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mrsriddles-blog · 1 year ago

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Nightmare | M.R

Pairing: Slytherin Fem Reader X Mattheo Riddle

WC: 3.5K

Warnings/Notes: Mild Language, Violence, Implied Smut, Angst, etc.

Summary: Mattheo has developed an infatuation with you, the schools notorious badass.

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I shall die before I ‘wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

No one truly understood how Mattheo Riddle—the playboy of the school who suddenly wasn’t playing around anymore—was infatuated with Y/n Y/l/n. She was a girl that not many people wanted to mess around with. She had no problem calling people out on their bullshit, nor did she have a problem being honest—brutally honest.

She had the mouth of a sailor and she was as crude as the guys at the school. She hardly put up with any girls just because she didn’t want anything to do with drama. However, her best girl friend is Pansy Parkinson. When the two were together, everyone knew to steer clear. The two were batshit crazy and was ready to cause havoc.

“Hey babes.” Pansy said, playing with Enzo’s hair.

Everyone sat around the tree as usual as you arrived with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. You had a new display of bruises on your face, your knuckles bruised and battered. Mattheo eyed you with eyes that Tom teased him about being dreamy looking.

“Hey babe.” You say, taking a seat and leaning back.

“Nasty bruise there.” She teases.

“Granger doesn’t know when enough is enough.” You chuckle, pushing your hair out of your eyes.

I, I keep a record of the wreckage of my life

I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind

They talk shit, but I love it every time

And I realize

I’ve tasted blood and it is sweet

I’ve had the rug pulled beneath my feet

I’ve trusted lies and trusted men

Broke down and put myself back together again

Stared in the mirror and punched it to shatters

Collected the pieces and picked out a dagger

I’ve pinched my skin in between my two fingers

And wished I could cut some parts off with some scissors

“Oi! Y/l/n!” Harry exclaims, striding towards you.

You take another puff out of your cigarette, looking up at him unamused as you blow out the puff of smoke in his general direction. He steps back, looking disgusted before focusing back on you. You smile lazily at him.

“What ever do you want, Potter?” You ask sarcastically.

“I want to know why you beat up Hermione.” He demands.

“Well she started it. I ended it.” You say.

“I want a real answer.” He snaps.

You had just walked into the bathroom, opening one of the windows to try and sneak in a quick smoke real quick. Hermione walks in and scoffs when she sees you. You look at her blankly.

“C’mon, give me a smile, Y/l/n.” She mocks, giving you a nasty onceover.

“I don’t owe you a goodman thing. Turn around and leave me alone.” You snap, taking another puff from your cigarette.

“I didn’t think you were a coward. Last I heard, you got into fights and won them. Scared to lose?” She asks.

“How about you shut your mouth before you see where running it gets you.” You suggest, putting out the cigarette and throwing it out the window.

“I told you, Potter. She started it. Maybe you should tell your little bitch to watch who she runs her mouth to next time. I gave her a warning. But, she kept pushing. She was quite determined she’d win the fight. Called me a coward. You should've seen the way she cowardly hid in the corner of the bathroom to get away.” You say, scoffing out a laugh at the memory.

“Come on, little lady, give us a smile.”

No, I ain’t got nothin’ to smile about

I got no one to smile for, I waited a while for

A moment to say I don’t owe you a goddamn thing

“God, you are pathetic. What? You can’t find happiness in your screwed up homelife and among your friends, that you have to hurt other people?” He asks.

“I don’t hurt people without reason. And you know nothing about me.” You spat.

He stared at you a moment, before turning and striding away. He didn’t want to push anymore than he had as he didn’t want to be your next victim.

You watch him with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. You resisted the urge to hex him or worse, curse him. You looked like a daydream to everyone, but really you were a nightmare.

No one truly knew where the change came. You were sweet and innocent once. They wished they could blame your friend group, but you were friends with them before. You came back from summer holidays your third year with a whole different personality. Little did they know, your parents were murdered by a rich wizard who got away with it.

Everything changed for the worst, or maybe the best for some.

Voldemort sought you out after hearing the news from his twin sons. He took you in and began to teach you his ways. You became a Deatheater just like your parents and all your friends. You have became the reason everyone was far more confident that they were going to win the war too. You were calculated, yet when needed you were merciless.

I, I keep the record of the wreckage of my life

I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind

They talk shit, but I love it every time

And I realize

I’m no sweet dream, but I’m a hell of a night

That I’m no sweet dream, but I am a hell of a night

“Y/n/n, I’m delighted you are here for the holidays.” Voldemort says, standing to greet you with a hug.

“Thank you for having me, my lord.” You murmur.

“Of course. Why don’t you go get settled in? Dinner will be done around six.” He says.

“Of course.” You murmur.

Mattheo and Tom waited in the doorway for you. You walked towards them, before pausing as the hairs on your neck stood up. You felt your stomach flip uncomfortably.

“Y/n/n?” Mattheo questions.

“Someone is here. Someone who shouldn’t be here.” You murmur, striding past them as you pull your wand free.

You followed your gut and headed to the basement. You heard Tom and Mattheo behind you as Bellatrix’s cackling from upstairs could be heard. You hear Hermione scream, but you keep going when you see a familiar brunette boy and ginger-head boy.

“Potter! Weasley! What the hell are you doing here?” You snap, pointing your wand at them.

Mattheo and Tom follow in suit, Mattheo distracted as he watched you with awe. Tom rolled his eyes at his brother who was obsessed with you.

“Y/l/n? You are a part of this too?” Harry asks in disbelief.

“Of course she is. She hangs with those snakes too. Not to mention she is a snake herself.” Ron spats.

“What is happening to Hermione?” Harry asks.

“What she deserves for breaking in. What you two will soon face as well. You get a first-hand experience of a snake bite. You get to see how venomous we truly are.” You say, smiling sweetly at the two.

No, I won’t smile, but I’ll show you my teeth

And I’ma let you speak if you just let me breathe

I’ve been polite, but won’t be caught dead

Lettin’ a man tell me what I should do in my bed

Keep my exes in check in my basement

‘Cause kindness is weakness, or worse, you’re complacent

I could play nice or I could be a bully

I’m tired and angry, but somebody should be

Harry eyes you warily, looking between you three. He knew the odds, but he also wasn’t one to go down without a fight. He reached for his wand , but it was to late as you hit him with Cruciatus Curse.

“What are you doing!?” Ron cries, dropping to his knees as he tried to get Harry’s attention.

“Protecting my family.” You spat.

“They are just using you.” Ron says, shaking his head.

“Imperio.” You say, watching him curiously.

“Mattheo, lets grab Potter.” Tom says.

“Ron, keep quiet. Give me your wand and Harry’s wand and follow me.” You say.

Ron hands both wands over as he follows you upstairs. Hermione was tied to a chair now, your eyes falling on the word carved into her arm. Tom and Mattheo struggle to lay an unconscious Harry on the ground.

“Is he dead?” Voldmort questions.

“No, my lord. He is unconscious. I used the Cruciatus Curse on him. I used the Imperius Curse on Ron. They were both in the basement.” You explain.

“Well done, child. The rest are on their way. They should be here any minute.” He says.

You nod, turning to help Tom and Mattheo with tying up Harry in a chair as you hear quiet chatter heading towards the dining room. You tell Ron to sit and you easily tie him up as your friends and their parents enter.

“We had our lovely trio break in, and what for…I don’t know just yet.” Voldemort announces, motioning everyone to take a seat.

You take a seat next to Mattheo, your hands shaky with nerves. He grabs your hand under the table, squeezing it out of comfort. You squeeze back, especially as scarlet red eyes focus on you.

“Question the boy.” He orders.

“Ron, why did you guys break in?” You ask, trying not to show your nerves.

“H-Horcruxes.” He stutters out, trying to fight your hold on him.

“Ron! Fight it! You're stronger than this!” Hermione cries.

“Zip it! Or we might have to repeat what happened a few minutes ago, mudblood.” Bellatrix spats, glaring at Hermione.

“Are you delusional? You three are always up to something, but walking into the snakes den? You truly are arrogant fools.” Tom spats, shaking his head.

“Mattheo, Tom, Y/n/n, you are dismissed. You’ve all proved your worthiness today. Why don’t you two assist Y/n/n with what she might need for the spell she has been working on?” Voldemort suggests.

The three of you stand, leaving the room before Hermione says your name. You stop in the doorway before turning to look back at her.

“Why? Why do this? Why are you on their side? What happened to you? We use to be friends. What changed? Why did you come back somebody else our third year?” She asks, tears in her eyes.

“That Y/n is dead, Granger. She isn’t coming back. She died the day my parents were murdered by a rich wizard. Yet, the Ministry of Magic defended him and let him walk free—a mudblood. He should be rotting in Azkaban.” You spat, your eyes narrowing on her.

This was the first time most of your friends knew of what happened to your parents. They assumed they died, but they didn’t ever pry.

“Come on, little lady, give us a smile”

No, I ain’t got nothin’ to smile about

I got no one to smile for, I waited a while for

A moment to say I don’t owe you a goddamn thing

I, I keep a record of the wreckage of my life

I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind

They talk shit, but I love it every time

And I realize

I, I keep a record of the wreckage of my life

I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind

They talk shit, but I love it every time

And I realize

“Matty, can I steal one of your jumpers?” You ask, walking into his room.

“Yeah, here.” He says, handing you the one he had been wearing earlier today.

“Thank you.” You say, smiling at him before pulling it on.

He has definitely imagined you in his clothes. He was beyond obsessed. He practically watched your every move when he was in your presence. He imagined a lot of things. He imagined what it would be like to hold you…to kiss you…to see you in his clothes…to see you without clothes. To say the least, he had a very imaginative imagination.

“Are you busy right now?” He asks.

“No. I just wrapped up the loose ends to that spell for your father. So, I should have a lot of free time on my hands now.” You say, sitting at the end of his bed.

“Let’s watch a film then.” He suggests.

“Not some horror flick though.” You plead.

“No, no, not a horror flick. Why don’t you pick?” He suggests.

You smile, shrugging as you nod. He pats the spot behind him and you crawl up the bed before plopping beside him. He scoots closer to you nonchalantly as he hands you the remote to his TV. You pick a romance movie, hoping he doesn’t make fun of you.

Half an hour passes, and Mattheo had gotten pretty invested in the movie. However, that was until you had moved so you were laying down beside him. Now, he found himself watching you when you got drawn in by the movie. He didn’t think it was this fair to look so good in his bed, but you looked like a Goddess in his eyes.

“Y/n/n.” He murmurs, leaning over you a bit, looking down at you.

Your eyes flicker to his, seeing how close he really was to you. Your lips part in surprise, his eyes flickering to them. You look at his lips, watching them move closer and closer. You close your eyes, his lips dancing with yours.

You move a hand to his, pushing his head closer to yours as he straddles you, deepening the kiss. You both never thought a kiss could be so perfect and magical.

“Y/n.” He whispers against your lips, his eyes still closed.

“Matty, I need you.” You whisper, looking up at him with flushed cheeks.

“Shit…are you sure about this baby?” He asks.

“More than sure.” You whisper.

“Draco, come.” Voldemort says.

You hold Mattheo’s hand tighter, praying Draco comes to you all. It was a relief as he walked over to the Deatheaters side. You’ve noticed he was a little torn between what side he wanted to be on.

“Y/n, now.” Voldemort says, turning to you.

Harry Potter was officially dead. You confirmed it. Now, it was time for the big unveiling of Voldemort’s human form, and not his form that represents where things had gone wrong. It was time for him to be the form of utmost perfection. You found yourself wondering if he’ll look like Tom. Tom does happen to resemble his father a lot from some pictures you’ve seen.

You take in a breath, squeezing Mattheo’s hand before letting it go. You step forward, closing your eyes as you let your arms go out. You hear startled and surprised gasps from everyone around as you begin to float up off the ground.

Mattheo watched just as everyone else was surprised as a green light emitted from you before becoming so bright and engulfing you. He looks back at you after the light explodes and he sees that you're dressed in a black cloak, but he sees the dark green bodice underneath it. Your eyes open and he stumbles back when he sees your eyes are green.

Someone like me can be a real nightmare, completely aware

But I’d rather be a real nightmare than die unaware, yeah

Someone like me can be a real nightmare, completely aware

But I’m glad to be a real nightmare, so save me your prayers

You lift a hand, muttering incoherently before a green tendril reaches out towards Voldemort. It wraps around him, covering him before it slowly washes away as you lower yourself to the ground. You watch, hoping to the gods above that you didn’t just embarrass him. He’d kill you and you knew that.

Your lips part in surprise as you see the man who stood there now. He stood about 6”3 tall, he was lanky yet muscular. His face was sculpted, electric blue eyes instead of scarlet red ones. He had dark brunette hair that was neatly styled and he wore a white button up shirt with black dress pants.

“Your dad is hot.” You mumble and Mattheo pinches you, pouting at you.

“Hey, your mine.” He grumbles.

“I was just noting the obvious.” You mumble.

Voldemort smirks, slowly looking around the crowd. He looks at you and winks before turning to address the other side. You look at Mattheo with wide eyes and parted lips.

“He’s so hot. I really expected he would look like how he had. Like our Tom, now. Not that you're not hot Tom, because you are, like, really hot. But, it seems like even though he hasn’t been his natural self in a long while…he still matured.” You mumble.

“Uhh…thanks I guess.” Tom mumbles.

“You are my bloody girlfriend. Please stop saying my dad is hot.” Mattheo grumbles.

“I’m trying! I’m sorry! I love you.” You say.

“Right.” He grumbles.

You hug him tightly and pout when he doesn’t hug you back. You stand on your tippy toes, your lips brushing against his ear.

“How about I show you how much I love you tonight? I’ve got this new pair of lingerie that I bought because I was thinking of you.” You whisper.

“Deal.” He rasps, kissing your neck before letting you go.

You turn to face Voldemort again. The other side has kneeled and are vowing their loyalty to him. He has them one by one approach him as he gives them the Deatheater mark. Your eyes find Althea, a first year who was looking at you with tears in her eyes. She runs to you, Voldemort watching with curiosity. Your own eyes well, not expecting her to be here.

“When did you get here? I thought I lost you.” You ask, kneeling in front of you as you grab her face in your hands.

“The Ministry of Magic had me at some secure location. They were going to use me as leverage against you when the time come. They had a prophecy that showed who you become. But, you all destroyed the Ministry of Magic. I escaped, “transferred” to Hogwarts in hopes that you’d be here. And you are.” She says, tears falling down her cheeks.

“Oh babes, I am so, so happy you're safe and here. I’ve looked for you, but I honestly thought…I thought they killed you. I couldn’t feel you.” You say, tears falling down your own cheeks.

“They used a spell so you couldn’t feel me. They wanted you to think I was dead…but I’m here. I’m here now.” She whispers, hugging you tightly.

You hug her back tightly, burying your face in her neck as you try to get a grip on your emotions. You lean back, gently wiping her tears away before wiping your own and you smile at her softly.

“Who is this?” Voldemort asks, stopping behind Althea.

You stand, putting an arm around your sister’s shoulder. You look at him and smile slightly.

“This is my sister, Althea. I thought she died…but I guess the Ministry of Magic has had her hidden all along. They had some prophecy about me so they were going to use her as leverage against me. But, because of what you’ve done for us and you’ve taken down the Ministry of Magic…she escaped. Thank you, my lord.” You say.

“Y/n/n…it’s time you called me father or dad. I’ve considered you a daughter for awhile…especially after all you’ve done for our family…and now you and Mattheo are in love…I simply think it’s time for you to stop calling me ‘my lord’ or ‘Voldemort’ and called me dad or something. Althea…I am Tom Marvolo Riddle.” He says, putting a hand out for her to shake.

She takes his hand, shaking it as Tom mumbles something about his name being the same as his fathers. Voldemort takes a knee in front of Althea and smiles at her.

“What should I call you?” She asks.

“Dad…call me dad.” He mumbles.

You smile slightly, realizing that he had a connection to your little sister. You knew he looked at her like a daughter as well. But, this was different. You knew these two were going to have a special bond. You look over at Tom and Mattheo to see them watching with small smiles.

I, I keep a record of the wreckage of my life

I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind

They talk shit, but I love it ever time

And I realize

I, I keep a record of the wreckage of my life

I gotta recognize the weapon in my mind

They talk shit, but I love it every time

And I realize

I’m no sweet dream, but I’m a hell of a night

That I’m no sweet dream, but I’m a hell of a night.

#harry potter universe #hp fandom #masterlist #slytherin #slytherin x reader #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle #mattheoxreader #mattheo x you #mattheo x y/n #mattheo riddle imagine #mattheo riddle fanfic #fluff #angst #oneshot #song fic #fanfic #Spotify

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gladoswantscake · 9 months ago

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Special Guest - Goro Majima x Hostess F!Reader

Summary: There's a special occasion occurring at your job and it's not what you expected.

Warnings: A lil suggestive. Nothing too graphic

A/N: I'm so proud of myself putting in over 2.3k words!!!!! 🥹 Out of all the oneshots I've posted, this is the most I've written.

Available on Wattpad and AO3

The murmuring sounds of upbeat music and the chattering of your co-workers could be heard from outside of the dressing room. As you were told by your boss, this evening there were special guests and they would be renting out the club for the rest of the evening. From the tone of your boss, he sounded skittish. But why?

As you were finishing your makeup touchups, your coworker stuck her head through the door.

"Y/N-chan the guests are here!"

"Here already?" You turn your head to the clock on the wall. "They're not supposed to be here for another twenty minutes."

She turns her head back around and steps into the dressing room, closing the door behind her. "Well from what I heard, some of the guests were eager to come sooner."

"How many are there?" You stand from the dressing table and straighten out your outfit.

The coworker thinks to herself briefly. "Only a few, but from the looks of them, they don't look like our typical clients." Her voice is now in a whisper.

You raise a brow. "Older me-"

"Yakuza." She cuts you off.

"What business do they have coming here?"

"I guess they wanted to come and check it out, but who knows. But we really shouldn't keep them waiting." She grabs your wrist and guides you out of the dressing room and into the lobby.

As you and your co-worker step out of the dressing room, your boss approaches you.

"Y/N-san you've been requested by Majima-san. He's the um... former patriarch." He shudders. "You are one of my best girls, so please don't let me down." He escorts you to the corner of the club where you will be accompanying your client.

Your boss gave you a nervous grin and a thumbs up to wish you luck before leaving you alone.

"Good evening, Majima-san." You bow. "I hope I wasn't keeping you waiting for long." You sit next to him.

From the look on his face he was astounded by your attire. Compared to some of your co-workers, you went all out on looking your best, however as a platinum hostess, it was required.

He clears his throat and gives you a smile. "You came right on time, although," He swings his arm behind you around the back of the booth chair. "I wouldn't have minded one bit waiting longer to know that I was gonna get a gal like ya."

You giggle at his compliment.

From the way he displays himself from his men, he had no problem showing off who he was. He was definitely a Yakuza affiliated from the way his tattoo was peeking out of his snakeskin blazer, and you were already catching yourself staring his exposed torso. Aside from the eyepatch covering part of his face, you had to admit you were catching feelings.

"Shall I get you something to drink?" You ask with a smile.

"Sounds good to me. What's the most recommended drink here?"

"I'm not quite sure, but if it were to be a favorite, I'd say champagne."

The man beams. "Champagne it is then."

You signal the waiter to bring you the bottle of champagne. The waiter nods bringing you the bottle shortly after.

"I have to say..." He gazes your fitting outfit. "You sure know how to make a fella fall fer ya." He compliments. "I asked for the best hostess, but your boss didn't give me your name."

"I apologize for, Majima-san. It's Y/N."

He takes a fresh cigarette from his carton and offers you one.

You took the cigarette from his fingertips. Smoking was something you didn't do as much, but knowing how addicting it can be, you were careful not to do it as often. Majima raised the lighter in front of you, igniting yours before his.

Majima takes a long drag of his cigarette bud before speaking again.

"Y/N-san." He let the name roll off of his tongue. "That's a pretty name. Ya don't hear as many names like yours around here." His eyes survey the room making sure that his subordinates are in line.

He looks back at your nervous demeanor with an almost finished cigarette. It must have been your first time dealing with the Yakuza in a hostess club.

A grin appears on his lips.

"Are ya always this nervous around good-lookin' men? Or is it ones in the dark suits that's making ya feel bothered?" He teases leaning into you a bit. His gloved fingertips purposely brushing your shoulder.

A feeling of warmth rose to your cheeks from Majima's question.

"It's just that it's unusual for our boss to arrange something like this." You grin awkwardly. "But you also are very... handsome."

He takes another drag. "Are ya saying that because it's yer job or do ya really mean it?" He leans in closer. His arm now resting on your shoulder.

Your heart was starting to pound the more he invaded your space. You could tell that he was getting pleasure out of making you fluster.

The tension between the two of you was overbearing. It felt wrong, but deep down you were secretly enjoying the physical touch.

After a few seconds of staring at him so dumbfounded he breaks into a contagious laugh. "I'm just poking at ya!" He rolls his head back as he pats your shoulder.

Majima's strange behavior disconcerts you. In your mind, it seemed a bit childish for a patriarch to act this way, but who's to judge. He was letting loose, and it was probably something he rarely ever has a chance to do, considering his job includes committing illicit activity.

"I didn't mean to put ya on the spot, but," He slowly looks back at you with a broad smile. "I am flattered to receive a compliment by a girl like ya." He takes one last drag and extinguishes it on the ash tray.

Majima then reaches for the bottle on the table, pouring a glass of champagne, handing it to you. "So, tell me something about yourself. What made you want to work as a hostess?" He pours himself a glass and leans back into the booth, spreading his legs in a relaxed manner.

You took swig from your glass; the acidic liquid hitting your tongue followed by the sweet tasting flavors of citrus, peaches, and a hint of cherry. The alcohol soothed your anxiety, but as much as you wanted to get seconds, you had to be careful not to consume so much on the job despite the flavor already getting you hooked.

"I used to live in a small town, but I moved here some time ago for better job opportunities and for a better future."

Majima raises his brows with interest. "You're new here in this town, huh? What do ya think of it so far?" He scoots closer to you.

"Well, I haven't done much of exploring of the town yet since I've been busy working. But the people here are very friendly."

"I can't believe you hadn't had the opportunity! Say, if ya ever wanna find a place to dine at," He points to himself. "I'm your guy to give ya to point ya to the right restaurant."

"Thank you. I'll be needing some suggestions some time when I go out to eat." You take another sip from your glass.

"So, what brings you to our club?" You ask.

Majima's contented expression fades. He downs the remaining glass of champagne and sets it on the table before speaking. "Considering you've lived here long enough, I'm sure you know what kind of person I am." His gaze making the butterflies in your stomach flutter.

"A Yakuza, right?"

He nods. "Since we've found out the place has opened recently, my boys and I had to come by and check it out. It's nice to know who's running the business in our territory." He looks around the room admiring the atmosphere of the club. "And so far, I love what yer boss done to the place."

You smile and nod in agreement. "He's put a lot of effort into making his business successful."

The facial hair exceeding outwards from his goatee made his jawline more accentuated and handsome. From the way his body relaxes against the booth chair, the canvas from his blazer exposes more of his muscled torso. You couldn't help but stare with such delight.

The erotic thoughts began to plague your mind the longer you stare. You wonder what it would feel like to run your hands up to his chest, feeling every scar on him. How it would feel wonderful to trace your hands along his tattooed skin.

"So, how long have ya been a hostess?" He turns his head.

"A few years now. I used to work for a corporate, but it was exhausting. But one day a friend of mine reached out to me about a hostess club that was hiring, and I haven't had second thoughts since."

"I can understand wanting to get out of the rat race. Do you have any plans in the future or are ya comfortable where you're at?"

"I've always wanted to start a business of my own. So in a couple of years, I'll have enough money to go back to college."

"An entrepreneur, huh? You have some good ambitions. I like that about ya. A go-getter!"

"Thank you. You're the first person that I can talk about goals or plans without dozing off." You laugh.

Then you lean towards him with one hand supporting the rest of your body. "I have to say out of all the clients I've had, you're the most interesting one."

"What makes you think I'm interesting?"

"It's your outfit for one. I've never had a client who's dressed differently. All of my past clients were older businessmen, so it's nice to see a bit of change."

"You really like my style?" He chuckles. "I have gotten stares from the way I dress. Yer the first person that's complimented my outfit."

"And your personality... I like it."

There were so many more compliments you wanted to spill out of your mouth and how much you wanted to profess your feelings to him, but you held your tongue.

Majima raises a brow. He was already getting a kick out of you serving up compliments to him. "What's with all the compliments?" He chuckles. "I ain't ever heard a woman pour her heart out to a man before."

The temperature of your body grew by his comment. You took one last swig from your glass to calm your anxiety and hoped it would relax you for the rest of the session.

"I know we just met this evening, but there's something about you that... attracts me." You fold your now clammy hands into your lap.

His face softens. The affinity in your words is starting to become obvious to Majima. He wanted more.

"Ain't you the sweetest hostess." He coos. "I guess it's my charm that's gettin' ya worked up."

You didn't realize his hand was accidentally laying on top of yours, lightly brushing the back of it with his thumb. He leans in a bit closer to hold your chin with his free hand. Your heart was pounding again. A man you've met for the first time, a high-ranking Yakuza, is making you fall hard for him.

Something inside you wanted to take things a bit further. Confidently, you moved you hand slowly up Majima's thigh making his breathing hitch.

Those innocent eyes, soft pastel lips, the dress that hugged your body close to your skin allowing it to flaunt your curves. And the amount of skin you were displaying from your legs was starting to make him feral.

"You really know how to get a man going." His voice dips low and seductive. His hand then moves from your chin to cup your cheek.

Something about his voice is driving you even more aroused, and his touch is only fueling it more.

As your hand caresses upwards towards his crotch the tight, twitching feeling in between his thighs is starting to get to him.

He wanted to run his hand up underneath your dress to get an arousing reaction out of you. He wanted you to quietly whimper out his name the further his hand went inwards into your thighs, but he knew better not to.

Instead, his gloved fingers teasingly tip-toes along your exposed thigh sending sparks of lust within you.

If nobody was present in the club, you'd let him have his way with you.

His lips are now close to yours. You could smell the combination of the faint smell of tobacco and the sweet tasting champagne that lingered on his tongue.

His goatee tickles your cheek as he leans into your ear.

"As much as I'd love to roam my hands underneath that dress of yours, I'd like to get to know more about ya." His voice vibrates in your ear.

You could feel him grinning ear to ear. He slowly pulls away with his lips purposefully brushing your cheek. The hand that once laid on top of yours was brought to his lips to place a kiss.

"I may be a Yakuza, but I know better to not take a woman home on the first night. It wouldn't be polite of me." He lowers your hand.

He was right. It wouldn't be the polite thing to do, especially it being the first time the two of you have met. But it was hard to push the provocative thoughts of yours in the back of your head.

He leans back into the booth chair, draping an arm over your shoulder and bringing you close into his embrace.

"I have to say with you in this club, you make it twice as good."

You lean your head on his shoulder and your hand finds its way back on his thigh. "I'm glad you've had a great experience, Majima-san. Or should I say Majima-chan." You laugh.

He smiles at your comment.

"Since you mentioned about opening up a business, I can help ya out."

"That'd be great..."

#yakuza #yakuza oneshots #yakuza x reader #goro majima x reader #goro majima #majima goro #my creation

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i-like-their-uniforms · 1 year ago

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notes from straight after the Blur concert on 9th July Wembley (feel free to add to this in reblogs or comments):

Damon kissed graham then went and kissed Alex in cheek. Crowd said aww for both but Alex’s was louder, possibly cause the crowd had caught on by then. Graham then said ‘why did he get a bigger reaction..’

Damon braking down crying after under the west way

‘Forget that just Fucking get in with it’ before song 2 as Dave had been playing for a while and Alex’s go pro or tuner thing was taking ages to get fixed

Damon telling the story of ‘Wembley’ how Wember plotted out some of his land and ley means laid out, or something?? And how if centuries ago, eating mushrooms and stuff he might’ve dreamt this up, Wembley, and us all there.

And look at us now. Look at where we are. Damon saying look, how are we here to graham. Damon saying they were 12 and 13 at school and now they’re both still together in Wembley. And then them both doing a cute little celebration waving their arms in the air looking at each other haha

Early on, before the Wembley story, Damon asks crowd if they don’t mind if he takes a sip of his chai tea. It’s in a teacup. He gets it then drinks a bit. Graham then asks ‘can I have some chai tea?’ Suggesting it’s not tea in that cup…

Damon’s was like yeah ‘lab coat guys name’ make gray some chai tea will you, or one thing like this

Graham balancing a cup of drink beer? On his head. Damon saying bet you won’t start the song like that, go on I dare you, bet you do it’ or something. Graham goes to play to pretend to start the song off, and stops quickly and takes drink off his head

Alex with his cigarettes and hip out, classic low camera angles making him look taller than he already is

Damon’s jacket - which I’ve found is custom made for him by Fila as he couldn’t find the original

Damon shouting out all the country flags he could see. One of them, he points out a flag which I didn’t see, and saying ‘what’s this one, [mumbles some country names] Estonia? Is it Estonia? No? Oh dear I got that one wrong. I don’t know that one’ and moving into the Mexican flag. Getting mexicos one wrong at first (which is why he said muchas gracias at some point I think). Seeing Argentina flags later on and going ‘Argentiiiinnaaa’.

Damon praying on his hands and knees in thanks during a song

Damon being very emotional in general throughout

Graham throwing his guitar in the air and catching it to carry on playing until the end of the song without the guitar strap on

Damon saying ‘thank you, muchas gracias’ after a song

Lots of Damon holding crowds hands. One point he hugs a fan and she screams high pitched which gets picked up very clearly by the mic, makes the crowd laugh. He pulls away and as he walks off points to a guy a person down from her and says ‘it was you who made me cry!’ Or something. Man smiles

Graham just being a legend on guitar. Sometimes laying on the floor playing. Doing backwards rolls, throwing his guitar in the air and catching it etc

The crowd cheering for coffee and tv and from what I remember singing it especially loud. Support of grahams one sing song!

Graham walking off the first set of songs leaving the guitar on the stand making noise

Graham being cute before and after coffee and tv, saying hello into his mic before, and saying thank you after

Damon singing lovingly to graham in an emotional love-y song (and graham not looking back as he didn’t see Damon looking at him (cousin’s observation who doesn’t know much about them individually/ their friendships or which song)

Damon before Sunday Sunday saying since it’s a Sunday we have to sing this

Damon at the start of the set saying I know it’s a Sunday and Monday the worst day for majority of us is upon us but let’s just forget about Monday shall we? And the crowd cheered.

Damon at the start saying Saturday was amazing and Sundays crowd won’t beat that surely… later on saying Sundays crowd may be better.. I guess just playing with the crowd

Saying more towards the end, ‘I’m getting used to this now you know? Yeah it’s only Wembley, done this before’ or something similar, joking that he’s already over the awe of Wembley

Not the concert but as everyone was queueing in the Main Street to leave Wembley to the tube, while we were waiting to be released in smaller groups some legend security guard started to play blur music from his tannoy/megaphone for us all to listen and sing to while waiting. Was fun and very nice of him!

#blur #graham coxon #damon albarn #alex james #dave rowntree #blur wembley 2023 #wembley #blur tour #hate the word but for the tags:#britpop #gramon #Sunday 9th july 2023 #own post

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diorcities · 2 years ago

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ho portato le stelle a letto

req: I'm ovulating and the only thing I can think of is cockwarming w haechan while counting his moles because I'm horny but also emotional and I just wanna give that man a baby🌋🔥

pairing: haechan x reader

genre: smut kinda, fluff

content: cockwarming, domestic love, nothing else actually.

wc: 700+

an: thank u anon !! sorry for the delay, i was really invested on strawberries and cigarettes, hope you like it <3 we just reach 800 followers aaaaaa tysm

masterlist — message me !

you hear haechan curse his reflection in the mirror in front of the bed. he's staring at his face, contracted in an annoyed grimace. “what's wrong?” you ask, stopping your reading. “a pimple just showed up,” he breathes.

you leave the book on your nightstand, and get up from the mattress, approaching him from behind. the fresh fragrance due to his recent shower reaches your nose, gently inhaling the soft skin of the nape of his neck. haechan, let you rock his body side to side, as your hands caress his chest. peaking over his shoulder, you look at him. “it's ok, honey,” you whisper.

haechan paid little to no attention to your words, as he's very invested in studying his face in hopes of finding other beauty marks. you stay in silence, knowing how much he cares about his appearance. “we have matching pimples,” you notice, grabbing his chin and making him look at you. a small laugh leaves his lips. “we do,” he recognizes. “since we both have pimples…,” you comment, “shall we do a skincare routine?”.

a small nod makes you go to the restroom. the moment you return to the bedroom, haechan is sitting on the bed, his head resting on the headboard. you make your way to him, sitting with legs crossed in front of him. “should we make each other skin care?” he suggests, watching you smile widely.

“yes.”

his hands go to your waist, getting closer to him and making you sit on his lap. your hands work on the pimple patches. haechan does the same, taking out a pair of them. his free hand going to your chin, to have a better look at your face. you hear him murmur a song. he's concentrated, as he bites his lips, trying to put the patch on the right spot. once he's done, you proceed to do the same.

“where should i put it?” you ask him, brushing his hair off his forehead. he points a finger to a spot in his cheek, asserting the pimple, making you wonder how much he stared at it to know exactly where it was. the pair of round circles adorn his cheeks once you finished. “now, ten minutes,” you inform. “make yourself comfortable, ma'lady”.

the book on your nightstand was no longer interesting, as you found yourself studying your boyfriend's face, wishing that he could see himself through your eyes, so he could finally realize how gorgeous he was, with or without those imperfections that made him rare. “you're staring, weirdo,” you hear him murmuring. his eyes still close. “i'm not,” you deny, looking elsewhere.

“horrible, isn't it?” he asks, opening his eyes. you look at him, immediately knowing what he is referring to. “of course no, haechan,” you whisper. “perfect.” you watch him shake his head, slowly. “perfect to me.”

“how about everyone else?” he asks. “well…, perfection is subjective,” you point out, “it's impossible to be perfect for everyone since there are different standards,” you reply. “we're growing and changing, it's normal that our bodies change too.”

“it's not the end of the world,” you whisper, rubbing your thumb in his hand. you see him detach his head from the headboard and sit upright, face to face, inches away from you. “it's not the end of the world,” he repeats, before going in for a kiss. your eyes opening as soon as you notice the bulge under you. looking at him in awe.

“what can i say? i adore when you go smarty pants.”

“smarty pants?” you asks, while his hands go to the waistband of your pajamas. he tossed them off right away. “mmm… makes me hard.” you laughed. “but we're doing skin care right now, remember?”. “you're right.”

he let you go when you got up to throw away the patches, returning with some tissues and lotions. you sit in the same place as you were before. haechan pretends to read your book, opening his eyes in surprise when he feels you pulling his underwear to free his length.

“i thought we were doing skin care.”

“i mean, we can still do.” before sliding his cock inside you. “so…, this contains niacinamide and this one retinol,” you inform. “retinol.” “okay.”

he starts applying the lotion in your face, gently rubbing circles waiting for your skin to absorb the product. your fingers did the same, making sure to be extra careful. your attention being diverted from the main target. finding yourself tracing paths in his skin.

haechan noticed it, and remained silent.

his moles forming constellations. a whole galaxy in his cheeks. and neck. more hiding under his shirt. splashing his body. how many could you count, before losing track? how many of them are, and how many of them your eyes don't know yet?

“ho portato le stelle a letto,” you quote the book you were reading. you hear him giggle. “what does that mean?” he asks while rocking you in his arms.

i took the stars to bed.

#nct imagines #nct smut #nct 127 smut #haechan smut #nct dream smut #haechan scenarios #haechan drabbles #haechan imagines #♡haechan #haechan fluff #nct dream fluff #nct 127 fluff #donghyuck smut #donghyuck imagines #donghyuck fluff

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srbachchan · 2 years ago

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DAY 5532

Jalsa, Mumbai Apr 9/10 , 2023 Sun/Mon 12:19 AM

🪔 .. April 10 .. birthday greetings to Ef Dr. Sunir Kumar .. 🌿and the wishes to you from the Ef family

a Sunday that worked with a vengeance .. to disrupt the norm , when it disrupts you .. a normal tendency .. but never suggested in practical .. practicals bring back memories of School, where the word or the expression was invariably referred to the practicals in the Science Labs .. mixing elements , playing around with gadgetry in the physics lab .. the College routine in continuation and the site one fine day when the last paper for the Graduate degree was over to find some of the classmates celebrating with the pure alcohol , kept in the Lab, for experiments and getting extremely sick .. 😁 .. an act that taught a lesson very early towards the effects or rather the dis effects of the elixir ..

Yes there were a few other instances noticed, in School and in College , when this intoxicant played havoc due to its excess .. and then when in job in the City of Joy, the natural curriculum seemed to be in line with that phrase ‘social drinking’ ..

I shall not deny the consumption of it, but its reason or resolve in leaving for years and years now, I shall not deliberate .. it is a personal choice and demeanour .. yes I do not .. but why the announce of it ..

as is the case with the cigarette .. in abundance in the years of free, and the sudden and immediate resolve to leave it .. and the way to leave is really quite simple .. chuck that glass of the intoxicant , while in the middle of it and crush the ‘ciggi’ on your lips at the same time and .. sayonara .. the very best way to be in riddance .. not some part time exigencies to stop the use .. its the removal of the cancer at once .. done at the rush of a stroke .. the more the dwindling , the greater the undesired habit of remaining ..

.. and they ask me .. why the bare feet ..

why ?

why is it not asked why the shoe or covered feet .. ?

protection I assume they would revert .. but bare ..

I have it - closer to the Earth .. in its touch , in its feel .. Earth , the reason why this Universe exists .. for us at least .. in time it may be referred to in the past .. who knows ..

there is something about the seat of the desk that surrounds itself with all that is needed, within hands reach .. there may be the desire to dump our fatigue and disappear .. but the moment the hour approaches the symbiosis awakens and lends its presence to the Universe ..

.. what shall be written to attract the Ef, is the issue .. but on seating itself, the words tumble out much like the antagonising locale for the next season .. if ever there is one ..

tumble out .. pun never intended , but filled up the mind and space .. quite obviously when the Tumblr., doth play games with most and the complaints be filed against it ..

do not allow me the permitted privilege of opinion .. it ops out in various nefarious forms, to destroy and rewind the powers that stipulate conversation to be put on the mat with the heaviest , and allowed to breathe through the remaining openings of the body .. the ‘dashadwar’ .. the ‘dash’ .. the ten openings in the body ..

when you look forward to the day year event happening .. it goes beyond the happening .. be in the silence of time and listen , it shall tell you when and how and where ..

Amitabh Bachchan

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causenessus · 3 months ago

Note

NO I GET ANXIETY- MY BRAIN GOES “wait patiently till your ask gets answered before sending another one.” AND I GO 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ “we are not to be annoying, they have lives outside of tumblr (unlike me) and are not chronically online.” SO I JUST GET ANXIOUS- OR I GET ANXIOUS THAT MY ASKS GET EATEN. OR WORSE. I FORGET TO TURN ON ANON. Not even going to lie, I have almost sent these in without anon so many times bcs I’m not used to yapping at people 😭😭😭 like for the entirety I’ve had my tumblr this is like one of the first times I’m using anon not to request things and just yapping.

I shall try my best to get over my anxiety…like my friends will tell you I’m a chronic like paragraph texter (will send fifteen messages and not care if you respond right away even if I’m writing paragraphs) but the minute I have to like email one of my teachers??? Or ask someone something??? Or send in yapping asks???? No. Like suddenly I get anxious that I’m being annoying- anyways…

YES THE BASEMENT IS NICER. That’s actually why my mom suggested it. Sure it’s smaller than my current room and obv doesn’t have like a closet but! It has its own bathroom, and the laundry room is down here and I’m sure I could add more closet space in there. Since I’m almost a real adult (not really, I’m just 18 and a soon to be no longer high schooler) she wants me to have more privacy especially since her boyfriend will be moving in. So very slowly I am cleaning my room.

OMG YOU’RE SO SWEET THOUGH. I WOULD FEEL BAD IF YOU WERE TO HELP THOUGH LOL. Like my friends have offered to help and I’m just like “😀 it’s like embarrassingly depression. Like needs to be cleaned I cannot see my floor. I can’t make you clean that.” But I appreciate the in spirit help 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ <3

Yeah my senior year is pretty chill. I go to a career tech school so I only have 4 classes and then lunch and then after that I finally get to go to lab (basically where we learn our career stuff). I’m taking English Comp 1 + 2 but that’s the only like higher level course I’m taking. The teacher is so sweet though, like he has a coffee and espresso machine in his room and supplies coffee, creamer, milk, and sugar for us and doesn’t make us pay. He actually encourages it 😭😭😭 he’s like “Are you tired? Oh, why don’t we go make you a cup of coffee yeah?” And then if you bring your own mug he tells you to leave it and he washes it for you and like puts it in the cupboard. Genuinely my fave teacher this year. He also never had the lights on, like he has fairy lights all around his room and then he has soft music playing in the background (The Smiths, Cigarettes After Sex, and some others). His room is so chill and comforting.

The school wanted me to take Collegr Algebra but I said no (mostly bcs I don’t need it for my degree. Culinary/ Pastry majors take business math or at least where I live they do) because the school messed up and I wasn’t supposed to take a math last year (I already had four credits cause I took 2 math classes sophomore yr) but was put in one anyway. So I wanted 1 year where I didn’t have to take math 😭😭😭

All my other classes are pretty easy, they’re both history lol. Or I guess maybe a science and history? They were both labeled as history when I was picking classes so- I have to take American History (like World History isn’t just American History expanded 😒) and Criminology (which is kinda sick ngl- like we’re only on the second week of school but it’s fun so far. We watch movies every Friday and connect them to themes about sociology/criminology).

The only other class I have is study hall and bcs all my classes are so easy I don’t do anything in there except try to write fics to post or read fics other people have posted. Slowly making my way through my drafts. Very slowly. But! Progress nonetheless!!!!

IT’S GONNA BE A WHOLE SEVEN DAYS AND MY MOM IS PAYING FOR MY BEST FRIEND OF 7 years (omg it has been 7 years. Hold on I need to throw up-) TO GO WITH US!!!! My graduation present was supposed to be going to Europe but apparently not all of us have been saving money to go 😒 /lh (adult stuff happened that they had to pay off and we’re gonna have a lot more fun when I’m 21 anyway). I DO DESERVE IT! SCHOOL IS HARD BUT I DIDN’T QUIT AND I GOT GOOD GRADES SOPHMORE YEAR ON (freshman year is when the depression room started 😭😭😭😭). Also kinda glad I’m not going to Europe anymore bcs I’m like terrified of planes. Like no joke I get such bad panic attacks, I hyperventilate and my eyes tear up (and that’s just taking off don’t get me started on turbulence!) like it’s not a fun time. (OF COURSE I’LL CHECK IN BEFORE THEN!!! I HAVE TO YAP TO YOU DUH!)

TURNS OUT I WAS READING THE WRONG SCHOOL EMAILS. (For a little context: I still get emails from my “home” school or the school I went to before the career tech school. I get two graduations because I’m technically part of both schools) AND MY SCHOOL DOESN’T TAKE LIKE SENIOR PORTRAITS. 😔😔😔 my senior photos for like graduation announcements and stuff are Saturday though 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🥰🥰🥰

THE PURPLE AND PINK IS PROBS MY FAVORITE HAIR I’VE HAD SO FAR. NOW THE ONLY COLORS I HAVEN’T DONE ARE ORANGE AND GREEN. That does sound so cool WTH!!! Aww I’m sorry :((( I have white people hair that lightens really well lol- thank you mom! ALSO!!! IF YOUR SISTER BLEACHED HER HAIR BUT IT WAS YELLOW/ORANGE THAT’S WHY IT TURNED GREEN/GREY!!! MY HAIR DID THAT ONE TIME! YOU JUST NEED TO TONE IT AND THEN HOPEFULLY IT WILL WORK! 🫶🏻

Listen- I love Suna okay but he’s not like husband. He’s a great character DON’T GET ME WRONG. But there’s just some other characters I like a little 🤏🏻🤏🏻🤏🏻 better than him. however, my irl friend told me I could pull Suna, Timeskip! Osamu, Tendō, and Seijoh 4 (minus Oikawa) so. Confidence??? RAISED ABOVE THE ROOF. ME??? PULL TIMESKIP! OSAMU????? ME??? PULL?? MATSUKAWA ISSEI (HANAMAKI TAKAHAIRO’S FAVORITE FOOD)???? LIKE ???? Little old me???? [sidenote: I love these men but they’re too tall. I KNOW. NO ONE HAS EVER SAID THAT. But I’m a little guy and I would be concerned about their backs from how far they would have to bend down to kiss me 😭😭😭 like 5’ 7 already makes me stand on my tiptoes- so please. Give me a short king. GIVE ME YAKU. But also at the same time I love these men and would NEVER say no if they took me out]

NO I MUST STAY STRONG. I MUSN’T JOIN THE SELF SHIPPING HOURS ❗️❗️❗️❗️

I have failed! I’M JOINING. AND IT’S FRIDAY WHERE I’M AT SO. HAH!

I need Love Notes! Osamu religiously (you can determine what that means).

MAC N CHEESE WITH ORANGE JUICE IS EVIL. Like I already don’t like orange juice (apple juice anon for life [please don’t start a war I’m not fighting. If you like orange juice then like orange juice. I just don’t] <3). In all honesty I’m not that much of a pranker however. 😏 I AM an enabler. I’m the brains and Osamu is the one who executes the plan. I sit there and hand him things.

Speaking of self ship Friday I’ll ask and answer some questions!

Favorite couple thing you guys do?

Me + Love Notes! Osamu enjoy baking our own like fruit bars to eat during movie marathons. What do you and Suna like to do?

Favorite kind of hug?

I’m partial to a back hug but I think that’s bcs my friends do it so often to me. Like arms around waist, chin on head, 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ little head kiss? Heaven.

Do you guys play video games together? If so what do you play and how?

I would force Love Notes! Osamu to play Stardew Valley bcs I have an addiction and everyone I love must play with me at some point (I got my grandma to play, she was very disappointed that she couldn’t romance Gus or the Wizard which really for that). Osamu def tries to blow up the character I’m trying to romance. 😔😔😔😔 But he also probably grinds the mines so I can have pretty rocks. What’s your favorite game to play with Suna?

And the self shipping section of our night comes to a close folks. Tune in next week for more with Bakery Anon and Ness! <3

I think a man (Suna, Osamu, Sakusa. OIKAWA.) sending me a photo of him all bloodied up and smirking I would gen faint. Like swoon. “Is that the light I see? Is it getting closer?” Like I want pathetic beat up men while they’re also able to manhandle me and throw me over their shoulder if they really wanted to. Is that too much to ask???

MANGO ANON <3333 OMG I LOVE THEM!!! I LOVE READING THEIR YAP SESSIONS THEY FILL ME WITH JOY!!!! <3333 mango anon if you’re reading this I love you, keep being silly and full of whimsy <333

OIKAWA IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME. Like I relate to him on a level I don’t even understand. Can I just work on how I ABSOLUTELY ADORED BINARY STARS. I THINK IT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I READ WHEN I MADE THIS ACCOUNT. IT WAS DELECTABLE AND I ENJOYED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. I’m not gonna lie, when I get bored Oikawa is who I draw. He is my comfort drawing character. When I try something new for art but need to draw something to test it on I draw him 🧍🏻‍♀️ not everyone is made equal.

Oikawa as a side character in smau’s is so satisfying because he’s usually there with Hinata causing chaos and I love them. Oihina friendship dynamic fills me with such joy. They’re so WHIMSY (yes this is my favorite word rn besides “very cutesy. Very mindful. Very demure.”) I agree though, he’s a very good side character. If he was the main character I don’t think the story (hq) would have the same feel (no duh) like I think it would feel a lot more serious and angsty. Oikawa can be a main character but he’s such a good like foil??? Is that the right word- for Kageyama that he’s the perfect side character.

Like the way both of them work so hard to reach their goals and still somehow fail before they reach them (beating Shiratorizawa and then Kageyama having a team that trusts them so they can win) but eventually they overcome those hardships and get their goals. Does Oikaw beat Shiratorizawa? No and yes, he doesn’t physically beat them no. But he beats them because he gets over his mental challenge of not thinking he’s even good enough to try to beat them. He wins because he starts believing in himself. And Kageyama gets Karasuno (and Hinata) where he learns to trust them and learns it’s okay to fall back on people and you don’t have to do it all on your own (a lesson Oikaaa has to learn too-) and they go to Nationals.

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE WHOLE “b-but he abused Kageyama 🥺🥺🥺” like stfu. Oikawa was a MIDDLE SCHOOLER. LIKE 14-15 HAVING A PANIC ATTACK. Everyone likes to talk about “Oh just feel your emotions it’s okay to have them.” Until someone having a mental break does something that someone does on a breakdown. Like Oikawa was a child who wasn’t thinking clearly, you can see him literally panic during when he tries to hit Kageyama and then after he just kind of shuts down. STOP BLAMING A MIDDLE SCHOOLER FOR HAVING A PANIC ATTACK AND RESPONDING IN A WAY THAT SOMEONE NOT THINKING CLEARLY WOULD RESPOND.

SORRY ENOUGH YAPPING ABOUT OIKAWA BCS I FEAR I WILL NEVER STOP IF I DON’T NOW.

Okay! HAVE A GOOD DAY!!!!

For everyone who made it this far: I want you to know you’re loved. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of your desires, you deserve to be loved the way you want to be loved. Whether that be in the small hours of the morning or in the loud evening lights. You deserve love, you deserve food, you’re beautiful. If no one else tells you today. I love you!

For Ness: YOU’RE WONDERFUL. THANN YOU FOR YAPPING WITH ME AND MATCHING MY ENERGY. I’m so sorry this ask is so long- I’ll be back to yap about try again later!!!! Your writing is lovely and I finally have time to read it!!! <3333 go have a little snack you deserve it. I hope you sleep well <3

-sincerely bakery anon 🍪

BUG I AM FINALLY HERE OMG I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO THANKFUL FOR DMS BC I WOULD'VE CRIED IF I HADN'T BEEN ABLE TO TALK TO YOU FOR LIKE TWO WEEKS!!!! <3 AND NO OMG I GET ALL OF THOSE ANXIETIES 😭😭😭 ESPECIALLY THE ONES ABOUT AN ASK GETTING EATEN OR IF I FORGOT TO TURN ON ANON!!!! and dw i don't have a life outside of tumblr 😔😔😔😔😔 i am just forced to have responsible human duties aka school!!! but it's not by choice!! </333

omg bug i cannot cannot cannot tell you how excited i am to read this ask like i keep reading bits of it and hearing about buggykawa AND I AM SHAKING!!!!

and aa the moving into the basement sounds so so fun and nice!! i definitely get like the extra room and everything <3 i cannot remember how much i told you but for a little bit i lived with my sister who was rooming with a friend in a house so they got the top floor and she got the basement and it was really nice!!! and i would move into my basement in my house now but my dad basically uses it as his closet and i don't like the bed down there 😭 but it's okay!!! my room is a little cozy too so i don't mind it <3

AND OMG DW I KNOW WHAT DIRTY ROOMS FEEL LIKE </33 I'M SURE I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED THIS BUT I JUST THROW EVERYTHING ONTO MY FLOOR AND DESK WHEN I GET HOME </33 there's like two bags on my floor at all time for when i go out, a random ziplock bag i always slip on, a camera bag, a trashcan in the way of my dresser (the TOP of my dresser is stacked with clothes) my desk is a mess of scripts and random stationery, and my chair has an unfolded blanket that bothers me so much!! (i promise my room is cozy!! i feel like as i describe my room it sounds worse than it really is but it lowk is that bad SO I GET IT DON'T WORRY) SO I WOULD GLADLY HELP YOU!! I'M ACTUALLY ON THE WAY NOW DON'T WORRY 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

and oh my god what??????????????? your english teacher?????? please bug please i need to go to your school please let me transfer schools PLEASE HE SOUNDS SO NICE like the exquisite music taste?? the fairy lights?? the COFFEE MACHINE??? THE FACT THAT HE WASHES YOUR MUG FOR YOU GUYS?? okay and see this is why i am fighting professions rn bc i want to be a teacher and have a cozy room but i really really want to go into psychology too I CAN'T </333 your english teacher sounds so so sweet!!! please i'll do anything i want him so bad omg i'm crying </3 like genuinely felt a pang of???? sadness?? READING ABOUT HOW COMFY HIS ROOM SOUNDS WHY IS MY SCHOOL FILLED WITH DRUGGY KIDS WHO SNORT COCAINE OFF THEIR DESKS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR TEACHERS 😔😔😔😔😔😔 (true story. i cannot even make that up. i have nothing else to say abt it.)

and aa your classes sound so fun!! i have college algebra second semester but i'm so ready/excited for (hopefully) how easy it's going to be bc last year i fought for my life in trig/pre-calc (THE ONLY CLASS I'VE EVER GOTTEN A B IN IT MADE ME SO MAD AND I WAS SO CLOSE TO AN A BUT I DIDN'T DO AMAZING ON THE FINAL AND I HAD TO BE AT AN 88% OR HIGHER FOR HER TO ROUND MY GRADE AND MY FINAL BROUGHT ME DOWN TO LIKE AN 86 OR SOMETHING 😔😔😔 but i've kept my 4.0 thanks to ap classes <33) AND CRIMINOLOGY IS FUN!! i knew some people who took it last year and they had a blast <3 this semester i have english, sociology, tech theatre, i'm a ta for my acting director teacher, and econ!!! so it's a mix of good and bad classes </3 like econ sucks but i have an amazing teacher who was also my teacher for ap psych last year!!! english kind of sucks, i really actually didn't want to take tech theatre this year but i have to bc i'm basically like in charge of our tech department tbh 😔and i love being a ta for my acting director!! (i tried to be one for him last year but basically i walked into his office which he shares with my tech director and my tech director was the only one there and i asked him where my acting director [we'll call him G to make this easier and my tech director is W] was and W was like "he's not here today. just be a ta for me." and i was like "okay 😃" WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE THAT MAN WORKED ME TO THE BONE being his ta basically meant i was in both tech theatre classes [where we build the sets and i have to carry the lighting department on my back, etc.] BUT i only got like 0.25 credits for it i think?? while taking the actual tech class was 0.5 credits </33 so i really burned myself out last year BUT ANYWAY)

AND NO I TOTALLY GET IT I'M SO SCARED OF PLANES TOO!!! like the way especially that they start all shaky and everything and it just feels so unreal being in one in a bad way they scare me so bad!!! and like i randomly got forced to go on an impulse trip with my mom and her parents on a cruise to Mexico???????? which is WORSE BC I'M TERRIFIED OF WATER!!! the only reason i'm excited to go is bc my mom's parents are the one who just gifted me a camera (and why there's a camera bag on my bedroom floor) AND I AM SO SO EXCITED TO USE IT AND LIVE OUT MY LOVE NOTES YN LIFE!!!!! but other than that i'll permanently be locked away in my room praying that the cruise ship doesn't randomly stop working and i die </33 i'm so scared tbh aaaa

AND OH NO SO LIKE DO YOU NOT EVEN HAVE TO TAKE A SENIOR PHOTO??? i'm so jealous of how many colors you've dyed your hair!!!! my mother's pitch black asian hair definitely ruined all my dreams of having colorful hair 😔😔😔 i just stick to like red highlights bc i think they suit me and it's the only color my hair will maintain!! 😭

AND NO OMG I GET IT 😭 SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE MEN AND ME AND LIKE BRO I AM MAYBE JUST BARELY 5'3 AND IT TOOK ME 4 YEARS TO GROW THAT INCH BC BEFORE THAT I HAD THIS MOMENT IN 7TH GRADE WHERE MY DOCTOR TOLD ME I WAS BASICALLY 5 FOOT AND COULD EVEN LIE AND SAY I WAS 5'1 AND THEN I GOT MEASURED AT SCHOOL AND THEY WERE LIKE "lmao no. you're 4'11 pookie" SO I DID NOT GET ANY OF THE HEIGHT GENES I THINK THE VOLLEYBALL BOYS STOLE ALL MINE 😔😔😔 AND I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH YOUR FRIEND WHO SAID WHO YOU COULD PULL!!! ALTHOUGH I THINK YOU COULD ALSO PULL OIKAWA <3 like i think he'd be a sucker for someone super sweet!! especially if they like baked for him yk?? HE'S SOLD he's never been in a kitchen in his life but for you?? he'll happily stand there all day just watching you with a look of love in his eyes <333

AND HELP I LOVE HOW YOU TRIED TO RESIST SELF SHIPPING 😭😭😭 BUT I'M SO GLAD YOU FAILED!!! WELCOME TO THE CLUB BUG <33333

and dw!! i actually don't really like any juices 😭😭 like orange juice is too tangy and sweet and citrusy and pulpy for me (i am so so picky) and apple juice is WAY too sweet for me (apples lowk make me feel sick anyway for some reason?? i think i was just not built for sweet things anyway unfortunately </33)

AND AW THE FRUIT BARS TOGETHER?? okay please and thinking about you and osamu like going to the grocery store together too to like buy the ingredients you need and he's always following you around holding the basket for you </3 and the both of you knowing how to pick out good produce and everything like that <3 LIKE YOU GUYS WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER AND COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER SO WELL IT'S SO SO CUTE!!!

for suna and me i think we just like lazing around or rotting in cafes all day <3 like we'll steal booths (my favorite cafe which i'm at now has little booth benches!!) and sit next to each other and just lean on each other watching movies or doing our own work the entire day <333 and even when we go out to restaurants we lowk like sitting next to each other more than sitting across from each other!! and ik most couples like sitting across from each other to like see each other but if he wants to see me and i'm not looking at him he'll just hold the side of my face and turn me towards him anyway <3 (our servers always get sick of us by the end </3)

AND NO HUGS FROM BEHIND ARE SO SO SOFT AND ADORABLE AND WARM AND I LOVE THEM TOO!!! and i know like them being from osamu?? he'd literally have to hold me up bc my knees would turn to jelly and give out being in his arms </3

AND OMG I LOVE STARDEW VALLEY TOO <3 I AM DEF MAKING SUAN PLAY WITH ME AND WE CAN HAVE BUGMU SUNESS STARDEW VALLEY CO OP NIGHTS!! <3333 you're so real for making everyone play too like i've bought sdv for three friends at this point i think?? bc i love it so much and i just want other people to play it too!! YOUR GRANDMA TRYING TO ROMANCE GUS/THE WIZARD IS SO REAL 😭😭 i love giving gifts to gus!! like that man fr deserves the world <3 I CAN IMAGINE OSAMU TRYING TO BLOW UP WHOEVER YOU TRY TO ROMANCE AND LIKE GUS/THE SALOON TOO 😭 simply bc he's like "i could make a better restaurant like let me build an onigiri miya here rn!!!!" also imagining osamu coming home from the mines at like 1 am bc you've been yelling at him to get back before 2 am for the past 10 minutes and he's just like "but i needed to get u pretty rock!! <3" i am in love with u guys. i am the #1 bugmu stan for life

BUG WE HAVE TO DO SELF SHIP TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY LIKE I CANNOT!!! I NEED TO HEAR MORE ABOUT YOU GUYS OMG <3

and me too completely omg the duality of a man??? pathetic but can manhandle me?? like i'm turning into putting in a man's arms i'm ngl he can have his way with me i am so down bad for suna hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I LOVE MANGO ANON TOO!!! MANGO ANON IF YOU'RE READING THIS BUG AND I ARE STARTING A MANGO ANON FAN CLUB!!!!!! WE'RE YOUR BIGGEST FANS WE LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH <33

AND OMG I'M GLAD YOU LIKED BINARY STARS 😭😭 BC IT WAS FR JUST A TEST RUN BUT THAT MAKES ME HAPPY TO HEAR!! and i wish i could draw!! i would totally draw oikawa if i could but i think it'd end up looking like a really disfigured pinwheel or hazelnut or someting idk BUT EITHER WAY I WOULD NEVER EVEN TRY TO DRAW HIM BC I WOULD BUTCHER IT 😭😭 I WAS NOT BUILT FOR DRAWING

AND YES FOIL IS THE RIGHT WORD!! and i totally get what you mean!! like he is such a perfect side character and i would love to be on the sides with him yk <3 like what's that margaret atwood quote about not being the people written about on paper but in the white spaces on the edges of paper?? that's oikawa and me <33 i love him so much just the way he is!! he's absolutely perfect and i love how he's always causing chaos <3

AND YES OMG OIKAWA MENTALLY BEATING SHIRATORIZAWA BECAUSE HE GREW INTO HIMSELF AND LIKE WHO HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE :(( EVENTUALLY FINDING HIS PLACE IN LIFE IS GOING TO MAKE ME CRY!!!! AND SO REAL!!!!! LIKE I LOVE KAGEYAMA TOO BUT I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY STAN WHO DOESN'T LIKE OIKAWA BC HE WAS MEAN TO KAGEYAMA OR WHATEVER like take one good look at tsukki and yams and tell me you hate tsukki bc he's mean LIKE IK IT'S A DIFFERENT DYNAMIC BUT JUST!! YOU GET WHAT I MEAN!! BEING MEAN TO SOMEONE AND ESPECIALLY WHEN OIKAWA WAS A MIDDLE SCHOOLER AND GOING THROUGH A LOT IS NOT A VALID REASON TO NOT LIKE SOMEONE!!!

BUT BUG OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING A WONDERFUL DAY!! FORGIVE ME FOR HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GET AROUND TO ANSWERING THIS BUT I AM SO SO GLAD THAT I AM FINALLY ANSWERING IT!!!! YOU ARE SO LOVELY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BUG YOU DESERVE FOOD AND ALL THE LOVE AND ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE WORLD!! I LOVE YAPPING WITH YOU AND IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY TO YAP WITH SOMEONE ABOUT SELF SHIPS AND OIKAWA AND JUST EVERYTHING OMG YOU'RE THE ABSOLUTE BEST AND I AM FOREVER THE NO. 1 BUGMU STAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM PRESIDENT OF THE BUGMU AND MANGO ANON FAN CLUBS!!!!! NO ONE CAN OVERTHROW ME!!!! <3333 I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BUG <333

#answers <3 #ness' yap sessions <3 #bakery anon <3

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dbstaches · 2 years ago

Photo

THIS CHARMING MAN

Dave Ball in Zigzag magazine, March 1984 issue - full article text bellow

Following our interview with Marc Almond in ZZ 3 we complete the set with Dave Ball. Paul Barney asked the questions, Linda Rowell* took the photographs.

Okay, you made me do it. I’ve turned it off. I’m talking about the new Soft Cell 12″ ‘Down In The Subway’. I want to flip it over but instead I shall leave the beefy brilliance of their version of Johnny Thunder’s ‘Born To Lose’ (hear it, buy it, you owe it to yourselves!) and tell you about an afternoon I spent in the company of Dave Ball in the living room of his London flat. Ushering me inside Dave smiles and proffers tea. It’s a small room, Dave’s keyboards standing majestically in the intimacy. My heart passes on secret information to my bladder and I have to make the first of my visits to the bathroom [DAMMIT] just when I wanted to be cool and collected.

Dave plays me the new and final Soft Cell album ‘Last Night In Sodom’ and it’s a breathtaking affair. Lots of drums, Marc’s voice reaching and winding its way down my back. ‘Meet Murder My Angel’ featuring Dave’s wife Gini Hewes on the most gorgeous backing vocals. ‘L'esqualita’ is seductive, inspired by New York club for transvestites where they mime to Spanish songs dressed obviously to suit such activity and another standout track is ‘The Best Way To Kill’. A relentless beat. (The title comes from a Sun headline where they asked their readers which method of capital punishment they preferred!) A lot faster than most of the previous album. It was recorded and mixed in five weeks at Britannia Row.

I love it madly but how do you feel? DAVE: “Of all the three Soft Cell albums, it's the one we're most satisfied with because we've been totally involved with it and had total control from start to finish. Rather than working with outside producer ... the ideas come purer.”

Weren't you happy with Mike Thorne's production then? DAVE: “I think we were at the time but he was more into making a name as a star producer. That's fair enough but not if you're a band and depending on someone else to help you get the sound you want. He was more into commercial safety if you like.”

How did you get that sound on ‘Numbers’? (To convey this I am forced to make a noise like a sick penguin, embarrassing!) DAVE: “I used a bass guitar going through an envelope generator. It's like a filter off a synthesiser. It's jus an effect pedal. I'll show you one. (Showing me the device.) Quite simple really. It's just a different context to hearing those sort of things.”

To digest these technical facts calls for a cigarette. Dave suggests a can of beer and whilst he is in the kitchen I'm off to the toilet again. The interview resumes.

Are you a shy person? DAVE: “I'm not shy like now but I am when in front of a lot of people. Marc's got something that really holds people's attention. He's more of a showman. I'm not interested in being a performer. I've never concentrated on it. I never needed to. I always relied on Marc.”

Were you unhappy with ‘In Strict Tempo’? DAVE: “I probably said something like I wasn't totally satisfied with it. It's not really meant to be thought as an album in that sense of being a collection of songs ... It wasn't released with intention of being a chart album. The ideas for new Soft Cell album were initially ideas I got from doing ‘In Strict Tempo’. It was testing ground. People try to read too much ... Like the track ‘Rednecks’. People actually thought I was being serious. The funnest thing is that people from America see the joke but English people don't seem to see it's a total pisstake of that area of America and the country music and the bigotry.”

A lot of tongue in cheek, isn't it? DAVE: “Of course ... Yeah, like on that tribal number, the voices on that are speak and spell.”

I thought it was you (why did I have to say that?) DAVE: “I think maybe I disguised the fact that it was a synthesiser and electronic too well. I just thought the idea of using one of them for a tribal chant was quite amusing!”

Did you get emotional doing the last Soft Cell gig at the Palais? DAVE: “No, I was more emotional doing the video for ‘Soul Inside’. Y'know tearing up the posters. That was the first point when it sunk in, ‘this is coming to an end’, but I don't feel upset about it because we're happy with what we're leaving behind.”

What is this film you've done the soundtrack for? DAVE: “It's called Decoder, a German film. I think they've completed it now. It's going to be shown at the German film festival and I think they'll dub it over in English so it will probably be shown at a few cinemas over here. Maybe just the ICA or bigger cinemas. It's also going to be released on video.” “The film is about muzac, the sort that's used in supermarkets and hamburger joints. Some of the music is by Neubauten, in fact Mufti is the star of the film and William Bouroughs and Christiane F are in it as well. Gen (Genesis P) makes a cameo appearance as an underground preacher. It's quite interesting. Mufti discovers a way of making anti-muzac so instead of pacifying people like muzac does, ot antogonises them and causes riots. I suppose it's very heavy and bleak, very German.”

Future plans? DAVE: “I'm writing a couple of things for Psychic TV to return the compliment for Gen appearing on my album and I'm supposed to be writing some material for Cristina (of Ze records). Do you know her?”

Sort of. DAVE: “I had a meeting with her and Michael Zikha in America late last year. Anybody who asks me if I'm interested in writing or contributing, if it sounds interesting, I do it. “I still want to have a main thing you could call it a group, but ot might end up as a just a couple of people and myself, but again it'll be different from Soft Cell.”

Are you still going to work with Alan Vega? DAVE: “I don't know about that anymore. We talked about it a year and a half ago and nothing happened. His attitude that came over in Zigzag ... I didn't like the way he made me feel guilty as if I owed him a favour. The only similarities between Soft Cell and Suicide was the fact that there were two people, one of them singing and the other playing a keyboard and they used a drum machine. But because we said in an early interview we really liked Suicide, people think they were a direct influence and we were trying to copy them but there's nothing similar at all. I wouldn't want to work with him because he feels I owe him something.”

Is there much unreleased stuff that might see the light in the wake of Soft Cell? DAVE: “There are loads of songs we did when we first started, but we'd never release those, they were just backroom demos. “I think everything we've recorded after this album comes out and the single will have been released. That's one reason why the album is a bit longer than normal. It's because we wanted to make sure everything came out. I hate the idea of leaving stuff unreleased because you never know a year later you might be doing something else and somebody decides to release something you didn't want out then ...”

... and you don't want out now. DAVE: “It's like what they're doing with John Lennon. He's an amazing bloke, still doing albums and he's dead. Pretty good that! “I find it sick. It would be alright if it was just released to make it available to the fans but they're not ... it's tasteless.”

We are both chainsmoking. I catch a glimpse of Sooty flickering away in silence on a small black and white telly in the corner. Dave plays me a really jazzy instrumental continuation of Soul Inside. It's wonderfully chaotic but since you're unlikely to ever hear it on with the interview.

Will you do anymore singing? DAVE: “You call that singing?”

Yeah. DAVE: “Possibly doing backing vocals.”

Don't you have any confidence in yourself as a singer? DAVE: “No, it's bad enough if I'm in the studio. I get embarrassed and nervous if it's just me and the microphone with an audience it would just be a joke.”

These questions must be really boring, maybe I should ask your favourite color. DAVE: (laughs) “It's blue.”

Have you got a strange sense of humour? DAVE: “I like black comedy ... Friday the 13th and stuff. I sit back and laugh at them, always the same plot. They know there's an axe murderer wandering around and the first thing they do is split up and go searching around the woods.”

Have you seen ‘The Thing’? DAVE: “I didn't find that funny. That made me feel quite sick.”

What time do you get up? DAVE: “Sometimes I get really lazy and don't get up 'till two in the afternoon and then I have phases of getting up early. I suppose on average between ten and twelve.”

Do you believe in witches? DAVE: “Yes, I believe in witchcraft, I'm quite interested in that. I've read books. I'm not a practising magician or anything ... Music is a form of magic.”

Are there any causes you feel sympathetic towards like CND? DAVE: “I'm sympathetic to the idea of nuclear disarmament and everything but I wouldn't go out and campaign. If everyone in the country said we don't want nuclear weapons it wouldn't make a scrap of difference because the government doesn't represent the people and big business are behind them. Money is more important to them than people.”

Do you have any phobias? DAVE: “Sometimes walking down Oxford Street if there are lots of people I get paranoid ... I don't like flying ...”

Do you mind if I use the bathroom again? DAVE: “No.”

— * Linda Rowell is actually Mick Mercer, main editor of the magazine at the time as well

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rjalker · 11 months ago

Text

might be too many words for tumblr let's see...

Looksl ike it's working. Out of the Dreadful Depths by Charles Willard Diffin.

Epic sea monster. May be a few typos from the original magazine's format

Robert Thorpe reached languidly for a cigarette and, with lazy fingers, extracted a lighter from his pocket.

"Be a sport," he repeated to the gray haired man across the table. "Be a sport, Admiral, and send me across on a destroyer. Never been on a destroyer except in port. It ... would be a new experience ... enjoy it a lot...."

In the palm-shaded veranda of this club-house in Manila, Admiral Struthers, U. S. N., regarded with undisguised disfavor the young man in the wicker chair. He looked at the deep chest and the broad shoulders which even a loose white coat could not conceal, at the short, wavy brown hair and the slow, friendly smile on the face below.

A likable chap, this Thorpe, but lazy—just an idler—he had concluded. Been playing around Manila for the last two months—resting up, he had said. And from what? the Admiral had questioned disdainfully. Admiral Struthers did not like indolent young men, but it would have saved him money if he had really got an answer to his question and had learned just why and how Robert Thorpe had earned a vacation.

"You on a destroyer!" he said, and the lips beneath the close-cut gray mustache twisted into a smile. "That would be too rough an experience for you, I am afraid, Thorpe. Destroyers pitch about quite a bit, you know."

He included in his smile the destroyer captain and the young lady who completed their party. The young lady had a charming and saucy smile and knew it; she used it in reply to the Admiral's remark.

"I have asked Mr. Thorpe to go on the Adelaide," she said. "We shall be leaving in another month—but Robert tells me he has other plans."

"Worse and worse," was the Admiral's comment. "Your father's yacht is not even as steady as a destroyer. Now I would suggest a nice comfortable liner...."

Robert Thorpe did not miss the official glances of amusement, but his calm complacence was unruffled. "No," he said, "I don't just fancy liners. Fact is, I have been thinking of sailing across to the States alone."

The Admiral's smile increased to a short laugh. "I would make a bet you wouldn't get fifty miles from Manila harbor."

The younger man crushed his cigarette slowly into the tray. "How much of a bet?" he asked. "What will you bet that I don't sail alone from here to—where are you stationed?—San Diego?—from here to San Diego?"

"Humph!" was the snorted reply. "I would bet a thousand dollars on that and take your money for Miss Allaire's pet charity."

"Now that's an idea," said Thorpe. He reached for a check book in his inner pocket and began to write.

"In case I lose," he explained, "I might be hard to find, so I will just ask Miss Allaire to hold this check for me. You can do the same." He handed the check to the girl.

"Winner gets his thousand back, Ruth; loser's money goes to any little orphans you happen to fancy."

"You're not serious," protested the Admiral.

"Sure! The bank will take that check seriously, I promise you. And I saw just the sloop I want for the trip ... had my eye on her for the past month."

"But, Robert," began Ruth Allaire, "you don't mean to risk your life on a foolish bet?"

Thorpe reached over to pat tenderly the hand that held his check. "I'm glad if you care," he said, and there was an undertone of seriousness beneath his raillery, "but save your sympathy for the Admiral. The U. S. Navy can't bluff me." He rose more briskly from his chair.

"Thorpe...." said Admiral Struthers. He was thinking deeply, trying to recollect. "Robert Thorpe.... I have a book by someone of that name—travel and adventure and knocking about the world. Young man, are you the Robert Thorpe?"

"Why, yes, if you wish to put it that way," agreed the other. He waved lightly to the girl as he moved away.

"I must be running along," he said, "and get that boat. See you all in San Diego!"

* * *

The first rays of the sun touched with golden fingers the tops of the lazy swells of the Pacific. Here and there a wave broke to spray under the steady wind and became a shower of molten metal. And in the boat, whose sails caught now and then the touch of morning, Robert Thorpe stirred himself and rose sleepily to his feet.

Out of the snug cabin at this first hint of day, he looked first at the compass and checked his course, then made sure of the lashing about the helm. The steady trade-winds had borne him on through the night, and he nodded with satisfaction as he prepared to lower his lights. He was reaching for a line as the little craft hung for an instant on the top of a wave. And in that instant his eyes caught a marking of white on the dim waters ahead.

"Breakers!" he shouted aloud and leaped for the lashed wheel. He swung off to leeward and eased a bit on the main-sheet, then lashed the wheel again to hold on the new course.

Again from a wave-crest he stared from under a sheltering hand. The breakers were there—the smooth swells were foaming—breaking in mid-ocean where his chart, he knew, showed water a mile deep. Beyond the white line was a three-master, her sails shivering in the breeze.

The big sailing ship swung off on a new tack as he watched. Was she dodging those breakers? he wondered. Then he stared in amazement through the growing light at the unbroken swells where the white line had been.

He rubbed his sleepy eyes with a savage hand and stared again. There were no breakers—the sea was an even expanse of heaving water.

"I could swear I saw them!" he told himself, but forgot this perplexing occurrence in the still more perplexing maneuvers of the sailing ship.

This steady wind—for smooth handling—was all that such a craft could ask, yet here was this old-timer of the sea with a full spread of canvas booming and cracking as the ship jibed. She rolled far over as he watched, recovered, and tore off on a long, sweeping circle.

The one man crew of the little sloop should have been preparing breakfast, as he had for many mornings past, but, instead he swung his little craft into the wind and watched for near an hour the erratic rushes and shivering haltings of the larger ship. But long before this time had passed Thorpe knew he was observing the aimless maneuvers of an unmanned vessel.

And he watched his chance for a closer inspection.

The three-master Minnie R., from the dingy painting of the stern, hung quivering in the wind when he boarded her. There was a broken log-line that swept down from the stern, and he caught this and made his own boat fast. Then, watching his chance, he drew close and went overboard, the line in his hand.

"Like a blooming native after cocoanuts," he told himself as he went up the side. But he made it and pulled himself over the rail as the ship drew off on another tack.

Thorpe looked quickly about the deserted deck. "Ahoy, there!" he shouted, but the straining of rope and spars was his only answer. Canvas was whipping to ribbons, sheets cracked their frayed ends like lashes as the booms swung wildly, but a few sails still held and caught the air.

He was on the after deck, and he leaped first for the wheel that was kicking and whirling with the swing of the rudder. A glance at the canvas that still drew, and he set her on a course with a few steadying pulls. There was rope lying about, and he lashed the wheel with a quick turn or two and watched the ship steady down to a smooth slicing of the waves from the west.

And only then did the man take time to quiet his panting breath and look about him in the unnatural quiet of this strangely deserted deck. He shouted again and walked to a companionway to repeat the hail. Only an echo, sounding hollowly from below, replied to break the vast silence.

It was puzzling—inconceivable. Thorpe looked about him to note the lifeboats snug and undisturbed in their places. No sign there of an abandonment of the boat, but abandoned she was, as the silence told only too plainly. And Thorpe, as he went below, had an uncanny feeling of the crew's presence—as if they had been there, walked where he walked, shouted and laughed a matter of a brief hour or two before.

The door of the captain's cabin was burst in, hanging drunkenly from one hinge. The log-book was open; there were papers on a rude desk. The bunk was empty where the blankets had been thrown hurriedly aside. Thorpe could almost see the skipper of this mystery ship leaping frantically from his bed at some sudden call or commotion. A chair was smashed and broken, and the man who examined it curiously wiped from his hands a disgusting slime that was smeared stickily on the splintered fragments. There was a fetid stench within his nostrils, and he passed up further examination of this room.

Forward in the fo'c'sle he felt again irresistibly the recent presence of the crew. And again he found silence and emptiness and a disorder that told of a fear-stricken flight. The odor that sickened and nauseated the exploring man was everywhere. He was glad to gain the freedom of the wind-swept deck and rid his lungs of the vile breath within the vessel.

He stood silent and bewildered. There was not a living soul aboard the ship—no sign of life. He started suddenly. A moaning, whimpering cry came from forward on the deck!

Thorpe leaped across a disorder of tangled rope to race toward the bow. He stopped short at sight of a battered cage. Again the moaning came to him—there was something that still lived on board the ill-fated ship.

He drew closer to see a great, huddled, furry mass that crouched and cowered in a corner of the cage. A huge ape, Thorpe concluded, and it moaned and whimpered absurdly like a human in abject fear.

Had this been the terror that drove the men into the sea? Had this ape escaped and menaced the officers and crew? Thorpe dismissed the thought he well knew was absurd. The stout wood bars of the cage were broken. It had been partially crushed, and the chain that held it to the deck was extended to its full length.

"Too much for me," the man said slowly, aloud; "entirely too much for me! But I can't sail this old hooker alone; I'll have to get out and let her drift."

He removed completely one of the splintered bars from the broken cage. "I've got to leave you, old fellow," he told the cowering animal, "but I'll give you the run of the ship."

He went below once more and came quickly back with the log-book and papers from the captain's room. He tied these in a tight wrapping of oilcloth from the galley and hung them at his belt. He took the wheel again and brought the cumbersome craft slowly into the wind. The bare mast of his own sloop was bobbing alongside as he went down the line and swam over to her.

Fending off from the wallowing hulk, he cut the line, and his small craft slipped slowly astern as the big vessel fell off in the wind and drew lumberingly away on its unguided course.

She vanished into the clear-cut horizon before the watching man ceased his staring and pricked a point upon his chart that he estimated was his position.

And he watched vainly for some sign of life on the heaving waters as he set his sloop back on her easterly course.

* * *

It was a sun-tanned young man who walked with brisk strides into the office of Admiral Struthers. The gold-striped arm of the uniformed man was extended in quick greeting.

"Made it, did you?" he exclaimed. "Congratulations!"

"All O.K.," Thorpe agreed. "Ship and log are ready for your verification."

"Talk sense," said the officer. "Have any trouble or excitement? Or perhaps you are more interested in collecting a certain bet than you are in discussing the trip."

"Damn the bet!" said the young man fervently. "And that's just what I am here for—to talk about the trip. There were some little incidents that may interest you."

He painted for the Admiral in brief, terse sentences the picture of that day break on the Pacific, the line of breakers, white in the vanishing night, the abandoned ship beyond, cracking her canvas to tatters in the freshening breeze. And he told of his boarding her and of what he had found.

"Where was this?" asked the officer, and Thorpe gave his position as he had checked it.

"I reported the derelict to a passing steamer that same day," he added, but the Admiral was calling for a chart. He spread it on the desk before him and placed the tip of a pencil in the center of an unbroken expanse.

"Breakers, you said?" he questioned. "Why, there are hundreds of fathoms here, Mr. Thorpe."

I know it," Thorpe agreed, "but I saw them—a stretch of white water for an eighth of a mile. I know it's impossible, but true. But forget that item for a time, Admiral. Look at this." He opened a brief case and took out a log-book and some other papers.

"The log of the Minnie R.," he explained briefly. "Nothing in it but routine entries up to that morning and then nothing at all."

"Abandoned," mused the Admiral, "and they did not take to the boats. There have been other instances—never explained."

"See if this helps any," suggested Thorpe and handed the other two sheets of paper. "They were in the captain's cabin," he added.

Admiral Struthers glanced at them, then settled back in his chair.

"Dated September fourth," he said. "That would have been the day previous to the time you found her." The writing was plain, in a careful, well-formed hand. He cleared his throat and read aloud:

"Written by Jeremiah Wilkens of Salem, Mass., master of the Minnie R., bound from Shanghai to San Pedro. I have sailed the seas for forty years, and for the first time I am afraid. I hope I may destroy this paper when the lights of San Pedro are safe in sight, but I am writing here what it would shame me to set down in the ship's log, though I know there are stranger happenings on the face of the waters than man has ever seen—or has lived to tell.

All this day I have been filled with fear. I have been watched—I have felt it as surely as if a devil out of hell stood beside me with his eyes fastened on mine. The men have felt it, too. They have been frightened at nothing and have tried to conceal it as I have done.—And the animals....

"A shark has followed us for days—it is gone to-day. The cats—we have three on board—have howled horribly and have hidden themselves in the cargo down below. The mate is bringing a big monkey to be sold in Los Angeles. An orang-outang, he calls it. It has been an ugly brute, shaking at the bars of its cage and showing its ugly teeth ever since we left port. But to-day it is crouched in a corner of its cage and will not stir even for food. The poor beast is in mortal terror.

"All this is more like the wandering talk of an old woman muttering in a corner by the fireside of witches and the like than it is like a truthful account set down by Jeremiah Wilkins. And now that I have written it I see there is nothing to tell. Nothing but the shameful account of my fear of some horror beyond my knowing. And now that it is written I am tempted to destroy—No, I will wait—"

"And now what is this?" Admiral Struthers interrupted his reading to ask. He turned the paper to read a coarse, slanting scrawl at the bottom of the page.

"The eyes—the eyes—they are everywhere above us—God help—" The writing trailed off in a straggling line.

The lips beneath the trim gray mustache drew themselves into a hard line. It was a moment before Admiral Struthers raised his eyes to meet those of Robert Thorpe.

"You found this in the captain's cabin?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And the captain was—"

"Gone."

"Blood stains?"

"No, but the door had been burst off its hinges. There had been a struggle without a doubt."

The officer mused for a minute or two.

"Did they go aboard another vessel?" he pondered. "Abandon ship—open the sea-cocks—sink it for the insurance?" He was trying vainly to find some answer to the problem, some explanation that would not impose too great a strain upon his own reason.

"I have reported to the owners," said Thorpe. "The Minnie R. was not heavily insured."

The Admiral ruffled some papers on his desk to find a report.

"There has been another," he told Thorpe. "A tramp freighter is listed as missing. She was last reported due east of the position you give. She was coming this way—must have come through about the same water—" He caught himself up abruptly. Thorpe sensed that an Admiral of the Navy must not lend too credulous an ear to impossible stories.

"You've had an interesting experience, Mr. Thorpe," he said. "Most interesting. Probably a derelict is the answer, some hull just afloat. We will send out a general warning."

He handed the loose papers and the log book to the younger man. "This stuff is rubbish," he stated with emphasis. "Captain Wilkins held his command a year or so too long."

"You will do nothing about it?" Thorpe asked in astonishment.

"I said I would warn all shipping; there is nothing more to be done."

"I think there is." Thorpe's gray eye were steady as he regarded the man at the desk. "I intend to run it down. There have been other such instances, as you said—never explained. I mean to find the answer."

Admiral Struthers smiled indulgently. "Always after excitement," he said. "You'll be writing another book, I expect. I shall look forward to reading it ... but just what are you going to do?"

"I am going to the Islands," said Thorpe quietly. "I am going to charter a small ship of some sort, and I am going out there and camp on that spot in the hope of seeing those eyes and what is behind them. I am leaving to-night."

Admiral Struthers leaned back to indulge in a hearty laugh. "I refused you a passage on a destroyer once," he said, "and it was an expensive mistake. I don't make the same mistake twice. Now I am going to offer you a trip....

"The Bennington is leaving to-day on a cruise to Manila. I'll hold her an extra hour or two if you would like to go. She can drop you at Honolulu or wherever you say. Lieutenant Commander Brent is in command—you remember him in Manila, of course."

"Fine," Thorpe responded. "I'll be there."

"And," he added, as he took the Admiral's hand, "if I didn't object to betting on a sure thing I would make you a little proposition. I would bet any money that you would give your shirt to go along."

"I never bet, either," said Admiral Struthers, "on a sure loss. Now get out of here, you young trouble-shooter, and let the Navy get to work." His eyes were twinkling as he waved the young man out.

* * *

Thorpe found himself comfortably fixed on the Bennington. Brent, her commander, was a fine example of the aggressive young chaps that the destroyer fleet breeds. And he liked to play cribbage, Thorpe found. They were pegging away industriously the sixth night out when the first S.O.S. reached them. A message was placed before the commander. He read it and tossed it to Thorpe as he rose from his chair.

"S.O.S.," said the radio sheet, "Nagasaki Maru, twenty-four thirty-five N., one five eight West. Struck something unknown. Down at the bow. May need help. Please stand by."

Captain Brent had left the room. A moment later, and the quiver and tremble of the Bennington told Thorpe they were running full speed for the position of the stricken ship.

But: "Twenty-four thirty-five North," he mused, "and less than two degrees west of where the poor old Minnie R. got hers. I wonder ... I wonder...."

"We will be there in four hours," said Captain Brent on his return. "Hope she lasts. But what have they struck out there? Derelict probably, though she should have had Admiral Struthers' warning."

Robert Thorpe made no reply other than: "Wait here a minute, Brent. I have something to show you."

He had not told the officer of his mission nor of his experience, but he did so now. And he placed before him the wildly improbable statement of the late Captain Wilkins.

"Something is there," surmised Captain Brent, "just awash, probably—no superstructure visible. Your Minnie R. hit the same thing."

"Something is there," Thorpe agreed. "I wish I knew what."

"This stuff has got to you, has it?" asked Brent as he returned the papers of Captain Wilkins. He was quite evidently amused at the thought.

"You weren't on the ship," said Thorpe, simply. "There was nothing to see—nothing to tell. But I know...."

He followed Brent to the wireless room.

"Can you get the Nagasaki?" Brent asked.

"They know we are coming, sir," said the operator. "We seem to be the only one anywhere near."

He handed the captain another message. "Something odd about that," he said.

"U. S. S. Bennington," the captain read aloud. "We are still afloat. On even keel now, but low in water. No water coming in. Engines full speed ahead, but we make no headway. Apparently aground. Nagasaki Maru."

"Why, that's impossible," Brent exclaimed impatiently. "What kind of foolishness—" He left the question uncompleted. The radio man was writing rapidly. Some message was coming at top speed. Both Brent and Thorpe leaned over the man's shoulder to read as he wrote.

"Bennington help," the pencil was writing, "sinking fast—decks almost awash—we are being—"

In breathless silence they watched the pencil, poised above the paper while the operator listened tensely to the silent night.

Again his ear received the wild jumble of dots and dashes sent by a frenzied hand in that far-off room. His pencil automatically set down the words. "Help—help—" it wrote before Thorpe's spellbound gaze, "the eyes—the eyes—it is attack—"

And again the black night held only the rush and roar of torn waters where the destroyer raced quivering through the darkness. The message, as the waiting men well knew, would never be completed.

"A derelict!" Robert Thorpe exclaimed with unconscious scorn. But Captain Brent was already at a communication tube.

"Chief? Captain Brent. Give her everything you've got. Drive the Bennington faster than she ever went before."

The slim ship was a quivering lance of steel that threw itself through foaming waters, that shot with an endless, roaring surge of speed toward that distant point in the heaving waste of the Pacific, and that seemed, to the two silent men on the bridge, to put the dragging miles behind them so slowly—so slowly.

"Let me see those papers," said Captain Brent, finally.

He read them in silence.

Then: "The eyes!" he said. "The eyes! That is what this other poor devil said. My God, Thorpe, what is it? What can it be? We're not all insane."

"I don't know what I expected to find," said Thorpe slowly. "I had thought of many things, each wilder than the next. This Captain Wilkins said the eyes were above him. I had visions of some sky monster ... I had even thought of some strange aircraft from out in space, perhaps, with round lights like eyes. I have pictured impossibilities! But now—"

"Yes," the other questioned, "now?"

"There were tales in olden times of the Kraken," suggested Thorpe.

"The Kraken!" the captain scoffed. "A mythical monster of the sea. Why, that was just a fable."

"True," was the quiet reply, "that was just a fable. And one of the things I have learned is how frequently there is a basis of fact underlying a fable. And, for that matter, how can we know there is no such monster, some relic of a Mesozoic species supposed to be extinct?"

He stood motionless, staring far out ahead into the dark. And Brent, too, was silent. They seemed to try with unaided eyes to penetrate the dark miles ahead and see what their sane minds refused to accept.

* * *

It was still dark when the search-light's sweeping beam picked up the black hull and broad, red-striped funnels of the Nagasaki Maru. She was riding high in the water, and her big bulk rolled and wallowed in the trough of the great swells.

The Bennington swept in a swift circle about the helpless hulk while the lights played incessantly upon her decks. And the watching eyes strained vainly for some signal to betoken life, for some sign that their mad race had not been quite vain. Her engines had been shut down; there was no steerage-way for the Nagasaki Maru, and, from all they could see, there were no human hands to drag at the levers of her waiting engines nor to twirl with sure touch the deserted helm. The Nagasaki Maru was abandoned.

The lights held steadily upon her as the Bennington came alongside and a boat was swung out smartly in its davits. But Thorpe knew he was not alone in his wild surmise as to the cause of the catastrophe.

"Throw your lights around the water occasionally," Brent ordered. "Let me know if you see anything."

"Yes sir," said the man at the search-light. "I will report if I spot any survivors or boats."

"Report anything you see," said Commander Brent curtly.

"You go aboard if you want to," he suggested to Thorpe. "I will stay here and be ready if you need help."

Thorpe nodded with approval as the small boat pulled away in the dark, for there was activity apparent on the destroyer not warranted by a mere rescue at sea. Gun-crews rushed to their stations; the tarpaulin covers were off of the guns, and their slender lengths gleamed where they covered the course of the boat.

"Brent is ready," Thorpe admitted, "for anything."

They found the iron ladder against the ship's side, and a sailor sprang for it and made his way aboard. Thorpe was not the last to set foot on deck, and he shuddered involuntarily at the eery silence he knew awaited them.

It was the Minnie R. over again, as he expected, but with a difference. The sailing vessel, before he boarded it, had been for some time exposed to the sun, while the Nagasaki Maru had not. And here there were slimy trails still wet on the decks.[301]

He went first to the wireless room. He must know the final answer to that interrupted message, and he found it in emptiness. No radio man was waiting him there, nor even a body to show the loser of an unequal battle. But there was blood on the door-jamb where a body—the man's body, Thorpe was sure—had been smashed against the wood. A wisp of black hair in the blood gave its mute evidence of the hopeless fight. And the slime, like the trails on the deck, smeared with odorous vileness the whole room.

Thorpe went again to the deck, and, as on the other ship, he breathed deeply to rid his lungs and nostrils of the abhorrent stench. The ensign in charge of the boarding party approached.

"What kind of a rotten mess is this?" he demanded. "The ship is filthy and not a soul on board. Not a man of them, officers or crew, and the boats are all here. It's absolutely amazing, isn't it?"

"No," Thorpe told him, "about what we expected. What do you make of this?" He touched with his foot a broad trail that shone wet in the Bennington's lights.

"The Lord knows," said the ensign in wonder. "It's all over and it smells like a rotten dead fish. Well, we will be going back, sir." He called to a petty officer to round up the men, and the boat was brought alongside.

Their return to the Bennington again through a pathway of light that Thorpe knew was safe under the black muzzles of the destroyer's guns.

Or was it, he asked himself. Safe! Was anything safe from this devilish mystery that could pluck each cowering human from the lowest depths of this steel freighter, that could drag her down in the water till the radio man sent his cry: "We are sinking!..."

He told Brent quietly, after the ensign had reported, of the struggles in the wireless room and its few remaining traces. And he watched with the commander through the hour of darkness while the Bennington steamed in slow circles about the abandoned hulk, while her search-lights played endlessly over the empty waters and the men at the guns cast wondering glances at their skipper who ordered such strange procedure when no danger was there.

With daylight the scene lost its sense of mysterious threat, and Thorpe was eager to return to the abandoned ship.

"I might find something," he said, "some trace or indication of what we have to fight."

"I must leave," said Commander Brent. "Oh, I'm coming back, never fear," he added, at the look of dismay on Thorpe's face. The thought of leaving this mystery unsolved was more than that young seeker after adventure could accept.

"I'm coming back," Brent repeated. "I've been in communication with the Admiral—Honolulu has relayed the messages through. All code, of course; we mustn't alarm the whole Pacific with our nightmares. The old man says to stick around and get the low-down on this damn thing."

"Then why leave?" objected Thorpe.

Because I am coming around to your way of thinking, Thorpe. Because I am as certain as can be that we have a monster of some sort to deal with ... and because I haven't any depth charges. I want to run up to the supply station at Honolulu and get a couple of ash-cans of TNT to lay on top of the brute if we sight him."

"Glory be!" said Thorpe fervently. "That sounds like business. Go and get your eggs and perhaps we can feed them to this devil—raw.... And I think I'll stay here, if you will be back by dark."

"Better not," the other objected; but Thorpe overruled him.

"This thing attacks in the dark," he said. "I will lay a little bet on that. It left the orang-outang on the Minnie R.—quit at the first sign of daylight. I will be safe through the day, and besides, the beast has gutted this ship. It won't return, I imagine. And if I stay there for the day—live as they lived, the men who manned that ship—I may have some information that will be of help when you get back. But for Heaven's sake, Brent, don't stop to pick any flowers on the way."

"It's your funeral," said Brent not too cheerfully. "The old man said to give you every assistance, and perhaps that includes helping you commit suicide."

But Robert Thorpe only laughed as Commander Brent gave his orders for a small boat to be lowered. A ship's lantern and rockets for night signals were taken at the officer's orders. "We'll be back before dark," he said, "but take these as a precaution."

One favor Thorpe asked—that the ship's carpenter go over with him and help him to make a strong-barred retreat of the wireless cabin.

"And I'll talk to you occasionally," he told Brent. "I tried the key while I was aboard; the wireless is working on its batteries."

He waved a cheery good-by as the small boat pulled away. "And hurry back," he called. The destroyer commander nodded an emphatic assent.

On board the Nagasaki Maru, Thorpe directed the carpenter and his helpers in the work he wanted done. The man seemed to know instinctively where to put his hands on needed supplies, and the result was a virtual cage of strong oak bars enclosing the wireless room, and braces of oak to bar the single door. Thorpe was not assuming any bravado in his feeling of safety, but he was doing what he had done in many other tight corners, and he prepared his defences in advance.

These included weapons of offense as well. As the boat with the destroyer's men pulled back to the Bennington, he placed in easy reach in a corner of the room a heavy calibered rifle he had taken from his belongings.

And, still, with all his feeling of security, there was a strange depression fell upon him when the Bennington's narrow hull was small upon the horizon, and then that, too, was gone and only the heaving swells and the wallowing hulk were his companions.

Only these? He shivered slightly as he thought of that unseen watcher with the devil-eyes whose presence Captain Wilkins had felt—and his men, and the poor terrified ape! He deliberately put from his mind the thought of this; no use to start the day with morbid fears. He went below to examine the cabins. But he carried the heavy elephant gun with him wherever he went.

Below decks the signs of the marauder were everywhere, yet there was little to be learned. The slimy trails dried quickly and vanished, but not before Thorpe had traced them to the uttermost depths of the ship.

There was not a nook or corner that had gone unsearched in the horrible quest for human food. And one thing impressed itself forcibly upon the man's mind. He found a lantern, and he used it of necessity in his explorations, but this thing had gone through the dark and with unerring certainty had found its way to every victim.

"Can it see in the dark?" Thorpe questioned. "Or...." He visioned dimly some denizen of the vast depths, living beyond the limits of the sun's penetration, far in the abysmal darkness where its only light must be self-made. But his mind failed in the attempt to picture what manner of horror this thing might be.

Even in the hold its evil traces were found. There were tiers of metal drums that still shone wet in his lantern's light. Calcium carbide—for making acetylene, he supposed—marked "Made in U.S.A." The Nagasaki must have been westward bound.

He went, after an hour or so, to the wireless room, and only when he relaxed in the safety of his improvised fortress did he realize how tense had been every nerve and muscle through his long search. He tried the wireless and got an instant response from the destroyer.

"Don't shoot it too fast," he spelled out slowly to the distant operator: "I am only a dub. Just wanted to say hello and report all O.K."

"Fine," was the steady, careful response. "We have had a little trouble with our condensers—" There was a short pause, then the message continued, this portion dictated by the commander. "Delay not important. We will be back as agreed. Have picked up S. S. Adelaide bound east in your latitude. Warned her to take northerly course account derelict. See you later. Signed, Brent, commanding U. S. S. Bennington."

The man in the barred room tapped off his acknowledgement and closed the key. He suddenly realized he had had no breakfast, and the hours had been slipping past. He took his gun again and went down to the galley to prepare some coffee. It was not the time or place for an enjoyable meal, but he would have relished it more had he not pictured the Adelaide and her lovely owner steaming across these threatening seas.

He knew the captain of the Adelaide. "Obstinate pigheaded old Scotchman!" "Hope he takes Brent's advice. Of course Brent couldn't tell him the truth. We can't blat this wild yarn all over the air or the passenger lines would have our scalps. But I wish the Adelaide was safe in Manila."

His explorations in the afternoon were half-hearted and perfunctory. There was nothing more to be learned. But he had seen in his mind some vague outline of what they must meet. He saw a something, mammoth, huge, that could grasp and hold an ocean freighter—against whose great body he had seen the waves dash in a line of white spray. Yet a something that could force its way down narrow passages, could press with terrific strength on bolted doors and crush them inward, wrecked and splintered. Some serpentine thing that felt and saw its way and crawled so surely through the dark—found its prey—seized it—and carried off a man as easily as it might a mouse.

No octopus, no matter what proportions, filled the description. He gave up trying to see too clearly the awful thing. And he kept away from the ship's rail when once he had ventured near. For there had come to him a feeling of fear that had sent the waves of cold trickling and prickling up his spine. Was there something really there?... A waiting lurking horror in the depths?

"The eyes," he thought, "the eyes!..." And he went more quickly than he knew to his barred retreat where again he might breathe quietly.

* * *

The position of the deserted ship was south of the regular steamer lanes on the TransPacific run. Only a trace of smoke on the northern horizon marked through the afternoon the passage of other craft. It was a long and lonely vigil for the waiting man. But the Bennington would return, and he listened in at intervals hoping to hear her friendly signal.

The batteries operating the Nagasaki's wireless were none too strong; Thorpe saved their strength, though he tried at times to raise the Bennington somewhere beyond his reach.

The sun was touching the horizon when he got his first response. "Keep up the old nerve," admonished the slow, careful sending of the Bennington's operator. "We have been delayed but we are on our way. Signed, Brent."

The man in the wireless room placed the oak bars across the door, and tried to believe he was nonchalant and unafraid as he laid out extra clips of cartridges. But his eyes persisted in following the sinking sun, and he watched from within his cage the coming of the quick dark.

The protecting glare of day must be unbearable to this monster from the lightless depths, and daylight was vanishing. Thorpe's mind was searching for additional means of defense. He found it in the cargo he had seen. The drums of carbide! He could scatter it on the deck—it reacted with water, and those slimy arms, if they came and touched it, could find the contact hot. He took his lantern and went hastily below to stagger back with a drum upon his shoulder.

In the half-light that was left him he forced the cover and then rolled the drum about the swaying deck. The gray, earthly lumps of carbide formed erratic lines. Useless perhaps, he admitted, but the threatening dark forced the man to use every means at his command.

He was scattering the contents of a second drum when he stiffened abruptly to rigid attention.

The ship, thrown broadside to the wide-spaced swells, had rolled endlessly with a monotonous motion. But now the deck beneath him was steadying. It assumed an abnormal levelness. The boat rose and fell with the waves, but it no longer rolled. There was something beneath holding, drawing on it.

Thorpe knew in that frozen second what it meant. The drum clattered to the rail as he dashed for his room. Gun in hand, he watched with staring eyes where the deserted deck showed dim and vague in the light of the stars and the bow of the ship was lost in the uncertain dark of night.

Wide-eyed he watched into the blackness, and he listened with desperate attention for some slightest sound beyond the splashing of waves and the creaking of spars.

Far in the west a light appeared, to glow and vanish and glow again in the tumbling waters. The Bennington! His heart leaped at the thought, then sank as he knew the destroyer's lights would not appear from that direction.

Through a slow hour that seemed an eternity the oncoming ship drew near, and he knew with a sudden, startling certainty that it was the Adelaide—and Ruth Allaire—coming on, through into the horror awaiting.

He leaned forward tensely as a sound reached his ears. A ghostly echo of a sound, like the softest of smooth, slipping fabric upon hard steel. And as he listened, before his staring eyes, a something came between him and the lighted yacht.

It wavered and swung in the darkness. It was formless, uncertain of outline, and it swung in the night out beyond the ship's rail till it suddenly neared, waved high overhead, and the cold light of the stars shone in pale reflection from an enormous, staring eye.

It surmounted a serpentine form that took shape in the dim radiance without and came lower in undulating folds to crash heavily upon the deck.

Thorpe's hand was upon the wireless key. He had wanted to warn off the yacht, but not till the thud of the creature on the bare deck proved its reality could he force his cold fingers to press the key.

Then, fast as his inexperience allowed, he called frantically for the Adelaide. He spelled her name, over and over.... Would the sleepy operator never answer?

The Bennington broke in one. "Is that you, Thorpe? What is up?" they demanded.

But Thorpe kept up his slow spelling of the yacht's name. He must get a warning to them! Then he realized that the Bennington could do it better.

"Bennington," he called, "Adelaide approaching. I am attacked. Warn them off. Warn them—" His frantic, hissing dots and dashes died immediately. Beneath his feet the Nagasaki Maru was rolling again, swinging free to the lift and thrust of the swells beneath.

"Good God!" he shouted aloud in his lonely cabin. "It's gone for the yacht. Adelaide—turn north—full speed—" he clicked off on a slow, stuttering key. "Head north. You are being attacked!" He groaned again as he saw the Adelaide's shining ports swing away from the safety of the north; the ship broached broadside to the waves and came slowly to a stop.

"Bennington," he radioed. "Brent—it has got the Adelaide. Help—hurry! I am going over."

He tore wildly at the barred door, and he made a dash across the deck to slip sprawling in a heap against the rail where the slimy traces of the recent visitor stretched glistening on the deck.

How he lowered the boat Thorpe never knew. But he knew there was one that the men from the Bennington had swung over the side, and tore madly at the tackle to let the boat crash miraculously upright into the sea. He slung the rifle about his neck with a rope end—there were cartridges in his pocket—and he went down the dangling lines and cast off in a frenzy of haste.

What could he do? He hardly dared form the question. Only this stood clear and unanswerable in his mind: The yacht was in the monster's grip, and Ruth Allaire was there on board. Ruth Allaire, so smiling, so friendly, so lovable! Food for that horror from the depths.... He rowed with super-human strength to drive the heavy boat across the wave-swept distance that separated them.

Between gasping breaths he turned at times to glance over his shoulder and correct his course. And now, as he drew near, he saw though indistinct the unmistakable, snakelike weaving of horrible tenuous fingers, rolling and groping about the yacht.

They were plain as he drew alongside. The trim ship rose and fell with the water, while over her side where Thorpe approached swung a long, white monstrous rope of flesh. It retreated like the lash of a whip, and the horrified watcher saw as it went the struggling figure of a man in the grasp of flabby lips. And above them a single eye glared wickedly.

Another vile, twisting arm rose from the afterdeck with a screaming figure in its grasp and vanished into the water beyond the yacht. There were others writhing about the decks. Thorpe saw them as he made his boat fast and clambered aboard.

A wave of reeking air enveloped him as he reached the deck; the nauseous stench from the monster's tentacles was horrible beyond endurance. He gagged and choked as the stifling breath entered his lungs.

A huge rope of slippery, throbbing flesh stretched its twisted length toward the stern. It contracted as he watched into bulging muscular rings and withdrew from the afterdeck. The deadly end of it stopped in mid-air not twenty feet from where he stood. The jawlike pincers on it held the limp form of an officer in its sucking grip, while above, in a protuberance like a gnarled horn, a great eye glared into Thorpe's with devilish hatred.

The beak opened sharply to drop its unconscious burden upon the deck, and the watching man, petrified with horror, saw within the gaping maw great sucking discs and beyond them a brilliant glow. The whole cavernous pit was aflame with phosphorescent light. Dimly he knew that this light explained the ability of the beastly arms to grope so surely in the dark.

The eye narrowed as the gaping, fleshy jaws distended, and Robert Thorpe, in a flash that galvanized him to action, was aware that his fight for life was on. He fired blindly from the hip, and the recoil of the heavy gun almost tore it from his hands. But he knew he had aimed true, and the toothless, seeking jaws whipped in agony back into the sea.

There were other arms whose eyes were searching the stern of the yacht. Thorpe plunged frenziedly down a companionway for the cabin he knew was Ruth Allaire's. Was he in time? Could he save her if he found her? His mind was in a turmoil of half-formed plans as he rushed madly down the corridor to find the body of the girl a limp huddle across the threshold of her cabin.

She was alive; he knew it as he swung her soft body across one shoulder and staggered with his burden up the stairs. If he could only breathe! His throat was tight and strangling with the reeking putrescence in the air. And before his eyes was a picture of the strong oak bars of his own retreat. Somehow, some way, he must get back to the abandoned ship.

An eye detected him as he came on deck, and he dropped the limp body of the girl at his feet as he swung his rifle toward the glowing light within the opening jaws. The sucking discs cupped and wrinkled in dread readiness in the fleshy, toothless opening. He emptied the magazine into the head, though he knew this was only a feeler and a feeder for a still more horrible mouth in the monstrous body that rose and fell tremendously in the dark waters beyond. But it was typical of Robert Thorpe that even in the horror and frenzy of the moment he rammed another clip of cartridges into his rifle before he stooped to again raise the prostrate figure of Ruth Allaire.

The forward deck for the moment was clear; it rose high with the weight of the writhing, twisting arms that weighed down the stern of the yacht where the crew had taken refuge.

To think of helping them was worse than folly—he dismissed the thought as another great eye came over the rail. Once more he used the gun, then lowered the girl to the waiting boat, and cast off and rowed with the stealthiest of strokes into the dark.

Behind him were whipping points of light above the white brilliance of the yacht Adelaide. The boat was tossing in great waves that came from beyond, where a body, incredibly huge, was tearing the waters to foam. There were ghostly arms that shone in slimy wetness, that lashed searchingly in all directions, as the monster gave vent to its fury at Thorpe's attack. There were screaming human figures grasped in many of the jaws, and the man was glad with a great thankfulness that the girl's stupor could save her from the frightful sight.

He dared to row now, and his breath was coming in great choking sobs of sheer exhaustion when at last he pulled the senseless form of Ruth Allaire to the deck of the Nagasaki and drew her within the frail shelter of the wireless room.

Stout had the oaken bars appeared, and safe his refuge in the barricaded room, but that was before he had seen in horrible reality the fearful fury of this monster from the deep. He placed the braces against the door and turned with hopeless haste to seize the wireless key.

"Bennington," he called, and the answer came strong and clear. "Where are you.... Help—" His fingers froze upon the key and the answering message in his ears was unheeded as he watched across the water the destruction of the yacht.

This craft that had dared to resist the onset of the brute, to fight against it, to wound it, was feeling the full fury of the monster's rage. The gleaming lights of the doomed ship were waving lines that swept to and fro in the grip of those monstrous arms. The boat beneath Thorpe's feet was tossing in the waves that told of the titanic struggle. He had meant to look south for some sign of the oncoming destroyer, but in fearful fascination he stared spellbound where the masts of the trim yacht swept downward into the waves, where the green of her star-board lantern glowed faintly for an instant, then vanished, to leave only the darkness and the starlit sea.

Avoice aroused him from his stupefaction. "Where am I ... where am I?" Ruth Allaire was asking in a frightened whisper. "That terrible thing—" She shuddered violently as memory returned to show again the horror she had witnessed. "Where are we, Robert? And the Adelaide—where is it?"

Thorpe turned slowly. The insane turmoil of the past hour had numbed his brain, stunned him.

"The Adelaide—" he mumbled, and groped fumblingly for coherent thoughts. He stared at the girl. She was half-risen from the floor where he had laid her, and the sight of her quivering face brought reason again to his mind. He knelt tenderly beside her and raised her in his arms.

"Where is the yacht?" she repeated. "The Adelaide?"

"Gone," Thorpe told her. "Lost!" A thought struck him.

"Was your father on board, Ruth?"

Ruth was dazed.

"Lost," she repeated. "The Adelaide—lost!... No," she added in belated response to Thorpe's question. "Daddy was not there. But the men—Captain MacPherson ... that horrible monster...." She buried her face in her hands as she realized what Thorpe's silence meant.

He held the trembling figure close as the girl whispered: "Where are we, Robert? Are we safe?"

"We may win through yet," he told her through grim, set lips. He realized abruptly that he was seeing the face of Ruth Allaire in the light. He had left a lantern burning! He withdrew his arms from about her and sprang quickly to his feet to put out the tell-tale light. In darkness and quiet was their only safety. And he knew as he sprang that he had waited too long. A soft body crashed heavily on the deck outside.

The girl's voice was shrill with terror as she began a question. Thorpe's hand pressed upon her lips in the dark where he stood waiting—waiting.

A luminous something was glowing outside the cabin. It searched and prodded about the deserted deck to whip upward at the audible hiss of wet carbide. Another appeared; the rifle came slowly to the man's shoulder as a pair of jaws gaped glowingly beyond the windows and an eye stared unblinkingly from its hornlike sheath. It crashed madly against the walls of the wireless room to shatter the glass and make kindling of the woodwork of the sash. Thorpe fired once and again before the specter vanished, and he knew with sickening certainty that the wounds were only messages to some central brain that would send other ravening tentacles against them. But the oak bars had held.

He reached in the brief interval for the key, and he sent out one final call for help. He strained his ears against the head-set for some friendly human word of hope.

"—rocket," the wireless man was saying. "Fire rockets. We can't find—" A swift, writhing arm wrapped crushingly about the cabin as the message ceased.

Thorpe seized his rifle and fired into the gray mass that bulged with terrible muscular contractions through the window. He fired again to aim lengthways of the arm and inflict as damaging a wound as his weapon would permit.

The arm relaxed, but a score of others took up the attack. Again the sickening stench was about them as gaping jaws gleamed fiery beneath the hateful eyes and tore at the flimsy structure. Thorpe jammed more cartridges into the gun and fired again and again, then dropped the weapon to fumble for the rockets that Brent had given him.

He lighted one with trembling fingers; the first ball shot straight into a waiting mouth. Another ignited a searing flame of acetlylene gas where a wet arm writhed in the hot carbide trail. The man leaned far out through the broken window.

No time to look around. He let the red flares stream upward high into the air, then dropped the rocket hissing on the deck to seize once more the rifle.

A mass of muscle crashed against the door; it went to splinters under the impact, and only the two oak bars remained to hold in check the horrible tentacles and the darting heads. One mouth closed to a pointed end that forced its way between the bars. The oak gave under the strain as Robert Thorpe pulled vainly at an empty gun. Beside him rose shrieks of terror as the monstrous thing came on, and Thorpe beat with frantic fury with his clubbed rifle at the fleshy snout.

He knew as he swung the weapon that the shrieks had ceased, then smiled grimly in the numbing horror as he realized that Ruth Allaire was beside him. A piece of oak was in her hands, and she was striking with desperate and silent fury at the slimy flesh.

It was the end, Thorpe knew, and suddenly he was glad. The nightmare was over, and the end was coming with this girl beside him. But Robert Thorpe was fighting on to the last, and he tried to make his blows reach outward to the hateful devilish eye.

He saw it plainly now, for the deck was a glare of white light. He saw the eye and the thick arm behind it and the score of others that made a heaving, knotted mass were brilliant and wetly shining. He could see now how best to strike, and he turned his gun to thrust with the barrel at the eye.

It withdrew before his stroke—the jaws slid backward to the deck. There were sounds that hammered at his ears. "The guns! The guns!" a girl was screaming. Across the deck, where a search-light played, huge arms were lashing backward toward the sea. The waves beyond had vanished where a monstrous body shone wetly black in a blinding glare.

And the man hung panting, helpless, on the one remaining bar across the doorway to look where, beyond, her forward guns a spitting stream of staccato flashes, the Bennington tore the waves to high-thrown spray. Her four clean funnels swung far over as the slim ship, with her stabbing, crashing guns, swung in a sweeping circle to bear down upon the black bulk slowly sinking in the search-light's glare.

The vast body had vanished as the destroyer shot like one of her own projectiles over the spot where the beast had lain. And then, where she had passed, the sea arose in a heaving mound. The big ship beneath the watching man shuddered again as another depth charge grumbled its challenge to the master of the deeps.

The warship went careening on an arc to return and throw the full glare of her search-lights on the scene. They lighted a vast sea, strangely stilled. An oily smoothness leveled waves and ironed them out to show more clearly the convulsions of a torn mass that rose slowly into sight.

Thorpe in some way found himself outside the cabin. And he knew that the girl was again beside him as he stared and stared at what the waters held. A bloated serpent form beyond believing was struggling in the greasy swell. Its waving tentacles again were flung aloft in impotent fury, and, beneath them, where their thick ends jointed the body, a head with one horrible eye rose into the air. A thick-lipped mouth gaped open, and the gleam of molars shone white in the blinding glare.

The twisting body shuddered throughout its vast bulk, and the waving arms and futile staring eyes dropped helpless into the splashing sea. Again the revolting head was raised as the destroyer sent a rain of shells into its fearful mass. Once more the oily seas were calm. They closed over the whirling vortex where a denizen of the lightless depths was returning to those distant, subterranean caverns—returning as food for what other voracious monsters might still exist.

The man's arm was about the figure of the girl, trembling anew in a fresh reaction from the horror they had escaped, when a small boat drew alongside.

"They're safe," a hoarse voice bellowed back to the destroyer, and a man came monkeywise up a rope where Thorpe had launched his boat.

And now, as one in a dream, Thorpe allowed the girl to be taken from him, to be lowered to the waiting boat. He clambered down himself and in silence was rowed across to the destroyer.

"Thank God!" said Brent, as he met them at the rail. "You're safe, old man ... and Miss Allaire ... both of you! You let off that rocket just in time; we couldn't pick you up with our light—

"And now," he added, "we're going back; back to San Diego. The Admiral wants a word of mouth report."

Thorpe stilled him with a heavy gesture. "Give Ruth an opiate," he said dully. "Let her forget ... forget!... Good God, can we ever forget—" He stumbled forward, heedless of Brent's arm across his shoulders as the surgeon took the girl in charge.

* * *

Admiral Struthers, U.S.N., leaned back from his desk and blew a cloud of smoke thoughtfully toward the ceiling. He looked silently from Thorpe to Commander Brent.

"If either one of you had come to me with such a report," he said finally, "I would have found it incredible; I would have thought you were entirely insane, or trying some wild hoax."

"I wish it were a damn lie," said Thorpe quietly. "I wish I didn't have to believe it." There were new lines about the young-old eyes, lines that spoke what the lips would not confess of sleepless nights and the impress of a picture he could not erase.

"Well, we have kept it out of the papers," said the Admiral. "Said it was a derelict, and the wild messages floating about were from an inexperienced man, frightened and irresponsible. Bad advertising—very—for the passenger lines."

"Quite," Commander Brent agreed, "but of course Mr. Thorpe may want to use this in his next book of travel. He has earned the right without doubt."

"No," said Thorpe emphatically. "No! I told you, Brent, there was often a factual basis for fables—remember? Well, we have proved that. But sometimes it is best to leave the fables just fables. I think you will agree." A light step sounded in the corridor beyond. "Nothing of this to Miss Allaire," he said sharply.

The men rose as Ruth Allaire entered the room. "We were just speaking," said the Admiral with an engaging smile beneath his close-cut mustache, "of the matter of a bet. Mr. Thorpe has won handily, and he has taught me a lesson."

He took a check book from his desk. "What charity would you like to name, Miss Allaire? That was left to you, you remember."

"Some seamen's home," said Ruth Allaire gravely. "You will know best, if you two are really serious about that silly bet."

"That bet, my dear," said Robert Thorpe with smiling eyes, "was very serious ... and it has had most serious consequences." He turned to the waiting men and extended a hand in farewell.

"We are going to Europe, Ruth and I," he told them. "Just rambling around a bit. Our honeymoon, you know. Look us up if you're cruising out that way."

#public domain #short stories #sea monsters

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soemotional · 2 years ago

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nancy should’ve known better. murray bauman always had some kind of trick up his sleeve, and this time it just so happened to be jonathan byers. she merely flashed him a strained smile before glaring at murray. you. im gonna get you when he leaves. nancy wasn’t a teenager anymore, in fact, she was coworkers with murray now, the last thing she was expecting from him was to pull the same sort of stunts he did when jonathan and herself were teenagers. tone laced with undeniable contempt, she spoke up, “murray, you are one of a kind.” she then turned to jonathan and awkwardly cleared her throat, “nice seeing you again, jonathan.” it wasn’t really, but she’d be cordial. this was merely a work thing, after all. after another deep breath and several long beats of silence, nancy locked her fingers together and suggested to nobody in particular, “let’s get this going, shall we?” she crossed the room, skirting around the threshold of the kitchen, she faced the opposite direction to light a cigarette. it was a nasty habit she’d picked up in college and she hadn’t been able to kick it considering some of the things she discovered while reporting for the watcher.

jonathan byers presence in her space definitely warranted a cigarette. like she was oh so silly, she forced a laugh and hit her palm into the side of her head, “you know murray, um, that thing i had in an hour? i totally forgot we moved it up, so it’s actually in thirty minutes.” nancy knew how obvious she was being, and she knew jonathan and murray alike would be able to tell, but she had to do what was necessary to get out of there before she completely freaked out, made herself look unprofessional. nancy took a long drag. “so, why don’t i go first? so i can get out of here?” fuck. nancy approached the pair, trying not to seem like such a cornered animal when she took charge, “jonathan, where do you want me?” she asked, directing him in a sense as she gestured around with her cigarette. if she had it her way, nancy would’ve avoided the knowledge that he worked at the post. she would’ve avoided him altogether. murray fucking bauman.

Discord Thread History / Murray's Flop Era

Jonathan Byers x Murray Bauman (@waldenwritess) x Nancy Wheeler (@soemotional)

Thread: Murray's a rlly hot cupid

Murray:

The whole endeavor had started off innocently. Really, it had! With Nancy joining The Weekly Watcher, Murray had wanted to make things official by including headshots on the last page of the paper. It helped build rapport with the audience, he thought. So he'd set out to find a local photographer who could deliver good quality for reasonable rates, and... well, as it turned out, he knew a guy. Murray and Jonathan had kept in touch, of course, though mostly through family dinners at Joyce's place. Murray had seen Jonathan around town a few times, too, with a new girl on his arm. Holly-- a reporter at The Post, as much as he could tell. Murray couldn't penalize the boy for having a type, but he could put two people together in an investigation of sorts. With Gabe's express permission, Murray had tacked up a white sheet to their living room wall to create a makeshift studio for the shots. Now, he was milling about the house, preparing waters (vodka on standby, in case) for his guests. He'd told Nancy to come fifteen minutes before Jonathan, to ensure they didn't run into each other outside and assume Murray was trying to pull a fast one over on them. When he heard a knock, Murray bounded to the door and opened it wide, grinning at his coworker. "Nancy, welcome. There's water in the kitchen, or something stronger if you prefer." Though it was a Sunday, he couldn't resist the urge to talk shop-- just for a minute. "You find anything on that couple in Montana? I know you're writing it up, but... humor me," he flashed a toothy smile. With his family expanding, Murray couldn't travel as much as he was used to-- which was why it was nothing short of serendipitous that Nancy had agreed to come on board when she had. It was a plus that she wasn't tied down, too, though Murray didn't hate the idea of changing that, either.

Nancy:

nancy wheeler was nothing if not punctual! so what if she swerved a little bit through traffic applying her lipstick! she wasn't going to keep everyone waiting. she wouldn't have taken so long though, if she didn't get so caught up in how she was going to look and if she should pin her hair up or let it fall down. it wasn't like the watcher was any big shot paper, but it was rewarding work. still, first impressions were everything, especially as a woman. so, when that first impression was a photograph she wanted to fit the image. eventually, she pieced together something that she labelled as cute and respectable and hauled ass to murray's! she met murray with a quick hug, then shuffled inside, not taking him up on his offer of water or something stronger. instead, she immediately immersed herself into talking about that couple, "well, her husband definitely wasn't replaced by a robot, but there was something...off...from the moment i met him. turns out, he had history working with the state government as some kind of low-down lackey on base of a military facility so i went--" nancy took a breath, then smiled coyly and pointed at murray, "i'll let you read the rest." she eyed her watch, then the door, "so, when's the photographer supposed to get here?" she wasn't in a rush or anything, but, nancy liked to keep up appearences, "it won't take long you don't think? i have a...thing in about an hour."

Jonathan:

Jonathan rolled up to Murray’s place and took a final & rushed drag of his cigarette, squeezing it into ashtray built into his car. It took him a few minutes to organize the mess of equipment in his trunk. Holly had (reluctantly) hauled him to the office a little past 3pm to wrap up a project for immediate press on Monday. Truthfully, he didn’t do much professional photography outside of his work with The Post - besides a couple weddings for Holly's friends over the last year. This was his first friends & family gig other than being passed the camera at household events. He generally liked to keep it that way but saying no to Murray wasn't an option and, honestly, he was happy to help. The buffer in his bank account was also welcome at this time of year, as much as he initially refused to talk about his rates. Dimming the financial impact of his last few road-trips along the coast to visit Holly's family was a nice bonus in his eyes. He trotted up the driveway and opted for the doorbell, adjusting his shoulder bag as he waited for the door to swing open. Murray seemed to be in a chipper mood - great. This was a good start. "Sorry I’m late, I got caught up at The Post and had to pack up my gear.” Jonathan wasn’t the most punctual person, as much as he tried. Murray would know based on the number of times he’d shown up late for his mom’s Sunday dinners. “I have a tripod and reflector in my bag – I can set up wherever you want, really. Have you thought about backgrounds for the shots? I wasn't sure so I brought a few neutral sheets." If not punctual, at least he showed up prepared. For all he knew The Weekly Watcher was orchestrated primarily by Murray himself. This would be an easy gig. Hopefully.

Murray:

Murray's face gave way to a sort of teasing frown, and he tsked his lips. "No killer robots yet... maybe by the twenty-fist century, huh?" he commented, then quieted himself to listen. Murray was hanging on Nancy's every word, a smug satisfaction filling his chest at the mention of government involvement-- wasn't there always? "I suppose it's only fair," he said, though his tone betrayed his desire to hear more. "It's always the military, isn't it? Someone should abolish that shit." Murray busied himself around the living room, moving his knick-knacks and Alondra's toys out of the way as much as possible. "Shouldn't take long at all! Just a few snaps. And the photographer's a real professional," he commented, mischievous gleam in his eye. Just then, the doorbell rang. "Ah! Hold that thought, Nancy." He hurried over to the door and opened it with a smile, waving away Jonathan's apology for his lateness. He'd expected it, after all. "Sure! I've cleared this spot in the living room and went ahead and put up a sheet. You can take it down if you'd rather-- but I thought the light was best here. Mi casa es tu casa," he offered with outstretched arms as they walked into the living room. Moment of truth. "Jonathan, Nancy, Nancy, Jonathan," he motioned between them jokingly. "Nancy's been working on the Watcher for.... six months now?" he asked Nancy. "She's been a great asset, always had the nose for this kind of stuff. Never could've expanded like it has without her." Murray retrieved the water pitcher and glasses from the kitchen and returned, offering it to both of them before pouring a few glasses. "And Jonathan's been working at The Post again, isn't that right? Small world, small town." He hid his pleased smile behind his glass.

#ch: nancy wheeler #with: bowie-byers #with: waldenwritess #thread: nancy & jonathan & murray #//gritty nancy ily

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zodiyack · 4 years ago

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Niffler’s New Discovery

Requested by anon: May I request a the youngest Shelby sister x Newt Scamander story? The Shelby sister is nothing like her siblings. She’s shy, reads books like they’re oxygen, loves animals, and doesn’t drink, smoke, or anything like that. She doesn’t even swear, she’s so pure. She also loves his animals. And Tommy acts like her father but she loves her brother very much. Same as her other brothers. They find out she’s dating him and get all overprotective. Sorry if this is too specific. I just love the idea of a Shelby sister who’s nothing like her siblings. Because most of the Shelby reader fics always have them smoking and all that. Which they are fun to read, but it’s nice to see something different. Feel free to pick the Scenario. :)

Pairing: Newt Scamander x Female!Shelby!Innocent!Reader

Warnings: Swearing (not from reader ofc :)) slight suggestiveness (also not from reader), fluff, ✨m a g i c✨

Words: 1,303

Summary: (See Request...also I thought the gif was cute, so anon, I based it off the gif kinda)

Taglist: @matth1w, @redspaceace-writes, @fandom-puff, @darling-i-read-it, @simonsbluee, @sebastianstanslefteyebrow, @marquelapage, @stuckysslag, @psychkunox, @i-love-superhero

Masterlist | Fantastic Beasts (AWTFT) Masterlist | Peaky Blinders Masterlist

At first, they had no problem keeping their relationship hidden from her overly protective family, but the troublemaker Newt constantly had to chase down and return to his case was the thing that exposed them. The bloody Niffler just loved things that shined. Who could blame it though? It was it’s nature.

Just as it was the Shelby brothers nature to react the way they did. Violent, perhaps, but of their nature. Their possessive, over the top protective, shitty, big brother, nature.

And it all started, one late afternoon...

The older Shelby trio, not counting Ada with her age advance over John, returned home after a nice night out at the pub. Sure, the sun hadn’t set yet, but Pol wanted them to return home a little earlier today for a family meeting. The meeting included everyone, minus the innocent angel whom the Shelbys called their sister.

It was the perfect time to have Newt over. The perfect time to explore the secret world hidden inside his little brief case. If only they knew the pesky Niffler had been waiting.

“Are you sure they won’t suspect anything of my presence?” Newt hesitated, one foot hovering above the wooden flooring of Y/n’s bedroom, the other resting on the rooftop outside her window.

She ushered him in the rest of the way, making sure to lock her door after checking that no one was around. “Positive. Family meetings take a while, so we’re good on time. How about you? Are you sure this is good with the council?”

He had a guilt-ridden look across his face as he looked around. “There are some things the council doesn’t have to know.” A nervous laugh rumbled in his throat before he cleared it and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Uh huh... Well, just promise me that you won’t get into any serious trouble for this, alright Newton?” The blushing hufflepuff gave his lover a quick nod, as well as a smile in return for the little peck she placed upon his cheek, pinkening his skin further down his neck- it was no surprise that Newt was terribly new to receiving affection from anything other than his beasts that resided in his case.

“S-shall we be going?” He broke the tension, gesturing to the case in front of them.

“Boys.” Polly stopped the bickering that had started up between John and Tommy, her eyes drifting toward the ceiling, the trios’ following. “Your sister’s been awfully quiet.”

John cackled, “Oh no, maybe she snuck out, went to have a quick fuck with some guy off the streets, didn’t she Pol?” His rather sarcastic tone suggested his knowledge that the referenced behavior was most certainly unlike his little sister, but the immaturity of John Shelby simply couldn’t resist making a joke.

Polly, however, was in no mood for John’s incessant kidding. Her hand met the back of his head, a disapproving furrow of her brows telling him to stop talking. “I’m being serious, you idiot. It’s more quiet than usual.”

“And what about it, Pol?” Tommy spoke after taking a drag from his cigarette, an eyebrow quirked.

“If she really does have a boy up there, he better pray he’s out the window by the time we get up there.”

Tommy’s brow, lowered after asking Polly how she’d respond, lifted back once again. “There’s no God for him to pray to, Arthur. The boy is fucked, plain and simple.”

“In more ways than one.”

John’s childish cackles were hushed into silence, a slap sounding throughout the room prior to their ceasing. A hand rubbing the back of his head, John glared at his aunt, yet continued the discussion of what to do with Y/n nonetheless.

The past ten minutes had been spent trying to block off any and all exists for the pesky little Niffler. Each time it attempted to escape the bedroom, Y/n or Newt were quick to block it off. It amazed Y/n how many places the little creature could scurry off through. Unfortunately, with their wild-goose-chase, footsteps turned to stomps...well, really running, but downstairs it was more likely to sound aggressive, such as the hard thud of a Blinder’s boot on the floor of the Garrison.

It was inevitable; the possibility of being caught, but the fact seemed to slip their minds as they both tried to corner the Niffler, as well as capture it once more. Every shiny thing, ranging from jewelry to bullet casings, or things that caught her eye, made into décor (gifted from her brothers, as she would never touch a gun unless need be) were being stolen as the creature evaded capture.

Newt shot Y/n a sorry look each time one of her belongings were snatched up by the Niffler. It touched her heart, truly, it did, but now was not the time to swoon. Y/n froze as the Niffler wandered over to a bottle. Wine? Champagne? She didn’t know; Y/n never drank- the bottle was a gift from her sister in law, which she couldn’t turn down without upsetting her, so it soon became another...decoration.

Atop the bottle was shimmery, gold-like, wrapping. Of course it caught the mischievous little shine-thief’s eye. It pulled and pulled, Y/n and Newt made eye contact as the uneasy feeling in their guts mirrored, until POP!

The door broke open with a loud bang, Arthur standing confused before getting both a Niffler and a cork to the space between his brows. While Y/n flinched, Newt only looked away in shame.

“What. The. Literal. Fuck. Was. That?” John gapped. His usual remark would be to poke fun, but he too was in great shock, he couldn’t even think of anything humorous.

“A- ...A Niffler.” Newt stuttered. His rather shy demeanor was rarely common around Y/n, so she new he was slightly uncomfortable the second his hand lifted to itch the back of his neck as his eyes found interest in the floorboards.

“Did I fuckin’ ask you?” John narrowed his eyes at the timid wizard.

It was unusual for Y/n to get angry, but the unjustness of John’s attitude toward her lover didn’t sit well with her. “Leave him alone!”

Now there was more to be shocked about. “I- what?”

“You heard me, John. You, Arthur, and Thomas. Leave Newt alone. He didn’t mean for this to happen, so he shouldn’t be harassed by you three. Want to question him? Have Pol do it, but the second you come to my room and bully my lover is the second you cross the line.”

Tommy, amused, let out a little chuckle as he raised his eyebrows.

“Something funny to you, Thomas? ‘Cause I don’t think any of us are laughing.”

“No, sister, nothing is of humor to me.” He muttered despite dawning a lopsided smirk. Tommy looked at his brothers and nodded his head toward the stairs before walking away. Although he was leaving, he never said he wouldn’t poke at the boy some more. Now just wasn’t worth it; he was already shaking in his boots as it is.

“Tommy- where- where’re you goin’?” John did a double take, following shortly after.

Arthur rubbed the red spot where he’d been nailed by the creature and it’s new favorite possession, proved by it cuddling the cork close to it’s body on the floor where it had landed after hitting Arthur. He excused himself politely before walking in the same direction as his brothers, still rubbing at his soon-to-be-bruising injury all the way down.

Newt took the opportunity to grab the niffler and tickle Y/n’s possessions from his tummy before running over and tucking him in the case. The anger faded from Y/n’s eyes as she watched her lover. “It looks as though the Niffler has discovered something new.” Newt chuckled lightly, easing up slowly.

“New indeed.”

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frogchiro · 3 years ago

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random relationship hc's with hanma

can honestly be read as both romantic relationship or just general interactions with him lol, just some of my favorite personal headcanons about our resident zombie boyo ^^

warnings: none really? just a bit suggestive in some points, hanma being a bit of a creep and a meanace to society, gn reader, possible terrible grammar, 16+!

🧡first of all we have to get things straight, we all know that Hanma does have some creepy and questionable tendencies, hell, even Draken calls him zombie

🧡that being said, whether you're in a relationship with him or just friends be ready for a lot of pda, like, a shitton

🧡personally I hc him to be extremely touchy but not in the 'traditional' sense you'd expect, no no, he does it (at least tries to) to literally everyone to make them uncomfortable as hell, at least until someone chases him off lol

🧡and if you're hanma's target/s/o then better be prepared bc you'll have to pry that boy off of you with a crowbar, it's just constant hanging on your back and whining into your ear that he wants attentiooon (y/n)~

🧡but let's get to the real thing shall we? as mentioned above, hanma loves physicall contact, it's his most prominent form of love language actually! the chances of him saying 'i love you' are really slim, like you have to really catch his attention and keep it on yourself for long enough for him to get invested, and even then don't be put off by his lack of verbal love affirmations! he loves you, he really does! it's just that his love language is touch <3

🧡be prepared to always have his long ass stickbug arms around you, he often sneaks up to you from behind and traps you with your back against his chest, not to mention that his hands are the real devils. they're big but very skinny with slim finger and they're always fucking cold so bet that he'll make sure to stick them under your shirt to 'warm them up' and feel your middle up by the way. he always let's out a bellowing laugh at your struggling and then procedes to kiss up your neck before delivering a final wet kiss to your ear

🧡hanma is a possesive lil shit, like, really possesive. it doesn't really matter is you're just his friend or a romantic partner (tho when you're his s/o it's gonna be bumped up a few many notches), he sees you as his possesion and you're gonna be propely marked so everyone knows that you belong to him

🧡besides the obvious pda where he'll literally rub his head against yours (think like a cat) he'll mark you up with hickies like the fiend he is and will leave them in the most obvious and hard to cover places so that when you guys go out either with friends or just the two of you, the bastard will be grinning like crazy knowing that everyone sees that you're spoken for and it's him who got lucky

🧡another (his personal favorite) way to show others that you're with him is having you smell like him, that includes wearing his shirts and sweaters and you'll sometimes catch him wearing something of yours and then give it back to you and insist that you wear it

🧡also i'm sorry to break it to you but no, the famous 'smells like coffee, cigarettes and cologne' wattpad scent is not a good combination, like at all 💀this is a young male we talk about and it isn't until he actually matured and got money on his hands that he actually cared about how he presents himself, so i just know that the white shirt, black pants and the jesus 3000's flippers fit is something he decided that this will be his signature fit and just went with it and never actually thought about changing🗿

🧡that being said, in his younger years i strongly believe that hanma smells like cigarettes, sweat, gasoline and some cheap cologne but that's only when he's feeling fancy, he usually either doesn't use any perfume or smells like an entire aisle of axe body spray, so if you really want to wear his clothes please for the love of god introduce him to some nice smelling perfume😭

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this will be all for now! i have a few other (a bit more cursed ideas) but i just wanted to post this and see if anyone will like it lol

so for now, see ya!💕

#phew i wanted to get this off of my chest for so long #hope you like it!#tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers #hanma shuji #hanma shuuji x reader #tokyo revengers hanma

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emeren · 3 years ago

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bloodlust ☤ 1

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“The devil and I get along just fine...”

Pairing: Fem!reader x Vampire!Eren

Word Count: 5.1 k

Chapter Warnings: Blood, anxiety

Chapter Summary: Reader, a nurse, finds themselves facing a fanged beast, unsure what to make of the world. But this devil with dark hair may not have the intentions you think.

☤ this work of fiction deals with vampires. in turn, there will be discussions of blood and minimal gore. it will also include nsfw content in the near future. all chapters will be marked appropriately☤

Moonlight soaked the path towards his freedom. It danced and reflected off of the dew coated blades of grass. Each one emulated a life he planned to save, with the destruction of his people and the protection of the person he cared for most in the world. She had yet to materialize into something more than the soft breeze of a memory.

He was hungry; the tortuous cry of his instinct to ravage told him so. However, years of training and restraint had yielded him more than capable of swallowing his own desire. The one thing he sought most weighed heavier than impotent monstrous actions. For his goal, he could resist the craving to release his sharpened fangs.

He allowed his eyes one last glance over the house he’d called home for the past four years; dark and gloomy against the stormy night sky. Soon, those who’d chained him in shackles and dragged him to the cellar would be amiss in panic. Wrought iron bars that once caged his devilish soul would be found empty. A beast was on the run.

He felt brief sorrow for those he would hurt in the process of securing their freedom from a pained existence. But he’d made up his mind. All that was left to do was to head north.

His nimble hands pulled the dark hood of his coat above his head. He took one deep breath, the entrancing smell of rain and dirt wafting through the air.

North, to the person that occupied his past, present, and future. To freedom.

☤ ☤ ☤

You considered yourself well suited to the role you’d decided to serve for the rest of your life. Time spent meticulously memorizing health patterns and disease characteristics had broadened your sense of confidence. Doubt rarely ever plagued your mind past the childish decision of what to eat for breakfast in the morning.

Nursing had not always been your final destination in life; the unprecedented scared you enough to mark healthcare as a profession to avoid. Losing two parents unexpectedly in high school due to a mysterious illness had been enough to change your once convinced mind.

Your rain jacket was slick with the slight precipitation clouding the late night sky as you entered the hospital locker room -- a weak cup of coffee in hand, marred with a ring of chapstick residue against the lip. Night shifts were often greeted with unrelenting misery on your behalf.

“You look excited to be here,” The familiar tone of your coworker hummed from behind you. There seemed no force strong enough to concur surprise in your unrested eyes. Historia was someone who lacked a certain fear factor in most aspects of her being, anyways.

“I didn’t see you when I came in, Historia,” You answered, eyes glancing over your shoulder to take in the blonde-haired nurse. Despite having walked in the rain the same as you, her demeanor was much more spritely.

She gave you a smile, following you towards your adjacent lockers. “Ah, I came in the back entrance today.”

“You’re awfully chipper for someone who’s working the night shift,” Your half-assed attempt at being friendly mingled with the clammer of your locker. Historia chuckled softly from behind her door.

“I prefer the night shift, actually. Isn’t this your third night on?” She asked. You slipped your wet jacket from your shoulders, shaking it slightly before hanging it in the metal box.

“Yeah, it is. Can’t say I enjoy it as much as you do,” You lightly closed the door, Historia doing the same. Overt kindness wasn’t a trait you claimed when burnt out on work; she knew this and gave you no foul for it.

Her blue eyes crinkled in the ghost of a smile. “Not a creature of the night, hm?”

“I’m no vampire, that’s for sure,” You chuckled. Historia’s smile faltered slightly. It came as no surprise that she was afraid of monsters and ghouls. You decided to change the subject in her favor. “Speaking of, I hear it’s a full moon tonight.”

“Oh?” Her eyes widened, coy smirk wiggling its way back onto her blushed cheeks. Despite your adverse to the unknown, you enjoyed indulging in childish hospital rumors. The notion that weird cases spiked on nights when the moon was full in the sky was a tale as old as time; strange people flooded the hospitals, with even stranger injuries and illnesses. Or so that was what people said, not that you’d ever experienced it yourself. “I wonder if anything crazy will happen tonight.”

“Doubt it,” You stepped aside, allowing her to match your stride as the two of you headed towards the conference room for a briefing before the shift. She hummed in agreement, the rest of the walk done in a comfortable silence.

The room for debriefing was a mundane conference set up. The walls were a bleached white; anatomy posters and warnings about the harmful nature of cigarettes decorating the walls. An oval desk surrounded by blue, plastic chairs took up most of the room. It smelled like microwaved Kraft, courtesy of a nurse scarfing down a last helping before their shift started.

“That’s odd,” Historia frowned, blue eyes tracing the room. Staff sat around in quiet huddles, most silently waiting for the briefing to start. She glanced down at her watch before nudging you in the arm. “Where’s Doctor Smith? We start in two minutes.”

The tall, burly man was never late for a briefing; his stoic nature didn’t allow room for such a lack. He had never given you a reason to doubt his trust, but something about his demeanor made you uneasy. He commanded a room with such conviction that your coworkers fell to his feet with unadulterated respect; you, a mindless sheep following their lead. Rational thought would’ve placed your discomfort on his position of power and his role as your boss. Simply put, however, he gave you the creeps.

The plastic chair skidded against the polished floor as you took your seat at the table beside Historia. The older staff coughed and occasionally grumbled, filling the tired silence with a sense of annoyance. Your blonde coworker sensed your gripe, elbowing you in the ribs and leaving a crease in your lilac scrubs. You suppressed a smile.

“Pardon me,” Doctor Smith’s commanding voice echoed through the room before he stepped in the doorway. Your muscles tensed; back straightening as if to give the illusion that you hadn’t been hunched over, looking exhausted and miserable. His blond hair was perfectly sculpted; not a strand out of place and not a wrinkle in his blue dress shirt. His lab coat was almost a sickeningly bleached titanium. “Sorry for my tardiness; I was dealing with an emergency back home.”

Historia shifted beside you.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” He gave a terse smile before picking his clipboard off of the table and flipping through the papers. “Looks like we’ve got the regular scheduling for this evening. As usual, the night shift staffing is lighter than our other shifts, so remember to be vigilant and take action without being told to.”

You tended to tune out the mundane precautions and warnings that were part of a pre-shift briefing. Outside the window, rain pattered against the glass pane. The shower provided a sense of comfort; rain often preceded a night spent inside, wrapped in blankets with a mug of hot tea. Though your current schedule didn’t allow room for such indulgence, you took a small delight in the weather condition.

Historia bumped your knee with her own under the table. You glanced at your friend, slightly alarmed from your daze. She leaned over, attempting to discreetly whisper in your ear. “He looks distracted tonight, hm? Wonder what that’s about.”

Your eyes glanced at Doctor Smith, who was reading through the clipboard with a staccato like urgency. Not wanting to cause any disturbance, you nodded your head in agreement.

“We’ll follow through with our regular assignments. If you don’t know where you’re located this evening, I suggest checking the bulletin in the locker room. As for this meeting, you’re all free to go,” His blue irises scanned the faces of all the employees, searching for confusion or questions to be answered. You averted your gaze, following suit as the rest of the room erupted in moving chairs and shuffling scrubs.

You already knew where you were working for the night; the same place as the last two, over in the geriatrics wing. This night would be the same as the others, not that you were in any place to be upset about that.

“Y/N!” Historia’s voice called you to look over your shoulder, barely out of the conference room. She had a slimy smile on her face; the kind that reeked of favors and avoidance. You felt the need to control your eyebrow from rising in annoyance. “Can I ask you something?”

You exhaled from your nose. “Shoot.”

“I have a patient in room 702 that I was assigned to,” The slightest batting of her mascara slicked lashes, blue irises working their hardest to win you over. You raised your eyebrows, urging her to continue. The other staff shuffled by you, sparing nosy glances. “I was wondering if you could take it? I’ll work in the geriatrics wing tonight for you.”

You had to give it to the tiny woman; for all she was worth, she was great at getting people to do what she wanted. You valued her responsibility and reliability, and she’d proved to be a friendly presence in the workplace. However, that didn’t stop you from seeing the selfish underbelly of her prosperous actions.

“What’s the patient in for?” You humored her. Even if her request was self-fulfilling, you figured might as well use it to your own advantage. Almost anything beat another night in geriatrics changing diapers and administering pill dosages.

“A blood transfusion,” She responded, smiling softly at you. “I’m not very good with bloody things, you know. Easily squeamish.”

You pretended to ponder whether or not to take her up on her offer. It was an easy choice, really. “Yeah, sure. What blood type are they?”

☤ ☤ ☤

The stand rattled unpleasantly against the tiled ground as you stopped in front of room 702. The thick bag of blood shook slightly from the sudden stop. How Historia had ever become a nurse when grossed out with the concept of blood, you weren’t sure. It seemed that her sweet disposition often aided her in whatever situation she needed to change for the better. You were an adult woman though, so whatever her motivations might’ve been didn’t concern you.

You gave the cart a once over, making sure all the necessary tools and items were there: a needle, an IV, gauze, those sorts of things. Blood transfusions were a typically fussless procedure; tediously watching the red liquid pump itself into the body.

Your knuckles lightly knocked on the door. “Hello, I’m here to give you your blood transfusion!”

Silence, beating through the empty hallway of the hospital. The lights were dimmed and eerily abandoned. You waited for ten seconds before opening the door to the sleepy room.

The heavy door creaked open, revealing he who was to be given blood. Historia had mentioned he was a John Doe, lying unconscious on the bleached sheets. You turned back to grab your cart, not bothering to be quiet. He’d be awake soon enough, anyway.

As you wheeled it in, your back was to the patient. The cart squeaked and rattled, stopping at the foot of the bed. You turned around, ready to rouse him from his slumber.

Beautiful.

You’d had attractive patients before. Both men and women who floated by life with the easy wings of accurately placed facial features to boost them up. A pretty face often had heat rising to your cheeks, but professionalism stopped you from thinking any further. Natural biological responses couldn’t be helped, after all.

Never had a patient left your lips parting in awe, heart drumming up it’s own beat of excitement in your chest. His face was slim; sharp jawline and a large, broad nose peeking out into the air. Pale cheeks barely dusted by the pink of an almost intangible blush. His eyelashes were long and thick, jutting out against the purple hue of his impossibly dark circles. Hair the color of old driftwood swirled and bunched on his pillow. He had to have been one of the most attractive people you’d ever treated, let alone seen.

What color were his eyes? Were they a dark brown, one to match the nature of his hair color? Or were they green, contrasting his pale skin? You began to feel eager to find out, more excited to know and learn as your gloved hand gripped his broad shoulder. You frowned at the frigid temperature of his skin.

“Excuse me, sir,” You gently shook, trying not to give away the way your body was reacting. There was no place for hormonal displays in your line of work, and despite his undeniable beauty, you were determined to remain professional.

His eyelids snapped open with such a speed you had to compose yourself not to trip backwards. Contrary to what you thought, his irises were a pale, almost sickly greyish blue. They held no gleam; no life behind them. Disturbance washed over your brain, warning bells going off in your mind. He looks slightly… feral?

He jolted upwards, confusion knotted on his once peaceful face. You stumbled backwards slightly, hip clipping on the cart.

“Who are you?” His voice was gravelly, as if it hadn’t been used in quite some time. Blue eyes stared at you with such an uncertainty it made your head spin.

“I’m your nurse, I’m here to give you your blood transfusion,” You gestured towards the cart and stand, a red bag hanging from it like a token of peace. Despite his prickly reaction, you weren’t frightened.

“I feel like I’ve met you before,” He said, eyes squinted. Analyzing you, trying to pick apart your being, yet there you stood before him, a marvel to be held. He briefly glanced to the side; not more than a millisecond were his eyes off you before they were back, filled with unadulterated panic. “Where- where is Historia?”

You frowned, a little perturbed. “She asked to swap-”

“I need you to leave, now.” He growled, voice deep and authoritative. You widened your gaze, taken aback by his demanding request. The sheet fell from around his shoulders, bare chest exposed. Large hands raced to his face, hiding the features you’d once considered beautiful. “Get out of here!”

“Are you alright?” You panicked, stepping closer to the bed. His large form began shaking, knees drawing towards his chest from under the blanket. He appeared to be in pain; like a wounded animal.

“Fuck,” He yelled, breathing becoming labored. There wasn’t time to ponder. Was he having a panic attack? Was he going into shock? Questions didn’t need to be asked, you just knew that you needed to act. “I said leave!”

“No, I need to help you with whatever-” His hand shot off of his face, long, black claws sharpening from his fingers. You became fear stricken, his palm connecting with your chest. It sent you stumbling backwards, tripping over the wire to the heart monitor and slamming into the wall with your back. Tendrils of pain clamored up your spine.

“Close your eyes,” He rose from the bed, both hands dropping from his face. You couldn’t see his eyes, fist clutching your scrubs above your heart. Uncertainty. Terror, facing death like this. A monster stood before you, created by the devil himself. Tall, foreboding, chest heaving. His neck snapped upwards; wide, red eyes piercing into your thinly veiled soul. He spoke something like a garbled beast. “Promise me you’ll close your eyes.”

You didn’t respond. There were no words to be spoken. Between his pink lips glinted a pair of large, sharp incisors. “Promise!”

You reverberated with his words, wincing and shutting your eyes involuntarily. He didn’t want you to watch as he slaughtered you. “I-I promise!”

The loud clamor of metal colliding with the polished floor had you breaking your promise mere seconds after it’d been made.

He stood, illuminated by the fluorescent bulbs like an angel ascending to heaven. The bag, once an object you’d believed to be a healing beacon, clutched between clawed hands. His teeth, bare to the world, puncturing the thick plastic as though it were paper.

His adam’s apple bobbed rhythmically as he swallowed mouthfuls of thick, red blood. It was as if he’d been starved; knees buckling and desperate blood sucking so intense that his legs could no longer support his body weight. He knelt on the once clean floor.

The twine that connected your sense of reality and rationale had been pulled taut -- pieces of the frayed string snapping and threatening to drop you into depths unknown. Uncertainty had always been a foreign concept; you’d been given the option to study your circumstance and fully conceptualize it before going head first into a situation.

That’s what had intrigued you about being a nurse; though the job seemed like a bull in a china shop, you’d learned every reason why or how that bull ended up there and what exactly you needed to do to get it out.

You lacked the expertise or even the understanding to handle this particular situation. What studying could’ve been done? Reading horror stories or watching Twilight as a teenager with your friends? Even then, the probability of this happening to you felt like it should’ve been a zero percent chance.

You liked knowing what to do. Thrived on it, actually. This man, tall and dangerous, presented you with no opportunity to know. There was no textbook on how to handle a vampire, as childish as it felt to recognize that that’s what this was.

You’d been so sure. So convinced that there was no possibility of this heinous monster being an actual thing to walk the same crusted earth as you. Yet here he was, dawning the shape of a man and the face of an angel. How could someone so beautiful be so terrifying?

The hospital wall was cold against your back, the distant hammering of an organ that no longer felt placed in your chest rang true against your clenched fist. You felt the chilling call to move, to rise from your place and run. You didn’t know where, but the muscles in your thighs screamed a silent symphony.

He made quick work of the bag, like it was nothing and had never been anything in the first place. Who had donated that blood? They were probably asleep somewhere, lying in a bed and dreaming of a different world. A world where their charitable donation wasn’t being consumed by a devil before your terrified soul.

The red liquid oozed from his lips and dripped onto his barren chest. You hadn’t moved since you’d collided with the wall what felt like an eternity ago. Your ears rung rapidly with the obnoxious blood flow to your overstimulated brain.

Eyes the shade of a blue jay traced from a pair of blood soaked claws up towards your face, following the path of destruction. Though shock and fear reverberated through your every nerve, the softness in his gaze dulled a small part of your terror. He looked guilty, holding his dripping hands in front of his face like he’d just committed murder.

“You promised to close your eyes,” A voice so small, as if he’d known you your whole life and you had just witnessed a character altering situation. Something echoed in the back of his words, something that sounded like resentment. You couldn’t tell if it was directed at your prying eyes or himself.

“I- I didn’t, I mean, I tried not to but,” You were at a loss. A loss for a way to communicate how you were feeling, a loss for sanity in the world. The monster before you scowled, as if scolding a child who’d disobeyed their parent. “What are you?”

He brought his bloody hands to the floor; you noted that the claws were gone. “I figure it’s pretty obvious at this point. Can’t you tell?” He whispered.

“But vampires aren’t-” His steely gaze hardened at your choice of words. “They aren’t real, are they?”

“They are,” He responded, looking at you with such a strong emotion that you shifted uncomfortably against the wall. What was he thinking? Those eyes looked like they were fixed on someone he cared deeply for, not someone he’d met mere minutes ago. “But you weren’t supposed to know that, which is why I asked you not to open your eyes.”

“You started drinking a bag of blood right in front of me!” You whisper-yelled, brows knitting together to display your slight frustration. The wonder and fear still laid active in your chest, but something about him was familiar and comforting, despite his gruesome actions. You couldn’t explain exactly why you knew he would bring you no harm. “Of course I was going to open my eyes. If I’m not supposed to know, why would you do that right in front of me?”

His scowl deepened. “I tried to warn you. I haven’t had any blood in awhile and I lost control of myself.”

“What happens now?” Your question came out smaller than intended, unfamiliarity rising in your abdomen. The thick stench of blood was beginning to make your intestines twist in disgusting unease.

The question sought to strike a chord in the young man’s features; a grim and saddened look swept across his sharp attributes. His hand came up to pinch his temples, unperturbed by the bloody fingerprints left in its wake. “We have to get out of here, and fast. If we don’t, the people who are after me will kill you.”

“Kill me?” The word had a different sense of fear wafting over you; the kind that pricked your eyes with the sensation to shed tears. He looked pained. “I can tell them that I didn’t see anything, I can promise that I never saw you and-”

“It doesn’t work like that,” He snapped, glancing at you with irritation. His harsh tone forced your pleas to die unsaid in your throat. “The people following me aren’t rational. One of them will also be able to tell you’re lying.”

“So then, what am I supposed to do?” You cried, allowing the bottled up and suppressed emotions to spill over the thin wall of resolve that his comforting presence provided. He didn’t flinch but remained in serious tranquility. “I’m supposed to leave here and hit the road with some random man, who is a fucking vampire, and what? Hope for the best?”

He looked away from you, blood-covered face staring at the hospital bed that he’d once occupied. “It’s my fault you’re stuck in this now. I owe you enough to protect your life as best as I can.”

You were in hysterics. What sort of ultimatum was this? Stay and die or leave and risk dying? Another predicament that couldn’t be solved with the aid of literary education. Resentment was beginning to build in your own chest. Diving into an unexplored depth of the ocean, brimming with creatures and lore that you had never predicted to be real.

“Hey,” You snapped back to reality. The man before you scooted forwards slightly. Though his face was that of a devil, soaked in another’s blood and deathly pale, his movement had your chest tightening in something other than fear. “I won’t let them hurt you. I promise, if you come with me, you’ll be safe until I can get them off our tail. Then I’ll take off and they’ll follow me, leaving you alone.”

Sticky tears trailed down your cheeks, eyes burning. When did you start crying? “How -- how can you be so sure? How can I trust you?”

He was on his hands and knees in front of you now, sharp nose half a foot away from your face. Any call to breathe was put on hold, teary eyes widening slightly at his stare. It was soft and open, trusting in the strangest way. His dark hair hung around his face.

“My goal is to rid the world of demons such as myself. That’s why they’re after me, and why they would take your life to guarantee silence. When I’m finished with what I want to accomplish, I will be dead and so will they. I have nothing to gain by hurting you. I promise to keep you alive long enough to see the end of this.”

Your lips parted in awe. The conviction in his tone was that to lead an entire army into battle; to create religions and cult followings. Blessed be the demon who wished to take down his own kind.

You had spent years convincing yourself to trust in what others told you to follow. Self-intuition wasn’t enough to breed a successful nurse; you needed the expertise of studies and procedures done before you. You required the necessary tools that others had used and approved of. Your heart’s certainty had no place in medicine. It had no place in the tried and true.

The man slowly rose one freezing hand towards your face, apprehensively watching for your reaction. You sat unmoving, owl-eyed. His palm caressed your chin, cold thumb swiping the tear from your cheek, smearing blood in its wake. “Find it in your heart to trust me.”

The conviction of his words rang lightning through your veins, mouth speaking without precedented thought. “Okay.”

He rose from his crouched position, offering a red hand to help you up from against the wall. You shook your head. There had been enough blood sharing for the evening, sanitation crossing your mind as you shakily slid along the rough plaster, bracing yourself to display a toughness that you weren’t sure you contained.

The rule of thumb not to trust those whom you don’t know played a soft melody in your heart. Mothers’ warnings and fathers’ lectures. Apparently all you had been told fell upon deaf ears, clouded with the hazy judgement of a life threatening situation. But in circumstances such as these, did the general rule apply? You were left to ponder.

“Hey, wait,” You frowned, a dumbfounded feeling crossing your mind as the man stepped towards the opposite side of the room. He stopped and turned, sharp jaw jutting against his mane. “What even is your name?”

“Oh,” He turned back towards the other side of the room. You didn’t follow. The door was the opposite direction, so whatever business he had over there did not concern you. “It’s Eren. And you?”

You felt a slight heat rise to your cheeks at the confession of his name. It was beautiful, feeling somehow appropriate for his physical appearance. “It’s Y/N.”

“Ah,” He responded, as if he already knew. You scoffed inwardly at his tone, still anxiously pressed against the wall. His blood stained hand rose to the latch on the window, attempting to open it.

“Why are you opening the window?” You questioned, noticing a beep from out in the hallway. The door stood open, allowing passersby to witness the blood on the floor and your cheek, as well as this man called Eren, who appeared straight out of a horror movie.

Closing the wooden door meant deciding with certainty to trust him; to follow him and hope that whatever tales of murderous vampires he’d shared had been truthful. To step away from the knowledge and the comfort of your current life. It implied that no one would see you in there with him and come to your rescue.

They will kill you.

Your hand gently clicked the heavy door into its place.

Turning back to Eren, you noticed his hand wrapped around the latch to the window. He was frozen in place, watching you make your final choice.

“You didn’t answer my question,” You reiterated. Eren turned back towards the glass. His reflection wavered slightly in the shine.

“This is how we’re getting out of here,” Eren responded, pulling the latch and shoving the window open as far as it would go. It stopped at about two inches, for safety reasons.

Disbelief once again danced across your mind, pulling you into what was beginning to feel like a new equilibrium. “If you’re planning to leap out of that window, it only opens that far.”

He ignored you, bringing his bloodied palms up against the glass. It appeared as though he merely shoved it; so light that it shouldn’t have budged. It shouldn’t have moved at all. The heavy window snapped at its industrialized hinges, pummeling down towards the ground below.

He glanced at you from over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised semi-smugly. You gawked back; simultaneously impressed by his strength as well as put off. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll die if I jump from here,” You scoffed, still not moving from your place. Eren stared back emotionlessly. He stepped towards the bed, reaching beneath it and pulling out what appeared to be a black hooded jacket.

He swung it over his shoulders, pulling the hood above his head. “I know. If you ride on my back, you won’t die.”

“Are you always this mundanely serious about fucking supernatural shit like this?” You spat. There was a warmth beginning to settle in your face as well as your core; heated by the idea of being so close to him.

“Yes,” He retorted, walking towards you so quickly you thought your head would start spinning. “No time to waste with your endless questions.”

He reached down, abruptly swooping you up from behind your thighs, effectively gripping you bridal style.

“Eren, put me down. Put me down!” You started squirming as he thundered towards the open window. You hated heights as much as the next person; they were fine in retrospect, but made you dizzy when in close proximity. Eren seemed unbothered by your quiet cries of protest.

“Eren, I swear to god,” You brought your fist to his broad chest. He ignored you, stepping onto the ledge of the window. Against any better judgement you still retained, your eyes glanced towards the drop. Your stomach sank, becoming a heavy boulder in the bottom of your abdomen. “Fuck, put me down!”

He stared down at you. A gaze so tranquil that the rest of the scene seemed to fade away. You became hyper-aware of his bare chest which you were pressed against; that unfamiliar churning in your core spreading towards your limbs.

“Hold still, or I’ll drop you.”

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tagging: @sunshinedragonofthewest @ryukatters

#eren x reader #eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren jeager x reader #eren yaeger x reader #Eren Jaeger #eren yeager #vampire eren #eren jeager #Eren Yaeger #eren jaeger smut #bloodlust series #emmy writes #eren jaeger x y/n

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valyntynamaro · 3 years ago

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Homesick - Thomas Raggi

Requested by @fairyth0rns In which a homesick Thomas confides in you after a show. I changed up the premise a little but I love how it turned out!! LOTS of fluff and feelings! Hope you like it <3 this is basically Thomas Raggi stan acc at this point ahaha.

word count: 1,914

REQUESTS OPEN

-no warnings

Being on tour with your best friends wasn't always easy, there were small fights, drunken mistakes and harmful words that got said, but it was just the pressure they were all under, no one was ever mad at each other for long, it was just the lifestyle catching up to everyone.

No matter how hard things got out on the road you knew there would always be someone you could turn to for help and consolation, and things did get hard being away from your life back home. However, you knew that everyone gets that way and all you can do is support each other.

Loud cheers erupted from the audience as the show came to an end, you had been out on the road with Måneskin for a few weeks and as the tour was coming to the end you couldn't help but smile, thinking about how far they had come not only in the last few months but over the last few years that you had known them.

Every single milestone and achievement made you all the more proud of the four people before you on the stage which you called your family, that's what you had become a close-knit family and you couldn't imagine your life without them.

"Thank you, everybody, we have been Måneskin, goodnight!!" Damiano screams excitedly into the mic as the band begin to leave the stage, you clapped and cheered for them from in front of the stage, but in front of the crowd barrier. Snapping a few pictures of them as they held up their instruments and waved at the crowd, Vic stuck her tongue out at you and leaned into the camera as you took her picture.

After the show, you all made your way back to the hotel you were staying at for those few nights, there was an off day tomorrow so everyone decided that it would be fun to go down to the bar and have a couple of drinks.

Down at the bar, you all raised a glass to the great show they had put on and the successful tour also for good luck in the future. Music played loudly as you all danced together, laughing with one another at the terrible moves coming from each of you, everything was perfect and it was moments like that which made all the fights and upsets worth it.

Swaying your hips to the music you felt someone's arms slip around your waist, looking down you recognise the rings on their hand, It was Thomas and you instantly relaxed into him, moving softly to the music in time with him. Whilst you loved everybody in the band, you and Thomas had a special bond, you just understood each other a lot more deeply than the others.

"Are you okay my love?" turning around to face him in his arms, you met with a slight frown, you hated seeing him like that and would do anything to make him feel better.

"I guess, I just feel...I don't know I think I'm just tired" You could barely hear him over the loud music and the screaming from your friends as they fooled around, picking one another up and throwing them around.

You take Thomas' hand, leading him away from the dancefloor and out the backdoors to the beer garden outside. The atmosphere instantly softened and you could tell he was a bit more relaxed. "What's going on in your head sweet?" the two of you take a seat at one of the tables, he pulls a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket and lights it, he offers you one but you politely decline.

"I'm just so tired of being out here away from home, it's catching up to me now. I just want to wake up and not have to worry about how I'm going to do that night, the pressure is just getting to me y/n." He rests his head on your shoulder, your hands instinctively go to his shaggy blonde hair, he loved when you would play with his hair.

“ I know my lovely, everyone feels like that sometimes It's completely normal you just have to do your best and that's all anyone can expect from you, we'll be home before you know it" Placing a kiss to the top of his head he sighs, putting out his cig he takes your hand in his and plays with the many rings on your fingers. You never wore rings until you started touring with the band, they introduced you to them and would always buy you one as a thank you at the end of every tour- they were so special to you and you made sure to wear them every day for good luck.

"Y/N, I don't want to be at this place anymore, I can barely catch my breath" you knew what he was feeling was social anxiety, you had spent so many times with Thomas backstage just calming him down when he'd work himself up into a panic, it was never a bother to you though you just loved to make him feel comfortable and safe.

" We can go back to the hotel if you want, watch your favourite movie and cuddle?" you suggest, he doesn't say anything but just nods, "I'll just go tell the others, meet you out the front." Getting up, you place another kiss on his head before helping him up and making your way inside, for a minute you struggled to find anyone but you saw Vic by the bar being chatted up by some guy.

"Vic, me and Thomas are going back to his room, I'll see you in the morning" you hug her, Vic had always admired your relationship with Thomas, she knew that no one made him feel like you did, she would often tell you how cute it would be if the two of you were dating. Whilst you liked the idea of being with him, you knew that it was far important just being there for him you wouldn't want to risk everything and then not be able to be there when he needed you the most, so you were okay with just being friends.

“ Don't do anything I wouldn't do girl, have fun" she teased, causing you to roll your eyes everyone in the group would make jokes about how you and Thomas acted like you were already a couple but you paid no mind to it.

Meeting Thomas outside you walked hand in hand down the road, taking in all the sights the city had to offer whilst you made your way back to the hotel you were staying at.

Back in his room, you changed into a comfy shirt of his, whilst he only wore a pair of grey shorts. You couldn't help but think how good he looked in them, those shorts of his were a weakness of yours and he knew that which is why he always wore them around you.

Relaxing on the bed, you lay your head on his chest your arm draped over his lower torso, he had an amazing body and you would often catch yourself sneaking a look whilst the two of you changed together. "what do you want to watch then?" you asked, tracing circles around his 'Må' tattoo, you had been there with him, holding his hand as he got the tattoo done.

"you choose" his voice was soft, you could tell he was tired, so you just put on a film you had seen a bunch of times so you didn't have to pay attention to it, so he could just relax and fall asleep.

"You know, I don't want the tour to end" you could tell something was on his mind. "why's that?" leaning upon your elbows you turn to look him in the eyes, getting lost momentarily in them.

"Because you won't be there" a tear falls from his eyes and you quickly wipe it away, holding his face in your hands.

"aw sweetie, I'll always be there, even if I'm not with you every day, you can always call me" you kiss his cheek, comforting him, wiping away more tears.

" it's not the same, I just want to be with you all the time, you make me feel like nothing else on earth, when I'm with you nothing matters y/n, I don't know how you do it but I don't want it to ever stop" now it was your turn to cry, no one had ever made you feel so special or important in your life and it felt so good to hear those words leave his mouth.

"Oh Thomas, I don't ever want to be without you either, but you know I have a life back home, outside of the band. I'm only a short drive away, you can come to see me whenever you want and whenever you feel sad I'll be there as soon as you call" It broke your heart to see him so vulnerable, but you knew there was nothing you could do, you lived about ten minutes out of Rome, you couldn't afford the city.

"I feel so selfish, I just want you all to myself all of the time. I count down the days to the start of every tour because I know that I'll get to wake up and see you every day, that I get to spend all the time in the world with you, with nothing keeping you from me" He sits up, pulling you into a tight embrace.

"I know sweetheart, I know" Is all you could say, you were choking on your own words, it hurt so much that you couldn't be with him all the time.

"I don't even just mean with me physically, y/n you complete me, you make me a better man and I..." he pauses, wondering if he was really about to say what he was going to say.

"I love you y/n and I know you feel the same way about me, I've just always been too scared to do anything in case I scare you off because I can't bear to lose you" you pull away from the hug to look him in the eyes once more.

"Thomas, I've been in love with you since we first met you have no idea what it means to me to hear you say this" the two of you lean into each other, your lips inches away from his but before anything could happen the door bursts open, causing you to jump away from each other.

"Y/N Dami's been siiiickkkk" Ethan whines, stumbling into the room throwing Damiano down onto the bed beside you. Just like that, you had been snapped out of your cute moment with Thomas and back to the reality of the mother of the group.

"oh dear, let's get you cleaned up shall we?" you get up pulling Damiano up with him and take him to the bathroom, stopping at the door to look over at Thomas who just had the biggest grin on his face that you had ever seen. Even though you had been interrupted you knew that things had changed forever and that you'd have plenty of time to carry the moment on later, running a bath for your drunk friend you couldn't hep but smile too, everything was perfect in that moment and you wouldn't have it any other way.

#måneskin imagine #thomas raggi imagine #måneskin #thomas raggi #band imagines #imagines #valyntyneimagines #fluff #valyntyneraggi

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binniesthighs · 4 years ago

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call me babydoll | reader x chan

a/n: cuties!! hehe we’re finally getting...a couple things in this chapter that i’ve been wanting to share sooo bad! i added question marks to some of the tags to make it more of a surprise! i love hearing what ya thought of it! hehe <3

Five

Pairing: self insert, (?) x female reader x bang chan

Genre: action, mystery and suspense, fluff, smut and angst

Tags: (of this part) bodyguard au, secret agent au, royal au, moderndayprince!chan, secretagent!reader, secretagent!jeongin, secretagent!jisung, collegestudent!seungmin, royal!minho, informantandclubowner!changbin (loll thats so long), (?)!felix, skz side characters, adventure and mystery, action and peril, plot driven, running out of time, slow-ish burn, growing feelings, sexual tension, explicit language, mentions of alcoholic drinks and getting drunk, hehe bit of smut/suggestive content (tags omitted for surprise--nothing crazy to tag tho hehe), maknae line are my sons in this fic, binnie in this fic can fkn take me lol

CWs: sizable shoot out in public club with several people involved, presumed that people die because of this event, lots blood and other wounds such as gunshot wounds, mentions of drugs (both recreational and hard drugs) mentions of weapons such as knives and guns--the whole scene is violent

Word count: 8.5k

Parts

ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE

“Five years later and I’m still tying your ties, F. Some things never change.”

Jeongin cracks a smile, simple and cute, much like the man himself even when he has a handgun glued to his hand.

“It’s still a harder task than some of the stuff that they have us doing. Not gonna lie.”

You smooth down your partner’s lapels where he’s pinned a small pin of the ticking clock. While others would wear crests, the insignia that bonds you to the younger man is this this small instrument. He’s quiet while he watches you fiddle with his silk blue tie that compliments his snow white hair perfectly.

“Are you nervous for tonight?”

Your partner upkeeps his stoic façade the best he can, but tonight there’s something different about him. His silent answer speaks louder than he could ever admit. On the queen sized bed, Seungmin kicks his perfectly shined shoes while flipping through the channels of the TV with a staticky sounding click. Jeongin lightly brushes his hand over the diamond dangling earrings that twinkle as they are supposed to from your ears--likely they’re crystals, not the more expensive jewel.

“I’m not nervous,” He finally sighs, but there’s a bit of a crack to his voice. “I trust you. And Two. I’m trying to focus on that.”

“It’ll be fine.” You assure, “White Rabbit must have his own security that would be at his beck and call. If anyone shoots at us, they’re shooting at him. We’re not alone.”

The young agent nods, then gives a little slap to the college student on the bed. “Get up. We’re leaving. Remember what I showed you?”

Jeongin draws from the bedside a small handgun. It’s more decorative than protective, but still fires bullets that could save his life.

“Keep it in your breast pocket. Make sure that no one sees it. We don’t wanna cause a scene.”

Seungmin’s eyes widen as he feels its weight in his hand. “Got it. I hope I don’t have to use it.”

“Me too,” You give the youngster a soothing smile. “And remember, don’t tell anyone your name. When you’re in there, your name is S. Better yet, it’s best not to interact with anyone.”

He nods, then slides it into the thin fabric of his coat. The young man looks considerably more dapper with The Agency’s clothes: a deep purple velvet two piece with silver cufflinks decorated with white roses--another symbol that you’ve grown familiar with.

The prince saunters up to the bedroom with a slick tap at the opened door. He oozes with regality; not like you expected any less. The royal has dressed himself magnificently without the aid of his help once more: a pure black silk suit with a smart pressed white button up that’s spotless with not one crinkle. The while shirt itself is adorned with two thin silver chains which stretch across his lower torso. At the neck where the shirt meets its last button, there’s a floral brooch: one more more white rose for good measure.

“Wow!!” Seungmin respectfully bows. “Your Highness, you look--”

“--I didn’t fuck up the hair, did I?”

Chan grins as he brings his fingers through his newly colored hair; its much lighter than his dark locks had been before: now a shade of tawny brown. The change to his appearance had come at the request of the palace who suggested that he try to conceal his identity even further as to not arouse suspicion.

“Handsome as ever, your Highness.” You sneer out the compliment.

Since the previous night had turned sour, seeing eye to eye with the prince had become harder to do. It was a wild confliction of feelings when you thought more and more of it. With every glance that he would throw in your direction, along with way that he had stared at you all through breakfast, you couldn’t meet him. You felt as if you had borne a wound for him to see, for him to poke at--the secret kind that was best kept to yourself--and he had dug his finger in; he had laughed.

The prince tilted his head, and you met his eyes for the first time since then. There was a softness about him when you knew that he was inspecting you. You knew you must’ve been overthinking it--and that was what made it so dangerous.

“Looking stunning as always, Bee. I knew that you would wear that dress well.”

You let the words, “Thank you,” leave your tongue before toying with the small handbag provided to you. As always, your thigh holster held steady under your dress.

Four clicks at the suite door sounded, startling nearly everyone in the room, revealing everyone’s nerves which they had denied.

“That’ll be Lee Minho.” Chan announced.

Two answered the door in his own costuming. The two men bowed upon meeting, a usual meeting between strangers. The agent lead him to the room, and the royal buttoned his own suit properly.

“Good evening. It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Lee--”

“--Minho.” Jeongin dryly cut, “We know who you are.”

Luckily, you and your partner shared the same apprehension.

“I’m Fox. You’ve met Bee. The young kid is S, he’s a new agent. The quiet one that let you in is Two.”

Minho bowed politely with a slight blush. “You weren’t kidding when you said that you were well protected, Your Highness.”

Chan chuckled in response then clapped the other royal by the back.

“You look amazing,” Minho said to the prince who shooed him away with a humble hand.

“You as well.”

Chan sized up the royal who indeed looked like one. His suit was a simplier charcoal grey with pinstripes with a white undershirt that ruffled at the collar. Not typical of the royals that you knew, he also wore dangling silver earrings that would have never passed the royal standard for professionalism. However, it made sense considering that he had been of a lower rank.

“Now that we’ve got the formalities out of the way, shall we head out?” Chan put a very obvious hand to the lower back of Lee Minho while checking with the rest of the group. “It’s best not to keep him waiting?”

Your partner nodded and ushered the group out while giving his body one more pat down to ensure that all concealed weapons were in place. Two checked the assortment of knives tucked discreetly into his own jacket. The man had some kind of wicked and unidentifiable grin while he felt the metal against his fingers. You exited at the rear, feeling a hand tug at your arm.

“--Bee, I’m sorry about what happened...I’m...I hope that you can understand my motivations as to why I said what I did, it didn’t seem like the right time--”

“--There will never be a right time.” You tore your arm free. “Your Highness, what happened...that was a mistake on my part. I acted out of line. There will never be a right time because...I’m your guard, and you’re my prince. Do you understand?”

“But Bee--”

“--End of discussion,” The words burned in your throat seeing the way that he had looked at you just then, and it was clear that he definitely didn’t understand.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

You had heard that the White Rabbit had been a prideful man--this was now an indisputable fact once you pulled up to the roaring nightclub set into one of the busiest streets on the avenue in Cairo. Everything about the place was showy and bright and outrageous. It was a miracle that the man hadn’t been caught considering that his home base was as obvious as it was. The entire front of the night club shone with the brilliance of a million stars in a hundred different colors. A giant marquee held the signage with the title of the place, “The Tea Party” coupled with the image of the white rabbit himself--the one from the old movie--a stout little thing with his pocket watch swinging from his paw. His neck was wrapped up in a white ruff, and he wore a frock pattered in red hearts.

A line stretched from the front entrance for as far as you could see, and clubbers swung their bodies in tune to the muffled sound of the EDM music thumping from inside and throwing cigarette butts to the sidewalk.

“Do we just walk in?” Seungmin hurriedly asked with nervous hands wrapped around his body.

“We’re expected, so, yes.” You snaked your arm through Jeongin’s to look even less conspicuous. “Just relax,” You commanded the group lowly.

From the corner of your eye, you saw the prince slug his arm around Lee Minho who appeared to shrink under the other man’s broad shoulders.

Two large bouncers stood at the entrance with muscles swelling under their shirts stained pink in areas which you assumed to have been white at some point.

“Names?” One of them grunted rather than spoke.

From his pocket, your partner took out his very own pocket watch that had been hidden with the rest of your supplies upon arrival to Cairo. On the opposite side of the watch was engraved the two symbols intertwined: the white rabbit and the the white rose. The two men inspected it, nodded, and opened the door for your small entourage. As soon as you entered the booming central room, you could see Seungmin’s shoulders drop as he relaxed.

“There should be someone meeting us!” Jeongin yelled over the sound of the white noise leading to the bass drop. Hundreds of clubbers danced with the music, throwing their glasses to the air and howling like animals. You wouldn’t have been surprised if at least half of them had been strung out on the very drugs that the man himself had helped peddle.

The young agent pulled you closer to him as stumbling bodies passed.

“They could be here. We have to be on our guard.”

“Let me watch the prince.”

Jeongin nodded, letting you recede to the back of the group where Two had tailed. His eye wound hadn’t healed nearly enough, so he opted to wear the sunglasses once more. It was likely that word had spread about the four of you escaped twice--his eye was evidence. From behind the group, you watched the way the the prince’s hand fell down hold Lee Minho by the hip, and the way that his fingers dug in there slightly. As much as you had denied it, seeing them close brought back the very covetous thoughts you tried to keep at bay.

A slender woman with gorgeous tanned skin pushed her way through the crowd and set her eyes on the white head of your partner. Her dress was even thinner than yours, but she wore it as if it was her second skin. The luxurious red color contrasted perfectly with her dark hair and eyes.

“Are you Fox?” She asked with a thick accent, and cascaded her hand down the young man’s arm.

“Y-yes. I am.”

“Bun asked me to bring you to him. I know the way.”

She let her hand fall into Jeongin’s who whipped his head back to you with dry lips that he wetted immediately. You had expected to have been retrieved by someone a bit stockier than this woman.

“He’s trying to get our guard down.” Two said suddenly as he reached into his pocket to thumb over his stockpile of metal there. “Don’t you think?”

The woman took your group near to the corner of the room where bodies didn’t linger for long, but were drawn in the mosh pit in the center. Tables lined these edges which were fashioned into booths with red velvet curtains for privacy to do much more sinister things. The room smelled heavily of pure alcohol spilled by drunk hands and of synthetic fabrics made of cheap plastics. A dozen different fragrances mingled into one dizzying mess: each a scent so different and chemical that it was toxic.

She walked with a swing to her hips, all the way to a booth that was a bit larger than the others--you could only assume that this must’ve been his booth. The woman gestured for you all to enter before drawing the curtain. At the center of the table, the rabbit’s symbol had been burned into the wood. She wore some kind of thin diamond bracelet which she hovered over the image, causing a winding staircase to pop from the carpeted floor down to a hidden chamber.

“Take the stairs, and it you’ll see it once you get down there.”

Your partner have her a curt nod in thanks, then lead the group further down. A soft green and red glow emanated from the space below, also humming with a concealed type of music different from that which was played in the club. From here, it nearly sounded like jazz.

The corridor under the club was bleak and grey with cement, but wooden crates lined it with stamps on the sides in numerous different languages. Your brain could only fathom where the contents had been before they ended up in this basement. It must have been millions of dollars just sitting undisturbed with enough firepower to blow up the whole building and more.

“Guns. Military grade and a little more improper,” Minho sighed out. “He must have every model in existence here.”

“Do you think that he has like...missiles?” Seungmin reached for his small handgun.

“Ease up S.” You tried to contain your own creeping fear, “Those would be too big to keep down here.”

“Who says that this is his whole stockpile?” Two deadpanned as he cleaned his glasses.

At the end of the hall, one more bulky guard stood expressionless with a small sized machine gun ready in his hands. He opened the door without saying much else, letting loose the red and green lights you had seen before, and with it, the putrid smell of expensive drink and marijuana.

The smaller room was only lit by strobes with multicolored gels, and it was dense with the smoke of many number of drugs and vices. There was a small bar with a bartender with bagged eyes and a swath of women in cocktail dresses and men with ties tugged nearly all the way off their necks with lipstick marks pressed into them.

A single disco ball spun above their heads, spreading shiny squares all across the room. Even more guards waited in the same uniform, but these ones looked more expensive--likely his own personal detail wearing gaudy chains and wrist watches inlaid with diamonds and crested in real gold.

“My friends! You were able to make it!”

The man of the hour spread his legs wide on his leather couch set upon a lion’s coat rug, complete with a head and marble eyes and all. At his sides were two more women more unique than the rest: both of them was breathtakingly gorgeous, one of them jeweled like a queen with a thick gold choker that resembled that which old Egyptian royalty would. Her head was smoothed with no hair at all, but instead intricate and beautiful tattoos decorated her like some kind of otherworldly being. The other woman had a cat-like face with two differently colored eyes; one hazel green and the other icy blue contrasting with her fiery orange hair.

“Carroll told me that you had a bit of trouble before you got here. I’m glad to see that you were able to get here in one piece. It only seems like things are getting more and more...risky these days. Even for people like us.”

“We’re not “people like you,” Rabbit.” You pushed to the font of the group.

The club owner himself was dressed in a purely white fur coat which you presumed to be made of real fur. Considering the material, it must’ve been made from the fur of snow foxes--an interesting choice considering your partner’s persona. The smaller man with a thick and muscled form took off his yellow tinted sunglasses to tuck them into his wildly printed shirt that had tiny buttons doing the work of keeping his chest covered.

“Babydoll! It’s a pleasure to meet you! I’ve heard all about you. Your reputation precedes you.” He took a rather greedy bite to his lip whilst looking you up and down. The white dress must have been doing it’s job well.

“Babydoll?” Chan asked with furrowed brows. “What is--who is--?”

“As does your reputation, Rabbit. I wouldn’t have expected less.”

The proud man snorted, “I hope this doesn’t mean that you’ve got any...preconceived notions about my lifestyle. Our dear friend Carroll doesn’t seem to.”

“Of course not.”

“And you...you must be the Prince of Bulgeun! His Royal Highness Prince Chan of the Crown!” The White Rabbit spread out his arms wide in welcome. “I don’t often get royalty in my club--lots of celebrities and the like.” He leaned over to one of his guards, speaking in Egyptian Arabic and asking for drinks for the group.

“Yes. It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.” Chan bowed deep.

“So respectful!” The White Rabbit chuckled, “You can all call me Bun. We’re all friends here. And you...who might you be?” Bun pointed a finger at Minho who stepped forward.

“Baron Lee Minho, of Bulgeun as well.”

“Ah! And a Baron too! How did I get so lucky to have such honorable company?” Cat-face ticked her long nails against the club owner’s hand slung around her.

“You know what we’re here for, Rabbit. There’s no need for theatrics.” Jeongin huffed his words out with a confident breath.

“You’re the one that they call Fox? Rumor has it that you and Carroll have a rather...special...connection?”

The bartender arrived with drinks, each of them looking expensive with flecks of gold leaf floating on the surface of the clear liquid. Seungmin shot an apprehensive glare once the glasses were left on a small side table. As had been discussed previously, none of your group had picked up a glass.

The woman with beautiful tattoos stretched a hand down one of the White Rabbit’s thighs, reaching dangerously high between them; just enough to make you flinch from the forward action.

“Baby, I see that you’re playing a dangerous game towing this Price around, so of course I’m willing to help a friend of my friend. You’re lucky that I’ve got just the intel that you need. Some people just don’t know how to shut their mouths, especially when the get a taste of what I’m selling.”

“Oh? And what have you been hearing?”

You eyed a leather chair across from him seeing an opportunity.

“Your Highness.” You motioned for Chan to sit in the chair next to yours, swinging your legs crossed to peek from the thin white silk in full view for the Rabbit to see. After, you dipped your chin into your palm, just for the purpose of letting the front of your dress fall slightly. The prince remained quiet while taking his seat and spreading his legs out strongly.

“If it’s compensation that you need Rabbit, the Crown is also willing to make offers for added...persuasion.”

Chan crossed his fingers in his lap leaning forward. His words were slick and domineering--kingly even.

“Is that so?” The White Rabbit tugged at his lip with his teeth, “I wasn’t aware.”

“Double what The Agency is offering. If I like what you say.”

The club owner scoffed with a grin, “Oh, you’ll like what I say.” Cat-face lifted his drink to his lips, then wiped off the excess off with her finger. Both of the body guards appeared to tense before he spoke and tried to be inconspicuous while they reached for their decorated pieces resting in their waistbands.

“Hell, I’ll even tell you what they call themselves.”

In your impatience, you leaned forward, “Who are they?”

“They’re called The Spades. Some kind of new crime syndicate that’s been fucking up my business and making bargains with my customers. Of course, as you know...I work in a very lucrative business.”

“Naturally.”

“They’ve been stockpiling shit like crazy: all kinds of weapons, any kind that you can think of outside of fucking nukes. They’ve even tapped into drugs as well to make extra on the side. I don’t know what it is that they’re doing that makes them so appealing, but suddenly I’m missing out on millions because of those fuckers. They’ve got someone masterminding it all too--some crazed bastard. I’ve been trying to find him ever since they popped up.” He resumed his grasp on both of his women who cuddled into him.

“Mastermind? The one who’s running the whole operation? You know him?” Both you and your partner locked eyes quick enough for the other man to not take notice.

“No, one of his cronies. He runs the business. He’s illusive and fucking insane. Someone whispered once that he’s psychotic or something like that. You think that I’m bad...”

“Who?? Who is he? Where can we find him?”

“Slow your role there doll, I’m just getting to the good part.” The Rabbit nodded for another sip of his drink. “He’s got several names depending on who you’re talking to. Fucking funnily enough, I’ve heard that he goes by “Hatter,” or more commonly “Joker.” He deals in anything: arms, drugs, sex...and he works for The King.”

“The King?” Chan butted in with the mention of a royal name.

“Not your silly little king, prince. The King. The one who runs it all. He tells The Spades what to do. They’re everywhere, taking over every sector in every nation. They’re trying to dismantle it all--every political system, monarchy, presidency...everything. It looks like they’re starting with you, prince. The Spades preach about chaos. Every man for himself...but it’s a lie. Why the hell else would they be stockpiling? They’re trying to take it all over.”

Seungmin gulped audibly as he sunk to the back of the group.

“When there’s no more control the ones with the most resources always end up on top.” The young student whispered.

“This King, do you know who he is?” Jeongin spoke over Seungmin to detract attention from him.

“Nope.” The White Rabbit swung his legs up on the small coffee table with alligator leather shoes. “I’ve been a little focused on taking down the Joker at the moment, for your information.”

“What’s your intel on him then? He must know how to get to The King.” Minho pushed to the front of the group right to Chan’s side. “We’re not satisfied with your information yet.”

The Baron’s sudden demand surprised you: he had been timid before--so you had thought.

The club owner looked to Chan, keeper of his “persuasion” who nodded to prompt him for more.

“He’s on some island off Greece. Private. Tight security, the kind that could shoot you out of the sky.”

“Impressive.” You tutted, feigning confidence once more. “What more do you know?”

The woman with the bangled necklace whispered something in his ear once peeking at a small old-model cellphone in her hand, brushing her lips over his earlobe. Over the sound system, the jazz music turned sultry, and both women moved to join the other intoxicated clubbers in the back to sway around brass poles.

“There’s the freckled bastard. He’s the grunt--and the one that’s been chasing you I think. Real nuisance isn’t he? He’s the Knave. Had a few run ins with him myself.”

You thought back to the gas station and the black SUVs. Between all the shards of glass, it had been hard to make anyone out, but you had figured that he had must’ve been one of the men throwing their bodies out of the windows to shoot.

The Rabbit chuckled out with some kind of hand signal to his guards. “Knowing him, he could be right outside my door for that matter.”

Jeongin’s eyes flew open, sending you “the look.” Your time was running out. Judging by the way that you hadn’t noticed that the Rabbit’s women had cleared out the other clubbers from the room, they must’ve known something that you didn’t. The club owner stood up with a languid stretch and cracked his knuckles.

“We probably don’t have much more time before they come in here guns blazing. Best protect your prince, hm?”

“Rabbit! You must know something about The King?!” You crossed the room to grab at his frim and fuzzy arm.

He slyly smiled, amused by your grip, “Like I said doll, no one knows much about him. Your Baron has got it right. Start with the Joker. But...” His grin cracked even wider, “Good luck.”

Seungmin tugged at Two’s dress coat as the two bulky bodyguards took The Rabbit by the arms to escort him.

“What's going on??” The young man’s voice cracked with urgency.

“Ready that gun of yours.” Two said lowly with gritted teeth.

He strode across the room with his fur coat lazily swaying, then raised the golden rings on his fingers to the air as he exited. He threw his yellow tinted glasses back on, before turning back to your stunned group.

“I estimate that you’ve got...three minutes? --Oh! And one more thing!”

The white fabric of your dress swept to the side, revealing your thigh holster which you grabbed at quickly.

“What?!”

“Every King’s got his Queen? Does he not?”

The enigmatic club owner slipped into the shadows of his private room, leaving your group with the sound of clambering feet on the floor above, followed by muffled gunshots.

“They’re here?” Seungmin readied his small handgun as he was told and looked to the ceiling where the lights flickered from the commotion. “They found us?”

Two twirled two knives in his hands with a silvery glint. Both of the blades were a bit on the shorter side, but you were certain that he knew how to use them. “They’re always following us.”

“We need to get out of here.” Lee Minho drew out his own gun concealed by his suit. It was custom with a pearl handle. You had seconds to make out the insignia, but you could make out the shape of what looked like a red rose. “The place must be crawling with them. We need to find the exit.”

Your partner nodded while taking his own gun. “Stay close, Your Highness. Follow me.”

“Bee?” The prince called your name with a worried cross between his brows. “Give me a gun. Hand-to-hand is nothing against these guys. I’ll stay close. I promise.”

While he held your eyes earnestly, the way that his chest heaved up and down told you something much different.

“You can handle it?”

“I can.”

Jeongin passed him a Glock from the holster strapped behind his shoulders.

You made your way back through halls lit by hissing fluorescent lights with a white burn to them. The crates of weaponry stretched on and on, adding to your unease knowing what could happen if a bullet were to be fired in this hallway. Thick rats skittered in the dank edges of the hall and weaved between boxes labeled in Spanish.

“Drugs.” Minho gripped his gun tighter. “From the looks of it, cocaine.”

Above your heads, a giant boom resounded and dust with drywall fell from the lights that flickered harder.

“Its a fucking maze down here.” Jeongin tapped at his watch in an attempt to find a schematic of the place.

The college student wetted his lips. “At least we’re not up there with them.”

“At least the lead worked out. We know more about these...Spades than we did before. It’s a start.” You tailed the back of the group with careful footsteps and the click of your heels against the cement flooring.

Another resounding boom echoed followed by the shrill screams of clubbers above. It sounded hellish--you could hear the raw fear in their voices. The music thudded on, likely abandoned by someone running for their life. The Prince’s knuckles turned white holding onto his piece of metal near the front of the group.

“F, you know the way up?”

“I-I think. We should be approaching some stairs soon, but there’s nottelling who will be on the other side.”

Two tore off his sunglasses and shoved them into his breast pocket. “We’ll be damn lucky if they haven’t found the hotel yet. If not, we’ve got to run.”

“My laptop??” Seungmin whimpered.

“That damn Chromebook? Don’t worry about it, your life is more important.” Jeongin scoffed. “The Agency can set you up with something even better.”

“I can’t believe that at a time like this all I can think about is my stupid computer.” The young man shook the thought out of his head.

“Stairs up ahead.” Jeongin pointed. “Get ready.”

“Chan?” You pulled at the prince’s trim to his coat.

“I’m fine Bee. Honestly. I trust you.” He attempted a smile. The same smile, that damned charming one that couldn’t get out of your head.

Minho looked back to the prince too with worry, it had been the most sincere motion that you had seen him do as of yet. He reached out to squeeze the royal’s shoulder with a soft smile.

“Don’t go dying on us Your Highness. Think about what that would mean for the kingdom?” He chuckled.

“I’ll try my best,” The prince returned the gesture.

Jeongin reached for the metal door handle to the teal green door cracking with paint. The sound of machine guns had grown even louder, followed by the sound of the shells hitting the wooden dance floor. The air was thin where it crept under the door and carried with it the horrid smell of smoking guns and spilled alcohol.

“Two, Bee, form rank around the group, I’ll lead.”

Two nodded, popping gum into his mouth and blowing large electric blue bubble. “Can do.” Both of his hands tightened around his blades.

“One...Two...Three!”

Time slowed the second that the door opened, and your ears rang with the deathly silence. Bodies to the left and right of you became a blur and they fell to the floor in the silence with their limbs twitching until they didn’t move at all. White collars turned red, as did the white tablecloths of the standing tables. The strobes pranced around the room in a multicolored shower that was as blinding and stained your eyes.

The men in black suits and leather gloves scattered around the room with their red crests glinting. They shouted commands at eachother, but to you, all you could see was the way that their lips curved and cracked. In front of you, your partner leads with a hand gesture that you had memorized from training, and all of your focus was drawn the the back of the group. The trigger of your gun was cold on your finger: you pulled and pulled not even pausing to feel the way that it fought back against your wrist. The men were sprinting with their own guns tight in their hands, but each of them fell before they could get close.

Two’s mouth was in a flat line as he threw tiny blades from his hands to the chests of men running across the balconies and hiding from behind tables. He appeared to have an infinite amount in his coat and saved the longer and more lethal ones for close connections, subsequently dipping his own fingers in red.

The young college student trudged on in the center of the group with his head tucked firmly between his two shoulders. Clear streams of tears fell down his eyes, but he wiped at them furiously between each shot that he took with his small handgun. Next to him, the two royals kept their own heads low aiming shots around them to backup you and your partners.

Their footsteps came echoing behind you, and you walked backwards, taking aim with one eye squinted, while barking out commands from your mouth that you barely even understood. Your heartbeat bumped in your chest nearly in tune with the thudding 808′s of the music that reverberated in your ears. Each of the Spades moved as if they were shadows over the bodies of the fallen, leaping and jumping, nearly floating over dining tables and sweeping off the glassware and silverware with them as they did so.

“BEE, I’M ALMOST OUT!” Jeongin screamed to you nearly before reaching the front revolving doors.

Two tossed another magazine in the young agent’s direction, then threw another dagger with startling accuracy.

For seconds at a time you could see how Minho’s eyes had narrowed with his aim, and he too met every target exactly where he wanted. You figured that the royal must have trained himself well to have that kind of precision. The way that he appeared perfectly calm was startling: his dark eyes squinted and he turned his body swiftly with little effort.

“Fuck--I’M OUT OF ROUNDS!” The prince bellowed before ducking under Minho’s arm which immediately swung over him.

You closed in closer to the group, using your body as a shield for the prince’s back.

Your partner cast aside fallen chairs and tables in his wake, as one of the thugs charged at him. In response, he threw his gun into his waistband, opting to slung the man with a hurried uppercut that sent him spitting blood to the floor before falling, “We’re almost there! Keep pushing!!”

“SHIT!!!” Seungmin groaned out before dropping his small gun to the ground, he trembled with his leg dragging behind him, then soon his pants soaked with a dark stain to his slacks.

“BEE LOOK OUT!!” A voice screamed, seconds before you could register it.

Your head whipped back to the chaos of the club, seeing the “freckled bastard” himself point his decorated riffle at you point blank with a wicked grin on his face. He looked purely evil. There was something about the way that his ears poked, or how his eyes upturned that made him look devilish when his pearly white teeth peeked once he took his shot. He had ashy blonde hair that had strung with sweat over his forehead, and blood wetted the tip of his dress shoes. He cocked his head to the side, as he did too with his gun before the deafening shot cracked through the room.

You were shocked trying to memorize his face, and frozen in your fear from the barrel of the gun facing you right between the eyes.

An excruciatingly tight grasp at your arm pulled you to the side before you could react, throwing you to the hardwood floors before whoever it was pulled themselves in front of the bullet. Your vision was rocked when you hit the floor, missing the glass revolving door by centimeters.

“Y/N!” Your partner screamed, waking you from your haze as the room started to piece back together. “You good?!”

Another hand grabbed you to your feet before shoving you through the door, lightly slinging your arm around his shoulder before taking your gun from your trembling hand to take a few more shots. You realized it was Two this close, and tiny flecks of red splattered at his neck.

��Fuck--give me that--” You grabbed the gun from his hand to fire every bullet that was left at the freckled bastard until you couldn’t any more, and the cool of the evening stung at your heaving lungs once your group reached the sidewalk.

Outside of the venue, clubbers scrambled and ran the streets still shrieking in their fear and tripping over their heeled shoes.

“Chan?? Chan--where-where’s the prince??” The words spilled from your lips in your pure adrenaline.

Right behind you only a couple paces away, the prince stood pale with Seungmin holding between them a groaning and gasping Minho who barely held on to the two men. A bullet wound soaked his black suit jacket, and the red crept up to his white frilled collar.” The wound made a hole right in his shoulder with a visible circle.

Jeongin sprinted to the back of the group looking disheveled himself with sleeves hastily pulled up to his elbows. “Shit--shit!!”

“S-move aside. MOVE!” You commanded the whimpering young man who gave you Minho’s other arm. You wrapped around his wasit and dragged the heavy weight of the man who had just saved your life.

The prince dryly smacked his lips then scanned the street for more of the Spades in his daze.

“Y-you okay?” The words dried up your tongue.

“Yeah...yeah, I’m fine, are you?” His energy had been drained of him, and his knuckles were also cracked, likely from having to throw punches that you haven’t even seen him take.

Gunshots echoed further down the street followed by the screeching of wheels and more panicked yells. The chirps of cop cars pulled up to the scene and their husky demands rounded up the escapees in rapid-fire Arabic.

Jeongin sprinted back with his white hair bouncing to a taxi nearest an intersection. He threw the door open apologizing profusely the best he could before pulling the driver out of the driver’s seat and to the cement. He cursed out loudly in response to which Jeongin tossed out some bills haphazardly to his chest.

“Get in, GET IN!” He called to your group while tapping on the metal side of the vehicle.

Both you and the pricne guided the injured royal in to the backseat between you.

“Minho--Minho, hold on--” Your nervous hands held his pale face in your palms.

The tear of your dress filled the small compartment, prompting the prince to snatch his hand into the other man’s firmly.

“Minho--you fucking dumb asshole--you had to go and he the hero didn’t you?” Chan smiled hopefully.

“Ar-are you alright?” He coughed, “Your Highness?”

“Shut up.” Chan ruffled his hair with another adoring smile. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.”

Although it was silk, you used every inch of your dress tear to tie around the baron’s shoulder tightly in an attempt to add pressure to the open wound.

“Bee--” Minho started with a lazy glare.

“--Keep talking Minho, look at me. You’re gonna feel sleepy, stay awake. You did great, thank you so much for doing that to me. Thank you.” You grabbed his opposite hand firmly. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Lee Minho laughed. “Don’t mention it. And--if you wanted me to keep talking...I wanted to tell you that you’re really stunning Bee. How you handled all th-that. I was really impressed.”

“Hm, I was impressed too.” In his own way, like this, bloodied and a bit delirious, Lee Minho really was as handsome as he let on.

The taxi car whipped around another corner with wind whipping in the windows and each of your masses jostled in the car as if bumped over the curb. The hotel wasn’t that far from The Tea Party, and you knew that any moment you would reach it, but each second stretched longer and longer.

“Fox?! We’re not there?”

“Fuck--Bee, the whole city is crawling with cops, everywhere I turn, they’re on the hunt, The Spades are everywhere I can’t make it back--no doubt they’re already there...”

In the front seat, Seungmin clung to Two as if his life depended on it as his whole body shook and Two tore his own jacket sleeve to close off the young man’s wound on his leg.

“Wha-what are we going to do?? S-shit!! Ouch!!!” The young student gritted his teeth in his pain while his leg shook terribly. He sobbed, “It hurts, really, really bad!!”

“I planned for this.” Jeongin’s eyes flicked in the review mirror to you in the back. “I asked Carroll to set up for us a secondary place if something went down and we couldn’t make it to the hotel. I figured...if anything happened or if they found us--”

“--Get us there, fucking drive Fox, Minho needs first aid, right fucking now, he’s bleeding too fucking much.”

“I know, I know!!”

“How far is it?!”

“Not far, I promise, twenty minutes--tops.”

“Make it ten!!!”

Jeongin floored it, running lights and becoming a stream under the skyscrapers of Cairo. From the small skylight of the taxi, thin clouds streaked in the evening sky and mixed with the glow of the city. Far, far, above your head, you prayed for the first time in years that you could make it in time.

Seungmin sobbed with puffy eyes from the front seat and writhed, “Hurry! Hurry!” He begged.

Minho’s head lulled in the backseat as he bled though the white silk binding him. His head bounced back and forth from you to the prince with glossy marbles for eyes that blinked slowly. The prince rested his hand on the baron’s thigh and rubbed calming little circles into it.

“Minho, you did so well. Look at me.” Chan coaxed, causing the other to smile adorably grim.

Minho twitched before rolling his head over to the prince. “Your Highness, i-if I may be so bold...I-I’ve got...I’m crush on you.” He finished his sentence with a wrinkled smile.

You scoffed out with a laugh while making knowing eye contact with the prince who laughed out lightly too.

“He sounds like someone I know.” You winked at the royal.

The taxi made one final turn to an alley filled with potholes that jostled each wheel of the car.

“This is it! Right here!” The young agent whipped into a one car garage hidden into the alley. The darkness of the garage filled the car, and snuffed out all of the light from the street, and even muffled the faint sirens of police as they whizzed past. The night was still full of gunshots, but at least now they sounded far enough away to be safe.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The safe house was a modest two floored apartment outfitted with the normal security system of The Agency: window locks and cameras in every corner of every room. As expected, each of the rooms was covered in a fine layer of dust, and the old smell hung with flecks of the material stuck on lampshades and wafting in the light.

Work had been delegated between you and your partners, with the two other men helping treat Seungmin in the second bedroom out of three while you and the prince aided Minho.

The windows were left open to let in some fresh air, also letting in the faint sounds of the city which still surged with life even late into the night. Still, the smell of the desert came floating into the room with a welcome sense of tranquility.

The royal lay on the bed with cracked pale lips while you set to work dabbing at his wound gently with gauze, cleaning the area around the bullet wound. Fearful to cause more bleeding, the bullet would stay where it was for a few moments more for another layer of wrapping. The prince remained quiet, passing you materials as needed with hands stained pink from the other man’s blood.

“How are you feeling?” Chan quietly asked.

“Hurts like a bitch,” Minho smiled, “You ever been shot before?”

The prince shook his head.

“Well, I hope that you never are. Feels like your whole body gets stirred up from the impact and then there’s the sting.”

Carefully you pulled back the remains of the baron’s shirt while lifting him slightly off the bed. As you swept the fabric from behind him, you noticed the thin red line tracing around his shoulder bade which you figured to be blood at first.

“What...what’s this?”

“Oh,” Minho shied, “It’s a tattoo.”

“You’ve got a tattoo? For a royal?” Chan slicked back Minho’s sweaty locks. “You really are full of surprises.”

Gently you laid the baron back down to lay with his new wrappings. “What is it?”

He paused, wetting his lips quickly before he spoke. “It’s a red rose. It’s a bit large--I know--not typical for royals. Don’t worry, you’re the only royal that knows that I have it.”

“Why a red rose?”

Below you, Minho looked relaxed and calm, beautiful even like this bare-chested under the single lamp-light of the bedroom.

“Well...you know the significance of symbols and insignias. We’ve all got our own.” He grinned out while playing with the prince’s free hand.

“I’ve got my white rose, Bee’s got her clock: seems like we’ve all got our own thing.” Chan agreed, watching the way that his fingers interlocked with the other man’s.

In the opposite bedroom, Seungmin cried out sharply to the tune of Jeongin chuckling out, “I’ve got you, you fucker!” The clink of metal fell into the little bowl they used: the bullet was out of the poor boy.

You sighed knowing that the damage caused to your group could’ve been much worse, yet you had made a skillful escape. Still, the thought of the bodies littering the floor...the silence that rang in your ears from the pace of it all and how the energy of survival started to wear off...it was truly gruesome.

“Minho--really, I appreciate you taking a hit for me like that. No one has ever done something like that for me...and you barely know me...”

The baron smiled, taking your hand in his too. “Like I said, it’s fine. Had I not, you wouldn’t have been able to help us out of there...even if you were dragging my ass for the tail end of it.”

The breeze flew in with the dusty curtains; just cold enough to make you shiver in your thin dress.

The prince looked to the both of you, “What happens now?”

Chan himself was a proper mess: he no longer looked like the perfect vision of regality from the earlier evening. He looked like a man, a regular man, scared, unsure, and confused. His knuckles were cracked...and you had promised that you had never wanted to see him harmed again.

The prince’s eyes softened, softer than they had been, soft like they had been the evening before when you had broken.

“We survive. The best we can. We recuperate for a couple days, and ask Carroll what the next steps are. I’d guess it would be Greece then.”

Minho leaned up with a little grunt to face you. “I’m coming with. I can help. I can be valuable if you need another set of hands on a gun.”

“I think you mean hand. Your arm is gonna be out of commission for a little while.”

He smirked, “Still...”

The sweeping red outline of rose peeked to his shoulder, and you wondered how far it really spread.

“Bee, I don’t think that I’ve thanked you.” Chan let the words fill earnestly, throwing that same damned smile at you.

“Chan...you don’t have to thank me. You’re my prince.”

The royal nodded with a contented little grin that tugged a dimple on the side of his face. You found both men looking at you as such, as if they were waiting, or anticipating the unsaid as you were.

Somehow, the room turned silent once more: a void quiet enough to hear your heart beating in your ears.

You bridged the gap, pulling Chan close to you as you pressed your lips against his, using your stained hand to pull his lapel into your body while he melted perfectly into you as he had done before. His mouth tasted slightly like the salt of blood, but that was of no matter to how sweet he was when he gently let himself unfold for you, gasping lightly against you. Chan’s hand reached to your arm to caress the goosebumped skin down, giving you another reason to shiver. You found your own hand tie into his light brown locks and pull deeply at the roots with depths of curiosity and want. Your tongue gently explored his lower lip before teasing right into his mouth which was even warmer than you had imagined it being.

Your other hand found the torso of Minho: bare and quivering under the touch of your fingertips which traced each muscle there. He let out a drawn out sigh, then drew his own hand down the curve of your body to your hip, finally working it back up over your belly to your breasts thinly protected by the dress. He sat up higher and brought his lips to the fabric, kissing right into your belly with the warmth of his mouth. He paused, giving you moments to crave that same feeling on your lips and prompting you to bow down and indulge yourself in the taste of his mouth too.

Chan’s hungry hands came tip-toeing over your back as he watched, and slipped one finger under your thin dress strap to pull it down and press kisses to your shoulder. With his other hand, he let it fall down Minho’s back: over the red rose, right to his thigh which he squeezed at firmly: right between the heat of his legs.

Minho was different from Chan: rougher with his advances, but still addictive in how he would test the corners of your mouth with each kiss more courageous than the last. He ruffled up your torn dress, then let the silk fill up his hands before pulling it in ways to meet your skin with his. Slowly, Chan did the same, edging a hand up to your ass from the frayed bottom of the once-gorgeous dress.

The bed was just big enough for two, but with this new interlocking of limbs as close as possible, you melded into one. Both you and Chan crept over the man between you, painting the blank canvas of his chest with seething hot lips and biting at the flesh of his skin lightly. Minho’s back arched from the beautiful sensation, causing him to giggle in his euphoria.

In the middle, you found Chan once more, and held him close, as close as you had wanted for longer than you had admitted.

“Oh Bee...” He moans into your mouth while releasing all of his glee onto your tongue.

“Chan, I’m not scared anymore. I don’t even care.”

The prince shuddered at the thought, and held you back just as tight finding the corners of your dress to pull over your head.

“Oh my god,” Minho adores you, then reaches out to pull you to his chest.

This mysterious man, melts for you too, whimpering perfectly between your lips. Your legs find their way around his thigh to grind at lightly. There's an innocence to his eyes, much like that of the prince: its a kind of blind adoration that you know all too well. His dedication to Chan, and his gesture to you: the thick bandages around his arm: you find your apprehension slipping to nothing.

Your fingers loop around the white lace of your panties as you kneel above both men, and you swipe your thumb over both of their glistening and trembling lips.

“Well boys, how about I’ll make both of you mine tonight?”

~🌹~

Bunch of (Ro)ses!

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @lunarskzzz @yourdaddychan @bubblelixie @spnobsessedmemes @cherrychngkyn @bowlofblueberries @lmhmins @eunaeiekim

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