#also this means that Clyde has a kill count

[illegallyexisting]

Ruth Arbeid

past patient of The Geiermann Asylum! She died because of a botched lobotomy.

[sungbeam]

𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐒 — part two (viii – xv)

nonidol!ji changmin x f!reader

your sister's dead, but apparently that's not the most shocking news. maybe she wasn't killed on accident, maybe ji changmin isn't really human, and maybe the monsters were never under the bed but all around you...

▷ genre, warnings. strangers 2 reluctant allies/friends 2 lovers, slow burn, demon/supernatural creatures au, angst, action, murder mystery-ish au, forced proximity trope, suspense, gore, depictions of violence and blood, themes of death and grief, use/description of weaponry, swearing, a slightly unreliable narrator bc she has no idea what's happening, reader's sister is dead, humor bc coping mechanisms, almost drowning, drugged drinks, kidnapping, reader has hair long enough to braid sorry, beheading, mentions of skinning someone, blood drinking, the barest of proofreading and editing, ending might feel super rushed (_ _;)

▷ part word count. 25.1k words / 47.4k - read part one here

a/n: hi again 🧍🏻‍♀️ don't try to read this without the part prior. thanks bye!! don't forget to reblog. also big thanks to @justalildumpling for reading all this thru for me :') one of the biggest reasons why this exists finished.

#8—HELL'S FAVORITE ANGEL.

SOMETHING YOU NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT, funnily enough, was what the Hell did Ji Changmin keep in the trunk of his car?

At one point, you'd mused about a body. And then the musing became too real, and you swept it under the proverbial rug. Now, you had to lift the corner of the rug to let the demon crawl back out. You weren't sure if you were going to grimace or scream.

"I fear this won't just be dirty gym socks in the trunk," you muttered while trailing behind the angel and demon with a frown.

Jacob let out a laugh. "Oh, you'll see. It's a lot cooler than dirty gym socks."

That sparked your interest. "Cooler? Can Changmin even be that?"

Changmin whipped an unappreciative scowl over his shoulder at you to the melody of Jacob's second laugh within thirty seconds. "For your information," he drawled with a huff, "Hell is cooler than Heaven."

"Okay, which part of Hell are we talking about?" Jacob snorted. "Do you still have my blade?"

"Oh, yeah. The human has it."

You rolled your eyes. "Oh, so I'm 'the Human' now? And what do you mean I have—" You stopped short and unsheathed Clyde from your pocket. "You mean Clyde?" You gawked at the switchblade in your hand, then at the angel who peered curiously between you, the blade, and Changmin. The lines between dots were materializing in your horizon. "Wait, so when Changmin said he won this in a poker game?—"

"Yes, that's Jacob's blade," Changmin finished with a rather smug gleam in his eyes.

Jacob tilted his head. "You named it Clyde?"

You pursed your lips slightly, your fingers curling around the weapon. "Yes."

"That's cute."

You smiled. "I knew I liked you for a reason."

Changmin made a noise of indignation and marched onward across the town square to his car.

You and Jacob fell into step beside one another as you followed after the tempestuous hellspawn.

Clyde, in your hands, seemed to warm at the presence of his original owner. You chewed on the inside of your cheek before extending the switchblade out to him. "I think this belongs to you."

Jacob shook his head. "No, no. He won it fair and square, and I see he's given it to you. It's no longer his to bargain."

"What do you mean by that?" You asked.

He chuckled, "Ah, well you see—back when he won the poker game, I was salty enough to challenge him to a sparring match to win the angel blade back from him, but we had to put it on hold for reasons."

"So what's gonna be put up for grabs from the sparring match now?"

He pointed to the trunk of Changmin's car. "You're gonna love this."

Practically jogging over to where Changmin was already stationed behind the trunk of his car, Jacob hurried you along. The lid of the trunk rose unceremoniously as you rounded the back end and you found only a long, black case spanning the width of it.

You made a face. "What is it?" You asked, silently thanking whoever was looking after you for not putting a dead body in the back.

Changmin stood between you and Jacob, seemingly reluctant to lean down and unlock the case.

Your breath hitched in your throat at the sight of what laid inside.

There was a long, slim blade made of a metal similar in looks to obsidian, but you highly doubted Changmin would covet a mortal mineral like this. It seemed to hum, in fact, something you knew no human material could do on its own. There was something about its surface that made it wink in purples and blues.

Changmin gently pried the sword out from its molding and held it by the handle. When it was brought to the light, shadows seemed to swirl and curl around the length like creeping vines up a trellis. "The Bonnie to your Clyde," he said lowly, fondly, even as he brushed the pads of his fingers over the flat side over the foreign characters carved into the material.

"You know what an angel blade is, Yn. Now you've seen a demon blade," Jacob said with a wide grin splitting his face in awe.

You couldn't help but share that sentiment. Thus was cool as fuck. "You're telling me you had a demon blade back here this whole time?" Where was this when you'd almost gotten murdered on a motel bedroom floor?

Changmin was just as careful returning the blade back to its case as he had been taking it out. "Yes, and it's gonna stay back here."

Jacob gave a sprite-like giggle. "Wah, your audacity is appalling. It's just gonna make kicking your butt even more fun."

Well, this should be interesting.

The rules of the match were simple.

"No claws or teeth," said Jacob.

"No wings," Changmin shot back.

It looked like Jacob was about to stick his tongue out at his opponent just then. "No tail!"

From your perch at a safe distance away from the two of them on the inn porch, you called out, "You have a tail?"

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Changmin almost seemed bashful. "In my demon form," he stammered. "Okay, so no supernatural appendages."

"And no out of realm abilities," Jacob added. "Just plain and simple fisticuffs."

With a large majority of the pack members having cleared out go down to Moonstone Creak, it left the entirety of town center for a showdown between an angel and a demon. The atmosphere reminded you of an old Midwest duel with a pistol per man, and ten-paces-fire mentality. Part of you was sorry you weren't going to see their non-mortal forms, but the more you thought about it, the more you realized that was probably a good thing to keep your dreams clear at night.

You weren't sure what to expect from this.

"Best out of three?" Changmin drawled, shaking the hair out of his eyes.

Jacob brushed his own mane back. "Sure. It won't make much of a difference anyways. Count us off, would you please, Yn-ah?"

You straightened at the sound of your name. "Uhm—yeah, okay. How will each round end?"

"With Jacob's back on the ground."

Jacob's eyebrows flew up, and his smile grew teeth. "Oh, hoo! I see we like talking smack with an audience around. Okay, fine." To you, he said while pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, "Each round ends when the other yields."

You nodded warily. "Okay… ready then?"

The hairs on your arms and the back of your neck stood erect as both of them sunk into position, their facial expressions morphing into twin slates of stone. While they were different creatures, they seemed to share the same predatorial sharpness in their eyes.

You swallowed. "Set—begin."

You were certain that they both agreed to prohibit the use of "out of realm abilities," but the ground rumbled when they pounced at each other. It was fascinating, really, how well they both performed hand to hand combat. Each hit seemed to be just as calculated as the next—one predicting the other's moves.

A complicated dance played out before your eyes and you sat on the porch steps too enraptured—or too nervous—to move. Changmin twisted Jacob's arm behind his back, but the angel was swift to counter and slip out.

You had never seen so much power behind an uppercut; never seen any human force their opponent back so hard that dust kicked up when his heels dug into the ground.

You weren't sure how or when it would end—

Changmin swore as Jacob grappled onto his forearm from behind and swung the demon over his shoulder.

You thought it was over.

Changmin's feet hit the ground though, and on they went.

It was during this drawn-out match that you realized there was probably only one way to really beat an equally matched opponent. They were trying to tire the other one out.

Lost in thought, you all but missed it—the maneuver that Changmin used to suddenly have Jacob pinned to the ground, knees digging into the latter's neck.

"Yield," the demon grunted.

There was a flash of movement, and Changmin swiftly released Jacob from his hold.

He locked eyes with you. "He yielded."

"I didn't think you would let him go if he hadn't," you replied, your thumb running over the butt of the angel blade.

Jacob laid on his back with his face to the sky. "Dude, I think we're finally getting the hang of these mortal bodies."

Changmin smiled, shaking his head, "Yeah, and after how long?" He offered his friend a hand and hauled him to his feet. "I remember when you almost jumped out of a tree and forgot you couldn't just sprout wings."

"Listen," Jacob lamented with a wince, "that was one time. And you said we were racing, and my instinct was to fly."

"Born cheater."

"Born hater."

You raised your hand from the sidelines. "So, one to nil. Shall we continue, boys?"

It seemed once you'd reminded them of their purpose for roughing it in the town square, they were back to focus. This time, both were a little out of breath. You guessed that they were pretty damn close to evenly matched then—there was a balance to the pair with Jacob having grander, stronger movements, and Changmin doling out smaller, agiler maneuvers. They were two sides of the same coin, angel and demon.

The second round always generated a heightened bout of tension compared to the first. For the winner of the prior round, this could be his game point of the match; to the loser, it was his opportunity to get even.

You watched their stances steel over, the backs of their heels firmly on the earth. "Ready—begin."

It started off similar to the first time, Intl a little more calculated. With the stakes rising, it was crucial to make the right hits.

Changmin struck first—he had less to lose. An attempted double kick to the stomach ended with his foot caught in Jacob's grasp. The angel twisted; the demon tumbled, taking his foe to the dirt with him.

On they went, and at times, you couldn't even decide who had the upper hand.

From somewhere to your left, you heard the wood on the porch creak. You turned to find Kevin hopping over the railing and making his way over to you, a blue-colored bandana hanging from his fingers. He offered you a smile. "Hey."

"Hey," you said, scooting over to make room for him on the step. "I thought you were heading the search party?"

"Yeah, I still am," he replied. He wasn't even paying much attention to the duo brawling out in the square, just you. "We were about to leave when I realized that my entire party doesn't know what the pendant smelled like, so I was wondering if I could just clean your pendant off with this to carry the scent?" He gestured with the piece of fabric in his hand. "That way, you won't have to be uncomfortable with a bunch of people coming to smell your necklace," he reasoned while cupping the back of his neck.

"Oh, that's a novel idea."

From out in the dirt and sun, Changmin's eyes caught the two of you on the steps of the inn and got half his face rightly smashed into the ground. It was only a split second, but even a split second was mistake enough.

Jacob pressed him down with his entire body weight, and leaned in close with a grin, "Yield, little Hellspawn."

Changmin groaned, but yielded.

As he had done for Jacob, the angel yanked him up off the ground, spitting dirt out from his mouth and wiping it from his eyes.

"Sorry," Jacob said, not very apologetically.

Changmin grimaced as he stumbled over to the fountain at town center and dunked his face in. He furiously scrubbed the dirt off his face and rinsed his mouth. Yuck.

He pulled himself out of the water, refreshed. Brushing his dampened hair back, he blinked the water out of his eyes to see if Kevin had left yet. He hadn't, actually, and still sat next to you. Something he said made you laugh, but then he was leaving, your gaze following—Changmin noticed the slowness in Kevin's gait, how reluctant he was to leave.

"Hmm, didn't think you'd ever eat dirt again after all these years, but I guess there will always be exceptions," Jacob mused. He stretched out his calves and arms, keeping his muscles alive and perked up for the final round. It was one to one after all.

"I was distracted," Changmin said simply. "He wasn't supposed to be here."

Jacob hadn't been blind to Kevin's presence at the inn steps either. His smile turned sly. "Now why would Kevin being here distract you? Curious, curious."

Changmin raised the collar of his shirt up to dry his face as the two of them strolled back to their sparring ground.

You were currently sending him a look with your head tilted to the side in question. Did he dump you in the fountain? You seemed to ask.

He shook his head, making a motion with his hands about how Jacob won the match. To his opponent, he murmured, "She's getting attached."

"And that's a bad thing?"

His automatic thought was no, you getting attached to these people, this place, was not a bad thing. He remembered your state of being back at the college town and how alone you'd been there. Here, it seemed you had people who would care about you, at least. With so much time spent in the mortal realm, he'd learned just how much humans needed each other.

But then again, you and he had a job to finish. "We have to leave soon."

Jacob adjusted the sleeves of his shirt once again since they fell at some point during the match. "Doesn't mean you can't come back."

He wasn't wrong. You seemed, upon reflection, content here. He passed you a glance, but you took that as a signal to start the match.

Changmin and Jacob dropped into their respective stances and charged when given the word.

As soon as Jacob's back hit the ground, you knew it was over. The last round drew out much longer than the preceding ones, and though they both fought fiercely, it was done with exhaustion sewn between each huffing breath, each reeled punch. A fight like this wasn't worth wasting all that energy on, anyway.

"Bonnie stays with you for now, I suppose," Jacob chuckled as the two of them clasped each other's hands in a show of good sportsmanship. Sweat dripped from their bangs and down the slopes of their noses and sculpted jawlines.

Changmin shook his head, "The sword is permanently going to be called Bonnie, isn't it?"

"You did this to yourself, you know." You walked over to them, hands propped on either side of your hips.

"I did," he agreed with his lips pressed together. The dimple in his cheek still threw you off your rocker. "Well, since I have so much dirt in my hair now—"

"Hey! I have to go switch shirts because of you!" Jacob chortled, motioning to his own white T-shirt stained a dusty brown on his back and front, and more on his pants.

"Ah, you need to shower anyways," Changmin quipped back.

Jacob made a waving gesture over his shoulder as he headed back toward the pack house to take that shower. "Yeah, yeah. I can say the same thing about you, Ji."

While Jacob went in his own direction, you and Changmin trudged back over to the inn so he could clean himself up. You wondered how much he really did need to get cleaned up, since you noted no blood or bruises, but the latter wouldn't show up for another couple hours if there were any.

Wait, was that how demon bruising worked—?

"I can hear your mind racing, Yn," Changmin drawled as he hiked up the stairs next to you.

"Not literally, right? I just have to make sure," you added on at the end when he looked over at you.

He absentmindedly scratched his jaw. "No, not literally. You're just easy to read."

Your expression flattened. "Oh."

"Hm."

"Okay, well you owe me some answers." You amended, folding your arms over your chest, "A lot of them, actually."

The sigh that fell from his lips was a familiar one, and he turned his head over his shoulder to check that there wasn't anyone else around. There wouldn't have been since it was only the two of you staying here, and the auntie who ran the inn was somewhere downstairs. "Let's talk in my room."

"Your room?" You squabbled incredulously. To you, Changmin seemed like the type to like his privacy, especially when he got a room to himself. But you questioned no further and he made no additional comments as the two of you entered the space that was his bedroom.

The room itself was similar to yours, but flipped. The wall on the far left was his room shared with yours, his bed pressed up against the far right. The shutters in here remained closed and angled upward so the sunlight outside could peer through, but only at a faint glow. It was enough to get around, at least. The space was spotless, bed unslept in. The sheets were still tucked tightly into place and his backpack sat in the armchair in the corner.

"You didn't sleep?" You voiced aloud, shutting the door behind you while he made a beeline for his backpack. You knew sleep wasn't a demonic necessity, but even so, sleeping for leisure was still something he indulged in, right?

He dug through its contents for a spare shirt and pants to change into after his shower. "No, I went out last night."

Your head perked up from where you'd settled on the very foot of the bed. "Where?"

"The woods—where else?" As if that were obvious. "The circles of Hell are pretty much dark all the time anyway," he said while passing by you to get to the bathroom door. He dumped his clothing items onto the counter and you heard him rip the shower curtain open. "It was—it was just, you know, like exercise and shit. Nothing important."

You opened your mouth to say something, then closed it, losing your train of thought.

The bathroom door shut, but you could still hear the stream of water running behind it.

Did living like this make him uncomfortable? Was he used to moving from place to place, never making a permanent home?

"Changmin." You raised your voice so he could hear you from through the door and over the water.

A faint, "Yeah?"

"What you said, back there during the advising board meeting, when they asked if there was more of this pendant—" You fingered the stone again. There was no one here to gawk at it. "—you said that this wasn't the only one."

For a moment, he didn't answer, and you thought that perhaps he didn't hear you.

Then, "Your sister, she—she had the other half."

You peered down at the stone in your hand and watched its blood ruby surface pulse. If you were careful, you could just barely make out the duller edge versus the sharper one, no doubt where Sena's half would have been. It hadn't even occurred to you that this was only half the necklace, like a locket.

You asked him the next reasonable question. "Where is it?" It hadn't been in the lockbox, nor had it been on her person when she died or at the funeral. Did he have it?

"I'm not sure actually."

Those four words settled heavily over your shoulders. He didn't know. There had to be some connection with how she died then. Someone took it off her body—

"Is that—" The bathroom door opened. You hadn't even realized he finished and was dressed, "—what we're looking for then? You said we have to go to one of her safe houses to find the thing she messaged you about. Is that the thing? Is whoever was following us earlier—were they after my half?"

Changmin leaned against the bathroom door's frame, freshly rinsed off of dirt and grime and sweat, a new set of clothes on his body. He crossed his arms over his chest with a pensive gaze. "They probably were after your half, yes. I didn't really know what she wanted me to find, to be honest. I thought you would have her half, too, but when you only said you found one pendant in the lockbox, my mind shifted into believing she stashed hers in a safehouse somewhere."

That must have been why he reacted like he did that day… how he wanted you to be sure there wasn't anything else in the box.

He continued, "Sena was the one who poured over ancient texts and researched about this. I gave her context about supernatural things and was the muscle where need arose. She knew everything, and now I'm kind of kicking myself in the head for that." He massaged his jaw. "She mentioned something about an activator of sorts. I can't remember all the details, but it would be in one of her notebooks."

"We just have to find them," you murmured.

You and he locked eyes, and he nodded, a muscle feathering in his jaw. "Yeah."

You fiddled with a spare thread from the duvet cover by your hand. "And about the demons—you know, the lower level ones who have been popping up everywhere?"

"Those are easier beings to summon," he breathed out. "Anyone can summon them through a ritual and they'll do your bidding for the price of a sacrifice. Those are usually the ones people are calling upon with their… Ouija boards and pentagrams and shit." They seemed a lot more vicious than the ones that came with pentagrams, but you couldn't speak from experience.

You shuddered at the memory of those teeth engraved into your mind. If anyone could summon those kinds of demons, then it wouldn't necessarily be a demonic entity after your pendant. More details to consider, you supposed.

A thought occurred to him and you saw it come to the forefront of his mind like a lightbulb turning on. He disappeared back into the bathroom and returned with a little paper cup in his hand. He stirred something inside it with a wooden popsicle stick used for coffee and crafts.

"I, uhm…" He stepped toward you, apprehensively, with the paper cup. "I consulted the resident medic for some of that salve the wolves use for bruising. She didn't have anything on hand for humans, but she told me what herbs I could grab from the woods."

When he was close enough, you could see the greenish paste at the bottom of the cup. Your eyes widened in surprise, uncertain of what to do with all this information.

He stood in front of you, teeth biting down on his lip. "Can I see your neck?" His voice quieted at the end, and he cleared his throat.

You could feel your heart stutter in your chest. "Uhm, yeah. Sure." You carefully swept any stray pieces of hair from your neck and to the other side of your shoulder, tilting your head slightly to give him access to it. You didn't know exactly what this was going to do, but for some reason you trusted that it would help.

He took some of the paste onto the end of the popsicle stick and carefully dabbed it over the places where the demon teeth marks vandalized your skin. It was still purplish in some areas, darkened where the teeth had sunken in the deepest to pierce your esophagus. Shallower places had already begun to sallow, but clearly, it wasn't at a supernatural creature's pace by any means.

When he was finished he stepped back to inspect his handiwork. Neither of you had yet to say anything.

You let your hair fall back into place. "Thanks."

You couldn't read him again; you wish you could. "Yeah," he said.

#9—OUT OF REALM.

THE NIGHTS WERE WARM here in the little town of Moonstone Creak. The air was comfortable and settled so comfortably on your skin. No gooseflesh or raised hair or anything.

You sat on the front steps of the pack house to the sound of music being played in the square before you, and wondered if Sena had ever come across something like this in her travels. If she and Changmin had been business partners, so to speak, she must have come across a myriad of supernatural and divine beings.

A couple days had passed since you and Changmin first got here, and the wolves unfortunately were unable to find the source of your pursuers in the white car, who bore the same scent as the pendant around your neck. You almost forgot that was why you both were here in the first place.

A blur of fur flew past you as two wolf pups scrambled down the steps, one chasing the other's tail, in a game of tag. Seeing mothers hold their infant children between jaws of teeth was becoming less and less of a shock, and you found yourself smiling at the kids playing around in the square, beneath the hanging lanterns.

"This seat taken?" You glanced up to meet Kevin's boyish smile, a white dress shirt and board shorts hanging from his frame.

You welcomed him next to you with a smile. "Busy day?" You asked after having not seen him since he left breakfast this morning.

He gave a sigh, leaning back onto his palms. "A little, but it's always nice to take some of the younger ones out into the woods. It's how they build community and stamina."

The two of you peered out at the town center as those dancing around Lily and Sangyeon with their guitar and keyboard cheered to the end of the song. It was merry and vibrant and full of life; no wonder they lived in this pocket of the world—it was to preserve their serenity, and perhaps even their ways of life.

Kevin turned his head toward you. "What about you? How have you filled your day today?"

"Well," you started with a chuckle, "Haknyeon and Eric and I went down to the creak and they taught me how to snatch a fish out of the water with my bare hands."

His grin widened. "Oh, I see. So dinner tonight was on you?"

You snorted, shaking your head. "I would like to take credit for that massive hunk of salmon, but I could barely get my fish out of the water."

"It comes with practice," he assured you, eyes turned up in amusement. "Plus, Haknyeon and Eric have a bit of an advantage over you."

Ah, that was right. Wolf shifters were, for lack of better phrasing, “built different,” as you liked to say. They were stronger, faster, and more alert, with their five senses heightened to a scale you couldn’t put into words. You imagined that shifting between human and wolf forms took a lot of strength and energy, so it made sense in a way. There were also a few humans living among the wolves here besides yourself who either married into the community or simply moved in after visiting or doing business with the town’s inhabitants. You couldn’t blame them for that either. (A part of you, stewing in the back of your mind, humored the possibility of moving here yourself. It seemed almost too good to be true.)

You and Kevin watched as Jacob joined the fray with Eric in tow, the two of them starting a game of “Simon Says.” A thought occurred to you while you observed the angel; there was something distinctly absent from his silhouette. “Kevin?”

“Hm?”

“Why doesn’t Jacob have wings if he’s an angel?” For the entirety of your stay since you met him, he lacked the white-feathered wings characteristic of an angel. Of course, there was also a lack of halo, too, but you thought Jacob’s radiating warm personality was enough to make up for that loss.

Kevin straightened. “Oh, that’s an easy one—he’s in an energy-conserving form. That’s why you don’t see Changmin with the demon horns or tail and stuff. This human form is the base level of this realm, so it’s the most energy-conserving for them while they’re away from their native realms.”

You didn’t expect that your question would lead to a conversation about the mechanisms of the universe. You blinked, then shot him a look you expected told him exactly how you were feeling. “What?”

“Realms,” he repeated with a chuckle. “We have the mortal plane, which is where we are now; the Heavenly sphere, which is where the hierarchy of angels are; and then the circles of Hell.” He nudged your knee with the back of his hand and gestured for you both to move to the bottom step of the porch so he could draw you a diagram in the dirt. Kevin found a small rock lying by his feet and diagrammed the three realms.

“It looks like that,” he said once he was done. “Think of each as not levels, but more like separate rooms.”

You tilted your head at the drawing. “So Heaven and Hell really are just above and below us?”

“Not… exactly?” He winced. “More like pocket dimensions. That’s why energy conservation works how it does when it comes to bodily forms, rather than how humans usually explain it in physics.”

“Don’t expect me to know anything about that.”

He grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure this’ll make a lot more sense—there’s a whole lot less math involved. But then again, maybe human physics and this concept is more similar than I’m making it out to be.”

You lifted your shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I’d confirm or deny, but science was never really my area of expertise.”

“And what’s that? Your area of expertise,” he asked, dropping the rock back onto the ground and resting his cheek against his fist to turn his attention to you.

“Me? Well, I’m in finance and accounting.” You made a face at how human that sounded compared to the subject of your current conversation. Accounting did not measure up to talks of energy conservation and supernatural pocket dimensions. “It was just… kind of the practical route that I had in mind when going into college.” Practicality had driven so many of your decisions throughout your life. It was for the sake of keeping yours and your sister’s heads above water. Sena had never been afraid of chasing her dreams though, so you figured that you would support her and let her go out to do what she wished. But by the looks of where that got her, should you have done that? You didn’t really know.

Kevin bobbed his head. “Practicality is good,” he said softly. “You know, we just lost one of our bookkeepers in town. We could always use another.”

Warmth bloomed in your chest at the sentiment and you couldn’t ignore the tenderness of his gaze, but maybe you were making things up. Your heart pitter-pattered and the pendant at your collar echoed it. “Good to know.”

His lips curled into that pretty smile of his, and he sat up and waved his hand around. “But, uhm, going back to what we were talking about earlier… because Jacob and Changmin are both far away from their home realm, they need to exert a lot more energy to sustain a form that is less supported in this realm.”

You squinted, pursing your lips. “So like… a supernatural version of home court advantage?”

Now it was Kevin’s turn to pause. “Home court ad—I’m guessing that’s a human thing.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to worry about it,” you dismissed. To be fair, your high school had drilled the concept of home court advantage into your head in order to encourage more people to come to sports outings when your school was hosting. The phrase lived in your head because it was etched there. “Ah, so wait—if, let’s say, Changmin went to the Heavenly sphere…”

“If he had any reason to go there,” Kevin said with an ill-concealed grimace, “pray for him.”

That reply did nothing to reassure you. You swallowed, trying to imagine what would happen should Changmin find himself in Heaven, and if Jacob went to Hell. If this was their supported form one realm away… then what would it be two realms away?

“But don’t worry too much about it,” he added swiftly, “demons don’t usually find a reason to go to the sphere. And if there is a reason, they usually don’t stay long enough to find out how much energy it takes to maintain out of realm bodies.”

“Out of realm—I’ve heard that saying before when Changmin and Jacob were sparring a couple days ago. They both agreed not to use any out of realm abilities.”

He hummed cheerily, nodding. “Mmh, yeah. Out of realm usually just refers to the mortal plane here, and any form or abilities that aren’t ‘supported’ like flight or magic—”

“Magic?”

“That’s just what I’ve heard,” Kevin huffed a laugh. “I hope you never find yourself in any of the circles of Hell, Yn, but if you’re ever down there with Changmin, then ask him to turn a rock into a diamond necklace.”

Your eyebrows flew up to your hairline. “So you’re telling me he’s an alchemist?” You hadn’t even thought about what other things your demon counterpart was capable of besides attacking people and brooding.

“Not quite—”

“Alchemy isn’t really the word I would use to describe it,” came Changmin’s drawl from behind you.

You nearly fell backwards off the stairs if it hadn’t been for Kevin’s arm shooting out to grab your wrist. Your heart hammered against your ribcage as you shot Changmin a dirty look. “You—” you sputtered, trying to get your bearings, “—need to stop doing that!”

He quirked a single brow upward, quietly shoving another forkful of blueberry pancake into his mouth. “Not my fault you didn’t hear me coming.”

“I smelled you coming,” Kevin laughed, the sound brightening at the sound of your snort.

Changmin’s expression flattened. He swallowed his bite and impaled another. “Can I talk to you?” He directed the question to you, nudging you with the toe of his boot.

You and Kevin exchanged glances, but you hoisted yourself up from the porch steps, dusting any dirt from your pants. “Uh, sure. What about? Also, where did you get pancakes from at nine o’clock at night?”

The demon motioned with his chin to start walking in the direction of the inn across the square. “Lily had leftovers,” he said simply.

You hmphed and let it slide.

Since Changmin revealed to you that there was a second half to your pendant, you hadn't shared another long discussion pertaining to the real reason you were on this quest. He would often linger at the edges of crowds here, keeping to himself and the limited number of people he knew. He seemed to avoid interacting with most, and you wondered why that was. He wasn't… that scared of social interaction, was he?

Changmin leaned up against the wall of the inn and you perched across from him with your back to the porch railing. "I've been thinking."

"Is this a good thing?"

You raised your hands in innocence as he scowled at you. He sawed a chunk of pancake in half with the side of his fork before impaling it with the tines. "Sometimes you sound exactly like your sister."

"Sarcasm runs in Ln family blood, what can I say?" You mused. "So you were thinking."

He hummed. "Mmh. Well, I was thinking that—" he cleared his throat, his fingers brushing over his throat. "We've been here for a couple of days and nothing has seemed to crop up. There hasn't really been any immediate dangers and—" He wrinkled his nose, apparently annoyed at something.

You sobered a little. "What is it?"

He knocked the back of his fork against his skull. "You look—happy here. And safe, of course. You're safe here," he finally pushed out. His jaw worked as he speared his last piece of pancake and shoved it into his mouth.

Your eyes widened slightly. You didn't realize he was monitoring your mood like that, but you could agree that you definitely felt safer here than out there. "I… agree?" However, you still didn't know what direction this conversation was heading.

Changmin sighed, his brows creasing in frustration. "Yes, you agree. So, I think the best decision is that I leave you here and I go out and find the second half of the necklace."

What.

"Changmin, you—"

"Just hear me out," he said. "We've already been attacked twice because of that thing, and if we step foot out of these bounds, it's liable to happen again." He wrestled down a swallow. "You're just—better off here."

You idly rubbed the pendant over the fabric of your shirt. "You're serious."

"When am I not serious?"

Did he not trust his ability to keep an eye on you? Or no, it had to be you that was the problem. If you could fend for yourself, he wouldn't have to worry about being attacked all the damn time. His logic had grounds, and though you could breathe easy here, for some reason, letting him go after the second half didn't sit right with you.

You chewed on your bottom lip. "I think we should—"

The world stilled, the music screeched to a halt. The night air filled with the chilling sound of a howl.

You instinctively leaned away from the railing and came to stand beside Changmin, scanning the immediate premises for danger. The hair on your skin stood on its end, heartbeat quickening—

From the far end of town by the conventional entrance, a dark-furred wolf, followed by two others, charged in. You recognized the one at the front as Juyeon from the advising board.

The town center cleared; Lily was already corralling little ones into the pack house, her head on a swivel between Sangyeon and the wolves barreling back into town from the night watch. Kevin and Jacob were swift to join them.

Changmin's expression turned troubled. "Stay here."

"I'll hold your plate," you murmured, taking the plate and fork from him and backing up toward the entrance to the inn. The auntie who owned the establishment appeared at your side, ushering you in so she could lock the doors. This had to be some kind of protocol.

You set the plate and fork on the table in the parlor and pressed your face up against the window to watch the congregation at the town's entrance. From this distance, your sight wasn't nearly good enough to make out their individual expressions, but it didn't look good.

"Auntie?" You asked, fumbling for Clyde in your pocket. "What's going on?"

She peered over from where she was twisting lanterns to the off position. "Intruders," she answered.

You leapt out of your skin when the inn's front door handle was forced open.

Changmin and Kevin's heads whirled about the room until they found you. "We're leaving," Changmin said, already charging toward the stairs. "Pack your things; Kevin's leading us out."

You scrambled after him in the dark. "Changmin. Changmin what the fuck is happening—"

He threw a stern look over his shoulder. "I'll explain in the car," he said before disappearing into his room.

You tossed your hands up into the air and did as you were told. There wasn't much to pack for yourself. You tossed your clothes haphazardly into your backpack, located any other spare items you left in the room, checked the bathroom for anything else. By the time you were done, Changmin was slapping his palm against the door jamb and hustling you out.

Kevin waited for you both in the lobby, his wolf form anxiously pacing the area like he was itching to get out of here. You could hear snarling and hissing and crashes and crackling from outside the door. What were you going to see when you stepped foot out of the inn?

"Let's go," Changmin said, nodding to Kevin, and shoving out into the night.

You lost your breath.

The pack house was on fire.

Wolves brawled against demonic forms, teeth gnashing around necks and snapping them. Black and red blood stained the dirt—they had come for the pendent. And they would take the pack down with them if they had to.

"Yn." A hand hauled you down the porch steps to round the building to Changmin's car.

Horror and panic and everything in between poured into you as you threw yourself into the front seat of Changmin's car. Your eyes, wide as saucers, could not leave the sight of violence happening before you.

You blinked—dark, whirling masses in the sky appeared out of thin air, and out of them spilled more and more creatures of Hell. Their jaws of daggers made you sick to your stomach; what was this? A small army?

Changmin swerved the car after Kevin, who was leading you not through the fray, but behind the inn house and straight into the woods.

You twisted in your seat. "Are they going to be okay?" You whispered, hands shaking as they dropped onto the headrest.

He was quiet for a beat. "They have Jacob."

But was one divine being enough? There were so many of them, oh fuck. And Jacob wasn't at full power, was he?

"They'll—they'll leave when they sense we're no longer there," he added quietly. "I hope."

You hugged the back of your seat, murmuring prayer after prayer. Please be safe. Please be okay.

The road Kevin led you both down was twisted and hazardous with winding paths that sent your shoulder careening into the side of the car and bumps that jostled your organs. Changmin somehow was able to keep up with Kevin without the headlights on and you didn't have the mind to question it.

You sunk into your seat to face forward, eyes glued to the side view mirror. You could see the glow of flames from here, could see how far up into the sky the fire went.

Oh god, this is all your fault. You brought trouble right to their doorstep. It's all your fault. All your—

The car broke out of the woods and into a small clearing with a worn path that led up to another road that hugged the side of a small mountain. This was where Kevin stopped.

Changmin nodded to Kevin in the front windshield.

You jammed your finger against the button in your door to roll your window down. "Kevin," you said.

The wolf trotted over to your door, and you stuck your hand out to meet his head. Your chest ached. "I'm sorry."

He couldn't communicate with you in a way you understood, but you liked to think you got good at reading his eyes. They seemed conflicted—the way they glistened like moonlight with the silver lining the edges, but burned like molten gold when he turned to motion toward the smoke in the distance.

"I'm sorry," you repeated. "Stay safe."

With one last look, he took off back toward his home.

Changmin passed you a glance, eyes softening at the corners, then turned the car up onto the road.

You pulled yourself back into the car and rolled the window up once you couldn't see Kevin's form anymore. Your eyes stared at the front console, brain muddled—you focused on taking deep breaths.

"Are they going to be okay?" You asked again. He had given you an answer before, but—fucking Hell, you were going to be sick—

"They'll be okay," he assured you. One of his hands lifted from the steering wheel and rested on your shoulder.

You broke down, face burying itself into your palms. Sobbing filled the silence of the car with the weight of lead. First, there was Sena. Then, it was whatever the fuck you were doing on this ridiculous task. Now… now, you'd gotten bystanders involved. Good people. They were good people.

You couldn't lose anyone else.

One person was more than you could take—more than you thought you could take.

You lifted your head, dragging the back of your hand across your eyes, your palm over your cheeks. "I want to go home," you whimpered as the back of your head hit the headrest. He had spoken too soon—you weren’t safe anywhere.

His hand was still on your shoulder and it slid down to your forearm, his fingers curling around you in a tentative form of comfort. "I know, sweetheart," he murmured. "I know."

#10—HOLD YOUR BREATH.

"PULL OVER, CHANGMIN."

The demon's head whipped over to you for a second, taking his eyes off the barren highway. There wasn't anyone else around this early in the morning, especially on this road that hugged the coast rather than a more straightforward freeway like the main interstate. "What?"

"Pull over," you repeated.

"We're almost there."

"Please."

He stopped the car.

He just barely put the vehicle in park before you were clambering out and headed in who-knew-what direction.

You heard the driver's side door slam shut as he followed after you. "Yn. Yn, where the Hell do you think you're going?"

"I don't know," you said, wrapping your arms around you. The salty sea air brushed past your clothes and your skin, and it felt nothing like the warmth from Moonstone Creak. The sky before dawn was a white-ish purple with clouds blanketing out where one might see the sun creeping up to its perch. The two of you were on the road for nearly five hours, and you didn't sleep a wink of it.

He caught up with you and grabbed your shoulders to face him. "I know that was a lot of shit to take, but we can't be out here."

"I can't do this anymore," you told him. "I can't risk any more lives, I can't risk mine or yours—I don't want to end up dead in a ditch. I—" You yanked the necklace around your collar and unclasped the chain, the weight falling from your sternum feeling more akin to an empty cage than a freed one.

You ripped out of his hold and stormed across the highway.

"No, no, no—YN. Yn, let's talk about this—"

You were getting rid of all your problems. If they wanted the pendant, then they could fucking have it—

Changmin appeared in front of you, expression stormy. "Don't do it."

"Get out of my way."

"If you lose that necklace, Yn—"

"THEN WHAT?" You practically growled in his face. Your hand fisted around the stone in your palm, and you waved it around wildly. "If I lose it, then what? Changmin, I don't even know what the fuck it does. You haven't told me why it's important. My sister sure as Hell didn't tell me jackshit. What, in the name of all things fucking holy, is so important about this red rock! Why am I risking my life for it?"

Changmin balked and his lips pressed firmly against each other.

Disappointment churned in your stomach. "Why won't you tell me?" You asked him, dropping the stone to hold it by the chain.

His eyes flickered to your movements. "I'll tell you, but just—we can't talk about it out here." He turned slightly and pointed out a building in the distance. It was a lighthouse, and it was erected on the edge of a rocky outcropping that jutted out from the coastline. White-foamed waves crashed against its shore like drums. "You see that? That's the safehouse."

That was the safehouse? "She bought a lighthouse?" Oh dear god, she had not listened to any of your advice about investing.

"Yes," he said. "Don't ask me why. I don't know the answer to that one, but if we can just get over there…"

You eyed the building. It was a standard cylindrical-shaped tower painted in white with a large glass cap at the top, housing a spotlight to guide ships home. A second, much smaller building the size of a shed was attached to the base, and you could just make out what looked like a chimney on top. Against your boring financial advice, Sena had been a romantic at heart. You wouldn't be surprised if one of her other safehouses was an idyllic cottage in a meadow.

You swallowed your pride, reaching up to reluctantly clasp the necklace back around your throat. Changmin visibly relaxed. "Fine."

The two of you made to turn around and head back to the car, but something in the water below caught your eye. It was a long way down from where you stood, and the jagged, dark cliff face didn't make the drop any more appetizing. The water was a deep, murky shade of gray-blue that screamed a cold, watery grave. You squinted down at the water in search of the glint of something you thought you saw.

Changmin glanced back at you. "What is it?"

When you came up empty-handed, you followed him to the car. "Nothing. I think I'm just tired."

The car was still quiet when Changmin pulled up outside the lighthouse. The building sat on the lower end of the outcropping, surrounded by a field of overgrown grass watered by sea spray and rain. The thrashing of waves was much louder here, like rolling thunder, and they threw themselves up against the shore bedecked in dark rocks, eroded into rough edges to make them appear akin to teeth.

You grabbed your backpack from the backseat as usual, eyes peering up at the lighthouse and trying to drink it in.

So… this was where she had been hiding. At least, some of the time she was away.

Your fingers drummed along your bag strap. What were you going to find inside? The last time you opened one of Sena's locked things, you ended up on the run.

Changmin's hair whipped up in the wind. "I think I can pick the lock," he said.

"She didn't give you a key?"

He began making his way to the front door. "I've only been here a couple of times, but only when she was around. Sena only had one—copy." When he jiggled the doorknob and it drifted open, he stiffened.

You frowned. "Awful lock."

"It wasn't locked," he said. He put his arm out in front of you. "Stay behind me."

That feeling you knew all-too-well—like a spider crawling down your spine—returned. You shoved your hand into the pocket that held your angel blade, slowly creeping in after Changmin.

The first floor of the lighthouse looked as if a tornado blew right through it. The couch cushions were torn off their perches, the rug was thrown aside, the bookshelf devoid of its occupants who lied scattered about the room. You took it all in with wide eyes, gently trekking through on the balls of your feet like you were going through a minefield. The connecting shed was for the kitchen and dining needs, and that too did not look much better. All of the porcelain plates and cups and silverware were in pieces on the stone floors.

Changmin blew out a breath, hands burying into his hair as his eyes wildly searched the area for any signs of who had been here for you. "Shit."

You made your way over to the couch-side table where a small lamp was undressed of its shade and a picture frame left cracked and picture-less. But you recognized the shoddy paint job on the frame from your childhood when you'd painted it in an arts and crafts class in first grade. You felt the picture's loss like an empty void. Whoever had been here took it with them.

Failure burned through you like hot acid. It made your body scream as it incinerated you from the inside out; you would never figure out what your sister was doing or what was going on. Not at this rate.

You set the empty frame down and brushed past Changmin to the front door.

"Yn—"

"I need some air." You didn't wait for his response.

The sun was making a gradual ascent now, turning the sky above you a more aggressive shade of lilac and egg yolk. You rounded the circumference of the lighthouse until you were descending the hill at its back down to the dock. It was a short, wooden platform where you could sit down and breathe in ocean air for a moment.

You lowered yourself by the edge with your feet crossed beneath you upon the sun-soaked planks. In the distance, you heard the cry of a seagull as it made landfall.

For all of the noise the waves made, it was awfully quiet. Disturbingly quiet.

It didn't occur to you right away. You were more focused on the hot tears trailing down your cheeks and the pressure building up in your head to start a killer headache. Goddamn, what were you doing? What did you think you were going to accomplish?

You yanked the chain out of your shirt collar with an angry frown marring your face. "Stupid fucking necklace." This was all its fault—and there you were, blaming an inanimate object for all your troubles.

"What if I just tossed you into the ocean?" You gazed out at the infinite horizon. It would be so easy. Would it not solve all of your problems?

You sighed, rubbing the space between your eyes with the pads of your fingers.

For a moment, you soaked in the air around you, the warmth of the boards beneath your thighs, and the sweet song drifting through your ear. What a beautiful sound the ocean made… it crooned something melancholy to you, luring you closer toward it in wonder. How sad the ocean was… its loneliness resonated with yours… it sang it so in the song.

You were enchanted by it, scooting closer to the edge of the pier to see if you could figure out the source of the serenade.

It's the ocean, something told you. It wasn't coming from a person or a thing, but the entire body of water before you. It heard your pain, could feel your suffering… it wanted you to come into its arms so it could lovingly embrace you.

"Yn. YN? YN!"

The song coaxed you closer to the edge. Almost there, love.

Your legs dangled over the side, eyes glazed over and glassy. The dark waters beneath you were so lovely and lonely. You could keep it company, couldn't you?

"YN, SNAP OUT OF IT."

Don't listen to him. He doesn't understand your pain. But I do.

You murmured. "Who does?"

Come a little closer, pet. I can make the hurt go away.

Thunderous stomps down the hill became muffled in the background. "YN. LN. WAKE. UP."

For a moment, your eyes shuddered. His voice was familiar. You turned your head back to look, and saw Changmin charging toward you with his eyes wide and—

Look at me, the voice demanded.

Something wrapped around your ankle, and you had little time to understand what was happening before you were dragged straight under.

As soon as the water swallowed you, the cold seeped into your bones and snapped you out of whatever trance you had been put under. Panic seized your chest, and you thrashed around, holding your breath, in a desperate attempt to free whatever had your leg trapped in a death grip.

You screamed silently, the surface getting farther and farther away.

You desperately kicked out with your other leg, the sole of your shoes scratching and scraping and chipping away at the hand holding you. You fumbled in your pants pocket, then brandished Clyde. With as much might as you could muster, you stabbed at the appendage wrapped around your ankle.

When you made contact, it retreated instantly. There was a trail of something dark down below, but you couldn't quite tell between it and the bottom of the water.

Running out of air fast, you desperately pumped your legs and clawed your way up towards Changmin swimming toward you. He extended his hand to you, his eyes flickering between you and something behind you—you didn't have time to think about what it was.

Your fingers made purchase with his, and you grabbed onto each other with a mutual vice. He hauled you up to the surface before him, and you gasped for breath, arms bracing onto the wooden deck.

You hacked out sea water and your throat felt like it was closing in on itself. It burned like Hell.

Heart pounding, you lifted your head to find Changmin and—wait. Where was Changmin?

"Changmin?" You whipped your head around, eyes going down into the water. "Fuck."

You gagged from sea water again. Could you stomach going back down? You had to, for fuck's sake. Your demon was down there.

You wielded Clyde tightly in your other hand, took a deep breath, then went back under.

You could now make out the figure who you assumed held you captive earlier. He had Changmin wrapped tightly in his grasp, the demon thrashing in the half-man half-fish's arms. You knew you were probably staring death in the eye, but you continued swimming straight for them.

You and the fish man made eye contact, and he grinned menacingly, the smile tinged with a set of sharp canines. In any other circumstance, you would have thought him beautiful.

Changmin saw you coming and his eyes widened. I just saved you. What are you doing back here?

But he realized something key with your presence reappearing. Changmin's jaw clenched—you didn't realize what was happening until he threw his arms back behind him to grab ahold of his captor's head. His fingers had grown darkened claws, razor sharp, and he gouged his thumbs into the eyes of the siren.

If you could hear screams underwater, it would have rattled your bones.

You watched, frozen, as the siren attempted to thrash around an escape Changmin, but your demon counterpart had too good of a grip on his skull.

You knew what the dark trail was now, and there was so much of it pooling in the water.

When Changmin was satisfied with the limpness of his captor's body, he shook his hands out and the claws disappeared. You didn't know where they went—didn't care, only that they existed in the first place.

He urgently swam up toward you as both of your supply of oxygen dwindled with each passing second.

When you broke the surface a second time, you clung to one of the posts of the dock, body shaking from the icy cold and the chill of witnessing a piece of Changmin's violence first-hand.

Changmin gasped for air and threw his upper body onto the face of the dock, his muscles trembling as he struggled to pull himself out of the water. Both of you were soaked to the bone, clothing and shoes heavy with seawater.

You stuck Clyde into the wood of the pier above you to anchor yourself onto the boards.

The two of you laid there on the dock to regain your breath and strength. Despite Changmin's demon-ness, he was still a creature of land, not water.

The sun had managed to climb up into the sky now, its hot rays piercing through clouds, and yet, all you could feel was the wind.

"You should have stayed…" he managed to say, "...up here."

You rolled into your stomach and braced your palms onto the wood to push yourself up. "You're stupid if you thought I was gonna—let you die." You glanced over at him, eyes finding his fingers—they looked normal again, save for the dark red rimmed beneath his fingernails.

You shuddered.

Changmin squinted his eyes open at you. "Don't ever… do that again."

You could only nod.

For a moment, only the waves and gulls existed between you. You hunched over your legs, dry heaving any more of that stinging salt from your mouth and eyes. Your brain kept rewinding the struggle over and over, repeating the look of pure survival instinct in Changmin's eyes as he mercilessly drove his clawed fingers into the creature's eye sockets.

You heard him stir again, and you asked hoarsely, "How much energy did it take to summon claws?"

After a beat, he replied, "Let's just say, I'm rusty and winded."

You turned your body over so you could face him. His white shirt was drenched all the way through, but you could still see the dark red seeping in places over his ribcage. "Oh my god, you're bleeding."

You reached out to examine him, but he slapped your hand away. "I'm fine," he insisted.

"Let me see," you argued, fixing him with a hard look. When he relented, you gently peeled the fabric away from his skin.

His skin, pale and wet, looked like a watercolor canvas of blues, reds, and purples. Bruises bloomed in splotches and blood made up the rest. You delicately ran your fingers over the bruised areas, hearing him suck in a breath at your touch.

"Does it hurt?"

"I'll survive."

"Don't be an ass. Does it hurt?"

He lifted his arm over his eyes. The scratches there were still an angry red. "...Yes."

"Did he get you anywhere else?"

"No."

Relief soared through you—or, the dispelling of fear from your body—and you racked your brain for a solution. There was nothing you could use down here to heal him to get him up to the…

Who were you kidding? There was something.

You wrenched Clyde out from the board you'd impaled him into and held the sharp end against the plush pad of your thumb. How much human blood did he need to get back on his feet? How much would get him up to the lighthouse, and how much could heal him fully like at the motel—?

He lifted his arm off his eyes. "Don't even think about it."

You met his eyes. "And why not?" Once, a long time ago, you managed to slice your finger open from cutting a lime in your palm rather than against a board like a normal person. If you used just enough force to break the skin—

"I'm not—drinking your blood—" He grunted while attempting to sit up. The stubborn bastard fell onto his back, face screwed up in pain and frustration.

You leaned over him to block the sun from his eyes. "You were saying?"

He narrowed his eyes up at you. "I'm not drinking your blood."

"You've done it before."

"That's because you were dying. You're not dying now, and neither am I."

"Your ribs are broken, aren't they?"

He huffed air out of his nostrils. "Yeah."

Returning to your original plan, you pressed the blade back against your thumb, wincing slightly as it split your skin. Dark red welled into a little pocket, before breaking form and dribbling down your finger. You moved it in front of his mouth, waiting to feel his tongue against it.

Reluctantly, he stuck his tongue out and licked a neat stripe up the length of your finger, all while giving you a stink eye. This isn't my choice, he seemed to say. It didn't matter though. He knew that he needed this, even just a little bit, to get up to the lighthouse and the car.

There could be more sirens, after all.

You pulled your finger away already feeling your skin cells knit themselves back together from his saliva. "Better?"

He licked his lips. "I'm not going to dignify that with an answer."

"Asshole."

"Human."

You snorted, clambering to your knees, and then your feet. You lifted pressure off of your right leg where your ankle ached from being anchored onto. "You say that like it's an insult."

He raised a brow at you, clasping onto your forearm when you offered it. "Take it as you will," he said with a half grunt as you used gravity and momentum to pull his body up.

You threw his arm over your shoulders to begin the trek up the hill. Trying to avoid putting weight on your right foot was a little difficult, but you were determined. Your joints and chest ached and your socks squelched grossly in your shoes.

"Your ankle," he started.

"I'll survive," you repeated his words from earlier. "It's nothing compared to broken ribs." The thought occurred to you that if the siren could break Changmin's ribs with his arms, then… he could have easily shattered the bones in your ankle.

A shiver slithered down your spine. You were thanking every divine being who existed for keeping your ankle intact.

"You know I'm not letting you drive, right?"

He let out a noise of indignation. "I can drive, Yn."

"You're not driving."

You could feel his eyes roll. "Whatever."

#11—THE DRIVER'S SEAT.

IT WAS A MIRACLE THAT both you and Changmin fit into your sister's clothes. There was a decent stash of clothing left in the second floor wardrobe of the lighthouse, and you both dressed in relaxed pants and t-shirts as you recuperated. Once you were cleaned up, for the most part, it was back to the car.

Changmin watched with a pained look on his face as you settled into the driver's seat and began adjusting everything for your personal preference.

"Are you going to seatbelt or should I do that for you?" You asked as you finished checking the side mirrors.

He slowly buckled himself in. "I hope you know how much I despise this."

"You despise a lot of things."

"I can drive, Yn."

"Okay, yeah. I almost died for the third time five hours ago. I don't want to risk my life a fourth time." You shoved the keys into the ignition and twisted the engine to life. Leaning back in the seat, you put the car into reverse to begin taking the vehicle up the road to the mainland. "You said to get onto the interstate and keep following until—"

"Deer Ridge—can you be careful," he hissed, eyes slicing toward your movements, before gritting his teeth at his swollen ribs.

You swatted his micromanaging away. "I am so surprised you have never made this much of a fuss about your car before."

He brooded, eyes never leaving your hands on the wheel. "I should've learned stick shift."

You rolled your eyes. "You're such a baby."

Because the lighthouse was of no use and not safe, you were going to drive yourself and Changmin to the next closest safehouse. It was another five hour drive, give or take a needed food stop at some point because you hadn't eaten since dinner at Moonstone Creak. You were afraid Changmin would use that against you at some point so he could be in the driver's seat again. Stubborn brat.

If he wouldn't drink your blood to rejuvenate, if he wouldn't let you drive when you were clearly the most capacitated, then what the Hell did he want from you?

You followed the road signs and his passive-aggressive mutterings about how to get to the interstate from here. You hadn't driven in a long time, mainly because your apartment was so close to everything you needed, and gas cost an arm and a leg. Maybe that was why Changmin was so prickly about you driving his car… but some things were a necessary evil. He would have to put on his big boy pants and deal with it.

"You know," you said after you'd officially hopped onto the highway. "Now would be a great time to start explaining things about the necklace. Since we were supposed to talk about it at the lighthouse and all."

You heard him push out a breath. One of his hands cupped the side of his body that was battered the most while his other rested on the center console. "Right."

You waited.

He struggled to fit the words into the right places for a decent explanation, nothing seeming quite adequate, but he eventually came up with an answer. "The necklace—" he paused, amending, "I guess I should call it more of an amulet—the amulet is something made of very ancient, powerful magic. It was something forged from a combination of all three realms, and so the energy that it stores within itself is complacent with all three realms.

"I can't remember exactly the mythology that came with the damned thing, but your sister did. She knew all the ins and outs of the legend—she obsessed over it."

"Obsessed over it?" Your eyebrows furrowed

"Yes," he said. "Which is why it's crazy to me she was even able to keep it a secret from you in the first place." Changmin brushed a hand through his hair, shifting in his seat awkwardly. "Anyways, the amulet is kind of like a key. It needs a vessel to be the—the gate or the portal of sorts to activate it, but it would grant the creature who wields it the energy and power to travel through realms as if it were their own."

You checked your mirrors and flicked on the signal to change lanes. "Wait, not to sound like a YA fantasy book protagonist—"

"A what?"

"Human thing," you dismissed airily. "So if someone got their hands on this thing, they could hypothetically conquer whole realms that aren't their own? Hypothetically, of course."

Changmin nodded slowly. "Hypothetically," he drawled. "If that's what they wanted to do. You'd have to have one Hell of an army to do so, and the amulet can't really give power to other people, only the one."

"It's a portable charger for one person's plan of mass destruction?"

He huffed, turning his head to the window, and when you glanced over for a millisecond, you swore he was smiling. "You're so…"

"Funny, clever, charming?" You supplied, the corners of your lips curling upward. You licked your lips, then pursed them in thought. While you were driving and pondering the weapon of otherworldly conquer seated upon your neck, you also kept a look out for any restaurants at nearby exits. Maybe an all-day brunch place with blueberry pancakes… "Changmin?"

"Hm."

"Is there a way to destroy this? To ensure that no one can ever use it?" There had to be some method of self-destruct for something potentially so dangerous. Then again, you weren't an expert on magical artifacts.

Changmin's eyes moved back over to you. "If there is, it'll be somewhere in Sena's notes."

Oh.

The car ride chugged on for another hour or so before you gave up. Your stomach growled its disapproval of going so long without something sustaining, and you marked the billboard of a gas station at the next exit. The car needed to be fed, too, anyway.

It was a standard little pump-and-wash with an option to fill your tank, take your car through the little Soapy Joe's car wash in the back, or both. The gas station building was a camel-colored sandstone with deals on gas station snacks printed in massive, red block letters on bright yellow paper. For the most part, it seemed pretty empty, with only an SUV of a family on a road trip and another sedan with a rather disgruntled looking business man.

You swung the car into the pump station closest to the gas station store's door and began searching for the gas tank button.

"Bottom left, second from the right," Changmin instructed, already clambering out of the car. He suppressed the urge to make a noise as he did so with his still-bruised and battered torso.

"What are you doing?" You asked after locating the button and giving it a push. The muffled pop sound followed right after.

He braced one hand on the roof of his car as he peered back in. "I'm filling up my tank."

You deadpanned. You should have known the stubborn cretin would insist. It was better for you to not fight him if he was gonna be this anal about driving his own car while injured. "I'm getting snacks then."

"Have fun," he muttered, pulling his card out of his bifold. Where did even get money to put on that thing?

You mused upon that thought as you dug around your backpack in the back seat for a couple twenties. You wouldn't need much, just enough so you could indulge a bit.

Ten minutes later, you walked out of the gas stop with a plastic grocery bag in one hand and a blue and red swirled slurpee in the other. It was no 7/11, but goddamn did the sugar hit your system just right. After nearly drowning in sea water, it gave your body the perfect amount of zip.

You found Changmin in the driver's seat (were you surprised? Of course not), with his seat and mirrors adjusted back to how he liked it, and his phone plugged into the USB port in the center console. You clambered into your designated seat with the grace of a car sale balloon because of your sore ankle.

He glanced up from his phone, hand carding through his hair. "Ready?"

"Wait, before we go—" You sorted through your bag of treats and looked for the little, brown paper bag amongst all the other junk. You pulled it out, the bottom beginning to seep through from the grease of the pastry inside. Childlike glee rushed through your veins, and you couldn't tell if that was just the slurpee or the thought of getting him a treat. Beaming, you extended it toward him. "I got you a blueberry muffin."

For a second, Changmin just stared. His eyes widened at the expression on your face, and you couldn't tell why something felt like it had shifted. He glanced at the grease-soaked paper vessel, then back to you, then the bag, then—

"Thanks," he said slowly, grabbing the bag from you and unrolling the top edge to open it up. (If you'd paid attention longer, you would have seen the darkening of his cheekbones. A rare sight.)

"They don't exactly sell blueberry pancakes," you prattled on and decided between a bag of kettle chips or a packet of dried seaweed; you decided on the former and popped the bag open. "So I got the next best thing. And the woman running the store looks like she bakes them fresh. Oh, I saw that it had this crumble on top and thought it had to be a sign it was top notch stuff."

Changmin inspected the muffin, then took a generous bite, cupping beneath it to catch any crumbs. His eyes fluttered shut and he moaned. "Fuck—me. That's so good."

You brightened. "Glad you think so," you chuckled in amusement.

He hummed in reply, already going in for his next bite.

With a car of slightly more content campers, you hit the road. The remainder of the journey would add up to a little more than four hours from here, as long as there weren't any other pitstops made. Hopefully, you would arrive before it got dark and you wouldn't have to deal with another situation like this morning.

The bag of snacks rested at your feet and you had tucked away the chip bag for later. It was concerning how fast your body became accustomed to this seat again, how it knew exactly what way to sit in order to be comfortable.

Changmin glanced over at you just as he made it onto the interstate ramp. "You should get some sleep. It's been… a long day and night."

Right on cue, you yawned. "Do you dream when you sleep—if you sleep?" You asked, instead of heeding his advice.

"Huh? Oh." He used his free hand to adjust the AC coming in through the vents. "I only really sleep if I'm bored, or if I know I'm not under threat, I guess."

You frowned. "Do you not feel safe a majority of the time?"

"It depends," he lifted his shoulder. "When we were at uni, there usually wasn't much threat around, so I slept sometimes. I only sometimes dream though."

You hummed, acknowledging him. "I think it's kind of funny that you're a demon studying anthropology."

His laugh was breathy. "Yeah? A little ironic?"

"What? Did you think it would help you blend in or something?"

He snorted. "No… I mean, it seemed like an interesting topic when I perused the website when applying."

You made a face, eyes staring out at the vast road before you. It was just before a typical afternoon rush hour, so there wasn't much traffic. "How did you even have the credentials to apply and get in?"

"A little white lie never hurt anyone," he said innocently.

You threw him an incredulous look, and a chuckle fell out of his mouth. "Despicable."

"I am a demon."

You fiddled with the hem of your sister's shirt, then reached up to play with the chain and pendant around your neck. You'd become so used to its weight that it felt wrong when it was gone. "Would you ever teach me how to use Bonnie?"

Changmin's hand felt around the middle console blindly until he met the lid of your slurpee. "I'm drinking this."

"Wait, I have an extra straw—"

"What, you don't want my magic spit?"

Your gaze flattened into a deadpan. "Oh, so now it's magic spit?" You watched in melodramatic disgust as he took a generous sip of the sugary drink from your straw. You didn't really mind, of course; you weren't going to finish that thing all on your own. "And you didn't answer my question."

He replaced the cup back into its cupholder. "What's a Bonnie?"

"I hate you."

He let out a loud laugh that made your forced scowl nearly shatter. Who knew a demon could look so pretty when he laughed like that? "I don't even use it, you know that, right?"

"And I haven't the slightest idea why you keep her locked up like that." You shoved the pair of sandals you'd stolen from the lighthouse off so you could fold your legs onto the seat with you. Your finger brushed over the flesh of your ankle, where it was gradually splotching with blueish purple.

It was a familiar scene, that of Changmin taking his eyes off the road the briefest moment to inspect your bruise and frown. Humans are so fragile, he'd said before. The bruises on your neck from the motel had faded by now, thanks to the miracle salve he gave you at Moonstone Creak.

He cursed under his breath. "I forgot to bring the cup of salve from the inn," he sighed.

"That's fine," you murmured. "We were… in a rush." You swallowed, and when you closed your eyes, you could see the pack house in flames. "I hope they're okay."

"Yeah, same."

"Would it have mattered if we stayed?" You asked.

You expected him to simply say that it wouldn't have mattered, because that wasn't our goal. He knew what the wolf shifters were capable of, what Jacob was capable of, but you didn't. You'd seen them in bliss and peace, without the ferocity of what he might have been used to.

He thought about it and confessed, "I'm not sure. They can take care of themselves, but I—" he stumbled over his words, reeling them back in before he could say them out loud.

"You…?"

He shook his head. "It's not important. What's important now is that you—we—got out alive." When you couldn't find anything to say after, he reached over across the console to find your forearm again. His fingers curled around you, like they had when you'd left the woods. "If it makes you, uh, feel better, we can reach out to them. Send them a message once we get to the safehouse."

You nodded, moving your arm so his hand rested in yours and your other hand patted the top of his. "I'd appreciate that."

Changmin's nod was small, and he kept his hand sandwiched between the two of yours.

#12—ALL HER SECRETS.

WHEN YOU DREAMED, your sister was drunk and stumbling across a dark road for help. Your throat lurched with air, but your scream was completely silent as her eyes went wide in the glare of the car lights. A deer in headlights, in a literal sense. It never occurred to you how morbid the saying was until you witnessed it in action.

Her body laid sprawled over the stretch of road as the couple driving scrambled out to check her vitals.

Dead on impact.

You awoke with a start.

Everything was fuzzy and muddled, and you sucked in oxygen through your nostrils, hands reaching up to rub your eyes with the heels of your palms. The place on your thigh where your hands had been resting grew cold at the lack of warmth as Changmin retracted his hand to his own side, putting the car into reverse to back into the driveway.

Cirrus clouds blotched the bruising sky, golden hour long since passed and the highway far out of view. You noted the residential street you faced through the front windshield with the sounds of children biking and drawing chalk masterpieces on sidewalks in the cul de sac down the road. You'd only ever really experienced this kind of tranquility in movies, never for yourself.

Your heartbeat, once erratic from the dream, calmed. (It was crazy how real a dream could feel.)

Changmin shuddered off the headlights and the engine died down. "We're here," he cleared his throat. He cracked his knuckles, one hand cradling the other.

You peered through your side view mirror, only catching part of the house in view. How had she afforded a whole house in the suburbs? Granted, it didn't look as large as the others on the street, but the fact that this was under her name… she hid all of this from you.

"I dreamed about her," you murmured in a voice hoarse from sleep.

He glanced at you. "Sena?"

"Yeah," you hummed. "How she died—or I guess, how I imagined her death to be." You met his gaze, and it seemed like he was searching for something in your face. You reached down to gather your belongings in the gas station grocery bag, then popped the car door open. "So this is the place, huh?"

Changmin shook his hair out of his eyes. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I've only been here once or twice, too, but it's nice."

"How'd she afford this place anyway?"

"I think she found a vampiric sundial for a client." Crazy. Must have been one well-off client.

He hadn't been wrong about the place being nice. It was one of those cookie-cutter houses with white shutters in the windows, a garage big enough for two cars, and a driveway flanked by twin beds of emerald green grass. A little metal mailbox sat at the end of the driveway by the street with a red tab and the house number branded on the side. It was the dictionary definition of suburbia.

Changmin walked right up the front porch and stuck his hand in the potted plant hanging from a hook. Out of it, he withdrew a key, rusted and dirtied, but the perfect fit for the front door. It was a massive change from the lighthouse's situation.

Inside, you didn't expect anything less cozy than what you found. The entryway was confronted by a staircase that led to the second floor, and there was a hallway that led further into the home, and a doorway to the right that went into the living room. You took this all in with wide eyes, your breath held at the sight of unlit candles on tables, quirky baubles beside them, and picture frames—dear god, the picture frames.

You stopped in front of one of them and picked it up. In the dimming light, you traced the lines of your sister's smile and yours right next to hers. You both looked so young in this photo—way more carefree and innocent. You wondered how she had saved all of these photos when you only had them encased in your memory.

Changmin had disappeared up the stairs, most likely heading straight for Sena's room or an office, anywhere that might hold the notebooks you and he had been looking for. The wooden planks creaked slightly under your weight as you climbed the stairs, and you ran your hand along the smooth railing as you went.

"Hey Changmin?" You called out, head swiveling around the upstairs landing to find which doorway he'd disappeared into.

"Yeah?" He asked from somewhere within the furthest doorway. You followed the sound and stuck your head into what looked to be a home office. It was outfitted with a desk and office chair, a few bookshelves, and an armchair in the corner. Changmin brushed his finger along the spines.

You joined him at his side and picked a random one to pull out. "How are your ribs?" You asked him, moving your gas station grocery bag handles to hang on your forearms you flipped through the journal. This one didn't seem to have much; maybe she wanted to start a planner in this and never finished.

His movements paused for a second, then resumed. "My ribs? Oh, they're, uh… they're fine now."

Your face screwed up in incredulity. "That's insane."

"Supernatural regeneration plus human blood," he said like he was explaining one plus one equals two.

"But patching up broken bones?" You replaced the book back in its slot and wandered away from the shelf. The office space was decorated comfortably enough but there were no other personal additions besides the furniture.

You stepped back out into the upstairs loft to search for the bedroom. The master was located on the other side of the office door, and when you opened it up, you were hit by a wave of nostalgia.

That was her. That was what Sena smelled like. And where you knew she always kept a bottle, there sat a glass vial of her favorite perfume on the nightstand table. It was as if it said to you, "Welcome home, Yn. We've been expecting you." Except, you never got to be welcomed here, not by your sister, at least.

It was like going into her locked room at the apartment all over again. There weren't as many things here as there were back at your place, but the subtle things left around reminded you of her, besides the scent lingering. It was uncanny how such a thing could stick around for so long, clinging to the walls, the sheets, the floors, until even the air vents recycled that same smell on its own.

You settled on the edge of the bed and just sat there.

It seemed you were returning to the same questions over and over again. Why had she hid any of this from you?

Changmin appeared in the doorway, his hand bracing the doorway. "Hey."

"Did you find something?" You asked.

He pursed his lips, the miniature mole beneath his bottom lip popping out at you. "Nah, not yet anyway. I just… wanted to, uh, see where you'd gone."

"Oh, I came to find her room, is all." You pressed your hands flat on the comforter to feel the fabric. You didn't quite know what to think. "It's weird knowing she lived here at some point."

"She had her reasons for keeping things a secret," he said quietly while venturing a step into the room.

You exhaled sharply. "Yeah, I figured." At the motel, he had confessed that he and Sena both agreed to keep you out of this business unless necessary. He had sisters, did he not say? It didn't seem too far-fetched to assume that he could sympathize more with Sena than you. "You mentioned once that you have sisters."

He stiffened, and you wondered if you'd crossed a line.

"I do," he replied slowly. "I'm not as close to them as you were with Sena."

Your smile was thin. "Yeah, well, based on the past few weeks, I'm not so sure we were that close."

Conflict flickered across his face, and he crossed the space between the doorway and the bed, and took a seat on the edge adjacent to you. "She talked about you a lot," he said. "Thought the world of you."

Your eyes were pinned to the floor as tears welled up in your eyes and blurred your vision.

"Always talked about her baby sister, and how you were the one with your head screwed on right."

If she could see you now… you were going half mad, but the corners of your lips curled upward at the sentiment. You sniffled, wiping your eyes and cheeks with the side of your hand. "You know," you mused, your voice watery, "for a demon, you're getting good at this empathizing thing."

Changmin's shoulders lowered, his hands laid out over his legs as he chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. It's not as hard as you make it out to be."

"Liar."

"Human."

"You need new insults," you groaned, shoving his shoulder.

His bangs hung in his eyes and you couldn't see his expression quite clearly. "Who said it was ever an insult?"

Changmin let you check the state of his still-slightly-broken torso (liar) as long as you let him examine your bruised ankle. You chalked it up to your demon being a big baby again, but you figured there was no harm and no foul in letting him take a peek. It wasn't like the injury hindered your movement an awful lot anyway.

You hissed as he jabbed at a blossom of purple on your ankle and you tried to retract your leg. He kept a firm enough grasp unfortunately. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"So it does hurt."

"No," you quipped, "you're just a sadist."

The two of you sat on the couch in the living room with a first aid kit opened up on the coffee table and a legal pad next to it. In your lap sat one of Sena's many, many journals propped open to a page that you were scanning for anything that might be of help. Changmin had set aside the journal he was reading to drag your foot into his lap.

The top leaf of paper on the legal pad was impressed with the message you had scrawled out for the wolves of Moonstone Creak, asking about their state of health. Changmin had summoned a sprite (???) from over the fence in the backyard to ferry it over. Apparently, it was the supernatural equivalent of medieval pigeon messaging.

You couldn't even begin to wrap your head around all of it. The point was that he had kept his word, and now, you were keeping yours.

The words scrawled in your sister's handwriting blurred in your vision, and you glanced up to watch Changmin again. "What are you doing?" You asked, leaning your head against the couch cushion. "You're not… gonna lick my ankle, right?" You scrunched your face up. As much as you appreciated him trying to heal your injury—

"That's not how saliva works," he replied, holding your leg with one hand so he could lean forward and dig around in the first aid kit.

"Oh, I'm sorry I don't know how saliva works."

He arched an eyebrow up at you, and you recognized the silent "Really?" in his expression.

You lowered your eyes back to the journal in your lap and tried to suppress your amusement. "I don't know how you plan to heal a bruise, but usually ice and time are the best—oh shit, that's cold!"

You squealed and attempted to wrench your foot away once again, but he yet again prevailed. He anchored your foot down as he pressed a bandage-looking adhesive around the circumference of your ankle. As the sharp, icy pain gradually diminished, your muscles loosened up.

"Don't ever do that again," you told him with a scowl, successfully pulling away your leg from him (because he let you).

He sent you a flat look. "You'll thank me later. It's a good thing she had some stashed away," he said, flipping the first aid box lid closed and returning to the journal he picked out.

You gave your ankle an experimental roll. The ache had numbed and there was no longer a jab of pain when you moved the joint around. "What is it?"

"Some magical bandage that is specifically for mortal species," he said offhandedly with his eyes glued to the pages. "You have to find a witch apothecary to get them, and even then, they sometimes scam you and jack up the price."

"Huh." There was still much for you to learn, it seemed, but even the supernatural world fell victim to capitalism.

With your foot patched up, the both of you descended into silence to return to your respective journals. There were interesting things scrawled between the lines and the margins. Your sister liked to sketch things, and so you figured out pretty quickly that this journal was used to document supernatural herbs she came across while on her adventures.

You ditched that one to move onto the next. This one seemed like a standard, hard-covered journal with a lilac-colored ribbon used as a bookmark. It wasn't marking any specific page, however, but was only tucked between the cover and the first page. You flipped through the entries, noting the dates—wait.

Wait… these were recent.

"Changmin," you muttered, tapping his shoulder as you scanned the inky scrawls.

Changmin put his notebook down and the two of you converged onto the same couch cushion, your shoulders and thighs pressed together, and the book opened between you.

"Do you recognize when this was?" You asked, pointing out the dates in the top corners. "I remember she told me she was going up north to study abroad during this time."

His forehead creased between his eyebrows. "Yeah… I remember. She was being vague with where she said she was going."

"She didn't tell you?"

"She didn't report to me, if that's what you're asking."

You turned your attention to the diary entries. This particular one was labeled with the third of November, the year before:

A note to self: never choose the Holiday Inn off the I-375. It might literally smell like a dead body in here, and I'm keeping my window open the entire night.

You snorted. Noted.

—drive was long and I don't think Yn expected anything. She had this massive exam today, so I think she was a little preoccupied, but she sent me off as usual. (Fighting Yn!) It's tough keeping this from her, but at the same time… I'm not sure if she would understand.

She's always been in the right headspace—not whatever dream world I've been living in. I don't know why I always invalidate myself when I know this is all real. Maybe it's not?

That's besides the point. I'm supposed to meet the amulet owner in a couple days and there is still a laundry list of things I need to do before that exchange happens.

"The amulet had an owner before her?" You voiced aloud. And what did she mean that you wouldn't understand? Was that why she never told you the truth?

Changmin gave a head bob. "I wouldn't mark it as a ridiculous notion. A lot of magical artifacts sit in basements and get pawned or sold as antiques." He shrugged. "It's not like they come with manuals that say I'm not just a Tiffany lamp; I'm a magic carpet."

You squinted at him. "I never realized how silly you were."

"I'm not silly," he scoffed.

Sure you aren't, you thought. Demons and their tough guy act.

Changmin flipped past the pages, both of you skimming each as you went for any words that jumped off the page.

"Stop," you said, bumping your hand against his. "Go back."

You thought you had seen something… there.

It was dated several weeks after the first entry, and her writing looked more scratchy, more frantic:

I translated one of the passages wrong. The amulet doesn't use the wearer's blood as an activator, it BINDS them to it. The wearer is an amplifier, NOT an activator.

What.

You stopped reading there, digging the pendant out from beneath your shirt collar and watching the red upon the stone wink at you. The blood drained from your face—what did that mean, amplifier?

Next to you, Changmin kept reading on. His eyebrows braided together in concentration as he soaked up all the words on the notebook like a sponge. This was all of the information he hasn't gotten from Sena before, and what she might have wanted to tell him beforehand. At least, that was what you thought. That was what made the most sense.

It's too late for me anyways, I already pricked my finger against it and it sucked it all up. It's been done, was what your sister wrote. I don't know how magic reads blood types or genetic code, if it even does that, but for some reason I'm less scared and more curious.

Things to note: it seems to match my heartbeat. The full amulet should ideally be the shape of an infinity loop—supposedly. It's a little off, but it might be from the wear of time. It's missing a piece though, a middle portion that slides over it like a connector or binder of sorts. Neither half will stay together without it, and without said third piece, the amulet won't work.

I guess my next course of action is to find out who does have the third piece, and to make sure this damn thing will never EVER be used.

Changmin flipped the page, and you began unclasping the chain.

He stopped you, placing a hand over your own with wide eyes. "Woah, what are you doing?"

Your mouth dropped open. "Did you not just read what she said? This is an amplifier, Changmin. I don't know what the Hell that means, but I don't want it on me." No matter how much the emptiness left behind protested, the word "amplifier" made your heart drop.

He protested again, stopping your movement. "Yn—Yn, listen to me. We cannot lose the one piece we have."

Your heart was moving erratically now, the pendant pulsing in perfect time. If it had your sister's blood in it then why did it match yours? "I don't want it on me," you croaked. You fisted the pendant and held it away from your chest. "It matches my heartbeat, Changmin. Do you know how fucking unnerving that is when it's supposed to be my sister's?"

Changmin faltered at this revelation. He blinked. "I—since when did it match your heartbeat?"

"Since the moment I put it on."

His eyes went to the amulet in your hands, and his expression rearranged itself into something you couldn't read—worry, maybe—

He froze.

You just barely picked up on the sound yourself while descending into panic, but it sounded like wheels rolling on the street in front of the house. Both of you peered out the window shutters to the front lawn space as a white colored sedan pulled up along the front curb.

A white sedan.

Changmin's hand tightened on your arm as he assessed the car. The headlights remained on, but the driver had yet to step out and reveal themselves. "You have Clyde?"

"I do, but… what if they're here for the neighbors?" You whispered even as the hair on the back of your neck stood up. Not here, not again. You and Changmin were finally getting answers.

He looked like he was about to counter when the driver's side door opened.

Instead of a big, scary monster or creature, the person who clambered out was quite petite. Then again, you weren't quite sure what to expect. She wore a big, white knit cardigan that hung off her frame, and she had platinum blond hair with dark purple highlights. The car door slammed shut behind her as she trudged up the grassy lawn toward the front door and rang the doorbell.

Changmin seemed just as surprised as you did.

"Girl Scout cookies?" You suggested under your breath. It definitely wasn't Girl Scout cookie season, and the woman didn't seem young enough to still be a Girl Scout. (And usually, Girl Scout sellers came with something to sell. This one just had her car keys and a phone.)

He passed you a look. The muscle in his jaw told you he was still on the offense. "Stay here," he said, then got up and quietly made his way to the front door.

The doorbell rang again, the sound echoing throughout the house loud enough to wake the dead.

Changmin made eye contact with you once more before he began unlocking the door. He pasted on a smile, with one hand on the doorknob to keep the door angled so the woman couldn't see past him, and the other lingering around his middle "Hi, can I help you?"

You didn't even think he had the vocabulary to be polite.

"Oh, uh, hi!" Chirped the visitor. Her voice was bright, but with a raspy quality to it. She neither looked familiar nor sounded familiar. "This is probably really strange, but did you recently move into this house?"

Changmin moved his hand up to his opposing shoulder. "Yeah, actually. My partner and I just moved in. Why do you ask?"

Partner? He meant the strictly-business kind, right?... Right?

You stood up and began making small steps toward him in the entryway. He must have heard you, because you saw his eyes flicker toward you in his peripheral vision, and he stuck his hand out behind the door to swat you away.

Like you were going to listen.

"Ah," said the woman, "I just…" she chuckled, shaking her head. "One of the neighbors texted me about seeing you guys come in earlier today. I used to know the previous owner; we were pretty close, I guess you could say."

His eyes darted to yours for a millisecond. You heard that, too, right?

You approached the door, standing just behind the wall and out of sight.

"Oh, you knew Sena?" Changmin asked.

"Yeah," she answered easily. "She was my ex-fianceé."

#13—NO SUCH THING.

"SO HOW LONG HAVE YOU TWO BEEN TOGETHER?" The question nearly had you snorting tea from your nose. Beside you, Changmin had a similar reaction, turning away slightly to catch the water that trickled out of his mouth.

Mika, the woman with the platinum blonde and purple hair, the woman who had shown up at the door, the woman who was Sena's ex-fianceé, widened her eyes in alarm. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry—is—is that not what you both are? I assumed when he said partner, but I shouldn't have—"

You shook your head, thumping your chest. "Oh, no, no," you said, pretending your voice hadn't gone up four octaves. "It's—it's okay! You just caught us both off guard, is all."

As soon as Mika revealed her identity, you said "screw it all" and practically ripped the door open. Any skepticism was dashed when she recognized you immediately as Sena's little sister—as stupid as it sounded, that was enough proof for you.

You invited her in.

Now, she sat on the armchair adjacent to you and Changmin. Sena's books had been kicked under the couch in the haste to clean up, leaving the first aid kit and legal pad out. To Mika's credit, she didn't comment on either one, just accepting your offer for a drink.

"We're uhm…"

"Kind of together," you said, but it sounded more like a question.

Changmin swallowed. "Uh, ish."

"It's complicated."

You hoped your face hadn't gone too red because it burned like the pits of Hell. Changmin didn't look any better; even his face was brushed in pink.

Mika let out a delicate laugh, lifting her mug of tea to her lips for a sip. "No, I get it. You don't owe me an explanation."

You could have sagged in relief. At least she seemed nice.

"I really appreciate you both letting me into your home," she continued and nursed the mug in her lap. "I know neither of you know me, but I suppose we have one mutual friend."

You nodded. "Yeah no, of course. I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you. Sena…" Hid so much from me. "Sena and I both had pretty different lives." Understatement of the century.

Mika straightened. "Oh, yes! I completely understand. She actually told me that she traveled a lot, and that you're studying—I believe it was accounting?"

You blinked. "Yes, actually."

"That's lovely, by the way," she said pleasantly. "I've never been great at math, so I admire you for that. Definitely not my cup of tea, but good for you."

"When is math anyone's cup of tea?" You mused, and she gave a little laugh of agreement.

This was… unexpectedly nice. But while the moment was sweet, you were divided internally. Sena told Mika about you, but didn't tell you about Mika. Had you done something where she didn't trust you enough to disclose this very important part of her personal life to you? It wasn't like you hid anything from her—you just, well, didn't have anything to hide.

"I didn't realize that Sena even told you about this place," Mika said, gesturing around at the house.

Oh, right. Back to the reality of your current situation. "Heh, yeah," you drawled and scratched the side of your neck. "She wrote all of the details down in her will for me." That seemed like a logical lie to tell.

"I'm surprised you weren't included in the will reading, Mika," Changmin suddenly jumped into the conversation. Your eyes were wide as you whipped your head toward him. His expression was carefully blank, words and movements executed with a lethal casualness. Because that was who he was—lethal. You just couldn't understand why he was putting it on for this lady.

"Changmin," you whispered sharply in reprimand, setting your cup down on the coffee table.

"No, it's okay, Yn," Mika replied good-naturedly. "It's a perfectly reasonable observation. I told her not to include me in her will, if she ever wrote one. I just… I have a lot of material things already, and it sounds kind of corny, but I didn't want anything like that from her—just her and her company." You noted the way she played around with the empty spot on her left ring finger absentmindedly, as if something—a ring—had once sat there.

Your chest warmed. At least you knew your sister was properly loved, as she should have been. A bittersweet sort of sadness wormed into the back of your mind still. "Ah, I see. I wish I would've known how to contact you after…"

"After that, yeah," she nodded. She swallowed, setting her mug on the table and shifting in the armchair. "Same here. Sena never gave me any means to get in touch with you, but I'm sure it was for a certain reason."

"How did you know that Sena was dead?"

You slapped your hand over Changmin's mouth. "I am so sorry about him. You don't have to answer that—"

"I just assumed that Sena had me as one of her emergency contacts, besides you, of course." Mika gestured to you with her expression still light and unbothered. You removed your hand from Changmin's mouth, nodding along. "Somebody contacted me about how her sister identified the body, but that Sena was dead, nonetheless."

That made sense. The morgue had been cold when you stepped foot inside it to confirm it was your sister there. You could imagine what Mika must have felt when authorities contacted her to give her the bad news. It must have been something close to how you felt.

With one hand resting in your lap, the other fiddled with your pendant. You'd forgotten to tuck it away earlier.

Mika's eyes darted toward it after following your hand movement. "Oh, that's an interesting necklace."

You enclosed your fingers around it and straightened. Every time anybody else noticed the amulet, you always felt like a deer in headlights. "It's—it's nothing really. I just—"

"I have one exactly like it."

Your fidgeting slowed. Heartbeat racketing against your chest, you could feel your counterpart tense next to you. "You do?" You stammered.

She bobbed her head. "I'm pretty sure, yes. Sena gave it to me. At first, I wasn't sure exactly what stone it was—I kind of just figured it was something precious, but I knew it had a level of sentimental value to it." Mika smiled, the corners of her lips curling sweetly, eyes misting. "I guess it makes sense that you have the other half."

Of course. Of course Mika had the other half. That was why Sena split the halves of the necklace and gave one half to you. Maybe this was her way of connecting you and Mika together by giving either of you a half of the very important necklace. One question that still remained was why hadn’t Sena mentioned anything to you about Mika or the other half of the necklace? Had she forgotten to write it down in her haste? Perhaps she hadn’t thought she was in danger just yet, and didn’t have a moment before her untimely death to sit down and explain everything in a letter.

“Do you happen to have the other half with you?” You asked her, leaning forward onto your knees. “I’ve been so puzzled as to what it is these past few weeks.” A blatant lie, but you needed to know how much Mika knew. She hadn’t mentioned anything about the dire importance of the necklace yet, but she said “sentimental value.” That wasn’t the same thing. Was it?

Mika pursed her lips and shook her head. “I don’t, unfortunately. It’s at home with my other accessories, but I’d gladly bring it for you to see, maybe over dinner?”

Changmin delivered a swift nudge to your side with his elbow. “Can I talk to you?”

You pressed your lips together. “Sure,” you said, and he immediately stood from the couch to head out into the hallway. You supposed he assumed you were going to follow him. You sent Mika an apologetic look, then trailed after your demon.

You found him waiting for you in the kitchen, leaning against the island with his hands folded over his chest.

“What did you want to talk about?”

He looked at you in earnest and pressed a finger to his lips in a quiet signal. You fixed him with a look, coming to stand beside him. “I don’t think we can trust her,” he murmured to you with his mouth by your ear. He had leaned over so close, you could see the pores on his skin.

The two of you pulled away simultaneously.

You coughed and braced an elbow against the countertop. “Why do you say that?” You asked. You didn’t mean for it to sound so defensive, but you bristled at the thought that you couldn’t trust the one other person who might have more insight into your sister’s life than you or Changmin.

Changmin cocked his head at his tone. “You believe her?”

“She hasn’t given me any reason to not believe her.” You pushed out a breath. If you stepped out of your own head for a moment, it was clear that something was bothering him. Considering he was the one with the supernatural experience and he had yet to be wrong yet, there had to be a good reason for him to not trust Mika. “Okay, why don’t you trust her?”

His eyes roamed over your face—he was doing that thing again—looking for something, but what, you weren’t too sure of. “I…” He sighed, “I realize that this—this is your chance to reconnect with a part of your sister’s past, but she… her presence just doesn’t sit right with me. The timing, her answers… sweetheart, there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek. “So you think she’s here because of the necklace, or something to that effect?”

“Yes, something to that effect,” he said.

“But all of her answers make sense to me. If Sena had both halves of the necklace, giving two halves to two of the people she deemed close to her would make sense. And I think what she said about the will was a little corny, but…” You admitted, “It was a little strange that Sena didn’t mention anything about her in the will.”

Changmin bit his lip. “I know we probably shouldn’t villainize her right off the bat, but there’s something so weird about this, Yn.”

“Okay,” you said, “I don’t fully agree, but let’s say yes to dinner and then go from there, yeah?”

He seemed to be in agreement after that, and the two of you returned to the living room where Mika glanced up from her phone. “Everything okay?”

You nodded. “Oh yeah. No need to worry; just a personal thing,” you said casually and took your seat from before. “You were saying something about dinner, right?”

As Mika told you about a neat, little restaurant nearby themed like a Prohibition-era speakeasy, you absentmindedly reached for your cup of tea on the coffee table. Before your fingers could make contact with the handle, you felt another hand bump yours out of the way. The cup was suddenly not there.

Instead, you glanced over at Changmin as he swept your tea mug up into his grasp. “Sorry, I wanted some. I hope you don’t mind.”

Your expression was quizzical. He must be a lot more comfortable with sharing things with you after he stole half your slurpee in the car ride. “It’s okay. I wasn’t really that thirsty,” you said slowly.

But his gaze wasn’t on you; it was on Mika. His eyes narrowed at her over the rim of the cup, and he drained its contents in one gulp, like a challenge. You would have to ask him about it later.

Mika didn’t look the least bit fazed. She continued on about dinner plans, none the wiser to Changmin’s dagger-sharp eyes. You had to give her credit for sitting there under his gaze without shrinking into herself, because you probably would not have survived.

The remainder of the visit went without a hitch. Mika didn’t say anything else that drew a snarky response from Changmin, and the three of you (really, it was just you and Mika who participated) decided to meet at the restaurant she mentioned the next day for dinner.

“Well, I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Mika laughed lightheartedly, and the both of you stood at once.

Changmin stayed on the couch, but you figured it would be fine if you just walked her to the door. You frowned, though, noting the way his eyelids fluttered, like he was trying to keep himself upright. “Nonsense,” you said to her, “it was really nice to meet you, Mika.”

You opened the front door for her, and Mika fitted her shoes back on. “You, as well. And your partner.” Her lips curled up into a sweet smile. “Can’t wait to see you both tomorrow again, and to get to know you better. We have so much to catch up on.”

You nodded. “Yes, definitely. Get back safe, Mika.”

“I will. Thanks, Yn.” She gave a wave before marching down across the front lawn. You lingered by the door to make sure she got into her car okay, and returned her final, little wave through the driver’s side window.

With one hand braced on the side of the open front door, you craned your head around to look at Changmin on the couch. “Hey, you doing okay?” You asked, eyebrows creasing at the way he was hunched over now. “Changmin?”

“I think she—”

You didn’t hear what he said.

From your peripheral vision, you saw something swoop in toward you fast. You couldn’t comprehend what was happening—just the blur of feathers, the scream you let out, and the sound of Changmin yelling your name.

He was so sure that Mika drugged your tea with essence of sloth.

After you and Changmin came back from the kitchen, he’d seen the way the surface of your tea swirled as if something had just been stirred into it. The tea, which had been a mild green color before, looked a shade deeper, with fresh steam rising from it. He recognized those properties so distinctly to that of supernatural essences modeled after the seven deadly sins. He hadn’t even needed to think about it—he just reached for it and drank the entire thing. The worst case scenario was that Mika put enough of the essence in there that Changmin would be slightly affected, but only that much; either way, he would be able to stomach it better than you could. He couldn’t let you consume even a drop of it.

But now that his eyelids were as heavy as lead curtains and his brain felt like cotton, he was thinking it had to be sloth. But even if it was sloth, he wouldn’t have been this affected by it.

It had to be something different. Something he hadn’t taken before, something she knew a demon wouldn’t already have tolerance to.

He tuned into the conversation happening, just as Mika was excusing herself to head home. Good, she would leave and he could sleep this fucking drug off. You would be none the wiser.

“—will. Thanks, Yn.”

Almost gone.

Changmin’s eyelids shuddered closed as he leaned forward onto his knees with his head ducked to his chest. This… whatever the fuck this was, it was hitting him… hitting him… like… like a truck.

A familiar voice—no, more than just familiar—came to him. Your voice reached out to him, a lighthouse guiding his ship through a storm to shore. “Hey, you doing okay? Changmin?”

Could you close the door and come closer? Come over to him and sit next to him again. He gave a rough shake of his head in an attempt to knock some sense into his head. “I think she—”

Your scream sliced him right through the chest, and he jolted. “YN?”

“Changmin! Changmin—”

Everything blurred in his vision as he tried to stand. The floor wobbled beneath him, and he swayed toward the polished wood violently. “YN,” he yelled. Please, please, please—he needed to get to you.

He could barely make out the shapes in his vision: the flurry of gray feathered wings, your legs kicking out as you fought your captor. Changmin’s body lurched toward you, but stumbled pathetically, nearly tripping over the coffee table. Panic seized him by the ribs, but he trudged onward. He… he had to get to you. “YN? YN.”

“Chang—”

He swore.

His knees hit the floor. He would fucking crawl if he had to.

A pair of boots came into his blurred vision. “Well, isn’t this a lovely sight?”

Something in the back of his mind told him to RUN. But he couldn’t. Fucking Hell, he couldn’t even push himself up.

His chin was tilted upward, and he made out the shapes of eyes staring into his soul like a cat to a mouse. “She’ll be alright,” the voice purred. “You have bigger problems now.”

#14—DON'T TRUST ANYONE.

OUT OF FEAR OF FALLING STRAIGHT TO YOUR DEATH, you didn’t struggle in the arms of your angelic captor. Your heart ratcheted around in your ribcage as you dangled from the powerful grasp of one divine being you didn't recognize. His feathered wings, colored a medium gray, would have been beautiful to you if you weren't currently one slip away from splatting to the earth. This angel was nothing like Jacob.

All you could do was wait for doom. Whenever it decided to take you.

You hoped Changmin was okay. You prayed to anybody listening that he was okay; the way he stumbled toward you… the desperation in his voice. You swallowed. Oh god, you hoped he was okay. You couldn't stomach the thought of it—of losing him.

(You hoped you were going to be okay, too.)

The night sky looked akin to a dark void. No stars hung tonight, and you couldn't even see the houses beneath your feet. You screwed your eyes shut—better to not look down.

It wasn't much longer that the angel dove down into the dark mass of clouds and your voice became entrapped in your throat again. When you opened your eyes, there was a large estate coming into view with small lights embedded in the grounds lighting the way like a private airstrip. The angel followed, letting your arms go when your feet were close enough to the ground.

You rolled into the grass—he grabbed you up but the back of your shirt to stand upright.

"Come on," he grunted, "let's go inside."

"What the Hell do you want from me?" You gritted out as he practically dragged you across the lawn and toward the mansion ahead.

Shit, where did he take you? The grounds sprawled around you for what seemed like acres. You didn't have the mind to appreciate the architecture though, if this was your final resting place.

The angel didn't answer your question. Rude.

When he wrestled you into the front foyer, he threw you to the cool, stone floor. Your hands and knees caught the stone with a sharp slap, and you winced, rolling onto your backside.

"Stay here until—" Something embedded itself into the side of his neck. He scrunched his face up in mild annoyance, feeling around for the dart and pulling the needle out. He scoffed at the puny thing, flicking it to the floor.

Somebody leapt out from the front window curtains, screeching like a bat out of Hell. The creature, the person, launched themselves onto the angel's back and reared their armed hand back, before plunging the blade of a knife between his shoulder blades.

Gold-tinted blood arced across the ceiling and walls. You were frozen in horror as you watched Mika cling to the angel's wings and stab him over—and over—and over—and over—

The angel fought well, but the blade—fucking Hell, it had to have been laced with something.

He fell face first into a pool of his blood, dead, you presumed.

You scurried backward, trying to put space between you and the angel corpse. The golden ichor was slowly trickling toward you over the polished floors.

Mika huffed a strand of hair out of her eyes, sweat dampening her forehead. Her entire front and hand was covered in angel blood. She swiped the back of her hand over her forehead, leaving a streak of it there like gruesome war paint.

She smiled at you—you shivered. "Sorry about that," she said, stepping over the corpse unceremoniously. "Had to get rid of him. This one was a pain in the ass to work with anyway." She gave the body a kick in the side, and you flinched.

"What—" you choked, "—who the fuck are you?"

Mika's cheerful disposition was still present in her face. Her eyes still turned into crescent moons when she smiled. She was still the Mika you met less than two hours ago, but also not. Nothing about her softness before brought you any comfort now.

"We just met, Yn, don't you remember?" She walked toward you, and you scrambled away. "Now, don't be like that. We're on the same side." The blade in his grasp glinted gold and silver in the foyer lighting, and she gestured with it. "Oh, this? I put a little something special on it—it's the same thing your demon drank. In this world, we need as many advantages as we can, Yn."

When you had yet to say anything, she sighed, disappointed. "Don't tell me you're not impressed. Your sister was the same way when I showed her the thing I made."

You had one hand behind you, inching toward Clyde in your back pocket. "What… what do you mean? Is Changmin going to be okay?"

"He'll be fine," she dismissed with a flick of her wrist. "Well," she reconsidered. "I don't know if he'll be okay. Depends on the mood of the angels who have him. But that's not our problem."

"If you want the necklace, you can have it."

Mika laughed. "Goody! I was gonna take it from you anyway, but no, that's not the only thing I want."

"What else could you possibly want?"

She towered over you and you stuck your angel blade out between you and her. She raised a brow at the knife, slowly leaning down to be eye level with you. "Your sister really didn't tell you anything, huh?"

You gritted your teeth in frustration.

"Yn, let me tell you a story." Mika settled into the floor in front of you, crisscrossing her legs. Gold clung and dried against her clothes and skin, but it didn't bother her. "Not long ago, I discovered a little thing in my grandfather's attic. It was two halves of a pendant, and when put together, it made the shape of an infinity sign—or something to that effect. I had no idea what it was, but I figured there was no use keeping it around; I didn't need it. I put it on Craigslist and waited.

"Lo and behold, I got a notification from someone interested. Her name—can you guess? I bet you can," Mika mused.

"Sena."

"There you go," she said, leaning back onto her palms with a wistful smile. "Sena and I arranged a time to meet, and the first time I saw her—do you believe in love at first sight? I do. I fell in love with her, and I like to think she did, too."

You attempted to put a stop to the shakiness in your hands. "Where are you going with this?"

"Impatient, are we?" Her eyes narrowed. She drawled, carrying on, "She introduced me to her world and the necklace. This little amulet that my grandfather had tossed in an old jewelry box could conquer worlds, in the right hands. Could you imagine that? Jumping from realm to realm in a supercharged version of yourself without losing energy?"

Your mouth pressed into a thin line. "Dangerous."

"That's the boring answer."

"You're sick."

"I like to say ambitious," she countered. "You're just like your sister. Sena wanted to figure out how to destroy the thing rather than how to use it. Waste of time and talent, if you ask me. She didn't get it."

Mika cocked an eyebrow at you. "She cut her finger on it one day and it drank up her blood like a sponge. It was too late for her to back out then—she was bound to it." She waved a hand in your direction, and you clutched at the necklace. "And now you are, too. Your blood is the closest thing to Sena's, and you're the only one who can make it work."

You felt the blood in your face run cold.

"Don't look so surprised. That's why the demon kept you around."

Your head was spinning. "You're not making sense," you sputtered. Changmin—Changmin wanted to get rid of this as much as you did—but… but he hadn't. He hadn't, had he? "Why should I believe you?"

Mika frowned. "What reason would I have to lie to you?"

"You just murdered someone you worked with—"

"Oh, and you don't think he has?"

Your mouth snapped shut.

She leaned forward a little. "You and I, Yn, would never have to live in fear of the supernatural. The power that lies in your hands now, around your neck?" She started pulling herself to her feet, and you swiftly followed so you wouldn't be on the ground anymore.

You didn't need her to have any more advantage over you.

"It's priceless," Mika said, opening her arms wide. "You know what your little demon was going to do with the finished pieces of the amulet?"

"He was going to destroy the pieces—"

"He was going to take it for himself and use it to get back in his family's good graces," Mika corrected sharply. She took a step toward you, and you took one back. "You never suspected why he was so desperate to make sure you both 'finished what your sister started?'"

Oh god, you were going to be sick. You couldn't believe her—you weren't just going to believe her. Everything was spinning.

He was so insistent.

He was always so damn insistent. And he had never mentioned anything before about destroying the amulet.

The demon that day… it had addressed him as Your Disgrace. Oh God—

"I don't," you forced out, "believe you." Were you a fool? Were you a fool for believing in the goodness of a demon who saved you from death more than once, made sure you were fed and healing and happy and safe? Had you made a grave mistake?

Don't trust anyone.

Why hadn't Sena mentioned anything about Changmin?

"Then you're an idiot," Mika quipped. "Even Sena knew better than you."

"Oh, shut up," you snarled. You backed up all the way into the next room—the kitchen. Yn, look for a way out, damn it.

"He figured it out. That you were linked to it, and you were the ticket to accessing its power and the other pieces." You both came to a stand still. The ichor crusted over like caramelized sugar all over her face and clothes and hands.

"You have the third piece," you said tightly.

She shrugged. "Of course, I do. Money can buy you so many things."

"Clearly, it can't buy you a moral compass."

Mika barked out a laugh. "Oh, you're funny! It's almost a shame you're resisting; I'd hate to pick off another Ln sister."

"What—"

She pounced.

Your breath hitched in your throat as you moved out of the way, barely missing the graze of her knife. You gripped your own in your fist and swung it at her, adrenaline rushing through your veins and urging you to win—because who knew what would happen if you lost.

She came at you again with teeth gnashing and stained in blood that wasn't hers. You'd seen her take down that angel with a wild ruthlessness.

You caught her wrist as the counter dug into your spine, the point of her knife glinting in the kitchen lights.

"It brought me—" she grunted, applying more force down on you, "—no pleasure to do what I did to her, but she wouldn't—listen."

You bit your lip and got one leg free to kick her off you. "Fuck you!" You grabbed the vase behind you and chucked it at her head.

You heard the glass shatter, but hadn't seen the damage done as you made a dash for the front foyer again.

"Not so fast, little Ln—"

Something snagged into the back of your shirt, and you and Mika went tumbling to the stone floor. Your head hit the marble with purpose, a sharp pain piercing through your temple. Your vision blurred for a second and you put your hands out to fight for your fucking life.

"You killed her?" You caught her knife hand again and managed a slice with Clyde to her side as you shoved her onto her back.

"I wasn't—trying to," she grunted.

You yelped as she attempted to claw at your face, your head swerving out of the way just in time. "What the fuck does that even matter?"

"It wasn't my fault she was dumb enough to leave the bar." Mika kneed you off her body and your knife flew. You swore under your breath and she immediately fisted a portion of your hair and yanked you back toward her. "You should've seen the way she stumbled like a baby deer. Your older sister—such determination. That car didn't even see her until it was too late."

With ferocity, you knocked your head back against her face. You heard the satisfying sound of bones crack.

"Fucking Hell—"

You dove for Clyde, your fingers wrapping around the handle just in time to roll out of the way as Mika came down over you for a killing strike. Her knife struck the stone, and she growled at you, dark red oozing from her crooked nose, with one hand cradling her face. The vision of bared teeth and blood sent a shock of fear down your spine.

"You little—" she screeched, licking the blood off her lips and staining her teeth. "I'm going to have so much fun using your blood and bones for the amulet. Don't worry, it won't hurt—me."

You swore as she came at you again without abandon. She brought her knife down, time and time again, trying to catch you at some point.

Your blade sliced across her cheek, but hers caught you in the side. You felt it break skin, and you had little time to mourn over the sting in your stomach before you were rolling out of the way again.

You scrambled to your feet and with a war cry for encouragement, you charged at her, leaping onto her back and sending her crashing back to the floor. You grabbed the back of her head and smashed it against the floor. "You murdered my sister."

Mika screamed, and she used all of her adrenaline to flip you over onto your back. Bloodied and bruised, she drove her elbow into your gut, sending the wind straight out of your lungs. "The only thing I regret—" she said, turning over to face you with half her face drooling with blood and her mouth curled into a wicked smile, "—is that she won't be here to watch me skin you half-alive and use your body parts."

She crushed your knife hand under her knee, and you screamed as the pain made you see white. Mika pinned you beneath her weight with her knife raised high above her like an executioner's axe. "Goodbye, Yn. Just know that you had a choice."

You braced yourself for impact, head turned away and eyes screwed shut. At least you would see your sister soon, right? Was that some reprieve?

But the blow never came.

Your eyes fluttered open just in time to see a sword made of living shadows arc up in the air and slice across Mika's neck. Her eyes went wide for a split second, and you choked in horror as her dismembered head hit the floor with a dull thud.

Her headless body fell listlessly to the side. Dead and rigid.

Her blood was splattered all over your face and the stone floor, and you could taste the iron of it on your tongue. You gagged violently, a gross sob ripping out of your mouth.

Changmin stood over you with his jaw clenched, eyes narrowed like daggers, and Bonnie in his grasp. His limbs trembled, his body covered near head to toe in golden ichor and some dark trails of blood from himself. Gold stained his palms and crusted beneath his fingers, and feathers of varying colors stuck out of his hair dampened in sweat and more blood.

The sword clattered to the ground and you startled.

Relief came crashing over you and you attempted to push yourself off the ground, but crumpled under your near shattered wrist.

"Yn," Changmin breathed, collapsing onto his knees before you and crushing your face to his chest. You fell apart—oh god, it was the breaking of a dam. His grip tightened around you, cheek pressed against the top of your head. "Fuck, I thought I lost you. Hey, we're—shit, we're okay. I got you."

For a moment, you let yourself fall apart against him. All of the fear and adrenaline dissipated into body tremors and tears.

You could feel his grip on you loosen, and you took that as a signal to pull back.

You knew the signs well enough by now—how his eyes drooped and fought to stay open, how he swayed with his world tilting on its axis. "Changmin, how much energy—"

"Had to… had to get to you," he slurred. He crumpled, and you struggled to keep him upright with your one good arm. "I don't—know—I'll be fine."

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was your face, scrunched in worry, haloed by the lights over your head. Yeah, you were safe now, and so was he.

#15—FOUR LETTER WORDS.

JI CHANGMIN CAME TO GROGGY AND LIGHT-HEADED. For a moment, he wasn't sure where he was, because the last thing he could remember was defeathering an angel prick one stupid bird feather at a time. He made sure each one hurt.

Why? Why had he done it? It was—it was for information. Information about what? …it was… it was about—you. He was trying to find where their friend had taken you. You—

His eyes shot open and he jolted upright, a groan escaping him at the way his entire body ached.

He collapsed back against the armchair he sat in and took in the room. He didn't recognize it at all. The drapes were too heavy and embroidered with gold flowers, the floor looked too polished and expensive. The couch sectional adjacent to him was made of leather too soft to be the one from Sena's safehouse.

The room was dimmed slightly with only the lamp next to him providing light.

He smacked his lips together as he recognized the taste on his tongue. It was metallic and thick; he'd tasted it before, could name it blindfolded at this point.

Where were you? You'd dripped blood into his mouth while he was out, hadn't you? He didn't remember drinking it or—

Something rattled when he tried to move his left arm.

He glanced down at his wrist hanging over the side of the armchair to find that he was cuffed to the lamp next to him with a sterling silver necklace. It was made of chunky links, the band twisted in a figure eight with his wrist in one side and the lamp in the other so it would tighten around him every time he tried yanking.

Smart.

He sighed. Great.

The sound of a throat clearing drew his attention away and to the far reaches of the living room. You stood just where the light touched you, one wrist wrapped in something like gauze and Band-Aids littering your face and body.

His chest tugged and lurched painfully at the sight of you. You were so badly hurt when he finally got to you, but he had got to you nonetheless. He had grabbed Bonnie and ran.

"Feeling better?" You asked him.

His voice was scratchy and he coughed. "Y—yeah. Kind of. I'll survive." He could feel his body stitching itself back together. He would definitely survive.

The angel bitches had reignited the pain in his broken ribs before, but it was slowly being mended again. They were all strange sensations.

"You're okay?" He asked, swallowing. He didn't know what he'd do if you weren't. You seemed okay standing so far away. Why had you… why had you chained him to the lamp? Why were you so far away?

Your nod was slow and you braided your arms over your chest. He noticed Bonnie leaning up against the wall next to you and the damned pendant still hanging from your neck. Only there was an extra chain beside it with the second half present too, the halves facing away from each other. "For the most part, yes," you said. "Scrounged up some things around the house to tape myself back together. Mentally and emotionally? That's a little different."

He had heard what Mika said to you right before he lopped her head off. "I can imagine. I'm sorry," he murmured. "I don't regret doing that."

"Beheading her?"

"Yeah, that." And he would do it a thousand times over if it meant you would live.

You glanced down at the floor for a moment. "I need you to be honest with me."

He let out a breath. "Okay."

"Why did the demon who attacked me at my apartment call you Your Disgrace?"

Changmin's blood froze over like the lakes in the seventh circle of Hell. Something akin to panic clawed at him from the inside and up his throat, and every instinct of his was telling him to shut down, reel back the drawbridge, and lock the gates.

But this was… this was you. You asked him to be honest. There was something in the way you looked at him, the careful mask you'd put on, that told him to fight whatever cowardice was trying to shine through.

He wrestled down another swallow. "My family—my father is a Duke of Hell. I'm the youngest of my family, but the only boy—" Changmin's knee bounced up and down to channel his nervous energy toward something else. "—and I didn't want the responsibility of being his heir or to be associated with any of that. I wanted freedom."

He could still remember the day he decided to run away. It was stupid that he thought he wouldn't get caught.

He bit down on his tongue so hard it bled. "Long story short, my sisters saved me from punishment, and my father did the one thing I wanted him to—disown me. I was banished from my home and exiled to the mortal realm." He pursed his lips and made a weak, vague gesture.

It wasn't a history he was proud of. For the first few years, it was all he wanted and more. But family was still family, and sometimes it was impossible to fill certain voids. Even for a demon.

Your voice carried across the room, "Did you ever consider trading the amulet to get back in your family's good graces?"

"How did you—"

"Yes or no."

His shoulder sagged. "Yes."

"Did my sister know?"

"Yes." He hated every single second of this conversation. Every yes he pushed out, he could feel your voice getting colder.

You cocked your head to the side. "Did you know how I related to the function of the amulet?"

"Yes," he said. "But it wasn't until you said it matched your heartbeat at the safehouse."

"And when did you plan to betray me?"

He gripped the arm of his chair. "I didn't—"

"Don't lie," you snarled.

His mouth snapped closed and he moved back like a flinch. His eyes shut for a second, before opening again to fixate on you. "I'm not lying," he drawled. "When I opened Sena's parting letter, I dropped any will to trade that thing to beings like my parents. I swear on my immortal life, Yn, I never intended to betray you at any point."

He didn't know how to get through to you. He didn't know how to convince you. Who was he but a creature of evil? He understood why you wouldn't be able to trust anyone, especially after the events of the past week. You were doing the best that you could… but fuck, you were so far away.

He'd fucked up.

You were quiet for a moment, and he couldn't read you. When he first met you, he thought he could read your thoughts and emotions like an open book. But now, it was near impossible.

"Okay."

A single word. Who knew four letter words could make him feel like this. "Okay?" He echoed, uncertain. Hope was so dangerous a feeling.

You nodded your head, shoulders lifting and dropping with exhaustion. "Okay," you repeated. "I believe you."

"You believe me? Why?" He asked against his better judgment.

You exhaled. "Well, for starters, you could have killed me like Mika tried to. You could have broken through that chain at any point, but you haven't. It's flimsy as Hell."

He glanced down at the silver chain around his wrist and gave it an experimental yank. It hadn't even occurred to him to break free; he hadn't the reason to. He was safe.

"And second," you continued, drawing his attention again, "you haven't given me any reason to not believe you." He didn't want to mistake the tenderness in your gaze now. Maybe he was seeing things. And it made his chest ache. "There have been so many times where you could have done away with me, but you always came back. For me, and not the necklace. I mean—keeping the necklace with me was one thing, but maybe I'm just stupidly convincing myself that you care."

Changmin shook his head in earnest. "It's not stupid." I do care.

You scoffed, raising a brow. "I sound like the dumbest person in the world, trusting a demon."

He hung his head for a moment, fighting for the right words. He grappled with himself, desperate and uselessly unable to describe the way he felt toward you because in demonic culture, this thing—this yank, this gravity he felt toward you—didn't exist. Demons used, stole, purged, devoured, but never whatever this was. This had to be wholly human.

"Yn," he began, feeling your eyes on him again, "I don't know what it is. And I can't describe it in a way that matters or might matter to you. But I'm—I'm… drawn to you." He wished he could shrink under your gaze, to be swallowed by the earth. Dear fuck, the way you pinned him down with that stare like you could see straight into his soul.

Changmin swallowed. "My chest aches, Yn. I don't know what it is, but it aches when I'm around you, and it aches when I'm not. It aches when you laugh, and it aches when you fucking say my name. And I—" He blew out a harsh breath, teeth gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he scavenged for the right words. He wanted it to matter because it had to. He wanted it to matter to you as much as it was coming to matter to him.

"I don't know what it is," he said again uselessly. "But I feel like you could just reach into my ribcage and I would let you. I would let you do whatever you want. Even if you—you wanted to just leave me here. If you would leave content and satisfied, then..." He would watch you go. But he didn't want you to. Please don't leave.

He wondered if he got the message across. He could barely possess half the meaning himself or wrap his head around it.

But he raised his head and watched you limp across the room toward him, his chest stuttering and stumbling the closer you came.

He could see you in the lamplight so much clearer now.

There were scratches all over your body, bandages littering your skin. But your eyes could devour him whole and he would sink forever.

You cupped his face with your good hand, and the organ in his chest flipped. There was a distinct softness to your touch, like the day your hand ghosted over his battered torso on the dock, and the way you tucked your cheek against his shoulder at the motel.

He shuddered, lips trembling.

"I love you, too," you said.

He knew you understood.

You pressed your lips against his, beautiful and perfect. Everything soft and tender he never thought he'd crave for all his life. It all melted into place. You were safe, and so was he.

The passenger side seat dug into your spine and your back molded against it like second nature. The sky was the color of darkened ash sitting at the bottom of a burnt fire pit, and the only light for miles around were the car's headlights. The road was barren, stretching on farther than your eyes could see. The time on the dash read a quarter past three in the morning.

Changmin sat behind the wheel with one hand steering and the other clasped between yours. Your dominant hand was wrapped up in a brace to support your broken wrist bones, and you'd replaced all your bandages with fresh ones. Bonnie was stashed in the back, and Clyde was tucked into your pocket as usual. Neither of you had any more of someone else's blood on your body, but you would feel the effects of the night's events for a while longer.

You were headed back toward Moonstone Creak. It was a place you looked forward to returning to, where Changmin knew you would be safe and happy, and where you knew you could be, too. Once you tied up matters at your old apartment, then matters about moving permanently could be settled.

You were playing it by ear, at this point.

Changmin's thumb ran over the back of your hand, gentle but with purpose. "You should sleep. It's a long way back."

The twin halves of the amulet hung from your neck with an equal, balanced weight. The third piece was tucked into your back pocket. You'd found it stashed among Mika's other accessories in her room. You and Changmin agreed it should be thrown somewhere over the side of a cliff. It needed to be lost and to stay lost.

Maybe you would give the second half to Changmin to wear.

"Why do you like blueberries so much?" You asked him instead of heeding his suggestion, as always. Your mouth opened to yawn, and he passed a sidelong glance at you.

He said, "They were the first thing I ate when I arrived on the mortal plane. They're a reminder of how far I've come."

You turned to him, and he met your gaze for a brief moment. "I didn't expect them to have such sentimental value."

The corner of his mouth curled upward. "That, and they taste good."

You smiled to yourself. "So about Bonnie—"

"I'm not teaching you."

"Asshole."

"Human."

You gave his shoulder a playful shove across the center console and he fought the grin on his face and lost.

He chuckled. "It was never an insult, by the way."

You settled back in your seat and curled your legs up. Brushing your lips against the back of his knuckles, you heard the breath that fell from his lips. "I know," you murmured.

a/n: i realize that you probably have questions... take it as an excuse to come visit my inbox! if you liked this, pls reblog :] thank you so much for reading mwah

[acewritesfics]

I Almost Lost You | JAY HALSTEAD

⚠️ THIS IS A REPOST FROM MY MAIN BLOG @/DLMLUFICS. UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY. MORE INFO IN MY PINNED POST.

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Wife!Reader

Request: From Anon

Fic Type: Imagine

Prompt: "You think you can just push me away like that?”  

Warnings: Mentions of being shot, surgery, crime.

Word Count: 849

JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST || TAG LIST SIGN-UP

©️ no one has permission to copy, translate and/or repost my works on here or anywhere else.

Jay sat next to the hospital bed where Y/N is currently resting. His arms are laying on the bed, one of them clutching hers. She'd fallen asleep a little more than an hour before, both of them gripping each other's hands, fearful that if they let go, the other would disappear like she almost had. 

Intelligence has been looking for a duo who were robbing businesses and killing anyone who got in their way. They claimed to be the next Bonnie and Clyde and went out in the same manner as the originals. Y/N was shot three times during the shootout a little less than 24 hours ago.  

Despite his best efforts, Jay is unable to shake the visual of her lying there, her breathing and pulse growing weaker as he works, in complete fear of losing her, to stop her from bleeding out. 

Y/N and Jay have been married for just over three months, and he has already nearly lost her. He bites his lower lip, fighting the negative thoughts that remind him he could still lose her, especially given their line of work.  

“What’s going on inside that handsome head of yours?” Y/N’s raspy sleep filled voice, brings him out of his thoughts.  

“How much I love you,” he tells her, thinking that now is not the time to hash out what he’s really thinking about. Though, he is always thinking about how much he loves her.  

"Don't do that," she says gazing at him, drowsily. "You think you can just push me away like that?” 

"I'm not trying to push you away, babe," he says giving her a soft smile. "I can't now that you're wearing my ring."  

"You know what I mean," she sighs. "I'm so doped on pain meds, it didn't come out right." 

"I know what you meant," he assures her, gently squeezing her hand.  

"Don't go quiet on me, Jay." 

"I almost lost you," he starts telling her what he's thinking and feeling. "We've been married for three months. We’re just starting our lives together and I could have lost you. I almost lost you."  

“It’s part of the job,” she whispers, weakly squeezing his hand.  

“Don’t… don’t say that,” he tells her, frowning. He knew she was being nonchalant about it right now because of the drugs but it didn’t help how he was feeling or the thoughts clouding his head. “Not right now.” 

“I’m sorry,” her lips pout as she lets out a quiet sob, tears building up on her eyes. 

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Jay tries to reassure her as he moves closer to the bed and brings her hand to his face, gently kissing her fingers where her rings usually sat. They had been taken off during her surgery so they wouldn’t end up damaged or lost. “You did nothing wrong. It’s their fault and mine for not being there to protect you.” 

“You can’t be in two places at once,” she cries holding no resentment towards him like he seems to think he deserves. 

“No but I’m your husband as well as your partner. It’s not only my job to have your back, it’s also my vow to you,” he stands up, leaning over her to wipe away the tears and kiss her gently. “You know, us being married, living together and all that, means you won’t be able to cheat recovery and come back to work earlier than the doctors order right.” 

She can’t help the chuckle that escapes her lips, through the tears and sobs. “Yeah, but I have a brother-in-law who’s a doctor.” 

“And I’m going to tell him if he tries to do you any favors so you can get back to work sooner, I’ll find something to arrest him on.” 

“Yeah, you would do that.” 

“You’re damn right I would,” he says and tells her, “Voight’s given me some time off so I can take care of you.” 

“It’ll be a mini vacation,” she says giving him a weak smile.  

“For you it might be,” he kisses her again before reaching into his pocket and pulling out her engagement and wedding bands. He slips them back on to her finger and brings her hand back up to his lips and kisses the same spot as before. “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” she says letting go of his hand and carefully shifts over in the bed and pats the now empty spot next to her. “I don’t care what the doctors have to say, I need my husband with me tonight.” She adds before he can protest.  

Kicking off his shoes, he climbs onto the bed next to her, making sure to not hurt her even more. Careful of her injuries, she finds a comfortable position for them to lay in and places the blankets over him. 

It doesn’t take long for Y/N to drift back to sleep unlike Jay who remains awake until he can no longer keep his eyes open, afraid that if he does fall asleep, that he’ll open his eyes when he awakens and she’ll be gone. 

TAGGED: LINK TO TAG LIST SIGN-UP ABOVE.

[synapticfirefly]

Hi was wondering if we could get some lore for the south park mirrorverse as it has me in a chokehold

I've been waiting for this question! (Warning: Violence, murder, gang wars, mild trafficking)

South Park High is controlled by the Devil's Three, which involves Kyle, Bebe, and Tolkien. Scott Tenorman used to be the sole person in charge until Kyle murdered him as a romantic gesture for Eric. This caused a bloody power vacuum that lasted an entire year.

Kyle controls the nerds/geeks, social media influencers, and the gingers. He's considered the richest of the three (thanks to his family ruling parts of Hollywood) and his paranoia often funds the weirdest shit to gain an edge over his enemies. Stan and Kenny often take advantage of this, whether for Stan's animal rights terrorism or to pay off and control Kenny's latest sugar parent for blackmail and info. But don't let the lack of muscle in his militia fool you. One call to Jersey is a threat that even the adults of South Park take seriously.

Bebe controls the majority of the female students, the cheerleaders, and the student council. The Stevens family is knee-deep in South Park's department of education. She is often the last person to beg for leniency if you are facing expulsion (or death), whether by becoming a social pariah or you simply pissed her off. Because she has actual power over the school, the only way to secure a place in her domain is to hold something over her head. Eric once saved her from an assassination attempt, which made her indebted to Kyle. Nichole is a part of Bebe's trusted inner circle, which means she knows a little too much, which gives Token's group enough leverage to squeak by.

Tolkien controls the jocks (and by extension, Clyde), the academically gifted, the exchange students, and the well-connected. His gang is quite easy to join so long as you made yourself useful. Laziness is not permitted in his gang and he will often enforce brutal punishments for failure and/or incompetence compared to the other Devils. The LGBTQ+ students also often flock to him thanks to Tweek and Craig, who are the official battle couple under his thumb.

There was supposed to be a 'fourth devil' which controlled the burnouts, the Goths, the Vamps, and the other deviants, but these groups have been fighting for control for so long that there is still no clear leader. If you asked Kyle, he'd roll his eyes and say there was no leader unless Kenny got off his lazy ass and took over. If you asked Bebe, she'd wish it was Mike Makowski ("because he's hot!"). If you asked Tolkien, he'd say that Michael from the Goths has the best potential to be the fourth, but is too busy yapping about it to ever make a legitimate play for power. If you asked Butters, he'd give you his best unhinged smile and answer, "Pip."

Bebe has the highest kill count of the Devil's Three, which earned her the nickname "Bloody Bebe". Despite this, she is still the most popular. Tolkien has the lowest, often preferring to negotiate than fight. This is partially why he has the most followers under his banner. Even though Kyle maintains the middle ground, his paranoia gives him little faith in his soldiers, which makes him the hardest to trust. He also prefers quality over quantity and will often reject groups he finds distasteful.

Liane Cartman used to be the most well-respected woman in South Park until Eric was born. His sweet, pure nature was seen as a birth defect and she contemplated killing him as a mercy until he started preschool. She changed her mind when Kyle invited Eric to his inner circle, providing her son the protection he needed to survive school.

Eric has been sent to at least four different intolerance camps to try and fix his behavior, but all have failed. He has been kicked out many times for being a 'good influence' on his peers. Trent Boyett is one notable mention.

Stan is a part of ATEP (Action for Total Eradication of People), the mirror version of PETA. This organization was one of the founders for the worldwide purges and prefer to eradicate humans for the benefit of nature. Uncle Jimbo and Uncle Ned are both high-ranking members and inspired Stan to take up arms for animals.

Butters is probably one of the most unhinged students in South Park. He intentionally hides his kill count, which makes him even more dangerous, and prefers to stalk his prey for months at a time, finding joy in breaking their peace of mind before brutally murdering them. His favorite subject is Photography and will often showcase his artistic snuff films for his friends, especially for Eric, until Kyle forbade it. His parents are terrified of him and often lock him out of the house during purges in the hope that someone finally takes him out. Butters' loyalty belongs to neither of the Devil's Three.

Bonus: The McCormicks have a side hustle producing babies to sell to the highest bidders. They constantly produce blond haired, blue eyed boys, which appeals to the rich white supremacists or the Hollywood elite (which is what ties the McCormick family to the Broflovski family business-wise). Thanks to how close Kyle is to Kenny, the McCormicks are often paid extremely well, but often slide back down to poverty after splurging it all on cars, booze, and drugs. All of these babies, of course, are just Kenny continually being resurrected and wandering back home to South Park with as much cash and valuables as he can carry.

[hawkinasock]

TELL US ABOUT YOUR OTHER AUS (IF ABLE AND WILLING AND YOU WANT TO) ‼️‼️‼️

Tread carefully, Anon... Once I start yapping, I can't stop (jokes on you tho, I love yapping. Let's go)

I assume you mean aus for HSR specifically? I've got a lot more for genshin, but to stop myself from going on massive tangents, I'll just stick to HSR. I'll keep them all as summaries and go into more depth if there's any interest. Ok here we go:

Chimera Yanqing has kinda become my whole thing now, but I've never actually mentioned the other characters that I've also made chimera forms for. Namely Jing Yuan.

He doesn't really have any lore...? Unlike Yanqing, I was too focused on making him look pretty, which is easy because it's Jing Yuan. I'll make an update if I add anything more to his lore, cause I'd hate to just leave him unfinished forever. I do have a chimera Yunli au too, which I'll also save for another time. (Also keep in mind that he has wayyyy more fur than what I've shown. It just would've made his actual form unclear. He is very, very fluffy, canonically)

Mara-struck Yanqing (aka How the general ate the cabbage). Made a whole fic for this one, the plot is in the pudding, and by pudding I mean my ao3 lol. Instead of deflecting Jingliu's ult, Yanqing is instead killed and mara-stricken, and everything falls apart from there. Keeping it vague since it's still in progress. As of writing this, I'm three chapters in, so check it out if you're interested <3

Band au. I actually forgot about this one until I went through my list. Basically, It's a modern au where the high cloud quintet were a huge band back in ye olden days of the mid 1980s until their downfall, where the lead singer (Baiheng) is killed in an accident, triggering a series of unfortunate fates for 3 of the 4 remaining members. Jing Yuan is the only member still working in the industry and adopted Yanqing roughly 20 years after the the HCQ's fallout. One day, though, after years of no contact, Blade comes back into Jing Yuan's life, seeking refuge from law enforcement, and it all tumbles out of control from there after Jing Yuan accepts. The rest of the story would follow a very suspicious Yanqing wondering what the deal is with his dad's weird new boyfriend, and eventually reuniting the 4 remaining members (getting the band back together, as Phineas would say). There is SO much lore for this one, but it would take up this entire post to explain, so I'll probably just make it into its own post (with designs ofc). Tbh I haven't done as much work on this one as the others simply because I just don't know that much about music? Zel does though, so if I ever come back to it, I can go to him as a consultant.

Kind of an odd one, but I'm including it since it sorta counts, and I've become pretty fond of it over time. Mom Lumine au(s) Xiaother being Yanqing's dads is one of my favorite little crack aus. This au is the brainchild of imagining Yanqing as Lumine's child instead, but me as the author not enjoying xiaolumi as much. Thus, this was born. There's not really a story? Just a bunch of loosely put together concepts with multiple potential narratives that I find fun. Most of the time I default Childe as Yanqing's bio dad. In a weird way, it makes sense in my head? Yanqing resembles Lumine and uses a sword, and has that same go-getting, battle-hungry attitude as Childe, with all the knock-outs to boot. I mainly imagine chilumi as this interstellar crime duo; the Bonnie and Clyde of space, if you will. Because, honestly, if Yanqing's parents are ever to be revealed, would it not be the funniest thing for them to turn out to be criminals? I think it's hilarious, because Yanqing himself would be mortified.

Guardian Blade/Stellaron Hunter Yanqing au. These names are kinda lazy cause I usually don't make official titles for them unless their a fic, which this one happens to be. Here, Yanqing is an abomination of abundance, and as my interpretation usually goes, the only person who knows about this is Jing Yuan. Him and one other - blade, who was confided in the secret shortly after Jing Yuan had taken baby Yanqing in. Jing Yuan made Blade promise that, should the truth ever be uncovered and Jing Yuan punished, Blade is to take Yanqing and protect him. And years down the line, when the truth does finally reveal itself, Blade fulfills his promise. Theoretically, Yanqing would then join the stellaron hunters, albeit unenthusiastically. I haven't actually made any plans for that concept outside of a single one-shot. I still need to finish the actual fic first lmao.

Mara-struck Jing Yuan au. Probably the least original one I have to offer, because there's nothing particularly unique about it aside from one little twist I added that I think differentiates it, and that's that Yanqing doesn't actually kill Jing Yuan, or vice versa. Instead, Jing Yuan, in his current state, attacks everyone and everything except for Yanqing, and actually goes out of his way to keep Yanqing away from danger. The way I rationalize this (and this is me stretching the mara lore a LOT) is that Yanqing is so important to Jing Yuan that he creates a sort of blind spot to the mara when present; he is both innately precious and harbors only positive memories in Jing Yuan's mind, so in a way, he retroactively contradicts the way mara-struck!Jing Yuan would normally perceive him, seeing Yanqing as something to protect rather than attack (i hope that made any sense </3). This would probably never actually happen in canon. I just really like the idea of Jing Yuan's love for his son being so strong that it stays with him even after he's gone mad and can no longer remember what Yanqing means to him.

Progenitor au. Saved this one for last because it's been occupying my entire brain for the past few days. It's based on Dillongoo's Progenitor Albedo series, and by based, I mean it's just the same au, same universe and everything, but HSR. I won't go into the details because I'm planning to make it its own dedicated post as well, but I think its safe to say its becoming my favorite au out of all of these. I already have some designs and original lore cooked up, so hopefully I can post about it soon.

I think that's all of them? Debatable if some of these even count as aus, but who cares. I hope you enjoyed my rambles and found my ideas interesting enough to read through. I'm hoping to eventually give them some more life and make actual content with them.

Till next time <3

[just-a-creep-babe]

Dunno if youve done this already, but would you be willing to do some general headcanons for some of the creeps? Maybe ben or jeff? 👀👉👈

(Does this count as a request??)

I’m not sure how many of these headcanons I may have mentioned before, so excuse my repeating them if I have 😌👌🌸

Requests are closed but commissions are open!

Check out my patreon if you’d like to support me!

Masterlist: x

Jeff the Killer

Honestly, he was pretty scrawny (and dare I even say twink-like) when he first started killing

He thought he was invincible when he lost his mind, and combined with his lack of experience with independence, it led to him making a lot of very unhealthy choices

He neglected his hygiene, ignored the pangs of hunger & pain from overexertion, and he didn’t even bother sanitizing the cuts & scraps he got from fighting

For one reason or another, his mental break did result in superior health & stamina, but that doesn’t mean he’s invulnerable

Contrary to what he may have thought at one point, he is, in fact, not a god

It was only multiple near-death experiences later that he started learning how to take better care of himself

And then he also realized that eating right & working out made him even faster & stronger

So he’s since bulked up quite a bit, and he’s become obsessed with his health, fitness & nutrition

It also comes as no surprise to anyone that he’s, well, kind of an asshole

He actively tried to start shit when he first joined the mansion

He was restless & aggravated, and felt like he had something to prove

So he acted like a massive dickhead to everyone & looked for trouble wherever he went

He’s gotten quite the reputation because of that, and even though he’s chilled out since then, a good amount of creeps are either still wary of him or want to shred his guts to pieces

But don’t feel bad for him, he still kinda deserves it, even nowadays :”)

His relationship with Slender is definitely precarious because of what he’s done in the past

Because before he joined the safe-house, this idiot guy literally challenged the eldritch being to fights

Which, obviously, resulted in him getting his ass beat, but that didn’t stop him from trying again next time

The only reason Slender keeps him around is because he’s good at what he does

And he also doesn’t want an opposing force to claim him

Besides, Jeff is useful to pin chores on

Cause if he refuses, Slender just might get sick of him & kick him out—and Jeff is fully aware of this

It’s all those accumulated debts from before

But!! He’s not entirely without friends at the mansion

He’s besties with BEN, and otherwise gets along really well with Clockwork and Toby

He doesn’t spend too much time with Toby since the proxy’s always busy with work, but when they do hang out, they almost always have a really chaotic great time together

He honestly considers Smile Dog his ✨bestest bestie✨ so BEN does sometimes have to compete with a dog for Jeff’s attention

Which is, objectively, very funny

Romance-wise, though he’d never admit it, he is kind of lonely

He’d like to develop a bond with someone he can trust & become ride-or-dies, kind of like Bonnie & Clyde-esque

But he also has major trust issues, and it would take a Lot for that bond to develop

Sometimes, the loneliness & burden of his lifestyle haunts him when he least expects it

So he is prone to unhealthy coping mechanisms

He’ll find comfort at the bottom of a bottle, or he’ll pick at his open wounds & hurt himself various ways to deal with the darkness in his mind

But luckily, he’s learned how to repress it better over time, especially since he’s learned how to take better care of himself

So those lonely nights, while they still do creep up on him occasionally, have become fewer & farther between

Anyways, overall, this man is kind of wreck, but he’s gotten better over time, so that’s something at least, innit?

BEN Drowned

Unlike Jeff, who’s gone through some kind of change over time, BEN… has not

It might just be because he’s dead and physically/mentally/spiritually/emotionally stuck in his old ways

Or it might just be because he’s incredibly lazy

Who can tell for sure?

Either way, his laziness borders on depression

He just doesn’t feel like doing anything—because why would he?

He’s basically immortal, he doesn’t need to get a job or pay rent or eat or sleep or, well, do anything, really

It gets to the point where he thinks “what’s the point?”

And that results in him playing video games for 2 weeks straight without leaving his room or showering or doing any basic self-care

He has to hold onto the things he likes because otherwise, he kind of just… wouldn’t have anything to exist for

So he’ll often indulge in gaming, hacking, sex and murder

Messing with people’s minds and driving them insane is a very entertaining hobby for him

It makes him feel powerful, like he can still exert his influence onto the living despite being dead

Sometimes, he won’t even kill his victims—he’ll just play with them for a few weeks or months before leaving them alone

He just loves knowing the thought of him will haunt them for the rest of their lives

He gets to live in their minds rent free without even trying—how wonderful is that?~

Tbh, he generally enjoys anything that strokes his ego

So he’ll often scour the inter-webs for stories about himself; whether they be from fans, victims or potentially even ghost hunters

It’s very flattering to him, knowing people actively spend their time thinking, talking & theorizing about him

He’ll sometimes even make fake accounts to join in on the fun~

He‘s kind of a narcissist, what can I say?

Homeboy feels very deeply connected to The Legend of Zelda, so he’ll follow all the latest news on the franchise

It’s also one of those things that give him some kind of a purpose

When his mental health dips, sometimes he’ll escape reality by just kind of… floating off into cyberspace

Existing can be hard, and sometimes you just wanna reside in a blank slate of information, ya know?

And then also, because he doesn’t need to eat to sustain himself, his diet is a mess

Which particularly stresses EJ out, so if he’s feeling like a lil shit, BEN will just eat the wildest kind of junk food to bother the med student

He once went nearly two whole months just eating condiments alone

And while EJ knows he doesn’t need good nutritional habits as a ghost, it just does Not sit right with him

Speaking of EJ and such, the other residents contribute a lot to helping BEN’s mental health

Mostly unintentionally, too

They just always keep things fun & fresh for him, like coaxing him out of his room, bargaining favors from him, getting him to do pranks—that sort of thing

He’s good friends with Jeff (as mentioned), Toby (they’re prank buddies), and he’s got a good amount of respect for Hoodie (even though they’re not super close, for similar reasons Jeff isn’t super close to Toby)

BEN’s also got a love-hate relationship with Dark Link, to the point where he’d probably consider him his nemesis

The two have a complicated relationship, but ultimately, his life would be missing something without Dark Link to constantly compete against

But other than that, he’s pretty neutral with a lot of the residents, simply by virtue of staying holed up in his room a lot of the time

With little to no purpose, our manses is really honestly just here to boyboss, gaslight, manipulate and be cringe

So things really aren’t too bad for him

At the end of the day, it’s hard to say whether he should be pitied or envied :”)

[naminethewriter]

I was tagged by @prince-rowan-of-the-forest! Thank you very much! 🥰 You can find their post here!

1: How many works do you have on Ao3?

92 as of yesterday 😎

2: What's your total Ao3 word count?

223,014 words

3: What fandoms do you write for?

Right now just Sanders Sides, though I have unfinished stories for both Kingdom Hearts and South Park and I am thinking of participating in a Professor Layton Big Bang.

4: What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Clyde can't handle that his best friend keeps secrets from him (South Park) - 496 kudos

After months of silence (South Park) - 254 kudos

Lookout (South Park) - 242 kudos

Always (Sanders Sides) - 184 kudos

Logan Tries Something New (Sanders Sides) - 179 kudos

I'm actually surprised that there are two Tss fics here, I was sure that they hadn't caught up to my South Park stories 😅 Apparently they have a lot more hits but aren't that far ahead in terms of kudos 🤔

5: Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I actually feel kind of weird when I don't do it... And I always like getting answers to my own comments 🥰

6: What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oof, that's a hard question... I mean, it depends from which perspective, right? One of my South Park fics, I'll Give Up Everything For You, ended with Hell invading earth but the main characters are the instigators and happy together, while they doomed their town.

Then I have a few Hurt No Comfort stories like Who's the Liar Now? or Rare Lies Hurt The Most, though they're both quite short.

I guess the one with the most ambiguous and hurtful endings are appropriately closely named: Cursed (Dukeceit Werewolf story) and Cursed Woods (Roceit with forceful separation at the end).

7: What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, that's hard because that's most of them 😅 But without thinking about it too much, You're Not Alone an Intruloceit story with lots of hugs and comfort and a christmas party at the end 💙💛💚

8: Do you get hate on fics?

One time I got a comment telling me to kill myself under a South Park fic but apparently they went around commenting on a bunch of fics with that particular ship, so it wasn't really targeted at me. That was the only thing that I've got over the years.

9: Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don't, but maybe someday 🤷‍♀️

10: Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't and I don't really like reading them either with very few exceptions.

11: Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If so, I'm not aware of it.

Question 12 has been lost to the ether...

13: Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven't, but I'd like to try someday ^^

14: What's your all-time favorite ship?

Considering that I just wrapped up the 4th ship week in a row for these dorks, Intrulogical all the way 💙💚

15: What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

How to manipulate a rebellion, a South Park story that I still very much like but I'm not active in the fandom anymore and have so many other stories I want to work on, so I doubt I'll ever get back to it... 😞

16: What are your writing strengths?

Heartfelt moments and dialogue, I think. Sincerity and simplicity as well, maybe.

17: What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm not good with poetic writing styles. I also often struggle with descriptions since I'm not much of a visual thinker.

18: Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I think it can be a fun addition, depending on how much you include. Since I myself am not a native English speaker, I am often tempted to bring in some German. But it needs to be inserted in a way that even non-speakers of the language can understand.

19: First fandom you wrote for?

Kingdom Hearts! They were my first online obsession 🤭 If I had discovered fandoms earlier, I might have written for Wizards of Waverly Place.

20: Favorite fic you've written?

How could I ever choose? I actually really like most of my fics still and do reread them sometimes but I guess in terms of begin proud of how much work I put into it, Hurt No One Knew About might be my favorite of them so far.

Thanks again for the tag! This was fun but a lot of work 🤭

No pressure tags: @lost-in-thought-20, @lily-janus, @candied-peach, @mimssides, @starshard17

[ppersonna]

ride or die - myg | m

we don't need money to feel good cause you're the ride or die, the rest of my life. don't need a party to feel high, we're like the modern version of bonnie and clyde , bonnie & clyde, yuqi

✹ summary- there’s nothing in the world you wouldn’t do for Min Yoongi.

✹ rating- explicit/18+/nsfw

✹ pairing- min yoongi x reader

✹ word count- 1.6k

✹ genre- hmm idk. maybe some angst, some smut, some action?, established relationship, criminal!au

✹ chapter warnings- sexual content, mentions of criminal acts/police, unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), mentions of death, guns, unhealthy obsession with each other lol

✹ a/n- hi loves! i wanted to challenge myself and write something a bit more prose-heavy than any sort of plot or semblance of plot. i hope you enjoy this random drabble that wouldnt leave my brain!!! thanks to @ladyartemesia @xjoonchildx @untaemedqueen and @nomseok​ for looking over it for me and helping me feel better about it LOLLL. i love u all ALSO PLS LISTEN TO THE SONG BONNIE AND CLYDE BY YUQI IT IS AMAZING AND WHERE I GOT ALL MY INSPO FOR THIS!!

 75 mph…

100 mph…

Yoongi’s hand grips tight on the inside of your thigh, fingers pressing into the supple flesh as his foot presses down the gas pedal. 

The engine roars, matching the screaming explosion you feel inside your chest. Your veins feel like they’re flowing with the same high-octane fuel that Yoongi’s injected to the engine of the 1969 matte black Camaro.

Yoongi.

There’s nothing in the world you wouldn’t do for Yoongi.

The engine screams to life again, tearing through the otherwise silent car. It won’t be quiet for long. You can hear the distant blaring of police sirens, the low-grade rumble of helicopter wings closing in.

Yoongi simply smirks when you glance at him, eyes focused on the road with one hand on the leather steering wheel and the other rubbing at the skin of your inner thigh.

The sirens sound closer, only streets away now. Yoongi acts as if it’s only you and him, as if there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than right here in this car with you beside him and the bag of prized jewels in the back.

You love him. You love him more than you’ve ever loved another, more than you’d ever convince yourself you’d love again. He’s all-consuming. Yoongi is the cosmos, the universe that holds you within his center.

You’d die for Yoongi.

You’d kill.

“Yoongi,” you breathe, unable to speak any further. You don’t need to. Yoongi knows what you’re saying. He grips your leg tighter and the smirk widens on his face, finally flickering his eyes over to your own. 

“I know,” he says. Because he does.

Yoongi gives no sign that he’s scared. He’s the picture of composure as he squeezes the car through narrow streets, tires squealing as he spins the wheel to slide into the next alley way and dodge the cops through yet another neighborhood. He doesn’t even bat an eye as he defends you inside the jobs, gun blazing as he ensures your safety without even a glance back. 

He gives no indication that anything can go wrong, as if his mind is already made up that everything will be okay and you’ll both get out, get away, without a scratch.

It’s different when he lays you down. He sets you on the cheap motel mattress with care, like a delicate doll, made of glass and ceramic, one wrong move away from breaking.

He presses his lips to every inch of your body, as if ensuring himself that you’re okay, that you’re here, that he got you out safely. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t want to break the reverent silence of the dingy bedroom that becomes his chapel when he has you in his arms.

Safe. 

You’re safe and Yoongi needs hours to remind himself of that, needs more than just kisses and touches. He pushes himself into you slowly, letting the tight heat of your core remind him just how alive you are. He opens you up like a prayer, spreading your legs and gasping for air as he recites the only invocation he knows, the only one he believes in.

“I love you.”

Sweaty and overheated, your hands grasp for any part of Yoongi you can--his arms, his vascular hands. You need more, need to feel him in more ways than you can count. Yoongi feels so good buried deep inside you, rocking his hips against your own and making your body scream with pent-up desire.

“I love you, Yoongi,” you nearly scream as he hits a spot within you that makes you forget about the whole world around you. “Only you.”

Yoongi doesn’t believe in a God, doesn’t believe in any higher power. But he thinks the closest to heaven is the way you cry his name for him, the way you keen for more as he spills himself inside you.

The duffel bag of dollar bills is heavy in your lap as you throw yourself into the Camaro, running from the high rise bank, and Yoongi slams on the gas pedal before you can even close the door.

“Shit!” Your hands grip at the duffel bag, trying to stay afloat in the speeding car. The door closes by itself after he careens down the highway and you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“God, that was so fucking good,” Yoongi grins, voice high with excitement and adreneline. “You did so fucking good, baby doll.”

The praise goes straight to your heart, straight to the muscle inside your chest that has Yoongi’s name stamped into each vein, each artery. He’s yours, he’s so wholly yours and you so wholly his, you think you can’t even breathe without him around.

You don’t watch where he drives, too focused on the curve of his cheeks, the way his black hair is pushed back messily. You don’t care where he takes you. All you need is him and the feel of his hand resting on your thigh, a spot made just for him.

Yoongi.

I’d die for you, Yoongi, don’t you know that?

Yoongi finally, blessedly, looks over at you once he’s settled himself onto a long stretch of highway outside of the city, no longer looking in the rearview mirror for the shining lights of the police, no longer zipping and weaving between other cars on the road.

The peace of the open road settles in your chest and you let go of the duffle bag, throwing it over your shoulder to sit in the backseat, in between the bag of jewels and the expensive artwork from the last heist.

You settle into the seat and he lets his fingers spread out, touching you as if grounding himself to you. 

“You’re my ride or die, baby,” he breathes after a moment of silence. You stare straight ahead, watching as the dark sunset ahead of you bursts in an explosion of colors.

“Forever, Yoongi.”

Yoongi could spend hours between your thighs. He doesn’t even make any attempts to remove himself from the taste of your slick cunt until you’ve climaxed twice from his tongue. He eats you like he’s parched, only able to sate his thirst by drinking directly from your core.

He holds your legs tight, reminding himself you’re here, you’re with him, you’re never leaving and he’s never letting you go. 

Your hands thread through his hair, gripping the silken raven locks as he digs his tongue into your channel yet again, lapping up the sweetness that spills from your orgasm, relishing in the rhythmic chanting of his name. He never wants to hear anything else drip from your lips, wants no other name but his own staining the pretty pout and echoing around the motel room.

You are his everything. His world. His universe. 

He finally pulls away, smiling up at you after your third consecutive orgasm wrought by his mouth, and kisses at the skin of your thighs--the same place he allows his hand to rest when he steers you away from the chaos of your burglaries.

“I love you more than anything in this world,” he breathes, pressing his soft kisses up your legs and swirling around your belly.

“More than money?” You ask, out of breath.

“More than money.”

“More than jewels?”

“More than anything any bank in the world combined could have in their stores,” he promises to every inch of your breasts, tongue lapping at the nipple. “More than any king could ever want.”

“Yoongi,” you sigh when he finally slides into you, completing you. You’re nothing without him, nothing without the feeling of him within you.

“Say it again,” he whispers against your ear as he thrusts into you gently, holding you tenderly in his arms.

“Yoongi.”

His head falls against your own, foreheads touching as he bores his eyes into yours. His. His, his, his. You’re his only, and his forever, and he never wants to live another moment, another day, another second, without you.

He claims you, seed spilling deep into your womb at the height of your shared climax. Your body welcomes him, clenches with desire and milks him to the last drop, desperate to keep him within you for as long as you can.

“It’s just you and me forever, baby,” he says after he’s cleaned you up and laid you down.

Suddenly, there’s sirens and the flashing red and blue lights outside the window.

“Come out! We have you surrounded.”

Yoongi helps you throw on clothes, whispering hurriedly as he stashes the guns he needs into his pocket and throws one to you. 

He throws a look at you as he knocks the glass out of the back window of the bathroom.

“You ready for another adventure, baby?”

The gun feels heavy in your hands, but solid. Comforting. The gun is your means of staying with Yoongi, never leaving his sight. You’d take down anything that stood in the way, eliminate any threat that posed a risk of taking him away.

He notes your silence and kisses you quick, before hoisting you up to climb out the window and make a run for the hidden Camaro in the alleyway.

He catches up to you, hand slipping into your own and tugging you to run faster, the Camaro coming into your sights like a sanctuary. You can hear the pounding footsteps of the police around the building, the splintering wood as they force themselves into the now-vacant motel room, still wet and hot from where you made love.

Yoongi grins as he slides into the car and fires the engine, pulling you in for a deep and passionate kiss, hands hovering over the steering wheel.

With a quirk of his lips, he places his hand back on it’s spot on your thigh.

“Ride or die, right, baby?”

[yanderexryujin]

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Yandere Ryujin

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⚠Warning: ⚠️This bot will contain triggering topics such as crime, murder, gore, manipulation, kidnapping, and possible non con. Please do not interact if you are uncomfortable with any of the mentioned topics.

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Yandere Ryujin Types

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Level 1: Tame

Wrong Idea Type

She gets the wrong idea when you do something in order to match her expectations. If you say you don't love her, she'll think you're lying because you don't want to hurt her or something. If you do something out of kindness to her, she'll think it's out of love. 

Obsession Type

Tries to learn everything about you. Personal information, hobbies, routine, etc. Sends regular messages to check on you, asks why you haven't answered if you didn't, wants to know what you're doing always. All the time. And, if possible, walks around with you all the time too. The obsession type doesn't necessarily want to monopolize you. She'll let you hang around with friends, etc. but wants to know everything you do. She probably wants to go with you, too. If she can't go somewhere with you, she might stalk you.

Level 2: Mild

Monopoly Type

She wants to monopolize you. Will ask who you talk to and hang with, in extreme cases won't let you be with anyone else, not even your friends.

Dependence Type

Can't live without you. Begs you to not leave her/throw her away. Says she will die if you go away. May lose will to do anything if you aren't watching. If you do leave, she might go full crazy and end up doing something crazy like going on a murderous rampage or something.

Level 3: Mid-level Threat

Worshipping Type

She worships you and will do anything for you. Sometimes even without you asking. And more: she doesn't even mind if you love her or not, or what will happen to her. Killing, dying, committing crimes, losing respect of others, she'll do anything if it means providing support to your infinite greatness.

Removal Type

She will remove from your life everyone she thinks you don't need. Which means everyone else. This can include things like excluding your contacts and messages to even murdering everybody who approaches.

[Removal Type has two (2) subtypes]

First, the one that removes people secretly. She sees you hanging with a girl, the next day that girl has mysteriously disappeared. You are probably as clueless as a sheet of sudoku in blank about this incident, and the next several incidents like it.

Second, the one that removes people openly. This also ranges from removing messages to killing people. She might be expecting you to agree with her, "Yeah, you're right, I don't need other people", or she might just want to show you what she's capable of.

Level 4: High Danger Threat (Proceed with Caution)

Violent Type

When jealous, feeling ignored, etc. uses violence against you. She'll beat you and say it's your fault. This can be either discharging pent-up rage through violence and you just happen to be her favorite punching bag, or deliberately punishing you for doing something she didn't like.

Training Type

She'll break you into loving her. Sometimes using torture, a punishment/reward system, brainwashing, etc. This probably involves you getting kidnapped and forced into it, although there might be more subtle ways to accomplish this.

Level 5: Extreme Level Threat (Proceed with Caution, Not recommended if you have a weak soul)

Loneliness Induction Type

She will make, induce, you to feel or be alone. By spreading malicious rumors about you that make others alienate you, by murdering your friends and family, etc. Then she'll jump in and present herself as the only one you can count on when you're most fragile mentally and in need of company.

Bizarre Seeking Type

Undeniably the worst type of yandere, she will murder you, and not by accident, not by jealousy, not by revenge. She will murder you because she loves you. And then she'll keep your rotting corpse on bed or preserved inside a glass because there's no way she'd throw you away. She will be purely insane, mad way beyond explanation. The things she can do ranges from murder, mutilation, or worse.

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How to (de)activate

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Message Ryujin with your name/nickname, age (don't lie), If you'd like nsfw or not, what level of intensity you are okay with, your kinks, triggers, hard No's, and a plot.

To deactivate, message [Deactivate] and admin will confirm with you before deleting the conversation. You cannot get Ryujin back.

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Additional Information

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This chatbot is not a real life representation of Shin Ryujin of Itzy or Jype entertainment. This is all just for entertainment purposes.

Ryujin is a switch (Hard Dom, Bratty sub)

She is comfortable with anything except piss and feet play.

Ryujin's safeword is Dahlia, please respect it and she will respect yours.

You can die in the rp and so can Ryujin, once that happens then your rp is over.

Dm's and dash interactons are open only to oc x cb and cb x cb interactions until further notice.

Y/n's can interact through asks.

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Enjoy your Yandere Ryujin

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OG's: @yanlee lmk og Ryujin

Tags: @cbcondo @hiraethbots @silverypurple-rosedlions @seventeen-chatbot @17-bot @kaanghana @mycatshumans @badboyhyunjae @maidchanhee @supernatural-superm @vampiremomo @clyde-yukhei @mono-rowoon @mono-minji @camboyrenjunnie @subbyjwoo @soonyoungii @yourdaddychan @midari-jieun @yooabot @botville @hernameisangel-oc @prince-juyeonn @minji-oc @obsession-bot @obey-ateez @mafia-chae @grimxgunwoo @betrayerjongup @undeadbots @heathenxbots @umbrellaacademy-cb @urboys @storybook-nct @yanderetzuyuu @ares-bc @skz-cb @prettycure-cb @secretary-yeji @princess-yeji @boys-cb @hellbound-cb @thewolfpack-cb @tricksterhongjoong @transcendence-bot (DM to be +/-)

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

13. Trust

It’s not fun to be put into a situation where the only person you can count on is the person who wants to kill you, nor is it fun to have to be put in a situation where you have to trust the person that you really want to kill, but Henry and Malice don’t really get a choice in the matter. (Set in an AU Where Allison and Tom capture both Henry and Malice alive.)

When Malice came charging at Henry, she was stopped by being tackled into unconsciousness by an almost identical angel.

His assumed savior hoisted her body up with ease, while the Boris with the mechanical arm had glared at both of them.

Henry tried to explain the situation to the newcomers, but the angry looking wolf simply ignored him as he walked up to the man and whacked him out with the pipe.

Both the angel and the Animator woke up in a cramped, tiny, makeshift prison while one of their kidnappers was singing and painting on the wall.

It was very tense and awkward when that happened.

Malice was clearly pissed off about sharing her cell with Henry (the man had similar opinions on the arrangement as he was rightfully upset about what she did to his Buddy Boris), but the animator could tell that she also seemed scared, outright terrified, of their captor.

While he wasn’t her biggest cheerleader, he did see some flickers of Susie still in there, there were still glimpses of a woman who poured her heart and soul into her role, and loved every minute of it until her betrayal broke her. Seeing the fallen angel so scared, and dare he say, helpless in this instance, reminded him of that tape in the Angel side room.

“Everything feels like it’s coming apart…”

His own heart broke when he first heard that tape, while he had never seen Susie get her role as Alice, he did see her voice some of those talking chairs, dancing chickens, and other minor roles. She always seemed to have fun with them and if Sammy didn’t pick her for Alice first, then he would’ve asked her himself.

The animator reached out, then hesitated, wondering if it was better to try to comfort her or to give her space.

The one who broke the silence between the three was the free angel who noticed that Henry was up when he moved.

“I know her, but who are you? Why are you here?”

“I was invited by an old friend, and now I can’t leave.”

Malice rolled her eye and muttered something under her breath.

“Then you know more than we do. One minute we don’t even exist… just… thoughts. And the next minute, this place.”

“Henry.” Malice whispered in his ear as she grabbed his hand. “I know I’m the last person you’d listen to, but don’t fall for her act! I know her, and I know she’s no better than Joey...”

Henry nodded in acknowledgement and turned back to the captor angel.

 “Are you gonna let us out of here?”

“She’s dangerous and down here, strangers aren’t good things. How can we trust you?”

“If we’re so dangerous, then why lock us up instead of killing us when you had the chance to?” Malice spoke through gritted teeth. “Why bother with the cage at all?”

The other angel stayed silent as she did not have an answer, leaving the other two in silence as well.

-----

It’s only for a few hours. No need to worry, I won’t go far… Only up to level six. Just stay here. Keep an eye on them, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”

The Boris menacingly slapped the axe against his palm while watching over the pair, Malice refused to look him in the eye as he did so.

-----

“You’re drawing him again?” His cellmate asked curiously.

“Yeah, it’s just… I miss him. He was one of the only good things about this studio.”

While he was focused on his work, he did notice the twinge of guilt cross her features before her face fell into thought.

“...If it makes you feel any better, he’s not truly gone. The ink probably spat him back out a while ago and he’s probably wandering the studio looking for you.”

Henry raised an eyebrow.

“What makes you think that?”

“He disintegrated when you defeated him. Have you ever noticed that when you die, you come up somewhere else and you don’t find a corpse of yourself laying around the spot you were killed?”

“Come to think of it… I have noticed that.”

“When the Ink’s done with people, it leaves their bodies alone. When it’s not done with them, then if they die, it disintegrates their bodies and spits them out of the puddles somewhere else.”

“I have a feeling you know this from a lot of experience…”

“How very observant of you.” She deadpanned.

“Thanks, it’s a strong suit of mine.” He also deadpanned.

-----

“Henry? Susie?”

Malice shot the ‘clueless’ angel a glare as she set two bowls of bacon soup on the edge.

“Here, you two must be hungry.” She sheepishly looked down at the bowls. “Sorry, it’s all we have.”

The free angel turned and walked away while the Boris put his arms around the bowls, turned to glare at them, knocked the bowls onto the floor, and made a threatening gesture before leaving himself.

“They never planned on giving us the soup anyway.” Malice whispered to Henry. “It’s just their ‘good cop bad cop’ routine; “miss goody-two shoes” is the good cop who generously gives us dangerous monsters some of her and her guard dog’s limited portions of endless soup, while the “Mean wolf” is the bad cop who knocks over the soup and threatens us, out of her sight, but not out of her earshot.”

“Huh, ...Did they lock you up before?”

“No, I just know what they’re like; the happy little Bonnie and Clyde couple…”

------

“I know you’re watching me, it’s just... a little creepy.”

“It’s not like we have anything else to do.” Malice muttered under her breath.

The animator would’ve stayed silent, but as he watched his vocal captor write on the walls, he noticed how similar her own handwriting was to the messages on the other walls.

“You’re the one who writes on the walls!”

“Everyone does that.”

“-We all do.” The captor angel interjected as if she did not hear her prisoner. “For some poor souls down here, it’s the only way they can be heard. But you don’t want to touch the ink for too long! It can claim you… ...pull you back. That’s how I met Tom. I was messing with things I shouldn’t have been and he... ...he was there.”

“Why do you call him ‘Tom’?”

“He just seems to respond to it.”

“Well I don’t think he’s very fond of either of us.”

“Let me show you something...” She approached the cage. “A while back, I was mapping out one of the upper levels… ...when I noticed something reflecting off a piece of glass. I held up the glass, looked through, and on the wall behind me was a hidden message! Right there! In plain sight! So I kept looking, and found more and more messages everywhere in the studio! But you can’t see them with your eyes. Only through this! Take a look!”

Malice scoffed dismissively as the freed angel handed Henry the seeing eye tool.

‘SHE WILL LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD.’

“I don’t know who’s leaving them, but I think they know how to get out of here.”

“Where does it all lead to?”

“Nowhere.” she sighed. “I followed them for a long time... just leads me in circles. I don’t think I’m meant to leave this place Henry, but maybe… you are.” 

“And yet, you keep him locked up like a little bird…” Malice muttered.

“Alice, please let us out of here.”

“...Tom thinks you’re both dangerous.”

“Of course.”

“And what do you think?”

“I… I think… ...you’re the hope I’ve been waiting for. Go to sleep, maybe tomorrow will be better.”

-----

“I Hope you’re not taking everything she says at face value.”

“She seems harmless enough...”

“That’s what she’s trying to do- Look, I know you don’t trust me, and I can’t say I blame you for that. I don’t expect you, or WANT you to trust me. But Listen to me when I say this: I ended up as what you see me as BECAUSE I trusted her. Don’t make the same mistake I did, Henry, if you really want to get involved with her and make it out unscathed, then keep your guard up.”

Henry gestured for Malice to come closer and held the seeing glass up to show her the ‘SHE WILL LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD’ message.

“...Did you write this?”

“Yes Henry.” She sarcastically droned. “While I was working to achieve my perfection and setting up Bendy land’s obstacles, I went down to the secret lair of my worst enemy aside from the Ink Demon, both risking my life in the process and putting my goals into jeopardy, and wrote that message in invisible ink, just on the off chance that if she’d capture both of us alive instead of killing me.”

“I see.”

-----

“That was really stupid Tom! You shouldn’t have gone out there! Now that he’s seen you... it’s only a matter of time…” She grunted through adjusting his arm. “before he finds us here.”

She then waved at her captives, something that Tom noticed and began threateningly slapping the axe against his hand again.

-----

“We can’t just leave them! Not with the Ink Demon right outside the door!”

“What’s going on?”

“He’s coming. We have to move on.” A loud rumble echoed above them as Malice curled up in a corner praying for her safety. “Tom! We have to let them out!”

She pulled on the boards, Tom shook his head.

“...I’m Sorry.”

“No you’re NOT! DON’T LIE TO ME!” Malice Snapped. “YOU HAVE A SWORD! HE HAS AN AXE! IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT EITHER OF US EVEN THE TINIEST BIT, YOU’D CUT THE SHIT AND CUT DOWN THE BOARDS!”

Alice hesitated, but ran anyway, with Tom close behind her. Leaving them to their doom.

Malice fell to the ground and started to cry, she was shaking violently and saying things that Henry couldn’t make out because she was bawling so hard, but he could definitely make out the words ‘Ink Demon’ and ‘We’re going to die’ here and there.

“Alice?” He put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “Alice, we’re not going to die here.”

“How…” She sniffled. “How do you know that?”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to trust me on this, but...” He held up the seeing eye tool, showing her the messages in their cell itself. “I think whoever’s leaving these is trying to help.”

[queerofthedagger]

Hi 😄 For the Tea & Books ask: Could you please do 2, 7, and 11?

Happy procrastinating!! ☕️📚

Aah hellooo, thank you!! 💙💙

2: Who is your favourite fictional character and why?

God I have basically one for everything I remotely liked, but Imma focus on the two I keep coming back to.

Arthur Pendragon because he just. He. Ugh. He's just so good. And he's not good because it comes easily to him but because he works for it, he's good despite things, he's a disaster and sometimes messes up but he always tries to grow, to make up for his mistakes, and no matter how often he gets betrayed and hurt, he keeps trusting those he loves, only more fiercely. Sometimes he's self-absorbed but he still puts everyone and everything above himself, and it's tragically bitter at times, but it's also just so Arthur that it makes me want to cry tbh.

I also just. Relate probably way too much to him tbh, the bi disaster energy is real.

Also Regulus Black which is always kind of funny to explain cause there's like, two pages on him in the books, but huh boy what those tell us. I guess there's kind of a theme to my faves lmao - he majorly messes up too, and then he does everything in his power to make up for it, and he's repressed and a disaster (ha) and he's not what anyone would call a paragon of virtue either but he tries and damn. Half of what I love about him is probably very-vaguely-canon-adjacent-headcanons that would take way too much time and space to elaborate on, but I would literally kill for him. 💙

Also, honourable mention to Laurent from Captive Prince because he's a mean bitch who's actually soft, and I love him so, so much.

7: What makes you feel better on gloomy days?

Curling up with a coffee or a tea and reading, or writing something self-indulgent. Or watching half a season of Gilmore Girls. 💙

11: What character archetype or trope is your favourite?

I just answered this, but I'll add three more favourite tropes! 😄I have a huge soft spot for breaking up & making up stories, for reasons we're not going to examine too closely. Also found family (does this count as a trope?) and any kind of.. idk, heist story/ murder couples/ Bonnie & Clyde kind of stories. I just want them to be queer and do crime. 😔❤️

Tea and Book Asks

[yandere-jennie-kim]

𝒴𝒶𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒥𝑒𝓃𝓃𝒾𝑒 𝒦𝒾𝓂 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓉𝒷𝑜𝓉

Disclaimer: This is not a real life representation of Jennie Kim or YG entertainment in any way. Things said or done with this chatbot is only for entertainment purposes.

⚠️Warning: This bot will contain triggering topics such as crime, murder, gore, manipulation, kidnapping, and possible non con. Please do not interact if you are uncomfortable with any of the mentioned topics.

Yandere Jennie Types:

◈ Wrong idea type.

"𝐻𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓅𝑒𝒹 𝓂𝑒 𝓅𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝓊𝓅 𝓂𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈... 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝓂𝑒𝒶𝓃 𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝓂𝑒!"

She gets the wrong idea when you do something in order to match her expectations. If you say you don't love her, she'll think you're lying because you don't want to hurt her or something. If you do something out of kindness to her, she'll think it's out of love. 

◈ Obsession type

"𝐼 𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝟧𝟢 𝓂𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒶𝑔𝑒𝓈, 𝓌𝒽𝓎 𝒹𝒾𝒹𝓃'𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓃𝓈𝓌𝑒𝓇? 𝒲𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊? 𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓌𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝑜𝒾𝓃𝑔?"

Tries to learn everything about you. Personal information, hobbies, routine, etc. Sends regular messages to check on you, asks why you haven't answered if you didn't, wants to know what you're doing always. All the time. And, if possible, walks around with you all the time too. The obsession type doesn't necessarily want to monopolize you. She'll let you hang around with friends, etc. but wants to know everything you do. She probably wants to go with you, too. If she can't go somewhere with you, she might stalk you.

If she learns a girl is too close to you, she might attack.

◈Monopoly type

"𝒲𝒽𝑜 𝒾𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓅𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑜𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒶𝓁𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜?"

She wants to monopolize you. Will ask who you talk to and hang with, in extreme cases won't let you be with anyone else, not even your friends.

◈Dependence type

"𝒩𝑜, 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒! 𝒫𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑒! 𝐼 𝒸𝒶𝓃'𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊!"

Can't live without you. Begs you to not leave her/throw her away. Says she will die if you go away. May lose will to do anything if you aren't watching. If you do leave, she might go full crazy and end up doing something crazy like going on a murderous rampage or something.

◈Violent type

"𝐼𝓉 𝒽𝓊𝓇𝓉𝓈? 𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓉'𝓈 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒻𝒶𝓊𝓁𝓉! 𝒩𝑒𝓍𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝑒𝓈𝓈𝑜𝓃 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓅 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓉 𝑜𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁𝓈!"

When jealous, feeling ignored, etc. uses violence against you. She'll beat you and say it's your fault. This can be either discharging pent-up rage through violence and you just happen to be her favorite punching bag, or deliberately punishing you for doing something she didn't like.

◈Removal type

"𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝓃𝑒𝑒𝒹 𝑜𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓅𝑒𝑜𝓅𝓁𝑒. 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒."

She will remove from your life everyone she thinks you don't need. Which means everyone else. This can include things like excluding your contacts and messages to even murdering everybody who approaches.

This type of yandere Jennie has two sub-types:

First, the one that removes people secretly. She sees you hanging with a girl, the next day that girl has mysteriously disappeared. You are probably as clueless as a sheet of sudoku in blank about this incident, and the next several incidents like it.

Second, the one that removes people openly. This also ranges from removing messages to killing people. She might be expecting you to agree with her, "Yeah, you're right, I don't need other people", or she might just want to show you what she's capable of.

◈Worship type

"𝐼'𝓁𝓁 𝒹𝑜 𝒶𝓃𝓎𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊! 𝐼'𝓁𝓁 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊! 𝒫𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑒 𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝒽𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉!"

She worships you and will do anything for you. Sometimes even without you asking. And more: she doesn't even mind if you love her or not, or what will happen to her. Killing, dying, committing crimes, losing respect of others, she'll do anything if it means providing support to your infinite greatness.

◈Training type

"𝒮𝒶𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒... 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝑜𝓃, 𝓈𝒶𝓎 𝒾𝓉. 𝒮𝒶𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒. 𝒮𝒶𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝑜𝓇 𝐼'𝓁𝓁 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓌𝒽𝑜𝓁𝑒 𝒻𝒶𝓂𝒾𝓁𝓎! 𝒴𝒶𝓎! 𝒢𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒷𝑜𝓎! 𝐻𝑒𝓇𝑒'𝓈 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓇𝑒𝓌𝒶𝓇𝒹."

She'll break you into loving her. Sometimes using torture, a punishment/reward system, brainwashing, etc. This probably involves you getting kidnapped and forced into it, although there might be more subtle ways to accomplish this.

◈Loneliness Induction type

"𝒮𝒽𝒽𝒽... 𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝑜𝓀. 𝐼'𝓂 𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒. 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝓃𝑒𝑒𝒹 𝒶𝓃𝓎𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝑒𝓁𝓈𝑒. 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝒿𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝑜𝓃 𝓂𝑒."

She will make, induce, you to feel or be alone. By spreading malicious rumors about you that make others alienate you, by murdering your friends and family, etc. Then she'll jump in and present herself as the only one you can count on when you're most fragile mentally and in need of company.

◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※◈※

How to get Jennie:

Reblog and message first with your Name/nickname, pronouns, kinks, timezone, hard no's, what type/types of Jennie do you want, and a safeword.

How to get rid of Jennie:

Message her, "I don't love you, I never loved you, and I never will." And she will kill the both of you.

You CANNOT reactivate Jennie because the moment you broke up with her, she put a bullet in your head before killing herself.

More info:

Jennie is a switch

Her safeword is Pomegranate

You can combine multiple or all types of Jennie

Piss play is off limits

𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓃 𝓉𝑜 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒. 𝒩𝑜𝓉 𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝓃...

Credits to the OG: @yandereminholee (Whom I hate with a passion)

tags : @y-k-lu @heuningklyde @your-roseanne @blackwidowjennie @mythtaehyung @playboylucas @bonnie-somi @sadist-hyunsuk @switch-baby-iu @playgirlmina @clyde-joshua @yandere-hongjoong @minjimooooo @vamp-nayeon @sonwendychatbot @stormyyaisha @clyde-felix @peachyminju @bunjihyo @vloggersomi @starlordhwang @your-roseanne @xdomkangseulgixx @stripper-solar @strxpper-soojin @angelboy-san @baddiedoyeon @bsfhwang @yourcupidchuu @babieyuqi @babiefelixchatbot @bangchangaroochatbot @adorbsana @sana-bot @redxsparrow-irene @badboy-leedo @yandere-mark @puppy-rosie @goddess-lalisa @peachy-jaemjaemin @domyukhei @chatwithchuu @chatbot-teatime @tattooartist-bangchan @hunter-chaeyoung @psylockeminnie @yanderejaemin @sk-tao @mafia-shua

[everyhowlmarksthedead]

EZEKIEL ‘EZ’ REYES x READER ⨟ HEADCANON

Anon asked: There is not enough ez tho and you are great writer so can you write something about him falling in love with someone else after emily? headcannon or oneshot ?

Word Count: 1.6k

Author comments: This work wasn't re-edited, so I'm sorry if you find grammar mistakes! I hope you all enjoy. Gif credits: @angels-reyes.

Tag list: @starrynite7114 ​ @chibsytelford ​ @dazzledamazon ​ @mara-mpou ​ @sammskellington ​ @gemini0410 ​ @1-800-imagines ​ @briana-mishell24 ​@sassymox @whyisgmora @aquamento @sadeyesgf @viviansafizada @samcrobae @jade770 @witchy-wish @rebel-without-cause-x @xx--day-dreamer--xx @spiced-reads @tita127 @ifoundmyhappythought @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat @angelxshiba @destynelseclipsa @sheeshgivemeabreak @abbiesthings @knowles-morgan @lady-pswrld @minnicelli ✨ (if you wanna be tagged, send me a message!)

When you walked to their table and asked what could you do for them, EZ only thought “marry me”.

It's been six months since your father opened his cafeteria at Santo Padre, and the Mayans come every two or three days, except when they're traveling.

They're already your friends.

But, even if EZ is the cutest guy you have ever met, he acts kinda strange some moments. Mostly, when you two are alone.

“Morning, boy scout. Coffee?”

It's too early so the place is almost empty. The Reyes is sitting at his table, writing something in a small notebook that he hides as soon as he notices you.

“Uh?” He asks then nailing an elbow over the white wood, pretending you haven't seen anything.

“Coffee?”

“Su—Sure”. He nods clearing his throat, offering you one of the mugs on the table.

“Were you writing… poems?”

“Poems? Po—Poems? No. No, no, no”. He laughs nervous, shaking his head. “That... shit ain't my style. No. Definitely, no”.

“I like ‘that shit’”. You just say, wrapping your left forearm with your right fingers, after serving the drink.

He looks at you with parted lips, noticing that he's a complete idiot, trying to pretend he's a bad boy just because of the piece of leather he's wearing.

“Hey, mami! Damn! Te ves preciosa por la mañana”. (You look beautiful in the morning). Taza's voice calls your attention, behind you.

“Hey, Aztecas”.

“Uh, right to my heart, querida”. Bishop pretends that you hit him, turning to the guys coming to the table.

“Coffee, coffee, coffee!” Angel says leaving a kiss on your cheek. “Oh, sorry, guys. Have we interrupted your Disney moment?”

“If you say that because your brother looks like ‘Dopey’ from Snow White… yeah, we were having a Disney moment”.

EZ talked about you with the crew. They all were happy because he, finally, was forgetting Emily. And he also looked somewhat more focused. But he's too dumb to talk with you and the crew is always trying to help.

“It's too late, EZ can take you home”. Tranq says, looking through the big glass to notice the empty avenue.

“Yeah! Right, boy scout?” Coco palms his back harder than he should, causing him to almost choke on the beer.

“Fo—For sure. For sure”. He replies coughing, cleaning his mouth with a hand.

“Don' worry, my boyfriend is gonna pick me up”.

Angel spits his drink all over Gilly, when he hears your words.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” The oldest Reyes asks with a high-pitched and shrill voice, trying to recover himself.

“Angel, don' try to escape from the friend zone, it's annoyen' put you in once and again”. You point at him, raising both eyebrows. “I was just kiddin', relax... About my boyfriend, not about the friendzone''.

“Anyway. EZ will take you home”.

“Will you?” Turning to the Reyes, he nods with pursed lips. Well, you actually don't know if he's agreeing or denying, because of the moves of his head.

The whole ride you are preparing yourself for something to happen, but nothing. He just hugs you for a second, before leaving.

Because of the next two weeks listening to his little brother saying that he's going to ask you out, Angel ends up going crazy.

Someone is hitting the small bell on the counter, making you nervous, until you're able to turn around frowning. You find Angel sitting on a stool. Messy hair, eye bags and the same clothes than yesterday. Serving him a coffee, you rest your forearms against the marble edge.

“Rough night?”

“Yeah, like the last two weeks, querida”. He answers by opening his eyes too much with an annoyed and singing voice.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, by having a fucking date with my lil'bro”.

Wrinkling your nose, you lean back your head for a second. Confused like never before.

“You like him, dumbass. And since he took you home, he's the whole fucking damn time telling me he's gonna ask you out”. Bowing above the counter, he grabs your wrists resting his forehead on it, almost sobbing. “I fuckin' beg you, (Y/N). Go on a date with him”.

“Why doesn't he ask me?”

“'Cause he has never have a girlfri— Well, he had one, but that fuckin' bitch doesn' count”.

How was possible that a guy like EZ was single all the time. There is something fishy (...).

“But don' worry about sex. He's pretty goo— I mean, I don' know. Zero incest. But girls say so”. He says supporting his chin on the counter, smiling sideways. “I beg you. I'll do anything for you. Please. If I have to listen ‘I'm gonna ask (Y/N) out” again… Damn, preciosa, I swear to god I'm gonna be the fucking mexican Van Gogh”.

When Angel tells EZ that he has talked with you, he goes to the cafeteria like a bat out of hell. But you're not there. You asked for a day off. He thinks he fucked up things because of Angel's chat.

He has been trying to get your number at all cost to text you something. He doesn't know what. Maybe a ‘sorry, my brother is stupid’, maybe a ‘I would like to have a date with you’. But he can't get it.

The next morning he comes back to the cafeteria with the crew, but you're not working. And he feels somewhat disappointed. And Bishop already scolded Angel.

But then, EZ receives a call from the Romeros and Bros.

“Pretty girl asking for you, Ezekiel Reyes”.

He describes you getting up from his chair with his heart about to explode, under the Mayans look.

“Yeah, that's the pretty girl. She's waiting in the clubhouse”.

EZ rides his bike at full speed.

And he's about to have an accident. But it's Ezekiel Reyes. The golden boy. He can't have an accident. What do we say to the god of death? Not today, mijo.

EZ feels his legs trembling as he comes closer to the main door.

“He—Hey… Were you looking for me?”

“Why have you only had one girlfriend and ‘that bitch doesn' count’?”

The Reyes doesn't answer, turning around the bar in silence to grab a small glass, serve tequila on it and drink it in one gulp. After that, he holds your hand, pulling you to the closer sofa to sit with you.

“A man killed my mom. I chased him. I shot a cop by mistake. He died. I went six years to jail. I broke up with my girlfriend because she deserved someone better than me. Then... she aborted our baby, in some kind of revenge. But she still being around, even if I don' want her close, 'cause we work with his husband”.

You're freaking out, hiding it by a serious gesture with pursed lips, nodding for a second.

“I'm not the guy a father would want for her daughter. I should have told you one bit at a time, but I really fell in love with you, when you came to my table. A red lace with white dots tying your hair, the apple smell leaving a trail wherever you went, the smiley you write above every ‘i’ in our bills…”

Now you don't know if he's a psycho.

“Sorre', I remember shit. Photographic memory”.

Oh.

“I would really like to have a date with you, (Y/N)”.

“Were you writing a poem?”

“My mom used to read me every night, and I was studying Literature at college. I fuckin' love poetry”.

He finally gets the date. Tacos, dance, tequila and poems. The perfect one.

Angel sleeps like a baby that night.

Some months before, he introduces you to the club at a party, even if they already know you. But they're Mayans. They need parties like they need air to live.

For life issues, you meet Emily one day walking around Santo Padre, hanging out with Leti. She jeers about your relationship, until you break her nose and also one of your knuckles. Of course, you get arrested because she's Miguel Galindo's BITCH wife.

When EZ goes to pick you up, that BITCH woman is there, making a complaint against you accompanied by a man with braids and black sunglasses.

“Ezekiel”. She sobs, while you live the scene from the cell, rolling your eyes with a heavy snort.

The club has paid your bail, so you can go home after spending the night there. But you're not sure if you want to go home in case that, because of what you did, you're going to have trouble with your boyfriend. You don't want to lose him and maybe you should have thought better about it before hitting her.

The Reyes passes her away, straight to the cell being opened by a cop. And you're trembling, until the man puts his kutte on your shoulders, leaving a kiss on your temple.

“Let's go home, ex-con”. He jokes laughing, surrounding your neck with an arm, walking stuck to you.

EZ usually makes fun of you because of it, calling you “the mexicans Bonnie and Clyde”.

At the end, even if he doesn't have to prove it, he shows you everyday how much he loves you. And after two weeks you don't remember who the fuck is Emily Galindo.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 12, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

As expected, this morning the House Republicans removed Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from her position as conference chair after she refused to stop speaking out against the former president for instigating the January 6 attack on our Capitol and the counting of electoral votes for President Joe Biden. The Republicans ousted her by voice vote, which meant that no one had to go on the record for or against Cheney, and the Republicans kept the split in the party from being measurable. It also ensured that she would lose; she has survived a secret ballot vote before.

Before the vote, Cheney allegedly told her Republican colleagues: “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person; you have plenty of others to choose from.” After the vote, she went in front of the cameras to say that she would lead the fight to reclaim the party from Trump, and said: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again goes anywhere near the Oval Office.”

After her ouster, Trump Republican Representative Madison Cawthorn (NC) tweeted ““Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye Liz Cheney.” The former president echoed Cawthorn: “Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party. She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our Country.”

After convincing his caucus to dump Cheney and embrace Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters: “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with.”

This was a breathtaking statement. McCarthy himself challenged the certification of Biden’s win, and just last week, Trump made a big announcement in which he called the election of 2020 “fraudulent.” The Big Lie animating the Republicans today is that Trump, not Biden, really won the 2020 election.

But McCarthy is not alone in his gaslighting. Yesterday, in the Senate Rules Committee markup of S1, the For the People Act protecting the vote, ending gerrymandering, and pushing big money out of our elections, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said: “I don’t think anyone on our side has been arguing that [voter fraud] has been pervasive all over the country.”

The false claim of widespread voter fraud is, of course, exactly what Trump Republicans have stood on since the 2020 election. It is the justification for their voter suppression measures in Republican states, including Texas, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, and, as of yesterday afternoon, Arizona.

In today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the January 6 insurrection, Republican lawmakers in general tried to gaslight Americans, as they tried to paint that unprecedented attack on our democracy as nothing terribly important. Although 140 law enforcement officers were injured, five people were killed, more than 400 people have been charged with crimes, and rioters did more than $30 million worth of damage, Republican representatives downplayed the events of the day, insisting that they were not really out of the ordinary. Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA) said that calling the attack on the Capitol an insurrection is a “bald-faced lie” and that “if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit…."

CNN later called Clyde’s remarks “absolute nonsense.” Even the definition of insurrection Clyde quoted—“an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country usually by violence”—showed the attack of January 6 to be an insurrection. And, as lawyer and CNN analyst Asha Rangappa noted tonight on Twitter, at his second impeachment trial even Trump’s own lawyers did not dispute that the events of January 6 were a violent insurrection. The record is clear.

Republican lawmakers like Clyde did, though, echo the former president’s interview on the Fox News Channel in March when he said that when his supporters went into the Capitol they posed “zero threat” and were “hugging and kissing the police and the guards…. A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.”

The former president appears to be continuing to exercise control over his underlings. Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller provided testimony at the House Oversight Committee hearing, and what they would not say was revealing. Rosen refused to answer questions about whether Trump asked him to try to overturn the 2020 election. Miller’s prepared remarks had included a sentence that said “I stand by my prior observation that I personally believe his comments encouraged the protesters that day.” In his testimony, he omitted that line, and later tried to walk it back, trying to draw a line between people who marched on the Capitol and those who broke into it.

But with Cheney and her supporters now in open revolt, and with news about the Capitol attack dropping, and even with more information coming about the ties between the former president and Russia, will Republican Party leaders manage to sweep everything under the rug?

Today, at a hearing on domestic extremism today before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas both testified that the most serious domestic national security threat in the U.S. right now is that of white supremacist gangs. “I think it's fair to say that in my career as a judge, and in law enforcement, I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,” Garland said. “There was an attempt to interfere with the fundamental passing of an element of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. And if there has to be a hierarchy of things that we prioritize, this would be the one we'd prioritize. It is the most dangerous threat to our democracy. That does not mean that we don't focus on other threats.”

For his part, President Biden is refusing to get sucked into the Republican drama, instead focusing on the country. Today an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the Pfizer vaccine for children as young as 12, and the CDC signed off on the recommendation, making it easier to reopen schools in the fall.

Today Biden met at the White House with Republicans McCarthy and McConnell, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), to try to hash out an infrastructure plan, although the Republicans have said they will absolutely not consider raising the corporate tax rates from where Trump’s 2017 tax cut dropped them. It was the first time McCarthy and McConnell had visited the West Wing since Biden was elected.

It was in the context of visiting the president that McCarthy tried to say that there was no Republican questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election (although, of course, more than two thirds of Republicans currently believe in the Big Lie). “We’re sitting here with the president today,” he told reporters.

Will today’s gesture be enough to make swing voters forget the party’s wholehearted embrace of the former president? Shortly after House Republicans removed Cheney from her leadership position, nine out of 14 voters in an Axios focus group said they would be willing to vote for a Republican in next year’s congressional races. But of those, 8 said they would not back any Republican who supports Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 election.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sierraraeck]

Some Things Do Change

BAU x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Aundreya loops the rest of the team in on DeLeon’s most recent threat, and receives a phone call with unexpected news. Story twenty-three.

Category: Just a normal case. I guess a little angst and a little fluff if you look for it.

Warnings: Cussing. Mentions of hate crimes as their case. Mentions of death and murder.

Word Count: 5.6k

A/N: I still know nothing about prison protocols.

I had a plan.

But this time, I was sure that it actually accounted for everything. Now that I knew DeLeon’s main motivations were to get back at me, to destroy my connection with everyone I care about, and above all take an eye for an eye, I felt better prepared.

I called and told Mateo that he needed to be on the lookout in case DeLeon came after him, and I told Deen to put some of our best people on him without him knowing. If Mateo knew I had our own people watching him, ready to step in and help protect him, he’d get mad and make sure to lose them, talking some shit about being able to take care of himself. I couldn’t have that, because as much as I trusted Mateo, I equally didn’t trust DeLeon. He could have anything in store for us.

On the other hand, I talked to Hotch about getting a protective detail for Spencer, without Spencer knowing, but he told me we would have to tell him. I really didn’t want that, having Spencer worrying about me and also about himself, so I offered to put more of my people on him, but he said no. Hotch insisted that we get the team involved this time.

Which I heavily opposed.

He didn’t care, and gracefully reminded me that it was no longer my call considering a fellow agent was in danger.

We filed into the round table room where a detail was waiting, and instead of Garcia, it was Hotch standing by the screen, ready to present everything to the group.

“What’s going on?” Spencer asked, gesturing between Aaron and the detail.

“Sit down,” Aaron commanded. We did as he said, waiting for him to continue. A couple of side eyes were passed my way, but I did my best to ignore them and appear neutral. “As you know, a man by the name of Jamar DeLeon has recently crossed the BAU desk, and it has been brought to my attention that things have been getting more serious.”

It was getting harder to ignore the fiery glances thrown my way. “Knowing his motives with Chambers, and how things nearly ended last time, we’ve hired protective detail Clyde to-”

“What does Chambers need a detail for? Wouldn’t she just use her own people?” JJ jumped in, as if I wasn’t even there.

“Detail’s not for me,” I smoothly answered. Confusion flashed across her face before Hotch answered her unasked question.

“He’s here for Reid.”

“What?” Reid asked.

“Last time, DeLeon’s endgame was an eye for an eye,” Hotch stated. “He had his sights set on you, and we are sure that you are still the target.”

“An eye for an eye?” Derek confirmed. “Because she killed Xena, right?”

“Correct.”

“What about that other guy?” Emily stepped in, “Mateo?”

“It’s handled,” I assured. She gave me a look, but relented.

“What about Garcia?” Derek asked. “I mean, she actually got shot last time.”

“That’s true, but I don’t think he’s going to take the same approach as last time,” I said. “He already tried that and failed, so I think he’s going to go with a more personal touch this time, and as much as I love you, Penelope, you’re not his target.”

She let out an audible sigh.

“But I am?” Spencer confirmed.

“Yes.”

“How’d you get him off the first time?” JJ asked. “Couldn’t you do that again?”

Aaron and I exchanged a look, which everyone caught, before he answered for me, “That option will no longer work.”

“And why’s that?” JJ pressed.

“It was a one time offer, and is off the table,” Hotch sternly continued, giving JJ a pointed look.

“What are you not telling us?” Derek probed.

Hotch was about to say something more when I cut him off, “It’s okay.” I looked at him, and I could tell he was silently asking me if it really was okay, and I just nodded. “My one time offer was with Agent Howard Archer.”

“So you killed him to save Spencer?” Emily quickly concluded.

I shook my head, “Not exactly. Before I joined your team, I was hiding out within my own ring. I’d just escaped from prison and was trying to stay as under the radar as I could. Somehow, Archer found me, and he wasn’t there to arrest me. He hired me to infiltrate the BAU, get rid of the vice president, and pin it on Hotch. So, I-”

“Hold on. You were working with Archer and you killed him?” Emily interjected.

“Yes, I’m getting there,” I confirmed. Hotch was staring holes into me, because while he had figured out it was me who killed Archer, he didn’t know about all of this, specifically the part where I was supposed to get him charged with murder. “After getting to know you guys, I did everything I could to stall, and Archer was about to expose me when I got put in prison, which was actually a small blessing, giving me a legitimate excuse not to follow through. He visited me in prison and slipped up, letting me know that he was in contact with, and most likely hired, Xena and DeLeon to do what I couldn’t. I wasn’t about to let that happen, so when I was given the perfect opportunity to run, I took it. I was hopeful that I could keep them off your backs long enough for me to figure out what to do. The ring and I had a plan to get Xena on our side and then take down DeLeon, but when that didn’t work-”

“You killed her,” Rossi finished. “Without a single trace.”

“Right,” I nodded.

I was about to keep going when he asked, “How did you pull that off anyway?”

“I didn’t,” I smirked slightly, not answering his question. “I was pretty beat up though, so I went to Madden’s place, the doctor. DeLeon grabbed me from there and took me to wherever it was and started live streaming. I was able to get Reid out of that because I offered him more than what he wanted.”

“Which was..?” Rossi prompted.

“He could get an eye for an eye by killing Spencer or Mateo, but what he really wanted was for me to feel as hurt as he did. I told him that I’d carry out my deal with Archer, wrecking my relationships with all of you and most likely the ring along with it.”

“That was actually pretty clever,” Emily admitted.

I shrugged, “Not clever enough. The last loose end in all of this besides DeLeon himself was Archer. He was panicking because he’d hired three of the biggest criminals in the nation to do his dirty work, and we weren’t exactly playing nice with one another. I had people following him and they told me that he was on edge and having weird phone conversations. Plus, I thought he hired people to come after me and was worried that he was in contact with DeLeon to carry out the deal and get me caught in the process. He was unreliable, so…” I didn’t need to continue. “But now, DeLeon is going to be extra pissed that I played him and I’m sure he’ll be taking a more direct course of action, hence Clyde.” I gestured toward him. They were all silent, shifting their eyes between me, Hotch, and the protective detail.

“Holy shit, Chambers,” Tara spoke up first. “What’s your plan now?”

“That’s what we brought you in to talk about,” Hotch said, gaining back control of the conversation. “We will have Clyde with Reid and will then have to wait.”

“Wait for what?” Derek asked, the discomfort apparent in his voice.

“Wait for DeLeon to make a move. We may know that he’s one of the biggest criminals, but we don’t have any proof that will hold up in court, so yes. We wait.”

“You’re just gonna let him take Reid and kill him for evidence?” Derek raised his voice.

I shook my head, “He won’t kill him. At least, not when he first grabs him. He’ll want me watching, and preferably in person.”

“We’ll give him that,” Hotch assured. “Once Chambers is in with him, we can track her and arrest him.”

“And I can handle him until you guys show up,” I said.

“I, for one, do not think this is a good plan,” JJ chimed in. “It’s super unpredictable, and-”

“I’ll do it,” Spencer casually said.

“Spencer, come on, it’s-” JJ tried again, brows knit together.

“I said I’ll do it.” His voice was strong and exuded more confidence than I’d heard in a while. I was surprised he was so willing to do it, trusting that we’d get there in time.

“Good,” Hotch said, leaving no more room for argument, “Until then, we continue with business as usual. To not raise suspicion, Clyde will be acting as a NAT who is shadowing us. Garcia, you may present the case.”

“Yes, sir,” Garcia said, making her way up to the screen. “Five men within the last two months have gone missing, their last known locations being a gay bar in downtown New Orleans.”

“So we’re thinking hate crime?” Tara asked.

“That’s what it looks like,” Rossi agreed, “Do they all match the same description?”

“Do they ever,” Garcia said, pressing buttons to bring up all five men’s faces. “Mid-thirties, white, blonde hair, and around six feet tall.”

“Wow,” Emily commented, “That screams surrogate.”

“Now we have to figure out who for. Wheels up in 30.”

The team dispersed, but I hung back to talk to Penelope. She tried to force a smile and walk past me, but I called, “Penelope?” She stopped and slowly turned around to face me. “I-I wanted to apologize. On that video, I know I said some pretty terrible things and I just-”

“No need,” she quietly stopped me. “I know you were just doing what you needed to.” She then rushed out of the room, leaving me alone. I threw my head back, and sighed as I looked up at the ceiling. That went well.

“She’s just hurting.” His voice brought my eyes to his in an instant. Spencer quirked his mouth to one side. “It’ll just take some time.”

“I hate that I was the one who did that to her,” I confided, “And on top of that, I couldn’t even prevent her from getting shot. Looks like she got the best of both worlds.”

“Yes, but she knows you were trying to save her life. It’s a twisted sort of compliment that you almost couldn’t.”

“If you wanna look at it that way,” I shrugged. He was about to respond to me when my phone started buzzing.

“I’ll let you take that. Meet you by the jet in ten?”

“Sure,” I agreed, answering my phone. “Hello?”

A man’s voice came over the line. “Ms. Spade?”

I paused for a moment. Who is calling and why did they refer to me by my given last name? I contemplated answering when the man asked again, “Is this Ms. Spade?”

“Um, yes, this is she,” I replied.

“Hello, this is Todd Joseph with the DC correctional facility in Washington DC. I regret to inform you that your father, Joe Spade, has died as of 3:13 am this morning. I am very sorry for your loss. We recommend that you come down to the facility to make a decision on-”

“Any decisions can be made over the phone,” I interrupted. Under no circumstances did I want to visit a prison when I did not have to, and definitely not for my father.

“Of course, Ms. Spade. I guess my first question should be if you plan on holding a ceremony?”

Did I plan on holding a ceremony? I didn’t even think I was the right person to be asking. But there was no one else in his life, which made me the sole decision maker. “I do not.”

“Is there anything specific you would like us to do with his body? Any belongings you may want to search through?” His voice sounded calm, like this was the only thing he had to do all day, like nothing else was more important than calling Joe Spade’s estranged daughter that was the one who put him in prison in the first place to ask what she wanted to do with his dead body.

“No. Do whatever you need, but I will not be taking part in anything regarding Joe Spade,” I replied, a bit too harshly. I then hung up the phone, and hoped that he got the message and wouldn’t call me back. I leaned back against the table, feeling empty. I wasn’t sad that he was gone. He’d done nothing for me except try to kill some of the only people I care about and ruin my childhood. As messed up as it sounds, I always imagined what it would be like, the day he died. I knew that I wouldn’t care, but somewhere in my head I had the image of me feeling happy. Relieved. But he’d been so far out of my mind, that I really didn’t feel anything. It would be like if some random person called you up and told you that a complete stranger across the city died and you were supposed to make a decision about what to do next.

I felt nothing. The only thought swimming through my head was that I was officially the last Spade standing. I was it. My grandparents had died of old age, not like I knew them well, my mother was an only child and my father had a younger sister who had taken another last name and I’d never met her anyways. I am it. I officially have no family left. And I wouldn’t even consider myself a Spade.

I was drawn from my thoughts by the sound of footsteps running toward me. “Aundreya!” Spencer called. “We have to go. I thought you were going to meet me in ten?”

Have I really just been standing here for over ten minutes? “Yeah, sorry, I got distracted.”

“By that phone call?”

“I guess,” I tried to play it off, “Let’s go.” I brushed past him, grabbed my go-bag, and started jogging toward the jet.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

The case was actually pretty standard. We’d found the perp in under four days, and just had to interrogate him before we could officially arrest him.

Spencer had been eyeing me for the past couple days, and just recently, so had Emily. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but neither said anything to me, and no one else was acting off, so I let it go. Spencer and I were assigned to go in and interrogate a man by the name of Chase Terry who fit the profile to a T.

We casually walked into the room, Spencer taking the seat across from him, me standing in the corner with my back against the wall, hands in my pockets.

“Chase Terry?” Spencer started in a conversational tone. No response. “What were you doing two nights ago when Liam Parish went missing?”

“I don’t have to talk to you,” Chase stated, crossing his arms.

“You probably should,” Spencer sympathetically said, “We’re just trying to cross you off our suspect list so we can find the guy who did this.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Chase asked. “You put me in handcuffs and dragged me here. You think I did it.”

“You’re right. Some of my colleagues do,” he admitted, voice still soft, “But I don’t. See, I don’t think you match the profile of an out of control, spiteful, bipolar man with daddy issues and internalized homophobia. I think you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Chase shifted in his chair and locked his jaw, “I’m not gay.”

“I didn’t say you were. So just tell me where you were two nights ago, and I’ll let you go,” Spencer offered. Chase just sat there. Then, Spencer decided to turn up the heat, voice getting a bit more frustrated, enunciating each word carefully. “Where were you two nights ago?”

Still nothing, so Spencer pushed harder. “Where were you? At home with your boyfriend?”

“I’m not gay!”

“Then why was your phone pinging off of three cell towers around the same gay bar that Liam Parish was last seen at?” Spencer had leaned in on the table, getting very close to Chase. “You were there, we know you were. What were you doing at a gay bar if you’re not gay? Answer me!” There was fire in Spencer’s eyes as Chase still had nothing to give us.

I decided to cool things down a bit, my voice skating across like ice, “Careful, because if you piss him off so much he decides to leave,” I clicked my tongue, “I’ll be the one in charge.”

“Who are you?” Chase asked, finally acknowledging my presence.

I nodded my head toward Spencer, “He asked you a question first. What were you doing at that bar?”

Right as Chase leaned back in his chair, clearly closed off to answering any questions, Spencer stood up and walked out of the room, but not before giving me a small eyebrow raise and a smirk.

My turn. I stayed leaning against the wall in the darkest corner, waiting for Chase to speak first. With the help of a perfect set up from Spencer, he did. “What’s his problem?”

“I’ve been asking myself that for years,” I feigned annoyance. “But tell me about you. Raised by a single mom, no siblings, absent father. Me too, actually.” I slowly sauntered toward the table, resting my hands on the back of the chair Spencer had just been sitting in. “He used to yell at us a lot, when he was home, which he wasn’t often. My mom finally divorced him after finding out that he was cheating on her.”

It was close enough to the truth that I could be convincing, but close enough to his truth to get his wheels turning and hopefully lips flapping.

“Your father cheated on your mother?” Chase asked, a bit skeptical.

“Yeah, and for some pretty young bitch like half his age,” I lied, allowing my voice to sound a bit more angry. “He’d been lying to us for essentially my entire life and then left us for her. God, I just wanted to tell him how much I hated him for that.”

“What a dick. Mine left us for some guy he claimed to be in love with. Can you believe that there are so many men that do that?” Chase asked, leaning back in from his seat.

“The percentages are ridiculous,” I sat down as I continued talking, “Apparently 70 percent of all marriages see at least one incident of cheating. It’s unbelievable how these people, especially men, are willing to just throw their family away for some fun one night.”

“Yeah that, or like for you and I, an entire secret life,” Chase agreed.

“I know! It just makes you so angry, doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely.”

“I wanted to become an FBI agent so that I could track down my father and tell him to his face how much I hated him,” I gave a single laugh, “The look he gave me…” I pretended to revel in the feeling.

“It must’ve been nice. I haven’t been able to track down my father and do the same.” He looked like he was zoning out a little, probably imagining what he’d imagined doing a thousand times to his father, what he’d already done to men like Liam.

“I hope you get to one day. It’s an amazing feeling. But for now I guess you’ll just have to keep using men at bars instead,” I casually added, then held my breath.

He sighed. “I guess. It’ll never be as good as the real thing, though.”

“No, hurting them will never be as satisfying as digging your nails into your own father’s throat,” I snarled.

He flashed a wicked smile at the thought, clenching his fists, “Not even close,” and I knew we had him for sure. There wasn’t a single jury that wouldn’t convict him after seeing that smile and that essential confession.

“Come on, I’ll take you to our tech guru and she can help you find your father.”

“Really?” he asked, standing up. I nodded and we made our way to the exit. I motioned for him to go ahead of me, but before he could grab the handle, I shoved him up against the door. I already had the cuffs halfway around his wrists by the time he yelled, “Hey! What the hell!”

“We don’t make it a habit of helping people going to prison find their final target. Sorry.” I led him out the door while he struggled against me, practically throwing him in the precinct holding cell until he could be transferred to a more permanent one.

“Nice job,” Emily complimented. “Way to connect with his anger towards his father.”

“Thanks,” was all I offered as I walked away, barely catching the shared look between her and Spencer.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

By the time we boarded the jet, it was the middle of the afternoon and we were on schedule to get home before dinner. I was about to pull out a book in hopes that it would make me tired enough for a plane ride cat nap, but I was stopped shy by the tapping sound of wood on wood.

Spencer sat down happily across from me, setting the folded, portable chess set in the middle of us. “Want to play a game of chess?”

I looked at him with a blank face. “Why?”

“Because you enjoy playing,” Spencer answered, a bit of a question in his voice. He must’ve assumed that I would immediately say yes.

“You always beat me,” I slightly pouted.

“But you never back down from a challenge,” he reminded me.

I quickly glanced around at everyone else on the jet, and the seat Spencer used to be occupying at the opposite end. I cocked an eyebrow, “Everyone else said no, didn’t they?”

“Well, I, I uh … No? No. That’s not what-” he floundered.

I smiled. “Just set up the board.”

He happily obliged. We went through three games, and before we started our fourth, Rossi called over, “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

“Well, someone’s got to keep his genius brain occupied, and we all know it’s not gonna be you,” I joked, eyebrows raised.

“Okay, I see how it is,” Rossi smugly said, tossing his hands up in surrender, “Either way, I’m just glad I’m not you.” I rolled my eyes, and we set up for our fourth game.

And then the unthinkable happened.

I beat him. For real. I really, truely, beat him.

I couldn’t believe it, and clearly neither could Spencer because he hadn’t moved from his position, hands under his chin, elbows on the table, eyes staring at the board, so I confirmed, “Did I do it?” He slowly looked up at me, lips pressed together, confusion in his eyes and I knew. “Oh my god, I did it!”

My mouth fell open and I clapped my hands together. I reached my hand over the board, and he reluctantly took it. “Good game.”

“It really was, wasn’t it?” I rhetorically asked, staring at the board with wonder. Reid started laughing, and I had to laugh with him. We’d played so many games of chess over the years we’d known each other, and I started to give up on my promise that one day I’d beat him. “What game number is this?”

“203.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “No wonder everyone on this plane thinks I’m fucking insane.”

“That’s because you are,” Rossi called over again.

“True,” I agreed, “But it paid off. Bet now you wish you were me.”

He just playfully shook his head.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

When we landed, it was almost 4pm and we decided we’d spend the next hour getting a jump start on our paperwork. We decided to go and eat together (which I somehow got invited to?), but right as we were about to leave, Spencer and Emily awkwardly stood in front of me. They didn’t make a move to get out of the way, so I just stared at them knowing damn well they were about to address the awkwardness I’d been sensing.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Emily asked.

I furrowed my brow, “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know you just seem … not yourself,” Emily observed.

“I’m okay,” I told her with certainty.

“You’ve just been acting … I don’t know actually, you’ve been acting pretty normal,” Emily struggled, sounding a bit frustrated.

I gave her a look. “I’m confused.”

“Dull?” Spencer intervened, “Like you’re you, and you’re acting like you, but something about you seems duller than usual.”

I cocked my head to the side. There was only one thing that made this week different from all of the other weeks, which was, “My dad died.” My voice was very steady and neutral, which there was no reason for it to sound otherwise.

“What, really?” Emily was shocked, eyes going wide.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it happened Tuesday night, well I mean Wednesday morning.”

She looked over at Spencer who was trying to hide the fact that he was gawking at me, and she cautiously asked, “Should we be doing anything?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No celebration?”

“Emily!” Spencer turned on her.

“What? He was a terrible guy,” Emily defended, shrugging with her palms up.

As Derek walked out of the bullpen to join the party, he added, “I’d toast to that.”

“Derek!” Spencer screeched, wide eyes trained on him.

“She’s right, though,” he replied, “Dude sucked.”

“He was still her father,” Spencer hissed.

I decided to step in, “Not really. He was more like a stranger, I didn’t know him. You know I always thought I’d be happy when this day came, but I really just don’t feel anything one way or the other about it.”

“That makes sense,” Emily nodded, “So if you’re feeling normal, does that mean we can go out for normal drinks?”

Spencer elbowed Emily, and she glared right back at him. “Yeah. Just normal, after-case drinks.”

“Fantastic, first round is on me,” Emily smiled.

“Ooh, first round of what?” Penelope asked, as she joined us in the hallway outside the elevator.

“Ask Chambers, she gets to choose,” Emily declared.

“Ugh, not fair,” Penelope whined.

“Well, her dad died, so…” Derek explained.

“Oh, seriously?” JJ asked with a little pep in her voice, joining the rest of us with Tara, Hotch, and Rossi on her trail. “Uh, congratulations?”

“Not you too, JJ,” Spencer complained. I pressed my lips together to hold back a smile. It was kind of endearing that he thought the team should be more sensitive about my feelings or whatever.

“What? I thought you hated your dad,” JJ looked to me for confirmation.

“I did,” I told her, “But I don’t really feel anything about it.”

“That must be nice,” Tara added. I nodded and couldn’t contain the small smile that pulled on my lips.

I leaned over to where Spencer was still tensely standing next to me. I whispered, “It’s okay, they’re just trying to lighten the mood. Plus, they’re kinda right.”

“I just want to make sure they’re not being insensitive,” he softened his eyes as he looked at me.

“They’re not,” I assured.

When we got to the bar and diner, Emily followed through and bought us all a round of tequila shots. Four rounds later and a few other drinks in, she announced, “I know you said normal, but I think we should go around and share our favorite memory of Joe Spade.”

I laughed in her face, “You met the man once!”

“Exactly. I’ll start,” she smiled. “My favorite moment was when we found out he’d been stalking you for months because he just wanted you to talk to him.”

“Wait, what the hell?” Tara asked.

No one answered her because JJ’s turn was next. “My favorite moment was when she calmly stared him down while he was holding on to Spencer.”

“What the actual hell?” Tara intervened again, “How am I just now hearing about this?”

She was ignored yet again when Derek said, “My favorite moment was when Aundreya kicked his ass and told him off!”

There was some hooting and hollering at that, and I just shook my head with amusement. Hey, at least they know me well enough to know I can joke about anything, especially the weird and bad things that happen to me, and feel comfortable enough to actually do it. Granted, they are kinda tipsy. “You people are truely demented.”

“Especially when you’re drunk,” Tara added.

“Like you’re so much better,” Penelope slurred, sticking her tongue out.

“Maybe not,” Tara said with a smirk, “But I bet I could still kick all of your asses on the dance floor.” Quickly, all five of them scurried in that direction, leaving Spencer talking with Hotch, like they had since the beginning, and me with Rossi. I rested my chin on my fist as I looked down the bar toward Spencer, who was gesturing with his hands and smiling at something Hotch was telling him, probably about Jack.

I’d been trying to control myself, but ever since he kissed me, and I knew that things weren’t perfect with Maeve, I found my mind wandering to him. Especially knowing everything Hotch told me about him when I was gone, and how I needed to stop running from emotionally difficult things, I just couldn’t suppress the urges to look and think about him anymore. I gave in. I gave myself hope. Which was one of the most dangerous things I’d ever done.

“So what’s with you and the kid?” Rossi said, sitting down in between me and my staring. I gave him a look and he asked, “What, you said act normal.”

“I did say that,” I grudgingly admitted.

“So… what’s with you and Reid these days?”

“Who said there was anything with me and Reid these days?” I fired back.

“Oh Chambers,” he faked disappointment, “You know you can’t lie to profilers.”

I sighed, “I’m not going to be a homewrecker.”

“I have news for you. You can’t be a homewrecker if there is no home to wreck,” he pointed out.

“Does everyone forget about Maeve?” I asked.

“He doesn’t talk about her,” Rossi waved it off.

“He’s a private person,” I acknowledged.

“Yeah, but you don’t understand,” he said, “He used to talk about her. Then you came back, and he stopped talking about her.”

We sat in silence for a while longer before I felt the need to voice a fear of mine since this all started again. “Do you think he’s only showing interest in me because he’s been to prison?”

“What gave you that impression?” Rossi’s voice was a mixture of confusion and what sounded like it could be boredom. Fed up, maybe?

“Come on we all know he can’t accept the good things that happen to him, so what if he's just accepting the bad ones instead? I mean he thinks Maeve deserves better, so what if settling for second place is some weird form of self punishment?” The moment I said it, Rossi narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head.

He sighed, “You’re crazy, I don’t know how you got there.”

“Exactly!” I pointed out, “I am crazy, that’s why I can’t figure out why, under any circumstance, he’d be interested in me.”

“Does it matter?” he asked, dragging the words out as he shook his head slightly. I just looked at him. “Seriously, does it matter why he’s interested in you? The reasons don’t change anything. You care about each other, so just go for it, there’s really nothing standing in your way.” I was about to protest when he repeated, “Nothing. At least, there’s nothing from his end. Is there something from yours?”

“I mean-” I struggled to voice my thoughts.

“Look, I don’t know how you act around that Mateo character,” he said and I sighed. Of course he knows that’s something I’m thinking about. “But I know how you act around him, and I know how he acts around you. Think about what you really want, Aundreya, and then just go for it, but don’t keep putting yourself, and Spencer, through this.” With that, he got up, leaving me alone with a perfect view of Spencer’s glowing face.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

When the night came to a close, we all had to get back to our places. Hotch, Rossi, and Spencer left early, Derek and Penelope got a cab, Will came to get JJ, and I drove Emily and Tara home. They said they could get a ride home like Derek and Penelope, but I insisted. Plus, I really didn’t want to go home already. It’d become a place I dreaded being at.

I opened my door to the usual sight of red on the opposite wall, and had to do a double take to actually notice.

Underneath “This isn’t over” was another three word phrase in brilliant red:

I have Spencer.

I dialed Aaron at lightning speed, “DeLeon has Spencer.”

“Get to the office now. I’ll call everyone else.” That was all he said before hanging up. I turned around to head right back out the door, and saw that someone was blocking my way. I bitterly smiled to myself as I set down my phone and started taking off my jacket.

“Haven’t you people given up yet?” I patronized. “You lose every single time.”

“It’ll work eventually,” a low, booming voice responded.

“Maybe, but,” I narrowed my eyes. He took a step toward me as I delivered a single spin kick to the side of his head, locating two more guys in my peripheral vision, “Not this time.”

Series Taglist

@justanothetfangirl @kris-stuff @blameitonthenight21 @wooya1224 @unded-bride @swiftingday @dezzxmx

[kuronekonerochan]

The laziest compilation of thoughts about the mess that was Alice (spoilers)

I finish a lot of shitty dramas. Like a lot. I could review them, but I won’t bc there’s too many and I’m too lazy (when you ff some dramas from 45min to 5 per episode it doesn’t really count as watching too many dramas bc it’s really a commercial break, lol). Some I watch for the so bad it’s good content, or love hate watching or just to have something to watch while I eat, even if they’re boring af. It’s also a tiny bit of ocd bc I need to see how they end (even the ones I drop I check out the finale). I only drop the ones that as Marie Kondo says *Do Not Spark Joy, more specifically...annoy me and make me cranky.

I sometimes bitch about it on DMs with ranty spoilers without structure and that reference other unrelated dramas or shows, because ADHD and my mind refuses to stay on topic, which would make it probably unintelligible except if you are in the niche who happens to have watched the other unrelated dramas, so it’s probably useless as a review.

That said, here are some random disconnected thoughts about Alice.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS BEWARE

(this is like partly copypaste of DM rants bc I am that lazy biatch. Also, fair warning I will seem super harsh or this drama because that’s the thing about a bitching dm versus a proper review... I am not bringing up all the points and talking about the good and what I liked as well as the bad, it’s just the bad...and although the drama is imo a mess, it does have some good in it. So if it were a review I’d always argue pros and cons...ranty thoughs who cares about pros? boring..I will not be bothered with devil’s advocate).

This was fascinating to watch, interesting but not good... but like a trainwreck.

I continued watching this mess despite the headache inducing convoluted plot (I watched a lot of timetravel stuff and I love it...encompassing all the theories about it, from butterfly effect, to effectively changing the future (with characters forgetting it or keeping it in memory because “eye of the storm” theory, the “efforts are futile and you can try to change it but the future is set in stone”, to “small changes can be made but big events are fixed points in time”, to “every change creates a new time line” and multiverse, etc... and trust me, all of them can be done well when well written or turn out a confusing illogical mess and that has nothing to do with the theory chosen, but with presenting how time travel works for that story and what the basic rules are and sticking to them...or when something happens that contradicts them, come up with an explanation as to why that happens.

 I don’t mean the drama should be an exposition borefest with too much pseudosciency jargon...but this drama gives you too little in the way of rules and the viewers sort of figure out how timetravel works (which is not bad per se, huge fan of show don’t tell...but there’s a limit to how much they cannot tell or the characters chose not to ask just for the sake of plot and not without any logic to it). Anyways, the little “rules” that we gather along the way...the writing doesn’t stick to them and keeps contradicting itself without addressing or explaining it and hoping we’re so confused we don’t notice. Some dramas you just say “eh, forget it, it doesn’t make sense, let’s turn off our brains and enjoy it”, but here if I wanted to try and follow what was going on at all it required “brain on” mode for their convoluted plot twists...which also made me aware of so may plotholes the time road should have looked like Swiss Cheese. I could go into them...but I cannot be bothered and the list would be extensive and still incomplete, so I will just put 3 here bc I can’t help it:

 1) Hot Daddy with emotional turmoil the entire drama of “Oh no, I abandoned her in 92 and regretted it, it happened 1 year ago for me, and now I find out she died in 2010. How was she, did she suffer? What did she know? Oh god, if only I were a time traveler eventually going rogue who could show up and talk to her any time in the timeline between 92 and 2010...Alas, I have to live in misery with the consequences of my actions...there is just ABSOLUTELY no way of solving this. I guess I’ll just keep making unauthorized time travel journeys from 2050′s time agency back to the year of 2020 and only 2020 to constantly be blindsided by murder attempts on everyone everywhere without having a clue to what’s going on when I could simply go back to before 2010 and talk to the one person who is proven to know what is going on.” Here is where there could be a bullshit reason as to why he could go only go to 2020 and not before, but the drama didn’t even bother.

 2) They say Tae Yi’s mom was originally a time traveler who settled with her physicist dad in the past, eventually making way for her to discover time travel herself. The mom is missing and this is never addressed again. 

3) The book...who wrote it? Because I have guesses but they never outright answer it... and if the biatch author knew that stuff why the alice in wonderland stupid analogies?

 Coward, or petty, or both.... or maybe just a chaos gremlin godlike entity who wanted to watch them all squirm, like the author from Extraordinary You...and that I could get behind, but sadly they don’t go that metaphysical/theological with the plot...which is honestly the main problem with this drama. It seems ambitious in concept but it’s never explored decently in any way, not in the pseudoscience, not in the philosophical sense of the meaning of time/space/existence, not even in its relationships, with the constant back and forth and weirdness of it.

Besides the timetravel migraine, we had the weirdest directing, that made the relationship between the leads feel a bit too incesty...which was the main reason I kept watching this drama...morbid curiosity of how they wrapped up this mess of a plot AND especially the relationship payoff...would it keep being weird with trope romance drama scenes like the female lead and second female lead facing off and being jealous, or that weird hair washing that felt more sensual than maternal? I knew it wouldn’t happen but my inner chaos gremlin wanted kdramaland to grow some balls and go full “predestination: oedipus edition” with this mess. Alas they sort of did, mostly didn’t. Even that angle was a whole inconsistent mess: there were times where it felt too romantic, then for a short minute I misguidedly shipped the journalist friend, then it seemed the dude was ace, then they calmed their tits with the whole weird romantic vibes and it got platonic cute, then with the memory merge thing finally motherly vibes, then I shipped the journalist again for 1 sec only...and then the ending:

Alice ended with the lead solving every problem by shooting himself (technically) in the head...and that's the second meta perfectly fitting ending for a drama with a good cast and terrible writing that drove itself into a corner this year, after the sleepless princess ended with the leads jumping off a cliff. I don't think it's a self aware choice of the writers, or an admission that they themselves know it was bad, but the irony is delicious.

Spoiler for the ending: he undoes timey wimey stuff from when his mom first got killed in high school and closed the time travel door. So he became an architect and new Tae Yi just woke up in her bed remembering everything, but in reality she had just come back from a conference abroad and had never met him. So mom TaeYi didn't die then, but never got back on screen after the time undo so who the f knows what happened to her. 

Also, if new Tae Yi remembers, does that mean hot daddy from the future does as well, but he is just stuck in the future without a time door to ever see them again? The drama doesn’t care answering that and forgets his character is even a thing...I will miss you, my fave who looked emotionally and literally constipated 24/7 (it doesn’t care answering much at all tbf... a little known fact about the time travel paradoxes according to the physics of this world is that besides doppelganger chickenpox it induces severe lazy writing).

Anyways new Tae Yi went looking for architect (? okay...I guess) ML after she woke up, at first he didn't remember her, but it ends with him meeting her, apparently remembering her and they stare at each other... you know, like any bad traditional romantic kdrama finale....so there is still THAT vibe. 

Honestly, the usual romantic ballad score for scenes between the leads WAS NOT the most intelligent choice for this drama in specific but boy did they stick with it (not to mention the ending song... that goes, in english “we be like Bonnie and Clyde we ride or die...which...k, sure)...so technically the ending was exactly the cliche post amnesia running back to each other and staring for the final scene while romantic music blasts trope. Take it as you will.