#also not important but she apparently once had her name said as ‘jelly’ by a teacher

[aroace-and-has-a-mace]

my friend who’s openly aroace was explaining the difference between romantic, sexual, aesthetic, and platonic attraction today. i think i’m in love (platonically)

[franklyfrankiesfolklore]

Universally (Un)Acknowledged Facts

Time: A few nights ago Summary: A few things that Frankie Carter knows to be true based on personal experience

There were a great many things that Frankie had learned over the years to be undeniable facts.

For example, book worms were real things that existed and ate pages of old books. Unfortunately, bookwyrms were also real. Finding an infestation in the section of the archives dedicated to alchemical texts had been both heartbreaking, and a gigantic pain in the ass. Especially since the little bastards kept biting her, causing her to be late to appointments for an entire month because the little beasts had decided that her social calendar was the most important bit of information they could steal from her. 

Fairies were also something she had learned existed. While they did kind of look like Tinkerbell if she squinted at them, they were nothing like the pretty ethereal beings from Disney movies. Instead, they were talkative as hell. She’d lured one into the archives after the bookwyrm infestation in the hopes that the little guy would snack away on the parasites that were absolutely demolishing an incredibly old copy of The Hermetical Triumph. Instead, the pixie said to call it Janice, and decided that it was making a home for itself in the stacks between the 100’s and 200’s in the Dewey Decimal System, which meant Frankie saw them a whole hell of a lot. And then the pixie caused ivy to start growing up the sides of the shelves of books that discussed science and technology “because they were boring.” Frankie learned to just bring Janice a jelly donut once a week, and usually the pranks in the stacks would be kept to a minimum.

Vampires were something that she’d always sort of assumed were real. After all, there was so much folklore on them, so many books, so many interpretations of the creatures that they just had to be real. Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought that they would be able to have pictures taken of them. Or that they would even bother with dating apps. Or that they’d invite her out for ‘a bite to eat.’ Which was how Frankie found herself absolutely booking it back to her apartment, blood trailing down her apparently very edible neck. “Come on man, seriously?” She shouted at the now very pissed off vampire who had apparently not appreciated being sprayed in the face with a spray bottle of holy water. But she hadn’t appreciated being made into a human juicebox without her express permission, so it was only fair.  The vampire that had introduced himself as Brian (Seriously? A vampire named Brian?? It wasn’t like she could fucking make this shit up) ran down the block after her, stopping short when she finally through herself through the door of her apartment. She panted, utterly exhausted as Brian The Vampire stared at her from the other side of the threshold. Thank god the bit about them having to be invited in seemed to be real. Still wheezing from her unexpected evening cardio, she raised both hands, middle fingers up. “Consider yourself unmatched, Brian.” She slammed her door shut. Vampires, Frankie had learned, were in fact very, very real.

[psychdelia]

max showed up on his doorstep with blotchy red cheeks and puffy wet eyes, board discarded on his lawn as she pounded on the door with her free hand, holding a shoebox in the other.

“okay, okay!” steve called out as he rushed downstairs. “i’m coming! jeez.” he huffed as he opened the door, ready to bark out a what, shithead? because who else would show up to his place and pound on his door for a minute straight?

except his mouth snaps shut when he sees her shivering in the winter cold and cheeks still damp. it’s been about 4 months since billy died and he hadn’t seen max in this state for a couple months now. he thought things were getting better.

maybe not.

“max.” he frowned. “what’s wrong? what happened? are you okay? are you hurt?” he asked, the panic in his tone increasing with each question.

she just shoved the box into his hands, giving him a determined look. so similar to billy’s. too similar.

“i found this in his room.” he can hear the suppressed tremble in her voice as she fights the urge to cry again. “i never gave it you because i thought maybe,” she frowns, looking down. “maybe he-“ she lets out a shaky breath. “but he never came back so it’s yours now.”

then a switch is flipped and she’s suddenly glaring up at him, yet another expression too similar to billy’s.

“you can’t tell anyone.” she clenches her shaking fists. “if you tell anyone what you find in there i swear to god steve i’ll hurt you.” her upper lip is twitching into a snarl and steve is genuinely scared of this little fiery teenager.

“jesus, max,” he sighs. “first of all, you two are way too goddamn similar for not being blood related.” he ruffles her hair with a free hand. “second of all, you can’t just tell me what’s in here?”

“no.” she shakes her head as she bats his hand away. “just,” she plays with the hem of her jacket nervously. “just keep an open mind.” she frowns. “we’re not from here. things are... different back home.” her shoulders sag a little and he can tell she misses home. misses life before hawkins. “promise you won’t tell anyone?” she looks back up at him.

he frowns as he stares at the box in his hand before nodding. “promise.”

“good.” she nods. she rubs harshly at her face with her sleeve before turning away to walk to the lawn.

“you need a ride?” he calls as she grabs her board. chuckles when she rolls her eyes, tosses back an i can get myself around, steve. then a quick thanks, though. see you around. then she’s taking off.

steve practically sprints up to his room after that. sets this mystery converse box down in front of him on the bed as he sits, unsure of what to expect. maybe porn mags? weed stash? who knows.

so, naturally, he dumps it all out on the bed. stares at the pile of magazines, books, seashells, pictures, papers. the first thing he grabs are the magazines, expecting to see a half naked chick on the cover. he freezes when he finds a half naked man instead, clad in leather.

drummer. drummer. drummer. all of these are the same magazines, different issues with different men. he wonders if they’re targeted towards women, but then he’s opening them up and finding men... with other men. figures maybe hargrove had been holding onto them for someone else because there’s no way in hell these are his. no, no, no. that boy was straight as hell. loved to show off a different girl hanging off his arm every week, made shows of flirting with both girls and women.

but then he’s grabbing a polaroid dated 1983 and it’s billy with shorter hair and fuller cheeks kissing another boy with a big smile and lovesick dopey look on his face.

holy shit. this can’t be real. billy hargrove wasn’t gay. he couldn’t be. he was the womanizer, ladykiller, heartbreaker of hawkins. he loved women and they loved him 10 times more. none of this makes sense.

he grabs the journal next, the leather on the cover worn and threadbare. the first entry is dated from 1983 and the last just a couple weeks before starcourt. right before he got possessed.

steve sets the journal aside, opts to look at the other pictures and items billy had stashed away before he reads about the last three years of the guy’s life. there are a couple pictures of a blonde woman with striking resemblance to billy, the same saint christopher pendant and thick silver ring billy wore present around her neck and finger. some of them feature billy when he was a baby, toddler, kid. he finds jewelry that seems feminine, womanly. figures they must’ve been his mom’s.

there are also some california souvenirs. he finds seashells and movie, concert tickets that read “san diego” on the top. there are also some books steve remembers he was supposed to have read or heard about in school, but also some more he never heard of.

at the very bottom of the box he finds expired makeup and empty hair product. there’s black and dark blue eyeliner and mascara, baby pink lip gloss. nail polish in black, dark red and a deep purple. in some polaroids, the slight sheen of the gloss and his dark, thick lashes are barely visible, but he still catches it.

steve can’t help but chuckle when he finds some candy wrappers and leftover weed grinds at the bottom of the box alongside the butts of joints and empty cigarette packs. marlboro reds. there’s scrunchies, too. shimmery and purple, probably stolen from max.

once’s he’s finished digging through hargrove’s secret belongings, he leans back and sticks his nose in the journal. it takes him the rest of the day and all night to read it from cover to cover.

the beginning is mostly about missing his mom and hating his father, documenting his abuse. there are a few pages about his crushes and boyfriends, allowing him to figure out that the boy he was kissing in the polaroid is named santiago, but billy calls him santi. once he reaches the end of san diego and beginning of hawkins, billy’s tone and messy scrawl is full of hurt, anger, and melancholy.

and then steve’s name pops up. KING STEVE in all caps, taking up nearly half the page. there are hearts around his name, alongside a big drawing of a dick. below, billy writes about feeling like a foolish schoolboy with some stupid crush on some guy with a huge dick he saw in the showers. steve’s already blushing and it only deepens when he gets to the part about billy wanting to feel said dick in his hand, his mouth, inside of him.

he has to take a break after that. doesn’t realize things only get spicier until he gets back to reading and finds out billy’s jerked off and fingered himself open to the thought of none other than king steve. his eyes immediately flick to the half empty jar of vaseline, finger-shaped holes indenting the jelly.

he spends the rest of the night reading about billy’s remorse and guilt towards him and lucas after that night, how billy still wants to hop on his dick and kiss him stupid, his and max’s relationship and how it’s gotten better even though they still blame each other for the move.

it’s both of their faults, steve realizes. billy missed his curfew for a boy and max had no choice but to lead neil to him.

along the way to the end, a couple pictures of steve fall out of the journal. pictures that steve has no idea how billy acquired. some are from school yearbooks, others just random polaroids that might’ve been taken by tommy or carol or jonathan. when he finally reaches the end, he reads about billy’s pool job and plans fo move back to california for college as soon as he graduates.

i know it’s stupid but i’m gonna miss him. his stupid hair and big brown eyes and pretty face and pink lips. i didn’t know anything about the guy but i wish i could drag him out of this shithole and take him home with me. i still haven’t apologized to him. maybe kidnapping him and showing him the ocean would count. but i can’t fall for a straight boy, no matter how big his cock is. i don’t get to fall for someone i hurt. it’s not fair. none of this is fair.

that’s the very last entry. it’s 1am and steve is wide awake. too awake. before he thinks too hard about what he’s doing, he’s shoving everything back into the box and flooring it to robin’s house. he knocks on her window incessantly until she opens it with a glare and he’s pushing his way inside before she can greet him with a snarl.

“billy hargrove was gay and in love with me and-and and jerked off to me and,,, pretended his fingers were mine and his dad was hurting him and his mom left and he was alone, robin.” he’s rambling, eyes wide as he paces the room with the box in his hands.

“he was s-so hurt and alone and no one paid any attention and now he’s dead because of a monster in some town he got dragged to as punishment for being gay and,” his voice cracks. “he’s gone.” he whispers brokenly as he shoves the box into her hands.

robin is very confused and surprised but all she knows is that her best friend is in distress, so she sets the box down and grabs his hands.

“steve. look at me.” she only continues when he does. “sit down and talk to me. let’s go through everything together, okay? just calm down and breathe.”

by 3am robin’s looked through the box and the majority of the journal - steve dog-eared the important pages and she’s a fast reader - and she’s just as shocked as steve, apparently, if her bewildered expression and silence is anything to go by.

“robin? rob, say something.” he urges. “please. i need you to talk to me.”

“holy shit.” she finally raps. “steve, i’m gonna ask you a question and i don’t want you to freak out, okay?”

he nods.

“do you think you could’ve... reciprocated billy’s feelings?”

he opens his mouth to answer but halts, eyes wide and crazy as he stares at her.

“i-“ he gulps. “maybe?” he croaks out. “i-i think so? maybe yeah. yeah.” he nods.

“so you’re bisexual.”

and that’s throwing him on a whole other whirlwind. steve’s had too much thrown at him for the night and he doesn’t have it in him to deal with a sexuality crisis on top of everything.

but billy’s pretty. so fucking beautiful and steve can’t admit it just yet but he wishes he were still here. he wishes he could travel back in time and reach out to billy and save him from the horrors of hawkins but also kiss and fuck and love him properly but now it’s too late and steve and billy have one thing in common.

they’re both alone. lonely. so much love to give but no one to receive or give back.

“bisexual?” he chokes out.

“you like both. boys and girls. like david bowie. and david bowie’s awesome. you’re kinda awesome too, i guess. for a dingus.” she playfully punches his arm and it makes him feel better for all of 2 seconds until it’s hitting him again that the person who wanted to love him is dead. died right in front of him.

“do you have hot chocolate?” she nods. “with marshmallows?” she nods again. “can i have some?”

he feels like he’s about to faint. completely black out. wonders if he looks pale to robin. he needs something warm and comforting and hot coco will do the trick.

———————————

billy comes back in february. hopper and joyce gathered everyone up in joyce’s living room early february. sat everyone down to announce that hop had gotten... a call. a call from some doctor named owens who hop has a history with, the same doctor who helped will.

owens was nursing billy back to health in some secret lab in indianapolis, hence the funeral with no body. apparently billy was in comatose, then a medically induced coma when his brain woke up but he wasn’t strong enough to just yet. then, when he did wake up, he had to relearn how to eat, write, walk in physical therapy, alongside the heavy emotional therapy.

owens hid billy from the world until he was ready to be exposed to it again. then he called hopper one afternoon and told him to come pick the boy up.

max was angry. screamed and yelled until she was reduced to tears in joyce’s arms. the other kids were shocked and confused. didn’t know if they should be happy or scared. will and el were the only positive ones. nancy and jonathan were mostly shocked and indifferent, numb to these crazy surprises the shithole town throws at them. steve and robin just stared at each other knowingly, a million thoughts racing their minds.

a week later they were all in joyce’s living room again, nervously anticipating hopper and billy’s arrival. everyone looked up when the doorknob began to jerk and the lock turned, their eyes trained on the door as it opened to reveal hopper standing beside billy.

billy. clad in a big hoodie, gray sweats and converse. the same ones that were once in the box steve has hidden under his bed. his hair is long now, flowing freely and curling wildly at the ends, looking so soft with the lack of product. he looked tired, fading blue bags under his eyes. he hadn’t lost his tan, steve noted, and looked a little softer around the stomach and legs. for someone who went through all the shit he did, billy looked good. healthy.

max got to him the second he stepped inside, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him close. he immediately clung to max, holding her tight and whispering a shaky, wet hey, shitbird, only audible to her, resulting in her wet laugh. the siblings stayed like that for a few moments before pulling away to let billy see and greet everyone.

joyce had demanded they all not coddle billy because it would be suffocating and he probably couldn’t deal with that. except now she was serving and feeding him a million things, coddling him just like any other mother would. billy was hesitant and tense at first, but slowly relaxed, especially when he was given cookies.

sweet tooth, steve distantly remembered. billy has a sweet tooth, if the candy wrappers and lollipop sticks in the box were anything to go by.

everyone takes turns greeting and talking to billy. steve’s last in line to have his quick one-on-one with the guy and by the time they’re face to face, everyone’s sitting together, talking and laughing and eating.

“hey,” steve greets with a small smile. he can feel robin’s eyes on him and not-so-slyly flips her the bird, his eyes trained on billy and only billy. “it’s good to have you back.”

“you know you don’t have to say that, harrington, especially if you don’t mean it.” billy tries to joke but his eyes and smile are sad. “i only died for, like, two minutes. not a big deal.”

“shut up, man.” steve rolls his eyes and chuckles. “i do mean it.” he chews on his bottom lip nervously, doing a quick scan of the room to make sure there are no eyes on them before he looks back to billy.

then he’s reaching out and grabbing billy’s hand. running his thumbs over the scars along his palm and knuckles. he looks up to find billy confused and blushing. he smiles before pulling billy into a tight hug.

“you look good. so good.” steve whispers in his ear, getting a whiff of generic coconut shampoo. he has one arm wrapped tight around billy’s waist, holding him close with their bodies flush. he slides his free hand down and rests it on billy’s ass, barely squeezing. he chuckles when billy jumps a little.

“harrington.” billy chokes out, voice wrecked. “what’s your hand doing on my ass?” steve can feel billy’s lips moving on his neck and it makes him shudder.

“just doing what i should’ve done a while ago.” he sighs, content, just holding billy’s warm, very much alive body close to his.

“if you wanted to get in my pants, pretty boy, all you had to do was ask.” billy flirts with a smirk steve can feel on his neck. then he pauses. “you’re not fucking with me?” he asks, tone serious.

“nuh uh.” steve shakes his head. “actually, uh,” he pulls away just enough to meet billy’s eyes. “max gave me your shoebox.” he watches as billy’s eyes widen and go fiery. “hey, no, don’t get mad at her. it’s not her fault. she didn’t know you were comms back.” steve reasons. “plus, now i know big bad heartbreaker billy hargrove has a crush on little ole me.”

“who says i still do?” billy raises his eyebrows, as if his hands aren’t tightly holding onto steve’s shoulders and he’s not blushing and making heart eyes at the guy.

steve’s not too bright, but he knows when people have a crush on him. he’s always been bright in the language of love. and sex, for that matter, as billy will eventually find out when he inevitably get lovingly and romantically railed and fucked into steve’s mattress later that week.

“just have a feeling.” he shrugs, giving billy’s ass one last squeeze before he rests his hands on his hips with a grin.

[wendystales]

Memories - lrh (Chapter Three)

Memories (also on Wattpad)

Chapter Two ※※※※※ Chapter Four

My mother spent the night with me and early in the morning I managed to convince her to go home and sort out her own things. Stephen was supposed to arrive at 8 am and I didn't want her here when that happened, she wouldn't like to see him at all.

“If there's anything I'll call, you can go, really.” I assure her, who goes reluctantly.

The clock struck five to eight and I was for the thousandth time running my hands through my hospital gown and my hair. My hands were sweating and my stomach was churning, I stared at the door as if I wanted to open it with the power of my mind, until it opened.

It was shocking to see him so different from what I remembered. His hair was shaved and bleached, almost white. Now he had a colorless rose on his neck that took up half of his left side and a piercing in his septum. He was a different person, just like me, it really had been years.

“Only Marnie McGonagall manages to remain exuberant even all run down.” he cracks a wide smile to break the tension. “These are for you!” he hands me a bouquet of daisies. They're not my favorite, but I thank him.

“Thank you, they are beautiful. Thank you for coming.” I try to control my breathing. It's all so strange.

“I was surprised by the call, I swore that after you left you would never speak to me again.” he throws himself on the chair beside the bed.

“So our breakup was real?”

“Yes, but not the way you were told, you met this famous guy and fell for him. We had already broken up when I started going out with Bethany.” he talks as if he is talking about the weather. The mention of him and Bethany together makes me nauseous, maybe it was jealousy.

“My mother talked about cheating, that I caught you guys.” I introduce the subject calmly, I know how much Stephen hates to be accused of anything. He rolls his eyes like he' s saying ‘I knew it.’.

“It impresses me that you buy that, Lizzie. You know how much your parents hate me. You broke up with me, that's true, but because you met this guy. He bewitched you, and it wasn't easy to get over you.”

I take a deep breath trying to control myself. It was too much information, too much information. I had broken up with Stephen for Luke, this didn't make any sense. I loved Stephen, I still do. Maybe this memory loss was a chance for us to get back to the way things were before.

“Did you and Bethany...?”

“No! It didn't work out, then she moved to Canada with her family, it wasn't going to work out, and deep down…” he comes closer, sitting on the bed and holding my hand. “I still love you.”

I open my mouth, but can't say anything, the statement takes me in total surprise. Stephen seizes the moment and kisses me. Nostalgia overwhelms me and all the moments we have lived through take over my mind, but deep, deep down, something screams in my head, it wasn't right, it didn't feel right. It wasn't him.

I lower my head breaking the kiss, feeling more lost than before. Stephen holds himself in place, but my urge is to push him away. Something bubbles up inside me and it is not happiness or passion.

“I think it's time for you to go.” I let out a harsher tone than I expected. I still don't face his eyes, maybe out of fear, maybe because I can't bear to look at him.

“You call me here and send me away like this?” he asks incredulously and offended. “You are unbelievable, Marnie. I don't know why I still waste my time with you. Your memory may have faded, but deep down you are still under his spell.” at that moment I abruptly turn my face to meet his. I know that my eyes are burning with anger, and so are his.

“I said, it's time for you to go.” I say in a broken voice, listening to my heartbeat rise.

Stephen stares for a few seconds before he gets up, picks up the daisies, and slams the door. I sink into bed, trying to calm myself. It really wasn't one of my better ideas to call Stephen here, but maybe it was necessary.

I turn on the TV and flip through the channels until I notice a picture of me. I go back to the channel and turn up the volume. They are talking about my accident and without me being able to prepare myself, they play the video of how it all happened.

I hold my breath as the pickup truck crashes into my side, causing my car to spin on the road and crash into the pole. They play it one more time, but in slow motion. The tip of my nose tingles and my eyes start to fill up.

Still watching the TV, my mind brings back the moment of the accident.

"I crank up the starter and before I can send the audio, I feel a loud impact on my left side. A deafening noise fills the entire car. Quite faintly, I watch the track spin and feel the shards of glass hit me, before I give myself over to that uncontrollable sleep."

The video changes and they show my attending, I cover my mouth, watching my unconscious body being pulled from the car.

My stomach clenches and I feel like vomiting from the nervousness. I turn off the TV and grab my cell phone, going back to researching my life in an attempt to distract myself.

Unlike yesterday, I Google my name and see what headlines pop up about me. Some sites give a brief summary of my trajectory, which helps me a little.

I watch some videos of rehearsals, interviews, fashion shows, even those videos of paparazzi leaving restaurants, with him. I look again at Instagram calmly, photo by photo, video by video, even the stories archives. There are several parties, trips, slumber nights, bts from photo rehearsals, and a lot of stuff with him, again. Of course, he is your boyfriend. Asshole!

I barely recognize myself on the screen. The Marnie I watch is outgoing, funny and charismatic, and I was never like that, at least as far back as I can remember. Which leads me to believe that this Marnie, model, famous and full of important friends, is a character.

Leah, Noah, Calum, Ashton, Mike and Kyleen. They don't just seem like friends, they seem like my family, brothers, I don't know. While it is fun to watch some of these videos, of all of us fooling around and messing up, on the other hand it hurts not to have any memories of them.

“How is my little girl doing?” I snap out of my trance and run my eyes to the door. I feel my eyes water as I recognize the middle-aged man.

“Dad!” I hadn't realized the urge to cry until I saw him. Until I felt his embrace.

“ It's okay, my love. I'm here. It's going to be all right, I swear!” he comforts me while I soak his shirt.

“ I'm sorry.” I pull away, trying to control my tears.

“For what?” he looks at me curiously. I shrug, not knowing what to say. Lately I feel I have to apologize for everything. “Honey, none of this is your fault. This amnesia is just a sequel, in a little while it will go away and you will remember everything.”

“I hope so. Even because everything I've forgotten has been very hard to remember.” I comment, playing with the bar of the blanket.

“ It's been a busy three years. You went from just my little girl, to one of the top models of 2019. That's quite a breakthrough.” he laughs, which makes me crack a smile. Only my dad could make me find that funny.

“Apparently I'm dating a rock star.” I join in with him.

“A very nice guy, I must say. He gave me a Gibson guitar.” he widens his eyes, emphasizing how awesome that was.

“Dad, you play guitar?” that would be nothing compared to what I couldn't remember.

“No, but it is amazing to have it on the wall.” for the first time since this whole nightmare, I allow myself to laugh.

My father spent the rest of the morning with me. He told me about his new job and how he was traveling the world now, helping his boss. I don't know how my mother was dealing with all this, she hated to be away from him.

“Mom must not like this new job of yours at all, huh?” I ask, scraping my red Jell-O.

I glare at my father when I notice his silence. We were sharing the bed space, he also had a Jell-O and we looked like two little girls gossiping while stuffing themselves with ice cream. I find his silence strange and wonder if something is wrong.

“Dad?” I call him once more.

“I was trying to find the best way to tell you this.” he sits up straight.

“What? Did you and Mom have a fight?” that was normal, not that big a deal.

“No! Actually, a little more than two years ago, your mother and I talked and we thought it was better to go our separate ways... with different people.” he speaks very slowly, calmly, and a little fearfully. I blink a few times, taking in the words and what they meant together. They got divorced?

I sit up like him, feeling uneasy. I start to breathe deeply. My relationship went down the drain. My parents broke up. Bethany disappeared across Canada. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that I had before had survived.

“Honey?” he brings me back to reality.

“Why? What? What happened?’ I ask. He opens his mouth a few times, saying nothing, trying to find what to say.

“Things were not going very well anymore. We were arguing too much and not even looking at each other anymore.” he takes a deep breath, visibly uncomfortable. “And I had an affair with a woman from my old job, that was the end of it.” he says so low, I can hardly hear, and honestly, it was better not to listen.

I always grew up thinking that my father was the best man in the world. My superhero. Prince Charming from all the Disney movies. The kind of man I would like to meet in my life. And then I find out that my father was none of these things. He is just like all the others.

“How could you?” disgust overflows in my mouth. “You have a family.” again something bubbles up inside me.

“I have no excuse, no justification, I was wrong and I regret the way things turned out. It didn't have to be this way. Okay, today your mother and I are friends and we go our separate ways, but there was no need for all that suffering to happen.” he stares again at the jelly, ashamed.

Silence fills the room. Nobody knows what to say. I don't recognize the man next to me. I don't even know what is going on in my head at the moment, there are so many thoughts and assumptions that I feel like I'm going crazy.

“Have you found someone yet? I mean, are you still with that woman from your old job?” I ask softly, poking the skin on my finger.

“No, she was just a fling. It didn't work out. Your mother was seeing someone until last month, but apparently it didn't work out.” he shrugs, which shocks me a little. I know it's so natural for them, but I'm still absorbing it here. “I met someone, Meredith. We've been together for a year now.” he gives me a beautiful, passionate smile. “Let me show you some pictures.” He gets as excited as a teenager. “Unless you don't want to.” he looks at me fearfully.

“I want to.” I crack a tight smile.

My father is back to being the excited teenager as he shows me the pictures of Meredith and her children. Children?

“They're yours?” I ask slightly jealous.

“No, Kendall and Samantha are from her first marriage, they are twins.” he smiles. “But I love them as if they were my own, the same way I love you.” he gives me a kiss on the side of my head.

He passes me another picture and my heart races as soon as I see them both, he on my lap and she on Luke's lap. I hold up the cell phone and stare at the picture with an ache in my chest.

“This was at my wedding, you both looked beautiful.” my father comments softly. I bite my lip, trying to control my crying and smiling at the same time. We really did look beautiful.

“I always wanted to have brothers, remember?” I ask with my voice shaking. I pass another picture and now my father and Meredith are posing with the four of us.

“They think you are the best big sister in the world.” I grimace, letting the tears come over me. They are not from sadness. Honestly, I don't even know what they are from, but the feeling is good.

Around lunchtime my father left, as he was exhausted, he had come straight here from the airport after a 12 hour flight. I was alone for the rest of the afternoon reading, until my mother arrived at 4pm to pick me up.

When we left the room, I noticed that Luke didn't come, which I find strange, since I remember my mother had commented that he was coming with her.

“He had an upcoming incident with the band, but he should be at your apartment later.”

The fact that I have to wait longer to talk to him makes me nervous and anxious. I just wish he would show up soon so he could help me with everything and clear up the sea of curiosity.

Along the way, I am talking to my mother about her and my father. I was so distracted by the conversation that I didn't even notice when we arrived in front of a beautiful building.

“Are you sure we are at the right address?” I ask looking out the window. My mother laughs and gets out of the car. I live here?

When we get to my floor, I realize that there is only one apartment per floor. We must be at the wrong address. My jaw drops as I enter the hall of the apartment.

Right away I find a huge painting of myself on the wall to my left. I was wearing that strange make-up and an even stranger outfit. The tone is black and white, but I am sure that the color picture is very colorful.

“This was the picture of your first magazine cover.” my mother clarifies with a huge smile on her face. I stare at my picture again, still frowning.

I follow my mother into the living room, once again letting my jaw drop. I had a living room right at the entrance, to my right was the living room with a huge TV, and to my left was the dining room. Slowly, I walk through the space, looking at everything breathlessly.

“Is this my apartment?” I ask in surprise. My mother lets out a short laugh before confirming. “I bought it?” she nods. “With my money?” she nods again. “As a model?” she laughs. “Okay! This is still too much for me.”

I walk curiously around the apartment again, looking at the kitchen, living rooms and, of course, the bedrooms. Two guest rooms and mine. When I reach the second floor, I am confronted with a hallway full of pictures. They range from personal photos to work photos. I pay more attention to the pictures of me and Luke. We are a beautiful couple.

I go into my room and find everything arranged. I let the excitement take over me when I see the closet. I look at the clothes, amazed, besides several boxes of brands like Gucci, Prada and Chanel still unopened.

On the last shelf, I see an older looking box, the slightly faded color catches my eye. I pull out a small ladder and carefully pull the box onto my lap, it wasn't heavy, but doing this with a broken arm and a twisted leg is not easy.

I sit down on the closet floor itself and open the box, wishing I hadn't seen it and maybe never opened it. I gently run my hand over those little souvenirs with tears in my eyes once again. I need to stop crying.

Movie and concert tickets, dried flowers, empty peanut cans, cards, cabin photos, and beer caps, everything I lived through with Luke. The feeling that takes over me is almost suffocating. My body feels and radiates all that it represented, but my mind would not let the image load.

Underneath it all, I pull out a diary and, at the same time that curiosity eats away at me, fear also takes over. I close my eyes and open to a random page.

"I can't believe I modeled at NYFW. OMG! OMG! OMG! It's unbelievable. I'm going to need to watch the runway show about a thousand times before I can believe it."

I flip back a few sheets and stop when I see Luke's name.

"I know it's not a good sign that I'm thinking about him and being so close to him, but I can't help it. Luke is amazing. The way he looks at me, how he listens to me, how he understands me, and his kiss...I can't forget his kiss..."

“Sweetheart?” I hear my mother scream. I wipe away the tears and put the little box under the skirt of some dresses. I get up as fast as I can and walk to the bedroom door.

“Yes?”

“I thought I'd help you in the shower, what do you think? Get rid of that hospital smell.” I accept the idea, which sounds very good.

After a good shower, I put on some pajamas and get to know my room, opening all the drawers, looking at all the makeup, everything. I decide not to go through that box anymore, because I still don't know how to manage everything it represents.

Once again my mother calls me and I believe it's for dinner, but when I get to the living room I find a brunette girl and a guy with red hair.

“Hi?” I nod gracelessly.

“Hi!” they return the greeting a little nervous too.

I ‘know’ who they are. Ashton and Leah. They are in several pictures in my social networks, in my hallway and on the living room furniture.

I watch the brunette with long hair, crack a huge smile. I watch her fingers tightening, like a child trying to control herself. I smile fearfully, but it was enough for her to apologize before squeezing me in a hug.

“I know you don't remember me, but I am your best friend and I am so glad that you are okay.” I look at my mother, who is smiling, and at Ashton, with my eyes wide and patting her on the back.

“Leah, you don't have to suffocate her.” Ashton comments without manner, scratching his forehead.

She walks away gracelessly. I give her a smile, but thank her for the space. Ashton approaches a little fearfully and holds out his hand, respecting my space, but it is apparent that he also wants to give me a hug.

“You can hug me, I don't bite.” I joke, trying to break the tension.

He says nothing more and surrounds me with his arms. Unlike Leah, I manage to return the hug in the right way. His hug takes longer and I feel some tears on my shoulder.

“I thought we were going to lose you.” he squeezes me one more time, before pulling away, drying his tears clumsily.

“You won't get rid of me that easily.” I blink at them both.

“Well, the reason we came here was not just to see you. Of course we were worried to death and everyone wanted to come.” Leah begins.

“But we thought it better not to come all at once so as not to frighten you.” Ashton interrupts quickly. I thank him silently.

“Deep down, we wanted to bring you this.” she hands me a pen drive. “It's not perfect, but we made a powerpoint to explain everything that happened in these three years.” Leah gives a closed smile.

‘You made a power point?” I ask incredulously.

“Of course we did!” Ashton shakes his shoulders. “We hope it helps and that you remember something. Anything at all, any questions, just call.”

“Thank you very much!” I smile in appreciation for both of them.

“Don't you want to stay for dinner?” my mother offers. I look at them expectantly. They both look at each other and give a shrug.

“We don't have an appointment, right? It won't be a problem. The guys will just be really pissed off that they didn't come.” Leah warns Ashton.

“It will be a pleasure to have dinner.” Ashton smiles in appreciation.

Dinner was very quiet, I did most of the talking. They were very curious to know what amnesia was like and how I was feeling and dealing with everything.

“Depending on how things go for you this week, we thought we would have a dinner on Friday. Then if you feel comfortable, of course, you can see everyone again.” Ash suggests.

There is still time until Friday, but just the thought of seeing everyone makes my stomach turn. I know they are my friends and they know me, but I still get nervous. Not to mention that they are famous, I don't know how to deal with these people. Although I am too.

“That's fine, we'll confirm by Friday.” I open a nervous smile. “Huh, Luke didn't want to come?” I question, upset at his absence today.

How am I supposed to get to know and get close to him if he doesn't come?

I watch the two of them look at each other and wrap up the beginning of their answer. In the end, Ashton sighs and answers.

“He is having a hard time absorbing all this. He just needs some time to sort it all out in his head.” Ash shrugs, signaling that it was no big deal.

I understand that it is hard for him. I don't know how I would handle it if I were him, but I'm not going to pretend to be upset that he's not here either, although I can't do anything about it, I'm not going to force him to stay here if he doesn't want to.

“It's really weird having Luke as my boyfriend, you guys as best friends. It's so out of reality. It feels like I'm in a dream and soon I'll wake up.” I comment, playing with the cloth napkin.

“Look, the first time you handled and accepted all of this well. I'm sure you'll manage again.” Leah squeezes my hand on the table.

“So, a powerpoint, hm?” I change the subject not being able to prolong my curiosity any longer. Even though I'm scared, I want to see it.

Leah cheers up again and begins to explain everything very excitedly. With their help we go to the living room and I put the pen drive on the TV, ready to see what they have done. It is strange to think that this small object has all the answers I am looking for. Not to mention the fear of the unknown, in this case, the forgotten one.

“Ok, so this is Michael…” I watch her standing beside the screen, explaining everything to me, with extreme patience and good will. My god, she is an angel.

I look at all my friends and the things we have done. I notice how Ashton was a kind of older brother, overprotective, and Leah was a kind of sister. Always holding hands or holding arms. Or when we were drunk, trying to climb on each other's backs.

They put all the trips we took, my fashion shows and photo shoots, some interviews. It was a great summary. I stare at the screen feeling something strange welling up in me, I see flashes forming in my head, and I begin to force myself to remember.

“Don't skip.” I shout to her, not wanting to lose the flow of memory. “Play that video again.” I ask desperately.

I approach the TV watching Noah, Leah's brother, walking in front of the camera with a bag on his head and complaining that the product was burning. He was bleaching his hair.

" “Why does this shit burn so bad?” I hear Noah shouting from the room, pissed off.

“Because it's bleaching.” I answer, grabbing another cookie from the plate. I sit down on the couch next to Calum, who is very interested in the package of bleach.

“What do you think about me bleaching mine?” he asks, still focused on the package in his hand.

I stare at him for a few minutes, trying to imagine the look. I pout, signaling that it wouldn't look too bad, in my opinion.

“For God's sake, you're not going to do that ridiculous lock of hair again, are you?” Leah shouts from the bathroom.

“It wasn't ridiculous.” He defends himself loudly. “But I really wouldn't do it again.” he comments softly, making me laugh.

“OH MY GOD.” I hear Noah scream. We run into the bathroom to find his white hair, with a few colored dots, just like the ones in the bag.

I cover my mouth in shock. Leah starts to record trying to hold in her laughter, as do I, but we simply can't stand it when Calum reads the name of the pharmacy in Noah's head.

I see him leaning against the doorframe laughing with his hand on his stomach and eyes closed. Miserably, I still try to hold in my laughter, not lasting long and joining Calum, becoming almost breathless.

“Oh man.” he dries his tears, laughing again next."

“Noah didn't want to go out anymore that night. We ordered burritos and stayed at his place. Calum and I spent the whole night laughing about it.” I speak too fast, running over a few words. I replay the scene in my head a few more times still flustered.

They both look at me and Leah starts jumping up and down in celebration. I remembered, I remembered! I start yelling at her, celebrating.

“What's wrong?” my mother comes running from the bedroom.

“I remembered. I remembered Noah with bad hair!” I shout, out of breath. The three of them hug me and again we shout.

[pamgkrthwrites]

Flame of Healing | EraserMic x Reader | Chapter Two - Too Close

Masterlist | AO3

Warning: Soulmate AU, little bit of Oboro x Reader, fem reader, ANGST. 

Word Count: 2012

A/N: Reader is on the fence on if will date her soulmates. This be a major point in the story so, hold onto your hats. I’ve tried writing reader in a way so you can’t tell their race. Idk if these chapters will be daily, just been needing to write some comfort shit. WE WILL GET THERE I PROMISE. Kinda slow burn? maybe lol.

“Hey Y/N!” You heard a voice behind you.

You turned and saw your blue hair friend running towards you with a bright smile on his face.

“Oboro, how you doing buddy?” You smiled as he slowed down to stop next to you.

It had been months science the sports festival, and the next UA school festival was in a weeks time. You may have not changed your stance on not loving them, but you did change your stance on meeting them. You were going to choose your love, not a name on your wrist.

“Have you picked out what you are going to wear?” He asked as he caught his breath. 

“Yes Oboro, I have.” You smiled. 

Your friend was trying his hardest on his end to become friends with your soulmates. So far he only befriended Hizashi, or was at least on speaking terms. Apparently Hizashi was friendly to everyone, which made you giggle as you hugged your pillow at night.

“It’s in your favourite colour yes?” He asked, straightening up and looking at you deeply.

“Yes, it is.” You laughed. “And it doesn’t really matter. It feels rude to come in all fancy to meet your soulmate only to reject said soulmate. I’m just meeting them.”

“Which is very important!” He smiled all goofy.

You smiled, and you two walked home together.

Oboro rubbed the back of his neck. “Once Aizawa finds out about you being his soulmate he’ll probably get real nasty if he sees me walking you home.”

Apparently Shouta got angry at Oboro for addressing him with his first name. He only did so because of you but Shouta was seeing it as rude.

“Is he that way with Hizashi?” You asked. You loved asking about the two. It filled up your heart with a soft warmness.

“Yeah, some girl in the support class confessed her feelings to Hizashi.” Oboro stated. You felt your heart freeze. It wasn’t unheard of for people to fall for someone who wasn’t their soulmate, it just ends badly when the soulmate turned up or if the other had one. “Hizashi was cool about it and said he already found his soulmate. Though, he did check if she was you.”

That warmed your heart but also fill you with dread. He thought about you sure, but he was looking for you. 

“Aizawa cracked the shits once he found out. He went off to go find her but Hizashi stopped him. Apparently she tried to play off she was you but she didn’t have the same name.”

“It’s kinda funny people are claiming to be their soulmate yet your the only person who knows.” You laughed.

His laughed followed. His laugh always filled your heart with warmness. Not the same as your soulmates did, but in a different way. 

“I do worry though,” Oboro said. “I think they have started their relationship and I don’t want your fear of being the third wheel to become true.”

It wasn’t something you could ignore anymore. The fear that your soulmates were happy together and may fear what you’ll do to that. 

“That’s why I’m going simply-casual. Once they figure out who I am, they will just see someone they can see casually or romantically if need be.”

“So you are willing to date them.” He smirked at you.

“In the future. Right now it is I don’t see myself dating them. I do love them in a way but I can’t see myself dating them anytime soon.”

Oboro always had a sad soft expression when he heard you say that. Oboro took your hands and looked you in eyes. You felt your heart pounding as you looked up at him.

“Y/N, you have so much love to give.” He smiled sweetly. “Even if you choose not to love them, you are going to show so much love to someone else, and they will fully love you.”

Your heart raced and your cheeks burned. You were suddenly aware of how close you two were and you stared at his lips. You realised how close you were and you wanted to be closer. You didn’t understand this feeling, it was similar but not the same to when you saw or heard about your soulmates.

“Oboro!” A funky sounding voice said behind you two.

You both broke eye contact to see who was speaking, and your heart dropped.

“Hizashi?” Oboro said in a confused voice as he let go of your hands. 

“Hey there buddy.” Hizashi smiled and stopped in front of you two. “Is that your girlfriend?”

Your cheeks burned and Oboro had a noticeable redness to his ears and cheeks.

“NO! No, she is my friend!” Oboro smiled as he wrapped his arm around your shoulders and brought you in.

You couldn’t stop staring at Hizashi. Dear god your soulmate almost watched you kiss someone else-

Oh god, you almost kissed Oboro.

You two became quiet, almost as though you both understood what almost happened. 

“Well, she is a cutie!” Hizashi said. However, his voice sounded strained, as though he was holding back anger. “What’s your name?”

You looked into Hizashi’s glasses, and briefly saw the anger in his eyes. Did he know you were his soulmate? Did he understand what he walked in on? Did he hate you?

You couldn’t make a sound, all you could do was lower your head and shuffle to hide behind Oboro. 

Oboro looked at you briefly before looking at Hizashi and smiled. “Sorry, she is rather shy. I’m taking her to the School Festival next week though. Maybe you two can chat then?”

Hizashi simply smiled, but with anger behind it. “That’s cool. Does her soulmate know your with her?”

Panic burst into your body. 

Did he know? 

Did his heart beat fast when looking at you like you did?

Would he stay angry at you?

What if he never loved you because of this.

You heard Oboro take a breath in to answer to you cut him off.

“I don’t actually have a soulmate.” You stated.

Oboro snapped his head around to you and Hizashi’s smiled turned into a frown.

“Really?” Hizashi asked. His voice sounded like a mix of shock and sadness. 

You pulled out your wrists which had their names covered with makeup. Of course, he wouldn’t know that Oboro did though.

“...I see…” Hizashi’s voice sounded defected. “Sorry ‘bout that Listener, I must’ve been jelly over your closeness with my pal here!”

Oboro looked at you then back at Hizashi. “It’s alright Huzashi, see you tomorrow?”

“...Yeah, sure I will!” Hizashi forced a smiled and walked off. 

Once he was out of ear and eyeshot, Oboro turned to you and whispered. 

“...Y/N, why did you lie to him like that?” He asked.

“He was scary!” You looked at him. “What else was I suppose to do? Say ‘Yes hello I am your soulmate and almost kissed your’-”

Oboro covered your mouth with his hand. His cheeks were burning red. 

“Y/N, we are never talking about that again.” He glared.

You grabbed his hand and pulled it away from your face. “If you are going to say I’m confused, don’t. Who said I had to love my soulmates anyway? There isn’t a law against it!”

Oboro took his hand away from you. You both glared at each other.

“Y/N, I’m sorry but I can’t be your rebound off of your soulmates.”

It felt like you were stung by a bee. 

Did you love Oboro? You didn’t know. You were close to him sure, but were you that close?

“I’ll see you later, Y/N.” You said before he turned away and walked on without you.

You wanted to cry.

---

Shouta was doing his homework when Hizashi started spamming him, trying to call him.

He sighed and picked up. “‘Zashi this better be importan-”

He heard sniffle on the other end. “I thought I saw her, Shou!”

Shouta’s heart dropped. Ever since Hizashi and Shouta met each other first day, they had wondered if you ould pop up soon. They checked the names of the students in the other classes and years and couldn’t find it. 

Shouta had been bullied for years for having two names, but once he met Hizashi, his life became a little less dark. His parents were happy that he found one of his soulmates, but his world didn’t feel whole without you.

He never had anyone been really interested in any of his soulmates names until that one time in the changing rooms where Shirakumo saw it. 

“Whoa, you have two names?” He smiled as he looked at his wrists.

Oboro Shirakumo was soulless, which meant he didn’t have a soulmate. Maybe he wouldn’t judge like everyone else did. 

He smiled brightly when he saw Hizashi’s name, but when it came to your name, he stopped. 

“Y/N L/N?” 

He never heard anyone but himself and Hizashi pronounce your last name correctly. He went to extreme measures to saw it correctly so he wouldn’t offend you, and he was proud of that. Shirakumo knowing how to say it and how he reacted, only said one thing to him. 

He knew you, personally.

Shouta wished he could be happy about that, that he could use Oboro to meet you, but all he felt was anger for the cloud boy.

He started to hate him and avoided him all he could. He, of course, told Hizashi, who took it as becoming friends with Oboro to use him to meet you. 

Hizashi spoke, breaking Shouta’s thoughts. “There was this cutie girl who was holding Oboro’s hands, pretty sure they almost kissed. But looking at her, made me heart thump so hard man!  But when I saw the bigger picture, my body grew angry!”

Shouta grew angry just hearing about it. Was that why Oboro reacted the way he did when he saw your name on his left wrist? Because he was dating you?

Hizashi continued. “So I walked my butt up to them. They both reacted like I walked in on a soulmate cheating yo! I tried asking for her name but she refused to give it up!”

Shouta only grew angry. He wanted to snap Oboro’s head. If that girl was their soulmate, he was holding her back from her true love for some fake shit!

“So I asked if her soulmate knew she was there, ya’know, t-to see if she was yours, ya’know?” Hizashi started stuttering as he started to cry. 

Shouta sat there, hearing his soulmate cry over the phone. He couldn’t do anything, he felt his heart was going to break from anger.

“She said she doesn’t have a soulmate.”

Lying bitch.

You were going to make this hard, weren’t you?

What did that cloud fucker do to you?

What could some soulless fucker have that was better than meeting your soulmates?!

“She brought out her wrists willingly to prove she doesn’t have one.”

…

Shouta’s heart dropped.

So… That wasn’t you…

He felt his eyes water and he hunched over his desk.

God that wasn’t you.

He was about to murder Oboro because of a misunderstanding. 

He was weak. 

So fucking weak.

Shouta looked at his right wrists to look at your name.

“We’ll find her one day, ‘Zashi.” Shouta said, as strongly as he could.

---

Oboro and you walked to the UA school festival early in the morning. You too hadn’t really talked since the almost kissed thing.

“So, you’re not going to confess to lying to them?” He asked.

“To Hizashi, yes. Just call me M/N when we are there.”

“Why M/N?” He asked, raising an eye brow.

“It’s my middle name. If they hear that and my last name, they may think I’m my cousin or something. It will keep them at a distance.”

“...If you say so.” He said as he put his hands into his jacket pockets.

You wore a hoodie in your favourite colour and jeans. Casual. 

Nothing that would provoke romantic feelings from your soulmates.

[autistic-girl-academic]

Cookie Run OCs

gdi apparently one of the cookies in cr kingdom is named licorice cookie so screw it i’m biting the bullet and posting my half-baked (ha) oc ideas now even if some of them have already been taken anyway. sorry there’s no art bc i’m terrible with digital stuff and can’t access a scanner to upload my drawings. there are almost certainly going to be more to come later because this game refuses to leave my brain.

Black Licorice Cookie: The powerfully astringent flavor of black licorice certainly isn’t to everyone’s taste - and that’s just the way Black Licorice Cookie likes it! This daredevil of a Cookie loves nothing more than testing her limits, so she’s always on the lookout for something to get her adrenaline pumping. That doesn’t mean she isn’t without her sweet side, however, which comes out most strongly when protecting her precious little sister. Get between them at your own risk!

Red Licorice Cookie (Sibling): Don’t mess with my little sis if you know what’s good for you!

Mustard Cookie (Trust): Nobody else gets me like Mustard Cookie does!

Kiwi Cookie (Friendly): Hey, I’ve got an idea for some cool bike tricks!

Roll Cake Cookie (Friendly): Going for a ride in that road roller and smashing things is such a rush! WHOO!

Initially I had the mental image of her as a Cookie with a web design and a spider pet, but then Truffle Cookie came out, so now I pretty much picture her skill being that she runs a Ninja-Warrior-style obstacle course or something. Maybe her pet could be a black cat instead?

Red Licorice Cookie: Between the fruity fragrance of her signature red hair and her sweet, outgoing personality, it’s no surprise that this Cookie is so popular! Red Licorice Cookie is a champion at gymnastics with plenty of fans, and performing with the ribbon is where she shines the most. She and her older twin sister might be as different as night and day, but their bond is as strong as a thousand strands of licorice twisted together!

Black Licorice Cookie (Sibling): I’ve got the coolest big sis in the world!

Cheerleader Cookie (Trust): Cheerleader Cooke is my BFF!

Yoga Cookie (Friendly): She’s helped me train to be much more flexible for my routines.

Skating Queen Cookie (Admiration): I can’t believe I actually got her autograph!

At first I imagined her as being a sort of epic version of Cheerleader Cookie, performing double dutch with a few friends much like the cheer team. Her pet would be a charm bracelet.

Oatmeal Cookie: Every day at the crack of dawn, this dutiful cowgirl is already hard at work, keeping a watchful eye over her herd with the help of her trusty steed, Raisin. If even a single cow goes missing, Oatmeal Cookie won’t rest until she’s got them home safe and sound. The tricks she can perform with a lasso will certainly knock your socks off! And when the sun starts to set, you can hear the sound of her yodeling from far across the plains.

Peanut Butter Cookie (Family): I’m the luckiest Cookie alive to have such a beautiful gal as you...

Knight Cookie (Friendly): You sure know how to burn the breeze!

Adventurer Cookie (Friendly): Nice hat ya got there, pardner!

Space Doughnut (Tension): Hey, stop spookin’ my herd!

Her skill would probably involve dodging obstacles on her horse while catching some runaway cows, and her pet would be a cowbell.

Peanut Butter Cookie: There’s nothing better for a boost of energy than some delicious, nutritious peanut butter! And forest ranger Peanut Butter Cookie definitely needs that energy, as she spends every day traversing the woods to keep them safe. Whether she’s helping Cookies who have gotten lost find their way home or rescuing woodland critters from danger, you can always depend on Peanut Butter Cookie. She’s especially fond of younger Cookies and enjoys teaching them wilderness survival skills.

Oatmeal Cookie (Family): She and I pack each others’ lunches every day.

Pancake Cookie (Friendly): Be careful climbing trees for those Acorn Jellies, dear!

Cream Puff Cookie (Friendly): I’m sure you’ll get that spell right next time, hun.

Fig Cookie (Trust): They’re always eager for me to tell them stories.

Fire Spirit Cookie (Tension): You keep those flames away from the forest, you hear?

You can probably tell by now that I’ve put like 0 thought into any of my Cookie OC’s skills. Anyway, her pet would be a bear that she helped when it was a cub, who shows up to help her by smashing obstacles.

Coconut Cookie: The Tropical Soda Archipelago has a long history of telling stories through traditional dance. Coconut Cookie comes from a long line of those dancers, and Cookies will flock from every island to watch her perform. Crowned with a garland of bright yellow coconut blossoms, she moves with the utmost rhythm and grace. It’s said that she practices every day so that she can bring peace and good fortune to the islands.

Mango Cookie (Trust): My best friend since we were little - I remember his very first boat!

Ananas Dragon Cookie (Admiration): The Dragon honored my ancestors by praising their dances.

Soda Cookie (Friendly): Going for a ride on the waves is the best, isn’t it?

Squid Ink Cookie (Friendly): Poor little thing, there’s no need to be shy.

My first thought was for her to make a sort of bubble shield out of coconut oil, like Lemonade Cookie but without the magnetic effect (maybe slower energy drain instead?) - I’m still undecided about it though. Her pet would be a bunch of coconuts who make coconut milk potions. Also, I picture her being related to Artichoke Cookie, but he’s not in Ovenbreak...YET? (pls devsis)

Honeycomb Cookie: Out in a charming little cottage atop a hill lives Honeycomb Cookie - and her many hives of Jelly Bees. Years upon years of working with the bees has allowed her to understand them so well, it’s almost as if she talks to them! If you happen to arrive on her doorstep, you can be sure that she’ll treat you to some delicious tea sweetened with honey and send you on your way with a basket of homemade treats.

Herb Cookie (Family): My cute little grandson certainly inherited the family green thumb.

Spinach Cookie (Trust): Oh, how sweet of you to bring me a basket of vegetables, dearie!

Fairy Cookie (Friendly): Ah, you’re so small I mistook you for another bee.

Matcha Cookie (Friendly): A bit of a strange one, but it’s nice to have some laughter over tea.

Not sure what her skill would be, but I think her pet would be a queen Jelly Bee that grows from a baby to an adult as you collect more jellies.

Souffle Cookie: A chef famous for turning simple Jellies into extravagant and delicious meals. Though he can come off as strict and a bit intimidating, he truly does care about creating good food for every Cookie who comes to his restaurant. Souffle Cookie is quite the perfectionist, so if a recipe doesn’t come out as planned, he tends to sulk so badly that even his fluffy chef’s hat deflates! But it never lasts long before he throws himself back into his work with renewed passion.

Sparkling Cookie (Trust): My cooking and your juice is the ultimate combination!

Sandwich Cookie (Admiration): To create such simple but delicious meals...C’est magnifique!

Mala Sauce Cookie (Friendly): Just watch, I’ll create a meal more than spicy enough to satisfy you!

Dr. Wasabi Cookie (Tension): I am NEVER using your syrup as a ‘secret ingredient’ EVER again!

Again, not sure what his skill would be, but maybe his pet could be a spoon. Sous-chef Spoon?

Rainbow Sugar Cookie: Sugar Cookie was always painfully shy and never considered herself all that important. However, everything changed when she met Rainbow Puff, a creature who begged for her help in protecting the happiness of Cookies everywhere from the wicked Dark Puffs. Bestowed with a magical wand, she becomes Rainbow Sugar Cookie, chasing away darkness with prisms of joyous light! RAINBOW...BEAM!

Pink Choco Cookie (Trust): The two of us would make a perfect team!

Wind Archer Cookie (Admiration): Wow...what an amazing warrior...

Sandwich Cookie (Friendly): She makes the best toast as a snack on the way to school!

Dark Enchantress Cookie (Rival): I won’t let a villain like you make other Cookies suffer!

Pomegranate Cookie (Tension): Why are you helping the Darkness?

Originally her name was Glitter Cookie, but then Shining Glitter Cookie got announced. In any case, she’d pretty much be an epic version of Wind Archer Cookie, fighting a big ‘boss’ monster once enough little ones were defeated with her magic.

Jack-o-Lantern Cookie: Trick or treat! Wait, is it Halloween already? The answer doesn’t really matter to this young Cookie, who loves trick-or-treating so much that they never take their costume off! If you don’t have Jellies to give, then get ready for a mischievous trick! But if there’s one thing they love more than getting treats, it’s sharing them with friends, so don’t be shy and join in the fun!

Candy Corn Cookie (Trust): My bestest trick-or-treating buddy!

Devil Cookie (Admiration): WOW! What a great costume!

Apple Cookie (Friendly): Here, candy apples!

Onion Cookie (Friendly): Trick o- um, please don’t cry...

Vampire Cookie (Tension): Hey, don’t fall asleep when I’m trying to trick you!

I thought I was in the clear with this OC when we got Truffle Cookie for Halloween...but then Pumpkin Cookie was an NPC later, lol. At least the name was an easy change. Their skill would basically be like a slower version of Chestnut’s, where you go up to houses and trick-or-treat.

Candy Corn Cookie: This Cookie used to be a scarecrow who stood in the middle of a big field of candy corn. However, they wanted to travel the world, so one night they wished upon a star...and miraculously, their wish was granted! Bursting with curiosity, Candy Corn Cookie is full of questions about everything they see. They still have a habit of chasing birds wherever they go, though.

Jack-o-Lantern Cookie (Trust): This ‘trick-or-treat’ thing is really fun!

Alchemist Cookie (Admiration): Wow, this Cookie knows lots of things!

Blueberry Pie Cookie (Friendly): Ooh, what’s in all these ‘book’ things?

Mocha Ray Cookie (Friendly): Cookies can really live under the sea? WOW!

Carrot Cookie (Tension): Aw, I don’t wanna go back to the farm yet!

Candy corn apparently used to be called ‘chicken feed’, so their pet would probably be a chicken. Again, not sure about the skill.

[thebulletproofbangtanboys]

Cheap Thrills (Yoongi x Reader)

Summary:  It’s Yoongi’s birthday, and the boys decide to take him to a club. What kind of club, though, was never specified.

Word Count: 3k

Genre: Smut

Warnings: alcohol, mentioned drug use, fingering, handjob, dirty talk

All Min Yoongi wanted to do for his birthday was sleep. A day of no responsibilities. A day of sleep. Surely, that wasn’t too difficult of a request. He sent a message out over Facebook, telling everyone to leave him alone on his birthday, that he was going to take it easy that day. He then proceeded to turn off his phone. Before he could comprehend it, he was fast asleep.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up to the sound of pounding on his door.

“Yoongi, wake up!” he heard.

The voice sounded clouded like he was still in a dream. In a way, he still was. It felt like the world was jelly, and he couldn’t feel any of his limbs.

“Yoongi!” he heard once again along with the banging on his door.

This time, Yoongi was truly awake. He stumbled out of bed, grumbling, “I told them to leave me the fuck alone for one day. One fucking day of sleep is all I asked.”

He made his way to his apartment door, looking like an angry little kitten the entire way. His visitors pounded away at the door the entire trek, yelling his name. Yoongi unlocked his door and yanked it open, the banging immediately coming to a stop.

In front on him stood his six friends: Jin, Hoseok, Namjoon, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook. The eldest of the bunch had his mouth wide open as if he were about to say, or better yet, yell, something. Yoongi thought back. Of course it was Jin yelling for him. He was the only one brave enough to do it.

Yoongi glared harshly at each and every one of them. “I specifically said that I wanted to be left alone today. What could be SO important as to interrupt my sleeping?”

Little Jimin from the pack spoke up. “Can we at least come in?”

Yoongi glared at him once again before opening the door wider and moving out of the way so the rest of the group could enter his apartment.

“Sorry to wake you, Yoongi,” the little bunny piped up. “But, Jin insisted that we take you out for your birthday.”

“I’m perfectly content on spending my birthday in the luxury of my bed…asleep. Y'know, like I had originally intended,” Yoongi argued, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Come on, Yoongi. Stop being such a sour puss. You already slept through most of your birthday,” Namjoon stated. “Besides, you don’t even know where we want to take you.”

“Then where is it that you want to take me, Namjoon?” Yoongi raised a brow.

“Just a club,” Namjoon replied with a sly smirk on his face and a shrug of his shoulders.

Yoongi knew there was something more behind that smirk than what was being said, but he wasn’t going to argue it. He sighed before asking, “When do we leave?”

All of the members’ faces lit up at the fact that Yoongi actually decided to go without much retaliation.

“As soon as you get dressed,” Taehyung said with a smile.

Yoongi turned around and shook his head as he went back to his room. He slipped on a white tee and some comfortable pants and some shoes before walking back out to the foyer. He noticed that they all had an odd look about them, and he slightly narrowed his eyes at them.

“Alright, what is going on?” Yoongi asked, analyzing their faces.

“Nothing, Yoongi,” Hoseok said, but his eyes said otherwise. Hoseok could tell that Yoongi knew he was lying. “Let’s just go.” He wanted to avoid the glare and claws of the small kitty man. All the others nodded in agreement, and Hobi was the first out the door.

Yoongi rolled his eyes and followed his friends, locking the door behind himself.

It wasn’t but fifteen minutes later before they pulled up in front of the club. Yoongi took one look at the orange neon sign before whipping around to face Jin who was beside him, driving. “Scarlette’s?! You took me to a strip club?”

Yoongi was more astonished than anything. This was more out-there than his friends have ever been. Some strip club on the seedier side of town? The thought of it was all too real.

“You guys are kidding, right?” he asked, still in a slight state of shell-shock.

“Nope,” Jin said as he parked the car. “Now, let’s go.”

The seven of them got out of the car and headed towards the entrance. They showed their I.D.s to the bouncer and were allowed into the building. The moment they stepped inside, the loud thump of bass filled their ears, and the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat filled their noses. A few of the boys’ eyes immediately went to the stage where skimpily dressed girls danced almost eloquently around on a pole.

One girl was wearing a black sequined outfit and was running a sparkly red scarf between her legs, making her lower lips very prominent to her viewers. Another girl was missing her top and dancing dangerously on the pole, sliding her back down it before wrapping a leg up higher around it and twisting herself upside down, her breasts bouncing with her movements.

Besides the girls dancing so provocatively on the stage, men and some women sat on the floor area at tables. A few were smoking cigars and cigarettes and drinking various alcoholic beverages, chatting up a storm; others were focused primarily on the girls, clearly drunk, and tossing wads of paper money at them; the rest were in semi-dark parts of the building either snorting, shooting up, or smoking various illicit substances.

`“Let’s go grab a table,”  Hobi suggested before having to drag Jimin and Namjoon away from the stage as they were staring relentlessly at the dancing women. Of course, the pervy men barely turned their attention away to walk through the club, weaving in and out of tables. Their full attention was back to the ladies the exact moment they sat down. Pretty soon, the innocent bunny’s eyes were glued to the women as well.

Yoongi slightly shook his head as Jungkook’s eyes widened at the strippers’ moves, his mouth slightly open. The maknae was always scared of women, but apparently he still loved to look at them like any other straight guy. A perky young waitress walked over to their table.

Yoongi glanced up at her. She was pretty, ample breasts, just like the rest of the female workers.

“Hi, I’m Mi-Ja,” she said in a chirpy voice. “What can I get you gentlemen to drink?”

“Um,” Yoongi started out. “Scotch for me, wine for him-” He gestured towards Jimin. “-and soju for the rest of them.”

“Oh! And it’s his birthday!” Jin pointed out, grabbing Yoongi’s shoulders, a large smile on his face.

“Really now? Well, happy birthday! And since it IS your birthday, we’ve got the perfect girl for you tonight. She’s our best girl, and she really only does birthday specials.” Mi-Ja smiled proudly.

“Oh, no. You don’t have to do that,” Yoongi said, waving his hands.

“It’s no problem, really. It’s what she’s here for.” She turned her chin over her shoulder and shouted out, “(Y/N)! We’ve got ourselves a birthday boy!” Mi-Ja turned back to the table of seven and smiled sweetly. “I’ll be back with your drinks.” She then walked away, swishing her hips from side-to-side, obviously flaunting her nicely rounded ass.

Yoongi sighed and laid his head in his arms. “You HAD to do that, didn’t you?”

“Well, Yoongi, that’s why we are here. It’s your birthday! Enjoy it a bit,” Jin laughed, patting the younger’s back.

Yoongi gave a small smile as if to reassure Jin. A few minutes later, Mi-Ja came back over, a platter of drinks in her hand. Beside her was this absolute gem. She was wearing a neon orange bikini top with an attached choker and a bedazzled, stripped bottom with chains on them. She had a thin waist with what seemed to be perfectly sized breasts and equally perfect ass. She was the epitome of beauty, and Yoongi could not take her eyes off of her.

Jin leaned in next to Yoongi, also staring at the woman. “Happy birthday or what?” he whispered.

Yoongi chuckled as Mi-Ja set out the drinks. She stood up straight and said, “This here is (Y/N).”

Yoongi was suddenly the happiest person on the face of the planet and gave his signature gummy smile.

You laughed at how quickly his face lit up when he found out that you were the (Y/N) mentioned. That was one thing you loved most about the job, the delight on the customers’, male or female, faces. Yoongi downed his liquid courage and stood up from his seat.

“Oh, ready to go then, are we?” you asked him.

Yoongi’s gummy smile just widened. You smiled back at him before taking his hand and leading him to the back of the club. You led him past a blackout curtain. Behind it was a long hallway with rooms lining each side. Some had open doors, some didn’t. One does not go into the closed rooms, not unless there is an absolute emergency. The sounds of loud moans floating from behind the doors and into the hallway were the exact reason why entering those rooms was for emergencies only.

You came to a room near the end of the hall that had an open door. This was your room. Not many girls here had their own rooms, but you were (Y/N). The owners and managers would be stupid not to give you your own room. You walked in, the pretty boy still in tow.

Once you were in the room, you closed the door and turned to face him.

“So, what’s birthday boy’s name?” you asked, flashing a caring yet sultry smile.

The boy’s look went from pure desire to one of “wait, she said something.” “Oh, um,” he said. “I’m Yoongi. Min Yoongi.” He gave a nervous chuckle.

“Well, Mr. Min Yoongi, have a seat.” You winked, gesturing to the black velvet couch.

He sat down nervously, rubbing the palms of his hands on his pants. You knew that within moments of starting, you would have him forgetting that he was ever nervous, alcohol or not.

“Relax,” you cooed lightly, cutely widening your eyes.

You sauntered over to the Apple speaker you had, bending over and sticking your ass out purposefully, and pressed “play.” Almost instantly, music began to play at a comfortable volume. You strutted back over to where Yoongi was sitting, swinging your hips with every step. You leaned over and placed a hand next his shoulder, showing off your cleavage.

“Comfortable?” The words that left your mouth were laced with seduction, an art you had perfected.

Yoongi swallowed and nodded. You smirked. “Good."You stood back up and started to sway your hips softly to the beat of the music. As the tempo picked up, so did the speed in which you moved your hips. You placed your arms above your head, perking your breasts up just a little bit and exposing your midsection even more. With the hit of the bass, you dropped, your knees almost hitting the floor. You placed your hands on Yoongi’s knees and slowly made your way back up. However, as you made your way back up, your face almost grazed up his legs, over his crotch, stomach, chest, and up to his face where your noses almost touched. You arched your back so when you fully stood up, your breasts came face-to-face with Yoongi’s eyes.

Yoongi could feel his nervousness disappear as he watched you dance along to the music. All blood was leaving his head and heading south. He was now thinking that he would have to thank the guys for bringing him here. This was the best birthday present he could ever ask for. As you kept dancing, your face almost touching his body, his want for putting his hands all over you grew more and more. It was then when you turned around, your ass now facing him, shaking in his face, that he placed his hands reluctantly on your waist.

You smiled to yourself as you felt warm hands grab your waist. You lowered your ass to Yoongi’s crotch and began to grind on him. You could feel his semi-hard cock underneath you, and you smiled to yourself. You loved this power over men, being able to turn them on with hardly a touch.

As you kept grinding down on him, you felt him grow harder. Once you knew he was fully erect, you turned back around to face him. You slowly got down on your knees, and your hands found their way to his belt. You expertly unbuckled his belt as you two stared into each other’s eyes. Eye contact was what sparked the "personal connections” between you and your clients. You saw the want and desire strong in his eyes, the look that said “Keep going.” And keep going you went. Next came the unbuttoning of his pants and pushing his underwear down, only to bring it out his long, hard cock. The man may have been a little short compared to most guys she dealt with, but this was by far one of the biggest dicks she had ever seen.

The sight of the sexy woman in front of him, undoing his pants had Yoongi’s mind rolling. The things he wanted to do with this woman were all over the place. He wanted his dick inside of her so badly. He wanted to feel her warm walls clench around his hard member, making him feel like he was exploding inside of her.

“What’s going on in your mind, you naughty boy?” you asked him, looking up at him through your eyelashes. Your hand was currently around the base of his cock, and you gave it a light squeeze, making him moan and lay his head back. You grabbed a bottle of lube from a drawer in a little table beside the couch.

That dirty talk. Now that was something he wasn’t really expecting. And that squeeze. Oh, it sent chills of pleasure down his back. What was the epitome of pleasure was the gentle but satisfying stroke of her hand. She wasn’t even using her mouth, and the lube she was using making it so smooth. Each pump of your hand was getting him closer to the edge of an orgasm. Maybe it was the alcohol swimming in his system and clouding his mind, but pride and desire swelled in his gut. He wanted to let you feel pleasure as well, so he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you up.

You were surprised by the sudden movement of Yoongi pulling you up, and it caused you to lose your grip on his cock. Never had a client showed dominance so early in the game, not even the dominant BDSM ones. It was a slight shock, but you honestly liked it. You could feel yourself growing wet at this man’s actions. However, you knew that you would barely go any further than this tonight. You were the “Birthday Girl,” the the birthday special was just a free handjob, something that would generally go for about  ₩115,000. It was then that you were able to push the clients into paying a much higher price for everything else. That’s why you were the owners’ favorite.

Yoongi’s fingers lightly brushed the skin between the strips in your little shorts. His fingers then lightly traced up to your hips and around your back where he grazed your skin. It was obvious he knew there were nerves there because when he hit those nerves and made you shiver, his gummy smile returned.

“You are an evil boy,” you said seductively, an almost sadistic look glinting in your eyes. You knew you were soaking wet at this point, and when he hit the nerve again, you bucked your hips forward. He trailed his hands back down and to the top of your shorts, looping his fingers underneath the stretchy fabric. You wanted his fingers inside of you. It was rare that someone had you as wound up as this.

“Just plunge your fingers into me, baby,” your voice begged. Within moments, two digits had invaded your wet pussy. You moaned loudly at the pleasure, tipping your head back back and your mouth in an “O” shape. You breathed in heavily, having lost your breath at his sudden move.

Yoongi smirked at your reaction. His cock twitched as a stream of pleasure rode through him. Apparently, you had seen it as you came back to reality, and you grabbed a hold of him once again. You began to pump him as he began to rhythmically thrust his fingers in you. You felt your walls begin to clench around his fingers. It was when he decided to add curling his fingers into the mix that you let an even louder moan than before. This boy knew what he was doing. As you pumped him harder, he did the same to you. Soon, the two of you were panting, moaning messes.

“Y-Yoongi,” you breathed.

“Me, too,” he said, equally out of breath.

A slightly harder squeeze to him and another expertly pair of curled fingers to you sent you two over the edge, you a little before him. Your juices eagerly leaked onto his fingers as his cock let out spurts of his warm, sticky, white substance all over your fingers. You pumped his as best you could until he finished. Your shaking limbs made that a little difficult however.

After you both rode out your orgasms, you both panted heavily as if your lives depended on it. You looked into each others’ eyes and gave small chuckles. The moment your legs began to regain feeling and stop shaking, you raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“Round two?”

[laniidae-passerine]

You guys have been really sweet about my really dorky Ruby Redfort posts recently so I thought I’d put in some work and get as much information as I can about everyone’s favourite code cracking, messy, doughnut eating Spectrum worker!

(Note: I am missing books 2 & 3 because I refuse to buy anything but hardback RR books, and there are other requirements because I’m a picky girl... so could someone else check those???)

Anyway, let’s begin today’s episode of Information about Blacker! Spoilers, maybe? Err on the side of caution!

Look Into My Eyes:

Blacker is a terrible dresser, doesn’t brush his hair and apparently doesn’t own a mirror. We stan one relatable king!

“He was a dishevelled looking man and his badge was upside down and his hair didn’t look like it had been combed since Christmas” [pages 149-150]

Ruby notes that he has a nice voice and is visibly friendly.

“He had a nice voice though. It had warmth - she could tell this from just a few words.” [page 150]

He drinks? so I’d assume he is not Muslim, Mormon, Baptist or Sikh. Although he could just be the child of people from any of those religions, and not be religious himself, so so much for figuring out his personal background or possible ethnicity.

“‘We (Blacker and Lopez) got a drink at Blinky’s bar’” [page 176]

He owns a car!

“‘at around four I dropped her off at that fancy salon off of Twinford Square’” [page 176]

He gave Ruby a key code to access the office in Trashford, indicating he trusts her a large amount.

“‘Well, it’s not technically a break-in. I have the key code, Blacker gave it to me’” [page 257]

Despite his long term belief that he has never ever met the Count, Blacker actually has - he met him when the Count was disguised as Klaus Gustav. Also he may be able to pilot a plane, if Hitch is being literal:

“‘Please tell me Klaus Gustav is safely in Twinford?’ said LB. (Hitch replied) ‘He is - Blacker flew him in yesterday.’” [page 329]

Take Your Last Breath

{n/a}

Catch Your Death

{n/a}

Feel The Fear

Blacker is the first person to suggest that there is a mole in Spectrum in the breiefing with Dixie Deneuve. He’s not one to blindly believe in Spectrum, no matter what Ruby’s paranoid brain tells her.

“‘Is it possible that the prototype has been taken by a person on the Spectrum team?’ asked Blacker.” [page 202]

He eats food that goes well with soy sauce and is an implied messy eater, indicating a varied palate beyond jelly donuts. Maybe eats East Asian food a lot because he’s from there?

“Ruby found (Blacker) wiping soy sauce off his jacket.” [page 217]

He has a good-ish working relationship with Miles Froghorn and is the only known person who gets along with Miles, referring to him by his first name.

“Blacker looked at Froghorn. ‘Come on Miles, Rube is actually asking a fair question.’” [page 218]

He’s a known diplomat, and knows how to get people to like him. Also, note he’s able to get one of those rare near-smiles off Froghorn!

“Froghorn stood up, very nearly smiled at Blacker, and without speaking another work exited the canteen. That was the other thing you couldn’t but admire Blacker - he was a diplomat.” [page 219]

He is not one for keeping clean. Vaguely unhygienic, but we’ll let it go, because he’s just that wonderful.

“He (Blacker) winked and wiped his hands on his jacket. He caught Ruby’s eyes and shrugged, ‘Ah, it needs washing anyway.’” [page 223]

Blacker is the one to have dubbed Mile’s office, room 324, the ‘Frog Pod’. It doesn’t seem mean spirited though, so maybe he’s allowed to make a little fun out of Froghorn because they’re buddies. Or whatever it is they have going on?

“As usual, Froghorn was in room 324 (the Frog Pod, as Blacker called it).” [page 274]

He openly admits to having messy living quarters and perhaps implies that he lives in an apartment.

“Blacker shrugged. ‘Could be the owner of the apartment is away or if he is anything like me then he wouldn’t notice a break-in - I’m telling you my place is real chaotic.’” [page 277]

He uses a transmitter watch, which is probably Spectrum issue, to communicate with other agents such as Buzz and Froghorn.

“He pressed the transmitter button on his watch, no answer, so he tried again and this time the call connected and he spoke into the tiny speaker. ‘Hi Buzz, I am trying to locate Froghorn - could you get him on the line?’” [page 289]

He’s a genuine, kind guy and just the world’s biggest sweetheart what a lovely man - I love him so much and I’ve never even met him 🥰🥰🥰

“Ruby smiled. Blacker was about as cool as a partner as she could wish for and at that moment she felt pretty lucky.” [page 366]

He can whistle. Devastatingly important information, I know.

“Blacker whistled - he could see it all.” [page 388]

He has had other important cases in the past, and was/is a full on field agent.

“‘Ah, once, back when, I had to work undercover tracking down some orchid smugglers. I learned a lot about the business.” [page 396]

Pick Your Poison

He doesn’t consider himself a particularly lucky person.

“‘I got lucky for once, just missed it,’ said Blacker, ‘So you wanted to see me?’ [page 273]

He is a trustworthy and honest guy, the reliable sort.

“Blacker was no liar. Blacker was the one person she could 100% count on, aside from Hitch.“ [page 286]

He is no usually thrown by many situations, a bit of a social butterfly if one will, and I’ve just realised every sentence I’ve typed has begun with ‘he’.

"He was never rattled - soda, yes; jelly donuts, always; but when it came to people he was as steady as they came." [page 370]

Both he and Hitch are slightly prone to morbid jokes, à la one dear, very, very de-parted Marshall Boyd.

“Hitch: ‘You don’t have to convince me, you should see the state she left Baby Face in - or rather I should say, states.’ Delaware: ‘How do you mean? Where is he now?’ Hitch: ‘Well, he left his heart in San Francisco.’ Blacker: “His head was found in Monterrey.’ Hitch: ‘And his legs have yet to show.’ LB: ‘Excuse me?’ Blacker: ‘He’s a goner.’” [page 503]

Blink and You Die

He is not fond of Superskins, but it seems like he’s been in one before, as he has an idea of what being in one is like. Also, he’s a smart man because he doesn’t like helicopters (working, I’m sure they’re just fine but you likely can’t jump from them due to the propellers- that thing begins to drop, pray to whomever that it just doesn’t catch on fire when you crash).

“‘No, mam,’ said Blacker. ‘Don’t like helicopters. And there’s no way I’m putting a Superskin on, not unless I have to.’ ‘They make you feel claustrophobic?’ ‘No, they’re just a heck of a struggle to get in and out of.’” [pages 131 and 132]

He’s not pro child agents, despite his friendship with Ruby, implying he agrees with LB’s stance on the matter.

“‘But I think his brilliance sorta clouded Spectrum’s judgement, made them think it would be easy enough to find a whole trope of children who could do just what he did.’” [page 355]

And that’s all the relevant information I can find about Blacker! Also, I accidentally re-read the part of BYD where LB begs Bradley to be safe and not die, but she knows he will, she knows deep down it’s the last time she’ll see him alive and now I’m about to cry, oh god. Thank god Agent Blacker exists.

[omgviolette12]

After hours- Chapter 4 A professor Loki Fanfic

Previous Chapter

Summary: Evelyn Monroe has been a TA for professor Laufeyson’s Calculus course for four months now. He was known to be quite strict, but that never deterred her from applying for the position in order to be close to the man she had been secretly pining for. One evening, she returns to his office after opening hours… and with her bountiful luck, she walks in on something not meant to be seen.

Chapters: 4/?

Words: 2105

Tags: @milkymaidme @dangertoozmanykids101@alexakeyloveloki  @little-moonbeam-666  @marvel-ous-fics@clovermariear @lynnesm@bitchyikes@moon-child-of-a-poet, @allthecraftandthings@bubblegumspitt

If you’d like to be added, let me know. I’ve also posted this on AO3

________

If Evelyn thought she would get a wink of sleep that night, she was sadly mistaken.

Her thoughts were insistent on replaying certain scenes inside her head, which led her to overthink many things regarding Professor Laufeyson.

She would get flustered when she thought about how nice it felt to sit in his lap, then she’d remember how good he’d smelt. Then the next moment, she’d want a dark hole to swallow her up when she thought about how she ended up there, and why he even bothered to hold her.

In addition to that, she also spent the majority of the time thinking about the woman he was with. While there were many striking similarities between them, there were also differences. The first being that she was much more…voluptuous.

Before the woman could hide the entirety of her lady bits behind her professor’s desk, she saw that her breasts were larger by a considerable margin; While Evelyn wasn’t small-chested, her boobs weren’t nearly as large. The lady’s backside was also quite round and plump, taking the blows of her professor’s…paddle… like jelly.

In simpler terms, the woman was thick. With not one, but three C’s.

Evelyn refused to be a hater and assume she had some work done on her assets, but she wouldn’t deny the possibility.

She continued to compare herself endlessly to the woman - and what she thought her professor’s type might be.

The woman seemed much more mature, experienced, and desirable. And unfortunately, the more she focused on those differences, the more she found the similarities to be mere coincidences.

Evelyn even began to think that she probably did mishear her name. After all, why would he say her name, of all things? Although they had grown comfortable with talking to each other over the past year, he still treated her like all his other students.

He was more attentive for sure, but she attributed that to the fact that she was just slower than the rest of her peers.

And just like that, her insecurities continued to eat at her throughout the night, and well into the morning.

Crushing on a professor really sucks ass…

Evelyn was practically dead on her feet as she went about her day - she opted to stay home and laze about, neglecting to work on her art assignments. She’d curse herself tomorrow when she has to play catch-up, but she didn’t care at the moment as she curled up on the couch to watch her favorite cooking channel.

“Eve! Come do my hair!” Candice came bouncing into the living room, hair wet and comb in tow, “Cmon, get your lazy ass up and help me.”

Evelyn did not bother to raise her head as she replied, “Leave my lazy ass alone and do it yourself.”

“Pleaasee! You know I can’t do hair…”

Candice continued to pester her until she finally gave in, “Okay! Fine! But just know you’re cooking today.”

“Yeah yeah…” Candice plopped her butt unto the couch, handing her the comb, “Bantu knots, I want my curls like yours.”

As Evelyn began to part through her hair, Candice snapped her fingers as if remembering something, “Oh..! You still a TA for professor kinkster or nah?”

Candice yelped as Evelyn combed her hair a bit too roughly, “Prof…Professor what now?”

“You know…whack whack, paddle-waddle. Professor Laufeyson, duh. Did you give him the letter?”

Evelyn gave her elder sister an exasperated look, “Can - can you not call him that? Where did that come from…”

“Eve, you said he was tenderizing some booty with a paddle. He’s kinky as shit!”

“Is.. is that a bad thing, or..?” Evelyn never questioned the oddity of what she witnessed until now, as she thought that everyone did that sort of thing during sex.

“Nah.. it depends on what you like. Some people are into it, but not me.” Candice began to casually munch on some chips that had been left on the coffee table, “You should Google it - Bondage, whips, crazy sex toys, etcetera. Like I said though, not my thing.”

“What.. what in the world are you talkin’ about?” Evelyn was flabbergasted, and it showed clearly on her face.

“Look, all I’m saying is that he’s a freak in the sheets. End of story. Now did you give him the dang letter or not?”

Her head was still reeling from what she was just informed of, but was focused enough to answer her question, “Yeah… I gave it to him.. But…” Her dark skin began to flush red as she once again recalled the events, “I kinda like…passed out? Then woke up in his lap…”

Candice began to choke on her chips, “You.. you what now..? Like…how?!”

“I mean, I didn’t really eat much that day, and then he got too close -“

” - So because he got close…you fainted? Then you woke up…in his lap? His lap sis? Don’t you think that’s a bit…intimate for a teacher to do?“

Evelyn paused, resting the comb in her hair, "Yeah, but… it didn’t really mean anything right? He was probably just worried…”

“Evelyn. Come on.” Candice turned around to give her a pointed look, “Now I know you’re not this stupid…”

“Well, apparently I am! What am I not getting here?”

Her sister looked at her oddly, “Man…mama sheltered your ass to the max. Are you actually this naive?”

Evelyn crossed her arms, a frown coming upon her brows, “Instead of patronizing me, tell me what the hell’s so wrong?”

“Eh… you’ll just get mad. Forget I said anything.”

“Tell me Candice…or you can just finish your damn hair yourself.”

Candice kissed her teeth, “Tsk, don’t get mad, okay? He just seems like…hmm… how do I say this…”

She paused, considering her words carefully, “Like he’s the type to…you know, fuck his students on the regular…have hoes on call, you know the works. Just warning you, I don’t want your feelings hurt.”

“What - No! I mean I get why you think that, but he’s… he’s not like that at all… he apologized to me, and when I asked about the girl, he said she wasn’t a student -”

“ - So she’s his girlfriend then?”

Evelyn was stumped, “No…? I mean… he didn’t really clarify…”

Candice sighed, her expression bordering on pity as she looked at her, “Look, I’m saying this for your own good…but don’t get your hopes up with this man. First of all, he’s your professor who’s like, 13 years your senior? And then -”

“ - It’s just a damn crush, it was never that serious. Drop it.” Evelyn’s voice was cracked with emotion, almost yelling.

“Okay…okay… I’m sorry. You do you.”

Candice grew silent as Evelyn rushed to finish her hair. After that conversation, she just wanted to be alone.

_______________________

It had been a few hours since Evelyn hid away inside her room, sitting at her work desk. She was upset with Candice not only because of the condescending manner in which she spoke to her… but for what she assumed about the professor that she’d come to know.

From what she’d learned about him, Professor Laufeyson was anything but a womanizer. He had good looks, but she has never seen him interact with or entertain any female on campus unprofessionally - and they threw themselves at him in literal droves.

Well, until that night that is…

Evelyn wiped her eyes in frustration, as she tried to push Candice’s words to the back of her head. Sometimes she was helpful in her bits of advice, but today it felt extremely unneeded.

She opened up her laptop, intent on sucking herself into a black hole of memes and mindless entertainment to get her mind off things.

That was until a loud ping! notification flashed at the side of her screen.

It was from her outlook account, where she had set up her school email address. She had neglected to check it in the week she was absent due to a certain someone, and she regretted being so childish now. She probably missed out on a ton of important emails from her other professors, and Evelyn hoped there wasn’t anything urgent.

But when she logged in, she did not expect to see three unread emails from professor Laufeyson, the third sent to her inbox just yesterday.

Laufeyson, Loki                         Fri 4/12 TA position Evelyn, it was a very pleasant surp…

Laufeyson, Loki                        Thur 4/11 Office visitation: Please stop by at your earliest convenience

Good morning, I understand that due to certain circums…

Laufeyson, Loki                         Wed 4/10 Important: Regarding yesterday’s incident

It is imperative that we discuss…

Seeing three emails in a row from professor Laufeyson really knocked her for six. Whenever she had questions and decided to email him, he would never reply- only answering them when he saw her in person. She found it to be counter-productive, but never really dared to complain about it.

But considering the circumstances, she guessed it was understandable - he probably thought she would go around blabbing his business, so he took to damage control. Regardless, her heart started to race as she opened the email from earlier on in the week- opting to read them in order.

Laufeyson, Loki                         Wed 4/10 Important: Regarding yesterday’s incident

It is imperative that we discuss what transpired. Please visit my office at the earliest opportunity, around 11 am. I hope to see you tomorrow, and promptly.

Sincerely,

Loki Laufeyson

It was short and sweet, as Evelyn expected it to be. She suspected that even if she saw that email at the given time, she wouldn’t have budged from her bed in the slightest. Clicking out, she moved on to the next one.

Laufeyson, Loki                        Thur 4/11 Office visitation: Please stop by at your earliest convenience

Good morning,

I understand that due to certain circumstances, you are hesitant in discussing matters with me. I have much to make clear with you, in addition to making several apologies. I would like to discuss this in person, Evelyn. It is very… unbecoming, and I do not want this situation to compromise any academic priorities you may have. If you would feel more comfortable speaking over the phone rather than in person, I will attach my number. Please, I implore you to make good use of it.

Best,

Loki

Evelyn found this one to be much more sincere, to the point that she wanted to hop down to his office right away - even though it was the weekend. She once again mentally slapped herself for acting immaturely, instead of facing the situation like an adult. She could only sigh as she opened up the latest email, which she assumed was sent after he dropped her home.

Laufeyson, Loki                         Fri 4/12 TA position

Evelyn, it was a very pleasant surprise, although in a rather odd position, to see you at my office door. I shall once again apologize for startling you, as I was unaware that you were faint of heart. Despite that, I hope that I have managed to clear the air so that we can re-establish our relationship to its previous state. Although, I am aware that you may still be uncomfortable working together with me. We will discuss things once more if that is the case, so that we may come to a resolution regarding your grade.

If you would still like to retain this position, please attend my lecture this coming Monday - I am in need of assistance, and I would love for you to take this responsibility. I will also reiterate what I said yesterday evening. I value your presence, as you are one of my most favored students.

Have a lovely weekend,

Loki

At some point in reading that email, Evelyn’s heart had turned into a beating, mushy mess. He called her his favorite student, and Evelyn was practically mind-blown with this newfound information. She knew that he found her tolerable, more so than the other students in his class - but not to this extent.

Evelyn came to a decision. Although things might still be pretty awkward with this professor of hers, she’ll make an effort to get over it, and get back to how things were. He had even attached his private number to his email, something that she never thought he would share. 

They were both adults, so she’ll try to treat the situation as a minor embarrassment. She would attend the lecture on Monday and pretend like the entire thing never happened.

But little did Evelyn know… that things were forever changed between her and professor Laufeyson, and that they would never be the same again.

_________

A/N: Hey guys, please let me know what you thought, what you think will happen, etc! Things will be picking up next chappie, if you know what I mean. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I’ll try to get another chapter out before I leave for sleep-away camp for work on June 20th(No longer 15th, thank goodness), as I’m not sure about the internet reception there. I sincerely hope there is, since my contract ends on August 11th. I need to update! grrr! Thank you guys for reading, and I sincerely appreciate very comment. Like seriously, they make my day!

[tdpholidayexchange]

Sweet Contraband

To @honeylemon2346 from @skyfireflight! They write: “ Hi! I hope you had a happy holiday season! You requested Gren with sweets as a motif, so I wrote a little story about Gren and Ezran bonding over jelly tarts. I hope you enjoy it!”

Takes place about 3 years before season 1

Gren didn’t visit the castle often. He and General Amaya were usually stationed at the Breach. It was a constant, 24/7 job for the most part, keeping the border safe from potential invaders. Being Amaya’s voice as she relayed orders to her soldiers, or spoke to anyone else, really. 

But times like these were nice. A reprieve from the thick clouds of smoke that blocked out the sun, and the constant heat that rose up from the river of lava below (and always being in armor certainly didn’t help). 

What did help was knowing that he was doing an important job – for his kingdom, Katolis, but also... for Amaya. Amaya’s presence, getting to help her and interact with her every day, made being at the border much more bearable, even enjoyable. And even though he’d only been her voice for a year, and she was the general...he could say that Amaya was becoming a friend. 

Still, it was nice to have some time off, away from the border. 

The eldest prince’s 12th birthday had been yesterday, and Amaya had taken leave to celebrate. Gren had been by her side most of the time at the castle, tagging along with her at Prince Callum’s birthday party, interpreting for Amaya when she spoke to attendees – councilmembers, townspeople, even some ambassadors from other kingdoms coming to wish Callum well – and stuffing his face with strawberries, shortcake, and jelly tarts between conversations. 

The party was over now, but Amaya wanted be with her brother-in-law and nephews a little while longer, so she and Gren were to stay a couple more days before returning to the Breach. 

Today, Amaya was in the castle with Callum; Gren would have followed, but Amaya had waved him away with a fond smile and told him to relax and have some time to himself. 

Now Gren found himself in the castle garden.  He stood near one of the trees there, enjoying the sight of the greenery. The summer breeze felt cool against his skin, and he basked in the feeling. Though the weather was still warm, the heat was nothing compared to that of the border. And he was without his armor for once. 

A creeaak came from somewhere beside him, and Gren turned to the source of the sound. A square grate that he hadn’t noticed before was lying face down on the ground. There was a stuttered scraping sound, and right after it, a tray piled high with jelly tarts slid from a hole in the wall and clattered on the ground, some of the jelly tarts toppling from the heap. Fluffy brown hair and its owner tumbled out, followed by a grumpy groan and a large, glowing frog. 

The owner of the fluffy brown hair was a little boy. Gren took a second to recognize who it was. He remembered the child flitting around the grand hall yesterday at the party, plate piled high with sweets, and small hands coming up from under tables to swipe from trays. And honestly, it was adorable – though he had worried the little boy would get a sugar rush and would be too hyper to go to sleep that night. 

The royal colors on his clothes and his resemblance to King Harrow made no question of who it was. 

The little boy was Prince Ezran. 

Gren watched as Ezran fitted the grate back into the hole in the wall, taking a few tries and grunts of effort before he succeeded. The prince then picked up the tray and stood, several more jelly tarts dropping to the ground with soft patters.

He turned, and caught Gren watching him. 

The boy froze, eyes going wide like a deer caught in the light of a night traveler’s lantern. Below him, the large glowing frog gulped down jelly tarts from the ground with a swipe of its tongue. Gren raised his eyebrows. 

Ezran blinked once. “Uh….” He braced the tray against his chest with one hand, and held a tart out to Gren with the other. “Jelly tart?”

Gren was pretty sure that the boy wasn’t supposed to have all those jelly tarts. Especially if how he was sneaking around and his reaction to being seen was any indication. And Ezran’s sheepish tone and smile further confirmed his suspicions. 

Still, none of those jelly tarts were making their way back to the baker’s, or wherever they came from, any time soon. They probably wouldn’t want them back anyway, having been taken through air ducts.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt. 

“Thank you. I would love a jelly tart.” Gren gave the youngest prince a small bow before taking the offered dessert. Ezran giggled. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” Ezran said. He placed the tray on a nearby bench, even more jelly tarts falling off, and plopped down next to it. The glowing frog – glow toad, Gren’s mind finally supplied – hopped over and began eating jelly tarts off the ground. Ezran took a tart from the pile and started munching on it, his legs swings back and forth in the air. 

Gren went over and sat down beside him. “I’m Commander Gren. I work for your aunt Amaya; I’m her sign language interpreter.” He took a bite of the jelly tart. 

Mmmmm. An apple jelly tart. It was delicious. 

“Oh, yeah!” Ezran’s eyes lit up. “I remember you! You were at the party yesterday!”

“Mmhmm,” Gren replied through a mouthful of jelly tart. He finished and swallowed. “That’s right. And I seem to remember you swiping a lot of sweets from the tables.”

Ezran giggled around his next bite.

“These jelly tarts are really good,” Gren said. 

“Yeah, they’re the best!”

“Now,” Gren decided to solidify his suspicions, “I must know. Where did you get all these delicious jelly tarts?”

“From the baker’s.” Ezran’s tone was light and betrayed nothing as he took another tart from the stack.  

“Did the baker give you all these jelly tarts? He’s pretty generous.”

Ezran paused mid-chew. “Well….” He looked down at his swinging feet, not meeting Gren’s eyes. “He didn’t exactly give them to me.”

Gren just furrowed his brow and tilted his head in a show of confusion, encouraging Ezran to continue. 

“We sorta…well, Bait and I, we…,” his shoulders hunched sheepishly as he met Gren’s eyes, and he stopped swinging his feet, crossing his ankles and curling his legs inward, “kinda…just…took them…without permission?” He looked away, back down at his feet. “We stole them.”

Yep, suspicions confirmed. 

“I’m sure the baker wasn’t very happy.”

Ezran shook his head, sighing and sounding a bit ashamed of himself. “No, he wasn’t.”

“Tell you what,” Gren said, taking another of the sweet contraband. “Why don’t we make it up to him?”

Ezran’s gaze drifted back to Gren. “How?”

Gren looked around at the trees in the garden, many of them heavy with ripe apples. “Are we allowed to pick the apples?”

“Uh-huh!”

“We can take some apples to the baker and help him make more jelly tarts. I’m sure he’d like that. What do you say?”

“Yeah!” Ezran nodded eagerly. “I can get some baskets from the gardener.” The little boy hopped off the bench and ran out of the garden. Gren smiled and took a big bite of jelly tart. 

A few minutes later, Ezran returned with two big baskets. Gren stifled a chuckle; the baskets were almost as big as he was, too large for his small arms, and he leaned backwards as he struggled to carry them. 

“Here, let me help.” Gren got up from the bench and took one of the baskets. He made a show of hoisting it up and making it look heavier than it was. Ezran giggled.

“Let’s get apple picking!” he cheered. 

The two got to work. 

Despite Ezran’s strains and grunts of effort, the 7-year-old couldn’t reach the apples dangling from the tree branches. Gren smiled and lifted Ezran up onto his shoulders. 

With a “whoa!” and giggle from Ezran, then they really got to work. 

Gren carried Ezran on his shoulders as they went from tree to tree, one hand on the boy’s leg to keep him steady, and the other hand keeping the basket braced against his torso. Ezran did most of the picking, and Gren was able to shift his grip on the basket to reach a few of them. 

In the end, they had 1 and ½ baskets full of ripe red apples. 

They made their way to the bakery – through the streets this time, not the air ducts – Gren carrying the full basket and Ezran tottering with the half-full basket hugged to his chest. 

The baker was delighted. 

Barius, as Gren learned his name was, let the two of them mix the dough as he prepared the apples, Ezran sneaking in bites of dough, and both he and Bait swiping apple pieces. The baker didn’t scold, though the way Ezran paused right after he snatched an apple slice said the little boy was expecting him to; Barius simply smiled at him fondly and said, “Just make sure there’s enough to make the jelly tarts with.” And Gren himself snuck in a few bites, too. 

That was part of the fun, after all. 

By the time they were done, Gren and Ezran were covered in flour, bits of dough, apple jelly, and powdered sugar. With a laugh from both of them, Gren ruffled Ezran’s hair to get some of the powdered sugar out of it. Luckily, Barius had given them both aprons – though Ezran’s dwarfed him – and washing up in the sink was easy. 

And there were plenty of jelly tarts. More than plenty. Enough to make up many times over for the ones had Ezran stolen. 

Barius insisted they take home half. 

They carried back three baskets full – three baskets lined with white cloth and filled to the brim with the sweet apple jelly tarts. Ezran carried one, and Gren carried the other two, one in each arm. 

Gren also carried the gardener’s baskets – stacked together, upside down, on his head like a floppy winter hat made of woven pieces of wood. Some townspeople gave them a few looks. He gave the townspeople cheery greetings and warm smiles. 

When they got back, they seated themselves on the bench in the castle garden. A basket lay beside each of them, the third basket at their feet. Bait sat in between them. 

(The tray that Ezran had stolen was empty, and now lay beneath the bench; apparently Bait had cleared it while the two of them were picking apples. Gren made a mental note to make sure the tray got back to the baker.)

Ezran was munching away, his legs swinging happily. “These are the best jelly tarts ever!” he said through a mouthful of jelly tart, his voice muffled. 

Gren chuckled and grinned. “They are the best jelly tarts ever,” he agreed. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do with all of these pastries, though. The two of them – well, three of them – couldn’t eat them all at once. He figured the kitchen staff would know what to do with them. 

“We should do this…,” Ezran said with his voice still muffled, then he swallowed, “more often.”

The castle garden was peaceful, with the cool, fresh air, the greenery and colorful plants bathed in the late afternoon light, and the silence except for the prince munching, birds chirping, and the leaves rustling in the wind.

The silence was interrupted when Amaya and Prince Callum entered the garden, with a “Are you sharing?” from Callum, and a fond smile and a signed “Enjoying yourself, I see,” from Amaya as she surveyed the scene in front of her. 

 Gren nodded with a smile of his own. 

He basked in the peacefulness of his surroundings, the taste of sweet not-contraband on his tongue, and thought that this was a nice way for him to spend his leave. 

 And yes, Gren thought, he would have to visit the castle more often.

[somekindofroger]

Play The Game (Part 2)

Roger Taylor x Reader also BoRhap!Roger Taylor x Reader

PART 1

Summary: You and Roger have been friends for years - friends with benefits. You were each other’s best friends, the friendship that started in college times, even before Queen becoming famous. Roger starts dating this girl and unlikely the previous times, he starts forgetting about you and you don’t like it, it’s when you realize how much you grew used to have him around and start trying to sabotage his relationship, while you still don’t admit your real feelings for him, mostly for the insecurity that he might not feel the same.

Words: 2k

Warnings: smut smut smut

A/N: hey! So, didn’t get that much of feedback but I was inspired anyhow so I wrote this one. I hope you that are reading it like it. Please please let me know your thoughts about it, so I know if I should keep writing it or not. Feedback pls! <3

> If you want to be added on the taglist, let me know :)

“So after all that, I had to spill the wine on him.”  You ended the story about your date on the other night. Roger had to laugh out loud even though he had heard this story before.

               “Poor guy” Brian said while laughing.

               “Poor me! I was deadly embarrassed.” You annoyed told him.

               “Yeah, but he was the one who had to wait for you, while you were late, got his order wrong, you shit talking an article that you read – that was written by him – and you spilled the wine on him.”

               “I don’t need a recapitulation, Freddie.” You wanted to open a hole on the ground to hide yourself.

               “At least you weren’t planning on shagging him.” Roger teased still laughing.

               “Oh yeah, like you never had a bad date.”

               “Never.” He said all cocky.

               “You did.” John remembered him. You wide your eyes and put a smile on your face.

               “Tell me” you stood up from the couch, getting near Roger to make him talk. He sealed his lips, he wasn’t going to talk. You started to push him, trying to make him talk, he got your hands to make you stop and he fell on the chair, you on him. Your faces were too close and you looked at his lips. You wanted to badly to finish what you were doing before the interrupting.

               “Get a room.” John rolled his eyes.

               “Good idea.” Roger said and standing up, since you were on him, he got you in his arms and you yelled at him to put you down but he carried you until the room.

               “It’s my fucking room!” Brian yelled, since it was his place. Roger had locked the bedroom’s door already. He dropped you on the bed, you laughed while Brian loudly complained on the other side of the door, you could hear Freddie’s laugh. That wasn’t an unusual thing to happen, you two had done it in John’s place before, he wasn’t there though, but when he arrived you two had to hear John complaining for hours. And he never stopped sassing you two over that.  That was the big reason why the boys were pretty much the only ones, besides your friend Ally, who now was living in USA, to know about you and Roger. You were always with them, so you didn’t have to hide things like that and had all this freedom.

               Roger got on you, you still on bed, he was about to kiss you and you pushed him away, he got a confusing look.

               “Are you telling me about the bad date?” you raised an eyebrow, teasing him.

               “God, no.” he completely ignored your gesture to make him back off and kissed your neck, you couldn’t push him away now, you didn’t want to.

               “Why not?” he was still kissing your neck.

               “It’s not important, (Y/N).” he looked at you to say, to reaffirm that he didn’t want to talk about it.

               “Ok, so you are getting nothing today.” You were determined to get the full story and Roger knew how stubborn you are. He didn’t answer and he kissed you, you kissed him back. When you broke the kiss the caught breath, you said again “nothing.”

               “You know I don’t need it, right?” he teased, you knew he were always sleeping with some girl, he had needs but none of them were urgent.

               “I know, but I know you want me.” And you weren’t wrong, Roger always wanted you. He rolled his eyes and you pushed him away, pushed enough so he would leave the bed and stand up.

               You opened your legs, took your shirt and bra off. He was still up, watching you. You took your pants off and made your panties fly in his direction, you were naked, right in front of him. He was unzipping his pants and ready to go on bed again.

               “No.” you assured, pushing him away with your foot. “I told you, if you don’t tell me, you get nothing.”

               “(Y/N), that’s ridiculous.” He was full of desire on seeing you completely naked in front of him and not being able to touch you. Open your legs again, your hands grabbed your boobs, one of them slid to your inner tight, teasing yourself. He knew what you were going to do, and he wasn’t going to enjoy it as much he wanted to you.

               You touched yourself, feeling your own wetness and Roger was just there observing you. He wanted to be inside of you, or doing the work for you, but all you let him do was watch you while you were fingering yourself. At some point the approached you, trying to feel you, put you pushed him away once more with your feet. You could tell he was dying, his pants were very tight for him now. Your finger were in and out of yourself, occasionally you would play with your clit, making circle movements. The pleasure was coming to you, you slid another finger in, the movements got faster.

               Roger cried your name, you allowed him to come closer, he held your legs, while they were still open, his face close enough to you, he was ready to start licking, but you pushed his face away, even though you wanted it badly.

               “The story, Rog.” You insisted. He remained in silence. “Damn, Roger, you’re strong.” You said in a sexy voice, mostly to tease him. You took your fingers out of you and took them to your mouth, feeling your own taste. That was the limit for him. He kissed you, trying to at least get a bit of your taste.

               “I will tell you everything.” He whispered in your ear after the kiss. You moaned out loud when you felt his finger getting inside you. Your hand felt this volume in his pants, every time his fingers were in and out of you, you’d let a loud moan out. You were almost there and he knew it, he knew you well enough to know when you were about to cum, that was why he stopped. You looked at him with desperation crossing your face, he smirked at this scene.

               “You really think you can tease me like that and won’t be punished?”

               “Roger Taylor, I’m going to fucking kill you.” You angrily said.

               “No, you’re gonna fuck me.” He said while taking his pants off. He didn’t even waited and made you lay on bed and he got inside you and you let a loud groan out. Roger started his movements fast, he was so hard he couldn’t wait for much longer. Your legs were trapped around his waist, while he got deeper in you. You completely forgot about the boys on the other room, you completely ignore everything else but the pleasure you were feeling.

               “What you said about not letting me get what I want?” Roger teased while getting in and out you. You were too busy almost coming done to answer him. You arched your back and let his name out in a yell. You had your eyes closed and your breathing fast but you could tell Roger was smiling and that he was also done.

               You couldn’t move, you felt your whole body like jelly. You were just smiling. Roger laid next to you, out of breath, also smiling.

               “The story.” You demanded. He laughed.

               “It was like a month ago, I met this girl who works in a disco store and she didn’t recognize me.”

               “That’s a bad starting, she didn’t recognize you and she works on a disco store, I mean, the month employee.” He laughed again.

               “I asked her out and she said yes, that her shift was about to be over and I waited for her, and when we were about to get out some girls recognized me and they asked for autographs and those stuff… Well you know how that works.”

               “Yeah.”

               “Well, the thing is, I told her who I was and she just left.”

               “What?” you were shocked.

               “Yeah, apparently she didn’t want to date a hot famous drummer.” You had to laugh. You almost didn’t believe it.

               “Which disco store does this girl work?”

               “You know that one near your old studio? That one.”

               “Oooh, that’s a small one, what were you doing there?”

               “I wanted to get you that Elvis album you wouldn’t shut up about and I thought that they being an old store they’d have it.”

               “And they did?”

               “Did I give you the album?”

               “No…”

               “There’s your answer.”

               “You suck.” You said to him laughing.

               “Yeah, but you still love me.”

               “Ugh.” You made a disgust expression and he laughed. You stood up the bed looking for your clothes.

               “Oh, no. Come back.” He complained.

               “If you want to cuddle, get yourself a girlfriend.” You joked at him while putting your clothes back on.

               “I don’t need a girlfriend, I have you! We have sex, we tell everything to each other and I still can go out with other girls.”

               “Well, maybe that’s not enough for me, maybe I want something else.”

               “What?” Roger wide his eyes, a panic expression on his face. You laughed.

               “I’m joking, wally. I love seeing the horror on your face.” You threw his pants on him. “Get dressed, also get ready to hear Brian complaining.”

                 You were in a taxi on your way to work. You were a photographer in a quite famous studio of London, you were good in your work but you took a while to get some recognition, Queen helped you, for a while they only accepted to be photographed by you, that’s how and why that studio hired you. It happened an accident on the way to this studio and the taxi driver had to change the route, coincidentally the street that the driver went through was near the old studio you worked to. You saw the disco store that Roger talked about. You asked for the taxi driver to pull over, nothing special in your mind, but you couldn’t stop thinking about that girl of Roger’s story. You got out of the taxi and entered the shop.

               There was a girl behind the counter, she had a quite black and short hair – the length was on her shoulders. She smiled at you when you entered, you could tell that was the girl, it was Roger’s type.

               “Hi.” She said smiling.

               “Hi” you said back, you didn’t know what you were doing exactly.

               “Can I help you?”

               “I-” you made a pause. “Have you met Roger Taylor? You know, Queen drummer?” she made a funny expression, she laughed. Damn, her laugh was adorable, that annoyed you, she was so kind and adorable.

               “Actually yes. That’s so weird, who are you?”

               “I’m sorry, I just- I’m his friend, he told me about you the other day and I don’t really know what I’m doing here I- Why did you leave him? I mean, he asked you out!”

               “I thought that by him being famous he only wanted to sleep with the first girl he found and then forget about her” she smiled. “I’m not that type of girl. I thought that it’d better for me to leave before even the dating starting.”

               “That’s actually… very comprehensive.” You both stayed silent for a while. “Ok, that’s all. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

               “I mean, if he has female friends that he even tells about his date stories, he can’t be that bad, can he?” she said before you leaving the store. You smiled.

               “He’s actually very sweet.”

               “Have I lost my chance with a famous drummer?”

               “Maybe not.” You smiled.

               You left the store; you liked the girl, though you still didn’t know why you stopped there, maybe just to know her version of the story because you were deadly curious. You’d tell Roger about this encounter later, and you didn’t know yet but you would regret it forever.

(to be continued)

taglist: @danamaleksworld @butterfliesflewaway @terriblymediocre @my-bitter-blue 

[actuallykiwi]

Once a Thief... Chapter 17: Return

You can imagine the millers’ surprise when there was a sudden frantic knock on their door in the middle of the night. Aeri, the owner of Anga’s Mill, was half-asleep when she opened the door to find a woman standing there, dressed in mysterious black armor. Behind her was a man similarly dressed on a horse, holding the limp figure of a woman covered in blood. The woman began pleading for her help and even offered to pay. Aeri glimpsed at the unconscious woman and guessed they probably wouldn’t make it to Windhelm. The other millers awoke in confusion and offered their help as well. She let them in and they immediately got to work on her wounds. 

It was dark this time. A void of sorts. Cimber looked around and felt a slight chill. Now there was a faint violet mist in front of her, and she could barely make out the opaque figure of a woman. 

Persistent, aren’t you? 

“I knew your voice was familiar... You’re Nocturnal.” 

Well, aren’t you astute? She chuckled softly. You can refer to me as Lady Nocturnal. And I believe you have something of mine. 

“The Skeleton Key...”

Yes. Restore it to my Sepulcher. little Nightingale, where it should have been all this time.

“Of course. But, my Lady... What are these dreams? How am I talking to you?” 

Cimber could feel the figure smile. You’re in the Shadows that protect you, my dear. Have you ever noticed how natural you are at this business, and how others have noticed as well? 

“I suppose?” 

Hm.. Let’s just say there’s a reason. Ask your mother.

“My mother? Was she a Nightingale?” 

The figure grinned once more before slowly fading into the void. 

“Lady Nocturnal, wait...!”

The mist faded, and the void darkened more as the little Nightingale awoke. 

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

Cimber’s eye felt heavy as she opened it to the world of Tamriel once more. She felt stiff from all of the bandages wrapped around her, like a draugr in the ancient crypts. When she painfully reached up to rub her eyes, she was surprised to feel nothing but bandages on the left side of her face. The shock quickly faded when she remembered what had happened in Irkngthand. The flashback played as they stopped Mercer and recovered the Eyes of the Falmer, but it cost her an eye as well. She laughed to herself. Eye for an eye...

She heard a small grunt beneath her, and looked down to see Brynjolf asleep by her legs. She studied him for a moment. He was still in his Nightingale armor with the hood thrown back, his long red hair pooling at his shoulders. His face was resting on his arms, and from the slight puffiness of his eyes, she knew he had been crying. Her heart broke a little. She gently nudged him with her leg to wake him, which at first he begrudgingly obeyed.  

But when his eyes met hers, he was wide awake with his arms wrapped around her instantly. He didn’t say a word, just burrowed his face into the crook of her neck as he held her tighter, almost lifting her off of the bed. She could tell by his labored breathing he was fighting back tears. However, she let hers fall freely as she wordlessly squeezed him back, despite the aching in her sides from her wounds. 

Minutes passed before he finally pulled back. “You gave us quite a scare, lass...” He whispered, voice ragged from tears. She grinned, her voice twice as hoarse. “Come on, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” They both chuckled and he planted a gentle kiss on her forehead as Karliah’s voice entered the room. “Cimber, you’re awake!” Brynjolf made room as Karliah wrapped Cimber in another hug, shorter than Brynjolf’s but still sweet. “How are you feeling?” 

“I’m aching everywhere, but surprisingly not in as much pain as I thought. Especially on...” She lifted her hand to her bandaged faced. “Is it really... gone..?” Her companions looked at each other, then nodded grimly. 

She took a shuddering sigh, and Karliah placed her hand on her shoulder. Brynjolf pulled up a chair and sat by her while Karliah explained the situation. “Once I recovered our horses, we rode down the mountain as fast as we could. We knew you wouldn’t make it to Windhelm. Unlike last time, there wasn’t paralytic poison in your bloodstream, so we couldn’t stop the bleeding. Aeri and the others here at Anga’s Mill were kind enough to let us stay here until you awoke. You’ve been out for a few days now. The lack of pain is probably from the concoction she made for you.” She went and retrieved a small mortar and pestle with a pink jelly-like substance in it. “It’s a mixture of health potion and moon sugar. Apparently it has a numbing effect.” 

“No wonder my face feels heavy.” Cimber thought out loud and chuckled. “Thank you. Both of you. I’m sorry you had to wait on me...” Brynjolf reached for her hand. “Don’t be. We’re just glad you’re alright.” They smiled warmly at each other. Karliah smiled behind her mask and sat at Cimber’s feet. 

“I hate to go straight to business but, we need to discuss what to do next.” Cimber tried to sit up with Brynjolf’s help, grunting against her aching muscles. “I know. We need to return the Key to the Twilight Sepulcher.” Karliah nodded. “Precisely. However, when the Key was stolen, our access to the inner sanctum was removed. The only way to bring it back will be through the Pilgrim’s Path.” 

“I take it you haven’t traversed this Path?” Cimber asked. 

“It wasn’t created for Nightingales. It was created to test those who wanted to serve Nocturnal in other ways. As a consequence, I have no idea what will be faced in there...” 

“...Then I’ll go.” Cimber suggested. “Absolutely not. You’re hurt, badly. The last thing you need to be doing is diving into some mysterious, dangerous temple where gods-only-know what could happen to you. I’ve sent you on too many dangerous missions already, lass.” Brynjolf argued. 

She sighed, and thought carefully before speaking. “There’s something I need to tell you. I don’t know how, or why, but Nocturnal has been speaking to me... in my dreams. In visions. I didn’t know it was Her until recently, but when She talks about what’s going to happen next, She seems pretty keen on it being me that does it. She also knows something I don’t... about my mother. But that’s another story. What’s important is, She spoke to me just before I woke up. She told me to return the Key to the sepulcher. I just... I feel like it should be me. And yes, I might need to recover first, but this Key can’t wait.” She looked at Karliah. “You said it yourself, Karliah. The longer we have it in our possession, the worse off the guild is.” 

Karliah looked at her for a moment before sighing. “And you’re sure it was Her?” Cimber nodded. “...Very well. I’m in no position to argue with Nocturnal, so if you feel like you should be the one to return it, I won’t stop you. I don’t think I could bear to face Her after my failure, anyways.” 

“I still don’t agree with this.” Brynjolf squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, but I’m not asking your permission.” Cimber told him. He blinked, and then shook his head, grinning. “And I wouldn’t give it to you regardless. But I suppose I can’t stop you either.” She grinned back. “Nope.” 

“Then it’s decided.” Karliah stood. “Recover for a little longer, Cimber, and then return the Key to the Twilight Sepulcher. Brynjolf, someone needs to return to the guild to keep things in order and let them know what’s happening.” He sighed. “Aye. And I suppose you’re referring to me.” “Yes. We can stay a little longer with her, but once she’s able, I’ll lead her to the Sepulcher, and we’ll return to the guild.” He nodded. “So be it.” Karliah patted Brynjolf’s shoulder before leaving the room. 

Brynjolf moved to sit on the bed beside Cimber, his back facing her and his hands knitted in front of him. “You’re mad, aren’t y-” He interrupted her. “Tell me about the scar. The one that was on your eye.” She blinked, and thought back to her home in Valenwood. 

“I can’t remember how old I was... 12? 13? I was still learning how to be a thief. But one day, for the very first time, I was caught. I was trying to pickpocket a jeweled dagger from a woman in the market, but little did I know it was the Captain of the Guard’s wife, and he just happened to be looking at her when I did. I guess I was lucky. He could have cut my hand off, but instead, he dragged me out to the middle of the square, calling me every name in the book and just, humiliating me. A crowd gathered to watch, and more guards joined. My mother watched helplessly, trying to get through to me, but the guards were keeping her back. Finally, he took the very knife I was trying to steal, and decided to teach me a permanent lesson, on my face. So I vowed to never get caught again. And I never have.” She held her bandaged face thoughtfully. 

Brynjolf was quiet for a while. “You are mad, aren’t you?” She asked quietly. He shook his head, then looked at her sadly. “No, lass. I’m just worried. Pain seems to follow you wherever you go, and I feel like I can’t protect you, no matter how hard I try.” She smiled sadly and cupped his face gently. “You don’t have to protect me. Things happen. Pain happens. But that’s how we learn and grow. If you don’t break a little, you’ll never grow stronger. So believe me when I say, I’ll be fine, Brynjolf. I wouldn’t go if it didn’t feel right. You have to trust me.”  

He sighed. “I do, lass. But if I can’t stop you from going, you can’t stop me from worrying.” She smiled. “Fair enough.” He smiled back and leaned his forehead against hers. “You’d better come back to me...”He whispered. She brushed her thumb across his jaw and whispered back. “Count on it.”

While the world outside continued on with its petty war and falling factions, while Karliah reflected and prepared for whatever was going to happen next, while the Skeleton Key remained safe in Cimber’s belongings, waiting to be returned, the small gap between Cimber and Brynjolf was closed as his lips finally met hers. Everything else faded, just for an instant that seemed to last forever to the two of them. There was no guild on the brink of extinction. There was no impatient Daedra to please. There was no life-changing injuries. There was just each other, for as long as they could make it last. They were the escape they had been looking for, and finally found. 

But sooner or later, a return has to be made. 

Previous 

Next

[n0ttinghamshad0w]

The Game’s Afoot! || Crime Squad

In which Rob robs the Davis house, with a little help from Andrina, Desoto, and Sarina...

@andrina-the-amazingsupergenius @accendimi @desotosykes

[CW: uh crime? creepy gnomes, slight implied child abuse mention]

Here’s the plan as I’ve got it laid out, yeah? She’s movin’ stuff, I know this, been movin’ things for a while. Not sure why, but judgin’ from all the stuff, I think she’s got a new place and may be rentin’ this place out at one point — anyways, point is that she’s out this weekend, the 27th of July and that’s when we’re goin’ in —

We’ve got the van, picked up a spell from one of the sorcerers in town to make it look like a movers. We’ve got the uniforms. ‘Ts gonna be as simple as walkin’ right up to the front door, only we’ve got Andrina here to disable all the security. Once we’re in, we divide and conquer — one of yas, Sarina, yeah, get to the safe and pick it open. Take whatever else you want — we’ll ditch the van right as we leave, burn the uniforms, and divvy up the stuff to pawn....

ANDRINA: 

Today, after months of planning and foreplay, Andrina was going to help rob Crazy Gnome Lady.

 Fun! 

 She got to wear a super sexy, special crime outfit for the occasion-- a cookie-coloured jumpsuit with a logo stitched to the front advertising MIKE’S MOVERS AND SHAKERS. She had to hand it to Rob; he had really committed to accuracy for replicating the logo down to the terrible Comic Sans font (graphic design was Mike Mover’s passion). Her favourite part of the look was actually the baseball cap, which she threaded her long, curled ponytail through, and used to hide the headset that would let her talk to her version of Oprah’s Book Club-- some hot chick named Sarina, some Italian Mobster transported straight from the set of the Sopranos named DeSoto, and their fearless, foxy leader, Robin Hunt, posing as the infamous Mike Mover himself. 

Important supporting characters included the moving van they’d rented for the occasion, sporting the same logo. 

 Also, the gnomes inside the Crazy Gnome Lady’s house. 

 Phase One began here: parked right in front of the aforementioned target. It still felt slightly counterintuitive to Andy. When Rob had told her they were gonna just roll up to the driveway, she’d raised her eyebrows. You sure you’ve done this before? Shouldn’t we park down the street? Wait for the cover of night? Plan a diversion?

That’s more suspicious, he’d told her and flashed a toothy smile, his confident tipping over to a cockiness Andy found very sexy. The secret to gettin’ away with somethin’, he told her, is to pretend like there’s nothin’ to get away with.

 And so the mid-afternoon sun was their spotlight. It was time for Andrina’s debut. Cue Ashley O’s On a Roll from Andy’s phone hooked up to the aux, and Andy cracked her knuckles and got started. 

 Her laptop pulled up, she clacked her way into Gnome Lady’s wi-fi. “Leeeet’s see….” she said, her tongue edging out against the bottom of her lip as she started to poke around Gnome Bitch’s desktop remotely. While the rest of her daring, dashing crew were going old-school bulgery, she’d get a chance to mine the digital treasure trove for any extra goodies. But for now, she was looking for one thing and one thing only-- 

 “Annnnnd-- disabled,” Andrina chirped as she deactivated Gnome Bitch’s security system.

 The house remained perfect still and silent, a sleeping giant of brick and mortar and ugly beige. 

 Andy flashed her grin at her comrades. “It’s moving day.” 

DESOTO:

This whole thing was kinda strange for Des. Not in the way he’d never done it before. Naw. He’d broken into houses and even stores before when he was a helluva lot younger. And dumber. What was strange was the amount of planning that went into it. The team that was put together and the plan that had been laid out by the man that had contacted him what felt like months ago. It was smart. Brilliant even. And the fact they’d just be… waltzing into the house and taking shit? It made it even better. Maybe he’d have to invest in this sort of crime more often. It was stress free. Stress free crime. Ha.

Dutifully he waited for the okay to head inside, pulling the ball cap he wore down out of instinct. They had the disguise as a moving company but there was still that slight paranoia that made him want to be as unnoticeable as possible. It’s why they’d gotten the gloves, right? An added security measure to further protect their identities if anything happened.

Following the mental map that he’d created as Rob detailed what he would be charged with getting and where exactly it would be, DeSoto made his way through the too goddamn beige house to get to his target. The room was, surprise, beige with pictures of gnomes and pixies and were generally creepy. No matter where Des went in the room it felt like those creepy little eyes were on him, watching every step he took. Were those where the cameras were? Hiding in creepy pictures so that any wrong doer would know intrinsically that they were being watched? Would be crafty of her, honestly. Crafty and creepy. Right up this lady’s alley.

The room itself was huge. Bigger than any one person would need. DeSoto understood the need for space, though. His own room back home had been too large. He’d filled the space with a large bed and then let it get cluttered with a shit ton of things that didn’t exactly matter to him but filled the space. Almost as if he were trying to fill an empty spot within himself. This room felt like that. Though, certainly more like a strange tomb. It smelled of the kind of perfume that made your allergies act up and mothballs. Idly he wondered how he’d drawn this room but pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he began combing through the drawers of the huge vanity. 

Rob had told him that the old broad had a ton of jewelry but he hadn’t anticipated this damn much. Each drawer was filled to the brim with gaudy jewelry that was organized by style. Bracelets, necklaces, rings, those weird things old broad’s wore on their shirts. Obviously he wouldn’t take it all but a good amount would be missing next time she bothered to look at any of this crap. Easily DeSoto began packing shit away, filling the box he’d brought with random expensive looking pieces. They’d get a pretty fucking penny for all this shit and Des wouldn’t have to worry about funding his next batch of drugs for a good while. 

Next was the closet, the smell of mothballs even stronger as he began pulling dress after dress from the hangers they were on. Each was made of exquisite fabric and for a brief moment Des wondered where the hell this bitch wore these clothes. There certainly wasn’t any place in Swynlake that warranted this fashion. Not hat it mattered. He was here for a paycheck, basically.

JELLY:

Jelly had one last job in Swynlake before she left. A job that Sarina had accepted and why not. If she fucked up she would just kick someone's ass and bounce sooner than expected. She was already burning bridges that Sarina had so nothing would follow her. 

And neither would this rag tag group of people she was apparently robbing a house with. She however did admire the plan. Jelly didnt want to deal with them. Let her be alone and make sure Sarina's skills worked in her favour.

She was just sad she didnt wear her heels to listen to the sound of clicking on the hardwood floors as she proved to herself over and over why she was better than all of them.

And this stupid moving uniforms. It was gross. 

That was for another time though as Jelly walked into room. It was impressive. At least until she spotted that creepy ghome. What was with this bitch and Ghomes. For a human she really had a lack of family pictures. Wasnt that a high human thing. To look at your loved ones 24/7. Not that Jelly cared. 

Jelly almost wished she was here just so she could play with the obsession. Make the woman think she was shattering all of them. Actually Jelly would shatter all of them. Let's not lie.

Glancing around the room Jelly walked over to the creepy painting not wasting any time and pulling the thing off the hooks. If there was anything she knew about humans was that they were predictable even on the worse days.

And a safe behind the picture. Yeah that was obvious. Settling in Jelly pulled up to the safe focusing on Sarina's memories without giving the girl a chance to breath instead ripping them from her mind without a concern for the pain she caused her. 

Listen to the locks. Be smooth in your motions. The fact you could insert a wire in the right place to give you better access. It was all there and Jelly loved it. Sarina had to easily be one of her favourite hosts.

It didnt take long for her to have the safe swing open and there was the cash nicely bundled just asking to be taken and as Jelly grabbed it the numbers rang in her mind. 

1000. 

1500.

2000.

3000.

4680.

Not a bad haul for less than half a days work.

ROB:

He’d let his two accomplices handle the bulk of the haul. He dinnit care what they took, s’long as they weren’t stupid (and he knew they weren’t stupid — Sarina’d done this before and before, and Desoto had a stake in stayin’ in the town so he wouldn’t fuck up). While they plundered, Rob idlly walked through the halls of the house.

He was on the hunt, you see, but not for money or jewels or any of the stuff he’d promised Sarina and Desoto (he’d promised Andrina the thrill of the chase, and out of everyone, he hoped she got what she was after). Nah, you see, Rob was lookin’ for something else. 

Normally, see, he’d take something — a mug that said Number One Dad from a dad who dinnit deserve it; a mother’s flask tucked away under a pillow; gambling stubs; a belt used for punishment —

But this house was barren. There wasn’t a single indication that Mrs. Davis even had kids, let alone two, let alone one of the kindest souls Rob had ever known, let alone a boy buried in the ground.

Nothing he could take that would remind her of what she’d done.

As he walked by the fireplace, he glanced at the garish modern paintings on the mantle and the thought occured to him. 

He reached in his pocket, pullin’ out the photograph Tuck had given him, smoothin’ out the edges. It was a young Mrs. Davis, her first husband, and Tuck as a baby — already Mrs. Davis’ face was stern and she held her baby at a distance. This’d been taken a few months before they decided they dinnit want him. He’d been left unceremoniously on the doorstep of the orphanage, as if Mrs. Davis were some woman in a Victorian nove dying of a wastin’ disease.

Rob wasn’t sure how she got from Nottingham to here, wasn’t sure what she told everyone happened to the first kid.

What he did know was that she left Tuck. She left Tuck and she had another kid and she dinnit even remember that her son was dead, dinnit even act like he existed —

He didn’t want to leave the photo, the only thing of Tuck he had, but there was a spot open on the mantelpiece. 

With a gloved hand, he smoothed out the creases and left it right on the empty space. 

[twitchesandstitches]

COMMANDER YATRUIGA -SHOGGOTH MONSTER GIRL WANNABE GENERAL

Basic Concept: World conquering shoggoth monster girl down on her luck and Doing Her Best to be a villain but just terrible at it.

Appearance: Imagine a very wide and strongfat humanoid woman, at least from the waist up. Get that broad image in mind, and add a few additional features: a variable number of arms (at least two, often six or more) that usually comprise tentacles, with optional crab claws or grabby bits. From the waist down, things get more interesting, dividing into a large cluster of enormous muscular tentacles crowned by a massive butt, each tentacle as thick around as her entire body and longer than she is tall. This is the default shape of Yatruiga, the shoggoth girl.

Normal shoggoth girls generally have amorphous flesh, but she takes it to an extreme, apparently made of jelly or a thicc ooze, so fluid that she oscillates and is subject to goo physics; it has some of a latex-ish look, colored a pale cream with veins of blue. This is mirrored in her plump face, and her eyes, which are usually the same blue, as are her very big lips. She doesn’t have hair, but she does have two thick bundles of tentacles that look like hair.

Technically she has at least three eyes at any given time, but she mainly has a large central eye, ringed by two smaller ones that sort of look like eyebrows, and the impression is of a cyclops. She often grows a set of short and spiky gills, but her face is otherwise featureless.

As a shoggoth girl, she can assume whatever body configuration she wants, but rarely deviates from this form; she usually increases her number of arms for an advantage, or make hands if she needs fingers. She can alter her body shape, like becoming incredibly muscular for a powerful attack, or immensely round to absorb an attack. She often adopts crustacean traits into herself, growing heavy exoskeleton, pincy claws, or shaping her tentacles into crab legs. She sometimes does this just for a bit of rigidity and to hold her body together, too. This form is astonishingly flexible, and more than a little stretchy. You don’t impact her or cut her, you just sink in.

She’s not precisely fat but she looks like it, and is very solid too, tending towards a very large gut and imposingly big breasts larger than her upper torso, and even wider lower hips. Her tentacles - and matching mega-scale butt - are incredibly large and somewhat longer than normal for her people, but her liquid form body is highly unusual. This is very hard to maintain and she is smug about her skill in maintaining her body like that permanently, and other shoggirls think this means that she is mentally fluid and capricious.

Her exact size varies, and she is not exclusive to any particular AU. In ones where human-scale is the normal, she’s about twice human size, 11 feet or so. In ones where giants are more common, she’s about seventy feet at minimum, though she can get bigger.

Backstory: Yatruiga’s people, the immortal and incredibly ancient people generally called shoggoth girls, have long cultivated a reputation as being elegant and cultured beings of great refinement, on the rare occasions they feel up to venturing out of their enclaves or form beneath the waves to bother with the rest of the multiverse. It is rare indeed for a shoggoth girl to deliberately seek out company outside of the great shoals of their hidden homeworlds and the private universes folded away from the rest of the planes. But it is even rarer for one to seek conquest and martial glory.

Yatruiga is such a shoggoth girl, hailing from a world that had contact with the shorter lived species prior to the multiversal cataclysm. That is to say, they opened their minds to mortals while remaining obscured to them, examining their cultures and media and written accounts, filing it away for study and reflection. Yatruiga examined these with great fascination, growing to admire the idea of change measured in mere decades, rather than the millenia her passive kind were suited to. She longed for the notion of suddenness, of quickness.

And in the wake of the cataclysm, in the rise of warlords and demagogue, she perceived the value in warfare. Not as a resolution, but as a means to an end. Finding more relevance in mortal customs than the slow pace of the shoggoth, she found that she wanted glory.

Since the cataclysm’s end, she has been patiently learning the skills of conquest, leaving her isolated worlds behind and shunning contact with her people, bearing their advanced technology (now overwhelmingly dangerous in contrast to the ruins elsewhere) and potent psionic abilities and magical theory, and has set forth to gather minions, forge mighty weapons, and conquer as much of the multiverse as she can hold.

In her heart, she dreams that all the multiverse will know her name.

Personality: She presents the image of being bombastic and a hammy, dramatic figure, prone to grand gestures and who wants only the most impressive of things to her name, making every single action or even her form a performative gesture. She speaks louder than most people yell, she gesticulates almost continually, and she takes advantage of her shapeshifting so that she is in an almost constant state of flux; the effect is, by shoggoth standards, of outrageous pomposity, and it is very deliberate.

And it is just that: a persona. She has studied many famous warlords, generals and battle-hardened champions across history and has tried to emulate all their various personalities into a single mask to put on, believing that this is the appropriate way for her to act with her ambitions of warrior accomplishment.

When she isn’t acting like that, though, she’s very low key and even surly, filtered through the mannerisms of a typical valley girl personality. Reluctant to speak more than she has to, she comes off as very terse. She might have a lot to say, but she will only speak in brief, clipped words, saying what she must and trickling it out in a laconic tone littered with easy-going terms.

Ultimately she is acting out a role, without really getting fully into it and still trying to figure it out; she worries that she has the tone down, but hasn’t understood the essence of it yet. This sense of ‘not quite doing it right’ pervades her entire outlook, making her nervous around mortals, and she is not used to that feeling, so it makes her angry and irritable.

However this is hard for mortals to take note of; as a species, shoggoth handle everything in extremely long-term progression, so while by her own standards she is shockingly impulsive and even disturbingly mercurial in how quickly her mind shifts, Yatruiga’s melancholy phases seem more to mortals that her bombastic personality regularly becomes grim and dour as the seasons turn, and remains like that for some time. To her, she slides smoothly into her role, but to mortals she comes off as gradually progressing from one extreme to the other.

She’s not an easy person to like. Whether she is grumpy or dramatic, she has trouble relating to mortals as people rather than brief things, finding them not so much interesting as their ideas, perhaps viewing them as mere hosts for fascinating notions; thus she often treats them as tools for her use, and annoying flies overtaken with their own importance otherwise. She’s not cruel, but her callousness and disinterest in caring about people in general makes her come off that way. She doesn’t enjoy suffering, she just doesn’t care about it much; she might try to swallow someone whole and simply not consider digestion as an unpleasant doom.

She’s also ludicrously overconfident, and simply will not learn from her mistakes, and her military career is full of constant defeats, setbacks and losses from her absolute refusal to accept bad odds. As she can regenerate from almost any wound, she tends to forget that her weapons and armies are not so strong as she is, and heedlessly charges into battle without much regard for tactics or common sense.

Many of her armies have been wiped out by her own overconfidence, or else aged past the point of service simply because she forgot that mortals don’t treat a few hundred years as a brief rest time. That said, she is a genuinely dangerous warrior and very hard to even slow down, but her armies regularly desert her. She’s made up for this by making herself into a broodmother and breeding a massive army of barely intelligent monsters little brighter than zombies, but she craves genuine loyalty, and doesn’t understand why no one really respects her that much.

As a broodmother, she almost constantly pregnant, periodically giving birth to thousands of bestial soldiers for her armies that grow to full size in a matter of weeks, and she has little attachment to them, viewing them not as children but in the same way as she regards individual tentacles. While she can reproduce parthenogenetically, she prefers to harvest genetic material from suitors (be they biological compatible for babymaking or not), and it doesn’t help that she gets crushes on those she has rivalries with. Her shapeshifting powers let her mate with any living being, and she’s become somewhat addicted to this in recent ages.

She does have some slight yandere tendencies; if she gets dedicated enough to a specific rival, she can grow more obsessed with them and single-minded about constantly breeding with them and milking them for every last drop of extra soldiers from them… and eventually become fanatical about consuming them and beating them once and for all. As a result, her getting attached can be a very bad idea, at least in a romantic context.

Species: Shoggoth Girl, a species of amorphous primordial masses of shapeshifting flesh, capable of assuming whatever form they please. She’s very atypical for her people in living ‘in the moment’ and leaving the homeworlds, and even more unusual for her love of violence and martial concerns.

Fandom: Mostly an original creation, though her people are cute monster girls versions of the shoggoth from the Lovecraft Mythos (with a touch of space elf and precursor archetypes), and draw upon the aboleths from Dungeons And Dragons.

Abilities: She is extremely skilled in most in-universe modern forms of warfare, having been doing it for an extremely long time. Practice alone has taught her much, and she is extremely good at fighting in a wide variety of ways, from firearms to melee weapons, and has come to specialize in shapeshifting in combat to maximize them, such as slithering out of holds or making many limbs to attack directly.

Her liquidform body offers her many advantages; among other things, she is incredibly hard to hurt directly, since most attacks will just sink into her body; exceptional magic or specialized weapons are required to actually pierce her body or leave more than temporary holes, though heat does it consistently and she is incredibly vulnerable to biological weaponry. She is extremely flexible, even by shoggirl standards; she can force her way down someone’s throat, bend herself any which way, stretch her body like living gum, and force her way through any gap, given enough time.

By altering the chemicals that make up her body, she can become specularily acidic, dissolving most materials she’s in contact with; by forcing someone into her body (by swallowing them whole, forcing them into her or flowing around them) she can digest them and absorb their biomass directly, and do this to most substances too. She can even apply this to attacks, by making a blow with a limb briefly made of super acidic flesh, though this is draining to do repeatedly.

Her favorite ability is to shapeshift. AS a shoggirl, her amorphous body can assume any transformation she can imagine (though she can’t change her apparent nature, such as take on human appearance), diverting biomass to grow more limbs, reshape any part of her body or make them as big or restructure them, or even grow larger or smaller. She is incredibly creative with this power, manifesting extra limbs just to do a quadruple sword swing, produce a dozen hands on arm just to slap someone repeatedly, swell a tentacle into a barrier in front of her, or produce extra organs to survive different environments like gills.

She seems to favor altering her stomach in odd ways, such as splitting it apart into a belly to swallow enemies whole and then launch them like ammunition, make it a living shield, or store excess biomass in there so it swells to immobilizing proportions. If she is incubating young, she doesn’t grow particularly larger, through her transparent body might make them visible, which can be very disturbing; she can make herself more opaque, if asked.

Her body is also immortal, after a fashion. She does not age, and will regenerate almost any non-magical wound, and even those will heal with time and biomass, and since it is hard to harm her in the first place, she comes across as very tough. Even the complete digestion of her body is only a hindrance; if a single part of her remains, it will regrow into her again, still stubbornly refusing to admit defeat.

Another aspect of her fluid body is that she can gestate young in localized mini-wombs pretty much wherever she wants, though she usually keeps them in her belly to make herself look even bigger and cooler. She can do this parthenogenetically, making strange crab-monster minions that resemble her, but she has grown fond of harvesting genetic material from others through sexual means, or digesting them if she feels like it, adding those genetics to her creations and making stronger armies.

These powers do have a big drawback; her fluidity is the biggest one. She is very vulnerable to being, say, slurped up like any other liquid. Stick a straw in her and suck hard, and she will be drawn into it helplessly despite weighing several dozen tons. She has been defeated many ways in this fashion, and has never learned from it. Her great resilience gives her a false sense of invulnerability, and she heedlessly rushes into situations even when its a blatantly terrible idea.

Her broodmother mass breeding has the big drawback of requiring food for those thousands of offspring; she must constantly devour enormous quantities of food, almost every single hour, in addition to the massive amounts of food she needs to maintain her biomass. As a result she usually must hold off on replenishing her armies, at least until she has enough resources to do so. In theory, if she actually did conquer enough territory, she might end up eating every last drop of organic material or depopulating entire planets - namely, the populations she just conquered - solely to maintain her status quo, and she might not even realize this until after the fact.

She is also apparently incredibly delicious as a minor side effect of her basic chemical makeup, and considers this just another point in her favor. Making her enemies eager to swallow her up hasn’t yet occurred to her to be a bad idea.

Height: Highly variable. She can be as big or small as she wants, but she needs actual biomass to fill out to that point; she’s rather vain and refuses to be too skinny, or at least not look properly bulky. She likes to be on the bigger side on things, to the point that it is ridiculously impractical, such as growing to full size on her flagship and immediately breaking it into pieces.

Relationships: She doesn’t have any canon relationships as such; her tendency to destroy her own armies through mismanagement, obliviousness to their mortality, accidentally engulfing and then digesting them, or simply losing their loyalty through more mundane events, has left her with an inability to hold onto minions for very long. Stil, she always gets more, even if its not clear how she does it.

The minions she mass produces are more loyal, and really have no choice. They were born to obey her and know nothing but following her orders. They’re just not very good at it and unimaginative. She tends to order them to their doom, and she’s not very strategically minded either.

She’s not unfriendly though, or totally unapproachable; come to her pretending to be a servant or at least willing to play a submissive role and she will gladly take you on and she can have a aristocratic sense of duty to her subordinates, if she remembers that they have their own goals. One-on-one, she has the potential to be a good friend, if only she can be bothered to remember things, and learn some humility.

Those who have bested and digested her in the past, she tends to see as rivals and constantly seek them out, always striving to beat them. This even applies if thy died a long time ago, and she pursues their descendants, sometimes under the impression that they are that ancestor.

Pred Level: She thinks she is an alpha predator that flawlessly devours all in her path as surely as she wins campaigns, and she really does try to do this; she does digest whatever she possibly can, rather like an acidic slime monster, just to maintain her biomass levels and be healthy. However in practice she’s not very good at it, most of her attempted prey fighting free of her or actually washing out of her when she forgets to solidify herself. At best, she’s a low-tier with very high potential.

However, her sexual appetite can very easily translate into genuine hunger if she gets attached and her rivalry hits a high pitch, her yandere potential going into overdrive. While she hasn’t had much opportunity to do this yet, it might happen.

Prey Level: Extremely high, though she won’t admit it. She’s constantly getting drunk by enemies, indifferent monsters, ship machines she got stuck in, her own soldiers sleepwalking, kisses that get too intense… it just goes on. Due to the messy nature of her body, at least one droplet of her always falls free and she regrows from it, dazed and unsure of what just happened. Despite her sheer size, it is strangely small for even extremely small beings to swallow her. Even if she’s a 100 ft tall giantess, a regular human girl can swallow her in one drink, and her body material is easily digested.

MILF levels: As she is right now, N/A. Callous, oblivious to anyone’s interests except her own, she’s barely a team player, let alone a matriarch. While she is a powerful mass-producer of young, she doesn’t view them as children but extensions of herself, and she might not even be wrong there, and it's unclear if she even can produce intelligent young, at least without mods. She does have the right look, though, and it's unclear what the MILF fleet’s patented mega-fertility and empathy enhancers might do to her.

Overall Themes: Generally a light-hearted antagonist that just won’t go away, and a recurring threat that isn’t that dangerous despite being quite powerful. Mainly themed around being vore prey, but as a component to adventure and battles rather than a focus detail. She’s also a giantess and at least a huge BBW, with extra tentacles and plush-ness. Her habit of constantly seeking out ‘genetic material’ from interesting suitors makes for some potential sexual vibes. Plus, she’s a cute monster gal!

[hurricane-hufflepuff]

Surprises and Realizations

Platonic MC and Merula interaction. Not sure what this qualifies as, but the thought has been bouncing around in my head for a couple days and I decided to do something with it.

I’ve always been a firm believer in people’s ability to surprise you. Of course, it always comes when you least expect it. Wouldn’t be much of a surprise otherwise, would it? As it happens I encountered one such surprise recently.

It was roughly three days ago I found myself discovering a new side to someone I’ve known since I was eleven years old. It was past curfew, but I couldn’t sleep. So obviously I decided to go and explore the castle in the hopes that I might be able to stumble across a clue that would lead me closer to the next vault and therefore to my brother. The only real problem with that, you see, is that Filch was lurking around nearby, praying for a rule breaker such as myself to stumble upon him. In case you weren’t aware, in order to avoid getting caught by Filch you’ll find yourself doing some pretty stupid things. In my case that meant closing a door that locks from the outside without seeing the girl who’s dedicated her life to making mine harder was in there too.

As I imagine you’ve guessed by now, she wasn’t very pleased with my decision. I’ll admit that she had every right to be mad. She probably wouldn’t have gotten caught if Mrs. Norris hadn’t spotted me and sent me into a panic to find myself a hiding spot. I mean hell, I didn’t even realize she was in there until after I’d locked us in. There was no way Filch would’ve had a reason to be suspicious of the room. Unfortunately for Merula and I, we now had no way of knowing when it would be safe to leave the room. We are witches after all, it’s not as though the lock would prove to be a problem. What would prove to be a problem, however, is the fact that the door was too thick for us to hear anything coming through from the other side. Meaning that we couldn’t know for sure how close to us Filch was. We’d just have to check at some point and pray with everything we are that he’d be gone. After all neither of us had any desire to be hung from a wall by our wrists.

Of course neither of us was daft enough to try and check immediately. Even if Filch didn’t hear us open the door his damned cat would. This of course meant that we needed to find something to do to pass the time. Merula suggested using me as a target to practice all of the hexes she’d been learning. I, on the other hand, suggested we play a game. She wasn’t exactly sold on the idea until I specified that we could play a question game. I assume she agreed because she thought she could get some useful information about the vaults out of me this way. Which, I’ll admit had she asked I would’ve followed the rules of the game and told her what I knew. I’m many things, but a liar isn’t one of them. You know, unless lying is obviously the best course of action at the time. I highly doubt telling Merula anything about the vaults would’ve gotten me in trouble though, especially considering she was searching for them too. She couldn’t tell anyone about the search without making things harder on herself. As for her decision to play the game, it’s not as though she could deny that it would pass the time so she went with it.

I asked her if she’d like to ask first and was thoroughly surprised when she told me I could go first instead. I didn’t want to piss her off by asking her anything too personal right off the bat. After all, I’m positive she wouldn’t have minded hexing me if I did. So I asked what her favorite color was. As it turns out the answer was purple. Evidently she had the same train of thought I did. Either that or she couldn’t think of anything to ask me because she just asked me the same thing. She seemed rather surprised to find that my answer was forest green. Our little game remained happy and simple for quite a while. She asked me what my favorite candy was her next turn, and was pleased to discover that apparently I wasn’t “as daft as I seemed.” This of course was because we apparently share a love for jelly slugs. I asked her what her favorite magical creature was and she said it was a tie between runespores and kneazles. The runespore because she likes it’s color scheme and kneazles because she appreciates knowing whether or not she can trust someone before she goes telling them anything important. Plus apparently in addition to a unicorn her mother used to have a kneazle. A fact she seemed to believe I was going to judge her for because before I could say anything on the matter she said, “Surprising, I know. A death eater worried about judging other people’s character.” She honestly seemed quite relieved when instead of providing the quip she’d set me up for I simply told her that my favorite magical creature was the hippogriff, largely because I’d grown up near a breeder. She also seemed fascinated by the fact that I owned one myself. We talked about Crypt Kicker for a while after that, his beautiful black and purple coat, his bright orange eyes, and even his unusual love of muggle music. She even seemed amused when she found out that his name came from a muggle song about Halloween. Evidently she’d never heard “Monster Mash” before. A tragedy I decided it was my duty to correct. I don’t think I’d ever seen her laugh quite as hard as she did listening to my dramatic rendition of the holiday jam.

Unfortunately for us things couldn’t stay light forever it seemed. Sure learning a bunch of silly inconsequential things about each other had been fun, but truthfully there are only so many questions like that you can ask somebody. She was the first to ask a serious question. She wanted to know what I see when I encounter a boggart. So I asked her which answer she was looking for; what I see when I’m around other people or what I see when I’m alone.? She told me she’d like to have my answer to both. I told her that when I encounter one around my friends it transforms into Voldemort. I also told her that I think it takes that form when I’m around them because I’m terrified that he’ll come back someday and start another war. I know myself and I know my friends, there’s no way any of us would be able to just sit back and let it happen. Which of course means that there’d be a very real possibility that I could lose all of them. Then I told her that when I’m alone I see Jacob, bloody and dead with glassy eyes staring off into space. The worst part, of course, is the feeling that if I had just been a little faster to open the next vault I could’ve saved him.

As it turns out the two of us have similar fears. When she encounters a boggart it takes the form of one of her parents. Trouble is these versions of her parents have experienced the dementor’s kiss. So while they may appear to be alive and in front of her for the first time in years, they’re not really themselves anymore and they never will be again. Without their souls they may as well be dead. She sort of curled in on herself after that. I could tell that this was something she was very genuinely afraid of. Personally I couldn’t imagine what that feels like. After all, my mums might’ve gotten rather overprotective after Jacob disappeared, but at least they’re still around. At least I never have to question that they love me or that I’ll have someone in my corner should I need them. I’d never really thought about how not having her parents around must’ve effected Merula. Looking at her then though I’d have to say it couldn’t have had a positive impact, death eaters or not they were still her parents, it couldn’t have been easy to have them taken away. Since she’d gotten to ask me a serious question I decided to test my luck and ask her one as well. I asked her if she was ever afraid of what the future holds. She responded quietly that of course she was. Evidently she was worried that if she ever did get to see her parents again it’d be because she’d managed to get herself thrown in Azkaban as well. She’s well aware that most people seem to think that’s where she’s going to wind up anyway. She told me she’d tried to fight that belief when she was younger, but eventually it just got to be too much. She decided that if they all knew her so well she might as well just let them believe that they were right and that meanness and a belief in blood purity was all there was to her. Truth be told she didn’t really give a damn about blood purity. Her take on the matter was something along the lines of, “Even if I did, ‘s not like there’s a way you could ever actually create a world of only wizards and witches. We’re a major minority in the world. You’d have to get rid of every muggle on the planet, it just wouldn’t work. Another thing people can’t seem to understand is why the bloody hell would I want to join up with the arseholes who got my parents thrown in Azkaban anyway?”

She asked me the same question, and while I know I should’ve seen it coming it still took me a minute before I was really ready to answer. Once I’d pulled myself together I told her that I was afraid sometimes too. Sometimes I really worry that maybe Jacob really did go bad and that’s why he ran away. I worry that when I find him he won’t be my brother anymore. Instead he’ll be this stranger obsessed with blood purity and willing to betray everything we were raised to believe in. That he’d become a man who’d kill me at the first sign I didn’t agree with that insane philosophy. There’s also the possibility that maybe he’d have gone mad by the time I find him. He might still look like my brother, but without his mind I don’t know what I’d do. The brother I remember was kind, and sweet, and so undeniably curious about the world around him. We might’ve grown up surrounded by magic, but that doesn’t mean we knew everything about the world around us. Jacob had always been determined to find as many answers to our questions as he could. I can’t help but worry sometimes that his inability to answer everything on his own might’ve driven him crazy in the end. After all, everybody seems to think he’s mad anyway. Who am I to say for certain that he isn’t? After all I haven’t seen the bastard in years after he ran off.

She seemed surprised that I might hold any negative feelings about my brother, but ultimately decided not to comment about it. A decision I am immensely grateful for. I might’ve been willing to divulge my feelings about some things because of the rules of the game, but my feelings about my brother are beyond complicated and I have no idea where I’d even begin to explain them. We just sat quietly for a while after that whole ordeal. It’s kind of amazing in a sad sort of way how two questions can feel like so much. In the end I think both of us needed time to process not only what we’d just revealed about ourselves, but what we’d learned about each other as well. On the bright side, during this time I was able to work up the courage to check the door. Before I opened it I told her that if by some chance I did get caught I’d do my best to keep Filch from coming in. Thankfully it didn’t come to that. Filch had apparently given up on finding whatever had set Mrs. Norris off and had moved on while we’d been playing our game.

I eased the door to without closing it entirely before turning to tell Merula that it was safe for us to leave now. Once I had I turned away from her to leave. No point in waiting around after all. That’d just increase our chances of getting caught and I was in no mood to deal with whatever sick punishment he’d think up for me, or all the bitching about the house points I’d lost I’d have to endure afterwards. I hadn’t moved more than a step forward before I felt a hand on my wrist. I turned once again to face Merula and ask why she’d stopped me. She didn’t give me the chance to before telling me that nothing either of us had said was to leave this room. She also told me that I shouldn’t expect us to be friends now. Just because we happen to have a few things in common doesn’t mean we could ever really get along. Funny thing is she wouldn’t look at me while she was saying it. Almost seemed like she was sad we were leaving. It makes me wonder how often she ever has people actually acknowledge her feelings. Merula might be a right pain in the ass sometimes, but she doesn’t deserve to feel alone in the world. It’s shit like that that causes the fucked up situations we’ve both found ourselves in.

Anyways, that was that. We left the room and parted ways. I still don’t understand why she’s so against being my friend. Truth be told I don’t think I’d mind much if she ever changed her mind on the matter. I don’t really think that she’s all that she tries to appear to be. If what she said in the room holds true then I’m right in my assumption. I think that she was raised to behave a certain way and she doesn’t know how to handle the fact that who she really is conflicts with that. So, since trying to combat people’s preconceived notions about who she is didn’t work out for her, she lashes out and puts on this facade of superiority to try and convince others that she is exactly who they think she is instead. I think she believes if she can convince enough other people to believe that then maybe one day she’ll manage to convince herself as well. Trouble is we both know that isn’t how the world works. You can fight who you are all you want, but in the end there are some things you just can’t change.

[creative-type]

Monster of the Salt Rock Hills VIII

First

Previous

AO3

AN: I had some very nice reviewers who helped inspire me to bust out this chapter sooner than intended. If anyone says that reader feedback isn’t helpful, tell them that they are full of lies. 

That being said, I don’t know when the next chapters will be up, as I know the ending but not exactly how I’ll get there. Doing this project has given me a newfound respect for mystery authors

Chapter Eight: The Case Against Isla Clark (and the Trouble with Remembering)

While it was easy enough to find the local jail, it quickly became apparent that getting inside would not be quite so simple. Rizaek barred the entrance, scrawny arms folded across a chest puffed out in a failed attempt to appear intimidating. His winged horse was nowhere to be seen, and without it he just seemed…young.

“Go avay,” he said in his thick Orcish accent. “You no belong here.”

“You know, that’s the second time you’ve said that in as many days,” Lyra said dangerously, strolling forward with a panther’s grace, and just as eager to pounce.

Rizaek frowned, shifting his weight uneasily. Thistle remembered that Rhys said he’d found him mucking stalls. It was only a guess, but she got the impression that out of Rhys’s team Rizaek was the most inexperienced. Perhaps that was something they could use to their advantage.

Thistle nudged Brent. “Tell him why we’re here.”

“What? Why me?” Brent asked.

“You’re the only one here that speaks his language,” Thistle said in a low tone. “The only way we’re going to figure this out is if we can actually talk to one another.”

“I don’t know that much Orcish,” Brent protested. “I’ll just screw things up.”

“Please—“

“Vat is it?” Rizaek snapped. “Vhy you talking?”

Brent looked like mouse that had been cornered by a hungry cat. Thistle offered him a smile that he couldn’t see, causing his cheeks to darken with embarrassment. He cleared his throat and said something in halting, broken Orcish, gesturing first to the shoes in Thistle’s hands, and then to the jailhouse.

Rizaek cocked his head as Brent spoke, listening carefully before giving a sharp, barking answer.

“Yeah, like you’re accent’s any better,” Brent growled. “Are you going to let us in or not?”

Rizaek snorted, lifting his head in challenge as he replied. Thistle thought she heard the word ‘berserk’, but Brent’s indignant reply was cut off as Rizaek drew himself up to full height. Even standing on the jailhouse stairs he barely reached eyelevel with Brent, but that didn’t keep him from launching into a vitriolic speech that quickly became too much for Brent’s limited linguistic skills.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Brent said. “He asked if I was going to go into a rage if he didn’t let us in. That’s ridiculous.”

“True. It has been, like, three days since the last time you lost control,” Lyra said sardonically.

Brent’s entire face flushed scarlet, and Thistle couldn’t tell if he was more angry or embarrassed. “That was unkind,” she said.

“It was a joke,” Lyra said dismissively. “Now is this pipsqueak going to let us in, or are we going to have to start breaking things?”

Thistle felt her stomach twist into knots. Was she so incapable that she couldn’t get into a simple jail? There had to be a way out of this that didn’t end in violence, but everyone in the Salt Rock Hills was too busy being angry and defensive that no one would listen to anyone but themselves. She turned back to Brent.

“Could you understand anything else? Did he tell you why we can’t go in?”

“Not really,” Brent mumbled. “I think Rhys told him not to, but I didn’t catch a reason.”

“Can he do that? Legally, doesn’t Isla have the right for representation?” Thistle asked.

Lyra laughed, “Oh, so we’re her lawyers now? That’s rich.”

“I’m saying that there are limits to what Rhys can and cannot do,” Thistle said, her temper quickly fraying. “He’s a mercenary for goodness sake, just the same as we are! We’re not trying to interfere with their investigation, we’re trying to prevent an innocent person from being accused of something they didn’t do.”

There was a beat of silence. Brent scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I’m not going to be able to translate all that.”

“And to be honest, we kind of are trying to interfere,” Lyra added with a crooked smile. “You just want to do it the nice way.”

“Well, that’s better than hitting people in the face, and I’m not hearing any better ideas.”

Thistle regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep or the mounting frustrations of the past several days, but she wasn’t able to censure herself like she usually did. But once said, the words couldn’t be unspoken.

disgraceful. stupid, acting like a child who hasn’t got their way. what are you trying to do, convince them that you’re just another arrogant mage? dirty words from a dirty, filthy monster

“I’m sorry,” Thistle said, taking a small step backward for added protection against the inevitable blowback. “I…I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

Rizaek, perhaps upset at being ignored, added one, final remark that made Brent spin around with his teeth bared. The pupils of his eyes dilated until there was only a sliver of hazel left, his jaw jutting out to accommodate expanding canines.

Rizaek stumbled backward, tripping on the top stair of the jailhouse and falling on his backside. He looked Brent in the eye and sneered, “Typical skotina.”

“I am not…!” Brent ground his teeth together, shaking with the effort to keep himself under control. “I’m not the one arresting people in the middle of the night! What kind of person drags someone out of their house without letting them put on their %&$# shoes? We’ve played along with your stupid games long enough, and if anyone around here’s acting like an animal it’s your %&#!@&# boss. We’re not the ones running around attacking people and we’re not the ones calling people dirty names. So before you go talking about things you don’t understand, you should ask yourself why you’re working for a jerk who doesn’t care for anything but his own big, fat head. ‘Cause if I were you, I’d be wondering how he’s gonna react when he finds out you let us through that door.”

Brent stomped over Rizaek’s prone body and threw open to door of the jailhouse. Thistle looked to Lyra worriedly, but the elf only shrugged. “Not exactly a masterclass in rhetoric, but if it works, it works.”

They followed the path that Brent had blazed, Thistle sparing half a glance as Rizaek struggled back to his feet. He muttered something under his breath, and she thought she saw the telltale golden shimmer of Mum’s magic.

Thistle hurried inside and shut the door behind her before placing the palm of her hand against the rough wood. She forced herself to take a deep breath, focusing her senses to their sharpest point. Suddenly Thistle could hear the rats scurrying under the floorboards and could make out every detail in the worm-eaten wood. The air smelt of dust and alcohol…but also of rot and bitterness and anger that had seeped into the very foundations of the building, and she could taste the claustrophobic feeling of confinement. Beneath her fingertips she felt law imposing its will over chaos and evil, but not always succeeding. Once this had been an important place, but lately it had been left empty save for the same few vagabonds and scoundrels that existed in every small town.

All magic existed in this space beyond the senses, and superimposed over the very essence of the jail Mum had laid his work, concealing his magic within the nooks and crannies of the metaphysical world. The same delicate webs that had made up the bug the day before crisscrossed in an intricate lattice, layering into a complex spell that Thistle had never seen outside of books.

A cold bead of sweat formed on Thistle’s forehead. She had known Mum was powerful, but it seemed like she had underestimated his technical skill. It was one thing to lay wards to prevent Isla from escaping, it was another to be able to hide them so thoroughly. It would take time to pick apart such a sophisticated spell, and Thistle wasn’t sure if there was any amount of raw power that would be able to overcome it.

If Mum had taken the time to lay such a complicated spell, it stood to reason he would have included some way to monitor it while he was away. Thistle had to assume that he could see and hear everything they were saying and doing.

The thought made her knees want to turn into jelly, but Thistle made herself join Lyra and Brent. Let Mum hear. There wasn’t any law that said they couldn’t talk to Isla about what had happened.

“You okay?” Lyra asked.

“I’m fine,” Thistle mumbled. “Just don’t touch the bars. It’ll make Rufilio’s mage kit feel like a tickle.”

Lyra’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. And thank you for trying,” Thistle said to Brent. “I didn’t think he would go off on you like that.”

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything except yell at a kid.”

Brent hung his head despondently, and Thistle wanted to say something, but this didn’t feel like the place or the time. Instead she turned her attention back to their mission at hand.

Despite being its only occupant, Isla Clark had been put in the jail’s smallest cell. It was bare save for a rough wooden bench that ran across the back of the ten by ten foot room and a bucket that served as her toilet. She sat in the farthest corner, half-hidden by shadow. Her short, greying hair was uncombed, and for the first time Thistle noticed how she’d let her bangs grow long, partially obscuring her vision. Dark circles from a sleepless night framed dead, unblinking eyes, and she was still wearing the loose-fitting shirt and trousers she used as pajamas.

“Isla, are you all right?” Thistle asked, before realizing that was a wholly inadequate question. Of course she wasn’t all right after everything that had happened. “Did Rhys do anything to you?”

Isla turned her head, as if seeing her three visitors for the first time. She made a noise that was almost a laugh. “You mean besides arrest me? Why are you here?”

“We, uh, brought your shoes,” Lyra said helpfully.

“Fat load of good they’ll do me here,” Isla said. “As soon as arrangements are made Rhys is going to have me Teleported to Crossroads. I don’t expect I’ll be allowed my own clothes in the prison there.”

“He’s going to take you all the way to Crossroads?” Thistle said.

“Don’t have the resources to keep and trail me here,” Isla said. She spoke with an eerie calmness that bordered on unsettling. “Shouldn’t you be on the road by now?”

“We were worried about you. Dr. Malady is worried about you,” Thistle said. Isla flinched at the name. “We’re trying to fix this, but we need your help. Please, can you tell us what happened the night you were attacked?”

“I told you and I told that elf, I don’t remember!” Isla said, burying her head in her hands. “Don’t you think I haven’t tried? If I knew what came out of the mines I wouldn’t be sitting in this cell. Those horses wouldn’t have been killed, and Marco and Lucian wouldn’t have died for nothing. I just…I can’t.”

“So you’re just going to sit there and let Rhys get away with this?” Lyra said.

Isla looked up at Lyra, utter defeat in her eyes. “I don’t know what else I can do but stand trial. When I didn’t confess Rhys threatened to bring in a truthseeker, but I refused.”

“Truthseeker?” Brent asked, looking towards Thistle for an explanation.

“A mage specially trained to look into a person’s memories,” Thistle said, a pit of unease growing in her stomach.

“If they can see your memories that would clear everything up, wouldn’t it?” Brent asked. “I mean, they could tell you’ve not gone out cutting up winged horses.”

Isla’s expression hardened. “It will be a cold day in hell before I let anyone in my head.”

“Truthseeking isn’t a very exact magic,” Thistle added. “They might have a hard time finding the memories they want, and if the subject fights back against them, even subconsciously, it could cause a lot of harm.”

“How much harm?” Lyra asked.

“People have died,” Thistle said, “others left in permanent vegetative states. There are laws against using mind magic against someone who hasn’t given their expressed permission.”

What Thistle didn’t say was that judges and investigators might assume the guilt of anyone who refused a truthseeker, especially if they didn’t understand the risks of the spell even under ideal conditions. Memory was a fickle thing, and there were some mages who questioned whether such evidence should be admitted into court at all.

Even when one ignored the technical flaws of truthseeking, there was the ethical question of whether anyone had the right to delve into the mind of another. Thistle certainly didn’t want anyone mucking about her memories, digging at things that were best left forgotten. She could understand why Isla might feel the same way.

“Okay, so truth magic bad,” Lyra said. “Why in the world does Rhys think you did it in the first place?”

Isla smiled, an automaton trying to replicate human emotion and not quite succeeding. Her demeanor had shifted from unsettling to almost scary. It was the look of someone who knew they had lost and didn’t care. Thistle found herself wishing that she would cry, or yell, or do something to prove there was still something left underneath her emotionless mask.

“It’s simple,” Isla said. “The horses were killed by a mage and I’m the only mage left in the Hills.”

“We didn’t see any proof that they were killed magically,” Brent said, brows furrowing together in confusion.

“You saw the cuts, didn’t you?” Isla said. “According to Mum they’re uniform. No jagged edges, each one perfectly clean. That includes the laceration to the sternum and that had to work through the breastbone. Either someone was able to wield a broadsword with surgical precision or magic was involved.”

Isla rested her head against the wall of her cell and sighed. “I thought he didn’t listen when I said there was something different about these most recent killings, but I guess I was wrong.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t you?” Brent asked. He yelped when Lyra elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “What, I’m only asking! You have to admit it looks pretty bad.”

“I didn’t kill anything,” Isla said flatly, “but I can’t figure it out. All the horses I saw with Marco and Lucian had been torn to pieces, not cut. If the wings really are missing maybe someone is poaching them, but I can’t imagine how they’re catching the things. Winged horses are smart animals.”

Silence fell like a lead blanket over the jailhouse. They had more information, but the only thing they’d succeeded in doing was to further muddy the waters. Thistle drew her hand over her mouth, thinking hard. “You said whatever attacked you came from the abandoned mines. How do you know?”

“It’s around there where most of the horses were dying and the only thing we hadn’t explored,” Isla said. She closed her eyes as a pained expression passed over her features. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? I don’t understand why you’re still here. There’s nothing in it for you.”

“You said you didn’t do it. That’s reason enough for me,” Thistle said.

“Yeah, I’m not that nice, but someone’s got to make sure you get a fair shake,” Lyra said while Brent nodded in agreement.

Isla snorted, and for a moment something that was almost amusement twinkled in her eyes. It quickly faded. “Marco was the same way. He helped me out of a dark place, you know. Offered me a job, let me stay with him and his wife while I got my life pulled back together. He was newly certified when he hired me, and neither of us knew what we were doing. Made lots of mistakes, learned a lot along the way.” She picked absentmindedly at the hem of her shirt, preferring to look at a rust stain on the floor than meet their eyes.

“Lucian was newer. He’d been a life-long subcontractor, but left his old group after a disagreements split the party apart. I didn’t know him as well. He didn’t talk much about himself, but he added some much-needed experience to our group. This was our first big job together as a team. Marco could barely contain himself when we landed the contract. It felt like things were finally starting to go our way.

“Marco was an expert trapper, and after leaving the Academy I specialized in runic magic. Lucian was our heavy-hitter. It seemed like a good balance for a job like this, but every time a horse was killed we couldn’t find a single sign of what had done it. No footprints, no snapped branches, no bits of fur or blood…nothing.” Isla looked up at them, as if searching for something. “What kind of animal doesn’t leave behind a single trace of their presence?”

Unfortunately, they didn’t have an answer, and after a moment Isla continued her story.

“Anyway, the locals didn’t want us going into the mines, and Marco didn’t like the idea of chasing after something in its natural habitat when we didn’t even know what it was we were chasing. So he had me spell some spectacles for night vision, stuck each of us at different points around the mine’s opening, and set up a watch to see if we could identify the thing.”

Isla hugged herself tightly. “I don’t know how to describe what happened. Sometimes I think I imagined the whole thing, or that it was all a dream…I was unconscious for so long, I don’t know what’s real and what’s just in my head. Sometimes it feels like it’s right there, just out of reach. Sometimes I think I want to remember, but other times…I don’t know. What’s there now is bad enough. I’m not sure I could take any more.”

Thistle inched as close as Mum’s wards would allow. “I know it’s hard, but anything you could tell us would help. If it gets too painful we’ll understand.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Isla said hollowly, as if she’d memorized the words by rote. “There’s nothing anyone can do to bring them back.”

“No, but if Rhys is right someone has been poaching the winged horses they died trying to protect.”

Slowly Isla nodded, and Thistle waited while she gathered herself once more. Thistle could almost feel Lyra and Brent’s impatience, but this wasn’t something that could be rushed. If Dr. Malady was anyone to go by, they were about to hear something that Isla had never said aloud, a loadstone that she’d carried for the long, lonely months since Marco and Lucian’s deaths.

“It was about midnight when I first felt it,” Isla said. “It came on me so slowly I didn’t notice until it was too late. I just knew. The monster was there, and it was going to kill me.”

“Did you see it?” Lyra asked.

“No, I felt it. I was being hunted.” Isla shook her head in frustration. “I’ve been a mercenary for almost five years, and nothing has ever scared me as bad as sitting out in those Hills did. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, but I swear it was there watching me. Waiting for the perfect time to strike. I…I panicked.”

She fell silent again. “It was when I started running that I heard the chains. The faster I ran the louder they got, until I couldn’t hear myself think. I used to think I knew what fear felt like, but until that night I’d only had a taste. I must have lost my spectacles, because I couldn’t see where I was going and tripped on a patch of loose stone. I knew it was going to attack me, so I kicked at it to protect myself. That’s when it got my foot.

“It had blue fire where its eyes should have been, and its body was made out of shadow darker than the moonless night. I wasn’t thinking when I tried to call light. I wasn’t thinking anything at all except that I was going to die.” Isla’s shoulders slumped, and she ran her fingers through her hair. “I must have done something, because it let go. I heard Marco…or maybe it was Lucian. The last thing I saw before passing out was Lucian jumping on its back.”

“With his sword drawn?” Brent asked.

“I think so, but sometimes I wonder if that’s just what I want to remember, or if I only remembered after being told Lucian’s sword was missing. I honestly don’t know.”

“But if you called light then you must have been able to see more than just the blue fire,” Lyra said.

“The only thing I saw was a shadow,” Isla insisted. “At first I thought it was a great hulking dog monster, but other times I remember wings like a bat. Mostly…mostly there was just shadow.” She shuddered. “I didn’t need to see it to know it was a monster.”

“Thank you for trusting us,” Thistle said. “I know it’s not easy.”

“It’s my fault Marco and Lucian died,” Isla said quietly. “If I’d kept a clear head…”

“Then it might have killed you anyway,” Brent said interrupted forcefully.

Isla laughed that same humorless, dead laugh. “Maybe. I can’t help but wonder, though, if maybe all this isn’t the gods evening the scales. Do whatever you want, but there’s no changing that they’re dead and I’m not when it should be the other way around.”