#If you wanna have something outrageous happen at any point be my guest

[thebrainsofthebunch]

Not that it was going to stop Don from keeping it in there anyway, but Don grinned at Leonardo's acquiescence to his experiment. With a triumphant tilt to his head, Don took the container and carefully slid it back in its place.

"I promise you, Leonardo, nothing is going to go wrong with this. How could it? Everything is labeled and everyone knows better than to mess with one of my experiments. Besides, Mikey is the only one that digs that far back in the fridge, and he'll probably find it both gross and interesting."

He closed the door on the fridge. "I can't wait to see if that serum I put on it does anything."

He was reminded of his own twin so much right now. He almost wanted to cry. He knew that once Don had his mind set on to something, nothing would deter him from it. So he sighed, accepting defeat.

"Alright, fine." He grumbled softly, for show. Not much he could do, honestly. He looked down at Don, tilting his head to the side. As long as it was properly labeled, they wouldn't run into a dead dove, do not open situation from one of the resident turtle.

[well-its-not-human-anymore]

Amazing, ok so, how would the guys react to a super cuddly friend, but like they're really scared of crossing boundaries so they never really touched or anything, but as soon as they get the green light from the boys they're like. Always somehow touching them, like arm around the waist, legs on their lap during movie night, hugs from behind whenever they can etc

I was so hyped to write this because I'm definitely a touchy feely type of person but I've also just recently been like "boundaries you fucking walnut" so this is right up my alley.

TMNT Headcanons

The boys reacting to a super cuddly reader:

Michaelangelo

Alright let's be honest here

Mikey is the most intimate dude ever

He has no problems with physical contact as long as you're chill with it

Which you are, you'll take a hug wherever you can get one

The two of you have had your own handshake since the second week of you knowing him

His family however, is unaware of this

Obviously they know April is cool with touching them, she doesn't care

But they had no idea how you were about it

That was until you stayed for dinner

You'd basically fought Leo to let you help clean up

They knew you and Mikey were close

When you couldn't reach the shelf that the plate you were holding was supposed to go on they did not expect you to handle it the way you did

"Oi Mikey can I get a lift over here?"

The orange turtle didn't even look at you, backing up just enough and putting his hand out for you

You placed your foot firmly in his hand and climbed fluidly onto his shoulders, settling on the ridge of his shell and sliding the dish into it's proper place

"can you get this one too angelcakes?"

Mikey passed a cup into your hands and you proceeded to set it on the neighboring shelf, still perfectly balanced on your living perch

His brothers didn't know what they were expecting from the two of you but it definitely wasn't that

Leonardo

Watching Leo train was enough to make you tired

You weren't even doing anything, just watching

But once he'd finished his training and sat down to meditate you got up and padded over to him

"hey, do you mind if I sit behind you and use your back as a pillow while you do that? I'm tired as shit but I don't wanna crash on the couch right now, Raph almost crushed my head last time."

This smug fucker had the audacity to laugh at you

"be my guest. Just don't move too much"

Que the excited brain, you dropped to the ground and backed up to him as he settled

Your head made a resolute thunk against his shell and within minutes you were passed out

Leo was thankful that you didn't snore

This became your routine, so much so that he found it hard to meditate when you weren't there

He missed the familiar weight on his back

He'd approached you on the couch one evening, you were mid-argument with Mikey over some sort of movie theory and didn't even notice him standing there

"y/n?"

Your head snapped around to look at him

"yeahhhh? Did I do something?"

"no, I was going to meditate. Are you coming?"

You bounced to your feet, knocking Mikey in the shoulder before wandering towards the other room

"you win for now Mikey, I gotta go be Leo's human paperweight"

"you're not my- you know what close enough."

Raphael

No no no listen listen

This man is touch starved

AND I MEAN TOUCH STARVED

If you so much as roll for affection and get a +3 he dissolves

But he's also pretty sure you'd hate touching him or any of his brothers so asking for a hug is out of the question

If you want to touch him you'll initiate, right?

In-fucking-correct

Then at some point mid session you managed to land a solid ass punch right to his mouth

He crumbled on impact, grasping his own face in shock

Coincidentally you were also grasping his face in an attempt to see his split lip

"holy shit dude are you okay? I didn't chip any teeth did i? Wow okay that's bleeding pretty badly- one sec, don't move!"

Your hands left his cheeks and you scrambled to your feet, sprinting out of the room in search of a first aid kit

Raph looked up when you returned seconds later, the small tin box in hand, and kneeled at his side

"okay you might want to ice that but I'd definitely get a second opinion from donnie"

He was still staring when you handed him a gauze pad for his lip

"I'm really sorry Raph, I didn't mean to rock your shit like that"

The brain™ is recalibrating

Systems coming back online

He used one arm to pull you into a hug

"nah I'm good, it's just a split lip, barely even hurts- AH SHIT!"

you busted out laughing, tumbling out of his hug and covering your own mouth to contain your giggles

"I'll go get that ice for ya then?"

"yeah yeah shut up"

Donatello

Donnie didn't like to showcase that fact that he hated losing

He literally couldn't with the family he had, everything was a damn competition

And this happened to be a literal one

You, raph, Mikey, and he had been playing COD for hours now

You lost feeling in your thumbs about ten minutes ago

You and Donnie had lost every match since you'd split into teams and you were both getting sick of it

Donnie because he was a fucking genius, why couldn't he win this game?

You because you needed to pee like fifteen minutes ago and you weren't allowed to get up until the final match was over

"get your head in the game Donnie"

"oh wow thanks for the advice y/n, let me pull it out of my ass for you"

You wacked his shoulder with a scowl, settling your elbows on your knees and leaning into the controller

Mikey and Raph looked way too smug right now, like they knew that they were going to win

Neither of you would live with that

When it came down to the last 7 seconds you managed to snipe Mikey, making raph, who'd been shot out a minute prior, yell in outrage

Having been declared the victor you both triumphantly threw your controllers down on the couch

He went for a high five

You went for a hug

You both paused

He shrugged at you, earning an excited grin and you let him tackle you with a hug

Your airways were very constricted but at this point you didn't care one bit

"hey don?"

"yeah?"

"you can put your head back in your ass now."

Just as a general rule of thumb, whichever turtle I put last is usually the one I have the hardest time coming up with things for. So if you notice that the last ones always seem to be lacking that's why. Brain be sucking on the remainders of my creative juice.

Hope you liked this tho! I enjoyed doing it! Stay hydrated 😉

-Mars 🌠

[johnkrrasinski]

nothing to forgive; 

full masterlist

Pairings: dark!Ransom Drysdale x female!reader

Word count: 4,014

Warning: smut!!! BDSM, use of toys, dirty talk, stalking, humiliation. (MUST BE 18+)

Summary: there’s nothing more dangerous than a jealous ransom drysdale. 

a/n: this is for @imanuglywombat​’s 4k writing challenge. i chose the song “jealous” by labyrinth with the city as for the moodboard. i know it’s a heartbreak song but i just couldn’t resist taking ransom to the extreme with the title. this was fun to write. hope you like it. please leave a like & comment. enjoy!

If there’s anything to describe Ransom as a lover, it would be a jealous one. No, he’s not exactly an insecure boyfriend. He knows the appeal that he possesses and the charisma that he carries. He knows with that dashing face of his, he could get any woman he desired, with only the touch of those aquatic orbs and that enticingly smug attitude.

And of course, he had you wrapped around his finger too. And he liked it while it lasted. But what he strongly does not like is when someone dares to even think about getting close to what’s his.

You, a fierce, headstrong woman; someone who had no interest in wasting her time on incompetent men who were incapable of keeping up with you and your swiftly flourishing career. You were too busy building your thriving makeup company that is soon to be an empire. You were proud of your baby.

And you weren’t talking about Ransom, hell no.

He lost you the moment you found out that he slept with another woman whilst he was on his trip to London doing God knows what. Ransom likes to go on random lavish trips because his inane brain has no idea what should he spend his money on. The money that he didn’t even work for a day in his life. The money that he was so entitled to because of his family’s wealth.

You really liked Ransom at one point. Your families grew up together and you and him hooked up every now and then every time he was in New York, the city where you lived or you were back home and needed to release some tension.

He was hot and he knew your body inside out well enough to give you a good orgasm. And so, last summer, you two began dating after he jokingly asked you out after you gave him one of the best blowjobs in his life. You rejected him at first but he kept insisting until you had no other choice but relented. He was such a persevering man when he wanted to be.

It lasted for an entire summer, he would go back and forth to New York to see you and fuck you on every surface of your apartment or he would take you to his five stars hotel and aggravate the other guests by making you moan like you two owned the place.

Until last Christmas when he didn’t even tell you that he was going to London, which you only found out through Linda Drysdale when you visited the Drysdale household. You weren’t one to be a clingy girlfriend, but when your ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t even inform you at all that he was going on a spontaneous trip, it was pure outrageous.

When he went back to Boston three days later after his unbeknown trip, he went straight to your parents’ house where you were staying for another late-night rendezvous. Your parents weren’t home yet due to them being at a Christmas party that you weren’t interested in attending so you had to pretend that you had unbearable cramps and that you needed to stay at home.

Ransom didn’t spot your parents’ car so he knocked on the front door and waited until one of your maids opened it. You didn't expect him to return this soon so you didn’t bother leaving a message to your maids that if Ransom comes, don’t open the door for him. So he went straight to your bedroom and there was a contented smile on his face.

“Hey babygirl, I’ve missed you.” He took off his coat and hung it on your study chair.

“What the hell are you doing here, Ransom?” You truly didn’t expect to see him tonight. You were in the middle of answering some of your work emails regarding the packaging of your upcoming eyeshadow palette. Work didn’t stop despite the calendar saying it’s Christmas.

“Well I had to see you first after my trip, baby. You know I’ve missed you.”

“You asshole! You didn’t even fucking tell me that you were going to London!” You got up from bed, ready to punch him on his stupid gorgeous face.

“Sorry, baby, it was a last-minute trip. I just had to get away from my shitty family before Christmas comes so I don’t have to see all of them. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to surprise you when I get back.” He kissed you before you could even reply. You’d never admit it but the way he plays his tricks with his lips always prevails every fiery emotion in you. So you decided to let it go. Not that you had much of a choice anyway when his hands were already roaming under your oversized sweater before taking it off of you.

After making you cum twice and chased his own release, Ransom fell asleep seconds away next to you. You couldn’t help but admire his sculpted figure as you were lying bare next to him. He looked so… gentle when he was sleeping. Anything that he wasn’t when he’s wide awake.

Sometimes you wondered, is there a future for the both of you? You weren’t one to settle down and have kids. You loved your freedom and you would like to hold on to your youth a little longer. Marriage and kids are going to make you feel like you gained 50 years into your age and you weren’t ready for that. You don’t think you’d ever be, honestly.

But if you could take a look into the future to see whether you and him are going to stay together or not, you would. You didn’t want to waste your time by committing to a man when you could be sleeping around with actors and models. Of course, you could do that too whilst still dating him. He didn’t have to know. But, if there’s anything that you execrated is cheating.

You took pride in your deep-rooted loyalty. You didn’t share your love with too many people but the lucky ones who do have a piece of your heart were promised of your devotion. And that includes Ransom.

Not for long though.

You rose to your feet to use the lavatory in your room. After you were done, you walked to your study chair where Ransom’s coat was placed and then you grabbed it with the intention of hanging it on the coat hanger. Gosh, Ransom could be quite disorganized sometimes.

You had this habit before you put your raiments where they belong, you’d always rummage through the pockets to make sure that you didn’t forget a valuable item there that would cause you to act frantic because you need it and your life would be on the line if you lost it.

You checked the left pocket and nothing was there until you felt something soft inside Ransom’s right pocket. It felt like a material made of lace. You took it out and then… The garment that you had in your hand felt like a slap on the face.

Whose fucking red underwear is this?

You immediately woke Ransom up and he was confused as hell. Why the fuck were you suddenly going apeshit at nearly 3 AM? His drowsy state fought hard to adjust his vision to the lighting in the room.

“What the hell y/n?”

“Care to explain this?” You shoved the red lace underwear onto his face.

His eyelids instantly dilated. Oh shit, he’s been caught.

“Whose fucking panties is this, Ransom? Did you fuck a bitch in London?”

Instead of giving you the answer you already knew, he only stalled by saying “baby, calm down, alright? Let me explain.”

But he didn’t need to. The look of trepidation on his face pretty much gives everything away. “You. Fucking. Cheater. Get the fuck out of my house.”

“Shh! Just give me a second to explain, okay?”

“I don’t wanna hear anything that comes out of your mouth. Now get the fuck out of my house! Out! Now!” He was still naked but you couldn’t care less. You grabbed all of his clothes that were scattered on the floor and his coat and threw them along with the alibi of his misconduct at him. You pushed him out of your bedroom door until you both reached the front door of your house. He was still trying to make you stop and listen to him but you didn’t give him a chance.

He stood on your porch naked and hurriedly put on his clothes. It was a private residence so he didn’t have to worry about the neighbours seeing him naked. Not that he cared anyway, but still, the embarrassment of being thrown out while he was still nude was what he dreaded.

The next day, he tried to call you for God knows how many times and left you hundreds of text messages. He tried visiting you the next day but you refused to let him in. You asked your security guard to block him from entering the house. You told your parents what happened and your overprotective father was enraged.

He even went as far as facing Ransom himself at the gate to warn him that if he ever came anywhere near you again, your father wouldn’t hesitate in hiring a private bodyguard for you to keep him away from you. Well, with your rising fame and success, you figured you eventually were going to need one anyway, but now that you had an unrelenting cheater in your ledger, he might need to hire a highly trained one for you sooner.

You dumped him officially on a phone call and before you ended it, the last thing that he said to you was “without me, all you’ll find is heartbreak and misery.” He gritted through his teeth.

“Goodbye, Ransom.” Then you pressed the end the call button and blocked his number. You changed yours and then a few days after New Year, you fled back to New York. Your company was waiting for you.

For the next several months you kept yourself occupied with your work. You were thrilled for the launching of your new eyeshadow palette. The stress accelerated to a much level higher that you didn’t even have a second to think about Ransom. You hadn’t heard from him for a while and you certainly liked to keep it that way. There’s no room for a cheating, lying, lazy scumbag in your life.

A part of you couldn't help but feel grateful that you broke up with him before the clutter in your work increased. You weren’t sure that you were capable of maintaining a relationship with someone that you don’t near to. You would’ve had to make time to see him and it would’ve been a major distraction.

You held a party to celebrate the launch of your new eyeshadow palette, to say you were nervous would be an understatement, there was nothing more that you feared than failure. Despite being fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family, you still spent years saving up money and studying hard in college to major in dual degree; business and cosmetology to construct your dream makeup line.

And now, for the first time, the eyeshadow palette that you had been tirelessly crafted to perfection, is going to be available for purchase on your website. The countdown shows there’s only two minutes and thirty seconds left until every makeup enthusiast gets to put it on their shopping cart.

You were holding a glass of rose champagne in your hand whilst giving a speech to the team that you loved so dearly because they were your second family. You didn’t see them as the people who “work for you” but rather, you saw them as equals; your partners and your biggest supporters. Without them, this entire makeup line wouldn’t be standing so tall.

What you didn’t realize was, through the glass-structured building, Ransom was watching you like a hawk. He had his hands in his pocket and he had his gaze fixated on one person only and it was you. Despite the distance and the crowd, his focus didn’t bend.

The past few months for Ransom had been filled with acrimony by his wounded ego caused by being dumped. He couldn’t get anywhere near you due to your heavily guarded apartment building. You even had your own bodyguard now. Great. He was taller and bulkier than Ransom and he wasn’t foolish enough to try to fight the big guy.

You also ordered every security guard in your office, which is the headquarter for your makeup company, that if Ransom ever dared to show his face, they must get rid of him immediately. The only way Ransom could get to you is by stalking you on social media through your company’s official Instagram account and your rising personal account too.

He really thought that it would only take a month before you come crawling back to him. Ransom was so used to getting his way that he strongly condemned being rejected. He would do whatever it takes to have you back.

Whatever it takes.

He had everything prepared meticulously for months. He waited for the right moment to execute the plan and then you would never be able to escape him ever again.

What he didn’t see coming was you going on a date and laughing with a man he didn’t recognize. He really thought that you wouldn’t be dating again for at least a year but he clearly he was mistaken. He thought you secretly missed him but you had too much pride to admit it. He also thought that you could’ve done better than that.

Who the hell does this guy think he is swooping in on his girl like that? His jealousy whispered wicked things into his ears like a red-horned devil. He had waited in his car in front of your apartment building thirty minutes before you left. He found a way to bug your phone without your knowledge and from there, he could monitor every single text, every single phone call and every single person you associate with.

He did a background check on this bloke who was a few years younger than him, making him someone your age. The result showed that he had gone to the same university as you and now he had his own publishing company located in New York as well.

This fella named William had the same distinctive features as Ransom; a brunet with blue eyes, which means, you probably had a type. “So fucking predictable.” He thought whilst he was scrolling through this stranger’s biography. The man was just as tall as him. He posed in a dark grey suit with a tie that synchronizes with the look for the camera.

Apparently, you had run into him at one of the finest restaurants in town when you were having dinner with your girlfriends. He had come up to you to make sure that it was you. You two chatted, catching up on things and he charmed you by asking the one thing you were most passionate about which was your cosmetic line. You exchanged numbers and after talking for a few weeks, he asked you out and you said accepted.

You truly didn’t do anything halfway. When you were going out, whether it be with your friends, for a party or on a date with some guy you used to go to college with, you were dressed to the nines. You looked so crushingly stunning, your beauty dazzled him like daylight. He couldn’t blame this fella though, there’s a reason why he asked you on a date first before this schmuck inserted himself between the two of you. He had to have you and once he got you, he blew his chance. He lost you.

Not for long though. You belonged to him and only him.

You walked into the restaurant as the jazz music serenaded your ears. You asked the receptionist looking for someone named “William” and she led you to a table in the centre of the room, with a good-looking man sitting there in his raven suit.

You greeted William and then made your order when the server came with the menu. You ordered a bottle of Champagne, and you were truly enjoying the company of this man. He was courteous, smart and a little shy for someone as smart and as successful as him. Maybe it’s time to get yourself back in the dating game.

Not all men are Ransom Drysdale.

Ransom couldn’t stand seeing you laughing at his jokes and touching his hand. He didn’t have it in him to wait for another second to let you roam in your freedom without being his. He was going to do it tonight, but he had to do it before you reach your apartment where your personal bodyguard would be guarding you like a fort.

So he went to the parking lot two blocks north of the restaurant. There was nobody there so he had to act fast before someone came. He used a screwdriver to unlock the door of your car and once he succeeded, he sat in the backseat and obscured himself within the absence of light.

Now all he had to do was wait…

The date was lovely but it was time to go home. As much as you loved dressing up in your Lobouton heels and flaunting your beauty downtown, the thought of your warm bed and cozy pyjamas make your heart flutter. You didn’t know if there will be a second date or not, and even if he asked, you weren’t sure whether you’d say yes or no this time, but it was nice to catch up with fellow alumni.

You walked to where your car was parked and unlocked the driver’s seat car and sat behind the wheel. You revived the engine by pushing the ignition starter and adjusted the rearview mirror but what reflected on the glass made your heart drop like a beat.

“…Ransom? What the hell are you-”

But before you could finish your vexed question, Ransom pressed a drugged handkerchief onto your nose and despite your attempt to fight him, his strength overpowered you. Then in a matter of seconds, everything turned black.

You woke up with a sore head as you slowly felt your visions turning pellucid, it took you a few seconds to realize that the dress you wore had been stripped away from you. Your undergarments were also no longer covering your bare body from the cold… What the hell?

You began to realize that you were currently in a cramped, dimmed room with a single pillowless bed in the centre. There were many other sex toys that you were familiar with, you even had some in your drawer, and there were also a few other contraptions in the room that looked like they belong in a sex dungeon.

When you tried to move, only then your brain began to discern the state you were imprisoned in. You couldn’t move and you couldn’t pull your limbs away for they were secured with a device that you couldn’t see due to the position you were in.

Your cheek was pressed on the futon mattress and when you tried to scream, you couldn’t form any words for there was a ball gag in between your lips. You tried to scream but that only made you drool even more, making a tiny pool on the leather material.

You squealed, trying to get any help from anyone out there who might listen but then you heard the sound of the creaking door opening and someone entered the room. You tried to give them a single to set you free by making incoherent noises.

But all you heard was; “well, well, well, look what we have here.”

That voice. That voice sounds familiar. Your mind tried to distinguish it, and then you realized… It was Ransom. You remember it now, you walked into your car after a date with William, you saw him in the backseat through the rearview mirror and then you couldn’t recall anything else that happened after that.

And now here you were, bound by a percontator, exposed and helpless in a strange, unknown place. You began to thrash your body but it was futile, the device really did an excellent job in keeping you immobile.

“Hush now, dirty whore. You really think you could escape me forever? You must be dumber than I took you for.”

You heard the sound of unbuckling belt then he took off his shirt behind you. “No amount of protection can keep you away from me. I’ll make sure of that.”

He stepped into the mattress and lowered himself to his knees. He didn’t wast any second in placing the tip of his cock near your entrance then he intruded your body with his length. He grabbed a fistful of your hair and kept your head there in place. He spanked your right ass before he began moving.

“Ah,” he groaned. “I’ve always loved this pussy. Always so fucking tight.” He accelerated his pace and he grabbed your hair, forcing you to look up at him through your tearful eyes. “Is this what you want? To be fucked like a bitch? ��Cause I will, whenever I fucking want to.” He gritted through his pounding.

You could only moan and cry. Your mind took you back to the last Christmas eve when you caught him cheating. “Did you fuck a bitch in London?” He was deriding you by weaponizing your own words against you.

He put your head back on the mattress and kept thrusting brutally. He spanked you once more and you shrieked. He loved the sound of your agony so he did it five times more until your ass was as red as he liked. “Fucking slut. Aren’t you better like this? Not talking, no CEO bullshit.” He stopped his thrusting and pulled your hair back once more to glare into your eyes. “I’m gonna have so much fun breaking you piece by piece until you’re nothing but a brainless fuck toy for me to use.”

He slammed your face back down to the mattress and resumed his violation on your body. He kept pounding until there was no more energy left in you to fight. He then threw your body around so you were lying on your back.

He inserted himself back into you and picked up his vigorous pace. Your breasts jiggled with every assault. “Missed those perky tits.” His hands shamelessly groped your breasts and held on to them like they were knobs.

His right hand went from your breast to your throat, encircling the fingers around the delicate flesh. Your breathing becomes difficult and you felt yourself seconds away from passing out but before it could happen, you felt the tightening coil in your lower belly that was familiar with Ransom. And the expanding bubble burst, making a soaked mess on the leather underneath you and all over Ransom’s cock.

“There you go, what a fucking mess.” He smirked. “Last time I fucked this cunt, I don’t remember you getting off this soon, baby.” His hands went back to your knees as he chased his own orgasm. And in a matter of seconds, he released his cum deep inside your womb, staying there until he had no more drop left to give.

He withdrew himself out and then he stepped out of the mattress. He put back his sweater and jeans and before he left. He sneered at your disarranged state, complacent with the mess he made you of. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Be good or there will be punishments worse than you just had, understood?” He didn’t wait for your answer before kissing your upper lip.

He disappeared behind the door, leaving you in the tenebrosity of the room as you languidly losing yourself into unconsciousness.

[delicioussshame]

Please donate to my campaign. My goal is to get friends for Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan almost jumps out of his skin when he hears a knock on the door. No one had ever visited Luo Binghe since he came to stay here, and he had gotten the impression that it wasn’t that Luo Binghe had sent his usual visitors away for his guest’s sake. He does believe that his favorite student had been dreadfully lonely, these past few years.

How somehow as endearing as Luo Binghe ended up alone and friendless, Shen Yuan cannot fathom.  

Still, if someone is knocking on the door, the doorman must have let them in? It must be important then. Shen Yuan cannot imagine nobodies are allowed anywhere within this complex.

He thinks about texting Luo Binghe to ask, but what if he disturbs him? He must be busy, away at his important job while Shen Yuan does nothing but lazing around. And Luo Binghe did imply that he wouldn’t be ashamed of Shen Yuan’s presence no matter what, so… let’s test that, shall we?

Shen Yuan opens the door.

Shang Qinghua’s frazzled expression faces him.

Shen Yuan almost closes the door in his former colleague’s face.

“Wait, what, Shen Yuan?! Woah, I had no idea you went back to your parents, I thought you said that bridge had burned. Anyway, would love to catch up, but I’m on the clock and at the wrong place, sorry, gotta go or my boss is gonna kill me, bye!”

Shen Yuan stops Shang Qinghua by the shoulder to stop him from leaving. “If you were looking for Luo Binghe, not that I have any idea why you would be, you’re not at the wrong place.”

“Really? Why? How? Is there a story here? Cause it sure seems like there’s a story here. Tell me the story! But later, I have to deliver this?” He waves a boring manilla envelope like it’s supposed to make sense.

“Who still sends letters?”

Shang Qinghua shrugs. “My boss.”

“You’re a mail carrier now? Nice upgrade.”

“Well, I do what I have to do, I don’t live with the country’s most eligible bachelor. Seriously Bro, what happened here? Isn’t he a bit young for you?”

Shen Yuan is sure his blush is terribly incriminating, but he can’t help it.

“Wow. You have to tell me now.”

Shang Qinghua is acting terribly familiar for a guy Shen Yuan hasn’t seen since graduation. “Why should I?”

But Shang Qinghua has already let himself in, unceremoniously dropping the envelope on the nearest table and taking everything in with wide eyes before he lets himself fall on Luo Binghe’s designer couch without a care in the world. “C’mon. Fess up.”

“How about you? Why are you even here? For all I know you’re a thief trying to rob the place.”

Shang Qinghua snorts. “Not exactly my speed.” He shrugs. “Teaching didn’t pay the bills, got an administrative assistant job instead and somehow ended up working for one of Luo Binghe’s associates, hence the private delivery service. How about you? When I saw you earlier, I was sure you were retired and profiting off that sweet family money, but was I wrong? Or is this those Shen connections at work?”

Shen Yuan frowns. Why did he even tell this guy about his family again?

Oh yes, because he had been young, stupid and drunk: the university experience. “No. Luo Binghe is a former student of mine. I’m visiting.”

Shang Qinghua gives him the world’s judgiest look. “Visiting.”

Shen Yuan nods, face still as a lake. “Visiting.”

“While Luo Binghe isn’t there.”

Shen Yuan nods again. “It’s a long visit. I’m staying here right now.”

“At your former student’s house. Look, I’m just gonna say it: sleeping with your student is bad. Don’t do it! That way lies lawsuits!”

“Former student! And it’s not like that!” Technically correct. They haven’t slept together, not in the way Shang Qinghua implies they did. “He’s just lonely and a bit deluded. It’ll pass.”

Probably.

No, not even Shen Yuan believes it at this point. One can only be kissed so often before one has to face reality: Luo Binghe certainly thinks he cares about Shen Yuan more than a student should care about any teacher.

Shen Yuan just isn’t sure what he should do about it.

“If it’s not like that, which, Bro, you’re not making a good case for, you’re staying with him because…?”

“I’m on vacation?” Shen Yuan lies back on the cool leather. “It’s a nice place for it, and cheap.”

“And your “former student” was eager to host you. You, his high school teacher? Because from what my boss told me, Luo Binghe isn’t exactly famous for his openness. I’m half-certain Mobei-Jun sent me here as punishment. He wanted someone else to chew me up this time.”

Shen Yuan snorts. “Still very competent, I see.”

“Well, at least I was teaching my students, not offering “extra credits” if they stayed after class. And since when are you into men, anyway? You always acted like you didn’t notice when men hit on you.”

“Men never hit on me.”

It’s Shang Qinghua’s turn to laugh. “Glad to see that didn’t change. Luo Binghe must be something, to have managed to get through you. What did he tell you, that he wanted to bend you over the nearest desk? Anything less and you’d have been blind to it.”

For fuck’s sake can Shang Qinghua stop saying shit that embarrasses the hell out of Shen Yuan? It’d be very appreciated.

“Oh shit, he totally did! Go him! Did it work? Tell me it worked!”

“No! Can’t you shut up for once in your meaningless life!”

“Not gonna happen. I need to know more. He made a move, and you’re living with him now? His charisma must be something else. At that speed, when’s the wedding? No, wait, how long has this been going on? We haven’t seen each other in forever, you might have been “visiting” for three years as far as I know.”

This is torture. “Didn’t you say you had somewhere to be?”

Shang Qinghua waves his attempt at deflection away. “Forget it, this is way more interesting. Even Mobei-Jun will want in on this. Sooooo?”

Shen Yuan sighs. “I’ve only been here a few weeks. As I said, it’s just a vacation. I’ll leave once the school year starts again.”

“Why can’t you stay here anyway? That dear student of yours must want to keep you, right? Unless you’re really being bankrolled by your parents, this is way nicer than anything you could possibly afford.”

“No matter what he says, I’m not becoming Luo Binghe’s trophy wife.”

Shang Qinghua’s eyes widen. “Ooh, your student wanna be your daddy? He’s paying you to keep you around, is that it? Oh, that has to be it. Explains the weird evasiveness thing you’ve got going on. Never knew you had it in you. I’m impressed, really. Much better gig than my own. I wish my boss would pay me to lounge around on his expensive furniture. I’d be great at that. Plus, you know, it’s not like it’d be a hardship. Mobei-Jun is scorching. I’d be his arm candy any day. Maybe he’d be less likely to murder me that way.”

Shen Yuan longs desperately to return to the web novel he so cruelly abandoned to let his worst nightmare in. “I’d give you my job, but honestly Binghe deserves better.” Better than Shen Yuan, too. “At least you’re into men. Makes things easier.”

Shang Qinghua’s face falls. “Are you telling me you’re not into him? Like, at all? Why are you even here then? The money can’t be that good. Return to your parents and get them to arrange a marriage to a rich heiress. Same result, plus you’re attracted to your partner. Better?”

Shen Yuan flinches in horror. “No! Not better! My parents AND some spoiled brat who only cares about my name? Fuck no. Binghe is infinitely better than that!”

Shang Qinghua laughs. “So you do like him! Good for you! Go get him, tiger!”

“No! Well, yes I do, Binghe is very likable, but not like that!”

“Oh my god can you hear the shit that comes out of your mouth? Look, you obviously trust him enough to agree to be his live-in boy toy, and okay, I haven’t seen you in forever, but whatever you’re doing is visibly agreeing with you. What were you doing anyway? It’s not like Luo Binghe is here most of the day.”

Shen Yuan shrugs. “Catching up on my reading, mostly.”

Shang Qinghua chokes. “Fuck you. He’s paying you to read? While I’m still trying to get pay to write? I hate you with every single atom of my being.”

“Wait, you’re still writing? Please tell me you’ve upgraded genre, at least.”

“Well…”

“Oh god show me now so I can change your mind before you waste even more of your life on this trash,” says Shen Yuan like he hadn’t caved and spent Luo Binghe’s hard-earned money on extras for novels he hates.

___________________

Luo Binghe is caught completely off guard by the loud voices echoing in his home. Even with Laoshi here, silence is what usually he’s greeted with.

Today, Shen Yuan’s voice is alight with what sounds like righteous anger. He can’t quite place the second one.

Luo Binghe follows the call like a sailor freed from his bonds.

He finds Shen-laoshi half-draped over his chair, Mobei-Jun’s lackey sitting at the desk Luo Binghe had bought for his teacher alone, both of them apparently enraptured with an argument about… bad literature?

Luo Binghe wishes he could be pleased with the sight of Shen-laoshi being this animated, but he can’t. He’s not the one who caused it. This little, insignificant man did, to the point that neither of them noticed his approach.

Luo Binghe taps Shen Yuan’s shoulder. “Laoshi.”

Both of them turn toward him, but only Shen-laoshi gets Luo Binghe’s tongue down his throat.

He is very pleased with the outraged look on his teacher’s face. “Binghe! Not in front of the guest!”

The interloper jumps out of Laoshi’s chair. “Guest? What guest? There is no guest, no one here’s. In fact, I should have left hours ago, oh god Mobei-Jun is going to kill me. Shen Yuan, please give Luo Binghe the envelope, sorry for bothering you both, talk to you later, gotta go byyyye!”

Luo Binghe watches the little man flee in terror with satisfaction. Good riddance.

Let’s see him try to contest Luo Binghe’s claim now. “How does Laoshi know Mobei-Jun’s personal assistant?”

“We studied together in college.”

Luo Binghe pouts. How could an old friend of Shen-laoshi find him here? “Were you two close?”

Shen Yuan shrugs. “Not especially. Why do you ask?”

That can’t be true. They were so at ease around each other. It can take Luo Binghe hours to get Shen-laoshi this relaxed.

He stays silent.

Shen Yuan stares at him. “Binghe.”

“…Yes?”

“I realise this is going to sound ridiculous, and for that I’m sorry, but are you.., jealous? Of Shang Qinghua?”

Luo Binghe might be pouting harder. “No. Why would I be jealous of one of Shen-laoshi’s friends he never told me about.”

A (very cute) smile appears shows up on Shen Yuan’s face. “You. Luo Binghe. Are jealous of Shang Qinghua.”

He dares to laugh! It’s not funny!

This time, Luo Binghe is definitely pouting harder.

“Binghe. Binghe. You’re you. Shang Qinghua is… Shang Qinghua. What do you have to be jealous about? He’s just Shang Qinghua! Come back to your senses!”

Well, that does cheer Luo Binghe right up. “Shen-laoshi likes me better!”

Shen Yuan rolls his eyes. “Of course I do.”

Luo Binghe’s chest remains warm for the rest of the day.

[theres-no-protocol-for-this]

Magical Artifact

A Murderbot fanfic set in an alternate universe where a guardian is making a concerted effort not get its humans killed. Part IV. 

Note: FlipSpring has been absolutely amazing at beta reading this story (and I can’t thank them enough for it)! So, yeah, now with more clarity because of this wonderful person. :)

This is also available on AO3 for those who prefer reading in order and not hunting around on Tumblr. 

The enormous ballroom had been decorated by people with more money than common sense. Long refreshment tables stood against one wall, overflowing with food I couldn’t identify. Humans mingled in the middle of the wide-open space, surrounded by haphazardly placed tables and chairs. An auctioneer and two of her employees milled around on the stage at the front of the room.

Dr. Mensah and the rest of the investigative team sat at a table toward the back. I lay under it where other humans couldn't readily step on me. They had smuggled me in as Baradwahj's support animal, and I preferred that to dressing up and coming to this "party" as a human.

I wasn't the weirdest creature in the room—one of the guests had a miniature pony—but with any luck, I was the only one with access to dark magical talents. I didn't belong here any more than I had at the restaurant, but at least this qualified as work.

A tall woman in a shimmering dress stepped up to the podium and began introducing the auction. All of the items up for auction tonight came from the collection of some famous, eclectic writer who was now dead. Honestly, I didn't care whose stuff this was or why it was being sold. 

I was more concerned that everyone's perfume made the room smell like a sick interpretation of a meadow. My nose hurt just thinking about it.

Ratthi tried to educate me on how auctions worked—I'd never been to one before. At first, the items on display looked mundane. They sold for a lot of money (in my limited understanding), though, so maybe this writer was amazing or something.

Then, the hosts brought out a tall and worn wooden chair, and instantly the temperature in the room dropped by a couple of degrees. Overhead lights flickered briefly as if they had trouble staying on.

I nuzzled Mensah's foot under the table. 

"I know," she whispered back, shivering.

"Is that the thing?" Arada wanted to know.

"Most likely," Ratthi whispered back, leaning toward Arada to explain. "The Guardian thinks so, too."

I could see the seething dark magic wrapped around the chair pretty clearly, so it was more than just an educated guess. Other than the evil aura, it didn't look all that special otherwise. According to the stuttering auctioneer, the writer had done his best work while sitting on this monstrosity. I could guess why.

Pin-Lee pulled out a tablet and was scrolling through a document. "Go ahead and bid on it, and we'll see if we can do this without causing a scene."

My gut said there was absolutely no way that thing was going to let my humans anywhere near itself. It was a creature of the dark, and the investigators were brimming full of light. As soon as its spreading magical tendrils found us, it would know exactly who and what it was dealing with. 

But whatever. Maybe high society evil had different standards. 

"Remember, the department wants this thing alive," Pin-Lee reminded us.

The bidding began, and I sat up to pay attention. The numbers sounded outrageous—I couldn't understand why anyone would spend money on a chair when there were perfectly good tree stumps outside. Sure, there was a fae creature attached to the artifact (probably the kind that dealt in soul bargains and supported the fine arts), but still... It was a chair.

Suddenly, the magic surrounding the wooden seating implement expanded ten-fold. The lights in the ballroom flickered a few times and then surrendered and went out completely. 

"What the hell," someone muttered at one of the other tables.

I got up and crawled out from under our table because this is usually when shit hits the fan. 

The chair wobbled dramatically—I swear, half the monsters I've encountered have a flair for drama—and then shot up into the air. For a moment, it hung there, building up suspense, and then shattered into a million fucking splinters. Wood rained down on the participants, even though most of them couldn't see much of anything in the dark.

The fae let out a giggle as the humans in the front row  of tables screamed as wooden shards penetrated their skins. 

Mensah let out a yelp, and all of my clients ducked. That was the safe and sane reaction to a suddenly unpredictable situation. It's not what happens in the best adventure novels, but my clients aren't stalwart adventurers. They're a group of paranormal investigators whose magical skills are mostly theoretical. They're not crime fighters; they don't go places to do battle with the forces of evil. 

I changed forms so I could help them get away. "You need to leave," I whispered, "immediately. The door is a couple hundred feet behind you."

"What about—" Ratthi's sentiment was lost in another round of screaming as the fae decided to set part of the stage on fire.

"I got this. You need to get to safety."

"It's you we're worried about," Arada whisper-yelled at me.

I actually paused for a moment because that made no sense. This is my job. This is literally why you brought me here. I didn't say that, though. Instead, I said, "That thing is a high-ranking member of the fae court. It's not safe here."

I was hoping the humans would just listen to me, but I didn't have time to keep arguing. The longer the fae rampaged around here, the more damage it would do. 

I could smell the fucker even as it materialized. It smelled like the forest, actually, like places where I'd lived before, like home.

Right then, it was sitting at a table.

It had tossed a human out of a chair, sat down in the human's place, and was nibbling on appetizers. It saw me and got up, silks floating lazily around it in ribbons.

The creature was about five feet tall, with pointy ears and butterfly wings. And then it opened its mouth and revealed hideously sharp, pointed teeth. This fae looked like it had stepped out of a fairy tale and into my nightmares. 

"You look lost, little wolf," it taunted.

Talking to a member of the high-court fae is just asking for trouble. So, I turned into a wolf and stared at the asshole while around me, humans scrambled to get out of the way. The fae dispelled the magic that made it hard to see for normal humans. As far as it was concerned, no one posed much of a danger to it—it was a master of wild magic and, thus, the scariest thing in the room. 

"You wanna play, puppy?" it laughed.

I growled at it. 

"Looks like you do." It gazed at me with pitiless eyes. "I wonder where your master is, little pup."

I had high hopes that my humans wouldn't reveal themselves, but there was Ratthi with, "It's not a puppy. It's a person."

Fuck me.

The fairy chuckled. “There they are."

I did the thing I usually do when faced with a monster. I got a running start, leaped across a table, and lunged at the fae noble.

[themoonsings]

Wanted Connections !!

here’s a list of some wanted connections i’d really like! i’ll likely add more since i made this during my lunch break from work/meetings. all of these are open to all genders except her bandmates/groupmates wc since it’s a girl group! 

Friendship/Platonic

nothing else matters like us - her groupmates/bandmates. you can find other info on the wanted connections page on the main. still don’t have a name for her girl group yet but basically she’s known these girls since they were all little kids. none of them grew up rich or famous and before they were celebrities, they were best friends. it was luna’s idea to start the band and they’ve been through a lot together since, breaking records and barriers in the industry. they are the hottest girl group in the world. they’ve been dropping albums since they were teens and together for seven years now. they each do some of their own small projects on the side but have since remained dedicated to the group. despite rumors of disbandment and doubts that they would even make it this far, they’ve absolutely thrived. luna considers them her sisters and she works hard to make sure they’re constantly doing their best and staying at the top of their game. they’re currently working on their 5th studio album. there’s one fact that’s been worrying her recently: they made a pact that if one of them ever wanted to leave/go completely solo, they would end the group altogether so as never to hold one another back. 

so true, bestie - while she considers her bandmates to be her first/childhood friends and sisters, this person just...gets luna. they’re super close and just click. maybe they even live together or share an apartment, not ‘cause they need the money but just ‘cause they like being roomies and don’t like having a giant place to themselves. they confide in one another, look out for one another, and stick up for one another. and they’re also not afraid to tell eachother how it is.

you’re my celebrity - someone who’s newer in the industry and isn’t as big that either is a fan of luna’s or looks up to her in some way and doesn’t know as much about the industry. she’s been in it since she was a teen and is more than happy to take them under her wing. they struck up a friendship like that and both learn and grow in it. 

you make me make bad decisions - party pals, chaos cousins, double trouble--whatever you wanna call it, when these two get together, hijinx ensues. something about this character makes luna wanna get a lil wild, ‘cause a lil trouble, kick ass and take names. nothing super super crazy but definitely more fun than most people expect from the likes of luna song.

Romantic/Sexual

i’ve been in love with you for ages - ( inspired by Me & You Together song by the 1975 ) they’ve known eachother since luna was first starting out in the industry (maybe even longer) and they were really close friends, doing everything together talking about whatever, whenever, and they just...have always clicked. luna realized she was falling first and let your character know and for whatever reason, maybe because they were still in love with someone else or in denial or w/e they rejected her--said they didn’t like her like that. they were able to move past it and still be close friends but now, your character’s gotten their head out of their ass, have looked up and seen...her. that it was her and it’s always been her but...they don’t know how to tell luna. or if she’ll even feel the same now. but that doesn’t stop them from pining, flirting, maybe even getting a lil jealous when she’s spotted with other people. will they work up the courage to tell her how they really feel? 

i hate your guts // i just wanna f*ck - it’s a well-known hollywood public secret that these two cannot be in the same room together without biting eachother’s heads off. argument after argument that neither refuses to lose, this person is everything luna hates about hollywood and, well, humanity. until they figured out there is one way they can stand to be in a room together for more than five minutes--as long as they’re naked. one time could be written off as a drunken mistake. twice as a momentary lapse of judgement but at this point...luna would be mortified if anyone knew the amount of times, and the amount of things, they’ve done together. but that doesn’t stop her with replying with “come through” at every “you up” text. ( could turn romantic or could just be strictly sexual )

that moment when you see your fake-ex in public - your character was pretty prolific to have struck up a fake romance with luna. she does her best to make smart career moves and she was a really good fake gf--kept her affection professional, creative with the set-up of romantic public gestures, rightfully outraged when the paparazzi caught “private” moments of them. the reason for their fake break-up was mutually decided upon and no one was the wiser. maybe they stayed good friends afterward or maybe they’re just people who see one another, take quick pics at events, and brush elbows casually. 

the ex-files - actual exes that luna had real relationships with. maybe luna wasn’t serious, maybe they weren’t. maybe it was amicable, maybe it was fraught. maybe they couldn’t get their act together enough to be luna’s one or maybe they just couldn’t believe in themselves the way luna believed in them. maybe it was a mistake they were together, maybe it was a mistake they broke up. basically any type of exes plotline where they were dating and now they’re not.

Other

the lost notebook - ( inspired by dash & lily, stuck in the suburbs ) luna’s notebook she takes everywhere with her. it’s where she jots down all the ideas and imaginings of her head when she’s inspired on the go, be it song lyrics, poetry, thoughts, quotes she likes, or observations she thinks could be useful in her creative process. she likes the tangibility of writing them in an actual notebook and the fact that she hasn’t lost it before now is nothing short of miracle. except...her luck seems to have run out. she lost her notebook and freaking out is an understatement. your character is the one who finds it, though they have no idea it belongs to her. maybe she left a phone number or secret email in the front to trace it or maybe she re-traces her steps and your character has left it back where they found it albeit with a note or challenge of some sort. but regardless, they end up striking up an unlikely relationship via the notebook (or more likely a new notebook they use just for that purpose ‘cause bby girl poured her soul into this one). neither still knows who the other is. maybe they trade thoughts/ideas or lyrics back and forth or maybe they trade different dares or challenges but they really seem to be getting on. only problem is, they don’t technically know who one another is and they both do and don’t want to find out--if they do, maybe they can actually get to know one another but...it could also ruin everything ( this could turn romantic or just be platonic )

50k for a verse, no album out - basically your character and luna are either currently or were previously working together professionally. this could be her writing one or a few of their songs, them being featured on one of her band’s albums or working to be featured on their current one, her being featured on their single or album, or even her ( or her and her bandmates ) guest starring in one of their movies or shows. they could even be writing a cute lil duet or something together.

this city ain’t big enough for the both of us - rivals. tbh luna can’t stand them and she finds their mere existence so offensive that she’s not above getting petty about it, because girl can be competitive. maybe they were co-stars or collaborators whose relationship went south or maybe it was hate at first sight and the edges of their personalities just rub wrong. or maybe they used to be good friends but something happened and that got wrecked. 

[razorblade180]

Twin Snowflakes pt2: Warming Up

[Saph’s place]

In the guest room Summer sleeps peacefully in the bed with tons of covers to keep her warm. To the right of the bed is a night stand with a bowl of stew beef and tea. On the left sits Nicholas attentively watching over her. The room itself is pretty warm so currently he’s on in a white shirt and blue shorts.

Saph:*opens door* Pssst how is she?

Nick:Her face as gotten color back into it again. She’ll be fine with a little rest and the food you made her. Thanks for that by the way.

Saph:Ain’t no thang for my adorable niece and nephew. You know you should really get good at cooking yourself; sixteen years old and all I ever seen you cook is some eggs.

Nick:*chuckles* You would think sword skills would transfer to kitchen knife ability but it certainly does not. Maybe I should spend more time reading recipes books...

Saph:Having you two over for cooking lessons instead of secret training would be a nice change of pace. I wouldn’t have to worry about my dear baby brother yelling at me if he finds out.

Nick:Aren’t you supposed to be the older sibling that can’t be picked on?

Saph:*smirks* Doesn’t Summer pick on you?

Nick:Hey! I’m older by minutes while you have years on dad. Besides I totally let her make fun of me.

Summer:*waking up* Keep telling yourself that.

Saph:Well look who it is!?

Nick:Wow, you are awake way sooner than usual.

Summer:How much time has passed?

Nick:Four hours since you clocked out in the snow.

Summer:Well that’s a full thirteen faster than last time. *rubbing her head* Makes sense, Shiva wasn’t out for too long. We should probably continue to tr- is that stew beef!!!? *grabs the bowl*

Saph:Talking one minute, stuffing your face the next. Definitely Summer talking to us.

Nick:You okay? Well rested, no fatigue, no broken bones, or bruises? How is your-

A spoon gets put in his mouth to prevent him from speaking.

Saph:Shut up and stop babying me. I’m perfectly fine okay? If anything you should be worrying about yourself it seems. *points to his side.*

He looks down to see a small red smudge. Saphron lifts his shirt to reveal a shallow cut that slightly bleeding. Nick tries to laugh off the this new discovery but is met with two pairs of highly upset cobalt eyes.

Summer:What’s the point of worrying about me if you’re not gonna take the time to make sure that everything is okay with yourself?

Nick:I only got grazed a little, plus it’s healing so it’s no big deal.

Saph:It’s totally a big deal! Just because you look like your father doesn’t mean you should be just as reckless as he is. Take care yourself and don’t take outrageous risk!

Nick:*scared* Yes Ma’am!!!

Saph:Good! Now go ask Adrian to borrow a clean shirt and get yourself some food as well.

Nick:*mumbles* But I’m not hungry....

Saph:*Death Glare*

Nick:Alright!!! I’ll make a small bowl or something. *leaving* Geez, you’re gonna give Bleiss a run for her money with that look.

Saph:I heard that!

Nick:I know! I said loud! *laughing*

Saph:*smiling* Your brother is a real piece of work.

Summer:.........

Saph:Summer?

Summer:Huh? I’m sorry, I spaced out....

Saph:Is you know who trying to speak with you.

Summer:No, I can’t even hear Shiva’s voice right now. I’m too warm and she’s too tired. Besides, anytime she decides to open her mouth it’s usually to insult me. I could go the rest of my life without hearing her. I’m just upset Nicholas is hurt because of me again.

Saph:I know we just grilled him and all over it but you shouldn’t feel too bad over a cut. Things could’ve been a lot worse.

Summer:They might be if I don’t get a handle on this fast. Six years of worrying about hurting your family is really, really stressful..... almost enough to make me feel crazier than I already am.

Saph:Hey, you are not crazy young lady.

Summer:Then what exactly would you call me? A freak of nature doesn’t sound any better, and being called “sick” isn’t comforting either.

The two quietly looked at each other blankly. Summer was waiting for some type of answer but her loving aunt couldn’t find any words that would help make her feel better about her situation. Saphron instead sat right next to the teenager and gave her a reassuring hug. Summer couldn’t help but return the embrace.

Saph:I’d be lying if I said I had a good answer to that question. However, I do know one day you’ll conquer this; all that training you put into this is bound to pay off. Even if some of it goes over my head sometimes. *smiles* One day you’ll kick Shiva’s but to the curve! Arcs and Schnees seemed to be really good at sticking up for themselves when it comes to being ordered around or bullied by someone else.

Ruby:*in the form frame* Ain’t that the truth!

Summer:You’re still here Auntie!

Ruby:Of course! I wasn’t gonna leave before I knew for a fact you were okay. Also, try not to think so negative all the time. We all believe in you so don’t go doubting yourself. More importantly, don’t try to rush progress. That’s when the worst mistakes happen.

Saph:Just ask Terra. She shut down power to all of Argus before on accident; all because she tried to finish all her work for the week without taking a break. Just to make sure she could attend Adrian’s graduation.

Terra:*down stairs* Stop telling that story! My boss still won’t let it go!

Saph:*whispers* No one is even mad at her. It was just really funny and unlike her.

Summer:*smiling* That must’ve been an eventful day.

Saph:It was a good thing Adrian was graduating. Imagine having to go to school with all the kids knowing that. Actually...he might’ve been seen as a hero when I think about it.

Ruby:Speaking of school....

Saph:Please don’t, let me enjoy winter break while it last. I only have two more days left then back to the worst place imaginable.

Ruby:Two days, some regular classes for everyone to get back into the swing of things, and then The Combat School Tournament!

Hearing that name made Summer a little anxious. They might as well change the name to Jr Vytal festival. The Combat School Tournament is where students from all over Remnant gets to strut their stuff against one another; home school or not. It’s always televised and it’s made to show that the next generation of huntsman and huntress are growing strong. Many games and side events will also be held for fun to show unity between everyone.

However, Summer won’t be partaking in those nice and simple events. She won’t even be in the regular tournament where anyone and everyone will be at arms with each other. No, She and her over eager brother will be going to be in special bracket. A bracket reserved for only the winners of their respective regionals along with the runner ups. The main attraction that’s sure to be watched in every house hold.

Summer:Ruler of the Castle......

Nick:*down stairs* Woooooo!!!!!!!!!

Ruby:Oh I’m so excited!!!!!!!

Summer:Because you’re not in it! No way I’m ready for that.

Saph:Last time I checked, your gold medal in regionals says other wise.

Summer:I only got gold in duos. Nicholas was practically the reason we one that. I got fifth place in singles while he got runner up.

Ruby:What did I just say about negativity? Nicholas’s shout tells me he’s not worried in the slightest.

Nick:*rushes in* Better believe I’m not! You and I are gonna clean up in duos and let everyone know there’s no greater tag team than us.

Summer:What makes you so sure?

Nick:Close your eyes and you’ll see.

She follows his orders while the others are a bit confused. He quietly grabs her spoon and closes his eyes as well. The boy throws the spoon right at her only for Summer to catch it. Without opening her eyes she throws it his left knee which instinctively raises up right before contact to bounce it in the air. Nick hits it back at her chest where Summer is already prepared to counter by grabbing the bowl for it to land. The entire bowl is tossed up and lands on a glyph that floats back down to the nightstand. Both of them open their eyes smiling.

Ruby:*whistles* You guys practice that little trick.

Nick:Nope! It’s a twin thing. Somehow we always know just what the other might do in a pinch.

Summer:It’s super annoying. Our snowball fights against each other always end up looking like a war where nobody got to win.

Nick:Yeah but our matches against other people always went undefeated. This isn’t gonna be any different! I got your back and you have mine; more gold medals are the only thing we’re gonna get. Duos is all about teamwork and we got that spades. *eyes shining* We’re gonna look so cool!

Summer:So it this about showing the world how skilled we are or just a way for you to look cool in front of Valerie?

Nick:*blushing* Valerie has nothing to do with this! Although if she so happened to be amazed by my- our skills and was left in complete shock then that would be nice.

Saph:Careful there tiger, she’s the reason you’re runner up in singles in the first place. Might wanna keep those hormones in cheek if by some chance both of you end up in the finals again.

Summer:Oooo imagine if she gets another gold medal off of you. Talk about embarrassing... *chuckling*

Nick:Wow! So much for the confidence. I got sucker punched last time. No way I’d lose to her again.

Ruby:I wonder how many times Jaune said that before sparring with Nora? *smiling*

Nick:All of you suck.... *red*

Adrian:*in his room* I believe in you Nick!

Nick:That’s why you’re my favorite cousin!

Saph:I’m telling the others you said that if they show up to tournament.

Nick:Please don’t.....I can’t fight my entire family tree; too many branches. Who is coming anyways?

Ruby:I’ll be there of course, Yang, Blake most likely, Veronica-

Summer:Uuuuuuggggggghhhhhhh!

Everyone:........

Summer:What?

Nick:Can you both be civil for an evening.

Summer:Can she not be such a b-

Saph:I’ll tell your mother.

Summer:Insufferable person? I’m not talking to her and hopefully she doesn’t speak to me. *mumbles* I wish she was in the tournament. I’d pay off the referee to match us up just to fight her.

Ruby:Be nice to my niece please? Maybe she’s changed a bit?

Summer:..........You think Veronica Belladonna, the girl that’s so extra that she has two faunus features, has changed?

Ruby:You know your mom is the queen of extra right? I think there’s another reason you two might be all feisty towards each other if you catch my drift.

Summer:I know what you’re implying and it has nothing to do with that! That’s not even a thing.

Nick:What’s not a thing?

Summer:Don’t worry about it!

Nick:???

Few people could get Summer worked like Veronica could. Between her and Shiva it was almost like a war on two fronts when it came to her self confidence. Though she did appreciate that at least Veronica isn’t actually trying to destroy her. It’s the small things like that which made things more tolerable at best. Now that she was fired up, Summer hoped out of bed and grabbed her twins hand.

Summer:We’re going to glyph train in the garden.

Nick:Right now!? Don’t you wanna rest a little mo-

Summer:Nope! If I’m forced to be in the same area as little miss perfect then she’s gonna see me at my absolute best! *drags him out the room*

Ruby:Poor girl must constantly feel weird about every thought and action in her life. Especially at sixteen.

Saph:It’s no different than Jaune or a couple other of our siblings. Preferences and other things tend to get all added into decision making when you have tight net families and such reliable siblings. It’s nothing to worry about. Don’t tell Jaune I told you but for awhile the girls he tried dating when we were younger sort of looked like us because he thought we were the prettiest.

Ruby:Hey I mean I fell for him hard for awhile and he looks like my dad. I think we all naturally seek out something familiar yet different. Once you accept the fact your taste is little awkward but natural, you laugh about it.

Saph:It’s going to be an hilarious day when she brings a boy home that looks vaguely like Nick and Jaune but doesn’t realize it.

Ruby:I will cackle on the floor for hours. Please don’t speak that into existence.

Saph:*snickering* Remember when she had a crush on Adrian. Telling her they weren’t blood related was the funniest thing ever.

Ruby:I guess it just shows that Arc boys are just too good. No wonder why few are born; too much power is contained in that smile.

Saph:Ain’t that the truth. I really hope Nick and Adrian don’t get into too many shenanigans. Not that I won’t get a good lecture from every woman in our family if they do.

Ruby:They’ll be fine. Then again Nick is half Schnee. That’s a double threat. Schnee’s got their own brand of charm. Just ask my uncle or Jaune.

Saph:*looking at Ruby’s wedding ring* I think you’re forgetting someone.

Ruby:*blushing and smiling* Oh I didn’t want to mention my fantastic husband but if you insist... *pulls out scroll* wanna see our vacation pictures!?

Saph:*rolls eyes playfully* I don’t know how Whitley puts up with you.

Part 1

[crimsonheart01]

The Perfect Ending (Nestor x OC/Reader)

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, Nestor caught under the mistletoe

Word Count: 2,028

Playlist: Perfect Christmas - S Club 7

I chewed on a piece of licorice as Emily went on and on about our old school ritual involving mistletoe. It wasn’t anything special. All we did was hang a bunch from our dorm room door and if you didn’t kiss the person in the frame with you, were subjected to a ridicule concocted by all the remaining roommates.

There was one year where I had to wear my bras over my shirt for a week, or the year we made Emily dye her hair green and red. It was our own way to celebrate the holidays and dare each other to do outrageous things at the same time. It was always all in good fun and if someone was really not into it, we never forced them to participate.

“I don’t care about tradition, you try and get me under the mistletoe and I will punch you.” I warned.

Emily laughed, “You don’t scare me.”

“Oh, of course not. Not now that you’re a cartel wife.” I teased.

We laughed together over the phone, until I heard her name being called in the distance.

“Please babe,” She pleaded, “I haven’t seen you in years and Miguel asked personally to invite you. I think he misses your wild partying ways.”

I rolled my eyes, “It was one time and we were in college. He’s at fault too. He’s the one that suggested tequila.”

“Either way, we both want to see you.” I could hear the smile in her voice.

I sighed, “Alright. I’ll check flight prices tonight and let you know.”

She clapped and let out a happy cheer, “Amazing! I’ve got to go now. Dita needs me for something.”

We hung up at the same time, neither of us one for goodbyes. I flipped open my laptop and started searching for the cheapest flight I could find. I wasn’t going to let Emily try and pay for me to come and visit. I didn’t care how much money Miguel made. It was a matter of pride. I wanted to be able to get there on my own.

~(MMC)~

Miguel hung up the phone, a smirk in place. Emily had just confirmed with him that her best friend from college was going to be in town for their annual Christmas party. He fondly recalled the night where they managed to finish off a bottle of tequila between them. She was always a joy to have around, and knew how to have a good time.

He was tired of the stuffy parties they always ended up having. After this past year he knew Emily needed to let off steam. They had Cristobal back, Los Olivadados was his partner, and Alvarez was second in command. The only thing that wasn’t running smoothly was his friendship with Nestor.

He knew Nestor well. He would never let it show but he took a hard hit at the news of Alvarez taking Devante’s place. It wasn’t anything against Nestor, he just needed someone who knew the game from the MC’s perspective. Alvarez was an asset he couldn’t pass up.

Together Miguel and Emily had devised a plan. He knew Nestor needed a distraction, something to keep him from focusing on any negativity. He neede Nestor in peak performance. He was still head of security. Miguel was worried that if he spent too long focused on his decision not to promote him then it would hinder his clarity in the position he was in.

That’s were Emily’s best friend came in. She was a wild card. Something Nestor wasn’t used too. She’d give him a run for his money. Something to think about. Something to distract him.

“What are you smiling about?” Nestor asked.

Miguel turned to his oldest friend, having forgotten where he was.

“Emily just confirmed a few details of the party with me.” Miguel deflected, “I need you to be there.”

Nestor deadpanned him. He wasn’t one for staunch-y Christmas parties.

Miguel chuckled, “As security.” Nestor deflated in relief but Miguel had one more point to make, “You’ll need to be dressed the part though. Black tie.”

Miguel watched as Nestor ground his teeth together. Miguel had to hide his laughter. If Nestor only knew what was in store for him.

~(MMC)~

I leaned in the archway, a flute of champagne hanging between my fingers. I sighed. This might have been the most boring party I’d ever been too. I swirled the drink around, watching the crowd in front of me. I thought about making a run for it, but there wasn’t anywhere for me to go. I was a guest in this house, I couldn’t leave their party. That would be rude.

As I was considering my options, someone came to a stop next to me. I glanced over and raised my eyebrows. He was adorable. Sexy and adorable. Two adjectives that didn’t generally go together, but he pulled it off. I smirked, he was very concerned with keeping his eyes forward. He was either purposely trying not to look, or he was distracted by something else.

Either or, didn’t matter to me. I wasn’t going to let him walk away without at least letting him know I was attracted to him. Lust at first sight as it were.

“Well aren’t you a tall drink of water.” I commented.

He didn’t stir. His eyes kept straight, observing the entire room. I drank him in. Everything from the braids to the double gun holster he was wearing. It was obvious he was working security or something of that sort. He wore all black, right down to his socks and boots. I liked it. Simple and effective.

I raised my drink to my mouth and tilted my head back to drain the liquid when I noticed something hanging in the middle of the archway, above our heads.

“That bitch.” I swore into my glass.

Tall, dark and handsome whipped to face me. His eyes followed mine and both of us were staring at the mistletoe. He arched an eyebrow and I didn’t even bother to contain the annoyance on my face.

“I’m going to kill her.” I mumbled to myself.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched as the man next to me reached for his gun. It was a slow progression, as if he was a bit confused about what was happening. I breathed in and opened my mouth to deter him. I wasn’t here to actually kill anyone. I was speaking figurate. However, I was saved having to give any explanation by hearing Emily’s laughter bubble up.

“I see you’ve found the mistletoe.” She grinned. I moved to take a step forward but she held up a hand, “I wouldn’t if I were you. You remember the rules?”  

“Do you remember what I said on the phone?” I retorted.

She winked, “Punch me later. Or thank me. Whichever.”

She turned on her heel and disappeared into the next room. I scrunched up my nose. The woman was going to be the death of me. I looked back at ‘Braids’ and he was glancing down at me. I shrugged, downed my champagne and swung my arm around his shoulder. I gripped the back of his neck and tugged him down to my level.

Even in my heels I had to stretch onto my tiptoes. Before I was able to plant one on him, he tugged backwards and stared at me.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“You heard her.” I said, “There are rules. We have to follow them.”

He shook his head, “I don’t know the rules.”

I grinned, “Doesn’t matter. Kiss me.”

His eyebrows shot into his hairline and he smiled incredulously. He didn’t stop to pause for long before he was meeting me half way. Our lips met and electricity shot through me. I had no idea to know if he felt it too, but my body melted. I sagged against him, feeling as his arm slid across my lower back. He held me closer to him.

I let my fingers scratch at his neck and felt the shiver it sent down his spine. I grinned against his mouth and he reciprocated. I pushed hard into him, using my other hand to fist into his shirt. Getting carried away, I nipped on his lower lip. He opened his mouth in response and with a tentative taste, our tongues met.

He took control, exploring how far I’d let him go. I reacted positively eliciting a tiny moan. He delved his free hand into my hair. His fingers massaging against my scalp. I pushed against him, nearly knocking him backwards. We teetered for a moment before he caught out balance and held me still in front of him.

“Nestor,” Miguel spoke, popping our bubble, “I see you’ve met our special guest.”

We pulled apart. Nestor – as I just learned – tried to let go but I kept my arms around him. I wasn’t letting this man go. Not after a kiss like that. Nestor looked guilty as he met Miguel’s eyes. I arched one eyebrow, having caught on to the little power play.

“You planned this.” I interrupted.

Miguel chuckled, “You were always quick.”  

I pouted in thought, “What I want to know is how many other people did you force to kiss under this monstrosity?” I waved a hand up at the mistletoe above us, “Also how did you manage to get us both under here at the same time. What if I was under here with you? Or Emily for that matter?”

Miguel laughed and Emily’s joined in a second later. She slipped her arm through Miguel’s and patted her hand against his forearm. I let go of Nestor, allowing him to straighten out.

“Was I even meant to be doing security?” Nestor inquired.

Miguel shrugged, “No, but how else would I have gotten you here?”

I nodded, rolling my lips together. If they wanted to play it this way, then I’d step up. I grabbed Nestor’s hand, twining my fingers between his. He gazed down at me and I smiled at him. I tilted my head in the direction of the kitchen.

“Come on.” I goaded, “If they wanna play games, then let’s beat them at their own competition.” I tugged him along with me shouting behind me, “There better be tequila hidden somewhere in those cupboards.”

“Bottom left, next to the fridge.” Miguel called back.

Nestor laughed. He was in shock, but that wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying his night. Especially seeing as Miguel didn’t even need him to be working anyways. We reached the kitchen and Nestor, knowing his way around better than I did, grabbed four shot glasses while I bent to grab the Ley .925.

I smirked knowing that this particular tequila was the most expensive one in Mexico. Maybe in the world. Nestor lent me his hand, and I grabbed it as he helped hoist me back up. I licked my lips, and winked at him. He gave me a knowing grin. I handed him the bottle and he stopped for a split second. He recognized the brand as well.

“Don’t worry about it.” Emily said.

We both looked over to see her and Miguel smiling. I shook my head. The tequila was planted. It appeared that Miguel was trying for a repeat of that night so many years ago. I laughed and turned to Nestor, sliding the glasses in front of him. Having his permission, he popped the cork out and began pouring.

The four of us all took a glass.

“To happy endings!” Miguel toasted.

Nestor slipped his hand around my hips and tugged me towards him. I looked up at him and he smiled, “To happy beginnings!”

We all cheered and downed out shots. The second my glass was away from my mouth; Nestor was covering it his tongue searching. I opened up to him, tasting the alcohol on him. We could both hear Miguel and Emily cheering us on, but neither of us cared. We were too wrapped up in each other.

It may have been a dirty plan, but in the end it worked.

[forestwater87]

The last part of my turned-into-a-monster-far-beyond-my-intention art trade with @doritofalls! Hope you enjoy! :)

Chapter 5

The next time Daniel appeared, Kevin half-expected to see a knife in his hand. Maybe Sister Hannah hovering over his shoulder, telling him that Xemüg would be proud or something.

But he was alone -- paler than usual, with circles under his eyes that looked smudged on by makeup, but alone.  “You can’t come to the ascension,” he said.

Kevin smirked, leaning against the doorframe. “Nice to see you too, Dan.”

“This isn’t a joke! You aren’t going to the ascension party.” Normally this was the point where he would’ve shoved past Kevin inside, and there was something sad and unnerving about the way he was just hovering outside, glowing brilliant-white in the trailer-dotted wasteland of his front yard, like a diamond ring dropped in the gutter.

“Let me guess, Sister Hannah said no. I’d be too impure and ruin the vibe.” He’d been expecting something like this, and something cold and leaden rolled off his chest. Kevin had had a couple days to think through his spur-of-the-moment dare -- and to realize that he was perhaps just as insane as this merry band of cultists -- and when the alternative was probably being force-fed poison, he was very relieved to be disinvited to the party.

Daniel didn’t react, his eyes dark and bloodshot and unwavering from his own. “You would,” he said, a few seconds too late, like a poorly dubbed movie. “All your questions and your unclean habits -- your unclean mind -- you ruin everything. I don’t want you there.”

Okay, this was starting to sound like the kind of speech that was usually accompanied by a chainsaw and “the voices in my head made me do it.” Kevin slid his foot back, shifting his weight as subtly as possible to not look like he was running the fuck away. “That’s kinda harsh, don’tcha think?” he asked, only vaguely aware of what he was saying -- infinitely more aware of every twitch and tremor of the (very, very insane) man in front of him.

His fingers fluttered, a movement that would barely have been noticeable if Kevin’s brain wasn’t working so hard it was probably overheating, fans whirring as he tried to take in everything and plan a potential escape -- and oh, devote maybe 2.5% of his attention to the things Daniel was actually saying. “Don’t. Just . . . don’t, Kevin.”

Is that the first time he’s actually used your name? the stupid, useless 2.5% of his brain asked unhelpfully.

“Sure, man. Whatever you want me to do. Or not do. Whatever.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, fingering the switchblade hidden there. He was painfully aware of the fact that the Flower Scouts were inside the trailer, trying futilely to get an ancient monster of an air conditioner to work. (He had no idea where it had come from; the girls had just showed up that afternoon, staggering under its weight. For kids loudly opposed to anything resembling work, it was a hell of a lot of effort to go to.) Chances were good they could take care of themselves; he’d seen them scare off giants with machine guns, and Daniel was only 120 pounds of crazy and seemed unarmed. But goddamn it, they were his responsibility.

And like he’d fucking summoned them . . . “Heyyyyyy, so Erin has an idea,” Sasha called, sticking her head out of the front door. “It involves science or some shit. Are you using the ice in the freezer for anything?”

“What?” He turned around, forgetting about Daniel for a second. “I’m using it for ice, what are you talking about?”

“So like, we can have it?”

“I -- yeah, sure. Go nuts.” She started to disappear back inside and he raised his voice. “Fill the trays back up when you’re done!”

(Christ, he’d become his mother.)

He turned back to Daniel, who was watching him with an expression he couldn’t read, but scared him slightly less than the bubbling anger from a few minutes ago. “So . . .” He rocked back on his heels, sucking at his teeth. He wasn’t really good at ending conversations at the best of times. “Sorry I’m not sparkly enough to deserve your crazy-cult.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed, but he still didn’t quite look mad. His gaze flicked from Kevin to the trailer, where the girls had somehow coaxed enough bars out of the area’s horrible cell coverage to blast Sleepy Peak’s single Top 40 station and were singing along (badly) to it. “No,” he said finally, shaking his head. “You don’t deserve any of it.”

“They’ve ascended.”

Kevin glanced up; he wasn’t surprised, exactly, by the intrusion — “storming in and declaring something stupid” was a remarkably common way for Daniel to introduce himself — but he did wish it hadn’t happened while he was “gardening” with the Flower Scouts. “Go check on the cookies,” he muttered to them, and while Sasha just stared at him with dark-rimmed eyes, the other two were much easier to persuade, and dragged her away. “What’re you talking about?”

Part of him hoped Daniel’s announcement would end “They’ve ascended, and everything’s fine. Nothing was poisoned, and we all had a good laugh about what a paranoid freak that old Dirty Kevin is.” But the look on his face . . .

“Inside,” Daniel hissed, grabbing Kevin’s wrist and hauling him toward his trailer. “We can’t talk out here.”

“I literally just sent the girls ins — and we’re here.” Rolling his eyes, he tugged Daniel out of the way of Erin, who was balancing a too-large tray of steaming pink cookies. “Looks great. Why don’t you let these cool outside, huh? Take a break and relax in the shade or . . .” It occurred to him that there wasn’t a tree within half a mile of the trailer park. “. . . something.”

“Seriously?” Sasha rolled her eyes. “If you wanna get rid of us, just say.” She glanced up at him and then back to the floor, biting her lip. “Like we wanted to hang in this dump, anyway.”

“No, guys. It’s not like that.” He knelt down, trying to meet the five downcast eyes. “My buddy here’s just really stupid and might’ve done somethin’ that’ll get him arrested, and I don’t want you caught up in that. Be like Mexico all over again, right?”

Sasha looked marginally convinced, which he tended to use as his meter for all three of them, since she had the least amount of stupid going on. “Guess we’ll, like, call Miss Priss, then,” she said dismissively, turning sharply enough that her hair whipped Kevin in the face. “Come on, ladies.”

She paused at the door, turning to eye them over her shoulder. And hell, before he’d met those girls he’d never thought the glare of a prissy little girl could be intimidating, but . . . “Try not to get arrested.” Her eyes flicked up, then down, taking Daniel in before dismissing him with a toss of her head. “Your weird new boyfriend is totally not worth it.”

Kevin heard a quiet, outraged noise behind him, but then the trailer door slammed shut with a clank. Distracted from his irritation, Daniel burst forward, drawing the curtains and fiddling with the door’s cheap padlocks before whirling on him, a look in his eyes that Kevin couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t the fake “golly gee!” salesman spiel, and it wasn’t religious mania . . . but the few times he’d seen Daniel genuinely angry, it was a controlled, icy sort of rage, not this fire blazing behind his eyes.

For a second they just stared at each other. Then Kevin licked his lips — dry, chapped and dry; what else was new? — cleared his throat, and shoved his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “So, uh . . . ascension, huh?”

God, it all felt painfully awkward: Killed any kids lately?

Not like he had a ton of room to talk, but at least the children under his ill-advised care were still alive.

“You were right,” Daniel said, the words coming out all in a rush like he was afraid he’d be interrupted. Or like he was afraid he’d lose his nerve if he slowed down. He was pacing rapidly the length of the trailer, his steps hard enough to slightly rattle the entire camper. “Y-you — all of it — you were right about all of it. It doesn’t make any . . .” He sighed, almost a groan really, and raked his hands through his hair. His fingers drew neat furrows, the fluffy poof of his bangs sproinging back up immediately. “It was all fake,” he murmured finally. “There is no ascension. They made it all up.”

Kevin was aware that his trailer-guest was in the middle of a major existential crisis, but he had customers, and those cookies sold best when fresh out of the oven . . . “Right. Great. Uh, congratulations on all the . . . not being crazy, I guess.”

“It’s gone,” he whispered. His pacing slowed, and for a moment he just stared down at his hands. (Kevin leaned in closer, but they looked like the same pale, well-manicured skeleton hands to him.) “It’s all gone.” Daniel’s head snapped up, his eyes focusing on Kevin with his typical laserlike intensity. But it didn’t feel predatory for once. No, this look was decidedly desperate.

Desperate and hollow, lost hopelessness nestled in the deep, dark lines of his face. And he looked even more like a corpse than usual, skin the color of moon-drenched sand and the cheap fluorescent lights catching in the finger-combed waves of his hair.

Dirty Kevin was no poet, but something flashed across his mind anyway —

( that man is an island and there’s madness lapping at the shore )

— that might’ve been a half-remembered snippet of something he’d read in high school, or something from a dream, or something his brain had conjured up when he was blitzed out of his mind. Whatever it was, it made his skin prickle and go cold.

“What’s all gone, Daniel?”

“The Circle —” He shook his head abruptly, furiously. “The — the cult,” he spat. “There was — a ceremony. An ascension party. I . . . mixed up the drinks. Just to be sure.”

(“Don’t you dare.”)

He didn’t know what to say, but Daniel didn’t seem to need a response. Resuming his pacing, he rubbed his chin with a rough motion, like wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “They . . . ascended. I ascended them.”

His mouth twisted into a cruel smirk, and Kevin had seen that mocking contempt before but never this bitter, and never directed inward.

“No — I killed them.”

(“I don’t want you there.”)

Kevin took an unsteady breath — the first, it felt like, in hours. His fingers were only shaking slightly as he reached for Daniel’s shoulder, and it was almost possible to convince himself it was a holdover from that one bad batch of cookies. “Hey, man, it’s okay —”

(of course it wasn’t okay. Even Kevin wasn’t morally degraded enough to think any of this was okay)

“I murdered them. All of them.” His hands clenched into fists, and while he didn’t jerk away from Kevin’s touch, the vicious look on his face was almost enough to make him pull back himself. “The leaders . . . if they’d all dropped dead except me — if the — initiates hadn’t ‘ascended’ too, they would’ve panicked. Would’ve — called the police.”

Daniel shook his head, his eyes boring into Kevin’s forehead but his gaze a million miles away. Or maybe just a few, just up the road and across an old railyard to a small white house.

A small white house full of bodies.

Calling the police wasn’t sounding like such a bad idea . . .

“There wasn’t enough.”

Kevin jumped; Daniel had been quiet for so long, them both zoning out for who knew how many minutes, that the sound of his voice was startling, a gunshot in the still close air.

He kept talking, not noticing or ignoring the twitch of the hand on his shoulder — still, for some very stupid reason, on his shoulder. “Whatever was in the drinks was enough to kill . . . half the people. Maybe a little more. Mixing all the drinks together with the Elders’ — it wasn’t enough. The poison. It . . . took longer. It took forever.”

Daniel blinked, something like clarity returning to his eyes for a second. He smiled, and it wasn’t the creepy neck-cracking smile that was familiar and, oddly, almost comforting by this point, but a smile that trembled along its edges, a smile shrouded in darkness and shaking from the effort not to collapse into a scream.

Once, Kevin had an ex-girlfriend who said she couldn’t stand to look at him. “Your smile is haunted,” she’d said, standing in the hallway of their apartment — back when he could still afford an apartment. Back when it was still smart to sell out of an apartment. “You have the ghosts of the people you’ve ruined in your eyes.”

He was pretty sure that was complete bullshit, but if any smile had ever been haunted it was this one.

“I had to keep them from screaming,” he said, his voice still soft and breathy and his smile still more than a little unhinged. He let his neck fall to the other side with a sickening crack. “What else could I do?”

Dirty Kevin wasn’t aware of opening his mouth, of taking a deep breath. Of yelling and yelling like his lungs were about to burst.

He wasn’t aware of much of anything except a pair of bright, bright eyes and a poisonous smile.

Then, of nothing at all.

The first thing that came back to Kevin was the smell of cookies.

Then, a furious beeping.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t just stand there! You’re the, like, adult!”

“I’ve never seen one of these in my life!”

That was when he smelled smoke and bolted upright. “Whasgoinon?”

Sasha glanced over, crossing her arms over her chest. “Finally. You’re awake.”

“The trailer’s on fire,” Tabii added helpfully, standing on her tiptoes to see Kevin’s bed from the kitchen; it was really all one big ugly room with a toilet the size of a shoebox, but there were two Flower Scouts and and lot of smoke blocking her view, not to mention . . .

“Dan?”

Daniel coughed, covering his mouth with his arm and stepping away from the oven. “First deal with the beeping.”

Erin tossed her hair, revealing for a split second her one orange eye. “Or, like, the fire.”

Kevin stumbled out of bed, steadying himself against the wall, and hurried over to the kitchen. The damage was minimal, just some very on-fire cookies, and he tried not to think about how much money was smoking up his trailer. “Open the windows,” he said, taking the flaming tray from Tabii, nearly dropping it because he wasn’t wearing oven mitts, and finally letting it crash into the overfilled sink and running the faucet. “None of you know how to turn the alarm off, do you?”

Erin and Tabii shook their heads, while Daniel scoffed and looked away and Sasha snapped, “What do you think?”

Neither did he. “Google it,” he ordered, searching his pants pockets for his phone before realizing someone had put him in pajamas. Another terrible thing to deal with later. Finding it on his bedside table, he considered Daniel for a moment before tossing it to Erin. After an embarrassingly long time of her valley-girl-style coaching, he managed to shut the fucking thing off and collapsed into his armchair, nearly landing on Barbra. As she rubbed her face on his legs and then jumped back up into his lap, he ran a hand over his face, exhausted but far from sleepy, and turned toward his very odd guests. “What are any of you doing here?”

“You’ve been asleep for two days,” Erin said, handing him his phone.

“We told Miss Priss we’re doing extended community service! We even went shopping and everything!” Tabii added.

“Oh, yeah.” Sasha tugged a very familiar piece of plastic from a bag around her wrist and flicked it toward him. “This thing is, like, way out of money.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. If he’d been awake he could’ve told them he hadn’t used a credit card in months. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Nuh-uh, Tabii found some cash in your mattress.” She wrinkled her nose and gave him the most witheringly judgemental stare he’d ever received from a twelve-year-old. “You know, with everything else you’ve got under there.”

“Hey, that shit’s private! And nobody asked you to go snooping in my stuff!” He heard a soft dismissive noise from the other side of the room and pointedly ignored it, keeping his attention on the girls. “You’re too young to know what those are, anyway.”

Tabii brightened. “I’m not! My sister told me --”

“Your sister’s wrong about everything, Tabii,” Erin interrupted.

“Yeah, and what’s with magazines, anyway? I mean, you know the internet exists, right? You’re not, like, that old.”

He opened his mouth to answer that, but his brain caught back up with him. “We’re not having this conversation. Give me back my money!” (So he was a little old-fashioned. There were worse things to be.)

Sasha returned his battered money clip -- which was considerably thinner than he remembered seeing it last -- and the girls sat down around his kitchen table; even if they hadn’t eyed Kevin’s ratty fur-covered couch like it was made of rancid cheese, Daniel had flopped onto it before they could’ve taken a seat anyway. (At least some things didn’t change.) “Anywayyyyy, he keeps trying to make us go --” she jerked her head in Daniel’s direction, hair whipping like a flag, “-- but he won’t leave the house so like, what was he gonna do when you ran out of food?”

“Besides, we thought he might try to kill you like he did all those weird church people!” Tabii said, seemingly completely oblivious to the warning looks the other girls were giving her, or how the air chilled a few degrees as she spoke.

There was a long, tense moment of silence. “Right,” Sasha finally said. “Anyway, we’re gonna, like, go. Since you’re awake now and stuff.” She crossed the room and plucked the money clip from his hand, taking a $20 bill. “For the Uber.”

“We also totally messed around with your phone just totally because we’re bored,” Erin added, leaning over the arm of the chair to prod at his screen. “So like, for totally no reason the police are on speed-dial now? Just like, y’know, because.”

“Have a good night!” Tabii continued to not quite grasp the trailer’s atmosphere, and something appallingly close to affection squeezed his chest. She leaned in close, cupping her hand around her mouth and his ear. “Be careful, Mr. Kevin. My sister says even if you’re gay you can like still get pregnant --”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he cut her off too-loudly from trying not to laugh, putting his hand over her face and shoving her away. “Get back home before you get in trouble.” He watched them leave with exaggerated interest and immediately dropped his head in one hand, telling himself it wasn’t stupid for his face to feel warm because his trailer had very recently been on fire.

It was quiet for a few moments, and Kevin hoped for a second that Daniel would shut up long enough to let him think for a minute or two. He just . . . needed to wrap his mind around everything. The last thing he remembered was Daniel confessing to mass fucking homicide, then apparently he’d been alone with the Flower Scouts for a few days and why had he been hanging around here for a few days? He should be miles away, or in jail, or hell maybe dead in a ditch if this cult was as insane as it’d always seemed, so what in the flying fuck --

There was a quiet snort. “Sweetheart?”

Kevin sighed.

Goddamnit.

He rolled his eyes, lifting his head. “It’s been a weird week,” he began. “Could you just --”

For the first time, he really got a good look at Daniel.

The kid was a fucking mess.

Not by Kevin’s standards, to be sure. His hair was still impeccably styled -- using what kind of product, Kevin had no idea -- and his jeans were as gleamingly white and unwrinkled as ever. But he must’ve borrowed clothes, because the black 2003 Warped Tour T-shirt had definitely come from the back of Kevin’s closet, and so had the cream cardigan he’d shrugged on over it (a gift from his grandmother. Of course Daniel had been drawn to it), and everything was dusted with a thin layer of white cat fur.

Not that his wardrobe was the most startling thing about his appearance.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you looking at?”

Kevin’s lips twitched, and he quickly covered his mouth with one hand, glancing over at Barbra before his eyes were inevitably drawn back to Daniel. “Nothing.”

He dragged the wrist of the cardigan across his cheek, like he could wipe away the too-dark stubble. “Stop staring. I hate it, okay? Stop looking at it.”

Kevin nodded slowly, still trying not to laugh. “No, man, it’s . . . really something.” Daniel huffed angrily and glared at the wall while Kevin tried to get ahold of himself, the silence settling into something surprisingly comfortable, like this was just another inexplicable visit. When he thought he could speak again, he took a deep breath and said, “So. The, uh. Hair.”

Daniel didn’t say anything, just eyed him suspiciously.

“Couldn’t talk the girls into buying you some bleach, huh?”

He ran a hand self-consciously through his hair, tugging at where the light brown roots suddenly blazed into platinum blonde. “They don’t like the color,” he muttered.

Kevin did laugh then, shaking his head and enjoying the way a blush flared across Daniel’s cheeks and ears. “Run a tight ship, don’t they?” he said, glancing around the trailer and noticing for the first time how nice it was. Not neater, exactly -- he was actually quite good at keeping things tidy; it was one of the only ways to make a shithole look less like a shithole -- but there were little homey touches here and there: a beer bottle rescued from the garbage and repurposed as a vase, little sprigs of wildflowers scattered throughout the place like tiny religious offerings. “Surprised they didn’t make you shave.”

If possible, Daniel wound even tighter. “You’re out of razors,” he said sullenly. “And in this ridiculous town, children can’t buy them.”

“Makes me wonder why you’re still in this ridiculous town.”

And like that, the familiar atmosphere snapped. Daniel sat up straighter, his entire body tensing like he might bolt. Kevin closed his fingers around the phone in his pocket, taking comfort in the reminder that he had the police on speed-dial.

Well, they were here. Might as well get this over with before he was murdered in his sleep. “Why are you here, anyway? You could be in fucking Cabo right now or something.”

Daniel fidgeted, his gaze on his knees. “There’s nowhere for me to go,” he admitted after a moment. “I can hardly return h -- to the Circle, even if I wanted to.” His face twisted in a bitter mixture of distaste and grief, and Kevin remembered with a start that this was kind of . . . really traumatizing. He’d never done the whole religion thing, but he knew what it was like to have a home suddenly stop being home.

Of course, he didn’t know what it was like to be wanted for mass murder. “But they know where you are, right? You’ve gotta be, like, Xemüg’s Most Wanted now.” Daniel stared at him blankly, and the exhausting task of getting him caught up on something like twenty-five years of pop culture settled over Kevin like a blanket. “Aren’t they gonna come find you? Maybe give you a nice cold glass of poison?”

“What was I supposed to do?” he demanded, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward, like he was considering getting up.

Kevin shrugged, trying to remain as casual as possible. “Off the top of my head . . . drive the twenty or so miles to the nearest airport, get a one-way ticket to the border, escape into Mexico, dye your hair, and start a low-profile-but-reasonably-lucrative business doing literally anything besides killing kids.”

The look on Daniel’s face was like he’d accidentally swallowed a frog.

“None of that occurred to you, huh?”

He dropped his head in one hand with a groan. “Nothing makes sense anymore.”

“Yeah, not like space toxins and alien wars and all that other totally reasonable cult shit.”

“It had rules!” he snapped, and Kevin flinched. Surprise flickered across Daniel’s face, and for the briefest second something like guilt. Then he settled back against the couch, his expression once again hovering between annoyed and disdainful. “Not like you would get it. You’ve never cared about rules.”

Kevin considered correcting him -- he did have rules, thankyouverymuch, and he stuck by them. The Flower Scouts had never had so much as a crumb of their own supply, had they? -- but decided it wasn’t worth the argument. Not when he was still wrapping his head around the fact that he’d apparently been harboring a felon for the past two days, quite literally unconsciously. “So what’re you gonna do now?” he finally asked, breaking the silence. “That whole Cabo thing is probably out, since I assume your face is all over the news by now. Cops been by yet?” Someone had to have noticed him hanging around; this park was half filled with gossipy old ladies, and Daniel didn’t exactly blend in as much as blindingly draw attention.

Daniel shook his head, looking cowed. Like maybe he’d finally realized what a fucking bad situation he was in.

Good.

Kevin should just call the cops. If Daniel had run for it, if he tried to make a run for it now, he would’ve been happy to protest innocence and give the kid a fighting chance. But if he was too goddamn stupid to even run . . . Christ, he was like a bunny staring down headlights. No survival skills at all.

A bunny with a knife in its teeth.

Kevin ran a hand through his hair, puffing out his cheeks and exhaling loudly. Leaving his phone on the arm of the couch, he wandered over to the kitchen, shuffling through his cabinets to see what he had left in the way of cookie supplies.

(The shelves were filled with food he was pretty sure had never entered his house before: fancy fruits and spices and quinoa, whatever that was. He wasn’t sure whether to smile or wince, looking around at his now very-expensively-stocked kitchen. He was never letting those girls near his cash again, comatose or not.)

“You know anything about cooking?” He cut himself off with a dismissive snort. “Nah, no way I’m letting you anywhere near food. Last thing I need is the whole town dropping dead.” Ignoring the wide-eyed stare he could feel boring into his back, he crouched down in front of the sink, opening a drawer and tugging out a box. “You can’t leave here until we do something about your . . . whole . . . situation,” he continued, waving one hand in Daniel’s general direction. “But I’ve been meaning to start an indoor garden. Friend set me up with a mushroom kit, and --” he shook the box at Daniel for emphasis, “now it’s your project.”

“And what makes you think I want to help you with this . . . business?” Kevin jumped; he hadn’t noticed Daniel’s approach until he was practically hovering over him. Which just brought to mind all sorts of murdery mental images.

Still, he wasn’t going to let himself be bothered. Bunny with a knife, he reminded himself, putting his hands on his knees and pushing himself to his feet. “Nice sneer. Very Snape,” he said, then sighed at Daniel’s confused frown. “Fine, I’ll go to the library, catch you up on the last couple centuries. Anyway, you’ll do it because one,” he held up one finger in Daniel’s face, “you don’t want me to rat you out to the police and I am seriously sticking my neck out for you, so don’t be an ungrateful prick. And two, because you’re not gonna be able to leave this tin can for at least a couple months while shit settles down, and you will be bored as shit.” He shoved the kit into Daniel’s hands, stepping away to . . . well, to do nothing, but it was a good line to walk away on.

And if he also needed a little bit of space between himself and the reformed cultist killing machine, that was only common sense.

“Why are you doing this?” Kevin could count on one hand the number of times Daniel’s voice had approached anything near vulnerable, and something about the way he spoke, through gritted teeth like he was trying to bite back the question but the words clawed out of him anyway, was more pathetic than any frustration or uncertainty or even panic.

Because I’m a sucker for bunnies. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Dan,” he said instead. “I could use some help running my bountiful drug empire, and you could use a place to lie low.” He half turned back, unable to resist a slight smirk. “Simple as that.”

“Nothing about this is simple,” Daniel muttered. He was clutching the mushroom kit to his chest, and spoke down at it.

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, returning to his chair and plopping down into it. He’d received a text from Sasha, the only one who had a phone and who’d taken the initiative to add herself to his contacts within five minutes of meeting him: ‘still alive?’ “Welcome to Earth, spaceman.”

Daniel’s head snapped up, his mouth opening to make an angry retort, but after a second he closed it, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. He turned and set the mushroom kit next to the sink and turned on the faucet, focusing his attention on the burned cookie tray.

Kevin watched him for a minute, trying to figure out if the slight upturn of his lips was a trick of the light. Finally giving up, he opened up Sasha’s message and tapped out a quick reply:

‘So far.’

[ycmiis-blog]

now recording {chapter ten}

When upcoming YouTuber Lucy Heartfilia finds herself collaborating with popular channel Fairy Tail, she ends up getting more than she bargained for. ( ff.net // ao3 )

( ONE  TWO  THREE  FOUR  FIVE  SIX  SEVEN  EIGHT  NINE  )

Natsu falls into his and Lucy's room, hanging onto the doorknob for dear life as Lucy giggles behind him. Neither of them are drunk, but Natsu ate far too much at dinner, even for him, and he's paying the price for it now. He doesn't even lean down to pet Happy on his way over to his bed, and so the blue cat heads to Lucy for his attention. Plue is already asleep on the couch.

"This is the real reason fate was kind enough to give us two beds," Lucy says as Natsu lands face-first in his pillow. "It's so you don't end up puking all over me in the middle of the night."

Natsu simply groans in response, shifting so he's lying on his side. Lucy isn't in her bed. Instead, she's rummaging through one of the inner pockets of her smallest suitcase, and in the dim light, Natsu can make out shampoo and conditioner. He resists the urge to groan again when he realises he'll have to take a shower before going to bed. He's already too comfortable to move.

"Don't these places come with free hair stuff?" Natsu asks, voice muffled by his pillow.

Lucy sends him one of those 'you clearly wouldn't understand' looks as she stands, towel and pyjamas draped over one arm. "My hair is long, Natsu. Those tiny little bottles of tiny little shampoo wouldn't even last me one shower. Besides, mine smells nicer."

Natsu nuzzles his pillow. "Whatever, I dunno anything about those name-brand things, anyway. I just use the supermarket one."

Lucy sighs, already halfway to the bathroom. "I'll be out in a bit."

The bathroom door closes and Natsu hears the faint sound of rushing water about half a minute later. He's tempted to fall asleep, but it isn't that late, and so he flicks on his bedside lamp and pulls out his script. He's been reading at least one scene every night before bed as some sort of memorisation tactic, and it seems to be working so far. He starts from where he and Lucy finished and reads his lines at least three times each, imagining how he should say them, muttering them to himself to test different inflections.

When he reaches the last scene of the film, he stops. This isn't the first time he's read through it, but it's the first time his co-lead has been in the other room, and he remembers Freed telling him earlier that Lucy had wanted to change the last scene so it was a hug instead of a kiss. It hadn't bothered him at the time, but now he wonders if there was a particular reason that Lucy was so adamant.

He's up to the very last line when the shower stops, and he places his script beside his pillow, knowing he'll lose it if he doesn't. Happy is curled up by his stomach, eyes closed. He gives the cat a soft scratch behind the ears as he waits for the bathroom door to open. Lucy emerges a minute or so later with wet hair and silk pyjamas, and she's surprised to see him awake.

"I thought you'd be in a food coma by now," she says, dumping her old clothes inside a different suitcase than the one from before.

"Nah, I was reading lines," Natsu says. He watches her for a moment, as if her body language will give him an answer to the question he wants to ask, but when it doesn't, he speaks anyway. "Hey, Lucy, can I ask you something?"

Lucy doesn't look at him as she slides into bed, a book in her hand. "Sure, what is it?"

"Why did you wanna write the kiss scene out of the movie so badly?" he asks, and he swears she freezes for a split second. "Freed told me, and I was just wondering. You don't need to do something you don't wanna do."

Lucy traces the spine of her book (an old classic he's never paid much attention to). "It's nothing to do with you, if that's what you're worried about."

That isn't really an answer, but that calms his worries. Just a little. "It's not that. I was just curious." When Lucy doesn't respond, only frowning at her book, he continues. "Okay, what if I guess what the problem is?"

That gets her attention. She looks up at him with an expression mixed with confusion and exasperation, but that's enough for him. "You're going to what?"

"Is it because you've never been kissed before? Is that it?" he asks, rather than responding to her question. He assumes it was rhetorical, anyway.

Lucy drops her book on the bedspread and glares at him. "I have been kissed, thank you very much. Any other genius guesses?"

Natsu already has his next question in mind, but he pretends to seriously consider it, rubbing his chin with narrowed eyes. Then he says, tone completely serious, "I know exactly what it is. You're a horrible kisser, aren't you?"

He drops the act as Lucy makes an outraged sound, laughing as she chucks a pillow at him. He catches it effortlessly. "That is not the case, you ass! I've been kissed by several people more than once, so your theory is complete and utter trash."

His laughter continues. It's so easy to tease Lucy, and it's quickly becoming one of his favourite pastimes. "Alright, alright, I'll take your word for it. For now. We'll see what the verdict is when we have to do that last scene, huh?" She narrows her eyes at him and Happy mews, as though telling her to calm down. Natsu likes to think that that's what's happening, anyway. "So, what? What's the problem?"

"I thought you were gonna guess?" Lucy grumbles, bringing her knees up to her chin.

"I couldn't think of anything else," Natsu says. "Nothing that would make you react like a crazy lady, anyway. It's not something like being camera-shy, is it? You're a natural, remember? I told you that before."

Lucy sighs and lies back on her remaining pillows. "That's different. I'm just being myself there. I'm not acting, and I definitely don't have to portray a love story. I chose the celestial princess because I love stars and I thought she sounded like a really cool character, but I don't know if I'll be able to do everything right."

Natsu is tempted to tease her again, but then he sees the worry in her eyes, the way she's pulled her bedspread so it covers half her face, as if to hide. This is something she's really struggling with, it seems. He doesn't quite know what to say, but he has to say something, and so he opens his mouth without thinking (as usual, but hopefully something good will come out of it this time).

"Hey," he says, softer than before. "You're Lucy Heartfilia and you're a badass in front of the camera, okay? You're gonna be the star of that film - no pun intended - and you're gonna be amazing, because that's how you are in front of a camera, and that's not gonna change 'cause you have a script. You wrote that script. No one can play the princess nearly as well as you can."

Lucy slowly lowers her covers so he can see her whole face. She's smiling. "Thanks, Natsu. That means a lot."

Before he can say, 'you're welcome' in return, he yawns. "Shit, I'm tired. Bedtime."

He switches his lamp off and Lucy abandons her book before turning hers off as well. They settle into their beds and Natsu closes his eyes, but is very aware of Lucy's presence on the opposite side of the room, barely an arm's length away. The only sound he can hear is the sound of the wind and the sea outside as well as the vibrant hum of the guests in the restaurant.

"Natsu?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I have my pillow back?"

"Nope."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

"Ow!"

"Stay still."

"I would if you'd stop stabbing me!"

"It barely touched you, you big baby."

Natsu swears that Lisanna is doing this on purpose at this point. She's in the middle of fitting his costume, which is taking forever because so much goes into it, and the longer it takes, the more opportunities Lisanna has to accidentally poke him with the sewing pins. Or 'accidentally', in his opinion. Lisanna isn't that clumsy. She's enjoying this, he knows she is.

It's only the two of them and Mira in the room. Juvia is helping with the costumes, too, but she's gone to hunt down Elfman and Evergreen, who have mysteriously disappeared before their fitting was due to start. Natsu can't blame them. If he'd known that Lisanna would take the opportunity to make fun of him the entire time, he would have hidden away somewhere, too.

Still, with just Lisanna and Mira in the room, he can ask for advice, preferably without being made fun of. At least for the most part.

"Hey, guys, can I ask you something?"

Lisanna doesn't stop pinning bits and pieces of his costume, but Mira looks over from the sewing machine. "Of course, what is it?"

"What do you do when someone you're working with is nervous about something, but there's no way to change it, so you wanna make them as comfortable as possible with it, but you don't know how?" he asks all in one go, and he takes a deep breath once he's finished.

Lisanna actually looks at him this time. "This is about the kiss scene with Lucy, isn't it?"

Natsu coughs, but he can't deny it. "How'd you know?"

Both Lisanna and Mira give him a look as the latter says, "It was obvious. Besides, I was there when Lucy was talking about it to Levy and Freed, so it wasn't that hard to guess. Did she talk to you about it?"

"We talked about it last night, yeah." Natsu had been the one to bring it up, but he wasn't about to mention that. Perhaps Lucy hadn't wanted to tell him in the first place? That was plausible. "She said there was nothing in particular she was worried about, just the fact that she's not used to acting in front of the camera rather than being herself."

"I have an idea," Mira says. "Remember when we were all at the orphanage and we put on all those plays to raise money?"

"And you and Erza kept arguing over the lead role? Yeah."

Mira decides to ignore him. "Remember how Lisanna and I made those scented flowers for everyone, the one with the calming aromas, and we all used to keep them with us before we went onstage, and the entire backstage was filled with that calming scent, so we were able to stay focused? What if I made one of those for Lucy?"

Natsu grins, and if Lisanna wasn't holding a pin right by his collar, he would run over to Mira and hug her. "That's a great idea! Could you do it by tomorrow night? I think that's when we start shooting."

"Of course, they barely take ten minutes to make."

"Thanks!"

The door bursts open then, and Juvia appears in the doorway, Evergreen and Elfman behind her with red faces. "Juvia has apprehended Evergreen and Elfman!"

"And where were you two?" Lisanna asks, momentarily looking up from Natsu's costume. "You were supposed to be here an hour ago!"

Evergreen holds her head up high. "We - we just got sidetracked, that's all."

Lisanna narrows her eyes. "With what?"

Both their faces grow redder and Elfman bellows, "Nothing!"

The following night is when they start filming. Laxus and the rest of the film crew had been out there the previous night, getting in some landscape shots and blocking various scenes, searching the location for the best spots for different scenes. Everything is mostly set up when Natsu and Lucy arrive. Gajeel and Reedus are messing about with one of the tripods, and Lisanna is putting the finishing touches on Cana's costume. They're filming the celestial princess's arrival tonight as well as the fortune teller's scene. Natsu only came for moral support.

Once he's sure no one is around to disturb them, Natsu leads Lucy off to the side where some equipment cases are stacked, and he sits on one while she sits on another. She takes a moment to ensure her costume doesn't crinkle.

"What's up?" she asks, and while she smiles at him, he can tell she's nervous by the way her shoulders are up high, her feet constantly moving.

Taking the flower out from his pocket, he places it in the palm of his hand and offers it to her. "Here, this is for you. To help your nerves. Mira made it. She used to make them for all of us when we had to perform to raise money for the orphanage and we'd get nervous."

Lucy takes the flower, treating it with care as she brings it to her face and breathes in the scent. "It wonderful, thank you," she says, and Natsu is happy to see her shoulders relax. When she looks at him again, though, she seems confused. "You guys were in an orphanage?"

It takes Natsu a moment to catch up. Of course Lucy wouldn't know. He's so used to everyone else on the channel knowing about their circumstances, even those who weren't there in the orphanage days, that he forgot that no one had told Lucy. It's not public knowledge, and when they're asked in Q&As how they know each other, they just say that they're all childhood friends. There's no way she would know.

He responds casually, though. "Yeah, a lot of us are. That's how we all met and why we started the channel. Gramps suggested it to us when we were bored one summer, and the rest was history. Now it's a business, but we have fun."

Lucy's smile widens the slightest bit, and she twirls the flower around in her hand. "Well, thanks for telling me. It's nice to be trusted with stuff like that."

Natsu just smiles as Lucy is called over to begin shooting. "Of course! What are friends for?"

[willandlyra]

can’t wait to hear you scream

in which nico and will watch a scary movie. kind of.

read on ao3

::

Nico had believed Will when he’d said that he’d hated horror movies.

The thing was, he apparently didn’t grasp how much Nico hated horror movies.

“Do you wanna turn it off?” Nico asks, cautiously, because they’re sitting in his home living room, and while Nico is sitting cross-legged on the floor, elbow deep in a bowl of salted popcorn, Will is currently lying on the sofa.

Not only lying on the sofa, but buried in blankets. Most of them have been removed from his actual body and instead are just covering his face.

“No,” Will says, voice muffled. “I’m good.”

Nico raises his eyebrow. On the screen, some horrible horror slasher move happens. Nico isn’t really paying attention, but he’s pretty sure that there is blood spraying everywhere. Some teenager screams.

“Are you sure?”

“100%.”

“You know,” Nico says. “I’m not sure you are. And it’s totally fine. I really don’t care if we switch it off.”

“I’m fine,” Will tells him again, not that his head has come up from underneath his blanket palace yet. “Please. If you turn it off, I’ll just feel super lame and guilty and I’ll feel crappy anyway.”

“... I’m not sure watching it will make you feel much better.” Nico moves closer, rests his head against Will’s body in a way which he hopes is soothing.

A year into their relationship and he’s still not totally amazing at this whole thing. But he’s trying his best, and Will loves him enough to invite him to his family home, so.

It’s gotta count for something.

“It’s all good here,” Will says. “And hey, this way I can tell Leo I’ve officially watched something scarier than anything he’s ever seen.”

Nico doesn’t have the heart to tell Will that Leo has already seen this movie. And he found it kind of weirdly funny because of how bad the graphics were, and not scary at all.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Fair enough.”

Nico lets out an exasperated sigh when he catches sight of the TV screen, while some stupidly over-the-top style murder is being carried out.

“Totally unrealistic,” he mutters. His father is the god of death, okay - he knows these things.

Will snorts. “True,” he says.

“What freaks you out so much, then?” Nico asks. And he isn’t asking in a mean way - he didn’t realise Will was this scared, but he doesn’t care that he is. At least not in a mean way. He definitely cares in a ‘let me hold your hand and protect you’ kind of way.

“It sounds really dumb,” Will says. “Like, I like creepy shit, you know that. Ghost stories are freaking great - don’t give me that look, Nico, just because you get to sleep in Hades’ guest bedroom.”

“You can’t even see me,” Nico points out. Even though he was totally giving Will that look.

“I know things,” Will says, before continuing. “And the dark and whatever. I like being scared, but all the screaming and death and stuff - I don’t like it. I just get all weirded out, ‘cause I keep thinking how scared and lonely all these people are when some freak is just running round chopping them up and - I just don’t like it. I feel sad for them.”

Nico blinks.

He pulls the blanket off from Will’s head for a moment, and then he realises another gore murder scene is about to begin so he quickly pulls the covers down over him again.

“Thanks,” Will squeaks.

“Gods, I love you,” Nico tells him. “Like, holy fucking - I dunno, Demeter’s baby teeth - you’re so good, it’s almost painful.”

Will raises his head (covering his eyes with his fingers) from his blanket kingdom.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Will grins. “Can’t see you, so you’ll have to be the one to kiss me.”

“I’m not kissing you while watching a slasher movie, Will.”

“Aw, no,” Will sighs. “And they say romance is dead.”

Nico laughs. He also wants to kiss Will, but he’s totally not going back on his word.

“Will?”

“Mmhmm?”

“You sound less scared now.”

“I am, a bit,” Will says. “Earlier, my heart was going crazy and it was all gross and. Ugh. I hate scary movies.”

“I know,” Nico bites his lip. “I’m sorry we watched this. I believed you, I just didn’t realise it would be so bad...”

“Hey, I know,” Will tells him. “It’s cool, Nico, I promise.”

He reaches out his hand and clasps Nico’s, squeezing softly as he threads their fingers together.

“I mean, you don’t seem like the type to be phased by all that.”

“True,” Will agrees. “I’m pretty hardcore.”

Nico snorts, but continues regardless. “I mean, you’ve met Hades. You’re dating his son, the literal son of death.”

Will frowns. “Very true. Clearly, I need to re-evaluate my life choices.”

“You’ve been to the underworld. You deal with blood and wounds like, constantly. And you have some pretty disturbing Lamb of God posters on your wall.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know you have kissed me many times underneath those Lamb of God posters, and more.”

Nico refuses to blush, which means he does anyway without acknowledging it because it’s dark.

Then he has a realisation.

“Oh my gods, Will. You have literally delivered a child.”

“Nico!” Will moans then, and looks entirely horrified. “Why do you always have to bring that up when I’m trying so hard to forget about it?”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Coach Hedge has never been happier.”

“Wow,” he grumbles. “My heart is truly shining for him.”

Another victim of terrible, early noughties, shitty slasher plotlines goes down on the screen with a piercing shriek.

“I literally cannot handle this anymore,” Nico says, and with a look of outrage on his face, he rolls over and crushes the volume button on the remote control with the back of his thigh and promptly, all goes quiet.

Will crawls out from underneath the blankets.

“Okay,” he says. “Be honest, did you only turn the sound off because I wouldn’t kiss you with weird screaming in the background?”

“I literally had no other motivation,” Nico tells him. 

Will laughs, and leans forward, closes his eyes and catches Nico’s lips with his own. He moves closer, cupping Nico’s chin gently so he can kiss him deeper, feel as Nico’s breath catches in the back of his throat, just for a minute. So that his heart stutters.

Unfortunately, they get a little too into it, and the moment is instantly ruined when Will slips off of the couch and onto Nico, pushing him back against the floor and, worst of all, against the volume remote, which promptly turns on at a louder setting just as a very high-pitched screech is let out.

Nico and Will scream so loudly that not only are the entire Solace household woken up at gone three am, but Hades is forced to call in reinforcements because the noise has reached the underworld and stresses out the spirits.

Needless to say, they stick to comedy movies in the future.

[holosoftheoldrepublic]

The Atropa Legacy: The Escape

(Fanfic MasterPost).

           “Say, Sith,” said Andronikos to Yra as they cuddled on her bed. “What was your childhood like?”

           “I didn’t have one,” she grumbled, clearly discontented by the question... or by having her nap disturbed; who knew? “I was a slave. Then I wasn’t one. The end.”

           “Come on, there has to be more to it than that,” he said, poking her cheek as she glared at him with annoyance. “Any friends? Family? Past lovers I need to be outrageously jealous of?”

           “What does it matter? The past is the past and I don’t want to think about it anymore,” she sighed.

           “Maybe I just wanna know more about the woman I love,” he said, pulling her closer and planting a kiss on her forehead. “Where you come from. If I have any in-laws to worry about.”

           “We’re not married yet,” she mumbled, colouring slightly. How long would it take to get used to hearing she was loved? “They would not be in-laws.”

           “In-laws-to-be, then.” He amended with an eye roll. “Sounds like there is family. So who are they?”

           Yra was silent a moment, wondering if she should divulge the dark memories she had kept to herself for so many years. They were possibly the most painful memories, more so than anything else that had happened to her. Did she really want to open old wounds?

           “I have... one living relative that I know of,” she replied slowly, brow furrowing as a myriad of emotions played across her features. “A twin sister.”

           “Wait, wait — a twin? You mean there’s another of you? Isn’t one enough?” Andronikos interrupted with a grin.

           Yra’s response was to level a disapproving look at him.

           “So, where is this twin?” he asked, tactfully moving on. “She still a slave, another Sith, what?”

           “No, she’s...” Yra hesitated, and Andronikos gave her a reassuring squeeze. “She’s somewhere in the Republic.”

           Andronikos gaped at her. “A Sith Pureblood made it into the Republic? How?”

           “She... escaped. Years ago. When we were 14.”

           “There sounds like there’s a story there.”

           “There is, but...” she trailed off, looking away. “It’s not a pleasant one.”

           To his credit, Andronikos might have been a brash and crass (and slightly crazy) pirate, but he had gotten pretty good at reading Yra’s moods. “Hey, you don’t gotta tell me nothin’,” he said gently. “Sorry for prying. It’s not like I’ve been all that forthcoming about my past, do you don’t gotta tell me yours. Only fair.”

           Yra chuckled at that. “What does a pirate know about fairness?”

           “Hey, gotta keep things smooth amongst the crew, or else they’ll mutiny.”

           “They did that anyways.”

           “A Sith artifact made them all crazy, wasn’t m’ fault,” he said. “Next time, not gonna be stealing none of those.”

           “I hope you aren’t planning on leaving me anytime soon,” she pouted, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’d miss you.”

           “I ain’t leaving Sith,” he said. “You’d prob’ly eat me.”

           She snorted, and shoved him. In response, he pulled her over with him, relishing in the mirthful giggles that were rare to get out of her. She kissed him, smiling, and settled into the new position. “You’re always so good at making me feel better,” she murmured. “It’s been such a long time since someone... understood me so well.”

           “Someone else was able to understand you? Amazing, you’re usually as readable as one of those ancient tablets of yours.”

           “They’re perfectly readable,” she protested.

           “Well, I suppose that helps your point; not so many other people can read them like you,” he laughed. “So, who was this person? Someone I should be jealous of?”

           “My twin. We did everything together... even if we were assigned to different areas of the estate, we always managed to find a way to be together.” Yra stared into nothingness for a moment. “We even planned to escape together.”

           “So how come you’re still here and your twin is in Republic space?”

           “Well... it started when our mother died...”

* * *

           It was just like any other day. Unimportant, just like the planet, a backwater place that was only barely within Imperial Space, bordering with the Hutts. It clung to the very edges of civilisation, and the Masters there pretended to a sophistication they did not have.

           But to the two young slaves, standing side-by-side and hand-in-hand, this planet was their entire, only world, and they knew that this day was a turning point in their lives, as they watched as other slaves buried their mother in the ground.

           “Such a weak constitution. The Masters should have known better than to let her have another child,” one of the slaves said. “She almost died giving birth to Yra and Yn, and she was much younger and healthier!”

           “You know how they are with that Sith purity nonsense,” muttered another slave, casting an envious glance to the girls. While still not treated like real people, their red skin granted them a certain amount of privilege that the rest could not hope to have. “They were probably hoping for a force-sensitive child they could pretend was legitimate to boost their standing.”

           “Well, now she’s dead, and the child with her, so it was for nothing.”

           Yra, the older of the twins, clenched her jaw and tugged Yn away. Their mother was covered in dirt; there was nothing left to see. And she could tell her sister was getting upset.

           “Awful!” She hissed as they got out of earshot of the gossiping slaves. “Just awful! Saying those things, as if we weren’t there!” She kicked a rock, watching with some satisfaction as it bounced away and into a ditch.

          Yn sniffled, rubbing her hand across an eye. “What are we going to do?” she asked quietly. “We’re 14, Yra. We’re starting to... to grow up. Mom was protecting us, but they’ve noticed. I’ve seen the way some of them look at me.”

          Yra grimaced. While twins, they weren’t identical, and as they grew older the differences became more marked. Most didn’t even realise they were twins until they were told. But she’d been lucky; she wasn’t considering appealing, and hadn’t had nearly the same amount of attention as her twin. But that would only delay the inevitable; neither of them were safe.

          “There’s always the plan,” she said quietly, casting a quick look around to see if there was anyone nearby. “It would be easy to get the shipment plans from the office. And then we’d just have to sneak onto one of the ships and go unnoticed until we got... anywhere other than here!”

          “Hutt space would be best,” Yn said, reaching out and grabbing Yra’s hand. “Imperial space would just end up with us back as slaves. We’d be... well, not safe, but better off outside the Empire.”

          Neither of them thought about the Republic. If they’d been some other race, perhaps that would have been a feasible dream, but they were both purebloods, and there was not a chance they would be allowed to survive there.

          “I have duties near the office scheduled tomorrow,” Yra said. “I’m good at sneaking around, and talking my way out of things even if I get caught... do you think you could hide away some supplies for us?”

          Yn chewed on her lower lip. “I’m not anywhere near the kitchens tomorrow, but the day after I’m there all day.”

          “Do what you can. Try for stuff that doesn’t spoil quickly; we might need to hide in the storage for a while, and we won’t necessarily be able to nick food from the ship.”

          “What if we get caught?” Yn asked. “I know what’ll happen to us if we’re caught before we get to the ship, but... what if we’re caught while in space?”

          “We’ll worry about that when it happens,” Yra said. Hopefully they don’t just space us. “For now, we have to prepare. And make sure no one sees what you’re doing! We can’t trust anyone here, just in case.”

          Yn nodded. “I’ll hide the supplies in the back garden. No one goes there.”

          Yra took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “We’re going to make it out of here. Together. We’ll be free.”

          As it turned out, Yra’s task ended up being a lot more difficult than she had anticipated. She wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but there were a lot more people in the estate, most of whom she didn’t recognise, and the Master was in his office with company for most hours of the day, and she was kept so busy with the extra workload that she was hard-pressed to find time to breathe, let alone sneak into the office in the small windows that it was unoccupied, if she could even get in there without being noticed to begin with.

          Yn had considerably greater luck, and was able to hide away a modest stash of dried goods and water that nobody seemed to miss. It was about the only thing going for them, and as more days passed the two grew increasingly anxious.

          Something had happened to improve the Master’s fortunes, as the visitors to the estate were clearly from inner Imperial Space — Yn swore that several had distinct Dromund Kaas accents, and several of the visitors were Pure-blooded Sith.

          And they were obviously eyeing up Yn.

          Yra was reaching the end of her rope of being able to get the shipping schedule. It was crucial to the plan — neither of them knew enough about ships to be able to tell what was what, and they needed to be able to avoid Imperial transports, or ships that were remaining in Imperial space. Yn had tried a few times, but she was scarcely ever scheduled for that area of the estate, and she was not very good at remaining inconspicuous, and was stopped and questioned long before she got close.

          One night, the Master threw a modest party for his guests. Yra had the misfortune of being one of the slaves to serve the guests, and she’d been hoping to use the distraction of a party to sneak into the office.

          “Maybe you can try sneaking away from the party?” Yn suggested as Yra got ready. “Once they’ve started eating and drinking enough they might not notice if you slip away...”

          “Perhaps,” Yra sighed, pulling her hair into a neat bun. “I’m really worried about these visitors, Yn. They’re really interested in you, those purebloods. What if they take you away?”

          “They won’t,” Yn said firmly. “You’ll get the schedule, we’ll sneak aboard a ship, and we’ll be free!”

          “Shh! Keep your voice down,” Yra hissed, looking around. “We can’t afford to have our cover blown; not while we’re this close!”

          “Sorry...”

          “It’s fine, it’s fine...” Yra took a breath to steady her nerves. “I’ll get that schedule. I will. Tonight.”

          Yra’s luck finally turned around with the party. The Master was clearly in high spirits, and everyone involved was imbibing quite a lot of alcohol, and the chaos made it easy to slip away. She even had a good excuse to being away from the party — the office was on the way to the kitchen. If she was caught, she could always lie and say she had been sent to get more food.

          She made it into the office without incident, using the key card she’d subtly nicked from the Master to open the door. It was much more difficult to find the shipment schedules. The Master wasn’t the tidiest of people, and he rarely let the slaves in to clean, and it was difficult to find what she was looking for.

          Once, she had to quickly hide underneath the desk when she heard footsteps coming down the hall, and she crouched in sheer terror that someone would walk into the office and discover her there, until the steps receded further down the hall.

Eventually she found what she was looking for, and quickly scanned the contents for the information she needed... and when she did, she bolted from the office towards the slave quarters, caution thrown to the wind, because there was a ship leaving incredibly soon. If they moved quickly, they would have time to sneak aboard before it left.

          Unfortunately, their hurried movements caught attention. As they made their way to the modest spaceport attached to the estate after they grabbed their stash, they heard someone shout after them.

          Yra cursed. “Run. The spaceport is busy, we can hide amongst the people and the shipments!” She said, grabbing Yn by the wrist to get her moving.

          They had a good head start, and it seemed like they would easily get to the spaceport before their pursuers caught them. It was dark, however, and their attention was so focused on their goal that they forgot to pay attention to the treacherous footing of the garden paths that led to the spaceport.

          And that was when  Yra’s luck ran out.

          The back gardens were poorly kept, no one wanting to be near the noise and bustle of the spaceport, and nature had had many years to grow unchecked, and as they neared their goal Yra’s foot caught an exposed tree root and sent her crashing to the ground, wrenching her ankle in the process.

          Yra cried out at the combined pain of skinned palms and her now twisted ankle, struggling to get to her feet. “Yn!” she called to her twin, who’d gotten ahead.

          Yn looked back, her eyes darting between her fallen sister and the pursuers that were gaining ground... and to Yra’s utter horror, her sister turned back towards the port and kept running.

          Yra was dragged back to the estate, unable to focus on much besides the sharp pain in her ankle and the soul-crushing numbness of betrayal. She was thrown in the office after she was roughly searched, and removed of, anything beyond the clothes she wore. She heard computerised noise of the door locking, and the sounds of the guard receding down the hallway, presumably to join the search for Yn.

          As time crawled past, the minutes and then hours passing by on the time display on the wall, the pain in her ankle dimmed, and the numbness began to give way to an icy-sharp fear. She’d tried to escape. Not only that, she��d attempted to escape during a party full of important people. Her Master would be humiliated in front of his guests — there was not a chance of this being hidden, they’d made too much of a fuss.

          A sob choked out her and she started trembling. What’s going to happen to me? She wondered, looking around wildly, for any way to escape. There were no windows, and the door was locked with no way to get out. She clapped her hands over her mouth, bile crawling its way up her throat as fear dug its talons into her, a roaring sound in her ears so deafening she missed the sound of furious footsteps coming to the office.

          The door beeped open, and her Master strode in, face dark with fury as he pulled back his arm and slapped her so hard across the face she fell from the chair to the floor, whimpering.

          “You wretch!” he hissed, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her upright, ignoring her cries of pain as she was forced to put pressure on her injured foot. “You and your sister were treated with preference and this is how you repaid my kindness?” He shouted, using his other hand to backslap her viciously across the face. “You and your sister have made a fool out of me!” He snarled, shaking her. “Not only that, but there was interest shown to your sister! An interest that I was going to trade to get me closer to the capital!” He slapped her again. “Well, she’s gone, escaped off on the Emperor knows which of those vessels. You, though — you’re still here, and you’re going to pay for every second of my humiliation!”

          He dropped her to the floor, a crying, shaking heap as he strode to one of the shelves and pulled it open with a loud crash. He pulled out a slave collar and went back to her, grabbing her by the elbow to hoist her up and forcing her on her pained ankle once more. “Shut up!” He snapped as she cried out, and forced the collar painfully onto her neck. “You’ve been spoiled by your heritage, but that is at an end today.”

          For the first time in her life, Yra felt the crackling pain of the shock collar as her Master tested the device, and she screamed as the electricity pulsed through her. “Good,” he said menacingly, grabbing the back of her shirt and forcing her forward and out of the office. “You’re going to be a consolation to these gentlemen. You’re not your sister, but hopefully for my standing they’ll like you enough to forget this humiliation.”

          Between the lingering pain of the shock collar and the continued pain of her ankle, the walk from the office to the guest rooms of the Estate felt like an eternity... and yet, at the same time, not nearly long enough, as the guest room door opened and she was shoved into the cruel, awaiting arms of them men inside.

*  * *

           Yra was startled out of her story as Andronikos squeezed her tightly, pressing his lips to the top of her head, shaking slightly with barely repressed rage. “Andronikos?”

           “Are any of those fuckers still alive?” He growled, glaring at the wall. “I have a mighty need to shoot them. A lot.”

           “You’re a bit late to the party,” Yra mumbled. “A few of them were Sith. They died before I even got sent to the academy. Others got killed for whatever reason or other, I didn’t really look into it beyond seeing if they were alive or not. There was one left, though...”

           “Can I please kill him?”

           “Again, you’re a bit late. He’s already dead. I... came across him on Dromund Kaas one day. I was with Ashara, and we were just... browsing the market after a Council meeting. And I saw him. And before I knew it, my lightsaber was buried straight into his gut.” Her lips twitched. “Ashara was not impressed.”

           Andronikos sighed. “Seems like too easy a death.”

           “I got my satisfaction. If you want, you can spit on his grave next time you’re in Dromund Kaas.”

           “I’ll do more than spit on it,” he grumbled darkly. “So that’s them taken care of, but... what about your twin?”

           “What about her?”

           “Haven’t you tried to track her down at all? Make her pay for abandoning you?”

           “No. I don’t... entirely blame her for not coming back. She would have been caught along with me, and we both would have suffered.”

           “But you still blame her a little.”

           “I blame her enough to never want to see her again,” Yra said. “Not that I can exactly avoid it, she’s been in the news a lot, seeing as how she allegedly killed the Emperor and all...”

           “Wait, your sister is the Jedi Knight who killed the Emperor?” Exclaimed Andronikos incredulously, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. And then he burst out laughing. “Are you fucking serious? The long-lost twin sister of one of the members of the Dark Council is responsible for the death of the Emperor?”

           “I don’t see what’s so hilarious,” Yra said peevishly over his laughter.

           “It’s like a plot out of a bad holovid! How is that not hilarious?” Andronikos continued laughing. “I’d say it was unbelievable, but I’ve seen all the weird shit that happens around you. Thinkin’ about it more, it actually seems even more fitting.”

           “I’m glad you find my train wreck of a life so amusing,” Yra said flatly, staring daggers into the pirate.

           “Hey, don’t be mad,” soothed the pirate, kissing the top of her head again. “It means your life is interestin’.”

           “Yay me.”

[lilbreck]

Title: Chapter 3: And I'm Not Afraid to Die Characters: Caroline Forbes, Elijah Mikaelson, Elizabeth Forbes, Finn Mikaelson, Jeremy Gilbert, Klaus Mikaelson, Kol Mikaelson, Maddox, Matt Donovan, Mindy, Rebekah Mikaelson Rating/Warning: FRT Word Count: 5,807 A/N: Though I list a lot of characters, and some of them actually do get dialog, some of them just pass through.

Read Elsewhere: Personal Archive \ LiveJournal \ InsaneJournal \ Dreamwidth \ AO3 \ FF.net

Rebekah had been trying to make the best of things. She had learned to deal with the slight burn in everything she ate that wasn't prepared in her home thanks to the vervain in the town's water supply. She had learned to deal with servants and shopkeepers who couldn't be compelled to do her will when she was short on patience. She had even learned to deal with her brothers neglecting to help her adapt to this new age –she refused to go begging to the most recent doppelgänger and her misfit band for help. Klaus was back, however, with the new baby vampire in tow and she was through just dealing.

Before her brother had left on his ridiculous quest for hybrids she had told Caroline she would come up with the appropriate price for the location of her dear Alexander's grave. These past ten weeks had clarified for her exactly what that price should be. Now if only the damn brat would wake up. Quickly snatching up a stuffed bear, Rebekah threw it at the sleeping girl and then stood impatiently at the foot of her bed. The slowness with which Caroline woke up only served to frustrate her even more. The insolent expression she shot her as she propped herself up on her elbows didn't help either.

"Last time I checked, I didn't have an open-door policy where the Mikaelsons were concerned."

The small huff the girl gave at whatever joke she made that Rebekah didn't get was the breaking point. Ripping the covers away to make sure she had Caroline's attention, she got straight to the point.

"In return for me taking you to retrieve the sword, you are going to be my best friend, guide, and teacher all rolled into one. You are going to make sure I know every little thing about living the type of life you lead. I'm beyond through with people in this town staring at me as if I'm a strange new creature."

Caroline groaned, collapsed back onto her bed, and took a breath to answer. The voice that followed was neither hers, nor did it come from the bed.

"Rule one of being a modern teenager, you generally wait until you're actually good friends with someone before coming into their house uninvited."

Rebekah turned and saw Sheriff Forbes leaning against Caroline's doorjamb with an amused expression on her face and holding a cup of tea.

"Sorry for intruding, but I couldn't help but overhear your… girl talk. The looks you're getting might have less to do with any social missteps and more to do with the fact that I've told the Lockwood family and the rest of the town council all about our situation."

It was only because it had been drilled into her head by Elijah that she had to play extremely nice with everyone that she didn't immediately threaten to drain the sheriff dry right then. As it was her expression clearly showed she was displeased, though the reaction she got from Caroline's mother was simply a raised eyebrow. Caroline herself wasn't paying attention to her as she came into a full sitting position and focused on her mother.

"I get why the Lockwoods wouldn't be coming after us since they're part of the supernatural world now, but why haven't the rest of the council come after the vampires in town?"

The smirk the sheriff wore was very smug when she answered, "I took a page from your book and cut off the vervain in the water supply. Then I had Elijah and Finn compel them to be… understanding and cooperative when I told them."

At this Rebekah gave a huff and whined, "If you people would have told me this, I could have been enjoying the food and drink more in this town."

She didn't appreciate the amused look on the sheriff's face or the laugh when she said, "As soon as we were done compelling them, we went back to putting vervain in the water supply. You'll just have to keep eating the food your family's personal chef cooks you. I'm sure you'll manage somehow."

Rebekah could feel outrage building up, but before she could properly put the woman in her place, she had turned and was talking to Caroline.

"She does have a good idea, though. You should show her how to blend in. The council is less likely to get antsy if she acts just like any other teenager would."

Caroline took a breath –probably to whine and complain about it, the child—but her mother quickly stopped her.

"I expect you to be on your best behavior. We don't need to cause extra problems because we can't get along like adults." She then turned her look on Rebekah and continued, "That goes for the both of you. You'll have to act like the young, capable ladies I know you can be."

Without waiting for any further argument, she turned and left the room. Despite wanting to object on principle –who was a human a thousand years younger than her to give her orders— she decided to cooperate since it got her what she wanted. Turning to Caroline, she gave the other girl a bright smile. In return she got an eye roll and an overly-dramatic huff.

"Fine. You wanna learn to be me, then you're gonna get the full package. Be here tomorrow morning at five thirty dressed in workout clothes. We're going to be running at human speed. I'll let you know the rest on our run."

The next morning, and for the rest of that week, she went running with Caroline as the younger girl got her up to speed on the ins and outs of what it now meant to be a teenage girl. After their runs, Caroline would then go over cheer routines with her. When Rebekah objected, Caroline told her it was all or nothing. She would have pushed it, but the sheriff –Elizabeth— came out and asked how everything was going. It wasn't that she was afraid of the woman's judgement per se, but she didn't want her thinking that she was somehow more childish than Caroline.

Caroline, for her part, wasn't as put out by the whole situation as she may have let on. Yes, Rebekah could be more than a bit standoffish and immature. But Caroline kind of got where she was coming from. Beneath the mean girl attitude, she recognized the insecurity and loneliness. It was hard not to when she had lived and, to an extent, was still living it. She was aware, however, that her new frenemy wouldn't except any kind of friendship straight off the bat. It just wasn't something she was used to or thought she could trust.

Still, there was only so much she could take before she was ready to snap for real. She could feel herself nearing that point Thursday, so she told Rebekah that they were taking Friday off. She had thought that would leave her free of the original vampire for a day. She gave up on that when, while she was sitting at the Grill with her mother for dinner, Rebekah sat down and joined them as if she had been invited. Her mom was no help since she just smiled and treated her like she was another one of Caroline's friends.

Her mother gave a not-so-subtle nudge to her foot when she started to rudely ask why Rebekah was here and not with her own family. After that, she couldn't really do anything aside from play nice and hope the dinner ended soon. While she was trying to not react to how chummy her mother and their uninvited guest were being, she happened to catch sight of Jeremy chasing down Matt Donovan in an almost subtle way. As they disappeared through the doors to the kitchen she didn't hesitate to focus on listening to their conversation.

"Listen, man, I get you not wanting to talk. But honestly, I'm the best person for you to spend today of all days with."

There was a pause here, as if Matt had given some sort of nonverbal response before Jeremy continued, "You were in love in love with my sister, I was in love with yours."

She heard a small scuffle and then Matt's angry voice, "Don't you even…"

Jeremy quickly interrupted with the kind of tone you'd use on a scared animal. "I've lost people to, Matt. I know what it's like to feel like nobody gets it or wants to hear about your pain. Like they just want you to forget and move on. But this being alone thing you're trying? It's not good for you. Now, we don't have to talk about her, or even talk. Just, I think we should be with people who get why today kinda sucks."

She could hear the tears in his voice by the time he finished, but Matt didn't seem ready to give in just yet.

"I'm finding it hard to believe you need someone today. It's obvious that you've already moved on."

There was a short bark of laughter from Jeremy at that.

"Yeah, I've got Bonnie, and I am… so happy with her. But that doesn't change that I love Vicki and I miss her. Just… why don't you come with me when your shift's done. We'll go out by the lake, have a few drinks, and just… I don't know, miss her together."

Caroline had just heard Matt agree with her mother lightly covered her hand and, when she looked, had a concerned look on her face. She took a deep breath and then a drink of the ice tea she had ordered.

"Today's Vicki's birthday."

While that answer was enough for her mother, Rebekah wore an expecting expression on her face. Caroline didn't even have it in her to be upset at the other girl's presence anymore.

"Vicki was Matt's sister and Jeremy was… involved with her. She died almost a year ago, so…"

She finished the sentence with a vague gesture to the kitchen where the boys had been talking, hoping that would suffice. Rebekah let it go, and the rest of the dinner passed in peace. Before she left them however, Caroline offered something of a white flag.

"No training tomorrow. But, if you're wanting to hang out or whatever, just don't come by before lunch. I plan to sleep in."

She turned and left with her mother in tow before any answer could come. However, her plans for sleeping in fell through when there was a knock on the door at seven in the morning. Her grumpiness at being woke up isn't improved by the sight of Maddox's smiling face on the other side of her front door. She didn't even bother to greet him as he stood on her front porch, just glared at him and hoped it would make him leave. She had no such luck. He simply held up the messenger bag he was carrying with a small chuckle.

"Klaus sent me. He wants your house warded against werewolves."

Caroline didn't budge an inch when she replied, "Mason turned tail and ran just after the ceremony. I mean, I don't blame him, but that means there are no triggered werewolves in Mystic Falls. The hybrids have shown no signs of coming after me, either. So, why does Klaus think I need my house warded?"

Maddox casually pushed past her and into the house. She could have stopped him but, in all honesty, she just really wanted to know what was going on in Klaus' head.

"Klaus is leaving to meet with another group of wolves tomorrow, but he says he has a feeling they'll start coming directly here soon enough."

Walking into the living room, he set down his bag and began to unpack it. As he spread out its contents, he continued to make conversation.

"Speaking of wolves, some of the hybrids are talking among themselves, wondering if he's going to approach the cursed pack in New Orleans."

Caroline couldn't help her curiosity, but tried to play it off by heading to the kitchen as she asked him what kind of curse.

"It's not real clear. Not a lot of information comes out of that area, or at least it hasn't for a long time."

When she walked back in with two cups of tea –when exactly did her mom start stocking tea and stop stocking coffee? — Maddox had set up what looked to be a small alter on the coffee table. She sat down on the couch as he arranged the candles, poured out different powders, and rearranged various items.

"I tried to get some information from some witches I know down there, but I can't even get hold of them."

"Well, mate, that's because you don't know the right witches."

Caroline could swear she felt her heart jump into her throat. Looking over at where Kol was now grinning as he lounged against the pillar in her living room doorway, he was well aware of it.

"What are you doing here?"

Though her words could have been taken as rude, she couldn't help the fondness that slipped into her tone. She hadn't realized how much she had missed him. Sliding onto the couch beside her, he threw his arm around her shoulder and gave her a teasing bop on the nose with his finger.

"I gave you and my dear sister as much quality time together as I could stand but I just missed you too much, darling! I couldn't resist seeing you before I left with Klaus on another one of his hybrid making jaunts."

Caroline did what she could to keep herself from grinning but Kol's wink let her know she failed.

"I missed you too. Now, what's this about Maddox not knowing the right witches? Do you?"

When he looked like he was going to play around and pretend he didn't know what she was talking about, she reached out and gave him a back-handed slap on his stomach. Ignoring the warnings in the back of her head that she was playing around with a very dangerous creature, she demanded, "Tell me everything you know, Mikaelson."

At that, Kol's eyebrows raised and Caroline was left to wonder for a second what she had said that was so interesting.

"News must travel fast. We just recently decided to go with Mikaelson."

Caroline was almost ready to reply with a joke about time travel but a quick flick of Kol's eyes to the other occupant of the room had her settling on a quick batting of her eyelashes and a faux-mysterious reply of, "I have my ways."

With nothing more than a hum of acknowledgement, Kol steered back to the original conversation.

"I know a couple of witches who know some witches. You know how it goes. There was a ritual last night that wasn't completed. Apparently, it was stopped by some vampires who killed just about everyone involved. The witches down there are scrambling, trying to figure out what to do. All very messy."

He then leaned in and whispered in a conspiratorial voice, "They're heavy into ancestral magic down there. It was probably a death ritual that they don't really want to talk about."

He leaned back once again and continued in his normal voice, "It's nothing that should affect us, though we might want to check in occasionally. Just in case."

No more was said about the supernatural goings on down in New Orleans as Maddox proceeded with the spell to ward her home. There was, however, enough flirting and banter to go around in its place. Afterward, Caroline would find herself a bit bewildered that the almost vicious nature of Kol and Maddox's flirting didn't disturb her.

Three nights later she had managed to completely put it from her mind. It didn't hurt that she was in the middle of a very rowdy party. The hybrids were celebrating what was for some their first full moon without the need to change. While most ignored her in favor of the alcohol and dancing, some of them kept a suspicious eye on her. Theoretically, they should all be stronger than her, but old fears and mistrust die hard.

The exception seemed to be Mindy. The young woman latched onto her almost as soon as she entered the sprawling mansion the hybrids now called home. It had taken a good hour before Caroline could look at Mindy and not remember goading her into forcing herself to shift. While the experience still felt like torture in Caroline's mind, the hybrid seemed to be having no such problems.

After more than a few drinks, Caroline stopped feeling the stares of the hybrids who were still wary of a vampire in their home. A few more drinks after that and she was laughing along with everyone else as they started a game that seemed to involve nothing more than partially shifting and randomly nipping at each other. Feeling the very pressing need to use the bathroom, Caroline reached for Mindy's shoulder to get her attention and let her know where she was going.

Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in her forearm. The pain didn't fit in the moment and so it left Caroline feeling confused. It was only as everyone around her went still and quiet that she realized what had happened.

Everything else around Caroline muted and blurred as she focused on where Mindy's hybrid teeth were imbedded in her arm. She barely noticed as the girl pulled back and could only stare at the relatively small bite wound now decorating her arm. It looked so tiny, really. Like it shouldn't be lethal at all.

It took a moment for the sound of Mindy's panicked voice to catch her attention. However, it wasn't until she heard someone say they needed to call Klaus that she snapped back to full awareness.

"No."

Her voice was firm and grabbed everyone's attention. Looking wildly around, she began forming a plan in her head.

"Is there anyone here besides hybrids?"

When she got a lot of answers to the negative, she settled on her plan.

"Nobody knows who bit me."

When Mindy started shaking her head in confusion, Caroline reached forward and grabbed her face, forcing the girl to look her in the eyes.

"If they know who bit me, one of them might lash out. It was an accident, and I don't want anyone to get hurt or worse because of it."

"You'll die."

Brady's voice was clear and calm beside her. In the panic of the crowd she hadn't noticed he was so close.

"I'll die either way, what good would Mindy suffering do?"

Brady kept eye contact with her, though his expression was unreadable.

"Klaus will be able to smell her in the bite."

Running a hand through her hair, Caroline quickly thought. Hitting on the answer, she turned fully toward Brady as she spoke.

"I'll go see Bonnie. There's probably some sort of spell that can mask the scent. Make sure all the hybrids know how important it is. If anyone asks, no one knows who bit me. You're not even sure when I got bit."

Without waiting for his answer since she was sure he would do this to protect his pack, she quickly made her way to the door. She hadn't even realized she was being followed until someone gently grabbed her arm. Turning, she found a hybrid she didn't recognize. He must have read something on her face, because he pulled away slightly.

"I'm Tony. I'm going to go with you, make sure you get there safe."

The 'and without killing anyone' was heavily implied. Knowing it was for the best, she couldn't stop herself from warning him. "When we get there, you need to get lost. If anyone sees you around me like this they might assume the worst."

He nodded his agreement and they made their way to her car. She couldn't even find it in her to object when he took the keys. She simply pulled out her cell phone and made a call to Bonnie letting her know she was on her way and why. The entire drive she questioned what exactly she was doing. Not hiding who bit her, that was a given. She questioned what she planned to do after the spell was done. Her hand tightened slightly on the phone. She should call Klaus. It was the only way she could live. If it had been her Klaus, she would have without hesitation. But this Klaus…?

She put the thought from her mind as they pulled up in front of Bonnie's house. Even as she walked up to the front door, she could feel herself getting just a bit weaker. Judging by Tony's hand at her elbow, she wasn't doing a good job of hiding it. Before she knocked on the door, she quickly thanked him and then told him to go. She assumed he listened since he was no longer beside her when her friend answered.

After that, it all became a blur. She was aware of Bonnie's voice and seemingly much later a warm feeling over her now painful and infected looking wound. Shortly after that, she could hear Tony's voice at the door. Seeing that her friend wasn't near, she went to talk to him. Stepping outside and closing the door, she leaned against it and fought to keep her eyes open. Maybe the alcohol had somehow made the venom travel faster or maybe she had just lost track of time.

"You're supposed to be gone. I can't promise they won't think you bit me if you're here."

Looking determined, Tony ignored what she said.

"Are you going to call Klaus so he can help you?"

Maybe she was hallucinating and it wasn't Tony asking. Maybe she was really asking herself. Whatever.

"No. I'm just going to go find someplace safe and take care of… No. I'm not going to call him."

She could hear Tony give a resigned sigh as if he had expected it. "I'm sorry, Caroline."

Before she could ask him what he was sorry for, she felt a sharp pain in her neck and everything went black.

Minutes later Finn's reading was disturbed by the sound of the front door banging open. As he entered the foyer, he could hear Elijah questioning one of Klaus' hybrids. Rounding the bottom of the stairs, he saw that the hybrid in question was holding an unconscious Caroline.

"Klaus told me to bring her here. She's got a hybrid bite."

Almost immediately Elijah was in the hybrid's face, nearly causing him to drop Caroline's body.

"Which one of you ungrateful beasts attacked her?"

Finn had to give the boy credit; he barely flinched with an angry, original vampire in his face. His voice even stayed calm when he answered.

"We're sure it was an accident, though we don't know who bit her."

When Elijah looked ready to tear into the young man, Finn stepped forward and gripped his shoulder.

"Calm yourself, Elijah. Right now, we need to worry about Caroline."

Pulling his brother back, Finn moved forward and lifted the baby vampire into his arms and then addressed the hybrid.

"Did Klaus have any more orders for you?"

When the hybrid –Tony, he supplied when Elijah called him a mutt and said his orders weren't important— said he was told to take her to Klaus' room and make sure she stayed, Finn thanked him and headed toward his brother's room.

As he lowered her to the bed, she began to stir. He heard Elijah walk through the door followed shortly by his sister. More specifically, the sound of his sister's voice coming up the stairs.

"What the bloody hell is going on in this house? I thought those hybrids understood that they were to stay out of here?"

He knew from her startled gasp the moment she stepped into the doorway and saw Caroline lying on the bed.

"What happened to her?"

Finn didn't even bother trying to answer as he knew Elijah would jump in with his idea on what happened.

"One of those foul things Klaus created bit Miss Forbes."

Finn was convinced it wasn't concern for Caroline that had Elijah worked up. That was confirmed for him when the next words from his mouth were about her mother.

"I'll go inform Elizabeth. She'll want to be here."

At this Caroline finally managed to speak, though her voice was weak and every word sounded like a struggle.

"No. She doesn't need… she can't see this."

For all the effect her words had on Elijah, she may as well have not tried to speak at all. Before he could leave the room, Rebekah grabbed onto his arm, his name coming from her with a mix of confusion and censure. The look he turned on her was full of the arrogance and contempt that Finn detested in him.

"She's dying, Rebekah. Soon her wishes won't matter."

In shock, Rebekah let go of him and watched as he quickly left. Finn turned his attention back to the dying girl struggling to chase down his brother. Gently pushing her down, he tried to sooth her.

"You must conserve your strength. Klaus is on his way, I'm assuming with a cure. Until then you must rest."

She had no choice but to comply as what little strength she had deserted her. Turning to his sister, he quietly told her to go downstairs and do her best to delay Caroline's mother when she arrived.

Although he could do nothing for the poor young woman Finn still found himself sitting at the bedside and listening to her struggle to breathe. He wasn't sure how long he sat there watching her. He could tell that she was still conscious, though she appeared to be taking his advice and resting. To be honest, he was a bit surprised Elijah hadn't already arrived with Elizabeth in tow. He knew it was too much to hope that his brother had seen reason, but perhaps he was having a small amount of difficulty locating Caroline's mother.

He was pulled from his musings by a movement from the bed. Caroline had turned her head, opened her eyes, and was softly smiling at him.

"But if ever I meet with a Boojum that day, in a moment, of this I am sure, I shall softly and suddenly vanish away, and the notion I cannot endure!"

Perhaps it was her labored and unsteady breathing causing her words not to make sense – or perhaps it was another example of him not understanding something because he had spent nine hundred years daggered and in a coffin. More than likely it was neither of those and instead it was the hybrid venom making her delirious, making her words nothing more than nonsense. The last seemed like too great a tragedy and so Finn deliberately ignore the possibility that it was the case.

Rising from his chair and moving to kneel by the side of the bed, he gently grasped her hand and whispered, "I'm afraid I didn't understand, my dear. Perhaps you can explain?"

Caroline softly laughed and weakly squeezed his hand.

"It's a quote from a nonsense poem. I just mean that I don't want to vanish. At least not with so much left that only I know."

At this, she appeared to be trying to move, but the poison in her blood left her to weak. She quickly gave up and settled for squeezing his hand again.

"I know you can get inside my head, kind of like dropping in on my dreams. I need someone who's still alive to know…"

She paused, closing her eyes and swallowing with obvious difficulty. When her eyes opened, instead of continuing what she had been saying, Caroline simply stared at him imploringly. It didn't matter what it was she felt so strongly had to survive her –it could be her ultimate reason behind her every interaction with his family or it could be that she had stolen a ribbon from one of her friends and had never been caught—he couldn't find it in himself to refuse her such a simple request. There was also the small idea in the back of his mind that, perhaps, her asking this meant that the end was near enough that her mother would be spared her final death throws.

He slipped easily into her mind, perhaps due in part to her being open to his presence. It was night and he was in an open field. His attention was drawn to images flickering on a large free standing screen, though he had seen no possible source for the projection. It looked like the drive-in theater Sage had taken him to recently, though recognized some of the people on the film; some were even members of his monstrous family.

"It's my memories."

Finn turned around and found Caroline sitting on the hood of a car where neither she nor it had been before. She was looking healthy and content and so he didn't deny her when she invited him to sit next to her. He was about to ask her if there was anything he could do to make things easier when she hushed him and pointed at the screen.

"This is something you really should see. It's why I asked you to come here."

On the screen, he could see Caroline's witch friend, Bonnie, lying on the floor of what looked to be a basement. He knew, the way you always do in dreams, that she was dead. The witch's boyfriend –Jeremy if he remembered correctly—was gesturing for Caroline to enter the circle. The words seemed muffled, possibly not even an actual language. However, dream logic came to the rescue again, and he understood exactly what was going on.

As the scene changed and the Caroline and Bonnie on the screen were talking, the Caroline beside him let out a huff. When he glanced over at her, she had a sad smile on her face.

"We're watching a dream while in a dream. Freaky."

He turned back just in time to feel a shock go through him. Time travel. They were talking about sending Caroline back in time. He had just begun to accept that it was something that might have happened when he was faced with another shock; His youngest brother was suddenly on screen. As the conversation continued –still understood without actually being heard—he was left in a bit of confusion.

"What secret is he telling you?"

Caroline turned to him with a half-hearted grin and held her forefinger up to her lips. "Shh. Not my secret to tell."

He decided to simply let it go and turned back to see what else she needed for him to know. He felt anger on her behalf as he watched her wake up at night on someone's lawn like a discarded rag. He knew all that had gone on before and led to that night as if he had lived it. He didn't realize that his fangs had dropped and he had bared his teeth until he felt Caroline's hand on his face.

"I'm sorry, you shouldn't have gotten all that. It's not why you're here."

He wanted to argue with her, but knew it was futile. She was dying –Klaus most likely wouldn't get there in time even if he knew of a cure—and she deserved to have her last wishes respected.

"Do you need me to continue your mission? Is that why we're here?"

At this the tears that had been gathering in Caroline's eyes spilled over. Shaking her head, she gave a shaky laugh.

"I've gotten that all taken care of. Kol, my mom, Bonnie and Sheila… they're all helping. What I need from you… I should be asking of anyone else besides you. It's cruel what I want, but here and now I'm too selfish to spare you."

She turned back to face the screen and so he followed suit. What he saw there confused him once again. Klaus was there in formal clothing, his face open and engaging, speaking of his history with their father to Caroline, also in formal clothing. A quick change of scene, obviously, the same night, and she was delivering hard truths and throwing his gift back in Klaus' face. Another switch, later the same night in Caroline's room, and a beautiful sketch with an inscription thanking her for her honesty. The scenes began to go by even quicker, but Finn saw exactly what Caroline was trying to show him.

Somewhere buried inside the monster that had trapped him in a box for centuries –the same monster that had slaughtered his way across the world while on the run from their father— was the young boy who loved them all dearly. Buried in the scenes, he found another truth; When their mother had betrayed Klaus by cursing him he had, in a fit of rage and hurt, killed her. It was never their father, monster that he had been.

Finn could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks and heard Caroline's sobbing beside him. He felt almost numb as he muttered, "I don't know what to do with this."

He could feel the shift in the air as Caroline's hand hovered, almost touching his shoulder as she continued to cry.

"I'm sorry it was you. I know I should have been stronger. I shouldn't be putting you through this."

A confused as the situation had left him, Finn remember that this poor girl was dying. She shouldn't have to be strong. He quickly pushed down everything he had learned, turning toward her and wrapped her in his arms. Before he could comfort her, however, he felt himself being ripped out of her dream.

His head felt fuzzy and it took a few moments before he could get his bearings. When he focused on the scene in front of him, it only added to the turmoil Caroline's dream world had left him with. Caroline was feeding weakly from Klaus' wrist as her mother and his siblings watched on. The Klaus he saw, though, wasn't the same hybrid that he had been seeing since he was released from his coffin. It was the Klaus from her memories, the same soft look of longing mixed in with the obvious worry.

Rather than ease any of the deep anger that had been running through him for the past few months, it instead made it burn hotter. How dare his brother retain any glimmer of the boy he had been after he had stolen so much from his siblings, from Finn? A dark part of him longed to lunge forward and attempt to rip the rotten and faithless heart from his brother. However, his eyes falling on Caroline's weak form, he remembered that there were more important things than his revenge.

He once again banked his rage and hoped he could keep it buried long enough for Caroline's plans to succeed.

[impudentmiscengenation]

Stoned

If ever there was a sight that Tucker Foley and Sam Manson hadn’t expected to see when walking into Danny’s bedroom, it was the sight of their best friend looking incredibly lax in the presence of three of his ghostly enemies.

Unfortunately, this was the sight that greeted them one fateful day in late June. Ember McLain was laying on Danny’s bed like a starfish and blinking lazily at the ceiling. Johnny 13 leaned against the corner close to the window, seated on the floor with his ghost girlfriend, Kitty, in his lap. The Ghost Boy in question was spinning in his computer chair, a dopey grin on his face.

Sam was first to snap out of her reverie.

“Danny! What are you doing?! Get them!” The boy stopped spinning in his chair and became a ‘deer in the headlights’, so to speak.

“Wha? Get who? Everyone’s here.” He sounded confused and Sam slapped her forehead.

“That’s the problem! In case you haven’t noticed, you’re surrounded by your enemies!” Sam furiously gestured around the room and Danny looked around lethargically, still bewildered by Sam’s apparent outrage.

“Wha…? Oh, you mean them.” He realized and Sam nearly slapped him. What had gotten into this damn boy?! Danny just shrugged. “Yeah, we’re chill right now; nothin’ to worry about.” He assured before leaning back into his chair, glancing at his undead companions.

“Right?”

Johnny 13 grunted in response and Kitty, her head resting against 13’s chest, giggled at the vibrating by her ear. Ember blinked slowly.

“Yeah... totally... T-Totally chill...” The ghost slurred, eyes fixed on the sticky stars pasted to Danny’s ceiling. Danny snorted and glanced at the ghostly siren.

“You okay there?” Ember made a noncommittal noise before resuming her activity (or lack thereof), Danny snickering at her response. Sam and Tucker glanced at each other before looking around the room to find a clue as to why in the Hell their friend was acting the way he was. Sam approached Danny and looked into his face, Danny just blinking stupidly at her.

“What? Something on my face?” He reached a hand to brush something on his cheek away but Sam was too preoccupied with his eyes. His pupils were huge and the edges of his eyes were glowing purple.

“Danny? Are you oka-?”

“Sam, look.” Tucker held up a glowing plant, frowning. It had eight pink leaves and a small rose-like ivory flower, pulsating with white power, in the center. The bloom was currently closed but it still emitted a sweet smell, like a candied apple. The goth frowned and stepped towards the potted plant. It was unlike anything she had in her garden. What was Danny doing with this otherworldly thing?

“Ohh, my plant. Guys, careful with my plant, it’s beautiful.” Both turned to their friend, who was obviously very high off of... What this plant was putting into the air? Or had been? The plant, in any case, was obviously to blame. Sam scowled and took the herb, Tucker gladly relinquishing control. The teen held the plant out to her boyfriend.

“What is this?” Danny stared at it for a second.

“I dunno. Johnny brought it over a while ago and said he wanted me to have it ‘cause Kitty was… um… Well, Kitty didn’t want Johnny to have the plant ‘cause it’s, like, illegal in the ‘Zone but it’s totally fine to have in the human world. Plus they’ve got fifty plants or something and nowhere to put this one so I said ‘Yeah, I’ll take the plant’ and now we’re… Um, I have the plant now. I mean, I was gonna give it to you for your green-house, ‘cause it’s actually cool-looking when it’s opened up, but then I, um, I dunno. I guess I got distracted.” Danny grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. Tucker was cracking up from behind Sam.

“Oh man, I have to get this on video. This is comedy gold; he’s higher than a kite!” He laughed and Sam sighed, shaking her head. She side-stepped away from her stoned boyfriend and kicked Johnny in the leg. He looked at his leg before looking at the angry culprit.

“Ow.” Sam rolled her eyes.

“What is this plant and why are you so high off of it?” She spat and the ghost waved a hand lazily.

“Ghost Nip; it’s just a lil’ strain I’ve had growing. ‘S harmless stuff. Kind of like your human plant, what was it… Mary-Anna? Buzz’ll be gone soon. I mean, she’s closed up so we’re not getting any more out of her for at least a few days or so.” He ‘explained’ while taking the Ghost Nip from Sam. “I mean, yeah, if you’re not accustomed to it, you’d be mellowed out for a while but this is pretty tame compared to the other stuff I could have brought.” Johnny gently prodded the leaves with his index finger with a relaxed expression but Sam could have cooked an egg on her face. She fiercely gestured to Danny, who was talking to the camera on Tucker’s PDA at the tech-nerd’s insistence.

“Him. He’s never done anything like this!” Johnny grinned.

“Ohh-ho-ho-ho… Duuude. Nip’s gonna mess him up. That’s hilarious.” The goth glared and crossed her arms.

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re not stoned, either.” Sam’s scowl only deepened; she pointed to the plant in Johnny’s hand.

“You, your girlfriend, her friend, and your plant better be gone by the time Danny gets back or I swear to God I will end you.” Johnny huffed.

“Come on, your boyfriend gave us permission to be here! Besides, it’s not like we’re hurting anything. I mean, look at Ember! She literally hasn’t moved an inch.” Johnny protested but then saw the look of imminent doom spelled out on Sam’s expression. He’d been on the receiving end of this look in battle and knew fully well that it was not a good sign. Sighing, he rolled his eyes.

“Fine, fine. As soon as I’m not too high to drive my bike, we’ll all head back down to the ‘Zone, happy?” Sam made a noise in her throat but otherwise made no move to argue his point. She collected herself and turned back to Danny and Tucker.

“Put the camera away, Tucker.” The geek frowned and Danny stopped talking before looking to Sam. He blinked for a minute, as if seeing her for the first time.

“Heyyy, Sam. I thought you’d left with the flower. Why didn’t you say when you got back; I would’ve gotten you a juice.” Tucker laughed so hard that he thought his face would catch fire. Sam, meanwhile, had to try hard to hide her smile with a frown. He was kind of cute like this, like a confused kitten. Once Tucker regained control of himself, he stopped the video and helped Sam as she lifted Danny from his seat.

“Hey are we going somewhere? Where are we going?” Sam sighed in exasperation.

“We’re going to air you out. You need some time away from your... plant.” Danny pouted and looked back to the ghosts occupying his room.

“But I have guests and stuff.” He mumbled, Sam rolling her eyes.

“Your guests will be fine. They probably won’t even know you’ve gone.” Tucker was shaking from trying to contain his laughter. Sam rolled her eyes and moved her free hand, that wasn’t helping to support her boyfriend, to slap the back of Tucker’s head.

“Ow, hey! Come on, this is hilarious!” Sam decided not to dignify that with a response as the both of them all but dragged their friend downstairs. Danny glanced curiously around the house that he was moving through, occasionally commenting things like: ‘has that picture always been there?’ or ‘we should probably repaint that wall’.

While Tucker was focusing on not laughing, Sam was trying to figure out a way to not only get out of the house but to also not be seen by either of Danny’s parents (particularly his mother). Unfortunately, luck was not on their side (which was unsurprising, considering Johnny 13 was one of the guests occupying Danny’s bedroom), as they passed the kitchen where Jack Fenton just so happened to be raiding through the fridge. Sam and Tucker both faltered in their steps, causing Danny to pitch slightly.

“Uff!” He grunted, pulled back by his shoulders at the unexpected stop.

Danny’s grunt caused his father to turn and beam at the kids, his large arms laden with various snacks.

“Hey kids! Where ya off to?” Before Sam or Tucker could come up with an excuse, Danny shrugged.

“I need to be aired out.” He stated and Jack frowned in confusion.

“Eh?” Sam jumped in, a nervous grin on her face.

“What he means is we’re all going out to get some air! Yeah. It’s kinda stuffy so we’re just gonna get some air.” Jack seemed satisfied with this answer and nodded.

“Alrighty then! Just don’t stay out too late, now!” He grinned and resumed his activity of pawing through the kitchen. Sam and Tucker took the opportunity to practically sprint outside with the very-dazed Danny Fenton following.

Once out in the open air, Sam and Tucker let out deep sighs. Danny, for his part, switched into his ghost form and began to sluggishly float on his back, humming a quiet tune to himself. Sam and Tucker found themselves staring before regaining their bearings.

“Dude. What in the name of... What are you doing?” Danny spared Tucker a glance before resuming doing lazy loops in the air.

“Gettin’ some air.” He mumbled, stopping his flips (way too dizzy) in favor of stretching out, his legs forming a spectral tail that swayed to and fro without purpose. Sam sighed and Tucker snickered.

“Well, we can’t just leave him alone, Tucker. He’s… He’s really out of it. I don’t even think he could catch the Box Ghost like this!” Tucker shrugged.

“He’d probably try and convert him while strumming an acoustic guitar.” Sam gave him a deadpanned look, clicking her tongue impatiently.

“Not funny.”

“Oh, it was a lil’ funny.”

“Not funny.” Danny decided to put in his two cents by floating closer to them.

“What’s the joke? I wanna hear it. I’ll tell you if it’s funny.” Sam pinched the bridge of her nose and Tucker just grinned ever wider.

“Okay, why’d the chicken cross the road?” Danny frowned before shrugging.

“To get to the other side?” Tucker shook his head.

“No. To get to the pot-head’s house. Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“It’s the chicken, go let him in.” Danny found his face contorting in confusion before it lightened up into one of mirth. “Ah, now he gets it.” The halfa grinned and snorted with laughter.

“Heh. ‘M not a pot-head though. I’ve, like, never even ever been high before.” Sam closed her eyes and shook her head while Tucker was now howling with laughter, poor Danny looking ever-more confused.

“What? What’d I say?”

._. ._. ._.

“Sam. Please let me film this. Please. I might never get another opportunity like this and I need film to document it.”

“Tucker, no.” Sam scowled at the other teen while Danny was engaged in quite the conversation with Skulker.

He floated upside-down with his legs crossed indian-style, Skulker across from him looking more than confused.

“Whelp, what are you on?” Danny pouted.

“Come on, hear me out! I wouldn’t make a good rug or coat or anything ‘cause I’m practically hairless! Like, seriously, besides my head I’ve got no hair. I gotta wax every now and again ‘cause spandex doesn’t work well with body hair, dude. It pulls.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Like, it’d be hanging up a naked mole rat and that’s just nasty. You wouldn’t want to hang up a naked mole rat. Pretty sure. Have you hung up a naked mole rat? Maybe you would, I dunno, but it seems tasteless.”

“I never thought I’d ask for this but can you just put me in the thermos already? I can’t listen to this anymore.”

“What’s your deal? You got something against naked mole rats? I happen to think they're pretty cool. I mean, I wouldn’t hang one up as a hunting trophy but still.”

"..."

“Sam, please.”

._. ._. ._.

After Sam and Tucker had taken pity on Skulker, sucking him into a spare Fenton thermos, the trio found themselves dining at the Nasty Burger. Tucker was stuffing his face as per usual, Sam picked at her salad but was more focused on Danny, who was swirling a fry around in ketchup and just watching it. He hadn’t gotten any “munchies”, which was something that the duo had been expecting, since Tucker had looked up the side effects of being high. The only thing that Danny had really done was down three bottled waters in an attempt to get his “tongue watered”.

“Dude, you gonna eat that?” Tucker gestured to Danny’s fries and the halfa looked at him for a moment before shrugging and dumping out the food on Tucker’s tray, popping the ketchup-coated fry into his mouth.

“Soggy.” He observed before leaning against his elbow. Sam sighed in exasperation, curious as to how long he’d be this out of it. Wasn’t he supposed to get more coherent as time wore on? She leaned back into the booth and watched her boyfriend as he got out his phone and was currently playing a game involving racing.

She groaned when she saw a familiar blonde jock and his posse approaching their table. Since the Disasteroid incident, the A-Listers had tried getting “buddy-buddy” with the three of them; this was much the the chagrin of Sam, the delight of Tucker, and confusion but otherwise apathetic attitude of Danny. After being in proximity with a lot of the A-Listers, Danny found that-quite frankly-they were boring and all but two dimensional. Unfortunately, because of his overly-kind and genuine personality, Sam found herself dragged along to more than one excursion involving the popular kids of their high school because Danny never really had the heart to tell them that he-or Sam and Tucker for that matter-never ended up having fun and their “hang-out sessions” always left a bad taste in his mouth. The half-ghost just couldn’t find it within him to intentionally disappoint people. Of course, he wasn’t thinking with his normal head today either. All of his normal thoughts were stuck in a heavy cloud of sweet-smelling smoke.

Dash Baxter swaggered his way to their table, followed closely by Paulina, Kwan, and Star. Sam rolled her eyes and turned her attention to her salad.

“Hey, Fenton! We were all just about to go do some bowling and were wondering if you wanted to maybe come? Your friends, too, sure, I guess can come if they have to…” He mumbled the last part and Sam scowled even harder at the lettuce that she stabbed harshly. She glanced up at Danny to see him studying the jock’s face.

“And… Why exactly would I do that?” He asked, his eyebrow raised. Sam blinked, flabbergasted that Danny had said something other than “sure, I guess…” with that little resigned look of his. Dash didn’t seem to notice that Danny sounded off at all, likely because he didn’t know what Danny was supposed to sound like normally, when not wholly stoned off of Ghost Nip. The jock floundered at Danny’s response.

“Well, uh, y’know! We’re popular! And you’re pretty popular now, too, so… I mean… Bowling?” Danny blinked and shrugged his shoulders.

“Nah, you guys honestly… kinda suck. I’d rather just… not.” With that, Danny turned his focus back to his phone’s game, signalling that their conversation was over. But the A-Listers weren’t known for taking subtle signals well. Paulina pouted.

“Come on, Danny! Come bowling with us! We could totally be more fun!” Danny sighed and paused his game again, setting it on the table as he turned to face the A-Listers with a look of impatience written on his face.

“Guys. Do I really have to repeat ‘Nah’, like, fifty more times before I can play my game? I said ‘Nah’ and it means, for today and as many times as you want to continue to ask me in the future, ‘Nah’. So, go do your bowling thing and leave. Whatever, I don’t care.” He moved his hands in a shooing fashion before going back to his phone.

Pouting and in various states of disappointment, the popular kids sulked off. Danny didn’t seem to care and he continued playing his racing game. Sam and Tucker gaped at the black-haired boy across from them, who obliviously tapped at his phone before letting out a melodramatic groan.

“Cruud. I died.” He set his phone in his pocket and glanced at the shocked teens across the way. He blinked whilst they stared.

“What? Did you guys wanna go bowling?”

._. ._. ._.

Danny spent the night at Tucker’s house that evening, after shooting a text (that was revised by both Sam and Tucker before being sent) to his parents to let them know. Tucker’s mother made the observation that Danny smelled like candied apples, to which Danny grinned and happily chirped that it was because of his new plant.

Tucker quickly changed the subject.

._. ._. ._.

So, that’s that. I might continue this. Might not. Dunno.

[sound--life]

I have had this written out for a couple weeks now, but in honor of all of Time’s Persons of the Year, today seems like a good day to post it. Below the cut is the story of my interactions with a certain anime English voice actor, and why he and I really DO NOT get along. 

I’m lucky. Unlike most women I know, I have never been sexually assaulted. I can’t recall a specific time when I was catcalled or harassed. I’ve been called nasty names online, which is sadly all too common, but none of it was sexually charged. My own experience isn’t even violent, but it contains elements of manipulation that I, thankfully, was never caught by.

The first weekend in June of 2011, my best friend Sam and I drove to Sandusky, Ohio for Colossalcon. Colossal is an anime convention, and us being huge nerds and having become friends because of anime, and we jumped at the offer to room with some of her casual friends at a hotel down the road. I was particularly excited because a popular English voice actor, let’s call him Dan, was going to be there. He and I had first met at Anime Central in Chicago in 2010, and funnily enough, we were on the same flight to Japan just a week after ACen. I had noticed him as our flight was boarding, and while I was too anxious to say hi, I had been enough of a creep to sneak a picture and text all my friends. By the next day, he’d gotten wind of it via Facebook, and he told me to say hi the next time something funny like that happened.

Flash forward to Colossal 2011. After waiting in the autograph line for Dan for a bit, I finally got up to him. He flashed his usual smile and said hello. After I handed over my item to be signed, I said, “Hey, do you remember about a year ago when some random girl saw you at the airport in San Francisco? And you shared a flight but she didn’t say hi? And she took a picture of you? Yeah, that was me.”

His eyes lit up. “Yeah, I remember. That was you?” He laughed. “Well, hi there.” Then his smile changed a little. “Do you play soccer?”

“Uh, no?” I said, confused. “I mean, I played volleyball in high school, but not anymore. I ran the Illinois Marathon back in April, though?”

“Oh, so you’re a runner then.” He laughed again. “Well you have great legs, my runner.”

I blinked, a little taken aback. “Oh, thanks, haha.” I said, laughing a little. I asked for a picture, and while my friend juggled with the camera and Dan had his arm around my shoulders, I felt almost nervous. Picture taken, I thanked him, and he said, “See you later, runner.”

At this point, Dan had been working to start a fanclub for his work. I’m not entirely sure of how it happened, but somehow Sam and I had ended up roped into it, being one of the 5-6 people who were working to “recruit” people and spread the word about the group. I was a busy college student at the time, though, so while I was interested enough, my actual participation was somewhat lacking. It’s the thought that counts, I guess.

Dan had a panel later that evening, and Sam and I went. After it was done, a small crowd of fans gathered near him to ask for photos and autographs. Sam and I waited near the edge, patient, as we wanted to get a picture with both of us with him. When we walked up to him, he smiled and said, “Hey, there’s my runner!” As we took the picture, Sam said, “You know, Alison and I here are two of the people working with ——- on your fanclub stuff.”

Dan’s interest was piqued. “Really? Hey, hang back a bit when this is done. I wanna chat with you guys.”

At this point, every anime fan alive would be having their “SENPAI NOTICED ME” moment, and we were no different. Giddy, we waited at the edge of the room for him to wrap up, and then he came over to us. He asked if we wanted to go sit in the lobby, and we said sure. He ended up sitting in one chair, and Sam in another. I sat close to them on the floor.

At first we just chatted about his fangroup. He seemed very excited about it, and he told us some of the things he wanted to do with it. We added our own thoughts, and it was great. Then he asked about how we’d   enjoyed the convention so far.

“It’s great!” I said. “It’s even better because it’s actually my birthday on Monday, so it’s kind of like a birthday weekend adventure.”

“Your birthday? How old?” Dan asked. I told him I was going to be 20. He smiled and said, “Wait here, I’ll be right back.” In a couple minutes, he was back with a small glass from the bar. Pink, fruity-looking, with a little ice. “For the birthday girl,” he said, smiling as he handed it to me.“

"What’s in it?” I asked. I knew it was alcohol, obviously, but I was feeling wary about this. Sam didn’t have a drink, and I knew she was carefully watching this whole thing, but it wasn’t lost on me that a man 8 years older than me had just given me alcohol that I had not seen prepared. I may have been a fangirl, but I wasn’t stupid. This was odd.

Dan just waved his hand and smiled, “Oh, ya know. It’s good, I bet. Nothing crazy.” I was not one to turn down free alcohol, and my defenses were already on alert, so I sipped the drink slowly as we continued to chat. I don’t remember a lot of the specifics, but I do know that Dan mentioned that when he was in college; he had a girlfriend who lived a few hours away, but he would drive there every weekend so they could “read books” together, as he put it, complete with a wink.

After about an hour, we mentioned we had to be getting going, as I had to drive us and part of our group back to our hotel. “Oh, you’re not staying here?” Dan asked, confused.

“No, by the time any of us planned to go, all of the rooms here were long sold out,” Sam said. “We’re staying in a creepy room in which EVERYTHING is covered in teddy bears.” (You guys should see the pictures.)

“Well, if you guys want, I have plenty of room in my room if you guys wanted to stay here instead,” Dan said. And that, dear children, is the exact moment that I really and truly understood everything that had happened up to that point. Yes, a 27-year-old convention guest, a man with rising fame and influence, had made comments about my legs being nice, bought me alcohol knowing I was only 19, and invited me and my friend to sleep in his hotel room, all in the span of about five hours. Senpai was officially a fucking creep.

“Oh, no, thanks,” I said. “Our group has to go in two cars, and I’m the driver of one, so it’s fine. We’re fine, really.”

“Okay, then. Safe drive. But remember, my room is always an option,” Dan told us as he waved goodbye.

Listen, I’m aware that I was an adult, fully capable of giving consent. And Dan was an adult, fully allowed to pursue someone of legal age. I get that. But that’s where it stops. I was a convention attendee, and he was an industry guest. There’s a power imbalance there, magnified by the huge age gap. He bought me alcohol, which anyone knows is the foolproof way to make someone more relaxed and easily persuaded (except me, whose social anxiety comes in handy when it comes to not trusting anyone’s intentions). Worst of all, he invited two young women, two attendees, to sleep in his hotel room. Besides being fucking gross and manipulative, what kind of breach of guest protocol was that? And he knew that I was essentially a volunteer for his fan group – that’s not an appropriate way to act towards someone who is basically a co-worker. From that night on, I knew that I had to keep Dan at a distance. I could manage to be cordial, but there was never going to be a chance for anything other than that.

Dan and I managed to stay relatively friendly over the next couple years, but I always had that day lingering in the back of my mind with every interaction we had, online or in person. We’ve only ever seen each other once since that night – Colossalcon 2012, a year later. He was friendly to us and would acknowledge that he knew us more than an average con attendee, but kept his distance for (what I suspected and pretty much had confirmed later) other reasons, which weren’t malicious. Over the years, though, I witnessed a gradual shift in how he presented himself online. He seemed eager to play the devil’s advocate on sensitive issues, and some of his posts made it clear that his problematic behavior was unlikely to be a one-time lapse in judgement.

We had a somewhat public falling-out in late October 2016. He had shared a comic that basically questioned why a woman was allowed to dress sexy and seen as empowered, but when men drew or designed sexy women for pop culture, they were seen as pigs. In a few comments we made to each other, I expressed my disagreement with that sentiment, and he essentially said that I and other women were being overdramatic. In his last comment, he said that he had more experience in the world than me, and he called me a child. Furious, I addressed each of his outrageous points one by one, particularly his idea that I was somehow a child. I ended my comment with a brief but very clear message: that he was not as innocent as he liked to think, seeing as he knowingly bought me alcohol when I was 19 and invited me to sleep in his hotel room.

I was content to let it rest, but he decided to keep going. Not on Facebook, which made sense –why let the public in on his dirty laundry? Nor did he e-mail, which he easily could have, since he definitely had my information. No, he decided to send me DIRECT MESSAGES ON INSTAGRAM. Which means he had to look me up on there, since I know he hadn’t followed me before. He called me cynical, rude, and “dark.” He said that our interaction back at Colossalcon was strictly friendly and a group setting (I disagree with his idea of “group,” especially when he invited both female parties of said group to his room, but whatever). He also said that he wasn’t in a great place because he was going through things in his personal life. He ended with, “I’m sorry I offended you,” which would have held some weight if he hadn’t spent the rest of the message 1. insulting me and 2. making excuses for his actions, which he admitted did take place.

Obviously, his name isn’t Dan. And a good deal of you probably could figure out who this person is, either by already hearing snippets from me or just knowing general details about Dan’s work. I’m positive most of you know who he actually is. I could use his real name, obviously, and I originally wrote this with his actual name instead of a placeholder. Believe it or not, I’m not looking for a fight. Were his intentions truly just friendly? Perhaps, but that’s not at all how they came across, and he should have known better than to do any of the things he did. I interacted with another voice actor that weekend in casual company, and he was just as friendly without being at all imposing – he was gracious and listened to us and respected us. He’s got a reputation for being a bit overly-touchy, but I never felt creeped out or like I was a target, especially when compared to the encounter with Dan.

Because that’s how Dan had made me feel. Like a target. Like I was some silly teenage girl, starstruck enough and desperate enough for attention that I would give senpai anything he wanted just to feel like I was part of the cool kids. It didn’t make me feel violated – it made me pissed off. I was angry that he had written me off, that he had tested me out to see how easily-manipulated I was, and that there was nothing stopping him from doing this to someone else. Maybe he would find that girl who was desperate enough for validation that she would do anything for him. Maybe he has since then.

It’s only been with the emergence of the #MeToo movement that I’ve been able to properly sort out my feelings about this and word it how I want. I don’t want him to lose bookings or stop being invited to conventions. It’s enough for me that he knows that I’m out there, aware and unafraid. He already knows my feelings on the matter – I made them abundantly clear in that Facebook comment. I just want him to understand that he doesn’t get to do whatever the hell he wants because he’s got this tiny scrap of fame. I want him to understand that people will always remember how you make them feel, and I will never forget that night when I experienced what it truly means to be a woman in this world.  

[sophiasbox-blog1]

J Edward Khrist

"My wife was Batman for Halloween."

Sophia James

“And here you thought wife with a bit of a cold was my costume. I had plans all along."

J Edward Khrist

"Nah, batman. Nah."

Sophia James

“Wanna see the batcave?"

J Edward Khrist

"Why you so pretty though?"

Sophia James

“I’m not. I’ve had the sniffles all day and I look like hell. I’m not pretty today."

J Edward Khrist

"You're so fucking beautiful. God, stop looking at me." Sets up the pillow between them.

Sophia James

Reaches for that pillow. "I don't want to ever stop looking at you!"

J Edward Khrist

"No. Stop." Holds his pillow defensively over his head. "You're too pretty. It hurts."

Sophia James

"But you married me! Didn't you think that might include looking at me from time to time? Did you not think this all the way through???"

J Edward Khrist

"Apparently not." He stated under the pillow. "It's not fair." He declared, a tone of outrage that even the pillow couldn't conceal.

Sophia James

Grabbing for the pillow, she'd attempt to free him of that which he attempted to take shelter beneath, though she'd never agree with what it was he was taking shelter from. "Stop it now," she requested playfully. "I look like hell tonight and I just want to be pathetic in the man I love's arms," she added, a pout to her features waiting for his view when the pillow found its way away.

J Edward Khrist

Allowing her to pull the pillow away, disregarding all of that as it was absolutely ridiculous. "so this is married life, huh? You just keep getting better looking and I get a little uglier everyday."

Sophia James

Successfully removing the pillow, she tossed it to the floor off the side of the bed before she was finding her way over top of him, straddling over him where her eyes were set to his, a smirk to her features. "Uglier?" she asked, shaking her head no. "I married the sexy James brother," she reminded him, leaning down to press her lips against his.

J Edward Khrist

Having to laugh at the back handed insult to his brother. Feeling her slipping over him as he'd press his lips to hers but that laugh still in his throat. "I'm telling Spence." He teased softly to her lips.

Sophia James

"How about we not talk about your brother's wife right now," she offered, finding the woman to be quite youthful and attractive in her own right that would only challenge whatever it was that Judas saw in her in that moment. Stealing his lips again, she'd insist on that kiss, though a question burned at the end of her tongue.

J Edward Khrist

"Oookay." Not sure why that was an issue but he'd much rather talk about and look at his wife anyway. Pressing his lips back to hers as she leaned in for his kiss that was freely offered. Not quite used to her initiating his kiss it seemed.

Sophia James

As he met her within that kiss, her hand found the side of his face as she remained straddled there over him, silencing him in all matters. Humming softly there to his lips, finding a place that tasted like home to her as she knew beyond any doubt that she was right where she belonged and had never needed to question it at any point along the way.

J Edward Khrist

The kiss spoke to the fact that she wanted him to shut up for once. Reading loud and clear yet only wondering what it was that he had said exactly. Regardless, he'd feel her hum as his hands settled to the sides of her legs over him.

Sophia James

Feeling his hands there to the sides of her legs, she drew back from the kiss with a satisfied smile there to her features. Keeping one hand there to the side of his face, she'd look down towards him, only able to wonder if he would still complain about looking at her.

J Edward Khrist

Meeting her eyes as she kept to his face. Managing a roll of his eyes as he scoffed at her. Still finding it playfully too much.

Sophia James

Looking down at him, she'd find that scoff that would have her eyes widening. "What was /that/?" she asked, her head tilting slightly as she looked down to him.

J Edward Khrist

Cracking a dimpled smirk at her at her detection skills. "Still too pretty."

Sophia James

Shaking her head no, she'd lean in to press her lips to his briefly before whispering there to his lips. "Prettier than Spencer though?"

J Edward Khrist

"Holy fuck. Yes." Unable to even manage as he had to bark that one out. Now understanding her sudden silence. "Baby..." he sighed simply, not even sure how to begin.

Sophia James

Drawing back to meet his eyes at his strong response, she couldn't help but have surprise in her eyes. "She's young and she's always all over her husband even when there are people in the room..." she explained as she had been witness to more than one instance, knowing he surely had even more experience in the matter. "Do you never wish your wife was young and... hungry?"

J Edward Khrist

"Yeah, I had to listen to them fuck before. I know. The guest bedroom is two rooms down. Two rooms." Illustration with two fingers for emphasis, not even able to manage that response. "She's not-no. She's-no. You. You are for me and she is for him. I love your age, I love your nature. I don't think a woman her age could love me the way you do, anyway."

Sophia James

Hearing him speak on the matter, his dedication and conviction ran strong through his words, leaving her loving him even more in the moment as the smile swept her lips. "So you've never been envious of your brother... when they were fucking two rooms down?" she asked, her hands passing against his chest as she kept her eyes there to his.

J Edward Khrist

"Noooo...I can't take that woman." He stated firmly, a shake of his head and another one after that. Ready to shake his head continuously. "I used to daydream about punching her back when John got hurt. Swear to God. She had been on the scene for 2 minutes and acting like she owned the place..." he continued as he felt her to his chest, his hands slipping over hers.

Sophia James

Feeling his hands there against her own, she couldn't help but laugh at the idea of him punching the woman his brother had married. Not being around in those days, she couldn't have even imagined. "You guys seem so comfortable with one another now," she confessed, not ever imagining a day when they weren't.

J Edward Khrist

"Sometimes." He stated simply, knowing it could change with a moments notice. He'd shake his head. "She doesn't have the patience for me. She's too high strung, takes shit too seriously. No, she's the type that Johnny needs. Keeps him on the straight and narrow and entertained. Not for me."

Sophia James

Smirking at the assurance, not that she'd ever thought he was interested, but liking the idea of it just the same, she leaned in to press her lips to his while her hands remained there beneath his hold. Humming softly to his lips before she'd draw back once again. "If she's too high strung for you... then what is the type of woman you would have thought was for you?"

J Edward Khrist

"Someone's who is patient and laid back and doesn't take things so seriously and personally. Someone who takes me for who I am and doesn't try to change or control me and just accepts that I am what I am." He'd state, as it sounded simple but what a hunt it had been to find her as her lips found his.

Sophia James

Hearing his response of who he needed, her smile would only widen with each phrase that seemed as though he was describing her through and through. Meeting his lips for another brief exchange, she'd draw back only for a moment. "I love you," she promised him before her lips were back to his once again.

J Edward Khrist

Describing her but not meaning to. It just so happened that she was ideal for him and he didn't mind reminding her. Meeting her eyes for that brief moment. A soft smile before his lips were back to hers. "I love you." He'd agree.

Sophia James

Hearing his I love you there to her lips, her smile would sever the kiss a moment later before she was there looking to him once again. "You love me even if you think I'm too pretty?" she teased, bringing it back to that original topic, even if she wasn't so sure she agreed on it.

J Edward Khrist

"You are too fucking pretty." He accused, a shake of his head as it was difficult to manage. "But yes...somehow I think I can manage" he offered evenly, a confident nod of his head.

Sophia James

Finding that nod of his head, she leaned in close, yet her lips would barely brush his. "That feeling is mutual," she assured as she found him just as insanely attractive as he accused her of being. Pressing her lips quickly to his a moment later, she'd anticipate his argument on the topic by silencing him the best way she knew how.

J Edward Khrist

"You don't get mutuality." He accused of her, managing it all the same despite the press of her lips. Growling low at her.

Sophia James

With him managing that thought in between, regardless of her attempt to silence him, his growl was met with a grumble of her own while remaining there in that kiss just the same.

J Edward Khrist

Feeling her still to his lips as she was having fun with this and he could tell. Hands sweeping up gently to her shoulders as he'd give up a grumble back just to challenge her.

Sophia James

As his hands made their way up her back to her shoulders, the gentle pressure of his hands had her giving up a shift of her hips there against his as she met his challenge with that of another.

J Edward Khrist

Feeling the shift of her hips there to him. The woman wasn't capable of accidents as everything meant something with her. Or so he found in times. Hands slipping down her shoulders and over her upper arms down to her forearms and wrists.

Sophia James

Feeling his hands pass against her, taking a long path from her shoulders there to her wrists, she nipped gently at his lower tier as she offered another shift of her hips against him, always intentionally as her eyes opened to find his while maintaining that grip at his lower tier.

J Edward Khrist

"You're too good looking to be doing this. You're making a mistake." He managed in response, thinking anytime she laid with him or did anything with him, it might have been a mistake with how he looked. Still knowing she didn't see it that way, he'd smirk with her to his bottom lip all the while as his eyes settled to hers.

Sophia James

His words would be forever met with an instant shake of her head as she didn’t believe a word of it and never would. She was the lucky one here and she’d make sure he felt it radiate from her. “You could have any woman in the world and yet, you chose me,” she reminded him with another shift of her hips against his as her kiss returned to his lips once more.

J Edward Khrist

"I could not and even if I could, this is the one I'd choose." He'd remind her as his hands remained over her wrists, drawing his teeth to his own bottom lip as she shifted his hips before she stole to his lips. Happy enough to give her that kiss regardless of his warning.

Sophia James

She knew better than he would in this matter as she saw the looks on the rare occasion they were outside of their tower. Humming her argument to his lips, her hips drew against his once more as her lips pressed firmly to his. Never quite knowing how they had gotten so lucky, but counting her blessings every day.

-November 11, 2017