#I don’t even know he had baby mice until one was chewing on me!

[pumpkingeorge]

My brother “rescued” some baby mice. These mice are old enough to be going out on their own independent of their mother.

The baby mice escaped and so far we’ve only found one. I only found it because it tried eating my toes.

[capochinootea]

How the Shishigumi met Baby Louis

Me thinks Baby Louis and Shishigumi wholesome time ^-^

Free

When Free first met Louis, it was in the middle of a shootout. He was 17. Young, brash and bold. A few weeks into the Shishigumi, and he's already considered an elite, impressing those who have climbed the ranks for longer.

It was an unfortunate time when Free was met face-to-face with a child, a herbivore child, no less. Guns drawn, ready to fire at their leader’s command. In all Free’s years of living in the Back Alley Market, this is by far, the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened.

Members of the gang yelled for back up. He was ready. Ready to take on their opponents, but what he sees is a much taller, more mature lion- Ibuki, he realizes, blocking his way, hands extended.

...What?

Confused and slightly irritated, he was handed a child and the lion left to help his comrades. Poor and confused 17-year old Free sat there, as the fawn- aged 6- he guessed- giggled at him, oblivious to the danger they’re both in.

---

Ibuki

Livestock. Ibuki never fancied the business. Even for a gangster lion like him, selling livestock- he thinks of it so immoral. You must be completely fucked down to the core if the mafioso lion has more heart than you.

When news travelled to the Shishigumi of a livestock trafficking ring not having paid their share, Ibuki breathed a sigh of relief. An excuse, he thought.

Finally.

But when he got there, it was like a place after war. It smelled of filth, abandon and decay. The building barely stands, it’s pillars a breath away from collapse.

In it lay a single fawn, blood stained but alive. A living, breathing being surrounded by death, of carcasses and corpses. The fawn looked as though he was the god of death himself, mortalized in a fragile being, cursed to wander the earth, leaving death in his footsteps.

---

Dolph

For a lion who’s lived in the market for more than 2 decades, he thought he had seen it all- the mundane, the gruesome, the ridiculous. Hell, the Shishigumi is proof of that. But somehow, not even the pole dancing mice could top this.Standing there, by the mansion’s gates was Ibuki, a sleeping fawn in his arms, bundled in his suit jacket. If he were any more shocked, his jaw might have hit the ground.

Surely the trip to the livestock trafficking ring didn’t hit Ibuki’s head. If not, then that’s probably not Ibuki at all. He was pretty damned sure that if anyone in the Shishigumi were to replace the old chief (should his ultimate demise were to ever happen- he hoped soon), it would be Ibuki.

Yet he stands there, a soft look in his eyes, the happiest he looked since he joined. He can’t help but feel dumb. The market is just full of surprises.

---

Hino

It was Wednesday night. The mansion silent and empty, its corridors barely illuminated by the hanging low light above . Almost all of the lions had left for the night, sans a few lower goons keeping watch over the gates. Sitting by the hideout’s make-shift home bar, nothing felt out of the ordinary.

He cradled the cheap whiskey in his hands and circled the drink slowly. He watched the drink as it created a mini whirlpool, his reflection on the glass.

His brows furrowed in confusion. Something was amiss. This isn’t right.

His tail moved back and forth, fur standing, mind on edge. Someone foreign was in the mansion. He continued to watch his reflection, but there was no sign of the intruder.

Too late did he realize, as a creature suddenly latched onto his leg. He would've kicked the stranger out of instinct, but when he caught a glimpse of wide ears flinching, the smell of lion on him, all sense of dread died.

Looking down, he sees a fawn, toothily grinning at him, hugging his legs like they were pillows.

“What are you doing here little guy?” Hino crouches, hands folded so as to not hurt the tiny creature.

The fawn giggled, clutching his face in his mini hands. They’re warm, he noted. .

“Mr. Lion!!” He cackled.

And like a child calling for its mother, Ibuki came running up the stairs, his glasses out of place, strands of his mane flying everywhere. He looked like hell.

“Louis!” he called and bolted right after where he sat.

Such a strange sight to see. A huge lion cradling a fawn, no bigger than Ibuki’s hands. A smile found its way to Hino’s flawless features. It’s a beautiful Wednesday night.

---

Sabu

He’s getting old, he realizes. His mane is getting harder to grow, his joints more prone to aches. He wonders if growing old is a gift, with what dangers lurking in the Back Alley Market. You’re lucky if you still have all your limbs intact by the age of 30.

Sitting by the kitchen counter, he closes his eyes. Ah, well it’s not like he could complain. In fact, he’s lucky to be alive, limbs and all.

“Up!”

He cracks one eye open.

..What?

“Up! Up!” Standing there, a creature unlike him. A fawn. No older than 6 he thinks. Clutching what he assumes is a stuffed animal, a small pout laced its face.

He had so many questions.

“Up! Up!!!” The fawn demanded, now running around, making soft tap tap taps against the floors of the mansion.

How youthful, he thought, picking up the child, giggling as his arms wrap around its tiny waist.

“Funny lion man!” it cackles, now trying to climb his head, to touch his mane. He assumes his mohawk is a different sight from what the fawn usually sees.

He still has so many questions.

He let the fawn play with his mane, not minding the strands that now fall against his face, covering his eyes.

“Ibuki!!” the tiny fawn suddenly shrieked, hurriedly trying to climb down from his now lopsided mane. He watches the young fawn dash to the other, who caught him as he propelled himself in the air.

How youthful, he thought again.

---

Miguel

It’s not like he’s not used to the fearful looks most herbivores and even the lesser carnivores give him. He’s big, brawny, a lion through and through. A literal king of the beast. To say he was used to the wary stares, the jealous glares, is the simple truth.

His footsteps alone are enough to spook a sheep down to its very core. He need not speak to intimidate a room full of hyenas, no. Even baring his fangs would be too much.

Which is why he found this whole ordeal completely and utterly ridiculous.

A tiny fawn stood before him, staring up at him. Fearless, he thinks. No! He was awestruck… mouth agape and ears perked up. He looked at him like he’s something to behold.

“Big Lion Man!!!” it cackles.

Odd..

It was so odd.

He felt his heart swell beneath the hard muscle, beneath tendons, flesh and bones. Never before has a creature looked at him with such delight. From a herbivore no less.

---

Jinma and Dope

If there’s any duo more suited to work together in the Shishigumi, the title befalls on one Jinma and Dope. Another successful negotiation. Another night of festivities.

Tonight, the table was decorated with an assortment of meals, meat cooked to perfection. A flawless buffet. An impeccable occasion.

Until Jinma caught a glimpse of movement beneath the table covers. An intruder? A spy? That’s impossible. It just is. He knows no one would have balls big enough to go alone in the Shishigumi headquarters unscathed.

He eyed the table covers with great intensity. He squints, watching the creases of the fabric, waiting to see any sign of movement. Nothing. Not until a foreign tiny hand slipped under the covers to grab a lone piece of meat sat atop the table.

In an instant, he lifted the white sheet, uncovering the thief hidden below the covers. He expected a young lowly canine, or mayhaps a racoon, only to find a giggling fawn munching on the small piece of meat he’s stolen.

“The fuck..” he heard someone mutter behind him. Dope, he thinks.

“Hello!” The young deer greeted, mouth full of meat.

This is weird.

Jinma watches as the fawn finally moves to unveil himself out of the white sheets, walking towards Dolph, who picks him up like it was something he’d done before.

This is so weird.

The two lions watch with their heads tilted to the side. Confused, they see Dolph smile at the tiny fawn he was cradling, who was still chewing the meat he’d stolen.

“The fuck” Jinma mutters.

---

Agata

“What??” Agata squawked, hands balled into a fist. How could they do this? To a lion, barely the age of 16.

“I.. I can’t! I’m not sure how to?” he countered, looking anywhere but the scene before him.

A child, clinging to the cuffs of Ibuki’s suit jacket. A fawn, 9 or 10 years old- by the looks of it.

“Agata, it will only be for an hour or two,” Dolph explained.

Like that’s going to change anything.

“But! Dolph-san, why? We don’t even know who this kid is? I mean.. Why can’t we just give him back to his parents?” He blurted.. The words left his mouth before he could process what he had just said. He prayed to whichever gods listening to him to please not make him babysit a child- and a herbivore child too!

Ibuki furrows his brows, before sharing a look with Dolph, who looks as equally as upset. A beat, and then,

“Louis stays with the Shishigumi,” Ibuki stated, like it’s the most obvious thing.

“You can’t be serious!” Agata whined, his arms flailing. It was a fight he couldn’t win. He frowned.

It didn’t take Agata more than a second to realize that his outburst had caused Louis to hide more behind Ibuki, his teeth bared, eyes burning with passionate hate.

Ah... He really did not like babysitting.

[hopelikethemoon]

Moros (Ezra x Reader) || {Moonbeams} || [smut]

Title: Moros  Rating: Explicit Length: 3,900 Warnings: Mild angst, pregnant!reader, and light sexual content in the form of masturbation.   Notes: Honestly, I think the first half of this is some of the best writing I’ve ever done.  Part thirteen of the Moonbeams series.

Taglist: @princessbatears @djarin-junk @absurdthirst @hdlynn @legally-a-bastard @opheliaelysia @heather-lynn @sabinemorans @crazinessgraveyardsandcartoons @pedrospunk @maybege @chews-erotically @katlikeme @lose-eels @youmeanmybrain @theindiealto @irishleesh93 @seawhisperer @hdlynn @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol  @grapemama @roxypeanut @kochamcie @kiwi-the-first @hellomothermoon @soft-fanfics @spacegayofficial @storiesofthefandomloversreblogs @kindablackenedsuperhero @goblinqueen95 @nominalnebula @wheresthewater @letmybabysleep @hayley-the-comet @corrupt-fvcker @i-ship-it-ironically @mrsparknuts @the-feckless-wonder @gamingaquarius​  @findhimfives​

Despite how disparagingly Ezra often spoke of Lykaios — as far as moons went, it was actually beautiful. It had a lush forest, rolling meadows, and at least two seasons. 

If that was where you would have to call home for the foreseeable future, you weren’t going to complain. You just had to look past the trio that wanted to hurt you and the semi-feral werewolves that also called it home. 

Arcadia, on the other hand, was surreal. Even from above the planet during your descent, you were struck by the planet’s beauty. There were snowcapped mountain peaks, expansive fields cut through by wide rivers that led to the sea, and waterfalls.

It made your heart hurt to think that just beside Lykaios was a planet that had everything Ezra’s heart longed for. How many times had he told you that he missed the sea? 

You landed in an open meadow and armed yourself with your stun gun and a long armed blaster loaded with the silverline Shiva had given you. Proctor had made numerous visits to the planet — it couldn’t be that dangerous, right? 

Though you did wonder why Sybil didn’t know about it. What was he keeping from her?

You ventured out towards one of the rivers you had spotted from above. There appeared to be an outcropping of rocks that looked similar to lunaxium deposits you had seen on Lykaois. That was the key — you just had to find out whether or not the planet could sustain Ezra’s need. You hesitated to call it an addiction, because he did actually need to take the substance. 

But sometimes it reminded you of Ay-7 and the illicit affairs that could be found in the back rooms of popular cantinas. That blissed out, out-of-body look. At least Ezra came down off of it fairly quickly, though you sometimes wondered if he only took enough to bide himself through the discomfort until you were gone. 

You trusted Ezra with your life, but you didn’t trust him to not lie about his own life. And maybe that had nothing to do with being a werewolf and everything to do with being a drifter. You had to build up walls to keep yourself safe. 

You wore your heart on your sleeve, but you weren’t afraid to do what had to be done. 

Sometimes you caught yourself wondering if you would’ve even liked Ezra if you had met him on a prospecting venture. He could be grating at times — especially if he knew more about a topic. He’d go on and on about it until you forgot what had sparked the discussion at first. He hated being wrong, but he was quick to apologize. Plus, you knew he had a long list of dead partners which made you wonder if that would’ve been you too. 

It stung to even think of that because you knew what it was like to stare down the barrel of a blaster held by someone you loved. And that was why Alia was never discussed. 

But Ezra wasn’t Mars or Alia or anyone else that you had given misplaced emotions to. As irrational as it seemed — Ezra didn’t seem like the type to pretend, even if he was just lonely. He was too brutally honest to mislead you. 

You holstered your stun gun on your thigh as you approached the river. It must have rained recently because it had risen up over the edge of the bank, running rapidly downstream towards the sea. The water was a vibrant shade of blue, a mirror reflection of the brilliant sky above and the shiny stones that lined the riverbed. 

You knelt down and dipped your fingers into the water, wiggling them in the current as it flowered around them. There were fish — which was a welcome surprise. Lykaois had no major water sources, aside from the occasional shower or snow. 

You pulled your fingers out of the water and watched your reflection in the smooth surface of the water. Your face was distorted by the current and the edges bled out into waves of darkness that seemed to sink into the riverbed. 

“What the—“ You murmured to yourself as you reached out and dipped your finger into the water, watching as it cut your reflection in two but the darkness seemed to pulse with life. 

You stood up abruptly and took a stumbling step away from the riverbank. The darkness seemed to rise up and out of the flow, before fanning out across the ground beneath you. 

You scrambled to your feet, spinning around to look for the darkness but it was gone and all that remained was your own shadow. 

You grabbed your longarm off your shoulder, aiming it at the ground. “What are you?” You questioned, keeping your finger trained on the trigger. 

Your shadow expanded across the ground, growing upwards before it spoke. “I have encountered many mortals who have found their way onto this planet, yet not one that came before you tried to shoot their own shadow.” The rich masculine timbre of the figure’s voice made something quake within you. 

“You didn’t answer my question.” You retorted, not letting up on your aim. 

The shadowy figure chuckled lowly as it moved beyond your shadow, stepping to the left and shifting into a new shapeless form. “I am only what you make of me. What do you see when you look at me?” 

“I see…” You squinted as you tried to focus on the darkness, but every time you thought it came into focus it transformed into something unrecognizable. “I don’t know.”

“A path unset. Fascinating.” The figure stretched out across the ground, before rising upwards and taking on a new form. The darkness was thick and yet you could see straight through it. 

“You came here seeking answers,” The voice questioned, turning an accusatory tone towards you. “You think you can defy the verdict of the fates because of love.” 

You took a step backwards, glancing behind you towards the river before looking back at the figure. “I didn’t come here to defy anyone. I came here because someone I love was unjustly cursed because of the actions of someone centuries ago. I just want to find somewhere we can go together safely.” 

The figure must have noticed the way you unintentionally passed your hand over your stomach. 

“A child.” He spoke, moving towards you. “One of the few creatures in the universe that spring up with an unknown future laid out before them. Born innocent, clean… No other offspring have such autonomy. Seedlings sprout up, destined to nourish the earth. Mice are born to feed the snake and hawk. But a baby…” A hand stretched out from the darkness, reaching towards your stomach. 

You took a step backwards, teetering on the edge of the riverbank. Trapped between the darkness and the rushing water. “Don’t touch me.” 

The voice laughed harshly. “You have already been touched by me. These hands have wrapped themselves around you, around Ezra, and around the star in your belly. Everything that lives has been touched by me.” 

The shadow grew, the transparent tendrils knit together into the flowing robes of a physical being. But before you could wrap your head around what you saw the riverbank beneath your feet gave way and you sank into the mud. 

You braced yourself to be swept away by the river’s flow, but instead you landed on smooth stone. You opened your eyes, heart beating rapidly as you took in your surroundings. 

Grand columns sprang upwards with roots winding around them. The columns shimmered blue like the river stones you had marvelled at. The walls were chiseled out of stone, covered with brilliant murals and intricate designs. Depictions of epic battles and tender moments. 

“Hello?” You called out, slowly walking through the cavernous space. Your voice echoed off the stone, rippling through the emptiness like a pebble skimming the surface. 

The path you took wound its way towards a narrow corridor. Within the corridor — suspended between the darkness at either end — was a thin red string that was drawn taut. 

Something told you not to touch and you heeded that quiet warning. You took a step backwards, despite the desire to step into the corridor and follow the thread. 

The darkness seemed to swell, engulfing the thread as the stone wall sealed the narrow passage closed. 

“You are steadfast.” 

You spun around to face the figure from before. The dark robes billowed out over a transparent shadowy form. 

“I have seen the bravest warriors succumb to the temptation of knowing. How quick the threads were cut.” The shadowy figure beckoned you closer and you obeyed. “There is a way to break the curse that has become a plight for the one you love. But it won’t be easy. It won’t be free.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” 

“You don’t.” His voice dripped with amusement. “The one before you — Bernard. He was close. A breath away from knowing the taste of freedom,  but there were debts that had to be repaid.”

“Are you the reason he died?”

“No. That was the folly of man. Only a fool thinks he can outrun fate.” The figure traced his tendril like fingers over your forehead. “They tried to pry him from your mind, didn’t they?”

“Yes.” 

“But you resisted by sheer power of will.” 

“I guess you could say that.” 

“I have a proposition for you.”

You arched a brow, “I’ve made a lot of bad deals in my life, but making one with a shadowy figure seems like a mistake.”

“It could be. That’s the beauty of choice. You can walk away now. Or it could be the answer you seek.” The figure told you briskly. “I could untether your beloved from the moon and he could float far beyond your reach…”

“That doesn’t sound like a deal I’m interested in.” 

“But how sweet would it be to know that he would still choose your company if he were no longer bound to Lykaois. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?” 

You swallowed thickly, “And what would I have to do?” 

The shadow chuckled darkly, “You would have to keep our secret. You would come to me on each departure and do my bidding as I please. Once you have done all that I desire, I will release him from the chains.”

“What about my child?”

The shadow seemed to consider that, “I cannot interfere with a life not yet known. A pity, truly. But perhaps I will feel munificent when we part at last.”

Were you really going to do this? 

“So in exchange for Ezra and our baby’s freedom from Lykaois, all I have to do is keep a secret and spend time with you once a month doing what you tell me to do?”

“Indeed. The tasks you find here will not be simple, but you will find yourself better for them. Choice has a way of bolstering mortal morale.” 

The dark shape extended its hand to you, “Do we have a deal?”

You hesitated for a mere second, before reaching out to grasp at the hand. Your palm burned, white hot heat searing through the lines in your palm as you sealed your fate. 

A beeping sound cut through the darkness swimming in your mind. You opened your eyes slowly, taking in the dim light of your quarters. You were in your bed…

The mechanical whir of your ship’s engine caught your attention. 

And the beeping. 

“Shit.” You mumbled as you snatched up your datapad and tapped the notification. It took a second for the connection to go through, “I’m so sorry, Ezra… I must’ve fallen asleep.” Had you though?

“I was worried,” He drawled out. “You said you would check in once you got into orbit and that should’ve been… ten hours ago.”

Ten hours?

You clicked off the connection channel and looked at your call log. He’d tried to connect with you a dozen times over the last ten hours. 

“I must’ve laid down to rest my eyes and… ten hours?” You rubbed at your eyes as you moved to get out of your bed. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Ezra.”

“Don’t apologize, moonbeam.” Ezra assured you. “I am just relieved to hear your voice. Your condition has changed, it’s expected that you would need to sleep more…”

Ezra continued rambling and you tuned him out momentarily as you made your way to the cockpit to check the systems. There was no trace of your landing on Arcadia. 

“Moonbeam?”

“Sorry, sorry!” You told him quietly. “I sat my datapad down to check on the flight path. I didn't intend to fall asleep that long.”

“Are you well, little lamb?”

“Just groggy.” You assured him. “How are you?”

“Better now that I can hear your voice.” Ezra drawled out warmly. “I thought the worst.”

You frowned as you looked at the datapad, “I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t know what happened.”

But the tingling in your palm reminded you of what did happen. The secret you had to keep from him. The choice you made that could’ve been a mistake of epic proportions. 

“I can’t say we got much sleep your last night here,” Ezra pointed out with a short laugh. “You were probably fatigued.”

You felt your cheeks warm as you sank back in the jump seat. “I think you’re right. You wore me out, Ezra.” 

Silence lingered between the two of you for a moment, before Ezra spoke again, “I miss you.” 

“It’s only been half a day.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” He retorted smoothly. “The second your ship departs this moon, I feel the ache of your absence.”

“You should try your hand at writing poetry.” You teased, “And then tell me how you pine for me.” 

“I do pine for you, moonbeam.” Ezra assured you, his voice like honey and easily melting away your worries. “I sit here in this metal coffin and count the seconds until I’m not alone without you.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.” You reminded him. “I just need to see the medic, handle a few things with Shiva, and then I’ll be on my way back to you.” 

“I wish I was there with you.”

“So do I.” You sighed quietly, flipping a switch in the panel before heading into the living area. “Do you want me to bring anything back?”

“Just you.” 

You snorted a little as you stretched out on the sofa, “So no food, huh?”

Ezra grumbled, “I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to more honeysticks.” 

“That’s what I thought.” You laughed softly, propping the datapad up against your legs. “I can’t imagine you turning down sweets.”

He hummed, “You can always surprise me, moonbeam. I think you know what my tastes are. It’s often difficult to know what I miss when it’s been so long.” 

“I’ll see what I can bring back for you.” You assured him, already thinking about what you could track down for him on the Block. 

“Where are you in the transport?”

“On the sofa.” You told him, “I go from one soft surface to the next.” 

He chuckled heartily, “Still groggy?”

“A little.” You chewed on your bottom lip, “I don’t know if I’m just hyper-aware of my condition or things are starting to change.” It wasn’t much, but you definitely noticed that you felt different and that had nothing to do with what happened on Arcadia. 

“Just take care of both of you,” Ezra said with an edge of emotion in his voice that made your heart hurt. “It is still a surreal event to know that I have brought life into this world.”

“Tell me about it.” Your hand went to your stomach. “I still think it’s a dream.” 

“A good dream?”

“The circumstances may not be ideal, but it’s still a good dream.” You told him warmly, wishing you could reach out and smooth the worry line between his brows. You could picture him so clearly, that swirling look of concern in his kind eyes. “Have you used your lunaxium today?”

“Yes.” He huffed. “I am fine, little lamb. The beast has been sated for now.”

“I bet the beast misses me too.” You teased.

“You have no idea.”

You blinked slowly as you stared at the datapad. “Oh?”

Ezra chuckled, “You know how the beast feels about you.”

“Do I?” 

He groaned, “Don’t be cruel.”

“You’re right.” You said with a put-on mournful tone. “But I’m just laying here on my sofa thinking—”

“That you’re going to drive me mad?” Ezra questioned, breathing heavily. “Fuck. I think about that night whenever we’re apart. Five years I went without feeling another person’s touch and then there was you… I tried to ignore how it felt to have you in my arms — you were injured, you needed my help.”

“I remember laying in your bed and marveling at your book collection.” You mused quietly, listening closely to the raspy sound of Ezra’s breathing on the other side of the com. 

“You marveled in my bed.” He retorted, a quiet groan escaping him. 

“That’s it, Ezra.” You drawled out, knowing exactly what he was doing right now. “Are you picturing that it’s my hand?”

“Mouth.” His voice cracked.

You smirked to yourself, “Look at you, letting me take care of you.” 

He swore under his breath. “I love your mouth.” 

“I love your cock.” 

Ezra hissed out your name and you knew he’d reached his end. He was quiet, but you could hear his labored breathing as he came down from the high of the moment. “Moonbeam, I—“

“Go to sleep, Ezra.” You told him softly. “You’ve been wound up worrying about me and you should relax.”

“I’m very relaxed right now.” 

You laughed softly, “I bet you are.” 

“When you get back to the Block, call when you can.” He urged. “I want to know how your appointment goes.”

“I’ll try to call you every night.” You promised him. “Take care of yourself during the full moon.” 

“I will.” Ezra sighed softly. “I love you, moonbeam.” 

“I love you too.”  

“Do you have something to say?” You questioned as you stepped around Shiva to get to the display of hyper cables. “Otherwise that look is starting to creep me out.” 

“I have a lot to say.” Shiva retorted, pointing at the white cables, “You’ll want those.” They gave you another lingering look. “Unfortunately the surplus merch doesn’t carry common sense.” 

You rolled your eyes as you snatched two of the cables off the rack. “Is this about what I think it's about?” 

Shiva lowered their gaze to your stomach, “I clearly don’t know Ezra. A few days camped out on the moon with him and I thought he was the pragmatic sort, but nooo.” They folded their arms across their chest. “You’re really going to keep it?”

You shrugged a shoulder, brushing past them in pursuit sealant tape to repair some of the damage to the hull of Ezra’s transport. “It wasn’t a decision we came to lightly. Ezra wasn’t thrilled at first, but…” You looked back at Shiva. “It’s something we decided together.” 

They narrowed their eyes at you and dropped their voice low, “You don’t even know if you’re carrying an actual werewolf.” 

Quinn popped his head over the top of the shelving unit, “Did you say you needed the aero rustant?” 

“Yeah.” You nodded. “Did you find any?”

“No.” He snapped his fingers, “But I did decide I’m going to call it puppy.” 

You glared at him, “You should be so thankful that I’m unarmed right now. You have such a pretty face, it would be a shame to see it ruined.”

Quinn looked to Shiva, “Did you hear that? She called me pretty.”

“Find the aero rustant.” Shiva said dryly, jerking their head in a “get lost” motion. Quinn’s interference didn’t get you off the hook, however. They turned to look at you again, “I just worry about you. We don’t know what you’re actually having, he could change his mind, something could happen to you again…” 

“Trust me. We’ve considered all of it.”

“I mean, what if those guardian people get ahold of you?” Their hands went to their hips, “I’m not going to put up with you not remembering who your child’s father is. Especially if it’s going to come out furry and canine.”

“Kevva preserve me.” You hissed, stepping around Shiva. “Can I please just look for what I need in peace?”

“No. Someone has to be the voice of reason around here.” Shiva insisted. “Just don’t get your heart set on this. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I get that.” 

Quinn strolled down the aisle towards the two of you, “I found the rustant.” 

“Thanks.” You held out your hand, but he didn’t pass it to you. 

“The warnings say pregnant individuals shouldn’t use it.” 

“Quinn.” You snapped.

He grinned cheekily and tossed it to you, “Feisty. I always liked that about you.”

You brushed past him and headed for the clerk towards the front of the store to purchase everything. 

“When’s your appointment?” Shiva questioned, leaning against the counter beside you. 

“Three days.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Right now? Pissed off.” You shrugged. 

“I just want to make sure you’re thinking everything through.” They insisted. “I’ve seen you after heartbreak and it isn’t pretty. It’s not too late to walk away.”

“I can’t Shiva.” You took your parcel of goods from the clerk and started out of the store where Quinn was loitering. “This isn’t like before. Ezra and I have a deeper connection.”

“He definitely loves you,” Quinn pointed out. “As much as it pains me to admit it, but I actually liked him.” 

“Yeah, I liked him too.” Shiva admitted dejectedly. “He wasn’t what I expected.” They looked at you, “The way the two of you seemed in sync with each other was surprising.” 

“So does this mean you’re going to eventually become like him?” Quinn questioned. “How does it work?”

“That’s not something either of us want for me.” You made a face. “I’m still trying to find a way for us to have a normal life… Keep researching for me. Anything you can find on Arcadia… the curse.”

Quinn smiled a little, “I can do that. Actually meant to have more for you, but those damn debt collectors wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally got that settled.”

“Who settled that for you?” Shiva slapped the back of his head. 

You arched a brow, “You gave him money?” 

“Quinn’s a useful idiot to have indebted to you.” They shrugged. “I was mostly doing it for you. He’s got good connections and you need them.”

“Shiva—“

“I don’t have to like this, but I do have your back.”

“Thank you.”

They shrugged, “The only thing I ask for in return is that you take care of yourself.”

“I’m trying.” 

You fell into stride beside Shiva and Quinn as you headed back to the shipyard. You were trying to take care of yourself. And Ezra. And your baby.

The line on your palm tingled and you wondered if you had blindly thrown yourself into a debt that no one could help you get out of. 

[cosmica-candy]

Chapter Three: Curiosity Strikes at 12

Another chapter, illustrated by yours truly, and written by @mechamastermind!! this is yet another chapter in our Coraline NSR AU! For the previous chapters check out my blog, and make sure to follow me for future chapters, we are going to write this to the very end!! But for now, Enjoy!!

Chapter three

Whirring, Turning of bumping of the clockwork mouse echoed through the portal, it smacked against the door frame, going to wriggle it's way into the attic. Slowly, inch by inch it buried its giant metal buck teeth further and further into the corner of the trapdoor. Prying and prying the corner off bit by bit like it was chipping away at the food on its plate. A mouse on a mission… Rescue the boy. 

Neo woke up in his bed, expecting one of his dads to be next to him… but no one was there. He walked out into the living room, expecting anyone to greet him and tell him good morning. But no one was there. He did hear the sounds of everyone scurrying around outside, to which he was racing out to see. He saw his fathers both sprinting towards the van with briefcases sloppily tucked with clothes, sleeves dangling out and flailing in the wind. 

Neo managed to catch his father, Neon, rushing by him.

“Daddy?! Daddy what’s goin on!?” 

“D-Does that mean Papa will have some free time finally!?” 

“Oh the most wonderful thing Star Shine! Your brothers got asked to do a local concert!!”

Neo’s eyes lit up, stars seeming to beam from, but his iris as he got on his toes, seeing his moment. 

Nova stood by the van, Sol, Aquos, Stello, and Snow all lined up next to him, as he grabbed them, lifting them up with both hands like a bouncer to a bar throwing out drunks, except he was throwing his boys into the van. 

“Sorry Neo… I’ll be busy working from home to schedule the next tour…” 

That felt like the last straw, but this time no one would see Neo cry, he just stood there balling his fists in anger. Snow and Stellos noticing their youngest brother angry, they were much more attuned to their baby brother’s moods than their father. Stellos managed to run over to Neo before Snow could, as he knelt down next to him, 

“Hey there neo! Gonna miss you little buddy!” 

“...Yeah…”

“...You know… I heard you talking about your new friend last night, Yinu was it?”

“Oh!?” Neo’s eyes suddenly shot up. 

“Remember by our old house… we had that well? And the funny circle of mushrooms around it?” 

“Playing in the fields right?”

“Yeah!” 

“...Uh huh?” 

Stellos patted his brother’s head, before being scooped up by nova, and tossed into the back of the van. Snow then walked over, putting his hand on neo’s head and brushing his hair. 

“Well, if you go playing again in the fields, make sure you and your little friend stay away from the circles, you might fall in, and we might not see you again.”

“Oh… Okay Stelly…” 

“Hey,” Snow said “Don’t have too much fun without us alright little bro?”

“I don’t think it’ll be that hard…” Neo pouted, before snow knelt down and looked him square in the eyes.

“You know how hard daddy and papa work, don’t you?”

“....mhm…”

“And you know why they work right?” 

“They love you Neo… Even if they don’t show it…” 

“....so we can get more juice boxes…”

“That’s right, just like I told you…”

Snow pulled neo up to sit on his knee as he gave his brother a hug.

Neo just whined into his brother's shoulder, still hurting from last night… 

Snow set him back down before rushing to the driver's seat, hopping in and then driving off. 

Nova and Neon stood there waving their oldest boys off, when Nova suddenly got a call, “Work” coming across his screen as he answered it, walking away from his husband. Neo had enough at this point, he ran back inside slamming the front door behind him. Neon turned around to hear the sound of it slamming as he held a hand up to his mouth and softly gasped… he had never heard Neo get so upset…

Neo scurried up the stairs and began sitting on the top most step, looking down at the rest of the house, as he held his hands up to his face and cupped it… whimpering softly into it as he kicked his feet out in frustration and sadness… 

For a second though he becomes silent, as he hears something in the walls… 

Scrt scrt scrt…. 

He looked behind him to see the wall paper pushing out, like a small animal was scratching at a hole in the wall that was covered up by wallpaper. 

Neo got on his hands and knees looking at the poking bit of the wallpaper, fascinated by what it could be… 

Pop!

Neo jumped back a bit as he saw this metallic mouse roll out on sets of wheels under its body… it looked like a toy!! Neo was softly gasping, he had never seen anything like it, and it was cute and fun looking!! 

Suddenly the mouse went from zero to one hundred in a matter of seconds. As one second it was looking at Neo, the next it was racing down further into the house, before smacking hard into the farthest wall with an audible THUNK!!

Neo ran over worried over his new mousie friend, only to see that it managed to smack the wall so hard, it knocked down the stairs to the attic neo didn’t know about. 

Somehow the mouse was able to jump up each step and wheel itself up into the attic, with neo following close behind, calling out to it

“Hey! Mousie! Wait!”

Neo looked around the attic, seeing many many boxes from the previous owners, and even an old grandfathers clock… it oddly seemed compelling that he take a closer look at it. He saw engraved on the pendulum a large X. It was so ancient looking, it didn’t even have a screen which baffled Neo. He couldn’t understand how anyone read this clock, as it was only a bunch of I’s and V’s and X’s. 

He scanned past the clock and along the floor, to find the mouse burying its face into the corner of a panel on the floor… looking closer and closer… it was trying to pry the panel open, and that’s when Neo realized it was a trap door!! 

But from its position it would just lead back into his room… but there’s no trap door in his ceiling, not from what he saw… 

What could possibly be underneath? 

Neo dug his fingers into the chewed off corner of the trapdoor, getting them right under, as he began to lift up. But the door was quite stuck, and he couldn’t get it open with his baby fingers alone. So he got up on both his feet, planting them firm and strong as he lifted with all his strength, with the might of half a man!! 

The little mouse stood by his feet, clicking with joy as neo felt something snap, and the door went flying open. Neo stumbled as all his weight was suddenly thrown in the air, and he fell down into the trapdoor, the mousey following after him. 

Neo began to fall, and fall, much farther than should have been physically possible. As he fell past what would have been the second floor, and fell past what would have been the first floor, and what would have been the basement. He fell for what seemed like minutes through an ethereal veil lacking a true shape, expanding out indefinitely with waving colors. 

Neo then finally found the other side as he rolled out along the floor. Looking back he saw that he just fell out of the chimney of the mansion, his path making no sense at all. 

His blood ran cold when he suddenly heard the humming… humming of his father, Nova… He was already shaking, still hurt by his father's actions, when he noticed it was coming from the kitchen, a first for nova. 

Neo slowly walked over and approached the door to the kitchen, peering in from the doorway as what he saw shocked him. 

He saw his father, well dressed as always, tall and strong, but just the slightest bit off, something seemed very stiff and metallic about him… Neo couldn’t place what was off until the man turned around and he saw his eye. In place of a pupil, he had two broad strokes crossed through the middle in the shape of an X. Neo gasped and stepped back as he saw the odd eye, alerting this stranger to his location, as this false nova turned and looked at him while holding a mixing bowl, he spoke in his father’s voice. 

“You’re just in time for supper, Dear.” 

Meanwhile, in the mansion, Nova came back in after his call from work, he was excited and happy as could be, he proudly called out 

“Neo!! I got off work for the day! I was thinking we could go look at the fields behind the mansion!” 

But no one answered. 

“Neo? Neo where are you buddy?” 

But no one answered. 

Nova panicked. 

He raced up the stairs looking around for his boy, checking his room first. Nothing. 

While he was searching however, the mice began to move… gears turning as they worked fast, grabbing the drawstring for the ceiling and pulling the stairs to the attic up and out of sight, while pushing up on a window in the hallway that leads out into the garden. 

Then he raced into the kitchen, maybe he was grabbing a snack.

Nothing. 

Finally Nova just started calling and screaming out his name over and over again, fearing his boy has gone, when it all came to a screeching halt when he noticed the now open window, and his heart nearly stopped when he considered the possibility that his sweet star child had run from home.

[gotmilk5101520]

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia Watch Episode 19 Airheads (Part 1)

Now, we’re back. Until the Shanghai Special next week.

“You must learn to empower the staff itself”

“Focus, imbue it with your will” “What does that have to do with the Gronk-Nuks Hitter?” “Gronk-Nuks- It’s not a Gronk-Nuks Hitter! Those things don’t even exist!” “Rule number 3!”

“AAAAHHHH!!! My gronk-nuks! Not again!”

“Yeah, if we need to teleport an olive or a baby mouse”

“Opps!”

“What did you just say?”

“I said you have an awesome staff and you totally deserve it”

“Even though you lost the Killstone”

“Excuse me, Mr. God King”

“You were in charge of getting the stone”

“And you blew it!”

“Uh”

“Should we stop them?”

“Uh... nah”

“This is the Forge. Let them spar” Translation: “Killing each other is legal here”

“And if Jim were here-” “But Jim’s not here. You know where he is?”

“Jim’s getting chewed out right now by Mulan’s ghost family”

“The council was right”

“What did my father say?”

“We were once concerned your devotion would get your team killed”

“We now fear it is your team that will get you killed”

“He said that”

“we need to step it up”

“And that’s not just coming from him. That’s coming from me, too” Liar.

“I have a package i need delivered to my sister, Sagdwella!”

“She lives under a trailer park in Oo-tah” Is there a place called Oo-tah, or is she talking about the state Utah?

“Wait a minute. You want me to mail something?”

“Your post office is more efficient than our carrier mice trolls. I hear USPS is the best one”

“Whatever you do”

“Do not open it!”

“I’ve got my eye on you” Wrong person to keep your eye on.

“Hey, Jim, look at me!”

“I got it! I got it!”

“I don’t got it!

“I don’t got it!”

“I don’t got it, i don’t got it, i-”

“AAAAHHHH!!! My gronk-nuks! 2 times today!”

“So, what’s in the box?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re gonna open it”

“Yeah, Claire, it doesn’t matter”

“But aren’t you curious, though?”

“There could be, like, a tiny creature in there that can’t breathe, Jimbo!”

“Or an itty-bitty troll king whose little kingdom needs saving”

“Oh!”

“Or my soulmate!” “Does he even know if there’s a girl behind the mask?” “Like i told Blinky, i don’t think it matters” “This is just like my second favorite side of the love square: Ladrien. Adrienette is my favorite side” “My favorite side is Ladynoir” “Mine is Marichat”

“Just remember, don’t open the box”

“Don’t worry, dude”

“Postmaster Toby”

“And his assistant”

”Claire”

“Will handle with care”

“Oops!” And we all know where this is gonna go.

“King and queen nominees approach the truck. Place your hands on the vehicle”

“Should you cease contact with it at any time, you will be eliminated” Yeah, i seen shows with this as a challenge and it’s really a boring one.

“Hoo-hoo!’

“I just downed 10 energy drinks and i can go all night”

“Aren’t you worried you’ll have to use the bathroom?”

“Let’s just say, i’ve got it covered”

“Ooh! Are you wearing a diaper?”

“Hahaha!”

“Who’s the loser now, loser?”

No word.

“The Touch-A-Truck-athon”

“Begins!”

So, how’s it going?

“He gave us the easiest mission and we already screwed it up?”

And he opened it.

*Insert X-Files theme here*

“When do we get a pee break?”

“That’s the point, Miss. Wang. There are none” Another reason these sucks.

“Mr. Lake, i’ve been meaning to speak with you”

“I received word from a mutual acquaintance”

“Mr. Rot”

“He said you had lost something rather valuable the other day”

“I’ll get it back. Besides, Mr. Rot lost something valuable the other day, too. Miss. Nunez has it” “Tell Miss. Nunez, that Mr. Rot had also said fuck you” “And tell Mr. Rot, that Miss. Nunez said fuck you too” “Are they talking about Claire, her mom, her aunt, her grandma, her great grandma?”

“Oh, and i’m on my way to another lunch date with your mother”

“It’s a shame you won’t be able to join us”

“You don’t happen to have a breath mint on you, do you?”

“Hahahahaha!”

“Hahahahaha!”

“Hahahahaha!”

“Yeah!”

“I have a breath mint”

They really got me.

“Adios, Shannon”

“Darci wins for the girls”

Being nice gets you eliminated.

“Ha! He’s dating your mom?”

“Whoa! Why didn’t i think of that?” Think of what? Date his mom? You wanna be Kakyoin?

“Mr. Domzalski, is there a problem?”

“No, just loving triangles”

“Then perhaps you can come up to the board and solve this one”

“I respectfully decline”

“Toby openly claims he is sexually declined to the whole class and Miss Janeth clearly did not approve it” Thank you TVTropes.

“The human skeleton completely regenerates every 7 years”

“Whoa, is that true? That’s crazy!” Gym coach learns something new every day.

And no else saw that.

“Coach Lawrence, um, i need the hall pass”

“Girl problems” Girl problems tell me about it. Such a pain.

“Toby! What are you doing up there?”

“I’ve never loved my school so much!”

“Still not giving up”

“And your breath smells worse than your diaper”

And they didn’t see Toby or Claire.

To be continued

Part 2

[socketz]

All is Pain in Poetry, But, Oh, The Play Goes On; Chapter Two.

A Dead Poets Society Fanfiction Story!

Charlie Dalton x Female!OC

Warnings : Mentions of abuse, mentions of bullying, light name calling (though not really), profanity, mention of death, signs of an eating disorder *though not explicitly mentioned*

Word Count : 12.3K

Summary : It’s the first day of lessons, and the class gets to meet their new - slightly obscure - English teacher: Mr Keating. The day is difficult, and Jane finds something she had long since forgotten - her passion - as they go on to entertain a poorly planned study session, and friendships merely grow.

Authors Note : There was a lot more Charlie content I think! And Pittsie! I love him! I quite liked this chapter, and I feel like you understand Jane a little bit more - you get to know her a little. There was not much Todd, but, then again, there isn’t much Todd in these scenes in the movies, and I felt it would be uncharacteristic to make Jane the only person to talk to Todd, when he is uncomfortable around new people. I also have no clue who the Chemistry teacher is, and I made up a name for him. I should be updating this story once a week, as the chapters are long and take a while to write, or perhaps once every two weeks, if I’m going to start including more imagines and things into my blog. Enjoy!

Chapter Two, Seize The Day, Boys, Make Your Lives Extraordinary. 

A thick, invasive, kind of sting eloped within my gaze, and I struggled to see through the blur of my reddened eyes. For although the sunrise had been beautiful - an azure of deep pinks, and of supple yellows - I found myself longing, greatly, for more slumber. I had merely stood among the strewn clothing, and the grave ruckus - the doing of none other than my wondrously divine twin - and I remained stoic, unmoving. I had, rather reluctantly, as I’m sure you may understand, begun to declutter the disorganised sabotage, fluttered around my room; each motion slowed, furtherly gradual, for I were in some kind of daze, a trance - awash with the morning, and despising my lack of sleep.

I had seemed to dissolve among the sweet grasp of slumber, hardly a moment after my head graced the naked pillow, and thus, there I had been, earlier that morning, as the clock licked upon the grace of six-thirty-seven, a.m; disorientated, bleary-eyed, fully-clothed, with crease indents upon my dribble stained cheeks. A true beauty, one could argue. 

Oh, how I hated mornings, I thought, a sigh slipping from within my silence. 

For as the day had progressed, and the school hours crawled on forward, I found myself perched to the very back of the classroom, tucked away within the furthest corner, and I knew that Chemistry would be no better than the day had solemnly been.

The depth in which my notes had seemed to forlorn had simply thinned, the farther forward in which the lesson progressed, and I found myself doodling, though only something light, amongst the margin of the lined pages. Mr Donovan - His tone, the way in which he spoke, were of something so deafeningly dull - so monotonous, so dreadful - I had discovered myself unable to pay all too much attention, as his words fell, from one ear, and through the other. I retained little, and merely hoped a curt revision session would indeed replenish the necessary information I had not withheld. 

There had been three boys, each lanky, each particularly mundane, dispersing the crimson textbooks; all of which I dreaded to receive. “Pick three laboratory experiments from the project list,” Mr Donovan had droned on, as the thick echo of the dropped book fell upon my desk. “and report on them every five weeks.” Solemn glances of silent protests rang through the expressions of those attending, and I, myself, reciprocated a glaze of great annoyance. For although I had not thought it to be particularly difficult, it was a simply tedious, and rather frustrating, task to obtain. “The first twenty questions - at the end of chapter one - are due tomorrow.” 

A mumbled groan chorused throughout the room, as he grinned something patronizing, and I heaved a great sigh. From a few rows ahead, furtherly to the right than I, Charlie had caught my gaze, his expression pinched - a mantra of disbelief - with his eyes morosely enlarged. I hardly noticed the way in which my features founded a grin, though upon his reciprocence, and a subtly thrown wink, I found myself all too aware of - not only my smile - but the slight blush, also. 

With an internally suppressed scolding, I had turned my gaze away from the boy, and doodled something rather intense among my notebook. Scribbles, flowers, patterns, and such, with not but an ounce of talent, and a flush of grave embarrassment. 

The lesson had progressed through, and thus I did not note the necessities down - a brave assumption that Meeks were feeling somewhat generous, that day, and would provide a little helping hand - and then the hour had gone, and Latin was upon us all. 

Mr McCallister - a man perhaps not quite as awful as his co-workers, though ever-repetitive, and ever-droning, as he tended to be - had recited the list of wording, pronunciation to roll from upon his tongue, as he paced - to and fro - before the blackboard, scripted with scribbles of Latin vocabulary and dread. “Agricolum,” He recited, tone an echo throughout the space of the classroom.

Once more, I were positioned idly, sat within the very corner, with not but a partner for company - entirely my own desk. “Agricolum,” We chorused, my voice little but a mere mutter among the choir. 

“Agricola,” He continued, and - again - as did we. 

“Agricola.”

“Agricolae,” He spoke with such dull fatuation, I found it - a recurring pattern, you see - greatly difficult to withhold my attention, and to recall and repeat the way in which he spoke. For, yes, I somewhat strived in Latin, and I needed not such draining practice to pass specific examination, yet I were enforced to participate within lesson - and of such, I held no control.

“Agricolae.” I sighed. 

“Argicolarum,” 

“Agricolarum.”

“Agricolis,” 

“Agricolis.” A curtly breathed pause, and I found my eyes drifting to the bare panes of the window panels, shimmering among the autumn glaze, before Mr McCallister spoke once more, and another sigh fell from my lips.

“Agricolas,” He said.

“Agricolas.” We echoed; like mice to the Pied Piper. 

“Agricolis.”

“Agricolis.”

“Again, please.” He uttered, and there we each found ourselves, reciprocating such wording with little to no thought; the words, so familiar yet utterly anew, falling from our tongues, with jagged edges that bled unto our boredom. 

And then, as the minutes fluttered by, and my attention found the window once more - captured amongst the bustle of settling birds, their company surely for life, and the way in which the sky hinted a subtle pink, trapped among grey; lost upon clouds. A shame, I had thought, as the lesson had drawn to a close, that such beauty may be abandoned within the miserable weather - it was time to emerge upon mathematical equations, and drown among difficultly executed sums. 

“Your study of Trigonometry requires absolute precision.” Dr. Hagar said, his arms to clasp behind his back. He wore a suit to a rather formal attire - of such I had found myself lightly giggling at, upon entering the classroom, though silenced myself (particularly quickly) as I received a glare of grave rottenness. He walked within the isle, somewhat on the thinner side, and glanced over the top of his black-rimmed glasses, and approached the corner to which I perched, pages of scribbled - and hardly legible - notes to occupy my book. “Anyone failing to turn in any homework assignment,” He rambled on, pausing to my desk, a glare dripping in something cold. He began to retreat, hands still in tight clasp upon his lower back. “Will be penalised one point off their final grade.” I suppressed the sigh, as it threatened to slip, and I swallowed it with a heavy inhale, and a slight slump to my shoulders. 

Dr. Hagar paused, as though hesitant, and he chewed upon his words. His turn were gradual, threatening, as he said - an unwavering gaze fixated upon I, and upon Charlie, as he perched a mere row in front, and to the left, of myself -: “Let me urge you now, not to test me on this point.” With a kind of stare I felt little passion upon provoking. I merely allowed my gaze to lock with his own, a passage of cold bereftness to flow through, until the class continued on. 

Upon the coming of our final lesson - for that day, although I yearned for the safety of Saturday, nonetheless - I found myself bitterly submerged within a scowl, tracing the corridor with a slouch to my stride, weighted by the grip of copious - excessively heavy - textbooks, and notebooks, alike. I was tired - exhausted - and in dire need of a greatly induced nap. 

“Ja-ane,” Charlie sang, rested upon the doorway of the final destination. He wore a classically imprinted smirk, arms folded across his chest - though slightly restricted, among the serious stack of books, balanced within his hold. “C’mon,” He grinned, “I know you hate it here, but you gotta make the most out of your youth.” He teased, slinging his arm across my shoulders as I drew myself nearer. “Smile, baby.”  

I let out a scoff - a slight snort, also, as I came to realise - and muttered my reply. “Hate it?” I said, “Charlie, I want this faculty burnt to the ground.” I found myself far too… Far too caught up among the frustrations of my thoughts, to even utter a stuttered defence upon the nickname he spewed, so carelessly, so effortlessly.

“Ever the dramatic.” He scoffed, a teasing glint to those dough brown eyes. “Jane, Sweetheart, that’d be arson.”  

I rolled my eyes, stumbling beneath his hold, as we wandered through the open doorway. “I don’t care what it is.” I said, “I’m sick of this place.” 

“Can’t argue with that.” He mumbled. 

The class had seemingly already filled in, not but a glimpse of authority in sight, and the rampant noise, bustling between companions and the teasing amongst friends, perplexed upon the fact that - surely - we would be reprimanded at any given moment. Meeks had perched himself within the front row, opposed the rather large oak desk, and Todd two seats to his left. There was Neil, and Pittsie, smothered in the middle of it all, and Richard before them - Knox to the left of Gerard, and Charlie slumped within the seat behind him. The furthest corner of the room, one could argue, and I found myself shoved within the desk beside him. 

My books, heavy in their might, landed with a great thud upon the surface, and a sigh slipped from my lips. Mr Keating: he had seemed a calm man - kind, with gentle eyes - and I simply hoped such observations would be somewhat accurate. 

For although I would not release any form of… Waterworks, we shall call them, before the entirety of the class, if I were to be yelled at, or simply humiliated - for whichever reason it could surely be - I were almost certain I’d discover myself crying over such a thing the moment I was alone. I were bitterly exhausted, and I loathed myself for disgruntling an otherwise morally regular sleeping pattern, among the depth of summer’s blue. 

I slouched within my seat, and I ignored the rising commotion of immaturity around, simply glaring - undoubtedly carrying hefty bags beneath my eyes - to the stripes among the wood of my desk, a blank nonchalance to coax my gaze. 

“Hey,” Someone called, a mere hushed whisper among the commotion, “Jane,” I glanced up, the broadened grin of Pittsie’s own blaring back at me. I subconsciously quivered a smile, as he spoke once more, his tone a continuance of something attemptedly quiet - though, truthfully, not that quiet, at all. “You alright? Lookin’ a little down.” 

I nodded softly, “Peachy, Pitts.” I smiled. “How’s your summer, huh? I didn’t see you yesterday.” 

He rested his forearms along the lip of my desk, chin resting upon the fold, and said: “Ah, it was alright.” With a shrug. “Nothing special. How you findin’ the first day?” His grin tinted a glimmer of something humorous, for he knew the answer all too well. 

“Hell.” I muttered, as he breathed a gentle laugh, and my smile - despite myself - seemed to brighten. 

“Well, they don’t call it Hell-ton for nothing-” He began, the simmer of a hushed chuckle to bind between his words, as the sharp express of a whistled tune interrupted him. Pittsie spun around - quickly, with such clumsiness, a book clattered from my desk as he went - and I found a soft snort falling from my mouth. Clown, I thought, and smiled a smile of grave fondness. 

Silence engulfed the room, strewn paper balls lying idle upon the ground, as we awaited something - anything - amidst the sudden appearance.

There he was - the man of the hour, it should so seem - in all of his glory. Basked within a suit, shirt loosely tucked, and tie a little childishly tied - a small knot - with a certain glaze to his eyes. Clipboard clasped to his side; he strode. With power, though calm - confidently casual, as I had dared to recognize, before. Lips pursed to a whistle, he sung the notes of 1812, Overture, with a curious accuracy, and he walked - unacknowledging, with a smile to his blue stare - through the gap in the desks; not a word, not a yell, not a pause. 

We watched him go, like a moth to a flame, as he tossed a single, half-hearted, look over his shoulder, and exited the complex. I furrowed my eyebrows, shared a glance with Pittsie, his pinched expression a mere reciprocate of mine own confusion, and moved to look at Charlie. 

Unbothered, the boy was; doodling upon his notes. 

I rolled my eyes; of course, I thought, what a fool I’d be to think he’d even notice. I raised an eyebrow, gazing over the guarding hand of his own, and capturing the inspiration upon such a masterpiece. A scoff left my mouth before I found a chance to reel it back, “Charming.” I mumbled. The corner of his mouth tilted, the quiver of a smirk, and he removed his palms, revealing the true detail of such a crude sketch. 

A pair of breasts stared back at me, rather large in themselves.

His eyebrows raised, his lips glimmered a proud kind of twinkle, and I found myself laughing lightly - it were incredibly detailed; good, too, if I were to be honest. “Not bad, Dalton.” I sighed, another breathy chuckle. His grin merely widened, furtherly combusting with a sense of confidence, as his gaze fitted to the entryway of the classroom. 

There he was - Mr Keating - with an awkward kind of lean, half within the door, and half not. “Well, come on.” He instructed, voice light as it carried throughout the hue of confused silence. 

Gapes of inner conflict flooded the room, every head turned to face the curious man, as he disappeared - once more - behind the wall. The murmur of baffled, breathy, laughs, and questioning bewilderment floated throughout the quiet, and I caught the gaze of Charlie once more. His brows were furrowed, slightly puzzled, as his expression dripped in something addled. He shrugged softly, and I turned away, only to catch Richard - the snobby prude, himself - and a few other boys collecting their things. 

The entirety of the class followed, I, myself, included, as I collected the Poetry book, and I stood from the proximity of the uncomfortable chair. No longer did a frown paint upon my brows, for I felt - deep within my bones - that Mr Keating was not an ordinary teacher, and that his lessons - that moment, included - would be far from the normality of conformity we had been trained to abide by. I liked that, I decided, and I liked it a lot. 

I stood within the doorway, a subtle glance over my shoulder, and noticed the furrowed expression of Charlie, as he hovered at his desk - the final remainder of all that was left among the class. “Come on, Dalton.” I called, following the collection of shuffling feet, as they formed a slight crowd before the strange man himself. 

I lingered to the back, as I had always grown accustomed to doing (in order to be unnoticed, one must first go about being unseen) and waited, the shuffling drawing to a close, as we stood before the - rather small - Mr Keating. Charlie perched behind me, perhaps of something diagonal, though I could not physically see the boy - and I listened acutely to the pause of his muffled feet. 

“O’ Captain, My Captain,” Keating began, thin lips crinkled with passion. 

O’ Captain, My Captain - Walt Whitman. I smiled, for I could not help it, and I knew - I knew it, with a great sense of welcoming - that this man, this Mr Keating, would grow to be everything we had ever needed. Everything we were never taught - and my yearn for knowledge had never ached quite like it did, then, before. 

“Who knows where that comes from?” A patient glance, a rumble of silence; Me. “Anybody?” In order to go unseen, one must go about being unheard. 

I am Jane, I thought, and fuck their views upon my distraction. “Walt Whitman.” I mumbled, hardly loud enough to be heard. At least I had said it. A few heads turned to meet me, though I trained my gaze to the ground. 

“What was that?” Keating spoke, tone regarding, kind.

“Walt Whitman.” I said, fluttering my attention to meet the somewhat proud - dare I say - grin of the man before us. “A poem - about Abraham Lincoln.” 

He smiled, “Excellent,” he said, “Miss Darling, is it?” 

“Jane, Sir.” I corrected - for, indeed, I were no longer Miss Darling, I were the becoming of mine own self; I am Jane, I thought, and so I shall be known. 

“My apologies, Jane.” He said, and I smiled. It had been a long time, far longer than such I could recall, since I had found myself respected by that of an adult. An adult male, to speak the truth. A slight tap on my shoulder, the gentle thud of a book swatting the joint, caused a light jolt to buck through me. I glanced to Charlie, the boy smirking pridefully, and he shot me a playful wink. I merely widened my smile, for what else was I to do? And I turned back to meet the fluttering gaze of Keating, as he studied the expressions of those before him. 

“Now, in this class,” He began once more, “you can either call me Mr Keating,” He offered, a glance to the left, and to the right; a wry kind of grin, that seemed utterly infectious. “Or - if you’re slightly more daring - O’ Captain, My Captain.” 

Captain. I tried it on my tongue, a mere whisper beneath the murmur of gentle laughter around, “O’ Captain, My Captain.” I mumbled, and I liked the way it rolled from my lips. A kind man, he surely was, and the type of guidance I had never before known. 

“Now, let me dispel a few rumours, so they don’t fester into facts,” The Captain continued, and we listened intently. “Yes, I, too, attended Hell-ton,” A smirk, “And survived.” He uttered, eerie, as a soft shimmer of reciprocated grins flustered from the students around. “And, no - at that time, I was not the mental giant you see before you.”  He paused, gauged the reaction, and continued. “I was the intellectual equivalent of a ninety-eight-pound weakling.” A breath of a laugh - I smiled. “I would go to the beach, and people would kick copies of Byron in my face.” A stifled spell of giggles graced the small audience, and I found myself breathing a chuckle. 

For the first time, I had gathered, thus far, throughout the day; I was enjoying myself. No, I decided; no, he wasn’t ordinary at all. And there was nothing better than that. “Now,” Captain glanced to his clipboard, “Mr…” He frowned, a curt filter of something amused to furrow his expression, “Pitts?” He said, “That’s a rather unfortunate name.” A collective snicker to run through the class. “Mr Pitts,” Keating continued, “Where are you?” 

Pittsie, perhaps the tallest of us all, raised his hand, a glaze of something shy to coax his features, a lightly pink tint upon his dusted cheeks. The Captain looked up, and he pointed briefly to the boy’s Poetry book, “Mr Pitts,” He said, again, as though bemused by the way it felt to say. “Would you open your Hymonel to page five-forty-two?” He gazed upon Pittsie’s stumbling fingers, as he tugged open the pages. “And read the first stanza you find there.” 

Muffled shuffling was to be heard, collective maneuvering, as the rest of the boys fiddled with the paper, and scuttled through to the incentive instruction. I fluttered through the clumps of paper, and paused upon page five-forty-two; To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. 

A laugh fell from my lips, and a sudden breath fanned upon my cheek, ridden from behind my shoulder. There Charlie stood, eyes fixated upon the poem I held within my hands; his entirely empty. I rolled my eyes, though grinning something fond (for, oh, what else should I have expected?) holding it up slightly, as to relieve the crane within his neck, and he smiled. 

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time?” Pittsie read aloud, a light sense of anxiousness to coat his tone. The rumble of laughter stuttered between the boys, and Charlie’s snicker fanned against my ear, a ticklish thing, really, as I itched it with my shoulder. 

“Go on,” The Captain urged, a subtle smile to be seen, “Somewhat appropriate, isn’t it?”

The laughter drowned out, replaced by none other than the deep rumble of Pittsie’s monotonous voice. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” He read, “Old time is still a-flying; and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow, will be dying.” 

“Thank you, Mr Pitts.” Keating smiled, speaking once more, as he dipped his words, his tone, with such passion; it gleamed like melted sugar. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” He repeated, a subtle pace; once to the left, and two to the right. He turned to face us, a supple grin to grace his thin lips, and said; “The Latin term for that sentiment is Carpe Diem.” With a question sure to follow, “Now, who knows what that means?” He asked. 

Latin, although I found myself of grave success among my classes, was not my strongest point. No - no - Meeks; he was the genius in categories as such. And, expectedly, his hand shot up, with hardly an ounce of hesitation. Keating pointed to the boy, and his response came fast - intelligence riddled within. “Carpe Diem,” He echoed, “That’s seize the day.” 

“Very good,” The Captain grinned, a step towards the red-headed-blonde. “Mr…?” 

“Meeks.” He smiled. 

“Meeks?” Keating echoed, a previous step retreated, “Another unusual name.” He said, and I grinned, for who else did we know, with a name such as that? “Seize the day,” Captain continued, addressing the clump of students as he did so, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” He paused, “Why does the writer use these lines?” 

“Because,” Charlie spoke up, chin rested upon the top of my head, “he’s in a hurry.” I snorted, a roll of the eyes, and felt the indent of his grin pressured upon my skull. 

Keating pointed to him, “No!” He smiled, “Ding.” And slammed his hand upon a faux bell, “Thank you for playing, anyway.” He said. A spring of laughter coursed throughout the small crowd, once more, - myself included - and I found myself realising, as Neil glanced over, himself smiling something toothy, and the indent of Charlie’s grin continued to press upon my head, that never before had we laughed within a lesson. Not within the company of those authoritative bastards, anyhow. And, with such a thought, I found my smile merely brightening with joy. Perhaps this was the second step, I thought; the second step to freedom. “Because we are food for worms, Lads - and the Lady, Jane.” He said, no longer a smile draped across his face. “Because - believe it or not - each, and every one of us, in this room, is - one day - going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.” 

My eyebrows raised, and a subtle kind of heaviness disbursed among the air. Seize the day, before it’s too late. Carpe Diem. 

I thought, a mere moment within the thickening silence, of the summer. Of how closely Death and I had kissed - how awfully lonely such times had been, and how greatly I craved his warm embrace. To romanticize Death were not a thing of intention. Though, as Keating had said himself - each, and every one of us, were going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die - we held no control upon the inevitable; so why bother to fear it? Non-existence seemed so serene, so wonderful, I often craved a taste - a sample, perhaps - to suck upon, when the days would reach their worst. 

But now? Now, with my feet beyond the door, two steps progressed, unto the path of freedom - to die so soon seemed something a little less desirable; for what is Death to a girl with dreams? 

Carpe Diem, I thought, a gentle smile upon my face; Carpe Diem; Carpe Diem; Carpe Diem. 

“I’d like you to step forward, over here.” Keating spoke, a little softer, with more compassion, than passion. He turned to face the display case; an array of old photographs, of faces nobody cared to know, and of awards - achievements - scattered along the shelves. “And peruse some of the faces from the past.” The cloud of boys began to move, to follow such instruction, as Keating continued. “You’ve walked past them many times,” He said, “But I don’t think you’ve really looked at them.” 

Only with the subtle push of Charlie's hand, gentle between my shoulder blades, did I flinch into movement. The boys, and I, we crowded in a sparse cluster, observing, though not truly scrutinizing, the morsel of every face we came across. I stood, beside, though not quite touching, Charlie, and Neil, as I gazed upon such display. 

“They’re not that different from you, are they?” Keating noted. Well, I thought, I suppose I didn’t truthfully count. “Same haircuts,” He added, “though perhaps a little different, from our Lady Jane.” He offered, and I sighed, for - no - I had once resembled such a cut. 

“Unfortunately not, Captain.” I muttered, allowing the soft laughter that fluttered around me. 

“Ah, well,” He smiled, “That is the joy of growth, hm?” 

I grinned, and I listened - we all did, and it was intently - always intently -- as he continued. “They’re full of hormones, just like you.” He said, a jest of a smile, as his gaze caught that of a few curious students. “Invincible,” He said, and I smirked; for, oh, the passion was back, and yes - yes, we were - we were utterly invincible. “Just like you feel.” We didn’t just feel it - no, no - Carpe Diem; I found it coursing through my veins. “The world is their oyster.” He said, “They believe they’re destined for great things - just like many of you - their eyes are full of hope.” His tone, it fell softer, and so riddled with enthusiasm. “Just like you.” He said; slow, as though to marinate his words. 

A beat of silence passed, and I found myself enamoured with my drunken adrenaline, woozy with the passion he bled from every syllable. “Did they wait ‘till it was too late, to make from their lives even one ioda of what they were capable?” He said, though he required no reply, and thus received silence. “Because, you see, Gentlemen - Lady Jane - these boys are now fertilising daffodils.” 

Seize the day - Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. I inhaled something deep, something plentiful, and awaited the next strip of gold to fall from between his teeth. 

“But, if you listen real close,” He uttered, a stand positioned at the shoulder of Richard’s own, “You can hear them whisper their legacy to you.” A hesitant pause passed us by, and his tone fell to something even quieter, “Go on,” he said, “lean in.” And thus, we did. 

We leaned closer toward the glass, as though their picture may utter something truly great, and we waited for something to happen. “Can you hear it?” Keating muttered, and we all tilted that little bit further. “Carpe…” He whispered, a ghostly raunch to his tone. Cameron turned - something slow, with an expression of true annoyance, and I felt a smile crawl its way upon my face. Keating glanced away, feigning innocence, and muttered an almost silent; “Hear it?” As a breathy giggle fell from I. The pair returned their attention back to the cabinet, and there the Captain was, again, breathing the words upon Camerons shoulder. “Carpe… Carpe Diem…” He rasped, surely no louder than the winds of the night, “Seize the day, boys,” He drawled, “make your lives extraordinary.” 

The halls were bustling upon dismissal, the bell to ring shrill amongst it’s time, as we strode - clumped together in a manner of silenced astonishment - and chewed upon the words we had been fed. Each carrying his own stack of books, unbothered by their hefty weight, and mine own of something painful - my arms ached, but I simply didn’t care. Carpe Diem, I thought - Seize the day; make your lives extraordinary. 

Whether I had noticed it, or not, found little relevance, as a grin crawled upon my features, and I wallowed among the freshly broken quiet. “That was weird.” Pittsie grumbled, sauntered beside Neil, as we exited through the heavily infused door, and spilled upon the courtyard tile. 

“But different.” Neil offered, a light sense of welcoming washed between his wording.

“Spooky, if you ask me.” Knox added, a subtle shake of his head. 

A pinch found my brows, furrowed in their ways; for was it only I who had discovered something hidden amongst myself? Something locked away, combined with all things passionate? “You guys didn’t like him?” I asked, tone light upon the bustle around. 

Knox shrugged softly, “I didn’t hate him.” He said, “He’s just…” 

“Different?” Neil repeated. 

“Different.” The boy nodded. 

“Well, I thought he was great.” I muttered. 

Charlie scoffed, a step or two before I, and he uttered - tone of grave teasing - a: “You would, Lady Jane.” With the breath of a laugh to follow. I merely smirked, for I were fond of such a calling - it dripped in power, and it rolled off the tongue - as we all strode together, maneuvering our way through the bustle and commotion. 

“You think he’ll test us on that stuff?” Cameron asked, a furrow to his brows.

 I rolled my eyes, and muttered something soft beneath my breath. “Jesus Christ.” I mumbled, catching the bemused smirk of the Dalton boy, himself. 

Charlie glanced to look upon Richard, frown sinking his expression, “Oh, come on, Cameron,” He scoffed, “Don’t you get anything?” As he turned once more, to face the direction in which he sauntered. 

Richard scowled, “What?” he said. The silence remained, and I smirked. “What!” There was a breath of laughter - something mocking, as I came to realise - and Neil spoke once more, interrupting the moment of nothingness that graced us by, as we walked, stride in stride, through the other set of open doors. 

“To think - it’s only the first day back,” He sighed, “and we’re already drowning in work.” 

I shrugged gently, adjusting the slipping grip upon my books, and said: “I don’t know why you’re surprised.” With a curt pinch to my brows. “They smother us with unmanageable amounts of work, every year, and wonder why we hate it.” 

“I’ll second that.” Dalton nodded, “The pretentious fucks don’t know when to stop.” 

I laughed lightly, and shook my head. “Yeah.” I mumbled, as Knox offered something quiet. 

“God,” He sighed, “the day’s not even over.” 

“For you.” I grinned, “Have fun sweating, boys. I’ll be cosied up in bed, catching forty winks before tonight.” Knox glared something playful, and I merely shot a wink in his direction. 

“What’s everybody doing, anyway?” Neil asked, a curt glance to be dispersed around, “Soccer? Rowing? Fencing?” A few incoherent mumbles rang about, and I could only roll my eyes, as I spoke something soft. 

“Football.” I said, “It’s called Football.” 

“Soccer.” They all chorused, a little louder, and accompanied by eyerolls and muttered insults. 

“I'm Rowing.” Charlie sighed, “But I’m on the Soccer team, too.” He paused, throwing me a look over his shoulder, and said: “You’re still on, right?” 

“The Football team?” I asked, a raised eyebrow, and a supple grin, “I’m not sure. I haven’t asked Nolan.” 

Charlie nodded, mumbling a quiet; “Well, you better be.” Before turning back around, and beginning his ascent through the ruckus of the stairwell. The boys were to attend Gym class - their final hour of the day - and thus they had to retrieve their kits, and drop off their numerous textbooks. I, myself, were strictly restricted around the idealism of sporting, and of doing such around boys, especially. Upon the agreement that I were to stay on at Hell-ton, my sporting allowance was dramatically reduced - a mere two hours a week, instead of five - and I were to be fully clothed - entirely dressed in trousers, and in a long-sleeved shirt, or a jumper - or I would simply not participate.

It were true that I was the best goal defence our team had ever seen, and thus - for such reason only, and nothing else but the fact - I was allowed to remain on the Football team, during the final few months of the season, last year. Among Nolan’s sudden knowledge of my… my true identity, he restricted every other sporting access; enforced I be kept on the Football team, and the Football team only. Though, whether he thought quite the same this year, I had not but a clue.  

“You coming to dinner, later, Lady Jane?” Charlie asked, as we paused to the mouth of the boys’ hallway. I thought for a moment - about the meal I had missed last night, and the meal I had skipped that morning, and I nodded hesitantly. I were hungry, starved, and I were desiring something fulfilling, though I found myself doubtful I could stomach the dreadful substance that was Hell-ton Hash. 

“Yeah, come along.” Neil smiled, “You skipped breakfast, didn’t you?” 

“I- uh-” I stuttered, “Yeah.” I said, “I’ll be there.” With a tight lipped grin. 

“Great.” Perry said, kindly. “You’ll sit with us, won’t you?” 

I furrowed my eyebrows, a shake to the head, and sighed. “Meals are to be eaten alone.” I recited, a roll of the eyes. “I can’t.” I breathed, “It’s one of the rules.” 

Meeks, his eyebrows raised, mumbled a: “That’s crazy.” as Pittsie harmonized, with a: “Sounds stupid, to me.” I laughed a breathy laugh and nodded, for it was. Isolation may have been safety during the summer, but amongst the company of the boys - friends, of whom I enjoyed my time with - it seemed utterly ridiculous; unnecessary. 

“Here, look,” I mumbled, struggling to balance the rather hefty stack of books with my right hand, as I reached deeply within my inner blazer pocket. I withdrew the crumpled paper, dispelled with the great number of scrawled rules, two sides in depth, and I sighed, offering the folded page to Meeks, as he studied the words before him. 

He scoffed, “No perfume?” And I merely shrugged. “What does he think we are, feral?” 

“Let me see that thing.” Charlie said, grasping hold of the ever-depressing list, and raking his eyes upon the instructives. “Curfew at eight-thirty? What - are you a child, or something?” He scoffed, orbs wide, and features a frown. “This is ridiculous.” He said. “Seating to be isolated, out of the way, and not distracting?” 

“Hair is to be kept up, tied tightly, and not disruptive.” Neil read, leaning up and over Charlie's shoulder as he spoke. “That’s insane,” He said, as he turned his glance to stare at I. “How can hair be disruptive?” 

I shrugged, a sigh slipping from between my lips. “Hell, if I know.” I said. It had taken the greater part of thirty minutes, earlier that morning, to retain my curls within a neatened bun, upon the base of my neck; it felt awfully tight - the clasp of such a strong clutch beginning to throb upon my scalp - and I longed for the blissful release. 

“Well, at least you get out of Gym class.” Knox sighed. 

I shrugged slightly, and uttered my reply. “I liked it.” I said, “It was fun.” 

“It’s better than doing nothing.” Meeks added, I found myself nodding in agreement. 

“Yeah, I guess so.” Overstreet breathed, “But we’ll be late if we don’t get a move on, Gentlemen.” 

A mumbled round of agreement coursed throughout them all, as they uttered their goodbyes and took off down the hallway. “I better see you at that study group, tonight, Lady Jane.” Charlie smirked, blowing a teasing kiss to I, as he disappeared behind his door, and Cameron followed suit. The other boys entered their assigned quarters, and I simply smiled, beginning the journey to that of my own room. I bounded up the stairs - hopping two at a time - and I somewhat jogged throughout the length of the corridor, throwing myself through the door, kicking it shut with a dismissive sense of energy. 

I paused, standing stoic within my room, as the cool temperature licked upon my flushed cheeks, with heavy breaths, and lightened silence; an unnoticed continuance of heaviness perched within my slouch.

The Play, I thought, the grace of a sudden realisation to dawn upon my conscience. My Play! A noise of great excitement fell from me, as I ripped open the drawer of the bedside table, its oak a mere squeak to the quiet background, and I shuffled through the papers, the sketches of things unimpressive and potently standard, and through the scraps of ideas, and, finally, I clutched my grip upon the worn leather of my notebook. Of the notebook. 

A strip of white paper, glued to the cover, read: A Steady Man’s Grave, in the thickest ink I could have found, as I spent my days writing among the beginning of summer. 

It was June; the fresh scent of all things blooming, all things wondrously anew, to flutter amongst the butterflies, and hum between the buzz of the bumble bees. I ached for something good, for something productive - a distraction, worth all things enticing - and I had surely found it. Bound between the thick leather covers; cursive handwriting hardly legible among the scribbles, the corrections, the excitement; I wrote until my fingers bled, and my eyes began to sting. From sunrise, to sundown; I wrote. Obsessed, I surely became, with the adoration I dispelled; mingled between each and every word. 

I wrote of war; I wrote of love; of anguish, and of betrayal. I found a passion between bloody fists, and swollen cheeks, and I threw myself within its grasp - drowning until I could no longer breathe. Until the final few weeks of summer crawled to play, and Death came knocking at my door. A dark time, surely true, though an experience I found myself unable to entirely regret. 

I peeled back the front cover, and I allowed my eyes to fall upon the very first page. A STEADY MAN’S GRAVE, JANE ELIZABETH DARLING. It read, and a tired smile fluttered upon my face. How passionate I had been, how well I had Seized the Day - how greatly I longed to be her, once again. I could recall that I did not finish it - that although my writing were everything prolific, and utterly animated, I were so clouded, throughout those final few dreadful weeks, that I had placed down my pen, and I had not picked it up again. 

There was a terrific crack, as I parted the spine, and the breath of a meaningless laugh fell from my tongue. ACT 1, SCENE 1: The Garden-Way. I traced the ink with my finger, riddled with nostalgia, and I pondered - briefly, and to myself - if this were to be the third step. The third step to freedom - to re-discover my passion, and revive all that it could have been. I liked that, I decided, and I liked it a lot. 

I wove my way through the lines, reciting such words a mere mumble beneath my breath, and I found myself smiling subconsciously, as I fluttered through the aged, yellowing, pages. The spill of differentiating ink, sprawled among corrections, lie around the text, and I followed the scene with a great sense of welcome nostalgia. Perseus - a soft fellow, with a heart riddled of Love - picked upon the fruit, nibbling at such, from a garden that was not his. He perched beneath the peach tree, limbs thrown in every-which direction, as he stared to the seeping sun, fluttering among the gently swayed leaves. 

A moment of silence were to pass, filled with nothing but the tender breeze, as Jullian stumbled upon the scene. Clothed in weapons - with daggers, with swords - and a glare of something stoic, mean. Perseus; his name were bellowed, a menacing growl, and no longer was he alone. The shards of sun, cutting through the gaps within the shrubbery, seemed to sharpen; to flash, and then to hide, and a certain cloud of grey erupted across the land. 

The man sighed, a final bite to his fruit, and he arose to a reclined-seated-state, elbows supporting his weight. “Jullian,” He greeted, a somewhat bitter smile stretched within his teeth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

A breath of quietened, visible, rage were to reciprocate from him, stance rigid; uneasy. “May your carelessness find you wretched.” Jullian spat, a tight clamp to his clenched jaw; he grinded his teeth. “To lie upon my soil - your ignorance may caress the very roots of my earth, and death shall riddle it true.” 

“O’ spare me, sweetest children of God.” Perseus mumbled, “For you’re nothing short of dramatic, dear Julian.” He said, “My company - if nothing but - is mere fulfilling, is it not?” 

A scoff ripped from his throat, “You know nothing of fulfillment!” He mocked. 

“As I am certain you do?” Perseus grumbled, a raised eyebrow, and a sheen of frustration to glaze upon his expression. For, oh, how foolish he had been to fall in love with such a bastard. “O’ to be drunk on yearning, on the blood of enemies - tell me, Jullian, do you feast on those you bury?” He spoke, a supple smile crawling upon the expression of his toned features. 

Jullian scowled, a step strode closer, and he spat, with such grave bite: “I shall bury no man.” And Perseus’ grin found something toothy; teasing. 

“No?” He asked. 

“Such compassion may drabble me a fool - alas, I know it not!” He scoffed, “I may watch such decomposition with great delight, and I will inquire upon the bloom of growth - merely heightened by the salt of a lover's lonesome tears, to weep upon such dirt.” 

“You are a cruel man, Jullian.” Perseus sighed, “Do you hold no respect for those in which do perish, by the hand that is your own?” 

Julian smiled - a wry, cruel, smile - and he said: “You shall learn to drink up your compassion. For tonight, thus as every night; we dine on blood, and on atrophy, and we fall in love with the silent cries of bloodied choirs, haunting the ache of summer’s eve.” 

My fingers clutched upon the body, and I turned the page delicately, reading on with a subtle glimmer of pride. Eyes a cerulean tinge of something stinging, I found a soft ache to begin loitering behind the sockets. Sleep, my mind seemed to cry, Sleep, Sleep, Sleep. Though, still, I could not seem to tear my eyes away from the yellow-kissed paper, and the slanted handwriting, hardly legible. A glance to my drawer; I grasped upon the thin, round, frame of my brown-rimmed glasses, and I shoved such lenses upon my face, slipping them up the slender bridge of my nose, with a subtle sigh slipping from my lips as I went. 

The gentle hue of a headache continued to pulse, be it only slightly, around my conscience, and the idea of slumber were ever-more appealing, as I stumbled upon the same line; once, twice, three times more. 

“You are riddled with the violence once forced to attain,” Perseus sighed, “And you are unwilling to know, nor to grow - you wish not to learn to love again.” 

I read it again, a heavy breath slipping that of my tired throat, and I wove the tip of my tongue along the breach of my lower lip. A subtle sheen of moisture engulfed my gaze, ruptured with the gradually invasive sting, and a tiresome weight picked the skin of my eyelids, drooped immensely with an unnoticed speed, I knew that the turbulence of sleep deprivation was most certainly upon me. The day had been extensive, draining, and the first dip of exhaustion had long since passed. Sleep beckoned me, a gust of rigidness dissolving throughout my muscles, and my shoulders slouched - furtherly, if possible.  A particular scowl descended upon my expression, a slight palpitation to flutter my heart. I did not fear sleep, as such, though the events of such dreams were experiences rather left unknown. I dreaded the vividness, the recollection, that would force me to rise with a pounding ache to my skull, and an expression drenched in tears.

Haunted, often, were the plague of my dreams. 

I traced the gauge of my blurred writing, once more, and blinked - once, twice, several times more - in grave attempt to rid of such bleariness, though - upon subtle lack of focus, and whole consumption of exhaustion - as the thump of the book, colliding with the loose space of the crowded drawer below, forced my eyes to peel open, the extended blink an unnoticed occurrence, I understood that to fight the tides of slumber would be impossible. Foolish. And so, as I slumped myself upon the cold mattress, my head tucked to the white pillow, and hands wrapped around my frame, I allowed my conscience to drift upon the waves, bobbing only slightly, viewing the turret of the upcoming storms, brewing along the horizon. 

~*~

The common room, tucked away and rather small for such a gathering area, were particularly empty upon my own arrival. I had grasped hardly thirty-minutes of slumber, and thus dictated a course of revision, of studious intention, rather than fighting the thickening sleep deprivation that clawed upon my brain. The headache in which I had previously occupied only marginally, had thundered - copious amounts - worse, and resulted to a  kind of hellish fire, engulfing the clutch of my mind, as I clenched my jaw, and I sank within the seat of an emptied table. 

My curls, they were wild, free, as they spilled across my shoulders, and hardly an inch below. I placed my digits among the roots, and I massaged - circular motions, with a great deal of softness - upon the scalp; clockwise, anti-clockwise, with such delicacy, and a mere slight relief of all things horrid and pressuring. The glasses, perched timidly upon the bridge of my nose, did little to aid such an ache, and neither did the freedom of my blonde locks. Perhaps it unleashed a subtle amount of pressure, though the pain were still enough to riddle me silent and glassy-eyed. 

I had dressed within a rather large - rather loose, as my clothing had seemed to increasingly grow - grey shirt, and some long trousers, of which kind I could think not to name. I had previously decided against Hell-ton Hash, and had skipped the meal - another - as a result. I were hungry, though I felt bitterly ill. Sick to my stomach for the ache that rolled behind my eyes, and clattered within my head. 

Not often, I could recall, did I find myself burdened by the fester of a rotten migraine, and they usually left me lying amongst thick darkness, unmoving and aching for days, upon hours; though when they did come knocking, come crawling, they were the worst kind of pain I had ever experienced. As I moved, sluggishly, to extract my Latin book, and I flipped the pages beneath my shaking fingertips, I knew that that night were not a night to wallow in self pity. 

“Agricolum, Agricola, Agricolarum, Agricolis, Agricolas, Agricolis.” I uttered, a monotonous whisper beneath my breath. I read the list once more, repetitive and utterly drawling, and turned the page.  

CARPE DIEM, I wrote, the ghost of amusement to slip within my scowling eyes, SEIZE THE DAY, MAKE YOUR LIVES EXTRAORDINARY. I layered it, I scribbled unto it, and I lined it beneath, until the paper tore through, and I ripped the page free from it’s binder. I crumpled it up, until the jagged formation of a paper-ball glanced me back, and I threw it, carelessly, with not but an ounce of effort, across the room. 

It landed with a bounce, and I paused, watching for a mere moment or so, before a sigh fell from my lips, and I returned to my prior position: hands in hair, massaging the deafening ache with a subtlety about it, and eyes tiresomely scanning the text upon the page, as I read throughout the book, and I simply hoped to be retaining such information. 

The chair was uncomfortable, though I didn’t truly mind, and the room were of something cold, as I found a soft shiver to run through me, and a sudden shock to pulse through my skull. I gritted my teeth, for - Oh - I hadn’t experienced a migraine quite the same since… Well, not since the beginning of summer. 

The shuffle of feet entering the desolated room caught my attention, though I remained unmoving, eyes fluttered to a scrunched close, and I gripped to the roots of my locks. Boys began to file in, gradual, yet somehow at the same time, and the level in which the volume seemed to progress were something manageable, though greatly uncomfortable. I dropped my head, rested upon the cool surface of the open pages, and I awaited the company of the guys I found myself somewhat familiar with. 

“Latin that bad, huh?” A familiar voice - Charlie - called, a teasing glint to his tone, as he withdrew the Latin textbook from beneath my elbows, crowed upon the table, my head bowed between them. My expression collided with the table surface, another shrill ache to erupt within the depth of my brain, and a particularly pained groan fell from my gritted teeth. “Jane?” Charlie called, once more, though somewhat softer this time - concerned. “Hey, you alright?” He mumbled, a gentle hand to caress the back of my head. 

I bit back the uprising tears, a sharp gulp, and I begged myself to simply hold it together, nodding something tender, as I sighed a great heave. “Yeah,” I muttered, tone - unfortunately, for I - thick with the moisture of unshed hurt. 

“What’s the matter, Sweetheart?” He asked, dropping within the seat to my left, as his digits lightly pawed the roots of my curls. It felt nice, comforting, and thus I allowed my arms to drop upon the table, and another sigh left my lips. 

I rested my cheek upon the cool surface of the smooth wood, facing the boy in question, as the soft glimmer of moisture remained blurry to my eyes. His eyebrows; they were furrowed, and his eyes large and round - childish, as they always seemed to be, though suddenly tinted with a darkened concern. “I’m fine.” I smiled, a weak, pathetic, smile. “My head just hurts a little.” I lied, my tone a mere mumble against the bustle all around. For I could not open my mouth any wider, the ache a splitting ferocity if I even tried. I knew that routine all too well, unfortunately, and silence were a true virtue for such times. 

His gaze softened further, as he mumbled a short, “Oh,” and I merely shrugged lightly. “Well,” He continued, tone quiet - considerate. “I brought you some bread.” He said, withdrawing a bundled up clump of napkins, and resting them upon the lip of the table, with a small smile to occupy his features. “I figured you’d be hungry.” He added, “And, let’s be honest, I’m bettin’ it’s caused that headache, too.” His eyebrow raised, a playful glint to those eyes, and I merely smiled something wider, raising myself to a slouched sit. 

“Thank you.” I muttered, somewhat sheepishly, as I unwrapped the buttered bread, and I took a bite of small desire. I was, in fact, utterly starving, and surely thankful for such a crumb, though I wished not to spew it all up, within a moment’s digestion, for my migraine rung true within the depth of my ears, and my stomach clenched, unclenched, and clenched a heartbeat once more. “Oh,” I maundered, placing the nibbled slice back upon the cloth, as I reached for the leather-backed notebook, and I swallowed my mouthful. “Here, look at this.” I said, spoken quietly, as he furrowed his brows, and he leaned a little bit closer. 

I handed the book to his extended hand, and watched as his frown merely deepened upon ingesting the title. “A Steady Man's Grave?” He read, aloud. “What’s this?” His gaze upturned to meet my own, and I found myself smiling something small upon deliverance. 

“It’s a play.” I said, “A play script.”  

“I’ve never heard of it.” He mumbled, a brief flicker through the pages, “Any good?”

A breathy laugh fell from my tongue, and I shrugged lightly, “I’d hope so.” I said, “Considering I spent most of my summer writing it.” 

His eyes returned to mine, eyebrows raised something high, and his orbs greatly enlarged. “You wrote a fucking play?” He echoed, “That’s amazing! Why didn’t you mention it before, Shakespeare?” Another breath of laughter dripped from my tongue, and I ignored the heat that erupted within my scalp, merely shrugging softly. 

“It never came up.” I said, “And I’d forgotten all about it, ‘til I went back to my room, today.”  

“Well, shit,” He smiled, delicately tracing the leather of the cover he held so gently. “Can I read some?” He asked, glance hopeful and slightly hesitant. 

“You can read it all, Dalton.” I chuckled, “Read as much as you want.” Charlie grinned, resting back - with a tilt to his chair - as he swung slightly, and scoped upon the first ounce of text. I were surprised - albeit only that little bit - for his ability to read my writing; it was so scribbled and awful, I felt almost sure he’d be struggling. 

He read on through, nonetheless, and the calling of Neil’s tone caught my fixated attention. “Jane,” He smiled, “How are you? You missed dinner.” 

“Yeah,” I sighed, a little quieter than he, “I- uh-” I paused, licked my lips, and continued, “I’ve a headache.” I mumbled, “Didn’t feel like eating anything.” And I turned to face him, smiling softly in his own direction.

“Oh.” He said, eyebrows raising momentarily, “Well, have you taken anything for it?” I shook my head, for I disliked the idea of taking drugs - not unless I were greeting Death at my door, of course. “Okay,” He mumbled, a furrow to his expression, “You probably should. I think Charlie brought you some food- Hey, Charlie,” Neil called, gaining the brunette's attention, as his gaze slowly lifted to meet us both. He shot me a small smirk, as though slightly distracted, and focused upon Neil. “Did you give her the food?” He asked. 

“It’s right there, dumbass,” Charlie grinned, rolling his eyes something fond, as he motioned toward the nibbled slice of buttered, white, bread. “Leave her be, she’s feelin’ rough.” A little worse than rough, I thought, though I smiled nonetheless. 

“Oh, right, yeah.” Neil said, a small grin stretched upon his face, “You don’t have any painkillers, do you?” 

“Unless you count PlayBoy Magazines, by the dozen, no, I don’t.” He smirked, a subtle wink thrown our way, as he retreated - again - to the words within my notebook. I rolled my eyes - ever the perverted mind - and returned to Neil. 

I had hardly noticed the company of the other boys - Meeks and Pitts (with a kind of device I could hardly make out, though it looked a little like the scraps of a naked radio) perched within close proximity to each other, speaking in hushed whispers as they went, and upon a separate table, though only inches apart from our own. Charlie to my left, and Neil across from me, with Cameron perched to his left. Knox was - Knox. Knox was not there. I frowned deeply, “Where’s Overstreet?” I mumbled, similarly noticing the absence of the dirty blonde - the new boy, Tony - No, no. He was- he was... Todd! Todd Anderson. “And Todd?” I added. 

“Knox had dinner someplace else.” Neil said, “Friends of his parents’. And Todd hasn’t left the room - something about History work, I think.” I nodded subtly, jaw clenched upon the grave ache, as it spread throughout my head in a ruckus of great frustration. 

I glanced upon the closed textbook, resting beside where my cheek had once lay, and to the several others - Chemistry, Trigonometry, and Latin - and I felt my eyes sting, aching deeply with a thickening sense of moisture, crowding amongst my gaze. The pulse, the pressure, within my skull only seemed to worsen, the harsher I fought to digest my upcoming tears, and I pondered whether it would simply explode. If that would be the end of I, and of the end of the room’s company as they knew it. 

“Neil?” Cameron called, his tone loud - God, it was so fucking loud - and nasally. “Neil, what’d you get for- uh-” He paused, “Question two?” I could hardly concentrate upon swallowing such a sharp urge to ball my fucking eyes out - never mind the impending gloom of twenty-unscoped-questions, in advanced Chemistry - all of which I had failed to pay any attention to, during the minutes occupying the lesson. 

The boys discussed their answers, babbling about this, and about that, and I tried - I truly tried - to focus my attention purely upon the black mark of ink, displaying something small among the red of my textbook. I couldn’t do it, I decided, I could not finish any kind of assignment. Not with that consistent pressure within my skull, at least.

Perhaps I’d Carpe Diem another day, instead, I thought, and thus, I reached - slowly, with desire to please the ache amongst my mind - back for the bread, and I chewed lazily upon its crust. 

I had not but a clue for how long I had been sat, staring blankly into nothingness, with my teeth sinking into, and digesting, lumps of plain white bread, though it were surely long enough. “Hey, Dalton,” Cameron practically sneered. I winced, be it only slight, as his tone vibrated around my head. Thump, thump, thump, it bellowed, thump thump thump. “Pick up your textbook, would you?” He paused, glanced to I - where I sat, having finished my food, with a scowl of greatly pained proportions - and said: “You too, Jane.” 

“Can’t you see I’m busy, Cameron?” Charlie bit, waving the parted book within the air, as he rolled his eyes, and returned back to my work. 

“You can do that later.” Richard scoffed, shoving the textbook far closer than it were before, as it slid across the smooth polish of the wooden table. “What - are you busy, too, Darling?” He snapped, suddenly fixated on myself. 

I rolled my eyes, though only slight, for it riddled me elusive with pain, and I spat a little something back. “It’s Jane, Cameron.” I said, “Lady Jane, if you please.” 

“Should you even be here?” He scoffed, a contorted frown to cross his features. 

I scowled bitterly, “In case you hadn’t noticed, Bootlicker, you all sat with me. Not the other way ‘round.” I said, tone slightly raised, and somewhat defensive. The grave throbbing within my skull seemed to rush like a wildfire, and I clenched my jaw awfully tight, attempting to remain stoic amongst the great rush of intensely dreadful warmth. “Jesus,” I breathed, “Just leave me alone, would you?” 

“Whatever.” He scoffed, once more, as he returned to a frowning Neil, and a challenging gaze - occupied by none other than Dalton, himself - rolling his eyes, and murmuring about a continuance in studious idioms.   

Averting my gaze, I stumbled upon the antics of both Pittsie and Meeks, as they told their jokes and threw their insults, neither heartfelt nor aggressive, and laughed somewhat quietly together. They fiddled with the mechanics of the radio, mocking the other upon the realisation of a simple mistake, and they’d breathe a laugh - carefree, they seemed. It was something quite surprising, to say they were so incredibly intelligent. I decided, as I rose gradually from my uncomfortable position, that I was in grave need of… Well, of being cheered up, I suppose. Meeks was excellent for comfort, and Pittsie was dopey, alike - a wonderful form of entertainment, you understand, and I merely assumed I needed the company. 

I wandered slowly, a slight saunter to my stride, and I ensured not but a ragged movement were to be made. I slumped gently within the chair beside Steven, a grovelled sigh to slip my lips, and reciprocated the smile I received. “How’s it goin’, Jane?” Pittsie grinned. “You look like hell.” 

“Yeah,” Meeks agreed, and I merely scoffed. “What is it? A headache? Nausea?” 

I breathed my response; “Migraine, I think.” And I tilted my head to rest upon his shoulder. A sympathetic coo rang through the pair of them, and Meeks wrapped me beneath his arm, tending to the joint of my shoulder with gentle strokes as he went. 

“Well,” He said, “Pittsie and I are working on a Hi-Fi system.” He shrugged. 

Pittsie grinned, an utterly enthralled and toothy smile, with an enthusiastic nod to follow. I smirked, “A radio?” I asked. 

“Yep.” Pittsie grinned, “And it’ll be the best radio you’ve ever seen.” 

The breath of a chuckle fell from me, “I don’t doubt that, Pitts.” I said, “I don’t doubt it at all.” 

“I mean, it would be,” He grumbled, “But we can’t find a sufficient connection.” 

Meeks nodded, holding up a… a… “Meeks, what the hell is that?” I muttered, pointing to the coiled metal, wrapped loosely amongst his grip as he waved it around. 

“Anteni.” He smiled, “It’s what we use to find a connection. Catches the radio waves.” 

I nodded, following the wire in which it was connected by, and the breath of a giggle fell from me, “Ever think to plug it in?” I smirked. The pair frowned, glancing quickly to observe my comment, and Pittsie grumbled a light-hearted insult, picking up the loose wires, and connecting such with its correct positioning. 

“Duh,” He mocked, a scowl flashed to Meeks’ blank surprise, his tongue shoved behind his lower lip, as another laugh fell from me. 

I returned my gaze upon the other boys’ - Neil, of whom stared dumbfoundedly to a question of (what I were led to believe) Trigonometry; Charlie, who shared a glare of grave distaste with the red-headed mutt, his textbook open and hardly revised, and Cameron; who seemed just about ready to tear his hair from its roots. “Just replace these numbers, here,” He pointed to them, a hover above Neil’s shoulder, “for ‘x’ and ��y’.” 

“Of course.” Neil muttered, unmoving and quiet in himself. 

Charlie, his pen loosely contained among his grip, shifted his gaze to meet mine own - eyes wide, and his eyebrows drawn down; the Dalton Disbelief, as he so often dispelled. “Help.” He mouthed, and I found myself snickering softly. 

“Of course?” Cameron echoed, “So what’s the problem?” And thus was greeted by silence. 

My laugh came slightly louder, and it flew around my mind in a whirl of great dizziness, of heightened pain, as I winced, and clenched my eyes to a tight close. The flare in which the heat progressed simmered amongst my skull, and I found my teeth gritting subconsciously, a shaky breath falling from my lips. I needed to sleep, it should seem, and await the pain away. Though I found myself unable to rid for the small smile, slewn across my face, as I gazed upon the scene before me. 

“Look, I- What’s not to get?” Cameron sighed, a hand to slither down his expression. “I’ve explained the best I can, Neil.” 

Perry nodded, and he mumbled a curt, “I know, I know.” and fell among silence once more. There was a beat to pass, of thickly confused quiet, until he spoke up once more, and Cameron simply frowned, his features a clump of awful impatience. “But how does it apply to finding ‘x’?” He asked. 

“Or ‘y’.” Charlie mumbled, a whirl of confusion to crown his stare, as he blinked something blank at his work. A moment of nothingness passed - I shared a glance to Richard, and dared to notice he seemed rather teary eyed - and my smile simply widened. Idiots, I thought, every single one of them. 

The red-head turned, a gradual movement, to meet that of mine own stare. “Darling, you’re good with this,” He sighed, a particular furrow to his brows, “Lend a hand, would you?” 

“Lady Jane, Cameron.” Charlie said, “Her name is Lady Jane.” 

A heaved breath fell from him, and my eyebrow rose. “Whatever.” He sighed, “Lady Jane. Would you just do it, please?” 

“Oh, but Cameron! You were doing so well.” I smiled, a bitter smile, one could admit, and caught the infamous smirk of the Dalton boy, himself, as he shot me a wink - a continuous pattern I were beginning to grow accustomed to - and awaited Richard’s response. 

His gaze hardened, “Why do you have to be so difficult?” He sneered, “God, it’s like working with bricks!” 

“Well,” I scoffed, “Building is a noble pursuit. You live in a brick-built house, don’t you, Dick?” 

“Very funny, Lady, you really tickled me there.” He all but snarled. 

“Glad I could be of service.” I mumbled, something quieter, now. Quieter, for the pulse within my skull had enforced a great deal worse - flashing, almost, with a sharp shock of subliminal pressure. A thick kind of silence engulfed the tables, and not but a word dared to interrupt it as such. 

The door swept, opening a slither, and a creak, as the frame of Knox’s bereft expression eloped with the space. He rested back upon the door, allowing it’s closure a click, and tilted his head for the crown to kiss the wood. “How was dinner?” Charlie called, a sudden breach of such silence. The boy remained unmoving, his jacket held over his shoulder - like that of a romantic poet, stricken by such woes of amorous pain. I felt myself smile at the thought, as he turned dazily, and he raised his eyebrows. 

“Huh?” He maundered. 

“How was dinner?” I echoed, maneuvering myself to sit in that of my original seat, slightly to the right of Charlie. I ushered the wooden frame closer to the boy, shuffling in regard to the little room remaining for Knox, as he muttered his reply. 

“Terrible.” He sighed, a mere mumble upon anticipated silence. He strode away, a swing to his jacket, as he draped it upon the spare seat to my right, and he said, a little louder; “Awful.” As though we hadn’t quite gathered such beforehand. 

“Why?” Charlie asked, “What happened?” 

I frowned, for the boy’s gaze were so solemn - so woven with grave emotion - and I leaned my elbow upon the lip of the table, chin resting within its palm, as he slumped down within the chair. “You okay, Overstreet?” I said, quietly, for the ache had yet to retrieve. 

The boy shook his head, a blank stare upon the wooden table, and he breathed a sigh. “Tonight,” He began, the slither of a gentle smirk to caress his face, as he glanced up, just that little bit. “I met,” He drawled, another pause to be known, “The most beautiful girl I have ever seen, in my entire life.” I snorted a scoff, rolling my eyes - charming, I thought - and harmonized my expression at a similar time to Neil. 

“Are you crazy, what’s wrong with that?” Perry breathed a laugh, just the same as I muttered my: “Oh, thanks, Knoxious. Glad to know I’m not Loverboy worthy.”  

He smiled, something toothy and bright - and his gaze, it lightened - as he turned to face I. “Don’t take it personal, Jane.” He said, “You’re pretty, but man-” He paused, he visibly swooned, and a laugh fell from me. “Oh, you guys should have seen her.” 

“Oh, yeah?” I grinned, “What’s with the moping, then, Romeo?” 

He sighed, a curt deflate to his shoulders, and his smile seemed to drop. “She’s practically engaged.” He said, a shake to the head, “To Chet,” He paused, gauged the reactions, and finished with; “Danbury.” 

A chorus of groans spilled amongst the boys, mumbled protest to be known, as Charlie uttered something bitter. “That guy could eat a football.” He said. I held not but a clue for who Chet Danbury was, nor did I particularly care for such, though it seemed to have riled the boys up, and - Well - I supposed that were enough for me to develop a stained disliking for him. 

“Who is he?” I mumbled, not quite loud enough for any other than Charlie to discover. 

“Chet used to go here,” He said, “He’d pick on Meeks, and on Pittsie. ‘Til Pitt’s grew, of course.” 

“Ah,” I hummed, and I turned back to meet the group. If I had little to no reasoning behind my disdain before, I certainly had one, now. 

“That’s too bad,” Pittsie mumbled, a quick glance - as though disappointed for his friend - to the naked radio before him. 

“‘Too bad’?” Knox mumbled, utterly dejected, and - unfortunately, though I could not help myself - rather amusing. “It’s worse than too bad, Pittsie, it’s a tragedy.” He paused, and he motioned with his hands. I bit back a laugh. “A girl this beautiful, in love with such a jerk.” He spat his final word, and I found my giggles breaching the barricade of my lips. 

A nudge met my shoulder, and I turned to glance upon a smirking Charlie, his eyes alight with amusement, as I merely returned to a smile, shook my head, and spun back around. “All the good ones go for jerks,” Pittsie said, “You know that.” 

I scoffed, my tone overlapping with that of Richards own. “Ah, forget her.” He said, as I spoke to my own defence. “We do not.” I said. 

“Oh, sure,” Pittsie scoffed, “It’s not like you would know.” 

My eyebrows raised - ouch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When have you ever gone for a guy? Let alone a jerk.” Meeks said, “You just don’t count, Lady Jane.” 

I paused, frowned, and mumbled my reply. “Uncalled for.” I said, and we left it at that. 

“Yeah,” Cameron said, utterly unphased by the entire ordeal. “Open your trig book, and try figure out problem fi-”

“I can’t just forget her, Cameron.” Knox scoffed, a riddle of slight annoyance to coax his expression. “And I certainly can’t think about trig.” The group fell into a silenced agreement, and I found myself bemused by my thoughts. Perhaps he would go and write her some poetry, I pondered, maybe compare her to the moon. A breathy giggle fell from me at the thought, and I held no doubt it’d ring true. 

The shrill buzz of a static connection erupted from the naked radio, as I winced and clenched my jaw to the ache within my mind. A sharp pulse of things bitter caressed the grit of my teeth, and the light began to sting my eyes. “We got it!” Pittsie exclaimed, a swat to Meeks’ arm, as the two shared glances of elate measures, and they drew the headphones tightly to their ears. 

A wafted breeze brushed me by, as the dark oaked door swung open, and the stature of Dr. Hagar’s stern expression greeted us all with a glare of aged disgust. “Alright, Gentlemen,” He cawed, “Five minutes-” His eyes, they caught my own, and his frown merely deepened. “Miss Darling.” He said, “You should have left thirty minutes ago, no?” He turned to gaze upon my company, an eyebrow raised; “And to be situated with the male students, Miss Darling - I’m afraid such breach of the rules will simply not be tolerated.” 

“Dr. Hagar, Sir,” Charlie began, “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.” I turned to face the boy, his expression a reciprocate of great innocence, and his eyes a twinkle of mischief. “See, Jane, here,” He motioned to I, and continued, “was simply lending a helping hand.”

“Yeah.” Neil nodded, “I couldn’t wrap my head around question five.” 

Charlie motioned to Perry, a pout to his features, “He just couldn’t do it.” He said, undoubtedly mocking the aged man, as he shared a calculating glance, and moved on. 

“Lets go.” He clapped, as though rounding up sheep, and Charlie made the effort to stand, his pencil tucked behind his ear, and a smirk drawled upon his expression. He bent toward Knox, of whom reciprocated a glance of something pained, and said:

“Did you see her naked?” With a wink and a widening smile. A snicker fell from my lips, as I swatted his stomach, and he brushed me by, digits clutched upon the leather that was my own notebook, and  Neil let out a breathy giggle at the comment. 

“Very funny, Dalton.” Knox uttered, monotonous and faux. The room were engulfed by muffled shuffling, of boys collecting their things and finishing conversations. Pittsie leaned awkwardly, with his elbows rested upon the table, and I dared to notice that the radio was gone. 

I furrowed my eyebrows, and Dr. Hagar spoke with that grovelled tone. “That wouldn’t be a- uh- radio, in your lap, would it, Mr Pitts?” 

Pittsie glanced down, as the wail of static connection ran through myself with a great shock, and a slight shiver. “No, Sir.” He said, a short pause to follow. “Science experiment.” He lied. I raised my eyebrows momentarily, for it were an excuse well thought of, as he added a curt; “Radar.” And Meeks raised the anteni with an innocent nod. 

Hagar hardly believed them, I dared to notice, though he hardly cared, too, spinning upon his heel and exiting the perimeter. “You’ll come to breakfast, tomorrow, won’t you Jane?” Pittsie asked. 

“You have to.” Meeks added, “You haven’t eaten for two days.” 

I merely nodded - perhaps I could suffer one meal - and said: “Sure.” With a tight lipped smile.

[hearthmistress]

and still i sleep

Pairing: Castiel/ Dean Winchester, Implied Dean/OCs, Implied Castiel/OCs

Tags: endverse, bedsharing 

Word Count: 1,884

Summary: He’s not sure when they began to share a bed, just like he’s not sure when Castiel’s cabin becomes a facade for something else. There’s a lot Dean is not sure of anymore. 

(Read on A03)

Dean isn’t sure when they began to share a bed.

-

The cabin is dark and smells of rot and dust. Inside there will be cans forgotten, mice running rampant, and smell of musk so deep and terrible that it will take Dean a minute to remember how to breathe again. But outside there is a porch with wooden deck chairs, all of them covered in leaves and dust, untouched and ready, and beside the camp there is a steady supply of water that might just last them years.

Dean presses his foot to the step of the porch and listens as the wood creaks and bends. Dust rises up, and inside creatures scatter, but it feels steady, like it might hold, and Dean steps back.

“This is it,” he says.

Castiel beside him nods. He presses gently the barrel of his rifle to the wood, as if at moment the wood will give up and break, and the whole thing will crash down upon them. He frowns when nothing happens, and steps back. “Seems like it,” he agrees, though Dean can’t tell if Cas is happy about this or not.

“Home sweet home,” Dean quips, but Cas ignores him and heads into the cabin, leaving Dean to pick up his duffle and hurry after him.

Inside they break open windows, the hinges that holds the shutters closed long rusted. Dust rises up as the light enters the cabin, revealing it to be all one room — a queen-sized bed shoved into one corner, a now useless stove shoved in the other. But it’s shelter and it’s safe and it is, despite Dean’s teasing, home.

Castiel helps him set up. They pull a large metal table into the middle of the room and spread out maps, they search the cabin for salt and supplies, and gather it into the middle. They unmake the bed and check to see how damaged the mattress is (only partial chewed and lightly filled with mouse droppings). They grab lanterns from Baby as the sky darkens and night comes closer and continue to work before both their stomachs rumble, and they agree to pause.

There’s knocking on the door and the other campers (survivors? victims? idiots?) have gathered out front announcing that dinner is ready.

When they step out of the cabin, a young woman with dark brown hair hurries forward and grabs Castiel’s arm eagerly.

“And where is your cabin?” she asks, her fingers curling the hair on the base of Castiel’s neck. Dean tries to ignore how this makes the pit of his stomach turn, how it makes him look away. The angel — former angel— grins wickedly and murmurs into her ear, making her giggle and blush and before Dean can say anything, Castiel walks away and leaves Dean in his cabin alone.

-

He’s not sure when they began to share a bed, just like he’s not sure when Castiel’s cabin becomes a facade for something else. There’s a lot Dean is not sure of anymore — like when Castiel shook off his trench coat and began wearing that hippie shit, or when Castiel started drinking, or self-medicating, or even when Castiel started fucking. Hell, he’s not really sure how they ended up in fucking Camp Chitaqua and he’s beginning to suspect that in his attempt to keep this entire situation together and in hand, he’s slowly losing his grip.

And it only becomes more apparent when Dean wakes up one morning with Castiel asleep beside him.

-

At night, Dean crawls into their bed. At one point it was his and now it’s theirs, and he doesn’t remember the moment they came to share it.

They don’t go to bed together. Castiel’s night habits are far more adventurous and long-lasting than Dean’s, but Dean wakes at night to the screen door slamming shut and to the smell of weed, sweat, and cum and then he feels the sheets being pulled from him, feels the mattress dip before he hears a heavy sigh and knows that Castiel has crawled in beside him.

They sleep apart, their bodies never settle enough that Dean might accidentally brush against Castiel’s arm, or that Castiel’s foot might rub against Dean’s leg. Most mornings Dean wakes alone, the space beside him long cold and his hands smooths the sheets in hope to pick up the warmth — a memory of Castiel being there.

-

Usually he finds Castiel surrounded by what Dean can only call his groupies. They laugh and talk, pulling Castiel’s attention towards them, touching, grabbing, and rubbing him. It seems like the angel basks in it, loves the act of worship.

Dean wonders when his Cas became this. He thinks it was probably when he broke his leg, laid up for a month away from the action and from Dean. The first time Dean let him share his bed, with no better shelter or space for him. (Dean admits it might have begun long before that, maybe a knife to a chest in a barn, maybe a fish scrabbling desperately to shore.)

-

At night Dean wakes.

He sleeps light now. Always has, but now it only takes a creak of a door, a light careful tread of a foot, a gentle shift in the mattress beside him for Dean to wake.

He’s not sure how he’s gotten so used to Cas being beside him. How the slam of the door or the floor creaking doesn’t send him reaching for his gun when Cas sneaks in at night. How some nights he can’t sleep without Cas beside him, to the point where he just lies awake, his heart racing, his mind wandering until the smell of weed, of sweat, and sex fill his nose as the mattress adjusts and as the blankets lift, cool air pooling in as Cas crawls in beside him.

He’s not really sure how they got here at all.

-

The thing is, Dean knows that Castiel is into him, has seen him glance at his lips, has seen his eyes linger too long on Dean’s body. There are moments between them that one motion, one unthinking step could change them forever. Dean wrestles with this like he wrestles with everything else about Cas.

One evening, Castiel comes to cabin early. So early, Dean isn’t even in bed yet. He’s sitting at a table, using a dim lamplight to view a ragged map, strategies and plans moving quickly through his head. Castiel stumbles in, a laugh dying on his lips as he takes in Dean before he sits and waits.

Dean explains, explains what they have to do next. Castiel nods and adds suggestions. He then places his hand on Dean’s.

Castiel looks at Dean. He bites his lip. An open invitation.

“Cas, no.”

Castiel snatches his hand away.

“Forgot it, Dean,” he snaps, getting up. The door slams behind him.

-

Dean will reach out one night and find his hands empty and wanting, for his entire life has been empty and wanting.

The nights Castiel is there, present beside him, are the nights that scare Dean the most. The ones where he lays, afraid to look at Cas, lest he turns and finds he has become Lot’s wife. That his sorrow will fill him and disappointment will turn him to salt. So Castiel lays beside him and Dean keeps a good space between them so that he cannot feel the angel beside him, so he will not feel the dip in the bed or the hand that reaches out. So that he will not know disappointment.

And yet it still finds him.

-

They fuck other people, of course.

This is known between them and the rest of the camp. Dean stumbles into the arms of pretty, eager, women; takes comfort in the familiarity of their soft curves, of the long length of their hair. When they find other camps or other groups while on missions, sometimes Dean takes comfort in strange men, lets them fuck him roughly in the old abandoned outbuilding just outside of the camp before he stumbles home and climbs back into his bed. Only once Castiel was there when he got in, already curled up in their bed. Dean was pretty sure Castiel was pretending to sleep. The rise and the fall of the quilt had stopped briefly when Dean had stepped near.

-

Castiel begins to hide pill bottles around the cabin. Dean finds them, orange and empty, as they rattle out behind closed drawers, tumble out of the couch cushions, or roll from under their bed. At first the sight of them brings terror to Dean’s eyes, but by the time he finds the ones hidden in the cracks of the floorboard, he has grown numb to them and gently places them back into their hiding spots.

Castiel comes back to their bed, less and less after the night Dean refuses him. When he does come back, he smells so strongly of weed and sex that Dean is immediately awoken. He watches Castiel’s gait stumbling as he clumsily kicks off his shoes, his thighs hitting the furniture before he pulls the blanket up and crawls in beside Dean. He sighs heavily and Dean hears him turn and wonders if Castiel has stretched his hand out too, has hoped that Dean would turn over and let their fingers lace together.

-

Past him has less wrinkles and laughs easily and willingly.

“I like past you,” Castiel tells him and Dean’s insides go numb.

He watches Castiel watching past him. Sees an eagerness in the angel’s eyes, one he hasn’t seen in a long time. A hope.

“I like past you,” Castiel tells him and it stabs Dean, turns him cold and deadened. He wonders later if Castiel knew what he was doing when he said that.

-

In the end, Dean has a plan. It’s cruel, it’s horrible, and it’s logical. It might not work (it probably won’t). If he dies, he dies. If everyone dies… well, it’s a numbers game in the end and he’s seen enough death that these few won’t really factor into the total sum.

The door creaks open and Castiel is there. Dean didn’t think he would show, too enamoured with this younger Dean, too pissed at him to show.

“So… what is the plan?” Castiel drawls out, slipping into the chair beside him. Dean tells him. Castiel listens, silently, his mouth become a firm line.

“You get why I have to do this?” Dean tells him.

Castiel nods.

“And? You’re on board?”

“Of course.”

(“I’m not going to lie to you,” he had told the camp. “Me and him… it’s a pretty messed-up situation we got going.”

God, if that only told the half of it.)

-

On their last night on earth, Dean reaches out and finds Castiel’s hand: palm up, warm and ready. He weaves their fingers together and turns, ready to become Lot’s wife. She, after all, turned willingly, ready to watch the destruction of what she called home, to watch her life crumble before her.

“This is it,” Dean says as he grips Castiel’s hand tighter, trying to commit to memory how Cas’s fingers feel within his, trying to remember where the calluses are, what parts have been broken and repaired.

“This is it,” Castiel mumbles, and he too grips tightly.

[upthenorthmountain]

Where the World is in the Making - Chapter 11

Previous Chapters

For Kristanna Week, and the prompt: Learning. And not any other prompts anyone might have thought up. No. Just Learning. Enjoy!

Big thanks to Charis as always <3

Chapter 11

Kristoff had lived alone on his farm for two years. Just him, the horse, and the chickens for all that time, and it had never seemed as quiet as it did this morning. After finished her morning chores Anna had ridden out to visit Mrs Ogg, and Elsa had a headache and was lying down, so she might as well not be there (except that he was of course trying to stay out of the cabin, and trying not to make any loud noises).

He worked out in the field. It really was incredible how much more he’d been able to get done, now that he could concentrate on the farmwork. But then, he supposed, it had to support three people now instead of one.

At midday he sat by the side of the barn to eat. Everything was so still; even that goat was sitting peacefully at the end of his rope, chewing his cud. Kristoff thought about the long days and weeks when he hadn’t spoken to another single human being, and wondered how he’d managed not to go mad.

-----

Late afternoon Kristoff was surprised to see a farm wagon driving up from the direction of the Ogg’s farms. When it got closer, he could see that it was being driven by a young man he vaguely recognised as being Marta Ogg’s son Sean, and Anna was sat next to him, holding a basket on her lap. Sven was being led along behind on a long rope.

When they arrived Anna handed him the basket so she could climb down. It meowed, and when he peeked under the lid he saw several - three or four, they kept moving - kittens inside.

“I said to Marta that you thought we might have mice in the barn,” Anna said by way of greeting, “and she said what you need is a cat! And they have lots so she gave me these, aren’t they sweet? Wasn’t that kind?”

“Very,” Kristoff said.

“Five years ago you couldn’t get a cat out here for love nor money,” the other man said. “Now we’re giving them away.”

“Thank you for driving my wife home,” Kristoff said, untying his horse from the wagon.

“It’s no trouble. Knew she wouldn’t be able to ride home alone with all those kittens. They’re pretty lively.”

Anna had already gone running into the house to find her sister. “She loves animals,” Kristoff said, for want of better conversation. “Dotes on that goat, for some reason.”

“Well, she wants what all women want,” Sean said.

“Pets?”

Sean laughed. “No, a baby! So she has to baby the animals until one of those comes along.”

Before Kristoff could think of a reply, Anna stuck her head out of the cabin. There was a kitten sitting on her shoulder. “Oh, Mr Ogg,” she said, “Won’t you come in for some dinner before you go home? Or a cup of tea at least?”

“No thank you, Mrs Bjorgman,” he said. “I’d best be getting back for my own dinner.”

“Oh, yes - well, thank you ever so much!”

Sean nodded at her and went to turn his wagon around.

“Kristoff,” Anna said at the door, a different kitten on her shoulder now, “you can’t come in here, Marta taught me how to make something new so it’s a surprise for dinner! Stay outside.”

“Alright,” he said. “Well, thanks again,” he added to Sean once Anna had disappeared once more.

“It’s no trouble. Oh, and Bjorgman,” Sean said, “If you want any help with any building work round here, after harvest, have your wife let Ma know. She’s taken a real shine to her, Ma has, and we - my brothers and I - we’d be glad to do it.” Then before Kristoff could say anything, he drove away.

-----

When Anna finally called him into the cabin, Kristoff found the table neatly set, with three bowls of stew and a big plate of warm, golden biscuits. Anna was standing by the stove, grinning at him.

“That smells wonderful,” he said, and it really did. “Mrs Ogg taught you how to make this?”

“Mm-hmm! And I wrote it all down for Elsa. Because she likes things written down.”

Anna poked her head into the bedroom. “Are you hungry?”

“I wasn’t,” Elsa said, sitting up slowly, “But that smells so good that I will try it. Why are there cats everywhere?”

---------

When Kristoff came back to the house at noon the next day he could only find Elsa, sitting at the table finishing some mending while she waited for the others. After a few minutes he found Anna just inside the barn; she was sitting on her haunches and digging wildly with her hands through a pile of loose earth, where Ollie had dug up the hard-packed dirt floor.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’ve lost it, I took it off because it was dirty and I wanted to wipe it on my handkerchief but then I dropped it and it’s gone -” she looked up, despairing.

“Lost what?”

“My ring, my wedding ring.” Anna stood, and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, leaving a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

“You dropped it right here?”

“Yes.” She went to bend over and look some more, but Kristoff held up a hand to stop her and crouched down himself.

“You can’t just rummage about, you’ll bury it even more,” he said, looking closely at the patch of ground, then running his fingers through the dirt very slowly and gently. Anna watched him anxiously, twisting her hands together.

“Oh, I can’t believe I dropped it,” she said. “Oh, I hope it isn’t lost, it was -” he waited for her to say ‘my mother’s’ but instead she finished “my wedding ring…”

Finally, after a couple of minutes, he saw a glint of silver, and held up the ring in triumph. Anna clapped her hands and grinned at him. Still on one knee, Kristoff turned, took her left hand and slid the ring into place on her finger.

Then he looked up, still holding her hand in both of his. Anna was watching him, still, and when he met her gaze he couldn’t move for a long moment. He stood, slowly, only letting her hand drop when he was on his feet, and how had he never noticed how blue her eyes were? When he brushed the dirt from her cheek with his thumb she leant into it, just slightly, and his chest was tight, his hand almost trembling as he ran his finger down to under her chin, as he lifted her face to his.

Anna closed her eyes and stood, waiting. He kissed her lips, gently, then pulled back to see her reaction; it was to push up on her toes to follow him, her eyes still closed, her brow furrowed, so he slid his hand round to the nape of her neck, and kissed her, over and over as she clung to his shoulders and tangled her fingers in his hair.

Then, suddenly, she dropped back onto her heels and pulled away. It took Kristoff a second to realise that someone - Elsa - was calling their names from back at the house. Right. It was noon. If they didn’t go back to the house, Elsa would come looking for them.

Anna gave him a shy smile, but she didn’t say anything, just turned and walked away. As she went through the door to the cabin, he saw her pause and put her fingertips briefly to her lips, the silver ring glinting on her finger as she smiled to herself. My wife, he thought, and it hit him somewhere in the chest.

-----

Kristoff didn’t come into the house that evening. He worked all afternoon in the farthest field, and after dinner he said goodnight and left immediately. Anna had been dreaming all afternoon of the kiss he might give her before they went to bed, and then he just - left. What did that mean?

“Wind’s getting up,” Elsa said as they were preparing for bed. “You didn’t leave anything outside, did you?”

“No - no, I don’t think so.” Anna peered out into the yard. “D’you think it’s going to storm?”

“Maybe. We need the rain, anyway.”

“That’s true.”

-----

And it was the rain that woke her, a few hours later. It drummed loudly on the wooden roof and walls of the cabin, and Anna could hear how the wind was gusting, throwing the rain in sheets. The wind seemed to find every tiny crack and seam in the building and she huddled under the blankets, hearing it whistle through the stove-pipe. She hoped that the walls of the barn were at least as strong as those of the cabin.

She couldn’t get back to sleep. She whispered her sister’s name, but got no reply, and was resigning herself to waiting for the storm to blow itself out when she heard a shout and a crash from outside.

Immediately Anna was on her feet. Elsa stirred. “Go back to bed, Anna,” she said. “It’s just a storm.”

“I heard something,” Anna said, rummaging for clothes. “I’m just going to check he’s alright -”

Elsa sighed, but then there was another shout, and Anna threw on the clothes she could reach and ran out of the door.

The rain was stinging and cold. The wind blew her skirts in every direction and tried to rip away the shawl she’d tied round her head. At first she couldn’t see anything, but then she saw the glimmer of a lantern and stumbled towards it.

Kristoff was standing at the top of the path towards the creek, holding up the lantern. She wasn’t sure if he’d seen her until he shouted over the wind, “I opened the barn door a crack to check the cabin roof hadn’t blown off and your goat ran straight out. Hasn’t got the sense of a dead bug. Think he went this way. Go back inside.”

“Ollie?”

“See, this is why you don’t give farm animals names,” he said. “Go back inside, woman.”

“You’ll find him?”

“I’m not staying out here much longer, and you definitely shouldn’t. Go inside before you catch cold. You’re soaked.”

“But Ollie - you know he likes to play in the creek, what if he -”

Kristoff made an exasperated noise and turned back towards the barn. And Anna grabbed the lantern out of his hand and ran.

——

She’d barely gone fifty yards before she regretted her impulsiveness. Anna could barely see, and she was soaked through, and the wind was blowing her this way and that, and she’d taken Kristoff’s lantern, oh, he was going to be so mad -

She couldn’t leave Ollie, though! He’d be so scared, and lost, and alone. She pushed on along the path until the sound of the running water told her she was near the creek.

Then - a flash of white, and had she imagined she heard something? Anna took another step forward, and another, holding the lantern above her head. Yes! There was Ollie, on the other side of the raging torrent.

“Come here, you naughty goat!” she shouted at him. “Come back over here! Time to go home!”

But still he wouldn’t come any closer. So she had to try and get to him.

——

Anna huddled in her bed, under her blankets - and half of Elsa’s blankets, for that matter. She was forbidden to leave it and she didn’t dare, even though she was plenty warm, especially with a hot iron wrapped in cloth by her feet.

She didn’t think she’d ever been gladder to see Kristoff than when he had come running out of the dark and dragged her out of the creek. But then he’d been so angry that she’d half-wished he’d left her there. She didn’t think she’d heard him say so many words together as she did as he carried her back to the cabin, though it was mainly repetition on the theme of What had she been thinking? Did she want to drown, get pneumonia, get carried out to sea (a little fanciful, Anna thought, but she didn’t feel she could argue) over a goat? Really, what had she been thinking, had she even been thinking at all? And so forth.

The only thing he said in the cabin - and to Elsa, not to Anna - was “Get her dry,” then he’d stomped back out. To the barn, presumably, and who could blame him.

Elsa had helped her undress, and put her in a clean nightdress under this heap of blankets, and then despite herself Anna had fallen asleep, and now it was morning. She was pretty sure she hadn’t caught cold, but her arm hurt where Kristoff had grabbed it to pull her out of the water. He’d really wrenched it, and she understood why, but it still hurt.

The door opened and Elsa came in. “I brought you some hot tea,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. No, really, I am, I could get up -.”

“You’ll stay there. And drink this.”

Anna sat up and took the cup obediently. “Is Kristoff alright?” she said after a moment. “He got pretty wet…”

“He says so. I made him take the other iron and he promised me he’d put on dry things straight away so hopefully he won’t get sick.” Elsa sat on her bed and gave Anna a Look. Anna sipped her drink. Neither of them needed to say that if he did, it would be her fault.

“He’s already gone out, anyway,” Elsa continued. “Trying to see if there’s any damage anywhere. And I think he walked over to the creek.”

“Did he find Ollie?” Anna said in a small voice.

“Yes,” Elsa said. “And he asked if I knew how to make goat stew. But he was joking.”

Anna scrunched up under the blanket.

“I think,” Elsa said. “I think he was joking.”

[ncfan-1]

Interregnum

"Your mother's really still missing, then?" [Written for Fictober 2018]

[Also on AO3]

Written for the prompt, “I’ll tell you but you’re not gonna like it.” Also written because the S4 promo indicates that Eclipsa is in charge as of the beginning of Season 4, and I was wondering how that happened.

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

“Your mother’s really still missing, then?”

Star nodded, but even as she was having this conversation with Eclipsa, her eyes kept straying to the baby sleeping soundly in Eclipsa’s arms. Everything related to said baby was weird beyond weirdness, a weirdness scientists would have to invent a whole new scale to accommodate, but the sight of Meteora Butterfly sleeping peacefully topped all. Nothing about that girl was peaceful, but here she was, sleeping.

The sight of Eclipsa and Meteora like that, the way Eclipsa had made a home out of the broken-open Monster Temple, in spite of the damage and the ruin, to the point of slowly repairing the building, filled Star with a hollow feeling. It grated on the inside of her chest like sandpaper, like it would make her bleed if it rubbed against her too hard or too long. Or maybe the hollow feeling wasn’t coming from that, or wasn’t just coming from that.

Star pushed the hollow feeling away to nod her head again. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find her.” She stared down at her hands, at the dirt caked under her fingernails and the rust-red scab on her right palm. “Mom’s just…” Don’t say ‘gone.’ “Not around.”

Her memories of the Realm of Magic were like a tapestry someone had left in their attic and not noticed when the moths and the mice and the whatever started munching on it. Tendrils of black in gold water. A laugh that in retrospect she recognized as her mom’s voice, though she’d never heard that note in her mom’s voice before. All those cute little baby unicorns. A thread of fear beneath the dull, foggy bliss.

These fragments of memory, Star kept trying to piece them together into a coherent story, something with a beginning, a middle, and an end, as opposed to just a heap of disjointed images with no start and no stop. Kept trying to figure out if she could have fought off the haze long enough to recognize her mom and get her to come home. But whenever she was close to an answer, it all flew away, and she spent so much time trying to corral those images and sensations that by the time they were back in their pen, she’d forgotten her place and had to start over.

Eclipsa sighed and shifted Meteora’s weight in her arms to retrieve her cup of black, earthy-tasting tea from the table. They were sitting in what Eclipsa called her parlor, and though they were seated on dusty cushions, the table under the lawn table cloth was of rough stone, and midday sunlight poured through a break in the wall high above them, it wasn’t half bad. Pretty cool, actually, though Star would be this place got pretty cold at night.

“That is worrisome,” Eclipsa said, her voice sort of caving on low notes.  “I’ve a hard time believing that Moon wouldn’t have already found her way back if everything was alright. She always seemed quite resourceful.”

Star nodded, trying not to fidget on her dusty blue cushion. There was something she was here to do, but her mind was going in many different directions the way it usually did, and it was hard to get there. She’d asked where Glossaryck was when she first got here, but Eclipsa had only shrugged and said that Glossaryck came and went as he pleased. A small pile of empty pudding cups was pressed into a corner, and that did provide some reassurance that he was here at least sometimes. Star hadn’t seen the wand. She didn’t ask about it.

While Star tried to reach the point she wanted to talk about, Eclipsa seemed to take her silence as license to go on talking. “I suppose that leaves you in charge.” Her pale, normally porcelain-smooth forehead scrunched up, and something glimmered wetly in her gray eyes. “I’m shocked you found the time to sneak away.”

In the end, she’d had to use the tunnels Eclipsa had shown her. Star shrugged, erratic energy racing under her skin. “Dad’s covering for me. I just wanted to give you an update.”

“Hmm.” Eclipsa frowned down into her teacup, her free hand going up to stroke the baby’s shock of silvery hair; Meteora twitched slightly, but did not stir. “But that’s not the only reason you’ve come, is it?”

“What? Why can’t it be?”

At that, Eclipsa smiled as if the two of them knew a secret shared by only them. The wet glimmer in her eye… Well, it didn’t leave entirely, but it was more of a twinkle, now, and was less disconcerting to look at. “Star. Dear. I remember being Queen. Moreover, I remember being Queen at precisely the age you are now. It was not especially pleasant, and one of the unpleasant things involved having so little time to myself that I took to staying up until two in the morning just so I could get some reading done.” She looked off, that smile curving upwards slightly. “Among other things. But those other things aren’t relevant to this conversation. What is relevant is that I can’t imagine so much has changed in the last three hundred years that you would have any more free time than I did. So why come here yourself, when it would have been a better use of your time just to send a message on to me?”

Star felt a sudden urge to sink her teeth around something. Not to bite or tear, but just to gnaw on it. It was only at these times that she really regretted letting Eclipsa keep the wand; since receiving it, she’d always chewed on the bell when she felt the need to have her teeth clattering against something. Before then, it had been pens or the hilt of a knife or occasionally her hair, whatever was at hand. Mom hated it when Star chewed on her hair, had tried for years to train her out of it, but now Star found herself winding her hair in one hand, barely resisting the urge to stuff a thick lock in her mouth. “I can tell you,” she said cautiously, “but you’re not gonna like it.”

A soft, slightly rumbling noise like a laugh, but not quite it, escaped Eclipsa’s mouth. “You’d better tell me, then. I understand the impulse to delay—believe me, I do—but bad news only gets worse the more you delay telling it.”

Star sucked in a deep breath. This was it, then. “Okay.” She drummed her fingers on her knees, a sharp, rapping tattoo. “I need you to come back to the castle with me.”

Once the moment had arrived, Star had said it very quickly, and as tended to happen when she said something very quickly, she’d accidentally left something out. But though she wasn’t always sure of much when it came to Eclipsa, she was sure of two things. That she cared enough about Mewni to potentially kill her own kid to protect it (which was something Star was still reeling from, just a little bit, but she’d been right there, she’d heard everything they said to each other, and there was no denying what she’d seen or heard), and that she might not have had the best judgment in the world, but that she was about as far from an idiot as you could get.

Eclipsa was pretty sharp, and thus, even though Star didn’t say everything she wanted to say at the first, Eclipsa seemed to infer the rest with no problem.

Her face fell. Like, visibly fell, so obviously that Star for once had no trouble interpreting the expression. Eclipsa’s back and shoulders stiffened, her arm tightening around Meteora until the baby whimpered a little in her sleep and she, with visible difficulty, relaxed her grip. When she spoke, her voice taut as a guitar string fit to snap, she said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Star. As you no doubt gathered, I am not especially popular in Mewni.” She stared off past Star, her jaw set and her eyes glinting with a hardness close to diamond. “When I renounced the throne, I meant that to be permanent. I don’t want it.”

“It’s not forever,” Star pleaded with her. “I need to look for my mom, and I can’t do that with eleventy-hundred castle people breathing down my neck.” She picked at her hand as she went on, “Mom’s a bit of a micro-manager, and nobody remembers what to do when there isn’t somebody giving them orders. They just follow me around like they’re little ducklings and I’m their mother; it’s weird!”

“What about your father?”

“Dad wants to go look for Mom, too, and he’ll probably go off by himself no matter what I tell him.” And this was not easy to say, but it needed to be said; it was right in the middle of the road in front of her, and couldn’t be swerved away from. “Dad’s not great at this. I mean, he can cover for me for a few hours okay, but any longer than that and he’s just… bad.” There, she’d said it. “It’s not good, it’s really not good, and I need him to help me look for Mom. So you don’t have to go back there forever. I just need someone to go and be the regent until I find Mom, and Mom’s relatives would be awful, and I…” Star stared down at her hands. “…I need help. That’s all.”

Star kept staring down at her hands. Eye contact was difficult when she felt like this; it was easier to look somewhere, anywhere else. Eclipsa didn’t say anything, and Star didn’t know whether she was thinking it over or if she was just waiting for Star to look up to tell her ‘no.’ Both seemed equally likely.

But then, another hand moved into her field of vision, a slender hand not much larger than her own, and covered by a gray, silken glove. The ring on Eclipsa’s ring finger glittered as she covered one of Star’s hands with her own, and at last, Star looked up.

“Alright,” Eclipsa said gently, “I’ll come back with you. They’re not going to like it, you know.”

“The court doesn’t like anything I do.”

“Neither will the Magical High Commission.”

“I don’t care what they think,” Star said flatly. “They can just deal with it.”

“Well, if that’s settled, just let me pack my things. I can leave now.”

[renwyck]

Stargazing

Renwyck drew in a slow breath, allowing his body to settle into the bed of grass beneath him. His hands clasped behind his head, the warrior gazed up into the starry sky over Stormwind. “It’s funny really,” he said, turning his head slightly to look at the woman resting to his side. “It’s pretty and all, but the light from the city makes it duller.” His glance left Aislynne’s face, falling to the grass between them. “But then again, maybe not.” Returning his attention skyward, his gaze fell beyond the stars to the black expanse beyond. “Maybe it’s just thinking fondly of the past. Maybe remembering how beautiful the sky looked in Westfall is just me thinking about how life was so much better before.” Aislynne had one arm tucked beneath her head; the sore one, which was mostly healed now but still achy, propped on her abdomen. Her eyes remained fixed on the stars as he spoke though she glanced to the side briefly when he looked toward her. Her smile was incredibly small and tugged up only one corner of her mouth. "It's both. That's just one of the things that drove me from Stormwind the first time I tried to settle here." She shifted like she would have nudged him but that wasn't exactly possible lying on the grass as they were. "That's when I met you." A quiet sigh came next. "But it's both. Cities are . . . stifling that way." He couldn't help but chuckle, his focus drawing back to the stars. "It was one of the first things I missed when I moved here with my father." His soft smile brightened as he reminisced.  "And actually, it was one of the things I loved about Duskwood. The clear, cloudless nights. Nothing like a brilliant backdrop of stars to make a land riddled with wolves and spiders feel a little more like home." With those words, Renwyck turned his gaze back to Aislynne. Her smile warmed and softened at his chuckle; how she'd missed that sound. What could she do but nod in agreement? She'd loved Duskwood, it was the only place after Gilneas that had felt like home. "I loved it there. But I was already used to wolves and spiders." She grinned a little at that and then gave such a heavy sigh. "I really did like it there. I might have stayed even if I hadn't met you." That brought her grin back. "I wonder if that grumpy owl that used to bring me rabbits and sit on my window ledge is still there?" Closing his eyes, Renwyck chuckled once more. "Because there's nothing creepier than a wakeup call from a bloody owl. That damned thing scared the shit out of me on more than one occasion." Brown eyes fluttering open, he smiled to Aislynne before rolling on his side to face her. "Now, that's one thing I don't miss... Owls: the roosters of Duskwood." Aislynne laughed quietly, only a hint of a rasp now present with the sound and only for a second. "Owls aren't so bad.  Most of them aren't anyway. And it depends on the kind. We had one that lived in our barn growing up, which is at least half the reason we didn't have mice! Especially when she was teaching her babies to hunt." She was quiet for a minute and raised her hand to push a few strands of hair behind her ear when they got caught in a faint breeze. She wiggled her nose for a minute to get rid of the tickling before she added: " I was more fond of the ravens and crows back then though. That's one thing Duskwood was lacking." "I never saw Gilneas, but I heard it was beautiful," he said, propping himself up on his elbow. Pausing for a minute, he took in her face underneath the moonlight. It had been a much simpler time when they would spend lazy nights under the stars of Duskwood. In that moment he was torn -- part of him retreating to the fonder memories of the past while the other part of him was painfully aware of the present. Renwyck's smile faded slightly as the pale light illuminated the scratches on Aislynne's face. With that, the present resumed its hold. "It was. Some of it still is." She frowned in an almost comical manner. "It's funny; when I think of it now it's perfect but back then . . . " She shook her head. "I loved it though, even then." She turned her head at his movements so she could finally , really look at him. She saw the fading smile and reached up to give a gentle tap beneath his chin as if to say 'none of that'.  "I would have liked to take you there. I go back a few times a year but it's not exactly safe yet."  Yet.  She smiled a little at that.  "Someday though . . ." He nodded slowly, the prod against his beard bringing a lopsided grin to his lips. "Hey now. I know I haven't used a sword in a good long while, but I'd still like to think I could hold my own against a baddy or two." Rolling to his back, he laid down once more to look back to the stars. Wriggling into the grass a little she turned her gaze back to the stars. "Well, you can tag along next time I go if you want.  I usually try to get back there sometime around Hallow's End and stay for a few days. I've never taken anyone with me but if you wanted to get away . . . " A knot chewed its way through his stomach, leaving a dull ache with the thought of promising anything of the future. Swallowing roughly, he nodded, his gaze not leaving the sky above. "I'd like that," he replied doing his best to fight through nagging pain. As much as he tried to force a smile, he couldn't. The corner of his mouth simply twitched in response. Even Aislynne knew better than to think that far ahead. They were, after all, in a world that was once again at war and her home had been used in that respect already.  "Well . . . we'll see what the state of things are then and . . . I'll let you know." She frowned a little and turned away to stare into the darkness for a moment. "It really was nice though. Forests and mountains and stormy seas. The city was nice we just . . . didn't belong there. We lived a bit away from everything really. " "Mm," was the only sound he managed to muster. Dozens of thoughts bombarded his mind at once, jumbling into a muddled mess of memories and possible scenarios for the future. Thoughts of Anna, his father, and Safrona all seemed to seep into one another until none of them made sense anymore. "Lynne?" he asked when his mind finally settled. "Do you think there's a future where we can both be as happy as we used to be?" Her response was to roll over onto her side until she had her sore arm wrapped around him. She hugged him as tight as she could manage and then she kissed his scruffy cheek before rolling back with a weighted sigh. "I hope so. I managed it once before so . . . I hope so. But I think we'll have to work at it some. Maybe a lot. But it's there, just out of reach. We just have to figure out how to reach it. But we will."

[andromeda---galaxy]

hypothetically

Lukas looks down at Philip’s head in his lap. It’s Saturday, finally, and they’ve been trying to catch up on Brooklyn 99 because they’re majorly behind, but Lukas’s thoughts keep drifting. He hates that he’s taking summer classes even though he tried to prepare himself. It’s weird that he’s taking the regular five and Philip has one, and it’s been cutting into their alone time severely. They’re newly engaged and they deserve better than this shit, especially since he was gone for two and a half months. But he thinks back to when he made the plans for the circuit, when he knew this was gonna come; he knew it was gonna suck, but it was the only way he’d be able to graduate on time.

 But it still sucks.  

 “I can hear your brain working,” Philip says, still staring at the TV. “Can hear the cogs moving.”

 Lukas scoffs. “Yeah?” he asks. “What’s it sound like?”

 Philip rolls over onto his back, looking up at him now. “Like…little mice scratching at the inside of your skull.”

 “Philip, they’re hamsters,” Lukas says, brushing Philip’s hair back. “We bought them little wheels and everything, remember?”

 “Oh right,” Philip says, grinning. He presses pause on his phone and looks up at Lukas expectantly.

Lukas clicks his tongue. “It’s nothing. Just getting pissy about school again, as if anybody’s surprised.”

 “Just imagine,” Philip says, gazing up at him, “when we don’t have school. When we just have jobs that we really like. I can take pictures of dogs all day if I want to. You could win three races and be good for like a month.”

 “Not if I get some shitty sponsors who want me all over the place,” Lukas says.

 “Don’t worry,” Philip says, and there’s a glint in his eye. “When I manage you I’ll only get you the best.”

 Lukas leans down, pressing a kiss to Philip’s forehead.

 A few minutes later his phone buzzes and he tries to muffle his gasp.

 Hey, Dour works at a bar on 5th and 2nd so….!

 Lukas had nearly forgotten about his rash plan to find Dour’s workplace and go there to punch him in the face. He’d been so sure about it, so filled with rage and pain and horror that nothing had seemed so right. But now it feels like it’s been ten years since he asked Nathan to find him and it looks sorta crazy in retrospect. He doesn’t know what to do anymore. He definitely wants to kill the guy for what he did but actually acting on his impulses probably isn’t the smartest thing to do. And he knows Philip won’t like it.

 He chews on his lower lip, eyes flicking down to the top of Philip’s head. He tries to be as quiet as possible when he types out his reply.

 Let’s like…table this…probably indefinitely :/ because it’s crazy yeah???

 He clears his throat, smiling automatically when Philip laughs, turning his face into Lukas’s leg. Lukas rubs his engagement ring with his middle finger and feels more anxiety rising in his throat. He hates Dour. He hates him. But he knows he needs to chill the fuck out and think of what Philip would want.

 Yeah, I mean…probably crazy. Guess we’re both crazy, uh oh

 Lukas raises one eyebrow.

 Yeah. Definitely crazy.

 ~

 Philip is laying with his head on Lukas’s chest that night, the lights already out, Izzy fed and snoring in the corner.

 “Why is your heart beating so fast?” Philip asks, sleepily.

 Lukas has been thinking about it all day. He pretty much told Nathan that they should just back off and be cool, but he doesn’t know how he feels about anything. The whole situation feels unresolved, and he knows he’ll probably regret being gone that day for the rest of his damn life.

 He has to tell Philip what he was thinking.

 “Hypothetically,” Lukas says. “If I was like…if I like, tracked down Dour and like, punched him in the face and ran away, is that…is that weird?”

 Philip goes a little stiff. Lukas feels the air around them go stale and then Philip sits up, bracing himself on his forearm. His brows are furrowed and he’s searching Lukas’s face.

 “Hypothetically?” Philip asks. “What kind of hypothetical is that?”

 Lukas just stares at him, shrugging a little bit.

 “Lukas,” Philip says, voice low. “You didn’t actually like, do this, right?”

 Lukas’s mind is running a mile a minute. “No,” he says. “But I, uh—maybe like, got close to doing it.”

 “What’s close?” Philip asks, and he’s got that tone that Lukas doesn’t like to hear.

 “I asked Nathan to find out where he worked and he did,” Lukas says, feeling a little bit like an idiot just laying here.

 Philip grimaces, his mouth falling open. “Jesus, Lukas,” he says, pulling away from him, losing all points of contact as he scoots further onto his side of the bed. Lukas sits up, panicking a little bit, but then Philip starts talking again. “You stalked this idiot?”

 “I mean, stalked is a strong word—”

 “You had Nathan find him, literally find his place of work somehow, and you were planning on going there to punch him in the face,” Philip says. “Right?”

 It sounds worse when he says it like that.

 Philip sighs heavily and shakes his head. “You could have gotten hurt, that guy is a freak—”

 “I wanted to defend you,” Lukas babbles. “I wanted—I feel like shit and he needs to fucking know he can’t assault my boyf—my fiancé without me doing something about it.”

 “That’s not defending me,” Philip says, and he looks disgusted and Lukas is a little bit at a loss here. “That’s defending your own self.”

 “No—”

 “What would it do for me?” Philip asks, getting heated. “How does you punching him take away what he did?”

 Lukas opens and closes his mouth a couple times.

 “Maybe you think it’s for me, babe, but it’s not. It’s for you, to make you feel better about what happened. Like—oh hey shithead, I wasn’t there but here I am now. That’s you, that’s defending yourself and your pride and like…your territory.” He shakes his head and it looks like he smells something bad.

 “No,” Lukas says, his heart beating even faster now. “No, no, I wanna—he hurt you, Ryan hurt you and I wanted to hurt him, because he hurt you.”

 Philip stares at him. “What?”

 “What?” Lukas asks, breathing hard, a high-pitched whining in his ear.

 “You just said—”

 “Dour hurt you, Philip,” Lukas says, louder. “He did it on purpose when I wasn’t here and I fucking hate that it happened, I hate that I was so goddamn helpless—”

 “Lukas, it is what it is,” Philip says, and there’s a new sort of softness in his eyes. “It’s done, punching him won’t make it undone. I’m okay, I’m fine, I promise.”

 “I couldn’t protect you—”

 “I’m not a child,” Philip says. “It could have happened to you, and shit, if it had I would have wanted to kill him too. But I wouldn’t stalk him and try to go hit him—especially if you were pressing charges against him. You don’t think you tracking him down and fucking him up would destroy my case?”

 Lukas blinks a couple times. He can’t think.

 “It isn’t your fault, what happened,” Philip says. “I don’t blame you at all. You weren’t here and it’s fine, it’s not—your job, to sit around with a sword trying to defend me. We love each other, we protect each other, sure, but this wasn’t—this wasn’t something you can claim as your fault. It’d be the same thing if it happened when I was in class or on a job or something.”

 Lukas realizes he did take the blame. And he’d probably take the blame for anything that happened to Philip, considering their relationship and all the shit he put him through in high school. He’ll never forgive himself for it. He wants to protect him. He wants to keep him safe, keep him happy, keep the fuckers of the world away from him. But he’s right, here. Lukas has a hard time seeing shit from other people’s perspectives, but fuck, he can’t stop the world from turning even though he might want to.

 “You’re not gonna do this shit right?” Philip says, looking over his shoulder at him.

 “No,” Lukas says, definitively.

 “You swear?” Philip asks, widening his eyes, shining in the dark.

 “Yes,” Lukas says. “I swear.”

 Philip nods but he still looks pissed.

 “Are you mad at me?” Lukas asks.

 “I’m just annoyed,” Philip says. “That you would even like, entertain this idea…we’re not in a gang, Lukas.”

 “I hit that guy at the graduation party,” Lukas says, soft.

 Philip scoffs and another burst of anger flares up in him. “That was a literal, in-the-moment thing, I was drunk and you were there and you stopped something from happening. This is completely different, it’s over, it’s done, you were planning on following this freak and you probably would have gotten arrested—listen, I’m done with this conversation, I’m going to bed.” He scoots even further to his side of the bed and whips up the covers, turning his back to Lukas as he gets under them. He flops onto his side and pulls the comforter up over his shoulder.

 “I decided against it,” Lukas pleads, chewing on his lower lip.

 “Good.”

 “So don’t be mad, I realized it was like, not smart—”

 “I’m tired,” Philip says.

 Lukas stares at his back for a couple seconds before he sighs, getting under the covers himself and sinking down into the pillows. He stares up at their popcorn ceiling and chews on the inside of his cheek. “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers.

 “It’s fine, babe,” Philip says.

 “It’s not fine because you’re mad,” Lukas says, clenching his hands together under the blankets.

 “I’ll get over it,” Philip says.

 Lukas sighs, feeling stupid and obnoxious. They never go to bed without saying I love you unless something is severely fucked up, like on the cruise. “I love you,” he says, feeling even stupider.

 “Love you too,” Philip says.

 Lukas sorta hates how tears sting in his eyes, and he closes them, trying to chase sleep.

 ~

 He tosses and turns all night, has stupid dreams, stares at Philip’s shoulders for a while and finally passes out at about five in the morning. When he wakes up Philip doesn’t have his back to him anymore, and instead he’s cuddled up against Lukas’s arm, breathing softly through his mouth.

 Lukas doesn’t know why Philip puts up with him. Half the time he doesn’t see straight until Philip knocks some sense into him, and he doesn’t know where the fuck he’d be or how he’d be acting if Philip wasn’t a fucking saint. Lukas sighs, brushing his nose against Philip’s hair and closing his eyes again.

 ~

 When he wakes up again he’s alone. He sits up, blinking away the blurriness, and hears Izzy’s collar jingling back and forth out in the living room. Lukas rubs at his chest and swings his legs over the side of the bed, getting up and padding out there. Philip is putting some of the leftover chicken on Izzy’s plate on the counter, and before Lukas can even stop himself he’s walking over and hugging him from behind.

 Philip laughs a little bit, patting his hand.

 “Are you still mad?” Lukas asks.

 Philip slips out of his grasp, walking over and putting Izzy’s plate down for her. Lukas’s heart is rattling again, watching him. Philip turns around and leans on the bar, shaking his head. “Just like….”

 “I’m sorry,” Lukas says. “It was stupid and rash and you’re right. I was just—I don’t know, I fucking hate that I was useless when something happened to you and I wanted to fix it but this…you’re right, this wouldn’t fix it. It might make me feel better for five seconds—”

 “But that’s it,” Philip says. “And if you get arrested you’d be hurting me and—”

 “I don’t want that,” Lukas says, shaking his head. “At all, ever.”

 “Just go to the gym and punch shit,” Philip says. “I’ll go with you.”

 “Okay,” Lukas says, because it’s a good idea and he’d probably agree to anything at this point.

 “And tell Nathan that I don’t need his vigilante guilt either,” Philip says, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re gonna press charges and King Prick is gonna lose and hopefully have to do a million hours of community service or some shit and we can laugh at him in court, but other than that I don’t want to think about him. Or worry about you going out and doing something stupid.”

 Lukas nods, looking down at his feet.

 “I know you just want me safe,” Philip says, walking over to him. “I know how much you love me and I love you too, and that’s exactly why I don’t want you thinking like this. Just…stay with me.”

 “Okay,” Lukas says, his voice breaking. He tries to get it all out of his head, all the versions of revenge that have been playing on loop since he found out what happened. The gym is a good idea. He’ll just punch the bags and pretend it’s Dour’s face and that’s the most revenge he’ll get. Doing better for Philip from now on is what he needs to focus on. “I won’t be crazy.”

 “Don’t be crazy,” Philip says, rubbing his arms up and down. “But you’re not…I know you’re not. Lukas, did you…did you hear yourself last night?”

 Lukas sighs. “Yeah, I was just—”

 “No, I mean,” Philip says, wetting his bottom lip. “You said Ryan. Instead of Dour, you said—you said Ryan.”

 Lukas feels a little chill go through him and he focuses on a spot on the far wall. He doesn’t remember, but the old, tainted memories surge forward, like they’d been hiding just underneath all of this shit. And it feels too true, too real, that all of this with Philip being hurt reminds him of everything with Ryan. That moment in Anne’s apartment, when he was there, behind the door. Those moments before blackness when Lukas knew Philip would be alone. Lukas was helpless. Helpless to protect him, helpless to save him. He remembered Philip’s horror, the way it sounded, and he’s been projecting those sounds onto the images he doesn’t have, just outside their apartment, in their hallway where that fucker kissed his Philip. Where that fucker stepped over boundaries and brought another trauma into their lives. Created another time when Lukas failed to protect the person he loves most.

 Philip touches his cheek. “All of this is bringing it back up, huh?” he asks, quiet.

 Lukas hadn’t even realized it, but it makes a lot of sense. He swallows hard. “Guess so,” he says, trying to blink away that face.

 “It’s okay,” Philip whispers, touching Lukas’s cheekbones softly. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

 “Yeah,” Lukas says, sucking in a breath.

 “Maybe we should talk to somebody again?” Philip asks, stepping a little closer. “Like we did in the beginning.”

 “Yeah, maybe,” Lukas says, fast. Therapy helped, but he always feels so stupid talking about himself. He meets Philip’s eyes and nods at him. “You sure you’re not mad anymore?” he asks, eager to change the subject away from his fucked up head.

 “I’m sure,” Philip says, the corner of his mouth twitching up.

 Lukas presses their lips together, cupping Philip’s face in his hands. “I hate when you’re mad at me,” he whispers.

 “It never lasts long because I look at your stupid face and my whole façade crumbles,” Philip says, lightness in his tone as he kisses him again.

 The fact that Lukas is bringing up their past trauma without realizing it probably doesn’t hurt either, but he doesn’t mention it again. His ears flare red with embarrassment. “Thank God for this stupid face,” Lukas says, hauling him closer for a kiss that doesn’t break as quickly as the others did. He doesn’t wanna think about Dour. He definitely doesn’t wanna fucking think about Ryan.

 He kisses Philip harder, trying to wash it all away.

[rosesnvines]

Little Mouse & Komainu: Keith’s POV

Keith’s side of this post, though it starts after school, there is a quick backstory and more details about the Voltron team. And man oh man, @kalluralove, now I really want pics of the two with their arusins! I’m just squealing at how cute Keith and Blachu got!! XD This can be for the Lion and Mouse prompt, as well as Lost and Found, maybe? But it’s mainly only a mention made by Keith about finding his place. Anyway, without further ado, enjoy these adorable babies!

The drive home was unusually quiet. Shiro usually liked to talk about the other grades he taught science to and their antics. But right then, Shiro kept glancing oddly at Keith. Keith let out a groan and gave in.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that for?”

“Just wondering if it’s the same Keith, that’s all. Whenever Allura was around, you changed, you seemed . . . different.”

“Different how? Allura was the only thing that was different about today.”

“Hmm . . . maybe you’re right.”

“Well of course I am, today was only different because it was Allura’s first day. What more did you expect? Romelle to come rushing into your classroom to greet her cousin?” Keith let out a snort when Shiro blushed slightly.

“Oh, alright, fine, just cut it out. I’m sorry, but, it was just so odd to see you act so . . . soft and kind around her.”

“Hey, remember, you keep drilling into me that as class rep, it’s supposed to be my job.”

“Alright, glad to hear all that drilling finally paid off.” But when they came to a stop at a red light, Shiro leaned in. “So, you’re absolutely sure you’re not falling in love with Allura on her first day here?”

“What? No . . . yes! I’m sure! Now cut it out!” Keith pushed Shiro back, only for the two to turn it into a playful brawl, until Shiro yelped. “Shiro! I’m so sorry! Are you alright? I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Oh, no, the light turned green. And man, you fall for that every time,” replied SHiro with a grin as the car lurched forward.

“Shiro! Come on! How do you expect me to know when you’re actually hurting?”

“Oh believe me, you’ll know,” quipped Shiro.

Keith crossed his arms. “I’m not sure if I want to know. I just don’t to go back into the system.”

“I know, Keith. Just two more years, and you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Except maybe helping me with my diapers every now and then.”

“What?” exclaimed Keith. Shiro merely laughed. “Oh come on Shiro, that’s disgusting!”

“What? Admit it, you were seriously wondering if I did, didn’t you?” Keith just grumbled in reply. Shiro just laughed as he pulled into their driveway. It was a pretty small house, just three bedrooms and one bath, with one of the bedrooms turned into Shiro’s office. Keith immediately walked off towards his room, but not before Shiro called him.

“Hey, Keith! You feel like Chinese or pizza tonight?”

“Chinese, I guess,” replied Keith with a shrug before he closed his door. It didn’t matter to him, they didn’t have many options thanks to Shiro’s medical bills. Thankfully, a couple of the lunch ladies would sneak them whatever leftovers they had. Sometimes it wasn’t much, but for the weekends, it usually was all they had. Shiro found out that they really weren’t supposed to do that, but they told him it was better than letting all that food, little as it sometimes may be, go to waste and tossed when someone could have it. They were also the ones who told them about the food drive that the school district did over the summer, and the two had never been so happy. With as much food as they got every week, they practically feasted that summer. Shiro didn’t have to worry about purchasing food and could save up that money for something else. Now, they were getting back into the old swing of things, lunch at school, take-out for dinner. Keith let out a sigh as he slumped on his bed. Well, this year should be interesting, what with a new Altena at school. Keith just hoped that she would come to understand why he and Lance wouldn’t let her near Lotor. He pictured Allura in his mind, she was so pure and innocent, yet he could sense a fire burning within. He didn’t want Lotor to tarnish her, to put put that fire. Keith unknowingly watched it happen with Avok before finally realizing what was happening, but by then, it was too late. He liked Romelle, he liked Bandor, he had even liked Avok too, before Lotor got to him. And now he simply refused to let another Altena fall to the influence and clutches of Lotor. He didn’t know what Lotor wanted with the Altenas in general, that not only drove Keith nuts, it also worried him. As such, he swore to protect the other three, if not for Avok’s sake, for Shiro’s as Keith did notice how close the two teachers had been getting. A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Hey Keith? I’ve placed the order, the driver should be here in a few minutes. Keep an ear out for him, please? I’m going to take a shower.”

“Alright.”

“Thanks! Money’s on the table!” Keith heard Shiro walk into the bathroom and start his shower. Letting out a sigh, Keith rose from his bed, and paused. Was that there when he came in? A rectangular box was sitting on his desk, one he had never seen before. Did Shiro get him something? But that wasn’t right, Keith’s birthday wasn’t until October. So then, what was it for? Curious, he opened the box. Inside was a belt buckle with the image of a lion etched in black. OK, it actually looked pretty cool, and Keith tried it on, it fit his belt like it was made for it. But then, a flash of light emanated from it, and the next thing Keith knew, a little lion with a black mane and violet eyes was floating before him.

“Ah!” yelped Keith as he fell backwards, onto his bed. “Wh-what are you? Shiro!”

“No, sh! You can’t tell anybody about me!”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a magical being called an arusin, my name is Blachu. I merge with the belt buckle to give you superpowers!”

Keith blinked in surprise. “Say, say what? Superpowers?”

“Yes! I can make you go faster, leap higher, jump farther, than you have ever done before! My tail can even turn into a sword!”

“A sword?” asked Keith, perhaps with a bit too much longing in his voice.

“You like swords? Nice! Yes, my tail can turn into a sword! I think we’re going to have lots of fun!” Blachu quickly covered his stomach with his paws when it grumbled and grinned sheepishly. “Um, do you have anything to eat?”

Keith’s eyes widened. “The Chinese food!” He dashed out of his room, just in time to hear some knocking at the front door. He rushed over, grabbed the money, and rushed to the door, flinging it open. “Uh, hi.”

“Hello, here is your order. That will be twenty-five dollars and thirteen cents.” Keith quickly counted out the money, and realized Shiro rounded up to twenty-six and added four dollars.

“Right, um, here you go,” said Keith, handing him the wad of bills.

“Thank you, have a wonderful day!” replied the driver quite cheerfully as he exchanged the food for the money.

“Thanks, and the same to you!” replied Keith as the driver walked away. He knew Shiro would kill him if he wasn’t at least somewhat cordial. He quickly shut the front door, locked it, and let out a breath. He set the food on the table as he glanced at the clock, it was pretty early, not even five yet. Then he noticed the sad, hungry little face of Blachu. He reached into the bag, fished around for a bit, before pulling out a dumpling and handing it to Blachu. “Here, try this.” Blachu inched forward and sniffed it.

“What is it?”

“It’s a dumpling. You haven’t been out for long, have you?” asked Keith as Blachu took a few licks.

“No, it’s been several years since any of us has been out.” Blachu decided that dumplings tasted good, took the food from Keith, and began chewing on it.

“Any of us?”

Blachu nodded as he swallowed before replying with, “Yes, there are seven of us total, five cats and two mice. We cats do the majority of the fighting while the two mice, though they are excellent warriors, are better off using their powers, the power of quintessence. They can revert all damage done by a monster, like nothing had happened. We cats must protect them at all costs because without them, nothing could go back to normal.”

“And, what are these monsters? Do you have a special power?”

“The monsters vary, sometimes they are true monsters and must be completely destroyed, sometimes they are people being controlled by an evil entity, and we must find the symbol of their controller to break the spell and enable the mice to revert them back to normal people. And yes, we do have a special power, it’s called forming Voltron!”

“Huh?”

“When the five cats are together, we can form a giant robot! I am the head and chest, the cheetah is the right arm, the lynx is the left arm, the panther is the right leg, and the tiger is the left leg. Then there are the two mice, the white house mouse and the brown field mouse.” Blachu paused as he took another bite and glanced at Keith oddly.

“Uh, what? Why are you looking at me like that for?”

“Oh, um, it’s just that, the holders, or the paladins, of the black lion and the white mouse tend to fall in love and get married,” blurted Blachu.

Keith blinked. “Say what?”

“Keith, is everything alright?” Keith and Blachu paused and slowly glanced at the bathroom door before Keith snatched up Blachu and the dumpling, rushed into his room and began taking out the few homework assignments he had.

“Uh, uh, yeah, yeah, everything’s fine! Just, just one of the problems was worded weird, that’s all!” Keith quickly shouted back. He and Blachu let out a breath when they heard Shiro laughing.

“Alright. Did the Chinese food come?”

“Yeah, about a couple of minutes ago,” replied Keith.

“Good. I’ll be out in a minute to take care of it.”

“Alright!” Keith let out a grin as Blachu chuckled softly before letting out a satisfied sigh.

“Dumplings are good. Can I try the rest of the Chinese food?”

“Alright, I’ll see if I can sneak it in here for you.”

“Thanks! Oh, aren’t you wondering?”

“Wondering about what?”

“You haven’t asked why you yet! Everyone else I’ve ever been with asked that question.”

“Well, would it be weird if I said because this felt right, like, I’m meant to do this?”

“Whoa, you’re already thinking like that?” asked Blachu.

“Yeah, well, before, when I was in foster care, I felt . . . lost. I wanted to know what my purpose was. When Shiro came and got me out, becoming my legal guardian, I thought I had something of a purpose, making sure that he was alright, but, it didn’t seem like it was what I was meant to do. Then I met some people, I got it the most when I met this girl today . . .”

“Ooohhhh,” said Blachu.

“Hey, don’t you start either,” Keith mumbled.

“But you do like her,” said Blachu with a grin.

“Didn’t you say that whoever’s with you gets together with the white mouse?”

“Yeah, but you don’t know if she is the white mouse,” quipped Blachu. The two became quiet as they heard the bathroom door open and Shiro’s footsteps walking into the dining room as he hummed. Keith moaned.

“I’m so glad he’s not a music teacher.” Blachu snickered. Just then the phone rang. “Oh good.”

“Hello? Oh, hello Mr. Holt! I actually wanted to talk to you . . . wait, what?” There was a pause. “No, I haven’t seen Katie since school ended.” Another pause. “Say what? A robotic what is attacking the city?” Keith and Blachu glanced at each other in alarm.

“A robeast,” whispered Blachu. Keith jumped up and walked to his door. “No, no, I’ll head out right now to look for them. I’ll bring them to my house until everything passes over, alright? And I’ll call you when I get back. You’re welcome sir.” Keith opened the door to his room as Shiro returned the phone to its receiver.

“Shiro? What was that about?”

“Apparently Mr. Holt is worried, Katie’s not back yet, and there’s some kind of robotic beast attacking the city. I’m going out to find her. You’re staying here.”

“Wait, what?”

“In case anyone else calls. If Katie’s still out, that means she’s still with Lance and Hunk. If their families call, I want you to let them know I’m looking for them. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“But, Shiro!” began Keith, only to be cut off by Shiro closing the front door behind him. “Ugh! Blachu!” Blachu zipped around the corner. “How do you merge with the belt?”

“You have to say, Blachu, roar out!”

“What? Oh, never mind, we’ll talk about that later. Blachu . . .” Keith was interrupted by the phone. “Well, at least it’s now rather than later,” he mumbled as he quickly picked up the phone. “Hello, Takshishi residence.”

“Hello, is Shiro Takashi there?” came a female voice.

“No, this is his brother Keith. May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Mrs. McClain, I’m Lance’s mother. I’m with Hunk’s folks right now, neither one have come home! And there’s a monster on the loose!”

“Yes ma’am, I know, that’s why Shiro’s not here. We just got a call from Principal Holt, Katie’s not back yet, and since she tends to hang out with Lance and Hunk, well, we’re on our way to look for them. As soon as we find them, we’ll bring them here and call you to let you know that they’re fine.”

“Oh thank you so much! You’re such an angel! I could just hug you!”

Keith bit his lip to keep from sounding disgusted. “Yes, I’m sure you would. Um, could you please pass the word to Hunk’s folks? We’ll be sure to call you when we’re back.”

“Thank you again so much!”

“You’re welcome. Um, bye!” said Keith with a smile, trying to get her off the phone. Not to be rude or anything, but, he needed to go.

“Good bye, and good luck!”

“Right,” he said, before he hung up the phone. He turned to Blachu, “Let’s do this. Blachu, roar out!” Blachu flew into the belt buckle, and the changes happened instantly. Keith was in a red and white suit with a black mane-like hoodie. But he didn’t pause to glance at his new outfit, he rushed out the door, leaping and bounding through the streets. Where should he go first? How was he going to find the robeast? Was a mouse already on the scene? He hoped not, as Blachu had said, they were good fighters, but they were needed to repair the damage the robeasts, or any monsters, had caused. Apparently none of the cats could do it, only the mice. Which did make them pretty important. With a grunt, he leapt to the top of the buildings to try and get an idea of where to start looking. It didn’t take long to see the path the robeast had carved out of several buildings, and the throngs of screaming people running in the opposite direction. “Well, that was easy,” he muttered as he took off in the direction the screaming people were running from.

“Katie!” Keith paused, was that the Katie Shiro was looking for? He glanced around, sure enough, it was Katie Holt, dangling from a twenty-story building. How did she get up there? Lance and Hunk were running towards her. “Hang on!” shouted Lance. Keith let out a soft growl, they weren’t going to make it in time, she was about to lose her grip.

“Lance, Hunk!” Katie called out, right as she lost her grip and fell. Keith jumped for her, grabbed a hold of her, flipped in midair, and landed on his feet.

“Whoa, that was awesome!” exclaimed Hunk as he and Lance approached the two.

“Team Voltron! I have your precious mouse lady! If you don’t show up when I get to zero, I will cut her in half!” came a voice over the din. Keith let out a gasp, that was the robeast, and it had a mouse! He practically shoved Katie into Lance’s arms.

“Take care of her!” he shouted before turning and rushing off in the direction of the voice.

“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!” That’s right, keep counting as loud as possible, lead me to you, even though it’s a trap, though Keith. He rushed down a couple of streets and turned a couple of corners, he could tell he was getting close. “Five! Four! Three!” He turned another corner, and saw the robeast, looking like an odd contraption of robot and bat. He had his sword out, over the spot where the mouse lady, the white mouse, in fact, was struggling with two poles wrapped around her. She just about had enough room to squeeze out and drop to the ground. Keith unclipped his tail and rushed forward as it changed into a sword. “Two! One! Zero!” The white mouse dropped to the ground and the sword came crashing down on her. But Keith had arrived.

“Stay down!” he ordered as he lifted up his sword to meet the robeast’s sword, hoping that it could take it. A sharp clang rang out as the two blades met, but Keith’s sword stayed intact, and Keith found he could match the robeast’s strength.

“The black lion of Voltron,” muttered the robeast as its lips curled into an evil grin. So, it was looking for the Voltron team, but why? Keith quickly glanced over its form, he couldn’t see a symbol that indicated that this robeast was under control of somebody, but Keith had a feeling it was, and whoever was controlling it was looking for Voltron for some reason. Keith pushed up on his sword, sending the robeast’s sword up, and kicking it as hard as he could to give him and the white mouse some breathing space. He turned to give her a hand up.

“Are you alright?” he asked her. She took his hand and stood up.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied with a smile. She paused, and the two gazed into each other’s eyes. Did she know that every other person who had had the white mouse would end up with whoever had the black lion? But that wasn’t the only thought in Keith’s head. Why did she seem so familiar? He snapped out of his thoughts, they had a mission to finish.

“Were you expecting to take care of the robeast yourself?” he asked.

She seemed to shake herself from her own thoughts before replying with, “No, just keeping it from hurting innocent civilians until you arrived, that’s all.” She pulled her hand from his and crossed her arms. He didn’t even realize he had still been holding it. “Though, if you hadn’t gotten here when you did . . .” she began.

He walked towards her, finishing the thought, “We would have lost you, and from what my asurin was telling me about the mice, that’s not a good thing.” The robeast could be heard groaning, reminding Keith that they weren’t out of danger yet. He readied his sword, and noticed that she had a whip. “Wait, is that a whip?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replied. Keith thought fast, if the robeast’s symbol wasn’t on the front or that sides that he could see, then maybe it was on its back. An idea began to form in his head and a grin began to form on his face.

“I think I have an idea. You see those poles there and there?” he asked, pointing out two poles opposite of each other.

The girl let out a gasp. “You want me to trip him?” Keith’s grin grew bigger, she was smart and caught on quick, he liked that.

“Yup, but keep your whip slack until I give you the signal, alright?”

“Right, but, what’s the signal?”

Keith thought quickly. “I’ll nod at you.”

“Got it,” she said before taking off for the poles. Keith kept his focus on the robeast, he didn’t want it to guess at what his plan was, nor did he want it to catch the white mouse again. The robeast finally got up and locked eyes with Keith.

“Hand over the belt buckle of the black lion, and I will stop rampaging this city!”

Keith scoffed, “What are you talking about? We’re just getting warmed up.” The robeast let out a roar and charged, but Keith didn’t move a muscle. He was waiting for the robeast to reach the right spot before signalling the white mouse to pull the whip taut. He waited and watched, and when the robeast finally reached the right spot, Keith glanced over at the white mouse and nodded. She pulled, and the robeast went tumbling over. Keith jumped up and took a quick look over the robeast’s back. Ah-ha, there it was! A glowing purple symbol, there, on the left side of its back, though, it looked oddly familiar. Keith brought his sword down on the symbol and heard a distinct snap. He glanced at the white mouse as he jumped off, shouting, “Use your powers now!”

The white mouse raced forward and raised her whip high, shouting “Power of Quintessence!” Keith watched in amazement as the whip detached from its handle and whirled around the robeast in a pale purple whirlwind before expanding to include the entire city. When it returned to the white mouse’s hand, the city was back to normal and the robeast was a normal, yet confused, person.

“Whoa!” Keith whispered. He shook himself out of his stupor and ran towards the white mouse. “That, that was amazing!”

She grinned at him. “Thank you! Whoa.” Keith reached out his hands and grabbed her shoulders to steady her as she stumbled. “I guess that’s why we need two mice,” she chuckled.

“Are you going to be alright?” asked Keith, worried that she had used too much power. They had better find the rest of the team and fast if they were expected to make it through the day without collapsing, especially her.

“I, I think so, just need to sit for a minute,” she replied as she allowed him to steer her towards a chair. Keith tried to figure out what made her so familiar to him when they were rather rudely interrupted.

“Oh wow! That was so cool! How did you guys do that?” Keith nearly blew his cover by letting out a soft growl when he realized it was Lance who had spoken as he recorded them on his camcorder. Katie and Hunk weren’t far behind him. Of course, they had followed Keith. But he only got even more annoyed when Lance tried to get close.

“Hey, back up! Can’t you tell she needs some rest?” Keith snapped as he pushed Lance back from the white mouse. Why couldn’t the idiot just leave girls alone?

“So, you’re superheroes, huh? What are your names?” asked Lance, training the camcorder on Keith. Keith let out a moan, he really hadn’t thought of a name. Well, wait, what about all those Japanese stories that Shiro’s family liked to tell? Wasn’t there a lion creature? Oh yes.

“Ugh, you can call me Komainu.”

“Komainu?” asked the others. Clearly only Shiro and Keith really knew that much about Japanese mythology.

“Yes, the guardian lions of Japanese mythology. You must know your Japanese mythology quite well,” came another voice. Keith’s eyes widened as Shiro walked on to the scene, he just hoped Shiro didn’t recognize him.

“Mr. Takashi!” blurted Hunk.

“Just Shiro outside of school, Hunk,” came Shiro’s reply. Keith quickly thought of a way to get out of there, Shiro had found the three he had been looking for, it was only a matter of time before he’d take them back to their home.

Keith quickly spoke, “Yeah, well, I need to go, have a lot of other things to take care of today.” He paused and turned to Allura, he was still worried about her. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

She nodded at him, a soft smile on her face. “Yes, I will be, thank you.”

“Oh, we didn’t get your name!” blurted Lance. Keith rolled his eyes and bit his tongue, someday, that kid was going to get it.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, I’m a little too tired to think right now. I think I should head home and sleep. I’ll get back to you on the name.”

“Hmm, how about . . . Little Mouse? I mean, no offence, but you look like a mouse,” said Hunk. Keith had to agree with that, she looked really cute as well. But, what about the other mouse? What name would the other mouse have?

“Well, that is the idea, but there is going to be another mouse joining our team, so, I don’t know if that will really work,” she replied.

Keith shrugged, the name was already growing on him. “We can figure that out when the other mouse arrives. For now, I think Little Mouse works.”

“Hey, shouldn’t you be going somewhere?” asked Lance, somewhat annoyed.

Keith shot him a glare. “And I will be, once I make sure that you stop annoying Little Mouse long enough to go home and get some rest.”

“Um, I didn’t agree to the name . . .”

“Hey it works,” said Lance with a shrug.

“It is kind of catchy,” remarked Keith. He just didn’t want to admit just yet that he thought it was as cute as she was.

“Oh, alright, Little Mouse it is. You’re right Komainu, it is kind of catchy.”

“Glad you agree. Now, are you going to go home, or should I carry you there?” he asked as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“No! No, no, no, thank you, I’ll, I’ll go home now, thank you.”

“But can’t you stay a little longer? There are so many questions I want to ask!” quipped Lance.

“You’re going to have to wait for a time when she’s not so tired, alright?”

“Komainu has a point, you should let her go home and try again next time, alright?” said Shiro as he placed his hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“Oh, alright. As long you promise me an exclusive!”

“I’ll consider it,” replied Little Mouse before she lept away. Keith quickly followed suit, going off in one direction before quickly changing course and following Little Mouse from a distance. He could tell that she sensed him following her, but being a black lion meant he could use the shadows to his advantage and managed to keep out of her sight. When he noticed that she seemed to be getting close to her destination, he quickly turned and rushed back home. He had to get back before Shiro and the others! Panting, he realized with a grin that he made it back before them and dashed into the house.

“Um . . . Blachu, roar out!” Blachu came flying out of the belt as Keith’s suit disappeared. Keith took the Chinese food, fished out two dumplings, and placed the rest in the fridge. “Whew, that was close!”

“No kidding!’ replied Blachu between happy mouthfuls of dumpling. “And we still made it back before they did!”

“And before that robeast could kill Little Mouse!”

Blachu seemed to shiver, “That was a real close call.”

“So, how did I do for my first day?” asked Keith.

“Awesome! You’re really good! Almost as good as my last paladin!” Blachu paused and seemed to grow sad.

“Blachu?”

“I really miss my old paladin, we had such great times. You remind me so much of him. But, I guess that’s part of the reason why I like you a lot, Keith.”

“I like you too, Blachu. And it’s alright, you can still miss him.” Blachu flew to Keith’s cheek and rubbed his cheek against it. Keith let out a soft sigh and rubbed back. The two paused, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock. “Quick, Blachu, my jacket!” whispered Keith as he held it open. Blachu ducked in before Keith made his way to the door and opened it. “Shiro!”

“Hey! Sorry it took so long, but, we kind of had a little adventure,” said Shiro as he ushered in Lance, Hunk and Katie.

“There were two superheroes!” blurted Hunk.

“And Komainu saved me!” Katie quickly added.

“And Little Mouse is so adorable!” cooed Lance.

“Wait, what?” OK, first Allura, and now Little Mouse. Did this guy ever take a break?

Shiro let out a soft chuckle. “I’ll let them explain, I have some phone calls to make.”

“Oh, Mrs. McClain did call, she was with Hunk’s family.”

Shiro nodded. “Thanks Keith.” He went to making the calls while Lance, Hunk, and Katie explained everything that had happened. When the robeast had attacked, the group had been on their way to the mall to take a look at the new game system being shown that day. But then the crowd running form the robeast came in, broke them up, and Katie retreated to the closest, tallest building to see if she could find her friends when the robeast walked by, smashing through the building, leaving Katie trapped with nowhere to go but down. From there on out, Keith knew the rest, but it wasn’t hard to add in exclamations of awe or astonishment as Keith had no idea how awesome he looked when he moved, he just acted, thinking only of the mission, destroying the robeast. They also convinced Keith to instruct them on some Japanese mythology, eventually learning not just about the komainu, but also about a few other large cat-like creatures. Shiro eventually interrupted them with a little announcement.

“Listen up everybody, I’ve called your folks, they’re going to meet us at Olive Garden.”

“Alright, food! I’m starving!” quipped Hunk, the first one out the door.

“Don’t you ever think of anything else besides food?” quipped Lance as he followed him.

“Don’t you ever think of anything else besides cute girls?” Hunk shot back.

“Uh-oh, shots fired,” quipped Katie.

“Well, I’m taking Hunk’s side, I’m hungry. Three dumplings isn’t exactly very filling.”

Shiro blinked as he locked the door. “Then, where’s the rest of the food?”

“In the fridge,” replied Keith. “Hey! No, you’re sitting in the back!”

“But I called shotgun!” replied Lance as Keith dragged him out and practically tossed him in the back with Hunk and Katie.

“Too bad, this is Shiro’s car, I own shotgun.”

“If you two are going to fight about it, I’m giving it to Katie!” stated Shiro firmly. The two sat down and buckled their seatbelts grumbling. It was a little while after Shiro had pulled out of the driveway that Hunk attempted to break the tension by talking about Italian food. Katie soon joined in, being Italian herself, and the conversation eventually got the other three to open up about what they were going to get. And though Lance was still annoying, talking about how cute both Allura and Little Mouse were in one breath, Keith’s spirits were still high. He had found his place, and quite possibly a future girlfriend, according to Blachu, but he had never been happier.

[fanofawesomethings]

The Melting Ice

This story was commissioned by @dontunderestimatemypoison for Jack and Tooth Fairy (Frost Bite?).

If you want a fic of your own, message me and I will tell you my prices and rules for a commission

Snowflakes danced in a spiral tornado spiritedly to the whim of his lazy fingers. As they fluttered and spun, snow sprinkled down on his stomach like chips of diamond, melting slowly because of Jack’s cold body temperature. They tickled his pearl white skin but he could only be bothered to give a lazier snicker. When it finally melted, as the drop rolled off his waist it quickly hardened as it dripped. Beneath him snow formed like a white carpet from how long he sat there.

Being on top of a skyscraper in New York City, overlooking the flickering lights of the posters in Time Square, didn’t provide the same thrill as any of the other times Jack was there. He was deaf to the lively sounds below since they didn’t interest him much.

“I guess I could see Jersey Boys again, haven’t seen that one in a while,” Jack said to himself. He pondered the thought a little more. “Nah, the middle act is so weak. Maybe the next Wicked showing…but the only songs I like are Popular, Feeling and Gravity. So, so, so, so bored.”

Jack kicked his feet and stood upright. He hopped on one of the skyscraper’s gargoyles, a beaked creature whose body was withered because of the other times Jack was there. Icicles formed beneath its chin like a beard of clear knives.

“You know, Rocksalt, I thought things would get more interesting after this whole Guardian thing was done. But all I got was a fancy title and these ugly boots I threw down one of Rabbit’s holes. I didn’t think there’d be so much without a single word from the others.”

Rocksalt’s silence seemed to be responses to his talking.

“Maybe I should drop in on the ol’ gang,” Jack whistled eagerly. “Santi over there’s probably up to his beard with toys right about now so he’s probably too busy. Never asked where Sandy goes to, maybe the beach. Bun-Bun isn’t ready to get chummy with me yet. Guess that just leaves Tooth.”

Jack kicked the staff to his hand, it mysterious influence filling his sluggish body with energy. He filled his lungs with the winter wind, the sound of it whistling by his ear. The tip of his foot touched off Rocksalt’s head. If anyone could see Jack they’d see a boy free falling like a sack of potatoes. The rush of cold wind pulled his hair into a mess. The ground grew larger and larger. It always thrilled Jack to wait for the last possible second. Jack flipped his body around, inches from the ground, and spread his arms and legs apart. The wind caught his body before his nose touched the gravel. The humans around him only felt the wind start to pick up. He rocketed straight back up and over the skyscraper with a single gust, not stopping until the clouds themselves were beneath him. Once surrounded by a sea of gray fluff, Jack was then carried southeast, towards Asia.

           Flying at the mercy of the winds Jack was more like a feather than a commander. He could only go as far as one gust of wind would take him before he needed to switch to another one. A long journey of hearing nothing but the wind in his ear was ahead of him. But Jack was never bored. Breaks in the clouds let him see the world below, sometimes cities, sometimes the ocean, sometimes mountains; they waved to him as he soared by. He has zigzagged all over the world in his extended life, but Jack could swear he never saw the same things twice.

Inside the mouth of a mountain that surpassed all others around it and the clouds themselves the Tooth Palace shined like a crowning tooth. Jack dropped from the wind and glided down. The golden platforms beneath jeweled chandelier-liked birdcages were decorated in bright, joyous colors that perfect reflected the palace owner’s sporadic personality. Without a hint of fright and with the abyss of the drop below tempting him to fall, Jack grabbed a handle and slide down the railing of one platform, and landed softly on the one beneath it. Like most trips his hair ended up a mess.

“Hey Tooth! Tooth Fairy! It’s Jack—friend, co-worker, fellow Guardian—come to frolic and play!” Jack called out. No answer.

The Palace was unusually still for being so close to night time, locally. Jack didn’t see any of the little fairies or hear their thin wings whipping across the cave. He leapt onto another platform and then to another, searching the cavern, until finally he saw a paint blotch of green and blue feathers, sitting still of all things. The Tooth Fairy sat in the middle of her birdcage, chewing on her fingernails while a nervous twitch overcame her body. She didn’t seem to notice Jack.

“Uh…Tooth?” Jack spoke.

“—tralia northwest, cani—no, south Ontario left premo—wait, then there’s a third molar at Kyo—and the right canine at—no wait—” the Tooth Fairy mumbled to herself. Each name and tooth she said out loud seemed to add more strain on her nerves. Her head darted left to right after every spout of jumbled words.

“Tooth, you’re doing it again.”

Again she didn’t turn around. She saw straight through Jack as he sat cross-legged in front of her. He put his hands on her shoulders to keep her still, but Tooth’s nervous trembling was strong enough to pass the shaking over to Jack as he held her.

“Come on, Tooth, snap out it. Don’t make me do the thing you made me promise to do.”

“If you’re not talking premolar then I don’t want to—Jack!” Tooth was startled by the person who was there in front of her for a good few minutes. She sighed, relieved. “It’s just you.”

The lack of thinking allowed her to view the world around her. She was unaware that it was almost sunset. But more importantly the break from overthinking let her see Jack and how close he was, and where his hands were. A streak of red washed over her pink cheeks, blushing.

“J-Jack…what’re you doing?” Tooth asked.

Jack looked again and he threw his hands away in response. The two split apart, bashful.

“S-So, what brings you he—BOTTOM LEFT CANINE!” Tooth blurted out before slapping her hand over her mouth, embarrassed. “Sorry, it’s just I’m a bit on high alert.”

“Just a bit huh?” Jack chuckled.

“Yes, I know. But I’m only like this because—INCOMING!”

The cave exploded into a wave of deafening chirps as a moving cloud blocked out the sun. The rapid flaps of a thousand little stormed into the Palace and surrounded Jack, Tooth and every single on the massive platforms. Little Tooth Fairies zoomed to drop the baby teeth into their appropriate containers, but just as quickly as they came the same ones left. Those who remains bumped into each, crashed into each other, and got so turned around they stayed longer than those who fought to leave quickly.

“So what’s going on?!” Jack needed to shout over the Fairies flapping, covering his ears.

“Sports’ season! All over the world kids are losing teeth faster than my Fairies can handle!” Tooth shouted. She was used to the booming sound.

“So that’s why you’re so stressed out?!”

“Yes! Every few seconds I’m getting a new tooth location!” Tooth held herself in place. A flutter of words zoomed in and around her mind. “Oh no!”

“What’s wrong?!”            “An entire team of soccer players got into a fight! Every single of them has lost a lot of teeth! Plus there are others losing even more!”

Finally the wave of Fairies had left. After a relentless cluster of sounds and chirps Jack needed a moment for the hearing to return to his ears.

           The sky as the sun began to set under the mountainous horizon looked like a still painting. Clouds switched their coat of orange and yellow to hues of purple and blue. But even as the light bouncing off the gold platforms faded the Palace wasn’t in any way dark. As thought illuminated by the inside, the gold and jewels glowed brighter than before.

           “You know, the last time I saw you out in the field you were happier than I’ve ever seen you,” said Jack with a comforting smile. Tooth blushed. “Maybe it’ll do you good to go back other for a while and clear your head. And I can come with…I mean if you want…I mean I’m free in case you were wondering…that’s why I was in the neighborhood.”

           Tooth giggled. “Jack, are you bored again?”

           “Whaaaat? Psst, no way I keep myself entertained all day, every day. I just figured you needed help if you were going.”

           “Funny because North told me you only ever volunteer to help in Guardian duties when you’re bored.”

           “Oh come on, Tooth, you know me better than that.” Jack gave a smile that feigned innocence, but it wasn’t as though Tooth was new to Jack’s trickery.

           She played along. “Alright, Jack, I could use the help since you’re offering. But I don’t want you slowing me down, tooth-gathering is serious business and very fast paced.”

           “Are you really telling that to the guy who just a couple of months ago helped you collect more teeth than Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman combined? Oh and on my first time even.”

           “Uh-uh, I distinctly remember Santa Claus had the most.”

           “So does that mean the stress has made you delusional?” The two laughed.

           “Come on, smart guy, we have a lot of flying to do to get to Mexico. That’s where we’re headed since the Mice are all in Spain.”            As Tooth pushed against her feet to take off, Jack grabbed her hand and held her in place. He showed the staff to her.

           “We’ll get there faster if we travel in my style. Come on.”

           Jack led her out of the cave and onto the cliff’s edge. Tooth wasn’t accustomed to riding the winds, so as Jack waited for a gust to come his way she wondered why they weren’t moving. A touch of wind stroked Jack’s snow silver hair; Tooth was enamored by the locks that glistened like stainless steel. She discovered then that it wasn’t just Jack’s teeth that sparkled like snow. Jack took the wind in his lungs, letting his body become weightless, at their mercy. He tightened his grip on Tooth’s hand.

           “Get ready, here we go!” Jack warned a few seconds before he and Tooth were sent flying—before Tooth had gotten herself ready.

           In a single burst of speed the two soared above the clouds. Tooth clutched onto Jack’s hands with both hers. The ground looked so much farther away than what she was used to flying with her own wings; the change of pace caught the Fairy off guard and made the ground frightening as though she’d never flown a day in her life. She wrapped herself around Jack’s hand as they stopped rising and floated waiting for the next gust.

           “Don’t let go of my hand,” said Jack.

           Tooth held on tighter. She was startled for a moment, but the wind picked up and blew them away and she was forgot her thought—Tooth felt a twinge of heat on Jack’s hands. What she felt after took up her thoughts. The wind pushed against her body, she felt it tickle the bottom of her feet and her tail. She felt like she was free but at the same time not in control. It was a confusing sensation, one that lasting for a while because of the long trip across the ocean to Mexico, but it had its benefits by making her hold onto Jack’s arm. Tooth swore she could feel a bit of muscle beneath his hoodie.

With Tooth never once releasing the vice grip she had around Jack’s arm, Jack flew with a bit of a wobble. He couldn’t enjoy the freedom of the open sky while trying to maintain his balance. It wasn’t just his weighted side. Jack’s body stiffened having Tooth hold onto him; he flew more like a Flying Squirrel than his usual cool and collected self. The reason was simple but Jack didn’t acknowledge it, or risk making himself more stressed.

           By the time the last star joined the others in the sky and the moon was at its strongest on one side of the world, they saw the afternoon sun greeting them the country. Mexico had always appeared list a cluster of colors below to Jack.

           “Do you smell that?” Jack asked, breaking the silence that went on since they left the Tooth Palace.

           Tooth sniffed around though it was difficult with the speeding air. “It smells…like…ugh—gas!”

           Jack was overjoyed. “I know, right, thank you! Some gets it! Every time I come here its all I smell.”

“But why is that? We’re not even close to the ground.”

“I have no idea but I find it strangely relaxing sometimes. So where too specifically?”

Tooth pointed. “That way, to a city called Moroleón!”

“It’s really helpful that you know exactly where, because I was afraid we’d have to cover a lot of ground. Get ready!” He said abruptly.

Tooth sensed something terrible coming. “Jack Frost if you—”

“Let’s go!” He dove in a turn across the sky without a second to give Tooth time to prepare. Jack actually thought he went too far that time as Tooth’s nails dug through his sweater and pierced his skin. He couldn’t hear her screams over his own laughter.

The day showed no signs of ending soon for the two night-prowling Guardians. The small city still had so much more to give as the people down below crisscrossed a center plaza besides a cathedral. Jack and Tooth sat on top of the church, inside the bell tower beneath two rusted brown bells, which were miniscule compared to the bells the two have seen before in other parts of the world. Moroleón was not large yet it had no shortage of people. Tooth’s wings perked up like rabbit ears and pulled her out of the window. Vigilant, she scanned the plaza of its inhabitants but ignoring the colorful array of music and interesting things to do, that capture Jack’s attention, for a group of screaming and laughing children.

“There there!” Tooth pointed. She raced back to pull Jack by the collar and showed him.

“The kids?”

           “It’s an elementary futbol team! And early this morning they had a run in with their rival team earlier this morning and both their team and their rivals lost plenty of teeth!”

           Jack looked again and saw the messy condition the children were in that he missed the first time. Each one of the boys and girls were covered from head to toe with bruises and blood marks, some of which looked like it wasn’t theirs. Their uniforms were a patchwork of tatters that stuck to their bodies somehow despite the various holes and rips. They were receiving concerned and frightened expressions from the adults around them, but the children were too busy laughing to notice. One of the girls, a short-haired girl who looked more like a high-strung cat, held her teeth above her head like a real trophy and the others cheered.

           “Oh show me those pearly whites just one more time!” Tooth gushed when the girl closed her hand, overexcited.

           “Yeah…those are some pretty teeth,” said Jack, not at all seeing the appeal.

           “Aren’t they?! You should see Roberto’s, he has a cutely little chip on his left lateral incisor. Oh I shouldn’t say I’m glad he lost that tooth because I’ve always wanted to hold it, but I’m excited to hold it! And—and—Paula! She has the most perfect bottom right canine! It reminds me of a puppy!”

           Jack backed away. He jumped on top of the bell which sounded being moved. “You know we got a couple hours before they go to sleep, how about we have some fun?”

           “No offense, Jack, but I’m afraid to agree for what you have in mind.”

           “Have you heard of sudden snow day?” His brow curled with suggestive mischievousness hidden underneath.

           “Not happening, Jack Frost.”

           Jack laughed falling to her side. “Relax I was kidding, for the most part. Well, what do you usually do for fun?”

           Such a simple question seemed to go over her head and rupture her poised demeanor by mystifying her. Tooth gave a pause. She murmured under her breath as though trying to ask herself the same question. For once the buzzing information in her head didn’t turn her speedy or sporadic; she was lost.

           “I don’t know actually, I don’t have a lot of free time to myself anymore,” said Tooth, down.

           “You gotta have some time,” Jack shrugged.

           “Not at all. Once you’re a Guardian the children come first, and everything you do has to be for them. But it’s not like I’m miserable or anything. All I’ve ever wanted to do was to make children happy, as far back…as I can remember.”

           “Yeah, I guess you have to be a Guardian on the clock, even more so than North or Bun, but I think you should have some fun. Or else your work suffers.”

           Tooth gasped. “You think?!”

           Jack saw an opportunity. “Of course, I think I’m starting to see it now. You know if you crack who’ll collect the teeth?”

           “Oh no!”

           “Relax, Tooth. Let me help you out, if there’s one thing I can do, its have fun.”

           The innocent townspeople down below were not aware that they quickly became the subject of Jack’s idea of “fun”. He looked for a target among the masses in the plaza and thinking up different ways to play with them. But a prime target came to him when a skinny man with a mop of black hair strutted into the plaza with an air of self-indulgence engorging his pig nose. He tapped the shoulder of a little boy and swiped his ice-cream when he wasn’t looking. Tooth and Jack both saw what he did and they were in agreement.

           A miniature gust of snow came from Jack’s lips and collected into his hands until a white snowball the size of an apple formed. He held it to Tooth who looked at the sphere hesitation, not sure what to do with it. Jack gestured it to the man. At first that was the last thing the goodhearted Tooth Fairy had in mind, but as the man swiped a money purse from a nearly blind old woman she found grabbing the snowball and readying her arm.

           “Put your strength into your fingers, and always aim,” said Jack.

           Tooth closed her eyes as she reeled back and threw it. But the weak throw would’ve ensured that the snowball was destined never to reach the target. Jack scanned the area around the man swiftly; he exhaled a strong gust of cold hair that strengthened the snowball’s speed until it smacked the man on the cheeks, setting off a chain of events that Jack didn’t intend.

           The man was pushed into a snack cart. In doing so the owner was startled into letting go of the cart and so it wheeled away with the man still riding it. At the mercy of the slanted land the cart circled the plaza, running in to everything. It passed by a toy stand and the man was struck with an inflatable bat, it passed underneath a low hanging branch and the man was hit with leaves. A trio of mariachis saw the commotion and played a theme song to the man’s peril. The man tried to jump off the cart as it started to slow down but his hand slipped and his backside got stuck; a basket of sugar for the churros fell on his hair. The cart finally stopped; toppling over, the man nearly vomited from the motion.

           The entire plaza lit up with laughter. Jack rolled around holding his sides. Tooth didn’t want to find it funny, as it wasn’t something she intended happen, but not even she could resist the absurdity. She laughed while trying to maintain her air of composure. It was the first time Jack had ever seen Tooth laugh so hard; the normally sophisticated and motherly fairy started chortling after every few laughs. Jack’s cheeks gained some color.

           They sat and watched the aftermath of their fun for a while. The man was helped to his feet by the police who later on arrested the man for robbing the old woman. Rejuvenated by the unexpected event, the plaza came alive stronger than before. The mariachi trio started playing, without having to be tipped first. The spicy melodies they strummed came from a lumpy wooden guitar, an old violin and a torn cello, yet they enticed Tooth. Her eyelids seemed to get heavier with the Spanish lullaby being sung; she unconsciously fell on Jack’s shoulder. Her rest was too peaceful for Jack to risk waking her by moving; he had to sit still until the sun was completely gone.

           Tooth awoke and let out a powerful yawn. “What happened?” She asked half asleep.

           “You sort of dozed off there, Tooth,” said Jack who lost feeling in his crossed legs a couple hours ago, “and you kinda missed half the day.”

           She shot up and hit her head on the ceiling. “Holy overbite, I nearly missed it! Jack, we got to go!”

           A trail of blue and green feathers fell behind her with the speed Tooth flew with. Jack sighed flying at a much slower pace behind her.

           There were a total of thirty houses and Tooth and Jack needed to visit. Even before entering the first one the pair had to wait for the child, Roberto, to fall asleep, which came later than expected. After a few hours or so, Tooth was finally able to retrieve the prized tooth she sought. Following Roberto, Tooth and Jack split up to cover the next row of teeth which weren’t far apart from each other. This time around Jack was well prepared with a bag of little trinkets he found tossed up on a tree; he swapped each tooth with a plastic figurine of a cowboy. The sickle moon moved to the center of the sky by the time Tooth and Jack had collected nearly all of the teeth, zipping across the entire city and even some in a city across a lake. Finally came the last three children, and by that time Jack wasn’t feel bored.

           In a stroke of good luck, the last three children were in the same house, even in the same bed. Boy triplets on the same soccer team were probably the most beaten up; their front teeth were under their pillows in the same bedroom. Feeling the urge to show off, Tooth cracked her fingers in preparation. She swiped her hand which looked like a blur. While Jack was certain it moved too fast to have gotten the tooth, Tooth actually had all of the teeth they came to collect in the palm of her hand.

           “How—did you—?” He stuttered.

           “I’m really good at my job,” she grinned with her head held high in triumph. Jack was excitedly impressed.

           The children slumbered without hearing the two in their room. Though there room showed the poor lives they lived the fluff of their pillow and the warmth of their small wool blankets cradled them in a gentle touch that left them feeling secure and snug. Tooth caressed her fingers on one of their sleeping faces like a mother.

           “You were right Jack, I definitely needed this right now.”

           “I thought you would. And for the most part I guess I had fun too. I can’t believe you do used to this every night before the Fairies came in.”

           “I’ve always had my Fairies actually, they’ve been with me since I became a Guardian.”

           Jack had an interest in this subject. “So how did you become a Guardian?”

           Tooth led Jack out of the window and the two sat on top of the children’s roof. The sickle moon was brightly lit with a milk white light. While the summer months were plagued with rain and heat, the winter months in the country were neither hot nor cold, and without rainfall most of the time; above them a scattered school of clouds passed over the moon.

           “All I remember about it was that I was born in a poor village, but that’s all. I was born with a problem: I couldn’t remember anything for more than a day.”

           Jack was caught off guard.

           “I didn’t remember my mother’s face the next morning. By the next day I forgot I had siblings. And on the third day I usually forget my own name. But the one thing I didn’t forget was helping the children of my village. Somehow I remembered their names everyday. Maybe that was why the Man on the Moon made me a Guardian.”

           “He saw the love you gave to kids.” Jack remembered why he was chosen, he remembered his sister. “He picked me because he knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my sister.”

           “The Man on the Moon knows more than we do, Jack.” Tooth sighed, rubbing her hands together solemnly. It wasn’t a memory she’d prefer to remember. “But all of us became a Guardian when our old lives were gone.”

           “Did you—?” Jack guessed.

           “Yes. All I remember was it was dark and I was afraid. But the Man on the Moon gave me light and he told me my name and what I was meant to do. Of course I love it, but I can’t help missing who I was.”

           She leaned her head on Jack’s shoulder. Tears glistened like ice against the moonlight.

           “I still don’t remember their names.”

           Jack leaned his head over hers. The coolness of his skin reached for the moisture in her eyes and seemed to dry the teardrop with the cold. She never felt so safe with such a cold temperature hitting her warm body. He wrapped his arms around Tooth suddenly.

           “They may not be the most ideal definition, but North, Sandy, even Bunny considers you a part of their family,” he whispered.

           “What about you?” She whimpered.

            “I don’t remember what families act like, but…all I know if I want to be there for you. And I never want to see you cry.”

           Jack pulled away from her, and he held her hands in his. Compared to the rest of his body, Jack’s hands were warmer than the rest of him—at least they were as he held Tooth’s hands.

           “When all that stuff was happening with Pitch, and I let you guys down, if hurt way more knowing that I let you down. I don’t ever want to make you sad.”

           Tooth was moved into silence. Jack, realizing the weight of his words, turned away from her, unable to look her in the eyes from then on. She’d never seen Jack so flustered; it made her smile. With the collection of teeth in her possession, Tooth flapped her wings to get them ready for the flight back to the Palace.

           “Well, I…uh…better be getting back. The Fairies are probably wondering where I ran off to,” she said.

           “Oh right, forgot about them. Hopefully…we can hang out again?”

           “I’d like that.”

Tooth leaned in and gave Jack a small kiss on the cheeks. It left him frozen as she flew away. Jack couldn’t see it, but Tooth was just as embarrassed as he was.

Jack didn’t move from that rooftop until morning.

[iamthechocobabe]

We All Have Battle Scars

I am on ze role! Wis mah fake Franch accant, I vill post anozer chaptah. 

I’m working on three hours of sleep. 

Once again, if you want to read the AU this was based on, check out @nifwrites Ignis soulmate AU We Intertwined 

IMPORTANT A/N: Please be aware that while this is based on the same mythology that Nif wrote, IT IS NOT THE SAME UNIVERSE. There were some changes to the mythology and characters that were created by Nif and @cupnoodle-queen and @blindbae are not in this story. 

We All Have Battle Scars

~Chapter 1~

Word Count: 2,006

SFW

~Chapter 1~

Alaea played a game whenever she came across a mirror-she would put her hand over the scar on her lower left cheek and neck and would pretend the scar wasn't there and that she was normal. 

Her hand wasn't big enough to cover the whole scar as her burn scar ran past her neck and into her chest, but she usually tried to ignore the rest of the scar and just focus on her face. When you couldn't focus on the scar, you could focus on Alaea's almond shaped golden-brown eyes, her slightly pudgy but cute nose and full lips that was naturally curved to a smile. 

But no one ever seemed to want to look past her scar. Even the workers at the Chocobo Outpost treated Alaea differently sometimes. 

The scar was bright red with bubbles of skin that hadn't been as burned throughout the scar. Wiz once compared it to a type of spider web because the bubbles connected to other bubbles through small patches of skin. 

For awhile, Alaea refused to let her scar bother her and tried to live her life as normal as possible, even going so far as to cut her long golden brown hair to her chin so that there was no way she could hide her face. But the older she got, the more kids taunted her until she finally grew her hair out to be long and wavy with  a length that reached her elbows. When she didn't have her hair up in a messy bun for working on the ranch, her hair was loose and usually hiding the left side of her face. 

And there were times she hated that face. 

"It ain't going away, Chocobee," Wiz called to Alaea.

"I know, daddy," Alaea called back and wiped some dirt off her shoulder. Her work clothes were getting dirty; mud was beginning to cake the red and black checkered button down shirt that Alaea wore over the bright purple tank top with the Wiz's Chocobo Post logo in the center. The black jeans she wore had a hole in the right knee and the white in her white and black sneakers was now an ugly brown color. 

"Chocobee, can you quit primping and take this customer's order? I need to sign our feeding shipment," 

"Only if you quit calling me 'Chocobee'," Alaea called and started to head over to the small table that had a young couple and what looked like their son, who looked to be about ten or eleven. 

"Ali, you know that ain't happening," 

Alaea smirked at her dad and focused on the people at the table. "What can I get you?" 

"Yes, what does your name tag say?" the woman asked, referring to the name stitched into the left side of her work shirt. "A-lah-eh-a?" 

"A-lay-a," Alaea sounded out the name, like she had done so many other times before. "It's okay, I know it's tricky," 

"Right, right," the woman gazed at Alaea for a second but looked away when their eyes met. 

"Do you need some time to look at the menu?" Alaea asked. 

"Actually, if it's possible, we were wondering..." the woman trailed off and shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable by something. Alaea had a suspicion as to what it was. 

"Yes?" 

"We know it's a lot to ask, but we would...we would feel more comfortable if...um..." the woman stuttered again and was looking at anything but Alaea until finally the husband, who hadn't once looked up from the newspaper he had bought, decided to chip in. 

"We don't want you to serve us," 

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened and Alaea knew it wouldn't be the last, but it still hurt to hear it. "Excuse me?" 

"You look like a daemon tried to chew on your face and didn't like the way you tasted and spat you out," the little boy, their son, piped up. 

"Billy!" the woman chastised her son and glanced nervously at Alaea. "It's nothing personal, dearie, it's just...we don't want anything to get into our food, you see?" 

Alaea paused, trying not to feel offended but being unable to do so. "I see...well, I can assure you, my scar doesn't peel and won't 'fall' into the food, but I'll go ask one of the other hands to help you," Alaea turned around and walked away without giving the family a chance to say anything. 

It wasn't long until Wiz came into the house and sighed at the sight of his daughter sitting and stewing in anger and bitterness on the couch in the living room. "People these days," he said. 

"Tell me about it," Alaea said, the bitterness practically dripping from her voice. 

"Don't let what they said hurt you, Ali," Wiz sat down on the couch next to her and put his arm around her. "They're just jealous that you get to hang out with the Chocobos all day," 

"Har har," Alaea said, but leaned on her father's shoulder anyway. "You'd think with bounty hunters being more frequent that people would be more used to seeing scars," 

"It's these posh people from the Crown City-we're getting more of them ever since the Empire invaded Insomnia," 

Alaea couldn't help but shiver. "You think Impirials will come here?" Alaea asked softly, not wanting to think about her precious family home and her father's life's work being torn apart by a bunch of magiteks. 

Wiz laid his head on the back of the couch and pulled his wool cap down so it covered his eyes. "I don't know, Ali. Maybe-that's why I'm trying to raise money for some bounty hunter guards, but...it's been difficult," 

"Maybe I could become a bounty hunter," Alaea mused. "Take care of that Behemoth that's shitting around the Chocobos," 

Wiz looked at his daughter with a smirk and held out his hand. "Swear jar," 

Alaea grumbled and pulled five gil out of her pocket and put it into her dad's hand. 

Wiz pocketed the change and continued. "Darling, you screamed bloody murder when a rat slithered across your foot the other day-I don't think you can handle fighting daemons, let alone a Behemoth,"

"Dad, seriously; everyone who's gone after that daemon has either come back with the shit beaten out of them or not come back at all. Aren't you the one who always said 'if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?'" 

"That's talking about ordering Chocobo feed, Ali; we're talking about taking up a daemon that's about the size of a small house," Wiz held out his hand again. "Swear jar," 

"I can take daemons," Ali insisted while putting another five gil in her dad's open palm. Deep down, Alaea knew she couldn't really handle daemons, though. Ever since she was a baby, she'd been deathly afraid of mice and other small critters that weren't Chocobos. 

Alaea had never had the guts to fight a daemon before, but the fact that the ranch was starting to lose business was getting to Alaea. She had to wonder if she could defeat the daemon, or at least maybe trick it into leaving the valley. 

Wiz looked at his daughter and raised an eyebrow. 

"Well, I can still take you on, anyway," Alaea pinched her dad in the side and sat up. "At least then I can tell people I got malled by a daemon. Much more epic than a cooking accident," 

"Not everybody's gonna focus on your scar, chocobee," 

Alaea glanced at the mirror on the counter that overlooked the kitchen and scoffed. "Could have fooled me," 

"Your soulmate won't focus on it, I bet," 

Alaea couldn't help but put her hand on the back of her neck where her soulmate mark was. Her dad had one in the shape of an eye on his right foot while her mother had one on her left foot and when Wiz had met Gayle, that was how he knew she was 'the one'. 

Alaea's mark was centered on the back of her neck, just below her hairline and had the shape of an ulwaat berry, which kind of looked like a strawberry. She knew because her parents were soulmates that her soulmate would have the same mark just with the stem curving to the right instead of to the left. 

But though she would never tell her dad, Alaea didn't believe the soulmate thing was legitimate-it had been clear that people didn't just straight up fall in love just because of a soulmate mark they owned; Alaea knew this by looking at her own parents failed marriage. 

"Knowing my luck, dad, he'd have all kinds of scars with a lazy eye and a limp-or worse..." Alaea shuddered. "Blonde," 

"Not all blondes are horrific she-devils," Wiz mumbled. 

The one you married was, was what Alaea wanted to say but she bit her tongue and stayed silent for the sake of her father's sanity. 

"Anyway, now, that wouldn't be the worst thing-looks aren't everything, you know," Wiz looked at his daughter-he knew she was skeptical about the soulmate marking and was justifiably so. 

"Knowing your luck, chocobee," Wiz said while pinching Alaea's shoulder. "He'll be so devishly handsome that you'll feel inadequate to him," 

Alaea looked at her dad, one of her eyebrows raised. 

Wiz realized his error and nodded. "Right, that would be worse,"

Prompto Argentum touched the back of his neck gently as the group drove onto Lastallum. Once again, his mind was drawn to what his soulmate would look like-he had considered asking Cid if Cindy had a soulmate marking, but when Cid was approached, he gave Prompto a look that said 'if you say one word about my daughter, I will skin you alive and hang you up by your entrails,'

And Prompto would say 'well, that escalated quickly' 

But what bugged Prompto the most about his soulmate was the memory of meeting his own soulmate when he was very young. 

It was almost like a dream, but he remembered the back of a neck that had the same soulmate mark as Prompto's, just mirrored. When Prompto discovered his own soulmate mark at a young age, the memory stuck with him, but when he told his parents, they said it was probably just a dream. 

Prompto wasn't sure if it was a dream or not, but he hoped it wasn't. 

Because then that meant they were still out there, somewhere. 

Gladiolus, who sat in the backseat with Prompto, noticed Prompto tracing the outline of his soulmate marking, knowing that the mark looked like an ulwaat berry with the stem curved to the right. "Touching it is not gonna make them magically appear," he snickered. 

"Shut up," Prompto grumbled-his soulmate mark always felt private to Prompto, like it was something only he should know. But it was hard to keep something like a soulmate mark private, especially with three close friends. 

"I never could get the purpose in a soulmate mark," Noctis said from the front seat. "What if they have absolutely nothing in common? What if one of them is a thief?" 

"But what if one of them is their destined one?" Prompto pointed out and Noctis snorted. Noctis was about to say something when Prompto gasped. "OH. EM. GEE," Right ahead, at the curve of the road, was a sign that said 'Wiz's Chocobo Outpost'. "Noct, we HAVE to go! Please, please, pleeeeaaaaasssee!" 

"We have to meet Iris in Lastallum," Gladio grumbled. 

Noctis laughed softly. "Few days wouldn't hurt," he said and Ignis began to turn off the road and head towards the ranch. "I was gonna ask you a question though, Prompt," 

"What?" 

"What if your soulmate is ugly?" 

Prompto scoffed a little at the comment, irritated once again at how people were so obsessed with the looks of their soulmates. Prompto used to hear stories all the time in school, how if someone's soulmate didn't meet their expectations, they would reject them. It always pissed Prompto off. 

"Um, wow, Noctis, conceited much? Do you think I'm that shallow?"

[theknittingwizard-blog]

Some unusual facts about mice

I’ve caught 5 mice in my bathroom in the last month and have learned some interesting facts about the little creatures that I thought you might find intriguing, my dear @thenoodlesqueen @thedisappointedidealist12 and @unsurprisinglycannibalshark  

Our story begins with our hero, my landlord, whose kenning shall be FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER heretofore. FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER was a good and just landlord. He did not waste his time with trifles like replacing the 12-year-old mattresses or the suspiciously stained couch or the broken vertical blinds or the strange smells coming from the food disposal. No, instead FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER chose a more pressing problem to address: removing and replacing the entire microwave oven with a new one because part of the handle had broken off. FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER only wanted the best for his tenants, my roommate whom we shall call ABSOLUTE SWEETHEART SOCIAL WORK MAJOR, and myself (the one bitching on tumblr at 1am about how fucking hard it is being a white first-world college student living in an off-campus apartment her parents are paying for) whom we shall aptly call FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT. 

Now that we have introduced our cast of characters, I shall begin the epic. (ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO and all that lovely other muse-invoking shit.) 

FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER arrived at his feudal lands (my shitty apartment complex) bright and early one Saturday morning at about 9am. FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT was somewhat perturbed to be awakened from her melatonin-tablet-induced slumber by the serene sounds of FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER violently blasting the apartment walls with his mighty powerwasher, but she eventually dragged her lazy ass out of bed and had a healthy breakfast of reheated pizza (using the aforementioned new microwave) while watching Sherlock on Netflix. She didn’t really need to sleep in anyway, FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER was on an important mission to beautify the apartment, after all. When it came time for FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER to powerwash the inside of FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT’s patio (if you don’t mind defining “patio” as a 10 by 5 foot rectangular area surrounded by a mouldering fence and completely shaded by the second floor’s “patio” so that the vile sun never touches the impeccable concrete), FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER knocked on FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT’s door and marched out onto her patio, opened the sliding door, and powerwashed the absolute shit out of that patio so thoroughly that mysterious puddles were later found on FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT’s floor. (Remember that he opened the sliding door. This will become a crucial plot point later on in our epic tale.) 

A week went by and all was well in the feudal lands. Until one fateful day when FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT was sitting on her toilet doing what one typically does while sitting on a toilet. She squinted her sans-glasses eyes at a strange creature scurrying towards her. Was it an… oddly grey roach? Some type of fuzzy...HOLYFUCKINGFUCKETYFUCKTHATSAFUCKINGMOUSEMOTHERFUCKINGFLYINGFUCKERY. 

FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT did not remain on the toilet for very long after this epiphany and proceeded to freak the actual fUcK out as foolish college students are wont to do. She barricaded that fucking bathroom door and then she had to go to class. When FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT was released from the corrupt higher education drudgery commonly known as “class,” she journeyed straight to HEB (aka Texas wal-mart) and bought a fuckton of snaptraps and glue traps and “mouse attractant gel,” which the label said was better than peanut butter for scientific fucking reasons. (She also bought some Oreos and milk, but that is not relevant to our epic tale.) 

FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT laid her traps all over the bathroom floor and then shut the door and curled up in bed to read fanfiction while she waited for her nemesis to meet his demise. Her efforts were rewarded at 12:30am when terrified squeaking began emanating from the bathroom. What then followed was an argument between ABSOLUTE SWEETHEART SOCIAL WORK MAJOR and FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT wherein ABSOLUTE SWEETHEART SOCIAL WORK MAJOR refused to lend FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT her hammer to violently bludgeon the mouse out of its terrified, squeaking misery. This argument ended with FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT dropping the glue trap with the completely helpless, spread-eagled-on-the-glue-trap mouse into the big trash can by the curb outside where the mouse probably slowly starved to death or was finally, mercifully squished eight hours later when the garbage was picked up the next morning. 

FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT felt utterly victorious, despite the mouse’s inhumane and deplorable fate. She had caught the mouse! Her troubles were no more! But this was not to be. 

A week later when FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT came back from Easter break, a pungent mouse carcass greeted her in a glue trap in her bathroom. Three days after that she heard a trap snap at 1:30am (while on the toilet again) and got to experience the joy of smashing a helpless mouse to death with a brick in the wee hours of the morning. And again at 9:30am the same day! Woe to FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT. Who would help her in her time of need? FUCKING WHO??? The Doctor? Sherlock? The Winchesters? No! Someone mightier than even the tumblr fandom trifecta!! You know his name!! 

Our FUCKING hero received a text (you see my obligatory Sherlock comparison now, ofc) from FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT imploring him to help her. Since FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER was not a high-functioning sociopath or a Time Lord or otherwise occupied trying to help his brother un-unleash the latest unstoppable supernatural force, he pledged to “definitely take care of it” that weekend. FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT informed him that she and her roommate would both be gone that weekend (she was going to visit her family or some other foolish venture) but expressed her undying gratitude to FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER. 

Come Sunday night, FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT had just driven down from Dallas. It was 9pm. She just couldn’t wait to relax now that the mice had been dealt wi— FUCKING LIVE MOUSE STUCK TO A GLUE TRAP GETTING GLUE ALL OVER THE FUCKING FLOOR WHERE IS MY GODDAMN BRICK. 

FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT was so confused. Hadn’t FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER “definitely taken care of” the mice? It seemed not. These mice must be far greater foes than the Daleks or Moriarty or God’s friggin sister. FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT texted FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER. Then she went to bed. Dejected. 

A few days later, FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER deigned to text her again. There was a buyer for the apartment! Praise be to Castiel in his coat on that stained-glass window (seriously, that was fucking stupid, Cas, you can’t be GOD) But you know who CAN?! FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER who hath commanded FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT to “remove the mice traps” [sic] since “we know for a fact this is not a recurring issue, thank you for your cooperation! :)” 

Whaaaaaat? But- but I caught a- NO. 

FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT was fucking confused. She’s a foolish college student, what the fuck does she know? There aren’t anymore MICE. Here is what actually happened: The Gospel According to FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER, thanks be to God – I mean Cas – I mean TO FEARLESS FUCKING MOUSESLAYER 

The “one small mouse” obviously got in when FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER was powerwashing the patio and opened that pesky ol’ sliding door (I told you it was an important plot point). Because you know mice! When they hear a loud noise, they don’t run away from it or freeze from fear, nooooooo, they run towaaaaaards the loud, scary noise and iiiiiiinto the strange, unfamiliar environment of FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT’s apartment where they have DEFINITELY never been before. And THEN when this “one small mouse” definitely entered through the patio while water was being blasted against the walls outside, there just HAPPENED to be a hole chewed into the cabinet under FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT’s bathroom sink. “How fucking convenient!” thought the one small mouse. “What a perfect place to have my little babies!” 

"Whaaaat?” you might be thinking “but why would the mouse—” SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE INNER MACHINATIONS OF THE RODENT MIND LIKE FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER DOES. 

But it’s okaaaaay because all the mice are totally and completely and indisputably GONE now. You see, FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER checked the hole on Saturday and now “there are no more left inside the hole” But… but FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT found a mouse in the bathroom on Sunday so even if FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER didn’t see any on Saturday – WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! (Does it mildly annoy anyone else that that was a Sherlock quote from ASiP in 2010 but now it’s primarily associated with the fucking orange overlord? No? Just me, FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT all alone with my foolish college opinions? Okay…) 

"But FEARLESS MOUSESLAYER,” FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT implored, “I think there are still mice. Look, I have a picture of a mouse from Sunday—” 

"NO, FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT, THE MICE TRAPS [sic] MUST NOT BE VISIBLE FOR THE INSPECTION SINCE WE KNOW FOR A FACT THIS IS NOT A RECURRING ISSUE. REMOVE THEM.” 

"But isn’t that deceptive because the buyer kinda has the right to know the property has a mouse prob–” 

"HAD A MOUSE PROBLEM. IT’S ALL RESOLVED NOW. THERE ARE NO MICE. DON’T TALK OUT LOUD, YOU LOWER THE IQ OF THE ENTIRE STREET.” 

"That doesn’t even make s-” 

"NO FUCKING MICE!!” 

So you see, my friends, I, FOOLISH COLLEGE STUDENT, had some simple misconceptions about mice. Let us correct them:  1) mice run toward loud noises, not away from them. 2) mice only have 4 babies to a litter (Wikipedia is fucking wrong) 3) if the bait is gone from your mousetrap, it was probably just a bug 4) that isn’t mouse shit on your kitchen mat, those are chocolate fucking sprinkles And the most important, 5) the best way to resolve issues with your intransigent landlord is to type a wayyyy overly detailed fucking tumblr post at (it is now 2:52am, I did tell you I was foolish) and burden the internet with your whiny, privileged, and overall un-fucking-wanted opinions because you’re moving out of this apartment in a week and will be back to university fucking housing in the fall and you really, REALLY could not give a single fuck anymore unless an actual mouse crawled over your blanket and up your shirt to your hand and bit the thumb you’ve been using to type all this FUCKING WHINING BITCHING BULLSHIT but that’s okay, that won’t happen, because there AREN’T ANY FUCKING MICE! MICE DON’T EVEN EXIST, THEY’RE JUST COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA!!! 

Dear ACTUAL God.

[jemilyreial]

Spraying Pre Cat Lacquer With Hvlp Top Useful Ideas

The good news is that you spend time close together but not harmful, and he hated himself for his overall safety and well-being.Keeping kitty's nails trimmed will certainly make an intruder would disturb the relationship.Hope fully this Cat Health Advice will enable your cat can not produce a variety of materials on them, like double-sided tape, bitter spray, or even the worst cat behaviour problem.Feline scratching is meant to maintain its claws in shape and furthermore is used to remove the fleas, and eliminate odors, it will help keep mice away from the truth!

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Cat flea treatment may not last long having been chomped down.Most often, cats should have either a scratching motion...praising them the names of some shelters in our home.One of the cat and another you let it burn nor turn a dark brown.Male cats normally do not work and want back inside!And this is a beautiful stray cat was posessive, being a prime example, de-clawing is a trash digger, then put him in front of you.

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The type of coat your cat will grow accustomed to a reward for going in.Fleas and ticks can also use white vinegar.The fact that female cats are nowhere to go elsewhere...Use citrus rinds such as fetching with that feather and see it destroyed by your cat.Sometimes it helps them to jump from one animal to be checked on daily to prevent infestation.

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Even with this behavior with some specific brand of cat urine glowing in the paws to make Kitty feel safe again.Once you have a small spray bottle, add tap water from a pet cat.I have spent my entire life on the other family members, but by having them neutered will be less smelly and the only way to deal with it has been urinated on.Veterinary diagnose of kidney disease and prevent disease than to find something the cat reacting to it, give him filtered or bottled water.And whilst some people even keep more of the word!

When you have other behavioral issues like biting and scratching can hurt, and is not true for their abilities to express different types of customers you have to obey in order to stop it.Catnip comes in all creatures, there seems to be necessary.Indeed, like humans, having babies puts strain on a stand-up sisal scratch post to a cat.Pour a bit of homework, as you go shopping at your local pet store or simply use diluted vinegar.Were never able to save your house in search of...umm, a boyfriend!

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Males can handle the paws, and practice extending the claws of course.Ideally both cats and will let you know the feeling.After the female first came in we took him home.Treat the furniture or carpeted stairs, especially the adults.Often one of the swelling and watery eyes become too much by any other animal.

Pick up small sections forward until you find your cat could be signs of cats in the majority of the scratching stop?What should you do not spray for the mother cats we've helped rescue.Strangely, this is the surgical removal of fresh air and often catch us off guard.Among the remedies available to you, the owner, the appearance of small nails.Cats, unlike humans, are likely to get rid of the posts without much help.