#I was going to pick Bad Ground from the start of October Rust because it’s just static and that could have been fun and angst

[keldabekush]

@dragon-subway you chose 4 and got Type O Negative! I picked Cody and ‘Haunted’ :)

[jaysworlds]

i wrote a mermay fic :)

i wrote a fic! for mermay! because i love mermaids!

it’s freddie/alexei, who are my ocs who i adore but you don’t actually need to know anything about them to read it (course if you read it and then WANT to know more my ask box is always open :)

Word count: 6365

Content Warnings:

-hallucinations

-near death experience

-a lot of ocean shenanigans

-like one mention of a dead body

Alexei loves the sea, always has. It’s always been a refuge when everything gets too much. He knows it could kill him, but he’s never felt safer than when he’s sitting underwater, getting washed back and forth by the waves.

It kind of makes sense that he goes into diving. He doesn’t think he’d survive a job in an office for hours every day, unable to get outside. He hates being trapped.

He loves diving. It suits him perfectly, really, getting to spend every spare moment in the water.

He doesn’t spend a lot of time with his co-workers outside of work, though he should. It’s always safer to have a diving buddy, he just … like diving alone, if he has the option.

It’s not the safest, but he accepted long ago that it probably wouldn’t be old age that killed him, and drowning is better than the alternatives.

They say it’s rather pleasant.

He’s good at it, anyway. All the money he can spare goes into keeping his gear in good condition, and he’s not in the habit of being reckless.

But it’s not skill that saves you, down there. It’s luck, and everyone’s luck runs out eventually.

Alexei’s runs out on a cold weekend at the beginning of October. The diving season is over, and so he’s not working, just diving for fun, and he’s alone.

There’s a ship (or what’s left of it) about a hundred and eighty-five feet below the surface. He’s been there before, and he loves it, just drifting through the empty corridors. It’s a little deeper than the recommended dive limit of a hundred and thirty feet, but he’s done much deeper dives, and he doesn’t worry too much.

It’s cold as he’s driving down the beach, sky overcast, but the sea is perfectly calm. It’s a good day for diving.

The beach is almost empty. It’s not surprising, on a day this cold, but it’s nice not to have to manoeuvre his car past a thousand people who’ve parked on the ramp clearly marked access required at all hours – do not obstruct.

There are only a couple of other people on the pier, and they wave to him as he parks and starts unloading his things. He knows everyone who works here, and everyone who dives regularly, and they know him.

He’s got a boat, a tiny thing that just about fits him and his gear, and he loads it up, humming to himself. The wind picks up a little, blowing his hair into his eyes, and he pauses for a moment to tie it back, looking out at the grey sea. He likes days like this.

There aren’t many other ships about. Not many people still dive at this time of year, and those that do mostly stick to shallower waters.

He leaves a slip of paper with where he’s going scribbled on it, just as good practice, and then heads out onto the sea, the wind playing with the strands of hair too short to make it into his ponytail.

The wreck isn’t far, but it’s too deep to see and so he has to rely on his instruments to tell him when he’s made it.

His instruments aren’t the best, but they do the job, and his life doesn’t depend on them working.

It’s about forty minutes from the docks, he knows that, and the time is about right when the GPS tells him he’s arrived. The boat bobs gently as he cuts the engine and starts collecting together his gear.

The sea is grey and opaque, and he stares down into it for a moment. Some days it’s almost clear enough to see down to the wreck, but not today. Today he can see barely ten feet.

It’s alright, though. He doesn’t need to see.

It starts raining as he’s pulling on his gear, and he shoves the bag with his dry clothes under a seat. The rain isn’t heavy, just pattering quietly on the surface of the sea, and for a moment he stops to listen. It’s comforting.

He didn’t come all the way out here to listen to the rain, though. He checks his gear twice, just to be sure, and then tips back off the edge of the boat.

The first few seconds of being underwater are always his favourite. The cool water pressing in around him makes him feel safe.

His weights start pulling him down immediately, towards the wreck nearly two hundred feet below him, and it’s not long before the surface is completely out of sight and he’s surrounded by dark water on all sides.

He has a flashlight, but it’s not much use here. He could see a few more fish, maybe, but the fish come up to him anyway, curious. They’re only small, nothing big around here, and they scatter when he reaches towards them. He laughs softly, waving his hand back and forth and watching them flee.

He pauses to check his equipment at fifty feet and a hundred feet, but everything’s fine. Better than fine, really, though he fumbles with pressure gauge and nearly drops it. It’s fine, though, everything’s attached to him, so he couldn’t lose it anyway.

He doesn’t bother at a hundred and fifty feet. He’s nearly there and everything’s going so well that he doesn’t think he even needs to.

It’s not long before the wreck is in sight, a huge, hulking shadow looming out of the darkness. He watches it get bigger until he’s standing on the deck, looking around at the rusted metal jutting out of the dark. He’s been here before, several times, but looking around at the ship he can’t remember the route he used to get in. The first door he tries is rusted shut and won’t budge, as is the second, so he drifts over the edge of the ship, looking for a hole big enough to get in.

There is one, the edges sharp and ragged, and he drifts through it and into the belly of the ship.

It’s a big place, the metal walls covered in algae, and small fish dart out of his way if he disturbs anything.

It’s still too murky to see far, and after a few minutes of wandering aimlessly, squinting to see, he remembers his torch and fumbles with it, trying to switch it on. He’s struggling with the switch, though he never usually struggles, but his gloves seem to be getting in the way and he drops the torch to take them off, forgetting that the strap isn’t around his wrist. The torch sinks slowly, disappearing into a tear in the metal of the ship’s floor. Alexei watches it disappear, almost confused, and then realises he needs that.

The hole isn’t big enough to fit him, so he reaches into it, hoping his torch hasn’t fallen far. The metal is sharper than he expects, and after a moment of trying to find it he feels a rush of cold water against his bare skin and tears his arm out of the hole, confused.

His wetsuit’s torn all down the arm, blood oozing from a shallow cut and being carried away by the water, but he can’t feel it, so it can’t be that bad.

It’s cold, though, without the protection of his wetsuit. The water drifts in and out of the tear, cold against his skin, and he shivers, trying to hold the rip closed. It doesn’t work, of course, and he can’t swim like that anyway, so he lets it go and resigns himself to being cold.

The cut on his arm is still bleeding, but he isn’t worried about it. It doesn’t hurt, and there are no sharks around here anyway. He’s unlikely to get eaten.

His torch is probably a lost cause, but it’s fine. He should probably start heading up soon, as soon as he’s found his way out of the ship.

He has time, though. It’s not a pressing matter.

The ship creaks as he moves through it, swaying a little in the currents around it. It’s at an odd angle, and it’s a little disorientating to manoeuvre through. More than once Alexei manages to swim into the walls of the ship, or a doorframe he’s trying to get through. He’s not moving fast enough for it to really hurt, though, just drifting aimlessly through the dark water.

He’s just started looking for a way out in earnest when he hears someone call his name and hesitates, looking around. No one came down here with him, and he didn’t think anyone had planned to dive here today.

The sound comes again, but he shouldn’t be able to hear anything, not underwater like this. Even if there is someone down here, how would they be speaking?

He checks his radio, but it’s silent, the light off. It wouldn’t work this far down anyway and he drops it, forgetting the strap isn’t around his wrist.

Whoever it is calls again and he forgets about the radio drifting towards the ground, trying to head towards them. Sound carries strangely underwater, but it sounds clear enough.

It sounds like his father.

“Hello?” he calls, or tries to, but his voice is lost in a rush of bubbles.

They call out again, more urgently this time, and he kicks his feet, trying to move faster through the wreck. He doesn’t know why, but he needs to find them.

And find them he does.

He’s seen bodies underwater before. The way they drift back and forth, buffeted by the currents and staring unnaturally.

That doesn’t make it any easier though, not this time.

It’s his father. He doesn’t know how; his father has been dead for years, but somehow…

“Alexei.”

Alexei sobs. It’s lost in a rush of bubbles past his head.

His father smiles, and it looks so wrong.

“It’s okay,” he says, and reaches out, towards Alexei. It should be comforting, but it’s not. “Come here.”

Alexei hesitates, not sure what to do. He wants to reach out, misses his father so badly it hurts, but this … this isn’t right.

“I don’t…” he starts, and then stops. He can barely speak through the regulator, and he reaches up to pull at it. It’s tight, and his fingers faulter with the straps.

“Alexei,” his father says, with more urgency, and Alexei gives up trying to take it of carefully, tearing it away from his face hard enough that the tube snaps. His remaining air disappears in seconds, and without the added buoyancy he sinks towards the floor of the ship.

“Alexei,” his father says again, and Alexei finally reaches towards him, not caring about much else.

His father smiles once more, and Alexei just manages to brush his fingers before he disappears, melting into water.

“No!” Alexei cries, and suddenly he’s choking, lungs filling with water.

It’s at this point, of course, a little too late, that his mind catches up to what’s going on.

He’s fucked up. He’s fucked up, and he’s going to die.

He’s not as upset about it as he should be. Lux will miss him, he knows that, but there are worse ways to die.

Maybe if he’s lucky they’ll even find his body.

His lungs are already burning, and his vision is beginning to blur and fade.

It’s going to be over soon. It’s going to be over soon.

Except … it isn’t.

It’s dark, when he wakes up, and he aches all over, but he’s alive. He feels alive, at least. Not that he really knows what that should feel like.

He feels around for his torch, but he dropped it back in the ship, and so he has no chance of looking around. The floor is damp, though, cold stone, and it feels like an underwater cave.

How did he get here? He doesn’t remember any cave systems around the ship, and it would have taken a miracle for him to somehow make it here himself, but who else could have dragged him into a cave like this, especially as they would have had hardly any time before he drowned.

Things are starting to come back to him, and he’s starting to realise how stupid he was. He can recognise the symptoms of nitrogen narcosis, though he’s never had to actually experience it before.

He kind of understands why you’re not supposed to dive alone, now. He hadn’t done anything wrong, it had just been … bad luck.

He should be dead, really. He doesn’t understand why he’s not.

He’s been sitting there for a few minutes, anxious, when he hears something moving about in the darkness. He reaches for his knife this time again, which he doesn’t remember dropping, but that’s gone too.

It goes silent again as soon as he moves, and he exhales slowly, nervous.

Nothing happens for a moment, and then the sound comes again, slower this time.

“Hello?” he calls, squinting into the darkness as if he has any chance of seeing what’s going on.

There’s a long silence, and then…

“You’re awake.”

Alexei exhales slowly. So it’s a person. That’s good, at least.

“Seems that way.”

���Good,” the person says, after a pause. “I thought maybe you were dead.”

Alexei huffs a faint laugh. “I nearly was. I guess I have you to thank for that?”

“I guess so,” they say. They sound kind of nervous. “I’m glad I could help.”

Alexei nods, though he knows they can’t see him. “Where … am I? Did you take my knife?”

“A cave,” the person tells him. “And … yeah.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want you hurting yourself. Or me.”

That’s fair, Alexei supposes. He was somewhat manic earlier, and he could have lashed out.

“Fine. How deep are we?”

“How deep?”

“Yeah. How many feet?”

“How many…” the person laughs softly. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Sorry.”

Alexei sighs, feeling around for his gauge. It’s still attached to him, thank goodness, but he can’t see it in the darkness. He should’ve gotten one of the ones with the light-up faces.

“I can check my gauge,” he says. “But I don’t have a torch.”

“Oh,” the person says. “You can’t see.”

“No,” Alexei says, a little confused. “Can you?”

The person doesn’t answer. “I’ll get you a light,” they tell him, and he hears a quiet splash.

“Okay,” he says, although he thinks they’re gone.

They’re back a few minutes later, and he hears the faint clink of metal on stone.

“There,” they say, and something touches his leg.

He picks it up, cautious, and finds that it’s a torch. Not his, it’s heavier than his, an older model, he thinks, but when he pushes the switch it still lights up, though it’s dim.

He checks his depth gauge before anything else, and finds that he’s nearly two hundred and fifty feet down. Nearly sixty feet lower than he’d been in the ship.

How did he get here? He’s sure he didn’t sink that far in his narcosis induced haze. He’d still been in the wreck when he lost his oxygen.

He sighs, turning the torch towards the person on the other side of the cave.

It’s hard to make them out properly in the dim light, but they’re not quite what he expected. They’re still half in the water, just their head and shoulders visible above the dark water, but they’re definitely no one he knows, no one he even recognises from the dive school.

They’re not wearing any kind of gear, as far as he can tell, not even a wetsuit, and that … that’s stupider than what he was doing. It’s not safe to free-dive around here, especially not at this time of year, and especially not if you’re going to be exploring.

“How did you get down here?” he asks, kind of amazed.

They shrug, as though it doesn’t matter. “I live not far from here.”

“I mean … how did you get this far down with no equipment?”

He’d hoped they’d have something, perhaps a spare regulator, because he’s no free-diver and he won’t make it to the surface from here without something.

They laugh a little, surprised. “Why would I need equipment?”

“So you don’t drown?”

They laugh again. “I won’t.”

Alexei shakes his head, rubbing his hand over his face. “It’s your funeral, I suppose.”

“You’re the one who nearly died.”

“I guess,” Alexei says, though he’s not convinced. “Thanks, by the way.”

They smile. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m Alexei.”

They smile again, a little brighter. “I’m Freddie. Hi.”

“Hi,” Alexei echoes. “You planning on getting out of the water?”

Freddie shrugs. “Not really. It’s comfortable.”

“It’s freezing.”

“To you, maybe.”

Alexei sighs, looking up for a moment at the roof of the cave. “I don’t understand you.”

“I don’t understand you either. Why did you pull the mask off your suit?”

“Nitrogen narcosis,” Alexei admits. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s…” Alexei trails off, confused. It would take an incredibly skilled diver to free-dive this deep, but this guy doesn’t even know what nitrogen narcosis is? “Drunkenness of the deep, you know.”

“I know what drunkenness is.”

Alexei shines the light back at him, watching him squint, and studies him for a moment. He’s got dark skin, hair pulled into a messy bun, and he’s resting his head on his arms, looking sideways at Alexei. Something about him seems … off, but Alexei can’t tell what it is, and he’s starting to suspect that maybe the nitrogen narcosis hasn’t worn off as much as he’d thought it had.

“Can you get out of the water?” he asks, cautious.

Freddie eyes him for a moment and then sits up a little. “Alright. If it’ll make you feel better.”

He pulls himself out of the water with apparent ease, and Alexei shines the torch down his body, not really caring if it’s kind of weird.

The light glints off scales, deep red as far as Alexei can tell, and he switches the torch off, angry with himself.

There’s a silence.

“Are you okay?”

“Go away,” Alexei says, a little petulantly. Telling what’s almost certainly a figment of his imagination to go away probably won’t do any good, but maybe it will make him feel a little better.

“Did I do something wrong?”

That throws him off a little. Freddie sounds … anxious, a little concerned, and real or not Alexei feels a little guilty for snapping at him.

“No, it’s just … I’d rather be alone right now.”

“Oh.”

There’s a long, drawn-out silence. Alexei would like to believe Freddie’s left, but he can still hear breathing, soft and low.

Maybe that’s his own.

He picks the torch up again, cautious, and flicks it on. Freddie’s still sitting in the cave, tail wrapped around his body, and he jumps when the beam hits him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just … can I help?”

Alexei sighs and turns the torch off again. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

Alexei puts the torch down, though he’s careful not to let it roll away, and pulls his knees up to his chest. “Yes.”

“What are you upset about?”

“I’m going to die down here.”

“No,” Freddie says, and he sounds very sure about it. “You’ll be okay.”

Alexei just snorts, not bothering to respond, and hears Freddie sigh.

“You’ll be okay,” he says, again. “I can bring you food, if you need, and…”

“You’re not even real.”

There’s a long silence. Alexei kind of hopes saying it out loud snaps the hallucination, though maybe a hallucination is better than being alone.

“I’m real,” Freddie says. He sounds a little confused.

“Sure,” Alexei says. He’s pretty sure arguing won’t help, and he doesn’t really have the energy.

“I am,” Freddie insists, and Alexei feels him shuffling around in the dark. “I promise.”

“Sure,” Alexei says, again, and hears Freddie sigh.

“Really,” he says, and something cool brushes Alexei’s wrist.

It takes him a moment to realise that Freddie’s touching him, and he snatches his arm away, shuffling away and picking the torch up, shining it in Freddie’s eyes.

He seems almost frozen, hand hovering in mid-air.

“Don’t touch me,” Alexei says, a little too harshly. Real or not, Freddie’s a stranger, and he didn’t ask.

“I’m sorry,” Freddie says, withdrawing his hand.

Alexei shrugs, leaning against the cave wall and leaving the torch on. He doesn’t want to be taken off guard again.

He doesn’t really know what to think, honestly. He doesn’t know if it’s normal to be able to feel a hallucination, but if Freddie’s not a hallucination then…

Well.

“Maybe I should go,” Freddie says, after a few minutes of silence. “I … I can bring you some food, if you want?”

“Alright,” Alexei says, and he thinks he’s kind of relieved.

“Okay,” Freddie says, nodding to himself. “I just, um… what do you eat?”

Alexei thinks about that for a moment. “I don’t suppose you cook your food?”

Freddie shrugs. “I … don’t know?”

“Fine,” Alexei says. “I can eat most fish, just … bring my knife back, please.”

“Okay,” Freddie says, though he sounds a little nervous. “Please don’t use it on me.”

“I won’t,” Alexei tells him, and leans against the wall.

Freddie nods and wriggles over to the entrance to the cave, dropping himself through the hole and disappearing into the dark water.

Alexei keeps the torch trained on the hole for a moment, to make sure he’s actually gone, and then switches it off. He doubts there are any spare batteries around here.

If Freddie comes back, he tells himself, then he’ll have to seriously consider the possibility that he’s actually real, somehow, and not a symptom of the nitrogen narcosis that hasn’t completely worn off.

He’s not sure which outcome he hopes for. If he is real then at least Alexei isn’t alone down here, at least he has a chance of survival, but mermaids being real is kind of a lot to process, really.

Maybe they’re just very good at hiding.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s very dark, and the only sounds are his own breathing and the soft back and forth of the ocean lapping at the mouth of the cave, and they lull him to sleep after a few minutes.

When he wakes it’s to someone calling his name gently, and he sits up. Sleeping on the floor of a cave hasn’t done wonders for his back, and he aches, but he fumbles around for the torch.

Freddie’s back, still half in the water, and he waves when the beam of the torch hits him.

Maybe he is real.

“Hi,” he says, and pulls himself out of the water, offering Alexei his diving knife and a dead fish.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, taking them both. The fish is a large salmon, and he spends a minute trying to set up the torch so he can gut it.

Freddie’s watching him, but he tries to ignore him, carefully descaling and gutting the fish, leaving the offcuts in a small pile.

The knife isn’t ideal for the job, and he makes a bit of a mess, but food is food, even if he has to eat it raw in a cave in the dark. At least he won’t starve.

Water is probably going to be more of an issue, but he doesn’t ask about that right now.

“Can I have those bits?” Freddie asks, pointing at the pile of offcuts, and Alexei nods, curious.

He drops the scales and bones out of the cave and eats the guts, humming to himself, and Alexei huffs a faint laugh, chopping his part up into neat slices, or as neat as he can manage with the knife he has.

“Why don’t you eat those bits?” Freddie asks, when he’s finished and watching Alexei eat.

“Taste bad,” Alexei tells him.

Freddie wrinkles his nose. “That’s not true. They’re good.”

“If you say so,” Alexei says, a little amused. “I don’t like them, though.”

“Weird,” Freddie says, thoughtful. “There were a lot of people in the ship, just now.”

Alexei frowns. “The ship you found me in?”

Freddie nods. “They were collecting your stuff, I think.”

“Right,” Alexei says. They must be friends of his, who’ve realised he never went home and come looking.

He must have been here longer than he’d thought.

“Yeah,” Freddie says. “They were upset, I think.”

“They must think I’m dead,” Alexei says, and buries his head in his hands.

Poor Lux. He wants to find her, tell her he’s okay, but he would never survive leaving the cave without equipment.

“Are you okay?” Freddie asks, quiet, and Alexei glances up at him. He reaches out and then pulls his hand back, apparently remembering how Alexei reacted last time.

“I need to get home,” Alexei says, although he has no idea how. “My friends will miss me.”

“Oh,” Freddie says, and he sounds almost disappointed.

“Was Lux there?” he asks. “She’s … tall, white hair?”

Freddie considers for a moment. “I think so.”

Alexei nods. She doesn’t dive very often, but she would’ve come down if they thought he was in trouble.

He’s glad he didn’t die there. He would hate for her to find his body.

“How will you get back?” Freddie asks.

“I don’t know,” Alexei admits.

Freddie considers for a moment, opening his mouth as though to say something, and then apparently changes his mind. “Oh,” he says, finally. “Okay.”

Alexei closes his eyes, painfully close to tears, though it’s stupid. He’s lucky to be alive.

“Do you know if there’s fresh water around here?” he asks, just kind of hoping that Freddie will leave.

“Yeah,” Freddie says. “Why?”

“To drink?”

“I can probably get you some,” Freddie says, although Alexei can tell he doesn’t get it.

“Please,” Alexei says, and he nods, slipping back into the water.

Alexei turns the torch off and puts a hand over his mouth, trying to silence himself, though there’s not one to hear him.

He can’t help crying, really. He misses the triplets and his friends from the dive school, and he just wants to go home. He can’t live down here.

He doesn’t know how long Freddie will be gone, and he stifles the tears as soon as he can, taking deep, shaky breaths. He’s going to be okay. He has to be.

Freddie comes back a while later with what looks like a bucket, though an odd one, full of water.

“Here,” he says, and offers it to Alexei.

It’s fresh, despite being carried through the salt water, and that’s kind of impressive, honestly.

Alexei drinks a little of it and then puts it aside, careful not to spill it.

“Why do you need fresh water?” Freddie asks, curious, and Alexei shrugs.

“Humans need water to survive.”

“But there’s salt water everywhere. Is that not good enough?”

Alexei shakes his head. “If I drank too much of that I’d go crazy and then die.”

“Weird,” Freddie says, thoughtfully. “Humans seem kind of fragile. No offence.”

Alexei shrugs. “I guess so,” he says. “We’re pretty hardy in some situations, though.”

“Like what?”

Alexei doesn’t really want to sit here talking, but it’s not like he has much else to do, and Freddie’s so curious. It’s kind of sweet.

“Sometimes people survive huge falls,” he says, humouring him. “And there’s this thing called hysterical strength, that helps people do crazy stuff like lift cars in emergencies.”

Freddie considers that. He looks a little sceptical, and honestly Alexei doesn’t blame him. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Alexei says. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Can you do that?”

“I assume I would, in the right situation. Never happened, though.”

“Huh,” Freddie says. His tail is twitching, just a little, where it’s laying on the stone, and Alexei wonders if it’s just a nervous tic. “That is pretty cool.”

“Have you talked to humans before?” Alexei asks, and Freddie shakes his head.

“No. We’re not … really allowed. Kind of dangerous, you know?”

Alexei nods, a faint smile pulling at his lips. “Makes sense. Humans can be kind of … shoot first, ask questions later.”

“Yeah,” Freddie says. “I probably shouldn’t have rescued you, honestly, but it felt unfair to let you die.”

“Thanks,” Alexei says, kind of touched. “I appreciate it.”

Freddie’s really nice, honestly. It takes a few days for it to really sink in that he is real, but Alexei knows well enough that the nitrogen narcosis has worn off by now, and anyway, he thinks he actually likes Freddie.

He’s very chatty, full of questions, and Alexei tells him about his life, about Cas and Lux and Gem and his friends from the dive school, about life on land. Freddie tells him things in return, about his friends and the city he grew up in, and it’s honestly fascinating.

It’s nice enough, living in the little cave, but Alexei’s still pining to go home. He likes Freddie, really he does, but he misses the sun, and he misses his friends, and he just wants to go home.

Freddie doesn’t want him to leave. He never says it outright, but Alexei can tell from the way he reacts when he talks about.

He kind of gets it, that Freddie likes him around, but he can’t help it, and he just wants to see Lux again.

Freddie must realise eventually that he’s unhappy, because he asks one day.

“Do you really want to go home?”

Alexei glances up at him. “Yeah.”

Freddie sighs, tail flicking back and forth in the water. “Is it … because of me?”

“No,” Alexei says, rolling the torch back and forth across the ground. “You’ve been really kind to me, but I just … miss it.”

“I’m sorry,” Freddie says. “I could … I could take you home?”

Alexei stares at him for a minute. “You could?”

Freddie nods, biting at his bottom lip.

“Could you have done that this whole time?”

“I … kind of,” Freddie says, not looking directly at him. “But I … didn’t think you’d like it.”

Alexei exhales slowly. “Why not?”

“It’s kind of … invasive?”

“What do you mean?” Alexei asks, cautious. He wants to get out of here, but he’s not sure how far he’d go.

Freddie glances up at him for a moment. He looks almost shy. “I … breathe out the kind of air you need, you see? I could get you back to shore.”

Alexei thinks about that for a moment, letting it sink in. He thinks he could deal with that. He trusts Freddie.

“Is that what you did to get me here?” he asks, and Freddie nods.

It’s like … CPR, kind of. He’s done a couple of first aid courses, he’s fine with CPR.

“Okay,” he says, and exhales. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Freddie echoes. “You’d, um. You’d have to let me touch you.”

Because they haven’t. Not since Alexei pushed him off and said don’t touch me, because Freddie’s good like that. He hasn’t pressed.

“That’s fine,” Alexei says. “I don’t … mind being touched, exactly. I just don’t like it when it’s without warning.”

“Okay,” Freddie says, nodding, and Alexei can see him thinking about asking, but he doesn’t. Not now.

“When can we go?” Alexei asks, after a moment’s silence, and Freddie shrugs.

“We should go at night.”

“Okay,” Alexei says. “When is that?”

“Soon,” Freddie tells him, and he nods.

“Just … tell me when, I guess. I can’t really go anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Freddie says. “I should … go tell someone where I’m going. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” Alexei says, and watches him disappear out of the cave.

It’s a while before he comes back, and Alexei is half asleep when he hears the familiar splash and feels around for the torch.

“Hi,” Freddie says, waving a little when he switches it on.

“Hi,” Alexei tells him. “Are we going?”

“Yeah,” Freddie says, a little sadly. “It probably won’t take too long.”

Alexei nods, casting around for his mask and pulling it on, then standing up and walking over to sit by the edge of the cave. Freddie hesitates for a moment and then offers him a hand, cautious.

Alexei gives him a tiny smile and takes his hand. His skin is cool, kind of damp, and he smiles back, squeezing Alexei’s hand gently.

“Come on,” he says, and pulls Alexei out of the cave and into the ocean.

It’s just a good as ever, and Alexei closes his eyes for a moment as Freddie starts towing him. He’s surprisingly strong, stronger than he looks, and Alexei opens his eyes again just to watch him moving, fascinated.

They swim for a few minutes and then Freddie stops, waving his tail lazily back and forth to keep them in place. Alexei thinks he says something, inaudible through the water, and then he cautiously leans in to press their lips together.

It is kind of like a kiss, no matter what Alexei tries to tell himself, though it’s not like he’s ever kissed anyone but Lux. Still, it means he can breathe.

He thinks he probably wouldn’t mind kissing Freddie even if not for the oxygen.

They can only move for a few minutes at a time before Alexei’s lungs start to burn, but they cover a surprising amount of distance in that time. Alexei barely has to do any work at all.

It’s only about half an hour before the ground beneath them starts sloping upwards towards the surface, and maybe five minutes from there before they break the surface and Alexei gets his first breath of fresh air in weeks. It’s dark, the moon casting a little light over the waves, and the beach is abandoned.

He can see the dock from here, easily close enough to swim to.

“I guess this is it,” Freddie says, and Alexei turns to face him. He hasn’t let go of Alexei yet, but he doesn’t mind so much.

“Yeah,” he says. “Thank you for looking after me.”

“It’s okay,” Freddie says, earnest. “I’d do it again.”

“I hope you don’t have to.”

Freddie smiles a little. “Yeah. Me too. Still, I’d like to see you again?”

“I’ll visit,” Alexei offers, and Freddie smiles.

“I can come up to the dock, if you’d like.”

Alexei nods. “I work there,” he says, “I’ll be there most days.”

“Okay,” Freddie says, pulling him a little closer to press their foreheads together. “I’ll see you then.”

“See you,” Alexei says, and Freddie finally lets him go, letting him find his own feet.

It’s only a short swim back to the beach, and he stumbles out onto the sand, looking out at the sea one last time. Freddie is still floating there, and he waves when he sees Alexei looking.

Alexei waves back and then turns towards the road, pulling his mask off and letting it hang around his neck.

It’ll be a miracle if his car is still on the dock and even if it were he left the keys in his boat, so no chance of getting home that way. He’s not sure what the time is, but hopefully the buses are still running, because walking all the way home isn’t an appealing prospect.

It’s not until he’s actually getting on the bus that he realises he has no money, and the driver raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, running a hand over his face. “I’ve had … one hell of a week.”

The driver laughs. “I can see that. Just get on, I’m not making you walk.”

“Thank you,” Alexei says, genuine. “I’ll make it up to you.”

The man just waves a hand and lets Alexei walk into the back.

He doesn’t sit down, not wanting to get salt water on the seats, just stands and clings to the pole as the bus bumps along the country roads.

He’s so tired, and he can’t wait to see Lux again.

It’s about a ten-minute walk from his stope, and he feels dead on his feet when he gets to the peeling yellow front door. The bell’s been broken for years, and he knocks harshly. Someone will still be up, he’s sure.

It’s Gem who opens the door, in their pyjamas, and for a moment they just stare at him.

“Surprise,” he says, and does half-hearted jazz hands at them. “Not dead.”

“Holy shit,” they say, and beckon him in. “Cas!”

“What!” Cas yells, down the stairs. “I’m busy!”

Gem rolls their eyes. “Tell Lux to come down!”

Alexei can imagine the expression Cas is making, but a couple of minutes later Lux jogs down the stairs and Alexei gives her a little wave.

She just stares at him in the same way Gem did, as though she can’t believe he’s here. Not that he blames her, really.

What she signs, finally, and then fuck.

Surprise! Alexei signs, and gives her a tired half-smile. Not dead.

She narrows her eyes and runs over to stand in front of him. Idiot. Hug?

He nods and she wraps her arms around him, soft and familiar. He buries his nose in her shoulder and hugs her back.

What happened? she asks, when she pulls away, and he just shrugs.

Explain later, he offers. Sleep now, please.

She sighs and shakes her head. Shower first. Then bed.

That’s reasonable enough, and he lets her push him into the shower before she disappears, presumably to tell Cas what’s going on.

A shower does him a world of good, washing the salt from his hair after days, but he’s even sleepier by the time he stumbles out and dries himself off.

Cas is waiting for him when he gets out, but he doesn’t ask questions.

“Good to have you back,” is all he says, and then he lets Alexei wander down the hallway to his room and collapse into bed.

He has no idea how he’s going to explain in the morning, but he’ll find a way. For now he just falls asleep, so glad to be home.

[minuteminx]

Revolutionary

Pairing: Preston Garvey/ Female Sole Survivor

Summary: In the aftermath of personal tragedies, Preston and Charlie both seek to make a difference in the Commonwealth and those around them. They could never anticipate the impact that they will have on eachother in the process.

Chapter Four: Sole Survivor

Chapter Summary:   Charlie tells Preston a long story. 

[First Chapter]

[Previous Chapter]

[AO3 Link]

“A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.”

�� Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

Sanctuary  Hills, October 2287

The trek out of Concord, and up the road to a place called Sanctuary Hills was largely silent and uneventful. Preston took point, and Charlie offered to hang back in case there were any straggling raiders who decided to follow. He wasn’t so sure that she was in any condition to watch the rear, but he wasn’t about to argue with the woman who’d just turned a deathclaw inside out. It was more than alarming to see the bloody massacre Charlie’s tangle with the deathclaw had caused up close and personal as they passed by. He was just glad she’d survived, and that he didn’t have to fight the damn thing.

On the way to their hopeful home, Sturges spotted a largely intact Red Rocket on the side of the road, stacked with old tires and filled with useless junk that Sturges would scrape up a use for. Jun and Marcy walked together in somber silence and Mama Murphy hobbled along in the back, arm looped through Charlie’s, whose open hand gripped a 10mm so tightly her knuckles turned white. She had a hell of a poker face, he’d give her that much.

Nearing the old neighborhood, a statue of a lone guardian stood tall, musket in hand, holding his centuries-old post at the bridge where the American Revolution began. It was almost like some weird omen, Preston thought, observing the Minuteman and then the bridge. Maybe Mama’s visions had some truth to them after all. He did not realize he’d mused out loud until Sturges’ hand clapped him on the back.

“I don’t know what the heck you’re talkin’ about boss, but I’m glad you’re happy.”

Preston laughed. “Thanks, man.”

Crossing Old North Bridge into their hopeful home seemed monumental, the group propelled forward by the potential of a place to finally rest. There were more than a handful of homes that still had enough structural integrity to be tidied and boarded up for use as shelters. It was bittersweet to see the remnants of picket fences, lawn furniture, and pink, plastic birds that dotted the landscape. Skeletons of old cars littered spots where garages might have been. Preston imagined what the area might have been like back before the war, pictured neighbors talking to one another from their yards, children playing together in the streets. It was a way of life he knew he’d never get to have.

Before long, Preston had done a sweep of the entire cul de sac, making sure there wasn’t anything dangerous lurking inside any buildings. All he found were several dead rad roaches and bloatflies, as well as a high-strung Mr. Handy robot that called itself Codsworth.  It kept attempting to scrub the rust off the paneling outside one of the homes, muttering something about making sure it was in “tip-top” shape for when its family returned. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the thing, so he just left it to clean aimlessly in hopes that it’d be someone else’s problem later.

“Hey boss,” Sturges called out to him, waving him overs to where the others had congregated near the mechanic’s makeshift workstation, lamplight flickering on their exhausted faces, “Check out what we found in one of the fridges.”

Preston walked over, catching a glimpse of the round face of Button Gwinnett on a cardboard case of Southie Stouts. “Damn, and here I thought we’d used up all our luck for the day.”

“I’d prefer Beantown,” Marcy said as she brought her bottle to her lips, and Preston caught the briefest flash of a grin wrinkling at the corners of her mouth.

“C’mon Marcy,” Jun interjected, nudging her shoulder, “You know that’s not true.”

“I’m a Gwinnett guy, but I’d probably drink anything wet with a kick right about now,” Preston said, grabbing one of the dark brown bottles and examining it more closely. It had been forever since he’d actually gotten to enjoy a drink, long before Qunicy, that was for sure. Just as he placed his hand on the cap to pop it off, there was a bump at the back of his legs. He startled and turned around to see Dogmeat peering up at him expectantly, whining and wagging his tail. Preston knelt down and gave him a scratch behind the ears. “You a Gwinnett guy, too, boy?”

The dog let out a stern bark that sounded like a correction, and then turned toward the house across the street before looking back at him. Following Dogmeat’s instruction, Preston glanced over at the house, where Charlie stood alone, frozen and staring vacantly inside as if she wanted to enter but couldn’t.  Without hesitation, he grabbed another bottle and headed toward her

He cleared his throat as he approached to make sure he didn’t startle her.  It was neither polite nor smart to spook a lady who was already pretty shaken up.  She darted her head toward him, scrubbing at her face as if he wouldn’t notice her tear-stained cheeks and swollen nose. He pretended not to, anyway, instead holding up the bottles in his hands and smiling. “Thought you could use a drink.”

She perked up at the sight of the drinks, tilting her head and squinting at the label. “Are those--? Oh wow.”

“Yeah,” Preston said, popping the cap off of one of the bottles and handing it to her, “Stouts are harder to come by than the other stuff.”

Charlie shook her head and examined the bottle, running her thumb up and down across the label. “No… it’s just.  I’m surprised there are still any left after you know--” she swallowed hard-- “the bombs.”

She sounded harrowed, as if the bombs had just fallen yesterday or something. Maybe she was just harrowed in general.  God knew she had every right to be.

“Me too,” Preston said, opening his own drink and taking a swig, lukewarm and bitter.  It hit the spot. “It’s kinda crazy, you know, what survived.

She took a sip, sad smile at the corners of her mouth. “Like the lawn flamingos? Such a testament to pre-war vanity.”

“Those damn birds,” Preston replied, nodding and laughing.  He’d never thought much about the lawn ornaments before, other than thinking they were ridiculous.

The air between them fell silent as Charlie stared down at her bottle, picking at the label with a polished thumbnail. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then closed it and sighed before glancing over at him. “Can I tell you something?  It’s going to sound really weird, but I’m going to lose my shit if I don’t talk to someone.”

“Is this that ‘long story’ you mentioned before?”

“Yeah.” Charlie walked toward the bright red door to the house in front of them, slightly ajar, knob and hinges specked with rust. She ran her hand along the wooden surface and took a deep breath.  “I used to live here.  In Sanctuary Hills.  In this house.”

“But,” Preston’s brows drew together, “That’s not possible.  This place hasn’t been settled since--”

“Before the bombs fell.” She spun back around to look at him, leaning back against the door frame. “I know.  That’s when I lived here.”

“Two-hundred and ten years ago?”

She nodded her head slowly. “2077.  I had the perfect life: a good career, the best husband, a beautiful baby boy, and a shiny new Mr. Handy unit that was much less neurotic than the one over there trying to clean the dirt off the ground.”

He blinked, attempting to figure out where he’d misheard the woman, because if he hadn’t then that would make her over two-hundred years old.  That couldn’t be possible, at least not without being a ghoul, although he wouldn’t mind if she could take Codsworth off his hands.  

Charlie frowned. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

“No, no,” Preston stammered out quickly,  “I believe you, but… how?”

“That might be a better question for Vault-Tec,” she remarked, looking down at her suit, “My husband and I signed up for a  spot, just as a precaution.  Nobody thought the Chinese military would actually drop those nukes. Not sure if it was arrogance or complacency, but either way, it happened.  My family and I were rushed to Vault 111 to shelter.  That’s all it was supposed to be: A shelter .”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t just a shelter?”

“No.” She laughed bitterly.  “They herded us, like lab rats, into these cryogenic chambers, and locked us in there.  Last thing I remembered before waking up was my limbs going numb and my vision going dark.”

“Damn.” Preston was stuck somewhere between horror and amazement.  “Did anyone else make it out with you?”

“No.”  Her answer was abrupt, eyes welling up visibly and he immediately felt bad for asking. “When I woke up, there were these people in weird lab coats and a man with this scar--” She traced a line with her little finger, vertically from her eyebrow down to her cheek-- “He opened up my husband’s chamber and took my baby.  Nate fought, but… they shot him.  After that, I think everyone else’s life support failed.  A whole damn town, and I’m the only one who survived.”

“I’m… so sorry.”  He didn’t know what else to say.  He knew how it felt, to be a sole survivor of a terrible tragedy, but he couldn’t bring up Quincy, even if it was just to show her he understood.  “If there’s anything I can do, or that the Minutemen can do…”

“I think the Minutemen have their own problems at the moment, hmm?”  She smirked, eyes twinkling with humor despite the tears.

Preston looked around and chuckled in exasperation. “Well, considering that I’m the only one left, I’d say yes. We have so many problems.  That doesn’t change the fact that I owe you.”

Charlie tilted her head back and finished off the rest of her stout, then looked decisively at Preston.  “You’re not the only one.”

“Pardon?”

“I never thought I’d get to say this in my lifetime, outside the context of some weird historical play, but... I’m joining the Minutemen.” She tossed her bottle to the ground. “I don’t have any survival skills, I couldn’t shoot dead fish in a barrell, and I’m a bit traumatized, but I figure it’s still better than nothing.”

“Are you serious?”  Preston could barely contain his excitement.  He didn’t care if he had to spend months teaching her how to shoot or get by in the Commonwealth.  He’d been without help for so long now, he would be glad to not be alone.

“I know it’s hard to believe that anyone could be that bad of a shot, but--”

“No, Charlie,” he interrupted, “Are you serious about joining up?”

Charlie grinned, playfully. “Hell yeah.”

“That’s... well.  Let’s just say that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

If Preston were a hugger, and if he’d known her longer than a few hours, he would have embraced the woman.  Maybe it wasn’t just the jet.  Maybe Mama Murphy was right all along.

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Writing Commission - Where I Want To Be - Chapter One

And here we are with chapter one of my latest finished commission piece Where I Want To Be! This is an AllEraserMic story dealing with anxiety, past traumas, and making it through a rough day with the people we love supporting us. I hope you guys enjoy! 

(This will be posted to my AO3 after my suspension is lifted on October 12th.)

                                                        ⁂

Summary: Yamada Hizashi, better known as the Voice Hero Present Mic, is a busy man. He has classes and students to teach English to, an agency that always seemed to be in the middle of a disaster to help deal with, and a radio station that was one bad show away from being cancelled to run. He doesn’t have time for a bad day triggered by nightmares and fears and anxieties that just never seem to stop.

Luckily for him, his partners are Aizawa Shouta and Yagi Toshinori and neither of those two are very good at leaving Hizashi to suffer alone.

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia    

Relationship: Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic/Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic/Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yagi Toshinori | All Might

Characters: Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Yagi Toshinori | All Might

Rating: Teen Audiences

Word Count: 29,323

Transaction Amount: $200 (USD)

WARNINGS FOR: Past childhood abuse (both emotional and physical) and anxiety attacks verging on panic to PTSD episodes. Please read with caution if needed. 

                                                      ⁂ 

             Check out my writing commission information here!                    Pledge to my Patreon to get exclusive content!                                Or buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

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                                            Chapter Index

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Rapid, quick breaths were smothered against small, trembling hands, trying to muffle as much sound as possible as words creeped under the door and, “I told you that he was too dangerous! We never should have brought him here!” 

A change years later and years ago and hands, larger but still shaking with terror that would never be gone, clutched at a chest that gasped for breath as sweet words were whispered to him and, “It’s better this way, don’t you think? So nice and quiet -- so safe.” 

Footsteps that were never particularly hurried but sounded as if they were from giants and monsters. 

The dull, muted sound of bruised and scratched leather straining against equally mistreated metal, the sounds so soft and yet louder than screaming. 

Reaching hands that had promised safely, but had only ever given him pain and then silence and it was never anything but silence and he couldn’t scream-

Yamada Hizashi sucked in a slow, trembling breath, eyes squeezed shut and heart pounding quick enough to be felt throughout his entire body as he tried to focus on the blankets and sheets pooled around his hips as his fingers scrapped against the edges of his jaw and the curve of his cheeks, digging into rough, cracked leather and rusty metal with jagged edges that caught on the tips of his fingers and hurt-

“‘Zashi?” Just like that, after hearing a single sleepy murmur, Hizashi sucked in a ragged, uneven breath as he felt imagined leather and metal disappear for sore, scratched skin. A panicked look around the room showed cracked, broken walls at the edges of his vision replaced in favor of soft, deep blue painted walls that were filled with pictures and posters of all types. 

Another look showed torn, ragged curtains no longer over the busted window, but instead blackout curtains that were teased open to show the early stirring of dawn outside a pristine window with not a crack in sight. Scratchy sheets and blankets had vanished in favor of something soft and smooth and filled with lingering warmth. 

The adrenaline coursing through him vanished in half a heartbeat, Hizashi already starting to feel the drop as he fell back down to lay on the soft, large bed that was sturdy and not about to fall apart at the slightest kick. He managed to suck in another ragged breath, forcing his eyes to stay open and look at his room instead of that room.

Altogether Hizashi gave himself ten seconds to let panic utterly consume him before he carefully and slowly shoved it back down. Ten seconds, plus one more, and Hizashi was feeling along his face again, fingertips sliding against his jaw and cheeks and working over wispy scars that could only just be felt by his touch. 

It was only an afterthought that he noticed a warm arm sliding under his hiked-up shirt and pressing against his bare stomach; rough, callused fingertips pressed against his side sharp enough to almost hurt. He probably would have complained if the hard, grounding touch wasn’t exactly what he needed, the touch doing such a good job of reminding him that he was awake and not back there because he would never be back there again never again he would rather die-

“Breathe.” The word was muffled and soft, spoken right into his ear at just loud enough of a volume that he could hear it without his hearing aids. It was the low, familiar tone that the word was spoken in that had him sucking in a breath more than the word itself, Hizashi not fighting as he was pulled in closer. Whoever said Aizawa Shouta was shit at comfort had never spent longer than ten seconds with the man, Hizashi firmly decided.

A tap to the divot of his jaw had him jolting for a moment before he was right back to his list, mentally ticking it off and, right, no leather straps and no rusted metal. A deep breath that turned into a yawn had him stretching his jaw wide, the movement easy and smooth without anything in the way to hold him back.

A double tap to the side of his neck -- close to his throat but never dare touching -- had him pushing out another breath before he was dredging up the edges of his quirk, clicks and whistles leaving at ranges that were either inaudible or only just loud enough to be heard. It got a grumble of complaint from the man beside him, but if anything, the grip still around Hizashi only tightened. 

Hizashi barely focused on the warm skin pressed against his own and the soft breaths that curled around his jaw and neck with warm, heated air. Instead he could only focus on the taps on the side of his neck with soft, careful fingers, counting him through his checks. Three taps for humming, four taps for volume sliding, and five taps for his quirk to finally start working through his entire voice. 

Six taps to show he could freely speak and, as always, six taps and Hizashi felt himself go completely limp like his strings had been cut, gasping for breath as he felt inaudible words pressed against his skin and a hand on his chest pressing down, forcing him to focus on the fact that, as a living human being who was still alive, he needed to actually breathe instead of gasping for air. 

The only change in a routine that was years old were the thinner, longer fingers that so carefully brushed long, tangled hair out of his face before tapping at the edges of an ear, and, right, no hearing aids. Hizashi should probably fix that. Thankfully the men in his life were perfect and it only took a single nod before Yagi Toshinori -- All Might -- was helping him with his hearing aids. All Might. Because he and Shouta were dating All Might. 

What was even better was that they were dating Toshinori who was so sweet it was almost sickening. It was a reminder that was just enough to tip him over into finally focusing fully and completely back in the present. “-need anything? Medicine? Tea? Water? Snacks?”

Toshinori’s panicked questions -- really the man was so sweet -- were cut off by Shouta’s sharp snort of laughter. “Keep going like that and you’re going to inflate his ego and spoil him at the same time. And between the two of you? There’s enough ego in this building.” 

“Excuse you.” Right. Hizashi could focus on banter and jokes, edges of fear shoved away to the back of his mind. “I’ll have you know that it’s not ego when everyone knows we’re the best at what we do.” The dual sounds of laughter, one rough and quiet and the other a sharp bark of surprise, had Hizashi more thankful than ever that he rarely, if ever, had to wake up alone. 

“If ‘being the best at what you do’ involves being the center of attention, then I suppose I can’t disagree,” Shouta sighed as if suffering some great defeat, Hizashi unable to muster up the words that would ever describe how thankful he was that Shouta knew when to keep joking; when to keep talking. 

“You’re so mean, Shou-chan,” Hizashi pouted, halfheartedly trying to sit up and completely unsurprised when Shouta’s grip didn’t so much as loosen. If anything, it tightened, Hizashi sucking in a slow breath at the wonderful grounding sensation. “Why are you so mean to the men who love you?”

“It keeps you struggling to meet my approval, so you’ll never leave my side.” Shouta’s tone was as dry as a summer heat wave and Hizashi couldn’t help but to delight in it, noticing that Toshinori looked like he was trying to hold back his own laughter. Really, the man seemed to be far too awake for such an early hour. 

Hizashi picked up Shouta’s wickedly dry tone, turning it into something playfully accusing as he ‘glared’ up at the other man, “And, excuse you, Mr. Number One Hero, just why were you up and out of bed before the sun is even fully up?”

“Oh! Well, ah…” All Might may have been brash and bold and impossible to fluster, but Yagi Toshinori? It was too easy to fluster him and Hizashi loved it. “I was actually- Well, I thought-” The man floundered, finally gesturing towards a silver tray sitting on the edge of the bed that was set up with what looked like tea and a few plates of breakfast foods. “Breakfast in bed?” 

Hizashi stared at the tray and everything on it, finally looking over at Shouta. The man was still wrapped around him and looked half-asleep, but his expression was much the same as Hizashi’s; vaguely irritated. Really, though, how the hell had they managed to end up in a relationship with the sweetest guy on the planet. It was enough of a conundrum that Hizashi was almost fully distracted from… earlier. 

“What the hell, yo, we talked about this. You can’t just- You can’t just go and be all sweet like that! We need warning before you go and make us feel all mushy like this!” Hizashi shifted to finally sit up fully and properly, doing nothing to hide his smile when Toshinori was quick to help him.

His smile fell, though, with Toshinori’s next words, “Shall I take your dramatics as an escape from talking about what just happened?” The look he was given was way too knowing, Shouta’s not much better and damn the fact Hizashi had fallen in love with two incredible pro heroes who were too smart for their own good. 

“What happened? Psh, please, Toshi, it was just a nightmare. Those are a dime a dozen!” The American phrase did nothing to erase Toshinori’s frown, which, yeah. He was definitely worried. It didn’t help when Shouta sat up next, hand moving to cup Hizashi’s cheek and rub against an almost invisible scar. “I’m- I’m fine.” 

“I really would love to believe that,” Toshinori sighed, sounding regretful as his hand cupped Hizashi’s other cheek, thumb brushing away the feeling of wetness. “But you’re crying, sweetheart.” 

“Oh.” Hizashi went still between their grips, thoughts feeling like they were both screaming and yet so very quiet. It was an unnerving combination that had him struggling to keep his breathing even, knowing the two would worry even more if he gave in to the urge to have a complete and total mental breakdown. 

It had been years and he should have been over what had happened so long ago. He was a pro hero for fuck’s sake. He had faced more terrifying villains on his daily patrols than he had in childhood. He shouldn’t be waking up from a nightmare an immediately crying like a little kid.

Fighting for his composure, and barely putting up a fight at all considering he knew how it would all end, Hizashi offered up a weak, “Haven’t you heard? I’m an absolute crybaby. I cry over papercuts.” 

“I’ve noticed.” Toshinori’s smile was too warm and too knowing. For as much as it helped settle something in Hizashi, it felt like it burned him just as badly. “Unlike some others I could name.” Here he shot a very pointed look at Shouta, Hizashi unable to help a startled snort of laughter at the action. “You’re a very emotional person, sweetheart, but you tend to cry only when it doesn’t matter or when it matters far too much.”

“Still earning that title of Number One, huh?” Hizashi didn’t dare close his eyes, he knew far too well what he could see if he were to do that, but he did look away from the two. He had been dealing with his nightmares for years, but the shame never seemed to change. “Sorry. I probably woke you two up, and neither of you get the amount of rest you should.”

There was a beat of silence. A single moment where everything was silent and Hizashi feared before Toshinori let out a scoff that could rival Shouta at his most annoyed. “Are you- He is, isn’t he?” A glance up showed Toshinori was looking between him and Shouta, Hizashi not sure if the man was playfully upset or actually upset. “Did you just apologize for having a nightmare that caused you a traumatic and unavoidable reaction that you have absolutely no control over?”

Hizashi glanced to Shouta for help, the man staring at him with lidded eyes and a lazy smirk that all but screamed abandonment. “I mean,” Hizashi finally managed after a moment, swallowing nervously, clearing his throat, and trying to muster up a winning smile. “I wouldn’t say it quite like that, really.” 

“You wouldn’t say it at all because it’s the truth,” Shouta said, Hizashi flicking his gaze to Shouta and giving him a dirty look that he hoped the other man felt. It was a shame that he would have to destroy the man for betraying him at last. “Hizashi.”

“Shouta,” Hizashi snapped back, flinching at hearing the sharp bite in his tone that sang with the very edges of his quirk. The only thing that kept him from spiraling was the flash of red from Shouta’s eyes, serious and calm and locked on him. Hizashi really was too lucky when it came to the men he loved. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Shouta sighed, finally sitting up properly, Hizashi wincing as his hearing aids picked up every sharp crack Shouta’s joints and spine made just by sitting up. Judging by Toshinori’s wavering hands and fretful expression, he could hear the same sounds and was just as worried. “Quit it. You two act like this every morning I so much as twitch.”

Hizashi choked down a laugh, not sure if he was more amused by Shouta’s adorable morning grumpiness or the fact that Toshinori actually looked like he had been scolded. It was- It was good. It was normal. It reminded him of the present where there were warm hands and soft smiles and not… there. 

“Hizashi.” Toshinori’s soft voice captured his attention in only a way that he and Shouta had ever been able to manage. “Don’t apologize for this.” Mouth already half-open to argue, Hizashi frowned as Toshinori hooked a finger under his chin and pushed up until he closed his mouth with a small snap. 

There was a beat of quiet where all three of them didn’t say a word. While Shouta tensed up beside him and seemed ready for Hizashi to completely lose his mind and his cool and have a complete and utter panic attack, Hizashi only felt… insulted. He felt insulted and that adorable, incredible bastard was smirking at him as his fingers shifted to rub against his cheek. 

“You don’t need to apologize for bad days, sweetheart,” Toshinori said softly, leaning in to brush his lips against the cheek he had been wiping away tears from. Hizashi might have been embarrassed if he had possessed even so much as a shred of shame left. As it was, he leaned into the touch at once, breath stuttering out of him in what felt like relief -- or maybe absolution was the better word. 

God. He didn’t know what he would have ever done if it wasn’t for Shouta and Toshinori. He probably would have ended up dead after biting off more than he could chew after first becoming a sidekick. As it was, though, Shouta had been there every second Hizashi had needed him, and Toshinori, for as new as it all still was between them, fit in far too well. 

“Hizashi,” Toshinori spoked quietly, drawing his attention out of his thoughts as easy as anything. “Do you want to stay home-?”

“No!” The answer burst out of him before he could even try to stop it, quirk stirring around at the edges as Shouta’s arm snuck around his waist and gripped him tightly. Neither of the two so much as flinched, Toshinori only giving him a long, searching look. 

“You wouldn’t be the first teacher to need a day of rest,” Toshinori said, but Hizashi could hear the defeat in his voice and feel it in the way his touch lightened. “Then again, I suppose neither Shouta nor I set very good examples on resting.” 

Hizashi finally laughed, anxiety still coursing through him and fear digging under his skin, “Of course you two don’t. Some of the worst fights of your lives and you two just go right back to work as soon as possible -- which is why I’ll be fine. This is just some nightmare, after all, and it’s not even a new one. This happens every so often. I know how to deal with it.” 

And if it were any other day Hizashi would have had nothing against lying in bed and letting his lovers spoil him and keep him safe and calm. As it was, though, he was a pro hero English teacher and radio DJ who had work to do. What’s more, Shouta and Toshinori each had their own work to do, too. A nightmare wasn’t an excuse for all three of them to blow off work that was far too important to ignore.

Besides, work was a routine. Routines could be good. It reminded him that he was no longer… there. What’s more was that it kept him busy, with no time to linger on thoughts and memories and whispers that brushed at the back of his mind. Keeping busy and moving meant he couldn’t hear the soft voice telling him that isn’t that so much better, Hizashi-

“Fine.” Toshinori’s sudden movement had Hizashi startling, unable to even muster up a reply before the tray full of tea and breakfast foods was placed on his lap. “But that means taking care of yourself and eating something- Don’t even think about it.” Toshinori’s gaze snapped to Shouta, who had no doubt been about to flee because getting him to eat in the mornings was like getting Nemuri to wear sensible clothing when in public. Impossible. 

Shouta, as expected, was disgruntled and complaining at once, Hizashi letting himself fall quiet between them. While the normalcy of watching the two argued helped, he still could feel his heart tripping over itself, barely able to withstand the weight of fear and memories that pressed down around him; suffocating him. He could feel rusted metal and frayed leather digging into his jaw an across his cheeks, keeping him silent.

It was going to be a bad day, Hizashi decided to himself. Which was… It wasn’t fine, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he could manage it. It wouldn’t be his first bad day, after all, and he had dealt with what would come next before.

He had dealt with it all before, after all; the urge to clam up and go completely quiet in fear of the wrong person hearing him, the desire to scream and yell as loud as he could to prove that he could, the phantom sensation of metal and leather digging into him, the racing fear spreading through his veins, and even the whispers of memories and voices that had never left him. It would be bad, but he could deal with it.

As far as he was concerned, he would act as if it was just a normal day. Even if he wanted to crawl into a corner and hide and wait for it to be over, he couldn’t do that. Even if his stomach twisted and turned and rejected the very idea of a cup of tea, let alone anything solid, Hizashi knew he couldn’t just blow the day off and hide away and scream about how unfair life could be.

He had gone through bad days before and he had work to do. He had students to help and teach, he had his agency relying on him to help their country be a safe place, and he had his radio show out there reminding people that the world wasn’t all bad things and villains.

His boys were sweet to worry about him, but it would be fine. He would be fine. And if he wasn’t, just like he never truly was, then that didn’t matter. 

Present Mic had work to do.

[in-tua-deep]

OKAY remember that snippet that got too long and i asked about how I should post it?? Well here it is - 

and a copy under the readmore for tumblr people

When Five Hargreeves is four-years-old, he discovers his power.

He also discovers a whole lot more than that.

They’re all figuring out their powers, and as a consequence they all move out of the nursery into their own rooms after a somewhat unfortunate incident regarding the discovery of Six’s powers. Regardless, Five isn’t very fond of the new arrangement because he’s lonely.

He can’t sleep without the sounds of his siblings around him. One’s sleepy whuffling and Four’s random exclamations, Six shuffling around and Two kicking his blankets off in the night. It’s too quiet.

That is, of course, when the man falls into his room.

He arrives in a flash of blue. The same blue that Five himself recognizes like an old friend, because it’s the one he embraces and falls into because it feels so incredibly right, the one he pulls to him to jump. At the abrupt arrival, Five had scuttled backwards and curled into an alarmed ball, like a hedgehog.

He scrubs at the tears that definitely weren’t falling as the man on his carpet groans.

“Who - who’re you?” Five asks, definitely not scared, because he’s not. He’s not a baby. The man just groans in response. And now that Five is looking, he’s not like. Old old. He’s not Dad old. He’s not a grown-up, but he is a big kid.

He’s not quite as scary now that he’s not so old, so Five gingerly scooches to the edge of the bed to lower himself down to the floor. He pads across the cold bedroom floor and kneels down, hesitating before patting the boy on the cheek.

“You gotta wakey.” Five whispers, “Dad’ll be really really mad.”

The boy rouses at least, eyes snapping open and pushing himself up to his elbows with a loud groan. Five shushes him, because it’ll be real bad if his Dad comes in and finds the guy.

“What the fuck.” The boy wheezes, and Five tilts his head at the unfamiliar word.

They stare at each other for a solid minute. Five gets impatient enough that he reaches up and rests his hand against the boy’s cheek again, like he patted him into wakefulness the first time. The boy leans back, as if startled.

“What’s your name?” Five asks the boy. He feels like he should probably ask some other questions, like what this guy is doing in his room, and how he has the same powers as Five, but he feels like he already knows. Or at least, the answer he’ll get now is a confirmation of a suspicion.

“How old are you?” The boy asks him, instead.

“Four.” Five holds up four whole fingers proudly. Next year he’ll get to hold up five fingers, the most superior of all the numbers.

“Fuck.” The boy says the word again, bringing up his hands to his face and wheezing into them.

“Are you me?” Five asks bluntly, since he’s pretty sure he figured it out. The blue light was his blue light after all, familiar as the back of his own hand.

The boy sighs again. He sighs an awful lot. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” He mutters, which makes Five frown in confusion. He’s a very confusing version of himself, this boy.

“You’re weird.” Five informs his older self very seriously.

“Well I am you.” The boy says reflectively, and Five almost feels like he should be offended but he’s too busy being curious.

Five frowns as he chases a tendril of thought to a logical conclusion, “If you’re me,” He starts slowly, sounding out each words, “If you’re me and you’re old, then you’re from… the future? So that means… I can jump time?”

“No.” The boy cuts him off, frighteningly pale all of a sudden. His eyes are wild in a way that makes Five flinch backwards, putting just a little bit of distance between him and, well, himself. Five can’t help but look doubtful, because really it’s the only obvious answer.

The boy at least looks somewhat apologetic for his sharpness, though he doesn’t say anything about it. Five knows that the nannies would insist on someone saying “I’m sorry” so that they make up, but Five can think of half a dozen things his dad has done that the nannies would say would merit an apology and he never does it.

“Hey,” The boy says, breaking the silence that has fallen between them. He looks older all of a sudden, and Five almost reconsiders his judgement of the boy’s age. “Hey, do you want to hear a story?”

And of course, those are the magic words. Five loves stories and has been known to constantly badger the nannies for one. Eyes bright, Five nods hard enough that he almost loses his balance before running over to the bookcase full of children’s books with big fonts.

He’s supposed to be learning how to read for himself, so he can tell himself stories, but that’s never seemed half as much fun.

“No, no.” The boy shakes his head, making Five look back. “Not one of those, I have a story for you, but it isn’t in a book.”

The boy hauls himself up, crouching low to the ground with his arm curling around his stomach. He huffs and puffs like the wolf in one of Five’s storybooks as he staggers over to the bed to sit down. It’s a little bit like when Four doesn’t want to do something and makes a big production out of everything, except much quieter.

Five shrugs and pads over, but when he crosses the patch of floor where his older self had appears he automatically jumps back a few feet in a flash of blue light, eyes wide. But jumping doesn’t change what startled him - his feet are wet.

Cautiously, he tiptoes forward and crouches down. There’s black shiny stuff on the floor, puddled and smeared with a sharp metallic smell, like rust in the rain. He recognizes it in a way no young child should. He pops up and fixes an accusing eye on the older boy. “You’re hurt!”

“I am, yes.” The boy admits easily, waving one careless hand. The other hand stays firmly tucked against his side. “Should’ve warned you, my bad.”

“I can go get a nanny!” Five says urgently, already walking to the door, “I’m sure they’ll know - ”

“No!” The boy once again cuts him off sharply and just a little bit too loudly. They both freeze in place, waiting to see if they’ll get caught, but nothing stirs in the house that they can hear. The boy sighs, again. “Don’t worry about me, it’s fine. Just come here - like I said, I have a story to tell you. It’s very important.”

Five is somewhat doubtful that a story is more important than getting fixed up and getting magic kisses, but he figures his older self probably knows more about that kind of stuff anyway. So against his better judgement, Five trots on over and allows the boy to help him scramble up onto the bed until he’s tucked against the older boy’s side.

“You have to stay awake for this.” The boy whispers, jiggling Five’s arm when he doesn’t respond fast enough. “It’s important.”

“Dad says that stories aren’t important.” Five whispers back.

“Dad’s wrong.” The boy says firmly, ignoring Five’s little gasp. “This story is the most important story you’re ever going to hear, okay? This story is going to save the world. And it starts on October 1st, 1989. On that day, forty-three children were born, which would have been unremarkable except for the fact that none of the mother’s were pregnant when the day began…”

Five listens, and any time he starts to drop off the boy shakes him awake again and makes sure he’s paying attention before continuing. He listens, even as the boy has to pause more and more often, as he starts wheezing in between sentences.

But the boy is patient, more patient than Five thought he would be.

“I like the names they got.” Five whispers, patting the boy’s cold hand a few times to get his attention. Luther, Allison, Diego, Klaus, Ben, Vanya. “Do we get a name?”

“My name is Five.” The boy tells him softly, as if imparting a secret. He smiles, and Five pretends he doesn’t see the blood on the boy’s teeth. “But you don’t have to be, maybe this time around you’ll pick something out. I don’t know. Isn’t the future a wonderful thing?”

Five rather thinks the future is a scary thing, considering the story he’s just been told. But rather than think about that, Five has another question. “How come you forgot about Seven’s powers?”

The boy falls silent. Five thinks it’s a fair enough question. Seven blew him into a wall yesterday because someone’s car alarm went off outside, he still has the bruise. He doesn’t think he’d forget about that just because she went away for a week or something.

“Go get me one of your books,” The boy says, putting a clammy hand on Five’s shoulder and giving him a little push, “And the blue crayon.”

If nothing convinced Five that they were the same before, it was that. Sheepishly, Five hopped down and went to retrieve the requested items. This time, he made sure to avoid the blood still pooled on his floor.

“Grab me your favorite, the one you read every night. But not the one that the nannies read.” The boy asks, and Five obeys.

He scuttles back and hands the book and crayon over, hoisting himself back onto the bed so he can watch. He almost protests when the boy flips it open and starts writing on the pages, but holds his tongue.

As if sensing this, the boy looks up. His eyes are soft and just a little bit glazed. “You were right,” The boy tells him, which makes Five preen just a little bit, “You - I should have remembered Vanya’s powers. It seems dumb that we just forgot, which means something made us forget. I’m just - I’m leaving you a reminder.”

The scribbling continues for a good while, and Five almost protests at how much his blue crayon is being worn down by all this but holds his tongue. Five is slightly more concerned by the fact that the boy’s hands are trembling and that he’s breathing really loudly. But eventually he comes to a stop, closing the book gently - like it was the most precious thing in the world.

The boy hands it to Five with a nod, “Go put that away, okay? Dad - Dad’d never think to look in a kid’s book. But, but you have to remember. Keep it secret, don’t let anyone see it, okay? It’s only for you.”

“What about Four and Six?” Five asks, aghast. They’re his bracket siblings, the ones on either side of his own number. They share everything. But even as he asks, he’s scooting off the bed to return the book (and the crayon) to their rightful places in the room.

The boy’s lips quirk up into something almost like a smile, or Five thinks it might have become one if the boy didn’t also look so terribly sad. “You can’t tell anyone about any of this. You can’t tell them you met me, you can’t tell anyone I even existed, okay?”

“Why not?” Five demands to know.

“You’ll get in trouble.” The boy whispers, looking terribly serious. “More trouble that you’ve ever been in before. Worse than when you drew on the wall. You can’t tell anyone, you understand?”

Five doesn’t understand at all. But the boy looks very serious.

“Promise me.” The boy says fiercely, “You promise me you won’t tell anyone about tonight.”

Five considers this for a moment before tentatively sticking out a pinky. That’s how people make promises in his books at least, though Five has never made a big enough promise to necessitate it. This feels like an appropriate time though, and it makes the boy smile just a little more than before which is another win.

A finger much bigger than his own wraps around his and squeezes on just that side of too tight before being released. They nod at one another in confirmation of a deal made.

“Alright,” The boy wheezes, sitting up a little straighter and looking a little more pale as he does so. “Now here’s what’s going to happen now. You’re going to go to one of the others’ rooms to sleep, okay? And in the morning, tell - tell Dad you were scared and left early. You didn’t see or hear anything strange last night. You weren’t in your room. You didn’t meet me, you didn’t hear a story, and you definitely don’t say anything about the book, okay?”

“But I’ll get in trouble.” Five protests, because Dad told them that sleeping together was for babies and that they weren’t supposed to do it anymore. Admittedly he also doesn’t want his siblings to call him a baby, either. But he gets a harsh look for his concerns.

“If Dad finds out we met, you’ll be in even more trouble.” The boy bares his teeth, and maybe Five should find it scary but he just feels a little bit sad.

He can’t help but ask - “What about you? Will you get in trouble?”

The boy wheezes out a quiet laugh, “No. I’ll just - disappear. I won’t get in trouble with Dad, I promise. But you probably won’t even see me again, okay?” The boy shakes his head at Five’s frown, “I’m not supposed to be here, anyway. It’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself. Off you go now, go to Be - go to Six’s room. He’s probably the one most likely to back you up without asking too many questions.”

Before he can go, FIve scrambles back up on the bed. The boy’s reaction is too delayed to stop him, and Five manages to clap both his hands against each of the boy’s cheeks to pull his head around to look him in the eye. “Don’t worry.” Five parrots, and then gives the boy a cheeky grin, “I’m gonna make things better, ‘kay? No ‘pocalypse.” And then, before he can think better of it, he leans forward and presses a kiss right between the boy’s eyebrows, the way the nannies do when one of them are terribly upset and beside themselves.

The boy brings up a trembling hand to pat at Five’s head, lopsided grin small but sincere. “I know. I believe in you, kid.”

And it’s on that note that Five creeps down off the bed and tiptoes out of the room, only pausing once to wave to the boy for the last time. He sneaks down the hallways, into Six’s room, and slides into a bed. Admittedly, it is very late and his eyes are heavy with sleep so it takes no time at all for Five to just… slip away.

-

He’s abruptly woken in the morning by being yanked out of bed. The grip on his arm is bruising and he cries out, tears springing up in his eyes. Distantly, he can hear Six starting to cry as well as he’s hauled to his feet and shaken a few times.

His father’s face looms before him, and Five tries to yank his arm away even knowing how futile it is.

“What are you doing in here, Number Five?” His father demands, and suddenly the last night comes rushing back to him in vivid technicolor. Suddenly the tears in his eyes aren’t due to the rough treatment.

But he remembers what the boy had said, about getting in trouble for sneaking out of his room versus the amount of trouble he’d get in if it was discovered he’d spoken to his future self. Admittedly, the boy had had some very colorful opinions about their father that he’d made clear during the story.

Five remembers the promise he made, and looks up at his dad as his tears overflow and drip down his cheeks. “It was - it was too quiet!” He sobs, and the fact that it was also the truth certainly helps. “I just - I’m sorry! I’ll sleep in my room from now on, I promise!”

His father pauses, face smoothing out just a little. His grip on Five’s arm hurts a little less.

(There will still be bruises though, stark against pale skin that he’ll examine later that night before pulling his pajama sleeve down before pretending it doesn’t bother him.)

“You were out of your room all night?” His father asks, voice even and calculating. Five knows what he’s really asking, he’s asking if Five was in the room when the boy appeared. If Five saw the boy.

And for the first time, Five looks his father in the eye and he lies. “I’m sorry.” He sniffles, and maybe a four-year-old shouldn’t be thinking quite so calculatingly, but Five could never be accused of being normal. “I just - It was so quiet an’ I couldn’t sleep an’ I’m sorry!”

“You didn’t wake up in the night?” His father continues to press, but he doesn’t look suspicious. In fact, he looks just a tiny bit relieved - though it’s difficult to tell behind the monocle and mustache. “Didn’t hear anything strange or see anything odd?”

“Uh uh!” Five denies, shaking his head with wide eyes, “Six was ‘sleep when I got in an’ he didn’t have an accident, promise!”

Six makes a protesting noise behind him, but considering that an unfortunate tentacle incident is part of the reason why they got split up into separate rooms in the first place. Five figures that if he really has no clue what had gone down last night, that’s what he’d assume his dad is asking about.

“This incident won’t be repeated.” Reginald demands imperiously before turning on his heel and walking out the door with nothing more that an irritated, “Report for breakfast immediately!”

That had both Five and Six scrambling to brush off their pajamas and out the door to head downstairs. Five was almost thankful - there wasn’t enough time for Six to interrogate him about anything or ask why he’d been a big baby by sneaking in to sleep or anything.

The day is almost distressingly normal, except for the fact that the Nannies bring down their clothes instead of having them all get dressed in their rooms today. All of them know better than to question Dad’s orders, but all but Five share puzzled looks between themselves regardless.

As soon as they find themselves released for the day, Five trots up the stairs and tries not to look too eager to return to his room. Thankfully, it’s not abnormal for Five to spend his free time absorbed in his books and begging the nannies to read to him, or else sounding out the words on his own.

He enters his room and the first thing he notices is that it’s spotless. The bed is made, the floor is clean, and there is a distinct lack of anyone else. It’s like last night was erased, like it never even happened.

Five could almost convince himself that it had been a weird dream, except for the fact that when he looks down there’s a tiny brown drop near his pant cuffs that he’s almost positive is dried blood. Though thankfully, Reginald had missed it. And when he crouched down where he knew the boy had appeared, he could smell chemicals.

He walks over to the bookcase with careful steps, pulling down a familiar book and flipping open the pages to gaze at the blue crayon words. He doesn’t understand a lot of them, and some were really long, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of book he could take to someone and ask about, either.

Five sits cross-legged on his floor, and decides to try anyway.

(Later that week, he watches his father install cameras all around the mansion, including in each child’s bedroom. Five’s is the first to have the camera installed, and he wonders.

A year later, he frowns down at blue crayon writing and traces his fingers over the fact that apparently his ordinary sister has powers. He is sure he would remember something like that, sure he would remember Vanya being as powerful as the words said. Surely Reginald would use Vanya if she was as powerful as this implied? His father was so scornful of them wasting their talents, after all. He traces his fingers over hurried letter and he doubts.

He watches Vanya take her pills, and he wonders. And maybe that attention makes him Vanya’s closest confidant, makes him pay her more attention than he would have otherwise. Makes him insist on her inclusion instead of just shrugging apologetically and leaving her behind.

He reads his book, with its hastily scribbled notes, and defends it valiantly even when Luther teases him about still having a baby book. After that, he carefully transcribes what is written in childish handwriting, including also every scrap of information he could remember from the boy’s story that night.

He jumps into Klaus’s room after training nights and presses his hand into his brother’s, rubbing gently to bring warmth back to cold fingers. He escalates into jumping into the mausoleum when he thinks he could get away with it, armed with a flashlight and playing cards and a determination to not let Klaus drown.

He sits at a table at thirteen-years-old, suddenly furious. He clenches his fists in his pants and tells himself to breathe through his fury.

He doesn’t expect, the next day, when the woman in blond with the bloody red smile shows up. He knows her, in the same way children know a comic book villain. He knows before she even opens her mouth who she is - the Handler. She asks him, all saccharine sweetness, if he’s a good little boy who obeys his father.

He knows what she’s doing, he knows she’s trying to goad him into disobeying his father. Probably so that he’ll try to time travel. He’s off schedule, after all.

He wonders if the changes he’s made will be enough. He wonders if maybe the Handler will leave his family alone if he doesn’t conform to her expectations. He wonders if he can afford to take that chance.

That night, he pulls out a new notebook and writes a new story. He writes about a child who, one night, has a boy fall into the middle of his room and tell him a story. He writes about mopped up blood and a disappeared body. He writes about the child’s sister, who has powers and doesn’t know it. He writes about a woman with red lipstick who won’t rest until she gets what she wants, won’t stop until the world has ended, and how she has her sights fixed on him. He writes about how scared he is, but that he’ll see his family again in seventeen years if all goes well.

He slips his notebook under Vanya’s pillow with a big don’t read until Reginald Hargreeves is dead on the cover. He trusts his sister, that she won’t look.

He writes another note to Ben, a piece of paper that only says the year that Ben is supposed to die. He begs his brother to live until he returns, begs his brother to just run away if nothing else can be done, and to look after Klaus in the meantime.

And then, and only then, does Five walk outside. The night air is cold - it’s November, after all. He stares at his reflection in a shop window, and sees the same face that showed up in his room all those years ago. That face had looked more pale, more tired, but Five figures he has time to get there.

He clenches his fists, and let’s blue wash over him and Five -

falls.)

[stunudo]

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Buddha

Craters 4

A Criminal Minds Fan-fiction

Featuring: Genderneutral Reader and Spencer Reid

Setting: Season 10

A/N: Violence, language, and talk of dead bodies. Thank you all for reading this really dark thing I created. Bold type is the present. Italics are the future. xoxo Stu

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

Your name: submit What is this?

Dr. Reid banged on the cell door frame, getting the cops to release him. He glanced back at you over his shoulder, his eyes calculating. In that glance you saw the man behind the genius and it filled you with the first genuine glimmer of fear you had felt since you had been taken in for questioning.

You had no where to go and nothing to do, but wait. You resigned yourself to these simple truths and laid back down on the unforgiving cot.

September 21, 2014

Jerry had finished digging, the sandy soil cleared away enough to finally get to work. It was an end of summer heat wave and he owed it to me to get this over with. I hadn’t slept in three days. I put on Memory from my mom’s old cassette soundtrack of the Broadway play Cats, the old boom box rattled with the volume. She wore her green dress from her forty year high school reunion and was wrapped in one of my grandmother’s quilts.

I let the song fade into the next and the next, watching the dirt fall over my mother’s body was a sight I will never forget. This miserable excuse for a friend had given my mother a heart attack and somehow convinced me to keep it a secret. We didn’t like cops and his play thing was still recovering from their wild weekend. I had no one else in the entire world but Jerry now. It made me sick to my stomach.

Eventually the sun went down and Jerry stopped letting me rewind the tape. He took the boom box back into the truck, leaving it in the bed with the shovels. I don’t remember him carrying me into the cab, but he must have since I woke up in my bed the next morning.

“Garcia? Tell me about Y/N’s mother.” Reid barked into the comm unit still live from the unsuccessful raid.

“Homeowner, single, mother to Y/N, uh, hello.” Garcia sputtered. “She left her job late last month because she had quote “struck it rich”. Which unless it was with a backwoods gambling operation, she did not.”

“My girl! Now tell me, did she quit in person or email?” Morgan crooned.

“Letter, like from a good, old fashioned type writer.” She replied, “The bus company scanned it into their records.”

“Right in line with the timeline.” Hotch muttered, pointing at the dates on the cork board.

“She died?!” JJ guessed.

“Okay, but who killed her?” Rossi prodded.

“Y/N or the unsub?” Callahan thought aloud.

“Hotch, what if this is the trigger?” Reid finally spoke up.

“Death of the mother would be a traumatic enough event to push even someone as mild mannered as Y/N over the edge.”

“But we profiled Swanson as our unsub.” Morgan challenged.

“But why?” Hotch replied. “Because he had ties to all of the victims?”

“He also has a history of violence against women.” Callahan spat.

“But what if it wasn’t Jerry?” Hotch countered.

“Jerry isn’t the unsub. He’s the motive.” Reid finished.

September 22, 2014

I was in the kitchen just before dusk, filling the sink for dishes. We hadn’t been very good on chores over the weekend. The girl wouldn’t shut up about how sorry she was about my mom.

“That’s terrible, man. Like, I can’t get her face out of my mind. You know?” She rambled, scratching at her arms as she came down from the days long binge. I never really listened to Jerry’s girls talk for very long. Usually they didn’t like me or I zoned out long enough for them to leave me alone. This one was not getting the hint.

“Do you know when Jer’ll be back? I don’t really want to walk home.” Her voice was part whine and part cough. I ignored her and made myself a sandwich, I had an hour before I had to start my shift. If I had ever had a pet, I would have known what to do with the chick. But, I hadn’t, and my nerves were exposed wires after my mom, had, you know.

I listened to the second hand click away and counted. It was nearly seventy three seconds after her head went into the soapy water that her body stopped fighting me. But I didn’t count all the way up, I did rows of twenties. As her body fell soaking on to the floor, the purest sense of ease filled me. And I began to laugh at the little rag doll on the floor.

Hotch, Morgan and JJ took the rooms on the ground floor as Reid, Callahan and Rossi scaled the stairs for the second floor motel rooms. The team and the locals surrounded the motel, bar and small shed, the house belonging to the unsub’s mother had turned up neither the missing Gerald Swanson or any other victims. They had yet to locate the body of the mother as well.

The dusty inn had many vacancies, leaving the BAU to invade only a handful of innocent people’s rooms. Morgan and Hotch had cleared the last room facing the parking lot when JJ froze.

“Do you hear that?” The blonde paused and the frantic rattling of metal against a hard surface met her fellow agents’ ears.

Derek was the first one into the attached bathroom. Hanging in the shower stall by his wrists was Jerry Swanson. His stocking feet were half soaked with a combination of his own blood and the water dripping from the shower head. His mouth had been duct taped shut.

“Hold on man, we got you.” Derek lifted up the lanky man to ease the strain on his shoulder sockets while JJ cut through the leather belt holding him in place.

Hotch hung back and called paramedics, considering how out of the way this place was, he worried it may be too late. Reid, Rossi and Callahan met at the crime scene, searching the room for evidence to use against Y/N. Reid found it on the bedside table, in small print across the generic motel notepad was a single sentence, over and over again.

“I will not be a bad friend anymore.”

“It looks like Y/N went from one to infinity on the disciplinary scale with Jerry here.” Rossi pointed out over Reid’s shoulder.

“The penmanship slips, I wonder how much blood he lost before he was given the task.” Spencer Reid said.

September 30, 2014

Jerry hadn’t quite been himself lately and I knew it was my fault. I didn’t like seeing my friend down. But I didn’t say anything, I just mulled it over and over in my head. Jerry and I never really talked about feelings, just making sure we had a good time.

I just had to get Jerry to have some fun and he would be able to forget about how bad he felt about what happened to my mom. At least that is what I guessed was bothering him. You don’t just kill your best friend’s mom and forget about it, like that. Right?

Walking home the next morning I heard a car approach behind me, which was odd as they usually barely slow down and ease around. I ignored it, thinking it got turned around on the way out of town.

“Y/N?” A woman’s voice called to me. “Do you want a ride?”

It was Jerry’s ex Traci, I wasn’t raised to be rude. I glanced over my shoulder at her leaning out of the driver’s side window and nodded. I slipped into the passenger seat of her salt rusted station wagon and put on the seat belt.

“Thanks, Trace.”

“We found Jerry, Y/N.”

“Is he alright?” You asked honestly, his punishment wasn’t supposed to last this long.

“He’s in intensive care at the Central Hospital in Dixon.” Dr. Reid’s voice was flat. He remained defiantly outside of the holding cell. You approached him steadily, looking around to the surrounding officers in intimidation stances.

“That’s a good hospital, thank you.”

“You’re thanking me?” Dr. Reid shook his head. “You’re the one that put him in there.”

“Honestly, no. Jerry got himself in trouble and you folks kept me from releasing him from his punishment, yesterday.”

“Tell me about the girls, Y/N.”

“What about them?” You asked, leaning into the bars, waiting for the questions to flow freely now that you were freed from the sidestepping.

“You said you watched Jerry have fun with the girls. When did it go from watching to killing, Y/N?”

“Dr. Reid, Jerry had lots of girls over to the house. I’m not quite sure which ones you think that I killed.”

“Y/N, where’s the last girl? Traci Stevens, where is she?”

“Now, Traci I do know, cuz she was nice to me. Gave me a ride home couple a weeks ago. Even before that she was nice, she kicked Jerry out so he could come home to me.”

“Where is she, Y/N?”

“I sure don’t know, Doc-tor Reid.” His lips told you he was not amused, but his eyes looked impressed.

“Jerry will tell us everything we need to know, Y/N.”

You wanted to believe he was bluffing, but there was nothing he needed from you anymore. Nothing besides where to find Traci. It was a simple thing, but after years of giving, you were done. You shrugged, “If Jerry talks there is nothing I can do about it. I could never depend on him anyhow.”

October 14, 2014

Jerry had picked Traci over me, in the end. He wouldn’t hurt her, even though he usually liked roughing up his lovers a bit. Making them scream, that’s why he found me such a challenge. Nothing he ever did to me got me to wail like those girls he would play with. Traci was kept in the basement since the day she gave me the ride home, for the most part Jerry was grateful.

But it was just because I hadn’t killed her, too, like the girl he was fucking when he killed my mom. I didn’t want to kill Traci, I wanted to keep Jerry home. If I had something he loved, he would be happy staying with me. I had taken away some of his used toys, but at least he still had her. Traci wasn’t supposed to die, but she must have gotten sick or something cuz she pleaded for medicine or some whisky the afternoon before I left for work.

Walking in the next morning I found Jerry strung out and Traci on the couch, he had cut her ties and let her out of her space in the corner.

“Jerry, what did you do?” I snapped my fingers trying to get him to focus.

“She’s gone. Traci’s gone. Just let me die.” He moaned.

It took me nearly all day to deal with the body, driving back to the woods where we camped during the Cranberry Festival two summers ago. I hated driving, but I kept the speed limit and Jerry told me how to get there. He was slobbering and sobbing the entire time. And I had to stop myself from yelling at him that it was all his fault. He was good to me when we buried my mom, so I tried.

After Traci was gone for good, we drove back home. I had to get cleaned up before work and Jerry had finally started to sleep off the drugs. It was just before bar close when Jerry stormed into the motel office yelling like a wild man.

“Y/N, you sick fuck. How could you?! You were supposed to be my friend.” He shoved me as I sat in the office chair, leaning half his body across the front desk. I grabbed his arm and bent it behind his back, slamming his head on to the piles of assorted fliers for local businesses.

“Eleven years you’ve been dragging me along like a lost puppy, Jerry. Whose the sick fuck? Huh? Cuz I’m finally seeing this friendship needs serious help.”

*

“Now, you’re going to hang out for awhile and think about what you’ve done.” I explained to Jerry, patting his face gently before his head lolled back to the side. I closed the door to the motel room tightly behind me and headed back to the office. I had another two hours of my shift left and still needed to clear the closing trash from the bar. The fall air had turned chilly and I hopped from foot to foot to keep warm.

“Y/N Y/L/N?” A stern voice called from the parking lot, an SUV and a squad car had appeared out of thin air.

July 15, 2016

I had started from the beginning, laying my whole life out for the woman before me. She wore a sleek suit, but nothing distracting. Her eyes were blank, I couldn’t read her thoughts one way or another. I stopped trying pretty quick. I traced patterns on the table as I explained about my dad and how tough school was. She asked more questions when I got to Jerry.

I didn’t want to talk about the bodies, but she asked round about questions and they always turned back up. After lunch and cafeteria duty, I was shown back to the visitation room. She was still here, her notebook and voice recorder set aside.

“Y/N? Do you want to figure out why you did these things?”

“Ma’am?” I was confused. “Aren’t you here to research people like me?”

“Yes, but if I can give you some insight into why you are the way you are. Wouldn’t that be beneficial?”

I stared at the darker skin under her eyes, “You trying to get me to share some untold secret to help your project? Get all the recognition? You aint the first Doctor-Fed I’ve met.”

“So it says in your file, Dr. Spencer Reid interviewed you extensively before locating the remaining bodies and Gerald Swanson that day, almost two years ago.”

“Yeah? Bet it says a lot of things that seem more important than they really are.”

“Y/N, did you know that I work with the BAU? I work with Dr. Reid on a regular basis.”

This lady was messing with me, but I decided it didn’t hurt to test the waters. “Oh yeah? How’s little old Reid these days?”

Her eyes unfocused, “What I mean to say, Y/N. Is that if you cooperate, I’ll see if Dr. Reid will accompany me on my next visit.”

“You know what Dr. Lewis? I suddenly remember there WAS a fifth girl.”

“I thought so. What can you tell me about her?”

Feds, eating up anything you shoved in front of them. Maybe Dr. Reid wasn’t rid of me yet.

@dontshootmespence @starbucksreid @jodiewhitters @cherry-loves-fanfic @ficrecswithcassie @criminal-navy-writings @ultrarebelheart @sapphicpage

[mizmahlia]

Salvage What’s Left

This was inspired by this post over at @spn-imagines-nation . (That blog is incredible, omg!) The prompt was Dean confesses his feelings to your ghost. Between the imagine and the accompanying gif, this is what fell out of my head.

Word Count: 3162 Warnings: Mention of blood, obviously a character death (sort of) because Dean talks to a ghost, and angst galore Miscellaneous: My first (and likely last) sort of imagine, so please keep that in mind.

At first you’d been stuck at the site where it happened- at an old salvage yard just north of Lincoln, Nebraska. You woke up alone and panicked and it took an embarrassingly long time to figure out where you were. After encountering several people who apparently couldn’t see or hear you, you notice a man standing off in the distance. And he’s looking right at you.

You hurry from the office of the salvage yard back out to where you’d woken up. He’s leaning against an old Ford with no wheels and one door with his arms crossed over his chest. He sighs and shakes his head when you’re close enough to hear him. “It hasn’t hit you yet, has it?” His southern accent is sweet and his voice is kind, so you decide to talk to him. You stop a few feet away and frown. “What are you talking about?”   Then he gives you that look, the sad look people use when they’re about to deliver bad news, and you feel a heavy sense of dread settle in your stomach. You back away and bump into a rusted out Chevy. He looks genuinely sorry as he pushes off the truck, shoving his hands in his pockets. He stops in front of you and waits patiently until you look up at him. Your first and only thought is a painful one. Dean. 

You aren’t at all prepared for what he says next.

“Darlin’, you’re dead.” You feel your mouth drop open.

“What? I.. I’m not.. I can’t be..” you trail off. The dread you felt moments ago gave way to panic. He steps forward and puts a hand on your arm.

“Just give it a minute, sweetheart. It’ll come back. It always does.” He’d no more than finished his sentence when the memories start flooding back into your head. The demonic possession you’d been tracking led you to a salvage yard. One minute you and Sam were joking about getting Dean out of there and the next you were picked up and thrown over a row of cars, landing on the roof of a sedan. You could hear Sam frantically calling your name in the darkness as you struggled to pick yourself up. But before you could answer, a large hand wrapped around your neck and lifted you into the air. “Looking for this, Sam?” You kicked and you fought, trying to break his grip, but nothing worked. You were out of holy water, Sam wasn’t close enough and Dean hadn’t caught up yet. You looked the demon in the eye and spit in his face. He wiped his cheek and grinned.

“I like this one. She’s a fighter.” The demon was still standing on the roof of the car you’d landed on, dangling you like a carnival prize in front of Sam. He loosened his grip just enough to allow you to speak. “Sam..” Sam looked up at you and his gaze turned calm and reassuring.

“You’ll be okay, Y/N.” He looked up at the demon and his hazel eyes flashed with rage. “You’ve got one chance to put her down. I won’t ask again.” He’d drawn his gun and aimed for the demon’s forehead. You coughed weakly and tried again to pry the fingers from your throat, focusing on anything but the panic you felt. You sensed movement to your left and saw Dean approaching, knife drawn at his side. He looked up at you and nearly stumbled, the surprised expression on his face morphing into anger. You coughed again to get Sam’s attention and when he looked at you, you slid your gaze to where you’d seen Dean. You could see it in Sam’s eyes he understood. “Put her down, you say?” the demon taunted, lowering you until your face was inches from his, his white eyes glowing brightly in the dark. He looked at Sam before winking at you.

“Poor choice of words, wouldn’t you say?” His lips were next to your ear now and his voice made your skin crawl. “I’ll put you down, alright. Just like a rabid dog.” You didn’t see what happened, but you sure as hell felt it. White-hot, searing pain in your chest before the demon kissed your cheek, dropped you to the ground and disappeared. Sam was there in an instant, his large hands covering the wound in your chest. Seeing so much fear in his eyes, you knew it was bad. You brought your hands to his and felt blood everywhere. “Not good,” you whispered, coughing around the blood in your throat. “Sssh, Y/N. You’ll be okay.” His voice shook and he wiped your cheek with the sleeve of his jacket. Despite how murky your vision was getting, you could see tears in his eyes. He brushed your hair back, his eyes studying your face, before screaming Dean’s name and telling him to hurry. You heard Dean’s terrified cry before you saw him. “Y/N! NNNOOOOOO!” You fall to your knees, your hands covering your mouth. The stranger kneels down next to you and lays a comforting hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry, sugar.” “But.. I can’t be dead. I never…” I never got to tell him.

It had taken a little while but you’d finally made it back to the bunker.    After spending some time with the other ghost in the salvage yard you’d learned a few things, mainly how to get away from where you died. It took a lot of effort but once you got the hang of it, you realized you just had to focus on something you were still attached to. And now here you are, standing across the road from the bunker, staring at the door and terrified of going in. Over five years of hunting ghosts. Who would have thought it would be so hard to be one? You aren’t sure if you’ll be able to get in since it was warded against all kinds of things, but you had to try. You need to try because you need to see Dean and Sam one last time. So with a deep breath, you cross the road and pass through the door. The place is quiet but that’s not surprising- it usually is during the day. You aren’t sure exactly how long you’ve been gone, but one thing you do know is that if feels like forever. The calendar hanging next to one of the bookcases is still in October, so it can’t have been longer than a few weeks. The three of you left for Nebraska on the seventh. You wander through the bunker looking for anyone and you find Sam in the library. He’s slumped forward on the table with his head resting on his arms. He’s asleep, but he looks exhausted. You long to comfort him and tell him you’re okay, that he’d done all he could. Without thinking your hand finds its way to his head and you gently run your fingers through his hair.  Goosebumps erupt on his skin and spread along his arms, and he shivers as he exhales. “Y/N..” Your breath catches in your throat and you yank your hand away. You shouldn’t be surprised that Sam feels your presence, but after going unnoticed for so long back at the salvage yard, you hadn’t realized how much you missed contact with someone you knew. You brush the backs of your fingers along his cheek, watching as his face relaxes beneath your touch. But as much as you want to stay with Sam, you force yourself to turn away and head down the hall to Dean’s room. It’s not fair that your memories are so closely linked to scents and sounds, because as you get closer to his room, you can remember how much you loved the smell and you miss it- his aftershave, the oil he uses on his boots and the sandalwood candle he burns when he’s stressed.  When you look into his room, you see a candle burning on the nightstand next to an empty bottle of whiskey.  Oh, Dean. But as you pause in the doorway, for the first time you notice he’s talking. He’s being quiet, no doubt trying to avoid waking Sam, but his deep voice always carried easily through the bunker. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his knees. “I just.. everywhere I look, everything I see reminds me of you. And god, it hurts..” He’s holding something in his hands, but from your vantage point in the doorway, you can’t see what it is. It looks like a photograph. You perch yourself on his desk and fold your hands in your lap, studying him. Like Sam, Dean looks exhausted. But there’s something else etched in the lines of his face, something much more than that. He looks like you imagine you would look, had the situation been reversed. He looks like he’s in pain. He looks broken. He glances down at the photograph in his hands again, a single tear running down his cheek. “I wish we’d never set foot in that yard. I wish I’d gotten there sooner.” A lump forms in your throat as you listen to him. As much as you hate to admit it, there was nothing anyone could have done for you at that point. Sam took off his jacket and was pressing it against your chest to try and stem the bleeding. But no matter how hard he tried, you could feel the blood pooling in the dirt against your back. Whatever that demon had done to you had gone all the way through. Dean tossed the knife to the side as he dropped to his knees, pulling you into his lap. His eyes searched your face and he forced a smile, his thumb grazing your cheek. “Hey, now, Y/N. You don’t get to do this. This is your hunt and you have to finish it.” A weak laughed tumbled from your lips and you tried to smile.

“Let me have another crack at him, then.” You coughed again, blood trickling down your cheek. It was getting harder to breathe and you started feeling scared.

“Dean, I.. I don’t think I can hold on much longer.” He closed his eyes and his jaw clenched as he struggled to maintain any semblance of composure.

“No, don’t say that. It’s.. it’s not that bad, Y/N.” He shifted you in his arms to bring you closer and grimaced at the blood covering his lap. “Come on, stay with us. Stay with me.” You brought your fingers to his jaw, focusing on his green eyes and the freckles on his cheeks.

“I don’t want to go, but I...” Everything you’d never told him came rushing to your lips, but you didn’t have the strength to say any of it.

“Dean, I…”

You gripped the collar of his jacket as tightly as you could, but it didn’t change anything. Despite holding onto Dean with all you had, you were still slipping away. “No, Y/N. Please. Don’t.. don’t go. Don’t go.” The pain you felt earlier was fading and your heart was no longer pounding in your ears. Their voices sounded like they were in another room, muffled and frantic. Dean shook you gently but you barely felt it. As your breathing slowed and your vision darkened, you felt a deep rumble in Dean’s chest as he screamed into the night. “CAAAAAAS!” You wipe tears from your cheeks as you sit there, wishing you hadn’t come back to witness this, to see Dean in so much pain. He drops his head into his hands, the photograph falling to the floor. You tilt your head to see what it was and you feel a small smile form when you see it’s the photo from the booth at the local county fair the previous summer. You didn’t know he’d kept it and based on the rough edges, it had likely been in his wallet. “You always called me fearless,” he said quietly. “You thought I was brave.” Your eyes widen when you realize he’s talking to the photograph, that he’s talking to you. You slide off the desk and kneel in front of him, your hands covering your mouth to hold in the sob you know is coming. “But the thing is? I’m such a damn coward, Y/N.  I blew it. Because if I was as brave as you thought I was? I wouldn’t have wasted all these years being afraid to tell you I...I love you.” Dean covers his face in his hands and his shoulders shake. You stand up and back away from him, stunned and unable to think clearly. All this time, you had been afraid to tell him how you felt because you were scared. And now, after you’re gone, he admits it. You shake your head and lean against the desk once more, your mind absolutely reeling. Before you realize it what you’re doing, the words come tumbling out. “Dean, you stupid bastard. You waited until I was a ghost to say anything?” Dean slowly raises his head and as his eyes meet yours, he shakes his head and more tears come. “You aren’t here, Y/N. You.. you can’t be.” The fact he can see you doesn’t register and you can’t stop the sarcastic comment that falls out of your mouth. “Then clearly I need to return my copy of The Handbook for the Recently Deceased because I could have sworn I was a ghost.” He tries to laugh but it comes out as a sob and he scrubs his hands across his face.

“I should have known you’d be too stubborn to move on.” He remains seated, but studies you intently.

“How are you even here? You were cremated two weeks ago.” You shrug and slide yourself back up onto his desk.

“Unfinished business, apparently.” Dean nods once and stands up, closing the gap between the bed and desk, standing mere inches in front of you. You wish you were alive so you could feel the warmth he always radiated.  He swallows several times to fight the ache in his throat before he can speak.

“I’m guessing you heard all of that.” His voice is quiet and strained, and his cheeks are flushed with embarrassment. “I did, yeah.” There’s an awkward pause while you figure out what to say next. Everything you wanted to tell him that night is once again on the tip of your tongue, but it won’t come out.

“I’m sorry for calling you a stupid bastard.” He crosses his arms and stares at the floor.

“Nah. Don’t be.” He reaches a hand out and tries to touch your knee, but his fingers pass right through. He smiles sadly.

“Where’s Whoopi Goldberg when you need her?” You snort at the joke, the laughter breaking some of the tension.

“If you’re Demi Moore, you’ve gotta cut your hair.” He looks at you, his green eyes carrying a bit of mirth in them.

“Yeah, well, you’re no Patrick Swayze. And don’t you even…” You interrupt him and start singing quietly.

“I’m Henry the Eighth I am, Henry the Eighth, I am I am…” His laugh is a mixture of pain and amusement, and the sound makes you hurt in ways you didn’t think were possible for the dead.

“God, I miss you, Y/N.” “I miss you too, Dean. So much.”

You decide it’s now or never and force yourself to continue.

“And about what you said earlier. I…”

He looks up at you and shakes his head, backing away from you. When the backs of his knees hit the bed, he collapses onto it and closes his eyes. “Don’t say it,” he whispers, his voice desperate. “Please don’t say it now. I don’t think I can take it.” “I tried to tell you that night and almost every night, Dean, but I was scared. But I have to say it now, or I’ll never be able to move on.” You watch as he grips the blankets on his bed, his eyes still closed. When he opens them, tears shine brightly and he looks up at you, his jaw quivering. “Dean, I love you and always have. I’m sorry I never told you.” He buries his head in his hands again and his shoulders tremble, his muffled sobs the only sound at the moment. You sit down on the bed next to him, sitting as close as you can, and cry along with him. A few minutes later Dean is quiet as he stares at the photograph on the floor. He turns to look to look at you and his voice is ragged when he speaks. “What now?” You know the answer to the question but you have a hard time answering him at first. You look around his room and spot something shiny on the nightstand. It’s the silver charm you used to wear around your neck. The one you were wearing when you died. Dean follows your gaze to the nightstand and sighs. “I was afraid of that.” “Dean, I think I’m stuck here as long as you keep that.” He looks at you again and your heart breaks further at his next question.

"Is that such a bad thing? Being stuck here with me?“ Your eyes close and you smile softly as you picture all of the things that could have been.

"I would never be ‘stuck’ with you, Dean. It’s the only place I ever wanted to be.” You meet his gaze as you continue. “But you and I both know I can’t stay here.” Dean nods and retrieves the chain from the nightstand, the silver charm sparkling in the candlelight.

“I know, sweetheart.” The two of you sit in silence for a few minutes, processing everything that you said to each other. You speak first. “Dean, before you.. before you melt that down, I want to say goodbye to Sam. Is that okay?” “Of course.” He stands and goes to wake Sam, but pauses in the doorway, turning back to look a you. “Just.. as much as this hurts, I’m glad you came back to tell me.” He’s being bashful again, adorably so. “Me too, Dean. Me too.” He smiles softly, but the smile turns into a grin and the mischievous spark returns to his eyes.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea. What do say we mess with Sam a bit before you go?” You feel yourself smile, your grin matching his. You get up and follow Dean, excited for one last laugh before you leave. “Oh, definitely. What did you have in mind?” “One word: Pennywise.” “I’m in.”

[absumink]

April: the sky looks like it was injected by a needle-point sewing machine, my eyes look like a paint-by-number dream. nobody told me life eventually got stale, i thought the people who warned me of dullness were all crybaby misfits who were prudes towards colour. maybe i should've payed more attention in science class when they spoke about how the illusion of getting cold is really the absence of heat. my father started making buttermilk hot-cakes every Sunday, he said the weather is just right. it's really because he buys too much cream.

May: heat has crept up on me. the stale breath of the orchids down the street started seeping down the drainage pipes and up evaporated concrete. i didn't have time for lunch because I'd rather be filled till i'm full on decadence and watch plagiarized clouds till my pupils dilate. i turn fifteen and watch my skits start to wrinkle, i'm just paranoid; but maybe my life really is collapsing. my mouse pad was peeling so i ripped it right off. it's sad that i have a tendency to pick at the imperfect, that may be why i have so many scabs. summer is relaxing alone while bluebirds are basking in riverbanks, the wind feels like ghost-silk on the nape of my shivered neck. this is what it's like to be afraid of home.

June: savoury solitudes are spread across my bedsheets. i've been trying to find sweet ones for too long because i'm tired of sleeping on spiced spruce and sourdough that rots of dead roots. the shipwrecks of ice-caps have found their way to the bottom of the pond. i used to run above seaweed when i was six till i got sick of the feeling of fingers on my feet. i wear socks now so my toes don't get so pale. the ocean's sea spray stings my throat but only for cleansing because it knows im hooked on the alcohol that i've let control me. sometimes i wake up in the dead of night, watching it screech up my floorboards in red and yellow and blue. the band-aid on my left ring-finger-knuckle is gnarled and frayed from how many times i scrub it with salted soap. i've wasted eight now.

July: my brother buys a shirt that has the pattern as one of my own, similar at least kids at school scream profanities, it's for a girl. he doesn't care. i remember when he'd crack as deep as a sidewalk crevasse when someone else disagreed. i daydream about what it's like to live a life that free. my body has never looked normal to me, i've always hated how my thighs remind me of jelly fish in southern oceans and my smile as wry as bruised bone structures at age ninety-nine. gulf streams soak up too much of my black pants so I'd rather not put them on at all. but i have to, i'm insecure. speaking of, the pockets on the side of my jeans cup my hands like my mother used to. her skin was softer than this denim. but then again she washed the dishes four times a day. i'm now used to the dampness behind my knee-caps and screams under the slits of my tongue.

August: a birthday party under the saturated sun leaves me singed on the back with a ringing in my cars. my brother is growing up and it's not long until he's dead. it's like everything ?ye ever loved is evacuating from flames. i don't see them but i'm engulfed anyway, i smell nothing but God. there's grapefruit slices in the sky and my window broke its nose trying to breathe so loud i woke up. i remember when sunrises looked more cool toned and took no back to alpine mountains, now it looks like the devil under my bed has thrown up blood and burn stains. pain accumulates on my palms, when he looks at me i'm blue, no i'm red. at least, i feel like it.

September: i see him again and statistics are proof i am no longer shallow. something tickles my throat when we kiss so after i go home, i gargle with cough syrup. my teeth are putrid of grape flavouring and dye number 16185. the dog across the street finally shuts up and whimpers when the sky bleeds. it's not that i'm afraid. i mean. i am but it doesn't matter. my new desk at school smells like rotting moons and werewolves that scream at new ones, maybe they haven't yet marked their territory. tomorrow i'll find carved hearts and ill-fated fantasies. my father said i shouldn't get so caught up in love; i am too young.

October: banshees lay their heads on my shoulders and their tongues shackle to my wrist. i feel as if i can't move without waking up the guard dogs and making them shriek. everyone i ask tells me to keep going, they must not know what it's like to balance demons against your hips and listen to the secrets they say underwater. i wish my collarbones would be striking enough to strangle me like the briar brushes strangle rabbits at the edge of my neighbours yard. fences twist metal words from safe to scared from new to old and old to young. they have stories engraved in their bones. i see him at school and i puke out nervous water weeds, the ones that have sprouted inside me. he says i'm becoming broader and that i should stay small, he can pick me up that way. he sounds like a city man 3 thousand in his pocket and his name scrawled on half the town. i loved a small town boy who smelled like the cherry tree its front of my bedroom blinds, not whoever he is now.

November: i'm homeschooled and i don't see him anymore. he swore he'd come around but his excuses echo how little effort he's flossed between his gums. i guess i shouldn't be complaining but the air i'm surrounded with now tastes technicolor ebony, a muted damsel in distress, a silenced plead. snow attempts to bite at my cheeks, i bite back, except it won't budge and i do. i'd trade the clothes i'm in and the food in my stomach to go back to when things were easy. all the mistakes i made no far have been moulding between my pillow cases. i didn't mind the stench before but now that i spend my life indoors i'm starting to cough a lot more. my father won't make breakfast so I'm stuck with bread and curdled milk.

December: i don't wash my clothes. i've been wearing this sweater for a month and a half and i've only showered twice. every time i step into cold air i look at myself and wonder how anyone could love her. people look for happy girls with shrivelled hips and baby blue eyes. i am the opposite. my front door lock has rusted shut because of how no one will open it anymore. our house is a spirit home made of aged mumbles and clenched fists, the old ache of love has bludgeoned me. i forgot to colour my hair black, he said that was his favourite shade and at the time my hair was a charcoal brown. i promised i'd fix myself and he promised he'd stay so i believe that makes both of us liars. how cliché.

January: people say a new year is a fresh start but the sixty seconds between yesterday and today has done nothing but make me nauseous. i'm done hurdling over high trees trying to reach heaven. i think i'm here already. he hasn't called in 3 months and today i don't care. because people say a new year is a fresh start and maybe their fresh start can be shared. i've stopped missing sun rays because i have hope they'll come back tomorrow. if not i'll still have hope then. i refrain from cracking my knuckles. he did too. it makes me sick to my stomach, which has already been bruised. i'm not fixed but i'm getting there. every afternoon i've began blowing the snowflakes off our tree swing so i can swoon below the sky. i'm waiting for blue to move to gold and gold to wave goodbye.

Februaq: Hallmark's profit went up this month but it was no longer because of me. 'he' is just a pronoun and love is something i'm no longer familiar wills. am i complaining'? no, not any more than i am about my body. which, by the way, isn't as bad as it seems. i still feel like i'm an antiseptic to an open cut but i hope it'll pass like everything else has. a program on television told me i needed weight loss pills and wrinkle cream? i think i look fine. skin folds come with aging and maybe i'll still look beautiful its pounds over one hundred-twenty-five.

Mairh: team broke through my stained glass walls and strained my eyes to purple. everything's in a blue hue and i'm afraid i've gotten bad again. i've worked so hard to climb this peak, this prominent place of ease. i am scared that what i'm looking for at the top of the next one. the veins in my arms haven't yet grown back. they look more like agitated vines on corroded brick walls. rain has visited me again and unfortunately it's making me miss how comfortable i felt knowing i was slowly dying. alas, i'm no longer worried of the dark that looms after six. i go walk for five miles in hopes someone will strike me with their front license plate instead of passing me with their back one.

April: well, this is it. relapse is okay, recovery is better. i'm not afraid to love. yes i am vulnerable but i'm not strung together with cuttable cord. my limbs are stationed with metal pipes and i'm not as fragile as i was before. nobody told me life eventually got harder, i thought the people who warned me of the lack of light were pessimistic outlanders who were afraid of their own shadow. maybe i should've payed more attention to the world when it told me i'd eventually come home. the sky now looks like cotton candy and my eyes breathe burgundy butterflies. i've travelled further than i started, i understand that's the whole point. i find beauty in the most mysterious things, this ground beneath me has bellowed in praise. i've accepted things may become difficult, but i'm no longer afraid of the change.

— ; g.k.