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[essentialsfa]

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[softwaredekho]

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[optcrm]

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[ldysmfrst]

American Mate - (4)

First Case of Alpha Space

Paring: Hybrid!BTS Ot7 x Plus-sized Human FemReader

Status: Ongoing series

Chapter number: 4 of unknown

Word count for Chapter: 4,731

Work count for Story: 17,363

Genre: Hybrid Playmate Au inspired by works created by @yoongiofmine

A little about the author: I am a mother of two beautiful children. One of which is special needs, and on 3/28, they lost 75% of their vision. I have had to take time off work to accommodate many MANY doctor appointments. I started a Ko-fi if you feel the heart to donate towards helping with the medical costs of appointments, medication, and modifications to the house, which insurance doesn't cover.

Warnings: (I am not good at this, but I will try. Let me know if I missed anything!!) NOT BETA READ!! This story will have a bit of angst, fluff, smut, f/m, m/m, and m/f/m. This chapter does have Injury, Anxiety, Panic attacks, comfort, Alpha Space, and Cultural differences.

BTS HYBRID ANIMAL TYPES: Seokjin - Roan Ferret, Yoongi - Black Jaguar, Hoseok - Marten, Namjoon - Alaskan Timber Wolf, Jimin - Red Panda, Taehyung - White Southwest African Tiger, Jungkook - Flemish Giant Rabbit

AMERICAN MATE MASTER LIST / LDYSMFRST MASTER LIST

Is it really that big of a deal that you got hurt? My god, you were 35 already. You have never lived a sheltered life. You have had your fair share of broken bones, twisted ankles, scrapes, and bruises. 

You are always going on adventures, riding horses, and climbing things you probably should not be climbing. Most of the external scars you bear are associated with stories that are good conversation starters when you feel like showing them. 

Things would be difficult for a while because you are undeniably right-handed. You have a few days of sick time saved up that you can use to start with. Hopefully, this will help you gain some compliance from your wayward left hand. 

Work, however, is going to be the hard part. Luckily, your work is typically done on electronics, meaning nothing has to be handwritten. Even if you tried to write left-handed, no one could read it. You would bet money doctors had better handwriting skills than your left hand did in its pinky. Dictation software to save the day!

Hearing Derek’s voice broke you out of your thoughts regarding your near future. Watching him act cautiously while interacting with the other hybrid was interesting. There is clearly a difference in how he acts with Yoongi than with Evie.

Giggling to yourself at the mention of being a mate with Derek gains the attention of both. Shaking your head, you explain, “Oh, sorry. The thought of being a mate, much less to Derek, was amusing, I guess.” 

You missed the slight frown that briefly graced both men’s faces. Derek thought you were implying he wasn’t mate-material, and Yoongi thought you believed you were not worthy of being a mate.

“Thanks, Y/n. I let you know that I am a catch despite being a Beta. Besides, this isn’t about me right now. We need to get the leadership involved with what to do moving forward. Are you okay if we bring in the others?”

“Yes, please. I need to speak with Director Johnson, fill out an incident report… um or dictate an incident report, and then get to a doctor,” you agree. Attempting to stand up, you are blocked by the golden-yellow eyes that have not stopped watching your every move.

“Mr. Min, I need to get some things done and take care of my wrist,” you say with a hint of confusion because you know he knows that you need medical attention, but he isn’t letting you.

Yoongi’s eyes narrow, and a soft growl pours through the room, causing your eyes to widen. You look over your shoulder at Derek with a ‘what-the-F-did-I-do’ expression, only to be met with a smirk.

“Y/n, I don’t think you understand what is going on. You haven’t dealt with a situation like this before. You may love hybrids, but you still have limited interactions with our culture and this dynamic.” Walking backward toward the door, Derek continues, “With the state of mind that Mr. Min is in, it might be best if a packmate of his explains.”

Derek opens the break room door to face Hoseok, Taehyung, Namjoon, and Jungkook, all staring. “Oh, Hi there.”

Then, as if someone had turned the mute off, they all started talking simultaneously. 

“Is Yoongi-hyung dropped yet?”

“그 사람 괜찮아요?”

“Why does she still smell hurt?”

“Wait, wait, wait, please,” Derek puts his hands up, motioning to stop. "I do not know Korean, for one, and for two, Mr. Min has gone into full nonverbal Alpha Space, and I am not sure he will be coming out of it anytime soon. However, one of you should go in to handle the situation, and Y/n needs to talk with Director Johnson.”

At the mention of the director, a low growl came from Taehyung, causing Derek to take a step back and lower his eyes in an automatic response to a displeased Alpha.

The scent of calming leather gently flows over the group at the door as Namjoon steps forward. His mind is still reeling a million miles a second with you being their mate and you being injured. To top it off, Yoongi is on a deep level of Alpha Space.

“Sorry about that. I can come in, but the director is busy at the moment. He is dealing with the Playmates, your corporate office, and Manager Sejin,” apologizes Namjoon as he enters the room.

He follows Derek to where his packmate and Y/n are situated at a table. Taehyung and Jungkook follow quickly, sneaking in before the door closes all the way. They both kneel respectfully behind Yoongi. Their Alphas recognize that Yoongi is currently in charge of you, and it would be unwise to display anything that could be considered a threat by approaching you too quickly.

They both need to be close to you, and their instincts to be with their newly discovered but injured mate drive their actions. Looking you over for injuries, their eyes resting on your wrist with furrowed brows and set jaws. Taehyung’s eyes change to crystal blue as his tail flickers almost in time with Yoongi’s as he slips into Alpha Space. 

“Namjoon-hyung, Miss Y/n is hurt. She needs a hospital, I think,” Jungkook says, his ears standing straight up on his head, one-pointedly focused on you and the other twitching between his Prime Alpha and the door. 

“It is not that big of an issue, Mr. Jeon, Mr. Min, and Mr. Kim.” Looking up from the trio in front of you and addressing the Prime Alpha, “Sir, I have specific protocols to follow due to company procedure. I must talk with the Director.” 

A growl from one of the men in front of you freezes your words, unsure of what you did to cause their reactions. Internally, you groan because it seems all you get from them are growls as if you vex them more than humanly possible. 

“Miss Y/n, we have already talked to Director Johnson,” Namjoon says with a look of distaste. 

“He has been informed that you are now under the care of Bangtan Pack following hybrid customs,” Namjoon says. "It would be wise to refrain from talking about him at the moment; he did not leave a good impression with the pack.”

Your brows scrunch in confusion, making the hybrids want to coo at your cute face. Clearing his throat (aka his mind), Namjoon continues, “We have more pressing matters to attend to besides paperwork.” 

“You are injured, and we have to get you to a doctor. Manager Sejin is currently contacting one of our personal physicians that we normally use while on tour to have you treated.”

“What? Why would I use your doctor? I can just go to the local clinic,” you quick question. Your scent spikes almost like a heavy perfume with anxiety with the flashbacks of your nightmare. 

“Please, I have taken up much of your time, and caused enough problems as it is. I can take care of myself. I don’t want to be a bother,” you plead.

At your words, you are surrounded by multiple growls and watched by now golden-yellow, crystal blue, and smokey gray eyes. Scooting back in the chair as if the quarter inch gained would save you, you nervously ask, “Derek, what did I do?”

“Y/n, you really don’t get it do you? For as smart as you are, sometimes you can be oblivious,” Derek scoffs teasingly. Smiling, he shakes his head, stepping back from the group and heading towards the door. “Mr. Kim, as Prime Alpha, you might want to explain what is happening and what she should be expecting. Mind you, she has been fiercely independent for the last 15 years of her life.”

“I wish you the best with her. It won’t be easy, trust me, I know. Good luck,” says Derek as he bows slightly to Namjoon once he reaches the break room door.

Looking at you again, this time with a smile filled with adoration for his best friend and what he thinks your future may hold, Derek says, “Relax and have fun.” Then he turns and leaves the room. 

As Derek leaves the room, he smiles at the remaining pack guarding the door. “Mr. Kim, Mr. Jung, and Mr. Park, I think your human does not understand what is happening.”

“Our human? So, you know?” Seokjin questions with wide, cautious eyes.

Derek looks over his shoulder at the closed break room door. His mind conjures up all the ways this could go sideways, but he focuses on all the ways this could be the best thing for you.

“At first, I thought it was just a typical Alpha reaction with him being the cause of Y/n getting injured, but his care and gentleness seemed to come from somewhere deeper. Add on the fact that your other two are fighting Alpha Space. It would be hard to miss,” says the fox hybrid with a softness.

“The other two?” someone asks.

Shaking his head, Derek looks back at the remaining three, saying, “Yes, the younger Mr. Kim and Mr. Jeon’s Alphas surfaced just before I left. Your Prime Alpha is going to try to sort things out, but he may need some back up.”

“Meanwhile, I am going to find our boss and see what needs to be done before you all run away with her,” comments Derek, leaving the pack to mull over the new information.

“Tae has never been one to control his Alpha well when one of us is hurt. I am not surprised if he slipped once near her. Kook always runs on instinct too, so it makes sense he slipped as well,” Seokjin contemplates. 

“Should we stay out here? Miss Y/n’s pack member said it would be better to go in and help Namjoon? Three of us in Alpha space with an injured mate is not going to be easy,” Hoseok adds. 

Nibbling on his lower lip, Jimin thinks of ways to handle the situation. Even though he is one of the younger packmates, keeping the pack calm is his gift. 

He just doesn’t know how to handle you yet, especially since you don’t know what you mean to the pack.

“Good, at least three of you are here, and I assume the rest have made their way into the room with Miss Y/n,” Manager Sejin says while walking up to the group. “I have spoken with Big Hit, the Director at Playmate Service Incorporated, and Dr. Blackwell. Everyone is onboard and the doctor is ready to go.”

“Relax and have fun? What does he mean by that?” You mumble as you glare at the now-closed door that one of your best friends just shut. 

He willingly left you with four Alpha male idols. 

Three of them are kneeling on the floor with non-human eyes, and the Prime Alpha, looking around the room like the way to explain what's happening is painted on the walls.

Taking a breath, you say, “Mr. Kim, Prime Alpha… Sir. Derek is right. I have no actual experience with Alphas. I can tell that there must be some kind of instinctual drive going on, and there are trigger words or actions.”

“I don’t want to cause any more trouble than I already have. What do I do to make it easier for your pack?” you question.

At your words, the kneeling Alphas gave a multitude of pleasant chirps because you may not consciously know what to do but you are still acting like a baby mate. You looked at the three of them, a little confused. They seemingly smiled and made almost the same sound as when you said that.

Okay, so they can growl and chirp. Your curiosity spikes when you think of what other animal-like sounds they can make as hybrids.

Drawing your attention back to him, Namjoon finds the words to explain what is happening, “Miss Y/n, you have done so much to help the Bangtan Pack feel welcome today.”

With a gentle smile, he continues, “So please relax, you have not caused any trouble, and we highly doubt that you will.” 

He thought, ‘At least, not in the way you seem to be thinking.’

“Alpha’s run with a higher level of instinct than your Beta pack member. As an Alpha, Yoongi-hyung instinctually feels responsible for your injury. In order to calm that instinct, a few things will most likely need to happen.” Watching you sit up with interest, he continues, “First things first, he and his Alpha need to get at least your injury treated.”

“He has to be the one to take me to get it treated?” You start to ramble with concern, “I can’t have him go with me to the clinic! There are fans and sasaengs and the media! What about your schedule? You always hear about the tight schedules Idols have and you have already spent all afternoon here over this.”

You start panicking about the hordes of people you hear about following the band around. God, the amount of bad publicity would come from catching you and THE Suga of BTS at a clinic. You can’t imagine what nonsense they would come up with?

Your scent goes into an even heavier version; it takes on an almost alcoholic aspect. The kneeling Alphas instinctually send out calming pheromones while moving closer. 

Yoongi’s tail, still wrapped around your ankle, tightens while he gently rubs the back of your injured hand, which he is cradling protectively. He wiggles forward an inch or two to ensure you realize he is still there and isn’t going anywhere.

Taehyung starts to purr softly but loud enough for you to at least hear it. His mates have always found ease in their emotions and pain with his purring, so he hopes the sound will comfort you similarly.

Jungkook, running on instinct alone, scoots up to your left side, nudges his head under your left hand, and rests on your leg. Touch and cuddling are strong hybrid traits that naturally bring peace to most, and being a bunny hybrid, Jungkook loves to share his cuddles more than the others.

The feeling of Jungkook’s head on your leg snaps you out of your thoughts and brings you back into the room. You hold still as you start to recognize similar comforting behaviors the Alphas are doing with those that Evie always does, allowing you to take a deep breath.

“Sorry. I was raised to take care of myself and not impose on others,” you softly say.

“Miss Y/n, you are not imposing. Again, Yoongi-hyung ran into you while rushing out of the room, and it's his responsibility to make amends. Actually, as a bonded pack, it is our responsibility, too,” explains Namjoon.

“The pack? Like all of you? Is this why they are all like this, with their eyes and stuff?” you question with a scrunched face.

Absent-mindedly, you run your fingers through Jungkook’s hair, softly scratching his scalp, soothing not only yourself but also the youngest Alpha. 

A soft chuckle escapes Namjoon as he watches your instinctual interactions with the youngest mate. He answers, “Yes, that is the best way to explain the eyes and stuff, as you put it.”

“Jungkook-ah and Taehyung-ah will find it easier to leave their Alpha Space since they are not the ones responsible for the injury but trying to be supportive to both of you,” informs the Prime Alpha as you nod in understanding, which he thinks is you not really understanding but just going along with it.

Hearing a knock on the door, he calls, “Who is it?”

“Namjoon-ssi, it's Manager Sejin. I have some updates and a few questions. Can I enter?” a voice calls as the door opens slightly to reveal it’s him. 

At Namjoon's nod, he enters. The door remains open as the scents in the room are constricting in their density. He is followed by the rest of the pack, who take up guarding now from inside. With the mixed emotions in the scent-filled room, the Alphas worry that it will reach other hybrids who will come to investigate.

“Did you contact everyone?” asks Namjoon.

“Big Hit and the Corporate Director are on the same page and will follow the hybrid protocol, but details must be discussed once Miss Y/n has met with the doctor,” Manager Sejin reports to the Prime Alpha.

Moving to look at you, he continues, “I contacted Dr. Blackwell, thinking you may be more comfortable with a female doctor. We have her on retainer to work with some of the female back up dancers on the tour as well as the pack.” 

He glances at the boys surrounding you closely, noting the change in their eyes; his scent changes with curiosity. He raises an eyebrow, looking at Namjoon. With a subtle nod, he confirms that something more is happening but does not move to explain.

Looking back at you, he gently smiles, “With the situation at hand, it may be best to limit other males around you until everyone is out of Alpha space. They tend to get territorial. Dr. Blackwell is on standby, ready to assess and treat you once we know where you will be.”

You look at the manager like he is missing something, or maybe you are as you question, “Why wouldn’t she just come here, or I go to her?”

“Miss Y/n, Dr. Blackwell is a traveling physician. She doesn’t have a permanent office to use but she is well respected in both the human and hybrid communities.”

“Oh, I see. Well, umm…” you look at Namjoon and ask, “What option would be best for your pack?”

Namjoon’s chest puffs slightly at your show of respect to him as the Pack Prime Alpha despite the situation and your pain level. “Not to make you uncomfortable, Miss Y/n, but I think meeting Dr. Blackwell at our Airbnb would be best,” he answers.

You take a moment to think, your hand pulsing with pain now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off. They cannot all fit in your flat. Heck, it's barely big enough for you, Evie, and Derek to hang out in; plus, it's a mess after you tore through your closet to find the right clothes for today.

If the growls were any indication, they didn’t seem to like being at PMS. Instinctually, even Derek and Evie prefer being in their dens when one of the three of you is hurt or sick. Making your decision, you look at the manager and then Namjoon. “Okay. If it is best for the pack, I will go with you to the Airbnb to see Dr. Blackwell.” 

It’s almost as if a weight is lifted out of the room, allowing the pack to take a breath. 

“Alphas Yoon, Kook, and Tae. Can you give Miss Y/n some room? We have to take her to the pack house to see a doctor,” Namjoon says with a firm voice, gaining smiles from the men kneeling on the floor. 

Jungkook stands, quickly moving and curling into the Prime Alpha, his eyes returning to their natural color. Namjoon rubs his back, scenting him lightly to show his pride in the youngest Alpha’s actions to help soothe the baby mate.

Taehyung rocks back on his heels but remains close to you as his purring stops. His body is more relaxed, but his eyes are still crystal blue, shifting between Yoongi and you in wait.

After watching the two younger Alphas move around, your attention turns to the black jaguar kneeling with expectant, questioning eyes. He still cradles your hand as if it were his most precious possession, and his tail hasn’t moved from its coil around your ankle.

You tentatively ask, “Mr. Min, if I promise that you can stay with me, will you let me go get my things, and then you can take me to your pack house?”

Yoongi’s face lights up with a gummy smile as he nods. Your breath hitches at the sight. How can the devastatingly rogue-like handsome rapper look so adorable?

He stands up, his tail unwrapping from your leg. He softly takes both of your hands while he assists you in standing. You smile and mumble a small thanks as you step forward to leave but pause, turning to Namjoon.

“Prime Alpha, do you think I can talk with Derek briefly to let him know what is happening? This way, he can talk to the direc… Boss. Talk to the boss and let him know that I am leaving for the day?” you ask, but your voice is firm as if you were telling the Prime Alpha what needs to happen without blatantly taking control of the situation.

“Yes, talking to him will be fine. He has been established as part of your familial pack and won’t be considered a threat to the pack if he comes around you now,” Namjoon answers, moving out of your way and motioning for the rest to let you pass.

Bowing slightly, “Thank you, Prime Alpha.”

Making it to your desk is apparently more complicated than one would think. 

Yoongi won’t leave your right side, while Taehyung won’t leave your left. Both act like it's code red, and someone is trying to assassinate you. Then, the rest of BTS trails behind like some kind of posse. 

You keep your head down to avoid any strange looks or glares from whomever you pass. To your relief, you find Derek waiting at your desk with his head resting on his palms and a mischievous smile. 

“I see you are taking things in stride,” glancing at your plethora of bodyguards. “Did the Prime Alpha explain everything to you?”

Speaking up from the back of the group, Namjoon answers for you: “She is aware that we are responsible for her at this time, and she will be treated by our doctor at our temporary pack house.”

You don’t miss Derek's look of concern as he tilts his head with curiosity at Namjoon. “I see, of course. You are just responsible for getting her treated. Hybrid customs and all.”

“Derek, can you please let the big boss know that I will be leaving with Bangtan Pack to seek medical care and once I have more updates, I will let you both know?” 

Glancing at Yoongi and still seeing his lovely golden-yellow eyes, you try to ignore the slight flutter in your stomach, “I don’t think it would be good for me to talk with him myself right now.”

Derek nods in response, “Manager Sejin has already given the boss a rough time frame for the near future. I suppose his managing skills came in handy. Don’t worry about us here, we will get a temp while you heal.”

Standing up, Derek passes you your purse, which Taehyung takes. You try to grab it again, but only to have a black and white tail wrap around your arm and bring it back down to your side.

“No carry. Keep safe.” Taehyung almost grunts out in a deeper-than-deep voice, which short-circuits your brain. You knew he was the deep voice of the group, but that was not his singing voice.

Glancing at Derek out of the side of your eye, you see him briefly nod and smile encouragingly while he whispers, “It’s an Alpha Space thing. Best acknowledge his help.”

“Umm… Th-tha-hank you, Alpha,” you stammer out, willing the heat creeping up your neck to stop as your words pull a boxy grin from the Tiger hybrid.

“I think that is it,” you announce to nobody in particular. You smile awkwardly at Derek as he seemingly takes you in like he has never seen you before.

“Y/n, you have been through so much. Not just today but in your life. You have always been the one to take the blame for others, working harder or longer than anyone else and caring for those who never return the favor,” he says, his eyes glance at the men surrounding you as he sees nods of understanding and looks of concern from them.

As a soft smile blooms on his face, he holds onto your good hand, “Take time for yourself and let this pack of Alphas take care of you. You deserve it more than anyone else I know.”

He pulls you into a hug. You briefly stiffen, waiting for the growling and pulling to start, but to your surprise, it doesn't. Relaxing into his hug, you take his words to heart.

A soft whisper in your ear: “You know you will always have Evie and me as your family pack, but right now, be open to the pack around you. " With one last squeeze, Derek steps back and returns to your desk. "Now, shoo! Off you go. The boss said I’ll get to man the front desk for now.”

With a nod, you wave goodbye and face the hybrids behind you. After not finding Manager Sejin and a few others missing, your eyes settle automatically on Namjoon. With a slight frown, you wait for a clue as to what to do next.

“Manager Sejin went down to get the cars. Seokjin-hyung, Hoseok-hyung, and Jimin-ah also went down because we won’t all fit in the elevator,” reassures Namjoon.

“Oh,” you feel a slight tightening in your chest after realizing you didn’t even notice they had gone.

“Miss Y/n, let's take you to get looked at,” Jungkook says while inching towards the office doors. His Alpha wanting to get you away from the hallway that leads to the offices where he knows the Playmates who hurt you are being kept.

You follow the bunny and wolf hybrid while still sandwiched between the tiger and jaguar hybrids. Walking through the halls, you gain some attention from the people you pass. You’re a mere human surrounded by some of the hottest Idols in the world right now. So why wouldn’t they?

Not willing to look up, you keep your eyes cast down to the feet in front of you as you try to avoid what you are a gazillion percent sure are looks of disgust and hate toward you. Normally, you can walk the halls without drawing attention unless Reina is around. While Reina made sure everyone noticed you in a negative way, you fail to notice the glaring looks of the Alphas surrounding you, which has silenced most of the current gossiping.

Once the elevator doors open, the tiger lets out a low growl. Glancing up, you see two fellow PMS employees quickly scamper out of the elevator and down the hall. Well, that is another embarrassing incident that you will have to deal with when you return to work.

Namjoon and Jungkook take the back corners. Looking at the men by your sides, they motion for you into the elevator next. However, when you go to stand in another corner, you are quickly ushered back into the middle with Yoongi and Taehyung in front of you. 

The tense energy calms down as the doors close. The threats in the hallway, the Playmate enemies, and the bumbling director are no longer a concern. The four Alphas relax now that they are the only ones to surround you and are taking care of you. 

Even if your trust in them starts with an injury, they know this is their chance to show you what it means to be taken care of, acknowledged as precious, and loved endlessly by the seven of them. 

As the elevator doors part, you're immediately greeted by the remaining packmates waiting for you, smiles warm and welcoming. They're surrounded by more men in black, whom you assume are bodyguards. The sheer amount of people outside the elevator is a bit intimidating.

Turning to look at you, Yoongi speaks for the first time since he entered Alpha Space, “Take home. Keep safe.”

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Taglist - CLOSED

@braveangel777 @bethanysnow @smileykiddie08 @kayways @danielle143 @nenefix-on @im-gemmy @fluffy-canada-pancakes @staytinyville @juju-227592 @levislifeline @carolinexkpop @m00njinnie @drenix004 @singukieee @avadakadabra93 @dazzlingjade @sehun096rainbow @sunshinecallie

[octuscle]

I like the work the Chronivac did to “assist” that office. I definitely wouldn’t mind if my 9-5 colleagues were as inspired to hit the gym, instead. Maybe there’s a training video I can share with them?

Strictly speaking, you're not exactly a sporting ace… Okay, you go swimming twice a week. You eat a reasonably healthy diet. You're one of the fitter ones in the company. But you're also one of the youngest. You have advantages there… In any case, you've already submitted a proposal for a fitness program to the internal suggestion scheme. Let's see what effect that will have. But now you have to get on with your work.

After a few days, you will receive a parcel by internal mail. "Stephen, is that you?" you ask in amazement. Stephen is your age and has been in the post office for ages. He's actually a skinny, pimply guy who you've always felt sorry for. But now you're looking at a muscular jock who smells of sweat and musk. "My name is Steve, are you Robert Hitch?" "Dude, we've known each other for five years, you should know my name is Mike." Steve grins, shrugs his shoulders, puts the package on your desk, takes a deep breath from his armpit and says he doesn't give a shit.

Robert Hitch is your boss. Steve should have known that. The package is from Chronivac Inc. Doesn't tell you anything. But it's personally addressed to Robert. Although you actually have better things to do, you drop the package off at Robert's. He looks a little horrified. As if you had caught a child reaching into the candy drawer. He asks who the parcel is from. You shrug your shoulders. He wipes a little sweat from his forehead. But that's nothing special. The fat pig sweats all the time.

You forget the story after a few minutes. The stock markets are going crazy, you have your hands full. At some point during the evening, you receive an e-mail from Robert. It goes to the whole department. Subject: Mens sana in corpore sano. It's actually about promoting physical fitness. There is a link to a piece of software that you should download. You do that and go back to the risk profile of your bond portfolio.

Frederique and Jean-Paul are the two stars of your investment banking. Both have a knack for making quick and correct decisions. They are among the few people who are still at the bank at this time of day. You drop by for a chat with them. As usual, they are hardly distracted by the screens. When you ask them if they have downloaded the software, they just nod their heads. Have they looked at it yet? A shake of the head. Okay, you're not going to get into a conversation here.

When you come into the office the next morning, you see Marcus and James sitting spellbound in front of their screens. The two of them are staring at pictures of fitness models doing strength exercises. You ask if this has anything to do with the link from yesterday. James says he has no idea what that shit is about. He's here to work, not to exercise. Marcus nods. But neither of them turn their heads away from the screen for a second.

You ask if you should bring them a coffee. They both shake their heads. Marcus mumbles something about whether there are protein shakes in the coffee kitchen. You think it's a joke.

There are actually canisters of protein powder in the coffee kitchen. You think for a moment about whether you should really bring Marcus a shake. But why would he drink a protein shake? You regularly go out for lunch together. You've already talked about God and the world. But never about food supplements.

As you're on your way back to work with your coffee, it almost falls out of your hand. Marcus and James are sitting over their work again. So presumably. There are definitely two men sitting in their seats, working. But neither of them looks like Marcus. Or like James. They're both talking and every other word is "bro" or "fuck". But they're obviously working on the quarterly report again. Something is strange. Very strange.

As you pass Mr. Hitch's office, your coffee falls out of your hand. You stare at the person who sounds so much like Robert. As if Robert spoke a deep, well-trained bass. But the man looks different. "Shit, bruhs, we have to change da dress code. Shoulder coverings only optional from now on. Shit, bruhs! sun's out, guns out!"

Your productivity is limited. In the department chat, people who have never been interested in sport exchange tips on how to gain mass as quickly as possible. Steve drops off the mail and asks you if you know what a protein fart is. You shake your head and Steve shows you. Shit, that stinks unnaturally. Roaring laughter from the surrounding tables. Someone shouts "Attention, en voici un autre!" And shortly afterwards you hear the incredible sound of a fart. You get up and see who it came from. At Frederique and Jean-Paul's desk, two giants are having a lively discussion. Your French is not very good. But they're obviously arguing about whether the current share price of Chronivac Inc. is undervalued. The one you think is Frederique is flexing his tattooed biceps. And the other one laughs and says "Acheter! Acheter!"

You've never wanted an individual office so much. The air is cutting. Sweat, musk, protein farts. You take another look at Robert's email from last night. You open the link. And you can't take your eyes off the screen. You feel the urge to wank your boner. A wet spot forms on your pants… You take off your jacket with some difficulty. Phew, you stink of sweat. Ads for tank tops appear on the screen. Shit, if you don't go straight to the toilet and jerk off now, you're going to cum in your pants.

The toilet is very busy. You see how Robert has put one of his department heads against the wall and is shagging him. You stand at a urinal and take out your hard-on. Steve approaches from behind. You don't have to jerk off on your own, he is happy to help you.

[aylen-san]

Welcome to my reality. No, not the one where I tower in horror over Middle-earth with the last armies of orcs and a darkness that envelops all life. Today's reality is far more... modern. If someone had told me thousands of years ago that I would one day be in an ordinary apartment with a cup of coffee in hand, surrounded by the blue-white glow of monitors, I would have laughed. But now? Now this is my life.

Morning, as it is: a debrief with coffee Oh, that sweet awakening. The alarm clock rings. My eternal wrath could destroy it, but why? It's all part of the modern routine. I, Sauron, the great lord of evil, now wake up not to an army but to the sound of a smartphone alarm, so I can sit at the kitchen table and pour myself a coffee—strong, black, like my view of the world.

Ah, coffee. Perhaps in the modern era, it's the bitterness that I find appealing. Every morning, it's a ritual: I sit in front of the computer, scrolling through social media and the news. The design here is actually quite inspiring: black screens, white letters. It all feels so office-cold that I involuntarily smile. "News from Mordor" could be a popular blog.

Remote work, same old job: Zoom meetings and evil schemes How times have changed, haven't they? In my past, I led armies in person, standing at the front lines. And now... now I spend most of my day in Zoom meetings. Yes, even the Dark Lord has to deal with modern bureaucracy. Orcs need management, tasks need assigning, KPIs are sacred. Technology has made my dark work more sustainable.

— "Urgash, what’s going on with the weapon shipment? Why don’t we have the third-quarter report on the allocation of eastern lands?" I ask with cold resolve, looking into the camera, only to hear confused muttering in response.

Orcs, of course, can’t handle Google Sheets. But what can you do? Routine.

Office equipment and old habits My workspace is a modern masterpiece. Cold-lit lamps, an ultramodern laptop with a keyboard glowing with a faint, almost infernal light. All this allows me to devise new plans to conquer Middle-earth with high efficiency. Software? Oh, trust me, even a palantír would envy the power of my server.

But some habits remain unchanged. A glance at a smoldering notepad reminds me of runes and ancient spells. I wonder if I could code the way I once cast curses—would I be able to create a virus to take over the entire internet? Then again... no, we’ve seen where that leads. And if the system crashes, I’m not ready to lose my bookmarks.

Lunch breaks: yes, even dark lords need to eat Ah, lunch breaks. They’ve become part of modern Sauron’s life. Don’t think I’ve lost my taste for brutal bloodshed. No, that’s in the past. Now my lunch consists of something more grounded. A cold salad, maybe a couple of sandwiches, and, of course, another cup of coffee. Only the grim taste of dark bread reminds me of the old days.

— “Delivery for Mr. Sauron?” — a knock at the door. Naturally, food delivery. Even cuisine today has become a sort of twisted pleasure. Strange. The once elegant culinary masterpiece—roasted flesh—is now replaced by avocado toast. Though, to be honest, they’re quite good.

Fitness by the call of darkness Of course, physical fitness is as important for a Dark Lord as for any modern mortal. A treadmill awaits me in the bathroom. No, I don’t go outside. Mordor is still a long way from glamorous park trails. Still, if I must exist in this new, modern world, I can at least maintain my strength. Cardio is power, they say. Power? Ha! Let them know power when I’m in full battle form.

After the run—a few minutes on the punching bag. No, I haven’t lost my skills! Even in a world where leaders rule through screens, old methods still work. Deep down, I’m still ready to crush anyone who dares stand in my way.

Evening leisure: shows and dark conspiracies What else to do in the evening, when the office lights dim? Of course, watch shows. Oh, how elegantly modern shows portray power dynamics. My streaming subscriptions are quite diverse: from Game of Thrones to dark detective stories. In these tales, I see myself—though in a much less epic form, it’s still satisfying to watch others make mistakes.

— "Seriously? Did you really think that conspiracy would work?" — I whisper as I watch yet another villain's plan fall apart. Perhaps, if they’d hired me as a consultant...

Reflections before sleep: what went wrong? When night falls and my monitors dim, I sit on the windowsill and look at the sky. No stars, of course—the city lights drown them out. Even in such a world, illusions of power and light don’t add true strength. I ponder how the world might have changed if my plans had worked out sooner. But then I realize that even in this new world, I can still become its lord.

Only now, my army will consist not of orcs but of fans, liking my posts and retweeting each of my new brilliant plans.

End of the day: Darkness will always find a way So, there you have it, a day in the life of Sauron in the modern world. Not so terrifying, you’d say? Oh, but what do you know? Even in this modern world, Darkness will always find its way. And while you think I’ve become but a shadow of the past, remember: I’m always watching you. Through your screens, through your reflection in darkened windows.

And who knows, maybe tomorrow, your alarm will ring just a bit too loudly...

[fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction]

It Is A Mystery

Gregory and Cassie start looking into the events of 1987 to figure out the strange anomalies in the animatronic hard drives.

---------------------------------------

.

Lunchtime at school meant Cassie could find Gregory sitting under a tree in the yard if he wasn’t at their usual table. Her Roxy lunchbox swung at her side as she jogged over to see him, sighing at the sight of him pressing his forehead to his knees. The headaches were definitely a serious thing for him but no amount of doctor visits or nurse checks could come up with a reason for why they kept happening. All anyone could do was keep a supply of medicine for him to take to make the pain dull.

Cassie had taken it upon herself to keep a bottle of headache pills and a few small water bottles stocked in her backpack and hip pouch. The number of times she had to dip into the supply for him always made her worried. How much longer could this go on before something more dire than just a headache happened? When would someone figure out what was wrong and help him?

“Did you manage to eat something?” she asked, sitting down by Gregory and swinging her bag around to get to the medicine bottle and water.

“Few bites,” the boy replied with a faint groan, his hands clutching at his head and rubbing at his scalp through his hair. “Hurts and itches at the same time. It sucks.”

“Maybe you’re getting memories back?” Cassie suggested, taking Gregory’s wrist to free one hand and press a couple capsules to his palm. He lifted his face from his legs to flash her a grateful smile before tossing the medicine into his mouth. She passed him a water bottle to wash them down. “Like in the movies, where people get flashbacks of their past and it looks like it hurts?”

“Not getting anything,” Gregory mumbled, sitting back with a thud of his back against the tree trunk, his eyes closed as he kept one hand pressed to his forehead. “Been thinking about that code and it hurts,” he sighed and Cassie settled down on the grass beside him, her shoulder pressed to his while she opened her lunchbox and took out her sandwich.

“I bet. Those two hard drives looked aaaancient,” she declared between bites. The original Freddy and Friends band had four animatronics, so Gregory had collected half of them already. Just two more to go and then... Then what? What did the security puppet expect Gregory to do with them? He was just a kid. “So what’s the code say?” she asked.

“There’s more than just the regular animatronic programming in there. That stuff was written by whoever built the Fazband,” Gregory began, cracking one eye open just enough to see what she was doing before closing it again, “On top of it is some security software that looks like a full override of the hardware that cuts off software control for a little while. The signature on it is from Mr. Fitzgerald’s dad.”

“The guy you did your school report on? Jonathan Fitzgerald?” Cassie asked in surprise, “I thought he was only doing the software for the Toy Animatronics. How’d his stuff get into the originals?”

“I bugged Alex for a crash course on invasive programming and it kinda looks like that,” Gregory explained, a small frown on his face as his brow furrowed, “It’s a security program but written like a virus, installing and burying itself and making it super hard for anyone who doesn’t know what they’re doing to pull it out. There must have been a shared network in Freddy’s for the Toy Animatronics and the software was stored on it, infecting the originals.”

“But why?” Cassie murmured, thinking over what such a program could be used for. Control the hardware without the software having input? Sounded like manual control. Why would anyone want to have a built-in software switch to have someone take manual control of the animatronics on demand? Wasn’t the regular performing software good enough to do its job? So many questions, no wonder Gregory was having more headaches lately.

“I think the reason is the other batch of coding in the drive,” Gregory replied, opening his eyes to stare at her in faint confusion and concern. “It’s a mess of structure that doesn’t make any sense to me but it looks a lot like what’s in Freddy’s code.” He tapped on his Glamrock Freddy lunchbox and Cassie squinted at it, thinking.

When did Gregory see Glamrock Freddy’s software?

“So if the same kind of weird coding is in both of them, maybe what it is..,” Gregory trailed off quietly, his gaze looking distant and thoughtful. He almost looked sad. Cassie watched him with a tilt of her head, waiting for him to continue his words and then giving a little huff when it seemed like he was lost in his head again.

That seemed to be happening a lot lately. Gregory would just zone out with that thoughtful look, like something was on his mind that he was trying to figure out and whatever it was, it was something sad. Sad memories coming back? He never said, and when he shook himself out of it he couldn’t explain what it was he was thinking about.

“What is it?” Cassie coaxed, hoping that maybe this time she’ll get an answer. Never did before but she was nothing if not persistent. Her dad was like that, kept his focus on whatever specific job he did for Freddy’s up until he just disappeared.

Gregory’s mouth thinned, like he was keeping his words in, and he looked at her with an odd expression. She’d seen it before on the adults in her life, that look of them wondering how much she should be allowed to know about something serious. She hated it when she understood what that meant and she hated it now on her friend’s face. Cassie scowled back at him.

“I don’t know stuff, but I’m not stupid,” she told him, taking his favorite phrase and throwing it back, “What is it and why does it make you sad and how does it involve Glamrock Freddy and how do you even know what’s in his code?!”

“Man, you sure don’t need air when you get all huffy like that, huh?” Gregory remarked with a nervous grin, wincing as though caught in a lie. “I, uh, forgot you don’t know about..." He opened his lunchbox and grabbed his half-eaten meal, a small container with a couple slices of homemade pizza, a pack of cookies and a juice box. He hurriedly ate a few more bites, likely stalling, while Cassie just narrowed her eyes.

She’d glare him into submission one of these days. Grandma said she had her mom’s look for getting her dad to ‘fess up to whatever silly thing he was hiding. If it worked for her mom on her dad, then it’d work for her on Gregory. He seemed the kind to fold pretty easy anyway to her. She’d die of embarrassment first before admitting that it kinda felt nice to know Gregory would rail against everyone else but her.

“Okay, but you gotta promise not to tell just about anyone else,” Gregory finally began with a heavy sigh, “Cuz this sounds crazy but trust me, it’s not.” Cassie nodded, giving her most serious expression to show she could be trusted while holding in a squeal of relief that he was finally sharing more of what was going on. “Huh, how to explain this,” he muttered, “Memories, the soul, emotions, they’re all connected.”

“Sounds spiritual,” Cassie agreed with a slow nod.

“But it can be transformed into physical and digital,” Gregory pointed out, frowning at his pizza slice, “All of it or some of it, it can get put into objects and those objects become ‘haunted’. And the stuff those memories and souls and emotions become when it starts moving around like that is called Remnant.”

Cassie frowned as she turned that over in her head. The spiritual being put into physical and digital forms. So a soul could be made physical? Or put into something that wasn’t a human body? Memories could be made digital? Like files in a computer? Or... She blinked as the thought suddenly clicked into place. “Animatronic programming,” she whispered and looked at Gregory in disbelief, “You think this Remnant stuff, people’s memories and souls, got turned into animatronic programming?!”

He nodded and he didn’t look like he was joking or trying to pull a prank for once. He looked like he really believed a soul got put into each of the original Fazband members and got translated into some bizarre code. Cassie remembered how her grandma liked to say things made with love helped spread that love because people could feel that love in those objects. That haunted sites were places where the ghosts and spirits were bound because of how they died or something about the place called them there. Was there actually something to that?

“Wh-how did people’s souls and memories end up in the animatronics?” she asked in alarm. Gregory held up his fingers in a ‘V’ shape.

“There’s two variations of that Remnant programming,” he told her, “One set looks like it was self-writing, like the Remnant came from the animatronic itself. Like maybe it was already alive in its own way?”

“It was sentient?” Cassie caught on and blinked, “Oh! Like the story of the Velveteen Rabbit! A toy that was loved so much that it became ‘real’ and ‘alive’; people really loved Freddy and Friends back then, so did all that love poured into them make them alive?”

“Yeah, that’s what I think. Love from kids and parents, love from the person who built them, it became Remnant and made them aware enough that they started writing their own code, making their own memories and identities,” Gregory agreed and lowered one finger. “But then there’s traces of another set of Remnant programming, and it looked broken, like whatever put it there was suddenly added and then very suddenly taken away some time later. And when that Remnant left, it tore out the code that it had translated into.”

“And what did that Remnant do?” Cassie asked, “Make different memories?” That didn’t seem right. If the animatronic was already ‘alive’ with its own Remnant, then having outside Remnant suddenly get put into it almost felt like... “It got possessed?” she realized in horror, “But how?!”

“Bingo. Those traces were just enough to tell me that the other Remnant hooked into hardware control,” Gregory told her around his last mouthful of pizza, “The possessing stuff could take control of the animatronic and move them around, and I think Jonathan’s software was created to cut off that control and give it back to the security guard just long enough to get them put somewhere safe.” He tossed the crust back into his lunchbox, hurriedly wiping his hands off on the grass before digging out his phone. “I need to ask Mr. Fitzgerald to give me access to the Afton Files again but I could at least look up what happened to the old Freddy’s Pizza,” he said in a rush, “He mentioned it when he said he had beef with them over his dad being accused of something he didn’t do, something called the Missing Children Incident. The guy who looks after the place also mentioned it to me; families don’t come back to a place where kids vanish.” Cassie pulled out her own phone, tapping away on the screen to open her browser and do the same search.

Her phone was soon covered in headlines and articles from the past, a scandal in the late 1980’s, children going missing, declared deceased based on the M.O. of the suspect that was arrested and convicted, and the pizzeria’s business declining over time until it closed and reopened with the original Fazband. It still didn’t do well, as the animatronics smelled and looked terrible, as though they weren’t kept well and something was rotten around them. Cassie covered her mouth in horror, her stomach wanting to rebel against her recently eaten lunch.

Did this mean that the outside Remnant were the souls of those missing kids? Where did they go then? Gregory said they were attached suddenly and then some time later they were torn out.

“The Five Missing Children,” Gregory murmured, looking over her shoulder at her phone, and her face warmed at the closeness. He pointed down at her screen. “Look. It happened on the same day as the Bite of ‘87.”

“The what of what?” she asked flatly. What kind of dumb phrase was that? How was it connected to the Missing Children Incident besides the shared day?

Gregory showed his phone beside hers, a grainy photo of a kid dressed like a pirate grinning in a scanned newspaper article. “Here. ‘Bite of ‘87 Victim makes miraculous recovery’,” he said with a grim tone, “And look at the victim’s name. Michael Elizabeth Schmidt.”

“Mike Schmidt, the guard who potentially had something Fazbear Entertainment wants,” Cassie connected with wide eyes, “He got hurt the same day the Missing Children Incident happened?”

“Yeah, from the articles it seemed like the damage from the bite was supposed to have killed him. But it didn’t,” Gregory muttered, “I think the killer who got the other kids was also trying to kill him but he managed to pull through. And the kids who did die ended up as Remnant attached to the Fazband and generated that extra programming that let them take control of the animatronics.”

“Five missing kids,” Cassie repeated, reading the article again and frowning. Wait. “Five kids died, so that’s five souls or Remnant or whatever. But there’s only four animatronics in the original group. If all of them got one kid’s soul each, where did the fifth one go?”

Gregory froze beside her and she looked up to see his face pale suddenly. He moved away from her in a rush, hunching over in the grass as he stared blankly at the ground. The movement was so sudden, it nearly toppled Cassie over but she was just as quick in scrambling to her knees and crouching by him, her hands hovering around him. What happened?!

He was shaking, hands clutching his head as he breathed hard, like he’d been running for his life. “I know this, I should know this,” he whispered in panicked confusion, “I know this. The fifth one.. Fifth.. she...” He stopped abruptly, sitting up like he’d been jolted. “The old lady,” Gregory breathed and turned wide eyes to Cassie, “I met her.”

“Gregory, slow down, you’re not making any sense!” Cassie told him in frustration. He still looked so pale, so gray in his face. She reached up to put her hands to his cheeks and forehead. Clammy and cold, like he was getting sick. “You don't look or feel good at all. We should get you to the nurse,” she told him firmly. “No more looking into this stuff today.”

“But the code..,” Gregory whined softly, his shoulders slumping as he fell forward just enough to drop his forehead against her shoulder. She patted him on the back comfortingly. “It’s all connected, and it’s in the code.. but why is it connecting to me? I don’t know any of these people,” he mumbled tiredly, “And it’s not cuz my last name’s Afton. I’m not a real Afton. Stupid rabbit bitch stole my name and gave me hers cuz she wanted her actual family back.”

Cassie blinked a few times as she let that process, her mind turning over those words a few times. “What?!” she exclaimed incredulously, “What the heck do you mean, a lady stole your name and made you an Afton?!”

Gregory pulled back from her, still looking sickly, and threw himself back against the tree in a tired slouch. “I told you, didn’t I? That the puppet better not be giving me stuff just cuz I’m an Afton, cuz I’m not really one,” he replied mulishly. “Memories make up Remnant, and strong memories and emotions get encoded to the soul. Like pagefile and hard drive space.” He pointed at his own head. “There was a rabbit lady in the Pizzaplex who is an Afton and she wanted her dead family brought back to life. She had like records or something of their Remnant, their memories, but she needed bodies to put them in. So she tried to erase my memories to make space to transfer one set of them into me.”

“Like uninstalling an operating system off a hard drive to make room to install a different one,” Cassie murmured and felt her stomach do a queasy flip again. “That’s why your therapy isn’t really helping to bring memories back?” She couldn’t imagine how that must feel. To have your whole life just stripped away and nothing worked to bring it all back. There was so much just gone forever. Her eyes went to their phones left on the grass next to them. Just like those kids had vanished and died, turned to Remnant that disappeared. “So if you’re not really an Afton, who were you?” she asked carefully, “Or was that a memory that vanished too?”

“Nah, that was erased for sure. Dunno what my name might have been, and all my other records got destroyed and replaced with ‘Gregory Afton’,” he told her with a little shrug, “I saw the name with my picture on a computer screen, so I at least got that much to use when talking to people in the Pizzaplex.”

Cassie scooped up the phones and carefully eased herself back beside him against the tree, pressed close to his side as she looked down at both screens full of articles of tragedy. “I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly, “that you lost so much of yourself.” Her own dad missing because of emergency Fazbear technician work, Gregory’s whole life stolen and replaced, probably the same with his mom, and these kids who all died and became connected to Freddy and Friends.. how many more lives were ruined because of Fazbear Entertainment and Afton Robotics?

Was there anything anyone could do to stop them?

[psiroller]

youre like the pam to my jim (preview)

im on my office romcom au bullshit folks. itll be a oneshot and basically pwp but here's the lead in to wet ur whistle.

dunmeshi/chilaios/dom!laios/eventual bdsm club shenanigans/2.2K

cw: blue collar blues, language, not so unresolved sexual tension, questionable workplace romance between a superior (chilchuck) and his subordinate (laios). this is not used for leverage (laios is actually the dom in this scenario, inverting the power imbalance) but i thought id mention it. they keep it professional on the clock (USUALLY)

Though he’d rocked up to the office less than an hour ago, Chilchuck’s workday had already run long. All the printers had gone offline, and he had to spend a few hours troubleshooting with Kuro how to get them operational; there had been a software update, apparently, that rendered the very outdated inter-office network unusable. Of course, this meant an hour on the phone with the district manager trying to get their network updated to the company-wide standard, something that had been blown off for a year and a half; the way she reacted to his request, Chil might as well have asked her for her firstborn. All he could get for his trouble was a tepid “I’ll look into it”. This meant running around handing out USB sticks like holiday cards so his employees could get something done, and lots of lines at the printers into the foreseeable future, and naturally their budget for office supplies had been cut, so it all came out of his pocket.

The whole department was behind on their calls, but Chilchuck fought back the urge to go around crabbing at people to catch up. It served him well, as Marcille approached him in the afternoon and informed him that the phone lines were down, and the voice mailbox wasn’t functioning, and there were angry customers on the line. Another call to Kuro, who was really stretching the limits of his contract, and it turns out that the phones had also been pushed a software update that made them incompatible with the inter-office network, and they would have to take every call in two rings or they would be automatically parked on a line that no longer existed and be summarily hung up on.

Mr. Tims announced he would be taking a lunch. He blasted a cigarette in the parking lot and returned to his desk to sulk, face in hands, dreaming of days when their lines were all directly connected and they didn’t have to go through the song and dance of software updates, firmware updates, network security updates, OS updates, wireless headsets, broken wireless headsets, lost wireless headsets and keycards and lost keycards and broken keycards and daily performance numbers and corrective action reports and work smartphones with keylogging software in them and mouse movement monitoring and—

Chilchuck went back to work. He used his personal cell to call up the DM and informed her of the raging clusterfuck that had become his department—and probably the whole branch—now that the office network was effectively obsolete. She sounded on the verge of tears—apparently her other branches had also fallen victim to the endless onward march of the digital millennium, and she was at her wit’s end trying to fix them all at once. Every stress-deadened neuron in his withering brain proclaimed: serves you right. If you had fixed this when I first asked, we’d all be stressed out at the usual operating baseline. He wished her the best and hung up. He stared blankly at his desktop calendar, seeing that the next district meeting was in three days. His vision briefly fuzzed over and he fantasized about leaping onto the table and screaming, just screaming until his throat was raw and his face was purple and they had to have the orc from the main branch’s operational compliance department drag him out.

 Chilchuck went for coffee. He was risking time theft, but his DM had bigger problems, and there wasn’t much he could do. The frantic calling died down, Marcille having performed some kind of forbidden ritual to pacify their frothing customer base. During his walkaround he saw most of the floor taking calls, even folks who normally ducked phone duty, so she must have gone around recruiting people to her cause. Chilchuck made a note of that; he’d have to compensate her somehow for taking on what should have been his job.

Laios, however, was nowhere to be seen. This rankled Chilchuck; Laios rarely missed a day except for the handful of times Chilchuck had to send him home for being deathly ill, so of course the day he had to miss, there was catastrophe. His cubicle was empty, he wasn’t in the break room, he wasn’t in the parking lot putting out an engine fire on his piece of shit motorcycle, not at the watercooler. Nothing. He checked with Marcille if he’d called out, and she quirked an eyebrow up at him.

“No? He’s in the server room, with Kuro.”

“Kuro?”

“Yeah, he said he went to help.”

Mr. Tims ground his teeth. “That’s not his—I’ll go talk to him.”

Marcille smirked. “Sure you will.”

Chilchuck glowered at her, but Marcille faced his evil eye with insufferable smugness. He remembered all too soon that she saved his ass this morning, and he had to close his open mouth and walk away.

“We’re even now,” he growled.

“Nope! Still getting that Starbucks gift card!”

She was right, but he wouldn’t be admitting it. Chilchuck stormed out of his department and down the hall, sliding smoothly into a closing elevator with a few other disgruntled employees, taking a frankly infuriating number of stops at basically every floor until he could ride it all the way down into the basement. When the doors parted, hot, stuffy air flooded in. Chilchuck winced and loosened his tie and waistcoat as he stalked the rows of servers, the heat only getting worse the longer he lingered, until he found Kuro kneeling with his arms in the guts of the worst cable management imaginable, Laios helping him separate out the lines to keep track of each spaghettified clump of wires.

“Chil!” Laios said, getting a growl from Kuro that probably meant be quiet in Western Kobold. “Oh, uh, sorry. Mr. Tims! How is it up there?”

“Bad,” Chilchuck ground out. “Of course. We could really use a hand with the calls up there, you know.”

“Oh, are the lines working again?”

“Enough to receive them, but not enough to park them, so it’s a disaster for customer satisfaction,” Chilchuck said, trying to manage his volume. “So what are you doing down here? I don’t recall you being in IT.”

Laios slopped some sweat off the back of his neck with the palm of his equally sweaty hand. His dragon-patterned tie had been loosened enough to nearly slip off his neck, just enough to stay in code, and he’d tucked the end of it into his pocket to keep it out of the way, having forgotten his clip again. The heat in their dilapidated, poorly ventilated server room made his business casual button-up cling nicely to the curves of his chest and solid core, the one bright point in Chilchuck’s day so far.

“Oh, well, I wasn’t getting anywhere with my work… I mostly had a bunch of bills to print and mail out today, so naturally that was going nowhere. I had my personal USB on me, so I tried to get it done manually, but Namari was hogging it for her shipment printouts because apparently their system is kaput in the warehouse… and when I checked again everyone was using it. Some of the newer printer models don’t come with USB ports, so some of the more up-to-date departments were mooching off ours.”

“I thought the lines seemed a little excessive,” Chilchuck grumped. “I don’t think I’ve seen those things used more rigorously than they have been today.”

“Yup, that’s why. So I caught Kuro running between the floors trying to troubleshoot his latest Band-Aid fix, so I’ve been doing all the stuff that doesn’t require a tech degree, heh.”

“Laios okay with software,” Kuro chimed in. “Break hardware.”

“Yeah,” Laios said with a frown. “But the part was replaceable!” He beamed, cutting off a lecture. “Good thing Kuro hangs onto spare parts.”

Chilchuck’s eyes narrowed, and he turned to the real IT technician of the pair. “Is he actually helping, Kuro? Or are you humoring him?”

“Nice to have extra hands.” His tail wagged loosely, bushing the cuffs of his slacks. “He runs up to other floors. Checks employee access and network strength in offices. Saves time.”

“Alright then. Keep up the good work.” Chilchuck met Laios’ eye. Laios winked at him. Chilchuck blushed and ignored him, heels clacking on the cheap linoleum as he walked away.

Chilchuck hopped on call duty, having found everyone in their place and doing what all could be done. His customer service voice got a workout that left him feeling tense and jittery, every call opening with a frustrated sigh or straight up yelling. After a few quick resolutions and a handful of longer, 20–30-minute stretches of troubleshooting and over-the-phone customer cocksucking, the landline made a happy little beep, the flashing lights next to every line dying out one by one as they were parked. A dialogue box popped up on his PC: Connected to HP-5669964.

“Hey, Chil!”

Laios strode into Chilchuck’s office, startling his boss for a second as he rounded the desk in a few long strides. A big hand clapped down on Chil’s shoulder, jostling his arm and spilling coffee on the crisp collar of his shirt. Chilchuck grimaced.

“What.”

“We fixed it!”

Chilchuck eyed Laios suspiciously and set his mug down.

“How the hell did you…?”

“Don’t get too excited, it’s a temporary fix,” Laios chuckled. “But we narrowed down the problem to some kinda software incompatibility. Shuro rolled back the servers to an earlier restore point, so it’s like the update never happened! Of course, the update’s going to get forced on us again once the clock rolls over, but we can just do that tomorrow, too. If you want, I can come in early to-“

Mr. Tims raised a finger. “No. We’ll take care of it tomorrow when we usually punch in. Not everyone’s a morning person like you, Laios. It’s going to be 10 AM before anyone’s awake enough to do any work, so that’ll cover the time it takes for the servers to spin up.”

Laios leaned forward on the desk, hanging over Chilchuck’s high-backed ergonomic chair, one he had to shill out for himself. “What?” Chilchuck hissed, glowering up at him.

“I’m not hearing a ‘thank you’.”

Chilchuck scoffed. “For doing your job? You’re not doing this just for me. You’re being paid.”

Laios’s cupped Chilchuck’s cheek, hand engulfing half his face, which flushed and burned in Laios’ palm.

“Watch it, Touden,” he growled, arms crossed. Laios’ thumb stroked his cheekbone; Chilchuck didn’t swat him away. “We’re both on the clock.”

“Chil,” Laios said, in that honey-sweet tone that meant Chilchuck was about to be nagged. “You’re burnt out.”

Chilchuck blinked up at him, dark eyes shadowed by dark rings that Laios traced, up to his subtle, deepening crow’s feet. “Huh? No I’m not. This has just been a frustrating—” Laios’ fingers pushed into Chilchuck’s hair, shaking it out, raking blunt nails against his scalp. “—day. I’m not… you don’t have to…” He slumped into Laios’ big, warm palm, calloused but gentle in handling him. “… what was the question again?”

Laios chuckled. “Nothing. I got it handled.”

Chilchuck snapped back into reality and bit into the meat of Laios’ thumb to try to get him to unhandle it. Laios took it like a champ, pulling his hand out of Chilchuck’s mouth and cradling the whole of Chilchuck’s head in his palm, raking it back and forth, mussing up his hair, which Chilchuck reached up to fight off; his arms disobeyed him, flopping around like limp noodles until he gave up and relaxed into it.

“I can see you through your office windows, y’know. You looked like you weren’t having a great time. So I figured I’d help take care of it, ease your mind a little.” Laios’ smile had a sad quirk to it. “You look a little pale. You didn’t have cigarettes for lunch again, did you?”

Chilchuck grimaced. “None of your business.”

Laios sighed. “That’s a yes.”

“It’s just a rough week, Laios,” Chilchuck said. “I’ll be alright.”

Laios’ hand trailed down, framing Chilchuck’s chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“You’re coming home with me tonight,” Laios said, meeting Chilchuck’s eyes with that relentless force, gold boring into him. Sometimes Chilchuck wondered if Laios’ eyes ever got dry; he hardly ever blinked.  “We’re getting food into you, and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, we’re going to the club to work some of that tension out of you. Understood?”

Chilchuck’s pupils blew wide. His thick eyebrows pinched and he grimaced, unable to look away. Laios’ body curled over him, blocking out the office, the noise, the chaos. Chilchuck sighed, dropped his arms into his lap, and let Laios carry the weight of his skull.

“Oh, right,” Chilchuck realized, his eyes bright. “It’s Friday.”

Laios grinned and patted Chil’s cheek. “See? The fact that you forgot means you’re burned out. See you at six.”

Chilchuck threw paperclips at Laios until he left his office. At 6 PM, they met up on top of the hood of Chilchuck’s old Mustang; his tongue tasted like black coffee. Laios smiled, making it hard to kiss him deeply; Chilchuck got impatient and started biting. Marcille speedwalked past the car and neither of them noticed or cared.

[senjutsunade]

#Blind Incandescence - Detective AU

Note: I randomly came across this - 'T was hilarious. We must continue. Putting it here for easier access.

Thread Title: Data, Drama and Coffee Karma

@uchihaa-itachi:

“For the record, both of you owe me coffee.” Came the monotonous voice from behind a flickering computer screen, “Also, mind telling me who gave Naruto access to the case files?”

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@senjutsunade:

She’s exhausted.

Her head hurts.

They have been trying to fix Naruto’s mess for the last few hours. And how her eyes are ready to bleed out of their sockets.

What was it with Uzumaki fingers and destruction?

Deadpanning, her only response isto throw a pink highlighter at the Uchiha.

“Blame Kakashi!”

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@konohagakurekakashi:

A non-committal humm was his only response as he shifted within his seat, back and shoulders popping in protest. He vaguely wondered how he contributed to the curse that was solely attached to the Uzumaki name (and fingerpads) before his stare settled on the empty belly of his pug mug. Itachi-chan was right about one thing though, they could all do with another refill.

He would have to get to that, seeing as the Uchiha was still trapped in the all-encompassing void of data-input, the light of his screen casting ghostly shadows underneath his lids. Their honored employer was engaged in a battle with a pad of sticky-notes; each treacherous slip, tearing and crumpling before she can stick her reprimands and scribbles to the Intern's chair/table/Ramen calandar (there was also the datum that Tsunade-sama's coffee usually came with an added kick, punch and bodyslam--each sip doing it's bit to disintegrate the esophagus). Kakashi sweatdropped at the thought. Iie he would definitely have to be the propitiatory lamb here. Absently clearing his throat Kakashi's pencil rose from his half-done crossword to flick twice at the switch of their trusted coworker (Mr coffee maker).

"Sou des ne... I need an 8 letter word for difficult... Starting with a T..."

๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑

@uchihaa-itachi:

Cue a noncommittal hum as pale digits caught the offensively colored highlighter, dark orbs pausing to shoot the blond a look that would be more or less ignored. This was routine, after all, though he supposed he ought to consider him lucky it was stationary this time. They were already up to their eyebrows in paperwork and certainly didn’t need an addition in the form of carpenter bills. 

Yare ne...Eyes flickered back to the computer screen, gaze zeroing in on an obnoxious line of code that had no business in a computer software that could barely process binary to begin with. Thus was the power of funding and accident prone little kouhai fingers that could do more damage than they were probably worth. 

“Try toilsome.” Like our collective existence. 

The sound of bubbling liquid was quite welcome in their dingy little void.

๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑๑

@senjutsunade:

Late hours were become far too common, recently. Cases were coming their way far too frequently. Becoming increasingly absurd. Inhumane. And so, despite the apparent annoyance, these moments were somewhat relaxing.

Or they would have been, if she weren’t being consumed by an  endless amount of paperwork. Hadn’t she done all this not even 4 days ago?

Letting out a barely audible sigh, she tried once again to read the scrawl that was supposed to be...a receipt? A report? A grocery list? Eye twitching in annoyance, she scribbled furiously on a sticky note, and sapped it into the offensive paper, as if force was required to make it stick.

Growling, a glare was directed at Kakashi. “Or Tortuous”. Maybe she should try sticking a few to some of the interns foreheads? “Troublesome!” With a stapler to make them really stick? “Taxing!” the eight letter requirement completely forgotten.

“Irksome!”And so went the ‘starting with T’ requirement out of the window. The annoying paper was shoved away, as another one, with STAINS of some sort on it, was revealed. “Inconvenient!”

Why were these intern creatures becoming more useless each year? “Problematic!!!” As she started scribbling another note, furiously, her pen decided to run out of ink that very moment and thus the useless stationary was hurled at the silver haired idiot, this time.

“Infuriating!”

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@konohagakurekakashi:

His superior’s initial huffs and glowers soared over his head like a paper plane, the Hatake having built up a resistance against the special brand © she reserved just for him within the second year of his employment at Anbu--much like her endurance toward his time-keeping skills and very valid, very real excuses. When her ire started to ascent with each scrap and crinkle of paper however, Kakashi spared a prudent gaze in her direction, pencil long having scratched ‘toilsome’ into each awaiting, puzzle block. Yet, the only thing his concerned gaze got him was a pen to the chin, grey hues following the way the offending piece of stationary fell back onto his desk, before rolling onto the carpet and underneath the copying machine (never to be seen or heard of again) Fact. The underside of their copying Machine was a No-Man’s land. “Maa…Maa…I think you’re running on low blood sugar, Tsunade-sama, if your arms keep jerking like that, you’re ‘gonna get a paper-cut.” He slowly stood from his seat, wincing at the familiar ache that came with horrendous, desk posture—before closing the distance leading to Mr Coffee Maker. “I’d recommend the usual order from the usual place, demo, I think they closed down two weeks ago due to non-compliance with health regulations…” Cue a quirk of his brow in the Uchiha’s direction to confirm same, before he started his search for the Sugar container—the stupid crock never being in the same place at the same time (mutant ants—being the ongoing theory).

_________________________________________________________

@konohagakurekakashi & @uchihaa-itachi

[mrdrhenwardhykle]

Random FNAF headcanons that probably actually canon I'm right shut up/j

The Derryberry Rainbow was actually an animatronic that was supposed to be another pastry that Chica made (like Mr. Cupcake), but was taken down after it started swearing at kids and making them cry

Phone guy is more terrified of the Puppet than he lets on- he'll run out of a conversation if it's heading towards him

On that note-the staff will laugh at him for it because he'll run like hell

The puppet just likes to taunt people because it doesn't have much else to do

The puppet mainly does glare at William though

If you broke open a part of BB-like his head or his stomach-a large pile of batteries would fall out

BB and JJ are infamously known for randomly stealing and collecting from the establishment

William probably has pet rabbits. It's the only animal he's not okay with hurting

Foxy (The character not the kid) is obsessed with the ocean, the sea, lakes, pools, etc. and will talk about it often in his shows-making it seem like he's overly excitable about it like a dog

"Phone Guy Freewarez" is the makeshift repair and software company that he made for Freddy Fazbear's. He has its number on a sticky note somewhere on the desk-it only has afternoon hours because that's probably the only time he's awake

People actually call him 'The Phone Guy' often sort of as a running joke because everyone forgets what his name was-and because he makes memos and recordings a lot

Mangle has a slight obsession with cakes and baking cakes. Staff usually has to be aware about it with birthday parties and protecting the kitchen

Because the animatronics aren't forced to be violent towards animals, they get excited like little children whenever one is brought into the establishment. Sometimes it's hard to get their attention back

If there was no security guard for the night, the animatronics would likely grab the toys out from the prize counter and start playing games with each other- since they're still kids

If Foxy was more functional, he would have the habit of picking up random items and pretend to sword fight when he's attacking a night guard

Sometimes the animatronics get a little too comfortable in birthday parties- and will stand in the role of a guest at the parties-as they never finished their parties. Because of this, many have reported Golden Freddy sightings at Freddy's

[justaduckarts]

“It’s me. Don’t you… Don’t you remember?” 

DIRTYNIGHTCLOWNS-

i mean if the killers... maybe thought y/n was too annoying... too in the way of their murdering... kept moon too docile... maybe just clipping y/n from Sun&Moon's memory would be a good fix :)

OHOHOH NONNIE :)

This one. This one is going to hurt.

This will also be not canon.

To say you were upset was an understatement. You were crying so hard it was hard to see the road. When you drove right past the turn for your apartment complex, you knew where you were going.

You just didn't want to be alone.

The park was already open for the night, but you were able to abuse your employee privileges and get a parking spot that wouldn't mean a mile hike up to the gates. Seriously, this place needed another parking garage. The first one wasn't cutting it.

The gates opened with a creak. The staff bot at the ticket counter waved at you. You waved back, wiping furiously at your face.

Well. If you weren't working tonight, you knew Moon wasn't either. Wasn't permitted out of the daycare without eyes on him. Not when they still hadn't sorted his 'software issue'. That was fine. All you wanted right now was to see him.

You marched on towards the building made to look like a tent, pulling yourself together. Calming down. Moon always knew how to distract you. You could really use the distraction, even if it meant being picked on for a couple hours.

Except... the daycare was empty.

"Moon?" You called out over the play area. You peeked into the naptime nook. Little artificial stars lit your path.

There was no sign of the lunar animatronic you so adored anywhere in the daycare. You even boldly tried the door by the security desk, but it was locked. Still, given how loud you were being, there was no way he didn't hear you. Right?

Unless he wasn't in the daycare.

As if on cue, the doors to the daycare swung open. In your panic, you dove under the security desk. Why were you hiding? Well, technically you weren't supposed to be there. You didn't want to get in trouble for breaking in (even if Moon had given you the pass code for the backdoor). But really, if you came clean, you probably wouldn't, right? Should you just-

"Alright, Moon," a rough voice cut through your mental debate. You've really gotta stop eavesdropping like this.

"You're good to go. Since you're not allowed to work without your handler, you'll just have to hang out in the daycare tonight. If you notice any continued issues, just send us a report." Carlos tucked his hands into his pockets.

"Thank you, Mr. Carlos," Moon looked around the daycare. Clean, as always. Sun never did like to leave a mess.

"Heh. If only the Moon at the 'plex were so easy to work with... G'night." With that, the slimy tech turned and strolled back out of the daycare. The doors swung shut.

A little breath of relief fell out of you. Carlos. You really didn't want to run into him. Not after what Springtrap had said about him. How skeevy do you have to be to make an animatronic designed for scaring uncomfortable?

"Sun? Are you awake?" Moon's voice was quiet. You weren't sure if Sun responded, give that dialogue would be internal. But he must have, because after a moment Moon said, "I'm fine."

Moon was on the verge of asking Sun another question. You heard him start with "Do you" when you popped up quickly. No, you couldn't eavesdrop on them. That wouldn't be right.

The moment you popped up behind the desk, Moon jumped.

"Trespas- oh. You." Moon's claws relaxed. "What are you doing here? The daycare is closed. And you aren't working."

"Uh..." You shifted. "I just came to see you."

Moon's head tilted cartoonishly.

"Why?"

"Well.." You looked at him. Was he messing with you right now? Usually he seemed excited to see you. "I just... wanted to?"

"You... wanted to see me?" Moon pointed at himself. The puzzled look on his face troubled you.

"Yes? I thought we could talk. Or- Or play a game. I don't know, I've just... had a rough day and-

"And you came... here? To me? Shouldn't you have... gone to a friend?" Moon's genuine confusion struck you. Gone to a friend? Well. That hurt.

"You are my friend," you said quietly, "Moon if this is like... like some kind of joke, it's not funny."

"I'm completely serious," Moon stood up straighter, "you're not meant to be in the daycare right now. You entered the park without a ticket. You need to leave."

"Leave? No, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on with you." You stood taller, arms crossed. Why was he doing this to you?

"What's going on with me is that I am escorting a trespasser off of company property. I'll be filing a report, I hope you know that." Moon shook his head, "how typical of management to stick me with such a troublemaker."

And then it clicked. He didn't know you. He didn't remember you.

"Moon. It's... It's me. It's starlight. Don't you... Don't you remember me?" You crept out from behind the desk.

"I've never met you before," he said flatly. Your eyes grew misty.

"Oh." You put a hand to your mouth. Moon watched your expression twist with despair. "Oh god..." He vaguely wondered if you were having some kind of nervous breakdown.

Still. Moon's caretaker programming wouldn't stop nagging at him. You were distressed, obviously. He needed to correct that.

"..." Moon hesitantly reached out and patted your shoulder. He wasn't accustomed to the idea of comforting adults. Little ones, certainly. But adults? Well, he tried not to think on it.

You looked up at Moon. What could you say?

"Moon... is... Sun- I- Does he remember?" Your hands clasped together, as if you were praying.

Moon's head tilted once more. His expression shifted.

"Sun has informed me that he doesn't recognize you." Moon shrugged, "we've never met you. What did you call yourself? Starlight? Is that a preferred name?"

"It's... not," you wiped your eyes, "...sorry for trespassing. I uh, I should go. I should- yeah- I should leave."

"Right," Moon folded his hands together, watching you move towards the exit, "I suppose I'll be seeing you tomorrow for our first shift together?"

The question made you cringe. You clenched your fists.

"...Yeah. See you tomorrow, Moonbeam," you tossed a lazy wave before moving for the door again.

Moon watched you go. One step. Two. Five.

Should we be worried? Sun, always so concerned about others.

Six. Eight. Ten.

Moon groaned.

Suddenly, he was grasping your hand. You looked back at him.

Well. This felt painfully familiar. Like a twisted deja vu.

"Something wrong?" It just jumped out of you so naturally. Moon shifted, hands fidgeting.

"Maybe... You could stay... For one game." He looked anywhere but you. Moon couldn't deny he was curious about you. About why you were there. Why you were sad and why you called him Moonbeam. It tugged at something in him.

"Uh..." You looked up at him. Mason's words crept back in.

Quit while you're ahead.

...Guess you're not the quitting type. You took a breath.

"Hide and seek?" You smiled up at him, drying your face.

"Perfect." Moon nodded.

"Do you want to seek?" You followed him away from the door. Moon tried to fight it, but he grinned.

"Yes." There was a little jingle of bells as he bounced in anticipation. Anticipation of the game. Of the chase.

Moon does love to chase.

And you. Well. You were shaping up to be an interesting mystery to chase.

[softwaredekho]

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[libsysltd]

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[novankenn]

Slightly Unhinged (879 Words)

Deep in the bowls of Beacon's labyrinth like basement, Jaune toiled away. It had been a couple of weeks since he "vanished" and while others worried and searched for him, he became a shadow. Stalking the halls after hours, nicking the items he required to do his work, to achieve his goal.

The promises of elixirs that would promote strength, agility, intelligence, vitality and vigor. It was the answer to his problems... the magic bullet that would allow him to close the chasm between himself and his peers.

/=/

Ozpin: So, still no sign of Mr Arc?

Glynda: None.

Ozpin: Have we reached out to the VPD, just in case he has gone to Vale?

Glynda : I don't feel that is necessary at this stage, considering the reports I have been getting from various members of the staff.

Ozpin: What types of reports?

Glynda: The kitchen staff are reporting missing food and drink items. They figure it's a single student raiding their larders, do to the small amounts that have gone missing.

Glynda took a glance down at her tablet to confirm some information before continuing.

Glynda: Professor Peach is also reporting missing items. Some limited quantities of dust, but more puzzling are the old chemistry and dust mixing equipment, plus some of her stocks of rare flora samples.

Ozpin: So, we have a single student missing, but also minor quantities of supplies being taken.

Ozpin leaned forward on his desk, his hands clasped underneath his chin.

Ozpin: So, if my assumption is correct, you feel Mr Arc is still on beacon’s grounds, and is helping himself to various items around the school, correct?

Glynda: I do. I understand the food stuffs, but the other items are slightly confusing.

Ozpin: I agree. What about his scroll? Have we been able to ping it?

Glynda: No. I refuse to believe that he knows how to disable the tracking software, so the only reasonable conclusion is, he’s keeping it turned off.

Ozpin: Anything further?

Glynda: Aside from the interviews conducted with the remainder of team JNPR, which you have already reviewed. Nothing.

Glynda sucked on her bottom lip for a minute, before speaking up.

Glynda: I think you made a serious mistake, Ozpin, in regard to accepting someone so ill prepared to be here.

Ozpin: Why do you say that?

Glynda: Not even considering his grades, there is the single fact of his fraudulent transcripts…

Ozpin: He passed initiation.

Glynda: Barely and only because Ms Nikos took a liking to him from their first interaction.

Glynda reached up to push her glasses up her nose.

Glynda: Though, I will admit, that he showed remarkable fortitude and ability when it came to directing others; which is supported by his leadership grades. But he wasn’t ready, and I feel the mental strain has caught up with him.

Ozpin: I see.

Ozpin leaned back in his chair

Ozpin: So you feel Mr Arc is having a mental breakdown?

Glynda: I do.

Ozpin: It’s a valid theory, but I feel, no I know, there is something else happening.

Ozpin reached up and rubbed his chin, as if in deep thought.

Ozpin: Has the review of his actions leading up to his disappearance been completed?

Glynda: Yes.

Ozpin: Highlights?

Glynda: Nothing much. Mr Winchester was abusing Jaune’s insecurities, his team interactions were strained; however there is his checking out of three books from the library almost three weeks ago. Books that have yet to be returned.

Ozpin: What were the topics?

Glynda: Alchemy, and a couple of resource books focused on identification of flora and fauna.

Ozpin: Alchemy?

Glynda: Yes. Le traité d'Ophélie sur la propriété alchimique.

Glydna frowned as she saw Ozpin’s whole body stiffen.

Glynda: Ozpin, do you know that book?

Ozpin: (sighing) You could say that. I wrote it, a few hundred years ago, and placed the only remaining copy in the stacks.

Glynda: Then it appears that Mr Arc has found it. Is this a problem?

Ozpin: Do you have a list of the items Professor Peach is missing?

Glynda said nothing, but instead pulled up a file on her tablet and handed the whole device to the Headmaster. It took him only a few minutes to review the list.

Ozpin: Cancel all classes. I want every teacher to start searching Beacon’s basement. We need to find Mr Arc like yesterday!

Glynda: Is it that serious?

Ozpin: Yes. Yes, it is. None of the recipes in that stupid book were designed with thought towards interactions with aura awakened individuals. I wrote it with the intention that its recipes would be used to assist the average person’s life…

Ozpin’s face was drawn and pale, as he dropped the tablet on his desk while rising from his seat.

Ozpin: I… I tested some of them on the aura awakened…

Glynda: Ozpin?

Glynda questioned as Ozpin looked to be shaking, while moving to grab his cane and head for the elevator.

Ozpin: Aura negatively interacts with the products. It corrupts and twists the end results. Mr Arc is in grave danger… if he is still at Beacon as the evidence suggests, the only place he could be hiding out is the basement.

Glynda: I’ll inform all the staff.

Ozpin : I just hope we’re not too late.

[darkspine10]

GF Fanfic - We Fought a Zoo

Dipper and Mabel Vs. The Past (34,006 words) by darkspine10

Chapters: 7/9

Fandom: Gravity Falls

Rating: Teen and Up

Zera was fighting to stay awake. Her wife had never learned how to teleport, and with her brother-in-law’s party taking the only car they were reduced to the horrors of public transport. They’d been lucky to squeeze past a throng into spare seats on the Muni bus heading into the city centre. Despite her tiredness, Zera found the connecting wires above the bus strangely fascinating - she’d never seen a vehicle restricted to one strict path side-by-side with free moving traffic before. Pressed in a line beside her father-in-law, she craned her neck like an eager child to catch a glimpse through bleary eyes.

Meanwhile Mabel grimaced at her father from across the way between strangers’ bodies rocking back and forth. In the packed bus it was all she could do to show she was sorry for the deceptions. He had his arms crossed and a neutral expression, which for him meant a resting gruffness much like his grandfather’s.

Mabel tried to ignore the unceasing gaze and plan for what lay ahead. Between them they had Journals 3, 6, and Stan and Ford’s combined tome, but Mabel wasn’t about to put her full trust in the books. Relying on the journal to find weaknesses in the heat of a fight was all well and good in theory, so Dipper assumed, but Mabel preferred a more practical approach. The journals had led to ruin as many times as success, and she lacked her brother’s unflinching reverence for knowledge for its own sake. No, she was readying to face the tulpa with sheer pluck and her own skills. Before leaving the house she’d equipped herself, strapping on her grapple gauntlet, the adapted invention she’d crafted from her old grappling hook. The black bracer was strapped to her left wrist. Beneath, in the adjacent launch tube, she’d loaded a multipurpose tranquiliser. It was enough to take down most possible threats.

Mabel wished she’d brought her motorbike, shaking in her seat as the bus turned a corner and made its way down another sloping street. Zera slid into Mr Pines’ side and held the nearby bar to stay upright in her seat. For his part, Mr Pines seemed vaguely uncomfortable at her touch - probably unnerved now he knew the woman next to him was not East Indian, but was in fact an ET with iridescent scales, tendrils rather than hair, and pale eyes like a shark’s. Still, Mabel mused, he was putting up with all this, so it wasn’t a total failure of first contact.

They were passing through the densest part of San Francisco, not far from where Errata had made his initial rampage. The people walking the streets seemed unperturbed, although the news had reported that the tulpa - resembling a horde of zombies at the time - had travelled in this direction. Maybe that was the reaction most people had to encountering the unknown, to bury their heads and forget in a collective effort to stay sane. It worked in Gravity Falls after all. She wondered what that meant for her family’s particular brand of relative madness, that they endeavoured to discover and chronicle every last shred of evidence of the paranormal.

“That’s where I work,” Mr Pines said awkwardly, pointing Zera’s eye towards one of the anonymous skyscrapers. It was obvious to her that he was faintly embarrassed. He was divided between his upset confusion at the events of the past day and his duties as a host to his daughter-in-law.

“As a… computer expert?” she offered, trying to open him up to conversation, though she had to yell somewhat in the cramped car. With the perception filter masking Zera’s alien features, Mabel could almost imagine this was a perfectly ordinary family outing.

“Yeah, I’m a back-end techie in a big software developer. You’d be surprised how satisfying editing lines of code to get rid of bugs can be.”

“Uh huh,” Zera said, and Mabel facepalmed. Her dad’s work was hardly the most thrilling to talk about. At least they were making an effort to get along.

The Muni led them through the Sunset District, an endless expanse of squat, square buildings, laid out in a gridlike pattern, then south, heading towards the coast. “I’m sad we didn’t stop in Haight-Ashbury,” Mabel yelled across the aisle, drawing annoyed looks from the other commuters.

“Probably best not to get high on a mission,” Zera said with a smile, though her father didn’t like the joke and merely deepened his scowl.

Finally they reached their stop and shuffled past the crowd to get off. They stood in a large parking lot leading to a boulevard of tended trees and shrubs that ended in a ticket office. Zera read a flag posted on a lamppost. “San Francisco Zoo. This is the place?” As far as the three of them could see there was no sign of panic. No people running or screaming. Families and kids lined up at the entrance to buy their tickets so they could gawk at the variety of exotic animals.

“You sure your construct thingy is here?” Mr Pines said doubtfully. He had Journal 6 open and was shaking his head at something in Dipper’s young-adult jottings.

“Gimme a sec.” Mabel pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. Her father looked at her quizzically while she concentrated for a few seconds. A gentle ripple flew out from her and raced across the zoo.

“Well, I’ll be-” Mr Pines was cut off when a rebounding wave passed over him and back to Mabel.

She opened her eyes and grinned. “Oh, it’s here alright.” She had used an aura detection spell, her and Zera’s alternative to Dipper’s technological solution. It had bounced off the tulpa’s mystical field like echolocation. “Can’t narrow it down though. Too many living things messing up the feed.”

“The zoo’s hardly small,” Zera said, peering at the ticket office and coming up with ways to avoid paying for three admissions. She kicked at the concrete. “That thing’s clever though, most cryptids won’t have a hard time blending in here. Without your brother’s tracker we’ll never find it. Like a needle in a haystack.”

“Do they have haystacks in space?” Mr Pines asked, genuinely curious.

Mabel slapped her forehead .”Ugh, I’m a dummy, before we left I should’ve…” She snapped her fingers. “Z, can you open another portal quickly?”

“Not really, transporting another person-“

“Not for me, just a little one,” she whispered her intent and put her palms together. “Pretty please? I’ll buy you a new fish tank for you to snack on when we get home?”

Zera relented and lifted her hands to enact the spell. She visibly strained with the effort, moaning as well, until a small hole opened up in the air, replacing a section of blue sky with floral wallpaper. A coiled rope tumbled out of the portal into Mabel’s arms. Zera dropped her hands and the portal closed with a pop.

“Thank you babe, you’re the best,” Mabel said. Zera, bent double, waved her off like it was nothing.

Mr Pines leant in to figure out Mabel’s plan and examine the rope. At least, he’d thought it was a rope. On closer inspection the rope writhed. “Holy Moses, is that Apep?”

“Yeppers!” Mabel said with a toothy grin. “She’s perfect!”

“Perfect? Are you a total mushuganah?! What good is that lazy reptile gonna be in a massive zoo?”

“She’s got homing instincts.” Both Mr Pines and Zera gave her looks of complete disbelief. “No, really. Apep may not seem like an active, go-getter snake, but she’s got this knack for sniffing out trouble.”

“Isn’t she also a total wimp who bolts at the first sign of risk to her fat, slimy body?” Zera pointed out. She tickled the snake’s chin. The animal wasn’t pleased to be roused from yet another nap today and coiled languorously around Mabel’s arms.

“We just need to give her something to sniff out, trust me.” Mabel held out Journal 3 in front of Apep’s nose. “C’mon girl, smell the scent of conspiracy and musty paper. The tulpas come from the journals, right? So they must have some things in common.”

Apep unexpectedly wriggled to the ground and slithered away. They heard a series of screams vanishing into the distance as she went. Mabel proudly put her hands on her hips and went towards the zoo. “Onwards, Aoshima!”

Zera shrugged at Mr Pines, as if to say, ‘ah, what the hell’, and followed Mabel. Mr Pines waited a moment, shook his head, then quickly walked to catch up with the girls. In the end they managed to achieve entry to the zoo using the flimsy excuse of being expert snake handlers, here to recapture a rare specimen. From the amount of unsettled visitors around the entrance, the ticket sellers were willing to believe the story.

The trio quickly became lost in the sights and sounds of the zoo. Lemurs and Monkeys swung on vines all around them. Across the savannah Zebras and Giraffes idly chewed on grass, while predators hungered greedily a short distance beyond. Each direction led to another great kingdom of animal life and it wasn’t hard to get overwhelmed by the sounds and smells of the rare animals. Despite the chaos of Apep’s release, as well as the possible lurking tulpa, the zoo remained calm, with people merrily going about their way, ignorant of any danger. Mabel had to send out another aura spell to try and pick up Apep’s trail.

Her father raised an eyebrow. “Wait, I thought there was too much biodiversity in here for that kind of magic mumbo jumbo?”

“It’s different with Apep,” Mabel patiently explained. “She’s like my familiar, I know her essence.”

“If you say so.” He shrugged, desiring nothing more than to be done with this adventure.

The spell’s trace led them to one of the smaller parts of the zoo, a white-brick building on the north side with a central circular window. It sat next to an anteater enclosure and a small ‘prehistoric garden’. Unknowingly, both twins’ parties ended up running into plastic dinosaurs that day. Mabel put on her glasses and examined a sign by the building her spell had bounced off of. “South American Tropical Rainforest and Aviary. Guess we found ‘tulpy’.”

She pushed the door open and the three of them tensed. Mabel made sure her gauntlet was ready for either grappling or darting, while Zera reluctantly whispered protection chants under her breath. She was already exhausted enough, let alone if she had to start making wards and firing offensive spells left and right. Mr Pines raised his fists in a weak show of defiance, but flinched on entering the humid greenhouse. A plumed basilisk lounging on a branch had spooked him with its wide-open eyes.

“That one’s just a regular animal, Dad,” Mabel teased. “Here Apep! Come to momma!” Against the walls of the room were rocky cliffs, and, above their heads, a large fallen tree trunk to add to the jungle-like atmosphere. So did the heat, making the two humans in the room instantly start to sweat.

“Over here.” Zera tiptoed over a low stone wall into a tropical oasis. Lying sunning among the pebbles was one very ‘pleased with herself’ snake. “Oh Apep, you useless desert noodle. Some hunting dog you turned out to be.”

“Aw, maybe she made a mistake.” Mabel said, kneeling on the wall. Apep didn’t resist, lying there waiting to be picked up again without a single thought behind her slitted eyes. Zera edged closer to her pet, pushing past a fern and trying to crouch down. A massive lizard hefted itself out of the foliage and Mabel cried out. “Woah, take it slow.”

“That’s a Komodo dragon!” Her father added, impressed by the size of the thing. The wrinkled creature was 10 feet across and dragging its bulk along the pebbled beach towards Zera. She froze in place, unsure what the best move would be.

“They’re venomous,” Mabel whispered, “back away and- wait a second.” She cocked her head to one side. “Komodo dragons aren’t from South America.”

“So, so what?” Mr Pines said frantically. “You can regale us with reptile trivia later.”

But Mabel had a point. Zera’s eyes widened as a curving sail crest unfurled itself on the back of the ‘dragon’. A small spark of noxious flame shot from the lizard’s nostrils. Zera swallowed and held her ground. She was inches from Apep but didn’t dare move a muscle closer. “Pyrosaur,” she stated. “Apep found our tulpa after all.”

“A juvenile, judging by the pint-size,” Mabel said. “They disappear in moonlight. Don’t suppose anyone thought to bring a full moon in their back pocket? No? Thought not.”

The tulpa-pyrosaur gave no warning as it leapt towards Zera, spewing fire in a spray ahead of itself. She dived for Apep then twirled to jump out of the way just as the fire singed her back. Steam rose from her skin, which had already been unreasonably dry. Zera rolled over, unable to stand and dropped Apep.

Mabel reflexively fired her grapple gauntlet - not aiming the tranquiliser at the pyrosaur, but sending a line to her partner. Zera feebly held on and let the cable drag her upright and out of range of the pyrosaur’s lunging teeth.

“Jehosophat!” Mr Pines cursed. He bundled Mabel towards the exit. Zera wobbled on her feet but managed to stay upright, while Apep serpentined out into daylight at a speed that outran all of them.

By now the tulpa had changed forms, going from a convincing reptilian to starkly technological. A floating cube launched itself past the group into the sky before dropping down towards a nearby exhibit. Mabel watched it descend and come down with a splash. She traced it and saw its destination was a new attraction at the zoo. “A Wonderland of Snow and Sea,” she intoned. “More Christmas theming.”

The area was decorated with large blue and white plastic approximating ice sheets. On rocky platforms around a meandering river sat polar bears on one island and a flock of emperor penguins on the other. Powerful air conditioners operating at full blast plummeted the temperature down. Mabel and her father soon forgot the sweat from the reptile house. Snow machines added a final touch of ambience, sprinkling them with fake paper chunks.

Supporting Zera on one arm, Mabel held a hand to block the sun glinting off the white plastic and scanned the new area. It must be a recent exhibition, full of transfers from zoos in colder climes. There wasn’t any trace of their wayward tulpa.

“No sign of it. Nothing. Bupkis.” Mr Pines had summed it up quite well. Mabel slumped down beside the riverbank and pursed her lips.

Only Zera’s spirits were lifted. “This is more like it. I’m going for a swim!” She pecked Mabel on the cheek, then ran towards the freezing water. Mr Pines watched amazed as she leapt in headfirst without even stopping to take her clothes off.

“She needs to rehydrate,” Mabel quietly explained. Apep slithered up next to her on the bank and stared into her eyes as if pleading to be sent back home through the same witchcraft that had whisked her out of comfort. Mabel stroked the animal, wishing she could provide for its wants. “You did good, girl,” she whispered, “sorry we blew your lead.”

Mr Pines looked around the enclosure and sat himself next to his daughter. “At least she did better than the blasted pig ever could.”

“Waddles is special too, in his own unique, piggy way.” Mabel pulled her legs in tight and slumped her head on her knees. “It’s not fair. You shouldn’t have to be thrown in the deep end like this.” Mr Pines realised she was talking about himself and the sudden discoveries he and his wife had made. “I didn’t get a chance to say it before, we were in such a rush to fix things. Dipper even had this whole ‘slow reveal’ plan with the journals.” Mabel placed Journal 3 on the shingle.

Mr Pines opened the book to a page near the back. Mabel’s own handwriting was scrawled on the page in pastel crayon, talking about unicorns and protective shield enchantments. The cartoonish doodles she’d drawn were a reminder of how very young his children had been when they started all of this. When they’d started lying. He sighed. “I know why Dipper lied. Boy’s the most anxious kid known to mankind. But why you, Mabel? Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“I wanted to,” she said, looking away and picking up handfuls of pebbles to slip through her fingers. “I wrote you a letter and everything during our first summer away. But we passed it off as my wacky imagination.” She threw away the rocks so they splashed in the river. “Then Dipper got talking about hiding the truth, and I was only supporting him at first. Eventually I got thinking that what he said made sense. I didn’t want to lose out on our amazing lives chasing monsters either, I mean, what teenager would! It got hidden the same way I hid all my boyfriends and girlfriends. I’ve always had trouble adjusting to change, especially when it’s in my hands to decide.” Her shoulders tensed. “Dad, do you or Mom know what I’ve been up to the past few years?”

“Oh, you mean the ‘activism’.” Mr Pines made quote marks with his fingers. “Sure, we know all about that?”

“But, like, how much do you know? I’ve not exactly been following the law 100% of the time.”

Mr Pines snorted. “Come on, you can say it. You’ve been a notorious criminal.” Mabel seemed surprised but he shook his head. “Heck May, it’s not like we could avoid seeing your name and face crop up on the news every few months. All those protests and strikes across the country, and there was our little girl, every time.”

“Trying to make the world a better place one step at a time. If you knew, why didn’t you bring it up before now?”

“And ruin the Christmas mood? We didn’t want to cause a scene.”

He seemed appalled by the idea and Mabel couldn’t help but laugh. “Man, our family is crap at direct communication.”

“Mabel!” he admonished. “That was certainly direct language.”

She was still grinning. “No, but it’s true. Stan and Ford, me’n Dipper, we can’t help but be stupid about talking to each other. We bury our real feelings until we fall apart. Maybe we should all stop caring so much about nebulous future consequences and live a little, you know?”

“Can I ask, what about Zera? Is she… like you?”

“What do you mean, Dad? Is she an expert knitter, does she like cute kittens, is she equally hot and sexy?”

He shoved her away playfully. “You know what I mean pumpkin. Does she go out of her way to help people and cause trouble with the police like you’re always getting up to?”

“Well, she does the latter. I’m working on the former; she’s very keen.” Mabel spied her wife swimming backstroke by a pair of bemused polar bears. “Zera’s been along for the ride on a lot of our recent adventures. I trust her fully with my life. Though not necessarily my wallet. Do you wanna know how we really met? Zera tried to scam me out of a giant crystal in Japan. She pretended to be the last of her kind.”

“And, that wasn’t true?”

“Heck no, far from it. All lies. But she cared about me, and we bonded, and now everything’s amazing. Maybe we can forget all the lying between us, too?” Mabel stared imploringly at her father.

He grinned. “Hey, I’m just sad how much I missed out on. You’ve been to space, saved the world, had all these insane things happen. Most of all I missed getting to walk my little girl down the aisle.” Mabel hugged him tight, burying her head in the crook of his neck. “I suppose this is all my fault, when you think about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was the one who suggested that you and Dipper should spend a summer up north. I remembered all the fun I had in Gravity Falls - swimming in the lake, wandering the forest trails - and figured you’d get something out of it too. I thought it would be character building, sending you all alone and having you work for Uncle Stan like I did, with no technology to rely on.”

Mabel gave a small laugh. “You realise we had smartphones back then, dad?”

“Yeah yeah, I know, stardust. I thought the trip would be one big adventure. I guess I underestimated quite how big. I mean, it makes sense. My job is so boring, anything outside my comfort zone feels like a major step.”

“You’re not doing so bad so far,” Mabel said, pleased to have made some small way towards repairing their rift.

“Your mother might take longer to come around though. Mary doesn’t change her mind swiftly.”

“Nor does Dipper,” Mabel said, chuckling.

At that moment, Zera swam up to them. She rested her arms on the riverbank and flashed them a smile. “Well well, what exotic animals do we have here? Primates from the southwest USA if I’m not mistaken?” Her clothes, from her pullover vest to her plaid skirt and boots, were all soaking wet. Zera didn’t seem to mind. She was about to climb onto the bank when she suddenly jerked backwards.

Mabel shot to her feet as Zera felt another tug and splashed under the water. She emerged again, waving her arms and spluttering. Her perception filter flickered on and off, flashing between human and alien. With one hand she clung onto the beach. “My leg!” She closed her eyes and pulled with all her might but it was no use. She was dragged inexorably under the water.

“Can she breathe under there?” Mr Pines said, jumping to his feet and searching wildly for a life preserver.

“I’m not waiting to find out.” Mabel gulped in a breath of air and dived in after Zera. The water chilled her skin and the extra weight absorbed by her clothes began to weigh heavily. Zera was reaching for the surface and being continuously pulled down. The water was clear enough for Mabel to make out a long, slimy tentacle wrapped around one of her legs. She let out a stream of bubbles as she gasped in shock. An octopus-like mass resided on the riverbed. It had a golden sheen.

Pressed for time, Mabel aimed her wrist at the creature and flicked her wrist. The tranquiliser dart moved slowly through the water towards the lovecraftian abomination, striking lucky and causing the beast to flail its tentacles. Zera was freed from its grip but a stray tentacle hit her on the forehead. Stunned, she floated lifelessly in the murk. Mabel launched her grappling hook and tied it around Zera’s arms. She kicked out and broke the surface. Sucking in air, she slapped her arms in the water to swim towards the bank. She was grateful when her father pulled her, and Zera tangled in the cable, out onto dry land.

“Oh man, that’s not gonna do much for my headache,” Zera said wearily, rolling onto her back. “It was bad enough before.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” Mabel said, squeezing her hand.

“Look out!” Mr Pines cried. Tentacles heaved the massive dripping body of the tulpa out of the water. They picked themselves up and cleared the beach. The octopus’ movements were clumsy, wobbling and unsteady out of the water Mabel saw her dart sticking out of the flank and knew that the sedative inside was getting to work, sapping the tulpa of its energy. They only had to hold out until it finally relented.

The tulpa glowed and shrunk considerably, turning into a human-sized waffle with a face and beefy arms. “Hey, that’s a Mabel-copyrighted design!” Zera and her father remained baffled by the sight. It didn’t stay in this form for long. After using its arms to pull itself upright, the tulpa dissolved into a swarm of small dome-shaped shells which scattered and darted past their legs. Mabel tried to grab one of the components but it vibrated and sank a few inches into the ground to slip past. The swarm coalesced once it had passed them, choosing a form suited for escape - a winged griffin.

“Oh no you don’t!” Mabel yelled, firing another grappling line at the tulpa’s lion rear. She fell onto her face and was pulled uncomfortably along. Zera leaped beside her and also clutched the trailing cable. Mabel fiddled with her wrist gauntlet until they were suddenly yanked forwards by the mechanism. They managed to land on the tulpa’s back, riding it like an ungainly mount and keeping it grounded for now.

A wooden structure loomed ahead of them. “Watch out for the earthquake shack!” Mr Pines called. The shack that had stood since 1906 toppled over onto its side and the creature thundered past. Mr Pines jogged after them, Apep tangled up in his arms and hissing at him.

Mabel and Zera clung to the griffin, at the part where fur turned to feathers. The wings flapped, sending them gliding over the heads of tourists who were only now aware of the chaos that had been unleashed. With the extra weight from the couple the griffin could barely stay airborne. It adjusted its thrust, flapping its wings harder to achieve a clean lift.

“No, bad griffin! Bad tulpa! Bad ‘sketch from Ford’s journal’! Stop struggling!” Mabel pulled on the feathery head of the creature to no effect. She tried punching the beast with heavy blows, courtesy of her boxing training with Stan, but to no reaction. The sedative was already making the tulpa sluggish and it shrugged off any feeling of pain. It lurched onwards, cresting over the edge of the zoo’s boundary and heading towards the open sea. The setting sun cast an orange glare in their eyes.

“Hold your breath again!” Zera shouted over the rush of air. The griffin dived at the water and carried them both under. It submerged for only a moment before launching back out. Mabel coughed up salt water and rubbed her stinging eyes, while Zera didn’t seem to suffer compared to fresh water. “That’s enough!” Zera bent over and sank her teeth into the griffin’s flank, right above the lion’s tail. Mabel had learnt from close experience that her wife sported a pair of retractable fangs - she’d only found that fact out at the climax of one of their first dates.

Their flight peeled off, following the coast north. The two of them gasped as the imposing might of the Golden Gate Bridge came into view. Zera panicked, but Mabel made what seemed like an insane move. She gripped the tulpa’s head and steered it towards the looming red support beam. “Get ready to jump!”

Zera’s muscles tensed. A moment before the tulpa struck metal she launched herself backwards, doing a pirouette in the air before diving into the ocean. Zera stuck her head out of the water just in time to see Mabel going the opposite way. She fired her grappling hook upwards and swung off the back of the griffin. Out of control, the dazed beast flew headfirst into the support beam. It crumpled against the metal, warping and shifting as most of its body mass melted away. It ended up taking the shape of a small key. Mabel knew this was the President’s Key, able to open locks across the country.

Up above she perched on the edge of a tiny ledge jutting out of the metal. She launched one last shot downwards, grabbing the key in mid air before it was lost in the ocean. She retracted the line and held the tulpa’s inanimate form triumphantly in the air. She cheered down at Zera and began laughing hysterically. “Did you see that? We nearly got killed by a bridge. Woah, this is higher than I realised.” Mabel began to wobble on the platform, slowly falling over. “Vertigo, vertigoing, vertigone.” She held a hand to her forehead and theatrically fell off the ledge.

Zera rolled her eyes down below and aimed an outstretched hand and her over-dramatic wife. “Razzamafoo!” she said, aiming a beam of light at Mabel, who vanished and reappeared in the water next to her in a puff of smoke.

“I knew you’d save me,” Mabel said, grinning like a loon.

Zera touched her forehead with the back of her palm. “The adrenaline’s gone to your head. That’s the last time I use any teleportation magic around you. You’re a menace, May Pines.”

“You know you love me for it.” Despite the cold and wet they kissed while floating in the ocean. Mabel wrapped her arms around Zera, afraid to let go. “I mean it. I love you, Zera.” Mabel didn’t want to be anywhere other than alone in the wide ocean, wrapped in that embrace with the woman she’d married. “So,” she said almost deliriously. “Can you breathe underwater or what?” Zera just burst into giggles.

Atop the bridge a small crowd of onlookers were watching the two of them. Mr Pines pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Oh thank goodness!”

The two of them in the water turned their heads. “Hey Dad!” Mabel shouted and waved.

“Are you two going to get out?”

Mabel looked Zera in the eye. “I don’t know about you, but a cup of hot cocoa on dry land sounds so good right about now.”

A few minutes later they’d swum to the shoreline, mostly thanks to Zera’s powerful kicks through the water. She was much better adapted for swimming than Mabel, who clung to her wife and let her do most of the work. They rendezvoused with Mr Pines, who’d found some towels for them to dry off. Mabel had even got her precious cocoa, provided by the zoo.

Mr Pines didn’t seem happy with himself, pacing around the parking lot while the girls watched the sunset over the ocean. “I wasn’t much help. I could hardly save the day with bug reports or hacking skills,” he scoffed. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this hero business.”

“No-one’s asking you to be,” Mabel said cheerily. “We only wanted you know what our crazy lives are like. You don’t have to become a full-time participant.”

“I think he did an admirable job at least,” Zera confirmed. She shook his hand and raised a small smile at least.

Mabel examined the golden key she’d retrieved, feeling its weight in her palm. A few tiny particles of golden light floated above its surface. “If the others have caught their tulpa, then it’s two down, one to go.”

[tobiphoto]

プレデターを見て今。 I saw "Predator", and now.

※性暴力に関する内容が含まれる記事です。 ※Content Warning: Sexual Misconduct This blog discusses topics related to sexual misconduct. Reader discretion is advised.

この記事は多くの人に読まれて欲しいと思うので、翻訳ソフトを使用して英訳しています。スムーズな翻訳のために、言葉のニュアンスを変えることがあります。例えば、曖昧な言い回しを回避するなど。 This article has been translated into English using translation software because we want it to be read by many people. Sometimes nuances in wording are changed to ensure a smooth translation. For example, I try to avoid ambiguous expressions..

■BBC　 Why is J-Pop's Johnny Kitagawa still revered in Japan despite being exposed for abuse? - BBC News

BBCドキュメンタリー「J-POPの捕食者：秘められたスキャンダル」【日本語字幕つき】 - BBC Japan

BBC紀錄片《獵食者：日本流行音樂的秘密醜聞》－ BBC News 中文

頭の片隅でずっと何かがモヤモヤしていたが、その理由がわかった。MiitopiaのCMにこの事務所のアイドルが起用されてた。 Something had been bothering me in the back of my mind for a long time. Now I know why. An idol from this company was featured in a Japanese commercial for Miitopia.

ジャニーズ事務所と関わらずに生きられる日本人はあまりいない。 Not many Japanese can live without being involved with Johnny's Entertainment.

思えば、Miitopiaが3DSで発売されることになった2016年の特別映像に出演していた俳優の木下ほうかが、性加害についての告発を受け表舞台から消えたという事件もあった。これも一年前のことだ。　　　Looking back, Hōka Kinoshita, the actor who appeared in a special video for the 2016 release of Miitopia on 3DS, disappeared from the public eye after facing accusations of sexual misconduct. This also happened a year ago.

■4Gamer.net 『Switch「ミートピア」体験版の配信が本日スタート。King & Prince出演のテレビCM映像や，“ミートピア 旅の思い出メーカー”も公開』 （ENG『Switch "Meatopia" Trial Version Available Today』）

モデルプレス『木下ほうか、所属事務所が契約解消発表 NHKドラマも降板＜コメント全文＞』 （ENG Modelpress『Houka Kinoshita's agency announces the termination of he contract, and he also drops out of the NHK drama series.』)

MOTHER2のコマーシャルで、SMAP木村拓哉が出演していたのが古い記憶としてある。（ネットで見たのかも） I have an memory of a MOTHER2 commercial featuring Takuya Kimura from SMAP.（Maybe I saw it online…）

■SMAP - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMAP

ほんの一週間前、78歳の服部吉次さんが70年前にジャニー喜多川から受けた性加害について告白し、記者会見を行った。現在、国連人権理事会から専門家が来日し聞き取り調査を行うと報道がある。現在も被害者のMeTooは続いていて、恐らくもっと被害が明らかになるのではないかと思う。 Just a week ago, 78-year-old Yoshitsugu Hattori held a press conference to confess to the sexual abuse he suffered from Johnny Kitagawa 70 years ago. Now there are reports that experts from the UN Human Rights Council are visiting Japan to conduct interviews. MeToo by the victims is still ongoing, and perhaps more damage will be revealed.

■東京新聞 TOKYO Web 『「その日の夜、ジャニー喜多川氏は5人を次々に襲った」…俳優服部吉次さんらが証言した70年前の性被害』 （ENG「On that night, Mr. Johnny Kitagawa attacked five people one after another"... Actor Kichiji Hattori and others testified to sexual assaults 70 years ago.」）

■THE JAPAN NEWS(from Yomiuri Shinbun) 『78-year-old Actor Alleges Sexual Abuse by Johnny Kitagawa in 1950s』

そうした疑惑のある事務所のアイドルを起用し続けた人権意識の無さ、そして、私たちのマヒが問題の根っこにある。 The lack of awareness of human rights and our paralysis that kept appointing idols from such alleged firms are at the root of the problem.

(翻訳にはDeepLと、ChatGPTを使いました。 I used DeepL and ChatGPT for translation.)