#AND just learned there's a gap in my bedroom window and fucking anything could crawl in there at anytime

[aggressionbread]

It's been a shit week and it's only Tuesday 😞

[maybe-your-left]

Right okay. I know I’ve sent you two things already but it’s because I love you. That Dan ask SENT ME OMG. I LOVED IT. Pls pls pls can I have a part two?🥺 you can’t tease me with Dan spanking us and then not deliver😜😜😜😜😘😘😘

TW/CW: NSFW, panic attack (Dan swoops in for the rescue because he loves us), couple love and fluffiness that I don’t like writing but Ashleigh LIVES FOR IT. 

There will be a part three coming! 

The sunlight pouring through the bedroom curtain blanketed the room with a soft glow. Heating up the spaces that were once dim and cold, you slowly succumbed to the inviting morning. Both you and Dan had passed out after last night, wrapped in each other’s embrace. You slowly lifted your cheek from your pillow, eyes squinting at the light, you glanced around the room. Eyes settling on the clock on your nightstand. It read 9:15, both of you had slept through your morning alarm.

You attempted to turn around to face Dan, you could feel his soft breath hitting your neck as he snoozed. But you found yourself locked into place, Dan had both his arms snaked around you in a vice grip. While his left leg was hiked over your own, pinning you to the mattress. You groaned, all you wanted to do was get up and start making breakfast. It seemed like Dan had other plans.

“Baby,” you cooed, “Baby boy, are you awake?”

Dan groaned, you felt his face nuzzle into your hair. Exhaling loudly as he resettled into another series of snores.

“Baby, hey baby can you let go of me?” you whispered a little louder. Pushing yourself up onto your forearms so he would get the hint. “Stop moving,” Dan whined, his arms fighting around you. “Wanna cuddle you.”

“Dan, baby, I need to get up,” you huffed, pushing again, “I have to pee.”

“Just pee in the bed,” he mumbled.

“Ugh, that was one time.”

Dan laughed into your hair, you could feel the smirk on his face, “I could make you do it again, is that what you want?”

“Why are you so gross this morning,” you pushed up for a third time, finally uncoiling yourself from his grasp. Dan whined as you got out of your cocoon of blankets. Huffing as he folded his arms around himself, “Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom,” you called over your shoulder, “And to make us some breakfast.

You heard Dan hum as you walked down the hallway. Quickly taking care of your business in the bathroom, making sure to wash your hands and face, since it was thoroughly abused last night, and sauntered into the kitchen. It was a cold autumn morning, you could feel the wind piercing through the gaps in your windows. The apartment you two shared was a very old brownstone, and with it came some very old window panes that needed better insulation. You made a note to hound Dan to fix it this fall before it began to freeze. Flipping on the coffee pot, you got to work on making breakfast. Crepes sounded fantastic this morning and you had gotten some pre-made ones from the store a few days ago.

You began setting the table up, whipped cream, honey, berries, and other toppings to choose from. You also got to work on some toast and a few slices of bacon for Dan. Laying out a bowl of cereal for him as well, since he could eat about 5 courses for each meal, you liked to give him a variety on the Saturdays you spent together.

As you poured out his coffee you heard some grumbling coming down the hallway. Around the corner came Dan, his hair was all messed up. Sticking up in a few different directions around his face, along with a black sleep shirt and his lounge pants. His eyes were laced with sleep, puffy and slightly bloodshot from yesterday’s work. His lips were slightly red, chapped from him sleeping with his mouth open all night. Dan approached the counter, placing a warm kiss on your forehead, cheeks, and tip of your nose.

“Morning,” he rasped, his throat dry from the cool air. His fingers plucked the mug from your hand, taking a slow sip of the black beverage as he hummed in appreciation. “Thank you, sweetness.”

“You’re welcome,” you smiled back at him. Eyes momentarily leaving the stove where you were crafting the crepes. “Wanna go sit down? I’m almost done.”

Dan yawned, nodding as he stepped away from you. Moments later the two of you eat in silence, the only noises coming from each other's chews and hums of thanks. Dan was flipping through the newspaper you had grabbed for him, his eyebrows drawn in frustration as he read through the political section. He had shoveled through his food faster than you’d expected, now completely immersing himself in the news.

You silently began to collect the dishes, not wanting to disturb him. Placing away the leftovers and scrubbing the relents of breakfast from the table. You sighed as you scanned over the clean area, satisfied with your work. Just as you turned to go grab a cup of tea, Dan's voice boomed across the table. “Don’t think I've forgotten about the stunt you pulled last night.”

You slowly turned on your heel, coyly playing with a lock of your hair as you met his gaze. He was no longer reading, his arms crossed over his large chest. Dans eyes searching up and down your body, taking in slow calculated breaths. He slowly got out from his chair, stalking his way over to you, pinning your back to the kitchen counter. He placed his hands on either side of you, dipping his face to be level with yours.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” He cooed, “I’m going to go grab a few things, and while I’m gone you’re going to get undressed. Put your hair up in a ponytail, sit your naughty ass down on the floor in front of my chair.”

You swallowed back a sarcastic comment, seeing how his face was offering you no other option. He truly wasn’t fucking around with you, simmering with anger from your disobedience last night. You nodded, pursing your lips out for a small kiss from him.

Dan smirked, pursing his own lips and gifting you a small kindness before turning out of the kitchen. You quickly scrambled to relieve yourself of your clothes. Throwing your hoodies onto the tile, along with your shorts and underwear. You shivered as you sprinted across the room, the cold air biting your exposed flesh. Your hands wrapped around your breasts, seeking to warm them up as you kneeled before his chair. Your nipples were already cold as ice, piercing into your palms as you softly massaged them.

“Did I say you could touch yourself?”

Dan's strong legs appeared next to you, crouching down to your level. You slowly turned to face him, eyes immediately going to his black leather belt in his fist. A ball gag placed into his second hand. He cleared his throat, bringing your attention back to his face. “Let go of my tits, your greedy hands aren’t fit to touch them.”

You released them immediately, placing them on your shivering thighs. Dan hummed, seating himself on the edge of his chair, placing the gag down on the coffee table. He patted his thigh, “Crawl up here, be a good girl for me.”

“Okay,” you whispered. Climbing into his lap, folding over his strong knees. Your bare ass in his face while your hands grasped his calf in preparation. Dan groaned, pressed if you down into his lap more. Your lower belly coming into contact with his concealed length. His hands roamed your flesh, squeezing your cheeks, softly smacking them, and shaking them to see the flesh bounce. His left hand dipped between them, fingertips skimming your entrances before dropping to your clit. “You’re already so wet, are you excited for your punishment?”

“No-no sir.”

Dan tsked, “I don’t think you’re in a position to lie to me.” His middle finger swiped through your folds, gathering your arousal that had seeped out. “Do you have anything you want to say?”

You shook your head violently, hips softly grinding into his palm. Dan quickly ripped his hand away, bringing down the belt onto your skin. You wailed, squirming to be let go but he had you in a stronghold. His hand not coming down to soothe the affected area like normal, no, he wanted this to hurt. He reared his hand back, snapping the belt onto you again, the metal clasp now hitting your skin. You felt the edges pierce your skin the cold sensation of blood seeping from the wound.

Tears were now flowing from your eyes, saliva and other fluids sliding down your face. You sobbed as Dan gave you a few more blows in quick succession. He cooed at you, his hand finally rubbing the abused flesh softly whispering how good you were being. Lips pressing into your shoulder blades as he mumbled, “How many was that princess?”

You gasped, trying to remember how many he had given you. They had all happened so fast you could barely remember anything but to scream. You cleared your throat, voice scratchy from all the pain, “Five-five,” you took in a deep breath, “You gave me five, thank you, sir.”

Dan hummed, “Good girl, I think five more will be enough, don’t you?”

You nodded, desperate to get this over with. Dan smoothed his hand over your ass again, “Count for me now.”

The belt snapped again, the metal against your skin-piercing your ears. You screamed out, “Six!”

Another snap, followed by two more quickly after.

“Seven-Eight-Nine! Thank you-thank, you sir.”

“One more, do you think you’ve learned your lesson?”

“Yes sir, please.”

The last smack was the hardest, launching you forward on this lap. Your head colliding with the hardwood as you crumpled into a pile. You began to hyperventilate, unable to keep from the panic your body was in, sobs tearing from your lungs and tears staining the rug. You felt Dan's arms quickly surround you, carefully lifting you from the floor and cradling you in his grasp. He placed kiss after kiss on your hairline, hand rubbing up and down your back and his other held your clasped hands. His lips kissing over every knuckle, tongue lapping up your tears as your breathing steadied. “You’re okay, you’re okay, I'm here Dans here,” he whispered into your ear. Kissing around the lobe before pressing his forehead into your temple.

----- 

HELLO there is going to be a part three my lovelies DON’T WORRY but we needed some punishment... ;) 

[longitud-de-onda]

{un veneno} march: eloquence

pairing; javier peña x female reader summary; your time with emiliana is running out and your feelings for javier are only growing rating; m warnings; talk about sex, alcohol (can i even write a javi fic without it?), angst, age gap, two idiots who need to get over themselves word count; 3.1k january, february

un veneno masterlist

You turned over as you woke up, not wanting to open your eyes to the bright light that streamed into your room from the windows. When you did, however, your eyes didn’t open to the darker side of your room but the worn fabric of Javier’s couch.

You stretched out, groaning as you woke up. Your neck was a little sore, which you attributed to the position you were lying in without a pillow. A blanket was half-draped over you, and you were still wearing yesterday’s clothes. It didn’t feel great, but the couch was surprisingly comfortable.

The events of the night before began to return to your memory: going out for drinks with Javier, returning to his apartment, watching TV on the couch until late. You must have drifted off at some point.

It was nice to know Javier let you fall asleep there. It had happened before, more often than you’d like to admit, but usually, he’d set you up in the small spare bedroom he had.

You heard a bit of rustling as you rolled over to glance over the room. Javier was walking out of the kitchen towards the door, a piece of toast in hand.

“Javi?” you said, voice dripping with sleep, “What are you doing?”

“You’re awake!” he startled before breaking out into a smile. “Good morning.”

He had grabbed his leather jacket and looked like he was about to leave.

“Morning,” you smiled up at him. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to go to work,” he said. There was a tinge of apology in his voice like he wanted to spend the day with you.

“It’s Saturday,” you complained. It was too early for you to care about being respectful, or care at all about what you were saying. You wanted him to stay.

After that day on the mountainside, you had taken to spending your Saturdays with Javier. He had the day off, so you could go do stuff together. Except, obviously, today.

“I know, but it’s important,” he said. He took a bite of the toast.

“I hate the DEA,” you said. You had hoped you’d get to go out to the market on the other side of town. Javier had promised he’d take you there at some point, he didn’t trust you to go alone. Too dangerous, he said.

“I know,” he laughed, “I’m sorry. You can stay as long as you need. Just lock up.”

“Okay,” you said, “When’ll you be done?”

“I meant you could stay as long as you need to wake up and eat and stuff. You can’t spend all day inside.” Javier opened the door. “We can do lunch tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” you said. “Bye, Javi.”

“Have a good day,” he said before exiting the apartment.

You pushed the blanket off of yourself and sat up. It hurt, having him leave as soon as you woke up. Not that you were in a position where you could be offended. You were lucky he let you spend the night.

Javier’s attention was something you found yourself almost fighting for, and you knew others must as well. He was charming, young, handsome, and worked for the Embassy. That was the definition of a perfect man in most peoples’ books.

You stood up and walked over to the kitchen, where you grabbed a banana and sat down to eat. This was your 8th time, if you had kept track correctly, spending the night at Javier’s, and you seemed to always get a better nights’ sleep, even on the couch, than you did back at Emiliana’s.

Unfortunately, today was different in that Javier wasn’t there. You missed having him wander around, talking about different things. You missed telling him about work. Sometimes he’d talk about his favorite music or Colombian political secrets, and you’d tell him about how you always managed to find the best restaurants in every city and lecture him about packing a bag for an overnight because whenever he had to go up to Medellín he always overpacked.

As you sat eating, you found yourself wondering what the back half of his apartment looked like.

You walked over to his room and pushed open the door. The smell hit you before you could even notice what it looked like. A combination of sweat and latex and whatever that distinctly sex smell was, and the wave of it was so strong you had a hard time imagining that he hadn’t had sex in the past 8 hours you had been in the apartment.

Usually, that smell dissipated, you were familiar with that. For it to linger?

Your stomach clenched as your mind cleared a bit to notice the big bed in the center of the room and you realized he must have someone else in here almost every day. There’s likely been girls younger than yourself in that bed.

And for some reason, you haven’t been one of those women.

You’re standing in Javier’s closet, shuffling around in the small space, Javier sitting on his bed beyond the closed door. You had been chatting ever since you arrived at his place after school got out.

You hoped to be able to change out of your work clothes into the outfit that had somehow migrated to Javier’s closet, but the limited space didn’t allow for any speed.

“Hey, um, you have to move out of Emi’s soon, right?” Javier asked, voice muffled through the wood.

“Yeah,” you said, frowning. “I do.”

You had a couple days left and had been lying to Emiliana for a couple weeks now about having a place to stay. You chalked your procrastination up to over-involvement with teaching work and spending the rest of your free time with Javier or out partying. That didn’t fix the fact that in a few days you’d be effectively homeless.

“What are you going to do? You’ve set something up, right?” he said.

You couldn’t outright say no. Not to Javier. He was a decade or so older than you, had things figured out, had dealt with his own fair share of housing problems in the past. To admit that you had ignored this problem would be to admit how naive you were.

“I’ve traveled a lot, you know,” you decided on saying. “Been places where I didn’t know where I was going to sleep for the night.”

“Y/N!” he sounds like he’s rolling his eyes. “This is different. You’re working a job, you need something stable.”

“I don’t do stability.” That was as close to a life motto as you had. Living someplace for two months was new territory for you. The prospect of another nine or so was practically impossible to imagine.

“I know, but...” he stopped.

You paused, shirt halfway on, and waited for him to finish his sentence.

“What if you just move in with me?”

“What?” you ask, stunned. You finish putting on your shirt, mind working double time.

“I mean, you practically already live here. Your clothes are here, you eat here. I have a spare bedroom,” he said.

Moving in with Javier? As roommates? It was like some sort of angel and demon joined forces to create a godsend that would also torture you for the rest of the year. And how long was he suggesting this for? Because the nights you spent here were already pushing your limits of staying shut up about how much you wanted to kiss him.

“You know what, forget I said anything. It was a bad idea,” Javier rushed out.

You tensed up. No. You wanted this. Even if he was going to be the death of you.

You slipped on your pants as fast as you could, and flung open the door, throwing yourself onto Javier. He hugged back.

“No,” you said into his shoulder, “It’s a great idea. Thank you.”

“Where are you headed?” Javier walked out from his room, seeing you grabbing your jacket and purse which had been tossed across the couch earlier that day.

You were wearing the tightest jeans you owned and a cropped tank top, and the feeling of Javier’s eyes swooping over your body was just what you needed. There was no question: you were wearing this outfit to get the attention of someone.

“Dancing,” you responded, keeping it short as not to divulge your feelings. I’m going out so that I can forget about the fact that I get to sleep in the room next to you but never in your bed wasn’t the most appropriate answer.

“Fun.” He was frozen in the opposite corner of the room and you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. You had been living together for two weeks. You had gone out before. Why was he acting weird about it now? Why was this different?

“You’d hate it,” you said.

He liked going out for drinks but that was his limit. You had learned that the reason Javier was so perplexed by your social tendencies was your comfort around crowds. After years of training and working with the DEA, too many people put him into Agent Peña mode, and while it was useful for self-preservation, it meant his idea of fun usually involved fewer people.

“Maybe not?” he said, walking further into the living room. You furrowed your brow. What was he getting at? “The fact that you’d be there makes a pretty compelling argument.”

“Sure it does,” you laughed, trying to ignore the way his words sent a chill down your spine. Your brain helpfully supplied you with the image of Javier in a disco with you, tipsy and on the dance floor, hands around your hips, grabbing at bare skin on your waist and sliding up your leg under a short skirt. The goosebumps crawled up your arms and you shrugged on your jacket.

“I’m not going to be back until tomorrow,” you said.

“Why not?” He actually looked confused and for a moment you felt sorry that he didn’t understand. Until you remembered he was why.

“Um...” You didn’t know how to tell him, I’m going to go out of my way to fuck someone so that I can forget that I’m falling in love with you. It hurt everywhere, but mostly in your chest, and you knew staying in this apartment any longer would cause you to explode. Your heart couldn’t handle the sort of torture you were putting it through.

Javier was perfect in all the ways you didn’t think men were capable of. He respected everyone, even the women he paid to have sex with. He was great at being a roommate: sitting down for dinner with you, going out and buying groceries, listening to you vent about your bad days. He was vulnerable, at least within the confines of your apartment, sharing the difficulties of his job in ways you were beginning to understand. He said good night to you every evening with so much tenderness it hurt.

You knew Javier was getting lots of action. It was no secret that before most of the fucking occurred in his living room. Now that you were around he had the decency to always stick to the bedroom if he even had them there. Usually, he would leave for the evening, but sometimes you would get to meet his encounters.

Some of them were young, just over 18 and absolutely stunning, while others were closer to his age and would stay for an hour to smoke with him and talk. It didn’t matter who they were. Only that they were almost always different every time and they each were successful in confirming that you were quite possibly the only girl in Bogotá who wouldn’t get to warm Javier’s bed for a night.

You couldn’t handle it anymore. The last time you slept with someone was over a month ago, with Mateo, and your most recent orgasms had been at your own hand with Javier’s name on your lips, face pushed into the pillow, hoping he wouldn’t hear.

Your pause was enough for him to understand you’d be falling asleep in someone else’s bed tonight.

“Right,” he nodded. He stood across from you, hands in his pockets. “Well, stay safe?”

You rolled your eyes.

“You too, Javi. You never know, I leave you alone and you’ll end up setting this whole place on fire or something.”

Your head was pounding as you woke up, wrapped up in the arms of not one, but two men. As you shuffled around, you realized one was awake, and you mumbled a good morning. The events of the night before weren’t very clear, once you left Javier’s apartment (you still weren’t used to the fact that it was your home, too) you had gotten as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. It was a blur of neon lights and hands around your body.

You could remember leaving the disco in a haze, arms wrapped around you. Remember moaning as you rode someone. Remember being held by your waist. By your hair. Remember Javier’s face flooding your mind as you came. Remember biting down on a pillow to keep from shouting out his name.

You looked down at the two men surrounding your body. You weren’t sure if they were together. They might have been? Most men wouldn’t dare sleep in the same bed as another unless they were involved.

You thanked them, wanting to make your leave before it got awkward. Maybe they wanted to have breakfast with you. Debrief. Talk. Sometimes that was custom. You didn’t want to do that. This wasn’t a normal threesome. Not that those existed. But this was you, trying to forget someone, and if that came up in conversation you would feel guilty.

So you gathered your things, got dressed, and left.

Walking the streets of Bogotá in the morning was nice. The fresh air on your skin felt amazing and the smell of fruit wafting through the air was refreshing. You loved the way the city breathed. It didn’t sound or smell like any other city you had been to. You knew you were falling in love with the city itself.

You opened the door to Javier’s and startled at the empty apartment. He was an early riser, and he liked to work in the living room. There was no one there. He must’ve still been asleep.

You entered the kitchen, collapsing into one of the chairs at the table. You grabbed an apple from the bowl and started eating. You didn’t really want to talk to Javier today. Sleeping with someone else hadn’t exactly helped the way you thought it would.

“Javi didn’t mention he had a roommate,” said a voice from behind you, accent thick. English wasn’t their first language.

You turned around, taking in the woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She was probably around your age, wearing nothing more than her underwear and one of Javier’s button-downs. She was beautiful. Your stomach flipped.

“Um, yeah. Hi,” you mumble. “And you are?”

“I’m Elena,” she said, smiling. She entered the kitchen like it was her own home and sat down across from you, grabbing another apple from the bowl.

You knew what she was here for. They didn’t usually spend the night. But there was a first for everything, you supposed. You told yourself you had to get used to it. You were roommates, and this was who Javier was. That was something you’d have to learn to accept. It just hurt so much more given the events of the last twenty-four hours.

“Nice to meet you, um—”

“Did Javi not tell you I would be here?” she interrupted you. Her brow furrowed a bit and you wondered how long she had been planning to sleep with Javier. 

“No, he, uh,” you stuttered, “He didn’t mention anything.”

“Elena,” called Javier from further back in the apartment, out of sight. “Do you want to have breakfast before my roommate gets back, I don’t really want her to know someone was...”

He had wandered into the kitchen, trailing off as he saw you. He at least had the decency to look guilty.

“Hey, Javi,” you said, swallowing back the pain.

“Y/N? Hi,” he said, “Sorry, I, uh, I didn’t realize you were here.”

Of course he didn’t. You stared up at him. He had on pants but no shirt, and damn if you didn’t want to walk up to him and feel every square inch, trace the side of his neck, feel the rise and fall of his chest. You glanced away, hoping futilely he hadn’t caught you staring. You looked over at Elena, knowing that she had gotten to do exactly what you wanted.

And you were sitting in between this couple, ruining their morning after.

“It’s fine,” you said, pushing back your chair and ushering Javier into your seat. “It’s your place, you should have breakfast.”

“I should go,” Elena said, standing. “I think you two need to work out whatever is going on.”

“No!” you and Javier said at the same time. He looked back at you.

“Stay,” you said, not wanting for Javier to say anything that would completely screw over your day. “I need to take a shower, I’ll make myself scarce.”

You turn around and walk away, knowing that the two are starting at your back, still wearing the skimpy outfit you had on as you left the night before.

Upon entering your room, you closed the door and leaned against it, exhaling shakily. You squeezed your eyes shut, praying that the tears wouldn’t fall. This was exactly why you didn’t stay in one place for too long. When you were traveling, there was no time for feelings to develop, anything that happened was casual. You didn’t have to deal with pining in silence for months as someone flirted meaninglessly back at you.

You had dug yourself into this hole, agreeing to the job at the school, and now you wished you hadn’t. Getting to be around Javier was a blessing, some days you couldn’t believe how lucky you were to get to meet someone so perfect. But nothing made sense. Why did this guy, years older than you, offer to spend his time with you, even give up his privacy and let you live with him, but stay so painfully distant? What was it about you that he didn’t want?

The sound of laughter erupted from the direction of the kitchen and you sank to the floor, wishing you could go back to when you said yes to living here and stop yourself. You’d rather be back at a shitty hostel than feeling this.

next part

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[eldri-sv]

2 - Shinsou

Kaori Shinsou has always been fascinated by people's minds. She is one of the best students in her Criminal Psychology course at U.A. and - being the lucky girl she is - her professor is not only one handsome dude, but is also working on the case of the serial killer Stain - a case that has been going on for years. As she is about to become Professor Aizawa's TA during the next term, a lot of other interesting cases start popping up all over the country... AU, OC x Aizawa

Trigger warnings: insomnia, stress, mentions of death

(possibly incomplete, if you’d like something added, please let me know)

You keep me up at night

(Florence + The Machine - Big God)

Kaori Shinsou had trouble sleeping, as usual. She was tired, that wasn't the problem. She had no nightmares. She was just not able to turn off her brain for some reason. Thoughts kept racing through her head and she couldn't stop thinking and she couldn't sleep. They were stupid thoughts, too. Not even worrying. Just stupid thoughts. Kaori tossed and turned and then gave up.

She grabbed her phone from the night table and checked the time. It was 4 am. She would have to get up in two hours anyway and get ready for university. There was really no point in lying around and waiting. She might as well be as productive as she could. She closed her eyes and let out a loud and annoyed groan.

Then she opened her eyes and quickly sat up. She crawled out of her futon and turned on the lamp on her desk. There were a bunch of opened books and half-written essays lying around. Kaori had made it a habit to start her essays the first day they got them and finish them with minutes to spare. At least that way people couldn't say she should have started earlier.

She knew exactly Professor Aizawa wasn't buying it, but he seemed to get some sort of amusement out of her trying to be organized and repeatedly failing. She looked over the half-finished papers absent-mindedly. Maybe she could actually finish one ahead of time for once...?

Kaori shook her head to herself. No. Not like this. She couldn't go and write papers while she was still in her pajamas. Maybe she should just get dressed for university already. It wasn't like she was going to go back to sleep anyway.

With another sigh she got up from her desk and walked to her wardrobe. She grabbed a pair of knee-highs and some fresh underwear from her closet and then proceeded to grab some clothes from her pile on the floor. Kaori was glad at first when she realized she didn't need to wear her school uniform anymore, but she quickly found out that life had been much easier when there was one less thing to worry about.

So she stuck to wearing skirts and knee-high socks and blouses a lot of the time, simply because she was so used to herself looking like that. She just couldn't imagine anything else looking even remotely decent on her. She tried a few styles and had at this point assembled a wildly diverse range of outfits, but she still felt most comfortable in something that resembled a school uniform.

She quietly opened the door to her room and snuck outside through the hallway. Her parents would get insanely mad if they knew she hadn't slept again. Kaori had been telling them her insomnia was fine again, mostly so she didn't have to take the sleeping pills her doctor would prescribe for her. They made her sleep like a baby, but she hated the side effects that caused some random memory gaps in her brain. And she really couldn't use that while she was in the middle of university.

As she was passing her little brother's door she heard a loud bang coming from the room. Not loud enough for her parents to hear it, but Kaori had learned to hear even the tiniest sounds. Especially when it was as quiet as it was right now. She knocked at the door, careful not to be too loud. There was no reply.

She carefully opened the door just a little bit. Her brother was lying in his futon, eyes closed and his hands folded over his chest. He looked like a mummy. No one slept like that and he should have known better. She looked over to the desk. The lamp on it was still glowing a little, as if it had just now been turned off. There were a lot of open books on the table as well.

"It's just me, Hitoshi. No need to panic." she whispered. Hitoshi Shinsou opened one eye and visibly relaxed when he saw it was only his sister.

"You gave me a fright." he said to her and quietly sat up again. Kaori grinned a little. Hitoshi had a similarly severe case of insomnia as she did and he also had no intention of taking sleeping pills.

"Can I come in?" she asked. Hitoshi nodded slightly, it was barely noticeable. Kaori slipped inside the room and closed the door, conscious of not making any noise whatsoever. Not that their parents were easy to wake. For some reason the insomnia genes seemed to have skipped them, but they were wildly rampant in both Kaori and Hitoshi. Or maybe their parents were just too exhausted after their work at the hospital.

"Can't sleep?" Kaori said to her brother, as he got out of his futon and went back to his desk. She sat down on one of his side tables. It was more of a rhetorical question since both of them knew that he couldn't sleep. And it wasn't like Hitoshi even wanted to sleep. He had other plans.

"No. You, too?" he replied. Kaori nodded and glanced over the books that were open. They were her old Criminology books. Hitoshi had tried to get into the Criminology course himself, but hadn't made it. It was a really close cut for him, too. All he wanted was to get into Criminal Psychology like his older sister. He had made the cut for the Psychology course and was now studying and tormenting himself relentlessly to get the best grades he could possibly get, in order to transfer into Criminology next year.

"Late night study session, I assume?" Kaori asked him.

"Yeah. I can't slack off. I finished all my assignments for Psych, so I have some time to catch up on all the Criminology stuff. And since I can't sleep anyway..." he answered and grinned. Kaori chuckled and shook his head. His hair was sticking out wildly in all directions and she just knew he wouldn't even bother with it before going to university. His eyes were as tired as usual, which made his grin look almost scary.

"You do know you can get into Criminal Psychology with a Psych degree, right?" she remarked.

"Yeah, but I don't want to." he replied.

"Why not?"

"Because that's the route people go who aren't good enough to get into Criminology and are too lazy to try and get in the next year. And that's what it'll look like on my CV, too. And I know I can do better, because I really only had a blackout during the entrance exams. And I'm shit at interviews."

Kaori smiled at him. She always admired how determined Hitoshi could be and how he could look so unmotivated at the same time. He had always been the one working harder for what he wanted. Academics had always come easy to both of them, but more so to Kaori. Hitoshi really had to crunch to keep up.

"I assume you're heading into uni early today?" he asked looking at the scrambled up clothes in Kaori's arms.

"Yeah, just trying to kill some time, so mum and dad won't get suspicious, in case they hear the shower." she said and yawned. Fuck, she needed a coffee. Extra strong and black, without any fancy milk or sugar or any of that shit.

"They won't wake up. I heard them come home at around 2 or something. They'll be fast asleep by now." Hitoshi replied. Kaori nodded.

"You taking the car?" he asked.

"Pfft, no."

"Are you sure? Did you look at the weather outside?"

Kaori got up and went up to the window. Was the weather really that bad? When she looked outside she saw heavy raindrops falling against the window. Judging from the puddles it had already been raining for quite a while. Kaori sighed.

"You know I hate driving." she said.

"Not my fault mum and dad managed to convince you to take the driving test." he replied and shrugged.

"It's just a little water, you won't die from getting a little wet..." Kaori answered, sounding much less convincing than she would have liked to. She knew exactly how much she hated to get wet and sit in class while feeling uncomfortable about just everything. Plus, it would get really cold and she might fall asleep during class from that.

"You know you don't mean that." Hitoshi said with a triumphant grin. Kaori sighed again. She knew that she would be driving the moment Hitoshi had brought it up. He just had a way about him to get people to do what he wanted. He used to be a real brat with that, but once he was mostly through puberty, he had gotten much better with it.

"Why don't you drive for once? You've got your provisional license and I would be qualified to come with you, you know." Kaori suggested.

"You really want me to drive your car and be on the passenger seat while I do that? Are you... are you okay? You know you can talk about it, if you're feeling suicidal, right?" Hitoshi replied. Kaori grabbed a pair of socks from the floor (hoping Hitoshi hadn't worn them yet, because... ugh) and threw them at his head, barely missing it. At least she messed up his hair. If there was even a way to mess it up.

"You're such a dick sometimes, you know that?" she said. Hitoshi just shrugged, pretending he didn't care. Kaori knew that he cared, he just didn't like showing it. He had always had this whole tough exterior thing going, but he was really a big softie at heart. Kaori knew because she was similar.

She remembered how distraught Hitoshi was when their cat died after they had gotten her as a kitten 14 years ago. He was crying in his bedroom for days and even skipped two days of uni for it. He barely ate. He had loved that cat more than life itself and he kept saying that he still wasn't ready to move on and get a new kitten. (Kaori knew that he had been looking at some ads online, though. She had caught him during lunch break in the canteen one time, when he wasn't fast enough to hide his phone.)

"Fine. I'll drive. If we die, it's on you, just for the record." Kaori said. Hitoshi gave her a heartfelt smile.

"Thanks, sis. I'll make sure it'll be mentioned at our funeral." he replied. Kaori glanced at the clock hanging at Hitoshi's wall. It was ticking loudly. She had always wondered how Hitoshi wasn't annoyed by this, but he kept insisting that it was relaxing him. It was 4.47 am. Even if her parents would wake up, it wouldn't be too early to find a suitable excuse. She walked back to the door.

"I'll go and take a shower then, I guess. Don't study too much, Toshi." she mumbled on her way out.

"I'll be fine."

[michael-langdon-appreciation]

Part 12 of the foursome? x

I really wanted to get something out for you all tonight as it’s been a while. If I don’t post tonight it wouldn’t be till Mon/Tues due to my work schedule and adding more onto Part 12. I went ahead with a slightly smaller update which has much in it as we wind down to our final - Part 13 which will be an epic and then one final epilogue.

Enjoy the penultimate part of the foursome!

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PART 12

Y/N 

Despite being somewhat kidnapped by the Antichrist, life persisted relatively normally if Y/N ignored the fact that no one knew where she was….and she had no access to her phone.

Michael smashed it the moment she tried to fight back. He’d made the phone fly across the air into his open hand and crushed it beneath his boots. It was far too easy for Jim or Duncan to track her through it, thereby jeopardising Michael’s entire plan. Y/N had fought and screamed and threatened him all to no avail. 

There was never any stopping Michael Langdon when he wanted something. 

For the most part, Michael was the perfect man. Attentive to her every need, he’d bought a calendar with Y/N’s proposed due date written in blood red ink on the correct date. Not that he would miss it for the life of him. In the weeks leading up to the babies birth Michael made sure to spend as much time as he possibly could with Y/N. Baths became a nightly occurrence and while drifting asleep in his arms she’d often hear him talking to his little one.

That was someone they had discovered. Michael’s child, attuned and already so fiercely intelligent could understand its father. The child would kick wildly when Michael came home after running errands or working with the Cooperative. Y/N would be in agony from how excitable the child was, right up until the moment Michael’s warm hands rested on her stomach, his voice soft. ‘Not too hard, little one.’ He murmurs, ‘We don’t want to hurt Mommy, or your twin.’

The baby would stop immediately, bringing out Michael’s beautiful smile. ‘They understand you.’ Y/N marvels, ‘Do you think they know not to hurt Jim’s child?’

‘I’ve asked and asked.’ Michael replies, ‘All we can do is hope for the best, and I’ll be monitoring everything during the entire birth.’

Y/N’s eyes run over his shining hair, golden curls bouncing as Michael rises. ‘Dinner,’ He offers, ’Something nutritious.’ He decides, consulting the kitchen.

‘You can’t cook.’

‘We’ll order something nutritious.’ 

Y/N can’t help a soft smile, ‘I’m still mad at you.’ She says. ‘Not as mad as Jim and Duncan will be, but I can’t deny that you really want this to go well, don’t you.’ Her eyes fall to her rotund stomach, the due date is any day now. ‘At first I thought you were only concerned with your baby. But having been with you for…’

‘Three months.’ Michael supplies, browsing Uber Eats.

‘I’ve seen how much you love both these children.’

Michael looks up, ‘I love you.’ He says, his voice firm. ‘I love Jim and I love Duncan. Despite our differences…how things are right now. I would never do anything to harm them. I hope you have always believed that.’

Her hand finds his and places it on her stomach, ‘I do.’ 

Michael’s other hand smoothes over Y/N’s tummy. His eyebrows draw together in concentration as he listens to his child, ‘She’s strong.’ He murmurs, ‘Powerful.’

‘She?’ Y/N breathes.

Michael’s mouth falls open, ‘I’m so sorry!’ His eyes turn immediately regretful, as if he’d like nothing more than to shove his words back into his mouth. ‘I’m sorry! You didn’t want to know!’

‘I didn’t.’ Y/N’s hands take hold of Michael’s again, ‘But I’m not mad. I’m done being mad at you.’

He surges upwards, pulling Y/N into a deep kiss. Her arms wind around Michael and up into his golden hair that tickles her face. ‘I will give our baby the entire world.’ He promises between kisses, ‘I know I’m a monster and I have so much to learn but I vow to you Y/N. I’m here. I always will be. No matter what.’

She hushes him, her fingers working into the back his neck. Michael loosens at once, like water in her grasp as a gasp leaves him. ‘You’re happy with me?’ He asks, ‘You don’t wish you could be back with them do you?’

‘Right now I don’t want anyone else but-’ But no more words leave her lips. A spatter cuts off her very thoughts, both sets of eyes looking down at the puddle quickly staining through Y/N’s sweatpants. 

‘The babies,’ Michael whispers, ‘No….they’re too early.’ 

‘No! Michael!’ She gasps, ‘Please! Tell them it’s not time yet!’

‘Sorry darling,’ The Antichrist sweeps her into his arms, already moving to the bedroom. ‘But when a child is ready to be born there’s no stopping it.’

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DUNCAN 

Endless phone calls. Hundreds of emails. Duncan had shouted at more people than he could ever remember and chased more false leads than Sherlock Holmes. Even with the combined efforts of the FBI and the Shepherd’s Private Detective it was Jerome who finally came up with a solid lead. At the first Duncan had laughed in his face. The idea so preposterous and crazy. Not to mention something which wasn’t even real. But Jerome, more than anyone Duncan had ever met was persistent till Duncan relented. Finally, someone knew where Michael Langdon was. 

‘They’ve got something.’ He declares, bursting into the apartment. 

Jim lifts his head, bloodshot and tired eyes trying to take in Duncan’s words, ‘They found her?’ His voice rises with hope, ‘They got him?’

‘I don’t know, Jimmy.’ Duncan says, snatching up his wallet and keys. ‘But we gotta go. She’s heavily pregnant, Y/N will need all the help she can get.’

‘He wouldn’t hurt her!’ Jim cries, staggering to his feet. ‘If he’s even put a finger on her-’

‘We can do this later, Jim. Right now we need to find my fiancee.’ 

Those words ground Jim at once, ‘You’re right.’ He wipes away his exhaustion on the stuffed whale in his hand. ‘Let’s…let’s go.’

They take the elevator down, Jim trying to maintain his cool. ‘Did the FBI find something?’

‘Jerome.’

‘I knew he was shady.’ 

‘He certainly has some wild connections.’ Duncan leads the way to an SUV with blacked out windows. 

Jim is hot on his heels, ‘With who?’ He opens the door for Jim and climbs in after him, nodding to the albino security. Jim’s eyes rove all over the silent men, ’New uh security guys?’

‘They’re not mine.’ Duncan reaches immediately for the glass Tumblr filled to the brim with whiskey and takes a swig. ‘Jerome is staying with them for now, monitoring things on their end. If they get a whiff that something changes Jerome will let us know.’

He catches Jim’s adam’s apple bob, ‘You don’t mean-’

Duncan hums, ‘Cordelia Goode and her school of witches isn’t fake news.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘We’ll need his help too.’

Duncan squeezes Jim’s hand. The poor guy looks as if someone’s told him the sky is pink after all, ‘Breathe, Jim.’

‘I am.’ He wheezes, his eyes never leaving the security duo. ‘Are….are they?’

‘No.’ 

Both Jim and Duncan jump, not expecting either of the men to speak. Behind matching dark glasses the Albinos give nothing away as they sit as immovable as statues. 

‘It was the witches who tracked down where Michael’s been hiding her.’ Duncan continues, ‘And you’ll never guess where we’re heading.’

‘Duncan, please no riddles.’ Jim sighs, ‘I don’t have it in me.’

Sympathy coils inside Duncan. He may have his fiancee on the line, but Duncan knows within his heart of hearts that Michael isn’t going to harm Y/N. He can’t put himself first right now. He needs to support Jim, Jim who has a baby on the line. That little one’s life depends on how quickly they make it to Michael’s location. 

He can’t win. He won’t. Even if Duncan has to take him out doing so.

’Maybe he knew of the plan?’ Duncan offers, ‘He was ahead of us the whole time.’

‘But we changed our minds.’ Jim protests, ‘We weren’t gonna go through with it!’

‘Michael might not know that though.’ Duncan glowers at Jim, ‘And if I hadn’t removed that chloroform from your car before Jerome took it to get cleaned we would have been in a lot more shit.’ 

Jim blanches, ‘You…know about that?’

‘You’re a desperate man, Jim.’ Duncan sighs, ‘So fucking stupid. But desperate. You came upstairs, you didn’t go through with it. That’s why I forgave you in the end.’ 

Silence falls in the car. It’s not uncomfortable, but filled to the brim with nerves. Anticipation crawls up the windows and elicits goosebumps all over Duncan.

Please. Please let them kids be okay. 

‘Why would she go.’ Jim rests his head against the glass, ‘We’re never gonna be enough.’ 

‘She loves him.’ Duncan admits, ‘You can’t just switch off your feelings for someone. I know I’ve tried.’

Jim’s fingers squeeze Duncan’s back. His eyes penetrate Duncan’s own, ‘Me too.’

  The gap between the two disappears as Jim’s lips fall against Duncan’s. His hand cups the back of Jim’s head, keeping their lips together. It’s everything Duncan didn’t know he was craving. Just how much he has missed Jim and that salty spearmint taste he always has from chewing gum. A habit back from his bleaker days to mask the smell of cigarettes and other substances. Jim’s tongue slips against Duncan’s bottom lip, but before they can go any further someone clears their throat. The two men split apart, the door open as Duncan looks out of the window.

‘You’re kidding.’ Jim breathes, his fists clenching together. 

‘No one would ever look here.’ Duncan climbs out of the car, following the Albinos. ‘Back where it all began.’ He walks into the all-too familiar building and summons the elevator to take them to the penthouse. The first apartment Michael Langdon ever owned. The one he took Duncan to when Duncan was lost and alone in the world. When nothing made sense but the magical man who swept him out of despair and made him whole again. 

Before Y/N. Before Jim. 

‘We sold it when you came into the picture.’ Duncan knows that Jim is aware of this place, despite having never been here himself. ‘I didn’t know he still had it though.’

The elevator doors open and Duncan leads the way inside. They ride in silence, but the sound of screams echo from the eleventh floor all the way up to the sixteenth. Duncan turns terrified eyes onto Jim, his horror mirrored in the slackened-sick look on Jim’s face. 

‘We’re too late.’ 

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TAGGING: @michael-langdon-owns-my-soul@langdonsinferno @pastel-cloudz@misslanabananaa @lovelykhaleesiii @lostin-fern​ @lvngdvns@ccodyfernn @asstichrist@yourkingcodyfern@langdonsdemon @satcnas @russianspacegeckosexparty @rosy-pugs @luxuryglitterhoe @langdonsoceaneyes@sodanova @petersfern-fics @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @sassylangdon @confettucini @sammythankyou@wroteclassicaly @Sloppy-Wrist @Langdonalien @alexcornerblog@sevenwondr @queencocoakimmie @sojournmichael@langdonsdemon@satcnaskinlovecody @kylosbabe @americanhorrorstudies @ladynuwanda@xxpixiefromdixiexx @elenareginaauditore@dadddysprincessss@gremlinkween@readsalot73 @astir-bread @i-will-die-for-jim-mason@ms-mead @mega-combusken @hanhanxx@kahhlo@thelangdoncooperative@langdonsrapture@ritualmichael @cryptid-coalition @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26@infernal-langdon @jim-mason2@duncandimension @dark-jim @jimmlangdon  @xtheinevitableprophecyx@moontheweirdpan @moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown @bbyduncan @divinelangdon@theladynymph @divinelangdon @codyswhore-blog @blakewaterxx

[screensirenfic]

Black Leather - Chapter 12

Warnings: Mentions of Sexual Assault

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I never actually told Steve what happened that night. I don’t think I had to; the mascara stains on my cheeks and the bruises on my neck spoke volumes.

The fact that Billy was the cause didn’t require any mind games to work out; everyone knew we’d been alone together, even Steve, and it didn’t take much to bridge the gaps.

Still; Steve never asked questions. I was thankful for that; didn’t need to know details, just knew his friend needed him right now and that was enough.

I hardly ever cried. I only think Steve had actually witnessed it once since we met; and that was when dad stopped taking his meds, the first anniversary of when Sara died and everything seemed to be falling apart around us.

He’d held me then; thirteen years old with death a foreign concept reserved for long forgotten grandparents and fish you won at the fair.

He didn’t know what to say to me back then; didn’t even understand why I was so upset.

So he just sat there with me behind the dumpsters in middle school, petting my hair and telling me that everything was gonna be alright; even though he was in no position to be making those sorts of promises.

I guess he did the same now; cradling me close to him like I was fragile like glass, lips braced on my hair to try and kiss away the worry and regret.

I knew Steve assumed the worse.

That what Billy had done to me hadn’t been reciprocated; that somehow his actions had been forced upon me.

The word ‘rape’ swam around both our heads; the word tasting dirty in my mouth, not quite fitting what had happened between me and Billy.

Was he pushy? Yes.

And did I regret what happened? Yes.

But I’d enjoyed it. I’d begged for it at the time, and somehow that felt worse than if I hadn’t wanted it at all.

I felt dirty; like I was lying to my closest friend, luxuriating in his sympathy whilst the evidence of my sin still left my thighs tacky beneath my skirt.

Fifteen minutes later; Steve had dropped me home in near silence, worry still there on his face, but no where as near as prominent as before.

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright?” He asked; taking note of the absence of my dad’s truck.

“I’m sure.” I responded; undoing my seatbelt and picking up my discarded leather jacket from the floor.

“Are you sure? Because you could always come back to mine tonight and drive home tomorrow.” He offered; no implication or undertone in his petition, just a warm desire to see me safe.

“I’ll be fine; Steve.” I insisted with a half hearted smile, staring into those worry filled doe eyes.

“Okay.” He relented with a sigh, running a hand through his thick hair as I began to climb out of the car.

“But if you need to talk or anything; just call me, alright?” Steve continued to press, those deep brown eyes still staring at me as I shrugged my jacket on in a vain attempt to hide the purpling marks on my neck and chest.

“I know; Steve.” I replied, leaning across the passenger seat to press a soft kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you.” I said, and for once, I was sincere. Steve had been a sweetheart; no bones about it, and I was grateful for that.

I left him in the car then, slamming the door shut behind me before I made my way up the porch steps.

“Hey Lo...” Steve called after me, and I turned, watching him hang out a now open window to talk to me.

“Yeah?” I asked, wondering what was going on beneath all that hair that left him so serious.

“Goodnight...” He said, even though for a moment, I thought he might say something else entirely.

“Goodnight” I smiled back, turning back to my door and pretended to be searching my pockets for my keys.

I waited till the I heard the hum of his engine spark up, then fade as he disappeared back into the woods; and once again, I was glad that Steve’s sense of chivalry only went so far, especially when he knew I’d take it as an insult if he offered to “walk me to the door”.

Knowing that I was once again alone, I lifted my hand to the door and knocked.

Knock knock.... knock knock knock.... knock.

I waited, listening to the sounds of owls hooting and the wind blowing; a true signifier on just how isolated we were out here.

When I’d told Steve that me and dad were packing up and moving into the wilderness, he gave me a look like I’d just told him I was planning on running away and join the circus.

He thought my dad had lost it again; gone into a paranoid survival mode like you saw in movies, trying to lock away his family for ‘the end of the world’.

I had to reassure him that no; dad hadn’t lost his shit again, and no; I didn’t need to come move in with him until my dad was done playing Bigfoot.

I’d even had to break my dad’s favourite rule of secrecy, letting Steve drop me off and pick me up from the cabin, though my dad would never let him inside.

Steve just took it that my dad didn’t trust him with me; something that wasn’t all too surprising considering his chilly attitude towards Steve in the past.

Steve still had no idea of the real reason he couldn’t step inside my house.

“El; it’s Lola.” I called; noting that a couple of minutes had passed and she hadn’t come to answer the door. Probably pissed at my dad and planning to make him suffer for it.

I heard the click of locks opening, then the door swung open. I stepped inside, noting that despite the sound of TV murmuring, El was nowhere to be seen.

My eyes spied the long black cable of the TV set, following it as it trailed across the living room and up to Eleven’s closed door, disappearing beneath.

The kid had balls; I’d give her that; the corners of my mouth almost rising into a smile when I’d realised that the Hopper pettiness was apparently also contagious.

Almost; then I was reminded of the stickiness in my underwear, my stomach tensing as I realised I needed to clean myself up urgently.

—————————————————

It didn’t seem to matter how scolding I made the water; how hard I scrubbed my skin, I just couldn’t get the feeling of Billy’s hands on me to go away.

I was probably gonna end up using up all the hot water at this point. Dad was gonna be pissed, but you know what; fuck him! If he hadn’t been so damn well insistent I went to that party, I might not be...

No; you know what; I wasn’t gonna think about that.

Instead I focused on scrubbing the scent of beer and cigarettes out of my hair.

Only once I’d scrubbed my skin red raw; the strong scent of cherry blossom overtaking the stench of testosterone and cheap cologne, did I get out of the shower, wrapping myself in the least ratty looking towel I could find and heading back into my bedroom; ruined clothes in hand.

I locked my bedroom door, knowing that there was no chance of El leaving her room tonight and having no desire to speak to my dad anytime this week, then settled down to work out if anything was salvageable from my Halloween costume.

The stockings were goners; large rips spanning the length of my thighs down both legs, though that was no surprise. Those sort of things never lasted more than a couple of wears anyway.

My top was beer stained, though I could probably get that out with a little detergent and some elbow grease.

The skirt was passable, though my skin crawled slightly at the reminder on why I’d picked it.

I’d probably not be wearing that one again in a hurry.

My bra was surprisingly fine, despite Billy’s rough handling, as were my heels.

My panties; well that was another story.

Damp was an understatement; despite being left on the floor of the bathroom for the better part of an hour, the crotch was soaked through. I dared a look inside on the lining, and instantly wished I hadn’t.

Stained; an almost milky looking streak running straight down the centre. I feared what a mess I might of found if Tommy hadn’t interrupted Billy; if he’d actually been allowed to continue.

I screwed them up into a ball, dumping them in the trash can alongside my ruined stockings in a bid to forget my shame.

I dumped the rest of my clothes into my laundry pile, planning to deal with them first thing tomorrow after dad left for work.

Then I pulled open my drawers, rifling through the jumble of cotton and denim for an oversized t shirt. I grabbed an old Jefferson Airplane t shirt that my dad gave to me years ago; a relic from him and ma’s freer thinking days back in New York.

I dropped my towel, fully intending to shove on the shirt then climb into bed and go to sleep; hopefully waking up tomorrow with enough of a stinker of a hangover that I’d have plausible deniability of the night’s events.

But then I stopped; I’d just caught sight of myself in the mirror.

Jesus fucking Christ; I looked like a domestic abuse victim!

The blooms of bruises decorated my skin like body paint, mapping the places Billy’s hands had strayed hours previously.

I thank God that it was dark in Steve’s car, otherwise he might’ve seen the messy pattern of hickeys running down the length of my neck, across my shoulders and collarbones, stopping just above the tops of my breast.

I even think I could make out the outlines of teeth marks mixed in amongst the bruises; the fucking animal!

It wasn’t just Billy’s mouth that had marked me up good; his hands had left purpling finger marks above my hips, the slightly raised red trails of scratches running just above in the curve of my back.

Most prominent of all was bruising on my wrist; already dark and angry, the distinct shape of his long fingers easy to make out on my darkening skin.

He was an ass; a complete and total ass.

He couldn’t even of done what he wanted and then left me to forget about it; he had to leave suiveneers, like this was some sort of milestone worth remembering.

I guess it kind of was; a hard learned life lesson to never trust a pretty smile and quick hands, no matter how much I wanted to.

I’d been an idiot; no matter what Steve said otherwise. I could accept that now, but I wouldn’t be one again; that’s for sure.

———————————— ——

I’d stayed strong for twenty more minutes, climbing into bed in my old t shirt and turning out the light, till only tree filtered moonlight lit my room.

I’d been fine for a whole twenty minutes; staring into the inky blackness till my eyes fell shut and sleep began to try and take me.

Then I saw him again; that sick self satisfied smile, those deep penetrating blues as he whispered dirty things into my ear, all to the raucous laughter of Tommy H and all his cronies.

My eyes sprung open; my heart hammering at a million miles an hour in my chest, and I was suddenly aware my face was wet; though with sweat or tears, I couldn’t tell.

I sat up, switching on my bedside lamp in the childish hope that the light might chase away the lingering bad dream. Instead my eyes were dawn to my hand resting on top of the comforter; bright purple bruises creating shadowy shackles around my wrist.

Reality hit me once more and I broke down; tears streaming down my face as I realised this was a nightmare I would never wake up from.

I didn’t get any sleep after that, sobbing silently into my pillow case like some stupid freshman who got stood up by her homecoming date.

I felt so stupid; I’d been through worse than this, for God’s sake, so why was I so damn cut up about it?

Maybe it was because I’d thought just for a moment, that Billy might actually like me.

Not like Steve did with his soft brotherly consolations and his worry filled eyes; and not like Tommy H and the rest of the sleaze patrol who stared up my skirt like it was a peep show.

I’d thought that for once in my life I’d found someone who could go toe to toe in the ring with me and put up a fair fight.

Apparently I had been mistaken; my opponent had no intention on fighting fair and wasn’t above resorting to any number of dirty tricks; even if that meant he’d end our little partnership for good.

In all my turmoil; I hadn’t noticed dad’s truck pulling up outside the house, nor had I noticed him knocking at the front door, but I could hear him now; cursing and kicking like some drunk who got locked out of his pickup.

He called out for Eleven; clearly not expecting me home yet.  She didn’t answer; no surprises there. I didn’t have any doubts that she was prepared to leave him out there all night.

“Come on; kid. Open up. Look, I know I’m late; alright....” He petitioned from the other side of the front door, unaware that his entire speech was being drowned out by a rerun of The Munsters.

“I got candy here, alright... I got all the good stuff.” He continued, but I knew it was falling upon death ears.

Eleven was mad; worse than that, she was hurt. And I already knew well enough how much being hurt by someone who you thought cared about you stung. Dad really had a better chance at picking the lock, than relying on a spurned tween to come to his rescue.

“Please... Will... You... Open... The.... Door!” He demanded, emphasising every word with a loud bang on the door, as if any amount of blustering was gonna convince El to emerge and give him entry.

Not gonna happen; I thought, but still, he was my dad. He hadn’t done anything to hurt me; at least, not intentionally.

It wasn’t fair for me to blame him just because my stupid little plan blew up in my face. He told me to go out and have a good time; not to be a slut about it.

So I dragged myself out of my bed and out of my room before my dad could give himself a hernia with all his yelling.

El still hadn’t left her room; the flickering light of the TV beneath her door the only sign of life coming from her room.

She must’ve really been pissed; and speaking of people who were pissed, dad still hadn’t given up on his ranting in the vain hope of out-stubborning a newly aged up teenager.

Stubborn or not; this teenager wasn’t so keen on being grounded till marriage, so I quickly made my way over to the cabin door, unlatching the ridiculous amount of locks lining the door. Paranoid much?

“I’m gonna freeze to death out here...” Dad petitioned; his tactics changing to guilt tripping, because apparently it was the backup plan to the entire Hopper family, but he never did get the chance to up the anti.

I’d reached the last lock and swung the door open; my face the perfect blend of pissed off and plain moody to dissuade him from asking any questions.

“Lola?!” He blurted out; actually going as far as to look confused that his oldest daughter was home after being forced to go out to some Halloween fuck fest to confront a boy he really knew nothing about.

I strode back into the house; I was really in no mood to have a moral discussion on my night out and wanted to be back behind the closed door of my room as soon as possible.

“I thought you were meant to be at a party?” Dad asked; because quite frankly, my dad was a complete and total idiot when it came to emotions, boys, and pretty much everything to do with raising a teenage girl.

I don’t even know why I trusted him with giving me advice on Billy in the first place. He treated everything like a fucking police interrogation, thinking you could get everything from someone if you just leaned on them a little.

I suppose he was right; but that technique worked two ways, and Billy clearly was better at playing bad cop.

“Lola?” Dad called out; annoyance overtaking confusion in his voice as he realised I was ignoring him.

“What the hell went on?” He asked; his chief hat and his father hat getting mixed up, but it didn’t fucking matter. Not when I could slam an slab of unvarnished wood in his face.

The door slammed; and I could still hear my dad’s blustering from the other side of the door. I knew he was gonna try and pester El on her attitude, but it would achieve him nothing but a sore throat and a sour attitude.

That was fine. We’d all earned the right to be a little pissed off tonight; some more than others. The rest of the night was destined to be spent in respective solitude, faces stained with angry tears as we each refused to talk about our problems.

Monsters were real but they didn’t hide in closets or under beds; they wore easy smiles and familiar faces, just before stabbing you in the back.

Happy fucking Halloween everybody!

[selfinsertdabi]

umbrella academy mpreg stuff cool cool

this is the longest thing you’ll get out of me

Klaus is messy. Klaus can't keep a job. Klaus never learned how to control himself when he drinks. Despite all of that -- despite how much of a disaster he is, despite how desperately pathetic and lonely and *sad* that he is -- Dave loves Klaus, for everything that he is and everything that he isn't, and Klaus knows he'll never find anyone this good, this pure, this *beautiful* ever again in his entire life.

Sometimes the cosmic forces in the universe give you good things, and sometimes they don't, but Dave is a miracle that saved him from hitting his twentieth overdose, and he doesn't even *care* about all of the times he said he'd never fuck a soldier, never be with someone that would defend the mockery of their country, but shit happens, and here he is.

Dave loves him -- loves *him,* and he can hardly fucking believe it, can't believe it even when Dave's balls deep inside of him, even when Dave's slow dancing with him to some sixties song in the middle of his living room, sings Elvis to him and makes him feel like he's on top of the fucking world.

Sometimes the cosmic forces in the universe give you bad things, and Klaus is about to learn just how quickly he can turn a situation around if he has to.

xxx

The first sign is that his nipples hurt. They ache, and not in a good way -- Klaus is fine with getting his nipples played with, but he can't even graze his arms against them without wincing in pain; and then, one morning, he wakes up -- totally sober, mind you, he's been good at keeping that up for a while -- and leans over the side of the bed, promptly hurling everything in his stomach onto the carpet. Again, this isn't *unusual* behavior for Klaus, but he's *sober* right now, hasn't touched anything in *weeks* (besides weed. and cigarettes. and a little bit of coke at that one party. but that's it! he swears.)

The third sign, the most pivotal one, is that he's so tired he can't get even get out of bed -- not even when Dave orders copious amounts of alfredo from that one pizza place down the block, they have the best hangover food -- and this goes on for about four days before Dave demands that he go to the doctor, hell, not even the doctor, fucking express care works -- but Klaus is not a fan of the doctor, with the poking and prodding and the constant looks that silently call him a junkie.

Dave's upset he won't go; says that it could be something bad, something he caught before they were together that didn't even manifest until now, and that argument ends with Klaus slamming the bedroom door, and his boyfriend doesn't even sleep in his own bed, instead on the couch.

He kind of knows what's up when he wakes up and vomits for the fifth day in a row. It's some sort of second sense, this weird feeling he can't shake, and he sneaks out when Dave's in the shower, books it to the Walgreens on the corner, steals what he needs (and a bag of skittles for good measure), comes back to the apartment within ten minutes, and Dave is none the wiser.

It's a good thing they all learned how to sneak out this early on.

He doesn't even do what he has to do at the apartment; he goes back to the mansion, crawls in through an unlocked window (ever since their dad died, the security around the place has been a little lax), and he's relieved that the only person he sees is his mother, who welcomes him (despite the fact that it's two in the morning) with her usual robotic grin and wave, which Klaus returns, scurrying around the corner -- and, of course, he promptly bumps right into the chest of his oldest brother, the huge, hairy, apeish chest of Luther Hargreeves, and Klaus just crookedly grins up at him.

Spaceboy is *not* amused. Luther plainly sees the box in his hand, snatches it from him, and Klaus stands there, dumbly -- he can't even protest, who the fuck is gonna protest against Luther, he's fucking seven feet tall and his fists feel like cinderblocks (and Klaus knows what cinderblocks feel like, he's been beaten up enough times.)

"... " Luther stands there, looking at him as if almost in disgust; throws the box on the ground, leaving Klaus to scrabble and snatch up the plastic off the floor, protesting with a "what the fuck, du -- " before Luther calmly tells him to shut the hell up.

"You know this is *your* problem?" and Klaus just looks at him, nods, and Luther keeps staring down at him stonily. "I hope you're not coming here running for help. No one is going to rai -- "

"I *know*," Klaus says, plainly, "you don't have to tell me twice." Luther keeps staring at him, stares back at the floor, strides down the hallway like the huge fucking behemoth of a man that he is -- but he stops, right at the doorway, turns to look at Klaus.

"I can't believe you could even consider this. Knowing what kind of responsibility is on our shoulders. I can't, Klaus."

Klaus says nothing, and when the stick shows two blue lines, he throws up.

xxx

Dave was *thrilled.* Klaus knew he would be; knew that that big dumb puppy (said fondly) would be nothing less than *ecstatic* when Klaus told him he was pregnant. He crushed him in a hug, swung him around in circles in the living room; Klaus laughed, accepted the flurry of kisses brought his way, ended up throwing up again when he got dizzy.

He had the first appointment, already -- he didn't know that they stuck a probe inside of you that early, he was always under the assumption that you got the gel smeared on your stomach or something -- got to hear their baby's heartbeat, the fast, little rapid thump thump (it sounds like a horse galloping, Klaus thinks), got to see the tiny, strawberry sized kiddo inside of him.

It was odd. Really odd. There's an entirely new creature inside of him, a human being that *he's* responsible for (and it is him, he thinks, it'll always primarily be him, even if he and Dave broke up, the courts always side with the parent that birthed the child, but he is a former prostitute-addict-homeless person, so he doesn't know how well that'll go), and it's wigging him out that it has a heartbeat, a little tiny wriggly blob that will eventually become a person with likes and dislikes and a *soul,* and he's caught up all of a sudden, because he's been in his room at the mansion (he hangs out there just as much as the rest of them, usually when Dave is at work) looking at his ultrasound photos in a big manila envelope, when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

He's convinced it's Luther, but it's Diego -- and he sighs, slaps at his arm, calls him a dickhead, and Diego just points at the pictures.

"Mind telling me what those are?"

Klaus just blinks, and he knows he looks stupid.

"Man... are you high? I knew, I already fucking knew, Luther told me all about you coming in here last month and -- "

"*Fuck* Luther," Klaus drawls, and he tosses the envelope onto Diego's lap. "There's your niece or nephew. They've got working arm joints and also give me this thing called round ligament pain. Fucking sucks. Feels like I pulled the muscles in my stomach, but inside."

"That's enough," and Diego takes them, looks at them, and Klaus swears he can see what looks like longing in his eyes, some sort of what could have been, but he shakes his head, pushes it down, and Diego just makes a small sound.

"Looks like a blob."

"No, no, look, here -- "

And it's a nice day for Klaus, after all.

xxx

Allison's apartment is *so* much nicer than a halfway house, Klaus thinks, as he flops back on the king sized guest bed -- a fucking king sized guest bed? Is she fucking joking? -- and idly lays his hands on his belly, poking and prodding at what is now an obvious bump.

Well, it's not *too* obvious, only if he wears tight clothes and isn't covering up with a coat, but it's *there* and it's *real* and he can't even keep thinking about this, because as soon as the nausea stopped, his hormones kicked into high gear, and the only thing Klaus can even think about is sex.

Dave's on a work trip for the rest of the week, so he's not fucking anyone in particular, and he eyes up one of Allison's body pillows for a second, before the door opens and he sits up, abruptly, because even if he's not doing it now, he's used to doing shady shit that gets him caught up, so it's an instinctive reaction. His shirt's messed up, rolls up his stomach just a little bit, and he can tell that Allison sees the swell before he yanks his shirt down.

"I'm not doing heroin in your apartment again. Promise, Allie."

She scoffs, rolls her eyes, sits down on the bed next to him.

"Nobody said you were doing *heroin,* Klaus," and she smiles a little, her eyes drawn to where one of his hands is idly on his belly, protective for next to no reason, but that feels instinctual, too.

There's an odd silence, and she swings her feet a little, before she laughs some, breaches the gap. "You're showing? Like. Showing showing?"

Klaus nods, pulls his shirt up a little without thinking, and Allison makes the smallest of sounds, reaches her hand out without thinking, before pulling it back.

"Christ, I'm sorry, that's so rude, and that's coming from someone who was actually pregnant before -- "

Klaus takes her hand, wordlessly, presses it to his belly, and though nothing's moving inside yet, Allison still *smiles.*

"He's really there," she breathes out, and Klaus nods; all of a sudden, his throat's dry, he feels fear pricking at the corners of his mind, but he thinks of Dave, Dave and his big frame and big arms and that outdated cologne, and it brings him back down to reality, calms him a little, and Klaus sighs.

"Yeah. Isn't it crazy? Whole ass little minnow, swimmin' around in there... "

"I think it's *beautiful,*" Allison says, quietly, and tears spring to the corner of Klaus' eyes.

xxx

He has his second ultrasound, and Klaus declines to find out what the baby is -- he wants it to be a surprise, and besides, there are too many societal expectations put onto people anyway concerning sex and gender. Whatever his kid is, it's fine by him.

Dave puts the ultrasound photos on the fridge, on the bedside table, at his work desk, everywhere he can; Klaus thinks it's adorable, and it makes his heart swell that somebody can actually love him *that* much.

He's at the halfway point, now, and so far, things have been a breeze -- the only thing that bothers him is the *discharge,* it's fucking *everywhere,* it's gross, and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it -- and there's the shortness of breath, too, because everything is being pushed up in quick order, even though he's only four months pregnant.

The bump's bigger, too; he's gained ten pounds, which was a Big Fucking Deal for Klaus Hargreeves, but Dave had quickly calmed him down (and Allison, who said by this point in her own pregnancy, she'd gained twenty five, and it had all went to her face, which had made Klaus check himself out frantically in the mirror), and he knows it's not a big deal, doctors told him he'd be gaining a pound (maybe two) a week at this point, and Klaus really is starting to realize how much of a toll this is going to take on his body by the time it's over.

He's home alone, again, and he can't really take much more of watching the same star wars movies over and over again -- he can't even take a walk, it's December, and it's snowing like hell outside. He changes to TLC, watches some episode of a baby story (he can't imagine being trapped in a dorm room during a blizzard and giving birth; he thinks he'd rather die), turns that off halfway through and rolls onto his side, staring at the ticking clock. Maybe he can actually take a nap? The heartburn bothers him every time he lays down, and he's out of the prescription antacids the doctor gave him, doesn't want to take regular ones out of fear that something might happen.

Klaus resigns himself to trying to take a nap, and it's just when he's gotten himself tucked under the covers, ceiling fan on low and tv even lower, that there's the oddest feeling -- it's like gas, but not; it kind of reminds him of the feeling that you get right before a plane lands, or when you get onto a rollercoaster, right before the drop -- and it happens again, and again, and Klaus sits up, pulls his shirt up, presses his hands to his stomach to focus.

Ah.

The baby's moving.

Wait -- the baby's been moving. He just couldn't feel it.

And now he can.

His eyes get as big as dinner plates, but he doesn't freak out; tries to stay calm, because he wants to feel it again.

Feel it again he does, and he gets up, pulls his shirt up below his chin, stares at himself in the mirror, runs his hands over his stomach, texts Dave a picture with no caption.

xxx

"Fiiiiiiiveeee," Klaus whines, trailing after his younger brother in the hallway. "Come feel the baby kickkkkkkkkkk," and Five just reacts with a sound of disgust, shuts his door, and Klaus walks in right behind him, sits on the bed, grabs his hand, and Five snatches it back.

"Don't grab me like a child -- "

"But you *are* a child!" and he takes Five's hand again, presses it right above his navel, and Five entertains the idea until a swift kick's felt against his palm, and he takes it back, shakes it like he touched something that clung to his skin.

"Okay. Cool. There's your little parasite, how cute," and Klaus hits him with a pillow, which causes the both of them to get into a mild wrestling match on the bed, one that Klaus breaks up when he gets an elbow to the side of his stomach.

"God, Five, you're such a dick!" and he rubs the side of his stomach, murmuring a little to the life within; Five sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry at him.

"Good, and I don't care."

There's silence for a while, and Five breaks it eventually, clearing his throat and looking at him out of the corner of his eyes.

"... are you sleeping any better? I can give you some of the meds dad made, you know they're safe for anyone, regardless of pregnancy -- "

Klaus shakes his head, but it warms his heart that his little brother cares enough to offer him their father's sketchy prescription meds.

"No, no, dearest little brother, I'm fine -- "

Five hits him again.

xxx

Ben is really Klaus' rock. More than Dave, more than himself, more than the magical three pm powers of daytime talkshows -- Ben is the one who has kept him sane when Dave is away at work, when he and Luther are arguing about some bullshit again, when he and Allison get into a fight because yeah, he threw up on her bedside table and left it there, but he's *pregnant,* cut him some fucking slack!

He's thirty weeks, today, and he's actually pretty fucking over it. The heartburn kills him; he feels like, without his meds, he can't even drink *water* without it coming back up. He can't get comfortable at night, it's impossible to sleep, and when Dave's not home, it's even worse, because their child likes to have mini raves inside of him every night, and Klaus does *not* appreciate it -- and never mind the swelling, the general all over discomfort, the shortness of breath, because *god,* everything is up in his ribs now and sometimes he can feel the baby just wedging their foot up there and it genuinely honestly makes him want to *die.*

But back to the matter at hand.

He's been practicing for a while, now; because this is important to him, and even though Ben is there *all the time,* he's not corporeal, he's a fucking ghost, and Klaus really, really wants to channel his brother so he can feel his niece or nephew kick.

This is important to him; they've all felt it (except Luther, but who needs Luther), and he's sitting on the edge of the bed, focusing inside himself, feeling the pins and needles, tv static, rising up his arms -- and it hits a peak, and it feels like a lightbulb's gone off inside his head.

"Ben?"

"Right here," and Ben's on the other side of the bed, reading a book, flipping through the pages mindlessly.

"Ben, c'mere for a sec."

So he does; comes over to Klaus, looks at him, makes a face when he sees Klaus' stomach shift towards him a little, and Klaus smiles, because of course the baby somehow knows their uncle Ben is there.

"Gimme your hands."

Ben looks at him flatly, and Klaus mutters sorry, waves his hands over the spot he wants Ben at. "Hover them here."

Ben does that, too; Klaus closes his eyes, and he feels them rolling back in his head, and he *knows* he'll have a headache later -- but that same feeling, like a lightbulb, goes off, and when he comes back into it, he kind of foggily mutters "Put your hands there. You can."

Ben's shocked; Klaus hasn't channeled him in a *while,* it's exhausting, but his hands feel real, and he smiles widely when he feels the warmth of his brother's skin underneath of his hands, feels the shifting under his skin, and the baby picks up in its movement as Ben twitches his fingers against Klaus.

"Holy shit, Klaus? That's... "

"Fucking amazing, right?" Klaus pokes his belly a little, gets the kiddo moving, and just watches as the baby presses right into Ben's hands.

xxx

Klaus is horrible at packing. Period. It doesn't matter if it's for a trip, or for a vacation, or even for something that's potentially life threatening -- he always waits until the last minute, and that's where he is now, on his littlest sister's apartment floor, folding clothes awkwardly over the planet his stomach's become in the last five weeks.

There's no denying he's pregnant, now; his stomach's clearly housing life inside, and he winces at a sharp kick to his ribs, palming the top of his belly and making general noises of discomfort. "Owwww, kid, why are you like thisssss?"

Vanya's made tea; she brings it to him, sits it on the coffee table, gestures to his mug, which he takes and drinks a little too eagerly, practically burning himself in the process. Within ten minutes, he has to pee, and it's a struggle getting him off of the floor -- he's six foot, and Vanya's about five one -- and he's at least glad that she offered to help him pack, because Dave's being too touchy feely, and he's sensitive, now, in a bad way.

So, Vanya's house it is. Her apartment's the least embellished of any of them (well. not his old one), and he idly peers at the pictures crookedly hanging on the walls, the wallpaper peeling, the sink still dripping even after he turns it off. God, Vanya lives in a shithole, but he realizes, after the book, after the financial cut off (besides her medical insurance), that this is all she could have. He wishes he could help her, and he's interrupted by another kick, hissing through his teeth and pressing his hands to the small of his back.

He and Vanya don't talk much; they never have, and it's not even that they don't have anything in common -- it's just that Vanya prefers the silence, prefers the heady comfort of enjoying someone's company in peace, and Klaus can't really blame her. Other than Ben, she's always been the one he feels most at peace with, and a few minutes after he settles on the couch, he looks at her, tilts his head a little.

"You wanna help me fold the clothes? I know that was like, my only job, but you know how bad I am at starting shit and not finishing."

Vanya smiles, her typical toothless, light one, and she nods.

"Yeah. Give me the socks."

xxx

Forty weeks is *not* amazing. Klaus feels like a whale, feels like everything is stretched and aching and hurts in all the worst ways, and he alternates between clinging to Dave and just wanting his boyfriend to get the fuck away from him. He's antsy; they both know it, and Klaus spends much of his day pacing around the apartment, picking at food, not really interested in anything but ways to get this kid out of him.

Sex is out of the question; they'd tried, that and nipple stimulation, and it got to be too awkward, and Dave just felt bad that it wasn't working -- Klaus still got an orgasm out of it, in another way, but nothing happens, and it frustrates the hell out of him.

He's in one of his clingy moods, now; he won't leave Dave alone, he's pressed up to his side as Dave watches some anime about these superhero kids, and Klaus laughs a little, because all of the characters seem so hopeless but relatable at the same time. His hand's at the bottom of his belly, and Dave's is plastered onto the side. It's cute, really, sweet that Dave loves the baby so much -- Dave talks to him all the time, got Klaus a pregnancy pillow so he could sleep on his stomach, pushes his shirt up and kisses goodnight every night before they go to bed -- and he feels the baby push against Dave's hand, trying to stifle a groan from the change in pressure.

Dave, god bless him, presses his hand into Klaus' hip instead, and he could practically *purr* with how good the counterpressure feels.

"Mm, Davey, keep doing that," he whines, settling back into him more, and Dave is the most *wonderful* listener, rubs Klaus' other hip with his free hand, and Klaus lets his head loll backwards, looking up at Dave lazily.

"I love you," he says, softly, and Dave dips his head to kiss him, squeezes his hip, and Klaus makes a soft noise, nips at his jaw a little before shifting over into his lap, leaning his head back into his shoulder.

"You know, I've got you to thank for all of this. Not just -- not just him or her, but everything. Getting sober, being happier, learning how to love -- *everything.* And no matter how much I bitch and moan about this, I want you to know I will never, ever regret it, okay? I'm happy to have your baby, I love him so fucking much -- I love you, I love *you* so fucking much, and there's nobody I'd rather be doing this with -- "

He starts to blubber a little, and Dave wipes at Klaus' face.

"I love you, too," Dave says, simply and fondly, presses what feels like hundreds of kisses to his face, settles his hands on top of his belly.

xxx

The sounds Klaus is making are honestly kind of scary -- Dave's been through some shit, but nothing like *this,* and he knows he wouldn't have been able to keep his composure if Kate hadn't been in the room with them -- Ben, too, because he's apparently done a fuck of a lot better job at calming Klaus down over anyone else.

Kate's still on the floor, holding his legs open; she's gotten him to move back some, but this position isn't really working for her, and once there's a lull in contractions, she practically snatches Dave off of the bed, gets him positioned behind Klaus on their bedroom floor, literally hands him one of his legs -- Dave's mad Ben can't hold the other one, but Kate easily hooks his leg over her shoulder; this works better, and she can see what's going on -- speaking of what's going on, Dave can tell just by her face that there's obviously *something* making its way out of Klaus.

"Good, Klaus, you're doing good. Push when your body tells you to. I'm not counting for you, okay?" Dave's kind of glad she's not; having someone yell to ten in your face isn't much fun, whether it's in the military or if you're giving birth on your bedroom floor. Klaus makes a noise that sounds like he's getting torn apart, and Dave winces, but he's quickly chin to chest, silent as he pushes, and when he's finished, his head just falls back onto Dave's chest, and then there's a *stream* of curse words in at least four languages before the urge overtakes him again.

Half an hour ticks by slowly -- at least Klaus is making progress, and at one point, Kate takes his hand, lets him feel the baby's head, which results in a flurry of exhausted tears for a moment before she gets him back on track. Dave discovers that crowning is probably the worst part of labor -- Klaus is *yelping* by this point, scrabbling back against Dave, and Dave's reminded of the stories Klaus has told him about how he was locked in the mausoleum, pressing himself into the corner and screaming for hours on end as spirits taunted him -- and all Klaus repeats for the next fifteen minutes are variations of "fuck, holy fuck, this fucking *burns* jesus christ she's ripping me apart -- " to which Kate reassures him that the baby is not, and she wants to tell him he's being *mad* dramatic, but she knows better than to do that while her friend is in the throes of labor.

Klaus, meanwhile, meant every word of what he said -- this kid feels like it's stretching every single amount of soft tissue down there, it's like a fucking bowling ball that's on *fire* and jt's ripping him apart, this is worse than detox, worse than overdosing, worse than withdrawing, and *jesus* does he want a fucking cigarette --

and suddenly, the burning is over, and it feels like something has just... suddenly popped out of him. His hand reaches down by impulse, and there it is -- the head, his *baby's* head, and he laughs, half hysterically, half from relief, and Kate pats his leg. "You got a brunette, dude. But the shoulders aren't out yet; c'mon." He hears Dave murmur something to him in his ear; ignores it completely, but he appreciates the sentiment.

The shoulders are vastly different; they're broader, and he's vaguely wondering the fuck he conceived a child with someone that was so fucking *ripped* from years in the service, but he can't focus, because the pains are coming, and the urge to push is stronger than ever. Now it *really* feels like the kid is splitting him open, he feels like he can feel all of the baby's individual bones just *grinding* against him, and he knows he's yelling into the pain, doesn't care if they get noise complaints from how shrill his voice is.

Klaus has been through a lot in his life -- being part of a child team of superheroes, losing Ben, losing countless amounts of friends and lovers alike -- and it feels like every emotion at once is welling up inside of his chest, hot like a fire; he knows Kate is telling him to push, Dave and Ben both murmuring softly to him at different times, and he thinks he's at the end, now. The end of what, he doesn't know, but he's *tired,* fucking *exhausted,* and he's really ready to throw the towel in, tell Kate to just take him to the hospital, they can cut this thing out of him -- but sudden determination awakens something deep, deep inside of him, that feral parental instinct, and he curls forward, eyes shut tight, and he's *yelling*, hasn't yelled this loud in, well, shit, probably *ever* -- and his ears just start to ring, his head feels like it's full of cotton, he's empty, he's finally fucking *empty* for once, the last nine months have just been him being too full of *everything* -- and there's the baby. Right on his chest.

It's slippery, and wet, and slimy and all the other adjectives you would use to describe a newborn, and Klaus' hands scrabble at his child, bringing them closer to his face, and he *bursts* into exhausted tears, just looking manically from Ben to Dave to Kate and back down at the baby. He can't even bring himself to talk for a moment; Kate's busy down there, and he doesn't even care what she's doing, and when he finally speaks, his voice is thick with emotion. He hears Dave crying behind him, and he whips his head to look at Ben; hell, even Ben's eyes are shiny with tears. Klaus just murmurs "oh my god, hi! hi, look at you!" and that's all he can really think to say, just variations of that over and over, and eventually starts to wipe the baby off on his chest, ties the cord when it stops pulsing in a few minutes, and she raises her eyebrows, looks up at the both of them. "You've got a little boy, by the way. Definitely not your little princess, but, hey. Whatever works."

xxx

Their son is beautiful. He's the most beautiful thing Klaus has ever done, with his dark hair (not as dark as his; it's that medium brunette that Dave has, but their baby has Klaus' eyes, those bright, bright eyes that are so common in the Hargreeves children) and his little face and his chubby cheeks and god, when he fucking *smiles* Klaus feels like he's about to lift off of the ground with how happy he is.

Dave's the best dad; he's cuddly and snuggly and doesn't care that Klaus wanted the baby to sleep with them, doesn't even care that he has to take the midnight feedings, stays up all night with him and makes sure Klaus is okay, too, and he feels like this is his first step towards a normal life, no more Umbrella Academy, no more *anything* that's horrible and stressful and bad, just Dave and Klaus and their *baby,* their *son,* and it doesn't even matter that Luther's only seen him once -- he has two aunts and three uncles that love him very, very much, and two fathers who would certainly raise hell if anything so much as even scratched him.

He's tucked into bed with him, Ben, their little Benny boy (Klaus insisted on the name; Dave had absolutely no complaints); he's just eaten, and Klaus peppers his little head with kisses, inhales his scent (why the fuck do babies smell so *good?*), rests his forehead gently and lightly on his son's, only lifting his head when Dave crawls next to him on the bed.

"Hey."

"Hi," Klaus says, quietly, and for once, he feels like all the cosmic forces in the universe finally have things going his way.

[taexual]

HOLIC - 4 | jb x reader

Strangers, united by their big dreams, try to learn to live together and lift each other up to reach their goals without losing themselves or their relationship on the way to the top.

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: strong language

words: 1.9k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

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You were beyond outraged that Jaebum was enough of a child about this to actually break your bed just so he’d win the bet. You truly considered breaking his neck in revenge – especially after he dared to ask for your help – but instead of that, you glared at him and walked back to your room, deciding that the best kind of revenge would be to somehow fix the damage he’s done and win the bet despite his attempts to sabotage your hard work.

However, the side board he had broken was hanging off its hinges and it only took you a moment to conclude that you couldn’t actually fix this unless you had proper industrial glue. Upon closer inspection, however, you realized that not even the strongest adhesive would have helped you fix this properly – Jaebum had even managed to break a piece of the wood off, so the sideboard was now about five centimeters shorter than it should have been and, thus, you could no longer attach it to the baseboard.

Gritting your teeth together, you understood that you’d have to pay money to replace it and there was nothing that you wanted more than to rip the broken board off and just hit Jaebum right on the—okay, violence wasn’t the answer. He’d acted like a child but that didn’t mean that you had to act like one, too.

And yet you couldn’t help but be petty as you purposefully turned off all the lights in the apartment – Jaebum kept tripping whenever he walked out to get himself a glass of water – and, after grabbing your laptop, sat down in the kitchen. Every time Jaebum walked past you, you refused to look up at him and, he had to admit, the way your laptop screen illuminated your face really made you look vicious. He almost regretted breaking your bed.

Then, four hours later, he strolled into the kitchen again, yawning and stretching – this time you refused to admire the way his body looked – as he stopped next to the kitchen island, watching you for a moment.

“Guess I won the bet then,” he announced, not mentioning that it literally took him five hours to finish assembling his bed and it was now two in the morning. “Are you going to ignore me? What are you doing?”

“Looking up knives.”

Jaebum opened his mouth to speak but he wasn’t sure if you were serious or just annoyed with him. He admitted that it could’ve also been both.

His hesitation didn’t go unnoticed by you, though.

“You stink,” you spoke again, even though you couldn’t really smell him. You just needed to express your pent-up aggression with words. “Go take a shower.”

Jaebum grinned. “Alright. I’ll go do that. And then I’ll get a fantastic night’s sleep on my brand new bed.”

You told him to fuck off under your breath but the echo of his laughter as he walked towards the bathroom let you know that he still heard you.

Suddenly frustrated again, you leaned back in your chair and glanced into his room through the gap he had left in the door. His bed had indeed been built. He even put the mattress on and had the sheets ready.

An idea hit you then.

Jaebum had literally broken your bed because he was childish like that. You may not have wanted to drop to his level, but sometimes, certain sacrifices had to be made.

Taking your phone and your laptop with you, – just to be sure he wouldn’t break your other valuable stuff while you were doing this, – you sneaked into his room, your bravery fueled by the sound of the shower running in the bathroom; you knew he wasn’t going to catch you. Then, you placed your electronics under the blanket, crawled under it as well, and spread out in the very middle of his bed.

This was your bed now. Jaebum could sleep on the mattress – or on the broken bed frame – in your room. Call it revenge.

Naturally, when Jaebum returned to his room thirty minutes later, he had no idea you were there since you were lying flat against the mattress. He calmly changed into new clothes – all while you stayed with your head under the blanket so you wouldn’t have to watch – and, after tossing the blanket aside, he took a leap back, yelping in shock as his back hit the wall.

“Jesus—fuck! Shit!” swear words spilled from his lips as you continued to lay peacefully in the middle of the bed, trying to act as if you were completely unbothered even though his reaction certainly made you want to giggle. You perservered, though. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I’m sleeping,” you shot back in a purposefully quiet tone. “This is my bed.”

“No, it isn’t,” Jaebum replied matter-of-factly. “I built this.”

“Technically, you broke the bed frame that I built,” you responded. “It’s only fair I take this one. You can sleep on the mattress in my room.”

“That’s now how this works!” he insisted, although, a small part in his mind recognized that you were right. He would have done the exact same thing had your roles been switched.

“It is now,” you countered. “I’m sleeping here.”

“No—what the fuck?” he continued to protest even though, at this point, it was clear that you weren’t going to budge. “You can’t just sleep in my room.”

He made this too easy for you as you countered, without missing a beat, “you can’t just break people’s beds.”

“Really?” Jaebum retorted. “This is how we’re going to do this? What are we, twelve?”

“You tell me,” you said, snuggling your face into the pillow to tease him further. “You’re the one who broke—”

“Alright, I got it!” he shouted defeatedly, and you heard footsteps which had to mean that he was walking closer to the door. You were so close to winning. “Just for the record, I’m not giving up. You might sleep here tonight but it’s a one-time thing.”

“I’m staying here until you fix my bed,” you said. “If it takes you one night, then I’ll gladly leave tomorrow.”

Groaning instead of replying, Jaebum slammed the door of his bedroom shut and headed to your room. You could hear the floor tiles creak as he walked around, probably trying to decide what to do with the broken bed frame that occupied half of the room, and the mattress that occupied the other half.

Smiling a little to yourself, you opened your eyes and took in Jaebum’s room, even though you couldn’t see anything due to the darkness. You didn’t really want to see anything specific, you just glanced at the few details that differentiated Jaebum’s room from yours – like the soft light on his wireless router blinking on the floor in the corner of the room – simply to prove to yourself that you had just defeated him in however petty of an argument the two of you had had.

You may have technically lost the bet, but taking over Jaebum’s bed was certainly a winning move.

You had a free day on Monday because the gallery you worked in wasn’t open today, so, after falling asleep at three last night, you expected to stay in bed until midday at the very least. That was not what happened at all, however, and less than five hours after you had fallen asleep, you were woken up by a jarring noise coming from the kitchen.

At first, you tried to ignore it, flipping to your other side and even covering your head with the blanket, but the sound didn’t seem to stop and the more you anticipated its ending, the louder it seemed to get. It was starting to feel as if someone was drilling a hole inside of your brain.

Groaning, you tossed the blanket off of yourself and got out of the bed, throwing the door of the room open.

Right as you glanced at the source of the noise – both of the blenders you had were whirring loudly on the counter in the kitchen – you also noticed Jaebum’s wide smile.

“Morning!” he called out, his smile widening when he saw your sour features.

“What the hell are you doing?!” you yelled, your voice rough with irritation.

“I’m off for a run. I always run before work on Monday mornings,” he said, stepping around the kitchen island to reveal the athletic attire he was wearing. Actually, it was the same outfit he had slept with since he couldn’t exactly change into anything else, but he was still gloating. “I need a smoothie before I go.”

“Why the two blenders, then?” you asked even though you knew very well why he was using two blenders. This was clearly his payback for you kicking him out of his bed last night.

“I didn’t know which one was mine,” he explained, an expression of exactly zero remorse decorating his face. “We have identical ones, you see, so I just figured I’d turn them both on at the same time and check if I can tell them apart.”

“You fucking asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, still smiling. “Did it wake you up?”

“Fuck you, Jaebum.”

You could hear his laughter as you turned around and you had to talk yourself out of hurling the first thing you saw at him. Powering through it, you walked back to his bedroom, slamming the door shut.

Grumpy and irritated, you sat down on the bed. You listened to him keep the blenders going for another few minutes – no doubt wanting to ensure you didn’t go back to sleep – and then prepared to wait until he got out of the apartment so you could leave the room. However, it was the door of this room that Jaebum opened in a few minutes instead.

“I came for my sneakers,” he explained and then headed for one of the boxes at the far end of the room. You debated throwing the contents of it out of the window when he left. “You can go back to sleep, I won’t disturb you anymore.”

“Fuck off, asshole,” you shot back, swear words becoming your sword and your shield of armor whenever you were angry.

Jaebum didn’t feel offended by your words in the slightest, though. If anything, he found your comments endearing.

“Alright,” he said, sneakers in hand. “I’m going now. I should be back in about forty-five minutes unless it’s impossible to jog here with all the puddles from yesterday’s rain.”

“I hope you fall into the biggest one,” you said, your ill-humored wish amusing him further. “Hopefully you know how to swim.”

“Don’t worry if I don’t. I’ll be sure to give you a call so you can come save me,” he teased, giving you a wink. “A little lifeguard roleplay, hmm?”

His wink had already made you livid but the last comment is what got you to stand up from the bed and glare at him.

“Get out before I start throwing things,” you threatened, meaning every word.

Your whole overreaction entertained him to no end – that, and the fact that there weren’t many heavy things you could have thrown – and he laughed one more time before finally leaving the room.

A few minutes later, you finally heard the apartment door close; Jaebum had left.

He was truly testing your patience today but he had started a war by waking you up this morning and there was no way you were going to go down easy now. Childish or not, this was a game that two could play.

             chapter directory

[aboysbestfriendishismum]

Chapter 51 - Elvis, the beard and Schroedinger’s kisses (Part Two)

In the previous chapter: Eddie wouldn't want to leave San Diego and his house, but he must go and follow his band for the tour. He calls Meg to see if she's got news from Angie and when he finds out that the girl has called her friend, but not him, he takes it kind of bad but doesn't think anything else of it. Matt and Meg have a clarifying conversation where he apologises for his behaviour and reveals he's got a new girlfriend. Meg's not exactly happy about the news. Angie's finally back in Seattle, learns that Eddie has called but doesn't call him back and tries not to think about what happened and about the kiss, which she doesn't mention to Meg. Once she's back to work at Roxy's, Angie gets an unexpected visit by Kurt and Dave, who asks her out again.

**

“Anyway your hair is great. Is it something permanent or...?” Dave is at the counter, saying goodbye before leaving, his lovely friend a few steps behind.

“It's just a coloring shampoo with highlights, it'll go away by washing it...”

“Well they look amazing on you!”

“Suuuure and they have this very... psychobilly vibe in this context.” Kurt shares his mind, points his index finger up and turns it around, as to point at the diner's style “No need to say, the psycho part suits you the most”

“Ha-ha”

“Ok, back to the important stuff: what's your decision?” Dave inquires and it's like he was jumping in place, but keeping his feet well grounded on the floor.

“How can I say no to you?”

“Well, like you did when you dumped him, for example?” Cobain answers my rethorical question and acts confused when both his friend and I give him an annoyed look “What? I said it was an example!”

“You're coming then! Great!” Dave shrugs Kurt's comment off in a second and flashes me another big smile of his. One that makes me think that maybe it would all be much easier if I hadn't dumped him. Or maybe not?

“Yes, but I don't wanna stay out late, ok?”

“Don't worry, you just have to stay for the concert... and a little after the concert, can you?”

“All these fine feelings... you'd like to know my ears are bleeding”

“No, Kurt, we're not interested really. See you at the Off Ramp at 8 then” first I address the singer, who's dramatically wrapping his scarf around his head, then Dave.

“I can come and get you if you want”

“Don't worry, we can meet there”

**

The time at the diner goes unusually fast. Maybe because it was one of the few times I wished it wouldn't pass. The longer I say out of home, the easiest it is to avoid certain phone calls... I finally get back home and as I enter the apartment and see it's all dark inside I think I got away with it for tonight, at least until the door of my roommate's bedroom opens wide right when I'm walking in front of it.

“Hey Meg, still awake?”

“Mmm” she mumbles as she trots through the hallway into the kitchen.

A coincidence? I don't think so. I remain puzzled in the middle of the hallway, until I can hear her turning on the tap. Simple thirst. I shrug and go straight into my room.

“Good night” I whisper as I hear her barefoot steps coming closer again and her reply consists into getting into my bedroom and grab me by the arm as I'm taking my pyjiama from under the pillow. Needless to say, I'm about to have a stroke.

“FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!”

“Angie, you can't act like this”

“Sure I can! You scared me to death!”

“I mean with Eddie. Here” Meg lets me go only after she's put the phone in my hand.

“What the hell does it mean?”

“I get you're disappointed after San Diego, but you can't avoid him forever”

“Meg what the... look, you're making a fuss for nothing” I try to keep calm as I stare at the phone as if she'd just given me an ignited bomb. Did he call again?

“Shut up and call Eddie” she orders but doesn't look so threatening given her half shut eyes and sleepy voice.

“But... I called him already” I blatantly lie and I'm usually very good at it. It shoud be easier with her senses blurred by sleep.

“When?”

“Tonight” I try and give her the phone back but she doesn't move an inch.

“When?”

“Tonight! During my cigarette break”

“From work?”

“Yeah, I left him a message so he won't worry” I give her the phone and this time she reluctantly takes it.

“Uhm... good”

“Ok, good night Meg” I take my pyjiama and quickly walk into the bathroom.

I don't like lying to Meg. No, that's not true. I like it. Well, it's not that I like it but I'm doing it... gladly? I mean, I'm not glad but... I just do it and don't feel guilty for not telling her about the kiss. The kiss. Did it ever happen anyway? Maybe I dreamt about it, like seller, Eddie drowning, Depeche Mode and all the rest. It could have been just a creation of my twisted mind, from the Sonic Youth awakening to the curious lady on the bus. What if I'm still dreaming? Maybe going to bed and sleeping it off is the best way to... wake up! If I still want to.

He won't call anymore anyway.

I get out of the bathroom and check the way. I go to bed and rest my head on the pillow, falling instantly asleep. When I open my eyes I can't say if it's been five minutes or five days but I know for sure that it's not night anymore since the sunlight is coming through the window blinds. And after a few seconds I understand it must not be so late because I can hear Meg's voice and this means she hasn't left yet. A spiderweb in the corner next to the door catches my attention and I'm about to make the equation spiderweb=spider, when a bigger upcoming danger shows up as my friend's voice becomes clearer.

“But didn't she call yesterday?”

Shit.

“Oh. I must have misunderstood then. Huh? No, it's not like she told me she did... it's just me that... I mean, I saw her going to her room with the phone in her hand so I put two and two together and thought she'd call you. Surely she wanted to do it, she must have fallen asleep before hehe. What? No, I'm on the other phone” Meg stutters and I can almost see her as she halts and goes back towards the entrance, where the small table with the main phone is. He can't see you, Meg! But trust me, he doesn't need to see you to see your bullshit. She can't lie but I appreciate the fact she wants to help me despite finding out I told her a lie.

“Wait, I'm gonna call her. Oh no, don't worry, she has to wake up anyway. Ok, just wait, let me get her for you, just one sec!” I move the duvet out of the way not so delicately, basically throwing it on the floor, and after two seconds I'm standing right in front of the door, with Patti Smith looking straight at me with a judgemental look from the poster. I know, I know, I'm ridiculous and childish, can't we discuss this later, auntie?

“Hey Angie, are you awa-” Meg slowly gets in and I cover her mouth with one hand, make sure she's left the phone in the other room and drag her inside, shutting the door behind her.

“I'm not here, ok?” I tell her.

“Mm?” she can just mumble with surprised eyes.

“Please, help me” I beg her as she tries to get free and answer.

“Wh..?”

“I'm gonna explain later, please...” Meg looks up and nods yes. At that signal I can't help letting her go.

“What the fuck” she mouths a moment before disappearing again through the hallway.

I discretely follow her steps... she could still change her mind and pass me the phone. In the meantime I try and put all things together in my mind to prepare myself for the big explanation I'm expected to give soon after. 'Cause I'll have to tell her everything now and she'll think I'm stupid because nothing of this makes sense. I mean, it's perfectly logical to me but it automatically becomes absurd the moment I try to mentally translate it into words to communicate to another human being.

“Yeah, she must have left early, I didn't hear her...” I really hope I'll never commit a crime but if I do I hope I won't have Meg as my only alibi because she's so little credible that she'd have an innocent person condemned.

“Ok, tell me everything. No, wait, the pen doesn't work, I'm gonna take another. I'll be back in a second huh!” Meg gets out of the kitchen and walks me by shaking her head then getting into her room, then she comes out a moment later with a blue pen between her fingers.

“Here I am. Huh-uh... Until tomorrow morning? Ok, I'll tell her. No, not at all! You know how she is, it's just she works stupid shifts and maybe she thinks she'd bother you. Ok, I'll ter her this too. Look, I'm writing it! Angie never bothers. Ok? Hehe bye Eddie have a nice day. Yes, don't worry! Bye”

I take a deep breath and walk towards my destiny. I enter the kitchen with my hands already raised.

“What the fuck happened, can you tell me?” Meg is already waiting for me, sitting on the table with her arms folded.

“It's... it's complicated”

“Did he hurt you?” she asks seriously and I basically laugh at her face, then crawl on a chair.

“Who? Eddie? Of course not, are you kiddin?”

“Was he an asshole to you? Did he get back with his ex?”

“No, at least, I don't think so, not as long as I was there...”

“But something must have happened, right?”

“Well, yeah...”

“Did you have a fight?”

“No”

“Did you tell him about your feelings and-”

“Haha what feelings?”

“Shut up. Did you tell him and he rejected you?”

“I didn't tell him shit!”

“Did he bring up the thing?”

“We didn't talk about... the thing”

“What did you talk about then?”

“We didn't talk”

“Did he let you know without telling? Look, Eddie cares for you, it's evident. Maybe he's got second thoughts because of the age gap and I can understand it, I mean, it's a positive thing. It shows he's a mature and responsible guy”

“There was no talk and no rejection, Meg”

“Did he tell you I love you and then took it back, like Jerry?”

“No!”

“Angie, would you please tell me what the fuck happened or I'll have to try and guess for another couple of hours?”

“He... well...”

“Told you he's gay?”

“No!”

“So what the hell did he do to you?!!”

“He kissed me”

“WHAT?!” Meg jumps off the table so fast that she almost flips it over together with my chair.

“He gave me a kiss. Well, more than one actually, multiple kisses but all together, in the same occasion, so I think we can call it a kiss, I think they count as a single act”

“EDDIE KISSED YOU! And you tell me just like this?”

“How should I tell you?”

“Most of all, you only tell me now?!”

“I'm not even sure it happened for real...”

“ANGIE, I'M GONNA KILL YOU, I SWEAR TO GOD”

“It was a weird moment”

“Did he kiss you, yes or no?”

“I think he did”

“YOU THINK?”

“Yeah, I mean, at this point, after thinking and rethinking all things through, I think I can affirm he 90% actually kissed me”

“What the fuck does it mean, I mean, were you stoned? Were you blindfolded and ignore who put his tongue into your mouth?”

“I didn't mention tongues”

“Did he kiss you without tongue?”

“Well, no, I mean, both with and without”

“OHMYGOD”

“Why? I didn't think it was such an important detail”

“The detail is not important you asshole! I mean, he kissed you. You and Eddie really kissed”

“Yeah”

“And when? What happened? How did it go? Come on, tell me!”

“Didn't you say details are not important?”

“Don't be your usual pain in the ass self and tell me everything”

I spill the beans, also because there's nothing else I can do. I start from the beginning, that is from my arrival in San Diego.

“Did he kiss you on the beach right in front of Jerry Cantrell? Tell me yes”

“No”

I tell her about our touristic tour of the city.

“Did he kiss you at Subway's? On the bench at the park?”

“No”

I add details about the night at the disco I hadn't told her before.

“Did he kiss you while you were doing The Hustle?”

“Noo!”

I try to cut the too long story short by quickly recapping the day with Dina, the show and the after show beach party.

“Did he kiss you backstage? On the beach under the moonlight while the others were skinny dipping in the ocean?”

“No”

“Goodnight kiss when you got back home then?”

“No, Meg”

“Angie, I'm losing my patience, when the fuck did he kiss you?”

“I'm getting there!”

“Just tell me, please”

“Umph... at the bus station before I left”

“You mean... he had two whole days and he kissed you a minute before saying goodbye?”

“Yes...”

“What a dickhead”

“Well, he felt like doing that there and then!”

“Yeah but he's a dick, he had you suffer until the last second”

“That's not true”

“Yes, it is”

“I didn't suffer, they were two fantastic days! I mean, good, two very good days, nice”

“And the kiss? What was it like?”

“Well..”

“Fantastic? Or good? Or just another nice kiss?” she teases me quoting an old conversation of ours about a totally different kiss with someone else.

“It wasn't nice, it was... it was... I don't know, I wouldn't even know how to describe it, it's like I lost my senses for a few minutes”

“Oh Angie”

“I mean, not all senses, not like anesthesia, because I felt everything extremely well”

“Hahaha I can imagine”

“It was... it was electricity, heat, confusion, wind...”

“Wind?” Meg asks and I almost laugh at the coincidence...

“Yeah, much like when the wind makes you lose control while you're walking and blows so heavily against your face that takes your breath away for a second and you almost feel it in your stomach... Like when you dive down on a rollercoaster”

“You took a nice ride on Eddie The Rollercoaster then”

“But that's different because you're already expecting it. This instead... it was more like when you're going down the stairs and take a false step and without realising you tumble and find yourself with your ass on the ground. But I never got to the ground. Eddie was kissing me and I kept falling and falling and that's it”

“And what about Tom?”

“Tom?”

“Jones? Did you hear him?”

“No”

“Hahaha thank god, I'd be seriously worried then!”

“I heard Dave?”

“Dave? Your ex?”

“Gahan, from Depeche Mode. I even saw him dancing actually...”

“Did you and Vedder exchange psychedelics together with saliva?”

“I was present and absent at the same time, I was there, but in a different form, a different state. Like evaporated water or melted ice. More the first, because I felt light. I was evaporating. Well, maybe sublimating would be more correct...”

“And you still have the guts to claim you've got no feelings for Eddie?” Meg interrupts my nonsense pondering with something that makes even less sense.

“I... I have feelings but, well, it's just... I don't really know what they are yet”

“You don't really know?”

“I'm... trying to figure out!”

“I think you can see it from fucking space what the fuck you're feeling for him, Angie”

“Well, I'm the limited one then because I don't get it”

“You know exactly what those feelings are, you just don't want to admit it”

“It's all a big mess”

“Why? Are you afraid? Is that why you're avoiding him?”

“I'm not avoiding him...”

“You literally asked me to tell him you were not here, how do you call it?”

“I'm just postponing a conversation none of us wants to have right now”

Sure, he called you ten times 'cause he doesn't want to talk to you at all, it seems logic”

“He doesn't want to but he feels he has to, 'cause he's a nice guy”

“Nice guy? Excuse me, what do you think he wants to tell you?”

“What do you think? That it was all a mistake and we should forget it”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Hahaha call me silly, but I think he wants to tell you he can't wait to take another ride on your rollercoaster” Meg mimes a rollercoaster with her hand, which lands straight against my right hip.

“Stop it!”

“Or on your windmills” she goes on and pretends to kiss me, then blows against my face.

“You're not funny”

“Well you're making me laugh a lot, you know”

“Eddie and I... it can't be! It's impossible” I get up and walk towards the hallway, my roommate tagging along as she really can't understand.

“Why?”

“Because that's the way it is”

“That's not an answer”

“Because... because we've got nothing to do with each other”

“Oh Jesus...” Meg sighs, walking past me right on the doorway of my room and diving face down on my bed.

“I'm not telling he's better than me. Let's forget for a moment the fact that he is. I'm not saying it's because I am... I don't know, a dusky-capped flycatcher and he's an Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross. It's because we're actually two very different things, like... like... a bollard and a poem by Robert Frost”

“What?” Meg looks up from my duvet and gives me a puzzled look.

“An obliterated bus ticket and... the rings of Saturn”

“Is it a bad sign that in both statements I can easily say who is what for you?”

“You're getting into my logic”

“Please, let me out! You've already given me headache” Meg stretches her arms towards me as I'm still standing in the center of the room, trying to convince my audience that consists in one single person.

“What would Eddie do with me?”

“I don't know, maybe writing a poem by Robert Frost on a bollard with a permanent marker?”

“Using my terrible metaphors against me won't change my mind”

“Eddie knows exactly what he wants to do with you and he already gave you a preview from what I heard”

“Eddie confused friendship with something else, that's all”

“No, it's you who are mistaking a guy in love for a confused person”

“In love?! Hahahahah please!”

“It's your brain that evaporated first, Angie, let me tell you”

“I bet Eddie thinks he's made a stupid mistake” I suggest trying to shake her hand but she shooed mine away.

“Of course he is! You're avoiding him. If I kissed a guy and he ignored me for days, I'd think that too”

“I say he thought of it in spite of my following actions”

“I say you just keep repeating this story to try and convince yourself, whereas you know exactly there's another possibility”

“Of course I know” Meg managed to make me shut up, it takes me a while to reply.

“Ha! See?”

“The two possibilities coexist”

“Exactly”

“And will keep coexisting and being both valid, at least until I don't... observe the system”

“What system?”

“This portion of universe”

“The fuck are you talking about, Angie?”

“Quantum physics. Do you know Schroedinger's cat paradox?” I ask her as I sit beside her on my bed.

“The cat that's dead or alive in the box?”

“Actually, it's both dead and alive until you don't open the box”

“So are you the cat? Or Eddie?”

“Eddie kissed me, then I left and haven't seen or heard of him ever since. It's like I closed him in the box, right? And now we're in a quantum superposition situation, that is two possibilities overlapping”

“Remorseful Eddie and Eddie in love?”

“Yeah... well, more or less”

“The cat is both alive or dead until you check inside the box, so in the same way...”

“Eddie's both remorseful and, ehm, infatuated until I talk to him”

“That's obvious”

“So you must have understood why I wanna talk to him as late as possible”

“Actually... no”

“Oh shit, Meg, follow me! It's Schroedinger's kiss, right? In this scenario, the kiss is both something with a meaning and a mistake that doesn't mean anything”

“Ok...”

“And if I don't talk to Eddie, it'll go on being like that, right?”

“Right”

“And maybe half an alternative is all I've got left, isn't it? What if it's the best I can expect? I'd better hold it, don't you think?”

“You mean you're not calling him because you want to postpone your disappointment?”

“Bingo!”

“And couldn't you just say it like that instead of giving me a headache with this quantum stuff?” she jokes shoving me.

“You forgot someone here has difficulties in admitting things in a linear way...”

“If you're afraid of being disappointed... it means you've got hope!”

“Of course I've got hope! It'd be much easier if I hadn't! But no, there's always a small bitchy part of me who hopes for all these absurdities to become true, that's my problem”

“Once you become Eddie's girlfriend, you'll laugh about all this, Angie” Meg shakes her head and gets up from my bed, walks up to the photocollage Eddie made for me and points right at him in one of the pictures, which captures my whole attention for a good couple of minutes.

“Trying to raise my hopes won't help me”

“So what? Is it better to wallow yourself in a 50% possibility?”

“Still better than 100% certainty”

“Depends on what's the certainty”

“The only logical one”

“And Eddie? Don't you think about him?”

“What do you believe I've been thinking for two days? And who are we talking about?”

“I mean, quantum shit aside, and leaving out the eventual sentimental consequences, you two are friends and friends deserve sincerity and respect”

“Yeah, I know...”

“A friend has been looking for you, for days, and you avoid him with lies, do you think it's a correct behaviour?”

“No, I didn't mean to justify myself, I was only explaining the way I think”

“You think with your ass. Whatever is the reason he wants to talk to you, you're disrespecting him”

“It's hard...”

“Doing the right thing is never easy.” Meg gets out of my room again, then comes back a minute later “Now take the phone, dial the number of the hotel in Santa Rosa Eddie gave to me and open this fucking box” Meg physically puts the phone in my hands once again, together with the notepad he scribbled on while she was talking to Ed.

“Now?”

“Now”

“Now I have to go and get dressed, and go to class”

“Call him while you're getting dressed, it's a chordless phone, no chord, the word says it, you can take it anywhere with you, even in the bathroom”

“Listen, I promise I'll call him later”

“Bullshit, I don't believe you”

“Really, I'll call him by the end of the day, for real, you convinced me”

“You'll call him tonight in front of Grace and I. On speakerphone. Fuck, Grace will literally lose her mind once she'll know you and Eddie kissed haha. Perfect timing for our girls night!”

“Oh err, by the way, I wanted to tell you I won't be here tonight unfortunately”

“What do you mean you won't be here?! What's with this bullshit?”

“I'm busy”

“I was joking about speakerphone! Listen, I've just thought what we can do: Grace calls Stone to have a chat, then you and I chime in and ask where the others are and turn it into a group call like the other night. So technically you'll speak with Eddie, but not alone”

“I'm going out with Dave”

“So you can break the ice and the deadlock you're in. And the kiss, you can talk about it another time, maybe in person... Sorry, I didn't understand who you're going out with”

“Dave”

“Gahan?”

“Haha no, Grohl! We're going to a concert”

“You mean you're afraid the cat is dead so you just go and take another?”

“Hahaha but no!”

“Resurrecting a cat you had already buried? Really?”

“It's not what you think”

“Uh so you're not going out with your ex, while the guy who kissed you pines for you?”

“No, because it's not a date! And no one is pining...”

“At this point, why don't you call Jerry too? You could have dinner together tomorrow”

“Ok listen, I'm gonna have a shower now, if you wanna know the truth just wait for me and I'll tell you, if you don't well just keep on making fun of me, as you wish”

“Uhmm both things are tempting, I think I'll just stop talking to you to have them coexist so I can enjoy them both in my fucking quantum system” she jokes as I leave the room and flips her the bird.

“Fuck you, Meg”

****************************************************************************************************************************

It must be cool I think. Having your workplace right outside your home. It'd be my dream. Or maybe not. On one hand it'd be more practical, I'd never be late, well, almost never; but on the othe r hand I'd have the impression I'd never had a real break, my head would be on work even when I'm not working. You look outside your window or get out of home in the afternoon and there is the minimart sign, watching you, and you start thinking about the upcoming deliveries, the new displays to assemble and the technician to call for the fridge. God no! In this case the proximity turns out as something positive, since I simply cross the road and I'm already pressing my finger on the buzzer of the McDonald-Pacifico residence. My finger basically starts to atrophy on the fucking button because after a quarter of an hour nobody has answered yet. It was today, wasn't it? Maybe Meg left for a while. The lights are on though...

“No point ringing Grace, it's broken” I'm so focused on the fourth floor's windows that I don't notice Angie showing up on the doorway.

“Hey, welcome back... ex friend who ditches on us at the very last moment!” I mess her hair up and give her a quick hug.

“Thanks. Did Meg tell you?”

“Yeah, she anticipated you'd have ditched us tonight”

“Did she also tell you it's for a good cause?”

“Sure, unless I wouldn't even talk to you right now!”

“Did she tell you only this?” she asks, suddenly lowering her voice, who knows why.

Right in that moment a car horn honks twice behind our backs and we turned around simultaneously.

“I see, your date has arrived”

“That is, my companion in misfortune. Gotta go. Have a good time and easy with Meg's puryfying masks!” Angie rolls her eyes and smiles at me before walking away to the car, waiting for her on the opposite side of the road.

I enter from the glass door left open by Angie and take the elevator. I'm sorry she won't be with us tonight but I feel a lot of curious anectodes will come out and we'll still discuss them in the future with her too. In today's menu, Meg promised juicy updates about Angie and her but she didn't tell me anything in advance. We'll see! By the way, she asked me news about Stone and I but there's not that much to say. She keeps asking but, I mean, doesn't she realize we're not even in the same state right now? The flame is neither on or off, it's just on stand-by. I get out of the elevator and walk through the long hallway, kind of creepy because of a flickering lightbulb. I turn around the corner and basically find myself face to face to Meg, who's leaving the apartment with her purse in her hand.

“Don't tell me you're ditching me too and the evening is cancelled because in that case I won't talk to you and your heartbreaker roommate anymore”

“Hahaha no, I'm just going outside to wait for the pizza guy, because now the buzzer's broken too in this shitty building”

“Yeah, I met Angie who opened the door for me or I'd still be out in the cold”

“Come on, get in, he should be here in a minute, I'll be back soon. And prepare yourself psychologically cause I've got a lot of absurd stuff to tell you!”

“I can say we won't watch the movie” I smile as I enter the apartment, whereas Meg walks away, buttoning up her jacket.

“We won't need the movie, trust me!”

Salt lick by Tad is the first record of the evening I decide to put on, although the evening hasn't started yet, considering Meg's still outside waiting for the pizza guy. I look outside the window to see if someone's coming, but nothing for now. I sit on the couch and start playing with the beer cans that are on the coffee table, I line them up, first in rows of two, then of three until one is left out and I open it for me. I get up again and walk around the house to waste some time. Actually I don't just look around, I go straight to one point, the fridge in the kitchen, and start checking it for something new, which I immediately find. A magnet with a panda, an orca and a smiling sun with a hat, surrounded by palms and the writing SAN DIEGO. The magnet itself holds a retro-style postcard, showing a beach at sunset, a line of parked old cars, each one with a surfboard over the roof, and four silhouettes of surfers, two guys and two girls. I knew she'd have addes something to her collection. I'm examining the long shadows of the surfers on the postcard when I'm startled by the sudden ring of the phone. I wait a little before answering, after an inner debate, I'm not at my place after all... But what if it's important? What if it's the pizza place calling to say they're late?

“Hello?”

“Oh thank god! I thought I had to sit through a whole conversation with Meg and Angie about shit before I could finally talk to you” the voice on the other hand only makes me regret I didn't answer at the first ring.

“Hey Stone”

“Hi, love. What's up? Are you still sober? Do you already have nail polish on your feet?”

Great.

Couldn't he just be sarcastic? Why does he have to add things? Two sentences, two uncomfortable things. I'm already changing my mind, I'd have better not answer.

“Hehe no. I mean, yes, I'm sober and no, my toenails are... are just like before, everything's the same”

“Are you ok? You sound weird... Is Meg threatening you with eyebrow tweezers? If you can't speak don't risk it, tell me something in a secret code, something that would sound absolutely natural in a conversation with your boyfriend like They shot Tommy in the face so his mother couldn't give him an open coffin at the funeral...”

“Hehe no, it's alright, I'm just a little lost. Meg's not here anyway, she's outside waiting for the pizza delivery guy. Broken buzzer”

“Yeah, I guess this sounds even more natural. I'll call 911”

“What about you? Aren't you playing tonight?”

“Yeah, actually we're in the dressing room, that is also some kind of extension of the toilet”

“Or vice versa” I can barely hear it but the voice is unmistakable.

“Or vice versa, like Eddie says, we still didn't understand”

“Look! Here's Mike Patton's phone number!” Jeffrey chimes in too in this messy phone conversation.

“Sorry babe, I gotta hang up and call him immediately. It surely is his number, after all there's no more reliable source than a writing on the toilet wall in a club in Sacramento”

“Wasn't it the dressing room?” I chuckle and for a moment I think about asking him for that number too. Would he take it bad?

“I told you, we still haven't understood!”

“Faith No More played there, it can't be a bad place”

“Mr Bungle I think. Jokes aside, it's not bad, I think it's one of the coolest places we've been so far, although it's as big as your apartment”

“And it's packed!” Jeff shouts, probably swallowing the receiver.

“I have to agree with what the caveman said. It's full of people... who are here for Alice in Chains of course”

“How do you know? Don't put yourself down like that” I try and console him, although I know he doesn't need it.

“I'm not putting myself down, it's the truth. 99% they don't know us, we have to conquer them”

“So go and conquer them!” I encourage him and only after a while a realize that it might sound like I want to end the call now. But I don't want to. Really! I'm perfectly at ease in this conversation, when he doesn't remind me once every five minutes that he's my boyfriend.

“We'll do that, dear. What about pizza? Not arrived yet? And alcohol? Are you still sober?”

“Haha your friends will think I'm some kind of alcoholic! Anyway, no pizza. And now that I think about it, I'm so hungry!”

“Come on, resist. I couldn't eat anything right now, my stomach's in knots, you know it's always like that for me before I get on a stage”

“Hehe yeah, you told me. Don't be nervous”

“I'm not nervous, I'm realistic. I do my job but there are other four variables for the success of the show, you know what I mean”

“Hehe four variables in flesh and bones, who disturb you while you're calling me?”

“Exactly. But they left me alone now, they must have gone searching for the other guitarist since we're on in like half an hour”

“Talking about sobriety...”

“You get it. Anyway would it sound too sappy and inappropriate if I told you that I miss you and wish you were here with me?”

“Yes, totally inappropriate, Stone” I have the feeling I held my breath before answering. What if my silence was too long? Would he believe it was just a dramatic pause?

“Ok, I won't tell you then. Oops, one variable is coming back. Eddie's here, we must stop with our extreme phone sex for now, sorry babe”

“Fuck... Stone!” I hear Vedder mumble something that sounds like embarrassment, whereas Stone giggles in the receiver.

“I was clearly joking, do you think that if I had hardcore sex on the phone with my girlfriend I'd tell you?”

My girlfriend, yeah, let's say it again, maybe the people in the back didn't know already.

“Leave Eddie alone, don't make him uncomfortable!”

“What? Now?” Stone's speaking but clearly not to me “What do you have to tell her? Uh ok, wait! Sorry Grace, Eddie wants to talk to you a sec, I'll put him on”

“He wants to talk... to me?” I don't think I'm the object of his interest, but it's probably the absent girl of the night. As far as Meg told me, neither Angie's surprise visit or her change in style were enough to wake the handsome surfer up. And she's kinda avoiding him now. And I totally understand her, I mean, I know her and she'll surely act as if it's nothing because 'what, I don't like Eddie' and 'I went to San Diego to see the band' and shit like that. She was surely expecting something from this but he didn't do anything. She must be so sad. What if his ex girlfriend got in the way? That would be a heavy blow, even for the always (apparently) indifferent Angie.

“If he tries hardcore phone sex with you, tell me, ok?”

“Hahaha shut up and let me talk to him!”

“Have a good time, love”

“You too and... break a leg!” why does he always have to add something in the end?!

“Ehm hi Grace” Eddie's deep voice sounds a little higher than normal, it must be that he's uncomfortable. Or impatient? Surely he wants to know about Angie. And for like the 18th time he'll be told she's not here. And it serves him right! I mean, it's ok if you're shy and your head's full of doubts but here it's about keep a girl hanging, a girl who clearly has a crush on him. Because I wanna believe it's just doubts and he's not leading her on on purpose just to be a dick, because in that case he'd be a real piece of shit.

“Hi Eddie, how's it going? What's up?” now I'm gonna keep him on the phone for an hour asking him random questions, I wanna see how long it takes before he asks me about Angie.

“Oh, everything's fine, except for stage fright, but that's normal for me” aw no, it wouldn't be fair, turture him like that.

“Don't worry, you'll do great. I guess you wanna talk to Angie, right?” also because I've just had the greatest idea. The perfect system to punish him.

“Uhm well, yeah, actually... it looks like she's pretty impossible to find lately”

“And you keep on not finding her, she's not here tonight”

“Oh really? Great, hehe, I was expecting that...” he nervously answers and I'm almost sorry to do what I'm about to do. Almost.

“You're a little unlucky, Eddie”

“Yeah, I noticed that. Well, I'll try and call her at the diner. I didn't want to disturb her at work, but it looks like it's the only way to actually speak to her so...”

“Oh but she's not at Roxy's”

“Working the nightshift at Westlake's? On a Saturday?” Eddie sounds honestly confused and I feel like I'm playing like a cat and mouse.

“Hehe no, Eddie, she's not working. No justification for ditching us, that little bitch!”

“Oh! I see, and... ehm, where-”

“And ditching us for a guy!”

“What?” I think I caught the exact moment the jealousy switch snapped.

“You don't ever ditch friends, for any guy, don't you think?”

“What guy?”

“Uhm yeah, you know him! Her ex, sort of, the one who plays the drums...”

“Dave?” the sound of his voice as he pronounces that name scaries me: red alert!

“Yeah, from what I know, there're going to a concert”

“I see. Thank you, I'll get Stone for you, ok? Bye”

“Ok, by-... bye Ed?” as I reply a loud thud blows out my eardrum. I dope he didn't throw the receiver on Stone's head. Anyway, now we'll see. If this doesn't rock the boat then I don't know what to do with that guy!

“Excuse me, babe, what did you tell my singer exactly? He just stormed out like a fury...” he doesn't sound like someone who's just been hit by a phone, so I relax.

“Nothing, he wanted to talk to Angie but...”

“Let me guess: she's not there”

“Exactly”

“Ok, I couldn't care less but please, let him talk to her. I like it when he's aggressive on stage but he's starting to be intractable off stage too...”

“It's not our fault if they never find each other...” I innocently reply. I don't feel like sharing my evil intrigues with Stone, although I think he'd appreciate them.

“Whatever, who cares. Let's go back to us. You wanted to know what I'm wearing, right?”

“Haha no. And by the way, Meg's just arrived with pizza, I gotta go” my friend finally gets back home with two steamy hot pizza boxes and puts them on the coffee table, right in front of me.

“HI STONE!” she yells in my direction “Did I interrupt something?” she adds in a low voice.

After some more small talk the phone call ends, I hang up and silently look at Meg as she takes off her jacket and throws herself on the couch right next to me, opens the boxes and a beer can.

“What's up? Why do you have that smile plastered on your face? Does Stone have this effect on you?” she winks.

“Haha no, my friend. Stone's got nothing to do with it this time. I'm the one who had a certain effect. And not on him. On someone else”

“On who?”

“I think I set a good mechanism in motion, this time I have to compliment myself” I add patting myself on my shoulder.

“How many did you have already?” she asks suspiciously pointing at the beer I'm holding with my right hand.

“This is the first and only one! Anyway, let me explain to you why I'm a genius...”

**************************************************************************************************************************

“There she is! She's arrived!” Grace finally moves away from the windowsill and closes the window shut.

“It was about time, at least you'll stop letting the cold in. It's already freezing here...” I mumble as I rearrange the blanket over my shoulders.

“Technically, it's not the cold getting in but the heat going out, anyway...”

“You don't need to act like the Angie of the day, the original's here” I joke as I get up from the couch.

“Thank god, the waiting's killing me. I can't wait to solve this mess” Grace has been pacing the living room back and forth for a few hours, basically with no interruptions.

“Ok, come on, it's not your fault. I mean, not only. I could have been more specific and told you what happened between Eddie and Angie”

“What does it even mean? You didn't have to tell me anything, after all it's all Angie's business. It's me, I shouldn't have intruded. What have I done?”

“You had good intentions and did it for a good cause”

“Sure, making Eddie jealous to make him come clean about his feeling once and for all... Unfortunately he already did in San Diego and what did I do? I told him his girl was out with another guy!”

“And not just an average guy!” I know, I'm twisting a knife in her too, but I can't help making fun of Grace. She's so sweet in her feeling like shit.

“Her fucking ex! How long does it take to her to come upstairs?” the girl looks at the watch, as if she was timing our friend.

“You know she never takes the elevator, it depends on how much breath she's got left after the concert”

“And what if Eddie fucked another chick for revenge? What if he goes back to his ex?” Grace goes on desperately, while the noise of the key in the lock is the signal of Angie's arrival.

“Here she is, thank god. So we can just solve this thing and you can relax, I can't stand you anymore” I can barely end the sentence when Grace has already launched herself towards the doorway.

“ANGIE, I FUCKED UP!”

“Hello to you too, Grace... what did you do? Did Meg go too far with waxing?” Angie gives a more than perplexed look at the girl, who's basically cornered her and pushed her against the closed door.

“Haha no, none of that”

“I WISH, ANGIE, I WISH IT WAS SOMETHING LIKE THAT!” Grace yells at her face.

“Stone would liked that for sure” I joke as I come close to them.

“MEG, PLEASE, THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT MOMENT”

“May one ask what the hell's going on here? What did you smoke? And most of all, why didn't you wait for me?”

“Come here, Angie, I'm gonna tell you everything, Grace's not exactly sane and lucid right now” I put my arm around Angie's shoulders and automatically drag them both to the living room and to the couch.

“I fucked up and it's all my fault. But it can't go like this, I promise that if something bad happens I'll go talk to him” Grace takes Angie's hand and my roommate eyes her more and more suspiciously.

“Him... who?”

“Eddie, who else?” she reveals and Angie removes instantly her hand.

“Why? What happened with Eddie?”

“What happened is that-” I try and start a clear explanation but anxiety in person interrupts me.

“We'll tell you ok? But you need to keep calm. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it together, ok?”

“Ok... can I take off my coat first or...?”

“Oh yeah, sure! Sure, take it off, make yourself comfortable”

“Sure, Angie! Make yourself at home hehe” I can't help myself, I specifically try to release the tension.

“Meg, don't make fun of me, please, I'm already feeling like shit like this” Grace puts and Angie warily takes off her coat and her boots.

“Why do you feel like shit? Can you please tell me, what did you do? And what's Eddie got to do with it?”

“If you both keep calm and quiet for a minute, I'm gonna tell you”

“Is that all?” Angie shrugs after listening to the whole story.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN IS THAT ALL? CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND? HE THINKS YOU WENT OUT WITH DAVE!” Grace is surprised by Angie's indifference. Of course she had to act like she doesn't care.

“Well, that's the truth, isn't it?”

“But you didn't... go out in the true sense of the word” Grace retorts.

“Don't play dumb, Angie. He must have thought it was a date” I scold her.

“A real date” Grace adds.

“A full blown date”

“It's not that he must have thought... it's that I told him. Well, I suggested it, but I basically told him”

“So what?” Angie's shrugs are almost more irritating than Grace's guilty conscience.

“So what?? He must be angry!” I blurt out trying to have a reaction from her.

“You should have heard him, it seemed like he turned into ice all of a sudden. He scared me” Grace nods, whereas Angie shakes her head no.

“Please, like he cares...”

“Angie, you don't need to act, I told her about the kiss” I explain as I point at Grace, who keeps nodding yes with no reason.

“I supposed so. Anyway, as I already said, I don't think it's gonna upset him that much” Angie gets up with the coat in her hand, grabs the boots with her other hand and leaves the living room just like that.

“Suuure... he just looked like someone who's ready to kill the first human being passing by!” Grace temporarily borrows Stone's sarcasm uniform to react to Angie's fake indifference “What is she doing now? Is she leaving?” she later asks me.

“Let her put her pjs on, than we'll tease her some more”

When Angie shows up again later, walking through the living room to go to the kitchen, she finds us here, exactly where she left us: I'm on one couch and Grace on the other one, staring at her in disbelief.

“What's wrong?” she asks annoyed, with a glass of water in her hand, ready to put it on her nightstand for the night.

“You gotta call Eddie” Grace says before me.

“Why?”

“Because you have to tell him the truth” I speak first this time.

“You already did, didn't you? I mean, you spared me a long story, thank you Grace” Angie mimics a toast towards our friend.

“Shut up! You can't make me feel guilty forever for this, now you call him and tell him the truth” I kinda like Grace's aggressive passivity (or passive aggressiveness?).

“And you tell him the rest too” I add, just to make things clear.

“The rest? Which rest?”

“Well, for example, you could tell him what you feel for him and what did you feel when he kissed, using the same word you told me”

“You're crazy”

“Uh! I wanna hear the words too!” Grace gives up her desperate persona for a second and gets into gossip mode.

“Ok, just tell him what's going on with Dave and that the kiss was great, but you're in a difficult moment now and don't know what you want and you have to think about it”

“I don't have to think about shit”

“Just tell him you miss him!” Grace suggests again.

“I don't miss him”

“Angie, for fuck's sake!” I get up yelling so loud that I almost scare myself “I don't give a shit about what you'll tell him, tell him anything you want, but call him. Just call him so you can put an end to this mess”

“Ok... ok... I'll call him now! You don't need to all emotional...” Angie finally gives in, puts the glass on the coffee table and takes the phone right next to it.

“Oh finally!” Grace claps and winks at me.

“And put it on speakerphone”

“I don't need speakerphone if I leave him a message” Angie retorts as she quickly dials the number by heart.

“Hahaha yeaaaaaah, sure!” I steal the phone from my very clever roommate.

“What's wrong?”

“On the phone table at the entrance you can find Eddie's hotel phone number, you gotta call him there, so you can actively talk to him” I explain better, since she's playing dumb.

“And put it on speakerphone!” Grace can't wait for the call to happen and is sitting on the edge of the couch.

“They had a show tonight, do you think he's in his hotel room at this time?” she asks looking at us alternatively as if we were stupid.

“Sure” I calmly reply.

“Alone in his room, suffering for you” Grace adds.

“Punching the wall”

“And he hung a picture of Dave on said wall”

“And getting drunk to forget you”

“Alone and drunk with sore knuckles”

“Ok ok, I got the idea!” Angie flails her arms and walks towards the hallway, then comes back with the infamous notepad.

“Come on, call him!” Grace tells her.

“In a minute... but without speakerphone”

“But with speakerphone!” I'm sorry, it's a deal-breaker, babe.

“Umph...” Angie puffs loudly and dials the number, staring at the phone longer than she should before pressing the dial button “I guess he's not in his room anywa-... Ehm ehm, hello? Eddie? Yeah, hi, it's me” Angie's eyes are purely terrified, Grace's ones are heartshaped. Mine, instead, are fixed on the phone resting against Angie's ear and spot the speakerphone button, so that I can promptly press it as she speaks.

**********************************************************************************************************************************************

Didn't she say no fucking musicians anymore? Well, I'm a musician too, but that's different! And there must be some kind of justice, if it's no to me it's no to him too, what the fuck. Anyway she said they were just friends to behave, what to tell me. But it was much simpler than that. She just didn't care. But, you know, it's ok. Feelings are not necessarily reciprocated. I mean, somebody, a writer, I can't remember the name, used to say that the only true love is the unrequited one. Bummer. By the way, I can accept being ignored and dumped, but you can't kiss me and then don't give a fuck about me and go out with another guy without telling me. I mean, you can, you know, you can do whatever you want, you don't owe me anything, you never promised me anything and, even if you did, you'd have the right to change your mind and tell me to go fuck myself as you want. You can, but I can't help feeling disappointed. Bullshit. I'm fucking mad and if I had my hands on Dave right now I'd fucking punch him. I mean, I'd fucking punch anyone. That's why I decided to take a cab back to the hotel right after the concert. The show wasn't bad, anger's always a good stage fuel. We were great and the more or less thirty people who actually gave a shit about our set too, enjoyed a show they won't easily forget. How easily will I forget her? And her lips? And the delicious way she kisses? And the small twitches of her closed eyelids I spyed on while we were kissing? And how she held me tight? God, can't you hear yourself?! Wake up! She didn't call you back and went out with someone else, isn't it enough to understand you have to take your mind off her?

The croaky phone ring startles me. It must be Jeff who wants to know if I got here safe. I sit on the bed and pick up the receiver.

“Hello”

“Hello?” she says after nervously clearing her throat.

She.

Damn.

“Angie, it's you”

“Eddie? Yeah, it's me” I know it's you, it wasn't a fucking question.

“I can't believe it, you do exist then? I was starting to think you were an abstact entity”

“Hehe yeah, sorry, it's just I was kinda busy, with work and the rest”

“Yeah, I've been told about your schedule” I coldly reply, I mean, I try and seem cold, but I most likely just seem enbittered.

“You know, whenever I could call you I thought it wasn't the right moment and whenever the right moment came, I never had the time or was too tired. I'm inexcusable”

“Never mind” are you calling me now only to tell me you have a new boyfriend? Yeah, that must be the reason. Grace must have told her about our conversation and now she felt like she had to explain . But there's nothing to explain, everything seems pretty clear to me.

“I'm sorry”

“I said never mind!” I repeat, maybe too vehemently, since Angie keeps silent for long seconds.

“Grace told me you had called tonight too and I thought what the hell and just went for it and called you, I mean it's now or never at this point. I tried and I didn't think I'd find you in your hotel room by now”

“And you're busy now too, I see”

“W-why?”

“The speakerphone...”

“Ah! No, it's just... I'm tidying up my room and getting ready for bed. How... how arre things going? How did the concert go?” in a different situation, the image of her in a bed would have had a totally different effect on me.

“Good”

“Good as in you're good or the show was good?”

“Both” I'm feeling great.

“Good!”

“Good, yeah”

More silence.

“Is it... is it maybe a bad moment?”

“No, why?” it's a wonderful moment, best moment of my life.

“I don't know... you don't talk much”

“Did you just find out? Looks like you've been kinda distracted lately” and why should you have paid attention anyway if you're not interested in me?

“No, I wasn't. Anyway it's not the number of spoken words but more the way you speak them” ok, she really wants to hear me say that I'm jealous and she broke my heart. Can't we just ignore it, like she's been doing for almost three days?

“Why? Which way is it?”

“I don't know... weird... maybe you're tired”

“Yeah, it can be, concerts can be exhausting, once the adrenaline drops you kinda collapse too” but my adrenaline is still at the highest, I could go literally walk back to Sacramento and then get back here and I'd still be pumped up. I could walk up to Seattle and kick him in the ass.

“Hehe you're right. And it's not that different from watching a show from the audience. I was at a concert tonight and I'm basically dead” ok, she's starting to shift the conversation to slowly get to the point.

“Uh you've been to a concert?” I decide to play along, I mean, let's just rip the band-aid right off, right? The sooner she tells me what she wants to say, the sooner this stupid phone call will end. I missed her voice though...

“Yeah, I had such a good time but I'll keep it in mind next time someone suggests moshing” and it's not her fault if she doesn't like me anyway. But I can't help getting angry if I think about her in the mosh pit together with that jerk.

“What band did you see?” better focus on something else.

“A whole female band, they're great! And they're from San Diego, sure you know them. They're called L7”

“Sure I do know them, they're old friends! My old band opened for them more than once too” I am in California and they're in Seattle, ironic.

“I know, the bass player told me”

“Did you meet Jennifer? Wait, you getting to know a band? You must have been in a very good mood tonight” talking about old friends doesn't make me forget she's with another man now.

“Well, I can tell you I was basically forced to do that, that was the reason why I went”

“Forced?”

“Yeah, Dave came to the diner to beg me on his knees” and you tell me? As if that silly serenade scene I witnessed wasn't enough...

“And you couldn't say no to him, I guess...”

“He trapped me! Actually, he and Jennifer are basically dating, although not officially, I mean, they went out together a few times. She's busy with her band and isn't calling him and he doesn't want to push, but at the same time wants to see her more. When he learned they'd have played at the Off Ramp he thought he had to go but didn't want to go alone and look creepy or pushy, at least that's what he thought. And he couldn't stand the idea of being ignored, he had no idea what she was thinking and she might as well not give a shit about it the whole night. So, in the end he asked a few people to go with him not to draw attention” Angie talks non-stop and I'm not understanding shit, oh well, I understood what I needed to, but I'm almost afraid to ask for further explanation.

“Dave and Jennifer?”

“Yeah, they're seeing each other. And I think they're a cute couple”

“And he went to see the show with a few people and you were one of these...”

“Well, actually Kurt ditched him 'cause he had to meet with a girl. No idea what kind of girl can stand such an unbearable guy, but... whatever. Krist is out of town. You know, Dave doesn't know many people here yet, he only had his roommate and I left. I took Brian from the diner with me too. If only I had known the asshole gets into the mosh pit keeping his elbows high, I wouldn't have invited him!”

“You were not alone then?”

“No, luckily Brian went to elbow the wrong guy and learned a lesson”

“No, I mean you and Dave... I thought... fuck, I feel like an idiot, I'm sorry” because I am, I'm an idiot, an asshole.

“Dave and I?”

“I thought you were going out with him. I thought you were with him. Again” I find myself standing beside the bed.

“Hahaha what? No!”

“But Grace said that-”

“Grace drew the wrong conclusion. Or maybe you misunderstood”

“Yeah, it was me, I misunderstood, I didn't understand shit. I never understand shit, especially when it's about you, Angie” am I still angry? Am I happy? Am I confused? I don't even know.

“What... what do you mean?”

“I mean... you know, you didn't call me after... and then Grace tells me you went out with... that... I thought you didn't want to know about it”

“About what?”

“About me” who else?

“Hahaha and why?” why is it so difficult to talk to this girl?

“I don't know... maybe because of what happened that morning, before you left...”

“Eddie... don't worry. Nothing happened, ok?”

Nothing? Why nothing? The fuck are you talking about? I'd better sit back down on the bed.

“Well, I wouldn't call it nothing...”

“Ok, let's pretend it never happened then”

Are you fucking kidding me?

“It doesn't seem doable to me, Angie”

“Well, it did happen then, but can't we just forget it?” she goes on nervously but trying to sound determined.

“Can you forget it? I can't think about anything else since you left” I confess and I hear a strange noise from the receiver right after that, like a moan, a choked meow.

“I don't... I don't know, Eddie”

“I know I made a mistake, I'll never forgive myself for that”

“That's not bad, you're making it worse and bigger than it actually is! As I said, nothing happened to me”

“The other morning, at the bus station, I shouldn't have kissed you”

“Exactly”

“I should have kissed you way before”

“Eddie, don't... what?”

“In three days, I could have kissed you a thousand time and I didn't because I'm a wimp. And even before that, I had like a million occasions to do that. I should have kissed you on the Space Needle, with that badass view. Or on Pike Place's roof terrace. Or while you were trying on that red hat at the mirror and weren't looking at me and you were so beautiful. Or on Cam's porch at new year's eve, while you were telling me about Schopenhauer, hedgehogs and Woodstock and you smelled like oranges and I'd have listened to you for hours”

“Also because you were high” she remarks and if she really thinks she can lighten the mood and break my speech she's fucking wrong.

“No, at that point, not yet. Anyway I could as well give you a kiss together with chocolate the night you came to the minimart in your pjs to buy pads and you were ashamed. Or when you found me alone at the gallery and you brought me food, whereas I'd have loved for you to feed me with kisses. Not to mention when I crashed at your place and slept with you and woke up in your fucking arms and instead of waking you up with a kiss, as you do with a princess, I grabbed your shoulder and shook it a little. What a jerk!”

“Eddie I... maybe we shouldn't discuss this on the phone, I mean...”

“I know, I know, that's why I'm saying I made a mistake. Because if I had kissed you before, we'd have had time to talk about it. Yet now we have to wait until I'm back in Seattle and I can't because I'd do it now. I'd want you here, now. Even without talking”

“I... I don't know what to say, Eddie”

“Don't say anything, I told you it's ok even without talking, right?”

“Hehe what do we do? We just shut up on the phone?”

“Yes. You know I'm a man of few words”

“I  know that well”

And that I want to shut up on the phone only with you and no one else? Do you know that too?

[bonernas]

A Song of Bobs and Berts

Part 2/7

Word Count: 4,270

Disclaimer: This is a crackfic about the different Bobsonas, based on actor Robert Downey Jr. and his questionable fashion sense. It also includes some hints on other people and things related to the MCU. For more info about the Bobsonas and their respectful creators, please check the link below!

Warnings: rated T, no Bobs were harmed in the making of this fic, mentions of (use of) drugs, swearing, this is a mobster fic set in the noire genre so blood, weapons and violence might become a thing, skipped the typical homophobia and racism tho but a lot of people use roids and crystal

Summary:  When Bobster Di Seta, one of Twunky Town’s most feared mobsters, finds out that Boberto Laineux, brother of Bobster’s arch enemy, Robert “The Bobfather” Laineux, was elected the city’s new mayor, he needs to put an end to the reign of the french mafia. To infiltrate the Laineux family and increase the sales of his own drugs, he orders his handsome underling, Steeb, to seduce the only heir of the Bobfather: Bobling Laineux, the doe-eyed billionare playboy. But just when Steeb discovers that there’s more to the young mobster than good looks and sassy one-liners, their blooming romance is put to the test by a cold-blooded murder. Will the only unbribable cop of Twunky Town’s police force solve this case before the city falls into war? Or will the rivalry of the two mobster clans turn everything into ashes?

A Story based on the RDJ spectrum

Part One | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven

Chapter Two - A Clash of Hunks

Unlike Steeb, I went home alone that night. Not even a whole bottle of fine scotch could wash away the bitterness of watching my fellow detectives goof around with Twunky Town’s mafia elite, joking like they were old friends from college. None of them even batting an eye on the vivid fluctuation of happy pills, most guests way too tipsy to even try and be discrete about it.

This remained the schedule for the next couple weeks. Robert Laineux baiting vice squad with fancy venues and parties, my colleagues shutting their eyes and ears for the sake of free booze and an occasional tête-á-tête, and me occupying the most secluded table for me and my bitter thoughts. Why I still showed up even if I had no intention to become one of the Bobfather’s footmen? Well, because the reward for openly declining the french mafia’s generosity is a tailored pair of concrete boots, and I’m more the slipper kind of guy.

One cold and damp morning in April I woke up even more hungover than usual, dragging myself to the PD to let this city drain some more of my mental stability. My colleagues were already at their desks, chatting gleefully. We would be off for another day of surveilling people that weren’t a real threat and doing anything but our actual work; maybe arrest some poor fella who tried to mess with the wrong mafioso, but that’d be it. Or so I thought.

When chief Prime entered with a stern face and two men in suits at his flank, I couldn’t help to feel somewhat hopeful.

 Steeb woke up to something soft tickling his cheek. He blinked sleepily and got confused for a second. Right, this wasn’t his tiny downtown apartment. He hadn’t slept in his own bed all week. In fact, he had spent all his nights in the largest bedroom of a neat little townhouse owned by the city’s most feared mobster, trying to seduce his son. On behest of his boss, the mobster’s fiercest rival. Well, way to start the day, Steeb.

Early April sun found its way through a small gap in a pair of heavy royal blue curtains and illuminated the pristine features of Bobling’s face resting on his chest. A sheepish smile snuck on Steeb’s lips as his fingers gently combed through his sweetheart’s tousled locks. The younger man sighed and cuddled deeper into Steeb’s side, his breath warm and soft on bare skin.

Steeb remembered their first night together, almost two months ago. From the ride home in Bobling’s crimson red Bentley to waking up tangled in silk sheets and feeling pleasantly sore, it was nothing but heated, sensual and passionate. And staged, so that Bobster Di Seta could outsmart the Bobfather.

But to be honest, Steeb thought while placing a soft kiss on his beau’s temple, he began to savor waking up with the young mobster next to him. On their first few rendezvous’ Bobling was ridiculously enchanting, flirting shamelessly with him, perfectly aware of his effect on the blonde. He only learned about his softer side on their sixth date, when Steeb took his sweetheart for a nightly stroll through the park and Bobling fawned over a kitten that crossed their way.

Watching the heir of the Laineux family kneeling on the pathway in slacks worth a small fortune, cooing and speaking softly with his new furry friend, it did something with Steeb. When they returned back to the townhouse that night, it was the first time that he forgot the purpose of his charade and just indulged in the touch of soft lips caressing his neck and the sensation of delicate fingers tracing his hip bone.

While Steeb was still fighting to admit how smitten he was already, Bobling woke up, gaze slowly focusing on the bare chest he was resting on. He stretched with a small yawn and placed a sloppy kiss on Steeb’s lips - or at least he tried.

“Mornin’”, he mumbled against the blonde’s cheek. He felt Steeb shift, harboring him in his big and strong arms. Definitely something Bobling could get used to.

“Morning, sleepyhead”, Steeb chuckled. He left a small trail of pecks on the mobster’s jawline and was just about to nuzzle his face into soft brown curls when a loud knock on the door made both of them jump. The person outside didn’t deem it necessary to wait for being asked in but just rushed inside with large, urgent steps.

“For God’s sake, Barney, didn’t your maman teach you any manners?”, Bobling yelped. Barney Bucket, head of his security guard, strode over to the windows as if he hadn’t heard his boss. He opened the curtains with a resolute tuck before he turned around and faced the two men, completely unimpressed by their bewildered state and lack of clothes.

“You have to get up, Sir. Your father needs you in his office as soon as possible. The chief of the TTPD called half an hour ago; I’m afraid it’s something serious.”

Bobling sighed and crawled out of the huge four poster, scurrying over to his walk-in closet. The moment he went past his guard, Barney turned and shot Steeb a disapproving look. The blonde already had a hard time untangling the sheets to cover at least some of his exposed skin, and the other man’s piercing glares didn’t make it any easier. He felt like an intruder. Well, technically, he was, or at least he was supposed to be one.

Bobling returned fully dressed and ruffled his hair a few times to get rid of his bed head. He rushed to the door, followed by Barney, but came to a halt abruptly to turn back to Steeb. 

“Love, I’m sorry, my father’s not the kind of person you keep waiting. Feel at home and ask Barney if you need something. He’s gonna get you some breakfast and will drive you back home. I’m afraid this is going to take some time”, the young mobster said with a resentful look. Steeb flashed him a smile and nodded.

Barney didn’t seem all too pleased with his new task, but remained silent until his boss left and hurried down the hallway. With the sound of Bobling’s steps fading, he turned back to Steeb, casually leaning on the door frame and piercing the blonde one with menacing stares.

Steeb tried to not take it personally. He got up, holding the sheets awkwardly draped around his hips with one hand, and picked up his clothes with the other. Barney seemed to have no intention to leave; he just stood there and watched Steeb’s every move. Only when he finally found the other sock and headed over to the roomy walk-in the guard switched positions, now leaning in the closets door frame, forcing it to remain open. Steeb sighed, dropped his clothes on one of the chairs and turned back to him, one brow raised.

“Care to wait outside while I change?”

“Why? Got something to hide, golden boy?”, Barney snarled. Something in his tone told Steeb that they were not talking about inches.

“Actually, yes. I don’t know what your problem is, but last time I checked this wasn’t a cabaret. So mind your own business, please.”

“Oh don’t worry, I do.” Barney snickered, but his brows remained furrowed. “It is my business to keep Mr. Laineux and his family safe, to protect them. Especially from scum like Bobster Di Seta and his beefy little henchman here.”

Steeb gulped. Who was this guy and how did he know about his connection with the Di Seta family? He tried to keep his pokerface but the brunette must’ve seen him flicker for a moment. Barney left his spot at the frame and closed the distance in two slow, calculating steps.

“D’you have any idea how easy it’d be for me to just kick in your pearly whites and make it look like an accident? You’re not the first piece of trash I dragged out of this room. You’re by far not the first labagiu trying to get to Mr. Laineux through his son’s pants, and I’ve had enough of it. Put your clothes on and get the fuck out of here.” With this he turned to go back to the bedroom, but Steeb wasn’t having any of it. 

“Listen here, Freundchen, I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with your boss’ love life, but miss me with the bullshit. We’re both two grown men and so is the guy who, by the way, gave you an order. I don’t care for the people that were here before me and especially not for you and your paranoid conspiracies. I’m here for Bobling because I want to, not because I was ordered, and if he’d ask me to, I’d leave and never come back. But until then, I’ll come if he wants my company. And if you’re still so bitter about my presence here, go and tell him your cute little story, let’s see how funny he finds it.”

Barney didn’t move an inch, didn’t even blink. Steeb had dropped the sheet when he strode over to Bobling’s guard, stopping only inches in front of him, using the height difference to tower over the brunette menacingly. His nudity did his intimidating appearance no harm - in fact his bare muscles flexing made his speech even more threatening. Barney’s face remained stern and unmoved, and without a word he turned around and left the bedroom, closing the door a tat too harsh to pass as relaxed.

Steeb took a deep breath. That was close, way too close. He wondered if Barney actually believed him, or if he would tell Bobling about his suspicions anyway. However, he had to get dressed and back to report to his boss, so he skipped the shower and just slipped back into his clothes, giving his reflection in the gold-framed mirror a quick scan before heading out for a cab. Orders or not, he wouldn’t let Barney drive him anywhere. The guy would probably crash into a bridge pier just to get rid of him.

While the cab driver navigated through the lazy morning traffic, Steebs thoughts kept wandering back to what just happened. He straight up lied about his true intentions to the french mafia’s head bodyguard. Didn’t feel like a lie, though. There was no point in denying that he felt oddly close to the heir of Laineux family, and that Bobling was quite fond of him, too. They went from passionate, light-minded nights to morning kisses and cuddles so fast, and just thinking of holding the handsome beau in his arms, reveling in the sweet scent of his skin, made it hard for Steeb to focus on what he was about to do: Meeting Mr. Di Seta for further instructions on how to fool the man he obviously had fallen for.

 Robert Laineux’ office was decadent, to put it nicely. The dark, noble bookshelves looked like someone spent all day to polish them; a neat little fire burnt in a fireplace the size of my car, covered in ornaments. His desk made a king-sized bed look like a cot, and I’m convinced you’d need two people to lift one of the leather-covered armchairs scattered all over the room.

Chief Prime and I followed Mr. Laineux’ butler to the head of the room, where he already sat with who must be his son, Bobling. The latter remained in his seat, eyeing us suspiciously while Chief Prime shook the Bobfather’s hand.

“Bobtimus. I did as you said and asked Bobling to come as fast as he could. Now if you’d please tell us why we’re all gathered here? On the phone you sounded as if someone died.”

“Well, that’s because someone did”, Chief Prime answered with a grim expression as soon as the butler had left the office. He took a seat and gestured me to do the same.

“Robert, your brother Boberto has been found dead this morning in the mayor’s office. The coroner assumes it was a heart attack, but given his young age and fit condition I have my fair share of doubts. I had a forensics team secure evidence in his office and ordered the department to treat every aspect of this with the utmost confidentiality before I called you. With your approval, I’d like to run an autopsy and have Detective Bob Downey here investigate the case.”

The Bobfather and his son sat there motionless, faces blank. No one spoke for a solid minute. Chief Prime shifted in his seat, probably thinking he went to far with his precautions. When the Bobfather finally moved he just tilted his head, eyes resting on me, piercing me with an intensity that it felt as if he looked right through me. Now it was my turn to shift nervously.

“Detective Downey, you said? Well, Bobtimus. My brother’s dead and you come rushing in here telling me you believe it’s a bloody murder and that you started collecting evidence before even telling me. And now you want me to sign off the case to a cop that doesn’t even work in homicide and, on top of that, still refuses to work with me?”

Well, that’s one way to say I didn’t let your drug money make me docile.

“Robert, that’s exactly why I picked him. Not only is he one of my finest detectives, he’s also the only one you could possibly trust to actually find out the truth. The rest of the bunch is more interested in their own benefits, and that was fine until now”, the Chief proclaimed, “but something’s fishy about Boberto’s death and I wouldn’t want anyone on that case who took bribe before.”

“Everybody’s got their price”, muttered the young Laineux and we all turned our head in surprise. He looked me straight in the eye and proceeded: “What’s your price, Detective Downey? What could be in for you to help your enemy?”

“I wouldn’t call you my enemy.” Oh yes, indeed I would you little brat. “But frankly said, we’re not on good terms either. I joined the police because I believe in justice and want to do what’s right. And if Mayor Laineux died by someone’s hand, then I’ll find out who did it.”

“Fine”, Robert said after the two of them eyed me up and down once more. “Go and see what you can find out. If someone killed my brother, I want his head. And Bobtimus”, he snarled, glaring at Chief Prime, “I want to be the first one to know when there’s even the slightest bit of new info on this case, you got me?”

“Of course, Sir”, the Chief hurried to answer. The Bobfather didn’t respond and just dismissed us with a small nod.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Chief Prime walk that fast.

 “Goddammit!”, Bobster yelled for the third time this day. Steeb had an odd déjà-vu, standing on the patio and watching the alpacas slowly moving away from his furious boss. Mr. Di Seta paced up and down the railing, brows furrowed and deep in thought. Only minutes before Steeb had arrived at the mobster’s manor, a little bird had brought the news of Mayor Laineux’ death. At first the blonde deemed those great news for the Di Seta family, but Bobster’s reaction taught him otherwise. Now he just waited nervously for the mafioso to calm down and give him further instructions.

“Okay boy, here’s what we do: You keep that little game of yours up.” After what seemed an eternity, Bobster finally stopped and talked to Steeb. “If we retreat now, it’ll look suspicious. But we can’t make any more moves either. Not until we have more detail about Boberto’s death. Just keep it calm, fly below the radar until things get sorted out a bit more.”

“Alright, boss. But-”, Steeb hesitated, “may I ask why you’re so upset? Shouldn’t it be great that the mayor’s office isn’t occupied by the french anymore?”

Bobster huffed. “Steeb, there’s so much more to a dead brother and mayor than to a son sleeping with the enemy. My goal was to either estrange Robert from his son by finding out about your little affair in the worst case, or to manipulate the Laineux through your influence on the little dipshit in the best. I never wanted war. I just wanted my fair share of clients and income. Boberto as mayor wasn’t an ideal situation for us, that’s true, but a murder investigation is way worse.”

 And murder it was. The coroner called me the next day to let me know how the autopsy went. Chief Prime was correct: Boberto could’ve lived up to a hundred years, his organs were in great shape. But he found some herbs in the mayor’s stomach and ran a few tests. Turns out someone added a rare pufferfish poison to his favourite tea, making it look like Boberto’s heart just failed. Without the leftovers to be tested, nobody would’ve ever found out.

So we knew it was definitely murder, and we had the murder weapon. Two days later I was going through files of possible culprits when the phone on my desk rang. The head of forensics called to inform me about the fingerprints on the tea box. They belonged to no other than Baebert Ullen, Robert and Boberto Laineux’ stepbrother.

 “Oh Steeb, I’m so glad you had time”, Bobling exclaimed as he opened the door to let his sweetheart in. He rose to his tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss on the blonde’s lips before they went inside. Steeb followed him through the hallway into a light-flooded living room.

One of the broad velvet sofas was occupied by two men, one of them reading to the toddler in his lap. The other one looked up and immediately hopped to his feet when he spotted Steeb and Bobling. Equally amused and bewildered Steeb recognized the man’s pants as Lederhosn, something he hadn’t seen since he had been deployed in Germany. It oddly fit the aesthetic of dark rimmed glasses and a plaid button down in powder pink. Taking a second glimpse at the three men and the toddler, Steeb also noticed that big, dark eyes and curls the colour of coffee seemed to run in the family.

“Bobling, honey. Is that your boyfriend? My, he’s handsome. Isn’t he handsome, Bobbo?” The man referred to as Bobbo looked up from the book and gave Steeb a curt nod. Steeb had no time to repay the gesture though. The man in Lederhosn, without a doubt Bobling’s uncle Baebert, grabbed his face and pressed a kiss on each of Steebs cheeks.

“Pleasure to meet you, son. Bobling told us so much abou-”

“Uncle, stop. And he’s not my- just... just stop”, Bobling interfered. Baebert smiled knowingly and gave Steeb a quick hug before he clapped his hands.

“Whatever you say, darling! Anyway. Bobbo, can you fetch Bobbae’s jacket? We should leave those two lovebirds to themselves. And Robert said the attorney would be at his place around five, so we should get going anyway. But it was so nice to finally meet you, Steeb dear.”

Steeb got pulled in for another hug and round of kisses and before he could even think of an appropriate response, the three of them were already at the door. Bobling let them out before he sank down on the couch next to Steeb with a small sigh.

“Sorry”, he mumbled against Steeb’s shoulder, “uncle Baebert is a bit.. special. Loves to kiss each and everyone. Quite a hugger. Bit eccentric from time to time.”

“He seemed lovely”, Steeb chuckled as he pulled the brunette into his arms and lay down with him, his thumbs rubbing small circles into Bobling’s skin. The younger man hummed in approval.

“Thank you for coming over. The last few days were nothing but crazy, I didn’t even have the time to give you a call.” The mobster wrapped his arms around Steeb’s waist and nuzzled into the crook of his neck before he spoke again. “First they tell me that my uncle died, then they find out he was murdered, now they’re trying to arrest my other uncle for said murder. You just met Baebert. Does he seem like a murderer to you? Something’s off with this story. Father always had been on great terms with both of them. They think uncle murdered Boberto because he was only their stepbrother and therefore no heir to the Laineux family, but father said none of them was ever bitter about that. And Bobbo is a famous architect, he practically designed half of Oslo. There’s no need to go after Boberto’s money. D’you think uncle Baebert would kill someone? He’s got a kid and a husband. I think he has better things to do than murdering his own, let alone a mobster’s brother”, Bobling mumbled into the hem of Steeb’s shirt before letting out a small sigh. “I’m sorry, love. You sure got better things to do than to listen to me ramble.”

“No problem. Isn’t that what boyfriends are for?”, Steeb asked with a saucy grin. Bobling’s cheeks went as pink as his uncle’s shirt and he tried to hide at Steeb’s shoulder, but the blonde cupped his face with both hands and gently forced his sweetheart to look at him.

Bobling held his gaze for a few moments before his eyes fluttered shut. Slowly, almost shy, he leaned into Steeb’s touch, pressing a little kiss on the taller man’s wrist. Steeb’s thumb ghosted over his cheekbone, down his jaw and traced the outlines of his bottom lip. And when Bobling opened his eyes again, there was nothing left of the frivolous, flirty beau, just a tired and sad boy asking for comfort.

“Care to stay with me tonight?”

And when Steeb bent down to place a kiss on the spot his thumb just marked, there was nothing lustful, nothing passionate to it. No faked feelings, no ulterior motifs, just a lovestruck idiot longing for his dear one’s touch.

“I’ll stay as long as you want.”

 Will Baebert be arrested for murder, or his fashion sense? Did the author discover that there is a Bavarian Wikipedia while looking up the correct spelling of Lederhosn? Will Steeb and Bobling establish a healthy relationship or will their romance turn to dust? Will the author ever not get carried away by fluffy Dorito boy pining for his beau? Will the author ever get tired of using the word beau? Did the author accidentally create a new Transformers AU while writing? And why do Americans refuse to use the accents on french terms? Find out in the next chapter!

A/N: (labagiu is Romanian for wanker according to Google, Freundchen is basically friend in German, but is mostly used to address someone in an angry, disrespectful way, like you sometimes do with buddy or pal. I figured that both Steeb and Barney went to war and that they learned some phrases there that they now used to look cool and eloquent to the other. They both failed, obviously)

[namjoonchronicles]

salvation | jk

​It’s in the wee hours of the morning when Jungkook shifted in bed to find the warmth he knows should be near, isn’t there next to him. He slid his arm down the empty space with his eyes still closed, only to feel coldness of the bed sheet, crumpled underneath his palm. His eyes peeked through his lashes and he squinted to see better. He hoped that by blinking a few times, the sight gets better.

Positive. You weren’t there.

Like a child yearning for its loss stuffed animals they go to bed with, disappeared, Jungkook poke his head down your side of the bed to see if, comically, you fell off. “It isn’t like her to fall off the bed but, just incase she did,” he silently thought.

No. Nothing.

The rug is still there in position, your phone is still charging on the floor, right by the standing night lamp that’s turned off. The only thing that’s shining is that moon night lamp Jungkook got you from last year’s anniversary. “Where is she?” Jungkook sighed. He sat on the bed and turned sideways to the direction of the bathroom. The light was on, judging from the gap between the floor and door. “She’s in the toilet...” he muttered to himself.

Although he was suppose to fall back asleep knowing that you will come to bed when you’re done, something tells him that he probably should check you out. Make sure you’re alright. The cold bed sheet suggests that it might have been awhile. Call it superstitious, call it impossible, call it anything but love, but when a soulmate is in pain, the other felt it too. No matter how far. Or how close. You just feel it.

Jungkook’s bony legs slip out of the comfort of the duvet, and kissed the wooden floor gently before it absorbed the weight of Jungkook’s body with a mild creak, not loud enough to be heard if it was in the day. His oversized white tee slips to show his collarbone, while his sweatpants rode up to his calves on one side. His light brown hair, tousled and deliciously messy. The bangs poke his brows as he made his way to the bathroom door.

He readied his knuckles to knock but changed his mind and curved his palm to envelope the knob until something stopped him from doing so.

His eyes focused, and enlarged a bit. Breathe caught in his throat when he heard sniffings.

Tiny whimpers. Sobbing. An excruciating sound of a broken soul trying to keep her voice as small as possible so no one could hear her falling apart. He could hear her bare feet against the tub, pushing herself up.

He imagined you sitting at the end away from the shower head, shed off your shells and held your soul bare in the open for the walls to see. And he was envious. Envious of those very walls who could see you in your most vulnerable moment. He wanted to walk away. He didn’t think he was able to listen to your silent cries anymore so he should crawl back to bed.

If you have wanted him to have the privilege to see you cry, you would have allowed him to. Instead, you chose 5AM in that bathtub instead of him. The least he could do was to respect your decision and wait until the sun rises, to ask. That is if, if, he could ask.

“No. I’m her husband, this is my job.” His words ring in his head and he turns the knob slowly.

Visibly shaken, you quickly wipe away your tears. “Oh..fuck. Baby, you’re awake,” you were obviously flustered, digging the heels of your palm into the sockets of your eyes, harshly ridding any apparent evidence of a defenseless moment. “I suddenly caught a flu, can you believe it? On a freakin weekend...” you chuckled and climbed out of the tub, knees weak from staying in one position too long. You almost fell if it wasn’t for Jungkook to capture you. Sliding his grasp off of you gently, you smiled but your eyes were casted downward.

Still hiding. Still pretending. Still concealing. Still.

You dashed for the sink and twisted the faucet until water flows out. Cupping your hand underneath the flowing water, you took the pooling water to your face and wash away remaining tears. Jungkook opens the door widely now, he leans his head back to it, watching you and your ‘show’. He crosses his arms next, frowning. You saw his tongue dig into the inside of his cheek as he watched you clean up and you couldn’t help but to gulp out of the intense gaze.

You forced out a smile that he didn’t return and slowly walked out of the bathroom when he said in a deathly low grumble, “What happened?” 

"I don't like it when you do something like this. When you don't talk to me..." He added, his eyes followed you to the bedroom, "I'll make you feel better, just please." You shook your head, busying yourself by arranging already neat books by the racks set by the window, next to his collection of bluetooth speakers. "I'm okay, I just don't feel like talking about it right now, okay honey? You weren't supposed to remind me about it. Talking about it, hurts me." Your voice died and subsequently ended the conversation. You already feel like ending the day, and the sun isn't fully out yet. You know you hurt his feelings by saying what you just did, but you had to. Talking about it, doesn't solve it. It doesn't solve anything. You hated confrontations. You don't like talking about things that hurts you, it's better to hide.

"I shall be no source of trouble to anyone. I shall be no burden to anybody." The words echo in your head like a mantra, and it escaped your lips before you could even stopped yourself. You couldn't look into Jungkook's face, because you know he'll be devastated by it. He watched your head drop as you circled the bed and brushed lightly on his shoulder, muttering in half-anger, half-upset at him, "...I told you not to marry me, didn't I." His eyes struck to the wooden floor, and his lips parted a little, agaped. The words, they stung. He could feel the air stood still, as if time had stopped briefly, and resumed. His feet froze, his mind paused a second before it began to race in thoughts to give you a reply but he can’t find the exact words to say so, he held a fist next to his thighs, words die in his throat instead. And you? You walked out as if you said nothing to ruin a person, completely. Ruthless being.

Why would you say something like that? Why would you say something so hurtful?

Clearly something painful had happened and you're pushing everyone out, including him so you could understand what your heart was saying or at least what they attempt to say. You once told him that, "My alone time is sometimes, for your own safety." But you've become silent for too long that it began to worry him. And without a clear guidance on what to do, Jungkook is forced to learn languages he was not equipped with, emotions and unspoken words. Unequipped, incompetent and flawed was what he continuously feel whenever you turn away and put up your walls like these. Your fortress. The one he remembered taking down, but couldn’t remember how.

How to say you want to help, but you don't know how or where to began?

Jungkook waited patiently. Jungkook watched you spend your whole day in complete silence, and even if its not an official cold war, or lovers quarrel, he couldn't help feeling worried that you were not being yourself. When you come home to a vibrant character and a vivid smile almost everyday, you will feel it when it's gone. A deafening absence. The torments of not being able to ask what he wanted so much, because he wasn’t the kind to say it out loud, was torturing Jungkook inside out. 

"How long is she going to be like this?" Jungkook sighed inwardly. He already felt his chest, heavy from the intense worrying and when he stepped into the house with a foreign feeling, he wondered if you could have gone somewhere to retrieve your peace. 

And he knows very well where that is. 

Jungkook slips out of his jacket and abandoned his bag by the living room sofa before he knelt next to the coffee table and fit himself underneath it. You were laying under, staring upward at the underside of the table. Your feet sticking out the other end. And by the looks of it, it had been quite awhile, it seems. 

Now with Jungkook joining the tiny space, you glanced to the side at the view of his incredible jawline and smiled weakly. Now you both are staring at the underside of the table and your legs are next to his, very much smaller than his. You gave him a lopsided smile and inhaled before you speak, hoping that what you said before didn’t affect him much, "How was work?" You meekly asked, first sentence you have said in 23 hours.

"Same old, same old." Jungkook shrugged, and he turned his head to you, eyes wide and wondering, "And you?"

You chuckled short and smacked your lips together before, “Have you ever wonder why laying on the floor, underneath a table is so comforting? Isn’t it weird that we both find these very, calming?” Jungkook hummed as a reply and began, “I’ve read an article about it before, and they say, it’s because it mimics the atmosphere of a womb. Apparently, it was the last time we actually felt very safe, so because we are seeking the same comfort of being in our mummy’s tummy where we were the safest, laying underneath a blanket, tables, closet, felt comforting...”

“I remembered laying just like this and my mom was like, what in the world are you doing under there,” you giggled, “and I told her, the internet is faster here, when the truth was, I felt very happy and protected. I used to think that it was weird until I heard from Jimin that you do it too.”

Jungkook’s helixes turns red and his eyes crinkles when he smiled wide, and you took the time to relish that beautiful face, whispering in your heart that you’re sorry for the words you say when you’re under emotional turbulence. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way. He didn’t deserve me. 

You don’t know how to share your problems, because you’re used to keep them bottled inside. You were angry at yourself for taking time to think about something that shouldn’t matter to you. All you wanted was to be accepted. 

The conversation died, and silence followed. Unlike most silence, this one was so comfortable it almost made you drift to sleep. But before you lose complete consciousness, you whispered his name and, "...sorry. I've said a few things I don't mean. I know you were just worried, but I just hated myself for thinking about it too much when it's probably nothing worthy of my time."

Jungkook blinked slowly and he softly replied, "...it's okay. We all have those days." . . . "A high school friend got married yesterday. And everyone from my high school went..." you smiled, "...but I wasn't invited." 

Jungkook stayed very silent. And you could understand why he would react that way. "I thought I wasn't affected by it, but when I go home after a day with my cousin, I...I really was hurt. And you know what I said to myself?"

You giggled lightly, "Maybe they forgot, maybe it slipped out their mind. Maybe this, maybe that. Maybe they didn't mean it, maybe I'm just too sensitive," You giggled again. Self blaming is something you're known to do when these things happen. It was not the first time. Many engagements, birthdays, weddings, baby showers that had gone by without you. They come up with different excuses every time. "They posted the pictures they took at the wedding, inside the groupchat I was in. Everyone in that group chat went to the event and they couldn't find time to announce it there and instead just come to post pictures, so I said: Wow. And left that group. Childish, wasn't it?"

Jungkook switched to his side and stared at your side profile. "But I needed to console myself. I needed to be away from them. I never knew why I even considered them as friends...maybe I was too, weak. When you want friends so badly, you don't care if they're good people or not. But that was me then. And some people I know now makes me realise that I'm more than what I think I am, and that being friends with me is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not just a privilege."

"Quality over quantity," Jungkook leaned his forehead on your your shoulder and murmured. "I couldn't tell my mom because I know what she'll say. She’ll think that I was the one who made myself so unapproachable and she’ll blame me for everything. And I don’t need a repetition of what I told myself many times. I'm used to keep things to myself, Jungkook. I am my own help, my own saviour, my own salvation. And then..." you paused, "...and then you come around."

Jungkook gaze up to you. Those beautiful brown orbs sparkle at you, windows to his soul. "And you wanted to be that. And I'm afraid that I don't know how to share that job I've had, my entire life. And I have to be honest, that I'm scared. I'm scared that when I trust, I get betrayed; that when I give, I won't get back. And it used to be fine. People can do all kinds of shit on me, and I'll come back to the same person that hurts me and let them do it all over again; and I told myself that it's what I deserved, but you, Jeon Jungkook. Oh you, Jeon Jungkook... you're like a mirror to me. You help me feel what I give away, and for the first time in my whole sad life, I finally know what love actually is."

“I think you forgot one important thing about me,” he waited until you gaze up to him and, “...I left my hometown at 14. I don’t have any friends. You and I, we’re both loners. We have our own little world.”

Jungkook draped his arm over your waist, "...You never needed those dry-ass people. Sometimes, you don't realise that you are being kind to people who don't even deserve your kindness, and I've had enough of that. If someone ever tries to bring you down, all you need to do is text me their name and location, and I'll give them a black-belt full-course meal with desserts and appetizers." His words got you giggling and you rubbed his forearm gently, "...I always forgot that you have a black belt in taekwondo."

He leans on his elbows at you and jerked his head up, causing it to bang against the table. Your hand flew to the sore spot immediately as he face planted into your tummy, whimpering like a baby.

Chuckling, "...be careful!" you rubbed his head. He slide out first since he took the most space and then he pulled you up by the arm from the floor. "I think we should just call delivery..." he suggested.

You nodded and smiled, gratefully. Thankful that he isn't the type to pester for a home cooked meal like every other husbands out there that you know of, by hook or by crook. Jungkook waddled to the kitchen area where the house phone were and as he dialed the number, and leaned his back to the counter, his head angled upwards slightly, you couldn't help thanking your heaven for an angel sent from up above. As his voice talking to the restaurant dimmed to the background of your mind, you thought to yourself that you don't have to save yourself anymore, for you have,

"A help, a saviour and a salvation all wrapped in a person called, Jeon Jungkook." And as if he heard you, he snapped his head slowly in your direction, smiled and winked.

Then slowly, you disappeared to the hallway and into the bedroom you shared. Jungkook snapped his head to his phone on the counter and grabbed them with one hand. 

Wife: Mrs. Jeon. Bedroom. ❤❤❤❤❤

Because he said: If someone ever tries to bring you down, all you need to do is text me their name and location, and I'll give them a black-belt full-course meal with desserts and appetizers...

[lakesandquarries]

Brimstone In My Garden (Chapter 3)

Chapter Three: our hometown’s in the dark

Summary: When he was five years old, Midoriya Izuku went missing. Now, ten years later, he’s one of the top villains, whether he likes it or not. When an attack on UA leads to him encountering his childhood best friend, new possibilities open up for him.

Pairings: todobakudekukiri

Notes: Villain Deku au, will have quite a bit of violence and gore later on, along with implied/referenced child abuse. None of this is appearing just yet, but I’ll warn when it does happen.

I’m sorry this chapter is so late!! Work has been kicking my ass. However this chapter is twice as long to make up for it!

< Chapter One < Chapter Two Chapter Four >

Read it on AO3, or under the cut!

Planning a rescue mission is so much harder than Bakugo thought it would be.

Rushing in is not an option, as much as he'd like it to be. Bakugo has never been one for strategy and planning ahead. He meets his problems head on, with force. His quirk allows him to act like that - he's never faced a problem he couldn't punch his way out of.

Until now, at least.

Despite what many people may think, Bakugo isn’t stupid. Reckless, yes, destructive, sure, impulsive, absolutely, but even he knows his limits.

His former best friend’s life hangs in the balance, here. If Bakugo fucks this up -

He won’t. He's going to rescue Deku, and nothing is going to stop him. Not some weird bird beaked monster, not some teleporting bartender, not some asshole with too many hands. And he's going to do it all on his own. The teachers wouldn't understand, they'd treat Deku like he's just another villain, and his classmates are too likely to let something slip.

So, for the first time in his life - he takes notes. He writes down what he remembers, though it’s not much. Deku was only five when he vanished. His only memories of Deku are fuzzy childhood memories, insubstantial and blurry, flashes of playgrounds and sleepovers, and that one last day. When he’s out of memories, he scours the internet for more information, about Deku, about Regrowth, about the villains that had been with him.

Regrowth has quite the body count. At least nine deaths can be attributed to him, according to the articles Bakugo finds. His victims vary, from criminals to heroes to civilians, but they all have a few things in common. Most are found with flowers growing from their mouths, the roots stretching into the throat, into the lungs in some cases. The cause of death is fairly consistent, as well - infections, for almost every single one. Something in the blood. Severe infections, that should have been the result of some kind of injury or illness, that lead to even worse sepsis, followed by organ failure, and finally, death.

It's theorized he has a growth quirk, which would make sense, based on his name. Very little is known about him, beyond that. He's only been seen briefly, in glimpses, but it's said he wears hoodies and a white mask that covers his face. Bakugo has seen pictures of him, grainy photos from security footage, plastered on TV, warning people. Even in the worst photos, his eyes are clear. They’re a bright, piercing green.

Bakugo has to take a break from reading. When he closes his eyes, he sees the faces of those killed by Regrowth, the glazed looks, the flowers splitting them open, the rotting limbs.

Is there enough of Deku left to even be rescued?

---

Deku gets by.

It's hard, pretending to be fine when he feels like he's being ripped apart, but he's had practice. He's been pretending for two years, after all. What's one more lie?

He digs out the old magazine article, again. Loses himself in daydreams. Maybe he could have gone to UA and been a hero. Maybe he and Kacchan could have become friends there, along with that other boy, Kirishima. His quirk has a lot possibilities, used properly. He's healed himself with it enough - maybe, if he'd been given proper training, he could have learned to heal other people.

He can almost picture it - instead of cutting people open, putting them back together. Repairing broken bones and skinned knees and then giving patients a flower, just for the fun of it.

Eventually, though, reality reasserts itself. Deku's as likely to heal a wound as he is to create a horrible infection that kills whoever he's healing - in fact, the second option is more likely. That's what he's been trained for.

He's never going to be a hero. At this point, he doesn't even deserve to be. He's not the carefree, cheerful child he once was.

Villains don't become heroes, especially villains like him.

He wonders what his next mission might be. Another murder, or maybe for once something that doesn't make him hate himself as much. Then again, the League is lying a bit low for once, letting the press run wild with theories about the USJ attack. They'll strike again soon enough, but Shigaraki is enjoying the chaos.

For now, he’ll enjoy the break, such as it is. He’ll lay low, and hope he doesn’t get dragged into something else.

Mostly, he’ll hope Kacchan stays safe.

----

Breaking into the League Of Villains headquarters is unsettling easy.

Bakugo’s spent about a month doing research, at this point, digging through crack theories and troll rants, trying to find any nuggets of truth buried deep in.

A lot of theories mention an abandoned bar, where a variety of different villains have been spotted, including a bunch that appeared during the USJ attack. Most notably, Regrowth has been seen there often. Bakugo finds a series of pictures taken by the security camera nearby. There's massive gaps between photos, months between them at times, but still. Regrowth is a consistent presence here. It's the closest thing Bakugo has to a lead.

He waits for a holiday weekend, a rare opportunity where students are encouraged to go visit their parents. Bakugo's never bothered before, but this weekend he tells his teachers he's going home.

He doesn't.

The bar isn't too far, but it's not close enough to walk, so Bakugo takes the train. His suitcase is only for show, completing his disguise of student visiting his parents. All his supplies are in his backpack, and even then, there's not much. Some rope, first aid supplies…..Bakugo couldn't think of anything that would actually help, with this. His whole plan really hinges on Deku being willing.

Well, there is one person he did ask for help, despite his better judgement - Hatsume Mei. He’d offered to test out some of her weird inventions in exchange for her helping him sneak back into the dorms that night. She’d agreed easily, and he’d left out the part about bringing a second person into the dorms.

The bar is exactly where his notes said it would be, tucked away behind other buildings, the neon sign having gone out a long time ago. The front is crumbling, the windows cracked and dirty. It's not an inviting structure.

Bakugo goes in anyway. The door is locked, but when has a lock ever stopped him? One small explosion and he's in.

It's suspicious, but not enough to make Bakugo go back. Inside is surprisingly nice, plush seats and recently swept floors and clean counters. Sure, everything’s kinda worn out, but it’s obviously been used as an actual bar pretty recently.

The door to the kitchen is locked like the door outside, and Bakugo disposes of it in the same way.

The kitchen is not a kitchen. Bakugo grins upon seeing the hallway ahead of him. Now he's getting somewhere. There's windows in each door, revealing a variety of things - closets, mostly, little storage areas, with some blank bedrooms spread out.

The halls are long and twisting. Bakugo starts getting discouraged when he turns down a hall and, for the fourth time, is greeted by the exact same view he was greeted with the last three turns.

He turns a fifth time and sees a shadow at the end of the hall.

Picking up speed, still aiming for silence, he darts down the hall. This one goes in two directions, and he thinks he sees a flash of black hair turning towards the right. He practically sprints after it, following it down a few halls, until it suddenly vanishes.

It's then that he realizes he has no idea where he is. There’s two ways for him to go forward, one way to go back, and he has no idea how to backtrack.

One direction is a dead end, with just a door at the end, so he decides to check that first. The door is locked - of course - so he gives a quick knock, to see if anyone’s inside.

No response. That’s fine by him. The door breaks easily, crumbling under the explosions.

---

When Deku hears the doorknob rattle, he hides.

It’s not a conscious plan, really, more something he does on instinct. The door is locked, but that rarely stops people from bursting in. Within seconds he’s hidden under the bed, watching the legs of whoever’s decided to come in. He can tell every league member apart by their shoes alone.

….Except he doesn’t recognize the pair he’s currently looking at. They’re a pair of plain black sneakers, well worn but still in good shape. The only person who ever wears sneakers is Dabi and his have some distinct burn marks on them.

“Fuck,” the person says.

Deku pokes his head out from under the bed, just far enough to look, not enough to be seen, only to be greeted with -

“Kacchan?”

Kacchan whirls around, looking for the source of the voice. Sheepishly, Deku crawls out from under the bed.

“What are you doing down th-”

“You can't be here!” Deku nearly shouts, interrupting him, before realizing how loud he's being. “What am I doing? No, what are you doing?”

Kacchan glares at him.

“You can't be here,” Deku repeats, standing up.

“And why not?”

“Because - why are you even here in the first place?”

“I’m here to rescue you, you idiot!”

Deku stares at him, unsure of how to even react. “You - I - You can’t. I’m a villain, Kacchan.”

Kacchan’s determined glare starts to slide off. “What, do you like being here?” he scoffs, gesturing at the room around him, the gray walls and lack of any personal touches.

“I’m -”

“You always said you wanted to be a hero,” Kacchan continues, balling his hands into fists. “So what, you changed your mind? You wanna hurt people now or something?”

Deku flinches. He wants nothing more than to sink into the floor, but Kacchan keeps going. “If you do, then fine, I’ll leave. But if you don’t - why the hell are you arguing with me? I’m trying to help you!”

“You could die trying to help me!” Deku says, digging his hands into his hair. “Did you even think this through? What if I did wanna hurt people?”

“So you admit -”

“Listen to me! If I was a proper villain - you’d be dead!”

“But I’m not, and you’re not,” Kacchan says, like that solves anything. “You’re not, and now you can leave.”

“I can’t,” Deku says, some of the tension leaving him, replaced with exhaustion. “It’s not that simple.”

“It could be,” Kacchan says. “What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t deserve it! I’ve done some awful stuff -” and here he can see Kacchan looking away awkwardly, like he knows what Deku’s done and is rethinking things a little, good - “I’ve killed people and hurt people and ruined lives and - I’m not the Deku you remember.” He grabs onto his arm, a half hearted hug. “I’m not Deku at all. I’m Regrowth.”

Kacchan is silent. Deku doesn’t dare look at him. He can’t pretend he’s not tempted by Kacchan’s offer, but he knows he can’t accept it.

“If you’re really such a horrible person, then why’d you let me and Kirishima live?”

“I -” he doesn’t have a reply to that. Kacchan, for once, does have a point there.

But that doesn’t erase everything else. It doesn’t erase the dead bodies Deku sees when he closes his eyes. “I’m still a villain. Villains don’t get happy endings.”

“You’re being a dumbass,” Kacchan says, interrupting the uncomfortable silence. “You know what I think? I think you’re scared. Which I should’ve expected, but also, stop being a self sacrificing little shit and let me fucking help you.”

“I’m being a dumbass? You’re the one -”

“Shh!” Kacchan says suddenly, moving to put a hand over Deku’s mouth, though Deku quickly knocks it away. “I think I hear something.” He moves away from Deku and pokes his head out the door.

“But -”

“Do you wanna leave or not?” he asks, turning suddenly. “Yes or no.”

“I -”

“Yes or no.”

“Yes,” Deku admits.

“Good,” Kacchan says.

Something hits Deku in the head, something heavy, and before he has the chance to try and figure out what it is, the world goes black.

[martinmcg]

KING ROOK

I grew up in a housing estate that was built on a gently-rising hillside. The top of the hill was ringed with trees, ancient sessile oaks, wych elm and horse chestnut. You wouldn’t call it a forest, it’s not that big, but it’s a bit more than a few random trees. We called it Hangman’s Woods because in the old days they didn’t bother building a scaffold in town, they just dragged people from the courthouse down the road, stuck a rope around their neck and pulled them by the neck over a branch of the biggest oak in the wood.

Justice. So they said.

The rooks were probably there then, watching and waiting for a feed. They still rule the place today.

These were big birds with heavy black beaks and bodies matt as coal dust but their hoods shone like satin and framed beaded eyes that saw everything.

Every evening the rooks welcomed the night with a great performance. The clamour, at first just one or two birds, grew quickly as groups returned from their day’s scavenging. Soon dozens and then hundreds and eventually maybe a thousand rooks swirled in one black cloud around the treetops. In the valley below the housemartins and swifts zipped and flitted between the rows of our houses, but we all lived in the shadow of the rooks.

Finally, at some unknowable signal, the gyring mass would all at once drop from the sky to their roosts in the trees. For a few minutes the branches swayed and rattled as the birds settled down. And when, at last, all went quiet, night had come.

*

Al McCourt was waiting for me when I got home from the last day of my Saturday job in Woolworths. He was leaning on the fence outside our house and annoying the dog, Nipper, who was lying on the concrete slabs of the short path between the gate and the house, ears flat, teeth bared, growling like an angry bear. It’d have been impressive if the mutt had been more than ten inches high.

“Shut up, Nipper!”

The growling stopped, but Nipper didn’t take his eyes off McCourt. He could hold a grudge that wee dog.

Al was a prick. He was thin-faced with a nose like the thick end of a hurley and a way of standing side-on so he was always looking at you out the corner of one eye. His voice was high and wheedling and it made the back of your neck crawl like metal scraping metal. He didn’t care that people hated him, he seemed to take pride in the way they shuddered at his approach. He mistook fear for respect. But Al was also my uncle Seamus’s man, and that meant that no one got to give him the kicking he obviously deserved. Except for the one night, a couple of years before, when the Brits had caught him out on his own.

They beat the shit out of him.

McCourt walked with a limp to this day. He wore it like a badge of honour and claimed a fortune off the DHSS for it. He was never out of the Citizens Advice place.

Economic warfare, Seamus called it. Taking the Brits for every penny.

Scrounging, my Da said.

Anyway, the day the Brits put Al McCourt in hospital was about as close as the two communities in Ardowen ever got to a moment of harmony. If we could have turned his beating into a spectator sport the whole Troubles might have ended there and then. We could have made a few bob too.

McCourt pulled himself up to his full height, flicking a pebble at the dog as he turned to me. I wasn’t tall but he barely came up to my chin. He scratched at his ear through a mass of greasy hair and grinned.

“Your uncle wants to see you,” he said. “Pronto, Tonto!”

I hated being called Tonto, a childhood nickname because my freckles made me a “redskin”.

“No can do, kemosabe,” I said, shaking my head. I wasn’t going to let the little shit know he’d annoyed me. “I’m away out the night.”

That wasn’t a lie. It was the last Saturday before we all left for university and I was going to a disco in Cookstown with Paddy and Aidan and the lads from school. We were going to get lashed and see how many girls we could persuade to let us stick our tongues down their throats. And maybe cop a feel. You never knew what we might get away with before we crossed the water. That was the plan for me and Paddy anyway. Aidan’d be out the back dry-humping his girl from Ballygawley and then trying to persuade us he’d really done it.

“Y’can get your end away later, wee Connolly,” McCourt seemed very pleased with himself, like he knew something I didn’t. “Your uncle says it’s urgent.”

“Can I at least get a wash and a change first?”

McCourt shrugged.

“The back bar–”

“-in O’Neill’s,” I cut him off. I knew where Seamus would be, it was where he always was.

“By seven, Tonto.” McCourt turned away, his bad leg dragging behind him like some doomed bird’s broken wing. “Don’t keep the big man waiting.”

“Yeah, and fuck you too,” I whispered softly as I opened the gate.

*

Nothing on the estate was safe from the rooks. Cats, small dogs, rabbits – any kind of unwary pet or careless wild thing was a potential target. A ruffling of feathers, a chorus of rough croaks and something vulnerable would squeal. Afterwards the rooks would stride casually across the road or on the little patch of scrubby grass that was our Croke Park, our Old Trafford, our playground, and they would dare us to challenge them, their beaks still glossed with blood.

I was the first baby born in our estate. It was newly built, still smelling of concrete dust and paint, the white stones of the pebbledash gleaming in the weak spring sunshine. The whole place had been a frantic response to a civil rights campaign that was rapidly turning into the bloody Troubles. It was a hopeless attempt to jam shut a box from which the nightmares had long since fled. Years later it would turn out that all the houses were slowly sliding down the hill into the bog in the valley below. You can take that for a metaphor of how rotten things were back then if you like but it was also the truth.

Whatever came later, my Ma was proud of her new home. They’d moved from a two-up-two-down built into the side of a railway cutting so steep you practically needed a ladder to climb the street outside. That house, she always said, had been so small you couldn’t peel a spud without opening the back door. The new house had three bedrooms, an inside toilet and a garden. She loved that house.

My parents moved in while the houses around them were still being built. I was born, she said, before the paint was dry. And before people learned what it was like to live with the rooks.

It was a bright spring morning and Ma left my pram in the garden – for all the violence on the television it was still a safe thing to do. She left me there and went back into the house to clean or cook or do whatever one of the thousand other things she did to make our lives that little bit better.

When she came back, just a few minutes later, a huge rook was sitting on the handle of my pram, staring in at me.

She screamed and rushed forward, waving frantic arms, trying to scare the bird away.

The rook just stared at her.

My Ma stopped.

Small, bottomless, eyes took her in and then turned down to me as I lay gurgling in the pram. There was a moment of stillness. Then the bird spread its wings and launched itself into the air and setting my pram rocking.

My Ma described the rook as a monster – vast as an eagle, darker than the night.

“The King Rook,” she’d called it and my dad had laughed his head off at her.

But I know the King Rook is real. It left me a gift, a pebble, smoothed and polished by running water until in shone like a jewel that my Ma kept for me. And he came back, again and again. Sometimes he took my things. He took my Action Man from the garden, my toy car from the playground, a schoolbook with my homework in it and a cassette of songs I’d taped off the Sunday afternoon chart show.

I knew it was the rook because, whenever he took something, he always left a gift behind.

A pyramid of snail shells, each one punched neatly open with a single round hole and emptied. The pale skull of a rat. A delicate blue egg, hollowed and cleaned. One morning, planted in the centre of our tiny front garden like a banner or a sign of ownership, I found a single black feather with a gloss so perfect that it reflected light like a mirror.

And there were other things. Bloody things.

They were magical signs. Signs that no matter how bad things got around me – and there were times when things got very bad – I was protected.

The King Rook was watching over me.

*

O’Neill’s bar was a fortress. The windows were protected by shutters made from thick-gauge wire that were kept permanently closed. The inside of the windows had been blocked up with breezeblocks and a string of bulbs, white Christmas tree lights, hung in the gap between the wall and the glass to make the place look a bit less grim from the outside. It didn’t work. The pub’s walls – rebuilt after a UVF bomb attack – were thick reinforced concrete skimmed over with rough plaster and painted a grimy brown and there were bright lights and cameras covering the car park and every approach.

I didn’t want to miss my bus to Cookstown so I’d rushed getting ready. It wasn’t, officially, opening time yet and, for form’s sake, the outside door was closed when I got to the pub – not that that meant anything. I pressed the bell and looked up into the camera. The buzzer went and I pushed my way in. Michael Molloy was sitting on a stool in the hall, a baseball bat leaning against the wall beside him, and he nodded me through as I turned left into the public bar.

When things get going, the front bar in O’Neill’s is a busy place, full of people enjoying a laugh and a drink. Later on there’d be a bit of singing and a lot of noise but it was early yet and quiet as the hardcore set about their beer and shorts with a steady desperation. The Sacred Heart lamps we called them, laughing behind their backs, because the drink had given them all red noses.

Even this early the smoke was hanging thick between the yellowed walls so that it obscured the big pictures of the local heroes, Thomas J Clarke – one of the Easter Rising crowd – and Martin Hurson – one of the hunger strikers – that took pride of place behind the bar. Between the pictures was an ornamental harp that Sean, the owner, had made in the woodwork lessons he got while he was interned in the Long Kesh. He’d painted tiocfaidh ár lá in white Gaelic lettering on the brown varnished wooden base.

Sean smiled at me as I walked through to the back bar.

“Pint?”

“I’m not staying,” I said.

“Smithwicks?”

I nodded, resigned.

“I’ll bring it through.”

The thick fug of cigarette smoke was about the only thing the back bar of O’Neill’s had in common with the front. The walls were painted a dark green that seemed to swallow the light and there was a damp and rotten stink from the drains of the toilets next door. It was grim.

My uncle Seamus sat in his usual place in a booth with his back to the wall, so he could see who was coming in. The only other way out was a long narrow corridor that lead to the toilets and ended with a door so heavily wrapped in metal armour that it took two people to drag it open. There was a peephole cut into the door and a monitor, showing a picture of the back car park, sat on a shelf above the lintel.

Half-a-dozen hard men sat nursing whiskeys and pints at other tables. They all wore black leather jackets and aggressively stone-washed jeans and a few sported impressive displays of what they, no doubt, imagined to be authentically Gaelic facial hair.

“What’s the score, wee Tonto?” Seamus said.

“Ach, the usual, you know me” I said, trying to keep it light. “How’s about you, Uncle Seamus,”

“Same old same old,” he said. “Come in. Sit down. You don’t want to be making me nervous now, do you?”

“No way,” I said, and laughed.

Seamus was a funny fella. When he was in a good mood, he had a great sense of humour and always had some story or a comeback. In a country where slagging off your neighbour was practically an Olympic sport, there weren’t many could beat my uncle. Of course there weren’t many that tried either. You didn’t want to be the one who went too far or said the wrong thing. It wasn’t a mistake you’d make twice.

Seamus didn’t look like much at all. He was a short, slightly stocky man with a shiny bald head and a neatly-trimmed, snowy beard. He dressed well, favouring slightly old-fashioned tweed suits and he devoted special attention his shoes – always the best Italian leather and always polished to a gleaming finish. You could have imagined him as a dapper off-duty Santa Claus – if Santa had turned out to spend his spare time moonlighting as a psychopath.

You never forgot the first time you saw Uncle Seamus lose his temper.

He was a man who moved in circles where a lack of regard for the well-being of others was an entry-level requirement, but even amongst that crowd Seamus stood out. He was fearsome as an individual, precisely and thoroughly vicious, but it was his talent for dreaming up acts of exquisite brutality and the enthusiasm with which his brigade of volunteers made those dreams real that had made his name.

The Cripple Feeney could tell you about what Seamus and his lads were capable of doing. Or rather, he’d write down what Seamus did to him, and then he’d make that sick sucking sound that he does instead of laughing when you went pale reading his words.

Sean came in and put the pint of Smithwicks in front of me.

“That’ll tighten you, Tonto,” he said, a bit too loud, and slapped me on the shoulder. He was nervous. I could smell the sweat on him even over the cigarette smoke. “Can I get you anything, Seamus?”

My uncle shook his head but said nothing. He stared at Sean, his face blank, his pale eyes fixing the barman. I looked between the two men and then looked down, determined not to get drawn into whatever was going on. I liked Sean, I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t want any bit of it.

“Dead on, so,” Sean said and let slip a peal of laughter that was pitched too high. “Well, if you need anything, you know where I am.”

“Oh I do, alright,” said Seamus and then said nothing else.

Sean turned to go, stopped, turned back as though to speak, and then shook his head and left.

The silence dragged. I picked up my pint and took a heavy gulp from the glass even though the head hadn’t quite settled out. My throat was dry. The beer was cold and sharp and I needed it.

One of the lads on my left – one of The Cripple Feeney’s brothers – mumbled something and another one, I didn’t know him, snorted and laughed.

My uncle turned his head and the silence snapped back into place.

I took another drink. The pint was two thirds gone.

“Right, Tonto,” Seamus said at last. “I’ve got a wee job for you.”

He nodded and the stranger who’d been doing the laughing came over and put something that was wrapped in a greasy cloth on the table between me and Seamus. He went back to his seat, my eyes stayed on the thing on the table. It was small but obviously heavy.

Seamus reached over and with fingertips, as though determined not to let the thing soil his hands, he pushed the lump of metal towards me.

I reached for my pint again and closed my eyes.

Fuck.

*

I spent my thirteenth birthday at the same place as I’d spent all my birthdays since I’d been old enough to go to school – at Colm Hagan’s birthday party.

Colm Hagan’s dad and uncle were lawyers. The richest Catholics in the county, everyone reckoned. When I was young they bought the hill and Hangman’s Wood and they chopped down a dozen big trees to make room to build two big, ugly, square-sided houses that looked down over our estate.

Colm Hagan joined my class and, it turned out, he had the same birthday as me. At first we both though that was cool and for a while we were friends. Then came our birthday and Colm Hagan invited the whole class to his fancy house and I found myself spending my birthday there because that’s where all my other friends had gone.

What could we offer? A slice of Battenberg cake, a fig roll, a glass of orange squash and a game of musical chairs – if they were lucky.

When Colm was nine he got two go-karts and his dad built him a track through the woods so he could have races. I’d have chosen his party over mine too.

We stopped being friends.

He probably never even thought about it.

I hated him.

But not so much that I was happy when I found his dead body, eyes pecked out, lying at the foot of a big oak in his own back garden on the day we both turned thirteen.

The party had been great. Everyone was having a brilliant time. We watched Colm play Elite and Chuckie Egg on his BBC Micro and then we rode around the woods on our bikes so Colm could show off his BMX and there was loads of food. By the time the cake came out I’d had enough of watching everyone else having a good time so I crammed a load of wee sausages and bread in my pockets and went out to feed the birds.

I’d emptied my pockets and was heading back to the house for more when I found Colm, lying face up on the ground next to his bike, with a big purple bruise on his forehead and his skin as pale and thin as paper.

On his chest, lying on the crest of his Man United football jersey, was another gift for me.

Feeling the bile burn in my throat, suddenly glad I hadn’t wanted any cake, I picked up the liquid sack of Connor Hagan’s eye and slipped it into my pocket, shoving the slick cord of the optic nerve in after it.

And then I started shouting for help.

*

“Ah you’re fucking joking!” I said, but no one was laughing. In fact everyone else in the room was suddenly very serious indeed – like birds waiting for the barely moving thing before them to sit still and become carrion.

“It’s just a wee parcel I’m asking you to help me deliver, Tonto,” Seamus said. “Would you not do this for me… and for the struggle?”

I bowed my head.

“Remember what the Brits did to my sister,” he said. “God rest her soul.”

“Don’t bring Ma into this!” My voice rose sharply and I looked up. Seamus met my gaze with a flat stare and dared me to hold it. I looked away, feeling the hot blood rush to my cheeks.

I was screwed. I could see from the look Seamus was giving me that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I was family, and that bought me some leeway, but Seamus couldn’t let anyone get away with anything that looked like defiance. He had a reputation to maintain. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be lying, blood-soaked and maimed, on the other side of that armoured door. Seamus wasn’t going to let a pup like me challenge him in front of the others, sister’s boy or not.

“The Brits’ll go through everything. You know what they’re like,” I whined. “They’re bound to find it.”

“Why would the Brits be interested in some fucking student?” Laughing-boy, the one I didn’t know, asked.

“Because I’m related to him,” I said, nodding at Seamus. “Fuckin’ twat!”

Laughing-boy stood up and took a step forward, his fists balled.

I pushed back my chair, rising to meet him.

“Stop,” Seamus barely whispered. We both froze.

“Sorry,” I said to Seamus. The other fella mumbled something and sat back down.

“Of course they’re going to check you, Tonto,” Seamus said. “Just stick the thing in one of your wee friends’ bags. What they don’t know, won’t hurt them.”

“If they get caught–”

I started to protest but Seamus cut me short.

“They won’t,” he said. “And if they do, sure I’ll look after them. They’ll be grand.”

He pushed the heavy thing across the table to me.

“Now do as you’re told and piss off out of my sight.”

*

I didn’t get to Cookstown or the disco. I met the lads at the bus station and told them they’d have to go without me. Paddy moaned for bit about ending up on his own but I mentioned Seamus and Aidan told him to shut up.

I watched the blue and white Ulsterbus pull out of the station and cross the old railway bridge. Aidan and Paddy sat in the back seats and made wanker gestures at me until they were out of sight. Then I went home.

*

I have collection spread in front of me now. If I concentrate hard, I can still feel the sense of security it once promised. I can still feel like someone is watching over me, that I am protected. But it’s getting harder. My dad calls it rubbish, and sometimes I can see it with his eyes.

This will be my last day in this house. Tomorrow I will leave for university. Tomorrow night I will be sleeping in a different country and I will be surrounded by people I was always told were my enemy. I know I won’t be able to come back, not for long time. Some part of me already knew that this was never going to be my home again and part of me can’t wait to get away.

And part of me does not want to go.

It’s the end of September. The summer has been long and hot and, even though you can already feel the days shortening, today has been warm. The evening sky is bright and sharp with only the spreading contrails of jets looping north on their way to America dividing up the expanse of deepening blue.

I wrap each piece of my collection carefully in sheets from yesterday’s copy of the Daily Mirror and place them in a plastic tub that used to be my Da’s lunchbox. Then I put the tub carefully in the centre of my rucksack so it will be safe on the journey.

I drag Seamus’s package out from beneath my bed. I hold it for a minute between two fingers, staring at it from different angles. How can something so small feel so massive? Just picking it off the table in O’Neill’s back bar has ruined me, changed the track of my life, and yet it hasn’t even been used. What more damage will be done if I follow Seamus’s orders?

I hate it. I hate him.

I put the thing down on the bed. Pick it up again. Put it down. I put on my coat then take the rag-wrapped thing and jam it into my inside pocket.

I have made a decision and I am relieved to find that I have no doubts.

I go down stairs, kiss the picture of my Ma in the hall, like I always do, and wish she was still here, like I always do. My Da’s there too, at the bottom of the stairs with the paper, heading to the toilet. I give him a hug as I go past and tell him I love him. His surprise quickly turns to fear.

“What’s going on?” I hear him say, but I’m outside before he can drag me back.

The rooks are coming home to roost, the first few already circling high above the woods, and tonight I want to watch them for the last time.

Al McCourt is sitting outside our house in an Austin Maestro that’s the colour of stale piss. He leans out the window, his face twisted into a smile.

“Going somewhere, Tonto?”

“Just going for a walk up in the woods,” I say, nodding to the hill. “You coming?”

Al eyes the hill suspiciously. The light is starting to fade. The dead eyes of the Hagan’s houses, long abandoned their gardens slowly being reclaimed by the wood, stare down at us. The gyring mass of birds is thickening.

Al knows those birds, knows how they flock, how they prey upon the people of the estate. And, because he recognises them, he fears them.

“Don’t you be playing any funny games,” he says.

I smile at him and turn away.

Let Al choose his own fate.

I am going to climb the hill into Hangman’s Wood and go to the spot where I found Colm Hagan. I want to see the King Rook. I’m bringing him a final offering, but this time I want to choose what I get in return.

I want him to let me go.

“King Rook” was first published in the Irish science fiction magazine Albedo One #45

KING ROOK was originally published on Welcome To My World

[psychosistr]

Worth It Chapter 5- Trap of Love

Summary: Caesar wakes up in his new home and learns some unsettling things about his best friend.

The first thing Caesar noticed when he woke up was a dull, lightly throbbing pain in the back of his head. ‘Must be a hangover,’ He told himself. ‘Did I have too much to drink last night?’ His eyes slowly opened, vision blurry as he tried to blink the sleep away and remember what happened. ‘No…wait…I didn’t drink last night…’

He tried to sit up and rub his head, but was quickly jolted into startled wakefulness when he realized that his arm couldn’t come up all the way- neither of them could. “What the-?!” Caesar raised his head to look at his arms- both of which were bound to the unfamiliar bed he now found himself on. On each of his wrists was a silver shackle that was hard, solid metal on the outside where it connected to two thick chains that were latched to locked metal hooks on the sides of the large bed, but had a soft, cushioned layer of light blue cloth on the inside- presumably so the metal wouldn’t cut him or leave scars. As Caesar looked down his body, he noticed that his feet were secured with matching shackles and chains on his ankles, preventing him from getting off of the bed (but also found that he was thankfully still dressed in his pajama pants from before).

Caesar felt panic rising in his chest and forced himself to inhale deep breaths so he could fully take in his surroundings: He was in what looked like a large master bedroom complete with an attached master bathroom that he could see through a slightly ajar door on the far side of the room to his right. Other than the door to the bathroom, there were two other doors- one to his right by the bathroom that was opened to reveal a large walk-in closet that was currently filled with boxes like someone was in the process of moving in, and another door on the wall to his left that Caesar could only assume lead to the rest of this house. The walls were painted a simple white with no pictures hung up to give him a clue as to where he was or who had brought him here, and the large floor-to ceiling windows that essentially made up the wall that he was facing in front of the bed were currently covered with dark, heavy floor-length velveteen curtains that blocked his view as well as the bright sunlight that he could see just barely peeking through the gaps in the bottom against the hard wood floor. The room was well-furnished with an antique wooden dresser, matching armoire, two wooden nightstands placed on either side of the bed, a coatrack, and, of course, the large, metal-framed, plush purple comforter-adorned, California king sized bed that Caesar was currently strapped to.

Caesar moved around to test the limits of the restraints and found that he could maneuver enough to sit up in the bed but could not get off of it in anyway. He also discovered that the chains had enough slack in them to allow him some movement in his limbs, but he couldn’t close his legs together completely and while he could bring his hands up to his waist while sitting up (or to his chest while lying down), no matter what he tried he couldn’t get his arms any higher or further back. In addition, the metal was too sturdy to break just by pulling on it and the cuffs were too tight for him to slip out of in any way at all.

In short: He was thoroughly and completely trapped.

Just as Caesar finished testing the chains for any weak links, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the door on his left. His blood ran cold as the footsteps drew closer. Was this the person who brought him here? Why? He hadn’t done anything wrong since arriving in America- was it someone from Italy coming after him for some sort of twisted revenge from his street-thug days? He was pretty sure he’d never done anything to piss off someone with THIS much money. The door knob twisted slowly as the door opened almost silently, Caesar’s heart almost stopping as he saw..he saw…

Joseph.

Joseph had walked in, wired earbuds in his ears connected to an MP3 player in his pocket that was blasting away with some muffled pop song that Caesar couldn’t be bothered to recognize at the moment. Joseph was carrying a large box in his hands that he brought over to the closet to set down with the others. Caesar briefly noticed that Joseph was wearing a different pair of jeans than before and was wearing an old brown tank top with his favorite riding jacket tied around his waist like he’d been wearing it earlier but got too warm.

Caesar could hardly believe his eyes, his voice catching in his throat. “Jo..Jojo..?”

Joseph didn’t seem to hear or notice him at first, not until he turned away from the closet and saw Caesar sitting up in the bed and staring at him. “Oh! Caesar!” He gave the blond a big smile, his voice louder than usual since he couldn’t hear himself, and paused his music before taking out his earbuds. “Morning! Sorry, didn’t wake you up, did I?” He walked over to the bed, seating himself at the foot of it between Caesar’s open legs and speaking in his normal, casual tone as if this was an everyday occurrence. “You were out for a loooooong time, y’know? Think it’s been at least..let’s see..24, 26 hours?” He looked at something on his MP3 player and whistled. “Wow, 29. That’s impressive. Guess I used a bit too much the other day. Oh well, it definitely made moving everything a lot easier.”

Caesar stared at his friend with wide eyes as his words sank in, his memory finally catching up with him. “You…You drugged my coffee…?”

Joseph clicked his tongue with a wink and did finger guns at him. “Ding! Bingo, Caesarino!”

“But..why? Why would you…?” Caesar could hardly believe this was happening. This had to be a bad dream, right?

Joseph shrugged, holding his hands with palms facing upwards parallel to his shoulders in a casual manner. “Seemed like the easiest way to get you here. It’s not like you would’ve WILLINGLY let me put the chains on you.” He said with a slight roll of his eyes and a tone of voice implying that part should have been obvious.

Caesar’s shocked expression changed to a glare and he jerked forward in the chains, feeling like he would punch Joseph if he could reach him right now. “What the FUCK, Joseph?! You drugged me and KIDNAPPED me?! Why the hell would you do that?!”

Joseph just calmly leaned back half an inch, covering his ears with a dead-pan look on his face. “First of all, you don’t need to shout- I’m RIGHT here. And it’s not like I kidnapped you- I bought this house and we DO live together, so that means it’s your home too.” He uncovered his ears and let the sarcastic expression slip into what Caesar assumed was supposed to be a gentle smile, but there was something manic and, quite frankly, terrifying in those eyes. “As for ‘why’…well…” He brought his hands forward and gently cupped Caesar’s face, leaning in until their lips brushed together as he whispered. “I love you.”

Caesar threw himself back against the pillows and the headboard, putting as much distance between himself and Joseph as the chains would allow. He tried to glare up at his best friend, but the panic he felt made his voice waver a bit. “Th-That’s not funny, Joseph! This has got to be one of your WORST jokes EVER! Just-Just let me go now and we’ll pretend this whole thing never happened!”

Joseph heaved a sigh and looked down at Caesar with a disappointed frown. “I’m not joking, Caesar. I really do love you. I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn’t listen to me. That..really hurt…” His frown deepened for a moment and Caesar saw that same pain swimming in Jojo’s eyes from that morning in the kitchen. But, just as soon as it was there, it was gone. Joseph quickly shook his head and smiled again, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “But! I’m not mad at you or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about! I realized it was MY fault, not yours.” He put down one hand but kept the other up by his face with one raised finger like he was stating an important discovery. “Y’see, I wasn’t taking YOUR feelings into consideration before. I tried to confess to you, but you didn’t feel the same way yet- it was WAY too soon for you. But that’s okay!” He spread his arms out in a grand gesture indicating the whole room, and the house as a whole by extension. “Now that we’re out here, away from anyone or anything else, you’ve got all the time in the world to come around!” He crawled closer to Caesar with that same smile on his face, one hand lightly trailing up Caesar’s abs to his chest and finally up to caress his cheek again. “And I’ll have you all to myself, my precious little Caesar~<3”

The saccharine tone of Joseph’s voice made Caesar’s skin crawl and his stomach twist. He’d never seen this side of Joseph before and it was terrifying him. He tried to pull his face away from the large hand on his cheek, keeping a scowl firmly in place to mask his fear. “That..That’s just crazy, Joseph! Love doesn’t work like that! You can’t just kidnap me and expect me to fall for you when I’m being held against my will! What do you think- that I’ll love you after you force yourself on me?!”

Joseph looked shocked and a bit insulted by Caesar’s comment, pulling his hand back as if he was burned. “What?! No! I would never do that!” Caesar almost felt hope bubbling in his chest again, hope that this was all just a joke that Joseph was close to ending now. That hope vanished when Joseph spoke again and wrapped his arms around Caesar in a tight embrace. “I know you don’t believe me yet, but I DO love you. All I want is for us to be happy together. I would never, EVER do anything you didn’t want me to, Caesar.”

Caesar tried to squirm out of the hold but it proved futile between Joseph’s strong body and the chains. “You mean besides holding me captive against my will?”

Joseph chuckled a bit and rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, other than THAT I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.” He sat up and patted Caesar on the head with a smile. “Don’t worry, though, you’ll change your mind on that part soon enough.” He got up and stretched his arms and legs. “In the meantime, I’ve got a LOT of unpacking to do.” He started to walk to the door, waving over his shoulder. “I’d ask you to join me, but I think you need some time to cool off first.”

Caesar glared at his retreating back, seething with rage. “You can’t keep me here forever! I’ll get out eventually! I’ll scream while you’re gone until someone hears me if I have to!”

Joseph stopped at the door with an exasperated sigh and looked back at him. “I mean- you could try. Wouldn’t do you much good, though.” He walked over to the windows and pulled the large curtains back, the bright morning day light blinding Caesar for a minute until his eyes adjusted and his heart sank again at the sight: Trees. There was nothing but a seemingly endless (what would normally be considered gorgeous) view of a forest for miles and miles in any direction he could see through the window. “I bought this place to get out of the city and have to deal with less people. Sure, the commute to work’ll be a bit longer, but I think it’s worth it for the peace and quiet that comes with absolutely NO neighbors or people to walk by every day. Pretty nice, huh?” He asked with a slight smirk, as if he was enjoying dashing Caesar’s futile hopes of escape.

Caesar tried not to let that deter him. “Some…Someone will come looking for me eventually!”

Joseph actually chuckled at that one and walked back to the bed, looming over Caesar with that still present smirk. “Oh? Really? Like who?” He ticked off each of his following comments with his fingers. “You don’t have a job anymore, so it’s not like anyone there would bother to find you. You haven’t had any contact with your family in years. Your last girlfriend dumped you months ago, so she clearly doesn’t care enough to come looking for you- and neither do any of your other exes, for that matter. And, as far as friends go, well..” He winked down at Caesar. “All you have is ME.” He put his hands on his hips. “Face it- the only one who would bother going to look for you if you went missing would be me. You have no one else who would care enough to even TRY.”

Those words cut Caesar deep, making him look away from Joseph’s smirking face above him. “You don’t know that…” His rebuttal was half-hearted and he knew it, but, still, he didn’t want to admit that Joseph was right.

“Yes, I do.” Joseph’s voice had suddenly dropped- both in tone to sound more understanding and in distance, the latter of which Caesar confirmed when he glanced back to see Joseph kneeling beside the bed so they were at eye-level with each other. His expression was calm, devoid of its earlier smugness as well as any mania from before. “I’ve grown up observing people, watching their every move, every behavior, to the point that I can predict them almost perfectly. And, after falling in love with you, you became the person I watched the most.  I watched you and the people you chose to socialize with. While you’re not as bad as me, you do still have trouble forming attachments to other people- probably some deep-seated psychological issues that go back to your dad walking out on you as a kid or something- but that means that your circle of trust is VERY small. You have hardly anyone you care enough about to let into your life, and, while you might be mad at me now, I am still one of the only people in the world you trust. Eventually, you will see me that way again.” He gave Caesar a kiss on the forehead that was almost sweet. “And, one day, you’ll see me as even more.”

“….” For a minute, Caesar could not bring himself to move or react, a feeling of despair and dread stuck in his throat that burned like bile. Eventually he managed to turn his head away, his voice low and venomous. “Just get out of my sight, Joseph.”

Joseph stroked his head tenderly before getting up and walking to the door again. “Alright. I’m gonna go work on unpacking the rest of the house. Try and take it easy- I’ll be back to check on you later, my precious little Caesar.” And with that he left the room, closing the door behind himself.

Once Caesar was certain that Joseph was gone, he rolled onto his side as much as the chains would allow him to and curled in on himself. His body trembled, but he refused to cry- he wouldn’t give Joseph the satisfaction of seeing him broken, damn it. He would get out of this somehow. He had to…

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-From the Beginning-

[btsinwonderland]

Love Me Better - Ch. 35

A Monsta X Story...

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“No…no, he got out, he must have got out…” Vy started to ramble.

Her heart beat out of her chest and she felt a cold sweat build up on her neck and underneath her arms. Suddenly she felt like throwing up. She stopped the car and got out of it staring at the dark cloud of dust that emerged from the horrible pile of cement and brick in the distance. She could barely see anything aside from strange reflections coming off of the broken materials.

Jooheon and Lana both got out and looked at the site. They were a fair distance away but could still make out the shapes of the Chain crew jumping ship. They scattered and ran away from the scene like cockroaches. Her blood might have been boiling but all she felt was an icy terror.

Jooheon started to speak with a heavy voice, “Vy…I don’t know-“

“He got out Vy, I know he did,” Lana said. She gave Jooheon a side look that silenced him.

Vy shook her head and stormed back to the car. They followed her wordlessly and got inside.

“We’re going back to see…If he’s not there, he got out, if we find him, then-” Vy said as her voice gave out. She concealed a sob and bit her cheek to stop herself.

Now was not the time for emotions. She reversed the car and rushed back to their destroyed home. Though she suddenly felt as though it had been destroyed long before it fell. It took all her strength to push her thoughts away and keep driving.

The streetlights led them down the dark road. Vy sped towards the scene but had to park several feet away as the remains of the structure blocked their path. The car jerked to a stop and she took a deep breath before removing her hands off the steering wheel.

“Vy, you don’t have to do this, Jooheon and I can look around,” Lana said. She put a hand on Vy’s shoulder.

Vy looked back and gave her a small smile. “No, it’ll be faster if we all do it.”

They exited the vehicle and began searching. Each of them turned on flashlights from their phones and went their separate ways. Vy told Lana to stay close to her, however, as they could not be sure if all the cockroaches had left.

She walked over to where the bulldozer used to be. Now there was a large pile of chunks of cement with the ghost of a mechanical yellow arm sticking out. The flashlight cast heavy shadows around her from the perverse rubble. What was once a lively home became lifeless matter in the span of a few minutes. She had come to learn the impermanence of things at an early age and that some things never even had the chance to begin.

The area looked like an eternal heap of destruction. There was no horizon in sight when she bent down in the rubble and lifted cement blocks to shine her flashlight through every hole, gap, and crevasse she encountered. She yelled his name hundreds of times over a span of hours. Finally Vy, Jooheon, and Lana met up again on the edge of the site.

The three of them stared at it once more as the moon hung obscurely in the midnight sky. There was a greyish silver cast to everything that made the skin crawl and ache. Their bodies suddenly felt immensely tired. Vy put on a smile for the other two and went back to the car.

"This means he's fine! We'd better go out again and warn those contractors!" She heard the shrillness of her own voice and recoiled internally.

Her forced hopefulness at not finding Wonho was merely a mask for the true fear. She should have been ecstatic they did not find anything and yet not finding him increased her worry. She wondered horrible things, the worst of which, if she would ever see him again.

Their headlights shone against the road ahead of them. Most of the drive was lonely as it was still an ungodly hour. It would be a few hours still before the early birds came out. Jooheon directed Vy to a motel on the opposite side of downtown. She took instructions well enough, like a robot. She nodded and turned left and right as directed. The road ahead looked like a black abyss.

She was sitting in the room as Jooheon settled their arrangements at the front office. Lana was in the bathroom taking a shower. Vy stared at the stark orange curtains. The yellow flowers screamed at her while the red and pink paisley wallpaper added to the torturous visual cacophony. She closed her eyes and put a hand to her chest. Her whole body felt displaced and she began to develop a migraine.

When the doorknob turned she straightened up and put her hand down.

"Okay we have this place for the next few days and we can pay as we go after that. How are you?" Jooheon said. He walked over to the desk and put his bag down.

Vy watched him take out the charger, mouse, and keyboard in a ritualistic fashion. "I'm okay, we need to tell everyone what happened."

"You're right, we need to call them soon. And contact Shownu, wherever he is. Are we going back to the site in a few hours?"

Vy nodded when Jooheon turned in his chair to look at her.

"You should get some rest Vy, at least for a couple hours," Jooheon said, "I'm going to try and call the guys."

She smiled and reassured him not to worry. After that she walked to her bedroom and laid down. The ceiling was off white and the fan was off centre. The blades gleamed with a dull shine and yet looked maliciously sharp. A guillotine floated above her head but she felt that way for a long time.

Turning to her side she pulled out her phone and called Wonho. Each ring pulled at her chest like a hook on a string. It went to voice message. She called another two times and when those attempts failed she sent a text message to his phone. It contained many threats and curses but the worry was unconcealed.

Just as the black sky began to show its gradient into a deep navy blue, Jooheon and Vy got in the car. A grave silence fell around everything at that hour, covering the streets like a blanket. The pavement was sleek with morning dew and she felt the chill through the closed windows. Every time she blinked, flashes of the destruction played behind her eyelids. It was inescapable and she did not want to escape it. Any idea or any breakthrough would help her figure out what happened to Wonho. She remembered their last interaction, when he embraced her. The memory hooked around her chest and pulled at it painfully.

"I think the foreman might be here already, that's probably his car, good. If we can explain to him before people get here then we might be able to solve this one quickly," Jooheon said, “Oh and I tried calling Kihyun, Hyungwon, and Changkyun, but I don’t think they have service up north. We might have to drive go to them after this.”

Vy nodded and wondered what they were doing up north that was so cut off. Who knows how long that drive would be, especially with Wonho missing. She felt like they were walking through quicksand.

They walked to the storage crate with the windows. The lights were on inside of it and through the thin blinds she could see the silhouette of a large person walking around. The light spilled out of the window in hard yellow streaks against the pitch black site.

They knocked on the metal door and she heard shuffling inside. After a few minutes it opened to the same hard faced man she has talked to that previous morning. He gave them both a glare and when he recognized her, scowled.

"Ah what the fucks with you green types, it's not even workin hours yet, Jesus," he said. He almost slammed the door but Vy stopped it with her foot.

Jooheon and her walked inside and closed the door. He eyed them and put his hands at his hips.

"What the hell do you want?"

"We need to talk to you, there's something terribly wrong here," Jooheon said.

As he began talking, they all heard the crunch of gravel outside as the workers began filling in with their cars.

"Wait, they're already here?" Vy said peeking out the window.

"Yeah my boys start earlier than most, now what the hell are you two going on about?"

Vy turned back at him and pleaded. "Please, don't let them get into that site, it's not reliable! Have you checked your materials list? Have you checked the integrity of what's being built? Someone has cut you short of proper building material and it's them who will pay for it!"

He looked at her after the outburst and went back behind his desk. Vy noticed an odd expression on his face. It was half worry and half something she could not recognize.

She pushed it aside in her mind and slammed her hands on his desk. "Do you want your men to die?"

What she did not see, however, was the gun he grabbed from under his desk and now held away from their view. He also pushed a silent alarm several minutes ago as she began yelling.

They heard a loud screeching sound and Vy and Jooheon looked at each other. Screams erupted from outside and the screeching became a bellow of metal on its last ounce of strength. Jooheon and Vy ran outside and saw a large metal beam jut out unnaturally from the side of the unfinished building. Three men hung from it screaming. From that angle and that height they could be mistaken for children.

"Fuck, what we going to do? Call the police!" Vy said.

She pulled out her phone when a bullet was fired close to her feet. The foreman glared at her angrily.

"You dial one more number and I won't miss," he said.

The other men raced around the site in a panicked scramble. She searched through every face looking for her father. He was nowhere in sight and for a tiny fraction of a moment she felt relieved yet at the same time wondered whether he should have replaced a more innocent man hanging from that beam. She shook her head away from the thought.

Things escalated when one persons arm slipped. He hung by one hand and screamed for his life. He tried to grab at the man beside him in one last attempt. It was that attempt that caused his hand to lose traction and slip. He fell like a toy from the edge of a table. There was no loud crashing sound or breaking. Just a horrible thud on the gravel. The sound of finality. That was when the uproar occurred. The beam continued to bend and the rest of the beams connected to it groaned with a similar deadly ache.

People pushed past her and the whole site became chaos. Jooheon and Vy took that chance to get away from the foreman.

"Vy do you see that?" Jooheon said pointing to the main entrance of the site.

A panel black van pulled in and the door slid open. And when she saw who came out of it all her senses snapped. As if the overhead above her finally came crashing down in one suffocating sweep. She felt sparks over her body crackling like icy slaps and waves across the base of her skull.

Soo climbed out in heels and a tight pantsuit. Her hair was let loose in cascading curls that bounced with her walk. Vy lunged, gun out.

She was about to cock it when Jooheon wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her away. She was surprised at his strength as he almost knocked her balance off.

"What the fuck Jooheon let me go! It was because of her! It's all because of her! She told them where the apartment was, it was her!"

"We can't right now Vy! This place is about to go down, and they're probably here for us! We need to warn Mr. Park and get the guys!"

She stayed where she was and was about to speak up when Jooheon interrupted her. "Don't you think I want to kill her too? My life was in that building. Everything. It's all gone now. They took our brother, took our home, now their trying to kill us all and destroy the city. I want to kill them all. But we need to preserve what we can first."

She blinked in shock at how mature he sounded and her hand fell limp in his. They ran from the site just as the beams began to crash around them. It felt as though she would never escape the destruction that surrounded them. Did they ever leave their building? Or did rubble always look the same no matter where it was, cold, desolate, and hopeless?

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Slow pain built up over time. It was a soft burn that peeled away into a sharp ache on his left temple. He coughed and felt a hollow echo in his chest. The feeling returned to every limb as his consciousness awakened.

Tendrils slapped his skin in a sweeping fashion and out of alarm he opened his eyes and tried to get up. His arm bare scraped against broken cement which trapped his hand. The sky was turning into what looked like noon and clouds floated in aimless swirls. It suddenly made him dizzy to look at so he aimed his gaze towards the ground.

He sat on a bed of grass, quite a few feet away from the wreckage. He saw parts of furniture sticking out, mashed into the grey porridge that was their home. He thought for a moment about how he got there and slowly the memories trickled in. After his fight with Eric, he ran to clear the area but had to jump out and something must have knocked his head. He felt the top left side of his scalp and winced when he hit a sore spot, dried blood left on his fingertips. He would have to get a look at that.

Now the issue of his arm. He wriggled it as carefully away from the jagged sides of the cement as he could, but eventually his patience waned and he yanked his arm out with a growl. Some skin peeled back and only a fraction of blood. Good enough.

He got up and leaned on the rubble for balance. It was eerily quiet. The wind blew silently around him in a cool sweep and he heard small pebbles move of their own accord. They skittered across the dirt as if to get away. His stomach bellowed and he smirked wondering if there might be a cup of ramyun hidden in the wreckage.

Hands on his hips he paused looking into the city. It was a fair distance away and from the looks of it there were no cars left. Reflexively he felt his pocket for a phone and pulled it out. The screen was smashed to the point where he saw little green circuit boards behind it. He tossed it in the heap and it shattered on impact.

His head throbbed but he ignored it while deliberating his next move. The time had come to go to his father. The Chain crew destruction was more than a brother’s revenge, Eric was stupid but he was not that stupid. Or perhaps he was since he got himself killed. Regardless, he believed that it was only getting worse. As if every event was leading to an awful point of no return and every event itself was irreversible.

With a deep exhale he clicked his tongue at the scene and walked towards the edge of the road. It would eventually take him to the city belt line where he could get on the train and go to his father. He looked back wistfully at the remnants of his former home and his hand clenched into a fist.

What he did not notice was that a bland figure was several feet behind him. The figure’s shadows were blended away by the rubble and the loud ringing in his ear from the crash caused him to unknowingly ignore the barely audible sounds of the pursuit. He walked on looking like a mess, powdered brick smeared on his skin and clothes, dried blood on his head and hands. At this rate he would be questioned by the police.

On his walk he stopped by a small river and hoped it was not a sewage connected canal. He leaned down and splashed water on his face and body. It smelled okay enough. The water eased his pain and felt refreshing on his body. That was when he got a prickly feeling at the back of his neck. He cocked his head at an angle and could only hear the ringing but he sensed something was wrong. For a few minutes he sat absolutely still. There was nothing.

Looking down the canal he saw a line of shoddy looking tents and old couches. He remembered the time him and Vy started their investigation like this. His heart lurched at the thought of her and he hoped they had gotten out okay. He got up and went back on his way to the trains. The prickly feeling never did leave him.

[gzdude13]

The Stalker and the Closet by GZDude13

If you’re reading this then it means I’m already dead… mom, dad… I’m sorry…

Here I am rotting in a jail cell, but despite everything, I am about to admit I want you to know that I am actually not the bad guy in this story. This is not a confession to the brutal murder of Shelly, this is an explanation as to what I know but can’t say in court. I loved Shelly, even though she didn’t really know I existed. That’s why I would follow her to work every day and watch her through her window at night while hiding in the bushes. Yes, that’s creepy, yes, I watched her in her most private moments alone, and yes, I was stalking her in real life and online, but I’ll talk more on that later…

I have to make this absolutely clear… I didn’t hurt her. We first met in high school. I was getting bullied and picked on as usual. I was shorter than the average high schooler and I was a bit more socially awkward than most people, but dammit I was still a fucking person! Shelly Mary Jones was the only person that seemed to know this. She was popular, but not because she was a bitch, or because she flaunted how beautiful she was with her bright red hair and freckled skin. She was popular because she was kind. The only person that was ever kind to me. Besides my parents anyway…

She put an end to my bullying and looked at me as if I was a real person, not like something unpleasant you find under your shoe. I wasn’t very good at talking to girls, shoot I wasn’t very good at talking to people. So naturally, I had no real way I could tell her how I felt for her. So instead I resorted to stalking her. I didn’t start watching her sleep until after we graduated and I learned where she lived when she threw a graduation party at her new house. Her parents gave her a new house as a high school graduation gift. Honestly, she deserved it. She graduated top of our class, you know?

I went to the same local college she did and tried to get the same classes she did just to be close to her. I followed her on social media and found out where she worked and that she was part of a local softball team that played every summer. I attended all of her games. And then I started spying on her at her house… looking through her windows and hiding in the bushes. I know what you’re thinking. I’m a pig, I’m a creep, a disgusting little pervert. Yeah, yeah… I’ve heard it all before. I don’t deny it, but I’m not the one who killed her!

Being her stalker I can confidently say that I knew her better than most people. I noticed that during her last few weeks before… she died… that she seemed slightly off at night. I think she was having nightmares, but I wasn’t sure yet. I planned on sneaking into her house one day and reading her journal, but I never had the guts to do it even though I already knew where she kept her spare key, hidden under a flowerpot in her backyard. One night after Shelly finished her usual routine of having dinner, showering, writing in her journal, then going to bed I stayed and watched her as I always did, only this time I stayed a little bit longer.

As she finished her nightly routine I moved from one window to the next. From the kitchen window on the north side of the house where she prepared and ate dinner to the small east side bathroom window to watch her shower, then to the spare bedroom window just a bit over to watch her walk to her bedroom. All the while she would keep looking over her shoulder. I almost thought she was catching on to me, maybe suspected that someone was watching her, but that wasn’t it. I was too careful, too silent and stealthy. Something seemed off about her and I wish I could have asked her what was bothering her so much. She hadn’t posted anything on any of her social media platforms so this really stood out to me.

When I moved over to her bedroom window in the south side of her house I made sure to take my time getting there. The neighbor’s dog barks if it hears any bit of noise so stealth was absolutely crucial during that transition. The landscapers recently removed one of the bushes in her backyard so it made it easier for me to make my way over quietly. I always made sure to brush away any footprints I left in the dirt every night as I was leaving. When I reached her window I cautiously peered in as I’d done countless times before and saw her searching through her walk-in closet. This was a new part of her routine, or maybe this was something she always did but I never saw it because the bush I mentioned would slow me down too much. Either way, it was strange and out of character for her.

On her nightstand, she now had a flashlight and a kitchen knife and by her bed, there was one of her softball bats. Shelly was scared of something which made me think that maybe she suspected that someone was watching her. But she didn’t check her window, only her closet. She wrote in her journal and would stop from time to time to look up and over to the closed closet door, almost as if she expected someone to be watching her from there. Finally, she closed her journal and put it away in her bedside drawer. I longed to get my hands on it and read her most private thoughts. Maybe she had an older journal, one from high school, maybe she wrote about me in it. I really hope she did.

But that didn’t matter; I stayed by her window and watched her sleep. Usually, I called it quits after midnight or one in the morning. She usually turned out the lights at 10:00 pm sharp, but this time she left her desk lamp on. This was also out of character for her, but honestly, I was very grateful for it. The soft yellow glow of the dim light made it easier to see her beautiful red hair neatly brushed after her shower. It made it easier to snap a few pictures for my collection too. Her fair and freckled skin almost seemed to glow brighter than the light and I could see her beautiful face clearly through my camera lens as she lay there peacefully trying to sleep.

I think she drifted off into deep sleep around 11:15 and by then she had rolled over and the comforter had fallen off. Her desk lamp flickered a little just before midnight as I continued to watch her sleep. She looked so beautiful as she slept, but I could see that she wasn’t sleeping quite so well. She tossed and turned a lot and her face was slightly contorted as if she was having a bad dream. I remember wishing I could climb in through her window and comfort her as she slept, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea. As she tossed and turned her desk lamp flickered a bit more.

She settled and went back to a silent slumber up until a few minutes after 3:00 am. Her blankets now lay on the floor and the desk lamp continued to flicker. Despite the strange strobe effect that her lamp was emitting she remained sound asleep. But something seemed off, something was different in her room. Scanning the area I saw that her closet door was slightly ajar. I’m sure Shelly closed it before bed, in fact, I’m 110% sure she did because she searched it and that was really out of the ordinary for her. I watched in silence trying to find a rational explanation or ounce of doubt as to why the door was now open.

Before my mind could come up with an answer the door opened up a little wider. Even though the desk lamp was flickering on and off it still should have shined some light into her closet. I should have seen her rows of sundresses and flowery shirts from the foot wide open gap in the door. But all I saw was darkness. To my horror though, the next few seconds slowed down into ages as I watched a largely clawed appendage as black as the darkness in that closet itself grip the upper part of the door.

A tall black mass took as step out of her closet. It looked like a solid patch of black smoke with hooved legs and long clawed hands! I should have yelled, I should have taken out my phone and called the police, but instead, I stood there in horror of what I was seeing. There were no eyes on the black smoky mass, but it was obvious that it was looking at Shelly. The strobe light effect made that monster look as if it was teleporting closer and closer to Shelly’s bed. My bladder let go and I felt the warm piss trickle down my leg. It was enough to wake me from my fear paralysis, I had to do something, I had to save Shelly!

I struggled to pull my phone out of my pocket and instead only dropped my camera, then in my panic dropped my phone in the dirt as well. Finally, I did the only thing I could do, I slapped my hands on the window glass hard and Shelly finally stirred from her sleep while the black mass turned in my direction. For the first time, I could see two shiny glints like black fire glass and I knew those were it’s eyes! Eyes that were looking at me now! I think I screamed or maybe it was Shelly’s scream, I don’t know because I ran out of the bushes and around her house. I careened into her trashcans spilling their contents into the street.

I struggled to get back on my feet not caring that I made a ton of noise. The dog was barking and I didn’t know what to do. I ran back to Shelly’s window only to find that it was pitch black, like her closet. She was screaming bloody murder and all I could do was watch! A spark of crazy courage took hold of me and I attempted to open Shelly’s window. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but it didn’t matter. To my surprise her window budged and I was able to pull it up enough to get my hand under and get a better grip. Shelly continued to scream and I could hear an ungodly growling and ripping sound just beneath it.

Just as the window finally gave way and it was wide enough to crawl through those black eyes appeared right at the window. Two clawed arms reached out after me. It happened so fast that at the time I didn’t feel the pain as I yanked my arm away and one of the claws sliced my wrist. This time I know I screamed as I ran away. A few porch lights came on while I ran towards my waiting car at the end of the block. Later on, that very day police came to my parent’s house and raided my room. They found me hiding under my bed, but not because I was hiding from them.

They showed me pictures of the crime scene. My camera and phone were found in Shelly’s backyard just under her bedroom window where I dropped them, my fingerprints were found all over her bedroom window, my shoe prints all around the outside of her house, DNA samples just outside her bathroom window, and blood at her windowsill. I already know my DNA will be a match, but what am I supposed to tell them? I loved Shelly, I couldn’t hurt her, I’d never do anything to harm her. The pictures of the crime scene were a bloody blasphemy on Shelly’s true beauty. The police told me that witnesses saw me running away from her house.

I can’t prove that what I saw was real, but I swear I’m innocent of the crime I’m being accused of. All I did was try to help her! I loved her! You gotta believe me! Whatever it is that killed Shelly is in her closet! It was the monster in her closet! I swear it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it! I didn’t hurt Shelly!

I think I can see those same black glints of evil in the shadows now. I made a noose from my blankets and I plan on ending my life before it comes for me too. I’m sorry mom and dad. I know I’m a disappointment to you both…