer to him. When she did, Jasper pulled her coat up tight, and grabbed a scarf from the coat rack and wrapped it around Evelyn's neck, making sure she was warm.

"We need to get you more warm clothes. Your cheeks are still rosy right now." he teased, seeing the demigod's gaze locked on him.

Their faces were extremely close, and Evelyn could feel herself blushing even more. Her eyes flicked down to Jasper's lips, which were forming a smirk, and back up to his eyes again.

She cleared her throat. "Must be the cold. We should go to school. And wipe that proud smile of your face."

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗

When they arrived at school, everyone was talking about Bella Swan. Evelyn hadn't had the chance to meet her yet, but she made a point of introducing herself. Charlie had talked about Bella so much that Evelyn felt like she already knew her.

After a tiring morning, where Evelyn luckily had a few classes with Jasper and Rosalie, she and the Cullen family headed to the cafeteria. Alice was telling her about a new one that had opened in Seattle, while Lucas complained to Jasper about Evelyn stealing Alice's attention from him.

The blond vampire just laughed and put an arm around Evelyn's waist. Lucas took the opportunity to pull the little vampire towards him and make her spin a little as they entered the cafeteria, where the other students of the school were already gathered.

At a table, Evelyn saw her friends with the famous Bella. From Jessica's position, all leaning forward, she knew they were in gossip mode.

"Who are they?" Bella questioned, watching the Cullens walk with an inhuman grace, their skin as pale as chalk and their eyes as amber. Beside them, a girl who was not so pale, with a healthy brown skin, eyes as clear as the sky and who had a natural beauty that made all the heads present turn to her.

"The Cullens." Angela answered. "And that's Evelyn, she's our friend."

"Yes, she moved here at the beginning of the year. She's very nice, you'll like her." Jessica continued. "But she attracted the attention of the Cullens, and since then she's glued to Jasper, the boy who's been sending glares to everyone who dares to look at Eve."

"Don't be like that, Jess. Eve is friends with them, but she always makes time for us. Just yesterday we all went out together." Angela rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, they're Doctor and Mrs. Cullen's foster kids. They all moved down here from Alaska two years ago. They're all together. Like, together together. The blonde girl, Rosalie, and the big dark-haired guy, Emmett, they're a thing. I'm not even sure if that's legal."

"I don't know how you get along with those people, Evie." Rosalie rolled her eyes.

"What are they saying now?" Evelyn sighed, grabbing Jasper's arm affectionately. As much as she adored Jessica, she had a tendency to get too involved in other people's lives.

"The little dark-haired girl, Alice, she's really weird." Jessica continued, pointing at the vampire. "She's with Lucas. They're very different, he seems to be more shy while Alice is outgoing. Then, you have Jasper and Evelyn. They're kind of the hottest couple, even though Eve tells us several times that they're not dating."

"Yet." Angela giggled.

"Yup, I give it like two weeks. Everyone is so jealous of them." she said, watching them pass by their table. Evelyn stood on her tiptoes, and gave Jasper a light kiss on the cheek, leaving him to go to the Cullens, who sat at the farthest table while Evelyn sat with her friends.

"Let me guess, you guys are gossiping." Evelyn interrupted their conversation, sitting down next to Bella.

"Obviously." Jessica nodded amused.

"Hi, I'm Evelyn. And you must be Bella?"

"Yes, it's nice to meet you." The girl stammered a little.

She had realized why she had captured everyone's attention. Her face seemed to have been carefully constructed, her lips were full and pink, and her eyes a very clear blue. In addition, she seemed to always have a smile on her face. Bella couldn't find a single flaw.

Evelyn smiled, Bella and her father were both socially awkward. "Nice to meet you too. Your dad talks a lot about you."

"You know Charlie?" Bella questioned.

Evelyn found it a little strange that the girl called her father by his name, but she decided to ignore it. "Yes, he gives me a ride every now and then so I don't have to walk to school."

However, Bella's attention was already focused on the last Cullen to arrive in the cafeteria. Edward Cullen walked confidently, he had bronze colored hair and an air of mystery that only captured Bella's attention more. "Who's that?"

"That's Edward Cullen." Jessica murmured. Edward walked past their table, leaving a kiss on Evelyn's head, and as soon as he started walking away Jessica and Angela broke down in giggles. However, when he glanced at Bella over his shoulder, he seemed confused about something.

"Eve, you are so lucky." Angela groaned, dropping her head on the table.

"He's totally gorgeous, obviously. But apparently, no one here is good enough for him. Like I care." Jessica feigned disinterest. "They only care about Eve here. So, don't waste your time."

"I wasn't planning on it." Bella shook her head, but her gaze remained fixed on the boy.

Evelyn stared at the two with wide eyes. From the Cullen table, Jasper motioned for her to come over to them. The daughter of Aphrodite nodded, realizing they had something to say to her. "Sorry, girls, I'm just going to see a Jasper before we have to go to class."

"Young love, so beautiful." Jessica teased, Evelyn playfully tossed her a napkin and grabbed her things before heading to the other table.

"What is it?" she asked as she sat down next to Jasper, who immediately pulled her chair closer to his.

"Bella, the new girl, she's Edward's blood singer. And apparently he can't hear her thoughts."

"Like how you can't hear mine?"

"No." Edward shook his head thoughtfully. "It's different. I don't get static on her mind. I can't hear anything at all. It's silent."

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗

That same day, Evelyn had to go to work at the dinner, being dropped off by Jasper who promised to pick her up as well. Even though he told her that she didn't have to work anymore, Evelyn refused. There was no way she would depend on Jasper, whether they were mates or not.

So, she got ready for her shift. She was cleaning a table when Charlie and Bella Swan entered the dinner, their presence being announced by the bell on the door.

"Charlie, Bella! How are you? Come, you can sit on this table and I'll bring you the menu." Evelyn greeted, leading them to a table in the corner of the dinner, where they could chat freely.

"Hey, Eve. Have you guys met at school today?"

Bella nodded, letting an awkward silence settle in. Before it could get worse, Evelyn brought the menus, and let them choose. Until the end of her shift, she only had the opportunity to say goodbye to the father-daughter duo, as the other waitress took over their table. Everyone in the town was very happy to see Bella with Chief Swan, and they all wanted to see if she remembered them. Of course, the girl had no idea who they were, which only made her more embarrassed.

When she left the establishment, Jasper was already waiting for her patiently. His serious look changed to one of adoration when he saw Evelyn walking towards him.

"Hello, darling. Did your shift go well? Did anyone give you any trouble?" Now that he knew why Evelyn was bringing so much attention, Jasper had become very protective of her. Even though he knew she could defend herself.

"Everything went really well. How is Edward?" she asked, getting into the car when Jasper opened the door for her.

"He's going to Alaska for a while, to the Denalis, who are friends of ours." Jasper explained, making sure to turn the car's heater up to full blast. "The smell of Bella's blood is too tempting and he's afraid of losing control. Rosalie isn't happy."

"Seems like Rose." she chuckled, lifting an arm and running her hand over Jasper's cheek in a caress. The vampire smiled, and turned his face slightly, but never taking his eyes off the road, to kiss the palm of her hand.

"Are you sleeping over tonight? It's really cold today, Emmett and Lucas are in charge of taking care of the fire. I think you'll give us the chance to use the fireplace for the first time." Jasper asked. "Please."

"Fine. But you can't let those two paint things on my face while I sleep. Last time it took half an hour for the paint to come off."

"Sure thing, Lyn."

[mythicalmaven]

Beyond Boundaries • Oscar Piastri (PART FOUR)

Masterlist

There it is! Chapter 4! This is a very very angsty chapter, IM SORRY IN ADVANCE, but it had to happen for the plot to develop :'( Butttt, to make it a little better, it starts with smut hahah! And don't worry! I promise you that Oscar and the reader will be just fine & the next chapter will be having plenty of happy moments for them <3 Please let me know in the comments what you think of this chapter, because i'm honestly so insecure about this one!

↳pairing: oscar piastri x female!reader (norris!reader) ↳word count: 3.5K ↳ parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, ↳chapter warnings: ANSGT!, smut, 18+ content (mdni!), oral (female!receiving), talking about feelings, emotional rollercoaster, brothers teammate trope, bestfriend!reader

↳series summary: Since Oscar joined McLaren as your brother’s teammate, you two have quickly become best friends. Recently promoted to be Oscar’s physiotherapist, you both relish the opportunity to spend more time together. However, as the new role brings you closer, Oscar finds himself grappling with unexpected feelings and rising tension, leaving him conflicted about how to handle his emotions

—————���⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺—————

Once the calm had returned, reality began to set in. You grasped what had just transpired and what you had done. Did you regret it? No. Was it wise? Also no.

"I... um," you stammered, "I think I should go, they're probably waiting for us," you mumbled, eyes fixed on the floor. You tried to turn and leave your own room in haste until you felt Oscar's hand wrap around yours.

You turned back and met Oscar's gaze. He was now sitting up on the massage table. "Please, don't go," he whispered, his voice pleading. "Let me make you feel good too," he added, his thumb tracing soothing circles on the back of your hand.

Taking a deep breath, you squeezed his hand and nodded, a smile tugging at your lips. You gave in the moment you saw the look in his eyes, the growing arousal between your legs making it even harder to think clearly.

Oscar offered a small smile and jumped off the massage table. He took your hand and pulled you close, guiding you until the back of your calves met the edge of the bed. One hand moved to your face, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. He leaned in, resting his forehead against yours. "If you want me to stop, just tell me, okay?"

You nodded in response, unable to find your voice, captivated by the effect he had on you. The moment he saw your nod, he gently pushed you onto the bed. Climbing on top of you, he paused at the button of your jeans, looking up for approval before finally undoing the first button.

Oscar skillfully removed your jeans, revealing your red lace panties. "Fuck, baby, you're so pretty," he whispered, his voice huskier than usual.

Baby, that was new, a nickname he hadn't used before, making the moment feel even more intimate.

You bit your lip as Oscar leaned in, placing a gentle kiss on the inside of your thigh. He took his time to admire you, his fingers finding their way to your ass, squeezing lightly.

"Please, Osc," you begged, your hands tangling in his hair.

"Words, baby," he smirked. "Tell me what you want."

You released a soft moan as Oscar scattered small kisses on your thighs. "Anything. Touch me, Osc," you pleaded, tightening your grip on his hair, eliciting a soft groan from him. "I need you," you murmured, ending in a low moan as Oscar's finger traced up your clothed slit, sliding up and down, smirking as your body tensed.

"Can I take these off?" he asked innocently. Your breath hitched, your heart pounding.

"Yes," you said, and his fingers hooked around your underwear, swiftly pulling them down.

After removing your underwear, Oscar took his time to look at you before pressing a soft kiss against your inner thigh. His hands wandered up your legs, almost reaching the place you needed him most. "One last chance to back out. Are you sure you're okay with this?" he asked gently.

"Please, just touch me," you murmured, frustrated by the building tension.

Obliging, he kissed his way up your legs, his hands squeezing your thighs firmly. Oscar placed a soft kiss on your cunt before parting your folds with his tongue. "Oh, you're so wet for me already, baby."

"Fuck," you moaned, your hips bucking upwards as his tongue found your clit. As Oscar moved his tongue in circles, you couldn't help but grab his hair, your fingers pulling as he expertly flicked his tongue against your clit, your body trembling with need.

Oscar groaned before pulling away slightly. "Fuck, baby, you taste so good," his voice huskier than ever.

His fingers gripped your hips tightly, pinning you in place as he slipped a finger inside you, eliciting more moans. You felt yourself getting closer to the edge.

"Osc, you're so good at this," you chanted, moans falling from your lips more frequently. "I'm so close, Osc."

Oscar groaned at your words, even more motivated to make you come hard. He slipped another finger inside you, his fingers joining his mouth. A smile crept on his face when he heard the moans caused by his actions.

You cried out, waves of pleasure washing over you, your body trembling as the pressure released into a heavenly feeling of relaxation. You pulled on Oscar's hair harder as you came with a loud moan, "O-Oscar."

Oscar's features were laced with lust as he watched you come undone beneath him. Your mouth was open, and your cheeks were flushed. To him, it was the most beautiful sight.

You reached out your arms, inviting Oscar to lay down with you. He couldn't resist and immediately crawled upwards, laying back on the bed and pulling you into his arms.

It was then that you realized the banging on your door. "Y/n, I'm coming in now! I've banged on this door long enough," Daniel called from the hallway.

"We're screwed," Oscar huffed, realizing you were both far from decent.

"One second, I'll be there," you yelled back, hoping he would be patient. You were wearing nothing but your t-shirt, while Oscar was only in his cum-stained boxers. You stumbled off the bed, running to grab your bathrobe, throwing Oscar his joggers.

You opened the door a tiny bit, peeking your head through the gap. "What's up?"

Daniel smirked. "I think it's more fitting if I ask you. I've been banging on this door for ages. Was afraid something was wrong. You weren't picking up your phone either."

Daniel was about to ask you something when he heard someone sneeze in your bedroom. He kicked the door open a bit more with his foot, his smirk growing. "Why are you wearing a bathrobe, and why is Piastri shirtless?"

You knew you screwed up. If you had just put your pants back on, you could have played it off as Oscar getting a massage. But with you in a robe, it was a lame excuse, because Daniel was smart enough to know that you wouldn't be doing that in bathrobe.... In other words: you both got caught like a couple of teenagers.

"Don't you dare say another word, Ricciardo," you warned, pointing your finger at him.

Daniel threw his hands up, chuckling. "Well, I don't have to see anything. I think we all know what you two were up to" he laughed loudly. "Just wanted to give you a heads up about something" he chanted with a laugh

"Danny, Oscar and I didn't sleep together!" you whisper yelled

"Yeah right, and I'm not Australian," he cackled, leaning against the doorframe.

Meanwhile, Oscar had made his way over to you, now standing next to you. He handed you your trousers, just out of Daniel's sight behind the door. He cocked his head towards Daniel, "A heads-up about what?" he asked.

You scooted yourself behind the door, so you were out of sight. You got rid of your rope and pulled both your underwear and trousers up your legs, quickly fixing the button. Already knowing that there was no point in denying that anything happened anyway, so you might as well made yourself look a little decent.

"Ha!" Daniel chuckled, looking at his fellow Australian "Oscar is not denying it!"

Oscar rolled his eyes. "Dan, we honestly didn't do anything. She's my best friend; we hang out in each other's rooms all the time," he explained, trying to keep a calm voice, though the blush on his cheeks betrayed him.

You returned to the door opening, standing beside a still flustered Oscar. "Whatever, just tell me why you're here?" you asked, but as the words left your lips, you heard someone rushing over, tackling you in a hug. It was your brother, Lando.

"Just wanted to give you a heads-up that Lando is here, but there he is," Daniel laughed, seeing both you and Oscar turning beet red.

Lando had his arms around you. "Daniel said he'd get you from upstairs, but he took so long that I decided to take matters into my own hands," he chuckled.

As Lando pulled away from the hug, he looked at Oscar and squinted. "Care to explain why you're shirtless in my sister's bedroom and why you look like you've just, well, been busy?"

Oscar froze, completely at a loss for words. You, on the verge of a horrible excuse, felt a kick from Daniel, signaling he'd cover for you.

Daniel laughed at Lando. "It honestly looks like they were up to something, and I'm sure many people would ship them. But that's not it. Would be hilarious, though," he began, making you wonder what his excuse could be. "Oscar here has been whining all day about a sore back because I fell on him during Twister," he lied convincingly.

"Yeah, I just offered to give him a massage since I'm his physiotherapist and know what helps," you added, trying to keep a straight face.

"And that had to be in your bedroom?" Lando huffed, raising his eyebrows suggestively. "Shirtless?"

"She has her stuff here, so it was easiest. Too lazy to move it all," Oscar rolled his eyes. "And honestly, Lando, as my physiotherapist, it's pretty much inevitable that she sees me shirtless."

Daniel laughed again at their banter. "Lan, don't act like it's the first time he's shirtless with her. What do you expect with her job?" he teased. "Besides, you were the one encouraging her to take the job, so you don't have the right to whine like a protective older brother now"

Lando sighed in defeat, throwing his hands in the air. "Daniel, her job is to be his physiotherapist, not to, you know, do funny business with my teammate," he whined, air quoting the last part. "Everyone with a brain can see that look on his face. Besides, Oscar's joggers are inside out. We all know Oscar—that wouldn't happen if he wasn't in a rush."

Oscar squinted his eyes closed, feeling busted. He honestly didn't know what to say, afraid that anything would do more harm than good.

"Lan, come on," Daniel tried to reason, still trying to help with a cover. "It was nothing. Just let it go."

"No, Daniel. I think I can decide pretty well for myself when to let things go. Y/N is lying to me, and she knows it," Lando said, getting a little desperate now. "You're breaking our one rule, Y/N..."

"Jesus, Lando, you're acting like a child," you yelled, getting annoyed. "Oh, go fuck yourself, Lando."

Daniel grabbed Lando's arm, trying to calm him down, but without luck. "Hey! Don't yell at me when you're the one breaking our one rule!" Lando shouted back, anger rising in his voice. "Oh wait, you didn't even realize, did you? Too busy with my teammate's dick in your mouth, weren't you?"

"Lando! Come on," Oscar started, trying to defend both of you. "She didn't have my—" Oscar began but quickly got interrupted by your fuming state.

"So what if I did, Lando? Maybe I had Oscar's dick in my mouth. Who knows? Maybe I want him to fuck me. It's none of your business, Lando," you yelled back. "Would you rather have me fuck a random stranger in a bathroom stall in a club instead of your, oh-so-forbidden, teammate? Because I could make that happen if you prefer. We'll see how you react then."

Lando wanted to react until he felt Daniel's hand cover his mouth. "Lando, you're only making it worse," he softly spoke, trying to get Lando to calm down. "Come on, let's go."

Daniel pulled Lando with him, looking over his shoulder at Oscar and you one more time, sending you a small nod.

You let out a sigh as tears started welling up in your eyes. Turning around, you let yourself fall into Oscar's arms, resting your forehead against his shoulder. Oscar embraced you, placing a small kiss on the side of your head. "You didn't have to do that, you know. We could have just tried to convince him it was nothing," he murmured softly, resting his head in your hair.

"He wouldn't have believed it anyway; he knows me too well," you stated, tears rolling down your cheeks as you tightened your grip on Oscar's still shirtless body. "All this because we were being stupid, horny idiots. It shouldn't have happened."

Oscar sighed, feeling a pang in his heart. "I'm not gonna act like I regret it, because I don't," he mumbled just loud enough for you to hear.

You pulled away slightly, looking up at Oscar with a trembling lip. "I don't regret it either, Osc. It was amazing, but it shouldn't have happened. Just like yesterday," you sighed, gently grabbing his hand. "We can't happen, Osc."

"Why not?" Oscar asked, his voice trembling, tears threatening to form in his eyes. He was trying to keep his composure, to maintain his calm and contained persona, but his facade was slowly crumbling.

"Osc, please. Look at our jobs and our friendship. We shouldn't risk either," you said, tears streaming down your face, the remainder of your mascara smudging your cheeks. "Also, I can't do this to him, okay? I can't break my promise to him. I'm sorry," you said, referring to Lando, as you let go of Oscar's hand and walked away, storming towards the front door of the house.

You bumped into Lando, Logan and Daniel on your way to the exit. They were talking, probably about the situation. Your brother looked emotional, almost like he had been crying. Was he regretting what he said? You hoped he would.

You looked up at Lando, shaking your head. "Are you happy now? You've ruined everything, Lando," you cried, storming past him.

Logan took a deep breath "I think I have to go check up on Oscar, I don't think their conversation ended well" he said, referring to you and Oscar.

Daniel nodded at him, agreeing "They were in her room"

Logan send him a nod and made his way up towards your room, noticing the door ajar. He approached the door and looked inside, revealing a defeated Oscar Piastri sitting on your bed. His head in his hands. Logan knocked on the door, signaling to Oscar that he was there "Are you okay?" Logan asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Oscar shook his head, softly looking up at Logan, his eyes puffy and bloodshot, a clear indicator that Oscar was crying "Can I come in?" the American asked.

Oscar shrugged his shoulders, nodding carefully, tears rolling down his cheeks. Oscar let out a shuddering breath as he felt his friend sitting down next to him, his gaze directed towards the floor. Logan put his arm around his friend, trying to comfort him in the best way possible "Wanna talk about it?"

Oscar sighed in a defeated voice, trying to stop the tears from spilling, failing miserably as he explained what happened. Logan felt so bad for his best friend, seeing how much it hurt him.

"I think she'll come around," Logan remarked, rubbing his hand up and down Oscar's back in a reassuring manner.

"I don't think she will. She's right, you know. I don't want her losing her job over this. I don't think Zak would be very delighted with me dating my own physiotherapist. I don't even know if it's allowed to date a coworker," Oscar sighed. "And besides all that, I don't even know if she feels the same about me anyway. For all I know, what we did could have been purely about lust."

"I highly doubt that, to be honest," Logan stated confidently. "She wouldn't have thrown such a big fight with Lando if it didn't mean anything to her."

"You don't know that. And like I said, it doesn't matter anyway. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if she loses her job over this," Oscar declared, wiping away a few more tears. "It just sucks because I love her so much."

Logan hugged his friend, trying to comfort him more. "Just promise me one thing, Oscar. Please put yourself first for once. Don't let yourself get hurt too much."

"When it comes to her, I can't promise you anything. But I'll try."

Logan stood up, hoisting Oscar up from the bed as well. "Come on, let's get you some distraction. You need it."

What Logan and Oscar didn't know was that Lando had been eavesdropping on them. He wasn't proud of himself, but to justify himself, he hadn't planned on it. He was actually on his way to apologize to Oscar, but he heard the two young drivers talking and didn't want to interrupt.

Lando was frozen in place when he saw the two walk through the door, coming eye to eye with him. The British driver looked at his teammate, noticing the bloodshot, puffy eyes. He felt the intense amount of guilt he was carrying grow even more. "Osc... I-I'm..."

Logan shook his head at Lando, pulling Oscar away from him. "Haven't you done enough already, Lando?"

"I just wanted to apologize," Lando declared, the guilt evident in his voice.

"Yeah, the damage has already been done, Lando. Please just leave him alone for now."

—————⋆₊⁺☾⋆later that evening⋆☾⋆₊⁺—————

It was almost midnight when everyone, except for Lando and you, had gone to bed. When you were getting some fresh air in the garden earlier that evening, your brother had joined you. He sat down next to you, noticing the cigarette between your fingers.

"I thought you'd quit?" he asked nonchalantly, trying to keep the conversation light.

"I did," you said, sticking it between your lips, inhaling the smoke, before slowly letting it escape again. "But then I fell in love with my brother's teammate," you whispered.

It was true, you did quit smoking, years ago. It was a habit you developed in high school. You didn't smoke often, just when it all got too much. You'd quit when the friendship with Oscar blossomed. You suddenly just didn't feel the need anymore. You always carried a pack somewhere in your bag, just in case, but honestly never felt the need to, until now. It was the first one in years.

Lando sighed, felt his breath hitching in his throat. "You really love him, don't you?"

You took another drag from your cigarette, before directing your gaze towards your older brother. Your puffy, teary eyes met his guilt-filled eyes. You nodded.

"God, I'm honestly the biggest asshole in existence," Lando declared, his eyes tearing up now, his breathing getting a little ragged.

"It's fine," you uttered.

"Y/n, honestly, it's not. Not one single bone in your body should be okay with this," he began, standing up from where he was seated, pacing around. "I completely and utterly fucked up. I just have to stop acting like a little shit and get my head out of my arse. And you are right, I’d rather have you sleeping with my teammate than some random dude in a nightclub. It's just that you are my baby sis and I just don't want you to get hurt. And if it's by one of my teammates, it just feels like I could have prevented it somehow. I'm just protective over you and I let it get to my head too much."

A small smile appeared on your face at your brother's remark. "I'm not saying you weren't being a total dick, because you were," you explained, running a hand through your hair. "I'm just saying it's fine. Oscar and I couldn't have happened anyway, Lan. You allowing it wouldn't change anything."

Lando looked a little confused. "What's holding you back?"

You took a deep breath and explained what you had explained many times, to many people, including Oscar. "It's our friendship and our jobs, Lando. I work for the team, and Oscar is a driver. There's a professional boundary that we can't cross without serious repercussions. Even if we tried to keep it secret, it would eventually come out, and that could jeopardize both our careers. And then there's the risk to our friendship. If things went wrong between us, it wouldn't just hurt me or Oscar, it would affect the whole team dynamic. It's a complicated situation, and as much as I care about him, there are too many factors at play. Sometimes love isn't enough to overcome the practical realities of life."

Lando listened, his expression softening with understanding. "I get it," he said quietly. "I don't like it, but I get it. I'm sorry for making things harder for you."

You nodded, appreciating his words. "Thanks, Lando. It means a lot to hear you say that."

"And you said that 'sometimes love isn't enough to overcome the practical realities of life,' but that also means love sometimes is enough," he began, directing his gaze back to you, his eyes meeting yours again. "And honestly, if you two are as perfect for each other as everyone says, maybe you should consider taking the risk. It might be worth it, you know."

A sigh left your lips, and you pondered his words. Maybe Lando was right. "I'll think about it."

Lando gave you a small, supportive smile. "We'll figure it out, sis. Somehow, we'll figure it out."

—————⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ ⋆⁺—————

previous part | next part

Taglist @aceyalonso @saachiep81 @landosgirlxoxo @andruuu28