#and YET. i have a house. it is warmer than the outside. i have food in the house. I have time to fix it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

novvabee · 2 months ago

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And They Were Roommates pt.10

summary: friendsgiving, you meet all the slytherins, this kinda doesn't contain a lot, just meeting new characters and wholesome interactions, i might make a part two to this lmao

cw: casual drinking? firewhisky is mentioned but you can interpret it in any way you want really

word count: 2.1k

“Stop that, Siri,” you scolded, swatting at his hand, “It’ll never boil if you keep stirring it.”

You were at the stove, boiling water for potatoes, or trying to at least. Sirius, bless him, wanted to help out, but he was really just in the way if not a downright hazard in the kitchen.

“You told me to boil and stir, those are my duties and I take them very seriously.” He said with a chuckle at the last part. You rolled your eyes and scooted him out of the way.

You had already baked a lovely cake, and helped James cook some chicken and pasta, the last thing you had to make were the mashed potatoes. Remus had cooked up some veggies and was storing them in the warmer.

About a week ago, you suggested a “friendsgiving” to the boys. They had no idea what you were talking about, staring at you and blinking blankly as you explained the concept. You just wanted to have your friends over, all under one roof, and eat yummy food and play fun games. It sounded easy, in theory, but it turned out to be a lot more work than you were expecting, especially since one of the three boys could not cook to save his life. You decided to put Sirius in charge of drinks and entertainment and that appeased him.

The house was a rush for a couple days, you all decorated and figured out recipes you were going to make for the whole group. Then there was the inviting everyone and setting a time that everyone was available. It was like herding cats.

Your friends, Mary, Lily, and Marlene, were all easy. They communicated and organized and everything went off without a hitch. But Sirius wanted to invite his brother and some friends that you had yet to meet and they seemed…. Well a little less communicative and organized, but that was apparently very normal for them, none of the boys were upset by it.

“Remus,” you called into the other room. The tall boy appeared on the doorway in an instant. “Would you please help me finish the food?” you asked sweetly, batting your lashes to really drive it home.

Remus smirked and rolled his eyes. “Only if I have to.” he replied jokingly.

Sirius whined from beside you where Remus was now moving him out of the way. “Well what am I supposed to do?” he said, pushing out his bottom lip in a fake pout.

You looked at him and smiled, knowing his antics, he was only wanting to stay in the kitchen so he could “test” everything you were making. “Why don't you help James?” you suggested. James was in the living room, setting up some fall-ish decor which included strings of leaves he found outside. He claimed the colors were too pretty to be left out in the cold, so he hung them up insead. It was cute.

Sirius huffed and exited the kitchen. You continued on cooking, a little faster and more efficient now that Remus was actually helping you. It was a little while later, as you were finishing up, you heard some muffled arguing in the other room. You and Remus gave each other a confused look, then went to go and see what all the commotion was.

You entered the living room and it was completely transformed into a fall wonderland. There were strings of leaves hung up across the ceiling, carved little woodland creatures strewn about, candles lit everywhere, and a fire stoked in the fireplace. The room had a warm glow to it. You stood there in awe, taking it all in. Maybe you should put Sirius on decorating duty more often.

“How did you do all this? And.. you were in here for like ten minutes, how?” you asked, still in shock.

Sirius smirked at you. “Magic,” he drawled, shoving what looked like one of the decorative sticks into his back pocket. James shook his head at Sirius, and Remus coughed from beside you. You couldn’t believe it, he and James must have worked really fast.

Your attention was drawn to the door, hearing a knock and some cheerful chatter. You smiled, instantly knowing who it was.

You opened the door and were met with the sight of Mary, Lily, and Marlene, all holding dishes they made.

“Hello love!” Mary sang, kissing you on the cheek before stepping inside. You hugged both Marlene and Lily and let them in as well.

“I can’t believe you actually live with them,” Marlene said to you while handing her dish off to James. “I mean, if you ever need an escape, just let me know and you can come stay with me instead.” she said, conspiring against her friends.

You laughed but answered, “I like it here, the boys are lovely.”

Marlene blinked at you in shock. “The boys? Lovely?”

“They better be,” Lily chimed in, glaring at both Sirius and James.

The latter held his hands up in defense as the former confirmed “We’ve been on our best behavior.”

All of you settled in, the girls leaving their dishes on the long table that James had somehow conjured up early this morning. You all found space on the couches or chairs or just on the carpeted floor. Conversation was lively, they all were recounting stories about their school days.

You learned a little bit more about the boys through the eyes of the girls. Apparently Remus was known as sort of a “casanova” in their years at school, James and Sirius got detention every day for three months but were able to sweet talk their way out of it after only a week, and that they had once set a fire in their common room.

“It was small!” James defended himself and his friends. “And we put it out eventually, didn't we?”

“Yes, because I supplied the water!” Lily laughed, making the rest of the room chuckle along with her.

“What about you, Y/N? You have any harrowing tales from school?” Mary asked.

You shook your head and let your gaze fall to the floor. “I was way too shy to do anything bad or adventurous in school.” you supplied.

“You never got into trouble?” James asked. “Not even once?”

“I mean…Not for anything like setting a common room on fire.” you shot back at him, jokingly. James smiled at you, the perfect, warm smile that he often reserved only for you. The type of smile that would instantly heat your face.

You were grateful for the knock at the door, taking the attention away from you and your growing blush.

Sirius jumped up and raced to the door, opening it to reveal a boy you had yet to meet. He looked almost exactly like Sirius, the only differences were his shorter hair and his sharper features, almost cat like.

“Reggie!” Sirius exclaimed, wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug. The boy stiffened a bit but pat Sirius on the back. "You didn’t make anything?”

The boy furrowed his eyebrows. “Why would I make anything? Can’t we just-”

“Regulus! It’s been too long” Mary called out, skipping up to him and hugging him as well.

“Where are the other two?” James asked.

The boy shrugged. “Honestly I don’t know, I told them I was leaving at 5:00 and for them to be in the car. I left at 5:00.” he said plainly, making James chuckle.

“And they weren't in the car?” James asked again.

“They were not in the car.” The boy confirmed smiling slightly, just the corners of his mouth, but somehow it lit his face up entirely. He turned to you, looking you up and down. “Hello, I’m Regulus.”

“Hi, I’m Y/N.” you said, giving him a small wave. “I’m their new roommate.” you explained, nodding your head to where James stood beside you.

“Oh right, Sirius mentioned you,” he said. You couldn’t really get a read on him, didn’t know if he liked you or not, if he was friendly or not.

You were saved by Marlene inserting herself into the conversation by asking, “So Reggie, uh, do you know who else is coming?”

Regulus turned his attention to her and smirked. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Oh yeah, Pandora is coming. Can’t wait to see her.” He smiled at her like he knew something, like he was onto some game she might be playing.

“Cool, yeah! Love Pandora. I’m, uh, excited to see her too.” she said quickly, then walked away. Regulus and James laughed.

There was another knock on the door, Sirius again opened it and revealed two girls standing side by side. One with dark brown hair and the coolest clothes you had ever seen, the other with blonde hair and an eccentric aura around her. The blonde was holding a tray of baked goods and the brunette was holding some sort of bottle.

They said their hellos to everyone before the blonde stopped right in front of you. “You must be Y/N! It is so lovely to meet you. I am excited to get to know you more, I’m Pandora by the way.” she said in an airy type of voice. She seemed sweet, kind. You were excited to get to know her more too.

“Yeah, nice to meet you too.” you said.

“I made pumpkin pasties, I hope that's alright with you.” she said, motioning with the tray in her hands.

“Oh, uh, yeah that’s great, thank you so much.” you started, “I’ve never had one before so, I’m happy to try one!” you finished, trying your best to match her cheeriness.

“Never had a pumpkin pasty?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “They are practically all I would eat when I was at-”

“I’ll take that.” Remus interjected, taking the tray gently from her hands.

“Oh Remus! How have you been? I was wondering about…” she started, getting distracted from you and following Remus into the kitchen.

The other girl now stood in front of you. “Hey, I’m Dorcas.” she said. (you noticed Marlene blushing in the corner, eyeing her. Is this who she was hoping would show up…)

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you repeated to her. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” she echoed the formality. “So… you’re living here now? With them?” she nodded to Remus and James in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” you said, nodding.

She handed you the bottle in her hand. “This is for you, I think it may come in handy living with that bunch.” she laughed, her voice smooth and soft. “It’s whiskey.”

You giggled and thanked her, taking the bottle. “Drinks, anyone?” you asked, raising the bottle up for all to see. There was an assortment of yes’s and agreements. You made your way to the kitchen to start handing out drinks.

Everyone was mingling and drinking, making their way to the table. You sat between Remus and Dorcas, talking to her about clothes and jewelry. She was wearing some of the coolest rings you had ever seen and you needed to know where she got them. “Oh here,” she said, handing you one you had asked about.

“W-what no. I couldn’t” you stuttered, shocked that she would be willing to give it up. Like she had known you for years, like you were sisters sharing clothes.

“No, don't worry about it, think about it like a house warming present or something.” she explained, popping the ring on the placemat in front of you. “Besides, I like making my own rings, I can always make another.”

You thought right then that she may be the coolest girl you had ever met.

There was yet another knock at the door. “Late as always!” Mary sang from the other side of the table, making the room laugh. Pandora was the one who jumped from her seat and made for the door.

“Evan!” you heard her call out. She re-entered the room with two boys behind her. The first boy was tall, almost as tall as Remus, and blonde like Pandora. The other was slightly shorter and had green streaks dyed into his black hair. The second boy was holding a pie.

“I told you I was leaving at 5:00” Regulus muttered from one of the heads of the table.

“We made a pie.” the one with the green streaks said, extending out the pie he was holding.

Lily crossed her arms over her chest and raised a brow “you made a pie?” she said with an accusatory tone.

The green haired boy smiled. “We bought a pie, and the pie is here.”

You stood and walked up to the two new boys. You introduced yourself and took the pie, telling them to follow you to the kitchen so they could grab drinks as well.

“I never thought the day would come when I would be jealous of the marauders.” you heard the green haired boy, whose name you learned was Barty, mumble to the tall blonde boy, whose name was Evan, Pandora’s twin brother.

so this one was so fun to write even though nothing really happened, I just like to flesh out all their personalities kinda... idk. also there is so much magic in this one if you're looking for it. I do wanna do a pt.10 pt.2 lmao but that is so silly

taglist 💌:@too-efn-old-to-be-here @cometsghost @eeviee4 @giuli-in-earth @spicybearnaise @the-lavender-girl @adharalikethestar @champomiel @itsleroyposts @enamoredwithbella @babymash @ilovejamespottersomuch @liszblog @sammyreid @kiaslily @idkman5335 @willowlovestheweasleys @lady-balem @nislame @latenightreadingpdf @v-loves-frogs @meggishhhh @mooonyxoxo @sodavrr @notmonstersapocalipse @plk-18 @prettylittlewrites

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dazedandconfused-15 · 6 months ago

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Heaven's in your eyes (Part 3)

If you guys like it, I would greatly appreciate a reblog, it helps spread this fanfic around🫶

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Female Reader

Summary: Life in Hawkins is dull and lonely, especially after your mom abandoned your family, leaving you even more isolated amidst school rumors. Already shy and with few friends, you find solace in your solitude—until Billy Hargrove, the intriguing new boy from California, comes into the picture. To your surprise, Billy seems to seek you out, finding ways to talk to you despite the odds. Never in a million years would you have imagined forming such an unexpected bond with someone.

Link to: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4

@tatumrileyslover @littlenosoul @nocturnest Part 3 is here!!

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You weren't sure how things would go with Billy after that night. Technically, you still owe him for the day at the museum, There are parts of Hawkins he hadn’t seen yet. Plus, you hadn’t talked about when or if you’d see each other again outside of school. So, it's a surprise when the following week, as you're grabbing books from your locker, you feel a presence behind you—the warmth of someone's body lightly brushing against your back. You look up and see a hand resting on your locker. Turning around, you met his curious and slightly amused eyes.

"Oh! Hey, you scared me…”

"I saw that," he replies. "Am I that ugly?"

You stay still, feeling the cold metal of the locker against your back, aware that some students are probably watching you. But Billy doesn't seem bothered by this; if anything, he seems indifferent. He's wearing the same black leather jacket he lent you the other night, over a partially unbuttoned black shirt. He knows he’s not ugly, and you know he’s teasing you. But his closeness throws you off, and you can’t find the words to play along. You stumble over a nonsensical and incomplete sentence. Meanwhile, he takes the books from your hands and moves his hand away from the locker, finally giving you space, and it feels like you can breathe again.

"Physics?" he asks, looking at the first book on the pile in his hands.

"Uh, yeah." You turn to close your locker, taking the opportunity to pull yourself together. "It's my first class, actually."

"Sweet. I'll walk you there."

"Oh, okay. Thanks." You struggle to hide your astonishment as you walk toward the classroom with him beside you.

And during the following days, he does the same. He makes it seem so natural that it slowly becomes routine for you. In history class, he sits next to you. During lunch break, you sit at the table at the back of the cafeteria. He always sits at a table next to Jason Carver, Chrissy Cunningham, and other popular jocks, but between bites of food, he always gives you a look. Eventually, at the end of the meal, he always gets up from their table and comes over to sit beside you. In history class, he always sits next to you. Strangely, Tommy Hagan makes no comment. After the first few times, the rest of the class seems to get used to it.

When the history teacher assigns the paired presentation on "The Role of Propaganda in World War II," the teacher lets you choose your partner. Billy and you are already sitting next to each other, so it’s automatic that you’ll work together. Part of you doubt he would choose to work with you if he wasn’t sitting next to you, but you decide not to think about it too much. You don’t mind the idea of working with him on the project. He offers to work on it at his place the following Saturday, as his dad and stepmom are in California for family matters.

It takes you twenty minutes to reach Cherry Lane. Billy’s house is about halfway there. His navy blue Camaro is parked out front, and as you approach, you see him on the opposite side of the car, rubbing a sponge against the back window. It’s warmer than usual, and he’s wearing a white tank top with basketball shorts. He notices you approaching and greets you with a nod, a cigarette clutched between his lips.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” you greet back. You see a young red-haired girl walking past Billy. She has a skateboard under her arm, baggy jeans, and a short-sleeved T-shirt. She sees you, momentarily startled, and slows down, her blue eyes scanning you with detachment. Billy walks in the open garage, leaving you alone with her. You greet her with a hesitant wave of your hand, introducing yourself.

“I’m Max,” she replies. She must be Billy’s stepsister. He mentioned her a couple of times.

“Did you bring the books?” Billy returns with a bucket of water, setting it down beside the car.

You lift your linen shoulder bag slightly, indicating that your books are in there.

You feel Max’s eyes on you. Her blue eyes soften slightly, and she seems to recognize something. “You’re the girl who called last week, right?”

"Yes, that's me," you nod with a small smile.

Max nods in acknowledgment, silently. She then sets the skater down on the ground. “You’re the first one who comes over to actually study.”

An embarrassed smile breaks out on your face at her innuendo and you look away, feeling your cheeks heat up. The image of Billy with a girl while...no, you can't think about it.

“Piss off, Max,” Billy grumbles around his cigarette as he squeezes the sponge over the bucket, then jostles it twice to get rid of the water before scrubbing the windshield.

Max rolls her eyes, but steps on her skateboard. She gives you a small smile. “See you.”

“Bye, Max.” you watch her skate away along the road.

“And don’t go too far,” Billy calls over the roof of the Camaro.

For a moment you get lost watching how the muscles of his back move under the tank top as he rubs the side of the car sponge.

“Almost done.” he calls over his shoulder.

“You’re taking good care of it.” you observe as you approach the car, your hands tucked into your back pockets.

“You bet your sweet life I do. This baby cost me a good amount of money.”

“When did you buy it?” you lean against the tree near the uneven stone steps leading up to the entrance of his house.

Billy takes the cigarette from between his lips, puffing some smoke into the air. “I was sixteen. Worked at a garage near my house for a couple of years before that. The owner found her after being on the hunt for months. She had roughly 10,000 miles on her already and was a little banged up. So, I had to use my savings and kept working there for a few months to pay for the repairs.”

He puts the cigarette back between his lips and pours the bucket of water over the car, washing off the soap. Then he takes a few steps backward until he’s next to you as he takes in the newly washed car.

“Not bad, huh?”

“She’s really pretty.” you confirm with a nod.

You've never been particularly enthused with cars, but you must admit that Billy's Camaro stands out in Hawkins. Moreover, the care he takes of it only enhances its shiny navy blue colour.

“Just like you.”

You turn toward him, caught by surprise by his comment. As you do, he’s just taking the cigarette from his mouth after another drag, his eyes revealing a faint warmth that’s hard to perceive, blurred by the seemingly bored look his long lashes give him. But you see it. Even if for a second, you see it. The smoke curls lazily around him.

He luckily saves you from any clumsy answer, jerking his chin toward the house. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

You hum while nodding in obligement, walking toward the house so he can avoid your flustered expression. Billy follows closely behind you, resting his hand on the back of your neck as you walk up the stone steps. He’s been doing that quite a few times. It’s nothing crazy, not an open hug or anything, but to you, his touch makes your heart glow and fills you with a comforting warmth. The house has a front screened porch, where two plants in a pot rest on the floor. You spot a grey rocking chair on the right side.

“I like it.” you say. You wish you had a porch.

“Yeah, sometimes Max sits over there to read.”

It’s a simple house, you notice, with modest furnishings. You both walk into Billy’s room, and you take in your surroundings. It’s a simple room. Apart from his bed, a few pieces of furniture, a mirror, and a wardrobe, there are things distinctly him that give the room character and warmth. Hanging on the wall are posters of bands like Metallica and Mötley Crüe. You also notice a stereo with two speakers. On the fireplace, there are some books.

“You brought it with you?” you ask with a smile, pointing to a yellow surfboard fading to green, leaning against the wall.

Billy sits on the bed, leaning his back against the wall. “Yes. It was out of the question for me to leave it in Cali.” with a wave of his hand, he invites you to come and sit next to him.

You sit gingerly on the bed, books on your lap as he pops a piece of chewing gum into his mouth and offers you one. You take it, thanking him. Sitting so close, the warmth of his body seems to transfer directly from his thigh to yours.

“Are you gonna go back?” you ask, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear. You pull your pencil case and a notepad out of your bag.

Billy snorts. “Hell yeah. I’m not staying here.”

It shouldn’t, but his statement stings a little. At the end of the school year, he will leave. After all, it was a foregone conclusion. There’s nothing to keep him here; his home is in California. He never told you specifically why he moved here. You had asked, jokingly, if his parents wanted "a change of air," and he had replied, ‘Something like that,’ without adding any explanation. So you had not pressed the issue any further. You learned that about certain things, Billy did not feel like talking. He clams up even more. If he wants to, you decide, he will open up to you.

“Yeah, I get it.”

“Might work during the summer to save some money, though.”

“There’s a garage downtown.” you offer, remembering what he said earlier.

“I was thinking more about the pool. Heard they pay very well.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. Heather works there during summers,” he says, grabbing the history book from his bedside table and putting it on his lap.

“Heather Holloway?”’ you ask, your finger lingering along the edge of your notepad.

There is only one Heather at school. Billy must be talking about her. She’s a pretty girl who comes from a good family. Her dad owns the Hawkins Post. She’s got it all.

“Yeah, you know her?”

“Oh, not directly. But yes, I know her. Her dad is pretty respected in town.” you bite your lip, fighting the urge to ask how he knows her. Are they friends? Did he date her? Is he still dating her?

You conclude it's none of your business, and thinking about it makes you feel weird. So you change the subject, finally opening the book and proposing to start working on the project. In between, you see Max walking past his room from the open door, her skateboard under her arm. After an hour of working, Billy stretches and a yawn escapes you. He lights a cigarette, inspiring a long puff of smoke, and titls his head up, looking at the ceiling. When he exhales, he also seems to sigh with relief. You realize how much smoking seems to be a way for him to relax, a need.

“When did you start smoking?” you ask before you can stop yourself. Then immediately rush on adding “If you don’t mind me asking”.

“Must’ve been fourteen.” he says, “A friend of mine, Wayne, had been smoking for a year or so. Tried from his cig’ once, never went a day without smoking from there.”

You hum pensively.

Billy lolls his head to the side, a lazy smile plastered on his face. “You must think I’m fucking up my health, huh?”

“No, no.” you shake your head. Then you reconsider. “I mean…yes,” at which Billy starts laughing, a low gravelly laugh. “But, I know it must be hard to stop too, once you start. I can’t know, I’ve never tried.”

A second later, his cigarette appears in front of your eyes. He arches an eyebrow at you, looking at you expectantly.

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you.”

“Ah, come on. It’s not like you’re gonna get addicted after one drag. Live a little.” he gently nudges your thigh with his.

You look at the cigarette with a mix of curiosity and hesitation. You've always wanted to try it, not because you want to start smoking, but just to confirm if it tastes bad so you can put the thought to rest.

“Okay. Just once, though.” you gingerly take the cigarette from between his fingers, holding it awkwardly and feeling as if it might fall off any second. You bring it to your lips, feeling his eyes on you.

“Take it slow.”

It’s easier said than done. As soon as you breathe in the smoke, the end of the cigarette burning bright orange wildly, your lungs get filled with an unbearably burning sensation. You feel on fire. You can’t breathe. You start coughing non-repeatedly, your vision going blurred.

Billy laughs again, taking the cigarette from your fingers as you try to fill your lungs with air. “Jesus, I said to take it slow.”

Your face turns red from the effort, and your eyes water. You can't help but glare at him briefly as tears escape, your nose scrunching in disgust. He reaches out with his other hand, cups the side of your face, and gently brushes your tears away with his thumb.

“Breathe, now,” he says between chuckles.

“I don’t like it. It’s gross.”

You say it both because you mean it and because it keeps you grounded under his touch. When he settles back against the wall, your heart keeps hammering against your ribcage.

"You're cute," he says before taking a drag, as if he's talking about the weather, and it only makes your flush an impossibly darker shade of red.

After he finishes his cigarette, Billy asks if you're hungry. You both head into the kitchen, and you sit at the table while he makes tuna sandwiches. He tells you it was the first thing he learned to make for himself when he was younger, back when his father used to work late before marrying Max's mother. He had to fend for himself. Over time, he learned to cook more dishes, especially when his father and stepmother were away for the weekend or running errands. A few years ago, he started weightlifting, which motivated him to learn even more about cooking. Despite all that, he still enjoys tuna sandwiches. Billy puts the sandwiches in the toaster and serves them to you on plates. As you take a bite, the taste of pickles and mayonnaise gives it an extra kick. It's delicious.

“Hey, can you make me one too?” Max emerges from the hallway, leaning against the kitchen doorway.

Billy looks up from the cutting board he’s chopping pickles on as he makes his own sandwich, scowling at her. “Make it yourself.”

“Come on, you know I’m not good at this.”

“Well, you better learn how to make it. It’s a fucking tuna sandwich, not rocket science.”

Max sighs, almost exasperated. "Fine, you stubborn ass. I’ll make it myself, but don’t cry to me when your precious pickles are all gone."

Billy looks up, irritation flickering in his eyes. "Hey! Language," he chides, pointing the knife in her direction, as if he hadn't sworn himself just a moment ago. He then gestures toward the empty chair beside you. "And sit down, if you want me to do it.”

Max quietly sits down next to you, a cheeky smile plastered on her face. Billy mutters under his breath, resuming chopping down the pickles.

“With loads of mayo, please.”

You’ve never seen Billy in a step-brother role before, and the dynamic between them is intriguing. You're suddenly curious about their relationship and how it has evolved since they first met.

“You’re lucky I’m even making this for you,” he grumbles, spreading the mayo generously on the bread.

“This is really good.” you say, pointing at your sandwich.

“Yeah, Billy’s tuna sandwiches are rad.” Maxine approves. Then she shrugs. “He's an asshole, but if there's one thing he's good at, it's cooking.”

“Woah, thanks Maxine.” he ironically says. “Really portraying me well here.”

You chuckle softly under your breath as Max ignores him, carrying on. “Can I go to Family Video later? I need to give back the movies.”

“Later when?” he asks as he assembles her sandwich. “We gotta work on the school project.”

“Like, in an hour?”

“You’ll have to wait ‘till I drop her home.”

Max huffs. “C’mon, Billy. I can skate there, it’s mid afternoon.”

“Ain’t no way I’m letting you go there on your own. It’s on my ass that Neil will be then.”

“I’ll be back before they’re home!” she tries again. “And I’ll bring back some good stuff.”

You watch as Billy sighs heavily, walking in silence over to the table and setting Max’s dish in front of her. Then he points his finger at her, looking at her hard. “I’m warning you. If you’re not back here by four we’re gonna have a serious problem.”

Max mutters something along the lines of “Yeah, jeez, okay” as Billy walks back toward the counter.

He shoots a mildly warning look over his shoulder, his eyes glinting sharply. “And you better bring back some good stuff this time.”

Max gasps in outragement. “It wasn’t that bad!”

“It was crap.”

Max turns toward you. “Have you watched Children of the Corn?”

“I don’t think I have.” you say. “What’s it about?”

“It’s a horror movie.”

“Oh. I don’t really watch horror movies.” you smile sheepishly. “Too scary, I can’t sleep for months then. I’m more into comedies or romances.”

“Those aren’t bad once in a while.” Max agrees. “We mostly watch horrors, but sometimes we happen to watch romances too.”

“You watch rom-coms,” Billy stresses out, as he adds the tuna-mayonnaise mix to his toast.

“Please. How many times did you stay on the couch until the end?

“That’s because the NBA played later at night.”

Max arches an eyebrow in disbelief. “Oh, really? And what about all those times you pretended to get a snack from the fridge, and I caught you hanging around in the hallway, peeking at the screen?"

“Are you eating or not?” Billy cuts her, “Tic tac, shitbird. You better hurry to the videostore before I change my mind.”

It’s hard for you to hold your laugh. You look down at your plate at your half-eaten sandwich, hearing him approaching with his plate.

Max huffs loudly, standing and grabbing her plate. “Whatever. See you.”

She waves at you before disappearing in the hallway.

“See you, Max.”

Billy sits down beside you with a sigh, taking the spot where Max was just sitting. He immediately starts eating his sandwich, and you notice he eats much faster than you. You try not to let your eyes linger on his biceps as he leans forward to take another big bite, crumbs falling onto his plate. You repeat to him that his sandwich is really good, mentioning that when you make it at home, it’s usually dry and tasteless. You just don’t know how to combine the right things, and it gets boring.

“She seems to care about you a lot,” you observe as you both finish eating, referring to Max.

Billy rubs the back of his neck, a sigh leaving his lips. Then he leans back on the chair. “Yeah. Things weren’t, ah…things are better now.”

“You didn’t get along at first?” you tentatively ask.

“Yeah, not really. Moving together was tough. But I was a dick back then.”

“You?”

You can kind of see it, but the person he’s shown to you is the opposite of what he’s describing.

“Believe me, sweetheart.” he shakes his head, a rueful smirk on his face. "I'm no saint now, but you're lucky we didn't meet when I was younger.”

“I’m sure you didn’t have it easy.” you offer.

“Well, Max didn’t either. Her dad doesn’t give a crap about her, her mom only dated assholes before my old man. Then she meets him, thinks she hit the jackpot, turns out he can compete against all of the previous ones together. They really found each other.”

“Is she bad?”

Billy shrugs. “Nah, just weak. And Neil has his way easy with weak people. He found the right woman to mold between his hands like he wants to.”

You listen to him attentively, your hand supporting your head as you rest your elbow on the table, facing him. Neil must be his dad. There’s always some distance, and coldness in the way he speaks about him. He never once referred to him as his dad.

“It must’ve been hard for her…” you recognize. “Especially being that young.”

Billy stands, grabbing the three dishes as he grimaces. “Yeah, I was so wrapped up in my own anger that I completely overlooked that,” he says as he drops them in the sink, and then starts washing them. You stand up and bring him the two empty glasses. “Just didn’t want any of that crap. Moving in with these people I’ve barely seen a couple of times and act like a happy little family. Fuck that.”

“Then the move…” you supply.

"Then the move. Blamed her for all of it. Especially for the move, when in reality the whole thing was my fault. But yeah."

Your eyes fall on his hand, noticing the harsh way he’s scrubbing the glasses with the sponge. You wonder what happened. What caused the move? What could Billy have done? You don’t want to press on it further, realizing how you could easily touch a sensitive nerve.

“Well, you seem to take good care of her. And I see how she looks at you.”

You could swear for a moment he's caught off guard, almost uncomfortable. Then he sniffs, drying his hands with a towel, his eyes wandering outside the kitchen window. "Yeah, trying to make up for all of it. It’s best to stick together in this crazy house."

There is something about all of this that puts you on edge, makes your skin prickle. Something unsettling is happening in this family. There are subtle but numerous hints you pick up on in your interactions with Billy. It's a month later that you uncover the ugly truth.

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

A couple of weeks later May finally arrives, bringing longer days and warmer weather. You can already breathe in the summer air. The trailer park seems a little less gloomy now, with trees in bloom and green grass. In the evening, you hear crickets singing from the open hayloft in the kitchen or your room. On clear, sunny weekends, you and Billy go to Lovers Lake. It's not warm enough to swim yet, but you lie on the shore or on one of the deserted docks. You often do your homework or read while Billy smokes a cigarette or dozes. Your relationship has progressed; you feel much more comfortable around him. Though you don't know each other completely yet, you've gone out enough times to welcome the occasional silence, which no longer frightens you. Slowly, you feel yourself shedding layers of your shell. You think you can consider yourselves friends.

You were supposed to hang out that morning. He was meant to come over to study at your place before heading to Lovers Lake as planned. However, today, the familiar rumble of the Camaro doesn't show up. After a few hours of hesitation, you try calling his house. A man answers, presumably Billy's dad, and informs you that Billy is not home. The rest of the day passes in anxious waiting, but Billy never arrives. You try to push away thoughts of the worst-case scenario, but as the hours drag on, those fears keep creeping back. By Sunday, still no word from him. Billy has always been the opposite of what you expected—he never ignored you at school, never stood you up. Yet now, your fear seems to be materializing. Perhaps he's grown tired of you and found more captivating company. You wonder what you could possibly offer him. You're not as interesting or outgoing as his basketball team friends, nor do you provide the same entertainment as the high school girls he's dated, or might still be dating. Perhaps he's realized that after delving beneath the surface, there's nothing particularly captivating about you.

At dinner, your dad notices something is bothering you and asks what's wrong. You barely touch your plate, feeling like an amoeba. But he's dead tired from his factory shift, and you don't want to burden him with your worries, so you lie and tell him that you're not feeling well. Later, he rises from the sofa, gives you a kiss on the head, and advises you not to stay up too late before retiring to his room. Despite the sound of the TV in the background, you feel lonelier than ever, and the resignation settling over you is almost worse than the whirlwind of emotions you've experienced all day. Hours pass, and you start to doze off curled up on the sofa, the movie you started barely catching your attention. Then, you're jolted awake by the roar of a familiar engine outside the trailer. It's as if a shot of adrenaline has pierced through your lethargy. You sit up abruptly, heart racing, straining your ears to confirm what you've heard. The noise ceases, prompting you to hurry to the door, moving slowly to avoid disturbing your sleeping dad. Your heart skips a beat when, through the window, you spot Billy's familiar silhouette in the dim light cast by the bulb outside.

When you open the door, Billy seems momentarily surprised to see you. As if he didn't expect you to open it so promptly. But then that expression is washed away by his usual smirk.

“You sure were waiting for me, huh?”

You stifle a gasp of horror at the sight of his bruised and battered face, instinctively bringing your hands to your mouth to muffle any sound that might wake your father. To say he's in a bad state would be an understatement.

"Oh my God, Billy."

Closing the front door softly behind you, you step out into the night air, standing in front of him, your concern palpable.

"Good to see you too," he jokes, but his playful expression fades as he realizes his attempt to lighten the mood isn't working.

"Oh God..."

You draw closer, taking in his state. There’s an angry bruise around his left eye, dark purple and almost black, with hints of red and blue around the edges, swollen and puffy. Traces of dried blood linger around his nostrils, and his nose is swollen, the bridge as purple as the area under his eye.

"It's fine," he says.

"Sorry... can I just..." setting aside your shyness, you gently take his face in your hands, tilting his head slightly backward. You won’t fail to notice his small wince as you do so. His lip is cut and swollen. "Does it hurt a lot?"

“Nah. It’s okay.”

"What happened?" you ask softly as you brush his chin with your thumb, almost afraid of causing him further pain.

Billy doesn't seem concerned at all, contrasting with your likely alarmed expression. He looks almost unfazed, the corners of his eyes crinkling into his usual amused expression.

"Got into a fight with a guy. He was just drunk, and I was there."

You frown in confusion. "Were you... at a bar or something?"

"Yeah, I uh...at the pub downtown. Just happened to cross paths with him. He thought I was looking at his girl or something."

"A major dick," you mutter under your breath, your eyes still scanning his cut. It looks deep, like the blood struggled to stop flowing. There's still some dried blood on his chin.

Billy chuckles, then after a moment, he speaks quietly, "Yeah, a major dick. Got him good, though."

“You didn’t clean it. It’s going to get infected, I’ll quickly get…”

“S’fine, really.” while exhaling a sigh through his nose, his hand encircles your wrists, prying yours gently away.

You lower your gaze to his hands to examine the damage there. But that’s when you notice it. His knuckles are completely fine. There isn’t a single cut on them.

“Billy…” you hold his hands, then look at him.

He seems to pick up on what you’re thinking because he pulls his hands away, scratching his nose with his knuckles, acting as nonchalant as ever. You notice how his hands seem to twitch, like he’s got this nervousness he can’t shake off. As if he’s itching for something. Itching for a smoke.

“I’m gonna clean it when I get home. Wanna go to the quarry? I’ve got some sweets Max forgot in the car earlier,” he suggests, nodding towards the Camaro parked behind him at the beginning of the trailer park. It's likely he didn’t want to wake anyone, especially your dad, given how late it is.

“But…”

“Sweetheart. Please,” he cuts you off. You freeze in place at the harsher tone of his last word. Billy sighs, running a hand through his curls. “M’sorry. Can we just not talk about it?” he looks tired, but not physically tired—mentally tired. You can sense the exhaustion in his gaze, a silent plea underlying his question.

A twist forms in your stomach as the reality sinks in. It confirms that something very wrong, something dark, is happening in his life. You begin to reflect on how you might have overlooked the signs. You feel the urge to ask him if the person causing him harm is who you suspect. You want to help him. But you push down those thoughts and emotions.

“Okay. Okay, of course,” you softly say. “Can I just go and grab the first-aid kit before we leave? Please.”

Billy clenches his jaw and looks away. You can see how hard this must be for him, and the last thing you want is for him to feel like he can't be vulnerable around you.

“All right.” he finally says.

After quietly retrieving the first aid kit, you get into the car with Billy. You’re not too worried about your father waking up since he sleeps like a rock, and it’s a Friday night after all. The car ride to the quarry is unusually silent. You try to break the ice by asking Billy how the basketball game went a few days ago or how Max liked the movie you recommended the last time you saw her. However, Billy responds with noncommittal short answers, clearly not fully present in the moment. Something must be weighing heavily on his mind. Sensing his mood, you decide to fill the silence by sharing what you’ve been up to lately. You mention that your father's co-worker, Wayne Munson, who lives in the trailer right across the street, came over for coffee the other day. Wayne has a son who’s a year or two older than you. You’ve never really talked to him, as he tends to keep to himself, but he seems nice enough. Now that the weather is warmer, you often see him sitting on the porch of his trailer, either smoking or reading a book. He always greets you when you walk by or take out the trash. You know he struggled in school, having flunked twice in his senior year, but he graduated last year and now works as a mechanic downtown. Talking about the mechanic job seems to catch Billy’s interest. You remind him of the conversation you had a while back when he mentioned wanting to work as a mechanic during the summer. Billy starts to loosen up and tells you that he plans to stop by the car shop in the next few days.

On this warm night, the air is balmy and filled with the earthy scent of blooming wildflowers and fresh foliage. As he has a couple of times before, Billy parks the car near the edge of the quarry, just where the thick line of trees begins. Gravel crunches softly under the tires, the only sound of the quiet evening.

The towering trees cast shadows blurred in the moonlight, their leaves rustling softly in the warm breeze. Before he can say anything, you open the first-aid kit on your lap and gently shush him when he objects. As you gently clean the dried blood around his nostrils and the cut on his lip with an antiseptic wipe, Billy winces slightly but doesn’t pull away. You then apply a bit of the antibiotic ointment to the wounds to prevent infection. Finally, you use a gauze pad to gently dab at the bruised areas, careful not to press too hard. Throughout the process, Billy remains mostly silent, his eyes closed, occasionally taking a deep breath. The temperature feels good outside, so once you’re finished you both get out of the car. Billy rounds the car and sits on the ground with a wince, resting his back against the side of the car. So you do the same. You stand in front of the quarry. Under the pale light of the crescent moon, the quarry walls loom like ancient sentinels, their rough surfaces casting long, mysterious shadows. The water at the bottom of the quarry is a dark, mirror-like expanse, reflecting the twinkling stars above.

"Here," Billy says, holding up some green candy canes along with a pack of cigarettes. It looks different from his usual pack of Marlboro Reds, but you don’t think much of it initially.

"What flavor is it?" you ask, taking one of the candies from the packet.

"Must be sour apple."

As you begin to chew, the taste of apple indeed invades your taste buds. From the corner of your eye, you see Billy pull a cigarette out of the pack, then hear him swear.

"Shit." Billy curses. "That's a candy. Didn’t even notice it."

You see the candy cigarette between Billy's fingers and an amused chuckle escapes your lips.

"Don't worry, it's an easy mistake. Guess even tough guys can mix up their vices sometimes."

That makes him snort a quiet laugh, and even if it’s without a real smile and it’s short-lived, you managed to make him laugh a bit.

Billy leans his head against the metal of the Camaro, his hand holding the lighter dropping to his thigh. "They must be in the car."

He must be referring to his cigarettes. You remain silent for a few seconds, contemplating whether to offer to go get them for him. You look at his tired profile: eyes closed, head resting against the car, throat exposed, Adam's apple slightly prominent. Looking at his bruised face makes your stomach twist with concern, your heart sinking. At least his wounds are clean now. You feel the urge to reach out and brush aside the curl that falls over his eye. But you don’t. Instead, your gaze shifts to the quarry.

“You’ve been really smoking a lot, Billy.”

Your words slip out quietly, as if afraid of disrupting the fragile balance of the evening. You’ve observed Billy smoking ever since you met him. Lately, though, you’ve noticed how his fingers are more often occupied by a cigarette than free of it. You’ve seen his nervous fidgeting in class—how he jitters his knee, taps the rubber end of his pencil on the desk, scratches his stubble with his knuckles, and frequently shifts position in his chair. And now, whenever you’re together, he’s pulling one out from his pack at least once.

Billy opens his eyes slightly, glancing at you. He sighs and looks away, his expression hardening a bit. "Yeah, well, it helps," he says gruffly, but there's a hint of something softer in his voice. "Don't worry about it. I'll cut back... someday."

He sees the probably worried look on your face. He’s so young, and he smokes already this much. You don’t even realize how you’re worrying at your lip.

“I’ll try and slow down, alright?”

You nod hesitantly as he offers you a cigarette candy that you take.

“Just ‘cause you can't stand the smell of smoke.” he teases you, his eyes sleepy and slightly amused.

“What? I…that wasn’t…” you stutter, feeling embarrassed he caught you. “That’s not why I think you should stop! It’s for your health…”

“But it bothers you too,” a grin forms on his face as he reaches out, and before you can stop you he pinches right above your knee, making you jump and squeal in surprise. He’s learned how ticklish he makes you, and he’s never stopped teasing you with it ever since. l “I know you do.”

“Stop! Stop it!”

“You alway scrunch up your nose like it’s the most disgusting thing in the world.”

“Stop it, okay!” you try to free your leg with a high-pitched laugh as he tries to pinch you again. “You’re right, I hate it! Hands off, now.”

You push his hand away as he finally relents, trying to catch your breath. Billy shakes his head in amusement. He tugs at his candy stick with his teeth.

“Knew it,” he says.

You simply take another candy from his hands, avoiding his gaze as he chews on his. You’re hyper-aware of how flushed you are now, embarrassed that he noticed. You didn't want him to realize that his smoking bothered you.

“I haven’t even realized I do that…” you then say, breaking through the quiet.

“It’s kinda cute.”

His comment makes your heart race and your face flush even more. You glance down, fiddling with the wrapper of the candy in your hand. “Thanks”, you mumble softly, barely audible.

“You sure as hell would make a good nurse.” he mumbles then, shifting his position, wincing a bit and you notice how he brushes his hand over his left side. “All caring and everything. You took care of my wounds pretty well.”

If it wasn’t for what he just said, you would ask him if he got hurt there as well. You try to mask your embarrassment with a casual shrug. "I don't think I'd like being a nurse," you say, managing to keep your voice steady. "Too much pressure and responsibility."

Billy nods, taking your words in stride. "Fair enough," he says. "Then what would you like to be?”

You let out a soft sigh, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the question. "I don't know," you admit, staring down at your hands. "It's hard to figure out."

"Tell you what, it’s pretty simple," Billy says. "What do you like?”

You lift your eyes from your hands, a bit surprised by his question. “What do you mean?”

Billy pops another candy in his mouth. “See, I like cars and I’m pretty good at working on them. So, I know I’m gonna be a mechanic.” he lazily gestures at himself, then at you. “What do you like?”

You ponder his question for a moment, thinking about the things that bring you joy. "I like to take pictures," you say finally. "Especially portraits of people. Capturing their expressions, their emotions... it feels special."

"Then you should be a photographer," he says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

You smile at his straightforwardness, feeling a warmth spread through you. "Maybe," you say, considering the possibility.

Billy leans his head back against the car. "You know, the guy I was working for in San Diego once told me something," he says. "He said that at the end of the day, it's simple. You need to find something you like and you're really good at, then make it your job. That's how you'll make it in life."

His words resonate with you, and you find yourself nodding in agreement. "That makes sense," you say softly.

Photography has always been your favorite hobby. Until recent dramatic events, you used to do it a lot. You have a lot of pictures in the drawer of your desk. Billy tells you he wants you to show them to him sometime. He also says it’s a shame you stopped and that you should start doing it again. You haven’t spoken specifically about your mom leaving yet. You’ve noticed he’s very sensitive about it, careful not to push your boundaries. He’s never asked questions. However, tonight he simply tells you that if photography makes you happy, it’s important to not give up on it, as passions have a way of pulling us through hard times. You realize how Billy has a way of making things simpler, of helping you see what's important. And in that moment, you feel a deep sense of gratitude for his presence in your life.

You stay at the quarry until two am, and it’s when you start yawning repeatedly that Billy says it’s time to go. Sitting in the car, despite the warm weather, feels good as the night has gotten chilly. You feel sleepy, but nonetheless, you continue to think about the current situation. You don’t want Billy to go home, there’s something that makes you feel on the edge, you want to talk about it with him so bad but don’t even know how to approach the subject. Despite that, sleep starts to take over you, but once halfway through the ride to the trailer park, a brownish silhouette crosses the road in front of you.

“The fuck.” Billy floors both the clutch and the brakes, and you’re thankful for having your seatbelt on. Your body slams forward and back again, and you hit your head against the headrest for the impact.

A deer, froze into place a few seconds before, rushes toward the the other side of the road, running wildly and disappearing through the trees.

“Ouch.”

Billy heaves a loud sigh. “God…frickin’ stupid forest.”

Your heartbeats slow down as you recover from the surprise, your hand feeling the back of your head.

“Yeah, we have lots of them here,” you mumble.

“Jesus.” he looks then at you. “You alright?”

His hand comes up, touching yours so you drop it. He gently rests it on the back of your head where it still throbs. It’s warm and big. He literally could crush you if he wanted to. But his touch is soft.

“It’s fine.” you squeak, the sudden touch making you burn.

“Hurts a lot?” he mutters’, his thumb petting the skin at the nape of your neck.

“A little bit. It’s gonna pass.”

“Alright.” he relents after a few seconds, then pushes on the gas again.

The remainder of the car journey passes in silence. Billy stops exactly where he had stopped before, the headlights briefly illuminating the 'Forest Hills' panel before he switches off the engine. Darkness envelops you, blending with the night's silence and the quiet of the car. You're not quite sure what to say. You're uncertain how to bid him farewell. Truth be told, you have no desire to say goodbye to him. The last thing you want is to let him go, sensing that he will likely return to danger as soon as you step into the house.

"I'm sorry," he says, breaking through the quiet.

You turn toward him, confusion and surprise evident in your expression. "For what?"

"For standing you up."

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not though.” you can see him shake his head from the corner of your eye. “That was a dick move. Could’ve at least called you.”

Turning your whole body towards him, you lean against the passenger seat. Now that a couple of hours have passed, his eye is swollen and darker.

"Billy, it's okay. Really. I know you..." you hesitate, then look down at your hands, feeling the weight of his gaze on you. You try to find the right words, careful not to touch the subject again, especially not to delve into details. "I know you weren't at the pub earlier."

At these words, Billy turns his head and looks away, towards the window. Sensing his discomfort, you hurriedly continue speaking. "And that's alright. I don't need you to explain yourself to me. I get it. I just want you to know that I know.

Tentatively, you extend your hand towards his, resting on the shift gear. Holding your breath, you anticipate a possible rejection.

“And I understand."

Billy doesn't shoo you away but remains as still as a statue, his elbow resting against the window, his knuckles against his mouth. Your heart tightens as you imagine the pain hidden beneath the shield he wears, the horrors he must have endured so far. Just as you begin to release the pressure on his hand, preparing to withdraw, Billy sighs and turns his hand palm up, slipping his fingers between yours and squeezing. His touch is warm, sending an electric signal throughout your body, causing your heart to leap. Reassured by his welcoming touch, your thumb caresses the back of his hand.

“I know we haven’t known each other for long,” you say softly, careful not to disrupt the fragile connection between you. “But I care about you. And I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

Billy rests his head against the headrest, his eyes closed. He squeezes your hand. “Thanks, sweetheart.” his voice is low and gravelly, as quiet as yours.

You stay like this for a moment, perhaps him relishing in the weight lifted by your confession, and you in his acceptance of your attempt to bridge the gap between you.

“I should go now.” you whisper, glancing at the house, though that’s the last thing you want to do.

Billy releases his hand from your grip and then reaches for his pack of cigarettes in the center console, his gaze avoiding. “Yeah, it’s late.”

“Will you be okay?” you ask him.

“Yeah, don’t sweat it.”

Even as you look at him, Billy avoids making eye contact with you. He takes a cigarette, lighting it up, the flame piercing through the darkness and briefly illuminating his bruised face. It's as if he's peeled back one layer too many for his liking. You understand this, though it leaves you feeling distant from him. You miss the warmth he usually radiates. Quietly accepting the situation, you purse your lips and reach for the door handle.

You glance back at him, failing to lock eyes with him as he exhales the smoke whilst tilting his head back. “Try to rest. And…uhm, call me if you need it. Please.”

Billy merely nods. “Yeah. Night.”

As you walk toward your house, the chilly night air envelops you, and you try to shake off the feeling of helplessness and emptiness that grips you. You're still trying to wrap your head around it, to accept the extent of his condition. It's kind of a shock.

As you hear his car door slam, you turn back to him.

"Did you forget something?" you ask, keeping your voice low as he approaches, the cigarette dangling between his fingers.

You don't understand his actions as he draws closer and closer, and for a second your body tenses, until he reaches out and pulls you toward him. It’s only when you’re pressed against his body that you realize he has his arms wrapped around you. Speechless, you allow your arms to encircle his neck, his face nuzzling into your neck, his breath mingling with your hair. You can sense the weight of unspoken words in the fierceness of his embrace, his forearms pressing against your back. Standing on your tiptoes to meet him, you ease the strain as he's slightly bent over you due to his height. But it doesn’t last long, so you simply allow yourself to be engulfed by his tall figure. You hope he can't feel how fast your heart is pounding against your chest, but at the same time, you find yourself not caring. Relief washes over you as the distance he had put between you earlier dissipates into the night air. And it feels good. You could easily get used to all of this. The butterflies in your stomach, the profound happiness as he’s everywhere, around you, against you. You realize that you could stay like this forever, and the thought scares you.

After what feels like an eternity, yet somehow not enough, he finally pulls away. Your hair is tangled with his, and with a gentle touch, he first separates his from yours. Then, with the same hand, he carefully sweeps your hair behind one of your shoulders. With his other arm releasing you, he taps the cigarette with his finger to release the ashes. His eyes carry a sleepy gaze, and this time you're certain they're sleepy in every sense of the word. Nonetheless, they bore into yours with the same overwhelming intensity.

“You sleep tight, okay?”

You nod a couple of times, still speechless and unable to function by his proximity.

As you watch his retreating form and assured stride, you feel your heartstrings pulling more strongly towards him with each step he takes, as if he's carrying your heart with him.

#billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove smut #billy hargrove #billy hargrove x oc #billy hargrove fic #billy hargrove x you #stranger things smut #dacryphilia #slow burn #stranger things fic #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove angst #billy hargrove fluff #eddie munson #80s #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove x female reader #billy stranger things

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starhvney · 1 month ago

Text

𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝟑 | 𝟏𝟓: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓

𝐂𝐖: violence, torture, abuse, blood, sleep paralysis, cult vibes? umm yeah just bad stuff all around generally

𝐀/𝐍: um so like um

𝐖𝐂: 3,300+

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑: @arienic (shoutout for the ending lines this chapter, you killed that fr)

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 ☆ 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 | 𝐀𝐎𝟑 | 𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒

it’s so cold.

the thin, poor excuse of a blanket barely helped you, nor did the ripped-up hospital clothes now crusted in dried blood. no wounds lay underneath the tears of fabric.

at least, not anymore.

the cell room has no windows, but even if you had the privilege of seeing the setting sun, you’re unsure if you'd be able to tell what day it was—let alone for how many you’d been in this hell.

every day it was the same cycle. wake up cold, hungry, smeared in blood, and still aching from whatever torture elizabeth had done to you the day before. if you weren’t passing out from the pain, you’d be sedated before getting returned to your cell again, blurring your sense of time and even fogging your memories of what you’d endured just hours before.

footsteps echo down distant wooden stairs, each creak in the old wood making you flinch involuntarily. those steps are down the hall from the opposite side of where you were taken every day, and you have a feeling that’s the way to get out.

you must be in the basement of some… house. somewhere close to the campsite that the ro’meaves owned. where you’d just been with everyone. garroth… aphmau… vylad… laurance… zane…

and katelyn.

you wonder what she’d think, knowing what kind of person her mother was. you never asked katelyn if she remembered her mom much, but you’re sure she never understood the amount of evil the woman who gave her life was capable of doing. she looks just like her.

a few times in your state of delirium you’d almost thought it was katelyn. when your vision blurred you nearly wanted to reach out, hoping it was the girl waking you up from your nightmare and telling you it was all a dream. but the amount of pain you felt could never be a dream. even as you lay here, the ghost of your previous injuries remain, sending sudden shocks through your nerves even when you stay perfectly still.

…you should be near the camp if that’s what elizabeth really said. it’s hard to remember.

the footsteps have come considerably closer until they stop right outside the bars of your door. you aren’t scared just yet. those steps sounded like the boy’s, and he hadn’t been the one hurting you. likely, he was here to give you some food and leave before elizabeth was ready for you again, like he’d been doing every time you woke up.

cracking your eyes open, you’re surprised to hear the sound of fabric sliding under the door and not a plastic tray.

“no food?”

“…no, not this time.”

you stare at him through blurred vision, trying to focus on his eyes. he turns his head away and ducks it, as if in shame. you're not sure if you'll stomach the food well, but it always made you feel a little warmer—in fact, it did better than the crappy old hospital bed they gave you. every time you woke up, your blood felt like it was barely flowing through you, as if your body had only just been able to fight off death.

it’s likely, considering how much blood you lost with every “experiment” that was conducted on you. you’re unsure how this forever potion worked, but you can only assume your body was working overtime to regenerate and seal up your wounds, regardless.

what is a young boy like him doing with these people? he never seems to enjoy being around you, and especially not in that lab. was he a subject, too? but why would he be allowed to walk free? was it stockholm?

“why are you here with them?”

his eyes dart behind him before his voice comes in a muttered whisper–one you could just barely catch even in the eerie silence of the building.

“i have nowhere else to go.”

“…sorry,” is all you manage to croak out before your eyes drift back down to the floor. “not even water, huh?”

he pauses, before shaking his head. there’s a small clinking noise as he does so, and you realize from a glint near his ears that it’s because of his piercings.

“…sorry, i can’t talk to you.”

turning on his heel, he rushes back down the hall. his footsteps quickly recede to where he came from up the wooden steps, leaving you alone in the cold stone room.

…

you miss everyone.

were they looking for you? were they worried? did they think you were dead?

you might as well be.

dropping your eyes, they land on the crumpled clothes he’d slid through the bars. it looked like the same, scratchy fabric of the clothes you were wearing now, but its color was the same, pure white color that the ones on you used to be. they hardly looked like the same outfit at all—the fabric was stained in different shades of blood, some darker from getting stained, and then soaked again with a fresher layer. elizabeth must have decided they were unrecognizable enough to be replaced. or she might’ve just felt disgusted at how filthy you’d become.

the thin mattress squeaks as you manage to sit up, though your muscles protest from the action. they hadn’t been doing much work since you’ve been here–most of your moving from place to place was from force or being dragged around like a limp ragdoll. despite this, it felt like your body had been continuously running for hours and hours every day, muscles fighting overtime to keep you alive. hell, every system in your body was fighting for you to stay alive.

wasn’t it ironic? that the reason for your torturous pain that made you want to give up was the very thing keeping you alive?

sliding your feet to the door you pick the clothes up, standing and swaying in place before ripping off your old rags and sliding them on. despite the fabric being the same as before, it feels decently soft on your skin. it was much better than the crusted and stiff bloody fabric you’d been forced to stay in.

bunching up the old pair you shove it back out the bars, using as much force as you can to get it to the other side in a pitiful attempt at rebellion. it drops to the ground in a less-than-pathetic show of your current strength just a foot away. you stare at it through your puffy eyelids.

the clicking of heels echoes through the hall, making your muscles clench and stiffen. you don’t move, like a deer petrified in headlights, eyes trained on your bloody clothes on the other side of the bars.

“hm. you’re awake,” elizabeth notes, her clean and polished shoes stopping just in your sight. a moment passes before she clicks her tongue in disgust, stepping over the crusted fabric to open the door. “i won’t sedate you this time, but i wouldn’t make the mistake of trying to fight or run. just walk.”

slowly, you look up at her.

just walk? walk to the place where you’d be tortured? walk to your personally designed hell? you’d rather be sedated. it’s like she subtly enjoyed these moments of power. of making you feel helpless.

all you feel is hatred. hate for the woman in front of you. you want to leap across this cell and wrap your fingers around her throat.

but then you see her. katelyn, staring at you. sitting across from you in class. practicing on the volleyball court. laughing in aphmau’s room. she wasn’t anything like this woman. no. she has no similarities.

but for that split moment, you see her, and it’s enough to kill the fight that was brewing in your chest.

you step out of the cell, and realize that this was the first time you’d been conscious and aware outside of your cell in… however long you’d been here. the stone under your feet feels cold, like icicles uncomfortable pricking the bottom of your feet with every step. next to your cells you see there’s more just like it, with numbers and unclear pictures on them.

2… 1…

you glance back, noticing there are a few more beyond the other side of your cell.

…4? 5? 6?

your face pales and you freeze by the lab doors when you look up at cell one.

beside the number was a picture of a young boy, not possibly older than five. it was dim, but you could see him. blonde hair. blue eyes. a bright little smile. he looks identical to the little boy in that childhood photo hanging in the salome’s stairway.

“how is the ro’meave boy?”

turning your head, you clench your jaw as you stare up at the woman.

“fuck. you.”

there’s no reaction, just a small disapproving hum as she opens the door, expectantly looking for you to walk in.

daring you to not.

you don’t remember what happens after you step in there.

it’s dark when you wake up again. well, “wake up” is too vague. it’s dark when you’re fully conscious of yourself once again. you remember through a haze the pain you had been put through once again, but this time you don’t remember what exactly it was that she did to you. actually, you can’t even remember anything that’s happened anymore. the only memories that you recall are tainted with a hazy fog, one you cannot sweep away no matter how much you attempt to focus on it.

you feel so cold.

it must be the middle of the night, which explains why you could only see shadows and silhouettes. it’s now been a few times you’ve woken up like this, this poor excuse of a bed not exactly very comforting. you’d just have to fix your blanket and…

it feels like a cold rush of water has been dumped over your body. this must just be because you were exhausted.

staring at the dark lines where your cell bars are lined against the hall, you attempt to move your fingers again.

nothing.

you can’t move anything. not your legs. not your arms. not even your head.

this isn’t real. you aren’t awake. there’s no way.

what is that?

from the corner of your vision, you see a figure. tall. its head seemed to reach the tall ceiling. it was close to you, pressed into the corner as it stared. you couldn’t see its eyes or even its face. but you could feel it. your skin prickled uncomfortably, sweat cold against your face. trying to swallow your fear you attempt to turn your head, only to feel like an otherworldly force was pushing you back, keeping you in place. your vision prickles with black and your face feels colder—and over the loud thudding of your heartbeat, you can hear it breathing. it’s closer.

before your vision returns, you snap your eyes shut.

is this real? did a demon manifest in this dark place and come to feast on the pathetic remains of what you had left?

everything goes quiet.

even if you could move right now, you think fear would keep you frozen instead. do you dare try to see what it was? you know it hasn’t moved. you know it’s right there.

a deep voice encroaches on your ears, sending another spike of terror into your blood. a croak of your name, the syllables uttered in a way that was reminiscent of someone’s last breath. the last rattle of death calling for you in the dark.

you dare, and through your lashes, you see a shadow leaning over you, two long horns spiraling out from its cloaked head. immediately you close your eyes again.

“don’t worry, child. i don’t need you dead just yet,” he whispers, breath unpleasant against your ear. “you were chosen by her. so i know your purpose for me extends far greater into the future.”

you still can’t move. all you can do is close your eyes and wish to go back to sleep.

long, wicked, and skeletal fingers rake into your hair like a beast playing with its prey. “oh, how i’ll enjoy taking away everything irene ever loved. and i can start from a real incarnation.”

it doesn’t talk to you again.

☆

cold metal presses against your arms and legs. rough leather squeezes uncomfortably against your wrists.

“ein… i said…!” there’s a harsh slap against skin. it’s muffled in your right ear like you’d heard it through a veil of cotton. “...she’s waking… do it… now!”

your eyes crack open. elizabeth is walking back to her computer screen, scribbling down on her clipboard and typing against the slim keyboard in front of her. ein frowns as he hovers over your right side, fiddling with your arm. looking down you see the iv line that has already been hooked into your veins, and ein’s shaking fingers as he hooks up the drip.

you still can’t feel your body.

flicking your eyes back up, you freeze when you see lifeless gray already glaring back at you. the circles under his eyes are deep, and a blotchy red mark shows across his right cheek. for a few moments you’re both stuck there, staring at the other like two cattle in a slaughter pen.

ein flinches when the monotonous typing on the keyboard pauses and elizabeth shifts on her feet, his ears flattening against his head as he stiffens to stand straight again.

“are you done?” she calls, not turning to look at the two of you.

he swallows thickly, staring down at you with a conflicted expression. “...yes.”

“then you may go.”

there’s a moment of hesitation before he runs over to the door, slipping through without another word and leaving you alone with her.

“no need to worry,” she says before you can pull together a thought. “i’m giving you a break today. at least from the more painful experiments. it was an order, so my words are genuine.”

spinning on her heel, she paces over to you, dragging a barstool against the tiles until she can seat herself directly in front of you.

“why can’t i feel anything?” you croak, voice weak.

“well, i’ve just come to the conclusion that depriving your body of its daily nutrient intake slows your healing abilities. it’s likely your nerves are still reconnecting after i amputated your limbs,” she explains, looking down at your arm and grasping it between her pale fingers, pulling it up for observation. “hm. i seemed to have gotten too eager. you may even suffer a few scars. ah, and your hair will seem to grow back at a normal pace. no wonder this ability of yours went so unnoticed for so long.”

“...what?”

her head tilts as she looks back up at you, cold eyes narrowing as she continues to rant at you like you were some sort of disappointing science experiment. “your nails grew back normally, however. so it only focuses on patching active wounds. more than likely your hair and nail growth will be stunted for a while. your body is fully and actively in survival mode. fascinating.”

“shut the fuck up,” you snap, making elizabeth’s eyes pull back to you.

she may be incapable of smiling, but her eyes seem to dance with a slight amount of amusement as she observes you. it’s startling, and you can’t tell if you’ve made her mad or not. you should’ve said nothing.

“i’m awfully curious about your friends,” she says, eyes boring into yours. you have the urge to throw up. “you won’t even tell me a bit about my own daughter?”

the way she talks is so void of emotion. almost mechanical.

“who do you work for?” your voice is quieter than you'd intended.

“the snake-eyed man.” hers is full of conviction.

it’s the first time you think she hasn’t danced around a full answer with you before, but it’s not the least bit comforting. despite having never heard the name before, it still sends a cold shiver up your spine, a similar cold sweat building up on the back of your neck like last night. or… a few nights ago?

“...why me?”

“that’s quite a helpless look on your face.” she folds one of her legs over the other. “we have just one more experiment left, and i doubt you’ll remember it. so i’ll just go ahead and tell you.”

your breaths still.

“it was all him. the snake-eyed man. he was the one who orchestrated all of this. for a greater cause. something i wouldn’t expect you to comprehend,” she starts. the way she’s beginning to speak almost seems… erratic. “your parents–and the others, including my late husband–were under the impression their efforts in creating the forever potions and all of these experiments would help heal people. that it was for the greater good. it is, of course. just not in the way they thought.”

she stands, fingers trailing along the counter as she paces the lab. “i found you to be the most promising. but michael insisted it had to be his bloodline.”

you swallow. she wasn’t making any sense anymore. you flinch when she whips her head back to you. her face is still stern, but there’s a wildness in her eyes.

“you were my most successful patient. but once that dad of yours found out, all hell broke loose here. he even got garte and derek involved. i didn’t think they had it in them, but i was quickly proven wrong. especially with those lycans. they ripped you from my hands before i got a chance to prove myself!” she slams her hand on the lab table, the sound of metallic tools clattering along the surface as she does. “i sacrificed everything just for them to steal my work away before i had anything worthwhile!”

the room goes eerily quiet as she turns to the wall behind her, leaving her back to you as she takes a deep breath.

“excuse my anger. i’m sure you understand my frustration,” she says, voice cooled and calculated again as she reaches up, pulling a large blade off the wall. “granted, i didn’t have permission to take you. but your parents were never smart enough to understand your potential. none of them were seeing the bigger picture.”

your heart sinks, and there’s nothing you can do but stare helplessly at the sharp, glinting edge in her hands as she turns around again. why can’t you just move already?

“i’ll let you go early if you tell me about the others,” she says, each click of her heel on the tile sending cold blood through your veins. “if not, then i’ll do us both the favor of cutting this conversation short.”

steady hands raise the sword to your neck, leveling evenly against your jugular. your own hands shake.

"please," you beg quietly, lip trembling. you look up to meet her eyes and you search: for mercy. for compassion. for remorse or regret; any small amount of guilt. "please, i -- i can't. please don't. please."

but she's focused only on your neck. and not a waver to her voice or hands as she grips the hilt tighter and tells you, "it'll just be a pinch.”

©starhvney 2024. do not plagiarize, feed to any AI, or repost my works to any sites.

tag list: @orinlin @pain-in-the-ashe @youmake1mistake @arienic @wasting-away-on-the-internet @angelhyperfixates @remiechu @valentique @kalegrinch @izzybella1807

#aphmau mystreet #mystreet x reader #mystreet #aphmau #x reader #phoenix drop high #aphmau pdh #pdh #reader insert #fem reader #aphblr #ein aphmau #pdh ein #elizabeth aphmau

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iskratempestmadness · 11 months ago

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A few facts about the characters of "Baki the grappler"

Characters: Baki, Hanayama, Katsumi, Jack, Retsu.

Baki

Food

- it may seem that he prefers something simple, but he doesn't mind trying unusual food combinations. According to the type of ice cream with French fries.

- traditional Japanese cuisine on weekdays and fast food on weekends. He likes to treat himself to a big burger on Saturday night. Although he will have to work hard afterwards to get himself back in shape.

- has a neutral relationship with alcohol. He can drink during the holiday, but usually tries to abstain.

Leisure

- you can't tell from him, but he reads quite a lot, although he can't be called a bookworm. He definitely likes manga and comics, as well as something light from Japanese classics. He reads to relax, so he doesn't want to strain his brain.

- he likes to play board games. He is quite experienced in them, but in some cases, fortune does not favor him.

- walking in the fresh air. As I said, he just wants to relax, so contemplating nature is perfect for that. He likes the prospect of going somewhere to the countryside and staying there to live.

Moment:

It was early in the morning, when the city had not yet had time to wake up. The young man was sitting on a bench in the park, which was close to his house. Despite the fact that summer had already arrived, it was quite cool outside, but the young man did not seem to notice this. Hanma has been visiting this place quite often lately. Perhaps it was here that he could fully relax. His thoughts were confused, like the thoughts of a man who had just woken up, he was thinking about everything and at the same time about nothing. However, he noticed all the peculiarities of his environment. For example, he noticed that the birds were calling to each other today more briskly than usual, and also that this morning was warmer than yesterday, but it was still a little cool for summer... He liked it... And he also liked to have such a carefree time... This is the kind of environment he wants to spend his life in...

Hanayama:

Food

is mmmm... He loves Japanese fast food. You know, quick fried meat in batter with vegetables and various sauces. Or udon in a small but cozy eatery. But he needs really big portions.

- he also likes traditional Japanese dishes, but he prefers not to eat them too often.

- Alcohol? He is an expert in this. It may seem that he drinks only strong drinks, but he is also very well versed in the lungs. Hana also belongs to the type of people who drink and do not get drunk.

Leisure

- naturally, he spends a lot of time in bars. He knows all the bars in Tokyo. And he wrote a review for each, all the pros and cons of the institution were taken into account. He finds this way of spending time very entertaining.

- he likes to play billiards when he has free time. And he's pretty good at it. Despite his size, he is adept at this.

- fishing. Ohhh, he's a pro at this. And how else can you call a man who went to a shark with his bare hands? But even in less extreme conditions, he finds pleasure in fishing.

Moment:

A hard day. This is perhaps the most plausible description of what happened today. There are so many issues that need to be resolved "urgently", so many people who do not understand what they want from him... It exhausted him. His head was throbbing violently, preventing him from concentrating...What was he thinking about? Yes, there's nothing to talk about.Hana was in the very state when a person's mind is filled with various short memories that have no connection with each other...And he didn't have a single sensible thought in his head. He lit a cigarette as usual. And he himself did not understand how he ended up where he is now. It was one of the idzkai he frequented...Heh, perhaps this really was the best option to relax. The young man sat down at the counter and waited for his order... and for some reason, he was already feeling better now. My head didn't hurt so much anymore, and there was no annoying carousel of memories. Hana waited for his order and to his delight, the food really helped him. In some cases, even such small things can make you feel better.

Katsumi:

Food

- HOMEMADE FOOD. To give Natsue her due, she cooks beautifully, so Katsumi's favorite food is homemade food. He doesn't even have a preference, he just loves it and he'll eat whatever they give him.

- he also likes strange food combinations. He is always ready to try something new, but he already has his favorite combinations. I can assume that this is watermelon and feta cheese or popcorn with hot sauce

- relationship with alcohol... Well, he only drinks on holidays, but Katsumi doesn't know the measure. If he drinks, he gets completely drunk. He doesn't know the measure at all.

Leisure

- bowling. He just likes this kind of leisure activity. And he became almost a master at it.

- he likes to sing and not only in the shower. Therefore, one of his favorite ways to spend time is karaoke. He might not be a brilliant singer himself, but he puts his whole soul into it.

- cooking. In this, perhaps, it cannot be said that he is a great master, but he really likes to learn this. He was already delighting himself with a couple of simple dishes. However, it should be noted that his dishes are a little overcooked.

Moment:

He decided to put himself under stress again. There was no other way he could have called it. Of course he liked cooking, but what was happening was terrible. The heated oil splashed in all directions, he spilled something on the floor, broke a couple of plates, and a mountain of dishes in the sink was waiting for him. Is it not a horror? Nevertheless, Katsumi was determined that he would cook this dish. Why didn't he go the easier way? Why didn't you just order what you wanted? After all, he could have asked Natsueh to cook this dish, why didn't he? There were several reasons. First, he liked it. Yes, despite what was happening, he still enjoyed cooking. And he didn't expect a good result at all, he just enjoyed the process. The second is his stubbornness. Is something wrong with him? So what, he will do it as many times as it takes for a decent result. It's a challenge for him. It's a tough call. He had to sweat a lot, but... God, he was really glad... The food was good. But as usual, it is slightly peppered.

Jack:

Food

really has no preferences. All that can be eaten is food for him.

- however, he highlights the Canadian cuisine. After all, this is his native kitchen. One of his favorite dishes is cream cake and "nanaimo"

- attitude to alcohol? Mmmm... Given his lifestyle, we can say that he does not drink at all. But sometimes when he can't sleep, Jack will drink a glass of tincture, but no more. Most likely, he will be able to put tinctures.

Leisure

- He likes to swim. This is an ideal way for him to practice and relax. Besides, he is fond of diving. (So it's ideal for him if he lives somewhere near the sea or a deep lake. This is one of his dreams.)

- he can play the guitar. Despite the fact that he trains almost all the time, he also finds time to practice it. His game is at the amateur level, but it's also not bad.

- What is it? Just like Bucky, he can't be called a bookish character, but he has a couple of bookshelves. Jack prefers little-known works by popular authors. And his favorite genres of books can be called detective and fiction.

Moment:

Quiet. It's late in the evening, it's about one or two in the morning. The noise of the city is no longer audible, only the quiet rustle of leaves and the occasional rumble of water. The atmosphere is wonderful... However... The young man had not been able to sleep for about two hours and it began to bother him. Instead of lying on the bed, he could have done something more useful with a light... well, or at least interesting. Reading was perfect. Jack sat up in bed, turned on the lamp, picked up a book lying on one of the bedside tables and plunged into one of those most amazing worlds that are considered fiction or a fairy tale, and call it fiction. Hanma was quite picky about literature, although he didn't read much. But this book was really interesting to him. Why? Perhaps it was an interesting plot, or curious descriptions of the area, or dialogues of the characters, or... Why guess? Jack liked this book because he could use it to distract himself. There was no hint of the real world in it. Not once in the entire book has there been a hint of problems that were in the real world. And the young man didn't think it was a bad thing. On the contrary, he liked it. It brought lightness, calmness and calmness to his life... Perhaps... A little bit of happiness...

Retsu:

Food

is Chinese cuisine. To say that he loves her will not be enough... He RESPECTS her. He respects her all. From dishes in street eateries to home cooking.

- Japanese cuisine is in second place after Chinese cuisine for him. However, he is extremely critical of her. Retsu tries to eat right, so he carefully monitors what he eats.

- does Retsu drink? Exclusively on holidays. But if there is an opportunity, he will refrain from doing so. He really doesn't like alcohol.

Leisure

- cooking. And he's a pro at it. He has been cooking since childhood, he has a wealth of experience and his knowledge in cooking is still being replenished. He read a lot of books on cooking and watched a huge number of programs on this topic. He is completely enlightened, as it might seem. However, he claims that he still has a lot to grow.

- reading. But he can be called a bookworm. He read everything from classics to manga. And this made him extremely selective in the collection of works. For Retsu, the book is needed not only to relax or distract himself, but also to rethink life. The book is a source of wisdom for him.

- he is fond of photography. And in this he is at the beginner stage. But he learns fast. He likes to photograph animals and plants. He also likes to shoot landscapes.

Moment:

"Yes, this is what we need... This kind of view definitely needs to be captured." This was the first thought that came to Retsu's mind. And the scenery was really spectacular. Mount Fuji. The height is 3776. And it's amazing. The young man was really happy despite the cold and the long journey. Taking out his camera, Retsu started taking pictures... huh... Amazingly... But the camera did not transmit even a tenth of the landscape... However, the footage was amazing. Retsu didn't have much experience in photography, he was still a beginner. How did he come to this? Why photos? Everything is simple. There have been changes in it. Let's just say his mindset has changed. The young man seemed to rethink his life... And I made a conclusion. He needs to slow down. Pay a little more attention to his environment. Watch the world more. That's why he chose photography. With his help, Retsu had the opportunity to forever contemplate what he had captured.

I don't think I'll pull part 2, heh.

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luciddreamingcrow · 2 years ago

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Genshin characters reaction to you bringing a cat home

A/n: I'm not even gonna try to apologize for vanishing out of the earths surface for about 4 months but because today is my blog's first birthday I'm finally writing this fanfiction idea that I had sence I started this blog, caroce enjoy it my beloveds 😙

Characters included: Diluc, Kaveh, Kokomi, Shenhe

Cw: not proofread, we die like Dilucs dad, and mentions of homicidal thoughts in shenhes part

✦Diluc✦

Ok so the moment he saw a tiny kitten loafed in the sofa near the fire place, he knew it was you that brought it in

And you convinced him to let the little guy stay until winter was over because it was freezing outside and would have little chance at survival

Diluc after some convincing agreed to let him stay, but he said that 'the moment spring comes and it's warm outside the cat is going out'

Little did he know that during the little time that the cat was staying in your guys mantion he slowly fell in love with it

And it was just the littlest of things, like the time the little kitten hopped into your guys bed and snuggled itself in-between you and Diluc while cuddling

Or the time it was colder in the house so the kitten got on Dilucs lap and proceeded to purr and make biscuits on his lap because he has a pyro vision and his body runs warmer

And when spring came and it was warm, Diluc didn't forget his promise but he didn't have the heart to do anything so he just let the kitten be

And if you would bring it up to him that sadly it's time to let the kitten go, he'd just pull up excuses like 'oh but the weather is still not that stable yet and it can get cold again really quickly' or something like that

And then little did you know now the cat has been staying with you guys for about a year and now Diluc doesn't dare to let go of your guys cat and loves it with all of his heart

And the best part is that the cat now catches all of the mice and rats that hide around the winery

And one of Dilucs favourite things is watching the cat run around the grape yard and catching crystal fly and bringing them to Diluc as presents

✦Kaveh✦

(For the sake of this fanfic he moved in to your house)

Ok so, similar to Diluc, the first time he saw the kitten it was on the sofa curled up and peacefully sleeping

And after that little guy approached him to give Kaveh a little bump on his leg because he wanted scratches, Kaveh fell in love with it

Yes the two of you would have to work harder to be able to afford the kittens litter box, cat food, toys ect but he didn't mind because it was for his son (yes he calls the cat his son)

This mf WILL get jealous of the cat chooses to cuddle with you rather than him and be sarcastically dramatic about it

Once when he was working on a project the kitten managed to get on too of his shoulder and started playing with the feather that Kaveh has on his head, and whenever the cat is on tall pleases and Kaveh is near the cat WILL try and get that feather from his head to play with

It doesn't matter if that cat has be best toys in the world, Kavehs feather is the superior toy for the cat to play with

✦Kokomi✦

At first she saw them in her secret place where she'd take time to gain energy back, and didn't think you were the one that brought them here but she let them be because they didn't bother her and honestly their presence calmed her down

After a week she brought you in to her secret place to show you the two cats that made a home there and you had to confess to her that you were the one that brought them there

After some talking, you two agreed that the cats can stay but only on this secret place where no one knows

Of course the two cats had the freedom to go to explore watatsumi island but they mostly stuck to exploring the village and sleeping in Kokomis comfort place

Kokomi quickly began to love those cats and loved seeing them play with each other, she would spawn little water fish for the cats to chase around

OMG imagine if Kokomi would summon her jelly fish for the cats to play with

Also Kokomi def gains energy from hanging out with the cats whenever you are not around but one of her favourite things is you two playing with the cats or cuddling while reading and the cats sleeping on top of you two

✦Shenhe✦

To be honest, you didn't know how she'd react to you bringing a pet on the house, but she didn't really mind

But the longer time she and the cat have spent together she became more calm, yes she's calm most of the time but she didn't have as many homicidal thoughts as before

She found out that, that was a great method to calming her down and distracting her from those thoughts and now whenever you are hanging out with eachother she is most definitely bringing the cat along, petting it while she holds it

Whenever she feels those disturbing thoughts plaguing her, she goes to find the cat that you have brought and play with it, pet it or just cuddle with it

Another habit that she had formed is whenever is time to go to bed the cats NEEDS to sleep besides her while purring, it's just the vibrations form the cats purr just sends her to sleep so easily

Overall, even if she doesn't show it to much she is beyond grateful that you brought that cat into her life and doesn't understand how she was able to live without them

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin fluff #genshin imagines #diluc x you #diluc x reader #diluc x y/n #kaveh x reader #kaveh x you #kaveh x y/n #kokomi x reader #kokomi x you #kokomi x y/n #shenhe x reader #shenhe x you #shenhe x y/n

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sirianasims · 11 months ago

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Chapter 42

Mind The Gap

“Hailey, can you start on the cookies?”

“Sure, mom.”

My mother’s movements were precise and efficient as she and Hailey moved around the kitchen like choreographed dancers, measuring, stirring, and chopping.

“Mom, the table is done. Anything else I can do?”

She shook her head. “No thanks, sweetie, I think Hailey and I can take it from here.” My mother knew better than to let me cook anything more advanced than cup noodles.

Hailey turned to me.

“Actually, could you go check on Grayson? It sounds like he’s still awake.”

I went to the living room and picked up my wiggly nephew. He cooed happily when he saw me.

“Hi, Gray-Gray! Look, it’s your favourite aunt! At least until your grandpa brings aunt Ivy back from the airport.”

The living room was littered with toys and baby stuff. Hailey and her husband Mark lived just around the corner, and spent almost as much time here as they did at their own house.

On the coffee table, yet another gossip magazine speculated wildly about Paul Romeo’s new fling. The picture of us outside his hotel had been everywhere for the past two weeks, and it had almost stopped bothering me every time I saw it. The writings still hurt, though.

“You should be glad you can’t read, Gray-Gray. You’re already busy eating and pooping and sleeping, you don’t need to also worry about silly people calling you a gold-digger or saying that you’re just a child playing dress-up.”

He giggled and blew a spit bubble, and I felt a surge of affection for him.

“I know, right? Some of them even say nasty things about your uncle Paul too. Or, well – he’s not really your uncle, but maybe some day…”

I paused. I hadn’t really spent much time thinking about what ‘some day’ would look like. Would Paul ever want to get married? Have kids? Most people his age had a family by now. What if he wanted kids soon? We never talked about it.

Grayson sleepily tried to grab a tiny fistful of my hair. I moved it out of reach and began rocking him again.

“You’re a good listener, Gray-Gray,” I muttered softly. “And very cute. But you need to sleep so you won’t be cranky during dinner.”

I rocked him for a while. Outside, the powdery snowflakes danced in the wind while I listened to his breathing, deep and steady. When I was sure he was asleep, I put him in his crib and flopped down on the couch to check my phone. No new texts.

I ignored the angry red dots telling me I had 99+ notifications on most of my social media. At least they didn’t have my phone number. My friends and family knew to only text or call me directly by now.

My phone vibrated in my hand, and I checked it eagerly. Marten wished me a happy Winterfest.

I reacted to his last message with a heart and put the phone down. I liked Marten, we sometimes played games online when he wasn’t too busy with his studies. I was glad that he still wanted to be my friend even though he probably had something else in mind when he asked for my number, but it was Paul I really wanted to hear from.

Grayson was still sleeping peacefully, and I could hear my mother and Hailey talking and laughing, their voices mixing with the clatter of pots and pans coming from the kitchen. The delicious smells from the food and the ever-present scent of pine enveloped me and I was almost drifting off when my phone vibrated again.

This time it was Paul, saying he’d be calling in ten minutes or so.

I leapt up from the couch to put on something warmer. I wasn’t really supposed to go outside alone, but I didn’t feel like talking to him around my family, and I doubted any paparazzi would be spending Winterfest freezing their butts off in case I left the house.

beginning / previous / next

#duchellilegacy #duchellichapters #duchelligen5 #julia duchelli #freya duchelli #hailey duchelli #marten rouse

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major-mads · 1 year ago

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Dulag Luft

Places of Interest in Masters of the Air

Masterlist

When captured by the Germans, Allied airmen would be sent to Dulag Luft, the interrogation and transit POW camp for the Luftwaffe that was just northeast of the city of Frankfurt. This is the camp where Cleven and Egan were held in solitary confinement for weeks before being transported right outside Sagan to Stalag Luft III.

Dulag Luft interrogators were some of the best in the business, and Miller describes them in Masters of the Air as "deeply skilled specialists who preferred methods more subtle than a rubber hose (Miller, 2007, pg. 386)." Many of these interrogators had spent time in America and were fluent in English. The conversation "would begin by offering him chocolate and cigarettes and then draw him into some light banter about American baseball or movies.... [the conversation] became so congenial that many airmen were unaware that the interrogation had begun (Miller, 2007, pg. 386)."

The interrogators had thick folders on each man and their bomb group. They gathered their information from intercepted communications, Stars and Stripes newspaper articles, and anything else they could get their hands on. It unnerved some of the men that the Germans knew such specific details of themselves, their families, and their bombardment groups. The conditions were terrible, and many of the officers were subjected to solitary confinement for weeks at a time.

Miller writes about this in his book:

“Downed Allied airmen felt safer in the hands of the German military than they did with the local citizenry they had bombed. Luftwaffe police and interrogators were in official charge of captured airmen, and their tactics for extracting information were rough but rarely barbaric. After being captured, Lou Loevsky was shipped with other downed American airmen to Dulag Luft, the Luftwaffe interrogation center for Allied airmen at Oberursel, a suburb of Frankfurt am Main. At one point in his interrogation a smiling Luftwaffe major asked Roger Burwell why the men in his 381st Bomb Group at Ridgewell had not yet fixed the broken clock in their officers club. Airmen who refused to provide military or personal information were usually threatened verbally. Some were told that their families would not be informed they were alive and "safe" until they began to cooperate; men captured without identification tags were warned that they could be turned over to the Gestapo to be executed as spies. One stubbornly tight-lipped officer - married and with children - was told that if he persisted in his obstinacy, a report would go out the next day from the German radio station in Calais that the night before he was shot down he had been at the Grosvenor House in London, in room 413, with an attractive blond woman. Knowing that the information was exactly correct, the major is reported to have fainted on the spot. Prisoners were also softened up by the appalling conditions at Dulag Luft: the tomblike isolation, the starvation rations, and the mice that ran free in the dank cells, and crawled in prisoners' pockets searching for food. Sometimes the promise of a shower, a shave, and a hot meal was sufficient to loosen a man's tongue. The guards also fiendishly manipulated the temperatures in the cells, shutting off the electric wall heaters in the winter and turning them up to intolerable levels, to 130 degrees, in warmer weather. Hundreds of airmen arrived at Dulag Luft wounded and were denied medical treatment, a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war. "My interrogator said he could see that I was injured and needed treatment and that my being stubborn would only delay my being sent to a hospital," Roger Burwell re-called. On the other hand, high-ranking Allied fliers believed to possess specialized military information were taken on hunting trips or invited to raucous drinking parties with German officers.

Most of the information was gathered from Allied sources by Dulag Luft's efficient staff, who scrutinized American magazines and newspapers brought in from neutral Portu-gal, including Stars and Stripes, a rich source of hometown information about airmen. Additional information, including logbooks, briefing notes, and airmen's personal diaries, was gathered from clothing and other personal belongings found in the charred wreckage of bombers. These documents often contained highly secret data about flight patterns, the effectiveness of German defenses, and targets marked for future bombing. An officer in the American Air Force's Counter Intelligence Corps noted at the time that 'it was not uncommon for large German manufacturers to ask the Luftwaffe if their factories were on the list, and if so, when they could expect to be bombed." German linguists also monitored Allied airmen's wireless communications. According to Hanns Scharff, the interrogators at Dulag Luft had at their disposal a copious file in which "nearly every single word spoken in the air from plane to plane or from base to plane or vice-versa was carefully noted." As Air Force counter-intelligence experts noted in their own secret files, "nothing in the way of documents, written or printed, was too insignificant to merit close scrutiny" by the intelligence staff at Dulag Luft. A case in point is the airmen's ration cards. Every American flier in the European Theater received exactly the same kind of card, and there was nothing on the card to indicate where he was stationed. But investigators at Dulag Luft were able to identify an airman's bomb group by the way his card was canceled. At Thorpe Abbotts, for example, the clerks on duty in the PX marked the cards with a heavy black pencil. The PX counter was made of rough board. All the cards canceled there carried the impression of its distinctive pattern in the black pencil markings. The Air Force's Counter Intelligence Corps estimated that 80 percent of the information obtained by Dulag Luft was supplied by captured documents and monitored radio traffic, with the remainder coming from POW interrogations. After the war, when he was hired as an interpreter by the American military, Hanns Scharff estimated that all but twenty of the more than 500 airmen he questioned disclosed operational and tactical information that proved useful to the Luftwaffe. Few of these airmen, he emphasized, did it knowingly, or through intimidation or a conscious desire to improve the conditions of their confinement. "I suppose he got something out of me," said one flier, "but to this day I haven't the least idea what it could have been." After being released from Dulag Luft, Loevsky and several dozen other airmen were taken by tram to Frankfurt, where they were herded onto cattle cars and sent deep into German-occupied territory to Stalag Luft III (Air Camp number three), near the town of Sagan, a hundred miles southeast of Berlin, one of the half-dozen main POW camps operated by the Luftwaffe hence the term "Luft," or air-for Allied airmen (Miller, 2007, pg. 387-89)."

Dulag Luft was the first stop in a sequence of camps and transportation depots that downed airmen had to go through. Hopefully, we'll get to see more of the camp in the show! We're less than a month away, guys! The wait is almost over!!

tag list: @ronald-speirs @footprintsinthesxnd @georgieluz @sweetxvanixlla @coco-bean-1218 @gloryofwinter

message or comment if you want to be added to the tag list! <3

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winterangelss · 2 months ago

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~Fluffcember~

~Day 2: Winter Flu~

☆|I know ocs don't get a lot of reach on here but I enjoy posting these so we ball TvT

~----------------------♡-------------------------~

There was a silence that rang through the house but it wasn't unsettling silence that you would normally hear out on a mission, that quiet before the storm, gunshots raining down from enemy fire like hailstones. No, this quiet was peaceful...serene almost. Angel had slept soundly for the first time in months. In the comfort of his own home, his own bed. Not a sound to be heard other than the light pattering of rain against the window, but then Angel suddenly felt a chill run right throughout his whole body, causing him to shiver in his dozing state.

Scott simply pulled the sheet over himself and tossing to get more comfortable, refusing to wake up yet, wanting to sleep in. It didn't help much, he still felt cold even under the thick duvet. "...fucks sake..", he grumbled lowly as he willed himself to go back to sleep and pray he would just miraculously warm up. He buried himself under the duvet, feeling the occasional shiver bite at him, he'd slept without a shirt, was that why he was so cold? Had he left the window open? Half lidded eyes fluttered open, to glance at the window, it was closed, still dark outside. What time was it? He turned in bed, hand snaking out from underneath the covers to splay out on the bedside table, feeling around for his phone. "Fuck...forgot to charge it" he mumbled to himself out of pure annoyance, he soon found it face down beside him underneath the duvet, he picked it up and turned it on, squinting his eyes to read the time displayed on the lock screen because of the sudden flash of light, 4:55 a.m, it read, Scott could already tell this was gonna be a long morning, so much for trying to relax over Christmas break, he cursed to himself.He set his phone down, pulled the covers off himself and swung his legs over the bed. He instantly felt the cool air circulating the room so he shuffled over to grab something from his wardrobe to layer up, a hoodie, a dressing gown and a blanket were all thrown on in a haste, he still feels cold. He sighed exasperatedly out of sheer frustration and decided to go make himself something hot to drink since he was up now...and maybe a hot water bottle. As he stumbled to the kitchen, half asleep, dishevelled and grumpy, he was greeted by Mocha, who was happy to see him, the bunny followed him in hopes for food or perhaps even a treat, Scott can't resist him so as he flicked on the kettle to make himself a coffee and a hot water bottle, he gave Mocha a few head rubs and some food in his bowl. He slowly and carefully filled out his coffee along with his his hot water bottle, no breakfast yet, he didn't feel hungry. He sat at the table by himself in all of his layers, clutching the hot water bottle close, waiting patiently for his coffee to cool down so he could drink it.

By the time his coffee had cooled down enough to drink, he'd felt a little warmer, finally, he breathed a contented sigh as he savoured his warm coffee all while Mocha wolfed down the food out of his bowl. 6.a.m, he'd finished his coffee and dragged himself back to bed with his hot water bottle held to his chest under the many layers he adorned. He practically threw himself onto the bed and pulled the thick duvet back over him, the bed was freezing, made him curl up and huddle into the hot water bottle further in an Almost desperate attempt to warm up, he tried to go back to sleep for a bit but his efforts were fruitless until the warmth of the hot water bottle nearly lulled him back into peaceful slumber, finally warming up. "Finally", he murmured into the covers, relieved. Though, He'd spoke too soon, he was warming up, great, but now he was getting too warm, much too warm now and suddenly he felt like he was boiling, he'd put two and two together, he was a medic after all, he was sick, with what? He doesn't have enough symptoms to tell so that meant he'd just have to wait it out, he was silently grateful he was on break, meaning he wouldn't have to call out sick from work with whatever the fuck he had.

7 a.m, he'd tossed the covers and stripped layers off ages ago by now, doing the complete opposite of what he was trying to achieve earlier on, trying to cool down, he aches, everywhere, his head is pounding, he feels so exhausted but he can't sleep, so he tried to watch his phone instead, he'd came to the conclusion it was the flu, no idea how he'd managed to catch it but it was agitating to put up with. He was interrupted when he'd felt something hop onto the bed, he lifted his head to find the brown bunny had decided to join him, that fact made him smile, even if Mocha is really only here to try and beg for some banana rather than a few cuddles. He patted the bed to invite his beloved pet to come join him. Mocha prodded over happily to flop down near him for a few pets...and maybe some heat from that hot water bottle. Scott idly raked his fingers through Mocha's soft brown fur as he watched YouTube on his phone, finally starting to cool down a tad. He planned on getting some panadol from the bathroom to see if that would help with anything...but he was faced with a dilemma, a bunny curled up comfortably next to him, he didn't want to disturb the poor rabbit so he continued stroking his fur, deciding to cope with the excruciating aches a little longer. A few moments passed and Mocha had finally shifted over enough so Scott could comfortably roll back out of bed to fetch some pain medication.

He shuffled over to the bathroom and raided the cabinets, freezing a moment as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. "Jesus...", he thought out loud, eyes studying how rough he looked. Hazel eyes heavy with sleep, his complexion, as pale as a spectre, paler than usual to where his whole face was drained of any colour, dark circles under his eyes, his short hair far from neat. His eyes fixed on the medication he searched for and he grabbed the box before closing over the cabinet, popping one of the tablets out before setting the box down on the counter and heading back to bed to down it.

It went down easy enough with the water he'd kept on his bedside locker, he sank back down into bed and shivered as he felt how cool it was, followed by a groan of anguish as he realised he was too cold again, his body couldn't regulate its own temperature, damn flu. Luckily his hot water bottle still had a bit of warmth left in it and he was layering back up again, flicking on the telly to let his phone charge up a little. Mocha had decided that he too, wanted some warmth again and now he was sprawled out on top of Scott, seeking the warmth that the hot water bottle provided. "Cheeky little rascal, aren't you?" Scott murmured with amusement, letting Mocha relax with him, watching as his eyes closed, dozing off on top of him, curled up with him as Scott tried to nurse himself back to health. Scott went back to idly stroking the rabbits fur as he watched some TV, eventually dozing off along with his beloved pet and finally getting some much needed rest.

~❄️

#art #small artist #artists on tumblr #oc #oc art #cod #digital art #oc artwork #original character #fluffcember #fluffcember 2024 #writing #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #winter fluff #day 2

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sventhegoatkillingdeer · 21 days ago

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Thoughts on resolutions

I don't think this is something I've ever made or thought too much about. My year was the same every year. Academic pressure, parents, friends, relationship. There was a comfort a home a sense of normalcy. Even though there were ups and downs.

This year is different.

This time last year I was freshly in the depths of my grief. I lost my father suddenly October 2023. And since then everything is different and yet things are the same. I am entirely broken. Time has never moved so slow and so fast simultaneously.

Last year was me pulling myself through each day. It was breakdowns on the street and misplaced anger. It was also the first year of living with my long term partner a dream I had used every 11:11 wish on since before a boy ever noticed me. It was year 2 of my life abroad away from home with my biggest support system gone.

The end of the year changed. It marked a year since my father was taken ( I ate really good sri Lankan food to honor him). It marked a step in a professional direction I never saw for myself. It marked the end of me working 8-8 and travelling 2 hours. It was a change to a warmer cozier house in a better safer neighborhood. It was growing my little family by one by taking in a pet and growing as a couple to love someone outside of us together.

But back to the topic at hand. The end of the year saw changes. Living with my partner I am healthier than I've ever been, eating protein filled home cooked meals. Meal prepping. Not skipping meals. Going to the gym more often.

My partner has stood by the worst thing imaginable in my life and held me together and let me break and glued me back.

He has improved my life by pushing me to be better. To take steps with my own health.

We are now a running couple. He runs 10ks and he is now going for slower shorter runs to help me get into this. He runs next to me pushing me on encouraging me running my back as I get dizzy and try to catch my breath. His stubbornness is changing me for the better.

He has also bought and built me a vanity to make me feel better in my skin which resulted in me increasing my skin care.

So as for my resolutions there's no sudden pressure or change but a continuation of the new values I have set in place.

To continue to stick with running and see it through as when I last tried I didn't do it for long.

To continue to go to the gym with him at least 4 times a month

To continue to cook and eat healthier

To continue to care for myself and feel better in myself through my morning and night skin care.

And also battle against the urge to hoard and store away products but allow myself to use them and feel secure in knowing I can get myself more

To be a bit more intentional with my Spanish classes. I just relost my 90 day streak with the dumb owl. But to also actively engage in speaking it at home and use the owl to further support.

Ultimately I want to feel stronger and healthier in myself. I want to honor my relationship to the level it deserves more than treating it like a fairy tale and learn my partners language fluently.

And finally, the reason I've written this I want to be more intentional with documenting my life. I grew up with my grandfather stressing the importance of pictures and helping him fill photo albums. With my father and his video camera and now desperately wanting to watch videos of him and falling short.

I have always been taking pictures and storing them. I made Facebook albums for birthdays when it was a thing. I am a hoarder of memories.

I want to remove the anxiety of social media and not wear a badge of not necessarily honor but importance to have a low amount of posts on my feed. The platform is there to be used.

I always had various Instagram pages because let's face it I am social media content girlie and I love it.

So I'm going to treat Instagram as my journal. I will scrapbook and I will post more and I will make more pages and be more active and I will be there cringe and all. Contributing to your doom scroll but so that when I'm low and shaking and unable to breathe over my grief and anxiety I can use these to pull myself out. And because let's face it I find it fun.

Writing is breathing for me. I don't like journalling in a little book because again I need to beat the hoarding and it's just not captivated me. But rambling here. Posting on Instagram. That I can do.

And yes I'll be embarrassed but maybe my social anxiety will decrease through this exposure therapy. And maybe I'll even go public one day.

I want the universe to see how thankful I am.

I mean ultimately we're all worm food in the end. So might as well make a fun ride.

That's what my dad would want me to do. Find the fun. Live to the fullest. Eat the best food.

Happy New Year here's to the yap

#2025 #new years #new year eve #resolutions

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trickstarbrave · 1 year ago

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still trying to get back in the swing of writing....

vivi and steren arrive in skyrim. find and adopt a scrib.

included is my hc nerevar is part nord. bc idk what you want from me. vivienne is from @mulberrycafe i just like these two together a lot

Finally, after so long at sea, the ship docked in Windhelm. It was cold--frigid, even, and miserable. The Illiac bay would be warmer, but Steren really needed to get off the boat. Sleep and proper food had done wonders to help him recover, but what he really needed were some proper healing potions and food that weren’t rations. He was able to walk around without much pain after months of agony, but Dagoth Ur’s attacks were… Harder to heal naturally than other attacks, and the months of abuse were not doing his body any favors. He was afraid if they stayed for several more months on the ship his condition would start to deteriorate again, worrying Vivienne.

Besides, they could always move somewhere warmer if they needed to, years down the line. They were dunmer, after all, and very long lived…

He ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach when he realized corprus would mean he would outlive Vivienne. They would cross that bridge when they got there. Right now, Steren was still in poor physical health and Vivienne was in a delicate state mentally. Besides, would Vivienne even believe him right away? He didn’t want Vivi worrying that he went insane after so much abuse. There would be time to tell him, when they were both much more stable.

Vivienne had covered himself up for the most part; a heavy scarf covering most of his face and his hair, long clothes covering up everything else…The only thing really exposed were his eyes. Steren had agreed it was also for the better; someone might recognize him and try to ship them back, but deep down he knew it was much more likely someone would call him “Vivec”. Steren covered the red star on his forehead with a bandana just as the ship docked, and walked with him hand in hand into the city.

“... When I heard our people were living here after the Red Year,” Steren remarked, looking at the cramped living quarters, “I didn’t imagine it to be like this.”

The Grey Quarter, as it was called, was kind of a mess. The nords at the docks told them if they were looking for refuge to head there, yet it was obvious the Grey Quarter was what used to be the ‘lower class’ section of the huge, walled city. Stone buildings in disarray, frayed banners blowing in the arctic winds, sad stalls where people bought and sold goods…

For many dunmer this was probably their ‘safe’ option. There were foods and alchemical ingredients they were familiar with. A young bull netch hovered around some steps, making a soft, rhythmic tone. There were banners and urns and baskets all with house sigils and signs. People have built lives here, over the past two centuries, children running through the cramped streets and alleyways.

However, the chill sunk in through the wool clothes he was wearing making him shiver, and he knew this wouldn’t be a good place for them. Lodging at the corner club was too high, and there were few places for them to find a decent place to live, not to mention there were nords occasionally harassing the dunmer who dared to step outside the Grey Quarter on the regular.

They could grab some supplies while they were here though. Kwama eggs cost an arm and a leg, much to his disappointment, but they had familiar ingredients he could make some rudimentary potions with and a few alchemical tools, not to mention some warmer clothes for both of them. They had little gold, but it was important to get the essentials.

“I know…” Vivienne said softly, looking over it. “I’d imagined it… Different.”

“I guess Windhelm might not have been the best place to settle.” There was probably some complex history on why they settled there, but Steren didn’t know it and didn’t care to find out.

“What do you think we should do first?”

“Since we’re still traveling and short on coin…” Steren put the tools and ingredients in the bag that got swiped from his client months ago. “I think heading further south would be good. The Rift supposedly has a climate a little closer to Northern Morrowind given the Velothi mountains are nearby. Plus there should be more work rather than here in the cramped city…”

There was something off about the air of the city, something that Steren didn’t like. A weird tension in a lot of the nords they passed by. It gave him the impression something was going to happen soon, and what, he didn’t want to find out.

“I don’t want to be any closer to Morrowind then we have to be…” Vivienne’s ears tilted down, but Steren smiled reassuringly.

“It will still be very different to Morrowind and I doubt they’d make the trek just to look for us in the Rift.” Steren gave his hand a squeeze. “Besides, I’d always wanted to see the Rift some day.”

“You did?” Vivienne asked.

“Yes.” Steren answered, remembering all the stories Nerevar’s ghost would tell him as they traveled. The long walks were much less lonely after he got the ring, able to see and converse with his father. “One of my fathers was part nord.” He admitted. “He never knew his father, but he was originally from the Rift.” It wasn’t a secret at the time; many people could see it in Nerevar’s features. Yet, as time went on, that part of him was washed away from history. Instead he was Saint Moon-and-Star, hero of the dunmer, champion of the Tribunal. The masks ordinators wore looked uncannily like him but erased all the nordic features from his face, fixed in the permanent, serious gaze he gave. They never captured in any art the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way everything lit up when he grinned. They never captured the furrow in his brow when he was worried, nor the tenderness in his expression when recounting fond memories.

The only thing immortalized in his legacy was war, it seemed. Not who he loved. Not his son. Not his joy. Just violence.

“Oh,” Vivienne looked away slightly. “Then we should see it--”

“If you don’t want to, we don't have to.” Steren added.

“No, we’re already here--”

“There will be plenty of time for us to visit later.” He imagined they’d be in Skyrim at least a few months; certainly enough time to make a visit to the Rift.

“I don’t know where else to go anyways.” Vivienne admitted, his hand tighter in Steren’s. Steren took note of the way his cheeks were starting to turn red from the chill of the wind, Steren reaching one gloved hand up to warm the light-grey side of his face.

“Then… We can start there. Look for some work, figure out where else you want to go…” Vivienne could pick the next place once they got their footing. “My father said the Rift was beautiful this time of year and great to camp in, so we should be able to survive roughing it out there while looking for work.” Nerevar described the trees as looking like all the most beautiful colors of fire in the chill of autumn. There was pretty good wildlife there too; easy fish to catch, deer, plenty of clear spring water to drink from, and lots of gorgeous sights.

Steren was going to continue though, when he felt something on his leg. He looked down, seeing a cold little scrib moving slowly, scratching pitifully at his leg. It was so cold the poor thing was probably having trouble moving, barely able to hiss.

“Damn pest…” A dunmer swore, ready to wack it with a broom, before Steren scooped it up with one arm. “We keep trying to get it to leave but it keeps digging through trash and begging for scraps. Don’t bother feeding it or it will never leave you alone. Can’t even roast the damn thing because it keeps escaping when we try…”

Vivienne looked at it curiously as it started to nuzzle closer to Steren for warmth. Steren felt his heart tickle; he’d often see the little things out in the wild, giving them a friendly little pet while they foraged and dug around in the ash. They were commonplace in Morrowind; with so many kwama egg mines there were inevitably wild and feral larval kwama moving about, looking for a new place to settle. Natural kwama colonies were typically deep in mountains or jagged caves hard to get to, with scribs looking for places they might eventually set up homes in as adults.

This scrib was obviously a feral one; an egg from a mine hatched outside it at some point, and not knowing what else to do, he probably went looking for any miners with the scent on them from the mines. Then he hung around the Grey Quarter in hopes of being looked after while everyone else treated him like a nuisance.

He looked at Vivienne, but already Vivienne was giggling softly, petting him.

“You want to take him?”

“He’s not welcome here, so…” Steren knew the feeling very well. That, combined with how much he missed his parents and everything else he’d been through, there was a sort of kinship with the little insect not wanted by anyone else.

“Then let’s take him.” Steren smiled warmly at Vivienne, shifting his grip slightly so the scrib could more comfortably cling to his wool tunic and keep himself warm.

#steren nerevarine #steren #vivi au #vivienne dragonborn #my writing

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stardustedknuckles · 2 years ago

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So I woke up to the power out. No storm. No indication of a fried squirrel. I sent a very carefully worded text to my dad who lost his job last month asking if the utilities had gone through, and seemed like they had. With no computer to work on and nothing to shield my ears from the sounds of the cats self administering their morning baths with gusto, I decided to go for a walk.

Now. I'm of the belief that there's nothing wrong with leaving the door unlocked for ten minutes to walk around the block. My father, who believes every stranger is a potential threat, drilled it into me early on in our move here that the front door needs to be locked on every walk, no matter how short (unless it's to the mailbox). He has a doorbell camera, so he knows if I don't. Whatever. I lock the door. I don't have to bring my keys (which was the biggest reason I left the door unlocked) since he got a keypad for the garage door. I can come back in that way and have for about three years.

Well. Those require power.

I pulled the front door shut behind me this morning and immediately cringed. My heat intolerant ass was outside, legs already feeling weak, without a wallet, morning vitamins, water, or food, and no knowledge whether the QT a mile away would take tap to pay on my phone (which I had to set up as soon as I got to the park, and thank the gods my cashapp card has an app function that lets you see its information so I COULD set up tap to pay).

I've busted the door open at my mom's with a credit card a few times and figured I could probably do it our front door, if I only got a card. It was 8 in the morning though, and I wasn't sure who was up.

(On the way to the park I passed a lady getting into her car with a giant dog. On the way back, I saw her front door was open about a foot and two cats were outside. I stopped and called out into the house. No response. I knocked, called again. Nobody home. The cats went inside. I shut her door. I really hope those were her cats.)

My nosy neighbor was out and about to leave, and though it would cost me friendly grilling about my life, my dad's life, and any potential lives that might intersect with ours, I thought she might have a credit card she didn't care about. She at least had a dog, which I got to pet while she explained she doesn't carry any cards she doesn't use and she doesn't give her information to credit card companies because big data is coming for us all.

She's not entirely wrong, but the faded trump/pence bumper sticker on her truck had my visibly queer ass nodding a bit more enthusiastically than I might otherwise.

When I finally extricated myself from her (no, I'm still not interested in essential oils, I have allergies to them, thank you for thinking of me, uh-huh, you too!) I checked the mail. I've been home alone Monday through Friday for weeks since dad got a new job and took the car, and I'm not very good at keeping up with the mail, so I hoped to find one of those fake cards they send you in hopes you'll call and get a real one. No dice. I was proud of myself for that idea and everything.

By then, we were hitting the low seventies and the morning mist was dissipating. The sun wasn't fully out yet, but it was unmistakably warmer, and me in my pants with an antihistamine in me from yesterday (they cause greater heat intolerance). There was a man loading his truck a couple driveways down. Never met him before, but I'd seen him. I approached, gave him my name, and sheepishly relayed the morning to him. Thankfully everyone else's power was out too, so I didn't sound too much like I was asking for him to aid and abet a break-in.

He agreed to help but wanted to be the one to do it - as in, "I'll walk with you" and didn't want my paws on his card. He gave the front door a really good try, but privately I still feel like he gave up before he could get it. Still, I was grateful for him ruining a card trying to help me and we tried the shittier door that led to the inside of the garage. Deadbolted. Goddammit dad.

Fast forward to him showing me a trick on the sliding glass door with a screwdriver - we had built up something of a friendly bond through adversity by then, though I never did get his name - which didn't work but reminded me that even though I'm really careful to lock windows (no cracks for spiders to get in that way) I might have left the kitchen window unlocked from when I opened it for my cat. We both tried using the bricks of the house to hop up and see if the latch was shut before we would try prying off the screen.

The latch was shut, and as I dropped back defeated onto the cracked concrete slab that could and had been very generously described by realtors as a patio, hot and starting to sweat, I put my hands on my hips and squinted up into the yellow porch light. And in a very rare DC 10 perception check, I REALIZED what I was seeing.

I must've made a noise, because neighbor guy looked to me with a little confusion. I pointed. He looked, tipped his head, processed. His whole face cleared. He wasn't the sort to laugh easy - gruff, built like an electric foreman, which is to say like my stepfather - but he shook his head with a little smile and made sure I could get in the garage before pushing up the bill of his cap with a finger and wandering off back to his day with his screwdriver.

My day hasn't even started yet. The email my dad (2.5 hours away) forwarded me before my walk estimated it would be four hours before the power came back. I knew it wouldn't take that many, but I didn't dare hope it would only take two. I told my supervisor then that I would keep her updated and I've still got two hours before that time hits. I spent half of one writing this, and I'm going to take ten more to eat something, and then I'll hop online and get busy.

But man. What a morning.

#I should also uninstall tap to pay/turn off my nfc again #I have a headache #I wrote this from my bed where I am horizontal because stress made me need to be horizontal #I did confirm with nosy neighbor that the one lady did have two cats #And I figure if they were feral they wouldn't have run inside #One had a collar indent #There was an empty bucket of litter outside so it's probably fine but wow that was weird #Mundane adventures

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viciousgold · 2 years ago

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things my very vivid, real feeling dreams that are often recurring convinced me of in real life, only for me to later realize they were not, in fact, real, they were fucking dreams:

dreamed I went to the grocery store, I remember buying milk, later on in real life I went to the fridge expecting milk to be there bc I remember buying it, but nope, no milk in the fridge, that was only in my dream, I did not, in fact, buy milk

I had a whole dream about accidentally missing an interview and woke up panicked thinking that I had and my interview was like, days away

I had several recurring dreams of working at a target that were so vivid and recurring that I had target on my resume. my actual, real life resume. it was on my resume for several years before I realized wait a second. I never actually worked at target. that was in my fucking dreams. why would I even dream about working at target???

had two dreams about a disneyland being in the state that I'm in. I'm not in california or in florida. but the whole dream felt so real the first time that when I had the second dream later, I was convinced that there might be a disneyland in my state and I literally googled to check if I was crazy or not. I was, there is no disneyland where I live, my dreams successfully gaslit me yet again

and as a bonus, some random dreams that I woke up knowing they were dreams but once again were so real and vivid that I felt like they were absolutely 100% real until I woke up:

cruella de vil kidnapping me and holding me hostage in an abandoned chuck-e-cheeses. I remember feeling the rope burns from my wrists being tied up.

a recurring nightmare of slappy the dummy from goosebumps, where he would stand outside of my bedroom door and move an inch closer every time I either looked away or blinked. eventually he would get to me and jumpscare me. if I kept looking at him without blinking, he would stay still for a while until eventually just running towards me and the dream would end that way

a very intricate dream about where I got adopted by a rich family after my parents were killed, the rich family got trapped in a kidnapping plot to permanently transform them into sea creatures to then hold in a show-tank to be on display for other rich people, and I ended up with the family in trying to save them, there was a lot more detail to it than that but that was the gist

had a dream that lasted for several years where Lena Heady played the role of my family's mother, I had some siblings, we moved into this new house, mom was clearly hiding shit, there was some favoritism, but like, there was a whole ass mystery horror plot

a dream where I died, me and some other people who also died woke up in this mansion that we were told was heaven, by the woman who said she was the queen of heaven, she was played by Julie Andrews, I still remember exactly how the food tasted because it felt so real, there was also a mystery going on, there was a random house away from the mansion that no one was at, and it's unlocked so I go in the house and there's a computer inside, and the computer shows two locations, our location and one in the mountains, and also we're apparently in Cuba???? I thought we were dead and in heaven??? but no, apparently we're in Cuba, and there was a LOT that happened in this dream but I found out that the queen was basically turning people into her horses, all of the horses she had were previously people, I run the fuck away to the other location in the mountain and it turns out we were, in fact, in heaven, the computer was just saying Cuba??? or maybe heaven is in Cuba??? I don't know, but I went to the mountains, and Satan was there, captured by the queen and held there, I make a deal with Satan to help him get out and in exchange he'll turn the horse people back into people and get us the hell out of there but the caveat is that we all have to go to hell, which like, he tells us it's not even that bad, it's like this place but warmer and like, there are just certain parts of hell to avoid and you'll be fine, so I agree, bust him out, we bust them out, and we all go to hell together and live in hell. also it felt like that dream lasted for literal weeks. my dreams are fucking wild.

#the mun; dani

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despicablebisexual · 1 year ago

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Chapter 3: Rengoku Kyojuro

reader and kyojuro meet for the first time

wc: 2595

After the first mission, the days seemed like they were moving in double time. Months had passed, and it was mid-January already. Your family was right, once the missions started, they never ended. By this time you had already progressed to tsuchinoto. You wrote your family via letter somewhat frequently, but between missions, moving from village to village and wisteria house to wisteria house, and reading the Earth breathing journals, you had little time to spare. You missed their presence, but had grown accustomed to the solitude. It gave you time to think, time to grow. You had even added a few entries to the Earth journals, detailing a few demons you encountered and how you beat them (the clone demon was fitting for this).

This snowy day was no different. You had spent the night in yet another wisteria house. Outside the snow came down relentlessly, covering all of the ground and steadily accumulating. You didn’t mean to stay at this house for longer than a day, but were essentially snowed in by the weather. Instead of informing you of a new mission, Kimi advised you to stay at the house until further notice. So here you sat quietly sipping tea, journaling when a knock appeared at the door.

“Come in,” you called out softly, not bothering to look up.

“Ah, Miss Shizen, I have your dinner,” the woman who ran the house said.

You scurried up to your feet to grab the tray from her.

“Thank you!”

“I hope the house felt warmer today, I just added more logs to the fire.”

“Yes, the fire you lit last night kept me warm as I fell asleep, today as well. I appreciate you all for doing that at my request. I grew up in a wisteria house, so I understand sometimes guests’ requests can be a bit obnoxious.”

“Nonsense,” she dismissed with the wave of her hand. “You’re a slayer, yet you grew up in a wisteria house as well?”

“Yes, I come from a long line of slayers, but my family who weren’t in the corps, or retired, run the house.”

“That’s wonderful. Hopefully my house reminds you of home then, at the least.”

“You have a wonderful home, I thank you again for housing me.”

“It’s the very least I can do. My husband comes, I mean came, from a line of slayers. I understand the hardships you all face,” she says solemnly. Without even needing to ask, you understand what she means. “Well, enjoy your food.”

You thank her again as she leaves. A pang of grief strikes you as you think about the woman. She had been kind and cared for you the moment you arrived, not to mention her cooking had been outstanding. She had one child from the looks of it, a young boy that ran around the estate helping her out. You frowned as you ate the food she prepared.

“Squawk! Shizen Y/n, squad 13 requires assistance two hours Southeast! 7 demons reported and possibly more! Meet with the flame pillar, Rengoku Kyojuro for mission directions!”

Kimi swoops down and delivers her message. You immediately jump to your feet. Holy shit… A hashira! Wait a minute, 7 demons?! Those evil bastards are teaming up! You thought to yourself. Kimi pecks at the bowl of rice you left on the ground as you run around the room, changing into your uniform and pulling on your snowshoes. You stuff your journal into your backpack, chug the last of your tea, and attach your sword to your side. You swiftly pull on your dark green haori.

“Okay Kimi! Give me directions!”

----------

You had never run faster in your entire life. By the time you arrive just outside the village, your lungs felt like they had been lit on fire. You decided to take a breather and walk the rest of the way as Kimi scouted ahead to look for the hashira. As you strolled through the village, you kept a firm grasp on your blade. You looked into alleyways and behind houses and shops to see if you could find any clues. A discarded woman’s scarf on the ground caught your eye, and you kneeled down to inspect it.

“The demons we are looking for have been exclusively targeting men! I do not think the scarf belongs to one of our victims!”

“AH!” You dropped the scarf and jumped around. Standing before you was the owner of the booming voice.

“Jesus! You scared me.”

“Apologies! I am Rengoku Kyojuro, flame hashira!”

The blond-haired man, who could be no more than just a year older than you, eagerly stuck his hand out for you to shake. You took it hesitantly.

“Shizen Y/n, tsuchinoto rank.”

“You must be the help I sent for. Follow me.” He spun around and started walking into the treeline.

“I have members of squad 13 currently speaking with the families of the missing men to see if we can get any eye witness accounts or other clues that could lead us to where the demon is. Squad 13 only consists of three other slayers, so we’re a bit understaffed for this mission. I assume your crow briefed you on the details?”

“Yes,” you gulped. “Are there really 7 demons?”

“Yes, and possibly more!”

He spoke so casually, yet it did nothing to calm you. You know from your family that hashira are only deployed on missions that lower rank slayers are struggling to complete.

“Is it possible it’s one of the twelve kizuki?”

“As far as my investigations have led me to believe, it’s not one. That doesn’t mean these demons aren’t powerful, though.”

“Are there anymore slayers arriving to help?”

“My crow only informed me of one other slayer arriving, which would be you. We will have to fight valiantly if we want to come out the other side of this battle!”

You wiped your hands on your pants as you walked, just now realizing how sweaty they were. “Where are we going without the squad?”

“We’re going to follow the tracks I’ve found. Keep your eyes open for danger, I believe the blood art of the demons is camouflage, so you’ll need to pay extra attention to your surroundings.”

You nod your head in affirmation, keeping your sword at the ready. You and Kyojuro walk silently through the dark forest. Eventually, you arrive at a fork in the path where there are human-like tracks stamped into the snow. You silently follow Kyojuro, watching over your shoulder for enemy attacks. You follow along the trail for sometime before he sticks his arm out to stop you. He points at the ground to show the tracks have suddenly vanished.

“Where could they have gone?”

“I’m not sure, the closest tree is over 30 feet away, it would be impossible to jump to.”

You look around the small clearing you’ve arrived in. There’s nothing but trees that slightly shield you from the snow falling gently to the ground. Suddenly, a figure can be seen emerging from the darkness. You bring your sword out in front of you in a defensive pose.

“Rengoku-sama, look up ahead!”

The figure’s legs can be seen now: it’s wearing a demon slayer corps uniform? The rest of the person emerges and it’s a fellow slayer with their arms up.

“Isozaki-san? What’s going on?”

“Forgive me, Mr. Rengoku,” the young boy cries out. “She’s got my neck.”

You tilt your head in confusion until a tall demon emerges from behind him, easily 7 feet tall. She’s got wild eyes and a forked tongue like a snake sticking out.

“My favorite meal for me and my girls: young slayers!”

She studies you two carefully.

“Hmm… We prefer men, but I won’t pass up the chance to kill any slayer. I’ll eat the man and the girl will go to my daughters! Dinner is ready my dears,” she calls behind her.

Shrieking can be heard from beyond her and six smaller demons come crawling out the woods. Well, you thought it was six demons, until one large, grotesque, serpentine body connected to the six heads resting on its ‘shoulders.’ They all bare their fangs and hiss at you.

“Drop the young man at once,” Kyojuro shouts.

The mother demon only laughs at his words before the sound of a crunching can be heard. The young slayer’s head now wobbles at an uncomfortable angle and there is a dull look in his eyes. She merely chuckles before flinging the limp body towards the children. They instantly squeal in delight before devouring him.

Your stomach lurches at the sight, but you remain steady. You’re not going to let the demon intimidate you.

“Shizen-san, I’ll take care of the mother demon, you focus on the children,” Kyojuro whispers to you.

You nod and back away from him into the darkness. With the children still eating, Kyojuro takes the chance and charges towards the mother. She lets out a shrill shriek before they begin dueling. You stalk around the ring of the clearing to hopefully sneak up on the children. The heads all knock each other around, selfishly stealing bites from the others. A large tail rests behind them.

You lunge out of the darkness and slice off the tail, effectively immobilizing the six-headed beast. They all let out a cry of pain and the mother demon stops fighting Kyojuro to look at the scene unfolding.

She merely laughs at the anguish her children are in. “You fool! That mistake will cost you.”

You back away as the children demon starts to violently convulse.

“What the fu-”

It screeches and feathers erupt from every place on the body. Where you cut off the tail has welded itself back together, small feet now protruding from the skin. On each side, large wings burst from it and surround you. Its blood demon art wasn’t camouflage, it’s shapeshifting! The mother demon laughs again and you can hear her and Kyojuro fighting once more.

You hack furiously at the demon, but its regeneration speed is too fast for your movements. It seems like it can heal six-times as fast as a regular demon, no doubt due to it being six demons in one body. You’re missing every swing you take at the heads.

“Earth breathing form one: undulating field!”

You unleash a series of slashes at the demon, cutting off several heads in the process. You stop when you realize the heads just keep regenerating faster than you can cut them. The children demon spreads its wings and flies into the air, inbound towards Kyojuro and its mother. Kyojuro’s back has been to you and the demon this entire time, so he has no idea it's coming right at him.

“Rengoku-sama, watch out!”

You run towards him, but your exclamation throws him off his rhythm when he turns around. The mother takes this opportunity to grab him by the neck, lifting him into the air.

“Earth breathing fo-”

“Oh no you don’t.” The mother demon swats you down like a common house fly sending your sword flying out of your hands, and you straight to the ground.

You groan out as your head bounces on impact. The children demon comes barrelling up to you and pins you underneath its weight. One of the heads reaches out and clamps down on your arm with its mouth. You furiously shake it off, trying to loosen its hold.

“I’ve got you both incapacitated now! Playtime is over, time to eat!”

You frantically search for a way out. Your sword is too far out of reach and Kyojuro is still in the captives of the mother demon. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a new figure running up to the scene.

“Leave them alone!”

The young girl raises up her sword and drives it into the six-headed body. Two heads are effectively cut off and the one biting down on you releases you, crying out from the pain. You roll out from underneath it before it realizes.

“Aha! Perfect timing!”

The girl lends you a hand and pulls you to your feet.

“Thank you.”

She flashes a smile at you. “Save it for after the battle.”

You turn back to the demon. Once again yelling “Earth breathing form one: undulating field!”

You take a step back and use the full range of your sword to unleash one singular slash that cuts through all six heads at once. The body crumbles to the ground.

Several feet away, Kyojuro and the girl are battling the mother demon. They both take turns slashing at her, trying to overwhelm her. When she makes the mistake of trying to reach down at the girl’s feet to grab her, Kyojuro runs up her back side and slices off her head. Success! She falls to the ground in a cloud of ash.

All three of you lower your swords and begin catching your breath.

----------

You’re helping the cleanup crew in the village. Multiple houses had been destroyed the past few days by the demons and while you couldn’t fix them all overnight, you could at least help pick up people’s lives from the rubble. Kyojuro and the girl approach you during this.

“Shizen-san.” You look up.

“Oh, hello! Are you both doing alright?”

“Yes, we both got water and were treated for injuries,” the girl says.

“I don’t think I ever caught your name…”

“Tsuga Yuma, and you are?”

“Shizen Y/n. Thank you, Tsuga-san, for saving my life.”

“Don’t mention it, I hope you return the favor to someone else someday.”

You nod and she walks off. It’s just you and Kyojuro now.

“Did they find the other slayer from squad 13?”

“No, sadly. They have yet to find any sign of him.”

You frown, hoping something turns up.

“Shizen-san,” Kyojuro starts. “I’m very impressed with your job on this mission. We would not have been able to complete it without your help. You are a very strong slayer, Shizen.”

You blush at his compliment. “T-thank you, Rengoku-sama.”

“I’m curious, you use Earth breathing?”

“Oh! Yes, it’s a generational breathing style from my family. It’s derived from stone,” you explain.

“So it’s true! I’ve heard of your family before.”

“You have?”

“Yes, flame breathing is also a familial breathing style. I’ve heard stories from my family about the Earth breathers. Our ancestors must have come into contact at some point! Hopefully they are smiling down knowing we’ve met now.”

You chuckle and nod in agreement, he beams a smile at you before focusing in on your arm.

“Shizen-san, your arm!”

You follow his eyes and just now become aware of the bleeding gash on your bicep. There’s practically a hole in you from the demon biting so hard. Your hand instinctively comes up to apply pressure to the wound.

“Medic! We have someone that needs attention over here.”

A kakushi comes running over immediately and gently grabs your arm to inspect the gash.

“You’ll need stitches, could you unbutton your uniform so we can get to your arm?”

Your eyes widen at the request and you blush as you look up, Kyojuro is still standing there. His face also blushes?

“Uh, I’ll be leaving now Shizen-san. Continue to master your swordsmanship! Until we meet again.”

With that, the blond turns on his feet and walks away into the snowy darkness. His colorful hair and flame-patterned haori stick out like a sore thumb amongst the white expanse, and you can’t help but be reminded of a lantern in the dark.

#MP:TEH

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