#We'll get somewhere next chapter maybe who knows

[kakusu-shipping]

Nepal Sanctum

What’s up party people back once again being cringe and free with more Overwatch self insert fanfiction part 2 outta who knows we’re flying by the seat of our pants in this house

Part 1: Mountain’s Peak

In which I get to meet the Omnic that saved my life, and he unfortunately meets me in return

It was a brisk morning, cold as always on the Shambali mountain top, as Mondatta walked alongside the rising sun back to his home. He’d left his personal morning meditation a little earlier than usual so he could pick up his new house guest in time to make it to group morning meditation.

“Emile?” He asked into the empty hall as the monk stepped good inside his home, gently tapping the snow from the soles of his sandals. He expected the human to still be sleeping as he approached the spare room and knocked, “It is time to get up.”

“I’m up!” Came the loud voice of an excited teenager from the other side of the door. Mondatta was a little surprised, and proud. He’d told Emile they’d be up at sunrise, but wasn’t expecting the human to actually be prepared after sleeping for three days straight.

The door opened in with a strong force, releasing the hot air trapped within from the fireplace. There stood Emile, looking extremely pleased with himself, dressed in a wrinkled Shambali robe he’d been using as a blanket. The fabric was thin, with only one sleeve, leaving Emile’s entire left half exposed. He had no shoes, with a long peice of cloth snatched at his waist as a sort of long skirt.

“How do I look? Pretty monk like, huh?” His smile was so bright, the smile of a child looking to be praised. Mondatta thought on his response.

“Y... Y-yes...” He finally settled on, tapping the human’s exposed shoulder, “Very... Monk like...” He felt he should be speaking more eloquently, but truth be told Emile threw him pretty off balance with this. “H-However, my student, it is rather cold out there and I.. Do not think this is enough..”

“Oh...” Emile looked over himself, “You don’t... Think so?” He sounded a little disappointing. Mondatta didn’t like that tone to his voice. 

In a swift motion, Mondatta removed his own upper layer. His robes were usually thicker, to compensate for his lack of outer armoring, so they should be at least a little more suitable for humans.

He pulled the robe onto Emile’s shoulders, guiding his arms into the sleeves before folding it over itself and tying it off at the waist, “There we are. That should be better.”

Emile gripped tightly at the hemming of the robes, staring much like he had the night Mondatta first spoke to him. “Th.. Th-ThankYou! Master Mondatta!” He bowed a bit, smiling to himself once again, brighter than before.

“It was no trouble, my student. Now get your shoes on, we do not want to be late.”

-----

The two walked through the Shambali village, Mondatta greeting monks as he walked with his hands behind his back. Beside him Emile was overwhelmed with the buildings and the snow and the monks oh how the monks enamored him so. Every new Omnic Emile turned to look at, staring as though he could absorb knowledge about them if he stared hard enough.

It was hard not to focus on, Mondatta found himself glancing down to the human every time they passed someone new, just to catch him staring back at them. The human’s interest in his siblings was endearing, the interest that drove him to leave home and climb a mountain all alone. An interest that could, potentially, change the world.

Yes an interest that-

Mondatta glanced to his side again to find his human companion gone. Humans don’t tend to just vanish into thin air, do they?

Hiding his panic the monk looked around himself, slowly as he could to appear calm, scanning his surroundings little at a time, till his sensors landed on white robes and white hair, face down in the snow.

“E-Emile-!” His voice raised a bit more than expected, drawing his sibling’s attention as he rushed maybe a bit too much to the human’s side, “M-My student, are you alright?”

“’m oood” Emile’s voice came muffled from the snow before he pushed himself up, “Just tripped, I’m okay.” He spoke confident for someone with a bloody nose.

“You are bleeding.” Mondatta corrected, helping Emile to stand. “What happened?”

“Wasn’t looking where I was going.” Emile answered, brushing snow off himself as he continued to look around, sniffling the small amount of blood back into his nose.

Mondatta supposed to himself that made sense, he’d never walked these snow covered streets, and was clearly distracted by the Omnics around him. This was clearly on him for not securing Emile better.

With a nod of agreement to himself, Mondatta took Emile’s hand in his own, “Well then, let us get moving again.” He spoke as he turned and began walking to the temple with Emile closely in toe.

He didn’t see the flush to the human’s cheeks as he stumbled quickly behind the Omnic.

-----

At the temple a small group of monks sat together at the top of the stairs, among them just the man Mondatta was looking for.

“Good Morning, Brother Zenyatta,” He greeted merrily as he approached the group.

Zenyatta, a small Omnic in a similar state to Mondatta, stood, along with the rest of the group, and turned to address him, “Mondatta, good morning.”

“How lucky to find you here.” Mondatta clasped his hands together, barely holding in how giddy he felt as he motioned to the human at his side, “This is Emile. Emile, this is my brother, Zenyatta, he is the one who brought you to us.”

The other Omnics in the group looked to Zenyatta quizzically, the largest of them, a ravager with his cords pulled from the back of his head resting splayed out down to his shoulders, leaned down to the smaller and asked, confusion in his voice, “You brought a human here?”

“It was not my intention..” Zenyatta answered back in a whisper as he looked down at the human, who stared back up at him with the same enamored eyes he’d given every other Omnic on the way here.

“Emile, was there not something you wanted to say to Zenyatta?” Mondatta gave the human a small nudge.

“R-Right!” Emile squeaked in a terribly human way and stepped forward, gripping tightly to the robes Mondatta had lent him, “Th-Thankyou, Zenyatta, for sa-aving my life! I hope I can make it up to you some day!” Emile bowed his head to the monk before him.

Zenyatta seemed to flinched back a bit at the human’s movements, “Yes, well... It was no big deal. Please excuse us.” With that, the group dispersed away from Mondatta and Emile around the temple.

Mondatta didn’t like the tone in Zenyatta’s voice, it was one of nerves. The quick way he left as well... Truth be told, everyone was feeling rather distant this morning, even when they greeted Mondatta they did so a few steps away. Perhaps allowing Emile to stay was a mistake if his mere presence put his siblings on such edge like this...

“-Model, constructed first in 2048, first addition, crafted wooden tables-”

“What was that?” Emile’s mutterings dragged Mondatta from his thoughts, he looked down at the human who snapped out of it.

“Oh- S-Sorry I was, uhm... T-Taking note of... the models of Omnics here...” The human’s face flushed slightly as he fidgeted with the collar of his robes.

“Their models... Who was that you were speaking of?” Mondatta leaned a bit to get to Emile’s eye level.

“Oh, um, there. Copper red robes, the one throwing the ball to the one in scarlet.” Emile pointed.

“Ah, that is Willow. How did you know that about her? That she made tables?”

“Her hands,” Emile wiggled his own fingers, “She has flexible finger joints that allow for more precision, along with ball jointed knuckles that allow for her fingers to be removed and replaced with tools, usually chisels and v tools I believe...”

“You knew that... from just her hands?” Emile nodded. “Intriguing...”

Mondatta stood back up, hand on his chin as he looked over his siblings once again. This human’s fascination started with models, their builds and purposes in the past. His sibling’s interest in the human start at stop just as surface level, they were too cautious to approach him, simply for the fact he was human.

Mondatta’s fans whirred, for a similar reason a human may hum, as he handed Emile a meditation orb and motioned, “Well then, why don’t you go take the empty mat by Willow and we will start morning meditation.”

“Ah- Y-Yes sir!” Emile quickly ran to his place, holding the orb tightly in his hands.

There may be a lesson to be learned from this human yet, he’d just need some time.

[vivwritesfics]

Hooked On A Feeling

Chapter Twenty Two - Poor Milo

Daniel is a Formula One driver, but, more importantly, he was a single dad to a wonderful little girl. He wants her to be a normal little girl, to have a normal social life, so he sends her to daycare. That was where she met Milo, her future best friend.

Milo's mother was incredibly stressed. She worked so hard to provide a good life for her son. But then he makes a new friend, a friend who has a hot dad (ofc they fall in love)

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Single Dad!Daniel x Single Mum!Reader

Series Masterlist

Milo was miserable, that much was clear. But there wasn't much his mother could do about it. It broke her heart every time she dropped him off and picked him up from school. If she could have, she would have sent him somewhere better, would have put him in school with Olivia, but she simply couldn't afford it.

"Hey Munchkin," she said as he climbed into her car. Milo had stopped using the far seat when he started school. He buckled himself into the back seat and they set off.

He was silent for the entire journey to Daniel and Olivias house. Even when his mother tried to ask him questions, he wasn't answering. Her heart was entirely broken.

She wasn't the only one that noticed it. Daniel tried his hardest to converse with Milo, but he still wasn't answering. The only one of them that could get any kind of reaction out of him with Olivia. Olivia, who took him off so that they could play. Olivia, who got the hint and didn't talk about school.

As soon as dinner was done, Olivia took Milo up to her room to play. Daniel turned to Y/N as she put the dishes in the sink. "Milo is..."

She slipped back into her chair and her head fell into her hands. "I know. Danny, I know." She said, biting her lip to hold back her tears.

Daniel pushed his chair back and patted his thighs. Wordlessly, she climbed into his lap and let the sobs shake her body. "I'm still more than happy to pay for Milo to go to school with Olivia," he said and she shook her head.

"I couldn't ever pay you back, Daniel," she said between sobs.

He kissed her temple and rubbed her back. "I don't want you to pay me back," he said, but she still couldn't accept it.

The next day at school, Mill was clutching his stomach as he walked to the car. "Munchkin, what's wrong?" His mother asked before he could climbed into the car.

"Headache... tummy hurts..." he groaned.

Y/N frowned as she pressed her hand to his forehead. "We'll, you're not burning up," she said. But then she crouched to his height. "Try it for me today, Miley. If you're really feeling sick, tell your teacher to give me a call and I'll see if I can get Daniel to pick you up."

Reluctantly, Milo nodded. He climbed into the car and Y/N got into the driver's seat. If she could have, she would have kept him home with her, but she couldn't afford to take the day off to look after him.

The drive to the the school was silent, aside from the music playing on the radio. When she pulled into the car park, she unbuckled her seatbelt, but Milo was already out of the car, walking into the school.

She took a minute to sit in her car. Her head was against the steering wheel as she sucked in a breath. Her heart hurt as she gathered the strength to drive off to work, calling Daniel as she went.

It was maybe two hours into her shift before she got a call from the school.

She immediately picked up her phone and held it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Oh, Hello. Is this Mrs L/N? Milo L/N's mother?" Came the voice from the other end.

"That's me."

The woman on the other end of the phone let out a light cough. "We've got Milo here. He's not been feeling too well. Is there anybody that could come and pick him up?"

"Yeah," she immediately replied. "Yeah, I'm going to try and get my partner to come and pick him up."

"Can we get a name?"

"Daniel Ricciardo," she said.

The woman from Milo's school fell quiet. Y/N knew what she was wondering, whether it was the Daniel Ricciardo or not. Finally, she answered. "Okay, that's all sorted. We'll be waiting in the office with him."

She said her goodbyes and hung up, immediately calling Daniel.

Daniel, who picked up the phone the moment she called. Daniel, who stopped his workout the moment she told him what was happening. Daniel, who talked her through her tears as she cried at her desk, all while driving to pick up her son. Daniel was one in a million.

He drove straight to Milo's school, jumped out of his car as soon as it had stopped moving and strode into the office.

The collective gasp from the women that worked there was unsurprising. It really was him, they all thought. As soon as he saw Milo, sitting on the uncomfortable chair in the corner of the office, he walked over to him. "Hey, Milo," he said, getting down to his height. "Your mum sent me to pick you up."

Milo nodded. He climbed out of his seat and grabbed a hold of Daniels hand. Quickly speaking to the women at the desk, he signed them both out and walked Milo to the car.

He climbed into the back seat, sitting where Olivia normally did. "What's up, kiddo?" Daniel asked him as he began driving. But Milo stayed silent, holding his stomach. "Are you hungry?" He asked, and Milo nodded. "McDonalds?"

They went to McDonalds. Daniel took Milo inside, got him a kids chicken nuggets meal and an ice cream. The two of them sat in a booth, Daniel sipping his drink while Milo ate his nuggets and chips. "Feeling better now?" He asked.

"Yeah," said Milo, reaching for his own drink. "Thank you, Mr Ricciardo."

Daniel put his finished drink to one side. "You can call me Daniel," he said. By this point it was clear that Milo wasn't actually feeling unwell. Daniel didn't think he was lying, though. More likely, he was so anxious that he thought he really was sick.

"Is it school?" Daniel asked as Milo bit into his last nugget piece.

Milo hesitated before he nodded.

"I thought so," he mumbled, stealing a chip.

Milo finished his own drink and pushed the empty cup away. "I know my mummy can't send me to a different school," he said. "I know I can't go to the same school as Olivia, but I hate it so much," he said. "I've got no friends and the kids are mean," he said.

Daniel really felt for the kid. The first time he'd met Milo he'd been a shy little thing, and Daniel couldn't imagine that starting school couldn't have been easy for him. He didn't blame him for wanting to be at school with Olivia.

"Come on," he said when Milo finished his food. They stood up and Milo took his hand as they headed back out to the car. "We can watch cartoons until we have to pick up Olivia."

***

Y/N was the last of them to arrive home. Well, it wasn't her home, not yet. But it would be, Daniel knew. One day soon. She used the key Daniel had given her and walked into the house.

"Hey," said Daniel as he strode towards her. "Milo is upstairs with Olivia. He's feeling better now," he said.

She let out a breath and let her bag fall to the floor. It was been an exhausting day, even if she'd barely gotten any work done. All day she'd been so worried about Milo, her hands had been shaking as she tried to type at her computer.

Daniel could see it written on her face. "C'mere," he said as he walked towards her and placed his arm around her shoulders. "I've got Chinese food on the way."

"You're wonderful," she said through a sigh, stopping her walking to wrap her arms around him.

He did the same and kissed the top of her head. "We do need to talk, though."

They were the scariest six words she had heard since the beginning of their relationship. Daniel took a hold of her hand, kissed it, and took her through to the kitchen.

He sat her down at the table and sat opposite her. "Milo wasn't sick today," he said. "I think that he thinks he was sick. I think that he was anxious, so anxious that he felt sick." Daniel reached across the table, grabbed her hand. "Y/N, you can't send him back to that school. He's miserable, and if he keeps feeling so anxious that he's sick, he's never gonna get any learning done."

She squeezed Daniel's hand. "What can I do, Danny? I can't afford to send him to school with Olivia, and I don't have time to drive him out to any of the other schools."

"Let me pay for it," he said and she immediately shook her head.

"No, Daniel. I could never pay you back."

"I don't want you to pay me back." He said it so quietly she almost didn't hear it. "I love you and I love Milo. Let me look after you as best I can."

But she was still shaking her head. "Danny-"

"Okay, no. Let me do it for Milo," he said as he stared into her eyes.

She swallowed and nodded. "I am gonna find a way to pay you back," she said as she stood up and walked around the table.

"I'm sure you will," he said with a grin, pushing his chair back to pull her into his lap. His hands were on her hips as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Taglist (CLOSED): @biancathecool @rewmuslupin @prettiest-at-the-party @hellowgoodbye @spideybv28 @andydrysdalerogers @landossainz @purplephantomwolf @ggaslyp1 @layazul @phantomxoxo @minseok-smaus @gills-lounge @hollie911 @annispamz @lily-ann-b @cixrosie @amalialeclerc @teamnovalak @tallrock35 @chiliwhore @darleneslane @sava207 @thatsusbitch @formulaal @leptitlu @landosgirlxoxo @msolbesg @cherry-piee @bathedinheat @chanshintien @ilove-tswizzle @woozarts @trouble-sistar @mysticalnightenthusiast @lewisvinga @spilled-coffee-cup @starkeyellow @fxrmuladaydreams @viennakarma @lightdragonrayne @millinorrizz @xemiefx @ellies-world61 @the-depressed-fellow

[mayrose713]

Beautifully Cruel World-Chapter 3

Series Masterlist | Previous | Next

ABO Non-Idol Stray Kids UniversePoly OT8 x Reader18+ MDNI

Warnings in the Series Masterlist as well as any other information needed

I feel like this chapter was more just a filler chapter but we'll being getting somewhere soon I promise.

Chapter 3

Minho was right, both the sweatpants and shirt were too long on her. She had to roll the waistband a few times so she won’t be tripping over them. After looking herself over in the mirror as she’s sure she’s gonna be meeting the rest of the pack soon. She hesitates at the door before opening it, finding Minho leaning against the back of the large sectional couch. 

“I’ll show you to the room you’ll be staying in.” He starts to walk to the stairs and occasionally looks back to make sure she’s following. 

He tells her whose room is whose as they walk past each door. Once they get to Jisung’s door she knows the open door next to it is where she’ll be staying and the door after that must be Changbin’s. She follows Minho into the room where Chan, who is holding a few blankets, is talking to Felix who is adding pillows and blankets to the bed and scenting them. 

“Hey, I see Min gave you some of Hannah’s clothes.” He smiles but it doesn't last long as he sees the bandage on her upper arm.

“We need to talk.” Minho tells the older alpha before walking out of the room and waits for him in the hallway.

Felix frowns as he watches Chan move to the omega and hands her the blankets and pumps out soothing pheromones to calm both of them. “I’ll be back in a few, why don’t you show her what you were setting up Lixie.”

Chan joins Minho out in the hallway, shutting the door behind him and Felix shakes off any negative emotions before smiling at the omega. 

“I know sometimes it can be hard sleeping in a new and unfamiliar place so I thought you could use some extra blankets and pillows. Maybe make a temporary nest for while you’re here.” He explains to her gesturing to everything he has on the bed. “I know I’m not an actual omega but everyone always assumes I am at first and says I act like one so I scented some of it to hopefully help you feel comforted.”

“Thank you Felix, I appreciate it. I had thought you were an omega at first. Jisung too, but I realized sooner about him than you that he wasn’t.” Y/n explains as she notices the blankets that Chan gave her smells like him as she brings them up to her face a bit.

“We’re pretty used to that.” Felix smiles as she sniffs the blankets. “I had Channie scent those ones, I wasn’t sure if you would want them in the nest or not so I was just having him hold them until you came. I know you’ll probably change it up to how you like your nests but I just couldn’t help myself to kind of start one for you. I’m big on nesting, especially if it’s to help someone.”

Y/n examines the nest and tries to hide any negative emotions she’s currently feeling due to her own lack of omega experience and hands Felix the blankets she’s holding. 

“I like how you did it. Add these ones too?” 

Felix smiles and adds them to the nest. Situating a few things before he settles back on his knees satisfied with his work.

“Don’t be afraid to change anything if you need to, it is your nest after all. I just want you to feel comfortable and have a safe place.”

The omega smiles as she climbs into the nest with him.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

 “What’s wrong Min?” Chan closes the door behind him so the younger two won't overhear the conversation.

“We need to make an appointment for her to see Dr. Hajoon.” He tells him and the older alpha frowns.

“How bad are her wounds?”

“I’m sure you noticed that I had to bandage her upper arm.” Minho growls still angry about the situation. “Besides the bruising on her wrist she had more bruising on her upper arm and a nasty gash. Her entire side from her chest to the top of her thigh is bruised too. She may have a broken rib.” Chan clenches his fists and breathes deeply, nodding as he listens. “She said she fell down a flight of concrete stairs. She never confirmed nor denied it but I’m sure she was pushed. By who or why I don’t know.”

“I’ll call her and see if she can get us in tomorrow. Changbin and I have to go into the city for a meeting anyway so we’ll take her with us to the office and take her to her appointment after.”

Minho nods, still trying to keep calm, not wanting both his and Chan's scents to affect anyone else in the area. Especially the two who are most likely omega bonding right now.

“Changbin is also calling for a pack meeting before dinner. Some aren’t happy about the situation.” 

“Yeah I figured.” Chan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hyunjin didn’t seem too happy when he greeted us at the door. And I haven't seen Seungmin or Jeongin since we’ve gotten back.”

“The pups are with Changbin right now, Jisung went and joined them too.” Minho points out the window in the hallway where the four of them can be seen in the backyard. “Ji thought he could maybe help make them understand by telling them about her but I don’t think it's working as he had planned. I think it will be good to have the meeting in the kitchen while I make dinner, let Y/n settle in a bit and hopefully defuse the situation before she meets everyone else?” 

“Good idea, I’ll try and pry Lix away from the omega bonding he’s probably forcing the poor girl through.” Chan continues to watch the heated conversation between the four outside. “Can you go find where Jinnie is sulking? And we’ll all meet you in the kitchen.”

Minho nods and walks off to find Hyunjin and Chan sighs before going back into the room where he found Felix and Y/n lounging in the nest Felix made.

“Are you doing okay Y/n?” He gives her a smile and accepts the nod she gives in response before turning to the beta. “Come on Lixie, how about we let her get settled in before dinner.”

“But we’re bonding” The beta pouts.

“Felix.”

He sighs at the look his alpha gives him before sighing and gets up to follow Chan but turns to Y/n one last time. “I’ll come get you when dinner is ready, enjoy the nest.”

The two males leave and head downstairs where the other six are in the kitchen. Minho has already started on making dinner and Felix quickly joins him as Chan joins the rest around the kitchen island. 

“Where is she?” Seungmin crosses his arms.

“She’s getting settled into the temporary nest Felix set up for her in the empty room upstairs.” Chan keeps his voice calm and leveled. “I understand that there are some issues with this?”

“You brought home an outsider without discussing it with any of us first.” Hyunjin spats.

“She was an upset omega out alone with nowhere to go.” Chan gives the beta a sharp look. “We weren’t gonna just leave her there to possibly be picked up by traffickers. We have better morals than that in this pack.”

Hyunjin looks down in guilt. But Seungmin didn’t seem like he was ready to back down yet though. 

“That’s understandable but then why place her upstairs?” Seungmin steps forward. “We have five guest rooms down here for a reason, why place her in the one empty room we have upstairs with the rest of us? We always agreed that upstairs is for pack only.”

“I thought we all agreed eight is fate?” Jeongin speaks up but barely enough to be heard. “We agreed no one else after… he left.”

“She’s been through a lot.” Felix pauses in his cooking. “I don’t quite know what but I don’t think she’s ever experienced a real pack. And I believe Chan made the right decision, she has Jisung next to her in one room that she already knows and is comfortable with and Changbin in the other, an alpha if she’s needing one.”

“Down here she would be alone.” Jisung joins Felix. “Which I have a feeling she’s experienced long enough. She needs help, and I don’t think there’s many other packs out there who’d be as kind as us.”

“We have all agreed that in our pack omega’s aren’t below us. They are still people and not possessions.” Changbin reminds them all. “She is an omega in need of help who was found by a rare pack that is understanding of that. We are going to do whatever it is that is needed, for however long.”

“You guys don't have to be her boyfriends, let alone her best friends. We aren’t even saying she’ll be pack.” Minho doesn’t even turn from the stove. “Just be someone she can rely on for now, and maybe she’ll grow on you eventually.”

“Doubt that.” Hyunjin turns and walks away and with a sigh Felix goes after him. 

“I need to make a call.” Chan grabs his phone and looks at Changbin. “She’s gonna come with us tomorrow to the office.”

Changbin doesn’t question it and nods as the others look confused. After Chan walks away the others all disperse from the kitchen, except for Minho and Jeongin.

“Need help hyung?” 

“Thanks Innie.” Minho lets the youngest alpha join. “How are you doing with all of this pup?”

“I’m wary of letting someone in again… after before.” Jeongin speaks truthfully while focusing on his task. “But I understand that she needs help and this is just temporary. Though somethings off, her scent, it’s different. Not like how my brother’s is, or Chan’s brother or Felix’s sister.”

“I noticed that too, it’s hard to describe but it’s like, it’s not fully there.” 

“Do you think it’s something to be concerned about?” Jeongin glances at his mate who seems calm.

“In a way it could affect the pack, no.” Minho finishes what he’s doing and wraps an arm around the alpha’s waist. “But in a way it could be bad for her, possibly.”

Jeongin whimpers at this as Minho comforts him. “I wanna meet her.”

“Well lucky for you, dinners ready.”

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Felix knocks softly on the door before opening it to find Y/n half asleep in the nest. “Hey, dinners ready.”

The omega sits up and looks at the beta not moving. “Some of them don’t want me here, do they?” She notices how his smile quickly turned to a frown. “I could smell some heated negative emotion after you guys left.”

“I’m sorry baby.” Neither of them noticed the use of the pet name because it just feels so natural. “Our pack has a history, so it’s just gonna take a few of the others some time. Hopefully they’ll come around before you leave.”

With a sigh Y/n crawls out of the nest and Felix holds his hand out for her which she takes. He leads her back down the stairs and into the kitchen and just off of it is the large dining table meant to sit ten, which seven people are occupying right now, four of which Y/n hasn’t officially met yet. She’s not counting the interaction with the one who had been leaning in the doorway when Chan brought her inside the house.

Everyone turns when they walk into the room causing the omega to shy away a bit, trying to hide behind Felix a little who gives her a reassuring squeeze of the hand. She cant help but to over think a little when two of the beta’s she hasn’t met yet frowns when they notice this. 

“Y/n, meet the whole pack.” Felix starts off finally wanting to break the awkwardness. “You’ve of course already met Chan, Jisung, and Minho. The alpha sitting next to Minho is our youngest, Jeongin. The beta next to him is our head beta, Hyunjin. The beta next to Chan is Seungmin and the last alpha is our head alpha and Chan’s second in command, Changbin.”

“Hi omega.” Jeongin sits up straight, looking happy to finally meet her as Minho tries to hide his smile.

“Hi.” She whispers before Felix leads her to two empty chairs between Jisung and Changbin. He pulls out the chair right next to Jisung for her to sit in before he takes the one next to it and next to Changbin.

Dinner starts off awkward at first, some small talk, they just asking Y/n some basic questions. She notices how Hyunjin and Seungmin try to exclude her at times. Changbin seems wary but doesn’t have any ill intent. Jeongin seems like he always wants to say or ask her something but then chickens out. Minho is keeping an eye on her. He’s noting how much she’s eating, how her mannerisms are, notes every time she stutters and how she tenses up when some people speak but is calm with others.

“So how long do you plan to be mooching off of us?” 

“Seungmin.” Chan growls next to the beta. 

“I-I don’t know.” Y/n places her chopsticks down now having lost her appetite. “I’m sorry to intrude, I understand some of you don’t want me here. I don’t have to stay, I can… figure out something else.”

“NO.” Felix yells, grabbing her wrist as she tries to stand up.

“You’re not going anywhere Y/nnie.” Chan speaks. “We promised we’d help you and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“YOU promised. Not we, you.” Hyunjin stands up pointing at Chan, then Felix and Jisung causing the two younger beta’s to cower and whimper. “She has three days to come up with a plan and start working on getting the hell out of here or I’m leaving instead.”

Hyunjin storms out of the room, Changbin calling after him as the tension is high. Chan and Minho immediately start producing calming pheromones to help sooth the two betas who look on the verge of tears as well as the omega.

“I agree with Hyun.” Seungmin stands up and leaves too.

“I’m sorry.” Y/n starts to cry and panic, the two alphas' soothing scent not helping to keep her calm. “I don’t want to cause trouble in your pack, I’ll leave, I’ll be okay.”

Felix scoots his chair closer and starts to scent her.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Surprisingly it’s Minho who's the voice of reason. “You’re in no condition to go wandering around alone at night. You’re staying, those two will just have to learn to deal with it.”

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[sentientcave]

Retirement Party

Chapter 5 - Wouldn't It Be Nice?

<<First Chapter - < Prev Chapter - Next Chapter >

Contains: No Y/N, Kidnapping, Forcible relocation, Dubcon, Plus-sized Reader/OC, female Reader/OC, John introduces Doll to some normal people, Everyone learns new things about each other, Manipulation, PTSD, Doll has a tragic backstory, Doll is kinda sorta Catholic? Who knew (me I knew)

~3.8k - MDNI - Dark fic! Please mind the content warning above but honestly this chapter is pretty mild all considered.

Ghost, Soap and Gaz come back a few hours later with the blue sports car (a bit scratched up, but tail-light repaired) and a pick up truck that looks a lot like the one John had before, but a generation older, and green instead of gray. John speaks to them briefly before he coaxes you into the truck and drives off, promising that the others will be gone before you get back.

He drives a few miles down the road, and pulls up in front of a little farmhouse. It looks idyllic, children and a dog playing in the yard. Two people on the porch wave, and John hops out and circles around right quick to open your door and help you down.

The couple trots up to greet you both. "Who's this?" The woman asks, looking at you and beaming. "You finally introducing us to a girlfriend?"

"Doesn't feel like the right word, does it, doll?" John winks at you, like your circumstances are all just a funny little blip, nothing nefarious or terrifying about it.

"No, it doesn't," you agree, keeping your face carefully neutral. "I'm Dalisay. Nice to meet you, um, Melissa, right?" You stick your hand out and shake hers. There’s no sense in being rude to them, just because they know John. He’s probably smart enough to keep his old life, and his boys away from his new one as much as possible.

"The very same! We were a bit worried John was going to be an eternal bachelor. Nice to see he's found someone." She introduces her husband, Rob, and her kids, Hannah, Haley and Jackson, who are ten, seven and five, respectively.

"Do you want to see the puppies?" Haley asks, grabbing your hand. Jackson grabs the other one and they pull you along to the garage, not waiting for an answer. You very deliberately don’t look over your shoulder at John, because you’re fairly sure that he’ll be looking back at you with a sickeningly hopeful expression. His comments from last night still ring in your ears, and you’re not willing to indulge that foolish fantasy of his.

The puppies are in a play pen with high enough walls to contain them, but still allow their mother to hop in and out. She hops out to inspect you, sniffing your outstretched hands warily. Her tail starts to wag after a moment, and you give her a proper pat, smiling. The dog has soft ears and a silky, black and tan coat, but you're not sure what type of dog she is.

"What's her name?" you ask, kneeling down.

"Bonnie-bell," Hannah says. "And our other dog is Charaid."

"Proper Scottish names," you say. The kids all have a slight burr, and although Melissa sounds scouse, it's the first hint as to where you are.

"Da said we was gettin' too English, livin' in London," Haley says. "I like it better here anyway. Mum says maybe we can get some coos. "

"I grew up near Aberdeen," you say. "But I've lived in Manchester too long. Lost my accent."

"No' far off, then, aye? We're only about an hour and a bit south and west," Rob says, appearing at the open garage door to supervise. His stern face looks friendlier now that he knows you're not proper English. "Was worried John dragged some poor city girl out'f England to live out here."

You hum. "Well, I am something of a city girl now. Been in Manchester since I was seventeen."

"Weel, welcome home then," Rob says with a wink. "We'll get ye proper re-acclimated soon enough." He leans over and plucks a puppy out of the sleeping pile inside the pen, and hands it to you. The pup is at the age where its somewhere between looking like a potato and a proper dog, maybe six or seven weeks old. "Gordon setter, by the by," he says. "Good dogs."

"Cute too." You settle the puppy in your lap, petting its soft little head. Bonnie-bell licks your wrist and hops back into the pen to lay down next to the others.

"Ye want one? This girl's no' spoken for yet. John's been hemmin' and hawin' about it, but I figure he wouldna want ta leave ye home alone, neither."

"Oh, I'm not sure I'll be staying that long. I'm only here because there was an incident at my apartment and John wouldn't hear of me staying anywhere else." You're not certain why you're stretching the truth to fit around what he and his wife think is happening, but you have no idea what John would do if you did say something. Maybe he would laugh it off like you were making a joke, or maybe he would snap. You don't really think he would hurt these people, but there's a wide-eyed prey animal in the back of your mind that warns you to be cautious, to be careful.

"We'll talk about it," John says from behind you. You hadn't even noticed his approach, with the noise the kids had made when they dashed back outside. "I'm trying to convince her to stay."

"Ye've gotta buy her a ring, ye daft bastard," Rob says, laughing. "A good catholic girl isna goin' ta wait for you ta get yer head out'f yer arse."

"If you don't, I'll introduce her to some lads in town that will," Melissa threatens. "Pretty girl like her has better options than you, old man. Better make your move before she realizes it." She swats John on the arm playfully.

You laugh nervously, touching the little cross around your neck absently. The puppy in your lap seems to sense your discomfort, because she starts wiggling in your arms and trying to lick your chin, little tail wagging. John kneels down beside you so he can pet the puppy too, eyes creased with a smile. "Is that it, doll? You need me to buy you a ring?"

"John," you say warningly. "We don't need to talk about this right now."

"No, I suppose you've had a rough morning. I'll try again later."

"You're impossible."

"Think you might kind of like that about me," he says.

"Not remotely. I think you're an awful, stubborn man," you tell him. Your voice comes out softer and sweeter than you intend, like you don't really mean it, even though it's true. The smile around his eyes grows deeper.

"I am." He picks up the puppy and holds her up in front of his face. "What do you think, girl?" he asks. The little dog's tail wags furiously, and she answers with a high pitched yip. And then she endears herself to you by trying to bite John’s nose. He looks stunned for a moment, but he grins when you start laughing. “Guess we’re all in agreement then,” he says, setting her down in the pen and standing up.

You accept his hand up, and quickly put a little distance between the two of you, before he anchors you to his side with a solid arm, or tries to reel you in close for a kiss. Rob and Melissa invite you in for a cup of tea, and somehow you end up sitting at a dining room table that’s obviously mostly used for crafts, and handed a piece of blank printer paper by Haley, and told by Jackson that you should draw dragons with them. The walls of the dining room are filled with tacked up juvenile masterpieces— Dragons seem to be a particular fixation of Jackson’s, whereas Hannah and Haley have more varied portfolios.

John stands leaning in the door to the kitchen, talking to Rob and Melissa quietly enough that you can’t quite pick up his words over the children’s chatter. You hate him a little for this, dangling Rob and Melissa’s idyllic little life in front of you. The implication is obvious. We could have this, his blue eyes seem to say when you look his way. Wouldn’t that be nice?

It’s frustrating, and confusing. You want to keep him at arms length for your own safety, but he’s already doing his best to roll right past your doubts and better judgment, like they’re just silly barriers between now and the future he’s dreamed up for the two of you.

And worse, you do want it.

“Didn’t know you were an artist,” he says on the drive back. Jackson had been so excited about the dragon that you drew for him that he’d shown his parents and John.

“There’s a long list of things you don’t know about me,” you say.

"For now. We'll get there, sweetheart."

You hum, looking out the window. Spending time with the Stuarts has you wistful and homesick for something you can't get back. Days like this, you'd usually pour yourself a glass of wine, look through your family photo albums and have a good cry before going to bed early. It's been a while since it's caught up with you like this, but you'd always been reliant on your routine, burying grief in structure and familiarity. "Do we need to?"

"I'd like to."

"I'm not going to be what you want me to be."

John drums his fingers against the steering wheel. "What is it that you think I want?"

"Some little housewife. Someone soft and sweet to come home to."

"You seem plenty soft and sweet to me."

You sigh, pulling your arms around yourself. "I'm not consistent. I don't know what Johnny told you I was like, but he only knows me from work. I'm not like that all the time."

"I don't expect you to be."

"You say that now, but you'll change your mind."

"I'm not stupid enough to change my mind based on a bad day or two, doll. You're allowed to be upset. I wouldn't blame you if you spend the next week slamming doors and snapping at me. I'm still going to like you." He puts a hand on your knee and squeezes gently. Men like him shouldn't be allowed to have such attractive hands, and you shouldn't be attracted to hands like his, scarred knuckles, a few fingers broken and healed crooked. You know he's killed people, know it would be so easy for him to kill you. It turns your stomach that you feel any kind of desire for him at all.

Men like him are no different than the ones that killed your parents. Dealing death is not a noble trade, there's nothing honourable about exporting violence.

You push his hand away, and keep your eyes trained on the window.

He sighs, but he doesn't press the issue, just clicks on the radio to fill the silence.

When you get back to his house he sets you up in a cozy room down the hall from the more open main space where the kitchen is, an office of some kind with a couple of arm chairs and a desk with a clunky looking laptop set on top. The room smells kind of smoky, but you're just glad to have a door you can close while he "moves some things around". He opens the laptop up so you can watch something, but you just curl up in one of the armchairs and fall asleep.

When you wake, the door is open, one of your blankets is draped over you, and there's a mug of tea sitting on the desk, alongside a couple biscuits. You uncurl, your muscles stiff and joints cracking from not moving for too long, and pick up the tea. It's cold, like it had been left a while ago, but you drink it anyway, and eat the biscuits. There's a note underneath, explaining that John had run out to the shops, and that he'd be back by 18:00. You shake your head, and check the time on the laptop. 18:00 exactly.

Military habits must die hard. You imagine he’s usually prompt too, so you wander out into the main room, and put the clean dishes in the rack away. You realize that the living room side has been rearranged, condensed to a slightly smaller footprint, with some open space left by the far corner behind the bigger couch. The smaller leather sofa has been replaced with the little red love-seat from your apartment, and your T.V. is sitting on it’s familiar perch on the refinished credenza that you’d painted twining vines and little red flowers up the side of. You’d found it on by the curb on the Kinsey’s street a few years ago, and your friend Ripley had bused over and helped you carry it all the way back to your apartment.

You’re not sure you like seeing more of your things merging into John’s house, like any of it belongs there when you still want to insist that you’ll be leaving soon. You hate him for being presumptuous, but you can’t help but think it’s sweet, too, that he makes space for you so readily, that he’ll happily include your painted flowers and colourful blankets and bright red couch into space that was all his just twenty four hours ago. That he would leave you tea and biscuits for when you woke up, that he would tuck a blanket around you while you slept. You’re not used to someone wanting to take care of you, and it feels strange.

Strange, but nice too.

You glance at the clock on the wall, realizing that it’s twenty past six, and John still isn’t back. It’s getting darker out there, the sun nearly setting, and as much as you try to tell yourself that you’re not worried, it’s hard to deny the stab of relief when you finally see the truck's lights pull up the wooded drive.

You slip on your trainers and step outside as he parks. He grins at you around a lit cigar as he hops out. “Did you miss me, doll?” he asks, insufferably smug.

“Your note said you’d be back at six,” you say lamely. “I just wasn’t sure if you’re usually on time.”

“Usually am. Got caught talking to Wells, down on the corner. Seems someone drove right through his fence last night. Teenagers, like as not. I’m goin’ to help him fix it tomorrow.”

“Oh.” You grimace. He must know it was really you. “Sorry about that.”

“No harm. By the sounds of it, you’re quite the driver. Soap said you nearly ran him off the road. That what they teach these days?”

“Defensive driving is well and good, but offensive driving gets you the last good spot in the lot,” you say.

He laughs out loud at that, and leans over to pick up a big paper bag from the passenger side. “Here, can you take this in while I grab the groceries?”

You take the bag (which is slightly greasy and smells like curry), and shift it to one hip. “Can I take anything else?”

He nods and hands you a second paper bag, this one with two wine bottles inside. “Wasn’t sure if you liked red or white, so I got both.”

You settle the bags in your arms and turn to walk away. “Bad time to tell you I like rosé hm?” you tease, glancing over your shoulder.

“Terrible timing. But that’s alright. One more thing, doll.”

You turn back toward him, and he’s right there. One big hand cups your jaw and then his lips are on yours, pressing a kiss that tastes like smoke against you. You stand frozen, holding onto your cargo for dear life, too surprised to do anything. It’s just as well, because in that moment you’re not sure if you’d slap him or pull him closer.

He pulls away without trying to deepen the kiss, which is a relief. You’re certain that you’d drop dinner and the wine.

“John, that wasn’t fair.” Your feet are still frozen in place, and his hand is still on your cheek, his fingers threaded into your hair.

His eyes practically sparkle. He’s entirely too pleased with himself. “Not fair because I kissed you, or not fair because I stopped before we got to the best part?”

Your cheeks flame hot, and you pray that he can’t feel it. “You can’t just�� You’re impossible.” It takes concentrated effort to take ordinary, measured steps to the door instead of running. The effect he has on you is apparently very obvious. He never would have tried it if he didn’t know you were teetering on the edge of giving in already.

Boundaries need to be set-- Set and followed-- before you can really even contemplate letting this get any further. Unchecked, you have no doubt that John will have you underneath him in a matter of days. Once that happens you know he'll never let you go, and you'll never have peace of mind if you don't really get to know him first. You know he's not as good as he makes himself out to be, but you suspect he's a better man than your deepest fears might whisper to you. He's genuine about his wants, but that's not enough. You need to know him before you can trust him.

You set your packages down on the table and turn to open the door wide for John as he carries a tote full of groceries into the house. “Thanks, doll.”

The paper bag rips when you open it to pull take-out containers out, setting them on the table neatly. "John, can we talk?" You ask, glancing at him as he stows things in the fridge.

"Course, doll. What's on your mind?"

Nerves threaten to choke you, so you take a steadying breath, in and out, trying to quiet the sea of dread that pitches back and forth in your stomach. “You can’t just take what you want from me. Not if you’re serious about wanting this to be something. I’m afraid of you, John, and I’m not going to fight you. If you push me, I’ll fold, and I’ll hate you for it.”

He pauses, holding a box halfway lifted to the cupboard. It takes a moment before he moves again, setting the box on the shelf slowly. The silence is palpable in the room, settling across both of you like a thick blanket of snow. You fold the ripped takeout bag flat, nervous, the crinkle of heavy paper hardly breaking through the rush of blood in your ears, the panic that grips you by the throat. It’s as though the admission has given your body the chance to catch up with everything that’s happened in the last two days.

You’d been drugged and taken from your home, you’d been handed off to someone you didn’t know, with no clear indication if you’re free to leave or not, you’ve been picked up and manhandled and shot at.

Darkness flickers in the corners of your vision. All you can hear is the pounding of your own heart, the sick, dizzying drums of war, and high pitched ringing like a flat-lining hospital monitor, and screaming, and the rapid burst of machine gun fire. No. The screaming you hear is just in your head, the gunshots aren’t real, they can’t be. It’s not happening, it’s over, it’s been over for a decade, you’re safe.

Except you’re not safe.

Hands land on your shoulders. You lash out, fists striking something solid, knocking the hands away. You have to get away, you have to hide until it goes quiet again. Arms wrap around you in a tight hug, stilling your thrashing limbs and bringing you down to the floor gently.

“Doll! Dalisay, sweetheart, you’re alright, come back.” The voice has authority. You know that voice. It rumbles, shaking loose memory. “Come on, love, breathe slow. You’re okay.” You breathe in, warm spice and tobacco smoke, not burning petrol, not scorched flesh. You’re kneeling on the floor, and John is holding you tight, thighs bracketing yours.

The fight melts out of your limbs.

You’re not safe, but you’re not in danger either. John loosens his hold on you and cups your face, his worried face eclipsing all else. “Doll, where’d you go?” he asks. “What happened?”

“Panic attack,” you lie, because that’s easier to say than My parents were killed in a terrorist attack while we were visiting London ten years ago and sometimes I get so stressed out that I forget it’s not still happening. “I’m fine, I’m sorry.”

“That wasn’t a panic attack, doll. Worked with Simon long enough to recognize PTSD. You were somewhere else.”

It’s hard to imagine that Ghost is as fallible, as human as you are, but you suppose there’s no shortage of opportunities for even the the biggest, toughest military men to to wade hip deep in trauma. The worst day of your life would be just another mission for them. The worst day of their lives would probably kill you outright.

"Yeah, I guess it was," you admit haltingly. "Everything just caught up with me. I won't let it happen again."

He shakes his head. "Did I set it off? I need to know— I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart.”

"No, it's not like that. It’s just stress. It's been building since I got here."

"I guess that's what you meant in the truck, huh?"

You nod weakly. "I don't think I can explain it any better right now. But maybe tomorrow."

"Alright." John sighs, some of the tension in his shoulders releasing. " I don't want you to be afraid of me, doll."

"Then you're going to have to give me time, and space. I need to know what kind of man you are. And you should get to know who I am too.” There’s a wrinkle in his shirt, so you fixate on that rather than look right at him, smoothing it out with your fingers. “Let’s worry about becoming friends, for now. And then we can see if there’s something more.”

He doesn’t like that, you can tell by the way he pulls his hands back, reluctant to let go of you. But still, he nods, and smiles ruefully after a moment. “Guess I’m not as patient as I think I am. Too eager to get to the good part.”

You laugh lightly, the sound shaky from frayed nerves. “John, if we can be kind to each other, and come to an understanding, then it’s all the good part. You can’t build the things you want on foundations like this and hold it all together with sheer force of will.”

“You sure about that?" he jokes, trying to lighten the mood. "I’ve heard I’m pretty stubborn.”

Your eyes flick up to meet his. You still feel unsettled, your heart still pounding, your stomach still roiling with anxiety. The emotion in those blue eyes is something you can't identify, something fathomless that strikes you with a foreign kind of fear, the kind that's shot through with hope that you shouldn't feel.

“You don’t know me too well yet, John,” you say gently, “but so am I.”

Image Credits: Banner

Dividers: 1 - 2 - 3 by @/Cafekitsune

[ckret2]

Chapter 24 of human Bill Cipher being the Mystery Shack's extremely inconvenient prisoner, featuring: the Pines figuring out a way to chase off Bill's ex-girlfriend... who happens to be a giant eyeball with bat wings.

It kinda goes like this.

(A head's up before we get going: this chapter is a bit more mature than prior ones, so I feel like a warning's in order. There's no sex, and nothing here is erotic or sexy (unless you, too, happen to be attracted to eye-bats), BUT there IS some academic speculation on the logistics of alien sex, and some very filthy-sounding dialogue describing acts that, to humans, aren't sexual at all. Plus some dirty humor and toilet humor. And nothing here is what I'd call billford quite yet, considering Ford still very much hates Bill's guts—but like, he's definitely a little too obsessed with the anatomy of triangles for it to be normal. If any of this is too spicy for you, skip this chapter and come back next one. We'll be starting a new "episode" then.)

####

It was past midnight. In his search for the eye-bat repellant recipe, Ford had flipped through every notebook he'd used during his initial interviews of the residents of Gravity Falls, flipped through them a second time, torn apart half his bookshelves looking for any reporter's notebooks he might have accidentally sorted in with his larger binders, and now he was exhausted, frustrated—and, worst of all, bored out of his mind.

Which made it hard to avoid thinking about more interesting topics.

And for the last hour he'd been unwillingly plagued with the question of how an eyeball and a triangle had a "casual physical thing." 

If that didn't mean sex—and you never knew with aliens—then it was still something close enough to fill the same social/recreational niche. It certainly meant sex on the eye-bat's side, Ford had fully documented the reproductive cycle of eye-bats, that was sorted out—but triangles?

It had to be something that would work in the second dimension. Ford had visited a two-dimensional universe populated by geometric shapes, he knew roughly how their bodies functioned: a shape's perimeter was its external surface—its "skin"—and its internal organs were inside that perimeter. So if Bill was still configured the way he had been in his home dimension, any external reproductive anatomy would have to be somewhere on his perimeter, right? Maybe at one of his corners? Or camouflaged where the seams of his brick pattern reached his edges?

But then if Bill were a normal two-dimensional person, he'd have his eye on the edge of his body, not right in the center of his "internal organs." So he'd been rearranged to some extent. Who knew how the rest of his body worked now? His top hat contained flesh and a skeletal structure; maybe it was a removable reproductive organ that could be passed to a partner, like some cephalopods' detachable tentacles—

Ford flinched as he realized Bill was staring at him.

To aid in his anatomical speculation, Ford had drawn a diagram of Bill in his journal and labeled various points on the triangle that might be concealing reproductive anatomy. He quickly scratched out the drawing's staring eye and slammed his journal shut. 

He'd happily gone thirty years assuming that Bill had no sex life—Bill was an energy being who presented himself as a floating featureless triangle, his hobbies involved cheating at chess and discussing multidimensional transportation, he probably wasn't designed for "physical things," and if he was designed for it then surely he wasn't interested. Ford was not pleased to have his assumptions disputed.

Because the thing was—Ford knew more than any living human about the mating rituals of unicorns, werewolf/mermaid couples, stomach-faced ducks, and tentacled warrior piglets. (Did he ever know about tentacled warrior piglets.) He had the only photos of a gnome mating ball, which he didn't need, because that horrible sight would be forever seared into his long-term memory. He knew the names of twenty obscene acts in siren sign language, and knew how to use his extra fingers to make them extra obscene. This wasn't unfamiliar territory to him. He was curious about how strange, supernatural creatures functioned; and those functions included how the reproductive drive influenced their behaviors; and a living triangle that had escaped from the second dimension was certainly a strange supernatural creature.

But, unfortunately, it was also Bill Cipher. And Ford did not want to think about what Bill did in bed. ... Assuming he used a bed. Really, at this point the only thing Ford knew was that Bill's only admitted partner was capable of flight. Maybe he just hovered while he—

Ford slammed his journal shut again to stop himself from scribbling down more theories, then stuffed the journal in a desk drawer for good measure. Did normal people think like this? He had no idea. He didn't even know who he could ask.

Enough of this. Back to searching for that eye-bat repellant recipe, and this time he wasn't stopping until he found it.

####

Like a vast eye in an upside-down triangle, the circular center of the portal lit up so bright blue it was almost white. The four energy vents glowed in sympathy. A rainbow constellation lit up in twirling patterns around the central light.

Bill watched with bated breath, a second-dimensional shadow waiting for his door to the third dimension to open. The cavern walls shook; the ground quaked and rumbled ominously; Bill didn't care. The portal was stable, the lab was somebody else's problem, and Bill had a party to get to.

The steel beams supporting the cavern rolled like a wave, and Bill's stomach roiled with them. They weren't supposed to be able to move like that. But he knew what he was doing, the portal was stable, he was not here to destroy this world, he'd come here to save it, whether it wanted to be saved or not—

The whole world undulated. Bedrock and steel were not built to undulate. Bill bobbed on the energy wave like a toy boat on a choppy sea; but the steel shattered, rock crumbled, shrapnel and rubble sprayed out. There was a peal of deafening thunder as the world below him cracked apart.

####

Bill woke with a gasp.

Oh. Right. Dreams.

Dream diary. With a groan, he sat up, checked to make sure no humans were coming by in the next few minutes, and pulled his stolen journal out of its hiding place.

The guide on lucid dreaming had recommended writing down his dreams in full, vivid, rich detail—any people or scenes or events, anything he could detect with his five (?) senses, as much as he could recall.

He drew a portal—gray inverted triangle with a center circle, four circles around the triangle, all five circles filled in yellow green—and then a yellow green line trailing out of the portal's side that grew progressively wigglier like a seismogram. He labeled his doodle, "this." He'd remember the rest.

After a moment of thought, he wrote, "Don't remember if I was a human or a shape. My organs were doing things a shape's shouldn't." (He wrote "human" as 人; there was no translation for the word in the language Bill wrote in. The two angled strokes stood out in Bill's rows of Morse-like dots and dashes.) "Being around so many humans who are CONVINCED I'm trying to destroy their world must be getting to me. Sixer pitched another hissy-fit about the portal yesterday. Enduring all that negative talk can't be healthy for me. I know I'm just helping their boring little planet, but maybe their accusations are getting lodged in this stupid brain's subconscious."

Maybe he should meditate a bit—go think positive thoughts, drown out the mortal voices that insisted they knew his plans better than he did. He'd had enough dreaming for one night, anyway.

Beneath the note to himself, Bill added in English: "Everything would have been fine if you'd just let me finish, Fordsy." If the humans ever did find this journal, Bill was determined to get the last word in.

Then he stowed away the stolen journal and shuffled downstairs.

He wondered how much was left of Ford's portal.

####

Old man bladder. Stan dragged himself out of bed. The other guest room bed was empty. Stan hoped Ford was sleeping in his study—he'd mentioned once he kept a cot down there. Better than pulling another all nighter studying alien sorcery or whatever.

He skipped his glasses, groped his way to the downstairs bathroom, and, yawning, lined up with the toilet.

The toilet said, "Pretty forward of you, Stanley."

Stan screamed.

He stumbled backwards out of the bathroom and hit the wall. Bill flipped on the light and leaned out to grin at him. "Careful! You're due for a broken hip any day now."

"BILL! What are DOING!"

"Trying not to get urinated on."

"Jsh—shut up!" It had dawned on Stan that if he could hear Bill without his hearing aids, then half the house probably could too. He hoped no one had overheard that. "Why are you sitting on the toilet in the dark!"

"It's a free country, Stanley Pines."

Stan raised a fist. "GET OUT!"

Bill bolted from the bathroom like a scared rabbit, then caught himself, rolled his eyes, and raised his hands over his head in mock surrender. "You could have asked nicely!"

Pointing at Bill as he retreated, Stan added, "And stop being so darn creepy! Lurking in the dark and sneaking around silently all the time, like a... some kind of—burglar ninja assassin!"

Bill turned to shout back, "What, do you expect me to make a peace cry every time I walk around? Make sure I can't sneak up and stab you in the back?"

Stan had caught about half of that. "YEAH, smart guy! It might help!"

Bill flung his hands out in defeat as he rounded the corner.

Stan finished his business, went back to bed, and glared angrily at the ceiling another ten minutes.

####

It had taken half the night, but at last Ford had disassembled the filing cabinet and found a few notebooks that had gotten stuck behind the bottom drawer, including the one with Old Lady Sprott's eye-bat repellant recipe. Ford copied it down, left a list of ingredients on the gift shop cash register for Soos, and finally dragged himself into the house to sleep.

And paused in the entryway.

Bill was sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window; Ford had seen him like this before. Usually, he could make himself walk by.

But he couldn't tonight. Maybe it was yesterday's conversation still weighing on his mind, the loose ends they hadn't tied up tangling around his throat. "What are you doing up?"

Bill's voice was inappropriately calm: "Dying."

Ford's guard went up. "Do you... Literally or metaphorically?"

"Literally," Bill said. "Hey—how many decades do you think this body's got? Probably not even a century, right?"

Ford's guard went down. Just moping. But it was an interesting question, one he'd put some thought into himself—what age had Bill's body been made at? How had his body been made that age? How long would the body last? Ford had wondered whether studying Bill's freshly-made-but-already-adult body might reveal anything medically useful about how aging affected the human body; but the odds of convincing Bill to participate in any medical studies—much less finding someone to conduct the study who believed their story—were nonexistent.

Ford said, "At a loose guess, I'd put you around... fifty, maybe? A very spry fifty." Bill's hair was a shockingly vivid gold, not a hint of gray, and when he was in a good mood Bill bounced about with an enviable lack of joint pain; but Ford had seen faint, delicate creases around his mouth and eyes that spoke to age. And the look in his eyes... Ford hated the phrase "old soul"—he'd been called that by some of his school teachers, and it only made him feel the distance between himself and his age peers all the more strongly—but with Bill, it was uncannily fitting. His eyes aged his whole face.

"You think this thing looks fifty? Wow." Bill took a deep drink from a cider can. "Shooting Star's best guess was half that. Thanks for shoving me twenty-five years closer to the grave."

Half that? When Ford had been a child, he'd had a harder time guessing adults' ages, and he supposed Mabel might be the same; but it was difficult to mistake a 50-year-old for a 25-year-old. Maybe there was something else going on. He'd have to ask her later. "With exercise, a healthy diet, and a little luck, you could still live another fifty." Ford nodded at the two empty cider cans already sitting on the table. "With your current drinking habits, I'll give you five."

Bill cackled—loudly enough to make Ford tense up, afraid someone would catch them talking. "Cheers!" Bill finished off the can and slammed it down with the others. "Ugh. Finite lifespans. Awful."

"Welcome to being human," Ford said dryly.

"'Welcome to death row,'" Bill said. "Ha! What'm I doing, worrying about decades. Let's be real, I don't even need to worry about the next five years. If I haven't found a way out of this body before then..."

Bill left the thought unfinished. An uneasy weight formed low in Ford's stomach.

"Ah, whatever. Like you'd let me live that long. Right, Sixer?" Bill pushed himself up unsteadily, keeping his balance first with a hand on the back of the chair, and then on Ford's (suddenly very tense) shoulder as he passed him. "I'm going back to sleep before that last can kicks in."

The way Bill was walking, Ford wasn't sure he'd make it up the stairs. "Why don't you sleep on the folding bed in the living room?"

"No window," Bill said. "I've g—" (He stumbled on the stairs.) "I've gotta see the stars."

Of course he did. When Bill said it that way, it was so obvious Ford didn't know why he hadn't realized that himself. Where else could Bill sleep but as close to the sky as possible?

Ford listened as Bill stumbled his way upstairs, creaked across the floorboards, and collapsed onto his makeshift bed.

Ford had thirty years left. Exactly thirty years. Don't have a heart attack, you're not ninety-two yet! Ninety-two was a good, old age. Older than his father had been. But thirty years felt too soon. And yet it felt fitting, somehow, for his life to be divided so neatly in thirds.

If Bill lived another fifty years in this body, and Ford lived thirty, who would stand guard over him? Would he and Stan have to pass that burden on to their gniece and gnephew? Or to Soos and Melody?

Why was he wondering—what made him think they wouldn't find a way to kill Bill before then? What made him think he wouldn't kill Bill before the end of this very summer?

What made him so sure Bill hadn't been lying about when Ford would die? Thirty years felt too soon; but ninety-two felt flatteringly optimistic.

Ford sighed, and picked up the cider cans to recycle.

He wondered whether Bill—hiding from his ex, fretting about death, sleeping on his enemies' floor—regretted how he'd spent his life.

####

Bill's second entry in his dream diary started, "Wet dream about Iris."

He filled most of a page with an extremely graphic summary before he sighed in frustration, stowed the journal away, and stared at the ceiling as dawn crept in. Well. Terrific. He was pretty intimately familiar with how humans coupled, but he didn't have much practice with the solo act. Plus the humans would give him heck if they caught him at it. He'd just have to suffer.

So here he was, all riled up and nowhere to go.

Who else could he make miserable?

####

Stan was startled awake by a heavy pounding on his door.

"Heeey Fisherman!" Somehow, Bill's voice was even more grating at dawn. He rattled the door several more times. "Just passing by! Wanted to let you know! Here I am! Right here!"

Did that demon ever sleep? And, follow up question, could Stan knock him out for a few hours?

Ford—who must have come up after Stan went back to bed—groaned and muttered something.

Ford wasn't nearly as loud as Bill. Stan reluctantly sat up and put a hearing aid in. "What?"

"What the devil is he up to now."

"No idea," Stan lied. "Go yell at him about it, he listens to you."

Ford sighed, but got up and left the room.

A minute later, Stan heard Bill exclaim, "I can't win with you people!"

He smirked.

####

The kitchen reeked that morning. When Stan came in for breakfast, the window was open, a fan in the entryway futilely directed fresh air into the kitchen and a fan on the kitchen table directed the noxious fumes outside, there were bags of groceries on the counter—he noticed hot sauce, peppers, cheap perfume, and an entire bag of raw onions—and Ford was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of vile-smelling brown liquid. The moment he saw Stan, Ford put him to work stirring the pot so Ford could start dicing onions.

While they worked, Ford explained the situation with the eye-bat harassing the tourists and the solution he'd hit on to drive it away. Soos had collected the necessary ingredients this morning, but couldn't help cook because he was busy finding a way to block the bottomless pit—

####

Outside, Soos scooted a trampoline up to the pit, carefully lined it up with the edge—the trampoline and the pit had nearly the same diameter—and shoved it in. It plummeted into the dark. After a short wait, Soos chucked a baseball down the pit. It disappeared, then bounced back up.

Soos pumped his fist triumphantly. "Aced it."

####

—so, Ford was working on the repellant, and in the interest of public safety and the greater good he was drafting Stan into helping too.

Which Stan supposed he couldn't argue with, but considering the smell he would've preferred dicing the onions. "Is all this really necessary for one eye-bat? I usually just swat 'em off with a tennis racket."

"This eye-bat happens to be large enough to carry off a first-grader," Ford said. "And Bill claims it's his ex-girlfriend, so I don't want to risk them meeting."

"Huh." Weird thing to date, but then Stan didn't know what he did expect a triangle demon to date. "Somehow I figured he was tangled up in this."

Ford laughed ruefully.

After a moment of chopping and stirring, Ford said, "Speaking of Bill—he claims that you ordered him to announce his presence? And that you tried to pee on him."

"I did not and he's a dirty liar! He made the whole thing up!" Stan didn't expect Ford to believe him. Stan also didn't expect Ford to believe Bill. Ford knew they were both liars. What Stan expected was for Ford to side with the person he liked best.

"Uh huh." Ford didn't question Stan further. Ha. Pines solidarity.

Even though he'd already won, Stan went on: "All I did was mention how quiet he is! I can never tell where he's lurking. Sometimes I almost forget he's here." In Stan's mind, Bill had been rapidly demoted  from "active existential threat" to "annoying houseguest who blends in with the shadows." Watching him help Mabel cut pretty pictures from fashion magazines with plastic safety scissors drained away most of his intimidation factor.

Ford gave Stan a funny look. "Really? I can't forget he's here for a second. Sometimes I swear I can tell where he's been in the house—like a cold spot left by a ghost."

Stan tried to figure out how to ask whether that was a reaction to decades on the run feeling like hunted prey—which Stan knew how to cope with—or a lingering magical side effect of Ford and Bill's alien possession deal—which Stan did not. Then Ford added, "It's probably because I hear him bumping into the furniture all the time."

"Oh. Yeah. That's probably it. You've got better hearing than me." Case closed. Stan turned back to the stove—

A deafening buzz made them both start. Stan splashed boiling brown stink across the stovetop. "What—!"

Standing in the doorway with a kazoo, Bill said, "How's that, Stanley? Do you like that better?!"

"YOU!" Stan flung the stirring spoon to the floor.

Bill bolted from the room with Stan in hot pursuit. "Whoa! Mercy! Truce! You can have the kazoo! It's not even mine, I'm just holding it for a fr— Ow ow OW ow—"

Stan hauled Bill in by the back of the neck and didn't let go until he was in the middle of the kitchen. He pointed at the spoon, then pointed at the pot. "Pick it up. Get stirring." He grabbed another knife and joined Ford chopping onions. Whew, what a relief.

Bill gave Stan a perplexed look, but picked up the spoon, gave the pot an experimental sniff, and got stirring. He didn't even wince at the smell. "Is this the gnome wizz? What is this, punishment for not letting you use me as a urinal?"

"Whatsamatter, I thought you were the one who thinks pee belongs in the kitchen."

"You're both too old for toilet humor," Ford snapped. "Bill, this problem is your fault, the least you can do is help prepare the spray, and you're not getting a knife, so you're on pot stirring duty. Deal with it."

Bill rolled his eyes dramatically. (At the moment, they were both uncovered; but one was already half squinted shut against the morning light.) "Fine, but only because I like hanging out with you."

Ford scoffed.

"And I don't see how this is my fault just because we happened to date. It's not like I invited her over," Bill went on. "If anything, you should be grateful she's my ex, or else I wouldn't be helping you chase her away—"

"Hey, that's what I wanna know about this," Stan said. He gestured toward the window; the ex in question was currently circling above the gift shop entrance, like a vulture waiting for something to die. "Exactly how do you 'date' an eye-bat? Just—how does that work?"

"Well, it depends on the eye-bat, doesn't it," Bill said, a touch patronizing. "They don't all have the same tastes, you know. But she happens to like art films and water parks. Easy date."

"I'm not talking about that! You're telling us you slept with an eyeball with bat wings—right? That's what we're talking about, right?" From the corner of his eye, Stan saw Ford giving him a sharp look, but he didn't tell Stan to stop. Yeah, the nerd was curious, too.

"Yes, Stanley." Bill's condescension was almost more overpowering than the kitchen's stench. "That's what we're talking about. I 'slept' with an eyeball with bat wings." He exaggerated the finger quotes around the euphemism. "Any more prying you want to do into my personal life, or...?"

"You look at that freak out there and think it's appealing?"

Bill stopped stirring and squinted out the window. Flatly, he said, "Yep. She's still drop dead gorgeous. Thanks for asking." 

"How do you even know that's a she! How can you tell a girl eye from a boy eye?"

Ford said, "Technically, Stanley, all eye-bats are female." He held up an onion and used his knife tip to gesture at it like it was a model eyeball, "They're parthenogenetic parasites that reproduce by attacking other species' faces and depositing egg-bearing spores on their eyeballs, which swim to the tear ducts to begin incubating. Over the next few weeks, the infected eyeball grows wings and develops its own nervous system while the host slowly goes blind in one eye, until the new eye-bat is mature enough to emerge from the host's socket and seek out her mother's colony—"

Bill let out a strangled scream. "Enough!"

Stan and Ford stared at him.

"Would you stop talking about eye-bat sex?! I'm already riled up! I don't need help making it worse!"

He slammed the stirring spoon down and started pacing. "I'm losing my mind. Do you know what it's like to be randy for something you don't have the right body for?!" He gave them a pleading, slightly crazed look. "I need to feel her pupil contracting against mine. I'd lick her hot, salty tears off her sclera. I'd bite deep enough to taste her retina. I want to look like I've got pinkeye from all the bat spores coating my face. I'd give my right eye just to have one of her wings fingering my eyelid again—but if I cave and go that far I know I'd lose my head and give her the left one too, and then I've screwed up, because STUPID HUMANS BODIES can't regrow their STUPID EYEBALLS—"

He kicked the wall so hard he lost his balance and stumbled back into the stove. "Ow. I'm going insane. I can't take it. I need to kill somebody. I need to set something on fire."

Stan and Ford were petrified. Stan's jaw had dropped.

Bill was panting from the exertion of his outburst, arms trembling, face flushed. His shoulders slumped. The picture of a broken man, he said, "I'd do anything to rim her optic nerve again."

Ford let out a strangled noise.

Bill took several deep breaths. He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry! Wow. That was... I think the fumes are getting to me." He shook his head. "The fumes and the hormones. Human hormones. You know, your species has very insistent..." He gestured vaguely toward the doorway. "I'm—think I should lay down."

Stan and Ford nodded. Bill trudged from the room. A few seconds later, Stan heard springs creak as Bill flopped his full weight on the living room sofa.

Stan and Ford exchanged a look. Stan said, "I shouldn't have asked about..."

"You shouldn't have asked."

"You should have skipped the science lesson."

"I should have."

They lapsed into silence. After a moment, Ford stood up to take over stirring the pot.

Stan resumed chopping onions. "Say, d'you think he staged all that to get out of stirring?"

Ford didn't reply.

"Sixer?" Stan glanced up.

Ford had turned away from the stove, and was staring at nothing with a faraway, troubled look. It was the look he got when he'd just latched on to some mystery that would haunt him until he solved it.

"Ford—?"

Ford slapped down the spoon and stomped into the living room. "But you hate losing your eyeball! So how did you two— I mean—! The spores—?"

"Incompatible biology." Bill's voice sounded muffled. "It's why we never got serious. She wants kids and my tear ducts can't incubate wings."

"Ah! Of course. That makes perfect sense." Ford returned to the stove with a look of triumph.

Stan didn't know how Ford had recovered from that fast enough to ask follow-up questions. Weird nerd. Stan shook his head but said nothing.

####

In Ford's journal, he scratched out most of his speculation about the anatomy of Bill's species, scribbled over the diagram, and added, "I severely underestimated how much his eye is involved."

####

At one point, during Weirdmageddon, when Bill had been torturing Ford for information, Ford had spat in his eye. Bill had licked it off. He'd seemed eerily undisturbed.

Ford would probably wonder how Bill had interpreted that act for the rest of his life.

####

Outside, dressed in a homemade hazmat suit consisting of painter's coveralls and a scuba mask, Soos faced off against the eye-bat, a spray bottle strapped to each hip like a cowboy's revolvers. Dipper and Mabel stood behind him, armed with a rake and a golf club, wearing a bicycle helmet and a football helmet with tree branches taped on. The eye-bat stared them down warily.

Leaning on his elbows over the kitchen table so he could stare out the window, Bill said, "Bet you a hundred bucks she steals Questiony's hat."

Stan snorted. "I'm not taking that bet. You don't have any money."

Bill grunted and turned back to the window, just in time to see the eye-bat dive for Soos's face. Soos whipped out one of the spray bottles, dropped it, ducked down to retrieve it just as she swooped past where his head used to be, and lifted it in time to spray the eye-bat when she circled back to attack him again. She reeled off screeching, eye watering, pupil contracting. Bill winced in sympathy. Poor gal. And she didn't even have an eyelid for protection. But, hey—better for her to suffer than for Bill to risk getting caught in this body. He'd take someone else's pain over his own embarrassment any day.

"It seems to be working the same as it does on any other eye-bat," Ford said. "Good. Once she's gone, Soos and the kids can spray the rest on the roof. That should drive her off while keeping the worst of the scent away from the tourists."

Streaming tears, the eye-bat dove at the kids. They yelled in alarm. Dipper threw his rake at her and missed. Bill flipped up his eyepatch to squint at the battle with both eyes.

"What, do you see something?" Stan asked.

"Just appreciating her sphericality." Bill sighed wistfully. "That spray's gotta be excruciatingly painful—but, I've never seen her that wet before. Sure, we've fooled around with a little hot sauce a few times, but even then—"

"I'm sorry I asked."

Outside, Soos shouted, "Hey! My hat! Give that back!"

Bill wordlessly held a hand out toward Stan.

Stan smacked it away. "Nyeh."

As the eye-bat retreated toward the forest, Ford sighed in relief. "She's gone. It worked."

"You sound surprised," Bill said.

"Frankly, I can't believe that you gave us accurate information on how to get rid of her."

"What! You wound me! Why would I lie about that?"

"To trick us into doing something that strengthens her? To arrange an opportunity to meet her?" Ford suggested. "After all, as one of your Henchmaniacs, she could have helped you escape."

Bill's blood ran cold.

She could have helped him escape. SHE COULD HAVE HELPED HIM ESCAPE! He'd been so worried about not looking stupid or losing his eyes, when all this time—! He could have signaled Iris from the window, and—and the bottomless pit was right there, she could have carried a message to the gang—at the very least, she could probably open doors for him—and instead he just—when he could have—

He watched in despair as Iris's pretty little optic nerve vanished behind the trees.

No, Bill decided—no, getting her help was a terrible plan. If it was a good plan, he would have done it; so it was terrible. He had a better plan. What was his better plan?

"Come on, you think I need her? I've got all the pals I need right here—whether you're ready to admit it or not." He elbowed Ford. Bill had decided he'd wheedle Ford back over to his side, and he would. His survival depended on it. Now more than ever. "I've got a way out, don't worry about that—it's only a matter of time—and she's not part of the plan."

Ford scoffed. "Really. Last night you were moaning about being on death row."

"Wh—Hey! That was..." Not fair. He scrambled to revise his story.

"You're lying about something," Ford said. "If it wasn't how to get rid of her, then it was why you wanted to get rid of her. For all we know, maybe she wants you dead as much as we do."

"Yeah," Stan said, "the 'girlfriend' story sounds crazy enough to be true, but you seem like the kind of guy who has a string of exes who'd love to kill you." (He did, as it happened, but it wasn't his fault he kept falling for petty jealous psychos who hated seeing him thrive.)

Ford said, "If she hadn't been a danger to the tourists, perhaps I should have invited her in to talk."

Unbelievable. Even when Bill did exactly what he was supposed to, he was still the bad guy. "Fine, she was a notorious black widow and you saved my life, happy? Do you like that story better? I made it up just for you." He jabbed a finger in Ford's shoulder. "You know what your problem is? You're too paranoid. You can't trust anything anybody says. You'll only hurt yourself like that—"

Ford shoved Bill's hand away and stepped out of poking range. "I spent years unlearning the paranoia you gave me. And when I finished, do you know what I figured out, Bill? All along, there was only one person I shouldn't have trusted: you."

It stung, but only in a distant, impersonal way; like a hard slap on a numb cheek. Bill turned to give Ford a sour look. "At the lengths you take it to, I could tell you the sky is blue and you'd have to check."

Ford's gaze automatically flickered toward the window.

"Ha!" Bill angrily shoved the table against the wall as he stood up. "Thanks for taking care of my pest problem, boys." He stormed upstairs, flipping his hood up as he went. Ingrates.

####

The view out the attic window was more interesting than usual, mainly because there were three humans traipsing around on the roof spraying eye-bat repellant. From time to time Mabel came by to make funny faces at Bill through the glass; he did his best to one-up them. Once, Soos nearly fell off the roof and died; Bill hadn't laughed that hard since he was murdered.

Their return indoors was heralded by Mabel shouting, "Dibs on the shower!" and Dipper replying, "I take shorter showers, let me go first!" They pounded up the stairs. Mabel tried to take them two at a time, tripped near the top, and by the time she recovered Dipper was already in the bathroom. She groaned. "Augh! Not fair! I don't want to smell like onions and gnome pee!"

"Neither do I! I need it more, I haven't showered in two weeks!"

Bill wondered why Dipper got to go so long between showers without getting dumped in a cold tub in his sleep. (He knew why.)

Bill whistled to catch Mabel's attention. "Consolation prize." He waved a cheap perfume bottle toward Mabel. "We had leftovers after mixing the repellant. It smells like strawberry candy."

"You're my hero." Mabel took the bottle and sprayed it all over herself, in her hair, and under her sweater. "You need a shower too, you know."

"Sure, but until Dolores fumigates the kitchen I'll just blend into the background stink. I can put it off til tomorrow without anyone complaining."

"You're grossss." Mabel emphasized the hiss by poking Bill's arm. "Once I'm clean, I'm not talking to you until you've showered too."

"I'll be devastated."

"Those are my terms!" She kicked aside Bill's cushion-bed so she could sit under the window without stinking the cushions up, and settled back to wait for the bathroom. After a (very short) companionable silence, Mabel said, "It's too bad we had to chase off your ex. I can see why you like her."

Bill gave her a surprised look. "Can you?"

"Iris was so graceful!" Mabel said. "And murderous, but mostly graceful. Like an evil swan."

Bill laughed. "Yeah! Yeah, she is. Floats like a dream. If you think she's graceful in the air, you oughta see her in the pool. She's the only person I know who can make a cannonball look elegant."

Mabel gave him a sly grin.

"What?"

"Look at you. Yooou still like heeer." Mabel propped her elbows on the edge of the window seat and balanced her chin in her hands. "How did you meet Iris?"

For the last couple of days, almost everyone in the house had talked about Bill's ex like she was some kind of malevolent creature, rather than a person. He was used to outsiders talking about his friends that way—heck, most of his friends were malevolent creatures—but it grated all the same. (He missed home.) Just hearing Mabel call Iris by her name was a breath of fresh air. No one else had even asked if she had a name.

"I met her at a party," Bill said. "I'd just gotten a piano and was showing off, and she came by to ask about Earth music. She wasn't in my crew then—but the party was open invite, and everyone in that corner of the Nightmare Realm knew that if you wanted info on Earth, you came to Bill Cipher. So, we talked about waltzes and tarantellas, I played a little Beethoven, we hit things off..."

They talked until the bathroom was free and Mabel went to shower. Sweet kid. Hopeless romantic, though.

When Bill got out of this place, he was gonna find the first boy who would break her heart and kill him before they could meet. It was the least he could do for her.

####

The third entry in Bill's dream diary: "Shooting Star's cartoon is getting to me. I dreamed about the wolf and the cat arguing over who had to host someone's birthday party. The wolf refused to let guests into his enormous mansion, but the cat's house was burning down. They asked me how to resolve this. I told them the cat should execute the wolf as punishment for his inhospitality, take over his mansion, and wear his skin as the party host. The animals were so in awe of my wisdom that I was deified as god of the jungle."

That was not what he'd dreamed. The animals were so horrified at his suggestion that they'd tied him to a stake and forced him to watch as they threw the cat into the flames of her own house. He couldn't remember whether he'd dreamed that he was a triangle or a human.

He preferred his version. Once he'd regained control over his dreams, he could replay this one and make it end properly.

He'd get the hang of this in no time.

####

(You're legally required to tell me if you had a reaction to this one. Even if it's horror. Especially if it's horror.)

[bettyfrommars]

Ring of Fire

a biker!Steve au

Part 3: The Runaway

Masterlist

18+Only, adult themes, mention of an abusive relationship, mention of cheating (not on reader), mention of violence, alcohol consumption, yearning, reader uses she/they pronouns, it's the late 90's, but also time doesn't really exist in Hawkeye. Platonic Stobin Forever, biker!Hopper, and biker!Eddie. Reader has very specific skills and backstory that verges on OC.

Word Count: 5.4k Playlist

A/N: I was going to call this a very self-indulgent chapter, but they all are, lmao. This is my love letter to biker Steve and my yearning to go to one of Hopper's barbecues with the rest of the gang. There will be a future wlw relationship for Robin with a woman worthy of her love, and we'll see more of Wayne in the next part. Trying to decide if I should give biker Eddie someone too, but for now, we have this. I love those of you who have decided to join me in this world, truly. Also, the playlist is a work in progress, and if you stumble upon a song that makes you think of biker Steve, or this story in general, please let me know!

-----

Groaning as he rolled over in bed to face the green numbers on his digital alarm clock, Steve felt a strange satisfaction at the fact that he hadn't tossed and turned all night.  Thumbing sleep from his eyes, he felt around the nightstand, and cursed under his breath to note that it was barely daybreak, and he was out of smokes. He knew the gas station would be open, and then immediately wondered if you would be there.

He tried to blink the thought away, desperate not to make thinking about you first thing in the morning a habit.  Habits like that were hard for him to break once things inevitably went to shit.

On his back, he stared at the ceiling, recalling bits of a dream that were still floating behind his eyes.  The images of the family he kept having were so vivid, he expected to roll over and hold the woman next to him and call her his wife, but that side of the bed had not been warm in years. He’d never had the urge to marry, and he certainly didn’t have any children.  But when he slept? It was as if he lived a double life. Tears built on his lash line at the memory of one of the young girls holding his leg and calling him daddy, it made him shoot up into a sitting position with a jolt.  

“Shake it off, Harrington,” he mumbled to himself.  

Hissing at a sudden sharp pain in his knee, he made his way to the kitchen in his polka dot boxers, scratching his head with a yawn.  Robin had been staying with him for a few months after her breakup, and it was the happiest he’d been in a while. There used to be dishes piled up in the sink, but now there was nothing but a single Chinese takeout container on the kitchen table and a pot on the stove with Velveeta cheese caked to the insides.  

He’d thought about getting a smaller place or another roommate, but the rent Eddie was charging him was dirt cheap, and he’d surprised himself with how much he liked taking care of the yard and the domesticity of it all.  He only wished he had someone to share it with.

The first thing he did was turn on the tiny 6-inch, countertop television near the toaster so that there could be some noise; the early morning silence was deafening, it made him uneasy.  The only thing showing on all four channels was the news, announcing more rain over the weekend.  One newscaster was talking about a rash of women disappearing around Hawkeye, but the murmuring was low, and he was busy searching around for the sustenance he needed to start his day.   

He used the French press that was already there when he moved in to make coffee, and when he opened the fridge to get the milk, there was your dish of lasagna.  Clear blue Pyrex dish staring him in the face, just one more reminder. 

It made him feel warm for a second, as if you were also in the house somewhere.  Like maybe you’d come around the corner and slip your arms around him from behind.  

He pulled back the tin foil cover to be reminded that there was only a slice left in the corner since he’d been eating it for practically every meal the past three days.  

He hadn’t set eyes on you in just as long, since the protection run with the Kings got pushed back a day and he had to cancel on his plans to pick you up and go for a ride.  

It was all for the best, really.  He wondered if it was too soon to show you what he had in mind.

But he promised he’d return the dish to you, and he needed cigarettes.

Was there a way to ask for your schedule without sounding like a stalker?

Eh, probably not.

The wall phone rang and he scratched his balls through his boxers on his way over to answer it.  He’d shaved down there just to see what it would look like, but the new growth itched like a motherfucker.  Even though it did make his dick look bigger, he’d decided to never get a sharp object so close to his sack ever again.  Unless, maybe, you were into that sort of thing.  

“Yeah? This ‘s Steve.”

It was Robin letting him know that she’d broken up with her live-in girlfriend yet again, and needed him to come and pick her up.

“You never should’ve gone and done that again, I told you,” he ran a rough hand down his face.

“I don’t need that from you right now,” she sniffed, speaking in a strained whisper.  Her voice was raspy, and she hiccupped to hold back a sob.  

This was the second time she’d tried to make things work with the newest one, Nicole or Nikelle or some shit.  They’d decided to move in together a week after they met, and the last few months had been emotional turmoil.  She hated her, she loved her, and then she hated her again.

Steve hoped that this time it stuck so that he could have his roommate back.  He got busy doing the dishes and cleaning up, whistling while he worked. 

“I’ll pull your sheets out of the closet,” he told her. “Be there to pick you up in twenty minutes.”

—---

“Your precious Steve is here,” Nic spat, pushing the curtain back to eye the truck pulling up to the curb.  “I suppose you told him this was all my fault?”

“I haven’t told him anything,” Robin sighed, frowning into her bag, shoving her last few belongings in.  “But I’m not the one who cheated again, am I?”

She swallowed, aching to explode, but not wanting to give her newly appointed ex the satisfaction of another tear or argument.

“Hey,” Nic took hold of her elbow, pinning her with an earnest look.  Her complexion was olive, her thick black hair buzzed short, and the bright green of her irises had a long track record of melting Robin into submission.  “You can’t hold that against me, you know I can’t help it.”

Robin scoffed, jerking out of her grasp .  “You know, I can’t believe I fell for that a second time.”

Steve was halfway up the sidewalk when Robin shuffled out of the door wearing a backpack, and carrying too big duffle bags that had clothes spilling out of the open zippers.  

“Get me out of here, “ she groaned, letting him take one of the bags from her to help.  

He caught Nic’s stare through the kitchen window and she flipped him off.  He mirrored the gesture with a wide, fake grin, hoping he’d never have to see her face again.  

Robin slid the blue Pyrex dish over while she scooted in to throw her stuff behind the seat in the extended cab.

“What’s this?” 

Steve got behind the wheel and gave a curious grunt as if he wasn’t sure.  “That’s, um, you remember when she brought the lasagna.”

Robin’s tired, puffy eyes lit up for a second.  “Interesting. You finally going to ask her out when you give it back?”

“Was thinking about it,” he put it in gear and peeled away, tires spitting gravel and dust.  He pushed the sleeves of his flannel up.  “There’s that party at Hopper’s place tonight.”

Robin sat ridgid, but her shoulders started to relax the further they got down the road. She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to invite her to a biker party as a first date? I’m sure you could do better.  What about that Italian place?”

He agreed with the sentiment, but to be completely honest, he was nervous as shit to be alone with you.  He didn’t get that way with everyone, but his heart fell out his ass with nerves every time he imagined what he’d say when he had you all to himself.  

“I guess it’s not a bad idea,” she shrugged.  “Casual, no pressure.  Better than getting stuck on an awkward, uptight dinner date.”

“I really want to take her to the old Danvers place.”

Robin twisted in her seat to stare at his profile.  “You sure she could handle that?”

“Dunno,” he got on the ramp to the freeway, rolling down his window as he went.  “But I think she’s got secrets too.”

—-----

You stood behind the worn, yellowed countertop at work that morning selling smokes and gatorade and snacks for weary workers and travelers.  A woman brought a batch of fresh sandwiches wrapped in cellophane and chocolate chip cookies every day, and they always sold out fast, so you set a turkey on wheat aside for later.  

Earlier, you’d stood at the sink in your apartment with a razor in your hand, considering shaving all of the hair off of your head.  Once the moment passed, you just stared at the blade for a long while, turning it over in your hand, wondering about its other uses.

A group of teenagers on their high school lunch break came through buying chips and beef jerky and soda to the tune of The Plimsouls singing A Million Miles Away, and while you were busy counting the loose change they paid with, you didn’t look up when the bell over the door chimed.  

You were just closing the register after the last kid when your pyrex slid into view.

He thought about leaving it further down on the counter with a note for you to find later, but then he told himself to not act like a fourteen year old.  Would you like to go on a date with me? Please check yes or no.

He had his wayfarer sunglasses on, showcasing the simplicity of a white Hanes tee, fresh pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve like an old-time greaser, and worn jeans with a hole in one knee. The rolled up sleeve revealed more of the tattoo on his bicep; it looked like traditional Sailor Jerry ink, but you couldn’t tell what.  He worked a piece of pink gum in his mouth, grinding it in his front teeth, but he didn’t say anything, he just moved the dish closer.

“Is this a robbery?” You adjusted your shirt, wondering if you looked okay.  

He cocked an eyebrow high and held it there.  “That’s right, put all the money in the dish and no one will get hurt.”

You gave a soft snort, tucking your chin to stifle a grin.

Pushing his sunglasses up into his hair to show that he had a clear sunburn line on his cheeks, he checked around the room as if it were illegal for the two of you to be talking.  Scratching his chest with the LOVE hand you noticed the motor oil stained in the creases of his knuckles.

“So, um, if you’re free tonight and you get bored or something, there’s a party, at a place out near the lake,” he paused, trying to gauge the blank expression on your face.  “I know the guy, he’s a friend of mine. Hopper, from the other night at the Blue Light.  There will be plenty of booze, he’s got a pool.  Burgers and shit.  Just a few friends but I dunno, it might be fun.”

He closed his eyes for a beat, worried he was talking way too fast.  He cupped his hands on the edge of the counter, exposing the muscles and veins on the underside of his forearms.  “Unless you have plans or something.  Thought I’d invite you cause you’re new in town and all, but if you’re busy, I get it.”

“I’m not busy,” you were quick to respond the second he gave you the chance. After he had to cancel the last time he wanted to take you somewhere, you wondered if he would ever try again.  A grandfatherly gentleman came through the door and you greeted him while he shuffled over to the coffee station.

 “Are you going?”

He made a fist and pounded the side of it lightly on the counter a few times.  “Yeah, I was thinking about stopping by to check it out.  If you want, you know, I could pick you up or something.”

Steve moved aside so that you could take the money for the older customer’s big styrofoam cup of cream and sugar coffee.

You put the quarters in the cash register with a metal clatter as you spoke.  “I think I might take my own car,” your eyes flicked to him and then down again.  “You know, just in case I hate it.”

“No, that's smart. I’lll take my own vehicle too, and then we can, you know, meet there.”

He heard how stupid the words were when they left his mouth, but it was too late.  He took the pack of reds out of his sleeve and squashed it open to pluck out a smoke to put between his lips.  

He didn’t light it, but he kept it pinned there, bobbing as he spoke. “You got a piece of paper?”

He took a pen from the collection at his elbow, and you ripped off a piece of cash register tape so that he could jot down the address to the place.

“It’s real easy.  Once you get to the end of the road, go left, and it will be about a mile down on your right.  Red mailbox, the house is tucked in the trees.” He straightened to look at what he’d written, and then bent down again to keep the pen going.  “This is my number just in case.”

The side of your mouth jerked up in a smile while you watched his profile.  “What time should I be there?”

He rolled the cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other and capped the pen.  “Whenever. Around 6 or 7 if you wanna eat, but I’m sure the party will go on until late.”

“You can bring a friend if you want,” he added, praying you didn’t show up with another dude.

“I don’t have any friends,” you kept your eyes on the paper as you pulled it toward you, chuckling softly.

“That’s not true,” he turned away as he said it.  “You’ve got me.”

—-------

You thought you were lost at one point, winding through the old highway through the cornfields, but the second you found the fork in the road, you knew exactly where you were.  You hated that you’d spent almost two hours throwing clothes around your apartment trying to decide what to wear.

“He’s just some dude,” you mumbled to yourself, fixing your hair in the mirror.  “It’s nothing to get all nervous about.”

You took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “It’s just a lame barbecue, nothing to get worked up about.  He’s a friend from school, that’s all.”

But, was that all?  

You had a blue and green stained glass bird hanging in one of the small windows, right above a trio of succulents in various planters, and you made sure to sprinkle a rare dose of water on them before you left. 

You got all the way down to your car, realized you hated the shoes you had on, and went back up to change them.  Donna eventually came out to ask you where you were going, not that it was any of her business.

“To a friend's house,” is what  you appeased her with, feeling that it would be wrong to ignore your boss, even if she had no right to ask..  

Hopper’s place was a brown and tan double wide surrounded with trees with an above ground pool out back, through the carport.  The grill was back there too, and a bunch of friends downing beers in camp chairs.  He’d gone over to the motel to invite Lorelei, but she was leaving on an out of town date with a regular that night, and a part of him wished he’d never known that.  Now, he’d have to drink away how worried he’d be for her to make it home safe.  

Or maybe he’d stay relatively sober, just in case she called.

He turned from the grill to catch his reflection in the living room window, rubbing a hand over the short beard there under the smoldering cigarette between his lips.  He muttered out loud to himself that he needed to get a fucking haircut soon since it was long enough to tuck behind his ears.  

“Sorry man,” Steve brushed by on his way around the house again.

“Hey Taz,” Hopper called after him, making Steve spin around, the heel of his Converse digging into the grass.  “Why the hell are you so fidgety tonight? Have another beer, sit the fuck down.  I’m gonna shove this burger down your throat in a minute.”

Steve raked a hand through his hair a few times, exhaling a ragged breath.  This was only his third or fourth time going around front to see if he could get a view of your car coming down the road, but for some reason, Hopper was keeping track.  

Steve wondered if it was wrong that he wanted to hug you when you showed up.   

He moved his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing there.  “I told you I got that friend that might be coming. Wanted to make sure she didn’t miss the turn.”

Hopper brought his attention back to the food, letting the ash from his smoke dust the front of his Magnum P.I. tropical shirt as he spoke. “What if she doesn’t show, what then?”

“Won’t matter to me,” Steve shrugged, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. “I need to get the other cooler out of my truck anyway.”  

He kept on his way before Hopper could say another word.  

An hour, a burger, some potato salad, and several beers later, there was still no sign of you.  A few people bobbed around in the pool as dusk bloomed on the horizon, while the rest settled in a circle around the campfire to the tune of Wild One by Thin Lizzy.

He was staring at the fire, thinking about getting up for a third beer, when he heard the distinct crunch of  tires rolling up to the gravel of the driveway from the main road.

—----

You turned down the radio, taking a few calming breaths.

He’s just a stupid boy…you reminded yourself, pulling in near the red mailbox to park behind two Harley Davidson Fatboys.  Steve’s truck was parked further up the road, away from the house, to give others more room to park, you assumed.  Hopper drove a Bronco, as well as his Harley Softail, and there were two other vehicles you didn’t recognize. 

Several tiki torches lined the way to the back of the home while the sunset blazed tangerine.  You hadn’t even turned the engine off yet when you saw Steve appear at a slow jog, waving as if to assure you that you were at the right place.  

Your heart tripped over itself at the sight of him, and you gave a quick glance to the rearview mirror to check your face. He waited for you to open the door and step one foot out before he asked if you needed a hand.  

“I brought beer,” there was a 12 pack Schlitz on the front seat from the mini mart.  A last minute choice since you’d forgotten to ask if you needed to bring anything. Steve stood holding the door open while you stretched over to grab it.  He saw the way your shirt creeped up to show some skin on your hip, but then she quickly averted his eyes.

“Wasn’t sure you were gonna make it,” he took the case of beer from you as you stood.  “Saved you some food if you’re hungry.”

Shouts and splashes echoed from the pool after it sounded like someone did a belly flop.  Steve had on a nice, button down, grass green shirt with what looked like newer blue jeans.  Had he just bought them that day? You liked the way the shirt was unbuttoned a few so that his messy patch of chest hair was on full display.  That was the most “dressed up” you’d ever seen him.  

“Think you might want to go for a swim?” He carried the case under his arm like it didn’t weigh a thing.

The question flustered you.  “I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

He smelled really good, not like strong cologne or anything but just clean and spicy and…soft.  Like maybe you could bite into his flesh and honey would come out. 

Most of the 12 or 14 other people at the party there were too tipsy and too busy deep in their own conversation to really care or notice when the two of you came around the corner.  Hopper looked up from his chair across the fire, exhaling smoke from his cigar.  It was a big, circular fire pit made of stone, and you had the feeling he made it himself.  

There was an empty seat you assumed was Steve’s, and next to it was a younger kid with thick sideburns and a PROSPECT insignia on the back of his Coffin King’s leather.  

Still holding the beer, Steve kicked the aluminum legs of the young man’s chair. “Get up.”

The guy snapped his head to see who it was and was quick to stand.  You had your mouth open to protest taking someone else’s seat, but the guy was already off to find another one.

“I’m gonna go put these in the fridge,” Steve said.  “You want beer or–?”

“Got any whiskey?” You could feel Hopper’s eyes on you.

“Coming right up,” he replied, squeezing your shoulder. 

The whiskey tamed your nerves, and he handed you his cigarette for a few drags.  He offered you one of your own, but you declined, citing that you didn’t want to get too comfortable with it.  But really, you just liked sharing his; to hold it in your lips right after him, teasing the tip of your tongue across the filter.  He introduced you to the ones around the fire, all members of the Coffin Kings, and a few of them had partners, or “old ladies” as they were affectionately called.  You listened to the conversations buzzing around, and every once in a while, you’d find yourself chuckling at some story Steve told.  What about the time he tried to steal a riding lawnmower from the hardware store, and four employees chased him through the parking lot?

“I was just a kid,” he leaned over to tell you so that you wouldn’t think it was something he did recently.  “Barely sixteen I think. One of the guys dared me, and I never say no to those for some reason.”

“You never say no to a dare?” 

He shook his head. “Nah, I figure if I’m not hurting anyone else, there’s nothing I won’t try once.”

You pondered that, wondering about the things you wouldn’t do if dared.  

You must’ve shivered, or maybe it was just his intuition, but he motioned to his leather jacket on the backseat of the chair. “You cold? Wanna wear this?”

“No I’m fine, thank you,” but then, “maybe later.”

“What about you,” Hopper said over the tips of the flames, looking in your direction.  “You got a story?”

For the first time all night, they all turned to you, expectantly, and your face began to sweat.

Steve’s hand found your knee. “You don’t have to,” he whispered.  

You thought about the stories you had, and wondered if you should tell the truth or make one up.

“Um,” by then, the others had lost interest. Steve and Hopper were the only ones looking at you. “Well, I ran away from home once and joined the circus.”

Sparks popped in the fire, and Hopper tilted his head to squint curiously.

Steve went along with it.  “Were you a dancer? Those women with the tassels on their—”

He was about to say nipples but stopped himself.

“I had a couple different jobs,” you took another sip.  “I sold cotton candy at one of the kiosks, did tarot readings and fortune telling.  The last job I had was as a magician’s assistant.”

“You serious?” Steve was fascinated.  “You mean you’re, like, psychic or something?”

You rubbed your lips together, thumbing the rim of your beverage.  “Not exactly, I’ve never been sure how it works, but I see things sometimes.”

“How old were you?” The woman with the bleached blonde hair next to you asked.  She wore an American flag bikini top with tattered denim Daisy Dukes.  

“Seventeen.”

Steve had his chin pinned to his shoulder, searching your face with deepening interest.  

“That’s badass,” the Prospect that had once been in your chair said, but he was next to Hopper at that point.  He had a full head of wavy hair, feathered off his face with some type of gel.  come to find out, his name was Dino, as in short for Dinosaur.  “I’ve always wanted to join the circus.”

The rest of them gave low chuckles, and one mumbled, “there’s still time.”

“Why did you run away from home?” Steve whispered it, wondering if maybe you might not want to answer that in front of everyone.

Dino went on to expand on what a good circus barker he’d be while you spoke only to Steve.

“I didn’t really have, you know, the best childhood,” you mumbled. 

“Someone hurt you?” Just the thought made him upset.

You took another sip, and then raised your voice so the group could hear. “We had one of those big red and white tents, like in the movies. The Bearded Lady, Becky, she was one of the nicest people you’d ever meet.  The lions were my favorite.  The big one, his name was August, we’d go for walks together. I made friends with a trapeze artist, but one day she was up there doing a routine on the tightrope and she fell and there was a hole in the net.  She went right through.  Her name was Debbie.”

There was a hush, and then an older biker with a gray beard next to the blonde said, “that’s fucked up.”  

“How long were you with the circus?” Dino asked.

“Only a few months,” you cleared your throat.  “And then I was on the road for a while.”

“By yourself?” Steve’s voice was louder than he’d meant for it to be. 

You gave him a soft smile and a shrug.  “I’m always alone.”

What were the odds of two lonely fucks finding each other again the way you two had?  Steve was grateful for Robin and Eddie, they were his only constants.  

Robin had decided to stay home that night, to unpack some things and get her room situated again.  Steve made sure she bolted the door and told her to use his gun if Nic tried to come around.  

“She won’t,” Robin huffed, dumping the contents of her backpack onto the bed.  “That would imply she actually gave a shit about me.  She’ll have some new married woman from the bar in our bed by tonight, I’m sure of it.”

Back at the firepit, you got to your feet and Steve followed.  “Could you tell me where, um, the bathroom is?”

The bathroom wallpaper was blue and white striped with ducks in bow ties on the trim, something you imagined was there before Hopper moved in.  A mirrored medicine cabinet and a shower without a tub that had one of those frosted, glass front doors.  Besides some mustache/beard trimmings near the sink, it was a tidy place, and smelled of cleaning supplies.  You used the fairly new bar of green soap in the clear dish, and peeked around in the cabinet like any nosey person would.  

Steve was lingering in the carpeted hallway to hand you a fresh beer.  “Didn’t want you to get lost on the way back.”

There were photo collages in frames on the walls of what looked like Hopper’s extended family.  In one, he had his arms hooked over the shoulders of Steve and an older man in their Coffin Kings kuttes.  It might've been a decade old; Steve looked like a baby.

“How long have you and Hopper known each other?”

Steve let out a raspberry sound with his lips.  “Who knows, forever.  He’s been around since we were kids.”

He was just about to reach for the sliding door out to the back patio, when someone else pulled it open.  Shirtless in his boxers, with a yellow beach towel wrapped around his waist, stood the person you knew to be Eddie Munson.  Wet hair long over his shoulders with a handful of tattoos scattered over his torso, he was dripping wet, and in the middle of scowling about something you weren’t privy to.

“Hey man,” the two men bumped fists.  His eyes darted back and forth between the two of you.  “My beeper just went off, need to make a call real quick.”

Steve introduced you, praying to whatever god would listen that whatever Eddie had to do that night did not include needing his help.  

You saw the metaphorical lightbulb of recognition brighten above Eddie’s head.  “Oh shit yeah, I remember you.  You punched Danny Rogers right in the jaw once on the playground. Dude went down hard.”

Steve seemed to beam with pride at that, exposing his gold canine, but you shifted nervously.

“I don’t like violence,” you admitted.  “But he deserved it.”

Danny was one of those boys who liked to try and put his hand up girls shirts and make nasty rumors go around that one of them blew him in the supply closet.  They were only kids, and you didn’t even know what “to blow” someone meant at the time.  

Eddie shook his hair out like a dog. “Hey, I’ll catch you two out there in a minute, okay? Good to see you again, killer.”

It was dark enough that you could only see the shapes of the people in the pool, moonlight reflecting off the water, and felt the unmistakable weight of Steve leaning into you as you went through the door.  He slid it closed once you stepped onto the concrete slab, and then you turned, not realizing how close he was, and accidentally bumping chests with him.  

You didn’t move away, but you kept your head down until Steve put a finger under your chin to lift your gaze.  The porch light was out, allowing you an extra veil of privacy from the party, and you snaked a hand up over his ribs.

“Are you gonna run away this time?” He mumbled, staring at your mouth, his lashes fluttering.

He didn't know about your dream but somehow, he did.

“I thought we were going together?”

He wondered if you could feel him shaking. 

“I’m ready,” his mouth came down close enough to exchange oxygen with you.  You shifted closer, pulling him in.

But then he abruptly cleared his throat and turned his head.

“Not like this,” he rumbled, glancing at the rest of the party.  

“Not like what?”  You sought his hand and intertwined your fingers. 

He didn’t want to say out loud what he meant, that he wanted it to be special.  

He was revealing himself to you, these things he’d been taught to hide, the ways he daydreamed about how well he could love you, if only you’d let him.  If he could write for shit, he’d be one of those insufferable assholes scribbling out poetry in your honor.

He wasn’t like this with every woman he dated.

There was a special chemistry, something more spiritual than primal, that had only been activated in him a couple of times.  The last one was a while back and she took all of his trust; he was sure he’d never lean into that feeling ever again.  

Were the two of you dating? Is that what this was? Maybe the connection was all in his head and you were just going along for lack of things to do.

No, that wasn’t true.  He could tell you wanted that kiss.

He should’ve taken the chance…

Shit

But then you held his hand all the way back to the firepit, and that was something.  

----

Thank you for reading, I love you. Biker Steve will be back soon.

[avocadorablepirate]

What Do We Call This? - 10

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Pairing: Trafalgar Law x fem!reader

Summary: On a quest to find what you've been looking for, you acquire the help of the Straw Hat pirates, who've agreed to let you temporarily join them. There are however many challenges that come along with your temporary recruitment - an alliance with a certain Trafalgar Law being one of them.

Word Count: 2.2K

Warnings: fluff, angst, kinda slow burn, swearing, the occasional OP spoiler

A/N: Damn I can't believe we've made it to ten chapters (and I still don't know what to call this). Anyway, thanks for sticking around and I hope you like this one as well!

—⁠☆✿☆—⁠

You were aware of the beyond uncomfortable position you were in. The soreness of your back and numbness in your arm evidently the reasons for your discomfort. But the warmth radiating from your side refused to have you wake up. It was like being covered by a thick blanket on a cold winter's day, and you wanted to relish in it for as long as you could. And as if understanding your need for more of its warmth, the blanket pulled you further into its embrace.

The creaking of a door and a loud gasp is what finally startled you awake. At the entrance to the room stood Bepo, his doe-like eyes wide, and reflecting shock, making your brows furrow in confusion. At the same time a low groan and a tug at your waist came from beside you, the grip warm and firm, anchoring you to the spot. Confused yet again, you turned your head only to find yourself face to face with a tattooed chest. It took your brain a while to process who the chest belonged to, but when recognition hit, you tried to pull away from it.

The sudden movement within his arms made Law's grip tighten around you. His eyes blinked open to see what was causing such a ruckus, and his expression soon mirrored your surprised one. His cheeks flushed red as he immediately pulled away from you, apologise flowing out of his mouth. It had seemed that somewhere during the night he had accidentally pulled you down with him as he nestled into his bed - or maybe nestled into you.

Only then did Law notice the white bear standing by the door, still bewildered by the sight in front of him. Law stood up quickly, his body tense as he eyed Bepo, and seizing your chance, you scrambled out of the bed. Though you couldn't get out of the room just yet; Bepo remained unmoving by the door, rooted to the spot until his captain called out to him.

"Cap-Captain!" came a high-pitched squeak, before he cleared his throat, "We'll be approaching Wano in a few hours. We..we couldn't find you around the sub, so I thought I would come here. Sorry captain," he said with a little bow of his head. His apology only added to your flustered state as you realised what the situation must have looked like to him.

"I'll be out soon, just give me a minute," Law directed to Bepo, but you took that as your sign to leave as well, quickly following behind the Mink even before Law could think of calling you back.

You hurried back to your temporary quarters on the Polar Tang, exhaling a sigh of relief as you found it empty. You weren't exactly sure how you would explain to Robin and Ikkaku why you were sheepishly returning in your disheveled clothes from the previous day. While you were sure they would believe your explanation, you also knew that it wouldn't stop them from teasing.

After quickly freshening up, you made your way to the kitchen, the scent of freshly brewed coffee welcoming you as you entered the room. Robin and Ikkaku sat at the table, engrossed in conversation, but as soon as you took a seat beside them, their attention shifted to you, their expressions changing into ones of suspicion.

"(Y/N), where have you been? You weren't in your bunk when I woke up," Robin questioned, not taking her eyes off you as she sipped at her coffee.

"Oh, you know, just exploring the sub," you answered with a shrug, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible as you poured yourself a cup of the dark liquid. Although the two of them didn't seem completely convinced by your reply, they didn't press further, resuming their conversation, which you joined. As the three of you settled into easy banter, you found yourself drawn into the lively discussion. You and Ikkaku chatted animatedly while Robin listened, chiming in from time to time. It hadn't taken long for the two of you to befriend Ikkaku; it had happened almost overnight on your first day on the Polar Tang, and since then the three of you always seemed to have something to talk about.

Engrossed in your discussion, you were so immersed in the conversation that you didn't notice the tall figure that stood over you until you heard a throat clear, and the table fell silent. Shifting in your seat, your heart skipped a beat when you found Law standing behind you, his gaze fixed on your form with a certain intensity.

"You left this," he said, handing you the pouch from last night. You hastily grabbed the bag from him, offering a small smile of thanks while silently praying that Robin and Ikkaku hadn't overheard his words. However, the curious glances from the two women behind you said otherwise. They had clearly caught Law's previous actions and were now observing his continued stare at you as if he were contemplating his next words. Ikkaku, growing impatient with her burning curiosity, was on the verge of questioning her captain when Law finally spoke up.

"If you'd like to come to my room again, I could show you some books I have about islands," Law stated casually, unfazed by Ikkaku and Robin's mischievous grins that followed.

"Again?" Robin asked, arching an eyebrow and you felt a wave of panic wash over you.

"Let's go now," you said hurriedly, grabbing Law by the arm and pulling him along before either Robin or Ikkaku could protest. You and avoidance were well acquainted, and right now, it was your best bet to escape their incessant questioning.

You raced down the corridor, with Law in tow. The weight of his gaze bore into your back, intense like last time, yet unreadable as always. Once you were finally within the safe confines of his quarters you let go of his arm, your face flushed with embarrassment, "You didn't have to say that in front of them," you mumbled, unable to meet his gaze.

"Say what?" Law asked, tilting his head in confusion before realisation dawned on him, a small smirk forming on his lips, "You didn't have to rush out of the room," he remarked, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

"Yeah, well, I didn't really feel like answering a bunch of questions," you replied. You would take their curiosity over their teasing questions any day. "So, what are these books you have?" you inquired, eager to change the subject.

Law made his way to the shelf by his bedside and rummaged through it, his fingers trailing along the spines of each book until he found what he was looking for.

"You're looking for an island, right?" he asked, as he read through the summary at the back of the book he had selected. "It's an old book, and from what I know it's the only copy. It has details about the Grand-Line's lesser-known islands, and some extra pages about islands that have disappeared over the years."

You quietly whispered a word of thanks as you accepted the book from Law, your fingers lightly brushing against his as you did. For a second your gazes met, and you could have sworn that he let his hand linger on yours, but you quickly turned your attention to the book.

As you flipped through the contents, your eyes gleamed with excitement when you found a few maps towards the end, eliciting a smile from Law. Settling on the edge of his bed, you started reading through the pages, and he sat beside you, pointing out interesting facts and occasionally stealing glances in your direction. Law couldn't help but adore the way your face lit up with every turn of a page. Yet you remained completely oblivious to it, your focus fixed solely on the book in front of you.

Nearly an hour had passed when a soft knock at the door interrupted the peaceful atmosphere. Law called out for the person to come in, and the door opened slightly to reveal Bepo. A gasp came out of the Mink again, and he immediately launched into a series of apologise, leading Law to roll his eyes.

"We're just reading Bepo," Law muttered, his tone tinged with irritation. A blush crept up to the apples of your cheeks at the reminder of the earlier misunderstanding, and you glanced away, trying to focus back on the book.

Bepo shuffled awkwardly at the door, still unsure of whether to intrude or not, and Law sighed at the bear's hesitance. "What is it?" he asked, his voice softer now, though a hint of impatience was evident. In truth, Law hoped it was nothing serious. He was enjoying this calm, quiet moment with you and he didn't want it to end. The warmth of your presence seemed to stop time and eased the tension within him.

"Kin'emon wants to brief us before we reach Wano, so we're needed on deck," Bepo answered, and Law inwardly let out a frustrated sigh, his gaze momentarily flickering back to you to gauge your reaction. You, however, slammed the book shut and took to your feet. The prospect of a new adventure excited you, and despite the interruption, you felt a rush of eagerness.

"Let's go," you said with a bright smile, looking at Law. His frustration eased at the sight of your enthusiasm, and he couldn't help but give a faint smile back.

"Alright," he agreed, standing up as well, and the both of you followed behind Bepo to the deck.

_______________________________________________

"No."

"What?"

Law's jaw clenched as he glared at Kin'emon for his suggestion before his gaze shifted to you, softening. His mind raced with concerns for your safety, unwilling to expose you to any unnecessary risks after what you had told him last night.

"I said no," Law said firmly, redirecting his attention to Kin'emon, "It's too risky. Having both her and Robin as geishas will attract too much attention. We'll get caught."

"Maybe an oiran then?" Kin'emon suggested, and Law's jaw clenched tighter as he thought about the implications, the mere thought of other men laying eyes on you, setting his protective instincts into overdrive.

"No!" Law practically yelled though he tried to maintain his composure as he formulated another protest to Kin'emon's suggestion. "It's still too dangerous. The attention would be just as bad, if not worse."

You glanced at Law, not expecting him to be protective even now. His concern was evident, even if he hid it behind practical reasoning, but this wasn't for him to decide. You tried to interject, wanting to voice your opinion, but Law's firm protest silenced you before you could even get a word out. Kin'emon, too, seemed to ignore your attempts to speak, his attention focused on Law's objections.

"But Law-dono, we need to get as much information as we can," Kin'emon insisted, his brow furrowing in frustration. The urgency of the mission weighed heavily on him.

"Yes, but sending in too many people to the same place could jeopardize the entire plan," Law countered, his voice steady and unwavering.

Kin'emon hesitated for a moment, considering Law's words carefully, "Perhaps you're right," he conceded, finally turning his attention to you, "In that case, how about you work as a waitress instead? It's a less conspicuous role, but there's a place that Orochi's men frequent, so you'll still have the opportunity to gather information."

Law visibly frowned at the proposal but was quick to hide it. He would have protested to this plan as well if it wasn't so obvious that he was being overprotective. Law was generally someone who agreed with the best possible course of action. But with you things were different, he preferred to keep you close rather than risk your safety, even if that meant a few compromises would have to be made.

You exchanged another glance with Law, feeling a surge of annoyance bubbling within you. Despite understanding his intentions, you couldn't help but feel frustrated by the way your opinion was completely disregarded. Nevertheless, you bit back your objections, not wanting to cause further conflict. With a forced nod of agreement, you reluctantly agreed to Kin'emon's suggestion.

As Kin'emon turned to leave, satisfied with the compromise, you couldn't shake the feeling of irritation that gnawed at you. While the others dispersed, returning to their tasks in preparation for your arrival at Wano, you remained stiff by the railing, trying to quell your frustration.

Law approached you, his footsteps echoing against the deck as he closed the distance between you. "We still have some time, do you want to get back to reading?" he offered casually, trying to stop the corners of his mouth from lifting in a small smile.

"No," you replied curtly, your voice betraying your annoyance. Law's brows furrowed at your change in demeanor, and his eyes searched yours for a hint to your sudden change.

"I need to prepare for when we reach Wano," you explained, hurriedly walking away before he could further question you. Left puzzled, Law watched your retreating figure, worry clouding his mind as he contemplated following you. He couldn't stand the thought of you being upset with him again, not when you were gradually opening up to each other. Yet duty called, Shachi needed him in the control room. With a heavy sigh, he turned away, deciding to check up on you later, hoping to mend whatever rift had formed between the two of you.

_______________________________________________

A/N: I LIVE FOR THE TENSION...just going to keep causing problems for the both of them ╮⁠(⁠＾⁠▽⁠＾⁠)⁠╭.

taglist: @trafalgardaria @deathsmajestysworld @cottoncandyloverrrr @magnificenttaledreamland @kitsunechan707

[lvlyghost]

In the Midst of War: IV

PAIRINGS: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Shadow!Reader

SUMMARY: Home is no longer where it used to be. Left with no one else you wonder who your friends and foes are.

WORD COUNT: 2.3k

TW: poorly written action lol. Fluff, hurt with so much comfort 🤭. Suggestive but no smut yet🌝. Mind the english!🐸 lmk if i missed any.

A/N: okay so this was supposed to be longer but decided to split the last part for chapter v 🐣 it'll be worth it i promise. next part is coming up sooner! as you know i do a lot of double shifts at work and December is the busiest season for me at work lol, just bear with me💖 comments, likes and reblogs are highly appreciated 🩵

Masterlist✨

"𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅."

It's a cold night by the time you get to the safe house in a secluded street somewhere outside Kaindorf. Ghost grunts standing next to you, one of his arms draped over your shoulders to help him keep steady or at least as much as you can help with someone his size. The mission —your first mission since Las Almas— had been successful until it wasn't. You type the code and wait until the door opens with a mechanic sound revealing a not so bad interior. The whole place is silent when you walk in, mirroring the dead of the night. No sound of cars outside not even the sound of the wind to accompany you.

"How are you doing Ghost?" You turn your face to him, he's already staring down at you, noticing the struggle that comes with trying to hold part of his weight. This is not how things should've played out. Yet there he was. A nasty bullet wound on his left shoulder and another to his leg; the latter being just a graze but still hurt like hell.

"Never been better." He growls. And you know he's trying to act nonchalantly. That's just who he is. Who you've come to know. But his injury, especially the one on his shoulder is no joke. You had tried to stop the bleeding right before digging for the bullet. The amount of pain he must've been in was as bad as yours a few weeks ago "How did we miss them?" He mutters under his breath, no doubt recalling the events.

"I don't know. But we'll find out." You lead him to the nearest couch in the corner of the living room and turning on the lamp next to him. Ghost sits down struggling to find a position where he feels comfortable enough. "Alright..." swallowing down you look him in the eyes. "I need to check your wounds again and clean them up properly, okay?"Ghost closes his eyes for a second before nodding, he's too lightheaded to do anything else or maybe it was the morphine you gave him before, he doesn't know anymore.

Trotting back to the truck you unload the duffel bags where all your weapons and medical supplies lie. Closing the door shut and locking it before returning to where the Lieutenant rests. The lamp is turned off again so you can only make the outline of everything. You stop in your tracks dropping one of the bags and shuffle nervously.

"Umm, Ghost?" He hums in acknowledgment. "I can't see anything, do you mind turning...-"

"No." His response comes fast. "I'm not wearing the bloody mask."

So he had taken it off the moment you walked out.

"Then how am I supposed to look at your wounds?" Rolling your eyes you start approaching.

He growls something unintelligible and then adds:

"Fine just don't bloody look up or...-"

"Don't worry, I've no interest in looking at your face."

But the truth was that you wanted nothing more than to see him. The real him. You had dreamed about his face. What would he look like? The small parts of Ghost that you had taken a glimpse of were not enough to make you any less curious. For all you knew was that he most likely was blond. His eyelashes are so light that you wonder if his hair is the same shade. He has soft pink lips and a strong jaw. All of him was huge. Massive. You would never say it out loud but you felt drawn to him.

"Afraid you might like what you see?"

You snort, walking towards him and kneeling in front of the couch he's sitting on. His eyes follow every move you make, never looking up in the process. You slowly peel off the bandages you had previously wrapped around his right leg.

"Does it hurt?" You ask, taking the disinfectant out as you begin to clean up his wound again.

"Not that one." For a moment you almost forget that you're not supposed to look up, but you do. You were trying to take a quick glance to his shoulder, instead laying eyes on his face.

"Shit." You bow your head down as quickly, apologizing profusely to Ghost and expecting some sort of angry reaction from him but he remains in complete silent. "I- I didn't even really see anything, forgive me Sir."

"Fucking hell." He growled. "It doesn't matter. Just don't do it again."

It was true. You barely even saw the entirety of his face. Just pale skin, light brows and a crooked nose from being broken too many times.

"Okay." You swallow hard, hands slightly shaking when your skin makes contact with his much colder one.

Ghost shifts in his seat seemingly uncomfortable with something you can't put a finger on. "Think it's time to stitch that one up." You gesture to where his shoulder should be not daring to look again. Fumbling with the needle and thread waiting for his permission. There's no verbal answer to your previous statement, only a low hum that's enough for you to stand up and silently sit on the armrest next to him, his face is turned the other way hiding himself from you. "You know you can just put it back on?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"Yeah, right." brows lifting in surprise. "Want me to get you something for the pain?"

"Get it done, kid."

Breathing deeply you oblige.

Ghost's whole body tenses with the first sting of the needle piercing through his skin. Your eyes are fixated on your work but every now and then they travel to the back of his head. Blond hair. So you were right; and you can't fight back the grin that appears on your lips. You're marveled by something so simple as that; if only he'd let you come closer...

"I think it's my turn to cook something for you. All this time you've taken care of me."

"You don't have to. I was doing what I was told."

Blinking you tap his shoulder lightly to get his attention. Ghost merely turns so a small part of his side face shows, still not enough for you to see.

"I want to." Even if he says it was his job. Even if it didn't mean anything to him. All you needed was a way to thank him for what he had done. That was who you were. How you were taught to be. Grateful amongst adversity. "I'm a good cook I promise."

One last stitch. One more. And then you're done, and his body relaxes as you come to stand gathering the medical supplies while looking down the floor. Before you leave he reaches out, grabbing your wrist in a gentle yet firm grip. Eyes going wide.

"You can look now." His voice is low and when you turn he's put the balaclava back on. Big brown eyes staring with intensity. "Thanks for what you did back there."

You stutter when you speak, something about the way he holds you makes you forget how to form words.

"I had to. It was my job, although I failed..."

"You didn't fail." He growls. You motion at his wounds, embarrassed because you knew you could do better than that. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Your mouth hangs open, lips quivering when his words reach your ears. All this time you've tried to look calm. To appear strong when in reality everything has gone from bad to worse; it began with the loss of your former team and the people you held close and dear. People you thought would be there for you for eternity. And then all of the sudden there were none. Alone in a dirty side road to die, you guess that in the end there were no good people. Just soldiers following orders. But standing in front of a man who was always portrayed as the devil himself maybe... just maybe not all hope was lost. And not all people were bad. Much to your dismay, Ghost stands from his place on the old couch, rising in all his massive glory as he takes one firm step closer to you. Your hands threaten to let everything fall onto the floor, breath getting stuck in your throat. You're lucky. So, so goddamn lucky that he's your ally. Someone who, in these past weeks has become something you don't dare to name.

"At ease soldier." He commands in a hushed voice. And he's close. Too damn close you feel the heat radiate off of him. It makes your skin burn and hands sweat. "I'm just looking at you."

-

Ghost is terrifying when you look at him in full gear. The white skull mask a legend itself among all the military forces in the world. Hushed stories told during late nights back on base. You had never met him nor had the chance to work with him. All you knew was that. Never in a million years would you have thought you'd have to be his eyes from the distance; to be the one who guards him. Your finger caresses the trigger of your sniper rifle, ready to shoot at anyone who you deemed dangerous.

"Should've brought my own mattress." You huff, shifting your body to find a more comfortable position.

"You've been out for a few weeks. It can't be that bad." His deep voice talks right into your ear.

"My stomach was literally reattached, Lt."

A deep chuckle that doesn't last long enough can be heard.

"If you can't do it let me know. I can take you back to your room, yeah?"

"I'm having a hard time deciding if that's a good or bad thing, sir."

"The latter, Vesper."

Laughing you turn your head, maybe it's the paranoia of being back but you feel someone constantly watching you from behind.

"How's that a bad thing? Thought you liked me in my room."

You can practically hear him suck in a breath and then a muttered curse.

"Not when you're injured and nearly comatose." He grunts after a few seconds of silence.

Oh.

Oh.

"Well then's a good thing i'm here."

The mission was rather simple. Break in, gather some intel and get out. Nothing was supposed to go sideways but it did. It had started with the room where the intel was supposed to be.

"Vesper." You hear Ghost calling you. "There's civilians in here." His voice drops an octave.

"What?" A shiver runs down your spine. "They are not supposed to be there." All you hear is the sound of muffled voices. Cries for help. Ghost swearing under his breath. And then shots are fired.

Your heart races when the first couple of hostiles appear through your scope. Not being one to hesitate you aim to their heads and fire.

"Vesper sitrep." Ghost barks, his end way more chaotic than yours.

"Hostiles coming in groups. You need to get out of there asap."

"Bloody hell." It's all he says before another round of shots is fired. "Meet me at the evac point."

"I'm not leaving you behind!"

Shifting your scope to look through one of the windows you watch as a dark figure runs downstairs. Ghost is trying to make his way to the back exit when another group reaches the abandoned building. You effectively take out the first three men that jump out of the black van. Then another ominous creak of crunching leaves in the god forsaken roof of the house across, rolling on your back your turn at the exact moment a bullet is fired your way, and hitting the the ground where you previously laid prone.

Wide-eyed your face pales as recognition hits your features.

You know him. And he knows you too.

-

His big hand lifts slowly as if asking permission to touch you to which you give a small nod. Ghost is looking at a spot on your left cheek his thumb softly caressing the soft skin of your face. You don't know why but you find yourself leaning into his touch.

"How'd you get this?" An unknown look is all you give him. "There's a scratch, right 'ere." Careful not to hurt you or cause you any pain he keeps his motion.

"Must've been when we ran through the woods." You mumble. "I'm sure I didn't let any of them get me."

"Atta girl." A small pause settles when all you hear is the sound of the night outside. Crickets and the now casual passing of cars far in the distance, returning from work, oblivious to the dangers of the world. Some things they'd never heard of before, things they wouldn't witness in their lifetime. "Better me than you."

You melt at his words. Heart nearly beating out of your chest. It's like your body acts out of pure impulse. Hands —your hands— grab the sides of his neck pulling him down just enough that his forehead touches yours, and you rest there with ragged breathing fanning over his face. Closing your eyes you weigh in your options. Break the moment and tell him about the encounter with the man back in the roof, or let yourself feel him? Because truth be told this could only mean one thing. Ghost wanted to be near you in ways that were not professional at all. And hell you wanted that too from the moment you saw him. You just didn't know it.

If the things you heard were true he didn't let just anyone close to him. What was so special about you? You wanted to ask, but you feared that even if you moved, this thing would be broken and the moment would slip through your fingers.

In a quick movement you go from standing in the middle of the living room to sitting on the nearest table, you shriek as Ghost slots himself between your legs. Seemingly unfazed by what he just did you then see the corner of his eyes crinkle. He's smiling under the mask.

"You're hurt. You'll reopen the wound and..."

"I don't care, sweetheart. I've got you where I want you." A sheepish smile forms on your lips and your cheeks grow hot. "One word. Say it and I will stop."

You nod right before he lifted his mask and his lips crash down on you.

Part 5

TAGS:

@fictionallifestuff

[nethhiri]

Marooned: Chapter 15

Kid x FemReader x Killer

Warnings: None

Hangovers and Hang-ups

Killer leaned against the wall of Kid's workshop while Kid took a closer look at your log pose. "What's your plan with her?" Killer had taken care of you until you passed out. He had thrown you over his shoulder and taken you to Kid's huge bathtub. He had thought about tucking you into his bed so you would be more comfortable; he knew you would have a raging hangover in the morning and Killer could always sleep in Kid's bed so you could have his room to yourself. As nice as he could be, and even after you treated him, he didn't want you to puke in his sheets, so he settled for a pillow and comforter thrown into the tub with you. It would be easier to clean if you threw up there. He felt bad about leaving you in clothes covered in now-stale beer, but he felt worse when he thought about taking them off, unable to shake the image of your mouth around his fingers while your eyes burned into his through the holes in his mask. It brought heat rushing up his neck thinking about it now.

Kid shrugged. "Wire said we have another week until we get ta the next island. Our deal was that she gets off there." He continued to tinker with the log pose. "If I still want to fuck her by then, I'll make her change her mind. We need a doctor anyway." 

"I think we need to figure out who she is before you think about keeping her on this ship, if she even wants to stay. You don't think it's odd that she won't tell anyone her name? That she can put up a fight?" Killer picked up your weapon that had been sitting on the corner of Kid's bench. It was a unique design, though he was certain he had seen something like it before. "Do you remember when we first started out, the time we got intercepted by marines?"

"Nah. Why?"

"No reason." It was fuzzy, yet the tool in his hands made Killer keep thinking back to that time. Something was there. He wanted to be sure before he brought it to Kid's attention. "If she doesn't want anyone to know her name, she must think we'll recognize it, which brings a few possibilities: she's from a rival crew, she's a marine, or she has a bounty. Maybe a combination of those. And then there's the separate matter of what she told me last night about not being able to swim. She might have a Devil Fruit." 

Kid cackled. "If Trafalgar or Strawhat had a bonnie lass like that on their crew, I would have kidnapped her in Sabaody. Those two losers haven't seen a tit in their lives. Wouldn't even know what ta do with pussy." Kid seemed pleased with himself, whether it was from his own jab or his tinkering was unclear. The log pose split into two halves in front of him. "What a shit log pose... If a marine has a name that big, they would be an admiral and she isn't one." Kid paused to think, "Don't we have some old bounty posters somewhere? Go through them with Heat and see if she's there." Kid looked at the dials more closely. "Killer, look at this." His took one off and flipped it upside down. 

Killer moved to the bench, setting your gun down. He picked up the pose's needle that Kid removed. "There's... a small piece of paper."

Kid took the other two needles off. "These too." The three needles on the table shifted, ever so slightly, in three separate directions.

"Those are vivre cards!" Killer was impressed with the ingenuity. It wasn't a real log pose at all, it was a tracker of sorts, and it seemed to be aimed at three people. Family? Friends? Or... enemies. 

"What a clever little bitch." Kid reassembled it so that you wouldn't know it had been tampered with. "No wonder she wanted it back so badly." Kid had been confused initially. He showed it to Wire, who compared it to their own log pose, and concluded that it was broken since the needles didn't point the same as theirs. 

"You mean no wonder she would tolerate fucking you for this long otherwise." Killer dodged a wrench launched in his direction.

Kid shoved the log pose in his pocket. He did say he would give it back. "DON'T BE JEALOUS!" 

"I'm not," Killer said in a teasing tone, getting ready to slip out the door.

Kid narrowed his eyes in his best friend's direction. "Did she fuck you?" He thought back to what you had said before emptying your stomach over the railing. "KILLER?!" 

The masked man left Kid's workshop with his captain's shouting trailing after him and a sly grin on his face. Killer thought it was fun to ruffle Kid's feathers and get him worked up. Killer knew Kid wouldn't be mad if he had fucked you; Kid simply liked keeping track of his playthings. And Killer also knew that Kid would have wanted to compare notes to make sure you weren't holding out on him. 

Grumbling, Kid examined your weapon. He had made some improvements to it so that it met his standards. Kid was going to present it to you at the party as a gift, but he decided at the last minute that would be lame. It didn't have anything to do with the scenarios in his head where you didn't like it that left his hands clammy. He wasn't even going to do much to it, but he ran out of things to do when Killer told him his helmet was fixed and that he didn't need a new one. That concerned Kid for two reasons: anyone but him would have to weld it back together and there were no weld marks. 

It fucking sucked waking up. You were sore from being in the hard tub all night, you were nauseated, and you had the worst headache of your life. For a while, you had turned on the hot water, still in clothes, and let it rain down on you after moving the pillow and sheets that Killer had left you out of the tub. There wasn't a lot that you remembered from last night other than winning a pair of pants, that you would be sure to collect on, and Killer holding your hair back when you got sick. How embarrassing... like a damn teenager.  You pulled yourself up with a groan, plopped the soaked dress on the floor, and washed all of last night off.

When you were drying off, you heard a soft knock from Killer's end of the bathroom. You hadn't noticed the first time, but the captain's room and the first mate's were joined by this bathroom, a door on each end. Throwing the sheets around your shoulders to cover yourself, you opened the door to Killer's towering frame. 

"You look like shit." 

You blinked at him, simultaneously offended and amused. "I feel like shit." 

He moved to let you walk past him. "You should drink some water."

You looked around. His room was more simple and less dark than Kid's. "Thank you, Dr. Massacre Soldier. I'll take that into consideration." It felt like an intrusion to sit directly on his bed. There weren't any chairs and he wasn't kicking you out though, so you sat on the floor next to the wall, bringing the sheet over your head to block the light. There was a creak as Killer's weight sank on his bed across from you.

"Wire says it'll be about a week before we reach the next island. What will you do then?"

The pounding in your head nearly drowned out his question. "Eager to get rid of me, huh?" 

"No one's making you leave."

"Not yet."

"You know, you don't have to be a smart-ass all the time. There's no need to be so defensive" Killer couldn't gauge your reaction under the sheet. "You think you're so special that we'll even give a shit who you are?" 

That made you laugh. "Well now you're just making me sound like an asshole." You uncovered your face to look Killer in the eyes, well, mask holes. "It's not about who I am. It's about who I used to be." 

"We've all done things we aren't proud of... except Kid. I don't think he has regrets." Killer offered. 

You sat up, pulling your knees in and burying your face in them. "The thing is... I was proud of it. Until I learned my career was a sham. Wasted part of my life doing..." You sighed. "Killer, I know you're trying to be sympathetic or whatever and I appreciate what you did for me, but I'm only trying to make it to land alive, so I can do what I have to do." You stood up and mumbled on your way out, "I've already been ripped apart and left for dead by a crew once. Don't need to relive it." It was impossible to be betrayed again if you had no one close enough to do so. 

Next

[rachxhjs]

A oneshot that will warm you up on the inside and make you feel cozy. Let yourself melt into the life of Choi Soobin, and his boyfriend Choi Yeonjun who are starting new beginnings together, and a new chapter of their life.

Tags;

Mentions of Mpreg

Minor injury

Smut

By, rachxhjs ♡

~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Forever and always.

~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

"You've got it?"

The blue haired male turned to his boyfriend when he heard a soft grunt, feeling slightly worried. "I told you I could carry the heavy one.. you never listen, do you? Your arms are shaking." Soobin announced, eyes scanning up and down the blonde boy.

"I've got it!" Yeonjun replied, giving his boyfriend a quick glare as he corrected the placement of his hands on the heavy box full of their memories.

There were cameras inside, decorations, photo books, gifts. And so many more items that held a dozen memories. "I'm not weak, you know? Just because you're taller doesn't mean that you're stronger. And so what if I'm shaking? It's cold here."

Soobin let out a chuckle as he stared at the pouting male with warm eyes, tugging onto his cheek gently. "Nhm, okay. If you say so." He muttered, not wanting to pent up his lover, or tease him too much.

The blue haired made his way to their destination as he opened the door for Yeonjun to enter, calm. "Isn't it perfect? It's spacious, with many rooms. Big bed and bathroom. This is great." Soobin told as he put down his own things before he took the heavy box from Yeonjun, placing it on the floor and looking around then. The apartment was empty, but that didn't make it feel any less like home. The past few years Yeonjun and Soobin would sleep over every single week, day dreaming about moving in together and spending their days together without any ending coming to it, not having to say goodbye, or until next time. And honestly, as long as the two were together everything felt like home.

"Yes, exactly. I think we could stay here forever, honestly. There's enough space for us, and maybe a little one?" Yeonjun looked up at his boyfriend as he giggled quietly, making the younger chuckle as well. "Yeonjun.. we just moved in, hm? Let's focus on getting comfortable here first." Soobin whispered warmly as he grabbed a hold of his boyfriend's hip, pushing him to the cold marble counter before placing a soft kiss to his temple, as gentle as possible. "I know you like it. Your cheeks are so red." Yeonjun continued to giggle, pinching the taller's nose and grabbing his hand, placing it onto his stomach. "You want a baby?"

"Yeonjun-" Soobin started, inhaling sharply before he took his hand back, shaking his head. "Not yet, okay? If anything I'm blushing at the idea of getting you pregnant, carrying what's mine. But I want us to build something here first, something more stable." He explained in a warm tone, picking the blonde up and sitting him on the counter, standing between his legs. "So how about we unpack first, and then daydream. Sounds good?"

Yeonjun looked to the side as he nodded carefully, turning his head back at the younger and wrapping his arms around his neck, affectionate. "Okay." He whispered, pressing a warm kiss to Soobin's lips before he hopped off from the counter, searching for the bedroom. "I'll go and put the bed together first so we have somewhere to sleep tonight other than the ground. And you could, mmm.."

"I'm going to put our groceries in the fridge first, and then I'll see what's most important to do. Yes? And don't be afraid to call me for help. I don't want you to get hurt, alright?" Soobin told sternly, dusting off his hands and placing their filled up grocery bag next to the fridge, relaxed. "Slowly we'll make this feel like ours."

Yeonjun sat down on the floor of their new bedroom and grabbed the instructions of the bed, furrowing his brows lightly as he tried to remember all the steps, or at least a bit. He wanted to know what he was doing. And after a couple of minutes, he started to get to work. Assembling some planks, hammering, and reading through the book more times to make sure he had everything right.

Meanwhile Soobin had already stocked the fridge. Currently he was placing their stuff around their first home to make sure their love would be everywhere. He hung up multiple selfies of them together, all their shared memories throughout the years and things that just felt so much like them. He even placed around the plants they got, making the room feel more alive. And just as he finished placing their sanitary products in the bathroom he heard a loud boom, making him instantly dash to the source of the sound.

"Yeonjun?" Soobin called out in a worried tone, walking into the room where he saw the boy, sitting on the floor and wincing in pain. "Honey? What happened?" The taller sat down next to his boyfriend before he placed him onto his lap, looking around for any injuries with panic on his face. Yeonjun meant so much to him, and even just a simple wound made Soobin feel guilty. He believed he could prevent his boyfriend from getting any pain. And every time something happened, he felt guilty. Like he couldn't protect his lover. "Just fell.. I saw something on the ceiling so I got on the bed to look. Then I slipped and fell on my butt."

Soobin let out a soft exhale as he nuzzled himself into his boyfriend's neck, rubbing over the hurt skin with his hand, sturdy. "Told you to be careful.. besides, I thought cats always landed on their feet?" The taller joked to cheer up his lover, which worked. He made Yeonjun chuckle and forget about the pain. Maybe just for a few seconds, but it was always worth it to hear his boyfriend happy.

"I'm not a cat.." Yeonjun chuckled, leaning into his boyfriend's touch for a little while before he stood up again, exhaling. "The bed is done now, though. Just need to put in the mattress and place our sheets."

Soobin grinned as he kissed his boyfriend's forehead, ruffling up his blonde locks lovingly. "Good boy, you did so good. Thanks to you we can sleep well tonight. How about you go make some dinner? I'll put in the mattress and sheets, want you to do something more calm." The dark haired rubbed over his lover's lower back before he nuzzled some more into his cheek, gently. "Okay.. kimchi stew?"

"With beef, please."

~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Two hours later, 22.00 PM. ･⁠｡♡

"Food's ready!"

Yeonjun smiled softly to himself as he placed the warm kimchi stew on their new table, making sure to be careful so he wouldn't burn himself. Then, he lit up some candles around their living room to warm up the small area, wanting to get cozy with his lover. And just as he was about to call out for his lover again, the blue haired walked into the room. "Added extra beef, and some extra sesame oil. Just how you like it.. this should warm us up really well." The blonde muttered, sitting down.

Soobin smiled when he noticed all the efforts his boyfriend had done as he gazed around the cozy room, stomach filled with butterflies. "Thank you love. This is perfect, smells amazing, and everything looks amazing. Including you." The male caressed Yeonjun's cheek before he gave the soft skin a warm kiss, eyes half lidded. It was starting to get really dark, and it had even started raining. But thankfully there wasn't a storm, just droplets hitting their tall windows constantly. But it just made everything a bit more perfect. "Let's dive in. Thank you for the meal, baby."

Yeonjun grinned as he played with his chopsticks a bit, blooming on the inside. Everything just felt so right, everything with Soobin felt right. And now that they had their own space to make even more memories in he felt complete. It was so nice knowing he had support for life. That he'd never have to cry alone ever again. "My pleasure." The blonde's eyes flickered up at his boyfriend multiple times before he started to eat, savoring the pieces of beef first before he washed it down with the stew, throat and stomach tingling happily. "That's so good.."

"Right? You cook so good. I love this, might be my favourite meal ever." Soobin agreed, cheeks stuffed with the food as he continued to eat happily, completely filled with warmth and love. "You know.." The male started softly then, putting down his chopsticks so he could scoot closer to his lover, sitting down next to him and placing a hand on his leg, making sure he'd stay close.

"I love you, so much. I wouldn't want this with anyone else but you.. I've never felt so at home, and I can't even imagine the wave of calmness I'll get after work when I see you right here. Everything would just feel so worth it. Thank you, for letting me love you. Thank you for putting effort Into communicating with me and not giving up.. because now we're here. And it's all just so worth it." Soobin whispered softly as he tucked some hair strands behind his boyfriend's ear, hoping that he would understand how he felt in the moment. He wanted to share the feeling, to experience the moment together. And Yeonjun seemed to have understood, because his eyes were starting to fill with tears, making them glisten and reflect the lights of the candles surrounding their new home. He looked gorgeous.

"I.." Yeonjun stuttered quietly as he stared at his boyfriend, emotional. "Yes.. it was worth it.. I just don't know what to say, Soobin. Maybe that I love you more?" The blonde giggled softly, feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything, but it was a good feeling. "Or a kiss?" Soobin suggested, giggling as well as he picked his boyfriend up again, carrying him to their new couch and making him lay down, carefully. "You're so gorgeous.. can't believe this is all mine, all mine to see everyday." The taller muttered, rubbing over his boyfriend's hip before he hovered on top of him, caressing under his chin for a few seconds.

"That tickles." Yeonjun whispered quietly, cheeks pink as his boyfriend continued to admire him. He felt so wanted, so needed. "That's the point." Soobin chuckled softly as he cupped the blonde's chin, making him gaze up before he kissed his lips slowly and passionately, wanting the moment to last forever. He couldn't wait to spend time with the love of his life everyday from now on. Even after years they still had so much to learn about each other, and it was exciting. Both of them wanted to know more about the other person, just so that they would have more to love about one another.

Yeonjun gasped quietly when Soobin parted their lips, eyes half lidded as he seemed to be under a spell, completely gone. And just before he knew it his shirt was off, making him shiver. "Is that okay? Or do you just want to sleep?" The dark haired asked, not wanting to force his boyfriend to do anything. He loved him too much to hurt him, in any way.

"It's okay.. I want this, I want you." The blonde reassured, blinking slowly as Soobin already made his way down to take off his boyfriend's clothes, leaving him completely naked. And then, Yeonjun helped Soobin, stripping him completely. "I love you." The taller told, carefully flipping the blonde around so he would lay on his stomach and face the window, wanting him to enjoy the view while he would please him. All he wanted was to make his boyfriend feel good, to hear his pretty sounds.

After searching around through the boxes, Soobin finally found their lube, squeezing some of the tingling gel onto Yeonjun's entrance, and then on both their members, slowly rubbing over his boyfriend's tip. "My prince.. let me know if anything doesn't feel right, hm?" Yeonjun nodded to Soobin's words as he looked at all the lights of the city, meanwhile also focusing on all the touches. Soobin was stroking his member while rubbing over his entrance, making him gasp and moan softly. His boyfriend always knew where he felt best. And soon enough, he felt Soobin's finger rub into his prostate, making his tone pitch up as well as his back arching, leaning into the pleasing touch. "Yes.. there.."

"I know, baby. Shh.. I've got you, hm?" The blue haired reassured, adding another finger so he could finger the male properly, stretching him out slowly. Just his sounds, his manners, and physique made him rock hard. He was so attracted to his boyfriend. "I know.." Soobin repeated whenever he heard even the most quiet whine, rubbing into all of his gummy spots until he felt that Yeonjun was ready. And when that moment came, Soobin climbed on top of him, both knees parted around Yeonjun's thighs while his dick rested on his ass, and lower back. "You're going to do so well, aren't you? You always make me so proud.."

Yeonjun nodded weakly as he started to squirm his hips needily, wanting friction. Soobin always knew which words riled him up, so he was always pleased, no matter what kind of sex they would have. As the blonde continued to doze off he was suddenly shocked awake when he felt his boyfriend pinning him down the couch and pushing into him, eyebrows furrowed. "Soobin.." Yeonjun winced, clamping around the taller's member and shivering, member rising up. "Shhh.." Soobin bit his bottom lip as he rubbed over his boyfriend's bare cheeks, enjoying the touch for a while until he was all the way in, making the both of them see stars.

And soon enough, Soobin was rolling his hips into the older, letting out grunts, and moans from the tight tug around his foreskin. He felt like he was in heaven. And Yeonjun was exactly the same, holding onto the couch as his eyes shut, mouth open. He let out long drawn moans that matched the tempo of Soobin's hips, reacting to every single touch of friction. "I'm not.. going to last long.." The blonde whimpered, staying completely still while Soobin used his warm hole, on cloud nine. "That's okay.. fuck. You don't have to.. we can cum together, hm? Just want you to feel good.."

The blue haired inhaled sharply as he grabbed Yeonjun by the front of his neck, pulling him up so their faces could be close to each other, as well as Yeonjun's back being pressed against his boyfriend's chest. And just like that, Soobin angled himself to thrust up into his lover's hole, nuzzling into his jaw and inhaling even more, as if he wanted to breathe the other into his soul. "Fucking shit.." The taller cussed, soft slapping sounds filling the room as he used his free hand to stroke his boyfriend's member as well, other hand still holding onto his neck.

Yeonjun was simply staying still as a sex toy, body bouncing back and forth as Soobin moved in and out of him, hitting into his prostate each time which made precum leak from his tip. "It.. feels so good.. I can't.." The blonde whimpered, arching his back away from the younger just to be pushed down by him, now being placed into doggy style. "You can, pretty. Just stay still, hm? I'm almost there.." Soobin promised, biting his bottom lip as he started to thrust more violently into his boyfriend's entrance, moans starting to get louder as his climax started to approach. "I think I'm-" Yeonjun was cut off when Soobin covered his mouth and let go of his member, pushing him more into the couch and pounding into him violently then, eyebrows furrowed. "Fuck.. not yet.. come on baby, a bit more.."

Yeonjun whined into the soft material of their couch before he released at how badly his boyfriend seemed to want to savour him, entire body shaking as long spurts of cum covered the new furniture, eyes teary. "Shit-" Soobin gasped as he pulled the blonde even closer, thrusts turning into sloppy pounding. And then, he came as well. Keeping his lover as close as possible as if he didn't want to lose him, hugging his body. Everything just felt so intimate, but also so loving. He loved how he was able to make his partner feel good, to make him satisfied and calm.

"Yeonjun.." Soobin whispered, still not pulling out as he simply fixed his boyfriend's hair, wanting to stare at his features. The blonde looked so done, so weak. But in the best way possible. "Your cheeks are so pink.. cute.. did you enjoy?" The blue haired asked, finally pulling out and pressing his boyfriend's naked body against him, rubbing over his skin so he wouldn't get cold. And all Yeonjun could do was nod and cling onto the love of his life, still shivering every now and then. "Good.. time for bed now, hm? My baby.."

Soobin carefully carried his lover to their new bedroom as he laid him down, covering them in the sheets and kissing his cheek. "Come here.." The taller reached out one arm so he could make Yeonjun's head rest on the skin, wanting him to be as close as possible. Yeonjun was like a precious treasure to him, someone he wanted to protect and take care of because of his beautiful soul. So holding him in the night was a need, he wanted his lover to feel protected.

As Yeonjun slowly started to get comfortable he scooted closer to nuzzle into the male's chest, breathing calmly and falling asleep, slowly. His day couldn't have been any better than this. "I love you.."

"I love you more, Yeonjun.." Soobin smiled softly as he wrapped his free arm around the shorter male, pressing a kiss to his forehead and staring at him until he started to doze off as well. Nothing calmed him more than seeing Yeonjun calm. And hopefully, it could always be like this.

~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Inspired by the new TXT photoshoots .⁠｡⁠*⁠♡

The End.

If you liked this you can request for more! My requests and submissions are open, and I'm pretty much open to anything so don't be afraid 💕 thank you for reading!

[ticklishshenanigansau]

LaughterLand - Chapter 27: Blushing

(story by Mod Secret, art delayed due to technical difficulties)

"A door?" the younger skeleton questioned the little green spider riding on his shoulder.

"Yes!" Sky answered excitedly. "A door between worlds, I'm pretty sure it's the same kinda door that the both of you fellas fell through to wind up here."

"Yeah?" Sans asked breathlessly, having just barely caught up to the tail-end of the conversation. "And how are you so sure that it's gonna lead us back to the Underground?"

In the midst of Papyrus hopping over a log to follow the little spider's directions, Sky leapt from his shoulder and onto Sans's with perfect precision.

"Well, for one thing," he explained. "It's the only door in all of Laughterland that can perform such a feat, jumping between worlds I mean. But it's a bit tricky to find. Every couple of hours it changes its location to appear somewhere new in LaughterLand."

"So you think Sans and I came through this mystery door somehow?" Papyrus asked, turning his head to face the spider.

"It wouldn't be the first time the residents of Laughterland obtained their food by someone walking through that door," Sky explained.

"So if we came through that door…," Sans reasoned. "Then the next logical step would probably be going back that way."

"You got it!" Sky replied in his usual cheery tone.

"I don't know…," Sans sighed, moving past a bush. "If this mystery door can somehow bounce between worlds, who's to say it wouldn't take us somewhere even worse? We might not end up where we're meant to go at all."

"I suppose…," Papyrus replied, also thinking about it. "But … it's got to be better than this place."

"He's got a point," Sky added. "I mean, even if it doesn't immediately take you back home, where else could you possibly land where folks tickle the daylights out of you just to eat?"

Sans hated to admit it, but they both made a good case. If this odd mystery door really was their only way out and was at least a slim possibility of there being a way home, he knew they had no choice but to take it.

"Okay." He nodded after a thoughtful breath. "Where do we go from here?"

"A little ways yet," Sky replied. "But don't worry, I know we'll find it before it vanishes."

As the sky spider led them down the path, the brothers became more and more grateful to have him along with every threat they managed to avoid thanks to his guidance. With every step of the journey, he managed to steer them away from creeping feather-vines, sneaky insects, and all other manner of tickling predators hiding in the shadows.

"Hey, Sans?" Papyrus asked after brushing past a large bush.

"Yeah, bro?"

"If we don't find the Underground, what do you think will be behind the door?"

Sans sighed in response, in truth he didn't really want to think about it. A part of him was still concerned about there possibly being something worse than what they had already encountered, although his brain was almost unwilling to imagine what that could be. Still, he didn't want to concern Papyrus with his worries. He gave his brother a playful half-smile.

"Heh, maybe we'll find a completely different universe," he teased. "Complete with it's own Sans and Papyrus."

"Another Sans and Papyrus?" Papyrus stopped to give his brother a confused expression.

"Yeah!" Sans chuckled. "Who knows? Maybe we'll meet the dark, edgy versions of ourselves."

The wink Sans gave finally told Papyrus that he was just messing with him. The younger skeleton stifled a snicker.

"Oh come on, Sans. Who would even THINK of something that ridiculous?"

"Hold on a sec, fellas."

Sky suddenly stopped the brothers in their tracks. Spinning a line of web from his abdomen, he lassoed it onto a nearby tree branch and climbed up to get a better view of what lay ahead of them. The skeletons kept their eyes on him as he kept looking up between the sky and the distance in front of them. As he descended back down to Sans's shoulder, they could sense a kind of concern in his eyes.

"Everything okay?" Sans inquired.

"Well…," Sky answered hesitantly. "I was sort of hoping that we could hitch a ride on a cloud … that definitely would have made this next part a lot easier. But there's not a single one in the sky."

Papyrus instinctually raised his head towards the clear blue sky. It was as empty as Sky had described, however, right at that moment, Papyrus could see something coming into view. It looked like a dark fluffy cloud that was moving at a slow pace across the air. As it came further and further into view, there was no mistaking that it was a cloud, it was just much darker in color. Papyrus wondered why Sky didn't think to grab this one if he wanted a ride that badly. It was definitely close enough to grab, so Papyrus immediately grabbed onto a nearby trunk and started to bear-crawl up the tree towards the dark cloud.

"Is there a reason why we wouldn't be able to cross on foot?” Sans asked, not even realizing what his brother was up to.

"Well, it's a bit trickier than what I had in mind," Sky replied.

He motioned for Sans to push back the greenery. When he complied, he found an enormous garden that stretched out at least a few miles ahead of them. But in the true Wonderland style of this world, the flowers that encompassed this garden were enormous. The thick green stems that protruded out of the ground had to be around ten to fifteen feet tall. The flowers themselves had gigantic petals that flowed out like a thick lion's mane just swaying in the breeze.

"Whoa…." Sans stood dumbfounded at the sight of the gargantuan flowers. "I've heard of flower power, but this is a bit much."

"They might look pretty," Sky replied. "But there's something very important that you both have to know about these plants."

As Sky explained the situation, neither of them were aware that Papyrus had successfully managed to climb to the top of the tree. He held his arms out wide, ready to catch the dark cloud as it slowly approached him. It landed with a soft little 'puff' into his arms when suddenly….

ZZZZZAP!!

A surge of electricity jolted through the skeleton's body. It thankfully didn't hurt, but the sharp vibrations, for a moment, shocked Papyrus with a tickling sensation. Almost as if he had pressed his entire body up against an electric toothbrush. He didn't even realize that he was falling to the ground until he landed with a

"NYAAAHAHAHA...!!"

THUD!!

He warily sat himself up, roughly shaking the electric tingles from his bones.

"Wowie!" he sighed. "Learned that lesson the hard way, I suppose."

His sockets looked up to see that mischievous storm cloud floating away, puffs of electricity sparking in its fluffy folds as if to mock him. Unbeknownst to Papyrus, Sky had just finished explaining the plan to Sans.

"Hey, Pap, did you get all that?" the older skeleton harshly whispered.

"Oh, I got it alright," Papyrus grumbled as he got to his feet and began dusting himself off. "Even the storm clouds around here are an irritating bunch of…," he trailed off, suddenly realizing that Sans and Sky had disappeared.

"Sans?"

Papyrus rushed over to where his brother had been standing. He brushed back the greenery just in time to see Sans and Sky disappearing into the gigantic garden.

"Hey! Wait for The Great Papyrus!!"

Papyrus didn't have time to marvel at the towering flowers. He quickly followed after his brother, charging into the vast floral forest.

Papyrus pushed past the thick green stalks, breathlessly trying to catch up. He noticed that just up ahead, Sans and Sky were still engaged in a quiet conversation, which probably explained why they didn't immediately notice him struggling to catch them.

"Hey! Sans!" he called quietly. "Wait! I'm coming!"

He didn't know why he suddenly felt the urge to whisper, or why Sans kept moving on faster and faster. But he kept his sockets glued to the back of Sans's shirt as he continued to trail after him. His eyes were so fixated on the image of his brother getting smaller and smaller that he didn't notice the large cluster of thick roots sticking out of the ground. Until he suddenly tripped over them, flinging himself to the ground.

THUMP!

"Oww!" Papyrus groaned, quickly scrambling back to his feet and brushing himself off.

"Oh, I'm so very sorry, love," came a sweet sounding voice. "Did my unruly roots do that?"

"Oh, that's quite alright," Papyrus replied, still dusting off his battle body. "I just wasn't looking where…," he trailed off, finally realizing that he was conversing with an out-of-nowhere voice.

He jolted, looking around frantically for whoever or whatever was speaking to him. But there was nobody around save for the gigantic flowers. Papyrus quickly turned his attention back to Sans, but gasped in horror when he realized that his brother had completely gone from view.

"S-Sans?" he fretted. "Sans? Where are you?" He looked around frantically, hoping to catch even a glimpse of where his brother had gone. But he was nowhere to be found. "Sans!" Papyrus shrieked. "Sans! Come back! I'm lost!"

"Oh no, the poor dear is lost," came another out-of-nowhere voice. Papyrus jumped, immediately turning around to find where the new voice came from.

"Let us come help you, sweetheart," said the first voice.

"N-No! I don't need anyone's help!" Papyrus stammered, still desperately searching for what he was up against this time.

"Oh, nonsense, you poor thing," pitied a third voice. "Please allow us to come and help you. I promise you won't regret it."

Though Papyrus still couldn't see who was talking, he noticed the flowers around him starting to shift and sway, as if a big gust of wind was blowing them about. But there was no breeze. The giant flowers were moving entirely on their own, and Papyrus could tell that whoever the voices belonged to were moving closer towards him. He backed up against the stem of a flower and shut his eyes, whimpering with fear. The mystery figures seemed to swoop down from the sky, he could feel their presence as they landed directly in front of him.

"Excuse me, good sir," came one of their voices. "Did you say you were lost?"

Papyrus peeked one eye open, his other one followed immediately after. But even with both sockets wide open he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The flowers had been the ones who were talking to him.

They leaned down to meet him face-to-face, and Papyrus saw that they did indeed have faces. Feminine faces planted directly in the center of where all their petals met, each one matching the natural color of their foliage. There was a Rose, a Daisy, a Violet, and a Tiger-Lily. Looking up, Papyrus noticed that the stem he was pressed up against was a Larkspur, and sure enough, the giant purple plant had a face all their own and was looking down on him with an amused giggle.

"Y-You're … talking flowers?" Papyrus stammered, though he forced himself to snap out of the initial shock with an exasperated sigh. "Oh … what am I talking about? Of COURSE you're talking flowers."

The Daisy let out a high-pitched girlish giggle in response to Papyrus.

“Well, no wonder he’s lost!” she chortled. “He’s acting as if he’s never seen a talking flower before!”

“Why, my dear!” The Rose gave a dramatic gasp. “I don’t believe he has! He must not be from around here.”

There was a slyness in her tone of voice, Papyrus knew exactly what she meant by referring to him as an outsider. He knew they were immediately sizing him up to be their next tickle-treat and he began to tremble.

“Oh-Oh no!” he stammered nervously. “Oh please … t-tell me I’m not about to be t-t-tickled by a bunch of f-flowers!”

“Oh, no, my dear!” The Rose dramatically placed one of her leaves upon her heart — or at least where it would normally be located. “We wouldn’t even DREAM of doing something like that!”

Papyrus didn’t believe her, especially the way she was playing it up as if the very idea was absurd to her. He had long learned his lesson about blindly trusting anyone or anything in this world. But still, he desperately wished that he had Sans beside him to help back him up. He turned to try and move away from the Larkspur’s stem, but was abruptly stopped when the purple flower’s face came down to obnoxiously stare into his face.

“Unless of course … you WANT us to tickle you?” she teased, soaking in Papyrus’s horrified expression.

“N-NO!”

Papyrus’s voice came out much louder than he had intended, but the enormous plants terrified him to the point of shrieking. Looking at their soft and delicate petals and leaves, he shivered. As if he could already feel them going after his tickle spots. He took in a shaky breath, forcing his gaze away from the giant Larkspur and attempting to steady himself.

“N-No! Really! I-I think I’ve been tickled enough for a l-lifetime … or three as a m-matter of fact! Heh heh!” He couldn’t stop himself from stammering as they loomed over him with devious grins spread across their faces. “I-I think I would just as soon be on my way, if you’ll just … excuse me!”

As he turned to flee, he suddenly felt another large root coil over his ankle, and he tripped again onto the soft grass below.

“OOF!!” he grunted as his front once again hit the ground,

“Oh, what’s the rush, sweetheart?” the Tiger-Lily cooed. “Why don’t you stop and chat with us for a while?”

“Yes indeed!” the Violet chimed in. “Stop for a while to … smell the flowers.”

Upon uttering that last sentence, the Violet’s sweet tone suddenly became deep and somewhat deranged. It sent a sharp chill crawling up the younger skeleton’s spine. But before he could properly react, he noticed an abrupt shift in the air. All of a sudden there was an intense aroma surrounding the skeleton. He could tell just how sweet it was even before getting the chance to take in a real breath.

But the moment the sweet floral smell entered Papyrus’s nasal cavity, he was suddenly overcome with a strange feeling of euphoria. He couldn’t explain it, but he suddenly found that the more he breathed in, the more he could feel his fear and anxiety melting away. His bones felt light, practically whimsical. He felt a huge smile starting to form across his face, although he was unsure why. He knew that he was meant to be running away, he knew that he had to get away from these sentient flowers and try and find Sans. Yet his Soul and body felt perfectly comfortable and serene, like he had found a perfect place of peace after searching for so long, and he no longer had the urge to move.

Papyrus looked back up at the flowers, each one of them wore a gleeful grin across their faces. Especially once they saw Papyrus wearing the biggest, dopiest grin they had ever seen. A bright warm blush immediately started forming across his cheekbones as he stared up at them. Deep within his mind, Papyrus knew he was supposed to be running away. But no matter how many times his mind told him to get away from these mysterious flowers, logic would not take over this absurd euphoria he was feeling.

“Aww, just look at how sweet you are!” the Daisy cooed in a small voice. “I’ll bet you’re just the most ticklish thing ever, aren’t you?”

“Yes … I … am,” Papyrus muttered.

Even through the euphoria, Papyrus blinked rapidly in disbelief. Why had he just said that? It slipped out so easily. But why? Nothing was forcing him to confess what he had been trying so hard to avoid in confronting these flowers. What in this strange nightmare world would ever compel him to talk about how ticklish he was?

“Oh, you hear that?” the Rose teased. “He IS the most ticklish thing ever!”

“Yes…,” Papyrus confessed again. His voice was light and airy, he almost couldn’t feel his jawbone moving as he unwillingly spoke. “I am … so … ticklish.”

Mentally he was panicking. He couldn’t understand what was making him speak so freely like this. His truthful words were spilling out of him without any control, and though his body and Soul felt blissful in letting his horrible secret out, his mind was screaming at him to regain control and run. The Larkspur bent down again, invading Papyrus’s personal space with her face.

“And you WANT us to tickle you … don’t you?” She gave him a knowing smile.

“NO!!” Papyrus screamed, but it was only within his mind. “NO! NO! NO! I DON’T!” He couldn’t get the protests to come through the euphoria. His Soul thumped hard against his ribcage as the sickening feeling of his jaw moving on its own took over. “DON’T!!” his mind screamed. “DON’T SAY IT! DON’T SAY IT! PLEASE!!”

“Yes … please … tickle me.”

His voice held nothing back, although his mind was a spinning plethora of panicked screams and protests.

“Well, alright dear. If you insist!” Using her long stems and leaves, the Rose gracefully pulled Papyrus to the center where all five flowers could easily surround him.

Papyrus didn’t even struggle, his body was cooperative and easy to manage, although his mind was still screaming at him to put up a fight. His blush deepened as he felt the Daisy starting to poke her long delicate leaves against his side.

“Are you ticklish around here, cutie pie?” she flirted.

Papyrus burst out in a fit of frenzied giggles immediately. He couldn’t fight it off, no matter how badly he wanted to. The Daisy’s stem and leaves were coated with a layer of soft fuzz that further added to her ticklish touch.

“Eeek! Eheeheeheeheeheehee!! Y-Yes! Yehehehes! Nyahahaha! It tihihihickles! Hahaha!!”

His skull was beginning to ache from how hard his mental state was pushing to regain control of his words and actions. He wasn’t even trying to squirm away, his arms wouldn’t respond to the command to at least block her gentle pokes along his sides and ribs. He knew all too well that it wouldn’t take much for them to have him completely overwhelmed. But he couldn’t do a thing to physically or verbally fight back, and it was utterly maddening!

“Oooooh! I’ll bet he’s ticklish around here too!”

The Larkspur bent her large face down again, this time heading towards Papyrus’s back. Her head was so much taller than the rest of the flowers, and every inch of it was decorated with much smaller flowers. Each one equipped with its own plume of soft purple petals. In one long sweeping motion, the Larkspur glided her soft petaled head up Papyrus’s spine, making sure to brush along the delicate areas such as the back of his knees, the shoulder blades, and the back of his neck.

“Eeeeeeeeheeheeheeheeheeheeee!!” Papyrus let out a shrill squeal as he practically danced in place at the soft tingling sensation. “Thahahahat—ahahaha!! Thahahahat tickles toohoohoohoo!! Ahahahahaha!!” he hiccupped between breathy giggles.

“Oh, isn’t he just so adorable?! The Tiger-Lily practically shrieked with delight.

“Yes indeed,” agreed the Rose. “But I think, since he’ll be wanting to stay here for a while, we should do our best to make him comfortable.” She bent down so that her top leaf could pat at the ground, close to where her stem was protruding.

“STAY HERE?!” Papyrus’s mental panicking continued, although his body refused to voice it. “I CAN’T STAY HERE! COME ON! MOVE!! RUN AWAY!! DO SOMETHING!!” But again, his body unwillingly stood there, still taking in the spastic tickle attacks without a fight.

The ground beneath his feet started to rumble, like the beginning of a miniature earthquake that had been isolated to just below him. He let out a startled shriek as an abrupt shift in the dirt caused him to fall backwards. But instead of landing in the grass, something had sprouted out from the ground and had caught him. In a flash, the makeshift bed had raised Papyrus a short ways off the ground to place him closer to the flowers’ faces. Looking down, he realized that he was laying directly in the middle of a soft wide-brimmed mushroom. The Rose must have somehow summoned it from below the ground to make Papyrus lay flat on his back, making him easier to tickle.

“There,” mused the Rose. “Now isn’t that much nicer?”

Papyrus had to admit, the mushroom was soft, and his body began to relax and take in the cozy sensation. However, his mind realized quickly that now all of his spots were even more exposed, and he could do nothing to prevent the flowers from tickling him all over.

They didn’t even give him the chance to properly respond before diving in with their gentle attacks. Petals, leaves, and soft fuzzy stems brushed and poked along his ribs, spine, knees, feet and toes. He giggled hysterically and rocked his body from side to side. However, this was not done in self-defense. It felt more like his body was unintentionally rolling around to give the flowers more chances to tickle at other places of his body, rather than just laying in one spot and restricting them to one area. It was utterly maddening how his own body was betraying him like this.

“Nyaaaahahahaha!! Ohohoho—Hahaha! O-Ohoho my gahahahahash!! Heeheeheeheehee!! Ihihihit-Ihihihit tihihihickles!! It tihihihickles-heeheeheehee!! S-Sohoho muhuhuhuhuch!! Ahahahahahahaaa!”

He couldn’t control his words anymore, his mind was beginning to blank from the horrible sensations consuming it. He almost didn’t want to waste any energy in trying to control what he was saying. He tried hard to focus on regaining control over his body, his mind reeled with trying to find the will to roll off the mushroom and run away. The edge of the fungi was so agonizingly close, and nothing was physically holding him back, it was horrible!

“Oh, look at the precious ticklish darling!” cooed the Violet. “He’s so sensitive around here, aren’t you?”

“Y-Y-Y-Yehehehehehes!! Ahahahaha!!” Papyrus mentally cursed himself for confessing his sensitivity. He knew he couldn’t help it, but it was terrifying knowing that they could get him to say anything they wanted.

“I bet he’s really ticklish under those arms!” giggled the Daisy.

“DON’T SAY IT!” Papyrus’s mind harshly ordered him. “DON’T SAY IT!! DON’T YOU DARE!!”

“Y-Y-Yehehehehes!! I-I-heeheeheem sohohohoho … t-ticklish thehehehere!! Heeheeheeheehee!!”

It took all of his mental strength to hold it back, it felt like trying to keep a leash on a rabid animal. But he could only falter for a split-second before the confession practically launched out of his mouth.

“Oh, well, if you’re ‘soooo ticklish there’, then why don’t you lift up your arms and show us?” taunted the Tiger-Lily.

Papyrus felt a sharp jerk as his arms suddenly lifted up against his will, his hands easily coming to rest just above his head with his elbows slightly bent in a comfortable position. He managed to draw in a startled squeaky gasp at the sudden position change. But that was the only manner of protest he could muster before his body became limp and unresponsive to his mental pleas to fight back.

The flowers wasted no time ruffling their soft feathery leaves into his underarms, and gently poking their bare stems into the spaces of his ribcage just below his exposed hollows. Papyrus let out a shrill squeal followed by panicked laughter. Tears began forming in the corners of his sockets as his even more of his sensitive spots were exploited, and no amount of mental screaming could force his arms back down to protect himself.

“EEEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!! NYAHAHAHAHA!! IHIHIHIHIT’S SOHOHOHOHO—AAAGH!! HAHAHA!! SOHOHOHO TIHIHIHIHICKLISH!! AHAHAHAHAAA!!” he confessed again, his voice sounding high-pitched and squeaky.

“Oh, it is!” cried the Larkspur. “You seem to really like it up here, don’t you?”

“Well, how about this?” the Rose teased as she raised her leaves up to brush against his feet and the in-between spaces of his toes. “Do you like it down here? Does that just tickle you terribly?”

Another anguished squeak tore from the younger skeleton as she dipped the tip of her leaf in between his toes. But to his dismay, his body suddenly splayed them out perfectly, allowing her easy access to tickle and tease them without any resistance. He gritted his teeth, trying his best to hold back in any way he could. But the moment they tempted him with their taunting questions, he felt his jaw unlocking all on its own to answer them.

“Y-Y-Y—EEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!! YEHEHEHEHES!! YEHEHEHEHES!! IHIHIHIT TIHIHIHICKLES!! AHAHAHAHA!! IT-IT TIHIHICKLES AND I LOHOHOHOHOVE IT!! AHAHAHAHA!!”

In the midst of the horrendous tickling sensations, Papyrus could feel the warm tingle of the big orange blush spreading even further across his face. It was utterly humiliating! He wished more than anything that he could at least hide his face in embarrassment. But he stayed there, laying completely helpless and vulnerable with all of his tickle spots out in the open. Powerless to defend himself, and playing along with the flower’s cruel game of teasing.

“Oh, you love it, huh?” teased the Larkspur as she bristled the top of her head against his warm cheekbones. “Did you hear that, girls? He LOVES to be tickled. Don’t you, you little cutie?”

Papyrus couldn’t even hope to hold on to his words as they came spilling out of his mouth. His blush grew deeper and brighter as he became riddled with anxiety. Embarrassed and utterly dreading what on earth he was going to say next without any control.

“YEHEHEHEHEHEHES!!” he cackled frantically. “YEHEHEHEHES!! I LOHOHOHOVE IHIHIHIT!! NYAHAHAHAHAHA!! OH—OHOHOHO PLEHEHEHEHEHEASE!! HAHAHA!! P-PLEHEHEASE!! PLEHEHEASE KEEP TIHIHIHICKLING MEHEEHEEHEE!!”

The utter shock of humiliation surged through his bones at the sound of his plea. Besides feeling flustered beyond all measure, he realized with horror that he had just begged the mischievous flowers for even more of this insane torture. He didn’t know how much longer he could handle any of this, he felt the stinging tears dripping down his raw cheeks again.

“Oh, we would LOVE to keep tickling you some more!” the Daisy chimed in. “You wanna tell us where you’re the MOST ticklish?”

The flowers all began chattering with excitement at the Daisy’s suggestion. Each one talking over the other one giddily.

“Oh, yes! Where’s your worst spot?”

“Is it here?”

“Or maybe down here!”

“You can tell us! We know you want to!”

“Where’s your FAVORITE tickle spot?”

“Where are you most sensitive?”

“The one spot you just can’t stand?”

“We’ll tickle you!”

“Come on, tell us”

“Tell us!”

“TELL US!”

Papyrus’s eyes widened. His bones trembled as he was filled with a sense of pure terror. The image of the horde of teasing flowers going after his sweet spot consumed his with utter dread.

“NOOOO!!” his mind wailed, his inner voice seeming to echo within his own skull.

He tried his best to clamp down his teeth, but his jaw would not respond. Instead he could feel it moving effortlessly on its own as it moved to answer the flowers between bursts of cachinnating.

“NONONONONONONOOOO!!” Papyrus could almost feel an ache in his throat as his inner voice screamed. “NOOO!! DON’T SAY IT!! DON’T SAY IT!! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!”

“HEEHEEHEEHEE!! M-MY-MY-EEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!! NYAHAHAHA!! MY—AHAHAHAHA!!”

“PLEASE!! PLEASE DON’T!!” Papyrus made one last desperate mental plea, but it was too late.

“MY-HEEHEEHEE HIHIHIHIHIPS!! AHAHAHAHA!! WH-WHEHEHERE—HAHAHA!! WHERE THE HIHIHIHIPS MEEHHEEHEEHEET THE SPIHIHIHIHIHIHINE!! AHAHAHAHA!!”

“Oh, really?” mused the Rose.

~~~

“So, they’re kind of like the opposite of what your Aunt Creepy was trying to do.”

Further down the path, Sans was continuing his quiet conversation with Sky. Trying to keep his gaze glued down to the ground, and not breathing in too deeply. He noticed many flowers along the way were turning to speak to him and trying to beckon him to come closer to gaze up at them. But he vehemently ignored them, knowing full-well what would happen thanks to Sky’s instruction.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” the little green spider replied. “I know my Auntie has a specific taste for pleas and begging, but these ladies like the taste of their victims begging for it. And that pollen of theirs will make you do it against your better judgment, so just keep your head down and keep talking to me,” he instructed.

“Man, am I glad you’re around,” Sans replied gratefully. “We should have brought him along BEFORE he sent us on a cloud-ride, right Pap?”

But there was no response. Sans had been certain that his brother was trailing right behind them, just keeping his breath as held as much as possible like Sky had instructed earlier. Sans paused, he glanced back, still careful not to look any wayward flowers in the eye.

“Papyrus?” he called gently.

But Papyrus was gone. A sinking feeling of dread started gathering in the older skeleton’s bones.

“Bro?” he called a bit louder.

There was still no response, Sans forced his gaze up towards the distance, still wary of sneaky flowers. That’s when he heard it. It was faint due to the distance between them. But it was loud enough to be completely unmistakable, Papyrus had let out a blood-curdling scream.

“NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!!”

“PAPYRUS!!”

Sans wasted no time. In an instant, he turned towards the direction of his brother’s helpless cry and took off running. The change in direction was so abrupt that Sky was immediately flung from Sans’s shoulder and sent tumbling to the ground. The fall didn’t hurt, but instead startled the little spider. As he watched Sans take off like a shot, he quickly hollered after him.

“Cover your eyes!” he hurriedly instructed. “Don’t breathe in the pollen!!”

~~~

The scream was the only thing Papyrus could physically release out of his body. As his sweet spot was delicately played with, the poor skeleton laid helplessly on the mushroom only letting out silent squeals and squeaky gasps for air. Not even having the strength to mentally beg for mercy anymore.

The Tiger-Lily and the Violet were gently kissing both sides of his hips, making girly smooching noises intermixed with their amused giggling. But what had made this especially torturous for Papyrus was the fact that both flowers had long wispy stamens protruding from their faces in place of where their noses were meant to be. They felt like long delicate kitten whiskers that bristled and glided effortlessly along Papyrus’s sensitive sweet spot. It was so horribly ticklish, his mind went completely blank as the sensation consumed him.

“Aww! He’s soooo ticklish!” teased the Daisy as she wriggled a fuzzy leaf under his chin. Papyrus could hardly even feel it, all of his focus was hopelessly stuck to the torture of his sweet spot.

“And he’s so tasty too!” teased the Tiger-Lily, taking a brief moment away from tickling Papyrus’s sweet spot to taunt him.

“Here’s an idea,” offered the Rose, she loomed over Papyrus’s tear stained face with a smug look in her eyes. “If you want us to keep tickling you forever and ever … just keep laughing.”

As the Violet and Tiger-Lily went back to kissing at his hips, Papyrus’s entire body contorted with violent spasms and silent laughter. The harsh puffs of air pounding out of him with painful jerks and sharp inhales. Even in the middle of all that hysteria, he couldn’t will his body to fight, much less try to get out any kind of verbal protest. He was doomed. He just knew they were going to keep him here as their main source of food, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.

“Papyrus!”

Sans burst through the thick stems, a look of horror petrified onto his face at the predicament his brother was in. The flowers finally stopped tickling Papyrus to stare at Sans. A new wave of delight crossing their faces at the sight of another victim.

“Well, well, well!” The Violet beamed. “A new friend come to join the party!”

“Won’t you join us for dinner, young man?” The Larkspur immediately leaned her face forward to invade his personal space.

Sans immediately ducked his head down, he made a bolt for the mushroom while trying to avoid eye contact with the dangerous flowers. He barely made it to the overgrown fungi before he suddenly felt his feet being pulled out from under him. The Violet had lifted her roots to coil around the older skeleton’s ankles and, before he could utter a scream of protest, he felt himself being dragged along the grass. The Violet and the Tiger-Lily wrapped their winding stems around Sans’s arms and lifted him off the ground, holding them out wide.

“Ah, I do believe he’s onto our little game, ladies.” The Rose slinked towards Sans and met him face-to-face. “Well, that’s no fun, nobody likes a spoil-sport.”

Sans shut his sockets tight and forced his skull to turn away from the Rose’s face. The Tiger-Lily used her extra leaves to force Sans’s skull to look directly at her, but the skeleton still kept his eyes shut tight.

“You really ought to relax, dear,” the Larkspur cooed gently. “Stop to smell the flowers, why don’t you?”

Sans knew instantly that they were beginning to release their sweet-smelling pollen. If he breathed it in, he knew that he would be powerless to stop them. Quickly he took a deep breath in, expanding his cheekbones to let his last puff of oxygen come to rest in his mouth.

“Oh, well, that’s no good!” complained the Daisy.

“Not to worry, dear,” the Rose replied calmly. “He certainly can’t hold his breath forever.”

She was right of course, and Sans knew it. He could already feel the anxiety in his Soul starting to eat away at his stamina to keep his breath held in. Quieting his thoughts, he focused on keeping his body still and steady. He knew that as long as he remained calm, he could hold out just a little bit longer.

Growing impatient, the Rose turned back to Papyrus, who was slowly catching his breath on the mushroom. Not thinking of anything besides how grateful he was for the tickling to have stopped. His breath hitched as he felt the Rose place the tip of her leaf on the tips of his toes again.

“So, tell me, sweet-face,” she said in a flirting tone. “Is your friend over there as ticklish as you?”

“Y…. Yes.”

Papyrus breathed out. He was too weak to even try to hold back anymore, the words slipped out easier than ever. Still, his Soul ached, having no choice but to betray his brother. Sans’s eyes shot open upon hearing Papyrus’s voice, he gazed at his brother, silently pleading for him not to speak anymore.

“He’s … ticklish … under the … arms….”

Without wasting a second, the Violet and the Tiger-Lily began kissing and wriggling their delicate stamens into Sans’s underarms. It took no time for the older skeleton to burst out laughing. Besides his body putting too much strain on itself by holding his breath, his underarms were far too ticklish for him to ignore.

“BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! NOHOHOHO ST-STAHAHAHAHAHAAAP!! AHAHAHA!!”

As Sans rapidly inhaled and exhaled he could immediately feel the effects of the pollen entering his system. In an instant, the pleasant euphoria had completely taken over his body, trapping him in an unusual state of peaceful bliss. The Rose let out a devious chuckle as she greedily inhaled Sans’s hysterical laughter.

“Now that’s more like it.” She grinned. “Welcome to the party, my dear. Care for a tickle or two?”

“Y-Y-Y-HEEHEEHEEHEE!! YEHEHEHES!! YES!! AHAHAHAHAHA!! PL-PLEHEHEHEHEASE!! PLEHEHEASE TIHIHIHICKLE MEHEEHEEHEE!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!”

Sans couldn’t believe how easily it slipped out. Now feeling the same utter humiliation as Papyrus, he began the long mental struggle of trying — and failing — to regain control of himself.

“With pleasure!” giggled the Daisy as she scribbled the tips of her leaves along his toes.

“Now….” The Rose moved closer to Sans’s face staring at him intensely. “Let’s get to know each other a bit, shall we? Is there a particular spot on YOU that tickles more than the others?”

As Sans unwillingly laughed and cackled, his mind reeled with the same panic that Papyrus had felt when tempted with that horrible question. He strained with every ounce of mental energy he had left in him, but it was no use. His voice and his words were moving on their own, he had no chance. He was doomed.

“MY-HEEHEEHEE! M-MY G-G-GROO—”

Before he could finish, the Rose let out a startled scream as something was suddenly flung directly into her face, both blinding and muffling her completely. She backed away from Sans, frantically pulling at her face to try and get it off. Looking closer once she had lifted her head back up, Sans could make out what it was … it was a little web!

Sky jumped into the fray, and with moves faster than lightning, he began flinging tiny spiderwebs at the flowers. Each one stuck directly to their faces covering their eyes and mouths. In an instant, the sweet-smelling pollen cleared from the air, and both skeletons snapped out of their euphoric haze. Finally regaining the use of their limbs, they vigorously rubbed the dizziness from their eyes and the tingling from their bodies.

“Papyrus!” Sans called for his brother. He had yanked himself away from the Violet and Tiger-Lily’s stems once they had been hit by the webs. He made a mad dash for the mushroom just as Papyrus crawled to the edge, preparing to jump down.

“Sans!” the younger skeleton cried happily. He leapt from the mushroom, momentarily forgetting how weak his knees were, and immediately fell into the dirt. Sans rushed to his brother’s side, quickly helping him to his shaking feet.

“Come on!” Sky called before jumping back onto Sans’s shoulder. “That’s not gonna hold them forever! Keep your eyes down and don’t breathe in too deep!”

Without another word, the skeletons obeyed the little spider’s command. Pushing past the large stems they bolted through the floral forest as fast as their legs could carry them. The sounds of the flowers’ muffled screaming left far behind them.

[omgkatherine01]

Between Your Wings - Chapter 2: Walk Like Them

Series Masterlist

Chapter 1, Chapter 3

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x female reader x Rick Grimes (slow burn)

Please comment, like and share

After a little while, Merle was now calm, but Rick didn't release him from the handcuffs. After making sure T-Dog was okay and helped him sit on the ground and lean against the wall, you went to look down at the streets, there were walkers all around. Andrea joined you and she frowned lightly as she spoke, "My God, it's like Times Square down there."

"Yeah," you muttered and turned to your group.

Morales looked at T-Dog, who was holding the CB walkie, "How's that signal?"

"Like Dixon's brain--Weak," T-Dog said, making the older Dixon show him the middle finger. 

Morales sighed, "Keep trying."

"Why?" Andrea asked, turning to them, "There's nothing they can do. Not a damn thing."

Andrea walked past them and bend down to unzip your backpack. 

Morales looked at Rick, "Got some people outside the city is all. There's no refugee center. That's a pipe dream."

"Then she's right," Rick said as you sat down next to T-Dog, "We're on our own. It's up to us to find a way out."

"Good luck with that," Merle spoke up, "These streets ain't safe in this part of town from what I hear." He looked at Andrea, "Ain't that right, sugar tits?" You raised an eyebrow and rolled your eyes as he continued, "Hey, honeybunch, what say you get me out of these cuffs, we go off somewhere and bump some uglies? Gonna die anyway."

"I'd rather," Andrea told him, standing up and walking to your side.

"Rub muncher," Merle said, "I figured as much."

"'The streets ain't safe,'" Morales said, "Now there's an understatement."

"What about under the streets?" Rick asked and you frowned as you thought back. "The sewers?"

Morales frowned and looked at Glenn, "Hey, Glenn, check the alley. You see any manhole covers?"

Glenn walked to the other side of the roof, looking down the alley. He turned and walked back closer, "No, must be all out on the street where the geeks are."

"Maybe not," you said, making everyone look at you. You got up and continued, "Old building like this built in the '20s. Big structures often had, uh, drainage tunnels into the sewers in case of flooding down in the subbasements."

Rick raised his eyebrows, impressed, "How do you know?"

You shrugged lightly, "I've read about those structures one time... I have a photographic memory... I remember I've seen one in this building when I scoped this place up with Glenn."

Rick nodded lightly and looked at Morales before he looked back at you, "All right, then, lead the way."

You glanced at Glenn and then walked past him to the door. Rick, Glenn, Andrea and Morales followed you into the building. You walked all the way below to the basement, and you led everyone to the sewer entrance you memorized.

"This is it," you said as you peered inside with everyone, "It's the only thing in the building that goes down. But I've never gone down it. Who'd want to, right?"

When you met with silent, you glanced up and around to see they all were looking at you. Glenn glanced from everyone's faces to yours. You looked from them to the entrance, nervously, "Oh..."

"We'll be right behind you," Andrea assured you.

"No, you won't," you said as you looked at her, "Not you, I--"

"Why not me?" Andrea asked, cutting you off with a frown, "Think I can't?"

You hesitated to speak, but tried, "No. It just..."

Rick nodded to you in encouragement, "Speak your mind."

You let out a soft breath and looked around at everyone, "Look, until now I always came here by myself, or with only Glenn, in and out, grab a few things, no problem. The first time we bring a group, everything goes to hell."

Glenn nodded and you looked back at the rest, "No offense... If you want me to go down this hole, fine, but only if we do it my way." 

Rick nodded, "All right."

"It's tight down there," you said as you glanced back inside, "If I run into something and have to get out quick, I don't want everyone all in there get stuck. I'll take one person." You looked at Rick, "Rick, I've seen how you shot, and I'd feel better if you were out in that store watching those doors, covering our ass." You looked at Andrea. "And you've got the other gun, so you should go with him." You looked at Glenn, "Glenn, you be my wingman, sounds okay?" Glenn nodded, and you looked at Morales, "Morales, you stay here, something happens, yell down to us, get us back up here in a hurry."

"Okay," Morales agreed with a nod.

"Okay, everybody knows their jobs," Rick said.

You looked at Glenn, who nodded. "All right," you said and put your flashlight in your mouth before climbing into the ladder and started to climb down.

Glenn copied you and followed you down the ladder.

You reached to the bottom and looked up to see Andrea and Rick walking away. "Careful down there, guys," Morales said as he peered down at you and Glenn.

"Yeah," you muttered as you and Glenn peered into the dark sewers. You glanced behind you at Glenn who shrugged lightly, and you turned back to the darkness as you shined your flashlights.

"Come on," you said softly and took a couple of steps forward before you lighted your flashlights down at a rat, who squealed and walked away. 

You and Glenn followed it for a few minutes all the way to a grate. "Hey, can you cut through it?" Glenn asked.

"If we had a blowtorch," you answered with a soft sigh, and rubbed the back of your head. "I, uh, I don't have the items to make one like I did one time."

"What about Dale's hacksaw?"

"It won't do," you answered. You heard noises from the other side of the grate and shined your flashlight forward. A walker turned around to look at you and Glenn, eating a rat. It growled and reached forward, making you and Glenn jump back even if the walker couldn't get to you.

"Come on, come on," Glenn said as he grabbed a hold of your arm. He tugged you back and you both ran back all the way to the ladder. "Up, up."

Glenn moved so you climbed up first, while he glanced back to check the dark tunnel. "What happened?" Morales asked when you got up. Glenn got out after you a moment after.

"We can't get through," you said and walked past him to get to Rick and Andrea. You heard them following you and you rushed into the clothing store, just in time to see walkers had gotten through the outside doors and hitting the double doors.

"What did you find down there?" Rick asked.

"Not a way out," Morales told them.

"We need to find a way..." Andrea trailed off. "Soon."

"Come on," you said as you grabbed into Rick's arm and tugged him to the backdoor. You all ran up to the staircase and back to the roof where Merle and T-Dog were still there. Rick peered around the streets and then turned to you when you stepped over, "Got binoculars, by any chance?"

"Uh, yeah," you answered as you walked toward T-Dog who had your backpack near him. You opened it and diged inside. You pulled the black binoculars and walked back to Rick. "Here." You held it out and he took it. 

"Thanks," he said and looked through them for a moment before he pointed to the side, "That construction site, those trucks." He held the binoculars to Morales, who then looked through them, "They always keep keys on hand."

Morales looked down the streets with a frown, "You'll never make it past the Walkers."

Rick looked over him at you, "You got me out of that tank."

"Yeah, but they were feeding," you reminded him, "They were distracted."

"Can we distract them again?" Rick asked.

"Right," Merle spoke up, and you all looked over at him. "Listen to him. He's onto something. A diversion, like on 'Hogan's Heroes'."

"They're drawn by sound, right?" Rick asked.

"Yeah, like dogs," you said, "They hear a sound, they come."

"What else?"

"Aside from they hear you?" Morales asked, "They see you, smell you and if they catch you, they eat you."

"They can tell us by smell?" Rick asked.

"Can't you?" Glenn asked.

"They smell dead, we don't," Andrea said as Rick thought of a plan, "It's pretty distinct."

You studied Rick's expression and you frowned, "You have something on your mind, don't you?" He looked over at you and you pointed at his face, "That face right there, my dad had the same expression when he was up to no good."

That comment made him smile a little and he patted you on the back, "Come on." He walked back to the door, and you glanced at everyone before you all followed.

"Hey! Wha' about me?!"

You turned to Merle and shrugged, "Just... stay here." He sent you a glare and you quickly followed everyone to the door, you looked at T-Dog who smirked at you for the comment you gave the older Dixon. You let out a chuckle as you closed the door, and you shook your head as you both walked down the stairs.

Your smile disappeared when you got to the clothing store again and saw the walkers still trying to get into the store. You tensed and turned to Rick, watching as he grabbed coats and gloves. "What are we doing?" you asked.

"You and I--were going to go out there, and get that van, covered in Walkers' blood," Rick said as he handed you a coat and a pair of gloves.

You froze as you held the items to your chest. "What?" you asked softly, hoping you heard wrong.

Rick didn't answer and simply handed the rest of the coats and gloves to Glenn, T-Dog, Andrea, and Morales, all four of them were staring at him like he just made the most stupid and dangerous plan ever... which for you it was.

"If bad ideas were an Olympic event, this would take the gold," Glenn said, glancing at you nervously.

"He's right," Morales said and took a step to Rick, "Just stop, okay? Take some time to think this through."

"How much time?" Rick asked. "They already got through one set of doors, that glass won't hold forever."

Morales looked at you and then quickly at Rick, taking a deep breath, then he spoke, "I'll go with you then instead of Audery."

"No," you said quickly, making them all look at you. You nodded, "I'll go, I'll do it."

Rick nodded but the others were worried, which you appreciated their concern. "You don't have to," Andrea told you.

"I'm faster. I'll go with him." You looked at Glenn and nodded. "I got this." You looked at Rick, "But... I kinda of regretting saving your ass back there."

Rick didn't seem to take offend by that and just gave you a small smile and walked past you to the back door. You all put on the coats and gloves as you took a deep breath and you all followed.

Glenn opened the back door, and Rick and Morales ran out, and grabbed one of the Walkers that Morales and T-Dog killed, drugging the body inside.

Glenn closed the door, and you walked to the side. "Here, honey," Andrea told you as she stood behind you and lifted your braid hair up to the top of your head, and placed Glenn's hat on your head.

"Thank you," you said softly, and she rubbed your back before stepping away.

You all looked down at the body while Rick put on a face shield, smashing a fire axe box with a crowbar. He grabbed the fire axe and walked back to your side.

Rick held the fire axe up, about to chop the dead Walker but he stopped. He put down the axe and went through the body's pockets. You watched as he pulled out a wallet and looked through. "Wayne Dunlap," he read, "Georgia license. Born in 1979." He handed a card to Glenn, who stood next to you, "He had $28 in his pocket when he died... And a picture of a pretty girl. 'With love, from Rachel.' He used to be like us--Worrying about bills or the rent or the Super Bowl. If I ever find my family, I'm gonna tell them about Wayne."

Rick put the wallet back into Wayne's pocket, standing up, putting on his face shield. "One more thing..." Glenn trailed off, "He was an organ donor."

There was a moment of silence, before Rick started to hack away at the Walker, making you all look away in disgust.

"Madre de Dios," Morales muttered.

"Oh God," Glenn said, looking away.

You looked away again when Rick chopped again. You closed your eyes and listened to him chopping. 

"Keep chopping," you heard Rick's voice and opened one eye to see him handing the face shield and the axe to Morales.

Glenn groaned in disgust, "I am so gonna hurl."

"Later," Rick told him, as Morales started to chop the Walker a few times. "Everybody got gloves? Don't get any on your skin or in your eyes."

You froze when everyone started to dig into the body. "Oh, God," you groaned in disgust and tried not to move when you saw Andrea and Glenn approaching you with the guts. "Oh, God."

You closed your eyes and felt them rubbing them on your coat. You lifted your head up and opened your eyes and glanced down at Rick; Morales and T-Dog were rubbing guts on him as well, and you quickly looked up.

"Oh, God," Glenn said.

"This is really bad," you said and lowered your head down to see him and Andrea still putting more guts around you, "Oh, this is really bad!"

"Think about something else--Puppies and kittens," Rick said to you.

"Dead puppies and kittens," T-Dog muttered quietly yet you heard him. You tried to think only about Max, but you couldn't, all you could think about is the walker's guts rubbing on your body, and the smell.

"God!" you said and quickly turned around and vomited.

"That is just evil. What is wrong with you?" you heard Andrea snapping.

"I'm sorry," you muttered and cleaned your lips with your cleaned gloves.

"It's okay, honey," Andrea said as she rubbed your back. "You alright?"

You hummed as you nodded and turned back. "Sorry," you muttered again. 

"You suck," Glenn said, looking at Rick.

"Do we smell like them?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," Andrea answered. "Audrey." You looked at her, and saw she pulled off one of her gloves and had her gun in her hand. "Just in case." She lifted the side of your coat and tucked the gun in your pants.

You nodded in thanks as Rick spoke, "If we make it back, be ready."

"What about Merle Dixon?" T-Dog asked.

Rick pulled off one of his gloves, digging into his pocket. He pulled out the handcuffs key and tossed it to T-Dog. T-Dog looked at it and walked away. Rick looked at Morales as he put back his gloves, "Give me the axe." Morales handed him the axe. "We nee--we need more guts."

Rick started to chop again, and you quickly looked away.

"Oh, man."

****

"Oh, I hate you, I really really hate you," you said softly as Rick put the walker's hands around your shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said as Glenn handed you a crowbar and him the fire axe, "Now, come on."

"I can't believe I agreed to it in the end," you muttered as you and him walked to the door.

Morales opened the door and you and Rick walked out slowly. You saw two walkers walking around the area and you and Rick exchanged a quick look before you both mimicked the walkers. The Walkers briefly looked at you but then turned away.

You closed your eyes briefly in relief but opened them quickly. You dragged yourself underneath a bus before coping with how they walk with Rick. You glanced around at the many, many walkers wandering around, as you walked along side with Rick.

"I can't believe it's working," you whispered.

"Don't draw attention," Rick whispered. A Walker walked between the two of you, looking back and forth from you to Rick before walking past.

You heard above you the thunders, and a moment after you felt water drops. You glanced up and saw the sun had disappeared behind thick, dark clouds. Oh no, oh no! you thought as you glanced around nervously as the rain started pouring down.

The rain will wash away the scent from your blood-soaking coats! You realized that as you noticed a few walkers staring at you and Rick.

You glanced at Rick nervously, "The smell is washing off. Isn't it?"

"No, it's not," Rick assured you, but you knew he was just saying it to try and keep you calm, which wasn't working when you both noticed a walker's stare lingering on him. "Well, maybe."

As more guts washed off, you knew the walkers realized that you and Rick were alive when one of them charged at you.

You jumped back and Rick crushed its head with the axe. "Run!" he said as he grabbed your arm and you both ran down the street with the walkers chasing after you. Rick killed a few of them before you reached to the fence blocking off the parking lot from the rest of the street. The two of you made it into a large van just as the fence collapsed and the walkers broke through.

"Go, go!" you said, and Rick drove back out from the parking lot and away from the walkers. "Oh, God. Oh, God. They're all over that place."

"You need to draw them away," Rick said, "Those roll-up doors at the front of the store--That area? That's what I need cleared. Raise your friends. Tell them to get down there and be ready."

You looked at him with a frown, "And I'm drawing the geeks away how? I--I missed that part."

"Noise."

You looked around the empty street and spotted a sport car. "Oh..." You looked at Rick, "Can I have your part of this plan?"

Rick raised his eyebrow, slightly amused. "You got this."

You leaned back and looked around the area and out of your window. You quickly got out and ran to the red sport car. You smushed the window of the driver side with the crowbar, tripping the alarm, and swiftly reached inside and unlock the door before getting in and hot wiring it.

"Yes," you said and closed the door. You leaned out the window and signaled Rick. He nodded and you leaned back and speeded out of the street, distracting walkers around the area.

You lifted your walkie-talkie and spoke to the others on the roof, "Those roll-up doors at the front of the store facing the street, meet us there and be ready!"

You drove near the store, and stopped, "Come on. Come on. Get closer. Get closer. Come on. Come on."

Most of the Walkers came to the car and you quickly drove backward. The walkers followed you and you continued to drive. You drove off and away from the street and glanced to the mirrors before holding up the walkie-talkie, "Everyone safe?!"

There was a moment of silent before you heard Glenn's voice, "Yeah! We all good! Except... Merle is still trap on the roof."

You looked forward in sadness, you didn't like Merle one bit, but his brother on the other hand...

Daryl will not like this.

You drove out of the city and into the highway but stopping. You quickly got out and popped the hood of the car. You opened it and quickly looked around to stop the alarm. You found the part and took it out, stopping the annoying alarm.

You through the part to the side and moved back into the car. You drove without stopping all the way to your camp. You saw everyone rushing forward as you stopped the car in the middle of the camp.

You leaned over the door and smiled teasingly at Lori who was the closest, "Hey, my sexy girlfriend!"

Lori laughed and shook her head as you got out of the car. "Nice car," she complimented as she stepped closer, and you both embraced.

"Thanks, I stole it," you said, chuckling as you broke the hug, and she laughed.

"Audrey!" You looked over to Shane and watched Carl running toward you with Max, who barked in excitement to see you.

"Hey, bud!" you said, kneeling down and holding out your arms. Carl jumped into your arms and hugged you tightly while Max jumped to your knee and barked in your face, making you laugh.

"Where's Andrea? Why is she not with you?"

You let go after a moment of Carl and stood up before looking at Amy, Andrea's sister. "She's okay. Everyone's okay. Except Merle."

"Then why is she not with you?" she asked about her sister before looking over your shoulder. You turned and watched the van approaching and parking at the entrance. Andrea was the first one who jumped from the back of the van, and you watched the sisters reunited.

You watched everyone reuniting before glancing at Lori to see her taking her son to the RV. Carl told you the day you met that his father was shot before the outbreak and was in a coma, but now he was told he was dead.

You looked down at Max and picked him up into your arms. Max was a huge help with the kids; playing with him was a good distraction for them, especially to Carl.

"Hey, helicopter boy! Come say hello," you head Morales calling out, and you looked to the van. Rick got out of the driver side, and you saw his expression turn to shock and disbelief. You followed his gaze to Shane, who stared at him in shock.

"Dad!"

You looked toward Carl and saw him running toward Rick with a huge smile, and Lori followed. Rick took a few steps forward before he bend down and pulled Carl into his arms. You stared in shock as you realized Rick was the father Carl spoke about.

"You're kidding me," you said softly, and couldn't help but smile softly with the rest of the group as Rick embraced Lori and Carl.

[lanitalay]

One day : Chapter 6

Based on the Netflix series by the same name

a/n: I literally cried writing this. Ouchie. Im sorry for the angst, we'll get fluff soon enough. I'm actually working on a fluffy one shot rn. So expect that soon.

warnings: ansgt, drinking, swearing?,

Word Count: 1.8k

Masterlist

You sat next to Nesta at the bar. It was the first time in over fifty years that you had been on the boat for the Summer Solstice celebrations. That morning, you had done everything in your power to feel the excitement you usually do on this day but nothing worked. It did not help that you woke up on the floor, naked and next to a stranger. It also did not help that you’d be forced to see the two people you wanted to do nothing with. Most importantly, it didn’t help that the only way to keep the collective hangover from a months long bender at bay was to keep drinking. You were constantly nauseous and dizzy. Mind fuzzy so that no thought could stay long enough to hurt. 

“Want another?” Nesta asked you as she motioned for more liquor to be poured in her glass. You mumbled something that sounded like “yes” and then your own was full to the brim again. Had you eaten anything? 

“NestaImagogetsomefood” you informed her while tumbling out of your stool to find something. The world felt like it was tilted on an axis and you were trying with whatever coordination you had to stay upright. Until someone bumped into you and sent you falling backwards. 

You knew you hit your head pretty hard when you opened your eyes and saw double of everything. The male that had knocked you down was standing over you trying to get a response. “Imfinejusthelpmeup” he didn’t seem sure of what you were asking of him until you stretched out your hand and he grabbed it, hoisting you to your feet.  You clung to his chest because everything was spinning and nothing could ground you. “Ineedfood, takemetothefood.” 

You couldn’t see him, but the male who held you was absolutely terrified as a giant winged Ilyrian stalked towards you with a look that promised violence. “Don’t touch her” you felt more hands steady you then strong arms scoop you up and carry you somewhere else. 

“Hey stay with me, y/n, we’ll get you something to eat” you knew that voice, you knew his scent and you knew the “we” he was talking about. “PutmedownAzriel.” 

“You can’t stand straight.”

A few moments later you were on a plush couch on the first deck of the boat, barely anybody was down here, the party in full swing upstairs. “Here” Azriel gave you some buttered bread and water. Until you saw the clear liquid you had no idea how thirsty you were, chugging it down in one go. Which was a mistake, because next thing you know you are running towards the railings and spilling your guts into the Sidra. Azriel was holding back your hair and rubbing circles on your back. “It’s ok, I’ve got you” he said until you finished.

“Stop it” you said after a while, shrugging off his hand. “Y/n-”

“No, you can go now, I’m fine.”

“You’re not, it’s ok let me help-” 

“I don’t want your help.” 

“Let’s just go sit down-” 

He didn’t get it. To this day he does not understand. “Just leave me alone, I mean it, I'm fine.” Your head was resting on your folded arms against the railing. It was a way to find stillness and hide your tears. 

“I found some napkins that maybe-” Azriel took the napkins from Elain and dabbed away the cold sweat that gathered at the base of your neck. It was so tender, so gentle that you bit your lip to keep from screaming. 

“There she is.” You sighed as you heard Nesta’s voice. “I’ve got this, you two can go now.” Without looking up you knew she was staring down Azriel and sagged a little when his footsteps drifted away. “Come on, y/n.” She wrapped an arm around your waist and helped you sit on one of the couches. Head rested on her shoulder like you’d done a million times in the last year. “Amren called me pathetic.” 

“I think I vomited on a turtle.” 

“Safe to say we’ve seen better days.” She nudged you slightly and you chuckled. Better days certainly were behind you. 

After you ate the bread and could stand on your own you returned to the bar and drank the night away.

Mornings were always similar, you woke up in a state of undress. Sometimes alone, sometimes with someone else. Then you took a cold bath, the sticky residue of sweat and sex clinging to your skin from the night before. After that you would go to the cafe on your street and get a pastry and then eat it in your apartment with a cup of tea. 

It was the best part of your day, before memories you kept buried deep began to flash in your mind. Before the regret of what you had become bubbled to the surface. Before you really looked in the mirror and saw just how bad it had gotten. 

The morning after solstice you woke up with a male named Jax. You knew him well enough. He owned the club you and Nesta frequented and he had become a regular night time companion. “Wake up”, you poked him. 

“Good morning to you too” he rolls over and places open mouth kisses along your neck and shoulder. “You have go.”

“Let me make you pancakes” he says and bites your earlobe. “No thanks, I have plans to meet someone for breakfast.” 

He sighs and stops his ministrations, then gets off the bed and while he dresses asks “are you ever going to let me take you out properly?”

“Probably not,” you answer and walk towards the bathroom. 

You hear Jax finish dressing “I’ll see you around.”

“Bye!” You yell and dunk your head under the freezing water, washing away the night before. 

“Y/n there's someone here saying they know you” you roll your eyes, wanting him to leave already. “Who?”

“Its me Y/n.” You nearly choke when you heard Azriel’s voice boom through your apartment. Quickly you get out of the bath, put on a robe and go into the living room where Jax and Azriel are sizing each other up. “I know him, Jax, it's ok.” He gave you a look and you motioned for him to leave with your hands then closed the door as he finally left. 

“He seems... nice.” 

“What do you want, Azriel?” You asked, still standing by the door with your arms crossed at your chest. “I always bring you flowers on our anniversary” you noticed a brown bag and a delicate bouquet in his hands just then. “Oh.”

“And I wanted to talk to you.”

“About?” 

“Can we sit down for this?”

You rolled your eyes “is it going to take a while? I have somewhere to be.”

“I brought you breakfast.” You sigh and grab the brown bag from his hands “you can talk while I make tea.” 

“How are you?” He asked while scanning your apartment. There was a wet trail from where you walked, clothes strewn about the whole place, a broken frame hanging from the wall and the curtains you typically kept open to allow for sunshine were closed shut. 

“We can skip pleasantries. What do you want?” You were focused on your tea, pouring water into the kettle and waiting for it to boil. “I wanted to check on you. We haven’t spoken in months and yesterday you looked… like you were having a rough time.”

“I’m fine, just drank too much.”

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Y/n.”

You say nothing as you look for the leaves to make your favorite tea.

“Y/n.”

“What?”

“Let me help you, please I can’t stand to see you like this” 

You look at him now, curious to see what he’ll say next “like what?” 

“You’re drunk everyday, you come home with someone new every night, you stopped working with Madja. I know the war was difficult for you but this isn’t healthy”. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Yes I do. I’ve known you for the better part of a century and something changed for you after the war. You never really came back and I’ve given you space and time but- I can help you. Please, just let me help.” 

“I want you to go, Azriel.” You make to walk to the door but he steps in your way and places two gentle hands just below your shoulders. “Just talk to me-” You step back and push him away from you. 

“You almost died for her! I broke down in front of you and begged you not to die because I can’t survive it and you went into the middle of Hybern’s camp with only Feyre to save her! Then you come back mutilated and I fix you up again and you’re asking why I’m not the same? You go off, you play the hero and then expect me to still be here and I can’t-”

His mouth is slightly agape as he watches you break. 

“I can’t close my eyes without seeing you dead. Your blood has coated me from head to toe and I still feel it. If I’m not careful, I see it over and over and it never stops and then you look at me like everything is fine and it’s not. So I drink and I fuck and I get by as best I can and you don’t get to have a say. Leave” you’re holding the door open for him, fighting against the tears in your eyes. He looks like you just stabbed him. 

“Y/n-” you curse loudly and slam the door. Then walk into your room and change into the first thing you find “Y/n-” he’s pleading and you feel it pull at your heartstrings. “Stay, leave, I don’t care.” You’re out the door.

“I know it's rotten of me, Nes” you were lying on her mattress while she braided her hair.

“It isn’t.”

“It feels rotten.”

“You are entitled to your anger and hurt. Deal with what you’re feeling however you want, I’ll be here to clean you up if things get messy.” 

Your friendship with the oldest Archeron had bloomed unexpectedly after the war. After everything that happened everyone went back to business as usual, except you two.

She had seen Cassian be practically gutted, draped herself over him and was prepared to die. While you were elbow deep in Azriel’s torso trying to get the last piece of ash arrow out. You never spoke of it, the bond of shared trauma. Of insurmountable anger. 

How your souls were crumbling and the only thing keeping you alive was each other. She would clean you up, you would break her fall. 

Standing from the bed you walk to her and hug her tight, tears pouring down your cheeks “I love you Nesta, I love you so much.” She hugged you back without saying a word but from the way her heart beat stuttered you knew she felt the same. 

[notmaverick]

MORTAL KOMBAT 1 Kenshi Takahashi AU: “Never Yours” PART 2

[PART 1]

Warnings: DOM & SUB, Dark, Killing, Arrange Marriage, Rape, drinking, Yakuza!Kenshi Takahashi, Slave!Fem Reader, Porn, MDNI, Kenshi is a little mean here, choking, slapping, Usage of Y/N And L/N (THIS APPLIES IN THE WHOLE FIC)

Let me know if I missed anything!

Author's note: This chapter is more of a fluff and horny stuff, kenshi is still a little mean, Also the reader is slowly liking kenshi…

Previously: “I'll see you later, Y/N.” he says as he went out.

You scoffed at yourself as the two gang members who escorted you earlier went inside and escorted you out, without blindfolding nor tying you up, “There's a room ready for you, Ms. Y/N” you went inside a room, a big room with a big bed, lots of luxurious clothes and materials.

.・。.・゜✭・..・。.・゜✭・..・。.・゜✭

When you entered the room, you saw Kenshi, half naked, his body was sculpted by the gods, wearing a black pants.

His tattoos went up to his shoulders, chest, and his back. He's holding a book, reading it as he smokes cigarettes, while sitting at a couch.

“Hey there kitten, Y/N.” He said as he read the book, slowly looked into your eyes.

“I know I said I'll see you later, but I couldn't wait.” he chuckled as he patted the seat next to him, “Come.” He said in more like a command tone, you sat beside him, scared of what he'll do.

“Don't worry, I know you've been through like this before, get treated badly by boys here…” he said while he slowly put his book and cigarettes on the coffee table, “But I'm not like them, Y/N, Darling- I'd treat you like a queen-” he smirks, “And all you have to do is obey me.” He said as he slowly lifted your chin making you look at him, “I'll try to be gentle for you…at least.” He said, bringing his lips to your neck, smelling your scent as he kissed your exposed skin, “Do you understand what I'm saying, Y/N?”. He said squeezing your chin, you nodded, “I need your words, Y/N, don't give me those little nods.” He said, slightly annoyed by your actions, “I understand..Ke- sir.” He chuckled, “Calling me ‘sir’ now, eh?” He looked at you, slightly smiling, “I'm already liking this, Y/N.” He said, kissing your forehead, “Rest up, We have to be somewhere in a few hours.” He stood up grabbing his book and cigarette, “Y/N.” He said as you snapped out, “Yeah..i- I'm sorry.” He looked at you and nodded. You followed him to the bedroom, “there's clothes for you in the closet, go pick whatever you want.” He said coldly, sitting down at the edge of the bed while watching you, “I- ok..” you said as you went inside of the walking closet seeing a bunch or dark colored clothes, some are red but it's mostly black, Kenshi leaned in in the door frame, carefully watching you, “You liked something?” He said as he watched you pick clothes, “Is this..ok?” You said as you picked a black silk dress, He smirked, “Got put it on, then we'll see.” He said slowly approaching you, “I- I'm here?” You stuttered as he pushed himself to you, “C’mon, Y/N I won't do anything bad to you, right?” He chuckled, “yeah, no- i- ok..” you said as you feel embarrassed, you removed your clothes leaving you wearing just a pair of dark blue bikini, you felt Kenshi's eyes watching you as he sighs and bit his lips, “Put it on.” He said coldly.

You put the dress on after a few minutes, as you looked at yourself in the mirror, you felt Kenshi's hands Snaked around your waist, “You look good, Y/N, Look so beautiful.” he said kissing your neck, smelling your scent.

You thought of him as the bad guy, but maybe he is.. it's just he have this side that only shows whenever he's with you or whenever you're around.

You turned to face him, He smirked, “What?” He said with a teasing tone, “Nothing.” You said coldly, “Falling for me already, Y/N?” He chuckled, “Over my dead body.” “Alright-” he sighed, “Wait! I- I didn't mean it in that way!” You protest as he chuckled. The way he smiles and chuckles when he's with you is different from when he's outside doing Yakuza stuff.

You smile up at him, “You're the one who's falling for me, Takahashi-” you said in a teasing tone pushing him a bit, “What can I say, Y/N, You're too hard to resist.” He Chuckled as he slowly walked to you, your eyes widened as you saw how handsome he is, his eyes, lips, and the tattoos all over his body? He's perfect, if only he's not part of some gang, you'd marry him instantly.

“Y/N.” You snapped out of reality, “what?” You said frowning, “I said get ready, we'll be out in a few hours” you nodded, “Oh, yeah right-” you said as you picked your clothes and went to the shower.

An hour passed, you're still taking a shower, trying to gather everything, trying to think why would a powerful man like Kenshi Takahashi want to marry you, maybe because it's just for his convenience? Given that your family have contribution to the yakuza's, and then-

There's a knock at the door, you snapped out, “Y/N?” His voice is gentle, calm, you're not sure If it's Kenshi or someone else, you answered, “Yeah? Hang on a minute-” you said putting on a bathrobe as you opened the door, “What is it-” your eyes widened as you saw Kenshi only wearing a pair of black pants and a button up shirt that's completely not been buttoned all the way up, “Oh..hey, uhm do you need anything? I'm sorry if I'm taking too long I just-” he cuts you off with a kiss, a sincere and gentle one, “I'm sorry.” He said in between kisses, “for what-” you tried to speak but his kisses grew needy, “For this-” he moans, “what-” you manage to pull away from the kiss, “Kenshi what is happening?” You manage to pull away from the kiss as you smell him and he smells like he's been drinking, “God, Kenshi are you drunk?” “What- me? No-” he mumbled out slowly leaning in, “Heh, you're beautiful-” he said as he touched your chin, making you look up at him, “Are you done?” He said as his eyes wandered across your body, “No.”You said as you looked at his eyes, “Would you mind if I join you?” He asked gently, “No..I guess?” “Perfect” he said as he undress himself as He looks at you grinning, “What? See something you like Y/N?” He teased as your eyes traveled to his body, his tan skin, the tattoos. You chuckled in response to his question, “If I answered that question of yours, would you give it?” You teased him back, “Maybe..maybe not.” He said as he slowly closed the gap between the two of you, “You know..Y/N, I'm never like this to any woman-” he said as he slowly remove your bathrobe, revealing your naked body, “In fact, I like you, not only that we had an agreement to pursue..” he said leaning in to kiss your neck, licking the exposed skin. You hummed in response, “too bad I don't.” You said as you smirked, making him stop kissing your neck and look at you, “I'll make you like me.” “Even if you try hard enough I won't-” he cuts you off with a kiss, pushing you close to him, making your bodies pressed to each other, the warmth feeling of each other's skin is perfect yet you want more. “Want you..” he whispered, “want-kiss-you-kiss-all-kiss-for me” he said as he explored your mouth, you grip on his biceps, whimpering and moaning for just him, “How about we see how tight you are down there-” he said as he lifts you up and puts you on top of the bathroom sink, the cold tiles of the sink made you shiver.

Kenshi spreads your legs as he puts his fingers in between your wet folds as he teases your entrance, “All wet for me, Y/N?” he said as he inserted one finger inside you, making you moan as his large hands slowly entered inside you, getting deeper, as he reached that spot that even your own fingers couldn't reach. Your eyes rolled back from the back of your head, from the feeling of getting stretched out by Kenshi's Large fingers, “Kenshi-ah-” Kenshi liked the way you moaned his name, it made his cock twitch by the sound of it. “Oh, you like that don't you, Y/N? You look so pathetic and pretty like this.” He said as he whispered it in your ear, making your walls clench around his fingers, He chuckled, “Want me to add another, hmm?” He said grinning at you, making sure that you'll beg for it, “Hmm- ah- Y-Yes! Please-” you nodded, “You can't cum till I say so, Understand?” “Yes-” you nodded as he added one finger inside you, “Fuck-kenshi!” You moaned his name louder this time, making his name echoed inside the bathroom, “You like that, hmm?” “yes please-” you begged as he started to pump his digits inside your tight cunt, “Fuck, Y/N, You're so tight-” he chuckled by the sight of you moaning and tearing up because of him, “If you're crying and begging for my fingers, what more if I put my cock inside this tight pussy, Hmm? What do you say Y/N?” He asked you as he pumped faster, “Fuck- gonna- please kenshi ah!” “No, you can't cum.” He pulled his fingers out as he slapped you, it stings and boy, you like it. “You fuckin whore, I'm gonna teach you how to behave.” He said as he grabbed his hard cock and aligned it to your entrance, “I'm gonna make you beg for my mercy, Y/N, I'm gonna let everyone know how much of a whore you are.”

.・。.・゜✭・..・。.・゜✭・..・。.・゜✭

I'm sorry if I haven't uploaded in a while:(( I got too busy at school! Plus I have a Exam next week so this is probably my last upload until next week:(( but hey, I'll give you guys a better one on the next chapter!!

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Desert Rose

Chapter 61 ~ White Crosses

✧ Pairing : Daryl Dixon x Rose

✧ Era : Season 5

✧ Word Count : 8k

In this chapter ~ In an effort to save Beth, Daryl and Rose take off after the car that heads straight into the city of Atlanta. As they navigate through the abandoned city, they somehow manage to find a clue at where she's being held, along with the help from an unexpected stranger.

The roads were pitch black, the only light source coming from the moon above as we followed behind the car for what felt like forever, but really it had only been an hour judging by the blinking red numbers that flashed on the dashboard. My leg hadn't stopped bouncing since I first sat down, too anxious as I pondered the unknown. Neither one of us knew where she was or what was happening to her, and it was slowly starting to torture me.

Daryl explained vaguely a little while ago how he knew they were the same people, the bright white cross painted on the back window being a dead giveaway. He talked throughout the whole ride, explaining everything to me, but I couldn't find the words. I just stayed completely silent as he spoke, nodding along occasionally to show that I was still listening, though my mind was racing. I just prayed that wherever she was, whoever she was with, that she was okay and they hadn't hurt her.

But suddenly the car became dead silent, glancing over at Daryl to see that he had stopped talking completely, now only focusing on the road. I could tell by the way he was chewing on his thumb nail, his other hand gripping the wheel harshly, he was silently blaming himself for the situation we were placed in. Overthinking every little thing as the reminder of the vehicle in front of us was only making it worse.

I studied his side profile for a long moment before gently placing my hand on his knee so he would look at me, and when he did, I could see the guilt filling his eyes like tears.

"It's not your fault, love." I said softly.

He shook his head, "I shoulda been there with her...never shoulda told her to run."

"You couldn't have known; you just wanted her safe." I gently reminded him, "That could've happened no matter who she was with, this isn't on you...you hear me?" I asked.

"Yes ma'am." he muttered softly, his lip quirking up the smallest bit.

I knew with that little comment and the slight smile he seemed to muster, I somehow got his mind to ease at least a bit. Though no matter what I said to him, I knew he would still blame himself. But at least this was a start.

He took my hand from off his knee and kissed my knuckles softly, moving to rest our intertwined hands on the center counsel, "Rick's gonna wonder where we went." he said suddenly.

"I know," I nodded, "But hopefully they'll stay put for the next few days until we come back. He wouldn't leave us behind like that." I assured.

He nodded, "Tank's runnin low."

"Maybe we could end this now...just run them off the road." I suggested.

"Nah, we're good for a bit." he spoke.

I began to feel myself get more antsy as I sat uselessly in my seat, glancing over at the red gaslight that suddenly flashed on, "If they're holding her somewhere, we can get it out of the driver."

"Yeah, but if he don't talk we're back to square one. Right now, we got the advantage. We'll see who they are, if they're a group we'll see what they can do. And we do what we gotta do to get her back."

I nodded slowly, knowing he was right as we couldn't waste this opportunity. But still, it felt like this drive was never ending. His eyes panned off the road for a short moment, noticing my knee still bouncing up and down rapidly. His thumb rubbed softly on the back of my hand to grab my attention once more.

"We're gettin her back." he said confidently.

I nodded my head again, "I know."

My attention was then pulled to straight ahead of us, not taking my eyes off the vehicle as we followed the two red lights while it swerved through lanes. They only seemed to be going deeper and deeper out of town, not stopping once for anything, before finally taking an onramp to head towards Atlanta.

Another thirty minutes passed by and we had managed to follow them all the way into the large city, now surrounded by many street signs and tall buildings. But my heart stopped in my chest as the car finally stopped moving, their taillights lighting up as the driver then put it in park on the side of the road. Daryl slowed our car down to a stop, a good distance away from them so they still wouldn't notice our presence, watching, waiting silently to see what they would do next. Though the car stayed perfectly still and unmoving, no one making an attempt to get out as it just sat there in the dead of night, confusion consuming me as my eyes never moved away.

"What the hell is he waiting for?" I muttered.

Right as my voice broke the silence, the brake lights suddenly went out as the person inside shut the car completely off, causing me to tense as little as the anticipation was now killing me. Finally after what felt like years, two people stepped outside, both wearing some kind of cop uniforms as they scanned the empty area around them.

It was hard to tell what the hell they were doing from the darkness that consumed the streets, but it also didn't help that we were parked a good seventy yards away from them. I squinted as I tried to follow their slightly moving figures, quietly moving to take out my handgun that was still secured in my belt. My eyes glanced down briefly, checking to see how many bullets I had left just in case.

I then looked back up just in time to see the two walking away from the car, towards the right into an alley behind one of the buildings, disappearing where we could no longer see them. I sighed in annoyance as I slowly leaned more into Daryl's side of the car, seeing if I could get a better look at where they vanished to, hearing him scoff from right next to my face.

"Woman, I can't see 'em either."

I rolled my eyes as I scooted back, "Well, it was worth a shot."

Our eyes stayed glued to the windshield as an agonizing silence settled in the air, staring at the same spot for what felt like hours, before there was a sudden loud thud against my window. I yelped loudly in surprise, jumping out of my seat as I whipped my head in the direction to see the source of the noise, coming face to face with a walker. A sigh left my lips as I placed a hand over my chest, glaring at the dead thing as it desperately tried to get in, clawing desperately at the glass.

Though I could hear my heart beating rapidly in my ears from the slight heart attack, I could still manage to catch the soft sounds of Daryl chuckling to himself, causing my head to turn back over in his direction. "What?" I asked defensively.

It took him a moment to collect himself as he attempted to control his laughs, "Ya jumped outta yer damn skin." he muttered before laughing again.

I scoffed, "Yeah, got it, hilarious."

"It was." he confirmed once his laughs finally died down.

My eyes narrowed at him, watching as he brought my hand back up to trail a few soft kisses on my skin as some kind of apology. I scoffed to myself as I looked away, knowing damn well I couldn't stay annoyed with this man for very long even if I tried.

The corpse outside continued to snarl as it pounded on the outside of the car, the two strangers finally emerging back into view again. I leaned forward a bit to see what they had done, but from what I could tell, it only looked like they moved some large pieces of scrap and metal from the alley so they were able to drive through. Potentially to take a short cut to their final destination.

As they moved to get back into their car, the driver stopped short with his hand on the handle of the door, looking right in our direction to the walker who was bringing attention to our vehicle. He seemed to stare almost directly at us for a few seconds, before quickly getting back in the car of his own, not hesitating to take off again as if he somehow knew we were watching.

Daryl quickly reached forward to turn the key again, but all it did was sputter. His eyes widened a fraction, trying again and again as he cursed under his breath, though it only seemed to be getting worse. "Shit, the tank's tapped. They gotta be holed up in the city somewhere, they'd have taken the bypass if they weren't."

I let my back hit the cushioned seat in slight defeat that we couldn't follow them further, seeing walkers beginning to emerge from the darkness upon hearing all the noise. "We'll need to find a place to stay until tomorrow morning."

He nodded in agreement as I rolled down my window a crack, sticking the mouth of my gun out the window to shoot the walker in the head. We then didn't hesitate to get out of the car, moving quickly as we scanned each building we passed to try and find some place safe. We ducked and dodged the oncoming walkers that seemed to follow us, killing a few of them off as we began to jog away from the small herd that followed.

Finally, we maneuvered in between two buildings, finding a back door that led into an older abandoned structure that hardly looked like it had been touched. Daryl rushed up to the metal door, beginning to pry it open as I silently watched his back, firing a few bullets at the lone walkers that caught up to us at a slow pace.

He finally pried it open after only a few tries, signaling me inside to follow him before slamming the door shut behind us, easily blocking it off with some furniture inside. The two of us then trailed down the long hallways ahead, finding it hard to see as the only light we had was a small flashlight Daryl carried, pointing towards which direction to go.

The whole space seemed like it had a very eerie and uncomfortable vibe to it, not liking the feeling it gave me from the moment we stepped in here. Although it was completely silent, no type of real threat to come across, just a feeling I couldn't ignore.

Eventually we made it further down to a room on our right, wanting to be a good distance away from the door we broke down in case anything were to happen; we could make a faster getaway through the other side. I reached to open the door in front of me, Daryl shining the light from just over my shoulder as it revealed a small room with a small bunkbed, a desk tucked in the corner, and a giant window straight ahead.

Daryl shut the door quietly behind him as we silently put our things down, "You sleep, I'll take first watch." I spoke, rubbing his shoulder lightly as I passed.

"This place is locked up tight." he voiced.

I slowly moved up to the window, staring out at almost the entire city as I shook my head, "No, it's okay. I'm not that tired anyway."

The truth was I was exhausted, but then again, I had too much on my mind to actually get a decent amount of sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about Beth, how she was somewhere close yet so incredibly far as we would no doubt be looking for hours on end before being able to track her down. And then who knows what we would have to do once we found her, the things we would have to do to get her back.

But another part of my mind was stuck on the scare I had just a few hours ago, how easily I began to panic like the same incident was going to happen to me all over again. It terrified me, so badly that I truly didn't know how I would someday get over the images I continued to see. Being in a strange new area didn't help with it either, in fact it only made it worse. How we didn't know the types of people that could be lingering here, a strong possibility that they could be similar to the men from that night.

All these thoughts just left my mind in a whirlwind of emotions, not being able to stop my racing heart enough to settle down.

I thought that Daryl had laid down to get some rest, not wanting to question the fact that I was insistent on staying awake. But then I felt his arms slowly wrap around my waist from behind me as he rested his head in the crook of my neck. I instantly melted into his touch, feeling him start to trail soft kisses on the side of my neck, lingering down towards my shoulder.

"What's on yer mind, pretty girl?" he asked in between kisses.

I rested my head against his, "Everything." I sighed, "Beth, the others..." I paused for a moment to the point where he caught on, "That night in the woods." I admitted.

He stopped immediately what he was doing, pulling away to turn me around so we were face to face, "Yer safe." he assured softly, "I ain't lettin anythin bad happen to ya ever again."

I couldn't find my voice to say anything, so I just settled on nodding my head, showing I heard every word. He brought his hand up to my face and stroked my cheek lightly, "Ya don't have to put on a brave face. What ya went through was somethin traumatic, and ya don't have to pretend it didn't affect ya...I know it did. M' so sorry I wasn't there to protect ya."

"Stop. Stop apologizing like it was your fault." I whispered while shaking my head, "I just- I can't seem to let it go...but I want to. I want to so bad but- I just can't stop thinking about it- I can't-"

My voice broke towards the end of my sentence and my vision started to blur with tears. He shushed me quietly as he brought me into his embrace, trying desperately to control my breathing to prevent a panic attack that felt as though it was rising up my throat. His body tensed a bit at my sudden shift of emotions, his hands instantly moving soothingly along my back.

"Shh, Rosie breathe." he spoke softly.

I gripped onto him tightly as I desperately tried to calm myself, closing my eyes to try and think of something else besides the man looming over me with the knife in his hand. My body was running on overdrive as I couldn't find the strength to calm down, but I tried to remind myself that I was safe here with him. Nothing would happen as long as he was right here. And I knew in the back of my mind he would put himself in immense danger if it meant that I was safe. It was just so hard to forget something like that, especially when the man left a constant reminder every time I'd look at my reflection.

As the minutes passed and I finally calmed down enough, I peered up to glance at his face, "I'm sorry." I whispered.

He looked almost hurt that I had said that, cupping my face delicately in his hands, "Ya don't ever have to say yer sorry, darlin. Not ever."

"I don't deserve you."

He shook his head, "Nah, m' the one who doesn't deserve you." he assured, placing a delicate kiss on my lips before I even had the chance to argue.

A weight was lifted from me as I stayed in his arms for far longer than necessary, leading to him eventually convince me to try and get some rest. It was hard to fall asleep at first, but feeling his presence right next to me helped more than he would ever realize.

The next morning came quickly as we devised a plan even quicker, wanting to pinpoint where they were keeping Beth. Ultimately we decided we would head out to try and find a building that loomed over the entire city, wanting to get a better view of where the cars with the white crosses could've gone. I grew nervous the longer we were outside, now being light enough for us to see the number of walkers that still scattered around the Atlanta streets. There were small herds everywhere we went, causing us to be completely silent as we tried to slip past them.

My steps were light and quiet while I followed behind Daryl as he guided us through, slowly coming to a stop when we hit a crossroad. I peered around him silently, seeing there was a much bigger group of them in the middle of the street, seeming to block the building we had been heading towards.

But Daryl thought fast. He crouched down to the ground to grab a few pieces of newspaper that seemed to be littered everywhere across the sidewalk, grabbing a glass bottle right along with it as he dug around in his pocket. He then pulled out his lighter, stuffing the paper inside the bottle before lighting a flame to it, throwing it across the way so the walkers could see it out in the open.

We sat and waited for a moment before they finally turned towards the light source, moving just far enough from the entrance where we were able to run towards without being spotted. The two of us jogged through the parking garage that was attached to the skyscraper, prying one of the doors open to finally make it inside.

Daryl led the way through the giant office building, attempting to climb up as many stairs as we could so we could easily have a bird's eye view of everything around the area. We followed the signs until we came across a large hallway, seeing clothes and useless supplies all over the ground as we slowly stepped around them, seeing a few tents standing in the way of the door on the other end.

The snarls that were coming from behind the fabric was a dead giveaway that there were walkers still alive inside, but we paid it no mind as we kept moving through the trashed area, avoiding their outstretched hands through the material. Though we noticed quickly the double doors ahead were chained together, only being able to open it so much to get to the other side.

Thankfully though it wasn't as much of a struggle as I originally assumed, helping each other out as we individually managed to maneuver through the tight space. And after what felt like ages, we finally came across a huge room that could've easily been used for important corporate meetings, giant windows covering almost every inch of the walls and giving us a perfect view of the city.

The moment Daryl shut the door behind us, I felt myself release some tension from my body. "Finally, I feel like I can actually breathe without drawing attention to us." I spoke.

He chuckled, "Dunno what yer on bout. It was nice not having ya talk my ear off." he obviously teased.

"Shut up." I huffed, brushing past him to move closer towards the glass.

From what I could see, the city looked burnt up and destroyed, finding it almost amazing that some people still lived here when there were walkers all over the place. It made me wonder how they survived for so long. I scanned the area for any kind of clue, any indication of where the familiar cars could be hidden amongst the ruins.

Daryl eventually made his way over to stand next to me, squinting through the window just as I was for a few seconds before letting out a breath.

"See anything?" I asked.

"I dunno...hand me that riffle?" he asked.

I picked it up from right by my feet and handed it over to him so he could look through the scope, zooming in on our surroundings. Once he held it up to his face, it didn't take long for him to spot something, watching as he slowly lowered it from his vision to hand it over to me.

"Right there." he pointed.

I adjusted the gun in my grasp, holding it up to my eye to see where his finger was pointing, spotting a white van on the bridge not too far from here, with white crosses sloppily painted on the windows.

"No shit." I muttered in disbelief, lowering the gun once more.

"Gotta be some kinda lead." he said.

I silently nodded as I began to gather our things so we could move again, check out the van to see if it gave any indication on where they were hunkered down. Though when I looked back up to see if Daryl was following me towards the exit, he hadn't seemed to move. He stood there still, intently looking at a painting that hung slightly crooked up on one of the walls.

He never seemed like the type to just sit and admire a painting, so I knew something else was on his mind. Probably something assholey.

"What?" I asked.

He never took his eyes off the piece as he gestured to it, "I bet this cost a rich prick a lotta money." he voiced out loud, "It looks like a dog sat in paint, and whipped it's ass all over the place."

I tilted my head to the side to try and see what he was talking about with my arms folded over my chest, "I don't know...I kinda like it." I admitted.

He scoffed, "Stop."

"I'm serious, it's abstract...unique. I like these kinds of things." I defended, "You clearly don't know me at all." I spoke sarcastically as I sent him a wink.

"Mhm," he muttered with a gruff chuckle as he began to follow me out the room, "Keep tellin yerself that."

The two of us then retraced our steps back toward the double doors we once came through, Daryl moving forward to slide a few guns through the small space before we made our way out. He helped me first as I slipped off my weapon from my back, placing them on the other side as I slowly squeezed myself through the gap.

When I had successfully made it to the other side, I leaned down to pick up my bow I placed on the floor, before freezing suddenly when I heard shuffling from behind me. Quickly looking over my shoulder, I was met with a younger man holding up one of our guns, aiming it right at my head without saying a word.

My eyes widened slightly as I stared at him, hearing Daryl slowly start to maneuver past the doors, "Daryl, stop." I said quickly.

But he was already halfway through, causing the kid to quickly load a bullet into the chamber as his aim didn't falter, "Get up...hands up both of you." he demanded shakily.

My hands slowly raised as I glared at the man before me, standing up to my full height to face him. Daryl scoffed as he leisurely got out from behind the door, following my actions as anger blew off of him like steam.

"Lay down your crossbow," the kid said, "And the bow with the arrows."

"Ya got some sack on ya." Daryl practically growled.

"Look nobody has to get hurt, I just need weapons that's it." he spoke, "So, please just lay them down."

My eyes slowly panned over to Daryl who was already looking at me, hesitantly nodding my head to just do what he wanted, not wanting to take the risk of getting shot if we didn't comply. He sighed heavily before laying it down a good distance in front of him, the kid watching carefully as I did the same.

He then demanded us to back up in a stern voice, though the assertiveness didn't quite match the hesitant look on his face. Daryl took about two baby steps backward, but I didn't move at all, I didn't even budge as I watched him hesitantly step forward to steal our shit from off the ground.

His gun never moved away from me as he adjusted all the weapons securely on his back, "Sorry about this. You look tough, you'll be alright." he said, before taking out a knife and cutting through the material of one of the tents so the walkers inside could come crawling out.

He took off in a sprint the second the dead began to shove themselves out of the tent, causing both of us to quickly spring into action with our knives. We took care of them effortlessly, only four emerging from the small space before we both took off after the man, following the sound of his loud footsteps down the narrow halls. My eyes just barely caught a glimpse of him disappearing behind a door, pushing myself to run faster to try and catch him.

My body practically slammed into the entrance once I reached it, twisting the knob aggressively to try and open it as fast as I could, but the son of a bitch already locked it from the other side. I sighed as I hit the door once again in frustration before cursing under my breath, running my fingers through my hair.

"Ya alright?" Daryl asked.

I nodded before letting out a bitter scoff, "What an asshole."

He nodded in silent agreement, nudging my arm to follow him through the parking garage we once came through so we could keep moving. Clearly, we were both on the same page about what was more important. Though I realized quickly as we walked that our weapons had dwindled down significantly, leaving us with only a few knives and a handgun. But Daryl practically had nothing which made my frustration grow, but mostly I was worried that he wouldn't have enough to defend himself if things went south. So, as we continued to walk side by side, I wordlessly handed him my gun.

He glanced back at me and quickly shook his head, "Nah, keep it."

I gave him a look, "You don't have anything left."

He stopped walking and pulled out his knife from his holster, dangling it in front of my face to prove some kind of point. I rolled my eyes and pushed the knife away, holding the gun further out to him stubbornly.

"Ya need it more than I do, just watch my back." he winked.

"I always have your back." I assured.

He shrugged as he moved to place his knife back, "Then I don't need the gun, do I?"

I scoffed at his persistence but didn't push him any further as I put the gun back behind me with a heavy sigh. Even if I did have his back, he couldn't at least take the gun to give me a little peace of mind?

It was a long and painful walk all the way to buttfuck Egypt, but we finally managed to make it onto the bridge, coming closer and closer to the van Daryl spotted. Though I think what made the walk more torturous was the fact that he walked too damn fast for me to keep up gracefully. I practically jogged the whole way while he looked like he was taking a Sunday stroll.

As we made our way closer to the vehicle, I noticed the number of walkers we had caught the attention of slowly trailing behind, knowing that we would have to be fast before they eventually reached us. Not only that, but as we approached the van further, we both saw that the front end of it was almost completely dangling off the side of the bridge. Fantastic.

Daryl walked over to the back and opened the doors hesitantly, "Alright, let's get this done." he said as he went to take a step inside.

But I was already shaking my head before he even got the chance, "Nope, back up. I'll go, I'm lighter." I protested.

He raised an eyebrow at me, "Ya callin me fat?"

"Are you serious? No, I'm not calling you fat, I'm saying I'm shorter so I'm lighter. Now you and your long ass legs can wait right here while I go in." I said as I attempted to push past him.

But without a word, he jumped into the van instead and my eyes widened watching the van rock back and forth unsteadily, "Daryl Dixon!" I said through gritted teeth.

"Yes, sweetheart?" he called back sweetly.

I shook my head, "Get out of there."

"Nah." was all I heard him grumble before he moved deeper towards the front of the vehicle, the thing shaking wildly as he did so.

My mouth dropped a little and I looked around anxiously to see the walkers that were still following us, raising my hands up like I didn't know what the hell to do. I glanced back in the van and saw that he made it to the driver's seat, looking around for any kind of clue as he picked through some papers on the dash. My eyes narrowed a bit, who was he to tell me I couldn't go in there? Fuck him.

I shook my head and slowly lifted myself into the van, surprising myself when it didn't move too much as I took very delicate steps. My feet moved slowly, anxious that I would put the thing completely over the edge, before I finally made it to the front, sitting down carefully in the passenger seat. Though his head whipped toward me the second he noticed my presence, giving me a look as if I were insane.

"What the hell are ya doin, woman?!" he asked.

I gave him a pointed look, "I wasn't going to let you come in here by yourself, that's stupid. If you think the van can't support both of us, you're more than welcome to get out, but I'm staying right here."

"Yer crazy sometimes, ya know that?" he asked.

I raised my eyebrows, "Says the man who wiped his ass with poison ivy." I clapped back.

He was stunned for a moment before just nodding his head with a shrug like he was telling me I had a point, before we continued quickly searching through the van. I didn't know how much time passed where we had been scanning through every nook and cranny, but when I finally looked up again through the window, I spotted another small herd of walkers making their way towards us from the other side of the bridge.

I breathed out in a slight panic as I frantically looked through the many pieces of paper, none of them having any indication of where this place was. In my mind I knew we couldn't stay for much longer, not when we were about to be surrounded by the dead.

My head snapped back up towards the window to see how close they were now, "There's more coming, we have to go." I said frantically.

He nodded out of the corner of my eye, "Yeah, I see 'em."

We didn't hesitate to move out quickly, feeling his hand on my back guiding me out first as we were mindful of our steps. Though right as I was about to fully jump out onto the concrete, I saw out of the corner of my eye that he flipped over a medical bed that was laying in the back, scanning the initials printed on it.

"GMH, what is that? A hospital?" he asked.

I looked back at him, "I don't know, Grady Memorial maybe?"

"Grady, the white crosses- that might be where they're holdin up."

I didn't get a chance to respond before we were practically thrown into the lions den, the many walkers closing in on us. We both quickly took out our knives and started to kill the ones closest to us. I harshly stabbed them one by one, ducking out of the way from their reaching hands, glancing back over occasionally to make sure he was still okay.

I watched as he kicked one away from him before reaching around to puncture another, not noticing the one coming up behind him. I exhaled sharply as I stabbed the one right at my face, taking one of my hands to get the gun from my belt, turning my head momentarily to fire at the walker just about to grab his shoulders.

He looked behind him at the sound of the gunshot, his head turning back to me in an instant as he nodded thankfully before quickly killing another, shoving it to the ground. I turned to follow his lead, but I seemed to falter when I slowly started to realize the amount that were still coming at us, not even making a dent.

"Daryl!" I yelled.

"Go!" he shouted back at me, and I didn't hesitate then to get back inside the van.

I practically jumped into the vehicle, turning around to see him sit up on the edge, kicking a lone walker back before slamming the double doors shut. My eyes darted around the small space to try and see if there was anything that could remotely help us, but there was nothing. Nothing that could save us from this.

"What do we do?" I asked him.

His eyes moved around frantically like mine were just moments ago, before they lingered towards the front as he nodded his head for me to move, "Buckle up."

My eyes widened, "Are you crazy?"

"It's either we fall off and have a chance, or we die because of them pricks right there." he said bluntly.

"The key word is chance, we have a chance at making it." I spoke.

"And it's a damn good chance m' willin to take." he said, his eyes serious and pleading.

I stared at him for a moment in disbelief, before cursing under my breath, quickly making my way to the front to sit on the passenger side and tugging the seatbelt across my body securely. I glanced down through the windshield to try and see how far of a drop we would have to take, though from the looks of it I didn't like my odds.

I tensed when the van started to shake violently, and I knew that it was going to give and fall over any minute now with the number of walkers pushing. They all shoved their way forward, jerking the van with their dead cold hands as I found myself holding my breath in anticipation. I quickly took Daryl's hand again, feeling him intertwine our fingers together as soon as he felt my hand in his.

He looked back over at me, "You hold on."

I nodded shakily and closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable to hit me. I tensed again when we were practically dangling from the edge, squeezing my eyes shut even tighter as I felt the sudden last push it needed, before we were tumbling down the side. We felt the van completely flip over and all the blood rushed to my head. I squeezed Daryl's hand painfully in my own, preparing for the impact that could easily break us.

We hit the ground with a loud crash, the windshield shattering immediately while my body physically jerked forward, so hard that my spine felt as if it almost broke. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, my brain starting to pound in my skull. But we were alive. And surprisingly upright.

Seconds passed as the initial shock wore off, feeling Daryl turn over to gently touch the back of my head, "You okay? Talk to me."

I nodded, "I'm okay...I'm okay." I breathed, "Are you?"

"Yeah," he said as his hand moved to gently squeeze the back of my neck, "M' okay."

However, we both seemed to jump at the sudden loud noise that hit the car, realizing it was just a few walkers tumbling down as well from being too close to the edge. Their bodies landed on the front of the van, their blood splattering everywhere in the cracks of the windshield. We waited for the noise to die down before slowly turning to get out of the van, not realizing how much pain I was in until I tried to move.

A groan left my lips the second my feet hit the ground, trying to take another step as I held my lower back. Everything was sore, and Daryl was at my side in a flash to help me the moment he saw me struggling.

"Ya okay?" he asked again, holding his hand out to me.

"Just sore." I nodded, taking the support he offered as I knew we needed to get out of here.

I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, feeling his secure around my waist as we slowly moved from the bridge. We walked as far away as possible, knowing all the noise would only draw more toward us. And now that we had a lead of where Beth might be, I was feeling more confident, and the fall we took wasn't for nothing.

The two of us eventually came through an alley away from the streets, and I moved over to take a seat on the ground, needing some kind of breather before we kept going. Trying to regain myself, Daryl couldn't help but pace around anxiously as he watched me with worry.

"Are ya sure yer okay?" he asked yet again.

I looked up at him with a tried smile, "Never better, babe."

He took a second before nodding his head, sitting down next to me, kissing my lips briefly as a silent apology for all the things we had to go through. And though it felt like one terrible turn of event after another, I still somehow grew hopeful. Knowing that we were just a few miles away from where Beth was being held, filled me with a sense of determination despite my growing exhaustion. I knew I had to keep pushing.

I was too anxious to sit and rest for very long, practically jogging over to the closest structure to Grady Memorial so we were able to watch them for a while, see where their blind spots were. Knowing that we needed to see what their people could do, if they had anyone guarding the place, before we just went waltzing in there. We had to be smart and careful about the following moves we made.

The two of us silently made our way through the darkened building, wanting to find a room we could hole up in and keep an eye on the hospital for a while, but we stopped dead in our tracks when we heard the sound of a door being shut with a slam. Someone else was in here. We stood still for only a moment, before rushing towards the sound, watching as Daryl signaled me to stay close as we approached the door.

He opened it quietly, stepping into a hallway where we heard the sounds of a walker from what seemed to be just around the corner. His pace picked up a bit as he took out his knife with the intention to kill it, but upon seeing it, he stopped.

My eyes narrowed as I stood right next to him, seeing the walker being held up against the wall, with a bolt piercing through its throat.

"That's yours." I stated as I eyed the black and green color.

"Yeah." he confirmed.

I then moved around him to yank the bolt out of its throat, quickly plunging it back down into its head before ripping it out of its flesh again. It fell to the ground with a thud as I handed the weapon back to him, before sudden automatic gunfire was heard from another room nearby.

Without a second thought, we both took off in a sprint, knowing in the back of our minds that we had somehow by the grace of God caught up to the same kid that took our shit. And it was obvious we were itching to get it back. As the sounds of shuffling and struggling grew near, we turned the corner to see the very same man wrestling with yet another walker, seemingly between a rock and a hard place.

Somehow he sensed our presence within seconds, glancing over his shoulder with widened eyes as he recognized our faces, wheels beginning to turn in his head. Before either one of us could even take another step closer, he suddenly threw the walker right in my direction, seeing its snapping jaw coming right towards me. I pulled out my knife as I attempted to push it back, but with my weakened arms it only fell straight on top of me, giving the kid his chance to take off.

Daryl crouched down to my side in an instant, attempting to help me as I raised my weapon up to silence its snarls. I took a breath as the weight was suddenly lifted off me, Daryl extending his hand out to pull me back up to my feet gently.

And before he could even ask, I beat him to the punch, "I'm okay."

That's all he needed to know before he suddenly took off again down the hall, not willing to let the kid go this time after the things he had done. I pathetically jogged behind him, trying to catch up although every part of my body was only screaming at me to stop. Everything ached and twitched with pain, but the sounds of crashing ahead only caused me to speed up.

I passed through the threshold Daryl disappeared through just in time to see him ram into the kid and knock him into a bookshelf, causing it to fall down on top of him with a loud slam, crushing his body underneath. He struggled from under the large piece furniture, seeing now that the bookshelf was blocking off another door, a walker inside trying to make through the small gap.

Daryl wasted no time as he began to grab our weapons from the ground, hearing the kid suddenly speak, "Please, I- I had to protect myself."

"Why ya followin us?!" Daryl yelled at him.

"I-I didn't, I swear. I thought you followed me!" he defended.

Daryl glared at him, "Bullshit," he muttered, moving back towards me with my bow and quiver, extending them out to my reach.

I took them from his grasp as I eyed the kid, "Please, please don't do this." he begged, the walker only inching closer to his face.

Daryl pulled out a carton of cigarettes as he watched him struggle, placing one in between his teeth, "Nah, I already helped you once. It ain't happenin again." he said as he lit up the smoke. "Have fun with hoss over there." he grumbled before making his way back over to me.

I snapped out of it when the kid started to become more desperate and begged for his life as the walker was successfully freeing itself from the door. I stood in place as I thought about what to do, I didn't know him at all, he threatened us more than once, but I still felt guilty for some reason. Like something was telling me to help him.

"Come on." Daryl muttered, a gentle hand on my arm as he attempted to nudge me to leave the room.

My eyes trailed between him and the kid, the inner debate settled in my head, "We can't." I said just above a whisper.

"Rosie, ya almost died cause of him." he spoke lowly.

"But I didn't." I pointed out, "He's just a kid."

He scoffed as he took a drag, "Nah, leave him be." he spoke bitterly, exhaling the smoke through his nose as he turned to leave the room.

I followed his retreating figure for only a moment as I was left conflicted once more, watching as the walker as only freeing itself even further, nearly biting at his cheek with how close it had gotten now. His cries were desperate as he attempted to lift the bookshelf off of him himself, gasping and struggling as his eyes were wide with fear. It was then I found myself groaning in frustration as I quickly made a beeline over to help him.

But as I pulled my knife out to stab the walker in the head, I never got the chance, as a bolt whipped past my arm to pierce through the walker's skull. He apparently had a change of heart, glancing back at him with a small smile. He, however, still looked pissed, questioning instantly why he did what he did. But it was too late to back out now.

I moved forward to get the walker's body out of the way, shoving it further behind the door as I tried to lift the bookshelf off of him, feeling him helping me by pushing it up from the underneath. Daryl then came over as we continued to struggle, stepping in on the other side as he lifted the weight with almost complete ease.

Finally the kid was able to squeeze though the space we provided, scrambling up to his feet as we let the bookshelf go again with a slam. He quickly recovered, though it looked like he had hurt his leg in the process, rushing over towards the window to look out as if he expected something terrible to happen.

But I didn't have time to question it as I felt Daryl tug a little at my sleeve, getting me to turn and face him again as his annoyance was quickly replaced with concern, "You okay?" he asked softly.

I scoffed lightheartedly, "If I had a dollar for every time you've asked me that today-"

He cut me off, "You'd probably be a millionaire, I know." he said with a chuckle, my eyes slightly widening as he knew exactly what I was going to say.

"I gotta go...I gotta go. They're gonna come, they probably heard the shot." the kid started muttering to himself.

My head snapped back over to him, "Who?"

"Them, the people at the hospital." he said.

My eyes widened as I quickly stepped around Daryl, "You've been in the hospital? Is there a blonde girl there?" I asked frantically.

"Beth?" he questioned.

Goosebumps rose on my skin, and I felt my blood run cold at the name that became all too familiar to me. The very girl we had been searching for this entire time, he knew her. This kid knew her, that's why I couldn't let him go.

"You know her?" he asked.

"She's my sister." I spoke.

He nodded, "She helped me escape, we were supposed to leave together, but she didn't make it out. We can get her."

My mouth parted to answer him, but I was cut off by the sounds of cars rumbling down the street, seeming start to circle around the place as they were drawn to all the noise we made, "They're coming." the kid whispered.

He then ushered us out of the room, wanting us to follow close behind him as we made some kind of getaway from these people, explaining what he could along the way. He informed us that we could hide in the building next door, allowing us some safety until they moved on. We stopped and waited as he gathered his remaining things in the hallway, giving me a chance to look back at Daryl tearfully, almost not believing the things I was hearing.

"We're going to find her...we're going to see her again." I said in disbelief.

He nodded as he gave my shoulders a squeeze, "We're gonna get her." he said confidently, guiding me along as the kid began to move again toward the exit.

We followed behind him quickly all the way up until we came across the glass doors that would lead us to freedom. But he tripped over his own feet right before we could make it, his leg really messed up from everything that happened back there. Daryl reached down to attempt to help him back up, waving me on to keep going.

"Go, I got him. We're right behind ya." he said, and I quickly nodded in return.

I pushed open the doors with caution, looking around briefly before I began to pick up my pace and cross the empty street to the building that was just out of reach. But the sound of a car speeding towards me from my left is what caused me to look over in a panic, not having enough time to react before it hit me harshly from the side, darkness suddenly clouding over my vision.

~ Thanks for reading!

Taglist - @justareader95 @hayley1998 @ryoujoking @sipsthecoffee @winterassassin1804 @marsmallow433 @catlalice @writingstreetspirit @silentlysuffering98 @mystictf @remuslittlesister

[allastoredeer]

~Lucifer blanches. He looks around, as if trying to find a sense of Alastor’s words somewhere in the trash-heap he calls a room, before rounding back to him, lips pulling up in disgust. “Are you asking me out?”

“Ahaha!” Alastor laughs, slapping him so hard on the back it nearly takes Lucifer off his feet. “Oh, Heavens no. I’m just proposing we let Hell continue thinking that you and I are,” he waves his hand, searching for the word, “in cahoots. In that way.”~

This is golden comedy right here. Honestly every time I read ur fic I always start wheezing so hard I can’t breathe, u are an amazing writer, hope u know that. When I saw ur last update on the ‘damage control’ chapter i was so excited i devoured it so fast help

Alastor saying he wants to be in ‘cahoots’ with Lucifer it’s so funny to me cause no one use that term anymore, and Lucifer is just downright dumbfounded that they are even having the conversation. I can imagine the shadow rolling his eyes at them, we need more sassy shadow moments, he is so underrated. 😭😭

I love that Lucifer is trying to respect Al boundaries, especially after the ‘incident’ , and doesn’t pry to much on his scars, but now I am curious about what did Al meant. Does he not remember who did that to him? 🥺

Also I am curious about what they gonna tell to the others about their new found relationship. I don’t think Lucifer would want to lie to Charlie, but I also think that it would be too risky to make the whole crew knew they are acting, someone might slip. And it’s not like Al is gonna make it easy for Lucy anyway. If they want to be credible, less ppl knowing it’s best course of action for me.

Last thing~ I really wanted to thank you, cause ur fic really brings me a lot of joy since I recently only been able to find happiness in small things like these , and I I can’t wait to read more🌈

Hehehe, Alastor purposefully refusing to go into depth about their "sexual relationship," and even side-stepping outright calling it a relationship, is what's going to make it all more entertaining when he actually has to commit to the bit. Cuz you see, they're not fucking. They're "in cahoots."

It's different.

(I love Alastor's Shadow being sassy. If it's attached to Alastor, it has to be. I take no critiques.)

😈 Alastor and his scars is something I'm very excited to get into it. I've been thinking about them for a while, and while it may take a bit to actually get the answer, I'm very eager to get there when we do.

The way I see it, Alastor doesn't want to tell the others (as they already know their not actually dating--as he made VERY clear last time), but Lucifer isn't going to be okay with lying to Charlie. Out of the group, Alastor knows he can trust Husk and Niffty to keep it a secret. Maybe Angel Dust too. But he's most worried about Charlie and Vaggie.

Vaggie isn't a good liar, and Charlie's such an open, bright, heart-on-her-sleeves person, he doesn't trust her to keep up the ruse without letting something slip--most likely by accident.

But Lucifer is stubborn. He doesn't want to lie to Charlie, and if he tells Charlie, Charlie is going to tell Vaggie. If Vaggie knows, well, we already know she has a hard time lying on the spot, so if the others see Alastor and Lucifer suddenly "in cahoots," and ask about it, she's not going to be able to come up with a plausible excuse on the fly.

This is all to say, the next installment is going to be full of silly Hazbin Crew hijinks, where Alastor is forcefully enrolled into Chaggies Dating 101 Crash Course, and he is definitely not setting the grading curve. (And maybe we'll even get a bit of HuskerDust thrown in there, who knows. Certainly not me).

And it warms me so much to know that my fic can bring you joy in a time that such things are scarce 🥺 I can't wait to share more of the story with you!