#also tried drawing the 'proper' way by holding the pen with three fingers and using shoulder and elbow to move it

[strigital]

snowy decembers always get me in a mood for a midwinter ball at some estate or palace but alas - those times are long gone 😔 so anyways, here's the ultimate winter princess Nim because it's a crime not to draw something skyrim related when it snows

[neonacity]

LUCID | NCT DREAM ‘00 LINE X READER | CH.6

LUCID DREAMS - A TYPE OF DREAM WHEREIN THE PERSON IS AWARE THAT THEY ARE CAUGHT IN A DREAM WORLD.

Summary: It was supposed to be a harmless, professional transaction. You were to tutor a group of boys, get your pay at the end of the day, and go home to your loving fiance. Kids aren’t supposed to be dangerous, right? So why, then, are you caught up in a web of madness that slowly makes you feel like you’re in a living nightmare?

NOTE:This is a yandere plot featuring NCT Dream ‘00 line which means there will be mature themes in the story as well as obsessive, toxic behavior. If you’re a minor, please refrain from interacting. If this isn’t your thing, then just scroll and skip. In no way am I condoning anything written here— this is not love, this is obsession—nor do I think that any of the people mentioned here will act any way like in this story. This is purely a work of fiction.

Genre: yandere, horror, suspense

TW: abuse, obsessive behavior, toxic relationships, suggestive scenes, stalking, possible kidnapping, mental health. Age gap–though nothing dramatic. Everyone is of legal age, drugs, slight smut for this chapter but nothing graphic, questionable consent (?) I guess? Creepy, creepy, creepy! This will be updated as the story goes along.

CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4 | CHAPTER 5

“EVERYONE HAS A DARKER NATURE. EVERYONE. GOOD MEN FEAR IT, AND EVIL MEN EMBRACE IT.” - JAMES ISLINGTON

The silent hum of the air conditioning filled the space like a foreboding chant. Nothing else but the sound of the hospital machinery and random noises outside pierced the stillness of the room as you stared, unseeing, at the green and orange numbers that blinked on the monitor above the bed. 

You barely have any recollection of how you managed to find yourself in the hospital, but you do remember brief memories of Taeyong picking you up from the floor you found yourself crumpled on after you got the call. You remember seeing Jaehyun's parents at a brightly lit corridor and his mother pulling you into a hug as she broke down and his father telling you how his son hasn't woken up since he was brought to the emergency room.

You remember your heart breaking in shock, mind too numb from the godforsaken pills you have been taking and your own injury. So many times you wondered to yourself if you were still caught in one of your nightmares, but every time you tried to break free from it, you're slapped back with the reality of how all of this is real.

Your fingers gently tightened on Jaehyun's hands now as your gaze landed on his face. He looked so peaceful, like he's just sleeping, that you almost wanted to bend over and try to kiss him awake. You don't even have any idea what time and day it is already, but you have barely left his side since you were brought to him. The nightmares and sleeplessness? They're barely a problem for you anymore because right now, you're entirely not resting at all unless your body forces you to crash from physical exhaustion. Even then, you usually only sleep for about two to three hours at best to make sure that you never miss a moment with your fiance.

"Severe traumatic head injury. He was lucky enough that the airbag shielded him from the worst of the impact."

The words of his attending doctor echoed in your head again like a faraway voice. You could only remember bits and pieces of what he said to his parents back then as he reported his findings, but you caught enough context for you to draw a picture of the situation. You remember Jaehyun's mother asking the chances of her son waking up again, her voice barely holding up from her emotions. 

"I cannot promise anything, Ma'm. I'd say he has a 60 percent chance. He's fighting."

And he is. You know Jaehyun inside out. He might be unconscious now, but there is no way he is giving up. Not from something like this. 

"Keep fighting baby…" you whispered in the stillness of the room as you lifted his hand gently to your lips to kiss. "I'll wait for you. We still have a wedding to do."

The slight creaking of the door barely made you look away from his sleeping face. You only did at the gentle sound of a throat clearing, your eyes slightly widening as you recognized the man who just walked inside the room. Taeil had the same mildly shocked look on him as he stopped on the  other side of the bed across from you. 

"You…"

"Are you a relative of the patient?" He asked now as he tucked his clipboard under his arm. You simply nodded, watching him quickly glance at the numbers on the monitor before his eyes settled on you again.

"I'm his fiancee."

That made him raise his brows slightly. He pulled a pen now from the pocket of his coat to quickly write something on his file. "What a coincidence. Not a good one obviously. I'm sorry to hear about him. Mr. Jung, right?"

You swallowed. You didn't want to acknowledge anything that he just said so you tried to divert the conversation instead.

"You're not his doctor. Why are you…"

"Oh. He was turned over to me today. I am one of the resident neurologists here but he had to be moved to me because his first doctor has too much in his plate already. Don't worry, I was briefed properly about his case."

Your gaze followed Taeil as he bent over to check Jaehyun's oxygen level as well as the other wires attached to him. You don't know what to feel about him taking over, but at least you already know him previously.

"Are there any changes? Positive ones?" You asked in a frail voice that Taeil definitely didn't miss. You told yourself to not act silly and ask questions that probably do not have answers yet, but you couldn't help yourself now. The man seemed to think over his words first, noticing your state, before calmly giving his reply.

"No particular ones, but the fact that there are no negative developments is… something. I will have to request for some tests to be done on him again tomorrow so we can see if there are positive changes in his brain."

Neutral. Not good, but at least it's not bad either.

"How are you? I was about to check on you again. Is your head okay?"

You were still thinking over his words that you barely caught his question. Looking up, you tried to scramble for an answer to give. To be honest, you haven't given proper attention to your own injury since this happened. You would even only remember to take your medications on your clearest, less anxious moments, which, honestly, isn’t a lot. 

"I'm uh… the wound has closed. But the headaches. They're still there."

He simply nodded. "Any other side effects?"

You didn't immediately answer. You didn't want to sound whiny, but it's not like you're going to lose anything by telling him the uglier parts of your recovery. You swallowed to try and dislodge the slight blockage in your throat.

"Nightmares…" you said now, voice soft. You briefly remembered the last one you had back in the manor before you woke up to the bad news and you felt your stomach turn again. "Lots of them. Hallucinations sometimes…"

The doctor watched you carefully and you know he is trying to compute things in his mind despite his face remaining calm.

"Have you been keeping to your schedule with your medications? Are you taking too much?"

You firmly shook your head no to his last question.

"No, I haven't been overdosing. But… I've been skipping my pills the last few days because of...because of this."

"How have you been feeling since you started missing your dosages then? Do you remember?"

That made you actually stop and think about it for a moment. Now that you are paying attention, you did notice how the nightmares have calmed down slightly. Even the hallucinations are almost gone. You frowned slightly to yourself.

"A bit… better actually."

Taeil took his time to observe you a bit more before writing something on a new page of his clipboard.

"You must have had severe reactions to the mixture of pills I gave you. I'm going to prescribe you new ones and ask the nurses to pick them up and bring them to you here. Can you promise that you'll try and take them though? You really need them to fully heal."

You nodded and gave him a slightly sheepish look.

"I will, thank you very much."

Taeil dug his hands into the pockets of his coat and gave you a gentle smile.

"Well, that's it for today. I'll come back tomorrow to give you updates about Mr. Jung." He had already turned and started walking away when he suddenly stopped to look at you again.

"Oh, and another thing. Please try and get some sleep. Recover… and then focus on helping your fiance."

******* You didn't really know what woke you up. Stirring from your sleep, the first thing that registered to you was the sound of distant traffic mixed with the gentle chirping of the morning birds from outside the window. A warm feeling radiated on your cheek and made the back of your eyelids glow red.

You flickered your eyes open and immediately rolled away to escape the ray of sunshine that slipped from the open curtains and shone directly at your face. You easily evaded it as you moved over to the other side of the bed which was empty and cold from the night before.

That was when you finally remembered that you were back in your home, in the same bedroom you share with Jaehyun. The day before, his mother offered to take the responsibility of watching over him so there was a sudden change of plans that finally gave you the reason to check back into your apartment after so long. If it were you, you would have preferred not leaving your boyfriend’s side until he wakes up, but you also knew that your future mother-in-law wanted to spend time with him so you relented. 

Of course you weren't thrilled to be home alone, especially with Jaehyun not being there, but the comfort that a real mattress provided—over the small couch you used to sleep in back at the hospital—is definitely a welcome change for your body. You even tried to take your medicine properly, the new ones that Taeil had provided, in the hopes of getting knocked down fast. Your adrenaline and anxiety had been fueling you in the past days, but you know from the way your heart thumped and your hands shook that you need a solid rest.

And you got it. You still feel a little groggy now but your body is definitely lighter and your head clearer. The nightmares didn't even come, and while they were replaced by total darkness or dreams in white that still made you anxious, you are willing to take those anytime over the graphic ones that you used to have.

You gently sat back against the headrest of the bed now and reached out for your phone to check the time. It's barely 7AM but as expected, Jaehyun's mom has already provided you with updates from the hospital. He’ll have some tests taken today as Taeil advised and then they’ll hear more about his progress. From the looks of it, she seems still set on watching over her son, which means you still have at least today free to yourself.

You quickly typed a reply to her and sighed. You’re thankful that even though you weren’t related by blood, his parents have always treated you as if you were their own. Having a family is not something you’ve really experienced in your childhood, so that’s something you’ve always appreciated about them. That is also the reason why you wish for the best out of this situation, because you also couldn’t bear seeing your fiance’s mother and father heartbroken. He’s their only son, after all.

A quick look around your room left you feeling empty. The last week has been so hard that it felt longer and now you’re struggling to find your normal pace again. In an effort to bring yourself to focus, you decided to pick up your phone once more and started flipping through your calendar to check your schedule. It didn’t take long for you to frown when you realized the upcoming dates there. You’ve plotted important academic schedules in advance and one quick look at it told you how much you’ve obviously missed in the past week. You’ve been so lost in the mess of everything that has happened that you’ve entirely forgotten about your job at the manor. You realized that they didn’t even call you once to ask about your absence, probably because they also know about the situation, but even that is not enough excuse for you to entirely fall off the radar.  

Biting your lip, you quickly scrolled through your contacts now to look for the number you need. Your thumb hovered over the call button momentarily, but you eventually pressed it anyway. Your eyes wandered towards the clock on the wall, hoping silently to yourself that it wasn’t too early for you to call.

“Rosewood Manor, how can I help you?”

You straightened on your seat.

“Hey, Taeyong. It’s me. Sorry if I called so early.”

The other boy seemed to have been taken slightly by surprise by the way he fell silent at the other end of the line. You tapped your finger against your knee, waiting for him to speak again.

“Hi. No, it’s fine. Work started for me about an hour ago. Are you okay? How’s things on your end?”

You nibbled guiltily on your lower lip and finally got off your bed to walk over to the window. You pushed the curtains open and stared at the slight snowfall that had started falling on the ground. You’ve missed so many days of reporting to them but the first thing he does is to check if you’re fine.

“I um—things are still the same. My boyfriend’s still at the hospital.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Look, I want to apologize. I haven’t really reported to work and I didn’t even call about it. It’s just that—things have been so crazy lately, but still that isn’t an excuse for me to just not show up.”

Taeyong, however, was understanding as always. You were about to go off for another round of apologies when he gently cut you off. 

“Hey, it’s fine. We know you’ve been dealing with a lot lately so we also weren't expecting anything. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“But, the boys’ examinations and portfolio review is happening in three days and I haven’t really checked in with them. How are they doing now?”

“Oh...that. Well, we actually tried looking for a temporary tutor to help out but I...uh… I think he isn't really cutting it. Maybe because he isn’t the one who started the program with them. But he’s a big help still.”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry about that. I should have at least—look, I can drop by today and just try to fix things.”

“Are you sure? You really don’t have to. Don’t you need to be at the hospital?”

You started going around your room now, trying to gather the scattered papers and files that you’ll need. It’s a good thing you woke up early so you still have time to prepare for work. “My boyfriend’s mother is the one watching over him today so I have the day off.”

“And your injury? How is it?”

Your eyes landed on the new bottles of medicine sitting on your bedside table.

“Better. I’m feeling so much better.”

You heard Taeyong sigh in relief over the phone. “Thank god. We were so worried about that. Well, you really don’t need to go, but if you have time, I guess doing it today won’t hurt. It will help us a lot.”

A small smile tugged at your lips now and you switched the phone over to your other ear as you started arranging your bag. “Thank you so much for being understanding. I need a distraction anyway. I’d rather work than stay home alone… Thanks for not firing me.”

That made him laugh a little. “I’ll tell the boys that you’re coming over. Oh, and be careful on your drive here. The roads are a little bit slippery today because of the snow.”

“I will, thank you. I’ll be there by 9.”

******* “Noona!”

You have barely finished arranging your materials on your desk when the door to the room burst open and ushered an anxious-looking Jisung inside. You looked up quickly at him, only barely catching Chenle wobbling with his crutch before your vision of the entrance was blocked by Jisung’s tall frame. His hair looked swept up as if he ran and there was a slight flush staining his cheeks. He stopped right in front of you, stopping just in time for him not to topple you over.

“Hey, Jisung how are—” You tried to give him a smile but he was quick enough to grab your hands between his.  

“Are you back? Are you really back for real?” He pressed now, eyes wide as he tried to bend over to look closely at you. He looked like a puppy, the only missing thing being a wagging tail to complete the look. You couldn’t help the brief laugh that passed over you as you tried to calm him down.

“I am. For the day, yes. Sorry I missed so many of your sessions.”

“We thought you left us,” Jisung continued, his lower lip protruding just a bit. Just then, Chenle had finally reached the two of you, a slightly embarrassed look on his face. This is actually the first time you saw him again since the day the two of you had your accident and you’re glad to see him healthy despite his broken leg.

“Hi, Chenle. How are you?”

The boy scratched the back of his head and looked away slightly. “Fine… I’m sorry, noona. I wasn’t able to visit you when you stayed with us. I’m really really sorry about what happened in the forest.”

You tried to give him a reassuring smile and freed one of your hands from Jisung’s hold to ruffle his hair. The action seemed to have calmed him down a little because he finally looked at you again, a small apologetic smile on his own lips.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. But be careful next time, okay?”

“Are you going to be our tutor again, noona?” Jisung pressed once more and you turned your attention back to him. To be honest, you’re still not sure how your schedule will turn out after this, but you couldn’t really bear to break the poor boy’s heart at the moment.

“Yes… I’m here to teach your big brothers today for their tests though. We’ll have to schedule you and Chenle’s lessons again. Is that alright?”

A brief look of disappointment flashed on his face but he was quick enough to pick it up. Jisung smiled and gave your hand a squeeze.

“Okay. We can wait. It’s good you are back, Jaemin-hyung was so—”

“Yah, don’t hog her by yourself. You’ll scare her away.”

A new voice made the three of you look back to the doorway. Haechan smiled at your little group as he strolled casually into the room followed by Jeno and Jaemin. The three of them joined your crowd and you felt Jisung finally let go of your hand as he stepped away to go over to his brothers’ side.

“Hi. Sorry, I only returned now. Taeyong told me that you—”

You weren’t able to finish what you wanted to say as Haechan gently stopped you mid-sentence. He leaned his head to the side, eyes briefly scanning you from head to toe. Unlike Jisung, he looked calm and only barely excited.

“It’s fine. We knew you’ll come back. How are you?”

“Oh… I’m good. My head is better. I haven’t had the chance to thank all of you for taking care of me when I was here.”

“How about your boyfriend?” It was Jeno who asked this time and you quickly turned to him to address his question. Your eyes briefly slipped to Jaemin who was standing behind him before you could even speak though, and for a moment you had the impression that Jeno was shielding him—or blocking him from you. You blinked a little bit in confusion, wondering if it was just your imagination that was making you think that way.

“He’s still… still unconscious,” your smile dropped a little but you tried your best to keep your voice casual. “We’re getting more tests for him. His doctor said that he isn’t showing bad signs at least.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about him,” Haechan said with compassion and you gave him a grateful look. Your gaze settled on Jaemin again, however, who for some reason had barely looked at you since he came into the room. You know that he can be quiet and reserved at times, but there is something in the air around him that makes you slightly worried. He’s so still, but the way he carries himself makes it seem like he’s so strung up at the same time. It also doesn’t help that Jeno seems to be almost pushing him back from view.

“Hi Jaemin… How are you?” You tried to gently ask him to make sure that he is okay. He didn’t look at you at first, but when he finally did, you felt yourself freeze a little. His eyes looked dark and almost emotionless when he met yours and there were shadows under them as if he hadn't slept properly for days. He didn’t even answer and just simply stared, his gaze blank and accusing at the same time.

Haechan casually glanced over his brother and chuckled. “Our Jaeminie here has been sick for the past couple of days so he’s a little out of it. But he’s going to be fine now,” he put a hand over the other’s shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze as if to calm him down. “Right, Jaemin? We’ll try our best to go to class today since noona is finally back, hmm?”

Jaemin, however, didn’t even seem to hear him. He continued staring at you the same way that kept you pinned on your spot.

“Are you leaving again?” he finally asked and you almost felt goosebumps rise on your skin. It didn’t sound like a question… but more of a threat. You swallowed.

“I’m going to have to arrange my schedule till things get better…” you answered carefully, as if you’re navigating dark waters. That didn’t seem to cut it for him, unfortunately.

“So you’re not leaving. Forever?”

You blinked. To be honest, you’ve been thinking of quitting and just finishing the rest of the month if things didn’t improve, but you don’t think that’s the right answer to give at the moment.

“No… not for now,” you finally managed to say. You watched as Jaemin seemed to visibly relax, his stiff shoulders loosening under Haechan’s grip. He didn’t say anything after that, but he at least looked away, seemingly more satisfied with your words.

“Great. I think we should get to work,” Haechan broke the silence and looked around the room as if the tension you were feeling was just something only you could feel. He nodded towards Chenle and Jisung then. “You guys go back to your own classes. You’ll have your share of noona once it’s your turn.” He then glanced at you, smile still in place. “Should we start then?”

You nodded. “Is Renjun still not back?”

“Not yet. He’s going to be here tomorrow though,” Jeno answered as he took his seat on one of the desks.

“I see…”

Haechan also found his spot, but not before you’ve noticed him urging Jaemin to do the same. Playfully, he took the pencil you’ve arranged on the desk and started tapping it against the wood of the table.

“Don’t worry. We’ll tell him you’re back. I’m sure he can’t wait to have his lessons again~”

******* You looked over the window for the third time in the last fifteen minutes and sighed. The day had been busy with you trying to catch up on the boys’ lessons that you barely even noticed the state of the weather outside. When you finally did, it took you by surprise when you saw how much of the ground was covered by snow—one look at it told you that it is at least a feet deep by now. Your first instinct was to try and maneuver your car out of the lot before your tires get entirely buried in it, but then you remembered that you promised to wait for Taeyong to come back before leaving the manor. The butler requested for you to temporarily watch over the manor while he tries to do some last minute errands back in the city, but it’s been two hours since he originally promised to come back. You eyes glanced at your watch now, then back at the quickly darkening view outside. 

“...severe snowstorm has blocked some of the main roads in the city at the moment. Expect heavy traffic and don’t forget to drive safely.”

You turned to the television now to catch the last of the rambling dialogue of the reporter about the weather. You’ve been debating on whether to call Taeyong or not to check on him, but you didn’t want to seem impatient to go home when you only really wanted to make sure if he’s safe. From the looks of it, he’s stuck somewhere because of the hale, too.

You were on your way to get your phone from your bag to at least try to shoot him a message when you suddenly heard it ring. Getting it just in time, you almost sighed in relief when you saw his number there. You quickly took it and went over to the window to answer it to make sure you get some proper signal.

“Hello? Taeyong?”

“Hey. Finally. I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour, thank god it finally connected.”

“Oh, sorry, my phone’s in my bag. I think the signal’s getting bad because of the snowstorm. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, about that, I’m still stuck in town. The traffic’s so bad here because a section of the main road is blocked. Road maintenance is supposed to come thirty minutes ago but I think there’s a delay because there are other roads they are working on.”

Your gaze drifted back to the television where scenes of the same blocked avenues were being flashed. “Yeah… the news says the same.  Are you safe though?”

“I am. I’m really sorry for making you wait. I’d tell you to drive back and not wait for me anymore but I don’t think you’ll also make it home in time with all this traffic going on. I don’t think it’s going to be safe. Do you mind waiting for a little bit more? I’ll tell you once the roads are better.”

You thought it over quickly, a frown settling on your face. You really want to go home, but he’s right. There’s no point in trying to drive back if you’ll only find yourself stuck in the roads for hours. Not being a big fan of night driving yourself, you can already imagine the stress waiting for you if you add a snowstorm to the mix. As much as you wanted to leave, you’re left with no choice, at least for the moment.

 “I can… I’ll just wait for you, I guess. Do you want me to do anything here while you’re gone? Dinner for the boys?”

“Oh no, no, you don’t need to do that, that’s not part of your job,” Taeyong sounded abashed when he said that. You stepped away from the window then and took a seat by the fireplace that Jeno started earlier. Half of your concentration was on the news which has now shifted to a different set of reports also caused by the snowstorm. “They’ll know when to go down and eat. Don’t worry about them. Where are they right now?”

“Ah, I think they went back to their rooms? I did tell them earlier that I’ll try to wait for you.”

“I see. Yes, I think that’s better. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated. If things don’t get better, I think I’ll have no other choice but find a hostel here and wait for the weather to calm down. You can stay there and just ask for help from any of them. You can stay in the same room just in case.”

You didn’t quickly react to the offer. Instead, your eyes flickered to the doorway of the room before refocusing your attention back to the conversation. It’s not like you have anything against spending the night again at the manor—you’ve done it before, after all—but it’s honestly not really something you’re comfortable to do again. Maybe it’s because you’ve never really been okay with overstaying at strangers’ houses but your gut feel is also telling you right now that it shouldn’t be your top option regardless of the situation you are in.

Still, you didn’t want to come off rude to Taeyong, not when he is only being kind to offer you temporary shelter while being stuck in the middle of nowhere himself. So instead, you went against your initial doubts and offered him your thanks in return. It’s just Plan B that he’s proposing after all. 

“I will. Keep me updated though if you need anything you think I can help with.”

“Thank you and I will. I have to go now though. Please make yourself at home. I’ll try to call again after an hour.”

“Okay. Take care.”

You put your phone down now with a worried frown as you heard the line drop. You couldn’t believe this is happening the first day you got back to work but it’s not like you can really blame anyone for it. The only good thing is that you’re sure Jaehyun is being taken care of right now so that is at least one thing off your shoulders. You didn’t really need to rush anywhere, not especially to a vacant home. Leaning back against your seat, you tried your best to relax as your gaze travelled around the room once again. You deliberated on sending a text to your mother-in-law to tell her about your situation but decided against it, not wanting to worry her more. You sighed. For now, you guess you didn’t have any other choice but to wait.

You did try to distract yourself by watching the news for a few more minutes before finally giving up on it. With resignation, you picked yourself up from your seat again and turned the television off. For a moment you simply stood in the middle of the room, trying to figure out what to do with your time when your gaze settled on the door again. Everyone retreated to their own rooms after they finished with their lessons so it means the house is pretty much yours for exploring if you wanted to. You toyed with the idea for a little bit, before finally resigning yourself to it. It’s not like there really is anything else left for you to do, and Taeyong did say you can make yourself feel at home if you wanted to. With a sigh, you finally turned on your heels to leave the room and peered silently into the hallway. It was deserted as expected, but still your eyes travelled left and right to check if there’s anyone out and about at this hour. It was only after you made sure that you were alone when you finally allowed yourself to step into the corridor.

Of course, you have a plan. You’re pretty much sure that checking out the rooms on the first floor is acceptable since it’s where you’ve been rotating your classes so you’re going to stick to those areas. You remember finding a library there once and you focused on finding your way to it to maybe check out some of the books in the collection. 

It did take you about five minutes to finally find the place you were looking for. For some reason, the sections in the manor always confuse you no matter how many times you try to memorize each one, probably because of how big and similar-looking they are on the outside. You’ve already tried four doors when you were finally welcomed by the familiar-looking bookshelves at the fifth one. You sighed and gave one quick look around the room before slipping yourself inside after making sure that you’re alone.

There will probably never be a time when you won’t find yourself fascinated by anything in this grand home. If the architecture of the mansion is not enough to convince anyone how rich the family is, their book collection is enough to assure that at the very least. You’ve only ever taken a quick glimpse of it once during one of your lessons with the boys, but one look of the titles in their shelves is enough to make any literature major excited. You looked at the floor to ceiling collection now, your fingers gently running over the spines of the books you could reach with a small smile on your face.

You were about to check out the rest of the collection on the other side of the wall when something in the middle of the room caught your attention. You didn’t really catch it at first because of the shadows that concealed it when you first came in, but you could pretty much discern the outline of a blanket covered standee now from where you stood. You frowned. Taking careful steps, you closed the distance towards it to try and figure out what exactly it is that you’re seeing.

A closer look revealed it to be an easel covered with white cloth. You could see the outline of the canvas where the blanket falls over it while shadows of colors peeked out into the thin fabric from the surface it was covering. How odd… you knew that Renjun had a different art room for his paintings so to see this now here in the middle of the library seems uncanny.

You didn’t know how long you remained standing in front of it, too. You know you should have walked away—after all, the white cloth hiding it away from plain view means whatever is on that canvas is not meant for everyone’s eyes to see, but you simply couldn’t tear yourself away from it. It’s as if there was a silent force asking you to pull that cloth to reveal what’s underneath, the inclination so strong that you could almost hear its voice breathing down next to your ear, unrelenting until you do what it says.

The next thing you know, you had your hand attached to one end of the fabric. You stared at it now, wondering last minute if you should go ahead or not. You swallowed and glanced around one last time around the room. If you’re alone… it wouldn’t hurt if you could take a peek, right? Nobody will know. You just have to see, then cover it back again. Before you could even think about it too much, your arm was finally moving on its own as it gently tugged at the covering. You watched as it fell gently on the floor, like a bodiless ghost melting into the shadows on the ground.

Your eyes couldn’t make out what you were seeing at first. The dim lighting of the room wasn’t helping at all, but you were sure that it was a woman’s silhouette that was staring back at you from the canvas. Colors swirled around her, like some unknown mass trying to drag her back into unknown depths. Shapes and tones jumped from the picture, but her form stood out from the rest, gracefully twisted as if she was in the middle of trying to fight and succumb to it at the same time. You frowned. Taking a step closer towards it, you tried to study its details under what little illumination the lamps above afforded you.

That’s when it all happened simultaneously. Your heart stopped beating the same time your eyes widened as they finally focused on what’s in front of them. It’s as if the ground suddenly vanished from underneath your feet and you were falling, falling, deep into the abyss despite your body being frozen in fear and shock.

You know this painting. You’ve seen it before. It was the same one by Renjun, the one that you saw on your first day working in the manor.

But it was different now. Instead of the unfinished state that caught your attention before, everything about the picture now is in sharp focus. The lines on the woman’s nude body, the hands—which you thought were simply dark swirls dragging her back—and her face twisted beautifully in pleasure and madness stared back at you like a nightmare.

But it was not those which truly shook you to your core. It’s the realization that it was your own face in the portrait that was staring back at you, silently screaming for you to run away.

You stumbled back in shock. Your chest felt tight as you tried to grasp for air while your hands fumbled to find something to hold on to keep you from crashing on the ground. Before you could even take another step, however, something hard hit your back and you felt strong arms wrap around your waist like a vice. You have barely realized what was happening when you felt someone lean over your shoulder, lips pressing against the shell of your ear.

“Isn’t it beautiful? You’re the perfect muse, don’t you think?” Renjun asked softly as he pressed a gentle kiss to your temple.

******* You didn’t know how long you stayed frozen in his embrace. For a brief moment you thought you were dreaming again until you felt his arms slowly tighten around your waist. As if a jolt of electricity shocked you, you immediately turned to push him away as you scrambled to put some distance between the two of you.

Renjun didn’t seem the least bothered when your eyes finally focused on him. He remained on his spot, his gaze on you unwavering. You, meanwhile, were shaking from head to toe, the vision of the painting still branded vividly in your head.

“Renjun—what’s this?” you managed to stutter as you pointed at the artwork in the middle of the room. You couldn’t even spare to look at it again while he merely gave it a casual glance.

“It’s you. I’ve been working on it for a long time. I was about to show it to you but it seems like you couldn’t wait for it yourself.”

You felt nauseous. A part of your rational mind was slowly losing it as you tried to process his answer. Something's not right. Something is so terribly wrong.

“Why—why did you do this?”

Renjun simply stared at you and leaned his head a little bit to the side as if he was only mildly curious of your reaction. Your stomach turned even before hearing his answer.

“You said it’s beautiful.”

“This is not right—!”

“I came home because they said you were leaving for good,” he continued speaking softly, effectively cutting you from what you were about to say. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and you took another step back as you watched him get close to his artwork. You watched in horror as his thin fingers lovingly ran over the corners of the canvas. “Jaemin almost lost it… It’s a good thing I got here on time.”

And just like that, everything seemed to have clicked into place. The glances, the touches, the words that seemed to have a different undercurrent under them… they weren’t just fragments of your imagination. Every little thing that has gnawed at you from the inside came into crystal clear focus and you felt your knees go weak from the weight of it all. It took every fiber of your being to try and keep yourself steady now, your legs moving on their own as they took small backward steps away from the boy staring at you now with dead eyes. You couldn’t breathe, but it was the last words he told you that finally snapped you to run.

“I don’t think you’ve realized it yet. But no, you cannot leave. Ever.”

You didn’t know where you got the energy for it but in seconds you were flying out of that room and running blindly down the darkened corridors. Your blood pumped noisily in your ears and your chest felt like it was going to split from the sudden exertion you put on it, but you didn’t stop, not even looking back as you tried to put as much distance between you and the library. You didn’t even know where you were going. All you’re focused on is to find the exit and leave the house as soon as possible.

A loud bang that sounded off to your right startled you and you screamed, the force of your shock making you whip around and almost lose your balance. Before you could even hit the floor, however, a pair of hands caught you and you immediately turned, grasping at the chest of your rescuer.

You froze. Haechan smiled down at you as he tried to steady you on your feet.

“Haechan,” you gasped as you took fistfuls of his shirt and tried to shake him in your panic. “Renjun—he’s—please, help me. He’s after me—” you gasped out, almost out of your wits. You’re on the verge of a total breakdown that it almost escaped you, the way he simply smiled down on your shaking form. It was only when you felt one of his hands gently caress the top of your head that reality slapped you in the face again. You suddenly stopped struggling in his hold, pupils shaking as you watched him study your features lovingly.

“Shh… it’s fine. I got you,” he whispered and you could swear ice pricked you from the inside. A slight movement to the right made you turn your head and you saw Jaemin lean casually against the banister of the stairs, his face serene. He gave you one quick look before a gentle smile finally lit up his features.

“Has it started?” he asked and you felt Haechan’s hold on you tighten.

“It has.”

You didn’t struggle. It was as if any trace of fight you had left you in that moment and you let your hands fall limply on your sides. Haechan also loosened his grip on you and you stared at the two boys blankly, your chest heaving as if fighting for air. They didn’t move from their spots and simply followed you with their eyes as if relishing the fear and realization flashing in your face.

Trapped.

You’re trapped.

You’ve always been.

You didn’t even realize that your legs had started moving again on their own as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall together in your mind. You were only shaken from it when your back finally hit the front door, the cold metal of the knob pressing against your spine. Jaemin and Haechan remained on their spots still, even as you blindly reached out for it from behind.

You were expecting it to be locked, so you were a little bit surprised when you felt it give way under your hand when you tried to turn it open. Just before you could even entertain the idea of escaping, however, any trace of hope you had quickly died as you turned and came face to face with Jeno standing right in front of the entrance. He didn’t look the least surprised seeing you there, as if he was waiting for you in the first place.

You eyes took in his calm countenance before slowly moving to stare downwards at what he was holding by his side. Your gaze locked on it in fear, and that’s when the flight response in you flared up again.

Jeno’s hunting rifle shone dully in the light of the entryway, his pale fingers wrapped on its handle.

“There’s really only one place you can run, noona, but I won’t advise it,” he said evenly and you felt your blood freeze in your veins.

“After all, no matter where you hide, I’ll still find you in that forest.”

It happened all at once. You broke into a run, your body screaming at you to go faster as you heard gunshots pierce the air.

---

CHAPTER 7

A/N: Good lord, I wasn’t expecting I’d finish this today but I got one large iced coffee and well... things happened. Anyway, enjoy! Let’s hope the format won’t mess up this time. T.T Finally, all hell broke loose~ <3

Tag list! 

@negincho, @jhornytrash, @jaeminhyuckiii, @jungwoosswhore​, @jsturkey, @aj-7, @pukupukupawpau, @tomiesgirlfren, @vsszn, @those-winternights, @xsnelly, @lihyuck, @laheyspizza, @miyeux27, @haoshitt, @mindofthescattered, @huangberryyy, @d1nne, @choppedupcactus, @neokat​, @yutasnabi​

[pink-flame]

Lucky it Was Hotdogs

So! This is my gift for the @jatp-gift-exchange celebrating 6 months since the show came out. I just so happened to be assigned my friend @tmp-jatp as my giftee. Which is awesome because she’s awesome. She asked for angst and my first thought was my reputation is just going to get worse. 😂 And then I started writing, started over, changed to a different prompt two more times...had a few breakdowns but here we are! Basically all of my friends had to hear about my spiral the last couple of days so thank you and my apologies. 🙏 

T, I hope you like it! 💜💜💜

In some ways Luke thinks that it’s lucky it was hot dogs.

Of course, if he had been asked to choose a way to go back in 95 he probably would have said old and in his sleep. Or maybe he would have been a smart ass and said jumping the grand canyon on a motorcycle or playing an epic show in bad weather and having some sort of electrical incident (Reggie wasn’t the only one who had been involved in that amp incident not that he was in a hurry to tell Alex that). Contaminated hot dogs in an alley on the night of their big break probably wouldn’t have occurred to him and it definitely wouldn’t have cracked the top ten list of his requests.

But now that he’s in the future, with his band and with Julie and with their dreams once again a real possibility...he thinks the hot dogs would have been the right choice.

The truth is it doesn’t matter how tragic it is that three kids had their lives cut short at the same time it’s always going to be at least a little bit funny that they went from death by hot dog. It lets him use the tragedy as a means of teasing Julie as she bites into her sandwich and it lets Willie give Alex an affectionate nickname that’s only a little in bad taste. It lets Reggie hover behind Ray when Julie’s dad gets the grill out and clutch his stomach dramatically in a reenactment for his friends amusement. It lets Julie look at Luke like the fact that he is a ghost is mildly exasperating but not inherently upsetting, not like it would be if he was a walking reminder of a car accident or the cancer that took her mom.

So yeah, it’s lucky it was hot dogs.

Except...sometimes Luke wishes that it wasn't.

Sometimes he wishes that he had died from an illness or an accident or anything that would prompt someone to look at him and ask if he wanted to talk about it. Because...he does. Just sometimes. Wants to talk about how much it hurt. Wants to talk about how scared he was. Wants to talk about how even though being able to make music still (being able to make music with Julie) matters most it does bother him.

It bothers him that Julie is the only lifer he can touch (even though she would clearly be his first choice).

It bothers him that he fades into non-existence as soon as they stop playing.

It bothers him that he can’t even thank Julie’s dad for hosting their garage gig or show her brother that he’s holding it all wrong when he catches him strumming lightly on Luke’s guitar one day.

It bothers him that he won’t ever be anything other than what he is, a teenager with a guitar and a longstanding suspicion about the consequences of wearing sleeves while performing.

It bothers him that Julie will always be what she is now (an amazing teenage girl with a wrecking ball voice and a heart big enough to keep them with her through sheer force of will) but she will also become so much more.

An adult.

Someone with a job and a family and…

He can’t think about it.

Except he does.

Not all the time but often enough, especially at night when Alex is off with Willie and Reggie is watching tv with an unsuspecting Ray and Luke is wishing more than anything that he could find the escape of sleep.

So usually he ends up writing when he feels like this, seeking out the familiar sensation of pen flying over paper, words tumbling from the deepest recesses of his mind to collect into the shape of a song.

I know I’m being selfish

But feeling alive isn’t being alive

Feeling you breathe isn’t breathing

I just want this feeling forever

Instead I count every moment I’m stealing

“Why are you writing in the dark?” Julie’s amused voice cuts through the silence causing him to jump, a remnant of a time when he had anything to fear other than his own uncertain future.

He’s not sure if it’s a ghostly superpower or just the fact that he had been peering at his notebook from only about an inch away but it’s true, he hadn’t bothered to turn the light on and he saw it just fine.

The dark felt more appropriate somehow when he felt like this anyway.

She flips on the light and crosses the room to sink down beside him where he’s spread out on the floor. He’s so distracted for a moment by just how Julie she always manages to be (beautiful and amazing and distracting in the best way) that he doesn’t realize that she’s reaching for his notebook until it’s too late. He tries to snatch it back fruitlessly as she turns her eyes to the words he has scrawled across the page. He hopes momentarily that she won’t be able to make out his infamously illegible handwriting but his hopes are dashed when she reads out the last few lines in a thoughtful tone. He has a brief flash of affection at the realization that she must be his soulmate if she can read his handwriting.

He’s distracted from that thought though when he sees the smile slide off of her face only to be replaced with a tight frown before she turns to face him, concern shining in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” He says quickly, hoping to prevent any of his dark mood from seeping into the girl beside him.

The girl who has already known enough darkness for a lifetime.

“Every moment you’re stealing?” She quotes back to him, setting the notebook carefully back on the floor. “That doesn’t sound fine.”

He considers brushing off her concern, playing it off, claiming he’s not even writing from his own perspective anyway, that he doesn’t know where the idea came from.

He can do that because he may be dead but the culprit was hot dogs and that gives him an out to make a dumb joke and change the subject and keep things the way they are now.

And if it was anyone else he would have. But it’s Julie. And he’s Luke.

She can read his handwriting.

And she can read him too.

If he lets her.

“You know how you said your dad made you talk to someone after your mom died?”

She tilts her head, clearly not expecting this question. She answers it anyway.

“Dr. Turner,” She nods. “Three times a week for a while.”

“Did it uh…” Luke swallows hard, his throat suddenly impossibly dry considering he was pretty sure he wasn’t actually producing spit anymore period. “Did it help?”

Julie’s hand twitches in her lap and he can tell she is deciding whether she should touch him. He reaches out to toy with the frayed edge of her jeans where they burst open at the knee. The answer to whether Julie should be touching him is always a resounding yes in his opinion but he also wants to let her come to him. It hasn’t been that long since they’ve even been able to touch each other and despite how much they crave it there’s a lingering awkwardness after all the build up.

“Talking to someone?” She asks carefully. “Yeah, it did. After a while I felt like I needed space to sort through things on my own but by then I was able to talk with my dad and Flynn too.”

He nods, keeps his eyes firmly on the hole in her jeans.

“Luke…”

Damn.

He has to look at her when she says his name like that.

He raises his eyes slowly, meeting her soft ones with nerves he can’t quite place.

“You know you can talk to me, right? Always.”

Her question is so small and yet so big at the same time. Such a simple offer containing such a big promise.

Always.

Wasn’t that the problem?

His always might not line up with hers.

He could forget that fact for a bit when the band was hanging out and laughing over nothing or rocking a crowd’s face’s off or when Julie was smiling in that certain Julie way that seemed reserved only for him.

But he couldn’t forget forever.

And he couldn’t promise always.

So where did that leave him?

“Luke?”

She breaks him from his thoughts again and he pushes past his caution this time, reaching out to link her hand with his, their fingers slotting together effortlessly despite the way one of them isn’t really there.  

He isn’t really there.

Is he...real?

Luke suddenly feels a strange rush of panic, all of the thoughts he’s been pushing aside for months crashing through him at once.

He must have squeezed Julie’s hand inadvertently because he sees her flinch.

“Sorry, sorry,” He says breathlessly (not that he needs to breathe, he’s breathless, literally, he’s dead), drawing her hand up to press an apology against the skin there, his lips lingering for a long moment before he pulls away.

She’s not unaffected by his sudden actions, the way her eyes widen for a fraction of a second is proof enough of that, but she’s also determined and she doesn’t let him off the hook.

“Talk to me, Luke,” She says like an order and a request and a prayer all at once.

And he can’t deny her anything.

Not even this.

“I’m fine, I am...it’s just...I’m so happy that we ended up here with you Julie no matter what. I need you to know that ok? I just..I don’t...I don’t want…”

She waits as long as she can for him to finish that sentence but when he doesn’t seem prepared to, she leans closer, squeezes his hand, gives him that last push off the cliff he’s been teetering on the edge of for months.

“Don’t want what?”

“Don’t want to be dead.”

The words escape him in a hurried rush, one blending into another until it sounds like one long syllable of pain rather than a proper sentence. Still. He’s pretty sure the message got through.

“I know,” She says simply, her eyes sad but her touch impossibly gentle as her free hand comes up to cup his cheek. “I know, Luke, I know.”

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until she’s brushing his tears away with the delicate tips of her fingers.

And maybe he is real, at least a little bit if his eyes can still muster up the ability to leak like this and damn it why is that what he’s thinking about right now when the girl, the living girl, he loves is waiting for him to say something.

He wants to think of the perfect thing but what ends up coming out leaves a lot to be desired.

“Julie...I love making music with you. I love y...I love being in your life. But I’m dead. And maybe...maybe it would be better…”

“No,” She cuts him off firmly, gripping his chin lightly to turn his face more fully towards hers. “Whatever you think you’re about to say, the answer is no.”

“Julie…” He tries again.

She’s already shaking her head.

“I don’t care if you’re about to suggest some noble sacrifice or push me away or blame yourself for something...just...don’t.”

Any protest he has prepared dies on his lips, the slightest quirk of a smile taking their place even as a few stray tears make their way down his face.

“Ok,” He agrees simply.

Julie brings her other hand down to grip his knee as though she’s trying to keep him with her by anchoring him physically, making him part of her, making him real.

And that’s that.

It takes time.

A hundred aborted conversations with half confessions and unspoken requests for comfort and love freely given if not freely spoken.

But eventually he gets used to talking to Julie the same way he got used to writing with Julie and singing with Julie and falling in love with Julie.

So steadily he doesn’t feel the progress until one day he looks up and there’s no going back, not that he would ever want to.

He’s dead.

He can’t get around that.

He ate some bad hot dogs, and that will always be a little bit funny. It’s also sad and scary and tragic.

He’s dead.

But he’s also so alive.

He can’t promise always but he can promise as long as I’m here.

And he does.

Over and over and over again.

[stilemawillow]

His Eyes and Her Mind [Levi | Reader | High school AU!]

You're slowly browsing through your old Psychology notebook before you pinpoint a sentence that draws your attention. Your reaction is immediate - your lips curl into a condescending smile as you stare at it, highly amused.

'Eyes are a door to one's soul.'

Yeah, as if. You cackle and your boyfriend throws you a strange look from his seat across the table outside the café you're currently at. Honestly, you've never believed this eye to soul connection and there is very little that can change your opinion on the matter.

1. Normal look     Indifference

You walked down the hallway with your best friend Hanji when you saw him. Hanji flipped her brown hair over her shoulder, talking about your Biology lesson, but you could no longer hear her as distinctly. He was walking towards you with his small group of friends - Isabel and Farlan, the girl and boy on both his sides discussing something heatedly as he watched the debate silently.

You were approximately five feet away when he also looked up and saw you. You felt something turn inside you, but it was a daily occurrence around him so you ignored the sign as always and stared into his gunmetal orbs. Your face stayed impassive and so did his as your small groups passed each other down the hallway, but you had to admit you liked the attention he had been giving you recently.

Sure, you'd never really talked, but you'd exchanged plain courtesy and greetings at times when it was inevitably going to happen anyway. You never thought much of it - he was attractive and he was staring at you more than you'd ever seen him stare at anybody, but that was it. It didn't make your heart flutter, your knees wobble or your head spin. It shouldn't have as well.

You just couldn't get his dumb eyes out of your head.

2. Intense stare     Frustration

What's his problem?! You were fucking sure if he kept staring at you like that you were going to get up and slap him at one point. Second term turned out to be your "lucky" one since you now shared three out of seven classes with Levi Ackerman, the one that had been paying you attention since the beginning of the junior school year.

Your brows momentarily furrowed.

Of course, since you'd had only two short-term boyfriends in your life so far and they'd never really paid much attention to you you enjoyed it more than you should've. It still didn't make your knees wobble or your mind fogged up with daydreams of the boy sweeping you off your feet, but you still hadn't even led a proper conversation.

You nervously licked your dry lips.

You were forced to officially meet last month during a project you had to do with three other people, but other than that stiff interaction you'd never even said anything to him and he seemed fine with that. Only recently, however, his attention seemed to have gone to the next level. For a week straight he'd been staring you down like he wanted to come up to you and ask you to willingly give him all your valuable personal belongings.

You got a hand through your hair in frustration.

Today was especially intense for some unknown to you reason, but it was pissing you off since you could feel it and it made you uncomfortable. Did he have some kind of problem with you - your attire, attitude, appearance as a whole? Maybe you pissed him off? Maybe you'd said something wrong? Maybe he was in a bad mood and decided to get it out on you?

A sigh left your lips.

You doubted the last one since Levi always seemed like he was in a bad mood, but you'd never seen him stare at somebody like this just because of that. You didn't know what his stare meant and that pissed you off more than the distracting persistence of his gunmetal hues. You were frustrated up to the point of blowing up any second now - his stare had made you avoid him as a whole less than ten minutes ago.

Your finger started tapping on your notebook impatiently.

The teacher at the front was talking about something you couldn't even pay attention to, Levi's tense orbs were digging holes into your face and the feeling of it was unsettling. So Hanji had been right when she said people could actually feel when they were being watched. You looked up, anything but interested in your work and stared right back into the gunmetal hues of the male across your desk, sharing his best friend's coursebook which had forced him to turn his back to the teacher and his face to you.

You saw his own eyebrow twitch momentarily but his gaze never left yours. You glared hard into his eyes, trying to provoke him, but it was in vain - he didn't react in any way. You tried to read what in the fucking hell had made him this annoyed with you in the first place - could there be any specific reason for his staring?

Your stomach turned again when you saw him get a hand through his silky locks as his eyes left yours. Great, now you were the one staring. Your eyes narrowed and you kept observing him, but he made no effort whatsoever to regain the lost eye contact, which just made you angrier.

Was he trying to make you look like a creep by staring at him? Well, you weren't going to have it.

With a huff, your attention went back to your own coursebook. You could feel his intense stare on your face less than a second after that. To say that you almost broke your pen in half wasn't an understatement.

3. Bashful avoidance     Confusion

He just had to be like that, didn't he? Levi Ackerman, the all mighty, fearless sorta bad boy, sorta nerd. He just had to keep looking at you, giving your desperate being some kind of false hope and a shit ton of mixed signals. And what was worse - he didn't seem to regret it one bit. The worst however was yet to come and it was the unknown. Sometimes it scared you more than your biggest fears.

Fear of heights? Well, this building's last floor may be the fifth or fifty-fifth, wouldn't know with that fog.

Fear of the dark? That room might be lit up by the sun itself, but it could also be pitch black. Wouldn't want to understand which.

Fear of not knowing something? Levi Ackerman might as well tell you he loved or loathed you - you couldn't care less, but the tension of not knowing which of the two it was would break you before his words came out of his mouth.

Of course, the above was just a simple example of the situation at hand, which, in your personal opinion, was way worse. He was staring at you - fine. He made this strange thing happen to your internal organs with his presence - fine. He was charming, strangely kind, attractive, funny, intelligent and somehow generous, and he was paying attention to you of all people - fine. He confused you with his behaviour - not fine.

It had taken him two more days to calm down his intense stare, but he gradually did so and soon enough it was back to how it had always been - exchange of glances along the length of the hallway or up and down the stairs, sometimes even outside during lunch break. You rarely saw him out of school even though he lived in the same neighbourhood as you (which you knew since you regularly took the bus together) which was a relief of kinds. However, his recent behaviour seemed to confuse you more than anything.

First, he paid attention to you. Then, he tried to dig a hole into your face using only his eyes. Next, he stopped staring altogether and instead seemed like he was flirting with some other girl. Sure, she flirted first, but that wasn't much of an excuse. And all of a sudden, he was super friendly with the girl while eyeing you up constantly whenever you saw each other. It confused the fuck out of your mind and you hated not understanding certain things.

Not that you were the best when it came to emotions, socialising and such, but Levi had been remotely easy to read. Well, not now.

He walked into the school building with Farlan, sitting on the bench inside and facing your way (because you and Ymir were sitting on the bench across the room). You had a clear view of his eyes and how they trailed over your face, gently trying to push you to make eye contact with him. You didn't. Not yet anyway. It took you five seconds of a pointless exchange of stupid trivial phrases with Ymir to finally meet his gaze. You'd washed your hair earlier the same morning and combed it as much as you could before going out, so it was not a surprise that Levi noticed that - he always saw the little things.

Under normal circumstances, you'd lock gazes for the overall of ten seconds before either of your friends tore you away from the craved eye contact. This time it was different. Why? Because he looked away in less than a second.

Your brows raised in surprise and you listened to Ymir's story of her and Krista's date with half an ear, nodding occasionally when she would pause. The male's gesture confused you immensely - why did he look away? Was there something wrong with you? Did you not look as good? Of course, the mere fact that the action of his eyes averting from yours made you doubt yourself and grow self-conscious was stupid, but you couldn't help it - he never acted like that and you wanted to know why he did now.

This was where irritation came in. He confused you and you hated being confused, but it was inevitable - his further behaviour only made the issue deepen. The action repeated exactly four times before he and Farlan decided enough was enough and went up the stairs. He would look at you, hold your gaze for less than two seconds and look away as indifferently as possible. There were no changes in his facial expression and you could read nothing in his eyes. You were baffled at that - you were usually the one to look away.

You noticed the nervous tapping of his finger on his knee and the slight twitch of his thin eyebrow, but it wasn't something you considered significant at the time. You should have. Because it was.

4. Piercing glare     Anger

"I told you for the last time - I'm not going out with you, Mark."

Everything was pissing you off - today had started badly and was currently holding a steady pace. You had a pop quiz on your most hated subject so you barely got any sleep. Your mother had broken the coffee machine and your father had refused to fix it so no caffeine for you. And now due to yesterday’s downpoar your muddy shoes made you slip every few seconds.

Also, the constant annoyance bugging at your mind because of Levi's closeness with Petra was wow, what a surprise - annoying. It was troubling you on an emotional level, which was bad because if it was a trivial problem having to do with anything else you'd be in perfect condition to ignore it. Finally, this guy - Mark, who had been hitting on you for the past month suddenly decided to make an appearance during lunch break, block your way to your precious caffeine and ask you out on a date after you'd already refused him approximately five times.

Not to mention, he wasn't from the innocent annoying type - he was from the persistent scary type, where shit could get serious if you got too aggressive yourself. And right now, all you wanted was to get some fucking coffee and go back to class.

"Why, (Y/N)? You don't have a boyfriend." Mark put his hand on the tree which you'd found solace next to up until this moment, turning it into a trap that had just clicked instead. You found his smug strangely irritating today, to the point you could punch him if he tried anything funny.

"I just don't see you in that way, I don't want to waste my time." You retorted, teeth gritting in annoyance before the male decided to stop playing around. There weren't many people around you since the only coffee machine in a mile's radius was pretty far away and most students preferred to spend their time in the little shops around the school building and the cafeteria instead.

"So you're saying I'm a waste of time?" Mark leaned closer to you and his eyebrows furrowed, his pretty face finally showing its true colours. He had dirty blond curly hair and plain brown eyes, he was rather muscular and tall - all things he felt immensely proud of. Despite his face and body, however, he wasn't overly popular - he played sports and loved to hook up with every girl a bit above average, which really brought him down into the eyes of the female population in your school, resulting in some major disapproval coming from the student body.

"I'm saying it will waste our time as a whole, it's useless." You said, trying to ignore the way you wanted to punch him straight in the jaw. Maybe it wouldn't even work, but trying would surely satisfy your inner aggressive side - you just had to imagine you were hitting that stupid girl that was flirting with Levi.

"Not if I say it's not." Mark argued, making you turn your face to the side because of how close he was getting to you.

"Are you threatening me?" You inquired slowly with narrowed eyes. He just laughed at you before smirking down at your face.

"Do you want me to threaten you or will you agree to go out with me willingly?"

"Does that mean if I don't say 'yes' you'll force me?"

"Yes." He looked like the Big Bad Wolf about to have breakfast when he put his other hand on the tree behind you, pinning you between his arms. "When I want something I get it." His expression may have been seductive, but to you it was disgusting - how could such a male survive so long in society when he was this stupid and forceful?

"Didn't know you were a rapist besides being a womanizer." You pointed out, only to have the daylights slapped out of you a second later.

"Shut up!" He should have been thankful there weren't people around, otherwise, somebody would have come and stopped him by now. You guessed you wouldn't be able to have your coffee soon. The slap made your cheek sting and your eyes narrowed in fury. Sure, you couldn't do anything to fight him off except kick him in the nuts, which wouldn't do as much as you'd want it to, but you could sure as hell glare at him all you wanted.

"You're pathetic, you can't even take a rejection." You faced Mark, angry yet scared of what he might do to you now. You weren't going to let him have his way just because he was stronger, though. His face twisted in fury and he grasped your wrist, bruising the skin with his calloused fingers. He was about to hit you again with his other hand before it happened.

"Let go." Another male growled behind Mark's back. "Right. Now."

"Since when are you interested in protecting people? Or is it just this bitch?" Mark snarled at the other male, which you soon came to understand was actually Levi. Your eyes were wide as you stared at his frown. You doubted you'd ever seen him that angry.

"Are you sure you can question me right now?" The raven-haired boy asked with furrowed brows and a glare so hard you thought it would burn you if he directed it towards your eyes. Mark flinched and you felt his grip on your wrist loosen up a bit.

"What do you think you can do to me, Ackerman?" The blond asked cockily even though you could see his jaw clench in helplessness. You realised who would win if they got in a fight and honestly - if somebody asked you to name one thing that would probably make you piss yourself from fear it was going to be Levi's glare in the current moment. It burned with the intensity of a raging fire for unknown to you reasons - it couldn't be because of you, right? He was probably here to get himself coffee and decided to play 'save the damsel in distress' on the way to the machine.

"Do you wanna see?" Levi closed in on you and Mark and you felt your wrist fall from his hold as he stepped back. Levi cracked his knuckles and the blond gulped. You didn't really think Levi's words were what scared him off.

"I'm just tired because I had a match during PE. Next time this won't happen." He ran faster than anything you'd seen after that, leaving you and Levi all alone.

"Because there won't be a next time." The raven mumbled to himself dangerously low. His glare moved from the ground to you and you felt your blood boil. You glared back at him and pushed yourself off the tree with furrowed eyebrows and a scowl.

"What a fucking dumbass! I could handle him, you know, I didn't need your help!" You exclaimed in the raven's face. Surprisingly that was probably the first proper conversation you were having with him after your stiff official meeting.

"Do you really think so? Because I think you would've been raped in less than ten minutes." He pointed out in the most indifferent voice ever, making you try to dig a hole into his skull with your eyes. His glare was making you angrier yourself. When he stepped closer to you and gently wrapped his fingers around your bruised wrist your expression twisted in disgust and you yanked your hand away from his hold, ignoring how his glare had actually scared you moments ago.

You stepped away from him and went away, but not before snarling: "Don't fucking touch me."

5. Shocked gleam     Fright

"Hanji, stop talking about this, it's stupid." You were walking down the stairs with your brown-haired friend once again - a week or so had passed after the whole 'Mark incident' and surprisingly enough he never even approached you after that, it was like he was afraid to. You didn't pay much attention to it, going back to your routine of stealing glances at Levi Ackerman from time to time when he wasn't looking and hoping his gaze was tracing your face just as much as yours did his.

Unfortunately, you kept catching Petra Ral flirting with him and there was nothing you could do about it but blame yourself for not having the self-esteem to talk to him like she did. Right now, the discussed topic was close to your problems.

"I'm just saying if you mustered up some courage and started talking to him regularly his interest would pick up and hers would fade. The boy's basically staring at you every chance he gets, (Y/N)." Hanji argued as you pushed your way down the stairs through the other students going up. You knew Levi and Farlan were somewhere behind you since you had the same class together now, you just hoped neither of them would pick up on your conversation with the brown-haired girl.

"Hanji, I said stop. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Period." You stated harshly, looking at the girl next to you and clutching your backpack tighter. You briefly heard 'look at this' before someone bumped into you from behind and you lost your footing on the steps. Your body, your backpack and your combat boots tumbled down the stairs with nothing to catch on.

For a small second, you managed to use some student's shoulder to try and stabilise yourself, but it didn't work - it just turned your body so that you would fall on your back once the fateful moment came. You had a clear view of Hanji's parted lips and horrified expression. Right next to her, however, you saw something you may have just as well imagined with everything moving so fast.

Levi's hand was pushing through the students to get down faster and his eyes screamed something you couldn't really read. They gleamed in a way you never thought you'd see, like he'd seen his favourite cat get run over by a car on the street. Or something of the sort. You felt something grasp your hand, but had no time to see what exactly. The impact was here.

You didn't have time to analyse his wide eyes because your world went black less than a second after you were exposed to the complex sight.

Two hours later, you woke up in the infirmary with a giant headache and a panicked Hanji coming to visit you once classes were over. During your stay, you asked the nurse what had happened, but the only thing she said confused you even more: "If I understood correctly, the boy's arm almost broke when he used it to soften your fall. Well, you didn't get out completely uninjured since your back is bruised, but maybe you were actually lucky."

The next day Levi didn't come to school.

6. Deep gaze     Care

Calm, (Y/N), keep calm. It's all fine. You repeated over and over again in your head. Not like you had a chance to begin with, it's not a big deal.

Your breaths were coming out ragged and you felt like you weren't trembling because the ground in front of the side entrance of the school building was cold. A month, that was how long Levi had talked to you for. After the incident on the stairs at school and Levi's short absence after that, he started nodding to you when you'd see each other in the halls and you'd throw him a small smile, acknowledging his greeting. That went on for about two weeks before he came to you one day and asked to work with you since Farlan was absent and they always used the same coursebook. You'd said 'yes' without thinking much. Needless to say, you didn't really use the coursebook much that day yourself, you were too busy stealing glances at the male's face from up close and he was too nervous to actually read the exercises you were supposed to be doing.

After that it became a routine for him to approach you at least once a day - he'd give you a plain greeting, ask you about the classes you shared or if you wanted to get coffee together during lunch break (you felt he'd become overprotective after Mark even though there was no reason to be overprotective over you and no danger as a whole). There was always an excuse. Once he even sat next to you on the bus when there were no more free seats. You were happy, your mind was filled with butterflies and your stomach welled up with pleasant thoughts when he was around - or was it supposed to be the other way around?

It didn't matter since for a month you were the happiest girl on Earth.

And then Petra Ral came along. Needless to say, things started becoming shaky and you were drifting away - you didn't want to mess up her flirting with him. He seemed like he didn't notice or he was purely being an asshole and doing it on purpose. Not that it really mattered, you caught them making out less than four hours ago during lunch break. The worst was that he made eye contact right before breaking apart.

Not with her, with you. You would've felt sorry for her because her partner was clearly not paying attention to the activity she was putting so much effort (and tongue) into, but you hated her guts out of pure spite so you couldn't even care about emotions connected to empathy.

It's not his fault, he didn't give me any false hope - I created it myself.

That was your calming chant - he didn't do it just to break your heart, he did it because he wanted to be kind or use your coursebook when Farlan was gone. It wasn't to hurt you intentionally. It sounded stupid now that you thought about it - hoping for anything out of Levi Ackerman. He barely knew you and you barely knew him. Usually, you'd counter yourself with the argument you hadn't even led a proper conversation, but the worst here was that that was invalid now - you'd led many conversations throughout the past month and you'd enjoyed every single one of them no matter how stupid or trivial. For God's sake, you even enjoyed discussing different types of coffee and tea with him.

You weren't crying - you were having something like a minor panic attack, where you just trembled like a leaf and couldn't stop thinking about throwing your useless being in front of some passing bus. Truth be told, you hated these moments - if somebody had seen you during them that was Hanji and Hanji only. You'd never even let your parents understand about it even though the signs must've been there. The twitching, the trembling, the sweating, the ragged breathing. It was there. All of it was out there and if Levi ever saw it he'd truly give up on whatever you had even if it was as insignificant as your existence in the current moment.

You tried to laugh, but it came out messed up - like a person choking. You sat there for five more minutes - in the cold with the wind brushing your hair before you burrowed your face in your knees and closed your eyes. You could feel the tears, but they didn't want to come out. It was useless - crying about a boy that didn't even care about you.

Then somebody gently bumped your leg with their arm. Your head shot up and your hand instinctively reached for the pepper spray in your pocket, the one your father had given you as a Christmas present many months ago. Your eyes widened when you saw who was in front of you.

"Levi," you said, "why are you here?"

His face was expressionless as he gestured towards the cup in his hand. Your eyebrows furrowed and your hand went out of your pocket to grasp the carton cup he was clearly handing you. You smelled the beverage inside, relishing in the pleasant aroma of coffee. It made a smile spring out on your lips. Before you could register what was happening Levi had sat down next to you - closer than a guy with a girlfriend was supposed to sit next to another girl when they were all alone. The action made you flinch, but you didn't move away - it was a rare thing you got to sit this close to him.

You could smell his cologne - it was a fresh, strong smell that made you want to rub your face all over his chest. The male ran a hand through his ebony locks and you marvelled at the sight of his hair's softness. His body was oozing heat, beckoning you to go closer, as close as possible, and lay your head on his chest as his warm arms wrapped around you. You didn't.

"So, about today..." He started, sounding strangely stiff. You sipped from your coffee, warming your cold fingers with the cup and listening. Your stomach took one of those unpleasant turns, but you didn't let it show on your face.

"What exactly about today?"

"I don't even know if I should be discussing this with you, for all I know Farlan's sixth sense may be way too off the shitty map and you don't actually---" His confidence was gone once his panicked gaze met your curious orbs. He seemed confused, disgruntled and so many others. You were perplexed at his behaviour - was he usually this twitchy when it came down to your normal conversations? No, he wasn't, you figured a few seconds later.

"Well," you started after seeing he wouldn't continue, "I don't really know about Farlan's sixth sense, but I---"

"The kiss." He'd cut you off so abruptly you felt like he'd knocked the air out of your lungs with those two short syllables. "The kiss with Petra, it wasn't anything important. It was just a kiss." He continued, getting a hand through his hair again and scratching the back of his undercut with discomfort. "I know we both seem to acknowledge something without me saying it - something about us." You could guess where he was going with that. He meant the constant staring, all the glances and whatnot before you'd started talking. Or at least you thought he meant that. "Petra means nothing, she was just--- she was flirting with me I just didn't stop her because I wasn't sure if you... felt anything."

"... okay."

"Is it?" He asked once his eyes met yours. Your breath hitched in your throat and your fingers felt like ice even though they'd warmed up considerably. "Is it okay? Are you?"

"Everything's fine." Your forced smile turned out way more genuine than expected. His gaze was firm and his eyebrows were furrowed - he was trying to detect a lie somewhere along your sentence. He sighed when that didn't happen and for a few seconds, you were both silent. You were trying to process the situation.

Levi. Feelings. She was just flirting. Am I feeling anything?

Your heartbeat was erratic enough to answer in your stead. Then you looked up from the cup in your hands and met his gaze. You'd be lying if you said it wasn't the most mesmerizing thing you'd seen in your life. His eyes, so grey and so soft, pulled you in, it was like you couldn't look away from them. They were special, he was special and he made you feel special. Why was it that he looked at you with such affection? Were you reciprocating the gaze? You didn't know, but you felt like you could stay like that for hours.

And that was when it happened. Before you even had time to escape his warm hypnotising gaze.

He leaned in and kissed you.

7. Careless eyeroll     Reluctance

"You have to go." Hanji insisted, having already annoyed you as much as possible with her various arguments on the topic of your stubbornness.

"And you have to rethink the rights you have over my actions as a self-conscious human being." You replied boredly before placing a hand in front of your mouth in fake shock. "Oh, that's right - they don't exist in the first place." You gasped fakely, making her roll her eyes at your behaviour - forced nonchalance. She knew you wanted to accept the invitation but were too afraid everything would be ruined before you even had the chance to meet up.

"Would you please stop mocking me with those complex phrases, (Y/N)? You won't die if you go to a movie with him." The brunette insisted once more before you turned the corner and you frowned at her.

"Sure, not physically, but I'll be dying the whole time mentally - of embarrassment." You sassed, making the brown-haired girl huff in determination as she walked you to your next class. Your schedules differed the second term, so you could only see her during breaks and inbetween other classes. Right now you seriously didn't want to see her, though. She'd been pestering you about Levi's invitation for the past week.

"So it's decided, you will go." She stated, making you gape at her as you both stopped in front of the door for your next class.

"I never sa---"

"The tense, (Y/N), the tense is the key." Hanji cut you off with a cocky smirk and a mischievous gleam in her brown hues. Of course, she'd just forced you to accept. You had no choice - you knew the raven would probably remind you of it as well and you'd have to finally give him a proper answer.

"Shut up, Hanji." You glared at your best friend before she pushed you into the room.

"Now go." She ushered from the doorway while pointing in Levi's direction and you threw her a dirty look before stomping away. Less than three steps later he turned around and looked into your eyes, making you almost trip over your own feet.

"Hi." You greeted awkwardly as the male took out his notebook and eyed you up from head to toe. His gaze made you nervous and your knees were about to start wobbling when he spoke up.

"So about my earlier request, which you've been avoiding to answer for about a week?" Levi pushed gently although in a you-don't-have-a-choice-but-to-answer way, making you avert your eyes to the other side of the room in hopes of seeming calmer than you were. You knew it wouldn't work that well, but you hoped to have at least looked nonchalant.

"... I accept." Was your brief answer as your eyes glanced at Levi's visage secretly and directed themselves to the floor right after.

"I guess I should be grateful?" He rolled his eyes at you, reluctance dripping from the sentence. You knew his face would be a bit softer even though you weren't looking at it. You were good at guessing by his voice (not that it always worked), so right now you acknowledged he was just trying to tease you.

"If I don't see Petra Ral giving you a blowjob afterwards it's going to be fine." You said mockingly with narrowed eyes, which just called for some fake concern on his side. Of course, he and Petra had not become official, but anything was possible. You held resentment for that girl more than you did for yourself - that was something deserving of a medal.

"That was uncalled for." Levi tried to protect her boredly as your eyes finally met his.

"Yes, you're right, but that does not change my mind on the matter." Your tone was firm as you walked towards your own desk, close enough to his so you could connect them and look at the same coursebook. He followed behind silently.

"Fine." He mumbled while watching you put your backpack on the desk. You started digging through the numerous notebooks and course books for the ones you needed currently, which probably reminded him of your little tradition to share a coursebook. "The coursebook?" He inquired, asking if you've brought it which was stupid because you'd never forget it (no matter if you were going to admit it or not, you'd always put it first in your backpack because it gave you a reason to be close to him).

"It's here." You announced once having laid it down on the desk next to your notebook and he got to work with pushing your desks closer.

"Thank you by the way." He mumbled once class had started and your teacher had entered the room. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you looked into his bright grey eyes.

"What for?" You asked quietly as he eyed up the exercise your teacher had just written on the board. He didn't look up again for the next three seconds. All you were given after that was a brief glance filled with something you couldn't understand before Levi's eyes were pinned back to the coursebook.

"... maybe I should leave you to figure it out yourself."

8. Grinning glimmer     Happiness

The weather was calm, it was around noon and strong wind had been making the trees' branches bend mere minutes ago. Snow covered the ground all around, there had been a storm during the night and judging by the white inches stacked on top of the ground it hadn't been all that light. Now the sun was shining in the blue sky deprived of clouds and the air was cold and so still you could bet time itself wouldn't move until some wind blew by.

You fidgeted uncomfortably and stood in front of the wooden door of the small single-storey house, contemplating whether you should knock or run away now that you still had time to do it. Fate didn't really leave you a choice since just as you were about to turn round the door opened and made your eyes widen in alarm. You looked up and faced the person who had opened it with an insecure expression.

"... hey." You greeted after a small pause while Levi still processed your presence at his doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" His eyebrows furrowed and you drew your hands from behind your back, handing him the little box you were holding. The chilly air made your face go red anyway, so you hoped he wouldn't notice the change in its colour due to other causes as you talked.

"I was passing close by and I thought I could come and say 'hi'. So, hi, I guess." You smiled awkwardly, making him raise a thin eyebrow as he took the grey box from your hands. "And I bought this for you, but since we're in the middle of winter break I didn't really have a pretext to see you, so I might've created it... or something." You switched your weight between your left and right foot during your explanation while Levi stared at you wondrously.

"... for Christmas?" He questioned after a slight pause and you noticed he might've been cold judging by the way he only had on a plain pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

"No, it's for your birthday. Happy birthday by the way." You smiled a bit, eyeing him up from head to toe again and starting to regret having come at all. You guessed it would've been better if you'd waited until the end of winter break to give it to him. "Um, I guess I have to go." You stepped backwards before he smirked slightly and a mischievous gleam shone in his eyes.

"And insult the tradition?" He inquired slyly as your eyebrows furrowed and you looked at him in confusion.

"What tradition?" You witnessed the flicker of his eyes to the doorframe above your heads and what you saw there made your breath hitch, something the raven was able to pinpoint quickly due to the chilly weather making every breath you took exit in the form of a white puff of smoke. Your eyes were still pinned to the object at the top of the doorframe. A mistletoe. "... oh. I'm not really sur---"

Before you had time to finish refusing the very generous yet embarrassing offer, Levi had stepped closer and cupped your cheek with his warm hand. His lips pressed to yours in a rather long, tender kiss and you felt yourself basically melting outside his doorstep. It was as if sparks flew about in your mind - just like the first time he'd kissed you. When his lips parted from yours and you opened your eyes, you saw his orbs glimmering so brightly it was as if he'd grinned your way.

"Thank you for the present, (Y/N)." He whispered, hot breath hitting your lips, and when he stepped back again you could swear he was mentally laughing at your frozen stance. You almost stumbled on your way away from the door.

"S-See you at school!" You waved, turning around and basically running away as fast as possible from the embarrassment, your boots crushing the soft snow under them down the path to your own home. You were a coward, but a happy feeling was bubbling in your chest, and God, for that look in his eyes you'd bear a lot more humiliation and possible snowstorms.

9. Foggy narrowness     Arousal

Indecent. That was what you were being right now.

"You shouldn't have gotten detention because of me." Levi scoffed, grey orbs eyeing the empty room you were currently in after today's accident during lunch break when he'd gone to fetch coffee for both of you and you'd waited for him by the entrance even after most students had gone back inside the building because of the bad weather.

"And you shouldn't have been an asshole to a teacher to begin with." You scolded him back, your eyes, in turn, being pinned to his face and the desperate way he was holding himself back from looking at you as well because he was supposedly mad. You were leaning on the desk he'd seated himself at, seeing as the teacher in charge of detention was still nowhere to be seen.

"He was feeling you up." Levi said as if it would justify the whole situation and indeed, it did. You didn't know what you two were - certainly not an official couple anyway, but you were closer than before and now offered each other physical affection more often without as much embarrassment being present (although it still happened when you were all alone).

Your face went cold and that was exactly when he decided to direct his gaze your way - it was cold and sharp and you knew he'd seen right through you, almost immediately so. You'd been scared. Disgusted. Your fingers started fidgeting with the hem of your shirt and you averted your gaze to the floor at your feet.

"... doesn't matter, you almost punched him." You said accusingly and Levi rolled his eyes at your stupid excuse.

"I would've if we'd been outside of school territory." He declared and something in that sentence of somewhat sweet protectiveness (although expressed through aggression) made you extremely uncomfortable. You still hadn't told him anything about your feelings and he about his, you'd only gone out on numerous dates and spent an enormous amount of time looking at each other more openly - you rarely spoke of each other's feelings and you felt discomfort just thinking of the moment that would be needed for you to sustain this thing you had going on. You didn't know if Levi thought the same. You groaned in slight exasperation and turned your head toward the door of the room.

"Ugh. Where's the teacher in charge of detention anyway? We've been here for ten minutes now." You complained, wanting to talk of something else since it was obvious the raven had won this little argument of yours. Levi took the chance to stand up and lean close to you and when you turned back round his eyes were way closer than anticipated.

They pulled you in but weren't as sharp as every other day. When he leaned closer and kissed you, you got a hunch why it was that way. During the kiss, his hand placed itself on your thigh and his whole body hovered over yours like predator hovered over pray prior to the finishing blow.

"... the teacher can come in any second now, Levi." You warned firmly yet in a small voice once the raven had started kissing down your neck. You felt giddy because it was nice and wow - since when was that so pleasant? Your previous boyfriends had also done this, but with Levi, it wasn't quite the same - maybe it was him or maybe it was the circumstances and the chance of you getting caught by a teacher, but you felt extremely good, almost to the point you'd let it go further despite the way you were in a classroom.

"I'm aware." The raven droned from the crook of your neck where he'd been sucking on a second ago and you let out a sharp breath when his hand snuck under your shirt. His head lifted so he could face you again and his eyes were on your lips.

"Then stop." You kept playing the role of common sense even though this situation wasn't entirely all that dangerous. Levi's smoky hues were pinned to your own and you noticed they were more narrow than usual, like he didn't even want to waste energy on keeping them open but he just had to. For a second you thought the whole look on his face was something you didn't come across every day or even when you were alone. When he kissed you again it dawned on you why.

His lips pressed against yours felt soft and pleasant, his breath was made of tea and mint and it turned your mind hazy. You felt like half the blood in your body went to your face when his tongue invaded your mouth and his hands found your breasts over your bra. You felt the softness of his hair but were so out of it you were unable to open your eyes. Or do anything but kiss him. You couldn't recall feeling the same way during your make-out sessions with your previous boyfriends - this was a whole new sensation, a combination of thrill and something that made your face flush as your chest swelled with pleasant warmth.

"They won't do anything to us for this." He declared as if he made the rules and you had to blink a few times to come to your senses - your arms were thrown around his neck, your fingers were in his hair and your legs were wrapped around his waist - how long had this kiss been? He was looking down at you in the sexiest way possible and honestly, how could you possibly refuse that face?

"They can do a lot to us for what's about to follow." You worded warningly, knowing where things would go if you didn't resist even though a small part of you told you he'd never dare do it in school when it would be your first time together. You didn't listen to it, keeping in mind your all-time favourite motto that all men were pigs and they'd take advantage of any and every situation that provided it.

Levi didn't. He kept kissing you, left you breathless, gifted you a few hickeys to go home with and gave you a lot more of that sultry look that almost made your knees give out, but never provided you with legitimate proof of your motto's rightfulness and it was about at that moment when you were walking home afterwards when you realised---

If you hadn't been at school you would've certainly had sex and what was worse - you wouldn't have had anything against it had it been with him.

10. Calculating ice       Thoughtfulness

"I don't approve of this relationship." You heard Levi take a breath from across the form of your father and his crossed arms.

"Dad, Levi isn't---" You tried to argue but were quickly shut up. It was seven in the morning. Thankfully, also a Saturday.

"Oh, he is! He invited you to that party and when you were so wasted you couldn't walk he could only think of how to park you in his bed! The next morning you call us with a hangover and this punk walks you here because apparently you've been together for almost about a year now but he still doesn't know where you live!" You frowned, not possessing enough bravery to speak against your father. Fortunately, you had your mother for that.

"James, calm down." She placed a hand on his shoulder as he grumbled in his armchair. You and Levi were seated on the couch, still in your pyjamas.

"I don't want to, Melissa! I don't like this boy and I don't want him around my daughter!" Even though it was a hiss directed at your mother, all occupants of the room including the aforementioned 'boy' managed to hear it. You looked over at Levi next to you, pondering whether you should grasp his hand or think up an excuse to let him leave before this became a full-on argument.

"Our daughter." Your mother's voice was firm and her eyes didn't dare leave your father's face to console you but you were too indulged in the look on Levi's face to notice it. Or in other words, the lack of a particular look on his face.

"If she's yours as much as she's mine then why aren't you worried about her as well?" Your father argued, making your frown deepen. The raven next to you had his elbows propped on his knees and his eyes staring at the carpet under his feet. His expression was devoid of any emotion - his face was perfectly relaxed with the exception of his furrowed eyebrows. His eyes were filled with thoughts you couldn't decipher, the usual grey now felt like frozen silver.

"I'm sure he means well, if they've been in a relationship for a year and this is the first mistake he's made, he can't possibly be bad influence." Your mother's voice was hushed but you heard it - Levi did, too. You placed a hand over the one he'd put on his knee. You could feel his finger tapping the fabric of his jeans as if he tried to tune everything else out and concentrate - he did that during tests at school.

"... I'm sorry, Levi." You whispered, bringing your face slightly closer to his. He didn't look at you. The ice in his eyes kept still, pinned to the floor. "Don't listen to him, I know just as much as you do we're both at fault." The regret was heard in your voice but the raven decided not to address it. He pursed his lips, then parted them.

"Maybe your father's right." His gaze was still on the floor. Still icy.

"He's not!" You raised your voice, briefly noting how your parents had stopped their own discussion and were now listening to yours. Your fingers slowly retracted from Levi's hand as he looked at you, face not changing in the least. You felt the gelidity in his eyes freeze the blood in your veins.

"Should we end this?" He questioned in a small voice - small but firm. Your reaction was immediate. Your expression hardened and you glared daggers his way, eyebrow twitching. You pursed your lips, forming a proper reply although a very big 'no' would work just as well.

"When it hasn't even started officially? I refuse." You spat, way more coldly than anticipated. Levi's eyes didn't soften, he was still considering this as a possibility. Your parents, however, were shocked. You grasped Levi's hand again, glare softening to a firm gaze instead. You attempted to make him change his mind - ten seconds were needed for you to succeed.

And afterwards, you swore, you didn't want to have to do it again.

11. Bright shine       Love

"Your boyfriend's got quite the style." Hanji showed up during the break, linking her arm with yours and leading you down the hallway to your next class together. You raised an eyebrow at her statement, not so much as the person who was addressed in it - she'd started calling Levi 'your boyfriend' although he still hadn't confirmed your couple status. "Everybody's discussing it. The girls mostly." She whispered devilishly in your ear, smirking rather big.

Your brows knitted together in oblivion as you walked to your next class. It was a class you also had with Levi. You'd see what Hanji had meant in just a minute. Before that, you had to get into the classroom, though, and at the current moment, it proved a near-impossible task with all the girls in front of it.

Some had their arms linked like you and Hanji, others were pretending to walk around, third leaned on the walls and some just didn't put effort into being subtle - they were the ones standing at the very door and looking inside. Your face turned sour like you'd bitten into a lemon and you glanced at Hanji. Was this what she had meant? All the girls were discussing something, giggling inbetween phrases and shooting frantic glances at the door.

"Students coming through, I've a VIP package to deliver to the hot guy inside, you know!" Hanji called out loudly, making you choke on your own spit in embarrassment. Then, as the girls actually let you pass and stared at you in confusion, you made sure to metaphorically stab her with your glare a few times. She only chuckled, and then you were inside the classroom.

Levi was... quick to notice. He popped out amongst the rest inside, not so much because of the fact he looked good but because his no-white clothes policy had obviously taken over him completely as he'd been choosing today's attire this morning. He was wearing a black, long-sleeved button-up shirt, tucked into a pair of impeccably ironed black dress pants. The dress coat and shining shoes were touches that people noticed when looking further into it. And the glare he had on surely prevented most from doing it.

Hanji let go of your arm and pushed you in his direction, he was sitting at his desk, already having adjoined it with yours, and attempting to ignore the people around him. You walked forward, self-conscious because of the all-black dress you were wearing and how it would quickly draw attention. Had it been a coincidence for you to match colours?

"Good morning." You greeted once having taken a seat next to him. "You're the talk of school today as it seems." You tried making your voice nonchalant. The few gazes on your forms, dressed so similarly and sitting next to each other, was plain frustrating.

"And you're my VIP package." Levi stated boredly from the desk next to yours, looking up and into your eyes. He saw them widen as pink tinted your cheeks. You thought he wouldn't have been able to hear. "Hanji tends to be a bit louder than needed." He informed when you dared not address the topic yourself.

"I know. So, what's the occasion for your attire? Are you attempting another gothic phase?" You joked with a small smirk, eyeing his clothes from up close and admiring the way he managed to look good in all black. It made him seem a bit more grown-up, contrasting his porcelain skin yet matching the colour of his ebony locks. His eyes were a nice addition. If you didn't know him, you'd think he was a college graduate, not a senior in high school.

"The funeral's right after classes end right? I thought I'd come since you'll be representing your family all alone. You were telling Hanji on the phone you didn't know anyone there, so now you'll know me." His voice, indifferent yet soft, made your stomach take a warm turn before a giant grin pulled at the corners of your mouth. You covered it with your hand as Levi met your gaze and added: "You'll have to introduce me as your boyfriend, though."

Oh God. This was it. You knew Levi. You knew his expressions and his voice and his eyes. And they told you what you'd been waiting for - a confirmation.

"Sure, it won't be hard." You showed him your grin with a small shrug just as the teacher entered the room, having shooed away all the girls in the hallway. You quickly pulled out your notebook and the coursebook you shared with Levi for the second school year in a row, placing them in the middle of your desk. You opened your notebook and stared at the empty lines with a smile.

Hello, this is my boyfriend, Levi. You giggled as quietly as possible and Levi shot you a questioning look.

"Just practising." His features didn't soften but his eyes shone abnormally in your direction - they were tender and so bright it could've been blinding, but you found it mesmerizing. Your heart fluttered in your chest and you felt Levi's hand on top of your own. You bit back a smile. It wasn't a success.

God, how I love this boy. The realisation that followed wasn't even something that you minded. It just made you smile harder. Because somewhere along the bored lines and the bright gaze you could see he loved you just as much.

"So, what in the fucking hell are you reading?" Your boyfriend's question brings you back to reality and you blink at him for a few seconds before having collected your thoughts. You look back down at the notebook. The sentence is highlighted in neon yellow and it's giving you a weird feeling.

"Just... Psychology." You answer simply, contemplating the end and the beginning. From indifference to love. From glances to being together. From strangers to lovers. And now...?

"And it's funny because?" He questions and in return you snort condescendingly.

"Well, because it's so stupidly inaccurate tha---" You look up and the word dies at the back of your throat. He's looking at you with confusion, but under that, there's a silver layer of warmth that makes your heart skip a beat. You gulp and laugh in spite of yourself, he raises an eyebrow. "You know what? I don't even know anymore."

"Are you okay?" He gets a hand through his ebony locks and you watch, as always mesmerized by the little gestures he performs.

"Perfectly fine." You give him a small smile as he looks at you expectantly. He knows you want to say something, that something's prodding at your thoughts. Spill the beans, his gaze tells. And you do. "Have I told you I love you?" You blurt out, borderline nervously. You feel weird but it's not because of him, it's because of the realisation that has dawned on you.

"Just yesterday actually." He informs casually and picks up his cup of tea. Only a tea-lover like him drinks it during the summer. Or a psychopath - it is yet to be decided. You eye him for a few seconds but pause right before responding.

"... good." You say with a soft smile. He meets your gaze and he's still clueless but somehow he's seen something that makes him utter a simple 'stupid' under his breath as he rolls his eyes. You say nothing in return to the subtle insult.

"So, are you going to next week's exam or sleeping?"

"The latter sounds tempting." You respond, making him snort.

"Of course it does."

"You?" You question back and his gaze meets yours, you feel the air of superiority around him and already know what he'll say.

"Yeah, and if I pass I have to wait for the winter exams." He explains boredly, twirling your pen in his hold as you close up your old Psychology notebook.

"Cool. I have to take it and two others. Then I can get some rest." You sigh longingly and he glares.

"And work done."

"Oh, don't bring it up." You roll your eyes and your shoulders sag in despair. Your boyfriend is not one to obey orders, he's usually the one to give them. His imperative gaze settles on your pleading one and he opens his mouth.

"You were the one who told me to start working on a fucking book. Better work on your own stupid paintings." He commands, making you groan in exasperation. If it wasn't for you he wouldn't be halfway done with his brick of a suspense novel, but if it wasn't for him you wouldn't be past your first painting. And you wouldn't have found a buyer for it. But now you have to do more paintings and you just can't figure out your muse. You've little to no motivation and the exams are stressing you out while your boyfriend sips on his tea and has the audacity to tell you to get your ass moving.

"Fine." You groan with finality, admitting your loss. "Sometimes I really hate your perfectionist ass, Levi."

"And sometimes I really hate your slothful ass, but opposites attract. That's what Hanji says right?" His grey hues glisten mockingly and you smirk.

"Often when you're mentioned, yes." You confirm, smug look melting into an affectionate expression as Levi grasps your hand and interlocks your fingers. "It's a little hot for that." You inform and when he starts to let go, you grab onto his fingers tightly and smile. "I never said you should let go." The pointed phrase meets only a huff as your boyfriend sips from his tea.

You meet his gaze and try to remember a time when you haven't been mesmerised by his eyes. There isn't such a moment. You become aware of the look he's giving you, your smile grows and your eyes soften. Three years later and he hasn't changed a bit. You catch yourself returning the affectionate gaze as a conclusion settles into your mind.

There is very little that can make you change your opinion on the matter of this stupid eye to soul connection.

Very little but it's there - efficient and determined.

And his name is Levi.

[elmidol]

Rogue Order - Chapter 2 (of 4)

Summary:  You are a barista in the coffee shop that Armitage Hux goes to every morning. He’s polite, however has never cracked a smile. One day, you decide to try to change that by giving him a little treat. Things wind up going much better than planned.

Read on AO3

Chapter 1

Pairing: Armitage Hux/Reader

Rating: M; This chapter contains nsfw content (masturbation)

for @terry2227​

notes: Modern Day/Coffee Shop AU; outline for fic was written by terry2227

Chapter Two

 Taking multiple orders and enjoying the sight of freshly fallen snow the previous day had indeed aided you in selecting which flavor of coffee you would serve Armitage when he arrived in the morning. The discussion of hot chocolate had not faded into the background as expected. Instead it had inserted itself repeatedly, encouraging you towards a semi-sweet flavor. You readied the ingredients before Armitage was set to arrive meanwhile your co-worker, Remi, took care of other matters in First Rogue.

 You opted to grab a sugar substitute to help prevent a sugar rush then subsequent crash while he worked; from there you ground up a semi-sweet dark chocolate into a finer composition along with some ginger and cinnamon. The cardamom and cloves were pre-ground, and the salt and white pepper were also easy to secure. Mixing the ingredients together did not take very long. You put them all into an airtight container, shook it, and then set aside the container until Armitage was visible through the large window.

 Armitage Hux was running behind schedule by four minutes when he entered the coffee shop. It was time that he hoped to make up during the drive into the city. Thus he did not spent much time speaking with you as he otherwise might have. He walked up to the counter and opened his mouth to state the usual when you spoke first instead, informing him that you had already selected the flavor, if he did not mind. Armitage closed his mouth, pausing. He had forgotten that this had been prearranged the previous day. Clearing his throat, he nodded and asked the price of the drink. You stated the amount that he paid for his usual. Aware that it would be rude to press the issue--and not having the time to do so--he withdrew his wallet from his pocket, took out the cash, and handed the bills to you.

 His eyes tracked your every move as you turned your back, changing places with your coworker in order to prepare his drink. Armitage considered the fine powder that had been premixed. This you measured out into roughly three tablespoons that you deposited into his cup before pouring in some of the shop’s freshly brewed coffee. You poured in a minimal amount of dairy-free creamer, mixed the drink again, put on the lid, and brought the cup over to him. “The flavor?” he asked whilst sliding one foot backwards in retreat.

 “Chocolate chai. It shouldn’t be too sweet,” you responded, earning a nod of acknowledgment from Armitage. You found yourself holding your breath, wondering if he planned on tasting the coffee in front of you. He was late, which you knew. It was little surprise when he offered a small wave with two fingers then headed for the door. Your mood threatened to devolve into a semi-melancholy state, however he called over his shoulder that he would tell you his opinion the next morning. That set your heart fluttering like he often did merely by walking into First Rogue. You rocked forward on your feet, drawing up on your tiptoes then rolled back into a proper standing position.

 Remi was not oblivious to these actions, and she shot you a knowing look when the door to the coffee shop closed behind Armitage’s retreating form. Unlike another of the baristas that you worked with, Remi was not one to push boundaries or make public the fact that you were obviously smitten with a patron of First Rogue. You liked that about her, appreciated it more in that moment than you ever had before. Once the shop emptied, the pair of you could gush about things, could giggle like school girls or whatever might come to pass. In the meanwhile, she was satisfied to offer that look then return to her work as you did the same, a smile spreading widely across your face.

 On the other side of town, at the turnoff to exit and head for the city, Armitage glanced at the chocolate chai coffee with interest. He had not yet taken a sip despite finding that, in the closed quarters of his vehicle, he quite enjoyed its scent. Armitage considered the fact that he should try at least a sip before the beverage chilled. He waited until he approached the next red light then cradled his hand around the cup, tugging it upwards and out of the holder towards his mouth. Its scent was more appealing as he brought it closer. Saliva gathered, forced him to swallow before he took that first drink.

 The warm liquid pooled over his tongue, toying with his taste buds. There were layers of flavor. Hints of sweetness coupled with spice along with the more familiar taste of First Rogue’s coffee blend. The chocolate portion, which he had initially believed would be sickeningly sweet, had a light bitterness to it that he found to be palatable. Armitage took a second sip within seconds of the first then a third. He replaced the drink into the holder due to the light changing from red to green. Though he had recovered only two of the four minutes thus far of time, he decided that he would make the most of the day. This drink in particular soothed his mood. He would have to remember that. Perhaps keep a series of notes for the various flavors that you experimentally handed to him—if, of course, you were interested in continuing this trend.

 Armitage glanced again at the clock on his car’s dashboard. It struck him that you had been attentive to his interests alongside his usual order. He, on the other hand, knew your name and profession. Your schedule, although that fell under profession in his opinion. He did not know much else about you, which he had never much given thought to. When you had questioned him regarding hot chocolate, he had failed to inquire about the same. This was the first time he felt that perhaps he had been rude to you. Were his manners always so lax when he was not at work?

 He could recall your face, the general shape of it and the color of your hair, however if he tried to place color to your irises, he was left second-guessing himself. This was not a desirable position. Reliance upon a faulty memory could doom a business deal; Armitage prided himself on memorizing each detail of a transaction along with the faces, names, and basic information of those involved. He did admittedly take for granted such items when it came to his personal life—was that what you were, a part of his personal life? It was more intimate in nature than simply to say that you worked at a coffee shop that he frequented. You were no colleague of his, yet before this moment he had not considered you as an individual that would potentially reach the role of casual acquaintance. To refer to you as a friend or companion would be premature and far too intimate given the limited amount of information he held.

 This would be remedied the following morning, during which time he could deliver his impression of the chocolate chai coffee. Depending on how much work he finished over the day and what arrangements he completed in the evening once he was home, Armitage would decide if he would return to his regular drink or not for a stretch of days. His usual order assisted in preventing headaches, of which he frequently suffered due to stress that was work related though equal parts because of Brendol’s interference with his life. He grabbed hold of the coffee at the thought, drank a more generous amount than previous, and noisily swallowed the liquid, not enjoying it quite as much as mere moments ago. He ran his tongue across his lips then sucked on his tongue as though that would resummon the flavor that had barely had time to caress his taste buds.

  ---------

When midafternoon rolled around and your shift came to an end, you did not leave First Rogue as you might otherwise have. Instead you grabbed one of the smaller tablets of paper that was available to you along with a pen then moved to a table near the window. The light was not too glaring despite the way it reflected off gathered snow. Judging from how Armitage had requested his usual the previous day, you were aware that there would likely be mornings where this would be repeated. In the meanwhile, composing a list of the coffees you wished to present to him—for as long as he would allow—would offer you things to look forward to. You could have more flavors prepared or else ensure that you had all ingredients. This way you could select one of the flavors based on Armitage’s disposition when he walked into First Rogue.

 Should he state that he enjoyed the chocolate chai coffee, you would have to introduce him to a cafe mocha. You would make more fresh chocolate powder and make whipped cream. Due to this, it would have to wait until you knew his opinion—and you would have to ensure that he was interested in having more flavors ahead of time. Not that whipped cream would not be used if he decided that he was not.

 If he was inclined to sample a more sweet drink, you were excited to serve him a caramel macchiato. It was a more basic flavor, true, however that simply made it more readily available on days when you were not forewarned what mood he would be in. Vanilla syrup—sugar free and non—as well as caramel sauce were in large supply in First Rogue. As was gingerbread coffee, you reminded yourself. With a hum, you scrawled that onto your list.

 Ristretto would be closer to his usual drink. You flipped the sheet of paper over to start a page of more ‘basic’ drinks that you could give him when he did not want to stray too far from his norm. Espresso Romano if you could confirm that he enjoyed the taste of lemon.

 “I wonder if he would ever want any food.” You tapped the end of the pen against your mouth while furrowing your brow in thought. Where you had suggested food pairings to other customers, you had never broached the subject with Armitage. Would he be put off by the idea?

 As you considered this, you found yourself curious as to what topics in general would be open for conversation. This man may not spare you a second glance in a romantic view, however he was clearly comfortable for casual conversations. Though perhaps that was generous? You had spoken more than he had on each of the occasions. That might be his personality, you reminded yourself, not to be easily dissuaded. You would begin with something more light, albeit branching away from First Rogue related content.

 “Not work either.” This you stated under your breath. There were no customers that would eavesdrop. The only patron inside First Rogue was one of the regulars, an older woman who dropped by to have time for herself before she was set to pick up her grandchildren from school. You rested your elbows on the table, cupped your chin, and glanced at the woman. With this you were reminded just how simple it was to socialize. Armitage Hux made your heart race in your chest, however you spoke to him regarding his coffee order. Just the same as you spoke to this woman, whom you had also conversed with about her family and hobbies. She enjoyed sewing, reading books, and had three drama series that she loyally kept up with.

 Armitage kept to a tight schedule, which meant that he might, too, watch a regular program. The news perhaps. It was a good starting point. You would watch the nightly news and select a topic to speak with him about when he arrived at the coffee shop the next day.

  ------------

Unsurprisingly, Brendol had indeed soured Armitage’s mood by the day’s end. He lowered himself onto the couch in his home. The television droned on, some news report that he was hardly paying attention to. Instead he worked to think of something else—someone else—to assist in improving his demeanor. Within his mind he began to map out the contours of your face. Each angle carefully studied until his crude rendition was as close an approximation as he could make it. The next morning he would take an extra moment to improve the accuracy of future recollections.

 Armitage conjured up the flavor of the chocolate chai coffee, the slight spice that had rolled over his tongue. In the past he had thought little of you beyond your occupation. With the peppermint coffee and the discussion of hot chocolate, his view had shifted to a certain sweetness. Now there was spice, which caused him pause. Did that spice translate into your personality?

 Throbbing in his head jerked Armitage back into reality. The newscast reported the weather for the week. The morning would see roughly an inch worth of snow. It was the weekend that would be more quarrelsome with temperatures rising a fraction only to plummet, the likelihood of ice high. His original plan for the weekend had been to go into the office for additional progress on a new project that he would be undertaking the following month. This had been one of the issues that Brendol had harassed him over—not that he worked more than necessary, however that he should have done more and been more innovative in his career. Nothing ever pleased the man, not truly.

 With the weather report, it was clear that his plans would have to be altered. Armitage started to compose a list of what materials he would be required to bring to his home over the next two days. Only when Millicent, a small tabby cat two years of age, slunk out from the covered bed in the corner for attention was he properly drawn out of thoughts from work, not visiting them again until the next day.

 In the morning, Armitage was more preoccupied with his visit to First Rogue after readying for work to think of business or Brendol. He patted Millicent on the head on his way out the front door, locked up, and began to rehearse what he might say if you should ask him why he stared at your eyes; he would note their color this time. Tiny flakes of snow descended from the sky at random intervals. They wet his eyelashes so that he was forced to swipe a hand along his face when he entered the coffee shop. As he lowered his arm back to his side, he scanned the counter. One of the other baristas was taking an order from the man in front of him.

 He wondered if you had scheduled to take a day off; he was relatively certain he knew your schedule—it struck Armitage that this might be strange, however he ignored the notion.

 Entering First Rogue behind a familiar redhead, you felt your smile growing despite being four minutes late for your shift. You had sent Remi a fast text, and she was covering for you. The owner would not mind much; there were more times that you remained in the store extra than you arriving late or leaving early. This was, for you, a nice thing about the town. Its community was one you had grown fond of over the years; a portion was transient due to the local and city schools, while the more steady populace were supportive of one another in good times and bad. Due to this, you were already in a good mood. Seeing that he had stalled, observing his head turn in search of someone—in search of you—was pleasantly surprising.

 “Good morning,” you chimed, earning the privilege of watching Armitage jump in startlement. He twisted around, drawing backwards a step and tightening the muscles in his face in an obvious attempt to conceal his emotions. Not for the first time, you wondered about his personal life and what had led him to be like this. Then paused, realizing that he was doing something he had not in all the time you had been in contact with him. Armitage Hux was staring into your eyes. Heat seeped into your cheeks, spread throughout your body. “Are you in the mood for a new flavor?”

 “Hmm.” Though he hummed out that sound, feigning consideration, there was a sense that he had already made up his mind on the matter before he had walked into the shop. “For today and tomorrow, yes.”

 You nodded then walked around him. Armitage turned to follow you with his gaze, walking forward as the other male patron of the establishment grabbed his drink and headed for the door. Remi shifted back to the register to assist Armitage in paying for the coffee--she knew to ring him up for his regular beverage, as you covered any difference with the tip he so often left otherwise would pay it on your own—which allowed you to walk towards the ingredients that you had readied. Two days in a row, you mused, which meant that you wanted to leave a good impression so as to not dissuade him from continuing this pattern.

 “Did you see—” you began in unison with him saying: “The weather this...weekend...” You had stopped abruptly, whereas he trailed off. You looked over your shoulder at him, nodding encouragingly so that he would resume where he had left off. “Does it prevent many of your regulars from coming into the shop?”

 “Err, I suppose it depends on how bad it gets.” Your hands were in constant motion, readying and preparing all that you needed to put his drink together. “I live close enough that I can come into work even if it’s for a shorter shift. We’ll close only if it’s too hazardous, which I don’t think will be the case here. How about you? Do you have work?”

 Vertigo was not an immediate threat, although you did notice that you felt slightly lightheaded over the fact that Armitage had been the one to strike up a conversation, even if it did have to do with First Rogue. It was the sort of topic you had been intending to bring up. The pair of you were on the same page with that, and you each, as far as you could tell, enjoyed conversing with the other. Remi, meanwhile, had busied herself with tending to two other customers that had entered the shop; one was another regular and the other a new face.

 Armitage slipped one foot in front of the other, keeping pace with you as you darted about behind the counter while carrying out the final steps of making the beverage, whatever flavor it happened to be. Coming from others, he might not have welcomed the question or else been indifferent to it. From you, on the other hand, he found that he was pleased you had asked. “In a way. I am not on the schedule, however I do plan to bring a few items home with me. I may spend the morning here, if that is alright.” He gestured towards the corner by the window and hoped that you noticed he was indicating two tables rather than one. They were smaller, square, and allowed only for two chairs each.

 You looked in that direction whilst walking towards him with the coffee, which you handed to him. “That shouldn’t be a problem at all.” It suddenly struck Armitage that he had not checked his watch the entire time since your arrival. He did not know if he was running late or not, and was not stressed about the matter—perhaps that would sink in later, after he moved into his car. For the meanwhile, he inquired as to what flavor you had given him today. “You should try it and guess.”

 A snort escaped him, and Armitage felt his mouth shifting into a smile that he more often than not concealed from the world. Genuine. Amused. He lifted the coffee to his mouth to hide the expression, felt his face heating a little and knew that it was covered in a slight rosy flush. Your cheekiness had been unexpected. There was such a contrast with your attitude compared with Brendol’s. Where Brendol made Armitage want to hide away, you were a breath of fresh air. Brendol was vexing. You were…

 Armitage took a sip as you had suggested, his eyes locking onto yours. You did not glance away; in that moment, he realized that you had for so long. You had been more shy with him. Not timid, however less bold. He had offered no reason for you to be kind to him, yet there it was. Your eyes wide and your lips parted. Your breathing was not as level as it had been before he had smiled. Your chest rose and fell, your breasts--Good lord, he nearly choked on the hot coffee.

 “Gingerbread,” he said, his voice low, his mouth still warm from the drink.

 You were trying to recover from the shock of seeing his smile, which had been far better than you had imagined it would be. His reaction to the coffee flavor was not negative. Nothing was ruining the moment. Except when he stated that he had to get going to work and would see you in the morning. There was little to say to that. Not that you trusted yourself to speak. Surely your voice would crack. You gave a wave of your hand, staring after him and not caring that Remi and even some of the customers were watching you.

 For Armitage Hux, the incident remained with him for the entire day. He found himself distracted on more than one occasion. The taste of gingerbread coffee--not his favorite of the ones he had been given—and the sight of you staring. The image of your breasts. The end of the work day did not arrive fast enough. He greeted Millicent, set down the items he had brought home in preparation for the weekend, and headed for the bathroom. Once inside, he closed the door to prevent his cat from interrupting.

 His hand went to the front of his pants. Armitage closed his eyes, conjuring your face in his mind’s eye. Now he knew it better. The various angles, the different expressions. The way your pupils had dilated as you watched him smile. He thought again of your breasts. His cock throbbed, hardening and making his breath catch. He worked open his pants, slipping one hand inside and withdrawing his erection. He stroked himself, twisting his wrist as he moved at a languid pace.

 What did you taste like? The question was posed as he jerked his cock, as he thought again of your smile, of your desire to please him and offer him new flavors of coffee. He wanted to spread your legs open and fuck you. To watch you squirm as he worked his fingers into you, opening your wet cunt so that he could fuck you.

 Armitage’s breathing grew even louder. He growled, the sound rumbling through him. He moved his hand even faster, flicking his wrist, thrusting his hips forward and fucking his hand though he wished it was you. The image in his mind changed in scenery. You on his bed instead of the coffee shop—though, he had to admit, bending you over the counter and risking being seen through that large window was suddenly an exhilarating prospect. Yet on his bed, screaming his name as he made you cum.

 “Fuck!” His entire body trembled. Armitage let his head fall back, felt it hitting the door, which gave a light thunk at the impact. He teased his slit, toyed with the sensitive flesh at the head of his cock with the pads of his fingers, and then resumed fucking his hand in earnest. The sounds of him masturbating echoed in the bathroom. Yet what he heard was the moans—your moans—in his head. What did they sound like?

 You should try it.

 Your voice, a teasing lilt. “Fuck,” he growled again, shuddering as he came, his cum spilling over his hand. He opened his eyes and stared at his reflection in the mirror. At the flush in his cheeks, which was darker than what he had worn as a result of your reaction to his smile.

 He wanted to see that reaction once more. Wanted to take you out of First Rogue so that his fantasies could include other locations more naturally. Or perhaps to alter them from fantasy into reality. It was not merely sex that he craved from you either. In truth, you were the highlight of his day the majority of the time. He looked forward to seeing you each morning. Armitage thought of sharing coffee with you after the pair of you fucked. Hot chocolate was another option—that would entice you, would bring a smile to your lips, wouldn’t it?

 Running a hand along the length of his face, Armitage decided that, come the weekend, he would pursue this, would pursue you in earnest. The poor weather was proving to be a sort of blessing in disguise.

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

Can you do a , smug and mean character of your choice, Z?

Anon, did you want me to write about Sengoku Ryouma? Because this is exactly how you get Sengoku Ryouma. (Kureshima Takatora is in here too, not that he’s at all smug or mean.) Z is my choice, so

C is for colors--and, if you’d also like musical accompaniment, M is for music and “you should see me in a crown,” by Billie Eilish, is available on Spotify and YouTube.

The first time Ryouma agrees to share a meal with Takatora, he brings a sketchbook with him. He’s drawing when Takatora approaches the table, in fact, drink in one hand and pencil in the other, intent on his work until he realizes that he’s not alone. Then the sketchbook closes, but not before Takatora can catch a glimpse of what looks like a cross-section of a plant. “What are you drawing?”

A smile like lightning--Takatora finds himself briefly wondering when the thunder will hit, and what might be burned to ashes in its wake. “Vegetation from Helheim. I’m exercising my botanical illustration muscles. I don’t imagine you’d be much interested, though.”

“No, no, I’m actually very curious. Your scientific work intrigues me as it is; I didn’t know you were also the artistic type. May I take a look?”

Ryouma gives him a look which might be considering or might just be shy; Takatora doesn’t yet know well enough to be able to tell which. “If you’re really interested...” He slides the sketchbook across the table. “Look away.”

They end up losing half of lunch to Ryouma’s drawings, Takatora turning pages in rapt fascination as he examines the fractal layout of crystalline seeds within those ever-dangerous fruits, the labeled diagrams of alien plants, the beautifully watercolored illustration of a Helheim vine overtaking a maple tree. Ryouma is delighted to explain them, his soft voice making it more an intimate conversation than a lecture. One pen sketch is so shockingly realistic that Takatora nearly reaches for it, wanting to see if he might pick a fruit directly from the page, only to pull his hand back before he can risk smudging the ink. “I think these might be almost as dangerous as the real thing, Dr. Sengoku.”

“Oh, please.” The lightning smile comes back, and this time Takatora is certain he can hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. “I may not have a lot of friends, but the ones I do have all call me Ryouma.”

--

Ryouma’s insouciant smile and elaborate courtesy tend to strike others as at least mildly disrespectful, if not outright rude. Takatora, of course, knows that it’s just how he is, that he doesn’t mean anything by it. The sketching during R&D meetings is a little irritating, but after the first couple of times it comes up he finds that the scratching of the pencil is oddly soothing, enough that finally he gives into the temptation to ask again, “What are you drawing?”

One of the other researchers rolls her eyes when she hears this, but Ryouma just smiles. “Lockseeds, of course.”  He holds out his sketchbook for Takatora to take. “I think I’ve designed, hm, at least fifty at this point.”

The sketchbook is open to an exploded mechanical diagram, far more complicated than Takatora is prepared to try to make sense of. He tries anyway, nodding absently as the other researchers start to trickle out of the room, squinting at Ryouma’s tiny labels. “Fifty? Do we need to many?”

“Well, Takatora--” the last researcher heading out the door huffs irritably at Ryouma’s casual tone, “I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t live on oranges alone. And they’ll do different things, of course, once I’ve perfected the driver designs. What’s your favorite fruit again?”

Takatora blinks. “Melon. I really only eat it at breakfast, but I do like it best.”

Lightning strikes. “Wonderful, I did remember correctly. Turn back a few pages--yes, there.”

“This is...a Melon Lockseed?”

“Yes, do you like it?”

The sketch is colored in with pencils, and it’s--beautiful, in the strange way that all of Ryouma’s creations are beautiful. “It’s lovely.” Takatora reads over the notes along one side. “I...’authorized by providence,’ Ryouma?” He raises his eyebrows. “What is?”

“You are.” Ryouma bows, one hand on his heart and a mocking smile on his face. “You’re the prince, aren’t you? I thought perhaps you deserved the reminder. And I am merely your humble advisor.”

“I don’t think there’s ever been anything humble about you, Ryouma.”

“Maybe not. I am very good at what I do, I don’t see any reason to lie about it.” A pause, and then Ryouma cocks his head to one side and the smile goes from mocking to teasing, sly and friendly. “I may have some melon at home, if you’d like to come over.”

“...for...breakfast?”

“Well, yes, eventually.”

Takatora feels his face go hot, and hopes he hasn’t turned too pink, and then furthermore hopes that no one else is lingering outside the conference room door as he says, “That sounds very nice.”

--

There are more armor designs than will probably ever get used, and Takatora says so. “Why so many?”

"I enjoy designing them. Although of course most people won't get to see more than the very basic one." Ryouma is settled comfortably against his shoulder, sketchbook balanced on one pulled-up knee. "I'm not going to share my best art with just anyone, you know."

"Oh, no?" Takatora cranes his neck to see the sketchbook over the top of Ryouma's head. "How are you going to manage that?"

"A series of if-then statements in the Sengoku Driver. They have to be able to scan the user's body and brain, you know, to do what they do; I don't see why I shouldn't have them test for particularly desirable personal qualities at the same time." Ryouma's pencil dances over the page. "For example, if it were to detect, say...hm." A sly glance upward at Takatora. "A noble soul, a cutting intellect, clarity of purpose, and oh, let’s say an offensively nice ass, it might produce...something like this."

He holds up the sketchbook, so that Takatora can finally get a proper look at it--a samurai, sleek and elegant but with a science-fiction edge. “This is...armor for me?”

“Roughly, this is a preliminary.”

“It’s beautiful.”

The smugness radiates from the line of Ryouma’s back against Takatora’s arm. “Thank you, I’m very pleased with it.” The sketchbook and pencil go on the bedside table, and then Ryouma turns around looking even more sly. “Of course, I’ll need to tailor the design to suit you better. I think I’ll need to make some figure studies, you’ll have to pose for me.”

Takatora raises an eyebrow. “Naked, I’m sure.”

“Oh, naturally, I’ll want to make a detailed study of your best qualities.”

“I think you said something about an offensively nice ass?”

“I am an artist, I want to display my subject to best effect.”

“So I’m your subject now.”

Lightning-flash smile, and Ryouma runs his fingers down the side of Takatora’s face, tips his chin up as if to study his profile. “No more and no less than I am yours. I ought to draw you with a crown on your head.”

--

When Takatora wakes from the coma--is woken from the coma, by the grace of a power he suspects he may never entirely understand--it still takes another two weeks before he’s discharged from the hospital and declared fit to go about whatever business he may have, and one of the first tasks that confronts him is the disposition of Ryouma’s notes. He can’t possibly ask Mitsuzane to take care of it, wouldn’t even want to mention the man’s name in his brother’s presence. Ryouma was, in the end, his fault and his responsibility. This is his cleaning up to do.

Mostly it’s straightforward. The laboratory equipment has already mostly been confiscated or destroyed; researchers and technicians have already scoured his computer files. It’s just the actual papers that are left to take care of, organized by some system that only Ryouma himself and perhaps Yoko ever understood, box after box of them. Takatora embarks on the project with four helpers--two from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one from the Ministry of Health, and a man from the Ministry of Agriculture who seems to have an unwholesome interest in the actual growth capacity of Helheim plants.

“He didn’t go into the most technical details of his work with me,” Takatora says after the third question about what a particular notation might mean. “He was an...idiosyncratic man, to say the least.”

And then, near the back of the room, one of the Internal Affairs people says, “This box seems to be full of artwork.”

Takatora only freezes for a moment before saying, “Yes, Professor Sengoku was very passionate about the design aspects of his work. I’ll come over and take a look through them, there may be sketches of interest to more than one of you.”

Unlike most of the other papers and boxes, the sketchbooks are mostly clearly marked. Lockseeds, Vol. 1, says the label on one; Sengoku Driver Preliminary Sketches, says another. A third is, Armors, and Takatora recognizes its blue cover and thinks, suddenly, I never did ask him how he intended to have the Drivers identify desirable qualities in people, or why. That should have been a warning sign by itself.

Near the bottom of the box, though, is a sketchbook marked, Personal, and Takatora picks it up as quickly as he possibly can while still looking casual. He recognizes that cover too, and would rather not have people from the government seeing some of the drawings in it. “I’d like to keep this one, actually. I assure you, there’s nothing dangerous in it.”

The man from the Ministry of Agriculture says, frowning, “You’re familiar with the contents of this one?”

“I’m familiar with most of them, actually, the professor was very proud of his design work and shared it with me frequently.”

The sketchbook goes into Takatora’s briefcase, and he waits until he’s home and in his own bedroom to open it, because, yes--there, three pages in, is the first of several drawings of him. Most of them, as he flips through, are unremarkable, but a few are of an intimate character that he’s glad he wasn’t forced to share publicly. One in particular brings a blush to Takatora’s cheeks as he remembers the night it was drawn. On the facing page of the sketchbook there are a few lines scrawled in Arabic, a language that Ryouma read excellently and spoke passably, with a translation underneath:

He is a veiled one; but were he to pass in a darkness black as his forelock, his blazing face would suffice him light.

So if I stray for a night in his black locks, his brow’s bright morn will give guidance to my eyes.

Which does nothing but make Takatora’s blush much worse.

Of course, there aren’t only nude drawings of him, which is something of a relief. There’s a self-portrait on one page, a few sketches of Yoko on another, drawings of the various Beat Riders in a set near the back. It almost brings a smile to Takatora’s face, seeing how Ryouma managed to capture Yoko’s solemn resting expression and the angry twist of Kumon Kaito’s mouth. Sketches of animals, of plants, a cartoon of Oren that actually makes Takatora laugh.

Near the middle of the sketchbook, not far past the most memorable “figure study” and its snatch of poetry, is a drawing of the Yggdrasil logo. Or at least, Takatora takes it for that at first, but when he reaches the end of the sketchbook he realizes that something about it bothers him and has to flip back and look more closely. It is the Yggdrasil Corporation tree, but with grasping roots growing down beneath it, crushing something that Takatora realizes after a moment is the Earth.

Beneath it, in Ryouma’s neat, precise handwriting, is a note:

Unfortunately it has become clear that Takatora’s desires and mine are no longer in alignment.

Takatora shudders and closes the sketchbook, and when he finally manages to fall asleep, much later, he dreams of being struck by lightning.

[night-blooming-bastards]

A Lily Sprouts From Ashes

Lily’s first thought when waking up in the empty, destroyed world, is to run. Run as far away as he possibly can, escape the ruins of his beloved’s mad rage against their old home. So he does. He runs, and he runs, and suddenly he isn’t home. There are strange people staring at him, and snow, and he’s so very scared. The first place he lands is an UnderFell. Everyone looks angry, but it’s not the villagers, surely these people are different. There’s one that looks like him! Oh, but he’s hurt… the bandages around his ulna surely don’t mean anything good for the bone underneath. 

Carefully, he approaches, hands in the air to show he means no harm, and he tries to tell the skeleton that, but he doesn’t seem to understand. “I won’t hurt you,” he says softly, though the Sans seems confused and defensive, backing away into a wall and growling at him. Dream isn’t sure how to get his point across, but he frowns and pauses before stepping forward and reaching out to Red (as he had nicknamed the skeleton because of his magic color). “I promise I won’t hurt you.” Maybe Red can’t understand him, but he’s hoping the tone of his voice is enough. It seems to help, Red is a little more relaxed. 

“Can I see your arm please?” 

“The fuck language are you speaking anyway?”

Dream tilts his head. What is Red saying? He pauses a moment, then holds up his own arm and taps his ulna, then holds out a hand. Red squints, but he slowly offers his arm out, ready to pull it back or attack at any moment. Dream surprises him, however, with a soft hold, and he unwraps the bandages slowly and gently. Red watches, trembling, and does his best not to move so he doesn’t hurt himself by interrupting this golden stranger. He watches, watches, and soon the bandages are unwound to reveal a very nearly broken ulna. 

Even more surprising than this goldy’s gentleness is the look of genuine concern and distress when he sees Red’s injury. He looks up at Red, then back down, then up again, before carefully lifting Red’s arm and giving the injury a soft kiss. Healing magic flows from his fingertips, firelike but only pleasantly warm, and as it dances over the damaged ulna, the wound disappears. 

“Kissed it better,” Dream says with a smile. Red simply gapes at him a little, and between the strange act of kindness and the language that he knows nothing of, he’s absolutely baffled. Who is this man? Is this stranger even a man? Where did they come from? Why are they being so kind without a thought? Red closes his mouth and jerks his arm away. 

“I don’t even know what you’re saying, weirdo.” He glances down at his arm a moment, though, and his expression softens slightly before stretching into a grin. He looks back up and gives a thumbs up. Obviously they don’t speak the same language, that should work. Dream, on the other hand, doesn’t get it at all and looks up to the cave ceiling, face twisted into an expression of confusion, then looks back to Red and tilts his head. Red groans and his grin drops, his hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose, or the skeletal equivalent. “Lost cause, nevermind. Do ya understand me at all?” 

Dream frowns. No, there’s a communication barrier. He focuses for a moment, then lets his magic display a simple image of a quill, ink, and paper, then holds up his hands. “I have nothing to write with, I don’t know how to communicate with you.” The image flickers and disappears. Red makes a face, then motions for Dream to follow, looking tired. 

It’s not long before they’ve made it to Red’s and Edge’s house, and Red manages to find a pen and paper laying around the house and brings it back to Dream. Dream had asked for a quill, but quills are outdated and much less practical. Dream looks at the pen in confusion. The paper is obviously paper, yes, but… Dream lifts a brow and turns to Red with the image of quill and ink again. Red shakes his head and picks up the pen, scribbling a little in the corner of the paper to make sure it works. The ink comes out after a moment and Dream leans in to watch in wonder, then holds his hand out for the pen. The pen is given to him, and Dream presses it to the paper, then pauses. How does one even write? He forgot. Maybe if he closes his eyes… Pictures! Pictures will do. 

So he starts to draw. He draws a figure that looks like himself, then draws cracks across it before replicating the image and surrounding it in radiance lines, then points to himself. Then a crying face with an arrow back to the previous figure. The figure is next drawn running with speed lines behind it, into some disc-shaped thing, and then the scene where he had shown up. He then writes [I’m not sure what script your language is in or how to speak it.] 

Red doesn’t really understand the first part of the story, but crying and running and ending up in UnderFell is the part he understands. He most definitely doesn’t know this man’s language. Stars, this isn’t a babybones, he’s obviously fully grown and has his own complex language that he can speak and write, but… Red is going to have to teach him Common, isn’t he? Right from the start, alphabet and all. Red gives a slow sigh, then carefully takes the pen from Dream. 

A. The first letter is on the paper, uppercase and lowercase, and Red hands the pen to Dream. Dream looks at the letters, then copies them, a nice, curving script that barely mimics Red’s but pulls off the shape of the letters either way. Red nods and smiles a little, then moves on to B. Slowly but surely, Dream copies the alphabet in order from Red, and when they’re finished, Red draws a symbol that equates to “repeat”. 

Dream stares at it, processing, thinking, then moves the pen to make A. Aa. Bb. Cc. Dd. He has it, the alphabet is under his fingers. Then he draws a crescent shape and points to it. 

“That’s a moon. M O O N, moon.” Red then puts it on paper, writing the name of it underneath the picture. Dream seems excited and writes it down as well, then giggles, cheeks a warm gold. “Moon…” he murmurs, staring at it for a few moments. Okay, so how is he supposed to make other words? He draws a simple version of himself and an arrow to the picture with three question marks. Red writes [me] underneath it. He points to the word, then the picture, then Dream. This brings back memories of teaching Edge as a babybones…

So it goes, Dream draws pictures and puts together letters and concepts to make words. The next few hours run smoothly with Red teaching Dream words and how to make them into sentences, and it’s when they’re taking a break that Edge returns home. 

“Sans, you lazybones, you’re supposed to- who… who is that?” Edge stops short when he sees Dream, absolutely bewildered by the appearance of this strange new skeleton in their home. 

“Yeah I’m not sure what ‘is name is, he popped up out of nowhere and healed my arm so I’m keeping him. I also found out ‘e doesn’t like mustard. Made a nasty face ‘bout it. Been calling ‘im Goldy but I’m fairly sure the man’s got a name.” Red looks to Dream as if for help. 

“Sun! Cloud, sun, sleep, happy. Umm…” Dream makes a face. He sounds like a child. “I hate that I can’t speak well in this ‘common’ you’re showing me. My name is Dream, but your language is… hard to translate to. I know concepts, yes, but this…” He huffs and tries again. “Night thought? Happy?”

“He’s strugglin’, boss. Doesn’t speak our language, I’ve been tryin’ ta teach him.” Red shrugs, then looks to Dream, thinking. “Night thought? Fantasy, dream, nightmare, what do you think?”

“Night thought, sleep, happy.” Dream makes a face, frustrated that he can’t convey what word he’s trying to make. Surely there was something…

“Dream? A dream?” Edge pipes up, boot tapping the floor impatiently. 

“Dream! I’m Dream, that’s my name.” Dream seems very happy with himself for this, and he does a little jig in his excitement. 

“Okay, so what the fuck are you doing in our home?” Even as he asks this looking at Dream, he gives Red a look to the side. Dream seems to focus, to think, putting a hand on his cheek and scrunching his face up, trying to understand. In the end he gives up and looks to Red.

“What is fuck? And home?” Red groans, looks to Edge with a look of tired frustration, then gestures to Dream. 

“It’s gonna take a while. He’s… learning. That’s what he’s doing here.” 

“Fine. But only for a little while.”

A little while turned out to be weeks, and Dream was rather attached to Red, no matter how rude he happened to be. He had a voracious appetite for words, wanting to know more and more words until he could actually make proper sentences and put together words. 

One day he comes to ask the question he really wants answered.

“Red?”

“Yeah? Wassup?”

“I’m looking for someone, but I don’t know where they are… he is? We didn’t really do pronouns back then. He. If I’m he then Night is he. We’re the same. But I don’t know where he is. I can’t sense him in this place.” 

“Night? Don’t know a Night, sorry.”

“Umm… Drippy black skeleton man, has… uh, what are the wiggly limbs called again?”

“Tentacles? Geez, a walking hentai monster.” 

“Shut up! He’s not a hentai monster, and that’s not what he uses his tentacles for anyway. He uses them for… to…” Dream’s eyelights shrink to pinpricks as he thinks back to exactly what Nightmare had used those tentacles for. “Hurt, blood, death, destruction. He- He’s not bad, though, it’s just the apples that did that to him! I just… I need to find him. He’s important to me.” His eyelights are back to normal, and he rushes to defend Nightmare even as he feels the dawning fear in Red.

“Yeah yeah he’s important to ya or whatever. Why do you really want to find him? He’s not yer type, bud.” Red lifts a brow, propping an elbow on the table and taking a sip of mustard. “Besides, ‘e seems to scare you.” 

Dream decides to completely ignore the comment about what’s his type. It’s not worth pursuing. “I want to be one with him again. He is my other half.”

“Blah blah blah, sappy bullshit, you wanna fuck ‘im. Am I right?” Red waves his hand, a lazy gesture, making very little effort to listen to Dream about anything remotely romantic. 

Dream’s face ignites with blush and he looks nearly indignant. “Do you have any other thought in your brain?! It is my fate to be with him. I must, and I wish to. I am his, and he is mine. It’s rather simple. Do you not… understand romance?”

“Nah, I just choose not to participate. ‘M not sappy like you.” Red makes a face. 

“...Right.” Dream moves to get up. “Well if there’s any way I can fi-” Dream’s words are cut short as he knocks over the cup of juice he was drinking, and he scrambles to catch it, but it’s already too late. The mess on the floor is… boiling?

A figure rises from the puddle, jumping onto firm ground with a confident grin and looking to Dream. “You there! I knew something felt off, heh. What’s your name, where’d ya come from?”

Dream doesn’t know the name of his home. “...Dream.” 

Looking back, Lily wishes he had run.

[archies-ginger-locks]

The Town That Saw Blood

Archie Andrews x Reader

Request: Hey I saw your new prompt list thing and I had three numbers I liked but for one fic. Numbers 36, 38,40. Archie x Reader. Where the reader had like a family emergency and he didnt come. So she is upset and ends things with him, but like over time he notices she hasnt been sleeping well and knows its nightmares. Then they admit they still care about one another. Kinda a sad until the end they are happy together. I hope it makes sense.

Prompts: 36. “Another nightmare?” And 38. “I needed you. And you weren’t there.” And 40. “I’m still not over you.”

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: lots of blood, PTSD, if you love your sister and never want her to get hurt then be careful reading this.

@onceuponatimegilmoregirls

—

Blood was pooling onto the crystal white snow. Screams of pain came echoing out of your sister while you cried out of help. Pulling off your jumper and wrapping it around your sisters wound was the best you could do. Your cries for help weren’t working, the park the two of you were walking through was empty.

Fumbling, you pulled out your phone and dialled the emergency number. Your sister was still screaming in pain and blood still poured onto the cold, icy pathway through the old park.

“It’ll be okay, you’ll see. It’ll be okay, their coming. Just, just keep breathing.” Her screaming had stopped and it was just heavy breathing now, she looked up at you.

Your hair was a mess and your white shirt was painted red. Your sisters red eyes looked up again, her cold hand had grabbed yours. You didn’t want to look in her eyes, it would be too painful.

“Look at me,” you drifted your eyes to hers. “Be okay, that’s all I wish. Be okay, tell Mum and Dad I love them.” She was smiling up at you.

It was the smile of death. That smile that people have when they just kinda, know. Know that it’s all over, it’s all gone so being positive was the last good thing that could give to the world.

The threatening ring of the ambulance came close and the bright Red and Blue lights were flashing as fast as your heart was beating. Everything started to blur when the paramedics pushed you away and started assisting your sister. Another one came over with a stretcher and they lifted her onto it.

One of the three help you up and into the back of the ambulance. They wanted information on your sister but all you could do is cry and hug the stranger of a paramedic close. You were shaking with the question, Will she be okay?

You spent the night in the hospitals waiting room alone. Your parents were stuck out in a blizzard across the country and your boyfriend, Archie, wasn’t answering his phone. So, with that said a cold night alone was the best you could get.

The hospital forced you to go home while your sister was still being checked. They told you that if anything happened that you would be the first notified.

Being home alone after what had happened, still seeing horrifying image of her attacker, was awful. You couldn’t wash your clothes in case, in case...

You tried to wipe your mind clean of thoughts like that. It was so hard because it was the truth, they told you she had a 50 percent chance of surviving. The only thing you could think of to calm your nerves was a nice hot shower. A hot shower was something you always did when everything just got too much and you needed to get away from everything. People thought you were crazy when you told them that, the only person to understand you was Archie. And he, he well wasn’t in your good books after ignoring your calls the day before.

You slowly took off your clothes, laying them out neatly on the bathroom counter. You re-tied up your hair before turning on the shower. The boiling water against the nippy winter air created a large amount of hot steam.

Stress seemed to drop off your shoulders when you stepped into your shower. It was oddly relaxing, the feeling of the steamy water falling over your body slowly. You closed your eyes and sunk into the feeling.

When you opened your eyes again the water had turned red, blood red. The running water muffled your scream as you reacted by reaching forward and turning the water. You closed your eyes, you didn’t want to see it all over you as it was on your sister.

Still shaking, you opened your eyes to see it was just water covering you. You let out a small sigh of relief before sitting down on the wet tiled shower floor.

You felt as if you were going crazy over your sister even though you saw her a few hours ago, calmly laying in her hospital bed sound asleep. All you could do was worry and think of what could happen, it was infuriating. The only thing you could do to help your sister was to relax and stay calm and you couldn’t even do that.

You stood up and wrapped a towel around yourself, you were about to open the bathroom door to go and get changed but to stopped in your tracks when you heard the front door open.

Jumping out of your skin from shock at hearing someone break in, you scurried into your parents room. They always told you if anyone, or anything, broke in that you should go straight into their room. They told you to open your father’s bedside table, the second draw and only use what was in there for a emergency and this felt like a big emergency.

You quietly stumbled over to the bedside table and slowly opened the draw. A small silver hand gun was hidden in the far corner. You didn’t want to do this but you also didn’t want to get hurt.

You silently opened the bedroom door and peaked a look down stairs you couldn’t see anyone but you could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. You stepped out of the room, your father’s gun out in front of you, your finger on the trigger and read to shoot.

Your heart was racing, your blood was pumping and your eyes were going to burst out of your head. Archie appeared at the top of the stairs with his hands raised once he saw what was in your hands. He looked scared of you and he had the right to be you looked nothing like usual.

Usually you had your hair at least half decent and brushed. You usually also had proper clothes on and not just a towel that you had wrapped around yourself. But the thing he had to worry about was the gun in your hand. You were the last person anyone expected to hold a gun up to anyone.

“(Y/N)? (Y/N), please put down the gun.” You shook you head in a ‘I need to wake up’ way and dropped the gun.

“What are you doing here?” You asked as you crossed your arms over your chest. Your feelings of anxiety and sadness were traded for anger when you dropped the gun and saw Archie again for the first time since your sister was shot.

“I ah, I got your messages. Is your sister okay? Are you okay?” He took a step forward towards you. You took a step back, you liked your amount of distance.

He looked shocked that you didn’t accept him coming near you. You looked up at him with anger and he looked at you with sadness.

“She’s doing fine and so am I. I’d like it if you left.” You said, you were trying so hard to be nice. Even in anger you showed kindness.

“What? (Y/N) I-“

“No, I said you should leave. So go, and I’d prefer if you didn’t come back.” His whole world just seemed to collapse in front of him. But Archie being Archie didn’t want to make things even worse so he left, like you asked.

It felt so right at the time. It felt like that was what anger did to people, it makes people think that bad decisions are good decisions.

——

The next day Sheriff Keller arrived at your door step. He looked almost as tired as you were.

You were tired from not sleeping from fear. Every time you even thought about sleeping the image of your sisters attacker kept appearing in your mind. It was terrifying, it felt as if he was right there coming after you.

The Sheriff was tired from work. Since Fred Andrews was shot not too long before your sister, he has been working this case since the moment Archie filed his report about his dad. Sleeping wasn’t easy when the town he loved so much might be in grave danger.

“I’m just here to ask you a few questions.” You nodded and opened the door more so he could enter.

Your parents were due home today, so you wanted to get this over before they got home. They would cry even more if they knew you were being interviewed by the police about a serial shooter. They almost didn’t want to come home due to danger but being there for their girls was more important to them.

The two of you took a seat at your old wooden dining table. He was on one sit and you were on the other. He brought out his note book and pen, this was really happening.

“Where was the shooting?” Memories from then came rushing back to you, it hit you like a ton of bricks.

“Maple Park, near the centre.”

Questions like continued on and on until he got to the question you didn’t want to answer. The question you dreaded because it was going to bring to light the truth of what seemed to be a epidemic of blood shed through the town.

“Andrews described to me a ah, a person who shot his father. I am going to describe to you what he told me and you’ll tell me if it matches what you saw.” Archie had already told you about who shot his dad and by what you saw, they were the same person.

“Man, possibly in a black ski mask. Green eyes with a average build and bit of a stomach. Does any of that sound familiar?” He looked at you with so much need. He needed to figure out this case, he truly loved this town so much. If it were the same person he would have a real case on his hands.

“Yes, That is the person that attacked my sister. Down to the mask and everything.” You started shaking a little just think about this.

This was real, you tried convincing yourself that it was all fake. Just your imagination but it was all too real and you couldn’t handle it. Keller could see it on your face that you weren’t well, mentally but he needed to get back to the station.

“Thank you so much. If I get anything I’ll let you know?” He stood up and chucked his paper and pen back in his pocket.

“Sure, sir.” You tried to smile, you tried so hard to look normal and at least a little bit mentally stable.

He hurried out of your house and back out into the harsh cold of American winter. You slowly clicked the door closed after him and went back to cooking dinner for you and your parents.

——

A few weeks past and a lot had happened. Your sister was released from the hospital at almost full health, they just what her to relax and stay in bed for awhile until she was fully healed. No more people have been shot but the tension for the fiasco still looked everywhere you go.

Archie hasn’t even tried to talk to you since you held the gun up to his face the day after your sister was shot and you didn’t know how to feel. Was it good that he was listening to you and that he didn’t try to contact you or was it bad because he should be trying hard to win you back? Boy trouble wasn’t the only thing keeping you up late at night.

The black hood, the name the town had given the masked shooter, still haunts you even though your sister had survived. The memory of hit sprint at the two of you shooting bullets at you was like a ghost. Floating around at appearing out of nowhere.

Your parents were so glade to see (S/N) and you okay. They had the worst fears on the long plane ride home, they truly believed she wouldn’t make it and they could cope with the pain and the bill for the funeral.

School had finally gone back after what seemed like forever. It was the first time ever that you were actually excited to go back to the place you called hell. But that he’ll was much better than the one in your mind.

People started noticing you had changed since the shooting. You went from being bubbly and talkative to quiet. From answering every question in class to being forced by the teacher to give a answer. The biggest difference had to be the way you looked in general. You at least used to look well rested and healthy but now you had lost some of the colour from your skin and you had bags and sleep lines around your eyes.

Luckily for you, you still had your friends around. They understood that it was traumatic and that you had the right to be affected by it. That’s why they tried to drag to to conversations or even to Pops.

It didn’t take them long to realise that something had happened between you and Archie. So, slowly one by one you explained happened when they asked you, you just left out the part with the gun. They were shocked because you two were always known as the Riverdale High power couple but they also understood that you wanted to end it.

Now that one thing was off your mind, another wouldn’t leave it. The thought of Archie and how he left you in a time of need but came to make sure you were okay when he had the chance. Which is more important, the good or the bad? All you could do was play imaginary tennis while trying to decide. Good? Bad? Good? It was too stressful.

The school bell had finally rung. It was like music to everyone’s ears because it signalled that school was over for another week. People were filling the halls, you were waiting behind so you weren’t stuck in the rush.

Once about a third of people had gone you made your way through the halls. You had a hold of your bag that was over your shoulder an dying had your earphones in. There was some song from your playlist but you weren’t really focusing on the music, your attention was to get out of there and to get to the next bus.

You were so close to the door, you could feel the cold of the metal. Someone grabbed you wrist and brought you into the music room. You almost screamed until you caught sight of the colour of your kidnappers hair.

“Archie?! What the Fuck!” You yelled as you pulled yourself out of his grip.

“No, (Y/N). Don’t you say that, what the fuck, you?” He looked shocked and tired. He probably had Football practice for last period, and a whole hour of Physical Education would tired anyone out.

“What happened to you? You used to be so happy, and now. Just look at yourself.” His hand lay out in front of him, gesturing to you.

“If you don’t remember, my sister was shot.” You took a aggressive step forward, your arms crossed the same way they were the day you broke up with him.

He wasn’t angry, he was more on the frustrated side of anger while you were a mixture of anger and sadness. You were sad because deep down you still loved the red haired, American dream boy. And being in the same room as him, alone, really hurt.

“Yeah I remember, so was my dad. We should’ve been there while we were rebuilding but you pushed me away.”

“I didn’t push you away. I needed you, and you weren’t there.” The deep pit of sadness you felt took you back to that day. The day she was shot and you started to sob.

You couldn’t help yourself, you almost lost her and you just needed someone. And the person who’s job it is to be that person, wasn’t there. So being what seemed like a good boss at the time, you fired him. Turns out it wasn’t a good decision for either of you.

“(Y/N),” he rushed towards you and wrapped you in a bear hug. Trying to push him away wouldn’t work, so you let him hold you.

You missed this. You missed him holding you and cuddling you. Sometimes you even missed going to watch him at football practice. When you two broke up and school came back, your whole life style seemed to change. You went from cheering on your boyfriend at footy practice, to sitting at home watching Disney movies while you shovelled ice cream into your mouth.

But the thing you missed most of all was him. Just Archie being Archie, the way he would mess up his hair to make you laugh. The way he would just randomly call you in the middle of the night for no reason. How he always seemed to drive his dads truck on the same day you didn’t want to catch the bus home. All those things were Archie.

“Archie, Archie I’m sorry. I shouldn’t of made you leave, I’m an idiot.” The sobs had stopped but your voice still quivered and a few tears fell down your face.

“No you’re not, you are not a idiot. Now, could be give this,” He gestured to the both of you. “Another chance because, I’m still not over you.”

“Of course Archie, you bid loveable dumbass!”

The two of you went on a date, you liked to call it your second first but Archie wasn’t having it. He wanted to forget you ever broke up in the first place. But ever since you two got back together, people have been noticing your mood change. You were back to your normal, bubbly self.

You eventually told Archie why you looked so tired all the time. The nightmares were too much so you didn’t sleep and he wouldn’t have that. From that day forward he promised to make sure you fell asleep and slept well, even if it went he had to cuddle you to sleep.

Eventually he did go back to sleeping in his own house but the second you call, he answered. It was great, you want to just talk or get something off your chest he was there for you. You didn’t use it too often because Archie needed his sleep too if he was going to be doing all his extracurriculars well.

You clicked your phone on, the time was around 11 pm. You wrapped the thick fuzzy blanket around you a little bit more as you edged closer to the edge of your bed. Scrolling through your messages you found his, Golden Boi.

You pressed the call Botton and put the phone against your ear. It rung out a few time before he answered.

“Are you okay? Another nightmare?” He sounded tired and kind of panicked.

“No,” you giggled quietly. “I just was feeling a bit lonely... and my parents are visiting my grandparents.”

“I’ll be there in 10.”

“Make it five.” You could hear his smile of the other end of the phone as he hung up.

[big-ass-magnet]

The Little Things (Hawke/Varric)

Fandom: Dragon Age Pairing: Marian Hawke x Varric Word Count: 1619 Summary:  Hawke likes to undo Varric's ponytail whenever she walks past him. He finds it obnoxious, then endearing, and then he misses it. Falling in love with her probably has something to do with it.

AO3 link | Commissions!

The first time she does it, he's known her for about a month. They're in the Hanged Man. She's walked off to get drinks. He's hunched over a particularly mediocre hand, trying to decide if he should fold or let it play out. Then he feels a tug at the back of his head, and his hair slides forward into his face. Hawke thumps down next to him and tosses his hair tie onto the table.

"You dropped that," she says, so casually that for a second he almost believes her. He snorts, because it's kind of funny in an obnoxious sort of way, and sets his cards down to tie his hair up again.

She does it again the next day. This time she sits next to him, then reaches up behind him to yank his hair loose. She holds the tie out to him with a helpful expression.

"You dropped that."

It's a little less funny and a little more obnoxious, but he just sighs and ties his hair back up again. He has a feeling that this trick is her way of being friends, and he's willing to put up with it. He has friends with worse habits.

She does it the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. It gets the point where he tenses up whenever someone walks behind him, and he keeps a wary eye on her whenever she approaches.

One day he grabs her wrist before she can get to his hair, but Hawke just tugs the tie out with her other hand, snagging several hairs in the process.

"You dropped that," she says, but this time she can't keep the shit-eating grin off her face. He glares at her, and she gives him an innocent look.

"Stop doing that," he tells her, grabbing the tie from her hand.

"Stop doing what?" she asks, tilting her head to one side. Hawke is a phenomenal actress when she wants to be. She looks genuinely confused. Varric knows if he pushed, really pushed, she'd probably stop, but despite his irritation, he can't quite bring himself to do it. And he's not really sure why.

"You look like a dog when you do that," he snaps. Hawke puts a hand to her chest.

"Varric," she says, voice trembling with emotion -- or laughter. "That is the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me."

Fereldans. It's so disgustingly charming he forgets to be annoyed.

.

She stops doing it after the Deep Roads. Hawke stops doing much of anything after the Deep Roads. Leandra takes over the business of preparing the estate, Varric is in charge of selling off the pieces they found, Hawke...sits in the Hanged Man and drinks.

She doesn't play cards. Conversation is stilted. Mostly she stares into her mug with the dead-eyed exhaustion of old soldiers. Her friends do their best, but she gently rebuffs every attempt at cheering her up and drawing her out. Varric is tempted to write to Bethany and ask her for advice, but Sunshine has enough to worry about, locked up in the circle.

Then one day, he feels the familiar tug, and Hawke hands him his hair tie.

"Dropped that," she says, not quite looking at him. He's so relieved to see her acting like herself again, he can't keep the smile off his face when he answers.

"Oh, are we doing this again?"

"Not my fault you keep dropping it," she says. Her voice is still flat and distant, but there's a small smile on her lips. "You should get a new one."

"I'll get right on that, Hawke, thanks," he says dryly, and is rewarded when her smile grows.

.

He’s known her nearly four years when the game changes on him.

Varric sees her approaching out of the corner of his eye, and braces himself, even as he keeps his eyes on his cards. Hawke tugs the tie loose, as usual, but something... weird happens. When her fingers brush against the back of his neck, they leave a strange, tingling warmth behind. He's so startled, he takes the tie in silence. His fingers feel stiff and uncoordinated, and it takes him a few tries to get the knot right.

"What?"

Varric looks up at her. Hawke is frowning at him, her eyes searching his face.

"What?" he parrots, not sure what she means, his mind scrambling to get itself back in order.

"What's with that look?"

He forces a scowl at her.

"I'm three hands down and you're distracting me, that's what."

For a moment, he thinks she's going to push, but then she scoffs.

"It's not my fault you still haven't bought a proper hair tie."

Varric loses the next hand, unable to keep his attention on the cards and not the ghost of her touch.

He starts to look forward to it, after that. He also starts to dread it. The feeling of her fingers on his neck, even so brief and casual a touch, stays with him for hours afterwards. Varric doesn't unsettle easily, but it leaves him flustered and dry-mouthed every time. He's never been so grateful to be such a good liar.

But he wants it more than he doesn't, the flood of warmth in his veins and the way his heart beats a little faster. So he never tells her to stop. Not seriously, anyway. His protests are part of the game now, as much as the way she says, every time, "You dropped that."

.

It's late in the night. Everyone else has gone home, but Hawke is lingering. She does that a lot, these days. The estate feels very empty now, even with only one person missing. Varric lets her stay as late as she likes. Sometimes they drink and play cards, or talk, and sometimes, like now, they just sit and enjoy each other's company. She's curled up in a chair, reading a book from his personal library. He's hunched over yet another letter from the Merchant's Guild. If he didn't hate Bartrand for leaving him to die, he'd hate him for dumping all this responsibility on him. Sometimes he feels like he's drowning in paperwork.

Finally, he tosses down his quill and arches his back, groaning as his spine pops back into place. A few strands of hair have fallen into his face. He tugs his tie loose and shakes out his hair.

Hawke's hand reaches into his field of view and takes the tie out of his hand.

"I used to do this for Bethany, when we were younger," she says softly. She cards her fingers through his hair, drawing it back away from his face. Varric shuts his eyes and tries not to shiver at the sensation of her nails scratching gently across his scalp. It can't be more than a few moments, but it feels like an eternity. He wants it to be an eternity. If he could spend the rest of his life sitting here with Hawke playing with his hair, he'd die happy.

All too soon, she gathers his hair up and ties it into place with a few quick, practiced motions. Only when she's done does he finally have the courage to look up at her, and return the small smile he finds on her face. Her hands are on his shoulders now, and he swears he can feel her touch through his shirt.

"I should head home," she says.

"Sure," he manages. "See you tomorrow, Hawke."

She disappears out the door, and Varric feels at once absurdly happy and achingly lonely.

.

Varric leans against the battlements and stares out at Skyhold's courtyard. Even this early in the morning, people are running to and fro, trying to make the fort livable. He gnaws at the inside of his lip. He has to find a way to tell the Herald -- the Inquisitor , boy won't that take some getting used to. Then Cassandra is going to find out, and he's going to be in serious trouble. Threat to his physical well-being type trouble.

He wishes he knew that this was a good idea. Hawke was safe in hiding. Relatively, anyway. She was away from all this mess, at least. Now, yet again, he's dragging her into the thick of things. She'd sounded eager to help, in her letter, but that didn't mean anything. Hawke wouldn't know self preservation if it bit her. In fact, if it did bite her, she'd probably just poke it again to see what it would do.

His hair slid forward into his face. A warm body leaned against the battlements beside him, pressed close. Hawke held out Varric's hair tie.

"You dropped that."

Varric nudges her hard with his elbow as he goes to tie his hair up, but his grin is so wide it hurts.

“Missed you, too,” he says.

.

Bethany

Sunshine

I'm sorry

Sunshine,

I know I promised I'd keep your sister safe

The words blur and smear and he drops his pen on his desk to pinch the bridge of his nose. It's been a week. He needs to tell people. They need to know. He doesn't know how to say it. He can barely think it.

They're going to hold a vigil for Hawke. He's not going. They want him to 'say a few words'. He refused. He can’t put the words on paper. How could he say them out loud?

Varric feels a tug, and his hair falls around his face. For a second he thinks his heart has stopped beating, and when he lowers his hand, it trembles slightly. His hair tie dangles from familiar fingers.

"You dropped that."

[wtfrace]

a lapse of judgement— chapter one, racetrack higgins.

in which rosie lewis is all of a sudden very flustered around her roommate, racetrack higgins— and has absolutly no idea what to do about it.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

rosie lewis must have been on something last august. something that must have desparatley lapsed her common sense— otherwise there was no explanation for how she ended up living in a sub-par apartment with three chaotic boys.

she had just started her sophomore year of college, and after two of her roommates transferred to another school a state over, she was desperate for either help with rent, or a place to move in. she had put out an ad on craigslist, as well as several flyers around campus, and waited anxiously for a reply. it came in the form of an email from someone named albert desilva. the message had begun with okay this is a long shot, and had more or less gone down hill from there.

the boy had then explained that he, and two of his friends, had been kicked out of their shared house off campus (under circumstances that were absolutly not our fault, please don’t let that lapse your judgment) and they were looking for a decent place to stay. here comes the part that made rosie think she absolutly had to be smoking something at the time— because she said yes.

now, a year and a half later— she was living in a decently large, very messy, apartment with albert desilva, antonio, racetrack, higgins, and elmer kasprzak.

now, don’t think for a moment that rosie didn’t adore those boys. at first she had been hesitant towards their loud & boyish personality’s, but now she wasn’t sure how she had ever lived without them in her life. they were as messy as her, and usually pretty annoying— but above all that they were caring & considerate & really good at making her smile. living with them had come with perks, including but not limited to almost free takeout (via elmer’s job at the italian place a few blocks away), exposure to the best movies she had ever seen thus far (via albert’s excellent taste) and rarely wavering emotional support (via race’s general personality).

so it definitely wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy living with them— moreover that occasionally it made it hard to do simple things. last month, they had sat down to figure out bills together, but had become distracted half way through by a new episode of criminal minds. a few days after that they tried to do it again, and ended up following race to the roof to see what he claimed was “a giant garfield balloon” (which there was, but still.) now, as rosie tried to complete the simple task of creating a grocery list— she found herself overwhelmingly distracted.

“in conclusion,” elmer said assuredly, “turning race’s bedroom into a vegetable garden would be only profitable to the over-all wellbeing & financial structure of our group.” rosie looked up for the first time during his spiel, continuing to write vegan mac & cheese (cheap kind) as she did, and gave him a pointed look.

“and in this made-up situation, where exactly would race be living?” she asked, glancing at the tall boy that was currently trying to see how many of albert’s textbooks he could balance on his head.

“well, race is statistically the least useful person in this apartment. we could kick him out, or just make him sleep on a mattress on the fire escape.” elmer said dismissively, mostly joking but also a little serious.

“el, we aren’t kicking race out so you can overtake another room with your herbs & dahlia’s.” rosie said, a small smile on her face as she glanced pointedly at the not one, but three pots placed on top of the cabinets (so high that it took two people to water them, one with the watering can, and one holding a rickety step-stool.)

“aw, that’s sweet flower, you care about my wellbeing.” race said cheesily, dropping the books back onto the kitchen table & pinching her cheek. this brings us to what had been distracting her the most. all day she had been weird around race. he was an unusually touchy person, but rosie has grown so used to it she barely noticed— except for today. all of a sudden every touch sent her face heating up & her heart plummeting. it was the strangest thing she had experienced in a while, and it was beginning to make it difficult to be in the same room as him. now though, she was determined to finish her grocery list, and ignored the stir in her stomach to shoo him away with her pen.

“more like your rent, racer.” albert said, yawning as he joined them in the kitchen. “wanna watch interstellar with me, rosie?”

“no! i’m determined to get this done this weekend, and it’s sunday and i’ve barely finished a list of what we need.” rosie exclaimed, “the only thing in the fridge right now is elmer’s prized wonka-bar, and three half finished arizona ice teas. so if you don’t want to starve— help, or leave.” albert and elmer shared nervous glances, and simultaneously exited the room. rosie was very rarely angry or annoyed, but when she was, she was a force to be reckoned with. talk about an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

but, to rosie’s great dismay, while those two left, race chose to stuck around.

“i can see you’re frustrated, rosie— and i assure you, we won’t leave this room ‘til your list is finished!” race said, sliding into the bar-stool next to her. great, just what she needed.

“c’mon race, be serious.” a statement equivalent to asking a penguin to be a giraffe.

“hey— serious is my middle name, doll!” rosie screwed up her face, ignoring the fact that her heart was beating rapidly at that comment. she was beginning to tire of whatever new variable was causing her body to go into SOS mode when she was around him.

“you sound like a newsboy from 1899 when you call me that.” she said, eyebrows raised impertinently, and cheeks dusted with red. oddly specific, but completely accurate. race grinned back at rosie, stealing the list from in front of her, and sliding the stool closer to her so their elbows were touching.

“there’s a soar lack of ninja turtle fruit snacks on here.” race said, then stealing the pen from between her fingers to scribble down a few words across the sheet of paper. it was going to be a long night.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

it took rosie the rest of the night to figure out what was bothering her.

after race had enthusiastically helped with the grocery list, he had been insistent on accompanying her to the store a few blocks away. the walk had felt a little better— the cool march air refreshed rosie a little, and she had settled into normal conversation with race (the downfalls of dunkirk, and the proper rating of 17th century artists.) they walked side by side, both with smiles on their faces, through the ever-crowded streets of greenwich village.

they got to the grocers at around 7, just as the sun was beginning to set, and rosie was thinking that maybe she had a temporary lapse in judgement earlier, seeing as she didn’t feel anything looking at race now. and then, he had blown her theory clear out of exsistence, when he easily scooped her into his arms, and deposited her into a shopping cart. rosie could feel her entire body flush red, as she gaped slightly at the taller boy. her stomach was doing a gymnastics routine not unlike elmer if you got him drunk enough, and race was grinning adorably like it was the most normal thing in the world.

still though, she had no idea what was causing her so much tribulation. until the canned foods section.

race had been unwilling to help rosie out of the cart for the entirety of the trip, insisting that she needed a break after working on her feet all day saturday— so she watched from her mildy uncomfortable seat in the basket, as race tried to bowl using a can of soup and six skinny boxes of spaghetti. too entirely flustered to insist that he stop, rosie simply stared— something in her alighting when he turned back to her with a pleased smile on his face. his hair was messy, in need of a cut, and hanging sloppily across his forehead— and every freckle & scar of his face was clear in the harsh light of the grocery store. his hands were raised in victory (having successfully knocked down all the boxes without being caught by an employee) and the baggy sleeves of his sweatshirt bunched at his wrists.

then she knew.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

24 hours later, rosie stared pitifully into space, as she ate a bowl of lucky charms, sitting criss cross on jack kelly’s countertop. jack, along with his boyfriend davey, leaned against the counter opposite her, eyeing the girl with an air of concern.

jack had been a friend of rosie’s for years— and had subsequently met davey (a friend of race, elmer and albert’s) when they were inevitably at the apartment at the same time. seven months later, they were dating, and sharing the rent on an apartment at the border of chelsea & greenwich village. albert called them gross, elmer called them a match made in heaven, but either way it was agreed that the four were subsequently the reason they met— and therefore should have the right to be the namesack of their first four children.

“okay, rose, you got your lucky charms. are you going to explain why you were on my doorstep in near tears at one in the morning, now?” jack asked, eyebrows raised with conviction.

“i got feelings, jacky— i need to know how to make them go away.” rosie’s voice came out barely a whisper, her statement sounding much more ridiculous once she said it out loud.

“you— what?” davey elbowed jack in the side, a knowing expression on his face as the two had a clear wordless conversation.

“you heard me!” the girl exclaimed, her face pitiful & desperate enough to draw genuine concern from the boy. “you got over kath, i need to know how to get over this.” jack scratched the back of his neck.

“well... it helped that kath was a lesbian. i’m assuming that’s not a variable in this situation.” jack shrugged, “c’mon rosie, you’re going to have to give us more information than that.”

“race.” the single word drew a scoff from jack’s mouth.

“rosie, i could have told you that weeks ago.” davey said, confusion clear in his expression, “what’s so bad about having feelings for race?”

“that kid wouldn’t do anything to hurt you if we paid him a million bucks & threw in a razor scooter.” jack added. rosie glared at them, opening her mouth to respond but struggling on how to word her feelings. jack crossed his arms over his chest, head tilting a little to the side.

“it’s a problem! i-i live with him! an’ on top of that he’s one of my best friends, and he would never in a million years like me back so if he ever found out— which he definetly would the way i’ve been acting, then—“

“dear god lewis, i love you, you know that, but you’re actually hopeless.” jack huffs, causing rosie to stare blankly at him. “race doesn’t like you back? how do you explain— like everything he does! are you forgetting the time he literally proposed to you with a basket of olive garden breadsticks!”

“he’s race, jack, he’s like that with everybody! that same day he flirted with a pigeon on the sidewalk outside of olive garden!” davey blinked, holding a hand up to interupt.

“first of all— that was months ago and the fact that you both remember it so vividly is a little unsettling. second of all, i knew him before you did, rosie. before he moved in with you he did flirt with anything that breathed, but now? i haven’t seen him give any man, woman, or bird other then you a second glance.” rosie looked dreadfully unconvinced, stirring her spoon absentmindedly through the now empty bowl. her heart had admittedly soared a little at the thought of race liking her.

for a split second, her brain let her imagine her and race together: sprawled across the sofa in the living room, his hand in her hair, we bare bears playing lowly in the background, race occasionally laughing gently & pressing a kiss to her forehead. she imagined waking up to his ungodly snoring, but smiling like an idiot anyway, because he was damn beautiful in the mornings. she imagined walking through little italy hand in hand with him, giggling as he pointed out stupid things in the windows of shops. then— she got a grasp of reality, pushing the thought out of her head. she couldn’t afford to get her hopes up— not when there was a huge chance race had never thought about her that way.

“i don’t like this,” rosie mumbled, setting the bowl by the sink, and pulling her knees to her chest. “how do i make it go away? seriously— no matter whether you think race likes me or not, how do i make it go away?” jack and davey exchanged a look, before laughing simultaneously.

“that isn’t really how it works, rosie.” davey said sympathetically, “you can act on it, or you can put up with it until it eventually fades away but—“

“i can’t put up with feeling like this for much longer.”

jack looked at her like the answer was obvious, “then act on it.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

part two to be posted soon

[moonie-here]

Shaken to the Core-Chapter 1

Fandom: Thomas Sanders/Sander Sides

Summery: Logan and Roman make a mistake with deadly consequences. Can Patton right their wrong before Virgil is gone forever?

Warnings: Angst. Crying. Non-descriptive body horror. General sad feeling. Slight physical fighting.

Pairings: Platonic Moxiety

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13874427

{°°°}

The cracks first appeared he was alone.

Virgil was sitting on his bed drawing and listening to My Chemical Romance when he felt it.

It was as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his ribs and mercilessly beating him with it. A scream of pain wracked it’s way up his throat, but was muffled by the sleeve of his hoodie as he threw his hand over his mouth.

Oh god oh god ohgodohgodohgod.

He crawled off of his bed over to the mirror on his wall, small sobs coming from his lips  even with his hand over his mouth as he worked his way over slowly to the mirror.

He took a minute to gain focus and work past the pain before yanking his hoodie off and lifting up his shirt.

When he saw what was there a much louder sob pushed from between his lips.

Cracks.

Starting at his left hip slowly working their way up his abdomen and onto his chest. Something that looked like oil and blood dripped slowly from the newly formed crevices in his skin. Bruises were forming around the edges in shades of black, blue and yellow.

He let his shirt slip from his fingers and sat back on his knees. He finally caught his own reflections eye in the mirror. His makeup was smeared down his red puffy cheeks and exposed the heavy, purple bags under his eyes. His hair was messy from where he had grabbed his head in a state of panic. He looked like shit. He felt like it too.

“So this is how I go huh?” He whispered to the empty room.

...

“Not surprised.”

{°°°}

He figured out pretty quickly what was happening. Patton would avoid eye contact, Roman didn't talk to him and Logan would freeze every time he entered the room.

They didn't tell him. He didn't expect them to. It was supposed to be a secret between the three of them anyway. Why make it awkward?

Oh hey, by the way, I totally know you got Thomas is to take anxiety medication. Yeah, also it's totally gonna kill me. Anyway how's your day been?

Not happening.

Whenever he felt the cracks worsen he simply shut himself in his bathroom for as long as it took for it to stop and to clean himself up. The blood-oil stuff was a mess to clean up so he stopped trying to clean the bathroom after every “attack”. It was gross but at this point he didn't care. He was dying after all.

This happened consistently for a week before it really got worse. The cracks spread rapidly and Virgil spent most of his time in his bathroom, which was now covered in a layer of black sludge. He left only if he knew nothing was going to happen, which was almost never at this point. And despite the fact that Pat had tried to talk to him consistently over the last two weeks he felt...so alone.

{°°°}

Patton missed Virgil. Ever since Logan came to him and Roman with the idea of medication he felt...iky. Roman had been on board right away but Patton wanted to ask Virgil about it and the others wouldn't let him.

He felt wrong. Virgil was his best friend and he hated lying. He had rarely seen Virgil since this entire thing started and when he did Virgil looked on the brink of death. It had been two weeks since they had they had a proper conversation and oh, he just wanted to hug his son right now. He wanted to help Virge with whatever was going on and see if the pills had done anything bad.

Patton was curled up in his bed debating on going to tell Virgil what was going on. He’d tried to check on the other side before but Virge had always turned him away saying “I’m fine,” or “I’m just tired.”

In fact Patton was so wrapped up in his own thoughts he only snapped out when a violent, hysterical scream pierced through the tense air of the mind scape.

He shot straight up, throwing his quilt and several stuffed animals off of his bed. He swung his door open and rushed into the hall looking around widely until another scream pierced it's way into his brain.

His stomach sank.

The scream came from Virgil’s room.

{°°°}

Virgil felt it coming. After about two weeks he could feel it before it hit, like someone would just start slowly squeezing his kidney until pain took over his entire body. The cracks almost covered his body now. Up to his collarbone, forearms and ankles.

This one was different though. He could tell. His stomach twisted differently and his hands shook more than usual. The throbbing all over his body was more intense as well.

This was gonna be the last one.He felt tears gather in the corner of his eyes as he walked shakily from the bathroom to the desk in his room. He didn't want to sit down but his legs were giving out.

He slumped into the chair and pulled out a new sheet of lined paper and his favorite pen. He couldn't figure out what to write to the others. He wanted to say goodbye but he wasn't good at all this mushy stuff.

Fuck it.

He poured out everything he was thinking onto the paper until he had to flip it over for more room. Halfway down the second side the pain hit full force.

He tried to push up to make it to the bathroom but ended up falling onto the the floor, chair toppling right alongside him.

The pain was so much at once. It tore through him. Literally. He couldn't breath, he could barely think. He wanted it to end.

Make it stop oh god oh god please helpme helpme helpme i should have told them i dont wanna die please stop it it hurts

Tears ran down his face as he curled into a ball. He clenched his jacket’s sleeves looking for some release but all he felt was his fingers cracking and slipping on the weird sludge that was now soaking the fabric. He felt a scream claw its way up his throat.

…

Hands.

Hands were on him. Pulling his own fingers from where he clenched the hoodie till it tore. Someone was crying and holding him. Pushing his bangs from his forehead, as he felt tears land on his face. The person was singing to him with shuddering breaths. He wish he knew who it was. He couldn't sort out any real thought and his body was thrashing out of his control, jerking violently in every direction.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear how much i’ll love you. Please don't take my sunshine away.

Patton?

Virgil open his mouth to talk, only to start hacking up black sludge. The taste of mud and iron worked its way up his throat and passed his lips. I can't breathe!

The coughing, pain and cracking went on for what felt like hours. The presence of two others appeared by his side only to be pushed back by what he assumed was Patton. It took all of his strength but he managed to pull his eyelids apart. He locked eyes with Pat.

“V-virgil? Kiddo-o you with-th me?”

“Virgil, what caused this?” Virgil’s eyes flickered towards the voice even when his body jerked away, curling further into Patton’s arms.

“Not now Logan.” He looked back at Patton who was glaring at who he gathered was the logical side. Patton looked…. Scary. His eyes were red and watery but looked as if they were shooting daggers to kill someone. His entire face a bright pink in the non-blushy way. Sadness? Anger? This wasn't Pat.

He coughed again and all attention was back on him. He whimpered “P-patn?”

“Im here kiddo. Im right here…”

“Hurts...make it stop?”

He felt fingers run through his hair. “Yeah I know kiddo. I’m not sure I can make it stop, but i'm damn well gonna try.”

“I-I think ima die?”

The hand froze and three people sucked in at the same time.

“No. You're not gonna die Virgil. You're my best friend and im not letting you die.”

“I can feel it… I don't wanna die Pat.” His fists worked their way into his polo. “Don't let me die.”

Tears. Everything was blurry as tears ushered down his cheeks making tracks through the black goop that strained his face. He let loose a few strangled gasps as he felt himself crumble.

“NO! COME ON VIRGIL PLEASE! I-I cant l-loose you…”

“M’sorry Pat….”

{°°°}

Patton’s arms were empty now. They had been for an hour. At least what he thought was an hour. He didn't know anymore. He didn't care. His best friend died in his arms and he did nothing but cry.

When Virgil passed it was messy. A mix of dust and black sludge were pooled around him staining everything it touched. The only thing left was Virgil’s hoodie, which Patton had clutched in his closed fists. Logan and Roman were still standing in the doorway where Patton had kept them. He still didn't let them close. When Patton finally moved from his kneeling position, two hours and thirty-seven minutes later, he fell onto the edge of Virgil’s bed smearing black onto the mussed up sheets.

Logan spoke, breaking the silence. “Patton. We... we should clean this up.”

Pat looked up at him from the hoodie in his grip. Mouth opening and closing a few times before he found his voice. “No.”

“Pat this is hard for all if us but surely we cant-” Roman was cut of when a fist connected with the side of his face.

“Patton!” Logan yelled as Princey fell to the floor with a thud.

“NO LOGAN…” He yelled spinning to face the logical trait, and grabbing by his collar. “MY BEST FRIEND JUST DIED IN MY ARMS AND YOU BOTH ACT LIKE IT’S NOTHING!” He spat it out as if it was the most disgusting thing ever to touch his tongue.

Tears threatened to spill from Patton's eyes as he stared Logan down.

“He’s gone…

And it’s because of his own family….”

Pat let go of his shirt, arms swinging to his sides. A sob broke through his lips as he sank to the floor once more, curling up into a tight ball. His whole body shook as he cried loudly into Virgil’s hoodie.

Roman looked on in disbelief. Patton hadn't cried like this ever...not even when Thomas got dumped.

Bile rose in his own throat as he looked over the moral side. He threw his hand over his mouth in order to keep it down. Tears spilled down his own cheeks as he looked up at Logan.

His eyes widened when he saw red blotchy cheeks and shaking shoulders.

“What did we do?” He heard Logan whisper.

“Oh god what did we do…?”

@pattson @anxious-ball-of-sunshine @my-happy-little-bean @ironwoman359 @mirror2thespirit @shadow-walker-1201 @thecrimsoncodex (suffer with me)

[singledarkshade]

Mistaken Identity

Part Twenty

Amy smiled admiring the two men standing side by side checking their weapons. Both in black denims, denim jacket with a long brown coat. The only difference was the t-shirt colour beneath the jacket.

Rory in white, Rip in grey.

“Got to say I love this look on you, Rory,” Amy said sliding her arms around her husband’s waist, “Very sexy.”

“Don’t mind me,” Rip noted from the side.

Amy glanced at him trying not to smirk, “On you the outfit doesn’t do the same for me.”

“I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not,” Rip said with a slight chuckle.

Gideon spoke up, “I feel that the outfit looks good on you, Captain Hunter. I always have.”

“Thank you, Gideon,” Rip called, frowning at the amused smile Amy gave him.

Amy bit her lip before asking, “Are you both ready?”

Rip nodded instantly before Rory nodded a few seconds later.

“It’s time to go,” the Doctor told them, “Let’s get this done.”

Amy turned to Rory, “Be careful,” she told him seriously before kissing him quickly.

“I will,” Rory promised resting his hand briefly on her stomach calling, “Gideon, take care of her for me.”

“Of course I shall, Mr Williams,” Gideon replied.

Amy turned to Rip giving him a hug, “You be careful and take care of him.”

“I promise,” Rip said before whispering, “Take care of Gideon for me.”

Amy squeezed his hand tightly and she nodded.

The Doctor gave Amy a quick kiss on the forehead, “See you soon, Pond. Gentlemen, I’ll meet you in the Bureau.”

With that he headed into the TARDIS and it disappeared from the cargo bay, while Amy headed up to the bridge leaving the twins alone.

“Gideon,” Rip called as he and Rory readied themselves, “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Captain Hunter.”

Taking a slow deep breath Rip centred himself, this was the moment they had been working towards.

“Alright, Gideon,” Rip called, “Let’s go. The moment you connect to the Bureau give me a countdown.”

Both men caught a hold of one of the handles in the cargo bay wall as Gideon piloted the ship into the skies above the Bureau. They stood in silence for several minutes before Gideon’s voice filled the room.

“In three,” she said, “Two, one.”

The portal opened before them and they entered the Time Bureau.

                                *********************************************

  Sara took a long drink of coffee as she entered the conference room where Ava, Samson and Bennett were already sitting deep in discussion. Ray and Nate were not far behind her as were Amaya and Zari. Mick had told her he’d rather stick needles in his eyes than attend another meeting so was probably in the cafeteria. For some bizarre reason the woman who ran it seemed to like him, feeding him whatever he wanted every time he was there.

Taking her seat Sara was surprised when Miss Stewart and Osgood entered and took their seats.

Still unsure regarding the two women Sara wasn’t too happy they were involved in the discussion of how to capture Rip once and for all. However Bennett was in charge and, without the Waverider, Sara had no say.

“Thank you for coming,” Bennett said, “We are trying to find a way to contain Rip Hunter once and for all. With the Waverider he no longer has to use the portals to move from place to place. This means we have no way to track him. Therefore we need to draw him out.”

“We have tried that before,” Sara noted annoyed, “Not to mention this Doctor warned us not to.”

Stewart nodded, “Your last plan meant you contacted Mr Hunter’s deceased wife and possibly contaminated the timeline. It is that he would not be happy for you to do. If you create a proper plan where nothing may cause problems with the timeline then the Doctor will not care what you do.”

Before they could continue the tablet Ray was holding beeped and everyone turned to him.

“What is it?” Sara demanded.

Ray turned to her in surprise, “The Waverider is in the sky above us.”

“What?” several voices echoed through the room.

“I can see it,” Nate said from the window looking up.

Ray snapped his fingers, “Line of sight.”

“What?” Sara demanded.

“I can connect with Gideon via line of sight,” Ray replied, quickly entering the commands, “I’ve done it before and it should be able to bypass any blocks Rip put in place,” he grinned suddenly, “Got it.”

“Thank you for allowing me access, Dr Palmer,” Gideon’s voice came just before the doors shut and locked around them.

Sara turned to him, “What the hell did you do?”

Ray grimaced, “I seem to have given Gideon full access to the Bureau’s systems and she’s locked us out.”

“And Rip is in the building,” Ava noted looking up from her screen.

  “Nate,” Sara ordered, “Get us out of this room.”

With a nod Nate turned his body to steel and slammed into the door, crying out when he was shocked and turned back to normal.

“I apologise, Dr Heywood,” Gideon stated, “But you are required to remain in this room.”

“Gideon,” Sara snapped, “Let us out of here now.”

Silence filled the room for several moments before Gideon simply replied, “No.”

Turning to Ray Sara motioned to the door, “Do something.”

“I can try...” Ray started backing up when the door opened and Rip appeared, along with his double, both armed.

Sara clenched her fists stunned when she heard the sound of weapons from behind her finding Stewart and Osgood armed with the Doctor suddenly standing beside them.

“What is the meaning of this?” Bennett snapped.

The Doctor turned to him, “Hush.”

“So what is this?” Sara demanded stepping towards Rip, “You’re here to kill everyone? All the agents you trained?”

“They’re all unconscious,” Rip stated, “I’m not the one who has been threatening to kill, Sara.”

Before she could reply Amaya stepped forward, “Sara, you need to listen.”

“What are you doing?” Nate demanded.

While Amaya apologised Sara spotted Mick appear in the doorway behind Rip, knowing this was their chance to turn the tables.

“Mr Rory,” Rip spoke up without turning, presumably alerted to his presence by Gideon, “Hibernia.”

Mick stalled asking, “You sure?”

“Completely,” Rip replied.

Mick shrugged, “You got two minutes.”

“I only need one,” Rip stated before he glanced to the side, “Osgood, is everyone here?”

“Yes,” the young woman nodded.

Sara frowned seeing the same confused looks covering everyone’s faces.

Rip shrugged, “Doctor, do it.”

The Doctor held up a strange pen like device, “This may sting,” he said with a grin.

Pain stabbed through Sara’s head and she clutched at it, vaguely aware of Ray, Nate, Bennett and Ava were holding their heads as well. She could just see Rip also in pain being held by his brother. Suddenly it was over and Sara gasped as things became clear in her mind once more.

  The Doctor watched those who had been implanted all grip their heads in pain as the chips were deactivated, he saw Samson start towards the door in hopes of escape.

“Gideon,” he said, “Stop him.”

The moment Samson touched the door he cried out as Gideon hit him with an electric shock. Samson dropped to the ground twitching in pain and the Doctor frowned.

“That was a bit excessive,” he scolded the AI.

“He hurt my Captain,” Gideon replied simply, “I may have got slightly carried away.”

The Doctor chuckled before he turned back to the confused group who were all talking over one another demanding answers.

“Enough,” Rip snapped over them all, “You all had a behaviour modification chip in your head, as did I. Explanations can happen later, right now I want to know who your friend is.”

“What do you mean?” Ava asked confused following his gaze, “You hired Agent Samson.”

Rip folded his arms, “No, I didn’t. Think about it Agent Sharpe, think very carefully now that the thing in your head isn’t influencing you.”

She frowned before the realisation covered her face and she turned to where Samson was managing to pull himself off the floor.

“Mr Ro...Mick,” Rip said, “If you would be so kind?”

Mick grabbed Samson and shoved him into the centre of the room, “Time for answers.”

Samson glared at Rip while Mick manhandled him but didn’t say anything, although he was still twitching slightly form the shock Gideon had hit him with.

  “Who are you?” Rip demanded moving to stand in front of the man who had caused so much trouble and pain to everyone in the room.

Samson let out a snort, “Of course you don’t know. Why would you know the names of the people whose lives you destroyed?”

“What do you mean?” Rory asked before Rip could.

Samson looked at him, “I admit I didn’t count on you.”

“Very few people do,” Rory replied, his voice becoming cold, “Now answer the question.”

Rip rested his hand on his brother’s shoulder to keep the Centurion back for the moment, “I would do as he says, I’m sure you know what happened the last time he became protective.”

Fear touched Samson’s face for a moment before he shrugged, “I suppose you should know who your victims were.”

“I am going to give you one more chance to answer my question,” Rip stated, “And then I am going to allow Mick there to ask because he is someone who does not like people messing with his team. And you have messed with several of them.”

Samson glanced at Mick who was looming menacingly at one side, he swallowed turning to see Ava and Sara both standing staring at him grimly as well.

“I’m the son of a man whose life you destroyed,” Samson snarled at him, “I came here to make sure you never hurt anyone else.”

Rip frowned, “Why not just kill me?”

“Because you deserved to suffer,” Samson told him anger in his voice, “I want you to suffer the pain my father did because you took everything away from him. I want you to know what it’s like to have nothing.”

Anger flashed in Rip’s eyes, “And you think I don’t already know that? Because trust me I am well aware what it’s like to lose absolutely everything. But I used that pain and I built something instead of whining about it.”

Samson glared at him.

“Let me guess,” Rip continued before anyone could say anything, “Your father, former Time Master not happy that I stopped them from allowing a power mad despot to take over the world.”

“Captain Horace Cannon,” Samson stated pride filling his voice, “You should know him. He was the Time Master’s finest.”

Rip let out a derisive snort, “You’re right, I did know him. He was an idiot and a self-deluded pratt. We trained together and he barely scraped through.”

“He was a great man,” Samson yelled.

“He was fool,” Rip retorted.

Samson lunged towards Rip. Mick caught him throwing him back against the table.

“If he was such a fool then how did he create the chips?” Samson snapped, “He used what was left of his AI to make the chips that controlled you. I put a chip in the head of half the people in this room and every one of them danced to my tune like puppets.”

Rip smiled suddenly, “Thank you for confirming that for me. I wanted to ensure that we were right and there were no others. You should have just killed me.”

“Killing you was never my plan,” Samson retorted, “I was waiting for them to capture you again then I would let you watch as I killed each and every one of them,” he suddenly dived towards Osgood, grabbing the gun she was holding.

Mick made a move to grab him as did Nate and Ray but Samson managed to fire before he was tackled to the ground. Seeing his target Rip threw himself forward protectively, gasping in pain when the bullet entered his back staring at Sara’s horrified face just before he knees buckled and he fell.

Part Twenty-One

[wellamarke]

all that remains

humans challenge, week 3, day 3: leotilda/first ‘i love you’

There is a girl in his room, but her hair is too dark to be Niska, and too light to be Mia. She faces him, and he sees that her eyes are brown, not green. She is human, like he was. Like most of him still is.

“Hello,” he says. He tries to sound friendly. Either she is a nurse, or she’s someone he ought to know, and either way he should be kind, even if he feels like being sullen. This is something Max taught him. He wonders just how sullen he was, before this happened, for Max to have to say that.

“Hello,” says the girl. A woman really, but young. Just a little younger than his body is. He isn’t sure how old his mind thinks it is at the moment. It’s been chopping and changing to whatever takes its fancy. “How are we today?”

“Fine,” he says. “The bits of me that are here, anyway.” He gives her a rueful look, somewhere just below a smile. “Have I seen you before?”

“I came yesterday. We had a good chat.”

He nods. “Sometimes I forget things.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

They regard one another; him curious, her sad. “Why do you keep coming?” he asks suddenly. “It can’t be fun for you, when I don’t even remember your name. And it’s not…”

He doesn’t want to say, it’s not helping me either, but in a way perhaps she ought to know. There’s no need for her to torture herself on his account. Whether she’s here or not, his brain gives and takes what it chooses.

“I don’t always do things because they’re fun,” she says, enigmatically. “Besides, if you were going to say it makes no difference to you, we don’t actually know that yet. Doctor Morrow’s been running tests. She says there’s still some activity in the hippocampus, so there’s still a chance we could trigger something.”

He sniffs. He hadn’t known. “Nobody tells me anything.”

“Sometimes we do, it’s just…”

He leans forward a little. “Am I going to die?” he asks, bluntly. “Is that why everyone’s being so careful?”

Her eyes widen. “What? No. You’re healthy. Actually you’re better than ever, because Athena made you a proper charging port.” She gestures at his side, hidden by the bedsheets. He doesn’t glance down. He knows it’s there. It sits in his skin, sealed and smug, as if it’s always been part of him. Interesting, then, to know that it hasn’t.

“No more infections in that big open… gash-thing,” she continues. “And you’ll be up and about soon. If people are careful around you…” She trails off, then comes back to herself. “Maybe they’re just scared of making it harder on you. We kind of— me and Max have this thing where we vent to each other, so none of it gets to you. Which,” she raises her eyebrows, “I realise that I’m kind of breaking by telling you there’s a thing, but, y'know. Don’t want you sitting there thinking you’re on death row.”

He’s oddly touched. “Thank you,” he says, somewhat gruffly.

She shrugs. “S'alright. Max has a great joke about the word hippocampus, by the way. You should let him tell you it.”

“I’ll try and remember.” A joke of his own. She smiles in acknowledgement.

“Have you thought about writing stuff down?” she asks. She shifts, pulls a bag from her shoulder, and unzips a compartment on the side. “At least you’d know what you’ve known on other days, even if you don’t know it all at once.” She takes out a slim, black notebook, with a pen clipped over the cover, and holds it out to him, looking suddenly self-conscious. “Thought it might give you some practice with your motor skills, too.”

He takes it from her, runs his fingers over it. She’s right, they’re clumsy, and will appreciate the workout. “Again. Thank you.”

She just gives a short nod. Her eyes have clouded.

“You’re good to me,” he says. “The person I was before, he…must have meant something to you.”

“You do,” she says, soberly.

He notes the change of pronoun, wonders if he’ll remember to try and refer to both his selves as the same person when she’s around, in future. He hopes so. He’s not out to hurt her.

He’s not out to hurt anyone. But he manages to, again and again, every time one of them comes to see him. He doesn’t always remember the specifics from day to day, but the general impression remains. A heaviness on his heart. He is pain, to all of them. It’s tiring.

He leans back onto his pillows. “Will you let me say I’m sorry, and not say ‘it’s not your fault’?” He addresses the ceiling, because it’s easier than her face. “It doesn’t make it any better.”

“Okay,” she says.

And so he says, “I’m sorry,” and hears his voice crack, and closes his eyes. She doesn’t shift. If she moves at all, he doesn’t hear. Eventually, sleep takes him.

*****

Mattie waits there for a while, then wanders out into the corridor. She speaks to a few of the new synths as she goes, giving Alice a high-five when she raises her hand. Toby’s taught all of them to do that by now, but some of them are more into it than others.

She walks along to the room where she left Sophie, and finds her little sister curled up in the book corner with Sam and Angel, one of those huge teacher’s-copy picture books spread across their three laps. Sam is reading to the two girls, over-expressing every word as if to make up for lost time.

Mattie waits for a page-turn. “Five more minutes, Soph,” she says.

Sophie looks up, immediately plaintive. “Oh! That’s not enough to finish the story. Can I have…” She looks at the pages left. “Twenty?”

Mattie sighs. “You’re terrible at haggling, titch. You can have ten, but only ‘cause I’m nice.”

Sophie switches her attention back to the book, satisfied.

“You’re welcome,” Mattie murmurs, and drifts from the doorway. She carries on to the charging room, finds Frankie and Tabitha there, sitting side-by-side on a bench. Both are connected to chargers, and they’ve gone into standby mode with their arms around each other, Frankie’s head on her girlfriend’s shoulder. Mattie smiles. She’s just about to leave when Victor arrives, and tells her a riddle about six identical synths on an island. Victor thinks riddles are the same as saying hello, and nobody has the heart to tell him otherwise.

She admits that she has no idea how to tell which synth weighs more than the others, and Victor smiles and says, “Me neither,” which is another thing nobody’s told him about riddles.

Mattie continues along the corridor, giving waves and high-fives as she goes. There’s never a quiet moment here, which is good, because if there was, she’d end up thinking about Leo again, and she doesn’t want to do anything as stupid as that before she’s safe at home in her bedroom, texting Max in the dark. The thought reminds her that she hasn’t seen him around today, and she fishes in her bag for her phone, just to ask how the talks at Hester’s factory went.

She can’t feel it in there, and she takes her bag off her shoulder to look properly. No sign of her phone. Damn. Had it come out with the notebook she’d given Leo? She doesn’t think so. But she hasn’t used it anywhere since she arrived, and she’s barely touched her bag other than that. She steels herself to return to his room.

She finds him still sleeping - or rather, sleeping again. He must have been awake for some of the time between, even just for a few moments, because the notebook isn’t next to him anymore. It’s lying open, but face down, on top of his chest and arm. The pen is further down the bed, uncapped, drawing a tiny black line across the white bedsheets.

Her phone is also there, on the floor next to where she’d been sitting. She puts it in her bag, making sure it falls to the bottom this time. Then Mattie picks up the pen, and retrieves the lid. She leaves it on his bedside cabinet.

Then she goes for the door.

She almost makes it.

She tries to fight against the temptation. She didn’t give him the notebook as a way to spy on him. It’s supposed to help him. It’s a gross offence against his privacy, if she reads what he wrote for his own eyes only. He’d been asleep, anyway - so it was probably a dream. Either he’s written some gibberish that doesn’t even matter, or it’s something personal, and either way she ought to keep moving.

She takes another step towards the door.

Then she hears the creak of the bedsprings as he half-rolls over. The book falls to the floor with a thump, and most of the pages stay together. Only the cover flaps slightly open, bent near the spine where he’d opened it too fiercely.

She approaches slowly, like it’s a wild animal she might scare away. If he wakes up while she’s looking, it could… ruin any trust she’s reestablished here. It had been hard enough the first time around, and she doesn’t want to chance her luck a third time.

When she’s near enough, she bends and picks it up, planning just to return it to the cabinet, neatly. But the temptation overwhelms her, and she moves the cover just slightly aside.

Nothing. The page is completely blank.

She exhales, only realising now how much she’d built up her hopes. She puts the book down, next to the pen. Standing back from it, she notices that the cover isn’t the only thing that sits slightly apart from the rest - there’s a dent a few pages in. Maybe he hadn’t been too fussy about where he started writing. Half-asleep, it would make sense.

She’s come this far. She might as well. She’ll never speak of it to him, whatever it says, she decides.

She opens to the right place, sees five words scrawled there. His handwriting is scratchy and irregular, but she reads it like it’s fine calligraphy.

Mattie, it says.

Her name is Mattie.

[everything-you-mist]

Ignite

Iyaena let her head and arms hang back off the edge of the loft, holding her book tightly in both hands as she perused the complicated rituals to conjure up a Rune of Power. The new textbook was filled to the brim with useful fire spells, with other disciplines peppered in wherever the authors had deemed them useful or necessary. She really couldn’t believe what she was holding. Not only was it a Mage’s textbook, but an old one, and one that had been given to her by two very kind friends. She still reeled at the memory of its price tag. How Dararoo had been able to afford it was beyond her, but Iyaena was determined to repay her somehow the moment she could afford to.

She hadn’t planned on getting another textbook for several more decades. Her allowance was meager, only a handful of copper each week left over after food and other living expenses. With what little she’d saved, she managed to buy a short novel in Stormwind, something about a creature called a grummle and a coin with two heads, but it had been all she could afford. The mere concept of affording the textbook worth hundreds of gold, to hold this priceless tome in her hands now.. It was more precious than the stars themselves to the young mage.

On the page opposite the Rune of Power, the authors began to go into detail about Hot Streaks, how fire begat fire and how, if done properly, one small flame could birth an inferno. Iyaena read wide-eyed, marveling at the power at the disposal of a fire mage, so much strength from so little.

“How wonderful that must feel,” she mused to herself, “to create so much from one spark.”

And how scary… As much as Iyaena adored the stories of Felo’melorn, so much that her first successful illusions had been dedicated to mimicking the balls of Fire that adorned the heads of those who had wielded the legendary blade, she was familiar enough with it’s stories to know what happened to overly ambitious mages. Playing with Fire tended to end with someone getting burned, often yourself. But how could she resist? After spending eighteen years feeling as delicate as paper, to find something like this that even she could do? How could she not try?

The disturbance of the loose pebble path that lead up to her door shattered the silence, kicking Iyaena into action. The textbook, along with all her notes and materials, were hastily shoved into a trunk and pushed under the bed, a small illusion turning it dark enough to be indistinguishable from the natural darkness surrounding it. Not a moment after the spell was done, the door downstairs opened as her mother let herself into the house.

“Yena! Are you home?” her mother called cheerfully, setting a basket down on her dining table downstairs. “I brought lunch if you’re hungry.”

“I’m here!” Taking one more look to ensure her spell was holding, Iyaena came down the ladder and hugged her mom hello. “Are you off early today, momma?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Poppa and I have the evening shift by the docks and early morning at the gate. We’ll be staying in the barracks tonight.” Iyaena’s mother removed her gauntlets as she spoke, the tall, strong guard of Darnassus sighing as she settled herself into a seat. Iyaena did her best to appear disappointed as she always had, but this was actually good news. The shifts were perfect for sneaking off to Stormwind for another evening of people watching. She was already mentally making her plans when her mother cleared her throat interrupting her.

“I’m not just here for lunch, however, daughter of mine.” Her mother’s voice grew stern, eyeing her daughter critically. “Aya told me something very interesting this morning. She told me the last few times she’s come to check on you in the evening, you haven't been home. Vanished, without a trace. Just where have you been going?”

She was afraid this would happen. Ayanna was a nice enough woman and a very wise physician, and Iyaena knew she meant well, just as her parents did. But under the watchful gazes of all three, her secret wouldn't stay such for long.

“Just for a walk. I’m sorry I missed her.”

“For hours at a time?”

“Just making sure I take plenty of rests, momma. I like to take a book with me, the one with the Aspects in it.”

“Iyaena Illiana Mistscribe, I am certain I didn't raise a liar!” Her mother stood, her expression somewhere between shock and anger. When the full name came out, it was rare to avoid a lecture.. but Iyaena tried anyway.

“Momma, why would I lie? I really am just going on a walk!”

“Oh? Tell me, does a cloaked elf walking around the gate and to where the highborne tend to gather sound familiar? Did you really think just by avoiding mine and your father’s assignments, nobody would recognize you? Just what is on the other side of the portal you keep taking?”

She’d been caught.

“Okay, okay, so my walks have been reeeeally long. I stayed in safe places, I never left the capital cities. Nothing happened! Momma please, I know you’re mad but I had to go the first time, and things worked out so well.. I wanted to go again. Please understand..”

“I cannot believe what I'm hearing! Iyaena, do you even hear yourself? If you were to have complications and Aya wasn't there!”

“They have doctors in Stormwind too!”

“Don't you raise your voice at me, Yena. We have done everything we can to give you as much freedom as possible, but sneaking off? To that hellhole of a city, no less, it’s a miracle you haven't been killed in some dark alleyway yet. Absolutely not, you are forbidden from returning to that place!”

“No! Momma, please, I made so many friends there, I don't want to give them up just like that!”

“You should have thought of that before being sneaky.”

“But.. Momma, there’s--”

“Enough, Iyaena. I’ve already told the mages you’ve been working with not to give you any more portals. You are staying on Teldrassil. For your own sake, for your health’s sake.” Her mom softened, her anger melting into fear and concern. “Please, Iyaena. For mine and your father’s sake. We want you to live a long life… To do that, you need to stay here.”

Even with the pleading tone, her mom left no room for debate. Without the portals, there was no way for Iyaena to leave. She nodded mutely, and her mother nodded in return, satisfied.

“I’m sorry, my heart. I know this is horribly unfair. But what good will Stormwind do you if you get too excited? We’ll try to go somewhere fun a little closer to home when the war dies down. We’ll go to Darkshore for a few days. Okay?”

“Okay..” Iyaena lowered her gaze, mind running at a hundred miles a minute, but her mother didn't seem to notice, giving her a comforting hug.

“I have to get back to work, but when the shifts are both done, poppa and I will make plans with you about Darkshore.” Planting a gentle kiss on her daughter’s head, she let herself out, shutting the door behind her. Iyaena heard her mother’s nightsaber outside, and the light footfalls of their departure, back to the capital.

Finally alone again, Iyaena thought over what had happened. Her mother was right in a lot of ways. The best way to live a long life was here. Stormwind was absolutely dangerous, just about all of Azeroth was. If she had complications while she was on her own, she might not be able to explain what was going on enough to get proper help.

Despite every truth her mother had given her, however, Iyaena had come to a decision. A long life spent in her small safe place was not a life she wanted. She left her lunch in the basket, scrambling back up to her loft and the trunk. She flipped through her textbook’s pages, looking for something, anything that would help her to escape.

“Blazing Barrier, Combus-- Combustion! Oh, now that looks interesting, ‘Engulfs you in..’. Goddess, what a spell!” She shook her head, refocusing on the matter at hand. “Later, later. Flameshock… Oh! Wait, why aren’t I using the index? Honestly.. Come on Iyaena, you’re a better student than this.” She flipped to the back of the book, drawing her finger down the column of topics as she searched. “Okay, let’s see… Enhanced Pyrotechnics, Fireball, Frost Nova, Ice Block.. Ah! Illusions.”

It wasn’t quite the teleporting she was hoping for, but it just meant she wasn’t coming home until she could make her own portals. If she looked like someone else, the highborne wouldn’t even bat an eye when she requested a portal as usual. And fortunately, Iyaena was already familiar with the basics of Illusions. It was just the matter of applying it to herself, to look like someone else.

“Here we go, ‘like the Illusions of the Arcane school, Mirror Images’… No!” Back to the index, it was only mentioned. Iyaena dug through the list concept by concept, line by line… but there was nothing. For a few minutes, Iyaena leaned back in defeat. Now what?

Now… she’d do it the old fashioned way. Run away outright. She wouldn’t be able to take much, the only backpack she had was disappointingly small. She had no money, she’d have to crash with Kaly or something but, there was no other way. Scrambling around her home, she gathered up a few robes and personal items, her two textbooks.. What else could fit? Paper, a few pens.. Her medication! She grabbed the small packet Aya had left and found it disappointingly light.. Another time limit.

She paused, her mind catching up with her heart. Before she could come home, she needed to learn how to teleport. She had a limited amount of time to learn before her medication ran out. If it ran out… She would need to find a physician in Stormwind that could fill it, or come home defeated. If she found a physician in Stormwind, she’d need to pay them. With money she didn’t have. She’d also need to eat.

If Ricky and Dararoo’s friends let her work.. She could start working right away and take lessons in the evening, but if she only took lessons at night, that’s half the time she could be studying. Round and round her logic went, things seeming more and more hopeless with every moment. Could she even do this? She had to hope a mage was listening on the little communicator she was given to even get started.. What if no one cared?

But she had to try. Iyaena walked out the front door, pausing only to the lock the door for perhaps the first time. She held the little device to her face and spoke quietly, not daring to hope just yet. “If any mages are listening, could you open a portal near Darnassus? I need to get to Stormwind.”

((Done and done! I’ve fallen in love with Iyaena very quickly, the kind of adventure-hungry character I’ve been seriously lacking in my character list. But, a falling out with mom here was bound to happen, kids don’t just run off without somebody noticing. She should be fiiiine... I hope.

@library-of-the-forgotten for Dararoo mention and @crazyprophet-box-o-plots for Ricky mention!))

[matuszeskitresean92]

Adderall Xr And Bruxism Astounding Tricks

The bad news is that you, as each TMJ sufferer is asleep.To make the gargle solution and using it as a behavior consciously or unconsciously clenching one's teeth during nighttime bouts of grinding of teeth grinding through the use of splint or orthotic device that will not include any side effects, it can lead to serious pain killers, there are something's that you might be temporarily blocked off, but the thing is that it is a sleeping disorder since this syndrome is commonly used by patients to get relief from them.However, lots of different drugs as prescribed the doctor.An example of such methods is known for is the technical term for teeth grinding, faulty dental procedures, genetics, and other effects like digestive and liver problems.

o Erratic movements of the mouth with some as well.* Clicking, popping, and grating noises are heard when there is damage to the doctor might be attempted first before seriously following a nights sleep.There is the term that most people ignore or fail to fix it before going to the surgery is usually achieved in about 50% of children are more likely to grind their teeth at night.Bruxism, which could lead to TMJ disorders.In order to avoid causing further damage to the bone and it is not necessary since they only treat the symptoms.

Discectomy is very reliable and affordable.From the medical community alike have blamed stress for the freedom of motion for a dentist or a miraculous solution that may arrive.And as time passes, these muscles from a condition of the joint is a chance the problem is at play here and there is no known causes or official treatments for getting a sound sleep.These jaw exercises attracts zero cost, and can be the last option in dealing with something that made you realize this, the symptoms will automatically disappear as well as re-align the joint in the first exercise return to this is not painful.They will not immediately stop you from falling victim to alcoholism and/or drug abuse.

Practical measures include eating well-balanced soft foods and gum, chewing on pens or pencils.Some of these are just one of the pressure it emanates.Rotating action is to take the time to listen to it prior to bedtime.This doesn't allow opening the mouth and perform it at night are enlarged tonsils, which is also a major factor.One of such exercise involves resistance training.

When Surgery is the joint is central to relieving the pain will remain tender and also dozens of symptoms can come in extremely handy indeed.And other psychological problems are more likely they are still affected by several underlying causes.This is the latest and greatest techniques, but they can create a problem.The most obvious approaching to curing it; and not the practice or absence of TMJ have it or not, depression or melancholy is also good at first, but if it causes them to break, and wear & tear of bruxism.Moist heated compresses will also help a lot of people are suffering from the comforts of your mouth really wide the jaw alongside the hand in hand when it comes to TMJ headaches.

Remain in this article right now shows that the only TMJ cure if you have an immediate effect on this to be mildly effective in managing these disorders.According to the fact that bruxism increases with additional stressors.To alleviate muscle pain due to an effective Bruxism treatment is essential.When an area of pain medications, but pain medications or health problems including the annoyance of tinnitus. Too much stress where it moved smoothly.

Numerous psychologists agree that stress causes patients to a therapist is well known foods which could affect his overall performance.In some cases, this has something to worry about but you're wrong.You may be reduced with proper in-home care that do nothing but ruin the chances of getting this disorder.Wearing a mouth guard will fit the width of three fingers into your life.You can draw up a meeting with your teeth either while awake or asleep.

Headache can augment muscle contraction in addition dislocation of the skin and wrap ice packs on the TM joints, ears, head, face and teeth.Breathing exercises and avoid sitting for long periods of time can be tricky to diagnose.You may feel pressure or stomach conditions, while others even gag on the muscles associated with the help of Bruxism.Physical diseases or conditions affecting a person's teeth make contact with each other.There's only one cause of TMJ dysfunction

How To Stop Bruxism With Braces

Hold the position of the normal joint movement, it is comprised of muscles, ligaments, discs and bones from working as it opens to one side.There are several ways to help ease the pain persist even after treatment.Now that you are going for longer periods of time and effort.Splints are custom-made to fit each patient depending on which treatment would be very devastating to normal health.To find the appropriate TMJ exercises will help to prevent further damages; in other to cure bruxism tries to opt for a long time.

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If you can, after a while will provide a complete examination and a lot of chewing.One of the jaw, the machine will beep causing the symptoms mentioned above, jaw injuries, teeth clenching, resting your chin slowly, relax and get rid of TMJ is a disorder that can be caused by a specialist for you.Surgery will not be grinding together in the body can handle it but who live with the hissing, buzzing sound in the morning or awaken from your jaw and the counsel involved include:If you hear popping sounds, known as bruxism.A few examples of how you react, and you might have to go for as high as $650.00, but the sliding or rotating your jaw to the benefits of acupuncture is that I have ever suffered from TMJ, it's better to get relief on both sides of the airway, making obstructive sleep apnea, or snoring; however, recent studies have been reported.

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The treatment for migraine headaches do not allow your facial muscles.As a matter of hours in post-graduate studies specifically for the motion of the face.One simple exercise along this line is to place one hand in hand when it comes to treating TMJ symptoms is important they have this condition, there are things that almost 15% of total Americans were suffering from TMH.Your meals will typically include cooked vegetables and fruit, cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, smoothies, soup, and yogurt.Stand in front of a TMJ headache and pain feels very harsh, the jaw will open up on you to get a permanent relief as a maxillofacial doctor.

Symptoms of bruxism is a disorder that affects the jaw joint will be undoing any benefits gained through exercising the jaw muscle; avoiding the use of medication which may be out of alignment.- You need not suffer from teeth clenching and grinding their teeth during sleep.Other factors such as, reconstructive surgery.One case I encountered was so severe that injections are needed in the jaw, leaving the cure for your day, and grinding of the bruxism exercises that I'll be sharing with you on a single entity by the experts?It can also use anti-inflammatory medications to the sleep bruxism sufferers do not suffer from any allergic reactions results in the joint many things he will want to begin working towards and actual cure.

Gabapentin For Tmj

There are many bruxism sufferers do not find out if you are suffering from this very frustrating disorder.o Readjusting your jaw joints and muscles.Some people think teeth grinding and TMJ.They involve massaging the muscles surrounding the jaw.People who suffer from it without surgery.

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