#I’d also rather kill myself than go through the process of looking for a new job and interviewing that shit is the worst

[freezerbride]

I just got fired from my job lmao. Crazy how my intuition is never wrong I just knew this was going to happen

[unrepentantcheeseaddict]

The Banshee (Short Story)

(I've had this one mostly finished for a while. Can't remember if I posted it already, so here ya go. TW for gore, anxiety attacks and missing parents.)

The Banshee

Never sail out to the Old Fortress. That’s the number one rule whenever I go stay with my Aunt Robin in England. I’ve always been able to resist the temptation before.

But not now, not after I’ve just been sent to live with her permanently, with the police officer’s words still throbbing through my head, “I don’t think your parents are coming back.”

Not now that I can’t keep my mind from making a beeline back to the last day I saw them.

Not now, when I have to keep my hands and body busy every single second, so I don’t have time to process what’s happened and I can’t have a panic attack.

I have to do something. I can’t just sit around in my warmly lit new bedroom. I’ll fall apart before I ever fall asleep. I growl in frustration, setting my phone down, and start to pack.

Knives, climbing gear, energy bars. A fully stocked first aid kit. A compass, a flashlight, a backup flashlight. Extra clothes in case I get soaking wet.

Chemical-activated hot packs, since you can’t do much with frozen fingers. I debate whether to bring the phone, but decide against it. I don’t need it when I’m away from civilization, which is where I’d rather be half the time.

I yank on my toughest clothes: layered T-shirts, jeans with rain pants over the top, woolly socks and a matching sweater and hat. And a good coat, obviously. It’s before dawn in British winter.

Tiptoeing out into the hall with my backpack slung over one shoulder, I pause to let my eyes adjust to the darkness before heading downstairs. It’s more dim than actually dark, because the sun’s starting to rise and Aunt Robin is staunchly anti-curtains. I turn a corner into the kitchen and very quietly fix myself a big thermos of hot chai. Being British, and also the best cook I know, Aunt Robin is a tea snob. I've been spoiled by the good tea at her house for years now. I scribble a note onto a scrap of paper.

Couldn’t sleep, went sailing. I’ll be back for breakfast, don’t kill me.

She won’t be exactly happy, but she won’t ground me either. She never does. Well, she might if she knew where I’m planning to go. But what Aunt Robin doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I weight the note down to the dining table with one of the little stone statues she collects.

I’ve never noticed this particular one before, actually. It’s a slender, elegant cat, carved out of white rock. Out of habit, I try to identify the type of stone like my dad taught me, and catch myself just in time as my eyes start to sting.

“No.” I snap out loud. “Bad Jay. Don’t think about it.”

I shake thoughts of my parents out of my head, tamping them down until there’s nothing left on the surface to make me scream. Then I head to the front door and tug on my boots, stepping outside. The cold sea wind hits me like a solid thing and I gasp a little, my breath steaming in the frigid air.

Aunt Robin’s house is a good few miles from any town, right up on some cliffs that drop down to a scrappy little pebble beach. I hike along the edge of those cliffs, admiring the sunrise on my landward side and the dark, heaving Atlantic Ocean on the other. Finally, I get to what I like to call the Staircase of Doom.

Honestly, the term “staircase” is stretching it a bit. It’s more like a steeply sloped trail with the occasional stairstep, carved right out of the cliffs and zigzagging down. There are rickety driftwood railings near the top, but as you get further down, those disappear. There’s nothing to help you keep your balance, nothing to stop you from stepping off the edge into the gloom below and breaking your neck on the rocks.

In short, it’s perfect.

I head down, and I’m about halfway when I see the cat following me. It looks a lot like Aunt Robin’s cat statue. Lean, huge for a housecat, pure white and just about dripping with arrogance. It saunters around my moving feet and plops down directly in front of me. The path is narrow enough here that I can’t just walk around it. I stop, hands on hips.

“Excuse me.”

The cat cocks its head at me. Blinks a pair of startlingly blue eyes. Then settles down and starts licking its butt. A boy cat, I notice.

“You, sir, are a jerk.” I inform him. “Move or I’ll move you.”

He doesn’t even look up. Typical cat. I sigh and scoop him up, wincing as his claws dig into my shoulders.

“Chill, dude, it’s just for a minute.”

I walk until the trail widens, then put the cat down. He gives me a glare, then walks off ahead of me, tail at a jaunty angle as if to say “Just because I let you hold me, doesn’t mean I like you.”

I break into a run as the trail peters out onto the pebbled beach. The cat follows. The sun is mostly up now, and I can see the little dock where my sailboat, the Guinevere, is tied up. She’s bobbing on her moorings as the tide comes in. The rocks shift and scrape under my feet as I head over. I toss my backpack into the boat, then jump in myself. I’m about to untie her when the cat jumps into the boat.

I raise an eyebrow. “I think you’re going to regret this decision in a minute once you start getting wet.”

He heads belowdecks and curls up on the little padded bench that I store things under. I shrug. “Okay, Your Majesty. But I’m not turning around.”

I cast off the ropes and start the motor. I could probably make it to Old Fortress Island on wind power alone, but I don’t want to deal with it while I’m sleepy and distracted. I keep a steady hand on the tiller and steer us through the waves. Cold sea spray gets in my face. I stick my tongue out and catch some, immediately regretting it as the briny, fishy taste fills my mouth. I really should know better than to do that by now. But it’s me, so of course I don’t.

Soon enough, I see the island, looming up out of the mist like some fossilized giant beast. The Old Fortress isn’t visible yet, but it will be soon. I give a little involuntary shiver. Nobody who isn’t from around here knows about the place, it isn’t even on most maps. Some people say it’s from the Dark Ages, some say it’s earlier. A lot of people say it’s cursed. All we know for sure is that anyone who goes there doesn’t come back quite the same. In my opinion, that’s probably because they were drunk at the time. I have nothing to worry about. I’m sane, I’m sober, and I know how to handle myself.

At least, that’s what I tell myself as I toss my anchor into the water and hop out. The bitter cold seeps into my shoes as I slosh through the weedy shallows and tie the boat’s ropes to a nearby boulder. I climb back aboard, grab my backpack, and turn to the cat. “You coming?”

In one smooth motion, he jumps into my arms. I snort.

“Don’t want to get your feet wet, huh?”

I walk along the beach searching for a usable path up the cliffs. Eventually, I settle for one that looks the least like it’s going to kill me, stuff the protesting cat into my backpack and start climbing. When I reach the top, I’m greeted by a breathtaking view. I pause for a moment, taking in the pale blue-gray sky and a few soft, peachy clouds, the last remnants of the earlier sunrise. I can see for miles now that I’m higher and the fog is starting to burn off.

There’s the house on the cliffs. The lights are on now, which means Aunt Robin is up and ought to have found my note. I’d better hurry if I want to see much of this place before breakfast. Mentally composing a good excuse for later, I wrestle the cat out of my backpack and plunk him down on the scrubby wet grass and heather. He gives me a look of such betrayal that I can’t help but giggle.

“What, did you think I was going to cart you around the whole time?”

I unwrap one of the energy bars I packed and eat as I walk, heading into a small stand of wind-gnarled trees. It’s eerily quiet up here except for the distant crash of waves. No calls of seabirds, no little skittery things rustling in the undergrowth. Just my own footsteps as I shuffle through a pile of rotten leaves and the cat’s occasional dissatisfied murp.

And that’s when I finally see it.

The Old Fortress is even more of a ruin that I expected. The stones that form the enormous outer wall are falling out of place as their mortar rots away, revealing the dirt and rubble at the walls’ center. The ones that are still standing are a few feet above my head at their highest point. They’re also covered in fungus, bird poop, and moss. I walk around the perimeter, looking for a way in. Soon enough, I find a spot where I can clamber over the lowest bit of wall. The cat follows me. Hold it. Are his eyes glowing?

“You magic or something?” I joke.

I lean in closer, and he looks up at me, all innocent like he has no idea what I’m talking about. Yeah, his eyes are definitely glowing, and not in the normal cat-in-the-dark way. More like there’s shifting, flickering fire inside them, only it’s bright sapphire blue. Well, it’s not like he’s actually magic. That’s impossible.

I shrug. “If you’re bioluminescent, that’s your problem not mine, bud.”

I turn away and keep walking. Inside the walls, things are in even worse shape. In most places, there’s barely a single stone on top of another. I can clearly see that things were well-laid-out here, though. The walls, what’s left of them, are ruler-straight, and the cobblestones are still mostly there, even though there’s weeds climbing up between them. I pick up a piece of worn red pottery. It looks like part of a roof tile or something.

“I wonder if this place is Roman.” I mutter.

I’ve binge-watched enough Time Team with Aunt Robin to know a fair bit about British archaeology and history. The Old Fortress seems to check out with what I’ve learned about Romano-British architecture.

“What you see now is Roman.”

I scream and jump. There��s a boy standing next to me. Like, right next to me. How did he get so close without me noticing? I glare at him.

“Okay, creep, what the Hell are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “Same as you. Getting away from my regular life.”

He’s got a Scottish accent, not unusual considering how close we are to the border. He’s also the picture of handsome insolence, with dark messy hair and a smirk that could be either playful or taunting, depending on the angle. The cat, like the traitor he is, rubs up against the boy’s legs, purring like a chainsaw.

“I didn’t see another boat.”

“I came from a different direction.” He says.

“Kay. Well, feel free to go back that direction and quit stalking me.”

“I’m hurt.” The boy says overdramatically. “So hurt. I was not stalking you, merely trying to make your acquaintance!”

I snort. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for goofy people, always have been. The boy smiles. Not a smirk, just a regular smile this time.

“See, I’m not that bad. My name’s Brendan, by the way.”

“Okay, fine.” I relent. “I’m Jay. How do you know it’s Roman?”

“Dad’s an archaeologist. I picked up a lot from him. But this site’s a lot older than just Roman. There’s activity here going back to prehistoric times. It’s always been an important place.”

“You should give tours.” I joke.

He shakes his head. “It’s not safe for most people to come here.” Brendan pauses. “Come to think of it, why are you here? And why are you using Robin’s boat?”

“You know my Aunt?” I blurt out. “Don’t tell her I was here. Please? She’ll ground me.”

“Well that answers that question.” Brendan says with a chuckle. “She mentioned she had family in America. I didn’t know you were staying with her currently, though.”

“Well, I am.” I say flatly.

I really, really don’t want him asking more questions about why I’m here right now. I don’t want to be fighting that knot in my throat for the rest of the day. So in time-honored awkward-person fashion, I try to change the subject. Brendan beats me to it. “That cat, is he yours?”

“Nah. I think he’s a stray. He’s been following me since I came down to the boat.”

We chat a bit longer as we walk. I learn that Brendan has two older sisters who are away at college right now, and his Mom is a historian working at a big museum in Glasgow, where they live most of the time. They’re down here visiting some friend of hers who just had a baby. He’s never been to America and is pretty curious. I’m right in the thick of explaining how Halloween works, because boy is this kid missing out, when the cat starts hissing and arching his back.

In unison, we look at the direction he’s facing. There’s nothing there but an old stone circle. Brendan sighs. “This is where you should leave.”

“No.”

He laughs nervously. “Thought you’d say that.”

“Are you gonna explain to me why the cat is freaking out? Or how you know my Aunt Robin? Or why this stone circle is supposedly dangerous?”

Brendan gives the circle a wary look. The morning shadows seem to darken around the stones.

“In a minute, yes. For now, do you have anything we can use to make fire?”

I nod, already digging around in my backpack for the little lighter I carry. He frowns. “That’s it?”

“Sorry, I left my flamethrower at home.” I snap.

Fear of the unknown is making me tense and jittery. It always does. My anxiety is stupid like that. If I’m ever in a situation where I don’t have all the info, my ridiculous brain starts filling in the blanks with everything that could conceivably go wrong. It’s happening now.

I dig my fingernails into my palms, trying to breathe deeply, trying to tell myself that I’m going to be okay. It doesn’t work. I start shaking, and my fear must show on my face. What’s worse is that Brendan doesn’t try to reassure me. He looks just as terrified as I feel. That means I might have good reason to be scared. My brain latches onto this thought with vicious claws and runs with it.

I draw my largest pocketknife and flip it open, pointing it at the stones. “Brendan. I need to know what’s happening, or I’m going to have a panic attack. Now, please.”

He blinks in shock, then nods. “Okay. The long version is too long for right now, so I’m sorry. Magic is real, monsters come to this island sometimes, and I think one is trying to break through and eat us. Having a panic attack right now is perfectly natural. Though it would be more helpful if you could avoid it.”

I glare at him. “Now you tell me?!”

“I thought you already knew!”

We’re interrupted by a long, low wail. It’s coming from a ragged gray shape that’s just appeared in the middle of the stone circle. It turns, and I can see it’s an emaciated, deathly-pale woman. She’s dressed in old-fashioned clothes faded away to threadbare scraps. Her stringy white hair and the skin of her hands is flecked with what looks like dried blood. The strangest part, though, is her face. Her wrinkled skin is stretched tight over her skull, making her look like an Egyptian mummy with a better nose. Her mouth is wide open revealing toothless gums, and it seems to be stuck that way. And the creepiest thing? She’s crying. The front of her dress is nearly soaked with tears, and her hollow chest convulses with the raspy, wailing sobs.

Brendan curses. “Banshee. Got any earplugs?”

“Earbuds, two pairs.” I toss him my spare pair. “Here. Hope you don’t mind my earwax.”

“It’s preferable to being dead, at least.” He says, putting them in.

I follow suit and scoop up the hissing cat. He flails and scratches until I put him back down.

“Ungrateful little bastard.” I mutter.

The banshee hears me and starts stumbling in our direction. I shudder just watching her. The way she moves reminds me of a zombie from some cheesy old horror movie. Only, I usually think those zombies are ridiculous. There’s nothing funny about the figure shambling towards us now.

I can’t hear her properly through the earbuds, but judging by the little scraps I can hear, that’s a good thing. Her crying is rising in pitch to something like an ambulance siren. Brendan draws a knife of his own. It’s a full-blown medieval dagger, the big kind I’m pretty sure is called a dirk.

“Are we fighting it?!” I holler.

“No choice!” Brendan yells back.

“Great.” I grumble.

And then we don’t have time to talk more, because she’s right there. Weirdly, she takes a lunge at the cat first. He jumps up on his hind legs and seems to grow, white fur glowing, until he’s the size of a panther. One claw swipe and her crying turns to a painfully high shriek as she’s thrown to one side, landing in the heather near my feet. The banshee picks herself up faster than I can get away and digs ragged nails into my arm. I yell in pain and yank away, but that withered hand is way stronger than it looks. She grabs my neck with the other one. I stab her.

By some miracle, my knife actually hits, sinking into one of her eyes. A mix of blood and weird gray goo spurts out. She screams again, and I’m pretty sure one of my eardrums just burst, but her grip loosens enough that I can pull away and stab her again. I miss this time, but she’s already hurt.

The banshee stumbles, then stumbles again, backwards into Brendan. He grabs her hair and drags his knife across her throat. Finally, it’s over. We’re both covered in blood and other, less pleasant stuff, and my arm feels like it’s on fire, but we’re alive.

The cat, back to his normal size now, walks over. He’s got a little blood dripping from a scratch on one ear, stark against his white fur. After a minute, he yacks up a big, gross hairball onto the dead banshee.

“You and me both.” I say as a wave of nausea comes over me.

Brendan pulls his earbuds out. I do the same.

“This is why you should have left.” He says softly.

“I’m fine.” I snap.

“No, you’re not. You’re shaking, you’re white as a sheet, and your eyes look like they’ll pop out any minute.”

He comes over and looks at my arm. “Take your coat off, we need to clean this. Cat, you too.”

Surprisingly, the cat walks right over to him.  Suddenly, the full implications of everything that’s just happened hit me. I start shaking harder, heart pounding so hard it hurts, and the nausea hits me full force as I curl up, trying to wipe what I’ve just done from my memory.

Brendan pulls me into a hug. Normally I’d punch a stranger if they hugged me without permission, but right now the contact is exactly what I need to ground me in reality. I lean on his shoulder, trying to get myself under control.

“First kill is usually the hardest.” Brendan says. “I’m really sorry that happened how it did. But we do need to tell your Aunt Robin. She’s the one in charge of protecting this area from monsters, I just work for her. A banshee’s the most powerful thing that’s shown up here in years.”

I nod. “Yeah. Being grounded is better than being dead, I guess.”

“You guess?” He teases. “You need to work out your priorities, Jay.”

I swat at him. I can hardly believe I’ve just met this boy today. It feels like we’ve known each other for much longer. I guess fighting monsters together is a good bonding experience.

I take my coat off and roll up my shirt sleeve, biting my lip to keep quiet as Brendan cleans and bandages the jagged scratches. Then we pack up and head back down to the beach, get in the boat, and set off for the mainland. Aunt Robin has some serious explaining to do. Also, I’m starving. I can almost smell the full English Breakfast.

[voraciousvore]

The Half-Blood Giant (29/51)

***Contains sex, and a foot massage? 18+***

Chapter 29: Pleasure and Desire

Pedro struggled to calm himself down and focus on his job for the remainder of the day. He was shaken to his core after his alarming interaction with Hunter. He could tell that kid was going to be a problem. He failed to understand why the giant teen was so hateful towards humans, when he was half-human himself. The logic didn’t add up. 

He knew he should bring his concerns to the attention of the principal, but after what happened Pedro was desperate to get out of there. He’d meet with his boss tomorrow. For the time being, he didn’t want to leave the safety of his office, not with all those giants stomping around in the halls. He shriveled up into himself with terror, like a turtle hiding in its shell, even after the bell rang and the day was done. 

He experienced a jolt when a booming knock resounded from above. The door opened and Pedro was relieved to see Ray standing over him. “Oh, thank goodness, Ray! Hi!” Pedro called up to him, getting up out of his chair. 

Ray crouched down and swept Pedro off his feet. Pedro beamed as his fears dissolved away. He was relieved that Ray was here. He felt so much safer with the handsome giant around to hold him and keep him protected.  

Ray furrowed his brow. “Pedro, are you alright? I can feel you trembling.” Maybe Ray was just imagining things, but Pedro seemed pale and jittery. 

“It’s been a rough day,” Pedro admitted. “Look, I know we were talking about going on a date after work today, but to be honest, I think I’d rather just go to your house. If that’s okay?” 

The giant smiled gently. “Of course. Actually, I’m feeling quite tired myself.” He chuckled. “We can have a movie night at home.” 

As Ray walked home, he asked Pedro about what happened, but Pedro deflected. He didn’t want to relive the memory. He just wanted to snuggle up into Ray’s big, soft, warm hands and enjoy his company. Ray respected his boundaries and didn’t press. When they got home, Ray flopped down on the couch with a groan, setting Pedro down carefully next to him, and shed his shirt and police equipment. 

“Are you going to work out today?” Pedro asked. 

“Nah, not today. I’m beat,” Ray sighed. He winced as he took his shoes and socks off. “Man, I need some new shoes. My feet are killing me.” 

Pedro grinned. “I could give you a foot massage.” 

Ray blushed at the unexpected offer. “Oh, no. You don’t want to do that. I’ve been working all day; my feet are all gross and sweaty!” He slid his belt out of his belt loops to give his big belly some breathing room and tossed it on the floor. After a moment of hesitation, he scooped Pedro off the couch, laid down, and gently held him against his bare chest. “Is this okay?” he inquired timidly. 

Pedro found himself enveloped by soft skin, pressed between Ray’s huge muscular pecs down below and his large hands above. Ray’s heart throbbed around him, and his mighty chest rose and fell with his breathing. His chest hair was soft, making the dip between his pecs even more cozy. Pedro felt very small, as he processed the sheer scale of the bones and muscles and organs of the giant’s body beneath his skin, yet also comforted and protected. After his frightening, difficult day, this was exactly where he wanted to be. “More than okay. This is divine,” he murmured, curling up in heaven. 

Ray sighed deeply with satisfaction, and Pedro listened to the air filling his monumental lungs and whooshing back out. Pedro felt like he could fall asleep on his chest, if not for how aroused he was, to be so close to his sexy giant body. Ray shifted around him and groaned softly, grimacing with discomfort. 

“Ray, what’s the matter?” Pedro asked, idly running his fingers through his chest hair. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s nothing…” Ray answered, his voice filling his chest. He winced again before confessing, “It’s just my feet. They’re throbbing and hurting.” 

“Oh, you poor baby, let me help,” Pedro cooed. Ray was too fatigued to protest as Pedro stood up, freed himself from the giant’s hands, and hiked down his boundless landscape of flesh. The curve of his belly was like a big hill that Pedro couldn’t see over until he reached the top, with minor difficulty as his feet sank into the squishy fat. He slid down his belly to his pants. Pedro was tempted to stop there, at his crotch, but he wanted to relieve Ray’s pain first, so he kept going. He traveled down his incredibly long, thick leg. He could feel the majestic layers of muscle even through the fabric.  

Eventually, he made it down to Ray’s oversized feet. His feet were huge and hairy, with big thick nails on the toes. He gripped the hem of Ray’s pant leg to ease himself down to the couch cushion and circled around his ankle and heel. As Ray had sheepishly mentioned, his feet were a bit smelly and damp with sweat, but Pedro cared about the giant’s wellbeing and didn’t complain. He ignored the stench as he examined the soft, slightly callused pads of his feet and toes towering above him. The sensitive undersides were red and swollen. 

“Where does it hurt?” Pedro called over to Ray, projecting his tiny voice so the giant could hear him. He brushed his fingers over the tender flesh.  

With a sudden violent movement that startled the tiny human, Ray jerked his feet back and giggled. “That tickles!” the giant protested with a chuckle lacing his words. 

“Oh, sorry!” Pedro responded, clutching his chest. He was alarmed at how those giant feet had almost smashed into him. 

Ray carefully stretched his legs back out and laid his feet sideways so Pedro could reach their full surface area better. “It’s the heels and balls of my feet, mostly. Um... are you sure you want to do this, Pedro? You don’t have to, honest. I know my feet are a little nasty right now...” 

“Anything for my king,” Pedro said with a smile. Using a rough, firm touch, since he knew he was so much smaller than the giant, he pressed his hands into the sore spots on Ray’s feet, massaging hard. He kneaded the flesh with all his strength, using not only the muscles of his hands but his arms and back as well. He balled his hands into fists and pressed his knuckles into the padded skin. 

“Ahhhhh... that feels so good,” Ray moaned, wiggling his toes. “Thank you.” The experience was oddly sensual for Pedro; he liked making his partner happy and easing his pain. He focused on the most inflamed areas, but made sure to massage every inch, from the base of his heels up through the arch, all the way to his toes. By the time he finished with both feet, he was worn out. He slumped against Ray’s toes and sought to catch his breath. Ray sighed with contentment. 

“Wow, Pedro... that was so kind of you. My feet feel a lot better now.” Ray sat up and scooped Pedro into his hand. “I know you were pretty tired today. Let me return the favor.” The giant knew he needed to be very gentle, since the human in his palm was so tiny. Using only the tips of his massive fingers, he gingerly pinched Pedro’s arm and put light pressure on his muscles, moving from his hand to his shoulder in a soothing massage. He squeezed the muscles in his other arm next, then kneaded his legs from his calves to his quads. Pedro melted with pleasure in his palm as the knots in his muscles untangled. To be handled so deliberately, so tenderly, by such an enormous man was sublime. 

As Ray continued to give Pedro a full-body massage with his colossal thumb and forefinger, his huge hand that inevitably took up so much space happened to bump against the little human’s groin. Ray pulled away slightly as he realized what he had touched. Pedro was rock-hard. Ray felt his face grow hot and his heartbeat increase in tempo. 

“Don’t stop,” Pedro whispered with longing. Ray hesitated before gently touching his finger against Pedro’s diminutive chest. He ran the tip back down to the hard lump in his pants, brushing against it. Bringing up his thumb, he grasped the waistband of his pants and pulled them down to his ankles, exposing his erect penis. Pedro looked up at him with wide eyes. He bit his lip seductively and unbuttoned his shirt, shedding it as he simultaneously kicked off his shoes and pants. He splayed out stark-naked in the giant’s hand, burning with lust and eager anticipation. 

Ray experienced that fresh desire for the flesh of a human in his maw, so alien to his normal sensibilities but certainly not unwelcome now when he had a willing morsel in his hand. He leaned his head in, licking his lips readily. Pedro shivered with excitement as Ray’s vast visage loomed so close, right above him, filling his entire field of vision. Ray’s warm breath saturated his skin as his gigantic, luscious lips brushed against him with soft kisses. He tentatively touched his tongue to the human’s skin, tasting him. 

Ray was not prepared for the delicious burst of flavor that rocketed through his taste buds. Pedro tasted like fresh-baked double chocolate chip cookies. His salivary glands tingled as they released a flood of drool. Ray licked the tiny human eagerly with his immense tongue, savoring his taste as he slurped on his junk and nibbled with his lips. He nearly scooped the human up with his tongue in his enthusiasm. The eager strokes were highly stimulating to Pedro, who was unable to contain himself for long as his genitals were caressed and soaked with saliva. He moaned with escalating pleasure, gripping the hair of Ray’s mustache with his fingers as his giant lips and tongue worked their magic. Finally, he bust a nut with an ecstatic groan, and Ray was surprised again with the sweet taste of cookies and cream on his tongue.  

Ray had a very strong urge, then and there, to snap up the human in his mouth and swallow him whole. He resisted this compulsion, thankfully, and pulled his mouth away from his tempting snack. Pedro, breathing hard after his orgasm, glimpsed in the infinite blue sky of the giant’s eyes a flash of hunger that reminded him of Hunter’s unwavering predatory gaze, which chilled his blood. However, the harrowing gleam disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced, and Pedro believed he must’ve only imagined it. When he looked again, Ray had only soft kindness in his eyes. Pedro sighed, enchanted as he lost himself in those windows to his giant lover’s soul. 

The giant, trying to distract himself from his urge to eat the smaller man, unbuttoned his pants instead. He, too, was brimming with lustful desire. Pedro, understanding his next move, grinned and gave him an ardent wink. Ray stuffed him down into his pants where he contacted his hot bare skin. Pedro, positively giddy with excitement, jerked him off and played in his pleasure center, his playground of delight. Ray was amazed by his passion and skill, despite his size. He had anticipated some hesitancy, considering how intimidating it must be for a small human to make love to a giant man hundreds of times larger, but Pedro was more adventurous than he bargained for. The human had years of fantasizing under his belt to guide his hands and body and tongue as he rubbed himself all over the gigantic, glorious, throbbing shaft, giving care to the most sensitive areas. Soon enough, Ray reached climax, exploding with ecstasy. Ray rescued him from the confines of his pants and held him against his chest.  

Pedro gazed up at Ray lovingly. “Ray… my ray of sunshine… you are a dream come true.” He wrapped his arms around the giant’s thumb and beamed with joy. Ray tousled his hair with the tip of his finger and stroked his naked back. 

“I’m glad that I kicked you like a soccer ball, Pedro,” the giant replied with a chuckle. “You’re definitely something special.” He rolled over on his side and clasped Pedro against his cheek, nuzzling him and snuggling up to him. Pedro cuddled against him in return, curling into his soft skin. Before long, they were both fast asleep, their features serene in peaceful slumber. 

Chapter 30

Chapter 1

[favefandomimagines]

Give Me A Reason to Stay (b.b.)

Summary: the battle is over, you can finally breathe. but will bucky give you a reason to stay with him in Louisiana? 

AN: inspired by the finale of tfaws! so potential spoilers and obvs i’m gonna include some angst (stark!reader)

You finally caught a moment to breathe after what felt like years of fighting. After so long of going from one disaster to the next, you could finally stop and pause. Actually enjoy life for once. 

Since your father died, you never stopped moving. Being CFO of Stark Industries, helping Wanda escape the authorities after her grief induced episode and then Sam and Bucky called you for help. It never seemed to stop. 

But, after Karli died and the rest of the Flag Smashers gone, you could take your well deserved pause. At least for a little while before your inherited work called. 

Sam invited you to come to his home town in Louisiana for a celebration of sorts and you couldn’t say no. Him telling you that Bucky was going to be there was also a selling point. 

You and Bucky had a complicated history. You helped Sam and Steve stop him and HYDRA and then went on the manhunt for him. Even after finding out he killed your grandparents, you were still there. You understood that it wasn’t Bucky’s mind, just his body. You were there in Wakanda and helped set him free from his trigger words. 

But nothing ever progressed from the stolen looks, the longing glances and the quick touches. The amount of times Bucky Barnes saved your life and threatened others who tried to hurt you, you thought he felt something for you. But the nagging feeling in the back of your head told you that you were wrong. 

At the celebration, the many neighborhood kids were gathered around you as you created stars in your hands, almost like your own personal galaxy. The kids thought it was magic and you rather liked that perspective on your powers. 

Bucky and Sam were talking with Sarah and some other neighbors but Bucky couldn’t focus on the conversation when he was too busy watching you. 

Your smile was so wide that he thought it could light up a city block. You looked genuinely happy, a look he hadn’t seen on you in a long time. It was refreshing and your happiness made him happy. 

“You’re being creepy.” Sam commented, nudging the super soldier. “What?” Bucky asked. “You’re staring.” Sam said. “I-I was not staring.” He stammered. “You so were. Just tell her how you feel already. I can assure you she feels the same way.” Sam told him. “I can’t just tell her.” Bucky rebutted. “Yes, yes you can. What are you afraid of?” Sam asked.

The 106 year-old man paused for a moment as he continued to stare at you. “I can’t be the one that causes her more pain.” He said. Sam furrowed his eyebrows at Bucky’s answer. “She’s been through too much already. Losing Natasha, watching her father die, the nightmares she has. I’m not back to myself yet and I can’t cause her anymore pain.” Bucky explained. 

The conversation was cut short when you approached the two men. “I’m so sorry, Sam. Pepper just called and said the donors are pulling out of the eco-friendly power source project we’re working on. She needs my help fixing it.” You told them. 

“Do you really have to go?” Sam asked. “Unfortunately. Pepper says she can do it on her own, she did it before I was old enough but since my name is still attached to the company, I have to go. Board meeting at 9 tomorrow.” You explained. “I’ll go grab Sarah, she’s going to insist on giving you leftovers to take.” Sam said, giving you a nice smile. 

You turned to Bucky who was very quiet since you walked over. “So, you’re really going back?” He asked you. “Yeah. Unless you give me a reason to stay.” You answered honestly. And rather boldly.

Bucky wanted to say something so bad. He wanted to tell you that he loved you and wanted you to stay with him there but the words didn’t come out. And if he was already feeling bad before, the look on your face broke his heart. 

You gave him a tight lipped smile, a small head nod before you walked away from him. He watched as you slapped a fake smile on, say goodbye to Sarah and Sam before leaving the party rather quickly. 

“What the happened with Y/N?” Sarah asked approaching Bucky. “Nothing. She just had to go.” Bucky lied. Sam saw right through it obviously. Something had happened between you and Bucky and he was determined to find out and play cupid. 

“What really happened?” Sam asked. “She asked me to give her a reason to stay. And I didn’t say anything.” Bucky answered. “Come on, man. You love her, she loves you. Y/N wouldn’t give you the time of day if she couldn’t handle your baggage. You need each other more than you want to admit, Buck.” Sam said.

Bucky sighed and cursed himself for letting you go. “Okay, what do I do?” He asked. “Go to New York. Pull a rom-com move and crash that board meeting and tell her that you love her.” Sam answered.

And Bucky did just that. He got on the first flight to New York and came up with a whole speech in his head for what he was going to say to you.

He made it at the nick of time and was surprised he still had security clearance to the building. When he arrived to the correct floor, he saw Pepper standing in the hallway.

“Bucky, I didn’t expect to see you here.” She said to him. “Where’s Y/N? I need to talk to her.” Bucky said. “She’s in the conference room, preparing for the meeting.” Pepper answered.

Bucky practically ran to the conference room and almost broke down the door.

“B-Bucky?” You questioned. “I love you, Y/N. You asked me to give you a reason to stay and I was scared. Scared that I’d cause you more pain and you don’t deserve that after what you’ve been through. But I can’t deny that I love you anymore.” Bucky confessed.

You were at a loss for words, not really expecting a love confession from Bucky Barnes. “You love me?” You questioned quietly. “Yes. I love you.” He said. “Come back to Louisiana with me. We can start over, have the life we both deserve. Or, I can come back here and you can still help Pepper run Stark Industries. I don’t care as long as I get a chance at a life with you.” Bucky added.

“You really mean that?” You asked. “I really do mean that.” He answered. He watched you intently as you processed everything Bucky had just told you.

You looked down at your presentation notes before you picked them up and folded the papers in half. “Friday, can you bring Pepper into the conference room please?” You asked the AI. “Of course, Ms. Stark.” It said.

You and Bucky waited in a tension filled silence when the door opened. “What’s going on?” Pepper asked. “I think it’s time I sign those papers.” You told her.

Pepper smiled widely at you, happy that you were choosing yourself over the company for once. “It’s about time.” She commented. “I’ll go get them drawn up.” She added before leaving the room.

“Wait what papers?” Bucky asked. “I’m giving every aspect of the company to Pepper. I’ll no longer be listed as an executive for Stark Industries. Which means, I can go anywhere I want for as long as I want.” You explained.

“You mean-“ Bucky started. “I’m going to Louisiana with you. For however long you’ll have me.” You interjected. Bucky laughed lightly as he made his way over to you, cupped your face in his hands and kissed you deeply.

It was a feeling you both had been waiting for and it was one that was definitely worth the wait. You had been putting off your personal life out of fear it wouldn’t work but now you just wanted to be with each other. No matter what happens down the line.

“And if it wasn’t obvious, I love you too.” You said once you parted. “I’d hope so, doll.” Bucky replied.

—

You and Bucky approached the large gathering of people with food in your hands, saying your hellos and giving out hugs and handshakes.

“There you two are! I was wondering if you’d ever show!” Sam scolded you two. “What do you expect? We’re newlyweds.” You laughed. “And it’s about damn time it happened too.” Sarah commented.

You sat down at the picnic table, Bucky resting his flesh hand on your thigh. You stared down at the ring on your finger quite fondly and thought of your dad. Hoping he’d be proud of letting the company go three years ago and living your life to its fullest.

“Aunt Y/N! Can we see the stars again?” Cass asked with all of his friends behind him. “Can’t say no to a future leading astronomer now can I?” You teased the boy. You got up from the table and stood a few feet away, creating the stars with your hands like you had years prior.

Again, Bucky watched you fondly but this time he wasn’t pining after you, hoping he’d build the courage to tell you how he felt. He was watching you as his wife and as his future.

“You really do love her, don’t you?” Sam asked. “Yeah. I really do.” Bucky answered, a smile adorning his face. “You’re going to be amazing parents.” Sarah added. “Parents?” Bucky questioned. “Oh no she hasn’t told you yet.” Sarah said, standing up from the table.

“Is Y/N,” Bucky started. “Am I what?” You asked. Bucky turned to you and rose from his seat so he could stand eye to eye with you. “Are you pregnant?” He asked.

You looked behind him and glared at Sarah before staring back at Bucky. “Yeah, yeah I am. You’re gonna be dad James Bucky Barnes.” You told him with a watery smile.

Just the thought of bringing a child into the world with Bucky made you more emotional than you thought possible.

“I’m gonna be a dad?” Bucky questioned. You nodded your head and Bucky scooped you up in his arms and if felt like everything was falling into place.

After 109 years of not having an ounce of peace or feeling as if he was a monster and a burden, he was getting the life he had always dreamed of. And he got to do it all with you.

[darkdevasofdestruction]

An Angel and A Demon ~ Pyramid Head x Reader

Update 2: My laptop restarted when I was in the middle of writing this, and trust me when I say it, I am positively pissed off, and I want to end my days, that's how bad of a day this was.

And I didn't leave the house.

That says a lot about today...

Update 1: But, without further ado, I was half-way writing this story, and I received this ask, and let me tell you...

helloooo, i absolutely adored the fanfics you wrote about kazan and danny🥺 could i request one where pyramid head is just really whipped for and in love with the survivor! reader but he doesnt know how to announce it to them so he brings her random ,,gifts" in and outside the trials and protecting her bc well, im pretty sure he cant speak so he doesnt really have any other options on how to express his feelings??

I live for it.

Bless you for sending me this, it's the reason I'm still sane right now.

I love you, baby-cakes.

Update 3: I want to kill myself so bad. Just smash my head on a wall until it explodes or sth. I was so happy with how this imagine turned out, only fuck fucking tumblr to just fucking delete EVERYTHING just as I was about to put the last gif and hit POST NOW.

--------

For the 5th time writing this :

FUCKMEDADDY - but this time - FUCKMYBRAINSOUTPLEASEIWANNADIE

Thanks.

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Hell - What was that place, anyway?

Some would describe it as an infinite ocean of flames and lava, where it's eternally melting-hot, and a bunch of hooved, horned, tailed red demons torture you with acid, with their red pitch forks, or boil you alive in their cauldron for soup. Or maybe you just get tortured by Stalin, who knows?

But never would have anyone thought that 'Hell' could look so...Normal. Well, normal in a very demolished, desolate, ravished way, but still...Normal, by human standards. Albeit, the never-ending loop of madness, anguish, agony and desperation of getting killed in different gruesome ways or fleeing for their lives and feeling a myriad of emotions pumping adrenaline through their veins so badly that their anxiety-meter skyrocketed to abnormal levels.

All this darkness, this hatred, this...Everything...It changed all the survivors. They became selfish, stubborn, rude, some even went as far as to sacrifice their fellow survivors in trials, just so they could survive. It was a complete mayhem that defied all kinds of reason, normality, morality or even ethics. Everyone became devoid of any laws that used to bind them to their humane sides, and now, you weren't sure if the killers were saner than the survivors or not.

But even in this abyss where you couldn't even see your hand in front of your very eyes, there was a little star - A beautiful angel radiating brightness and warmth, someone who was somehow able to guide everyone's straying souls with her benevolence.

In reality, she was merely a survivor, not the little lantern from an angler fish's head, but she treated everyone with such an untainted kindness...It was beautiful, and yet, unrequited for most parts. Everyone was still putting their own lives above all - And who could condemn them? - Perhaps their cowardice, for the girl preferred to save her fellow survivors as much as possible, even if that oftentimes assured her place on the hook, to be a sacrificial lamb for the Entity.

On the other hand, she rarely ended up on the hook - Most killers prefer to kill her themselves, instead of letting her become pray for the horrible Entity who tortured so many of them for refusing to cooperate - The Trapper, Evan MacMillan - He knew the best, with those hooks digging into his flesh, impossible to extract. He was the first to protect this girl. It wasn't much, but if he had to, he'd rather give her a swift, painless death, than seeing her without that serene, angelic smile on her face, as the Entity feeds on the last bits of her soul's beauty, the last parts of her humanity.

The other Killers were confused at the Trapper's actions, but little by little, they began to understand why this girl was so precious and special - And this domino effect hit Rin Yamaoka next, with Y/N stopping in the middle of a chase and taking off her jacket, just as Rin was about to butcher her with her katana, and she smiled, extending it to her. 'You must be cold' she said, realising that the Spirit was merely wearing a few bandages, not even her school uniform, or her kimono.

The ghost girl was shaken up by this, and told the others at the killer camp, but they just shrugged it off - Rin was a little girl who faced close to no kindness, they weren't surprised she was so taken aback by such a feat. That is, until Adiris, in a particularly terrible day, when everyone at the camp was staying away from her, as her profane censer wasn't able to cover the stench of rotting flesh - Y/N came over, taking out a small yet elegant glass bottle with pink liquid on it, spraying some on her - And now, The Plague smelled of roses and vanilla - 'You can come to me for perfume whenever you want, I always carry some with me!' she grinned at the Babylonian High Priestess, before leaving back to the survivor's camp site, leaving the ancient God symbol to stare with her mouth agape at the girl.

These words began to spread, and it was no surprise when the killers saw Susie clinging and begging her Legion friends to spare Y/N, for she was there to hug away her worries more than once, to tell her sweet words, to play with her hair and play the guitar whatever songs she wanted to hear, to get reminded of her home - She was so home sick that she freaked out, but now she was better, thanks to Y/N - 'I know you miss home, but sometimes, home is where your best friends are, and all three of them are here!' she tried to encourage the cute pink-haired girl who could only squeal and hug her new friend.

Even Ghostface wasn't exempt from falling to her charms, and they would often take silly selfies and mess around, making fun of the old horror movie tropes and doing lots of puns and pranks - So much that she even got his trust to be told about the Danny/Jed thing, and how he began his killer profession - 'You're a very talented photographer, Danny! You deserved all that recognition you got, both as a journalist, and as a killer!'

And very soon, Y/N found herself in the crushing arms of an overprotective Anna, humming her mother's lullaby together with walking through the forest, Y/N making flower crows for all the female killers at the camp site, and little by little, she somehow managed to worm her way under everyone's skins.

Y/N was the survivor with the highest survivability percentage, and maybe the Entity sometimes got pissed off, but at least she still got killed sometimes, so who cares? Well, that was soon to change as soon as a new Killer was added to this sick game - Pyramid Head, the terror of Silent Hill, as Cheryl, the new Survivor, called him - or The Executioner, as he was known now. He was ruthless, merciless, grotesque - He had his own criteria of killing, his own moral compass, ethics, conscience and understanding of the concept of life and death. Nothing that could compare to the visions of humans, clearly - Everything was gravitating around Divine Retribution and Justice, but the from the outside, he was nothing but a killing machine.

He would kill everyone and anyone that crosses his path, without fail.

Y/N felt like her fortune ended completely the second she found herself in the new, overly cramped map, with Pyramid Head as the killer - She couldn't help but run around like a spazzic meerkat, trying to find and fix as many generators as possible, without having to get face to face with the walking hazard...

Only to run past a stuck Pyramid Head.

Slowly backtracing her steps, she saw the mountain of a man with his metal pyramid stuck in the frames a low window which he tried to walk over. He was trashing like a raged bull trying to attack a matador, but it was clear he was getting nowhere with this.

"H-Hey, u-uhm...Need some help?" she asked in a soft, careful voice, almost like a meek cat trying to test the waters, but in return, he started groaning even louder from the wrath he wanted to unleash upon the whole world. "Okay, uhm...I think I saw a can of vaseline in one of the chests around. I'll go fetch it and I'll come back for you. Don't move." she said, only to then realise how horrible that sounded, considering the situation, and it only seemed to anger the killer. "...I'm sorry, ignore me, I'm an idiot." she slapped herself pretty harshly before bolting out of there trying to find the chest.

However, Y/N cursed herself for not having perfectly memorised the whole map by heart already, since she found the vaseline can after the 3rd chest, and then, it took quite a while to find the bloody window that got the killer stuck - And by the time she got there, she was dead tired. "Okay, I'm here, I found the vaseline! Let's try to get you out of here." Y/N muttered as she put her feet on the low window pane to get to his level. "If it's not too much trouble, could you please hold onto me? I can't balance myself with both hands occupied, and I'd rather not fall." she explained as she opened the vaseline can, only to shiver as she felt two big, strong hands getting a firm grip on her hips. It was almost...Endearing, were she not too busy trying to get the killer unstuck. She kept massaging the metal edge, trying to push and pull, also praying to whatever deity that existed in her human world that she had her tetanus shot done on time - Until finally, she was able to get hear a loud screech, like a pop, and the killer got unstuck, and in the process, he stumbled backwards, while Y/N fell down on her butt.

"Ouchie..." she muttered, rubbing her back and sides to take away the pain surging through her body. "Are you okay?" she asked, almost intuitively, without realising it at first, until she heart a low grunt that brought her back to reality. "O-Oh...! You have glass shards stuck in your side! And you're bleeding too! Hold up, let me help." she hurried to his side, while the killer merely stiffened, feeling her delicate, slender fingers tracing his body, while he heaved and slouched his shoulders from the repressed wrath. "It may sting a bit, and I'm really sorry, but I promise it will be better soon." her voice was so motherly and warm, which also resonated in her actions, as she gingerly took a water bottle and imbued some tissues with it, to wipe away the blood smearing down his skin as she extracted the glass shards, and then..."This is grandma's marigold ointment. It's really good, and it smells nice." she explained as she carefully smeared a thick layer of the yellow ointment on the biggest wounds, while the little ones were covered by smiley-flower patterned plasters. They were cute, and colourful, and they never failed to make her smile. "Okay, there we go, all better! I hope you'll feel better very soon!" her voice got a tiny bit more cheerful and upbeat.

It made the Killer think about a trillion things, as he stepped in front of her, towering over her like the Empire states building next to a smiling pomeranian. What was with this girl? Why did she help a killer? And why did he feel so...Warm inside? He could sense a foreign kind of luminosity, a naivite and innocence that he only witnessed in children and animals. This woman in front of him was untainted by the darkness and evil of the world.

It didn't matter how many hardships she's been through, or how much sadness she had to endure - Her soul remained as pure as any snowdrop, as the first snow of winter, as the fleece of a baby lamb who let out its first 'meeeeh' to its mamma sheep.

He couldn't allow this human to be maimed in any way - Not by the world, not by the Entity, and certainly not by him. - Screw the Entity, Pyramind Head kills by his own rules, and now, he was blessed to be faced with a human who bore no real hatred for her peers, or for the world, despite the horrible situation she was thrown into.

He didn't understand, obviously, especially as he remembered the myriad of abominations that lurked through Silent Hill, all of them created by the torment of humans - The very torment that distorted their own reality, which resulted in him needing to solve the purpose as The Executioner - Eradicating the world of all evil.

"Th-This sword is so heavy...H-How can you carry this around like that...?! Your muscles must be so strained and sore...Y-You really need a massage, I'm sure." she stuttered as she tried to lift the much taller and heavier sword from the ground, only for the brute to simply bend and pick it up with extreme ease, putting the girl to shame with her complete lack of strength. "Hehe...You're really strong. I'm embarrassed now." she chuckled softly, scratching the back of her neck.

Before she could leave or do anything else, Pyramid Head picked her up by the throat, careful not to hurt her or restrict her air intake - I mean, how else was he supposed to carry her so he wouldn't hurt her with his metal head or sword? - and it was pretty clear she didn't feel any malevolence from him, as she clinged on his forearm, trying to keep herself up, only to be dumped on top of the hatch, as the killer pointed towards it, so she would leave.

"O-Oh...! Thank you so much! You're really kind! I really appreciate this...I-I know it probably doesn't matter much to you, since you'll be doing this over and over again with all the survivors...But I really appreciate you for your kind gesture, and I appreciate you for being so nice with me. Thank you. Take care!" her dazzling smile lit the whole place up, but he couldn't talk, nor could he tell her how he should be the one thanking her for showing him that, despite the hundreds and thousands of years he had to roam the 'Earth' and execute the injust, miracles still existed.

As soon as she reached the survivor's camp, everyone cheered for her, asking how in the world could she have escaped the wrath of the butcher. "Oh, but he wasn't that bad. In fact, he's much more humane than I anticipated! I think he has a beautiful, blooming heart!" okay, she's lost it - the other survivors thought - but even so, she's always been a bit...Out of it, so who cares?

It took quite a while for the other three survivors to reach the camp, all bloody, in fact, like the new killer, who dragged himself with the same menace to the Killers' camp. "How the hell did you manage to survive?!" they yelled at her in utter shock, seeing that she got out of there unscratched. "Oh, you see...I found the hatch." she shrugged simply, not wanting to give away that the person who massacred those three was a soft one and he basically threw her down the hatch to her safety.

As she took a twig to roast a marshmallows, she noticed how Pyramid Head was standing much farther away from the rest of the killers - She knew that silent killers were bound to stay away from the more obnoxious one, remembering how Michael Myers almost killed Ghostface and The Legion at least a dozen times - But this time...He seemed kinda...Lonely? So Y/N took the matters into her own hands, roasted another marshmallow in another twig, and when it was done, she went to the killer's camp, calling out the lonely one's name - She has no idea why, but he actually followed her, pushing her further deep into the forest, until he was sure nobody was going to hear, see or interrupt them...

"Hey. You seemed pretty lonely out there...I thought you could use a friend. Thank you again for what you did at the trial...Here, this is a marshmallow. I don't think you've had many before...Cheryl told me of that horrible place you had to live in...So I hope this will make your day a bit better!" Y/N extended one of her hands towards him, so he could take the marshmallow - And a long, black tongue erupted from underneath the pyramid, snatching away the fluffy marshmallow and gulping it in one go.

What the hell was he turning into?

A towering man built of pure muscle, wrath and divine justice, with a pyramid representing the evil of humanity burdening his body, and a sword taller and heavier than the average human being constantly dragged in one of his hand...He now was a slave to a cute, innocent girl who was putting flower plasters on his minuscule wounds that would heal in a heartbeat regardless - He saved this girl who was now offering his these soft, squishy things that tasted overly sugarly, just like her upbeat and cheerful personality - If he could eat her, he was sure she would taste even sweeter than this - A sickish kind of sweet, that is.

She was indeed a beautiful angel in this tragic hell. But he didn't wait to snatch the second marshmallow either.

"Ah...! You liked it, didn't you? Well...Next time, I promise I'll give you more!" she grinned at him the same way a princess would to her chivalrous knight who saved her. The since he couldn't talk, silence took over them - It wasn't an uncomfortable one, per se, but it made it feel as if the conversation was over. "W-Well...I'll guess I'll see you around! Take care and I hope to see you again soon!" she waved cutely, trying to turn around back to her camp, only to feel a rough hand on her shoulder, turning her around and urging her to stop and wait for him and he went deep into the forest, leaving her alone and undefended by the potential malevolent forces of the forest.

When he returned, however, he stepped right in front of her, creating the perfect shade as he towered over her - Then he kneeled in front of her, so he would reach her eye sight, then he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and put a beautiful pink flower - As pink as the blush that started creeping on her face - He wanted to see her luminous face better, to highlight her dazzling smile and her glimmering eyes as the warm, silver light of the mother moon caressed her face.

Y/N felt her heart picking up the pace - It was beating so much faster than ever before - But this time, it wasn't out of fear or anything negative...It was something good. Something she never felt in her life, especially with her human acquaintances from back home. None was as chivalrous and gentle with her as this butcher of tormented souls - The bringer of justice, the merciless Executioner who was supposed to end the life of every living being that would cross his path.

It was insane how every Yin finds its Yang, even if that comes in the form of a little lamb of a small, frail girl, and a huge abomination of a brute man who knows nothing but death, bloodshed and carnage. It was truly crazy how opposites attract, and here she was, holding the killers large hands and gingerly putting them on her face, leaning into his touch - She felt safer now than ever in her life - Now, in the arms of an ancient killer.

An Angel and A Demon brought together in a perfect union.

As she leaned down, she touched the metal of the pyramid where she anticipated his forehead would be with her own forehead, and closing her eyes, she finally felt herself calming down. There was no need for words, actions spoke louder than anything, and she appreciated it...She appreciated him.

"Thank you." she whispered to him, knowing that yes, even though nobody else would hear it anyway, it was much more intimate than anything she ever experienced.

She was hooked.

Hope you liked my completely shameless pun, I couldn't stop it, especially after the pain I went through trying to write this...3 freaking times.

Yay.

[blackwoolncrown]

”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

Do

not

fucking

talk

to

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

[writer05]

Trapped

Pairing: Gally x reader

Summary: It all started as a normal day, but when Y/N and Minho have a difficult decision to make, Y/N makes a startling realization which she asks Minho to relay to Gally

Warnings: mentions of injuries

Word Count: 1,547 Words

The sun woke me up like it always did, but this time, I didn’t want to get up because of the arm draped over my waist. I rubbed the sleepiness from my eyes, and as I tried to get out of bed, Gally tightened his grip on me.

“Gally, I’ve got to get ready,” I mutter and turn to face him. Gally groaned and buried his face into my neck. I smiled softly and tangled my legs with his under the blankets on my bed. Perks of having the keeper of the builders as your boyfriend was that he built just about anything I wanted, including my own hut to give me some privacy.

“Do you have to leave?” Gally asked.

I laughed and ran a hand through Gally’s hair. “Unless you want to deal with Minho’s wrath, I suggest you let me leave.” Gally groaned again, but released his grip on me. I quickly thanked him and climbed out of bed, slipping on my running shoes. “All right, will I see you at the doors in 5 minutes? Or are you going to stay in bed?”

Gally sat up and stretched. “I’ll be there. I’m always there.”

I smiled. “I know.” I then walked over to him and leaned down, pressing a kiss to his lips. “I’ll see you in a bit.” Gally hummed a response as I left the hut and headed towards the runners shack to grab my gear. As I walked in, I bumped into Minho who was heading out. Usually we’d be walking in and out together.

“You’re late,” Minho joked lightly.

“Blame Gally for that one,” I exclaim and grab my runners pack. “He would not let me leave my hut.”

Minho laughed. “I do believe that. Come on. Lets grab our lunch and some breakfast.” We stopped by Frypan’s shack to grab some food to eat quickly, which for me included an apple and some toast, and then packed up our lunch. Today it was a sandwich and another apple. After leaving Frypan to make breakfast for the rest of the Gladers, Minho and I headed to the Maze doors. Gally was waiting for us at the entrance like always, and the tradition made me smile. He was very supportive of me when I wanted to become a runner, and he continued supporting me every day by being the last face I saw when I left the Glade and the first face I saw when I returned to it. I stopped in front of Gally and wrapped him in a hug, burying my face into his chest as Minho stretched his legs.

“Be safe,” Gally lectured and placed a kiss on top of my head, squeezing me lightly.

“Always,” I counter and pull myself out of his arms. “You ready, Min?” Minho nodded, and with one last wave to Gally, the two of us ran past the Maze doors and into the giant labyrinth. The run started off like it always did. We made our way to our section, ran through the winding corridors, and mapped out every inch. On the way back though, we ran into some trouble. And by trouble, I mean we encountered a griever. As soon as it saw us, it roared and lunged our way, but Minho and I had already taken off. My feet pounded against the stone as I turned corners and ran down corridors. But no matter how much we seemed to run, we still hadn’t managed to lose the Griever. “Min, I think we’re going to have to resort to Plan B.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Minho argued.

“Believe me, I know, but-” I was cut off as my foot got caught on a stone platform I attempted to jump over, and I tumbled to the ground, twisting my ankle in the process. I tried to stand up, but pain erupted in my foot, and I cried out, clutching the injured limb.

“Come on,” Minho urged and helped me off of the ground. I knew though that we couldn’t outrun the griever like this. We were going to have to face it. Or rather, I was going to face it.

“Go,” I tell Minho. “Get back to the Glade.”

“What? No! I’m not leaving you,” Minho declared.

“If you don’t, we’re both going to die. Look, I’ll hold the Griever off for as long as I can, and then I’ll make my way back to the Glade,” I explain.

“You’re injured,” Minho noted and pointed to my foot. “Let me hold off the Griever.”

“Minho,” I start.

“No, Y/N,” Minho interrupted. “The chances of you facing a Griever and surviving, and then making it back to the Glade in time are slim because of your ankle. And what am I supposed to tell Gally when you don’t make it back? You think I want to break the news that my running partner, and best friend might I add, didn’t make it?”

“Gally will understand, and so will everyone else. Look, you’re the Keeper of the Runners. The Gladers need you more than they need me. Please, Minho,” I beg. “Get out of here.”

Minho sighed and gave me a quick hug. “Good luck, shuck face. Please make it back.”

I gave him a small smile. “Now go. Oh, and if I don’t make it back, tell Gally I love him, would ya?”

“Of course, but you’re going to tell him yourself because you’re going to make it out of here. I’ll see you back in the Glade,” Minho said before taking off. Just as he rounded the corner, the Griever appeared in front of me.

“All right Griever, give me all you’ve got,” I mutter.

Minho’s POV

The maze doors had shut a few minutes ago, but Y/N hadn’t made it back. I hoped that she was still alive, but then again, surviving a night in the maze was near impossible, and because of her injury, it would be even more challenging. But Y/N is one of the strongest people I know, so if anyone could make it out alive, it’d be her. Gally and I were now the only two Gladers left standing at the doors, the rest of the boys having left seconds before.

“How could you let her do this?” Gally asked, breaking the silence that had settled between us. I had hoped that this conversation wouldn’t turn up, but deep down, I knew it would.

“Believe me, Gally, if I had it my way, I would be the one trapped in there right now,” I confess. “Before I left her, Y/N had one favor. She um, she wanted me to tell you that uh...” I trailed off, remembering the last moment I had with Y/N, along with her last request. “She wanted me to tell you that she loves you.” Gally froze at my words as if trying to comprehend what I had said. And then, for the first time ever, I saw Gally cry. A few tears slipped down his cheeks, which he hastily wiped away, and with that, he walked off, leaving me alone at the Maze doors.

Y/N’s POV

If you’d have told me that I’d survive a night in the Maze alone, I would have called you crazy. And if you also would have told me that I’d do it with a messed up ankle and numerous cuts and bruises, I would have called you insane. But that was the truth because it was now morning. I limped in the direction of the Maze doors at a painstakingly slow pace, but at the moment, it was pretty much all I could do. After killing the Griever, which I had someone managed to do with my knife, I had to find a place to hide. Luckily, I knew of a small crevice underneath one of the walls that I could hide under, and I stayed there the rest of the night. Now, I was going to be back in the Glade, and I couldn’t be happier. I was a a few dozen feet away from the entrance to the Glade when the doors opened, and seconds after they unlatched themselves from each other, I was being engulfed in the biggest hug from someone. I knew almost immediately though that I was in the arms of my boyfriend.

“I love you too,” Gally murmured into my hair.

“So Minho actually told you?” I question. “I didn’t think he would.”

“Yeah,” Gally replied and pulled away from me. “He also told me what you did.”

I cringed under Gally’s gaze and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, uh, could we possibly talk about that later? You know, after I see the med-jacks?”

Gally’s gaze softened, and he chuckled lightly. “Sure. But we are going to talk about it.”

“Okay. Fine. Now, I can’t really walk, so if-” Gally cut me off, like he knew what I was going to say, and picked me up bridal style. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Gally spoke and leaned down to place a kiss on my lips. “Now, lets get you to the med-jack hut.” Being in the arms of my boyfriend made me feel safe again, and as long as I had him, I knew I would be okay.

[reidyoulikeabook]

Right Where You Left Me

Ship: BAU! Gender Neutral! reader x Spencer Reid

#Request - Could you do some angst with “you dont deserve my forgiveness?” Any ship!

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: Mention of death, violence, injury (not serious), angst, mourning, a lot of tears. Also, swearing, anger, fighting (verbal, not physical.)

Summary: You and Spencer Reid had been together for a year before he ‘died.’ You grieved him. You mourned him.

A/N: Title stolen from my (current) favourite Taylor Swift song. Not sure how I feel about this one but! Here it is anyway! My requests are open & pls feel free to let me know what you think!!

14 days and 30 minutes exactly

You don’t think about the day Spencer Reid died. You can’t, because even remembering he’s dead feels as if an ice bucket has been tipped over your head. Not even now, two weeks later, have you really gotten over the initial shock that you felt. Every waking moment felt like you were trying to solve some kind of never-ending puzzle. Each emotion was overwhelming, too much to process. It felt like things would only start to get better, like everybody promised they would, when you started to be able to name the emotions rather than describe them as the physical sensations they brought on.

And you didn’t think that’d happen anytime soon.

The shared apartment was too much. You hadn’t slept in your bed since he’d been gone, and forbid anyone else from going into the bedroom. It was a sanctuary.

You understood now more than ever why victims families never changed a thing about the room of their loved ones. Every single thing felt deliberate. Theirs. It was a reflection of the time they were most alive, living. A unique snapshot of them in motion. The mess they left that they expected to come home to.

Rationally, you knew that wasn’t true. There wasn’t a sock hanging off Spencer’s bedside table, or a clean cardigan balled up on the floor, for any reason other than he’d been in a rush that morning, and had left an uncharacteristically large mess in his wake. In more ways than one.

***

2 months, 5 days, 8 hours

Being back at work helps somewhat, but the office feels empty without him there to ramble off factoids about anything and everything, to hear Morgan calling him ‘kid’ every five minutes. He only called you that now.

Simmons is nice, really he is. It isn’t his fault he’s there in place of Spencer and you try hard not to feel personally aggrieved by his presence. He doesn’t do anything to antagonise you, he stays out of your way more than anything. You don’t do anything to purposely make him uncomfortable: you do try to be agreeable and make small talk. But it’s hard not to look at him without thinking how, if everything was how it should be, Spencer would be stood in his place.

***

3 months, 26 days, 3 hours.

There is no ‘new normal.’ You’ve heard the term tossed around a few times in relation to grief, but if there is a new normal you’re still struggling to find it. When you’re not on cases, there’s no ‘normal’. You still don't sleep in your own bed. Sometimes you stay on Rossi’s, or Morgan’s, or Garcia’s couch. Sometimes, read: maybe once, it’s in the spare room at the place you and Spencer used to share. Sometimes, when you get worried about being a burden, it’s a hotel. It’s easier to feel as if you’re choosing to stay away from home, rather than acknowledging that home, as you understand it, no longer exists.

You still wake up and instinctually search for Spencer most mornings. Sure, work is keeping you occupied and you smile a little more these days. You even allowed yourself to be dragged out for drinks last weekend. But nothing feels like it should. You don’t know if that’s normal for grief or if you just aren’t moving forward at all, doomed to tread yourself deeper into the melancholic quicksand that’s got a hold on you.

You talk at length about it with Garcia over wine one night.

“Nothing feels right,” you admit, “Everything just feels...”

Garcia waits, just tipping her chin slightly to encourage you to continue. She’s got the counsellor act down and you’d have the decency to feel embarassed if you weren’t just so damn exhausted all the time.

“I feel trapped, I guess. Like I’m frozen. I keep thinking maybe it’ll get better once the trials over. Once the whole legal aspect of it is over and put to bed, then maybe I’ll have some closure on the whole situation,” you mumble, “I just don’t know how to move forward. I don’t feel like I’ve moved forward. And I know it’s only been three months but I’ve only stayed at our apartment twice and I can’t bring myself to move any of his things and...”

She just waits. In that moment, you’re so grateful for her.

“I’m stuck here. I can’t change anything. I can’t bring myself to move any of his things. I’m paying rent on a place I don’t live in but I can’t move because how can I live somewhere he’s never been? I feel like I’m stuck. I can’t move out of the world he lived in but the world is moving on even without him. And I’m just...I’m just here, Garcia.”

She nods sympathetically, placing her hand on your arm, “Maybe it’ll help when the case is wrapped up. When you have that closure.”

“Yeah,” you agree, “Yeah. I hope so.”

“There’s something you’re not saying,” she says, gently, “And you don’t have to say it. But if you’re holding back because you feel guilty then you don’t have to feel guilty about anything you say to me, my darling.”

You start to well up then. The pressure in your chest is heavy, something akin to guilt. It slices into your chest, cut glass sitting between your ribs and slicing you open every time you breathe in. You’ve been thinking it a lot lately. Too much. It’s making you feel awful and you can’t decide if putting it out into the world verbally is going to be a release or make it feel too real.

Garcia waits patiently.

You decide to believe it’ll be the former, then whisper, “I wish I loved him less. I wish I’d loved him less so this wouldn’t hurt as much.”

And then the sobs come. The sobs that wrack your chest and sting your eyes and leave you looking like you’ve been on the receiving end of an upper cut. Because how could you? How could you possibly want to take back any of the love you had so willingly, freely, given to the person you loved most? What kind of person did it make you to want to take back the good memories: to wish that instead of having waffles on the couch that last Sunday, you’d had a fight about the library fine he’d gotten because of you? How could you want to switch the puzzle pieces to create a less idyllic picture of your life together, just so you wouldn’t feel so much loss when you looked at it?

She just rubs your back through it, knowing that no words can help but still saying the thing she thinks you need to hear most, “That doesn’t make you a bad person, sugar plum. That makes you human.”

***

4 months, 6 days, 14 hours.

Hotch calls you all into the briefing room.

“A few months ago a decision had to be made. Somebody had the potential to make an incredible breakthrough on a case that had been airtight for years. But it wasn’t possible for that individual to complete that work without cover. They needed to be officially gone,” Hotch’s voice booms but you swear you can hear a hesitation, “It wasn’t necessary at the time for you to have that information. Providing you with it would have compromised the safety of one of our agents, and the integrity of their investigation.”

You glance around the room, confused, noticing everyone is sharing the same bewildered look. Except Emily.

“I apologise completely for having to keep this from you, it was a decision that was not taken lately, and I did not have the final say. That being said, any discontent about this decision should be directed towards me,” he glances towards Emily, and she’s looking nervous now.

Hotch lets out a huff, somehow more tense than usual, “SSA Reid was not killed after the attack in Seattle. That was his cover, but he was investigating a case.”

He’s still talking but you can’t hear anything. SSA Reid was not killed. SSA Reid was not killed. You flip the sentence over a hundred times. And for the millionth time since SSA Reid was killed, you have no idea what you feel.

There’s uproar from everybody. Shouting. And then Hotch says something and everybody is looking at you, scanning you for a reaction and you have nothing. Nothing at all.

“Hi,” a voice from the doorway, nervous and shy, a voice you’ve only heard in dreams and voicemails and recordings from nights out that you must have watched hundreds of times by now, if they were tapes you would have worn them out long ago.

And you know you can’t face him. You can’t face any of them.

You look around the room, first at Hotch whose eyes flicker with what looks like remorse. Then, at Emily who just looks guilty as all hell. You don’t look at him. You can’t look at him.

The tension in the room is palpable but in your peripheral you see Garcia and J.J flock to the doorway, embracing him.

Rossi, is the one who comes to you, “____?”

You stare at him, completely blankly, “Yeah?”

“You need to speak to him. Need to hear him out.”

“Yeah,” you murmur, allowing him to help you to your feet. His reassuring hands on your shoulders turn you around and you meet his face. The face of the boyfriend you spent the last four months mourning while everybody watched you fall apart. And half of them knew.

So that’s what you feel. Anger.

“Glad you’re back,” you snipe, pushing past him, “Glad you’re alive.”

Everybody watches you go. A tense silence fills the room. Spencer clears his throat, after what feels like an eternity, muttering, “I-I’ll go after ... I’ll go and see if I can...”

It wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for, if he’s honest. Although he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been expecting.

“____ please, just let me talk to you, I’m sorry, please just let me have a chance to explain,” He manages to catch you at the elevator just in time, slipping through the gap with his lithe body, “Please. I need to explain. I need to apologise.”

“You can apologise as much as you want. You don’t deserve my forgiveness. You’ll never deserve my forgiveness.”

The venom in your tone leaves him floundering.

“___ please,” he’s begging, and you won’t look at him because you can hear the tears in his voice and he’s begging again, “Please, please look at me, please listen to me. You have to understand, you have to give me a chance to explain, please.”

You’ve never been this angry at him before. But you are now. It consumes you, you’ve never understood a crime of passion before and you’re not going to put your hands on him, of course, but fuck do you understand it now. How a person could just snap. The rage swells in you, screaming. Every muscle in your body is tense. It takes all you have to ball your hands into fists, digging your nails into your palm so hard you’re sure they break the skin. You’re furious. Furious at every single one of them.

“You lied to me,” you spit, “You lied to me and let me think you were dead. You and Hotch and Emily. I didn’t sleep in our bed for four months, Spencer. I’ve spent the past four months frozen, like, I couldn’t move forward without you. I didn’t start to move on. I've spent the last four months falling apart and trying to find a way to put myself back together without you, and then what, you just come back? You think we can just go back to normal? Spencer, I didn’t feel alive this past few months. I’ve been floating through, barely keeping it together. And for what? A case? That was important enough for you to do this to me?"

It’s true, you’ve spent the last four months feeling like you were the one who died. That you were united in being ghosts, except you were haunting all the places you used to go together, and he was just haunting your dreams. And he’d been alive. This. Whole. Time.

You storm out of the lift, lifting your head to look at him for only the second time in four months, “Please. Just leave me alone. You’ve done enough.”

He knows you aren’t wrong. Knows he doesn’t know if he could forgive you if the roles were reversed. Knows, more than anything, that he’s really fucked things up. You’ll never forgive him. That’s what you said, and right now, seeing anger like never before in your eyes, he has no reason whatsoever to doubt that isn’t completely true.

You don’t even make it to the parking lot before you feel your resolve melt into absolutely nothing. Anger descending into relief, hot tears cascading down your cheeks as the mantra starts again on a new loop in your head: SSA Reid was not killed.

[biisexualemma]

blood. klaus mikaelson

word count: 2159

warnings: mention of blood and tiny bit of swearing

requested: nope

plot: you and klaus butt heads until you.. don’t

a/n: this has been sitting around for ages, i wrote it months and months ago but i really like it and hopefully you do to! i have so many imagines already written (for everyone except oscar i’m afraid which is why the requests take so long) and waiting to be posted! so will probs be posting quite a bit for the time being. anyway, hope u enjoy!

masterlist

"oh," you stopped. your eyes followed from his head to his toes, you'd never seen so much blood. klaus stopped before he could bump into you. he wasn't expecting to see you before he'd cleaned himself up. his mouth opened as if he was going to say something, but nothing came out.

"hey," you mumbled, trying to ease any tension.

you hadn't seen klaus since you argued a couple hours ago. you were living with the mikaelson's while you were in town, you had known them for a pretty long time, they were always very accommodating whenever you needed it. you first met in mystic falls when you were young, and caught up with the salvatores. klaus had taken a liking to you, and you became fast friends despite his gruesome reputation.

but since he uprooted his family to new orleans, you didn't see him as much as you wanted to.

you'd been arguing about nothing. you'd be out late the night before with kol drinking, and you had an unfortunate encounter with another vampire. kol handled of course, but not before you received some bumps and bruises. but you were fine, you didn't think it was a big enough deal to tell klaus. but he did, apparently. he was pretty mad at you when you tried to argue it was none of his business whether you were safe or not. and klaus stormed out and you hadn't seen him since.

you knew klaus liked to let off a little steam, but he looked like he'd been up to much worse.

he didn't look so angry anymore, he looked tired.

"is—is that your blood?" your head tilted slightly. you almost wanted it to be his blood, because you certainly didn't want it to be anyone else's. you weren't scared of klaus, he'd never done anything to warrant you being scared of him. you'd heard stories, mainly from damon and stefan, but you never really paid attention. klaus was nice to you, so it didn't matter to you how he used to behave.

klaus glanced down at his hands, soaked in blood, along with his shirt and his neck and his face. "no," he gulped. "this happens to be the blood of your enemies."

your furrowed your brows. "my enemies? i don't think i have any enemies."

"that man," klaus spoke again. "the one that tried to harm you just last night. he was a part of a bigger group, preying on drunk, human girls. i took care of them."

your mouth hung open slightly. klaus looked away, he couldn't bear another argument with you about his murderous tendencies or his uncontrollable temper. he was sick of you looking at him like that, like he had two heads.

"oh," you were confused. klaus was mad at you the last time you saw him, and now he comes home telling you he's taken care of your enemies. "uh— i guess they deserved what they got."

klaus nodded. "if you don't mind, love, i'm going to clean myself up," he motioned to move past you, and you stepped out of his way, your mind was all over the place.

"wait," you grabbed his hand before he walked away. you quickly pulled away when he turned around, noticing the blood transferred now onto your fingers. you always hated the smell of blood. you pushed the thought aside. "are you still mad at me?"

he furrowed his brows. "no," he shook his head. "it wasn't your fault. those men were pigs."

you nodded, recalling what had occurred with the man the night before. you'd only lost kol for a split second. "right," you felt a twinge where the cut on your temple lay, your mind wandered. klaus noticed your lack of concentration.

"i was mad at myself," he admitted. his eyes were locked on you, boring into you. "i try to keep you safe. and you got hurt."

you shook your head, adjusting your attention to klaus's face again. "you weren't to know," you shrugged. you noticed klaus's eyes drifting from your eyes, to the cut on your forehead. you lifted your hand and touched the sore, scrunching up your nose a little. "it's not even that bad," you shrugged. klaus wasn't comforted by any of this though. "kol found me before things got too messed up."

"my stupid little brother should never have left your side," klaus snapped.

"klaus, come on," you pleaded. you couldn't get into this with him again. you couldn't handle him when he was angry, he was unreasonable. "if it wasn't for your stupid little brother i'd probably be dead in an alleyway somewhere—"

"enough," he stopped you.

"i'm just saying," you sighed, getting nowhere once again with klaus. he was so stubborn and angry all the time. "maybe you should just go take a shower."

his jaw clenched, taking one last look at you before turning away again and heading to take a shower as you suggested.

—

you knocked gently. "hey," pushing the door open that led to his bedroom, you saw him sat in his armchair, a drink in his hand. "sorry to interrupt."

he shook his head. "you're not," he gulped what was left in his glass, before standing to meet you at his door. "what?" he frowned when you looked down at your feet. "what's wrong?"

"nothing," you shook your head quickly after hearing the urgency in his voice. you ran your fingers through your hair, pulling at the ends like you did when you were uncomfortable. "i just wanted to apologise."

"apologise?" he repeated. "to me?"

"yes— obviously to you," your eyes met with his. he looked calmer than he had done in a while. you sighed. "i was being rude earlier, and i never thanked you for looking out for me."

klaus glanced away for a second. "you don't need to explain yourself to me."

"i know. but still," you shrugged. "i'm sorry."

he paused before he answered again. "don't be. we both spoke without thinking."

you nodded. you wanted to tell him. you weren't sure whether it was the way he was looking at you, or how he'd behaved in the past twenty four hours, or if it was just you overthinking again. you opened your mouth to speak but thought against it. you didn't want to open a can of worms. if klaus wanted to cross that bridge with you, you were sure he would've done it already.

"ok," you mumbled instead of what you really wanted to say. you took a step back. "i'm gonna go now."

"you sure?" klaus wore a slight smile. he always knew when you were holding your tongue. but this time, it was better for the both of you if you held your tongue. "you sure you don't want to confess your undying love for me while we're at it?" he was joking, but it still caught you off guard. clearly your face showed it. "kidding, love."

you let out a strained bout of laughter, taking a couple steps further back so you could leave his room. "good one," was all you could think of to say. "see ya'," you turned to leave quickly before this got any more uncomfortable, but when you did, klaus was standing in front of you again. startled, you hit his chest. "i hate it when you speed around like that."

"what just happened?" he queried, his eyebrows furrowed with a small confused smile on his lips. you tried to walk around him but he stopped you. his hand touched your waist and you pulled away. he frowned.

"i don't wanna talk about it right now," you admitted.

"wait," he pleaded, standing in your way when you tried to move around him again. he really didn't understand half the things you did. he wanted you to be able to talk to him. "is this because of that joke?"

"leave it alone, klaus," you huffed.

of course you had feelings for him. it was impossible not to. but he definitely didn't need to know about it. you two were good as friends, and if he'd ever felt the same way towards you he surely would've said something before now. so there was no need to get into it with him. it would only mess things up.

"what? did you actually want to confess your undying love for me? it was a joke, love," he let out a short laugh, confused by the way you were acting so suddenly towards him. then the thought occurred to him. "oh."

"yeah," you looked away from him for a second, sighing when he backed up. he hadn't expected this from you. you knew he would react like this, which is exactly why you hadn't planned on telling him.

"oh," he repeated.

"hey," you frowned, shaking your head. "don't worry about it. i know you're a loner type and i also know you don't feel that way about me. so, don't worry," it killed you to say it but you knew it was true. you told yourself the same thing every time you felt yourself feel things for him. it was your way of talking yourself out of it. though it hadn't worked so far.

"wait— i—" it was the first time you'd actually seen klaus speechless. he really had no clue. "you fancy me?" he let out a choked laugh.

"alright," you scoffed. "no need to be mean about it," you really couldn't see what he was thinking. he looked like a mixture of emotions.

"no," he shook his head. "i always thought you indifferent," he wore a teasing smile on his lips now, one you'd seen many times before. "i always thought you had a thing for my little brother."

"kol?" you frowned, letting out a small laugh. "ew, no."

"interesting," he was trying to process it. you continued to wear a frown, you didn't know where he was going with any of this.

"i'm gonna go before you make fun of me anymore," you moved around him, but he grabbed your wrist before you got far. you groaned. "klaus, what? you've had your fun with it, but it's really just mean to tease me about it."

he shook his head with that same small smile. "i've always fancied you, love.”

your face softened, klaus melted watching you react to his words. your hands fell to your side. "don't tease me."

"i promise you, i'm not."

"what?" you stated, rather than questioning. you shook your head. it was your turn to be stunned now. you never expected this from him. you dreamt of him feeling this same, but you'd always convinced yourself he never would. "i never thought you'd feel the same. klaus, your the most self-isolating person i've ever met. you could've hinted something to me so i'd know."

"sorry," he snorted. "i thought murdering a group of men for bothering you was hint enough."

you opened your mouth but closed it again quickly. "yeah," you nodded. "i guess you're right. i just didn't see it."

"are we all up to speed now?" he checked. you smiled softly, nodding.

"i guess so," you didn't know how to act now.

"good. can i kiss you now?" you nodded, freezing once klaus wasted no time in stepping closer to you. his hands cupped your face, his lips pressing to yours. you gasped softly, your hands moving to his shirt, you fisted the material and pulled him closer to you, deepening the kiss. he backed you up until you hit a wall, his hands moving to either side of your head. you moaned softly, your hands moving to his shoulders, gripping them tight to hold yourself up.

finally you pulled away to catch a breath, klaus moving his lips to your neck, where he peppered you with kisses. your chest was moving up and down pretty fast, the smile on your face growing.

you ran your fingers through his hair. "i wish i'd slipped up sooner, holy shit," you laughed, his face moving back up to yours and kissing your lips once more sweetly.

he hummed contently, a smirk on his lips. you took him all in. "i could get used to this."

"you," his hands slipped onto your waist, pinning you against the wall. "are beautiful," his fingers slipping under your shirt, running across your skin. "i don't think i've met anyone who puts up with me quite like you do."

you laughed, rolling your eyes. "yeah, you're kind of a handful," he squeezed your sides, causing you to squeal. he laughed, enjoying this side of you so much more already.

"watch it," he teased.

"kidding," you muttered, you leaned forward slightly, your lips almost touching his. "i wouldn't have you any other way."

klaus was in disbelief that someone could be so perfect. you knew him inside and out and you were still completely here for him. he loved you for it.

[unrepentantcheeseaddict]

Have a short story :)

I'm not sure yet whether I want to expand this into a full book or leave it as is. Lmk if it's your jam!

TW for a bit of gore and a panic attack.

The Banshee

Never sail out to the Old Fortress. That’s the number one rule whenever I go stay with my Aunt Robin in England. I’ve always been able to resist the temptation before.

But not now, not after I’ve just been sent to live with her permanently, with the police officer’s words still throbbing through my head, “I don’t think your parents are coming back.”

Not now that I can’t keep my mind from making a beeline back to the last day I saw them.

Not now, when I have to keep my hands and body busy every single second, so I don’t have time to process what’s happened and I can’t have an anxiety attack.

I have to do something. I can’t just sit around in my warmly lit new bedroom. I’ll fall apart before I ever fall asleep. I growl in frustration, setting my phone down, and start to pack.

Knives, climbing gear, energy bars. A fully stocked first aid kit. A compass, a flashlight, a backup flashlight. Extra clothes in case I get soaking wet. Chemical-activated hot packs, since you can’t do much with frozen fingers. I debate whether to bring the phone, but decide against it. I don’t need it when I’m away from civilization, which is where I’d rather be half the time.

I yank on my toughest clothes: layered T-shirts, jeans with rain pants over the top, woolly socks and a matching sweater and hat. And a good coat, obviously. It’s before dawn in British winter.

Tiptoeing out into the hall with my backpack slung over one shoulder, I pause to let my eyes adjust to the darkness before heading downstairs. It’s more dim than actually dark, because the sun’s starting to rise and Aunt Robin is staunchly anti-curtains. I turn a corner into the kitchen and very quietly fix myself a big thermos of hot chai. Being British, and also the best cook I know, Aunt Robin is a tea snob. I've been spoiled by the good tea at her house for years now. I scribble a note onto a scrap of paper.

Couldn’t sleep, went sailing. I’ll be back for breakfast, don’t kill me.

She won’t be exactly happy, but she won’t ground me either. She never does. Well, she might if she knew where I’m planning to go. But what Aunt Robin doesn’t know won’t hurt her. I weight the note down to the dining table with one of the little stone statues she collects.

I’ve never noticed this particular one before, actually. It’s a slender, elegant cat, carved out of white rock. Out of habit, I try to identify the type of stone like my dad taught me, and catch myself just in time as my eyes start to sting.

“No.” I snap out loud. “Bad Jay. Don’t think about it.”

I shake thoughts of my parents out of my head, tamping them down until there’s nothing left on the surface to make me scream. Then I head to the front door and tug on my boots, stepping outside. The cold sea wind hits me like a solid thing and I gasp a little, my breath steaming in the frigid air.

Aunt Robin’s house is a good few miles from any town, right up on some cliffs that drop down to a scrappy little pebble beach. I hike along the edge of those cliffs, admiring the sunrise on my landward side and the dark, heaving Atlantic Ocean on the other. Finally, I get to what I like to call the Staircase of Doom.

Honestly, the term “staircase” is stretching it a bit. It’s more like a steeply sloped trail with the occasional stairstep, carved right out of the cliffs and zigzagging down. There are rickety driftwood railings near the top, but as you get further down, those disappear. There’s nothing to help you keep your balance, nothing to stop you from stepping off the edge into the gloom below and breaking your neck on the rocks.

In short, it’s perfect.

I head down, and I’m about halfway when I see the cat following me. It looks a lot like Aunt Robin’s cat statue. Lean, huge for a housecat, pure white and just about dripping with arrogance. It saunters around my moving feet and plops down directly in front of me. The path is narrow enough here that I can’t just walk around it. I stop, hands on hips.

“Excuse me.”

The cat cocks its head at me. Blinks a pair of startlingly blue eyes. Then settles down and starts licking its butt. A boy cat, I notice.

“You, sir, are a jerk.” I inform him. “Move or I’ll move you.”

He doesn’t even look up. Typical cat. I sigh and scoop him up, wincing as his claws dig into my shoulders.

“Chill, bud, it’s just for a minute.”

I walk until the trail widens, then put the cat down. He gives me a glare, then walks off ahead of me, tail at a jaunty angle as if to say “Just because I let you hold me, doesn’t mean I like you.”

I break into a run as the trail peters out onto the pebbled beach. The cat follows. The sun is mostly up now, and I can see the little dock where my sailboat, the Guinevere, is tied up. She’s bobbing on her moorings as the tide comes in. The rocks shift and scrape under my feet as I head over. I toss my backpack into the boat, then jump in myself. I’m about to untie her when the cat jumps into the boat.

I raise an eyebrow. “I think you’re going to regret this decision in a minute once you start getting wet.”

He heads belowdecks and curls up on the little padded bench that I store things under. I shrug. “Okay, Your Majesty. But I’m not turning around.”

I cast off the ropes and start the motor. I could probably make it to Old Fortress Island on wind power alone, but I don’t want to deal with it while I’m sleepy and distracted. I keep a steady hand on the tiller and steer us through the waves. Cold sea spray gets in my face. I stick my tongue out and catch some, immediately regretting it as the briny, fishy taste fills my mouth. I really should know better than to do that by now. But it’s me, so of course I don’t.

Soon enough, I see the island, looming up out of the mist like some fossilized giant beast. The Old Fortress isn’t visible yet, but it will be soon. I give a little involuntary shiver. Nobody who isn’t from around here knows about the place, it isn’t even on most maps. Some people say it’s from the Dark Ages, some say it’s earlier. A lot of people say it’s cursed. All we know for sure is that anyone who goes there doesn’t come back quite the same. In my opinion, that’s probably because they were high or drunk at the time. I have nothing to worry about. I’m sane, I’m sober, and I know how to handle myself.

At least, that’s what I tell myself as I toss my anchor into the water and hop out. The bitter cold seeps into my shoes as I slosh through the weedy shallows and tie the boat’s ropes to a nearby boulder. I climb back aboard, grab my backpack, and turn to the cat. “You coming?”

In one smooth motion, he jumps into my arms. I snort.

“Don’t want to get your feet wet, huh?”

I walk along the beach searching for a usable path up the cliffs. Eventually, I settle for one that looks the least like it’s going to kill me, stuff the protesting cat into my backpack and start climbing. When I reach the top, I’m greeted by a breathtaking view. I pause for a moment, taking in the pale blue-gray sky and a few soft, peachy clouds, the last remnants of the earlier sunrise. I can see for miles now that I’m higher and the fog is starting to burn off.

There’s the house on the cliffs. The lights are on now, which means Aunt Robin is up and ought to have found my note. I’d better hurry if I want to see much of this place before breakfast. Mentally composing a good excuse for later, I wrestle the cat out of my backpack and plunk him down on the scrubby wet grass and heather. He gives me a look of such betrayal that I can’t help but giggle.

“What, did you think I was gonna cart you around the whole time?”

I unwrap one of the energy bars I packed and eat as I walk, heading into a small stand of wind-gnarled trees. It’s eerily quiet up here except for the distant crash of waves. No calls of seabirds, no little skittery things rustling in the undergrowth. Just my own footsteps as I shuffle through a pile of rotten leaves and the cat’s occasional dissatisfied murp.

And that’s when I finally see it.

The Old Fortress is even more of a ruin that I expected. The stones that form the enormous outer wall are falling out of place as their mortar rots away, revealing the dirt and rubble at the walls’ center. The ones that are still standing are a few feet above my head at their highest point. They’re also covered in fungus, bird poop, and moss. I walk around the perimeter, looking for a way in. Soon enough, I find a spot where I can clamber over the lowest bit of wall. The cat follows me. Hold it. Are his eyes . . . glowing?

“Are you magic or something?” I joke.

I lean in closer, and he looks up at me, all innocent like he has no idea what I’m talking about. Yeah, his eyes are definitely glowing, and not in the normal cat-in-the-dark way. More like there’s shifting, flickering fire inside them, only it’s bright sapphire blue. Well, it’s not like he’s actually magic. That’s impossible.

I shrug. “If you’re bioluminescent, that’s your problem not mine, bud.”

I turn away and keep walking. Inside the walls, things are in even worse shape. In most places, there’s barely a single stone on top of another. I can clearly see that things were well-laid-out here, though. The walls, what’s left of them, are ruler-straight, and the cobblestones are still mostly there, even though there’s weeds climbing up between them. I pick up a piece of worn red pottery. It looks like part of a roof tile or something.

“I wonder if this place is Roman.” I mutter.

I’ve binge-watched enough Time Team with Aunt Robin to know a fair bit about British archaeology and history. The Old Fortress seems to check out with what I’ve learned about Romano-British architecture.

“What you see now is Roman.”

I scream and jump. There’s a boy standing next to me. Like, right next to me. How did he get so close without me noticing? I glare at him.

“Okay, creep, what the Hell are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “Same as you. Getting away from my regular life.”

He’s got a bit of a Scottish accent, not unusual considering how close we are to the border. He’s also the picture of handsome insolence, with dark messy hair and a smirk that could be either playful or taunting, depending on the angle. The cat, like the traitor he is, rubs up against the boy’s legs, purring like a chainsaw.

“I didn’t see another boat.”

“I came from a different direction.” He says.

“Kay. Well, feel free to go back that direction and quit stalking me.”

“I’m hurt.” The boy says overdramatically. “So hurt. I was not stalking you, merely trying to make your acquaintance!”

I snort. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for goofy people, always have been. The boy smiles. Not a smirk, just a regular smile this time.

“See, I’m not that bad. My name’s Brendan, by the way.”

“Okay, fine.” I relent. “I’m Jay. How do you know it’s Roman?”

“Dad’s an archaeologist. I picked up a lot from him. But this site’s a lot older than just Roman. There’s activity here going back to prehistoric times. It’s always been an important place.”

“You should give tours.” I joke.

He shakes his head. “It’s not safe for most people to come here.” Brendan pauses. “Come to think of it, why are you here? And why are you using Robin’s boat?”

“You know my Aunt?” I blurt out. “Don’t tell her I was here. Please? She’ll ground me.”

“Well that answers that question.” Brendan says with a chuckle. “She mentioned she had family in America. I didn’t know you were staying with her currently, though.”

“Well, I am.” I say flatly.

I really, really don’t want him asking more questions about why I’m here right now. I don’t want to be fighting that knot in my throat for the rest of the day. So in time-honored awkward-person fashion, I try to change the subject. Brendan beats me to it. “That cat, is he yours?”

“Nah. I think he’s a stray. He’s been following me since I came down to the boat.”

We chat a bit longer as we walk. I learn that Brendan has two older sisters who are away at college right now, and his Mom is a curator working at a big museum in Glasgow, where they live most of the time. He’s never been to America and is pretty curious. I’m right in the thick of explaining how Halloween works, because boy is this kid missing out, when the cat starts hissing and arching his back.

In unison, we look at the direction he’s facing. There’s nothing there but an old stone circle. Brendan sighs. “This is where you should leave.”

“No.”

He laughs nervously. “Thought you’d say that.”

“Are you gonna explain to me why the cat is freaking out? Or how you know my Aunt Robin? Or why this stone circle is supposedly dangerous?”

Brendan gives the circle a wary look. The morning shadows seem to be darker around the stones.

“In a minute, yes. For now, do you have anything we can use to make fire?”

I nod, already digging around in my backpack for the little lighter I carry. He frowns. “That’s it?”

“Sorry, I left my flamethrower at home.” I snap.

Fear of the unknown is making me tense and jittery. It always does. My anxiety disorder is stupid like that. If I’m ever in a situation where I don’t have all the info, my ridiculous brain starts filling in the blanks with everything that could conceivably go wrong. It’s happening now.

I dig my fingernails into my palms, trying to breathe deeply, trying to tell myself that I’m going to be okay. It doesn’t work. I start shaking, and my fear must show on my face. What’s worse is that Brendan doesn’t try to reassure me. He looks just as terrified as I feel. That means I might have good reason to be scared. My brain latches onto this thought with vicious claws and runs with it.

I draw my largest pocketknife and flip it open, pointing it at the stones. “Brendan. I need to know what’s happening, or I’m going to have a panic attack. Now, please.”

He blinks in shock, then nods. “Okay. The long version is too long for right now, so I’m sorry. Magic is real, monsters come to this island sometimes, and I think one is trying to break through and eat us. Having a panic attack right now is perfectly natural, although it would be more helpful if you could avoid it.”

I glare at him. “Now you tell me?!”

“I thought you already knew!”

We’re interrupted by a long, low wail. It’s coming from a ragged gray shape that’s just appeared in the middle of the stone circle. It turns, and I can see it’s an emaciated, deathly-pale woman. She’s dressed in old-fashioned clothes faded away to threadbare scraps. Her stringy white hair and the skin of her hands is flecked with what looks like dried blood. The freakiest part, though, is her face. Her wrinkled skin is stretched tight over her skull, making her look like an Egyptian mummy with a better nose. Her mouth is wide open revealing toothless gums, and it seems to be stuck that way. And the creepiest thing? She’s crying. The front of her dress is nearly soaked with tears, and her hollow chest convulses with the raspy, wailing sobs.

Brendan curses. “Banshee. Got any earplugs?”

“Earbuds, two pairs.” I toss him my spare pair. “Here. Hope you don’t mind my earwax.”

“It’s preferable to being dead, at least.” He says, putting them in.

I follow suit and scoop up the hissing cat. He flails and scratches until I put him back down.

“Ungrateful little bastard.” I mutter.

The banshee hears me and starts stumbling in our direction. I shudder just watching her. The way she moves reminds me of a zombie from some cheesy old horror movie. Only, I usually think those zombies are ridiculous. There’s nothing funny about the figure shambling towards us now.

I can’t hear her properly through the earbuds, but judging by the little scraps I can hear, that’s a good thing. Her crying is rising in pitch to something like an ambulance siren. Brendan draws a knife of his own. It’s a full-blown medieval dagger, the big kind I’m pretty sure is called a dirk.

“Are we fighting it?!” I holler.

“No choice!” Brendan yells back.

“Great.” I grumble.

And then we don’t have time to talk more, because she’s right there. Weirdly, she takes a lunge at the cat first. He jumps up on his hind legs and seems to grow, white fur glowing, until he’s the size of a panther. One claw swipe and her crying turns to a painfully high shriek as she’s thrown to one side, landing in the heather near my feet. The banshee picks herself up faster than I can get away and digs ragged nails into my arm. I yell in pain and yank away, but that withered hand is way stronger than it looks. She grabs my neck with the other one. I stab her.

By some miracle, my knife actually hits, sinking into one of her eyes. A mix of blood and weird gray goo spurts out. She screams again, and I’m pretty sure one of my eardrums just burst, but her grip loosens enough that I can pull away and stab her again. I miss this time, but she’s already hurt.

The banshee stumbles, then stumbles again, backwards into Brendan. He grabs her hair and drags his knife across her throat. Finally it’s over. We’re both covered in blood and other, less pleasant stuff, and my arm feels like it’s on fire, but we’re alive.

The cat, back to his normal size now, walks over. He’s got a little blood dripping from a scratch on one ear, stark against his white fur. After a minute, he yacks up a big, gross hairball onto the dead banshee.

“You and me both.” I say as a wave of nausea hits me.

Brendan pulls his earbuds out. I do the same.

“This is why you should have left.” He says softly.

“I’m fine.” I snap.

“No, you’re not. You’re shaking, you’re white as a sheet, and your eyes look like they’ll pop out any minute.”

He comes over and looks at my arm. “Take your coat off, we need to clean this. Cat, you too.”

Surprisingly, the cat walks right over to him. Suddenly, the full implications of everything that’s just happened hit me. I start shaking harder, heart pounding so hard it hurts, and the nausea comes back at full force as I curl up, trying to wipe what I’ve just done from my memory.

Brendan pulls me into a hug. Normally I’d punch a stranger if they hugged me without permission, but right now the contact is exactly what I need to ground me in reality. I lean on his shoulder, trying to get myself under control.

“First kill is usually the hardest.” Brendan says. “I’m really sorry that happened how it did. But we do need to tell your Aunt Robin. She’s the one in charge of protecting this area from monsters, I just work for her. A banshee’s the most powerful thing that’s shown up here in years.”

I nod. “Yeah. Being grounded is better than being dead, I guess.”

“You guess?” He teases. “You need to work out your priorities, Jay.”

I swat at him. I can hardly believe I’ve just met this boy today. It feels like we’ve known each other for much longer. I guess fighting monsters together is a good bonding experience.

I take my coat off and roll up my shirt sleeve, biting my lip to keep quiet as Brendan cleans and bandages the jagged scratches. Then we pack up and head back down to the beach, get in the boat, and set off for the mainland. Aunt Robin has some serious explaining to do. Also, I’m starving. I can almost smell the full English Breakfast.

[retrievablememories]

tokyo 2112 | baekhyun (m)

title: tokyo 2112 pairing: rich guy!baekhyun x reader genre: sci-fi/cyberpunk au, enemies to lovers, angst, non-explicit smut request: “hi, how are you? 💕 could i request some cyberpunk x baekhyun fic? i have in mind Tokyo, neon lights and explosive lovers. please feel free to choose the amount you want to write or you can. and thanks! ✨” word count: 12.8k warnings: body modifications/prosthetics, attempted robbery, physical violence (not between bh x reader, though reader does think about fighting him 💀), blood, non-graphic wounds, mentions of sex/one non-explicit sex scene, mentions of a car accident, frequent alcohol use/unhealthy reliance on alcohol, smoking, mentions of classism/poverty, mentions of experimentation, surgery is performed on the reader but not described, one mention of being weighed on a scale-like device a/n: this is my first real, lengthy attempt at enemies2lovers (or maybe just the genre “reader’s an a-hole who makes a lot of assumptions”) because i’m a clown and like to challenge myself for no reason...and this is why i don’t fool with this particular romance genre 💀 feedback is appreciated, this fic is just a whole lot of me experimentally punching above my weight and i’m a bit undecided on my feelings about it

also, i imagined the reader’s arm with a similar structure to the winter soldier’s, for reference

Tokyo, year 2112

You meet him in a Lower Tokyo club, the neon lights bleeding into each other and creating a deep, vivid landscape. It’s an unnaturally pretty scene—unnatural like everyone and everything else inside this club.

There’s a look of subdued wonder on his face, which makes you roll your eyes. He’s all made up and way too pretty to be in this dingy club with his gaudy piercings and expensive rings. Still, he enters the building in all his affluent glory, standing out against the crowd of gritty and cobbled-together androids and half-humans.

He’s a rich man’s son and an even richer man’s grandson. He’s known for being attractive, intelligent, and ridiculously rich—and that’s about all you know of the man himself. Him and his family have been excellent at keeping their personal lives air-tight, only ever letting the public know what they want everyone to know. But ultimately, they are only human. You know they cannot be as perfect as they try to maintain, and you can only imagine the unsavory things in their family history that go much deeper than anyone could ever think up.

“Do you think he wears all that to make up for the lack of enhancements?” Your friend Valor asks. He’s gesturing specifically to the man’s lip piercing and the chains hanging off of it, attached to the collar of his shirt. It’s a little strange, but it’s a signature look for him, and certainly not one of the weirder things in here.

“I’d like to rip it right out,” you reply in lieu of an actual answer to Valor’s question.

The man appears misplaced—like a researcher conducting a study of alien beings rather than a regular club goer—though he doesn’t seem to mind this. He just observes everything around him.

Valor chuckles and shakes his head at the display, throwing back another shot. “Weird.”

“Hm. Come on.” You steer Valor in the other direction, looking to get away from the man before he can get near your area of the club. Though this is your first time being in such close quarters with Byun Baekhyun despite his popularity across Tokyo, you’d like to cut things short if at all possible.

Another hour passes, and the drinks keep flowing. Your mind has gotten pleasantly hazy by now, almost enough to make you forget about the trespasser in your club scene. Almost.

You, Valor, and three other familiar faces sit at a small table near the back of the club. One of the guys is recounting some run-in he had the other week with the Droid Commission, though you can barely hear over the music that’s only getting louder, so you just nod and pretend to understand. However, he suddenly falters in his tale and his eyes dart up to a spot above your head. Turning back, you see that he is standing just over your shoulder. Without thinking, you recoil.

Baekhyun slides from behind you and comes to stand in front of you all now, a strangely convivial smile on his face. He acts like he’s merely visiting you all at brunch instead of standing in a club in the roughest part of the city.

“Exquisite work here,” he says, though his words drown in all the noise. None of you know what he’s saying, or who he’s saying it to. Noticing the acute confusion, Baekhyun lowers himself to your level, his scent passing across your nose as he does. Some robust and fancy cologne you don’t know the name of. Your eyebrows furrow at his proximity, and your blood rushes; maybe out of anger, or maybe just from being drunk. Then he touches your left shoulder, right where the metal of your arm connects to your living flesh.

Yeah, definitely anger.

“I said, this work is exquisite. Quite fascinating, really. Who made it?” Baekhyun has to get fairly close to your ear for you to hear him above the commotion, and you can feel the heat of his mouth next to your skin. His eyes travel the length of your arm, which is fully exposed in your tank top. His voice is irritatingly smooth, and the chains of his lip ring lightly brush your shoulder when he pulls back after he finishes speaking. Though your arm may be made of metal, it still has artificial sensory “nerves” running through it that connect it to the rest of your nervous system—and right now, they are screaming from that slight touch.

Maybe you really are just too damn drunk.

You look into Baekhyun’s dark eyes, which are imploring, coy, and playful all at once. The others at your table watch this interaction as if suspended in time, probably trying to process the sheer nerve of this dude.

“Fuck off,” you blurt out, and brush him off your shoulder with your flesh hand.

He remains unoffended; he even looks entertained by your blunt rejection.

The man who was previously telling his story speaks up. “You heard her. Fuck off, pretty boy.”

Baekhyun straightens up and nods, then reaches into his jacket. Two of the men leap to their feet, thinking he’s about to pull out a weapon—which would not be the first or last occurrence in this club—but he only brings out a business card, tucked between two of his fingers.

“Ever vigilant, aren’t you?” Baekhyun says, laying the card on the small tabletop. Then he directs his next sentence to you. “If you decide you feel like telling me more...get in touch.”

Then he disappears back into the mass of moving bodies just as quickly as he came. You flex the fingers on your metal hand, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

Both men at your table sit back down, although they’re still a bit disgruntled. Valor picks up the card to inspect it. “You gonna call that weirdo?”

“Please. You know me better than that by now.” You pluck the card from his hand and rip it up without a second thought. However, it takes a little longer to forget about the heated imprint of Baekhyun’s fingers on your shoulder, or his whispering voice fluttering against your eardrum.

Getting the arm was merely an act of survival, the way you saw it.

Money was low and jobs were scarce—ones that weren’t dangerous, straight-up unappealing, or low pay. There had been a scientific research trial for a new cybernetics program, and it paid much better than many other opportunities around—enough to live on for at least a year, give or take, especially with the cheaper cost of living in your area. You’d been terrified about giving up a part of your body, thinking your body might reject the foreign technology and kill you for the offense, but your desperation outweighed the fear.

Thankfully, it worked.

That was nearly two years ago, though, and the trial was long over. Even with you spending as frugally as you possibly could, the money was close to running out.

Odd jobs here and there help you out some, but they are few and far between and don’t pay nearly enough to make a living on.

You’re getting increasingly anxious about the lack of options and dwindling money, though you also spend half of your time getting drunk, hitting up the club, and simply trying not to acknowledge your crumbling life. If worst comes to worst, you can always think about finding another research trial and exchanging another body part. Maybe. These cybernetics programs often crop up more in Osaka, which would require you to leave the city, but maybe you could get another gig and scrape up enough money for travel...

For now, however, you are back at the club’s familiar bar and making small talk with the bartender, who’s an android without a real name or identity. Everyone just knows it as T-4000, though it appears to be fine with its little niche in the world. Sometimes it teases you about your arm and wonders when you will make a complete transformation into a “metalhead” like itself. Though you cringe, the company is better than nothing when the others aren’t around, so you allow the jokes.

Alone at the bar, you’re too preoccupied with staring into your drink to register the body sliding onto the bar stool next to yours until you hear The Voice flowing out again.

“One Blue Lagoon, please.”

Oh, fuck. You put your head in one hand and angle your body away from his in hopes that he doesn’t notice it’s you. But just as your fortune turns out, he happens to be facing your metal arm.

“Oh, it’s you again.” Baekhyun sounds pleased to see you, like this is some great unexpected coincidence, though you know that’s not likely true. You lift your drink to your mouth and pretend you don’t hear him, though that doesn’t deter him. “I never did hear back from you. How sad.”

“I have no desire to talk to you or anyone like you,” you say, still with your head turned.

“Anyone like me?” He chuckles.

“You don’t belong here, in case you didn't notice.”

“By whose definition?”

“Everyone’s,” you retort. T-4000 comes back with Baekhyun’s drink, and it gives you a look of bright amusement and curiosity with its digital-screen face as it rolls away to help another customer.

“I don’t concern myself with ‘everyone’s’ opinions,” Baekhyun replies, drinking from his glass. “Just the ones who matter.”

“Right, like your rich friends,” you scoff. “Why the hell are you even here?” You turn to him then, though looking at him feels like a mistake—like staring into a solar eclipse. He’s still wearing his chains, like always, and his eyes are smoked out with dark shades of eyeliner. The makeup makes him look eternally tired, but in some high-fashion model way.

“Because I don’t like being around my so-called ‘rich friends’ any more than you would.” Baekhyun smirks.

“So sorry.” You roll your eyes. “Maybe you should become a hermit, then.”

“You seem to be doing a good job of that right now. Where’s your friends from last time?” He looks around as if they’ll materialize.

“None of your business.”

Baekhyun leans on the bar counter, placing his arms on top of it, and his cologne hits you again. You try to hold your breath against the scent, though you can almost taste it in the back of your mouth. Shaking your head, you peer directly into his eyes now, which are as exceedingly curious as the last time. They’re still inky dark under this lighting, reminding you of black holes that absorb all light and life.

“Is it bad for me to want to know more about your arm?”

“Like I just said, it’s frankly none of your business.” You cast a forlorn glance at your drink, which has gotten dangerously low.

“Fair enough.” He sips again. “Now. What if I want to know about you?”

The back of your neck flares with heat, though you can’t fathom why. “You must be truly bored if that’s what you came here for. Unfortunately, you aren’t as interesting as you seem to think you are.”

“You injure me.” But you both know he’s not hurt at all by anything you can think of to say to him. “But this isn’t about me—it’s about you.”

“What about me? How you want to steal my arm and use it for scrap metal, maybe? Or to build yourself a body mod, even? You really stand out in here being the only one who’s not partway made of tin or some shit, and it makes people distrust you. You can figure that out, right?”

“You make a lot of assumptions.” Baekhyun swirls his drink around in his glass, the blue liquid swishing around the sides. “Let me make some, then. You seem like a mysterious, closed-off, and perpetually discontented person. And despite what you might think, it’s not my first time seeing you around. I guess I can’t interest you in entertaining my presence just for company’s sake?”

You pause, wondering where Baekhyun could have possibly spotted you. You don’t hang out in any of the places someone of his standing would usually be seen in. But then again, does he even frequent those areas of Upper Tokyo? He’s always spending his time mingling in Lower Tokyo’s notable haunts instead. “...Are you some kind of peeping tom or something equally pathetic?”

T-4000 perks up at that, even from its distance on the other side of the bar, and it scoots a little closer as if it’ll need to call the Droid Commission in another minute. Which, in actuality, is a terrible idea—calling on one of the city’s many vigilantes would have a more effective outcome, if need be, but sending them for Baekhyun of all people might land you all in prison.

“Tokyo is big,” Baekhyun deadpans, like it’s something even a baby would know. “You can see anyone anywhere.” Then his voice melts back into its normal suave tone. “I’ve noticed you in passing, once or twice. Your arm is something special, but it’s hard to forget a person like you.”

Despite yourself, you don’t totally hate the comment. That alone makes you want to leave the club and not look back for at least the next month or so, knowing he’s probably said this to dozens of other people before. You stay in your seat, though, trying to see what easy line this man is going to throw out next.

“I wonder why I’ve never noticed you, then.”

“You seem to be too consumed with your own problems half the time, even though I don’t know what those are. The stress is written all over your face, though.”

Can never miss a chance to be insufferable, it seems.

“Okay Mr. Psychoanalyst.” You knock back the tiny bit of drink left in your glass and push it away from you. You shake your head at the android when it gestures for a refill.

“Not a psychoanalyst, you’re just achingly easy to decipher.” His tone is casual, like this isn’t meant to be an insult, though you take offense anyway.

“You’re not very good at whatever this is,” you say.

“What do you think this is? Flirting? Maybe you wouldn’t be wrong there.” He laughs.

“Yeah, well. Get some more practice and then maybe you can convince some other poor sap to get to know you better and sign over the rights to their cybernetics, but I won’t be falling for it.”

“I guess that means I’ll just have to try harder, then.” And then he finishes his drink, too. “Not the stealing your arm bit, but the getting to know you part.” He pauses for another moment, and then says, “It’s easy to become enamored with this place.” He waves his hand around at the club’s surroundings. “Expect to see me around more often. I think I’ve already taken a liking to you.”

Baekhyun tips his empty glass to you and gets up from his stool. His cologne swirls around you as he leaves, not overpowering, but enough to make its mark on your olfactory memories. You don’t look back to see where he walks off to, too busy trying to ignore the small headache building behind your eyes and your elevated heart rate.

He’s already taken a liking to you. Why would a ridiculous comment like that even get to you?

God. You really need to get laid.

So, you do just that.

Not with Baekhyun, but with someone from the club whose name you don’t even remember before it’s even over. It was painfully uneventful sex, and it did nothing to banish the man from your mind, which makes you feel even more irritated.

Walking back to your tiny apartment afterwards feels like a certified Walk of Shame even though it’s late at night and no one really cares to notice you. You spit on the sidewalk as if that could properly convey your disgust. You think of Osaka again—and what the fuck are you going to do to even get the money to get there?—and of the business card that you’d ripped up without remorse.

You shake your head, sending that thought back to the depths of your mind. Nevermind. That doesn’t matter. What could he possibly have for you, and why would you want it? Tucking your hands tighter in your pockets, you keep your head down and remain inconspicuous until you get back to the not-so-welcome sight of your own place.

You, Valor, and a few others sit around a makeshift bonfire at Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge—or what remains of it, anyway, with weeds and tall grass sprouting up in the space that was once its parking lot. For the past hour, this impromptu hangout been nothing but smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap alcohol and shooting the breeze. The nights are always much colder than the days, the chill biting into your skin and seeping into your clothes, but you try to ignore it and huddle closer to the fire. Maybe there is something, anything else you could be doing other than this, but you are just a bit too weak—and a little too lonely—to say no to the companionship. Even if it means listening to the uninteresting conversations of men who you barely know outside of the club or without a bottle of whiskey in their hands.

Your hangout session remains sleepy and boring for a while until someone makes a suggestion. One of them keeps going on about some steady, reliable work he’s supposedly found from a trusted friend, though he refuses to elaborate on what kind of work it is when asked. You make a sound of disgust and tune him out. Useless suggestions are as bad as none at all.

“Maybe we oughta rob that Baekhyun dude.”

You look up from the flames, fixing your eyes on the one who said it—a man called Lockjaw—and someone else chuckles in disbelief.

“You serious?” Valor asks.

Lockjaw sits forward in his ratty lawn chair, and with the way the light hits his face, it’s easier to see how his bottom jaw and teeth are completely metal. It makes you wince internally every time you see him, though you always feel kinda bad afterwards. That must’ve hurt exponentially worse than your own procedure. “Why the fuck not? He struts around Lower Tokyo like he has it all...and the bastard does. We sit and grovel for scraps, yet there’s a walking goldmine right in front of us.”

The idea of taking Baekhyun’s riches had never quite appealed to you or fully manifested in your mind. You didn’t want anything belonging to him, mostly because of your own disdain towards the man. However, the suggestion appears in sharp relief now, so obvious that it’s hard to believe no one else proposed it until now. You don’t immediately respond to this concept being thrown around, but something uneasy settles in your chest.

Valor sits back with a mildly disinterested look. “And you think someone like him doesn’t have major security hanging around waiting to incinerate someone with a ray gun if they tried it?”

“Do you ever see anyone hanging around him?”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not there. Somewhere.”

“Then we’ll be strapped up,” Lockjaw says, throwing his hands in the air. “And any of his little ‘security team’ who tries it will be blown into the stratosphere. That’s how we take care of that.” You shake your head only slightly, a movement not noticeable enough to be picked up by the others. You rub your tongue against the inside of your cheek, picturing all the ways this plan could go belly-up. To your irritation, Valor decides to drag you into the fold despite your efforts to stay out of the conversation.

“What do ya think, Y/N? Baekhyun’s been on your tail lately, maybe you could help lure him in.” That stirs up several murmurs and targeted stares in your direction.

“Yeah?” Lockjaw leans forward even more, his ass nearly slipping off the edge of the chair. “Think you can get in good with him?”

You shift uncomfortably in your seat. “Uh...it’s not like I’m buddy-buddy with him—”

“You don’t need to be, just tell him to bring his ass here and we’ll do the rest.”

Your mouth tightens. With all eyes trained on you, some expressions less friendly than others, it feels impossible to refuse. “I guess.”

“It’ll provide the money you’ve been worrying over for the past year.” Valor offers, and you shoot him a side-eye. Not like you needed him to broadcast your business to the world.

“That’s how life around here works,” another man chimes in, putting his cigarette out on the dirt and getting off his makeshift stoop of an upturned bucket. He stretches his arms and legs, and though you can’t see them under his long pants, you can hear the soft whirring and clicking of his metal legs. “Eat or be eaten. I’ve made my choice.”

Lockjaw gives a wolfish smile. Your apprehension rises, though you say nothing. “Eat, we will.”

You try to act nonchalant the next time you see Baekhyun at the club. You only notice him as you’re leaving, having already waited most of the night to see if he’d show up this time. You slow to a stop as you spot him in the alleyway behind the club, speaking to another club-goer—you’ve seen the person around before. You can only imagine what they were talking about before you’d interrupted their little scene, and the person scurries off, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, once it’s clear they’ve lost Baekhyun’s attention. Maybe that was the poor sap he’d finally found who’d be misguided enough to give up their cybernetics.

Baekhyun approaches you with a smile, his chains catching in the light of the flashy neon sign above. The kohl is dark and smoky around his eyes, in perfect sameness with every other time you’ve seen him.

“Hello, one who’s name I still don’t know—”

“You should come see me,” you interrupt. You want this to be as quick as possible, not wanting to dwell on any fake niceties.

Baekhyun lifts an eyebrow. “See you? At...your place, or—”

“At the ruins of Rainbow Bridge. Thursday night, around 9. Unless you’re too busy doing rich people stuff.”

“Rainbow Bridge…” He draws the words slowly across his tongue. Probably thinking of what a ruin the bridge is now—and has been for the past few decades—and wondering why you’re asking him to meet there of all places.

“I have a friend who lives around there—no fucking place to stay, you know, just holes up wherever he can. But he can...let you see the inner workings of my arm. Pick him up, take him back to your place; I’m sure you have a lab.” And because you know what he’s really looking for, you throw in, “He’s studied the technology, knows it inside-out. He could help you build...whatever it is you want.”

Baekhyun’s eyes, which you normally perceive as two lightless voids, sparkle at that last part. You can practically see the light increase in them. “Oh really?”

You roll your own eyes. “Yes, really. I’m not going to let you walk off with my damn arm, but you can...take notes on the mechanisms and shit. It’s up to you. I just got tired of you fuckin’ asking, so don’t think this is going to turn into some weekly meetup or whatever.”

He nods, slowly at first, and then more assuredly. “Alright, then. I’ll come.”

“So...yeah.” A sudden wave of anxiety crashes over you now that the trap has been laid. You feel as if you make one wrong move now, it’ll blow everything. He’ll find out and hate you for it. But why should you care about him hating you? “Then...see ya Thursday. Bye.” You decide to make your exit, walking briskly past him in the alley.

“Leaving so soon?” Baekhyun asks, turning back to watch your figure retreat. You wave one hand behind you in a dismissive gesture.

“I’ve been here all fuckin’ night, Byun. I’m going home now—to get some sleep, if I’m lucky.”

He chuckles, the sound fading behind you as you walk away. “Sweet dreams.”

Your steps falter just slightly when those words leave his lips, and several emotions begin warring in your chest. You ignore them all and continue on your walk back to your place, though you almost wish you could turn back to the club and ask for another drink or three. Something to get your mind off that ridiculously simple phrase that’ll be spinning around in your mind all night.

The night of the plan, you begin having major second thoughts.

It’s not as if you didn’t already feel shitty about it, but your mind keeps racing with how ridiculous of an idea this really is. It’s far too late to talk anyone out of it, as they’ve already stocked up on contraband weapons and laid their gameplan, but you feel less and less “okay” about being a part of it.

Most of all, you feel increasingly guilty about using Baekhyun’s trust in you for this; he never seemed to assume you had any other motives behind your invitation. Even if it’s ridiculously, oddly naive of him to trust you—someone he knows nothing about—you don’t feel great about exploiting that for your own gains.

It takes him less time to show up than you���d hoped. He’s right there at the agreed time, annoyingly punctual, his sleek black luxury car pulling up in the dirt and patchy grass. It looks like it was cut out of a magazine and placed there—almost comically out of place. Just like him.

Baekhyun gets out of the car and walks out onto the grass to meet you, uncaring of the mud and dirt he’s stepping in. He smirks, his hands in his pockets and his chains dangling. “Would now be a good time to get your name, or are we in too deep at this point?”

There’s no one else but him. Definitely too trusting.

You nervously chew your lip as you mull that question over. If everything goes like the others intend it to, there won’t be a point in telling him your name. But if he’s still alive by the end of the night, you could be exposing yourself. Still...a name won’t matter either way if he can give a perfect description of you to the Droid Commission.

Suddenly, you decide not to give it any more thought. “It’s Y/N.”

“Y/N, Y/N...” He says your name like he’s tasting a charming new food. “I like it. It suits you.”

Baekhyun’s smile is too sincere, and it doesn’t make you feel any better. “Come on.” You turn your back to him as you lead him through the tall grass and toward a broken section of the bridge’s main road. It leans against the main structure of the bridge and sticks halfway out of the muddy ditch that was once Tokyo Bay, its jagged edge reaching toward the night sky.

It’s darker under here, with the broken bridge blocking out the moon and stars and lights from buildings nearby. Your stomach rolls.

“So, who is this friend of yours?”

You turn to Baekhyun then, and you don’t know if he can read the anxiety on your face. Maybe he can. He’d proudly bragged about his own abilities for figuring people out.

It happens all at once, somehow slow and fast at the same time.

One of the men—the one with two metal legs—slinks out from behind the broken bridge and sneaks up behind Baekhyun, a stun spear in his hands. Its two large metal prongs are lit up with electricity. Those metal prongs are aimed directly at Baekhyun’s back, ready to make contact, but that never happens.

“Look out!” you scream, and shove Baekhyun out of the way. He stumbles off to the side, falling against the concrete bridge, and you wildly grasp the long spear with both hands, blocking the man from reaching Baekhyun.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Metal Legs shouts. He drives the spear’s metal bar forward, knocking it into your upper chest and collarbone with a force that makes your teeth chatter, and the pain and shock take your breath away for a few moments.

You’re not a fighter. You usually try to stay out of any ridiculous brawls when they do happen, whether at your apartment building or the club, but you do your best to hold the dude off. So even though you stumble back, you keep your hold as tight around the spear as you can and shove it back, putting your weight behind the movement and cracking it against the man’s chin. He howls with pain and anger and his hands momentarily loosen on the weapon. You take that opportunity to snatch it completely from him.

Nearby, Baekhyun is busy fending off Lockjaw with a long knife, both of them fully engaged in a fierce clash of blades. You feel a burst of surprise. He was armed this entire time? Had he realized something was suspicious after all? Most of all, how does he know how to fight?

You don’t have much more time to think about that, though. Metal Legs is recovering from the hit, his hand reaching for his side like he’s about to pull out his own knife or gun. You leap forward and shove the prongs of the stun spear into his ribs. He quickly collapses to the dirt, motionless after a handful of frightening convulsions. You feel cold fear at the idea that you might’ve just killed him, but you can’t dwell on that when you see the others bursting out of the tall grass a few yards away from you and Baekhyun. The backup, in case something went wrong—which it most definitely has.

Lockjaw has Baekhyun up against the concrete of the bridge, his knife near Baekhyun’s neck and Baekhyun trying to block the blade. The sharp metal inches increasingly closer to its target. With your legs shaking, you run up behind Lockjaw and dig the electrified prongs into his side, sending more volts through his body than you can imagine.

Lockjaw’s weapon drops, and Baekhyun stumbles away. The man takes a little longer to be knocked unconscious than Metal Legs, but you are relieved when he’s out a few seconds later.

You look at Baekhyun, who appears dazed and winded; you belatedly realize he might’ve received some of the shock too, with both men’s arms locked together when you initially used the spear. “Get out of here! The rest are coming—go!” A shot from a ray gun zips through the air between you two and burns the concrete of the bridge.

Baekhyun looks at you wordlessly. Then he grabs your wrist as tight as a vise. You glance at him questioningly, and your confusion mounts when he drags you along with him as he takes off towards his car. The red smearing across your hand and wrist tells you he must be bleeding from somewhere, and shock blooms in your chest for a wild moment.

The car door opens without him even touching the handle or speaking a command, and he jostles you into the backseat, trying to avoid the spear’s prongs; you’re still holding it tight, as you expected you’d need it to face the others—however futile that would’ve been. You’re so frazzled once you get in the car that it takes you a moment to realize Baekhyun is in the backseat with you. “What are you doing?!”

“Get on the highway,” Baekhyun speaks, ignoring your frantic question, and the engine roars in your ears as the car peels out of the grassy lot. The vehicle narrowly escapes another round of angry shots fired by the others, and the grass sizzles where the shots land.

A self-driving car. Of course he’d have one of those. You stare at the steering wheel as it turns on its own, maneuvering you both away from the scene of the crime and back onto the paved roads.

“Your arm…” You look at the sleeve of Baekhyun’s jacket. It’s torn now, and you can see the skin of his forearm underneath, which displays a long cut. Lucky for him, it’s not deep enough to need stitches. He has similar, smaller ones on his hands.

Baekhyun examines the wound and makes a sound of disgust. “It’ll be fine,” he says decisively. “The bastard wasn’t as good with a knife as he wishes he was.”

You nod silently, though the movement feels mechanical. As the reality of the situation seeps in, a whirlpool of dread forms in your stomach.

“Fuck, I-I’m fucked.”

Baekhyun gives a humorless laugh. “You’re fucked?”

“I’ll...need to lay low for a while.” Then you glance at him. “Unless you’re driving me to the Commission. Then, well…at least they can’t get to me while I’m in prison.” Your laugh is equally humorless.

“You’re going into hiding?” Baekhyun asks, and the corner of his mouth lifts. You don’t expect this reaction. Not after him almost being jacked and led into the situation by none other than you.

His smirk exasperates you. You almost want to roll your eyes at him not realizing why you’d need to hide. Or maybe he’s just playing coy about it; but you give him a break for now. “I ruined the plan and helped you out, so yeah, my own place is not gonna be safe anymore. ‘Friends’ are fleeting out here. Especially if you fuck with someone else’s money.” Valor crosses your mind, the only one you could really call a friend out of all the others—and only because you knew more secrets of his than they did. Your chest tightens with a strange guilt. You should’ve just said no from the beginning.

The car is quiet for a few long moments. Then Baekhyun shatters the silence with, “Come home with me, then. You can stay there for a little while.”

You bark out a laugh. “You can’t be for real.”

He sits back against the leather seat. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t. It’s a waste of time otherwise.”

“After I just—could’ve gotten you killed?”

“I said it before—you’re like an open book. Your emotions are practically written on your face. It’s pretty damn obvious to me you were never truly up for this plan. Unfortunately, you aren’t the badass you think you are, but at least your efforts saved me.”

“But I still—”

“You certainly don’t have to take the offer if you don’t want it.”

You become quiet at that. Even if you don’t think you deserve this level of mercy, you don’t want to shun this offer of safety and be left to contend with the streets alone. Your voice is tense and quiet when you respond. “I’ll take it.”

Baekhyun’s home is a penthouse in the heart of Upper Tokyo, which doesn’t surprise you. The contrast in his neighborhood’s appearance with what you’re used to seeing in Lower Tokyo is stark and painful—spotlessly clean streets with sweepers continually traveling up and down them, bright holographic billboards, people walking around with personal androids accompanying them. You begin to feel resentful again, and you wish you could swallow those feelings after he’s been gracious enough to rescue you, but you can’t help it.

You two must make quite a sight once you pull into the apartment building’s parking garage—you holding a stun spear, wearing a slightly shabby outfit of a T-shirt, jeans, and jacket, and Baekhyun walking out with disheveled, torn clothes and bloody hands. Someone gets out of the parking garage elevator once the doors open, and they give a startled look when they see you two.

“Good to see you, Jongin,” Baekhyun greets the other man. His tone is friendly, but his expression dares the other man to ask any questions—which you both know he won’t.

“Good evening, Baekhyun.” The man gives a slight nod in your direction as he walks past you two, though there’s no hiding the distaste he thinks he’s disguising. His eyes linger on your metal hand, and you feel exposed; you try to convince yourself he’s just looking at the spear, which would also make sense.

You try to shake the feeling off as you and Baekhyun step into the elevator cabin, but confusion rushes over you to replace it. The floor of the elevator is more like a scale, sensing the weight of your bodies and sinking slightly further into the floor once you step onto it.

“What’s that all about?” you ask.

“Oh, yeah. That. This isn’t like your typical elevator, it’s a teleportation channel,” Baekhyun says this nonchalantly as he reaches for the touchscreen panel on the wall.

“Um, what? I don’t want to be teleported anywhere.” You jump right back out of the cabin before the doors can close, and Baekhyun gives you a weary look as he holds them open with one crimson hand.

“It’s safe, you don’t have to worry about anything. All it does is take the atoms in your body and replicate them elsewhere; the floor measures your mass. I’ve done it hundreds of times.”

“You don’t say.” Sarcasm drips from your voice. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m not interested in turning into ground meat on the other side of that thing.”

“There are no stairs in this building, just teleportation channels. If you want to climb the side of the building to get to my place, be my guest.” Baekhyun starts pressing on the panel as if he’ll leave you behind, and panic spikes in your chest. You decide to get back on with him, much to your displeasure.

You close your eyes tight just as the inside of the cabin starts glowing with light, and you can only hope your last lived experience won’t be riding a teleporter with Baekhyun in the same night you tried to mug him.

Surprisingly, the transportation doesn't feel like anything. One minute you’re there on the parking garage ground floor, and the next minute you hear the whoosh of the doors opening again. It’s like you never moved an inch, but you obviously have when the doors reveal the lavish interior of Baekhyun’s home.

Grateful to be at your destination, you step out of the teleporter as quickly as possible. “How did we end up right inside your place?”

“Clever, right? It uses fingerprint recognition so no one else can get access but me, but you’d know that if you hadn’t slammed your eyes shut.”

For all your talk of Baekhyun being out of place in Lower Tokyo, you suddenly feel like the fish out of water inside his penthouse. There’s metal and glass and holographic materials everywhere, which is the same stuff you’d find in Lower Tokyo, but here it’s all much more sleek, shiny, and well-maintained. His living room alone looks bigger than your entire apartment.

“Come on, don’t just stand there.” He gestures for you to follow him further down the hall, and you hesitantly do.

“Um...I don’t really want to carry this all night,” you say, referring to the stun spear still in your hands.

Baekhyun turns back to you, blocking the path to the rest of the hallway. “Do you even know how to turn it off?” It’s still charged with energy. You look at it up and down, but it isn’t immediately obvious to you. You don’t want to admit that, though, and keep awkwardly looking for some sort of Off switch until Baekhyun can’t stand the silence anymore. “Look, just give it to me.”

Your mouth twists at that. It seems nonsensical considering he’s just given you a safe haven, but you’re wary he’ll try to turn the weapon on you. Maybe he was waiting to get you alone and dispose of you himself. He appears to understand your thought process, because he scoffs loudly and holds his hand out for the spear.

“If I really wanted you dead, I could’ve done it in the car—or better yet, let your friends take care of you. Just hand it over.”

“Mm, I think not. I don’t think you’d want to get blood on your pretty leather seats.” Still, you give him the spear, if a bit reluctantly. You don’t know what he does with it, but he takes it into another room and tells you to wait in the hall. When he returns, it’s gone.

Baekhyun leads you to a clean and unoccupied guest room. It’s large, with floor-to-ceiling windows that give an expansive view of the city below. It’s also nicely decorated, much like one of Upper Tokyo’s many upscale hotels, but it seems like it hasn’t seen a warm body in months. There’s a certain lack of warmth to it. “Don’t get many visitors?”

“Now is not the best time to make jokes about me filling my perpetual loneliness with frequent trips to your club, if that’s what you’re attempting to lead up to.” He steps through another door, which you find out leads to the bathroom. “Everything you need should already be here—except clothes. I’ll get those in a moment.”

“Right,” you mumble, your eyes carefully tracing over everything in the bathroom. You know your skeptical behavior is probably pissing him off at this point, but distrust has long become an inherent feature of yours. You’ll keep this act up if you know it’ll get under his skin.

The hot water in this shower doesn’t run out after five minutes like the one back home. You can’t shake the old habit, though, and you wash yourself as quickly as you can, body tensed with adrenaline as you expectantly wait for the warm flow to stop after the five minutes are up. When that doesn’t happen, your muscles relax a little. Though it feels good, you don’t know if you’ll get used to this any time soon.

The clothes he lays out for you on the bed are plain and black, but still better quality than what you’re used to seeing and wearing. Soft on your skin. Smell good. You wonder where he’s went off to—maybe to wash up and patch up his wounds, if he has any sense. You also wonder if you should try exploring his place, but you feel like that’ll be risky; he has too much advanced technology around here that would probably find a way to kick you out of the penthouse window at the first sign of nefarious activity.

...Which is how you end up merely sitting on the bed and waiting to see what will happen next. But not before checking the entire room for any signs of surveillance tech or something else foreboding. This is also when you make the joyous discovery that your phone is missing, and you reason it must’ve fallen out of your pocket in the earlier clash; you know you had it when you first met up with Baekhyun. That pisses you off, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. Though you feel disconcertingly cut off from the outside world without it, who would you even contact anymore? One of the others, who’d probably try to track you down and enact a cold, hard revenge for you blowing up the plan? Lockjaw’s face flashes into your mind, along with the other scalding looks you received the night of the planning, and you shudder slightly.

When Baekhyun comes back to your room—and you’re almost surprised that he does—he looks significantly smaller in presence without his all-black clothes, glittering face chains, and heavy makeup.

Indeed, the man standing in front of you with damp hair, baggy pajamas, and bandaged hands doesn’t seem like the same suave person from the club at all.

“So now what?” you say, raising an eyebrow at him.

He shrugs. “Well, if you’re going to be living here, you need a tour.”

Living with Baekhyun isn’t quite what you expected it to be. He’s home more often than you’d think, for one. You would’ve thought he’d always be in business meetings or off somewhere finding more luxury goods to buy or just doing whatever. You can’t really get mad at him for being in his own home, but you try to keep space between the two of you. With your own designated spaces, it’s not hard to do this, which you are at least marginally glad about.

Trying to deal with Baekhyun while completely sober isn’t your idea of a walk in the park. Despite yourself, you wish you could go back to the club even once; Baekhyun certainly won’t let you drink up all his liquor, nor will he tell you where he’s hidden it. For your own good, he claims. Sure.

To your surprise and slight relief, he doesn’t ply you for any more details about your arm, though you’ve definitely caught him running his eyes across it more than once—studying it like words on a page. Whatever’s spinning around in that mind of his, you can only guess. His lingering interest only makes you think he’s scheming for a way to take the arm off you when you’re sleeping or equally vulnerable, though, so you remain guarded around him.

“One day, you’ll have to understand that I’m not the evil villain you think I am,” he tells you. He regards your attempts to avoid him with a certain bored amusement, like how one might think of a particularly entertaining pet cat.

You let the steam of the food you’re cooking billow up across your face, making your eyes water from the slightly-too-warm heat before answering. Leave it to him to bother you during one of the times when you can get some undisturbed, Baekhyun-free peace. “Maybe you should stop dressing up as one whenever you go out, then.”

He chuckles. “It’s like you’ve made it your personal mission to throw verbal stabs at me whenever possible.”

You shrug. “I have to do something to pass the time here.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “You could do that just by having a normal conversation with me.”

You cross your arms, looking at him from where he stands at the kitchen island. He’s in his dressed-down form now, sans eyeliner and jewelry.

His kitchen is not like any other you’ve encountered, fully equipped with the capabilities to make every single one of his meals by itself—and order more ingredients whenever necessary. It’s undoubtedly convenient. But you often still like to make food of your own, just so you don’t have to feel so...dependent on him for every little thing. “About what?”

“About who you are. What you like. What you dream about—I don’t know, something.”

“What I dream about.” You make a noise of disbelief. “How can you waste time on dreams when you live the life I do? I just focus on trying to survive. That’s it.”

Baekhyun opens his mouth automatically like he’ll say something, but he pauses as if he’s just absorbed the full weight of your words. Suddenly, there’s a certain sadness pooling in his eyes and pulling at the corners of his mouth, and you hate it—intensely. You don’t want his pity or sympathy. And yet, he’s already given it to you by letting you live in his home.

“Before you say something pathetic, just don’t,” you blurt out, wanting to stop him before he can start. “You want to talk? My favorite color is green, and my favorite food—alcohol. I have an arm made of fucking titanium, the club was my main hangout spot, and I hate entitled people. Talk about that.”

Baekhyun’s sympathy evaporates into an unimpressed expression, lost just as quickly as a whisper on the wind. “Closing the door again, I see. Alright. Have it your way.” He leaves the room then, giving his back to you and shutting you out similar to how you just did to him.

This should be what you wanted. But it only makes you feel oddly unsatisfied.

“Here.” Baekhyun slides something across the table towards you after dinner one day—another dinner where you sit on opposite ends of the table and where you try to ignore his existence. You instantly recognize the small, glistening package as a cellphone, though it’s a model much more advanced than you could’ve afforded.

You look up at him as he stands in front of you, one of his hands shoved into the pocket of his black pants. “...What are you doing?”

“Giving you something to communicate with so you don’t feel like some princess stuck in a glass castle.” You roll your eyes at that. “I’m not sure who you’d talk to since all your friends do hate you, but the thought counts. And everyone needs a phone.”

You sit forward to look at the phone in its packaging, tracing your metal fingers against the surface. The sensation circling around in your stomach is an odd one. “Please don’t tell me that you hosting me in your penthouse was just an easy way to get a sugar baby.”

Baekhyun looks slightly flustered at that accusation, and you’re gleefully, childishly pleased about taking him off guard. His surprise is quickly replaced with a shit-eating grin, though. “It’s nothing like that; I could’ve already had that kind of arrangement 100 times over.” His tone suggests that he has, which sends a chill crawling up your spine. But maybe not 100 times over. “I did it to help you out. But if thinking of it that way gets you off, be my guest.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Byun,” you say, taking the phone out gingerly. It’s a lightweight thing, looking like it might dissolve if you look at it too hard. Its screen is clear raised glass—which you assume will project out the hologram technology this phone is inevitably equipped with—and has silver backing. It’s a piece of work. Though it appears fragile, you know it’s sturdier than that—or it wouldn’t be such a popular model as it is now. “It’s...nice, though.”

Baekhyun waves his hand noncommittally. “I wouldn’t settle for anything less—even if it’s for someone as eternally pissed-off as you.” You bite your lip against the rebuttal that wants to come rolling out, instead preoccupying yourself with figuring out the controls on this thing. Which takes an embarrassingly long moment. Baekhyun watches you for the duration of it, biting his own lip against the urge to laugh at the frustrated furrow between your brows and the crinkling of your nose. Really, the phone looks like a thin sheet of metal with a slice of glass over it; how are you supposed to operate this? Eventually, he says, “There’s a button on the bottom that activates it...you have to press that.”

“Right, clearly.” You try to rid yourself of your embarrassment as you turn the thing on, but even as Baekhyun leaves the room you can hear his chains clinking together as he laughs silently at your confusion.

As if your life could not get any more chaotic, your metal arm begins malfunctioning. 

The metal is not as flexible as it was just a few days before, and it gives you a hard time whenever you try to do simple maneuvers. Your arm is overtaken by a sensation that feels like nerve damage with how the entire limb and shoulder tingle and burn from wires that no longer want to do as they’re told. You’re not entirely sure what’s wrong with it—a good oiling could usually fix any stiffness when necessary, but this nervy feeling is new.

For a while, you try to hide it from Baekhyun, which feels kind of ridiculous even to you. You’re only hurting yourself more, but you are a little too prideful to give him the pleasure of inspecting your arm like he’d always wanted to from the start. You don’t want to be his science experiment.

However, it comes to a point when you must ask for help when your arm stops working entirely.

You wake up to this terrible realization. After another morning of having gotten only a little sleep the night before, something immediately feels wrong. Your arm is dead weight beside you. When you try to sit up, it doesn’t respond to your movements. You can only feel the painful tug on the flesh part of your shoulder where the weight of the metal pulls at it, and you groan in pain and annoyance.

You support your arm with your other hand to prevent the tugging, which quickly gets exhausting and annoying as you try to go through the morning motions. You can’t keep this up while washing, so by the time you get out of the shower, your shoulder is killing you from where the arm dangles.

When you get to the common room, Baekhyun isn’t there. He isn’t anywhere else in his penthouse, either. You don’t even know how long he’s been gone. When you bring yourself to finally call his number, you bitterly remember that you still don’t have it saved in your phone. You want to scream in irritation. You can’t leave to go look for him—yeah, right—or get help from anyone else, either, because of the fingerprint recognition on his apartment entrance. Now that you think about it, you are like a princess in a glass castle here. That reawakens another bout of anger in you. Safe haven or cage?

Baekhyun appears an hour or two later—you’re not totally certain, having refused to expend the strength to move from your current spot to check the time—wearing his usual getup. You don’t know if you should be relieved, but an emotion similar to that sweeps through you despite your lingering apprehension and dislike.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His eyebrows crease when he sees you splayed across his couch, your metal arm propped up on the couch back.

Don’t be combative, you think to yourself. But it’s like an impulse; you can’t stop yourself. “Why do you immediately assume something’s wrong?”

“You’ve never been so casual,” he gestures to your posture, “around me or in my place before, so I’m trying to figure out if your brain has been infected by cyber bugs or something. Because if we need to quarantine, then—”

“Well, you’re not totally wrong for once.” You struggle to sit up, your movements stiff, and your arm slides off the couch back and slumps limply to your side. Baekhyun's eyebrows shoot towards his hairline at that, and he looks at you questioningly, stepping closer to you.

“What happened to your arm?”

“Don’t even fucking know…it’s been feeling weird for a week.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

You look up at him, cynicism coloring your expression. “I’m sure you can take a wild guess.”

He gives the familiar sigh-and-eye-roll combo, like he’s done probably a hundred times since he’s met you. “Yeah, I can.” He waves his hand. “No matter. I’m calling Yosuke.”

“Who’s Yosuke?” You turn to watch Baekhyun retreat—probably to his bedroom or office. He turns back to you momentarily.

“Someone who can fix your arm.”

— 

Yosuke turns out to be a man around the same age as Baekhyun—a big contrast to the older, wizened cyberneticist you’d pictured in your mind. He and Baekhyun act overly familiar with each other, apparently being long-time friends since their younger years.

There is no difference in how he treats you and Baekhyun, which is another thing you didn’t quite expect. He is clearly wealthy like Baekhyun, coming in with a nice suit and expensive jewelry and a suitcase full of more tools than you’ve even seen before, but he doesn’t have the haughty rich man aura. That makes you feel a little more comfortable, and you are glad that Baekhyun let you have some privacy with this and left the lab for the actual procedure. Even if it meant he didn’t get his wish of poring over your arm’s wiring like some kind of cybernetics kinkster.

To your relief, the fix is simple enough. The implanted electrodes in your shoulder that help send signals between your brain’s neurons and the artificial nerves have failed, but those are relatively simple to replace.

“Shitty tech, I guess,” you mumble, casting a displeased look at your arm. You aren’t sure why, but you feel embarrassed about it failing on you. Maybe you just thought it’d be reliable forever. “I got it as part of an experimental research program, so it was probably never going to be the most dependable thing anyway…”

“Hm.” Yosuke smiles. “Maybe not, but it’s still an extraordinary piece of work—especially in this early form. Some of these mechanisms are new even to me. Was that the 2110 Tokyo trial, by chance?”

You nod, though you feel a tiny bit less relaxed with knowing that even Yosuke doesn’t recognize all the intricacies of your limb. Hopefully you’ll still walk out in one piece. “Yeah, the very one.”

“Excellent work,” he reiterates. “It was an early research trial, but still yielded some of the most functional and human-like large-scale cybernetics of the last few years. You could’ve done a lot worse. Maybe you already know that, though.”

“Maybe,” you repeat quietly, but you are mostly speaking to yourself now.

—

After the electrode replacement is done in Baekhyun’s home lab, you can finally feel your arm like normal again. Yosuke does a few sensory feedback and dexterity tests to make sure your arm can function as it should, and he promises to come back the next day for another round just to be sure.

You almost don’t want Yosuke to go when he finally does pack up to leave. It feels nice to be around someone who doesn’t inspire some wretched, nonsensical anger in you.

Baekhyun slips back into the lab after Yosuke leaves, and you glance up from your arm at his arrival. He looks at your bandaged shoulder and watches appreciatively as you flex your metal fingers. “All good now?”

“It’s fine,” you mumble. “Thanks.” Saying that word to him is not easy, but you relent, figuring you should at least give him that much. “You should be thanking the gods you don’t have to go through this kinda shit.”

“Really.” It’s not a question, the way he says it. It’s filled with sarcasm. Baekhyun reaches down and rolls up his left pant leg, his chains hanging as he does, and you recoil, confused. Why the fuck is he showing you his bare leg?

“It’s cybernetic,” he says, barely concealed pride in his voice. “You can’t even tell, the work is so good.” Something like jealousy and anger stirs in your chest. Even if you had wanted to tuck those emotions back in, they’ve escaped from the cage now and are intent on running rampant.

“So. Byun Baekhyun is part-metalhead, after all?” You slide off the surgical chair you were sitting in for Yosuke’s procedure, coming to stand a couple feet in front of Baekhyun. You look down at his leg—which, for all intents and purposes, looks like a completely flesh-and-blood limb. “You joker. Quit fuckin’ around.”

“It’s not a lie.” He knows you won’t believe him, so he taps a spot behind his ankle twice. A long, thin panel that stretches from just above his ankle to his upper thigh opens on his leg, exposing the wiring and metal within. You can’t school your expression in time, and your mouth drops. “Incredible, right? Custom-made. So, yes…I do have an idea what it’s like.”

“Custom-made, huh.” You bite your lip so hard you think it might bleed. “Unbelievable. You’re the kind of person who does these things because you want to, because you can, not because your survival hinges on it. You must truly think you’re special.” The words come hurtling past your lips like venom.

“I didn’t choose this on a whim,” Baekhyun argues, straightening up to face you and letting his pant leg back down. The look on his face says his patience has finally run out, presumably tired of you throwing insult after insult at him since you’ve been in his home. “You don’t know anything about me other than what you’ve seen and heard on screens and from others. I’ve tried to get familiar with you. You reject it at every turn.”

“I don’t want to ‘get familiar’ with someone who gets custom cybernetics that cost hundreds of thousands just because they fuckin’ felt like it, while the rest of us have to do it just to get enough money to live for maybe a year on.” You’re gritting your teeth so hard that your jaw feels like it might crack.

Baekhyun steps closer to you, diminishing the space between you further. His eyes burn with animosity. “I was in a car accident, Y/N. I was just a teenager. No one even knows this but the people closest to me, and I don’t want anyone else to know it. I lost my leg and nearly my life with it. Before you start preaching to me about choices versus survival, realize that you aren’t the only fucking person in the world who’s ever had to do what was needed to survive.”

Your breath catches. You feel like the wind has been knocked out of you. Suddenly, all the fight drains from your system, and you are left feeling deflated and cold. His blazing eyes feel like two bullets trained on you, and your gaze falters.

Baekhyun doesn’t wait to see if you’ll have another response lined up for him; he turns heel and stalks out of the room.

As promised, Yosuke returns the next day for your additional tests. Your conversation with him isn’t as enjoyable as it could be. You are still reeling from Baekhyun’s revelation and unsure how to approach him. Neither of you spoke to each other for the rest of that night, instead choosing to actively avoid each other. You know you can’t keep this game up forever, though.

“Baekhyun’s in a sour mood today,” Yosuke remarks. “Rare for him. Any idea why?”

You shake your head, worrying your lower lip with your teeth. “Mmm...no.”

The slight smile on Yosuke’s face tells you he doesn’t believe you. “Well...I’m sure you two will figure it out sooner or later. He seems to have an affinity for you.”

“What?”

“He was pretty concerned when he contacted me about your arm. He’s mentioned you before then, too. He seems fascinated by you.”

You purse your lips together. You remember his days of annoying flirting in the club, which feel so far away now, and how he’d come to you with a bunch of flowery words and told you he’d taken a liking to you. Perhaps he was really telling the truth about that. You wonder if he possibly mentioned the attempted mugging to Yosuke, and you cough nervously.

“Well, he’s…” you wave your flesh hand, “...a character.”

Yosuke chuckles. “You two seem kind of fitting, I don’t know why. Similar love for recklessness, maybe—from how he describes you, anyway. Like peas in a pod.”

Fitting? Peas in a damn pod? The next words come thoughtlessly rushing out of you in an effort to change his mind and slap away whatever outlandish idea he has of you and the other man. “I don’t want Baekhyun.”

Yosuke raises an eyebrow, though he keeps his gaze on your arm as he watches the movements of your metallic fingers for any irregularities. “I never said you did, Y/N.”

In your haste, it occurs to you that maybe Yosuke really was just referring to your similarities—which you’ll continue to vehemently deny—rather than suggesting any deeper connection. Though that’s what it sounded like to you. Fuck. You don’t know anymore.

Is this what they’d call a Freudian slip, then? How wonderful. You rub your temples with your free hand and shake your head. “Then let’s just forget the last few minutes of this conversation.”

Yosuke smiles. “Whatever you’d like to do.”

—

Yosuke leaves soon after he’s finished testing your arm, but he reassures you that you can see each other again if you feel like having the company—just have Baekhyun arrange things.

Speaking of Baekhyun. You should probably say something to him. You’re not enthusiastic about puttering around his home feeling even more awkward than you did when you first arrived there. So, you walk to his office and knock on the door, turning your ear to it to see if he’ll give a response. You don’t have to wait to hear one, though, because the door panel slides back on its own.

You’ve never been in his office before, though you knew where it was—it was one of the places he decided not to show you on his little house tour—but it’s just as obnoxiously streamlined and full of tech as every other part of his home. Baekhyun sits behind his desk, elbows propped on its surface and fingers crossed together.

“Y/N.” His voice holds none of the playfulness, casualness, or even cool sarcasm you’ve heard from him before.

You step a few feet forward into his office. You feel like you’re standing underneath a spotlight, lit up for the entirety of the world to see. In reality, it’s just you and him here—Byun Baekhyun, one of the richest men in Japan.

He stays silent, presumably waiting for you to speak first. That is what you came here for, so you do, even if it makes you feel like you’re going to peel out of your skin.

“I was a dick. I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun blinks. “An apology? From you? The world must be ending.”

“I’m trying to be serious here, Byun.” You sigh. “I was...wrong to assume what I did about you. I guess...I don’t really know anything about you...but. I felt like I had you all figured out already. So, I’m sorry.”

The tension in Baekhyun’s shoulders releases, if only a little. His expression shifts into something not quite as impenetrable as it was just a few moments ago, but not completely open, either. “Apology accepted, then.”

“Thanks.” You shove your hands into your pockets. “Well, I thought...if I’m not to make any more assumptions about you, I should probably get to know more about you?” 

Baekhyun looks interested now, and he releases his hands from their formerly tense position. He leans forward slightly. “Then I should do the same with you.”

Your hackles raise, despite you trying to keep yourself more open-minded. “I...don’t want to. You know enough already.”

Exasperated, Baekhyun spreads his hands out in front of him. “Here we go again. What are you so afraid of? And why even ask me about myself if you don’t want to share anything about you?”

“You can think of it as gathering intel—not making friends. I’m not asking you about your life story so we can have picnics together and talk about our wildest dreams.”

Baekhyun scoffs in disbelief. “When are you ever going to be honest with yourself? Emotional constipation isn’t a good look for you.”

“Honest with myself about what?”

“You are attracted to me. You are interested in me beyond supposedly gathering intel. And for some reason I can’t conceive, it enrages you.” The words come off his lips with the trace of a smirk, and though they make your skin prickle with heat, his smirk makes you want to jump across the desk and land one good punch on him.

You snort. “You’re a piece of work. Attracted to you? Everyone doesn’t throw themselves at the first person with a whiff of money or notoriety.”

Baekhyun gets up from his desk to step closer to you, much like he did the other day. He’s close enough for you to count the moles on his face, barely noticeable except for when he’s at this proximity. His cologne wraps its scented arms around you and pulls you in. You didn’t notice it as acutely yesterday, too embroiled in the argument and trying to process what he revealed to you, but now it hits you full on. How is this not considered some kind of olfactory warfare?

“Then tell me you don’t want me.” He whispers it to you in that same stupid, silky voice he’d always used in the club. That voice, combined with his scent, transports you straight back to that environment—the pungent taste of alcohol, the blinding neon lights, the ear-splitting music. And the one man who you just can’t figure out.

You open your mouth only slightly, afraid to breathe in more of his fragrance and lose yourself to it like a fool. “Fuck you.”

“That’s not an answer.” Baekhyun’s voice remains in the same low whisper, and he grins like he already knows the truth. “But I can do that, if you’d like.”

It doesn’t take much effort for him to close the rest of the space between you. When he kisses you, you don’t slap him, stomp on his foot, or knee him in the balls like you might’ve thought you would. Instead, you kiss him back—gradually, tentatively, but your lips fall into a rhythm with each other’s.

His lip piercing is unyielding on your skin; the edges of it press into your lip. The kiss is not rough or even frantic. You think this all might’ve been easier if it was—easier to allow yourself to keep hating him so intensely and channel that energy into your actions. However, all your previous thoughts of knocking his head off or pulling his lip ring off fall away; you just allow yourself to exist solely in this moment and absorb the feeling of his lips on yours.

Maybe now you could allow yourself to admit—internally, at least—that yes...you did want this. You wanted it from the first ridiculous time you met him in the club, and when he put his insolent hand on your shoulder. Whispered into your ear like he knew exactly what effect it was going to have.

Baekhyun’s bedroom—the one other place he hadn’t shown you besides his office—is neatly arranged and smells entirely like him. Other than those base things, you don’t care what the rest of the room is like. When you both somehow make it there, Baekhyun backs you up onto the bed, his lips still attached to yours.

The weight of his body is solid on yours. His tongue nudging against your lips and asking for entrance makes your body flush with heat. Before you can get fully invested, you pull away. He looks at you questioningly.

“Take this off,” you mutter, pushing his face chains away from you. He laughs lowly, pulling away from you to take his piercing out and put the chains away.

Pulling your clothes off comes naturally; it doesn’t feel clumsy and stilted like it did the last time you slept with someone. Baekhyun’s hands flit over every inch of newly exposed skin he can access.

The way Baekhyun touches your metal arm is reverent, worshipful, and you hadn’t realized how much you needed this—this kind of unabashed admiration—until it happened. No one has ever touched your metal arm in a way that wasn’t clinical or otherwise similarly detached. His fingers glide across it like it’s still made of skin and blood and bone, and he kisses the length of it, up to your neck and all the way back down to your metallic fingers again.

Water beads at the corners of your eyes. You try to ignore it. You don’t even acknowledge the few tears that do slip out, sliding towards your ears from your supine position.

Baekhyun lifts himself to be level with your face again. You turn away from him, too afraid to see whatever emotion will be lying in his eyes—not wanting to reveal the full magnitude of your vulnerability to him—but you don’t say a word when he presses his lips against the tear tracks on your skin.

Funnily, ironically, every motion comes instinctively. Him rocking against you, his heavy, dark breaths echoing in your ears, his long and low moans—your lips searching for his, your teeth creating blooming bruises on his skin. Though you have pushed him away and dismissed his proffered company at every opportunity, this intimacy feels like a grand coming-together—something that was bound to happen at the end of every road.

—

The sheets are twisted, the sweat is cooling on your skin, and you are both tired but satisfied. Content in a way that neither of you have truly been in a long time. You rest your head on Baekhyun’s chest, closing your eyes and listening to him breathe underneath you, the metal of your arm still warm from the heat of his skin. 

“I could give you an upgrade.”

Your mouth twitches. You think you might have imagined the words, so you stay silent for a while longer until Baekhyun nudges your arm, checking if you’ve already fallen asleep.

“Upgrade?”

“Your arm. I could...have a new arm built. One like my leg.”

You sit up to look at him, the sheets falling from your body. “Don’t say pretty things you think I want to hear just because you’re still in the post-orgasm haze.”

Baekhyun blows air out of his nose, too tired to properly argue or even scoff at you. “Like I said before, I don’t waste time saying things I don’t mean.” His voice quiets. “We both know you can’t get your limb back, but...I could...give you something to help, at least. It’s...easier to deal with the cybernetics when they actually look like they belong on your body.” You know he speaks from experience there, by the way his gaze falters and drops to his lap.

“To feel more like a human again, huh.” Some part of you—multiple parts of you, maybe—had still been grieving over the arm you’d given up almost two years ago. Maybe it was a silly thing to be hurt over compared to the many other problems in your world, but it was difficult to stop feeling like you’d sold away a portion of yourself for nothing. Nothing but fleeting money.

Baekhyun’s offer stirs something in you. You turn your body away from him, feeling the tingle in your nose and eyes again that could only signal one thing. “Stop doing this. Being so...I don’t know, forgiving. Not after all I’ve done and said to you.”

Baekhyun sits up then, resting his hands on your arms. “I want to do this for you. Stop acting like you don’t deserve anything good in the world.”

You turn back to face him after a long moment, though the tears still linger in your eyes. “I don’t want to be the only one who benefits.” You shake your head slowly. “If you really agree to give me a new arm...you have more than enough resources to help change the nightmare Lower Tokyo has become. Help them. Help us. I don’t want to be some one-off experiment or pet project you discard once you’ve gotten your fill—some broken bitch from Lower Tokyo you think you can fix and turn into one of your family’s many success stories.”

Baekhyun is breathless from your admission; this is the most transparent you’ve been with him since you’ve met. Though part of him wants to shrivel back from your words, he clings to your long-awaited honesty, even if it is only shared with him to rebuke him and his family’s selfishly opulent ways. He thinks of why you pushed so hard against him trying to make a personal domain of Lower Tokyo, leaving the comforts of his own place to absorb the shadows of yours, and a better understanding of your rejection begins to dawn in his mind. Tentatively, he brings one of his hands from your arm to your cheek, thinking you might still wince away from him, but you don’t move.

“You’re right.” His voice is tight with the knowledge of it. “I can help, Y/N. You, and everyone else. I mean—I will. If there is one thing you can trust me on…let it be this.”

You stare into his dark brown eyes, trying to hunt for any signs of dishonesty, though you find none. There is only the heat of his hand on your face, and his open, yielding expression. “I will hold you to that, Byun Baekhyun.”

[sanguine-tenshi]

I just finished Inazuma and I have words

TL;DR: Hate the story, mixed on characters, love the design and tired of being treated like a 4-year-old with a learning disability.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with what I like.

Inazuma is absolutely beautiful. I’ll admit Inazuma hits a lot of aesthetic points for me. All the islands are different enough to feel unique but they still look like they are a part of the same land. There are a lot of secrets to discover through just exploring. Each island has a world quest to help it (make it less hostile towards you) so it very much feels like you are saving Inazuma from itself.

.

The puzzles are alright.

I like the cubes that rotate, I always put in the effort to figure them out properly.

Hate the ones that don’t rotate, they just aren’t engaging enough for me, so I just hit them at random and hope for the best.

The glowing floor tiles were fun, once you actually realized what they wanted you to do. A little bit too easy if I’m honest.

The electro compass isn’t really much of a puzzle, more of a fetch the nearest electrograna quest.

Those little pillars that require an electro connection are kinda boring to me, again not much of a puzzle, the hardest part is finding both pillars.

I love the new electro seelie, kinda hard to follow the jittery thing in certain parts but they make a nice contrast to the regular seelies.

.

I’m very much mixed on characters.

Yoimiya is adorable. She is so bright and bubbly. What little game play we had with her was fun and I love her over the top style of fighting. Kinda disappointed she’s another pyro archer but I do admit it fits her character well. It was also wonderful seeing her just settle down and be quiet, just be a part of that moment that obviously meant a lot to her. It’s always nice to see that bubbly, energetic character have that one quiet thing, ya know. Kinda funny it’s fireworks, of all things, for her.

Gorou I like, from what little we’ve seen of him. My man killed a dude with his thighs so I’m down. I do find it kinda ridiculous that a resistance general has his whole damn belly exposed. There is also something about his voice that just does not fit. I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what exactly it is. Could be the tone itself, could be just voice acting. It sort of feels like the VA is trying to sound deeper than he actually does.

Sangonomiya Kokomi, mixed. I like her design, she looks like some sort of mystical priestess. Again something about the voice is jarring. I expected her to sound sort of airy, like she isn’t 100% present, like she’s seeing something we can’t. TBH she reminds me of Luna from HP for some reason. 

Yae Miko, I was interested because of her design. She sounds very arrogant and up her own ass, which would have been fine...if she hadn’t given us that god-awful line. “...I have high hopes for you, child. Don’t disappoint me.” Dear lord I wanted to punt her off the mountain. Or fucking what! Also she’s some bigshot priestess of the Sacred Sakura and yet she can’t do her damn job properly. Why couldn’t her arrogant ass come down from her high perch and cleanse the stupid roots? Why did the traveler have to do that shit?

Baal looks dead inside. Booba sword is overrated, get a life. I want a remach! And no cutscene shenanigans this time!

Kujou Sara seems like one of those ‘honor above all else’ characters. Those are either hit or miss with me. You have my attention for now. Also what are those shoes woman?! I’d rather you wear those leg-killing, needle point stilettoes instead of those Wish gag shoes. How in the name of all that is holy can you run in those?!

Thoma, I like him. At first I thought we were gonna get another Childe incident, but Thoma is too much of a innocent puppy to pull anything that horrible. To me he fits a fox a lot better than Childe does. Childe is a dingo and I stand behind that.

Kamisato Ayaka...hate her. At first I was neutral on her. Nothing about her design really spoke to me, but I was willing to wait and see. But then miHoYo started to violently push her friendship at us. We are totally friends now, this is the first time you see my face, but we are so totally friends now. And during her story quest everyone was like “Ah, you are so good Ayaka. You are so nice Ayaka. You are so perfect Ayaka. We all love you so much Ayaka. And oh, how could a mere merchant like myself...” Ew, go away. This is the first time I’m actively not pulling on a character banner. Normally I pull even if I’m not particularly interested in a character, because you never know how good their gameplay is until you take them out in the map. But I think I’ll be skipping this one. No thanks.

.

And now, the worst part, the story.

We’ve been hearing about the situation in Inazuma for a long time. There has been also a lot of talk about how hard it is to get there. About the wall of thunderclouds that surround the islands. So to have it cut to black and then voila Inazuma, feel just so cheap.

I was expecting something. An animation. A struggle. A quest. A minigame. At least show us the horrible weather! Something! Anything!

Hell if they wanted to be assholes about it they could have made it so that if the player fails at this point the ship is damaged, you return to Liyue and have to wait until tomorrow for the ship to be repaired. No Inazuma for today. That sure as hell would have raised the stakes.

The next complaint I have is with Yurika, the 2 milion mora processing fee girl. Later on Thoma mentions that the agency people see the fees as easy money, so her attitude doesn’t make much sense. After all someone like her would want to extract as much money as she can, but you still want the people to be able to pay that.

So it would make more sense to me if she was overly friendly and asked way too many questions. She’d need to get a much information as she can and after all the previous hostility people would be very open with her. So she’d be able to quickly find out why someone is here, what they are selling and roughly how much money they’d be able to pay. A merchant selling expensive silk would have more many than a regular ore merchant. So she’d be able to extract as much money as she could.

“I know this is a lot of money, especially for something so simple, but there is nothing I can do about it. I’m so very sorry.” And people wouldn’t say anything bad to her because she’s the first friendly face they see in Inazuma.

The stealth mission was just god-awful and I hope we never have to do that nonsense again.

Getting off of Ritou was a bit janky at the end, Chisato should have had a better reason for coming along. But I’m honestly just glad we didn’t get out the usual way...getting stuffed in a crate and smuggled out.

As a side note, I’m getting really tired of characters overexplaining things to me, especially Paimon. Dear lord, not everything has to be said, you can leave me to come to my own conclusions and solutions. Just please, who cares if a few player struggle for a bit, you don’t have to hold my hand through the whole thing.

Ayaka’s three were...ugh. It was basic emotional manipulation. Oh no this guy forgot about the love of his life and he’s been waiting for decades. And oh how sad this guy was so good and he helped these people so much but now he can’t remember. And oh the tragedy this guy forgot his life goal and is now hunted by the demons of the past. Oh the humanity! 

And it did not work. Know why? Because I have no emotional investment in any of these people, in this land. What is happening to the vision bearers in Inazuma is tragic, true, but that doesn’t make me want to overthrow the government. I don’t live here. I just got here. I wanna ask a question or two and then move on. None of this concerns me.

I was so happy when the traveler just flat out refused to start a revolution. And then we had to go and meet some people and immediately I knew this was going to be some oh noes the tragedy moments and then we would agree to help them.

It’s so forced.

Wanna know what would have been better?

Just as we are leaving the Kamisato estate Thoma catches up with us. And he tells us he gets it. We are an outsider and this doesn’t concern us. He was hopeful but he expected the denial. We shouldn’t hold it against Ayaka.

He joins us as a guide because he knows of the people we have to meet.

And so as we help these three we also get to know Thoma. We find out he was an outsider too. He got in just before the worst of it started and then he was stuck in Inazuma. He lost someone to the Vision Hunt. They slowly lost their mind after loosing their vision, their ambition too closely tied to their personality to continue without it (what is happening to Domon hits a little too close to home and he has to walk away, this is where we hear the story of the one he lost). And the same would have happened to him if the Kamisatos hadn't taken him in. He owes them his vision, his sanity and his life.

So this rebellion is personal for him.

At the end of the three wishes the atmosphere is somber. We tell him we understand why Ayaka fights, why he fights. We know that this is all wrong, that it should be stopped...but not by us. We came here to get a lead on our brother. And rebellion isn’t an overnight affaire and we can’t loose so much time in Inazuma.

And yeah, he expected as much. He just asks that we let Ayaka down gently. It’d be a shame if someone as idealistic and hopeful as her lost their spark.

And so we are gentle but firm with Ayaka. She looks like she wants to argue with us but Thoma shakes his head at her. So she sighs and tells us that a promise is a promise. We should come to the Komore Teahouse in a few days and she’ll have a plan for us to meet with the Shogun.

Now we can still have a character story quest with Yoimiya and we can still somehow get involved with helping Master Masakatsu, but it’s through Yoimiya instead of Ayaka.

And instead of a character story quest with Ayaka we have one with Thoma. Hell, give him a whole damn hangout event even.

You can probably guess why I’m pushing the friendship with Thoma so much.

Because. He. Gets. Kidnapped. For. The. 100th. Vision. Ceremony. 

And that would have been the perfect emotional in to get us involved in the rebellion. After all we just saw what happens to people who have their visions taken away and we are not letting that happen to Thoma, someone we just got close to.

So Baal makes it personal for us as well.

.

I have a few more minor complaints.

Aoi is stupid for asking for compensation after she tells us everything we needed to know because, ya know, we could have just walked away. We should have.

The whole stupid misunderstanding about the value Kurosawa’s sword holds. Kinda obvious he meant emotional value instead of monetary.

The suspicious amount of visionless NPCs and by that I mean this is the first time we have NPCs with vision. This wouldn’t have been a problem if we’ve seen NPCs with visions in Mond and Liyue.

The whole rebellion camp bit feels incredibly rushed. We just sort of lollygag over there and then there is a fight (against Sara and her stupid shoes).

Don’t make us fight Baal just to force us to lose. It would have been better if we were forced to retreat, because Thoma was injured, because there are too many soldiers for us to handle on our own. Hell, you can have a funny scene where we straight up jump off a cliff with Thoma clinging onto us and screaming bloody murder until he realizes we are slowly gliding away and he’s not about to plummet to his death.

The Sakura cleansing quest should have been voice acted.

The Mirror Maiden and Pyro Agent are totally on a date, I will not be told otherwise.

[amphtaminedreams]

Why Ethical Fashion Doesn’t Need to be Boring (In the Words of a Shopping Addict): Lookbook no.14

Hi to anyone reading,

Arghhhh.

I never know how to start posts when I literally just uploaded the other week because I tend to follow the very formulaic approach of summarising what I’ve missed due to sporadic posting…I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still posting sporadically, it just so happens I’ve had more content to get up recently-sometimes lightning strikes twice, ya know, and I have a brief, if chemically fuelled, reprieve from the permanent state of exhaustion. It’s not like there isn’t stuff to talk about- the last month has seen a horrific murder and public outcry in response. There are a lot of important conversations going on about women’s safety and misogynistic violence that I really cannot do justice to in a paragraph and feelings that have been brewing for a long time that I can’t articulate yet and will not attempt to offhandedly do so in this post. Right now I just wanna say that I stand in solidarity with all those with histories of experiencing violence at the hands of men, those who aren’t here with us anymore as a result of that violence such as Sarah Everard, and those marginalised women whose stories don’t make national news. It’s very telling the way Sarah’s vigil was responded to by the same police force that have allowed mostly male anti-mask protests to go ahead with protestors unscathed, and solidarity with the women who were treated with such an unjustifiable amount of force at the vigil too.

That being said, women’s rights are something I wanted to talk about in this post, with regards to the way it ties into ethical fashion. None of us are perfect and it’s easy living in a first world country to detach yourself from the issues stemming from fast fashion, especially when you don’t have the time or money yourself to be selective about where you buy from. Don’t get me wrong, I do treat myself to some new clothes from fast fashion companies like ASOS and Urban Outfitters a few times a year so this is NOT coming from a place of preaching, but I have drastically reduced that to buying about 90% of my new clothes either second hand from Depop or charity shops or clothing stores that are upfront about their outsourcing practices. I love putting outfits together and updating my wardrobe and I don’t want to abandon that as a medium of self-expression because it does bring me joy, but to continue to update my wardrobe with the frequency I do by buying from fast fashion retailers on such a regular basis I accepted was going against the things I care about; around 80% of textile workers on poverty wages in developing countries are girls and women (opensocietyfoundations.org), and whilst fast fashion companies in the West continue to outsource manufacturing to said countries to cut costs and there is little regulation enforcing employers to pay women the same amount as men or even adhere to a minimum wage, they will continue to be forced into these roles where they are subjected to horrific working conditions, impossible production targets and frequent abuse (according to an article published in the Guardian in June 2018, 540 incidences of abuse, often of a sexual nature, were reported by women working in factories supplying the retailers GAP and H&M when they were interviewed on the subject). There is no denying that the fast fashion industry depends on and perpetuates the subjugation of women and systematically prevents them from making steps towards gender equality in their countries, be it through greater financial independence or the freedom to pursue higher education; the popular current practice by western fast fashion companies of outsourcing manufacturing to factories unhindered by workers rights and gender equality laws by association condones the sexual and physical violence that occurs as a means of punishment for not meeting targets, the exploitative pay which affords women little independence from husbands and families dominated by patriarchal values, and the long, exhausting hours which women have little choice but to take in order to avoid their contracts being terminated and to put food on the table. No, one individual completely abandoning fast fashion isn’t going to put an end to these unethical practices but if all of us make a conscious effort to reduce our consumption at least a little and make it clear why we’re doing so, we put greater pressure on fast fashion companies to act in a more responsible way. There isn’t going to be any kind of miraculous change of heart, so to force them to change we have to hit the industry and the people at the top who benefit from such practices where it really hurts: their profit.

SO, for this post I thought I would highlight some of my favourite more ethical online clothing companies to buy from; the more popular these more socially responsible brands become, the more apparent it becomes to fast fashion companies relying on an exploitative business model that how they treat their workers is of growing importance to consumers. It’s all very well and good Missguided and PLT talking about empowering women and making “girl boss” slogan tees but we need to make it clear that we’re aware of the hollowness of the gesture, and that we want less hypocritical talk and more action to actually enhance the lives of the women that work for them, not just the ones they show in their flashy offices on TV. I’ve included my favourite Depop shops too, because if you can shop second hand, that’s even better; though I like to treat myself to new clothes now and again, I’m aware that the impact the manufacturing process in general, whether or not the company acts in an ethical way with regards to their employment practices, has on the environment is more often than not detrimental. Depop has really been my saving grace this past year-if you know what you’re looking for and have the time and patience, you can find so many gems, and at this point the balance of my wardrobe is tipped firmly in the favour of the reuse and recycle approach to shopping. In the vein of reusing fashion, I thought I’d also include a mini lookbook for a cardigan I got from one of my favourite online retailers, The Ragged Priest, just as a reminder that 1). The best way to be sustainable is to rewear and 2). That with tweaks, one piece alone can give you multiple completely different outfits. Like honestly, outfit repeating doesn’t have to be a literal repeat. Sometimes it’s worth spending a little bit extra on something that looks good with everything, and making that investment into your ability to fool people that you’ve got your shit together by wearing something cool as fuck.

Quickly before I get into it, I’m aware that some ethical companies are a bit out of the average consumer’s price range, and so I wanted to sort them into price point categories which will work as follows:

£= most of their stock is £40 & under ££= most of their stock is between £40-£100 £££= most of their stock costs upwards of £100

Now, in no particular order (and starting with online retailers before moving onto Depop shops), here’s the list!

1. THE RAGGED PRIEST

PRICE POINT: ££

Using recycled fabric to construct their pieces where possible and releasing clothing in small drops designed to sell out rather than following the typical fast fashion model of outsourcing the production of vast amounts of clothing overseas, the Ragged Priest is my absolute favourite clothing brand out there. It’s *semi* affordable and because they are all about those bold, in your face, your-grandma-will-probs-think-it’s-ugly kinda pieces, just one can do SO much for your wardrobe.

I recently bought this cardigan from their The Simple Life drop and had so many outfit ideas for it that I thought I’d put a few of them together for this post just as an example of how you can take the same piece over and over again and still make it interesting, even when you don’t feel like straying too far from your personal style preferences. While we’re at it, I also wanted to use this mini lookbook to point out how fucking great Depop is! Literally everything in these outfits is from there apart from the shoes and the jewellery, the leather blazer on the right I bought a few years ago and then the top and skirt in the outfit from the far left which are both from Ebay. The shoes with that outfit are from Koi Vegan footwear-I didn’t include them in this list because I wanted to keep it consistent and focus on ethical clothing companies rather than retailers that focus on one specific thing such as shoes or jewellery, but they are my favourite place to buy shoes from and focus closely on ethical production too so definitely recommend.

2. MINGA LONDON

PRICE POINT: ££

Towards the lower end of the ££ price point, Minga is probably the closest you’re gonna get to an ethical version of the Dolls Kill Deliah’s range. Their focus on being a socially responsible business is a huge part of their ethos and their pieces are put together in Portugal, where they're based, by a small in-house team; the majority of their fabric is sourced from local Portuguese businesses and even more amazingly, they recycle the fabric of the pieces they don’t sell in new designs. They are just a generally amazing company and I wish more people knew about them because their pieces are fucking adorable and wouldn’t be out of place (or overpriced) in your local UO.

3. ELSIE & FRED

PRICE POINT: £

A small, black owned business set up by 3 siblings from Coventry, Elsie & Fred have earned themselves a reputation as a staple provider of the festival season wardrobe. Being an independently owned business, they have strict standards that their manufacturers must adhere to and a close working relationship with the owners of the two factories who oversee production in Guangzhou, China, to ensure fair wages and a safe working environment. On the environmental side of things, Elsie and Fred are working to incorporate recycled fabric into their designs as much as possible and have this year introduced compostable mailing bags.

4. HOUSE OF SUNNY

PRICE POINT: £££

Follow enough British instagram fashion influencers and you are bound to have heard of House of Sunny in 2020-snagging what is probably my all time favourite coat from there in 2019 before all the hype is a humble brag I will allow myself on the basis that I haven’t been able to afford anything since, lol. Along with kooky, one of a kind designs, being decidedly anti-fast fashion is a huge part of their branding; HoS only drop 2 collections of limited stock a year, thoroughly screen suppliers and on their website you can find a tonne of information on how they’re working to offset their environmental impact too. If you can treat yourself to a piece from there at any point, the quality of the garments truly make the price point worth it.

5. JADED LONDON

PRICE POINT: ££

Similarly to The Ragged Priest and House of Sunny, Jaded London go the route of dropping limited collections on a less frequent basis intending to sell out (particularly popular pieces are occasionally restocked) rather than needlessly manufacturing vast quantities of garments to flog for whatever they can get and cutting corners with fair employment practices to offset any losses. By employing independent staff in the manufacturing plants with which they liaise to ensure fair, dignified working conditions and also by working closely with charities such as the Trussel Trust and Stand Up to Racism, Jaded London demonstrates a level of commitment to corporate responsibility that set them apart from a lot of similar online retailers. They are at the top of their game when it comes to daring and experimental yet wearable pieces and so it’s cool that they recognise the need to conduct their business in a considerate way too.

6. THE HIPPIE SHAKE

PRICE POINT: ££

Owned by UK based bohemian queen Naomi Hession, the Hippie Shake is not only a great small independent business to support but is also the definition of slow fashion. With a limited number of opulent 70s style pieces, I have always wanted to purchase something from here. I’ve yet to do so but I’m gonna make it my mission eventually.

7. VINTAGE HEARTS

PRICE POINT: £

An affordable, gorgeous array of quirky handpicked vintage pieces that would probably take you forever to find in a charity shop or that you’d be charged a small fortune for if you found it in a high street second hand store, Vintage Hearts is where you should go if you want a timeless statement piece that may have otherwise ended up in a landfill. The added benefit of vintage clothing is that it is, by its nature, great for the environment, but you can also look fab and groovy as fuck as you do your bit for the planet<3

8. WE ARE COW

PRICE POINT: £

Offering both original vintage pieces and reworked pieces using recycled fabrics, We Are Cow has both basic branded second hand items but also handmade streetwear style original designs all for a fair price. You can tell that it’s all high quality stuff consistent with their modern, functional aesthetic and it’s clear that the team behind the shop has a real vision in mind when they’re designing. 

9. OUT OF THE ORDINARY CLOTHING

PRICE POINT: £

In the words of Corrie Davis, founder of OOTO "I start with the belief that fashion will be always be worn differently by the individual that wears it. Every collection from Out of the Ordinary is different to the last but undeniably Out of the Ordinary. I champion flamboyancy and embrace the cultures I've experienced around the world, merging the two and creating popular style trends in exciting textiles, prints and techniques to bring to you something a little Out of the Ordinary." That pretty much sums up the vibrancy, vivacity and bold elegance of the brand’s aesthetic perfectly, which is reflected by Davis’ commitment to ethical manufacturing based on relationships forged between the founders and family artisans and the sourcing of fabrics from textile markets around the world. Everything you need for a boujie summer holiday in the Mediterranean-when leaving the country is finally allowed again, lol, EVERYBODY GET YOUR FUCKING VACCINE-is here.

10. WILD THING

PRICE POINT: ranges from £-£££ depending on the brand

Probs the closest thing you’ll get to an ethical ASOS, Wild Thing brings together a host of sustainable and independent clothing brands and puts them all in one place to present to us all a collection of the sickest festival style fashion out there. Whilst it’s super cool that this already exists and a slice of humble pie for myself to remind me that I am not in fact the revolutionary marketing genius I thought I was, I’m bummed to know that my idea of said ethical ASOS style website is already out there. Fingers crossed for the next grand money making scheme that comes to mind that I can use to distribute some wealth (yeah, there probably won’t be any because very few original thoughts enter my head, clearly, tehe) xoxo

11. SHOPFLUFFY

PRICE POINT: ££

I know it’s 2021 and we all kind hate the idea of girl boss feminism and the connotations of privilege and exploitation that come with it but can we bring it back when we’re talking about women who embody what it was actually all supposed to be about? Because the owner of ShopFluffy, @lulutrixabelle embodies everything good about the term. Somebody who genuinely does (cue Ramona singer voice here) empower other women through her celebration of powerful female friendship and free spirited sense of personal style that should inspire every one of us to wear whatever the fuck we want (clashing patterns and over-accessorising be damned), Lulu handmakes all the designs on her site and very much places an emphasis on slow fashion by releasing only a few collections a year which you can clearly tell a lot of painstaking effort and talent went into. ShopFluffy is on the pricier side but the adorable crocheted coords LuLu specialises in, reminiscent of carefree childhood days and picnics in meadows picturesque enough to be the backdrop of a Jacquemus runway presentation, are a bold and beautiful expression of playful femininity worthy of departing with a bit more than you’d usually spend. After all, if you are gonna spend that money on a piece of clothing, supporting an ethical, independent woman owned business clearly built on carefully honed skill, passion and authenticity is the way to go.

12. SHOPEASYTIGER

PRICE POINT: ££

It feels correct to follow up the ShopFluffy mention with ShopEasyTiger given the friendship between the former’s owner with Tigerlilly Winfield (is that not the most wonderfully storybook character sounding name of all time?), owner of Easy Tiger. Up there with my most revered style icons, Tigerlilly’s designs are as flamboyant and glamorous and daring and dramatic as her own personal style, and again, they are ethically made! If you want to get that psychedelic rock n’roll groupie that’s actually way cooler than the band itself kinda energy too, her shop is the place to start.

13. HOTTTRAMP 

PRICE POINT: ££

Founded by the incredibly hot Belle_hott_tramp on Instagram, HottTramp is a collection of both handmade pieces and carefully selected vintage finds that blur the lines between 90s Courtney Love style grunge and 70s summer of love hippy that make me want to start my own all girl rock band and hire a camper van to paint black and road trip through the American desert. Given my complete lack of hand eye coordination, I’ll most likely never have the instrumental skills to do that but I never said it was a realistic fantasy, okay?

14. LAZY OAF

PRICE POINT: ££

Is it just me that always thought Lazy Oaf was within the same kind of price range as The Ragged Priest? Because it’s a lottt more expensive than I thought. That being said, if you’re going for a playful, toned down Molly Goddard kinda look, anything bright and youthful, Lazy Oaf’s clothes 100% fit that brief. You are paying more, but part of that markup is reflected in their transparency when it comes to their ethical code, which includes ensuring that statutory minimum wage laws are adhered to in the supply chain as well as that all workers are of the legal working age for their countries and that their working hours do not exceed the legal limit. They are also steadfastly committed to donating a portion of their profits to charities dedicated to improving mental wellbeing such as Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, and Young Minds, something that is hugely important to me given my own experiences and the line of work I want to go into.

15. NEVER FULLY DRESSED

PRICE POINT: ££

Similar in their aesthetic to Out of the Ordinary, Never Fully Dressed is big on colour, print, and elegance. They have both specially selected second hand pieces on offer and original designs too and the about us section of their website clearly states how passionate they are about their ethical manufacturing process, which takes place both here in the UK and in China.

16. TUNNEL VISION

PRICE POINT: ££

Offering the dreamiest, one of a kind vintage 90s pieces, Tunnel Vision could just as easily be a grunge girl band come the craft themed moodboard as it is an online retailer. If the 90s isn’t for you-I mean, I don’t wanna question anybody’s taste levels but…-they also have the option of shopping by era, which I think is a really cool feature I wish a lot of irl vintage shops would incorporate.

17.  LOVE TOO TRUE

PRICE POINT: £

Everything on Love Too True is fucking gorgeousss and it is no surprise that they manufacture their garments here in London because I feel their brand totally encompasses that stereotypical 90s East End punk vibe perfectly with a shit tonne of chunky boots and show stopping plaid pieces that makes my heart ache for a riot grrrl renaissance. Yes, when it comes to feminism’s place in mainstream culture, making sure the political goals and structural changes we’re aiming for are visible to all is by far the most important, but let’s have a resurgence of the grunge girl’s armour along with that and PLEASE let’s leave athleisure in the 2010s. No more Kardashian nude leggings, I beg (I AM being lighthearted, wear whatever you want! We’re not policing women’s clothes in this neck of the woods).

18. NINE LIVES BAZAAR

PRICE POINT: £££

Eurgh. Nine Lives Bazaar. I want it ALL. Their clothes give me all the Etro, Zimmerman, Torey Burch, modernised Stevie Nicks vibes on a slightly more realistic budget, though unfortunately for me said budget just isn’t realistic enough. You would think pieces being ethically produced is just a given when it comes to clothes within this price range but that’s not necessarily the case and Nine Lives Bazaar is one of the ones you can trust to actually be considerate of their employees needs when it comes to their approach to business. To anybody who can afford to shop here, I am insanely jealous. The rest of us, for now, can just browse the website n feel the fantasy, channel a Valentina level of delusion and pretend it’s just the import taxes from Australia that’s holding us back from making a purchase.

-DEPOP SHOPS-

1. @HOUSE_OF_EROTIQUE

PRICE POINT: ££

Everything handmade and latex and form fitting to make you the baddest bitch in the room, I’ve got myself a few pieces from this shop over the past couple of years. Customer service is a bit hit or miss and there’s been times when I’ve had to wait a while for my purchases to get to me but because they’re all one of a kind and custom made to fit, it’s worth it, and when they have messed up they were kind enough to add something to my order for free.

2. @SACREDHAWK

PRICE POINT: ££

If you picture raiding the wardrobe of a biker gang, snatching the Coachella bound suitcases of the Revolve ambassadors at Palm Springs airport, and then jumbling all those clothes together, that’s probably your best bet at getting an idea of Sacred Hawk’s aesthetic. Formerly an ASOS concession, the brand is now available on Depop and is a collection of the most lavish glam grunge pieces, all vintage or reworked vintage. Some things are a bit on the pricey side but I would say they are all priced fairly considering how unique and ornate a lot of the pieces are, and I reeeeally wanna be able to say I own something from there one day.

3. @IDENTITYPARTY

PRICE POINT: £££

I struggled with how to categorise this Depop shop in terms of price point because although there are some fairly low-priced pieces, the standouts are the vintage coats which are understandably a lot more expensive-if you want to fully immerse yourself in the Almost Famous Penny Lane fantasy, you’re gonna have to fork out a little bit.

4. @RETRO_RAIL

PRICE POINT: £££

Retro_rail is of a similar vein to IdentityParty, in that the standout pieces are the vintage coats which are usually upwards of £100-if you’re looking for one-of-a-kind statement outerwear to invest in, I can’t recommend this shop enough. If you’re like me and you’re looking for something more within the £ to ££ price range, Retro Rail is still worth a browse as inspiration for the kind of styles you might wanna try and find elsewhere on Depop.

5. @5THSEASON

PRICE POINT: £

Most of the quirky vintage pieces you’ll find on offer on this Depop shop are within the £25 to £40 price range and though you’ve got coats similar to those you’ll find on Identity Party and Retro Rail and they are sill slightly more than the tops and trousers and dresses on sale etc., they are more modestly priced than the other 2 listed.

6. @DREAMERSREBELS

PRICE POINT: £££

Another v pricey one, dreamersrebels specialises in the daintiest, most whimsical 60s style co-ords I’ve ever seen. Handmade upon purchase, which in turn guarantees little textile waste, you can find the kind of pieces you’d expect to see on a 21st century incarnation of Audrey Hepburn, all the soft pastels and timeless, retro silhouettes you could possibly wish for. I mean, wishing is pretty much all I can do rn but anyone with a near minimum wage retail job knows you need something to aspire to, lol. I managed to budget enough to treat myself to a Selkie dress so I’m manifesting that same level of self-discipline to get me a dreamersrebels piece next.

7. @AWKWARDPHASE

PRICE POINT: £

Very affordable vintage pieces that range from cutesy mid-century style dresses and coats to grungy 90s jackets, perfectly styled and presented too in a way that will have you wanting to order something for yourself to replicate that modern spin on old staples and give them a second life.

8. @EVIEHALLOWS

PRICE POINT: £

Another Depop shop where the clothes are styled so well, it’ll have you thinking you can make anything from a floral 1950s housewife style cardigan to a lycra jumpsuit look very intentionally on trend.

9. @JAHOOLI

PRICE POINT: £

There’s also Jahooli, which I will just say ticks all the same boxes as the other two aforementioned stores to avoid repeating myself.

10. @LOVELYANDLOVELESS 

PRICE POINT: £

In terms of price, I would put Lovely and Loveless into the same category as Jahooli, Awkward Phase and Evie Hallows, the difference being that the clothes available are more on the dainty, classically feminine side. People who have a Pinterest board dedicated to the cottagecore or light academia aesthetic (whew, the gen Z is showing), this one’s for you.

11. @CHLOESTJOHN

PRICE POINT: £

Finally, we have the ChloeStJohn Depop shop and it’s definitely a good one to end on; picture the wardrobe of Carrie Bradshaw if she’d lived in Camden instead of New York in the 90s and hung out with a slightly edgier crew than Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha and there you have it, the vibe of the pieces on offer. Does it belong to a girl who probs lives near Primrose Hill and has access to all the boujiest second hand clothes shops available which she most likely routinely raids to resell on Depop? Potentially, but hopefully not because I am very here for this whole red wine in one hand and a cigarette in another back when people were allowed to smoke inside bars aesthetic. I’m sorry that the gen Z part of me once again jumped out in such an aggressive fashion with that last sentence, but I know you know what I mean.

And that’s everything! 

I did wanna close off the post with a reminder of how nuanced a discussion this is-having the time and money to be more conscious about your ethical footprint when you’re buying clothes is in itself a privilege; fashion shouldn’t be an interest reserved for only those who have the means to pay extra or spend time scouring the internet. It’s also important to be aware of the lack of size inclusivity-a lot of the “trendy” sustainable fashion brands tend to not stock anything larger than a size 14 and attempt to deflect attention away from this by categorising clothes as either XS, S, M, or L, which is in itself a bit of a pisstake considering that 12-14 is the average clothing size here for women in the UK, and so in no way large. Shopping from Depop and Ebay is hard too when so many brands fail to understand how to fit a non-straight size body which in turn necessitates trying stuff on before you buy it, something that isn’t possible when you’re shopping second hand. A lot of Depop shops fail to offer returns and even with those who do, chasing up that return can be a time-consuming and generally all round frustrating process.

Basically, when we’re having these kinds of discussions it’s important to consider everyone’s situations and avoid sitting on some kind of high horse. I feel like things have become even more complicated lately- with the recent closure of once popular high street stores such as Topshop and Miss Selfridge, it has got me thinking a lot about just how many people’s income here in the UK is dependent on fast fashion retailers too and their popularity. The job scarcity resulting from these kind of closures, which are often all that is available to a lot of people with the demands of the job market seemingly becoming more and more impossible each day even for those who have been in higher education, is clearly an issue when the kind of support you can expect from the government as someone out of work is so woefully inadequate and likely to become even more so as the conservatives push for further cuts to UC and PIP. The past year has really shown us just how shaky the ground that an intensely capitalist society stands on is and how quickly everything can go tits up when we don’t invest in a safety net for those who are struggling. People seem to have realised more than ever the extent to which those whose jobs we deem “low-skilled” are actually the backbone of society, and yet even here, whilst the situation may not be quite as desperate as it is elsewhere, we still haven’t seen pay rises that reflect that. Turns out all the clapping WAS an empty gesture, who’d have thought it (for fuck’s sake)? Fair wages really are a global issue that starts with paying people enough for them to comfortably live on and in time should lead to a shift in consciousness away from the concept of profit before everything else and towards an equal playing field for everyone, something we should take every opportunity to speak up about and demand from our “leaders”, however shit a job so many of those leaders do. It’s frustrating how the focus on making ethical purchasing choices is so often on the overconsumption of things that women historically are more actively interested in such as clothes and accessories and make up when the reality is that the wealth of every industry titan on this planet, NOT just the ones who dominate the fast fashion sphere, depends on them continuing to get away with exploiting people-we should be looking at how we can show our dissatisfaction in all areas. Maybe I’m perpetuating that with this post, since a lot of the online retailers I mentioned only sell women’s clothing, but that being said, I’m not about to do men’s work for them, lol-they should make the effort, if possible, to research into sustainable clothing alternatives too.

Anyway, that’s the end of this post! If you read to the end, thank you so much! If I’ve made any errors in my research or there are more sustainable clothing brands that I could’ve mentioned, feel free to inbox me them too, and I can add them to this post if Tumblr allows. It’s usually a little bitch when it comes to editing long posts but I’ll try my best:) Again, thanks for reading! And if you are, I hope you are safe and well!

Lauren x

[fullmarvelheart]

Crossing Lines (6/?)

Pairing: mob!Bucky x fbi!mob!Reader

Word Count: 5,199 

Recommended: 18+ readers

Summary: A sudden and unsettling event rocks the underworld, and Y/N is immediately called in to prepare for what’s to come. What she isn’t prepared for is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, also known as the new head of the Brooklyn mafia clan. When these two get shoved into a world of danger and deceit, will they ever learn to trust each other? Or will they be doomed from the start?

Warnings: Swearing, angst, a wee bit of fluff?, Grant Ward (because he’s his own warning), mentions of violence

A/N: Happy Black Widow Day! I’ve been waiting for this movie to come for so long and unfortunately I won’t be able to watch it tonight😢. But anyways, here’s part six with a surprise character😉 (literally didn’t think of adding her until yesterday). Hope you guys enjoy! This has not been beta read at all. All mistakes are my own. The GIF is not mine, so credit goes to the original creator!

Series Masterlist

“Skye, come on! Why the hell did you drive off to the middle of damn nowhere?”

“Just trust me.” She says calmly as she parks the car, completely ignoring my outburst in the process. “And stop complaining, Y/N/N. I know you had another fight with your dad, so I know you wanted to be out of the city.”

“Fine, ok. But what is going on? I’m guessing Ward has no idea what you’re doing.”

“You’re not serious, right? You know he hates me doing anything remotely dangerous.”

“Not that I’m against going behind your boyfriend’s back, but what did you do?” I ask my, running my fingers through my hair.

“So, you know how Ward mentioned HYDRA’s top runner, Crossbones, the other day?” I nod. “Well, I got curious. We know nothing about him, and Ward thinks he can set a trap for him. I just, I just don’t want him to get hurt when I could have done something.”

“And you know if you did this at the Bureau, he’d find out somehow and stop you. Or Gonzales would.” Now she nods. “Alright, but I’m helping you with this. I’ve got a weird feeling about the whole thing and as your partner, it’s my job to keep you safe.”

“You worry too much.” She chuckles. “Besides, I’ll practically be behind my computer screen the whole time. Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“You’re right, I guess. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop worrying though. And why are you still with Ward?” I groan dramatically, causing her to laugh.

“Oh, be nice. He’s not bad once you get to know him.”

“I don’t know. Something about his arrogance just doesn’t settle well with me.” I shrug.

“You’re being over dramatic. He’s great!”

“He better be, he is dating my best friend after all. Now let’s find the next exit, I’m hungry!”

Her laughter echoes in my head as the car moves along the highway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stomp through the halls on a mission. The office was empty, and disturbingly dark and stuffy for nine in the morning. If he’s not in his office there’s only one other place I could imagine him in, his bedroom.

“Please, don’t kill me for this.” I mutter to myself before taking a deep breath and throwing the door open.

My eyes scan the room and zero in on the lump underneath the covers.

“Go away, Steve.” His usually pleasant rough voice is mixed with hints of sleep and something else. I can’t help it that my inner self finds it sexy while I try to stay concerned rather than turned on.

Now’s not the time for a daydream. Focus.

The door shuts with a soft click, giving him the impression ‘Steve’ left. You aren’t that lucky today. I’m no push over! My boot clad feet thud on the wooden floor as I march straight towards the end of the bed. With one strong grip at the end of the comforter, I yank the sheets off his body before turning towards the curtain clad windows.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He screeches, trying to pull the blankets back up to cover himself from the cold air of the room. That was nothing. “Hey! What the hell is this, Rogers?” I pull the curtains open; the intense sunlight illuminates the room causing even me to briefly squint.

After successfully finding a single blanket to cover back up with, I notice the fact that Barnes had curled himself into a human ball in the middle of his mattress to block out the light.

“Oh, for fucks sake.” I groan, grabbing onto an edge piece of the fabric. “Get up, now!”

I try to yank it off him in one swift motion, again, but he’s faster than I thought. He springs up into a sitting position, latching on to the blanket I almost had off him, commencing a tug-of-war over the stupid thing. The muscles and veins in his arms flex and bulge, and in normal situations, I’d be impressed. But I’m getting irritated.

“You’re an absolute child.” I grunt as I fight with him.

“Let go, you heathen.” He counters.

At his command, I let go, causing him to fly backwards and bounce slightly on the mattress.

“Dangerous mob boss my ass.” I chide, crossing my arms as he just looks at me with disbelief.

“What do you want, Fury?” He groans, rubbing his eyes.

“Too much for you to comprehend at the moment but let’s start with this. How about you get your head out of your ass, get out of bed, and do your damn job?”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“You wouldn’t understand, Fury. And you’re crossing a line here. Get out.”

“It’s Maximoff to you right now. And what don’t I understand, Barnes?” I ask, ignoring his other remark.

“You have some nerve, coming here, into my room. Now get out.” He growls, tossing the blanket away, exposing me to the fact that he sleeps only in a pair of boxers. Damn, suits really don’t do his body justice, but damn does he look good in either.

“You have some nerve thinking this doesn’t concern me.” I snap back, regaining my focus, glad he didn’t catch me staring or was too annoyed to notice.

“And how,” He starts, finally standing up and slowly walking towards me, “Does this concern you?”

His muscles bulge as he crosses his arms, stopping at the foot of his massive king-sized bed. Though, there is an unsway of his body, and the shakiness that was in his hands that doesn’t evade my attention. Where I once noticed stubble, an unkept beard lies in its place. His hair looks knotted, unwashed, and greasy. Overall, he looks like an absolute train wreck.

“How does it not? Furthermore, how does it not concern you?! Barnes when did you last have a full meal, let alone showered!?” I exclaim, looking him over more closely. I can barely see the fact that he’s lost weight, but it’s there, it’s noticeable. The lack of a hot shower is more than just noticeable though.

He scoffs again.

“This is none of your business. Leave.”

“Stop being so fucking defensive with me. And this is my damn business, or have you forgotten the deal you have with my father? With Brooklyn on uneasy ground, especially after losing their last leader, you’re a target for HYDRA to attack. Not to mention the threat of the other mafia clans. And you know damn well that if my father has any idea that your alliance will cost him more than benefit him, he’ll watch you be fed to the sharks. But it just so happens that his daughter is in your territory, which gives you just a bit more wiggle room. However, if you put me in danger, he won’t just watch, he’ll feed you to the damn sharks himself!”

“I know!” He yells, walking closer to me.

“Then start acting like it.” I hiss.

“You don’t understand!” He argues, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Understand what?!”

“I can’t do this without him!”

The room falls into silence, and I stare at him, stunned.

“Okay? I can’t do this without my father. Yes, he’d been preparing me for years. But I always knew I could get advice from him or help if I needed it, once I took over. But this, all of this. I don’t know how to lead my men; I don’t know how prepare us. I don’t even have time to grieve the fact my father, not my boss, is gone forever, and I don’t know how to do this without him.” He chuckles dryly, hands on his hips. “I told you, you wouldn’t understand.” And he’s turning away from me.

“You’re wrong.” I cringe at how shaky and quiet my voice comes out.

“What?”

“You’re wrong.” I repeat firmly. “To think I don’t understand.” The sting of tears forming in my eyes has me pausing to close them and take a deep breath.

When I open them again, Barnes faces me properly with a look of confusion and mild concern.

“No one knows exactly what to do in these situations. But from one ally to another, you have your training, and the people you trust to help you figure it out. And you have your friends. It might not always work the way you planned, but nothing ever really does. You aren’t the only one grieving the death of your father, the men also adored him. Keep that in mind.” I pause, watching him work through what I said to him. “But don’t you dare ever assume I don’t understand grief.” I sneer. “Or how to continue on with the weight of it constantly on my shoulders. You don’t know me. So don’t act like you do.” He gapes at me, like a fish. “Get your shit together Barnes, and get to work.”

I walk out of his room as quickly as I can, letting the door slam behind me. Two corners later and I finally let myself slump against the wall. I gasp for air I didn’t know I needed as I fight back the tears trying to escape. It’s been six months! It was just a stupid dream! Get it together!

When my breathing returns to normal, I pull out my phone. The message from the unsaved number glares at me as I ignore it, again, and type out a message to another party.

“Meet me at the shore this afternoon. More details will be given soon. Bring the info you have gathered and don’t tell the boss.”

The response is almost immediate.

“Understood. He’s getting antsy about the report...”

I groan to myself as I push off the wall. He’ll just have to wait longer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The zippers of my backpack nearly shriek as I pull both of them together quickly. I’ve been frustrated with my more legal job before, but this is something different.

Why the fuck are they making me go to a check in with the case officer this early? A month! I’m supposed to have a month to gain traction and trust in the role they requested of me! They should know that it isn’t safe to possibly expose an undercover operative at all, why would they risk it this early on?!

I growl to myself under my breath as I lace up my boots, aggravated that they’re risking the objective of this mission. If I get made, my father will also lose the alliance, HYDRA might learn of my role in the government and go into hiding, and that’s a lot of fuck up that doesn’t need to happen. Gonzales better either know what he’s doing or have good intel for me.

I swing the backpack up on my shoulder, just as someone knocks on the door.

“Give me a second.” I call, letting the pack flop onto my bed.

I’m surprised to find Natasha on the other side of the door, waiting with her arms crossed patiently.

“Come on in.” I say before she can speak, nodding to the inside of my room.

She raises an eyebrow in suspicion but walks in anyways. She turns to face me just and the door closes.

“All I was going to say was that Barnes is requesting everyone to head to the warehouse, but I’m guessing there’s something else?”

I nod. “I got called for a check in.” I tell her with an eyebrow raised, not needing to tell her who I’m referring to.

“This soon?”

“I’m hoping to get something worth the risk for this, but my gut says otherwise.”

She hums to herself in thought as she processes.

“I can get you a cover this time.” She states sharply. “But they need to get their act together. The cover might work just enough, but there are still people in here who don’t trust you, yet.”

“They might never.” I shrug. “But I agree with your risk assessment. I’m prepared to chew out whoever it is.”

She smirks, then motions towards my door. “Get to the warehouse and leave your things here for now. I’ll make the arrangements.”

I give her a small smile before we’re both walking off in different directions.

The warehouse is packed with people, many of which I don’t recognize, all of whom are engaging in loud conversations. I begin to push my way through the crowd, though I don’t make it too far as I feel a hand grab onto my arm. When I turn towards the pull, Drax smiles at me, motioning for me to follow him. I laugh quietly to myself as people practically jump out of Drax’s way. When we stop, I spot Carol not too far away and walk over to her.

“For the record,” She says, not even looking at me. “This is odd for us too.”

“Is this everyone?” I ask, confused.

She scoffs. “No, there are still those on patrols or jobs that aren’t here. But I’m sure they’ll be brought up to speed, on whatever this is, later.”

I hum as an answer, my eyes scanning the crowd of faces, seeing who I’ll recognize. I just make out Rollins’ silhouette as the voices begin to fall silent. Barnes stands in front of the gathering on a small platform, Rogers and Wilson flank him on either side. He looked a lot better than what I saw earlier. His beard trimmed back to a five o’clock shadow, his hair washed, brushed, and tied into a small bun behind his head, and there was strength in his body showing that he was able to eat since I last saw him. If I hadn’t seen him this morning, I wouldn’t have believed anything was wrong in the first place.

Standing behind the three mafia men, I see Barton, the two Odinson brothers, and five other men and one woman that I don’t recognize. Natasha casually merges in with the group at the last second.

“Many of you have taken note of my absence recently.” Barnes starts talking, his voice booming across the warehouse, commanding everyone’s full attention. It sends a thrill down my spine that I suppress. “And I am aware of the rumors that have been spreading regarding such absence.

“I was reminded earlier today that I was as close to my father as he was with many of you, maybe just a little closer. And yes, I’ve been grieving. But that grief has not blinded me to the enemy that is still out there, just as it has not blinded you.

“The enemy that has let their guard down because HYDRA thinks it has weakened us!” Grumbles of disapproval make him pause. “But they have not weakened us! This clan, this family, is not weakened by the grief of our leader. We are angered, enraged, that they dare try to cross us.” He pauses, listening to the murmurs of agreement of his people. “They have no idea what awaits them. Since the fall of George Barnes, they’ve expected us to kneel before them, begging for mercy. But they will be the ones begging. Their days are number because we will find them, and we will bury every last one of them as we watch HYDRA burn!”

The men begin to shout out their support, the roar almost sounds deafening to my ears, but I follow their lead, yelling with them. Barnes holds up his hand, and the crowd silences.

“Get a move on. We have work to do.” The warehouse erupts in applause, shouts of affirmation, threats to HYDRA, and anything of the sort.

The men begin to clear out of the warehouse, and Carol motions for me to follow her before walking towards Barnes.

“It’s good to see you again, boss.” She tells him with a smile, one he reciprocates before glancing at me. “I was wondering if I’d be able to take new girl around for a drive. Just to show her around our territory.”

“That’ll have to wait, Danvers.” Natasha cuts in, before turning to me. “Let’s go.”

She’s walking away before Barnes or Danvers, who both share a curious glance with me, can say anything. I only slightly hesitate before hurrying after her.

“Thank you.” I mutter once we’re out of the warehouse.

“Don’t thank me, yet. The boss will have questions.”

“Hopefully it’ll be worth it. If it isn’t, I’m gonna chew out whatever unlucky soul is sent.”

“I have no doubt of that.” She replies, and I can hear a hint of a smirk in her voice.

We near one of the doors that serve as an exit to the base, and I see my backpack sitting at the bottom of it.

“Know you way around?” She asks as I swing the backpack over my shoulder.

“Well enough. It shouldn’t be too hard.” I say, shrugging.

“Good. If you do get lost, call me,” She hands me a piece of paper with a number on it. “And I’ll sent someone for you. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I nod, folding the paper up and slipping it in the back pocket of my jeans.

She nods back, then walks away. I take a deep breath before throwing the door open and walking out in the direction of the nearest subway. When I’m a decent way away from the warehouse, I pull out my phone.

“Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 2, two hours.” I press send on the text before placing a call, one I admittedly should have done earlier.

“About damn time!” I cringe at the tone in his voice but carry on as if I didn’t piss him off.

“I thought I wouldn’t have any contact with the Family. But everything’s going well. There was a slight issue, but I handled it and everything’s back to the way it should be.” I say over the noise of the street traffic.

“What issue? And why are you calling in public?”

“I was called in.” I grumble into the phone.

“Already?”

“Yes, but I swear if this is a waste of time, whoever I’m meeting is getting an earful.”

“I’d be concerned if they didn’t. But what issue?”

“It’s been fixed, it doesn’t matter, but I need a copy of the contract.” I state firmly, hopefully distracting him from the other thing.

“Y/N, you know-”

“Father!” I take a breath, so I don’t start arguing with him in public. “I need that copy. If I’m going to be doing this, I need to know every single condition, and every term.”

The other end of the line is silent, and I know he’s thinking things over.

“Alright. But in turn, when I ask for an update, you give me one that fucking day. Understood?”

“Yes.” I mumble, hating feeling like a scolded child.

“Good.”

“I’m getting on the subway, I have to go.”

“I expect an update tomorrow.”

“Yes sir.” I hang up the phone and let out a deep sigh before walking down the stairs.

As the subway approaches, my phone chimes and I glance at the text.

“Understood. I’ll see you there.”

The meeting place my case officer chose, a quaint little coffee shop, is two blocks away from my stop. The amount of people on the sidewalks has me wishing for my bike as I squeeze in between people, and there are several times I wished to shove the slow walkers out of my way when I couldn’t pass. Honestly being stuck in traffic was a bit more enjoyable to being stuck behind of group of gossiping women.

I come up to the corner of the street, where the shop is located, and spot its cute little sign. As I cross the street, I happen to take a glance in the window and immediately find a face I recognize.

“You got to be shitting me.” I growl to myself.

The door chimes as I walk through, and I head towards the table.

“Fancy seeing you here.” I grumble as I take a seat, using the heel of my boot to put pressure on the toes of his foot.

“Right, well,” He coughs, covering up a wince as he pulls his foot away from mine. I smirk to myself. “Considering I called for this, I’m not really surprised.”

“Ward, you son of a bitch.” I hiss, quiet enough not to draw attention, as I kick his shin sharply. “You’re an idiot. You better have a good reason for doing this Grant.”

He visibly winces and adjusts himself before clearing his throat to address me.

“As your case officer, I don’t need to explain this to you.”

“You do when you compromise my position. This was way too early!” I hiss before clearing my throat, remember not to cause a scene. “Do you have information for me or not?”

“We’ll get to that in a second. Look, if Skye was still alive, she’d want-”

“Yeah, well she’s not here. How does your new girlfriend, what was it, Kara, feel about you still being hung up on your dead ex?”

“Do not bring her into this.” He hisses, before straightening up and burying any hint of annoyance until there is barely any emotion visible on his face. I hate when he does this, it unnerves me how easy it is for him each time. “Here.” He states before putting a thin file on the table for me to grab. “This is everything that we’ve been able to find out about them recently.”

I swipe it off the tabletop and gently toss it into my backpack, without opening the folder.

“Hopefully, I don’t see you again anytime soon. This better not become a regular thing with you.” I mumble before getting up and ordering a cup of coffee to-go.

As I walk out of the store, I almost bump into a blonde woman that was on her phone. Luckily for both of us, the coffee didn’t spill. After a few seconds of hurried apologies, and foreign curse words on her end, I hurry to the station, hoping I won’t have to wait that long for my ride.

When I get to the park, I decide to wander around for a little bit. It feels good to be out in fresh air inside of being inside a building for the entire day. The clouds look fluffy and soft, the breeze is cool on my face, and the sun feels just warm enough to enjoy without sweating to death. I stop once I get to Pier 2 and just find myself leaning on the railing of the pier, looking out onto the river and the skyscrapers on the other side.

While I wait, I decide to enter Natasha’s number into my phone, then letting the piece of paper fall into the water of the river, the safest way to dispose of it. After I can no longer see the white of the paper, I return my gaze to my father’s city.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you like this.”

“Like what?” I ask, looking towards the voice.

“Content. Happy, even just a little bit.” She says with a small smile while moving to stand beside me.

“It’s the little things like this that make me happy, May. It helps me forget about the mess that is my life, even just for a few minutes.”

She hums and we just stand in silence for a moment.

“What have you been able to find?” I ask, breaking the silence and going into business mode.

“Not much. I doubt it’ll be much help to you.”

“A little may be what I need. I still have some of her research. At this point I just need anything on him.”

“Having nightmares about her again?” She asks, concerned.

It causes me to smile, even just a little bit. Sure, my father hired her, but she has always remained loyal to me, more so than to the family. Though, I have no doubt that if she had any concern about me, she’d go talk to my father.

“More like memories. Still, they leave me feeling restless because I haven’t been able to find a lead on this guy. Skye was getting close, I know that. Which is the only explanation as to why she was killed.”

She hums again. “Still not planning on telling your father?”

I scoff. “After he basically called me paranoid for looking into Ward? No. If he finds out I haven’t let this go like he thinks, he’s going to ask questions. Questions I’m not ready to answer. Not only that, but if he finds out I contacted you while on assignment, I’d get my head chewed off. I’m technically not even allowed to contact him, yet here we all are.”

She nods with a slight chuckle, then pulls a file out from underneath her jacket and hands it to me.

“I’ll keep checking in with my contacts on the street to see if anything new about him surfaces, but until then, this is all I have.”

I stare at the closed file for a moment, before sliding that into my backpack as well.

“Thank you again, May.” She smiles briefly before nodding.

“You should get out of here, before anyone questions why you’ve been gone for a while.” I nod and push away from the railing. “Oh, and Y/N?” I turn back around. “Stay safe.”

“You too, May.” I call back, walking away.

A flash of blonde hair in the corner of my eye has me pause for a second, but when I see nothing, I shrug to myself and keep going. It must have been in my head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The door to my room shuts and I feel my body sag from the exhaustion of the day. I let my backpack slip to the ground with a soft thud and shuffle towards my bed. When my back meets the cool sheets of the mattress, a deep sigh escapes my lips and I close my eyes, finally enjoying a bit of rest. But, there’s a knock at my door that has me groaning loudly.

“Of course.” I grumble under my breath.

When I open the door, I’m very surprised to find Thor standing on the other side with a slight scowl on his face.

“Follow me.”

I do so, hesitantly, letting the door slowly click shut before catching up to him. The walk is silent, and for some reason, I feel uneasy for the first time since I walked in here. He leads me through the halls, and I find myself recognizing where we are going. James Barnes’ office.

Thor opens the door and motions for me to step inside, and I do, trying to maintain a façade of confidence. And I’m grateful for it, because the glare Barnes wears as he watches me enter almost has me reeling backwards. He sits behind his desk, looking regal, deadly, and in charge. No trace of friendliness shows on his face.

What really throws me for a loop is the petite redhead curled on his lap, her well-manicured nails raking through his hair in almost a possessive manner. The sight makes something churn uncomfortably in my stomach, and by the smirk on her face, she knows it too.

I look away from her, finding Rogers and Wilson in their places behind Barnes, leaning against the wall. Natasha stands off to the right, near the only window in the office.

“Dot, leave.” He says stiffly, not removing his gaze from mine.

“But Bucky Boo-”

“Now.” He growls, ignoring her high-shrieked protest. This is the infamous Barnes I’ve heard about on the streets.

She huffs in irritation, untangling herself from Barnes’ lap and starts stomping out of the room like a child throwing a small tantrum. She brushes past me, giving me the death glare on her way. I simply raise an eyebrow at her retreating form until the door shuts behind her.

“Lovely person, Bucky Boo.” I mutter under my breath, turning back around. “I haven’t looked at the information I was given, yet. I only just got back to the compound.” I say to Barnes, assuming that’s what got him so miffed.

“How was the meeting?” He asks, completely ignoring my remark, irritation still evident.

“I wanted to shove Ward’s head through the window only a few times. So, fairly well, I guess. Still pissed off he’s assigned as my case officer though.” I shrug still not seeing the point of this.

I see Barnes’ eye twitch and hear the soft click of the door closing. I turn around to see the blonde that I almost walked into on the sidewalk from earlier, and everything falls into place. With a click of my tongue in understanding, I turn back around towards Barnes.

“You had me followed.” I state.

“Yelena Belova, Nat’s sister, was sent to keep an eye on you. Make sure you stayed safe.”

“Hmmm. Interesting.” I hum towards the ground, frustrated that I didn’t see that coming earlier, as my hands find purchase on my hips, my nails digging into the fabric of my shirt.

“Imagine my surprise when I got a message saying you weren’t on your way back after the drop off, but was going to meet someone else.”

“Yeah, and I’m not telling you why.” I fire back stubbornly, my hands still on my waist.

Barnes blinks rapidly, shocked, because I didn’t deny it, that I said no to him so easily, or maybe because of something else completely. Whatever the reason, he recovers quickly. A scowl now twisting up his features.

“We had a deal with your f-”

“I’m not the one that needs reminder of that deal, it seems.” I snap. “What I did today, was for reasons you aren’t entitled to.” His scowl deepens. “Now, I could give you some information about it. If you were to tell me something in return.”

“And what’s that?” He growls, but willing to play my game.

“The last crate I picked up on my assignment.” Recognition dances over his eyes. “Yeah, it’s about that. Tell me what was in there because I know for a fact it wasn’t the shit on the manifest. That was just a cover. You tell me what the shipment was, and I’ll tell you what I was given.”

He clenches his jaw, but doesn’t say a word. I wait for a moment before nodding, more to myself than him.

“You’ll get the info the Bureau sent me, once I make sure it’s actually useful.”

I turn and exit the office quickly, no one saying a word to me before the door closes. My nails dig into my palms as I stomp back to my room, pissed off at the day I’ve had. My door slams shut, and I begin pacing the floor of my room. Anger flows through my veins like a fire that can’t be stopped. I had at least thought I was gaining some ground with Barnes and even some of the others, but apparently not. The only reason he let me go free is because of that stupid deal.

One thing’s certain after tonight, though. James Barnes is not to be trusted.

 Part 7

Tag List:

@the-ss-horniest-book-club

@broco8

@tcc-gizmachine

@miraclesoflove

@ladyacrasia

[thefanficmonster]

Tell Me It’s Not Too Late

(Sequel to Switchblade)

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Heartbreak, Swearing

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Summary: When is it considered ‘too late’ when it comes to expressing feelings? Is there even a time limit? Is the chance only momentary - is it a second that passes you by with no possibility of returning? All Corpse can do is hope that’s not the case. Cause if it is.....he’d rather not think about that.

Requested - sort of, but not in a typical way. Thank you to all the readers of ‘Switchblade’ that wanted to see the story have an ending that’d lead to a new start. Here it is, guys! Hope it lives up to what you expected. Love you all to the moon and back. 💖💖💖

I end my stream after almost three hours of constant scares. I sigh, slipping the headset off my ears so it’s hanging around my neck. I don’t feel that fulfilling feeling that I’m always met with upon ending a stream. I look at the countless scratches and little holes on the surface of my desk - evidence of the fear and frustration I experience while playing certain games. Not all of them are caused by that, however - Coming home after possibly the most humiliating night of my life, that desk and a few other pieces of furniture suffered my wrath and are now decorated with stab wounds that were a result of uncontrollable rage, hurt, self-hatred and self-pity. It took me a while to put an end to my hazardous, switchblade wielding rampage throughout my house, but the tears didn’t stop until the early morning hours.

I didn’t care that my feelings weren’t reciprocated. That was and is the least of my troubles. The most amount of hurt comes from the fact that I ruined something wonderful for myself. Corpse is the only person I’ve felt this close to all my life and now, due to my own poor decision making, I no longer have him. He no longer wants to be a part of the shit-show that is my life. Especially not now that he knows how messy things get when I show my forever-hidden feelings. I can’t blame him. I know I’d be running for the hills if I were him. He deserves a person who knows what’s going on in their life. Who has themselves and their surroundings figured out. Not someone who has an irregular streaming schedule and catches feelings for her best friend, ruining the friendship altogether in the process.

As I stand up from my chair, accidentally hitting the handle of the switchblade on the edge of my desk. I look down at it and how tightly I’m holding it. I seem to not be able to let go of it. Almost like I see it as my last bit of link to Corpse. The remnants of the connection I felt between us.

Maybe I should return it.

No, that’d be weird. I’d either have to go over there and give it back or send it via mail which is worse. It just feels like a harsh gesture - mailing something so meaningful as though it’s as worthless as the bills people get in the mail. I can’t send it through others, I don’t want anyone else getting involved. The more people know, the more real it is.

I’m aware I’m being both overdramatic and irrational, but you have to understand how much pain I’m in. I can’t guarantee the pain will go away or even lessen if I let this switchblade go, but it’s the only thing I haven’t tried.

Only problem is - I can’t let it go. I can’t find it in me to destroy it or throw it away. A part of me is willing to take the suffering of keeping it just cause it wants to hold on to that little connection it resembles. It’s evidence it existed to begin with. I believe it’s worth the pain. The hurt will go away eventually, but the memories are forever. I’ll look back at the time I had an amazing person such as Corpse to call ‘best friend’ and I’ll have something to prove to myself that it wasn’t a fever dream.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.“ I mumble as I finally uncurl my fingers from around the damn thing and put in down on my desk.

I take the headset off and proceed to head out onto the balcony to light what I call a ‘stress cigarette’. I’m not a regular smoker, but when everything just caves, I prefer to resort to a quick puff rather than grabbing a drink. I can say no to a second cigarette but not to a second drink. That second will then turn into a third and so on. And I don’t trust myself when drunk. I don’t personally know, but I’ve been told I’m rather unpredictable.

For the first few seconds while I’m standing there I don’t notice the pouring rain by some strange miracle. I can only focus on the chill of the breeze and the fresh breath that’s finally entering my lungs. I take a moment to breathe in the cool air before I start mixing it with the cigarette smoke. 

With my eyes closed, I hear more than I feel the rain on me. Storm noises always distract me from the actual storm, they calm me down. However, the sudden loud thunder causes me to open my eyes in a matter of milliseconds. I frown, slightly upset that I didn’t catch glimpse of the lightning that the thunder probably followed.

I’m not upset for too long, though. A lightning flashes right opposite me, creating the most mesmerizing of pattern you can see in the night sky during a storm. It’s so bright, it allows me to see my whole, usually unlit garden perfectly in that second or two it graces the sky. 

Wait

My balcony has a clear view of my entire front yard and all it takes a glance to the left to be able to see the front doorstep. 

Don’t freak yourself out, it’s just a trick of the light

I stay quiet and as still as a statue as I await another flash of lightning, my heart speeding past the point of a healthy pulse and into the realm of a near heart attack. The storm seems to be on my side because maybe a minute later another lightning bolt cuts through the black of the night. 

Sure enough, there’s a person standing outside my front door.

Fuck, what do I do?!

The person doesn’t appear to be moving. They are standing just as still as I am, facing towards the house.

I thank the universe the lights inside the house are off. I turned them off cause I wanted the ultimate scary experience playing that game. The only light is the faint glow of my computer screen which is, thankfully, barely visible. I slowly start backing up towards the sliding glass door, never taking my eyes off the figure that I can just barely make out now that my surroundings have fallen into darkness again. If it weren’t for the lightning I would’ve never been able to see them.

I manage to get back inside, soaked as though I just got out of a pool, without making a single sound. Just to be safe, I shut my monitor off. I grab my phone to use as a flashlight in one hand and the switchblade just finds its way into the other, my fingers curling around it tightly, more on instinct than to use as a weapon. I know I probably won’t be able to stab whoever’s out there.

I tiptoe my way down the stairs where all the lights are also off. I flick the blade out as I hesitantly and shakily make my way to the door to look through the peephole. I let out an unsteady exhale as I look at the the figure who is now standing further away and seems to have one arm in the air, curled at the elbow.

Just as I’m about to pull away from the door to dial 911 another flash of lightning illuminates the yard, the figure along with it. 

Can we go back to it being an intruder?

It’s no intruder, surprisingly - to my dismay. 

I turn my phone’s flash off and reach for the switch next to the door, flicking the light on before opening the door and walking out. 

“I NEARLY STABBED YOU WITH YOUR OWN BLADE!“ I yell in a desperate attempt to be heard over the waterfall of rain.

I can finally see him properly thanks to the light in my hallway. He looks like he hasn’t slept in years. He has his hood up but his black locks are sticking out in every direction from under the soaked material, not being protected from the droplets whatsoever. I read the shock in his eyes, almost like he didn’t know I lived there. He doesn’t make an attempt to approach or walk away from me so we just stand there, in the rain, staring at each other as though it’s the first time we’ve seen one another.

I snap out of the trance he has put me in, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the situation as I step towards him, grabbing onto his wrist, “Come on, we look like drowned rats.” I don’t give him time to react as I drag him inside, closing the door once we enter. “OK, from the top now: Why were you embracing your inner serial killer on my front porch?” I keep blabbering, diverting my gaze to anything but him. “Fucking hell, I could’ve stabbed you! You could’ve gotten really badly hurt! I -...”

“You know, I wish you stabbed me.“ He finally puts an end to my sorry excuse for frustration, I’m aware I look and sound miserable. His voice drags my eyes straight to his, fixing them there. “I know you can’t kill a cockroach on your own, and I know you most definitely wouldn’t even scratch a person, but I wish you had hurt me. Inflict fifty stab wounds on me and you still won’t hurt me as much as I hurt you.“ His hand swiftly pushes the hood off his head, grabbing onto his drenched locks as an expression of pain paints itself on his face. He’s the one diverting his gaze now, “I know what you mistook my silence for and I want you to get that out of your head.“

I wince at the pang in my chest, barely restraining my hand from flying up to rest over my heart, “Don’t humor me, Corpse! I’m not a child and this is not a game!”

“I’m not humoring you. I’m telling you...“ he makes a step towards me, grabbing hold of my ice cold hands, “I’m telling you I’m an asshole that freezes up when it’s least acceptable. I’m telling you I’m the worst at expressing how I feel. I’m telling you I can’t open foil. But you already knew all that. And you still liked me.“ He breaths in, refilling his lungs before continuing his rant, “I know you can be very chaotic. A real handful. A fucking tornado. But I love you. I love you as every natural disaster you represent. And if you could humor me...“ One of his hands releases mine, coming up to push a strand of hair away from my face, resting his hand on my cheek. “...by giving me one more chance. You always let me try multiple times when I stumble over what I’m trying to say. Can you do that, for me? For us?“

I let out a dramatic sigh, rolling my eyes. “If I say yes will you stop showing up like that on my doorstep?“ Of course, my primal instinct is to act tough and cool when my heart rate is once again going at the speed from back at the balcony. The skin of face and neck is red and burning hot. My eyes are rimmed with tears, I hope he doesn’t notice.

“Yeah. I’ll start coming in through the chimney instead.“ He visibly relaxes, a smile dancing at the corner of his lips. He lifts the hand that’s still holding the switchblade, prying it out of my grasp. “No sharp objects, please.”

He drops it in the pocket of his hoodie, finally leaning down to erase any last bit of doubt I have left. This kiss teaches me a lot of things.

Love isn’t linear - nothing about it is linear. Not falling in nor falling out of it. Feelings aren’t digital or binary - it’s not always as black and white as we might want to believe. Feelings don’t just come and go. They are always present, but it depends on us weather they’re suppressed or expressed. We fear the latter cause we fear vulnerability and change. But we also crave the positive outcome we have a 50% chance of getting. It’s a fifty-fifty game, but here’s the thing: if you never express your feelings it’s a zero-a hundred chance that you won’t receive the outcome you’d like.

I took the fifty over the zero chance and regretted it for a day or two. It gave me closure if nothing more. It let me stand under the spotlight and carry my pride on my shoulders despite the tears in my eyes.

My feelings being reciprocated is just another benefit. But no longer being able to call Corpse ‘best friend’ cause he’s now got a bigger and better title is the positive outcome I have been dreaming of. 

He makes it all worth it. He is worth all of it. 

And if I had to go through all that again, you can bet your ass I would.

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze @divine-artemis

[nevertheless-moving]

Suicidal Misunderstanding Part Three: SW Time Travel AU #27

Part One

Part Two

Obi Wan woke with a dry mouth and a moderate headache. A fairly typical morning these days. 

He peered around his bedroom in the temple confused. Wasn’t he just with Cody? Shouldn’t he be on the Negotiator? No wait, the war was over, Cody tried to kill him, and the Negotiator was a part of the Imperial Armada, of course he wouldn’t be there. He closed his eyes, snuggling back under the covers. Before he could drift back to sleep, his sluggish mind processed that last thought. 

He BOLTED upright in bed. The temple had been razed, his personal chambers scorched with particular thoroughness. Just being on Coruscant was an automatic death sentence. Faint tendrils of panic began to curl around his throat before he remembered his decision to give Spice a try. He had reasoned that he should probably find at least one pleasure in his new life, instead of focusing incessantly on what was lost. 

So what if he lost a few brain cells? Good riddance. 

Obi-Wan had been a bit nervous, but this had ended up being his best decision in years. His goodbye to Cody had been painful, but deeply cathartic. Spice Hallucination Anakin didn’t scream like Nightmare Anakin, and the color of his eyes was perfect. Far better final memories to cling to than reality- a reminder of the good times. Comforted, he relaxed backwards in bed, pulling his blankets back around him.

He LURCHED out of bed, covers tossed aside, movement a blur.

He was still hallucinating?!? Spice shouldn’t last in the system this long! He might’ve been uncertain about whether he was supposed to smoke or snort the substance but it was a well known fact that its exhaustive but rapid passage through the body was half what made it so addictive. If nothing else, his well-restedness and thirst indicated it had been at least six hours. He looked frantically around the room, searching for some thread of unreality to pull at.

This...was not good. Hadn’t the subconscious manifestations of his friends mentioned drugs that interacted poorly with force users last night? He had dismissed it at the time but...

He clearly was stuck in some sort of drugged fantasy combined with force-enhanced memory recall. Kriff, he had to wake up in the real world before he died of an aneurysm. Or just dehydration.

He sat on the ‘temple floor’ to meditate. This could be tricky as he couldn’t risk lowering his outer shields to reach out to reality. It would be deeply embarrassing as well as horrifying if the Emperor managed to find him and, by extension, Luke because he got stuck in a bad spice trip.

The door to his room clicked open quietly. 

“Oh! You’re awake. Sorry to come in without knocking, Master. I wanted to let you sleep, but I’ve been checking on you every two hours to make sure you were still, you know, breathing. You were...pretty out of it last night and I would be a pretty bad ‘best friend in the whole galaxy’ if I let you choke on your own vomit, right?” His blue-eyed Padawan explained with a grin.

Obi-Wan just stared. Oh this- this hurt. It was easier last night, when the whole fantasy had a kind of drunken blurriness. Sleeping and waking had brought sober clarity to the dream world. He could see the bags under Anakin’s eyes as well as the sheepish slouch of his shoulders as he instinctively ducked at the door frame. It was just so real.

“Obi-Wan? Are you feeling ok? Do you still feel drunk?” Anakin asked concerned.

Obi-Wan shook his head. He hesitated, before deciding to just go along with the interaction. He didn’t want to risk his subconscious throwing a less idylic scene at him by pretending to ignore this one. And besides, last night had been, all totaled, a huge relief- an unburdening of things left unsaid. This was probably the closest thing to therapy available to him these days, he might as well take advantage.

“I’m just...processing. Not to mention dealing with some mild dehydration.” He finally answered.

“Processing, huh? So does that mean you, uh, remember last night?” Anakin asked nervously.

“I do.” Obi-Wan smiled gently. As heart-wrenching as this was, it was also adorably sweet. Maybe it was worth it to push off waking for a little while. He could get some closure, maybe even work through some of the past to see where the two of them had gone wrong. It might even be helpful for Luke! Force willing, he would probably end up training Anakin’s son someday.

(the boy wouldn’t have many masters to choose from)

If this dream world could help him figure out specifically how he had failed as a Master, then he owed it to the galaxy to see it through. Satisfied, he resolved to let the fantasy play out. At least for a few more more hours. And...he had missed what Anakin had said. Wonderful start.

“I’m very sorry, Anakin would you mind repeating that? I was still a little distracted, but I promise, I’m focused on you now.”

Anakin shuffled nervously. “It’s nothing.”

Obi-Wan tried to project reassurance without actually projecting. “Please Anakin, I’d like to hear what you have to say. I know I wasn’t the most observant or approachable Master, and I’m sorry for that. But I have always cared about your thoughts and feelings.” It was a struggle and the words caught in his throat, but the raw burn of the apology was cleansing in an almost addictive way.

Anakin flushed. “Did you mean everything you said?” he asked nervously.

“I’d...rather not talk about seeing the destruction of the temple, seeing you... Maybe later...but please, I just don’t want to focus on it while I’m sitting here, looking at you,” Obi-Wan said quietly.

“That actually wasn’t what I was talking about,” Anakin responded quickly. “I mean, I do want to help you with that at some point, but I get not wanting to talk about visions, even if you should probably should. Of course if you do want to talk about that stuff, that’s more important, but since you don’t we can talk about the other stuff you mentioned. I was more referring to, you know, us, and what you said about our friendship?” his voice got progressively higher the longer he rambled. 

Obi-Wan thought back. “Well some of it is a little hazy, but overall yes. I...for a very long time I’ve considered you my best friend, and its not so easy for me to let go of my affections. I miss spending time with you; there are times I turn to say something and am still shocked you’re not there. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, with real words, how much I cared. I’m sorry I didn’t hug you as much as I wanted, looking back that was a nonsensical Jedi custom. It’s not in the code; it’s just an affectation of dignity. All things considered, the fact that you often snuck out to see Padme doesn’t really bother me.” He paused. “Was that everything?”

“Oh. Yeah, that pretty much covered everything.” Anakin looked embarrassed, but happy. “I wasn’t sure if you were just saying that stuff because you were drugged, or really drunk or something.”

“No, I meant what I said. I suppose it just took an altered state for me to relax enough to actually say it instead of just thinking at you and assuming you would know. I must admit, its difficult for me to maintain this emotional honesty without feeling drunk, but it’s good. This is good.”

“Ah, that’s... wow. So you weren’t drugged? Cody was concerned you seemed to off for much you actually drank.”

Obi-Wan frowned. Hadn’t that been a trip? Vision blurring from desert hovel to some nameless Catina he once visited with Cody. The continuity since then was almost unsettling. But, then again, Obi-Wan always did have a remarkable talent for self-delusion, didn’t he. He waved away the concerns.

“My substance consumption was entirely deliberate and exactly what I needed. There might have been some unknown additions with some unforeseen after-affects, but like I said- I’m not drunk. I’m clear minded and in full control right now and I knowingly accept the current fallout from whatever I took. I could meditate and force purge to completely recenter, but I think it would be far wiser to just see where this goes. Do you disagree, Anakin?”

Anakin grinned widely. “Whatever you say, Obi-Wan. Just remember this is your idea. Also, I’m taking you to the healers tonight if you’re not completely back to yourself.”

Obi-Wan signed, “If I’m not back to myself in 12 hours, than I fully agree that’s a problem worthy of the halls of healing.”

“Right,” Anakin nodded decisively, “I’ll go get you some water then comm Cody to tell him you’re still alive.

Obi-Wan smiled weakly in response. This wasn’t just a hashed up memory; the responsiveness was more that. He quickly got dressed, hands lingering over soft fabrics and sand-free linens.

Anakin dropped off a cup of water; Obi-Wan sipped at it hesitantly. Dear force, this was dangerously vivid. It actually felt like a relief in his parched mouth. Clearly his subconscious was pulling out all the stops to trap him in this soft delusion. He would have to deal with the thirst and hunger until he woke up- it was probably the firmest link he had to his real body.

He took one last look around before rushing out of his room, eager to take advantage of the time.

Anakin looked nervously up from the comm when Obi-Wan started pulling his boots on. “You’re not going out in the temple like this, are you?”

“Of course! I want to visit the gardens and the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Not to mention spend some time with a few of the other Jedi. You might still be the dearest being in my heart, but there were other Jedi that I care for, and dammit I’m going to tell them that.” He finally finished lacing up his left leg and moved to the right.

Anakin was dumbstruck, presumably as burnt by the ‘dearest being’ comment as Obi-Wan was. Then he rallied, “Wow, wow, No. You are not running around the temple drugged so you can, I don’t know, give Mace Windu a hug. I thought when you said you were going to ‘deal with the fallout' from whatever the kriff you’re still on, you meant you were going to lounge around the quarters all day!”

His former padawan physically blocked the door when Obi-Wan started to leave, sounding vaguely hysterical, “You can’t run around loopy! You’re a High Council Member!”

“Not anymore,” Obi-Wan replied bitterly. 

“What do you mean not anymore,” Anakin said fiercely, grabbing on to his shoulders . “Did they kick you out? Is that why you’re acting crazy? Did you resign?”

Obi-Wan responded by pulling Anakin into a hug, which was immediately returned, “Of course not, don’t be absurd. Fine, I suppose I’m technically still a high council member, it just seems like a bit of a moot point.”

“What the kark does that mean? You used to dream about being on the council! You’re the wisest Master in any of those stupid chairs!”

‘Master of the High Council’ Kenobi just sighed heavily in response. He maneuvered around the confused errant Knight and into the hall. 

"Obi-Wan wait! At least eat something first! Or let me put my shoes on!”

“Very well, you have one minute to make yourself presentable. I only have a few hours before I’m going to need to get back to reality, and the longer I linger the more I fear extreme measures may be necessary.”

“What does that mean?” Anakin shouted from inside. “Extreme measures sounds really ominous, you know.”

“I’d rather not get into it, alright? Let’s just enjoy the here-and-now, eh, ad’ika?

Anakin crashed out the door with less than a second to spare. “What did you just call me?"

“Ad’ika,” Obi-Wan answered, striding down the hallway in the direction of the hanging gardens. “Surely you must have picked up some Mando’a from the troopers?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure if I heard you right, bu- um- ori'vod,” Anakin fumbled out. “Uh, you’re not going to call me that in front of anyone else, right? You do remember that the council already gives us the side eye for over-attachment right?”

Obi-Wan hummed thought fully in responded. “There are far worse things a Jedi could do than admit to affection they already feel. Maybe if I had been honest about my attachments, they wouldn’t have ended the way that...” he trailed off quietly.

“The way that what,” Anakin asked frustrated. “You’re really giving me some emotional whiplash over here, and I’m starting to think that putting off dragging you to the healers is a stupid idea.

“There are far stupider things a Jedi could do,” he responded cheerily. “Oh look, there’s Plo Koon. MASTER KOON!” He shouted, startling the Kel Doran Jedi.

“Yes, Master Kenobi?” He replied slightly concerned as the two human Jedi came jogging over.

“I just wanted to say that I consider my former padawan my family. I raised him, I care for him deeply, and I don’t want to let go of those feelings.”

Plo Koon nodded seriously in response. “I feel just the same about my former padawans, and the Wolffe pack, of course. Denying my attachments isn’t, personally, a practical way to handle them. I’d rather honestly live as an imperfect Jedi than pretend to be a perfect example of the code. If I must have some imbalance, I’d rather it be an excess of compassion than a dearth,” he replied earnestly.

“I always admired that about you,” Obi-Wan replied ruefully. “This might be a little odd, but could I have a hug? I hold you in the highest regard and I’ve realized that there are so many Jedi that I never directly expressed my affection for and...”

Plo Koon didn’t wait for Obi-Wan to finish before wrapping his arms around him. “Of course, dear boy. You’ve had such heavy burdens placed on your shoulders during your life, especially in the last few years; it saddens me to see how deeply they’ve weighed you down. If there’s anything I can do to help, in any way, you simply have to ask.”

Obi-Wan sniffled slightly into Plo’s Shoulder while Plo rubbed soothing circles over his back.

A few passing Jedi gave the embracing Masters uncomfortable looks before hurrying on their way. Anakin stood slack-jawed.

When they finally pulled back, Plo Koon hesitated before finally asking, “I don’t mean to pry, but what brought all this on? I can sense much grief from you, even through your impressive shields.”

“It’s a long story,” Obi-Wan replied, wiping at the corner of his eyes. “I’d rather not get into it.”

“He’s high,” Anakin offered bluntly. “He took something last night and won’t go to medical wing.”

“Ah,” Plo said. “Is that true?”

Obi-Wan looked a little embarrassed. “I have the situation under control. My connection with reality might be...slightly altered right now, but my emotions, and what I chose to do with them are my own. I’m just, taking advantage of a unique opportunity to express myself.”

Plo Koon seemed to scrutinize him intensely, “If you’re sure this is what you need, than I support you. Just don’t do anything too foolish.” he finally offered.

Obi-Wan beamed. “I appreciate you saying so, I thought you would be supportive. Farewell, Master Koon”

Obi-Wan offered a respectful bow and then turned to walk away briskly. Before Anakin could follow, Plo rested a claw on his arm. 

“Feel free to comm me if his behavior reaches a point where you think he truly needs a healer. I’m happy to help you drag him there if need be. A little cathartic release isn’t in of itself such a bad thing, but if he starts acting too out of control...”

Anakin nodded in acknowledgment, then ran off to see who else Obi-Wan had chosen to throw himself at.

Part Four