#MAILBOX Ground Screw

[r-riri]

take me back to the night we met - Thomas Shelby x reader

divider by @firefly-graphics

word count 1,028

angst warning

the frosted air seeped into the thin building, grasping for any warmth the coat could savour. the unapologetic echoing sound of her shoes dug into the ever so slightly rotting wood. she walked into the common seating area seeing not one ounce of life, no colour or warmth precent, not since he walked out that night.

she picked up a smug glass filled a quarter way with only the finest Irish whiskey, now sat warm and untouched, like milk that children would leave out as a offering to the joyful idea of cheer and warmth.

if she listened hard enough she swore she could hear the glass laughing at her, in some fitful attempt to ease her growing pain the glass was discarded to the ground. the echoing shatter was silenced by the harsh rain that was thundering on to the small house that dared not to be called a home.

she watched the splatter of whiskey wet the floor disapproving, she scoffed at the sight hearing his voice rang though her head

"don't waste that, its expensive" tommy scolded the girl, as she screwed her nose up in disgust at the unwelcoming taste of the whiskey, already regretting the moment she requested something differing from her usual rum

"you drink this voluntarily? tommy darling no" the girl laughed as she pushed the glass to him waving henry over as he already served her the drink she frequented

the girl scoffed at the burning memory "fuck him" she muttered walking to the front door opening it and peering outside to ensure no one from that wretched family was around, though she quickly remembered what day it was

Thomas fucking Shelby's wedding day, to Grace, the girl who betrayed his trust and family times over

she looked up willing the tears to stay in place as she emptied her mailbox hurried as she ventured back inside to avoid the harsh weather, and to hide the tears soaking her once pleasantly made face

she wiped her eyes smudging any resemblance of looking pretty out the door, she picked the letters up seeing they were all from the same last name. the name that haunted her dreams and days. she couldn't run fast enough to escape that name.

you are formally invited to the joining of Thomas Shelby and Grace Burgess, please come to the address listed at 11 in the morning to see the beauty of love and compassion. you are formally invited by the groom

she ripped the letter up into pieces as she saw the familiar writing of a typewriter, though a genius was never needed to know she wrote the letter , she felt as if a scream was crawling up her throat. eyes stinging with burning hatred and betrayal but she forced herself to read the second letter

i expect you to be there y/n, its foolish the game you're playing. if you do not attend count yourself excluded from the Shelby's protection

she let out a small wail but swallowed the bulk of it 'im sorry tommy' . she wished she could have been there for him, see him dressed so beautifully, though she doubted he dressed any differently from usual, always so well evened. it was one aspect she adored of the man who could be described so negatively

the women felt her legs buckled under the weight of her emotions as she laid curled on the floor

"was i never good enough? i waited tommy, i watched my tommy disappear into the dark calculated man i swore i would still forever love" the woman clutched her eyes closed wanting to escape from the harsh reality of the love of her life getting married to a woman that was never going to be her

"take me back tommy, please just take me back to the night we met when you held me so tightly, back when war didn't plague your memories and when my heart was mended by your presence" she cried softly picturing the soft memories that grew between to two, the women never wished for a man any different that he, though he wished for better than her, better than the woman would ever give him.

little did the woman know whilst she laid on the ground, the man who owned her heart watched his side of the church fill with his family and closest people though he noticed, as always, she wasn't present. he watched polly meet his sight and shook her head discreetly, though he caught it. whilst he claimed grace will be the one who evaded him long enough and that she would be the one he was made to be with, his demeanour straightened up hiding his disappointment skilfully with years of practice

he wished she was here, maybe she would beg for him. maybe she would ruin his wedding night if only it meant that she craved him.

whilst the night went on, love went high, he knew he would forever regret the day he told her he didn't need her anymore, because even if he didn't need to rely on anyone but himself he knew deep down that she was forever his safety away from the memories of war and death, but he gave up on that. he couldn't expect her to beg for him back.

chaos followed the next few years, heartbreak rained on him as he lost over and over to the point where he though he was numb to the decision thrown at him until the day he got that letter. the damned letter than showed Thomas Shelby that he will forever feel the pain of his loss

you are hereby formally invited to the wedding of y/n l/n and Louis Windsor, please come to the address printed below for a beautiful noon wedding, you are formally invited by the bride

that very letter stabbed him though the heart in a way that he had never experienced, at that second he understood the reason she never came to his wedding.

if only he had the confidence to do the very thing he wished she would have done the day he married.

[thewritersofdeceased]

The Stories From The Finches Theirselves

Chapter 1 : Starting From The Very Beginning.

She said to never come here. She didn’t want him here, that’s something the thirteen year old remembered how in the journal he’d been given at the age of seven. Even if it was more difficult to read whilst he was staying with someone he knew. Though Christopher Finch, the only alive known member of the Finch household went against his deceased mothers wishes. In his hand tightly was a key, and in the other was a journal. He had snuck off from the orphanage he remained in, having a backpack with clothes, a blanket, snacks and a couple bucks. In his right front pocket was a small pocket knife. Of course. He wouldn’t go walking the streets without some sort of weapon. A tired sigh escaped the boy as he soon began making his way towards what seemed to be an opening. Just amongst the trees, a building stood tall in the distance. A home. A place where people would feel safe. But based on his mothers stories? Maybe they didn’t feel safe at all being here. The rooms were closed, sealed shut with peepholes there. Screw it. Christopher took a breath in as he began to walk towards the house. The house that was thousands of feet above the sea that the thirteen year old could see. It was a long driveway, he took note of that. There was still mail in the mailbox as he noticed the house. This was HUGE! And that was coming from the kid himself.

“Jesus… is this where mom stayed?” He questioned aloud as he opened the mailbox. Most of these letters were from years ago, 2010. Hell, he didn’t know what day or whatever, but he did know that was a while ago. From 2017, when he was born, to now, 2030, he was only thirteen. And here the kid was, having hopped over a chain-linked fence, to go and find out his mothers stories and see if what she told him in that journal was real. Sure, he didn’t really know what had gone on in the house, but now it was his time to! To see what happened to the greater members of his family! As he pushed the gate and walked, there were two different ways. One to the left, one to the right.The right looked like there was less walking, more scenery. But either way, they both ended up going to the same place. The house. To Christopher, it was a gorgeous place. But he had to get here one way or another. A soft sigh escaped him as he walked amongst the forest, the atmosphere calming. He wondered how many times his great uncles would come out and try playing in the woods of any sort, seeing whatever animals they could see. His great-aunts, Barbara and Molly, seemed to be busy of some sort. He never got to meet them. Nor did his mother. That would change. At least Christopher thought. He let out a sigh as where a make-shift garage was in his sight. A truck was still there. An old truck that looked rundown. 

He wondered if the truck was supposed to be there. But it wasn’t exactly in his business to know, he couldn’t drive. “This place is ginormous..” He whispered under his breath as he looked towards the large house. It wasn’t broken, no, but it seemed decent looking from afar. So as Christopher stood a bit away from the steps, he took in a breath. This was all serious. He had to find out the truth himself. If his mother had, so can he! Just maybe, at least. Christopher looked around, his eyes landing on a pond just a little walk away from the house, mostly towards the right of it. He raised a brow in confusion, beginning to make his way over to it. In the water, there was what looked like a dragon. A fake dragon, but still. It looked like it was supposed to be a slide of some sort. A slide…? It had to have been built by whoever decided to build this house from the ground up. The thirteen year old hadn’t an idea in his head on who that was just yet. Searching his pockets, he took out the key that was left in his will, at least far as he remembered. “This has to go to the front… right?” His head tilted slightly as he looked towards the house once more, his expression remaining calm through his dark brown eyes. This was going to be one hell of an adventure. Making sure he didn’t fall into the water near the pond, he began to make his way towards the front door of the house, humming softly whatever tune he could overhear in his head. 

The wooden stairs below creaked as Christopher walked up to them, a hum escaping him as he looked up at the large exterior of the building. “Gotta do this. Gotta learn the stories.” He mumbled to himself as he tried the front door. Nothing. He raised his brow slightly, rather confused at the fact it didn’t work. “Hello?” He mumbled out, trying the key again. “Is this not the key to the front door?” He questioned aloud, talking to nobody in particular. Just to himself, so he thought. A deep sigh escaped as he leaned his head back in complaint. “Reaallllyyyy?? What other doors are there that this could unlock!?” He practically shouted, but it only echoed from where he stood. Until slowly, his attention went towards the side of the house. A garage. Garages have side doors. That was it! A small laugh escaped the dark brunette, almost redhead, as he began to make his way towards the garage. There had to be a side entrance, of course there had to be. As he made his way around, he took note of a hole in the gate. A confused look appeared as he eventually jogged over, standing on his tippy toes to see through the hole. There was a swing, well, was a swing. The swing was wrapped all the way around a tree. Had someone done the impossible trick? The trick of going all the way around the top of the swingset? Maybe that was it! It certainly appeared that way to Christopher. “Jesus… I hope they’re okay. That certainly can’t be safe…” He mumbled.

Taking a couple steps back towards the garage door once more, he stood in front of the side door, holding the key in his hands again. “Let’s hope you work now.” He mumbled under his breath as he began to try and use the key on the side door. Nothing. Again. “Really? Nothing!?” He shouted again, but he tried to figure out an idea. Looking down to his feet, god damn it. “I have to crawl…?” He mumbled, carefully going onto his knees. He’d be able to climb through the cat door, so long as he watched his head and knees. Letting out a groan of complaint, Christopher began to carefully climb through the cat door, eventually landing on his elbows and knees inside the garage. A soft “umph!” escaped him upon doing so, allowing him to finally stand up and look around the garage. “Woah…” The garage looked like your average garage. There was a car covered under a blue tarp, a couple of bikes hung up, even a little pool to the right just by the bikes! That was something he took notice of as he looked through the garage. The door was partially open, separating the house from the garage as he hummed in acknowledgment to his own thoughts. “Alright, Chris. Gotta’ get through this without crying once.” He spoke to himself as he pulled open the door. 

In his view was the kitchen. A bit messy, but when were kitchens not messy? He looked around, trying to decipher what had happened without reading his mothers journal. Of course, he had that for a reason, but it was more so he could read his family's history. A soft sigh escaped him as he looked around. The canary. That was where Uncle Lewis had worked, he remembered that when he had scanned through the journal upon getting that. It was said in the earlier pages that the cannery’s tuna was usually brought in order to take care of the cat, who remembered the name being Molly. Funny… he had a great, great aunt named Molly.. Or was it three greats? He didn’t know. It’d been a while since he read the journal his mother gave him. The house was a mess as far as the boy could see, walking around and looking through whatever could be seen. In the journal, he remembered only one place that would deliver to the Finch Household. It was a chinese place, he remembered his mother mentioning it, but he didn’t know the exact place. Besides the fact that a ton of empty tuna cans and empty chinese deliveries were now in the garbage. Maybe he could fix this place up. Make it so he and his buddies, if he made any, could maybe stay here. He’d explain the story. At least what he could remember. 

A small sigh escaped the brunette as he continued to walk around the lower floor of the building, looking around at everything. Packages with those pink peanuts all over the floor near the front door, the photos that lingered in the small hallway, the closed up library his mother mentioned with yet another peephole engraved in it, a bunch of things. The bottom floor was always so much more calming than the floors that began to build higher and higher in the house. Sure, the inside of the mansion-like home didn’t appear to be as huge as the outside, but it was still such a nice house. A house with a ton of different stories to it. The living room led to the outdoors, at least it had a gorgeous view of the outdoors. Christopher thought so, at least. But reading the journal and remembering the story of his great-great uncles hurt. Calvin and Gus’s stories hurt. As he walked through the tiny hallway, he paused right in front of the music box. “Sven made thi for..” He was trying to remember as a small sigh escaped him, himself pinching the bridge of his nose. “..Barbara?” He tried to remember, beginning to unwind the music box. He was right, as a figure of Barbara had begun to spin, and Bigfoot remained in the background. Of course. Barbara was the child star of the Finch family. Christopher remembered that. 

Who didn’t? Barbara was well known for her scream at a young age, but knowing she died young, not even in her twenties, was painful for Christopher to remember reading. Don’t get him starting on Gregory. Gregory’s story shattered his heart when he first read through it. As his mind wandered on and on, the music from the music box played with a relaxing sort of instrumental. He enjoyed it as he began to make his way up the stairs. He looked towards his left. Three doors, sealed shut. Though, that was from the stairs. Facing the hallway and still to the left was another room and a staircase. Down the hallway, Great-Grandfather Sam and Great-Grandfather Calvin’s room was to the left, sealed up. The blue and orange split in the door contrasted one another. How Calvin always wanted to fly, and Sam in the army. The door in the middle was the bathroom, and Christopher believed he knew what happened there. Then to the right, was Great-Great Grandmother Edie’s room. “So Grandma Dawn closed up all of the rooms… but Great-Great Grandmother Edie installed peepholes?” He questioned aloud to nobody in particular. Letting a hum escape him, he began to make his way to the opposite side of the hallway. To the left was Molly’s room, yet another room closed off and sealed from the viewing eye. All besides that peephole. To the right, far as Christopher remembered, had been Walter’s room. Yet it was open? Holding a confused look, he entered the room, looking at the wall with a raised brow. He liked the aquatic theme of it. As he looked around, what caught his eyes was a book? A book with a lock on it. Going to stand in front of it, he looked at the book, keeping his look of confusion. Searching inside his pocket for the key he carried with him through the house, he unlocked the book. “This is weird… But, that’s what our families known for.” He murmured aloud as he opened the book. What surprised him was a latch. “Why the hell-?” He continued to speak to himself, pulling the latch up. It led to a room? A hidden room, he’d think. Pulling himself up and crouching in order to not hit his head, the boy began to sneak through, looking around. “Milton” was signed under a couple drawings. Uncle Milton, he believed. He saw his uncle’s… memoir by his mothers grave. But there was no date of death. Just his birth year. Strange, he thought as he continued on his journey.

[lazyrants]

The LazyTown Circus (prod 203)

Original airdate: February 12, 2007

Story by Magnus Scheving

Written by Magnus Scheving, Mani Svavarrson, Noah Zachary

Directed by Magnus Scheving

Executive producers - Magnus Scheving, Ragnheidur Melsted, Raymond P. Le Gue, Brown Johnson, Kay Wilson Stallings

Starring Magnus Scheving, Stefan Karl Steffanson, Julianna Rose Mauriello

Puppeteers - Gudmondor Thor Karason, Jodi Eichelberger, David Matthew Feldman, Julie Westwood, Sarah Burgess, Ronald Binion, Emily Decola, Mary Robinette Kowal

In this episode, a song that starts off wonderfully and ends terribly is played, and Stephanie dresses up in her most horrendous costume in the entirety of the 100+ episodes produced (including the campaigns, Extra, Sproutlet Show).

Sportacus is playing with a Yoyo in the airship. He wraps the string around his water bottle and pulls it to him. While drinking, the crystal beeps. He goes outside to see what it is, and it's a fly stuck in a mailbox. WOW. JUST. WOW. Using the yoyo, he gets it out.

Look at that 3D effect. In 2013, three episodes from the then-new season were played in cinemas. Imagine if this was one of them and it was in 3D! Anyways, he wraps the yoyo around the mailbox handle and pulls up the yoyo, opening the mailbox and freeing the fly. The main episode starts with Trixie dialogue, my second-least favourite character so it's getting off to a bad start. She's doing a high-wire (that isn't that high), and once she finishes, it's Ziggy's turn. Can you predict what happens next? Yep, right. Robbie decides to eavesdrop (after playing two of his piano keys, for someone reason one makes a moo noise, so that was funny)..

Ziggy gets scaareeed.. beep beep beep. Sportacus attaches a hook to his belt buckle, and jumps out the airship. Supa. Kewl. Mainly because he's 3D animated in one of the shots & he doesn't even hit the ground.

Anyways, Ziggy's still being a whiny scaredy-cat, he's not even halfway through the walk, and Robbie is literally CHUCKLING. I don't blame him, either. Sportacus flips over to him, and he gives a 'u serious right neow bro' face to Ziggy, then he smiles and taps his shoulder. He lifts him off. Ziggy tells him he knew he wasn't that high up but he was still scared, and he gives him some good advice - try to be a little brave. Once he leaves, it's Stephanie's turn and she says that it's too low for her. Trixie says she's never been on a real one before, Steph says she has (she says they're as high up as TREES).

Ziggy believes her and even asks for her to help him and Trixie with the high walk and to do other cool stunts, and the idea comes for them to start a THE LAZYTOWN CIRCUS (lol episode name in episode review hehe) with animals, cotton candy (Guess who said that? They both said no), music, stunts, & cotton candy (Oh my god, Ziggy. SHUT. UP). When they leave, she decides to try the high walk.

Meanwhile, Stingy & Pixel are being epic gaemers!!11!! when Trixie comes in and tells them everything, including that they need animals. Stingy comes with actually funny dialogue - 'Pick Pixel! He's been eating cheesy garlic Crunch-O's all day and he smells like elephant feet! (Pixel breathes in his face) Urgh, call animal control, something's died in Pixel's mouth!'

Out of all the screenshots I've took for this review, this is my ultimate favourite. So after some more funny dialogue and an angry Trixie moment, we go back to Stephanie attempting the high walk once more, but she herself is scared.

When she sees Ziggy running to her, he puts the pole higher then it originally was. Ziggy runs to Stephanie with a clown nose on and tells her he is a clown. Red nose or not, he is a HUGE CLOWN. He falls (??????) Robbie laughs. He stands up, questions how high the pole is and tells Stephanie she's his hero. So screw the dude who saves you everyday & tells you how to live a healthy life. When Robbie overhears Ziggy's excitement about starting a circus, he attempts to think up a plan to stop it, but he can't think of anything. The end. Until, he starts whining about the annoying things of circuses and talks about cannons - then he devises a plan to shoot Sportacus out of one.

Ziggy sends Sportacus a letter asking if he'll do some circus stunts. He decides a few moves to do - the first one being this one where he throws a tennis racket from arm to arm, throws a ball in the air, AND HOLDS THE RACKET WITH ONE FINGER, AS WELL AS THE BALL. Then he throws a glass plate onto there as well.

And here comes a somewhat funny Disguise Time - Robbie chooses the ringmaster outfit and a light shines on him like he's actually in a circus.

He introduces himself as Roberto The Great, funny dialogue, etc. He ends his speech with 'LET'S START THE SHOW!' Anyways, for once, they do something with the Mayor's approval. They tell him about the circus. When Trixie says Steph's doing the high walk, she says Sportacus might do it. The animals Stingy and Pixel introduce themselves with obnoxious noises. LAZYTOWN FURRY PROPAGANDA AT 3AM NOT CLICKBAIT MUST WATCH 4K ULTRA HD. Anyways, Sportacus flips in and handstands, saying he is ready for circus stunts.

Milford starts saying a bunch of stuff they need for the circus, and Trixie tells him they already have most of the stuff he's talking about. Sportacus says they just need a ringmaster, and they get a ringmaster.

Roberto instructs them to follow him, and somehow, the LazyTown circus has just.. gotten there. Did he buy it like in Mystery of the Pyramid? Did he build it? Was it already there? They all follow him and go inside the circus.

They look for a few seconds until Robbie tells them to get prepared. Then we cut to Bessie and Milford for like five seconds after they bump into each other and Milford tells her he's got the tickets. Well, that was kinda useless. Anyways, Pixel is the head of a zebra.. horse thingy & Stingy is the tail which he complains about. They compromise to take turns. Then Pixel burps and Stingy runs out for air. I don't get why this is slightly funny but it is. Everyone is in their costumes, Milford & Bessie have arrived, and it's Time to Start The Show! (During the video, Steph plays the sax and spit comes out. Yuck.)

After taking the screenshot, I realized that is not the case.. *facepalm*, Trixie made it look like that with her water flower. After the song, Roberto tells Sportacus his very important role - to go into the cannon and fly into the 'very safe' net. He agrees once Roberto says the kids would love it. So he handstands his way to the cannon.

Before he gets in, Roberto tells him to put on his goggles (don't want anybody gettin hurt). He also tells him to cover his ears so he doesn't hear anything, and it works. Anyways, it's time for the high wire and Stephanie's too scared to. Roberto gets Ziggy and Trixie out of the way and tells them to stay there, pulling a lever that traps them in a net. He pulls up the net so they're just hanging in the air. Stephanie yells 'Oh no!' and Roberto overhears her.

Roberto chases Stephanie for a while, bringing up the question - what would he do if he caught her? Anyways, she climbs up the ladder, and Roberto drops the ladder so she can't get down. Milford and Bessie are idiots who think this is all staged. Stephanie attempts to get to them, but she can't, and she reveals she was lying. Took her long enough! Ziggy says she just has to be brave, and what ya know? She does it!!

lolwut. The crystal beeps, which Robbie thinks is the perfect time to launch Sportacus out. Sportacus swings onto this swingy thingy with his hands, and flips so now he's holding onto it with his legs. When Steph loses grip, he catches her.

Stephanie does an astonishing backflip onto the ground, then ANOTHER one after she lands. Sportacus does one only. But then again, he's Sportacus. He gets Ziggy & Trixie down, and the horse/zebra finally decides to make an appearance. Roberto says it's the perfect getaway and uses it as one, but Stingy & Pixel can't handle his weight, so they topple him over and he falls into a drum.

Notice the season one prop in the screencap. His hat falls off, and everyone finds out it's Robbie. Then he tells the kids to not try this at home (LOL). Stephanie apologizes to them for lying about her bravery, but they say she was brave enough to be truthful & actually go on the high wire. Ziggy is still sad they didn't get to see anyone on the high wire. So Sportacus goes on the high wire, and he's so daring he does FLIPS on the wire!

Then they perform the circus version of Bing Bang, which is pretty bad if I may say. In the lair, Robbie says that he was so close and he'll get Sportacus soon. He tries sitting down, but he can't, ya know, considering he has a drum on his posterior.

7/10 - Revisiting it, I liked it more. It was the song & costumes that put me off.

[kaen-ace-of-diamonds]

Hexad

Word Count: 3000+ (oneshot)

[AO3]

Genre: Friendship/Crime

Characters: Ice, Heath, Lavana, their Pokemon

Summary: After fleeing Altru Tower, Ice, Heath, and Lavana rush to escape Almia amid the chaos caused by the Incredible Machine's activation. However, in order to make a clean getaway, they'll all have to make amends with the starter Pokemon they've neglected in favor of their criminal careers.

Written for the @captureonzine

~0~

Ice had never considered himself a bad guy. Criminal, definitely. Not nice, sure. But not a bad guy.

Lavana was self-important and more than a little sadistic. Heath, reckless and shortsighted, had never matured much past adolescence. Ice himself was pragmatic more than anything else. At least, that was how Ice had always viewed the Sinis Trio.

Joining Team Dim Sun had been just another practical decision. If someone was going to dominate the world, of course he wanted to do whatever he could to not only be on their side, but be top dog in their ranks. Anybody would want the same thing, and anybody with some backbone would try it. 

How could he have foreseen this? 

The Incredible Machine should have lived up to its name: granting them all control over the world’s Pokémon, the likes of which nobody had ever imagined. Likewise, Ice had never had a problem with Gigaremos: it just wasn’t efficient to capture, bond with, and train so many Pokémon. So he had traded his Pokéballs for laptops and...heavy little mailbox-coffeemaker-vacuum cleaner looking things. 

It was nothing personal. Someone, however, clearly thought otherwise.

“Agh, come on!”

Those black eyes narrowed resentfully at him, before dissolving back into red film and retreating back into the Pokéball. 

Okay, maybe trade hadn’t been quite the right word. He’d released his traditionally captured Pokémon upon joining, but of course he’d kept his starter, his partner, through it all, even if he didn’t show her off to his coworkers. Her Pokéball had been tucked protectively into an inside pocket of his coat since the beginning, but that show of loyalty didn’t appear to be enough for her.

“Forget it, Ice!” yelled Lavana, ducking behind Heath as his fist connected with the jaw of a wild Machoke that was trying in a mad rage to pummel them. “We need to go, if you want to hold us back we’ll leave you behind!”

Ice was sure. Fortunately, this was why he was the brains of this outfit.

“Yeah, good luck starting my boat without my keys.” Before Heath could decide that it would be easier to just tear his arms off and take the key, Ice repocketed the Pokéball and bolted through the forest after them. “The dock is this way, let’s move.”

He wondered if this was what it felt like to be a Pokémon under the thrall of a Gigaremo. There was a buzz in the air, a shakiness between his skull and his brain, that made him want to either tear his own head off or punch someone else’s in. No wonder it had made it so easy to sic Pokémon on anyone they pleased: he began to think he’d do anything, obey any command, if only it would relieve this awful feeling in his head. 

Without realizing it until it was done, he smacked aside a shrieking Joltik leaping at his face, shuddering at the electric shock it sent through his bones. It would be better once they weren’t out in the open anymore. It had to be. 

“There! Go through the bushes, the thick ones on the right! There’s a cave, and we can take the tunnels to the dock!”

Both Heath and Lavana yelled assent, and veered right...into a pile of rocks.

“Ice!” Lavana shrieked, and several Pokémon in the distance shrieked along with her. “Are you screwing with us!”

Ice ground his teeth, looking up at the bellowing Bastiodon knocking rocks around on the mountain ledges. “No. But they might be.”

Heath didn’t waste time squabbling. Upon seeing the boulders blocking their way, he grounded himself in a fighting stance, pulled back one huge fist, and threw his whole body into slamming it into a load-bearing rock near the bottom of the pile. For a moment, Ice was relieved to see his strength.

And that relief evaporated when Heath’s punch only put a shallow crack in the stone, instead of breaking it. 

Both he and Lavana let out noises of frustration, but Heath only looked quizzically at his own hands. 

“Hmm...is not working. Think I will need stronger fists.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ice and Lavana said together.

“Good, you agree.”

As his teammate had no pockets in his outfit, Ice wasn’t sure where he could possibly produce a Pokéball from, but produce one Heath did. 

“...Oh,” said Ice, intelligently. “So you kept yours too?”

“Of course! Everything I learn about strength, I learn from partner.” Heath rubbed the Pokéball like a genie’s lamp. “I just hope he forgive me for neglect, yeah? Go!”

Heath tossed the Pokéball, and from it burst the last thing Ice had expected.

Well, maybe not the last thing. But an Electric-type wasn’t what he thought Heath would be keeping so close to him. 

Lavana looked supremely unimpressed. “A Plusle? Really?”

Heath scratched the little Pokémon between its long red ears, smiling as it squeaked affectionately. “He does not look like much, I know. But he gets through much to be where he is today. He...what is play quote? ‘Though he be but little, he is fierce.’”

Ice swallowed a sigh. “All right. How about you prove it to us?”

“Of course!” Heath bellowed, striking a pose that his Plusle immediately copied. Their show was cut short when a powerful rumbling of the earth made them stumble. All four looked up to the top of the Incredible Machine, and could just make out a white-topped black figure, standing out even against the darkness. 

“...Maybe not time to show off. Plusle! Thunder!”

Plusle shrilled assent, and raised its stubby arms. “Pluuuuuu-SLE!”

Ice could smell the static in the air and see Lavana’s hair start to frizz, just before a wicked thunderbolt split the sky and, fortunately, the boulders, too. The stone shattered like glass, and Heath bellowed triumphantly, Plusle shrilling along with him. 

“Yes! We still got it, little buddy!”

“Plusle! Plusle!”

Lavana was already tugging on Ice’s sleeve. “Great, wonderful, we can celebrate later, when—”

A blast of sound and malice shook the sky and nearly knocked all four of them off their feet. Ice thought he recognized the silhouette of the Pokémon enveloped in the roiling storm clouds, and he truly, deeply hoped that he was wrong about it. From the looks on Heath and Lavana’s faces, he got the impression that he wasn’t. 

“—if we make it out of here,” Lavana amended as they ducked into the mouth of the cave. 

It was darker than dark in here, enough to give Ice the impression that if he just reached out and grabbed, he would be holding a fistful of crushed-velvet black. He knew that he knew the way, but guiding his teammates now was more difficult. Usually there was a Pikachu or an Electabuzz he could grab to light his way...

In their stead, Heath’s Plusle was on the job; it darted through their legs to take the lead, letting off Flash after Flash, and Ice immediately saw that there were pros and cons to this:

Pro: they were more than bright enough to light the way forward, and Ice knew he could take it from there.

Con: they were also bright enough to reveal all the Zubat and Sandshrew darting out of crevices and dropping off the ceiling and gunning for them. 

Sure, they were small Pokémon, not much of a problem on their own, but a whole horde of them? And Incredible Machine-crazed, to boot? Yeah, this was trouble.

Heath skidded to a stop to command Plusle, calling directions and attacks with every Flash. But while they were busy with Quick Attacks and Thunder Waves, their progression through the cave system had slowed to a crawl. Ice had a brief fantasy of the Pokéball in his coat pocket springing open and its inhabitant leaping to defend him, but it remained stubbornly shut.

Lavana, it seemed, was taking a more proactive approach. One Flash, she was fishing around at the base of her ponytail; the next, she was fixing a Pokéball in her palm with as intimidating a glare as she could.

“Listen, you might be mad at me, but this is more important, all right?”

She tossed the ball to the ground, and when it popped open, out came a sleek and shimmering Ninetales in a graceful pouring of light. Ice couldn’t get a clear look at its face, but its disdain was palpable.

“Don’t give me that. I haven’t made you do anything you didn’t want to, have I? I just need you to light up a little fire so we can get out of this stupid cave, all right?”

She received a spiteful hiss and flourish of tails in her face in response.

“Oh, come on! I’m sorry that I made you stay in your Pokéball for so long, and that I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me Dim Sun was bad news, and that none of their Pokémon food was up to your standards! There, is that enough for you?”

Ninetales sat down and turned its long nose even higher up in the air, even closing its eyes to pretend its Trainer and her predicament didn’t exist. 

Lavana stomped her foot in frustration. “Ugh! You’re ridiculous! I don’t know why I even kept you around!”

Ice, finishing up spraying a shrieking Zubat in the face with Repel, took a second to give her a flat look. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any more cooperative Pokémon?”

“Like you and your giant kiddie float can talk! Listen, Ninetales, I...” Lavana huffed and rapidly tapped her foot in a way that most would call irritable, but that Ice recognized as nervous. “If you don’t want to help me, fine, but...would you do it for my teammate’s Plusle over there?”

Ninetales opened its eyes, casting a supercilious glance over its shoulder. 

“Yeah, look at it, all tiny and pathetic over there. How long is it supposed to keep this up? Are you really just going to sit there and let it do this all by itself?”

A thoughtful hint of a growl bubbled up from Ninetales’ throat. It considered Lavana’s plea, considered the way Plusle was starting to pant, considered Ice, who was now trying half-blindly to kick an attacking Sandshrew in the face. Fortunately for all of them, it didn’t take very long for it to come to a decision. 

A fierce howl reverberated around the cave, and in the blink of an eye it was all awash in pinwheels of fire. Ninetales made short work of the smaller Pokémon nearby, and then lit a smaller, brighter flame, suspending it in the air above its snout like a lantern. 

“Attagirl!” crowed Lavana, as they all surged forward again. “Just keep running, we know exactly where we’re going! Ice, tell her where we’re going!”

Ice rolled his eyes, but shared the lead with the Pokémon lighting their way, calling out the directions he had memorized as if he were driving a sled. Down, down, right, left, left, right, hard right, all the way down, and a slight left...

All the while the fire at Ninetales’ paws and Plusle’s electrified little body viciously smacking anything that moved kept their attackers at bay. When they finally burst out of the caves and onto the little crescent of wet sand that Ice had kept prepared for just such an occasion, the freezing night air lashing their skins and the scent of saltwater rushing up their noses. Both Pokémon’s tails flashed burning white, and they shot up in the air to knock the rocks above the opening down, filling up the exit so no human or Pokémon could follow them.

A bit preemptive, but Ice didn’t care: their ride out of Almia was right here. A modest white motorboat, more than big enough for three in his opinion, tied at the end of a short and creaky dock. He liked it well enough, though his teammates seemed to have misgivings.

“Is...so little,” Heath observed, rubbing his chin. 

Lavana quirked an eyebrow, and it seemed to Ice that her Ninetales was somehow doing the same. “Are you sure it can get us all the way to the next region?” 

“If you’d prefer to swim, be my guest,” said Ice, loping across the beach and down the dock. The boat swayed back and forth when he jumped into it, but it still held strong. “But as soon as I get it running, it’s going, so you better be on it if you want out the easy way.”

He didn’t look behind him as he made for the driver’s seat, but he was pleased to hear both of them and their Pokémon scrambling onboard. He fished the key out of his pants pocket, rammed it into the ignition, and turned it, eagerly awaiting the deep roar of the engine.

Krrrr-errr-err-ru-rur.

Ice’s mouth twisted, and he turned the key again with more vehemence than was really necessary. More puttering and clanking, and the boat still wouldn’t come to life. 

His teammates, surprisingly, had the grace to keep quiet as he leapt from the boat. He didn’t miss their judgmental looks, though, as he sloshed through knee-deep water. 

It didn’t make sense. No damage to the sides or bottom of the boat that he could see, the motor seemed to be all right, and in any case he had double checked the whole thing just a few days ago, preparing for the Incredible Machine’s activation and all the ways it could (and did) backfire. And yet the boat was inexplicably dead, their hopes of escape dashed just when they had come within reach. Just their luck — just their rotten, awful luck!

Ice swore louder and longer than he ever had in his life, his fist slamming against the side of the boat hard enough to dent it. And what did it matter, anyway? They were screwed, so much more than he had ever intended. He could barely hear the distant blasts in the sky over the scarlet roar of rage in his head.

Heath blinked in surprise, and Lavana just stared: neither of them had seen their leader lose his composure like this before. Even after his faltering on Altru Tower, after that stupid Ranger kid had blundered his way into another victory, he hadn’t betrayed anywhere near so much real emotion.

Ice breathed hard and slow through his nose, scraped knuckles still pressed against the side of the boat: the useless hunk of junk, he figured he ought to call it now.

“...Sorry, guys,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what I overlooked, but...I don’t think we’re getting out of Almia tonight.”

The two glanced at each other — Heath’s Plusle chittering in distress on his shoulder — before Lavana spoke, hesitant for maybe the first time in her life.

“That’s, uh...that’s okay, Ice. But if it’s all the same to you, then...maybe it’s time to try the kiddie float?”

Ice snorted. “Even if that wasn’t the dumbest way possible to bring that up, she wouldn’t listen to me, anyway. Didn’t you see her, back in the forest? She hates me, just like your Ninetales can’t stand you.”

Lavana bit her lip and glanced at the floor of the boat, Ninetales looking almost surprised. Heath put a hand on her shoulder, his fingers thick enough to cover half her upper arm too. 

“Ice, might be worth a try. Your starter, correct? Such a special bond, not easily broken.”

Ice couldn’t outright deny it. In the world of Pokémon Trainers, that was as basic a fact as the color of the sky.

“...Fine. But don’t get your hopes up.”

Reluctantly, he took the Pokéball from his coat and threw it into the water.

People sang praises of Lapras’ mild temperament and human-level intelligence, thinking that the former meant that it was universally friendly and forgetting that the latter rendered it capable of anger and grudges beyond that of the average Pokémon. Ice, certainly, was more intimidated by his partner’s glare than he would be by any human.

“...Hey. I...guess you heard about our problem?”

Lapras, floating on the shallow waves, looked back at him cold and unperturbed. He was going to need to do better than that.

“Ah...yeah. I know I screwed up, I know I shouldn’t have left you out. We’re partners: we always have been, and...we always should be. So I promise that I won’t let things get so out of hand again, and that I’ll include you in everything from now on like I should.”

Ice waded the distance between them. Lapras’ glare didn’t soften, but she allowed him to lay his hand on her nose just like always. The thick hide was cold and clammy, but familiar enough to be comforting instead of unsettling. 

Always, it brought back the blurry hours of his childhood, splashing through the gray shallows of the lake, trying to catch up with her enough to grab a flipper. Back before he had realized how small and powerless he really was. Before he had hardened and become Ice.

“You’ve got to know I’m not so bad a guy that I’d forget you, right?”

Lapras eyed him harshly for another painfully long moment. The next moment, though, water was splashing up his stomach and there was a hard, damp head nuzzling his chest and face. Ice couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled, but he sure was smiling now. 

“...I missed you, too.”

~0~

Much faster than the motorboat, Ice thought, even if it was a bit of a tight squeeze. 

Shooting off across the open ocean, they watched the dark mass that was Almia grow smaller and smaller. Through the smoky clouds, Ice thought he could see flashing lights, but didn’t give much thought to what they could be. His only priority was whatever waited for them on the far shore. 

He felt quite sure that they would be sticking together, at least for now. His teammates were tucked between the knobs of Lapras’ shell: Heath was stroking Plusle’s ears to soothe them both, and Lavana sat with her knees tucked up to her chest. Ninetales laid with its rear to its Trainer, but was allowing Lavana to tentatively pet a tail. 

As for Ice, he laid back against the back of Lapras’ long neck, stroking its side with the backs of his fingers. Soon, Team Dim Sun would be nothing more than a misstep in their past. Whatever they did next in their team of six, he was sure it would be worlds better.

[cazort]

webmaster of interactive sites here.

asking for at email isn't inherently bad. it's because we want people to be able to access accounts if they get locked out. also we want to be able to contact someone if there is a problem, like for instance I run a tea review site. sometimes someone adds a tea but categorizes it wrong. i want to be able to notify them if I, the admin, change the entry they added.

It's not my fault so many companies abused email to spam people. I hate those motherfuckers.

They ruined my whole business model too. Now no one ever checks emails and they sign up for my websites with junk emails. Every time I send out a blog or email newsletter THAT PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY SIGNED UP FOR, some of the emails bounce because people's mailboxes have filled up. Because of spam.

And even more emails get wrongly rejected as spam. I have never spammed anyone ever and I take great lengths not to. Yet I still get my emails that people specifically signed up for caught in automated spam filters.

I hate this so much. I hate the people that did this to me, the spammers, the corporate managers who authorized it. People played fast and loose with best practices and the public tolerated spam instead of showing up and beating down the doors of the companies doing it and burning them to the ground.

And now our society is all fucked up because of it and it has screwed people like me most of all, people who try hard to respect people's boundaries get punished with no one paying attention to us because everyone else has become so numb to the constant flood of contact from companies and websites, everyone's inbox is full, everyone uses junk emails.

The only solution I see is that we need authorities that run the internet that simply do not tolerate spam. Big companies like FB and LinkedIn need to get severely punished if they spam. Countries that refuse to crack down on spam farms, like Russia and India, need to get their internet cut off to force them to act.

There is no other solution, otherwise we will just keep living with the shit landscape we have nowadays.

do y’all remember usernames??? from back when every fuckin website didn’t need your email phone number home address social security number just to join/sign up for something?? when you could make website-specific accounts that weren’t linked to literally anything else??? they tried to boil us like a frog slowly switching to “username/email” and then just asking for your email. but I remember. I remember usernames.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Dynaco Repair Post No. 2

Monday Evening, Dec. 11, '23

It turns out I did hit upon an "upper limit" of number of photos per post. SO...it looks like I'll have to start a new post when I hit that limit again. I will add a link to this part at the bottom of the first post. As long as the current post is the one I'm updating, I will pin it, for easy reference. Once it's all done, I'll probably make a masterpost index.

To the project at hand! Been working on and off through the day. The day, which started out with anxiety about getting the parts today, due to the mailbox vandals. I should not have worried, the box was delivered by my apt door before noon!

Can't say enough good about the Dynakitparts.com site and Kevin, who runs things. Extremely fast and courteous with responses, and packs like a pro, tape in all the right places, everything arrives appropriately packaged and SAFE! If you have an old Dynaco beastie that needs TLC and are looking for parts, try them first! Their boards and kits are extremely well executed. Things of beauty, as you will see this evening!

The new sticker looks really sharp, and the new (modern) resistors are much smaller.

The power cords on both the PAS and the ST70 are the beige/brown originals: the plastic has become hard/brittle, but still intact. I rummaged through my box of clipped power cords and found two appropriate flat-bladed cords that will be perfect. The one for the PAS is grey, the one for the ST70 is black.

So, the first order of business today was to solder the new power cord into place on the PAS. Very straightforward, just two simple solder lugs, and it's done. Tied a knot as a stop (like the original), and routed the same way the original had been.

The above photo is showing the "new" grey cord with its knot, waiting to be prepped for soldering, while the old, brittle, beige cable has been clipped and is about to be unsoldered. The new cord is nice and pliable, and a slight improvement gauge-wise. It looks good, in place:

Now the next thing that I was really concerned with was that triple-wafered monster source switch. It had become so difficult to turn, I was afraid of breaking those wafers where the inner rotating disk's contacts meet the outer, stationary ring's contacts, and once that happens, it's toast.

But, again, I shouldn't have worried, as some strategic sprays with this stuff, on all the contact surfaces, plus the front "bearing" and the mating surfaces where the control shaft turns, a few left/right turns, gentle at first, then with more force, until you have hit all the spots with the cleaner and let it flush through and drain, the source switch feels brand new again.

And I found my white lithium grease, and applied some to the front bearing/spring-clip assembly, and did the same left/right six clicks to distribute the grease, and it's good for another good long while.

I did say "things of beauty", well, the new board along with the gold-plated RCA jacks, with color coded insulators (not brittle ceramic) are just very nice eye candy for eyes that appreciate good design!

See what I mean?

The RCAs all come with a separate ground lug, only ONE of which gets used. Again, the directions are written so well that if you read thoroughly and carefully, and study the pictorial drawing you will have no trouble. The one ground lug that is used, here on the corner top RCA, No. 9:

Now, the two pairs different resistors are clearly marked, and packaged so as not to be mixed up or confused. The old carbon resistors are huge in comparison to the new ones:

The next steps are about marking the wires and switching out the panels, and finishing up the connections. I figured that was a good place to stop for tonight, and start fresh in the morning. In prep for that, you remove the four brass screws that hold the back panel to the base, and tilt it back a bit to access all the old jack terminals:

And there's (^^^^) the old RCA panels (one of which is cracked), with the older, cramped style RCAs with the brittle white ceramic insides. The new ones are light years better in both design and quality.

I was also able to find a source for the #53 bulb for the pilot light. They arrive on Wednesday, which is pretty much right on schedule for me to be finishing the PAS repairs and turning my attention to the Stereo70.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Yesterday began auspiciously enough, I was able to get the old wires marked 1-thru-9 for both left and right, and then began unsoldering them from the old RCA array...even though the instructions themselves say it's easier to just clip them.

I should have heeded that advice.

About halfway through the unsoldering of the left channel leads, I thought I had gotten one of them "loose" enough to pull through the hole in the original jack, and so I tugged. A little too zealously.

My hand flew backwards, into that third and final wafer in the triple-wafer Source Switch, and the outer ring of it cracked. Completely. The pieces still held together at the very bottom but the top was completely broken. But also, the remaining wires all lost their little numbers I'd put on them with pieces of adhesive stickers that suddenly seemed to fly apart when hit the the force of a hamfisted hobbit.

Tried superglue. lulz. A farce. Then I realized that when I held the piece in place, it clicked and worked just fine! SO...I got a piece of wire, and wrapped it around the broken top part, and it seemed to be ok. Clicked it a few times, and it seemed like it had come out of alignment, so I realigned it, re-wrapped the wire and added a little more and all seemed fine.

So I set about with the rest of the unsoldering, and using the lead length, figured which RCA they went to. All was going fine, until I saw that a ground wire had come loose from somewhere on one of the PC boards, and I had no idea which. Looked on the pictorial, and saw where it was supposed to be, but I had a feeling that's not where it had been soldered.

Finished soldering all the leads onto the new RCA jacks, and soldered the ground wire to the lug as instructions show.

Brought it back to the rest of my system to see if it was ok, and it most definitely wasn't. I got the sound at the amp showing it was plugged in, but nothing from any of the inputs.

Tried phono, nada, tried Spare, which I always had a 3-input external switchbox on, and nothing from direct plug. Took the RCA line out of the two "audio out" jacks, and accidently brushed the inner (positive) tip to the outer (negative) part of the RCA and sound blasted forth.

That was at almost 10pm last night, and I was too beaten and felt far too defeated to go any further. Today has not brought much progress, other than to read through the original build and follow with my eyeballs on the pictorial. I don't think I flubbed on the soldering. If it's that broken wafer, then I have to admit defeat here.

At this point, it's only a couple hours away from me needing to be ready to go to kiddo's school band concert (she's playing trumpet!), so Dynaco has to wait.

I know I shouldn't let it get to me that I broke the one most irreplaceable part I could have, but I really do feel defeated. I guess I could try and find one on eBay, but no guarantee it wouldn't be broken, too.

At any rate, here's the pics from the debacle yesterday.

I'd just gotten the first few of the left (green) leads unsoldered when the switch fell victim to my stupid:

My first attempt at a stopgap solution:

Notice the tabs at 2 o'clock...the inner is over the outer, should be the other way around. Several tries later, I thought I had it.

So I turned my attention to removing the old jacks and installing the new ones.

Gorgeous, ain't they?

So, I had gathered what wits I had left and got the leads soldered as best I could determine (where the original labels had fallen off) which was which. Some, there was no doubt. Others, plenty.

Got them all soldered and tight, then put a new pilot lamp bulb in (they had arrived the day before), put the tubes in and got four glowing 12AX7s and a lit pilot bulb, so yay! I guessed the only thing left was to put the bottom cover in place and test it out.

When I did, I got the above-referenced fuckery.

But, in my defence, it was almost 10pm, I'd been up early, been at it all day, and my back was killin' me. I just unplugged everything in disgust and took my shower and went to bed.

I will spend more time on it this evening, after I get back from the concert. At this point, I suppose it's safe to assume the Source Switch is borked, and see what to do from there.

Update: later 12-14-23

Well, I found one on eBay, still with wires attached, for $27 total:

Had a coupon code so that knocked some off. Messaged the seller, and he said he had multiples, so I'm figuring it will be one I can work with. Whew. Thanks @misfitwashere, always the voice of reason. I will set the PAS aside, and set about putting the bias kit in the ST70.

Link to Repair Post No. 1:

And here is the link to No. 3:

[ashmanonline5]

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The biggest advantage of this method over anything else is the ease of installation. You basically just “screw” the anchor into the ground using a 20″ crossbar for leverage, which is included with the kit. After the anchor is screwed into the ground, you set your wood post on the bracket and attach it using 5 lag bolts. The bracket has pre-drilled holes and the bolts are included.

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[crescent-witch]

the red means i love you

ship: vampire!wandanat x reader

summary: the voices in your head come to say hello

warnings: darkfic!, manipulation, vamp powers, fingering (r receiving), anal, double penetration, mommy natasha, daddy wanda, slight blood kink, blood-drinking, dumbification, pet names (detka, malyshka, kitten)

word count: 1.2k

a/n: this is so terrible, I’m so sorry 🥲

“Kitten,” the echo ran through your apartment, or maybe the voice was all in your head. You weren’t sure anymore. There were two voices, constantly coming and going. Some days they were relentless, screaming in your mind until they overruled even your own thoughts and all you could do was lay in bed under the covers, as if your thick comforter could block out whatever madness was affecting you, like the voices could be dulled by some cotton. Some days they went quiet, barely a whisper in your mind.

You couldn’t match the voices to any face, either. You’d never heard them before the day they first muttered to you.

All you could do was ignore them as best you could and try to not think about the fact that you were slowly going mad.

Your hands shakily sifted through the pictures scattered across the coffee table in front of you. The polaroids that had been stuck to your windshield and shoved into your mailbox and appeared randomly wherever you went for weeks. The explicit photos of you getting fucked in every position, some you didnt even know existed, your eyes screwed shut in sleep.

You had tried everything to ward them off. Looking up how to enduce insomnia, practically injecting redbull and monster into your veins, anything you and the internet could think of. But every night you succumbed to sleep and a new photograph appeared.

You couldn’t decide if the voices were doing you a kindness, or if you would rather be unaware. It would still happen anyway, but perhaps you would’ve been happier if you didn’t know how the voices in your head materialised to use you every night. It would still happen, of course, but maybe blissful ignorance would be better.

“Malyshka,” as much as you longed to turn around, to try and face your tormentors, you didn’t want to play their sadistic game.

The voices continued, begging you to turn around, to let them see your pretty face. You refused, ripping up more of the pictures that had appeared to you since they arrived.

“Stop.”

“Please.”

“Detka, behave.”

“Brat.”

They got harder and harder to ignore the harsher their words got.

At one point you swore you felt their hot breath against your neck as they softly spoke to you. But, stupid or not, you held your ground and kept your eyes down. You wouldn’t give them the satisfaction, because you know as soon as you turn to face them you’ll break into nothing.

“Please, sweetheart.”

You had to remind yourself that it was an act, a trick. That the sadness in the voice was fake, they didn’t really care about you.

Your resolve only broke when a cold hand brushed against your neck while stroking your hair, alerting you immediately that the voices were no longer living inside your mind.

Your head whipped around to see a redhead lounging on your sofa, as if it was her house that you were sitting in. Her hair bounced over her shoulders in soft curls, over her strong biceps. Her outfit wasn’t mediaeval, as you had so often pictured the voices to wear when you found yourself drifting off to their shushed tones, but it was certainly gothic, vampiric even. It suited her, you decided. The dark shirt, sleeveless and showing off her toned muscles. The black pants that were baggy and hung in different places and yet somehow still looked good on her. The heavy leather combat boots that were suddenly giving you some very unholy thoughts, which you quickly shook from your head.

She grinned at you, excitedly, as you just stared at her.

“Oh, finally!” She looked like she was told Christmas had just come early.

“Aw, come on, Natty,” the second voice butted in, and you turned to face the doorframe of your living room, the second voice leaning against it and pouting. “You were meant to wait for me.”

“Sorry,” she shrugged, giggling as if she didn’t know the meaning of the word, her fingers continuing to toy with your hair.

The brunette pushed herself away from her slouched position, eyeing you from where you were rooted to your spot in fear.

She crossed the room to you, holding her hand out towards you. Something overtook you in that moment and you clasped her hand in yours, allowing the brunette to pull you to your feet, flush against her.

“Sweet girl,” she smiled at you, hand shamelessly drifting to your breast, groping you as the redhead stepped up to your back, trapping you between them

The redheads' hands found your waist, the brunette continuing to grope at your tits, pinching and pulling through your thin t-shirt.

“Hurry up, Wanda,” the redhead whined, impatient and desperate.

“Shhh, Nat,” the brunette, Wanda, soothed her. “We have all the time we could want. Her mind is already ours, eh, detka?”

It took you a minute to realise she was talking to you, her words hardly registering as you nodded in a daze.

They both giggled like school girls, cooing at how out of it you already were. You weren’t sure how you had gotten there already. What, two stunning women trap you between them and suddenly you’re putty in their hands. Well, you didn’t think you could be blamed much for that.

“Let mommy play with you,” Nat begged, wandering hands sneaking their way through the waistband of your jeans, fingers grazing your slit.

You whined as Wanda’s touches became harsher and the girl’s hands began to grope you mercilessly.

“Such a naughty little girl,” Wanda said gleefully, smirking down at you. “All this for us? Your terrifying little voices?”

Your hips involuntarily bucked as Nat pushed a finger inside of you, your answer to Wanda getting cut off by a needy moan.

“She’s so tight,” Nat groaned, her finger working its way inside of you, spreading your folds and coating the digit in your juices.

“Let me have a turn,” Wanda grumbled, attempting to pull Nat’s hand out of you. “Nattyyy.” The oddly childlike bickering passed over your head as you attempted to hump Nat’s hand, soft whines leaving your mouth.

“Let me have a turn with her,” Wanda’s lithe fingers wound around Nat’s wrist, pulling her out of you. You were close to complaining, stomping your feet for her to be back inside you. You had all but offered your soul on a silver platter to the suspected-demons. Your argument died in your throat when you felt Wanda lead Nat’s hand to your back, probing at your back entrance while tugging down your underwear and jeans.

“God, have you ever seen a pussy this pretty?” Wanda groaned, a blush staining your cheeks as she revelled in the way your cunt clenched around nothing, soaked with arousal.

“Does the baby need help?” She mocked you, pouting and using sweet words, so condescending. But it was hard to notice when Nat’s fingers were slowly making their way inside you, your juice still clinging to her fingers as lube.

“What’ll it be, princess? You want daddy to help your pathetic little pussy?”

You considered her for a moment before you nodded yes, officially losing all of your sanity.

Razor sharp fangs pierced your neck and shoulder with a suck the second Wanda’s fingers entered tour drenched pussy, Nat’s fingers still snug in your ass.

“Dumb little human.”

[blatantlyright]

A Very Bad Girl

________________________

Day 23 of Kinktober

Steve Harrington x Reader

Your boyfriend Steve doesn’t like when you sass him.

18+ MDNI

Kinktober Masterlist

Tw/tags: p in v unprotected, oral, orgasm denial, alcohol, leg riding, praise, BDSM elements, dom!steve sub!brat!reader

Beer. All Steve had to drink was beer. You hated the smell, the taste, you didn’t even like for him to kiss you when he was drinking. “It’s not much of a party if all I can do is watch you party,” you mumbled. He chugged down the second half of his drink, belched, and shook his head at you. “Robin said she’d be here in a couple hours, babe, chill.” He was sprawled out on the couch his parents gave him, looking around your new, mostly empty apartment.

“Can’t you just let me drive to get some wine?”, you pouted, falling to his feet and resting your face ok his thigh. “I’ll make it worth the worry,” you grin. “I would rather let Max Mayfield drive my car blindfolded than ever let you take my car anywhere, ever again.” That hurt. You had never been taught to drive, and the only time Steve tried to teach you, you hit two mailboxes and ran a red light in front of a police officer. He never let you live it down, nor had he ever trusted you with a set of keys since.

You pounced up and pulled on your sneakers. “I’ll walk, then,” you huffed. By the time you reached the end of your street, Steve was rolling along slowly right next to you. He hopped out and opened your door. “You owe me,” he hissed as he shut your door and made his way around the front of the car. “I know, babe. I owe you for everything in life. I’ll make it up to you one day.” Steve laughed, “you’re going to make it up to me as soon as we get home.”

When you make it back to your apartment, Steve starts removing his belt. His socks are just inside the door, and there’s a trail of clothes all the way to the open bedroom door. Assuming he needs a shower, you bounce into the tiny kitchen, digging through the drawers for the cork screw to open your Pinot Noir. As you poured your first glass, you heard Steve yelling your name from the bedroom. “What?”, you shouted back, taking a big drink.

Silence. You rolled your eyes. Carefully, you carried your wine with you into the bedroom. Steve was on the bed, his underwear barely hiding his massive boner. “Oh,” you smiled, sitting your drink down on your dresser. Steve pats the bed next to him as you pull your skirt off and let it fall to the ground. Steve stands and helps you pull your shirt up and over your head. As you dropped your arms, he caught one and left a trail of wet kisses up to your bicep. You felt the stirring of those butterflies who slept in your guts, only awakened by the man of your dreams.

His mouth left not a centimeter of your body untouched. The wet spot on your panties hinted to Steve that he had you exactly where he wanted you. As goosebumps faded from your skin, you kneeled before him and freed his throbbing dick from his underwear. It wobbled up and down, until you hastily took the entire length into your mouth. Steve was always so impressed at how well you managed his size. It was sometimes too much for sex, but you could swallow him whole any day.

Your gagging turns him on even more. He fucks down into your throat, his hands pulling your hair from your face and holding under your ears. “You’re so cute when you have a mouth full of me,” he beamed. Your eyes watered up at him, lashes fluttering. His teeth dug into his bottom lip. The golden hazel of his eyes charmed you like the eyes of a tiger creeping in the rainforest. The trance in which they held you only grew stronger when he told you, “you’re being daddy’s good girl.”

You climbed up on the bed. Your legs were spread wide, fingers sliding around your clit as you kept your eyes on him. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the wet smacking of you touching yourself. Steve noted your face beginning to tense up. He crawled across the bed to you, still in a predator stance, and removed your fingers. “Not a chance,” he growled. The tone in his voice gave him away. You knew immediately, this romp was going to be challenging.

It wasn’t often, but every once in a while Steve had to dominate you in bed. You wished you had made faster work of bringing yourself to orgasm. Your thighs slammed shut, wiggling as you tried to get some friction. “Do you want me to tie you to the bed again?”, Steve asked. You shook your head, relaxing in his grip. “Good girl,” he praised.

His hand cupped your jaw, stubble scratching at your cheeks as he feverishly kissed your mouth. His knee met you between your thighs. Involuntarily, your hips bucked towards the contact. With a sigh, Steve held down your wrists. “You can fuck yourself on my leg all you want, there’s no cumming today. You’ve been a brat all morning.” You accept the challenge, rolling your pelvis all over his thigh. You try your best to hide it as the warmth in your tummy starts to shoot up toward your head, but your breathing has changed and Steve knows. He cups your mound, removing all the pressure that was building.

A tear dances down your cheek and Steve wipes it off. “Don’t be sad, honey. You’re the one who couldn’t be patient. Now I’m going to make you wait.” Some hope returned as you decided if you were waiting, that was fine, as long as you were going to get there. Your pussy tightened and relaxed at the thought of finally being able to have an orgasm. The desire burned out again, Steve noticed how easily you could blink and keep open your eyes.

He lied down flat on his stomach, his velvety tongue lapping up the juices from your honey pot. “Oh fuck,” you hummed as he licked gently around your clit, sucking tight while still wiggling his tongue around you. Your hands ferociously buried themselves into his hair. You disregarded the established power dynamics long enough to cost his chin and nose in your juices. When your thighs started to squeeze around his head, Steve finally stood back and spread your legs so they couldn’t meet.

“Fuck, please?”, you beg, flashing your sad eyes at him. He glared at you, his face smashed up like he smelled something rancid. “What makes you think you’ve earned it?”, he asks, “what makes you think you deserve it?” You look down at Steve’s strong hands, still holding your thighs apart. “You told me I was a good girl,” you explained.

“You were taking care of me. That was a very good girl. Now you’re being greedy. That’s a very bad girl,” he said. Your bottom lip stuck out and you clicked your tongue in protest. “I already told you to wait. Now you’re going to make this even worse on yourself.” The agony of being inches from cumming, only to be denied the dive off the cliff, made your insides raw.

Steve spread your legs and slowly slid his dick up and down along your slick. He bounced it on your clit a few times before teasing just at your opening. “Shit,” he gasped, your pussy pulling him in and drowning him. “You’re so wet,” he sighed. When he finally pressed himself as far as he could reach, you let out a wild moan, your hips flexing to maneuver your clit against him. There was a sinister grin upon his face. Keeping his dick deep inside you, he reached his thumb between your lips onto your tongue. You sucked tight against it, causing Steve to let out a breathy moan.

As you released his thumb he shot it down between your legs. He quickly fucked into you, slamming his meaty head into your throbbing g-spot. His thumb smashed sloppy trails around your clit. You clenched around him and arched your back, rising off the bed and up against him. “I’m gonna cum, Steve,” you wailed. The pressure was so intense you cried.

Nothing. You felt like throwing up. In a second, you had been left empty and on the precipice of the strongest orgasm you’d had in months. Long, hot ropes of cum spurted across your belly and thighs as Steve finished all over you. You could see he was enjoying your disappointment. Once he was done, he stayed on his knees between your legs. The doorbell rang; Robin had arrived. “Clean yourself up,” he commanded, grabbing his pants and headed to the front door.

[80s4life]

Under Construction

Word Count: 1,841

Status: Suggested!

Ask: Can it be from Stand By Me with Ace were I’m like Teddy’s older sister and also wear glasses and Ace and I don’t really get along, we always bicker and he always teases me, when I’m out in the front yard I hear his car and he runs over my mailbox when I get upset and confront him we get in a little teasing argument when he pushes my glasses from sliding down and we have a moment and kiss. 

@: @gpiggy98

Fandom: Stand By Me 1984

Relationship: Ace Merrill x Female!Reader

Summary: He knew you before you knew him. Of course he did. He was the "King" of Castle Rock, or more like the main terrorist that everyone knew about, but never personally. When your brother had left for two days on a trip he stated to be a so called "mission," Teddy returned a different young man. It wasn't until some time later when you'd figured out the truth, that you'd be taking charge and standing your ground to protect your brother. With a big mark on your back and an enemy to subdue, you couldn't help but see more than you'd ever seen before.

Warnings: language, minor injury, fluff!

Masterlist  Stand By Me Masterlist

Taglist: @snapessecretdiary​ @intersellars-the-alien-of-human

{gif not mine, credits go to @gold-chaotic-wizard​}

Walking through the front door, silent and head down, Teddy glanced up for a moment, catching your stare, then continuing to his right to go up the stairs. “Teddy?” you call after him, but receive no answer. Placing your book down on the couch and pushing your glasses back up the bridge of your nose,  you call again, “Teddy?” Something's off.

Following him up the stairs, he attempts to slam the door in your face. The attempt, although feeble, made your steps falter a moment. Teddy’s never been one to back out of anything, not even a potential fight- that is, if he’s pissed at you. “Teddy?” you try for the last time, head placed against his bedroom door as you knock lightly. 

“...Just go away...” he sounds from within his room, voice muffled and slightly forced. He’s crying. The thought occurs after a moment, enabling you to push through the threshold of his room. Finally able to see him properly, his bag was thrown across the room, glasses dropped beside his bed, his body sprawled across it belly-down. Confirming your earlier thoughts, he lifts his head to look at you for a moment, eyes red and damp with many shed tears.

“What’s up, Bub?” you ask lightly, sitting at the corner of his bed and pulling his head into your lap.

“Promise not to tell mom?” 

“I promise,” you say, kissing the tip of your pinkie, then lifting it to the air, “Pinkie Swear, even.”

“I didn’t go to Gordie’s this weekend. Instead, we went on this bitchin’ adventure to go for that lost boy that was in the news. We were going to be on TV if we found him! ...And we did...He was all cut up, and bloody, and torn apart, and-and-and he was just so young. He was my age Y/N. But, then, when we were about to leave, Ace and his gang came to screw us on the whole thing and take the fame, but really, we didn’t want it anymore. Gordie and Chris were trying to cover the boy up instead, we figured it’d be best if no one knew where he was. We thought it would be better if we let him rest in peace rather than being blown all over the newspapers and stuff, ya know? Ace wouldn’t let up though, he didn’t care like we did, so Gordie pulled a gun on him, and he left...for now. He promised he’ll get us for it,” Teddy rants about the whole story of events that happened this weekend. It was when he described the boy’s body that you could finally see why he was so upset. No person should ever see such a thing, even if it was intended as a little adventure.

“Guess they don;t look the same like the movies, huh?” you try to joke, albeit sadly as you could see the swirl of emotions in Teddy’s eyes. He’s never been so vulnerable before, none of his liveliness or joking anywhere in sight.

“God no! That’s what I was thinkin’ he was gonna look like when we got there, but no. It was way worse. The producers and people got that shit wrong!”

“Hey, listen. I’m not gonna tell mom alright? And don’t worry about Ace. You, Gordie, Chris, and Vern have got nothing to worry about, I’m not going to let him get to you guys. Alright?” you ask again, cradling Teddy’s face in your hands as you wipe away the remaining tears with your thumbs. When he nods, you give him a light kiss on the tip of his nose, “Now get some sleep, I’m making some soup for dinner. Then we can watch Mickey Mouse Club if you want?”

“That sound good,” he mumbles, smoozing into the pillows and blankets comfortably.

Going down the stairs to prepare dinner, you hear a smashing noise from outside. Running to the front door quickly, you’re just able to catch Ace and his gang in a car, peeling down the street with a baseball in Billy Tessio’s hands. “Fuck you Ace!” you yell at him, satisfied when you see his head snap round to look at you, your middle finger high above your head. Just as you expected him to narrow his eyes in anger, he smirks instead, shaking his head and turning around in his seat, disappearing down the street in which he came.

///

This soon became a natural occurrence, Ace either appearing in his red convertible by his lonesome or in a group. Everyday, you are greeted with the same smashing noise of your wooden mailbox being smashed to bits. At some point, even your parents noticed Ace’s behavior and seemingly target on your house. So much so that they’d finally had enough, ordering you to either get him to stop or pay for the replacements. The latter is what you’d ended up with in the end, getting into multiple squabbles with Ace that end the exact same: him finding amusement in the whole ordeal, you flustered and out of good comebacks, and the result being that Ace continued his charades. It pissed you off to no end, the way he’d just flaunt his shit, all cocky without remorse.

That’s when an idea occurred. 

///

Marching down the front steps leading to your front door, you continue your way down to the end of the driveway. Looking down the street, you catch the familiar glow of his red convertible, this time only him in the car. Nodding to yourself, you hide behind the bush nearest the mailbox, out of view of Ace when he arrives. For days, you timed when Ace came around, the times almost lining up perfectly, like this was a part of his everyday schedule now.

The car, now coming to a slow stop, parks but remains on, the driver’s side door clamping shut upon impact as Ace steps out. Grabbing the wooden bat from the back seat, he makes his way around the car and prepares to line up his shot on the mailbox. Just as he gets ready to swing, you jump out from the bush; a horrible decision as his grip slips, the bat making connection with the side of your knee. 

Jumping back a little, it takes him a moment to notice what had just happened, your body splayed across the grass as an already purple bruise forms on your leg, whimpering in pain. “Ow!” you scream at him, trying not to cry as you get back on your feet, rubbing slow circles on the area, “Dickhead!”

“Who-Who you callin’ Dickhead, Sweets?” he stutters, still starstruck.

“I am! You just hit me with a damn bat, you Idiot!” 

“Oh, so now I’m an Idiot, too?! Who the hell jumps in front of someone with a fucking bat in their hands?!”

“I didn’t expect you to swing, dammit! I thought you’d stop when you saw me, not go through with it!” you yell, trying not to cry even more now as the pain becomes evident and the tears bubble up in your eyes.

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have gotten so damn close, and I could’ve missed!”

“You shouldn’t even be here! You shouldn’t be coming around here every. Damn. Day. Just to smash my fucking mailbox that I pay for by the way! You’ve broken so many of them that now it’s become my responsibility to pay for the new ones! And for what? Because a couple of boys found a dead kid? What were you even supposed to gain from that?! Why couldn’t you have just left everyone and everything alone?!” you scream, voice cracking at the end as the tears start to fall in frustrated droplets.

The air seems to get filled up in an intense silence, neither of you speaking nor looking at each other directly for a while. After some time, Ace speaks up, “Is that why you came out here today? To tell me everything I fuck up in?”

“No, Ace, I wanted to tell you to leave my brother and his friends alone. And, if you were just a smidge kind enough, to keep my mailbox out of it too,” you sniffle, looking at your feet.

As your glasses start to slide down the bridge of your nose again, you go to push them back up, Ace beating you to it however. Looking up at him, his hands stay on either side of your face, his thumb stroking at the soft skin. Eyes darting from his eyes to his lips, your cheeks heat up at the proximity. “What are you doing, Ace?” you whisper, so close, your breath ghosts across his lips.

“You mean, what are we doing?” he whispers back, pulling your face to his in a searing kiss just as you go to argue once more.

Slowly, you ease into the kiss, eyes fluttering close as you give in to the warmth and love behind it. Wrapping your arms around his shoulders, he goes to wrap his arms around your hips, finding comfort there. You forget about the pain in your knee for as long as possible, eventually pulling away from him in a flustered, embarrassed way as you go to check up on the bruise.

Getting on his knees, Ace takes your leg in his grasp, looking over what he’d done, ashamed. “It looks pretty bad, Y/N...Want me to go take you to go get it checked out?” he asks nicely, a different side of him.

“It’s just a bruise, I’ll be fine. I swear. But, if plan on this getting anywhere,” you start, pointing between the two of you, “then you better wise up, ya got me?”

“Yes ma’am!” Ace solutes lazily, smirking as he looks at the ground.

“Good,” you try to say sternly, breaking into a grin when you looks up at you through his eyelashes. “You wanna come inside and help me ice it?”

Chuckling now, Ace straightens, going to shut off the car and take the keys, grabbing your hand and leading you back through the front door. Giggling, you follow him as he tries to find everything himself, sitting you down on the couch, switching the TV on, scrambling around to find the freezer, and coming back with a bag of frozen peas. 

Panting as he hands you the peas, he stands out of breath from the little scavenger hunt, watching you. “Come on Lover-boy,” you say, pulling him down next to you on the couch by his shirt. Kicking off your shoes, he follows the same, eventually spreading out to cuddle one another. As your eyes drift to sleep in a light haze, you completely forget about the soup in the oven, jumping back up when the smell of smoke fills the room, “Shit!”

[cdroloisms]

take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi) 

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete. 

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now. 

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news. 

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright. 

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now. 

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots. 

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine. 

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?) 

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all. 

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen. 

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it. 

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs. 

“Michael!” 

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air. 

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!” 

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves. 

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands. 

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly. 

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?” 

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.” 

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice. 

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices. 

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return. 

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest. 

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all? 

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands. 

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team. 

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs. 

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!” 

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation. 

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return. 

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak. 

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?” 

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time. 

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?” 

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?” 

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in. 

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?” 

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud. 

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.” 

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.” 

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter. 

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.” 

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream. 

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for. 

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena. 

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops. 

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again. 

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!” 

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up. 

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge. 

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway. 

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“ 

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.” 

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.” 

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out. 

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best. 

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail. 

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly. 

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.” 

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions- 

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?” 

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut. 

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps. 

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well. 

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to. 

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before. 

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes. 

“Like you did that much.” 

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye. 

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs. 

“Fair.” 

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow. 

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. 

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future. 

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever. 

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team. 

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits. 

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?” 

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they? 

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body. 

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well? 

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream. 

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further. 

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him. 

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own. 

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?” 

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words. 

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?” 

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.” 

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?” 

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s  worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red. 

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?” 

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome. 

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break. 

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain. 

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.” 

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own. 

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake. 

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point. 

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.” 

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.” 

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time. 

Keep your head down. 

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.” 

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race. 

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!” 

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.” 

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again. 

“Thanks, guys.” 

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings. 

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?” 

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.” 

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs. 

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?” 

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back. 

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?” 

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!” 

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition. 

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down. 

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it. 

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap. 

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter. 

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder. 

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own. 

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it. 

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off. 

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off. 

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak. 

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod. 

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams,  watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team - 

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering  into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena. 

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?” 

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners. 

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route. 

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out. 

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused. 

“Gottem.” 

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting. 

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them. 

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby. 

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?” 

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective. 

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second - 

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!” 

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own. 

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue. 

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay. 

The smile slips off his face. 

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on. 

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what? 

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply. 

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it. 

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity. 

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all. 

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow. 

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down. 

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red. 

---

“What the hell was that?” 

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence. 

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?” 

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look  above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes. 

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-” 

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?” 

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter. 

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-” 

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?” 

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?” 

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features. 

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.” 

“...liar.” 

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down. 

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward. 

“Quackity!” 

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-” 

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops. 

“LET’S GO!” 

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows. 

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time. 

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself- 

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.” 

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?” 

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze. 

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.” 

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder. 

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp. 

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention. 

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.” 

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..” 

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.” 

“Thanks for everything, Scott.” 

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.” 

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing. 

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?” 

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?” 

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.” 

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him. 

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.” 

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached. 

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.” 

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.” 

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure. 

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?” 

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head. 

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.” 

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly. 

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.” 

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.” 

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life. 

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.” 

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow. 

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?” 

[serzhantkris]

Haunted- 14

Summary: He knew, from the moment he found her there, bathed in the glow of fire, that she would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Damon Salvatore x Reader

Masterlist

Taglist Open

Word Count: 2426

Author's Note: Really wanted this chapter to come quickly after 13 since not a lot happened in that one, so I just doubled them up. not even sorry.

The phone was ringing, and kept ringing, and ringing-

Voice mailbox full.

Damon cursed under his breath, smashing his thumb on the end call button. Jeremy flipped Matt over his shoulder, slamming him hard on the ground for the second time. Damon was less than impressed, and even less so when the pizza truck approached, the blonde girl who’d been delivering to them all week hopping out of the seat. Damon rolled his eyes.

“Really? Again?”

Matt picked himself up off the ground, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Double pepperoni, three days in a row. You guys eat anything else?”

“Why? You offering?” She jumped at Damon’s sudden presence behind her, and he held up two twenties in her direction. “That's something extra to cut off the pizza pipeline for a couple days. No matter how much they beg, don't come back.”

She left, taking Damon’s money, and Jeremy and Matt shared a glare that might have intimidated Damon, if he thought either of them stood a chance.

“Alright,” he said, digging through the duffel bag on the picnic table. He dumped it out, scattering bullets across the wood and onto the ground, and handed Jeremy the pistol. Jeremy’s brows rose. “Load it. Fast as you can.”

Jeremy sat at the table, skeptical, as Matt crossed his arms to watch. Jeremy did so, as he started shoving bullets in the clip, Damon began picking them up himself. Once all the bullets had been either put in the gun or in Damon’s hand, Damon held up his fist, and dropped the handful on the table in front of Jeremy. “Not. Fast. Enough,” he said. “Quarterback, take five. We’re gonna be here a while.”

Jeremy seethed as Damon unloaded the gun, dumping the bullets on the table. Matt took slow steps back, unsure, before going inside.

“Come on,” Damon said. “Do it again. Like your life depends on it. Since, you know, it does.”

“Don’t act like you care about my life,” Jeremy stood up, upsetting the table and sending bullets rolling off the edge. “We both know you’re only doing this because you feel bad. ‘Cause all you ever do is screw over your brother and everyone else who ever helps you. You want the hunter’s mark so you can get the cure for Elena and Y/N.”

“Yep,” Damon didn’t miss a beat, grabbing up the gun, stuffing bullets in the chamber. “Still requires you to be alive, so here we are. I agreed to help you, this is me helping.”

Jeremy scoffed, yanking the gun out of Damon’s hands. “How’s that feel?”

“What?”

“Having so many people hate you, that ‘alive’ is the status of your relationships with people.” Jeremy dumped the gun of bullets onto the table, throwing the pistol down a little too hard. Damon glared down at him, arms crossed over his chest.

“Okay,” he said. “This isn’t working.”

“Clearly,” Jeremy snapped, pushing away from the table.

“Am I interrupting?”

They both froze, looking toward the wood as Klaus stalked out of it toward them.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Klaus pursed his lips. “I'm simply appreciating the sights and smells of nature, neither of which presently include rotting vampire flesh, so I'm a bit concerned,” he turned toward Damon. “How many vampires has he killed?”

“He’s not ready,” Damon said, grabbing up the gun. He fiddled with a bullet, rolling it over in his hand. “You ever seen Piranha? Or Jaws?”

“Never had the time,” Klaus came closer, leaning on his arms on the table. “But that’s not a number, Damon.”

“I said he’s not ready-”

“And you’re not listening.” Klaus slammed a hand on the table, startling Jeremy. Damon’s hands curled into fists. “I killed twelve of my hybrids last night.”

“Let’s not forget Carol Lockwood,” Jeremy said.

“Yes,” Klaus said. “And poor Carol Lockwood. Lucky for you, I managed to quell my anger and not kill Stefan, after he knowingly let me walk into a deathtrap, so I think killing Carol Lockwood, and only Carol Lockwood, was quite generous of me.”

“Carol Lockwood, and twelve hybrids,” Damon reminded. Klaus smirked.

“Yes, well,” he stood up, straightening his jacket. “It was them or me. Lucky for me I have a very loyal little vampire who warned me I’d be walking into a trap, and was kind enough to trade something rather silly for that information.”

“Who would be stupid enough to-” Damon stopped, his face falling, and Klaus could only smile.

“So, tell me again, Damon. How many vampires has Jeremy killed?”

Damon swallowed. “Zero.”

Klaus clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “That’s not going to do it.”

“What did you give her?”

The smug grin on Klaus’s face did not falter or waver. He rounded the table, idly dragging his fingers through layers of dust on its surface, and stopped a few feet from Damon. “A promise,” he said.

***

There was something otherworldly about being in a building after dark, when it was void of people, and the only light was the fluorescent tubes above. There was no squeaking of shoes or slamming of lockers, the building abandoned as you carefully moved from one hall to the next, peering through the darkened windows of classrooms.

Something had been needling you, getting under your skin, making your hair stand on end, just plain wasn’t right, and it kept pointing you here, toward the school, toward the office of Professor Shane. The deeper into the building you got, the more uneasy the feeling in your gut became.

Your thoughts cut short, abruptly, as the sound of struggle met your ears, and you let your vampiric speed take you to the source of the disruption, but stopped short when you realized the sound was coming from a supply closet at the end of the hall. You listened, trying to ascertain what it was you were hearing before you kicked the door open, breaking the lock, and found exactly whom you were looking for…

Being drowned by a vampire you recognized only from photographs. You grabbed his shoulders, trying to wrench him away from the professor, but the original vampire was stronger, faster, and pinned you against the wall with such force, you felt the bones in your shoulders crack. He looked you over, taking in the red leather jacket, your boots, and lingering on the ring wrapped around your finger, and a light of recognition came across his eyes.

“You’re my brother’s lap dog,” he said. “One of the Salvatore lackies. What on earth are you doing here?”

“Looking for him,” you choked out, glancing at Shane as he gasped for air. Kol’s hand had found your windpipe, and he let go just enough for you to speak, but pushed against you harder in warning. “What are you doing?”

“Stopping this nonsense,” he said. “Before you all do something incredibly stupid.”

“And what would that be? Getting your brother the cure?”

He snorted, shifting so that his arm pinned both of your shoulders back, keeping you from being able to throw him back. “Waking Silas,” he said. “Bringing the end of the world.”

“That sounds a bit dramatic,” you retorted. Kol’s eyes narrowed, and before either of you could speak again, a figure stepped into the doorway.

“This is a lovely surprise.”

The girl, blonde, beautiful, leaned against the door frame. She looked down at the professor as Kol released you, tentative, his eyes trained on your face. You had never met her before, but she was unmistakable for anyone else. Rebekah Mikaelson.

“Don’t kill him,” she said. “He’s going to lead us to the cure.”

“Seems to be a popular assumption,” you said, rotating your shoulder as the bones snapped back into place. “I take it you don’t want it for Klaus.”

“Gods, no,” she said. “I want it for me.”

“Yeah, get in line.”

She moved, fast, until she was next to her brother. “No one stands between me and that cure.”

“Hey-“ you held your hands up defensively. You tried not to be afraid, in the face of two originals, but well aware that they could kill you in a heartbeat, you swallowed down any and all insults that jumped to mind. Kol stepped back, leering over the sputtering professor, and yanked him upward by his hair. “Listen, you want the cure, I want the cure- I get it, I do. And I’m pretty sure Klaus already has half my name on his Death Note as it is, so I’m not eager to help him write the rest down. But he is severely outnumbered.”

You had been careful. So careful, avoiding Klaus’s siblings, avoiding competition, anyone who might stand between you and Klaus and the cure- until Shane and Damon and Stefan and Elena had stepped in the way, everyone clamoring to grab it up. Things were messy, too messy, and adding more Mikaelsons to the mix did not make it easier to keep your cool or get you where you needed to be. It would be simpler to keep your head- figuratively and literally- if you managed to convince them to let you walk away with the professor.

“Well, that explains why you want it,” Rebekah narrowed her eyes and turned back to Professor Shane, still gasping for air on his hands and knees. “You're human. Why do you want it?”

“That's the beauty of this. You can have it. I just want Silas.”

Kol sped toward Shane, lifting him up by his shirt. “What do you know about Silas?”

“He's the world's first immortal being, who just happens to be imprisoned with the cure...and I want to free him.”

“This doesn’t have to go this way-“ Kol lifted a metal bar, and before you could continue, rammed the end of it into Shane’s gut. You yelled out, protesting, trying to stop it, but the blood was already spilling, and even as Rebekah called out, it was too late. Kol sped away, and you caught a glimpse of a stake in his hand as he vanished. Professor Shane fell into a heap on the ground.

“Wait,” you grabbed Rebekah’s arm, and she pushed you off, knocking you back into a rack of brooms and mops. “Wait, hold on. We can still get the cure.”

“And just why would I trust you?”

“Because-“ you struggled, fumbling to think of a reason why she shouldn’t kill you right then and there. “Because we’re both desperate, aren’t we? To be human again? Klaus, he wants to destroy it. Elena wants to take it, but she would never share it with you, would she? Would she?”

She pursed her lips. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N,” you swallowed, straightening, lowering your hands. “Klaus- Klaus asked me to help. To spy on the others, to get him closer to the cure, closer to Elena and everyone who stood between him and the cure.”

“Last I checked, I was one of those people,” she said. “Rebekah. Rebekah Mikaelson.”

“Well, Rebekah Mikaelson, I can tell you where to find the thing you need to get the cure. And help you get it.”

“And why might you do that?”

“Because,” you said. “I’ve had a very long, very tedious couple of weeks— and a change of heart, as it were.”

She considered you a long moment, her bright eyes scanning your face as though searching for a lie. “Alright then,” she said, finally, pushing the storage door open. “Let’s have a drink then, shall we?”

***

Something about sitting at the bar with Rebekah Mikaelson tasted sour, and you were washing it down with your second double of bourbon.

She was sitting sideways, twirling the straw of her drink around one finger as she watched you sip on yours. Neither of you had spoken since you’d sat down, eyeing the bartender- not Matt Donovan, thankfully. You cleared your throat, pushing the glass back to rest your arms on the bar.

“The professor has something in his possession,” you kept your voice low. Even though no one was close by, it was always hard to tell who was listening, especially when you had no idea exactly how many vampires were currently sitting in the Grill. “Something he needs to get to Silas.”

“The tombstone,” Rebekah said, rolling her eyes. “He needs it to raise Silas. Team Elena has the map, or at least the person who can give it to them. My brother Klaus has the sword, and here I am, empty handed and wondering why you’re still alive.”

“We’re going to get the tombstone. Or, I am. I know where it is. I’ll go take it, leaving you risk free.” You took slow sips of your drink as Rebekah’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll give it to you, with the exception that you help Team Elena get to Silas before Klaus.”

“You really think they’d want my help?”

“They will if you have something they want, like the tombstone. Shane won’t be surprised if he learns you stole it, so he’ll have to take you to Silas. You and the rest of the Scooby Gang.”

“And we’ll all celebrate while we take shots of the cure.” Rebekah’s lips twitched as she fought back a smile. “Leaving Niklaus out in the cold where he belongs.”

“He wants to destroy it. His plan was to let me take it and destroy the remainder, but somehow I don’t trust the man who murdered all of his hybrids and the mayor without batting an eye.”

“My brother’s never had attachment issues.”

“One condition,” you said, holding up a finger. Her brow quirked, interested, as you finished your bourbon. “No one else knows I stole the tombstone for you.”

“Worried your friends will see you for the traitor you are?”

“I’m not a traitor,” you retorted, setting the glass down a bit too hard. “I just want everyone to come out of this alive. And… Fighting to death over this means only one winner, and the way things are now I can’t guarantee it’ll be me.”

“Such a sweet motivation, still betrayal though. Think your friends will still like you if they realize you’re playing for multiple teams?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone when this is over, so even if they hate me, I’ll be halfway across the country.”

Rebekah laughed. “Running away from your problems, I see. Did you learn that one from Stefan?”

You didn’t look at her, dropping your eyes to the rings the glass left on the bar. “That one,” you said. “I learned from Damon.”

@allinhishands @navs-bhat @lordofthunderthr @hereforsumbucky @suspiciousmuffin

[luminari-mc]

My Human, My Sunshine - Part 1

Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort.

Pairing: GN!MC x Mammon

Word count: 5194

Summary: Mammon finds himself lost in the human world. Meanwhile, MC can't get ahold of Solomon, their phone dead silent.

Warnings: N/A

A/N: My first writing piece for Obey Me! It's kind of a long one so I recommend you grab a snack or two during it. While this part is occupied by a good amount of text messages between Mammon and someone else, I'm already thinking of writing a part 2 which will have way more dialogue. In the meantime, please enjoy this little scenario I came up with after listening to a song that set me in an angsty mood. :)

______________________________________________________

Wet. Cold. Exhausted. And completely lost.

Mammon felt all of those, and yet, his legs kept on marching into the dead of night, his jacket covering his head despite being too drenched to protect him from the rain anymore. Each time a droplet of water came rolling on his cheek, his wrist would come to brush it off, and Mammon would let out an annoyed groan. If only there were any shops open, but the city was definitely asleep. He was thankful for the crashing sound of the rain on the ground around him, along with the smell of the wet asphalt keeping himself awake, otherwise, he surely would have gone crazy by now. The demon had even lost count of how many hours he had been wandering through the streets, how many mailboxes he had checked, how few passersby he had come across, only to receive negative answers to his questions.

And so Mammon kept on walking, not sure where to go next. But he felt sure of one thing: he wouldn't stop moving until he had found what he was looking for. Be there rain, or no rain. Lost or not.

"Tch, the human world's weather really sucks..."

As he walked on the pavement, his brow furrowed from the lack of new clues as to where his destination was supposed to be. His eyes caught sight of a bakery he had already walked by earlier during the day, its gentle light piercing the darkness that had been accompanying him for far too long now. Mammon's brow furrowed slightly at the sight- he knew he had gone in circles time and time again, but seeing it confirmed once more rubbed him the wrong way. Despite that, he decided to walk towards it, and took shelter under the entrance's porch. Surely the owners wouldn't mind him checking his phone for a few minutes, right? Right.

Pinching between his fingers the precious D.D.D. he had tucked under his shirt to protect it from the rain, Mammon looked at the map again. His stomach dropped for the upteenth time upon seeing the address still showing in his search bar, the letters and numbers taunting him. A knot formed in his throat as he tried his best not to scream at his screen.

"It wasn't there, you idiot..."

His mouth formed into an angry pout. Mammon looked into the list of potential addresses he had made throughout the day, and all had been crossed out. He felt his jaw clench- not only was he left with no addresses, no other clues, no humans to help him, but also that stupid rain surely would keep on falling for the rest of the night.

He was truly cursed.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?!" Mammon groaned, his free hand reaching upward to grab at his hair in frustration.

Yes... that was a good question. What was he supposed to do? It wasn't like he could ask help from any of his brothers, or from the angels. It had already been a miracle a witch he knew accepted to snuck him into the human world without anyone knowing, but there was no way he'd get any more help from her without offering his own life in exchange. And contacting Solomon was absolutely out of the question, for his own obvious reasons that he still was suspicious of the guy.

For the longest time in a while, Mammon felt alone. More alone than he had ever been before. He had promised himself to go on this search on his own, stupidly thinking that it'd be over by the end of the day, and look where that got him. Lost in the human world, on the verge of catching some nasty human virus from all this rain that had poured on him, and without anyone by his side.

The grip on his phone tightened, the hand holding it shaking slightly as the anger was starting to consume the demon. Even Mammon's patience had its limits, and he was starting to reach it.

"Dammit, where the hell are ya-"

A pathetic yelp escaped his mouth as he looked in fear at his phone, which had buzzed for a very short second in his palm. Wait, was it a notification? But from who? He had taken all the necessary precautions before leaving, so who was still able to reach his number?

His mind ran through all possibilities as he quickly checked his screen, the name of the sender making him open his eyes wide.

Leviathan: Mammon!!

Leviathan: Where are you???

Leviathan: You promised me you'd play this new game with me after coming home from RAD, don't tell me you forgot?? It's been HOURS.

Leviathan: Also the others say they can't reach your DDD and Lucifer is seriously pissed!

Leviathan: And I know you didn't break your DDD, that wouldn't explain why I can send texts now and the others still can't. Even though mine didn't work before.

Leviathan: But do you know how much time and effort it took me to find a way to bypass a blocked number?? Well guess what, the same amount of hours since you broke your promise!

Leviathan: You're reading this, right? Then send something! Anything!

Mammon backed even more into the porch of the shop, his eyes stuck to the screen of his phone. All of the blood rushing to his head suddenly made him forget he was cold in the first place. Of course Levi would be the first to find a way to contact him.

The demon's chest rose as he breathed in heavily, his hands slowly wrapping around the phone. It took him a hot minute to get ahold of his trembling fingers so as to not make any typos, his mind debating whether responding was a good idea or not, even as he hit the send button.

Mammon: Sorry Levi, gonna have to postpone the gaming session.

Mammon: I got business elsewhere and I'm not sure when I'll come back home, if ever.

Leviathan: Ew stop sounding so gloomy, you're almost starting to sound like me and tbh it would be kinda creepy.

Leviathan: That still doesn't tell me where you are! I know it's like a common thing for you to get into shady stuff on a regular basis but even Lucifer seems concerned, and weirdly enough he's not even trying to hide it???

Leviathan: He's been pacing back and forth in the common room for 20 minutes and won't let go of his phone it's starting to creep me out.

Leviathan: Hey huh, if you really were in big trouble you'd let us know, right? Like, even by typing a secret message to let us know that you got kidnapped or whatever?

Leviathan: Nevermind, I really don't see why you'd even get kidnapped, so it HAS to be that you chose to disappear by yourself.

Leviathan: But anyway! It's been 2 months now since everyone's been acting weird and I've seen and heard you enough to CLEARLY see that you're getting worse but finding trouble with witches or whatever won't help you feel better. And yes I know you've been faking being fine the entire time!! Don't think you can fool me!!

Leviathan: Believe me and the hundreds of figurines I bought!! I thought they'd help and it's somehow doing nothing, I feel like the worst fraud of an otaku EVER!!! How can I call myself an otaku when I can't even find joy anymore in the things that make an otaku what he is??

Leviathan: It's like I'm losing my identity! Wait no screw that, it's not just me, we've all been losing it!!

The three dots of a message being typed disappeared and reappeared, and Mammon couldn't do anything but watch the messages of his brother pop up one after another on his screen. A sense of guilt surfaced inside of him, and it only made him frown. It's not as if he hadn't thought about asking Levi for help, before getting himself into this mess... but for both of their sakes, he had decided that it had to be him coming here, and only him.

But suddenly, just as he expected his brother to send another message, the three dots disappeared, and didn't come back right away. Mammon's focus on his phone increased at the unexplained absence of new texts from Levi, and he waited, expecting him to continue the chain of messages he had started. But nothing followed.

It wasn't in Levi's habits to suddenly stop texting in the middle of a flood of texts. The demon gripped his phone tighter, worry beginning to grow within his mind. Was it because they were in different worlds that their phones couldn't reach properly? Or worse- had Lucifer found him out?

His heart almost skipped a beat as the three dots reappeared under his eyes, before letting another message pop up.

Leviathan: wait

Leviathan: waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait

Leviathan: OMG NO WAY

Leviathan: MAMMON TELL ME YOU'RE KIDDING

Mammon: I literally haven't said anything?

Leviathan: YOU PERFECTLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

Leviathan: DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE IN THE HUMAN WORLD RN??

Shit.

How did he even find out?! Well... he could only assume that it wouldn't take a genius to figure out where Mammon could have gone if not anywhere in the Devildom, but still, why did Levi have to type it out? His plan was supposed to be flawless after all.

Mammon: Sorry bro, I can't say where I am.

Mammon: I know Lucifer's bound to check all of your DDDs sooner or later and that's only gonna help him find me.

Mammon: And like I said, I have something to do, so I can't come back.

Leviathan: Wait! I'll delete all of our messages, and I'll even destroy my DDD if it means you tell me why you're there

Leviathan: Actually no don't even answer, there can only be one reason you took that kind of risk

Leviathan: Is it... because of MC?

Upon reading their name again, Mammon felt his stomach sink. The eyes of the Avatar of Greed closed almost instantly as if to avoid reading it, the damp air whistling through his teeth as he breathed in deeply. Of course Levi would figure that out too. Any of his brothers could have.

The demon leaned his head against the wall behind him, his eyes opening and staring into nothing as he contemplated telling Levi about his plan. It wasn't as if he had any backup plans considering the situation he was in, after all. And Levi had the advantage of being at home, and having access to technology and magic that could improve his search further. But the thought of Lucifer figuring everything out still haunted him, making the hair on his skin stand straight.

And yet... At this point, he had nothing else to lose.

Mammon: Ya gotta promise not to tell anyone about this.

Leviathan: Who do you take me for? I'm not a snitch!

Leviathan: Especially if it's about MC.

Leviathan: But huh... what about Lucifer? You know that if when he finds out you went to the human world, he's going to kill you.

Mammon: Fuck Lucifer.

Mammon: I'm tired of hearin' him say he's "taking care of it". He clearly knows something but won't tell any of us and I'm tired of not getting any news from MC since they left the Devildom 2 months ago.

Mammon: And what's with his excuse about them not havin' their DDD anymore to contact us? I call that a load of bullshit.

Mammon: Something weird happened and Lucifer's too stuck-up to let us know what it is.

Mammon: So I'm done waiting around to see when they'll come back, or IF they'll even come back. So I'm going to get them myself.

Mammon: Problem is, I went to MC's place, and they weren't there. Their neighbor told me that they moved out a while ago with, get this, "a guy with white hair".

Leviathan: ??????? Solomon?????

Mammon: I'd bet my Demonio and all the things I possess that it's him.

Mammon: Not only Lucifer's in on this secret thing about MC, but Solomon too. I've already booked him an appointment with my fists if he did anythin' to them.

Mammon: Hell, even Diavolo and Barbatos seem to be in it too, which sucks even bigger time.

Mammon: So that means it's just us 6 who don't know shit. I wasn't about to play nice and dumb for Lucifer any longer.

Leviathan: Mammon

Leviathan: I never thought I'd ever write something like that to YOU

Leviathan: but

Leviathan: you sound super cool rn!! That just makes me wish I could have gone too!!

Leviathan: Pleasepleaseplease let me help!!! I'm also worried about MC and I miss having them here. The atmosphere at the house has sucked ever since we realized we couldn't text or call them anymore and I huh... kinda miss seeing them around the others too.

For a split second, Mammon considered taking a screenshot of Levi's last message to sell it as "the proof that the Avatar of Envy can control his jealousy!", but now wasn't the time for that. He had Levi's approval for helping him find the whereabouts of MC, and that's all he needed at the moment. He hadn't even noticed his lips turning into a small grin upon reading his brother offering his support.

Mammon: Alright Levi listen.

Mammon: All I'm tryin' right now is to find where MC might be.

Mammon: I don't think they left the place I'm at, but I ain't about to search at every damn house there is here. Would take too much time anyway.

Mammon: So can ya use your shut-in powers and figure somethin' out? Like I don't know, catch their human phone's signal or whatever through hacking?

Leviathan: Lol? I'll let you know it's not because I spend my entire days in my room that I know how to find a human phone!

Leviathan: I know how to hack yeah, but I don't know how to hack human technology! Not that I maybe tried once or twice and it resulted in failure each time.

Leviathan: But huh... I could try?

Leviathan: Let me ask Satan if we could use magic too.

Mammon: Satan? Levi, are you stupid? Last thing we want is to get more people to know about what I'm doing.

Leviathan: Oh huh yeaaaah, about that.

Leviathan: I should have told you sooner, but when I stopped answering earlier it's because Satan caught me texting you.

Leviathan: But he actually knew you had left to the human world! So we don't have to worry! He's on our side... obviously.

Mammon: Then the two of you get on it.

Mammon: And don't catch Lucifer's attention.

Leviathan: Yeah!

Leviathan: I'll let you know when we've found something.

Leviathan: BRB!

And then just like earlier, Levi's texts stopped appearing on his screen. A sigh left Mammon's lips as he closed his eyes, and the demon allowed his body to slide against the wall behind him until he was sitting on the ground. As he stretched out his sore body, the second-born finally realized that after two whole months of not getting to hear MC's voice, seeing their smile, getting to touch them... he had gotten closer to finding them, all thanks to his brothers. He had let Lucifer's intimidation get the best of him throughout all this time, but not anymore. No matter whether his older brother would catch wind of where he was, and what he was doing, Mammon would never stop trying to bring back MC where they belonged. With him, in the Devildom, back with the family they had found and grown to love.

Closing the messaging app with his thumb, the picture of MC he had set as his D.D.D. background seemed to radiate like the sun. How dared them all try to separate his human from their first man? From the one who'd they come to whenever they had a nightmare and couldn't fall asleep? The demon who'd hug them as tight as possible in their bed after a long day at RAD? The one who'd had the chance to fall asleep with them, getting the absolute honor of seeing their face so close to his, and who'd protect their dreams from any bad thoughts and scary nightmares?

The anxiety that Mammon had worn on his face all day slowly disappeared, and a small smile was placed upon it instead as his eyes met MC's in the picture.

"I'm almost there. Ya just gotta be patient a little more."

I'll find ya.

Time went on as Mammon waited for any news of Levi and Satan's research. The rain showed no sign of clearing soon, and the demon was starting to doze off after spending his entire day without taking a single break. He could have almost fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the owner of the bakery opening the door to close his shop and asking him to sit somewhere else. So Mammon moved from one spot to another, and took shelter near another store instead.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting on the stone steps he had sat on, his phone's screen flashed a bright light as a new notification from Levi appeared from the top. Quickly passing his wrist on his tired eyes, Mammon tapped on the new message at the speed of light. The contents made him gasp, and for a second, he had almost forgotten how to breathe, as his now wide-open eyes were glued on the content of the message.

A full-on address, along with a picture of the place.

Mammon instantly stood up at the sight of the picture, the memories of his day resurfacing in a flash. He remembered very clearly seeing this particular building sometime during his search- its height had been making it stand out very easily amongst the other buildings in the city. Nobody couldn't mistake it with anything else.

Mammon: This is it?

Leviathan: Yeah, we placed down a map and confirmed it was there.

Leviathan: Satan actually found a book in his room with a spell that can help find a person's specific item with just some of their DNA.

Leviathan: So we went to MC's room and found some hair that Satan used for the spell, along with his phone so it could narrow down the list of MC's items.

Leviathan: I didn't think Satan's room could look even more of a mess, but he spent 10 minutes shoveling through his collection and now you can't even see the floor or his bed anymore lol

Leviathan: Anyway now that you got what you wanted, go and check if MC is there!

Mammon felt his legs move on their own as he flipped his jacket above his head and stepped under the rain again, a confident grin now brightly adorning his face as he typed on his phone to reply.

Mammon: Thanks Levi. I'll owe ya one.

Leviathan: Find MC and bring them back. Then you can consider us even.

Mammon nodded, a newfound hope filling his entire body and mind. After confirming that Levi had ceased texting him, the demon turned the phone off. He opened his hand to drop it on the wet floor, and let his right foot crash down upon it, the object almost breaking in half. Mammon promptly gathered in his hand the shattered item, now completely unusable, and threw it down a nearby sewer before letting his excitement take the best of him and sprint further in the direction of the building from the picture. At least, now Lucifer wouldn't be able to track him down with it if Levi and Satan got caught.

The more distance he covered, the more Mammon could swear he was about to take on his demon form at any moment. The thoughts of MC began to fill his head even more, as if they were the one pushing him to find them, to get to them as soon as possible. For the first time in 2 months, Mammon felt truly alive.

"Almost there. The Great Mammon's coming for ya, MC!!" he let out in the form of an encouragement to himself, his legs having found their energy again as his form was engulfed further into the city.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Anxiously pacing around the room, their head low and their phone in their hands, MC was growing more and more impatient. They were supposed to receive an update from Solomon about three hours earlier in the form of a phone call, but no matter the amount of messages they'd spent in the hopes of the wizard finally answering them, all they received was a dreadful silence. Grabbing a nearby chair, they let their body fall onto the seat as their fingers typed yet another message. They couldn't really understand how they had come to grow so persistent when it came to getting Solomon to reply to them, but having no other person to talk to ever since they left the Devildom 2 months prior would do that to anyone, they assumed.

'Solomon, sorry, I know I'm sending a lot of texts, but you said you'd visit today and I'm starting to be worried and... honestly a bit lonely. I thought going out today would help, but I just sat in the park for an hour before going back home and not doing much of the day.'

'You were supposed to meet with other wizards today, right? I hope nothing bad happened. But in case you're alright, all I'm asking is just one reply to at least get some sort of human connection. Not that I had a lot of it in the past few months.'

They felt their throat tighten upon writing their last sentence, feeling the frustration spilling out of their own words right back into their face. But who could blame them?

2 months without seeing, hearing, or even texting their friends back in the Devildom. 2 months without receiving a single visit from Luke or Simeon. 2 months spent exclusively with the company of Solomon, who had been acting strange ever since and had made them move out of their home under the excuse that it was to "train them at magic in a more private setting". But more importantly... those had been 2 months without having Mammon around, and MC would lie if they said they hadn't spent several nights crying themself to sleep, wondering how the demon was dealing with their absence.

The memories of their latest departure from the Devildom played in their head like a movie as they placed a hand on their forehead. Everything had seemed alright at the time, with them getting to say their usual goodbyes to the brothers, wishing to see them again once the new year at RAD would start, foolishly thinking that they'd get to spend their time hearing their voices on a daily basis once they were back in the human world. And before they could understand, their DDD had been taken from them, Solomon had been more present in their life than ever before, and for a reason they still couldn't grasp, it was as if the brothers had vanished from their life completely. No news whatsoever. Complete radio silence.

Just thinking back to this period, and how they could have probably caught that something was up as soon as Diavolo asked for their DDD after the brothers had left... it just made them want to puke.

But nothing could make them want to do so as much as the long-awaited reply of Solomon appearing on their screen.

'Hi MC. I'm deeply sorry I couldn't get ahold of you throughout the day. I won't be able to visit you today, since my services are still required here. Besides, it's getting late. I recommend you go have a good night's sleep as soon as possible.'

'If everything goes smoothly, I should be able to come back tomorrow. Then, we'll be able to go walk wherever you want. How does that sound?'

'I need to be going, but I shall wish you a good night. Take care, MC.'

And just as quickly as he had answered, Solomon went silent again. Leaving them in this apartment they had grown to hate, this prison cell he had put them in. A place where no fun could be found for them. MC didn't even bother sending anything else after that.

Their head sunk even lower, until their forehead slowly met with the hard surface of the dinner table. The phone faceplanted onto the wood as MC's hands turned into hard fists, a deep groan shaking the walls of their throat. It was hard not to let the tears escape their eyes, but instead, they opted to punch the table several times as hard as they could, until they felt their anger diminish.

How long was Solomon going to act ignorant towards them? How long was he going to ignore their pleas to get news from the Devildom, anything that would let them know why they couldn't contact the brothers, Diavolo and Barbatos? Even if the lords had been in some sort of trouble... they'd still find time to talk to their human, right? There was no way Mammon, the one they loved, wouldn't try to reach them one way or another... right?

Him who had been so clingy in such an adorable way every time they'd be at the House of Lamentation, he who had revealed to them that there wasn't a single day where his thoughts wouldn't drift to them no matter how hard he tried...

No. No amount of important duties would explain why Mammon of all demons, would ignore them like that.

They missed his antics. His entire being. The warmth he'd bring them each time he'd hold their hand before tucking his face into their neck like a pouting child, desperately trying to sneak one or two kisses in there, in the hopes he'd get to hear that sweet giggle of them. It wasn't for nothing that Lucifer had come to name them the chaotic duo of the House of Lamentation. They were two parts of a whole.

And yet, the world had dared to separate them. And MC was tired, oh so tired of not having their other half near them. The only feeling they had left, was one of pure desperation to see their greedy demon.

"I'm not asking for much... even a single word would do." MC replied to no one as they turned their head to rest their cheek onto the table. They closed their eyes, the anger slowly being replaced by a profound exhaustion. Could they really do nothing but act normal around Solomon, and accept that this was now their new life? No demons, no angels, just... humans around them?

Before they could slap the thought away, a loud banging coming from the entrance door made them straighten in their seat, their head turning towards the hallway in a panic. Their heart pounded inside their chest as the banging seemed to go on forever, until they used the back of their chair to push themself up, their legs shaking.

"S...Solomon?" They asked, way too silently for anyone to hear, and fully knowing that the person behind the door couldn't be the wizard.

As if they were waiting for an answer, MC stood there, their hand grasped onto the chair. The banging was insistent, demanding, angry. At this time of night, there were few reasons they could think why someone would mistreat their door in such a way, and MC wasn't sure they wanted to find the reason for it.

That is, until the person behind the door finally let their voice be heard.

"Oi, MC! Ya can hear me right?! Come on, open the door!"

It didn't take long for MC to let the familiar voice enter their ears, and it took less time for them to nearly stumble over the chair as their legs moved in a hurry to lead them towards the door as quickly as possible. Their hands messily trying to open the locks on the door, they were sure their mind had just played a trick on them, and the person outside was going to leave them completely disappointed, but they didn't care. This voice they could only remember so well despite the time since they had last heard it, was simply inviting them to open the door, to check for themselves whether it was true, or just a nasty joke played by their brain.

But as the last lock was undone, and the door was swung open, MC couldn't do anything but just stand there, their mouth agape.

Mammon kept on drawing breaths, his wet hair stuck to his forehead and drops of rain falling from his clothes onto the floor below, so much so that it had started to create a small puddle underneath him. As if the person who opened the door wasn't the one he expected, the demon took a step back, letting his eyes wander up and down on the human he had in front of him, almost in an attempt to check if it was really them. He too, couldn't stop his mouth from hanging open at the sight.

The two of them just stood there for a few seconds, taken by so many emotions at once that they weren't sure what to do. But right as Mammon took a step forward, his mouth opening some more to let out words that he so desperately had wanted to say for so long now, MC's face contorted into one of pure sadness before they rushed towards him. Mammon greedily welcomed them into his arms as they jumped and wrapped their arms around his shoulders, and their legs around his waist. They buried their face into his neck, the warmth of their tears mixing with the rain on his skin.

His embrace only tightened even more as they mumbled his name amidst broken sobs, the sound ever so close to his ear that even though he had his eyes firmly closed, he might have cried on the spot too. But he had found them. He had them in his arms again. After what had seemed like a million years, finally, they were back where they belonged, and he was back with his human.

Almost as if they were about to be pulled away from him, Mammon placed a hand on the back of their head, wanting to protect their entire being from harm no matter the cost. He still wasn't sure why it had taken so long for him to reunite with them despite the obstacles, but at the present moment, nothing else could matter.

The lord had finally found them, and he wasn't about to let anyone interfer between their happiness once more.

"I ain't letting you go." He whispered through gritted teeth, his head lowering into their shoulder. "Ever again."

[vinyls-and-valentines]

🐑 hello tell me some cherri headcanons u have if u want :D

Ohohoho! The specialest little (demi)boy <3

Cherri is a first generation immigrant and bilingual! His first language is romanian despite having been born and raised in the US, but as years went by he forgot a good chunk of it from disuse. Nowadays they only really remember nursery rhymes and a couple poems that they usually repeat under their breath to pass the time when he's alone.

He started growing his hair out back when he was 12-13 years old to piss off his aunt and just kept it throughout his teenage years and into adulthood. The length changed from chin length to past his shoulders to just above the shoulder and the dyed streak in the front is definitely a more recent development, however, courtesy of NewsAGoGo who decided its (honorary) sibling deserved a makeover for making the unfortunate decision to be the only other blonde at the station outside Hot Chimp whose hair was already dyed. The streak has been, in order: neon green, hot pink, faded grayish teal, and finally chick yellow because after, like, 10 years they finally bleached it— perhaps a little too well, but that's neither here nor there. The streak stuck with him stubbornly until the very end.

Their poems are often abstract in nature although possesing something of a romantic flare them, and it'd be a lie to say they haven't dipped their toe into dadaism before. He never shared any of his poems until one day he crashed at the WKIL station to stay for good, and even then the poems that punctuate the last minutes of a WKIL active broadcast are written specifically for the show. There are, of course, rumors of a rogue notebook of Cherri's poetry going around the Zones, but whenever they're asked about it they shrug and say it belonged to someone he once knew. Nobody believes him, of course— nobody but those who know.

Cherri isn't exactly famous for his good decisions or people skills because for a good long while he actively tried to push away anyone who dared care about him— he succeeded at it in the case of Jet and Poison, got kicked out of the WKIL station by Dr. D more than once, and the same can be said about being on the wrong side of a pointed glare or the barrel of a gun. It's hard to explain what exactly he was trying to achieve by this, something between convincing himself that family is as temporary as it seemed once and justifying that he's better off being a footnote in someone's life on the page detailing the worst day of their life than having a whole chapter dedicated to all the ways he's a fuck-up, but it is undeniable that as much as they pushed people away, they always seemed to attract the kinds of people who'd make him feel worse. Make him into more of a screw up, because why bother hiding it from the world anymore?

While they have always been part of the WKIL station, even through arguments petty and spiteful, they largely consider themself a vulture; someone who helps masks or any other trinkets find their way to the Witch's mailbox so their late owners may find their way easily to the afterlife (whichever that may be), and who sometimes has to break up one or two claps to recieve said items. And if Cherri ends up breaking said claps a bit too early for there to be any still corpses on the ground other than ones dressed in white clad uniforms, well...neither the Witch, Destroya or God have struck him down yet.

Mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: in spirit of their grandparents doing the same thing, Cherri always slips little trinkets he thinks the Girl might like in her pockets unnoticed so when she finds it she can have a little gift from him even if she doesn't know it.

[sunjaesol]

juke | spiderman au | tw: violence | title: motion // luke hemmings

🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️

"Hey, Julie," Luke greets, walking into Molina's Flowers & Gifts.

It's quiet in the store. An abundance of flowers packed together winking at him, corners stuffed with candles, books, vases and picture frames. It's a well-loved shop, within the Molina family for decades, their youngest daughter and his classmate now meandering behind the counter.

She smiles, "Hey, Luke. How are your aunt's tulips?"

"Uh," he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck, "very... tulip-y."

"Solid."

"Yeah. Anyway—" he points at her "—about the assignment. I can't do it with you."

She frowns. "Why?"

Because at night, he has to patrol the city! Who else is going to protect and serve New York — or Queens, specifically! They need him! Sure, they don't appreciate him or, y'know, know who he is, but...

As much as he wants to work with Julie — and really, he does, she's amazing — he simply can't. That's the responsibility he's taken upon himself as Spiderman and he has to honour that.

"Family commitment," he lies with a grimace. "I can do some research in the library this week, but—"

"Forget it," she mutters. "I'll do it. But you present, okay? I hate public speaking."

He sighs in relief. "Thank you! Yes, you got it!"

"You owe me now, you know that?" she asks, peering. It reminds him how she, unlike him, is a full-blooded New Yorker. She has bark and bite, while he has that Los Angeles softness buffing the edges of his actions.

Unless he's Spiderman. Then there's no stopping him.

Leaning against the counter, he tries dazzling her with a charming smile. "Like what?"

She thinks for a moment, face twisting up in that cute, pensive face she has; always crossing her features during calculus or physics. Another reason why he hates bailing on her: she's mad cute — and one of the few people at school that doesn't regard his music mania as geeky.

"Every weekend, me and my dad go to the flower market and get our batch. It's at four am. My dad's sick, so you're joining me this Saturday."

He grimaces. "Four? Really?"

"I know you're not Jewish. You're free."

"I could be!"

Her head tilts, amused. "Are you, Patterson?"

Sighing, his head drops along with his resolve. She has him. "Fine. Yes, I'll help you. Don't blame me if I fall asleep with my eyes open!"

Julie giggles at his remark and it makes him look up, a giddy feeling spreading in his chest. Her face is close to his, the colours of the flowers glimmering in her eyes, and he's kind of taken by her. Wow.

"Great. Now get out of my store!" she commands, grabbing the broom beside her. "I need to sweep the floors."

Pushing himself off from the counter, he cheekily salutes at her and bids goodbye, bouncing outside mere seconds later. That went better than expected — he even made her laugh!

Reggie sends him a text. I updated your suit. Good to go for tonight with zero malfunctions!

His grin widens. This Tuesday afternoon could not have gone better!

~

Fuck. He should've known those words were gonna jinx him.

Luke slings from skyscraper to skyscraper after a gang of armed criminals, failing to capture them with his webs and almost being shot himself just ten minutes ago!

Yeah, sneezing loudly during their very creepy gang meeting in a quiet Queens alleyway was not his proudest moment. Fucking hay fever.

It's even worse that they're fighting in his neighborhood, the streets familiar and well-trodden by him, his friends, his family. His stomach twists up with dread, but he has to keep going. He almost has them!

There's six of them, so he's sure he can get a few from a distance. Quickly mapping out his strategy from the ledge of a building, bug eyes gleaming in the street lights, he launches into action.

(There are police sirens in the distance, likely being called after the thugs broke into that bank, but Luke can't wait. This is his time.)

Webbing two against the brick walls of a bodega, he throws a joke alongside it too and adds extra webbing to their mouths. No need to hear their response!

A third thug gets lassoed towards him, dizzying the man, and a simple swing of the fists knocks him out cold.

The other three keep sprinting, shooting over their shoulder all precariously. If Luke wasn't running on adrenaline and fright, he'd scoff at their mindless use of bullets. One hits a lamppost, a mailbox, a tree.

(On that tree, a “who is spiderman?” poster, something he'd get excited over if, again, there wasn't a crime to be solved. Damn it, thugs!)

He manages to shoot a gun out of one man's hand and then web him down on the pavement, but the last two outsmart him. Exhaustion weighs his bones down — it's one am, school starts at eight, he has to pretend to be all normal and cool — and the police still hasn't arrived.

Any nagging thought gets knocked out of his mind the second he sees them crashing the windows of the Molina's, barelling into their store. His gut plummets while anger rises, reaching a fever pitch shaped in an angry cry and a boost of energy. Screw, strategy! He needs to fix this!

Zooming into the store after them, more bullets hurl by, shattering glass and vases and flying past their faces. It works to his advantage, the criminals trying to shield themselves with their hands, a sudden weak spot. Luke webs one to the ground, extra hard.

But then two arms curl around his neck from behind.

"Whoa!" he chokes out, flailing to be released. "C'mon, man!"

"Time to sleep, Spiderman!" the criminal snarls with a thick east coast accent, tightening his iron hold.

Luke helplessly tries hitting him with his feet and elbows, but the man is rock solid and his spidey system malfunctions again from the high levels of stress. Shit!

Just as he feels lightheaded, a resounding clang! makes the arms slacken, the man slumping on the ground like a heavy sack of potatoes. Staggering away, he whirls around, only to come face to face with an enraged Julie Molina.

She squeaks out an undignified warrior cry, raising her baseball bat once more to knock him out.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he yells, grabbing onto the end of the stick before she gives him a concussion. "I'm the good guy! I'm—" he lowers his voice "—I'm Spiderman!"

The bat clatters to the ground. Her eyes slowly drift to the webbed man and the man's ass she whooped. And then, when he thinks she'll start crying from shock, she looks back at him in confusion.

"Why did you lower your voice like that?"

He blinks. Not what he expected. "Wha-? No, I didn't."

"You did. You sounded like a boy and now you don't."

He groans, stomping his foot. "I didn't! Anyway, Ju- miss. Girl. Thanks for the help. The police is on their way."

Her shoulder sag, now seemingly registering what just transpired. Her eyes, previously so pretty in daylight, well up with tears as she takes stock of her ruined family establishment. Luke swallows back the guilt, the immense urge to comfort her.

If he had just been faster... none of this would've happened.

A sob wracks her body. "My- my store. My dad. The flowers. We- we-" Her gaze locks on his, furiously devestated. "Why did you lead them here?!"

He raises his hands in defense. "I didn't! They trespassed! I- I'm so sorry, miss."

Her head shakes, more tears slipping down her cheeks. "That's not... good enough. Please go."

"Miss—"

"Go!" she shouts, pointing at the broken window.

He nods, obliging, utters once more the police is coming, and flies out the window. His mask rubs uncomfortably against his skin, cold sweat and tears pricking like needles.

When the next day at school Julie is nowhere to be found, he's not surprised.

🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️

@blush-and-books @bluefirewrites @thedeathdeelers @unsaid-emily @willexx @ourstarscollided @pink-flame @constantly-singing

[ey8508]

Helm

Rumors and Secrets: Victor | 李泽言  

[ He always knew how to insert each screw where it should be. ]

Note:

R&S for this card (CG above)

Chapter SPOILERS up to Season 2: Chapter 14-17 (read at your own risk)

Contains 5 chapters

Translation isn’t 100% accurate (or include grammar errors)

Every part for LZ’s dialogue would be in “this setting”

Do not repost to any other site (reblog is fine)

Chapter 1 Page 1 -Caerus, there is an investigation task for you. - Target name? - Guozi is a newcomer who organized the audit. Her relevant information is in the attachment. - Once received, when do you want it? - Before next Wednesday. - with such little time, the salary has to be increased by 20%. After the dialogue on the screen was stagnant for a while, the other side only replied a word: OK. Page 2 Duan Junjie put down his phone and was about to continue to look at the acquisition contract in front of him when he was suddenly patted on the shoulder. The colleague smiled and asked him: "Lawyer Duan, our department is going to have a dinner on Sunday. Would you like to come together?" "Sorry, there is something on the weekend, I can't come." Duan Junjie shook his head. The man's face was a bit unpleased: "Last time you also said that when something happened, why didn't you stay active with everyone? Eating a meal is also a way of communicate feelings." Page 3 "Forget it, I have been in Huarui for so long, and I haven't seen lawyer Duan participate in the department team building!" The female colleague opposite Duan Junjie smiled and replied, "I would rather offend the high-level staff and never work overtime. You still want to occupy his weekend, don't even think about it." The colleague left angrily, but Duan Junjie kept his head buried in work without commenting on the evaluation of him by the people around him. At exactly six o'clock, he sent the compiled attachments of the acquisition contract to the mailbox of the president's office, ready to pack his things and get off work, when the computer suddenly received a notification. Page 4 Is President Li so optimistic about the contract?  Although he knows that the person in charge of the Huarui Group is extremely efficient, the time limit is too ridiculous.  He clicked on the message and found that it was an anonymous email with a bunch of garbled characters. Duan Junjie frowned. This string of garbled codes was in disorder, but he soon discovered that it was an e-mail with two layers of special encryption, and the secret key was only available to members of BLACK SWAN.  After deciphering the garbled code, he found that it was a sentence and a "S" symbol with a thicker style at the end. Come to the conference room of BLACK SWAN headquarters. Page 5 Duan Junjie read this sentence silently, and frowned. The other party does not use the B.S. communication channel, but uses an anonymous IP to send it. Obviously, it wants to bypass the surveillance of some people in the organization. After the establishment of the BS board of directors, the original Twelve members did not easily surrender to the BOSS. They were secretly engaged in a few small actions, although Duan Junjie is just a crew responsible for intelligence, because of the nature of the work, someone from Twelve has either hinted or tempted him, They secretly made a few small moves. Although Duan Junjie was just a screw responsible for intelligence, because of the nature of the work, there was also TW elve.  Duan Junjie refused either by suggesting or tempting him but Duan Junjie refused. And now... Duan Junjie looked at this email and realized something vaguely. Page 6 He glanced at the time, and now he is leaving to meet the sender of the email. It should be too late to get home at eight o'clock and cook cat food for Amo. Although he was mentally prepared, when he opened the door and saw the man sitting across the long table, Duan Junjie still couldn't help but blurt out: "Mr. Li" The man opposite the long table did not erect the barrier to cover his face. He wore a suit with a straight back and a calm expression, no different from sitting in the office of the president of Huarui Building. Duan Junjie paused, then changed his words, "BOSS." Page 7 Li Zeyan pushed the document in front of him, "I know that your superior has just sent you a task, push that task, and do this first". "Push it." Duan Junjie took the file, "Does it mean that I don't have to keep in contact with him again?" Li Zeyan did not speak. His silence indicates his answer. Duan Junjie fixed his glasses and read the document roughly: "When do you want it?" "Before next Wednesday. Is it difficult?" Page 8 "It's not difficult, but it will take up a lot of my rest time. And I see that this part of the document is just a lead, and the things that need to be explore later are much larger than these papers." He emphasized, "This will be a long work, BOSS." "State your salary expectations." Duan Junjie seriously considered his mortgage and car loan: "Fourteen salary." "Sixteen salary." Li Zeyan looked at him directly, "correspondingly, you have to get back information worth this value." Chapter 2 Page 1 Duan Junjie’s life is very regular. He gets up at 8 in the morning and makes a cat meal for Amo. Then he takes the subway that arrives at 8:27, leaves the station at 8:47, and walks for five minutes to Huarui building, go to the cafeteria to get an egg, two buns, and a cup of soy milk. Sometimes, according to the mood of the day, he changes it to milk, and make sure to turn on the computer at nine o'clock and start working. He is just a screw built in the Huarui Group, as long as he is firm and wedged in where he should be on time everything should be fine. It’s just that there are accidents occasionally in a regular life, such as today. Page 2 At 8:51, when Duan Junjie was about to walk to the door of Huarui building, his footsteps suddenly stopped because a fallen leaf was hanging in front of him for five seconds. An Evolver has used their ability. Duan Junjie quickly reacted. He looked around, cars, pedestrians, even the giant screen advertisements that flickered forever in the distance stopped. In the world of silence, the sound of leather shoes stepping on the ground seemed so clear. Page 3 Duan Junjie saw Li Zeyan appear from the other end of the intersection, walked calmly to the middle of the road, came straight to a car and bent down.  When he got up again, there was a tabby cat in his arms. When Li Zeyan hold the cat and stepped onto the sidewalk, time began to flow again.  The noise reappeared in the city in an instant, the cars and the crowd were intertwined, and no one noticed the small change just now. Li Zeyan stepped forward, suddenly as if he noticed, that he turned his head to look at Duan Junjie not far away. "Mr. Li." Duan Junjie greeted him and walked over. Page 4 Li Zeyan nodded, took the cat to a safe place and put it down.  The little cat was shocked and still seemed to be reluctant to leave Li Zeyan. After stepping on Li Zeyan's hand back and forth, it turned around and jumped into the bushes of flowers. Duan Junjie looked at the back of the cat, and inexplicably thought of his own Amo: "It has a labelled ear and it is a sterile cat." "The cats in this area have been neutered." Li Zeyan replied. These two sentences have no beginning and end, but the atmosphere is calm. Duan Junjie continued: "I didn't expect you to be a cat lover." Page 5 Knowing that all the cats in this area have been neutered and willing to use EVOL to save a cat, it really does not fit Duan Junjie’s impression of Li Zeyan. "It's just a matter of effort." Li Zeyan took off the cat's fur on his cuffs. "If it is not careful, it will not be saved every time." As soon as the voice fell, a thin mist gathered in Li Zeyan's always firm eyes, and his expression became a little dumbfounded as if something had touched his mind. Page 6 Duan Junjie saw Li Zeyan with this expression for the first time, but he intuitively felt that he shouldn't ask more. So he took a step back, "Then I will go first, and the yesterday's document will be sent to you before a quarter past ten in the morning." At 8:57, Duan Junjie arrived at the Huarui cafeteria. Today he bought one less egg because he wants to save time and punch in on time.

Chapter 3 Page 1 Whether as Caerus or Lawyer Duan, he has been very busy this time.  Huarui's acquisition plan has advanced to a critical stage, and the investigation of the "small syringe" has also fallen into a bottleneck. Even Duan Junjie, who has no commercial sense, knows that this kind of medicine that can enhance Evol can create huge benefits that can change the world.  He once suspected that Li Zeyan’s reason for being particularly concerned about "small syringes" was the instinct of capitalists to seek profit, but if they were chasing profits, they should put this unstable pharmaceutical package on the market as soon as possible, instead of letting him investigate  The "black hand" behind the shadow of the "Syringe" incident. "Lawyer Duan, we'll be going first." Page 2 "Okay, bye." Colleagues picked up their bags and said goodbye to him. When they walked to the door, they could still hear a faint sentence floating over there: "Lawyer Duan also works overtime. It's really rare." The sky gradually darkened, and the neon lights of the city outside the floor-to-ceiling windows lit up for the first time.  Duan Junjie was the only one left in the huge office. No breathing could be heard in the silent environment, only the monotonous keyboard percussion sounded in the ups and downs! A sharp alarm interrupted Duan Junjie's work. He quickly opened the alarm interface and found that the source of the alarm was actually for Li Zeyan's office of the president! Page 3 "The sound pulse in the office fluctuates abnormally" Duan Junjie whispered while looking at the screen, "someone went there?" It’s not surprising that Li Zeyan would be watched. Duan Junjie was surprised that someone dared to do something in Li Zeyan’s office. He immediately sent an encrypted signal to Li Zeyan to get the other party out of the office immediately. However, after a long time, Li Zeyan on the camera  still motionless.  Immediately he saw a girl pushing open the door of the office, still holding some documents in her hand. The boss of Huarui Investment’s gazed at the film and television company, also a member of BLACK SWAN, Miss NOX. "That's it, there wasn't anything major?" Page 4 Seeing this scene, Duan Junjie breathed a sigh of relief.  It also reflects that the time for NOX to report on official business is the anti-tracking time given to him by Li Zeyan, and he must be worthy of the sixteen salary that Li Zeyan gave him. An hour later, Duan Junjie stood in front of Li Zeyan's office and knocked on the door three times. "Come in" Duan Junjie walked in, first closed the door carefully, and operated the small anti-eavesdropping device in his hand a few times and installed it on the door.  Then he turned around and said straightforwardly: "Boss, it's done." Page 5 "Tell me." "The source of the eavesdropping was traced to a tea room in Xicheng District. This is the background check of the tea room owner and the personnel he has been in close contact with recently." Duan Junjie operated a few times on his mobile phone, and the corresponding intelligence content popped up on Li Zeyan's computer.  , "A few people have contact with the small syringe".  The person who installed the eavesdropping has also been found. It was the cleaner who cleaned your office yesterday. According to the monitoring comparison, they were not from Huarui, but they should have sent someone in disguise.  People have been arranged to go to the Dingsha Tea Room, and they can act at any time. Page 6 "Understood" Li Zeyan's tone was always faint, his expression calm, it was not like he had experienced a tense eavesdropping crisis one after another, or for this man, he had experienced countless things. Things that are unimaginable even by Duan Junjie's thoughts. More dangerous than this, more knife-pointed. The scene of life and death on the front line. He scanned the page for a few times, pressed the button, and said: "Go to the next stage." Page 7 The meaning of entering the next stage is that he does not need to care about how those eavesdroppers will be dealt with.  Duan Junjie nodded knowingly: "I understand." Li Zeyan's gaze cast through the floor-to-ceiling windows, to the distant ground, as if he was talking to Duan Junjie, or he was saying to the invisible opponent: "The line has been laid long enough." Page 8 Duan Junjie lowered his head: "I will continue to report to you if there is a new situation." He turned to leave the office, and suddenly wrinkled his nose before leaving. A faintly sweet smell that he did not know where it came from, on the tip of his nose, it was like the caramel scent he would smell when he passed the dessert shop downstairs. This type of scent should not appear in Li Zeyan's office. It might be an illusion, Duan Junjie thought.

Chapter 4 Page 1 Unknowingly, it was the end of the year again. At this time, the center of the topic in the tea room of my colleagues will be more and more to rely on a lottery draw in the main link of the Huarui annual meeting. "Last year based on the report someone in the department next door got paid for a month of paid travel and wine!" "I want to pick a camera. Maybe the equipment is configured, and my photography skills will also improve." "Lawyer Duan, what prize do you want to win?" "The Sunshine Award." Duan Junjie replied. Everyone went silent. Page 2 Duan Junjie thinks this topic is meaningless, and he doesn't think he has the luck to win a lottery. Excessive surprises are often accompanied by huge risks. He is greedy for peace and stability, and does not want to give life too many twists and turns. It's better to go home and cook an extra meal for the cat when you have the time. Huarui’s annual meeting has always been very lively. In addition to the people at the headquarters, some cooperating companies will also come to socialize. The police, like the boss of the film and television company of the company, will not be absent every year. Page 3 After the last eavesdropping incident, probably out of affirmation of his work ability, Li Zeyan handed him more tasks. As a result, he came into contact with this woman who had an unusual relationship with the BOSS. Although he exchanged information online, the other party did not know his identity in reality. He glanced at the energetic girl, and then turned away, not intending to say hello to her as Huarui's lawyer. Page 4 What Duan Junjie didn't expect was that he won the second prize at this annual meeting. The moment his name appeared on the big screen, his colleagues seemed to be more excited than him. These guys who usually claim to be the elites of the law surrounded him laughing and making noise, and they said that they should be invited to share the joy, "You're from our department. Duan Junjie you finally won this year's prize! " Duan Junjie was so upset by them that he simply slipped out of the annual meeting with an excuse.  He had just gotten in the car and was about to start, and suddenly two figures flashed in the corner of his eyes who shouldn’t be there at this time. Page 5 Li Zeyan and NOX walked to the garage side by side, and the two seemed to be talking about something.  Duan Junjie thought it might not be an official business, because the girl’s face had the brilliant smile that she have on her age. She carried a bag of vegetables in one hand and gestured twice with the other. Li Zeyan’s eyebrows were still the same. It's cold, but there is a slight arc in the corner of his mouth, and if Duan Junjie is right, is this BS BOSS carrying a bag of cat litter in his hand? It's the same cat litter as Amo. Duan Junjie raised his eyebrows, he felt as if he had discovered something extraordinary. Page 6 So Duan Junjie asked questions unrelated to work for the first time in the work email when he went to work the next day. Why is the poster of the Huarui Annual Meeting is a Siamese? Li Zeyan quickly answered him. That is my cat, it is a Ragdoll. Chapter 5 Page 1 Affected by the public opinion of "Huarui's malicious acquisition of pharmaceutical companies", the atmosphere in the company has recently become much sluggish than before. The pantry is no longer full of laughter and gossip, but turned into quiet discussions and sighs. "When I went to drink coffee across the street today, the clerk saw my badge and said that he would not accept it. He won't even talk to me afterwards" "Hmph, he didn't accept it?, you should complain to him at that time, not only complain, but also wear a Huarui badge every day to buy as a Huarui employee, it is never a shame!" "Yes, I should do that" Page 2 Duan Junjie was stunned and stopped for a while, and the colleague in the pantry had already noticed him: "Lawyer Duan." Duan Junjie nodded at them and poured the remaining water from the glass into the sink.  A female colleague smiled and greeted: "Lawyer Duan, how is Amo at home?" "It's ok, Amo has not been losing weight recently." "By the way, we have recently established a Huarui cat-related group. Lawyer Duan are interested in joining?" a female colleague asked him with a smile, "Occasionally I can see President Li's cat too, Pudding!" "Thank you, I'll think about it." Page 3 After bidding farewell to his colleagues, Duan Junjie set off for the BS building. One or two minutes before, he sent a message from the special communication channel of B.S. saying that an emergency meeting would be held. Before coming to the meeting room, he habitually knocked on the door three times, and after getting permission from Li Zeyan, he walked in. "BOSS" "The next phase of the plan can start." "Understood, I will arrange manpower." Page 4 Li Zeyan ordered him to do the next thing as usual, until a silver-haired man suddenly broke in and interrupted Duan Junjie's bargaining over the length of overtime. The two talked in private. Before the silver-haired man glanced coldly on him, Duan Junjie turned around and left the meeting room. Only doing what should be done, not listening to what should not be heard, this is the work principle he has always believed in. Page 5 Duan Junjie feels that his current life is very good. Both Huarui and BLACK SWAN are huge and sophisticated machines, requiring countless from 'attorney Duan' and 'Caerus' as screws to maintain their operation. The man at the helm who directs the operation is Li Zeyan. Screws can get stuck occasionally and can be replaced, but Li Zeyan make no mistakes, let alone replace any mistakes, the consequences are fatal once it appears. Perhaps in terms of risk, following Li Zeyan is already the biggest gamble in Duan Junjie's life. Page 6 His chips were all bet on this man, and he inexplicably believed that Li Zeyan could win, not because of the gorgeous numbers in the Huarui annual report, nor because B.S. continued to grow these crowns and glamorous surfaces under his leadership. It is because the stray cat was rescued, the brand new "small syringe" industry chain, and the badge on the chest of a colleague. The reason lies in these small things. Duan Junjie turned on the phone and opened a chat window before starting the next stage of work. "What is the cat-related group number?"