#I feel like Horror has a little more patience than Dust but when he hits his limit you'll know about it

[somegrumpynerd]

So it's a castel, and it's a castel for /monsters/. They don't need to use the bathroom unless it's for grooming, and that's it. They wouldn't need to put a bunch of extras around like you would so people aren't running across a large building trying not to soil themselves. Any master/extra luxurious bedroom would have a personal bathroom attatch (so Nightmare), but otherwise, if there's just a living quarters area, probably just one, maybe two to share.

And now I'm imagining Killer and Horror coming back from a mission and Killer swiping the bathroom to clean up. Horror very grumpily starts cleaning off whatever blood/dust/dirt/gunk off he can in like the kitchen sink before it has the chase to dry. Or Killer sneaking into Nightmare's room just to soak in the ultra fancey big as hell tub to bubble bath for three hours just to annoy Nightmare

Yeah that feels about right, although @pigeonstab has really convinced me into imagining less of a castle castle and more of a victorian mansion vibe, so maybe there would be like two bathrooms just depending on how big it is. (I've never been in a big fancy house that I can remember so I could be wrong, also monster society has overall less bathrooms so y'know).

But pffffffff on the one hand I don't know if Horror would clean off in the kitchen sink because like, that's where the food stuff goes and he cares about that, but also he is a sans so maybe the laziness overrides any of that and he would. Alternatively he might just give Killer a generous 10 mins before he kicks the door in and throws him out lol

I feel like Killer in a bathtub would be a terrible mix because like, what if his eye goop just keeps dripping into the water until it's all black and overflows everywhere? And by what if I mean when because you know he's getting comfy in there and not noticing until it's dire lol Nightmare would ban him

[ncitygirls]

eternal - jaemin x f reader

fluff, smut, vampire!jaemin, 2.2k

he had yet to utter a word since his confession, and neither had you, though you had tried piecing together a worthy response. he simply watched you as you watched him, your eyes focusing on each delicate ridge in his skin, admiring his nonexistent pores; how the thin slithers of light that broke through the poorly drawn curtain, shone on a bend from the ends of his bangs down and around his chin. a kind reminder of what you swear you have always known, but regret to have never questioned.

“jaemin?”

“my love?”

“have you always been this beautiful?’

he had to admit he was taken back. those are the first words you have said in a long while. they are your first words since he told you three minutes and twenty-five seconds ago - he was counting, not actively, but over time his mind has created room for his thinking to expand, to surpass humanity’s understanding of thought, and most times he welcomes it. but not at times such as these - where he knows he told you three minutes and twenty-five seconds ago, and your first words are in awe of him.

“i told you i am undead.. and that is what troubles you?”

“your beauty is far from troubling,” you retort, eyes still inspecting his face. jaemin’s mind wanders back to when he once pitied humans. how they thought what they saw was really seeing. victims of an already limited life, the human eye is only able to pick up a fraction of their sublime reality. yet the way your eyes traverse each of his features, as if to commit them to memory, he surely found a compelling reason to admit their eyes were not so lacking. “was it the bite that made you so handsome?”

“i wasn’t bitten,” he corrects, as the pads of your thumbs sweep over his cold knuckles, your touch casting a reverence over the scene. he lets out a pretty laugh at your assumption, the soft crease between your brows forming as he destroys your fictional understanding of his kind. “humans have always had a skewed understanding of our lore.”

“so your mother and father were vampires?”

“no.” it has been some time since he has had to explain vampiric lore to a human, but his mind retains his memory of it all the same. “it is not dissimilar to what humans call possession? or a spell? it is a combination of the two.”

“did it hurt?”

jaemin cannot help but melt at the notes of concern lacing your tone. it is his turn to pass his thumb along your knuckles before flipping your hand over, letting his finger trace a swirl in your palm, offering a soft shake of his head. “it makes one feel queasy, a consequence of the change in dietary needs.”

your hand stiffens beneath his touch as your eyes drop to examine them. he fears he has spoken out of turn, pushed the astonishingly pleasant conversation down a dark hole. jaemin once believed humans to be predictable, but you continue to challenge that. “is that why my invites to have you for dinner always go unanswered?”

“i knew that wounded you, angel.”

“it did no such thing!” his chin drops, eyes boring into you in a successful attempt to lure the truth out of you. he immediately softens when you exhale, in defeat of his gaze or distaste at your transparency, he does not know. jaemin would soften all the same. “i will admit, i did make assumptions to make sense of your refusal.”

“did you think i preferred not to visit?” you had never noticed the flecks of red in the perimeter of his irises until now. they glowed slightly, as if enraged, though you know not with you. “there are rules we must follow when entering a new space, silly, unchangable rules.” his frown deepens when you nod, always understanding even when you shouldn’t. “i apologise if I hurt you, angel.”

“hush now, you need not apologise.” you’re proven right when his eyes return to the perfect colour you remember them for: a golden swirl moving within the rich cocoa, shining only as the light hits it. relief floods him when he rests his forehead on your own. he grips your hips firmly, swaying you both as you call for him.

“jaemin, what is it you do eat?”

“pretty girls named y/n.” oh how he wished you would have laughed then, instead of him opening his eyes to find your horror stricken face. “i swear to you that was a joke. that was in poor taste, i am so sorry.” you find his apology hard to believe as his body shakes, shaking your whole frame along with him.

“do not,” you hit his arm once, “mock,” and a second time though ineffective, “me!”

he saves himself quickly, retreating to safety by putting an unrealistic amount of distance between you two in an inexplicable amount of time. when he abandoned you, you nearly collapse forward with the force you were using to hit him before catching yourself.

“come here.”

“i drink blood.” you did not particularly dislike his attempt to stay on topic, just the topic itself. you try to appear enlightened but you have always found it difficult to repress your repulsion. “i know you have no interest in the macabre.”

“blood is meant to be inside you.”

“i think it tastes great.” he quickly arrives in front of you, your open books and abandoned letters fluttering all over the room as his speed garners its own winds. his thumbs journey over the veins on your wrists, slowly trailing up your forearms. he only speaks again when he hooks his thumbs under your jaw, tilting your head to allow his teeth to graze over the column of your neck. “it is reminiscent of fruit. some blood is like grapefruit and lemon. while some are akin to grape, strawberries.”

“oh,” you sigh, heart slowing as his lips drag along the base of your throat. he pulls back, gazing longingly at your wonderment as you feel his mood swing. bitterness seeps into his eyes in how his taste for blood ironically remains the only provision of some kind of memory of flavour, of normality. “do you enjoy it?”

“blood?”

“being a vampire.” no one has ever asked him such a thing. is there anything to enjoy about eternal life? about reliving his youth, being relocated, remade, renewed over and over and over, for an eternity.

as he gazes down at you, he remembers with all the bad must come some good.

“not always,” he smiles knowingly, thinking of his friends. the lives they built for themselves over a combined millennia. it almost makes him retract saying that. “i do regret some things. like allowing haechan to convince us to help real witches free the falsely accused during the witch trials. only to later discover he had a wager on being able to free more than their coven could.” he loved the way your eyes followed along, he loved knowing he could finally share his life in its entirety with you. “i have a thousand reasons why i should hate it, but I cannot bring myself to.”

“why?” he will find a way to forgive himself for giving you a reason to ask. he will ensure you needn’t ask again.

“because,” he whispers into your mouth, his lips slipping between your own, fingers clasped behind your neck. “if i had died in 1625, i would not have had the honour of making your acquaintance.”

“this is hardly an acquaintance,” you remind him, counting his years in your head as he pulls you flush against him utilising less than a speck of his strength. “careful grandsire,” it tumbles from your lips as he licks against your mouth. “i am not sure a man even three hundred years your junior could make it through what you are starting.”

“you needn’t worry about me,’ he sighs, his groin rolling against your own, his fingers clinging to your breakable frame. “though i must confess, my eating pretty girls named y/n was not said solely in jest.” his fingers toy with your knickers, ice cold digits moving freely along the waistband. “in fact, i fear my sanity depends on it. might you be of some aid?”

“who am i to deny a man nearing his fourth century?” he begs himself not to laugh, if only not to kill the mood but more so to avoid dignifying your mockery. his laughter morphs quickly into pants, your hand slotted wickedly between his own and his groin. “how might i be of assistance to you?”

“just as you are,” he whispers, his dulled teeth passing dangerously along the shell of your ear. as a man of his years, patience isn’t something which he is in short supply. but even then, one grows tired of waiting, for coitus, for love, for you. he is quick to remove your hand, finding his own pacing as he presses you against the wall, your heat pulsing beneath his cock, practically leaking. “i forgot how pliant humans are,” it is wicked how he watches you, his fingers rolling your hardened nub betwixt their pads. you shudder at the sight of him, his golden eyes darkening in the sunlit room, his tongue passing over his sharpened teeth. he smirks as you hiss, his fingers pinching your nipple before sucking it into his mouth. his tongue rolls in time with his hips, running his clothed cock along your clothed folds. he is quickly reminded of his strength as his palm collects dust as it meets the wall with a thud, steadying himself as you whine deliciously, his name bleeding from your raw lips. “yes, angel?”

“i need you,” you breathe, gazing up at him as his lips capture yours. your tongues move in tandem, wrapping around the other in a hypnotic frisk. he swallows your whimpers as he lures them out of you. he sucks your tongue into his mouth, hands moving to your rear before lifting you from the ground. he makes little work of you, rendering you a quarter of your size. your ankles lock around his waist as he casts your knickers aside, hissing as the pad of his finger meets your folds.

“might i have a taste now?” he pleads, eyes burning a fiery amber, pure adoration hidden beneath. “please, angel?”

“take all of me, jaemin.” he holds you still, a metre from the ground as he kneels, his hands firm around your thighs before he lowers you over his mouth. his flat tongue licks long stripes up your cunt, tongue flicking along your hooded clit in his descent. he likens you to a spring, his soul knelt before you, preparing an offering to your fountain. he is ready to collect all you offer him, your essence pouring out onto his tongue, soaking his lips, slick down his chin. his eyes fall to a close at the sight of your dazed form, your eyes screwed shut in prayer, his lips puckering around the hood of your clit, the tip of his tongue rolling against the nerve. “jaemin, right there, please.”

he hums in accordance, his tongue circling your clit as your thighs shake on either side of his head. he smirks as you still, his middle and ring finger entering your warm cavern, forcing your hips to roll against his digits. he curves them slowly, pressing against your pink walls, bulging up against your stomach. “you are so fragile,” he says, lips bitten as he watches your body succumb to his touch. he leans closer to you, steadying you on his shoulders to free his hand. he presses his palm to your abdomen, hypnotised by the feeling of his own fingers inside you. letting his thumb drift down, he pulls up the skin hiding your clit, allowing his lips to pucker against the nub before he offers a hard suck. his tongue joins the fold, drinking you in as you let out a sharp cry, the pressure inside and out joining forces to send you over the edge. “when you’re ready, love, come.”

he can feel your skin burning up, see the sheen of sweat coating your entire body. “jaemin,” you continue to chase your high, but cling to the moment. you feel like your convulsions might snap your body in two. that pleasure such as this cannot exist innately, that only he can bestow it on you. you are proven right as you grow more frantic, his fingers rub against the spot inside you that he found with great ease, as his lips suck on your clitoris. the final straw is his gaze, you feel it and fall victim to it. his irises a bright, angelic white, the rim speckled in gold. one cast of your eyes on your lover and you snap.

there is no doubting that as jaemin gazes up at you, he sees glory eternal. he sees life. he sees an angel.

“come angel.”

and you do. jaemin’s simple command breaks a dam, summoning a flood of pleasure you are unsure you will survive. hot iron passes through your veins, lighting you from the inside out. he continues without thought, his lips sucking the pleasure out of you, his fingers still pounding into your swollen pussy. only when your fingers find his hair, pulling him away with a sharp tug does he concede, lowering you into his lap.

“hi,” he says after some time, watching you pant against the wall. “are you still with me?” he jests, palms gliding up and down your aching thighs.

you hum, gazing up at the golden orbs that you decide you mustn’t live without. much like his life, and much like your love. eternal. “always.”

[cursedwriter]

Cursed! - Gojo Satoru

Jujutsu Kaisen Masterlist 

Synopsis: After running some errands you’re caught off guard by a curse user. Unbeknownst to you, he has something up his sleeve that would mean a fate worse than death to you. How will you get out of this? And what role does your boyfriend - the Satoru Gojo - play in all of this? 

Words: 2.6k

Author’s Note: Feeback is - as always - highly appreciated! I’d love to hear your thoughts! Requests are still open, btw! 

“Hey, there. Are you okay?” You hesitantly approached a man who had just stumbled upon a protruding cobble stone on the sidewalk. The street lamps were just lighting up, signaling for another day to approach its end. The air felt chillier on your skin and you briefly wished you had taken a scarf with you, or at least put on a warmer jacket.

“I’m fine. No worries,” the man grunted and waved you off, but you didn’t stop, opting to check on him nonetheless.  

“Are you sure?” Your feet stopped just a few inches away from him, hand already outstretched to help him get up and off the ground. Hesitantly, he reached out for it. His movements slow, but not in a timid kind of way. It was more like he was anticipating something to jump at him at any given moment if he touched you. As if he was scared you could poison him with a single touch.

Suddenly an uneasy feeling swept through your body. A shiver ran down your spine and the hair in your neck stood up. A familiar sensation overwhelming your senses. Blood running cold in your veins, freezing still, numbing your nerves. The chill of the night was suddenly no longer noticeable on your skin. Instead, the breeze felt almost warm now. This was the presence of a curse. An acidic taste spread through your mouth, making you swallow hard as you subtly roamed your eyes around the neighborhood, trying to find out where the curse could be hiding.

To your surprise, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. The only thing that was ticking you off was that there were no longer any people in sight. It was just you and the man in front of you now. Everyone else had suddenly vanished. Cursed energy was flowing through the air, probably causing everyone else to feel uneasy too, hence why they left in a hurry. People relied on instinct much like animals did. So even though they might not know why, they could definitely tell when something bad was about to happen. Much like how animals could sense when a storm was approaching. Therefore, this really wasn’t all that surprising.  What surprised you was that everyone else had been quicker than you to notice the alien presence in your midst. It was almost like someone had been concealing it from you specifically. That was what was worrisome. And then it hit you… the lack of a curse running around, you alone in an empty neighborhood with only one other man right in front of you and the fact that you had only been able to even sense the cursed energy floating around the moment you had reached out for him… This was a trap. A trap specifically designed for you.

Everything inside of you was screaming for you to run away. Just run. Run. RUN!

But you couldn’t move.

You couldn’t even retract your hand that was still outstretched to help the stranger get to his feet. You looked down at him. The shock in your eyes as the realization hit you must’ve been obvious, because as soon as he noticed the fear glimmer in your eyes, a menacing smile spread across his face. It almost looked like he was bearing his teeth at you.

Without breaking eye contact, he got up from the pavement, ignoring your hand and dusting his pants off.

“Ugh, the look on your face,” he laughed. “It’s truly hilarious, I wish you could see it.” His eyes lit up and he held his index finger in the air as if he just remembered something groundbreaking. “Wait, hold on. A right,” he laughed again, “as if you have another choice.” He stalked around you, reaching for your back pocket, hand lingering on your ass longer than was necessary in order for him to get your phone. Bile was rising up in your throat as you send a million death threats his way. You wanted to scream at him to tell you what he wanted, but even your tongue remained unmoving, pressed to the roof of your mouth. It felt like you had transformed into a stone statue.

It was obvious that the man in front of you wasn’t a cursed spirit. So he either had to be a curse user or, like Yuji, swallowed a cursed object and absorbed its power. Whatever he was, whatever he wanted, though, by the way he looked at you, it wasn’t anything good.

“Okay, now say cheese.” He held your phone in front of your face. It was close enough for you to reach out and swat it out of his hands, but much to your dismay, your body just wouldn’t listen to your commands. Everything you could do was stand there helplessly and watch as he did whatever he pleased. “Ah, right. Almost forgot, you can’t talk,” he shrugged unimpressed. “Well, no matter. This’ll do just fine.” The clicking sound of your phone camera rang through your ears. The sound completely out of place compared to the eerie silence that surrounded you.

The man turned your phone around to show you the picture he’d just taken. At first glance, you almost didn’t recognize yourself. Your eyes were blown wide in horror, mouth slightly opened in a silent scream.

“So, what do you think’ll happen if I forward that little picture of you and send it… let’s say, to your boyfriend?” He raised one eyebrow in amusement, gauging your reaction, obviously toying with you. “What do you think he’d do if I’d do that?” This guy evidently knew who you were and he also knew who your boyfriend was… Then why did he sound so delighted at the prospect of Gojo – the Satoru Gojo – coming here and probably tearing his limbs off? It seemed to you that he was almost counting on it. That he, in fact, looked forward to it.

Okay, so this guy wasn’t actually trapping you. You were just the bait and Gojo seemed to be his real target. Which got you thinking… Was he just another egomaniac thinking he could take on Gojo and defeat him and in return make a name for himself? Did he have a death wish? Or could he be that one in a million to have an actual chance at defeating him?

“It’s really not any fun when the conversation is this one sided,” he complained, scratching the back of his neck in thought. “Okay, because I’m in such a good mood today, I’ll let you talk. But no funny business, alright?” He held a daunting finger up in the air as if he was an adult scolding a child for misbehaving.

Suddenly your tongue felt loose again and you could move your mouth, though, the bitter taste remained. It felt like someone had poured acid down your throat, leaving your tongue to feel like sandpaper in your mouth. Except for that, everything remained the same. Not a single muscle in your body would follow your commands of making a run for it or, at the very least, get a good punch in.

“What the hell are you doing to me?” You croaked out, voice hoarse and cracking at the end. “What do you want with Gojo?”

“Uh uh.”  He shook his head in displeasure, though, the sick grin on his face remained. “One thing at a time, love. Don’t get ahead of yourself or I might revoke your talking rights.” The way he referred to you as ‘love’ made you physically sick. And the way he talked so happily, as if you were old friends catching up on lost time, made you want to punch him all the more. What was his goal? What could he possibly want?

“Just spit it out!” Your patience was wearing very thin at this point. And though, it might be reckless to talk to this visibly crazy man in such a manner, you didn’t really care. You always had a problem with your temper.

“My, you’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” The man cooed in delight. He was still holding your phone tightly in his hand, looking through God knew what. Ugh, now you really wished you had put a password on it, but before now you never really had a reason to. You weren’t hiding anything in it, but still, it felt like he was roaming through your head while you had no idea what he was searching for.

“Aren’t you two just adorable?” He dangled your phone in front of your face again, fake sweetness dripping off his words like poison disguised as honey. On your screen was a picture of you and Gojo where he was kissing your cheek. Your face was flushed, totally embarrassed when Gojo made Fushiguro take the picture a couple days back. But still, there was this love drunken smile on your face, eyes glistening in a way that radiated pure joy. You remembered how happy you were that day. Actually, you were always happy when you were around Satoru. “You’re so cute together, it makes me sick!” He stood up straight again, nose wrinkling in disgust as he scrolled through your phone some more. “You know, you’re a hard woman to get alone. You’re always with him… Frankly, it was quite frustrating to watch you two be all lovey dovey. But here we are at last, right? So I guess, it was worth it in the end.” A throaty laugh escaped his throat, causing every hair on your body to stand up. So this guy has been watching you? Following you around for God knew how long? A shiver ran down your spine at the thought of all your intimate moments being tainted by some weirdo watching you from afar.

“So, what is it that you want from us?”

“Right,” he clicked his tongue, shoving your phone in his back pocket and out of sight. A small sigh of relief left your lips. Finally, it didn’t feel like he was digging through your head anymore. “You see; I was in love once, too. We were as happy as you can imagine. Our future together was already within reach.” Suddenly the man reached forward to hold onto your shoulder. At first it seemed like he needed the additional support to keep himself upright, but as his fingertips dug deeper into your skin, you guessed this wasn’t all there was to it. He needed a vent to release some of the anger that was burning in his eyes… and you just so happened to be the closest thing nearby. “Everything was perfect. Suki was pregnant and we were planning to get married… Everything was perfect,” he repeated. There was a strain on his voice now as he talked about the woman that he loved. But you were still confused as to what that had to do with you. “Suki was a good person. The best, in fact. There wasn’t a single bad bone in her body and still… and still, someone cursed her. And not just any curse… No! They turned her into one! Into a monster! My Suki! MY SUKI!” Describing him as furious wouldn’t even come close to the burning hatred you saw searing in his eyes. The grip on your shoulder impossibly painful at this point.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” The sincerity in your voice caught him off guard. You could feel his grip loosening ever so slightly, but the flame in his eyes seemed to blaze more intensely than ever before.

“You don’t get to say sorry!” He spat in your face. “Because your precious excuse of a boyfriend was the one to kill her! HE KILLED HER WITHOUT BATTING AN EYE! WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO FIX HER! HE KILLED HER! AND HE DID IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! SO, YOU DON’T GET TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY!”

Suddenly everything clicked together. Everything started to make sense. This was a man with nothing to lose and he was out for retribution. If you weren’t scared before, you were definitely scared now. People with nowhere to go, people who didn’t fear death or didn’t care for it were the most unpredictable ones. He probably already knew that there was no way for him to defeat Gojo… and that in turn meant that he must have something planned that would make him suffer the same way he had. Because what do you do if you can’t kill your opponent? Right… You make them wish they were dead. And you had the dreadful feeling that the role you’d be playing in all of this wasn’t merely to lure Gojo in.

You tried to gulp, but a lump was forming in your throat that made it hard to swallow or even breathe. You didn’t care about the things that could happen to you, but if you were to be the reason Gojo had to suffer, you would never be able to forgive yourself.

The wheels in your head started turning, eyes blown wide in horror. The man in front of you could visibly feel your distress. He wet his lips in anticipation. Almost like a famished animal waiting to finally feast on its prey.

“Please, I beg you… just let me go, okay? Please!” It was a pathetic attempt, you knew that. There was no way in hell he would let you go now, but you still had to try, at the very least. “This won’t bring her back, okay? Torturing me won’t bring your Suki back… So please, I beg you… just let me go.”

His head fell back in his neck as a bitter laugh ripped through the night. His whole body shook with the action. The sight caused your heart rate to speed up, hammering against your rip cage like the wings of a hummingbird. This was a mad man with nothing to lose and with nowhere to go.

“Torture you? No, no!” He shook his head, finally letting go off your shoulder as he clasped both his hands together in pure delight. “I have something way better planned for you… You see, my cursed technique is mind manipulation which you might have already noticed.” Ah, now it made sense why you couldn’t move and only talk once he allowed you to. “It’s a rather straining technique, but that won’t matter…” The smile on his face didn’t falter, if anything, it got even bigger. His eyes almost sparkling with perverse glee as he hungrily looked you up and down. His hand reached for his back pocket again, getting a hold of your phone. The screen illuminated his face, highlighting a single scar that traveled across his right cheek. “So, I’ll call your boyfriend now, okay? I think you two have a little catching up to do.” He winked at you. “But before that…” He lowered your phone slightly, intently looking you in the eyes and capturing all your attention. Even if you wanted to look away – and you did – you couldn’t will your body to do so. Never in your life have you felt so helpless. “Y/N, when you see Satoru Gojo’s face again, you’re overcome with the sudden and unbearable desire to kill him and you will stop at nothing until you accomplish your task… or you die trying.”

You stopped breathing, blood freezing in your veins as your brain absorbed these horrible words.

No. No! NO!

This was a fate worse than death! Not only did he make you fight his sick battle, he probably counted on Gojo having to kill you which would… break him. If you can’t kill your enemy… make them wish they were dead. And God did you wish he would’ve just killed you and left you for Gojo to find you. This would’ve been more merciful.

“Oh, he picked up.” Your eyes snapped up to see he was already holding your phone flat against his ear. “Gojo Satoru, I believe I have something of yours in my possession. Please be so kind and pick it up, okay? She really can’t wait to see you.”

***

Part Two

[jackarychaoti]

DWC2021-10 - Feast/Sleepless

- [ MUSIC ] -

“I’m dying, Jackary.”

The words caught the beast off guard as he strolled through the quiet forest of Teldrassil, barefoot and allowing his ever-present trail of flowers to flow in his wake. Next to the tall blond had been a far shorter elf-shaped man, armed to the teeth in weaponry and dressed in form-fitting leather. While they were a stark contrast to one another, the words alone had drawn Jackary to a standstill.

“I... What?”

It was right after a family feast, right after a great speech had been given about coming changes and freedom and how deeply the rogue appreciated the family he had built over the years. The pair had been laughing together, reminiscing about the past... And suddenly…

Suddenly it made sense.

“Don’t fuck around with me like that, Lok’,” Jack couldn’t help but awkwardly laugh as if it was some stupid joke that his cousin had decided to drop. If he, in his early life, was a sigil of life, his best friend was the sigil of death. They complimented each other, they went everywhere together. Of all things, Lokitan was the reason Jack wound up in Azeroth in the first place.

“I wish I could,” Loki hummed, slowing to a standstill where he could finally light a cigarette he’d fetched and drew in a deep inhale, calming the nerves that were rising in the conversation at hand.”I am fadin’ away and I can feel it, won’t be long now.”

Jack stood silently in disbelief, the reason they had gone walking through an Alliance claimed territory wasn’t to simply ruffle some feathers, it was because it was where their journey had begun together. It was made clear when Jack looked anywhere but at his cousin, realizing he was in the near exact spot he’d appeared in his own crash landing.

‘So, what? You brought me out here to--”

“To say goodbye, yeah.” Cutting off the emerald, Lokitan lifted a crimson eye upward, staring for a long moment. He gave a small smirk. “It’ll be alright, you’ll be fine.”

Would he?

Claws pushed through Jack's long, unruly locks of hair to pull them back and up into a ponytail, keeping the weighted tresses from his face while it gave him time to think, “So just like that, you’re… You’re gone then. When--?” As he questioned just how long Lokitan had left, when he turned to face his cousin, he could already see parts of the rogue turning brittle, fluttering away in the faint, cool breeze around them like nothing more than ash.

“We have outstayed our welcome, you and I.” Lokitan drew in another slow inhale of his cigarette, pondering over what he wanted his final words to be. “We’ve also been through a lot, ever since we were little. We always got into so much shit, heh...” The shadowed dragon smirked to himself, baring a set of fangs in amusement. Bittersweet really, that it was to be Jackary he spent his final moments with when it had also been Jack that helped bring him into the world to cause chaos.

“Do you have any regrets…?” Jack asked quietly, finding himself fidgeting with his own fingers.

“A few,” Loki replied rather abruptly, wetting his lips while his vision raised to look up at the trees above, noting the stars beyond the greenery. “I regret not coming sooner to help you that night, I regret you binding your wings to service. I regret falling in love…” He trailed off at that point, seeming less inclined to want to discuss it.

Jack frowned further, still attempting to wrap his head around what was happening, and yet there he stood, speaking casually with the man that may as well have been his own brother, they were of flesh and blood. Two princes that ran away from home and carried their heritage only by name. Chaoti meant nothing in Azeroth. Jaden and Heran meant nothing, either. They were just names, something no one even blinked at. And of all of the travels the two had been through, the endless adventures or bickering or laughter or beauty or horror, suddenly it was just… ending.

Just like that.

Everything had an ending, certainly, but…

“Don’t leave me…”

Lokitan barked out a bout of laughter at that, smiling as he glanced over to Jackary, though he could see just how much the Emerald was hurting. Such caused that smile to falter. “I can’t stay…”

“You can....” Jack furrowed, shaking his head a bit before throwing his hand out to the side. “You of all people can stay! You can’t leave me..! YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” The voice echoed through the quiet trees, ruffling the feathers of a few birds that flitted away, the echo faded soon after.

“Jackary... Don’t make this harder than it is.”

“No! Fuck you! Fuck you,” Jack inhaled a bit, eyes narrowed when the unnatural sting formed in their corners. Each motion became a pacing step back and forth, his hair swayed behind him. Flowers and grass only further grew outward from his position only to die once close enough to the stand-still rogue. “You brought me here. We came here together, I came here for YOU, WITH YOU! We promised each other we’d never leave one another’s side, you fucking LIAR! You promised, Lokitan Jaden! YOU PROMISED ME!”

Watching the Emerald struggle with anything brought on the protective nature of the small Infinite. Through the beast’s rapidly increased pacing, a hand reached over to suddenly grab Jack’s arm to yank him over and downward into a tight hug.

Loki never hugged anyone.

“Jackary…” He whispered softly, fondly in the captured drake’s ear. “You have been the only one in our family, our past, or history that has ever shown me kindness and love. You’ve had endless patience, you’ve also been a complete fuckwit and you deserve that scar on your chin for what you did, but… You’re going to be okay. You’re going to move forward from this and you will find a new life, a new love, and a new family. You will find people you belong to… Beyond our name, beyond our past transgressions…. Someday you’ll forget about the horrors..”

“I don’t want to…” When had Jackary hugged back? When had he been hunching and clinging so tightly that he could hear the groaning echoes of the leather giving way to the grasp? “Please, I’ve had you with me all my life… Please… I need someone to keep me sane, to keep me in check. Please don't go.”

“You’ll find someone who will stand up to you and your bullshit. You’ll find a warm home again. I know this…” Lokitan sank faintly into the larger male’s grip, feeling the weakening sensation growing even more. “I know this because you have an air about you and people will find you addictive to be around. Keep your wings... Keep your wings and soar…”

“Don’t make me stay here alone…” Nails bit into the leathers, though with every passing second, he could feel the tension of a body between his arms begin to wilt and crumble, he couldn’t even look. He couldn’t bring himself to see Lokitan fade away. A man who had saved his life and who had saved him from the horrors of his ex-wife. His best friend.

“I love you, Jackary Heran.”

Those were the final words that escaped before arms found themselves collapsing around nothing but an ash pile of leathers and knives. The weaponry clanked when it hit the forest floor, leaving the black dust to cling to Jackary’s figure.

When had he dropped to his knees?

When had it become so dark?

When had rain gradually washed the ash from his skin?

When had Loki known he was going to die and why hadn’t he told Jackary about it?

Rock after rock, stone after stone, a small, unmarked grave was built, tucked away where no adventurer could find it unless they knew where to look. A sleepless night was spent marking the spot where the rogue had finally fallen.

When had this happened?

When did the memory of it start to fade?

A grave that would be of importance later, but that was for another story.

| - @daily-writing-challenge - |

[funkylittlebard]

Hey, @too-many-fandoms-no-social-life ! Happy birthday!!  I wrote you a thing, hope you like it!

edit 18/05: Ao3 link

CWs: Geralt’s predictably awful self-esteem, there’s a literal monster at one point, but that’s about it

Geraskier hurt/comfort-ish, getting together shenanigans 

They had been wandering side by side down the trail when it had happened. Geralt had left Roach in the stables of the last town, deciding that the narrow winding path overgrown with thistles and thorns that lead to his next contract would be too difficult for her to navigate. So it had been just the two of them together strolling along in the shade avoiding the bright afternoon sun. It had happened slowly, at first. Geralt had stiffened and froze, nose twitching as if he had smelled something, and Jaskier had been turning to make a joke that was certain to be in poor taste right as the creature descended on them. Geralt had his sword out instantly, pointing it straight ahead of him, ready to strike at any moment. Jaskier, however…

It wasn't as if he hadn't been trained to use a sword as a viscount's son. It was just that he’d never paid all that much attention, and what little he had taken in had been forgotten over the years. He hadn't even told Geralt he knew how to hold a sword, for god's sake. As it was he didn't carry one, just a few daggers he kept hidden about his person. 

He had been reaching for one when it happened. It had taken a moment between seeing Geralt's horrified face, spotting the threat, and making a move for his dagger. His fingertips were just dusting the top of his long dark leather boot when the giant centipede had hit him square in the chest with its mandible, pushing him back down onto the ground. Wide-eyed, he had watched in horror as the thing mounted his chest and hissed at him, rearing its back ready to strike again. Sucking in what he had thought would be his final breath, a panicked thought registered in his head- I never even got to tell Geralt I-

The head had flown off landing centimeters from his own with a sickening squelch and squeal of breath from the creature. Before Jaskier could even think to move, Geralt had been there, piercing yellow eyes boring into him, searching for something. He had let out a ragged breath, and pulled Jaskier up to his chest, holding him close and tight. 

Which brought them up to now, with Jaskier sitting in front of the witcher, watching meticulous fingers tear off strips of bandage to wrap around Jaskier’s battered head. He found himself thoroughly entranced by the way those same hands were able to do something so delicate as efficiently as they had wielded the sword that struck the centipede’s head clean off. Geralt hummed and Jaskier peeked up at him again. The frown on Geralt's face hadn't left since he'd placed Jaskier down from their impromptu hug. It seemed unlikely that Geralt was cross with him, but then again, he had a habit of blaming Jaskier for problems of his own making. An involuntary whimper escaped him at the thought, and suddenly he could feel the weight of Geralt's gaze pinning him in place. 

“Jaskier-” Geralt rushed forward, slotting himself between Jaskier’s knees and staring up at him, concern etched into every pore. Jaskier felt shaking hands settle tentatively on his knees. “Jaskier, what's the matter?” 

They locked eyes and Jaskier’s stomach felt liquid. What if he had died? How could he go on now, knowing that any opportunity to tell Geralt the truth could be snatched from him without even a moment's notice? He felt sick.

“Geralt, I,” he paused, swallowed, and continued. “Geralt I have to tell you something.'' The other man grunted and continued searching for any sign of further injury. Jaskier gasped as his hand slid gently around his face, grazing one of the scratches on his forehead with his fingertips. He stared as Geralt poured a little water on the rag before swiping it across the cut. Jaskier held his breath as Geralt continued his gentle ministrations. He had to tell him, it was too much. 

He drew in a deep breath, let it out, and opened his mouth to try again. “Geralt, I-”

“Don't talk.” Geralt silenced him with his gruff reply as he daubed some tincture on and spread it across his forehead. “Makes it harder for me to tell what I'm doing.”

Something about that seemed… off to Jaskier, Geralt could focus on much more difficult tasks in much more taxing circumstances. Instead of questioning it, he swallowed and waited for Geralt to be done, his left foot tapping a frenetic beat on the forest floor as he waited. 

After what seemed like years, and as Jaskier could feel the very last of his patience fraying, Geralt finally pulled back. He peered at Jaskier, eyes darting about with a look of intense concentration as he assessed his work. He nodded sharply and turned away. 

“You should be fine now.” Jaskier didn't miss the way Geralt's shoulders quaked as he bent down to pack up his supplies. Gathering himself up to his feet, Jaskier padded across the clearing and set his hand down cautiously on Geralt's shoulder. He felt more than heard Geralt suck in a shocked breath. It didn’t matter- he had to do it now, or he might lose the nerve. He tightened his grip ever so slightly on Geralt's shoulder. 

“Geralt. Can I tell you what was bothering me now, please?”  Jaskier was not above pleading- his eyebrows pulled together and a slight pout emerged on his face. Geralt’s fist clenched, and he ducked his head against his chest with a strained sigh. Although he seemed angry, Jaskier had gotten very good at reading Geralt's moods over the years- this was an anxious sound, not an angry one. Well, that made two of them then. 

The possibility that in telling Geralt how he felt he might push him away was not lost on Jaskier. But he had tried silently enduring. He had tried distracting himself with sex and flings, with wine and poetry. Nothing changed how he felt, it just made his heart ache all the more. He would rather lose Geralt than carry on without telling him how he felt. He took in a final steadying breath before letting the words all rush out of him all at once.

“Geralt, when we part it feels like my soul has been torn in two, I cannot stand not to be by your side, ask Essi, I’m tragic without you every winter, because dear heart, I love you.” 

He took a moment to breathe, reeling a bit from his admission. The forest seemed to spin around him as he sucked in a nervous breath, in a dizzying rush of dark greens, ochres and browns all spinning into one. He stumbled back a little as his vision settled. Geralt stood in front of him, completely still. Jaskier could feel his eyes beginning to water. Why wasn't he moving? Why wasn't he saying anything? Why wasn't he-

“Jask, you can't.”

What? Jaskier studied Geralt's back as he tried to understand what Geralt meant. He could feel his hands getting clammy and his knees shaking minutely. He thought he had been prepared for rejection, but to hear Geralt spell out that he wasn’t enough for him so clearly...  

“Well, it's good to know how you really feel Geralt, thank you for telling me,” Jaskier said forlornly, looking down at the ground and blinking rapidly trying to keep the tears at bay. At least he had had all those years with him before Geralt made him leave.

He cleared his throat and went over to stand in front of Geralt, ready to say goodbye, head back to their room at the inn and collect his belongings to make a hasty exit off into the sunset to anywhere but here. Instead, he found himself stopped short at the sight of Geralt. His hands clenched tightly closed, jaw trembling as he tried to keep it jammed shut. His head was resting against his chest and his hair was falling in a state of disarray that obscured his expression from Jaskier’s view. He took a step closer and reached one arm out in front of him like he did when trying to get Roach to accept his love, cantankerous as she was.

“Geralt?” he said, edging closer. “I understand that you don't feel the same way, that you don’t think I’m good enough for you-”

“That's not it.”

They stood frozen for a moment as Geralt's words settled in. Jaskier blinked and tilted his head in confusion. Nobody moved. Jaskier could still feel the tears prickling in his eyes, threatening to fall at a moment’s notice. He pressed on anyway- he might as well know what the problem was now, having come so far. 

“Then what is it, Geralt?” The clearing fell silent again. Geralt haltingly tilted his head up from his chest, and the expression on his face was so raw that Jaskier’s stomach jumped, butterflies fluttering through it. He watched as Geralt swallowed, and frowned as he stared back down at the ground, knuckles turning white where he was clenching his fists impossibly tighter.

“It's me, Jaskier. I'm not good enough for you,” he said it so softly that Jaskier wasn't quite sure he'd heard it at first. Surely this strong, capable, considerate individual in front of him didn't truly think that. He paused a moment. No, that was of course entirely possible. Geralt's view of himself had never been especially reliable. It wasn't surprising, what with how so many other people treated him, and the man’s own views on his ‘mutant’ status, but that didn't make it any easier for Jaskier to hear. 

“You're an idiot.”

Geralt didn't move from where he was, didn't blink, didn’t protest. Jaskier sighed- that wasn't what he had meant. 

“Of course you're good enough for me Geralt, why ever wouldn't you be?”

Geralt flinched away from Jaskier’s touch. His shoulders hunched, and it took a moment before he spoke again. 

“Jaskier… I, I’m nothing compared to you. You have your words, and your songs are… fuck Jaskier I can’t even explain. I-” an irritated sigh ran through him and he scraped his hand through his hair. He winced and tried again. “You.. all I do is kill things. You bring joy to people's lives, and they can’t even look at me. You are so much better than me in so, so many ways.” He stepped away, tension clear in every part of him. Jaskier’s heart melted. How could such a wonderful man think so little of himself? It hurt.

He ran his hand very lightly across Geralt's arm. Then he snatched up his wrist and spun the man forcefully round to face him. A little surprised at his success, he blinked but carried on regardless. He clutched Geralt's hand and brought it up to his chest over his heart, willing Geralt to notice from his heartbeat that he was not lying. He angled his face to try and catch Geralt's eye, and when that proved difficult he reached up with his right hand and caught Geralt's chin, tugging his face so their gazes met. Geralt’s amber stare wavered and flickered, eyes glassy. Jaskier tugged roughly until Geralt's eyes focused in on him.

“Geralt. Darling. I am not too good for you. I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I promise, I will do everything in my power to help you see yourself the way I do.” He let his grip on Geralt's hand and jaw soften. He inched back, let his grip slowly fall completely free, and made to slip a step away. He found he couldn't, because there was a sudden, surprising grip holding him in place. 

Geralt's gaze had not moved from the floor but he took in a shuddering breath and looked up once more. His golden eyes glinted in the light, shining with unshed tears. He nodded and moved a step closer. 

“Jaskier,” he whispered, reaching very slowly for his hands. “I’m... I’m not good for you. But I…” he sucked in a breath, his anticipation apparent. “I want to be.” He finished firmly. 

Jaskier smiled. He could see Geralt's mouth moving slowly towards a smile as well. Nervous but determined to take the opportunity while destiny offered it to him, he looked Geralt dead in the eye and said, 

“May I kiss you, my love?”

Geralt nodded cautiously. And then he leaned in. Jaskier couldn't help but notice the way his eyelashes brushed his cheeks as his eyes fluttered shut. Unable to wait any longer, Jaskier surged forward to press their lips together. He sighed, content, as they leaned into each other, and he let his hand fall to rest on Geralt’s waist. He felt Geralt’s smile push up against his mouth and his arms loop across Jaskier’s shoulders. With the sun starting to dim behind them, and the rustling of leaves in the breeze, Jaskier didn’t think he could remember ever feeling so elated in his life.

[auredosa]

i NEED a one shot of malistaire having a ptsd nightmare about their escape from dragonspyre then sylvia is there to comfort him when he wakes up

thank you for the prompt again, anon! i hope this meets your expectations! enjoy!

wet hands

tw; destruction, war collateral, trauma

Malistaire was tailing his father home from the Command Academy the hour it began.

Whispers of a riot, a coup, an attack had been floating around the mage division as of late. No, not floating, more like crawling up the grape vine and becoming the subject of many late night meetings between the senior members of their branch.

High General Vladan Drake, naturally, was required to be in attendance. At first, Malistaire was worried that the other correspondents wouldn't let him attend-he had a fraction of his father's experience in service, but to his surprise, he was given a seat at the table and even asked for his opinion on occasion.

"Just in case one of us drops dead before this all blows over. You have a youth to tell our story," one of them, a blunt Diviner, had stated.

"We have the crystals for that, Agatha," his father snapped back. "Why shouldn't we use them to keep record of our rendezvous?"

"You saw what happened when those little gems get into the wrong hands." She took a long whiff of her cigar and leaned back into her chair. The smoke smelled to Malistaire of burnt parchment and sandalwood; not something that he'd remotely want wafting in his lungs. "Can't trust anybody these days. One leaked jewel and the upper echelons of society go to-"

"Enough," commanded a third voice. He was seated at the head of the round table, rings of every cut and metal adorning each of his thumbs. "We will not be holding any proof of our meetings on this topic. My superiors are suspicious of us as it is-"

He was about to elaborate further when the crystal goblet before him began to tremble. The drink within started to ripple, then splash onto the table. Malistaire gripped the edge of his chair and looked towards his father.

"What is this, now?" Vladan hissed, looking to the door of the room. "Another experiment of the lower division?"

Suddenly, a frantic knocking sounded at the double doors to the conference room, accompanied by a voice too young to be a late attendee, too old to be one of the servants.

A white haired woman who had yet to speak raised her hand to the deadlock, and the chains fell apart at her will. The doors flew open to reveal a gentleman in harlequin robes, red as a child in the snow. His breaths came out in wild pants, and his fingers gripped his wand as if he were still in battle.

"Mikaeil," the woman greeted stoically. "What is going on?"

"The Titan!” he gasped, struggling to stand up straight. "The Titan is-is here."

"I beg your pardon?" Vladan probed, brows knitting in disbelief. "Tell the full truth, boy!"

"It is the truth!" insisted Mikaeil, rising to full height in the presence of the General. "And you must evacuate at once! The insurgency-"

Another tremor rocked the underground chamber. This time, dust cascaded above their heads. A hairline crack appeared in the stone, before splintering across the ceiling.

“The insurgency has begun,” the woman finished. She finally opened her eyes, revealing glowing ivory pupils which had scried their doom.

"But-" Vladan began, just as a stone column shattered the stone ceiling and appeared like a giant rusty nail in the center of the room.

"I said we leave! Now!" The mage repeated.

They were running. It was difficult to keep pace when the ground wasn't meeting his feet. The thunder and rumble were deafening to his young ears. When they were outside, the sky was blanketed in thick fog. Not fog, Malistaire realized. Smoke and debris from the destruction that had only begun.

"To our airships, general?" The cigar-wielding woman shouted.

"If we can!" Vladan called back. "There's a cargo ship near the commerce district. Meet there!"

As was taught in all schools of battle, it was too dangerous to travel together. While they couldn't quite see their enemy, it was better to assume they had the entire command academy surrounded.

"If this is an attack, then where is-"

A hellish roar tore through the quarter. They all gazed up to the sky, where the crimson, leathery wings beat mercilessly through the smog.

"The Titan . . ." Malistaire muttered in awe. The stench of burnt flesh and ash wafted from above. From the cloud cover, he felt a drop of rain hit his cheek. Placing a finger to his face, he found that it was warm. Blood.

"General!"

Behind them, an ornate pillar gave way. But not just the shattered stone beam. Shards of crumbling white stone, all fashioned into jagged points, were hovering in the air, like knives pointed at a target. Pointed at them.

An unseen puppeteer gave the command, and the pillar came down in unforgiving gravity.

“Father!”

“Malistaire?” came a soft voice beside him.

He gripped the cotton bedsheets in clenched fists. There remained an unyielding tightness in his chest, and sweat gathered on his brow. But the air was different: tinged with morning dew and waxy smoke wafting from the nightside table. The warm glow of an oil lamp filled the room, illuminating their shared bedroom.

No fire. No chaos. No blood raining from the carnage-stained clouds.

Just his wife, staring at him with a familiar concern.

Ah.

It happened again, hadn’t it?

Another nightmare to inconvenience those around him. Some sorry part of him wished he could carve his memories out of his head. The aftermath of this was never pretty. He didn’t need comforting. He didn’t need to recount the days of horror and warfare. It wasn’t as if that would change anything. Those events were singed into his brain like a brand on skin. No theurgist could fix that.

“Apologies,” he muttered, clearing his throat. “I . . . I’m sorry for waking you.”

“No need to say sorry, silly,” assured Sylvia. “It’s really nobody’s fault, you know. The mind can be a horrible foe sometimes.” As if she hadn’t parroted that to his brother too.

She slid off her side of the bed and stretched her arms. Her hair was twisted into unruly tangles, brushed aside to show tired green eyes. Despite her best intentions, he could tell she was tired, too. Now she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until she had to get up for the day’s work.

“I’m going to make tea,” she yawned. “Raspberry leaf or the stuff from Marleybone?”

“Your call,” Malistaire replied. He was still unnerved by what he’d seen in his subconscious, and anxious about the trouble he was causing her. His throat was too dry to let him offer another apology.

There was nothing to do but stare blankly at the other end of the wall with his racing thoughts. Before he knew it, Sylvia had returned with two teacups of floral refreshment. He made a mental note to thank Arthur for introducing them to this custom.

“Here. Be careful.”

He took his own cup and wrapped his palms around the base, smiling at its fleeting but welcome warmth. Sylvia took her place next to him and they both said nothing for but a moment, quietly partaking in their drinks.

“Same sequence?” She asked once they’d both had a sip.

“Not quite. It . . . this took place earlier, minutes before we arrived in Wizard City.” It was easier to talk about if he treated it like a historical text from a book, not the horrors of his own mind. “It’s as if I’m going through all the motions in reverse, back to the start of it all. The problem is that I don’t think there’s any further to go back to.”

“Well,” Sylvia began, “that’s a good thing, isn’t it? You’ve completely exhausted the entire story, so it can’t get any worse from here.”

“Not necessarily . . .” Malistaire grumbled.

“I know.” She sighed and took another sip of her tea. The conversation always progressed this way. There was little she could do to quell his self-destructive subconscious. As far as either of them knew, there were no spells that took away bad dreams, at least not ones that didn’t require the favor of a fairy or a monetary fee of some sort. Those were simply fiction[SH1] .

“. . . I’m sorry there isn’t more I can do, my heart,” she said sadly, setting her cup on the nightstand. “And I understand that I don’t really understand the things you see in your dreams.”

“Sylvia, don’t bother.” Malistaire grumbled, putting his down as well. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Exactly,” his wife affirmed. “I’m not going to stop searching for something to make this easier. Dahlia might know something, or maybe a seraph on the Way could-“

“That isn’t what I meant.” He interrupted, more roughly than intended. “We would both know about that, wouldn’t we?”

He scowled at the floor, finally feeling better now that his anxiety was turning into frustration.

“My father and mother have been lost. My brother and I can’t return home because there isn’t one to return to, not even if we wanted. And for all we can do, between the both of us, we can’t bring them back.”

Cracks, shouts, fire, stone, shards.

"General!"

“Ever since then, every night, I am reminded of that, and I despise it.”

“Ah.”

Sylvia’s face was unreadable. It took her a moment to rationalize the horribly charged vent that’d spilled from his mouth. before her face gave way to kind understanding. The corners of her mouth turned up in a wistful smile, and he could only wish he could have her saintly patience.

“You are correct, love. Nothing you said was wrong,” she soothed. “However-“

She scooted closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. Her graceful hand clasped over his. The messy locks of her hair brushed against his face, daisies and rain under his nose.

“Your wounds are fresh, and they can still heal. Your parents may have passed, but their legacy is not entirely forgotten-thanks to you and your brother,” she added, smiling. “I promised you that I would save as many people as I could, and I know there are so many more, and that there is still so much work to do. So, so much work.”

Three tiny squeezes in the heart of his palm.

“I know it hurts, love. I know you’re tired. But I’m almost certain that one way or another . . .”

A tender kissed pressed to the stubble on his cheek.

“You can always find your way back home.”

[dothwrites]

@redridinghood03 requested Destiel baking together with a flour war. <3

---

It’s an odd sort of life for a hunter when the worst catastrophe of the day is finding Cas trying to do things in the kitchen. 

“Thought we agreed that you weren’t going to experiment anymore,” Dean says, cautiously, because it’s 11am, which is still an hour before Cas is considered fully human. Antagonizing Cas at this hour, when a quick glance at the coffee maker tells him that the former angel is only a cup and a half deep, is a ballsy measure, but Dean didn’t get to his advanced age by playing safe. “Or that you would at least bring along an adventure buddy.” 

Cas doesn’t deign to look at him as he studies the flour spread out across the countertop with toddler like intensity. 

“Dean, when the ancestors of humanity’s ancestors were still swimming in the oceans, I was already a garrison commander,” Castiel says, and yeah, Dean made him mad. That’s a definite pissy tone in his voice. 

“All right grouchy, no need to brag.” 

Cas just grunts at him. Throwing caution to the winds, Dean creeps forward, enough that he can see the sad looking lump of...something...in the mixing bowl. 

“So uh...we’re having...” Dean’s nose wrinkles as he looks at the greyish lump congealing in the stainless steel bowl. He feels as though he should look away, just so this monstrosity can pass from the world in some kind of peace. At his elbow, he can feel the slow burn of Cas’ irritation. “Gruel?” he finally guesses. 

“I’ll just clean it up,” Cas says. 

Thing is, Dean loves ruffling Cas’ metaphorical feathers. He loves the look that Cas gets on him, like a cat who’s just been sprayed in the face with a squirt gun and holds a grudge over it. There’s something so delightful about seeing Castiel, badass former angel of the Lord, snapping and snarling because Dean changed the channel or moved his book or inconvenienced him in any way, shape, or form. 

He’d hoped for that pissy little reaction. What he gets is so much worse. Cas’ voice is resigned as he turns to the pathetic huddle of failure in front of him. The disappointment clear in the slump of his spine rubs against some half-healed, raw spot of Dean’s, until he’s rushing forward and catching the cold goop in his hands. It’s simultaneously lumpy and unnaturally smooth and he bites back the automatic gag as the soft, sticky mess oozes through the spaces in his fingers. 

“Maybe we can save this,” he tries. It’s a pipe-dream--This is obviously beyond saving, but anything to make that disappointed look disappear from Cas’ face. “What were you trying to make anyway?” 

Cas’ face gets that squinty, shifty look that it does when he’s trying to figure out the best way to slide around the relevant facts. Out of all of humanity’s little quirks, Dean wishes that Cas hadn’t taken to lying like a duck to water, but the good news is, for the most part, Cas is pretty fucking obvious when he decides to throw a little lie in the mix. 

Case in point: right fucking now. 

“A pastry dish,” Cas finally lands on. 

Dean can’t stop his snort, which is not a good thing, because all that does is serve to piss Cas off even further. Dean asks, around his own little helpless burbles of laughter and Cas’ half-snarl, “A pastry dish? Cas, you know that making pastry is like...well, it’s hard,” he finishes lamely, Cas’ glare finally getting to him. He bumps his hips into Cas’, ignores the little shiver of delight that he gets from the action and takes Cas’ place at the counter. “You don’t do anything by halves,” Dean murmurs.

It all makes sense now: the flour, the butter, the eggs, even the sodden lump of hopeful dough in the bowl. The only thing that Dean can’t understand is why Cas would wake up with the burning need to turn contestant on a baking show. As a human, Cas is vulnerable to whims, but this is stranger than most. 

“All right.” Dean rolls up his sleeves and surveys the countertop, same way he used to look at the weapons stashed in the back of the Impala. “Tell me what we’re dealing with.” 

“I was going to make it myself.” There’s something petulant in Cas’ tone, which Dean would normally roll right over (another bit of humanity that Dean wishes Cas hadn’t caught onto so quickly was the idea of stubbornness) but what makes him stop is the ragged, raw edge of something else. He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s not just a whim, like he originally thought. For whatever reason, Cas has decided that making this stupid pastry thing matters. 

“I know.” Dean dares to lean into Cas’ space, touch his shoulder to Cas’. Something about the contact relaxes them both, lets a little breath of fresh air into the room. “But no offense, you’re going to need some help. I’m here, I’m willing...Let’s just get it done.” 

The look on Cas’ face says that he’s not thrilled with Dean’s logic, but that he also doesn’t see a logical alternative. So Dean listens as Cas rattles off the ingredients that he’ll need (human or not, Castiel has a mind like a steel trap, which comes in damn handy most times) and the basic instructions. 

The flour hits the bowl with a soft whump and sends up a little cloud everywhere. Dean blinks through it, wiping away the bit that’s gotten on his cheeks. He rubs his fingers together before he looks over at Cas. 

“Oh hell,” he says around his laughter, “you’ve got...” 

A fine patina of flour sits on Cas’ hair, nose, and shoulders. It looks like he’s been in through a snowstorm or that he has the worst case of dandruff ever. Dean can’t help but laugh because the overly dignified stare that Cas tries to defend himself with doesn’t help relieve the ridiculousness of the situation. Instead, it just adds to it, like watching a cat trying to recover its lost dignity. 

Dean’s chuckles morph into outright laughter, becoming louder and more uncontrolled the more that Castiel tries to pull his cloak of dignity around him. Finally, Cas’ facade and patience both snap and he does that which Dean was not expecting him to do. 

Dean sputters around the sudden face full of flour, spitting clouds of white away from his mouth as he snorts in small bursts. He blinks to clear his vision and looks at Cas. Cas’ face is a mixture of satisfaction, horror at his own daring, and slowly but surely, delight. As Dean watches, the sheer joy eclipses everything else, until Cas is grinning, huge and wide and gummy, before he starts to laugh. 

He’s heard Cas chuckle before, short little huffs through his nose and, rarer than a blue moon, an occasional short bark of amusement (usually at Dean’s expense, but sometimes they watch funny stuff on TV). But this is the first time that he’s ever heard Cas laugh, a full bodied sound that comes up deep from the diaphragm and explodes through the kitchen, rich and warm and infectious enough that soon, Dean’s laughing along with him.  

“Asshole,” he says, gasping around his laughs as he seizes a handful of flour and tosses it in Cas’ general direction. It falls well short of him, but the intention was clear, and suddenly, like children, they’re chasing each other around the kitchen, dodging over and under tables and countertops, throwing flour. 

Castiel may have been the commander of an angelic garrison for thousands of years, but Dean’s an older brother. There was only ever one way that this was going to end.

It ends with Cas cornered against the fridge, hands empty as Dean advances on him, bag of flour in hand. “Dean,” Cas tries, holding his hands out in what Dean supposes is supposed to be reconciliation. “Dean, there’s no need for...Look at the kitchen, it’s already a mess...”

“Yes it is.” Dean’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. “And whose fault is that, Castiel?” 

Cas’ face shifts from a poor attempt at pleading to his smitey expression, eyes narrowed and mouth pressed into a flat line. “You started it,” he says, flatly, uncompromising. 

“Did I?” Dean asks, calm and sedate as he dumps half the bag over Cas’ head. 

After the dust settles (it turned out to be a kamikaze attack, the flour dust got Dean as well as Cas), they slump onto the floor, still huffing with breathless laughter. Dean’s shoulder presses into Cas’ and his fingers are tangled through Cas’. He decides to leave them there. 

“So what were you making?” Dean asks. Whatever it was, it’s long beyond salvaging now. He supposes that after they clean up, they can either try for Take 3 or, they can just do what they probably should have done to begin with, which is to go down to Lebanon’s bakery and buy whatever it is that Cas had a hankering for. 

Cas slants his eyes at him. “Well, it was March 14th, so I was trying to honor that occasion.” 

It takes Dean a minute to link the pieces together. “A pie,” he finally comes up with. “You were...you were trying to bake a pie.” 

“In honor of the day,” Cas says, seriously as if Pi Day were an internationally recognized day of mourning and not a fun coincidence that high school teachers all over the country seized. 

Dean’s still not done putting the pieces together. “You were making a pie because...” The last piece slots into place and Dean’s cheeks heat, at the same time as a grin starts to spread across his face. “Cas, were you making a pie for me?”

Cas is definitely looking shifty now, his fingers twitching underneath Dean’s as he starts to brush at the flour covering his jeans. Dean doesn’t let him pull away and laces his fingers tightly with Cas’. He doesn’t push or prod, because he’s learned through painful experimentation that pushing Cas too fast and too far beyond his comfort zone ends in nothing more than a snapped Fuck off Dean at best and a slapped ear at worst, but he also doesn’t let Cas pull away. Because Dean also knows that, while Cas aspires to be a world-class liar, there’s nothing he craves more than the truth. From everyone, but most often, himself. 

“It’s possible,” Cas begins, belligerence covering up something pale and vulnerable, “that, since it was already associated with the day, and since I knew that it was your favorite dessert, that it could be thought that I was making the pie for you--”

“You were going to make me a pie,” Dean breathes, just before he puts a hand on Cas’ cheek to tilt his head towards him. He checks Cas’ eyes, a silent is this ok and the look he gets from Cas screams full speed ahead, so Dean leans forward. 

Absurd that after all this time, what it takes is a failed pie and a kitchen doused in flour. But, Dean thinks, before Cas’ lips meet his and then he’s not thinking about much at all, much like pie crust, it’s usually not about the individual ingredients, but more the process and the sum of its parts. 

---

Later, curled up in his bed, satisfaction and bliss still humming through his veins, Dean nuzzles at the underside of Cas’ jaw, stubble prickling alongside his nose and cheeks. “Was there something that we forgot to do?” he asks, voice heavy and thick with impending sleep. “Feels like we’re missing something.” 

“Don’t know.” Cas’ arm curves over Dean’s waist and settles possessively on the small of his back. Miles and miles of skin are pressed against his and Dean loves it, would bottle this feeling and take hits off of it like a junkie if he could. “Sleep now. Worry later.” 

“Yeah,” Dean yawns, already halfway gone. Cas is right. Whatever it is that they’re missing, they can figure it out after a nap. 

That’s his last thought, at least until he hears the Sam’s shrill, “What the hell?” coming from the kitchen. 

Oh, Dean thinks, remembering the flour covering almost every inch of the kitchen, as well as the incriminating patterns made in said flour, as well as the obvious articles of clothing left in the kitchen. 

That’s what we forgot to do.

Then he sleeps. 

[ineffablegame]

“It’s over. They’re not going to hurt you again.” :3c

I’m sorry this got so long!  Also at my Ao3.

-

Aziraphale is not, as a general rule, overly fond of children.

Oh, they’re wonderful, of course.  They’re wonderful as a concept.  Aziraphale may not be in Heaven’s best books, so to speak, but he still subscribes to their beliefs regarding children.  ‘For the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children,’ ‘you are all children of God,’ ‘the riches inherited by God’s children,’ et cetera.  Gabriel may have called Adam Young a brat, but Above is – at least officially – in favor of kids.

Broadly speaking, Aziraphale loves children.  He’s an angel, after all.  He loves everyone, and that includes children.

Less broadly – in the narrow confines of his beloved bookshop, for example – Aziraphale is happy to keep them at a distance.  So, when the Them show up at the front door on a cool, crisp day in late October, the angel is understandably alarmed.

“Hullo,” says Adam Young.  He holds the lead for Dog, who stands stock-still beside him, eyes flashing incarnadine.  Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale flank him.  

Aziraphale fends off a full-body shudder with every scrap of angelic willpower he can muster.  Adam Young may be a normal boy at heart, but the rest of him remains very much the occult equivalent of ten million nuclear warheads.  The intensity of his focus is unsettling.

“A-ah,” the angel stammers.  “Adam Young. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Is that him?” Pepper demands.  She eyes Aziraphale, lip curling.  “He doesn’t look like a demon.”

“I never said he was the demon,” Adam replies. “He’s the demon’s friend.”

“Actually, I don’t think demons can have friends,” says Wensleydale.  “Because they’re evil.”

“Yeah.”  Brian wipes a mud stain – the origin of which is a mystery – on his shirt.  His eyes widen and he grins.  “Maybe he’s possessed by the demon?”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s quite the case,” Aziraphale fumbles.  He does wish the children would quiet down a little. If Crowley hears them speculating about who’s possessing who, he’ll never let Aziraphale hear the end of it. “You’re… looking for Crowley?”

“Uh-huh.”  Adam angles his gaze past Aziraphale, into the near-empty bookshop.  “He’s here, right?  We need to ask him for advice.”

“Whatever could you need—”  Aziraphale begins, only to fall silent as a familiar demonic presence crowds his senses. He turns and sees Crowley sauntering toward him.

“Angel, there’re a pair of tourists looking quite keen about the Ian Fleming books,” he says.  “I’d get them to clear out if I were you.  I keep telling you, move the Bond books to storage.  You might think they’re drivel, but they have some serious—”

Crowley looks back toward Aziraphale and catches sight of the Them. He draws up short.  “Oh!  Uh. Hey, um, kids.”

Pepper looks even less impressed than before.  “This is him?  Seriously?”

“Yeah.”  Adam strolls past Aziraphale into the bookshop with Dog and the Them in tow. Aziraphale watches the procession pass in bewilderment.

Pepper cuts straight to the point.  “We need you to teach us how to be devils.”

Crowley darts his eyes from the Them to Aziraphale and back.  “Um.  What?”

“For Halloween,” Adam clarifies.  “We’re going as devils.  But we don’t know how to act properly evil, so I thought, why not ask a real-life devil?”

“M’a demon, actually,” Crowley mumbles, apparently immune to the irony of Adam’s statement.  He considers the Them, head cocked.  Then, much to Aziraphale’s horror, he nods.  “Yeah, all right.  Why not.”

“Why not?” Aziraphale echoes.  “My dear, surely you can’t be—”  He freezes when Adam turns and pins him with a speculative look.  Mellowing, the angel stammers, “W-well, perhaps if you took your… er, tutelage outside…”

Adam shrugs.  “I dunno. I think right here is fine.”  He looks around the shop.  “Seems to me that you spend a lot of time here.  Might help you teach us better in your nat’ral environment, right?”

Aziraphale directs a withering look at Crowley, who averts his gaze.  “Uh.  I guess.”

“I really think…”  Aziraphale trails off; he knows when a battle is lost.  He threads his fingers together, knuckles white.  “Please be careful of the books.  They are quite valuable.”

He spins around and stalks toward the counter, intent on taking his wrath out on the first customer to cross him.

The next hour is an exercise in tolerance.  Crowley gets right down to the business of teaching the Them how to be proper demons, his gusto belying the apologetic glances he keeps shooting Aziraphale’s way.  From what the angel can gather in his covert eavesdropping, demonic work mostly amounts to being a nuisance.

“Another good—er, bad act of evil is never replacing the loo roll,” Crowley says. “That one’s a sure-fire win. Never fails to drive the humans mad.”

“I do that already,” Brian says proudly.  “And I never flush.”

Crowley winces.  “Yeah, you’re a proper demon, all right.”

“This is boring,” Pepper says.  “Don’t you do real evil stuff?  Like, killing people and all that?”

“There’s more to being evil than killing people,” Crowley says with startling patience.

“I don’t see why you want to celebrate Halloween at all,” Aziraphale says, stopping by their gathering with an armful of books – a clever pretext on his part, if he may be so bold.  “It’s only a new-fangled American holiday.”

“Actually, you can’t own a holiday,” says Wensleydale.  “America doesn't own Halloween.  Holidays are for everyone.  As long as they’re not religious.”

Aziraphale is sorely tempted to tell the little know-it-all to shove it, but Adam Young’s focus hones in on him with hawkish intensity, so he restrains himself.  “Of course,” he says coldly.

Brian plucks a book off the shelf and leafs through the pages.  “Is folding the corners demonic?  My parents hate it when I do that.”

“Ye—no,” Crowley says, catching Aziraphale’s warning glare.  “Nah, s’not really evil.  Nope.”

Adam glances between the angel and demon.  “Sounds right.”

Pepper looks at the book in Brian’s hand with disdain.  “Ugh.  Peter Pan is so sexist.”

Aziraphale’s temper slips its bonds.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  It’s a children’s book.”

“It is!” Pepper counters.  “It’s all boys doing the fun stuff and Wendy has to be like their mum!  And Tiger Lily—”

“What about this?” Brian says, clearly still stuck on demonic acts against literature.  He jams one finger up his nose and pulls it out, a yellow-green gobbet clinging to the dirty nail.  Then, much to Aziraphale’s horror, he smears the bogie on the inside cover of a first-edition Peter Pan.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chokes.  He’s never fainted in his entire existence, but there’s a first time for everything.

Crowley, much to his credit, keeps a flimsy veneer of composure as he swipes the book from Brian’s hands.  “Books really aren’t the way to go,” he says.  Aziraphale feels the fabric of the universe pop a stitch and re-knit as the bogie dissolves into nothingness.  “Not enough people care about them.  The effect isn’t widespread.”

“Not enough—”  Aziraphale sputters, indignant, only to stop dead when he sees Dog sniffing a shelf with Intent.  “Adam, dear boy, if you could please take, ah, Poochie outside, I would appreciate it ever so much…”

Adam considers the former hellhound.  “Think I’ll keep him with me, thanks.  He’s not used to the big city.”

“There’s a fenced-in yard outside,” Aziraphale says, a trifle desperately.  There wasn’t one a moment ago, and miracling around the logistics of Soho was a trial, but the angel is growing more and more desperate.  “Surely it needs to relieve itself?”

“Nah,” says Adam.  “He’s properly trained.  He won’t make a mess.”

In a feat of truly miraculous timing, Dog cocks a leg and wees on the shelf. Aziraphale’s heartbeat slams in his temples.  Dumping his books on the nearest open shelf, he hurries over to the little beast, waving his hands at it.  “Oh, for pity’s sake!”

“Got it,” Crowley says quickly.  He miracles the puddle out of existence with a snap of his fingers.  “See?  Not a stain, angel.”

“Cor!”  Brian is amazed.  “Can you show us how to do that?”

“Actually, I don’t think we can,” says Wensleydale.  “On account of we’re not real demons.”

“Shoo!” Aziraphale hisses at Dog.  “Shoo, you—you little mongrel!”

“Hey,” Adam says, and while his tone is mild, the rumble of irritation that sweeps through the bookshop is not. Aziraphale should heed it, really he should, but he can’t stand idly by while children run riot and infernal dogs eject fluids in his shop.  He waves his hands closer at Dog, intent on fending him off.  Dog’s lips peel back in a snarl.

Crowley’s voice is strained.  “Angel—”

Too late.  Aziraphale shrieks as Dog’s teeth sink into his hand, flowering fires of pain.  He yanks his hand back and clutches it to his chest.  Dog growls, eyes glittering red.

“I’m sorry,” Adam hastens to say.  “I didn’t think he’d do that.”

“Actually, Mr. Fell,” says Wensleydale, “it was a defense mechanism. Little dogs like Dog have a high prey drive and you got into his space.  Actually, you should have known not to do that, because growling is a warning that…”

“Ugh!”  On the other side of the shop, Pepper tosses a book to the floor in disdain.  “The Iliad is even worse than Peter Pan! My mum says…”

“Look at this, Mr. Crowley!” Brian calls.  “See that book, with the fancy cover?  I bet I can hit it from all the way across the room!”  He hawks deep in his throat.

Aziraphale has never killed anything before, but, frantic, furious, and helpless, he suddenly sees the appeal of cold-blooded murder.  “That’s quite enough of that!”

The Them ignore him, and several things happen in swift succession.  Dog squats on the floorboards.  Pepper pulls a copy of The Odyssey from the shelf.  Wensleydale keeps talking.  Brian spits a wad of saliva and phlegm.

The few remaining customers vanish, dispatched outside the shop with no memory of the past few minutes.  A blazing white light erupts from Aziraphale and floods the room to press, incandescent, against the dust-coated windows.  The dowdy, bookish angel suddenly looms, menacing and full of holy wrath, flaming sword raised to strike.  His eyes glow with the searing heat of Heavenly justice.  Crowley cowers behind the nearest shelf; Dog cowers behind Adam’s legs; the Them stare, spellbound.  Brian’s loogie evaporates with a hiss like grease on hot metal.

“THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH OF THAT,” Aziraphale says.  His voice resonates, multiplied and overlayed like a screaming horde of berserkers.  “STEP AWAY FROM THE BOOKS, PLEASE.”

The Them obey.  They cluster around Adam, eyes wide, mouths ajar.

“NOW.”  Aziraphale sweeps the flaming sword toward the door, which obediently flies open.  “GET.  OUT.  OF MY BOOKSHOP.”

The Them look to Adam, who nods.  “Yeah.  C’mon, I think we learned enough.”  He leads them to the open door, ushers them out.  He gives the angel and the demon a thoughtful look.  “Sorry.  I’ll leave you two alone now.”

He leaves.  The door snaps shut behind them, locks clanking into place.  Aziraphale sags as the holy wrath leaves him, his sword – a mere illusion – melting into the air.  He feels ready to burst into tears.  Or to smite something.  He hasn’t decided which.

“Angel.”  Crowley’s voice is gentle, the tone one might use to soothe a wild creature.  “They’re gone.  It’s over.  They’re not going to hurt you again.”

Aziraphale wraps his arms around himself.  “Don’t tease.”

“Sorry.”  Crowley slinks closer, still wary.  “Gosh. I thought your lot were all for suffering the little children.”

Aziraphale sniffles.  “Well, my dear, I c-could only suffer so much.”

“Ah, angel.  There, there.”  Crowley’s tone is sneering, but the concern in his eyes is genuine.  “Let me see.”

“Wh-what?”

“Your hand.  That little beast got you good, didn’t he?”

“Oh.”  Aziraphale holds out his trembling hand.  “I-I suppose it did.”

Crowley’s fingers enfold him, delicate but sure.  Aziraphale stares at the floorboards as his vision swims and the demon presses gentle touches to the bite marks.  “Didn’t break the skin, but might as well…”

Aziraphale swallows thickly.  The pain evaporates in prickling warmth.  “Thank you.”

“Nnh.  No problem.” A beat.  “I’m sorry.  For letting them stay in the shop.”

“We didn’t have a choice, really,” the angel mutters.

“I don’t know.  Adam Young’s not all bad.”

Aziraphale mangles a laugh.  “I suppose not.  For an Antichrist.”

“Aziraphale…”

“I hate them, Crowley.”

“You’re an angel.  You don’t hate anything.”

“But they’re so loud! And messy!  And annoying!”

“They’re kids.  Trust me, adults are loads worse.”

Aziraphale sighs and wipes his eyes with one hand.  Despite having healed the bite, Crowley still holds his other hand, and he is reluctant to take it back.  “Oh, I know, dear boy.  Please don’t think less of me for it, my nerves are just so…”

“Don’t worry,” Crowley says.  “Tell you what.  Let’s close up shop and open up that Talisker you’ve got squirreled away, yeah?  The eighteen-year one.”

Aziraphale gives him a watery smile.  “My dear, that would be wonderful.”

They close the shop.  As Aziraphale locks the front door, another miracle sings through the air, a plucked harp string vibrating through reality.  He blinks, unlocks the door, and opens it.  A new sign has appeared.

‘No dogs allowed.’

The angel closes the door and locks it again.  He turns, beaming.  Crowley smiles back.

-

That Halloween, the Them go trick-or-treating as angels.

[remy-arzt]

TASK iii || A look through the past

For a long as you can remember you’ve had nightmares. Huge waves threaten to drown you and no matter how much you run, you’ll never be able to outrun them. You went to a sleep therapist once. She gave you some pills. They didn’t work. The dreams got more diverse.

Now it’s not just the wave threatening to drown you, you also find yourself floating over an abyss, knowing you will fall eventually. So you decide to try psychoanalysis, the results make sense but say nothing you didn’t already know. The wave represents deep emotion, which you’re terrified of. The abyss is your unconscious and all those unknown parts of you that sometimes you dare take a quick look at but could never face. That doesn’t help you figure out how to stop them, though. Then there’s the other nightmare, the one that is very clear to you.

February 1997 “Wake up! Wake up, boy!” Cold water drips form the tips of your hair, the droplets falling on your skin like small needles of ice. You startle awake. “You’re three minutes late already. Get to work or you get no food.” A quick nod and you get up and shake the dirty water from your hair. The morning passes in a whirl. Your hands hurt. Your back hurts. You can barely open your eyes in the dark, smoke-filled corridors under the factory. But you keep working until lunch time. Porridge, some stale bread and a fried egg. Then back to work, now it’s time to beg. One of your shoes has a hole in it. You’ve gotten used to it, to the cold, murky water seeping through your threadbare sock. Some of coins from a couple who clicks their tongue at you but forgets you five minutes after. A half-full bottle of water from a garbage man whose eyes seem to see right through you. When night hits you count your earnings and sigh. Not enough. Dinner is just a spoonful of peanut butter, you look on with envy at the plates of the kids who managed to raise more.

August 1999 You sit at the police station, your legs swinging back and forth. You wonder if they’ll put you in jail. Probably not. But you wish they would. Free food and a ratty old bed, all to yourself. Sounds like heaven to you. There’s blood in your tongue and the metallic taste of it makes your eyes water. You wonder what will happen if you cry. Will they judge you? Will they slap you, like The Man used to do? Maybe they’ll just ignore it. Maybe you can cry just a little bit.

April 1992 You have some faded, almost gone memories of your biological parents. Immigrants, struggling. They did their best to survive. That’s about it. Somehow, sometime, they got themselves into a mess and The Man pulled them out of it. They owed him. And since they didn’t have money... he took something else from them. You. You never found out if he took you away from them forcefully or if they gave in and let you go willingly. You remember your mother’s last wet kiss against your forehead, as if tears were running down her cheeks. Then training began. You worked in the morning and begged in the afternoon. In exchange you got food, a space on the factory floor and a moth eaten blanket. If you didn’t work you didn’t get any of that, you had to sleep outside. Where anyone could get you, The Man always said. “And then you’d have it much worse than here, boy. That’s for sure.”

March 1999 One night you startle awake, a nightmare too weird to ignore forced you out of sleep. You look around, hoping you didn’t wake anyone else, and your sleepy eyes focus on a pair of moving silhouettes. Maybe if you stay really, really still they won’t see you... but they do. They walk over to you and invite you to go with them. You hesitate, but you’ve never felt like you’re a part of anything before and you’d like to know what it feels like. They’re older, sixteen and seventeen. Looking for real jobs, they say. You’d don’t get what it means. When they ask for your name and you fail to give them one they start calling you “the kid”. It makes sense to you, sometimes they even call you boy too.

October 1997 You found some old books by an alley. The box where they were was musty and wet. The pages were crusty with dust and other mysterious stains. Still, they seemed special to you, you’d never really owned anything before. At night you found a way to convince some of the older guys to teach you how to read. Just twenty minutes before bed, they’d take turns and you’d give them some of your rations in exchange. Sometimes words are more nurturing than food, it seemed fair to you. Until The Man found out. You’d never seen him so angry at you, not even when you were younger and you’d cry on the job. He destroyed the books, you lost the chance to get more than one meal a day for a week. And he gave you a more permanent reminder of what would happen if you tried ”a stupid stunt like that again. Work or die out there, alone. Your choice boy.” You hid what remained of the books and didn’t dare look at them again.

August 1999 When you stated hanging out with them you knew you were probably making a mistake. You barely got by as it was and now you were losing sleep. You got less work done and less food in return. But it was... fun. You were always the lookout. They would steal some liquor or cigarettes and you’d stand outside and scream if you saw anyone coming. Sometimes they even stole some snack for you. But then everything went wrong. They lost control and they hurt someone, and when you saw them running away you tried to go after them. But they were older, taller and faster... and they didn’t wait for you. The police found you a couple of blocks down and the storeowner identified you. Little did you know then that this was actually the best thing that could’ve happened to you.

August 30th, 1999 When they pick you up you hardly believe your eyes. When you see the house on the Hill you’re sure you must be dreaming. This can’t really be your life now, can it? With time you will come to realize living in the Athanas house is not just a blessing, it comes with a curse too. But still, it seems like heaven to you compared to what could’ve been. The man that greets you is tall and imposing. There’s something about him that immediately calls for respect, but it also calls to some deeply buried part of you that yearns to impress him. You need him to think you’re worthy.  He welcomes you to his house and then proceeds to tell you his rules. Your chores. What you should do, what you need to learn. You pay a lot of attention to him and nod your head at everything. You’ll do whatever it takes to stay here. Then comes the question you’d feared.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“I... um, my name? Well...”

He says he will call you Remy. And suddenly that’s who you are. That’s who you’ve always been and who you dream to become at the same time. You have a name and it’s more than you could have ever asked for. It’s the best birthday present anyone could have given you.

May 2006 You’re walking through the house, your mind doing it’s usual run over everything that needs to be done and should be happening. You’re humming softly to yourself. A noise brings you out of your mental reverie and you notice Belva running outside. The wind is in her hair and her laughter fills your ears. Florence is watching her too, sitting near her and braiding a flower crown. A soft warmth fills your heart and moves through your whole body. In that moment you feel completely content. The calm smile remains as you walk over to the library, you promised to help Cassia and Horatio with their homework.

December 2001 Your laugh rises over the trees and you feel like it could reach the sky. You turn towards Mom and smile as you finish folding the picnic blanket. Today everyone wanted to have lunch outside and you helped her set up, now you’re picking everything up. She seems distracted, and you know this isn’t unusual for her, but you’re happy she’s still present enough to laugh at your bad jokes. She runs her fingers through your hair as you walk into the house and you lean into the touch, enjoying as much of it as you can. Then you go check on kids, you know you have to look after them. You like to do it. 

July 2014 You look at the clock and are surprised to realize you and Pacifico have been talking for hours, way into the night. It’s not the first time it’s happened and you’re happy to know it probably isn’t the last. He’s telling you about fishing, about the calm and patience it requires. About how you need to learn to wait and carefully keep control in the meantime. Maybe someday, when he gets a day off, you can both go. You’ve never seen a body of water big enough to fish in, but in that moment you decide you already love it. You never took that fishing trip...

2019 You’ve been struggling with finding yourself now more than ever. You always did have trouble identifying and adequately classifying your fears and emotions. So you simply tried to counteract them with logic. It usually worked. When it didn’t, you made sure you were alone to let it all out. Now even that certainty has been taken from you. All you used to believe you were, everything you thought you needed to do. The boy you were and the man you’ve become are not enough to make ends meet and you’re wondering what’s missing and how to find it. 

And amidst all of this confusion one more thing stands out: all this time you thought you were important to him. You thought you mattered to him, maybe not as much as your work, but... did you ever matter at all? What was real and what wasn’t? What parts of you are truly yours and which are just a cog in the well-oiled machine you willed yourself to become for him? Even as these questions rage through your mind, even as your horror over the murder and everything that’s followed corrodes it, you can’t hate him. You can resent him but you could never hate him. Because Vidal Athanas gave you a purpose, a life. But more than that, he gave you something no one else could. He gave you a name, and with that he gave you an identity. And a life to live with it.

[mewmewnyaart]

I'm not very good at drawing horror and blood but I recently have been getting into OFF lately so I figured I'd try to draw batter to pratice lighting and shadows

I also made my own au where batter and hugo switch places but I doubt anyone would like it or even read it heck I couldn't even get a single like on any of my posts

But here I go anyway :

So common belief that the world of OFF isnt real and that its all happening inside Hugo's head because hugo is in a comma and that the batter resembles the father and the queen resembles the mother

And that the guardians are the boy's immune system and organs that are intolerant to the drug liquid plastic that is being experimented on hugo

The mother was always a working woman and never gave hugo attention while the dad was a straight forward and loving man (I also have a personal theory that he's religious)

The mother wants hugo to live but the father wants to let the boy die because he's tired of seeing his own child in pain everyday

Ok now that I have that out of the way here's my au:

In this au its the father that ends up in a comma and hugo is the one who tries to save him from dying

Backstory to how the dad ended up in a comma:

Hugo in this au is healthy and lives a normal life the father was once a baseball player (as a hobby) so hugo got inspired by his dad and started to take baseball classes at his school

One day the dad was dropping hugo off for baseball practice and while waving goodbye while slowly moving out of the parking lot a reckless older student who wasn't looking quickly backs up his truck hitting the father and sending him into a comma

Ok now for the characters:

We enter the game as hugo and we are greeted by the judge and we start our journey of "purifying" the world just like batter

The enemies represent different family members who dislike or or even hate the father and the father's phobias or fears as well as microbes or poisons in the father's system

Then we have other characters like pets,neighbors,friends who are good guys or people who side with hugo in the this au

Also the puzzles would changed in this au

Hugo is a child and the father would probably play alot with hugo and his games since the mother was always busy ,so instead of floating boxes we'd get more complicated versions of kids puzzles like connect the dots or fill in the shapes etc.

Now for who each character represents and then I'll move on to what the goal of the game is or what Hugo's mission is:

Hugo= he represents the son in real life but he also resembles a new antibiotic that's being experimented on the father

The judge = in real he's the family house cat named milk ingame he's a guide but I have my own head canon

so alot of people tend to draw batter with his eyes closed some draw 4 eyes some draw no eyes at all

I like to think that the father irl has bad eye sight or sensitive eyes so he wears special glasses but will not wear any glasses when at home because he doesn't like to so he will walk around with his eyes closed

So milk will guide him throughout the house by purring or meowing at him

As for the smile the judge has on his face hugo likes the movie Alice in wonderland over and over so the image of the Cheshire cat would be embedded in the dad's memory which is why the judge appears that way

He views the judge as someone who is helpful

The queen = the queen is his wife however they start to have alot of problems and arguments before the father fell in a comma

And the relatives try to convince her to turn off the life support and move on with life

Dedan= irl he's the father's brother in law with a snappy attitude and he hates the father alot and even objected in thier wedding day he will do anything to hurt the father or cause trouble

The father sees his brother in law nothing more than a all bark no bite a big mouth

Japhet= in real life is the lady that lives next door (yes I KNOW japhet is male but he's based off if her in the father's head)

She's is very controlling person who enjoys gossip and can't mind her own business always sticking her nose where she can as well as pushing everyone around she does everything she can to get attention and impress people and she's flirted with the father mutiple times but she's ignored her every time

She has very loud and noisy birds and has killed thier other family cat Venice saying that she did it as self defense (Venice is Valerie basically)

The father views her as a parasite

Enoch= he resembles another dad that takes his kid to baseball practice but is in bad terms with the mother and will constantly pick on hugo for fun

He assumes if the father approaches him its because his wife told him to do so

and will constantly say that his child and wife are happy ,living a life with no problems thinking that he's got life figured out

Even though its clear that his son isn't enjoying baseball at all, is quite over wieght as well as his wife ignores him all the time not to mention he's constantly eating meaning that he has some sort of food addiction it seems he sees no irony in his life at all

The father sees him as an irresponsible over wieght person who's always lying to himself and to blind to see the truth thinking that his life is ok when it's clearly not

Zacharie = irl he's the father's best friend since middle school and they've known each other for years he was the best man at the wedding he's bisexual and in a relationship with a girl named sweetie (please don't hate me batterie shippers QWQ!) He used to crush on the father and even confessed to him on the wedding day he was heartbroken but accepted that the relationship was never gonna happen and was even mad at his best friend but realized it was wrong of him to feel that way

He eventually moves on

He likes to bring and buy alot stuff and show them to his best pal later somegimes illegal stuff (he even brought weed over one time oh boy) he's like an uncle to hugo and is always happy to help and defend his best friend no matter what

He views him as a brother and family member aswell as a very optimistic chill dude and will jokingly refer to him as "the merchant"

Sugar: irl she's zacharie's gf (before her he had 2 toxic exes and she helped him out of those toxic relationships) she and the father don't really talk all that much so he knows little to absolutely nothing about her aside from the fact that she likes to talk funny sometimes and is really into dolls and aliens and a slight addiction to eating pixie straws (straws filled with powered candy or sugar)

He views her as a silent person nothing much

The elsens= they are the people that the father meets/sees/interacts with everyday/every once in a while but don't have much of a connection with (you know like a co worker you have small talk with or barely ever see)

Now for the plot :

After the father enters a comma the son starts to go from school to the hospital (they're very close to each other and you can say hugo is 5-7 years old and ) and visits his dad everyday and calls out to him hoping it'd wake him up

The mother scolds him for running off without super vision and that his dad won't wake up if he keeps calling him that whatever he does is useless that his father will remain to be a lifeless bag of meat on a bed

Hugo doesn't give up ignoring his mother's words

She realizes that hugo has an obsession with his unconscious father that is affecting his studies along with his social life

Zacharie doesn't make this any better because he offers to pick up hugo after school to prevent him from getting abducted or lost along with his jokes all the time

She slowly starts to Contemplate turning off the life support machine wondering if it would fix everything

Hugo hasn't been paying attention in class and thier marriage has been having a issues lately her family never liked or accepted him she sees zacharie and others as annoying and problems bringers and maybe they'd have less expenses if hugo didn't have to go to baseball pratice every day not to mention he'd less likely get hurt if he stopped playing

Everyone else started to convince her to turn off life support they discuss this next to the unconscious father

She prevents zacharie from seeing hugo and locks out any other connections the fatehr has

finally she becomes convinced however there's 1 barrier preventing her from doing that.....Hugo

The only person who truly gives hugo attention and love is his father without his father he'd feel lost and scared his mother is always working and doesn't give him much attention

Everyone tells him to give up on his dad and move on but hugo stands his ground

Alot of the arguments and conversations happen in the hospital room next to the father so he hears everything in his comma which leads to the creation of the world of OFF in his head

Therefore we play as hugo through out the game (dressed in a baseball outfit) solving puzzles and fighting enemies "purifying" the world

Not much changes the boss battles the add ons etc. Will remain the same in this au

Maybe there will be more rubber duck /duck/ bird themed stuff in this au aside from the pedalos (ex:move the boxes to make them look like a duck idk lol)

However the final boss will change

Canonly batter is stopped by the judge but in this au the judge sides with hugo because its the queen (the mother) who is trying to turn the switch off and hugo is trying to prevent that

So instead of the judge stopping hugo

Hugo will meet the queen, she will tell him to halt and not bother going any further that her intentions will not change hugo will begin to tell her off everything she's done wrong she will respond saying that she's doing it for thier sake (Hugo's and her's) but hugo calls her out and tells her its not true and she loses her patience with him leading to a boss fight if hugo wins then she will refer to him as "my little sweetheart" and fade into dust

"The room" will also change instead of hugo it'll be his dad (the batter)chained to a wall (basically a prisoner in his own mind) hugo will take 1 step forward activating a trap causing him to plummet down a tube and fall unconscious for a few minutes

When he wakes up he sees the queen and all the guardians standing before him the queen states that he can give up or die trying then she speaks to the puppeteer (the player) the you are given 2 options

1.aide with the queen

2.side with hugo

If you side with the queen you will have the guardians ok your side then Hugo's appearance will change as well he will appear to have a large head with a huge gaping mouth a baby rattle and apron and speech bubbles that say "wah wah" "whine whine" (stating that his mother sees him as a cry baby)

If you defeat hugo then the switch is immediately turned off and it gives 1 out of the 2 bad endings this ending is called "check mate" as a reference to a queen from chess

If you side with hugo then you will be defeated but you won't get a game over yet instead the queen will give you 1 last chance

Then you are given 3 options

1."surrender" 2."gasp for help" 3."cry"

If you choose surrender then you will get the 2nd bad ending in which in life support is turned off the father dies hugo becomes lonely with his mother busy all the time (and not allowing him out side the house and not trusting people) which leads to hugo growing up cold,plain and unloving

At some point there's a scene where adult hugo stares at his old mother laying on the kitchen floor in pain for a few minutes instead of helping her immediately indicating that he doesn't care

If you choose "gasp for help" then you will get the good ending "aye batta batta,strike!" In which hugo will call for help (while in deep pain from the fight) after a few calls judge,zacharie,sugar and a few elsens will come to the rescue and revive you fighting by your side allowing you to defeat the queen and guardians

Everything slowly starts to go back and the father wakes up from his comma everyone in the room stares in shock but hugo had the biggest smile on his face while standing next to his dad's bed "did...I miss something?"

"...daddy *breaks into tears*"

The 3rd ending called "better late than never" is triggered when you choose "cry"

Hugo will cry very loudly

The mother changes her mind and doesn't turn off life support but hugo stops visiting his dad and similar to the 2nd bad ending hugo grows up to be cold and unloving 13-16 years later hugo visits his father again and he finally wakes up from his comma and is discharged from the hospital after 1 year of rehabilitation therapy

By now the mother had remarried and the father missed his son's childhood so now he has to relive his life

However hugo meets a girl who is a complete opposite to him at work and church (rainbow hair,optimistic,enjoys music of various kinds,loves cute things,baking,jokes,and artist etc.) And is forced to work with her as well as she tries to get Hugo's attention so he asks his father for advice on how to get rid of this woman which leads to alot stuff going on and hugo allowing how to love and live life leading him to falling in love with the girl and becoming a new man

(This is personally my favorite ending lol and I MIGHT write fanfic of it on wattpad or here idk tbh )

Anyway this my OFF au I GUESS the name can change to the ON au or OFF/ON au lmao idk

Reblogs and feed back is appreciated

PLEASE DONT STEAL MY AU i worked hard on this thing spent 5 hours to write it all

Heh I sat this as of anyone is even gonna read whatever I dount it'll get noticed at all

[high5nerd]

Alone Together---Chap. Nineteen

A second reminder that this fic is 100% abandoned, apologies in advance if that puts a downer on my fellow Pitch Black fans.

Sadie was the only source besides calendars that told me that time had passed. Not only would she vocally shout all over the house what holiday it was or what special occassion was going to happen, but the little girl at age ten overtime turned fourteen.

And boy what a brat she can be.

She gave me that sigh with the roll of the eyes teenage girls do. Alice thought it was hysterical but me? I just wanted to smack it off of her! Giving me attitude, why, if I gave my parents attitude I'd be spanked with a paddle or hit with the back of my mother's hand.

But other than her attitude I can understand where she's coming from. She's wanting more independence, she's growing up.

Why does that remind me of Jack Frost? Ugh…

Luckily her age hadn't deterred her belief in me, because she told me straight up one Sunday afternoon, "It's a known fact you're real. Why wouldn't I believe in you?"

Sadie still retained that childlike demeanor, however. White was still her favorite color, she got excited over the smallest positive thing, she still begged for things like she did when she was ten, and once or twice I'd catch her playing with the mirror by making faces to it. To the point where it was actually sort of amusing.

...Don't tell Alice Sadie and I both were making faces in the mirror. It was raining outside and we were bored.

Sadie had grown into a smart young lady, and unlike Alice where patience was her center, Sadie...was a nutcase. Okay, that's putting it harshly. Her center clearly revolved around passion. I'm not meaning the romantic type, I mean passion for things like freedom and equality and justice.

One night after a snowstorm, a few weeks into January, Alice and I were in her room-don't think too hard on that-and Sadie was in the living room watching television. Out of nowhere, she started screaming in fury, "Damn right you're sent to prison! For corrupting your fellow politicians and bringing your town to shame, you asshole! Go to jail so some big guy with an ugly tattoo will make you his bitch!"

Alice looked at me with narrow eyes and folded her arms after Sadie's rant, "Now. Where did she learn that language?"

"The school bus." My response was a little too quick.

I think Sadie has heard me drop a few phrases of curses here and there. Bitch is her favorite word. Alice heard her swearing up a storm once she actually slapped the back of her head with a magazine and told her if she didn't stop she'll kick her outside until dusk.

Having a teenager around certainly was different than a child, despite keeping some childish traits. Sadie no longer was short and no longer had those cheeks with baby fat. She was slender, almost like Alice but not exactly her height yet. Sadie let her hair grow all the way down her back, preferring to have it in one long braid or just loose. She grew an interest in what's called...boho? No. Bohemian? I can't recall, but her choice of apparel was very grunge and artist like, and she loved clothings from different cultures, like Nepal and India.

Tooth would like her for her interest and passion in other cultures. Sadie would grow up to be a fine worker of international relations and activist. But so far Sadie's only interest is her family, friends, and her art and history classes at school. Good thing she's keen on her studies. As long as I'm around, no student's going to be slacking off in my presence.

Sure enough, Sadie's birthday would be rolling around and she'll be turning fifteen, and older and older she'll get along with Alice.

That scared me to death, knowing that they're aging and I'm not. What will I become when they're in their sixties? Just...just a memory? A daydream that they wish was still around? Even if I was I would feel so guilty for not doing something. It's not like I could give them immortality.

Or maybe...or maybe I can!

I was walking through the woods when I was deep in thought, waiting for the girls to come home from a party. I physically stopped at the idea.

"That's it! That's exactly what I could do! I could go to one of the older spirits and beg for them to become immortal! They'd have to agree to that!" I almost jumped in a circle with excitement and started gloating to myself, "Oh, you've done it now, Pitch! Wait until they hear this plan, it's brilliant!"

"Not so brilliant, I'm afraid."

...That better not be who I think it is.

Sure enough, it was. Jack Frost. Jack...Fucking...Frost. Whoop dee doo. I rolled my eyes as I saw him lying on his back on a tree branch, freezing autumn leaves solid with his toes.

Now it's time to take my leave.

Just as I was about to head out of the forest and to the house again, I heard Jack call, "Wait, Pitch!"

"What?!" I turned to snarl at him.

He wasn't phased by my bite. He looked awkward with his shepherd's crook behind his back as he walked towards my place. He looked pitiful. What an idiot.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to barge in on your thoughts." he tried holding out his hand, but I hid mine behind my back. No way am I touching him. No.

"Why are you even here? Spying on me…" I grumbled, looking away.

Jack sighed and switched his grip to his left hand with the wooden staff, kicking up leaves as we walked towards the house. I really didn't want him following me. I'd rather have Sandy around griping at me than this mixed bag of nuts.

"Well, I wanted to see what you do on a daily basis with Alice and Sadie. Since Jamie's all grown up and goodness knows where, I thought I'd observe how you-"

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" I stopped him, staring at him in horror, "Who told you?! My business with the girls was only known between me and…"

Jack grinned, liking the look on my face that went from confusion to absolute anger. I growled and looked up at the sky, "That little dust bin is dead."

"Pitch, it's okay," Jack hopped into the sky and flew in front of me as I started storming forward, "He explained everything. I mean it, everything. Sure, North wasn't too pleased and Bunny was pretty pissed, but I get it."

I looked at him oddly, "You...you do?"

Now I know Jack Frost. I think you know I know Jack Frost. He's my enemy, of course, and nothing would change that. Yes, I was very skeptical and very guarded by his odd sense of kindness he was showing me. I thought any second he'd whip out a snowball and pelt me, or make some snide comment about my defeat and then take off before I could break his spine in half. I knew he was capable of immense power if he summed up enough of it, I knew he makes a mess wherever he goes, I knew he was trouble, a mischief maker, and adores children.

But I didn't know he'd side with me on the fight Sandy and I had.

"Sure," he shrugged, "Granted, you're a lying, slimy asshat and I could never forgive you for nearly destroying us," that made me cringe, but he continued, "But I understood where you were coming from when you stood up to Sandy."

"Really." I asked doubtfully, giving him a suspicious eye.

He held up his hands honestly, "Really. There are times I wish I had connections like you have with them. I get it, caring about family. You love them. It's not that hard to understand."

I must've given some sort of look that I still wasn't trusting him, that he could freeze me any second because he sighed in defeat and dropped back down to the ground, putting his hands in his hoodie.

"I suck at apologies, alright? I'm not going to say it. But because you've helped us gain some belief by Alice...well, we're neutral. Ish."

I scoffed, folding my arms. "Fine. I only did it for Alice, not for you."

"And Sadie." Jack grinned widely.

That made me smirk. "Yes, and Sadie."

"Hey, speaking of Sadie, how's she doing? Sandy's missed her a lot. He's changed these past couple of years."

I folded my hands behind my back as we walked towards the house, the lights all on and noises of cookery sounding inside. Frost walked along side, a hidden smile on his face that I hadn't noticed yet.

"She's doing well. She's grown up, very independent," I smirked at him, "Like you."

"Cool," Frost grinned up at me, "Does she know I exist?"

I nodded slowly, and that made him excited. Can't say I blame him, the euphoric feeling of belief was always welcome no matter what age someone was at. He continued to show interest in my girls, mostly about what they do on a daily basis. I told him Alice's job, Sadie's excellent skills in school, and Alice's support of the family. She was like the roman pillar that held up the roof when the other two cracked to ruins, and how she was allowing me to help her with some of the weight. Especially since Sadie's a rowdy teenager, it was more hectic than ever. Her energy was like dealing with three crazy triplets of little Sadie's.

"So, back to your 'immortality' thing," Frost started, swinging his staff over his shoulder.

"Yes, you bluntly said it wasn't a good idea. Shouldn't I know that better than you?" I sneered at him, but he shrugged.

"You should, but I get that you're desperate."

I glared at him, "I'm not desperate."

Frost gave me a knowing look, clearly stating that I was. I growled and looked away, muttering, "Fine. What's your reasoning? Not like I want to hear it."

Frost simply started anyways despite me making it clear I didn't care what he thought, "Well, for starters you don't want to go around telling other spirits you're in this predicament. Secondly, there's no spirit besides Man in Moon that can do that, and I doubt he'll listen to you since he's the one that made the rules."

"Damn…" I muttered, looking up at the sky. No moon out, but that didn't mean he wasn't watching.

"How long have you and Alice been together? Like, four years?" he asked.

I groaned, wishing his incessant chattering would stop. Now I was glad he never joined my side against the Guardians because this little brat talked up a storm, more than Sadie could ever in a lifetime. He continued on about how I was wasting my breath and time, and that sooner or later Alice is going to find someone else that won't be immortal.

Well that topic made me panic again. Hey, I had a reason to snap at him.

"Will you shut up already?!" I snapped at him.

But at the last moment, at the edge of the forest, I saw a sight that could never be erased from my memory. Jack stood still, looking between me and the two people outside. He finally rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, as if he knew the entire story I was watching.

Sandy was there. So was Sadie, and by her face she was genuinely surprised seeing him.

Jack wasn't kidding. Sandy really had changed. Mostly in physical appearance. He was taller, just inches taller than Sadie herself. He must've morphed his form during those four years, and believe me that metamorphosis for a spirit takes ages to do. How he was able to gain energy while transforming his body in just a minimum of four years, I had no idea.

His face was less round than before and his nose was more humanly sculpted, but nonetheless he was still recognizable. His sand body gave an appearance of Indian trousers and the signature folded jacket he had, and his shoes curled.

He...he didn't do all this for Sadie...did he?

I looked at Jack, who winced. "You don't mind I was a distraction, right?"

I growled, "I'll kill you later."

Not wanting to watch this display, nor embarrass Sadie with whatever she was discussing with Sandy, I melted into the shadows. Finally, away from Jack Frost.

Sadie stared, open mouthed. She looked Sandy up and down for the third time. Despite being known as a loud talkative person, no words could describe how she was feeling or what she wanted to say to him. She wanted to hug him and cry because she's missed him so long, she wanted to laugh because of the absurdity of her silence, she wanted to punch Sandy in the stomach for skipping out on her for four freaking years when she needed him most.

"You're...you're back." she stammered, looking into his golden eyes.

He shyly smiled and nodded, looking up through his lashes like a puppy. Sadie found it too adorable for her own good.

I never really left. He touched her hand, but she withdrew. She couldn't look at him, just at the wooden fence of the patio.

"No. You left. Four years and I was alone when I needed you most," Sadie said, looking at the ground with bitterness, "I told you how I felt when I was ten years old and you left because you were disgusted with me."

His fingertips touched her mouth, silencing her. She looked up at him, still angry. He looked mournful, like four years of regret and guilt were finally pouring out of him.

I left for bad reasons that I thought were in the name of your safety. It's bad for humans to love spirits-

"Big excuse," she muttered under his fingertips, "Pitch broke that rule and he's still around. Why couldn't you?"

Because you were young. There were other boys more worthy than me, and I misjudged your feelings as just childish crushing. Sadie, I really did care about you. Do. Why do you think you've never had a single nightmare despite practically living with the Boogeyman?

Sadie couldn't think of a response fast enough for Sandy's liking, so he continued. Now he wasn't just signing or having text float above his head, he was mouthing it. Sadie knew how to lip read, thank goodness for Sandy. She knew sign language as well, mostly from school, but Sandy was too desperate to sign everything that was on his mind.

I never left, Sadie. Physically I did but I would never leave you in any other way. I kept my promise that you would be safe. I always will-

"That's not enough, Sandy," Sadie broke away from him, fighting back tears, "You left for four years. I missed you. I almost gave up on you. But I couldn't, because I really did care about you."

Sandy stepped forward, But-

"But nothing!" Sadie yelled, tears building up in her blue eyes, "You hurt me worse than you thought, Sanderson. I needed you around. I'm still that outcast at school with minimal friends because I still believe in childish fantasies. You never kept me safe in daylight, only when I was asleep! At school I'm harassed by jocks and ridiculed by the teachers for being too liberal and independent. Who was I to go to when I cried? Who could I have possibly gone to that knew how to comfort me and be there?"

Sandy looked down at his slippers, ashamed.

"I couldn't go to Pitch because he'd be angry. Not at me, but he'd go after people and punish them, and the last thing I would want is for people to get hurt because of me. I couldn't go to Alice because she'd try to reason with me why maybe I'm the victim and she ends up sounding like the teachers. You were the only one I knew that let me cry on your shoulder when I needed it, you were there every moment I needed you…"

Sadie's voice fell...she couldn't go on. She didn't have the heart to. Tears were running down her face, and she stubbornly wiped them away, angry at herself for being so weak. Selfish! Self centered! She scolded herself, You make this all about you! How DARE you! How could you do that to him!?

She cried. She tried holding it back, but those four years of loneliness came rushing forth in the form of her tears, and she couldn't stop it. Horrible flashbacks of her lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for those dreamsand images to come hurt her. The images of her writing letters to Sandy she'll never send before throwing them into the trash, of drawing his face until it burned into her brain, thinking that if he had a voice what would it sound like? Lulling and soothing? Musical? Gravely and tough?

Gentle hands touched the sides of her cheekbones, and she looked up, not expecting to see Sandy's face close to hers, noses almost touching.

Without a warning, he softly kissed her, soft as a butterfly's touch. It was one of those kisses that was so gentle it made her heart soar that her wish was fulfilled.

His kiss lingered before he pulled away, looking into her eyes and letting his thumb wipe away her tears.

Do you accept my apology?

Sadie stared at him, not fully processing what was happening. When her brain finally comprehended Sandman's kiss, she clung to him in a tight hug. His arms wrapped around her, gently rubbing her back in circles.

"Don't leave me again. Promise."

Under Man in Moon's watch, I promise.

[woolishlygrim]

Winter Weebwatch #1

So, because it is Good when I get to have opinions about things, I figured I’d try out doing a bunch of mini-reviews for the current season of anime, doing a new batch of reviews with each episode and seeing how they evolve and change over time, whether some do better, or some fall behind, or if I end up dropping any of them (and by any of them, I mean Plunderer).

The winter anime season is kind of a dead zone: Since it starts in January when everybody’s starting to get busy again and Christmas has screwed over their sense of work-life balance, it’s the season with the lowest amount of viewers, and so it’s the season where the shows tend to be noticeably low effort and low budget. It’s telling that, despite having huge franchises with a lot of brand recognition, Sunrise and A-1 Pictures put Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise and Sword Art Online on hiatus for the entirety of the winter season, choosing to take the hit that comes from a three month hiatus instead of wasting twelve or thirteen episodes on the Death Season, The Season Where Shows Go To Die.

So by and large, what we’re reviewing here are either the shows distribution companies didn’t care about, or the shows distribution companies did care about but couldn’t get a channel to pick up in any other season. We’re also not reviewing all of them, because there’s like ninety and my store of time and opinions is finite, so we’re reviewing seven.

While the intention is to follow these seven shows through to the end, what will probably happen is I might drop a couple that aren’t keeping my interest, and pick up a couple that catch my eye. If I pick up new ones, then whatever I pick up will get some kind of bumper review covering several episodes.

Also, I really dragged my heels getting this done, so most of these shows have already aired their second episodes. I’ll be trying to put out the second episode reviews a lot quicker, so that I can be relatively current by the time the third episodes roll around.

Anyway! Week 1, first episodes.

Infinite Dendrogram.

★★★☆☆

Infinite Dendrogram has a terrible and ridiculous premise that crumbles into dust if you examine it for more than 0.2 seconds, and I kind of don’t mind that at all.

The show follows Ray Starling, a player in the titular Virtual Reality MMO, which promises infinite possibilities owing to its two unique selling points: The first, that all the NPCs are fully-fledged AIs, meaning the world ‘exists’ distinct from its players or any manned oversight, with quests emerging naturally from the NPCs’ wants and needs, and with NPCs able to permanently die; and the second, that each player character has an Embryo, a superpower generated using their personality as a model, with infinite possibilities.

This is an inconceivably dumb premise. Leaving aside the obvious game balance issues with the Embryos, it’s clarified early on that this AI technology is unique to the game, which means that some game company discovered the technology to create fully conscious, sapient life, and decided to use that technology to create a video game (and in doing so, directly led to the deaths of thousands of those sapient lives).

But I … kinda don’t care? Infinite Dendrogram’s episode was fun, lively, not terribly original but consistently engaging, and managed to introduce five characters who I actually kind of like while telling a self-contained episodic story with good stakes and nice pacing. It feels like Sword Art Online if Sword Art Online was written by a competent writer and also not just a delivery system for creepy, irritating fanservice, and that’s pretty nice.

Also, bonus points for actually making the in-universe game look fun? We’ll call that one another advantage it has over SAO.

ID: Invaded.

★★★★☆

ID: Invaded has indisputably the strongest first episode of this season of anime (really first two, as it aired both episodes one and two back to back), by a gigantic margin. A video called ‘Defending ID: Invaded’ floated by my youtube dash a few days back, so clearly some people don’t agree with me on that, but that’s fine. It’s okay for them to be wrong.

When ID: Invaded picks up, a young man awakens in an empty white void full of floating chunks of a city, with his own body in pieces and no memories. Pulling himself back together, he realises, upon seeing a dead body of a young woman, that his name is Sakaido, and he’s a detective here to solve the woman’s murder.

Sakaido, it quickly turns out, is exploring a cognitive world formed out of a telepathic link with the killer, with a team of investigators in the real world watching through his eyes and picking out evidence to find the murderer with. When the murderer, a serial killer called the Perforator, kidnaps a member of the investigation team, the race is on to find him before he can kill again.

So, ID: Invaded has kind of mastered the art of dripfeeding information in a way that gets a viewer hooked very quickly while steadily delivering a series of twists and turns, and recontextualising the story and the mystery (which, it rapidly emerges, is not the mystery of the Perforator, but rather the mystery of Sakaido himself). It’s gripping and inventive, with a strong if slightly convoluted premise and a lot of interesting material to set up going forward in the series.

In a nice touch, director Ei Aoki turns the mental worlds Sakaido visits (two in the first two episodes) into homages to other surrealist anime directors, mimicking both their compositions and their cinematography. The world of the Perforator draws marked influence from the works of Mamoru Hosoda, an apprentice of Hayao Miyazaki and one of the original creators of Digimon Adventure; while the second world visited pays homage to the works of Akiyuki Shinbo, best known for the unsettling surrealist landscapes and equally unsettling cinematography of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/Extra Last Encore.

Pet.

★☆☆☆☆

Pet looks like a cheap OVA from 2004. Let’s just get that out of the way, it looks bad, but in a really inoffensive way where it just kind of looks cheap and outdated.

It’s … fine. It’s okay. If you’ve ever had a Burger King bacon and cheese burger, you basically know what Pet is like. If you haven’t ever had a Burger King bacon and cheese burger, go and have a Burger King bacon and cheese burger, and then you’ll know what Pet is like.

The first episode doesn’t really give away anything about the premise of the series, save that it involves psychic criminals, but it tells a decent self-contained little story about a guy who learns something he shouldn’t and is then psychic-ly tormented before his memory is eventually wiped.

There’s also just not a lot to say about Pet, though. It fulfills its function as a work of storytelling, and it doesn’t really ever do much more than that, at least in its first episode. It finds its comfortable niche in just being very average and unremarkable, and sticks there, being average and unremarkable.

Of all the first episodes I’m reviewing, Pet seems the most passionless. It’s such a middle of the road piece of art that I struggle to imagine why it was even made. It doesn’t seem like it’s trying to sell merchandise, it doesn’t seem like a passion project, it doesn’t really seem like much of anything. It feels like someone asked a creative writing class to write a short story about psychic criminals, and then one of those stories was turned into an anime episode.

Plunderer.

☆☆☆☆☆

Plunderer offers a moderately interesting premise that literally nobody watching the first episode will even remember because oh good god, from the second scene onwards the entire episode is just non-stop sexual harassment and assault, first from the protagonist to the deuteragonist and then from the antagonist to the deuteragonist, and I hated it. I hated it so much.

In a bizarre turn, when the protagonist sexually harasses and attempts to sexually assault the deuteragonist, it’s played as wacky comedy, but when the antagonist does basically the exact same thing, it’s played with all the sense of horror that those actions warrant.

I just … don’t really get how I’m meant to ever sympathise with the protagonist after this. I don’t know how you rehabilitate a character in the audience’s minds when our very first introduction to him tells us that he’s a sex pest.

Also something something numbers something something die if your number reaches zero something something magical items who even cares what the premise is, my patience for this show ran dry thirty seconds into the second scene.

If I had a way of representing it, I would give this first episode a negative number of stars.

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

★★★☆☆

Let it just be noted that ‘Sorcerous Stabber Orphen’ is the most unintentionally hilarious anime title of the season, so there’s that.

A remake of a 1999 series of the same name, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen follows Orphen, a disgraced former sorcerer turned small-time crook and moneylender whose ill-advised attempt to commit marriage fraud is abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a dragon crashing through the roof of his potential bride/mark’s house. This isn’t just any dragon, however, but Orphen’s sister, Azalie, magically transformed after a spell gone wrong, leading Orphen on a quest to turn her back into a human before the sorcerers of the Tower of Fang can kill her.

Side note: While he names himself ‘Orphen’ because he is an orphan, I’m not misspelling the name, that’s how it’s spelled in-show. This is everybody’s fault except mine.

So, this first episode rather shows the age of its source material. It looks very much like a spruced up late 90s anime made with current day animation techniques, and that’s actually not a bad look for it. It’s also not really a good look -- Megalo Box this ain’t -- it’s just kind of a … look. Which is there. It exists in a state of Neutral Retro.

As first episodes go, though, this is probably one of the emptier and slower ones, somehow managing to cover less of its plot than even Plunderer (although it wins out on a massive margin the basis of that plot not being 90% sex crimes), because seemingly not only is its animation style cribbed from late 90s action anime, but so is its pacing.

What’s there, though, is pretty fun. None of it is dazzlingly original, it probably wasn’t that original even in the 90s, but we get introduced to a likeable cast of characters, we get a decent central conflict set up, and the worldbuilding is, while bare bones at present, at least interesting enough to hook a viewer who likes fantasy.

Also, it’s called ‘Sorcerous Stabber Orphen,’ so, you know. Extra star just for that, man.

In/Spectre.

★★☆☆☆

I’m not sure what In/Spectre is trying to be, and it doesn’t seem to be sure either.

The marketing set it up as an atmospheric, brooding supernatural mystery. The first third of the episode frames it as a romantic comedy with emphasis on the comedy. The second third of the episode switches back to atmospheric, brooding supernatural mystery, only for the third third of the episode to switch tracks yet again, this time to an action comedy with an emphasis on the action.

I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with this show. I get mood whiplash constantly, as it veers from genre to genre like a drunk driver on the freeway. By the time the last third of the episode hit, I felt completely unmoored not just from the plot, but from how I was even meant to interpret the characters.

It’s not bad at any of those genres, either. The romantic comedy section was actually pretty funny, the supernatural mystery section was suitably ominous, the action comedy section established stakes and followed through on them pretty well. None of it was blow-me-away-amazing, but it was all competent, it’s just that there’s no coherent sense of tone to any of it.

Darwin’s Game.

★☆☆☆☆

Full disclosure, I completely forgot I was watching Darwin’s Game. I finished these reviews, thought ‘haha, well done, I’ve reviewed all six shows I wanted to review’ and didn’t remember that there was a seventh on my list until I saw its name come up on a streaming website.

That’s a large part of why I’m scoring it so low. It’s better than In/Spectre, Pet, or Plunderer, it’s probably at least as good as Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, but at least those shows actually made some kind of impression on me. Darwin’s Game is good, but I can’t exactly justify giving two or three stars to a show that had such little impact that it vanished from my memory as soon as I stopped actively watching it with my eyes, like some kind of middling Doctor Who monster.

So, Darwin’s Game follows, um. It follows … a guy … with a name that I can’t recall … who is unwittingly dragged into a death game played in the streets of Tokyo. With each player given Sigils, seemingly magical abilities that they can use to gain advantages in the game, and with points exchangeable for vast sums of real money, the players of Darwin’s Game are set to the task of hunting down and murdering other players. Unable to back out of the game, Some Guy finds help with, er … with … a person … whose name I also don’t recall … and …

God, trying to recall the details of this show is like trying to recall what you had for dinner last week just after a severe head injury. You know, but the details just aren’t there.

I’m kind of at a loss as far as opinions go, because I don’t … know? If I think hard, I can remember the order of events that happened in the first episode, but I can’t remember what, if any, emotional response I had to them. All of my memories of this show are a blank, emotionless void, this is like asking me to review Solitaire. Like, I guess it was fine? I guess? 

I can’t remember the main character’s face or voice.

Note to self, write all Darwin’s Game reviews from now on immediately after watching the episode, otherwise all recollection of it will melt like ice cream in a heat wave.

I’m still giving it one star, though, because I refuse to put it on the same level as Plunderer. For a start, the main character doesn’t belong on some kind of registry.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: Jojo Rabbit

(Photo by Kimberly French courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Special Presentation of the 55th Chicago International Film Festival

JOJO RABBIT— 5 STARS

There is a little recurring action, a motif if you will, in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit that surrounds tying someone else’s shoes. Think for a moment on the intentions behind that little gesture for a moment. Damn near like Christ washing his Apostles’ feet on Good Friday, the act of knotting those troublesome laces is like a bow to lower yourself for someone else. The purpose is to provide soft stability and firm strength for those in need at the place where their feet meet the stalwart steps of their fate. Patience is asked and used to cancel out tedium. The shoe itself doesn’t matter. It could be clown shoes or combat boots, and the paused shared moment of guidance and comforting safety between the helper and the wearer would be the same.

Those beautiful and gracious moments, slowed way down in between all the hustling hilarity in Jojo Rabbit, let you know exactly where the heart of this movie truly lies underneath the scathing satire. It is in the benevolence of helping people rather than warring with them. The titular young boy needs every ounce of such affection and the combat boots of Waititi’s movie are the clown shoes. Gusto meets gravitas in one of the most oddly poetic and beautifully brazen movies you may ever see.

A wonky version of Fox Searchlight’s logo anthem leads to a breakneck German-language rendition of The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (talk about a tone-setter) as we meet Johannes “Jojo” Betzler (the debuting Roman Griffin Davis), a ten-year-old who feels ready to become a man. The ladder in front of him to achieve that belonging sense of mettle is a weekend-long Hitler Youth camp alongside his bespectacled bestie Yorki (scene-stealer Archie Yates). With a Meatballs-level of lampoon, the booze-soaked Captain Klenzendork (Oscar winner Sam Rockwell) and dryly brutal Fräulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson) instruct these girls and boys in the proper indoctrination necessary to fit in.

LESSON #1: BE THE RABBIT — Between the finer points of killing and grenade safety, the training goal is clear. When Jojo won’t snap the neck of a rabbit, he is teased, branded as a fearful coward, and gets sidelined as a gopher and office helper. The symbolism of a rabbit is brave, witty, sneaky, and strong. All of those desirable qualities are present, yet undeveloped in Johannes.

Based on Christine Leunens’ novel “Caging Skies,” all of Jojo Rabbit is presented through this child’s point of view. Molding Jojo’s impressionable moral clay are two presences, one positive and the other toxic. The most well-meaning is his mother Rosie, played Scarlett Johansson. She is a progressive woman challenging the Nazi status quo and secretly hiding a teenage Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin Mackenzie of Leave No Trace) in the attic. Rosie’s advice always brims with encouraging alacrity. Between this and the upcoming Marriage Story, seeing Johansson play a mother is nothing short of an emotional epiphany. This is a side of her that we’ve never seen.

The more damaging voice comes from Jojo’s zealous imaginary friend, the führer himself Adolf Hitler. Played with pure camp by writer-director Taika Waititi, his uncouth false god is a cheerleader of cruelty. No joke is off-limits for his apparition of atrocity. Waititi’s maniacal manifestation is an absolute hoot. For Jojo, Hitler is an idol that is difficult to deny or disbelieve.

LESSON #2: WHEN ACTUALITY HITS — Using the word “reality” in this comical setting is leaping too far. Stick with actuality instead and just look at the objects and actions. Knives hurt people. Grenades explode. Soldiers die. War destroys. Germans are fallible. Jews are regular people too. When the wrongs and horrors of war arrive, the movie shifts. Jojo Rabbit swells and elevates beyond farce with this actuality.

LESSON #3: LEARNING EMPATHY — Rosie motivates love and soothes Jojo’s fears and misguided ambition, but the kinship with Mackenzie’s Elsa is what transforms hearts. Her character is never made the victim and that’s a beautiful, confident condition to maintain. Befriending the trapped refugee grows the boy’s sympathies, sheds misconceptions, and cleanses away the dirty propaganda spewing from the invisible Hitler and his very visible followers of the Third Reich. A kid pushes aside fake devotion to see how every life and its innocence matter.

Every wholesome peak and harrowing valley of Jojo Rabbit is crafted with equal parts panache and tenacity. What begins as crass caricature becomes crystalized constitution. One moment you’re yukking it up to some off-color humor and minutes later you’re wondering if there’s dust in your eye. If this is not the eventual winner for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, start a new boycott. The tonal balancing act written by Waititi is astounding and imaginative. The movie’s enriching third act builds one of the best crescendos of recent memory, all ending on a quaint dance that stands in staunch comparison to that opening Beatlemania.

The filmmaking artists around the writer and director follow his tottering pendulum with their own dexterity and excellence. Cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr. (The Master) dabbles with speed and framing akin to a Wes Anderson film only to linger or skew angles and placements just enough to equal all the weird whimsy on display. The same came be said for the soundtrack. Cheeky song inclusions are equaled by composer Michael Giacchino’s orchestral hops between Jojo’s theme of precocious patriotism and a genteel nocturne for Rosie.

LESSON #4: EVERY WAR FILM IS AN ANTI-WAR FILM IN DISGUISE — There is a bigger purpose afoot in Taika Waititi’s movie and it’s this lesson. Yes, there is a premise here which gleefully jokes without boundaries, but the formative goals of pro-peace and anti-hate could not be more clear. To dig deep and evoke optimism out of both present and past anxiety, Waititi borrows this existential bit of poetry written by Pre-Nazi German writer Rainer Maria Rilke to frame his film:

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final

If that citation doesn’t nail the filmmaker’s desire and respectful sentiment through all the wit and irony, nothing will.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#835)

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[whumpinggrounds]

I’ve Got Red In My Ledger

day 5 of @whumptober2021 with my loves Jasper and Wilder :)

CW: assault i guess? but barely? insults. this is very expositionary

The day Wilder is accepted as Master Aeron’s apprentice is his most exciting day for a long time after, and that’s saying something, considering he spent half of it crouching in an alley. Despite the wizard’s repeated warnings, Wilder had let himself believe that he’d be assisting in experiments, or at the very least, observing them. Instead, Jasper curtly informs him that he’ll be doing housework until Master Aeron is finished with the spell he’s currently working on.

And, okay, Master Aeron had definitely told him that. Master Aeron had not misled him. But Wiler had hoped he would at least get to see the lab. Instead, he’s relegated to anywhere but, told by a dispassionate Jasper that the experiments were too delicate for an inexperienced viewer.

That’s the other thing. If Jasper weren’t here, Wilder tells himself, he wouldn’t feel so resentful. If Jasper weren’t here, there’d be nothing to resent. Wilder would be in the lab with Master Aeron, assisting on groundbreaking experimentation, instead of mopping and dusting and washing the dishes, only to be told when it’s finished that he hasn’t done a thorough enough job.

The worst part is that it’s not even Master Aeron criticizing Wilder – it’s Jasper. Since that first day, Wilder has only caught glimpses of the wizard, as the man keeps odd hours in the lab and sends Jasper to bring his food to him. It’s the blonde apprentice that Wilder deals with, that Wilder argues with, that Wilder comes to dread.

They criticize everything Jasper does. In the same low, resigned tone, they tell him that the kitchen isn’t neat enough, the library is dusty, the tools in the operating room need to be sterilized at least once a day. They don’t even demand that Wilder redo it either, they just set about fixing it themselves, as if even after correction, Wilder’s worse than hopeless.

At first, Wilder tries not to let their unpleasantness get to him. He tells himself that they probably just don’t like the change to the status quo. They’re a bit older than him, have clearly been here awhile, and are probably used to a certain routine. Wilder disrupts that. He tries smiling at them extra, initiating little polite conversations. Jasper turns away from them all, face set in their perpetual weary frown.

Okay, maybe Master Aeron was right. Maybe Jasper feels threatened by Wilder. On a few occasions, Wilder has gotten close enough to see even less yellow in the other apprentice’s eyes than Wilder has in his own. Clearly, his counterpart isn’t very powerful, and maybe that’s why he’s been here so long, serving as an apprentice without moving up. As Jasper micromanages dinner preparations, Wilder casually mentions growing up with insecurity about his own low magical energy. His vulnerability is met with a blank brown stare.

That’s when Wilder breaks, just a little. That’s when he finally loses his patience. Throwing down the spoon he’s using to stir the stew, he rounds on Jasper, who’s busy flinching at the sight of like, three drops of broth spilling on their flawless kitchen floor.

“Can you stop being so rude to me?” Wilder demands, eyes narrowed.

“I’m not being rude.” Jasper picks up the spoon from where Wilder threw it down and rinses it in the sink. The spoon wobbles with Jasper’s perpetual tremor. Once it’s clean, they stand waiting, clearly wanting Wilder to let them past so they can take over dinner preparation. “I’m not rude for not wanting to talk about your childhood.” They lift their eyes to Wilder and gesture with the spoon, but Wilder’s not playing that game. He snatches it from their hand and turns back to the dinner that he’s making himself, thank you.

“Well, you don’t have to just ignore me all the time.”

Behind him, Jasper heaves a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t think we have much to say to each other.”

It takes effort for Wilder not to spin around, but if he does that, he thinks Jasper might just manhandle the spoon away from him, and now cooking dinner has turned into a weird pride thing. “We live in the same house,” he points out, trying to stay reasonable. “We sleep in the same room. We’re both apprentices to Master Aeron.”

“That doesn’t make us friends, Wilder.”

Forgetting himself, Wilder turns around. When his green eyes meet Jasper’s, the other apprentice takes a step back, bumping right into the table behind him. “Why can’t we be friends?” Wilder tries not to sound pathetic but can’t tell if he succeeds. “It’d be a lot easier!”

Jasper sets their jaw. “I don’t want to be friends with you.”

It’s such a juvenile thing to say, and it’s stupid that it hurts anyway. “You don’t even know me,” Wilder protests. He’s distracted enough that Jasper slips the spoon from his hand, and he’s unreasonably pissed about that. He glares, folding his arms and standing firmly in place while the other apprentice tries to find a way around him, to the pot boiling over the fire. When Wilder refuses to budge, Jasper steps back, sighing.

“I don’t need to know you. I don’t want you as a friend.”

“Okay, actually!” Wilder yells it this time, and Jasper darts a glance over their shoulder, clearly caring more about their master than whatever Wilder is saying. “What is your problem, Jasper? What is your deal?”

When Jasper looks back to Wilder, their gaze is steady. “I don’t want you here.” They say it flatly, with finality. “Go home.”

“No!” Wilder grits his teeth. “I want to be a healer, and Master Aeron is the best healer around. I grew up hearing stories about him and the discoveries he’d made. I’ve wanted this for years.”

Jasper purses their lips. “I don’t care.”

Even after the days they’ve spent together, Wilder is still somehow stunned by their blatant rudeness, their unfounded dislike. His mouth drops open a little. “Well…well good thing it’s not up to you!”

He reaches for the wooden spoon, intending to take it back so he can go on stirring the stew, so he can have some excuse to turn away from Jasper. The other apprentice steps back and Wilder goes on stubbornly reaching, and so –

So, Jasper smacks him on the back of the hand with the wooden spoon.

It’s a moderately hard blow, hard enough to sting, hard enough that Wilder snatches his hand back before he even gets to think about it. Jasper’s strong, and the wood comes down right on Wilder’s knuckles, and he’s hissing with surprise and a sharp little shock of pain before he even processes what’s happened. After his brain has caught up with his body, he’s left staring at Jasper, hand clutched to his chest, and okay, it didn’t hurt that bad, but, but –

But Wilder’s never been hit like that before. His mother is a healer and his father is a gentle man and he’s the oldest; he set an example, he’s never been hit before. He stares at Jasper, who directs their gaze to the floor and nudges him aside, still angling for that stupid fucking pot of soup.

Wilder opens his mouth to say something, anything, to demand an explanation, but finds, to his horror, that his throat is thick. To his humiliation, his eyes are welling with tears. Not trusting himself to speak, Wilder holds his reddened hand to his chest and flees, leaving Jasper to their perfect pristine kitchen and their fucking pot of soup.

[phantomrose96]

A Breach of Trust: Chapter 24

(Act 1: Chapter 1-9 )

(Act 2: Chapter 10-18 )

(Act 3: Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23)

Content warning for somewhat graphic horror. Very lengthy chapter under the cut!

When Ritsu bore his wrist, he swore he’d grown used to it.

When the first spirit lunged, Ritsu was proven wrong.

The tearing out of power was still something alien, like gauze yanked from a stuffed wound. It was something unphysical scraping against tissue and muscle and bone, and it came with a pang, a shock of light-headedness. Ritsu showed none of it on his face, because he swore he’d be used to it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Teru. Teru stood bored, scrutinizing, leaning against the brick wall of the alley. His expression suggested thinning patience, and Ritsu couldn’t pin point why. Maybe it was the amount of time Ritsu took with the feeding. Maybe it was the clumsy way he handled it. Maybe it was anger left over from the last mission, when Ritsu had panicked and nearly fired the shot at the office worker who’d—

Ritsu’s breath stuttered. A harsh pull and snap from the feeding spirit seemed to rock Ritsu’s whole body. His balance faltered, legs squaring, breath deepening as he fought the sudden pricks of starlight in his vision.

A quick stumble. That was it. Sweat trickled down Ritsu’s neck but, he was handling it. The sun rimmed high over the soccer field above, casting the spirits into pale amalgams of dust, writhing between beams. They seemed less real like this in the warm light. So Ritsu could stand his ground against each prick and pull and shock of unreal teeth against his skin. Normal. Routine. He wouldn’t falter in front of Teru.

When the last spirit pulled away, Ritsu’s heart rate had quickened. A quiet ringing had entered his ears, and a shivering numbness pulsed through his body. But he remained aware, and upright, and alert. He was getting better at this.

Ritsu grabbed his bag from the concrete, and stepped with forced steadiness to Teru’s side. Ritsu holstered the bag over his shoulder, willing the numbness to fade.

“Ready?” Ritsu asked, offering a scowl a bit too performative.

Teru grimaced. He raised his index finger beneath his nose and mimed a wiping gesture.

Ritsu stared, perplexed. There was nothing on Teru’s face. After a moment, an icy thought hit him. Ritsu opened his mouth and touched his tongue to his upper lip. Coppery wetness spread through his mouth. Ritsu moved a hand to his nose and rubbed. Something wet trailed from the left nostril, and he pulled his hand away to examine the crimson stain webbing along the creases of his palm.

Behind Ritsu’s outstretched hand, Teru’s wrist flicked. Ritsu blinked back to attention and found Teru holding a pack of travel tissues, one tissue snagged between two fingers and extended. Ritsu took it silently.

“Don’t get any on me,” Teru said, turning on his heel, moving ahead of Ritsu to the front of the school.

Ritsu wiped the blood from his nose, and tested with a tap of his finger to see if he was still bleeding. Nothing. He stashed the tissue into his pocket, and spun to catch up with Teru.

It was a dry day. Ritsu refused to consider anything past that.

…

Gimcrack acted as guide, unnoticed and unseen as he led Ritsu and Teru far from the Salt Mid alleyway.  They wound down residential streets, buildings and concrete thinning as trees appeared in greater number. The streets were peppered with small wooden shops nearly mistakable for townhouses and small abodes with lawns larger than Ritsu was used to seeing. They cut through yards where Gimcrack seemed inclined to phase through buildings, crunching leaves beneath their heels and vaulting a fence to a house old and decrepit and dark. They kept walking, leaving behind the heart of Seasoning City and settling on a small street of shops lined wall to wall. Gimcrack halted in front of a thin and tall building, paneled with wood, warmly lit from the inside.

“Is this it?” Teru tilted his head up to Gimcrack, who floated intentionally too high, outside grabbing range. Teru had become openly hostile with Gimcrack since his abandonment of them in the office building, and he made the tension know. The hair on Ritsu’s neck bristled.

“Yup.” Gimcrack gestured to the storefront. “Energy’s spilling outta this place. Give it a feel.”

Teru placed a palm against the entrance. “Why don’t you scope it out first, Gimcrack?”

“Nuh-uh.” Gimcrack crossed his bony arms over his body in an X shape. “I don’t want to get eaten up by whatever’s in there.”

“Would you rather I exorcise you?”

“Hey, Kageyama!” Gimcrack swooped down to Ritsu’s level, tugging loosely on his collar and hiding a fraction behind Ritsu’s frame. “Think you can control your friend a little? You’re the one leading this mission, aint ya?”

Teru let out a bark of a laugh. Ritsu shoved the door in without comment.

Chimes clanked above them. Warm light washed over Ritsu’s face, the dense smell of cinnamon and cloves. Ritsu blinked. Color in the form of tightly wound bundles tucked into endless bins assaulted him.

Teru shoved ahead of Ritsu, beaming.

“Oh it’s a yarn shop!” Teru dropped his bag at the entrance and sauntered in, stooping at each display to feel out the texture of the different wools. He picked up something gaudy, fluffy, and pink and held it to the light. “I’ve been meaning to make another sweater.”

Ritsu held the side display, lips pursed in irritation. His eyes scanned the store. Wooden paneling dominated the walls and floor, almost cabin-like in its beveling. Dozens of wooden bins lined the walls, organized by thickness and texture, colors splashed in almost haphazardly. A grouped display of 6 bins sat at the center of the room, thick bundles of saturated blues, oranges, pinks, and yellows. Construction paper signs lined the display, advertising discounts.

Teru practically floated between displays, amassing a bundle in his arms of yarn offensively bright and frilly.

Reluctantly, Ritsu’s eyes trailed to Teru, taking note of the bins that Teru dug through and the bundles he grabbed. The first was a yarn deeply orange and scratchy-looking to the touch, the color of an old and bitter cat. From the neighboring bin, Teru snagged a bundle thin and turquoise, yarn winding in defined streaks along the surface. The next was a bin of pinks with feather nubs along the length of string. Then another ball, red velvety and thick.

Ritsu’s attention shifted to the rack of guide books, the starter kits, the sewing needles tucked to the side with spindles of thread stacked up in plastic displays like candy. Grated shelves lined the top of each wall, bearing specialty bundles of yarn, metallic needles arranged by ascending size, as well as an odd display of small hooked needles.

Soft light trickled through the ceiling window, floating dust catching in the shine, baking the interior with a noxious cocktail of Christmas spices. Ritsu was uncomfortably warm.

“My last sweater was pink, like this kind here.” Teru lifted the pink yarn, unreasonably fluffy, like a small Pomeranian. “One of my favorites. But I’ve been dying for something turquoise. That’ll bring out the color of my eyes hmm? Or do you think something a bit dimmer, more of an aqua? I’ve heard lavender suits me wonderfully.”

Ritsu’s eyes flickered to Teru’s uniform. Then away. Thinking about it was bad for his blood pressure.

“Focus,” Ritsu muttered. He glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, Gimcrack hadn’t followed them inside. So Ritsu gave the display area another glance. Nothing stood out. He looked deeper; the store stretched further back, a single doorway propped open in the back-right corner. Stairs led up to the left. Ritsu chewed his tongue, and then set his sights on the stairs.

“I’m going to check upstairs. You get the back,” Ritsu said.

“Good plan. I don’t want you down here destroying any yarn.”

Ritsu considered replying and thought better of it. He set one experimental foot to the first step.

“Can I help you boys?”

Ritsu froze. He dropped his hand from the railing and glanced sideways. A woman with graying hair and spectacles stood at the threshold between the front of the store and the backroom. She watched him with a smile as warm as the store, eyes small, cheeks plump. Her cardigan bore the design of deer and trees, clearly hand-knit.

She stepped closer, navigating around yarn bins and tilting her head around to better see Ritsu.

“Oh, Dearie no, the door up there is locked. There’s nothing for sale up there. Are you looking for something a little extra?”

Slowly, Ritsu removed his foot from the stair. “Um…”

“Ah!” Teru answered, and even Ritsu startled a bit at the grandiose in his voice. Teru shoved his gathered-up yarn into the crook of his right arm. He moved with wide, swaying steps to the woman, smile open and friendly, and took her by the shoulder with his free hand. “My dear my dear I am having the hardest time my dear.” Teru spun her around, guiding her back where she came. “See my sister just adores my handknit crafts, and her 16th birthday is coming up soon. I have this new ribbed pattern I want to try out—a simple knit-3 purl-3, ribbing about yay-big—and I am just beside myself finding a color and texture to my liking—“

Ritsu watched with an expression of contempt for every word he couldn’t understand.

“—I was thinking something cocoa colored. She has these gorgeous chocolate brown eyes—oh, quite like yours—that I think would sparkle marvelously with—oh now don’t be bashful! Your eyes are glimmering love. Anyway, a chalky cocoa, but not too dense hmm? I want the rib pattern to show through, and if the yarn is too frilly it hides the pattern. And I considered larger needle size but who needs a loosely-knit sweater my dear am I right?”

Ritsu filtered out Teru’s rambling. His leg bounced, jaw biting down tight to keep him from snapping at Teru. It wouldn’t be worth drawing suspicion. He could only wait, seething quietly at Teru’s utter lack of concern.

For a split second, Ritsu and Teru locked eyes. A quick twitch of Teru’s head, a split second of piercing eye-contact, explosive in its silence. Teru’s eyes jerked to the stairway leading up, and Ritsu understood with a rush of shame what was happening.

Ritsu mounted the stairs again, moving slowly and deliberately so as not to creak the wood beneath his feet while Teru kept the shop owner distracted. Teru’s rambling continued unimpeded, words like “gauge” and “crochet” and “casting” assaulting Ritsu’s ears, along with overly saccharine compliments to the shopkeeper who only giggled in response. She responded, voice drawing away into the backroom with her and Teru’s footsteps. Ritsu kept climbing.

The air grew mustier and warmer as he ascended, the staircase leading up to an attic tucked into the wooden paneling. At the top was a single door, its white-painted face chipped, top corner shaven and jammed in the doorframe. Ritsu tested the knob, and it held firm under his grip.

He tightened his hand, a small shock of purple energy mangling the metal with a pop. When he twisted again, the lock gave, loose metal pieces tinkering down as he eased the door open. It swung in, giving way to a small bedroom tucked into the attic, triangular in shape. The bed took up most space, covered with a quilt sewn of patches long-faded. A wooden night stand sat beside it, red-blinking clock and a lamp adorning its top. Natural light flooded in from the panel of windows across from the bed, paling the carpeting. A small dusty tv sat perched in front of it, its front consumed in shadow. Sweat trickled down Ritsu’s neck, and the warm and dense smell of lavender flowed over him.

Ritsu noticed the laundry basket to his left, and for a moment was swamped with guilt for wearing his shoes in this woman’s house.

The thought vanished instantly, consumed by a new twanging of his heart as he gave a second look to the laundry basket. The air above it shifted, schismed, as though above a hot tar road in summer. Ritsu approached it steadily, palm buzzing with a hint of energy. He screwed his eyes to focus, a small headache building behind his skull.

He saw it. Small and curled and wispy green, a cat dozed on the folded linen sheets. It let out a small fluttering purr, and the tension left Ritsu’s body. He backed away from it, chewing his tongue, letting his shoulders sag. It wasn’t anything. Not his brother. Not a dangerous spirit. Just a ghost cat, asleep on some laundry.

He wiped his sleeve along his brow and stood still, heart rate calming. He watched the cat for longer, the muffled sing-song sound of Teru’s conversation bubbling through the carpeting. It was curled in the sun, its body scarcely visible in the beam that floated dust through the room. Ritsu’s hand twitched. He considered his options, but he only came up empty. There was no use in doing anything to the cat. No use in him and Teru being here.

Nothing that would lead him any closer to Mob.

“Sorry, cat,” Ritsu offered quietly. He turned on his heel.

And he screamed when something ghastly stared back.

Ritsu stumbled back, just as the creature shoved a bony arm out and jammed something sharp into the socket of Ritsu’s left shoulder. Ritsu let out a muffled cry and clamped his arm to his shoulder. He forced his eyes to focus. A man of sorts, dressed in a faded apron, his eyes pits of black that seemed to have melted. The holes where his eyes should have been had wept down his face dripping over hollow cheek bones. His skin was waxy, greasy, peeled and glistening as thought severely burned, right to the stub of ashen hair left at the top of his head.

Ritsu’s eyes shot to the spirit’s hand, bearing the wispy, immaterial form of a knife. He unclamped his hand from his shoulder, seeing the faintest trickle of blood ooze from the wound.

“You can see Mitzy…” the spirit rasped. It inched closer. “Are you a ghost? Are you a ghost too? Here to steal her from me?”

Ritsu stumbled back, hands up. “No! No I don’t want your stupid cat!”

“Not the cat… My food. Her…”

Confusion twisted Ritsu’s face. His breathing hitched in his throat.

“…That lady downstairs!?”

“She’s mine…”

The spirit lunged again, and Ritsu dodged, knocking into the nightstand. He fell, back slamming against the drawer. The lamp wobbled and crashed beside him. Ritsu startled, and then shoved himself to his feet and scrambled before another lunge of the knife could slice him.

He backed away from the spirit, trying to keep the distance between them, though he only managed to back himself into a corner. Ritsu glanced behind him, bug-eyed, finger tips feeling out the corner of the paneled walling. The spirit closed the gap in slow hobbling steps. Energy coiled around the knife, and Ritsu squeezed his eyes shut, breath shaking.

Not again. Not this again.

He needed to do better. He needed to be better if he ever wanted to measure up to Teru. If he ever wanted to take down the thing that took his brother.

He needed to stop shaking. He needed to stop panicking. He needed to stop shutting down every time the danger inched too close.

He needed to be steady. Deliberate. Focused.

He needed to be like Teru.

His eyes snapped open as the spirit lunged, and Ritsu released a tendril of energy from his palm. It wrapped around the offending ghost, snagging tight at his midsection and pinning his arms to his side. The spirit came crashing forward, smashing to the floor and oozing against the rope that grated him. It screeched, teeth gnashing, and all the while its restrained arm swung the knife in arcs wherever he could slash it.

Mitzy woke up, blinked, let out a displeased yowl and hopped off the laundry pile. Her tail flicked as she sauntered out the open attic door.

Ritsu didn’t pay the ghost cat any mind. He only tested his grip on the rope. He had meant for chains, something like Teru had used to restrain the spirits of his horde. What Ritsu managed to create was formless, but still strong enough to hold the writhing spirit.

He took a step closer, breath steadying, momentarily eyeing the smashed lamp and the open door. Nothing appeared there, no sound except for the muffled conversation that carried on below, and the noises of the spirit at his mercy. Ritsu refocused, attentive to the spirit that snapped its teeth at him and hissed. Its wilting weepy eyes melted further down its face as it howled, seeming to lose vigor the more its greasy burnt body decayed. Ritsu extended his hand once more, letting off a twist of glowing purple energy to wrapped around the spirits mouth, muzzling it.

Ritsu closed the gap between them, and the expression on the spirit’s face shifted. Lashing anger melted to something meeker, something more sober, its wide dripping eyes seeming to come to an understanding. Ritsu’s hand paused. He didn’t exorcise the spirit just yet. Something about the expression halted him. Something familiar in it.

Ritsu, bearing down on the spirit, recognized the fear of something hunted. Trapped and cornered and at the mercy of something more powerful. He recognized it as the mangled, twisted emotion in his own chest at every feeding of the spirit.

He stretched his hand out and set it against the spirit’s throat. The spirit whimpered through its gag, and Ritsu gave an experimental tug. It wasn’t a physical motion. It was something in his core, like inhaling, like swallowing, but something purely routed through the channels where his psychic power flowed.

Ritsu watched the energy leech out of the spirit’s face, and soak into his own hand.

If the spirits could feed off of him, that meant he could feed off of them…

Ritsu strained his hand harder. The muffled cries of the spirit lessened as it withered, curdling inward, losing shape and form as its ether drained away. Ritsu looked away, just a bit unsettled by the destruction unfolding before his eyes.

The throbbing behind his eyes lessened. The ache in his chest eased. The scattered numbness vanished from his limbs almost instantly, as though he’d never even fed the spirits that afternoon. When Ritsu finally looked, nothing of the spirit remained, and the lack of pain coursing through his body was almost euphoric.

Slowly, Ritsu set his left thumb to his wrist. He rubbed, searching for the aching torn wound the spirits fed themselves from. Nothing of the sort appeared. The wound had healed, stained only with a shimmering bit of purple residue.

A shivering brushed through his leg, and Ritsu startled. He stepped back, eyes swinging down. Mitzy trailed between his feet, nudging her head against Ritsu’s pant leg. Ritsu eased. He crouched down, and put out a hand for Mitzy to investigate. She sniffed it, then rubbed her hand against it, then stretched further to examine Ritsu’s wrist. Ritsu let this happen. He held his wrist exposed. Mitzy licked at the violet residue smeared along his healed skin, and licked until not a single stain remained.

Her tongue tickled, cold.

…

Iciness clung to the interior of the bus, soaking through the windows with a chill almost wet to the touch. Ritsu leaned against the black glass, jostling slightly, arms folded in, coat unbuttoned. He watched passing streetlights, blips of light along a stretch of road massive and vacant and dark. The scenery had thinned to almost nothing, buildings and trees growing sparse until the outskirts of the city loomed, liminal and far-removed. The bus’s light washed fluorescent and sterile against the glass, so that Ritsu’s own stiff expression stared back at him. He felt far away from it all, Seasoning City drawing away behind him, consumed into dark nothing.

Teru sat beside Ritsu, immersed in his phone, fingers twitching and silent except for the occasional jangle of phone charms. He hunched forward, uninterested in the thinning scenery outside. Ritsu caught the flipped image of hearts and kissy emojis in the window’s reflection. Everything reflected at a slant, brighter and clearer than the sparse and empty inky blackness beyond. Ritsu exhaled, and his breath fogged the window.

Empty seats surrounded them, the last two people on the bus.

“It’s this next one,” Ritsu said. He tapped the button to signal the driver.

Teru only nodded, and chuckled secretively at his phone before slipping it back in his pocket. He hopped from his seat into the walkway and moved toward the front of the bus before it even began to slow. Ritsu followed in silence.

The huff of brakes, swing of doors, clawing cold of air curling into the bus. Teru whipped out a bus pass to wave in front of the sensor, and he gave the driver a cordial smile before descending the steps to the concrete below. Ritsu dug around in his coat pockets for the change he’d scrounged from his room, and dropped the coins into the till with fingers a bit numb from the cold. He didn’t acknowledge the driver as he descended the steps to the pale concrete below. He wanted no one seeing his face.

The bus door shivered shut, and its engine kicked back in with a heavy sigh. It left behind the faint acid smell of gasoline as it tugged along, consumed in the street that carried on straight and narrow and nondescript. Then it vanished entirely, leaving Ritsu in the pallid lighting of the lone glass bus stop. Wind tore between Ritsu’s ankles. He shivered, hunched into the jacket, and shoved his hands deep into the pockets.

Ritsu stared at the bus stop. Teru had seated himself on the provided bench, legs crossed, fingers flying over the screen of his phone. The blue light lit his smirk, warm feathery jacket hunched up by his shoulders. Moonlight struck the left side of him, silvery and ghostly. Ritsu assumed he must have looked the same. He didn’t check, merely staring until Teru looked up and they locked eyes.

“Which way?” Ritsu asked.

Teru shrugged, and he pocketed his phone again. “How should I know? Aren’t you the mission leader?”

“The address. Your phone has a GPS. I sent you the address.”

“My hands’ll get cold. Use Gimcrack.”

“He’s meeting us there. Ghosts can’t ride the bus.”

“Oh. Hmm. Yeah. Of course.” Teru stood and stretched, his breath puffing silver beneath the moon. “I trust him. He’s a trustworthy guy.”

“Just use your phone!”

“I’m conserving the battery.”

“Hanazawa!” Ritsu barked. His breath curled crisp. A lone car streaked past, passing and leaving them in ringing silence. Ritsu let his shoulders relax, tension bleeding out of him. He was tired. “Please? We’re just wasting time. This bus only runs once an hour, and the route shuts down at midnight.” Ritsu snagged his flip phone from his pocket and opened it. “And it’s 9:15 now.”

Teru shrugged. “Well.” He pulled out his own smart phone, flicking through apps and settling on the map icon. He gave it a moment to adjust, then motioned his head down the far sloping end of the road. He spun on his heels and walked forward. “Then let’s not dawdle. It’s ten minutes this way.”

Ritsu followed in silence, hunched in against the wind that whipped his ears.

Only two turns lay on their route. Ritsu made sure to memorize each of them as they passed in case Teru’s phone died during the raid. He struggled each time for a landmark. Every turn looked the same, sparse of trees and houses, only deep-stretching roads linking one town to the next. After ten minutes, the trees grew denser, taller and more woods-like. The road became gravel, and the GPS brought them down a beaten-in dirt road, burrowing down and away and leading to a warehouse massive and metal. An equally impressive parking lot sat beside it, lined with trucks resting beneath flood-lights. Trees rung the lot, tall and mangled in the moonlight. Ritsu followed down the road. Gravel crunching beneath his feet. He felt around inside the coat pocket, hand settling on the flashlight tucked inside.

“Gimcrack!”

Ritsu called to the blob of dark violet energy he spotted hovering pallid beneath one of the lights stretching over the warehouse roof. Gimcrack waved in response, and Ritsu picked up his pace.

“Is anyone around?” Ritsu asked, eyes shooting periodically to the monolith trucks, skeleton like, beneath the lights. Gimcrack shook his head.

“Nah.” Gimcrack’s attention shifted behind Ritsu, and Ritsu heard Teru’s steps approaching slow and even. Gimcrack hovered a few inches further away. “Last guy left about an hour ago.”

Ritsu turned, investigating the warehouse. Massive steel garage doors lined one side, a loading dock. Beside them, a short set of concrete stairs led to a door. Ritsu stepped to them, climbing. He wrapped his hand around the handle, long thin and metallic, cold to the touch. He tested it. It didn’t budge. He twisted harder. Locked.

Ritsu let go and turned to Gimcrack. “How do we get in?”

“I get you in,” Gimcrack answered. He drifted closer, gauging Ritsu’s reaction. “You gotta let me help though.”

Ritsu felt a hand, clammy and spider-like, settle on his shoulder. He jerked, but Gimcrack’s grip remained firm.

“What—“

“Just relax a second okay? Drop your guard.”

Ritsu only stared. His eyes shifted to Teru, who made no attempt to hide the suspicion on his face.

“What are you doing?” Ritsu asked, tense.

“If you relax for just like, two seconds here kid, I can show you. Unscrew your face would you?”

Reluctantly, Ritsu eased his shoulders. He breathed deep, and he felt Gimcrack’s hand phase deeper. An iciness washed through his whole core, a sensation like being dunked in ice water.

“Touch the door again,” Gimcrack said.

Ritsu did, tentatively. His eyes widened as his hand slipped right through the metal.

“I get you in, I get you out, maybe with an extra brother huh?”

Ritsu retracted his hand from the door. “Is this safe?”

“Is any of this safe?” Gimcrack asked.

“Yeah, no,” Teru answered, cold and firm. He stepped up beside Ritsu, eyes sharp and aura leaking with aggression. Gimcrack hopped away from the two of them. “We’ll just blast a door in. You can leave.”

“And trigger all their alarms? You sure you want that kiddo?” Gimcrack asked. He paused, reading Teru’s icy expression, and a smile crawled over his lips. “I’m just offering a generous service here.”

“It’s fine, probably,” Ritsu answered. He eyed his hand, flexing the numb joints. Feeling had begun to trickle back into his tingling fingers. His heart thrummed. “Do it again, Gimcrack.”  

“Atta boy.”

Gimcrack wrapped his fingers around Ritsu’s shoulder once more, washing Ritsu with a chill so thorough that feeling vanished from his body. Ritsu gasped, unbalanced and unfeeling.

“Go on. Walk kid.”

Ritsu held his breath, trying to orient himself, or at the very least stay upright. Vertigo washed cold through his stomach, but he forced his feet forward. The wall passed through him as though it weren’t there. Or, Ritsu supposed, as though he weren’t there.

On the other side, Ritsu dropped to his knees for a moment to catch his breath. Tingling feeling returned in waves, but it was as though his core had been wrapped in ice. His body shivered, mind recovering.

Silently, a second figure walked in beside him. Teru remained standing, squaring his hips, feet pointed decidedly forward. “Hmmm. Maybe I should have brought a thicker coat.”

Ritsu stared down at his hands, pressed to the ground. Sensation seeped back into his body, but his palms and fingers had grown colder, pressed to a floor colder than ice. The shivering wasn’t just from Gimcrack’s powers, it was from the room itself. His wits returned to him, and slowly, Ritsu remembered where they were.

He looked up. Blackness met his vision, massive and endless. He pushed himself from the floor, fished a hand around in his coat pocket, and grabbed the flashlight from within. He shot it out, and ran his thumb along the surface until the switch beveled under his touch. Ritsu flicked the beam on.

The light sliced through a cone of black, throwing clawing, climbing, stark shadows and empty hollows along every surface. Ritsu took in the scene around him.

Row upon row of carved pig carcasses hung from the ceiling, slit at the stomach and strung from hooks digging through their back hooves. They were sliced in half and gutted, ridges of milky white rib cages reflecting the light and beveling the flesh that clung to them. The chains hung in tight rows, bodies slung from the ceiling like coats at the dry cleaner. All heads had been removed.

Ritsu swung the beam. By the walls, palettes were stacked high with unprocessed carcasses. They were tied down, stiff limbs jutting out, faces wrapped in cellophane. Ritsu blinked, eyes adjusting to the dark, so that his peripheral vision filled with the hung and tethered form of pig corpses.

A second beam of light joined him from Teru’s phone, swinging around the display with flippancy. Teru walked forward in investigation, speaking casually, his words lost on Ritsu. Ritsu stayed rooted. The wind howled loud and percussive against the warehouse, warbling the walls, clanking the ceiling chains. Ritsu swallowed and exhaled, his breath frozen in front of him. His stomach squirmed.

“He’s not here, Hanazawa,” Ritsu said.

Teru stopped and turned, his light momentarily blinding Ritsu. “Hmm?”

“My brother’s not here. He can’t be. It’s a freezer. He’s not.”

Teru spun again, lighting up another ghastly display of pigs whose hollowed-out innards drank up the shadows. “He could be.”

“He’s not,” Ritsu insisted. “It’s freezing.”

“Well that’s not a problem. Any psychic worth his salt can regulate his own temperature.” Teru paused, eyes drilling into Ritsu, mouth quirked into a smile. Teru seemed perfectly comfortable. Ritsu’s body wouldn’t stop shivering.

Ritsu glowered. He turned and banged on the wall behind him. “Gimcrack! My brother’s not in here. Get us out.”

Silence met him,

“Gimcrack!”

“You know, Kageyama, I remember an old horror story I’ve heard about a place like this.”

“Hey.” Ritsu banged his palm against the icy wall once more. The sound reverberated. “Gimcrack.”

“A meat-packer had spent 30 years of his life working in a warehouse like this one. Carving up carcasses all day. Miserable work for miserable pay. And finally one day, he had enough. He pushed a few of those palettes together, and climbed to the tallest meat hook, and hung himself from it.”

Teru’s phone flashlight meandered behind Ritsu, throwing gruesome shadows against the wall Ritsu faced, the forms of bodies hung, stretched and beveled, taut on chains. Ritsu shut his eyes, bowed his head, and banged on the wall. “Gimcrack! Get us out!”

“He cursed the warehouse when he died so that no one could ever get his corpse down. It stayed there, hanging, never rotting in the cold, watching the workers until they were driven insane.”

“I’m not listening.” Ritsu opened his eyes to darkness, stars dancing in his vision. His breath fogged, though sweat dripped from his hairline. “Help me call Gimcrack.”

“His skin became desiccated. His clothes tattered. His eyes froze over, so that the liquid inside formed crystals and tore through his corneas, making them a bright, blind, milky blue. Some workers claimed he moved in the night. Others said he watched you. When he was in the very best of moods, the corpse smiled.”

“Dammit. God dammit Gimcrack. I won’t pay you! Hanazawa, help.”

“And then the warehouse closed down, and he was left there in the darkness and emptiness, finally allowed to rot. But he was lonely. So he was happy, very happy, one day when a group of curious kids broke into the warehouse and visited him. They couldn’t see him in the dark, so he had to wait for their flashlights. He prepared his best grin, his flesh all rotted. And finally, they—“

“Hanazawa.”

“—swung their light just a bit higher—“

Ritsu turned, eyes to Teru. “Shut up okay? I’m trying t—“

“Until they could… greet… his… happy… face…”

Teru snapped his phone to the top corner of the warehouse, light yanked with it, and Ritsu’s eyes followed too.

Someone stared down from the ceiling.

Piercing eyes, a wide grin stretching desiccated skin, cheeks carved out in deep shadows, body slung beneath it. The body jerked. Its head snapped to Ritsu. Its grin widened.

Ritsu gave a hollow gasp. He stumbled back, stomach bottoming out, back slamming into the wall which he crumpled down. His eyes locked to the grin that—

Teru was laughing.

Teru was howling, in fact.

Ritsu shined his own flashlight to the corner, illuminating a pig body coated in yellow aura. The aura vanished, and the pig flopped down, falling back with a sickening smack against the other pigs stacked high. Teru’s laughter echoed, mirthful to tears, from the far walls.

“Seriously?!” Ritsu swung his light to Teru.

“You should see your face,” Teru said, doubled over and wheezing with his hands to his knees. His phone light jittered with his wheezing chuckles, eating at the shadows on the floor. “Hang on hang on hang on.” He rose tall, held the phone up, grin wide and sickeningly satisfied. The light flashed. “Okay okay I took a picture. Hang on I’m sending it to you it’s great!”

“Hanazawa!”

“I got you. You shoulda seen—you—Aah!—and then back—smashed right into the wall! Oh I should have been recording!”

Ritsu’s anger iced over. His eyes shot behind Teru.

“Hanazawa.”

“I thought you—oh this picture! Oh I love this picture! Wallpaper, definitely. You just—Ahh!! Your face is like—“

“Idiot, duck!”

“—Oh, spooky! You--! Huh?”

“Duck,” Ritsu shouted.

A moment of pained confusion passed, until a low grumble shook Ritsu’s bones. Understanding snapped, and Teru threw himself to the floor, just before a creature, squealing and massive and bulbously tumored raked through the air Teru’s head had occupied. It careened forward, a globby filthy dripping monster five times as massive as the carcasses in the warehouse, and yet distinctly swine-like in its form. It dove next for Ritsu, who jumped from its path with far more grace.

“You idiot!” Ritsu shouted, head snapping to Teru, finger pointing to the rampaging beast. “You pissed it off!”

Teru watched from the floor, stunned. He patted at the ground, then his pocket, then the ground again. “Where’d my phone go?”

“I don’t know!” Ritsu yelled. He flattened himself against the wall as the swine dove again, and then Ritsu chased after it, feet pumping, flashlight bouncing out the path ahead of him. He leapt onto a palette, hurdling corpses as he raced to catch up with the creature.

Ritsu readied a lash of energy in his free hand and shot it out. It arced like a sickle, violet and razor sharp. It nicked the monster’s hind leg and then kept spinning, slashing through hung carcasses, slicing flesh and bone that rained to the ground.

Ritsu did not let up. He unleashed another shot, and another, near deaf to the squelch of flesh shredded and shorn. Only about a third of his shots hit the massive bulbous oozing green monster, the rest flung wild into chains and wall, palettes and flesh. It was enough to earn the pig’s ire. It reared back. Its eyes were replaced by tumorous growths, but its massive snout twitched, gnashing molars bared, and it shot dead center for Ritsu.

Ritsu steadied his ground. Heart pounding, he readied a burst of energy in his palm, dense and spring-coiled tight. He waited out the seconds, heart-pounding, until the creature lunged. And Ritsu released the shot from his palm.

The recoil knocked Ritsu off balance, snapping awake the old injury of his dislocated shoulder. He hissed, but kept his eyes focused, trained to the shot that exploded, and connected, and carved out a hole through the center of the beast. It let out a ghastly squeal, loud enough to shake the walls, rattle the chains into a symphony of disquiet as it crashed into the ground. Ritsu readied a coil of rope, eyes alight. His body moved naturally. The energy soaking through him was like nothing he knew before.

He knelt over the creature, which writhed and snapped but did not get up, and Ritsu coiled the rope around its snout, rendering it defenseless. He set his palm to the thing’s throat, and he felt it again, that sickly honey-sweet fear that pulsed off the creature as a form of energy. It was dense as it filled Ritsu, cold as the locker. He breathed in deeper as the thing beneath his palm withered dry. Its tumorous skin pruned like leather, until its form decayed down to bones, and then nothing but wispy tendrils that passed through Ritsu’s fingers. Ritsu exhaled, mind clearer, body thrumming with absorbed energy. He relaxed, and stood, and swung his light to Teru.

Teru stood a few feet back, watching with sharp eyes. When the beam struck his face, he gave a quick expression of disgust, tongue out and lip curled.

“You’re welcome,” Ritsu said as he walked past. He set his eyes again to the wall.

“Hey, this is your freak show. I’m here for the entertainment.” Teru came up beside Ritsu, leaning casually against the wall Ritsu banged against. “And apparently you’re here for the snacks.”

“Gimcrack! It was a spirit. We killed it.” Ritsu banged again, listening for a response. “Should I just blast us out of here?”

“I’ve never been a huge fan of pork. How’d it taste? Chewy?”

“Do you ever absorb the spirits?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Does a healthy person need blood transfusions?” Teru ran a hand through his hair, snagging on a few iced-over locks.

“…It’s a good source of energy. Try it.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, sure. And Gimcrack’s a good ally.”

Ritsu slammed his fist once more and then lowered his hand. “Where’d he go…?”

“We could always call up your mommy and daddy to come pick us up.”

“You’re hilarious,” Ritsu answered. He stepped away from the wall and swung his flashlight in search of another exit. “And of course we can’t, because they don’t know I’m gone, because that’s the point.”

“Great parents.”

“What about yours huh? They just—what—let you get away with all this shit? Or do they just so sincerely not give a shit about you that there’s no point in you hiding anything?”

“Ha.” Teru crossed his arms and leaned his back entirely against the freezer wall. “I don’t live with them, so I’m in no rush to get out of here. You seem stressed though.”

“Where do they live?”

“Around.”

Ritsu moved to the adjacent wall, side-stepping palettes to run his beam along the metal in search of a different door. “Why don’t you live with them? Did they get sick of you?”

“How long do you think you have until your parents notice you missing, Kageyama? Hopefully they’d be a bit quicker to the draw than they were with your brother.”

“No.” Ritsu made it to the far wall. His skimmed his fingers along the surface. “They’d never notice, in fact. I didn’t want to risk them realizing I snuck out, so I left Makeshift and Slipshod behind with orders to possess them if they came to check on me.”

“…You what?”

“Gimcrack did it once before, possessing my mom. It works.”

The wall in front of Ritsu beveled, shifting to an ashy violet. Gimcrack’s face oozed out of it. “Did I hear my name?”

“God fuck—there you are!” Ritsu threw his arms out, flashlight arcing wide across the ceiling.

“Ooh, spooky place.”

“I’ve been calling you!”

“Hey hey hey chill huh? I’m here. Just wanted to make sure you dealt with that porker beast before I showed my face, you dig?” Gimcrack gestured to himself. “Can’t risk hurting the merchandise.”

Ritsu fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He flicked it open, time glowing bright along its blue screen. The next bus was in 15 minutes. “Just get us out of here.”

“Roger,” Gimcrack replied, grabbing Ritsu’s shoulder and drenching him with that same icy nothing. Ritsu felt as though the floor had dropped from under him, but he steeled himself, breath held, and moved forward. He stepped through the wall, appearing on the other side of the warehouse which was hidden deeper in shadow than the parking lot side.

“Hey, Hanazawa, you coming?” Gimcrack’s voice came muffled through the wall. Ritsu coughed out a breath, and once again dropped to his knees, too numb to stand. His fingers curled in the dewy grass, and he willed sensation to return.  “Heyo, you, Blondie. What? Giving me the cold shoulder now? That’s my job, heh. Get it?”

Ritsu got one foot beneath him. He tested his weight against it. His knee shook, but he was able to rise slowly, shivering the sting of ice out of his body. He hobbled forward a step, then another into the grass, ankles brushing cold through the dew.

“Hanazawa!” Ritsu called over his shoulder, eyes set to the warehouse. His fingers trailed over the phone in his pocket, feeling the seconds tick away, the bus coming nearer. “Come on. What are you doing?”

“Well then ease up your shoulders or something then, okay? I can’t phase you if you don’t let me. Just relax your face. Come on, give me a smile.”

The wall blew.

An explosion of light and power clapped against Ritsu’s ears. He let out a yell, stumbling back, hands over his ears as he squinted, staring at the fading rush of yellow aura that had blasted through the metal siding. Alarms shrieked overhead, and Teru appeared like a ghost, pale once more under the moonlight as he stepped through the settling rubble. Ritsu stared, dumbfounded, at the hole. Gimcrack floated out, visibly shaken.

Teru walked past Ritsu, brushing himself off. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped it on before burying his face in the blue light.

“What the hell was that?” Ritsu asked, stumbling slightly to catch up.

“We’re finished here. The alarms don’t matter anymore. I could have blasted us out at any time.” Teru refused to face Ritsu. He quickened his pace, and Ritsu fell into quiet step behind him. Ritsu looked behind him, watching the warehouse fade away, the sirens drop off, until only a ringing in his ear remained. He stared at his hands, flexing his fingers, feeling the buzz of newly collected energy beneath them.

“Piece of work, that kid…” Gimcrack muttered from Ritsu’s side. His eyes shifted to Ritsu, and he nudged his shoulder. “Anyway, payment for tonight.”

Ritsu conjured a crystal above his palm, now tainted green, murky in the darkness. He flicked it unceremoniously in Gimcrack’s direction, and then quickened his pace to keep up with Teru.

Five minutes of their walk passed in silence. Only then, when Ritsu looked around and saw himself, Teru, and no one else—only then did it occur to Ritsu that this mission had been a failure.

…

Mob woke up alone.

And it was an absence he could feel trickling to his core. He lay in bed, eyes open, suffocating in the nothingness around him, deafened in its silence. He stared blind at the ceiling. His body was tucked beneath the covers of his bed. A small hint of moonlight filtered in. He waited frozen, afraid to leave the bed, because he was afraid of being alone.

Slowly, with dread weighing heavy on his chest, Mob sat up. The covers pooled in his lap, and he buried his hands in the warmth. He listened, a quiet ringing nothingness settling on his ears. No snoring from the next room, no hushed babbling on the phone, no tinny television noise filtering through the door. It was an empty house. A dead house.

“Reigen…?”

Mob rose, shuffling out of the blankets. He set a ginger toe to the floor, soft carpeting molding beneath his feet. He worried the end of his braid, finger twisting through the lock of hair bound together at the end with Reigen’s rubber band. He waited. He breathed. Nothing answered.

He walked to the bedroom door. It creaked open under his touch, giving out to a hallway just as dim as his room. He waited. He listened.

“Reigen…?”

Nothing. Mob tugged harder on his braid, heartrate quickening. He’d known something had been wrong the moment he said Shishou’s name. No worse, he’d already known Reigen would be angry, and he said it anyway. He admitted to killing Shishou, and now Reigen was gone. Reigen had claimed nothing was wrong. He’d collected himself, and patted Mob’s head, and told Mob it had been a long day. Go get washed up for bed. Go sleep. He’d handle the mess in the kitchen.

Mob walked toward the kitchen. He tugged harder on his hair, feet tripping over the hem of the sweatpants Reigen had bought for him. He paused and flicked on the light. Brightness flooded down, too bright, that Mob had to squint and shield his eyes. When he looked through his fingers, he found the floor clean. The milk and cake put away. The dishes washed and drying.

“Reigen?”

Alone.

Mob turned and walked toward the couch. He eyed the television, and then the large bay window behind it. The light from the kitchen reflected loud and fuzzy against it, casting Mob’s dark silhouette against it. He looked, seeking out what he didn’t want to see. Mob put a hand out, stretching far, skimming through the air.

He couldn’t touch it. He never could. It always spread away, far from the tips of his fingers, so that he could never feel its cut. But it was there, dim and buzzing and swirling blue. He saw it in front of him. He saw it in the reflection, a gossamer bubble ringing his body.

Mob whimpered slightly. He pulled his hands in and hugged his arm. Reigen was gone. The barrier was back.

He didn’t want to check Reigen’s bedroom.

His feet moved anyway, even when Mob knew he didn’t want to see what lay beyond. Shishou’s withered face flashed through his mind, hanging body, hollow black eyes. Mob had done something to make Shishou hang himself, and now he. Again. Waking to the quiet. Feeling nothing. No presence. Alone. Alone again. Again he—

Mob turned the knob to Reigen’s room. Tears budded behind his eyes, his breathing harsh and fast. He opened the door. He didn’t want to see.

Mob looked anyway.

Nothing.

A rush of breath escaped from his lips, a relief so immediate his legs nearly buckled. Mob took a moment to collect himself. He dropped down onto the carpet and sat there, staring forward, looking above the bed. There was no hanging body. Just an empty room. Reigen had not killed himself.

Mob dug his fingers into the carpet, letting a few relieved breaths slip from his mouth. He collected himself, and pushed himself standing, and held on to the frame of the doorway. Mob turned where he stood, eyes set to the front door. He moved from carpet to tile, bare feet beating cold against the linoleum.

He grabbed the front door, and after a moment of hesitation he opened it. Cold air rushed over his face, the sound of passing cars in the distance, the buzz of the streetlamps surrounding the complex. Mob took a tentative step out onto the wooden stairway.

“Reigen? Please? Are you out here?”

Mob glanced down. Reigen’s car was gone. He worried his fingers together.

Still, Mob descended the steps. Still, he had to try. He made every motion conscious of his barrier. Averse to the touch of anything, paranoid eyes peeled for the slightest movement. He was dangerous again. He was deadly again. But he had to do something to help. This was his fault.

He moved down the driveway, gravel sticking between his toes, and the world felt open and hostile again. His nerve edged away quickly. The world was so huge—he’d forgotten. It wasn’t just Shishou’s house anymore. It was the whole of everything. Reigen could have gone anywhere. Mob’s paces slowed to a trickle. There was maybe nothing he could do.

He waited. He hesitated.

And something burst from the bushes.

It flashed into Mob’s field of vision, a blur of color fast and smooth. His eyes shot wide. Mob stumbled back. Couldn’t hurt—Couldn’t touch—He let out a strangled cry and folded in. He pulled, pulled away. Couldn’t touch. Couldn’t hurt. Couldn’t kill. Not anymore. Not again. No more.

Reigen had trained him.

He could at least.

The sound of shearing fur raked against his ears. Mob’s eyes shot wider, glassy, stomach dropping at the familiar noise of destruction. He dropped low onto his haunches and buried his face in his hands, too terrified for words, or even sounds. Small breathless gasps slipped through his fingers.

And with the gasps, Mob felt the texture of fur slip through his fingers as well.

He raised his head, and stared at his palms through tear-swimming eyes. He saw no blood, no mangled body, only the feathery form of hair strands streaked through his fingers. Mob moved his hands out of the way, and found snippets of hair littered across the ground, blowing in the wind.

He looked higher, and a single white cat stood across from him, tail flicking, paw swiping at its ear. It considered Mob for a moment before rising up and sauntering off down the road.

He hadn’t hit it. For the second time, he hadn’t hit something.

In wonder, Mob focused on the barrier. It was denser, swirled faster and harsher, an angry red, and it hovered only an inch or so from his nose. He’d pulled it in. Concentrated, angry and aggressive, he’d at least managed to pull it in.

Mob eased a fraction, and the barrier spread back out. But it listened. For the first time since it appeared, it listened.

His right hand rose, seeking to grab the end of the braid and finding nothing. The absence startled him, and so Mob searched further, feeling out his hair. Some locks still hung to his shoulder, others had shorn short. Uneven, scraggly, his bangs had been taken at an angle.

Mob retreated, beating back up the steps and shutting the door behind him. He moved as though possessed, feet taking him to the bathroom where he flicked the light on. Brightness caught, and Mob stared at the boy in the mirror.

Messy, mangled, awkwardly cut and uneven. His hair must have whipped around when he heard the cat, spinning wide when he yanked the barrier in. The rubber band had been taken. The braid had unraveled, leaving a shorter mess of poorly chopped hair.

He grabbed the edge of the sink and breathed. His mind hadn’t caught up yet. Too much had happened. Too close of a call. And Reigen was gone. And Shishou was dead. And his barrier was back and—

Mob looked up again at the mirror, and he was haunted there by the look of a boy he almost remembered. He reached out and touched his fingertips to the mirror. The cheeks were shallower, the eyes more hollow, but it was a face he almost remembered. He remembered this face. This one. As though he were still the same person underneath it all. And maybe he could be. Maybe he was.

Mob tightened his grip on the sink. His breathing calmed. He watched his eyes, and willed them to belong to the boy who never knew about barriers or basements or cockroaches skittering in the night.

He couldn’t do that. Those things were a part of him. But he realized, staring into his own eyes, they were becoming less a part of him…. He wasn’t there anymore. Not in the basement. Not with Shishou. Not with rats and not with soup and not with the barrier cutting every chance of touch. He was at Reigen’s house, and Reigen was different, and Reigen was making him different.

Mob’s shoulders slumped, and he eased down onto the plush shower mat beneath his feet. He held his legs in and watched the barrier dance through the air. He pulled once, experimentally, and it yielded to his touch, beveling closer.

Mob released it, and eased, and breathed. There was nothing he could do now except hope that Reigen was different. Hope that Reigen wasn’t like Shishou.

Hope that Reigen was coming back.

(Chapter 25 [AO3])

[snowmadien]

The Dragon and His Fairy

The Dragon and His Fairy

Chapter 9

Word count: 4488

A/N: So I know it’s been more than two months since I lasted posted but here it is chapter nine! I want to give a huge thank you to @bluuesparrow who really helped get my ideas together and actually and is one of the biggest reasons that I was able to finish this chapter and,@spikerr , @capaleran2 and @mangaguitar96 for being amazing betas! I’m going to be inputting a warning due to the angst that is in this chapter without further ado enjoy!

Gajeel glared at Erza as she looked over Levy’s shoulder to see what the fairy had been reading. A feeling of overprotectiveness and jealousy raged through the dragon as Levy turned, allowing her friend to see the book’s pages.

It had been three days since Erza had found them and ever since the two hadn’t gotten along in the slightest. The Requip Fairy had made it clear that she didn’t approve of the relationship at all by constantly blocking Gajeel’s attempts at getting close to Levy. And she never left the two alone. Gajeel in return refused to turn back into a human so long as Erza kept a sword at her hip and made threats at him behind Levy’s back.

He watched intently as she interacted with the redhead, seemingly relaxed, given what had recently transpired between them all. When Erza leaned closer to Levy, a small growl rumbled up to his throat. He swallowed it before it became audible.

The dragon thought neither of them had heard it. Erza turned, flicking her eyes towards him. He felt the cool radiating from her narrow slits.

“What’re ya lookin’ at?” he sneered, causing the redhead to turn her attention away from her friend. She reached for her sword.

“Gajeel, please. Erza put the sword away!” Levy begged, quickly closing the book to stop the impending conflict between them. Gajeel rose up and towered over them, daring Erza to strike him.

“Both of you, please! Enough! Erza, put the sword away before I take it away!” Levy snapped as she dove between the two of them, Gajeel began to wrap his tail around her ready to pull her away.

“Princess please stand aside! This creature isn’t one to be trusted!”  She snapped as she brandished her sword. She had had it with the dragon. Gajeel sunk down ready to pounce on the red-haired fairy.

“No, Erza I won’t!” Levy yelled. She had finally lost her patience with the both of them and yelled, “Sold Script: Spear!”

The words warped themselves into a longbow staff, stunning Erza and allowing Levy an opening to knock the sword out of her friend’s hand.

“Erza enough! For once in my life I’m happy! Gajeel has treated me much better than you or anyone in our entire kingdom has. He’s helped me grow in my magic. It’s because of him that I’m now stronger.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “ He isn’t a monster who’s taken control of me! He’s been the kindest and most caring person there is and if you can’t accept that then I want you to leave and never come back to the north!”

Her voice rang throughout the cave. Erza was stunned as she stared at her friend.She wanted to believe what her friend was saying about the dragon, but deep down she could never trust a creature like him.

“Levy-”

“No Erza!” Levy abruptly interrupted.“I don’t want to hear your excuses! In fact, I don’t want to hear you at all!” She snapped at her before striding past. Fuming with rage, Levy needed to get out.

“Gajeel, let’s go outside. I need to think,” she said.

Not saying a word, the dragon quickly grabbed her black cloak and followed after her. He walked passed Erza. The look on her face was enough to give him some joy. The warrior fairy stood there, her face a mix of shock, anger and hurt. She looked back over her shoulder, but the two were gone in a flash over the edge.

“How can you love him after what that one has done to us?” She whispered to herself.

Once Gajeel landed softly on the ground below, he bent his leg to allow Levy to slide down onto the hardened snow. However, she didn’t just yet; she was in awe.

In the short span of two days, the world around her had once again transformed. Trees that once stood proud and mighty were bent over due to the heavy weight of the snow. The lake nearby was frozen completely over to the point that even the Iron dragon could walk upon it. The mountain that Gajeel lived on was no longer silver, rather a gleaming white and with large icicles hanging from its face. Many of the trees had beautiful ice formations hanging off them like the willows, which on each end had a large ball of ice hanging from each branch.

The sheer beauty around them was enough to sap all the anger and sadness out of her, for the moment. The chilly air filled her with life, but all was still in the forest. It reminded her just how different the world’s regions could be. Gajeel felt the joy oozing from her in waves and in return, it made him smile.

He was quite happy that Levy loved his isolated forest even though it was opposite to what she was used to. “It’s so beautiful,”  Levy breathed and slid to the ground. Her breath could be seen in the cold air. However, instead of landing on the hard ground, Levy sunk down into the soft powdery snow and disappeared from Gajeel’s sight.

“Shrimp!?” Gajeel asked worried as he gently searched through the snow to find her. In one scoop he found her, covered in the white flakes.

“I think it’s better if I stay on your back,” she sheepishly grinned and dusted away the snow. He chuckled as he gently placed her on his back.

“Snow hasn’t hardened yet for you to walk on,” he commented as he used his other paw to kick the shin-deep snow away. He flicked a nearby tree with his claw and it sprung back to life, catapulting ice and snow everywhere.

“Winter storms do this to them. It’s a good way to create a diversion or just to scare anyone who wanders by.” Gajeel grinned. He could think of one person in particular who he would dump snow.

“No, you aren’t doing this to Erza,” Levy chided as if she read his mind.

“Oh come on, some cold snow outta cool down her fiery attitude towards me,” he whined, but Levy just rolled her eyes.

Gajeel slowly trudged through the thick snow blanket, stopping every once in awhile to allow Levy to admire the forest’s sparkling beauty. Soon they were in the heart of the wood, and Gajeel’s mountain cave was far off in the distance. A large outcropping of iron and various metals had not been dusted with snow.  It hummed with magic, which began to warm them.

He gently placed her down on it before changing forms and sat down on an iron rock to watch as Levy muttered to herself in various languages.

Levy was furious as she thought back to what had happened at the cave. Ever since Erza had come to the north she did nothing but beg for Levy to come back home. Despite the numerous times that she had said no already Erza still tried.

She sighed and sat down next to Gajeel, defeated on what to do about her friend. He wrapped a comforting arm around her and pulled her in close.

“I’m truly sorry about Erza. She’s never once cared about what happens to me, but now with the fate of the Kingdom at stake and suddenly I become important again.” She apologized to him, resting her head on his chest.

“One hand I don’t blame her, you are their princess and she’s gotta do what’s best for her kingdom.” He sighed as much as he wanted to go off on how much of a horrible nuscens the warrior was he couldn’t for the sake of Levy.

“I’m not leaving, Gajeel. I’ve told you this countless times the north is my home. I don’t care how much Erza begs me to leave, I’m staying.” She looked him dead in the eyes. He gently placed his head on hers and looked down lovingly at her.

“If she tries, I’ll hunt you down again and bring you back,” He vowed to her. Slowly he brought down his lips to hers, he stopped just shy of her lips at a noise.  He stood up abruptly, causing Levy to stand up with him, fear coursing through her.

“What’s-”

He clamped a hand over her mouth as he scanned the area. Without warning, he threw her to the snowy ground as part of a large tree branch slammed into him. It sent him flying into the forest.

“GAJEEL!” She screamed. She tried to get up but something grabbed her arm and twisted it hard behind her back.

“Hello fairy,” a dark familiar voice whispered into her ear. She froze in fear. She was barely able to turn her head to see the crazed red eyes and blond hair. “Miss me?”

A roar shook the forest grounds. Using the distraction, Levy used her other hand to unleash a spell on him.

“Solid Script: lightning!” She quickly whispered.The action sent shockwaves throughout his body. Just as she broke free from his grasp, another hand grabbed her and threw her to the snow. This time a tall goat man held her down, pinning both arms behind her back. Pain rippled through her as they crushed her broken wings

“Little bitch, I think I’m going to enjoy ripping your wings out,” Zancrow spat as he rubbed his arm from where she hit him.

A metal bracelet was slapped onto her arm and in an instant, she lost all use of her magic. Levy looked around to see if there was someway she could free herself. Her heart sank as more mages stepped out from behind the trees, a total of six now surrounded her.

“Let me go! Gajeel!” Levy screamed. She kicked and struggled against her captors.

“Scream all you want. Your dragon isn’t going to be able to help you,” Zancrow laughed as he grabbed her once again by her arm, lifting her and twisting it painfully behind her back.Gajeel came charging through the trees as Levy painfully cried out, ready to take down the one who attacked him.

“Take another step, dragon and the fairy gets it!” Zancrow taunted  Gajeel and he lit a fire in one of his hands.He held it close to Levy’s cold skin.

“No don’t!” He screamed in horror. Behind him, Azuma appeared and took the opportunity.

“Terra Clamare!” Azuma yelled.

In an instant, several branches began to wrap themselves around the large dragon, pinning him to the ground. Once Gajeel hit the ground, the branches began to glow red and a large explosion when off.

“GAJEEL!” Levy screamed in terror.She began to struggle even harder against her captor.

“Let me go! Gajeel!” She screamed again, causing Zancrow to laugh darkly.

The dragon was still standing in the branches when the smoke vanished, the bindings still trapping him.

“What!? That attack should have at least taken some fight out of him!” Azuma stood there shocked, however, it didn’t phase Zancrow. It was all going according to plan.

“Iron dragon tail attack!” Gajeel spat as he used his tail to try and smash the great tree arc mage. Azuma ran back towards his comrades, with every step trying to hold back the dragon. Gajeel’s gaze shot to Levy, seeing her struggle against Zancrow, her eyes filled with both fear and tears, desperate for him to help her.

“Levy!” He roared. He destroyed the branches that were trying to hold him back, tearing them to shreds.

“Dammit Meredy, take him out already! I won’t be able to hold him off much longer!”  Asuma yelled.

“Maguilty Sodom,” Meredy said darkly. In an instant white, light swords formed around her and launched themselves at Gajeel. However, they all seemed to bounce off the dragon’s scales.

“Nice try kid-” The dragon let out a gut-wrenching roar and collapsed to the ground in white hit pain.

“What the hell!” He choked out, his whole body felt as if it had been stabbed multiple time with swords.

“Pin him down, Azuma!” Meredy ordered as the dragon tried to get back up.

Once again Meredy threw her swords at the dragon. A painful wail escaped from the dragon as he fought the smoldering agony. She then sent her blades to rest their tips on the dragon, knowing that just by them touching the dragon it would keep him in enough pain to subdue him.

“Now then fairy, let’s take those wings of yours.” Zancrow threw her back to the snow as Rustyrose and Zoldeo pinned down her arms. He ripped her beautiful black cloak off her, discarding it. He stopped for a moment before a sick and twisted idea entered his mind.

“Meredy. Body link the two of them.” He grinned darkly as he sneered at the dragon.

“But that could kill both of them!” She objected.

“Who cares? We only want her wings! Just do it!” He yelled as he began to rip off Levy’s warm clothes, exposing her back and wrapped wings to the cold.

Meredy sighed in defeat. She never planned on killing anyone.

“No, Meredy don’t, just get the wings,” Ultear snapped. “We don’t have time to torture them, Zancrow!” She glanced at the dragon, who was still struggling under his binds.

“Fine” he grumbled as he gripped the base of her wings.Not bothering to remove her bandages, he sent shock waves of fiery pain throughout Levy body. Her tears had begun to freeze, leaving small dents on the snowy ground in front of her.

“No! Stop,” Gajeel groaned as he and Levy locked eyes in agonizing desperation. His whole body went numb as he watched Zancrow ready himself to rip her wings from her.

“Wait! Why are her wings wrapped?” Ultear demanded.She went over to Zancrow, who briefly let go of her wings. Levy collapsed back into the snow, her breath rugged and hard.

“How should I know! I just found them like this,” He rolled his eyes annoyed. “Just let me rip them out!”

“No you idiot!”

Gently and carefully Ultear began to unwind the bandages. “Infinite Sphere,” she whispered darkly. Several orbs launched themselves at the unsuspecting Zancrow.

“You fool, her wings are damaged!” She yelled.

“So what!” He screamed back.

“No these wings have to be in pristine condition for us to use! You’ve damaged them from the last time we tried to catch her!” She snapped before covering her wings back up and restoring her clothing.

“We need to take her back to the kingdom.” Gajeel’s eyes shot open.He couldn’t let them take her! It took everything he had to fight the never-ending pain, but bit by bit the dragon’s binds became undone.

“You fools stop him! We can not allow him to break free!” She ordered.

Levy tried to take the chance to escape her captors but Ultear held her fast by her delicate wings, sending sharp pain throughout her body.

“I’m sorry my dear, but I’m not letting you go,” she whispered darkly into Levy’s ears. The small fairy bit back a pained scream.

“Rusty, open the portal!” She ordered as she began to use her ice make magic to form rope to bind up Levy.

Gajeel managed to break one of his paws free and used it to shred the branches binding his jaw. But the remaining branches prevented him from moving much.

“Iron dragon roar!” He sent his attack towards his assailants. The remaining others scattered to avoid the dragon’s strike. He watched in horror as a portal began to open up and a trio began to head through it taking Levy with them, who was fighting every step of the way.

“Iron dragon ground club!” He roared, a barricade of iron clubs cut them off from their escape route

“Tree fist!” Azuma groaned, aiming the counter-attack directly at the dragon’s head. He was knocked back by a flying branch.

Gajeel saw the attack coming and met it head-on. With the dragon occupied he launched his second attack.

“Tree Calmare!” Once again tree branches wrapped themselves around every part of Gajeel and exploded. When the dust cleared, the dragon was on his side breathing heavily.

“Meredy take him down now!” He ordered before jumping back and summoning now both roots and branches to bind the dragon.

Maguilty sword!” She summoned a bright blue sword that hovered above Gajeel’s damaged body but she hesitated as looked back at Ultear for her signal.

Levy felt her body turn to ice and her blood run cold as she realized what the girl was about to do.

“No please don’t! I’ll go willingly please don’t hurt him!” Levy begged, tears once again began to stream down her raw red face.

“Do it.”

“NO PLEASE DON’T!” However, her cries fell on deaf ears as the sword was brought down on him. Gajeel’s eyes widened and he let out a weak and feeble roar as his body collapsed onto the snow and moved no more.

“No, Gajeel! No, get up please get up!” Levy screamed her heart ripped in two watching her dragon’s life slowly slip and she sobbed loudly, screaming for him to wake up but he only looked at her with half-lidded eyes, desperate to not lose her.

Zancrow picked her up and threw her over his shoulder not caring for her  began to laugh maniacally

“So long Iron dragon king!” He laughed.

“NO, LET ME GO!”  Levy kicked and slammed her fists onto his back but he just kept on walking towards the portal. Gajeel felt himself reaching out to her but the world around him began to slowly fade to black from the pain.

“GAJEEL-” That was the last thing Gajeel heard as the portal closed, her voice echoing through the forest for him and then the world turned black.

“No! How could they have taken him down?” Erza whispered her hand covering her mouth in shock as she watched in horror as her best friend screamed for her dragon as she was dragged through the portal. The once feared dragon laid on the ground, defeated, bound by branches and roots. Each breath of his growing weaker and weaker from the glowing blade in his side sapping his energy.

She had witnessed the whole fight, and a lead of guilt lodged itself in her. She wanted to help to take down every single one of them. But when she saw they were after the wings of a royal she couldn’t let them have hers. If they did who knew what they would do with four pairs of royal fairy wings. The world around her was silent as she flew from her hiding spot to the dragon and began to destroy the branches holding him down.

The iron dragon’s eyes were still closed, waiting for his eventual death to come, not feeling the unexpected help.

“You have to get up Gajeel!” Erza screamed as she shredded the branches, tears welling up in her eyes as the guilt started to swallow her.

This was all her fault.

“She needs you more than ever! If anyone can save her it’s you!”  His eyes opened and he raised his head as best as he could to look at her.

“What makes you think so fairy? With the power they’ve got there is no chance I can beat them. Besides in case you don’t see it this thing is going to kill me either way. ” He groaned helplessly, throwing his head back to the ground, sending snow flying.

“Alone yes! But I will help you! I will stand by your side and fight to get back my princess! This is my fault I should have never driven Levy to go outside, what happened to her wasn’t your fault!” She screamed back, she looked up at the blade and flew up to it. She saw that it didn’t truly cut through him like a real blade but mimicked it, however, the longer it stayed the chances of him dying were greater.

Grabbing the glowing blade she began to pull, it was much heavier than it looked but the thought of Levy losing her wings and her life fueled her to rip it out of the dragon. If the dragon cared for her as much as Levy proclaimed then he had to be the one to save her. He needed to prove to Levy that he wasn’t dead. With one final pull, Erza screamed as she ripped the blade out of the dragon.

“Gajeel you have to get up!” She gasped for air, the sword disappears.

The dragon’s eyes shot open, the look of despair left his red eyes, how filled with the fire to fight once again. He began to trash and break the bonds holding him down, Erza continued to help and with one final pull Gajeel was free and he roared to the dark grey sky.

“Get on Erza we’re going to the Kingdom of Grimm.” He snarled, he felt the fire to fight run through him, he was going to get back what was his even if he had to destroy an entire kingdom for her.

“Are you sure?” She hesitated, she would much rather fly next to the dragon than on him.

“Yes, now get the hell on! I can fly much faster than you!” He snarled at her.

In one swoop the two were airborne, Erza clenched tightly onto his horns and lightly cursed as the cold wind slapped her face.

“Are you sure the two of us can take on an entire kingdom alone!” She screamed above the winds.

“Who said anything about it just being us?” Gajeel let out a loud, deep roar that reverberated through Erza and could be felt far across the earth, it was unlike the others, this one felt as if it was a cry to war, a signal for others to come help.

“What did you do?” She asked. However Gajeel didn’t answer he simply kept flying, what Erza couldn’t see was the dark grin the dragon bore on his face.

Deep in the far Eastern fire kingdom, a pink-haired man was cuddling with a beautiful blonde hair and brown eye fairy. He had wrapped his arms around her and laid on her bare stomach, savoring the soft feel of her skin.

“Natsu, we can’t stay inside the volcano all day,” Lucy kissed his pink hair, it smelled of soot and ashes.

“Aww come on Luce just one more day all to ourselves-” He stopped  and picked his head up and his eyes widened in shock before groaning into her stomach

“We gotta go.” He quickly stood up and went to put on clothes. Lucy was a bit stunned at his sudden change in mood

“What-” Natsu threw some clothes at her. “Wait Natsu, what’s going on?!” She yelled as Natsu changed into his dragon self, a large ruby red Wyvern dragon, crouched down next to her offering his back to her.

“Gajeel is going to war and he needs our help,” He explained. Without further question, Lucy grabbed her Celestial spirit keys and hopped on him.

“Where are we going?” She asked as Natsu took off to the sky not far behind them Happy tailed them, he was screamed for Natsu to slow down but the dragon either heard his friend but didn’t or didn’t. But the poor blue exceed finally managed to grab ahold of Natus’ tail and hung on for dear life

“The North to met Metalhead himself!” He beamed back at Lucy.

“WAIT THE FROZEN NORTH!?” Lucy’s face paled.

In the West, Wendy was in her dragon form was lying under a beautiful sakura tree, taking in the soft afternoon sun on her pristine white fur, now dotted with pink sakura petals.

She lifted her head up as the roar reverberated through her land, without giving a second thought she quickly flew to her castle.

“Carla! Lily, we need to go right now Gajeel is in trouble!” yelled to her friends, who were both outside creating the salve for Levy.

“Child what on earth has gotten into you?” Caral demanded as Wendy lowered herself so the exceeds could get on her.

“Gajeel sounded the war cry! I think Levy is in trouble!” She explained as she took to the sky, Lily clung to Wendy’s fur as she soared higher and higher into the sky.

“Wendy, what are you doing?” Lily screamed over the wind.

“Hold on tight I’m going to go over the Never Ending mountains! It’s the fastest way to Gajeel!” She answered.

The air got thinner and colder with each rise and slowly the clouds around them began to thicken, even more, signaling their closeness to the North. With one final stork Wendy broke above the clouds and there stood the sharp peaks of the never-ending mountains, standing tall and proud.

“Holy extalia,” Lily whispered it was a once in a lifetime sight as no one on heaven or earth but a dragon could ever fly to this height. Once cleared Wendy dove, sending both Lily and Carla’s stomachs dropping.

“WENDY!” Carla screamed but was lost to the wind. The cold hit them like a hammer, even catching poor Wendy off guard at the sheer change of weather.

“There he is!” She yelled at the large shadowy figure occupying the sky, “Gajeel!”

The iron dragon stopped and hovered in the air.

“Wendy do you know the way to the Kingdom of grim?” He asked as the two flew side by side.

“Yes, did you call us about Levy?” She asked as the smaller dragon struggled to keep up with her much larger dragon brother.

“Yes, now where is flame breath?” He snarled. However, he didn’t need an answer as a large red dragon nearly slammed into Gajeel.

“Watch it salamander!” He snapped.

“Not my fault I’m not use to your insane winds,” Natsu snapped back.

“LUCY!?” Erza yelled in aghast. The lost fairy princess was now next to her after being lost for years for an unknown reason. Lucy had asked Virgo for warm clothes before they had reached the north, and was covered from head to toe. 

“Hey Erza,” Lucy grinned sheepish. Erza didn’t need much explaining as she could more than likely guess as to what happened to Lucy when she vanished. Instead, she smiled, it was nice knowing that another fairy was going to help them instead of just dragons.

“So metal head why did you call us?” Natsu asked as the trio of dragon began to head northwest.

“We’re gonna take down the Kingdom of Grimm and get back my mate!” He roared. Both Wendy and Natsu roared with him, they knew the penalty of those who dare to mess with a dragon’s mate and those who mess with anyone of theirs not only faced the dragon but also his loyal friends.

“Hang on Levy I’m coming” Gajeel thought, hoping that his words will reach her.